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43b90f7c-53a3-11e8-bdec-77316b5169e0	Oh Yes, How Soil Works	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/oh-yes-how-soil-works	There is maybe nothing that sounds more boring than hearing two people talk about soil, but friend, prepare to be amazed at the details of what makes this amazing substance the life blood of Earth itself!	There is maybe nothing that sounds more boring than hearing two people talk about soil, but friend, prepare to be amazed at the details of what makes this amazing substance the life blood of Earth itself!	Thu, 02 Jul 2020 09:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2020, tm_mon=7, tm_mday=2, tm_hour=9, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=184, tm_isdst=0)	53589546	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Ah, summer school's out. The sun is shining. The daylight is longer. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music that's so good, it's Criminal Morbid. Part true crime and part comedy, Morbid takes you on a journey from murderous mysteries to major laughs, all in the same week. Hosted by autopsy technician Elena Ercart and hairstylist Ash Kelly, this chart topping series will have you hooked before you know it. Listen to new episodes of Morbid one week early, only on Amazon Music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen today. You know you're the best pet mom. When you growl back during playtime, give epic belly rubs and feed them halo holistic made with responsibly sourced ingredients, plus probiotics. For Digestive health. Find us at chewy amazonandhalopets.com. Hey, everybody, it's Josh and Chuck, your friends. And we are here to tell you about our upcoming book that's coming out this fall. The first ever Stuff You Should Know book. Chuck that's right. What's the cool, super cool title we came up with? It's stuff you should know. Colon an incomplete compendium of mostly interesting things. That's right. And it's coming along so great. We're super excited, you guys. The illustrations are amazing, and the look of the book, it's all just exactly what we hoped it would be. And we cannot wait for you to get your hands on it. Yes, we can't. And you don't have to wait. Actually, well, you do have to wait, but you don't have to wait to order. You can go preorder the book right now, everywhere. You get books. And you will eventually get a special gift for preordering, which we're working on right now. That's right. So check it out soon, coming this fall. Welcome to stuff. You should know a production of Iheartradios how stuff works. Hi, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Brian over there. This is stuff you should know. The Dirty Dirt edition. Best I could come up with. And I even had days to think of that and that was it. Chuck I'm sorry. Yeah, this is a cool one. We're into gardening, so it's always nice to talk earth biology. Yes. Agreed. I guess I thought a decent idea about this, but boy, did this article open my eyes. Yeah, we covered sand and we covered compost. Permaculture. Permaculture. Like, we sort of danced around soil. We danced in soil. Yeah, our toes are all dirty. But, yeah, this is good. To finally check this one off the old list. Agreed. So people are probably like, I don't know about this one. I would hope that it's been long enough. We've been at it long enough to just trust us that if it sounds boring, we're going to find something interesting in it. And I dare say that that is going to be the case with this one, too. Chuck. Well, I hope so. To understand soil, we have to understand what soil is, where it comes from, and soil is basically just worn down rock, just like sand is. Right. I think we talked about in like are we running out of sand episode, that rocks get weathered and kind of taken down stream all the way to the sea and they get gently broken down over time into this very nice little beach sand and washed up on shore. And that's where sand comes from. Well, basically that is also part of the same process for producing dirt as well. It's just weathered rock that's broken down into different sizes that basically make up different types of soil. The main structure of it is basically just weathered rock of various sizes. Yeah. So wind can do that overtime. Water. And obviously the combination of all these is where you really get your money. Money's worth. Sure. You've got your wind, you've got your water. When you get weather going on in your seasons, you get the freeze thaw cycle, which is a really kind of speedier way. Once that water gets in those little tiny fractures in the rock and freezes and unfreezes and cracks, that will really speed things up. And then you get a little help from our little tiny critters under our feet. Yes, tiny critters of all shapes and sizes from like microbes, like bacteria and fungi all the way up to prairie dogs and gophers. They're basically taking all the stuff and mixing it together. But the stuff that they're mixing together is so you've got the structure of the soil from broken down rocks, but that's just one big component. You have to have life living among it or else it's not going to do anything. It's just dead, there's nothing to it. So part of the process of forming soil is taking those little gritty pieces of weathered rock and adding decomposing organic matter to them. And that's where we finally start to get to what we understand is soil. Yeah, because once you have that, it can hold a little bit of moisture and then that means little plants can grow. Those little plants grow, they eventually die. It's very sad for the plant and the plants family, but it happens to all of us. And then those little plants that die, they decompose and they're holding all that carbon dioxide in their little skinny stems and leaves and body and that carbon dioxide stays behind and it's dissolved by water and then that forms carbonic acid, which isn't if you want to throw a body in a barrel, you don't want to use carbonic acid. No, you're going to get caught still. You're going to get caught. So it's not super strong, but it is strong enough to help break down all those little rocks and everything even more. And before you know it, you've got soil, maybe. Yeah, you got soil. So all that decomposing organic matter is full of like nutrients that kept the thing alive while it was living, and then all those little tiny animals and microbes that eat that stuff break it down even further, which unlocks all of the nutrients within. And that means that plants can start to take them up in its roots and use those nutrients to grow. And so that's a big part of what soil is. It's like a nice little substrate, a medium for holding nutrients, and then the whole thing is actually held together itself even further by the roots that the plants that grow in the soil spread out and stabilize, too. So I think one of the things we just hit upon, one of the reasons I love soil so much, it's harmonious and symbiotic. Like everything living in the soil almost is involved in keeping everything else going and alive. It's like part of a really beautiful, complete system. Yeah. And that's why we always make a big deal, and science makes a big deal out of the disruption of this. And not just this process, but all earth processes. One little tiny thing will lead to another little tiny thing, and before you know it, you got issues on your hands. Yes, you do, for sure. You can't let it get out of whack. Luckily, from what I found, I started to get into lawn care and stuff like that. I knew things happen at some point. They told me years ago, and I was like, you just wait. Yeah, it's true. It's true. And I've learned not to flood my lawn with a quarter inch of water, but the best fertilizer and aeration that I found is just basically feeding microbes to your lawn. You don't need to go dig holes and core plugs in your lawn. Just if you add the right kind of microbes to your lawn, all of that will just kind of turn it into this healthy soil beneath it on its own, which I just love because it's just spraying microbes onto the ground. What's more beautiful than that? Well, we've gone the opposite. We have zero grass now, basically. Oh, I know you just love my face in that, but still. No, it just kept going more and more, and it got smaller and smaller to the point where I was like, why am I holding on to this tiny little patch of grass? Why do I even have a weed whacker at this point? I know I haven't used a weed whacker in two years. It's great. That's awesome. I got a big old honking gas powered lawn mower even, too. So I'm basically going the exact opposite direction. Do you have a rider now? No, it's not that big. It's not that big. Runs on, like, the tier of baby deer. That's what john deere means. Yeah. So if you're talking soil, you need to talk soil horizons. And we'll get to sort of the list of the different horizons here in a few minutes. But soil horizons are these horizontal levels, these striations that if you look at, like, if you go to any science center, they'll probably have some kind of cool piece of glass with a frame, and you have soil in there, and they have little lines drawn to mark these different soil horizons, because soil is not all the same. From the very top of the top soil down 3ft, it gets very different. And you want space in there. You want air in there. You want to have water, be able to travel through there. I think they say if you want, like, really good soil, should be about just 50% soil and then 50% just space for air and water. Yeah, exactly. And then you want about half of those spaces to be filled with water. So you got about 50% soil, 25% air pockets, 25% water filled pores. That's ideal, for sure. The way that you get those pores in those pockets and everything is because there's different types of soil. There's different shapes of soil, and there's different sizes of soil. Like we said, there's sand, but there's also silt, and there's also get ready for your socks to be knocked clean off of your feet. There's also clay, which clay whenever I think of clay, it's like a big hunk of something that I'm like having to dig through to plant a plant. And it's enormous. But it turns out that clay is actually the finest, smallest type of soil, and it's so fine that it compacts together into these large aggregate pieces of clay that we think of when we think of clay. But that's actually huge, enormous chunks of extraordinarily tiny pieces of dirt, of soil that are so small, you can only see them with an electron microscope if you want to look at them individually. Yeah, and clay is important. It's all part of the mix that we'll talk about here in a minute. But if you start off with just a barren rock landscape, there's a very smart lady who did this one. Was this I think The Grabster helped us out with this. Was this the Grabster? Yeah. He must have interviewed Dr. Caitlin Hicks Priest, who's an assistant professor of biological sciences at Dartmouth, and she said if you start off we've seen it happen. If you start off with just bedrock, in about 100 years, you could probably grow a tree there in the soil that you would get. I've seen it happen a million times. 100 years. That's all you need. Right? Well, the reason why it can happen so fast is because some plants are early colonizers, and they can grow in just a little bit of soil, just a little bit of fine rock. And as long as there's nutrients and water coming to it, it's fine. It doesn't need a big thing of, like, topsoil or potting soil. It can make things like that. And then once those plants start to die, they start to decompose, and then it really kicks off. So, yeah, you can have soil a couple of horizons of soil in 100 years if you're really boogieing. All right, should we boogie on down and take a break? Yeah, let's let's get our hands dirty and we'll come back and we'll talk about these horizons right after this. Hey, everybody. I don't know about you, but we're pretty excited about summer. I mean, what's not to like? School is out, the sun is shining, and best of all, there's downtime for days. That's right. And that's where True crime podcasts on Amazon Music come in. They're the perfect activity for last minute road trips, long walks, or, if you're brave enough, late nights. Yeah, and with so many killer shows like Morbid, My Favorite Murder, and Small Town Murder, you'll never be bored to death again. Prepare to go deep and become your own detective in the world of serial crimes and unsolved mysteries. Get lost hearing spooky stories with a combination of detailed research and lighthearted analysis. Whether you're a lifetime fan of True crime or you just feel like being entertained while doing the dishes at night, there's a podcast out there for you to download the free Amazon Music app to start listening to all your favorite true crime podcasts. Plus, with Amazon Music, you can access new episodes early. Download the app today. Hey, everyone. When you're running a small business, every second counts and you can't afford to waste a single moment. So why are you still taking time out of your day to go to the post office? Then you could be using Stamps.com. Yeah. For more than 20 years, stamps.com has been indispensable for over 1 million businesses. Because Stamps.com gives you access to all the post office and Ups shipping services you need right from your computer. That's right. You can streamline your shipping process with Stamps.com easy to use software. All you need is your regular computer and printer. No special supplies or equipment necessary, and you can get discounts you can't find anywhere else, like up to 30% off USPS. Rates and 86% off ups. So stop wasting time and start saving money. When you use Stamps.com to mail and ship, sign up with promo code stuff for a special offer that includes a four week trial, plus free postage and a digital scale. No long term commitments or contracts. Just go to Stamps.com, click the microphone at the top of the home page and enter code stuff. Okay, chuck horizons. And speaking of Horizons, I think there was a Disney World ride or an Epcot Center ride called Horizons or something like that. And there was this group of people who infiltrated it. They figured out how to get basically behind the scenes and would hang out there for entire weekends and hide during the regular hours and then just hang out like they were part of the set. After hours? After soil. No, it was about future life. Like what life was going to be like in the future. It's really cool. Sure. But the upshot of all this is that they documented the whole thing with pictures, and it's somewhere on the Internet. I can't remember where, but I'm pretty sure it was called Horizons. But it's a closed down Epcot ride where a bunch of people documented it in the early 90s, just with cool pictures of it. So check it out. And that's probably why they closed it down. I don't remember why they closed it down or what it became, but I think it's not nearly as cool. I never got to ride it, but seeing those pictures made me wish I'd been able to get so, here are a bunch of the Horizons. If you're talking about pedology, which is the study of soil, it's a bit of an unfortunate name. Sure. But we're going to talk about Horizons. Not the event horizon, not the gateway to hell itself. No. The chaos and disorder of unparalleled horribleness. Did you see that? Loved it. Yeah, it was pretty good. Yeah. When's the last time you saw it? When it came out. I don't think I ever repeated that one I saw in the last couple of years. And it holds up. I've been several times since it came out, and it's a really genuinely good horror movie. Yeah, I agree. I also saw Solaris, too, recently, and that's a really great movie, too. The Russian version or the clooney? I've still never seen the Russian version. I've seen the Soderberg version. Yeah, it was good. I would recommend the tarkovsky. It's a bit of a grind, but worth it. Sure. His movies are all worth it, but they're just tough. If you're sleepy, don't try it. Okay. It's like the Irishman, but Russian and in space and good. Okay, so the horizon, these are some of the different horizons. The O horizon is that like, not even topsoil yet. It's the leaves that blow off of trees and are sitting sort of on top that counts as the horizon. They're basically the things that are in the initial state of decomposition right on top of the dirt. Yeah, exactly. Underneath that, then, is the A horizon. So this makes zero sense already because we went from O to A. Yes. None of this makes sense. The A Horizon is what we would consider like topsoil. It has most of the organic matter that's really begun to decompose and break down into smaller and smaller bits. And it's usually kind of dark in color. This is where the highest concentration of minerals are. And this is also where you're going to find the roots of plants, too, because they really like those minerals and nutrients. Yeah. And by the way, when I said this makes no sense, I'm sure an Earth scientist is going to say, guys, it makes perfect sense. Yeah. And here's why. You have the E Horizon next, which stands for Alleviated Horizon. And that's where you've got this water draining down and those minerals that you were talking about in the A horizon, it's leaching those minerals and all that stuff out, and you've got sort of this light colored soil in its wake. Right. That is not a common, or I shouldn't say common. You're not going to find that in every soil sample that you take. It's usually a product to say, like a patch on, like, a hilltop where the dirt is in place, but all the nutrients have been leached out over time. So anytime you just dig with the shovel into some dirt, you're not necessarily going to find an E horizon. Yeah. And we should say that for all this stuff, it's all going to vary according to where you are and what kind of rain and flooding and drainage that you have and stuff like that. What's next, Chuck? You got the B horizon. That's the sub soil. And this is where you finally get down to some of the finer particles, and you've got like a lot of silt, a lot of clay. You're starting to get down to the good stuff at this point. And all this makes sense, too, if you think about it. Like when the water, when rainwater trickles down through the soil and percolates, it's far easier for it to bring with it smaller and smaller particles. The further it travels, the smaller the particles you're going to find going down with it. So you've got your bigger particles, your bigger topsoil. Then you've got the sub soil, which is a little tighter together. And then in the B horizon, in the sub soil, you've got compacted. That's where you're going to hit, like your clay layer. Because again, clay is made up of those tiniest little particles that have been brought all the way down as far as it can go with the water that's percolated. That's right. And it's much more stable than topsoil as well, for sure. Sometimes it's too stable and water and roots can't really penetrate it. Yes. Or shovels. It can be a problem child as far as soil horizons go. You know, my story, when I was trying to dig my fence post holes for my privacy fence years ago, was I rented a two man auger, a two person auger, and it just spun. It impacted the clay even more. It did not break it up at all. It spun it like a potter's wheel. Nice. Did you go, give me some clay. Oh, wait, it was bad. Did you get it? That was a pottery joke, but it tied into your problem. That was maybe the smartest joke I've ever made in my life. Well, no wonder I didn't get it. I think I mentioned this on the show before. If you do have that kind of problem. If you're going to plant and you have really tough clay that you're trying to get through. Or rock for that matter. Get a San Angelo tool. Which is that big heavy spike that you see at the hardware store that's 6ft long. Has a pointy end on one side and a flat head on the other and weighs like \u00a320 or something. Yeah, I never knew what they were called. They look like sharp pointing lightning rods, basically. Right. Yeah. It's back breaking, but if you flip that thing in the ground as hard as you can and just wiggle it back and forth a million times, well, you're going to be able to break up anything, basically. And then you hit it with the auger or post hold diggers. No, I mean, the auger was useless at that point. You just loosen and use a shovel. Did you get your money back and say, this August is worth nothing? No, because they would say, welcome to Georgia. Bang. That's the state slogan. And not all over Georgia, but particularly where we are, like up in the mountains and stuff. The soil is very rich and very pliable. Yeah, for sure. Good stuff. As long as you don't hit the granite underneath, which can happen. Yes, as a matter of fact, because those pieces of granite that you hit as you get closer and closer to the Appalachians, further north in Georgia, that's bedrock. That's like the outermost rock of the Earth's crust. Right. So you're actually touching the Earth. It's almost like the soil that builds up on top of the bedrock is, I don't know, dander, maybe. And the bedrock is really the Earth's outer skin. So you're touching the Earth's skin when you're touching bedrock. What's can poke through the ground every once in a while is what we call rock out croppings. Yeah. And so as far as the horizon levels go, just above the bedrock, I don't think we mentioned the sea horizon. That is also rock. But that's rock that has weathered down some, but didn't quite make it to soil level, rathering. Right. Because remember, some plants can come in and colonize that rock and pretty quickly start building up soil. And if that rock beneath isn't exposed to that weathering process from wind and freeze, thaw and all that stuff, it's never going to get broken down. Right. It's just going to be hard on the old auger and then the bedrock. And then you've got what's called hard pan. And these are mineral deposits that I mean, this stuff, I guess it's harder than bedrock. It just sounds like nothing will grow and there's no chance for anything to permeate it. Yeah. And hard pant is not under bedrock. Bedrock is low as it gets. Before that's, the Earth's crust hard pan is just kind of I think you just kind of tossed it on where it's like it's like an e horizon, like an alleviated horizon. You're not going to find it everywhere. When you do, you'll know it because it's very hard to dig through. There can be streaks of it within another soil system of different horizon layers. And you just don't want anything to do with that. Neither do plants either. It's basically impermeable as far as water and roots and shovels go. No good. Another term that I think is really just cute is parent material. And that doesn't mean whether or not you would be a good papa or a good mama to a human child. Parent material is the type of rock that you started out with or the type of mineral that you started out with millions of years ago that was weathered down there to create what kind of soil you've got. And depending on where you live and what was there hundreds of thousands or millions of years before you, you're going to have much different kind of soil than maybe another place in the world. Yeah. Like if it started out as igneous rock from a lava flow, that's going to be different, kind of. It's going to produce a different soil from sedimentary rock that was weathered down from a granite outcropping by a river. It's just different soil, but it can also come about in different ways. Like that rock outcropping that was worn down by a river and just kind of sunk further and further into the ground and was built up on top of it. Soil layers where that would be called residual, where it's developed in place, there's also transported where it could be moved by ice, like a glacier pushing soil from one place to another. Sure. And then there's also cumulose, which is basically like peat, where organic material is basically suspended in suspended animation by water. It's prevented from full decomposition. That's right. Those are the kinds of parents that soil can have. So let's talk about the soil texture triangle. This is where it gets pretty cool because if you're talking soil and I think people should start using the word soil more than dirt because they just think it's more evocative of what you're really talking about. I think it's kind of reductive. I saw a dude who is like a soil sciences professor explain that to him at least. Dirt is like dead soil. Soil is like living, breathing. It's a symbiotic organism formed by all these different other bits of life working together. Whereas dirt is like dead stuff that maybe will become soil one day if it behaves itself. All right. If it plays its cards right. So this texture triangle, if you're talking soil, is a mixture. And this is all soil of sand, silt and clay. Sand. It's a really good podcast episode on it. I think we did. That is the most coarse, which is funny to think about because sand seems super fine. Yeah. But when compared to silt, I think sand is two to zero 5 mm in diameter compared to silt, which is zero five to two. And then like you mentioned earlier, it's hard to wrap your head around, but clay is a really fine kind of soil 2 mm in diameter. And you got to get that microscope out if you want to take a look at it. Yeah. And because of the different sizes when they're put up against one another, if you've got a bunch of sand, the pores in between the grains of sand are going to be really big, which is why beaches don't have a lot of plant life growing on them because water just drains right through them, and it's very difficult to keep organic matter suspended within it. Right. Silt. It gets a little easier, a lot easier because from what I saw, the pores in between silt are basically ideal. They're just big enough that they drain really well, but they also can hold some water and then clay because the pieces are so close together, the pores between them are so small that they hold a lot of water, and they basically sealed off the water's escape. So clay can either prevent water from coming in or it can hold it in and drown things. Either way, it's not necessarily very good for roots. Super compacted clay. Yes. You want a nice mix, and it depends on what you want to do and what you're working with. But it doesn't have to be the exact same mix either. I'm sure there are ideal versions, but depending on where you are, you can only do so much with your soil. Like, you can't make an entire farm something that it's not. You can augment it and help it out, but you're kind of working with what you got to a certain degree. I think one of the cool things from this research was that if you see a farmer in a movie, bend down, and that the scene that's in every movie about a farmer when they grab that soil in their hand and they look at it and twist it between their fingers and then let it fall gently out of their hand onto the ground. Not only does that make for a nice movie moment, but that's real deal stuff. If you're a pro farmer or a soil scientist, you can tell exactly what's going on with that soil by how it clumps in your hand, how it moves in your hand, how it holds together, what shape it is. Right. So it's not just sort of a BS thing you see in movies. No. You can also run a lab test to figure out what the ratios are. Right. Yeah. Hey, college boy, you need to get yourself a farmer either way. Right. There is an ideal combination between it depending on what you're trying to do, for sure. You don't want it too clay, you don't want it too sandy. Although, I don't know, I think you do kind of want everything to be kind of silty, but where they interact is going to going to describe what kind of dirt you're dealing with. And there are things you can do too. There's a reason for understanding that because you can say, oh, if I add this, if I bury a bunch of grass clippings, it's going to turn this clay into more silt and everything's going to just jump for joy from that point on. Yeah. And if you're a home gardener, you can certainly manipulate your yard or any potted soil that you have. You can amend all that stuff until you get exactly what you need. And then once you have it in a good place, there's upkeep. But it's not like you just have to do it once, but you have to do it once really well. And then just sort of keep that good mix going. Yeah. And then you can just go get one of these things that you hook on to the end of your hose and spray it once in a while with some microbes and sit back and watch everything start smoking cigar. Yeah, that's exactly right. Made out of deer hide. Doesn't burn very well. It's kind of obnoxious smelling, but it really makes a point. I know we mentioned regolith and I want to say terraforming and other episodes, but sometimes people say this as a word for soil, but it's really much more than that. It's kind of like anything on top of the bedrock basically can be called regolith. And that's not we mentioned terra farming because if you talk about the moon or Mars, you talk about regolith as well, and whether or not we could grow stuff there, which apparently we could. Right? Yeah. If we added the right nutrients and water, it would hold, which is essentially all it is at that point. It's like what that soil sciences guy was saying, that it's dirt, not soil. It's dirt because it doesn't have anything living, but you can add that stuff to it as needed and make Mars great again. Oh, God. So you want to talk about the carbon cycle? Yeah. Does carbon have anything to do with the Earth? No, it has nothing at all to do with it. But actually it has quite a bit to do with it. Right. Carbon is essentially the building block for life and there's a big cycle of carbon moving through the environment. There's a lot of it in the atmosphere in the form of CO2. And the atmosphere itself forms what's known as a carbon sink, which, if you haven't been paying attention in the last few decades, one of the reasons that climate change is happening is because we've been overwhelming that carbon sink in the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels and releasing a lot of carbon dioxide that have been sequestered in the ground. Which leads us to this point that plants and soil help lock carbon in. So that in addition to the atmosphere being a carbon sink, soil is also a really major carbon sink too. Yeah. You're thinking about agreeing with that or not? No, I totally agree with it, but it's kind of like when the Amazon rainforest caught on fire. It's almost like you're getting a double whammy there in darkness. Like even just cutting the Amazon down to grow crops there, too. You're creating quite a bit of harm even without burning it down, because all those trees are really good at sequestering carbon dioxide from the air and creating a carbon sink in the ground. But then also, we'll find out later, when you till the ground, a lot of that carbon that's been trapped under there and will stay that way for 1000 or so years is suddenly released just by tilling it. So basically, the main point I would like everybody to take away from this entire episode, maybe our entire podcast, Chuck, is leave the rainforest alone. Just stop messing with the rainforest because it's really screwing things up in ways that we are yet to fully realize. Yeah, agreed. That was my soapbox. That's you and Don Henley, man, arm in arm. Yes. He's a big rainforest guy, you know. Well, we're always chatting it up about the rainforest. I got a lot of my ideas from him, thanks to Stuff You Should Know listener Clayton James, who is a guitar well, I'm not going to say exactly what he does, but he worked on this last tour for the Eagles and invited Emily and I down before the show. And I got to touch Don Henley's drum kit and Joe Walsh's guitars. I remember you saying that. And Joe Walsh, because he happened to be standing next to his guitars at the same time. It's pretty cool, man. You were like, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. He's like, It's okay. Life's been good to me so far. Something's wrong with me today, man. Something's bad wrong. All right, so let's talk about carbon dioxide for a second here, because plants draw that in from the atmosphere and then eventually they're going to break that down because photosynthesis happens and they use that carbon to build up that plant. We're talking about the roots, the leaves, the stems. Carbon plays a big part in that. But eventually, like I said earlier, that plant is going to die or leaves just fall from a tree or whatever, and that carbon is locked inside that leaf or that dead plant on the ground that you stepped on. Right, exactly. So what's great about this is that plant used that carbon and when it died, it died with that carbon and it was locked in, like you said. But it's able to be used by other plants that come along, which is part of that whole beautiful system that just works so intricately well. Because to unlock that carbon, that's where all that life that lives in the soil comes along and becomes extremely important because they break that stuff down and decompose it. Depending on whether you're talking about bugs that chew up leaf litter into smaller and smaller pieces, which makes it easier for microbes to break down more quickly. The microbes themselves get eaten. And that carbon that was locked in the plant is suddenly unlocked and available in the soil for other plants to take up through their roots and build their own structures and use for photosynthesis, too. It's the circle of life. Right. Or it doesn't use at all. And some of that carbon is then released back into the atmosphere. Then we get to the humus. And I think we might have talked about this. Surely we did in composting. Yes, we definitely did. Maybe we did one on Earthworms, right? Yeah, I think we talked about in Earthworms. We talked about in permaculture, I believe. Yeah. We may have also talked about it in desertification and droughts. That was a good one. That was good. So humus. Is that it's? Basically, if you compost something years later, you're going to finally get down to humus. It's what's left over after all that snacking is done. And if you have a home composter, don't think that you have humus after a couple of months of doing a really good job composting because it takes many years to become humans. Yeah. And it's just a very small percentage of the stuff you compost will break down into humus because apparently the precursor of humus is proteins. And most compost is made up of carbohydrates, plant materials or carbs. Right? Yeah, that's right. So when it breaks down, this humus, it's almost like some soil scientists apparently consider humus a third state of life where it's not just dead, it's very dead. Decomposition is not really happening anymore, but there's a lot of minerals kind of locked in there, inorganic materials. But the thing is, you want humus. The more humus you have, the more lively and life affirming your soil is. It's like eat, pray, and love down there because humus forms an ideal house for all that other life to live in. It's like exactly what is needed for the other organisms that make soil alive in this symbiotic network. That's what they want. It's humist, and it's extraordinarily important stuff. But we don't fully understand why it doesn't necessarily keep breaking down after a point. Yeah, it's very dark. It's like black, basically. It's very spongy. It has great water retention. It can hold 90% of its weight in water. And it's sort of like the bond. It's like the cement that helps when you clump that soil together in your hand and it stays together. You can thank humas for that. Yeah. As a matter of fact, you should thank humus out loud when you squeeze the soil in your hand. You totally should. Thank you. Humus. So it's like you said, humus holds the stuff together, but it also creates those air pockets or those gaps that are so important in healthy soil. Right. It keeps things from getting sticking too close together, yet it also keeps it in aggregations or aggregates. Right. Yeah. So it's really weird. If you really stop and think about it, it holds things together, but not too much together. It kind of holds them together at just the right distance so that you have that ideal mixture of 50% soil, 50% gaps, and then 25% of those gaps can hold water moisture. Yeah, and you've got to have that right mix because too much sand is not able to hold any water. Like you mentioned, if you go to the beach, you can just see this in action. Yeah, you've got to have some of that clay, though, because that's the smallest one. And those little micro pores has what's called capillary reaction. That's adhesion and surface tension mixed together in a bag, basically. And that's super, super strong. And if you have clay in your soil, it's going to hold that water and it will even draw water up from the water table and say, here you go, go out and feed. Yeah. I saw another soil sciences professor talk about capillary action and he surprised me because he showed that sand has the least amount of capillary action. There's some, like when you're digging into the sand right before you get to the water beneath it, it's wet. That's because the sand has still been wicking some water up through those gaps. But rather than clay being the strongest with capillary action or the best for soil, I should say it's actually silt. He had like three tubes, silt, sand and clay all next to each other. And the silt one just rocked the other two for how far it had wicked water up this tube. So apparently that's the ideal silt is just as good as it gets. From what I can tell you're on team Silt, I am super team Silt for now and forever. All right, I think we should take another break, perhaps, and we'll talk about what all is living down there in that soil and what this all has to do with climate change. Right after this. Hey. Summer is here, my friend, which means school is out, the sun is shining bright, the days are longer. And best of all, there's plenty of time to get lost in a good, thrilling story. Yeah. Whether you're road tripping or you're relaxing by the pool, you can tune into the podcast here. It's on Amazon Music that's so good, it's criminal. Morbid. That's right. It's part true crime and part comedy. Morbid takes you on a journey through murderous mysteries and major laughs all in the same week. Yeah. From the paranormal to the pretty spooky and everything in between, hosts Selena Erkart and Ash Kelly cover it all. And with two episodes released each week, you'll be hooked on this chart topping series before you know it. You can listen to new episodes of Morbid one week early, only on Amazon Music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen today. Hey, everyone. When you're running a small business, every second counts. And you can't afford to waste a single moment. 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All right, so we talked about early on things living in the soil. I know it's easy to think about little microbes and bacteria and things in soil because we know it's just ripe with that stuff. But you can't ignore the big things, too. There are little moles that live in the soil. There are prairie dogs, there are lizards, they're snakes, all this stuff. Every kind of larger animal disrupts the soil. But that's a good word in this case. You want that soil disrupted because it's redistributing nutrients. You want them peeing and pooping in that stuff and mixing all that stuff in. And you've got this sort of small to larger animal system acting as little composters along the way. Yeah. And they're actually also mechanically mixing the soil. You don't want your soil to just be big, medium, small. You want it to be fairly mixed together, because big is just the gaps between are too big and small. The gaps between are too small. You want them mixed well. And so, like, an earthworm burrowing actually is mixing the earth together. Gophers apparently mix together something like 1800 cubic meters per square kilometer every year. That's a tremendous amount of soil mixing. And they're doing it for free, basically. Yeah. And that's when they're getting along. Like, you want to really mix up some soil, you get a gopher rumble sure happening, but your soil is going to be super mixed afterwards. Oh, man, it's going to be fantastic. Plus, you can roll cigars out of their hides. The hide of the loser. Oh, boy. You've also got spiders. You've got little scorpions, you've got centipedes, you got millipedes, you got termites, you have roaches. Unfortunately, I think right here it says in a sample of 1 inch soil in the forest, 200 species of mites alone. Yeah. Pretty impressive. I've got one even better than that. Right. Let's go down and order a magnitude or so. Oh, I know where you're headed. So the microbes in the soil are so abundant and so prevalent, apparently a teaspoon of soil has more microbes in it. Microbes is another pronunciation. Microbes. There are people on Earth in one teaspoon of soil, right. And all these little microbes, there are bacteria, there's viruses, there's fungi. All this microbial life are like the last layer of decomposition. But they do even a lot more than just decompose dying things. There's a function of fungus that we are just now starting to wrap our heads around called mycorrrrhizae, which is a symbiotic relationship. Soil itself is a symbiotic relationship. This is a symbiotic relationship within the symbiotic relationship, where fungus basically says, hey, roots, I like what you're doing there above me. I'm going to hang out around you and maybe grow my own system of roots out of fungus me that connects to your roots but also goes through the ground and connects to other roots, too. And I'm going to take up nutrients from the soil and help you accept them into your roots, maybe bring you some water here and there. And I'm going to let you communicate with other plants through your roots, through me, to the roots of the other plant, too. So amazing. So it's like if you look at a micro isa if you pull up like a plant, it has this thin, almost long, like, film around it. That's the fungus that it's like a root system around the root system made up of fungus. And we're just starting to understand this, and it's just beautiful to know that it exists like that. It's the fungus among us. It is. And there's actually humongous fungus among us, isn't there? Yeah. So what you were talking about is a mutualist. There are kind of three kinds of fungus, and I love that they call it a mutualist. It's a great name for that. The symbiotic relationship is a good name for, like, neo folk. Sure. Okay. Yeah. Why not get a Tweet vest and a jaw harp and have a good time? Okay. I just got a jaw harp in the mail, by the way. Is that the one that has the shoulder mounts? No, the jaw harp is the Twangy thing you put in your mouth. Got. You have it here. If you want me to go get it. I would love you to go get it. I think we'll wait. The fungus that eats decaying matter is called a sacrifice. Then you've got your mutualist, and then you've got an actual parasitic fungus. Those are the jerks of the forest world. But you were talking about humongous fungus. I feel like we've talked about this at some point in Pando. Was it in Pando? Yeah. Okay. I thought it might be in Mao. Here National Forest, there is something called genet d, and a big network of fungi is a genetic. And genet d is the humongous fungus. It's considered the largest living individual on earth. 2000 acres worth. Apparently it's all connected. Yeah. And it's the biggest by area, I think. And Panda is the biggest by mass. Like if you weighed pando, it would weigh more than this one still covers a lot bigger area, but it's just one big single organism and it's underground and it sucks on the roots. And actually they found it because there was a bunch of dead trees and they were like, what's going on here? And they discovered that it was this one, a soya fungus, that was killing off trees, because it can be one of those jerk kinds. Parasitic fungus. What are they called? Just parasitic fungus. There's not a great name for them. No. Parasitic fungus. So they live in the soil, no one likes them. They're considered jerks, like you said. The ones that everybody likes are the Mutualist or the Sapphirefights, which eat decaying matter and then sometimes they eat one another and all this stuff. I don't want to say the point of it, because who knows if there even is a point. But if there is a point, it is that nutrients that get used by living things and locked into the living things when they die get unlocked so that other things can use them. All right, so do you want to talk about the nitrogen cycle? Yeah, because I mean, that's another thing that can get locked and unlocked. Thanks to these organisms in their symbiosis. Nitrogen is extremely important to plants. They use it to make chlorophyll. They use it to make some of their proteins and structures. It's super abundant in the atmosphere, in the air. But now plants are really good at unlocking it. Not many, actually, which is right. Which is why you need some plants called nitrogen fixers to come along. And I think legumes are a really good example of this in like alfalfa, peanuts, those things, and they can take it out of the air and turn it into a usable form. And they actually do that, I saw. Not on their own accord. They have to become infected by a bacteria called rhizobium. And it's actually the infection from rhizobium that alters the plant to make it so that it can take nitrogen out of the air and deposit it in its roots for storage. Yeah, most plants can't do that. They have to draw it from the soil around them. Right. And we mentioned the balance and nature that we always are seeking that homeostasis. What you would like is a balance between these nitrogen fixers and dead plants adding nitrogen into the soil and then also those plants that are drawing that soil out. Like you want that all to sort of balance out together. Right? Exactly. And again, it's because there's help from bacteria helping fix nitrogen and nodules on the roots that other plants can come along and use in what's called a fixed form. So it's fixed nitrogen like you can have, say, a glass of sea water and you're really thirsty, but you can't drink it because it's not in a usable form, even though it's still water. But if you run it through a reverse osmosis filter and desalinate it, now it's usable water. So you can think of nitrogen fixing as like the Earth's version of reverse osmosis for nitrogen converting into a usable form for plants. The thing is, we kind of talked about it before, and you just hit upon it. There's like a natural cycle, a natural process to all this, which things like agriculture especially has really kind of disrupted. And even after the research that's been produced, over time, we're still either being willfully ignorant or still figuring it out, or people are still trying to get the word out. I don't know what the issue is if it's just too expensive to do it right. I don't know. I'll have to go back and listen to our permaculture episode again. But one of the ways, like you said, that we disrupt this natural cycle, or the nitrogen cycle in particular, is by not planting things like cover plants that are nitrogen fixers to replenish the soil. Instead, we use factory made fertilizer, which is just fixed nitrogen itself to replenish the soil, which is much harsher and can have all sorts of cascading negative effects on the surrounding environment as well. Yeah, because if you're doing a major agriculture job and you're pulling that nitrogen out, you've got to artificially put it back in. And that's all fertilizer is. Right. You're feeding that manure or whatever fertilizer you're using. Manure has a lot of nitrogen, so that's why it's used as a fertilizer, but you're just pumping it back into the soil. There's a great documentary that's called, I think, Big Little Farm maybe not heard of that one, about this couple who dropped out and started their own farm, but started a farm that they wanted to do right and to be in balance naturally with itself. It's really good and daunting and inspiring all at once. It's cool. It sounds a bit like the movie all of Me where Lily Tomlin takes over Steve Martin's body and they have to learn to coexist together kind of harmoniously. And I think they do at the end. If I remember correctly, it's not big little farm. The biggest little farm is what it is in Texas. No, that's a burnt Reynolds movie. Right, okay. And then you said, this is a documentary, the Biggest Little Farm. It's really good. You should check it out. Okay, well, people should check out all of Me, too, if you ask me. The thing is, Chuck, is when you're talking about nitrogen fixing and say like, okay, well, farmers should just grow alfalfa and then whatever, say if you harvest corn or something like that, you till it into the grass. Whatever is left over after you've harvested the corn, you till it into the ground. I mean, and that buried stuff actually provides a lot of food for all of those microbial life and earthworms and all that stuff. So they actually leave the roots of your plants alone. That's great. But even doing that requires more care than you would think because if we go back to Humus, remember, Humus is a really great way to lock in carbon for hundreds or thousands of years. But we're finding that it can be fairly easily disturbed by agricultural practices like tilling. And that once you disturb it, all of a sudden it's like, oh yeah, well I'm done, I'm out. If you're not going to appreciate me, I'm not going to hold on to your carbon anymore and it starts to release it. So we're finding that agricultural practices like tilling are actually having a contribution and impact to climate change as well. Yeah, I think this came from the same interview with the professor, assistant professor, she's saying it's not like it's the same as the burning of fossil fuels. There was an estimate is that soils have lost 120 PG. What does that stand for? Pedigrams of carbon since the dawn of agriculture, basically. And that since 1751, fossil fuel burning has had a cumulative total of over 400 pedigrams. So it's not on par, but it is something to think about and especially when you're talking about permafrost. And that's why we talk about when climate change is sort of like this vicious cycle where things are heating up and then ice caps are melting and when that stuff melts, that's releasing this permafrost soil that has been stored carbon for thousands and thousands of years all of a sudden release back up into the atmosphere. Yes, because Humus is most stable as a carbon sink when it's cold. So if it's so cold that it's been frozen for years, it's very stable. But yeah, as climate change warms it up, it starts to get released. And that is a problem. I mean, yes, 120 Pegrams over the last 910 thousand years. It doesn't seem like much, but we're getting to the point now where every little bit counts. And I think as part of the Paris climate agreement, you can count your carbon sinks like the kind of soil you have against your output to show whatever reduction you're working on. So it does count, it is taken into account. It's just nothing like fossil fuels. But it is an important component, it seems like. Yeah, so basically that's what they did in Biggest Little Farm is get back to basics of the dawn of agriculture when they practice really sound soil management for the most part telling only what needs to be tilled. Don't go super deep or super wide if you don't need to that ground cover that you were talking about, shades that soil and don't burn. And this is one of the big problems with big AG is burning plant waste. You don't want to do that? You want to bury that stuff and put it back into the earth? Yes, put it back into the earth everybody. Because the life down there wants it, right? That's the slogan for this one. Okay, agreed. So get out there and get your hands dirty and go feel the soil and remember to say thank you humus as you let it move through your fingers. OK? OK everybody. And in the meantime, I think Chuck, it's listener mail. Yeah, this is from a teacher, I think. Is this a teacher? Yes, a biology teacher. Appropriately. Hey guys. Just listening to the episode of Narcolepsy. Thought it would help clear up a confusion about the difference between a disease and a disorder. As a high school biology teacher, I had to explain the difference every year. The difference is subtle, but there is a simple way to remember. A disease is caused by a pathogen, like a virus or a bacteria. A disorder is a malfunction due to genetics, trauma, chemical toxicity or other nonliving factor. The lines can become blurred a bit because the disorder can be triggered by a disease. Some cancers are triggered by viruses. Maybe a clearer example is HIV AIDS. A person can be HIV positive and if the viral disease is discovered in time and treated, they may never succumb to the disorder that is AIDS, which sets in when the infected person's immune system has been effectively eliminated. Hope this helps the issue. Thanks again. Keep up the good work. And that is from Rich Brusque from Manhattan, Kansas. That's a Manhattan, Kansas. That's right. That is a world class biology teacher, Chuck. Totally. What was his last name? Brusque with a B. Sure. Thanks. Mr. Brusque from Manahatta, Kansas. We appreciate that. And we appreciate you being a biology teacher in a world class one at that. If you want to show off what a world class person you are, you can get in touch with us too, like Mr. Bruss did. You can send us an email. Send it off to stuffpodcast@iheartradiocom. Stuff you should know is the production of iHeartRadio's how stuff works. For more podcasts, my Heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite show. Hey everybody. I don't know about you, but I am excited that it's summer. School's out, the sun is shining, and best of all, there's downtime for days. That's where true crime podcasts on Amazon music come in. They're the perfect activity for last minute road trips, long walks, or if you're brave enough, late nights. With so many killer shows like Morbid, my Favorite Murder, and Small Town Murder, you'll never be bored to death again. So download the free Amazon Music app to start listening to all your favorite true crime podcast. Plus, with Amazon Music, you can access new episodes early. Download the app today."
8741b424-3b0e-11eb-9699-eb35aa97ffc0	Why Do Great Flood Myths Seem To Be Universal?	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/why-do-great-flood-myths-seem-to-be-universal	If look into the mythology of just about any culture in the world, you will find a myth about a great flood that destroyed humanity and submerged the Earth in the distant past. Does this mean that a great flood actually happened?	If look into the mythology of just about any culture in the world, you will find a myth about a great flood that destroyed humanity and submerged the Earth in the distant past. Does this mean that a great flood actually happened?	Tue, 07 Dec 2021 10:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2021, tm_mon=12, tm_mday=7, tm_hour=10, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=341, tm_isdst=0)	42943732	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"What if you were a gigantic snack food maker and you had to wrestle a massively complex supply chain to satisfy cravings from Tokyo to Toledo? So you partner with IBM consulting to bring together data and workflows so that every driver and merchandiser can and serve up jalapeno, sesame and chocolate cover goodness with real time data driven precision. Let's create supply chains that have an appetite for performance. IBM let's create. Learn more at IBM. Comconsulting. This July, don't miss an entire summer of surprises on Disney plus with Disney's high school musical, the musical, the series season three zombies, three doctor strange in the multiverse of madness and the wonderful summer of Mickey Mouse. Plus new episodes of Marvel studios, ms, marvel and national geographic. America the beautiful. From the award winning producers of planet earth, frozen planet and the Disney nature films, america the beautiful takes viewers on a tour of the most spectacular and visually arresting regions of our great nation. All these and more streaming this month on Disney plus. Hey, everybody. We are super excited to return to the sketch fest stage and do a live show again. We missed it so, so much last year and we can't wait to get back to San Francisco. Yeah, it's our first live show in two years, Chuck, and we're going to be there at the Sydney Goldstein theater in beautiful San Francisco, California at 730 on Friday, January 21 is a straight up stuff you should know live show. And it's going to be off the chain. That's right. You should show up to see if we've forgotten how to do this, to see us skate around on stage nervously sure doubting ourselves and eventually bringing the funnies. Yeah, hopefully. Where do they go? They go to SF, as in San Francisco. Sfsketchbest.com. Click on the schedule and tickets link. There are tons and tons and tons of great shows. It's the best comedy festival in the country, in my opinion, over the whole month of January. So go check us out and go check out everybody else as well. Yes. It's also a full vaccination show, so you've got to show proof of vaccination and wear some masks. Don't be naughty. Don't be naughty. Be nice. So we'll see you guys on Friday, January 21, in San Francisco, California. Welcome to stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio. Ahoy. And welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's Chuck, and we're the captains of this year ship called stuff you should know. And that's all there is to it. Although I do think we need to allow for the fact that Jerry is re admirable. And by that, of course, I mean rear admiral. And by that, of course, I mean it's going to be a long episode. Has there ever been a cutesy TV show called the admirable admiral? No. That sounds great. I think there was one. The Simpsons did one called admiral baby. All right, well, that counts. Yeah. I don't know if the baby was particularly admirable, though. Could have been, like, a terrible person. So I have a cold. So I just want to apologize upfront just ahead cold, but I'm a little stuffy, so I'm sorry if it's coming across as untoward. I'm very proud of you for pushing through Chuck because lesser podcasters would not they might just be like, I can, I have a cold. People don't want to hear that. You say, the heck with that. I'm going forward with it. Remember back in the day you had like a three month cold? That one year every year. Every year for a little while. I used to get so sick. Yeah. No, it's terrible. But we've gotten much better, haven't we? Yeah, I think I don't know, maybe quitting smoking had something to do with that. Maybe just a touch. You don't get colds like that anymore? No. Are you? I really don't. So yet another reason to quit smoking. Everybody who's out there on the fence. That's right. So we're talking today. The reason I said that we're Captain, is because I was making a play on a story that it seems like every single person Chuck knows about, at the very least. I can say with almost 100% confidence that everyone that you and I have ever met, seen in passing, talked to or been in the same country with, probably has heard of the story of Noah and the flood, where Noah was told to go ahead and build a boat because the earth was going to flood and everybody was going to be killed. By the way, grab some animals, put them on board so that you and your wife and then the animals can all repopulate your respective species once the flood subsides. Right. It's a classic story. Everybody loves it. We read it out loud just about every Saturday at dinnertime, and it's just a great story. Right. Everybody knows this story. But it turns out, Chuck, that there's this idea that actually happened, and it's long been an idea that what the Noah story is talking about happened in actuality, that there was a point in time where the entire world flooded and there's been a lot of scholarly research into this and how that's even possible? Yeah. And I guess if we're talking about this particular because we found after digging around and getting Ed to help us with this research, that there are flood myths and not every culture, but a lot of cultures over the years, and we'll get into that in lots of detail. But as far as Noah's actual flood from the Old Testament, there was a gentleman in 1872 named George Smith who was a hobbyist of all things Assyrian and an amateur sort of historical sleuth, but a well educated one nonetheless, because he could do things like read cuneiform tablets. And he was doing that one day on I don't know if it was an actual lunch break, or if that's just hypocrisy, but supposedly on a lunch break, went to a museum, was reading Cuneiform, and came across a story of the Epic of Gilgamesh. And read this quote. Build a boat, abandon wealth and seek survival. Spurn poverty, save life. Take on board all living things, seed, animals. The boat you will build, her dimension shall be equal. Her length and breadth shall be the same. It doesn't say anything about qubits, but cover her with a roof like the ocean below, and he will send you a reign of plenty. And George Smith said, hey, this is strikingly familiar as the Christian Jewish Old Testament Noah's Flood story. But this is several hundred years previous. Yeah. And instead of God telling Noah or an angel telling Noah, it's the God in Leo who's telling a guy named Utah Napishtim to build this boat, noah's nowhere to be heard. And for what reason? What do you mean? Well, I mean, wasn't this one of the ones where Earth is being punished, basically? Oh, yeah. So the reason that Leo gave to Odin a pitched him was because the humans were too noisy and the gods were sick of humans, so they were going to flood the Earth and kill off all humans, whereas in the Bible, it was because humans had become too wicked to live. I think noisy and wicked are the same thing back then. I guess so. And it makes you wonder, like, did somebody misread the word? And they're like noisy. Okay. And just barrel on. They're like, My lunch break is almost over. So George mistress was, like, noisy. They said noisy. There was also the idea of saving animals, and there was also the idea that afterward, birds were sent out to find dry land just as a no story. Right. And so you just kind of say, whoops. Because the Epic of Gilgamesh predates the Old Testament by at least several hundred years, depending on what part you're talking about. So you might say, okay, so the nostalgia is adapted from this, but that doesn't mean that it undermines the veracity. They don't undermine the veracity of one another. In fact, if you stop and think about it, the fact that one of the first things that was ever written down after the invention of writing Qnea form was the first written system humans ever devised, and that the first literary work ever created, the Epic of Gilgamesh contained this flood story. It kind of suggests that something actually may have happened, like it was a really important story that has stuck around for thousands and thousands of years. That Epic of Gilgamesh was written 3400 years ago. It suggests that there might be some kernel of truth to it. Yeah. And over the years, a lot of people have tried to prove, whether scientifically or otherwise, that the Noah's flood really did take place. Bible literalists, is that what we call them? I think so. Okay. Bible literalists. Bible historians, because that would go a long way in Christianity if you could say, hey, the Bible is an actual historical document. This stuff is really true. And in the 18th and 19th century, there was something called deluvialism. deluvial, meaning like, relating to a great flood. But that was a big shape of actual geology, was basically saying, hey, literally the physical world that we're living in came about after this flood, what kind of reset things? And then the real geological record came along once science got serious and they proved that was not the case. And that kind of went the way of the dodo around the mid 18 hundreds. Yeah, they kind of did it backwards. They said the Noah flood shaped the world as we see it. Go find proof. And when they found proof, they were like, it's not really adding up. Yeah. So there's no evidence that there was a global flood that inundated the world. And in fact, the geological record that these geologists, the early ones and up to modern day ones, have been putting together supports the exact opposite of that. The Earth wasn't created in a day. Lough it was created over incredibly long distances of time, very slowly, layer by layer. Right? That's right. But people still say, okay, well, why, number one, why have we been telling this flood story for so long? And then also, why is it, like you said, the idea of flood myth seems almost universal? Doesn't that still strongly suggest that there was even if the Bible doesn't quite have it? Right. And by the way, Noah's story also shows up in the Quran too. So it's in the Jewish Bible, the old Testament and the Quran. And then there's the epic of Gilgamesh story. Like, why is this important story still around? Doesn't it still support the idea that something happened? Why would there be universal flood myths from cultures that had never even heard of Christianity before? And there have been some attempts to explain that that I think are much more satisfying than the idea that we're just missing all of the evidence for great worldwide deluge that happened back in antiquity. Yeah, and it's more than just those. There were Chinese floodmists. There were flood myths in southern Canada, in the British Isles. So there was one study that picked out 50 cultures and they all had their own flood myth and that it was related to some kind of punishment. So they started looking, like you said, of like, why is this happening? And there's a bunch of reasons and they all kind of make sense to me, if I'm being honest. One of them is that there was a flood in these cultures, but it wasn't a global flood. But if all you know is a certain area and you never get to leave that area and it wipes out everything you know, then the story that you pass along orally through the years would sound like one that wiped out everything. Yeah. The whole idea is that this flood actually did happen way far back to one group, and then that group eventually kind of spread out and carried that flood myth with them. And so to those of us today, historians, anthropologists, looking at all of these groups that are spread out all over the world, all sharing basically the same story, it would make it seem like a flood had impacted all of these groups that were that far spread out. So it must have been a really big flood. But this explanation says, no, the flood was actually really localized. It was the group that it happened to that eventually spread out. That's one explanation. It makes a lot of sense. And one of the groups that are usually kind of pinpointed as this flood happening to or the proto Indo Europeans who are known to have been around, I think, the Caucuses Mountains to start, and then just spread out as far as the British Isles, basically all over Europe, northwest, east, south. And that all of our languages, like English, Germanic, just a whole slew of languages developed out of this group. Yeah. And some more support for this is the fact that there aren't flood myths in sub Saharan African cultures. And these were groups that when they left Africa, they didn't come back, so they would not have taken back with them flood myth from proto Indo Europeans. It all makes sense. Yeah, exactly. There's another kind of related one, too, that says that there were floods, just not a flood. That flooding is actually really common. So it happened to a lot of different groups. So it would make sense that all these different cultures would have flood myths. Sure. And again, if you live in your riverside village and you don't get to travel very far from there, and everything, you know, it gets destroyed. Again, it could be lit support to the idea that it gets translated as a worldwide flood. And if everyone's having these localized floods which happened there's always been floods, then not necessarily the 40 days and 40 nights variety, but when things are passed around orally and then they get rewritten, things get kind of mixed up. Yeah. And it's our bad. Those of us alive today who are mistaking or laying our interpretation of the word world onto, like these cultures use of the word world, they're saying their world, which is much smaller than it is to those of us today, when we think the world, we think the whole globe. Yeah. And speaking of laying your things on other cultures, the third one is Christian missionaries, and there is evidence of this happening. They would go and tell the story of Noah's great flood, especially when colonization was happening, too. And between missionaries and colonization, all these other cultures picked up on that original biblical floodtail. Or I don't know if we should call it a flood myth or flood tail at this point. What should we call it? I think most people call it flood myths or deluvian myths. Okay. Delivian myth. That sounds a little more academic. So yeah. So Christian missionaries did this, and I think this is also evidence in the fact that the South Pacific didn't really have one until 1814 when they came into contact with Christian missionaries, and then all of a sudden, they had the Maori flood myth. Yeah. So they actually had a flood myth before, but apparently it was more tsunami based. And then after contact with Christianity, it became much more of, like, a deluge, and it just bore some striking resemblances to the Noah flood myth of Christianity. And apparently that happened all over the South Pacific as well, where these cultures will have their own kind of flood myth, but it's always based on tsunamis. But then the Christians come and go, and all of a sudden it's a deluge where the water rose after 40 days and 40 nights of rain and stuff. So that creates a lot of headaches for anthropologists, but it also, at the same time, explains why a universal flood myth or a flood myth would seem universal to those of us around today and why they seem to bear such a striking resemblance to one another. You know? Indeed. I think we should take a break, and I'm going to go blow my nose, okay. And then we'll come back and talk about geomatology right after this. What if you were a global bank who wanted to supercharge your audit system? 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SimpliSafe believes that your home should be the safest place on Earth for every family. So they offer advanced, whole home security that puts you, your home, and your family safety first. With 24/7 professional monitoring simply saves, agents take action the moment a threat is detected, dispatching police or first responders in an emergency, even if you're not home. Yeah, and SimpliSafe uses proprietary video verification technology so that monitoring agents can visually confirm the threat in order to get higher priority. 911 dispatch and simplyafe offers comprehensive protection not only against intruders and burglary, but against expensive home hazards. From flooding to fires. You can customize the perfect system for your home in just a few minutes at SimpliSafe. comStuff. Go today and claim a free indoor security camera plus 20% off with interactive monitoring. Just go to SimpliSafe. comStuff. So, Chuck, that was nice of you to blow your nose at the break rather than during recording, even though I still had to hear it. You know, it's funny. I was listening to I don't know why I just thought of this, but I was listening to Paula Tompkins Stay at Homecoming podcast he does with his wife Jenny the other day, and he was talking about sneezing on stage. And that had happened to him once in his career. And Paula someone who spent lots and lots and lots of time on stages, and I wonder if there's something to that of the body withholding things like sneezes, because I've never seen anyone sneeze on stage. I've never sneezed on stage. Yes. Isn't that weird? Yeah, I'm sure it's related to adrenaline and fight or flight. That's what I was thinking. There's got to be something to that. Yeah, like your body's. Like, I have time to waste all that energy on sneezing. We got to get out of here. We got to put on a great show. It would be really weird to think about it if, like, I don't know, barry Manelow in Vegas was talking about setting up Mandy before he sings it and just lets out a big sneeze. Yeah, well, thank you for setting me up to reminisce it again. About the time that you and I saw Barry Manilow front row center in Vegas, you would have been sneezed on with that big snazz. Yes, we actually would have been covered in his sneeze. All right, so we promised. Talk of geomathology, here's the idea. Since science really got attacked together, there have been a couple of different ways to look at things like flood myths as either this is a story about our cultural values there's a lot of religious metaphor involved, or this was an actual historical event and geomathology came along to kind of say, hey, man, it can kind of be both. Like, there could have been a real flood. And it also took on metaphor and took on cultural values and was used as a story of I can't think of the word I'm trying to think of to teach you a lesson. What's it called? Fable. Yes, like a fable. So this field has emerged since I believe the actually, I was reading about this field of geomethology is, like, still really trying to establish itself in the field of geology. And most geomathologists are trained geologists. That's where you start out to play D and D, probably, but they have to really defend what they're doing against their fellow geologists because they're basically saying all of these myths all of these legends, all of these folk traditions, they actually contain eyewitness accounts of natural disasters, of weird events and Earth, of early fines, of fossils. And, yeah, they've cloaked them in the language of mythology and the terminology of mythology and monsters and weirdness and all this stuff that makes it just seemed completely legendary to us today. But that's how these pre scientific and often preliterate cultures pass along really valuable information. And we've been kind of foolish to just discount them as nothing but legend, as if there's no fact whatsoever in there. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Exactly. And so that's what geomatology is doing. They're saying, wait a minute, wait a minute. If you just look at this the right way, we are covered up in historical accounts just waiting for us to unravel if we learn how to read this correctly, and then also correlate with actual known geological events that we've discovered through science. Yeah. Hey, you see that story that seems completely crazy about a demon god who lives in a mountain and gets angry and spouts fire from its top? That's a volcano, bros. And just because it sounds crazy doesn't mean we shouldn't look at the fact that an actual volcano eruption might have happened then, and let's kind of marry these two things and let's just all get along, right? And so that legend about the volcano with the angry god that sometimes spews scary stuff forth, and if you ever hear the mountains starting to make rumbles, it means the guy is waking up and you should run. That is a way for a culture that is aware that this mountain is actually a volcano and that volcano can sit dormant for generations at a stretch. So there will be people born in the future who aren't aware that that's a volcano. And this is the way that the culture passes down over deep time. This really important information. If the volcano ever makes a sound, run, because you don't want the fiery breath of that god that's trapped inside. Yeah, I've heard. I love this stuff. Before science came along, all humans did, from the moment they could sort of form thoughts, was trying to explain what was going on around them, from rain and thunder to volcanoes and floods and I don't know. I think it's super interesting. It's almost like these proto early warning systems, right? They didn't really know how to explain the science of it. Exactly like nuclear semiotics. Remember we did an episode on that on how to tell people 10,000 years in the future about steering clear of nuclear waste, right? It's the same exact principle. It's just chuck. Somewhere along the way, we later generations became arrogant and just completely discounted any of those pre scientific traditions because they didn't appear scientific. But it is exactly like what you're saying. It was the way that they made sense of actual stuff. And so there's plenty of stuff to learn from those accounts and those tales and those myths and legends. We just have to basically kind of eat a little bit of crow and go back and be like, well, we've been ignoring this to our own detriment. Yeah. And it's like you said earlier, it's a tough road to ho that for scientists these days if they take this on, because you have mixed results when you go back and you look at these tales, some of them may just be folk tales and legends, and some may have kernels of truth, some may have a little more truth. So there's a lot to sort of parse through as a geologist these days if you're working as or with the geomythologist. Right. And so when you are laying this out and trying to figure out, okay, what is this myth describing? Again, you're a trained geologist if you're a geometologyist, but you're also working with people from other scientific fields as far as trying to uncover the fact, the kernel of truth behind these flood myths. You would be working with paleo hydrology or paleobathymetry, which is the study of ancient sea levels, like where they were at in the past. And so you're going to take the findings from these fields and then say, okay, let me see if I can correlate it with a myth. Or you find a myth and you say, okay, let me see if I can correlate it with paleobathymetry or Paleo hydrology findings. And they've actually turned up some really interesting stuff so far. Yeah. In 2016, there was a study that tied together one of the Chinese flood myths from about 40 years ago, basically, that there was a great flood, wiped out China. It lasted for a couple of decades. And then this great man came along who had become Emperor Yew and tamed the water. So geologists went back and they said, all right, there's an ancient landslide around that same time that damned up a river, and a lake filled up behind it in about six months or so. And then that river got flooded, broke through the dam, and there was this huge flood, and they have found sediment that sort of tracks along these lines. Then they found that Emperor u. Actually, it turns out he may not have been magically tamed the water. He just had a knack for early engineering and that he dredged the waters, and it cleared up, the rivers flow, things returned to normal, and he became emperor. But back then, it gets told as a tale of this great, soon to be the emperor that tames the waters when he was just good at what he was doing. Right. But they found, like, evidence, geological evidence that backs all of this up, that this whole series of events the earthquake that triggered the landslide, the landslide, the dam, the lake filling up in six months, the lake breaking and flooding, that all this happened within a single year. That is definitely the kind of thing that your culture is going to make note of and pass down over the years, that this kind of thing can happen. And then not only that, this great person came along and freed us from the burden of these floodwaters that apparently stuck around for 20 years. That's right. It's pretty cool. There's another one that is just beyond thrilling if you ask me that a lot of people say this is possibly and I think that's a big reason a lot of, like, mainstream geologists have problems with geomatology is we can't really see a course to getting to the point where saying, this is the one. This flood that we have evidence of is what gave rise to the epic of Gilgamesh and Noah's story. But you can say there's a really good chance that this is the one, this fits the bill. And this one does kind of stick out like that. That's right. This one in the 90s, it became fairly popular that basically said there was an oceanographer named William Ryan and another guy named Walter Pittman. They were, I think, in the early two thousand s. And they said that rising sea levels at one point caused the Mediterranean to burst through the Bosphorus Strait about 7000 years ago. And this was a legit, serious flood that I'm sure seemed like a flood, like a global type of thing. It created a waterfall, a volume 200 times that of Niagara Falls, and I think enough water in one day that could have flooded Manhattan by 3000ft. Yeah, that's a flood quite a bit. They also determined that the Mediterranean Sea moved inland. The coast moved inland by about a mile a day. Can you imagine seeing that happen before your eyes? Like you almost lose your mind. Again, that would make a really great story that you would pass along and explain it in whatever terms you could, but there would have been coastal settlements along the Bosphorus Strait on either side, on the Mediterranean side, and also on the Black Sea side. All this water poured into and it would have just completely wiped those settlements out. So the people who did survive would have been like, something really bad happened here and this is how we're going to make sense of it. And the timing of it was just right. It happened probably about 7000 years ago, and as we'll see, there's a lot of stuff that happened around 70 00, 75 00 years ago around the world because the end of the last glacial period started in the sea levels rose and all sorts of crazy stuff happened as a result. But that's one that people point to is like, that may be the flood that gave rise to the Gilgamesh and Noah stories, no pun intended, gave rise? I think so it really was unintended. Yeah. Another one about 7500 years ago was the creation of the Persian Gulf. Kind. Of a similar kind of thing during the last ice Age, what is now the Persian Gulf used to not be it used to be a very nice river valley near the Fertile Crescent where people lived. And the thing here, though, that I don't quite get is that they haven't found any evidence of things underwater there. Right? No, they haven't. The reason why they think this happened, Chuck, is because all of a sudden, on the shores of the Gulf as we know it today, some really well established settlements with decorative pottery and well built stone houses and all sorts of other things, domesticated animals just sprang up basically overnight. So they were relocated, essentially, yeah. That's really the only explanation. I went from hunting settlements, hunting camps, to all of a sudden, these people are like an advanced society. That makes sense. The best explanation is that their original settlement is down there beneath the Persian Gulf. We just haven't found it yet. What about Doggerland? So Doggerland is another similar story. They both share what's called Aquateera, by the way, which is a term that was coined in the describe these lands that were exposed for 150,000 years, that humans were kind of developing and forming societies and then were lost just 70 00, 75 00 years ago when the sea levels rose again. So Doggerland and the idea of the Gulf being an underwater, now submerged settlement, doggerland is like that, but instead of in the Persian Gulf, it's been in the North Sea. It was a patch of land that connected the British Isles to Scandinavia before until about 8500 years ago. Right. And here they have actually found submerged traces of settlements under the sea, unlike the one in the Persian Gulf. Right. And they actually think that it's possible. Some people are saying, no, it's probably just slow, steady sea level rise that flooded Doggerland. But there was a massive landslide in, I think, Norway called the storage event that happened 8500 years ago, and it probably generated a massive tsunami, and it could have been big enough to have submerged Doggerland permanently after that. Apparently, that's how big that underwater landslide was. Yeah, I was about to say underwater. You got to point that out. Yeah. But there's a flood story from Brittany around that area that says that a king's daughter was possessed by a demon and opened their country's floodgates, and there was flooded catastrophically. So it's like, are they talking about this event that happened 8500 years ago that survived as this legend until today? That's right. And yet another right here, now, the US of A. But in the 1980s and 90s, they investigated floodmiss of the indigenous peoples in the Pacific Northwest, and they found out that their flood miss this was a little more recent. This was around 1700 Ad. But the idea is that there was a magnitude nine earthquake that caused a tsunami, unleashing these big waves from basically sort of Vancouver island all the way down to Northern California. Yeah, it was the Ho and the Quillyuk people who had this legend of thunderbird and whale getting in a fight. And what's interesting is there's all sorts of geological evidence. Apparently there are still trees that are just not where they're just not growing back. They were wiped clean from the tsunami. But there's a Japanese temple, a Buddhist temple that marked the date January 6, 1700, because the tsunami wave made it all the way to Japan and they noted it. So by basically cross correlating that Japanese noting of the date with the Ho and the Quill Yuks story about thunderbird and whale. They said this story is about this particular event, which is pretty awesome. And then sometimes it's just a culture, like pre science, again, making sense out of finding weird things like the Zooming people in the southwest of the United States. Obviously not back then, they saw these ancient marine animals and seashells in the fossils that they were finding, and they said, well, this is part of our creation story. There was a great flood and that's how this stuff got here. Yeah. Here in the desert. That's how a pre scientific culture would make sense of that kind of thing. Pretty cool. Absolutely. So I say we take one more break and we're going to talk about the other aspect of these myths, the mythology part of it, right? Right after this. What if you were a trendy apparel company facing an avalanche of demand to ensure more customers can buy more sherpa lined jackets you call IBM to automate your It infrastructure with AI. Now, your systems monitor themselves. What used to take hours takes minutes. And you have an ecommerce platform designed to handle sudden spikes in overall demand, as in actual overalls. Let's create It systems that roll up their own sleeves. IBM let's create learn more@ibm.com It Automation capital One offers commercial solutions you can bank on. Now more than ever, your business faces specific challenges and unique opportunities. That's why Capital One offers a comprehensive suite of financial services custom tailored to your short and long term goals. Backed by the expertise, strategy, and resources of a top ten commercial bank, a dedicated team works with you to support your success and help you achieve your goals. Explore the possibilities@capitalone.com. Commercial. Today's episode of Stephanie Shannon is brought to you by SimpliSafe home security. SimpliSafe believes that your home should be the safest place on Earth for every family. So they offer advanced, whole home security that puts you, your home, and your family safety first. With 24/7, professional monitoring simply saves, agents take action the moment a threat is detected, dispatching police or first responders in an emergency, even if you're not home. Yeah. And SimpliSafe uses proprietary video verification technology so that monitoring agents can visually confirm the threat in order to get higher priority 911 dispatch. And SimpliSafe offers comprehensive protection not only against intruders, and burglary. But against expensive home hazards, from flooding to fires, you can customize the perfect system for your home in just a few minutes at SimpliSafe. comStuff. Go today and claim a free indoor security camera, plus 20% off with interactive monitoring. Just go to SimpliSafe. comStuff. Okay, so if you take a myth and you strip the mythology off and you just look at the kernel of historicity and try to figure out what event it's actually describing, you don't want to just forget the myth part. You want to go back and also look at the myth part, too, because that reveals a lot about humans and who we are and how we think spread out even across cultures throughout the world. And there's a lot of similarities that pop up from examining geometology, especially with flood myths, even when you set aside the idea, or I should say, even when you account for the idea of missionaries spreading the Noah flood, too. So, yeah, one of the things that's interesting to look at is how these myths are similar. And one way that a lot of these flood myths are similar and we've already seen a little bit, and what we've talked about is oftentimes it's a man and a woman, usually a man and a wife, who are charged with gathering up the animals, with repopulating the Earth afterward, saving the species. Essentially. There's usually a warning, whether it's Noah's floodmith or all the others, where someone comes along and says, you better get your act together on Earth or tell everybody on Earth you are the messenger to get their act together or else I will rain upon you. Right? Yeah. There's also sometimes a warning. I guess one of the warnings, Chuck, that came through I think we said earlier that the Chinese have at least four flood myths, and one of the warnings that came through was to the brother and sister who freed a thunder god from their father's, I guess Chicken Cooper or whatever, their father had captured him. And so the thunder god said, hey, thanks a lot, kids. By the way, the things are about to get serious around here. You might want to build a boat. Yeah, I think they built a boat. But they're one of those interesting stories where you said usually it's a man and wife who end up having to repopulate the Earth that put these two kids in the position of having to repopulate. And that was a taboo. Incest is basically the universal taboo. One of them, and that was the same in ancient China as well. So in different versions of the story, either the brother and sister basically got a pass this time. Another version is that the brother had to go through a huge series of physical challenges and couldn't and that somehow the Earth became populated anyway. And the third version is that they just made everybody out of clay that they made themselves. All right, okay. But if you start really kind of looking at floods, there's like, especially the purpose of the flood. That's the thing. It's very rare that the flood happens in a flood myth just for fun. There's almost always a reason. Like humans want there to be a reason. So we've come up with different reasons over the years, and one of them is basically the apocalypse that humanity is being wiped out, usually as punishment, and that we deserve to survive. And we would have to survive or else we wouldn't be around to be passing the story along. So somebody had to survive. So that's where those people who repopulate the Earth come from. But the rest of us, we got wiped out because we displeased the gods. That's right. Another one is that we started out as an ocean and nothing but ocean. So this is just a reset to that return to our original state here on planet Earth. And there are a lot of cultures around the world that basically thought that we started out as an ocean from ancient Egypt, Norse, I think, in Japan as well. And basically it either returns us to a state of water or an island above an ocean. Yeah. And that's so closely related to the apocalyptic one too. We just happen to be returning to how things were before, which is also related to another kind of theme as a reason for the flood, which is purification. Like, yes, you're being punished, and yes, you're returning to this primordial state. But the ultimate reason that, say, like, god or the gods have is to purify things, to get to rid the world of evil and just keep the good and start over with just the good, basically. That's another big one, too, and they're all kind of pretty tightly wound up together. Yeah. Then there's just angry gods, and it might not have anything to do with you doing anything wrong as a culture or getting your act together. It's just that the gods were angry, so they kicked open the top of that mountain and it became a volcano and sorry, TS for you guys. Yeah, it just happens. But that's still interesting that people rationalization even in itself, though, isn't it? Like, sometimes that happens even if you didn't do anything wrong. I think so. There's another one, too. That Emperor You myth is a good example of industriousness people working together, people controlling things where the Earth has done something crazy. Maybe the gods were responsible, but humans managed to overcome it, either in the form of, like, a savior, like Emperor You. There's one in Bhutan, I believe, there's a legend about Guru repoch in the Zangpo Valley. He shows up and basically drains a lake, exposing all this fertile farmland where a village was then settled. And I apologize for this. I genuinely could not find a pronunciation for it. Chuck, I really tried, but the Goon geni g, Aboriginalpeople G-U-N-G-G-A-N-Y-J-I. They have one where the tsunami keeps coming and coming and the sea levels are rising and rising. So the people are organized and get together and start rolling boulders down into the sea and it actually prevents the sea levels from rising any further. So I think that's probably my favorite one, the industriousness and control ones. It's good stuff. And then people have gotten a little weird over the years with trying to explain these away. There was a Hungarian psychoanalyst named Giza Rohaim in the 1930s that said, no, the reason why we have all these flood myths is because they're just from people's dreams. And people in ancient times drank a lot of water and peed a lot at night. And so they drinked about floods and told stories about floods. Or maybe it is the gods urinating on people, literally. And there are myths that literally talk about that that floods a result of God's peeing on Earth. But I don't know about expanding that to all the cultural flood myths all over the world for all time, right? And there's others that explain it is like men's jealousy of not being able to give birth and that it's a reference to the bursting of the amniotic sac or something like that. I feel like when psychoanalysis gets involved, especially in this day and age, it's kind of like, that was a nice try, everybody. Let's just move on to Geomathology instead, I think so. That's where I'm putting my money truck. Geomethology. It's fantastic stuff. And also, I should say, I want to give a shout out to one of our past episodes. Was there real Atlantis? We were doing geomathology without even realizing it. That's right. If you want to know more about geomatology and flood myths, then just start searching the Internet, because there's a lot of interesting stuff out there about it. And since I said that, it's time for listener mail. This is a shout out to one of the winners of The Stuff You Should Know five K. This is something that The Stuff You Should Know army puts together every year now in a virtual way right now. But our buddy Aaron Misell is one of the people who works on this. They're looking to do this again next year. Because here's the deal is they sent me this stuff afterward, right? And I was like, we need to get this before, so I'm going to go ahead and say it now, and then we'll see if we can remind people. But people voted to have this happen in late September, early October. So 2022 is when it's hopefully going to happen again. No official registration, no entry fee. There's an event page, I guess, at the stuff you should know. Army Facebook site. And I think people had two weekends to participate this year and they had bike riders this year. So regardless of what your status as an athlete, is they're finding ways for you to get involved, which is really cool. Yeah. So this is from Amanda, though, writing in to say that I'm a winner, baby. You guys are the best. Been listening for years, and I was happy to participate in the virtual Stuff You Should Know Five K this year. It was a cool event that brought some really nice people together at our little corner of the Internet. I'm not a particularly good or fast runner, but I get out there and I did the dang thing, and that's what counts. The other participants in the Five K radiate that spirit and are so encouraging of each other. Don't ask me how, but somehow I achieve fastest Five K for a woman in this event. What a cool feeling. So today, I listened to Venus Flytraps on the way home and came across a package address. So if you should know, five K champ Amanda Thompson. And just about cried and got a hand crafted by stuff you should know army member Metal Rack for her efforts. And it's really great. That's pretty great. She has to buy her own metal, though. I don't think so. That's fantastic, man. Congratulations, Amanda. That's wonderful news. And congratulations to everybody who participated and finished or even just started or even thought about doing it. Maybe you'll do it next year. Who knows? That's right. Congratulations to everyone. Yes. And again, that is a very cool thing, that Stuff You Should Know fans do, and it makes us love you guys even more. You got anything else? No. Just be on the lookout next late summer fall for news on the Army Facebook page. Yeah, somebody please remind us ahead of time so we can tell everybody else. And if you want to remind us of something, we would love to be reminded because that probably means we forgot. And you can put that reminder in the form of an email, which you can send to stuffpodcasts@iheartradio.com. Stuff you should know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts My Heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio app apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows, you know you're the best pet mom. When you growl back during playtime, give epic belly rubs and feed them halo holistic made with responsibly sourced ingredients, plus probiotics. For Digestive Health, find us at chewy amazonandtalopets.com are you looking for an escape? An immersive getaway experience? Well, there's a place for all your wildest dreams. Perhaps you enjoy wrapping along the paperboy, or you believe that blessed be the fruit. Or you dream of one day smashing a glass while stealing Hooza. Whether you're sworn to Team Kim or you just want a good old fashioned mysterious murder, there's a place that has it all. 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2a963636-3b0f-11eb-a672-df0dc9d1b1f0	The Improbable Story of Martin Guerre	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/the-improbable-story-of-martin-guerre	Like most 16th-century French peasants, Martin Guerre’s life seemed likely to be lost to history. But a strange series of events took place that would so cement the legend surrounding him that we’re talking about him still today, 450 years later. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.	Like most 16th-century French peasants, Martin Guerre’s life seemed likely to be lost to history. But a strange series of events took place that would so cement the legend surrounding him that we’re talking about him still today, 450 years later. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.	Tue, 22 Feb 2022 14:39:09 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2022, tm_mon=2, tm_mday=22, tm_hour=14, tm_min=39, tm_sec=9, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=53, tm_isdst=0)	46235987	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Welcome to stuff you should know a production of iHeartRadio. Hi, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. And this is Stuff You Should Know, featuring your history. That's right. Interesting. History a dish. Yes. Man, I remember hearing the story back as an undergrad. A hot, sexy undergrad. Boy, were you in learning my history? Yeah, I can't remember what class. It must have been a European history class, but this book just always stuck with me. The Return of Martin Gear by Natalie Zimon Davis. Did you read it back then? Yeah, it was assigned as part of the class. It was a great book. But did you read it? Yes. Okay. I was very eager. Hot, sexy, undergrad history major. Well, I mean, that's why I majored in English, because I like to read. So anytime I assigned a reading assignment, I was like, Great, I can do that. Yeah, that was one reason I chose history, is because I really enjoyed reading history stuff. So I was like, well, if that's what we're going to be sitting around doing, let's do it. I don't know what I'll do with it afterward with that degree, but we'll roll the dice and find out. You envisioned a future career where two lunkheads with no previous broadcast experience could become, dare I say, noteworthy by talking into a can. Yeah, I was gambling on lucking out to an astounding degree. Yeah, me, too, sort of. Isn't that weird? Yeah. Funny how life works. Well, it all worked out. And here we are all these years later to tell the story of Martin is it pronounced Gear? I've always pronounced it Martin Gear, but we're talking we're going to go to 16th century France, so it's probably Martin Ger. Okay. But we're not going to say it like that. But not Richard Gear. No, which is ironic because Richard Gere was the lead in the movie Summersby Garage. See? Look at your improv skills. Yes. Anding me, it was sort of not necessarily a remake, but an adaptation on the story of Martin Gear and the movie that starred Gerard departure from the early 1980s. Yes. They end. I think that's it. Okay. No, but is that how we end? Yeah. Have you heard this story before, the story of Martin Gear? Yeah, a little bit. I certainly didn't know it like I know it now, but I did see the movie Summersby back then. I knew it was kind of based on that. And there have been other versions of stories like this, not the least of which is a story told in animation form about a young man off the war named Armin Tanzerian. Oh, yeah. I didn't even put two and two together sure. When Principal Skinner took someone's identity during the war, and it's sort of a common story, but this is, I think, the OG. Yeah, thanks for that, too. Because we would have gotten myriad emails telling us what utter failures we are in life for missing that Simpsons reference. Yeah, that was his name, right? Armandanzerian. Totally. Man, can you imagine how fun the writer's room was that day, trying to come up with what his real name would be? That's right. I've said it before, I'll say it again. That's Matt Granny's least favorite Simpsons episode at the time. Years ago. Yeah. For some reason, he hated that one. I don't know why. All right. I love it, too. It's good. So we're talking about a man named Martin Gerry, who was born a peasant in 16th century France in the Long Dock region, in this little area just above Spain, just below Toulouse, if that makes sense for you. And typically, Chuck, when people live and die in areas like this, unless they do something spectacularly interesting or noteworthy or important, they just kind of get lost to history. Sure. And this guy, Martin Gear, actually didn't do anything spectacularly interesting or important or noteworthy, and yet we're still talking about him, like, 450 ish years more than that later, because his life something happened to his life that was so interesting that it's worth doing an entire podcast episode about all these years later. Greed. He was born in Spain to a Basque family and pretty quickly, as a toddler was brought over to France to how would you pronounce that? Articat or artejat or is it got? I think Got. Okay. Yeah, because cake is gato, and it begins with G. Oh, look at you. All right, so Ardagat and his family got there, and they got to work pretty quickly, setting themselves up in different trades, like farming, eventually tile making and merchanting nice and did okay. Like. They didn't have any kind of money. But they worked hard and sort of rose through that lower tiered status to the point where they could marry off young Martin to another family. The Jaroles family. Who I think Dave Ruse. Our buddy who put this together for us. He said that they were well off. But I think they were well off for their lower class. Though. Right? Yeah, they were up and coming, he puts it I think they were peasant farmers figuring out how to enter the merchant class, which at the time was the very beginning of the middle class. Okay. All right, well, that makes sense then. Yeah. So they're working their way up into the middle class. So it was kind of a coup, I take it, for the Garrett family to marry off Martin to Bertrand de Ross, because the family was a little better off. But yeah, they were really young. Apparently. Later on, Bertrand recalled that they were married at age like, nine or ten. Apparently, that doesn't add up. And that was probably more like 13 or 14. So that's fine. Right. Still very young. But this is the 16th century, after all. So they got married, and when you get married back then you want to start having babies pretty quickly. And they had a hard time having babies because for the first eight years of their marriage, they did not consummate their marriage, and no one knows exactly why. There were rumors maybe that Martin wasn't or Martin just wasn't into it. They were 13, after all, so maybe they were normal children who kind of thought that wasn't the thing to do yet. I don't know. Or he was like, how do I work this? He just had it like David Byrne and once in a lifetime, right. Some people blamed it on a witch's curse. They eventually consulted with a wise woman who said, go to these series of masses at church because mass is always guaranteed to make you randy and eat a special cake that would sort of get him going downstairs. And apparently it worked crazy because they had a baby. They had a little son, like right afterward. It was a cake made of fireplace ashes, I saw. But they're in the early twenty s at this point, by the way. Yeah, like the appropriate age for that kind of thing. Right. It makes you wonder though, like, was it self imposed? And he was able to feel like this curse or whatever was lifted off of him from eating that cake. But regardless, it happened like almost immediately. Bertrand got pregnant and they had a son named Sensi, who was the same name of Martin's father. So Martin said, hey, this is really amazing. I've really turned a new corner in life. I'm really interested to see what life brings me now. And just got back to work now with the son and wife, right? Yeah. But here's the thing, and I think there's really no other way to describe Martine. Everything I read, basically it sounds like he was a real ahole, yes, that was the impression I had, too. He was not a nice guy, he was not a nice husband. I didn't see anything necessarily about overt abuse, but he just seemed like a real jerk sort of to his family and around town, and he was kind of looking to get out of town. And his father accused him of stealing grain from the family stores and then selling it for a profit, which was not cool. Even if it's your own family, it's probably more uncool that it's your own family. Never trust family, Chuck. Never trust family. That's on the shirt. But instead of saying like, wait a minute, I want to defend myself, he just took off. And he's like, sorry, wife and young son, but I don't really like you guys that much anyway, so I'm out of here. I see him as like early 20s Gen Xers, like, whatever, man, right? I can't deal with this at all. I'm out of here. And you get the impression that he was just looking for a reason to leave, and he did. He got it. He didn't defend himself, which, I mean, in 16th century France or Basque culture, that is something you would want to do if your Honor was being impuned. That was one of the few currencies you had. So you would want to defend yourself. So I think it says a lot about somebody at that time who didn't even bother defending himself. He just left. And he left his wife and child without providing for them in any way. Like, sure, they had his inheritance, his money, his share of whatever the family owned, but he didn't, like, set them up in any way before he left. He just put down his plow chair, put down his tile making tongs and just left. That's right. He ended up in Spain. He went back to Spain, settled in Burgos Burgos and became a servant for a noble family. And they noticed, like, hey, dude, you're pretty good fencer, you're good with the sword, right? You should get you Armied up. So he joined the Spanish army, who was at war with France at the time, and he fought for five years before and this is a very key detail, I think, before we go into our first break, that he was hitting the leg with a bullet and had his leg amputated. Yes. So we'll take a break, hang onto that, put a pin in it, and we'll be right back. So let's zero in on Bertrand for a little while, shall we? The wife, if you don't remember, is Bertrand yes. BERTRANDA Rolls, who became married to Martin Garrett at maybe age nine to 14, depending on who you ask. Yes. Seemed like a savvy young woman. Yes. Now, this is new. We got to say this. So, like, Natalie Zimon. Davis, you mentioned that film, the Return of Martin Garen, Gerard Depardieu that Summersby was partly based on. Right. Correct. She was the consultant on that, the historical consultant on that film. And she was so put off by the retelling of the story that she published her book two years afterward. And part of that book, part of her big contribution, she made tons of contributions to the historical record, turned up a lot of great documents and everything. But subjectively, her big contribution was completely altering the way people saw Bertrand up to this point. She was a loyal, chaste, devoted wife who would end up being duped, you could say, as we'll see very soon, and under Natalie Zimon. Davis's reading of her, she was a very shrewd woman who figured out how to navigate within the confines of a maledominated, middle aged French society. Yes. And one of the first things that we can bring up to sort of support this and I kind of like this narrative a lot, by the way, is the fact that she got married when she was, let's say, 13, just meet there in the middle. And Martine had problems having sex for eight years. And so it speculated from Davis at least that she was kind of like, hey, this isn't so bad. I don't want to be doing that anyway, especially with this kid who's a jerk, and I don't want to have a kid. I'm 13 years old. So by the time he's got four sisters, I really love them. His family seems to be doing okay. My family is doing okay. At the time, that was a big deal. And so the fact that she had to wait until she was in her early 20s, expect to lose her virginity to Martin, and then have this kid wasn't so bad after all. Yeah, because she could have asked for the marriage to be an old after three years passed without it being consummated by under French law at the time, I think French Catholic law, and she didn't. So, yeah, that definitely substantiates Zimon Davis claim that she was just kind of rolling with it. She was like, okay, I'm kind of happy with this. And she didn't try and get married when he left either. There were a lot of strict laws about remarrying. Like, if the husband disappears or something, you had to have proof of death with witnesses and all that stuff. And she was basically like, hey, I'm kind of a widow here. His Uncle Pierre is married to my mom now. They're taking really good care of me, got a lot of help with my baby, so I'm pretty cool to just chill here. Yeah. So in this reading, she's saying, natalie Zimon Davis is saying that she didn't have a choice, like, again, under French Catholic law at the time, not even when a husband has been absent 20 years or more, can a wife remarry unless she has proof of his death. And it's got to be, like, irrefutable proof that this person has died, her husband died. She didn't have the irrefutable proof, but she didn't go take lovers. She didn't ask to have an exception made for her. And so it painted her image among the townsfolk and among her family that she was a chase, devoted wife who was just going to wait for her lousy husband for as long as it took. And then also check on the converse side of that. That just goes to show you just how fully and selfishly martin abandoned her, knowing full well that she couldn't remarry because she wouldn't have any proof of his death. So he left her in limbo, like, even more. It wasn't even like, I'm leaving. Good luck with your life. You do what you want with it. It was, I'm leaving. You have to stick around and wait until I decide to come back, if ever. That's right. So things are going along like this. She's living her life again, has plenty of help with her baby, and then one day in town at a hostel, a man wanders in and says, hi, I'm Martine Gear, and I'm back. Everybody like, check it out. It's been a while. The inn keeper says, oh, my God, your wife, Bertrand, and your son. It's so exciting to be reunited. And he breaks down crying. And everyone, of course, in town comes running up to see who this person is, including his wife. And they all went, you look a little different, Martin. I think that's how he initially approached it. Well, because he did, apparently he got shorter, heavier. His nose had changed, his lips wasn't droopy. Let's read that. There's a description from later court records that would happen of what Martin Ger supposedly looked like. Can I read this, please? Martin Ger was taller and darker than this man who showed up. He was a man thin in body and legs, a little bent, carrying his head between his shoulders. The chin cleft like you, Louis, a little thrust forward, whose lower lip drooped a little, having small teeth, a large and flattened nose, an ulcer on his face and a scar on his right eyebrow. This person with short, thick set, strong of body, having a heavy leg, does not have a flat nose, nor is bent, nor has any of said scars. So an entirely different looking person showed up, and it's like, hey, everybody, remember me? Martin Gear. Right. And it's important to note here that no one in town knew that Martin had lost his leg in the war. Yeah. So that was obviously it would have been the biggest red flag. But this guy comes back and he doesn't look like him, but he knows all the stories. Yeah. He's saying, like, hey, remember when we did this? And he would hang out with the townspeople and he'd say, I remember that time we did that, and this great time we had over here doing this. And everyone's just like, oh, my gosh, he knows all the stories. It doesn't look like him. But you know what? This guy's kind of fun and awesome and nice. Yeah. And I don't know what happened to him in the war, but we'll take him. Yes. So eight years had passed, and he apparently physically changed drastically. But also, most notably, his personality had changed distinctly for the better. He was a charmer now. And like you said, he remembered all these stories. So everybody said, let's see where this goes, basically. Yeah. And there's another key move here we need to point out right away. He didn't just go back to the family farm, into the family house with everyone. He said, you know what? I have the pox. I'm not feeling so great, so let me stay here at the hospital for a little bit and recover. Which turned out to be a very sort of savvy key move. Yes. One of the other things that he did, too, that definitely convinced Bertrand and others who were there, he said, by the way, I'm going to stay here and recover until I'm done with this pox, but can you go fetch my white stockings, my white hose from this particular drawer and this particular chest where I left them eight years ago. And she went back and went to that particular chest and drawer and found his white socks were there just as she remembered him leaving them there eight years ago. So, like that and a bunch of other stuff that he seemed to remember that only Martin would know, really convinced everybody that, no, this is Martin. He's a little different, but we like him even more now and we're going to get along with him just fine. Right. Anne Bertrand also was like and the other thing is, when you left, you were not very interested in sex from me. Right. And you seem to be really into that now, and so I'll take that as well. And in fact, I will give birth to two daughters in return. Sadly, only one of them survived infancy. And her name was is it Bernard or Bernarda? Bernard. Okay. I didn't know that. Could be a little girl's name back then. I think when you add an E on the end, it girls it up. Okay. But you don't pronounce E. No, it's all just for looks. Okay. All right. So to catch up, he's back in town. Everyone likes the new and improved Martine Gear. He has another daughter and he's having sex with his wife. And everything's going great until who becomes his main foil, gets involved. And that would be his uncle Pierre. And remember, so Pierre Gar, he's another main character in this. He, by this time, after Martin left, married Bertrand's mother. So now he's Bertrand's uncle in law and father in law or stepfather. Uncle in law and stepfather. That's right. And at first, he welcomed this new, improved Martin back with open arms. He was credulous at first, and then he won him over with some memories, the new Martin did. And so Pierre said, okay, let's go with it. And everybody was kind of going along and getting along. And then I guess one day Martin said, hey, by the way, Pierre, you remember my inheritance, my part of the land and my part of the wealth that I left behind that you've been managing. I know you made a bunch of money off of it. I feel like that's my money. So can I have my money, Pierre? Can I, please? And Pierre didn't like that idea at all. And it's not clear whether he just didn't like that idea or whether he didn't like that idea because he didn't think this was Martin after all. And this guy was overstepping his bounds. I don't know. But one of the things that he did was assemble his sons to try to beat Martin to death on the road. And had it not been for Bertrand throwing herself on top of Martin's body, they probably would have succeeded in murdering him. Yeah, it's interesting. I fill in a little bit of the narrative blanks. Just as someone who's into movies and literature and stuff, it seems to me like Pierre was kind of like, hey, everyone seems to like this guy, so I'm not going to be the one to stand in the way. Who am I to rock the boat? He didn't want to rock the boat until this money thing came up and Martin actually took him to court. And that's when things really changed. And that's when Pierre started talking to anyone who would listen and saying, you know what? He's basket and he doesn't understand these Basque phrases. This dude was a great fencer. This guy's no fencer. He's not even into it at all. He doesn't look anything like his son. And I think this guy is a fraud. And it's interesting that the town and we'll get to the court case, but it seemed to be almost divided whether or not people said, no, we think it's him and it's all good. And people said, no, I think he is a fraud. And it just goes to show sort of the power of those stories because at the time in 16th century France, how else would you explain something like, hey, remember that time we went and pushed over that cow and I did a dance on him on his belly? Right. That's a powerful thing back then when you don't have photographs and any other kind of shared recollection that you can easily point to. So he fooled a lot of people. Yeah, he definitely did. I wonder how much he was playing on people's propensity to not want to admit a mistake or that they were wrong too. That plays into it, I'm sure. It's got to. But like you said, the town was divided and it was divided between Pierre and then this new Martin. And very crucially on the side of this new Martin was Bertrand. She cast her lot with him and said, no, this man is Martin Gear. Anyone who is mad enough to say otherwise, I will make him die. Which is a weird way to create a death threat, but it was a death threat nonetheless. But this was despite Bertrand's mother, who was Pierre's wife, coming to her and being like, look, you need to get with Pierre here. He's on the side of right. And she still said no. There were people who backed him up. Like the shoemaker. Right. Yeah, that was a little matter of the fact and this is in Summersby too, that he came back from the war with a different foot size. That's a big change. That's a very drastic change. It is. And technically he did come back with a different foot size, but in a radically different way. Well, yeah, because everything changed in 1559. He'd been back a few years at this point and a Spanish soldier wanders through town and heard about this story of Martin Guiller and said, hey, wait a minute, I knew that guy during the war, and he's only got one leg. And that's like Mike Brady throwing the briefcase in the courtroom. Wow. Just a hush falls over the crowd. Yes. And he said, no, this, in fact, is an imposter, an interloper, and I believe he is Arno duty and he is a Spanish man at ill repute. Yes. So Pierre got word out to nearby villages and confirmed this, that it probably was a guy named Arnold de Thiel who was from a town about 30 miles away called Sajas. S-A-J-A-S-I think I think probably you're right. That's about a day or two of travel from Ardagat. So it's far enough away, but close enough that you could confirm or deny whether somebody was someone from that town. Right? Yeah. This guy, he's a bit of a rough house where he drank a lot and he gambled and he bedded down with sex workers and had a big appetite. I mean, Gerard departure played this guy, for God's sake. So that kind of tells you all you need to know, right? All right, so this guy all of a sudden is seemingly found out, but the story is that he went off, joined the French army, this Arno guy, and the question is, did he meet Martine on the battlefield? What we ended up finding out much later is that a couple of old friends of Martine actually mistook him for Martine initially. And then we're like, you look just like our friend, this guy back in small town France who's actually got a pretty good doubt, not dowry, but pretty good prospects. Monetarily waiting for him back home and this pretty good looking wife. And all of a sudden, the wheels start turning in our nose, mind. Right. It's not clear whether those two ended up becoming accomplices or else if he was just able to kind of, like, work info out of them over time. But that does seem to be I think he later admitted that's where he got the idea. He's like, how much do I look like him? Right? Exactly. Spinning image, man. Oh, goodness. He also was, like, really clever in that he stayed behind at the hostel. He first appeared at the hostel rather than showing up in town. That was a big one. He stayed behind with the pox. I made scare quotes so he could gather more information just slowly but surely. He just seemed like the type who could get something out of you without you realizing it because you were just having a good time hanging out with them. Right. I wonder if he was like yeah, because remember that time we pushed over that cow? The guy was like, oh, you mean the horse. That time when we did this. He's like, oh, yeah, that was totally it. Totally. I was so drunk. I remember being a cow. And everybody starts laughing. Right? But you didn't drink much back then. Well, I drank on the side. You didn't know it was secret. Right. I was also on Zapils. That was German. Yeah. You're really all over Europe right now. And this is where Natalie Zimon Davis comes in. It's clear that this guy was really good at getting information from people without them realizing that he was extracting information, using that information with his very, very good memory to lull you into a sense of security or trust for him, that he was to overcome your instincts against trusting that he was who said he was? But that no amount of preparation and research in the 16th century setting could have helped him get away with this so thoroughly without the help of Bertrand. That's Nataliemond Davis, like, her thesis is like, there's no way that Bertrand was a Dupe, that she wasn't complicit, and that she probably it's tough to blame her because her life improved dramatically after this guy showed up. Yeah, I mean, if she would have caused a stink like Pierre did early on as the wife, it would have been a much different deal, I think, than her completely defending him. And Dave points out we're never going to know. Like, he's in the town going to the pub, and he's talking with people about the stories, but she's with him as wife full time, behind closed doors, and we'll never know what went on there. But in my mind, in the movie version, there's a scene at some point where she goes, hey, listen, I know you're not him, but it's okay because you're actually a nice guy and I can make this work. Yeah, I think that Jody Foster's famous line is, hey, bubs, let's cut the s misa, chica may typo. Now, I haven't seen that in so long. I never have. I'm just putting mine written together from previews I saw, like, 25 years ago, I think. Yes. I don't think it was a very good movie. Or maybe I'm misremembering or maybe I'm remembering. I think we have to watch it. Oh, boy, I want to watch this instead. So this whole idea that Bertrand is complicit, it's a new idea. It's a modern take. For centuries in the storytelling, she was duped like, that's how good and wiley this Arnold Duteill was at being an imposter. He duped the man's wife. That's how good he was. And when you hear that and then you hear Natalie Zimon. Davis take you're like, that's a pretty ridiculous idea. But that's how it was. And as we'll see, Bertrand was never persecuted or prosecuted for her role in it. She got out of it as well. Shall we take a break? Yeah, let's. All right, we'll take our last break and we'll talk about the first trial of Martin Ger right after this. All right? The first trial, I said of Martin Ger, but we're going to call it the first trial of Arno. He was put on trial in a town called R-I-E-U-X ru rue. He was put on trial specifically for stealing another man's identity, adultery, taking his property. And Dave points out, very aptly, that this is like, in the 16th century. How do you prove something like this? You could give a memory test, but we already know he has a great memory and kind of did his homework. You could get villagers up there to testify, which they certainly did, but they're biased. You could compare them physically, which they did, but it seems like that didn't matter much because some people knew, like, for sure you had different foot size. And also they didn't have the kind of photographs and handwriting comps and stuff like that. It was a lot easier to get away with something like this back then. Plus, also for just about everybody who said, oh, no, his nose is long and flat. Right. Others would say, no, it was short and pointy like this guy. Right, exactly. Plus, you've got no fingerprinting, no DNA test, not even like, standardized stuff like driver's licenses or passports. There weren't even, like, wagon licenses at the time. So there really wasn't any way but to hear as many people as possible and then just thoughtfully kind of sort through their testimony. And that first trial at Ru Martin Gar at a time, or I should say Arnold, at a time when a lot of people would have shrunk at the challenge, rose to the challenge, maybe more than anybody ever living would have. Like, this guy defended his honor as much as the real Martin Gear would have. Probably more, actually, as we'll see. As we saw. The other thing I wanted to bring up, too, is I would say so much of this was impacted solely on the fact that a lot of people like this guy. Yes. And they like the new Martin, and they're not going to go in there in 16th century France and cause a big stink. They're going to say, no, I think it's him. He knew this story and he's got that I remember that nose. Right. And what's the foot size anyway? Those feet can change sizes, right. What do we even know about that? Yeah, this is what this guy said. So he cross examined witnesses against them, and for that shoemaker in particular, he said, this man is a drinking companion of Pierre Gar. Let him show his records about the size of my feet. He also confronted a man who was his uncle from Sajas, who was Arno Dotille's uncle, who said, that's Arnodutil, he's cross examining me right now. He said, I've never seen this man before in my life, and if he's my uncle, why can't he produce other members of my family that say so? So what a confidence person does a con man is, like, so adamant in their beliefs? That's what they used to trick you. Yes. And again, it wasn't just him. Bertrand was saying this man is my husband. I would rather suffer a thousand cruel deaths than say otherwise. His sisters did too, right? Yes. That was a big one. So all four of Martin Garrett's sisters came and testified at this trial that, no, this is our brother. He's our brother. I don't know what else we can say. And yet, despite the testimony in favor of him, the judge in Ryu said, no, I think you're an imposter and I'm going to find you guilty. That's right. Pay do a public apology and a ceremony. Pay your wife 2000 francs. And this one other little tidbit, we're going to behead you and corner you. Right. And he went, oh, is there such a thing as appealing to a higher court? And they said, well, unfortunately, there is. And so now we will talk about the second trial. This was like, to the appellate court, this group of the finest legal minds in France. What were they called? Chuck holders the Criminal Chamber of the Parliament of to lose. Okay. So they were basically, like I said, the finest legal minds in France who were coming together to hear this story that was pretty much sweeping not just the nation, but like this part of Europe that there's this guy who's being called an impostor, is defending himself, and this whole town is split about whether he is who he says he is. And one of the judges in the case was Jean Decoros, who went on to actually write the first and earliest account of this case. He actually wrote two of them. He wrote a sequel that delved a little more into our known details life. But the people who came together to hear this case basically got an even better version of what had happened in Ryu. That's right. And another example here, early on in this trial of Bertrand being very savvy with her moves because she was basically like, hey, listen, I'm not going to say that this man is imposter. I think he is my husband. But if he's not, he sure fooled me. Right? Exactly. Not my fault. Yeah. This is another thing, too. So the judges really wanted this guy to be the real guy. Yeah. Decoros says that they put more weight to the affirmative testimony because oh, they wanted him to be Martin. Yeah. Okay. They wanted him to be that. Yeah. They wanted to not be an imposter. They put more weight into affirmative testimony because they felt that it was more positive than, say, like negative testimony, which was destructive, which makes sense in a certain way, legally. But more than that, the affirmative testimony also affirmed this marriage and this family in this household that was already intact and that didn't want to be split apart. It's not like Bertrand was saying, this man is not my husband. She was saying, he is my husband, please leave us alone. Yeah. And the judges wanted to support that. And our no detail, gave them heaping mountains full of stuff to go ahead and go along with this. And actually, he stood up to all this testimony, did it again. He survived all these memory tests. Bertrand hung in there. He got so good, Chuck, that he on the stand, said, I just want you to know I forgive you for having to testify against me. I know you don't want to, but I forgive you. I don't hold it against you, dear wife. That's how much I love you. And those judges were like, swoon. I wish I was Bear Tron. He won them over, Chuck, and they were about to rule in his favor that he was Martin Ger. And everybody just shut up about it from now on. Except there was a twist that happened. Yes. And this would be great for an ad break, but we've already done it. So we'll just say very simply, a man walks in with a wooden leg. In the movie version, I'm sure in the movie version it didn't happen quite like that, but the real Martin Gear, please, stood up, and all of a sudden, there he was. He's back the real deal. No one knows why he came back exactly. The speculation is that he heard about this story because it traveled, like he said, kind of throughout this region of Europe, and that he was like, Wait a minute, I'm a jerk, and I'm not going to let this stand. Right? So he showed up, like, almost the last minute that he could have. I'm sure if he showed up later, they would have reopened the case, but they hadn't yet ruled. But they were about to rule in our notes, favor, like, the gavel is up. Yes. This guy shows up and says, Wait, I'm the real Martin Gar, basically. And they treated him like he was potentially an imposter first, too. They took him into custody. They questioned him separately, and they questioned him, and they questioned our node on the same old memories. And both of them responded equally well. So the judges are like, oh, my God, what is going on here? They've never had a case like this before. But the thing that I think clenched everything is when he came to the court, when he was presented in court, his family all recognized and his sisters all said, oh, my God, we were wrong. This guy is our real brother. And then Bertrand said, she gulped very heavily, may be heard to say under her breath, well, I guess the jig is up, and threw herself at the feet of Martin Gear and said, I have been duped. I'm so sorry. I can't believe that this imposter got me. But I was fooled. Please forgive me. Yeah, I was desperate. I wanted my husband back, and this guy tricked me. And I was willing to overlook the differences because I wanted you back so bad, my dear Martin. And it's really interesting he said he was not. Well, two things. First of all, during all this, Arno was like, he kept up that con man thing and went on the attack against Martin. Like, you're the imposter in a big way, which really helped. But then Martin was basically, as far as pertrone goes, he said leave and this is a shortened quote, but leave aside these tiers. The wife ought to know her husband. No one is to blame but you. Yeah. So he wasn't having it. No, he was not having it. And the judges even said, well, hey, man, maybe have a little heart. Like, you're the one who left her eight years ago. Yeah, exactly. And Martin said, Silence. This is not a crime. And the judges were like, that's true. It's not a crime. So you just go ahead and keep being a jerk, but we just wanted to put one on your wife's behalf. But she got off. The judges did not rule against her. They determined that she had been duped and that the entire blame was squarely on the shoulders of our no, do tell who would now yes, be sentenced to death. Right. And not only was she let off, but they were very kind to the daughter that she had with Martin initially, because technically, as far as the law is concerned, that would make her a bastard or not Martine, but Arno. Right, right. I'm all confused. That would make her a bastard, which meant she couldn't get inheritance and stuff like that, but they said no. At the time, she thought it was her husband. So we're going to make an exception here. So they really did her a couple of favors, but when it came to our know, they really didn't know what to sentence because they had never done anything like this before. So they said, Well, I guess let's kind of go with what the other people were saying. Let's kill you, but we'll just hang you and burn your body. We won't quarter you and behead you. Right. I also saw that he was sentenced to be hanged while barefoot and bareheaded, and I cannot for life find what the problem was with that. I think it was just an insult. Maybe, but probably like his face. Yeah, I guess. But also see his ugly feet, too. Yeah, well, his feet that are smaller now. And maybe it's also more you need to look upon the people that you have betrayed. Right? Yeah, that's a good one. That's good. So his sentence was carried out in already got. And they actually built the gallows in front of Martin Garrett's house to give him, like a tower. Really great view of the whole thing or something like that. He could keep working until the last minute making tiles and then come out and be like, all right, let's go. Right. And our note was marched through town. And finally now he was like, okay, I'm just going to take full credit for this and admitted everything, didn't he? Yeah, but you guys like me, right? Right. But he did a good job. I got you guys so good. Yeah, pretty much. He commended the judges for their work. He walked through town with the noose around his neck. They made him carry his own noose around his neck, and I think at the end appealed to Martin, like, hey, be nice to your wife, dude. I fooled her. She's a woman of honor. Like, don't take this out on her. Which is pretty great, because he could have, out of spite or out of whatever, he could have, like, outed her or even not said anything. But from to the very end, he declared that she had no idea and had nothing to do with it. And if you go through Natalie Zimon Davis lens, that was a really loving gesture. And it reminds you of, like, these two were probably, like, deeply in love with one another. Yeah. And also, it's no small thing. Even, like, in the time of very high infant mortality rates Chuck, that they lost a child together, and that surely bonded them even further. So the loss that was created at the return of Martin Gareth marriage, this actual happy, imposter, and illegitimate marriage, was torn apart by the legitimate version. But how legitimate was it? You know what I'm saying? If it was that unhappy, the real man managed to Interlop into something even more real than what he had created with his own wife. Yeah, that's a very confusing statement, but I totally get it. And it also makes it really sad that our Node was executed. And I'm sure Bertrand had to watch and pretend like she was happy about it. Yeah. No one really knows what happened in the end to Bertrand and Martin, the real Martin. Not a lot of details, but they do know that there were three more sons. But I don't think that necessarily means they reconciled and were happy. This was the 16th century. He could have forced himself upon her by all. I know, I guess. But they did stay together, and I'm sure he could have gotten a divorce, even in Catholic French law at the time. The illegitimate daughter, Arnold, and Bertrand's daughter, she went to live with the very uncle that Arnold had said he had never seen him in his life on the stand. Oh, really? Yeah. That's who went and took care of her and Chuck. Our version of the movie ends, I think, with little Bernard growing up a little bit and saying, uncle, can you tell me about my dad and uncle? And Bernard started walking back to the house from the barn, and the uncle says, Kid, you wouldn't believe it if I tried. That's great, don't you think? Perfect ending. Okay. Yeah. So since Chuck said perfect ending, I think that means that it's time for listener mail. You know what? In lieu of listener mail. We do this a couple of times a year when we rarely ask for support and helping to spread the word. Even here in year 13, we still want to grow the Stuff You Should Know audience and make sure people are tuning in. So tell a friend or a neighbor or a family member about Stuff You Should Know, if you would. And review and rate us on itunes, because that always helps. Itunes Spotify wherever you find podcasts, wherever you find podcast, we always appreciate it. This is the show that grew very organically because of this kind of thing many years ago, and we don't ask for it much, but we continue to count on that for growth. Yes. So thank you to everybody who's ever rated or reviewed us, and thank you just for listening too. We appreciate you guys listening, even if you don't lift a finger. Amen. Well, since Chuck said amen, that's the end of this episode, which I think I've already done. I'm losing my mind. And if you want to get in touch with us, you can send us an email to stuffpodcast@iheartradio.com. Stuff you should know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more Podcasts My Heartratio, visit the iHeartRadio App app, Apple App, podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows."
404775ac-121b-11eb-ba6a-0792c2390183	Short Stuff: The Casket Racket	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/short-stuff-the-casket-racket	And you thought we were done with talking about funeral homes. Well guess again!	And you thought we were done with talking about funeral homes. Well guess again!	Wed, 05 Jan 2022 10:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2022, tm_mon=1, tm_mday=5, tm_hour=10, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=2, tm_yday=5, tm_isdst=0)	11135314	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh and there's Chuck. This is Short Stuff. This is another funeral edition. One the never Ending Death Suite, I guess is what it's part of. I know. And I just want funeral directors out there who listen to know that we don't not like you. Right. Just because this episode is going to be called the Casket Racket doesn't mean we don't like you. But when you look at the numbers of the price of caskets, the markup on caskets, it is a little hard to not think, there's got to be a better way. Yeah, a more fair, humane way that doesn't just completely rip off the consumer. Okay, so I think the average casket in the United States goes for about $2,500, which is a significant contributor to the overall cost of a funeral, which can be eight to ten grand on average. That's like a quarter or more of the total cost, just as in the casket alone. And apparently that price has increased dramatically. Chuck like 250% increase over the last 30 years. So you would think, like, okay, that means that the casket making guild has broken up and they're not passing along their knowledge any longer. The stuff that they use to make caskets have become so rare that we can hardly get our hands out anymore. What else could qualify caskets for 250% increase in price over the years? Which, by the way, is twice as much of the inflation rate as the next highest item has grown in price over the last 30 years. So what is it about caskets that has made them grow in price so much? Chuck well, I mean, things that contribute, certainly if you're just shopping for a casket and this isn't necessarily inflation, but if you're wondering how you spend six grand on a casket, it's a piece of it's not furniture, but it's made out of wood. If you want a wood when they're also metal ones, we'll get into both. But if you're looking at something made out of wood, obviously the materials is going to be a big deal. So if you want the mahogany or the hickory or the walnut casket, it's going to cost a lot more than, like, the pine box or the oak box. If you're looking at metal, the pricey ones are 20 gauge steel. And you can also get copper or bronze and stuff like that. I think the least pricey ones are the 20 gauge steel. That's their pine box version for metal ones. Oh, did I say most expensive? Yeah, I meant least expensive. Sorry about that. Yeah, I got you. Obviously, the copper and the bronze are going to be the priciest ones, but then there's craftsmanship with anything made by human hands. If it's got fancier stuff on it, it's going to cost a lot more. If the corners are all rounded instead of welded off, it's going to be a lot more. Sure. So all these things go into determining the price and of course, what's going on on the inside as well. All the fancy silks and almost said bunting. But like, that crepe interior is going to be less expensive than velvet. So inside and out, the materials matter, the craftsmanship matters, but and maybe we should well, no, let's go and say it before the break. Okay. What's really going on is there are two main casket manufacturers in the US, batesville and Matthews. They have not a monopoly, but about an 82% share of the distribution. It's awfully close. It's pretty close. And they don't sell the people, they sell only to funeral homes. So they mark it up by three or 400%, and then the funeral directors can then mark it up as well. So that's where the money's really going. Yes, through the markup, because they have almost a monopoly. So I say that we take that break you're talking about, maybe lie and repose for a couple of minutes, and we will come back and get active again. Sounds good. So, Chuck, one of the reasons why the two main manufacturers of caskets can mark their prices up is because they sell directly to funeral homes. And the reason that funeral directors can further mark those up to whatever they want, it's because most people don't shop around for not only a casket, but a funeral home. They probably went to a funeral at the funeral home they're using before. Maybe they've used that funeral home before and they're repeat customer. I would guess that unless you have a really bad experience with a funeral home, you're probably going to use the same one over and over again because you're in the depths of grief and you're not thinking about your bottom line or your pocketbook. You're just trying to get through this terrible time. And funeral directors know that, and they price their prices accordingly because they have a captive customer. That's right. There's probably one family member who's really wanting to shop around. Uncle Sal. Uncle Sal gets shut down usually by the other family members who talk about, this is not the time to cheap out. So he just loudly complains throughout the rest. He loudly complains. That's right. A lot of parole dies. A lot of harump. Yeah. Oh, here we go again. How much is this guestbook going to cost? But you're right, most people go to the same place and they know they got you there. By the way, quick aside, the funeral home, which I've talked about a lot across the street from me, they were shooting a movie there yesterday. Oh, really? What movie? I don't know, but they changed the funeral sign. So if you ever see a movie with a gold hearse and F and G Funeral Home. Okay, that's across the street from my house. You know, just based on probabilities, there's like a 40% to 50% chance it was a Marvel movie. Sure. Here in Atlanta. You're right. Yeah. Because it's a movie. Right? Exactly right. All right, so they got you in there. They know they can mark it up. But there are online casket retailers now who have had enough. They say, we want more than an 18% market share because we're going direct to customer. We are selling them cheaper. In some cases, you can save $700 to $1,500 on the casket alone, and some of them deliver overnight. The other ones have them to you in, like, a few days. And they're like, this is an outdated model that we're using where we need to move on from this to manufacturers and move into the modern age where you can buy this thing on Amazon or Costco. Right. Which is smart, and it makes sense. And if you give any kind of thought to this, or if you'll listen to your Uncle Sal and your Uncle Sal happens to be tech savvy and knows to go on to Amazon to order a casket, you can order one of these caskets and save hundreds, potentially thousands of dollars and get pretty much the same casket that you would get from the funeral director. And time was up until not that long ago that the funeral director would say, sorry, we don't deal in third party caskets. We're only able to supply our own caskets. Those are the only ones we use. And that was what they did. They blocked caskets that were purchased outside. And you had no choice but to buy your casket through the funeral home you were using until get this until the federal government stepped in and said. Funeral industry. You've gotten so bad and so predatory that we. The Federal Trade Commission. Are going to enact what's called the funeral rule. And we're going to set up a bunch of rules that govern how you conduct your business because you have shown that you can't be trusted to conduct your business fairly otherwise. And one of them is that you have to accept third party caskets. Yeah. And that's why it's called the casket racket. That's why this episode is titled that because it was a racket up until then. The only reason I'm going to say it's not a racket anymore is because of that funeral rule, where they do have to accept a third party casket. But they're still as of 2019, 82% of caskets are still purchased through those manufacturers, like that's still going on. I think much of that is because people just don't know that there is that funeral rule and that there are other options. Yeah. And the next time that somebody complains to you about big government, you tell them about the funeral rule and tell them to go think about that. You can get free shipping with some of these. Yeah, like I said, you can many times get them overnighted or there in a few days, and you can save a lot of money. And this sounds like we're on a soapbox. But it's a bad time when you're bearing a loved one and it's already expensive. So if we can impart a little wisdom and you can save a couple of grand, I think we're doing a service here. I agree wholeheartedly, and I think, Chuck, we should do an entire episode on the funeral rule. It's pretty much more expansive than just making funeral directors except third party caskets. There's a lot more to it. Yeah, I'm surprised we didn't cover that in any of our yes. And also we've done an entire episode on caskets, if I'm not mistaken. Remember, Ghana has this awesome tradition of making these super style and cool caskets. So if you have some time to kill right now, go online and do an image search of Ghana caskets and you'll be impressed. That's right. And we also did one on cremation and the latest numbers. I think we did this back then. But just to keep everyone updated, the 2021 numbers by the NFDA, the National Funeral Directors Association, say that the cremation rate now in America is projected to be 58%, and they're projecting that out in 2030 to drop down to 25% of burial. So 75% cremation by 2030? Yes. I don't know if that's going to have an effect on caskets because people who are cremated still often have, like, viewings and showings and check them out and all that stuff. You're still going to need a blanket for it. So I don't know that will affect things, but there you go. That's a great way to end. Yeah. Since everything just petered out yet again, that means the short stuff everybody is out. Stuff you shouldn't know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts my Heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows."
https://podcasts.howstuf…lamethrowers.mp3	How Flamethrowers Work	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/how-flamethrowers-work	Who first decided that it would be a great idea to shoot flame at other people from a distance? Josh and Chuck talk about the (very) early origins, history and technology of the flamethrower in this episode.	Who first decided that it would be a great idea to shoot flame at other people from a distance? Josh and Chuck talk about the (very) early origins, history and technology of the flamethrower in this episode.	Thu, 03 Jun 2010 19:19:24 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2010, tm_mon=6, tm_mday=3, tm_hour=19, tm_min=19, tm_sec=24, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=154, tm_isdst=0)	23249471	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know from housetopworkscom. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's charles W, Chuck Bryant. That makes this stuff you should know. Right, Chuck? Yeah, Terry. I love it when we get last second instructions. Yeah. And they don't make any sense. Save it for the show, guys. Right. Or show that picture on the podcast. The audio podcast. Oh, goodness. How are you, sir? I'm fine. It's by all right, Friday, but it's actually Thursday. But it's almost Memorial Day. Yeah. Are you coming in tomorrow at all? No, I'm not comfortable saying either way. Okay, well, it'll be a surprise. I don't want to get in trouble. Well, I'm not. I'm still scared of the man. I know you're not. But you're all like, hey, look at me. I'm 40. I make my own decisions. I'm not 40. Yeah. So, Chuck, you're George Carlin fan, right? Yeah, the late George Carlin. Just the late. All right. You always had the bummer, don't you? The late George Carlin. Couldn't be like George Carlin. He's the greatest stand up comedian ever when he was alive. The worm food George Carlin, the dearly departed. Yes. I like him. Why? I have an obscure stand up bit that I'll bet you haven't heard of. That is apropos of our topic today. Let's hear it. So George Carlin had a bit about flamethrowers. I never heard that one. He said that the very presence of flamethrowers and I'm paraphrasing sure the very presence of flamethrowers means that at some point, sometime, someone said to himself, you know, there's a bunch of people over there that I'd like to set on fire, but they're too far away for me to get the job done. I wish there was something that I could use to throw flames on them. And as a result, we now have the flamethrower. Yeah. Which is kind of crazy when you think about it that way. It is pretty interesting. It is. And when you start to really look into flamethrowers, you realize just how horrific the acts that humans inflict on other humans can be. Yeah. It's pretty awful stuff, actually. Yeah. Actually, all kinds of modern weaponry. I know. My brother in law is in the Marines. He told me about this. I think it's called a flashette. Some sort of bomb that explodes above people and sends thousands of razor blades shooting out. I think it's mainly used for clearing, like, jungle, but I can't remember jungle of enemy combatants. Exactly. So I'm sick. I thought that up. Yeah. We're like one step away from the alien weapons in District Nine, where people just blow up in an almost cartoonish fashion. Right. Yeah. It's coming 2015. Sure. The atomizer or something they'll call it. Yeah. What's odd is that first person that George Carlin envisions actually lived a lot longer ago than you would think. I was shocked. Century BC. Man. Right. Well, it was a flamethrower. It was a very crude vulgar, if you will, flamethrower. It was a long tube, sort of like a blow gun. And they filled it with solid stuff like hot coal and sulfur. Yeah. Ideally, you don't suck in. That would be bad. Now, I was thinking that, too, like you have to suck in the breath before you put the tube to your mouth or else you're in big trouble. Although that's the case with any blow gun, right, sure. Did you ever make those when you're a kid? No, I never did. I was too busy burning stuff. You could have done both, apparently. True. Yeah. They would shoot, I guess, hot coal or sulfur out at their enemy combatant. Right. Instead of a flame, per say. Yes. Which I guess, ultimately it would bounce off of their arm and they'd be like, it burns. Right. And then they just tussle and leg wrestle and shake hands afterwards and go eat a boar. That's how that went. Live in century BC. With Josh. But leave it to the Greeks, who were one of the brainiest, most thieving cultures of all time. They probably got this idea from the Chemites, frankly. But there's this stuff called Greek fire. Right. And actually, I can't say that the Greeks came up with it. It's called Greek fire. But the Byzantines, what we know is Turks were most notorious for using this stuff. Yeah. And they think they're not sure because it was a long time ago. It was a mixture of liquid petrol and sulfur and stuff like quick lime petrol, british for gas. And they would pump it out, actually from a reservoir through little narrow tubes and like anything that goes from a big reservoir type system to a small thin one, it would create pressure to shoot it out. Right. And then some unlucky guy would be the lighter at the end of it. And that would be like a real flamethrower, like dozens of feet. Yeah. As we're going to learn, anybody whose job it was to deal with any aspect of flame throwing was the unlucky guy. Yeah. I would say it's one of the more dangerous weapons you can use, but it was very effective. Number one, since it's oil based, this Greek fire could be used in naval battles because it would still burn even when it contacted the water. Sure. And so the Byzantines mounted it on their ships, these flamethrowers on their ships and on the city walls around Constantinople and basically just repelled people out of fear as much as burning them alive. Yeah. Their enemies were really freaked out, I imagine, when they first saw, like, fire shooting at them. Yes. Freaked out and intrigued. Especially in the case of the Chinese. What the Byzantines had was a single action pump. You just did the foot pump, you literally did the bellows. Do you see that, Jerry? I'm following your command. The business teams had a single action Bellow's pump to where when you press down on the downstroke it would push the liquid out, right? Yes. You get like, a burst of fire and that's it. Right. Because on the upstroke, nothing was happening except the bells are filling back up with air to press down to compress. Right. The Chinese said, hey, that's really funny because we have a double action bellows to where you are compressing air on the upstroke and the downstroke. So instead of your stupid little short bursts of Greek fire we have one long burst that just cuts you in half lead to the Chinese. Yeah. All better. The wheelbarrow, the kite, the hang glider, the flamethrower, you name it. Gunpowder. And actually, gunpowder equaled the demise of flamethrowers for about a thousand years. Right. Yeah. As soon as gunpowder came along, they were like we're just chumps with fire when we can actually shoot a gun. That's the way of the future. Right. And it was. But so it's the flamethrower, as it turns out. Yeah. Because it laid dormant for about 1000 years. And then in World War One, actually, right before World War I, the Germans a very warlike state at the time where they said, you know, what exactly can we add or arsenal that is just totally scary and wildly destructive. Yes. Let's look back through the annals of historic weaponry and find something. And they look through and they said the flamethrower. Yeah. Richard Fielder is an engineer in 19 One. They credit him with inventing it. But he clearly was using old technology as the initial idea, at least. Right. It's a clever design, though, isn't it? Yeah. Because from this original design there have been some Polishing moments for the flamethrower over the years. But from that modern era, the design has remained relatively the same. Right. It's like a three tank design. Yeah. The flamin Burfer, is that what it's called? Yeah. Nice. That's what the Germans call the leader husband. Yeah. Let's go ahead and explain how it works with the tanks. All right. And this is the handheld flamethrower which is the one that's I guess was most readily used in combat. Yeah. And it's the one you see, like, a guy's wearing these tanks on his back and he's got the rifle and just right. Yeah. So you got two outer tanks and those are filled with the flammable fuel, oil based petrol, if you will, like Greek fire. Sure. And then there's a center, smaller tank which holds a compressed gas like butane. And it would feed the gas through a pressure regulator connected to the tubes. Right. And you can take it from here. Well, this is why I think it's very clever. The butane served a dual purpose one. It was compressed, so when you open the valve it would push the liquid fuel out of the tanks into the tube and ultimately in the reservoir. And the gun pressure regulator. Right. That's what they would switch on. There is another tube that came directly out of the third tank that held the compressed gas like butane. Yes. And this tube went directly to the ignition valve. Right, right. So it served as the igniter later on. Right. Because it was the butane that was actually burning. When you open the ignition valve, the butane flows to the end, mixes with air, the end of the rifle. Right, sure. And then there's two triggers. There's the fuel release trigger. Right, yes. And then there's the ignition trigger. And the ignition trigger is basically you're operating a battery that operates a spark plug since the current generates heat ignites the butane. Now you have that little blue flame on the end. Yeah. That's what you see in movies, like if you see them around. Yeah, exactly. You see the little like three inch flame coming out in the end. Right. That's actually butane burning. Right. The fuel hasn't been released. The hell fire has not been opened yet or released yet. That's when you squeeze what's? The fuel release trigger? Yes. And then well, yeah, that pulls back a little valve plug because you obviously want it plugged or else you're going to have a big mess on your hands. You'll be on fire very quickly. So when you pull the fuel release trigger, it pulls the little valve plug back and then all the fuel supply suddenly rushes through to the tip of the gun where the flame is and boom, there you go. Yeah. And in the Army Chemical Warfare Service, I think is what it's called, they came up with a little something called napalm, which is ultimately a gasoline, or petrol in the case of Chuck and our British friends, a gasoline thickening agent. Right. So with a slightly thickened gas, you have a longer range. It carries further because it has more mass or girth or whatever. There's less friction from the ground coming up. Right, sure. And it also can be concentrated more easily. Right. So basically that was one of those real big Polishing moments. It went from just gas which sprays, to thick gas, which sticks and burns. It evaporates much less quickly, so it'll burn forever. And it's really difficult to put out. And if you get covered in it, you're entirely in trouble. Yes. You're out of luck. And they would mount these on, well, PT boats, for one. Have you ever seen the videos of those things? Like cruising down the river, shooting napalm into the forest? Well, there's a picture of it in the article. I've never seen video of it. It's pretty wicked. Yeah. And they call them zip flamethrowers. Right. Oh, really? Because the ignition system failed so frequently. It's just like on a gas grill. Would they have to light it with a zip code? With the zip code? You're kidding. No. And that's the other unlucky dude, I guess, yeah. He'd be like, don't get too close to it with his hand. Right. And so flamethrowers, it wasn't just some guy where it would be like, a bunch of infantry guys, and then some guy on the end happened to grab the flamethrower that morning when they went out. And it's just they were part of a tactical strategy. What would happen was riflemen would lay down cover fire. Let's say you come to the mouth of a cave, and there's a bunch of enemy combatants in there, and they're shooting you, and they have snipers, and you're in big trouble. All your rifleman lay down fire on this case so those guys can't move cover fire. Right. To allow your flamethrower man to get close. He was highly susceptible at this point because of what he's wearing on his back. Yes. All it takes is one good shot to one of those tanks, and that guy's gone. Right. Or a bad shot. Just a shot. Sure. Yeah. If you come in contact with it with a bullet, the flamethrower guy gets close, basically cooks everybody, burns everyone to death in that case. Right. That's his job. Right. And then after that, the munitions guys come in and explode the cave so it can never be used again. And that's Cyanora for cave dwellers. Yeah. Speaking of a quick death, I always heard when I was a kid that if you were a flamethrower in war, your average lifespan is, like, 30 seconds in combat. Is that right? Well, I always heard that, and I'd scour the Internet, and I could not find anything to verify that, but that's what I always heard. I thought that was an interesting tidbit. I did read that most people who were flamethrower operators didn't survive. I would imagine it's a pretty dangerous thing to be toting around. Yeah. And they also had assistance because the assistance would open and close the valves in the pack form. That was the whole job. It's always a two man team, so both of them would usually not make it. If I was the assistant, I would turn on his little valve and then run for cover and then run up and turn it off again. And I probably pretty unpopular with the flamethrower guy. Probably the flamethrower guy was well liked, because if you can take out an entire gun nest of people, then everybody's going to applaud you and clap. Sure. Probably not get too close, though, because you're going to die eventually. Yes. I'd rather be a sniper. I think I play Call of Duty. I got a PS Three now. Did I tell you that? No, Chuck. It was given to me by my step. No. Father in law. You did tell me. My stepfather in law. Okay. And so I got just a couple of games. I'm not, like, a huge gamer at all. Like, I think a Nintendo the first Nintendo is the last thing I actually owned, but I play Call of Duty now. I like shooter games, too. That's pretty fun. But you choose to be a sniper on that? Well, no, there are just certain levels where you can be a sniper. Like, you'll pick up a sniper gun if you want. Got you. And I always usually kind of just hang back and pick guys off. Yeah, especially guys with flamethrowers. Here we go again. To liberal peacenecks like us. When it comes to this war stuff, we just get all giddy. Well, this one for some reason. I was reading a passage about a flamethrower operator in World War II who received the Medal of Honor for invading a Japanese, I think they're called pillbox. It was a little gun nest, burning them all and burning them all alive. And the guy wrote that there were some muffled screams and then silence. Wow. It's like being burned alive is pretty much everybody's worst death, I would think. So. It's up there. Well, we had worse way to die. That's right. Up there. And I think if I remember correctly, burning to death is consistently the number one on informal polls. Right. I imagine it's pretty painful. And it happened a lot in World War One Two. Vietnam, I imagine. Korea. This is a horrible weapon. Absolutely. But you can find civilian applications for it, can't you? Yeah. Well, before we move on to that, we also need to say that they were on tanks as well. So it wasn't just boats. They used them on tanks. And the design was basically the same. You just had a lot more fuel and you had like piston rotary pumps to get a lot more length on your shot. Earth and girth. Yeah. The backpack mounted one had a range of about 50 yards. Right. 46 meters. That's a long way, though. Yeah. Let's have a football field. You don't have to get that close. Sure. Yeah. I wonder if he's the first enemy that was like he's got a flamethrower, but we're way too far away. They were within like 45 exactly. Yeah. Civilian applications. Forced firefighters. Forced firefighters? Is that how you say it? I don't know. They actually use these when they do, like the prescribed burning. Like sometimes they'll burn well, not just the firefighters. They do prescribe burns anyway. Sure. And then sometimes the firefighters do that. They'll burn a section to cut it off right there. And that's what they do with flamethrowers. Yeah. Which actually kind of made me want to go get a job with the Forestry service. She said burn things on purpose. Well, with the flamethrower. Yeah. Did you hear about this car thing in South Africa? Theft deterrent system that burned you? No. Yeah, I don't think it's still around. This is like twelve years ago, and a South African man invented what's called the blaster, and basically it would shoot a man high fireball is what they called it. What at you if you tried to break in to the car for a mere 3900 rand, which was about $650. And this is 1990. $8. Like $650. Okay. And it would squirt liquefied gas from a bottle in the trunk through two nozzles located on the front door. And the rub is you couldn't turn one on and turn one off. So if a guy was breaking in to the driver's side door, it would still shoot fire out of the passenger side to whomever might be walking by unluckily on that side. Yeah. That's an invention that wasn't fully thought through. I would think so. But apparently he sold a bunch of them at the time, and he said it's non lethal, but it would definitely blind a person, is what he said. And keep them from stealing your car. Yeah, because they can't see cars any longer. Terrible. Yeah. Way to go. South Africa. Lastly, Chuck, fire breathers, they're a form of they follow the basic principles of flame throwing by drinking kerosene. There you go. If you want to learn about fire breathers, we have an article on them if you want to learn more about flamethrowers. And before you send us a listener mail, we are aware of flamethrower exhaust systems. We've both seen Greece before. Yeah, you can type any word you want to into the handy search bar. Howstep works.com it'll yield something interesting, I guarantee you that. So, Chuck, listener man? Not quite. Oh, okay. Well, we got to do a quick plugs. We're going to do a little quicker this time, though, because we take, like, ten minutes to do our New York plugs and everything. New York. We're going to be at the Knitting Factory in Brooklyn on June 7 from 530 to 730. We're having a happy hour for stuff you should know. Fans, come with your elbows prepared to be rubbed. Stay Wednesday, June 9, for a trivia night to be determined. Not TBD, my friend. We have a location at a time. It is at the Bellhouse in Brooklyn, New York, and show up at about 630. And trivia will start at seven. And this one is 18 and older. 18 to get in, 21 to drink. And if you're showing up alone, that's fine, too. Just join up with some people when you're there and form a team and make some new friends. Come to one or both. Yes. And then lastly, Coed and Kiva. Man. Yeah. Coed Cooperative for Education. Who he went to Guatemala with? If you like their bag, which is a pretty cool bag, you can donate a measly $5 with your little cell phone there. Text the word stuff. Stuff. And data rates may apply, and it's going to be added. The five dollar donations can be added to your bill. Right. When you text Stuff, you'll get a reply text saying, Are you sure? And you just text back, yes. And there you go. $5 to help out Guatemalan kids learn to read. And kiva. Kiva. Kiva. We haven't shown much love to our Kiva team lately, but we should, because, as everyone knows, we hit the $100,000 mark, right? Like nothing in March, I believe March 19. And since then, our moderators on our Kiva team, glenn and Sonya, threw down the gauntlet pretty much immediately and said, let's get to a quarter of a million dollars. Yeah, man, that sounds awesome. We are on track right now by Glenn and Sonya's estimate to hit the $200,000 mark around August 26. Well, actually, we want to hit a quarter of a million dollars around August 26. Is that the deal? Yeah. Okay. So we need to step it up a little bit. If you want to join the stuff you should know Kiva.org team, you can go to www. Dot. Kiva. Orgteamtuffyshonow and sign up and get a warm feeling in your heart when you donate. And remember, this is microlending, so that money actually comes back to you. It's repaid. Yeah. And if you have a coal heart, you can actually even pull your money back out and get it back if you want. Yes. But it's more fun to reload it. Totally. It really is. All right, so there you have it. All right, so listener mail, my friend. I'm going to call this I love this dude, and his name is Guy. And not as in, hey, guy. His real name is Guy. I got you. Guy from San Francisco says, guys, just listen to the Art Theft podcast. And by the way, we do know about the Paris heist that just went down. Yeah, pretty cool. Very intriguing. For future monetary incentive, neither here nor there, however, I have a little bit of a little habit that I thought I might like to share. That loosely. Pertains, I have never stolen art knowingly. However, I do frequently, and I travel frequently, and I'm subjected to much distasteful art. Guilty of being a budget traveler. So there's the rub. But to amuse myself, I like to take the horrible art off the wall, take it out of the glass and frame and add the ever so slightest detail. This guy's wonderful. He does this in adults. A chicken in the corner by the barn. A seagull flying over the crest of a wave. A beer bottle and fishing pole by the babbling brook. I do it in every hotel, motel, hotel, hostel, bungalow, you name it. I will stay there, and I will change the art. They have art and hostels now? Yes. Probably not. It makes me chuckle to think that maybe one day someone will be staring in an awful hotel painting and look closely and notice one of the gallant cowboys has a ten of skull by his left boot heel. So if you stay in cheap hotels, keep your eyes out, people. You may have stayed where a guy from San Francisco has stayed. Just don't turn on the black light. That's all I have to say. That's awesome. That is awesome, man. I love to hear people doing cool stuff. Vandalism. Yeah, but it's vandalism with, like, an eye towards coolness. It's fundalism, right? Well, if you're a starving artist who shows your work at the Airport Hilton conference room, we want to hear from you. Just send us an email to stuffpodcast@howstuffworks.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit HowStuffWorks.com. Want morehousedofworks? Check out our blog on the Houseofworks.com Homepage, brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you?"
d6533ff2-3b0d-11eb-aa42-bf27cfa08431	Why is the Equal Rights Amendment still not ratified?	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/why-is-the-equal-rights-amendment-still-not-ratifi	The United States is one of only 28 countries in the world that doesn’t have equal protection for women under the law enshrined in its constitution. There was a moment in the 70s where it came very close, but then the conservative movement was born.	The United States is one of only 28 countries in the world that doesn’t have equal protection for women under the law enshrined in its constitution. There was a moment in the 70s where it came very close, but then the conservative movement was born.	Thu, 04 Mar 2021 14:36:42 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2021, tm_mon=3, tm_mday=4, tm_hour=14, tm_min=36, tm_sec=42, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=63, tm_isdst=0)	47329802	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Hey, everybody. If you want a great website, you want to do it yourself. With no must, no fuss, turn to Squarespace. They have everything to sell. Anything. They have the tools that you need to get your business off the ground, including ecommerce templates, inventory management, simple checkout process, process, and secure payments. And if you're into analytics, hold on to your hats, because Squarespace has everything that you need. Just head to squarespace. Comsysk and you can get a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use offer code s YSK to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. You know you're the best pet mom. When you growl back during playtime, give epic belly rubs and feed them halo holistic made with responsibly sourced ingredients, plus probiotics. For digestive health. Find us at chewy. Amazonandhalopetscom. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. Hi, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark and there's Charles, Debbie, Chuck, Brian over there, and Jerry's over there. The three Amigos, equal in every single way, shape and form. And that makes this, of course, Stuff You Should Know, which is basically its own sovereign nation of equality. Yeah. Oh, yeah, man. Come on. I thought Jerry had more power than we did. No, not a drop more. Nor drop less. Mary drop less. Charles I love it. Yes, I do, too. It's a nice place to be. It's a nice state to live in, mentally and physically. Agreed. I think you're at the beginning. We're going to do a rare we're not going to read a listener mail, but a rare front loaded listener mail alert that we got. First of all, a couple of years ago, a woman named Darren Bailey suggested the topic of the Equal Rights Amendment and at the time pointed out the difference between the word suffragette and suffragist. I clearly did not read that email close enough, because it took an email last week after one of us said suffragette in a recent episode, and a woman named Mary Malinoskis emailed and said, hey, by the way, look it up. I mean, she wasn't mean. She was very nice. That sounded like I was being not too nice. Yeah, she was very nice about it. She said, look it up. Suffragette is sort of a disparaging term rather than suffragette. And it was tagged by reporters in the early nineteen hundred s, I think, in Britain to mock people fighting for the women's right to vote, and I didn't know that until then, so I'm glad to know. So thank you, Mary. Once you hear that, it makes total sense. Well, of course. I don't know. I never knew that. Never thought about it. I didn't either. This is how people learn stuff. I just assumed you were making a Bowie reference in the episode. I thought it was you that said it. I'm pretty sure it was you. All right, well, either way, now we know let's go with you. Okay. We probably both did. Or more to the point, it probably was me. But either way, I think hats off to you, buddy, for coming up with that one. Well, I'll not say it again. You what? Oh, you won't say it anymore? No, of course not. Okay. I thought you said well, and I'll say it again, I think that's the opposite of what you were just saying. No, I won't. So we're talking today about the Equal Rights Amendment, which it represents a really discouragingly, long swath of American history. But if you look at the whole thing just from a historian's eye or even an anthropologist, I it's really interesting, the history of this. The Equal Rights Amendment, if you kind of look at it much more subjectively and empathically empathetically, it's a lot harder to swallow, but it's still interesting nonetheless. Yeah. So the Equal Rights Amendment is a constitutional amendment, a proposed constitutional amendment that would give women equal protection under the law to men that you could not discriminate. You couldn't make a law that discriminated on the basis of sex. And I'll bet there's a lot of people out there, Chuck, that say, well, that's already in the Constitution, isn't it? Because there was a poll that the AP conducted in 2020. They found that about 72% of the people they contacted thought that there was already equal protection for women in the Constitution. That's just not the case. But that same poll found 75% of those respondents were in favor of enshrining that protection in the Constitution. So it's kind of weird that it's not in there if people think it's already in there, and then when they find out it's not, they're in favor of it overwhelmingly. Yeah. We just happen to live in a country where 90% of the American public could be in favor of certain legislation, and it could very possibly fall on deaf ears when it comes to our politicians. Yeah. Because bipartisan support has been defined in recent times as what the houses of Congress agree to, not necessarily what the public agrees to, which is a different form of bipartisanship. And to me, if you ask me, the more important one, if the public generally agrees on something, go with that. It seems like since they're elected representatives in Congress, they should kind of go with that. Josh yes. I can't wait. There's going to be a lot of big changes around here, everybody. Yes. Should we kind of go back to the beginnings? Yes, we should, because I associate the Era with the live movement, as we'll see, but it goes back a lot further than that. Yeah, it does. And it's crazy to think that since the early 1920s, they've been trying to get this enshrined in the Constitution, and it still isn't in the year 2021. But that is the case. The first versions of the Equal Rights Amendment were written up in the early 20s by a suffragist named Alice Paul. Some other women, notably one Crystal Eastman, also helped out a lot, and they also helped get the 19th amendment passed, which gave women the right to vote in 1920. And they got together and said, I think the next step, obviously, should be just to go ahead and put this in the Constitution, that women have equal rights like men in all facets of life. It's worth pointing out here that Paul was a Quaker and a leader of the national women's Party for, like, 50 years or something. And the reason I mentioned she was a Quaker, because she actually named the amendment the Lucretia MOT amendment after another Quaker woman from the 19th century who was also a suffragist as well as an abolitionist. Yeah, if you peel back the layer of early 20th century or 19th century progressive, there's about 100% chance they were a Quaker. Did all sorts of good stuff during it's. Pretty interesting. Yeah, it really is. We should do one on the Quakers for sure. Yeah. I have a friend who's a Quaker, and she talks about Quaker meetings and Quaker weddings and stuff, and it all just seems so chill and peaceful. Very appealing, right? Sure. But so Lucretia Mott apparently was among what's considered the beginning of the first wave of feminism, which was not only do women need the right to vote, and this is like the 1830s, 1840s, I think, is when she was really beginning to be active. Not only should women have the right to vote, but these people were also very frequently also abolitionists. Right. So when congress started passing laws that protected the rights, that enshrined the rights of African Americans into the Constitution, into the law of the land, saying you cannot discriminate against people because they are African American or based on their race, women said, well, hey, just add sex in there. Add sex. Let's put that into the 14th Amendment. And that didn't make it it didn't make it into any of the amendments. And that was I don't think it caused a rift or anything like that, but I think it was extremely disappointing to the suffragist who had also worked for abolition as well, that the two things couldn't go hand in hand. So African Americans started to gain civil rights decades before women did. Women gained the right to vote, and women just kind of had to carry on. The suffragist movement continued on even after the abolitionist movement was successful. Yes. And then Alice Paul said, well, here's what we'll do. We'll reword this amendment that we've written. So it sounds more constitutional, I guess, and so it sounds a little more like the 14th amendment. And the new version basically said, equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or bridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex. And once again, this was proposed for about 30 years in most sessions, I think every session of Congress, every single one, and didn't get a lot of support. And it's not to say that all men in politics were against it, but it certainly was not their legislative priority, clearly. And if you have a run from 1922 to 1970 with only ten women serving in the Senate, never more than two at a time, then the writing is on the wall that the Era is just not going to be a top priority. I know, but that's sad writing, you know what I mean? Like, the fact that there weren't women in Congress certainly doesn't let men off the hook. Like, they can't possibly take up legislation that guarantees the equal rights to women because we're men. You know, that's very bothersome, but there's something else in there, Chuck. So from 1923, when Alice Paul first introduced that, all the way through to it was taken up in every session of Congress, and it failed. And one of the things that stuck out to me was that there was a guy who oversaw the House, I think the House Judiciary Committee, and he was a Democrat from New York, and he put the kibosh on it. A manual seller. Yeah. So he put the kibosh on it. He would not let it get to a vote. And I was like, Why? This guy was a Democrat in New York. What was his problem? And it turns out that the opposition to the Era, which is now very clearly liberals are for it, progressives are for it, conservatives are typically against it. It used to be flip flopped where the liberals, especially New Deal liberals like Eleanor Roosevelt, were against the Equal Rights Amendment, and conservatives like Eisenhower conservatives were typically in favor of it. Isn't that bizarre? Yeah, it is. I mean, Roosevelt, she had her reasons. She wasn't just like, oh, I don't think women should have rights. I think she said she thought it would undermine workplace protections. She was a part of Kennedy's commission. She chaired the commission, the President's Commission on the Status of Women, which I think the result was released posthumously that said the RA wasn't necessary. And she kind of came around a little bit. She never gave a full throated endorsement, but she kind of stopped talking out against it. I think at a certain point, she used to debate Alice Paul publicly. They would have back and forth debates over whether the Era was needed and how helpful it was going to be. I know that Eleanor Roosevelt is frequently criticized as not outright feminist enough in a lot of ways, but she also clearly seems to have been a feminist in her own way. For sure. Yeah. And we should point out, too, that Emmanuel Seller, in 1972, in a very big upset, lost to a woman, an attorney named Elizabeth Holtzman, largely due to his opposition to the Era. Yeah. Okay. Finally, by the early 70s, you're getting more and more women who are starting to show up in Congress, like Bella Asbug and Shirley Chisholm. And they basically said, this is our priority. We're going to get this equal rights amendment finally passed through Congress. And I don't know if it just happened to be like an era of kind of bipartisan sentiment or what the deal was, but everybody finally came together and that thing got passed. Like, if a piece of legislation has ever gotten passed, it was this one in a bipartisan manner. Yeah. And you know what? We'll get to how that passed. But a really big reason is because it started becoming a big deal in the media with this second wave, like you mentioned, of the Women's Lib movement, and in no small part by a woman named Betty Ferdan, who wrote a book called The Feminine Mystique that in 1964 sold a million copies. And she probably gets at least a short stuff all on her own. She was really interesting. The reason she wrote this book is because she did a survey for a college reunion for her former classmates. Learned that many of her former female classmates were not super happy about being homemakers and not being able to work. And sent her down a research rabbit hole on this kind of became her passion project because she wanted to write a magazine article. Like a really in depth one. No one wanted it. So she ended up publishing it as a book called The Feminine Mystique, which kind of rocked the world of America in the early to mid 60s. Yeah, because in this book, she's basically saying this whole thing, we're all going along with this idea that the highest ideal a woman can aspire to is to be the best wife and mother she possibly can be. And that that's her identity. It's someone's wife as someone's mother that she doesn't have her own identity that's independent of all of that. That is a crushing way to live for a lot of women. Not all women, as we'll see, but a lot of women. And she spoke up for a lot of them. And I believe that it was already kind of out there in pieces. Like, people were talking about this, but Betty Friedan, like, put it all together and put it on the map and got everyone talking from what I've ever seen, like, almost single handedly started the second wave of feminism. Yeah. And she put a pin in this little miniseries. She was played by Tracy Oleman in a miniseries last year called Mrs. America that we're going to get to a little more in depth in a second. Yeah. So Betty Friedan publishes The Feminine Mystique, like you said, just totally rocked everybody's world, for better or worse, depending on your ideas about what The Feminine Mystique was about and saying but yeah, like you're saying that really laid the groundwork to this bipartisan passing in Congress of the Equal Rights Amendment in 1972. I believe, right? Yeah. So it passes in a big way. I think you said 93%. 93.4 in the House, 91.3 in the Senate, which I can't wrap my head around that. How did one third of a senator, is it that senator cross section of New Hampshire, Oklahoma and Michigan. Here's the deal, though. If you want something enshrined in the Constitution, that's a big deal in this country. They don't do it, Willynilly, nor should they. But you need not only once it passes that it's not automatic. Then the state legislatures have to ratify it by a two thirds margin, which means at least 38 states have to ratify it. And the Era had a stipulation that said, if that isn't done in seven years, then you've got to go back to the drawing board. And that was not in the actual Era, that was not in the constitutional amendment that was passed, and that's going to become very important later. But it was in the legislation where the Era, the amendment was sent to the states for ratification. It said, do this in seven years. Right. Okay. That's just like that little slight distinction makes a big difference down the road. Oh, yeah. People pushing for the Era certainly would not have wanted an expiration date. No. And as far as I could tell, they haven't ever attached an expiration date to an amendment to be ratified before. And it was also an arbitrary period of time, too. So just chew on that. Put that watered up piece of gum in the back of your cheek and save it for later. I wonder in the debate if they're like, how many years? Seven. Seven sounds good. Pour the Scotch. So within one year, 30 of the 38 states needed ratified it, which was super fast. And everyone was like proponents were like, this is great, man. It looks like this thing is going to sail right into the Constitution. And then a woman popped up named Phyllis Schlafly. And we're going to take a break here and we'll talk about Phyllis right after this incredible story of what seems to be a large military transport plane that's crashed in a remote region south of Ankara, Turkey. Witnesses authorities are on the hunt for a suspect after two men went to blows atop a fireworks, bare cars and destruction. Witnesses claim an unknown assailant left from the tram and evaded a scene after a high speed carjack. The identity of this man still unknown. What do you know about the Sierra program? Reckless mystery, man. You guys send in when you can officially send anyone else. Great. Man we got urgent locate and destroy Sierra. Six stone asset of considerable value to the agency. That could be fine. The man's got some street cred. They have something they really want. What you got? My funeral. You're going to next. I'm about to put a hit so big on your boy's head that even his most loyal allies won't hesitate to drop a time. Nameless assassins with limited morality. What could possibly go wrong this summer? From the directors of Endgame and Captain America winter Soldier. You hurt me. I mean, my ego is a little bruised. Ryan Gosling, Chris Evans, Ana De Armas and Billy Bob Thornton want to make an omelet? You gotta kill some people. The uncatchable meets the unstoppable. Kill anybody? Maybe not anybody. The Gray Man. Only on Netflix. July 22, rated BG 13 may be inappropriate for children under 13. Hey, everybody, chuck here. Did you know there are millions of people around the world hosting on airbnb right now? Yeah. Which means that's a lot of amazing homes that are making people a lot of extra money. And it doesn't have to be an everyday thing. You can host when you want. Like, let's say you're taking a week's vacation. Why not host your home? Because that money could go toward paying for your current vacation or towards your retirement fund or even towards your kids'college fund. Yeah, for anything. And listen, if you're worried about your stuff, don't be. Air cover for Hosts. Let hosts welcome guests into their home without having to worry. You get $1 million in damage protection anytime you're hosting, plus pet damage protection and income loss protection, too. And are you ready for this? Air cover for host is completely free every time you host on airbnb. Free with a capital F. With Air Cover for Host, it makes hosting a no brainer, and the benefits really start adding up. So learn more and host with peace of mind at Airbnb Comaircoverforhosts. And I guess, depending on where your views are, Chuck, we should have introduced Phyllis Shafti with the Darth Vader theme song when she first makes her appear done. That's exactly right. Did you watch any of these interviews and debates? Yes, dude, it's really interesting. If you have your wits about you, you could despise everything that ever came out of Phyllis Laughly's mouth. It's very easy to do. She equates gay people, which I guess, in the fashion of the time, she calls homosexuals, she calls them perverts, says that they should not have any rights afforded to married men and women. They shouldn't be able to adopt children. She says, really? Despicable. I didn't hear that one. Yeah, she says a lot of very despicable stuff, and her whole viewpoint is despicable to a lot of people. But there are very few people walking around out there who have the poise and self possession to go into the lions den and speak for. Whatever she was convinced of was right. She has to be credited to at least that degree, no matter what you think about her mind. She had a lot of poise, I guess you could say, and it's really kind of something to watch, because I saw this one. Did you see the Good Morning America debate from 1076 between her and Fedan? Yeah, man. And it's really clear what a skilled debater she was and how rattled she could get somebody. I felt bad for Dan. She was doing a good job, but she was getting pissed off. And you could tell that she just liked to get under people's skin while she just remained perfectly erecting, her seat with perfect posture. And that Mrs. America series, which it was on our list. And I'm going to bump it back up to next in line now to watch. But she was played really well, judging from just the accent and the mannerisms by Kate Planchette, who can do no wrong. Yeah, I want to see that series, too. So if you see those two debating, it's like a study, in contrast, where Phyllis Schlaflye is basically sitting there at teatime at the country club before the polo match, and Betty Ferdan, if you put like a beret and sunglasses and a French cigarette in her mouth, she's like sitting at the Beatnut Cafe, like listening to a poetry jam or something. It's funny, just these two totally contrasting personalities. We have chefly debated or under the table. And it's not like Betty Friedan was an intellectual slouch by any measure. No, not at all. It's just Phyllis laughlin could rattle anybody. She could rattle Santa Claus. I'm just going to say it. Yeah. I mean, she kind of made herself out to be just this homemaker. When she introduced herself at engagement, she would thank her husband for letting her come there, but when you kind of peek behind the curtain she had a master's in political science, she had a law degree. She ran for Congress when she was 27 years old and lost. Right. And she was sort of pre 1980s, a big part in at the very least. I don't even think they called it the Christian right at the time, but kind of organizing what would later become the Christian right movement. Yeah. You can make a really good case that Phyllis Laughly laid the groundwork for the current Republican Party in every way, from Reagan onward to today. She basically said, I'm just a housewife from St. Louis. Proud housewife, wife and mother of six from St. Louis. And in a lot of ways she was. She made reference to law school during her debate to Betty Friedan and she sounded like she was in law school then. Interesting, it seems like she was just a woman who said, I don't agree with this and I'm going to put a stop to it, and stood in front of this unstoppable tidal wave and stopped it. She stopped it. She stopped the era from being ratified by the states right at the 11th and a half hour before it was ever passed and ratified by the 38 states. You said they got 30 states in the first year. By 1977, they were up to 35 states. They just needed three more states and the whole thing was going to become the law of the land. And Phyllis Slapley got in the way of that almost single handedly at first. Yeah. And she launched her group was called Stop Era, which we obsessed about acronyms. It's sort of annoying when the first letter of an acronym is the actual acronym. Yeah, but Stop Era. Stop taking our privileges. And her argument, she was like and she used this to her advantage in those debates, like, see how angry these feminists are? She kind of coined that term, I think, about the angry women's live movement. These angry feminists, they want to throw down everything that makes us female and everything that makes us women and they want to just set fire to it. And before you know it, women are going to be able to be drafted in the armed forces. Never happen. They're not going to be separate bathrooms and locker rooms anymore from this point on. Not true. That started to happen more in recent years. Wrapped up same sex marriage. We'll get to that. How she kind of co opted gay rights and reproductive rights into all this just to sort of coalesce that movement and said, women are going to lose their right to alimony and child support. Never happened. And just the life as we know it and the family as we know it. And this is something 50 years on, all this stuff is still so relevant. Like the dissolution of what people think was the perfect family in 1950. Basically. Yeah, because she was a troll, like a prototyl, but like the kind where you didn't do it online, you did it in person. But her points were coherent and understandable to people who agreed with her. The man's role is to provide for and take care of the woman. And the woman provides, like, the domestic labor. And that's just the division of labor between the sexes. And if we have the CRA, that's going to go away and then there's going to be all this other horrible stuff that's going to break down the fabric of society and do we really want that? And so by taking the argument away from the idea of whether women have a fundamental human right to equal protection under the law as men, which is who disagrees with that? Nobody disagrees with that. And mixing it up with all these other what ifs and potential social outcomes and the ruin of the family, gay men, teaching your children at school, that is what consolidated people into a movement behind fellow schlafly. And it was really underhanded. But it worked really well and it still works today. She came up with that, from what I can tell. Yeah. In 73, when Roe v. Wade passed, she was again savvy enough to say, well, here's something else I can seize on and I can wrap this up. There's a really large block of voters who are conservative Christians who we've never really intermingled politics like that before. And so let's wrap this up in prochoice. Let's wrap it up with gay rights, big culture war issues of the time to kind of rally, and like I said, coalesce group together in order to defeat the Equal Rights Amendment. And like you said, it worked in a big, big way. And I can't wait to watch that TV show. I can't either. And I don't want to suck all the oxygen away from Betty Ferdan and the other feminists, but I was saying that Phyllis Schleffley was a prototrol, and if you read some of the stuff that she said in public, sometimes she sounds like a spokesperson for the Taliban. She said things like that sexual harassment on the job was not a problem for virtuous women. Exactly. And that the Adam bomb was a marvelous gift that was given to our country by a wise God, just things that would drive any liberal or progressive, especially a feminist, up the wall. And in fact, Betty Friedan, in this very famous debate from three years before that Good Morning America appearance that you and I saw, she said you should be burned at the stake for betraying your gender. She didn't do herself any favors and stuff like that because that just allowed Schlafly to say, See there? Exactly. That's exactly right. But she could just get under your skin like that. So fast forward many years to kind of now, almost in 2017, after about 40 years of not much movement, nevada became the first new state to ratify the Era, thanks in no small part to state Senator Pat Spearman. And she said this bill is about a quality period, 2018. Just a few years ago, Illinois came aboard as well, and now it's back up to 37. Did we mention that five of the states de ratified or rescinded their ratification? I don't think we did. We did not. And I think that's an important point here. Yeah. Nebraska, Tennessee, Idaho, Kentucky, and South Dakota, you can all be very proud of your legislatures after 1977. They deratified or decertified, not de certified. They rescinded it. They did. They said, this is based on there's actually precedents for that. Ohio and New Jersey both rescinded their support for the 14th Amendment once their legislatures change control to white supremacists. Basically in the 19th century, they said, we take back our vote for the 14th Amendment. It also set a precedent, though, that Congress ignored that and still counted Ohio and New Jersey as having ratified the 14th Amendment because they did officially. Right. So it goes back up to 35. Then in 2018, Illinois made it 37 in January of last year. It's crazy that it took this long. Virginia finally became the 38th state, and so proponents of the Era said, all right, we got there. That's the 38th. This thing should have never had an expiration date to begin with. That's dumb. Whoever said seven years and then port of scotch, they should be burned. At the stake. And they said, let's just get this thing done. And then they said, you know what? Back in 1798, the 27th Amendment was passed, but not ratified until 200 years later, 202 years. So there's precedent there. And that was about prohibiting the law, raising or lowering taxes for congressional salaries from taking effect until their next term. Like big, big stuff, not knocking it. It's important, I guess. But they said that was done, so this thing shouldn't have had an expiration date to begin with. Opponents say, well, no, there was an expiration date, so we have to honor it. And that's the deal. Sorry. There was even a three year extension that brought it up to 1982. And by the time that extension was running out and it did not look like anything was going to move or happen or no more states, we're going to move to ratify it. Even the National Organization for Women and other feminist groups basically threw in the towel and said, it's done. The Era lost this time. It's not gone forever. But this amazing, immense, again tidal wave with just the momentum of a freight train running through the country is now dead just a few years after, which is just nuts that that happened. It's just crazy. But the fact that now 38 states have officially voted in favor of ratifying it set off a flurry of lawsuits here in the United States when Virginia became the last one in 2020. And basically everybody and anyone suing the National Archives and Records Administration to either certify and put it into the National Archives or the National Record that this is now a part of the Constitution, or to not do that. And it's totally up in the air of what that's going to be. But apparently a lot of people, not everyone, because there's plenty of people like, it's official now. Take all the BS away, and this is an official law of the land. There are plenty of people who are proponents of the Equal Rights Amendment who say we need to start over again. And one of those people was Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who said it needs to be voted on again. We need to pick up again, basically from square one. Yeah, and we'll talk about all this stuff. But I think there have been so many laws enacted since then that do protect so many of these rights. I think people like RBG were like, you know what? Let's start over. Let's rewrite it for the modern times, making sure everything is in there that we still need and revoke on it. I think that's reasonable. So do that. So let's take a break, and then we'll come back and talk about those questions, like, do we need the Era and what would happen if we did pass the Era? How about that? Sounds good. Incredible story of what seems to be a large military transport plane that's crashed in a remote region south of Ankara, Turkey. Witnesses authorities are on the hunt for a suspect after two men went to blows atop a fireworks, bars and destruction. Witnesses claim an unknown assailant left from the tram and evaded the scene after a high speed carjack. The identity of this man still unknown. What do you know about the sierra program? Reckless mystery, man. You guys send in when you can officially send anyone else. Great, man. I got an urgent locate and destroy sierra six stone. Asset of considerable value to the agency. That could be fine. The man's got some street cred, something they really want. What's? Your gut? My funeral. You're going to next. I'm about to put a hit so big on your boy's head that even his most loyal allies won't hesitate to drop a time. Nameless assassins with limited morality. What could possibly go wrong this summer? From the directors of endgame and captain America winter soldier. You hurt me. I mean, my ego is a little bruised. Ryan gosling, Chris evans, anna dearness, and Billy Bob Thornton want to make an omelet. You got to kill some people. The uncatchable meets the unstoppable. They can kill anybody. Maybe not anybody. The gray man. Only on netflix. July 22. Rated PG 13. May be inappropriate for children under 13. Hey, everybody. Chuck here. Did you know there are millions of people around the world hosting on airbnb right now? Yeah, which means that's a lot of amazing homes that are making people a lot of extra money. And it doesn't have to be an everyday thing you can host when you want. Like, let's say you're taking a week's vacation. Why not host your home? Because that money could go toward paying for your current vacation or towards your retirement fund or even towards your kids'college fund. Yeah, for anything. And listen, if you're worried about your stuff, don't be. Air cover for hosts. Let hosts welcome guests into their home without having to worry. You get $1 million in damage protection anytime you're hosting, plus pet damage protection and income loss protection, too. And are you ready for this? Air cover for host is completely free every time you host on airbnb. Free with a capital f. With air cover for host, it makes hosting a no brainer, and the benefits really start adding up. So learn more and host with peace of mind@airbnb.com. Air cover for hosts. You know you're a pet mom when your camera roll is all picks of your pet. At halo, we get it because we are pet moms, too. And just like you, we know their nutrition is one of the most important decisions you'll make. Halo is natural, high quality pet food that's rooted in science and thoughtfully sourced. It's the world's best food for the world's best kids. Find halo at specialty pet stores and online. All right, Chuck, so you made mention of, like, a lot of laws that have been created since the era was passed, I guess, by Congress and even before then, that protect women as a form of what's called a protective class. In the United States, there are protective classes that include races, religions, sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity is becoming a protected class. And if you're a member of a protected class, it means that if there's a law that excludes you from something, whether intentionally or not, that law is considered discriminatory, and you can file a lawsuit against it. And then the courts have to apply different tests to it to see just how discriminatory it is or if it's discriminatory at all, and whether or not it should be struck down or overruled. And the reason that sex is a protected class, even without the equal rights Amendment is thanks very much largely to Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who is an absolute legal pioneer in figuring out how to get women the protections under the law that they were looking for with the equal rights amendment without the equal rights amendment being part of the constitution. Yeah, I think people that say that we don't need the Era, and it's a very fine line between saying I'm against the era and saying I don't think we need the era, it all falls under the same banner ultimately. But people that say we don't need the Era say we got the Civil rights act of 1964, and race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. You can't hire and fire people based on that. That applies to paying benefits, too. There's also the equal Pay Act of 1963 that say there should be equal pay for equal work. That didn't in practice hasn't worked out that way because there's still a wage gap. We did a good episode on that. Yeah, that was a good one. Violence against Women Act of 1994 saying, here federal resources for domestic and sexual violence and prevention and prosecution of that counseling. And this one, however, and put a pin in this one, because this is one that is used also for people that say we do need the era because that one expired and is still hung up and has not gotten congressional reauthorization since 2019 because of politics. The Violence Against Women Act. Yeah, and then title nine is the last one in 1972. Title nine is the one you hear about mostly in college athletics. It says a lot of things, but in terms of college athletics, it had the biggest impact, saying you got to have the same amount of women's sports as men's sports and the same, like, accommodations and scholarships and all that stuff. Like, we don't need the Era because we have all these things. Yes. So you have law, and then you also have case law, too, that basically hinges on the 14th Amendment, which says that a citizen of the United States can't be discriminated against or is due equal protection under the law by the states and by the US. And that was written, passed in the 14th Amendment in the wake of slavery. It was meant to basically make recently freed African Americans and full citizens of the United States. But it doesn't specify on the basis of race or on the basis of religion. It just says if you're a US. Citizen, you get equal protection under the law. And so Ruth Bader Ginsburg, one of the reasons she's such a legal pioneer in this respect is because she's the one who figured out how to argue that the 14th Amendment applies to sex as well. And the whole thing about legal stuff, and this is all new to me, but it's really kind of interesting is that depending on how enshrined classes a protected group is in law, the more protected it is, the stricter the scrutiny that judges are going to apply to determining whether a law is discriminatory or not. And the most scrutiny you can apply to somebody is called strict scrutiny. And that's typically reserved for things that are protected by the Constitution. And that means that if you have a law that even remotely steps on the right to one of those protected classes, it's probably an illegal discriminatory law. Yeah. How does that work in practice? Does that mean they just spend more time or what does that even mean? So I think what it means is that if you pass a law and let's say that I pass a law and it accidentally discriminates against your ability to get your hands on Oatmeal, I can get all the Oatmeal I want. But you can't let's say in the Constitution, chuck is specifically protected under the law. That means that this law that prevents you from getting Oatmeal, that's a discriminatory law. And so it's going to be really easy for you to bring a lawsuit and for a judge to say, like, there's even a little bit of discrimination here. This law is illegal because it's discriminating against Chuck. And it says in the Constitution, you can't discriminate against Chuck. It just means that the standards for that law to stand, everyone else on the planet basically has to benefit from you not getting Oatmeal for some reason. And that's just not how laws work. So it'd be really easy for you to bring a lawsuit and get that law overturned because it discriminates against you because you're a protected class. Now, if it's just like everybody likes Chuck, but it doesn't say in the Constitution that you can't be discriminated against, they're going to use a slightly less strict test to determine whether the thing is a discriminatory law or not. And so maybe it generally promotes Oatmeal use among other people. Among all people, but there's some other people who don't get it too. That doesn't really matter because it's not enshrined in the Constitution. So it's almost like degrees. And once you're in the Constitution as a protected class, it is really difficult to discriminate against you. And that's one reason why people say, no, we need this. We need this in the constitution because women and sex and gender even, should be a protected class. You should not be able to discriminate against somebody based on that. Yeah. I mean, that is the main argument for proponents of the era saying, no, let's make this the real deal. Cases can be overturned, laws can be reversed, executive actions can have devastating impacts, and only being enshrined in the constitution will make this, like you said, just so locked down and protected that people can't mess with it anymore. I think we've seen in recent years that precedent can be argued and laws can be overturned. And it's like, sure, we have all these laws that passed since the era first came, was ratified in the but it doesn't take much, especially when you look at a very imbalanced supreme court, for people to kind of worry that these things can be taken away. Yeah. And I mean, like, there was a famous quote from Antonin scalia when he was alive and a justice on the supreme court basically saying, like, no, the constitution most decidedly does not protect against discrimination on the basis of sex. When you hear supreme court justice saying that, it's like, well, how many cases is it going to take before he rules? Like, no, you can totally discriminate against someone on the basis of sex if it's in the constitution. It doesn't matter what antonin scalia or any other justice thinks. It's in the constitution. So that level of protection, like you were saying, would be it's just a totally different level of protection than customarily. We don't discriminate. No, you can't discriminate. That's the difference between those two things. Yeah. And not just reversing laws, but passing new laws that may violate that equal treatment under the law. And some other things that constitutionally could come into play if it were to go through is something like the pink tax. I don't think we've ever done a show on the pink tax. I don't think so either. But this is the notion that from everything that similar products for men and women, they charge women more than they do for men, for these products to stuff like menstrual equality or equity, basically, tampons pads, other menstruation products should not be taxed anymore. They should be treated like any other essential item. Yeah. And then there are a lot of things, a lot of protections that it would afford. One thing that frequently is cited as protecting women against is, like, violence, like, say, domestic violence. From what I read, it probably wouldn't because it protects against being discriminated against by the law. It doesn't necessarily afford protection from an individual person or something like that. It's not necessarily a company, although being enshrined in the constitution, you could really sue a company's pants off for discriminating against you. But there are some things that would do, some things that wouldn't do, and then there are some things up in the air, and one of the reasons why this is still such a cultural flashpoint still today in 2020 is because now more than ever, it has become equated with taxpayer funded abortion. The reasoning behind people who oppose the Era because they think it's basically tantamount to just completely repealing any restrictions on abortion from that point on is only women can get abortions. And so if there's a law against abortion, there's a law that's discriminating against women. Therefore you can't have laws regulating abortions. And so that's why, especially with the Christian right, it's still such a flashpoint today. And that's why starting from scratch again is going to be no easier than it was back in 1972. Yeah. Now you're probably right. It's pretty frustrating, though, to get to that 38 state threshold, and because of some dumb, arbitrary expiration date placed on it, it's still being held up in the year 2021. Yeah, in the year 2021. And then also, the United States has an obligation, it's like, basically the leader of the free world to join the rest of the Western nations in enshrining equal protection under law. For BiSeX, I guess the United States is one of only 28 countries in the world that doesn't guarantee gender equality. One of 28, Chuck. And 100% of the countries that have written their Constitution since 1950 have included some guarantee of gender equality in those constitutions. So it's kind of sad that we don't have that still to this day. Yeah. And if you look around the country dave Rose helped us out with this article, and he points out stuff like if you go to Nepal, their Supreme Court struck down a law exempting marital rape from criminal prosecution because of its Era clause. In Tanzania, the Court of Appeal struck down a law that allowed a 15 year old girls to be married without parental consent, while boys only had to be at 18. So when you look at countries around the world that are seemingly ahead of the USA in terms of equal protection, it's baffling and disappointing. Baffling is right. Yeah. You got anything else? I got nothing else. It's good stuff. I have one more thing if you give me another second. You're ready? Sure. So when I was researching this, my head was just spinning again and again and again, and it reminded me of something that I read recently, and that is really easy to get bounced around from one outrage to another to one thing to care about this issue, and then, oh, wait, what about this issue? And I saw some advice somewhere. I don't remember where, but it was if you want to affect change, pick one issue and dedicate yourself to it. And that doesn't mean that you don't care about all the other issues that you do care about. It's just that this one issue is your specialty. You're an expert in it, and you're probably going to get further going like that, you're probably going to be able to see more change doing that. Then you would just kind of bouncing from issue to issue to issue. So, I mean, if this really got to you and you really want to do something about it, getting the era passed your specialty. Totally. Okay, well, thanks for let me stand on the soapbox for a second. And since I'm getting off of my soapbox and Chuck is putting it up in the soapbox caddy that we keep here in the studio, that means it's time for listener mail. I'm going to call this a ninja in the Connecticut forest. Nice. Did you read this one? No, I haven't. This is kind of crazy. It's long, but it's worth it. Okay. Hey, guys. When I was about seven, my mom married a man I called dad and we promptly moved from Texas to Connecticut where we used to go camping a lot. On one trip, we're all out in the woods, midnight rolls around and go to bed. About an hour later I heard my tent unzipping and my dad started shaking my foot saying, come out here, there's an effing ninja. So I throw on some slippers in my jacket, begrudgingly trudge out to see I kid you not a ninja sitting next to the fire pit. I remember actually shaking my head in disbelief to reaffirm this wasn't some very strange dream. And now when I say there was a ninja, I mean full black garb with a slit to see through. This dude had twin swords on his back, throwing stars, tiger claws for climbing, grapple hooks, all the tools. Apparently my dad saw him rolling out of a bush and had to see what was going on. The story behind this guy was he was a National Guardsman and also ran a jukindo and ninja soo dojo in Rhode Island as his main gig. We sit for the next couple of hours and the sky is just showing us stuff like how fast you can climb a tree or how to throw a star. Oh my God. The night progresses and he asked if we were familiar with Bruce Lee as an avid fan of Enter the Dragon from around eight. I said yes, and he asked if I'd ever seen his one inch punch. Excitedly I said. Sure I have. And then his name is Brian. He said Brian then asked if he could demonstrate it on me. A punchy twelve year old. I said no thanks, I'm good. And I explicitly did not want to fly backwards with any force and he said no, I'll do it with an open palm so it doesn't hurt. I give in. He positions me safely away from the fire pit with my back facing the tent, about 7ft away from anything. Never trust anyone, by the way, whose instruction is, okay, now just stand there while I hit you. He inhales deeply, does the flat hand against my sternum, just like him kill bill. Then in an instant, I saw his muscles tense up as he audibly exhaled sharply and hit my chest open handed. I go airborne and hit my tailbone next on a tent stake 7ft behind me and can't really walk without crutches for a couple of weeks. Wow. Kids at school never believe me when prodding about why I was on crutches, because who would believe a kid that says I had a run in with a ninja in the middle of the woods? Wow. That is from Drew Carroll in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Wyoming. Wyoming. That is true. The great story. That was a magnificent listener mail. I mean, hats off for that one. Thank you. And if you're Brian and you're out there, I want to hear what happened to you. Yeah, probably. He's like, I've been doing a ten year bid for beating a kid up in the woods, but the kid said I could hit him. Oh, boy. Well, if you want to get in touch with us, like drew, and try to top listener mail. Drew, by the way, is the current listener male champion. We want to see if you can do it. You can send us an email, wrap it up, spank it on the bottom, and send it off to stuffpodcast@iheartradio.com. Stuff you should know is production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts my heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio app apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. You want your kid eating the best nutrition, right? And by that, we mean your dog. Halo elevate is natural sciencebased nutrition guaranteed to support your dog's top five health needs better than leading brands? Find halo elevate at petco pet supplies plus and select neighborhood pet stores. Are you looking for an escape? An immersive getaway experience? Well, there's a place for all your wildest dreams. Perhaps you enjoy wrapping along the paper boy. Or you believe that blessed be the fruit. Or you dream of one day smashing a glass while stealing Hooza. Whether you're sworn to team Kim or you just want a good old fashioned mysterious murder, there's a place that has it all. From Atlanta to only murders in the building, it's all on hulu. To check into your obsession, hulu subscription is required. Terms apply. 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aa42f62a-8e8e-11ec-944d-1f52aaf244e9	Short Stuff: Commensalism	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/short-stuff-commensalism	What's commensalism? Sort of nature's way of sponging off something, but that something doesn't mind. If that doesn't make sense, take 12 minutes to listen and find out for yourself.	What's commensalism? Sort of nature's way of sponging off something, but that something doesn't mind. If that doesn't make sense, take 12 minutes to listen and find out for yourself.	Wed, 23 Feb 2022 10:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2022, tm_mon=2, tm_mday=23, tm_hour=10, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=2, tm_yday=54, tm_isdst=0)	12518754	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Hey, welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck and Jerry here. And this is Short Stuff, a great one because it has to do with ecology, environment, biology, drama, match book. That's right. I came across this cause I was on Houseworks.com because I was putting something together that we're not doing now but I hope to do soon on symbiosis. Oh, yes. And this is not symbiosis. So it was mentioned as kind of not the opposite of symbiosis, but something that runs afoul of symbiosis. It's symbiosis more confusing cousin. More selfish cousin. It's very difficult to pin down in some weird ways, but we're talking commensalism. And the base definition of commensalism is that it happens when an animal benefits another animal or organism just by doing its own thing. And it's not affected by it one way or the other. The other animal benefits from it, but there's no tip for tat. There's no harm in it. It's just kind of a thing. Yeah, it's a kind of cooperation. A couple of things that it's not that we should probably mention besides symbiosis is it doesn't mean you're a parasite. Parasitism is when something is actually causing harm to another thing by sort of sponging off of them. Like the movie Parasite. That's right. Or a parasite that lives on your body and feeds on the host. And the host may not be aware of it, but it's damaging the host. Like the movie Alien. Right. That's right. It's also not mutualism in which that's a little more aligned with symbiosis in which both partners are benefiting from this relationship. Like bees and flowers. They each get a little something. They're scratching each other's backs and it's all good. Like the movie Wall Street. That's right. Oh, man. We should just make this the whole episode. Commensalism, though, is like you said, and they're actually called commensals, which is the one that is benefiting. Benefiting. Not the one that is unawares and just sort of neither benefiting nor being harmed. And benefiting is kind of one way to put it. You could also say that commensal also requires the other animal to go about their daily business for that one to survive sometimes. Yeah. Let's give a great example here that is found in this House Stuff Works article about Eastern screech owls and blind snakes. Chuck yeah. This is interesting. I thought I thought so too. So Eastern screech owls love to eat blind snakes. It's their favorite delicacy. It's like foie gras sushi and tikka masala to the average American. Love it. Right. Okay. And so the Eastern screech isle brings a bunch of blind snakes back to its nest to feed their chicks, which is usually bad for the blind snakes. But some blind snakes get away and they actually burrow into the nest, deeper into the nest, out of the reach of the owls, and they live there. And while they live there, they actually feed on little bugs in the nest. That's right. Those little larvae. And those larvae would probably be parasites upon the owl. Right. So there's a lot of benefit going on here. Right. But in particular, the blind snake is providing the benefit to the blind owl because studies have shown that, I guess, hatchlings, eastern Screech Isle hatchlings that are raised in nests where there's blind snakes embedded in them typically grow bigger, faster, stronger, et cetera, and they have a lower mortality rate than hatchlings that are raised in where there's not blind snakes. So it does seem like the benefit they're providing is getting rid of the parasite load in that nest. But as far as blind snake is concerned, it's just eating it's, doing its normal thing. What's a blind snake? It's a snake that is blind, as far as I know. I looked them up, and it a is specific thing. It's not just like any snake that's blind, obviously, but I had never really heard of them before. I hadn't either. What's an owl? I have no idea. I told you about the Owl Cafe that you mean, I went to in Tokyo, right? I don't think so. It was very neat. I would remember this. It was so neat. Are you in there with owls? Yes, they're right there. You can hold them on your hand. You can pet them. And I realized that it's like it's not their natural habitat. They're kept and all that, but it was very cool. They were very well taken care of as far as captive animals go. But it was a really neat experience. Yeah. It's okay to think that's a neat experience. Are you sure? I'm so nervous right now. I think so. We're finally going to Disney World in a couple of weeks, and we're staying at Animal Kingdom. And I really want to wake up with a giraffe standing outside my window. Yeah. Going wake up? Sure. Does that make me a bad person? Yeah. For wanting to delight myself, frankly. Are you going to go on the Avatar ride? It's supposedly the greatest ride humans have ever created. We're not actually going to Animal Kingdom. We're just staying there. We have three park days, so we're doing okay. And that's not one of them. No, we're doing Magic Kingdom Hollywood Studios and then Universal. I'll tell you what, your daughter is going to love Hollywood Studios. Toy Story Land. Oh, that nuts how well they did that. Yeah. I don't think we're prepared for the delight that is to follow. It's great. Yeah. And big shout out to our buddy Brandon. Yes. Might as well, who's helping us out. He works down there, and he's just very kind and generous with, especially if you don't know how to navigate Disney with all the tips and stuff. Yeah. He's just a wonderful guy who started out as a fan, who reached out and quickly became a true friend. All right, so, hey, we needed a little padding so we'll come back right after this and talk a little bit more about commensalism. Thanks for the padding, Brandon. All right, Chuck. This article basically practically admits that ecologists don't really know how to define commensalism, but they're like but we still have it separated into three categories. That's right. The first of which is inquilinism sounds totally made up. That is, when a species lives on or inside another nest, like the blind snake living in the nest of the owl anytime it's within. There's another example they give of the gopher tortoise, southeastern US. They have these really long tunnels, like sometimes 30 to 50ft in length. And that, of course, becomes a home for lots of different things, mainly insects. But some of them have evolved over the years to need to live there. And some of them, including this one moth, can only feed on the keratin of the shells of these dead gophers. That's niche right there, that's super niche. And so it's not just that moth. There's a bunch of others. There's a bunch of other kinds of animals, too. But, yeah, that moth is about as big a commensal as you'll find in nature. There's another type of commensalism called metabiosis, which sounds kind of similar, but it's where an organism unintentionally creates a habitat for another. This is really where we get to the point where I'm saying, like, commensalism, they don't know what they're talking about. Somebody figured out something that didn't hold out to be true, and they ended up creating a whole subdiscipline of ecology out of it. Oh, is that where you're at? Yes. Because there is no example that we have gone over or will go over that you can't ascribe to something else. Symbiosis parasitism. Yeah, we used to call it this. Yes. And now it's commensalism. It's a very confusing thing that we're doing right now. Yeah, but isn't that kind of a lot of science is the more you know, the more you can drill down and separate things out with their minor distinctions? Yes, if there are actual distinctions that separate them out. That's what I'm saying. I don't think there are. Let me give you an example. So go for tortoises. Right? So there's commensals that live there that don't just feed on the Goford tortoises. I will give you that one. That moth that feeds exclusively on the keratin from gopher tortoises. Okay. That's probably a true commensalist relationship. Okay. But the kind of animals that live in gopher tortoise holes, that eat parasites in the gopher tortoise hole, that's symbiosis, man. There's no way around it. The gopher has provided a place for these animals to live. The animals are eating the parasites that would otherwise be sucking the life force out of the gopher tortoise. That's symbiosis. There's no other definition for it. And that's given as an example of commensalism. But I didn't see that they did eat parasites that would harm the gopher. Yeah, some of them do. It says that they likely lower parasite loads for tortoise. I see that now. I even highlighted it. Yeah, that's mutualism. Well, should we talk about the last category or should we just throw this in the trash? Now, let's talk about the last one because it's fun to kick it around. All right. Come here, you. Foresee. P-H-O-R-E-S-Y. That's when an animal attaches to another physically to catch a ride, basically. Okay. This one is commensalist, I'll give you that. All right. Do you want to talk about an example that you have metabiosis? That just annoys me because it's the same thing as inquilnism, and a lot of it is symbiosis. But yeah, forecast. Like, if you're a mite that catches a ride on a bee, you can go from mightville to miteown really quick, whereas otherwise you may never go there in your lifetime as a mite because you can't make it that far. But as far as the bee is concerned, as long as you're not feeding on it like a parasite, the bee couldn't care less. It's not getting any benefit from it, it's not being harmed from it. But I'll betha might still feeding on it, which makes it parasitism, not commensalism. All right. Okay. I was going to make a judgment on whether or not I'm with you on this, but then I decided I didn't care. That was very right minded of you. Okay, good. There is one point that I think is worth making, though, that commensalism can actually put an entire ecosystem under stress, especially if you take the example of that moth that feeds on gopher tortoise. Keratin. Right. If you take that moth and go for tortoises suddenly die off, you're not just losing the gopher tortoise, you're also going to lose that moth species, too. They're going to die off, too, because they're fully dependent on gopher tortoise shells. They're going to have a bonanza at first, and then eventually they're going to run out of food. And that the more commensalism you have in an ecosystem, the shakier ground that ecosystem is built on. You want species, ideally, to keep it as biodiverse as possible that can basically stand on their own, that aren't so fully interrelated that they can't exist without another species creating a home for them or providing food for them or something, or giving them rides from Mightville, the might town. But we should be good since there are very few examples of true commensals. Right. That's my take. All right. I'm glad we're good. Yeah. I'm glad we're good. So you, Chuck, do you think we're out? I think we're out. Stuff you should know is the production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, my Heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows."
8a2935f8-4a58-11e8-a49f-ffb75abf0bd5	SYSK Selects: How Pinball Works	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/sysk-selects-how-pinball-works	Pinball was actually illegal until the 1970s in NY and other cities, hidden in the backs of pornography shops. The game was finally legalized, thanks to a Babe Ruth-style shot by the best player in the world.	Pinball was actually illegal until the 1970s in NY and other cities, hidden in the backs of pornography shops. The game was finally legalized, thanks to a Babe Ruth-style shot by the best player in the world.	Sat, 26 May 2018 11:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2018, tm_mon=5, tm_mday=26, tm_hour=11, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=5, tm_yday=146, tm_isdst=0)	43320716	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Hey, friends. You know, dating is a journey with ups and downs, for sure, but all the effort is worth it when you meet someone special, right? And when you decide it's time to find a meaningful relationship, eharmony is here for you. Eharmony. Is passionate about creating real love for all, rooted it in compatibility. Eharmony's process reveals truths about yourself, like, I don't know what you want in a relationship. And it helps you connect with a uniquely compatible partner who is right for you. Don't believe it? See for yourself. So start for free today, because every 14 minutes, someone finds love on Eharmony. This July, don't miss an entire summer of surprises on Disney Plus with Disney's High School Musical, the Musical, the Series season three Zombies, three Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and the one wonderful summer of Mickey Mouse. Plus new episodes of Marvel Studios, ms. Marvel and National Geographics. America the Beautiful. From the award winning producers of Planet Earth, Frozen Planet, and the Disney Nature films, america the Beautiful takes viewers on a tour of the most spectacular and visually arresting regions of our great nation. All these and more streaming this month on Disney Plus. Hey, everybody, it's your old pal Josh. And for this week's, SYSK selects I've chosen How Pinball Works, one of my all time favorite episodes, and it was recorded in September of 2014, which seems like just yesterday, doesn't it? Well, at any rate, this episode has it all. Weird history, electrodynamics, the tilt sign, everything. So I hope you enjoy it in good health. Welcome to stuff you should know from housetopworkscom. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with Charles W, Chuck Bryant and there's Jerry. This is stuff you should know. The podcast. What was that? Pinball. The news desk. Oh, yeah. I thought you're making pinball pings and bells and whistles. Sounds like a Vegas. Vegas like one big pinball machine. It is now that you meant to walk through those casinos. Yeah, you just made my neck muscles tight, man. I hate Vegas. I like Vegas. Yeah, I don't want to live in Vegas or go to Vegas every weekend or anything like that, but going to Vegas once a year, once every couple of years, that's fine with me. Yeah, not for me. I mean, I've been a bunch and I'm done. Oh, you're done with Vegas? That's what you're saying? I don't see any reason to go back. I guarantee somebody you want to see will have some sort of residency out there and you will be back in Vegas when I'm, like, 60. Sure, yeah, like Pavement will have a residence, valleys. That's exactly, I think, what's going to happen. Well, then you'll find me living in Vegas, my friend. There you go. Yeah, see, I got you back on the Vegas train. But that sound, yeah, it's like a million pinball machines that take your money faster than pinball machines. Yeah, and that was an early worry about pinball, actually, as we will soon see, because I say chuckle, let's dive right into the history of pinballs. Yeah. So pinball machines actually find their lineage back in the things called I want to say baguette machines, but that's not correct. The bagatelle table. Yes, the bagatelle table. Thank you. They were basically across between pool and pinball and use a pool cue and everything and they sucked and nobody liked them. I think it looks pretty cool. Does it? It looks old timing and boring to me. Well, if you're used to modern gaming, table is not going to thrill you. But I thought it looked kind of neat. So the bagatetel table was there, it was in place. In the 1830s, a guy named Monte Redgrave came along like you can't not say that guy's name like that. No, he came along and said, you know what, people just invented a spring. How did you say his name again? Montague Redgrand. Like he's on LaDonna. Yeah. And he came along and said somebody invented a spring recently. I'm going to add it to this bag of salt table, make it less sucky. And then all of a sudden we have the what did he call it? The ball shooter. Which makes sense. Sure. That's what you'd call it. And now we have the first introduced mechanism of pinballs. Things are starting to take shape a little bit here. Yeah. But you didn't stick a coin in the game. What you would do is kind of like pool tables these days at a bar. You would go up to the keeper of the balls and say, here's some money, give me my balls and let me go play the game on the bagatelle table. Yeah. He would go, you know it sucks, don't you? And you would say, yes, but it's the 1830. Yeah. And if I play really well, then I can win free drinks and cigarettes. I know. And they said exactly. Yeah. Can you see little twelve year olds winning cigarettes and then going back to play more baggagel? Sure. So this is the way it went for many decades. People were miserable until the 1930s and there was this enormous explosion of innovation and pool tablery in the almost everything that you think of when you think of a pool I've been saying pool table just for the last minute. Why didn't you correct me? I thought you were talking about pool table. No, I'm talking about Pinball. Anyway, in the 30s there was a huge explosion in pinballery. Pinballery, yeah. And everything that you think of when you think of a pinball machine, almost all of it came about in the 30s coin operation. Sure. The back glass, the thing that has like Kiss or Hugh Hefner on it or something like that, stands up off of the playing field. The table. Yeah, I guess an electric current running through it. Legs. Sure. The tilt mechanism. Bumpers. Yeah. Sounds scorekeeping. And then bumpers. Of course, I think I said bumpers that I not I don't know, maybe, but bumpers. And then most of all, most importantly, Chuck, was the 30s led to a huge surge in popularity because you have the Great Depression, and pinballs were cheap entertainment that were widely available. You noticed one thing we didn't say, though, and all that innovation. What? Flippers. Because still, up until 1947, you just bump the thing to make the ball move. Yeah. There were no flippers, which seems very counterintuitive to pinball. And the flippers really changed things. They fundamentally changed pinball. Not just in the way you play, but in pinball as a game. Because before flippers, it was a game of chance. It was the same thing as playing, like, high low, basically. Yeah. Like you had no way, really, of manipulating the movement of the ball. Well, you shake the machine. You could without tilting. I mean, that's what you did. That was how you did it. Even still, the amount of skill it took was minute compared to the skill that could be used once flippers were introduced. Pinball wizardry. And it became a game of skill. Yeah, but before that, like I said, things were popular. Get this, in the early 30s, there were 145 companies making pinball machines. And the field became so competitive and ruthless that by the mid thirty s like five years later, they were 14. Yeah. And most of those were based in Chicago, which became sort of the pinball capital of the world. And I've never been there, but I bet you anything chicago still has a lot more pinball machines than elsewhere. I was trying to think of researching this. Made me want to go play pinball. Like researching sushi made me want to go eat sushi. And I was thinking, like, I have no idea where to go to play pinball. And we'll go to my brother's house. Does he have one? He's got three. Oh, I love your brother even more now. Dude. He built a whole game room. Of course, because that's what my brother does. What does he have? He has a Tomcat F 14, which is the ripoff of Top Gun. I've seen that one. He said there's a lot of ripoff games for a while, of movies and actual movie tie in games. Yeah, he has Black Hole, but not the movie. Another ripoff game. Okay, I would love that one, too. And those are both kind of old school. And then he has a Jurassic Park, which is newer, I think. Doesn't it have like a trex that comes down like each your ball? I can't remember. I feel like all three of them. And he also kicked this. He took an old video game, like, stand up video game console and removed all the guts. Got a computer screen and computer and hooked it up in there to where you can play all the old school games. Those programs they have now and change the screen vertically so it just looks like a regular arcade game. And you can go up and play Frogger and Space Invaders. Scott, fight me over, please. And it's all free. That's so awesome, man. He's like Ricky Schroeder and Silver Spoons or something. But growing up. Yeah, pretty much. And I think the reason why I don't play more pinball over there is because we're always playing Ping pong. Yeah, that's a game of skill. And I love Ping pong, but I'll try and get into pinball game. I want to play some pinball so bad. Let's just go out to roswell, dude. Okay, do it right now. And if I collected Pivot machines, it would definitely be mid seventy s and mid eighty s for me, I would think the heyday, yeah, all the bells and whistles and all that, the new fangled bells and whistles, they're fine. That's cool. But I, like, not so old that it's like electromechanical, but not so new that it's like nothing but plasma screens and stuff like that. Well, mine in the middle. Sure. I'm the same way. My favorite game of all time. Pinball wise game ever. Galaga but favorite game, pinball wise was Adam's family pinball. And then I learned in this article that is the top selling game of all time from 1991. Yeah, I think it was either Bally or Williams put that one out and they sold more than 20,000 units of it. Dude, it's awesome. It didn't surprise me. I have no affinity for the Adams Family, but it's the best pinball game I've ever played. And when I saw it was number one, I was like, well, of course it is, because it's the best one. You don't like the Adams family? No, I mean, I like it fine, but I didn't play it because of the movie I Got You. I played it because it was an awesome pinball game. I Got You. And they had one at the mall. Not the mall, the bowling alley near me in Athens. Bowling alley. That's where I could probably go find a pinball machine. Yeah, I bet I could. Or maybe not. Sadly, I'm starting a quest. All right, so telling you, let's go to my brother's house because we can have a Scotch. Okay. So anyway, 1947 is when they finally invented the flipper. Dee gottlieb company, introduced a game called Humpty Dumpty. And that was where what most people say the first modern game came about. Right. It took the low flippers, all the innovations of the added flippers, and boom, you got pinball. Not pool table pinball. Pretty much. Although the flippers weren't the same, it was in the same person came up with spot bowler, and that was the first modern arrangement of flippers. Right. And they were longer with that introduction, or else a little later on, the first flippers they introduced, they were shorter. Yeah, and they didn't face that. They face in reverse of the way they face now, which is weird. Yeah. They were working it out. Yeah. Beta, pretty much. So it's funny that they introduced Flippers in 1947, because by the time Flippers came around, pinball was illegal in most of the major cities in the United States, and have been for several years. I think I had heard this once and forgotten it, but pinball was totally outlawed because they equated it to gambling, because it was not a game of skill. And I guess because you got prizes. Yes. Mayor La Guardia, who you remember from the Burlesque podcast, was a bit of a moralist. Although he was a wet politician, he was in favor of repealing prohibition. He hated pinball. Hated it. He thought it was a Mafia racket. He thought that it robbed the, quote, pockets of schoolchildren in the forms of nickels and dimes, get into them as lunch money. And he got it outlawed in New York. And once it was outlawed, he ordered, like, really dramatic raids. Yeah. Right after Pull Harbor, he said, you know what we need to do? The Japanese have just bombed us. We need to get rid of these pinball machines. Yes. And so let's go round them up, like in a raid style. Let's smash them with sledgehammers. Let's dump them in the river. That's what they did. They dumped them in the river after they smashed them. That's a very New York 1940s thing to do. Exactly. I bet you there's still pinball machines down there. If anyone is brave enough to get into the East River. I don't think they are. No. We should say also give a shout out to Popular Mechanics, who were working off, in part, a really awesome article. They came up with eleven things you didn't know about pinball history. Yeah. So from the 40s until the mid 1970s, if you wanted to play pinball in New York City and Chicago and La, most cities in the US, it was illegal. You had to go to a pornography shop, basically, and go behind a curtain and play pinball. Isn't that weird? It's the weirdest thing that we've ever said on the show until the mid 1970s. And, like, there were still raids and pinball operators, like me, dude, little five year old Chuck. Yes. I would have been dropped off at a porn shop to play pinball, which I'm sure your parents would have been happy to do. Well, they did. And I played pinball. I didn't look at nudity people. Did you really know what I was going to say? Man? It just blew my mind. No. And get this, the city of Oakland, oakland, California, oak down just this past July, overturned an 80 year ban on pinball. Free the pinballers. Yeah. Good for them. So pinball is banned. People are still playing it like crazy. And apparently the manufacturers realize this as well, because they're still innovating and adding and making new games and machines. And all sorts of stuff. Yeah. Well, this is after world war II. There were things really slowed down, obviously, because of the war effort. Pinball was big. Dent was put in pinball manufacturing, too. Yeah, like everything else. And then after the took off again, and it also became kind of a symbol of rebellious youth in this popular mechanics article points out, like, the fonts played a lot of pinball. I never considered that from the who's? Tommy. The pinball wizard and Tommy both kind of rebellious. Like, stick it in your ear, LaGuardia. Yeah. I mean, it seems silly now to think about that, but when Tommy came out, it was illegal. So pinball was sort of I guess it was just the rebels. Yeah. You're antiauthoritarian if you played pinball, it was just an image of it. Yeah. And then the great Simpsons quote sideshow Bob said, television has ruined more young minds than pinball and syphilis combined. That one flew right over my head when I heard it the first time. I just thought, oh, that's silly. Pinball. Right. But I didn't think about, like, moral turpitude. Yeah, I didn't get that one either, but I do now. So luckily, pinball was still widely available, albeit in the backs of pornography shops. And the reason we say luckily is because somewhere along the way, a young man, I think in his early 20s named Roger Sharp, who is a magazine editor, was called upon to save the pinball world at a New York city council meeting. Yes. They finally said, hey, city council, can we get a hearing on pinball machines? You guys are being ridiculous because it's a bicentennial of this country and we need pinball. It's as American as America gets as pornography. So they said, sure, we'll have a hearing, because their intent was to prove that it was a game of skill and not chance, which was the whole rub in the first place. They brought in their pinball wizard game of chance is gambling. Sure, LaGuardia had a point. Well, sort of. I still don't get it. But this law is obsolete because they added flippers, and now it's a game of skill. But the law is still around. Yeah, basically. So they brought in their pinball wizard, Sharp, and they brought two machines, because if one broke down, they wanted to have a backup. And some jerk councilman, when he went to play the game, said, no, why don't you play the other game? The backup was yeah, the backup game. And Sharp started sweating because he was like, I'm not very good at that game. Yeah, he'd never played it before. Yeah, I'm a master at this one. But he was a pinball wizard, so I believed in him. Yeah. I didn't know what happened. Did you see the documentary special when lit? No. Oh, my God. It has footage of this. It's amazing. An amazing documentary. All about pinball. I mean, all about pinball is not so awesome documentary. I think it's one called Tilt as well. There is that's about a specific moment in history in pinball. I haven't seen that one, but it sounds pretty good, too. Yeah, but see special when lit. Amazing. Got you. NC tilt two. What's the deal? So Roger Sharp is playing. He's not really impressing anybody, and things are kind of going bad. And he decides to do a Bay booth call. He pulls back the plunger, and before he releases it, he goes, I'm going up the middle aisle here. Yeah. And just so you know, if you've never seen a pinball game, you pull the plunger, it shoots the ball up the right hand side through a trough, and then it spits it out at the top. And what he was trying to prove is where I'm going to spit it out and where it's going to start its descent back to me is going to be in a very specific place in the center of the board. Not on the left, not on the right. Right up the middle. Yeah. And he did it. And apparently right afterward, the city council was like, okay, we'll repeal it. It's obviously a game of skill. Yeah. Like Roger Sharp single handedly. Well, double handedly, because he was using the flippers save pinball from illegality. I wonder if they said, yeah, fine. Good Lord, it's legal. Get these machines out of here. Get this loser out of here. But he is not a loser because he is currently still the number 536 ranked player in the world. I'm surprised. I thought he went on to be I think at the time he was number one, which is why they chose him. He probably was, but he's been falling ever since. Man. That's another thing in special Winlet. Oh, man. There are some really good pinball players. Well, I've got the list. I'll quickly go with the top five. Number one in the world as of today, 2014, August, whatever it is. Keith Elwin of the USA is number one. USA. Yorin Ingelbrexton of Sweden is number two. Sweden zach Sharp. Recognize that name? That sounds vaguely familiar. Roger sun. Yeah. He's the number three player in the world. That's awesome. Number four. Daniel celestino axiari. What was that? He's Italian. He's number four. Jorgen home is also Swedish. He's number five. There's a Canadian at six, a sweet at seven. And eight through 20, save one are all Americans. Wow. And number 20 is Josh Sharp. So his sons followed in his footsteps. That's great. And are both top 20 ranked players. That's good. And I bet Josh is super jealous. Zach, maybe Josh is also he's like, I want to be a veterinarian, so I'm paying more attention to that kind of thing. Maybe. So Pinball was saved by Roger Sharp. Hooray. And pinball just kept going on and on. Apparently, it had its golden day age, it's widely believed, between 1948 and 1958. But it was also huge in the 70s, huge in the then video games came along and all of a sudden Pinball was like and it started to decline and decline and decline, decline. I think we were down to maybe five major pinball machine producers. And by major I mean the only ones minor pinball machine? No, because it takes a lot of time and effort to manufacture a functioning, good pinball game. By the 90s, there were just a couple left. Everybody was selling off their pinball divisions. And there was a company called Bally Williams, which were former competitors that emerged. And this is what the documentary Tilt is about. They went to their pinball division and said, hey, you guys are great in the pinball world, but the pinball world sucks. We want more money out of you guys. What are you going to do? Is that Pinball 2000? Yes, they came up with Pinball 2008. We will give you a chance to save yourselves, figure out what will revive Pinball for the 21st century. And they came up with Pinball 2000? Yeah, it's basically a hybrid of video gaming and Pinball, where you have a kind of a standard pinball set up, but a video screen that's interactive as the backdrop. No on the playing field, too. So Holograms pop up on the playing board and run away from the ball and interact with the ball. Yeah. It stinks, though. And no one liked it. Have you played it? I haven't played it, but I saw videos of it and it didn't look like fun and no one liked it. So the thing is, this one article I read pointed out, like, it wasn't given a chance to flourish. Like the idea was great and the fact that they pull it off successfully is really something. Well, they built only two games, right? I think each one had a few thousand production run, but there was Star Wars Episode One, which here's my theory, the reason Pinball 2000 went nowhere. Charge our bing. Yeah. The other one was revenge from Mars. And you can still find those used today. But despite the fact that Pinball 2000 was created, it was okay as far as successes go, billy Williams pulled the plug. We select one company, stern. There's a guy named Michael Stern, I believe, who inherited his father's business and became the only people making pinball machines in the world. Still no. Is there a new one now? Yeah, man. Oh, good. Have we been recording this? Two years ago, we would have basically been saying, like, Pinball is dead. It's on its last leg. There's one company making it. They've started to lay off their designers because of the economic crisis. A year now, some of those designers went on, some of the Stern vets went on and founded a company called Jersey Jack. And for the first time in many years, there are more than one pinball manufacturer. Right. But the competition has caused Stern to go back and rehire, some of the people they laid off come up with new designs, and there's a pinball renaissance, a nascent pinball renaissance just beginning to bud. That could happen. Well, pinball is definitely sort of an end thing now. If you're super cool and you have some money, then you might have a pinball machine in your house. Like my brother. Right. Apparently, Stern's ratio of home sales to commercial sales has risen from 35% to 60% of their total sales. So the market now isn't for arcades because what are those? The market is for the person who has enough money to buy a pinball machine. If you want a new one, it's going to cost you. But if you want, like, a vintage one, it's 1500 still. That's a decent amount of money. Like the Addams Family one is less than $5,000. That's the one that you need in the house. Yeah, I think my brother actually refurbished his I think I'm right. I think they weren't even working and he was able to fix them very neat. Yes. I imagine you can get them for way less, because these are like fully refurbished, polished, ready to go one. And a lot of them are starting to come from overseas because the demand in vintage collectors items is rising so much that 70% of them come from overseas. They're re importing them back to America now. Well, and it's big in Europe because as evidence from that top ten, two or three of them are European swedes. Look at them. So we'll get into how pinball actually works right after this. Only 45% of high school students feel they are prepared for college or careers. Stride career prep is helping change that. Stride Career Prep lets students take charge of their education and their future. By combining real world skills training and traditional academics, students can earn college credit while in high school or get the training needed to land a job right after graduation. 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Learn more@ibm.com It automation. All right, so we've talked a lot about the history of pinball which is way more interesting than I thought it would be. But we haven't talked about the game because I assume everybody has played pinball, but if you haven't, we're going to break it down. Yes. Actually, it's pretty simple if you really think about it. There's two real components to the game now, ever since flippers and the ball. Yeah. Everything else is just kind of ornamentation or whatever. But to play pinball, you need flippers and a ball, because the point of pinball is to score points using the ball, bouncing off of obstacles and all that stuff, and then to prevent the ball from going down the drain using the flippers. That's right. There you go. Flippers and a ball. That's right. You've got your flippers typically at the bottom of the play field, which is what it's called, directly above the drain on both sides. A lot of games you'll see now have other flippers on the upper right and upper left that also do fun things like flip the ball. But a lot of times the ones at the top will flip it into the very special chamber where you can score tons of points. We'll get to the scoring here in a minute and you basically want to propel the ball up with your little plunger and then all the bumpers and ramps are there to score your points. And it makes a lot of noise, it's a lot of fun. And that's pinball. Yeah. For me, this article on how stuff works pointed out, like when you're talking about scoring, which will talk about later, doesn't mean anything to people who are playing pinball, most of us, because I'm just trying to keep the ball from going down the drain. Sure. But the way that pinball is arranged, as you get better and better at it, you'll learn that there are all sorts of combinations and tricks and stuff that you can do to really score some points. We'll get to that later on. I get ahead of myself. That's right. The ball itself, if you want to just talk hardware, it's one in 116 inches in diameter, it's steel and it weighs about 2.8oz and can reach speeds up to 90 miles an hour. When you see that thing shoot out of one of the little chambers, that will come back at you. It's going really fast. Yes, it is. And that is sometimes they will use magnets underneath the table, too, because since it's a steel ball, you'll sometimes see a gain that has a spinning disk, like a vortex in the center of the table that will start at any given moment. And it can catch your ball and keep your ball there with its magnet just sort of spinning in place, which is no good, or it could be super good, depending on what you're after. Sometimes, though, they do use a ceramic pinball called the Power Ball, and it is lighter and faster and immune to magnets. So. A lot of times when you'll have multi ball going on, some of those other balls are ceramic, and that's when things get crazy. So as the ball is going around the table, it's hitting the bumpers, it's hitting the targets, and they're sending messages. Well, if it's post 76 game to the motherboard, that's keeping track of your score and all that jazz. Yeah. And you've only got the three balls. That's a game. Yes, but there are circumstances where you can get more, which we'll tell later. So, Chuck, there's also another component. You don't have to have to play pinball, but all pinball games have it now. It's called the black box. And if you look at a pinball table, you've got the field, right? Yeah. The play field, which is the board that has all of the bumpers and the stuff and the flippers and everything on it. And then at a right angle to that coming off of it, you've got what's called the back glass. And connecting the two is called the black box. And this is where all of your electronics and your Solid State stuff goes. Yeah. Your back glass is not only going to have your scoreboard and your information, they'll say things like aim for the canyon. They'll give you hints and little tricks along the way. Look out for the trex. Look out for the trex. But it's also to the back glasses where, like, if you're walking through your arcade and it's 1983, that's where you're going to see that's where your attention is going to go. So that's where you see the Playboy models on both sides of Hugh Hefner or Kiss looking cool. So it's sort of an advertisement, hey, come put your quarters into me. Right. It's shiny, it's colorful. They spend money designing those things, and a lot of those have become art. Now they'll remove them and frame them and hang them on the wall. Which would be wicked cool, I think it would be, but I'd rather have the actual pinball game. Yeah, sure. So, like I said, back in the 70s, they introduced Solid State electronics. Prior to that, all pinball machines were electromechanical. And at first when I was researching this, I thought like, oh, okay, so Solid State took over everything. That's not the case. Solid State took over basically the back class. Everything else is still electro mechanical, or it was up until the very recent times. Although they still might be electromechanical. So when you hit a bumper with your ball and it makes it like bounce and vibrate and you get some points, that's because you set an electrical impulse using an electromechanical assembly to the motherboard, the Solid State motherboard, that's keeping score. So the motherboard is now keeping score. Now they can use digital sound so they could add speakers to the back glass and all this stuff. But the actual functioning of the pinball machine while you're playing is still electromechanical. Yeah, that's old school and there's about a half a mile of wiring in each one. And if you come over to my brothers, he will show you the guts. That's neat. He has his rigged where you can pull down the back glass, look under the hood yeah, basically. And just looks like a huge mess of wires. Half a mile of wires. That's a lot. It's pretty crazy. Does he wear like a chain wallet when he works on his pin wall machine? I don't know. Maybe. The playfield itself, which is what everything is on, is tilted at about six to seven degrees toward you and it is made of wood and it's also very old school. At some point someone makes this like a wood base, like cornhole, and it's got holes drilled in it and it's got stuff painted on it and a bunch of layers of finish to keep it, to protect it and to make that ball go. Yeah, but that's basically it. It's pretty simple. Yes. Some of the very newer ones, I guess, from the 21st century, replaced the wood playing field with plasma screens. Really? Or LCD screens. Yeah, but kids today, no thanks. But other than that, it's like screws and glue and wood. It's fairly old school and still entertaining. Pinball is challenging. That's why you hate Pinball 2000, huh? It was newfangled. Yeah, totally. Like, hey, let's take something awesome and make it new for everybody. I hate that. It's like taking some classic drink like you're a cocktail guy saying, let's add some new oxygenated something to the Manhattan. You're like? No. Manhattan's perfect. I don't know, oxygenated something. I just hate every like some things are perfect the way they are and I think pinball is one of them. So, Chuck, you approach the pinball machine, you put your quarters in and everything and you press the Start button or well, once you press the Start button, the ball should fall into the launch lane, which is at the back of the launch lane is the plunger. Yes. In some of the newer games there's a solenoid which shoots it for you. Yeah, I've seen other things, like a gun handle, trigger and stuff instead of the plunger. Very clever. But again, I'm into the plunger. Sure. One way or another you're going to launch the ball. The advantage of a solenoid that launches it for you with the press of a button is that if you are playing a game and you're pretty good and the pinball machine decides it wants to see what kind of a wizard you are, sure it will send more balls into action. The way it does that these days is by using a solenoid. In olden days, before the solenoid, say the 80s, there's a little man inside. Well, you had to pull the plunger back yourself and that meant you had to take your finger off of a flipper button, which meant, hey man, you better be quick. I kind of forgot about that or you're dead. That's why solenoids. That's the advantage they have. Yeah, I'll take that. Advancement that passes my bar. Okay, the solenoids is good. So let's talk about actual pinball play after this message. Chuck? Sufficient. Only 45% of high school students feel they are prepared for college or careers. Stride career prep is helping change that. Stride Career Prep lets students take charge of their education and their future. By combining real world skills training and traditional academics, students can earn college credit while in high school or get the training needed to land a job right after graduation. Stride Career Prep prepares your team for indemand careers in business, tech, health, science, criminal justice, and more. Students can take courses developed by industry professionals, prepare for certifications, get hands on experience, network, and most importantly, gain the confidence they need to succeed. Stride Career Prep is backed by over 20 plus years of experience in online learning and education. Take charge at K twelve. Compodcast. That's K twelve. Compodcast. And start taking charge of your future today. What if you were a global bank who wanted to supercharge your audit system? So you tap IBM to UNSILO your data and with the help of AI, start crunching a year's worth of transactions against thousands of compliance controls. Now you're making smarter decisions faster, operating costs are lower, and everyone from your auditors to your bankers feel like a million bucks. Let's create smarter ways of putting your data to work. IBM, let's create learn more@ibm.com. Okay, scoring and pinball. Like you said earlier, if you're a regular schmo like us, we're just trying to keep that ball on the table. But if you are a pinball wizard, then that means you know the game within the game and all the combination shots that you're specifically trying to hit in order to rack up the big points. This is nuts to me, I have to tell you. I didn't even know that this existed until really? Yeah, I knew, like, that's how poor my pinball playing is. No, I'm not any good either. Is your brother good? So you've seen him? Yeah, he's better than me. So they use this in this article. They use the example of a game called high roller pinball. Yeah. And basically imagine this. While you're playing high roller, you basically want to knock out some icons that are associated with poker. Once you've hit all the icons with the ball or something like that. So there are tiles that you knock down or whatever. Once you've hit them all, you've unlocked a game within a game, and I think it starts with poker. And all of a sudden you're playing pinball while you're also playing poker on the back glass. Yeah. So, like, you're trying to hit a specific thing that will give you a specific card in a poker hand, let's say. Right. And you're trying to do this with your flipper. It's a game of skill, like we said. Right. But at the same time, you're still playing your pinball game, too, right? Well, I mean, it's part of the game, so, you'll know, you've got the cards up on the back glass. All right, I got to hit that bumper to get a king. Got you. So I'm aiming for that king the whole time. Okay, so if your brain hasn't melted yet, prepare for the finish. Once poker is done, there's like, four or five other casino games that you play after that, and you play them in succession, and as you win them, you get closer and closer to this special play mode called Casino Frenzy. That's what it's called in the high roller machine. Yeah. That's after you've won all the poker games, right? Yeah, all the games, yeah. And so you're playing Casino Frenzy, and that's what's called a wizard award, where it's like, okay, this kid's good. Now we're going to really let him or her up their points by playing a special round. And all of a sudden, the field is, like, flooded with balls, and every bumper you hit is worth, like, hundreds of thousands of points, and it's just scary and terrifying. Yeah. Multi ball is stressful for a guy like me. Same here, man. I just try and keep what happens to me in multi ball is I usually lose them all pretty quickly. I can't even hold on to the one because it stimulates me too much. I'm like, what happened? Yeah, me too. And I'm like, as long as I've got one, I break even. But with wizard award functions, that's when you start to earn even more points. But imagine having, like, three, four, five balls on the field, and the computer in the machine is telling you, like, hit this combination and we'll give you, like, 20 million points. Yeah. And if you're even in wizard award ball, you're a pretty good pinball player, I would imagine. For sure. And that's just the high roller game, but most games have a couple of games within the game that you should look out for, and that's how you get your free game. If you've ever locked up or been super good and they'll tell you on the back glass how much you have to have, like, replay value, 30 million. And that's what you're shooting for because you want to get that free game, not just because it's a quarter or whatever. Right. But because it's like a big award. It's like entering your name in the top ten in Gallagher, right? Yeah. So I didn't understand this. When you get a free game, is that like three free balls or one extra ball? I think it's three. I think it's a full free game. That would make sense. That's why they call and it keeps telling it doesn't reset. Right? Yeah. You can also fall backwards into a free game with something called match. Yeah. I had never heard of this every once in a while, the computer will just flash like a random number between 90, I think. Yeah. Multiple of ten. And if the last two digits of your score at that moment happened to match that number, then you win a free game. It's like a little auto game. Yeah. And I think I've gotten a free game that way because I remember getting free games before, but being like, how did I get a free game? I must have hit the match. You like, just turned into Christopher walking in the dead zone. I saw that not too long ago. That holds up. Yeah, it does. But as far as replay goes, it says that most machines are set, so you have to be in the top 10% to get a replay, and you can get a second replay, but they have it maxed out at 150% of the first. So a double replay is tough. You're Tommy at that point, or your last name is Sharp. Yeah, I guess so. And then tilt. Chuck tilt. Yeah. It's synonymous with pinball. Tilt is where you are being well, basically where you've been punching the machine. The machine says, Enough. Hands off, man. And basically, like we were saying, early pinball machines, the only way you can manipulate them before the flippers was to move the machine. Yeah. Bump it. So the tilt mechanism has been in place to prevent people from overly cheating by tilting the machine. It's really old timing contraption, and I guess it's still in use. It's pretty funny how old school it is. Basically, they have like, I guess, like a copper wire with a circle on the end, a ring on the end, and dangling in the ring, but not touching it is like a metal ballast. Right. And it's connected to the machine. So as long as the ballast is just swinging around freely within the ring, you can tilt as much as you like. Yes. And a skilled player knows how to tilt without getting caught, right. It's part of the game. Yeah. But once you tilt too far and the metal ballast touches the copper ring, a current is formed, and all of a sudden, it sends that to the motherboard. And the motherboard says, tilt, this is your first warning. And apparently most modern games give you two warnings. And then the flipper stopped working and you lose your ball. Yeah. And that's just losing one ball. If you really get upset, if your ball is stuck, or if you're just having a bad day at the office and you pick up the front of the machine and slam it down, that's called a slam tilt. And they have these little leaf switches inside the machine for that. And if they touch each other, that means you have really taken things too far, and that is shut it down. No game not, we're taking your ball. They're saying, leave the machine. You're not going to win any cigarettes. Doing that. Exactly. And that's the slam. Tilt that's Pinball, baby. Yeah, I got nothing else. I don't either. This is very exciting. I'm glad we finally did it. It's been on my list forever, ever since I found out it was illegal. You're like, oh, I got to get into that. But that was like a couple of years ago. I feel like, wow. Yeah. When I saw special Winlet. Nice, man. Everybody go see that. Is that on the old Netflix? I believe it is. Tilt definitely is. All right. I think Special Winlet might be too. I'll add that to the former queue, which they had to change because Americans are dumb. What do they call it now? It's not called a list because people are like, what's a Q? Really? Why is it spelled like that? I hadn't noticed that they did that. Oh, my goodness. Yeah, I've heard. That's the reason it makes sense to me. How can you verify that, though? Well, if you want to learn more about Pinball, go check out Special Winlet. Go check out Tilt. Check out the Popular Mechanics article we mentioned eleven things you didn't know about Pinball history. It's pretty awesome. And of course, check out the article on howstuffs.com go to the search bar and type in Pinball and it will bring up this article. Since I said search bar, it's time for listener mail. Yeah, this is via Facebook, actually, in regards to our Morgan's podcast, because one of our is that funny? I think it's morglon, but you are literally the only person on the planet that calls it that's. Fine. Tyler Murphy are one of the generals and the stuff you should know, army and Facebook and email friend Pinged, I guess a doctor friend of his name Chris Wells, and was like, hey, dude, check this out. Do you know anything about this? And so he commented on there. I was like, hey, this is a listener now. Can I use it? And he said yes. So he says he's only come across it twice. In both cases, they brought stuff in telling me it was eggs and bugs. I, along with my med tech, reviewed it under a microscope, and it was mainly lint and hair follicles. One had some insight that it was not an actual infection and felt relieved. The other was very upset that I suggested otherwise. So he kind of got both into the spectrum. Yeah. I would never treat with an antiparasitic med if I didn't think it was a real infection. The risk of causing harm versus fixing anything is too high. Antiparasitmads can have all kinds of unwanted effects, from kidney and liver impairment, to lowering the threshold for seizure, to potentially being carcinogenic themselves. For every case of monsters inside me on TLC. That goes undiscovered and later is found to truly have a parasitic infection. There are many more where there is no physical evidence of infection because they're simply not one you feel really crappy as a physician. Though. When you have to tell someone that everything they brought into your office is all dust and lint. That there is no physical evidence for their ailments. The most important thing for a clinician to remember is that even if this is all in their head or imagine or however you want to word it, the patient is still experiencing it, which is what we pointed out. Yeah. So you need to try and treat the root cause, whether it be with continued reassurance and second opinion within reason, or cognitive behavioral therapy or other means. And that is Chris Wells, via our buddy Tyler Murphy. Cool. Thanks, guy. Tyler is a teacher, and in the summertime he works at the Big Putt butt chain. Putt puttt. No, it's like the Big Adventure Land or I can't remember what it's called. Pirates Cove. Is that a chain? I don't know. Sounds like a chain. Anyway, that's what he does. It sounds like fun. I was like, Man, I could totally do that'd. Be fun. Yeah. Well, thank you very much, you guys, and anyone else out there who has any further clarification on any episode we've ever done, we want to hear from you. You can tweet to us at syskpodcast. You can join us on Facebook.com stuffychano, you can send us an email to stuffpodcast@discovery.com. And as always, go check us out at our home on the web stuffyoushaneo.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit houseofworks.com. A summer school's out. The sun is shining. The daylight is longer. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music that's so good it's Criminal Morbid. Part true crime and part comedy, Morbid takes you on a journey from murderous mysteries to major laughs, all in the same week. Hosted by autopsy technician Elena Ercart and hairstylist Ash Kelly, this chart topping series will have you hooked before you know it. Listen to new episodes of Morbid one week early, only on Amazon Music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen. Today, you want your kid eating the best nutrition, right? And by that we mean your dog. Halo Elevate is natural sciencebased nutrition guaranteed to support your dog's top five health needs better than leading brands. Find Halo elevate at Pepco pep supplied plus and select Neighborhood Pet stores."
c5d11a64-5460-11e8-b38c-4f6c4b2771fe	Selects: Why Do Lefties Exist?	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/selects-why-do-lefties-exist	For at least the last 200,000 years, between 10-15% of the human population are left-handed and this fact has utterly left science baffled. In searching to explain handedness, all sorts of contradictory evidence has emerged, creating a fascinating mystery. Learn all about it in this classic episode.	For at least the last 200,000 years, between 10-15% of the human population are left-handed and this fact has utterly left science baffled. In searching to explain handedness, all sorts of contradictory evidence has emerged, creating a fascinating mystery. Learn all about it in this classic episode.	Sat, 27 Nov 2021 10:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2021, tm_mon=11, tm_mday=27, tm_hour=10, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=5, tm_yday=331, tm_isdst=0)	39193368	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Hi, everybody. It's February 24, 2015. What? No, it's not. It's not that at all. But we're going to go back in time today because that's what we do every Saturday with our Saturday Selects picks. And we are going back to February 24, 2015, because I want to talk about lefties. Are you a lefty? Do you kick with your left hand? Do you punch people with your left hand? Do you right with your left hand? Do you eat with your left hand? Well, I'm not going to talk about other things that you might can do with left hands or right hands, but you get the picture. Here's the episode, everybody. Why do lefties exist? Welcome to stuff you should know a production of iHeartRadio. Hi, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with Charles W, Chuck Bryant and Jerry's over there, too. And this is stuff you should know. The podcast. Man, oh, man. I would love for people to just fly on the wall in the studio sometimes and get squashed. It's a lot of fun prerecord today, people. I hate that you miss out on that kind of stuff. But you know what? That's for us. We deserve a little something. Yeah, that's called pre show. Fun. Fun. Hammering out the details. Hammering out the details. I thoroughly enjoyed researching this one. Oh, really? It burned my brain a little bit. It burned my brain a little bit, too, but I didn't know anything about handedness. No, not really. Don't use your hands much. Well, I mean, as far as why you are left or right handed or ambidextrous, it was all kind of new information for me. Yeah. I feel like I had read that IO Nine article, which we should give a huge shout out because it's performing partially the basis of this episode. Yeah. Why are so few people left handed from IO Nine? And they sourced a lot of great stuff from Discover magazine in their article. And Science and Science. Legit. It is legit. Possibly even too legit to quit. Yeah. Which I could not do with my left hand, I guess I can't. I just did it. You're signing to me? Yeah. I'm equally bad at doing two legit to quit finger motions with either hand. I'm right handed, by the way. What about you? I'm right handed. But that is weird since you have your MC Hammer pants on. I thought you'd be good at that. It's not hard to put on pants. It's hard to do too legit to quit finger motion. Yeah, I'm right handed. I was about to say to a fault. But heavily, heavily right handed. Because after reading this, I do believe that there is a bit of a spectrum, I think. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I think some people are way dominant with their one hand, and some people skew more towards, yeah, I can do some things with this hand. And some people are ambidextrous, which we'll talk about very few, though. Fewer than you think. Yeah, but I am heavily, heavily right handed. I cannot do many what's the word I'm looking for? My fine motor skill tasks. I cannot do very well with my left hand. I got you. I can just, like, club things and smack things, right? Knock stuff over. Yeah, knock stuff over. Like Frankenstein clearing a table. Pretty much. What about you? Can you do anything with your left hand? I used to think I was pretty much just strictly right handed, but then, especially researching this, I paid attention. I'm like, no, I use my left hand a little more than I thought. I'm definitely not ambidextrous. And if there is such a thing as a dominant hand, it's clearly my right. But this article points out or actually, it was a science article that said there's this idea that there isn't a dominant hand that you have uses for both hands, and one kind of specializes in one thing and one specializes in another. And the example they used to illustrate that was cutting like meat with a fork and knife. Yeah, I was going to ask you about that. I was thinking about it. I was like, oh, yeah, I guess I do use the knife pretty well with my left hand. And I thought, Crazy. No, my fork is in my left hand. Yeah, me, too. My knife is in my right hand. And then I switched the fork over to my right hand. That's what I do too. I was going to ask you that. So I'm definitely right handed, but my left hand does a great job holding the stake in place with my fork while I cut it with the knife. Yeah. Well, I come to think of it, though, I play guitar and drums, so, I mean, I have some left hand skill, I guess. And I know if you break your dominant hand, you're going to learn pretty quickly how to adapt. So it's possible to learn if forced to. Yes, it's all very interesting to me. It is. And we should say, if you happen just randomly to be listening to this episode on August 13, happy National Left Handed Day. Yeah. When I looked it up, I was like, I wouldn't it be one of those another stuff you should no coincidence if this was happening, to be released that week or something. No, not even close. No such luck. And it's good that lefthanded people have their own day, because they've been fairly maligned throughout the millennia. Yeah, let's talk about that, actually. Okay. Throughout history, in fact, even if you look at the words throughout history, there is a poopoo left handers, basically. Yeah. Like the word L-Y-F-T lyft. Yeah. From Anglosaxon means weak. That's where the word left comes from. Yeah. And the word sinister from Latin is the word for left. Yeah. Anybody who saw that episode of The Simpsons where Ned Flanders opens the left orium knows that I have a sinister reason to invite you all here. Sinister meaning left handed man. And that was when he announced the left orium. That show was so smart, you know, very smart. So many of those jokes, like, just flew over my head back in the day, well before I got smarter. They're coming back to roost. There's a long list of countries who have languages that link the word right with being good and the left with being bad or wrong. And in some countries, even making hand gestures with your left hand is a no no. Well, in a lot of countries or a lot of cultures that eat food with their hands rather than utensils, using the left hand to eat or do a lot of things with is considered taboo because it's exactly right. You use the right hand to eat with, use your left hand to wipe with. Right. And I think if you pay attention and notice, I'll bet you have a hand that's dominant in that activity wiping your butt. Yeah, I'm ready. Are you? Okay. But if you try the other hand, it will feel very weird. Whatever hand you use normally, it's going to feel weird if you use the opposite. Yeah. And you'll just end up very messy. Sure. I wonder if you had a subconscious thing, like, I was just eating these candy pecans with my right hand, and I know I'm going to go back and eat them with my right hand. I don't even use my hands to eat. I'm a little too germ conscious. I scoop food up in the crook of my elbow, which is very clean because it doesn't come in contact with other stuff, and then I eat out of the crook of my elbow. That's pretty, buddy. Why have they picked on left handed people? There are some theories that it's just a minority. 10% to 15% of people are left handed, and throughout history, minorities have been picked on. That's right. That's one thing. There's at least a couple of cultures that equate left handedness with clumsiness. Yeah, that makes sense to me. Some hypotheses theorize that tool making for a very long time has been done following right handed techniques. Still is in many cases. Sure. And so when a lefty was trying to make tools or do whatever using right handed tools, they would have been clumsy with them. And therefore the idea that lefthanded people were clumsy or weak or whatever could have developed and carried on. Yeah. Like Colonial Day, dad is teaching his two sons, let's go with a son and a daughter even. Let's set up how to use a saw. And the son's left handed, and he can't saw well. So the dad's just like he favors the daughter because she's better with the saw. Right. It's easy to see how that could happen. Like, he's mad at Roger, but pleased with Prudence. Yeah, because Prudence, she's always saw things well, that's a colonial name, right? Yeah, sure. Well, I feel like it is. Okay, well, what else is there? Who. Goody, alice. Okay. Timeless. But if you're lefty today, you might be frustrated with things like scissors and can openers and spiral notebooks and things that sort of favor the right handed. Yeah. Sitting next to a right handed person at dinner. The elbow thing, it's the worst because there's so few left handed people. If you're planning a dinner party, first of all, it's just common courtesy to know the handedness of all of your guests. Sure. And then to put them appropriately right. To put the left handed person at the end of the table so that their left elbow is off the table and they don't have to worry about bumping into other people. Yeah. My mom is left handed, my father is right handed. And you came out right handed. Yeah. Crazy. I sure did. So despite everybody knowing that there's a right handedness and a left handedness, it turns out, after investigating this kind of thing, science is really baffled as to what exactly is going on, why we would have handed this yeah. At all. Where it comes from, why the proportion seem to be steady. There's a lot of questions that come up when you look into handedness, whereas the average person would just kind of take it for granted. But no, not the average scientist. No. There are a lot of interesting theories, though. One is that, as we all know, we have a left hemisphere in the right hemisphere of our brain, and we are one of the only mammals that are very much it's called brain lateralization, when primarily and this isn't across the board, but primarily one hemisphere controls certain things and the other controls other things. And that is primarily controlling the opposite side of the body as the hemisphere. But language and controlling your fine motor skills, like things you do with your hands and your fingers, have often been linked because they are generally linked together on one hemisphere of the brain. Right. For the most part, people who are right handed, and they make up the vast majority of human beings, by the way, 85% to 90%. Yeah, I saw as low as 70, but nothing lower than that. Yeah, you're right. Sorry. Exactly. Those people have their language center in the left hemisphere and I guess also their motor cortex in the left hemisphere. Right. Now the left. And there's a lot of questions about why this would be. And the brain supposedly is always looking for efficiencies as much as possible, so they're saying, okay, well, these are two very human activities speech, language, and using your fingers to do stuff. They're also some of the more complex activities that humans engage in. So it makes sense that you just leave it up to one side of the brain so that these things cannot have to cross over the corpus colossum. Yeah. It's just like clustered together. It makes sense. It does make sense, but it's also a pretty thin explanation. You could also say the exact opposite, that it would make more sense that our motor skills and our language skills would be in opposite sides of the brain to give each other a break rather than just waiting it down on the same side. The point is though, is if you crack open a human brain and you look for the motor cortex and the language region, the language center, you're going to find them most likely, statistically speaking, on the left hemisphere, hence more right handedness. Right? Because of what you said, that brain lateralization where stuff that's carried out in the left hemisphere is going to manifest itself in the right. So if you're shaking somebody's hand using your right hand, the left hemisphere is blowing up. That's right. If you're taking in visual information with just your left eye because you got your right eye closed or it was poked out by a seagull or whatever, then your right hemisphere is going to be active, right? That's right. Interestingly though, if the opposite isn't true, if you have your language center in your right hemisphere, it doesn't always mean that you're going to be left handed, right? It means you're more likely to. But I like the way this article looked at it. It's an evolutionary rule of thumb, I think they said between 61 and 73% of lefties have the language centers on the left over 90% of right handed people, right? Which raises a really great question. Is there such a thing as righties and lefties or is there such a thing as righties and non righties? Yeah, because if a righty and a lefty are equally exactly the same thing, if handedness is completely binary like that, then if you're a lefty, your language center should be on the right hand side. And like you said, that's just not the case in most lefties even. Yeah, that's true. And the IO Nine article also points out that they don't know why necessarily, but this is just how we evolved. It could have just been the opposite and then we'd have more lefties, right? Well, that's the idea. But I think there are a couple of explanations possibly of genetic mutations along the way. Two in particular. One about 2000 years ago that basically mutated us to the fact that we are going to be more right handed in the language center, is going to be on the left hand side. And then more recently there's a theory that there was a second mutation 20,000 between 20,100 thousand years ago where that basically balanced things out or it canceled that out, which means the possibility of left handedness became a thing or else we would have all been right handed. Right. That makes sense too. It does make sense in that humans possibly evolved to use their hands more and by using their hands more our brains were forced to become specialized and basically forced to choose. So then some sort of gene was set up that made the developing human brain most likely to be a right handed person. Right. Yeah. And then that second gene came along and canceled that out. In some parts of the population. Yes. I think it's the D gene and the C gene. There are two LL's, which is the manifestations of a gene in the same location, and the DJing is more frequent in the population, so it promotes the right handed preference. The C gene is less likely within the gene pool. And so there you have, like, a 50 50 chance of being left handed if you have that C gene. Okay. I got you. Yeah. But you don't have a 50 50 chance of being a left handed person in general. You have about only if you have a chance. Yeah. Because the DJ is more prominent, and that means almost certainly you're going to be right handed. Okay. So the caveat we should add to all of this is that this is all just strictly conjecture. Sure. And we'll get to a little more of this conjecture right after this. So, Chuck, we were saying that it's possible that genetic mutations far back in human history account for this. Sure. And there is a lot of evidence that humans have been mostly right handed for about the last 200,000 years. Fossil evidence suggests this. Looking at Neanderthals skeletons, early human skeletons, you can see evidence on the skeletons of right handedness, and they think that it's so obvious and obviously prominent because these people were using things like spears. Yeah. So if they did have a hand preference, then a spear would definitely develop that arm connected to that hand, and it would stay in the fossil record through the skeletons. Right. Yeah. They also have looked at other fossils as far back as 1.6 million years. There's a skeleton called, I want to say, the Kokomo Boy, even though it's not but I love that song. It's the nario kotome boy. Do you love Kokomo? Sure. And he is a 1.6 million year old homo air gaster, and he was clearly right handed as well. Other fossils have turned up evidence of right handedness. The teeth striations on the teeth suggest eating with their right hand. Yeah. So what we can say with a pretty decent amount of confidence is at least for the last 200,000 years, humanity has been the majority right handers, and there's been maybe about this constant 10% 15% proportion of left handed people, which makes the mystery even more crazy to me. Yeah. But it also makes sense that in early tool building and teaching how to use tools, I mean, it holds true today. They've done studies that you teach your son or daughter to tie a tie, and it's going to be more difficult if they're left handed and you're right handed for them to try and do it with their left hand. So they'll pick it up easier if they go against their instinct and learn it how you've talked. Right. With the right hand. Studies have shown that. So you learn faster from watching somebody and then using the same hand that they do. Yeah, and that makes sense. Back in with Tuktuk and showing his pal how to use the bone to smash skull. Right. If his buddy picks it up with his left hand, tuck's going to shake his head. No, no, don't be stupid. Yeah. Use right hand or they're just going to everyone wants to fit in, even back in the old days. Well, that's actually a suggestion of why left handedness is possibly not a little more prevalent among a certain age group today because it was equated with being weird or off or crazy or whatever. And parents and teachers would force children to learn how to write with their right hand, effectively wiping out a lot of the left handed population. Yeah. And just jumping back a minute, I wanted to mention something important that the whole correlation versus causation thing yeah. With the whole language center link, it's not necessarily that's a correlation. They appear to be strongly linked, but no one is saying that because the language hemisphere is on the left side of your brain that's causing you to be right handed. Right. And again, the reason that they are linked in a lot of scientists minds is that speech and fine motor skills are basically uniquely human. Almost uniquely human. And it's just a little it's kind of like a red flag or a signal that they're both usually in the same hemisphere and they do seem to be connected. And one hypothesis for why they're connected I thought was pretty smart. The idea that spoken language emerged out of gestures, hand movements, which would require fine motor skills. Right. That I don't have trying to do the diligent to quit things. Sure. But the idea that language emerged out of that would suggest some sort of connection between the two. Like maybe the fine motor skills section is the more ancient of the two and then language evolved out of that. Right. But we also still need our fine motor skills to like, eat with a fork and knife and everything so stuck around it didn't become obsolete just because we started speaking. Yeah, I like that theory. We did mention that this is a largely uniquely human trait, but they have followed. They basically been looking at our closest ancestors to try and figure a lot of this stuff out. Although I did see some studies that said that 30% of cats are left handed because they'll go to swap things with their left hand. But I'm not so sure about that. Yeah. Not only is it difficult, apparently to test or do you attribute a handedness to an animal, it's also difficult to attribute handedness to a person because the idea of whether or not you're left handed or right handed, it's still questionable if you write with your right hand, but you actually can write better with your left hand or something like that. Right. What are you, the one you're comfortable with or the one that you're actually better with? Yeah, that's a good point. But they have been looking at our primate ancestors since about the 1920s, and they have found patterns. Apparently lemurs are more left handed, and other prosimians, macaques and old world monkeys for the most part, are evenly split, and gorillas and chimpanzees are about 35% lefty. But this is interesting. The more, as they say here, the more primitive the primate, the more likely it is to be a lefty, which goes in the opposite of the gene mutation. Right? It's the exact opposite. It implies that we were originally left handed, right, as primates, and then as we evolved, we became right handed. So therefore right handed people are more evolved than left handed people in some weird way. Yeah. So again, it's another inconsistency. And of course, this is in primates, too. That doesn't necessarily mean it's the same thing with humans. No, definitely not. But if you're looking at our ancestry and trying to figure out where handedness came from, you have to go pretty far back. Right. And that's a pretty good example of how this body of work or knowledge is very contradictory still. Yeah, it's baffling. It's pretty awesome. Hey, Chuck. Hey. You sent me something about ambidextrousness? Yeah. I thought this is kind of interesting from mental floss. Like, it was just kind of my understanding that anybody who said amidextrous knew what they were talking about, but it turns out that's really just not the case for the most part. It's a very rare condition, I guess you'd call it. Yeah. Because I don't know if there is a strict definition for what constitutes being ambidextrous. Like a switch hitter in baseball doesn't necessarily mean they're ambidextrous. It means they've taught themselves to hit from the other side of the plate. Right. If you notice as a baseball fan, you're never going to see a player that hits equally as well on both sides. Like the great Chipper Jones here from Atlanta. He favored one side of the plate. Although he was a switch hitter, he was a much better hitter. I think it was as a lefty and not as a righty. That's not ambidextrous. Now someone who's taught themselves because it's a valuable skill in sports to be somewhat ambidextrous or in a lot of sports. But as far, I think writing is one of the things that they can look at as a clear indicator of which hand you're best at. And they say about only about 1% can write equally as well with either hand. Right. So that's like super low, apparently, too. So this handedness and this lateralization of the brain and division of labor and all that has a lot to do with how your brain is connected. And apparently handedness is a part of that, too. Yeah. So, like, for example, people who are Ambidextrous are more likely to suffer from schizophrenia to have schizophrenia. And it's not just ambidextrous. People apparently lefties show a greater propensity towards schizophrenia. Something like 40% of people with schizophrenia are left handed, which is a very high proportion, considering the general population is about 10% more than that. Dyslexia and stuttering as well. Right. Which suggests that left handedness has an effect on how your brain is wired. It's not just a simple, oh, my hand is, I use my left hand. My brain is otherwise the exact same as a right handed person. The brain does appear to be different in some ways, especially in the ways that it's connected. Yeah. We talked about synesthesia before. One of our favorite, what do you call it? Condition. Is it? Yes. Is it? Sure. I always just think of condition as something that's derogatory. That's bad. I know. Like a malady or something. I think that falls under that one is one, but the other one isn't necessarily that one. Malady is a condition, but conditions are necessarily malady. Anyway, that's my long winded way of saying synastes are awesome. Yeah. And the rate of Ambidextrian sinistites is much higher and left handedness than in the general population. Right. So we have some clues here. Handedness has to do with how your brain is wired. And if your brain is wired in such a way that you are left handed, your brain is wired differently from a person with a right handed brain, right? Yes. And a lot of studies have backed that up and have come up with things like it's entirely possible that if you're a left handed person, you got some advantages in life. We'll talk about those right after this. So, Chuck, one of the things that lefthandedness possibly bestows confers upon you as a benefit is the idea of thinking quicker, to be able to process information more quickly. Yes. They have done some studies on this, did a couple of studies, one of which they sat down 100 people, 80 right handers, 20 left handers, and basically just showed them a computer screen with a single dot, either on the left or the right side. And you had to press a button. That's just a speed test, basically. Like, which side is it on, left or right? So if something shows up on the left side, I'm sure you have a clicker in your left hand and clicker on your right hand. You click the left hand clicker. But this is all happening very fast that's right and left handed subjects were overall faster in the other test. They had to match up multiple letters that appeared, in some cases on either side of the line and in other cases on just one side. And again, left handed were faster, but just at matching letters that were on both sides of the line. Right. Which I thought was interesting. Well, and that supports this idea that the brain, the fact that some left handed people's motor skills and language centers are on different sides in their brains could make them talk more. The sides of the hemispheres of their brains are more connected. There's more white tissue, or their corpus colossum is more efficient. It makes sense in a way, but at the same time, you're like, wait, that doesn't make any sense. So this data should be taken and just locked away in a box until we understand the whole thing more, because it doesn't really do a lot at this point. We don't know enough to make it fit now. And it's actually kind of contradictory to some other stuff, too, as far as handedness goes. Yeah. But they do say that if you're left handed, you may be like a better gamer or a pilot, because you're able to just process this quick information super fast. Right. Like rapid fire stuff coming at you. It also suggested, too, that language can be processed in both hemispheres among left handed people, which, again, would require a lot more connections between the two hemispheres, faster communication between the two, and hence quicker thinking. Yeah. In the long run, as you age and your brain deteriorates, you may be in better shape as a lefty because your other hemisphere may be able to pick up that slack more easily, whereas if you're just a dumb right hander, you're just screwed. You're in trouble. Of course, this is a proven. This is just they're postulating here. Right. But, I mean, it adds to this mystery. Yeah. You definitely have an advantage in sports in a lot of cases, though. Yes, but not in the way that you would think. It's not necessarily because your brain is communicating. The hemispheres of your brain are communicating it's more because your opponent is statistically, likelier, to be expecting you to be a right handed person, to have trained against a right handed person, more practice. Exactly. To be used to playing a right handed person. Whereas if you're a left handed person, they're playing you now. You're going to throw them off guard, you're going to catch them off guard, you're going to be able to get the drop on them because they're not used to you. Whereas you being a lefty, you're still statistically likelier to have played right handed people. Right. So you know how to handle them. They don't know how to handle you. You're the wild card, baby. You win. You're Rocky. Yeah. Rocky was left handed, apparently. Yeah. And there's a bunch of sports figures in real life that were left handed, and apparently it's one of those things where they are disproportionately represented as far as successful athletes go compared to the population at large. Yeah. And I think a lot of times you'll hear about, like, MMA or boxing, tennis is. Another big one, because if you're used to playing Ridy's most of your life, that left handed server comes up there and it's different. It's weird, right? And the difference is so pronounced that if you are a pro tennis player or something like that, or pro boxer, you're going to train against the lefty before a match against the lefty. You're going to do what you can to prepare yourself. Yeah. And I think Robert Lam wrote this on how stuff works. Our left handers quicker, better at sports. And he also points out that through history, this probably comes from, like, soldier training, mainly training and fighting and jousting and sword fighting and everything against other righties as well. So a lefty would have a left handed warrior might be more prone to be the great leader, like perhaps Alexander the Great, who was supposedly left handed. What's weird, though, is if that has been the case, if humans have been left handed and right handed, the proportions have been roughly the same for the last 200,000 years. If you're left handed combatant yes. Wouldn't then the proportion of left handed people have grown over time because of natural selection, because you have an advantage in battle or something like that. So therefore the population of right handed people would drop in relation to the population of left hand killed them. Exactly. That makes sense. And I remember it does, but that hasn't happened. Yeah. I remember our podcast on castles, like, 80 years ago. Remember they built the staircases going on the right hand side. Do you remember how bendingly difficult that was for me to understand? Oh, no. Did you have our time with it? Yeah, we had to rerecord it, I think, twice, because I kept getting it wrong. Yeah. We also got in trouble for a cuss word in that one, too. That was a dark day many years ago. Oh, yeah. But the castle steps would wind up on the right side of the wall to give the advantage to the person higher on the stairs swinging a right handed sword. Because obviously you couldn't swing a right handed sword going up the stairs because the wall is on your right. But a left handed combatant advantage taken away. Exactly. Even though you have the higher ground, because all of a sudden you're cutting the guy's knees off. Right. You're cutting them off at the knees. Yeah. That hurts. It does. But also included with natural selection, too, is if there were any real disadvantages to being a left handed person, or there were advantages to being a right handed person, this population shouldn't have remained steady over that long of a period, too. I see what you mean. Unless the advantage isn't so great as to cause that natural selection to occur. Maybe there are more US presidents that have been left handed, more mensa members, for whatever that's worth. Yet half of the twelve US presidents since World War II have been left handed. Yeah. So whereas the normal population is 10% to 15%, lefties US presidents since World War II has been 50%. And apparently in the 1992 campaign, all three candidates HW, bush, Clinton, and Perot were left handed. Yeah. That's 100% of the population perot man. He was fun to watch. He was. Dana Carvey was fun to watch. Doing Perot, too. Oh, yeah. And they say more musicians are more likely to be left handed. Maybe. And it does run in families, even though identical twins can have opposite hand preferences. Oh, weird. And there is in the 1980s, there was a Harvard neurologist that said that lefties are righties. Whose brain centers in the womb change because of high testosterone. Yeah. So there's theories that we become handed in the womb because of something like that or birth trauma or some sort of trauma while we're in the womb, and that just adjusts the construction of our brains. Supposedly, a mother's age has an impact on her kids. Oh, yeah. That's crazy. Statistically speaking, a mother over 40 who gives birth has a higher likelihood of having a lefty kid. Way higher. Like 125% or something. Yeah, that's pretty high. It's more than 100%. I don't even know what that means. Yeah. And then I guess your hand preference emerges about by seven months. Oh, really? But then it's like, set by age three. So before seven months, you're just swinging poop with both hands equally as well. Pretty much, yeah. I read a story about a guy who found out as an adult that his mother had suspected he was left handed when he was a baby. So she immobilized his left hand so that he would be forced to learn with his right hand abuse. He didn't seem to take it like that, but it came across like he felt like something had been kind of taken from him. He said it also explained a lot that he was like so with stuff that involved, his right hand side seemed to be better with his left and that he looked into it and that by doing that, which is very popular, kids were forced to become right handed through the 20th century, that you are basically making a less pronounced copy of the person. You're taking the original and making, like, a slightly dimmer facsimile of it. Yeah. Like forcing their brain to reorganize. Like that interesting. Whereas they thought they were trying to give them an advantage to actually give them a disadvantage. Exactly. But I would imagine that if you did that to, say, age 18 right. And then all of a sudden started using your dominant hand, that you are naturally born with it's all, like, spindly and weak. Right. Once you train it to bulk back up, I would imagine your brain would be better off like that. It'd be fuller. Right. So continue the abuse right. Until 18. Okay. Discontinue the abuse, and then, bam. You got a super kid on you. Yeah. Take your little old man, spinly hands and fingers, like building them back up. The Mr. Show character. Remember Titanico? David Cross in the hospital. Yes. They're getting back together. Yeah. That's exciting. So PFT tweeted something, some picture. It's very exciting. The whole gang. If you want to know more about Paula Tompkins or Handedness or Mr. Show or any of that jazz, you can type that stuff into the search bar@howstuffworks.com. Since I said search bar, it's time for listener mail. I'm going to call this Christian shout out. Hey, guys. Started listening a few months ago and I've already listened to about 160 episodes. Not bad. And by the way, we mentioned this a lot, but if you're just on itunes, say, and you think, boy, these guys have got 300 episodes. 301. Yeah. We've got like how many now? 700 and change. Yeah, 700 plus that you can find on our websitestepyshow.com. Yes. And as a little pro tip, if you go on to Stuffyhoodnow.com, aka the website, with one of the worst searches in the world just to control F and open up your web browser search and then type it in on our podcast archive page. So if you're looking for something yes, okay. It'll bring it up. Don't bother searching for it using our search tool on your site. We're working on that. Are we working on that? I hope so, because this is really bad. Like, it doesn't bring up anything. Really? Yeah. Wow. That's pretty bad. Otherwise it even there. I don't know. I guess for looked lame. So, getting back to this, we do have a lot of podcasts out there. For those of you who don't know, we have 700 plus. He knows what we're talking about. He's listening to 160 episodes. His favorite thing about them is how you don't poopoo anybody's beliefs. I'm a Christian, so when I was very much so begrudgingly listened to your evolution suite, I was expecting to be mad. But to my surprise, I heard a very nonbiased view of evolution. I do believe in evolution, but it's a long story. By the way, after many years of hearing creation a slam, people talk about evolution, it's a very pleasant surprise. So I just want to say thanks for putting your hearts, but not your opinions into that episode. That is from Matt, very sincerely, and we've been taking a task here and there. We try to do our best, Matt, to keep things on the level like that, but we are human and we do flounder here and there with that. But we try. And we appreciate your kudos for that. Yeah, thanks, man. If you want to give us kudos, we would love to hear about that. Or if you have any great stories that has to do with Handedness, let us know. If you had your arm tied to your waist until you were 18 as a baby. Yes. You can tweet to us at syskpodcast. You can join us on facebook. Comstuffyshow. You can send us an email to stuffpodcast athowstoporks.com and as always, join us at our home on the web. Stuffyshow.com stuff you should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more Podcasts My Heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows."
https://podcasts.howstuf…-coral-reefs.mp3	How Coral Reefs Work	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/how-coral-reefs-work	Coral reefs are the largest organic structures on Earth, yet they're created through a symbiotic relationship between creatures about 3 millimeters long. Learn more about the the world's coral reefs (and how to protect them) in this episode.	Coral reefs are the largest organic structures on Earth, yet they're created through a symbiotic relationship between creatures about 3 millimeters long. Learn more about the the world's coral reefs (and how to protect them) in this episode.	Thu, 09 Feb 2012 13:52:57 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2012, tm_mon=2, tm_mday=9, tm_hour=13, tm_min=52, tm_sec=57, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=40, tm_isdst=0)	34595807	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know from housetopworkscom. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. With me as always, as Charles did to be Chuck Bryant. And that makes this stuff you Should Know. I just noticed your cold is cleared up. Yeah, a little bit. I still have an interior lining, a very thick slam. Other than that, I'm fine. Yeah, you sound fine. That's all I care about. You know what it was tons of emergency used to wash down tons of vitamin B stress, which is like tons of just different vitamin B's. I eat solar ray scotch. Right? Single malt scotch. Just my secret ingredient. And lots of license. A couple of license every time. Like thousands and thousands of percentages of daily value. It just makes the FDA cringe that I take as much. That's what I do. I just load up on everything. Triple it. Yeah. There you go. Take that body. So I'm fine. Good. Now Yumi has it. Oh, does she? Poor thing. Same exact thing. And she doesn't like when I tell her to take vitamins. Yeah, but you live together. You drink after one another. You suck face. I'll leave an emergency here, they're like laying around. Oh, did I leave that oops, that's already dissolved in the water. Even better. And it's going on your gullet. Chuck? Yes? Did you know that I am a certified scuba diver? I sure did. Oh, yeah, you did. I thought for sure you're going to be like, no, I didn't know we talked about this. We've even scuba dive together. Haven't. That was the first time I heard about it. I'm not the sharpest tack in the package. That's all right. But I say that to tell you that I was certified at a place called Islamuares off the coast of Cozumel, which just so happens to also be the home of the second largest barrier reef. Oh, really? Known to man. What's it called? Known to humans? I don't know. It's not called anything because there's the Great Barrier Reef and then there's all the other all the other ones. But this is the second largest, which is pretty big because there's a lot of barrier reefs. There's a lot of coral reefs in the world. But after reading this article, I found that there's a lot about coral reefs that I didn't know. Fortunately, we had Jennifer Horton, who I'm sure you'll remember, worked at the site for a while. Yeah, she's a great writer. Great writer. We had her to explain it to us. And I get coral reefs now. In fact, Jennifer has written many of the animal related podcasts that we've done. Octopi, bison, I think maybe that one. She wrote a lot of the animal stuff. Animal migration. Yeah, lots of good ones. I miss you, Jennifer. Hope you're well. If you listen, I wonder, who are they? Right, I remember those guys. I hated those two. All right. Coral reefs. This was all new to me. The rainforest of the Sea of the Equatorial Seas, home to about 25% of all fish species. Yeah. That's crazy. In fact, right. The Great Barrier Reef has more kinds of coral on one just single little outcropping of it then you'll find in the entire tropical area of the Atlantic Ocean. Wow. Yeah. That's amazing. I don't know why I just said that. There the Aussies. They're going to be so stoked with this podcast. Probably any time they can make claim to something like that, they're just like, yeah, drink. Exactly. You're going to go poured beer on the Great Barrier Reef. The coral reefs are very beneficial to humans in a number of ways. Yeah. Economically. Sure. Because there's a lot of sea life, and thus people fishing for shrimp and lobster and things like that. Right. In all sorts of weird ways. Which we'll get to later. Yeah. They also protect the beach from erosion. They act as natural buffers from huge wave action. That's right. These little Dormany guys. Yeah. Well, let's talk about that, because when you think of coral, you think of huge Great Barrier Reef. It's enormous. It's like, I think there's 18,000 miles total of coral. Face. Wow. Face. That is crazy. On the Great Barrier Reef, actually, an individual coral called a polyp is about 3 mm long. Yeah. That's small. Super tiny. For those of you in America. Well, science got it wrong early on. We should go ahead and say that they at one point, fairly understandably thought that it might be plant life. Right. Because it sort of looks like it. Yeah. Like the coral fan. Yeah. That's a bunch of those little three millimeter corals building up into a fan. Yeah. It looks like a plant. So they got it wrong. And they're actually not only are they real living little sea creatures, but they are carnivores, which is you would never think about that. No. But they're in the Phylum Cindaria, Nigeria. Why would they put the C there? It's silent, man. I appreciate a silent letter. I am smarter than my pronunciations would suggest. I started looking this up because I feel like an idiot a lot of times. So they're in the file of nidaria, which means that they have barbed stinging cells called nematocysts. That's right. So they use this to capture their prey, but the prey kind of has to come to them because they're also sessile, which means they're fixed to a certain spot. Yeah. Cecil, seriously. Yeah. So it is understandable also that they got it wrong because coral has a unique property. It is almost half plant because there's this algae in the cells. I want to pronounce it. Okay, go ahead. It's called zooxanthaly. You're right. Very nice. Starts with a Z and there's an X in there somewhere. Yeah. And then it ends in ae. So what happens if there's a very mutually beneficial relationship between the algae and the polyp. They do a little exchange. The polyp itself will supply I'm sorry, the algae will undertake photosynthesis. Yes. As algae tends to do. As algae will do. And it will say, hey, Mr. Polyp, why don't you take all this stuff that I've made within your cell walls and convert it to proteins and fats? It poops out, like, amino acids and carbs for the polyp, and in return, why don't you give me a nice shelter? And you can also produce some carbon and nitrates and phosphates that I need to produce the photosynthesis to give you the proteins and fats that you need. So it's what you might call a symbiotic relationship. Exactly. One is helping the other. And you can make the case that the coral is getting the better end of the deal, because coral gets about 90% of the energy produced through photosynthesis by the zooxanthylae. Right? Yeah. But that also makes the coral more dependent on the zooxanthylae. True. And the zooxanthele is an algae of very little needs. It's not needy, it's not grabby, it's not going to call you up every Friday night wondering what you're doing, why you aren't here. Are you talking about me? No, jerry like that one. So the symbiotic relationship between the zoo's anthem and the coral polyps also produce coral reefs. The polyps use some of that energy, some of that amino acid to create something called calcium carbonate. And that's the hard stuff. Right. That's limestone, my friend. Boom. Yeah. They produce limestone out of their butthocks to create a cup, a little shelter for the polyp to stay in. Since the algae stays in the polyp, it creates a shelter for both. Right? Yeah. And this limestone secretion can keep building and building and building, because, again, coral stays in the same place. There's Cecil. That's right. And as long as they're still secreting limestone, the limestone structure they build will just keep getting bigger and bigger, eventually. Love it. That's just one three millimeter long coral. Yes. What you want to do is get thousands together, strengthen numbers. Yeah. Then you have a coral fan. Yeah. Or a colony. Yes. And then those colonies will eventually meet up with other colonies and say, hey, you guys interested in forming a wreath? Because we're pretty indestructible. Although that's not quite true. We're more indestructible if we all hook up. My brothers, like you said, strengthen numbers. Yes. And when they hook up, their limestone secretions can start to join together, forming a reef. But they're also connected by a thin piece of tissue. You got this one. It's called a cena SARC. That's what I was going to go for. I was just tired of humiliating myself for this episode. I would have called it a konosau, so I was way off. I'm really glad that yeah. It's a sensarch. And that's how the coral themselves are through limestone secretions and through this tissue. Called the sensor. They're connected. Right. But how would they grow? Well, there's two ways, man. Okay. They can reproduce. Yes. A couple of ways, though, right. Asexually or asexually. I know which one I choose which one. Asexual. Yeah, because you're cloning. That's pretty remarkable. Anyone can just get together and mate, right. Sexually, it's like, here's some sperm, and another one is like, here's some eggs. And then they get together, and then there's not much to it. Right. Asexually though they actually do divide and produce identical clones of themselves. And that's one way they can grow. And the other way is just to keep pooping out limestone, and that will connect with each other, and it just forms a big old yummy wreath. Yeah. This is not a fast process, though. Like, if there's a couple of coral that are a few inches away, say three inches away, and they're like, I would like to hook my cena SARC up to your cinna SARC and let's poop some limestone out together and get this reef going. That's beautiful. It's going to take them about a year to get together. Can you imagine how frustrating that is, to be three inches away and be like, I'd really like to consummate this. Right. I'll see you next June. I'm not convinced that coral can experience frustration. You don't think so? I think that's all the experience either. They're, like, really, really patient. But that three inches of growth a year has to take place under very specific conditions. Remember we said that coral reefs are in equatorial waters, not the coral themselves, but the zoosanthaly are actually very fickle and picky little organisms, and they like specific conditions. And as long as the conditions are right for them, then the coral can grow. Because remember, the corals are dependent on the zanthele to produce the calcium carbonate. That's right. So what are the conditions? Chuckles well, you said equatorial, specifically, 30 degrees north or south. If you have ever dived in the Bahamas and said, no, that's 32 degrees north. Right. And they have plenty there. It's because the warm gulf waters spitting out toward the Bahamas. Which is one reason the Bahamas is such a popular spot, I would imagine. Yes. I've never been there. You know, my folks drove my car back from the Bahamas, though. Once you had a car in the Bahamas, you're supposed to say, you're kidding. I must be. The Bahamas or island. It's a dead milkman song. Bitch and camaro. Oh, that's business. Yeah, it's the beginning. Jeez, I'm a dummy. It's all right, chuck hey, everyone. When you're running a small business, every second counts, and you can't afford to waste a single moment. So why are you still taking time out of your day to go to the post office, then? You could be using stamps.com. Yeah. For more than 20 years, stamps.com has been indispensable for over 1 million businesses, because stamps.com gives you access to all the post office and Ups shipping services, you need right from your computer. That's right. You can streamline your shipping process with stamps.com, easy to use software. All you need is your regular computer and printer. No special supplies or equipment necessary, and you can get discounts you can't find anywhere else, like up to 30% off USPS rates and 86% off Ups. So stop wasting time and start saving money. When you use stamps.com to mail and ship, sign up with promo code stuff for a special offer that includes a four week trial, plus free postage and a digital scale. No long term commitments or contracts. Just go to Stamps.com, click the microphone at the top of the home page and enter code stuff. I'm not hip. I'm not hip either. Chuck sunlight is another thing that they need, because it makes sense if you're going to undertake photosynthesis, you need sun. So if the water is rich in nutrients, believe it or not, that's not great for them. No. Because if you've ever looked through, if you've ever been under water and seen, like, a lot of plankton everywhere, it filters the sunlight. It's dappled. That's right. And also, as we learned later, the more nutrients there are, the more it will attract competition for those nutrients. And that's not good for them either. No, they don't like competition. Basically, they're just little prima donnas. The water, since you're near the equator, should be between 73.4 and 84.2 degrees Fahrenheit. Yes. And ultimately, if you put all these factors together, ample, light, clear water, and between 73 and 82 or 23 Celsius and 29 Celsius yes. You can get up to about 10 CM, or 3.9 inches of growth in a year. Twice as much on sunny days. Yeah, this is remarkable. But they're still not going to exceed that 3.9 inches, most likely. No. Sunny all the time. But what's cool then is if you think, well, that's crazy. There's some coral that I've seen, coral reefs, and they're big, and it takes a year to grow about 3.9 inches, say horizontally or vertically, maybe even diagonally. If it was, like a crazy year for them, sure. It must take thousands of years for coral reefs to build up. You would be right, my friend. Which is why scientists very affectionately consider coral reefs the old growth forests of the sea. Yes. Because when you're looking at coral reef, you're looking at something thousands, if not tens of thousands of years old. Which my question is, how long does the coral live? So, one thing I didn't get out of this article, did you? Oh. Each individual coral, each polyp, right? Boy, I don't know. And are the cups, the protective cups that they secrete, are they inhabited by successive generations? They're clones? Maybe. My guess, and I'm guessing here, is that there are so many, hundreds of thousands and millions of these packed so tightly together that if one of the little guys dies, it ain't no big thing because he's surrounded by his living brothers and sisters. Got you. But I don't know how long each one lives, though. That's a good question. Yeah. Someone will know. Yeah. Coral sand. If you look at the reef and you think, hey, coral is obviously the skeleton here of this great reef. It's not just the coral. Coral sand, from what I understand, is little remnants, tiny pieces of coral that are either eaten and pooped out or just chipped away because of erosion and waves crashing and bad weather and stuff like that. Right. Is that right? Yeah. But the cool thing is it doesn't necessarily go anywhere. It can fill in gaps or holes, and then, as luck would have it, there is a type of algae called coraline algae that goes and covers it up, and the structure of the algae acts as, like, an adhesive that glues the coral sand. So basically, it's like this self sustaining repair process that's always going on. The waves erode the coral and the coral sand. Certain types of fish to the coral and the coral sand, the sand goes in, just drifts into, like, little pockets where it gets caught, and the algae lays over it. Bam. Strong coral. Well, in coral sand is mine, which is one of the threats to reefs, because they use it for bricks and cement and road fill. So if you're mining the coral sand, there's not going to be that natural spackle to fill in the holes, and thus the reef is jeopardized, which is just one of many ways that reefs are in jeopardy. Yeah. Apparently one estimate is that 40% of the world's reefs could be gone in the next few decades. That's scary. Very sad. I hope you're scared. I'm scared. This is where I got a little confused, was, well, let's talk about the kinds of reefs, because I'm not confused about that. Okay. There are basically three categories depending where they form the fringing reef. It's the most common. It's directly from the shore, and they form a border projecting out to the sea. Yeah. It's kind of like if you go to, like, Marblehead in Ohio, there's a lighthouse. I think it's limestone. It just comes right off of the land. Right. I don't understand how that would be, because it's in Lake Erie, which is not freshwater, but who knows? It's very similar to that. It's like just a rocky projection jutting out from the land. But it's a coral reef. Right. Or if it were a coral reef, that's a fringing reef. Interesting. Reef attached to land. Barrier Reef. Very similar to the fringing reef, but it has a gap of water between the land and the reef. Right, correct. Yeah. And then my favorite, of course, the atoll. It's a nice one, which is when at one point there was an island or volcano, and it sunk. But you still have the circular reef with, I guess, like a lagoon or something. Yeah. The reef keeps building, but the mountain is now submerged. Pretty cool. Yeah. So you got your three types fringing, barrier, and it's all right. The zones is where I get a little confused. So all of these reefs are kind of broken down into zones. Like, you remember the biosphere logy? How could I forget? Okay, so you've got like, the different zones of the cave. It's very similar to that. You've got the back of the roof and the back is the side closest to shore. I think that's what confused me. Yeah. That's a little confusing, but it's from the viewpoint of the C. That's right. So you've got just imagine like a line and then a bump and then another line, and that's our reef. Right. Okay. On the shore side of the bump, that's the back of the roof. And this is actually where most life is, the flat zone. Yeah. Sometimes it's left high and dry by low tide, but most times it's just this little shallow area that's got tons of sunlight. So there's tons of plankton, which means there's tons of fish. There's a feeding frenzy, there's diurnal, temperature changes. Yeah. It's just very pretty. It's what most people think of when they think about diving on a coral reef. Okay. Right. Close. Safe. Then that bump, that's the ridge or the crest. Okay. Okay. That part. The crest is always exposed at low tide, and it may be exposed even at high tide sometimes, depending on how big, but it's the tallest point. It also serves as the wave break for that function of reefs that protect the land. Okay, sure. This is what the wave smack into. So it's going to be more easily eroded and probably have more of that natural spackle. Right? Yes. But was it coraline? Algae? Probably. Is that what's called coraline? Yeah. Okay. Or coraline, however you want to say it, chuck, I'm not going to stress you out. All right. And then there's the four reef. That's the ocean side, the seaside. Right. And in that part of the forefront, on the other side of the crest, the sea side of the crest, there's the butcher stone, which is awesome if you ask me. And that's where you're going to find if you're shark hunting, that's where you're going to find, like, sharks and barracuda and interesting things like that. Right. But does it buttress? Is that why they call it the buttress zone? So the buttress consider buttress is just like a jutting projection of coral limestone. Right. Just jutting out. And then in between these projections are little channels, holes that can go all the way through. Right. I'm not quite sure what the physics are of it, but basically, once a wave goes through this coral reef and hits shore and then gets drawn back out to sea, these channels funnel these spent waves back out to sea. And by funneling them, it gives them more energy. So then they crash into oncoming waves, which reduces the oncoming waves velocity. So all this is in an attempt naturally to combat the erosion of pounding waves? Yes. Awesome. Yeah, it's pretty cool. And it's also a really excellent shelter for little fishies and things like that. They want to go into the channel. So, Josh, we talked about the Great Barrier Reef here and there, but we should give it its proper due as the largest living structure on the planet seen from outer space. Everyone loves to throw that back around. Yeah, you can see it from outer space. And that made me look something up. Chuck, it's the largest living structure. Okay, so coral reef is an organism. Do you know what the second largest living organism is? My guess would be Louie Anderson. Is he still with us? I think so. I don't know why I picked a comedian that's been out of the loop for that long. That was a fat joke. Man, that was so mean. These days I know. It's a fungus in Oregon named Amarille oyste, 8600 years old, takes up 4 sq mi or 10 km\u00b2 single organism. Where is it? Oregon. Oh, Oregon. Yeah. Wow. It's at our friend Van Nostrin's house. So it's a big mushroom. Yeah. Interesting. Isn't that gross? That is gross. So the Great Barrier Reef, we're talking 1429 miles or 2300 clicks, and it is not a single reef. It's about 3000. I got 2900. So I'm not sure if that number had declined since this was written or not. But Jennifer points out, and like you pointed out earlier, the full edge of the reef is about 18 and a half thousand miles. So she says, if anyone's ever told you they've dived the entire Great Barrier Reef, they're dirty liars. Yeah, she said they're lying because there's no way you couldn't do it in a lifetime, she said. Yeah. I wonder if somebody told her that and she inserted it in the article. I don't know. It's definitely an accusation. It is. It's a weird thing. It's one of the seven natural wonders of the world. More than 400 coral species, 2000 fish species, 4000 mollusks, and six of the seven sea turtle species. All right, there for the boogling. Nice. And the ugly, like you said. The Australians are going to be proud of this. And they should be. Of course, back in 1975, apparently it was in some jeopardy and the Australians moved to protect it as a national marine park that basically ensured its survival. Sure, it's still kind of in rough shape here or there, as I understand, but six years after that so let's see. It became a World Heritage Site and 1% of the 18 and a half thousand square miles, or 18,000 linear miles right. Are open to the public except for that 1%. So just 1% is dedicated to research. Only? Just research. That's pretty cool. Yeah, not very much. If that's all they need bona fide scientists to dive that part. The rest of it, Jennifer points out, is divided into national park zones, which is where you can go recreate and learn some things. And then the rest of it is general use, which means commercial fishing, which I guess there's no better time to get into the threats than right now. Yes, there are some coral recent trouble. The Great Barrier Reef. Like I said, it's pretty well protected. But say if you look at some of the reefs in the Philippines, 70% have been destroyed and just 5% are in good condition these days. 10% of the world's reefs are now beyond recovery. Not just because of human causes, because of the natural causes as well. True. Because everything exists on a life cycle here on Earth, we humans just tend to accelerate it. 30% may die in the next ten to 20 years. So some of the natural threats are obviously harsh weather, like hurricanes. El Nino a weird weather pattern. It's going to increase temperatures, mess with the salinity, a lot more rainfall. So an El Nino season can do some serious damage. Bleaching coral Bleaching when they experience as little as, like, one degree rise in temperature, the algae will be ejected, basically from the coral? No, the algae takes off. Oh, it leaves. Yeah, it's like see in hell coral. It's a fine line between ejection and self, leaving the chicken and egg thing, maybe. You think? Yeah. So the algae gets the heck out of Dodge, turns the coral white, and if you Google pictures, you can see a lovely coral with, like, white patches here and there. That's the parts where it's bleached out. Yeah. If this keeps up long enough, the coral dies, because, again, coral has a symbiotic relationship where it's dependent on the zanthonese algae and the zanthonse leaves, then the coral dies. Very sad. And like you said, it was just as much as a one degree temperature increase, right? Yeah, that's not much. There's also predators, like there's things that eat the coral, the polyps themselves, crabs, worms, snails, barnacles parrotfish. Yeah, those are really pretty. Can't do anything about that, pal. That's nature at work. Yeah, but there are things we can do, such as not using dynamite when we fish on coral reefs. That's a pretty good start. Yeah, I would say so. There's 40 countries in the world, over 40 countries in the world that allow blast fishing. People using explosives that they drop onto the reef to stun the fish, so they can just swoop them up with the net and basically gaffa like a slack jawed Yoko wearing nothing. But overalls, well, they just bring their nets in. They just threw dynamite in the water to stun fish, while the dynamite also has a deleterious impact on the reef structure as well. You're going to go to the grave with that one, aren't you? I saw on Facebook you put the apostrophe in Y'all after the A. I mix it up. You know what's weird is the iPhone corrects it incorrectly. Oh, really? Yeah, they don't know, y'all, they're from California. I've always done yepostrophe. A-L-L that's correct? You all now, see, someone pointed out to me on email that it was in fact, y, a apostrophell. No, it's ul. So I've been doing it right the whole time. No, you were doing it y Austrophe ll. Because someone told me to change it. You can't just listen to any know who emails. Our fans have a deleterious effect on me. Delete. Do you want to look it up right now? Hey, everyone, when you're running a small business, every second counts, and you can't afford to waste a single moment. So why are you still taking time out of your day to go to the post office when you could be using Stamps.com? Yeah. For more than 20 years, stamps.com has been indispensable for over 1 million businesses. Because Stamps.com gives you access to all the post office and Ups shipping services you need right from your computer. That's right. You can streamline your shipping process with Stamps.com easy to use software. All you need is your regular computer and printer. No special supplies or equipment necessary, and you can get discounts you can't find anywhere else, like up to 30% off USPS rates and 86% off Ups. So stop wasting time and start saving money. When you use Stamps.com to mail and ship, sign up with promo code stuff for a special offer that includes a four week trial, plus free postage and a digital scale. No long term commitments or contracts. Just go to Stamps.com, click the microphone at the top of the home page and enter code stuff. Let's talk about blast fishing again. Okay. Or cyanide fishing, which is the ugly stepsister of blast fishing, which is dumping cyanide onto reefs to kill fish. Again, you have to wear nothing. But overalls, no shoes, nothing. No service overfishing period has got a negative effect, obviously. Yeah, because you're basically affecting the food chain. You're like, oh, we like these guys because they're tasty and I'm sure they won't be missed. Whenever you take any key species out of an ecosystem, you're in trouble. No good. There's also runoff is a big one, because remember, they like clear light, the algae do. Or clear water. And when the water's not clear, they shrivel up because they need sunlight for photosynthesis. Yeah, the pollutants when also, I thought it was going to be pollutants because just pollutants are bad, which they are. But really the reason is pollutants and sewage actually increase the nutrients, so that attracts harmful algae and competition, and that's no good. Right. And then we already talked about the mining. So what can we do, Chuck? We've got a few things we can do. You can adopt a reef. You can tons of organizations will let you do that. In fact, if you want to go. To adopt nature.org coral reef. You can adopt a reef in the Bahamas, Dominican Republic, Powell and Papua, New Guinea. Nice. Just like that. Yeah. You can funnel money to an organization that will take care of that reef. Exactly. And that's just one. I think you can do it through all kinds of places, then you say that. Yes. You can get your congressperson to lobby for stricter oversight of fishing methods. You can boycott products from countries that allow blast fishing or cyanide fishing. Really put the squeeze on the common man in the other country. You can go to his. You cannot chip off bits of the coral when you scuba dive because it's just so pretty that you want to take it home. Yeah. That's a big one. Give it to your daughter. Yeah. Not good. There's a lot of stuff you can do that you probably should do if you want to save the coral reefs. That's right. Nothing else. Why would you save them, do you say, if you don't care about snorkeling or anything like that? Well, my friend, if you care about the economy, you will want to save cores because they are valuable. The total value of the asset, that is the reef systems in Florida oh, in Florida alone, just Florida. $8.5 billion. When you take into account not just tourism, which is a big part of it, but also the estimated 177,000 jobs that all the industries surrounding it create. Wow. That's just Florida worldwide. Just from tourism and recreation. Just tourism and recreation that reefs bring in $9.6 billion annually. So if you like money, then you should support coral reefs. 12% to 15% of Bolivia's GDP is created by reefs. Wow. Isn't that crazy? That is crazy. Yeah. So if you don't have a heart but money makes you likely, then that should get you going on saving coral reefs as well. That's right. So if you want to learn more about coral reefs, including seeing a diagram of where the four in the back of the reef is, you can type in coral reefs in the search barhouseoffworks.com. It'll bring up this great article by Jennifer Horton. And since I said Jennifer Horton, it's time now for listener mail. Every time the name Jennifer Horton is uttered on the planet, somebody will read a listener mail somewhere. Yes. Quick announcement first, Josh. Okay, I know what you're going to say. That's right. We want to announce our south by Southwest action this year. We've been invited back. Somehow I didn't think that's what it was about the party. No, that's been we are going to be podcasting live at south by Southwest. It's a cell phone. It's a mouthful. South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, on Sunday, March the 11th, from 330 to 04:30 p.m.. We don't know the location yet, but we will get that out soon. If you are a badge holder, we would love to have you come down and hear us podcast live. If you are not a badge holder, take heed. Monday, March 12, we're going to be throwing a party. Did you write down the dates? I've noticed you've been getting them right. I got my little calendar up. Yeah, we are going to throw a party. We can't really reveal the details yet, but if you're in Austin, Texas on March 11 and 12th, we'll be in town and there will be something for everybody. Badge holder or non alike. Yes. Right? Yes. So stay tuned for details. Look at it on Facebook and Twitter and on the podcast. When we get everything firmed up, we'll let you know. Yeah, all right. Listen or mail. Okay. All right. I'm going to call this good cause from a good person. Hello S YSK team. I want to take a minute and thank you for helping me in a really big way. I've been working alone as a volunteer in Maloi, south of Tanzania, Malawi since September of 2009, and I happily pass the time listening to your show during my super long super awesome minibus rides. I am building a library in a small village and a big part of my library is an audio video collection that I've been putting together for the past few years. Many of the people in the village are illiterate, so a library full of books just wouldn't do them any good. So I started to think of ways I could include everyone in a learning activity. My answer was to incorporate documentaries and podcasts on a variety of subjects. So basically, we will choose a topic for the week and use the podcasts as a way of getting people interested, then direct them to read articles and books on the topic or watch documentaries and have some group discussion. Wow. Pretty cool. I really believe in the beauty of being inquisitive and interested in life, and videos and podcasts really help immerse people in new subjects. This is the first library of its kind in the country. Wow. And I am really hopeful that it helps to open the world up to people who are so often cut off. Fingers crossed. And that is from Diane Bowles, the founder of the Future Found. And if you want to check out Diane's awesome work she's doing, you can go to the futurefound.org. Excellent, Chuck. Very cool. It's Diane. Diane in Malawi. Yes. Building the only library of its kind. That is so cool. Thank you very much, Diane, for doing that. What do you want to hear? You want to hear of other people making a difference in the world? We always love that. Yeah, you're a SAP for that kind of thing. Or some good harrowing scuba diving stories, one or the other. Okay, so that's a great one. Chuck either doing good in the world or not doing anything whatsoever. Right. That could be directed to Chuck and I via Twitter at Syscapodcaster handle on facebookcom. If you go to STUFFYou, should knows page that's that. And you can also email us directly. We both get emails sent to the address stuffpodcast@housestuffworks.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit houseworks.com. To learn more about the podcast, click on the podcast icon in the upper right corner of our homepage. The House of Works iPhone app has arrived. Download it today on itunes. Brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 camry. It's ready. Are you? Hey everybody. I don't know about you, but I am excited that it's summer. School's out, the sun is shining, and best of all, there's downtime for days. That's where true crime podcasts on Amazon Music come in. They're the perfect activity for last minute road trips, long walks, or, if you're brave enough, late nights. With so many killer shows like Morbid, my Favorite Murder and Small Town Murder, you'll never be bored to death again. So download the free Amazon Music app to start listening to all your favorite true crime podcasts. Plus, with Amazon Music, you can access new episodes earlier. Download the app today."
http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/netstorage.discovery.com/DMC-FEEDS/MED/podcasts/2008/1229712525052hsw-sysk-habeas-corpus.mp3	How Habeas Corpus Works	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/how-habeas-corpus-works	Habeas Corpus is a Latin term meaning "you have the body," and -- in theory -- guarantees an incarcerated person the right to have a court determine whether he or she is imprisoned lawfully. Listen to this podcast from HowStuffWorks to learn more.	Habeas Corpus is a Latin term meaning "you have the body," and -- in theory -- guarantees an incarcerated person the right to have a court determine whether he or she is imprisoned lawfully. Listen to this podcast from HowStuffWorks to learn more.	Tue, 30 Dec 2008 13:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2008, tm_mon=12, tm_mday=30, tm_hour=13, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=365, tm_isdst=0)	22087203	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know from housetopworkscom. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. Welcome to stuff you should know. I'm Josh. Say hi, Chuck. Hi. How's it going, Chuck? Great. A little cold, but other than that, I'm fine. Well, Chuck, you know what? It's supposed to get really cold this January 20, which is a significant day. We heard about that in the Segway. That's a good one. Thanks. Is that the inauguration? Yes, it is. And they're expecting up to maybe 4 million people. Right. And worst case scenario, they're talking is 31 degrees and raining. Everything will be icy and frozen, and there's going to be old people dying left and right. Basically children. Exactly. In peril. Yeah. So if that happens, the most death fraught inauguration of all time. Right. And there's been some pretty bloody ones. Really? I don't know. Okay. I'm not sure. But I personally am looking forward to the inauguration, because as I understand it, Barack Obama, you've heard of him? President. Our next president. Yes. He is planning on restoring a part of the Constitution that was shaved off a couple of years ago. A little thing called habeas corpus. Yes. You've heard of this? I have. It is a Latin term. And you said you took Latin in high school. No, I took German. Did you? Yeah. You just continue to surprise and amaze me. It seemed like a Spanish guy. Don't. I would have definitely said Spanish. I wish I had taken Spanish. I would be better now for it. Although you could definitely get yourself a desk job at House stuff works Frankfurt. Is there a house that works Frankfurt? Okay. I mentioned to create one for you, though, if you lobbied for it. So habeas corpus is Latin, and it means you have the body. And essentially what it is is that it's a legal term, that it's kind of an order from a judge to a jailer saying, you have the body. Bring him to me so we can figure out if he's being imprisoned legally or not. Right. I've heard this term a lot. I'm glad we're doing this, because it's one of those terms that everyone's probably heard of but doesn't know a lot about. Yeah, and there's a lot to it. Basically, what habeas corpus does is we have a set of guarantees in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Actually, if you really take a look at the Bill of Rights, the Framer's top ten great protections that list most of it has to do with being prosecuted. Right. And taken all together. It's called due process. So you have a right to confront your accusers. Sure. You have a right to counsel. Speedy trial. Speedy trial is a big one. Fair trial. Fair trial. Huge. Yeah, of course. But the thing is, these things can be guaranteed to you and I all day long, but they don't amount to anything if we don't have any action to take to ensure that they're actually being carried out. Exactly. These guarantees are being delivered on, and that's what habeas corpus is. It's that mechanism by which these constitutional protections are guaranteed. Right. That's a great summation. Thanks a lot. Well, that's it for today. That's all for me, folks. No, well, don't put this on me, because there's a lot to come. You want me to carry the corpus part? Yeah. Okay. So this is not a new concept. It actually dates back before the framers created the Constitution and ratified it in 1789. Right. Because back to England. Correct. It's English common law in the 17th century. If you're a Catholic like I was raised, you would be in grave danger of being picked up by the kings, man, and thrown in jail. Right. Because this is a time when I believe it was King Henry, one of the kings. There's just so many of them. I can't keep them straight. Right. Whoever was king had established the Church of England, and that was the big rival to the Catholic Church. Right. So he wanted a state sponsored, state run church and didn't really want any competition. So if you're a Catholic, you are probably going to be imprisoned and held and not given a trial or anything like that. No due process. Yeah. So Parliament came up with this protection, and actually, it may date back further than that. Some people say that it's kind of implied by the Magna Carta right. Which was 1215 at running Me a long, long time ago. It is. But it actually became codified as habeas corpus in 17th century England, and the framers picked it up, and it's in the Constitution. It's a huge right. And in American practice, if you have habeas corpus, the process goes like this. You're tried or you're jailed. Even you can say you're jailed. Most of the time, you've already been tried, and now you've been convicted and incarcerated. And rid of habeas corpus can actually be a legal strategy where after all of your appeals run out, you can use it. You can issue a petition of habeas corpus. Right. And you're saying, hey, judge, I don't think at my trial I was given a fair trial. Say my counselor was inadequate, he was drunk all the time, that kind of thing, where the prosecution hid important evidence that would have exonerated you. You can issue this in a petition of habeas corpus. Right. The judge considers that if the judge decides that, it raises enough questions about the legality of your imprisonment, is there another trial? No, it's not another trial. It's a hearing. Okay. And actually, no habeas corpus. It's not a rehash of your actual trial. So it's not an appeal at all? Not really, but it kind of falls in step with the appeal process. Right. So what happened as far as you murdered somebody or that's what you're accused of. The judge in a habeas corpus hearing doesn't care about that. What they care about is evidence that shows that your defense attorney was drunk. Right. That kind of thing. Sure, I get it. These things also tend to, as a legal strategy, tend to come in a flurry when, say, like, a prosecutor is found to have been a cocaine user and it comes out so everyone that person prosecuted all of a sudden lines up. They're rid of habeas corp. They start sending out petitions of habeas corp. Your corp, I guess, around the petition is first, and then if the judge thinks that it's worth hearing, the judge issues the rid of habeas corpus. Bring the body to me. That's pretty much how it's used. But you can actually contest your incarceration, I believe, at any point. But using it as a legal strategy, that's usually how it's used. It's kind of depressing, I think. If I were a prisoner, just being referred to as the body, I don't know, that would worry me immediately. Yeah. Corpus sounds a lot like corpse. Like I said, I didn't take Latin, but I have a feeling those two are probably connected. Right. I thought you said you did take Latin. No, German. German? Yeah. Really? Yes. I think, though, being referred to as the body, I would be much more concerned with the fact that I was in prison. Sure. At that point, you're probably already used to being called the body or the booty or something horrible and those names being made good on. Right. You have your priorities in line. Exactly. Yeah. So, Chuck, we understand habee's corpus. You kind of get an impression of why it's important now. It keeps us from being thrown into jail and the key being thrown away. Right. It's our one recourse, because, really, if you think about it, the court system is this entity that stands between the state, which has the power to throw you in jail, and the individual, which can be thrown in jail. Right. The whole purpose of the court system, the legal system, is to find out whether or not this person should be incarcerated or punished, guilt or innocence. Right. So it's kind of insinuated. It's placed in between the state and the individual as a buffer, as a protection, as much as it is the judge and jury that can end executioner in some cases. Sure. Right. Okay. So now we understand how important it is, which kind of gives us an idea then of how egregious the Military Commissions Act of 2006 was. Right. Well, let's back up a little, because let's do it. This is not the first time the Military Act of 2006 Commissions Act, the habeas corpus has been revoked. That was one other thing we should probably say. Hunt chuck, in the Bill of Rights, it actually specifically mentioned habeas corpus. It's actually thinking the Constitution, it says the only time that corpus can be suspended is in times of insurrection or rebellion, when it serves the public safety, that can be the only time it can be suspended. Open up to some interpretation. Obviously. You know what? It shouldn't, because it's so explicit, but yes, sadly, over the course of American history has been interpreted, in my opinion, incorrectly. So yeah. You were saying? Give us some examples. Well, one example is during the Civil War, president Lincoln, abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus when the civil War broke out, and five years later it was reinstated at the end of the Civil War, which insurrection. Rebellion. Right. You could make a pretty good case that he had every constitutional right to do that. Sure. Civil war. Right. For goodness sake. And then, sadly, one of our black eyes, I guess, on our nation's history was the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. And the same thing happened then. More than 100,000 Japanese Americans were detained and held, many of them American born citizens. Yeah. I mean, think about how screwed up that is. That would be like after 911 if we had round up every Muslim. Every Muslim? Not even Muslim, because that would be based on religion. This is based on a nationality. So let's say we rounded up every Saudi American and put them into soccer stadiums that we had reinforced with concertina wire and fences and German shepherds. Right. Just because they were Saudis. This happened like, 60 years ago in the US. Not so long ago. Yeah. We're a good friend of Syrian. I can't imagine a world where we would do something like that. Yeah. Well, it's a good thing you weren't alive in 1942, my friend, because you would have wept tears. I would have. In the most ironic, or I guess that word is not appropriate, but the most surprising part of the revocation of habeas corpus in 1942 for Japanese Americans is that it took until 1976. Right. Gerry Ford, gerald Ford finally issued an executive order that reinstated the rid of habeas corpus or the right of habeas corpus to Japanese Americans. So for that 30 plus year period, if you were a Japanese American, technically they could throw you in jail for whatever, and you couldn't contest the legality of your incarceration. Yeah. Which is scary. It is. I wonder if that happened. I don't know. That's a great question. I have a feeling it was probably just not acted on, and no one really thought much about it until Gerald Ford. It popped up on his radar somehow. Yeah. I wonder how you forget something like that. Roosevelt just forgot to pass it along. Truman, don't. I guarantee japanese Americans probably didn't forget. Yes, I wouldn't think so. Now we're up to the modern day time. The Military Commissions Act 2006. You remember Mark Foley? Yes. Florida representative? I think so. Okay. And he had a little email trist with one of his male aides, his pages. Little man boy, I think he was like 17 or 18, something like that. That story happened. It broke coincidentally the same time Congress passed the Military Commissions Act in 2006, which allowed it to kind of go into the radar. Exactly. It was this huge, sweeping act, really? Although it was succinct, it really had huge repercussions, and it was basically aimed at terror suspects. Right. And as far as habeas corpus goes, it related to that. Right. By revoking it for anyone deemed an enemy combatant, which, once again, they leave it nice and vague. Exactly. And they also said that the President and Congress and a few other high officials can deem whoever they want enemy combatant, and that can't be contested. And once you're deemed an enemy combatant, you are stripped of your right of habeas corpus. Right. Which means that's why that's how all these people down at Guantanamo Bay were kept indefinitely. And this Military Commissions Act, so cynical, it was passed after the Supreme Court had ruled that these people were being held there illegally, flying in the face of the Geneva Convention. So Bush, had Congress passed this federal law that basically overturned the Supreme Court ruling. Right. It's nuts. It is. So all these people are being held there as enemy combatants, and you think, who cares? They're terrorists. The problem is there were plenty of instances down there where people were released because they've been picked up just because they had the same name as terror. There is a guy whose name was Mahar Arar. I believe that's the pronunciation. You know, I butchered foreign name. I apologize to everyone, especially Mr. RR. Yes. He was a Syrian born Canadian national. He's a naturalized citizen, computer engineer. And he popped up on the Canadian Mounted Police Intelligence watch list in 2002, and they alerted the US authorities and some other friendly nations that this guy was on their list and that he left the country. He went to Tunisia. Right. And on his way back to Canada, his home, he had a layover at JFK in New York. And it was picked up by federal authorities, US officials, and they secretly rendered in Vasyria, where he was kept in a prison and tortured for a year before the Syrians, who we outsource or tortured to, you remember, concluded that he wasn't a terrorist and had no ties to terrorism. Right. The Syrians were the ones who decided that the US. Couldn't even figure it out. But after a year of torture, luckily for Mr. Arar, the Syrians concluded that he wasn't a terrorist and set him free. Now did Canada get involved? I would think that they would, yes. Canada is in big trouble, but really the US. Is in bigger trouble, or was. I think it's been swept under the carpet by now. But the US officials told the Canadians that they were going to send them back to Switzerland because he went from Tunisia to Switzerland, and the US. Said, hey, thanks a lot for telling us. We're just going to grab them and send them back to Switzerland. We don't want them in the country, and you don't really want them either. Right. And they put them on a plane to Jordan, took them overland to Syria, and gave them to the Syrians to be tortured. Find out what he knew. I think one point he made in the article is it was a retroactive act. So it was passed in 2006. This guy was picked up when, 2002? Yes. So it was a retroactive act, meaning anyone picked up after September 11. September 11, yes. Had no. Have you? Scorpus right. And it also gave retroactive immunity all the way back to September 11, 2001, to any US official who was engaged in anything that can be construed as torture or illegal as far as it was fell under the umbrella of the war on terror, which is beyond screwed up. So we still have this act today. It's still on the books, and it's still a huge bone of contention. And hopefully, from what I understand, when Obama comes back into when he comes into office, he's going to basically repeal the Military Commissions Act. He's going to hopefully get it repealed, and he's going to come up with a new legal system that's designed just to prosecute high level, high value terror suspects that makes sense in the US. So basically, it's going to let a bunch of them go. He's going to send them back to their country of origin for prosecution, incarceration, or freedom. I don't know. The low level ones, they're just going to prosecute in regular American courts. Then the high level one is going to be a more secret court where they get all the aspects of due process, but it's not as transparent. So if their accusers of CIA informant, they won't be able to face that accuser. Sorry, TS, but there's still evidence is going to be submitted. Another thing about the Military Commissions Act, testimony gathered from torture was actually admissible. Really? Yeah. So if you tortured somebody and they confess to being a terrorist to get you to stop oh, there's your confession. Wow. Amazing. This isn't a liberal Democrat thing. It's a human rights thing. Oh, definitely. You just point that out that it's not like President elect Obama just wants to set terrorists free all over the world or anything. No, definitely not. And actually, he's also getting criticism from both sides, too. Like, should we set up a new legal system just for this? The ACLU is criticizing the plan just as much as Republicans are criticizing him for shutting down Guantanamo. Right. But, yeah, I agree with you wholeheartedly. It is a human rights issue, and I'm glad to see that it's going to be resolved. I very strongly believe it's going to be resolved. Me, too. What's up? Yeah. The worst part is that America is going to spend the next 20 years trying to regain our image or our standards, right? And then by about that time, that's when all those horrendous documents are going to come out of everything that went down in Guantanamo. It's just going to be that second jab to the eye that's hibeas corpus, ladies and gentlemen. Look for Guantanamo Bay to go the way of disco, hopefully in the next several months. And you know what time it is now, don't you, Chuck? I think so. I think it's reader mail time. Listener mail. So I've got a little Thanksgiving episode love from some folks. Sweet. And if you recall, during the Thanksgiving episode, I put the call out to the stuff you should know nation, that if anyone out there is not a vegetarian and they forgo the turkey, for, let's say, steak, then I would love to hear from them. Let's play that clip, Joe. Yeah. 90% of Americans now eat turkey on Thanksgiving, and I would imagine the 10% who don't, a lot of those are probably vegetarian. I can't imagine you would choose another meat if you're not a vegetarian other than turkey. Yeah. You have to be some sort of communist. Yeah. If we have listeners out there who are not vegetarian and who opt for steak on Thanksgiving, I'd love to hear from you. Okay, so, yeah, you said it, Chuck. So there we have it. So we actually heard from a few folks, we heard from Chris, and that's ENT, I hope I'm pronouncing that right, chris, he married a lovely lady from Tokyo, and he has a tradition that Josh and I, we want to be invited over next year. Mr, we would gladly accept any invitation you extended. Right. I would forgo the turkey. Because what they do, the wife doesn't like the turkey flavor. This is a so what he does is he buys an entire New York strip, which is about \u00a310 of beef, and he cuts it up into humongous inch and a quarter steaks. And then on Thanksgiving, he cooks them up on the grill with pear wood and actual wood charcoal. And he smokes a salmon. I think pear wood is an actual wood. Well, he says pearwood and actual wood charcoal. I'm just reading. And he smokes a wild salmon in the smoke. So they have smoked salmon and wood fire grilled steaks, and that's what they have for the leftovers. That is fantastic. Again, Mr. Ant, we will be giving you well, actually, you already know our email. It says stuffpodcast@howstuffworks.com. So just send us those invitations along. Right. I've got a couple of more to give them too quickly. Chris Corbyn responded that his family eats chicken at CAPEON specifically, which I looked it up. It's a large castrated rooster. Yeah. He says, I think it's a big chicken. I noticed that. Yeah. I hate to tell you, but that's just so it's sort of like a chicken. It's like a turkey is as big as a turkey. It's a turkey. With a falsetto voice. Right. And then we heard from Travis illeg, who is not a vegetarian. He hates turkey, even though his whole family loves it. He doesn't like the flavor, and he said that make Thanksgiving his least favorite holiday, which is very sad because he grew up eating potatoes and rolls and having to answer questions about why he doesn't like turkey every year. So now he's done everything from bringing his own Chinese food, pizza, and lobster. I would go for the lobster. Yeah. And dining with the family. Or he said the last few years, they've gone to a Thanksgiving buffet so they can have their turkey. He can have his spaghetti wherever he wants. What's the last guy's name? Travis ilike. I think Travis has the saddest story out of the three. It is, and I think just for that, he deserves a House toughworks t shirt. Travis, if you want to send us your name and address to stuffpodcast@howstuffworks.com, we will gladly pass that along to you, and you can wear it happily while you sadly eat your spaghetti on Thanksgiving. Anybody else who wants to drop us a line, let us know something we screwed up in this podcast, which I'm quite sure we did. Again, it's Stuffpodcast@howstephorcs.com. For more onto and thousands of other topics, visit howstopworks.com. Brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 camry. It's ready. Are you? Hey, it's summer, everybody, which means school's out, the sun's shining, the daylight's longer, and best of all, there's plenty of time to get lost in a good, thrilling story. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music, My Favorite Murder from exactly right media, My Favorite Murder has something for everyone. Hosted by Karen Kilgarif and Georgia Hardstarkk, this true crime m comedy podcast will share stories that will have you wanting more before you know it. Listen to new episodes of my favorite Murder. One week early on Amazon music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen today."
a6a5d1b4-5462-11e8-b449-e399da874836	Waterbeds: The Sexiest Bed?	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/waterbeds-the-sexiest-bed	Waterbeds came and went pretty quickly in the United States, but despite their marketing as sex beds, they were actually invented to deliver a great night's sleep. Learn all about these super 70's beds in today's episode.	Waterbeds came and went pretty quickly in the United States, but despite their marketing as sex beds, they were actually invented to deliver a great night's sleep. Learn all about these super 70's beds in today's episode.	Thu, 18 Oct 2018 13:30:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2018, tm_mon=10, tm_mday=18, tm_hour=13, tm_min=30, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=291, tm_isdst=0)	37416203	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Welcome to stuff you should know from housetopworkscom. Hey, welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. And there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. And there's Jerry over there. And we're just here jiggling away on our pleasure pit. Oh, man, it's so funny. When I started researching this, I was like, waterbeds. That's very stuff you should know. Yeah. So it sort of fits right in with our historical pop culture phenomena series. Phenomena. Phenomena. And big shout out to The Atlantic, one of our favorite rags. A lot of this was taken from a 2010 article by Rebecca Greenfield and then a bunch of other cool supplementary stuff. New York Times. Who else? Washington Post. Yeah, WaPo. All those fake news outlets. Right. Although I really love The New York Times and the Washington Post ones because they were, like, contemporary articles. Yeah, like the New York Times. One was 1986, and WaPo was from 1991. They're writing about the phenomena of waterbeds at the time. I love that, man. I love being able to go back, read an article, and then go back and see how it actually unraveled, like, in real time, basically. Yes. Sure. It's a little time capsule, if you will, and you can look back now and say, did they get it right? I don't even like saying those two words together. I don't either. So played out. So played. All right, let's talk about the waterbed. You ever had one? No, I kind of wanted one. I didn't have one. I kind of wanted one, too. Sure. I think we're just at that age, and they came about, as you'll see. We're going to talk about the is when they peaked, sales wise. Right. I think even, like, youngins like us were very intrigued. Oh, yeah, my friend had one. Yeah. Did you sleep on it? No, never slept on that one. I laid down on it once, I think, because I was like, I got to know what this feels like, at least. Right. And I think it was they may have called it waveless, but I don't even know what the difference was because it was pretty wavy. What decade was this? This would have been mid to late 80s. Yes. They had waveless ones back then, I think. So they were called waveless, but I don't know how it still sloshed you around. Yeah, I remember very distinctly laying on it, and I remember thinking, I don't know if I could sleep on this. Yeah, it wasn't uncomfortable. It caused me pain. Yeah. But I move around a lot in my sleep, so it's not a good or at least the old school water beds are not a good match for me. Right. Memory foam is a little better, actually. Supposedly they've come a long way, and the new water beds are the bomb. I would be curious to lay on one. Well, go to a dealer in South Florida. I think City Furniture in South Florida is bringing back the water, baby. Oh, there's other places too, because the design now we'll get to it, but it's much different. It's not the good old days where you just fill up a big vinyl rubber bladder, right, holds tripping on some grass and listening to Dark Side of the Moon. You know, the funny thing about my friend Chris water bed, though, and his whole house was a time capsule of the 1970s. He had a water bed in front of a wall that the wall was a photograph of a Hawaiian beach sunset. Oh, man. We had two of those in my house. Really? One was a straight up forest. So it's like, oh, I'm in the family room. I'll walk into the kitchen. Oh my God, I'm in the forest, basically. Right? And then if you went upstairs and this is my childhood home in Toledo, Ohio. When you went upstairs to my sister's rooms, when you got right up to the top landing, there was like an outdoor coarse beer scene, like in the woods with like a stream coming through rocky Mountains, giant murals. That's great. In my house. Yeah, we never it's weird. Like, when I look back at the house I grew up in, it didn't have any of those cool 70s things. But now that I look back, I think it's probably not cool then because we lived in this huge house in the woods, right? But now I look back, I'm like, that was where I would like to live now. So what was the aesthetic of your house? Sort of contempo country. Okay, that's hip, like Jerry Reed or something lived there. Looking back, we had shag carpet, orange shag carpet. There were some markings of the day, but then that was replaced with hardwoods at some point in the 80s. Got it. But then when I had not too long ago, I went back to my childhood home and broke in. It was for sale. Really? And empty. Wow. You broke in? Well, not for sale. It was just sort of derelict and empty. Did you break a window to break in? No, I just got in like I used to get in. No, Emily, it's locked. And I was like, what's this? Watch this. I used to sneak out and read Bible passages. So I snuck in through the garage window and looking back, there was a lot of the same stuff was there. And it was very kind of 70s tile and linoleum and stuff like that, but it just wasn't full on, like, Brady Bunch stuff. That's so cool, man. Or wall murals. And I'm glad I went because sadly, it is no longer there. I'm glad you went too. Then a couple of months later, just torn down and I went back and saw a big emptiness and I cried. Did you? The end. I could see that you mean. I went to Toledo. And then once when we went to Cleveland for our show, I went by myself and walked around kind of hoping that the people who live in the house would be like, what's that weird feeling? And stick their head out and be like, Can I help you? And I'd be like, yeah, actually, can I come in your house? But no one did. But I did get to walk around the neighborhood. Did you cry? A little. Nice. But I saw I want to go back to my elementary school, and it's just like a grass field now. Oh, man. How do you tear down an elementary school? Yeah, maybe it got, like, black mold or something. Well, let's hope. But it's sweet. It's better sweet to go back. Yeah, go back to your childhood places, everyone. I highly recommend it. So water bed. Yeah, waterbeds. We'll go back to the earliest history, I guess. But the man that we really need to talk about is a man named Charles Hall, the inventor of the modern waterbed as we know it. He's a student at San Francisco State. He's taking a design class. Oh, he was like a design major? Well, yeah, because he submitted this as his master's thesis was the waterbed. How awesome is that? So I saw competing stuff of what he actually created. Like built. Yeah. And the thing that I saw, I think it was in that WaPo 1991 article, it said what he created was called the pleasure pit. And it was an eight foot by eight foot, basically water bed type of pudding. But it was meant to be a conversation pit for multiple people that kind of hang around in and there was like a bar, and there was lighting and shelves and stuff like that. And that was the original of his design. Yeah, but was there a water mattress function or was it just a sunken living room? No, that was the thing. That was where everybody sat, was on a water mattress in the middle. It sounds awful. It's just weird, but it really caught everybody's imagination. Supposedly, within six months, it was on the front page of papers across the country. This is in San Francisco. The Miami Herald had something on the front page about this waterbed exhibit in San Francisco that this 24 year old design student created. Capital P. Capital P? Yeah, pleasure pit. Everything I've seen is capitalized. But that's what I'm saying. I think that's what he called the first thing, but it very quickly got turned into a bed. The water bed. I used to like, actually, my same friend Chris had one of those sunken living rooms. Oh, I love those. Very 70s. You remember in the Big Lebowski when you go to see Jackie Child or Jackie whatever? Jackie Treehorn. Yeah, Jackie Treehorn. His whole house is just amazing. Yeah, he had a conversation pit. Right? Conversation pit. That's what it was called. So here's the deal from Time magazine in Manhattan. The waterbed display at Bloomingdale's department store for a while was a popular singles meeting place. Sears, Roebuck and Holiday Inns are eyeing the beds, and Lake Tahoe's King Castle Hotel has already installed them in luxury suites. And this is, I think it continues. Playboy tycoon Hugh Hefner has one king size, of course, and covered with Tasmanian possum. I thought, how gross is that? Because what I know is opossum is different. I looked up the Tasmanian, possibly super soft, I would imagine. So it's not like American Roadkill. No. On your water bed. Right? It wasn't even made from it. It just had a bunch of live American possums on his bed. On his water bed. You heifer was really weird. But here's the deal. The water bed that Charles Hall eventually would go on to create, and we'll talk about some of his earlier designs. Aside from the pleasure bit. He wanted to revolutionize sleeping. Yeah, he meant it very seriously. He wanted to have a pressure point free mattress that would envelop your body and give you the best night's sleep of your life. He had no intention of it becoming, which it very much did. A metaphor for the sexy sixty s and seventy s. Right. But it definitely did, like you say, it's a really good example of an idea, just basically getting hijacked big time. And at first he was kind of like, I'm just a 24 year old design student, I don't care. Sure, make your own waterbed knock off. But then over time, he definitely came to care and spent a couple of decades pursuing bridgeman suits here and there, patent infringement suits, which we'll talk about later. But at first it was basically like, here's the waterbed world, and the world went nuts. And again, he meant to revolutionize sleep, but the hippies and the people who own head shops, which is where you bought your waterbeds early on, was at the head shop, said, no, this is all about sex. And that's how it was. First sold in the late sixty s and early seventy s. I have never had sexual intercourse on a waterbed. But it doesn't sound appealing to me, right? Because I think the Washington Post article quotes a Washington Post article from the 70s saying, like, a waterbed salesman said it's very much like three people are having sex because the bed itself is like a third warm body participating in the motion or something like that, in the worst possible way. And I looked up. Yeah. I was like, it's just weird. And I looked up like sex on a water bed. Of course she did. On a work computer, right? Oh, yeah. The work computer is super tainted now. It's fouled. Like this one, I can't remember the website, but it's basically like pros and cons and it sounds like it comes down to your preferences. Are you into your emotions being exaggerated? And I guess yeah. Chuck's Laughing because I'm like kind of making those. If you're into that, great. If you're not or you yeah, apparently it really is pronounced it's not something going on in the background. It's like so it just depends on your preferences, I think. But I think a lot of the earliest water beds were bought by guys who were pretty confident. They could be like, I've got a water bid. You want to try it out? Yeah. And that would happen. It became a punchline, I remember. I feel like every other sitcom or movie, at some point, there was a scene where they were like, oh, he's got a waterbed. Or he would just slowly open the door to reveal the waterbed. And that meant only one thing. It did. Master Lover. Right. And then the water bed invariably, like, they couldn't make it work because one of them would get flopped off, or somebody would make it spring a leak, and then the leak would just go everywhere. Whenever water beds appeared in TV and movies, it went badly. All right, let's take a break. I'm all hot and bothered. We'll come back and we'll talk about some of Charles Hall's early designs right after this. Okay, so again, that was, like, the first reception to water beds. Hugh Hefner had one. He had two, actually. He had one on his jet, too. One of the Smothers brothers bought one, I guess help his sex life out guy from Jefferson Airplane. Sure. And you bought them at head shops, and they were sold by waterbed manufacturers again, none of whom bothered to get a license from Charles Hall, the inventor and patent holder. They had names like Wet Dream. Somebody named their company Wet Dream, and that was okay in the seventies. Let me see here. What else? Aquarius Joy august aqua Beds. Joypeutic Aquarius products. Like you said. Waterworks. What else? That's All I have. I got you. I think wet dream. We should stop there. Sure. It's definitely the worst of all of us. So before this came about, charles hall, a couple of his early prototypes. One, it sounds sort of like a beanbag chair, almost, but it was a big bag chair full of \u00a3300 of liquid cornstarch that the idea was you would sit in it and it would envelop you. It sounds like a nightmare. Yeah. He didn't mean for it to envelop you. It was like he hadn't hit upon the waterbed yet. He was trying out different substances. But yeah, you just sink in. Gross. Right. So he moved on to Jello. For real. That didn't work either. That's not a joke, people. He put Jello in this thing did not have the right temperature or consistency. So eventually he would, thanks to vinyl really becoming a very popular thing and being used for things other than, like, car parts and tires and things and orings vinyl became a hot item. So he filled up this vinyl bladder with water, had a temperature control device on it, and the idea there was not to have some hot bed, but to sync up to your body temperature. Right. So your muscles were relaxed. Yes. He had the purest of intentions. I really did. And he hit upon it finally, again, in that 1968 masters thesis. Well, 1968 was part of the problem. Summer of love. People are having sex all over the place. Sure. And there's a story named Andrew Kirk who said that basically design in the late 60s was a free form atmosphere people are really getting. And if you've ever like, I love design museums. If you ever go to some of these, it's kind of cool to see what they were doing in the 60s because it was kind of a crazy time for design. Yeah. Because a lot of people were open to trying new things up to this point. You had a mattress and you're just thankful that it wasn't filled with hay. Right. You know, it had springs and you liked it. That's the way it was. And you liked it. That's right. So the idea of this something totally new, it was two things. One, this guy was trying to revolutionize sleep, and it came at a time when people were willing to like, oh, yeah, the bed is boring, let's try something different. Right. And it just kind of came together really well. But again, it got hijacked by people who own headshots. Yeah. Well, when he was in San Francisco, it all kind of converged to work against him, ironically. But he applied for a pet, and I think in 1968. But it wasn't until 1971 that it was granted, because prior to his design being debuted, like 30 or so years prior, robert Heinlein, the very famous and prolific science fiction writer, he had basically described waterbeds so frequently and in such detail that he was considered the intellectual property holder of waterbed design. The reason heinlein even went to the trouble of he like to describe stuff in his books. Apparently, I haven't read any of them yet. No. But very detailed descriptions. Yeah. And one of the things that he kept that always popped up was these water beds. Apparently, in the thirties, he spent a lot of time in hospital beds. So he was just imagining how they could be improved. And he described water beds almost exactly like Charles Hall had described them. Yeah. He said a pump to control water level side supports to permit one to float rather than simply lying on a not very soft water filled mattress. Thermostatic controlled temperature safety interfaces to avoid all possibility of electric shock. Which was a big sort of urban legend at the time. Right. You can be electrocuted if you have vigorous sex waterproof box to make it leak proof, which was another probably legitimate con for a waterbed. For sure. Sometimes they would leak back then and then some other things. But basically it all came together to form such a robust even though it was in a science fiction novel that he had to go to court, right, and say, I don't know if he was looking for money or who heinlan I'm not sure how it came out that heinlein owned the intellectual property of it, if he came out and said, that's mine, or what. But within three years of Charles Hall coming out with this, he had the patent for it. And even way back in the 1800s, there were doctors who created one guy named Doctor Neil Arno, or not, created a hydrostatic bed. He covered a warm bath with a rubber cloth and sealed it with varnish. And another doctor, in 1893, Doctor Portsmouth, and these were basically to prevent bed sores, to relieve bed sores. Right. And even hindlens, like, he said, he cooked it up because he had been in hospitals a lot, and he's like, I'm getting killed on these hard beds. Yes. And the reason you would want some sort of water filled bed for a hospital is because people are laying around in bed all the time, and when you have skin covering, like a bony layer, you get bed ulcers and you don't want those. No. So this was to prevent bed sores. That's why the earliest physicians were coming up with them. Finally, by 1971, Charles Hall holds the patent, and again, he wanted to create a serious sleep product, and he founded a company called Inner Space Environment, and they were selling like, the real deal, legit, high end waterbeds. He been named it. Seriously. Right. He opened like 32 stores in California in the early seventy s and had a factory like he was doing it. Right. His did not leak. One of the things that waterbeds were very much known for is that the sheets would pop off and fit very well. The sheets fit on his. The temperature control was great. They were like really high end waterbed made and designed by the guy who actually designed them. The problem is he didn't really pursue any patent stuff. And so there were knockoffs out of the gate, and it was the knockoffs that leaked. It was the knock offs that had terrible temperature control, and it was the knockoffs that gave waterbeds a bad name because they were fully embracing the sexy advertising that was part of it, too. All the knockoff manufacturers, and apparently he pursued some of these, but he would have spent all his time and money pursuing patent infringement if he really tried to go after everyone. And some of these didn't make a lot of money, and it was just sort of useless to even try. So it wasn't worth his time and money. A lot of times he said to a lot of people who sold waterbeds early, like early waterbed dealers, basically, they were just trying to make some fast money so they could go start a pot farm in Oregon, right? That was like that's who was selling waterbeds in the early 70s? It also is one of the creepiest lines ever in that Atlantic article. It said something about when Charles Hall initially was selling waterbeds out of the back of his van. Right. Like, man, that's the creepiest thing ever. Yeah. Here, let me open up my van. You can lay on my water bed in the back of my van. You about a size eight with the stallion painted on the side. Oh, man, speaking of forgot about the murals on the vans. Remember we used to do blog posts and stuff? I made, like, a slide show. I remember that. Vans with art on the side. You'll see those every now and then it gets up still. It's good stuff. You want to take a break before we get into the straightening of waterbeds? Yes. Turning stuff with Joshua charges. Stop your shoulders. I couldn't come up with a better word than straightening. I apologize for that. Let me think. I guess legitimizing, but I'm thinking more like a boring suburbanizing of waterbeds. Yeah. Here's the thing. We say that hall very much wanted to revolutionize sleep, and he didn't embrace the sexual component of it, but he sold a lot of waterbeds, and he kind of knew why a lot of these people were buying them, and he wasn't like I don't think he was so pious that he was like, no, I don't want to sell them for that reason. Right. I think he eventually was kind of like, yeah, that's why people bought him. And that was okay. But I don't think he cheapened his own advertising that way. No, he didn't. His company went under by the mid seventy s, and he likens it to basically advertising to the wrong market. He made quality, high end waterbeds, and it was advertising to people who could afford a more expensive, quality, actual, legitimate waterbed, where at the time, it was like Randall Pink Floyd and his friends were the actual customers of waterbeds. That's who was buying waterbeds. And they weren't seeing the ads that Charles Hall was putting out there, you know what I'm saying? In, like, the New York or whatever. Yeah. So he missed the heyday. He was sort of in the early Hi day, but I think in the 80s is when it became like a $2 billion 20% of the market share industry. Right? Yes. Like the late seventy S, I think it was about a $13 million a year industry. And by 1987, I believe at its peak, it was like a $2.3 billion industry a year. And then a pretty steep once again, grunge killed waterbeds. Pretty steep fall in the 90s, right? In the early 90s, yeah. But the way that it built up before it fell was more companies got into it, kind of legitimized it. I believe that there was a trade association that developed, and I think it's called the flotation sleep industry is really the technical term for it. Yeah. They really wanted to get away from the sex appeal. Totally did the name and, like, the stores you wouldn't buy a water bed in a head shop anymore. Imagine walking into a head shop and being like, what do you have a water bed here for? Yeah, you buy water beds out in the suburbs at a place called, like, Waterbed Plaza or something like that. Right. Or did you see that ad I sent you? The YouTube ad? Yeah, the Max Bedroom. Yeah. Country Boy Waterbeds. Everybody go on to YouTube and look for Country Boy waterbed at Max headroom. And it's beautiful. Yeah, it's a Max Bedroom rip off selling water beds. Country Boy water beds. Country Boy water bed. Yeah. And I think it was from Arkansas. Like a local waterbed dealer in Arkansas. Texarkana, you mean? Oh, is that right? I don't know. But that's I mean, like, you could get waterbeds everywhere. Well, that's why my friend in suburban Atlanta, for my friend to have one in high school that kind of says it all right. It's not like his parents were like I mean, they were good, God fearing family. We're like, yeah, we need to get Chris a sex pit. Right. It was more like they were supposedly healthy. They were like, a healthy way to sleep. I think that's also how it kind of transition the legitimacy and away from, like, just the association with sex. Right? Yeah. So you have an actual bona fide waterbed industry with actual water beds. One of the ways that this industry was able to establish itself was they made vast improvements over the early models of waterbeds. It used to be that you had just basically, like, a big bladder, a vinyl bladder that a big hot water box, a big wooden box. And when you want to get out, you had to kind of, like, work up to it and roll off the side and bang. You had to bang your knee on the way out. They leaked. There was a lot of problems with it, but then they started improving upon it to where the water bill was actually, like, this one article, I think it was a mental floss article that I found, said that in the 80s, if you were a kid, a water bid was as close to a status symbol as you could possibly get. For sure, you know? Yeah. I mean, it was aspirational. Yeah. There is no when I say no chance my parents would have bought me one. It wouldn't have even like, I knew better than to even ask, I think same with me. I don't remember ever asking for one, although I really wanted one. I think it was like a pipe dream, maybe. It's not like, oh, I really want a waterbed. It was so shut down in my mind as a possibility. Like, this is the time where we inherited mattresses from our older siblings. It was so gross. It was on the side of the road. But look, it's not even too many stains on it. Kind of wait, kind of? Oh, did you actually get a mattress from the side of the road? No. I'm making sure you did not. No, but just short of that. Okay, so mattress, waterbeds, then. And now one of the knocks against them is there they are very heavy. There's no way around it. If you fill up a mattress with water, even partially, you're going to have a lot of weight. Depending on the size, a couple to 300 gallons of water can weigh between 1000, \u00a3502,000. Right. And so they always still do need a lot of structural support underneath them. Right. A large, very heavy wooden platform. Supposedly. That's why New York was known as the city where the least number of waterbeds were ever sold. Yeah, I can't imagine. Part of it is because in major cities, there were, like, waterbed bans and leases. Like, if you rented an apartment, you weren't allowed to have a waterbed. It was just too heavy. Yeah. People would leave them behind. Like. Here, you take this. Even when you drain the water, the thing that held the waterbed was heavy itself. The frame was super heavy. Yes. It was like a bookcase that you didn't really want anymore. You just leave it behind. That's what happened to waterbeds. How do you fill them up? Is it a water hoard hose? Really? Yeah, that's how people did it. Wow. Yes. And then to get it out, you needed, like, a pump. And you could buy all this stuff at your local water bed store. But when you buy a better mattress, a regular mattress, you don't have to go buy a pump two years later because you're moving and then pump the water out of the mattress. You just move the mattress. That was a big mark against it in the popular understanding of it, I imagine in New York, too. Well, the weight is enough probably, to disqualify it, but just getting a water hose up a 7th floor walk up. Sure. Yeah. I'm surprised I haven't seen that movie scene where they have a rope tied around a water hose from the street level that they're bringing up through a window. Sounds like Buster Keaton or something. Like super sexy in the 70s. Who would that be? I don't know. Alpaca. Okay. Alpaca. We should do a podcast on our crumb while have we done that? Any day. Any day, buddy. That was like a dare. I can't remember if I saw them. Was it a movie or a documentary on him? It was a movie that came out in the early 2000s. Well, both. They did the great documentary, crumb american Splendor. That's what I saw. He was a character in it, but it was largely about Harvey Picar. Yes, the Great Harvey Piccar. That was a good movie to watch. All right, so these days, like you said, they've been brought into the. Modern era. There's a foam collar around the bladder. There's spandex on top. I believe there are air pockets and things in between to sort of stabilize it. Yeah, you can't get seasick on them like you used to be able to. You don't move like that. I really want to try one of these out and see what it feels like. I don't want one, I don't think, but I do want to see what the sensation is like. One of my friends back in high school, their parents had what he called a motionless water bed. And now I understand what he's talking about, like wavelength or whatever, but it just felt like laying on a feather bed. It's the most comfortable feather bed you've ever been on. Well, my friends must not have been way less because it moved. Yeah. And this would have been like the 90s or something like that. And I'm sure it was like a $5,000 mattress or something back then, but that seems to be like the kind that they have now. It's like you just lay on it, and you're not like, oh, this is a water bed. You're just like, this is super comfortable. Right. I'm floating and weightless. But your mind is not thinking you're laying on water to lay down. Yeah, I couldn't have like aside from moving a lot, when I sleep, I like to flop on the bed. Like, when I lay down, I don't lay gently on it. I will kind of throw myself into bed. None of these things are conducive to water beds, especially not in the 70s. But apparently now it's fine. You could do that. Well, one of the new salesmen they interviewed for this article said that he won't say the name waterbed. He says, because it turns people off. He said even if they try it and they like it, and then they find out it's a water bed, he said sometimes they won't buy it because of that weird 70s association. Like with porn. Yeah. Or they're worried it's going to leak, or they're going to have to fill it with water. Apparently. I couldn't find any verification of this, but there was an urban legend, at least, that you could find aquatic worms floating in your waterbed. And they were like, oh, well, we need to add chemicals to the water. Well, then that makes it even grosser. Right. Just over time, people associated a lot of negative things with waterbeds. And then the thing that really killed the waterbed was that in the 90s, by the 90s, it was clear that America was like, sure, we'll try other things besides the inner spring mattress. What do you got? And so, like, Temper Pedic came around her sleep number. All these guys who made technically alternative mattresses. Right. Our beloved Casper. Sure, same thing. It follows in that tradition that the waterbed established. Charles hall created that market and showed that it was a real thing and so by the time the 90s rolled around, I think temperamedic was the first one. It was like all the benefits of a waterbed without the hassle of the water, why would you want a water bed? And that was it for water beds. Yeah. And minus the creeps. Yeah. Whereas just a few years before, almost between one and four and one in five, between a quarter and 20% of all mattresses were waterbeds. Wow. Sold in America. That's crazy. It's a lot. Down to nothing. Down to just gone, man. Imagine the landfills of America are filled with vinyl bladders just rotting. Well, rotting 1000 years from now, probably. Yeah, that's true. They're probably still in pretty good shape. So one more thing about Charles Hall or two more things. One, he went on to invent the solar shower, the camping shed. No way. Yeah, those are great. And then two, he has kind of a bad name, or he did, at least back in 1091, I think, in that WaPo article where the waterbed industry, the industry association that formed, they didn't like him very much because a couple of years before his patent ran out, he'd been gone. And then came back and said, all, you all owe me money for patent infringement. And they were like, what? Dude, we've built this industry. We thought you were cool. Kind of, yeah. He was like, no, I'm not. Give me some money. And he started like they apparently wanted to settle and it wasn't enough. But one really noteworthy thing about one of his lawsuits against, I think, Taiwanese manufacturer, that he sold shares in the outcome. So you could buy shares of a lawsuit. Of a lawsuit. Crazy. And there's a common law against it. It's called Champtery, which I had never heard of before, total Sense. It's where somebody basically pays for legal fees in order to get a piece of the action to cut. Yeah. Champtery. And in California at the time, Champtery was not illegal. Is it now? I don't know if it is. Wow. But in 1991, it was not. And he sold shares for $10,000 a pop for this. Wow. This lawsuit. That's amazing. Waterbeds. They're amazing. Chuck Jeez, that's what the episode should be titled. It's up to you. You got anything else? I got nothing else. If you want to know more about water beds, well, get in a time machine, get in the way back machine and go try one out yourself. Well, we have one in the wayback machine. That's right. Your lucky day. Covered in American pasta. Oh, boy. Since I said that, it's time for listening now. I'm going to call this one of the many replies for colorblindness. Too. We got a lot of responses for color blindness. What do you mean? Too? Well, sure. All right. Hey, guys. I was listening to the show about colorblindness with an O-U-R. So I assume this oh, he's Canadian and say British. It's like british light. Yeah, he's still under the thumb, though. I worked in the electrical field for ten years, and in that time I've worked with two red green colorblind electricians. Remember we talked about that? The first one I worked with for a few years, and he said it wasn't that difficult to tell the difference between red and green conductors. They just look like very obvious different shades of the same color. It only took a couple of mistakes before he was able to tell the difference. In electrical, red is a current carrying conductor, while green is used for grounding and bonding. Sure, like a rat in a science experiment. He explained it only took a couple of shocks of what he thought was a bonding wire to really notice a difference. So dangerous. I know, man. The other I worked with for only a short while because he died, but he had been an electrician for 20 plus years. It wasn't until he asked a co worker why they thought the ground wire and the current carrying conductor were the same color that he even realized he was colorblind. Wow. How about that? A little slow on the uptake, perhaps. So even though it caused some issues early on their careers, they are both great electricians. I guess the human brain always finds a way. And that is James from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Canada. That's cool, man. Great area, eastern Canada. Great area. Western Canada. Fantastic. Central Canada. Beautiful. We love it all. Yeah, we do. If you're Canadian, you want to say hi will get in touch with us. Go to stuff you should know and click on our social media links or send us an email to stuffpodcast@houseoffworks.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit houseupworks.com. Hey everybody. I don't know about you, but I am excited that it's summer school's out, the sun is shining, and best of all, there's downtime four days. That's where true crime podcasts on Amazon music come in. They're the perfect activity for last minute road trips, long walks, or, if you're brave enough, late nights. With so many killer shows like Morbid, my Favorite Murder, and Smalltown Murder, you'll never be bored to death again. So download the free Amazon Music app to start listening to all your favorite true crime podcasts. Plus, with Amazon Music, you can access new episodes early. 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4311c19a-53a3-11e8-bdec-2fb3b5e218e7	Birthmarks: Probably Not the Mark of the Devil	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/birthmarks-probably-not-the-mark-of-the-devil	It’s a pretty safe assumption that people have been born with birthmarks since humanity began, and between then and now we’ve come up with some wacky, even dangerous, explanations for them – even a few that survive still today.	It’s a pretty safe assumption that people have been born with birthmarks since humanity began, and between then and now we’ve come up with some wacky, even dangerous, explanations for them – even a few that survive still today.	Thu, 20 Feb 2020 10:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2020, tm_mon=2, tm_mday=20, tm_hour=10, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=51, tm_isdst=0)	48029877	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"If you've ever been at home and wondered, Josh and Chuck, is it really worth going to see them perform live? The answer is a resounding yes. Yes. And if you live in Vancouver, BC, or anywhere near there, come on out to the Chant Center on Sunday, March 29, to see us and find out for yourself. And then the next night, if you live around Portland, Oregon, you can go to the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall and we'll be there ready to go on Monday, March 30. That's right. You can get all ticket information@sysklive.com. Welcome to Stuff you should Know, a production of iheartradios how Stuff works. Hi, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. And there's Charles W. Chuck Bryan over there. And there's Jerry's. Back, everybody. That's right. And all the listeners said, what happened to Josh T? What are we doing? Did we decide? Yeah, we're going to do birth point. Okay, great. Check the title, Chuck. Oh, I mean, I have two things in front of me. How are you doing? I'm great. How are you? I'm good. You got any birthmarks? I do. What you got? I've got something under my right armpit. You're like? It looks like Richard Nixon. Close. It looks like spiro. Agnes do you remember when Mad magazine used to make fun of Spiro Agnes and you're like, I have no idea. Who was the name, maybe? No, it's because they hated his politics. That too. But then there was a Simpsons where Millhouse is like, they're making fun of Spiro Agnew again. He must work there or something. And I remember specifically thinking that he oh, he referenced Mad magazine. That's funny. Yeah. So you've got under your armpit, birthmark. Yeah. How about you? I don't think I do, actually. What I have a lot of now, because I'm an old man speeding toward death are skin tags. Oh, yeah. Those are not birth around the neck and armpit. That's where they, like, tend to gather. That's just your skin really going at it. I used to have them clipped, and I did that for a while, but it's been a while, but now I went in recently. It was so annoying. It was one of these our medical system is just broken. It was one of those reminders, because I went in to get it taken care of, like I usually do. And I got in there and the guy was like, oh, well, we don't do this now unless you make another kind of appointment. I was like, well, can I just make this that since I'm here sitting in your office? Right. He's like, no, those take much longer. These are just ten minute appointments, and that'll take like an hour. And some of them have their own vascular system, so they need to be cauterized. And I was like, oh, okay. So I'm just leaving. And he was like, yes. He was like, if you want to make that other appointment. And then they refunded the money for that appointment. That was nice. The copay. But they said, make the longer appointment if you want to come back, which are you annoying to. Yeah, I mean, they're not medically dangerous or anything, but they're rather unsightly. It's fine when they get long and big. Well, long, sure. I mean, how long are we talking? Like I mean, some of the ones are, like, quarter inch. Okay, I was just about to say how big that was. Let me see if I can figure it out in metric. It's a few centimeters, I think, is what you just said. I want to get them clipped again, so I'm going to make that longer appointment. I think it will be painful. Is it painful? I've never had one click. The regular clipping, the small ones aren't a big deal because they just hit it with a little quick shot and then clip it, and it's no big deal. What kind of a shot? Like a needle, like a little numbing thing. Okay, I got you with a needle, like glyphosate and whatever. I don't know. They don't spray it with the freezy stuff. No, you're thinking of the stuff for athletes, foot. This is like a shot lidocaine, but anyway, the ones that are big, that require cauterizing, I'm sure that doesn't feel great. Even if they've knocked it up. You just get the acetylene torch out. And imagine you don't have to shave my armpits because if you're torching something near armpit hair, plus you just want to look good. Maybe I've never shaved. My pits might start that. Why not? I'll bet that's itchy, though. Yeah, maybe any time you shave something, it starts to grow out. It's itchy you know what I'm saying? I used to get worse, actually, when I was a kid. Oh, yeah? And I remember going into the dermatologist, and they go into the freezer, put on these huge rubber gloves, and pull out like this thermos of I want to say nitroglycerin. That's not it. Now you know what I'm talking about. Yeah, the cold stuff. Yeah. And it would freeze my wart basically right off, right there. Just going to sting for a second. And that was it. I never really had words. Believe me, buddy, you lucked out. Because if you're a little kid in grade school and you have, like it wasn't like it wasn't coated with them, but I'd get one, like, here between my forefinger and my thumb, or I have one on my elbow or something like that, just other kids jerks zero in on that stuff. And you're the little weird kid who is already the fat kid. Now, with Wards New and Improved, I had freckles a lot more than I do now because freckles tend to fade right, as you get older. And freckles are, I guess well, they're not a kind of birthmark, because you're not born with freckles. But I did look into it. Freckles are just an abundance of melanin collected together. Well, it's basically what a mole is, which is a type of birthmark if you're born with it. That's right. I love freckles, though. Freckles. Freckles are super cute. Freckles are great. Moles are great. Birthmarks, especially interesting ones, are great. Words are great. That's why the term warts and all came about. It's true. That's how you should love it is true. Chuck man, quit making fun of people kids. Well, that's the thing. You're so mean. Birthmarks have been around since the dawn of humanity, I'm guessing. And people have probably been ostracized because of their birthmark. Since the dawn of humanity. For a very long time, people were ostracized for their birthmarks because of some really stupid ideas. Like it meant you were a witch, right? Or it meant you were touched by Satan, all sorts of stuff like that. And then over time, it got a little more innocuous. But even still today, there are parts of the world where you can find people who are ostracized because of their birthmarks. And then even in the developed world, the Western world, which is rational and based more on science, you can still find yourself at the receiving end of being ostracized. Maybe not because you're a witch, but just because you have a birthmark or you look different. I've seen parents react to it if their baby has, like, a strawberry mark on their head. Yes. I've seen them feel the need to say, like, oh, this will go away, or something like that. I was reading this birthmark support group from Great Britain, and they were saying this one mom had cards printed up explaining what her child's birthmark was because sometimes she just didn't have it together enough to have a conversation with a stranger who'd walked up and been like, what's up with your kid's face? Rather than belt them, she would just give them a card and then just probably go home and weep or something like that. Knowing not for herself, but the life that her kid was going to have to face, not because her kid has a birthmark, but because the rest of the world are schmucks. Yes. That's the long and short of it. That's right. All right. Children are meant to find a soapbox. Even in the birthmark episode, I bet probably a collection of kids could still make you cry if they started. I just start kicking, throwing elbows. I just hold my arms out and start twirling around really fast, and whatever got hit, got hit. People be like, Is Josh fighting a bunch of children? And be like, yeah, they made fun of them. Yeah, they'd be like, I shoved one in a grocery store. Oh, man, I'll never forget that lady. So let's talk birthmarks. Chuck it turns out there's a lot to know. Yeah, they're usually not a big deal. They aren't painful. They're usually harmless. A lot of times they go away. We're going to detail the ones that do and that don't go away and the ones that are of more concern. But generally speaking, science doesn't really know why they come about to begin with, but they are something that doctors will sometimes want to keep an eye on. And that's the intro. That's intro number seven. Yeah. There's a couple of big categories, vascular and pigmented. And let's talk about some of these. Vascular are usually reddish because they have to do with blood vessels. Yes. I think radish is a very common when you think birthmarks, you think reddish typically, I think brownish. Brownish too. Apparently they can come in a whole rainbow of colors. Blue, brown, black, pink, white, although I take issue with that. Purplish or tan. And I take issue with white because I think white is like a reverse birthmark, although technically it would still count as a birthmark. So the whole rest of your body is a birthmark and that one little spot is okay. That's right. Birthmarks tend to be an aggregation of either pigment or blood, as we'll see. And white is like an area where pigment is absent. So I guess it still counts as a birthmark, but it's not really a birthmark if you go into a dermatologist office. Right. They'll be like, you got this all wrong. And like we said, the skin tags and freckles and things like that, they come later in life, although freckles can start out very early, but it's still not a birthmark because you're not born with that mark. Yeah. And even as we'll see, some types of moles don't technically qualify as birthmarks, even though they typically fall under the banner of birthmarks. You have to be born with something for it to count as a birthmark. That's right. So that's not even fully true, as we'll see. This is just full of lies. Everybody who studies birthmarks needs to get their stuff together. So the macular, they're called flat, sometimes macular stains. And we're in the vascular category, right? Right. This is the non pigmented. These are usually caused by enlarged blood vessels. These have some cute names that go along with them. Love them. Angel kisses. Great. I think some of these can be because of where they're found, although I've heard people cross referencing, like I think an angel kiss is usually on the forehead. Oh, really? But not always. A stork bite is usually on the back of the neck. Oh, that makes sense. But I've also when you Google storkbite, there are some like right on the tip of the nose and people call them that. I took it to me more like that. Those names were derived from the age, like kids who were born with this and then it tends to go away at an early age. That's what it's associated with. Like the stork brings the baby and the angels well, everybody angels love babies. What about the salmon patch? I don't understand it. At all. They are usually above the neck. A lot of times they'll disappear and fade away by the time they are two or three years old. But not always. Sometimes they'll last. Yeah. But for the most part, if you have a macular flat vascular birthmark on your kid, they're probably going to outgrow it. It's just really no other way to put it. They outgrow that birthmark eventually. That's right. Most often port wines are a whole different ballgame. Yes. They look like kind of what they sound like. They're usually kind of a purplish red where it looks like wine has been spilled. I would know nothing about what a wine spill looks like. Sure. Because you never, ever spill all your wine. It all makes it into your mouth. That's right. I've seen it. So, port wines, I say that it's like a whole different cattle fish. It's in the same category as macular because they're vascular it's like an aggregation of overdeveloped blood vessels, and it close to the skin, but they seem to come from like a whole different place. There's a whole different reason. And in fact, we should say this, Chuck, because this is really important. If you go up to a dermatologist or anybody who would know what they're talking about and you say, hey, where did birthmarks come from? What causes birthmarks? They would say, we actually don't know. Yeah. The closest that they've come is with port wine stains. From what I can tell, they figured out that there's a gene where this molecular switch that's supposed to go on and off is locked in the on position. They think that this is what causes port wine stains. And the reason that they found it is because about 6% of kids who are born with the port winestem birthmark develop something called Sturge Weber Syndrome, which is a neurological condition. Interesting. And if you have a port wine stained birthmark, it does not mean you have Sturge Weber. But if you have Sturge Weber, you have a port wine birthmark. Got you. 6% of port wine birthmarks cases have Sturge Weber. It's actually a symptom. But 100% of people with that condition have the port Weinstein. Yeah. And so in investigating the syndrome and the link between it and the Port Weinstein birthmark, they found this gene that they think is the culprit. All right, well, they never go away. A lot of times they'll get darker as you become older. And these are not a big deal health wise, either, unless it's something near your eyes that can affect your vision, and then they might want to take a look at it. I also saw that in some cases, they can start to get lumpy and actually become disfiguring as you age, too. I did see those. And they can also, once they lump, they can scar, too. So a lot of people seek treatment for port wine birthmarks, as we'll see. Yeah. Strawberry marks is what I referenced at the beginning. You might see these on little BB's. There are Haman geomas. Is that right? Yeah. And this most of the time, I saw you in less than 30%, but it says here 30% are visible at birth. Most of the time, though, they'll develop between four and six weeks. Right. And I think by the time you hit six months, if you're going to have one, it will be visible by that point. Right. You won't develop one of these at, like, the one year mark? No. But again, there's that loophole where it still counts as a birthmark, even though you weren't technically born with it. Drives me up the wall. Right. And these are a little more reddish. And you've probably seen these, like I said on babies before, because they're pretty common. They are raised off the skin. That's kind of one of the differentiators is they're not flat. Right. I've said it like five times in my head. Emagiomas 50 times, probably, yes. And I can't say it out loud. Emagiomas, macular and port wines, things. Like we said, these are all overdeveloped blood vessels, clusters of blood vessels. They're from blood vessels. That's why the 6th time we said that, which is why they have that reddish pigment, is because the blood is close enough to the skin and it's clustered together. It's kind of almost pulled right there, right? That's right. But it's not like a bruise or anything like that. The blood hasn't escaped the vessel. There's just a lot of vessels or big vessels all clumped together near the skin. What's interesting about hemagiomas I did it. Chuck Hamagiomas. Nice work. Thanks. Hemangiomas. Oh, man. Did I miss it? Twice. I think there's an end in there that is being forgotten. What's interesting about what you just mentioned is that in some cases, they can extend down into the body, and the further they extend down, they won't be reddish, they'll be bluish. Yeah. And they can even be on the organs. It's pretty rare, but it happens. It is. And they can be threatening on the organs. You don't want to have a cluster of blood vessels on your organs. But back to the blue part. So the reason that they look blue is because, as everybody knows, blood on its way back to the lungs to be oxygenated is blue. That's right. That's not true. I'm sorry to set you up like that. I thought it was true. That's why morning stains are blue. It's not. And as soon as you get cut and it hits that sweet, sweet oxygen right. That just transforms into red. That's what you thought, right? Not what I thought as an adult, but that's what I thought as a small child. That's what I thought until this morning. No, come on, you knew that. No. Really? Yes. You thought blood was blue? Yes. I thought Deoxygenated blood was blue. Wow. Okay. Well, do you understand why it appears blue? No. But I just knew that that was like a playground falsehood. Well, I was too busy because the veins are blue. Thinking about how we're fighting a bully to learn this. You're like, I'm going to draw some sweet blue blood out of that jerk. Right. With my fifth. The reason it's blue is because the deeper it is, the less blue light is able to penetrate, so the less that can be absorbed. And so the light that's reflected tends to be blue more than, say, like, red, which penetrates deeper and is absorbed. That has to do with blue foods, too, which is a bit for the next episode. Thank you. Just put a pin in that. Yeah. These strawberry marks, though, back to those, they will disappear usually by the time the kid is, like, into double digits. If they are large, sometimes you might see a scar. These are around the head and neck as well, and are most commonly found on Caucasian girls. Right. But they don't have a real impact on development either. But if they are really big and puffy again around the eyes or ears, they could interfere with hearing and vision and stuff like that, right? Yeah. And if they're on your internal organs, it's a problem. So I think we should take a break because astoundingly we're 20 minutes in and we have not taken a break wow. So we'll be back to birthmarks right after this. Okay. To recap, remember, vascular blood birthmarks are reddish because of blood vessels. Precisely. If anyone misses that question on the quiz tomorrow, you're toast. It's not our fault. So the other kind of birthmarks are pigmented birthmarks, nothing to do with blood vessels? I don't know. There could be a blood vessel or two involved, but no, not really. No. This is because freckles I was telling you about is just a collection of melanin that's brought out by sun exposure. Yeah. And you have melanocytes. Melanin sells melatonin cells or melanin, one of the two all over your body. It gives you the color to your skin. Some people have more, some people have less, but everybody has them. But like you were saying, when they kind of congregate together, that's when they form these pigmented spots that we know as birthmarks. Right. In our house, my daughter is at the age now where she has started to notice skin color. Oh, yeah. Which is something that every parent has to deal with at some point. Sure. And that's how it was recommended to us to talk about. It was scientifically, being like, hey, everyone's the same, got different skin tones because of science. Some people have more melanin than other people. Is that why you had me over to dinner and started asking me about that? Yeah. You just wound me up and knew I'd go. That's right. But, I mean, that is tricky stuff for parents, because what you're really talking about is the first talks of race. Right. Yeah. And you have to do it in such a way that diffuses. It almost just like no, everyone's the same. Some people are lighter skin, some people are darker skinned. Both of her best friends, though, are multiracial, which helps. Oh, yeah, I'm sure, because we can say your friend Blank I'm not going to say names. Jerry. Blank. She has two friends. They're both named Blank. We need to say her skin is a little darker than yours. Right. Because when you see her parents and try to explain all that, and kids are like, oh, okay. How does this matter? What does this have to do with Big Bird? Can I please get back? Why is Big Bird yellow? That's a great question, but these have some cute names, too, and they are almost well, that's not true. I was going to say they're named because of what they look like, but really just the one is yeah, there's really just two types of pigmented, birthmarks or broad categories of it. Yes, the very Parisian cafe latte. Cafe olais. Oh, cafe ole. Sorry, I misread that. It's all right. A latte is different. This has nothing to do with vascular aggregations of blood vessels. No. And do you get confused on coffee orders or do you know all that stuff? I'm pretty good with it. I don't know what any of them are like. Anytime someone it's all just differing amounts of milk. Steamed milk. Yeah. But when I hear, like, a macchiato or an Americano. Americano. I don't even know what these things are. A shot of espresso or multiple shots of espresso with ultra hot water. Right. That's an Americana. I think that's what our friend Chad Crowley drinks. It's just a really hot black coffee. Okay. That's all. Interesting. Machiato. You got me. I don't know, like cappuccino. There's more foam than milk. Latte. More milk than foam. Yeah, I know those, too. It's all just milk or foam or coffee. What's a cafe OA? Cafe ola is simply coffee with milk. That's it. Really? That's literally what it means in French is that like the what's it called in Spanish? Cafe conley. Okay, that's the same thing then. Coffee with milk. Okay? I am a dummy. I haven't been drinking. It's not that. It's just not that. As you can see, I'm still drinking my cafe latte from this morning. Those are great. Aren't they? And it's still hot, thanks to and I'll go ahead and plug it, the Zoji rushi. And I plugged this on our page before. If you like your coffee hot all day, get one of these little thermoses. This thing keeps this thing hot for 10 hours. It really does. Yeah, so much so I have the same one. Yummy. Has a little pink one. It's cute. When I pour coffee in, I have to pour the coffee into a mug to let it cool off, to put it in there, because you won't be able to drink it. No, like, maybe the next day you could it keeps it that hot, for sure. We need to get them as a sponsor, man. They also make out of this World Rice cookers, too. Yeah. Well, no, I'm not sure if that's the one I have or another one. Tiger. Those are the two best ones, in my opinion. I can't remember. I'll have to look, but all I know is the one I have is very forgiving. You can be pretty off with your measurements, and it still makes perfect dry. You can use, like, buttermilk, and somehow it still comes out just great. Oh, man. Buttermilk. Buttermilk rice. That could be. All right, well, here's a little tip for you. You make sushi rice. Okay. Usually you just do a one to one rice to water ratio. Yeah. Then go in and just put, like, a teaspoon half teaspoon even, depending on how tiny you want to be of rice vinegar. Oh, well, sure. I usually add that after no, you want to split it in together. Yeah. Do you want to cook it with it? Yes. Okay. I used to make my own sushi rolls, and then I just got to the point where I was like, it's not worth it. It's just a lot easier to get sushi. Where did you get your seafood sashimi? Sorry. I would get that at the decab farmers market. I would get the tuna there and the crab sticks, which that's easy. You can get that at Kroger's. Sure. And the seaweed there. But then there's also a Japanese market nearby where I would get the eel to bake in the oven. Nice. But that's kind of you could do spicy tuna. Tunael and crab stick, california rolls. I really want some sushi right now. We both eat a lot of sushi. Yeah, it's good. Okay, so cafe ola birthmark. So that is the cafe ole. They are the color of a cafe ole, kind of a light brown, which means coffee with milk. Yes. And this is to me, when I think birthmark, I think of these because it's just a little brown spot anywhere on the body. Yeah. I think one of the things we didn't say is with some of the birthmarks, there is kind of specific places that they'll appear, or they're tied to specific places, usually. But with cafe ola birthmarks in particular, they're just they got no rules. Forehead, butt cheek, wherever. And they apparently don't. There's no problem with them. But very much like the port wine stain birthmark, the cafe la spots are tied to a neurologic, actually a nerve condition, where if you have six or more of these kinds of cafe ola birthmarks, especially if they're larger than, like, a dime in an older kid, you want to go to see a doctor. Yeah. Because that could mean that you have something called neurofibromatosis. I said that a million times in my head, too. You got to start saying things out loud. Also known as NF One. Yeah, it's easier, but NF one is not even necessarily it could be asymptomatic like if you're like, oh my gosh, I've got six or more cafe ola birthmarks on me. Maybe I have neurofibromatosis. It's not like a death sentence or anything like that, it's just go see a doctor. Right. The Mongolian spots, these look like bruises to me. If you don't know what you're looking at, it can be alarming because you see these pictures of babies that look like they're heavily bruised, kind of at the lower back, upper buttocks area. Yeah, but it is not bruising. They're bluish gray, though. And like I said, usually on the lower back. I think African Americans, African, Asian and Hispanic kids, usually with darker skin, have more of them or more commonly have them. And these are the ones that fade out by the time they're like six or seven usually. Yeah. And they're usually a bluish green because they're clusters of pigment cells together deeper under the skin. And so you've got that same thing going on like you have with the himangiomas. Nice. I got it. There's a good old fashioned mole. This is a pigmented birthmark. Multiple of them are nevi. Brown nevi, N-E-V-I because nevis is a single mole. Are any of these like band names? I don't think so, but very fortuitous mentioning of that because of listener mail later. Alright. It is Latin for spot. And there are three categories. Mole is yes, okay. No, nevi. I think mole is Latin for spot. Oh, is it? Oh yeah. Wow. I was just about to make fun of you too. I'm glad I didn't. I'm glad you didn't. You have moles. Sounds real. That port boy. So there are three categories of moles congenital, acquired and atypical. The congenital, about 1% of babies are born with these and these are kind of all over the map as far as color and size. Some of them are hairy, some are not hairy. I saw that basically every congenital mole has a little hair, a hair of some sort. Okay. It can be very fine, it can be thick, it can be coarse, it can be very dark. Usually they're very dark because they're growing out of pigment cells that are like just pigment away. That's right. And I learned that on the Dollar shave club blog. And they say also to just kind of pluck because shaving, if you're a man like say you have one on your face or whatever, it can nick very frequently. Yeah, well, I've got some of the skin tags that obviously I don't shave, so it's not a problem now. Well, maybe that's why your skin tags, if you shaved, you just shave them off all the time, trim them down. I don't think that's why. No, the skin tags come from like clothing rubbing against the skin. That's why they're around the neckline. A lot of. Times or sometimes around the waistline. But again, those aren't birthmarks. Okay. Those are old man marks. I got. You acquired moles. They come around later in life as well. And this is not the same as a skin tag. Still. It is still a mole. And a lot of doctors think that this is from sun damage. Yes. But not necessarily cancerous. Right. Which leads us into the third type of mole, atypical moles. These aren't necessarily cancerous either, but they're the kind you definitely want to keep an eye on. There'll be multiple colors or have some sort of color gradient in them. Their shape will be just kind of amorphous. Yeah. Irregular. Yeah. You'll be like, that don't look quite right. That's that kind of mole. And those are the kind that you definitely want to have a doctor check out, because a lot of people don't know this, but an atypical mole is associated with melanoma, and melanoma is no joke. Yeah. I think a lot of people are like, melanoma, just go get it removed at the doctor. No, melanoma can spread like lightning through your body, and it can be a real problem. It's a very serious thing to keep up with. Yeah. I've got a pretty sad situation with a family member. With melanoma. The treatment is going really well, but it has definitely opened my eyes to the fact that it's no joke. Yes. I had no idea. Ewe opened my eyes. She had somebody that she lost to melanoma. Yeah, man, it happened. You saw the same thing, like melanoma. No, that's not at all how it is. Which is really weird because somebody's dropping the ball because most people just think it's nothing. Yes. On messaging. Yeah, I agree with myself. Apparently, it's interesting that different kinds of cancer have better or worse PR. Yeah. Great product, terrible marketing, right? Yeah. It's kind of what we're dealing with here. But I know that prostate cancer is often lagged behind breast cancer. Like, breast cancer does a bang up job of marketing and press and PR and awareness. So, like you said, the doctors will want to monitor these over time. What I couldn't figure out was what is the quote unquote beauty mark? Is that an acquired mole? I think a beauty mark is any kind of molecule, like, perfect place. I'm living with this and I'm loving every minute of it. It's so interesting how that has become a thing. I was trying to figure out where it went back to. Obviously. Marilyn Monroe. Really kind of popularized. Right. She had one, didn't she? I think it predated her. Like, Liz Taylor is at least contemporary, if not predated. Yeah, she's very famous for one. And then, like, even still today, cindy Crawford ScarJo. Who else? Oh, Natalie Portman apparently has them, like, on her face. Interesting. I went over this list of celebrity. It was like celebrity birthmarks. The only one that comes up, though, is moles in spirit Ragnew. I couldn't find any well known celebrities with birthmarks. Right. Like birthmarks birthmarks? Like facial birthmarks? I couldn't think of one either. I couldn't find any. Well, that's probably because of the prejudice against them. I would guess so, yeah, which is sad. It reminded me, though, Chuck, didn't one of the Fat Albert gang have a birthmark on his face? I don't know. Was he the guy that had pulled his Tobagon cap over his face? No, I think that was much'mouth because you never see his face at all. Well, then how would you know if he had a birthmark? I don't know. I just thought it might have been like a back story or something. I think this just went off the rails enough for a message break, don't you? Sure. Yeah. We'll be back right up to this and we'll talk about treatment and what I think is a pretty interesting thing superstitions throughout history about birthmarks greed. All right, so like we said about most of these birthmarks, usually medical treatment is not necessary, but some are monitored over time. And what doctors will do, obviously, is examine them, take some pictures, and then just sort of follow that over time, that same routine to see if they're changing and to see if they're getting bigger or changing shape or anything unusual. It's a wait and see. Yeah, exactly. If you have hamangiomas, they will frequently use like, a port wine stain, is something that a lot of people go seek treatment for because it's often on the face, the neck, the head. Right. And it actually responds pretty well to a laser treatment, something called the pulsed dye laser. Is this like the same tattoo treatment or no, probably. Because that's pretty painful, right? Oh, yes. I can't imagine, because it says children a lot of times can be treated with this laser treatment. But, man, I know it's sad. It feels a lot like having hot bacon grease splashing on your skin. That's what if getting a laser or tattoo removed with the laser, but without the knowledge that in a couple of minutes I'm going to be eating some sweet bacon. More like the only silver lining to it is that a pig didn't die for you to be in that situation. You know what I mean? Right. Or I won't have whatever tattoo I obviously don't want on my body anymore. But that's the reward there. Right. So if that is the case, then if it is the same feeling as that, then, yeah, I feel bad for little kids who get that. But that's the best time to start this treatment is when the child is young, because again, what you're doing is you're using a pulse die laser, which uses a certain frequency or spectrum wavelength of light that is targeted so that birthmark will absorb that light. The surrounding skin is a different pigment, so it won't absorb that light like the birthmark will. And that energy, that light energy is translated into heat energy in the birthmark. And there goes the cells or the blood vessels that make up the cells. And after enough treatments, you've hopefully broken up the hemangioma or the port wine stain and the birthmark will go away. Did you hear that? Did you hear that? That was me. No, it was me. No, that was mine. Well, then we just had a simultaneous stomach growl because my stomach is growled at the same time. Wow. Are we like after twelve years of podcasting together? So if you are getting something removed, it's usually a vascular birthmark. Generally they don't try and get rid of pigmented birthmarks, although it's possible, I think. But usually doctors don't treat that. No, but if you have a child with, say, a cafe olay birthmark on their face, the doctor is not going to be like, no, we're not doing that. They'll probably try to work it out, but the results are not nearly as reliable as with vascular birthmarks, which have to do with blood vessels beneath the skin clustered together overdeveloped that kind of thing. Or what your doctor might say is, you know what this thing is on your forehead. Grow your bangs out until you get old enough to where you accept this as like an individual trait that you're proud of. There's something called the British Association of Skin Camouflage that is dedicated to helping people actually training makeup artists on how to cover birthmarks. Because for some people, they'll just never get used to it. They don't want to have to get used to it, they just rather cover it up. And that's their right. That's their prerogative, their birthmark. They can do whatever they want with it. And so the average makeup artist doesn't know how to do that. It actually takes special skills, apparently. And so there's groups who train people interesting to do that. I don't know if it's a short stuff or full length, but we should do something on vitalago. I had a friend in La who had vitaliligo, and again, same with some of this stuff. It's such a forward facing thing. If it's on your face and it's a big deal to people, it's an important it's an important issue because the bullying like we were talking about, or just kids and adults remaining self conscious about that kind of thing. Right. It's sad. It is sad. Agreed. I think we could all do a lot better at accepting people with facial differences. What it's called? Yeah, there's something on facial differences. I don't remember what it was, but I know I've mentioned this group before changing faces.org. Yeah, it's awesome. Their whole thing is like, hey, actually it's funny. They promote skin camouflage if you want it, but their big push is like, hey, rest of society, there's nothing different about these people except for their face. Like they're not cognitively challenged, they're not disabled in any way or differently able like their face is different for any number of reasons, and it's really kind of on the rest of you to get over it, which I think is the healthiest approach, if you ask me. So the superstitions we were talking about, I know you mentioned a couple early on like, that you were touched by the devil. That was real stuff in some cultures. In China, there were some quirky ones. Like if you have a right foot, birthmark means you're adventurous. It's on the left foot, that means you're really smart. If it's on your TomToms, that means you're greedy. And this is just sort of culture and folklore sure. And the world around. So because we can't explain what birthmarks or where they come from, all over the world, people, societies have said it's something the mom did while she was pregnant. Of course. And so we came up with all sorts of dipstick ideas for exactly what the mom did wrong to explain birthmarks. Yeah. One of my favorites is that the mom was startled and touched her face, and at the exact same moment, the baby's blood vessels at that point in the baby's face form the birth mark. It's very scientific. It is. Or how about this? If you have a strawberry mark as a baby, it's because mom ate too many red things. Can't lay off the strawberry. Or port wine stain. They couldn't lay off the wine. Or coffee. Cafe la coffee. That's so on the nose. Come on, people. It is. There's this thing called the doctrine of signs, where if a food looked like a body part, it was associated with helping to heal that body part. Like beets are good for the blood or something like that. Or avocados are good for the testicles. Exactly. I was hoping you would bring that up. Let me see what else? In Japan, if a pregnant woman looked at a fire or into a flame of some kind, they thought that might cause a burn mark on the baby's skin. Yes. And I think some of these carry forward a little bit, even today. Well, the Xray one is obviously fairly modern. Sure. The explanation is that the mom got an X ray while she was pregnant and it basically left a mark on the baby. That is not true. That is not true. The one that really has always stuck out to me, and it reminded me of this case I want to tell you about is this idea that a birthmark is actually a mark left over from a past life. This is pretty neat. Like, if you have a birthmark that looks like a bullet hole in your back, that means you were shot in the back in a past life. And not just like that's. What that means I really hesitate to use this word. There are documented cases of this happening. Supposedly there is this kid in Syria who was born with kind of like a slash like, birthmark, I think, on the back of his head. And apparently from a very early age when the kid was able to start to talk, started recounting being murdered with an ax. Oh, interesting. And then started talking about the village where he used to live and what his name was, and then the guy that killed him. And it was enough, allegedly, that the village elders where this kid lived were like, we need to go check this out. So they travel to that other village, and they said, does so and so live here? And they're like, yeah, he lives over there. And it's like, well, did somebody else named this live here once? They're like, yes. He died. He vanished mysteriously, and they went and talked to the accuser, and he broke down and confessed and showed him where they buried the body that this kid supposedly was in the past life who was murdered by an axe. There's just no way that happened. But I love reading about stuff like that. The part of me that subscribe to that Time Life book, paranormal Phenomena still loves stories like that. Yeah, I think you lost me when you said village elders. Yeah, they're the same ones that are like, well, you're a witch because of that. Right? See if she floats. Right. So what else do you got? Any others? Let me see here. Well, we talked about the devil's mark, supposedly Amberlynn was accused of which craftery, supposedly I saw also that she most decidedly was not. Oh, really? Yeah, I think that's the legend. All right. Possession by the devil. That could be another one. And one thing that we did know was that it definitely did happen historically from the 17th to the 19th century. If you were Russian nobility, you proved it by displaying your birthmark. Yeah, I guess so. What was the family? The Romanoffs. Yeah. Pretty interesting. Which actually holds water because they think that some birthmarks may be congenital. It's entirely possible that a family line, especially one that kind of kept to themselves, you know what I mean? I know what you mean. Could conceivably pass down something like a birthmark. Yeah. Do you have anything else? No, I don't. Chuck, take it away. I think we just should close by. Really stressing to any kids listening and parents of children that vascular birthmarks have to do with blood vessels under the skin. No, just explain to your kids if there's another kid in their class as a pretty obvious birthmark that they're just the same. And don't tease kids for that stuff. If you're a kid that's young and listening, we all look different. We all have different skin tones. Just don't be a jerk. No, I think that's really great advice. No, I think the golden rule think about how you might feel if somebody was making fun of something about your body. That's a good one, too. If you want to know more about parenting, well, you could just listen to all of our other episodes. And since I said that, it's time for listener mail. This is from Ryan and Lucy. The aforementioned band name ref. They have been to our shows at The Bellhouse a couple of times. A few times. Okay, and let me see. Where are they from here? Road trips between New York and Providence. And then they've seen us at The Bellhouse, and they said, we realize how much we get a kick out of the various band names. And we started to inventory them a few years ago. Since our wedding is next week, we realize that now is the perfect time to just go ahead and send you the list. I'm not sure why that has anything to do with you, but Ryan and Lucy, congratulations. Yeah. For what it's worth, Ryan's favorite is Worm Burden from the hook. Worm and Lucy's mouth parts. Yeah, that's from a lot of episodes. But we'll just buzz through these really quickly just for nostalgia's sake. And aspiring bands, jump in and take these and give us some money for them. There's some real gold in here. Are we doing all those? Yeah. Oh, my gosh. That's right. I'll go to them quickly. Fistful of Neurons. Worm Burden. Tub of Pulp. I know you want to comment on everyone, don't you? Just throw in what you think is really good. I'm just going to sit here like this. Threat Simulation Theory. Poor Fred Newman. I remember that one. Yeah. Sweet. Give me the teeth. I don't remember that one. It was from Moncanty Valley. But I don't remember saying that was a band. No. Or even how it would relate to it. This is for Movie Crush. Sick Vandalism. That's a good one. Flesh on the Chunks. Hot Plastic Injection. Pyrocastic Flow. That's a good one. Flaming Death Bolts. That is a legendary one. Conceptual Walls Framingham. Cohort offspring cohort omni cohort. Third Generation Cohort. Offspring spousal Cohort. I don't remember any of those. All those were from that heart study. Okay. That's right. Cortical Homunculus. That's pretty good. Medieval Synthesis. Magic Bullet. Yeah. I want to retract this next one because apparently I said Herbal Douches was a good man name. I take that back. Okay. That's terrible. Slaughtered narwhal. Peck Lube. Great. Sex. Linked recessive manhole Incidents. That's a good one. Graphics Spew. Gross. Nuclear Bulge. Love it. That's a good one. Local Group. That's kind of dumb. I don't know. I can see. Kind of like Scrantonicity. Oh, sure. The Electric Death Commission. I love that one. Doctor Foss. Bomb Drop. What was that one? Michael Dylan? I don't remember exactly. What that reference? Okay. Death Master. File mouth Fart. Of course. The classic. Frozen Poop Knife. Sloth Moths. Radioactive Cats. That one's. Dumb. Static Crush. I like that one. Damage Knight. Not bad. The Descriptivist. That's a little hottie, I think. Sure. But I could be kind of like Mumford and Sonsy kind of music, right? Yeah, exactly. It sounds too much like Decemberists. I think who might love that is exactly right. Bathtub Gin. Yeah. Wasted on Excitement. That's an album title, he says. But that's pretty good as a band. Sure. Mother Culture, jungle Xray. Very recent wet record. The album from Jungle X Ray. Right. Two Whale Bolt from Corduroy and then Going Postal, which he says a lot of bands are called that. Yeah, I think you look that up even, didn't you? I think so. Those are good. We always, always any time we talk about great band names from episodes have to give a shout out. Especially when frozen poop knife comes up to diarrhea planet. Well, he had that on the list. I think he didn't quite understand that. That is a real band. That is a real band. That predates frozen poop knife. I know. I'd like to think that they've been tweeted at over the years. Oh, they've tweeted to us. Oh, that's right. They have, right. They said, hey, sorry, we're going to stick with our thanks for thinking of it. In other words, shut up. Maybe. I don't know. I think it depends on how you look at the world. Yeah. Okay. So I think that's it, everybody. I don't remember what's going on anymore, but this is the end of the episode. So if you want to get in touch with us, you can go on to Stuffytimeo.com if you want. You can also send us an email as the Stuffpodcast iHeartRadio.com. Stuff you should know is the production of iHeartRadio's how stuff works. For more podcasts, my heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite show. Hey, everybody. I don't know about you, but I am excited that it's summer. School's out, the sun is shining, and best of all, there's downtime four days. That's where true crime podcasts on Amazon Music come in. They're the perfect activity for last minute road trips, long walks, or, if you're brave enough, late nights. With so many killer shows like Morbid, my favorite Murder in Smalltown Murder, you'll never be bored to death again. So download the free Amazon Music app to start listening to all your favorite true crime podcasts. Plus, with Amazon Music, you can access new episodes early. Download the app today."
http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/podcasts.howstuffworks.com/hsw/podcasts/sysk/2017-07-11-sysk-net-neutrality-final.mp3	Why is There a Battle Over Net Neutrality?	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/why-is-there-a-battle-over-net-neutrality	Net neutrality is the idea that the internet is a public good and that everyone should have equal, unfettered access to it. Though the FCC strongly supported it with new rules in 2015, today’s FCC is under new leadership and has other ideas.	Net neutrality is the idea that the internet is a public good and that everyone should have equal, unfettered access to it. Though the FCC strongly supported it with new rules in 2015, today’s FCC is under new leadership and has other ideas.	Tue, 11 Jul 2017 14:59:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2017, tm_mon=7, tm_mday=11, tm_hour=14, tm_min=59, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=192, tm_isdst=0)	58973716	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Are you looking for an escape? An immersive getaway experience? Well, there's a place for all your wildest dreams. Perhaps you enjoy wrapping along the paperboy or you believe that blessed be the fruit. Or you dream of one day smashing a glass while stealing. Who's. Ah. Whether you're sworn to Team Kim or you just want a good old fashioned mysterious murder, there's a place that has it all. From Atlanta to only murders in the building, it's all on Hulu. So check into your obsessions. Hulu subscription is required, terms apply. Visit Hulucom for plan details. Hey, everybody. Stuff You Should Know is going on tour. What are the details, my friend? Okay, so starting August 8, in Toronto, that's in Canada. We're going to be at Danforth Music Hall. And in Chicago, we're going to be there the next night, August 9, at the Harris Theater. Yeah. Chicago. We want to see your faces. Step it up. Step it up. Vancouver. The Vogue Theater, September 26. That's going to be a great show, I think, don't you? It's going to be a greater one. And then Minneapolis at the Pentagon Theater, where we've been before. It's lovely. September 27. Yeah. And then we're going to swing down to Austin. It's going to be during Austin City Limits, although it has nothing to do with Austin City Limits will be there October 10. Yes. And then we're going to lovely Lawrence, Kansas. Go, Jayhawks. Yes. On October 11. And, hey, if you're in Kansas City or anywhere in that area, this is your chance. Get in your car. Yeah. If you are anywhere near Brooklyn, well, then you should go to the Bellhouse, october 22, 23rd and 24th. We'll be there all three nights. And finally, we're going to wrap it up here in Atlanta at the Bucket Theater on November 4 for a benefit show where we are donating all of the monies to Lifeline Animal Project of Atlanta and the National Down Syndrome Society. Yes. So for all this information, again visually, and for links to tickets, just go to sysklive.com welcome to Stuff You Should Know from Housetopworks.com. Hi, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W, Chuck, Bryant and Jerry's over there. So this is stuff you should know about the podcast. Correct. We are not going dark. No. Although that's a thing. It is a thing for the Battle for the Net action Day battle of the network stars. No, just Net. Okay. Battle for the Net. Yes. Which I would guess most people have heard of. Maybe not by that name necessarily, but say if you're a John Oliver fan or have been paying attention at all to the FCC rules about net neutrality, battle for the Net is kind of at the forefront of all that. Yeah. And since our show comes out on a Tuesday, which is July 11, and that is the day that some websites have elected to go dark, I think they're going dark the next day. Oh, on the 12th? Yeah. Okay. All right. Well, then I don't feel so bad. Right. But we figured we were actually someone wrote in suggesting this, then maybe instead of going dark because you guys probably can't do that, maybe you should just do an episode on net neutrality to teach all the peoples about the things. Right. That was a pretty good suggestion. I agree. Good suggestion. Yeah. I feel bad that I can't remember who it was that rode in, but thank you for that, whoever it was. You know who you are, because you're the only one who did. Yeah. They don't do it for the glory. No. So what are we talking about, Chuck, when we're talking about net neutrality or network neutrality or open internet? So what? That is mainly what people mean when they say net neutrality is the idea that the internet is an open road and it doesn't have fast lanes or slow lanes. It is providing equal access to anyone who wants to build a website, let's say, can throw it up there and have equal access to the big rollers on the internet with huge sites. You're all the same as far as how people can access you and whether or not they can access you. Yeah. And how fast they can access you. Exactly. Right. There's this great explainer in vox about net neutrality that we used as a resource. But they gave this good example of net neutrality. Right. So they pointed out that when facebook was created, zuckerberg didn't have to go to comcast or verizon or any of the ISPs, the internet service providers, the companies that provide the last mile, the connection between your house and the public internet. That's what an ISP is. Very important to remember that part. Right? Yeah. He didn't have to go to them and say, hey, will you carry my website on your network? He just built the website, plugged it into the internet, uploaded it to the internet, and it was available to any device or computer that was connected to the internet anywhere in the world. Right. Yeah. And the fact that he didn't have to go to them and ask to be added to their network, the fact that he didn't have to go to them to say, hey, I need people to be able to download this stuff fast, so here's a bunch of extra money. The fact that he didn't do that, that's how it has been up to this point. That is network neutrality. That's the basis of net neutrality, especially from the standpoint of developers and companies that create sites and applications on the web. Yeah. Wow. That's a very large spider crawling next to me. Sorry, I saw something out of the corner of my eye and I'm on cockroach alert because it's looking just a big spider. I'm going to let them go. Good for you. So it levels the playing field and all internet traffic is treated equally. Right. So not only does it level the playing field for people who are creating Facebook or Netflix or what have you, it also levels the playing field or levels the experience for users. Right. Yeah. If you're a user and you are on the Internet through your ISP, you should be getting whatever site you want to go to at the same speed as any other site. And your Internet service provider shouldn't be able to decide, we don't really like you getting that site. We don't really like you having that app. We're going to make it so that this traffic moves so slowly you're going to give up trying to download it or we're just going to block it entirely. Yeah. And why? Maybe because that's a competitor to us in some way and we would like to serve you up our product faster. Right. So preventing ISPs from being able to do that. That's open Internet or network neutrality. Okay. Yeah. That's the basis of it. That is currently how it stands right now. And the idea of network neutrality, I guess about 15 years old. Back in 2002, a guy named Tim Wu, who is a Columbia University law professor now, I believe, coined the term network neutrality to basically describe a level playing field for everybody involved. Right. Especially at the Internet service provider level. And since then, it's become this topic of debate, like, should this be something that we all want to adopt? Is, like, basically the rules for the Internet? Should network neutrality be the basis of how the Internet is built and approached? Yeah. Which is a big deal because even though it seems like we're far along, we are still in the infancy stage of the Internet, and the impacts would be long lasting and huge moving forward. From what I understand, most people agree that net neutrality is, at its basis, an agreeable way to frame the Internet. That's the way it should be. And there was even back in 2014, as we'll see, we just went through this and we're going through it again now. But back in 2014, there were a pair of polls that I ran across from two different groups. One of them was University of Delaware. I can't remember who the other one was, but it found that even among conservatives, that net neutrality is highly valued. Something like 80% to 83% of people who identify as conservatives say that ISPs should be prevented from slowing or blocking traffic. Right. Yeah. And that Congress should actually do something about it. Right. So people by and large, agree that net neutrality is the way the Internet should go. The division that has really kind of come out, especially recently, is how that good can be achieved. Do you achieve it by giving power to the FCC to go police the ISPs and find them and basically make life hard for them if they don't follow the rules? Or do you remove any teeth that the FCC might have in policing the ISPs and just leave it up to competition. And depending on where you fall ideologically as far as government regulation goes, is probably where you're going to fall along the spectrum of net neutrality. Yeah, and it's not a black and white thing like you would think, like the end user to say, yeah, there's got to be net neutrality no matter what. There's a lot of users like, I don't know, man, all I care about is streaming my stuff as efficiently and fast as possible. And if getting rid of net neutrality would increase that competition and I could get my Netflix movies awesomeer and faster than I'm all for it. Right then. On the other side, you've got big corporations that maybe don't feel like you think they might. Yeah, you would think that. Stuff like this, usually when the government is involved, it's like a big corporation versus little guy kind of thing. But no, there's a dispute between corporations, too, like you said, where the ISPs like Verizon and Comcast and at and T are lined up against the tech companies, like the tech media companies like YouTube and Netflix and formerly Tumblr, some of the other guys, Facebook, Google, where they're on opposite sides of this issue, which is strange because they need each other. They have very incestuous relationships that are very complicated and complex. But as far as net neutrality goes, they are pretty much divided between ISPs and tech media companies. One side is against the net neutrality rules, one side is strongly in favor of them. Boy, and you talk about complicated, like in the future, companies, corporations merging and then ISPs being a part of the same company or getting into the media content game. Things are getting interesting. Yeah, interesting, but also kind of scary because right now, back in 2015, the FCC struck a huge blow to the ISPs with a set of new rules, 400 page compendium, I guess you would call it, of rules that basically said you guys can't mess around anymore. The ISPs are not allowed to block or throttle or provide fast lanes. Stuff getting real and the net really is going to be neutral from now on. That was under Obama, and Trump has appointed a different SEC chairman who was a member of the SEC before, and he is not in favor of that at all. So do you want to talk about what the 2015 rules are and kind of how it is for the moment? Well, here's what I think we should do. We should take a break. OK. All right. We should go back in time when we come back and talk a little bit about the phone companies, which will kind of set the stage for what's going on today. Okay. All right, we'll be right back. Josh, my friend, do you know where your passport is right now? 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All right, I promise. Talk about phone companies, because that's exciting stuff. Yeah, it is. It's amazing how much telephone companies have shaped law and policy in this country over the years. Yeah, I guess it is. Like with the telephone monopolies back in the day, it's all very interesting. Yeah. You used to have to lease your telephone from the phone company. Like, people didn't buy telephones. You leased it. Yeah, just one telephone company. Wasn't it just Bell? Yeah, basically my bell. Yes. And then they broke it up into the smaller bells, the baby bells, I think that's what they call them. This is all like, for my childhood, so I didn't really look up much of that. But we're talking about the FCC here as the governing body. And back in the they were sort of early in on this game with the phone companies in the early days of computer networking, and they came out really early on. They had a lot of foresight back then and said, you know what, we need to guarantee consumers with the right to use modems on their phone lines. Yes. Because this is like everyone's seen war games. And we all know that's how the future is going. Right. You got to put your phone on a big box, your phone receiver on a big box. I wanted one of those so bad. Yes. They were so expensive. You literally connected your phone. Right. I had no idea what to do with it. I just thought like, wow, computers plus. Yeah, exactly. But saying, okay, everybody has the right to have a modem in their house and to use a phone line to use it. That was kind of a radical idea. And the reason why is because when you're talking about telephone carriers, like back in the day, at and T Mobile, what you are saying is you're a private corporation. You have gone and laid telephone wires all throughout the United States. You guys built the US telephone infrastructure and yes, we, the government, the taxpayers gave you substantial tax breaks and lots of benefits to doing this and you guys are the ones making the money operating these phone lines. But we have decided that the phone lines are so important to the public good that you guys aren't allowed to just be a normal corporation that the government stays lazy fair hands off with. Right. You guys are deemed order considered common carriers. Yeah. You're like a road. Yeah. You're like the people who carry people along roads, like goods and people. Right. You're like an airline. You're like a cargo transport ship. You're like a Greyhound bus but with telephone lines. Right. So the government said everyone should be able to have access to telephone lines. You can charge people for that access, but you can't mess with their access. We're not letting you. And in the things or the think one of the things the government said was, hey, you know how we're kind of the bosses of you guys even though you're private corporations. Well, we're going to boss you around right now and say any business that wants to come along and use your phone lines to provide dial up modem service to their customers, you have to let them do it. And that was a public good. It was for the public good. And by doing that, the dial up internet industry was able to blossom unfettered with government protection. Right. The government got in between that blossoming industry that was in competition with the telephone companies and the telephone companies that could have strangled it in the cradle. That was the first big thing that the SEC did as far as the internet goes. Yeah. In 1996, a very important distinction was drawn with basically Congress drawing up two categories and this, you'll see, plays out kind of over and over and will continue to in the future. Two different things. Telecommunication services and information services. So telecom services, we're talking about the phone lines. That what we were talking about here. And as far as the law is concerned, there are a lot of like you were talking about legal obligations on these services, and the FCC has a lot of oversight and regulation over them. Information services. On the other hand, they said, like Facebook, that's an information service. YouTube is an information service. They were less basically exempt from most of the FCC regulations. So dividing those things into was a very, very big deal. And during the Clinton years, what most people would consider, which he is Trump's pick to chair the FCC, he called the Clinton era basically up to 2015, light touch regulation, which is what he is in favor of, and we'll get to him a little bit more in a minute. But it's that Clinton era FCC regulations that basically did what you're talking about and said, you know what, we want DSL. That's the newest thing. Forget dial up, we want to send faster speeds over the Internet and you all have to play along. So they did it again to the phone companies. They went to and said, remember dial up modems, no one wants that any longer. Everybody wants DSL. So now you guys have to let any DSL provider use your phone lines and that let the DSL, the beginning of the high speed Internet industry, flourish. Right. So there's this pattern of the SEC coming in and being like, you guys are huge. You guys who provide that last mile, you common carriers who are the gatekeepers between the public at large and the public Internet. You guys stand in between them and we're saying you can do this, you can't do that, you can do this, you can't do that. And for a while, the ISPs were classified as telecommunications services, which meant that they fell under way more oversight and scrutiny, like you said, than say like YouTube. And the reason the government did this was to let the Internet start to boom, right? Yes. And I'm not sure why. I guess because it was Bush era and the Bush FCC chair said we shouldn't be classifying ISPs as telecommunications companies anymore, but we have to, it's the law. He went to court and the court said, no, actually, you guys are the FCC. If you want to start classifying internet service providers as information services which are not as heavily regulated, you guys go ahead and do that. So the Bushera SEC said, okay, well, we hereby decree the Internet service providers are not akin to the Bell telephone switchboard operators of yours. They're much more akin to YouTube. They're part of the Internet, which if you really stop and think about it, doesn't make much sense. But that was a huge sea change in what the government could say or do to ISPs that gave them way more freedom to do a lot more stuff after they were classified as information services. Yeah, and then in 2010, the chair of the SEC at the time, Julius Genikowski, said, you know what, we got some new regulations on the books we're going to prohibit ISPs from blocking content online. We're going to prohibit what we call unreasonable discrimination. And they're all going to have to be a little more transparent about what's going on. And this is in the era of broadband now. Right. And then Verizon stepped up and said, you know what? We don't like the sounds of this. You guys are stepping way over your congressional power here. Yeah. They said, well, don't forget, you guys classified us as information services. You can't tell us to do or not do this stuff. We're not telecoms anymore. Suckers. Yeah, pretty much. And the DC circuit Court of Appeals agreed with Horizon, and this is just in 2014. So just a few years ago then said, those rules have got to go. As long as you're classified that way, then you're going to have to play by these rules. Right. But that changed again in 2014 when Tom Wheeler came along as the chair of the FCC, right. And he kind of flip flopped. He came out initially and proposed some rules that people said, no, that's way too weak. Bra right. Well, it got leaked, and there was a huge backlash in public outcry against it. But I don't think anyone was surprised because Tom Wheeler was a long standing lobbyist for the cable and wireless industries. Right. So he was an industry insider who was supposed to be regulating the industry that he was already friends with and where his background was. So nobody was really surprised when the FCC came out with these really weakened rules on ISPs. But there was a huge backlash. Yeah, that was the first battle for the net. And then Wheeler went, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I was just kidding. Here's my real document. He didn't really say that, but he came up with a new document with bigger, sharper teeth. And that was what you referenced earlier, the 400 page document called the 2015 Open Internet Order, which was a really big deal. That was a surprise because Wheeler. Again. Who is a lobbyist for these very industries. Not only reversed course from these toothless. Weak law rules to much stronger rules that were in step with what the net neutrality advocates were asking for. He actually went even further and made even stronger. Tighter net neutrality rules. And then took the time to write something like 300 pages of rules explaining the logic and the thought behind all this. Which could pose a problem as we'll talk about later for a Jeep pi and the Trump FCC to get passed. But it was a huge surprise that came out of nowhere and an enormous victory for net neutrality advocates and for Obama and his administration. It became one of the signature acts, I guess, or watershed moments for the Obama administration because he campaigned as a net neutrality supporter. And then finally, one year, the last year of his presidency, his FCC just dropped the mic on net neutrality and said, it is done. Yeah. And within that Open Internet Order, one of the first I mean, it did a couple of big things, but the big, big thing it did was it said, hey, remember way back in 1934, the Communications Act, we think we can actually reclassify broadband as what we're going to call a Title II telecommunications service. Right. So remember earlier when we said they split it up in the two buckets? This all changed a couple of years ago when they can now classify Horizon or Comcast as a telecom service, which again means it's a common carrier and much more heavily regulated. Yeah. So the FCC was like, oh, we can't tell you what to do if you're classified as an information service. Well, you're no longer classified as that. You're classified as a telecommunications service now, and we are up your rectum. It's so interesting that this like, we've seen the birth of this industry that is being figured out in full view. Well, maybe not always full view. Right. You know what I'm saying, though. Yeah. And it's still being molded right now. Yeah, it's really interesting. So that was the first thing that the 2015 Open Internet Order did, right. It reclassified the ISPs back to telecommunication status. It took them out of the same league as YouTube and Netflix and all of these content providers on the web and said, you guys actually handle the nuts and bolts of it. You don't handle the actual content. So you're telecom now. Then it did the second part, too, which was basically saying the net is now neutral. We're instilling net neutrality values onto the Internet as the FCC. Yeah. And we'll do so in three main ways. No blocking. You can't block lawful content, can't block services. You can't block applications. As long as it's lawful and legal content, you can't block it. You can't throttle it. To me, throttling is a weird word. It seems counterintuitive because throttling, I would think, means you speed something up. But in this case, it means you can't slow something down. Yeah. Basically, I would say breaking. Right. Not throttling. Yeah. Laying on top of yeah. But throttling basically means as an ISP, you can't come in, like we were talking about earlier, and saying, you know, what your competition, Netflix to our comcast services. So we want to make sure no one can stream anything very well. Right. So we're going to slow you down. And then the final one was no paid prioritization, no fast lane. Yeah. You can't pay someone to juice up your site right. So that you can get an edge over the competition. Which, I mean, like, if Netflix is doing that to Amazon Prime, nobody's really shed in a tier like Amazon Prime are big kids and they can handle themselves. But if you're developing the next streaming video app and you don't have the money to compete against Netflix, that's a huge disadvantage. And it has been pointed out as a potentially stifling to new technology. Yeah, for sure. So one of the things that the FCC's 2015 rule said that ISPs have to behave in a quote just in reasonable manner. I think you said that, right? No, I didn't. Okay, well they do that's part of it. And they also said, hey everybody, from YouTube to YouTube, if you see an ISP behaving in an unjust and unreasonable manner, let us know. Even if it's not illegal. If you think it's unjust and unreasonable, let us know and we will look into it. And the ISPs went, oh, God, I hate the FCC. So that was a really big thing. We'll talk about a little bit more about why it is such a big thing in a minute. But then one of the other things that it did too was it said this also applies to wireless providers. Before, in 2010 when the FCC introduced some net neutrality rules that were challenged by Verizon in court and were overturned by the court in 2014, one of the things that they did was it exempted wireless carriers, wireless ISPs from these laws again because they wanted to promote growth in that industry. They're like no one's ever going to use their phone to stream content. I think they were hoping that people would and that regulation might hamper that. Right. So that kind of brings us up to speed on where we are today. Enter Ajit Pai, who was a former lawyer for Verizon and is the head of the SEC under Trump. And like I said before, he favors what he calls a light touch regulation, which is basically pre title to reclassification. Right. Basically, if you are an ISP, you are going to be subject to the laws of competition, of capitalism and those will keep you in line. And the SEC doesn't need to be involved. The more the FCC is involved, the more stifling these regulations will be and basically the whole internet will break if the SEC is involved. Yeah, and his theory, I watched a couple of interviews with him and his theory, very smart guy, his theory is that if we deregulate and kind of make it wide open, then people in, I guess, more rural areas of the country will benefit because if we have all these regulations, it might stifle their internet and we want everyone to have good fast internet. And he believes that the way forward is through not regulating this stuff, anything that would lead to rural areas getting faster speeds. I don't see how it's possible. Like, I mean, just by definition fewer customers out there means it's more expensive to lay that cable out to those people. Well, I think his argument is that investments in this infrastructure would dry up because of these rules, which in turn would like the first people to lose out on that would probably be people in rural areas. Like we're not going to. Bother putting infrastructure in these rural areas because it's not worth our time and effort. I got you. That's what he's saying. So there's actually another thing that addresses that from the old telephone days. I can't remember what it's called. It's like a universal fund, but it's basically where everybody who has a telephone line or gets service from an ISP paid a little tax. Like, if you looked at your phone bill back in the day, there would be a line item that said, like, the universal something fund, and it was $0.03 or $0.07 or something like that, something you just couldn't care less about. But put together in a pot with the $0.07 from all the other phone users, households that had phones, you had a pretty decent amount of money. And that money was taken to create infrastructure out to rural areas so that people out in the sticks had telephones. There's a bill right now, or proposal in the FCC that was proposed by the Wheeler FCC about creating that or continuing that. Same thing not about with broadband. Right. So, I mean, there's a solution right there. It's everybody paying an extra few cents so that people out in rural areas can get that kind of infrastructure, and it's the taxpayers paying the ISPs to go lay that cable for people in rural areas. Yeah, he also says because one of the things a lot of people talk about are the harm that can be caused by this deregulation. And there are examples even, which we'll go over here in a minute, but he calls those hypothesized harms and even said a solution that wouldn't work. Title two is a solution that wouldn't work for a problem that didn't exist. So when in this interview I saw on NPR, when they sat down and gave him examples of what can happen, he said, well, this has happened. I'm not saying it hasn't happened, he said, but these are single examples. And he said to me, there would have to be widespread evidence of this kind of problem in order for this kind of regulation to be enacted. Right, I got you. Which maybe it would be more widespread if there was no regulation. Well, that's the fear. That's another hypothesis, I guess. That's the fear that once you take the Bridle off of the ISPs, they're going to run rampant. And again, these are multinational companies that are providing most of the access to the public Internet in America and the Western world. It's not foolish to think that they're going to very quickly consolidate as much power as they can with the new, less restricted freedom to do so. That would be given if you roll back the 2015 rules. Yeah, and a lot of people point out, too, that if you look at the period from 1996 to 2005, while the ISPs were classified as telecoms, the Internet still boomed and flourished. We had a bubble, an Internet stock bubble happened even pretty early on and the Internet as we know it today developed during that time. So the idea that it's stifling, or it would stifle that growth classifying ISPs of telecoms doesn't seem to hold much water. Well, and when you talk about investment infrastructure, it kind of depends on which studies you've looked at. Some have said that it has already, like Pi pointed to twelve. I think over the two year period since the Title II went into effect, the twelve major carriers have had 5% reduction in infrastructure spending. And then you can cherry pick another study that might say, well, yeah, but these companies actually put in more money and invested more money. Right. So I think in either case it's probably a correlation and causation argument. Maybe you can't necessarily say it's because of the different classification. Right. And so the numbers we have are not so great. There's this lobbying group called US. Telecom and their numbers show that the infrastructure investing, this is new fiber cable or upgrades to existing cable being laid in the United States. The broadband infrastructure, the spending by the Big Twelve ISPs went down by a billion dollars between 2014 and 2015. And the idea is that's because of reclassification, the US Census Bureau said actually no, our numbers show that between 2014 and 2015 the spending on infrastructure went up by 600 million. Right. Not that much, but it was an actual increase. And this is really important Chuck. Because if you are looking at Net Neutrality in the battle over it from a legal standpoint. Infrastructure is going to be the crux of the argument because there was a law passed back in 1946. I can't remember what it's called. But it basically bans federal agencies from making capricious rule changes. Which is basically like exactly the situation that we're in right now. You have one administration making one set of rules and then a year or two later a philosophically different administration coming in and completely changing those rules. Well, to do that, the new administration's regulators have to prove why it's a good idea to change these rules. They can't just be capricious. Right? And so observers of this whole battle that's going on right now are saying probably Pie is going to be using the drop in infrastructure investing as his reason why. He's going to point to it and say, look man, this Title Two classification led to a billion dollars, $5 billion, whatever billion dollar drop in infrastructure investment. It was a bad idea. We're going to reverse the rules. And if you can do that, then the rules probably will be changed and Net Neutrality will be rolled back. But the figures aren't in yet for 2016, so no one actually knows if overall spending on infrastructure declined or increased or stayed the same. But that's probably going to be the crux of the legal argument about changing the rules back. You want to take a break? Sure. All right, we're going to take a break and hopefully we'll get to hear Josh say lay the cable at least two more times. That's why it's a josh, my friend, do you know where your passport is right now? Well, you better dig it up because Adventure is around the corner and there's a card that's going to get you closer with the city Advantage Platinum Select Card. Every swipe earns you Advantage miles and loyalty points, and two times Advantage miles at restaurants and gas stations so your everyday purchases can take your travel to new heights. Plus, card members get access to built in travel benefits. For example, your first check bag is free on domestic travel, so you and your family have room to pack for every possibility, like coming home with extra souvenirs and with preferred boarding, you'll be in your seat sooner, ready for take off into Adventure. 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And the comments in and of themselves have gotten a lot of attraction in popular culture. Back in 2014, John Oliver did a piece on what's his show called this Week Tonight. Last Week Tonight. That's right. Thank you. And he very famously called The Battle over net neutrality cable company Smurfery. Right. And basically he said, everybody go leave your comments about net neutrality. And the next day, the FCC's website broke. It buckled under the strain, and ultimately the FCC got something like 3.7 million public comments about the 2015 rules, most of them in favor of them. Right. Yeah. So this time around, John Oliver has done another thing. The Internet broke again, but they think this time it was actually a DDoS attack. It was an attack. And there's also been evidence that spam bots are leaving comments as well yeah. When they're like 5 million identical comments on the half a million. Oh, half a million? Yeah, there's been about 5 million total. But they found like half a million from a spam box right. Which were identical comments. I think they use real names and addresses. Right, but the same. Yeah. One of the person whose name was stolen and used by the spam bot was a Jeep Pie himself. Yeah. This is what it said. The unprecedented regulatory power by the Obama administration imposed on the Internet is smothering innovation, damaging the American economy, and obstructing job creation. The plan currently under consideration at the FCC to repeal Obama's title to power grab is a positive step forward and will help to promote a truly free and open Internet for everyone. Yeah. So it's so interesting to me that both sides want the same thing and they just have two very different ideas on how to go about it. Someone's right and wrong. Right. Well, I think you know what's bizarre about this one, there's three sides to it. There's two sides that are opposed philosophically over the role of government and regulation. And then there's a third side, the ISPs who are like, everybody shut up, stop telling us what to do. We want to just go make some money and we want the FCC out of our butts. Yes. So we've kind of hit on some of them. But let's talk about what some of the arguments in favor of net neutrality are and then we'll talk about some of the arguments against well, I guess the first thing that we should point out is that it actually will prevent censorship when that is what it is feared. It won't happen. Yeah, we didn't say that. The name that a Jeep Pi and his FCC came up with for their new rules is Restoring Internet Freedom Rules, which has kind of been accused of being new speaker double speak. Because it's basically saying, like, the SEC being involved in this was a power grab by the Obama administration and that by getting the FCC out of this whole thing, then we're actually protecting against censorship that it was a government grab of the Internet to try to start to censor it. Right. Which is not the case. Well, I mean, I guess it depends on how you feel about government regulation, but yeah. Saying that the 2015 rules allowed, government censorship is patently wrong. Yeah, that's what I meant. And if anything, it prevents censorship by the ISPs, by preventing blocking and throttling. Yeah. Another thing that some people it's weird, the arguments and counter arguments all use each other. They'll say that, no, we need deregulation so we can promote growth in this industry, not stifle it. But when you have net neutrality in place, it keeps that low barrier to just getting a website going. And like you said before, we're at an age now where anyone can design the next Facebook, and if, let's say, you needed half a million dollars like you've designed it and everything's great, but you need to pay an ISP 500 grand to get it going at a reasonable speed, then that'll kill innovation, right? I guess it depends on whose innovation you're stifling. If you're looking at the ISPs as part of the Internet, well, then having the Internet thrive and having new huge, massive traffic driving companies like Facebook that get a lot of people to the Internet to use it in the first place, that's an inherent good. But really what you're talking about is keeping that unregulated and regulating the ISPs. So, I mean, what are you stifling? And the argument is that you're stifling infrastructure investment. So, like high speed cable being laid not by me. And then getting cable out to rural areas, that kind of thing. I think when you hear both sides using the same point to prove their case, it means that BS is afoot somewhere. Another thing that we touched on a little bit is like when we said, hey, maybe Comcast as a cable company would want to slow down or throttle Netflix so it would not unlevel the playing field. The same can be said of like, a telephone company not wanting Skype to become a thing or Internet phone to become a thing. And so that is a genuine fear that behind the scenes there will be throttling going on. Yeah. And that's a real legitimate fear for two reasons, Chuck. One, that the ISPs are starting to branch out and getting into, like you said earlier, the content game. Yeah, the content game, right. So that's rule one. Or that's problem one. Like, for instance, verizon just bought Yahoo, and Yahoo owns Flickr and Tumblr. And Tumblr, by the way, used to be at the forefront, the tip of the spear for net neutrality advocacy. Like, they were loud and proud, man. And then Verizon bought them and all of a sudden Tumblr silent on the subject. Right. But more to the point, since Verizon bought Yahoo, which owns Flicker and Tumblr, it told all of its Tumblr and Flickr users that have a bell South At and T associated email address that they weren't going to be able to access their Flickr or Tumblr accounts anymore until they created a new user ID using a Yahoo email address. Yeah. So that's fairly anti competitive you can make a case. And so that's going on right now, as ISPs are starting to get into the media game. But it's also happened in the past plenty of times, too. It's already happened. It's been documented that when the ISPs are free to be anticompetitive, they take you up on the offer. Yeah. And again, Pie has responded to those incidents as isolated examples and not enough of a reason to regulate. Yeah. His feeling is that it has to be a widespread problem for it to be a real issue. Yeah, I guess that's a position, for sure. That's a position. Yeah. What about the case against net neutrality? So, again, there's that whole investment thing in infrastructure, which is big. That's legitimate. Sure. If the ISPs say, dude, we're not making enough money, we're really unhappy about this regulation, we're going to stop putting money into the American broadband infrastructure, then America will suffer as a result. We want the highest, fastest speed infrastructure we can get, and we rely on the ISPs to build those and then charge us money for access using those high speed routes. Right. That's what I don't buy, though, because they want the fastest Internet. Because they want your business. They totally do. Right, okay. And here's the thing. Everybody, when they're talking about this, seems to kind of dance around this. But yeah, dude, the ISPs can make a lot of money charging access. They make plenty of money, plenty of revenue. But they're also again, they're the gatekeepers. They're the ones who built this infrastructure. They're the ones who have the access to these networks built and these customer bases built. And if they are unhappy and they want to be sourpusses about it, they can stop investing in America's infrastructure, and America will suffer as a result. And again, these aren't necessarily companies that have an office on Main Street in Kansas in Topeka. They're multinational companies. And if they move their favor elsewhere, then America could suffer. Right. We're somewhat hostages to their whims to an extent, but at the end of the day, america is also one of the best markets for broadband access, and they want the money of American users. So they are going to keep investing in infrastructure, I think. But it's a gamble. And if you're opposed to federal regulation in principle, you're going to say that gamble is not worth it. I don't want to put federal regulation on these guys if it's going to make them unhappy, because I don't like federal regulation. They don't like federal regulation, and it could tick them off enough that America's infrastructure could start to SAG. Here's the thing, though, and I don't know much I'm not an expert in this, but my feeling is, wouldn't they have to all collude? And none of them do that because as soon as one of them starts laying the cable like Josh Clarke, then they'll have the advantage, and the other one will be like, we got to start laying the cable because they're getting ahead and getting faster. Well, yeah, like, they would all have to be in cahoots and say, well, hey, let's all just sort of make a ton of money and just say, this is how fast the Internet is now. So here you just dug up another issue. It's totally true. If you have a lot of different ISPs who have large, massive networks. If you have those large ISPs suddenly starting to consolidate, which they are, and you have fewer and fewer, but bigger and bigger ISPs, they control larger parts of the market to where if you've got basically two major ISPs competing against one another, they could conceivably do that, and it would be tough for one to just be like, no, I'm not doing that. I'm laying all the cable. I'm going to take all your market share. It's possible that they could do that, but it could also be likely that they would collude, not necessarily in an illegal fashion, but just saying, you know what, we both kind of agree america's the pits right now. We'll wait until the winds change. Let's go over to Ireland and invest in their infrastructure because they got some cash and they don't feel like regulating today. Right. Good old Ireland. So it's not like I think a lot of people think like, well, this is Trump's FCC, so they're just automatically evil and have no real point. They do represent a viewpoint of anti regulation sentiment. Right, right. But there's another aspect to all of this, Chuck, that has kind of blown my mind. It's just not talked about all that much. Two of the things that people who are in the net neutrality debate are talking about and worried about don't really actually exist any longer. Yeah. Two major things. Yeah. So Internet censorship and equal access to broadband networks. That's not around anymore. Neither of those are around. An Internet free from censorship, I should say. Yeah. I don't know if censorship is the right word because that implies you have no access at all, but what search engines do and what apps do and what Facebook and Google and YouTube and everyone does in that game as they serve things up to the public that are very much curated according to their needs. I was going to say Whims, but they're not Whims their needs as a company. So it's not like they're censoring things, but they certainly aren't. I mean, you can still find the things on the Internet. They're not like deleting things and censoring things, but they're definitely serving up like search engines aren't just they're serving up what they want to serve up because that serves their company best. Yeah. Whether it's like, content that's more likely to lead to data that they can use to better target you for ads, or there are some instances of very, like, actual censorship where, like, Twitter stuff, twitter can take your tweet down if it's deemed offensive. That's censorship. Facebook can do the same thing with your posts. That's censorship. So there's a whole group of stakeholders in this whole debate, the media companies that do have the legal and technical ability to censor the Internet. Right. But giving the ISPs the ability to censor the Internet doesn't make anything any fairer or more even. It just makes things worse. Right. So that's the idea that these guys can already sense of the Internet, so why shouldn't the ISPs be able to? That's a terrible argument. Yeah. And one of the other big things that's already happening is when we're talking about paying extra money to get your content faster, that's already going on. Right. They're already fast lanes, essentially. Yes, exactly. And that's not supposed to be, but it's been going on for a while. Yeah. And so Google and Netflix, among other companies, basically have paid extra money to connect. They've almost created, like, a side Internet by connecting their routers and servers directly to the ISPs network servers. Instead of saying, well, we'll just be routing our traffic along with the rest of the Internet, they have essentially paid to have their own special fast lane. Right, exactly. And again, this has been going on for years. And Google started it. Everybody has. It the rub. There was a very famous dispute about it that made this whole concept, it's called peering made it public between Comcast and Verizon and Netflix. Netflix Is users, and I remember this Netflix, their transmission was degrading fast, and Netflix had to go to Verizon and Comcast and say, I need a peer network set up. I need to be able to plug in directly. Here's a bunch of money. I hate you guys. And they publicly accused, at least Comcast, I think, of purposefully letting their traffic back up and not rerouting it to make it go faster so that Comcast would have to come and give them money. And now Verizon and Comcast viewpoint is, well, you guys are sending tons of traffic that you're charging for our way without paying anything extra. Why should we have to add an extra router or server, whatever, to accommodate this traffic when you guys are the ones generating it and profiting from it? And so that's just kind of been like that part of that philosophical divide, too, with net neutrality. Who should be paying for the increase in traffic? Well, not only that, but these deals are worked out between the companies. And if the FCC sticks their nose in it, then all of a sudden, they are inserting their self in that process. And companies aren't liking the sounds of that either. Well, yeah, the market for this has been unregulated for the most part. Companies have been okay with it and fine with it. The ISPs are happy because their users are getting faster traffic. And Netflix, or say, Amazon Prime is happy because their users are getting to watch Game of Thrones faster. Right, but the FCC's 2015 rules say, well, we're involved in this now. And remember we said that ISPs have to act in a just and reasonable manner. Right. So Netflix now under these 2015 rules, if they try this again, you can come and tell us that they're acting unreasonably and we'll get involved. Which is another thing that Jeep wants to roll back because he doesn't think the SEC has any business getting involved in these transactions. Yeah, it's really a slippery slope on all sides if you ask me, for sure. But to me, the whole thing boils down to do we want to give ISPs the ability, the freedom to block traffic. I think of them as the switchboard operators. I think conceiving of them as common carriers is absolutely right. And I think giving them the ability to censor block or throttle traffic, I just think it's a bad move. Well, I mean, one thing that has kind of been true over and over throughout our history is that greed typically wins out when it's completely unregulated and it has led to bad things for the end user, whatever industry that might be. Right. Yeah, the companies might went out, but greed kind of doesn't lead down the good path for Average Joe sitting at his laptop. I think that's true. Man and that is what it boils down to. Do we trust them? Do we trust them? There you go. To act fairly. Yeah, let's leave it at that. Man well done. If you want to know more about net neutrality, well, you can get involved and then you can also head on over to FCC gov and they also allow comments from international people, too. You don't have to be an American, but you should check a box that says you're international. You just put your name and address on there and leave your comment and you can comment. Remember, you can do that till July 17. Chuck yeah, I think and then there's comments on the comments that runs so August 16. So go let them know how you feel one way or the other. And since I said feel, it's time for listener mail. Yeah. Click on that international box so it will go right into the abyss of the Internet. I'm just kidding. I'm going to call this just a very concise stonewall reaction. We got a lot of good feedback on our Remembering Stonewall episode, and I think both of us feel pretty good about that one. Great, even. Hey, guys, I've listened to and loved your podcast for years, but your recent Remembering Stonewall episode compelled me to write you guys as a gay man. I thought, how can these two straight guys do justice to my community's history? A prejudice I subsequently am not proud of because you handled the subject so eloquently, so understandingly. Very impressed on how well you tackled the subject, guys, which shouldn't have surprised me since you handle every episode so expertly. But since the subject hits so close to home for me, I'm so very happy and proud with the reverence that you gave it. Thank you. Thank you. Nice. That's three. Thank yous. Yes. Three thank yous. That's the magic number. And that is from Craig. Craig, thanks a lot for that. We appreciate it. We do feel pretty good about that if it was interesting and good and stirring and all that jazz. So that's up to you. Right back. If you want to get in touch with us, like Craig did, you can tweet to us at Josh Clark or Syskpodcast, you can join us on Facebook@facebook.com stuffycheanowcharlesw. Chuck Bryant, you can send us an email to stuffpodcast athousepworks.com. And as always, join us at our home on the web stuffyheno.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, it's summer, everybody, which means schools out, the sun's shining, the daylights longer, and best of all, there's plenty of time to get lost in a good, thrilling story. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, tune into the podcast series on Amazon music my Favorite Murder from exactly right media. My Favorite Murder has something for everyone. Hosted by Karen Kilgarif and Georgia Hard Stark, this true crime comedy podcast will share stories that will have you wanting more before you know it. Listen to new episodes of my favorite Murder. One week early on Amazon music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen today. You know you're a pet mom when you plan your vacation around your pet. At Halo, we get it because we're pet moms, too. We make natural, high quality pet food that's rooted in science. It's the world's best food for the world's best kids. Learn more@halopeet.com."
78dcdb05-7e55-474e-9de5-ae61017ff386	The Truth Behind Cage-Free and Free-Range	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/the-truth-behind-cage-free-and-free-range	You’d think terms like cage-free and free-range means the chickens we eat are frolicking happily in the fresh air under the shining sun, but you’d be so, so wrong. Cage-free is a huge improvement but free-range is lacking and both have a long way to go. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.	You’d think terms like cage-free and free-range means the chickens we eat are frolicking happily in the fresh air under the shining sun, but you’d be so, so wrong. Cage-free is a huge improvement but free-range is lacking and both have a long way to go. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.	Fri, 25 Mar 2022 13:07:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2022, tm_mon=3, tm_mday=25, tm_hour=13, tm_min=7, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=4, tm_yday=84, tm_isdst=0)	51954091	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"You know you're a pet mom when you plan your vacation around your pet at Halo, we get it because we're pet moms, too. We make natural, high quality pet food that's rooted in science. It's the world's best food for the world's best kids. Learn more@halopets.com.com this July. Don't miss an entire summer of surprises on Disney Plus with Disney's High School Musical, the Musical, the series season three Zombies, three Doctor Strange in the multiverse of Madness, and the wonderful summer of Mickey Mouse. Plus new episodes of Marvel Studios, ms. Marvel and National Geographics. America the Beautiful. From the award winning producers of Planet Earth, Frozen Planet, and the Disney nature films, america the Beautiful takes viewers on a tour of the most spectacular and visually arresting regions of our great nation. All these and more streaming this month on Disney Plus. Welcome to stuff you should know a production of. iHeartRadio. Hi and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's Chuck. Something is going on with Chuck. I'm okay so far, but Jerry's not here because she turned into the chicken lady and is in treatment for that doing the chicken dance. Do you remember the chicken lady from Kids in the hall? Oh, sure. I was referencing development. Yeah, but you're taking it back even further to the great, great kids in the hall. That's right. I can just sit here and quote kids in the hall one liners all day. Yeah, I love those guys. So that's not what we're here to do, though. Chuckle down, settle down. We're going away from the kids in the hall. Yes, and since you mentioned that, what we're also not here to do is shame anybody or make anyone feel bad or to tell anyone how to live their life and eat their breakfast. But we're here to arm you with information on this one. And I'm not surprised you picked this one, but I just thought since I had a somewhat scarring experience in the commercial chicken farming industry yeah, for sure. For those of you listening that don't know this, one of my last real person jobs before this job many years ago was I worked for a software company that designed software for commercial chicken operations to better track how they lay eggs and how they gain weight and how you're feeding them and kind of everything how they're killed. And I hated that job. It was soul killing, and I never understood it. I never invested in it. And as far as understanding the software and I was in tech support, and so I was terrible at it. But my friends ran the company, and eventually they fired me because I was so bad at it. Well and that's the best thing that ever happened to me, because that led directly to getting this job. It's like Garth Brooks said, some of God's greatest gifts are unanswered prayers. All right, sure. Your prayer to be good at your chicken killing software job was unanswered, and instead, an even better prayer that you didn't even know you had was answered. Yeah, I didn't have that prayer. I didn't want to be good at that job. All this is probably pretty well known to you because we've been doing this kind of stuff to chickens for a good 70 years by now, right? Yeah. We're going to talk to them about factory farming finally. I don't think we've dodged it, but people have long said, hey, guys, can you get into this? And we're not touching cattle or swine. We're just starting dipping our toe into it with poultry dipping our beaks dipping. Our beaks are untrimmed beaks. Yeah, I can peck you till the cows come home, which is something that happens on the farm. That's right. So enough dancing around. Chuck we're talking about today not necessarily factory farming, although, like you said, we have to talk about it. We're going to talk about those labels that you see on your eggs or on your chicken, usually cage free or free range or something along those lines, and whether it means anything. But one of the great successes of the last probably five, six, maybe even ten years or longer, came very quietly out of the effective altruism community. Chuck oh, really? Yeah, a group of effective altruists said, we're always looking to maximize our charitable contributions. There's a lot of chickens out there that are not being treated very well. Supposedly, there's 7.6 billion egg laying hens alone worldwide at any given time, almost 8 billion. So if you could improve the lives of them even by a little bit, you would really be reducing a massive amount of suffering. So they got $3 million together, laser focused it on advocacy, lobbying, getting legislation put through, and then most of all, pressuring. Really big companies, they went after some whales to commit to going 100% cage free eggs within a very short period of time, sometimes 2024, sometimes 2030. But all of these huge companies, everybody from Danone to Burger King to McDonald's to Whole Foods, not surprisingly, but also, like, Dollar General, all of them have signed a pledge that says all of the eggs that our customers buy, whether it's in prepared food or eggs you buy in the store, are going to be 100% cage free eggs within the next few years. And they did it with, like, $3 million and a lot of elbow grease. I love it. I think all those companies probably said, all right, geez, if they're cage free eggs out there, we'll use them. Stop hatzling me. Yeah, that's what the Burger King said. Yeah, the guy in that big he said it with his mind, right? Yeah, because his mouth doesn't move. But it was a big deal. I mean, the fact that they got that that's happening, it's a big deal. And it's one of those things where if you scratch beneath the surface, it's not an intended pun, but if you scratch beneath the surface. And a lot of these terms and phrases that the USDA likes to bandy about things like cage free and things like free range and stuff like that, it's often really disappointing. But that's one of the things about cage free is that it is an actual substantial increase in the welfare and quality of life for egg laying chickens in the United States. It's a big deal. It is. And it's not that they're in these amazing conditions all of a sudden with cage free. It's that they are in such poor conditions otherwise that this is a huge improvement for them. Yeah. And I think a lot of people will agree even cage free isn't all it's cracked up to be. There's a lot of, like, chicken based Idioms that we use there is suddenly coming to the forest. I hadn't noticed when I worked with that company, they made everybody at one point, even if you didn't do, like, project management where you had to go to the farms, they made us all go to the farms and tech support at one point. And I know I've told this story before, but it was a pretty awful experience. And it smells really bad. It smells so bad that me and my one friend that I worked with, Barry, did sort of the Silence of the Lambs trick with dabbing some like menthol on our upper lip, under our nostrils just so we could walk through these things. And I think they thought it would benefit us just sort of just see boots on the ground, what happened. I appreciate the field trip, and it did not benefit me in any way except hearing things like, oh, man, cage or free range. This means there's a door open. They don't even use it. And I heard this back then, I was like, oh, my gosh, is that true? And as it turns out, as we'll see, that's kind of true. Yeah. And we shouldn't confuse free range with cage free. There are two different things, and we'll describe them both. But yeah, so cage free is a huge improvement. Free range is as bad as you'd expect it to be because it's coming from the USDA. Yeah. So I guess let's talk about briefly and big thanks to Dave Ruse for helping us out with this one. But Dave starts out with a little bit of history, and I think that's a good place to start because you don't have to look very far back in this country. It seems like a long time ago, but the 1940s isn't that long ago in the lifespan of America. And back then, they were still, like, feeding America their eggs or its eggs. I don't even know what America is with backyard chickens. Basically. They were big farms, of course, but they weren't like these big, massive battery cages that we see today. They were hens living outdoors, generally on farms. Laid about 100 eggs a year. And then after a few years, when they quit laying eggs, then they would be used for meat. They'd turn into Sunday dinner. They would. And these days, starting in like, the 50s, things became a little more industrialized and mechanized. And that's when battery cages came into play, which is the wire cage that you might like. If you have friends that have backyard chickens, you probably built them a large coup and within that coupe, some battery cages. But if you're a backyard chicken person, you probably have battery cages that are very large for two or three, four chickens. Yeah. These are not the battery cages that they're raised in after farming became industrialized in the 50s. Like these things are usually have I've seen anywhere between three and seven chickens in there and usually each one has about the amount of space about a little lower or a little smaller than the size of a standard piece of paper. And for the teenage listeners out there, it's smaller than the size or about the size of an iPad, right? Yeah. That's a chicken. A chicken. They can't move around, they can't flap their wings, they can't do a lot of stuff that we'll find out is a big problem in a minute. They're meant to be kept basically in one place. And because this stuff has all been industrialized, their whole job and everything about their life is to just sit there and lay egg after egg after egg. So they're kept in these battery cages. The battery cages are kept off the ground, which is good because it means that they're away from parasites and poop borne diseases. And the eggs are yeah, when they poop, it falls onto a conveyor belt that carries the poop away, so it's a little more sanitary. When they lay an egg, the bottom of the cage is slanted downward, so it rolls downward onto a different conveyor belt. Thankfully, that whisks the egg away. So the whole thing is really automated. And because these cages are so uniform, they can be stacked. It's modular. So you can go upward with chickens as well as outward, too. You can really raise a lot of chickens in these battery cages, which is good if you're a farmer. Not really good if you're a chicken, though. Yes. And these chickens, I said that the backyard chickens of your laid about 100 eggs a year. Today's chickens lay closer to 300 eggs a year because they are bred specifically to do so and just the way beyond being bred to do so. Like you said, they're set up as such that it's just they have made it a very efficient operation as far as how much they can extract from each hen. Yeah, that was really quick. That was. A big part of the industrialization of farming, too, is breeding practices to where we started, selectively breeding types of chickens that either laid a perfectly nice brown egg or ones that gained weight in certain places that we wanted them to. Genetics has been a huge part of that as well. Yeah, we're really lucky because our really good friends Justin and Melissa, I've known Justin since college, you know Justin. Sure, they have chickens. They have these four beautiful ladies in their backyard. Awesome. And they have a big, wonderful coupe. But anytime they're outside and can safeguard them from hawks by keeping an eye on them, those ladies are running around the yard with their dogs. They've somehow managed to train these dogs to kind of give them their space. And it's great. They give us eggs and we spend money in their wine shop and it's a great symbiotic relationship. That is really great. Yes, it's a good we save our cartons and stuff when we do have to buy eggs so they have cartons to give out to their friends because these ladies are laying a lot of eggs lately. So Justin has chickens in a wine shop now. He's living the life. It's the American dream realized by my British import friend. Well, good. So he's doing what you could call the right way, I think, which is to say they're very necessarily the profit maximizing way. But the chickens are, you would guess, much happier than the ones that are in these battery cages. And one of the reasons why we would say the chickens are not so happy in the battery cages is because, again, they can't move. If you put a chicken on a piece of paper, it's going to take up most of that piece of paper or iPad. Right. So when you visualize that, you suddenly get like, this is for its whole life, usually somewhere around 70 weeks. This is how it spends almost all of that time in this little cage, just laying eggs, laying eggs at an unnatural pace. And because it's kind of stuck in this one small place, there's a lot of things that it can't do that people who have studied chickens say chickens need to do this or else they're going to go insane and have a really horrific life. And that is kind of what the basis of creating like cage free setups or genuine free range set ups. It comes from giving chickens a better life during those 70 or so weeks that they're alive. Yeah, I mean, I think it's easy for somebody maybe who doesn't think about it much to think of laying hen as just this sort of organic egg machine, like a living egg machine. Not organic in the sense that it's sort of hard organic, but a living machine that just pumps out these eggs that we love to eat for breakfast or add on top of a hamburger or is it full of Rice Krispies? I don't know about that, but that's not the case. Like these birds have personalities and they have behaviors that they want to do and that they normally do. Like just a handful of them they love. And you can see this when I go over to Justin and Melissa's house. When they're out doing their thing. They're preening and they're cleaning their feathers and they're flapping. Ruffling their feathers around and flapping around and they take little dust baths. Which means they roll around on the ground and they're absorbing oil for their feathers and they're getting rid of their dead skin and they're shedding feathers that they don't need and little feather mites and they love to nest. And then here's the big one and I've seen it happen and I tried to guard my eyes because I know what's going on. They don't like a lot of attention when they're laying these eggs. They're giving birth. It's a private matter to them, giving birth in the figurative sense, but it's like they're doing their business. They don't want a lot of attention. They like to do this instinctively in private and they're not able to do that. It's called the laying act and it's on full display. And they can get so upset about having to do this without any privacy in battery cages. Not can they do. They get so upset, they peck at other hens and they fight each other and that's why they end up clipping their beaks, because the other hens are getting injured from being henpecked, because they're stressed out from living on an iPad. Yeah. Doctor Conrad Lawrence, who started our animal imprinting episode, I think he's popped up elsewhere, he had a quote, he said, the worst torture to which a battery hen is exposed is the inability to retire somewhere for the laying act. As a person who knows something about animals, it is truly heartrending to watch how a chicken tries again and again to crawl beneath her fellow cagemates to search there in vain for cover. Yeah. Because they don't get what's going on too. It is it's heartbreaking. Yeah. So that is an enormous thing. Not only are we forcing them to have 200% more eggs every year, we're forcing them to do it against their instinct basically every day. And they really suffer tremendous amount of distress for that. And then one of the other ones, one of the other behaviors that's really big is roaming their freedom to roam. Chickens are very social animals. They like to hang out, they like to mess with each other, they like to preen one another, not just preen themselves, but they also need space to get away from one another. And when they can't do that, that's when things like henpecking to an injurious degree or cannibalism, where all sorts of terrible zukosis can happen, when chickens are stuck together in a very small area for their entire lives. And that is the basis of battery cages. And you said it's like it makes sense from a mechanized, industrial standpoint. But back in the day when they figured this out, these are the same people who resisted putting seatbelts in cars and got us into Vietnam. You know what I mean? Like, these aren't exactly the most moralistic generation that we've ever produced. They were very sensible and rational minded and didn't take a great deal of humanity into consideration when it came to profit maximization. Yes, this is a segment we like to call gen X Speaks to Millennials and Gen Z about boomers. That's right. You got that straight. But it's true. They also alter their diet and lighting to maximize their output. They don't move around. So obviously what's going to happen when an animal is just sort of stuck in this small, tiny thing? They're going to have no muscle. They have muscle loss because they can't move around and do their thing. And they basically become what I described, which is these living egg laying machines, which is exactly how the industrial egg complex, if that's a term, wants it. But things are changing a little bit and we're going to walk you through. Some of these are marketing terms, but some of them are legitimate terms that the USDA allows them to use, in addition to these great pictures that you see on your egg cartons of chickens, like, you know, smiling under the sunshine on a rolling pastoral scene. They're allowed to do stuff like that, but the words that they use are regulated to an extent. And if you really want to do your due diligence, though, you got to know what all this stuff means and then even do a little more investigation. Yeah, typical USDA type stuff. But let's take a break and then we'll get into cage free. How about that? Let's get out of the cage. If you want to know, just listen. Capital One offers commercial solutions you can bank on. Now more than ever, your business faces specific challenges and unique opportunities. 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You can synchronize your online and in person sales, so you gain insights as you grow with detailed reporting of conversion rates, profit margins and beyond. It's more than a store. Shopify grows with you. So just go to shopify. comStuff all lower case for a free 14 day trial and get full access to Shopify's entire suite of features. Grow your business with shopify today. Go to shopify. comStuff. Right now, summer is starting, everybody, and with prices rising on just about everything, a lot of people are having to rethink their plans. Yeah. But when it comes to the cost of your prescriptions, checking GoodRx can help. Because with GoodRx, you can save a few bucks and maybe put it toward a road trip or a staycation or something fun to celebrate the summer. That's right. GoodRx helps you compare prescription prices at local pharmacies and you can save up to 80%. Comparing prices is important because what a lot of people don't realize is that prescription prices can vary from one pharmacy to the next, sometimes by as much as $100. That's right. But with Good RX, you have the information you need to help you find the lowest price. And remember, even if you have insurance, GoodRx could actually beat your prescription copay price. So for simple, smart savings on your prescriptions, check out GoodRx. Go to GoodRx. Comstuffgoodrx is not insurance, but can be used instead of insurance. Medicare and Medicaid. In 2021, GoodRx users saved 81% on retail prescription prices. Okay, so we're talking cage free, and I think I already let the cat out of the bag, although hopefully not in the chicken. Cooper that cage free actually does have some meaning. If you look at it, compared to the battery cage operations of yours, or actually, I shouldn't say of yours, most chickens in the United States at least, are still in battery cages. I think something like 70%, which amounts to 230,000,000 hens are currently in battery cages. So it's still going on. It's still happening. But if you compare the battery cage to the cage free operation, it is a substantial difference, for sure. Yeah, the more we describe this stuff, there are levels of getting better, for sure. And cage free is better. It is greater than it means. And this is a direct quote from the USDA. It means the eggs must be produced by hens housed in a way that allows for not only unlimited access to food and water, and you might think, well, duh, but they used to keep food from hens, so different things would happen with their production. And they were like, you can't do that at all anymore. Yeah, that's good. And then the rest of it goes. But unlike eggs from cage, tens also provides them freedom to roam during the laying cycle. That's huge. But here's the deal. There aren't any guidelines about what that access to outdoors means. It doesn't say how much space there needs to be. And so basically, what you're still seeing is a big long barn with a bunch of laying hens packed inside there. They're just not in those wire cages. No, they have now instead of about an eight by eight square of space available to them, like they do in the battery cages. Typically, cage free situation has about ten and a half inch by eleven inch space available to them per bird. And it's not like it's designated, but they can move around. At least they can move around these giant barns. The problem is there's tens of thousands of hens also in these barns and they just don't have that much room to move. If they had a ton of willpower and they decided they were going to go to point B, they could conceivably make their way there. But it's not going to be easy. And it's not like they're just roaming around and they have a bunch of free space to move around in or do much in. Again, compared to the battery cages where they had no chance of moving away from their little cage, it is a huge improvement. But then when you see a picture of what a cage free barn looks like, it gets a little depressing again. Yeah. And some of these egg producers are not the hens, but the operations. Obviously there's only one egg producer in the scenario. They do have some purchases that are built up and they do have some nesting areas. So they can hop up there, they can stretch their wings, but they're not required to. That's not part of their USDA requirement. If you want to look for requirements that you could look for a label from the United Egg Producers, they have a different certification guideline for cage free that's a little more, I guess, open than the USDA, or restrictive, I guess, if you're a farmer. They must allow hints to exhibit natural behaviors that we talked about and include enrichments, such as scratch areas, purchase, and nest. So they have to have those. And then they must have access to litter. And litter is just like the stuff on the ground that they like to roll around in. It's not like beer cans and old batteries and stuff. Not the crying Ironized Cody kind of right. They must have protection from predators and be able to move through a barn in a manner that promotes bird welfare. So that's a little hazy, but that generally means not as crowded. But I don't think that even specifies what that means. No, and that is much better than the USDA standards. And the United Egg Producers are an industry group of egg operators. I think there's maybe 150 in the United States, which is way less than there used to be. So they produce like almost all the eggs, right? Yes, and we export a lot of them, too, surprisingly. It's a cartel, like a saladbian group, basically, for the egg producers. At the risk of sounding like suspicious of them, I would guess that they created these standards to get ahead of this problem that was growing all of a sudden and costing them money. So by doing better than the USDA, that's great. Like their hens are genuinely like what's the word? What's the opposite of suffering? Benefiting from that? But it makes me suspect and actually I know from research it can be much better than that right. And a big one is density it's a huge part of it. It's density there should be much greater limits on how many hens you can have per barn and then also another one is even under these better. More stricter standards for hand welfare their lives are very much artificially controlled still because they're kept in this barn they're still in a barn they don't go outside to be cage free you still don't go outside if you're in you spend your entire life in one single barn until you stop producing enough eggs fast enough and then they turn you into pet food that's right. Sometimes feeding yourself back to your fellow chickens I looked a little bit into what chicken feed is mainly made of I remember at the time when I took this tour someone said something about there's chicken parts in the chicken feed this was someone telling me this I didn't find that in my research but there has been a movement away from things like fish meal because fishmeal is obviously the oceans are being depleted too using fishes to feed chickens isn't a great idea sure and I think just a few years ago there was final approval to use and it sounds gross but like fly larvae and you might think like that's good. That is good because that's what chickens would eat if they were just roaming the countryside they would eat things like that yeah so they're starting to be fed things they normally would eat otherwise. Which is good the food is still very much controlled and portioned and everything but they're starting to be fed things that more resemble their diet was before. It was just whatever was cheapest and most abundant that you could feed a chicken like soy and fish yeah, that's not natural and you as the person eating the egg should be like I don't want an egg from a chicken that's been eating fish it's whole life. Chicken don't eat fish. This egg probably tastes way different than it should. Right. And that's another thing too there's a lot of health benefits that have been documented in eggs that come from well treated chickens it seems to be that the better you treat a chicken the healthier the egg it produces is you can just get and if you don't have a friend that has a backyard chicken there's probably some local farmers market where some fish fan will sell you their eggs and you need only look at them from the outside at first to what they look like in the pan. To what they taste like it is a stark difference. It just is yeah. Totally. You eat one and you can take on like five cops yeah, there's that nutrients in these cage free chickens whether they're. United Egg producer standard or just USDA standard? They still have their beaks trimmed when they're ten days old. They are still forced molted. Molting is a natural process, but they do something called force molting and this is where they used to take away their feed entirely to force molting. Now they just withhold some feed to force the molten it's when they shed those feathers and molt and that extends their layer life by it's pretty substantial. It can be like 25 to 40 weeks. So again, they're ringing every last egg out of those chickens, cage free or not. I saw that the forced molting is not actually in and of itself harmful and that it might actually be beneficial for the chickens because they live their life indoors. And one of the ways that they do that is through adjusting the length of the light, the artificial light. But the problem is not naturally they're withholding no, it's not naturally happening, but it's not going to naturally happen during their lifetime anyway. And it actually is good for them to go through a molt, but they wouldn't without this induced or forced molting because they aren't subjected to natural light. They don't get natural light, it's all artificial. They spend their entire lives basically indoors, almost entirely cut off from natural light, if not entirely cut off from it. See, I thought hens malt by being a hen. No, I think they take their cues from a shorter duration of days and then they stop eating quite as much and then they go through the molting process, stop laying eggs as frequently. But that happens naturally though, is what I'm saying. Yes, it does, but it's cued by changes in natural light. And if they're not exposed to natural light, they're not going to undergo the mold right, unless you force it officially. Yeah, but like Justin Melissa's eggs molt because it can be the shorter day of the natural light cycle of a year. Right, yeah, and that's a natural thing. I'm just saying, like they can induce it to artificial light, changes in artificial light, and it's not necessarily bad that they induce it artificially. It's probably better than just not doing it at all. Right. Okay. I got you. Okay. I thought you were saying they don't molt normally. No, I would never say something like that. Now we can move on. Those are hens that lay eggs. Now we can move on to hens that are raised for meat. They are called broilers in the industry and it's kind of the same deal. 99% of American broiler chickens never see light in this country. They are in those from the moment they're born as little chickie chicks. They are in a barn and they live about six weeks and they are pumped up as fast as they can be pumped up to get the biggest breast meat possible. I think this is pretty startling. Dave found a calculation that if you sort of transferred their growth rate to, like, what a human baby would look like. It would be a 349 pound baby by their second birthday. Like Baby Huey. Yeah, Baby Huey. All right. Yeah. So the way that they did this is through basically selective breeding, selecting chickens that grow in their breast area, but they've basically surpassed any point where you would normally stop because it's now very harmful for the chicken. These chickens that we eat, the broiler chickens, not necessarily a whole chicken. It can also be like drumsticks or breasts or thighs or whatever. All that comes from a broiler chicken. Any chicken you eat is a broiler chicken. So these broiler chickens are usually selected for their breasts, and their breasts are so heavy that they can't really walk because their legs aren't developing the way that they should. But then in addition to that, their legs can't develop the way they should because the breast is so heavy. So they end up with metabolic diseases. They end up with muscle atrophy, and they don't do much of anything except eat and rest because that's basically all they have the energy to do. Yes. Six weeks is their lifespan. Yes. Again, I just want to reiterate that. So over the six weeks yeah. They go from chicks to slaughtered adults in six weeks. So they're growing that fast, but they're also growing way bigger than any normal chicken would. Right. Any normal breed. So during that six weeks, they're stuck in this litter. If they're in a situation where they have litter available to them and they're just pooping and peeing in this litter, and they're not getting up enough to not get blisters from the ammonia in the litter, it's a problem in and of itself. That's how basically obese these chickens are, that they cannot move much at all, and they end up getting sores from exposure to all the urine they're sitting in. Yes. This was the hardest part of that tour for me and the one where my buddy Barry and I actually left the building after and I'll go ahead and we probably should have issued a trigger warning period, but hopefully the titled episode would scare off any vegans who really don't even want to hear about this. But trigger warning right here. And this is what they do when one of the broilers or any of the chickens are injured or winged in some way that isn't. I don't know. I'm not going to label what exactly is wrong with the chicken when they pick it up by the neck and sling it in a little circle real quick to snap their neck and then throw it back on the ground. But that's exactly what happened in front of us when we saw a chicken that apparently wasn't doing well. And the guy is literally in mid conversation. And I know this is the job that they do, and I don't expect him to hold a funeral, but that's when Barry and I stepped out and we were like, we're going to be out here for the rest of the door. I can imagine. And not in protest, but I'm about to start. Yeah, I had five cigarettes at the same time. So there's this writer from The New Yorker named Michael Spencer who went to a poultry farm, and he wrote that there must have been 30,000 chickens sitting silently on the floor in front of me. They didn't move, they didn't clock. They were almost like statues of chickens living in nearly total darkness. And they would spend every minute of their six week lives that way. Yes, it's pretty sobering. And those are the brothers. Those are the ones we eat. Right? So, again, they're bred to grow this way and it's totally unnatural. Chickens don't normally get like that. And when they do interact with people, which is not obviously a requirement for a chicken to have a good life, but it's for what you just said. It's to harvest or kill a sick or just a sick chicken, or get the carcass of a dead chicken out of there. And if you want to see just how little of a role humans have in chicken farming today, there's a video that they found. It's actually like a trade video that I think is kind of like to sell all of these different machines. It's called inside the million dollar Chicken farm. Amazing. Modern chicks, poultry farming, technology. It's on YouTube and it's like 16 minutes long. I didn't watch it with the volume, so I don't know if there's narration, but if you watch it on mute, it's just mesmerizing. And it's also like, I really hope humans don't end up like this in the next 200 years. It's really weird and unsettling, but then also at the same time, deeply fascinating. Yeah. So the answer then would be free range. That is seemingly the solution. So what does that mean? We talked about cage free and what that means for the USDA. Any egg or poultry product that can be classified as free range means the housing for the birds must provide continuous free access to the outside through their normal growing cycle. And again, this is sort of like that story when the guy said it just means there's a door. They don't go out there because their food and water is in here. USDA DA doesn't say how big the store has to be, where it has to be placed. They don't require them to go outside. Like, they don't shuttle them outside every day for some sunlight, like you would like in a prison yard or something like that, right? All that matters is that they have continuous access. That door stays accessible and open. And so you've got your big barn again, you've got your small door. And if they want to go outside, they can. But then even if they do go outside, it doesn't say, like, and you got to have this much area for this many chickens to roam around if they want to. It can be anything. It can be a pretty small little area, and it still qualifies as outside. So those huge dark barns with artificial light filled with tens of thousands of chickens, if you popped a hole the size of a breadplate into the wall of that barn, you could call your operation a free range chicken operation. Now, that's it. I didn't find that small, to be fair, but technically you're right. Yeah. And yes, it is technical that I'm right. But from the research into just how much of a finger that USDA has on what constitutes free range and who meets those requirements, it's entirely possible that somebody's just cut a little hole inside of the bar and now is saying free range and could argue that if an inspector did come out and argue it with them, the egg producer would probably win that argument in court. Right? I mean, the doors I saw were bigger and chickens could easily fit, like, more than one chicken. Like they were sizable. But again, the whole point is their food and water is inside, right? So chickens are generally, and especially when they're still pretty crowded in there, they're still going to stay where their food and water is generally. It's not like they're saying, hey, we're going to put the water out. We're going to have outdoor class today, guys. We're going to put the water in the food outside. That'll really encourage you to go outside. They don't care if they go outside or not. So we should say the EU has much better standards for what constitutes free range. They've been working at free range and cage free stuff since like, 99 and have really made some big gains since then. But then, even in the United States check, there's plenty of people like Justin who are saying, like, no, I actually want my chickens to be free range, like you would think free range actually is. And so there's another kind of designation called pasture raised, which people tend to use to kind of separate themselves from free range. Because I think enough people have picked up on the fact that free range is kind of meaningless. So pasture rage seems to be more legitimate, or most people who do legitimately raise chickens outdoors would call them pasture raise. So they're like wheeling them around from place to place. They have an enclosure that they can go to and inclement weather, but for the most of their lives, they're spending their time outdoors doing what chickens do, given plenty of space for being chickens. And that's typically past your rates. Unfortunately, as far as the USDA is concerned, pasture raised is the same thing as free range. So again, if you have a shed that has all these chickens and you cut a hole in the side, you can now call that pasture raised. Too, if you want. Yeah, you can't. And if you're saying that some places use pasture raised or raged, it'd be quite a party. It's like Anthrax is losing your pasture. If you're saying that some farmers are doing it right, smaller operations, and when they say, pass your raise, they mean it. But technically, the US state doesn't make a distinction. What am I to do? That's where you have to do your homework if you want to, if it matters to you, you got to look up this farm and see what they're doing. And a lot of times these smaller farms will say, hey, come on out if you care, and we'll show you our operation because we're proud of it. They generally have websites where you can and I think the USDA even demands not demands, but requires. I demand a URL. They take their shoe off and bang it on the desk. They require a URL where you can look this stuff up if you want to. Yeah, for sure. The USA is all over that, which is good, because we've got third party certification who could be illegitimate. But I think that the industry would police third party certifiers because they don't want to give away their money unnecessarily, because getting things like pasture raised or free range, it's not required. You can opt to have it done to be certified like that, but you're going to pay for it. So if we had, like, phony certifiers running around, I guess the big producers will probably coopt and use it to their gain. But luckily, there are some really legitimate third party certifiers, and the one that seems to have bubbled to the top, as far as I can tell, is called Humane Farm Animal Care. FAK, I think is the way that you say the abbreviation. Yeah, I think that's a good cliffhanger. Okay, yeah. And let's take our final break and we'll talk about them and generally how the USDA determines if it qualifies as cage free or free range to begin with. If you want to know, then you're in luck. Just listen up to stuff you should know. Capital One offers commercial solutions you can bank on. 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You can reach customers online and across social networks with an ever growing suite of channel integrations and apps, including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest and more. And you can synchronize your online and in person sales so you gain insights as you grow with detailed reporting of conversion rates, profit margins, and beyond. It's more than a store shopify grows with you. So just go to shopify.com stuff all lowercase for a free 14 day trial, and get full access to Shopify's entire suite of features. Grow your business with shopify today. Go to shopify. comStuff. Right now, summer is starting, everybody, and with prices rising on just about everything, a lot of people are having to rethink their plans. Yeah. But when it comes to the cost of your prescriptions, checking GoodRx can help. Because with GoodRx, you can save a few bucks and maybe put it toward a road trip or a staycation or something fun to celebrate the summer. That's right. GoodRx helps you compare prescription prices at local pharmacies, and you can save up to 80%. Comparing prices is important because what a lot of people don't realize is that prescription prices can vary from one pharmacy to the next, sometimes by as much as $100. That's right. But with GoodRx, you have the information you need to help you find the lowest price. And remember, even if you have insurance, GoodRx could actually beat your prescription copay price. So for simple, smart savings on your prescriptions, check out GoodRx. Go to GoodRx. Comstuffgoodrx is not insurance, but can be used instead of insurance, medicare and Medicaid. In 2021, GoodRx users saved 81% on retail prescription prices. All right, so you mentioned a couple of important things before the break. One is that if you want these certifications, it is like egg ratings, stuff like that. You see, like grade eggs. It is a voluntary thing you have to pay for. You do it so you can put it on your label, so you can charge more, obviously, and maybe you care about delivering a higher quality, who knows? But the USDA doesn't. Like if it's certified organic, they're not out there doing that certification. That is completely done by USDA approved certification bodies. And those seem to be a little more feet on the ground as far as actually going to farms and looking at them. The USDA does not require and they can't there are too many. I don't think they even have the staffing to do that if they wanted to, to go out and actually photograph arms and check it out. If you want that descriptor and label, you have to send in a detailed written description explaining how it meets the standards, along with an affidavit that's signed that it's not false or misleading, but that's kind of it. That's all the proof they need. So that's for free range, cage free, they take way more seriously. That's where they do have inspectors go out and check. Right. If it says cage free, it has been verified that this meets those cage free standards. So that's a good thing. That's another reason why cage free is a big step up. But, yeah, free range is you say, yes, my operation is free range under USDA standards. No, I'm not lying. And the USDA says, good enough. You can put free range on your labels now. Yeah, I think they found a study from that animal welfare institute that examined records from the FSIS, and they found that only one producer out of 100 actually submitted photos of the barn showing the access. Like, I think 83 out of the 100 provided evidence, I guess not photographic evidence, but affidavits and third party kind of certifications. And then 17 of them just had zero substantiation at all. And they dug in a little bit and found in 44 cases, they had no detailed written description at all, which is supposedly what's required. But they still got approval from the USDA to label their stuff as free range. Yeah, I don't want to say the words rubber stamp, but it seems like it might be that way for sure. And again, just buyer beware. Free range is synonymous as far as the USDA is concerned with free roaming, pasture fed, pasture grown, pasture raised, and meadow raised. And again, just want to drive this home. It means that there's a hole in the side of this giant barn filled with tens of thousands of chickens who may or may not be going in or out of that hole on any day or if ever, during their entire lives. And on the other side of that, it might just be a concrete pad is what they could be free ranging on like that's. It as far as USDA is concerned. So we have a long way to go with free range in particular, because Chuck, like, you, me, and basically anyone listening to this podcast has a totally different conception of what free range means. Right. And there was a survey that was done, again, by the animal welfare institute. They did it in 2015, and they went out to people, just everyday people, and said, hey, what do you think free range should entail? And they came back with some pretty interesting stuff. Yeah. As you would expect, 65% of people thought that free range should mean that there's enough space outside for every bird to be out during the day, during daylight hours if they want to be. And 62% of consumers said they thought the outdoor area should be at least partially covered by grass. Right. The expectation from consumers is while you put a picture on your carton of a hen rolling around this beautiful pastoral scene. So that's kind of what I expect. Or am I just being hoodwinked? And the answer is you're being hoodwinked. Well, to be fair, these are the same people that believe that those barbecue signs where a pig is actually cooking the barbecue, they think that's going on as well. So we got to really kind of keep this in perspective. I never understood that one. Those are so disturbing. It really is. My brother Lou, we're eating him later. We had a falling out. So like I said, all of this is just frustrating and confusing. All you have to do is do a little legwork or obviously go to those local farmers markets because that's where that's where you really get into good stuff and talk to them. I guarantee you that fish fan is going to invite you out to their farm to check out what's going on. Yeah, you might walk away with more than eggs, you know what I'm saying? That's right. That'd be a nice trip. So it literally amphet. So if you do want to figure out where to get good eggs or what eggs, you can trust it's because you don't trust a fish fan. There are organizations that say like, let's not get fish fans involved in this at all. Let's keep them at bay. And everyone says yes, agreed. Agree. How can we move forward without the fish? Keep them on the couch where they belong. So again, the humane farm animal care fact, from what I can tell, at least in the United States, they definitely are legit. And they've come up with some definitions for their certified humane label. That's the one to look for certified humane on like a poultry or some sort of food product. It actually has met some really good standards and they were basically like the USDA's definition of free range and pasture raised are so terrible we're just going to create our own definitions. And they did so they created their own standards. And to be certified humane, free range or certified humane pasture rates, the producers have to meet those standards. And they're good ones. Yeah, they're really good. Or comparatively speaking, at least for free range, the hens must be outside for at least 6 hours a day, weather permitting, obviously. And that outdoor space must have a minimum of 2 sqft for every bird. And again, that doesn't sound like much and it's not. But the difference between being able to move around freely when you have 2 bird and when you have an iPad per bird is pretty huge. You can actually move around. And it's not just like being at the worst party you've ever been to. Pasture raised, certified humane. Even better than that, the hens must be outdoors year round with mobile or fixed housing where the hens can nest or rest for the night, get out of bad weather. And they get about 108 bird 1000 birds for 2.5 acres. A bird doesn't even know what to do with that much space. No, they're like, hey, can I build a roof, a wing onto my little inhouse? That's right. And Chuck, one of the big things that they're doing at Hefac is they employ veterinarians, people with advanced degrees and animal studies. Those are the people that go out and visit these farms to certify them, people who know what they're talking about. People are not going to be bought off. People with the animals welfare in mind to verify that everybody's meeting these standards before they get that certification. So that's a good one. There are plenty of other ones out there, too, but that's just based on our research and from what Dave came up with, too, that's a good one to start with. But it's like you said, do your homework. It doesn't take long either. It's not like you got to invest hours and hours into this chicken research. I guarantee you, wherever you live, you can find some pretty good options with 15 minutes of research online. That's right near you. Yeah. So there you have it. We just need to get on the USDA to increase to basically say no, they have to spend a certain amount of time outdoors to be free range. And then we'll go from there because the USDA will probably say 15 minutes to start. Yeah. If you want to know more about free range chickens and cage free eggs, there's a lot of stuff out there that you can read, and we hope that you will. And since I said we hope that you will, it's time for listener mail. That's right. This one is called AG on Chuck's face because I misspoken a big way on our national parks episode when I touted dispersed camping wherever you want in national parks. I was thinking of national forests. That's where you can do dispersed camping wherever you want. And, boy, I said it a bunch. So you can't camp anywhere you want in national parks. Okay. And I feel terrible for that, being out there so much that we may even have to edit that, but greetings from your friend in national park ranger. Your episode of national parks was excellent, and we heard from quite a few park rangers. By the way, I'd like to address a statement made by Chuck. Some national parks may still allow this burst camping. It's commonly allowed in national forest, though. National parks and national forests are similar, but have different missions and are therefore managed differently. National parks tend to regulate recreation a little more strictly. In fact, many national parks now have permit systems in place for backpackers. Yeah, that's very true. And those who successfully acquire permits even then are often restricted to camping and designated backcountry camp sites. This prevents overcrowding and popular destinations, which lessens the amount of abandoned gear, garbage, and food scraps, and heavily left behind by certain visitors. I wanted to address this because they're regulating where people camp, and how many people can camp in a certain area may seem extreme to some. It helps preserve the wilderness character and solitude so many visitors are seeking when they visit a national park. Additionally, visitors who disperse camp in a park that requires a designated campsite and or permit may be subject to fines. It's very important for all visitors to research regulations for any park, forests, or wilderness that they're visiting. Happy hiking. And that is from our no named park ranger. This park ranger wished to remain anonymous, which we're always happy to do. Thank you, anonymous park ranger. Happy hiking to you as well. That's right. And I even had one park ranger say, don't make fun of our green shorts. And to be clear, I don't think those shorts are the same color as those trucks. Oh, really? The color I was really making fun of? Okay, maybe they are, but I don't know if you could even make a fabric that color right. It just kind of appear. It doesn't adhere to textile. Well, thank you very much again, anonymous park ranger, and all the park rangers and everybody who wrote into correct Chuck, who, by the way, took it with a plum. So we go Chuck. If you want to get in touch with us via email, like your friendly anonymous park ranger did, you can send it to stuffpodcast@iheartradio.com. Stuff you should know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts my heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio app apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. You know you're the best pet mom. When you growl back during playtime, give epic belly rubs and feed them halo holistics made with responsibly sourced ingredients, plus probiotics for digestive health. Find us at chewy amazonandalopets.com."
3f6e948c-5461-11e8-b6d0-3b5e0b134fc9	Selects: Maggots: Good For Healing Wounds, Turns Out	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/selects-maggots-good-for-healing-wounds-turns-out	Cultures around the world over the years have been inspired by, then repulsed, then inspired by maggots' ability to heal persistent wounds. We are in an inspired-by phase right now. Learn more in this classic episode.	Cultures around the world over the years have been inspired by, then repulsed, then inspired by maggots' ability to heal persistent wounds. We are in an inspired-by phase right now. Learn more in this classic episode.	Sat, 30 Jan 2021 10:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2021, tm_mon=1, tm_mday=30, tm_hour=10, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=5, tm_yday=30, tm_isdst=0)	36841534	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Hey, everybody. If you want a great website, you want to do it yourself. With no must, no fuss, turn to Squarespace. They have everything to sell anything. They have the tools that you need to get your business off the ground, including ecommerce templates, inventory management, simple checkout process, process, and secure payments. And if you're into analytics, hold on to your hats, because Squarespace has everything that you need. Just head to squarespace. Comsysk, and you can get a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use offer code SYSK to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. This July, don't miss an entire summer of surprises on Disney Plus with Disney's High School Musical, the Musical, the series season three Zombies, three Doctor Strange in the multiverse of Madness, and the wonderful summer of Mickey Mouse. Plus new episodes of Marvel Studios, ms. Marvel and National Geographics. America the Beautiful. From the award winning producers of Planet Earth, Frozen Planet, and the Disney nature films, america the Beautiful takes viewers on a tour of the most spectacular and visually arresting regions of our great nation. All these and more streaming this month on Disney Plus. Hello there. It's Josh. And for this week's S YSK selects, I've chosen Maggots colon, good for healing wounds. Turns out, and that is absolutely true, I relistened to all of our select episodes, and I listened to this one, and I'm clearly excited in the episode, but I was just as excited listening to it all these years later, five years after we released it. So I hope it excites you. It is grody, but it's also pretty awesome, so enjoyprepare to be grossed out. Welcome to stuff. You should know a production of Iheartradios how stuff works. Hi, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W, Chuck Bryant, and no one else is in here with us yet again because we've graduated to the point where we don't even need a producer. We need somebody who's presses record and leaves. Yes, that's it. Because we're pros. Yes. Not P-R-O-S-E-P-R-O-S. That's right. But we are prosaic. Yes. But definitely not PR o, apostrophe. Very few things drive me crazier than that, and I know it's stupid and pedantic, but to see, like, somebody take out a huge billboard or something and a word has an apostrophe that shouldn't prose, people say, like, leave it to the pros, and they'll put an apostrophe. Yes. And that graphic designer should be docked to half a day's pay, maybe $80. Something we want to issue and you probably would get this from the title of the episode, but we want to issue a meal warning. Oh, good thinking. Because we've gotten complaints in the past when people are eating and get sick listening to some of these. Yes, this would do it. Possibly for some people. I was fine. I ate a runny yolk egg sandwich while I was white rice. Yeah, right. It didn't bother me, but I could totally see how it could sending people. I also want to say if it comes up, do not go Google image search wound sloth. Well, I just put do not Google image search magnet therapy at all. Okay, sure. But definitely stay away from wound sloth. S-L-O-U-G-H. Yeah. And definitely don't look at wounds loft while you're eating. Yeah. Okay, so that's all out of the way. Yes. I predict we're going to be kind of excited about this one. I'm feeling a little pumped about it. Well, we did cover in Ten Bizarre Medical Treatments, leech Therapy, which is still being used. And I'm surprised this wasn't in that article, to be honest. I am as well. But this gets its own special deal. Well, it should, actually, because it's a pretty amazing thing. Agreed. We're talking about Maggot therapy also. Great band, by the way. Yes, it is. They were awesome. So are they really? Or is that a band name? Well, it's banned name to end all band names. There probably was a band name. So it's called Magnet therapy. Maggot debridement therapy. Larval therapy or Bio. There's another one called, I think, like bio. Biodebridement or Therapeutic Wound? Myassis. Yeah. And that's basically all of them. No matter what you call it, no matter how you church it up, it is the application. Live maggots fly larvae purposefully to an open wound in order to help that wound heal faster. Yeah. And better. And cleaner and all that good stuff. Everything Doc Punk said. Oh, yeah. Should we talk about some of the history of this stuff? Let's just say that one more time. Okay. Maggot deprivement Therapy is taking live maggots and putting them in an open wound on a human being or an animal. It's used in veterinary medicine as well, wrapping it up tight and letting them just eat the dead and dying flesh in that wound. Yeah. Why do you get your foot tickled? I would be so Skeed out by this. I just wanted to make sure that everybody knows exactly what we're talking about. Right. And goodbye to everyone. Everyone who fainted. Okay. Yeah. Let's talk about the history, Chuck, because this is in use today, but it's actually pretty old. Yeah. I mean, some say it's even an ancient tradition, like in places like Burma and Central America with the Mayans. They were smart enough to know that maggots do a pretty good job of consuming human flesh and can be used for good in that regard. Yeah. At some point, I guess healers noticed, like, people who had maggots in their wounds tended to have wounds heal. And actually, as far as the Western literature goes, that's exactly how maggot therapy first finds its way. First crawls into the medical literature is from a French surgeon named Embrace Power. Yeah. How would you say it? I don't know. I don't speak french embrace puree I'll say pere, even though it doesn't have the little what is that, an accent? Ago. Yeah, it's just the e. But he was a 16th century surgeon, and he noticed that people didn't necessarily fall over dead if there was a magnet in the wound. Yeah. He was the first doctor to actually come out and say, I had this patient with a big skull wound. Right. And unbeknownst to me, there were maggots in there. I saw them crawling out one day, and even though they had a lot of bone, the guy was great. He healed. Yeah. Like, he lost a hand sized slab of skull and he lived. And I think it might have something to do with the maggots. Yeah. And he presumably wore a helmet for the rest of his life, probably. He had a big soft skull there. Yeah, I guess so. That was followed in with the mid 17 hundreds by another Frenchie baron, Dominique Jean Larry. And he said, you know what? On this Egyptian expedition, these blue fly maggots are actually doing the right thing and helping us out. So it's almost like these doctors just noticed this. Exactly. It meant enough to them that they were like, I should probably write this down. This is going to be my great contribution to medical history of the history of science. Right. So it wasn't until, I guess, the Civil War that a doctor actually said, I'm going to purposely put maggots in a wound and see what happens. And that doctor was John forney Zachariah. He probably didn't tell his patient that. I think probably he was just like, just bite down on this broomstick and look the other way. Do you want to lose your foot or do you want to try something really weird? Well, supposedly in studies, 95% of people, modern patients who are offered this therapy say yes to it. Well, yes, because I think that's what it comes down to. It's a the last resort, basically. It's not the first thing they offer. Not necessarily. Right. So, anyway, Doctor Zacharias, he had a great quote. He said, during my service in the hospital at Danville, Virginia, I first used maggots to remove the decayed tissue in hospital gangrene, and with my eminent satisfaction, in a single day, they would clean a wound much better than any agents we had at our command. I use them afterwards at various places. I am sure I saved many lives by their use, escaped septicemia, and had rapid recoveries. Period, end quote. Pretty great. Yeah. So he was a huge believer in not just a passive observer like people who came before him. He said, yeah, I put maggots on wounds and it helps. That's right. And people experimented with it for a little while until a guy named Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch came along, microbiologists and germ theorists that basically said, this is disgusting. We might want to not do this. Yeah. Maggots, they're dirty. And it's true. Maggots, naturally, in the wild, carry lots of pathogens with them that can infect us in other ways, can make a wound worse, can actually kill you. So the idea behind Germ theory, as far as maggots go is right. Yeah. But it seems like there's this long history of necessity and disgust with maggot therapy that kind of Wayne ebbs and flows. Right. And necessity rears its head on the battlefield. It did in the Civil War and it also did in World War I. There was a surgeon named William S. Bayer, and he was working on the front lines in France, and he used maggots on stomach wounds and open fractures. Yes. And he found, to his great satisfaction, just like Dr. Zacharias and the others before him, that this stuff actually worked. Yeah. And he actually said, you know what? I have some further advancements. Maybe we should put a bandage over this thing so it doesn't completely discuss the patient. Right. And let me put bandages around the wound so they don't start creeping onto the healthy flesh and doing damage or just itching you or creeping you out further. Right, exactly. Which are still in use today, these techniques. He also pioneered another huge technique, and this is after the war was over, ten years later, when he was back at Johns Hopkins, he pioneered another really important technique, and that was using sterilized maggots, like Germfree maggots, they were raised as eggs in a sterile environment. And so when they were introduced to the wounds, they weren't carrying these pathogens anymore. And he found this is the jackpot. Now you can use maggots from now on. That's right. And there was a big boom in the 30s. Up until the mid 1940s, more than 300 American hospitals were using maggot treatment, magnet therapy. And then in 1944, antiseptics came along, or new antiseptics, and they said, you know what? Maybe there was another lull in the use of magnet therapy. Right. Necessity didn't spur this stuff, and they went back to just being gross again. There was a guy who, by the 80s, wrote what this one article calls the majority opinion. Fortunately, maggot therapy is now relegated to a historical backwater of interest, more for its bizarre nature than its effect on the course of medical science. A therapy the demise of which no one is likely to mourn. That's just that kind of Western medicine hubris sure. Where we can do anything except everything. That's right. And in the 1990s, a dude named Ronald Sherman and Edward Pictor basically championed the technique again and kind of brought it into the modern age. Yeah. And still very much is ronald Sherman is one of the first, I think, to receive a license to produce sterile maggots for use as medical devices. And there's another guy over in the UK named John Church who brought the maggot therapy into the four. So it was an ancient thing. It's found to be disgusting. Found to be useful. It's found to be disgusting. It's just found ways you can make it better. It's found to be disgusting. And then now that this idea of complimentary medicine is kind of regaining some traction again, I think it's here to stay, though. I think so too. Unless someone comes along in ten years. You know what? It's disgusting. Well, you know, the chuck. I mean, probably what we're seeing is the next thing that will happen is there'll be some huge leap, some huge development in science, and science will get its hackles up again and great about itself, and we don't need any of that stupid nastiness. And then we'll find that no, you still can't beat good old fashioned maggots. And that should be the title of this thing. You can't beat good old fashioned maggots for healing a wound that won't heal otherwise. That's a great title. So you want to take a break? Yeah, let's do it. And we'll go treat our own wounds and we'll be back shortly. Hey, everybody. 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And then when you're ready to launch, use our offer code s YSK and you'll get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. That's Squarespace.com. SYSK you want your kid eating the best nutrition, right? For all their days at the dog park and nights sleeping in bed. Your bed. Yep. We mean that kid. Your dog. Halo Elevate is natural science based nutrition for their best health. It's guaranteed to support your dog's top five health needs better than leading brands. That means digestive health, heart and immunity. Support healthy skin and coat, hip and joint support and strengthen energy. Find Halo Elevate at petco pet Supplies Plus and select neighborhood pet stores. Learn more@halopets.com learning stuff with God you should go. Alright. Okay. Let's talk about diabetes for a second. More than 23 million Americans are affected with diabetes, and one thing that can happen is nerve damage. Especially in the extremities. The hands and feet and the toes and the fingers. Your blood vessels become hard and they don't circulate the blood like you need. That can lead to open source called ulcers, which can become infections, which can spread to nearby bone, which can lead to amputation. Yes, and a lot. All this is just from prolonged exposure to high levels of blood sugar, and they're not sure how it can do it. But, yeah, the blood vessels not helping pump blood very well, get nutrients so your tissue can die. But also that neuropathy, that deaden nerve cell, that actually makes it hard for you to notice. If you have, like, a really bad ulcer on the bottom of your foot, you can't feel it. And so you don't get treatment early enough so an infection can get out of hand. And when it spreads to bone, that's called osteomyelitis. That's problematic because that very quickly will lead to an amputation. And there's some pretty shocking stats here from this article that Tom wrote about. Is this Sheave Jam? Yeah. Nice. Yeah, for sure. But about amputations from diabetes. Yeah. 70,000 toe, foot and leg amputations each year in the United States alone. So crazy. And they say around the world, they estimate every 30 seconds someone gets a limb cut off because of diabetes. Yeah. That's sad. Yeah, it really is. And we'll do one on diabetes, for sure. Oh, yeah. I'm surprised we haven't already. Yeah, me too. But amputation is used to halt the progress of an infection. Yes, and that's usually the last resort. But what Tom points out is that there are plenty of doctors around the world, I imagine, that aren't aware that you can use maggots or have you ever done it before. And if you are facing an amputation from, say, like, a wound, a persistent wound, a chronic wound that won't heal, you may want to suggest maggots to your doctor. You may have to actually take the initiative on this one and say, let's make sure that amputation is the absolute last resort. Let's see if we can put one more resort in there before then. I'm willing to let maggots crawl inside my body in this wound, this open wound, if you're willing to apply them. And they, like most doctors, love hearing when patients suggest treatments. Oh, they do? They love feedback. They love to be guided in their diagnoses and prognoses. Yeah, love it. That's a tough jam. I get it. Doctors are frustrated a lot these days with self diagnosis and online doctoring. Sure. But you should also be your own advocate. We've seen that before. Yeah, it's your leg. If you want to keep your leg, you tell that doctor to go get some maggots. You're going to replace them with the doctor who will I can find a guy. Yes. I can get a guy by noon that will put maggots on that wound. And actually, there's a group, I think Ronald Sherman, the guy we mentioned earlier, who's, like, the US. Champion of magnet therapy. There's this group called the Beer Foundation, BTR Foundation, and they have all sorts of resources for people in that very situation, like how to talk to your doctor. If your insurance won't cover it, let them know, because they say insurance actually, most insurance covers magnet therapy, but most insurance claims people are not aware of that. So you may get denied at first. And here's how to talk to your insurance company. That's a great resource. It really is. That beats going to your doctor and saying, well, you know what Josh and Chuck said, a, you're not going to like hearing this because you think you know it all. Doctor, please take a seat, and B, put maggots on my feet. Right. And that's the other thing, too. I mean, we wouldn't be suggesting this, and the Peter Foundation probably wouldn't be such advocates for it if it didn't work so amazingly well, study after study, and we'll talk about the details of it. But there are so many studies out there. Again, Sherman, who agreed as an advocate, but in a peer reviewed journal, published a survey of studies that he could find on magnet therapy. And it's very clear that it works really well, and not only necessarily as a means of last resort, but even just compared to the standard of care using, like, hydrogel or other things that you might use to treat a chronic wound. Maggots destroy it. They leave it in the dust. Yeah. And if it doesn't work, it's not going to hurt anything, from what I can tell. Yeah. It just puts off how much longer before they amputate your foot? Pretty much, yeah. So what will happen is they will well, let's get into this a little bit. Okay. There are four different and where did you find this? Was this a research paper? Yeah, this is by Ronald Sherman. Mechanisms of MAGA Induced Wound Healing. Colin, what do we know and where do we go from here? It was in the journal. Evidence based Complimentary and Alternative Medicine in 2014. That's right. And he describes four different phases of basically healing a wound. Homeostasis inflammation. Man, I'm so bad at that one. Oh, yeah, keep it coming. Proliferation. Nice going. And remodeling and maturing. And what happens is the cells get to work, they recruit other cells, they alter their activities and basically say, let's get to work cleaning on all four of these stages right. To help heal the wound. Yeah. And any one of those stages, the next process can stall out. Sure. Normally it stalls out at inflammation because the infection gets out of hand and the body can't fight off the infection faster than it's laying the extracellular matrix for the new cells to be rebuilt, the new tissue to recrow. And that's a common thing that leads to chronic wounds that just won't heal. And that's where maggots are really useful, to basically interrupt that stall and get the car moving again in the right direction. It's exactly right. They kick started. So debridement is removing dead tissue, and that is really where maggots excel. They said in here each maggot can chew. Well, they don't exactly chew, which will get to they remove 25 milligrams of necrotic material, dead flesh, in just 24 hours. Yeah, that's pretty good. Yeah. And there's actually three ways that maggots clean a wound. But debridement, which is getting in there and just cleaning out, physically removing that dead material, that's like the key. Yeah, that seems to be the key. And then there's also antimicrobial activity, like actually killing the bacteria that's killing the flesh, leaving it cleaner than when they came in, which is amazing. And then even more astounding, stimulating new growth, like the presence of maggots in your wound stimulates new tissue growth around your skin. They're just like wonder creatures who knew? One of the ways that they removed the stead tissue is just by the nature of what their body is like. And they have these little prickly spines all over their body that act as a surgeon's, raspberry or file would. Basically just the fact that they're moving around on the wound is going to file the stuff down and scrape the wound, which helps loosens it up. It's like a plow. It burrows through this dying and dead tissue and it loosens up. That's part one of debris. And part one, there's another part of it, which is the digestive enzymes that they excrete and secrete. It's called alimentary secretions and excretions ASE. It's basically their digestive juices. Right. And they puke these up as they're moving around and they just puke them everywhere. And it dissolves this flesh. Yeah. I remember in the Body Farms episode, we talked about this, one of the old classics. Sure. And that's why I said earlier, they don't bite or choose something. They just liquefy it and then suck it in. And this ASE stuff is so greedy that it liquefies more dead flesh than the maggots can even consume. And they consume quite a bit, like you said, 25 milligrams. That's a lot for a little tiny maggot in one day. But even more than that, they're liquefying even more of this dead tissue. So that part of the process of maggot. Debridement therapy is draining out this liquefied necrotic tissue that's become liquefied from the elementary or the ASE stuff, the digestive enzymes. Right. So you've got them burrowing around, you've got them puking into your wound, up liquefying the dead tissue, leaving pretty much entirely the living tissue alone, and then you just kind of drain out the stuff that's in there. And the reason that maggots are considered by the FDA, a medical device rather than a drug, is because the whole process of debridement isn't just a reaction to the chemicals, it is part of that mechanical movement of the maggots through the wound. Yeah. So it's a drug. It's a device. It's a device. Well, they are device. Look at them. And those that the secretions are so potent. They have basically DNA destroying qualities. Like, they not only just break down tissue, they destroy the DNA. It's pretty amazing stuff. It is. Should we take another break? Yeah, I'm a little excited. We probably should. I'm going to go to the vomitorium. Are you grossed out slightly? I am. Not in the least. What does that say about me? I don't know. I don't know. You have a stronger stomach, but I don't necessarily. I'm just excited. All right, well, go watch me vomit at least. That will gross me out. Hey, everybody. If you want a great quality website, you want to do it yourself with no must and no fuss, then there's nowhere else to look than Squarespace. That's right. Squarespace has every single thing that you need to put together an awesome website. Everything from growing and engaging your audience with email campaigns, collecting donations for your cause through Apple, Pay, Stripe, Venmo, PayPal. 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But everyone can save up to 25% off their first year by going to LifeLock. comStuff. That's L-I-F-E-L-O-C-K comStuff. For 25% off your first year LifeLock. Identity theft protection starts here. All right. Well, that was disgusting. It was. It made me throw up in turn. So here's a couple of questions. Does it hurt? Maybe a little bit at first, yeah. I don't get the feeling that it's extremely painful. It probably depends on the wound, but it can the first few treatments can apparently be a little bit painful. Right. And there's actually two mechanisms for the pain. One is that you have an open wound, right? Yes. And you have maggots crawling over the exposed nerves in your open wound. That's not going to feel good. No, it won't. And then number two, pressure in the wound can increase as the maggots get bigger from eating so much dead flesh. That's right. So, yes, the cure to that is painkillers, which, frankly, if you have an open wound with exposed nerves, you should probably be on those anyway. Sure. You will be. So it probably won't hurt because there'll be some sort of pain management going on, but you will still feel most likely, unless the doctor completely numbs the area, maggots crawling around inside the wound. See, that's the part that gets me is actually thinking about undergoing this therapy myself, is what gets me. Not like seeing it or reading about it, but thinking about having an open wound on the bottom of my foot and having maggots creeping around in there. See, the thing is, I think anybody would feel that way. There's very few, including myself. I'm not grossed out by this, but I wouldn't want maggots falling around my open wound. But I think if your backs against the wall sure, that or lose your foot. I try. I would definitely try. I think absolutely 95% of people would apparently demand and I would demand some high quality drugs. Yeah. They also have what is it called? Amnesiatics, to make you forget about it. Yes. So you can't form memories while it's happening. So maybe that would be a nice thing to do, too. So the other question is, can you just use any kind of maggot? And the answer is no. What they found is the most useful is the larvae of the green blow fly. And as we said earlier, these things are now grown just sort of like the medical leeches. They're shipped in sterile containers as if it were medicine, even though it's a device. And the BTR Foundation, they go into a lot about this, like, could anybody do this? And they say, well, no, because you need a prescription. It's an FDA control. Like you might do it yourself. But they say anybody who can read can basically follow the instructions on the package. Yeah, I wouldn't advise that as your non doctor. Sure. I'm not saying that either, but, I mean, this may be your doctor's first time, too. Their point. Was it's not difficult. Just follow the instructions on the package. What if your doctor, though, he got the maggots out and he put on his bifocals, he was like, all right, let's see how to do this. Right. Or like, he tears the package open. They go everywhere. You have, like, Jerry Lewis as a doctor. Oh. But although they do say you can't just load it up with maggots, there should be no more than eight maggots per square centimeter. Yeah, I saw five to eight. And so when you have the maggots applied to your wound, they're going to make sure that the healthy area around the wound is covered up so the maggots can't get to it, which goes back to World War II. Yes. They're going to cover up the wound after they apply the maggots five to 8 /cm\u00b2 like you say they're going to cover it up so they can't wander off because maggots like to leave before their work is done. Sure. They want TV. They're full, pretty much, but they can still eat more if you'll keep them in there. So they will cover up. They will put the maggots in five to eight, cover it up with this bandage, and basically, they will just sit there and eat for between 48 and 72 hours. And then the bandage will be removed. The maggots will then, sadly, be incinerated or put into an auto clay. That's sad. Or put into a plasma gasifier or bronze and hung on your wall. For real. Like an ant farm. Yeah. Because it's like, thank you for this great contribution to saving my foot. Now go be autoclaved. I would name them and save them and preserve them. Sure. You'd be violating, I'm sure, all sorts of medical waste laws, but who cares? That's what's called a treatment cycle, and most patients supposedly go between two and four treatment cycles. And again, while this is happening, what's going on is the maggots are debriding the dead flesh. They're liquefying it, they're eating it, and they're also disinfecting it and stimulating growth. Right. Pretty amazing. So with the disinfecting, they figured that there was some sort of gut flora that the maggots have that prevents them from being infected by microbial. Yeah, that would make sense, because they're in that rotting flesh as well and they're thriving. Right. So what gives? Well, it turns out that there are a couple of types of I'm not quite sure what kind of bacteria they are. That's not true. The proteus mirabilis is a type of symbiotic microbe that you find in the gut of a maggot. Right. Yeah. And this thing destroys microbial life, so it's killing the bacteria that's causing this infection in your wound. But there's something that maggots this is yet another thing. So think about it, Chuck, like you said, the very structure of a maggot body debrides the wound. That's pretty amazing. This maggot antimicrobial stuff, not only does it kill microbes, it destroys the thing that naturally protects microbes, which is called biofilm. Yeah. We've talked about biofilm a lot on this show, and it's basically a film, like a literal film. Like, they call it a polymeric matrix, but the easiest way to say it, in Layman's term, it's a film. Right. It's like a protective coating. Yeah. And the little spiny bodies, like, one way they get rid of this thing is by roughing it up, and that's exactly what the little bodies do. Right. And that's part of surgical debridement with going in there and scrubbing a wound with, I don't know, steel wool or something like that, that will break up the biofilm. It also must be awfully painful. Right. Maggots naturally, can destroy not just the bacteria, but also the biofilm that protects it, too, which makes them extremely handy with things like MRSA and other antibiotic resistant bacteria and all kinds of ulcers. Right. Not like internal ulcers, but the open wound kind. Right, exactly. From diabetes, from bed sores. And there's been a lot of studies of people with bed sores that have found that maggots helped those kind of ulcers tremendously. So let's talk about this one study, or a couple of studies. Actually, there was one study of spinal cord injury patients that had non healing ulcers, which is the problem, and they monitored them over three to four weeks, and they were getting regular wound care at the same time. Like, sometimes it's used in conjunction I think usually is used in conjunction with, like, standard care. Sure. And they found that after three to four weeks of magnet therapy, tissue quality and wound size were assessed weekly, and they found that debridement was achieved in less than 14 days, an average of ten days. And none of the control group wounds were more than 50% debrided after a month. A month. Not even half degraded. None of the wounds. Not half the wounds were debrided. None of the wounds were even half debrided after a month. Chuck of the control group. Yes. Amazing. Where they didn't use the maggots. Yes, that's objectively amazing. It is. And then they did a larger clinical trial and found this time they got 263 subjects, which is pretty good for this kind of rare treatment. For sure. And they found that using the hydrogel, which you mentioned earlier, compression dressings. Just the standard care. Right. That was the control. Yeah, that's obviously the control. It differs significantly between the three groups. What was the third group? The third group used bio bags, which are like it's like a little pouch. You said it was like a ravhealthy. Yeah. And it's filled with live baggage, but it prevents them from borrowing. All it is is using their chemical secretions. Yeah. That, to me, is just like, why go halfway? Right, exactly. Well, a lot of people are open. I don't want a maggot crawling in my wound, but a bag of them is fine. Doing the shake, shake near my wound. Right. So it actually has been shown to be not nearly as effective as just letting what is called free range maggots burrow through the wound. So they found the median time for debris and was 14 days with free range, 28 days with the bagged ravioli and 72 days for the control. Yes. That's pretty amazing. I don't know. I don't think it should be a last resort. I agree. And I think that increasingly it's becoming less and less of a last resort because you can compare it to the control. Like the standard of care took 72 days for the wound to be divided. Free range maggots, 14 days. That, to me, says that free range maggots top the standard of care as it stands right now. But like you say, there's a lot of people who are saying this is just a last resort. The next thing we're going to do is amputate your foot, but let's try this one last time. Right. Or in the case of persistent infections from, like, MRSA, where just antibiotics just don't work, let's try maggots and see if we can fix it. And maggots do work. There is a study that found that of 13 people who had MRSA treated with maggots alone, twelve of the 13 had complete recovery and wound healing from a MRSA infection. Mrs. Nasty stuff, too. Yeah, I think. Did we do it on MRSA? I feel like we did. I know we've talked about it. I don't know if it got its own show, though. It may have been in the should we outlaw anti bacterial soap episode. Boy, there's been a lot of them. Almost 800. You got anything else? Surely I do. But I guess not. Oh, yeah, there was one other thing. We kept kind of teasing it. It actually stimulates growth. A couple of studies have found that the presence of maggots produce more blood vessel redevelopment and tissue redevelopment than maggots not being present. So something about them actually stimulates tissue growth and blood vessel growth, which promotes wound healing even more. Up with maggots. Up with maggots, indeed. Man, I love them. I'm so psyched about maggots right now. Well, it definitely changes the way you think about them. Like, next time you see the dead squirrel that you've killed right off your porch, they're clearly trying to bring it back to life. Yeah. And you see the maggots, you don't think that's disgusting. You just think those are little things doing their thing, doing their thing. Little things doing their thing. Now I'm going to autoclave them. That's right. If you want to know more about maggot therapy, you can type those words in the search bar@housetoforex.com. And since I said search bar, it's time for listener. I'm going to call this taking the task somewhat over a turn. Guys, I want to say you are my favorite podcast by far. Been listening since you were just little five minute blurbs oh, man, you sure have grown up. I've never written in before, but felt I had to comment on Josh's statement that climate change was or global warming was settled science. No, I'm not disputing the data that shows an increase in global temperatures. While you can certainly argue its accuracy, especially for older data, it's still just data. It's not science. The part that gets me upset about the term settled science is that by definition, science is never settled, and that's in all caps. I think we've talked a lot about this in the scientific method. You guys actually did a podcast on the scientific method. So you should know that at best, you can show particular theories supported by existing data and not contradicted by anything we know of at the time. But there's a reason that ultra successful theories like Newton's theory of gravity, einstein's theory of relativity are still theories. They could be completely discredited by a single piece of data contradicting them. So the whole idea of taking a body of facts saying it settled is far more political concept than scientific one. While people with various viewpoints in the subject would like to have someplace to plant their ideological flag, saying something is indisputably. The true, as opposed to probably false, is simply not something science and the scientific method is equipped to do. In short, science has never settled. You cannot simply say, this is true, move on. That's not how it works. And that is from Spencer Carpenter, right here in our own Smyrna, Georgia. We're not in Smyrna. Well, I mean, it's nearby. What I just did is what Spencer just did. Spencer I was using a literary device. I was actually using the same type of argument that non science climate deniers use against scientists. I was basically saying, like, It's done. Drop it. There's enough science there to say, you're wrong, let's move on, and just all accept that climate sign layoff. So that was a clever ruse. It wasn't a ruse at all. I was not being literal, apparently, which is what Spencer deals in literal terms. If you want to take us to task because you are overly literal, we want to hear from you. You can tweet to us at syskpodcast. You can join us on Facebook. Comstuffyshow. You can send us an email to stuffpodcast@howstoughforks.com. And as always, join us at our home on the web stuffyshow.com. Stuffyheanow is production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts My Heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. You know you're the best pet mom. When you growl back during playtime, give epic belly rubs and feed them halo holistic made with responsibly sourced ingredients, plus probiotics for digestive health. Find us at chewy amazonandhalopets.com are you looking for an escape? An immersive getaway experience? Well, there's a place for all your wildest dreams. Perhaps you enjoy wrapping along the paper, boy. Or you believe that blessed be the fruit or you dream of one day smashing a glass whilst yelling who's a whether you're sworn to Team Kim or you just want a good old fashioned mysterious murder, there's a place that has it all. From Atlanta to only murders in the building, it's all on Hulu, so check into your obsession. Hulu subscription is required. Terms apply. Visit hulu.com for plan details."
https://podcasts.howstuf…kateboarding.mp3	How Skateboarding Works	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/how-skateboarding-works	Skateboarding started out as something bored surfers did when the waves weren't breaking, but after a few improvements to the design, it took off like a rocket to become its own cultural phenomenon. Come gleam the cube with Josh and Chuck.	Skateboarding started out as something bored surfers did when the waves weren't breaking, but after a few improvements to the design, it took off like a rocket to become its own cultural phenomenon. Come gleam the cube with Josh and Chuck.	Tue, 11 Mar 2014 13:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2014, tm_mon=3, tm_mday=11, tm_hour=13, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=70, tm_isdst=0)	43203261	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Hey, everybody. If you want a great website, you want to do it yourself. With no must, no fuss, turn to Squarespace. They have everything to sell anything. They have the tools that you need to get your business off the ground, including ecommerce, templates, inventory management, simple checkout process, process, and secure payments. And if you're into analytics, hold on to your hats, because Squarespace has everything that you need. Just head to squarespace. comSK and you can get a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use offer code s YSK to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. You know you're the best pet mom. When you growl back during playtime, give epic belly rubs and feed them halo holistic made with responsibly sourced ingredients, plus probiotics. For Digestive health. Find us at chewy. Amazonandhalopetscom welcome to Stuff You Should Know From Housetofworkscom. Hi, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark and Charles W. Chuck Bryant with me to know And Jerry, of course, is here. We just celebrated a birthday. Yeah. Happy birthday, Jerry. Valentine's Day. We're in our Indian sweat lodge that we call a recording booth. Yeah. Man, it's hot. Yeah. Part of it is this thing. You want to turn this off? Because it really does put out a tremendous amount of heat. Yeah. Josh, we have a lamp on our table that we used to see. Well, we can't see any longer. Oh, well, blind. Blind. Yeah. That did make it, like, 3% cooler immediately. Yeah, it's that lamp. It's the lamp. And then just people generating heat in here. Yeah, podcasters were a balmy bunch. Plus, there's a herd of oxen in the corner, and it doesn't help. No. It's been the best intro ever. Do you think so? I think so. You're not being facetious? No. You know the word facetious? What do you got for me? Well, when I was younger, I knew the word facetious. It was a word that my dad used a lot, so I used it in regular conversation correctly. Yeah. Okay. But I'd never seen it written out, or so I thought. And then finally, one day, I ran across in a book again, this word I kept coming up on, and I was like, what is that word? Facetius? And I was like that's facetious. I don't know that I've seen it spelled either. Yeah, it looks like facetius. No, it looks like facet. Like a facet of a jewel or something. And then es I-O-U-S. Yeah. There's no I always have so bombed the spelling of that. Right. But the thing is, I was using it correctly in conversation, and I had seen it in books. I just never put the two together until finally, one day, it clicked. You had to get your tattoo changed. Facetious across the back of your neck. Yeah. In the heart. That's right. All right, so skateboarding. Yes. About the same time that I realized the word facetious what it was correctly spelled as I was skateboarding at the time. So that's how it ties in. Got you. I was a little skateboarder for a long time. Yeah, I was, too. I'm not old enough to where I saw all the different waves of skateboarding. Of the four you saw the first two? I didn't see the first one. That's pretty funny. That would mean I'm dead now. There's plenty of old borders out there. Sure. Yeah. But I was of the age where I definitely had the small sort of plastic board with the single little tail on the back only. And clay wheels. No. Oh, yeah. No clay wheels. It seems to me like the skateboards from biblical times like clay wheels. That's what I think of when I see clay wheels. What do they even look like? Just brown. Are they super dangerous? Well, yeah. And if you've seen the great documentary Dogtown and Z Boys, they go over. It's a really good dock, by the way. Yeah. Like, amazing footage that they have and good music and highly recommended over the movie version. The Lords of Dogtown. Was Val Kilmer in that? No. Heath Ledger was. He played the mentor. I can't remember his name. Skip the Zephyrcruise. Yes. Skip, skip. Skip went on to found Santa Monica Airline skateboards. Oh, yeah. He stayed on as, like, a big influence in skateboarding. That's good. So, anyway, I just wanted to point out that I have branched a few different. Like, I started out with a little clay one and then in high school is when I got the big, huge, fat skateboard. When they were super obnoxious. Yeah. That's when I came into skating. 19 83 84. Had, like, a nice lance mountain. It wasn't my first board. My first board. Remember the Nash Tough Tops? No. It was blank. On the bottom, there are no graphics. But on the top, cut out in the grip tape, was like a star that looked kind of like a sawblade circular saw blade. And then the big difference was the different colors of the board underneath. Blue or pink or yellow or whatever. Mine was like, neon green. Yeah, you're big fat one. Yeah. And looking back, like, kind of corny. And I think after that is when true skaters started being like, we don't really care that much about awesome graphics. We just want a good board. Good board. You wanted some ribbones on the side. Do you remember those underneath? Yeah, but I don't think people like those now either. Oh, no, not anymore. Real skaters? No, the whole point of those, I think it was to let you rail slide or whatever easier. But I think it was also to protect those graphics, too. It totally was because I had a little big plastic bumper under the tailpiece, too, which is counterintuitive to tell you the tricks. Yeah, but I mean, who cares about protecting the tail? It's weird. I was also a nose bone, too. I was never very good. Oh, I wasn't either. I don't mean to give that I mean, I spent a lot of hours skating, and I never got very good. I think I pulled off one kick flip once. Really? Once. That's good. I thought it was pretty good, too. That is the trick that you most often see kids not landing, driving down the street. If you ever see a kid, I rarely see a successful kick flip just on the sidewalk. Oh, yeah. If you see somebody who pulls off a kick flip, the chances are there's somebody filming them because they know that they're going to be able to pull off the kick flip in La. Actually, I would see more, obviously, better skaters out there. Sure. Or New York. Yeah, true. All right, so, skateboarding, should we get going with a little history? Yeah, let's talk about the history of this. This is so close to my heart, man. I fell down the rabbit hole today watching, like, old skate videos and checking out old Powell Perelta boards. That was my jam with Powell. Well, we mentioned that there have been four distinct ways of skateboarding starting, and each new wave, it's just waned in popularity here and there and then come back strong and stronger due to either advances, mainly in skateboard technology right. Trickery. Yes. And parental acceptance, because it never really goes away. Skateboarding is either ever since its inception, it's either been mainstream or else forced underground and practiced by juvenile delinquents who kind of kept it going and advanced it quietly until it came back into the mainstream. And parents were like, okay, totally, you guys can skate again. But the true origin of the skateboard, the first one that came out, the first commercially produced 1059, it's called the roller derby skate. Yeah. And before that, if you've seen the movie Back to the Future, when Marty McFly rips the little milk crate off the front of the homemade wooden scooter, that was where skateboards really came from. It was sort of a homemade deal with, like, a peach crate as the front of your scooter. Couple of handles. Yes. Steel wheels from roller skates. Yeah. And that was super dangerous. Right. But like you say, if you take the peach crate off and take the handles off, you have that two X four with the roller skate wheels. And they don't know exactly who did it. They think actually several people probably did it simultaneously. Marty McLaughlin in the 40s, they think surfers in California did it. There are kids in France that were seen doing it in the 40s. It kind of spread. It arose independently around the world at about the same time. That's called the Zeitgeist. That is my friend. So now we're in the early nineteen s. Sixty s, and it really took off like a rocket. In the first few years of the 1960s, like 50 million skateboards were sold in those first three years. It's so crazy. And it was everywhere. It was like the hot new craze. Well, it was like, also like hula hoops and things like that. America was in a crazy mood. A crazy mood. Like whatever the big thing was. Yeah. And skateboard fell into that big time. The problem is they were pretty dangerous. Yeah. There wasn't a lot you could do with them. No. Because, again, they're steel wheels. It's basically two by four on steel wheels. Yeah. You ride down the street and you could fall off of it. Exactly. That was the extent of it. So I think because of the safety concerns, overnight, skateboarding just went away in, like, 1965. It was over. Yeah. But it still kind of stayed somewhat popular as a thing to do among surfers. When the waves weren't breaking right. They would just kind of sidewalk surface, what they called it. And they never really saw it as anything bigger than a supplement to surfing. Right. It was just kind of like it wasn't its own thing. Right. Until the late 60s or the early 70s, when clay wheels came about. You could do a little more stuff, I think. Well, clay was better than the steel wheels. Right. But still bad. Right. If you hit a rock in the road, your toast. That's when people started dying from skateboards, which kind of led to its decline again. Sure. And then some surfers, the Zephyr crew, are the ones who broke skateboarding out once and for all. Well, yeah, thanks to Frank Nasworthy's invention of the urethane wheel. In 1972, he founded Cadillac Wheels. And all of a sudden, it was like a smooth, steady, silent experience on a skateboard for the first time. Right. And then you changed everything. It did. Because it wasn't just that it wasn't rumbling any longer. Your thing could grip like concrete or go over a smaller pavement. Yeah. Instead of just stopping. Exactly. Yeah. All of a sudden, there were way more surfaces that could be skated. And that plus the invention of the truck, which is basically an axle for your wheels, that not only allows the wheels to revolve more smoothly, especially when you add a set of bearings, but it also allows you to maneuver to the left or the right, which is a big deal. It kind of opens things up. They're twisty. Yeah. And then the kick tail also changed everything. All these kind of came together at about the same time. Yeah. And you mentioned the Zephyr crew. In 1075, they held the first, basically, competition in Del Mar, California. And if you've seen the documentary, it's pretty great. I mean, they had sort of the holdovers from the 60s doing, like, handstands and all these sort of square, antiquated moves, and then these little punks came in there and just, like, tore the place up. And the judges didn't know how to judge them at the time. Right. Because they never see anything like it. Yeah, it's pretty cool. It was a pool. They were skating in pools. Right. Or a pole, at least. Yeah. The pool thing came a little later because there was a big drought in the mid 70s in Southern California, and water was actually in short supply, so people would drain their pools or not refill them or whatever for the summer. Right. And so they started busting in the backyards and skating in pools. Yeah. And they would bring their own pumps and hoses to drain all the muck out entirely, and then just, like, skate that pool. And there was at one of those pools, a kid named Tony Alva, who was in that Zephyr crew was Tony Alva, J. Adams and Stacey Perlta. Yeah, among others. Yeah. Right. But those are, like, the big Three Tony album, your Guy. Right. Stacy Perleta. I thought you were, like, a huge Tony Alba dude. Okay. No, I respect sure. For Tony Alva. No, I was always palparalta. Okay. But Tony Alva, at one of those pools, kept going and going and pushing himself harder and harder. And then one day he cleared the coping of the pool and caught air. Yeah. With his hand at first. Oh, he did. Like a hand plant. Yeah. That was how that originally came about. But he did leave contact with the pool. Right. And no one had ever done that. And everyone was like and that was, like, the creation of Vert style skateboarding. And Alva went on at age 19 to found his own skateboarding company. He was the first one to use Canadian Maple Veneers, which we'll talk about. And it was really innovative, especially for a 19 year old skate punk from Southern California. Yeah, they all were. Yeah, it's pretty amazing. Like, this collection of kids, most of them end up being, like, very savvy, like wealthy businessmen later on. Yeah. And right after the Del Mar competition, the Zephyr crew kind of scattered to the wind and went and found purchase and expanded skateboarding as a sport and as a theme. And one of the things that they brought with them from having been part of a crew is to form their own crews of people that they sponsored, which made those people pros. Right. And those pros would go on tour. And when those pros went on tour, they were skating, say, Palm Paralyzed Skateboards, and showing local kids what can be done with the skateboard. And those kids would go by Pal Paraldo Skateboards and go out and skate. That whole idea of doing demos on tour with pros who are sponsored by skateboarding companies really helped expand skateboarding in the created that third wave where skateboarding just became it. Yeah. I mean, it was big in California and Florida. My cousins were way into it in Florida early on, but it really took off when kids like me in Georgia and you in Ohio were skiing skating up my steep driveway and trying to do little 180 turns going back down like it was a wave. And I was one of those silly little kids. I was so caught up in it at first. I had a kid who lived across the tracks from me. Who had a half pipe. Like a good half pipe. That his dad built him. And that was part of that rise in 1983. I think. That third wave. Because I should say we didn't really mention in the late 70s. After Alva Skateboards was founded and Pal Pals. Who was founded and all that. Skateboarding took a hit. Mainstream wise. And it became associated with punks. Like. Just punk kid. Yeah, the bad kids who literally gave skateboarding a bad name. And so it was kind of driven underground again. And then in the early 80s, it experienced another rise, and its image kind of changed a little bit, thanks to the Pal Perelta team, the Bones Brigade, who were actually, like, they were all young kids, and they were skateboarders, and all they cared about was skating, but they were also kind of clean cut as far as skateboarders went. They didn't do drugs. At least they didn't publicly do drugs. Yeah. Stacey Pratt was a good kid. Yeah. And so the kids that he sponsored, like Tony Hawk, Mike McGill, Steve Caballero, Christian Hisoi, all those kids were good kids, too, and they had a tremendous amount of influence on the skaters who were into them. And so it kind of changed skating's image a little bit, too. It went from being something that punk kids were into, something all kids were into. Yeah. It did go into another four year law toward the end of the 70s, before it started coming back in the mid eighty S and BMX had a lot to do with it that became more popular, and some skateboarder magazine shut down or changed names to a different title. And like you said, it never went away to the adherence of the true underground skateboarders. Right. There's always somebody who's been skating at some point ever since. But in the mid eighty S is when it definitely came back to the big time mainstream. Yes. And I can't tell if it's just nostalgia on my part or else if that was when it really exploded, but that was my wheelhouse. No. Remember the videos, man? Oh, Bones Brigade video. Yeah. And that was another thing, too. One of the reasons why skateboarding was able to spread as a sport or recreation or whatever was in part the access to cheap VHS players, because the Bones Brigade made videos and people bought them. Like, you could go to your local skate shop and buy, like, a Bones Brigade VHS tape for 25 or $30. You kind of had to if you wanted to learn the cool tricks. Right. That's like the only place you could see them at the time. Yeah. And then they were produced in a way, like you'd want to watch them again and again. Like, I think the fourth one, the Search for Animal Chin, actually had like a plot and everything. Really? Yeah. Interesting. So you would watch these things again and again. These guys became like your heroes. And not only were you watching them do their tricks and watching their videos, but you also wore their T shirts. You got their deck. And it said a lot like, I had a Mike McGill deck. I really was into Mike McGill. I had a lance mountain deck. Was really into lance mountain. And I like Tony Hawk and everything, but I never had a Tony Hawk deck. You identify with a skater based on your personality type on it. Yeah. And your style. Style had a lot to do with it, for sure. Then there was another law in the early 90s because of the recession, is what everyone seems to blame it on. I know I thought it was weird. I don't remember that happening. But now that I think back, late high school, early college, there wasn't a lot of skate stuff going on in our world. And I wasn't skating at the time, but I was still just young enough to pick up on that fourth wave in the early mid 90s. Well, thanks to the X Games. That's what really brought it back big time. And Tony Hawk, too. Yeah, he kept it going. His video games definitely helped spread that fourth wave, too. And I guess it's never really gone away. No, it's bigger than ever skating. Oh, yeah. Well, another thing I think that helped is that 80s nostalgia craze how the form everything today. Part of that was, I guess, re exploring that third wave of skateboarding. So if you go into a band store, they're all like old Powell decks or old, like, vision, streetwear decks. Vision and wear and slime balls. Yeah. And I still have a pair of Van old schools, the black and white checker. No, those were the I can't remember the name of those. The slip on. Yes. The Old Schools are the black they had the low top and the high top that has the little sort of white wave on the side. I still wear those shoes. Yeah. So I think we should talk about the skateboard itself right after this message break. Josh, my friend, do you know where your passport is right now? Well, you better dig it up because Adventure is around the corner and there's a card that's going to get you closer with the city Advantage Platinum Select Card. Every swipe earns you advantage miles and loyalty points and two times Advantage miles at restaurants and gas stations so your everyday purchases can take your travel to new heights. Plus, card members get access to builtin travel benefits. For example, your first check bag is free on domestic travel, so you and your family have room to pack for every possibility like coming home with extra souvenirs. And with preferred boarding, you'll be in your seat sooner, ready for takeoff into Adventure. The hard part is deciding where you'll go first, because when you earn 500 Advantage bonus miles after qualifying purchases, adventure is on. So fasten your seatbelt and put away your tray table because there's so much world to see. And the city advantage. Platinum Select Card is your ticket. You can learn more@city.com Adventure and travel on with Cityadvantage. What if you were a gigantic snack food maker and you had to wrestle a massively complex supply chain to satisfy cravings from Tokyo to Toledo? So you partner with IBM Consulting to bring together data and workflows so that every driver and merchandiser can serve up jalapeno, sesame and chocolate cover goodness with real time, data driven precision. Let's create supply chains that have an appetite for performance. IBM, let's create. Learn more at IBM. Comconsulting chuck, we're going to talk about the skateboard itself. You promised. Yes. There are three main parts. You have the deck, you have the trucks, and you have the wheels. Yeah. And like we said, the trucks connect the wheels to the deck and they service the axles on the front and the back. It's a little T shaped thing. Right. And I remember definitely, like, taking a lot of time to get your trucks the way you wanted. Oh, yeah. Some people liked them really loose. Yeah, I did. And some people liked them a little tighter. If they're looser, you can turn more aggressively. Yeah. But you also get wobble wheel if you get a wobble wheel. But yeah, I like mine a little tighter, too. Like, you want to be able to turn, but you also I like the stability of a tighter truck. Yeah. You've also got your wheels, which have a set of bearings. Yes. And the wheels haven't changed too much. No, they're still polyurethane. They've changed in size a little bit, but it's the same basic concept. Right. And again, it still depends on your preference. Like, you can buy a premade skateboard that's all put together, but as you know, any skater worth of salt buys the deck, buys the truck, buys the wheels that they want, puts it all together. You might as well just go to, like, a department store and buy your skateboard if you're just going to buy it all together. Yeah. With a little outfit that comes with it. Yeah. So the last part, arguably the most important part well, one of the most important parts is the deck. And the deck has evolved over time. We talked about how the tail kicked up in the early 70s. That allows the rear. Yes. That allowed a lot of tricks. And if you look at a skateboard from the top or the bottom, where you're looking at the outline, that's called the plan. Yeah. And then if you look at how the tail or the nose is kicked up and then the concave to the interior of the skateboard, which allows more control and stability. That's called the Concave. So you got the plan and the Concave. Yes. And those are part of the deck. They inform the shape and size of the deck. And then on top of that deck, you have the Grip Tape, which I thought that would have been a recent innovation. Apparently, Grip Tape was invented all the way back in 1948 for Scooters. Oh, really? Yeah, they did it back then, and a guy named Ferdinand Switzhoffer invented it. Nice. Yes. And they changed the name from Switzer Tape to Grip Tape. Right. Yeah. And in the 80s, too. The thing now is your whole board is covered with Grip Tape in the mid eighty s. I remember I just had, like, there were graphics on top, tape at the front and the back, and it really didn't make any sense. The whole thing should be Grippy. Yeah, but I mean, again, the Powell graphics are pretty awesome. Steve Cavaliero has that dragon, or at least you have the Bones guy. The decks are not a solid piece of wood. It's actually thin layers of veneer, and they are laminated. And then you spread adhesive and, like, with a lot of furniture, it's just many layers of thin wood compressed together into a mold. And it's a hydraulic press that just smashes it all together until you've got your really solid piece of wood. Yeah, and it's definitely a lot stronger than just the sum of its parts. Yeah, for sure. From being molded plywood. And then you cut that plan out. Yeah. And then after that, you spray it with some seal. It because you don't want to accidentally ollie into a puddle or a fountain or something like that and have your board warp or purposely right. Ollie into a fountain. And then the graphics are put on, and then the Grip tape. I get a sense of graphics aren't, like, super cool anymore. Am I wrong? Back to basic thing. I think it's a matter of preference. It definitely isn't. Like in the mid 80s. It was like they were so obnoxious. Oh, yeah. Remember the gator one? No. It was kind of like, I guess, a vertigo thing, but it was made out of different spikes. You would recognize it immediately. I definitely had the stickers on my car, and it was a thing. We had a shop in Stone Mountain called Surface. Up in Stone Mountain. Surf stone Mountain. Yeah. That was obviously open for four and a half years. And they had skate gear and surfer gear, and for all us in inland living people. Yeah. We thought they were cool initially. At that early wave in the early 80s, like, you had to go to a ski shop because skiing was already established. And then they'd open up a little section for skateboards. Totally. And then eventually it got a little bigger. And then all of a sudden there were actual skate shops. Yeah. All right, so that is the actual skateboard in all its three parts. Right. And I guess we need to talk about how to ride this thing. Yeah. Because the fourth part is you. That's right. Although it looks cool just hanging on your wall. Yeah. If you want to impress the ladies. Sure. Like, check out my skateboard. Yeah, I was all into that. But it is like surfing. And the reason they compare it to surfing is that it's sort of like a smaller version. You have the side stance just like on a surfboard. Right. And if you heard our surfing podcast, you heard us talk about regular foot and goofy foot. Is there a mongo foot on surfing T? No, because you're not pushing off of it. Oh, yeah. Regular foot is your left foot forward, and you're using your right foot to push. Goofy foot is the opposite of that. Your right foot forward, you're pushing with your left. It does not feel right. No. And I was mango foot, and I never knew it until I looked this up. That is when your left foot is forward. I'm sorry, your right foot is on the board, but you're using your left foot to push, and your foot is at the rear, not the front. Yeah. And that just feels supernatural to me. Does it? But not supernatural, but very natural. There's ghosts. But apparently mongo foot is I think you're sort of frowned upon as a person by real skaters. If you're Mango like layoff, I've watched you, you can't even kick flip. So you pay attention to how you stand. That's what you say to people if they give you guff about being mongo foot. Well, the problem with Mango food is you have to shift your feet a little bit once both are back on the board. And I guess you can't bust a move immediately with a trick. Right. Which matters if you're competing for half a million dollars, but not if you're like, on your way down to the 711. Yeah. If you've never skated before and you want to try it, I would advise to not start with mango food at all if you don't know any better, because you won't be made fun of, maybe. Is that what kept you back? Maybe you'd be like so right now. That was what it was. But I've never seen this before. Now it makes sense, though, if you don't know which foot you're prominent with. Although I would say if you're right footage, you're probably going to be regular foot. And if you're goofy left footed, you might be goofy foot. I think it has to do with handedness. If you're right handed, your left foot is going to be forward. You're going to push with your right foot. If you're left handed, you're going to be goofy foot. Where your right foot is forward, you push with your left foot. I think. You push with your foot in the rear of the dominant hand side or foot side, right? Yeah. But I think your dominant hand is typically your dominant foot as well. Yeah, it seems right. And then if somebody came up and pushed you yeah, that's the test. The foot you put back to steady yourself, that's the one you want to use to push with before you crow hop and punch them in the face. That's right. With the H man. Yeah. So. I never heard that. That's a little trick you can do. And I guess you're not maybe surprised somebody because if you think about it too much, like, all right, push me. So you try to put both feet back at once and you end up just hopping. So there are quite a few different things you can do. Back in the day, it was all about the downhill slalom, which is boring. No, I mean super speed is not boring. Scary. It is a little scary. I suffered a pretty decent head injury once. Really? Yeah. I got the wobble wheel going downhill and I was like, I got a bail out right before I went to go jump on the grass. The board went, yeah. And I went forward and landed on my head and skidded on my head entirely. No helmet at all, right. No, it was something yes, I remember. I've not been the same since. Most neighborhoods have one hill, you know, that you don't dare go down. And my best friend, his name was Chuck, actually, at the time, in the mid high school. Must have been very confusing. No, he had a hill like that. And I remember standing at the top of it and thinking, there's no way I should be doing this and getting on the skateboard and trying to go down. And like you said, bailing out into the grass was always, if you're in a neighborhood, a nice way to go about things. Is that what you did? I think I went all the way down nice, actually. But yeah, it's a little scary. There's no way I do that now. I remember a car was driving past and stopped and went, oh, my God, are you okay? I was like, wow, is that bad? And they finished their beer and drove on. Right. Do they can have me. So you also have freestyle, which is doing tricks and things on a flat surface. And we're going to get into the tricks a little bit in a minute, which if you are like, what's freestyle? It sounds stupid. Look up Rodney Mullen or Pair? Well under on YouTube. Check out some of their especially their 80s stuff. The early mid 80s, they were doing some pretty cool stuff. And some of it is like that stuff that you were saying that California dudes doing, like hand stands on moving skateboards, or just the 360s standing in one place with a nose in the ear. But then they would take their hands and flip their board, 360 deg in, land on it. They're pretty good. Pretty great stuff. It takes creativity, for sure. It's definitely, like, choreography and a skateboard. Yeah. Well, I have a feeling you're about to say vert skating. I wasn't. But I will. Are you ready? They didn't give rights to vert skating. Well, vert skating. Yeah. That came out of those dogtown guys. Yeah. In the swimming pools. Yeah. Because a pool is considered vert skating. Vert is short for vertical. Right. Because you're skating on vertical services, like a pool or a bowl or a half pipe or a quarter pipe or whatever. Right. Or if you're like me, two milk crates and a piece of plywood. Did you do that? Yeah. The Josh pipe, it was not that stable. So vertical is when people started leaving and catching air, leaving the side of whatever surface they were on, which was really exciting at the time. Yeah. I can't imagine having been there. And it's only gone up and up since then. Yeah. And then you got street skating, which, if you've seen ladies and dudes on the street, like, jumping up the air onto a park bench and grinding that park bench, or a railing, or smashing themselves trying to grind a railing, that is street skating. Or if you've ever played the Tony Hawk video game, did you ever play that? Yeah, the first one. Yeah, if you play that enough, people who played that enough. Now I'm talking about you start walking around in life and everything you see, oh, man, I could grind that right. So hard if I could really skate. Yeah. Not in real life. No, but yeah. So street skating kind of I guess you could say it combines freestyle with obstacles, using obstacles in the built environment. That's street skating. Yeah. And that's the stuff that usually you'll see, like, frowned upon by businesses and people thinking, like, these hooligans are out there. Right. Which skateboarding is not a crime, man. No. Although if you use a skate, go to jail. But to combat all that crime stuff, a lot of cities built skate parks in the 70s. Yeah. What they didn't realize is that when those kids fell and cracked their heads, their parents were going to sue. And so all of a sudden, the insurance premiums for skate parks went through the roof, and all the cities shut them down, and they went away for a very long time. And then, I guess there were some changes in liability laws that allowed skate parks to come back. Now skate parks are back, but they're very frequently put up by cities. They're like, we'll build a skate park. And they don't ask the skaters how to build a skate park. So they build, like, a terrible skate park, and the skaters don't use it in the cities. They're like, Use skatepunk. Kids use the skate park, and they're like, your skate park sucks. And they're like, no, it doesn't. Yes, it does. And they skate away, or they do it well and it's too crowded. Well, there's one thing I know, is that for every skate park in any city, there will be a group of skaters saying, this place sucks. Sure. I remember when we shot at a skate park. Remember these local kids? And it was a new skate park. One of them, that one kid was pretty good. Yes. He's all right, but I assume I was like, oh, this is great. Right? This is new, and it's in Decatur. And like, they're like, It sucks. Yeah. Well, then that one kid lied. He said he lived from Sedia or part of Atlanta and hit us up for bus fare. He's a total post. Yeah, one of the crew saw him go into his house, like a block away in this very nice neighborhood of Decatur and hide a skateboard in his backyard. They can be different. They can be like, smaller half pipes and ramps and rails and things and obstacles to my recommendation, if you ever visit La. Is to go to Venice Beach, to their newest skate park there. And it is like the cement bowl. It's like a huge series of connected swimming pools. Yes. And this is where you'll see some like you'll see the old school guys that aren't leaving the bowl that are just like, carving it up as sweet as pudding. And then you've got guys that will really know what they're doing. Yes. Like catching air and doing three hundred and sixty s. And there's a bulldog that rides a skateboard there, too. I've heard of that. You should see him. It's quite amazing. Sure it is. Like, he can't catch air or whatever, but just the fact that a dog is using a skateboard is pretty awesome. So, should we talk about some tricks? Let's. Well, almost every trick on earth is based on the Ollie. The trick named after Alan Ollie Gelfand. He invented it in the early 1970s, mid 1970s, and that is basically when you jump up in the air. And if you've seen skateboarders do it, you might wonder, how on earth do they jump up in the air and have that skateboard seemingly attached to their feet? I never was very good at it. Oh, really? No. I could all be pretty good. I was more of a sidewalk surfer than a trick aerial guy. Yeah, well, I wasn't a trick aerial guy either, but I could alllly well explain the Ollie. Okay, so the Ollie is, let's say you're on your board and you're on a flat surface. You kick the tail of the skateboard down really hard against the ground. And what this does is this exerted force allows you to overcome the force of gravity. And since you're jumping at the same time you jump into the air yeah. You're taking off your own downward pressure on the board. So the front of the board, the nose goes up high in the air, and the fact that you slap the tail against the ground means the tail comes up into the air until it's even with the nose and the board's flat in the air and it looks like it's attached to your feet if you do it right. Yeah. And all of a sudden, you and the border 4ft into the air and then you come back down and land it. That's an ollie. It's funny, you mentioned 4ft. The world record. Danny Waynewright of I think he's from England, recorded a 44 and a half inch Ollie. Wow. It's pretty amazing. Yeah. Was that like standing still? No, it's like they just set up something to jump over. Got you. And keep adding layers until you can't jump any higher. Yeah. And then you've got like 10ft to get going and then just pop up and it looks like it's attached to his feet. The ollie is so integral to so many other tricks that it's almost not a trick any longer in and of itself. It's like the basic mechanic of whatever other trick that follows. Right. But you pretty much can't do anything without ollieing. And that's how those guys originally caught air on vert skating, was to ollie off of the coping the top, and then you would catch some serious air because you already had that extra momentum behind you as well. All right, so we'll talk about a few of the terms here in a minute. That if you watch the X Games and you're not familiar and you hear these words, we're going to clear it up for you right after this message. Josh, my friend, do you know where your passport is right now? Well, you better dig it up because Adventure is around the corner and there's a card that's going to get you closer with the City Advantage Platinum Select Card. Every swipe earns you Advantage miles and loyalty points, and two times Advantage miles at restaurants and gas stations so your everyday purchases can take your travel to new heights. Plus, card members get access to built in travel benefits. For example, your first check bag is free on domestic travel, so you and your family have room to pack for every possibility, like coming home with extra souvenirs. And with preferred boarding, you'll be in your seat sooner, ready for takeoff into Adventure. The hard part is deciding where you'll go first, because when you earn 50,000 Advantage Bonus miles after qualifying purchases, adventure is on so fast in your seatbelt and put away your tray table because there's so much world to see. And the city advantage. Platinum Select Card is your ticket. You can learn more at City comAdventure and travel on with Cityadvantage. What if you were a global bank who wanted to supercharge your audit system so you tap IBM to UNSILO your data and with the help of AI, start crunching a year's worth of transactions against thousands of compliance controls. Now you're making smarter decisions. Faster operating costs are lower, and everyone from your auditors to your bankers feels like a million bucks. Let's create smarter ways of putting your data to work. IBM. Let's create learn more@ibm.com. Okay, we're back. Chuck, we're going to talk about the names of tricks, different types of tricks. Yeah. Alright, so if you've ever watched the X Games and you hear the sort of annoying announcers admittedly using all these words you've never heard, we're going to explain what some of these words mean just to help you follow along a little bit. That's all right. You might hear feet got front side there or whatever. Front side is when you're facing the obstacle and performing a trick, as opposed to back side when you're back is to the obstacle. Yeah. Like you're basically going backwards on the skateboard. That's right. Let's see. 180 is a pretty basic trick, but it's where you ollie and you and the board turn 180 degrees to facing the opposite direction. Yeah, like you go up the ramp and then you turn in mid air and you come right back down. You can also do it on a flat surface or you could 180 onto like a park bench or something, whatever. But the 180 also kind of forms a basis for a lot of other tricks, especially vert tricks, like three hundred and sixty s and five forty s all the way up to 1080s and you can grab the side of your board and just do all sorts of cool stuff. Yeah. Tony Hawk famously completed the first 900 degree turn, and for many years they thought that was it. Until a twelve year old named Tomshar in 2012 pulled off the first 1080. And they filmed that. It wasn't in competition. The first one in competition was a guy named Mitch Brusco. He did it. The X Games. And that is three full rotations in the air. And obviously you have to land it successfully for it to count and to live and live. And it's amazing, man. Three full rotations in the air. These dudes are getting up super high now. Yeah. You ever heard the word fakie? I have. Fakey is basically where you remain in your regular stance, but you're going backwards, so you're doing like you're going into a backside trick. That's right. A pop shove. It is when you do an ollie with the 180, but your body isn't moving. You're just popping up in the air and flipping the skateboard around underneath you and then landing on it. Yeah. Then we talked about grinding. There's a couple of ways you can grind. A true grind is when you're on the actual axles, so you got to be going forward or you can go sideways and grind on your board. And it's called the board slide. Yes. Or a rail slide. And then the kick flip, of course, is the one that you see people busting butt on, which I've pulled off once. That's right. The famous Josh Kick flip. And then of course, Chuck, there's the manual, which is another way to say a wheelie. I was good at those front side manual. Yeah. Backside manual. I could do like I was not good. I think that's becoming clear. Like, I thought it was cool if I could do a little wheelie and do a little 180 turn on the ground. Yeah, no, I'm with you, man. I understand. I wasn't very good either. But Chuck, I had years of enjoyment. Twice. Third wave and fourth wave. Yeah. Love skateboarding. Love it. I just love skateboarding. I think everybody should go out and skateboard all the time. She's never going to be one of those old men that quit grinding my rail. Well, yeah, if I had a nice rail out front, I'd be like, hit the hell off of my rail. But it's not like I hate skateboarding in general. Yeah, but you chip in and help build a half pipe in your neighborhood away from my really nice rail. Right. That's a good idea. If you do want to try skateboarding, obviously these days, with the safety consciousness of people, you should get a helmet and some knee pads and elbow pads, and if you're smart, maybe some wrist guards. Although that might not be cool. Well, no, actually, that's another reason skate parks often go in use is because there's local ordinances that says you have to wear a helmet and pads. And of course, skaters are like, that sucks. Yeah. But the wrist guards, that's a common injury because you'll often go to brace yourself with your arms when you fall. And they say to try and fall on your fleshy parts of your body, but you're really kind of at the whim of where gravity takes you, I think, at that point. Well, you know, that was another reason I think I wasn't ever that good, is because back when I was a kid, they were all fleshy parts. It's hard to get air. We should have been safe. It was when you fell. It was. You got anything else? No, man, that's it. Skateboarding. If you want to know more about it, you should type skateboarding into the word search bar@howstepforks.com. That's the first thing you should do. You should follow that up by watching skate videos and go and buy a skateboard and go skating. I want to get along board now. Oh, yeah, yeah. That's the old man style. Yeah, just cruising. Get on a flat surface and use it as carving the concrete way. A mode of transportation. Yes. Are you going to learn to do handstands on it? No. Let's see. Since I said handstands and then laugh, that means it's time for listener mail. I'm going to call this josh, what are you hiding? And I'm glad to get this email because I knew I wasn't crazy. So let's just get into this. You know, what can I say? I don't even remember this most recent reference. All right, well, let's just explain here what's going on. This is from Ben. Ben says, hey, guys, I've been living like a troglobidic troglodyte for the past six years because I just discovered your amazing podcast a few weeks ago. His penance I've been listening to several per day and have since gone to over 100. So he's binging. He said, just notice something. And during the Kincat scuba dive episode, not one of our best, on August 12, 2008, josh goes into detail about he was a certified scuba diver, and the one time he was in open water, he not only got seasick, but also got a slight case of the bends due to surfacing too quickly. Then in 2013, in the Diving Bell episode, Chuck says, I thought I remembered many moons ago you mentioned something about getting the bins. And Josh quickly and confidently retorted, I've never had the bins. So I know this is almost five years later, but it begs the question, what are you trying to hide? Josh, you have answered some of the greatest long lasting questions in history, but this is one of the few times where you simply added another mystery into the pile of the enigma and conspiracy that is our world. So have you ever had the Benz? I'm 1990, I was skating down a hill and fell in, hit my head. Yeah, I would call it a mild case of the Benz. Okay, so you just don't remember denying you had the Benz. Right. Okay. All right. Well, there's your answer. Yeah, well, not only do I not remember denying having the Benz, when I denied having the Benz, I had forgotten that I'd had the Benz before. And again, this is a very mild case. But it wasn't just sea sickness. It was directly related to having just spent a half an hour underwater. All right, so I would call that the case of the Ben. I think that clears it up, then. That is from Ben Helms from Mount Shasta, California. I'm sure Ben will be unsatisfied with your explanation of Ben. I just forgot. That's pretty much it. Yeah. Let's see. If you want to get in touch with Chuck and I, you can tweet to us at SYSK podcast. You can join us on Facebook comicunnow. You can see us on our YouTube channel. Just look up Josh and Chuck on YouTube. Tons of fun there. And send us an email to stuffpodcasteddiscovery.com and really and join us at our home on the web stuffytour.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit houseofworks.com. 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8cd96fd2-6592-437d-9fab-ae91011ef5f9	Short Stuff: Fainting At The Sight Of Blood	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/short-stuff-blood-fainting	As many as 15% of people faint when they see blood! And it’s not just blood that gets them. It can be an injury or even a needle. Learn about this fascinating phobia in this episode. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.	As many as 15% of people faint when they see blood! And it’s not just blood that gets them. It can be an injury or even a needle. Learn about this fascinating phobia in this episode. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.	Wed, 11 May 2022 09:44:04 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2022, tm_mon=5, tm_mday=11, tm_hour=9, tm_min=44, tm_sec=4, tm_wday=2, tm_yday=131, tm_isdst=0)	12232150	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh and there's Chuck and here's Jerry. And if you faint at the sight of blood or even discussions about it, you should probably stop listening now. That's right, because it is a thing. It doesn't bother me. I don't love the side of blood, but I'm not too easily grossed out. I can watch a surgery on TV and I'm fine. I like riding naked in blood. That's how much I love blood. Oh, good Lord. Covering my entire gigantic body. So anyway, because I can do that, I clearly don't have Chuck particular phobia about feigning at the sight of blood. And that's really what the whole thing is coming down to, as we'll see, but feigning itself in this particular kind of fainting. And this is the thing, like, people actually do this. It's not like some movie or TV trope, right, as well. Yes. But when you faint at the site of blood, there's a specific physiological faint that's going on. There's different kinds of fainting, and this one in particular is what's called a vasovagal syncopy. And vasil refers to your blood vessels. Vagal refers to the vagus nerve, which played a huge starring role in our episode on what happens in the brain during an orgasm. That's right. The reason the vagus nerve gets a shout out in this name for this type of fainting is because it plays a role in controlling the speed and rhythm of your heart. And then syncopy is just another word for fainting, for loss of consciousness. That's right. We know some things and don't know other things. We know that it is a legit phobia. It's about three to 15% of people have this where they faint at the sight of blood. And we also know that it's not just the sight of blood. It can be an injury that you witness even, like, I think you pointed out here, like someone slamming their hand in a car. Or it can be needle centric, like if someone's coming at you to give you a shot, you can pass out. So the technical name for the phobia is BII blood injury injection phobia. Right. And it is a phobia because there's no real danger or anything to truly be feared from hypodermic needle or something like that. Even though there is plenty of danger from it, it's still considered an irrational fear. You know what I'm saying? Sure. You're not in a horror movie and they're not going to put it in your eyeball. Right. And so with phobias, BII is actually a peculiar type, because with vasovagal syncopy, you're fainting because your heart has slowed down enough that your blood pressure drops, which robs your brain of the very important blood. It needs to function correctly, and you lose consciousness until your heart regains a normal rhythm again, which it does on its own. And that means that BII is its own kind of phobia, because with most phobias, that's not how this goes down at all. No. With most phobias, you're going to have a spike in your heart rate initially, and then that'll probably lead to a fight or flight type of thing. It will really ramp everything up. And with BII, you do have that initial very brief spike in your heart rate, but then it just goes boo, and everything slows down and you hit the bricks, basically. Yeah. So that makes it very strange. As far as they know, there's no other phobia that produces this effect except for the blood injury injection phobia. But after digging a little deeper into this kind of odd malady, frankly, they found that not only is there a fear component like in other phobias, there's also a disgust component, and that people who have blood injury injection phobia are experiencing levels of disgust that are even higher than their levels of fear. So it's just a really strange phobia all around, and it does seem to be its own type. Yeah, and it's not funny, but it does make for funny moments in movies and TV shows when someone comes running into a room and see something awful, and they go, oh, my God. And that's the initial spike, because it does kind of follow it scientifically, and then they just go and hit the deck. And it is a trope for a reason, but it is interesting in that scientifically, that's kind of exactly what happens. Right. So you want to take a break and then come back and talk more about biphobia. Hey, everyone. When you're running a small business, every second counts, and you can't afford to waste a single moment. So why are you still taking time out of your day to go to the post office? And you could be using Stamps.com. Yeah. For more than 20 years, stamps.com has been indispensable for over 1 million businesses. Because Stamps.com gives you access to all the post office and Ups shipping services you need right from your computer. That's right. You can streamline your shipping process with Stamps.com easy to use software. All you need is your regular computer and printer. No special supplies or equipment necessary, and you can get discounts you can't find anywhere else, like up to 30% off USPS. Rates and 86% off ups. So stop wasting time and start saving money. When you use Stamps.com to mail and ship, sign up with promo code stuff for a special offer that includes a four week trial plus free postage and a digital scale. No long term commitments or contracts. Just go to Stamps.com, click the microphone at the top of the home page and enter code stuff. One explanation for blood injury injection phobias is that it's a gene. It comes from some gene or mutation that's passed down. We don't know very much about it, but if you consider that it is conferred genetically, that suggests that there's like an evolutionary aspect to this, that somehow it made sense through natural selection, but it seems like the opposite of what would make sense through natural selection. Like if you're approached with danger or injury or something like that, or you see someone else being injured, you would think you'd probably be in danger, too yeah. Running away really fast, fighting back. You would think those would increase your odds of spreading your genes rather than fainting dead away. But there's actually a theory that says no, it kind of makes sense if you look at it this way. Yeah. And it's a theory, but the theory goes that let's say you're in a battle with Tuktuk and the gang, and Tuktuk gets club on the head and blood squirts out everywhere, and you go and you pass out and hit the rocks. Then the other invading I don't even know what era we are with Tuktuk anymore. What would they be? Tuktuk existed about 10,000 years before Utzi, so I'm going to say he existed about 18,000 years ago, prior to the advent of agriculture. All right, but what were they called? Those weren't neanderthals, were they? No, they were modern humans. They just hadn't given themselves a name, as far as we know. Yeah. All right. So the other modern humans, the invading modern humans, they run up at tuktuk's friend, who has now passed out on the ground, and they just think he's dead, and they walk right by him like it's the old play dead during battle thing. Right. Which is not to think of it. Yeah. The other thing is, if it was Tuktuk himself who'd been injured and fainted at the sight of his own blood sure. Because of that drop in blood pressure, he would be less likely to bleed out from that wound or would bleed out more slowly, which could, in fact, also save his life. Too not a bad degree. No, it also kind of is, depending, but it's one of the few we've got because we just don't understand it. We understand the physiological component about what happens with vasovagal syncopy. It's how the sight of blood or somebody shutting their hand in a car door or a hypodermic needle triggers that. That's where we kind of lose our grasp on that. And one of the reasons why what would you say, like three to 15% of the population? That's a really wide estimate. Too yeah. 15% is definitely significant, but 3%, that's a big gap between those two numbers, and it's a big gap in our understanding. One of the reasons why we understand it so little is because by its very nature, that condition prevents people from going to the places where they could be treated and have their conditions documented and have estimates be a lot more accurate, which are like doctor's offices and clinics and things like that. They avoid those places like the plague, because those are the places where people get stuck with needles and have blood drawn and go when they have a huge gash in their forehead, like they don't want to go anywhere near those places. Yeah. Because you go into that room and they say, well, let's see what's going on with you. Let me draw some blood after I slam my hand in this drawer looking for the needle, and it's coming at you from all directions, so you're not going to go in there. It can be tied to something called medical procedure anxiety, which sort of speaks for itself. Yeah. So you're not going into any hospital. So it's really hard to get great information about this. But our old friend cognitive behavioral therapy can help you out, according to WebMD. And there's a Swedish psychologist named Lars GUERRIN UST, who apparently is the best in the business. And it is like, with a lot of CBT, it's self exposure. But what you do is and it sort of makes sense. What they do is they tell you to whenever you think of anything like this, and I think they start out by even saying, like, just think of driving to a blood donation center and put that in your brain. And you really want to tense up your muscles all at once, everything in your body, because that'll just get your heart rate going higher than it normally would be to get it elevated. And that's a way to combat and then they just make it worse from there until they are basically playing doctor dress up and coming in with the needle. Yeah. So they teach you how to stave off fainting at step one. Right. And then after that, when they're exposing you, it goes from making you imagine you're going to get blood drawn to actually showing you videos of people getting blood drawn to, like you said, your therapist coming in like he's a phlebotomist with a syringe and a tourniquet and actually putting the tourniquet on your arm. And the whole time you're just tensing your core so hard trying to keep from passing out. And it sounds awful. And exposure therapy is awful when you step back and look at it, but it actually does work. And what they say is that possibly in as few as, like, three to five sessions of learning applied tension and then doing exposure therapy, you might actually be able to look at blood and not faint, which is really something pretty good. I think if I was the therapist, I would dress up like Nurse Ratchet. I would go full bore and then the person and afterwards say, like, why are you wearing that wig? Why are you dressed like that? Yeah, I don't know. I think it just increases the anxiety, is what I've found. I would dress up like the main character at the end of Promising Young Woman. That's what I come at. You like, wow, yeah. Scary pink wig, rubber nurse. Yeah. That's trying to picture you like that, it's pretty frightening. Stop that. I don't give you permission to picture me like that? Well, there's a million people picturing that right now, so one other thing, Chuck. The reason why aside from, like, it's dangerous to just faint dead away, like you can hit your head, you can break an arm, all sorts of bad things can happen to you. But one other reason why it's important to get treatment if you do have a blood injury, injection phobia, is because, like you said, there's that medical procedure, anxiety, that keeps you from going into the doctor's office. And that means that you're not going in for, like, vaccines or cancer screenings or wellness checkups because you're avoiding the doctor's office. So there's a lot of actual negative effects that it can have on your life. So if you do have that, maybe go check into getting treated because apparently they've got it figured out and you can not faint at the sight of blood or a needle anymore. That's right. You got anything else? I have nothing else, sir. Well, then that's it for short stuff. And short stuff is out. Stuff you should know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts my Heart radio, visit the Iheart radio app, apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows."
3f8aa5d2-5461-11e8-b6d0-efd83cd7c4bc	Selects: How Lighthouses Work	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/selects-how-lighthouses-work	People have been burning fires on cliffs as long as other people have used boats, but after the Age of Exploration, lighthouses took their unmistakable form and the great stories of the people who kept the lights around the world began. Learn all about them in this classic episode.	People have been burning fires on cliffs as long as other people have used boats, but after the Age of Exploration, lighthouses took their unmistakable form and the great stories of the people who kept the lights around the world began. Learn all about them in this classic episode.	Sat, 20 Mar 2021 09:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2021, tm_mon=3, tm_mday=20, tm_hour=9, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=5, tm_yday=79, tm_isdst=0)	43371287	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"What if you were a major transit system facing cyber attacks so you partner with IBM to keep your data network and apps protected. Now you can tackle threats without coming to a halt. Let's create cybersecurity that keeps your business on track. IBM let's create learn more@ibm.com. You do it all without breaking a sweat, and you do it all in style. That's why Infinity fully reimagined the QX 60 to help you take on everything with ease. A luxury SUV as functional as it is stylish, as versatile as it is serene. Available features like a panoramic moonroof, ample cargo space, and massaging front seats. Introducing the all new 2022 Infinity QX 60, designed to help you take on life in style. Visit infinityusacom to learn more. Now, with extremely limited availability, contact your local retailer for inventory information. Hey, everyone. Happy Saturday. I hope you have your breakfast cereal and your Saturday morning cartoons all taken care of. It is in select time June 30, 2016. And we're talking about how lighthouses work. This is a really cool podcast. I remember really enjoying this one because I had done some research on Lighthouses for a movie script I was writing, so this one was really pretty key for that. So here we go with how lighthouses work. Welcome to stuff you should know a production of iHeartRadio. Hi and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W, Chuck, Bryant and Jerry over there. And this is the Lighthouse episode, take one. Can I just go ahead and say that I love lighthouses? Do you love love already before? Like, you fell in love with them and researching both? I grew up going to Honey Island, South Carolina, not every year, but we went quite a few times near Beaufort, and they have a lighthouse, and it was one of my favorite things to do as a kid, was climbing the lighthouse. And if I'm near a lighthouse now, ever, I will go climb it the outside. I will seek it out and then jimmy up the outside like spiderman. No, I will seek it out and go look at it and then climb it. And this article just made me love it even more. I have a precious memories lighthouse, too. Let's hear. Marble Head lighthouse near Kataba Island. Which is where? What state? By sandusky in Ohio. Okay. On Lake Erie. Yeah. And it was the same thing when I was a kid. We used to go vacation on Kapaba Island, and we would go to that lighthouse every once a while. I don't remember ever going inside, though. Oh, really? It might not have been open because there's no reason why you would go to a lighthouse more than once and not go inside, climb it up. But I don't remember ever going in. But maybe you were just like, yeah, it looks nice from down here. Yeah, I would have climbed it. I was a climber. Yeah, me too. But I think the other thing that factors in for me is I really love antiquated systems that could still be viable. Like post apocalypse. You could fire up lighthouses again. Sure. Yeah. And it would work. Yeah, it would. And I think that's a weird thing with me, that I love stuff that's still around that you could use, if need be. Right. I've never really looked at my environment that way to see what I was going to be standing after an apocalypse. Maybe I should. Well, I don't know about standing, but let's say there was some weird domino effect type thing, like that movie where electricity and Internet and everything went out right. And people turned on each other. You could still light a lighthouse, and Fox could find their safe harbor. What movie are you talking about? The domino effect. Oh, really? There's a movie like that called that? Yeah. I didn't know that. I think it was called with Elizabeth Shu and Agent Molder. Agent Cooper from Twin Peaks. Kyle what's? His face? McLaughlin and he is so great. Is the Mare in Portlandia? Yeah, he is good. I love that guy. I think it's called the domino effect. All right. If not, that was essentially what happened. There was a domino effect, like a blackout, right? Yeah. And it created a domino effect that things kind of spun out of control. You're talking about? Fury Road. Oh, right. Sorry. So, Chuck, I love lighthouses, too, but I knew virtually nothing about them until researching this. If you think about them, though, it's like you were saying, after the apocalypse, they'll still be standing. You just need to replace the electricity with the fire, and then you'd have basically what lighthouses have always been, which is some sort of highly visible signal. For most of the time, it was a fire, either a wood fire, coal fire, tar fire that you could see that was meant to signal to ships that, hey, man, there's some treacherous waters around here. Yeah, it's one of the main things that they did. And as the light got better and better, one of the roles that lighthouses play was not just to say, careful in this area. We went to the trouble of building a lighthouse here because it's so treacherous. But also, check out these rocks. Yeah. See this? With this light, there's some rocks there. Yeah. Like literally lighting up a harbor because there was no light otherwise. Right. And then the other role that they play is in the daytime. Right. Because lighthouses, I don't think that they actually keep them on 24 hours a day, highly inefficient. On a cloudy day, if it's foggy, they'll turn it on and start sounding the fog horns, which we'll talk about. But for the most part, in the daytime, it's off. But a lighthouse still serves a purpose during the day because they don't decorate them the way that they decorate them just for looks. They do it so you can differentiate one lighthouse from another. Yeah. Like this one looks like a barber pole, so I know I'm near North Carolina's. Cape Hatteras. Exactly right. Yeah. And there's like a whole book called The Light List where it has pictures of them. And did you get your hands on that? No, I meant to look it up, but I ran out of time. I'll bet it's neat. I bet it's neat, too. By the way, that movie is called The Trigger Effect. I have heard of that one. There was a movie called The Domino Effect, but it's not the same one. What about the butterfly effect? Remember that garbage? That was the cooch, right? Yeah. Man. Why does he haunt us? I don't know. He comes up a lot. All right, where were we? Were we in the lighthouse? We were talking about the day mark. Yeah, pretty neat. But there's also what's called the light signature. Right? Yes. We're going back to nighttime again. Yeah, sorry. To keep reversing the sun's going up and down. Well, each of the lights off. It got weird. It is a little weird. Yeah. Sorry. Jerry, are you still here? She's here. So at night, the light has its own flashing signature. Light signature. And that's also in the light book too. And there's actually a number of different ways that a light can flash. Right. Who knew? I didn't know you've got the fixed. And that is of course, if you just have a light on saying we're open it shines continuously. Come on in. It's a Waffle house. You have the occulting light. I love this one. The creepiest of all lights. It has longer periods of light than dark and a flashing light has longer periods of dark than light. So occulting and flashing are just sort of inverse of one another. There are two sides of the same coin. That's right. You can't have light without the dark is the whole premise. And then you have the isophase light that's equal light and dark with its signature blips. And then a group flashing light. Super 70. Yeah. Has regular repeating number of flashing lights the same pattern. Right? Yeah. And there's actually a really famous one of those, the menu's ledge light in Boston. It was very famously known as I think it's still the I love you light because it would flash one, then it would flash four, and then we flash three. So I-L-O-V-E-Y-O-U. So it's like a very romantic light. That's how people took it. I didn't make that up. Oh, see, I thought I hate cow. That's the secondary way that it's known. The people in Boston are known for their soft side. I know. That's why I love you. Yeah. They're prone to break into sobs and the public on the street frequently just walking around thinking about the beauty of life. And then finally we have our alternating I'm sorry. We have the Morse code, which is what it sounds like. It mimics Morse code with dots and dashes. That's Mercedes code. Dots and dashes, man, to spell out things like, I love you, but that's not what mano's ledge does. No, it's not Morse code. It's just one, four and three. Yeah. And people took it that way. I hate cow. And when those ledge actually is pretty awesome to begin with, it's under 10ft of water at high tide, and they had to build it, I think, in the 19th century, whenever the tide was out. So they only had, like, X amount of hours in a day during low tide when the ledge was exposed. Interesting. It's still there. It's tough cookie. Wow. But, Josh, these are all sort of modern. Modernish, modernish, but although old, they can go back to see Homers Iliad. They mention a lighthouse. Yeah. Crazy. And I mean, like, we're talking basically a huge bonfire on a cliff. Yeah, exactly. Not like Mino's ledge or anything, but it still qualifies as a lighthouse. It was the premise behind it. Yeah, exactly. I sounded weirdly defensive just now about that still lighthouse. Yeah. Like you said, you would have, like, either wood or coal burning on a long pole. And then finally, in the 18th century, they started using lanterns, which is a little more probably controllable. Yeah. The problem was they kept running into is that the oil or coal would smudge the lantern, the glass around the lantern, so the glass top the whole thing, where the light is that you can walk around, and that's the lantern of the lighthouse. And if you're burning a coal fire in there, it's going to get sooty pretty quick. Yeah. That's one of the main jobs of the lighthouse keepers, to wash windows. Right. The problem is, in between washings, which they did at least once a day, normally the light would degrade as the soot built up. Right. So they figured out, we need better fuel than coal or tar. We thought they used tar. Let's burn the dirtiest thing on the planet. And they were working with what they had at the time. So they figured out, especially in New England, that they could use things like blubber and lard, which they did. Yeah. From Wales. Burns a lot cleaner. And then they also figured out, hey, you know what? This flame is okay, but wouldn't it be great pre electricity, if we had something like electricity to beam this thing out there for miles and miles? And a very smart physicist from France named Augustine Fresnel. Frenell. I like Fresno. That's cool. Fernel said, all right, take my lens and do with it what you will. And he invented the Fornel lens. He did, 1822. And it's like what you would think it would be. It's a bunch of prisms that through magic can cast a beam, like 20 something miles out to the ocean. It's amazing. They concentrate in that. They gather light from the top and the bottom and in the middle, and basically just shoot it all back to a single magnifying point. Amazing. That just goes 28 miles. Yeah, that's a long time. Yeah, and that changed everything and did a great job of handling the load until electricity would come around. And that's when everyone was like, you know what? We don't need these silly flames anymore. Let's just plug in a light. But you can still use a for now lens with a light, and it's even brighter now. True. Like today's, modern lighthouses use or have produced lights between 10,000 candelas and a million candelas. What's a candela? Did you see this reference? Like, this is the worst analogy I've ever run across. What did it say? A candela is 1200 the brightness of a 50 watt light bulb. Oh, okay. Yeah, I know exactly how much a candela is. I also saw that it's roughly the brightness of a candle, which makes sense. And that's a much better frame of reference. So the brightness of a million candles burning in the same place. Right. That's how bright modern lighthouses are. Okay. Not 1250 watts. Let's take a break. Yes. Seriously, let's go find out who wrote that and write a strongly worded letter. Okay. These days, you use your personal info to do just about everything, especially when you're online. And guess what? With all that info just floating around out there, it can make the Internet a practical gold mine for identity thieves. And stealing your identity, it turns out, can be dangerously easy. Which is not good. But now it's easy to protect yourself with LifeLock by Norton. Yes. LifeLock monitors your info and alerts you to potential identity threats. And if you are a victim of identity theft, a dedicated US based restoration specialist will work to fix it. Identity thefts have had it easy for far too long. Now, finally, it's your turn. Just remember, no one can prevent all identity theft or monitor all transactions at all businesses. But everyone can save up to 25% off their first year by going to LifeLock.com stuff. That's LifeLock.com stuff for 25% off your first year. LifeLock identity theft protection starts here. What if you were a gigantic snack food maker and you had to wrestle a massively complex supply chain to satisfy cravings from Tokyo to Toledo? So you partner with IBM Consulting to bring together data and workflows so that every driver and merchandiser can serve up jalapeno, sesame and chocolate cover goodness with real time data driven precision. Let's create supply chains that have an appetite for performance. IBM, let's create. Learn more at IBM. Comconsulting well, that got ugly. So I feel like we're still talking about the history of lighthouses, right? Yeah, sure. Well, they were made of wood early on, but the problem with a wooden lighthouse and a massive burning fire of tar is that they can burn down and be washed out to sea or in rough weather can just be knocked plumb over by waves. But like I said, they used what they had at the time, and over the years, they got sturdier and sturdier with steel and concrete and stuff like that. Well, even before over the years? Before over the years, yeah. Ferris alexandria, one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world was this lighthouse at the mouth of the harbor to Alexandria, Egypt. And it was around I'm not quite sure when it was around. I think the which one? The Pharaohs of Alexandria, 270 BC. My friend. That thing was pretty sturdy. It took a massive earthquake to bring it down. It was made of masonry. It wasn't made of wood. So it looks like lighthouse construction got dumber as the years went on. And then it got smart again. Then I got smart again. It just dipped down in the wood era and then came back up. Well, what you normally have is the lighthouse, which can be just a lighthouse. Or there might be a fog signal building. There might be a boat house. You might have a little house or apartment attached to it. Right. And you might live there with your family in a very remote part of the world all by yourself or with a couple of other dudes. Yeah. And take turns and take shifts. That's called a stag station. Yeah. And I think the other thing that appeals to me about lighthouses is I could have lived that life. Oh, yeah? Yeah. I could have seen myself dropping out. You got a neck beard. Yeah. All you need is, like, a cable knit sweater. Living up there all by myself. Corn, cobb, pipe. Really? Yeah. Grow my own crops and just sit up there and be quiet. No one bugging me. It's like it appeals. Well, did not know that. I did not picture you as a lighthouse keeper. I could totally do it. Or a light keeper, for short. And this is another thing that I thought was remarkable in this article you might as well mention it, is that if there is a lighthouse near you that nobody operates, it is possible that you could own that lighthouse. Yes. For $1. The National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act of $2000. It got a process together where the Coast Guard, which is what runs the lighthouse, biz now the lighthouse racket. You can basically start a nonprofit or have a nonprofit, and at no cost, they will give you a decommissioned lighthouse if you maintain it and keep it open to the public. Yeah. For the most part, it's like preservation societies for Hampton, but if nobody wants it, they put it up for auction, and then you can do what you want to. I can live out my dream. Yeah. And I wouldn't have to do the windows either. I could just live up there and be a crusty old permit. We could do a Kickstarter to help you live out your dream truck. Well, I have a fan. Let's do a few more years of stuff you should know first though, before you go, okay? Okay. Yeah. All right. So back to more modern times. We're building them out of concrete and steel at this point, they're a little more sturdy. You got your little keeper's house. You're not getting paid much money. How much money, dude? Not much. So this article says that they earned about $200 annually in the late 19th century. I went on to the GWiz West Egg inflation calculator in 18.90. That was five. Today your provisions are covered though, right? Yeah. At the very least, your room is I don't know about bored. I bet you all the way large you can eat. Yeah. Now imagine they take care of stuff because you can't leave and go shopping. Imagine just have everything shipped to you. Again, ideal. I love that. Don't have to go out, you don't have to spend any money. It's like web van coming to you. You're banking that five grand a year, essentially. Wow, man, when you get into like, lighthouse mode, you're lowering the standards. You're like, man, I'm making five grand, people are bringing me food, I don't have to talk to anybody. Yeah, that's awesome. It's like your fantasy. That's hilarious. So that lens we were talking about, we didn't use that in the United States for a while because the way I read this is we kind of cheaped out when it was being run by this guy, Steven Pleasant, for 30 years, 1820 to 1852, 32 years. He ran an efficient, some might say chintzi program to where he was like, we don't need those fancy French lenses. Take these cruddy versions. They probably wouldn't even a lens, just like a mirror reflector or something, if that. Yeah, maybe a piece of metal that somebody had to just stand behind the light with to reflect it. My mute assistant. Right. Be quiet. But then finally the US government got involved and said, you know what, we need to regulate this. Well, no, they were involved. That's when see? Yes. From 1716 to 1789. That was not run by the US government. No, it wasn't until Alexander Hamilton almost got in a shipwreck off the coast of, I think, North Carolina, and he went back and said, hey, I think we need some lighthouses. The federal government needs to get involved. And so I think the 19th piece of legislation the US Congress ever passed was to establish the Lighthouse Board. The US lighthouse establishment initially is what it was called. Okay. And socialist program. He said, the federalities are going to run this thing right now. And you know what? Things went downhill, improved, proved, everyone who's critical big government, right? Yeah, but there were a lot of lighthouses at the time. By 1900, we had about 1000 lighthouses. Well, and by one 9000 hundred government had reformed its reputation. Like, seriously, the world round for the mid 19th century, the US lighthouse system was second rate at best. Yeah. They just had a terrible reputation. And I guess it sounds like they got rid of Steven Pleasant, whose name is basically mud these days, and the quality went up. Yeah. And that's when they established the lighthouse aboard, which is, I think, what you were thinking to shape things up. In 1852, they said, let's get some Frenel lenses for all these lighthouses. Finally we can be like the rest of the world. Peasant's dead. Did you know the Statue of Liberty was a lighthouse? I don't know if I knew it, but when I read it, I'm like, well, yeah, but I don't know if it unlocked some memory or if I'm just like, that's just too obvious. Same thing that I didn't know. Yeah. I was like, surely I knew that. Right, right. Yeah. That was it. For 15 years, it was a lighthouse in New York Harbor. Yeah. Which is pretty neat. And then by 1930, when electricity was effective and rampant, you didn't need these fires burning or candles burning or whale blubber. No, but there were a lot of lighthouses where that were on, like, islands or on offshore ledges, like Mino's Ledge or Eddie Stone in England. The technology to run electricity out there just was not around. Yeah, of course. So they were still using oil of various types to fuel these things well into the 20th century, into the 60s, easily. Yeah. And they still had people working there, living in the lighthouse or on the property. Into the 1960s, it was definitely more rare. But that's when the Coast Guard brought about their lighthouse automation and modernization program, and that pretty much dwindled by the end of that decade. It dwindled it down to 60 that still had people working there. Oh, really? Yeah, 60 out of a thousand today. There's one in Boston. The Brewster Island one. Little Brewster Island. Little Brewster Island. I was confusing it with Big Brewster. Well, there might be one Brewster's Millions Island. Little Brewster. That's right. It was the first one in the United States. 1716 was when it was built, and then that one was replaced in 1783. And it's the second oldest working one behind Sandy Hook, New Jersey. Is that right. And the person that lives there is basically living there as a tour guide. Not necessarily like guiding boats into harbor, although they may do both. No, I think it's still working. Yeah. Well, then I guess they do both. They do dog duty. I saw Modern Marvels on lighthouses, and they interviewed one of the light keepers on Lil Brewster Island and they showed him, like, polishing the glass and everything. Yeah, but it's automated. I got the light itself. I see. So they upkeep and tour guide it, I think. Okay. But yeah, he's providing a function there is not just show. Maybe that's what I could do then. There you go. You should have heard that guy. He's like, I can't even begin to do it. But he was like a hardcore lightkeeper in Boston. Yeah, I can imagine. Although I wouldn't be the best person because Chuck silent lighthouse door isn't really you just sweep your arm in a room and turn on quietly. Leave. People ask questions. I just wrap them on the knuckles out. Alright, I'm getting all excited thinking about the prospects of living in a lighthouse. So go do some push ups and we'll come back right after this. These days, you use your personal info to do just about everything, especially when you're online. And guess what? With all that info just floating around out there, it can make the Internet a practical gold mine for identity thieves. And stealing your identity, it turns out, can be dangerously easy. Which is not good. But now it's easy to protect yourself with LifeLock by Norton yes, LifeLock monitors your info and alerts you to potential identity threats. And if you are a victim of identity theft, a dedicated US based restoration specialist will work to fix it. Identity thefts have had it easy for far too long. Now, finally, it's your turn. Just remember, no one can prevent all identity theft or monitor all transactions at all businesses. But everyone can save up to 25% off their first year by going to LifeLock.com stuff. That's LifeLock.com stuff for 25% off your first year. LifeLock identity theft protection starts here. What if you were a major transit system with billions of passengers taking millions of trips every year? You aren't about to let any cyber attacks slow you down. So you partner with IBM to build a security architecture to keep your data network and applications protected. Now you can tackle threats so they don't bring you to a grinding halt and everyone's going places, including you. Let's create cybersecurity that keeps your business on track. IBM let's create learn More@ibm.com what if we could change the world one relationship at a time? Don't miss the second season of Force Multiplier, the award winning podcast from iHeartRadio and Salesforce.org, which is out now. Yes. Listed in its host, Barrettunde Thurston connects with leaders and doers out there tackling some of today's biggest challenges, like climate change, education, access, global health. You'll hear from organizations like the Trevor Project, doctors Without Borders, and the University of Kentucky, who are using their platforms to maximize their impact. You'll also be introduced to action leaders like youth activist Juan Acosta and advocate Amy Allison, who are inspiring change in their day to day lives. So join them as they discuss new ways of collaborating and taking action. Listen to the second season of the iHeartRadio and Salesforce.org original podcast, force Multiplier on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcast. So, Chuck, say that you did live your life as a lightkeeper. What would it be like? First of all, what's your family background? Well, my dad was a fisherman probably. Actually, my great great grandfather was a fisherman. My grandfather was a lightkeeper. My dad was the son of a light keeper and my mom was a lightkeeper pirate Captain. Pirate Captain. Like Gin and Davis? Yeah. That's a good movie. She's awesome. Yeah. Jesse Thorne interviewed her recently on his Bullseye show. She's just like the best. And they were all excited in the office. Everyone was like, oh, man, gina Davis is the coolest. She supposedly was known for bringing cookies that she baked herself to interviews. Really? Yeah. She's a mental member. Yeah. Got a lot going on there. Julia Smith, who works at the Max Fine HQ and produces Judge Sean Hodgman said on her Facebook she was like, gina Davis is like the coolest aunt of all cool ants of all time. She was in Beetlejuice. Yeah, it doesn't get much cooler than that. She could just be a total jerk. And she's still awesome in Beetlejuice. Yeah. So anyway, hats off to you, Gina Davis. How did that come up? I don't even remember now. Your mom was a pirate captain. Alright. Gina Davis. Was that a shout out to Cut Throat Island? I guess, the movie. You're the one that said it. Yeah. Cutthroat island, huh? Is it the name of it? Yeah, it was that bad pirate movie. I loved it. That wasn't bad. It got bad press. It wasn't bad. It's funny, you like some of the most legendarily bad movies of all time. It wasn't that bad as far as just like, critics and you're like, yeah, man, ishtar. I never saw it. A wonderful movie. I've actually stayed away from Ishar. I also stayed away from Rock the Casba because I saw that it was basically an updated Ishtar. Did I even see that? I can't remember if I watched it one night. Rockwick ASBA. Yeah. Or if I wanted to and didn't like that's. How little of an impact it made. It's on Netflix, I think. I actually did watch it and it was just sort of like yeah. Not very good. Yes. No, ishtar is a pretty good code word to stay away from a movie. I never saw Ishtar. What else do I like that was bad or supposedly bad? Have you seen cuts? Rhode island. Sure. It's terrible. It's not happening. It's terrible. Okay. All right. So we were talking about the lineage, what might get you into the light keeping business. We were being coy and role playing, but that is true. It's a family business for the most part. Your parents or your father might have done it or you come from a long line of seafaring types at the very least. Yeah. You feel close to the sea. Yeah. Like, if you want to spend your time out there on a rocky point overlooking the waves all day long, like, you probably didn't come from Kansas to do so. They have wheat watchers. They just sit in the tower and. Watch the wheat and the flatness, they stand up. All of a sudden they're like, oh, my God, there's a wheat missing. There's a wheat. One thing we keep saying is men. That's because most of the lighthouse keepers were men. But not all. No, not at all. And not all of them were necessarily white men, either. There were some very famous legendary African American light keepers, too, and Life Savers as well. Surfmen is what they were called, too. Yeah. Because supposedly you're just there to provide light and signal, but when the s hits the F-R-I think you can say fan. Fan. Right. When the s hits the fan, brave lightkeepers were known to go out there and provide rescue. Yeah. And one of them was a woman named IDA Lewis, actually, American hero. She grew up on Lime Rock Island near Newport, Rhode Island, and Newport Harbor, and her dad was a lightkeeper, so she followed that tradition, and she actually started taking over the duties after her father had a stroke. And she just became a lightkeeper. But a very famous one for her life saving skills. Yeah. A dozen men over the years. No, actually 18 firm. They think it's as high as 25. Then I'm going to say dozens. She rescued her last person at age 63. Wow. Yeah. She's quite a lady. Yeah, that's spunk. But for the most part, and she's not the only one who saved lives. Like, there are plenty out there that did. But it was not an expected role of a lightkeeper. Right. Because the Coast Guard had a lifesaver house, usually nearby, a lighthouse, because the lighthouse was there in the first place, because that was a treacherous area. So it just makes sense to also put a life saving house there, because even with the lighthouse itself, the ship may still run the ground and there may be rescuing. And if you want to be thrilled, there's a really neat article that's posted on this podcast page about the Pea Island Life Saving House. By the way, the pre Coast Guard, we have the US. Life Saving Service. Right. Which is what that term comes from. Yeah. And then they merged everything together under Roosevelt. The lighthouses and the life saving service all came under the purview of the Coast Guard. Right. Yeah. We should do it on the Coast Guard. Sure. Remember that married couple that were both Coast guarders oh, yeah. That lobbied us for many years until they gave up. We're still thinking about you guys, and we're still going to do a Coast Guard podcast. Don't worry. Eventually, years and years later so pre 1939, when they made the Coast Guard is where you really can't find a whole lot of written history. Now. A lot of that has been lost to time, and they say here in this article that what we have now are stories from families that remain. Lore. Yeah. Lore. It's pretty neat. Yeah. And then chuck. So if you're in a lighthouse, even as remote and cut off as they are, if you hated it, you would still be like, at least I'm not working on a light ship. Yes. So before they had buoys, like modern buoys, today there's buoys out there. They're basically like floating lighthouses in areas that require some sort of warning but are just too far off land to build a lighthouse. They put buoys out there and today the buoys are like sometimes something like 40 ft in diameter. They're huge, massive things. But before buoys even, they would use something called light ships. And it's exactly what it sounds like. It's a lighthouse on a ship and it's in a very remote area. You are out there for months at a time. Yeah. You just sail out and anchor down and live there. Right. And the boats anchored all the time. You would have to go to and from the boat to shore. But while you're working there, it's just mind bogglingly awful. Yeah, I bet there's a lot of like insanity that would happen. Like when the fog rolled in. Before the evan of foghorns, you would have to yank the bells rope, the fog bell rope, every 10 seconds, 24 hours a day for as long as the fog was around. Crazy. Every 10 seconds you had to ring a bell. That was your job. And if you didn't, then you were risking the lives of anybody passing by in the area. So not cool, man. Not cool at all. No, but the light ships apparently were just about as bad as it got as far as boredom, loneliness, isolation, hatred of bells. The lightship had it all. You hate bells. I didn't. I never worked on a light ship. All right, but I'll bet they hated bells. Yeah, that's loud. You would hear that in your sleep if you rang a bell every 10 seconds for hours at a stretch. You're not going to get that out of your head. And even if you did, when you try to go to sleep, one of the guys on the next shift would be out there ringing the bell anyway. It drive you nuts. Let's talk about some famous lighthouses. Well, we already talked about the Pharaohs of Alexandria, which is the oldest known lighthouse and at the time they contain might have been the tallest thing on the planet at 450ft. That's super tall. Yeah, and it was masonry too. They found it in 1994 underwater at the bottom of the ocean. They found pieces of it in Alexandria harbor. I guess you mentioned Eddie Stone light already in Plymouth, England. I guess that's where the fine gin comes from. Yeah. Still hitting Plymouth up if anyone out there work for Plymouth. Oh man, it's such good gin. It's delicious. So it's Leopold's. Leopold's gin? Yes, it's American gin. Really good. Too good. That's my go to American gym. Nice. Although I like most American gins, but that's pretty good. Have you had st, George? I love that stuff. Yeah, there's three of them. One of them I do not care for at all. Really? But the other two I like. I'll bet it's the terra terroir you don't like. It's got a weird taste. Yes, people love it, but I don't appreciate it's own thing. It is its own thing. The fact that it doesn't have its own classification of gin like Old Tom or Jennifer or something like that. It should have its own thing. Yeah, like Foot gin. I love that stuff. It tastes weird, dude. It's really good. You know what it's really good with? Have you ever had fever tree bitter lemon? No. It's like a lemon limey citrusy drink but without much sweetness. That with the territory gin and juice. It will knock your socks off. Yeah, I don't care for it. You know what? I'll just go ahead and bring you my bottle because I've had like two drinks out of it, tried to wrap my head around it. I just can't do it. I will email you tonight as a reminder saying, hey, I'll bring in that St. George. Thanks man. And also by the way, I am now on because I drink the dirty martini, but I don't eat olives, which is a little weird. Just like the juice. Yeah, the Brine okay. With a twist. It's a little different. I know I've had that. And for years I would have emptied jars of dry olives in my fridge and very little juice in there. Oh, I know what you're talking about now. So now I bought dirty soup olive juice and you can buy it in a bottle and I bought a box of it and it just sits in the cabinet in my house. Nice big shout out to Dirty Sue olive brine. Nice. Really dirty up your martini. What's your gin that you use for this? Well, I mean, I love Plymouth. I love Hendrix. And our friends at Spring 44 gin dude sent us gin. They said it's all about the water. And they have the best water on earth. They made some old tomjin. Yeah, and it is delicious. I love Martinez's. It's Old Tom gin. Marshino liqueur none. Not the cherry stuff, but like the real lacorte. And then some sweet vermouth. Yes. It's like probably the most perfect drink anyone has ever made. It's very old. That made maybe the best Martinez I've ever had. That was good stuff. Well, for a while lately I've been stirring. I got a little martini pitcher or a cocktail pitcher to stir. But I'm back to shaking now because I found out that Bruising gin is a total myth. So James Bond wasn't cuckoo. No, he can't bruise gin. That's all just garbage. Do you use orange bitters in yours? No. Really brightens it up. Straight up dirty. Sue gin. I do use a little vermouth. Like I know that people don't like vermouth at all anymore. Oh, really? Yes. I see. Bartenders, now, don't use any vermouth. That's not a martini. Well, agreed. That's a chilled gin up with some olive brown. What kind of vermouth do you use? Just the one in the green Italian bottle with is that Dolan Blanc? Yeah. That's good stuff. But I also found out recently that vermouth is a wine, and you don't just keep it on your shelf for two years. No, you keep it in the fridge for maybe a month. Yeah. Didn't know that. So I've been drinking this old, old vermouth. You still can. It's not like you can't, but for the best possible impact, you want to just get that small bottle. Yeah, I learned that the hard way. Yeah. I'm going to start doing that. Man, we should have our own cocktail show. We should. Because we talk about booze a lot. Yeah, we don't need to. Let's drink about it. Has that covered. Yeah, that's true. Our good friends at let's drink about it. Yeah. And thanks also to Ben, who sent us some smooth ambler what was it called? Contradiction. That stuff is good, too. That's right, man. Booze talk on lighthouses. Who knew? I bet you there's a lot of boozing that goes on at lighthouses. I bet they're not making amazing drinks with St. George and bitter lemon. No, they're just drinking that stuff straight out of deer skin. Yeah, exactly. Where were we? Eddie Stone Lighthouse, Plymouth, England. Got started. This thing is a very rough area to have a lighthouse, and it seems like nature doesn't want a lighthouse there because over the years, it has been knocked down and burned down many times. Yeah, this dude basically went out there by himself, henry Winstanley, in 1696, and just started building this wooden lighthouse out in these rocks off the coast of Plymouth himself. Got captured by a French pirate, released and lit the thing in 1698, and he actually died. He deconstructed it and rebuilt it and died in the second version of it. Oh, really? It got swept away with him inside, but he's a pretty cool cat. That was 17 Three, then another one in 17 Eight was built. That burned down in 1755. And then a guy named John Smeaton, he was an engineer, he built one that was built to last for a little while. He actually came up with what you think of as the modern lighthouse. Really? Stick at the bottom, papers at the top, and then it flares out right below the lantern. Right. And the reason most lighthouses flare out right below lantern is when a wave comes up and the waves can get that big. Sure. It won't ride up into the lantern. It will be thrown back out to sea when it hits the flare. Oh, it's a water guard. Pretty much. Interesting. Yeah. Did not know that. Who's the smart dude? So that one lasted for 123 years, which was as far as the Eddie Stone light is concerned, an eternity. But eventually the Trinity House, which is England's version of the Coast Guard, of the lighthouse. The lighthouse establishment. Yeah. They said, no, let's tear that thing down. It's this long, but we think it might not for much longer. But then they built another one, this one actually they used almost a jigsaw puzzle foundation. Yeah. So when a wave hits it, it actually compresses together and becomes stronger when a wave smacking into it. So that was there for good. Yeah. Wonderful. We talked about Boston Light. There's also the Cape hatteras on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, which is, I believe the tallest one in the United States is 208ft. And it's one of the most famous as well. It's the one with the black and white barber pole design. Yeah. That's 63 meters for our friends everywhere else in the world. Did you know that? That one was in trouble. The sea was encroaching upon it. And they got some money together, Congress did, and moved it moved this lighthouse, 2900ft, back inland over the course of 23 days. They slowly moved it on tracks. Wow. It was pretty amazing. It was on that modern marvel one. It's like Fitzgeraldo. I got a few more fast facts. Unless you have something else. No, I'm done. 680 lighthouses remaining in the US. Estimated out of that original thousand plus 37 states have lighthouses, just not Kansas. Michigan has the most, don't they? Of all the states? Yeah. 120 in Michigan because of the Great Lakes, I would imagine. Makes sense. Yeah. The East Coast says 391. West coast only has 94. I guess there's just a lot more shipping and stuff, huh? You need to step it up. West coast and worldwide, we estimate more than 17,000 lighthouses in 250 countries. And the brightest one. Oak island in North Carolina. 14 million Campbell power. You can see it 24 miles. Wow. Isn't that great? Yeah, that's a lot. 14 million candles all burning at once. Pretty neat. Sounds like a new religion, the Candelas. Really? A million is one lighting their candle. I think you just established it. Reciting the Candela's prayer. Nice. So we just started a religion. Yeah, that easy. Oh, you did? I just bore a witness. That's all right. You can be my faithful assistant. Thanks. Can I baptize you? Sure. Okay. If you want to know more about lighthouses, you can type that word into the search bar@houseofworks.com. And since I talked about baptizing chuck, it's time for listener mail. Since he talked about baptizing Chuck, that must mean it's 1984. Hey, guys. I recently discovered your podcast and immediately fell in love. I'm thirsty for knowledge. Find it quite impressive that you've become quasi experts? Not really. Yeah, but I'm writing in to respond to the controlled burn episode. I used to work for my local county park system doing habits out in wildlife management and controlled burns took up many days in the early spring for us. Our department only consists of about six to seven people, three of which were licensed burn bosses by the state. They make the burn plan, they light the fire and basically coordinate and oversee the entire operation. I would make everybody call me Burn Boss jobs. Totally would. Additionally, local fire departments volunteer personnel and sometimes equipment, so they lend out their stuff, which is nice, and people such as water trucks to assist. We also have quite a large number of park volunteers that go through our training and help on fire line. On the fire line as well. That would be neat. I would do that. Yeah, like a Saturday afternoon. Sure. I'm sure it's different for each state and agency, but our burn bosses go through training put on by the state in order to get certified. I can't recall if this is mentioned, but another advantage of controlled burns is that the charred earth absorbs light because it's black in color more than it normally would, causing the soil to heat more quickly and thus early germination for the desired species. I had not considered that. We didn't mention that. Good factoid there. Thanks for satisfying my wondering. Mind Tracy Company in Cincinnati, Ohio. Thanks a lot, Tracy. We appreciate that. We always love to hear from people who know what they're talking about. Burn Boss comes. Yeah. If you want to get in touch with us, you can tweet to us at S YSK podcast or hang out with us on Instagram at SYSK podcast. You can join us on Facebook.com stuffyheno. You can send us an email to stuffpodcast@housestepworks.com. As always, join us at our home on the web stuffyhoodnow.com. Stuff you should know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, My Heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio App, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. You know you're a pet mom when you plan your vacation around your pet. At Halo, we get it because we're pet moms too. We make natural, high quality pet food that's rooted in science. It's the world's best food for the world's best kids. Learn more@halopetscom. Hey, it's Delilah. We can all use a hug now and again. I wish I could deliver them all in person, but since that's not possible, my daily podcast, hey, it's Delilah is the next best thing. It will wrap you in ten to 15 minutes of happy, heartwarming, hopeful radio content every Monday through Friday at whatever time of day you need it the most. Find hey, it's Delilah and get your radio hug."
http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/podcasts.howstuffworks.com/hsw/podcasts/sysk/2016-09-20-sysk-cerebral-palsy-final.mp3	How Cerebral Palsy Works	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/how-cerebral-palsy-works	Cerebral palsy isn’t a disease, but an umbrella term for conditions arising from brain damage suffered in the womb or shortly after birth. The factors involved are so divergent no two cases of CP are alike, making it – and people who have CP – fascinating	Cerebral palsy isn’t a disease, but an umbrella term for conditions arising from brain damage suffered in the womb or shortly after birth. The factors involved are so divergent no two cases of CP are alike, making it – and people who have CP – fascinating	Tue, 20 Sep 2016 07:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2016, tm_mon=9, tm_mday=20, tm_hour=7, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=264, tm_isdst=0)	58154916	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"This episode of Stuff You Should Know is brought to you by Squarespace. Whether you need a landing page, a beautiful gallery, a professional blog, or an online store, it's all possible with a Squarespace website. And right now, listeners to Stuff You Should Know can start a free trial today. Just go to Squarespace.com and enter the offer code Stuff and you'll get 10% off your first purchase. Squarespace set your website apart. Welcome to stuff you should know from housetepworkscom. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's charles w chuck Bryan over there. And we've got guest producer Noel in the house. Noel throwing the sound effect null. Way to go. I'm assuming he'll do that in post, right? Yeah. Or maybe the sound effect is silence. Oh, okay. It's a lack of sound effect. We'll find out. Like, when you're a little kid and you'd have just a blank canvas, you'd be like, Look, I did a picture of a snowman and a snow storm. I never did that. Yes. Smarty, smart Alex. Little smart alec kid gets what's coming to him. So, Chuck, do you remember we did a trivia night, like years ago? Yes. On the roof of Five Seasons Brewery in Atlanta. Yeah, I remember. Hodgman. Was there a buddy? Jorandazo? Dave Willis was on our all star team. Sure. Dave was just looking around like, what's going on? Yeah. Who are you guys? Why do they care about you? My publicist said I should come to this. It was a fun night. It was. There's a dude there and he had cerebral palsy. His name was Kyle Peas. I remember him. You remember Kyle? Yes. KPZ is what he goes by. And again, this is what, maybe like five years ago? Four years ago, maybe six. Okay, this is a while ago. Yeah. Well, Kyle was like, you guys should totally do one on cerebral palsy. We're like we totally should. And we didn't. Well, I ran into Kyle again when Yummy and I were going to visit Laurel and Braden's baby at the hospital because he volunteers at Piedmont Hospital. It's all coming together. Yes. And I was like, you look really familiar. And he's like, So do you. And I remembered we'd never done one on cerebral palsy, even though we totally said we would. Like, yes. He didn't even say anything, just looked at me. No, he was super cool about it. He's a cool cat, actually. He's a cool guy. Kyle actually does Iron Man competitions with his brother. Oh, wow. Who, like, wheels them along in his wheelchair. Yeah, they did the New York Marathon. Wow. And one of the wheels came off of Kyle's wheelchair. Wheels came off, right. So his brother is like this kind of, like helping move along, I think, holding up the axle. And some other people said, you know what? We don't need to make time. We'll just help with this. So, like, a bunch of strangers helps get kyle across the finish line with his brother. That would have been me. I would have been like, Why am I running this thing anyway? I'll just be a good guy. Yeah. That is amazing. And you see that you saw it recently in the Olympics when athletes will forgo their own race to help another. That stuff just slays me. Or if they're qualifying in, like, the first three or the first five across the finish line, go on to the next race, they'll slow up and finish at the same time. Yeah. Like noses out in front, right? Yeah. It's pretty cool to see that kind of spirit, right? Yeah, man. So, anyway, Kyle Peas got his own foundation. I think it's Kyle Peaceorg or Calpis Foundation. Probably should look it up. But this one's for Kyle. Yes. And you can Google that if you want to look into his foundation more. Yeah. So we're talking cerebral palsy, right? Yes. And it's something that I've always known about. I've known people with cerebral palsy. It's just something you know about. But I had no idea what was going on with the condition. As a matter of fact, I just assumed it was one specific thing. But it turns out the cerebral palsy is actually an umbrella term for a bunch of different conditions that stem from a bunch of different origins, I guess. Yeah. Causes. That was the word I was looking for. It's not a disease. Right. And the cause is always a brain injury of some kind that affects your movement. Yeah. But there can be all kinds of ways we're going to get into all that, obviously. And actually, you can develop cerebral palsy from a disease, but like you said, cerebral palsy itself is not a disease. Right. A few just off the cuff? Not off the cuff, but at the outset cause stats about eight well, I was going to say just starting out with some stats instead of finishing up. Right. But off the cuff makes it sound like I'm making this up. Right. It's not true. About 8000 children a year are born with it every year. Yeah, I saw, like, one in 300. Yeah. And I got this from a Canadian site, so, you know that's good. Yeah, it's legit. They say it's the most common childhood physical disability, affecting about 2.5 of every 1000 live term births and 22 out of every 1000 live premature births. And it affects more boys than girls. Yeah. I saw premature births in particular have a higher incidence of cerebral palsy, and I didn't know if it was the cerebral palsy caused premature birth, but then I read it a little more in depth and saw that actually, premature birth is a risk factor for developing cerebral palsy. Yes, exactly. Okay. But with that broadly defined, you want to jump back into a little bit of history? Yeah. Let's go back. Way back. Yeah, way back to 1853, in fact, with Dr. John little. Charles Dickens is hard at work yeah. In the same country as Doctor Little. Dr. Little. This guy was a good dude as a kid. He was afflicted with a lot of illnesses, and he basically grew up to say, like, you know what? That was no fun. That was BS. And so what I'm going to do is dedicate my life to discovering the causes of some of these things. Although he didn't have cerebral palsy, he started working in the 1830s. And I guess the first way that he was actually on the really the right track was he started doing lectures on birth injuries, which we'll find out birth injury can be a way that you can get cerebral palsy. Right. That's where he was on the right track at first. But to him, birth injury was the only way to get cerebral palsy. And the only way that you could get cerebral palsy from a birth injury was if you were asphyxiated while you were being born. Correct. Which happens. And happens. Right. So he was right. But it turns out that was too narrow of an umbrella that he came up with. Yeah. And he did these lectures, these really influential lectures that he later published called on the Nature and Treatment of the Deformities of the Human Frame. And it wasn't called cerebral palsy at the time, though. In fact, they called it little's disease. He was like, oh, yeah, okay. A lot of the diseases originally had the doctor's name, and some of them kept those. Yeah. Like Cop Cross syndrome. Remember that one? Yeah. Was that named after Arnold Copgrough? Did you just make that up? I made up the first name. Okay. But it was the name. Sure. And Morgolons Morganawans. Which way do you say it? You just confused me. See, you can't even remember now. Morglon sounds right, but you are saying it because you are poking fun at me. I think perhaps you don't even remember now. I think I do. I'll just have to go back and listen to the episode, because it's documented. 1887 is when the term was actually coined by Sir William Osler, who wrote Cerebral Palsy of the Children. It was a book, and he used a lot of little's work, built upon little's work and finally gave it that lasting name. Yeah, but he was the only one. There was a very famous Austrian doctor, freud. Yeah. Freud got it right. Freud had some theories that cerebral palsy could be developed or could be the result of something that happened before birth. Yeah. During development. That's what I was looking for. And everyone's like, Freud, go back to your cigars and your mother fixation and all that. Just leave this to us, including Little. Like they got a little contentious at times. Yeah, a lot of contentious. Yeah, for two doctors, that is. Yes. And Freud said, you take the cigar and you stick it where the sun don't shine. Maybe so it turns out Freud was right, but everyone just kind of ignored him until, like, the first study that really looked at cerebral palsy and the development of cerebral palsy from a birth injury, an injury that occurred during birth. So would that be perinatal? Isn't that during birth? Neonatal right after birth, perinatal during right. So perinatal injury, developing cerebral palsy. Everyone thought it was 100% of the cause. It turns out it's like 10% or less. Something like 5% to 10% of births or of cases of cerebral palsy come from being injured while you're being born. Yeah. And there's all sorts of ways you can be injured. Some can happen naturally, like if you come out breach. Sure. If you get stuck in the birth canal too long, if the doctor is a little too heavy handed with the forceps, which is like a horrific thing, that can happen. Sure. You can also have a prolapsed umbilical cord where it comes out before the baby. You can have the umbilical cord wrap around your neck, and any one of these things can cut off the blood supply to your brain or the oxygen supply to your brain, which are effectively one and the same. And either way, your little tiny brain is like, oh, well, this region is going down because I was just fixated for a little while. Yeah. So his work was later verified after his death. When did Freud die? No, it was 30. That'd be pretty cool. See Freud in a Members only jacket. Yeah. I could see him really living it up in the disco area. He would have been at Studio 54. Sure. Yeah. A couple of other folks who made a name for themselves by doing a lot of great work, leonard and Isabel Goldenson, their daughter had cerebral palsy, and they basically dedicated their life to it for that reason, to learn more about it. And sadly, she passed away at the age of 29. And they co founded the United Cerebral Palsy Association in 1950. And they are really big organization now. Yeah. Since you're the fifth largest health agency in the United States, and then in the Member of the year. But there were some very famous books written by a woman named Marie Kalilia. Is that how we're going to say it? I would have said Kilalaya, but kilowalaya, if you want to go Hawaiian, got you. She wrote a book, a couple of very famous books on the bestseller list, one called Karen and one called With Love from Karen that really captured the attention of the United States at large. And they were about her daughter's struggle with cerebral palsy. And she karen is still alive today. Oh, is she? Yeah, she's in her seventy s and is very private and I think works as a secretary at a monastery or something that is extremely private, something like that. You want to keep to yourself, not have to put up with any chitchat at work. That is where you can get a job, probably very good. Yeah. Included existence. Right. So those I guess you'd call them civilians, non doctors help to really kind of expand public awareness of cerebral palsy is the impression I have. Right? Yeah. And those books especially nice. Should we take a break? Let's take a break, man. All right. We'll take a break, and we'll get into some of the causes right after this. All right. Before we broke, you said we were talking about Freud and his well, we were talking about childbirth injuries. Yeah. Being actually accounting for a fairly small amount, like 5%. But they used to think because of Dr. John Little, that it was like that was the cause of cerebral 70% to 80% of the time. Freud was right. Yeah. And you would think also that doctors, especially pediatric doctors sure. The ones who are doing the deliveries would be like, yeah, Freud's right. It's definitely not birth injury. Like the obstetrician not our fault. Right? Yeah. They'd be like, it's something else that's happening during pregnancy. It's not us. Interesting. But they didn't they didn't know us. You never know. Well, at the very least, it didn't happen. And if you look up cerebral palsy caused by doctor error, the first eight pages of Google are nothing but articles on law firm sites. Oh, sure. Like, every single one. Yeah. Some of them seem like pretty well researched articles and well written, but all of them are law firm sites. And by the way, give us a call. Well, it's funny. We'll talk about this later, but with stem cell therapy, I looked into that some more because it's hard to get accurate information on that because the first five pages of Google are all about companies that offer better. Oh, really? Trying to get money to do stem cell therapy. You kind of had to wade through that to get to actual facts. Right. So I have so many questions. Well, we'll get to that. Okay. All right. Later on. And then the remaining what do we say? 70, 80% is during pregnancy, five to 10% during childbirth, injury wise. And then the remaining cases, as we'll see, or after birth, up to the age of two or three. Well, we'll get to the reasons why. So during pregnancy, there's a lot of stuff that can happen, but typically, either the baby comes down with a disease or an injury, or the mother has a disease that affects the baby's development. Right. Yeah. It could be a condition, an infection, a disease. We've talked about toxoplasmosis, why you shouldn't change out the cat litter if you're pregnant. Right. Toxoplasmosis can lead to your baby being born with cerebral palsy. Yeah. And rubella used to be a big problem and a huge cause of cerebral palsy until they developed the vaccine for it. That's right. What is it? Measles, mumps, rubella. MMR. Wasn't there a good band like that called MMR. No. You would know. I think there was. As a matter of fact, I know there was. I'm just not that familiar with it. His eyes darted at you as if to say, did he just say my name? He still hasn't acknowledged us. That's all right. Okay. What else? Epilepsy, diabetes and epilepsy. If your mother has that, they have a higher chance higher risk of having a baby with CP. Right. And all of these things have a couple of different effects. There's different effects that these diseases or injuries can have on the baby's development. Right. For starters, when you are building your tiny little brain in the womb, you start out as just a single cell right. That starts dividing fertilized cell. That starts going haywire. But not haywire haywire in a very structured manner. Right. Okay. Well, eventually, it gets to the neural tube, and the neural tube is this little roly poly cluster of cells that on one end develops into the brain, and on the other end develops into the spinal cord. And then as it's developing, the cells divide more and more, and they actually become specialized, and they migrate to these different areas of the brain and make up different parts of the brain. Different regions of the brain. Right. Yeah. If at any point any of that gets messed up or there's, like, a problem with the migration or some of the cells don't develop correctly, there seems to be a pattern that they can follow where parts of the brain that direct movement in the muscles, they tend to cluster in a way that gets affected more than other ways. And they don't have a policy. No, they don't. Which is a pretty big mystery. You'd think it'd be, like, just a random roll of the dice right. What was affected by these different conditions and diseases and injuries, but it does seem to kind of fall on the spectrum toward the conditions that make up cerebral palsy. Yeah, it's really interesting. It is. It's odd. And again, they have no idea why. Hopefully, they will one day. Well, I wonder if they would just be a different condition if it was in a different area of the brain, though, you know? Does that make any sense? Yeah. No, it does. And then maybe there are conditions out there that we just aren't aware of, but everybody else knows about that. It is like, oh, if your neurons don't migrate in this way, you have this condition. If they don't migrate in this way, you have cerebral palsy. Yeah, I see what you're saying. So there are some pregnancy specific conditions that can cause CP. One is called preclampsia, and that's when it's a disorder that causes high blood pressure and the mother that's going to affect the blood flow to the umbilical cord. And again, it all goes back to the same problem, which is the baby are developing fetus, not getting enough blood and oxygen. Yeah. Or the neurons didn't migrate to the right way. There was either a problem with development or the developed cells were starved of oxygen. Right. And then apparently when that happens, they form holes in the brain. Holes fill with water and then get covered over and they become cysts. That's a lesion, man. Yeah. So sad. We talked about RH factor in compatibility and our Blood podcast, which is one of our good ones. The blood one. Yeah. I love that one. But if that happens when the mother's blood type is not compatible with the babies, that can result in jaundice. Jaundice? If it's severe enough, they don't get the good treatment that can lead to a certain kind of brain damage that will cause CP. It's called kernitaris. I'm going to go with the silent C on that one. Oh, really? I'm going to make it a hard seat. Kernictorus. All right. I know we sometimes look these things up. No, I'm just saying I've tried to get better about looking at pronunciations, and we've had offers from people in the medical field. Yeah. Like, give me an email, I'll let you know. But it's become part of our show, no disrespect intended, conic death. And we already talked about birth injury, which is in the 5% range. Yes. Five to 10%. Right. Yeah. What does say 5%? You're in their part way, about 50% of all kids born with cerebral palsy were born prematurely. Right. There's. That premature birth being a risk factor for cerebral palsy. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's not the other way around. Right. But the article on the site makes it seem like it is the other way around, the way the sentence is structured. Yeah, I agree. Odd. But you can like we mentioned, it's all very sad, but you can have a great birth, completely healthy baby, and then you can get cerebral palsy due to an injury at the age of, like, two, or if you almost drown, or if you choke on something that oxygen is interrupted, you can acquire, I guess it's acquire, yeah. That would be acquire CP as late as three years old. Yeah. And the reason why you can't acquire cerebral palsy at age 20 or something like that, because your brains developed by then. Yeah. I think your brain is fully developed by three to five years after you're born. Yeah. So you would just have, I guess, a certain level of brain damage. It wouldn't qualify as cerebral palsy. And the reason why it wouldn't qualify cerebral palsy is because cerebral palsy describes the symptoms, basically, of a specific type of brain damage that occurs during the brain's development, and again, it affects the muscles and their movement and control of it. Yeah. The other couple of ways that you can get it through injury after birth are meningitis. And then the saddest thing on earth, Shaken Baby Syndrome, which we need to do a whole episode on that. That's a very controversial thing controversial how there's a lot of people out there who say it's not a real thing, that people are being put in prison for something based on junk science. Interesting. Yeah. Some group of people made a documentary about it, and they offered to send us a link to it to watch it privately. Obviously, they're not saying shaking your baby is fine. They're just saying it doesn't lead to brain damage. No, I think they're saying, like, yeah, there isn't such a thing as a shaken baby syndrome. I don't know what the documentarians are saying because I haven't seen the documentary, but I have read other articles about it. Man, I wish I could remember the name of it. I'll tweet it or something like that. But there's this really great long form article about this couple, I think, in Dallas whose baby injured himself. And the EMTs came in and thought that the house, the scene looked kind of weird and didn't like the way the dad was acting. And all of a sudden, the guy's in prison now for years because he was convicted of shaking baby syndrome. Well, that's different. Right. I thought you were saying that people contend that shaking your baby like that can't lead to these kinds of injuries and brain damage. I think some people do. I think some people are saying, like, weird, shaken baby syndrome is not an actual thing. Interesting. Yeah, well, that's what I'm saying. We need to do a whole episode. Yes, I have to. Looking at that, my gut reaction is it's child abuse affecting the baby's head? Sure. Can it not have an impact if it's severe enough? I think if you give your baby a concussion right. Yes. You could shake your baby until your baby has a concussion or has some sort of brain damage or injury. Right. I think what the critics of shaking baby syndrome are saying is that the current understanding, the current scientific understanding, where if you see this and this and a baby, especially a child who just died under mysterious circumstances, it was the parent who shook it. Got you. And so send the parent to jail, and they're saying, no, that's junk science. You can't send people to jail based on this criteria that we're currently using and sending people to jail with. Got you. Shake a baby as hard as you can. You'll never give a concussion or kill it. Right. That's not what they're saying. Okay. They're saying, like, the science people are being wrongly convicted when there was no abuse going on. Right. So there's a witch hunt, and it's based on junk science. Got you, man. We got to do one now. Yeah. I mean, we definitely just teased it enough, didn't we? Have this little sidebar in the article that I had to look into a little more about magnesium sulfate in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2008, they published an article about a study about if you have a high risk of preterm delivery, and you know this, and you're given magnesium sulfate. The mother is it cut the rate of CP in half by 50%. And I looked up in studies, basically what I came down to is this. And this was from that same Canadian website. It said that if you do know, there are two things, two treatments to minimize it in newborns, and one is magnesium sulfate. If you know ahead of time that you're at risk and you get on it, it's amazing. And then therapeutic hypothermia, which we've talked about before. Yeah, that's magic. Minimize the damage due to lack of oxygen or blood supply. Well, that one makes sense. Yeah. Because they will freeze you or bring you pretty close to freezing to keep you from going from suffering brain damage because it lowers your metabolism, so you need less oxygen, and if your oxygen deprived and they lower your metabolism, that's interesting. Yeah. That was a great episode, too. That was therapeutic hypothermia. So the magnesium sulfate does check out. That's really astounding. Yeah. But again, it has to be given well in advance. So is it like a course of treatments, or is it like, here, take the shot of magnesium sulfate, and you'll be fine for the rest of the pregnancy? You know, I'm not sure my inclination from reading it was that it was a course of treatments. Like, you're on it during the pregnancy. Got you. But I might be wrong, but I think that's the deal. You want to take a break? Yeah. And then we'll talk a little bit about what's going on with the muscles. All right, Chuck. Muscles. Let's talk muscles. So we talked about all the ways you can get cerebral palsy or acquire it or develop it. I guess get works, right? Sure. But the actual way that cerebral palsy is categorized is by the types of symptoms you have, and they're generally carved into three types of cerebral palsy. There's spastic, there is ataxic, right? Yeah. And then the third type is ethanoid dyskinetic, and spastic is by far the largest group of cerebral palsy. Should we talk about spice? Nice. The tooth is coming. Are you psyched? I am psyched. Ready for my SS to be a little more contained. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Spasticity is the word. And you sent over this little addendum. I think it really kind of helps understand how it all works. Spasticity is basically the tension in your muscle. Right. And you always have this going on. Otherwise, we would just be laying down on the floor at all times. Like, you might not feel like your muscles are tensed or doing anything, but your muscles are tensed if you're sitting upright right. Or you're walking around or you're doing anything. Yeah. There's, like, a real conversation going on between your spinal cord and the muscles themselves, the nerve fibers in the muscles themselves saying, hey, we're getting a little too contracted here. Why don't you send us a little hit of relaxation? And so your muscles are just constantly alternating to keep you sitting upright, to let you talk, anything you use your muscles for, there's this interplay between tension and relaxation of the muscles. And all that's called tone. Yeah. And the really interesting thing is that the actual message for increasing that tone comes from the muscle. Yeah, I was fascinated by that, too. The message to decrease it comes from the brain. Right. Which is weird. Yeah. Because the muscles saying, hey, tell me to tighten. Yeah. It's like, Just do it yourself, pal. Is there no brain involved there at all? I'm always having to hold your hand here. You said it goes directly from the muscle to the spinal cord. Yeah. That's crazy. I would think the brain would be involved. I think the brain gives the spinal cord a lot of leeway and stuff like that. But you got this, right? You know what you're doing. Fly, little bird. Like I said, the brain is what tells the muscle to relax. And when you have the damage in cerebral palsy, when you have the damage to the brain, it's not sending the right message. Then you have an overworked. Not overworked, but the muscle is doing the message sending only yeah. Because the muscles, neurons or sensory fibers are fine. So they're getting their message across loud and clear. But the other message that's part of that interplay, that conversation to relax is not coming through. So in spastic cerebral palsy, you have muscles that are basically constantly rigid, and it may or may not be accompanied by tremors. Right. Yeah. And the outcome, the result of a constantly tense muscle is ultimately a deformity. Like, the limb might shrink, the bone itself can become twisted. There's a lot of things that can happen from just flex your forearm for 30 seconds. Yeah. Like, imagine that all the time. Unrelentingly. That's what spastic cerebral palsy is. So it's not like a child who is born with spastic cerebral palsy comes out with limbs that are malformed or deformed. Right. That actually is the result of even just a few years of that constantly contracted muscle. Well, yeah, but we should point out, though, it's not a degenerative disease. It doesn't get worse over time. No, it doesn't, but because it happens as your body is developing. If your muscles develop like that, that will get worse until it develops into, I think, a certain equilibrium. Okay. About 70% to 80% of people get dysphasic kind, and there are three subgroups within that. One is quadraplegia. And that's when all four limbs are affected. You might have seizures and tremors. You might not be able to talk. You might not be able to walk. Right. It might be wheelchair bound. And that's the most severe. Yeah. Because, again, I'm using a bunch of different muscles right now to talk and swallow. Sure. Eat. Bring food to my mouth. Do anything. Anything you need to use your muscles for. If you are a quadriplegic cerebral palsy sufferer, it's all up for grabs. Yes. You might be able to do very little. That's true. Hemaplasia, which is one side of the body, and as we've talked about the brain, it usually affects the opposite side from where the injury is. You might have to have braces on your legs. Your limbs might grow at different rates, but you probably can walk. And then the final subgroup of this basket kind of duplicagia, and that's the lower part of the body only you might be a tow walker, if you've ever heard of that. It doesn't necessarily mean if you're a towalker that you have CP because there are other causes of tow walking. Oh, really? Yeah. That's unusual. Yeah. I had a friend, actually, whose daughter was a tow walker. I don't know that I've ever seen that. In researching this, I was trying to bring it to mind. I don't think I've ever seen anybody toe walk. Yeah. Is that exactly what it sounds like? Yeah. Walking on your tippy toes, but it's no good for balance. Sure. It's not just like, oh, that's charming. Yeah. I mean, it actually affects their balance, like big time. I can imagine, too. She's constantly in motion, basically. Like, she can never just stand still because get on your tippy toes is what it would be like. And she eventually had a surgery. Hers was a CP, and she had something elongated to allow her attendant or something, I'm not exactly sure. But then it fixed it and she could stand still for the first time in her life. So, like, her ten was too short, which brought her up on her toes. I think so. I don't remember exactly. I think that's the way he described it. But scissoring, too is another thing. If your legs cross that I have seen. Yeah. Like when you pick a baby up and they cross their legs immediately, that could be an early sign. Yeah. Number twod. I believe so. And you can call it either one, I think. Right. This is a banner moment. We just agreed on a pronunciation. Pronunciation. Everybody do a shot. This can result in involuntary movements that are usually slower, usually in the arms, and they're repetitive. So it looks like a tick, almost. Right. Tic. Right. Not T-I-C-K let me suck your blood. The big difference with this one, though, is that your tone is usually decreased. You're not contract well. It can be either they can be rigid or they describe it in here as loose and floppy. Okay, so let me ask you this then, Chuck. Is that loose and floppy and then rigid in the same patient? Like it's going from alternating from one to the other. Or somebody could have loosen floppy tone or rigid tone, and they could both still have athletic disconnectic FCP? Is that a good question? I don't know. I mean, if you read the literal sentence, sometimes their muscles are stiff and rigid. Other times they are loose and floppy. Makes it sound like one person can have these. It can come and go, maybe. Right? Who knows? I guess we'll never know. Someone will let us know. You think we would know. You may actually have difficulty walking, talking, eating. Basic motor skills might be affected if you have this kind. And then finally, ataxic. CP is the least common five to 10%. And this is like when you have trouble with your fine motor skills, you might not be able to write well, or you might have trouble walking. You can walk, but you might have trouble with your balance. And this one has another interesting side effect called an intention trimmer. And that's when it's very specific to like, you have an intention. Like, I want to go pick up that cup of coffee. Your hand might be fine and not have a trimmer, but when you go to do something with it specifically, it will start a trimmer. Right. Which has to be really frustrating. Yeah, I can imagine. But it makes sense if a taxic affects the fine motor skills, it takes increasingly more fast twitch muscles. When you finally do go to grasp and pick something up, then it does just move your arm toward it. And you can have a mix of these as well. Mix CP, and this isn't like a spastic is the worst and athenoid is the second worst, and then ataxic is the lightest. You can have mild or severe versions in each of these. It just describes what the symptoms are, what areas are affected and how they're affected. Yeah. And I get the feeling it all comes down to the severity of that initial brain injury. It does. I read somewhere that cerebral palsy, there's no two cerebral palsy cases alike because the region of the brain that's affected is a factor when it's affected in the development of the brain. Sure. And then how whether it was, say, from a disease that the mother had or an injury that occurred a couple of years after birth. So every person with cerebral palsy is a special little snowflake. Yeah, that's true in terms of diagnosis. When you're a baby, doctors will look at things like weak muscles or very tight muscles. When your baby crawls, if one leg kind of drags behind, that could be an early sign. Talked about the scissoring already and the toe walking, any kind of really bad posture, difficulty balancing, which can be tricky because babies don't have great balance to begin with. So diagnosing it is. Eventually they're going to get you in a brain scan if they really think that your symptoms might be leading down that road. Right. And there's a fine line to walk as a parent between freaking out over nothing or unnecessarily and getting it early, because basically every course of treatment for dealing with cerebral palsy and managing it, because, again, it's incurable. Literally, the damage is done. But you can treat and manage the symptoms. The earlier you catch it, the better the outcome you can possibly have from that treatment, for sure. Things like working on muscle development, massages are really big. Yeah. Yoga is huge. Yes. Teaching the little kid yoga, and even, like, if you can diagnose cerebral palsy as an infant, you'll want to start working up pumping those legs. Really working on the muscle development has a big impact on the child's life later on. Yeah. Some of the things with the other kinds of the athlete disconnect, CP, which, like I said, could result in trouble breathing and speaking and eating, they're going to be doing a lot of therapy with speech, language, pathologists, different modes of communication, occupational therapy, so they can learn how to feed themselves. And again, no tour alike. So it's really going to depend on the severity as to what kind of therapies you're going to need. Right. And one other thing, too, about catching this early Chuck, is that the brain, again, is still developing, which means it's highly plastic, so you can actually find novel ways to do stuff without using, say, your arm or your leg. Like, there is a very famous guy named Christy Brown. Oh, is that my left foot? Yeah. He had severe cerebral palsy and his left foot would follow the commands from his brain, so he created art with his left foot. Man, what a movie that was. I never saw it. It's pretty good. Yeah. He was an Irish poet and artist, I believe. Yes. I think just any Daniel Day Lewis movie is just a must. Yeah, he's one of those. He's like the brando. You just have to see it. Sure. What are you about to say? What do you think about last week as Lincoln? He's so good, though. It's just ridiculous. That was the line that clinched the Oscar that year. What do you think of my left foot? He's the one that goes so far deep into the method. I think when he was on what movie was it? Where he basically worked as a 19th century carpenter. Was he in the crucible? No, I think he has. Gary Oldman. Well, they might have both been in there. No. He's in the scarlet letter. One of the sounds like Daniel Day Lewis, he basically jumped in with the set carpenters and was like, I'm going to help build these sets with my old school. Like, oh, great. Yeah, that's great. Mr Day Lewis, we'd love to have you. Yeah. Now bring in the real one. Just falls over as he's walking away. Job well done. What accent would you like me to try now? Drugs? Yes, they use drugs sometimes muscle relaxers can help with the spasticity benzodiazepines, like Valium. I think Xanax is one of those the problem is you're giving those to a two or three year old, and they're on volume all the time. There's undesirable side effects of it, but they do work. Botox, apparently. Botox is, like, killing it. Yeah. And it's FDA approved now as an off label use. So Botox, it's the botulin toxin, right? Yeah. But it paralyzes muscles. So if you inject botox into a spastic muscle, it relaxes it, and it lasts apparently for months for treatments. And it might not just be like, oh, okay, everything's all good, but it's going to definitely reduce the effects of the staff enough that it's a pretty good treatment. And they apparently are not finding many harmful side effects at all with it. That's great. Yeah. We should do one on Botox. Okay. I know that we had a listener right in and say, I started keeping count of how many times you said that, and I'm up to, like, 70 or 80. And if we could remember, I was like, what's the list? He said, oh, well, I'm not writing them down. I've just been making notches on my cave wall. Yeah. And I was like, well, what good are you? We need a list. We can't keep track of stuff. I'm writing them down. He might start writing. Well, I keep the list in my own blood. I can't write the titles. Some children, you might have a pump permanently. Well, maybe not permanently, but a pump implanted in your abdomen pretty permanently once you get old enough to deliver a constant stream of a drug called Baclofen. It's an antispasmodic. Apparently, it works really well. Really? But you can overdose from it, which is not good. So what does that mean? Like, the pump better work, right? Yes. It's automatic. Yeah. Wow, that's all scary. Probably shouldn't let it be connected to bluetooth or anything. Heckle, too, I would agree with that. And then surgeries. You talked earlier about your bones becoming twisted. They can untwist them surgically. Yeah, they will, I guess, probably cut them in two and then just twist them around so that they're aligned in a straight line again. Crazy. Yeah, if you think about it. Like, the fact that that works is astounding. Yeah. That's a pretty primitive operation if you think about it. If you really think about the nuts and bolts of it. Well, the bone twisted this way, so we're going to cut it in two and then reset it so that it's back to the way it's supposed to be. Yeah. It sounds like something a barber would have thought about. Exactly. That's exactly what I was thinking. A barber surgeon. Have you heard about the head transplant that's happening? No. Yeah. Dude. Is it Rosie Greer? No. I'm not even sure what that means. The thing with two heads. It was Ray Milan and Rosie Greer, I think. The man with two heads. The Steve Martin movie? No man with two brains. This is the thing with two heads. Oh, boy. Raymond I think it's might not be Rosie Gray. It could be Jim Brown. Is it a movie? Oh, dude. Yeah. It's like a Saturday shocker. No, this is a real surgery. It's happening very soon, if it hasn't already. And I read about it on one of our UK flights. There's a surgeon that is I think he's Italian that he's found a body donor, which is a body on life support with no chance of coming off life support. And he is taking the head off of the man who needs help no. Putting it on this body. No. Supposedly he is roundly being called a quack. Yeah. In a lot of circles. But the doctor said yes. Those same people are calling me quack are also calling me up and saying, like, how are you doing this? Tell me, is it possible they'll all be licking my boots when this is over? Maybe. I couldn't believe what I was reading. I can't believe what I'm hearing. They freeze, I think, the body and the head. And there's like an hour that they have to get this thing reattached and the blood flowing and the nerves connected to make it worse. They play the Jeopardy theme. Exactly. So this guy I can't remember what affliction he has, but it's bodyitis. Well, no, it's something sort of like this in that, but I think it's degenerative where he has no control over his own body. Oh, is it ALS? Lou Gehrig's disease? I don't think it's ALS. I wonder. And the guy was volunteering saying, I might very well die. But he's like, Somebody's got to go first. Man willing to do so. Yeah. The number of nerves and blood vessels and everything that you would have to connect the spinal column to the brain. Like, how would you even do that? I don't know, man. I mean, it seemed like botox crazy science when I was reading it. And by all means, it might be. I got to check that out. Yeah. That's amazing. I mean, we're going to do it sooner or later. Yes. It's just insane that it's happening now. Well, I thought for sure in the earliest yes. He called it head transplant, but once I read it, it feels more like a body transplant. Yeah. I guess it's tomato. Tomato. Sure. At that point. Head transplant sounds awesomer. That's probably why I picked it. Yeah. Where were we? Surgeries. They're also surgeries if you have severe spasticity where they actually identify nerve fibers and cut those. It's called selective dorsal risotomy. Yeah. Rhystomy that's a last resort surgery, though. Yeah. It's not like something they would go to right away. Yeah, I would imagine once you cut a nerve to your muscle, you can't use that muscle anymore. Yes. But if it's been spastic your whole life, you're probably like, fine, just cut it. I'm sick of it. And then the cord blood therapy, which we talked about earlier, what I found was this. Currently there are no approved stem cell therapies for treating cerebral palsy. So I think they're all in clinical trials. And it's interesting, this Canadian website said if you research this across the website, you will come across companies that say otherwise and offer fee based treatments, which is what I found, which is super sad. And the worst thing to prey on people that are willing to pay whatever on something that may or may not work. Right. So these aren't approved. They are in trials, though, and they're seeing if either your own cord blood and one of the problems is people are starting to bank their cord blood more now, but it wasn't a very common thing. So people like, oh, I don't have any cord blood. So they think that sibling cord blood could or sibling stem cells, what do they call those? Like savior babies or something like that. Yeah, something like that. But it's not quite there. But it could be at some point. That is fascinating. Yeah. Although it's a tough act to follow the head transplant. Well, sure. I have a feeling that this guy won't ever he probably won't do a lot of medicinal practicing if it doesn't go well. No. Who knows? He'll go back to merging pigs and rang of tanks. That's sort of what it sounded like. Your life expectancy is normal if you have CP, but like you indicated, you could have worsening mobility over the years. Right. And we should also say, I think a lot of people assume that people with cerebral palsy have intellectual disabilities. They very well may if the brain or if the blood supply or oxygen supplies cut off to your brain, that can lead to intellectual disabilities. That's almost comorbid, though, right. Or cooccurring. Yeah. Co occurring. Did you see somebody write that in? No, they were like, Chuck, don't worry. There's another term for it occurring because it's not necessarily because of the CP, it's because of the brain injury. Right, right. So it would be cooccurring. Right. So some people who have CP also have an intellectual disability. You would be very much mistaken to assume that all people who have CP have an intellectual disability. And I think you could probably bet that most people with CP who you talk to like they have an intellectual disability would resent that tremendously. Sure. Because they are typically of average intelligence or even above average intelligence. Yeah. I imagine that's a big struggle. Yeah. Especially if you have this condition called dysarthria okay. Where you can't speak because you can't control those muscles. So people just assume that since you can't speak, you have an actual disability. Or do you remember Jerry Jewel? Oh, yeah. Gerry from Facts of Life. Sure. The comedian. And she was also in Deadboy, too. Oh, yeah. She played Jewel, who I think was like an innkeeper or tavern lady or something like that. Boy, that was a good show she didn't have intellectual disabilities, but people assume she did because she had a certain amount of dysarthria. Same with josh blue, another comedian. By the way, jerry started out doing stand up in the no. I remember that. Josh blue won last comic standing, I think. Really? He's a very famous stand up comedian who has cerebral palsy. What about RJ middy? Yeah, we both wrote him down. If you look at the notes, RJ midi is at the top. Yeah, he's at the top. If you have seen breaking bad and loved flynn or walter white, jr. People loved him or they hated him. I thought he was great. Yeah, he was. He's a handsome kid. He's a good actor. And why not put someone in there? I think people are like, well, why does he have cerebral palsy? Why not? Because people have it. And as soon as we normalize this by just saying, I'm sure put them in that role, why not? Exactly. Like, it had no impact on the show. Maybe there was an extra vulnerability that the family felt as protectors, but I think that humanized them even more rather than it added certainly an extra amount of depth to their characters. Yeah, I thought it was great. He was awesome. Have you heard of abby nicole curran? No. She represented iowa. She was miss iowa for the miss USA 2008 pageant. I already mentioned christie brown, my left foot guy. There's a dude named jerry trailer who jogged across the united states on his crutches. Wow. Jogged across the US. On his crutches. Crazy. And then steven hopkins had cerebral palsy, and he signed the declaration of independence, and he had this awesome quote, my hand trembles. My heart does not love that guy. Good stuff. And then lastly, if you want to just kind of see what it's like to live with cerebral palsy, there are a lot of online journals, facebook pages of people who are more than happy to tell you about it. I came across one called CP daily living, and it's written by the mum of a nine year old girl named maya who has cerebral palsy and extremely uplifting and inspiring and then heart wrenching and just neat to just kind of peek in on this girl's life. She's the new karen. That's why those books captured america's attention, because it was really just about the ins and outs of your life. Yeah. This is exactly what that's like. Yeah, it's a neat blog, for sure. So cerebral palsy. Get off our backs, kyle. OK. Yeah. And cerebral palsy awareness month, I believe, is march coming out in september. We're either late or we're early. We're both yes. If you want to know more about cerebral palsy, go online. You can also type those words in the search bar@howtofworks.com. And since I said search bar, it's time for listener mail. I'm going to call this clearing up a couple of things about ice. Is this about ice. No, but we should go ahead and issue that there was a gap about ice being more dense than water, the one liquid that's not and first of all, we want to thank actually, let me take that back, because that's probably wrong, and we'll get about that. First of all, we want to thank the 42,000 people who sent us messages. 42,019 and counting. One just came in. We should have a counter, but if you listen to our Icebergs podcast, very eloquently explains the correct thing. Oh, I just forgot. In depth in the Iceberg's podcast. Thanks, man. How did you know that? You remembered it? Well, no, someone said, Josh, you did a great job explaining it correctly in Iceberg's podcast. And, yeah, it's just a little goof. It's like, at this point, a marionette of knowledge. They just lurch from one fact to another. Proof that things get jumbled up there. After 850 something shows. I got to go back and listen to Iceberg again. I remember that one being a good one. Just like when you go to bed tonight, put it on under your pillow, just curl up a single tier, rolls down my cheeks, and freezes. All right. Hey, guys. Just want to say your podcast has been an absolute revelation for me. I've avoided podcasts for the last decade somehow, but I started a new job with an hourly commute for the commuter's best friend yeah, that'll do it. And picked up you guys as my first one. Anyway, you are pretty full of info. I thought I'd pose a question that I came up with in the shower. Is it better to hear good news first or bad news? I can see good news being better first, so bad news would be softened, but the opposite could make sense to help take your mind off the bad news once you've heard the good news. Any thoughts? Definitely. It's a personal preference. Bad news first. Yeah, I'm a bad news guy, too. Yeah, let's get it out of the way. I want to know the bad first, and then yeah, there's a treat coming afterward. Yeah. You get the sugar with the medicine. Yeah, like Mary Poppins. Yeah. All right. I agree. Mostly, I wanted to tell you guys how much you've enriched my life by not only making my commute better, but teaching me about topics I had no idea we're so fascinating like Iceberg. So you get a lot of emails like this, but from the bottom of my heart, I want to say thank you for what you do. That is Jacob Beasley. And there's another question. Okay. Wow, this guy is full of them, and it's PS. What's the difference between a fact and a factoid? I always thought a factoid statement that appears true, that isn't. You guys use it a lot. I'm sure I'm incorrect, jacob, you're not. We are factoid. Now, factoid is one of those words, because language evolves as a living thing. That now has officially two meanings. Norman Mailer invented the term factoid. Oh, he did? In the 70s. Like truth enos. Yeah, sort of. But his original definition was, a piece of information becomes accepted as fact, even though it's not true. That sounds like normal Mailer all over. Oh, totally. But since then, it has evolved. It can mean just an insignificant little fact. Right? Like a nugget. Yeah. It's evolved into what it sounds like, finally. Yeah. So language evolves, people. It does. Mane, octopi, octopuses, octopods. Take your pick and stop being weirdos about it. Yeah. Pet and trees no fun for anyone. No, it's not. If you want to hang out with Chuck and I on our social media, you can catch up with us on Twitter at syskpodcast. You can hang out with me at JoshLord. You can hang out on Facebook at facebook. Dot comstuffyshouldnow or facebookcom. Charleswchuffbryant. You can send us an email to stuffpodcast@howstepworks.com. And as always, join us at home on the Web stuff You Should Know. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howtofworks.com. Hey, it's summer, everybody, which means school's out, the sun's shining, the daylight's longer, and best of all, there's plenty of time to get lost in a good, thrilling story. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing pool site, tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music, My Favorite Murder. From exactly right media, My Favorite Murder has something for everyone. Hosted by Karen Kilgueref and Georgia Hardstark, this true crime comedy podcast will share stories that will have you wanting more before you know it. Listen to new episodes of my favorite Murder. One week early on Amazon music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen today."
3fd01bbc-5461-11e8-b6d0-8746d63c802a	Selects: How Ketchup Works	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/selects-how-ketchup-works	Little-known fact: Ketchup, possibly the most all-American of condiments, evolved from fermented fish sauce people in Southeast Asia have been making for more than a thousand years. Learn more in this classic episode.	Little-known fact: Ketchup, possibly the most all-American of condiments, evolved from fermented fish sauce people in Southeast Asia have been making for more than a thousand years. Learn more in this classic episode.	Sat, 17 Jul 2021 09:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2021, tm_mon=7, tm_mday=17, tm_hour=9, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=5, tm_yday=198, tm_isdst=0)	50856933	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Hey, everybody, it's me, Josh. And I think that Will Smith put it best when he said summer. Summer, summer time, summer time. And in that spirit, I've chosen for this week's select a very summary episode indeed our 2018 comprehensive overview of everything to do with ketchup. I hope you enjoy it, and I sure hope you enjoy your summer time. Welcome to stuff you should know a production of iHeartRadio. Hi, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark there's. Charles W, Chuck Bryant. There's guest producer. No, this is stuck. You should know I hate ketchup. Do you really? Yeah. Really? Yeah. You like tomato sauce? Like pasta? Sure, love it. Do you like tomato soup? Don't love it. I'll choke it down, though. So I'm starting to see a spectrum emerge here. Oh, yeah. I don't go for raw tomato much. Well, love cooked pasta sauce. Yeah. But I'm a mayonnaise guy at heart. So we're talking condiments. You know, one thing about the Dorito effect that it kind of ruined me a little bit on food. Like, I'll be like, oh, this is a good tomato. And then some part of my brain is like, well, it's not 1940s tomato. You don't know what a good tomato is? What do you mean? Like a Jersey tomato versus just some other stupid tomato? No, supposedly just agricultural production in the US. Is so homogenized now that we've lost all these great heirloom varieties of especially tomato. And the stuff that most people get that are tomatoes, they're no good compared to how they used to be. You hit up a farmer's market, sure. But even still grow that junk yourself. There you go. Or build a time machine, take the way back machine and get some tomatoes. We got that at our disposal. What's your problem? Just cheap. I don't like to spend it on the gas. Yeah, well, that's funny, Chuck, that you like mayonnaise, because did you know before this, I should say that the number one condiment for sales wise in the United States is mayonnaise? I did not know that. And when I saw that, that surprised me. A and it surprised me be that it was that much more than ketchup. I figured ketchup would be far and away the winter, because I always feel like the ultimate weirdo for not liking ketchup. So what is it about ketchup? You don't like the taste? Okay. It's a pretty good reason not to like it. I'm not wild about vinegar based things. Yeah, I do like balsamic vinegar, but a lot of the other vinegar I'm not crazy about. That's one of the reasons I don't like pickled things. Right. But vinegar based things, it's really sweet, and I don't love sweet condiments. Have you ever had curry ketchup? No, I don't need Ketchup. Oh, I see. And then when I was a kid I can't lie, it probably grossed me out a little bit. Because you call your mom bathing in it. Yeah. Oh, my God. That's disturbing. The blood thing, I probably thought it grossed me out because we would use it as blood for play acting and things. Yeah. So yeah. Just not into it. Those are some solid reasons to not like ketchup. Plus, I don't know if people would probably argue that ketchupamanis are great together, but once you're on the mayo train to mix up another condiment with, it just doesn't make sense to me. I don't discriminate. I like most, if not all, condiments. So, like, ketchup, mayo and mustard on a burger is good to you? Yes, I can't it's not like I can't eat it without it. I've actually found I can eat burgers without ketchup now I'm a grown up, but I do like a little bit of ketchup on there, a little bit of mustard, and then, yes, definitely mayo. Well, Emily loves ketchup so much that she calls French fries a ketchup delivery system. Yeah, that makes sense. There are vehicle for it. Yeah. Tell her to try curry ketchup. It will knock her socks off. I totally will. I like curry. Yeah, but you don't like ketchup, so you wouldn't like this. But if she likes ketchup, even if she doesn't like curry, she may still like curry ketchup. No, she likes curry. Well, then she's going to love curry ketchup. Yeah. So mayonnaise is the number one condiment in the United States. It's a big surprise. Which must mean ketchup is number two. Yeah. Which, by the way, I'd mentioned how much more? I think it was about $2 billion to $800,000. $800 million, which is more than double that kind of surprised me. Yeah, it is very surprising. What's even more surprising is I was being facetious, because ketchup isn't even the number two condiment in the United States. Salsa. Is that's right. Salsa had a big surge in the it's because people like to say salsa. There's a reference. Ketchup is number three. Right. At least it's got mustard beat, for Pete's sake. What is this, the EU? Yes. 97% of American households have a bottle of ketchup in there. Well, it says kitchens, but we'll get to the fridge, non fridge thing later. Sure. So, yes, everybody loves ketchup, especially in America, because it's obviously an American invention. Everybody knows that John Wayne's grandfather invented ketchup while he was sailing his Ford truck down the Mississippi River. And one day, a magical bottle budweiser came and whispered the recipe in his ear, and they commemorated the event by shooting off fireworks. I love it. That's how ketchup was born. Everybody knows fireworks, right? Pretty neat. No, that's not true. Although I take a little bit of issue with this, because ketchup was first created in Asia, in China, and about 544 Ce, I should say. I saw they think maybe the Chinese got it from the Vietnamese. Yeah, I saw that, too. Okay. But as you will see, these recipes that were originally for preserving fish a they didn't have tomatoes at all. That came in America much later. But it's so not like ketchup to me. You can't even trace it back and say, like, yes, that's ketchup. What's the point in even linking these things? Because you can link them. That's the fascinating thing to me about it. It's like American ketchup, what we think of as ketchup here in the States, like hinds 57 stuff, right. Is it's a species that evolved not hinds 57 sauce, but hinds ketchup. Okay. What everybody thinks of is ketchup, right? It's a species that evolved from an ancestor that can directly trace its lineage right back to this ketchup in Asia. So much so that the word ketchup is an anglicization of either a melee word that was borrowed from the Cantonese or a Hokian, South China Fujian Province word. Either way, it was something like katsu, and it meant a fermented fish paste. When you go to the store today and you buy fish sauce yeah. I love it. That's the progenitor of ketchup. That's where ketchup came from. Yeah, I guess that makes sense to me. It's changed so much, it's almost like you should just draw a line, and I guess that line would be pre tomato and post tomato, I think. Yeah, I think that's pretty fair to say. Yeah. Pre tomato and post tomato, you can definitely draw a line, because if you look at Hines ketchup bottles, it says clearly, tomato ketchup. And there's this really great I think it was a fast code design article by a guy named John Brownlee who points out, like, why would they even bother putting tomato on the label? Of course it's tomato ketchup, you idiot. And the reason is because that's a throwback to a time when ketchup didn't have tomato and it had things like sardines and anchovies. Yeah. Well, not sardines, but anchovies, you name it. And it was probably in ketchup at some point. Right. So. Asia, maybe southeast Asia, maybe China. The Brits encountered this on some of their wild trips abroad. Right. And as many things brought it home, said, we love this stuff, let's try and replicate it. And then in 1732, was one of the first published recipes in the UK, ketchup and Paste by Richard Bradley. Right. Rick Bradley. Yeah. Ricky Bradley. And he did reference the East Indies as its origin. Yeah. Still pre tomato. Sure. Yeah. It was a very pretty faithful recreation of the fish sauce that they found. The kettle. I'm pretty sure that's how you say it. I'd be very interested to know how to pronounce it correctly, but it was a faithful recreation of it, which was basically like preserved fish and a sort of brine with some spices thrown in, maybe a little mace, some salt, some pepper, maybe something like lemon peel and then lemon. Yeah. If you like fish sauce, you would love the original ketchup, because it's basically the same thing. Right? Well, I do like fish sauce, but you got to use it liberally, and it's only for certain things. Yeah, sure. You don't want to just, like, go throwing fish sauce on everything? I don't know, man. If you love fish sauce, it's like with ketchup. People will put ketchup on just about anything. Well, we'll get to that. So at first, the Brits are, like, blind me. This is really good stuff. Well, that's good. Excellent. But I'm not that big on anchovies. What else can we replace it with? So they started making their own kind of offshoots of ketchup, where they replaced the anchovies with other stuff. Yeah. I mean, mushrooms, walnuts what else? Elderberry oysters. Yes. And what they were going for was that, Umami flavor. They didn't know it at the time because, Umami wasn't discovered until what the think, the 60s. We did a show on that. Yeah. Everybody kind of knew that it was a thing, but no one had actually sussed it out or named it. Right. That's what they're going for, is that savory meaty flavor that you would get from something like fermented anchovies, and they were trying to recreate it, and they did. I mean, apparently, mushroom ketchup tasted a lot like Worcestershire sauce. Yeah. And then walnut ketchup. Apparently, Jane Austen was a big fan of that. And if you're sitting there thinking of putting this on, like, your hot dog the hot dogs weren't invented yet. That's not what people were using it for. They were using it as, like, a base for stews or meat pies, things like that. It was like a sauce. It was a base. It was something that you were taking bland food and making it savory with this bottle of the stuff that was made from fermented something or other. Well, and they would use it like we can't use barbecue sauce. They would based it on things while they're cooking. Sure. Which I just can't imagine. That like basting tomatoes. Well, this is before it's tomato, I guess. Right. This is when it was mushroom based. Yeah, but you mentioned, umami and your buddy, Malcolm Gladwell. But an article for The New Yorker and kind of throwing out the question, like, why are there so many kinds of mustard? Yet ketchup is kind of ketchup. And his answer was because it satisfies all the fundamental tastes, all five sweet, salty, sour, bitter. And, umami, another answer is that there actually are a ton of different kinds of ketchup. Well, yeah, just as many as there are mustard. So America is who first, because tomatoes are native to North America, and this is where people first started using tomato as the base. Yeah, but, Chuck, it took a really long circuitous route to get to that point. And the reason why is, in America, people were making ketchup, but they were still doing things like using walnuts and using mushrooms and oysters as the base of it. Right. Yeah. They still weren't using tomatoes. Even the tomatoes were everywhere. And that was because the Europeans and American colonists or European colonists considered tomatoes poisonous. So they didn't eat tomatoes, dummy. I think they used them as like ornamental plants or something like that. Finally, some people started to try them and tried to convince other people, and then they went through a little period where they were considered medicine. And then finally somebody started adding them to ketchup. And the first tomato ketchup recipe appears in an American cookbook, depending on who you ask, either in 1812 or 18. One that's the one I found was 1812, but it still didn't really really take off until post Civil War. Right. And this is 1871, when a man named Henry Hines, he got together with a doctor, isn't that right? Yes. That guy, Dr. Wiley, I can't remember his first name, but he shows up in our FDA. Does the FDA protect Americans? Remember that guy who put together that group of people who would eat preservatives until they were poisoned to find out whether something was poisonous or not? Yes. That was the guy who set up that squad. Yeah. Dr. Harvey Washington Wiley. So his whole deal was for a while there, ketchup had some really nasty chemicals in it. Some of them had and these are all preservatives. Some of it was coltar that gave it the red color and then sodium benzoate, and that helped to retard spoilage. So it was really nasty stuff. And he kind of first championed that. This stuff is harmful to your health. So he got together with Henry J. Hines, who was producing ketchup in 1876. And they were like, you know what, if you use really good because at the time, the ketchup they were making was from scraps of tomatoes that were kind of like junk tomatoes, right? And they said, you know what, if use good ripe red tomatoes as your base, it has a natural preservative in it called pectin. And we got to ramp up the vinegar because that will help out with the spoilage. And all of a sudden, we don't need to use chemicals anymore, right. Which is a huge breakthrough. And the reason why there are so many preservatives in ketchup was because tomatoes have a pretty short growing season. It's like mid August and mid October. And so the only time during the year you could make fresh ketchup was those two months, and you couldn't make a year's worth of ketchup. Like, by this time, people were buying millions of bottles of ketchup in America alone a year. Right. So you couldn't make all that in two months. So you had to preserve the pulp. But they took terrible standards and practices to preserving. So when you opened up that tub of pulp come July, good band name to make some new ketchup, it was totally spoiled, ridden with bacteria. It was very dangerous stuff to begin with. And that was the basis that they used to start with, so it was really bad stuff. And when Hines created this preservative free version of ketchup, it was a huge breakthrough. Yeah. And way back in 1890, he even created that iconic octagonal ketchup bottle that you cannot buy in stores anymore, as far as I know. But you can still get in restaurants. You can take them from restaurants. Just leave an extra good tip. All right, so let's take a break here, and we'll get back and talk about this foul condiment right after this. All right, so today ketchup is basically tomatoes, salt, vinegar, onion powder, or some spice, some kind of sweetener, either a lot of sugar or a lot of corn syrup. Or high fructose corn syrup. Yeah, I think high fructose corn syrup is the standard. And I think it was Hunts that first came out with a brand that didn't have high fructose corn syrup. And they touted it all up and down the avenue, and Hines is far and away. Since I don't do ketchup, I made the bad mistake of buying the wrong catch up one time for Emily. What kind did you get? I think it was Hunts. And she was like, no. It's like, don't bring any Hunts and God forbid, any Del Monte catch up in this household. It's hinds, hinds, hinds in my house. And it is far and away the leader. I think they have, what, like, 60 or so percent of the market share that's in the US. They have about 30% of the global market. Not bad. Hines is synonymous, literally, with ketchup around the world. That's good. Everybody knows Hines ketchup. Right? We should have gotten them as a sponsor. Yeah, we should have. But then we wouldn't have been able to do a show about ketchup. We're giving the values. Yeah, we do. We really do. Chuck, congratulations to you on your values. And you as well. So ketchup is much more standardized. Depending on who you ask, it's either incredibly toxic or actually has some health benefits. It could be both. Yeah, right. I think I already said that there was a period where tomatoes were seen as medicine back in the day. Yeah, they had tomato pills. Yeah, they had tomato pills. And actually, they had ketchup pills, too. There was a doctor in Ohio who stole the ideas of another doctor in Michigan and went to a guy who is selling patent medicine and said, hey, man, tomatoes are super healthy. And so, by extension, ketchup should be super healthy. And I believe that they do things like treat indigestion by removing bile from the body. Yeah. You got some diarrhea, eat some ketchup, got jaundice ketchup pills. Right. How about rheumatism or headaches? Well, so this is where it starts to get a little wacky, right? Yeah. They started selling Dr. Mills compound extract of tomato, and they were successful. This was back in 1835, and they were successful. And a bunch of imitators came on the market, and all of a sudden, it was not so great any longer. Well, no, because a lot of them didn't even have tomatoes in them. They were fraudulent ketchup pills, or they were laxatives acting as laxatives. And so that caused the great tomato pill market crash of 1840. But today, we're much smarter, and rather than ketchup pills, we take tomato pills, also known as lycopene supplements. Yeah. Because lycopene is that's the good stuff that you're looking for? That has been shown to help cancer patients specifically? I think the one that they've actually proven is prostate cancer. Right. So they haven't proven it, but that one there's been the most, like, positive studies, but even still, the jury is still out on that one. Okay. But yes, prostate cancer is the one that they roundly point to and say, lycopene really helps with this. At least some studies have shown that lycopene somehow disrupts communication between cancer cells, and it requires the growth of blood vessels to the cancer cells so they can't grow as well. And apparently, the body produces lycopene naturally, but also readily absorbs and uses it, too. And one of the great sources of lycopene is tomatoes. Right. Lycopene gives tomatoes, among other things, it's red color. But the amazing thing about it is, if you eat a raw tomato right now, you're not going to absorb as much lycopene as if you ate some ketchup right now. Yeah. It's got to be cooked. Yeah. It releases the lico peanut. It makes it more readily available to the human body, we should say. Yeah, but they also say even if it does help, it's like a little ketchup on a hamburger is not nearly enough to really do you a lot of good. No, it's something like 2.5 milligrams of lycopene in a tablespoon of ketchup. You say, Well, I'll just eat a bunch of ketchup. The problem is, if you eat, say, like, a half a cup, about seven tablespoons of ketchup. But you just have to be a weirdo anyway to do that. Right. You're getting about three quarters of your daily sodium intake and four teaspoons of added sugar as well, where you're just better off, like, eating some tomato sauce instead. Yeah. But the point is, if lycopene helps humans, which the jury is still out, but it looks like it's possible, then ketchup actually can help humans by giving a little extra lycopene. That's right. This is ketchup on your tomato sauce. Yeah. And all these things can add up over time. Sure. So Ketchup was selling well in America post Civil War. You got the tomato going now, everyone loves it. But there was a problem early on with ketchup that took a long time to fully solve, and I bet you they're still sort of working on it. Is that ketchup? Anyone who grew up in the loved ketchup at a diner would have a hard time getting the ketchup out of that glass bottle. And there were all kinds of tricks. I remember one of them was that if you tapped on the 57 on the label, was that it? Yes. Then it would come out better. Yeah, that's true. Then you had the jackass who would just smash the bottom of it until ketchup would shoot out all across the table. That works, but not well. Or the more sheepish person at the diner might stick a butter knife in there, be like die ketchup and coax it out. And the reason all this is happening is because ketchup, and this is a good little dinner party factoid, is a non Newtonian fluid. So if you ever change your oil or even pour water out of a cup, you will notice that all pours out at the same rate. It has a single viscosity, it's a Newtonian fluid. Noon's like those are great ketchup. It can start to come out very slowly and then all of a sudden it starts picking up steam and coming out of that bottle. And that's when you know you're really cooking. That has different external forces acting upon it to either increase or decrease that viscosity. Right. So it has multiple viscosities, which makes it a non Newtonian fluid. Right. Yes. And when you put force on it, specifically shear force, it changes the viscosity. It actually decreases the viscosity of the ketchup, which increases the flow rate, which means it comes out of the bottle faster. And one of the ways that you can introduce shear force, shear is to tap on the bottle. Yes. That concussive force loses or changes the viscosity and the ketchup flows more quickly. So it actually is true, because there was something to that then. Yeah. That tapping on the Embossed 57, the one that was like embossed on the bottle yeah. That's the perfect spot to tap because if you hit it with the heel of your palm onto the rear of the bottle, if you hit it north right. If you do that lightly, all you're doing is reducing the viscosity of the ketchup right in the rear. But the stuff toward the neck of the bottle that you're trying to get out, it remains highly viscous. Right. If you tap toward the neck of the bottle, you're going to reduce the viscosity of the ketchup that's up there in front and it'll start to slide out. If you hit that thing on the bottom hard enough that you change the viscosity of all the catch up inside yeah. It's going to come shooting out and you're going to look like an idiot. All your friends are going to laugh at you and you'll die alone. That's right. So they had a problem with this and they thought, in 1968, what about ketchup packets? This kind of solves that problem because you can squeeze it out and they said, yeah, that's kind of neat. It might do well for restaurants, but no one's going to have a Ziploc bag full of ketchup packets in their fridge unless you're my mom and they're from eight different fast food restaurants. Sure. God bless her, those are still around. But it took till 1983 to come up with the plastic squeeze bottle, which still didn't fully work, because, as this, our own article points out, they made funny farting noises, which I guess is unseemly at a dinner table. Sure. And then what the industry insiders call serum. That thin, watery, kind of gross stuff that nobody wants on their hamburger or hot dog ketchup juice. Yeah. Toward the end, that serum comes out, and nobody wants that. So those squeeze bottles weren't the ultimate solve. Yeah. It's basically just separated water. Separated from the ketchup solids. Yeah. And there are actual academic papers on this conundrum, this problem with serum separation and ketchup. Well, I'm sure people trying to figure out how to get around it. I think they've hybridized a new kind of tomato that allows for less serum separation once processed in a catch up, even we couldn't need to shake it up. I'm a novice, but yeah, you do shake it up. And it typically works. But in, I think, 2002, Hines and Hunts, and apparently Hunts was working on it first, and Hines got wind of it and started their own project. But almost simultaneously, hines and Hunts released a new type of squeeze bottle that you could stand upside down. So the ketchup stayed toward the bottom. Right. And it was actually designed to catch the ketchup, juice the serum, and remix it back into the ketchup solids as it flowed out. That's right. A dude named Paul Brown is the hero to many because he created the silicone valve. And it wasn't just for ketchup. In fact, I don't even know if it was originally it was for shampoos. I think that he was trying to come up with, well, that makes sense. But he's a hero to ketchup lovers. Yeah. So these liquid valves, they had right angle slit cut into the valve, so when you squeeze the bottle, it flows out nice and neat, and then they close back up when you stop squeezing, which seals it back up inside the bottle. And then it's revolutionary. It's a dome that has the splits cut into the side of it, and then around the dome, it's a place where the serum collects, and then as the ketchup is moving out, it's supposed to mix back in together. So funny how much science has gone into this right, just to get the ketchup right. And it still isn't perfect. Anybody who uses this bottle knows that you still get ketchup juice when you first squirt it unless you shake it first. Yeah. And even then, you're still going to get a little serum. It's just a fact of life. You don't want to do it on a bad day because that can be the thing that strawberries the camel's back where suddenly you're sobbing, standing in your kitchen holding that squeeze bottle of ketchup. So that's why you go for mayonnaise, because although it is a nonnewtonian fluid, there's no mayonnaise serum. Did you finish your CuPy mayonnaise yet? I did. And I need to go to the little Mart near my house to see if they have more. Any halfway decent Asian market will have it. I'm sure they do. I mean, you can buy Matcha Powder and eel, so I'm sure you can buy the stuff. Yeah, they will have cute. Manny. All right, so 2002 is when that new valve was introduced by Hinds and Hunt. It doesn't mention poor Del Monte. I wouldn't feel too bad for them, though. They're still selling a lot of ketchup. Yeah, they're still making that money. I want to hear from people, though. They're like, no, I'm a Del Monte man, through and through. Oh, there's somebody somebody out there we want to hear from. The legit once. Not hipster ones. Yeah, like Malort and Del Monte. Ketchup and PBR. I don't wear shirts. So 2002 was when that was invented and then implemented. And then there was that still final problem, apparently, with ketchup, where you get to the bottom of the bottle of the squeeze bottles and you can't get it all out. And that was solved with a little bit of technology courtesy of MIT called Liquid Glide. Yeah. I don't know if they've implemented this yet. It sounds like adding something that is really unnecessary that could conceivably be toxic. Oh, is it not in there yet? I don't believe so. From the Houseworks article. Makes it sound like they've invented it and they're planning on it, but they haven't put it in yet. Yeah. So the thing with Liquid Glide, I looked up what that was all about, and I think the deal is it essentially sort of is a coating on the inside the bottle that makes the inside of the bottle pre wet in a way. Okay. It's like that slippery. What was it that Clark Griswold came up with in Christmas vacation? Oh, it's like a silicone that he ended up putting on me. Yeah, that's Liquid Glide. Yeah. Basically, I thought if there was going to be any vacation reference in this, it would be real tomato ketchup. Eddie, what was that one? That was when he spoon the ketchup on the sandwich and it was kind of this chunky mess and real tomato ketchup. And he went, Nothing but the best, Clark. Nice. So, Liquid Glide, by all accounts, they say food safe, but I always wonder about this stuff. Like, I don't trust the FDA. I'm not going to say that I don't fully trust the FDA in all cases. So I just can't imagine that we haven't been poisoning ourselves all along with food containers. Don't you wonder if there's going to be that revelation that it's a cookbook moment or Soylent Green is humans just that. Moment where we come to realize that this beep whatever thing it is, this is the thing that's been giving everyone who's ever had cancer since it's been invented cancer. This is the smoking gun. Don't you just think that there's got to be I assume it's just plastics in general. I think it's a mix of a lot of things of modern manufacturing and farming and pesticides and I mean, you name it. So Depressing, should we take a break? Yeah, maybe we can pull this one back from the brink. All right, we're going to get to ketchup versus catch up, which I know everyone wants to know about. All right, Chuck, we shouldn't put it off any longer. All right, hit me. So ketchup K-E-T-C-H-U-P versus Catsup. C-A-T-S-U-P weird. The Haste Works article. I didn't actually look, but I didn't see this anywhere else. Is that they're pronounced the same. Correct. Have you ever heard that? So you've seen people say ketchup and you knew that in their mind, they saw the word cats up? Yes. All right, I did not realize that. So you said catsup ketchup. Yes, but I always say ketchup. I say cats up like mockingly. Okay, but that's how I pronounce it, you know? Yeah, but apparently they're both just bastardisation's anglicizations of whatever word ketchup originally comes from. Either that Fujian word or the Malaysian word for again, that anchovy fermented paste. I think Hines used ketchup starting pretty early on. Correct? Yes. So that's an interesting story. And you just basically told the whole thing, is that it came hines, even though they're like, the global leader in ketchup, they came to the market pretty late, like 30 years after ketchup was sold and mass produced in the US. Heinz came along finally, and they wanted to distinguish themselves from their competitors, so they use ketchup. But ketchup wasn't a new word. It was the original word. If you look back at, like, some of those 18th century recipes, it's ketchup, K-E-T-C-H-U-P. Right. And then apparently, sometime in the 18th century, people started calling it cats up. And so that was the preferred term, spelling. Okay. And then Heinz distinguished themselves and brought ketchup, the popularized spelling with a KBack. And because they got market share, that became the norm. Exactly. And then so it was Del Monte who is the big outlier for years and years and years. Yet 1988, it was when they finally said, all right, no more ketchup. Yeah. Going with ketchup. Yes. And they did. They gave in. What about this other thing that I know a lot of people have argued over for generations is fridge or no fridge. So it's got a lot of vinegar in it, supposedly, as far as Heinz is concerned, they say it's shelf stable, meaning that even after you open it, it's got enough stuff in it that it's going to stay fine right outside of the fridge, but they still recommend keeping it in the fridge. Yeah. They say this is direct quote from Hines, whoever the latest Hines Air is, I think it's John Kerry. Oh, right. Wasn't his wife. The Heinz Air yes. Teresa Hines. Right. So John Kerry says because of its natural acidity, it's shell stable. However, its stability after opening can be affected by storage conditions. So we recommend, like, any processed food to be refrigerated after opening. So, in other words, if you live in Yuma, Arizona, you might not want to keep your ketchup and you don't have air conditioning. You might not want to keep your ketchup on the table, but you probably could if you really wanted to. But if you lived in Southern California, where the breeze is always cool and the air is always clean, then you could put it on your table and you'd probably be fine. Yeah. And again, it's got, like a number of different preservatives in it. It's got vinegar in, it has sugar, which is a preservative. It has pectin, naturally found in tomatoes. It's a preservative. It's probably going to be fine, but keep it in the fridge. Why not? We don't listen to us. Unless you have, like if you don't have enough room in your fridge for the bottle of catsup, then you have too much salsa and sriracha. Right? Sriracha. Sriracha. You hipster, you yeah, sriracha is really good, actually. And in fact, we get to that. There are sriracha ketchups. They're pretty popular these days because this article says millennials like their spice more than their parents. Depending on where you are in the world, there are all flavors of ketchups and all ways to use ketchup, depending on where you are. Yes. And I just want to say I love how that was put. Can't you see a hipsters parent coming to them and be like, what do you like more, your spice or me? Yeah, I like my spice more than my parents. Well, you know that's not what they meant, right? I know. Okay. But let's take a tour around the world. I know you're leading up to I just had to double back to that. All right, let's go to jolly old England, or maybe Venezuela even. Okay. Because apparently they like sweeter ketchup in those two places. Yeah. And in the Philippines, they like sweet ketchup, but they like sweet ketchup that's made from a banana base rather than a tomato base. But they're not crazy over there, so they dye it red so it looks like tomato ketchup. Yeah. And we also should say that in England, they might be more apt to reach for the HP sauce before the ketchup, though. Right, the brown sauce, right, yes. They love that stuff. Yeah, I think that's their number one condiment over there, HP sauce. Or do they just call it the brown sauce? They call it the brown the brown no, wait, that's heroin. Big brown. No, big brown. Apparently, Americans, like we said, well, we eat a lot of ketchup, but we're not the leading consumer because the fence and the Canadians love the stuff more than we do, even. Yes. Which is pretty shameful. America pretty shameful. Yeah. Mayonnaise in salsa. So in China, Jamaica, and I believe Thailand, they like to put ketchup on fried chicken. Got to try that one. What about pizza? Eastern Europe, apparently. And Trinidad, India, Japan and Poland. That's how you know it's good. Man, that is a diverse collection of countries that all put ketchup on their pizza. You know what's funny is my friend Eddie can say all of these foods. Ranch dressing. Well, yeah, I mean, ranch dressing should be the number one condiment in the world. Chuck, hold on. I have to tell you something. You have to go to Japan one of these days. Right, okay. I thought it was just understood you have a standing invitation to come to Japan every time we go, because you are the ambassador. Right. I've got the sash and everything, but Japan is misspelled. They have pizza over there, and rather than tomato sauce, it's going to knock your socks off. They use a Japanese mayo, what with corn and sometimes ham panchetta or something like that. All right, so you've got a dough, then you've got a spread of mayonnaise, corn off the cob and ham. Yes. And it is mind blowingly good. Is there cheese? I don't remember if there's cheese or not. I think I fainted. No, they're not big on cheese or dairy. They don't have that much room for cows. Although all the cows they have are like, Kobe beef cows. I think that's what they kind of dedicate their cow space to. Did I ever tell you my story of being at the Chinese restaurant when I was a kid? There was a guy getting takeout, and he went through about probably about five or six different things, asking if it had cheese on it. Like egg rolls have cheese on it. Mughu Gypan does have cheese on it. And the sweet Chinese owner is kind of an older guy, kept saying, like, no, after the fifth thing, the guy stopped them and said, in this very sweet Chinese American accent, that no Chinese food has cheese on it. Really? Was the guy just messing with them or something? No, man, I think I don't know. I guess he was just unfamiliar. I mean, this was the 1970s. Oh, yeah. So maybe he didn't have experience with Chinese food. But it's funny as an adult to think about Chinese food with cheese, like, melted on top. Yeah, that's got it. White American. So Sweden, if you go to Sweden, they will actually squeeze ketchup over their pasta. That's like Honey Boo Boo. Oh, really? Yeah, they used to put and I never really watched this show, but, I mean, I was a conscious human being back then. So I was aware of this. But they would cook pasta and then put butter on it and then squeeze ketchup on it, and that was like Honey Boo Boo Spaghetti. Oh, my God. No comment. We used to be colleagues of Honey Boo Boo at one point. Did they work for Discovery? Yeah, they were all on TLC. I have to remember to add that back to my resume. Right. What else we got? What kind of crazy ketchups do we have? Okay. All right. Are you ready for this one? Yeah. I've never heard of this before in Canada. Have you ever had well, you wouldn't have, but have you ever seen ketchup potato chips? Yes, they're pretty good. They're better than barbecue chips, if you ask me. Harris makes a good one. Right. Apparently the Canadians do some wacky thing with it where they take ketchup potato chips and turn it into a ketchup cake of some sort. I've not had this before, but we're going to be in Toronto and Vancouver this year, so I expect multiple ketchup cakes. You don't really have to make a ketchup. I should point out, too, since we're talking about that tour, that Toronto and Vancouver are far and away leading in ticket sales right now out of the gate. So Canada, like America, needs to step it up because Canada is kicking your butts, man. That's the great thing about doing multinational tours, as you can pit one country against the other. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Especially as everybody's kind of devolving into nationalism right now. You can really get it going. You know what kind of chips I did have the other day was the what do you call it? The country gravy sausage and country gravy. Oh, the Lays. Yeah. I haven't tried those. Are they good? Yeah, I mean, do you like white gravy sausage gravy? Sure. It tastes like that. Really? They nailed it. They nailed it. Because sometimes those things are way off. Well, yeah. They have a contest now, don't they? Yeah, they do. I'm trying to remember some of the other ones because they've had some good ones, but chicken and waffles. Chicken and waffles. One was really good. Was it? Yeah, it had, like, just this hint of maple. But yeah, it kind of tasted a little fried chicken. It was good. Crazy. What other kinds of crazy ketchups do we have? What about ketchup ice cream? No, thank you. So Baskin Robbins apparently came up with it and it died in the lab. But apparently it was based on a Hines ice cream recipe for Hines Carnival Cream. So that was the thing. Again, I would try this stuff. Did I ever tell you about the time you and I went to Plaza Fiesta and try tuna gelato? Yeah. And it was like it tasted just like raw tuna. It was insane. Yeah. Never heard of it before. Never seen it anywhere else. It was like this one specific place at it, man. If you ever find yourself in Atlanta, Georgia, with some time to kill, go to Plaza Fiesta, try to find the gelato place and see if they have the tuna gelato. They have a good cowboy store over there, too. Yeah, they have a bunch of them. Good boots, hats and belts and checkered shirts. Brother, if you're throwing a quintenita, that's where you go. Yeah, I'm sure. So lastly, Chuck, we have to give a shout out. We would be really remiss if we didn't mention that one of tomato or ketchup is a big ingredient in something called pruno. Yeah, we talked about prison wine in our prisons episode. I don't think I remembered that. In fact, maybe I didn't know. Do we say that it was an ingredient? I don't think so. I didn't notice it until now. But it's like part of you use that and sugar packets to feed the fermentation process in a sock, right? I don't know if you could make it in a sock. I think it needs to be a little more airtight than that, but maybe not. Maybe you could. Although it all just drop out. I'm not sure, man. For the recipe, I came across like a big gallon size Ziploc bag. But yeah, after like, day two or three of fermentation, you feed it with ketchup packets and sugar. Gross. Yeah. And then you get some pruneau, which you should never try. No. You got anything else? Yeah, we should cover this thing. This last thing you said headline. Israel Ketchup war forces heinz to relabel sauce as tomato seasoning. So in Israel, the leading ketchup maker is Osem OSM, and they have a 66% market share. And in Israel, as in most countries, they have food standards where you can only call something something if it has this much of whatever. Yeah. And apparently Israel's standards are much higher than the US or Europe. Yes. So you have to have a certain percentage of tomato concentrate to be labeled tomato ketchup in Israel. And so OSM, even though they have 66% market share, went after Hinds. They said, hey, we did a study with an independent lab that had no skin in the game leading European external laboratory and they found out that Hinds did not have the required percentage of tomato concentrate. So they can't even call it ketchup anymore. And I believe it's being enforced over there. Right. Yeah. Well, this is from 2015 and the thing leads off. I didn't see any updates, but the article leaves off that Hinds was petitioning with the Health Ministry to change the tomato concentrate requirements down to something like 6%. Well, here's the thing is, Hine said their claims have no substance. Well, then why are they lobbying to get the percentage lowered? Right. I think what happened was Hines was selling the same ketchup that they sell in Europe and America. And this is just speculation on my part, but they were probably selling the same ketchup that they sell elsewhere, but in Israel. But Israel has higher food standards, at least as far as their ketchup goes, and their competitor nailed them on it. That's what I think happened. But, yeah, they can't on the label, they can call it ketchup in English, but they can't call it ketchup in Hebrew. You can only call it tomato seasoning malk. It's pretty funny. It is. It's a Funny world, Chuck. It is. And now ketchup is done. I guess I didn't think it would take us in our 900 something episode to finally get to catch up, but we did well, and this now frees up. Now I have permission to request mayonnaise. Okay, that's the deal. We'll do that. All right. Maybe we should just have condiment month. Okay, I like the sound of that. Well, in the meantime, if you want to learn more about ketchup, you can type that word in the search bar@housedefirks.com. You can also check out netgio's articles on it. Like I said, fast code design, mental Flaws had a great one. And we got some stuff from our friends, at least Verse, who had a pretty interesting compilation of some cool tomato facts or ketchup facts. And since I said tomato instead of ketchup, it's time for listener mail. I'm going to call this wow signal update. Did you get tweets about this? I did. I ignored them all. Because I think this is a lie. All right. I think it's propaganda. Here we go, then. Alien. Hey, guys. First, want to let you know that I love the show. Always look forward to new episodes Tuesday, Thursday, as well as the selects on Saturday. I know you'd be interested to find out that I saw a news article the other day that states that an experiment was ran earlier this year based on a paper from 2015 that claimed the wow signal was caused by hydrogen clouds from comets which transited that area of the sky back in 1077. In January of this year. Those comments transited once again, and it was determined they were indeed the source of the signal. Of course, this sparked quite a bit of controversy among those hoping that this was a sign of alien life. Alas, it appears it wasn't. So I can't help but be a little disappointed. Ever since learning of the wow signal, I knew it was a long shot. Anyway, keep up. Great work. Love to see you in Charleston, South Carolina, someday. I'm sure you'd love that city and Sean Flanagan. I do love Charleston. Yeah. Charleston is a top notch town. Yeah. I don't know if it has enough people for us to go, but maybe, I don't know, people might come from around the southeast of that show. Who knows? The heck, we went to Birmingham. Let's go to Charleston. Yeah. US playing there is a good enough reason to get people to go to Charleston. Maybe Bill Murray would come. Oh, yeah. Is he still there? I know his family is. Yeah, he lives there. Okay. I think he's got more than one place, but I think he will. Tell you what, Bill Murray, if you're listening, we'll list you for our show. If you'll come. He's just crazy enough to show up. Yeah, so that's from Sean, and we had a lot of people write in about the wow signal. Yeah. Disappointing that everybody bought into it. Like, oh, no, it's not aliens. It's this hydrogen cloud. Stupid comments. Well, if you want to get in touch with us, you can tweet to us. We're at SYSK Podcast. You can send us all an email to Stuff podcast@housestopworks.com. And as always, join us at our home on the web. Stuffycheannow.com. Stuffyheno is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, myheartrad radio, visit the iHeartRadio app Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows."
a675ab4c-5462-11e8-b449-23f6ae10e136	SYSK Live: How Game Shows Work	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/sysk-live-how-game-shows-work	Join Josh and Chuck and a whole bunch of great people at the Gothic Theatre in Denver for this live show on game shows and their place in cultures around the world, recorded on June 28, 2018. You just come right on down, why don’t you?	Join Josh and Chuck and a whole bunch of great people at the Gothic Theatre in Denver for this live show on game shows and their place in cultures around the world, recorded on June 28, 2018. You just come right on down, why don’t you?	Tue, 11 Sep 2018 16:14:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2018, tm_mon=9, tm_mday=11, tm_hour=16, tm_min=14, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=254, tm_isdst=0)	65394393	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"You know you're a pet mom when you plan your vacation around your pet. At Halo, we get it because we're pet moms, too. We make natural, high quality pet food that's rooted in science. It's the world's best food for the world's best kids. Learn more@halopets.com.com. Hey, everybody. If you want a great website, you want to do it yourself with no must, no fuss, turn to Squarespace. They have everything to sell anything. They have the tools that you need to get your business off the ground, including ecommerce templates, inventory management, simple checkout process, and secure payments. And if you're into analytics, hold on to your hats, because Squarespace has everything that you need. Just head to squarespace. Comcysk and you can get a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use offer code SYSK to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Welcome to stuff you should know from housetopworkscom. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W, Chuck Bryant and Jerry's. Not with us, but these beautiful people are at the Gothic Theatre in Denver, Colorado. That was easily double last night's reception. Easily. That was a good start is what they call that. And I don't know if you noticed, but there's a lovely lady with a Josh sent me shirt. Oh, yes, I know. Thank you very much. That is great. Thank you for wearing that. Okay, so tonight, you guys, you're probably going to feel like you just wasted your applause because we're going to be talking about game shows. Yes. Oh, good, you guys are into it. That's good because it's a coin toss. Frankly. About half the people are like, I wonder what the real topic is. Right? He's just kidding. Actually, we once did a show in, I think, Portland, and came out and said that it was the anniversary of the House of the Sun Worked show. So we were going to redo it, and all the people were like, wow, we want to like you guys, but we're really mad right now. Are you kidding? Yes, we're just but we're all super high, so we really don't care. They're like, that's why we cheer to game shows. So we want to do game shows in part because 4 July is coming up. You guys can't have fireworks because it's too dry here to set off the firework. It's the most wildly irresponsible thing you could do. Something tells me that some of your militia members are going to shoot off fireworks anyway. But even still, 4 July is coming, so we wanted to do something American. And nothing is more American than game shows. They're like leisure suit level American, right? Yeah, right. He's in a leisure suit. You get a free beer. As American as game shows are, however, it turns out that the first game show on television was actually British. No, we like the British spongeboo it's because they live in another country and remember this, buddy. If you shoot into the air, bullets come back down. That's right. Just don't shoot into the air. Maybe blanks are okay. So this first game show in Great Britain, it launched in 1938, is called Spelling Bee. And it was exactly what it sounds like. That's right. Freddie Grizewood was the host, and he dressed as a school teacher. He kind of played it up a bit, which was nice. And he would say, Spell this, and they spelled it and it sounds boring. It was, because even though there was nothing on TV in 1938, it still was not met with warm reception. Advertisers liked it. But there was a columnist in the Independent in 2000, just 18 years ago. Such a snarky British thing to say. He said this. One of the few happy consequences of the Second World War was it took spellingby off air like a good World War II burn, right? So Spelling Bee, even though it was boring, it kicked off this huge craze. Just immediately everyone saw like, okay, if Spelling Bee can be popular with advertisers, sure, we can do better than that. We're America, right? So we took the ball and ran with it. We were already familiar with game shows. We had them on the radio. We had shows like You Bet Your Life with Groucho Marks was a big one. What's My Line? What's My Line? That's where you tried to guess someone's profession by asking them questions, like maybe a step up from spelling be. Right? Then things start to get cool with Truth or Consequences, which started out as a radio show and then very quickly moved on to TV. Truth or Consequences was this show where you were asked a question and you had to answer before bula? The buzzer sounded. They named their buzzer bula? Yeah. It's kind of neat, right? It's just a nice little touch. Right. And if you didn't answer before bula went off, you had to face the consequences, which is like something wacky, like a mock execution or something like that. The coolest thing about that show, though, was that they have you ever been to Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, or driven very fast through there? Yeah. Are you from there? Okay. Pretty close. All right. I think it's in the same state. All right. I'm a Las Crucist guy myself, but whatever. Name dropper. Huh? You're a name dropper. In 1950, host Ralph Edwards said that they would broadcast live from the first town that would name their city after Truth or Consequences. This is not a joke. And that's where that town name came from. Before that, it was the lovely Hot Springs, New Mexico. And they named it Truth or Consequences. Our town's name is basically just like a caution sign. We can lose this. We'll still keep the sign up that says Hot Springs because it's useful, but we're going to change our name. They did. I think they cheaped out personally. Okay? Don't tell them that back in New Mexico that Chuck said that, okay? So I think 1939 was when game shows started coming on TV in the US. And by the 50s, they were like some of the top rated shows on television. Game shows were I think they call them quiz shows back then, even. They did. And that was pretty much the format. There was actually, like, thought and skill to this. Masters. Yes. Smarts. Right? There was, like, the $64,000 Question, which in today's dollars would be the 595,559.63 cent question. That's correct. Thank you. Although you wrote this a couple of months ago, probably inflated. I'm really sad that you brought that up. I was just going to not mention all right, well, Jerry, in the future, cut that part out. I don't want to make Josh uncomfortable. Thank you, Jerry's. All around us right now, you guys, we live up on a hard drive in Jerry's computer in the future. This is all a simulation. So the pressure was on to make these quiz shows as dramatic as possible. And so producers of these quiz shows realize, hey, we can maybe manipulate these things, ie. Cheat, and build up people who people love to love and people who love to hate, and America will never know the difference, and they'll think it's great, right? And that's what they did. There was this one show called 21, and the whole thing started where there was this producer for 21 who approached this blue blood, lip professor named Charles Van Doren and just appealed to his ego. He said, there's this guy on the show that I produced. His name is Herb Stempel. He's like the worst stain of a human being anyone's ever seen. But he can't stop winning, and America hates him in revlon. Our sponsor is going to leave. We're starting to lose ratings. You got to help us. Van Doren Van Dorn is like, okay, I'll see what I can do. Just feed me the lines and we'll cheat together and I will help you. By the way, that was my Van Doren. Okay, so he gets locked into this, right? But what Van Doren didn't know is that he was actually being scammed. It was a scam within a scam. Because Herb Stemple was a plant. Yeah, he was a plant. They made him wear an ill fitting suit. They gave him a bad haircut, and they tried to make him as unlikable as possible so they would have a villain on their hands. And Herb Stemple doesn't like this, of course, because you would think like, all right, well, then go to the press and expose this thing. And he did. And the press said, you're just a sore loser. Yeah, they wouldn't bother. The New York Times said no, you're just a sore loser. There was another guy. Who was the other dude? Stony Jackson. Yes. Tony Jackson was another. I think he was on the $64,000 Question. He went to the New York Times and Time Magazine and said, these are all rigged. None of these game shows are real. And they went, yeah, you're just a sore loser. Yeah. So finally there was hard evidence. There was another quiz show named Dotto, and somebody found a contestant's notebook that had the questions and the answers in it and took it to the press, and that was that. And America's reaction was profound. You could say they had congressional hearings on it. They amended the 1938 Communications Act to expressly outlaw dishonest quiz shows. Right. This is, like a very naive time in our country's history. I'm trying to think of a time when game show quality was one of the more important things on the docket right now. I'm depressed. Yeah, me, too. Militia hippies. I don't have to think Van Doren, by the way, he was actually indicted for perjury. He was, because he had lied to Congress. No, he told the truth to Congress. He lied to a court. Right. But I don't think he ever did a hard time. I said he was a blue blood. Yeah. Let's face it, it was still America. He didn't serve any hard time. Right. So those quiz show scandals gave us one of the weird quirks of Jeopardy. At one point. Yes. I still love Jeopardy. Merv Griffin's wife suggested at one time that he do a quiz show, and he was like, Shut up. Nobody wants to come near a quiz show. Haven't you been paying attention? And she went, you shut up. Why don't you just make the questions? The answers, the answers to questions? I'm sure they're very lovely people. Actually, that's just how I picture it in my head, is they're all drunk and smoking. It's got, like, bangly bracelets on. His wife Julian actually suggested that. And that's where that interesting quirk of Jeopardy. Came from. Right. And by the time the executives figured out it was actually the same thing. Yeah. Too late, we're on the air. Yeah. You can still feed someone the questions or answers. Right. So the scandal again, america's response was profound, and it almost killed off quiz shows were it not for one of maybe our country's greatest geniuses ever, man by the name of Mark Goodson, who created the greatest game show ever, the Price is Right. Yes. Mark Goodson. And Bill Toddman, his partner. I don't recognize him. Just Mark Goodson. All right. Your weird longstanding grudge against bills, odds, it's not so much that it's more an idolization of Mark Goodson. I got you. That's fine. So what Mark Goodson did, he said, okay, everybody, wait. We don't have to give up quiz shows. What we're going to do is take quiz shows and make them 70% dumber, and then we have game shows. And that's what he did. They did away with the game. They did away with quiz anything. They did away with having to know stuff to actually compete on the game. And that's when they got really good. Yeah. That is when they got really good. Brother, you can say that again. They did. That's when it got really good. Yeah. Thank you. Because this was the era that we all know and love. If anyone watches the Game Show Network, when you could just trot out drunk celebrities to spew racist and homophobic jokes left and right. Oh, yes, the good old days. Hey, make America great again, right? Oh, God, this, like, crowded season one. Big seafoods shreds. Legal weed. Don't tread on me. Let's just back away from this truck. All right, jerry, cut all that out. Jerry, get us out of here. Celebrity is getting drunk with shows like the Match Game in Hollywood Squares, and they, like, flat out got drunk on The Match Game. If you've ever seen, like, behind the scenes stories, it's pretty great. They just swilled vodka, basically from like a noon on. And the only smarts you had to have as a contestant was to be able to fill in the blanks. You had to be able to speak like this. Frank was embarrassed because his blank squeaked. That's as smart as you needed to be. Name a body part. You basically couldn't get it wrong. And if you got it wrong, it's because you just guessed wrong. You had just as much of a chance of guessing right as you had to guess right. But there was always a chance that Nipsey Russell would be thinking the same body part. Right. And then you are the winner. Right? It's pretty great. They would carry you out on their shoulders and give you a bunch of mushrooms because they were all on mushrooms themselves. And then there was, of course, The Newlywed Game, the legendary Newlywed Game, where they would trot out married couples and they would put one of them backstage, ask a question of the other spouse, and say, how would your husband or wife answer this? Are we doing this? Yeah, I think we have to because it's one of the biggest moments in game show history. Was holga from The Newlywed Game. We're doing it over to you. Have you guys ever heard of Holga from The Newlywed Game? A few of you have. All the rest of you, buckle in. So there was a woman competing with her husband in The Newlywed Game. Her name was Holger. I think it was her husband's name for argument's sake. Sure. All right, so Holga was asked among her fellow competitors on the game, tell me, girls, where is the weirdest place, specifically that you personally have ever gotten the urge to make whoopee? And Holga answered in the ass you can watch it online when you get home. And poor HOLGAs like, why is everyone laughing? I guess it's funny. And then when they brought her husband back and all the other husbands, they said, what do you think your wife would say? And her husband guests in the car. They didn't win, but they definitely went down in history. And Holga was still going, why is everyone laughing at me? Poor Holga. Then there was a show called Queen for a Day. This is an interesting show because it was a big, big hit with audiences, even though it was decidedly strange, in that they would bring out women who had genuine troubles in their life and spill their guts about what was going on in hopes that they would be voted up via applause meter to solve those problems with money. So you literally had ladies on TV talking about not being able to afford surgery for their sick child, and an applause meter is going up while people are going crazy and rooting them on. It sounds very strange, and it was. But it was a big, big hit. It was. And in fact, they even stretched it from 30 minutes show to an hour long show because advertisers loved it so much. Yeah. Clean for a day. Clean for a day. So there was another big thing that happened when game shows started to make a comeback. They moved from primetime to daytime. And the way that we think of game shows today, which is like, back to back, starting in the morning, going well into the afternoon, you don't even have to turn the channel once. That started in the 70s when there was this sudden spasm of game shows that came on daytime TV out of nowhere and just said, get out of the way. Soap operas. Move over. Love American style reruns. It just took over. And like, what we think of as game shows came out of the mid seventy s, and they made a pretty big splash. Yeah. In fact, in 1974, there was an article in the New York Times that said you could watch nine straight game shows between 930 and 02:00 P.m. On NBC every weekday. Nine straight game shows. Right. It's amazing. And this is the world I grew up in, so I was pretty happy kid. Yeah, same thing. This is how I watch prices. Right. That's how I watched and still watch Pyramid, to me, one of the greatest all time game shows. Sure. I love Pyramid. It's no prices, right? But it's good. I love prices. Right. I was on the prices. Well, I was not on I went to a taping of the prices. Right. There's a big difference. And I will tell that story later. Okay. Put a pin in it. Yeah. So the reason sure, all right. The reason I asked Josh's permission for everything, I say so the reason that game shows made like, such a big comeback after they were almost dead is pretty simple money. They're actually really cheap to make. They came back, in part again, because of Mark Goodson, but they also came back because they were risk averse executives. When they actually pop up a lot in this show, you'll find. But back in, the variety shows were huge. They kind of came in and filled the void after quiz shows went away. But they're really expensive to make. Game shows are not expensive to make. They used to be even less expensive than they are today. Like, today, you have what's called a prize budget, and it's part of your show budget. Did anybody see the power of ten? It was on for like a season in 2007. Yeah, no one did. Right? That's why I was on for a season. That's the correct response, by the way. But it was like, this kind of slick new game show with the complicated rules and everything. But they had a prize budget for the season of $3 million, but they had a top prize of $10 million, and the producers just kind of hoped no one would ever get to the $10 million question. They basically said, this show is so hard, it's virtually impossible to get to that $10 million question. IPSO facto, we're fine, right? The first contestant got to the $10 million question, I was like, surely, is that true? And I looked it up again in the green room. I was like, it is still true. Are you still fact checking? Yeah. I love it. That's the kind of quality you can expect from stuff you should know. So producers have other levers they can pull if things are going badly for them, which is to say, going great for a contestant. Sure. Like on The Price is Right, if people are winning a lot, they can bring out those games are all on wheels. They can bring out whatever they want. They just bring out the harder games to play, like a Penny Annie. Super easy game. Penny annie. Everyone is winning a lot of money, Parker, because Barker runs the show. Everyone knows that. Oh, yeah. Barker might say, well, now, let's bring up plinko because we're on a run here and we're going broke, and there's a lot of pets that need to be spayed neutered, so I need my money. He's wandering around his bedroom waiting for their turn in surgery. Then he might try out Cliffhanger, the very tough cliffhanger with later hose with the yodeler, one of my favorite games. And then the coup de gras at the end. If everyone is winning, they will bring out the only game on the Prices right, where you actually need physical skills. Can anyone name it? Hole in one. Who said it free beer? That's where you're giving out a lot of beer. It's their money. Yes. That comes out of our cut. What? So hole in one is the one where you have to putt from different distances depending on whatever you've guessed for the price. And that's like I remember being a kid and seeing, like, an 80 year old woman handed a golf butter from 9ft away and just, like, sinking. It's so great. Barker always showed off and put it well, that's why that was even on there, so he could get a little golfing at work. Here's the other thing that they do. They also inflate the value of the prizes so they can write it off on their income taxes as a production company. That's really true. They take out life insurance or not life insurance. They probably should take out life insurance. They take out insurance policies in case someone wins the big prize. Indemnity insurance. It's amazing. They have all their bases covered, and then if none of that works and somebody wins I didn't realize this until we research this show. They do Lotto style payouts to where they come to you and say, hey, congratulations. You can have like a 10th of this now, where you can have the whole thing over, like, 50 years. Again, congratulations for winning. You can have this new car now. Or how about the segway? Or the dashboard? Today chair. Next year, the car chair. Is that what they're called? The driver's chair? The passenger chair. The Segway. The invention that revolutionized standing that was going to change the city. Yes, because we're all on Segways. There's so much room on any given sidewalk for thousands of Segways. Well, they were going to do away with cars. We wrote a Segway. Remember that? They're hard. Have you guys ever ridden on a Segway? Yeah, they're tough Headcracker. That was the original name for him. I was about to say, Jerry, cut that out. But you saved it. Thanks. Nice work. All right, where are we? Okay, no, I know where we are. All right. I'm glad you said that. Got us back on track. Prize budgets are kind of a new thing as far as game shows go, right? Back in the 70s, spasm of game shows on daytime. If you did this right, you could basically pay for the production costs for your show and ad revenue would be just 100% profit, right? They did this because you could trade stuff for plugs on the game show. And we didn't realize this until I guess you realized it years before. I was, like, in my 20s when I realized The Price is Right was a 60 Minutes DD commercial, okay? I was researching this show when I realized that. Because, again, this is how I watch prices, right? It's taken on face value. It's in show plug after in show plug, whether it's Rice Erin, the San Francisco treats, or Bushes baked beans with more fat than ever before, or the new Ford Pinto less fiery than it was a year ago, right? So depending on whether it was like rice errone, rice errone would go to Bob Barker and say, here's a fiery death trap Pinto, and we'll give you this in exchange for, like, six plugs on the show. And Barker would lean back in his recliner and go, let me think about it. Let me ask you, is your dog Spader Nathan before we go any further in this business deal, I need to know what's on the table. Take him out back and teach them a lesson. That was the real Barker, everybody. That's not true. No, it's not. He's a sweetheart of a man. All right. I'm sorry. I keep getting lost because I'm halfway drunk. Yeah, halfway. Oh. It ends up sounding kind of like a pyramid scam when you really look at how they do these things, because they're getting all this free product, and then they're charging them for ad revenue for the product. So it's all gravy, basically. Right. Because then you can take that money, pay your host, but also use it for cash prizes. Sure. If there's somebody who won't trade you their thing in exchange for bugs, you can actually buy it, and the whole thing just wash it out and it's free. So they're very cheap to make. And there's one other thing that you need to know about game shows. The production wise, they would film, like, five or six of them in a single day. Oh, yeah. So you get the whole week done just knocked out in a single day? Yeah. I mean, that's one of the big reasons they're so cheap, is because you save, like, 80% on studio costs, on crew costs, because they just knock them out from, like, nine to five every day. Then Barker goes home to his recliner, smokes a cigar and spays and neuters bunches dogs. So, guys, I don't know about you all, but I'm feeling pretty good about this show. That wasn't a prompt for applause. That's me softening the blow, because why did you sit there and wait and go? That means that we have to put an ad break in. That's right. So if you'll bear with us, we'll be right back after these messages. Hey, everyone. When you're running a small business, every second counts, and you can't afford to waste a single moment. So why are you still taking time out of your day to go to the post office when you could be using Stamps.com? Yeah. For more than 20 years, stamps.com has been indispensable for over 1 million businesses. Because Stamps.com gives you access to all the post office and Ups shipping services you need right from your computer. That's right. You can streamline your shipping process with Stamps.com easy to use software. All you need is your regular computer and printer. No special supplies or equipment necessary, and you can get discounts you can't find anywhere else, like up to 30% off USPS. Rates and 86% off Ups to stop wasting time and start saving money. When you use Stamps.com to mail and ship, sign up with promo code stuff for a special offer that includes a four week trial, plus free postage and a digital scale. No long term commitments or contracts. Just go to Stamps.com, click the microphone at the top of the home page and enter code stuff. We're right back ma'am magic of editing. Yes. That's how that works. You know what I pay for this show? Not commercial. I didn't pay for a commercial. I'm going to tell my fellow militia members. So with this 70s glut of game shows comes some of the most popular TV shows of all time in American history. Shows like Wheel of Fortune in Jeopardy. Price is Right. Long running shows. Wheel of Fortune debuted 1975 and became the longest running syndicated game show in American television history, making Mr. Sajack and Ms. Van and White household names, of course. And Sajack would have held on to his spot as the longest running host had he not made the very poor decision to stop and have his own late night talk show. Did you remember that? Oh, man, it's so bad. The Pat Sajack Show. It was like watching a volume. Not like taking a volume. It's like watching a volume you're not allowed to take. That's how boring it is. You have to sit there and look at it. Yeah. Say Jack is in a three way race for worst late night talk show between Magic Johnson and Chevy Chase. And I can't decide which one is worse. That was bad. It was bad. It was really bad. And my father raised me to despise Chevy. I know your dad hates Chevy. And I will still tell you this Pat Sage show was worse than the other. It was the worst of all. It was pretty bad. I would tell that to Pat Sajack's base. And of course, who took over as the longest running host because of Sejack's mistake drawback. But little known fact, vanna White actually predates passing Jack on Will Fortune. Do you guys know that true? She started back in the day when Chuck Woolley still hosted and the first letter Vana White ever turned on the board was a t. So if you ever listen to the radio and there's like free tickets at stake, that's the answer. That's an arcane trivia question. Yeah. I got one more about Hannah, if you guys are okay with it. Yeah, let's hear it. She holds the Guinness World Record for television's most frequent clapper with about 720 claps per episode of Wheel of Fortune, and they filmed six of those in a day. That means she's at home the rest of the week just recouping. Don't touch Mommy's hands. Don't touch Mommy's hands. These giant aloe plants. She just sticks her hands. They're like food muvana. Not expecting a little shop preference. So then we move into, well, actually, I forgot, we need to get Bob Barker his due because he actually worked from 1972 on the Prices Right. Only until his grand old age of 83. But he actually hosted the show before that, right? Truth or Consequences. Yeah. What year did that start? He's started hosting in he stopped hosting that in he started hosting the Prices Right in 1972 and stopped hosting The Prices Right. In 2007. So for 51 years, Bob Barker was a game show host. Every day. Well, actually one day a week, but you know what I'm saying? The rest of the time, cigars and whiskey and spaying and neutering. I don't like this picture you're painting day long. Not going to lie. He had a veterinarian on hand. Spay, that one. I don't like what I see out of that guy. He's getting humpy. Actually, that would be a neuter, technically. Don't email me. I know my dog parts. Well, you know the comedy rule of threes. We're going to have to say that a third time. Okay. All right. Keep an eye out for us. There's a 90% chance we'll forget. Right. And at the very end, we'll just go, goodnight and then say it. But I won't say it again because that would count. I don't want it to count. I'm going to see if I can work it in here. So I want to see it. All right. Game shows, dear, started in their heyday. Everybody bear with me. Game shows started in their heyday and roll right into the quintessential game shows of the 1980s was something called win loser draw. Do you remember that? It was nothing more than a game of pictionary played by celebrity. That was it. In a fake living room set. That was how great it was. Lots of pastels. Yeah. Lots of pop collars. If you look closely at every episode, they have a magazine turned upside down that is clearly tenting lines of cocaine that they're doing in between, like commercial breaks. Lots of birds, I think. Didn't Burt Convey host that he did, or do I just want him to have hosted that? No, he did host it, and then Burt Reynolds was a guest on it. Burt and Monty, they were all over that show. And poor Burt convey was known as little Burt, which he was even, I think, taller than Burt Reynolds. But that was per Burt Reynolds contract. I'm sure. Yeah, I'm sure. It's called little bird. And then Betty White. Betty White had an interesting show called just men exclamation point with an actual exclamation point, and it featured nothing but women as contestants. But they would ask celebrity men a question and then guess whether or not they would answer yes or no. And they could win keys potentially to start a new car. So it was a game show where you literally they could have called it coin flip and just had people flipping a coin. But it worked out because miss Betty White was the first woman to ever win the daytime Emmy for outstanding game show host. People liked it. She is just America's sweetheart. People love anyway, she's great. Yeah. So by the time the 80s are, like in their heyday, their own heyday, if you look back, a lot of the shows that were big in the 80s had actually started in the reason why is because again, risk averse TV executives were like, why think of anything new? I'll just bring out tictec dough and concentration, polish it up, dust it off, and put it out there again. So there are a lot of game shows like that, and they're pretty successful. But one of the other things that they did in the 80s was experiment with game shows. Right. So you have things like double dare. Yeah, that was a good one. That's okay. We owe it to you. Double Dare. If you guys haven't seen this, it is a thing to behold. It's the weirdest game show maybe ever. There's an obstacle course, but there's also quizzes, and teams are boy girl tweens working together, and they're flying. So Double there was pretty much great on every level. Never saw it. You never saw Double Dare. No, sadly, I'm a little too old for double dear. It was right in my wheelhouse. I was like, 21. Did someone just boo me for being old? I think they booed you for not watching Double Dare. I was like, 16 boo. You actually said a tad old for Double Dare. Well, here's what I was watching. I was watching remote control on MTV. That was a good one, too. Very good game show. If you don't remember, it was what now you would call a metagame show back then. You would call it a spoof of game shows. Yeah. Because host Can Over was hosting a game show in his parents basement. That was the set. People sat on recliners and we get launched back through the wall if they got a question wrong at the end. And it was a really legit, funny game show. They had categories like Brady Bunch, physics, or Dead or Canadian, one of my favorite categories. And it is well known for one thing in particular, which was launching the careers of some now very famous people. The very first time that Adam Sandler was on TV was on remote control. Same with Colin Quinn and Dennis Leary. They all got their start on remote control. Yeah. Wow. That's right. So there's a couple of tenants of game shows that you have to know, and the first one is that America's interest in game shows tends to wax and wane. And by the late 80s, early 90s, america was like, we're sick of game shows. And again, one of the reasons why is because those executives didn't try a lot of new stuff. They instead trotted out Tic Tacto and concentration. So America got bored with game shows and kind of moved on. And game shows just went away almost magically by 1009. One, there were two game shows, the Price is Right and Family Feud still filming during the day. Even Wheel of Fortune's, daytime show got the axe. Wheel of Fortune got the axe. That's how close to extinction game shows came. And instead, the same lazy executives gave us softcore news like Inside Edition and Extra and daytime talk like Jenny Jones and Maury Povich. And we have them to thank for that. I have another theory, actually, that Grunge killed game shows in the early 90s. Yeah, right. Because there's a quote here from the great Mark Goodson, apparently your idol. Sure. He's great at quotes, too. He said, it's like a hurricane came and wiped them all away. And that hurricane smelled like teen spirit. I made up that second part. They did say hurricane. Yeah. It was sort of antithetical, though, that early 90s time. I'm joking about Grunge, but it didn't work together. Generation Next, Douglas Copeland, Slack and Grunge. They didn't do away with game shows. They came in because game shows went away. Yeah. America got sad. So the other tenant of game shows is this. You can't keep game shows down for longer than a decade. You just can't. They're going to come back. They're going to jump on your back like Beetlejuice or something. Right. So by the late 90s, early 2000s, they started to come back, and those risk averse executives started to innovate a little more. Meaning that they started stealing good game shows from other countries. Yeah. Which you and I had been to to see. So they brought in Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Right? Yeah. I think that show came from England, if I'm not mistaken, as did The Weakest Link. Remember that show? That was a mean lady. She was perfect. She scared me. These had much bigger prizes. They were a little more complicated. You had things like Phoning a Friend and stuff like that. Then he had shows like Deal or no Deal, which Josh put in. He wrote this. It's pretty great. Which brought America back into the clutches of Howie Mandel. We came so close to getting away from him forever. And then it was like that time Uggs came back. Do you remember that? Like Uggs were around. And then they naturally just went off and died. And then all of a sudden, everybody started wearing Uggs again. It was like, what happened? Same with Howie Mandel. And then eventually, game shows would co op reality shows, obviously, with big, big shows like Survivor, The Apprentice, The Bachelor, Shark Tank, a show that I actually really love. And then a great, great show called American Ninja Warrior. Okay, you guys like American Ninja Warrior? Let me direct you to the predecessor and, frankly, better. American Gladiators. That's right. I love that, too. And this is why American Gladiators is just superior to American ninja warrior. American Ninja Warrior. It's fine. It's great. But they kind of dilute the action a little bit, I think you could say. Like, they have, like, B footage where the production crew went to the contestants'hometown and talked to their pee wee baseball coach about how they used to be afraid of the ball, but they really got over it. And look at them now, and the coach kind of chokes up a little bit on American Gladiator. It's more like so Kim is out there and she's running around getting the crap beat out of her, and the commentators just have this throw away, like, well, in fact, about Kim, she traded her house for a car to drive herself here to compete. Today, she's not sure who's back home watching her child. Look at her go. Look at Lace. She just knocked her flat unconscious with her jousting stick. That's American Gladiators. You know what I'm saying? It was great. That's what makes it superior here's. What I liked about American Gladiator is those courses or whatever you call them, were hard enough. Like, I remember the bicycle thing that you would have to hang from, and that's hard enough. There's no way I could even hang from that, much less propel myself. And you get halfway across and then a routed out bodybuilder would leap on you and try and get you off. It's like, are you kidding me? The best you could hope for is that he put on too much like Peck Lube and would slide off eventually. Couldn't get a good grip. Heck. Lube just got applause. Your only hope, peck lube. That's a big shout out to the original six on American Gladiator. Nitro. Malibu. Malibu. Lace. Lace. Little Baptist. Chuck lace was like, I didn't know what was going on in my body when I saw Lace. Can you see Chuck, like, sitting in front of his TV with his knees pulled up to his chest and rocking back and forth like singing hymnol? Things are happening. I like Lace. You know who Lace was married to in real life? No. Michael Pere. Actor Michael Pere from Eddie and the Cruisers. Michael Trivia. Michael parade is not here tonight, right? He might be. Jim and I Zap and sunny. Nice. The original six, my hat is off to you. Michael Douglas showed up, and I think it also inspired the movie The Running Man pretty clearly, if I'm not mistaken. I don't remember if it pre staged the Running Man or The Running Man came out right before no, I think Running Man, I think it came after America Gladiator. Really? I'm going to stand by that. Yeah. No, where are we in the 2000s? We are. So we're in a bit of a game show revival right now, too. And you can tell because they're trotting out old game shows again, like Snoop Dogg hosted Jokers Wild, which, by the way, I have no problem with that whatsoever. I think that was actually a pretty short move. Anthony Anderson, to tell the truth, I think is what he hosts. Anthony Cohen, Love Connection. Oh, is that out? Yeah. I didn't know that. Yeah, they need to bring back what was the one the dating one? Not singled out. Yeah, I forgot about singled out. Yeah, that was a good one. That was a good one. What was the one on the bus? I love Cash Cab. Can we talk about Cash Cab for a minute? Sure. Can we go off script for a moment? Sure. Cash Cab unfortunately, came around when I and Josh, we worked for Discovery Channel, so we couldn't be on Cash Cab. So I would go to New York City and walk around looking for the Cash Cab just to tease yourself, knowing that I would have to disclose that I was actually an employee of Discovery Channel and could not be on Cash. I'm contractually prohibited from getting in your cash cash. No. Sorry. What are you talking about? Just get in. No one gives a it is a good show. Now. I still watch reruns. Are they not still making it? No. Is it back? All right, well, that lady says it's back. Yeah. And she looks like she knows. Yeah. She's like I know. I like that guy. He's funny. Yeah, he's a good guy. But it's still not the Dating Show was thinking of. Were you thinking of the Dating Game? No. Wonder where they had the stupid pop up bubbles about what they were thinking. No, it's not pop up video. Blind Date. Blind Date. I think it might be blind date. What is Next? Man, this shows so awesome. People are shouting. All right, I will say this. It had to have been Blind Date because I've never heard of Next. I don't know what that is. Blind Date was good. I don't really remember the premise. I'm assuming it was a blind date, but it was a good show. I remember that much. All right, let me get us back on track here, okay? People are murmuring, like you guys are figuring out whether to vote for a referendum in a town hall or something. Be quiet. Militia. Legalize it. And then, of course, some game shows never went away to begin with. Like our beloved Prices. Right? They just changed hosts. The Great Great Family Feud. Right. We lost Richard Dawson while he retired. Then he died. No, he retired. Raycombe came, then Richard Dawson, then he came back. Yes. Then he died. Yeah, right. Okay. And then the great Lou Anderson hosted for a little while. Then a guy named Richard Carne. Who? I don't know. He was from Home Improvement. I never saw that show. Yeah, it's the most controversial thing I've said all night. And then I don't know who John O'Hurley is either. Jay Peterman Seinfeld. Oh, I love that guy. Yeah, he's great. And then the great Steve Harvey with his eight button suits. America has embraced Steve, even though he messed up. Was it Miss America that just made him that much more than I think. So, frankly, nobody else could have gotten away with it like he did. Agreed. So, as we said, game shows are very cheap to produce, which means you can find game shows in every country around the world. In some countries like to steal game shows from other countries. America does it. Everybody does it. Really. There's a game show in France called Libigdeal, and it's let's make a Deal, but it's hosted by an animated alien. For some reason, some are franchise. Like the Prices Right is a huge hit in the UK. They're crazy for the prices. Right? Appropriately. And then there are some countries that just make up their own. Like there's one in Russia. We consider ourselves pretty good researchers, and we are almost 100% positive that this is actually a real show. We've really tried to find out, like, no, this is a joke. I think this is real. Intercept is what it's called. And in Intercept, you were a contestant, and they give you a car and you drive off and they call the car and stolen in real IRL. And you are supposed to evade the police in real life for 35 minutes. And if you do that successfully, you keep the car. Right. And as far as we can tell, it's real. What we say is, like, I guess that's Russia. That's what they do in Russia. I guess if you get killed, your next of kin gets the car. I don't know. Maybe. Surely there's a winner. I think the cops get to keep it. Maybe. But Russia aside, there is one country that stands alone when it comes to game shows. Japan. Correct. We love Japan and their dedication to making game shows as crazy as possible. I don't know if it started with this one, but there was an 80s staple. It started with it did. It called Teschi's Castle. Yes. This was in the 80s in Japan, and there are fans of the show in America in 2018 that shows how great the show is. Well, it changed everything, right? Takashi's Castle. It was just nuts. It was a melee. There would be, like, 100 contestants all competing, and everybody's trying to get into Takashi's Castle. But this is harder than you would think, because they make you dress up as a hand and slap somebody else who's also dressed as another hand. And then at the same time, while you're doing this, there's some other poor schmo is like being spun around on a wheel, like, 20ft above the pond and flying off. There's other people making a run for it, and there's people dressed as ninja throwing, like, rubber throwing stars at them. It's just chaos. And it just changed everything. It gave us the first concept of the wacky Japanese game show. Yes. I think the best part about Taki's Castle was they played up the not true fact that they were forced to be there as contestants, which just added this extra something. I don't know why. They were like, yeah, this is great. They were like, no, they got my family, and they made me come on this show that just really put the cherry on top for me. Totally. I don't know why for sure. Then there was another one after takes. His catholic came on in the it was called downtown nogaki noskayorante, which means downtown is not an errand boy, which is no more sensible than the Japanese. It doesn't help at all. A translation downtown is not an errand boy. And even if you say, okay, downtown as a person still doesn't make any damn thing. It doesn't make any sense. It's really strange. But this one really cemented because this is when the internet came around and YouTube was around. You could watch this all over the world, and it really caught on. And they had punishment games like the a game where if you got something wrong, they would have these big, sweaty sumo wrestlers rub their butt in your face. Or one called penis machine. And Josh did this research, and I was like, what is that all about? Don't do that. Because whatever image search you come up with has nothing to do with the game show at all. But Venus was where you'd have to recite a tongue twister, and if you got it wrong, then they would kick you in. Good night, everybody. I was about to go backstage as a joke, but I might have just stayed there. So based on that alone, I think this deserves a second ad break. Okay. Because this shows going really well. Everybody bear with us. We will be right back. Hi, everyone. When you're running a small business, every second counts, and you can't afford to waste a single moment. So why are you still taking time out of your day to go to the post office? And you could be using stamps.com. Yeah. For more than 20 years, stamps.com has been indispensable for over 1 million businesses. Because stamps.com gives you access to all the post office and ups shipping services you need right from your computer. That's right. You can streamline your shipping process with stamps.com easy to use software. All you need is your regular computer and printer. No special supplies or equipment necessary, and you can get discounts you can't find anywhere else, like up to 30% off USPS rates and 86% off ups. So stop wasting time and start saving money. When you use stamps.com to mail and ship, sign up with promo code stuff for a special offer that includes a four week trial plus free postage and a digital scale. No long term commitments or contracts. Just go to stamps.com, click the microphone at the top of the home page and enter code stuff. All right, we're back, everybody. Here's a little segment called what's it like to be on a game show, right? Yeah. You can expect a sweaty man's ass in your face if you lose. No, that's just Japan. If you are in a game show. As a kid, as a young show, I was like, I want to be in a game, so that sounds awesome. Then I researched this. I was like, I don't want to go anywhere near game shows. I just want to watch them on TV. First of all, it's tough. Like 3000 people try out for Wheel of Fortune every year and only like 500 make the cut. It's wheel of Fortune, right? Just imagine, there must be like ten people that make it onto Jeopardy. A year out of a million or something like that. Yeah, Jeopardy. Is tough. I've known a few people who have been on that. And you can be super smart. You can pass the written tests, you can pass the simulated games, but when you get out there on stage and the lights are on and the cameras are rolling, we've all felt very bad for the people who don't make it the final Jeopardy. Because they have $0. That person is smarter than everyone in this room. That's what's so sad. It is really hard. In fact, Kim Jennings is on our network now with his great show omnibus all time Jeopardy. Champion, with his insane record of like 70 something Jeopardy. Wins in a row, which is just nuts. And I'm really good friends with Ken now, and it took me like three dinners out before I was finally like, tell me all about it, what's it like? And he was like, man, he got through that first part, so he had a real big advantage for those newbies coming on every day. But he's like, you have to have all this knowledge at your fingertips and then it literally comes down to how good you are with a buzzer and how steely you can keep yourself calm and ignore the audience and ignore everything else and kind of lock in. It's a really tough game show, but in order to try out for something like The Price Is Right, it's a much different experience. You don't have to be super smart. You have to have a lot of personality. You just have to go in front of a panel of people and turn around slowly, right? Yeah, you're good. No, you don't do that. Although I could have worked in a fourth reference there. I went to a Prices Right taping with my sister in the mid ninety s. And there's a table like this with three producers sitting behind it as you walk into the studio, and they sit there with a clipboard as you introduce yourself and take notes. And it's very intimidating because I don't know if you all know this, when you go on The Prices Right in the audience, you really don't know that's all real. You don't know your name is going to get called. I always thought that they set you up and said, by the way, at minute 30, whatever, in round two, we're going to call you down there. You need to do this and act like this. It's all for real. You have no idea you're going to get called. So when people freak out and run down there, it's because they had no idea they were going to get called down on stage, right. But I did not get called. No. I didn't have what it takes. But you sat behind the people who have been contestants, right? Yeah. We were positioned up where they had two empty rows. And when you are finished playing the games, you don't go back to your seat. You go to this whole area. And this Harley Davidson biker guy won a car and came down and sat next to us and started crying. And I was like, Sir, I was like, what's? It like? Tell me what's going on. And he said that he lost his job because he didn't have a car to get him to work and that this changed his life. And I look over and he's crying, and my sister's crying, and I'm crying. And Bob Barker is like looking around, neuter a dog. It sounds like a punishment now. It does. It is for the dog. Highly recommended, though. If you ever have a chance, go to a prices, right. Taping. It's a lot of fun. It's a good story, by the way. Well, that's all right. It would have been better if I would have won a jet ski. Yeah. So as thrilling as you think it might be to be on a game show, it's actually supposedly, from what we can tell, super boring. Oh, yeah. There's a lot of waiting around. Remember, they film five or six episodes in a day. So if you're scheduled to be on the fifth or 6th episode, you're just sitting there. But it's not like you can wander around and bug, like, Alex Trebek or anything. Because, remember, Congress got involved after the quiz show scandals. And the FCC still regulates game shows like a hawk. Like, if you go to the bathroom, you have an escort and there's, like, FCC compliance officers. They take away your cell phone. Can you imagine standing around for 10 hours without a cell phone? Not just these days. Take it away, they break it under your seal. And they're like federal law. So there's a lot of sitting around, there's a lot of compliance that you have to do. There's a lot of rules you have to learn. And one of the reasons why they watch you like a hawk is because people have been known to collude with people in the audience. Like, there was a guy in the UK who won a million pounds on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. Lot of pounds. It is way more than the million dollar prize. I don't know how much, but what? Just trust me. And he won. His name is Charles Ingram, and he won because he was talking to his wife, and his wife was going and talking to somebody in the audience. And this is the scheme they came up with. Charles Ingram who Wants To Be A Millionaire It's basically multiple choice. There's, like, four possible answers. He would read them out loud to himself, but when he read the correct one, the guy in the audience would go, Right. Very sophisticated system. They got away with it. They want the producers are like, Congratulations. And they made it home. And finally, because he apparently was acting Kg in the green room, afterward, they went back and looked at the tape and discovered the fraud, and they actually went to court in the UK. They went to court, he and his wife did, and were fined \u00a3115,000 and didn't get a dime of the million pound pride. Yes. Some guy in a wig said \u00a3115,000. Right. And you would think justice was served. Right? No, it wasn't, because Charles Ingram and his wife went on to write a book about the whole thing and it grossed two and a half million pounds. Yes. And we have a couple of new things now, if you remember from DB Cooper, never trust Family and now Cheating always pays. So those are the two tenants of stuff you should know. One across these knuckles and one across the other knuckles. You want to bring it home. Yeah. Let's talk about a guy named Michael Larson. Yes, Michael Larson. There's a couple of knowing nods out there. Anyone know the game show press your luck no whammy. That was the point of Pressure Luck, not to get a Whammy. Yeah. So who was Michael Larson? So Michael Larson was this guy he was a contestant eventually on Pressure Luck, but he started out as a semi employed ice cream truck driver. Let that sink in for a second. Yeah. You're really reaching for the stars. You're like, I don't want to do that full time, but keep my options open. The time when he wasn't running the ice cream truck was allotted instead to staring at his wall of TVs in his house, running off of his VCR, because he would tape game shows and watch them up to 18 hours a day in the hopes of finding some weakness that he could exploit, go onto the game show and crack it and win a million dollars. Right. And he figured out pretty quick, the price is right. There's no flaw to it. Same with will of fortune. It's just kind of luck. Right? Yeah. And then in CBS? Yes. CBS aired a brand new game show built as the most technologically advanced game show ever, and it was called Pressure Luck. And Michael Larsen said, I'm going to get you, game show. He said about the getting pressure luck. Yeah. So here was the deal with Pressure Luck. It had three just regular contestants who would answer questions, and then at the end of each round, whoever was in the lead, we get to press their luck. And there was a big board with a bunch of individual squares that would light up like, that's a good Pressure Luck. It would press your luck and say, Stop. We didn't have to say stop, but most people did. And it. Would stop on whatever square and you might win $500 or you might win a little prize or you might get a whammy, which is really bad because that means you lose everything that you had one up until that point, right? Or you might get a free spin plus cash. So if you get, like, two or three spins in a row, it's a really big deal. And you could press your luck and then get that whammy. And it was this little jerk, nod looking thing, little cartoon character with a cape that would go and you lose everything that you had made. So if you pressed your luck, you were really risking a lot by moving forward. Right? And it was very tough because not only did the light flash around the board, the squares themselves change. So it was just like chaos. Your brain is going haywire and you go, Stop and just hope for the best. Well, Michael Larson would press your luck and again watch individual episodes 18 hours straight, just looking, trying to find something, sitting around and just as mighty tidy, like an ice cream sandwich melted on his chest. And finally, one day he saw it and he must have stood up. Chest hair, matted, sticky, and he probably went he's got a choco taco on his chest. Yeah. And what he figured out was that light and those boards, they weren't random at all. There were five patterns. And not only were there five patterns, they repeated in order. All he had to do was hone his timing and getting the light to stop, memorize where the boxes were and he would crack, press your luck. And that is exactly what he did. I'm trying to think of that moment at 04:00 A.m. In his barca lounger when he realizes that it's a pattern, like what that must have been like. He's like, My life has vindicated. Yeah. Everyone said I was a loser, but I'm not. Just disregard the Choco Taco on my chest. I'm no loser. He bought a bus ticket from Cincinnati to La and bought a suit from a vintage thrift store and actually managed to become a contestant on Pressure Luck. On May 19, 1984, he came in last in the question round, but he still because he was Michael Larson, but he still gets to press his luck. And the very first thing that happens is he gets a whammy. Because you can practice all you want on the arm of your recliner, but on the day, as they say in the industry, that little buzzer may not match up quite right. So he had to get synchronized. He did. And, boy, did he. He did. Because after that, on his next spin, he locked into 31 consecutive spins. This had never happened before. Nothing even remotely closed, like, two or three in a row is amazing. Before you were on fire, this guy got 31 consecutive spins overall. He got 47 in the half hour show that he was on. The other two contestants just sat back and one guy pulled out like a corn cob pipe and read the paper. I mean, it was the Larson show, right? And just little by little, he starts building his money. A few hundred bucks here, 5500, and another spin there. And he just kept hitting them. Yeah. And keep in mind, at any point, he could have lost it all. And so there's a lot of real tension building in this thing as he gets more and more money, because he has to say, I want to press my luck. Everyone's like you're crazy, dude. You've got $50,000. But he worked it all the way up into a record at the time, $110,237, which is more money than it had ever been won on an American game show. Yeah, the previous record was $40,000. This guy just crushed that record. And you can actually see this there's. Somebody went to the trouble of making a compilation. It's like, eleven minutes long. It's the best thing you can watch. It's quite thrilling. It's on YouTube. I think it's just Michael Larson Press. Your luck should be the first thing that comes up. And when you watch it, you see michael Larson really pressed his luck, and he won. He won the game. And the CBS executives are just standing there watching this, like having heart attacks left and right, getting fired, firing each other, firing themselves, just having a terrible time of it. But in the end, they paid Larson. They said, he didn't cheat. He was smarter than CBS. I think one of the executives said they use air quotes, though, so we paid him. So he won press your luck. But it's not the end of the Michael Larson story now. So he's sitting at home a few months later, eating his push up, and a local radio station was running a contest. It was the only two ice cream truck things I can think of. Chocolate tacos and pushups. Those are good enough. Yeah. You know what the worst was? That Rainbow Popsicle thing. Those are the worst. What is wrong with you? You like those? Yes. Really? The Bomb Pop? The red, white and blue pop or the rocket pop. The Patriots. You're no Patriot. Those are great. You had no ice cream in it. I was all about the ice cream. Okay, well, yeah, you wouldn't like a Bomb Pop. All right, that's what they were calling. Or Rocket Pops. One of the two. Bomb Pop or Rocket Pop. You got a strong reaction. So I guess I'm the dummy. Some people recoil in horror. All right, so Michael Larson is sitting at home eating his Rocket Pop, and a radio station DJ comes on and says, we have a new contest, and we're going to read out serial numbers on dollar bills. And if you have that dollar bill, you win $50,000. I'm sorry, $30,000. And Michael Larsen said, I got a lot of dollar bills. So he went to the bank and withdrew $50,000 bills from the bank. One dollars bill. $1 bill. So he was the joy of the bank that day. But wait, let's think about this for a second. You can withdraw those all day long. You're not going to know the serial number unless you sit there and start memorizing them. And that's what he did. Yes. Instead of watching game shows, he sat around and memorized the serial numbers for the dollar bills that he had in his house. And a few months went by, the contest was ended and he didn't win. But that's still not the end of the Michael Larson story. No, that's right. Because he never took that money back to the bank. Because he's Michael Larson. I can only imagine that this guy would have worked for a living. We would have a cure for cancer today. We'd all be living to like 150 things. That would be great. But no, he left that 50 grand at home. And on Christmas, he went to a party with his girlfriend, went to a Christmas party, came home and found his door kicked in and the money was gone. Merry Christmas. Yeah. And they never found the money. They never found the person who stole it. And Michael Larson eventually died of cancer in 2009 while on the lamb from the FBI and the IRS for his part in a foreign lottery scam to the bitter end. Still trying to make that easy money. And finally, just about eight or nine years ago, plans to make a movie of his life story starring Bill Murray. Dude, that would have been so good. We're finally scrapped. I know. Very sad. But his story lives on tonight here in Denver, Colorado. That is game shows. That's the history of game shows, everybody. Thank you very much. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit housetopworks.com. Hey, everybody. I don't know about you, but I am excited that it's summer. School's out, the sun is shining, and best of all, there's downtime for days. That's where true crime podcasts on Amazon music come in. They're the perfect activity for last minute road trips, long walks, or, if you're brave enough, late nights. With so many killer shows like Morbid, my favorite, Murder in Small Town Murder, you'll never be bored to death again. So download the free Amazon Music app to start listening to all your favorite true crime podcasts. Plus, with Amazon Music, you can access new episodes early. Download the app today."
https://podcasts.howstuf…rld-end-2012.mp3	Is the world going to end in 2012?	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/is-the-world-going-to-end-in-2012	According to the Mayan calendar, a new age will begin on December 21, 2012. Will this mean the end of the world, or just a transition? Tune in as Josh and Chuck discuss whether 2012 will be a bad year for the planet or not.	According to the Mayan calendar, a new age will begin on December 21, 2012. Will this mean the end of the world, or just a transition? Tune in as Josh and Chuck discuss whether 2012 will be a bad year for the planet or not.	Tue, 31 Mar 2009 19:14:55 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2009, tm_mon=3, tm_mday=31, tm_hour=19, tm_min=14, tm_sec=55, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=90, tm_isdst=0)	22989512	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know from housetofworks. Comm. Hi and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Chuck Bryant lubed. Chuck what? You're lewd. Oh, I thought you said I'm lubed. Well, it was a little bit about Chuck. Great. Yeah. So this is stuff you should know. I did say your full name, didn't I? No, it doesn't matter. Just chuck. C b. Yeah. So Chuck, did you know that just a couple of days ago the Earth actually had a near miss with an asteroid? I did hear about that. Someone actually a fan rode in and told me that I wasn't aware. Yeah, this asteroid about the size of a ten storey building. We know the height. I don't know the width or depth or anything, but past within 50,000 miles of Earth, which NASA considers a close call. Right. I believe this is what they call it, a near miss. Sure, same thing. But there have been closer asteroids, right. Very recently. I think 2004, 2006. One came within 5000 miles. That's close. But the thing was pretty small and wouldn't have done much damage. This one came within 50,000 miles, which is a fifth of the distance between us and the moon. So it was really close. And it was about the same size as the one that leveled 800 sq mi of Siberia. Wow. So it could have been a real problem. Right? Right. We should have gotten Bruce Willis and the gang of drillers to go up and explode it with a I think they were at the ready. Yeah. Ben Affleck, too. Yeah. That was a terrible movie. It really was. Are we allowed to say that? Yeah. Oh, it was a terrible movie. It was. Thank you, Michael Bay, for that stinker. That's funny that you bring up Michael Bay's name because he's doing something right now that will be out soon. I believe he may have already finished. He's directing a movie called 2012. No, he's not. Yeah. Roland Emerick directed that film. Well, then we need to update this article because it says Michael Bay. I believe he's producing it. Same thing. Okay. Michael Bay is I worked with him. Let's hear it, Chuck. I can't tell the full story, honestly, because I would most definitely get a phone call from his people. Oh, yeah. But yeah, I worked with him on a truck commercial at the Grand Canyon. Pretty cool. Very cool. What truck? The Canyon Arrow. Oh, I don't even remember. Okay, well, I bring up 2012 because that's kind of what we're talking about today. That's right. And Josh, this is another listener suggestion. We're kind of diving into these from Jason of Santa Barbara. Wanted to hear about the doomsday theories of the year 2012. Yeah. Thanks Jason. Let's do this. Right, Chuck? Yes. Okay, so basically it's not just the year 2012. There's actually a specific date. December 21, 2012. The winter solstice. And actually I was on a site called All About 2012, and it sites 11:11 a.m. Greenwich meantime as the moment when the world's going to end. Really? Yeah. I think I will hold off on buying my Christmas presents that year till the 22nd. You do anyway, don't you? Yeah, true. The end of the world is not going to I wish. It might be foolish if I plunked down like, several hundred dollars on gifts for my wife and then the world ended. Well, you're not going to need money anyway after the apocalypse comes. Yeah, that's true. All right, well, Chuck, December 21, 2012, this is not an arbitrary date, right? No. This is actually based on the Mayan calendar or one of them, right? Yeah, they had several. First, we should probably say this is actually becoming something of a trend, this kind of doomsday prophecy that December 21, 2012, is going to see the end of the world, or at least significant changes. There's all sorts of groups around the world. I read an article about one in Belgium led by a guy named what's his name? Patrick. Patrick Cheryl? Yeah. You heard of him, too? Yes. I read that he's developing quite a following, and apparently he and his people have found a plot of land in Africa, in the highlands, I imagine somewhere in Ethiopia, where they're going to basically hole up and wait and then come back out and try starting civilization up again. That's what he said. He's stockpiling stuff. He quit his job a couple of years ago after he saved up some money. Taking seriously? Yes. We're talking probably the thousands of people who are actively thinking that this is going to happen and maybe making preparations about it, but it seems to be gathering steam the closer we get to 2012. Right. You remember y two k. I do. Do you remember what a paranoid time that was? Well, not for me. No, man, I remember. And I'm not just saying this now, but I remember at the time saying, nothing's going to happen, nothing's going to go wrong, the elevators aren't going to fall down the side of the building, and all our computers aren't going to explode. And I just remember thinking it's just all much to do about nothing. I feel like you were in the minority then. Think about it. Remember X Files? I had a tremendous run, and I think a lot of it was because of the changing over from one millennia to another. For some reason, we can attach great significance to a change in calendar, even though it's a human construct. Right? Yeah, true. But I mean, also these kind of doomsday prophecies, these fears that the world's going to end, they usually reflect our cultural concerns at the time. Like Y two K, that fears about that began to grow alongside technology as technology was taking off. Exactly. And the Internet was this huge thing that we hadn't really figured out what to do with except to put, like, really dirty porn that involve goats on to it seemed like, y two K was a technology based concern. It's fear and this 2012 thing, it's taking place. It's transpiring. While we've become a very eco conscious society. Right. We're aware of our environmental impact. And it seems like part of the 2012 movement is kind of this back to Earth thing. I get the sense that a lot of people who are like, I'm going to be prepared, I'm going to make it. I'm going to be one of the lucky people who gets to repopulate Earth. Right. And part of that is knowing how to plant crops and raise livestock and that kind of thing. Sure. So it seems to reflect the kind of the green consciousness that we have right now. Although the common thread, of course, is that the world is going to end. Right, exactly. And I think global warming has got a lot of people scared and a lot of the people the 2012 ers. That's good. Do you like that? Sure. A lot of the 2012 errs bring up things like global warming is like, this is a sign the oceans will boil and volcanoes will erupt and mass chaos. No, a critic would say, yeah, volcanoes erupt fairly commonly. There are earthquakes and there are floods. These things happen. Exactly. We don't have enough of a handle on climatology to really say either way. Which is, I think, why debates like these rates. Right, right. Okay. So like we said, December 21, 2012, the date, it's based on a Mayan calendar. That's where it all started. And actually among, to borrow your term, 2000 and twelvers, there's a predominant theory that the Mayan civilization were either aliens or in contact with aliens. Right. And when you kind of start to look at the Mayans, you get an idea of how somebody could say that the earliest Mayan settlement they found is from 2400 BCE. And they just kind of live primitively for a couple of millennia. And then out of nowhere, there's a sudden birth of ingenuity and insight from the third century to the 10th century Ce. And all of a sudden, the minds developed this really tremendous understanding of mathematics, including zero, that you can't function, you can't create a mathematical system without zero. You have to have zero. And it's very elusive and rare. And to develop it out of nowhere is really something they understood crop, domestication, really elaborate architecture. And they became arguably the most advanced pre Colombian civilization in Mesoamerica almost overnight, historically speaking. Right. Yeah. I think they were easily the most advanced. They had an advanced system of writing. They were the first people to do that. They had a recorded history. They were the first civilization to record their own history. Oh, yeah. Astronomy. Like you said, mathematics. Right, yeah. And one of the other things that they were really good at was marking time, especially through calendars. Yeah. And building things. They were good at building things. And blood lighting. Big into blood lighting, really? And human sacrifice, but ritual bloodletting as well. Okay. You can't leave that out for the person whose blood is being let. It's pretty significant experience, I imagine. Right? Yeah. And probably for the person who's doing the cutting, too, but we'll find out later. So they had 20 different calendars, at least that we know of. Right. And actually five of them are still kept in secret. Five Mayans today. Pretty cool. It really kind of makes you wonder what those five calendars are counting. Right. But I guess I call them the big three calendars. Yes. The Zolkin, which is actually a 260 day calendar that actually parallels human gestation. Okay. All about 2012 again, that site, which I found pretty cool, they basically have a calendar for a pregnancy. Right. There's the HAB. That's HAB, yes. That's 360 days with a five day period called the Wayb. Is that correct? It's a solar calendar. It's essentially the same thing as the one that we use. The Gregorian calendar that we use. Right. And then there's the Calendar Round, which is a 52 year calendar. And then there's actually the big one. This is the one that all of this doomsday stuff is centered around, and it's called what? The Long Count Calendar. Right. Yes. And that's all about the great cycle, is what they call it. Yeah. Which is a period of 5125.36 years. It's very specific. Yeah, approximately right. And we know that this date of December 21, 2012, is the end of this great cycle. Exactly. Thanks to the conquistadors, they show up and just completely subjugate and commit genocide against the Mayans. Some of them are left alive. And actually, there was one Mayan scholar who adopted the Greg Gorian calendar in conjunction with the Long Count calendar and started recording the same dates on both. And so eventually, some scholars went back and started comparing dates and found the pattern and finally determined that the last beginning of the last great cycle was August 1330, 114 BCE. Right. And 5125 years after that is December 21, 2012. So that's how we know that the Mayan calendar is going to reset itself on that date. Right. But I think now is where we should note that the Mayans did not say this was the end of the world. It was a restarting of the great cycle, and they, I believe, had gone through three other great cycles. Is that correct so far? Yeah. So they didn't think it was going to be the end of the world. This is something that other people have kind of put on it, and apparently, as far as the minds are concerned, we're extraordinarily lucky to live through the end of a great cycle in the beginning of another. It's a time of really good luck. It's a time to celebrate. Exactly. It's not really a time to stock up on bottled water. Evaporated milk. Yeah, exactly. That's kind of one of the fatal flaws, I think, in this whole 2012 Doomsday Prophecy is that the very people whose calendar is based on didn't necessarily believe this. Right. Well, right. But the reason and I did a little more research, too, and a lot of Mayan scholars are really upset about this, that it cast them in a negative light, and they're saying, this is not all accurate. This is not at all accurate. Sorry. And mine didn't believe this. And this is something we put on it because it ends with the winter solstice. That's the key. Right. Right. There are a couple of things that, doing research, I found slightly unsettling. Let's hear them. Okay. Can I tell you a quick y two k story? Yeah. I wasn't big into it either, but I'm kind of one of those. I was a Cub Scout for a little while. Never made it to Boy Scouts because I thought respecting your elders just because they're old, that's a stupid concept, and I quit. But I was a Boy Scout long enough to learn to prepare, just in case. So on December 31, I was at Phillips Arena at a Widespread Panic show. And had you followed me back to my van, you would have found a 410 shotgun, some shelves, my dogs, some water, and a couple of other supplies, and I was ready to go to the Georgia Mountains. Are you serious? I'm very serious. You're kidding. Yeah. No. Younger. Much more out of it. Josh made that decision. But, hey, if it had happened, I would have been fine. I was at the Gravity Pub in East Atlanta that night. Were you? Great place. Ringing in the new year. That's great. Chuck a plug for the Gravity Pub. Seriously. And Phillips Arena. So go to Atlanta. We've got at least two things for you to do. Right. So my point is that I'm not necessarily a really nervous person about stuff like this. I am prepared. I'm probably not going to do anything for December 21, 2012. Maybe throw a party. Right. But there are a couple of things, like I said, doing research that I found that we're kind of weird about december 21, 2012. One of them is that on that date, the winter solstice, the sun is actually going to be on that one day at the center of the Milky Way. The last time that happened was about 26,000 years ago. Right. And apparently only happens every 26,000 years. Yeah. Or so. And we're talking like a day. We'll be in that position for a day, and probably not even the whole day at 1111, maybe even. Who knows? Right. I found that a little significant. And then another is that we are actually beginning a new sunspot cycle. This is something that actually, if you read some of the 2012 literature they keep talking about sunspots and sunspots and how it's going to create severe climate change and imbalance in Earth processes. And on July 31, 2006, NASA astronomers found a backward sunspot, meaning that it was polarized in the wrong direction from south to north rather than line north to south. It appeared on the sun. Right. And it's basically a planet sized magnet and they've been waiting for it because it signals the start of a new solar cycle. Okay. And when that happens, we have like, proton storms and it actually messes with the Earth's magnetic field. Right. These happen, I don't know, every few years, I think anus there's a few year period between solar cycles, so it's not that significant, but it could have a big effect. Right. The thing is the Earth, so magnetic field right now is in the process of reversing. It is. Did you read about this? I did. And I know that 2012 errs think that pole reversal might be one of the significant events, as in sunrises in the west, that's in the east, that kind of thing. And actually it is. I read on Science Daily in about probably 1200 years, they're saying it's going to reverse and it happens randomly. And they know that it's reversed through some very clever techniques. They find ancient lava flow and lava, because of its composition, aligns itself with magnetic north. It flows. Right. So whatever direction it's flowing in, it basically leaves like a line of this is where magnetic north was on this day. And if you can date that lava flow, then, you know, right, then hundreds of thousands or millions of years ago, that's where magnetic north was. Right. So they're finding now that the magnetic field on Earth is reversing and this only happens about every 780,000 years. So all these things are kind of significant. And I can understand how somebody who is very concerned about war, famine, pestilence and conceivably into the end of the world disease sure could kind of take all this information in and say, yes. December 21, 2012. Right. I'm going to be in a bunker in Ethiopia. I see your point, Josh, but most serious scholars say there's nothing to it. And I didn't find any mainstream scientists who endorsed anything like that. Everyone I ran across is like, no, this is not going to happen. Right. And in fact, a lot of them just call it out as downright irresponsible to spread something like this. Not only that, but a way to make quick money, too, with another criticism I saw. Yeah. So will the world really end in 2012? I'm going to go ahead and say probably not, because humanity is far too blemished to get off that lucky. Wow. That's an interesting point of view. I don't think it's going to end in 2012 either, Josh. Okay. We're in agreement, Chuck. We typically don't give our opinions, but darn it, that's mine. Yeah. And anybody out there stocking up for 2012 listen to this podcast. More power to you. Sure. You'll have the last laugh. If the world really does it, as we usually say, teach his own or her own, and if that's what you believe, then stock up. Yeah. Chuck, that's one of those podcasts that now that we've done it, it stays done. I don't understand that. You don't have to, okay? You'll find out on December 21, 2012. Oh, you rat. So, Chuck, we're big time now, and I think we should express this. We have a spoken word album for love. God. Chuck. We have a spoken word album available for sale on itunes right now. Let's discuss. Correct, Josh. It's the stuff you should know. Super Stuffed Guide to the Economy. Beautiful. And what we tried to do is break down economics and the economy in a way that the laymen can understand. Because we're laymen as well. Exactly. We learned a lot. We think you'll learn a lot. Yeah. I'm pretty proud of it. I am, too. I think it's worth $4. I do, too. And Jerry, our producer, did an outstanding job with the sound design. It's much different and very special. We would be nowhere without her. No. So you guys can find that on itunes. All you have to do is type Superstuffed into their handy search bar, and from my experience, it's the first thing that comes up and have added I wouldn't click on anything else that said Supersted. Let's put it that way. Agreed, Chuck? Agreed. And while we're at it, while we're just plugging away, let's talk about our blog, too, which, frankly, I've come to be pretty proud of. I wasn't sure about the blogging thing at first. I get this. Yeah. We have a blog now called Stuff You Should Know, and you can access it through the home page on the right hand side there@houseoffworks.com. We post twice a day, one of us. I post in the morning, Chuck posts at night. Both of them are well worth reading. And Chuck likes to do a little recap on Fridays of the podcast, the weekend podcasting. And we will answer you. We chat with the folks, we follow up, and it's a good way to reach us. Yeah, Chuck likes to interact with you guys more than I do because he likes to show off his Cool Guy hat in his photo that pops up every time he posts something. So ask us to come out and play, and we will. Okay, so, relief. Yes. We got the spoken word album knocked out. We got the blog knocked out. You know what that means. It's time for yes. LM but listen. Or mail. Or mail. Right. Josh, this is significant because today is the day where we retire. Haiku Theater. Thanks. Did everyone hear that? We are retiring. Haiku Theater. We love your Haiku, and you can still send them if you want, but we're not going to read them anymore. Agreed. Thank you, Chuck. Thank you, Chuck. Okay, so, Chuck, let's do it. This is the final. Can we get Jerry maybe a drum roll in here? Right? And I should say that one of the reasons we're retiring is because we received the best Haiku ever and it cannot be top. Right. I'm so looking forward to this one. All right, so here we go. Nathan of Akron, Ohio. Says I'm a CPA. Anesthesiologist man, they make some loot. Belinda, who doesn't say where she's from, says Haiku and search bar. No article for learning. I had to Google, so I think she was expecting an article on Haiku's. Okay. David, who is an LVN, which I believe is a nurse, says, frozen mist on ground. The railing has lots of holes. It's a long way down. He's referring, of course, to Niagara Falls. Got you, Jesse. I'm going to read this one pretty quickly. Odin has an eye. Valhalla is an Asgard. I do not know why thor has a hammer. Heimdall nine. Moms and white god, please enlighten me. Balder dreamt his death. His mom frigg dreamt it as well. Mistletoe. Who knew? Venom on Loki forseti and his justice. How does this all fit? I have no idea how it fit. North mythology and haiku. That was gorgeous. We have one that just came in today from Ryan, and I was going to not use it, but I told him I would make a joke about him being a hack poet. Okay, so here we go. You did. You fulfilled your obligation. Urban exploring, squatting. Best place to get shot. Yes, I am smarter. Keep up the great work. I'll continue to listen. Knowledge is power. Was that in haiku form? Yeah. Okay, two more. Cassie in Minneapolis is getting married this June and we wish her all the best. She does a dance. She says stuff. Podcasts delight. When I get a new podcast, I dance at my desk. Good luck, Cassie and your groom. And now, the last one ever, folks, you will ever hear from my mouth. This comes to us from Austin. From Fort Worth, Texas. And he has this to say. Uninvited guest. At night they in my food. Los Cucarachas. Tell me their secrets. One podcast to rule them all. Los Cucataraches. And that was the best I've seen I've ever heard in my life. Well, from Austin. So thank you, Austin. Congratulations, Austin. You just ended Haiku Theater forever. So thanks, Austin. That was awesome. Agreed. Los Cucarachas. And thanks to everybody who sent us in. Haiku, please stop now. We love your creativity, but too much of a good thing and we'll move on. We'll think of something else creative you guys can do for us. Agreed. So in the meantime, if you want to just say hi, tell us that we said something wrong or send us anything. I believe one of them was Shakespearean sonnets were an idea in iambic pentameter. That was Jonathan Strickland, or colleague at Techstuffs. Idea anything you want to do, just let us know that you're out there. Send an email to us at stuffpodcast@howstuffworks.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit HowStuffWorks.com. Brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 camry. It's ready. Are you? Hey, everybody. I don't know about you, but I am excited that it's summer. School's out, the sun is shining, and best of all, there's downtime four days. That's where true crime podcasts on Amazon music come in. There's a perfect activity for last minute road trips, long walks, or, if you're brave enough, late nights. With so many killer shows like Morbid, my favorite Murder and Small Town Murder, you'll never be bored to death again. So download the free Amazon Music app to start listening to all your favorite true crime podcasts. 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http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/podcasts.howstuffworks.com/hsw/podcasts/sysk/2017-01-24-sysk-dictators.mp3	How Dictators Work	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/how-dictators-work	There are many types of dictators, from so called "benevolent" ones to the kind who rule with an iron fist. There are also many ways they can come into power, and they don't all include violence. Learn all about dictators past and present in today's episo	There are many types of dictators, from so called "benevolent" ones to the kind who rule with an iron fist. There are also many ways they can come into power, and they don't all include violence. Learn all about dictators past and present in today's episo	Tue, 24 Jan 2017 08:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2017, tm_mon=1, tm_mday=24, tm_hour=8, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=24, tm_isdst=0)	43612438	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Welcome to stuff you should know from housetofworkscom. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clarke. There's charles W, Chuck Bryant. There's Jerry over there. And it's 2017. Jerry or benevolent dictator. Yeah, for real. She's got those peplates that she wears all the time in sunglasses. I was just commenting. I thought this is a pretty good article here from How Stuff Works. Yes, I've heard that before. Who wrote this one? Do you have that on there? No, I always have it on there. You didn't have it today. It might be a Shana Freeman joint. I think it may be. That sounds familiar. Anyway, it's a good one. Yeah. And here it is. That was word for word, my intro that you just stole. My mind reading classes have been paying off. Chuck. Yes. Have you ever lived under a dictatorship? Not exactly. No, I haven't either. I think we should kind of consider ourselves fairly lucky. Sure. Because it turns out that not only were we born in a country that most people would argue is not a dictatorship, although you can find plenty of websites that argue that it is, has been for the last several years, possibly even for the most part. Most people would say it's not a dictatorship, so we're lucky to be born in a country that isn't a dictatorship. But not only that, we're lucky to be born in a time when dictatorships have become fairly hard to find, comparatively speaking, because dictatorships were basically the way that people were ruled for thousands of years, up until very recent times, around the time of the Enlightenment, when the idea of individual liberties and the protection of those individual liberties became kind of widespread. Yeah. And this article kind of starts off I thought it was interesting that you don't often well, first of all, the word dictator is just one like the one who dictates the thing. It's kind of funny when you break down the actual definition. That makes a lot of sense. Then it's the guy who paces back and forth in front of the desk while somebody's typing what he says, take dictation. Yeah, but they don't call themselves that very often. Although it has happened. Before we get into the history, we should point out that Castro and Saddam Hussein, you never hear them say, dictator has a bad rap. You know I'm the dictator. Fidel Castro. Yeah. It's like how propaganda got turned into PR. Yeah. They will call themselves premier or President or Chancellor or Fuerr, boss of you. Kim Jong Il holds three titles, and he's looking for a fourth and fifth, like, as we speak. Well, he's in the ground. His son oh, wait, I got this too. Confused. Right. Yeah. Well, he held three titles. Yes, he did. I imagine while his son probably holds four. Then he probably found that fourth just made one up. Did you know, though, that there's, like, kim Jong UN is the supreme leader of North Korea, but he actually technically shares power with two other officials as well. They have basically a triumvirate going there. That was news to me. Yeah. Those guys are called keep quiet one and keep quiet, too. I was just looking up some of his greatest hits recently, and Kim Jongun alone has already started to amass several. But one was a North Korean leader, a pretty high ranking official was executed with an anti aircraft machine gun for slouching or falling asleep at a meeting. Holy cow. Right. But you hear stuff like that, imagine what that would do to a body. Yeah. Oh, my God. But you should take that kind of stuff with a grain of salt, especially when it's coming out of North Korea, because we have really virtually no idea what's going on day to day over there. Even big events like that. Even if it is true that that guy was executed with an anti aircraft gun, whether or not it was for falling asleep during a meeting or something like that remains to be seen. Yeah. You're saying take any information with a grain of salt. Yes. It's good advice. Thanks. But as Shayna I believe Shayna points out, that dictators do have some things in common, and one of the big ones is almost 100% of the time a dictator doesn't come to power through an election. They're usually not freely elected to that position. No, but they have been. They have been, yeah. Pretty prominently. Like Hitler. Yes. He wasn't elected. That wasn't he named chancellor? Yes. By the elected president, though. Right. But he still wasn't elected. I guess that's true. Okay, fine. Well, let's get into history then. All right. So you say dictators got a bad it's gotten a bad rap over the years, right. As far as calling yourself that. I think so, but it officially, originally and I saw a couple of references to Greece, but it seems to be Rome. Classic Rome. Classic Rome. It trips coming into the party and everybody's like that's. Classic Rome. He tried to walk through that screen door. It wasn't open. So classical Rome. How about that? It seems to be an invention of classical Rome. Right. There is a station called dictator. There is an office, basically. And in ancient Rome, the leadership was held by two men called councils, and they were equally powerful, from what I understand. Consuls. Council consul. Okay, sure. All right. And when something went down and stuff hit the fan, the Romans had a tradition of appointing one of the council's dictator, which is basically an emergency investment of unparalleled power into this one person. And the whole thinking behind it was when you were faced with an emergency, when the state was faced with an emergency, you needed somebody who could basically get stuff done. Yeah. Like a single voice. Yeah. Didn't have to go to the Senate to ask anything. Didn't have to go worry about making the wrong move. The dictator couldn't be held criminally liable for their decisions. Yeah. Didn't have to worry about not being invited to the other council's Christmas party the next year. Right. The other council wanted to be invited to the dictator's Christmas party. Right. So there was an investment of these emergency powers in this one person. And usually I saw one year, this article says it lasted for six months. And then the dictator would be like, wow, that was a wild bride. I'm going back to my normal life. The rebellion has been quelled, or the siege is over, or something like that. Yeah. And interestingly, there are a few rules. They couldn't be held legally responsible for their actions. Right. Big one, it says, couldn't be in office longer than six months. Although I think they were there to handle the situation as kind of as long as that took, for the most part. But there were also guys who are like, I like the feel of this. Yeah. I'm not giving this up. And they'll say, well, you have to. We say and then they said, Well, I'm the dictator. And they said, we hadn't thought this all the way through. Yeah, that's true. They could change Roman law and the Constitution. They couldn't use public money unless other than what the Senate said you could use it for. And these are the official rules, as we see coming up here. People bent these rules, and they couldn't leave. Italy was the last one, which is a good one. And they would have, like, Colombo come in and deliver that last bit. Just don't live in Italy for a while. Okay. That's your Colombo impression. Yeah. He sounded just like Josh Clarke was spot on. So this kind of happened here and there until about 2002 BC. And then about 100 years after that, a gentleman named Lucius Cornelius Sulla. I love all these Roman dictators sound like either 70s, like, black exploitation movie stars or Roman gladiators. Sure. So he was appointed dictator without a term limit and didn't have these restrictions. And so this sort of changed the game from here on out. Yeah. And he actually wanted Caesar dead, so Caesar ran off and joined the army julius Caesar, I should say, and just basically laid low until Sela died. And then Cesar came back, and he was appointed counsel and then dictator himself. He succeeded Sola. Right. Yes. And Caesar is very well known to be a dictator, but he actually, if you look at the stuff he did, he was a friend to the people. He forgave debts among the benevolent dictator, pretty much among the middle and lower classes. He improved infrastructure. He basically went to bat for the lower classes, which threatened the elite because it made him immensely popular. Plus, he was a dictator. So he actually created he staged a coup to become a dictator to gain power. Yeah. Which we'll talk about a little more and then a coup was plotted against him, and he was assassinated by the ruling elite of the Senate on my birthday. Yeah. Well, long time before my birthday, you know what I mean? Back in 1971. Yeah. We've tossed out benevolent dictator a couple of times, kidding around. But that's a real term. And that generally means a dictator who, for the most part isn't just in it for themselves and they are trying to make things better for the people. Right, but it depends on your perspective. Yeah, exactly. So, like, the ruling elite found him very threatening. They would not have considered him benevolent at all. Right. But, like, say the average plebeian would have been like, I love Caesar. Yeah, give me some more of the coins with his face on it. Yeah. I mean, followers of Castro still after his death say he was a benevolent dictator. Sure. But again, people say no, it's perspective. It's a subjective term. Basically, Napoleon, actually, he came to power again, like many dictators in a state of emergency, and he was actually a benevolent dictator in a sense, because he did a lot of great things for a while for the people. Right. He was extremely popular. Yeah. He was undefeated at the time that he rose to power. He was appointed counsel, and then he said, you know what? Let's go a little further than that. I'm going to call myself Emperor. And they said, okay, Napoleon, what could possibly go wrong with that? Yeah, well, first he was named consul, then he was like, I think consul for life has a better ring to it. And then that wasn't enough. Right. He's like, let's just shorten that. Like you said, though, he was super popular because he was undefeated as a military leader. He balanced the budget, he reformed government, he wrote the civil law, which a lot of it is still around today in France. The civil law. Right. Not too bad. He had a lasting impact. For sure. He did. But again, to call him benevolent, if you remember Parliament, who was thrown out of one of the windows of Parliament when he took over, you probably wouldn't be like, you're so benevolent. Right. He also controlled an iron thumb on the press. He controlled every facet of government. He had spies working for him. Right. So it's not like he wasn't just Bose of the Clown. No, both of the clown was super shady. No. If you put all that together, though, Chuck, you get the impression of why historians consider Napoleon the first modern dictator. He checked basically every box there was. He had it figured out. He drew new boxes and checked those. Right. He said, all dictators to follow. Here's your boxes. I just looked down at your notes and I want to show you something. I think we should take a break, but before then okay. Chuck, I think you should see this. Yeah. So in this article on dictators, from how stuff works. There's a sidebar is what they're called, and web print parlance. Yeah, just a little extra bit. And the title of the subbar is Darth Dictator. That's all we need to say. And it talks about Emperor Palpatine and his rise. And Chuck had his X out and I independently ex mine out as well. So we won't be talking about that today, everybody. No, but let's do take that break and we'll discuss that in private so you don't get to know about it. And we'll be right back. All right, so we're back. We talked about one of the things that dictators have in common is they generally aren't elected. And like a fair election, they are usually ruling autocracies. A lot of times they have what's called the totalitarian regime. Yeah, we should talk about that. That's a big one. That means you were in control of all the news and all the media that gets out about everything. Right. So there's a lot of confusion over the difference between authoritarianism and totalitarianism. A totalitarian regime is authoritarian. But not all authoritarian regimes are totalitarian. And authoritarian regime is where the government is headed by one single leader. There's no parliament, there's no courts, there's no nothing that that leader doesn't either control or just doesn't exist to counter that leaders decisions. Right. A totalitarian regime is like you were saying, I think you're missing an eye there. It's like delete us. They control everything, not just the government. They control the social aspects of life in that country. They control the economy of that country. They control the media, they control everything. It's totalitarian. Personal freedoms might be vanquished, might be there might be police, secret police. There might be spies spying on citizens. It's not a good way to live. No. You will probably be encouraged as a citizen to spy on your fellow citizens because authoritarian regimes quickly learn that if you have a large population, it's kind of tough and very expensive to keep tabs on everybody. So if you have a secret police going around and people are aware that there is a secret police, they're going to behave themselves more. And if you can get your citizens to kind of keep an eye on one another, everybody's going to behave even further. That's a terrible way to live. Well, and you know what? It sounds like a totalitarian ruler would be I bet there's a lot of paranoia that goes along with that. Like when you're in that kind of position. Oh, if you're the ruler, yeah. It's not just like rule everything, so it's all good. At that point, you don't know who to trust. Right. You're probably always looking over your shoulder, why bother with all that? You know it's going to end badly. Just kick back and light a doobie instead. Why bother with all that? Many times they foster what's known as a cult of personality, and this is a big one. If you went into Saddam Hussein's, Iraq, or you go to North Korea, or in the times of, like, linen and Stalin, you're going to see a lot of posters and statues of these leaders everywhere. You're ubiquitous. You're taught that the leader is basically the state. Who is this? The leader. Right. And the state is the most important thing. But the state is personified by the leader. And sometimes they'll even go so far as to say, by the way, the leader is descended directly from God. So go make a painting of a kid and we're going to put it up in the town square. Who was the one who had the statue rotated to Face the sun? He was the head of Turkmenistan. He changed his name when he took over in 1991. His birth name was Sappermurat Niyazov, but he changed his name to Turkmenbashi. And then he started naming everything in Turkmenistan Turkmenbashi, including the month of January. But he created that statue. Yeah. And he had the golden statue rotated to Always Face the sun. Yeah, he was always facing the sun. And he said, read that quote, and that quote is awesome. All right. He said, quote, I'm personally against seeing my pictures and statues in the streets, but it's what the people want. We got that, I think, from an OD list, actually. Yeah, we'll probably pepper in more of those. But, I mean, I hope this drives home the point that these totalitarian dictators, they're narcissists, they're megalomaniacs, they are obviously paranoid. Otherwise they wouldn't need to rule with an iron fist. It's not a good way to run a country. Like I said, it always ends badly, I guess they get caught up in the power and they don't see what history has taught us time and time again. I wish we knew what it was, because you can look around, especially in the world today, and see country after country after country sliding down that rabbit hole. Well, it's a mental disorder on their part, I think. But there doesn't just have to be like a single leader. Even liberal democracies are starting to slide down that hole where they want all the information possible on everybody. Yeah. Ultimately to keep control. But is it based on fear? Or is it based on paranoia? Or is it based on that desire to hang on to power or what witches brew of all those things? Is it that creates that? Why do we keep doing it over and over and over again? Because it's the death knell for a civilization. When it's when the leadership starts doing that, it's unsustainable. Yeah. And we'll talk a little bit about how they end, but it always is badly. Like, you see, like, Saddam Hussein and power, like in these military uniforms, and then you see this sad old man pulled out of a foxhole. Yes. It looks like he washed up on Gilligan's Island or something like that. Or noriega like wasting away in prison, like begging to get out in a wheelchair. I would like to know the story behind that, because who Noriega is yeah, Panama and the US were pretty good friends and all of a sudden the US invades. And now Manuel Noriega is in prison in Miami and has been for 30 years. Like something went down. That prison is he? Oh, that's right. And then they transferred him to well, outside the Panama Canal, ironically. Oh, really? Yeah, he's in some prison there. He's like in a wheelchair, in his early eighty s and just not doing so hot. But he served his whole sentence, I think in Miami, and then they transferred him to Panama to carry out another sentence down there. Oh, really? Yeah. Wow. Yeah, but something went down that I don't know about. I'm intensely curious to know. If anybody knows out there, tell me. I'm sure you can find that out pretty easy, right? Apparently not. I was just kidding. I bet it's highly guarded secret. You think? Even after all these years? No, Noriega had a motor mouth. I'm sure he told everybody who'd listened. Well, we mentioned Hitler earlier. He like he said, although not elected, was legally installed. He was appointed Chancellor by President Paul von Hindenburg. And then once Hindenburg died, Hitler said, you know what, there's this German word, Fuerer that means leader. And he said, why don't we just make that my new title? Which is because we don't really need a president and a chancellor. I can be both, dudes. Right. And then eventually I'll just kill myself in a bunker. Another about to say sad end, but just pitiful end. That's a great word for that. Sad indicates that you know what I mean? Yeah, I don't have to over explain that to him. But Hitler, he came to power legitimately. So did Saddam Hussein actually? He was the general of the Iraqi army and vice president. And then as the president came, I think he fell ill, saddam Hussein started to take on more and more power and finally was just like, I'm president forever now. Okay. Yeah. And I think that's the case. The point of this article is making is that there's a number of different ways a dictator can come to power. They can come to power in a power vacuum. They can come to power in a coup, which we'll talk about. They can come to power democratically. But if it's the kind of person who wants to rule unfettered, and they know how to basically work the populace sure. And the circumstances are right, maybe there's fear of outsiders coming your way, or the economy is bad or something like that, then you can conceivably consolidate your power and turn whatever situation into a dictatorship. Yeah, I think it's more it's based on the person and the circumstances that the nation is in when that person grabs power than it is on how they actually get into power. Yeah. And whether or not the current leader just happens to be out of town or something. Yeah. That's another big one, too. Well, let's go ahead and talk about coup. Should we? Okay, sure. So there are different kinds of coup or coup d'etat, but a coup is different than a revolution in that it's generally a smaller affair. It's not some big mass uprising of people. It's a dude gets a smallish band of his military cohorts together, and, like we were talking about, either someone is sick or they're dying, or they're just out of the country on business. And they come back and they're like, you're not in charge anymore. Yeah. Sorry to tell you. Yeah. And they're like, man, the discount on this dishwasher is not worth leaving this country for over this. It can be coup can be very bloody and violent, but they don't have to be. In fact, I think a lot of times they're not violent. No. There's a term, a bloodless coup. Yeah. And it's basically a couple of things that make cous. Or is it just cous, like you're saying there's no S? No, there's an S. Is it silent? No, I don't know that. So we're going to go with cous. Okay. A couple of hallmarks of cousins that you were saying, like, they're not popular uprisings. It's a small elite group that decided to do it. Usually the higher ups in the military. Yeah. And it can be bloodless, where it can just be like, you're not in charge any longer. You are out of the country. Stay out of the country. We're putting you in exile. Right. They can be bloody, especially if the person who's being deposed has a lot of loyalty in the military as well. Then it can turn pretty bad. Yeah. But I get the feeling that a lot of times the coup isn't attempted unless they feel like they have the support to pull it off. Well, I mean, look at Turkey, the people who tried that coup just a few months back. That's true. I don't know what happened to them. I think Erdogan said that people were going to be punished, but not necessarily executed. But I don't know if that's true or not. That's another thing that can make a coup bloody, is that it can fail, and then the people who are carrying out the coup get executed or it can succeed. And sometimes, just for good measure, the people carrying out the coup execute the former president, which was the case in Peru with Pinochet. Sorry, Chile. Yes, Chile. Where Pinocchet go over because apparently the parliament asked the military to get rid of the old guy, Salvador Ane, and they said, all right, fine, we'll do it. And then they executed. And a yes. And a coup doesn't always mean a dictator comes right in either. Sometimes a coup can just be temporary until they can elect a new national leader. Right. But it's just basically just a very small overthrowing of the current government. That's all. So you want to take another break? Yeah, let's do it. Okay. All right. We're back. What's a junta? It's related to the Jakama route. Ikama. No, that's not true at all. And I didn't really know this, but I've heard a military junta. Well, you know, it's junta. Is it really? Yeah, that's how I was making that joke. Okay. I wasn't sure because I called Jacob. Jacob, right. Are you sure it's not Jakama? Are you sure it's not junta? It is. It's a military junta. So the junta is almost like a dictatorship by committee. You find this a lot in Latin America, and it's a committee of military leaders who essentially act like a dictator. Right. Instead of one leader, maybe three, four top ranking military. Usually, if you like Fiji Brandwater, you're supporting a military junta when you buy that. As of 2006, the military rose up in Fiji and over to the government, and now Military Hunter runs the show there. Yeah. That's a bad scene over there. Yeah. Thailand apparently had a coup that same year. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. They followed the typical coup, or the president left the country. If I were president and I run shaky ground, don't go anywhere. No. I'd be like I'm sitting right here in Scarface. You'd just be like, in your office with submachine guns, right? Well, probably not in the mountain of cocaine. Right? Well, I could, because I'd be a dictator. No one could say anything you want. But there's one other thing that's really important, too. Not only would I not leave the country, I wouldn't even leave the presidential palace, because that's, like, one of the number one things you do in a coup, is you secure the presidential palace, secure the prison, secure the infrastructure, secure, like, the local media. And as long as the president there, for some reason, physically, it makes it exponentially harder. I don't know why. Yes, but couldn't if you were the military, couldn't you just go up to the president and be like, you're not president anymore, and they can say, yes, I am. You say no, you're not. We have the guns. Get out of the military. You're right. Yeah. It's, like, very passive aggressive to just, like, change the deadbolt when it is. It really is. Say, sorry, can't get to your bedroom anymore. But Thailand had the same thing, but the coup carried out by the hunta was apparently popularly supported. Oh, it was? Yeah, it was the president who's, like, I vote nay. Everybody else said, yay. So sometimes when there's a dictatorship, they actually give the appearance that they might hold elections oh, yeah. When in fact, it's just sort of a farce. That's a big deal, though, actually, because democracy or liberal democracies are viewed as so legitimate that dictators will hold farcical. Elections, pageantry, basically. Yeah. To make it seem like the populace is all for them, but the elections will be like, do you want to keep the leader? No one's running against the leader. Right, but do you want to keep the leader? Yes. No. Please write your address down and include a picture of your most beloved person in your life. Or in the case of Saudi Arabia King Abdulaben Abdul Aziz al Assad. That's a mouthful. He said, you know what? We're going to have elections for the first time since the 60s here in 2005. And you can choose your local civic leaders and your local councils. But women can't vote. Technically, they can, but you don't have the ID to vote because you're a woman, so you can't vote. And a man can't register you to vote because you're a woman and there just aren't enough women poll workers to register you, so you also can't vote. Right. So it's classic voter disenfranchisement, saying you don't have ID, so you can't vote, so you might as well not be allowed to vote. Right, so since there's an entire gender that's excluded from the vote, it's not a democratic vote. That's a little less farcical than, say, one where it's like where you have no opposition. Yeah. And I found this article. It's hilarious. It's called Dictatorships. It was on, like, kids net in Australia. Did you see that thing? An Australian website. And, like, at the top there's, like, teddy bears and a sun and rainbow and blue skies, and then in the text, that says dictator, and it's all about dictators. It's just kind of a weird juxtaposition. It had misspellings in it, too, which is weird. Yeah. But it made some pretty good points. If I were a kid, if I had kids, I'd be like, you read this website. They know what they're talking about. Read it every day. Every day. Just read the dictator entry. That's it. But they mentioned although, yeah, they got something horribly wrong. They mentioned Dictator Charles, king of Liberia. I think they mean Charles Taylor, who claimed to have won by such a landslide that apparently it was like, 15% larger than the actual total electorate of his entire country. But then I've also seen that he's done elections that were watched by outside poll watchers and that they said that this is a legitimate election. Interesting. Well, we talked a little bit about the dictatorship ending badly or sadly, a lot of times it's just a simple matter of time catching up to somebody and they get sick and die. Linen suffered stroke. Stalin suffered a stroke. Castro got really sick. All the power and money and influence in the world is not going to save you in the end, my friend. No, Mr Dictator paranoia will save you and keep you alive. It's always just kind of pitiful, though. I don't know. I disagree. Oh, really? Yeah. I think it's worth dancing on their graves over. No, I don't mean I mean pitiful for them. It seems. Like they always go out with a whimper. Yeah. Some go out with machine gun fire, though. Yeah. It doesn't say the salad days forever. No, it's true. I think the message is that's no way to rule a people. I hope we've gotten that across. I don't know how many dictators listen to our podcast, but I hope that if any do, we've really given them some pause to think about what they're doing with their lives. Should we read a few of these weird things done by dictators? Sure. And we should say it's widely believed that dictatorships are on the decline worldwide, where there are like 70 of them now. The most I saw was 24 right now. Yeah. And the reason why is, again, I think liberal democracy is, like, basically changing the game. But there was a big influx after the Cold War ended. No, I'm sorry. The Cold War began. There was a big influx. A lot of the old colonial powers that had colonies and say, like, Africa and Asia suddenly said, world War Two is over. We're getting out of the imperialism game. Good luck. And those power vacuums allowed a lot of dictatorships to grow. And then the polarization of the Cold War allowed them to thrive because a dictator could say, hey, I'm strategically necessary. United States, don't you like me? Don't you want to look the other way on all of my human rights atrocities? And then someone else would say the same thing as the USSR and the superpowers would prop up these dictators throughout the world. When the Cold War ended, that actually led to a huge and almost immediate decline in dictatorships around the world. Yes. So they're hopefully going the way of the dinosaur, but we'll see. Yeah. What was that last article you sent? It made a really good point about the United States could learn a little bit about these dictatorships and how they work. Not to be like that, but to learn that you can't for pointers but for pointers and maybe not necessarily saying, hey, we can just go into a country that's been run a certain way for hundreds, if not thousands of years and just say, do it all different now. Yeah. Here's a book on liberal democracies. Read it and do it. Yeah. And that we might have a more successful approach to foreign policy if there was a little bit more understanding on how these systems work. Yeah. And that a lot of these dictatorships are not totalitarian, but autocratic, which makes them inherently weaker. But if we threaten them, if we're belligerent to them, we give those people a reason to be afraid and to line up behind their leader. So when we actually threaten other countries that are autocratic, all we're doing is making the leader more powerful. Right. Whereas if we treat them like, as kind of a weak leader of a weak state, that is run in a way that suggests that the people aren't really behind it. They have to be run with an iron fist. Then that person is probably going to eventually get deposed. Yeah, it's pretty interesting. It was an interesting article. It was in Recent magazine, I think it was written by John Basil Utley. And if that guy is not British, no idea who is. All right, so we promised a few weird things. Where did you find this one, ODI? Strange things done by evil dictators Kim Jong Il. Those dude in South Korea named Shin Sang AK, and he was known as the Orson Wells of South Korea, and he was kidnapped and brought to North Korea to basically Kim Jong Il was like, we show the world that we are creative artists. Like, start making movies. We kidnapped you and brought you here. Make good movies. In fact, remake Godzilla because we just need our own Godzilla. It's basically what the CIA did with Jackson Pollock in the early 50s. But Jackson Pollock wasn't aware that he was being propped up because he was drunk. Yeah. So they did remake Godzilla sort of in a movie called The Pole Gasari. And I looked it up and he basically looks like Godzilla with, like, minotaur horns coming out beside. Yeah, not the best. What else? This Beetle story was kind of nuts. Yeah. The Marcos. Remember Imelda Marcos in all of her shoes? Yeah. Who can forget a Ferdinand and Amelda Marcos? They ruled the Philippines for a while, and apparently they loved The Beatles back in the so they invited The Beatles to the Philippines to play a couple of shows on their world tour. And when The Beatles got there, the military met them at the airport and said, hey, before you go to your hotel, you're scheduled for a private lunch with the President and the first lady. And the Beatles were like, look, mate, we're really tired. We're going to just go to the hotel and crash because we've got two shows tonight. And that did not go over very well. Yeah, they were acting through their manager, of course, Brian Epstein, and supposedly the story isn't so much that, but he said that they don't accept these formal state invitations, really, as a rule. I got you. Either way, they didn't go and Emel DeMarcos got on TV and started talking about it. Brian Epstein tried to apologize on TV and they blacked them out, and people got really upset. Basically, their private police escort was removed and The Beatles were on their own. Wow. Which was 90 64 when you're the Beatles is not a good place, especially in the Philippines, to find yourself. Yeah. They basically had to escape to the airport and just run out to the plane and head off. Yeah, and one of their dudes was beaten really badly, and Brian Epstein was kept from getting on the plane and had to basically shaken down to pay them back money from the concert to get on the plane. And then later on, Mr. Lennon, give peace a chance. John Lennon said if we go back to the Philippines, it's going to be with an H bomb. Did he really say that? Yeah. Wow. He said he won't even fly over it. So they did not have a good experience there. Wow. Who's next? I think that Edmund One was kind of interesting. That sounds so easy. I mean, totally. He declared himself President for life, p for L. And he said, you know what? I'm going to do this in high style. I'm going to get four white men to carry me around in a chair to celebrate being President for life. And he called it the White Man's Burden, and everybody loved it. He was an odd duck. Yeah. If you look up White Man's Burden and, I mean, in Google Images, there's a couple of really great pictures of these kind of blonde white men in suits carrying around this giant Ugandan man and chair. Have you ever read the Bukowski book that was the basis for Butterfly? Yeah. Which one was that? Hollywood, I think, is what it's called. I read Hollywood. Was that the one? Yeah. He talks about watching a documentary about Edia Amin and how Edamin didn't have the money for an air force, but he had pilots that really wanted to fly. So, like in the documentary, they're showing these pilots running down a runway and then jumping and then going back to the end of the line and just doing this over and over again to practice flying even though they didn't have planes. That movie was good. The Forrest Whitaker movie. Yeah. The last king of Scotland. Yes. Great movie. We're James McElvoy. You can stay in Charles Bukowski's house that he grew up in an airbnb now. Oh, really? Yes. It's been remodeled. No, he wouldn't like that. But no, he would hate the whole thing. Sure. How about Karafi? We will end with him. Sure. So Mour Kadafi loved women? Apparently. Did you know that about him? I did not. He loved women, and he actually surrounded himself with female bodyguards who he very graciously allowed to wear make up and high heels while they were protecting him. And in the west, these women were called the Amazonian Guard. This is just off the rails at this point. Yeah. What, podcast? No. Amazonian Guard. The whole thing. Yeah. So Kadofi actually had some sort of legitimate thinking behind it. He thought that an assassin would have trouble shooting a woman. Yeah. It stands to reason, I guess, he surrounded himself with female bodyguards who were also trained to kill. Yeah, but they weren't like more makeup and lipstick. Yeah. Actually, can we mention the Hitler thing? Sure. Is this true? I don't know why I walked past it. It sounds like urban legend, but supposedly Hitler came up with a synthetic blow up doll to comfort soldiers, and it was referred to as a synthetic comforter. Yes. Blonde hair, blue eyes, could fit in a backpack. And they only made about 50 of them because the soldiers were like, I'm not carrying that thing around, right? What are you, crazy? And he went, in fact, I am. You'll see? Waka. Waka. If you want to know more about dictators, you can type that word into the search bar athouseofworks.com since it says search bar, it's time for listing or mail a quick correction beforehand, because this has to do with bottle feeding kittens. But in our Feeding Babies episodes, which, by the way, thanks for all the support on those. It's really made us feel good to know we did a pretty good job there. But I erroneously many times said pump and dump as breast milk and dump it in the bottle they use. Oh, no. Yeah. Pump. You were saying that I didn't pick up on it. Well, I think I kind of threw that term around as just the general term for breast pumping, but dumping is dumping it down the drain for one reason or other. Like you maybe had some alcohol or what. Dumping it straight to hell. Yeah. Pump and dump. It sort of just kind of went wild there. That's okay, Chuck. That's right. I did notice a couple of people saying that, but I didn't get what they were saying. Gals wrong. All right, so it feels weird. I promised the story about bottle feeding kittens, which have ever done that? A little baby animal that you got to care for at that young age. Pretty darn cute. Sure. Very powerful feeling very stressful. It is stressful. Hey, guys. When I was a kid, you're like, you want this bottle or not? Breakfast? I can cook you. When I was a kid, my older sister had a habit of rescuing animals that became family pets. She rescued a pair of ferrets from drug abuse quote, drug abuse when the ferrets were being abused with drugs or themselves. Active users. I still don't know. That's a weird thing to say. Yeah, this is a weird email. The family ended up stuck with those smelly little weasels for years. What really I wanted to talk about, though, is much more mundane. One day, we rescued a random stray kitten from our gutter. Beautiful little thing. Fluffy and snowy white, practically newborn, too young to lap milk. She became a family project of sorts. Throughout the day, almost all the family members would take turns cradling the little kitten. Feeding her with a dropper was pretty special. I was maybe nine at the time, but gladly took time away from playing Zelda to feed the kitten. Playing Zelda? I forget it. Here's the kicker, though. As much as pure love that we pumped into that little kitten, that cat ended up being one of the most purely mean, indifferent cats we ever had. Sounds about right. She grew up to be beyond ungrateful. She came and went as she pleased and was prone to swipe at you if you tried to pet her. She hung around for the food, but after a few years, she just disappeared entirely. It sounds like the cat was on drug abuse, too. Most of our cats were sweet and true. Maybe the point is there are just some bad seeds out there. That is from Chris P. S. The ferrets ended up living for years and years. That was a mysterious email. In a lot of ways, it's like a David Lynch email. Thanks a lot, Chris. With A-K-I imagine. No? Okay. Thanks a lot, Chris. We appreciate that. And if you out there want to get in touch with us, like Chris did, you can tweet to us at syskpodcast. You can join us on Facebook.com stuffyshow. You can send us an email to stuffpodcast athousepports.com. As always, join us at our home on the Web stuffysheanow.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit HowStuffWorks.com summer school's out. The sun is shining. The daylight is longer. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music that's so good it's criminal Morbid. Part true crime and part comedy, Morbid takes you on a journey from murderous mysteries to major laughs, all in the same week. Hosted by autopsy technician Elena Ercart and hairstylist Ash Kelly, this chart topped series will have you hooked before you know it. Listen to new episodes of Morbid one week early, only on Amazon Music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen today."
https://podcasts.howstuf…-early-death.mp3	Do concussions cause early death?	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/do-concussions-cause-early-death	In this episode of Stuff You Should Know, Josh and Chuck discuss the origins and complications of concussions, injuries in which the brain comes into contact with the skull.	In this episode of Stuff You Should Know, Josh and Chuck discuss the origins and complications of concussions, injuries in which the brain comes into contact with the skull.	Tue, 22 Dec 2009 14:39:03 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2009, tm_mon=12, tm_mday=22, tm_hour=14, tm_min=39, tm_sec=3, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=356, tm_isdst=0)	25899761	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Sharks, the most famous and majestic apex predators on Earth. Introducing Shark Week. The podcast. I'm Luke Tipple, the marine biologist and shark expert with over 20 years experience in the field. I'm gonna take you on a dive with to me, you are going to learn a lot about sharks. And you'll also hear exclusive interviews with the stars of Shark Week to get a behind the scenes look. Listen to Shark Week, the podcast on Apple podcast spotify, or wherever you get your podcast. What if you were a global bank who wanted to supercharge your audit system so you tap IBM to UNSILO your data and with the help of AI, start crunching a year's worth of transactions against thousands of compliance controls? Now you're making smarter decisions. Faster operating costs are lower, and everyone from your auditors to your bankers feels like a million bucks. Let's create smarter ways of putting your data to work. IBM, let's create learn more@ibm.com. Brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you ready? Welcome to stuff you should know from housetopworkscom. Hi, and welcome to the podcast. I'm with Charles W. Bryant. And I am Josh Clark. Yeah. How are you doing? Good, mang. Good, mang. Okay. M-A-N-G. Chuck, have you been concussed? No, mang. Are you sure? I'm acting like it. You're showing some classic symptoms here. If I was concussed, you know what that would mean? What? That would mean my brain moves and hit my skull. Yes, that's what concussion is. This is a new, fresh, segue free edition of Stuff You Should Know. Right. You like this one? I want it. Yeah. Concussion. It's in the news all over the place today, right? Oh, big time. Because the NFL yes. Right. Chuck, a concussion is, put simply, where your skull stops moving, but your brain keeps moving, and it slaps the inside of your skull, which is pretty hard. I'm kind of surprised the human body didn't. We've evolved in such great ways to prevent things like that. I'm surprised there wasn't, like, a built in Han system. Like NASCAR uses something like a web around the brain. Yeah, we have that memory, remember? That's what shrinks when you have a hangover. Well, it clearly doesn't work that well if you can still hit your skull. That's what I'm saying. It's true. I wish it was such that concussions wouldn't even happen. Right? We need, like, a padding of foam rubber, like, in between our schools. Like an interior football helmet. Right? Let's get on there. All right. Nobel Prize. And I'm going to go do some Jean Splicing after this. It would end up being an IG nobel Prize with us, for sure. Lots of chuck, where does the word concussion come from? Joshua is Latin, like most medical terms, and I believe the word is concierge, which means to shake violently. Yeah. So there you have it. So your brain is being shaken violently, and it's nay good when that happens. Nay, my friend Chris Jones, this was, I think, his first article that he wrote for the site. He's a freelancer. Is this a buddy of yours? Nice. And as he put it, crony of yours. I would say more a buddy than a crony. He didn't get him hired. Okay. Yeah, he's a crony. Okay. He's a good writer, though. He is a good guy. He writes for the Motley Fool too, actually. He's all over the place. He wrote that in an ironic twist, the one bone specifically designed to shield our gray matter from injury ends up doing the most damage. Great sentence. Yeah. So, I mean, like you said, we need something a football helmet around our brain, within our skull. Right. Or just don't hit your head hard on something. Right. Which apparently is a little more difficult than one would think. And I think that one of the reasons we're podcasting about this now is, like you said, that it's kind of big. NFL is all over it. NFL is doing the opposite of being all over it, and it's getting lots of press attention. No, they're all over it now, though. Are they? Yeah, just this week. Okay. All right. I think one of the reasons that we're podcasting about concussions that this article got written is big right now. We're finally starting to realize that you don't just get your bell wrong or you're not a little rattled. What we're starting to see is that concussions lead very easily to early death, specifically multiple concussions or dementia or Alzheimer's. Yeah. Bad stuff. All from one horrible moment or several. Yeah. So, Chuck, what are some of the ways you can be concussed? I've been concussed and I can't get up. Actually, what you should do is not get up, but we'll get to that, too. Yeah. So, Chuck, what are some of the symptoms of a concussion? Let's say you are a University of Georgia cheerleader. Sure. And you want to come over and diagnose poor Bakari Rambo, who is unconscious. Right. What are you looking for? Well, I would look at bakari first. The fee was nauseous or uncoordinated, no balance, confused, had a slurred speech or memory loss or delayed reaction time. That would be my immediate diagnosis. If I'm looking at him and I see some of those symptoms that he might in fact be concussed. Right. Those are some outward symptoms. Right, right. There's also one that the concussed person will experience, like sensitivity to light and sound. Yes. Josh, that is called phonophobia and photophobia. Right. Loud noises and bright lights. No good. If you're concussed. Loud noises. Right. Yeah. You don't want that. It can make you dizzy, give you a headache, make you nauseated. It's just bad stuff. Your sleep, your ability, anxiety as far as emotional impact. Right. Depression. Sure. And your ability to think. Actually, a lot of times there is an accompanying amnesia to concussion. Yeah. And it's usually immediate. Like, if the person loses consciousness when they wake up, they may have some sort of amnesia. Sure. Or even if they don't lose consciousness, they can still have some amnesia from the moment that impact took place. Right. The moment their brain slapped the inside of their skull. Yeah. That's why when you see, like, on a football sideline or in a boxing ring, there's just a battery of questions they'll be asking like, who are you? Do you know where you are? And if they say something like, I'm playing football, they need to get a little more specific than that. What city are we in? What team are we playing? Which game are you on? Mike Tyson. Right. And it's time to get out of the game. Right. Which is kind of difficult, actually. Did you see that testimony by Ray Lewis? Yeah. They were talking about getting out of the game. And even knowing just a little bit that we know now about concussions, lewis was still like, depends on what's going on in the game. From what I understand, if you have a concussion, you don't go back in that game. Well, as of yesterday. That's the new rule, is it? Yes. Let's talk about that. Let's back up a second. Because the NFL has long been not too sensitive to concussions and taking a lot of heat over the years for having their team doctors allow guys to go back into soon, or leaving it up to the player who wildly underreports concussions. NFL players do. Right. Or all athletes, I would imagine. Yeah. And there's a guy named John McKay, and he was on the San Diego Chargers in the early 70s. Sadly, he played with a guy named Ralph Winzell for the entire 1972 season, and neither one of them remember playing with each other as teammates. Wow. Very sad. Wow. So McKay's wife led this charge to get this on the NFL's radar because she started making calls and found, she said, at least 20 people whose husbands were suffering from Alzheimer's and early dementia. There's others that are suffering as early as their thirty s and forty s. Yeah. So she wrote Commissioner Taglibu at the time a letter. He got the ball rolling, and they created the 88 plan, which was McKay's number. And now families can receive up to $88,000 a year for care from the NFL. Yeah. If they qualify. That's great. So that happened. And then two days ago, the NFL, because the concussions have been big news this year, especially a lot of high profile guys, ben Rothless Burger for the Steelers and a couple of other high profile dudes have been concussed hurt. Warner. And the new rule takes effect this week. It's like an immediate rule, which is unusual, and if you have fleeting symptoms, you're allowed to return to the game. But if you have amnesia, poor balance, or an abnormal neurological examination, you cannot go back into the game. At all. It's a good rule. It's a very good rule. Although from what Chris Jones says, if you've been concussed, if you show any evidence of concussion, you shouldn't be going back into the game at all. Well, yeah, sure, I guess. Baby steps, right? Yeah. And I think they're also bringing in for the post game evaluations after the coming days, after they have now required this. Independent doctors have to perform the test and not the team doctor. I think that's a good rule because if you've seen any given Sunday, I think the notion of the team doctor is kind of a joke in the NFL. Sure. You want your kid eating the best nutrition, right? For all their days at the dog park and nights sleeping in bed. Your bed. Yep. We mean that kid your dog. Halo Elevate is natural science based nutrition for their best health. It's guaranteed to support your dog's top five health needs better than leading brands. That means digestive health, heart and immunity, support healthy skin and coat hip and joint support, and strengthen energy. Find Halo Elevate at petco pet supplies plus and select neighborhood pet stores. Learn more@halopets.com what if we could change the world one relationship at a time? Don't miss the second season of Force Multiplier, the award winning podcast from iHeartRadio and Salesforce.org, which is out now. Yeah. Listening it's host Veritude Thurston connects with leaders and doers out there tackling some of today's biggest challenges, like climate change, education, access global health. You'll hear from organizations like the Trevor Project, doctors Without Borders, and the University of Kentucky, who are using their platforms to maximize their impact. You'll also be introduced to action leaders like youth activist Juan Acosta and advocate Amy Allison, who are inspiring change in their day to day lives. So join them as they discuss new ways of collaborating and taking action. Listen to the second season of the iHeartRadio and Salesforce.org original podcast, Force Multiplier on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. I read about another group of ex athletes led by a guy named Chris Nonsey. He played football for Harvard, but then he went on to the WWE and he had several concussions and then took a kick to the chin, and that was it. Lights out for him. Career over. Wow. And he started to read studies on concussions because he had, like, headaches for five years and depression is a big part of commorbidity of concussions. And he ended up founding the Sports Legacy Institute with a guy named Doctor Robert Cantu, who I know. Whose name you'll recognize. Yes, sir. Because he founded one of the I guess indices for grading concussions. The Kanto scale. Yes. But they got together and created the Sports Legacy Institute and they take donations of ex football players brains once they die for study. Wow. And the study that they've been doing together. So basically, Noninsky recruits families to donate their dead football players brains. And then Kantu turns around and dissects the brain at this place called the center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy, which he codirects. And this group, the CSTE, are finding some really startling stuff in the brains of people who are, like, 40, 50. They got their hands on the brain of an 18 year old kid who is a multi sports athlete, died at 18. They got his brain and his brain. And the other brains that they've looked at so far all look like 80 year old Alzheimer's patients brain. Well, I was just about to say, there was a Philadelphia Eagle, former Eagle, named Andre Waters, that committed suicide last year. He was 44. And they said the same thing. He had the brain of an 80 year old Alzheimer's patient. Yeah, and he's not the only one. He committed suicide. Some other guys have been drinking themselves to death. A guy named Ted Johnson, who used to play for the Pats has pre. He donated his brain when he dies. Right. And I think he's in his 30s or early forty. S. And he spent two years with his curtains closed, holed up in his house wow. From just major depression. Sad, man. I'm a huge NFL fan. You always hear about and these are just the head injuries. You always hear about these old warriors from before. They made a ton of money that are like, destitute and they can't walk. That's another thing. An ability to work, to manage money. That may be one of the reasons why a lot of these guys go bankrupt. It's like 80% or 70% of NFL players go bankrupt in, like, four years after leaving. Well, the average lifespan or not lifespan, but tenure of an NFL player is really short. I mean, it's like two or two seasons or something. Ridiculous. So it's a lifespan. Especially if you suffered multiple concussions. Apparently, one concussion, your brain can restore its faculties, can fully expend itself. Yeah. But if you have a concussion, then you have a secondary concussion before the first one has time to heal, or you have multiple concussions over your lifetime, you're in deep trouble. Yes. Josh, what you just talked about, when you have the second one before the first one is healed, that is called potentially Second Impact Syndrome. And you can die. Yeah. That's way worse. Because, what, the arteries in the brain swell? Yeah. It triggers a chain reaction. It starts with the disordered cerebral vascular auto regulation. And that means the brain loses its ability to keep the right amount of blood pressure, basically. So the brain swells, and that leads to congestion and pressure and herniation and death. Yeah. Once your brain is herniated, once it's no longer getting its supply of blood and oxygen and everything it needs, there goes your breathing and your heartbeat and all the very primal, basic stuff that's controlled by the brain stem. I'm surprised this hasn't happened yet. And I'm surprised, actually, brain stem herniation. I'm surprised an NFL player has not died on the football field yet. That's shocking to me that that has not happened. I think it's going to take something like that. Unfortunately, although they're going in the right direction now. I used to think that it would take something that drastic to really make drastic changes. Maybe, who knows? Maybe it's not that much of a blood sport. It's very physical sport, but people don't go out like hockey. People want to see somebody get their throat slit. Did you ever see that? Dude? No. You never saw that? No. That happened where hockey goalie had his jugular vein cut in a hockey game. Is it on video somewhere? It's got to be. I saw it on TV when it happened, like it was a while ago, it was probably ten years ago, but the guy bends down on his knees and grabs his throat and in like 3 seconds you see a pool of blood go from a drop to like 8ft in diameter. Does he die right there? No, he didn't die. Oh, good. In fact, he was back with the team the next day. They sewed him up and refilled the pump full of blood, and he was good to go. There you go. Yes. Man, what a time to be alive. So we should talk about treatment and stuff like that. Okay. Because it's not just NFL players. You get concussed at home. Your kid can easily get concussed. In fact, I think concussions are the leading head injury for children. Yes, I wanted to mention that, Chuck, we've been talking about the NFL, but the NFL isn't the only group out there playing football. There's tons of kids. And actually, I was reading an article by Frankfurt Ford right. Who you don't want to see. Have you ever seen a picture of Franklin Ford? No. It's one of those ones where you're like, man, I wish I didn't see that. This is nothing like what I thought the guy looked like. And really, that's what Frank DA Ford looks like. Wow. I know. I have seen him, actually. But your local shopping mall. Can you spare some change? Well, he wrote an article about concussions, and he was basically goading the NFL into doing something. And he also points out that it's not just the NFL or suiting up. 1.2 million high school students every year play football, and they apparently are much more prone to concussions than older guys because the impacts are actually at a higher velocity than in the NFL because they're not worried about their careers, they're trying to get to the career, so they're killing anybody who gets in their way. Whereas an NFL player would be more likely to. Number one, he knows his way around the football field. He knows what he's doing. He's been playing for a long time. Think it easier. Right. And number two, he's worried about making it out the next Sunday too. So he's going to make it a little easier on himself, too. Well, maybe. They also under reporting the NFL though, just because they don't want to. Like Hines ward called out Ben Rothel's Burger last week for being a Wasp. Basically for not playing because he had headaches a week later. Come on, Heinz. Yeah, he felt bad for it. He did? Yeah. Good. He should. So Chuck yes. We were talking about treatment. Yes, Josh. The first thing you should do if you even suspect you are concussed is stop whatever the heck you were doing to get concussed. Do not drop and roll either. Just stop at the stop. No movement. And we should also mention that whole thing about don't go to sleep if you're concussed. Not true. No, it's not. Rest is actually exactly what you need. Yeah. Chris points out sleep deprivation is not a good treatment for concussion. I wouldn't think so. Right. You should stop what you're doing immediately if you think it could possibly be worse than a concussion, you should immediately go to the doctor and probably get a CT scan or an MRI. Although the weird thing is you can't see a concussion. Right. Like you can't diagnose a concussion from an MRI or CT scan. What they're doing when they do scan you is ruling out other types of traumatic brain injury. Yeah. Like internal bleeding and that kind of thing. Right. So minority of the cases you will have something called post concussion syndrome. And that can be a couple of weeks or months of side effects. Basically prolonged everything we talked about fatigue, dizziness, confusion, nausea, that kind of thing. Yeah, but that doesn't always happen. That's why concussions are like still sort of a mystery. Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn't. Some people recover faster than others. It's really hard to diagnose, like you said, because you can't see it and people underreport it. So you're up against the battle here, trying to get it diagnosed and treated correctly. Definitely. But I think groups like the CSTE, is that what it was called? Sure. Yeah, I think so. Once they've been cracking open the brains, I think the mysteries are starting to be solved a little more. We talked about how they look like the brains of Alzheimer's patients. The reason they draw that comparison is not just because the symptoms are the same. They actually have protein tangles that are characteristic of Alzheimer's in the brains of multiple concussion sufferers. Right. So the brains can't communicate, the neurons can't communicate with each other any longer. Basically stuff these protein build ups that should have been carried out as waste aren't any longer, and now they're just gumming up the works, which can actually kill the brain cells, which leads to brain death. Which leads to death. Wow. Yeah. Much more serious than people think. Have you ever been concussed? I don't think I have. I think I have been a couple of times. My little girlfriend has. Really? Yeah, I got hit in the head with a softball bat once, and I've never had my bell rung like that before. Yeah, that was like the dude was in the on deck circle and I walked up and didn't see him. I know. He was in full swing. Yeah. Wow. Whacked me right now. Did you go unconscious? No, but I staggered and saw angels above my head. Actually, I may have been concussed because I had the same symptoms after I was shooting at a little propane tank with a high powered rifle. I'm not kidding. We should say you should never, ever do something. I think that every podcast should start out with a disclaimer like, don't do what Josh talks about. And I didn't have the stock against your shoulder, firmly against my shoulder, not even friendly. And I had it under in my armpit, and the thing had a scope, and it was kaboom. And I just looked at my friend and handed him the gun and kind of staggered off and yeah, I was seeing all sorts of you're like the lights, chicks on YouTube. If you search Girl with shotgun, it's like hundreds of videos of girls that don't know how to shoot a rifle properly and get knocked out. That's exactly who I am. And it is not funny on YouTube. It's funny because they put the video music to it. I didn't get knocked out, but I still have a scar. You see a little crescent right there? That's from the scope. Yes. I bet we both been contested. Jerry's like, let's move along. Yeah, who cares if you've been concussed? You know you're a pet mom when you growl back during playtime and you insist on feeding them the highest quality food you can find. Enter Halo Holistic, made with only whole meat, no meat meals, and probiotics for digestive health. Our first ingredient is always responsibly sourced protein raised with no antibiotics. And bonus, our fruits and veggies contain no GMOs. It's a lifestyle and a pet bomb thing. Find halo. Holistic at Chewy. Amazonandhalopets.com what if we could change the world one relationship at a time? Don't miss the second season of Force Multiplier, the award winning podcast from iHeartRadio and Salesforce.org, which is out now. Yeah. Listed in Is, host Barrette de Thurston connects with leaders and doers out there tackling some of today's biggest challenges, like climate change, education, access, global health. You'll hear from organizations like the Trevor Project, Doctors Without Borders, and the University of Kentucky, who are using their platforms to maximize their impact. You'll also be introduced to action leaders like youth activist Juan Acosta and advocate Amy Allison, who are inspiring change in their day to day lives. So join them as they discuss new ways of collaborating and taking action. Listen to the second season of the iHeartRadio and Salesforce.org original podcast, Force Multiplier on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcast. We should finish up Josh with a little debate. There is some debate in the medical community about whether it is a structural or functional issue with the damage. Yes. I think that the opening up of the brains is starting to show that it's structural. You think so? Yeah. The protein tangles is definitely structural, but I guess it would be both because the structural changes are interfering with the function. Well, yeah, but some people say that since a concussion is short lived and you fully recover, then it may not be structural. Maybe it's from multiple concussions or the severity of the concussion. Yeah, that'd be my guess. Yeah. They both have good points. Sure. You got anything else, buddy? No, that's about it. Wear your bicycle helmets, kids. That's another one. Always wear your seatbelt. Auto accidents are another major source of concussion. Big time horseback riding incidents. Yeah. Bikes are huge, though. Bikes. Sure. Falling in any, little kids, too, are in particular danger because they haven't gotten their coordination. They don't have their sea legs yet. Sure. So they fall over, hit their head, and that actually can prevent their development further on in life, right? Yeah, I think just being smart and trying to keep your head safe. Yeah. Kids, if you're out there playing, like, touch football and you get tackled and your head hits the ground real hard, seriously, stop playing. Your friends might make fun of you, but tell them if Big Tobin Rothes Burger can take himself out of a game, that I can. That's what I would say. That's good stuff. Who's. So it's concussions, and if you want to learn more about it, you might want to type the word concussion into the handy search bar, how Stuff Works.com. And always listen to your Uncle Chuck, too. That was really good advice, Chuck. Thank you, Josh. So this means it's time for listener mail. I'm a professional uncle, by the way. Uncle to Reagan, Shelby, Abby and no one I don't know. That your professional. Are you paid for that? No, but I'm good at it. I'm sure you are. It's a good gig. All right, I've got two quickies from two cute little kids who wrote, and I can never turn these down. Are you uncle of these kids? No. This comes from Will in Arlington, Virginia. He's twelve. Hi, guys. After hearing your podcast, How Flirting Works, I realized how much I flirt with girls on a daily basis. How about you flirt with me being twelve and relationships and dates being just around the corner, I feel middle school would be the perfect time to fetch myself a gal. You're kidding. I know. I was not like this when I was twelve. No, I was like, me girls. Me. Was that me when I was twelve or me now? Well, thank God I'm married. I do like some girls, but I'm too shy to tell them. I also think some girls like me, but they're too shy to tell me. I feel left out, so please help me. Could you give me some tips on getting a girl? Maybe some things I should do or tell them. And no, Josh, I will not moon them. Could you give me a shout out as well, then? Any girls who like me will hear the shout out and they will be impressed. So this is the shout out. You didn't say his last name, did you? Don't think we're allowed to? No. Is Will in Arlington, Virginia? Twelve h. Twelve. So will we'll say, like we said in the Flirting podcast, that my advice. At your age, my friend, if you want to get ahead of the game, is be nice to girls. Sure. Because a lot of guys that age think it's fun to kind of tease and not be nice to girls. And you learn later on that being nice to girls will get you farther. If you learn that now, little buddy, then you will be ahead of your peers. That's great. Again, great advice, Chuck. And be funny. That was the other one, right? Sure. You got anything? Confidence, Will. Confidence. Have confidence. And don't just fetch a gal. To fetch a gal. Sure. Make sure that you like the girl and she likes you, and you both treat each other right and just go from there. But treat her with respect. You'll fetch a gal. All right? Sure. Okay, so this comes from this next one is from Katie, who was a freshman in high school in Florida. Unfortunately, because she could potentially be hooked up with Will, katie wrote us a poem. I was really sad when Hiker Theater ended, which it has, and I wanted to write in with a poem, but didn't have the inspiration. Luckily, a bird provided its life for me to write this for you guys. Did you read this one? No. Very good. A bird, your short or long existence may or may not have been wonderful. Your mate, girlfriend or mother will miss you. Parentheses, maybe we will mourn you forever or until we forget. We will never forget your plight to get to the cafeteria. But alas, the window is in the way. The windex, it is clean with is your murderer. Your vengeance will go undone. We aren't sorry at all, dear bird, all your dreams were broken in an instant, like your neck. Oh, dear birdie, your life is over now. That is awesome. It is Katie. Katie. He's a freshman in high school in Florida. Katie hates birds. Concussed bird. All right, this is not dead. So those are two cute little kids that wrote in, and they like that. Thank you both Katie and Will and all of our young listeners. We think very highly of you. And you know what? Let's not just leave it at that. We think highly of all of our listeners don't each other. Yes. We also think especially highly of. Our listeners who donate to Kiva. Yeah, Kiva.org. We have a membership loan team. Yeah, I've heard this. Our team is so serious. It's awesome too. Do we almost have 1000 members on our team? I think that makes us like the 10th largest. Something like that. Pretty cool. So, yeah, if you want to join our Kiva team, we'd love it. If you did, you can make a donation as low as $25 and it gets repaid. Kiva also has a gift certificate for Christmas. For Christmas or any holiday that you give a gift on, right? Sure. You can go to www.kiva.org teamstepyshodo, join and donate. Bye. It. And if you want to send Chuck and I an email. Whether you are 12, 14, 82 or the oldest living person on the planet, you can send it to stuffpodcast@howstuffworks.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstofworks.com. Want more HowStuffWorks? Check out our blogs on the howstofworks.com homepage. Brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you? Hey everybody. I don't know about you, but I am excited that it's summer. School's out, the sun is shining and best of all, there's downtime for days. That's where true crime podcasts on Amazon music come in. There's a perfect activity for last minute road trips, long walks or, if you're brave enough, late nights. With so many killer shows like Morbid, my Favorite Murder and Small Town Murder, you'll never be bored to death again. So download the free Amazon Music app to start listening to all your favorite true crime podcasts. Plus, with Amazon Music you can access new episodes early. Download the app today. You know you're the best pet mom when you growl back during play time, give epic belly rubs and feed them halo holistic made with responsibly sourced ingredients plus probiotics for digestive health. Find us at chewy, amazon and talopets.com."
96c88310-440c-11e8-82c5-c3ac415c8733	North Korea: What's the Deal?	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/north-korea-whats-the-deal	For almost 70 years, North Korea has been the bane of South Korea, Japan and the US or has stood as the sole defenders of the Korean homeland from the American hordes, depending on who you ask.	For almost 70 years, North Korea has been the bane of South Korea, Japan and the US or has stood as the sole defenders of the Korean homeland from the American hordes, depending on who you ask.	Thu, 03 May 2018 20:26:37 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2018, tm_mon=5, tm_mday=3, tm_hour=20, tm_min=26, tm_sec=37, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=123, tm_isdst=0)	64718134	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Are you looking for an escape? An immersive getaway experience? Well, there's a place for all your wildest dreams. Perhaps you enjoy wrapping along the paperboy, or you believe that blessed be the fruit. Or you dream of one day smashing a glass while stealing. Who's. Ah. Whether you're sworn to Team Kim or you just want a good old fashioned mysterious murder, there's a place that has it all. From Atlanta to only murders in the building, it's all on Hulu. So check into your obsessions. Hulu subscription is required. Terms apply. Visit hulu.com for plan details. Welcome to stuff you should know from howstepworkscom? Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with Charles W. Chuck Bryant with Jerry Rowland. And this is breaking stuff you should know. Recorded two days before it gets released. We're basically like pod save America now. Yeah. And I think it's funny that the only reason that we are speeding this through is because of Laziness, because I sent out an email earlier. It's like, guys, if we publish this in two or three weeks, we're going to have to go back and rerecord. Oh, yeah. And I don't want to rerecord updates. I don't want to either. We could have also been super duper lazy and released it and not done updates, but then we would just be like, slobs. We would have been like brother Bluto in Animal House. Right. Kind of like we went back and updated the Obamacare episode so many times. Exactly. Think about how much work we put into that one. Oh, man. So, Chuck, we're talking today about North Korea. I've been wanting to do this one for a while. I learned so much. Yeah. One of the things that I learned is that a lot of the bizarre rumors I've always heard about North Korea, a lot of those are actually totally true. Yeah. And I learned that just having a basic understanding of its history really just sort of helps frame everything it does. Yeah. Very much so. You definitely get a feel for why it is the way it is. Yeah. Just a basic understanding. Yeah, we do. We're definitely not North Korea experts by any means. Oh, my gosh. But what's interesting to me is there are actually people out there who are it's their job to analyze reports that come out of Pyongyang, and the way that Kim Jong UN might waive is he using his left hand today? That actually means this. There are people whose job it is to know that and to be able to say, this is probably what they're going to do next. Yes. How is he wearing his hair today? All the same. He's worn it every day of his life. Well, here's the fact for you. Speaking of his hair, he has a very unique hairstyle for his country. As a matter of fact, he may be the only person in this country with that hairstyle. Really? Yes. Because when he came to power. Right after he came to power in 2011, the North Korean government, led, of course, by Kim Jong UN, issued a decree that if you're a man, you can have hair that is two inches long, and if you're an older man, three inches long, that's it. If you're a woman, you can have one of 14 hairstyles. Have you seen the poster yet? I haven't. Oh, yeah. They got the hairstyles for the men and women that are allowed. That's why I thought, like, that was just a rumor or something. It's one of the things that was confirmed for me. I never saw the poster, although I probably would have been suspicious even after the poster could photoshop and all that. But his hair looks like one of the approved hairstyles. It's long. Well, way longer than a couple of inches. It's hard to tell because he keeps it slick back. Yeah. I think that his hair is totally unique in North Korea, at least, with links. So when he wakes up in the morning and he's in shaggy dog mode sure. It's all hanging down on his face. Yeah. It looks like the new bass player for Metallica. Who was who? He's? Like the guy from Metal apocalypse. Is he the same guy that took over since Jason Newstadd newstead left? Yeah, same guy. Yeah. It's like him and that Zach Galifiangus. No, the guy who played guitar for Ozzy Osbourne. Like the two most metal looking guys in the history of metal. Probably the new bass player for Metallica. Oh, yes. It's almost like they prayed to God to craft a metal bass player. Yeah, he's an archetype. Yeah, for sure. But I'm pretty sure he's the guy from Metal apocalypse. Metalocalypse. You know what I'm talking about. Sure. It's like about the metal band from Adult Swim. There's, like, a cartoon about the metal band. Okay, so I'm pretty sure that's him. Got you. At any rate, North Korea sorry, we're going to have to talk about Dennis Rodman then we're going to talk about Metallica's bass player. So let's start at the latest as it stands right now. Okay. Like, what's going on now? Do you want to or do you want to end up with that? No, that's fine. Okay. So there's been some really surprising developments, and a lot of people are very much reserved and saying, do not be distracted by this. Do not be fooled. But as it stands, North Korea and South Korea just had a summit, which they've had from time to time, but they had a summit in the Demilitarized Zone, where the President of South Korea and the President of North Korea got together and said, let's make this a denuclearized peninsula. Let's end this war. By the way, the Korean War has still been going on since 1950. It never ended. Yeah, it's been a long truce. Let's end it and let's just reunify. And people are going nuts because this actually seems like there's a possibility of it. And one of the reasons why they think there's a possibility is because this is such an about face for the north compared to two weeks ago. Yeah. All right, let's dig in, because there is reason for optimism. There is plenty of reason for skepticism. Sure. And I don't think anyone really knows whether or not to believe North Korea. No. But there are plenty of people who do believe that you should not believe it. Right. Because some people say this could be a ruse to unify Korea and get America out of there right. Once and for all, which could be scary. There's people that think that there's recent reports that this whole notion of shutting down their nuclear test site is merely symbolic for two reasons. A, because they've got what they needed and they don't need to test anymore. Right. And B, because this geologist in China did you see that report? No. He just came out, like, yesterday saying, I think that this site has been destroyed. Oh, I did see that. Via earthquake. Via setting off nuclear bombs. Right. So it's not even there anymore anyway. Right. They set off a hydrogen bomb and blew their nuclear testing facility up. Yeah. But now it's a bargaining chip on the table. Exactly. And the reason they can say that is because it is such a closed off area and it's so difficult to surveil that you have to rely on the report of a Chinese geologist and say, okay, maybe that's true, maybe it's not. You don't know because it's a hermit kingdom. Yeah. But there have been a few olive branches in the past few days. I didn't even know this. In 2015, North Korea set their clocks off by 30 minutes so they wouldn't have the same time. Is that right? Yeah. Wow. And so North Korea said, you know, we're going to set these clocks back. We're going to realign. Wow. And I've also, in recent days, been dismantling these propaganda loudspeakers at the border. Yes, I saw that. Where both sides pump. Like, on the south side, they pump Kpop and like, hey, this is what it's like to be free. And then on the other side, they pump out, I don't know, just North Korean propaganda, but they're taking down these loudspeakers. So there are little signs that, like, I don't know, maybe this is for real. I was looking all over for some verbatim examples of the propaganda that comes out of the north loudspeakers. Could not find it anywhere. Yeah, set that to a nice 808 beach K pop hit of your own. But yeah, dismantling this. That's huge. That's a big deal. And this demilitarized, and we'll talk more about it, but it is widely considered the most dangerous, I think, 2 miles strip of land on the planet. And the reason why it's so dangerous, the reason why it's there is, again, as far as Korea is concerned, and especially as far as North Korea is concerned, the Korean War is still ongoing. Back in, I think, 1953, they signed an armistice, not a peace treaty, a ceasefire. It's like a truth. But there hasn't been a peace treaty, so the war is still going on, which is clue number one that I didn't realize. But that's clue number one to the situation over there. Once you understand that, you start to understand, oh, they've been in a war like stance this whole time because they consider themselves to have been at war still. Yes. And no one even knows what this early on, as of this recording, no one even knows what denuclearization is that word? I think so, yeah. What that even means in this case, does that mean we're going to stop our building programs, but we're keeping those missiles? Or does this mean we're going to destroy everything? Right. That is another reason why it's so surprising. But the whole reason that this is such big news is because the reason that this summit is even on the world stage is because North Korea has finally gotten to a point where they have just come out of being strictly a regional threat and a big regional threat to South Korea and to Japan. But now they're actually a threat to the United States because they've just shown through an intercontinental ballistic missile test that had the trajectory been a certain way. They could have hit Chicago. Yeah. And that changes everything. And then, of course, after that, we conducted a test of our fad system. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense. I looked into that. You know what that thing is? What? It basically shoots the rocket out of the sky in orbit it goes, but it doesn't have any explosives. It works through velocity. It just punches right through it. It just punches right through it. Wow. With the idea that it won't detonate the nuclear warhead. Smart. So it'll just disable the rocket and I guess it will just tumble back into the atmosphere and land where it may. Right. Hopefully the ocean. It's probably going to try to shoot it down over the ocean. That's the idea. Right. Yeah. So I saw that we have about a 50 50 chance of shooting down any ICBM coming out of North Korea, which is, as Mark Bowden put it in this article that I read, it's good. But on the other hand, it's actually really bad because that's even odds that ICBM will strike the United States if they shoot it. So the point is, North Korea showed that they actually have this technology now, and it changed everything. So the idea that they just proved that they could do this and are now saying, let's denuclearize. Right. That's huge and crazy. And actually people are talking about no bells over all this. Yeah. I mean, left leaning websites are saying donald Trump has done what no other president has been able to do, potentially right. If this happens the way it looks like it could happen, which is a shocking thing to read. It's a shocking about face from North Korea. Yeah. To see CNN go, like, I hate to say it, but he's really done something here at the end. Right. It was written by Wolf Blitzer while he was applying, like, hot paper clips to his inner thigh. Things are getting strange, so it's going to be really interesting to see how this unfolds and whether or not it is a trick. Right. Yeah. It's really weird for weeks and months ago for North Korea to be saying, like, we will destroy you, we will crush you, we will blow you to pieces. I've got everything's. Good. That they will strike a merciless blow at the heart of the US. With our powerful nuclear hammer, honed and hardened over time. That was from July, less than a year ago, Chuck. I don't know. Is it possible that he's seen the light? These sanctions have put a serious hurt on a country that was already in a bad way. Right, but they've lived in a bad way for more than half a century now. It's so weird that if that's true, then we figured out a sanction that no one had tried before, and it was exactly the right thing. It's just too bizarre because they've lived with this stuff. Well, but it also could be a symbol of just the changing times. And there are a lot of North Korean citizens now that are saying, like, we should reform. Now's the time to play with the rest of the world and become part of the rest of the world and not be a hermit kingdom. See, it's my understanding that if you would say that out loud in the north, like, you would be executed with an anti aircraft gun. Well, I think a lot of these have been defectors okay. That have said, like, there's a lot of quiet sentiment. I got you. I don't think anyone here in the country is standing up on the rooftop reform, because that's what Kim Jong UN's brother I mean, he was two women at assassins at an airport sprayed him in the face with a nerve agent and killed him. Well, for a few reasons. One is because it was because he believed in reform. Potentially. Yeah. I get that. He was a little more Western oriented than his he's trying to get to Disneyland. Disneyland, Japan. Right. Yeah. On a Japanese I'm sorry, Dominican Republic passport that he had. And he got killed. Assassinated. Right. And of course, they haven't come out and said so, but it seems like a direct order from the top. Sure. From his half brother, who, unless I misread, they have never met or had never met. That's possible because I think the tradition is you raise potential successors in isolation from one another. Oh, I'd not heard that. I just assumed that the first family was in exile. Oh, no. I mean, they're half brothers. That makes sense. Kind of like a little lab experiment, see which one grows the way you want it to. The one grew up and was like, I kind of want to go to Disneyland. Right? And he got caught doing it. Yeah, he was assassinated. I would guess his name was Kim Jong Nam, and he was assassinated in 2017. And I would guess because Kim Jong UN was trying to consolidate his power to make sure there was nobody who could be, like, built up as a leader in exile and come and take his well, Bro is in line. He was the first born, right? So let's take a break, and we're going to come back and talk about Korean history, and maybe things will get a little clearer, huh? Yes. Only 45% of high school students feel they are prepared for college or careers. Stride career prep is helping change that. Stride Career Prep lets students take charge of their education and their future. By combining real world skills training and traditional academics, students can earn college credit while in high school or get the training needed to land a job right after graduation. Stride Career Prep prepares your team for in demand careers in business, tech, health, science, criminal justice, and more. Students can take courses developed by industry professionals, prepare for certifications, get hands on experience, network, and most importantly, gain the confidence they need to succeed. Stride Career Prep is backed by over 20 plus years of experience in online learning and education. Take charge at K twelve. Compodcast. That's K Twelve. Compodcast, and start taking charge of your future today. What if you were a trendy apparel company facing an avalancho demand to ensure more customers can buy more sherpa lined jackets? You call IBM to automate your it infrastructure with AI. Now, your systems monitor themselves. What used to take hours takes minutes, and you have an ecommerce platform designed to handle sudden spikes in overall demand, as in actual overalls. Let's create It systems that rule up their own sleeves. IBM. Let's create. Learn more@ibm.com. Itautomation all right, Chuck. We're back. What an intro. It really what intrigue? Assassination. Disneyland. I felt impassioned. Metallica? Yeah. Not at all. I forgot we talked about Metallica. All right, so let's go back in time, because understanding this article is actually really good on our site from Patrick Krager. Gold. He does a good job. The section is titled How North Korea Came into Existence, and it really just kind of brings it all into focus once you know, how this all? Because I think a lot of people these days don't educate themselves. They watched Mash, and that's about the extent of it. That's about all I knew about Korea. Me, too. Sure. So Korea was actually, for a very brief time in the 20th century, actually not too brief, but it had been invaded and annexed by the Japanese, and it was in the process of becoming a Japanese colony when Japan lost World War II. Yeah. Go look at Korean map. Start there. It's pretty close to Japan. Yeah. And it's a little Bongo peninsula hanging down from China. It also has amazing food, by the way. Oh, yeah. Okay. So Korea fell out of the possession of the Japanese and into the possession of the Americans. The Allied forces that had invaded Japan and part and parcel with that was invading Korea as well. Right? Yes. So because the United States and the USSR divided up the world, basically one of the things that got divided was the Korean peninsula. And right at the 38th parallel, above it was the north and below it was the south. And the south was controlled by the US. Or supported sorry, I just made scare quotes for those of you who can't see me. And the north was a puppet regime installed by the USSR. Yeah, pretty simple. Okay. So to run the show up there in North Korea this is really interesting how this dynasty started with this family that's been in power for so long. Yes. The Kim family. Yes. The Soviets said, all right. Kim Ilsung. You were born Kim Song Ju in 1912. You grew up in China mainly, and we're going to install you as a leader. And we're going to tell everybody at least that you were a very brave leader and fighter in the resistance against the Japanese. However, no one really knows if that's true or not. He might have pulled the Don draper. In fact, please don't tell me I haven't seen it. I probably shouldn't eat. Well, it's too late now. There are some people believe that he is living under or lived under an assumed identity from another guerrilla fighter who died in battle who actually was like a glorious resistance leader against the Japanese. Yeah. So this family that has been ruling since the mid forty s may not have even had any legitimate claim whatsoever. Right. It's amazing. So, yes, it's entirely possible that the first president of North Korea who is known as the eternal president, Kim Ilsung, was an imposter. It's not confirmed at all, and it's not necessarily widely held. But there's at least one Korean analyst out there who says, is that the deal? Is it a fringe like conspiracy theory? No. Or is it a little more like, hey, this might be real? I think the latter of the two. I don't think it's a conspiracy theory at all. I think it's entirely possible. Okay. Either way, it doesn't matter. Because what happened was whether this guy was the guy or whether this guy was the guy posing as that guy. This person kim Il sung, who the world knows. Kim Ilsung was installed as the leader of Soviet controlled North Korea right after World War II. Also a similar haircut to his grandson. Sure. They all kind of had that look. Well, Kim Jong il had his own look. He had the little mini fro going on, if I remember correctly. Short crops, close on above the years, fondness for coverall pantsuit. All right, so he joins the Soviet Red Army. This is Kim Ilsung in 46. Stalin makes him what they call the head of North Korean Temporary People's Committee. And then finally, 1948, they appointed him North Korea. The soviets did. Appointed him North Korea's prime minister. And then the whole propaganda machine of Communism, and especially here in Korea, has always been massive. Yes, huge. Right. So there was this woman I cannot I wish I could remember the name of Suki something, but she posed as an English teacher for a missionary group in North Korea. She's actually a journalist planning to write a book, but she went undercover, which ethically there's a lot of things going on here. But she came back and reported on this and said, seriously, honestly, this whole country has suffered generations of psychological abuse and the propaganda is everything to them. Yes, some of it is overdone and overblown. But ultimately, at their core, they experience happiness by thinking of really sacrificing for their Dear Leader and their country. It's not about themselves, it's not about their friends, it's about the country. And Dear Leader in particular. Interesting, because, yes, the propaganda machine works. That combined with surveillance. So he's in power, the regime is going strong, the Soviets withdraw, and there are a lot of little skirmishes breaking out along that. I guess it was the 38th Parallel back then, even. Yeah, it's always been all right. So they were fighting a little bit back then, and I get the sense that he was sort of not maybe paranoid, but definitely this article says he was uneasy. So he sort of overcompensated by saying, you know what? If anyone comes at me, you'll be crushed completely. He had a lot of fear that he was going to get overthrown from the south. Yeah. Because, I mean, the Soviets withdrew and they were like, we're still bodies, we're still supporting you. Right. Our military is not going to be there to back you up any longer. Which is a big deal. Right. But he said basically to the Soviets, hey, listen, I'd like to preemptively take care of this problem. Can I do this? And finally, in 1950, the Soviets said, sure, right, go for it. Which was a huge surprise to South Korea and the US military. Yeah, we didn't expect that. All of a sudden, the North Koreans overrun the 38th Parallel and invade South Korea and almost had the place. And it turned out it was a small handful of Japanese regulars who had been, I guess, flipped to fight with the Americans and the South Koreans. And they were the ones who actually managed to repel the North Korean invasion long enough for MacArthur to bring in American troops and push the North Koreans back up over the 38th Parallel. Yeah. I don't know a lot of military history, but from what I did research wise on this, MacArthur is a renowned figure for a very good reason. It seems like he pulled off a near impossible feat here. He did. He was famously fired in the middle of the Korean War, though, by Harry Truman, at a time when people had no idea the President could actually fire a five star general, especially the nation's most prized general. But he did. And the reason why I found was because MacArthur wanted to keep going right into China. And Truman and actually the Joint Chiefs, too, said, look, man, we are kind of overextended as it is right now. If you invade China, then we're at war with China. Don't forget, North Korea is a puppet stater. It was of the Soviet Union. So you're going to draw Russia into this war? No way. And actually had to fire MacArthur because he was publicly criticizing the fact that they weren't allowing him to go into China. Right. So MacArthur then pushes up into North Korea, staves off above the 38th parallel, and then in the meantime, Kim Il Sung is going to Stalin saying, hey, I need some backup here. You said I could do this. Now this MacArthur guy is ruining my party. Can you help? And out of nowhere, to everyone's surprise, china comes on board, right. Because Russia said no. Oh, yeah, that's huge. Right? So they left their guy twisting in the wind. Well, which, as we will later see, psychologically, did a little mind game. There are some people who say that that experience crafted the mindset of the Kim Dynasty that's still around today. Okay. I mean, a bit of an overreaction, but it does make sense a little bit. So the Soviets said, yes, we're not going to help you. We're definitely not about to get into a ground war with the United States right after World War II. And then he turned to Beijing, and Beijing said, Let us think about it. And apparently there were two days, two long days before Beijing finally surprised everybody, like you said, and came into the war. And those two days where the Soviets had said no and China was thinking about it, north Korea was utterly and totally alone, and they were against the United States. And that helped create the mythos that still to this day is the point. The existence of North Korea. Yeah. Isolationist nation, that they feel like they can't trust anybody. They can't trust anybody. They are the defenders of the Korean race, which is the purest greatest race on the planet as far as the North Korean mythology is concerned. I didn't see whether it was widely held in South Korea or not, but the North Koreans definitely believe they are, and that the North Koreans are actually still to this day, the defenders of the Korean peninsula. And if it weren't for the north, the American hordes would have overrun the Korean peninsula by now. And so South Korea should be thanking their lucky stars that North Korea is there to defend them, even though the south is just a bunch of ingrates. Yeah. That's the mythology behind this. And all of it finds its place in the guys or in the persona of the Dear Leader, whichever member of the Kim family that is at the time. Right. So after this happens, after China saves their bacon and fighting just continues for a couple of years before this truce is signed, bad fighting, it was not pretty. Things got really serious, and Kim Ilsung, within his country, said, you know what? I'm going to go a little crazy here, and I'm going to purge the system. And anyone who's a threat, whether they're citizens or whether they're military leaders of my own, they're all going to be under the gun, like, literally. And I will kill them, I will assassinate them. I will cleanse my country of anyone who doesn't worship me, basically. Right. That's kind of a good way to say it. It is, yeah. It's almost like worship. He turned, right? Very much so. And it still is today, right? Yeah. I guess since his campaign to retake the Korean Peninsula was repelled, he turned inward, focused it all inward, and it became very dark in North Korea. Yeah. He had 50,000 statues of himself erected, and this is with aid money from the Soviet Union and China that was meant to go to, I don't know, things like housing construction and food and all that stuff. Yeah. If there was a propaganda machine before it's, it like he turns it to eleven at this point. Right. And this is how the place is going for years and years and years and years, until the early 90s, when something really significant happened, and that was the fall of the Soviet Union. And the Soviet Union kept North Korea as a client state, but not exactly as a communist country. They had communist ideology, but you can make a case, and a lot of people do that. North Korea is not actually a genuinely communist country because part of that experience of Kim Il Sung being left to twist in the wind against the Americans by the Chinese and the Soviets was a concept called I really tried and I could not find the right pronunciation. Oh, really? But it's J-U-C-H-E. What did you get? Well, I mean, if you believe that YouTube videos, emma saying what is it called? Emma saying oh, I don't know. Is that what it is? Where it does like the crazy circle wipe? Yeah, yeah. They said juicy. Right. I thought it was a little on the nose. Okay. I saw it written out, and I'm no linguist, but it didn't look anything like that. All right. Well, either way, this was in early 1970s. This is the political philosophy, which is basically what they. Call here being the master of revolution and reconstruction in one's own country. In other words, self reliant. Reject all outside influence. We are the masters of our own domain, except for whatever financial assistance you want to give us. Right. But we're not going to tell you about that. We're not going to tell you we're getting aid from the outside world because your glorious dear leader and eternal president is providing for you. So don't you worry about that at all. Right? Exactly. So it isn't exactly a purely communist country. It is its own thing. It's actually a unique country because of that Zuccha thing and the fact that it has communist ideology, and then that it's actually what's considered to be a hereditary dictatorship. Right. Very close to a monarchy. May as well be, but it's not exactly although it is frequently called the Hermit Kingdom. So that's the way it stayed for years under Kim Ilsung. And then the USSR fell. And when the USSR fell, most of the aid to North Korea that kept things humming went away. Humming being a relative term. Right. They weren't living large. No, but they certainly weren't engaged in famine, which is what happened right after the Soviet Union stopped being the Soviet Union. Right. So that's the Kim dynasty. Like we said, it might as well be a monarchy. But what do you call it? A hereditary dictatorship. Yeah. And the whole thing is the Kim Dynasty. Yeah. That was just Kim Il sung. Yeah. Well, I was setting up for the Kim 90 stage. So Kim Ilsung passes away in 1994. His eldest son, Kim Jong Il, who most people probably know because he was around until pretty recently, he had a big part in Team America World Police, too. I never saw that. Oh, you're missing out. I know. That one just got by me. Just watch it. Yeah, those guys are great. Make sure you see the unedited, uncut version. Okay. So he was selected. Well, he was the first born, the eldest son. However, there seems to be a lot of leeway because it's not a monarchy on who they select. And he seems to have been selected because out of the five kids, he was the biggest jerk. This article says that he'd shown his talent at propaganda. Yeah. One of the ways that he showed his talent at propaganda was by kidnapping a famous director and his actress wife from South Korea and forcing them to spark North Korean cinema. That was one of the ways he was a propagandist. Have you ever heard that story? It sounds familiar, but kidnapped a film director and made him make propaganda movies for the north for years. And they finally escaped. Oh, they did? Yeah. And did the wife star in them? Yeah, husband directed it. Wife starred in them as hostages of the state of North Korea. And was it like, hey, we'll take care of you, and they gave them a nice place, or was it like, there's a gun at your head. Go make this movie. The first four years were spent in a concentration camp. The rest of the time after that was in the lap of luxury. Okay, but do little, give very little, and then take care of them, right? Sort of like a head game, I think. Very much so. Yeah. But four years in a concentration camp to start, right. Which means you'll do anything. Right. But they were in the lap of luxury. The director later said that a lot of people thought that I was living it up. He said yes. I had everything I wanted. But to live in comfort like that while everyone around you is in agony right. Is terrible. Yeah, but that's something that the Kim Dynasty doesn't seem to mind so much. No, because they very much live in the lap of luxury. Yeah, obviously. So Kim Jongil he inherits a North Korea that's not in good shape. The Soviets are gone economically, like you said. Like you mentioned, there was a brutal famine. There were floods, there were droughts. About two and a half million people supposedly died of starvation. He said, all right, here's what we're going to do. We're going to maybe try some small economic reform. And in the early 2000s, he started allowing semi private markets to emerge. But it was not much, certainly not the kind of thing to turn the country's economy around. Not enough, for sure. Yeah. So after the Soviet Union fell, they were down to one state, and they still received outside aid unless somebody had a sanctioned du jour against them. But the one country they could rely on was China for financial aid. But they were dead. They used to be Soviet Union and China, and then all of a sudden, the Soviet Union went away, and then it was China. Well, that's why the most recent sanctions have packed such a punch, because China got involved. Right. You were saying earlier, like, whatever sanctions is, because China, I think well, that was part of Obama's, what's it called, strategic patience, was basically being like, you guys want to act like a Brett? That's fine. Check out our military over here. And while you're just over here being like this, we're going to go to China and put pressure on China. Like China was the key. You get China further and further out onto the world stage. More and more meshed in global markets. Right. The less they're going to tolerate outbursts by North Korea. And if you take China away from North Korea, north Korea is done. Strategic patience is has there ever been a more like Obamaesque term? Well, and just government crafted title. It's like, here's a good one to try it out there strategic strategic patience. But that was one thing and one reason why a lot of people are crediting Trump with this about face, and we'll talk more about this but it's worth saying right now is because he very much went against strategic patience and his whole thing was a show of bluster and strength, saying, we're not going to put up with your crap. Don't push me, fella. And a lot of people are saying that this is what actually got North Korea to the table. Right. That he actually scared. Right. That, to me, though, is like that's what makes it so unbelievable to me. That's what makes me suspicious of the whole thing. That is what worked. Yeah. That the Kim family scared that easily. I don't know, man. Who knows? All right, so semi private markets not working out too well? Certainly not turning the country around. Kim Jong Il died in 2011 of a heart attack. Yeah. And we're skipping over a lot of stuff. Sure. If you want to know more about just how bizarre North Korea is, take a class in college. Right. But also, specifically look at Kim Jong Il's rain. Yeah. Like, he was well known for importing nearly a million dollars of the cognac into his country every year when the average wage was one, one, one $0. Like just crazy stuff. Crazy stuff. But he was also able to be bought off. That was a big one. Yeah. I think this was for Kim Il sung. When they first got the propaganda machine going, they said things like, first time he went bowling, he scored a 300. And the first time he went golfing, he got eleven straight holes in one. First time ever. That's so funny that it just sounds like something like they got a third grader to write his backstory. Right. I know. I got it. This is going to knock their socks off. He grew a full beard when he was four just because he could. So you got Kim Jong, Kim Il Song, and then Kim Jong il, his son. And then Kim Jong Il dies and Kim Jong UN takes over and he's the third in line. I think he was like, 27 when he took over. And he was different, for sure. He had been educated in Switzerland. He was a fan of Western music. I love basketball. Basketball is huge in North Korea. It is. But they actually have slightly altered rules. Like, there's such a thing as a four pointer. Did you know? Oh, really? Yeah. Is that just a super long shot? I don't know. But I do know that if you miss free throws, you actually lose points. Interesting. It's kind of a good idea. Yeah. It really puts the heat on you. That sounds like something that whatever the XFL version of the NBA would do. Right, but this is the North Korean version of the NBA. Or like, if you shoot a three pointer with your eyes closed, four pointer, but behind your back, over your head. That explains Dennis Rodman at least, right? Sort of talk about Dennis Rodman. Well, I mean, I don't have a whole lot on him other than he very famously made the news a couple of years ago, 2013, and then again within the last year or so. Yeah. By going over there and kind of being buddies with him and then coming back and saying, he's not such a bad guy. Yeah, he was super criticized for it. Robin was sure. Because he didn't go under the premature of the State Department or anything like that. Yeah. We did not send him. No. As envoy. He was a rogue envoy. But at the same time, some people were saying, like, hey, man, a rogue envoy is an unofficial ambassador to North Korea is better than the status quo. Right. Now let's see what he comes back with. One of the things he said was that Kim Jong UN lives basically on Ibiza or Hawaii, except he's the only one that lives there. Yeah. He lives on an island off the coast. A gorgeous tropical island. Yes. Of his own. Right. And there's lots of other stuff that Robin came back with. But the point was, there is a period of time where Dennis Robin was the unofficial ambassador to North Korea for the United States. Right. I'm sure they showed him a great time. Robin was probably like, oh, man, that dude knows how to party. Right. And so with Kim Jongun coming in like this, being Western influenced in some ways, there was a lot of hope that he was going to open up the country. He was going to drop the saber rattling and bellicosity of his predecessors, his father and his grandfather, and that maybe the North Korea problem was going to be solved now. And it looked like that for a month. And then he started killing people. Well, yeah, but that's why I think it might be real now, is that after he went through his kill people phase sure. That he might have been like, well, this isn't working. Sanctions are worse than ever. I've got this new president in the United States that how should I put this? That wants to prove a point. Oh, wow, that's great. You should be the ambassador to North Korea that wants to prove a point with his bluster and his bellicosity. So maybe it wouldn't be so bad to get American movies over here and kind of like, I'm young, and he's totally watching all this stuff. Oh, sure he is. But the idea, am I really threatened by my own citizens? I don't know if he's threatened by it, and this probably isn't a huge factor, but the amount of psychic damage that that would do if it wasn't properly handled by their propaganda machine right. It would just supposedly mentally crumble or emotionally crumble a significant portion of their population who are just so dedicated to this, that the idea of North Korea suddenly laying down its arms when the whole purpose of North Korea's existence was to be armed against an american invasion. It doesn't fit, so it doesn't make sense. All right, well, here let's talk about is killing people fade and then take a break. Sounds good, because I don't want to leave people hanging. Okay, so like you said, he comes in there, he's in his late 20s, mid twenty s. And in his first five years, he's just executing people left and right. Like, basically his father's contemporaries. One of the guys was his uncle. 140 senior members of the military, government, and the party elite. His uncle, like you said. How did he kill his uncle? Tell him. Well, if you believe reports, he was literally torn apart by an anti aircraft gun in front of his family. In front of his family, which that's not a good look like a four barreled gun used to shoot down planes. They used on right in the kisser. Jan Young Choi, who is also his defense minister, and his uncle. And his uncle. And if you believe reports, which, I mean, they have to be true, had his half brother assassinated by two female assassins, spraying him in the face in an airport because he's trying to go to Disneyland. I also saw reports that he had, I think also by anti aircraft gun, executed his mistress, and there was suspicions that it was at his wife's behest. Really? Yeah. So that happened, like, right after he came to power, too. That basically signaled like, no, this guy is following in the family footsteps for sure. Well, it was a very embarrassing video of his uncle nodding off at an event. Oh, that's what got him killed, huh? He was the guy that was the guy who did that. Yeah. That may have been the tipping point, but he wanted him out of there for whatever reasons. But he was caught on video napping at an event where Kim Jong UN was, and that, I think, was what sealed his fate. You know, Chuck, if you listen to us, we're both kind of hedging like, if these reports are true, or reports say this or whatever. Yeah. Because who knows? We were raised in the Cold War, right. And once the Cold War was over, we realized that a lot of the stuff we were told about the Soviet Union was just total BS. So I think we can't help but approach what we've been told about North Korea with the same kind of suspicion. Right. But from what I've seen, a lot of this stuff seems to be totally true. Like, it doesn't need to be exaggerated. Right. Which is really jarring. You want to take a break now? Yeah, let's do it. Okay. Only 45% of high school students feel they are prepared for college or careers. Stride career prep is helping change that. Stride career prep lets students take charge of their education and their future. By combining real world skills training and traditional academics, students can earn college credit while in high school or get the training needed to land a job right after graduation. Stride Career Prep prepares your team for in demand careers in business, tech, health, science, criminal justice, and more. Students can take courses developed by industry professionals, prepare for certifications, get handson, experience network, and most importantly, gain the confidence they need to succeed. Stride Career Prep is backed by over 20 plus years of experience in online learning and education. Take charge at K twelve. Compodcast that's K twelve.com podcast and start taking charge of your future today. What if you were a global bank who wanted to supercharge your audit system? So you tap IBM to UNSILO your data and with the help of AI, start crunching a year's worth of transactions against thousands of compliance controls. Now you're making smarter decisions. Faster operating costs are lower, and everyone from your auditors to your bankers feels like a million bucks. Let's create smarter ways of putting your data to work. IBM, let's create. Learn more@ibm.com. Okay, so North Korea is known as the Hermit Kingdom, and for good measure, right? For good reason. Yeah. They have sealed themselves off as much as possible in today's modern age of information. Pretty successfully sealed themselves off from the rest of the world. Yeah, I'll bet. Other totalitarian states are just like, how do you get those guys do it? Right? They really do. So one of the ways that they do, they really keep outside influences to a very large degree outside. Right. The radios that you buy and again, I can't help but see us in like 15 years being like, I can't believe we said that was fact. But what I've been told is that the radios and televisions that you buy in North Korea are preset to the state channels so that they can't tune in anything but the state approved media. Yeah, no labor unions, no independent news media. They jam networks foreign, like broadcasts from coming in. Right. They still use yahoo. Netscape. Yeah. People there are public executions. It's a very grisly scene to keep everyone in line. Their labor camps. I took issue with the public execution thing because I think that's pretty standard. That's like something the state does. Any state. Oh, you mean keep people in line. Our own executions of criminals. Yeah, everybody does that. It's like to keep people in line. Yeah, but I think when they say public, it's probably broadcast on television. I see that kind of thing got you. Whereas we don't do that yet. No. There was a moment do you remember that TV special that almost aired like the late 90s, early 2000s, where they were going to broadcast an execution on, like, Fox or something? That's horrific. So, yeah, forced labor camps. And this is startling too. Supposedly, sometimes you could be in a labor camp because of sin unquote that your grandfather committed. Yeah. They have like a three generation rule in some cases where if you did something, they would put you and then two other generations of your family into a labor camp. Forced labor camp. Not fun labor camp. A forced labor camp. Yeah. Not a fun labor camp. We already talked about the hairstyles. Go look up the posters of what's approved. The women's hairstyles are not current, to say the least. The men's hairstyles are kind of all the same version of the Kim family, which is to say high and tight. Yeah. They look like a racist Bugs Bunny western propaganda cartoon. I don't even know what that means. Look it up. Okay. We talked about their military for the size of their country. Their military is huge. They only have 25 million people, and they have 1.2 million full time service members. That's just full time. And another almost 8 million reservists. That's insane. Yeah. Compared to South Korea, they have twice the population and only about 655,000 full time soldiers. And from what I understand, if you just put North Korea against South Korea, south Korea would whip North Korea. Just wallop them militarily. Right. Even though they have half the soldiers. But that's not to say that North Korea has some slouchy, sloppy military. They spend almost all of their money on their military, and it's actually pretty top notch. Plus, it's peopled by extraordinarily dedicated soldiers yeah. That they parade through there every October. Everyone seen those parades with the tanks and the ICBMs and it's a big show. It's a big show. Yeah. I was going to follow that up, but that's what it is. You just say it twice. It's a big show. It's the description. So nice. You said it twice. Their GDP is small. It's just about 40 billion. Like we said, life there isn't fun. They don't produce a lot. They certainly can't produce enough for themselves. So they're really reliant. That's why these sanctions are put such a whooping on them, because they really rely on imports and exports to get by. Right. But one of the things that workers have to do, no matter what your industry is, almost all workers have to stay after work. Part of your job is after you're done laboring for the day. God, this is so bleak. You have to stick around for mandatory government meetings. And there's two varieties right? There's one where it's called the community Session, where they talk about production goals and stuff like that. That's fine. It's like a work meeting, basically. Okay. But then there's the Learning session. And that's just depressing. Yeah. That's when you basically rat people out. Even yourself. Yeah. Rat yourself out on if you broke any rules, if you saw someone breaking rules. And apparently this is where the defectors have shed a little light and said that people aren't coming to these as much as they used to because things are so bad here. People need the spare time after work to go in and hunt and scour for food. Yeah. You got to look for food. You might also be just sick. You basically have to work, but you're just too sick to stick around for the learning session. Right? Well, yeah. It's amazing the physical toll that life. And this is just since the 40s that it's taken, life expectancy is 67 for men. Yeah. And 74 for women. This is all compared to South Korea, which by all accounts, it shouldn't be that different. No. There's literally divided families that are still divided from the Korean War. So seven years for men, 74 for women, compared to 79 and 85 to South Korea. And then just their height and weight is different. North Korean men are between about two and 4.3 inches shorter and 13 to \u00a327 lighter. That's based on a study a study of defectors from North Korea compared to their South Korean counterparts. I don't know how robust that is, but it's actually literally taking a physical toll on a population. And from all accounts, life is extraordinarily hard there. It gets very cold in North Korea, even though there's Pacific Paradise Island that Kim Jong UN lives on in the mainland. It gets very cold in the winter, but they don't have a lot of electricity. Brownouts, blackouts. So there's a lot of lack of heat. There's a lot of yeah, blackouts and brownouts. It's a very hard existence. Which makes it all the more remarkable that they've managed to keep the population this devoted, not just in line, utterly devoted, for decades, for generations now. Yes, but are they? Yes. How do we know that? I'm basing mine on, I think, from defectors and I think from the woman who posed as an English teacher. She came back saying, like, yes. She's like, yes. There are glimmers here. There of curiosity about the outside world, about all this other stuff. But there's so much self censorship because everyone knows that they are being surveilled at all times by their buddies, by military soldiers, by everybody, that for all intents and purposes, the easiest, the path of least resistance is to just be dedicated and devoted as much as they expect you to be. Yeah, but my point is there's a difference between really believing in that and doing it out of fear for being killed. And like, as soon as that Berlin Wall falls, then everyone is awake. But I don't know if that's necessarily true, because think about people who are institutionalized in prison. You spend enough time in prison. The day you get out of prison is not necessarily like you're right back into society. And Red hangs himself in a half way. Exactly. That's where I learned about this. That means it must be true. So many lessons from Shawshank, they do things like control or the ways that people can get a little taste of the west is I thought, this is interesting. Now, who is making these DVD players with the USB? China. Okay, so China will make a DVD player with a sneaky little USB port. So you can have the state propaganda disk, digital, versatile disk in the player, but be sneakily watching something else via USB port. Right. Like, whatever. Welcome back, Cotter. Yeah. I literally couldn't think of a new movie that's huge in North Korea Infinity War. Actually, from what I understand, the North Korean media on TV consists of three channels, two of which are available only on the weekends. Okay. And so the North Koreans really love bootleg smuggled south Korean soap operas. Love them. So there are outside influences that do trickle in, especially along the border between China and North Korea. But there's it's just not widespread. And it's certainly not widespread enough that there doesn't seem to be any internal threat to the Kim dynasty. Okay. Yeah. None. And the whole reason for this is because it's us against the rest of the world. And they've managed to keep that mentality going for generations. So the idea that now that the Kim Dynasty, North Korea, has the very thing that they've sought for decades, a nuclear warhead that could pierce into the United States, now that they're saying, we'll give that up, it boggles the mind. It's mind boggling is to go to an image source online and type in daily life in North Korea and daily life in South Korea and bring them up. And just to look at one modern society on one side and then one on the other side and realize there's just, like, an imaginary line drawn between these two things. Yeah. Really unbelievable. Yeah. It's actually a pretty serious, very real line at DMZ. Well, you know what I mean. I do know what you mean. Although I will tell you this. I was very surprised to hear this. Pot is not at all illegal in North Korea. Oh, really? Pot? So they use it and smoke it? Yes. Isn't that bizarre? I wonder if they do that to keep everyone just sort of but you'd think they'd be like, Wait a minute. Things are really messed up here. Oh, like that all reflective. Yeah. I don't know. Look at Bob Marley or man, things aren't so bad. It's possible. Depends on what strange. You're spoken. But look at Bob Marley. He was like, Get up. And the other thing stand up. Yeah, but he was also like, let's go kick the soccer ball around. Yeah, that's true, too. But Bot also made him invincible when he was shot. Was Bob Marley shot? Oh, yeah. He saw that documentary. It was really good. I just forgot that part. I don't remember why, but somebody tried to assassinate him, and he got shot with bullets and he managed to live. Yeah. Why would someone kill Bob Marley? I know. He was listening to Talking Blues this past weekend, and Emily was like, why is he talking so much in between the songs? And what language is that? And I went, he's talking because he's for studio sessions. It's called talking blues. And he's speaking English. It's just very heavily accented, like you need a subtitle. Almost sure. We should do one on Bob Marley. I think you're right, man. Have you ever heard his Dortmund, Germany show from, I think, 1980? No. It's great. That's just one of the greatest Bob Marley shows. Not just one of the greatest reggae shows. It is one of the greatest live shows of all time. Check it out. Why that one? When you see a live show, every once in a while, everything came together. Just comes together. And it just happened to converge on Bob Marley and the Whalers in Dortmund, Germany in 1980. It was amazing. Yeah. I was at a show like that about a month ago. Show? No, just Albert Hammond Jr. But it was wow. You catch someone on the right Friday night, and the crowd, everything just kind of came together to where you could see the band looking at each other going like, what is going on in the night? That's awesome. It's just one of those things. I'm sorry I missed that show. I would like to see him. Oh, yeah. I interviewed him for Movie Crush. Oh, when is that coming out? In the next couple of weeks. I can't wait to hear it. Yeah. He's an interesting guy. I'm sure. Yeah. Okay, so where were we? Are we done here, or do we need to no, we need to talk about what's going on today. That's right. I brought us up to today. Basically, the idea that Kim Jong UN, now that he has everything he wants, right. Would just turn his back on it. It makes zero sense, dude. So what is going on? I don't know. Okay, well, how about this? Let's talk about up until two days ago, there were basically four ways of dealing with North Korea that had been discussed and bandied about. Did you read that Mark Bowden article? Yes. Okay, so, you know these four prongs, basically sanctions. I guess that would be part of the last one. Yeah. But their prevention. Yeah. Turning the screws, decapitation and acceptance. Where does patient what was Obama's jam? Where does that figure in? That could be conceivably part of turning the screws, because it's sanction heavy. It's also, in a way, part of acceptance, depending on your take on it. But there were a couple that we need to talk about real quick. Prevention is an attack on North Korea, a preemptive attack on North Korea. And here's why. No one did that yet. No one's done that. It would be a devastating loss of life. There would be literally millions, if not tens of millions of people who died in the handful of hours the first day following that attack. They would be people who lived in Seoul, which is 40 minutes south of the DMZ. And they would be people in Tokyo and elsewhere in Japan. They would die because the North Koreans have. Not just nuclear warheads that are capable of hitting Seoul. In Tokyo, right there, you've got 50 million people, more than 50 million people, almost 60, if not more, who are just vulnerable in two cities. They also had 8000, what they call big guns, which could just rain artillery down on Seoul for as long as they were allowed to stay intact. They also have nerve gas and chemical agents and biological agents, enough to kill many millions of people just by releasing this gas. We don't really have any means of defense against a gas attack, which is one of the reasons why chemical and biological agents are just internationally outlawed. But if you're a hermit kingdom, you don't have to play by those rules. Right. So the fact that they have had all of this stockpile at least since 1997 is the reason why no one has just gone in and taken out North Korea because it would result in a huge loss of life that just could not be morally defended. Yeah. I mean, geographically, it's so unique. Like you said, with Seoul being right there, there's just no way around it. The brightest military minds have tried to construct ways to do this, and it's just not possible. It's just not. So Prevention is basically like, we can't do that. Which is one reason why Donald Trump's bellicosity really made a lot of people nervous because it made some observers think, oh, God, he might go for the Prevention choice. Yeah. Which is not okay. Right. Yeah. There's also Turning the Screws, which is basically like a series of drawn out attacks with pauses in between, to let North Korea know, this is not the Prevention, but we're still going to hurt you. But it would leave Kim Jongun In power on purpose to keep stability in the country. Right. There's decapitation like assassination. Yeah. Yeah. And that's just tough to do. Well, first of all, the US. Supposedly doesn't sanction assassination like this. I think the rest of the world would kind of be like on this one. But at least the way this writer sees it is that any assassination attempt would require at least some kind of inner circle cooperation. And that's just impossible, they say. Right. They're so dedicated that even one person wouldn't be a turn code. No. And even if they could get them, these people are so surveilled and watched that they would be. Yeah, it would be. And then the last one is acceptance. The idea that we would just have to live with the idea of North Korea being a member of the nuclear states. That's just that right. The idea with acceptance is that then you create a framework to denuclearize them by continuing with sanctions, by using carrots and sticks, and hope that they will end up behaving enough that you can keep them from using their nukes. Right. So here we are today with a complete about face and a lot of people say, okay, what's going on? And from what I understand, the talk is that South Korea is now headed by a president who's a liberal human rights lawyer. Moon. Correct. Moon. Jean, the South Koreans and the North Koreans, we like to think of South Koreans as our allies, and they are. But they're also Koreans. And North Koreans. And South Koreans. They're Koreans. Yeah. And they have family that are on the other side. Right. So to be a Korean and say, we want to just reunite, we want to end this war, first of all, but we want to reunite. To do that at the expense of the US. Having a post there, you could see South Korea being like, okay, let's figure this out. The problem is that leaves Japan extremely vulnerable, because don't forget, Korea was a colony of Japan as recently as 1945, and the US would very much like to have a presence on the Korean Peninsula either way, and North Korea just wouldn't put up with that. Is that the case? Because I don't see any scenario where the US. Is just like, alright, well, we're out of here then. You guys good? We're out of here. Right? I don't either, but I also don't see North Korea saying, yeah, we'll unify in US. You can stick around. It's going to be a very interesting few weeks. It certainly is. And we could talk about North Korea for ten more hours, but if you want to know more about it, just start looking into it. It's a fascinating country. Yeah. Or go visit. Oh, wait, you can't. No, you can't. Not anymore. No. Let's see. You got anything else right now? No, sir. Okay. Well, we said North Korea in there, I think, once or twice, which means it's time for listener man. I'm going to call this Walrus correction. Oh, boy. Hey, guys, a little behind recently listening to Walrus podcast. It's very exciting to hear some familiar places and names. I've just gotten back from the Arctic in the last month. I'm working toward my PhD studying Arctic sea ice. I spent six weeks in Svalbard recently. Yes, I know Chuck was excited to talk about his Alaska friend, but now you can say you have another Arctic friend, even if I technically live in Colorado. So we got something a little wrong here. Emailing you because you guys said Walruses can survive water down to negative four. And then Chuck said, even down to negative 59. Fahrenheit. I'm pretty sure you meant air, because water, even with a lot of salt, does not get that cold without freezing. Certainly not below 28 deg. I stand by negative 59%. Anyway, I've been listening since 2009, back when I was a baby scientist just working on my undergraduate degree. I still love the podcast. I wish your Denver shows didn't sell out so fast. That's from Erica Schreiber. That's it. That's it. All right, let's just hang in there. Have you ever been in a car where you press the brakes, but it doesn't fully complete and you just kind of roll to a stop and it feels like you haven't really fully stopped, but you're not moving any longer. I have no idea what you mean. That means you have bad breaks. No, it just means like a weird twist of fate happened. It's possible. Okay. You don't lurch to a stop at all. That's what you just did with that listener now. Okay. Thanks a lot, Erica. Glad to hear that you made it back safe. And thanks for listening. And if you want to get in touch with this, you can tweet to us at syskpodcast or Josh or Movie Crush. You can hang out with us@facebook.com stuffysheno or Facebook.com Charleswich Bryant. You can send us an email to stuffpodcast to housetofworks.com. And as always, join us at our home on the webstycheno.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit houseupworks.com. Hey, everybody. I don't know about you, but I am excited that it's summer. School's out, the sun is shining, and best of all, there's downtime for days. That's where true crime podcasts on Amazon music come in. They're the perfect activity for last minute road trips, long walks, or, if you're brave enough, late nights. With so many killer shows like Morbid, my Favorite Murder, and Small Town Murder, you'll never be bored to death again. So download the free Amazon Music app to start listening to all your favorite true crime podcasts. Plus with Amazon Music, you can access new episodes early. Download the app today. You know you're the best pet mom when you growl back during playtime, give epic belly rubs and feed them Halo holistic made with responsibly sourced ingredients, plus probiotics for Digestive health. Find us at chewy amazonandhalopeets.com."
http://netstorage.discovery.com/DMC-FEEDS/MED/podcasts/2008/1215463154282sysk-eye-tornado.mp3	How The Eye of a Tornado Works	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/how-the-eye-of-a-tornado-works	In recorded history, only two people have entered the eye of a tornado and returned to tell the tale. Learn more about the inside of tornadoes in this HowStuffWorks podcast.	In recorded history, only two people have entered the eye of a tornado and returned to tell the tale. Learn more about the inside of tornadoes in this HowStuffWorks podcast.	Thu, 05 Jun 2008 18:19:06 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2008, tm_mon=6, tm_mday=5, tm_hour=18, tm_min=19, tm_sec=6, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=157, tm_isdst=0)	5755949	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know from Hastofworkscom. Hi, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, a staff writer here at House@workscom. With me is fellow staff writers goatee Charles Bryant. How are you, Chuck? I'm great. And my cote is long and strong. It's looking good, Chuck. You're taking excellent care of it. I like to keep it clean. So, Chuck, you may not know this, but I actually grew up in Toledo, Ohio. You ever been? I have not. My wife is from Ohio, but never been to Toledo. It's actually a surprisingly cool town. The problem is it's at the end of Tornado Alley. So I've seen plenty of tornadoes in my life, and each one scarier than last. Spent many nights at like two in the morning in the basement listening to the radio. Right. It had nothing to do with the tornadoes, though. It totally didn't. That was more dear old dad than anything. So I have seen some tornadoes and actually, I thought I kind of left him behind when we got down here to Atlanta. Yeah, not the case. No. You remember recently there were some tornadoes that ripped through downtown. It was the first time ever. So they go through, just tear the roof off of the suckers, and it's just ugly. It looks post apocalyptic downtown still several weeks later. Yeah, and before even the thing is, though, I've seen some tornadoes here, there I've never been in the eye of a tornado. Well, no. You know why? Because only two people have that we know of, and you're not one of them. No, I'm not. And if I had, I probably wouldn't tell anybody anyway. Yeah, it actually has happened a couple of times, though, on record, and it's pretty amazing. Well, why don't you tell everybody first how a tornado forms? Well, yeah, I guess that would help. A tornado is the thunderstorm comes in, and in the lower atmosphere, the wind picks up and creates a horizontal spinning tube on the ground. And then once the storm comes through, the rising air tilts it up, and then you get what you normally think of as the tornado, which is the vertical. Kind of like a guy who's on his back is pushed up by his shoulders, and now he's standing and spinning and spinning in hundreds of miles an hour. Exactly. Up to 300 miles an hour wind. Is that as fast as they get? Yeah, it's crazy. It's extremely destructive, as everyone knows. Now, I know you mentioned that actually tornadoes are generally invisible since wind is invisible, but I read that it's actually the debris and the dust that's kicked up that gives tornadoes their shape. Which is funny, because tornadoes are called funnel clouds. Right. But it's not really a cloud. It's dirt and debris and cows and pickup trucks. Right. From the movie Twister. Cows flying across your screen. Yes, that's one of the myths. Another one is that you should open your windows of your house to let a tornado pass through. That's not true at all either. Yeah. A lot of people think that the low pressure found in a tornado makes your house explode. No, it's actually flying debris, you say, right? Yeah, exactly. I read. Noah suggested that's. Not anyone we know name Noah. It's the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration or Agency. One of the two. They suggest not touching your windows, leaving them closed and get to the basement. Exactly. Which is just good advice anyway. It is. Yeah. So let's get back to these guys. You found two, and it was just two. And this is Chuck's article, by the way, everyone. It's a great one too. I appreciate that. Yeah. These two guys, one was in 1928 and one was in 1943. So it hasn't happened in a long time, which is kind of strange. And they were both farmers. Go figure out. The middle of I think one was in Kansas, and his name was Keller. Farmer Keller. Yeah. Farmer Will Keller? Yeah, Farmer Keller. And he saw a tornado coming, and he's seen a bunch of these things. This is his account. And so he wasn't really scared. He got his family down the storm cellar. But before he climbed in, he for some reason, I guess, he's kind of transfixed. He decided to kind of stay there and watch this thing as it approached. And it actually tornadoes can hop up and leap, and I think it kind of hopped up on top of them. And the inside of a tornado yeah. It's like the eye of a hurricane is supposed to be really calm. So that explains why he didn't get sucked up in the funnel cloud. And much like the movie Twister, they must have researched these guys. It was really smooth on the inside, and there was a constant lightning which lit it up from the inside and kind of a bluish green tint. And these little tiny twisters would break away from the walls. They make a hissing sound. Yeah. And zip over to the other side of the wall. And it was just really insane, I imagine. And the other guy was another farmer in Texas, and he had roy hall, right? Yeah, Roy Hall. He had basically the same account. So everyone pretty much feels like this is what it's like. The thing is, with Keller, I couldn't understand why he would just stand there. At the very least, Mr. Hall, who I think it happened to him a few years later, he actually went in the house. He tornado tore his roof off and all of a sudden he found himself in the eye of the storm. But it's a similar experience, right? Yeah, exactly the same thing. Lightning inside and really smooth walls. And they both felt a sense of calm and oddly well being in the center of this thing. And the storm in Texas actually killed 100 people in the town. But it left. Farmer Royal. Yeah, thankfully. Well, if you want to learn more about what it's like in the eye of a tornado, read what's it like in the eye of a tornado on Howstepworks.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howtofworks.com. Let us know what you think. Send an email to podcast@housedefworks.com brought to you by The Reinvented 2012 camry, it's ready. Are you?"
869ccdce-3b0e-11eb-9699-c7ebed9224de	The Three Christs of Ypsilanti Experiment	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/the-three-christs-of-ypsilanti-experiment	In the early 1960s, one of the most unethical experiments in psychology’s history was quietly conducted in a state hospital in Michigan. It sought to upend the delusions of the three patients involved, but ultimately disabused the experimenter of his own.	In the early 1960s, one of the most unethical experiments in psychology’s history was quietly conducted in a state hospital in Michigan. It sought to upend the delusions of the three patients involved, but ultimately disabused the experimenter of his own.	Tue, 03 Aug 2021 09:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2021, tm_mon=8, tm_mday=3, tm_hour=9, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=215, tm_isdst=0)	52850613	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Welcome to stuff you should know a production of iHeartRadio. Hi and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's Chuck. And Dave is here with us today. And we're all just quietly holding hands. So now we have to stop and come into the real world and start talking to you, find people for this episode, Stuff You Should Know. My lip got caught on my tooth when I said you, and it came out a little weird. It's funny. My daughter finally lost her first tooth and it's changing the way she talks. She's got a little funny little lisp and she's always tongue on it. And I'm like, I'm going to be there with you soon. I got to get this front one redone right? They did, yeah. I'm going to wait until right before we have live shows so I could pull that front tooth again. Nice. That'll be a special treat for everybody, especially me. Oh, you were used to it. I really was. The worst was when you had that little case that you would put it in and they had vents so the smell could waft out of it. Yeah, I gave up after the first one on wearing that thing. I was just like, who cares? Yeah, no, it's great. It was very liberating. It was. How is this podcast episode? I think this is going to be a good one because, Chuck, I've been wanting to talk about this for a really long time. This is one of those things that you hear about and you're like, wait, what? That can't be right. And then you read a little more about it and a little more, and it just keeps getting worse and worse. But yeah, it's just kind of one of the like a landmark study in the field of psychology that we're talking about today. Yeah. The three Christ of Hip. Salanti. And I studied this. I remember this from studying it in psychology class in college and got kind of into it at the time. You started wearing like three crystal T shirts and stuff. I followed them on tour. It was great. For some reason, I thought I read the book, but I don't think I read the book. I think we just covered the book in college and in a psychology class. I don't think they made you read the whole book. We basically just kind of went over it. But I had been pretty fascinated for years. And eventually when Hollywood made a movie about it four years ago, I was excited and even paid to rent that thing. How did that work out? Pretty good. I watched the first half hour and realized, man, they've just sort of Disneyfied this thing and it's not good otherwise, buddy. Kevin Pollock is in it and he's always great. Hey, that guy can steal a scene better than the Hamburgler. Yeah, the movie. Just so everyone knows, it's called the three Christ of Hipsalani. From John Abnett. Starring Richard Gear. Is the name changed, Doctor? And then the three christ. In the movie, you're portrayed by Peter Dinklage, one of my favorite actors. Walton Goggins. Yeah, he's great, man. I went back, I told you I was watching The Shield again. That guy was amazing in that. Oh, was he in that? Yeah, he played one of the main characters. He's just the best. And then what's the guy's name? Bradley. Whitford who's also great. Everyone in it is good. It's just one of those movies that they, I think, just over sanitized and should have made a documentary instead, but they didn't, and that's okay. And we don't have to talk about that movie ever again now that we have. Instead, I think we should start by giving a little background on the guy whose idea the three crisis of Ipsillane experiment was. And it was a researcher, psychologist, a social psychologist, your favorite, named Milton Roeke. And Milton Roeke had some ideas about what it was to make up an identity, what made up a person's sense of who they were. Yeah. And he basically had broken it out into beliefs, a series of different kinds of beliefs, which we'll kind of talk about here. There a little more. But there's this anecdote that's frequently passed around that kind of, like, lays the early groundwork for this idea that someone's belief in who they are could conceivably be challenged. And it came one night when he was sitting around the dinner table with his wife and his two young daughters, and he accidentally in, like, a moment of frustration, telling them to settle down at dinner, call one another by their opposite names. And the girls just thought that was, like, the funniest thing that I ever heard at first. Yes. Is that my cue? Yes. I even stuck my finger up, like, all right, now you but you can't see it, can you? No, because we just listen to each other. Yeah, at first, and it was a little fun game. And then I think the five year old even said, this is just a game, right, dad? And dad said, no. It's real. And I hear him saying it in that voice, and pretty soon, they were begging for him to stop. And I can verify that. This is the thing. I think, as a parent, sometimes you'll call your kid by another name as a joke. Like I know I've done it. Like, I called my daughter my dog's name. If she's like, she'll come into the room and bark or something as a joke. Oh, you're Nico. And she'll say, yeah, I'm Nico. And then for a few minutes later, I'm like, hey, come here, Nico. And then it's fun for about five minutes. And then she's like, no, I am not. So there is very much a thing to a child's identity, especially from their parents, where they kind of get their identity and seek their identity when that is challenged it is very quickly kind of traumatic. Yeah. He learned a couple of things. One, you can very quickly challenge somebody, or you can very quickly push someone to a state of, like, trauma or anxiety or panic even by just by simply challenging their identity, by calling them the wrong name purposefully. That's right, Jerry. He also yeah, I know. Jerry. Call each other Jerry. I think it would cancel each other out. Do it one more time and I will crumble. Okay, Jerry. But he also learned, like, okay, there are consequences to this. You can't take somebody with a well formed, well developed sense of identity and I guess a normal sense of identity and push them to the edge, mess around with that sense of identity, there's harmful consequences to that. So he started to kind of explore this. And like I was saying, he had broken everybody's belief system into a handful of different types of beliefs. And the belief that you are who you are, which is what we call our identity, he ascribed to primitive beliefs, which are just like basic truths in the same neighborhood as I'm wearing a headphone on one ear and I have the other one behind my head right now. I have brown hair. My name is Josh. You're Chuck. Just basic truths of the universe that anyone you talk to is going to generally agree with. Right. That's where the personality comes from. Yeah. And that is the very bedrock and foundation of how we think about ourselves. And he already solved messing with that can be bad. So he was like, hey, why not take it a step further? Right. So what I was saying a minute ago with how we saw that there's consequences to messing with a sane person, I just made air quotes. If you couldn't tell from my intonation messing with a sane person's identity, you can't really do that. But this is the mid century in America, and there's a whole group of people that you can do basically whatever you want to with as far as mental stuff goes. And that where people who are suffering from mental conditions, who were locked up in state institutions at the time. And so Rocky came up with this idea like, okay, wait a minute. What if I got my hands on some mentally unstable people, some possibly diagnosed people, and messed with their sense of identity, took their delusion and challenged it? That could be okay because, hey, their lives are basically useless anyway. I'm paraphrasing Rocky here, and if something does come of it, there's a good chance that it could be positive instead. So let me have it. Let me add them, basically. Yeah. There's a quote here from the book, and big thanks to Dave Ruse for putting this one together. I know this was a huge it's a tough one to wrangle, but he did a great job. Here's the quote from the book because it is not feasible to study such phenomena with normal people. He didn't even put it in quotes. It seemed reasonable to focus on delusional systems of belief in the hope that in subjecting them to strain, there would be little to lose and hopefully a great deal to gain. And I read that sentence and I'm like, Stop there, dude. Right? Yeah. That's, like, the perfect motto for the misguided intentions of this study. Yeah, he indicted himself with that one quote exactly, just right out of the gate. And I read this Commentary magazine article from 1964 by I can't remember who it was. I don't have it pulled up. But he's a famous poet at the time, and he was basically saying, like, surely Ro Ke, the guy who's writing the book, well, understands that Ro Kich, the character, this doctor, is out of his mind. And he's slowly realizing, oh, wait, this guy, even the author of the book, has no idea that the doctor character, who's himself has any idea just how unethical this is. And that's a great example of it that demonstrates it right off the bat. Yeah. I don't know if you listen to the snap judgment on this. Did you hear that? No, it was good. Great. Podcast or public radio program turned podcast. Sure, I've heard public radio before. Yeah, I used to listen to a lot more of it. Same here. Fresh air. I always still love fresh air. It's one of those things where I just bulk it up and then, like, when I'm painting a room in our house, I listen to just fresh air the whole time or something. You know what I mean? Yeah. When is Terry Gross going to have us on? Do we need to get to 20 years? Would that do it? Yeah, I wouldn't even begin to bother her until we hit 20 years, and then maybe yeah, and then we just start asking, basically. Hi, Terry. Hi. Yeah, so in that snap judgment, they pointed out that Rocky actually read a Harper's article about two women who believe they were the Virgin Mary, and that put an idea into his head. And I know that in his book, he also talked about being inspired a little bit by some stuff that Voltaire wrote about it. Right. Yeah. There was a man in the 17th century that Voltaire wrote about named Simone Morin who was deranged in the Parliament at the time, and he thought that he was Christ. And so he was locked up in a mad house, and he met in that place, in that institution asylum, another man who thought he was Christ. And Simone Morin saw just how crazy this guy seemed and was like, Wait a minute, maybe I'm crazy. And in confronting this other guy who claimed to have the same identity, he regained his sanity to a certain extent. Unfortunately, he relapsed and ended up being burned at the stake for heresy. But there was a moment there where he had kind of, like, been knocked out of his delusion. That's a huge deal if you have schizophrenia or delusional beliefs, if your mental disorder is to the degree where you hold delusions and we should say a delusion is not like a made up belief where you know, you made your belief up. Like this is what you think is real. It is real to you and you will defend it when it's challenged. So the idea that somebody who was delusional could be knocked out of their delusion by being confronted with somebody else who had the same delusion, that is groundbreaking. And I can see why Rogue was like, There we go. That's It. There's my methodology for this experiment. Yeah. And I'm sure he was turned on a little bit about the idea of three christs or however many christ he could find. He said it's so hot. Well, you know what I mean, though. But as a social psychologist, he was probably like, this would make for a pretty mind blowing experiment. Plus a great book title. It's one of the great understated book titles of all time. Yeah, it's not like the three Richard Nixon's of his salante. No, and I mean, like, Ipsilanti is like this town outside of Ann Arbor. That's where one of the mentalist islands were in Michigan at the time and it's just like it might as well be Walawalla or Lacawana or it's just an unusual name in a town that doesn't really have much of a claim to anything, you know what I mean? Yeah, sure. All three of those towns are like, is he insulting all of us or none of us? No, it's not an insult. It's not like a hot happened in town and it'd been like the Three Cry of New York that loses something. Or the Three Cry of London. It's just a rather generally unremarkable place, guys. Ipselane. If you live there and you don't know that, it's generally unremarkable. I'm sorry to be breaking this news to you. I don't mean it in an unkind way at all. I Know You Don't. And I think generally, back then, that's where a lot of these institutions were, because they needed lots of land, and so they'll just leave it at that. Okay. Maybe take a break. Okay. To let everybody really stew on what I said. We'll take a break and we'll find out how he found his patience right after this. All right. So we're back. There were 25000 total patients in the system in Michigan State hospitals. And he went through all of these. He sort of tried to call them down to ideally to christ figures. He found a man who thought he was Cinderella. He found a Mrs. God. And then about six people who thought they were Christ. And three of them were really into this idea and really consistent with their belief that they were Jesus. And two of them happened to be at Ipsalani. So he was like, this is perfect. I'll just transfer the third in and we'll get going. Yeah. And so these guys being inmates of the state at a time where Ipsalani had like 4000 people, 4000 patients in just this one institution if you were already, like, on the margins of society and then moved into a place where you're with 4000 other people on the margins of society it's a really good place to get lost, to not get any real help. Sure. And so one of the things that was part of this experiment design is to make participating in these discussions this group of these three Christ says attractive to these three men as possible. Yeah. So they were moved to Ward 23. They were given their own private day room to eat in, to sleep or not sleeping, but to hang out in, away from everybody else. They got some place to stretch out and to have some company. They got a lot of attention, a lot of perks. Basically, their lives were changed in incalculable ways by being part of the study. And so when they say these were voluntary meetings and these men were voluntary members of the study that's definitely true. They were voluntary participants. But the perks on offer were just so amazing. You could not turn down participating in some degree. Yeah, exactly. So they were willing participants insofar as they got these great perks worth pointing out. So he changed the names of the guys to protect their families and to protect them to some degree. But we should go over sort of the BIOS of the three men. Should we say, who played them in the movies? Will that help people? I don't think so. Okay. I don't want to disparage those great actors names again. Well, I mean, the acting, they did a good job. It was just the material. They're all great actors. Sure. Yeah. It's just when you write it, I don't want to call out the scriptwriter, but it wasn't that good. So let me ask you this, because I didn't see the movie and I loved the fact that they made a movie about Freddie Mercury and the other members of Queen. But was it like in the movie? What was the name of that movie? The Queen movie. That's what I called. Okay. Bohemian Rhapsody. Bohemian Rhapsody, that's right. Do you remember every time Freddie Mercury did something brilliant they would have Brian May, they do a pan in close above him just looking, like, in awe and astonished. And that's maybe pushing it, doing that once in a movie. But they did that every, like, 15 or 20 minutes. Was it kind of like that same sentiment? It wasn't so much that and again, I only watched the first act before I realized it was just really sanitized and like a feel good type of thing. I got you similar. Yeah, right. Exactly. This is not a feel good story. I wonder if it was performance or you accidentally stumbled upon no, there was some tough stuff in there. It's not like it was completely like, hey, this is great, but it kind of reeked of like an Awakenings kind of thing. And I like the wake. I got it. All right. I liked Awakenings, too, but it sounds like what you're describing is more along the lines. The Greatest Showman. Like that kind of sanitization. I didn't see that. Okay. Did you? No, but when we did that episode, just tearing it apart, we hadn't even seen it. We're comfortable doing that at times. Yeah, kind of. So the first guy was in his late 50s, joseph Cassell, 58. He had been in the hospital for about 20 years and was Canadian born and raised in Quebec. And he was named after Josephine, his female relative in his family named Joseph. And I think the big takeaway from his childhood was that it was not good. Very abusive father, very quick tempered man who abused his mom. And his mom actually died while giving birth to her 9th kid. And so he had a rough go of it from the beginning. I think his name actually was Josephine as well, and he went by Joseph. So he wanted to be a writer, I think. Did you say he was 58 at the time? Yeah. Okay. And he did not really take to working outside of the house. He and his wife did not have a very good relationship, necessarily. He didn't want kids. She did. They ended up having three daughters. And he later on came to believe that they were not his children after all. And that may have been correct, but then things started to take kind of a turn for the worse in that he started to become really paranoid. He started to accuse people of poisoning his food. He became a bit of a hoarder, especially with books and probably the greatest crime a man could commit in the mid century America. He did not want to work. Right. So that was basically that. He ended up getting sent to an asylum in Canada and then onto Ipsalani eventually. And he'd been in Upsilani for, I think, about 20 years, or at least in and out of the hospital system for about 20 years. And for about ten of those years, he had decided that he was God or Jesus Christ or both. Yeah. And by the time he got around to Rokich or Rokich found him, he was in a pretty bad state after those 20 years. He had about half of his teeth left in his mouth. He was still hoarding books, carrying around books everywhere. And when asked who he was, he said his name was Joseph. And he said that I am God. And I guess Rokich said, well, you'll do just fine. Splendid. Yeah. So Joseph, despite his inability to take care of himself and the fact that he hoarded and all of that. He was a very sharp person, so remember to keep that in mind. He was very sharp and a good writer as well. Clyde and these men's names were changed. Clyde Benson. He was 70. He'd been hospitalized for the last 17 years. He was in pretty rough shape. He really was. And Rocky definitely starts to recognize that pretty quickly after meeting Clyde and ends up almost letting him just stay in the group, even though he's not really participating any longer. But Clyde was apparently raised in an overprotected manner and didn't really learn how to make his own decisions and kind of ended up stunted as a result, which you can make your way through life like that if you want to. But he ended up turning to alcohol and became a really hardcore alcoholic to where it was starting to wreck his life. And apparently that came into collision with a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia at some point, right? Yeah. And it seems like the drinking was the anytime you have an undiagnosed condition like this and you pour alcoholism on top of it or any kind of drug addiction, it's just going to be even worse. And eventually he was arrested for public drunkenness. It was a pretty violent arrest. And in jail he was violent. And he was saying he was Jesus Christ, that he was God, and that he was reborn through his first wife, Shirley. I believe she had passed away. And he did get remarried. And it was Shirley, the Queen of Heaven. And at this point, they committed him to a mental hospital when he was 53, where he got that diagnosis. And he was the one that was easily the most far gone and toughest to reach and sort of walked around mumbling. He also didn't have many, if any, of his teeth, but occasionally would, like, still have that violence in him, where he would have these sort of violent outbursts, but then kind of calm down again. Yeah. And when he did, he was very direct into the point. And I don't think he was actually physically violent, was he? I don't think so. I think it just could be scary at times. Right. So he would say things like, I am him. I understand that. That was the extent of how he would explain that he was God. He didn't need it to be challenged. And if you did try to challenge it, he would just shut you down kind of thing, in a very yeah. Like you said, kind of a scary way. So Leon was perhaps one of the saddest of the three cases in that he had only been hospitalized for about five years. He was younger. He was 38 years old. And the snap judgment is great because they had his two initial graduate assistance on Richard Bonier and Ron Hoppe. So, like, real first hand experience on the podcast. And they were saying that he was the one that broke their heart the most, because he was the one that most likely could have been rehabilitated. And it just tore them up. They liked him a lot. He was a real personable guy, and it was very engaging with his stories. And they really thought that they could have helped him had it not been, in part by what happened with Rokach, which is sad, because that means that Rokach made things much worse for these people. And that's something to really understand, that there were three men who were living their delusional lives in this statemental hospital, but they were generally unmolested until they were dragged into this study and messed with in ways that you just don't do to other people, and that their lives probably were far worse than they would have been had they never met Milton. Rocky. Yeah. So Leon's Deal was his mother was almost certainly schizophrenic as well and had religious delusions. So he was raised in a household with basically a religious fanatic, and that impacted him from the very beginning. Of course, he was ended up diagnosed with schizophrenia as well. But growing up in that kind of environment definitely, I think, led to the Christ thing, for sure. Yeah. And there was a time where he was living a normal life. He served in World War II. He worked at different jobs back in Detroit. He tried to go to college. He was trying to make a life for himself. But he suffered from fatigue, which I looked up as apparently a really tough comorbidity with psychotic disorders. And it's like, got a terrible positive feedback where the more tired you get, the worse your disorder is. And the worse your disorder is, the harder it can be to sleep and not good. So he had that. And then he also started hearing voices himself that were telling him that he was Jesus Christ. And that didn't really jibe very well with his mother's own religious fanaticism because he saw that she was worshipping these other what he considered idols. Right. And he went on a bit of a violent tear once removing all of the pictures of the saints and breaking all of the figurines and all that stuff and demanding that his mother worshiped him as Jesus Christ and threatening that if she didn't, he would strangle her. And so that was enough to get him locked up for good. He'd already been locked up one time for a brief period, and then about six months after that, he was locked up from then until the time that he met Milton Rokich. Right. And that was Walden. Goggins, man. Sorry. So he went by not Leon. And again, Leon was a fake name that Rogue gave him for the book, but he went by Dr. Domino dominorum at Rex Reserve. Simplest Christianis purist mentalist doctor, which is Latin for lord of lord's, king of kings. Simple Christian boy. Psychiatrist but he asked everyone to call him Rex for short. And they said, thanks. Sure. He was, like you said, probably the most personable. Like Joseph. He was very sharp, too, but also from a very early stage. He saw quite clearly what Rocky was trying to do. And he thought that it was morally repugnant that it was not a nice thing to do to somebody, that you shouldn't mess with people like that. And he said as much multiple times throughout the study. Yeah, so this is when he hires those two grad assistants, is when he finds the guys, gets this experiment going in earnest. And his hypothesis was that if I can have these three men confront one another about them being the real Christ, that it could rock them into what he saw as reality and get them out of these delusions. And that didn't happen. Well, it didn't happen at all through the experiment. But initially what they did was they really dug in and they each had their own way of doing so. But they each dug in and said, no, I am the real Christ. And they each had different sort of methods of dealing with the others. But none of them wavered initially. No, in and of itself. Just that finding that not only did they not have their identity shattered, but they just rebuilt and reinforced their identities. However they could find a way to do it to their own satisfaction. That's a pretty big psychological finding in and of itself. Although it doesn't seem worth putting these men through that just to find that out. Yeah, for sure. I think Joseph was more one to sort of laugh it off. He said there's nothing wrong. Yesterday, I knew I was what I am. Today. I am what I am. I'm not worried about losing my identity. And we also should point out that Joseph and this was portrayed in the movie, too, by Peter Dinklage. He spoke with an English accent. He thought he was or convinced himself that he was from England, that he was descendant of royalty and that the hospital was an English stronghold. Don't think I didn't notice you just slipped Peter Dinklage in there. I know that only leaves one more, so I don't need to do the third. One of the other things about Joseph was his interpretation of why they were there in this study, why the three of these men had been brought together was so that they could sort out what the other two that they weren't Christ. That he was the one who was actually Christ so he could do his work here on Earth better without having these two basically harassing him or whatever. Like I was saying, Leon was the one who kind of saw the most through Rocky intentions and saw that they were just wrong. Like Clyde. I think Clyde said that they were a re rich. That's what he considered the other two, or a Hick joseph. Said I am who I am. And also, by the way, we all know that I'm really God. And then Leon, he said the other two were instrumental gods. They were hollowed out gods. They were possibly dead already, and machines were operating them and making them say these things. But even in that, he wasn't attacking them personally. It was what he felt forced to explain his position. And so that's what he said his position was. But as he was saying this, he would turn to Joseph, he would turn to Clyde, and he would say, I mean this respectfully. I don't mean to be to tear you down. Whatever your belief is your belief, and I don't want and I'm not trying to take it from you, I have my beliefs and you have your beliefs, and that's good enough. And so through that kind of, like, truce that was kind of established between these three men, they basically kept the researchers at bay. The researchers would try to come in and bust things up and get them to, like, argue or make them confront one another. But when left alone, those three men just generally did not argue about who was God. They avoided the subject altogether and just let the other ones be and just kind of entered this live and let live kind of position, which I think is pretty heartening. It is. And that was one of the things that came through on that snap judgment with the two research assistants, was that their take was that these men were generally, like, after the initial sort of denial stuff, that they were generally pretty respectful and wanted to give each other the space to believe that they were Christ if they wanted to. And what that showed was empathy. And that's something that none of them saw coming. At this point, Roquich is being kind of hassled by these two grad assistants saying, hey, listen, man, these guys are kind of okay with this, and you're taking this thing too far. And eventually he ignored them, basically. And eventually they quit before this next phase starts. Oh, okay. Because they didn't agree with what was going on because they saw these three guys that were generally respectful for one another. They saw Rocky would do things like a journalist wrote a story about them at one point that was obviously not flattering at all to the three Christ. And Rocket read this aloud to them. He was just trying to push their buttons and initiate this conflict. And the two grade assistants eventually are like, we're out of here. Yeah. That story in particular was about how Roquich was treating three psychotic men who thought they were Christ. And to read that to them is really mean. Again, he was trying to see what would happen if they were confronted with their identities being considered delusional by other people. And Leon in particular didn't like that. He said that a person who is supposed to be a doctor is supposed to lift up, build up, guide, direct, inspire. He said that what you've just done is deploring. And Roquich said, Deploring? I've traveled 75 miles in snow and storm to come see you. And Leah said, yes, but what was your intention in coming see me, sir? And so he didn't put up with ROKiT's BS at all, which is pretty cool to hold delusions and to have your delusions attacked like that and then to be able to push back, but also in still a respectful way. I think Leon's one of the great unsung heroes of 20th century America. Totally. Should we take a break before phase two? Yes, I say we take a break. Man all right. We'll be right back. So before stage two starts, when things get really unethical well, not before. This was kind of part of the unethical. The two gratuities and assistants had left, and he hires this new young, pretty woman as a grad assistant and basically tells her to flirt with Leon and to see if he can make him fall in love with her. And that's exactly what happened. And Leon fell in love with her and was destroyed when he basically came to realize on his own that that was never going to happen for him. Man, it keeps getting better and better. Yeah. When those grad assistants said, you've gone too far, I think Rocky probably said something along the lines of too far. I haven't even begun to go too far. Just watch what's next. Yeah, but there was, like, upbeat music. Yeah, like Salisbury Hill. Exactly. That is exactly what I was thinking of. Thank you for putting it into words, Chuck. So what happened next? So what happened next is as follows. Rocket's basically saw, like, these guys are not going for this for the level of prodding that I've been doing. I'm going to really kind of turn up the heat. And he wondered if you took the members, people that were part of these patients delusional belief systems and personify them, like pretended you were them, say, started communicating with them through letters or whatever, what would happen? Could you conceivably get these people to abandon their delusions under the guidance of these authority figures that were actually part of their delusions? It's really kind of mind boggling when you lay it out in, like, a flow chart like that. Yeah. This just kept getting worse and worse. So he identified these authority figures and all three of them, I guess, to his credit, he laid off of Clyde because I don't know if it was so much empathy as it was. He knew he wasn't getting very far with Clyde. Or maybe he was scared of what would happen if Clyde maybe. Yeah. Because Clyde definitely could be a little scary. So he laid off of Clyde, but he found that Joseph said that a superintendent of the hospital named Doctor Yoder Y-O-D-E-R was his dad. And Leon said that he had a wife. He had a couple. His wife, the Blessed Virgin Mary, who was an Uncle Reincarnated as Michael the Archangel. Archangel. Archangel. Those are two different so he was married to the Blessed Virgin Mary and had the uncle yeah, he had those two, but he wasn't married to his uncle. He had another wife later on named Madame Yeti Woman after he stopped being married to the Blessed Virgin Mary because his uncle, Michael the Archangel married the Blessed Virgin Mary. Right. It sounds a little confusing, but when you're dealing with stuff like this, I think it has to be a little confusing. Well, the upshot of it is Roquich started posing as Madame Yeti Woman and started a letter writing campaign as Madame Yeti Woman, basically reaching out to say, hey, Leon, I just want to say hi, and I'm thinking of you, and let's start talking. So there was correspondence that was established as Leon's Delusion, like wife metamati woman. Yeah. And we should point out that he supposedly had gotten not supposedly, I think he did get the hospital's permission to sign off on this, as long as he said, listen, it's all going to be positive stuff. I'm not going to be writing them letters saying to go certified or anything like that, so I'm going to send them positive messages and I'm going to stop if this becomes upsetting to these guys. And so they said, sure, go ahead. Yeah. And so he did. He did go ahead first with Leon, I believe. And by this time, Leon, one of the things that he had done to transform his identity was to become Doctor Righteous Ideal Dung, or Doctor Ri Dong. And apparently the head nurse asked him directly, can I please not call you Dr. Dong? And he said, yes, you can call me Ri. But everybody else called them Dr. Ri Dong. And he did this rocky concluded to basically make himself not worthy of being harassed anymore, but he was still secretly God. Like he knew he was God. He was just pretending to be something else. And during that period, he became married to Madame Yeti Woman. So Ruki started addressing letters to Doctor R. I. Dong and basically saying, here's a dollar. Why don't you go buy yourself something nice in the hospital store and then share the change with Clyde and Joseph? Or one of the things that they would do is they would take turns between the three patients, is who was going to lead the session that day. And one of the things you did when you led the session was you chose what song, everybody song at the beginning and at the end of the session, which is adorable. And so, Madame yeti Woman suggested that he choose Onward Christian Soldiers. And he chose Onward Christian Soldiers. And so to Rokiti, seeing like, there's like an actual influence that is being exerted by this delusional figure. And also it demonstrates that Leon is showing that he definitely believes Madame Yeti woman is a person for sure. Yeah. And eventually what broke it was as posing as Madame Yeti woman asked Leon to stop using the name Dr. Dung. The name thing seems to have been a sticking point with a lot of people. Or maybe he just thought that since he held onto that so strongly, that would have been, like, the toughest thing to make him do. And that was sort of it. He was asked about the letter, and Leon doesn't really say anything about asking to drop the name Dr. Dong. He just starts talking more and more about God being both male and female and insane and insane, and said, I don't care for the insanity of God, and then said, I don't want any more letters, and basically kind of shut it down. With Leon's letters in particular, there's a couple of really sad things, like, the whole thing was sad to begin with, but there's this passage in the book where Leon gets a letter and ROKiT realizes that he's holding back tears, and he starts to ask him, like, Why are you are you happy? He said yes. I'm very happy. It's a very pleasant feeling to have someone think of you. He was moved to tears by the idea that Madame Yeti woman was riding to him and talking about caring for him and sending him money to go buy himself things with. And rather than just say, like, oh, we might want to back this off, ROKiT used it to step that up and arrange for a meeting with Madame Yeti woman. But there was no Madame Yeti Woman who was supposed to show up. He was going to get stood up from the outset, but still Leon went to go meet Madame Yeti woman and had his heart broken. I think it was after that that he stopped responding to the letters. Yes. And when he said, I don't want these letters anymore. I don't want to receive them, you would think that that's when Rokach would say, all right, well, let's just stop this altogether. But he didn't, because he remembered that Leon had another authority figure in his life, which was his uncle, George Bernard Brown, aka the Ark Angel Michael. And so he said, hey, I'll have someone call and pose as his uncle now. And this didn't work from the beginning. Leon, I guess the voice was just so far off, or maybe Leon was just really wise to it at this point, said, no, this is even close to the voice. Goodbye, and hung up. And then they asked him about the call, and he said, I don't believe in mental torture, sir. So it seems like he was sort of onto him at this point, or was onto him from the beginning, but onto him about this ruse. I don't think he was on to them from the beginning. I think that he no, I mean from the beginning of the experiments he was wearing. Got you. I see what you're saying, but yeah, but it's really easy to forget because you're reading Roe Keech's accounts, that these men weren't in on the idea that it was from Rock. They believed that these letters were coming from their delusional figures. Yeah, that's the whole point. Which makes it just even more gut wrenching when you stop and remember that. Yeah. So then he says, okay, all right, Leon's done. I'm done writing letters to him. Who can I write letters to next? And he moves on to Joseph. Right? Yeah. So this was the one where the superintendent, the fictional Doctor Yoder, was the authority figure for Joseph, who he saw as a father figure. And so, of course, Rocky is going to play up this whole father figure thing in the letters saying that he loved him like his son. He just wanted the best things for him. And if you remember from the original sort of quick bio, joseph's father was awful and abusive. So he's really playing into his deepest sort of insecurities here. Yeah. He said, Be assured that I will always love you just exactly like a father who deeply loves his own son. It's really tough to even research this stuff. Yeah. Just like with Leon through these letters as Dr. Yoda, he tried to get Joseph to start doing stuff, innocuous stuff at first, like, he stopped saying that he was from England and he was from Quebec, started going to church services, that kind of stuff. So there was an influence on Joseph, just like there was on Leon using their delusional characters or delusional friends, authority figures, whatever. And I think even Dr. Yoder prescribed, or the fake Doctor Yoda prescribed a placebo for Joseph's stomach ailments. He had, like, digestive problems or stomach hurt, and these placebo pills just fix them right up. Yeah. So the stomach pills placebo supposedly worked, and then he said, all right, well, that worked. So I'm going to give you pills to basically cure your mind. And if you want to fix yourself for good, take these pills, which is this is so far off the charts of unethical, I can't even describe how far off the charts it is. And he said, basically, I think he gave him an ultimatum. He says, I'm only going to continue to give these pills that will supposedly make your mind right if you admit that you're in a mental hospital and it's not an English stronghold. And Joseph finally said, like, sign something. And Joseph said, no, I'm not going to sign this. And he cut off this placebo medication that he believed might be fixing his brain. And it kind of petered out after that. And it was just like it's just brutal to think about these guys going through this hope that they're getting better, and it was all fake. Yeah. He apparently stopped writing to Dr. Yoder and moved on to JFK. Started writing letters to JFK asking to be one of his speechwriters because, remember, he was a writer as well. Right. So Rocky is like, okay, all right, let's see what's next. Oh, nothing's next. This is the end of the line. He finally realized, like, okay, this is not going anywhere. Not only had he not at all moved Clyde's Delusions or Joseph's Delusions, the only person whose delusions had changed at all was Leon's. And his had just gotten more complex and intricate, certainly not any closer to reality. They got further away from reality because of this influence from Rokchin, his experiment. And he has, like, a pretty rich little admission in the book that he says that we do not know to what extent our very presence, behavior and questions may have influenced the results obtained. Which is bizarre to say because the whole point of the experiment was to influence these people through this experiment. So it's a really weird thing that even put it in there. From some of the stuff that I've read kind of picking apart this book at the end, it really just kind of peters out. Like, he's just kind of slashing in the air with his sword trying to figure out what the point was of all of this stuff. And even without a satisfying conclusion or end, it ended up getting published in 1964. It became, like, a really big success in the field of psychology, but also got widely criticized right out of the gate because even though this was mid century America and we're talking about mental patients in mid century America who have very little rights or were treated very poorly, there was still, like, a lot of people around like, you don't do this to human beings. This is not okay. Not everybody did, but some critics definitely came out immediately. Yeah, it took Rocket a long time, though, to really kind of come to terms with what he had done. And he eventually did, though, about 17 years later. They reissued the book in 1981, and he wrote a new Forward. He admitted in interviews in other places as well that he was also, in a sense, suffering from Godlike delusions and that he was playing God with these men and regretted it. He regretted publishing I regret having written and published a study when I did. I don't know if that means that he wishes he could have reflected more on it or what? Yes. I don't know either. He did sort of recant and say he didn't do the right thing. It's worth pointing out that this was six years into his suffering from spinal cancer. So I don't know if that had knowing the end was near for him had something to do with his sort of self reflection. But he eventually died in 1988 at the age of 70 after a 13 year battle with spinal cancer and left the social psychology world sort of rocked. Like I said, I studied this in college, and it became sort of like the Stanford Prison Experiment, right? It became worth studying, but not for the reasons that they initially launched the study to begin with. No. He finally figured out the point of the book. And the point of the book was for him to figure out that it was unethical what he was doing and finally come to terms with what he done to these poor men and that you have a right to just be left alone and not have your identity challenged. No matter what you believe you are who you believe you are. And so he actually changed his methods. His general belief in the idea of belief systems remain the same, but he changed his tactics, and that he got involved in self confrontation, where you try to present people with self examination, where they would examine what their values were, what their beliefs were, and then they would kind of be challenged on that. Like, okay, you believe in freedom. You place a high value on freedom, but you also rated equality pretty low. But isn't equality freedom for everybody? So you care about your freedom, but not other people's freedom? How does that really jive? And then the hope was that they would go back and self reflect and be like, no, I really do care about freedom. I do care about other people. Maybe I should care more about equality and improve as a person. And that's ultimately how he ended up making his name starting in the 70s. Yeah. And I got to tell you, when you read some of his regret about it, he says things like, in the end, someone was cured, and it was me. That all bothered me a little bit, too, how he still made it about himself somehow, even though he did say he regretted it and everything. I never heard as much regret about these three men and putting them in the positions of, like, they were the ones who helped me out. In the end, it was just I didn't like that. I know exactly what you mean. It's still smacks of self involvement, and you get to and also what happened to these men after the experiment was done. They were just cast right back into the general population, like, used kleenex, basically, to deal with what they just been through. It's just rotting all around, for sure. And at the very least, it does exist to make Melton Roe Keach feel better. Right? You got anything else? No. I mean, if you want to see some of his later work that you were talking about, the value stuff, there are all kinds of really wacky YouTube videos from people about that stuff. Nice. And if you want to see the movie that they remade about this, don't. Well, since I said don't see that movie, it's time of course for listener mail, everybody. I'm going to call this a guy who has the same step on a cracking as I do. Okay. This is from Jared Miller. Hey, guys. I got to say, Chuck is the only other person I've heard to express the same compulsion that I have. If I step on a surface that is different from the majority of where I'm walking, I try to get my other foot to have the same sensation. This can be the line between the sidewalk segments or a traction sticker, an unpaved patch, et cetera. I got to say, Jared, it's the same with me. It's not just cracks. It can be anything. Sure. Even which part of the foot is affected. Same with me, dude. If I do it on my heel, I have to do the next one with my heel. Very interesting. I've even found myself doing it with the colors of tiles on a patterned floor. Same here. For me, it's about symmetrical sensations. I sometimes realize I'm doing it when I'm eating and have equal chewing time on each side. I don't do that. You're so weird. Yeah, you're really out there. Once I became aware of it at a fully conscious level, I also became self conscious about it and tried different things to break myself into the habit. At times, it's been an extreme as extreme as forcing myself to maintain an even gate no matter what. You have to do that while consciously reminding myself that sensations are temporary and that it will even out or go away, especially if I ignore it. Thanks for all the hours of entertainment. You are an early discovery of mine in the podcast world back in 2009, and almost none of the shows I started listening to back then are still going. That's our motto, Jared. Just keep doing it, no matter what. If everybody tells you to stop, please, God, stop. Don't quit. You don't listen. So that's Jared in Anaheim by way of Idaho. Way to go, Jared. From all over the place. I think I did. Or was it Iowa? I don't remember. Sorry, Idaho. I know the worst thing to confuse. I apologize. So, let's see. If you want to get in touch with us like Jared did, please email us, won't you? You can send us an email to stuffpodcast@iheartradio.com. Stuff you should know is a production of IHRA Heart Radio. For more podcasts, My Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows."
c3251e5a-5460-11e8-b38c-53b89fe63adf	SYSK Selects: How Pollen Works	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/sysk-selects-how-pollen-works	For about 375 million years, plants have been using pollen (aka plant sperm) to propagate their species. And the technique has stuck around because it works. Join Chuck and Josh for a cozy look at the ins and outs of plant reproduction.	For about 375 million years, plants have been using pollen (aka plant sperm) to propagate their species. And the technique has stuck around because it works. Join Chuck and Josh for a cozy look at the ins and outs of plant reproduction.	Sat, 06 Apr 2019 09:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2019, tm_mon=4, tm_mday=6, tm_hour=9, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=5, tm_yday=96, tm_isdst=0)	28073564	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Hello, everyone. It's Saturday and it's Chuck. And that means it's time for another stuff you should know. Select. We go all the way back to July 2013 to discuss pollen. I'm not sure when this is going to come out, but if I'm I'm timing it right, it should be sometime during pollen season. And that's why I picked it, because understanding the enemy is the first step toward defeating it. And so many people have bad problems with allergies and pollen. And to understand how that really works in your body, it's kind of cool and it really helps. So I hope you don't have any problems with pollen. Hope you're doing okay. But learn all about how pollen works right here, right now. Welcome to stuff you should know from housetuffworkscom. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and it's Charles W Chuck Bryant. And that means it's time for stuff you should know. The Itchy Scratchy Edition. Not skeezy. No, it's not the Itchy Scratchy sneezy edition. That's what I meant. There you go. Funny how you can mix words together, come up with other words you didn't mean to say. Jerry's eyes are itching. Yeah, well, we should say we were just talking about the pollen count here in Atlanta. That's pretty much all we ever talk about, ever. When the camera is not on or the mics aren't recording that in Coca Cola. You know how everyone comes to Atlanta and they're like, oh, every street is named Peach Tree, let's go drink a Coke. Because those are the only two things we've ever had. Exactly. All right, sorry. That's fine. So you want to talk about pollen some more? Yeah, it's low right now in Atlanta. 39. That's moderate. Yeah, well, low for us. Right. But according to the pollen scale, the scale that they used to count pollen and then designate it somewhere along the pollen spectrum, 39 is considered moderate. Not even low. Moderate. When it's really bad here in Georgia, it gets to about $9,000. Yeah. Those are the few weeks that the streets run yellow when it rains with yellow water. Looks like pea. Yeah. Your car is totally covered in it. You're covered in it. It's just everywhere. Everywhere. Yeah, but now we're about to tell everybody. We're basically going to turn everybody into a palenologist. Yes, to an extent. You should be a big fan after this. An amateur palenologist. I think about a third of all the plants and vegetables and fruits and vegetables we eat are here, thanks to pollen. So if you like eating food, it doesn't come in a box. Thank you. Pollen, is it just a third that pollinate or a third that are just angiosperms or gymnosperms? A third that pollinate. Wow. Yeah. What's up with the other two thirds? I don't know. Well, you know, bananas, they're clones of one another. There you go. There's like, I think, 1000 varieties of bananas. And thanks, by the way, to damn interesting for this information, but there's like a thousand varieties or species of bananas. But each one, if you eat, like, a type of just one of the species or bananas, you're eating an exact clone of every other banana in that species, because many thousands of years ago, humans just stumbled upon the banana, which is a hybrid of two basically inedible fruits that came together to form the delicious banana, but made them sterile. All banana plants are sterile, and the only way that they're allowed to propagate is by human hand. They're delicious. I did a don't be dumb about that. Yeah, well, you just did it again. Yeah, you can check out Dopey dumps on our website stuffysheanow.com. Wow. All right. Anyway, polling. Yes. It's been around for a while. I know. In our bee podcast, we talked about how bees and pollen kind of emerged side by side 100 million years ago. Some say co evolved. Right. But pollen actually goes further back than that. In this article, it says about 375,000,000 years ago is when the plants started getting clever and spreading their seed, literally using pollen different techniques. And I think that gymnosperms were first. You think so? I believe so. Yeah. And the author of the article here points out that the reason why it evolved was plants didn't have to be dumb and rely on water to carry their junk to fertilize other junk. Right. They're like. How about wind? Or how about that bat? Or how about that beetle? Yeah. Or how about that bird pooping it out. That's right. Yeah. And like I said, I think pollen grains or plants spread their seed, literally. Pollen is what amounts to plant sperm. Yeah. It's like always go to the kids science pages to research. First off, they're good. They're colorful. Yeah. If we want to pollination, very simply, people reproduce, animals reproduce. They need male and female parts. Plants and flowers are no different. Right. They need male parts to connect with the female parts to make an egg. And in this case, pollination is how it's done. Right. Basically how that sperm, the pollen, reaches that egg, which is the ovule. Yeah. Right. And once they get together, magic happens. That's right. But let's talk about the way it looks, first of all. Yeah. Pretty cool. There's a lot of different looks to pollen depending on the plant and all of these variations. It can be like a cone, literally a pine cone. Yeah. And just look up microscope pollen on Google Images, and you'll see all sorts of weird, colorful shapes and sizes. Yeah. Some look like blowfish. Yeah. Others look like sputnik. Really? Yeah. I didn't see the sputnik. Some have ribbed edges. Yeah. And all of these adaptations or mutations, I guess they became adaptations, allow that pollen to kind of better ensure that it's going to be carried to where it needs to go. Yeah. It has a purpose. It's not just like, hey, this one would look neat if it looked like a starfish. It serves as mix it up in the end. Some have wings, kind of what amounts of basically wings because they're carried on the wind. Oh, yeah, yeah. Like dandelion pollen that's carried on the wind. True. Well, dandelion is self pollinate too. We'll get to that, though. They're slippery little guys. Yeah, they are. They're also high in phytonutrients as well. Dandelion greens are the stems? No, the leaves. Oh, the little leaves. The yellow part. Yeah. So here's a rule of thumb. There's a New York Times article that came out very recently about phytonutrients and how we basically bred them out of our food. And the rule of thumb is the bitterer or more bitter the plant, the higher it is in phytonutrients. Phytonutrients have kind of a bitter as stringent taste and we tend to not really like that. So we stopped eating those things over time, replace them with sweet things that aren't necessarily good for us, like potatoes and other starches. Yeah. Well, bitter things can also kill you. That's probably one reason why. Maybe so. That's a pretty good point. But bitter stuff that you know, won't kill you. Dandelion leaves go out and eat some right now. Yeah. But back in the day, I bet people were like, that taste bad and it killed took, so let's just not eat it. Right, exactly. Yeah. Alright, so we talk about pollination. Talk a little bit about pollen. Yeah. Now we need to talk about how plants make little baby plants. Right. And it's pretty simple, like I said, the male part. And it really helps to follow along if you go to a handy dandy little visual aid I found, because they really break down the male parts and the female parts. The female has the pistol and that's P-I-S-T-I-L. Within that you have the ovary, which sits down low in the plant, and the style, which is a long thin appendage, I guess, that contains pollen tubes. Right. And then at the top you have your stigma, which is going to catch the pollen. Yeah. And that's the female part. Right. That's the lady. Okay. Don't be confused because it is phallic in nature. Yeah, true. But it's still the female part. And the male has the filament, which is a long stem, and then the anther at the top, which holds all the pollen. And that's pretty much the long and short of the parts. And is that just angiosperms that you're describing or is that all pollinating? I think these are just the angiosperms. Well, we should say quite explicitly that there's basically two ways that plants can pollinate. There's gymnosperms and angiosperms. And the big difference between the two is that gymnosperms, literally, that means naked seed, which, by the way, gymnasium means place to be naked gynasium in German. Did you know that? Yeah. So gymnosperms, naked seed, there's nothing protecting the seed once it's produced. And the seed is just a fertilized ovum or ovule. Right. Yeah. Angiosperms produce something to protect that seed, whether it's a shell, like a nut or fruit like an apple with the seeds inside. Right. Because an apple is just an enlarged ovule ovary. And the seeds are the fertilizer ovary. Yes. Well, you can also pollinate cross pollinate or self pollinate. Right. Those are the other two differences. So you were saying dandelions. Self pollinate. Well, they can do both, but they do have a cool little feature. They basically grow up. This is when they're still the little yellow flower. They have these little florets that grow up. And if you look well, you probably can't see if you look really close, though, the little florets that grow up. And as it grows, it carries the pollen on its little stem, and then eventually it gets to a point where it doesn't start growing up anymore, and it splits and then starts curling back on itself to no way. It picks up its own pollen from its own style, and it's self pollination. It's not gross or like, perverted. There's a lot of plants out there, though, that have mechanisms to prevent them from self pollinating. It can't be good or bad. That's what I couldn't figure out. Well, the plants somewhere along the way figured out, like, hey, the wider the gene pool, the better off we are, because the more room there is for adaptation, mutations and then adaptations. Right. Yeah. But in here, the author said ideally it cross pollinates, but I don't think that's the case always. Well, it's not ideal. It's just some do and some don't. Right. I mean, if you look at it, like from just an animalistic or an organism viewpoint. Right. Like with us, if you just get a bunch of mennonites together and they just reproduce with one another, there's going to be defects that just are propagated throughout this little gene pool. But if the mennonite spread out into the larger country as a whole, those defects are going to, I guess, be kind of watered down by the size of the gene pool. I think it's the same thing with self pollinating and cross pollinating. Yeah, because it's interesting because things like peanuts are self pollinators and that's why they thrive. But corn has a mechanism to not allow itself to self pollinate. Right. I think the sperm is ready at a different time than the ovule is ready to accept it. Right. So it's a timing thing. The thing is, peanuts would probably be able to talk if they didn't self pollinate, and they sound like Jimmy Carter. So there's a lot of mechanisms that plants have to prevent themselves from self pollinating. Some might have either just male plants and just female plants. Some may be where if a plant has both male and female flowers, for example diacious yes. The male flower might come out before the female flower on the same plant so that they're not the timings off a little bit. Right. And then there's some that are just like they'll signal a biochemical marker. If pollen from the same plant gets near the ovule, it'll just basically turn barren. So it just is incapable of fertilizing itself or like corn, where the timing is thrown off. Yeah. So they rely on cross pollination. Right. Which is pretty cool. So let's get explicit again here. Gymnast naked seed. How does this happen? We'll use the example of a pine. A lob lolly pine, yeah, pine. Pine cone. It's fun to say, but that's a conifer. Conifers are ancient. I believe they were the first pollinating plant. Oh, really? Yes, I think so. Nice. Let's talk about it. Well, the pinecones, they're little male pine cones, little female pine cones. You might not realize that you've got quite a show going on in your backyard at certain times of the year. Right. And basically, once you get the two together, you get a male pine cone and a female pine cone together. The male pinecone fertilizes. Well, the pollen comes in contact with an ovule and the pollen starts to go to town. It absorbs a bunch of water while the female pine comes a little sticky, too. That helps, by the way. It does. It helps collect the pollen. Right. So the pollen, the male part of the pine cone germinates and it starts growing what's called a pollen tube, which basically allows this pollen to directly fertilize the ovule. Once that happens, the ovule basically becomes a seed and the seed is released from the pine cone. They go everywhere and then they're eaten by birds and pooped out elsewhere or carried along. They're trampled by a rhinoceros, sure, who knows? But just got loose from the zoo. But then that seed is carried along, but it's not protected by anything, it's just a seed, and hence a naked seed. Hence gymnosperms. Right. So angiosperms, they have kind of like a similar process, whereas there's a pollen tube that's grown and the male pollen has to come in contact with the female pollen and all that. Yeah. And we're talking about flowers in most cases here with angiosperm, they're the only ones that flower and produce fruit. Yeah. So when you think about your garden with the honeybee and all that's angiosperm. Right. So that's a non naked seed and that's where the fruit comes in or the shell comes in. Angio sperms have developed a mechanism to protect the seed, to better ensure its survival, and, if you think about it, to entice the things that transport these seeds to go ahead and do their thing. Yeah, there's like every flower has some sort of cool shape or scent or color or something that matches with some little insect or bird or bat that's going to be enticed, like the bumblebee and the fox glove. They go hand in hand because it fits up there. Just perfect. And it has a little colorful landing strip on the bottom petal to guide the bumblebee in. And it's just like nature is just like harmonious. There's that one orchid that I believe Darwin predicted the existence of a type of hummingbird that had a very long curled beak that had co evolved with it. And he was absolutely correct. So cool. Remember it's in that movie adaptation? Yeah. That's a great movie. You can learn a lot from that movie. Yeah, it's a great attention. Yeah. Anything that what's his name? Charlie Kaufman writes. Well researched. Agreed. The fruit is another thing, too. Animals love to eat fruit. Yeah. The fruit is basically once a piece of fruit drops to the ground, that means those seeds are ready to go. They're ready to become seedlings. But first they need a fox to eat the apple, carry it in its stomach over several meters or miles or whatever, and then poop it out. And then you have seeds that are basically just planted. That's amazing. They take purchase and a new tree begins with a seed. Her insides were a rocky place where seed could find her purchase. Right. So pollen grains are actually created. I guess we should step back a second and talk about meiosis. The cells are dividing and growing. Eventually you get a little pollen. It looks like a little dustback to our eyeball, but it contains the sperm. It's not actually the sperm. Right. It contains the sperm therein. Yeah. And the pollen is in pollen sacs at the end of the stamen, which we talked about and that little two loved almost anther. Eventually it will find its way to the stigma and travel down to the ovary. And in the case of angiosperm, there are two sperm that are used. I don't think we said in the case of gymnosperms, only one of the sperm is used. Right? Yeah. In a pollen sect, there's two sperm, but you just need one for the gymnosperm. For the angio sperm, you need two. Yeah. Because one is actually fertilizing the egg and the other is developing into endosperm together alongside and what will eventually be the seed. And if you think that sounds gross, I'm sorry. The endosperm is like a protein, basically, right. To keep it all alive. Yeah. That keeps the seedling happy and healthy. So when you're eating corn, you're actually eating the endosperm. Each corn kernel is actually like that starchy indosperm. Right. Delicious. Which the seed loves to eat itself. That's true. So we talked about bees, we talked about birds, foxes. Mention poop a couple of times. Fox gloves. Yeah. And you were saying that basically every flowering plant, especially, has some sort of mechanism to attract at least one kind of bug or animal that's been proven to help pollinate transport this pollen. For the most part, we enjoy them. You like the scent of a good flower, right? Oh, yeah, sure. But you might not like the devil's tongue which is a Sumatran plant that apparently reeks so badly it smells like a decomposing flesh, basically. Did you see this thing? I've seen it before, yeah. It's really remarkable. Yeah, it's like 2ft tall and it basically flowers or blooms like once every ten years or 20 years, something like that. Right. I'm not sure if it's the same one I'm thinking of, but it's stinky. Right. And the reason why it's stinky is because it pollinates with the help of a type of carrion beetle that's attracted to decomposing flesh. So the plant attracts this beetle that likes to eat decomposing flesh by putting out the smell of decomposing flesh. That's so gross. Yeah, but it's pretty spectacular. It is, yeah. And the philodendron is something you might have in your house. It actually does the same thing but it doesn't stink. Always there's actual chemical reaction that takes place and heats it up to emit this odor that the beetle is attracted to. Which sounds pretty gross too. Yeah. But it all works. And I would google that. The Sumatran devil's tongue, it's pretty cool looking. Like the flower itself is 2ft. It's not like, oh, what a long stem. Right? It's just this huge flower. It's amazing. And then you're also saying like, was it foxglove that provided a landing strip for bumblebees? Yeah. So flowers in general typically have certain types of like their color will be based on the kind of creature that helps pollinate it, whether it's diurnal, meaning it's awake during the day, or nocturnal, meaning it's awake at night. Right, right. I guess that's in case of like bats and stuff like that. Yeah. And then our old friend nectar is a big lure. And basically nectar is around. Right. Just because it tastes delicious and is enticing from what I basically like a little enticement, like you said, for like a bee or something. Or a bird. Yeah. Come get it. Because it's placed by the stamen. That's right. Or the way that the anthers are situated, just the way they're placed in the flower. If it gave it an advantage to bump up against that bee, then it's going to be successful in the long run and live out as a species. That is nice stuff. That is pretty good. So Chuck, we've reached a point where ever since we started selectively breeding plants, domesticating crops, like, hey, that's pretty. Right. Or hey, I like this banana. Yeah, well that's hardy and it grows in my awful hot area that I live in. Exactly. Many reasons to do so. Right. We wanted to keep the bad stuff out, keep the good ones, we wanted in. But it never became more crucial until we started genetically modifying crops. And now all of a sudden, not only are the corporations saying like, hey man, you can't cross pollinate with our stuff or else that's patent infringement. And a nearby farmer says, I'm not using your seeds it's the bees. You can't blame me. Right. And the farmers who don't want GMO stuff in their crops say, hey, man, you need to keep your crops over there because I don't want your GMO crud in here. I have an organic farm. Exactly. And you're blowing by the wind. It's a touchy subject. We should do that as GMOs. I agree. The idea of patenting genes in general, and let alone like crops, it's really interesting, but there's been some pretty clever, simple ways of getting around this problem that's posed by pollination of GMO crops with non GMO crops. Yeah. Well, distance is obviously one thing. Pretty simple, don't put my farm near your farm. But they have to do all kinds of studies to see how the wind reacts. And how far does that bee fly? Yeah. And they found in certain parts of Africa, bees will go about 4 miles, 3 km. That's their range for food. That's a lot. Yeah, but I mean, just using that kind of thinking thought process, though, like, okay, well, this guy is growing this over here, so I can't grow this here. Right. That will prevent that kind of pollination, though. Yeah. Another thing they can do is sort of like with the corn, they can time their crop rotation to time out, so where they're flowering at different times and not interfering with one another. Right. But it's a touchy subject. Like, from what I understand, there's a lot more going on than is preferred by the organic farmers of the world. Sure. And in the GMOs, they can then say that you're infringing just because they cross pollinated to their crop. Right. Even though you didn't buy their seeds or even want their seeds. If a bee carries their seeds, their crops, pollen over to your crops and you start to develop plants that have the GMO characteristics, that's patented, according to the corporations you're infringing on their patent. It's very tricky ground there, isn't it? I don't think it's tricky ground. If you ask me. You should not be allowed to have a patent on any living organism. Oh, yeah. You know what I mean, though? That's my opinion. It gets tricky. Corporations, the course tend to side on the corporations side, typically. Let's do that one, though, soon. GMOs. Yeah. All right. So that's it for pollen, if you're interested in how pollen causes allergies. And you should listen to our how allergies work episode. That was pretty good. Yeah, I was going to recommend that. Nice work. Thanks, man. So if you want to learn more about pollen in the meantime, you can type that word in the search bar housestowforks.com. Since I said search bar, it's time, of course, for Message Break. And now how about some listener mail? Yeah, we have a correction. It's been blowing up lately. Oh, man, I'm sorry. You know, it's crazy. That's the second time I've done that in a podcast on that same thing. I don't remember what the other podcast is, but I've mentioned it before and we've gotten tons of corrections about it and I didn't learn my lesson. Well, this guy was really nice about it, so I'm going to read his and it's an important correction because anytime you're talking about drugs so, to recap in the PTSD podcast, we got the two drugs beta blocker called Propanenol, which helps with PTSD, infused with Propofol, which is what killed Michael Jackson. And so this is from Chris. He's a big fan. He's listening to every episode on his commute in Southern California, which we now stinks. So he said what we just said about getting drugs confused, he said, and see how you guys can mix it up because the names are very similar, but they're significantly different. Obviously, Propanenol is relatively mild and commonly prescribed and very little potential for overdose. While Proposal is a very powerful drug with extremely high potential for overdose and rarely administrated outside of strictly monitored medical settings, it is actually a hypnotic agent that must be administered intravenously. As we talked about Michael Jackson's drip. Right. And is often used in conjunction with general anesthetics. Like most general anesthetics, it's steep dose response curve, significantly increases the risk of overdose, where the effective dose is only slightly below a lethal dose. Kind of scary. Yeah, it really is. I mean, like when you're on that, like, you're right along the border. Yeah. Well, he says Michael Jackson's case is extremely rare. So he was essentially exposing himself to risks similar to those associated with general anesthetics used during surgery, with a high potential for overdose and death on a daily basis for relatively trivial purposes. Which word in this case is insomnia. Yeah, but from what I understand, he had like years long insomnia. Like, this guy was not sleeping at all. They would give him everything first and then they try that last resort and sometimes it still wouldn't work. Really? Yeah, he was really in bad shape at the end. Well, he probably had a resistance to certain things like that. So Chris goes on to say, I'm not certain about the exact amount of risk posed by Propafol administration, but I believe the risk of death is something on the order of tenths of a percent. Meaning he would have died according to the statistical model, within a couple of years of daily use. Like pretty much guaranteed. Right. Frankly, he would have been better off using heroin that whole time in spite of his ironically strict yet poorly informed anti drug stance. So that's from Chris. Thanks, Chris. That was a genuinely awesome email. Yeah, it was good. And I'm sorry. Everybody forget. So wrong. Well, I mean, the names are just confusing. Yeah, but I mean, one is like a blood pressure medicine. The other one is pretty much a general anesthetic. I know, but what gets me is that half of the emails were like yeah, they just sound alike. So you go to DA, and half of them were like, those drugs couldn't be any more different. Like, you really thought that. It's like a verbal typo. Right? Thank you, Chuck. Yeah, thanks for letting me off. So, anyway, if you have a correction for us, we really do like to get those. We like to know what we're talking about. Sometimes we get things wrong, sometimes I get things wrong. But we do want to be corrected. It happens in the nicest way possible, because that's usually who gets their letter read, right? Exactly. Yeah. You can tweet to us at syskpodcast. You can join us on Facebook. Comstuffynow. You can send us an email to stuffpodcast@howstoughfworks.com. And you can join us at our home on the Web, the greatest website in the history of humanity. Stuff you should know all one word.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit houseofworks.com. Summer school's out. The sun is shining. The daylight is longer. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music that's so good it's Criminal Morbid. Part true crime and part comedy, Morbid takes you on a journey from murderous mysteries to major laughs, all in the same week. Hosted by autopsy technician Elena Ercart and hairstylist Ash Kelly, this charttopping series will have you hooked before you know it. Listen to new episodes of Morbid one week early, only on Amazon Music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen today."
4569dfb0-ba8a-11e8-9ed2-97a015606472	Short Stuff: Bedbugs	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/short-stuff-bedbugs	We eradicated bedbugs so thoroughly in the 50s that generations who came later suspected they weren’t anymore real than jackalopes and snipes. But since we banned DDT, the pesticide that kills bedbugs best, they’re back again. And they’re terrible.	We eradicated bedbugs so thoroughly in the 50s that generations who came later suspected they weren’t anymore real than jackalopes and snipes. But since we banned DDT, the pesticide that kills bedbugs best, they’re back again. And they’re terrible.	Wed, 13 Mar 2019 14:44:55 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2019, tm_mon=3, tm_mday=13, tm_hour=14, tm_min=44, tm_sec=55, tm_wday=2, tm_yday=72, tm_isdst=0)	12216633	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh. There's Chuck, there's Josh. And this is short stuff. Okay. Okay. Bedbugs. Gross. The end. This is actually a request from years back by our Disney buddy, Brandon Reid. We're finally getting to it. I can't believe we didn't cover this on a longer one. But now that I've read it, it's usually like twelve minutes of material here. Exactly, man. That's why it languished for so long. But now finally that we're doing short stuff is bedbugs time to rise and shine, right? So back in the day, there used to be bedbugs, and then for a while there like in the we didn't have bedbugs because we were pumping DDT into the house. Like basically dousing homes with poison. It wouldn't even bother to leave. You just sit there and bake a cake. Yeah. And everything would die. And they were like, that's great, everything's dead. And then people will be like, right, I don't have any hair on my body, right? I have cancer. So they said maybe we shouldn't pump DDT into homes anymore. And they were like, you know, that means bedbugs are going to come back. And they're like, okay, we'll just deal with that. I saw a mention somewhere, I think it was on a History article. I can't remember that. Some people didn't believe they were real. Like generations who were born after they'd been basically eradicated, they had never actually seen a bed bug. I think they thought it was like a jackalope or snipe or something. Right? Yeah, a sea monkey. Well, if you've been to New York or Philadelphia in the last 20 years, there's a chance that, you know, firsthand that they're real. Because those cities developed real problems with bed bugs. And they think that they came back for combination of two reasons. One, the pesticides like DDT that we were using were banned. Not just discontinued, like straight up banned. You would be put in jail if you are a pest control person using DDT. And then secondly, international travel became more and more widespread. It wasn't just like a boat trip anymore, it was a plane trip. And you could spread bedbugs pretty fast. And the reason why they're able to spread and become a real problem is because they are very tough to get rid of these days. Since we've given up our number one enforcer against bedbugs, DDT, we'll get to some ways to get rid of them later. Just suffice to say, for now, they're very difficult to kill. Yeah. So bedbugs, if you listen to our shows on fleas and ticks, just get ready to be creeped out again. Because they drink your blood, they eat your body in your sleep. It's really horrifying. They call them bed bugs because you can find them a lot of times in your bed. But they're not exclusive to beds. They can be anywhere in your apartment. They can be in your couch. They could be in the walls, they can be in your clothes, they can be pretty much anywhere. If you're living in an apartment or you're staying in a hotel and your next door neighbor has bedbugs, then chances are they're going to make their way over to your place as well. Yeah, because they're really tiny. Like, adults are about a quarter of an inch long and they're real flat, too. Yes. You may not even see bed bugs. If you're like, let me look on my sheets. You may see their poop, which is a dead giveaway. It's rough colored, but these are tiny little things. Yeah. And so they get everywhere. They can hide very easily. And again, because you can't just fumigate baits and traps don't work. Most of the stuff we use to kill them, we don't use anymore. They're just really difficult to get rid of, but they're really easy to pick up. And one of the places where you pick them up is a hotel room. You can pick them up from everywhere, from the mattress and the sheets to the luggage rack or the floor. So you want to be really I think a lot of people investigate their hotel room before they unpack. One of the things you want to look for is along the seams of the mattress and in the folds of the sheets are looking for that rust colored poop or the former shells of these things because they scurry away pretty fast when they are found out. So you might not see them, but you can see those telltale signs of them. I have never looked for bedbugs in any hotel room. I haven't either, but now that I know all this, I don't know that I'm not going to the future very certainly, yes, you will. So while you're sleeping, like a ticker flee, they will stick their little syringe in their mouth and they will stick it into your skin and they will suck your blood for three to ten minutes. That's about all it takes. You're not going to feel it, necessarily. It's really an annoyance. It doesn't give you a disease, but it can give you like a rash and it can make you itchy. And it might swell up just a little bit, but a little antihistamine and you're probably fine. So it's not like some big disease vector, but it's still creeping nonetheless. No, but that's really important to say. They've never traced the transmission of the disease from bad bugs to humans. We have never found it. But they are pain and they are kind of mosquito bite, like you're saying, because of that allergic reaction. But they're just kind of, I think, one of the things that you're like, I don't want to live with bed bugs even if I'm immune. Some people are immune to their bites, but they at least don't have an allergic reaction. Right. Which I guess is the same thing. But nobody is going to find out that they have bedbugs and be like, well, what are you going to do? I guess I'll just live with it. So you got to get rid of the bedbugs. And like we said, it's really hard. But in true stuff you should know spirit, we say never give up. And we're going to come back after this message and teach you how to get rid of bed bugs if you are an unfortunate soul who has bedbugs. All right, so one thing we did not mention was that once a bed bug feeds, they can go a full year without feeding. So if you move into a place that no one's lived in for eight months, doesn't mean there aren't bedbugs there. If you live in a place that's super clean, that doesn't mean there aren't bedbugs there, because it might help if it's really gross and trashy, but it's certainly not a prerequisite. If you stay in some fancy hotel, there might still be bedbugs. Yeah. Because they're not associated with filth. They don't feed on filth or trash. They feed on human blood. And that trash or whatever gives them more places to hide. But it's not a requisite for a bedbug problem. Right. So if you find out you have bedbugs, and by the way, you can look up online generally and find out about hotels before you go into the room to inspect, great. You can do some googling and just type in bedbugs and like hotel blank. Oh, I'll bet hotels take that very seriously. Yeah. So if you do find bedbugs, though, in your home, there's a lot of things you can try. If you can bake your home in an oven, there's a thing. No, there's a thing at 120 Deg. They can come in there and crank it up and essentially kill them with either heat or cold above 120 or below 32 Fahrenheit. Yeah. So if you just have isolated a bedbug infestation to like, your clothes or your bedding or whatever, you can throw it in the dryer on high heat for a couple of hours and you're going to kill every bed bug in there in every stage of life. But you can't do that with your whole house or your couch or whatever. So they actually sell machines that you can hook up to a house. You seal the house and you pump heat into the house and you bake the contents of your house for a couple of hours. And because you've raised the temperature of every nook and cranny in your entire house, you kill every single bedbug that's in that house. But it's quite expensive to have done. Sure, if you want to go the cheaper route, you should launder your stuff. Sure, the dryer works, but I would wash it on. If you have a sanitized setting, definitely do that. All your clothes, all your sheets, all your towels, all anything. If you have, like, area rugs that you're not super attached to maybe just throw those out? Sure. If you want to go through the trouble of cleaning them, that's fine. You can also suffocate them. So you can seal a rug. I guess you can always do that with a rug or a mattress. Seal it in plastic and that will supposedly suffocate them. If you have one of those Euro sealers or vacuum sealer things that you like, store blankets in under the bed if you have one of those, that helps a lot because those things can go for a while, depending on when they last eight without a lot of air. And what seems like very small amount of air to us is a lot to a bunch of bedbugs. So you want to suck as much air as you can out of the plastic. And even then, I didn't see anything definitive about how long they last or how long it takes to kill them. Yeah, that one seems a little like I don't know if I would depend on that one. Okay. As like the final solution, you can do all this stuff in concert with insecticides. If you're down with that stuff in your house, that will help for sure. There are dust insecticides which generally aren't as toxic. There are contact insecticides which are way more toxic, I would say. Yeah. One is made from chrysanthemums. Oh, that's nice. Yeah, I thought so, too. Which one the contact the pyrethroids okay. Yeah, the contact insecticide. And then you could like if push comes to shove, like you should hire a person if you have the means. I don't know if I would tackle this on your own. If you have the money to hire a professional, just go that route and they'll do all this stuff. But those are some tips. Like if you want to go the less expensive route. Yeah, and there's one other thing that we need to say. If you throw out that area rug or if you're like, I just can't live with this couch anymore. Don't just put it out on the curb because the people will come along and say, that's a pretty nice couch, I think I'll take that. It's a pretty nice area rug. I think I'll take that. And then they have a big bug problem of their own. You don't want to wish that on anybody else. So it's common advice that if you're going to throw this out, throw out a couch or an airy rug or whatever you want to make it unattractive, like slash it up, throw paint on it, do something to make it so that no one wants it any longer. Maybe even write, like, bedbug infested or something on it so that people notice you're clear because you don't want to transfer your bedbug problem. You're not that kind of jerky. Listen to stuff you should know. Yeah, I'm not going to subscribe to that because I don't want to see furniture in a landfill. So what are you going to do, hang on to it and just kill the stuff? Yeah, sure. Okay, I'm with you on that. I'm not going to put a couch in a dumpster. Let's just show you. Sure, I'm with you, man, but for the people out there who are like, I can't deal with this. I have to get rid of it. Make sure you make it so that no one would want that couch anymore. Okay. Make sure it has to go in a Dumpster, right. Basically. Chuck, you got anything else? I got nothing else. All right, well, if you want to get in touch with us and say, hey, I really like the short stuff, here's why you can send us an email, wrap it up, spank it on the bottom, send it off to Stunning Podcast@howstuffworks.com."
https://podcasts.howstuf…sic-sampling.mp3	How Music Sampling Works	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/how-music-sampling-works	Today music sampling is a common practice, especially in electronic or hip-hop music. But how does it work? After all, other artists made the original music, and most of them would presumably like to be paid. Tune in to learn more about music sampling.	Today music sampling is a common practice, especially in electronic or hip-hop music. But how does it work? After all, other artists made the original music, and most of them would presumably like to be paid. Tune in to learn more about music sampling.	Thu, 29 Mar 2012 17:13:27 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2012, tm_mon=3, tm_mday=29, tm_hour=17, tm_min=13, tm_sec=27, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=89, tm_isdst=0)	42559187	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"You know you're the best pet mom when you growl back during playtime, give epic belly rubs and feed them halo holistic made with responsibly sourced ingredients plus probiotics for digestive health, find us at chewy, amazon and haloopets.com. Com. Picture this, friends. You could be packing a carryon for a trip to Hawaii when you realize you're going to need a bigger bag. But it's cool because you booked your flight with your city advantage platinum select card. So you can check a bag for free on domestic travel and still have room for those souvenirs. And surprise, those souvenirs also earned you advantage miles. Actually, you earned advantage miles and loyalty points with each swipe. So let's start dreaming about your next next adventure. This could be you, and you could be anywhere with the city Advantage platinum select card. Learn more at city comAdventure and travel on with cityadvantage. Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 camry. It's ready. Are you? Welcome to stuff you should know from housetepworks.com. This podcast is brought to you by audible.com, the internet's leading provider of audiobooks with more than 100,000 downloadable titles across all types of literature. For stuff you should know, listeners, audible is offering a free audiobook to give you a chance to try out their service. One audiobook to consider is Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace. Consider the lobster is a collection of four of Wallace's best essays and is available from audible. To try Audible free today and get a free audiobook of your choice, go to audiblepodcast. comStuff. That's audiblepodcast. comStuff. Hi, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. With me, as always, as Charles W, Chuck Bryant. And that makes this the super sampling version of stuff you should know. The super stuff guide to sampling. Could that be an audiobook? Why not? As a matter of fact, if you're listening to this right now, you owe us a dollar. Mail it in. Yeah, mail it into 33 50 Peachtree road, Atlanta, Georgia, care of Josh Clark, 303-1332 six. Okay. All right. With that done, we can continue on with the podcast. You know what? We should have gotten really creative and just, like, sampled old podcasts and put them together. Jerry, do you feel like doing that? No. Do a mash up. That's what they call that. Sure, that's what the kids call it these days. Yeah. No, we'll just do it straight instead. Boring, I guess, is what you call it. I have an intro have you heard, Chuck? Of a man named Armin Boladian. Armin Tanzerian? No, I have not been. Armand Belaidian is the owner and sole employee of a company called Bridgeport. Yeah, okay, now I have bridgeport is a music catalog company, and like many other music catalog companies, they basically just sit on a lot of copyrights to popular songs, the musical composition of those songs, right. Yeah. It's almost like owning stock. Yes. Like you buy stock in these music and wait for them to be worth something. Sure. Or you can allegedly shadowy get your hands on already valuable music. Sure. And then, like, stocks do what Bridgeport did, which is start suing anyone and everyone who ever sampled it. So Bridgeport made a big flap in 2005 when they sued JayZ for his song Justify my thug. I want to go ahead and add a disclaimer here. I am far to square to talk seriously about hip hop. I'm really into elevator music right now, seriously. So when I say things like justify my Thug or JayZ or brakes right. I'm speaking strictly as an outside observer, an interested outside observer, but not from the streets. I was down, as they say, from 87 to 95 ish those were my big hiphop years. Nice. But these days you say JayZ and I know that's the handsome man married to that pretty lady. Okay, I'm not done with the new stuff. We had a similar trajectory. Yeah, except I used to be into it and it sounds like you never were. Right. What in the name of God is a waka flocka? Yes. All right. Anyway, Bridgeport c. JZ. For sampling Madonna to justify my love. Somehow Bridgeport got its hands on the copyright to justify my love. It's a pretty big song. Sure. And when JayZ sampled it, they sued him. Now this guy runs around suing everybody. Apparently he had like 700 lawsuits against just people who sampled George Clinton's work. Well, that's big attorney fees right there. Yeah, it is. But when it pays off, it pays off. So this guy has come to be known at Bridgeport. People like him have come to be known called sample trolls. Remember patent trolls when I gave like, the absolute wrong definition of that? Well, sample troll is somebody who just buys up songs, hangs on to the copyrights, and ensues people who sampling without asking. Right. On the one hand, you can make a case that, well, these people are breaking copyright laws by not asking and getting permission to use samples of this. On the other hand, Bridgeport has made it their aim to sue anybody who sampled it at all, even if they've taken the work and made it unrecognizable. Right. Which that kind of a lot of people are on the other side of the aisle going like, that's ridiculous. That stifles creativity. This is just one of the many interesting aspects of music sampling. Wow, that was a proper intro. It'd been a while. And that's one. But it's probably the biggest as far as what people think about how music is used in creativity and ownership. And one of the things that you just mentioned was bridgeport is some big corporation. And if you talk to, like, Hank Shockley, the former producer of Public Enemy, he will say that we don't have any problems paying music to artists who created the stuff he said. But they're on by these corporations now, and it's just greed on their part. Yes. But there are two sides. It's never a story. And the music industry, as we'll see, kind of went on a tear of, like, suing everybody and protecting themselves. And now you kind of understand, like, oh, that's why no one feels bad about this whole music piracy thing. Well, there was a big rush at one point because it was a new genre. I mean, we'll get into the history of how it came to be and all, but it was a new thing. And so all of a sudden, for the first several years, that was open territory, and that's when that was the heyday, if you ask me. Well, folks, nerdier than us might be confused at this point, because sampling also refers to digitizing music. What we're talking about is taking a piece of an already established piece of music, right? A selection of it, and then recreating it, using it, maybe putting it back to back to back in a loop sometimes, oftentimes, actually, and then creating something new using this. Right. So that's what we're talking about with music sampling. All right. It's been around for a while, too. Yeah. Well, you mentioned taking a snippet. Let's go ahead and just get a couple of examples out there if we want to start out with trying to explain to people what a sample is. And most people know this, okay? There are no further places to look than James Brown's 1970 song, Funky Drummer. Let's go ahead and hear that little break beat. Oh, it's like that? Yeah. All right. So that's instantly recognizable. So that's Funky Drummer. That's Funky Drummer. And that was who was the drummer there? Clyde Stubblefield. Yes. Clyde Stubblefield, who has never gotten a cent. No, but he's pretty cool, man. He is not trying to sue anybody. He's not seeking anything, any damages from. And this literally thousands of songs have used that drum break. Right? Yeah. James Brown has been sampled. And this is not just that song, but a lot of it comes from Funky Drummer 2729 times. Okay. The leader and you can make a case that Funky Drummer provided the basis for hip hop. All early hip hop songs, especially in, like, the mid to late eighty s, all use that drum break. Right. Yeah. Stubblefield is not going after anybody for that. But what he did was get together with some documentarians who made something called Copyright Criminals, a documentary called Copyright Criminals to release a special version of the DVD that has all new, ready to sample Clyde Stubblefield jump breaks that he created just for this. And if you want to use them, you just give him, like, 15% of your sales. Nice. So he's like, doing it. He's trying out a different model. Well, on the other side, too, which we haven't mentioned is and this is a point that a lot of the hip hop producers would make, is that some of these people are being pulled from obscurity. For instance, the second clip we're going to play, which is the Amen break from Amen Brother. And it was a B side from a very little known song from a group called The Winstons. We can hear this one, too. Yes. And we'll hear that right now. So that one, to me, is slightly better than Funky Drummer. So that's the amen break. That's the Amen brick. And, dude, that one has been sampled thousands of times. So that one gave birth to drum and bass. And jungle, like, all jungle music, is based on the deconstruction of the Amen break. If you're interested in hearing about it, there's a really cool movie video. It's like 18 minutes long. It's a YouTube video. And the title is video explains the world's most important six second drum loop. Wow. So it gave rise to jungle. NWA. Straight out of Compton. Used that cold cut, used it. And Third Base famously used it as well. And one hundreds of others. Yeah, I like their base. And that was because we want to give due to some of these folks who created the stuff. That was Gregory Sylvester Coleman, who was the actual drummer that played that lake. And that was the Winston. Yeah, the Winstons. Excellent. Gregory Sylvester Coleman. So, yeah, I think what you're originally saying is some producers are saying, like, you ever heard of Gregory Coleman? Yeah, exactly. So they're bringing some of these folks out of obscurity and giving them their due and I'm sure selling some records for them here or there. Yeah, although that record is really hard to find, obviously. Well, they need to press it again. Maybe they should. Okay, so you take an Ll Cool J Ladies Love Cool James, for instance. Is that what Ll stands for? Yeah. You never knew that? No, I didn't listen to him extensively. He was James something. And the ladies love cool James or E-O-Z. Cool Jake Cookies. I'm bad. So, you know. No, I did know. I've just fallen off like you. Okay, so you take the Funky Drummer from a James Brown song, and you take Flying the Family Stones trip to your Heart, the background vocals, and then basically, you loop those over and over, and you have a little song called Mama Said Knock You Out. Oh, we're about to hear that. Well, we're going to hear them separately, obviously. We already played the Funky Drummer, and now this is the trip to your heart, backing vocals from slying The Family Stone, whom I love. All right, so that's it, dude. Over and over and over with ladies love. Cool. James Wrapping. Okay. And you got a huge hit. Yeah. Oh, that was a big one. Oh, yeah. Huge. That wasn't a big local jazz, though. I like the one I don't remember what it's called, but it had the boom box on the cover of the tape. Like, the album artwork was a boombox yeah, it was good. I'm bad on. Oh, it did? Yeah. Okay. It's not always songs that you're sampling. Sometimes you're sampling stuff from, like, a TV show or movie or, like, the Living Color song Cult of Personality. Remember that? Yeah. They had, like, an FDR speech. I think it was Kennedy. No, it was FDR. I had Kennedy, too. Okay. But that was Kennedy. But he said, the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. Doubting Thomas. They were like a skinny puppy offshoot. They sampled. I think. The Day the Earth Stood Still. Sure. Extensively throughout this one album that they created. It was pretty good. Well in Guns and Roses on their song civil war. Remember at the beginning of that, they played the cool Hand Luke bit over the guitar and then Axel's Weasley little voice comes through. Oh, and Metallica's one. Oh, yeah. Sample. Johnny got his gun. That's right. In the video, too. Right. So those are all samples. You might just think, oh, that's a snippet from a movie. But it's a sample. Just like you would use the amen break. Right, okay. The first sampler, if you want to go back in time a bit, was the Melitron. Yeah. Not the person, but the machine that someone used that was created for sampling. Right? Yeah. It was the first time that they had ever it's basically a little keyboard. They're very basic. I wish I had one. They're really sweet. And it has a volume, a tone and a pitch control, a low and high octave you can switch between. And then three samples. A, B and C. Flutes, violins and cello. And it was the first time that they basically had ever sampled anything like that. So you press the keyboard key and it plays back a prerecorded loop of a single note of that single note on a flute, let's say. Okay. Which seems you take it for granted. Now, when you buy these keyboards, we can do a million different things, but back then, the Melotron was huge. Oh, yeah. And even before that, people would take magnetic tapes, like real tapes, and literally cut and splice them to create their own samples. Well, and if you want to hear a classic example of the Melotron flute, and I do listen to this little clip right here. Is it Aqua Long? No. Ready? Aqua Long. No, that was the intro for the Beatles. Strawberry Fields. And that was Paul McCartney playing the flute sample of the melodram on the Melotron. Crazy. Pretty cool, huh? Flutes and then, like, King Crimson and yes. And Genesis. They went crazy with the melodram. Yeah, genesis was awesome early on. They were awesome. But in a different way. Yeah, a very different way. Okay, so you talked about the origins with the tape Splicing. Yeah. I mean, you can go back even further than the Melodrama. Was that the 60s? Yes. These two dudes, the two Pierre. I call them Pierre Schaefer and Pierre Henry. But probably Pierre Henry, I bet. And they were, I guess what you would call a couple of avantgarde musical artists, and they created what's called music concrete. Freaky stuff. Did you hear any of it? Yeah, I did. Again, YouTube factors in heavily in this episode. If you want to find out a little bit about music concrete, check out the BBC documentary the New Sound of Music. That is very awesome. I did watch that, actually. Yeah, that guy was a really great host. Yeah, he really laid it down. So he talks about music concrete, where it's basically like these people before they were tape recorders even. I don't know how they were doing this, I guess real to real. And then these guys were doing splicing. They would record the sound of a can falling or the sound of a metronome or a piece of music off of the radio. And then they would splice it all together into something that's like barely listenable. But it was electronically reproduced music and it formed the basis of everything that came after it that had anything to do with electronic. From like Pink Floyd to all electronic music to the Residence to Silver Apples to all these people craft work who created electronic music. It's all based on these two guys creating this in 1948 or something like that. That's crazy. Did you see the part of the video where they took the tape by hand and we're dragging it through? Yeah. That ended up sounding like and I think was sort of the origins of record scratching. That's what it sounded like to me as well. Of course, it was produced back in the day, so they didn't say it was before record scratching. This is about to give rise to this. Actually, it was coming out at the same time it was and that's when DJ Cole Hurt and Grandmaster Flash were starting to get really good. They were playing high school, so people were taking notice. That is true. So jumping back again in 1009 six one, james Penny took blue suede shoes from Elvis Presley. And have you heard this thing? Yeah, avantgarde is the way to put it. Yeah, that's a good way to put it into collage. Number one was what he called it, and it is in many parts, virtually unrecognizable. Yeah, it's really hard to listen to. It is very hard to listen to. It's a piece of electronic music that's deconstructed. It's blue suede. She's deconstructed. Yeah, big time. And I mean, if you look back and you're like, holy cow. The video on YouTube shows, like, the guy sitting in front of his set up and it's like pretty extensive. And the guy was obviously out of his mind. Lots of drugs, wasn't he? But when you look back at it and you're like, oh, that was what, 1961? That's pretty impressive work. Yeah, exactly. What if you were a gigantic snack food maker. And you had to wrestle a massively complex supply chain to satisfy cravings from Tokyo to Toledo. So you partner with IBM Consulting to bring together data and workflows so that every driver and merchandiser can serve up jalapeno sesame and chocolatecovered goodness with realtime datadriven precision. Let's create supply chains that have an appetite for performance. IBM let's create. Learn more at IBM. Comconsulting. Today's episode of Stephanie Shannon is brought to you by SimpliSafe home security. SimpliSafe believes that your home should be the safest place on Earth for every family. So they offer advanced whole home security that puts you, your home, and your family safety first. With 24/7 professional monitoring simply saves, agents take action the moment a threat is detected, dispatching police or first responders in an emergency, even if you're not home. Yeah, and SimpliSafe uses proprietary video verification technology so that monitoring agents can visually confirm the threat in order to get higher priority 911 dispatch. And SimpliSafe offers comprehensive protection not only against intruders and burglary, but against expensive home hazards from flooding to fires. You can customize the perfect system for your home in just a few minutes at SimpliSafe. comST. Go today and claim a free indoor security camera plus 20% off with interactive monitoring. Just go to SimpliSafe. comStuff. Dickie Goodman and Bill Buchanan and had a more commercial version of, I guess you would call it music concrete with flying saucer. Did you listen to that one? I did. That was the stuff we heard on FM radio growing up. Remember all that mashup stuff they used to do, like Bet Miller's from a distance during the first Gulf War? I don't know. I don't remember that. No, I mean, like when the radio stations would do these, well, let me go and see what it was and play a snippet flying saucer. They took rock and roll hits from that era and mashed it up with a fake news report about aliens landing from outer space. And it sounded a little something like this. We interrupt this record to bring you a special bulletin. The reports of a flying saucer hovering over the city have been confirmed. The flying saucers are real. That was the Clatter's recording, too real. We switch you now to our on the spot reporter downtown. Take it away, John. So that's the stuff that we heard on FM radio. I remember when I was a kid, they would say, like, we're going to call so and so right now, and they would say, hey, how are you feeling? And all of a sudden you'd hear, but I couldn't sleep at all last night. And then they would ask him another question. It would be like an interview. And the answers were snippets from rock songs answering, which is really like I mean, it had to say for sure. I don't have a clip, so I'm going to have to describe it. But the Bet Midler thing was slightly different. It would be like Bet Miller's from a distance, interspersed with patriotic speeches. Oh, yeah, I remember that. You remember that? Yeah. That was sampling. I guess so. In its most jingoistic form, at the very least. It was a mash up. Right. By the way, those flying saucer guys, Buchanan and Goodman, they went on to do a lot of those things. Like, they did one during the energy crisis of 74. Crisis of 79. Yeah. But it'd be like, how much gas will be ratcheted? Just enough for the city, dude. I remember that. That's what I was remembering. Yeah. I was eight years old. I was not cognizant at that time. I had a lot of my own poop on my hands from playing with it when you were thinking, wow, this is really neat stuff. Yeah, I was a little radio kid back then. Also, I want to say one more thing. I went a little deeper in the music concrete thing. Okay. And apparently Phillips, the manufacturing concern. Yeah. They tried to get into electronic music in the late fifty s and had this whole little wing that let a couple of guys just go to town, like trying to make popular electronic music. And if you search Acid House from 1958 on YouTube, these guys did a pretty good job of it really is very clearly like the predecessor. It's listenable, it's not just like it's not even avantcard. It has a beat to it and a melody, and it's really neat. Interesting. I don't have that clip either. We should do a podcast on the mogue. Okay. That'll be coming. Don't you guys do that on the B side? I think so, but we'll do it up. Okay. We've gotten requests for more music stuff. That's why I picked this one up. Oh, got you. So you flash forward a little bit and you mentioned cool DJ Herc Graham, DJ Grandmaster Flash, who a lot of people think that was the group. It was Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, if you remember. And they hit it big in 1980 with the song Freedom, which sampled Get Up and Dance by the Band. Freedom. Yeah, pretty straight up. Well, that kind of took this whole thing into mainstream. Well, and that's when scratching started, too, wouldn't it? Yeah. Grandmaster flesh definitely started scratching. DJ Cole herk started sampling very clearly. Like, he's the guy, right. He's from Kingston, Jamaica, and he moved to New York in 1967, I think, and started bringing his turntables to block parties. And he'd find like a drum break or something, and then a drum break from another song, and they just keep putting them together. So it was like one long drum break, maybe bring in a little bit of a baseline. And I went back and listened to some of it and it was good stuff, man. And he's doing this in the mid seventy s. And yeah, he started sampling as we know it like turntable sampling crazy innovating josh that's even better than crazy. Marley Marl is someone else we should mention if we're talking about the early Heyday. He was a house producer for the Juice Crew, which was Big Daddy Cane and Bismarcky, among others. But he also produced Eric Bakim. Hello, cool Jay. And he's often cited as, like, the early leader. What about Redhead Kingpin? I don't know. That what's that he's, like, in there somewhere. Yeah. Big Daddy came in. He just blasted me with the nostalgia. Oh, yeah. Remember the hat? Yeah. Remember the gumby haircut? Yes. What they call it the high, right? I always thought it was called the gumby. That's what you call it? Well, they may call it gumby here. I don't know. In Toledo, it's a fade, essentially. Big Daddy Cane the Beastie Boys See what I was talking about? Like, back in the day, in the late 80s, they were constructing full songs from dozens of samples. And this is before you had to pay permission, rights and stuff like that. So you get a song like hey, Ladies from Paul's Boutique, which is, yes, Me, the pinnacle for the Beastie Boys. Paul's Boutique or hey, ladies. Paul's Boutique. Yes. I don't know if it's the pinnacle. I think it's one of several pinnacles. Well, check. Your head Was great, too, but Paul's Boutique Was great. Hey, ladies. Use 16 samples. And that was not on the low side, but Terminator X of Public Enemy and the Beastie Boys would craft songs out of dozens and dozens of samples. And that's DJ Hurricane you're giving props to. He's the VC boys. DJ. Was he always? I believe so. Okay. But I think they all, like, wrote the stuff together. Okay. As we'll find out, because the court case against the PC voice was Newton versus diamond. Ouch. And we all know who diamond is. Dustin diamond mike Dies brother. No. Groups like Dela Soul, Public Enemy and the BCS were crafting these songs, whereas nowadays, partially because I think they're not as good and creative, and partially because you have to pay rights, you'll get like, a Kid Rock who just plays this one loop over and over, and that's the sample he uses in his song. So it's not like he's crafting these songs out of dozens and dozens of samples. Well, Public Enemy even said after all these lawsuits and threats of lawsuits, if you're crafting a song out of 17 other songs, you basically have to figure out something else because you can't do it anymore. And, I mean, what a buzz kill, too, to make a song and then take it to your record company overlords who say, like, okay, we can get this cleared. We can get this cleared. This one we can't clear. No way we're ever clearing this. I don't know. Two thirds of your song is intact, but the other three, it has holes in it. It kind of takes away from the whole thing. But at the same time. Again, it's breaking a law. It's a copyright law, and it's not an arbitrary law. It's not a superfluous law. There is validity to it. Well, let's go and talk about it then. Okay. Copyright law the one that changed everything. It was not the first copyright lawsuit. I think those guys who did the flying saucer thing were the first to start attracting copyright lawsuits. But the first one, as far as that changed hip hop, I guess, was Bismarcky landed a beef from one Gilbert O'Sullivan, who wrote the song Alone Again, Naturally. And what did I use it for? You got what I need or whatever. No. Alone Again, his 1991 song from I Need a haircut. That album. It's called Alone Again. And Bismarcki lifted pretty heavily from that, and he was signed to Warner Brothers, and Warner Brothers got sued by the owners of a loan. Again, naturally. Right. And the judge ruled in the copyright holders favor against Warner Brothers. So all of a sudden, Warner Brothers, big business, big company starts circling the wagons like, okay, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. We're really exposed right now because all of our hip hop artists are running around sampling anybody they want to. Right. And now we can get sued for it. And the judge caught a lot of flack because he said, not only am I ruling in your favor, I think that this should go to some sort of criminal prosecution. Wow. Right. Because their defense, Warner Brothers defense was it's rampant. Everyone's doing this, and we've been doing it for ten years. What's your problem? And the judge was like, well, if that's the case, then we need to really start looking into this. And that shut everything down. That's when sampling went from art to business. Yeah. I'm surprised it took that long for people to catch on. Yeah. And it was money is what did it say. It was just like DJ's and Queens. It was no big deal in the early 80s, but all of a sudden, these artists, these hip hop artists were making money on work from that was previously recorded by other people. And people saw green, essentially. True. They saw dollar signs. They did. But let me ask you this. Should the original people, the original artists, I can understand just hating on corporations because they didn't create this at all. They happen to own it or whatever, but should the original artists expect some sort of compensation for somebody who's making millions of dollars by taking some of that original work? Do they deserve any kind of consideration? I think so. I think I agree, too, depending on what degree the work has changed. Right. I say use the crap out of it, but get permission and pay royalties. Yeah. If that's what you're choosing to do. No one's forcing these people to do that. That's what you're choosing to do. Then you've got to play by the rules. That's what. I think, and then go wild with it. Well, I guess that's kind of like the status quo now. And that's not working necessarily. It's leading to your beef with Kid Rock. Well, my beef is that he's just not very good. It's larger than that. You'd be careful, man. He gets in fights and stuff. Yeah. Waffle houses in Atlanta. Yeah. So he knows where we live. I saw Bismarcke at the airport one time, by the way. You may hung out with Bismarckey once. Really? Yeah. Played PlayStation. Yeah, I saw him on the little internal train, and I was like, is that yes, that is. I thought for about a half a second, and I was like, yeah, man. Wearing the gray curly powdered wig. No, he didn't wear it. All right, so let's talk about what the cost of it is. $10? No, not $10. At first it was something it's called a buyout. So you purchase rights to sample a song. It wasn't that much money. But like I said, as sales grew in the rap and hip hop world and rock band said it too, they started to pay rollover rates, which is you got to pay per your sales, right. Which all of a sudden the bill got larger and larger and larger. And you're not necessarily just paying one person. No. You might pay the copyright owner of the composition of the music. And if you use a specific recording rather than record that composition yourself and use it, then you have to pay the owner of that particular recording, which aren't necessarily one and the same, and they both might want equal amounts of money rather than giving you a deal. Or if you're Vanilla Ice, you would just slightly alter Queen's famous baseline from under pressure, not even so much as credit them on your album. Forget asking for rights. He didn't even say, like, special thanks to Queen and settle out of court eventually for an undisclosed sum of money. He raises jet skis now under the name Vanilla Ice. Does he has a home renovation show, too. Does he really? Yeah. Oh, yeah. He flipped houses. It's pretty weird. It's not weird. It's weird for him to do it. MC Hammer very famous for his sampling of and can't touch this. And his pants. Super freak. Oh, yeah. Did he not pay royalties? No, he did okay. That was all in the up and up. He's a reverend now. Is he really? Yeah, he was back then. Well, he got evangelist. You got to pray just to make it today. Right. So run from run DMC really? Yeah, I sized Baby is out there flipping houses. Yeah, they all got to do something. And Dustin Diamond from Say by the Bell, it was not a rapper. He was evicted. He was in the process of being evicted, and he launched a web campaign to save his house. I remember that. I wonder what ever happened. I don't know. The drum intro for Led Zeppelins when the Levee Breaks. That thing has been sampled dozens and dozens and dozens of times. Yeah, but it's so massive and it's so immediately recognizable that it takes over a song. You know what I'm saying? It's basically like, oh, this is Led Zeppelin sample, rather than, like that's the great thing about Amen brother. It's like, no one ever heard of that, but it was a perfect drum break. Yes. When the levee breaks it's too late to have planning. So too recognizable, and you're off of it. Yeah, I just started thinking about Robert Plant. Right. I think they were down with it, though. Jimmy Page, I remember, was totally cool with it. Yes. With them using that. Of course, it wasn't his lick. No, it was John Bond. He's not around to say anything. No. What if you were a global bank who wanted to supercharge your audit system so you tap IBM to UNSILO your data, and with the help of AI, start crunching a year's worth of transactions against thousands of compliance controls. Now you're making smarter decisions, faster operating costs are lower, and everyone from your auditors to your bankers feels like a million bucks. Let's create smarter ways of putting your data to work. IBM, let's create learn more@ibm.com. Today's episode of Stephanie Chanel is brought to you by SimpliSafe home security. SimpliSafe believes that your home should be the safest place on Earth for every family, so they offer advanced, whole home security that puts you, your home, and your family. Safety first. With 24/7 professional monitoring, SimpliSafe agents take action the moment a threat is detected, dispatching police or first responders in an emergency, even if you're not home. Yeah, and SimpliSafe uses proprietary video verification technology so that monitoring agents can visually confirm the threat in order to get higher priority. 911 dispatch and Simply Safefe offers comprehensive protection not only against intruders and burglary, but against expensive home hazards. From flooding to fires, you can customize the perfect system for your home in just a few minutes@simplisafe.com. Stuff go today and claim a free indoor security camera, plus 20% off with interactive monitoring. Just go to SimpliSafe. comStuff. In 2003, the BC boys I said, the landmark case, Newton v. Diamond, they did a sample, and we'll hear it right now. The very beginning of pass. The mic contains this six second flute stab. Do you hear that? Yeah, it's like three notes on the flute. And they got the sample rights for the sound recording, but not the compositional rights, because they were like, this guy played it, so we'll pay him. But it's three notes on a flute. Like, we don't feel like we should have to pay compositional rights. Yes. I've always thought of something like eight notes. Was the cut off or something like that? There's a set number of notes. I remember that from being a kid. I don't know why that would have come up when I was a kid, but I seem to remember that. Well, the B C boys won their case, actually, and the judge said that the brief composition consisting of three notes separated by a half step is not sufficient to sustain a claim for copyright infringement. So that was we already played the clip, didn't we? Yeah. So that was it. And also, you not only here at the very beginning of that song, but you hear it underlying the entire song. What's the best sample of all time? Best use of a sample, your favorite. How about that? It doesn't have to be best. You know what my favorite is from the BC boys? Hey, ladies, remember when it's from Ballroom Blitz? Do you know that song? Ballroom Blitz? Yeah, a terrible, terrible song. BC boy sampled that song and hey, ladies, when they break that one part down, it goes, she's the passionate one. That's from Ballroom Blitz. Wow. Yeah, so that's my favorite one. I definitely wouldn't have ever caught that. I used to love the BC boys back in the day. Have you ever heard the populite itself? Yeah, back in, like, the early 90s. They're kind of electronic. They had a song well, they're one big song. Psychosexual actually sampled a classical composition, eric Satis Ginopini. Nice. It's really awesome. I love ginopini and I love psychosexual. And then one day I just heard it just where I was like, oh, my God, that's that's one of my favorites favorite probably of all time was Ice Cubes Good Day, using the Iceberg Brothers, footsteps in the Dark. Yeah, that was good. And then Dr. Dre The Chronic was like that was just the soundtrack of one year of my college life. Oh, yeah. And that was a lot of George Clinton. Yeah, tons. And Dre was actually one of the first people to stop sampling and start recreating stuff with live musicians himself, which is called producing. Yeah, you're right. And now he has his own line of headphones. Should we talk about Danger Mouse real quick? Sure. The Gray Album. Yeah. He famously, in 2004 did a mash up of the Beatles White Album, jay Z The Black Album and called it The Gray Album. Very creative. And EMI, who own the Beatles recordings, even though Jay Z and Paul McCartney were totally fine with it, they shut it down and said, you're not selling this. No, but it made his career. Yeah. And it got around on the Internet such that he was like, fine, I'm not selling it, but everyone's going to hear it anyway. I'll go hang out with Sula and do some stuff in MF Doom and we'll just make some money from that instead. Oh, Chuck, what about cover songs? Yeah, since you can cover songs, you can play a song faithfully, especially live yes. And not pay the owner of the composition ascent, as long as you don't alter it, like play it in a different language or something like that. Right. There's a lot of people who say, well, wait a minute, that's a sample in its entirety. This is crazy. What is the deal? And everyone has said, we don't know. We'll figure it out in another ten years. You know what bugs me is when these new country artists will cover a song that's like a year old, like another song, and release it to great acclaim. Well, that used to happen, like, a lot more than one person would record the same song and get released about the same time, like in the so just be glad you don't live then, because you'd be going crazy. That's true. And just so you guys know, the reason we're able to play these clips is because something called Fair Use, which we've talked about a lot with Jerry. Yeah, just put your pens down, lawyers, because we know what we're doing. It's only in the United States, and it is the exclusive right granted to us to play a snippet of something without acquiring permission, as long as we use it as commentary, criticism, research, teaching, or news reporting. Oh, wait a minute. That's what we're doing. Does that mean that if this is heard in Australia, though, are we still covered by Fair Use? That I don't know. We'll find out. All right, well, that's it for music sampling. This turned out better than I thought. You got anything else? No. You got any more samples? No. I'm putting my turntable back in my pocket. Okay. And you know they have those little iPhone and turntables now? Yeah. Which is? Come on, Jerrynskatoz. If you want to learn more about music sampling, you can type that into the handyarchbarhousetepworks.com, which means it's time for listener mail. For listener mail. Josh, I want to point people who are into sampling in the history of sampling to go to WhoSampled.com. I'm glad you mentioned this. I meant to mention it, too. It's a really awesome website, and it allows you basically you can search for artists who have sampled and who have been sampled and search for songs, and they basically throw them up side by side as two turntables, like the original sample or the original break or whatever, then how it was used. It's pretty cool. You complain in simultaneously. Yeah. That's awesome. So that is whosample.com. Yeah. All right, Josh, I'm going to read this. It's kind of a long one, but this is about spies, and this is from Tom, and he said that his family has a strange tendency of being arrested on suspicion of being Kiwi spies. New Zealand, spies in France. They all wear trench coats. The first story concerns my parents on their honeymoon in 1985. It was immediately following the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland Harbor by French Saboteurs. My parents were traveling into France from the UK when they were arrested and detained on suspicion of being New Zealand counterterrorist. Nothing could be further from the truth, by the way. They were held in separate holding cells for two days, when French agents would come inside to sell smoking cigarettes and yelling at them in French. It's pretty terrifying for my mother, who was only 21 at the time. And after two days, they were released and dropped off at the New Zealand Embassy, where they learned of the incident back in Auckland. So that's one incident. Okay. The second story comes from Great Auntie Anne or sister Marine. She's a nun with the Order of the Little Sisters of the Poor, and she is 98 years old this year and is still going strong. Her story originates with the Nazis. She had been with her fellow nuns in rural France, looking after the elderly who had been abandoned. As the Nazis approached, they were also sheltering three to four British airmen who had been shot down nearby. When the Nazis arrived, they rounded up the nuns, and the airmen accused the nuns of being spies. She and her fellow nuns, of which she was Mother Superior, were taken to a POW camp, interrogated by Gestapo officers. He's none. Yeah. Eventually, she was marched into the commandant's office, told she was being taken away, believing she was going to be shot, she told them she would not cooperate unless her nuns were also set free. Turned into a pretty hostile negotiation, and she stuck to her guns, even though at one point she was looking down the barrel of one. Wow. The commandant finally agreed and bundled all the sisters together on a freight train where they believed they were going to be executed together. Suddenly, the train stopped. The guards on the train threw the nuns out one by one into the snow. The doors closed and the train sped off. Sister Marie eventually led her nuns to the convent where they spent the last two years of the war not only helping the elderly, but also sheltering and feeding members of the French Resistance. So Tom said, if I could read this on the podcast, I know Antean would really appreciate the air time for the convent in which she is dedicated over 70 years to. And I would appreciate letting people know about why nobody and my family feel safe in France. Man so, 98 year old Auntie Anne, the nun, we thank you for all your work over the years, and I hope you make it to 120. Yeah, way to for the Nancy. Yeah, nice. How about that? That's from Tom R. Thanks a lot, Tom, for letting us know that. We appreciate it. Wow. I guess if you have a cool family story, we want to hear that. We're always up for those. There's a plethora that's entirely untrue. There's actually just three, but there are three ways you can get in touch with us electronically. One is through Twitter. Our Twitter handle is Syscast. All one word. If you're not following us on Twitter, you're missing out. Believe me. Agreed. Also, you can hang out with us on Facebook. We're on there pretty frequently facebook. Comsteno. And you can send us an email to stuffpodcast@discovery.com. This podcast is brought to you by Audible.com, the internet's leading provider of audiobooks with more than 1000 downloadable titles across all types of literature and featuring audio versions of many New York Times bestsellers. To try Audible free today and get a free audiobook of your choice, go to audiblepodcast.com stuff. Be sure to check out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join House Deport staff as we explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. Brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you? Hey everybody. I don't know about you, but I am excited that it's summer school's out, the sun is shining, and best of all, there's downtime for days. That's where true crime podcasts on Amazon music come in. There's a perfect activity for last minute road trips, long walks, or, if you're brave enough, late nights. With so many killer shows like Morbid, My Favorite Murder, and Small Town Murder, you'll never be bored to death again. 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http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/netstorage.discovery.com/DMC-FEEDS/MED/podcasts/2009/1231183216432hsw-sysk-exorcism.mp3	How Exorcism Works	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/how-exorcism-works	Is the idea of possession a misunderstanding of physiological and psychological conditions, or has science failed to account for unknown, legitimate factors? Learn whether exorcism and psychology are mutually exclusive in this podcast from HowStuffWorks.	Is the idea of possession a misunderstanding of physiological and psychological conditions, or has science failed to account for unknown, legitimate factors? Learn whether exorcism and psychology are mutually exclusive in this podcast from HowStuffWorks.	Tue, 06 Jan 2009 13:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2009, tm_mon=1, tm_mday=6, tm_hour=13, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=6, tm_isdst=0)	18939472	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"You know you're a pet mom when you plan your vacation around your pet. At Halo, we get it, because we're pet moms, too. We make natural, high quality pet food that's rooted in science. It's the world's best food for the world's best kids. Learn more@halopets.com.com. Hey, everybody, if you want a great website, you want to do it yourself with no must, no fuss. Turn to squarespace. They have everything to sell anything. They have the tools that you need to get your business off the ground, including ecommerce templates, inventory management, simple checkout process, and secure payments. And if you're into analytics, hold on to your hats, because Squarespace has everything that you need. Just head to squarespace. Comcysk, and you can get a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use offer code SYSK to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Welcome to stuff you should know from housetopworkscom. Hi, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh. That's, Chuck. And this is stuff you should know. We're about to tell you some stuff you should know, aren't we, Chuck? We are. You never intro our title like that. I like that it's new. I tried it before. I know that you like it, which is why I instituted it. I do. I lived in Sidily. And aroused you. Yeah. Moving on. Have you ever heard of a guy named Philip K. Dick? Yes, absolutely. He's an author, correct? Yes. He wrote Blade Runner. Correct. Well, I do Androids Dream of electric sheep. Right. Which was made into Blade Runner. Exactly. And he wrote a Minority Report and A Scanner Darkly. Some other ones you may have heard of. Good stuff. And if you can't tell yet, he was a science fiction writer. But one of the more notable things of Dick's life one of the more notable aspects of Dick's life was that at one point, he became possessed by a being. Really? Another intelligence, he called it like a super alien or something like that. And it basically took him over and got his life in order. He was a total pill head, loved drink wine, really. Just kind of chased friends off. He just wasn't a really pleasant soul to be around. Right. And this alien kind of comes in and takes them over, and all of a sudden, he's getting back pay from publishers. Wow. He's writing more. His office is cleaner. I think he started wearing ties and just all around. Basically, this thing got his life in order. Right. And it wasn't Scientology or anything. No. Interesting. As a matter of fact, I think he may have been a critic of Scientology. I'm not sure why, but he was possessed. He believed it until the day he died that something had taken him over and at the very least, was helping him. I've never heard that. Yes. So that kind of, I think, is a really good segue into exorcism. Right. This is an exercise in that actually benefited somebody? Well, he wasn't exercised and I don't think he needed to. A possession. Sure. Now, I think for the most part when people feel like we're inhabited by something, we feel like it needs to be exercised. Right? Right. Yeah. Got the demons running through yet. Exactly. So, kind of in the Western world in the 21st century, we don't really believe in spirit intrusion much anymore. Right. Some of us do. Some do. True. But for the most part, the average American walking around probably doesn't believe that they're going to ever be taken over by a demon or something like that. Or even an angel, probably, right? Sure. But this isn't the case for much of the rest of the world. Right. It's very commonly held. Spirit intrusion can occur. Remember when we were talking about carrying a bride over the threshold? Spirit intrusion, it can be a bad thing. It can cause disease, illness, and it kind of makes you wonder, there's this dividing line that crops up. Is this really just a misunderstanding of a psychological problem or is psychology missing the point when there actually is something going on? Right. A lot of demonic possessions are really people that are psychologically distressed or sometimes even physically epilepsy and things like that. A lot of times you're mistaken some parts of the world. Well, with epilepsy in particular, you can tell. You can throw somebody in an MRI machine and look at the parts of their brain and see this person is definitely epileptic. Right. Of course, the convulsions often give them away as well. But with schizophrenia, say exactly. For many eons, that was viewed as a spirit intrusion or spirit possession. Right, which makes sense. I mean, these people with dissociative personality disorder are different people at different times. So you can understand how that would be mistaken as a possession. Sure. In the past I could, sure. But still today I kind of wonder, is it just a clash of worldviews? Maybe. So is a psychological disorder just another term for spirit possession when they're really both talking about the same thing? Right. And does it matter? Interesting angle. Thanks, buddy. So the point is this psychology has its own methods of exorcism antidepressants psychotherapy. Yes. ECT electroconvulsive therapy, which is still used to this day. Did you know that? I didn't. I think we have the method refined a little more than we used to. Right. But yeah, they still hook people up with the electrodes and juice them. Actually, I did know that because it happened on 6ft under and don't tell me, don't tell me. I'm in season three. Oh, don't tell me. It definitely does not happen on 6ft under. Thank you. Thank you for that. Sorry about that. Yeah, no problem. What if you were a trendy apparel company facing an avalancho demand to ensure more customers can buy more sherpa lined jackets? You called IBM to automate your It infrastructure with AI now your systems monitor themselves. What used to take hours takes minutes, and you have an ecommerce platform designed to handle sudden spikes in overall demand, as in actual overalls. Let's create It systems that rule of their own sleeves. IBM let's create. Learn more@ibm.com. It automation. It's 2022 and things look different. Like doctors visits, for example. Sometimes you don't have to go into a doctor's office to be treated for nonemergency situations, like a sinus, infection or allergy. And that's why teladoc gives you the chance to connect with board certified physicians right from your home via phone or video. That's right. Doctors are standing by. Twenty four seven. So you can schedule a visit according to your schedule. You can see for yourself why teladoc is ranked number one by JD power and Telehealth satisfaction with direct to consumer providers. Telecom is available through most major health plans and many employers. But even if you're not covered by insurance, everyone has access to use Teedoc. That's right. If you want to check it out, download the app today or visit teladoc. comStuff to register or schedule a visit today. That's teldoc.com stuff. For JDPower 2021 award information, visit JDPower. comAWARDS so we've got this method of dealing with disturbance through psychology. We also have it through spirituality. And specifically, the Catholic Church is really big on exorcism. Yes. They're the only church that I know of that really still practices it. Yeah. I was raised Catholic, and as you get older, when you're raised in the Catholic Church, everything seems totally normal. This guy is wearing a robe and chanting and burning frankincense, and everybody else is responding with some weird mystical words. Right. The thing is, as you get older, it becomes stranger and stranger, because as any Catholic knows, the older you get, the further you get away from the church. Right. So you get a little more objective. You get an objective view of it. I think that's not necessarily true for all people, but certainly when you look at the Catholic Church, objectively or Catholicism is deeply rooted in mysticism. And it doesn't strike me as odd at all that the Catholic Church still very much believes in exorcism. In demonic possession. Yeah, I believe it. Which we should probably give an actual definition of demonic possession as the Catholic Church sees it. Well, possession or exorcism? Possession. Well, I know some of the telltale signs. Yeah, let's hear, buddy. Yeah. Speaking in tongues. A lot of times it's considered no. Pardon? No, it's not considered part of a demonic position. Speaking in tongues is considered an expression of religious ecstasy. Speaking in foreign languages that one's never encountered, or dead languages. Right. That's an example. I actually said speaking in foreign tongues. I just said it very quietly silent. Yes, that is true. Knowing things that a person has no way of knowing. Yeah. Like what the Pope's wearing at any given time. Right. I bet he's wearing a robe and a tall hat underneath the robe, if you can call that. I imagine they're going to be like. Yeah. Amongst them. Too much physical strength beyond what you normally would have, which we've addressed as well. Right. And a violent aversion to God, the Virgin Mary or a cross or other religious images. Yeah. So that's pretty much it. If you can fit all these, then there's a chance that you are possessed by the devil. As far as my church is concerned. I didn't see in here head spinning around or vomiting pea soup. No. Or the spider crawl. No. And of course, Chuck's referring to the classic horror film The Exorcist, which I watched, actually this past Halloween. Really? Not as scary as I remember, but psychologically thrilling. Great. And after researching this, I found that if you take Linda Blair out of the scenes yes. And you just have The Exorcism, the rights of exorcism that are performed by Max Bond sideau and the other guy accurate. It is very accurate, absolutely. It's pretty much the opposite of the website Garfield minus Garfield where if you take Garfield out, it turns out that John is either schizophrenic or addicted to methamphetamine or possessed by the devil. Possibly. Full circle. Yeah. So it's the opposite of that, really. A Catholic exorcism or Rite of exorcism is a series of special prayers. And actually it's a combination of fairly familiar prayers. There's a lot of call and response right there's. Doubling the possessed individual with holy water using crucifixes and relics, which can be anything anything associated with the saints, including a body part there's actually the saints. If you were a saint several hundred years ago you were destined to be chopped up into as many little pieces as possible in churches around the world. Yeah. Relics are huge. Interesting. Yeah. Well, there you go. I didn't know that either. Well, before this all happens, there's an investigation. This is when there's a real threat of a possession. You can actually lodge a query to the Catholic Church and they'll send someone out. A lot of times that priests will come with a psychological evaluator just to rule out other things. Sometimes they'll go to a medical doctor but they actually do a full fledged investigation. And they said, I think one in 5000 turns out to be what they consider to be a real demonic possession. Or at the very least worth using an exorcism for it. Yeah. Worth giving it a shot. Yes. I didn't want you to get the impression that I think that the church's approach to exorcism is hokey in any way. I think they take a very methodical approach. They do. And they rule out everything else that it could possibly be. I think if you decide to perpetrate a fraud like you're possessed by the devil right. You're in for a really long, painful evaluation process where you really have to be committed to the bit to follow it through. And finally get to the exorcism. And if you're basing it on movies, you'll probably be really disappointed. Right. There's this book that this guy wrote. I cannot remember his name or the name of the book, but he was a sociologist who basically went to Exorcisms, performed around the country for several years during his research period. And he describes one where a guy named Warren, who is basically depressed, drinks a lot. Really, his life is pretty out of sorts, and he's come to believe that he's possessed by a diabolical presence, I think is the church vernacular for it. And basically the priest just prays for him. And there's the holy water and the crucifix and all that. Warren just kind of sits there looking a little gloomy the whole time, and then that's about that, right? And apparently in the book, Warren reported feeling like something had left him, which is good. Sure, it's a good thing. He said he felt fine, but it was fairly anticlimactic. Right? No head spinning or anything? I have that book title if people want to read. It's called American Exorcism. Expelling demons in the Land of Plenty by Michael C-U-N-E-O kunokunio Cuneo. Cuneo. Let's go with Kashkari. What if you were a global bank who wanted to supercharge your audit system, so you tap IBM to UNSILO your data, and with the help of AI, start crunching a year's worth of transactions against thousands of compliance controls. Now you're making smarter decisions, faster operating costs are lower, and everyone from your auditors to your bankers feel like a million bucks. Let's create smarter ways of putting your data to work. IBM let's create learn more@ibm.com. It's 2022. When things look different, like doctor's visits, for example, sometimes you don't have to go into a doctor's office to be treated for nonemergency situations, like a sinus, infection or allergy. And that's why teladoc gives you the chance to connect with board certified physicians right from your home via phone or video. That's right. Doctors are standing by. Twenty four seven. So you can schedule a visit according to your schedule. You can see for yourself why teledoc is ranked number one by JD Power and Telehealth satisfaction with direct to consumer providers. Teleadoc is available through most major health plans and many employers. But even if you're not covered by insurance, everyone has access to use teletock. That's right. If you want to check it out, download the app today or visit teladoc. comStuff to register or schedule a visit today. That's teladoc.com stuff. For JDPower 2021 Award information, visit jdpower.com awards. Yeah, they're kind of anticlimactic. But if at the end, people like Warren feel like that their life has changed, if it's just using their faith to maybe manipulate them, even if there's no intentional manipulation. But if that's really what's going on in the most objective view, how could it hurt? Why don't we just run around performing exorcisms all the time? I have an answer for you playing on me, sort of, because there aren't enough priests really to go around that are capable of doing this. The Catholic Church actually appointed ten priests in 1996, and I think there was already previously won the only guy doing exorcism. So there's now eleven at that time, at least. And they have a group called the International Association of Exorcist, I noticed. Yeah, they meet every year horribly newsletter. You know what I would do to get my hands on that newsletter? Yes. Apparently they share tricks of the trade tips for one another for exorcism. Yeah, I would love to get my hands on that. Right. I'd love to sit on one of those meetings, but that's a lot of fun. It is. That's one reason why we just don't have or the Catholic Church just doesn't have the manpower to go around performing exorcism. Right. But also there's a couple of other problems with exorcism as far as controversy generated by them. One is what we've talked about, the psychology versus religion clash, right. Which has been going on pretty much since medicine came about and basically labeled everybody else's witches or at the very least simple or what have you, archaic primitive. Right. Yeah. And that's one problem. If we just ran around performing exorcisms and there were people who had very treatable psychological disorders exactly. Would the exorcism work or would pharmaceuticals be better or some sort of immersive therapy be better for them so we could actually do damage. That's true. Which is why the church, I imagine, has psychological evaluations done. Right. And these are done by professionals, from my understanding as well. It's not like the priest is like, hey, are you crazy? Right. They get a psychiatrist or psychologist outside of the Catholic Church. The other problem is there are groups that do exorcism for profit. Yes. This is where it gets a little, I don't know, greedy, possibly fake, maybe. There's one group that is well known for their exorcisms. There's a guy named Bob Larson. Yeah, Bob Larson Ministries. He actually has a show called The Real Exorcist on The Scifi Channel. That should be your first click right there. Exactly. He runs the Spiritual Freedom Church, as far as I know, and he does exorcisms. I don't know that he actually charges for exorcisms, but I think he's really good at drumming up donations. Well, yeah, and he does this in front of a crowd and he charges for tickets. Does he really? Yeah, because apparently you can get a family rate on your tickets to go see these exorcism. Okay. It gives you a break if you bring the kids along. Well, I was reading on the Spiritual Freedom Church website a testimonial from a girl named Autumn from my dear esteemed hometown of Toledo, Ohio. Let's hear it. Apparently the Spiritual Freedom Church rolled through town and held a mass exorcism or whatever spectacle. Right. And Autumn, it turned out, had been possessed by a several centuries old African woman named Mushita, okay? Now, Mushita apparently means whore in whatever ancient African vernacular that her name comes from, okay? And she basically was pretty much into committing acts of hoarding in reverence for an African deity. Okay, so she became promiscuous. Yeah. Well, it was really Mu shita, but it was Autumn who was running around committing acts of hoarding. This is not my word, by the way. I actually didn't realize hoordem was a word until this is very afternoon. Is that her right there? That's her. She's kind of cute. Yeah. So Autumn goes to see Bob Larson, who exercises the demons, and apparently you could see an immediate change in Autumn, and she was very grateful. So, again, we come to this fine line, as far as I'm concerned, right. If Autumn is no longer running around being promiscuous, as you said, right. She no longer feels like she's out of control with her life. Does it matter whether it was an exorcism or antidepressants or whether she paid for this or not? Right. I come to Jesus moment, a scene of the light. Does it matter now? There's all kinds of ways of reaching that moment of clarity. I agree. If you ask me. I agree. So as far as I'm concerned, to each his own. Sure. That's our motto here. It pretty much keeps us out of hot water, right? So if you want to pay for your exorcism, there's plenty of places you can do it. Just go on to a Google search, and I believe you type in exorcist and you will find what you're looking for. And good luck. So stick around because we have a new bit here. We like to fill up time as much as possible. We're going to call it correction time. Right? It's a good title. It's coming up right now. So, Chuck, we have a correction from one of our listeners, right? This was from a couple of our podcasts. We mentioned this famous study in Massachusetts. Let's go to a clip of Chuck being wrong. So what they've learned is that there was this big study. I know that you love this study, the Farmington Heart Study. I love this study. It's enormous. It's sweeping. This is what a study should be like, right? So that's me, and that's my voice. And it is not farmington. No. It is actually framingham. There's no ton involved. There's no farm. It is a frame. And this is pointed out by one of our listeners. Glenna Carpenter wrote us in. Thank you, Glenn, for pointing that out. Yes. Glenn wanted herself a new Ford Focus. Actually, she's pointing that out. Yeah. So if you want to point out something that we've done wrong or tell us how much you like us or hate us yeah. More like us, though. Okay. You can send an email to stuffpodcast@howstuffworks.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit houseofworks.com. Hey, it's summer, everybody, which means schools out, the sun's shining, the daylights longer. And best of all, there's plenty of time to get lost in a good, thrilling story. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music, My Favorite Murder from Exactly Right media, My Favorite Murder has something for everyone. Hosted by Karen Kilgarif and Georgia Hardstarks, this true crime comedy podcast will share stories that will have you wanting more before you know it. Listen to new episodes of my favorite Murder. One week early on Amazon music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen today. You know you're a pet mom when you played. Plan your vacation around your pet at Halo. We get it because we're pet moms, too. We make natural, high quality pet food that's rooted in science. It's the world's best food for the world's best kids. Learn More@halopets.com."
http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/podcasts.howstuffworks.com/hsw/podcasts/sysk/2016-11-29-sysk-frostbite-final.mp3	Frostbite: Yeeeow!	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/frostbite-yeeeow	Up to the 1950s most reports of frostbite came from the world’s militaries, but as outdoor sports have gotten more popular, so have frostbite cases. Learn about how frostbite wreaks havoc on your extremities, even literally freezing off your tookus.	Up to the 1950s most reports of frostbite came from the world’s militaries, but as outdoor sports have gotten more popular, so have frostbite cases. Learn about how frostbite wreaks havoc on your extremities, even literally freezing off your tookus.	Tue, 29 Nov 2016 08:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2016, tm_mon=11, tm_mday=29, tm_hour=8, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=334, tm_isdst=0)	34664350	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Hey everybody. I don't know about you, but I am excited that it's summer, school's out, the sun is shining, and best of all, there's downtime four days. That's where true crime podcasts on Amazon music come in. They're the perfect activity for last minute road trips, long walks, or you're brave enough late nights. With so many killer shows like Morbid, my Favorite Murder, and Small Town Murder, you'll never be bored to death again. So download the free Amazon Music app to start listening to all your favorite true crime podcasts. Plus, with Amazon Music, you can access new episodes early. Download the app today. Hey, everybody. If you want a great website, you want to do it yourself with no must, no fuss. Turn to Squarespace. They have everything to sell anything. They have the tools that you need to get your business off the ground, including ecommerce templates, inventory management, a simple checkout process, and secure payments. And if you're into analytics, hold on to your hats because Squarespace has everything that you need. Just head to squarespace. Comsysk and you can get a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use offer code s YSK to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Hey everybody in the greater San Francisco Bay area, we're also looking at you, Oakland. We are coming out to sketchfest this year again for the second year in a row. And we are doing a rare Sunday afternoon jam. So that is Sunday, January 15 at 01:00 P.m.. You can come see us live and tickets are going to go fast, so go to sfsketchfest.com and just click on the little ticket links or look at the line up and follow us there. And we can't wait to see everyone. It's one of our favorite cities to perform in. And go to Sfscatchfestcom. Oakland, san Francisco. We will see you soon. Welcome to stuff you should know from housetofworkscom. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. And there's Charles. Debbie, chuck Bryant. And there's Jerry. And it is really cold here in the studio. It is election day, part two. We're recording on election day. That's right. Jerry's got on her pantsuit. Yeah. Which means that she's going to make America great again. She's got on her pantsuit and her hat that says make America great again. I early voted, so I wasn't out there today. Yeah, but I heard people saying, like, oh, I want to wait till the real day because I get more out of that experience. No, it's like Christmas now. Well, it's not just one day. It's spread out over weeks. To each their own, of course. But when I early voted, there were plenty enough people there for me to feel like I enjoy voting. It's a fun experience. And it wasn't like I showed up early and they were just like, get in there and vote. Right? No one cares. Don't make eye contact. No, they have like, still a grand old flag blaring on the speakers at the doorway and all that. Yeah. And, hey, well, this is for the next election. I should have said this weeks ago. Thank an election volunteer. Okay. Just go up and say thank you to somebody. It's a lot of hard work, and they only make about $25 an hour. Get spit on a lot, I imagine. It's not fun in a lot of precincts. Sure. And anyway, good people doing good work. And that's all nice, I have to say about that. Are you ready? So let's talk about frostbite. When you were standing in line for early voting, was it cold out? No, it was late October. So it was very hot. Like 100 deg. Well, you're very lucky that it wasn't cold out, because had it been very cold out, Chuck and had you been wearing what you're wearing now? T shirt and me andi yeah. And that's it. That's it. And tennis shoes. Yeah. Well, yeah, it's a terrible look. You would have been a likely candidate for frostbite, depending on the temperature. Yes. And arrested. Yes. Perhaps. Probably. It depends on how cool your election volunteer was. Yeah. So here's a little tip. If you're looking into frostbite, for one reason or another oh, I know what you're going to say. Don't look at images of frost. No need. I like them. It's like they like balloon animals. Yeah. We're not making light because this is something that affects people to the point of amputation. Yeah, it definitely can, but you don't need to go look at the pictures of blackened toes and blistered fingers and things, but if you do, it's really gross and you want to cope with the whore, just pretend again that they're blue animals. Okay. All right. So have you heard of this dude ruling gardener? I had not until this. So he was a wrestler, and I'm not surprised you hadn't heard of him, especially if we were talking in the 90s, because he was virtually a nobody. He was a professional Olympic level wrestler. Greco Roman. Right, of course. But he was not like WWF Olympic wrestling. They should do that, but more like team fox catcher style wrestling. Right, sure. Okay. But in the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, this guy came out of nowhere. He never placed like, higher than either fourth or fifth, I think. And he came out of nowhere in the 2000 Olympics and won the gold. He became the reigning world champion of Greco Roman wrestling. Yes. Right. Of his weight class. And he was just this cool, nice farm boy from Wisconsin. No, from Wyoming. Yes. Okay. And a couple of years after his win, his big win in the Olympics, he was snowmobiling out around his house, I guess, and he got stuck up there in like, a 17,000 foot elevation, mountainous area, 10,000, but close enough. Still pretty high. And it was cold out. It was, I mean, super cold, chuck 80 degrees below Fahrenheit. That's crazy. Negative 62 degrees Celsius, and he's stranded like he's out there. So when you're like this, unless you have prepared to spend an extended amount of time outdoors in that weather, even if you have sometimes, yeah. But if you haven't, you're in big trouble. You're probably going to die. At the very least, you're going to get some serious frostbite. And that's all that ruling Gardner ended up with, was serious frostbite. And actually, he's a really good example, as we'll see, of how a person or why a person could survive in that kind of weather and just get frostbite. Why it wasn't worse. He lost a toe, right? Yeah, he did. Not bad. No, not bad for being out there for was it 17 hours in negative 80 degree? I'd be like, just the moment I stepped outside, I'd just fall over and die. I wouldn't even make it onto my snowmobile. They're like, Josh, you can probably make it. No, leave me. Leave me. You're still in the living room. So he actually came back in one of bronze with the toe missing. Yeah, missing a toe pretty good. Yeah. And I saw he was on the Biggest Loser show. I think he gained a lot of weight. So if it was fat, that's not good for frostbite. If it was muscle mass. It's like Mr. Frostbite fighter. I think you put on fat weight and win on The Biggest Loser and I think perhaps lost that weight. Good for him. Well, he's just a winner all over, isn't he? Sounds like it. So frostbite, it turns out, is not an extensively studied malady. It's called a cold weather injury. Right. Cold temperature injury. Yeah. It's not tracked very well either. No. The reason why is because up until about the 50s, if you got frostbite, you were probably a soldier. That's where most cases of frostbite came from. The military around the world. Yeah. You're a cross country skier or a soldier. Right. And then as cross country skiing got more popular and then downhill skiing gained popularity and then snowboarding came along and outdoor winter sports increased, and mountain climbing is another big one, too. Incidents of frostbite went up as well. So it was really in just the last few decades that frostbite has really become a lot more prevalent. It's become, like, significantly prevalent, but just our understanding of it isn't as widespread as you would think. Yeah. It says in here, 10% of casualties, american casualties in WWE and Korea were frostbite. Yeah. Crazy. And a lot of those I saw were high altitude frostbite cases where they were up in a plane and the plane wasn't insulated enough. Interesting. Poor guy just got frostbite. Wow. Yeah. Cold weather injuries. And this includes frostbite and other stuff. They say that men between 30 to 49, it's most common, and it just makes sense. It says they're more likely to be the ones in engaging in these kind of outdoor extreme temperature activities. Okay. Tell that to Peekaboo Street. Yeah, that's what I say. And then, of course, if you live in a warm or hot weather country and maybe you're a soldier or something, then you're going to be more likely to get frostbite. Yeah. So apparently, if you are of African descent, arab descent, or Pacific Islander descent, you are likelier, to get frostbite than, like, a Caucasian or an Asian person. And that's because of just what your body is used to. They don't know. No one's ever said. Any explanation of it tends to be armchair and trapezes very quickly into, like, racism. So science is like we've documented that. It's definitely true. I think African American soldiers get it, like, four times more likely they're four times likelier to get it than their Caucasian soldiers in the same study. But they're like we have no idea why, but we just can't say why. Like, what are you saying? We're not saying anything. We just documented it. All right, so let's talk a little bit about the symptoms. Like we said before, even if you are dressed for the weather, it's this prolonged exposure. What's the worst cold weather experience of your life? Do you remember? I do. All right, let's share this real quick. We're when I was four, maybe five, I had this pair of cowboy boots that I loved, and I got them when I was maybe three. Well, you started to grow significantly between three and four and five. So I'd outgrow the cowboy boots, but my parents had neglected to buy me a replacement cowboy boots. Yeah. And I neglected to take away the ones that are now too small. So I went outside and I wanted to wear my cowboy boots, but I couldn't wear socks with them or anything. And it is the middle of winter in Toledo. I'm sliding around on ice in my cowboy boots with no socks, and I got home and I lost three toes. I didn't lose the toes, but everything else was that was my first brush with the concept of frostbite because my mom was like, you could have gotten frostbite, you're a dumb kid. Yeah, that was a really eye opening experience for me. I went to a Cleveland Browns game a few years ago. Yeah, but that was in Cleveland. Possibly the most miserable sporting event I've ever not possibly. I've never understood why far and away. Why what? Why people do that to themselves. Well, they wear, like, a badge of honor in those cold weather states. Green Bay. Yeah. They love that stuff. I don't know if they really love it or if they just they've all gotten so used to dealing with it that's their way to deal with it is by putting down people who don't have to deal with it. Right. Like, they'll come to Atlanta and it'll be like, 28 deg, which is cold, and there's a summer to us. No, it's below freezing. You never know where you are. You Packer fan. Anyway, the Browns Dolphins game of a few years ago was truly miserable. That stadium in Cleveland is right next to the lake, and the water, the wind just whips off that water into the stadium, man. And I remember walking in there thinking like, man, I am toasty. I'm going to be just fine. I was layered, like eight layers deep, had pocket warmers. I've got this. And as the game went on, just slowly and slowly and slowly, it just started to creep in through all those layers. I'm talking long johns, thermals sweatshirts, sweaters, hoodies, and like, the big parka, it sounds like you did everything right and it's still just cut through. And by the end of the game, my internal core was freezing. Right. And that's the big problem, right? Because frostbite is your body's natural response to staving off hypothermia, which is an even bigger problem. You're not going to die from frostbite because there's only certain areas of the body and they're really ultimately not that important to keeping you alive. But hypothermia, that's the money problem, right? That's the one that's going to kill you. Because with hypothermia, your core temperature drops and you end up freezing to death. Yes. Phosphatey is your body's reaction to that. And what it does I don't want you to freeze to death. Right. This one's on TV. It's not even blacked out. Like, go watch it on TV. Yeah, dummy. But we can lose a toe, right? And that's fine. It'll be a badge of honor, and you can go to Green Bay with that thing. So your body says, all right, fine, we'll lose a toe. Then I'm going to stop sending blood to your extremities, including your toe, and I'm going to save it for your core. That's right. And it's not like your core needs more blood at that point, but when your blood goes out to your skin and your fingers and your arms and your ears and your nose and your penis, you can get frostbite on your penis. Did you come across that? What do you mean come across it? At the Browns game in your research. Did you see that? No, I didn't. You can, right? Well, that's definitely not something I will Google. So when blood goes out to these extremities, it's being exposed to that cold air more, whereas if it stays circulating in the core, then it's able to just keep the core warm because the blood is not getting cold and coming back into the core and robbing the core of its warmth to reheat the blood. I would hope that Weewi is close enough to your core. I saw amongst Joggers it can be a real problem. Well, that's because of wearing those little dolphin running shorts, right? Yeah. In Green Bay. And I should finish up that story about that game. It was not only miserable because of the weather, but that field was wet and frozen and it was the Browns Dolphins and it was literally like I think it was like a six to nothing game. Oh, man, it was just awful. Did you at least get some good nachos out of the deal? I don't think so. You're too cold to eat? No, well, I mean, I was with my in laws and sister in law and my father in law. They don't need not to my cousin in law. Cousin in law, yeah, sure. So that was fun. Okay. But by the end of the game, I was like, you people are crazy. This is miserable. I know. Why? Everyone's drunk. Which is a bad move as far as frostbite goes as we'll see that's. Right. But let's get back to this bit about sending warm blood to the extremities. And this is something I did not know. It's pretty neat though, but your hands and your feet have these little junctions between arteries and veins that you can shut off, like a faucet called arteriovennous anastomosis. Nice. That's literally what happens is your body starts to get cold and they say, you know what, I'm going to shut it down for your hands and feet. So sorry, but we need to keep your internal organs nice and warm. Right. There's actually something called the hunting response. And the hunting response is where your arteriovanus anesthetmosis shut off. So the blood to your extremities is shut off, but then every ten to 15 minutes, they get turned back on so that there's blood going back to your extremities again for a few minutes and then they get shut off again. So it's keeping it going just enough so that your extremities aren't actually going to freeze. Interesting. But then that hunting response is only good down to about zero degrees Celsius. Freezing, right? Yes. Once it hits that, your hunting response turns off and the circulation to your extremities is shut off entirely. It's not coming back on anymore. Yeah. And at this point, your skin is literally freezing between the space, between cells, ice crystals are forming. It's going to dehydrate the interior, those cells, and damage that tissue. And you're in bad shape at that point. Yeah. Because ice crystals are literally forming in between your cells. Right. And if that damages the cells, that's bad enough. But when ice is forming, as anybody knows, ice is less dense than water, right? And as it forms, it takes that water and sucks it up. And since cells love homeostasis, they want to regain that balance of solution between the outside the cell and inside the cell. So water is drawn out of the cells, that stuff freezes, too, and all of a sudden, your cells are dehydrated and the stuff in between them is ice crystals. So it's a bad jam in there. And we'll get further into the cells after this. You want your kid eating the best nutrition, right? For all their days at the dog park and nights sleeping in bed. Your bed. Yep. We mean that, kid. Your dog. Halo Elevate is natural science based nutrition for their best health. It's guaranteed to support your dog's top five health needs better than leading brands. That means digestive health, heart and immunity support healthy skin and coat hip and joint support and strengthen energy. 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I think frostnip comes before that, I think. Is it getting closer and closer to zero degrees. It says here frostnip is mild frostbite only skin freezes and skin appears yellowish or white, but feels soft to the touch, tingling and burning sensations. But there's no like the extracellular matrix is not actually freezing and forming ice crystals. Don't think, at this point in frostnip, once it just sounds cuter. Yeah, it does. You just got a little frostnip. Yeah. Some marshmallows will clear that right up. Once the ice crystal form the extracellular matrix, you've hit frostbite though, for sure, right? Yeah. So can we talk about the degrees now? Yeah. All right. First degree, superficial wounding and underlying of the skin and the underlying tissue and numb to the sensation that might be frostnip. No, frostnip has tingling still. Frostbite is where you're numb. Yeah. And your hands supposedly feel like blocks of wood or your leg or your penis, whatever, is being frostbitten, and it's horrible. So like a heavy block of wood, still superficial, just like you don't want to hang around. It's not very deep in conversation. Very superficial. And the skin blisters and the tissue freezes. Third degree, you're going to get that deep tissue and skin wounding, blisters, blood filled blisters, permanent tissue damage. And then finally fourth degree, no good at all. You're going to lose a digit or a limb because of all the dead tissue. Severe, severe tissue damage. Yeah. It's almost certainly going to result in amputation because you've got necrosis. You've got cellular death. Yes. Like extensive cellular death. When those things get dehydrated and cut up by the crystals, the ice crystals, they're toast, no coming back, no and it's even worse, it turns out, when it freezes and then thaws and then refreezes. Yeah. I did not know that. Well, it makes sense though, because you've got the initial damage from those ice crystals that form and then they thaw and then they form new ice crystals and do even more extensive damage. It would make sense that your cells would be like, you had one shot, you blew it, you thawed and then refresh. Who does that? Yeah, it's like skunky beer. Yeah. All right, so I just gave myself away and said that I did not know that about the rewarming. But I also and I wrote articles on cold weather survival. Oh, yeah. And I don't remember I thought the way to treat frostbite was too and I think I might have been thinking hypothermia, it was to very gradually re warm your hand or whatever. Not with frostbite. It makes sense that you would totally thought like no, you don't want to shock your frostbite in hand. No, you do with warm water, but that's exactly what you want to do. Yeah. And it has to be warm water. And the reason why is because direct heat from like a heating pad or something like that can actually really damage the damage that's already done. It can take it and finish it off well because you don't have that feeling in your hand. So you might be burning yourself and not even know it. Right, but I get the impression that also direct heat itself, actually on a cellular level is problematic for the tissue damage. Right. So you want indirect warmth through water. Oh, interesting. And you plunge your hands, let's say so I keep going to hands because I think that's probably the most hands and feet, probably, sure. Let's say it's feet. Right. You get a couple of buckets of 104 deg Fahrenheit temperature water and you plunge your hands and your feet in them and just leave them in there until they're re warmed. Yeah. You don't want to make it too hot. No. And there's some really important points to say here. First of all, we're not doctors. No, we're not lawyers either, but we know enough to say that we're not doctors. That's correct. So if you find yourself in a cold weather injury survival situation like this, or you come across somebody, from what I've seen, you don't actually want to do this until you're down off the mountain. Well, yes, because of the whole thing with falling and refreezing. That's one part of it. It said don't start this process unless you know you can complete it. Right. Unless you know that it's not going to freeze again because you got the freeze thaw freeze injury that comes about. But also one of the other things you're going to find is that like I was saying earlier, your extremity that's frostbitten, once it thaws, it's going to resemble a balloon animal very quickly. Yeah. And if you're hiking out of a mountain area, somebody came to get you. Finally, a ravine, let's say. Sure. You're actually better off walking out on your frostbitten feet than you are rewarming them and trying to walk out on those because they're going to just balloon up and you will not be able to walk on them afterward at the very least if they're frostbit and you can't feel them and they're not swollen. But part of the thawing process is what's called perfusion or reperfusion. And there's something called a reperfusion energy where blood and oxygen comes back to the site and it actually leads to inflammation and the tissue damage from the body going back to its normal processes can actually make the whole thing way worse. Yeah. And that also ties in nicely with one of the things I recommend is to keep moving if you're stranded somewhere, even if you don't leave the area, get up and walk in circles. Like anything you can do to try and get circulation going to those extremities again. Yeah, and we talked about it kind of in the Hibernation episode where when you make your muscles move, it requires energy and it burns the ATP and creates heat as a byproduct. So any time you can move your muscles, you're actually generating heat, which is what the sugar response is. That's right. One thing that they said in 2007, though was an issue in Archives of Surgery, that Hot hot publication. They said that they had some pretty good results, promising at least from a study about anticlocking agents like blood thinning agents to help that blood flow. But I don't know where that's gone since then. And it said that not everyone is a candidate for that. And this is something that you would obviously not have if you were out there trying to survive. Something you would get maybe in the emergency room. Sure. Right. And the other big thing is infection. After you've rewarmed that tissue infection is a big problem waiting to happen. Huge problem. Like you're a prime candidate for tetanus. When your feet swell, the skin can very easily crack, your toe can just fall off and you don't have to worry about amputation anyway. Right. Oh man. And again, a lot of this is what's called a reperfusion injury. So when this immune response or this inflammation response comes and puffs up your foot or your hand or whatever has been frostbitten, if you're out in the field, you would be very smart to have aloe vera gel on you because it actually prevents what are called prosthlandins from entering the site and they are part of the inflammatory response. So the more you can keep your frostbitten hand or foot from being inflamed, the better off you're going to be. Another thing that you're not supposed to do. And it says here the thing that you've seen in movies where you clap your frozen hands together. I've never seen that in my life. What is that? I don't know. I don't know what that is. It was like The Karate Kid. I think it's the movie that I see. Maybe. But it also says here, don't walk on your frozen feet. And that sounds counter to what we were saying. I think what we were talking about earlier is if the only way out of the woods is you to save your life. Yeah. But if you've got rescue people oh, yeah. Don't walk. Yeah. If you got people that will carry you down a mountain. Yeah, go with that. Exactly. I think what this guy was saying was if you are up on the mountain and yes, the person needs to walk down probably shouldn't start the thawing process because they're not going to be able to walk after their feet are thawed because they're going to balloon up. Got you. All right, well, let's take another break and we'll talk a little bit about Prevention right after this. You know you're a pet mom when you growl back during playtime and you insist on feeding them the highest quality food you can find. Enter Halo Holistic, made with only whole meat, no meat meals and probiotics. 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Or if you're a reindeer herder. Well, I was just saying you might have a job too, though. Sure. You're a mail carrier or roadworks reindeer herder. Reindeer herder. Industry. Farm oil. The oil industry has a lot of frostbite. Sure, I could see that. So there's a lot of industries, obviously, where you're forced to be out there and hopefully you're being taken care of through the company you work for. But you should also take care of yourself by layering, like we talked about. Use that thermal underwear on the bottom and then layer on top of that. Yeah. And you want to wear something that is tight. Well, not necessarily tight. It's fitting. But not compression. I saw specifically several places do not wear compression clothing and cold weather situations. All right. And you want stuff that's not going to make you. Sweat or is going to trap sweat. You want stuff that's going to breathe, right? Because if you sweat and it traps the sweat, your clothes are going to freeze to your body. So comfortable, wicking? Yes. Clothing layered upon layered upon layer, preferably with mobile. It's very soft. What else? You can keep your body in shape. Diabetes and other circulatory diseases, thyroid conditions, they can all lend themselves to be more apt to get frostbite. Yeah. And a common myth I thought this was the case, too, but a common myth is that if you were overweight, if you have layers of fat, it will protect you on the cold. And actually, no, it's not true. Supposedly, layers of fat tend to deaden your nerve endings, which would tell your body to get some blood going. Yeah. And if they're deaden, then they're not going to be doing that. One thing you should do, though, right, is if you have a little whiskey and a cigarette, just nip on that and smoke a cigarette and that will warm you right up. Yeah. It's not true. Maybe if you know for a fact that no one's coming for you might as well have a last drink and the last smoke. Okay. But if you're trying to warm yourself no, that's the opposite of what you want to do. Yeah. I think we did another show on Avalanches, maybe that was right a long time ago with the St. Bernards. Yeah. Because I remember the drinking alcohol, and it also talks about other illegal drugs. But booze is a sort of a double edge, not double edged sword. It's a double hammer. Sure. It's a two headed hammer because it makes you feel warmer, but you're actually getting colder. Right. And it's also going to affect your in judgment. Yeah, sure. You might stop walking around, you might be like, oh, it doesn't matter. Yeah. Stupid mountain. I'm just going to sit down. This vodka is warming me up. Yeah. And the reason why did you say because it carries the blood to your skin for a second, so it makes you feel flushed, but when it's doing that, it's carrying away from your core. So it's a really bad move in a very cold weather situation to drink bad. And the same with smokes. Cigarette does not warm you up in any way. And Yale University said that the smokers have a greater risk for frostbite because nicotine just slows everything down and it's even going to make your blood pump slower and make it harder to get to your digits and your weebly. Yeah. So, Chuck, I feel like we probably saved some lives here today. I got another little thing. I found an infographic that was cute, that had a couple of things that I didn't know. And this isn't frostbite necessarily, but I just thought it was interesting. Do you know why your nose runs when it's cold? No. In trying to warm up cold air, on the weight of the lungs. Extra blood flow within the nostrils leads to more mucus. Oh, that's cute. Eyeballs don't freeze. I didn't know that. Thankfully. But your contacts can freeze your eyeballs, though. Think about that. But your eyeballs don't freeze because they're inside the head. And your head is not one of your extremities. That's part of the core. Your body wants to keep your head nice and warm. And what else? Ears are great risk because there are no muscles in the ear to produce heat. No major muscles. And finally, your cheeks are going to turn red because again, the surface blood vessels dilate when it falls below ten degrees Celsius. I saw that. Your buttocks are actually at risk as well. Especially if you're like watching a football game on aluminum bleachers or something like that. Yeah. Because that material is going to wick the heat right out of your butt. Yeah. Right out of your tucker. Yes. So it's frostbite to stay indoors, drink some hot chocolate. Yeah. Watch that brown's game on your big wide screen and drink a hot toddy. There you go. Emily had a toddy last night because she's sick. Oh, yeah, those work. Yeah. Her big push now is on natural remedies and so she looked up like a good old fashioned toddy recipe. Yeah. Does she like it? She loved it. They're really great when you're sick. Yeah, I imagine it really takes the edge off. She had a little ginger water to hers. Oh, nice. And it was nice and spicy, hot and warm to the touch. So let's hope she stays sick for a while. Well, feel better, Emily. I'm going to enjoy those as well. One for you, one for me. That's kind of nice, actually. I just had a bourbon. I know. You don't have to be sick to have a hot toddy. No, they do help when you are, then. Yeah. If you want to know more about frostbite, you can type that word in the search bar. How stuff works.com. Since I said search bar, it's time for listener mail. I'm going to call this ham radio, I guess. Okay. Oh, burglar tape. Oh, yeah. Hey, guys. A big fan of the podcast. I was excited to share some knowledge from my area of expertise in the ham radio, you mentioned burglar tape. I've worked in the electronic security and fire protection industry for 16 years. You can remember my first exposure to burglary tape. Back before motion detectors and acoustic glass brake detectors, burglar tape was used to trigger an alarm if a window was broken. Isn't that what we figured or what? Yeah, I thought so. It's essentially a thin foil tape that was glued to a window using a clear liquid glue. The tape was applied around the perimeter of the window directly on the glass. The foil tape would then be tied down to a two wire circuit at one of the corners of the window frame. The foil completed the circuit. So if the foil was severed from the window breaking, the circuit would open and initiate an alarm. Technology has left burglar tape behind. Is there much less invasive means to detect a window breaking today? But as far as being a ham radio antenna, makes perfect sense. Nice. That is from Josh Hines. Hi, Josh. All right, fellow Josh, where do you go? If you want to get in touch with us like Josh did, you can tweet to us at Josh Clark or at Syskpodcast. You can hang out with Chuck at Charleswchuckbryant on Facebook and@facebook.com stuffyheno. Send us an email to stuffpodcast@howstuffworks.com. And as always, join us at our home on the web stuffyoushouldnow.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstofworks.com. Hey, everybody, Chuck here. Right now, there are millions of people around the world hosting on airbnb. I mean, there's no doubt it's a great way to earn extra income, but I've always wondered about their stuff. Like what happens if somebody drops a wine glass? Well, now I know. Thanks to Air Cover for Hosts, people can welcome guests into their home with confidence. Air Cover for Hosts gives you damage protection for free every time you host. Learn more and host with peace of mind@airbnb.com. Aircoverforhosts summer school's out. The sun is shining. The daylight is longer. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music that's so good it's Criminal Morbid. Part true crime and part comedy, Morbid takes you on a journey from murderous mysteries to major laughs, all in the same week. Hosted by autopsy technician Elena Ercart and hairstylist Ash Kelly, this chart topping series will have you hooked before you know it. Listen to new episodes of Morbid one week early, only on Amazon Music. Download free Amazon Music app and listen today."
http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/podcasts.howstuffworks.com/hsw/podcasts/sysk/2017-11-25-sysk-organ-donation1.mp3	SYSK Selects: How Organ Donation Works	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/sysk-selects-how-organ-donation-works	In this week's SYSK Select episode, tune in as Josh and Chuck take a detailed look at organ donation -- from the earliest organ transplants to the organ black market.	In this week's SYSK Select episode, tune in as Josh and Chuck take a detailed look at organ donation -- from the earliest organ transplants to the organ black market.	Sat, 25 Nov 2017 14:00:03 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2017, tm_mon=11, tm_mday=25, tm_hour=14, tm_min=0, tm_sec=3, tm_wday=5, tm_yday=329, tm_isdst=0)	35712612	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Hey, everybody, it's me, Josh. And for this week's SYSK selects, I've chosen a January 2010 episode called how organ donation works. We get into the ins and outs of organ donation the way you can do and what you can't. And we also talk about the black market for organs, which is something that's been in the news recently. There's been a huge Reuters expose on the secondary organ donation market for profit market, which is worth reading, too, especially if this episode floats your boat. So I hope you enjoy how organ donation works. Welcome to stuff you should know from housetepworkscom. Hi, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. With me, as always, is Charles W. Chuck Bryant. Hi. Who I assume has two functional kidneys. I do. Do you? But I would give one up for you, brother. Wow. Would you really? Well, maybe. I think that's true, Chuck. As a living donor. Maybe not. But if I die, then sure, you go. Thanks, man. What about your liver? Because I'm pretty certain I'm going to need somebody's liver. I don't know that you would want mine either, to be honest. Yeah, that'd be like getting Mickey Mantle's liver. I need a virginal liver, don't I? So I can just start over again. Rewash it in vodka. So what are we talking about, Josh? We're talking about organ donation, Chuck. Perfect. Which I find absolutely fascinating. I do, too. Back in 1954 let me take you back a little bit here. Okay. The first successful living human to human organ donation took place. It was a kidney. Yes, it was a great story. Kidneys actually remain the most commonly donated and received organs by a long shot. Right. But this was actually a couple of twin brothers, one of whom was dying of chronic nephritis. Yeah, Richard and Ronald. Harrik. And Richard was the one dying, and Ronald was in good shape. Right. And Ronald said, well, you know what? You're my twin brother, and I don't really want you to die young, so I'm going to give you one of my kidneys. Right. And there have been some other transplants before that. They didn't work out, though. Well, some of them did, but it wasn't live human to human. Like, for example, I think the first donation or transplant that ever took place was way back in 1668. Yeah, that's a good one. Where they fused part of a dog skull under humans head. Crazy. And that graft worked. We have taken testicles from monkeys and successfully implanted them into humans. Sure. A pig kidney was successfully transplanted into a human vein transplants, and a lamb kidney was put into a recipient in 1923, and that person lived for nine days. But 1954 finds the first time a living person donated an organ to another living person, and it was successful. Right. And the reason why they think, was because they're twins, there was a very low chance of rejection. Right. Yeah. And the story is great because Richard, the dying brother, had a clear moment where he literally, like the day before, said, don't do this, man. Get out of here right now. And the brother said, no, I'm going to give you my kidney, like it or not. Chump and he did. And it was a great story. Yeah. And they actually both lived to ripe old ages, reproduced. So they fulfilled their destiny as humans. Yes. And since then, Josh, there have been more than a half a million of these organ transplants performed. Right. We've gotten a lot better at it. Yeah. As I was rambling off that list of stuff that took place before 1954, we have gotten exponentially better. In 2003, we successfully transplanted a tongue. Yes, I saw that. Which I could use a tongue transplant. A slightly thinner tongue would do me a lot better. I think he had a fat tongue. Yeah. And do you remember the what did we do? The face transplant. That woman actually remember she got her face from a suicide victim. Right. That was in 2005, and in 2006 no, I know it's coming. A cadaver's penis was transplanted onto a living human. Yeah. And that man gave it back. Yes. And I love the reason they gave was because of it caused psychological problems between the man and his wife, which I can imagine. Let your imagination run with that one. Yeah. I would say the same thing would happen in my household. Right. So thanks to a better understanding of how the human body works, of blood type, of the development of antirejection drugs, like Chuck said, we've had about half a million transplant surgery so far. Right. So Chuck actually is hot and heavy to give out a stat. And this is a very special stat because it's actually most likely going to change by the end of the podcast. Yes. Take it away. These are current stats. If you go to the website Unos.org, the United Network for Organ Sharing, they actually have up to the minute statistics on who needs what and who's giving what and what operations are being performed. And I didn't realize this, but it's up to the minute because earlier in the day, I checked on kidneys and the number actually dropped by three about an hour later on the waiting list. So three people got kidneys in that, like, half hour span. That's so awesome. So I'm just going to read a couple now, and then we'll check back in for fun in 20 minutes and see if that's changed at all. Okay, I'm going to write this down to Chuck because we'll never remember it. This is the first time we've ever used a laptop in the studio and a pen usually just us in our mouths. Total, Josh, we got 105, 288, 105,288 people are waiting for organs. Okay. And we'll do kidney because that's the most popular. 83,012 people are waiting for a kidney as of 2003. PM. All right. And we'll check that in 20 minutes. And hopefully those numbers have gone down. Yeah. Because that will mean that either the people on the waiting list have died or they received a transplant. I guess we could compare against one another and make her sure. We could surmise. Sure. So, Chuck, what are organs? Yeah, I had a feeling you're going to ask me that. Yeah, Josh, go ahead. No. Okay. Organs are systems of cells, Josh, and tissues. And they all are in our body for a very specific reason, each one. And what I like about the organs is that they are all over equipped, which is what you're looking for in an organ. Right. You don't want the heart to be like, boy, if it beats one beat less, you're really screwed. So our heart actually a 20 year old heart beats, pumps about ten times more than the amount of blood we need. And we have this reserve capacity in all of our organs as young lads and lasses. Right. But as Tom Sheave, who, you know, is my BFF who wrote this article, he points out that the corneas, when you talk about eye transplants, they're talking about corneal transplants, they actually don't necessarily deteriorate like all the other organs. Yeah. That's pretty cool. So the corneas of a 75 year old donor are just as good, considering there's not more wear and tear than, say, a 20 year old. Yeah. You could put a 70 year old person's cornea inside of a young person and there would be no difference. Right. But for organs, they deteriorate with age. Well, that's the bad news. Right. So eventually you may need one. Right? Well, yeah, because what happens is, let's say one organ can deteriorate while the rest of your body remains pretty healthy. That's actually best case scenario, as weird as that sounds, because that means you can just swap that sucker out and you'll be fine again. Right. Well, that's in a very ideal utopian world, that's exactly what happens. The problem is there is a lot more people in need of organs than there are organs available. Right? Right. There's a waiting list. Some aren't so bad. I think kidneys go pretty quick. As you were talking about earlier, the longest wait I found was the old heart lung combo. Right. The median wait time was 6.7 years. Wow. It's a long time to wait for a heart and a lung if you need it. Yeah, a long time because nobody goes, I'm probably going to need a heart and a lung combo eventually. I'll just put myself on the waiting list now. Right. You need it like the moment you go on to that waiting list and you have to wait 6.7 years until you get it right. Yeah. And that's why the mortality rate while waiting for heart is 15%. That's not as bad as I would I would think it would be like 90%. I would say the lungs are 12% and the liver actually is the worst at 13%. Oh, good. Yeah. Sorry. There's two ways you can get organs from a live person or a dead person. Yes. Traditionally, we don't take organs like the heart from a live donor because they would be a dead donor after that. Exactly. You can take things like the liver pancreas uncommonly, but it can be done. A portion of the intestine, blood, blood, stem cells, bone marrow, bones and bones. Yeah. Which giving up a bone. That's really something. After that, you just kind of have this floppy arm, but somebody else has a bone. It's pretty nice. You know what I thought was interesting about the kidney deal, like, why you can give up one kidney and still be okay, is that most of the times when your kidneys are affected, they are both affected. Right. At the same time. Right. It's never going to go down. You'd be like, oh, I wish I still had my healthy kidney. Exactly. Because they both would have been unhealthy. All right, I think we've arrived at the liver truck. This is fascinating to me. It is. Where should we start? Well, let's just start by saying that the liver can grow. It's like the starfish of organ. Yeah. It can regenerate itself, which is just frigging amazing. Sure. So, for instance, let's say you wanted to split your liver in half and transplant that into two different people. You could do that. You could. And actually, if you're an adult donor, they can cut off a child sized portion, which is, I think, the same as like, a child sized meal where you get, like, three chicken nuggets right, and give it to a kid. And Chuck, this is so great. It grows along with the kid. Right. To a full sized liver once again. Yeah. But in step with the kid's maturation. That's just mind boggling. Let's say you needed a piece of your liver. Let's say you needed your liver replaced and I cut half of my liver off and gave it to you. My liver would eventually grow to full size once again. Yeah. If I live that long. So mine would grow and yours would grow. And the cool thing is, with the liver, you don't even have to take out the old liver. You can just put in the new one. No, it's like the best organ on the planet. It really is. Yeah. And our favorite organ, because of the function that it serves. So, Chuck, like I said, you can either be a dead donor or a living donor. A dead donor can donate anything, right. Including your whole body and your eyes, heart, lung, all that stuff that you can't really take from a living donor. Yeah. But there are some exceptions. If you have HIV or disease causing bacteria in your bloodstream or tissue right. They're not going to be taking your organs now. And if you are a practitioner of the Shinto religion. There's not going to be a lot of organ donation going on there either. Right? Yeah. Not only that, but if you are Amish, they might support your donation if there is a certainty, a relative certainty of success. But they're more reluctant if it's less probable of success. Right. And Tom actually mentioned why the Gypsies don't agree with organ donation. They believe that you need your body for the first year to get around the afterlife. Sure. Apparently, after that, you got it down pat and you don't really need it any longer. Right. But he didn't mention Shinto. But I looked it up. They believe that the corpse is impure. The body becomes impure after death. It would be like, here, take this rotting piece of flesh that will save your life, but you're going to be impure while you live. Interesting. So, as a result, in Japan, donation rates are, like, really low compared to the US. Yes. And Joe's has witnessed we should cover them because we always like to talk about them. They're not opposed to it, but they have one rule, which I thought was interesting. You can donate your organ as long as they drain all of the blood out of the organ first before giving it to someone else. Right. So I guess we're not big on transfusions. I don't think so. That'd be my guess. Yeah. Okay. Hey, everyone. When you're running a small business, every second counts, and you can't afford to waste a single moment. So why are you still taking time out of your day to go to the post office? And you could be using Stamps.com. Yeah. For more than 20 years, stamps.com has been indispensable for over 1 million businesses. Because Stamps.com gives you access to all the post office and Ups shipping services you need right. From your computer. That's right. You can streamline your shipping process with Stamps.com easy to use software. All you need is your regular computer and printer. No special supplies or equipment necessary. And you can get discounts you can't find anywhere else, like up to 30% off USPS. Rates and 86% off ups. So stop wasting time and start saving money. When you use Stamps.com to mail and ship, sign up with promo code stuff for a special offer that includes a four week trial, plus free postage and a digital scale. No long term commitments or contracts. Just go to Stamps.com, click the microphone at the top of the home page and enter code stuff. How do you register chuck? Well, it's pretty easy, actually. In most states, you can do it at the DMV, which I always found interesting. Yeah, you can do it right with there when you're getting a new driver's license. And here in Georgia, actually, we used to have one of the highest donor rates, or I should say one of the most expansive donor registries in the country. And the reason was when you went to go get your driver's license. As I'm sure you remember, they knocked $7 off of your driver's license about that. So you were an idiot if you didn't sign up. Sure. The problem is there's not supposed to be any kind of compensation whatsoever for being an organ donor. Sure. Even though this was legal under state law. The Georgia Organ Procurement Organization, which will talk about in a minute, they were very hesitant to draw from the Georgia donor list because they weren't sure if the person was just looking for the $7 off or else if they really wanted to be an organ donor. Yeah. So, actually, the contribution rates were very low in comparison of the size of the registry in Georgia right. Until 2005, when they stopped it. They stopped it. I think they actually give you a T shirt, too, that says, I sold my lungs for $7. That's illegal, and all I got was this lousy T shirt. Yeah. No. Under a 1984 law, you can't have any valuable compensation for organ procurement. Right. We'll get to that, too. The whole black market deal. Oh, okay. So, Chuck, if you're a dead donor, how do you donate? There's two ways. Right? Sure. Two ways of death. Brain death and cardiac death. Yeah. Is that what you mean? Right, sure. Obviously, cardiac death is a little trickier because you only have a certain amount of time to get the organs from the body. Brain death is a lot easier in one sense, because there could be weeks to find a match and to prepare the organ for donation and get it carried out. But there's a wrinkle there. Well, there's a lot of wrinkles there. Go ahead. Let me say something about cardiac death first. Right. Okay. There are no laws, really, governing organ procurement. It's on a case by case basis, and basically everybody involved in the organ procurement process does their best to walk a very cautious line sure. While harvesting organs to try to save other lives. Right. Yeah. Because there's families involved. Grieving, obviously. Right. With cardiac death, there was a board, I think, out of Harvard in the late ninety s, that established a five minute wait time from the cessation of a heartbeat. Right. So you take somebody off life support, wait for the heart to stop beating five minutes after, and while the heart is winding down, you're prepping the patient for surgery. Five minutes after, somebody pronounces the person dead and they cut them open and take the organ. But in five minutes, the heart is useless pretty much at that point. Right. Some of the other organs, like the liver, the kidneys, maybe the lungs, can survive that five minutes, but the heart's gone. If you have a cardiac death, you have a useless heart, even though the heart might have been perfectly healthy five minutes ago. Right. So there was this doctor in Colorado that said, you know what? There's no law whatsoever that says I have to wait five minutes. This guy did a lot of research and found in the medical literature the longest duration between the cessation of a heartbeat and the spontaneous regeneration of a heartbeat ever recorded was 65 seconds. So he started a 65 2nd rule, okay? Got the pantsuit off of him. Really? It was an unsuccessful lawsuit. And now, all of a sudden, the president has been set, and now there's a 65 2nd rule out there that some people adhere to. Really? That is how organ procurement has been established in the US. Somebody pushes the envelope, they get sued. If the case isn't won by the plaintiff, then you have a new rule. Wow. Isn't that weird? There's, like, zero guidance for organ procurement, except that the person has to be dead. We don't have any real definition for death. Well, that's where brain death gets really tricky. Exactly. Take it, Chuck. Well, you're the expert here. I can't weigh in morally because I don't know what I think. Really? No. I mean, I know what I might believe for myself, but I don't know about establishing guidelines for others. But we need them, though, don't we? Yeah, but I don't want to make up those rules. Do you? No. And apparently the federal government doesn't either. Right. Every once in a while, I think Carter assigned a panel to create a white paper on this, and I guess George Bush did right before he left office, because there was one that came out in 2008. Either Bush did right before he left office, or it was, like, the first thing Obama did when he came into office. Okay. But there was a very recent white paper that came out that said, okay, here's how we feel about brain death. Right? Right. Here's the problem. Back in the Think, we came up with this thing called the ventilator. And with the ventilator, you can keep somebody who, for all intents and purposes, dead. You can keep their organs functioning. Right. So you're masking death. We have no idea what would happen if that ventilator wasn't there. Would the person die? Right. And if the person does die, how long do we have to wait? Until we say that that person is dead? Sure. So the ventilator made it so we could procure organs more easily, and brain death because we can keep them alive. Right. But at the same time, it blurred the line between life and death. Right. Well, now, they came out with this recommendation that said, brain death is disengagement of the end of meaningful engagement with the rest of the world, which really widen the scope of who exactly is dead. And so when you have a brain dead patient and you procure their organs, what you actually do is you have to run them through this battery of tests where you are shining lights in their pupils. Sure. There's an ice water injection into the ear canal. Really? To see if you move toward or away from the stimulus. Wow. And there's this battery of tests to establish brain death. And then here's the clincher. They do an Apnea test where they take you off the ventilator for two minutes and see what happens. And see what happens. Inevitably, the heartbeat is going to slow down. Right. And then after two minutes, they put the ventilator back on. But that two minutes where your brain was starved of oxygen was enough to create real brain death if you weren't before. Wow. Think about that. This is why they call you supplementary research man, right. That's why that's your superhero. Can you hear, like, people fast forwarding through to get through this part? It's like Josh. Josh. That's right. Josh. Okay, so we have this new definition of brain death, and when the second Apnea test happens and you're declared brain dead, what? They anesthetize you they inject you with antiparaltics. Right. Will you into the hospital room, and they harvest your organs. So you actually die from a lack of organs present in your body. Wow. So that's that it's a ghoulish matter. And these people who are in charge of making sure that people donate and keeping the image of organ donation as a gift of life alive have to battle with the fact that it's a very ghoulish process. Right. You're right. So who's in charge of this stuff, by the way? For what? For that whole soap opera spiel. Sure. Anytime, buddy. Yes. Josh that would be called an OPO, which is an organ procurement organization, and they are federally designated nonprofits, and they are local all over the country. There's usually one in the central location of a state and then different satellite offices, obviously, because you need to be close by. You can't be hopping all over the country to get these organs, although that happens as well. Right. And they basically are responsible for awareness, recruitment, evaluation, organ removal, and transportation. So they're the people that are standing there with a cooler waiting to drop your organ in there and rush it to the recipient. They're also the people that talk to the family generally. Well, sure. So anytime somebody dies, the hospital is legally obligated to notify the organ procurement organization. Right. And this is a good point to bring this up. If you want to be an organ donor, or if you are, you really need to tell your family this stuff, and you should have it all in your living will because things can get a little ugly. For instance, let's say you are from a very strict religious background. Maybe your family doesn't want you cut up. They think that would be a bad thing. But you want it. You got to have that on paper, in writing. Right. And if you have it documented in a lot of cases, even if your family is like, no, we don't want to donate the organs, the organ procurement organization will say, you know what, TS? So he or she wanted to be an organ donor, and the last thing you want after you die is for your spouse, let's say, to have to mount this campaign against your family. Right. Like a tug of war like that. You got to have it all spelled out nice, Chuck. Sure. So where are we? The United Network of Organ Sharing. That's another group. That's where you got the kidney statistics we're going to go back on and look at. Right? Yeah. They're in Richmond, Virginia, and they are responsible for placing donated organs and maintaining the waiting list, like you just said. And they never close. No. 24 7365, which is how it should be, obviously. We should try calling them right now to see if they're open. No, let's not do that. I'm sure they're open. And then check. There's the scientific registry of transplant recipients. Right, yes. The SRTR. And they basically maintain, like, every amount of data you could possibly want on transplants, right. For policy makers and doctors and drug makers and that kind of stuff. Yes. And in 1984, there was one more called the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network. And they're just another network that matches people with recipients and has waiting lists, that kind of thing. Right. So this is actually a pretty lean, mean, streamlined machine. The procurement and donation network. It has to be. Right. So, Chuck, you were saying, like, they can't be hopping all over the country, but they have to sometimes. So what happens with, like, let's say somebody dies in Sacramento and they have the perfect heart that somebody in Tampa needs, what happens? Well, they will put it into a cooler and fly it to what was the destination? Tampa. Tampa. They'd fly it to Tampa. Apparently, like, the hospital in Tampa, those people will go fly to Sacramento, take possession of it, and then fly it back. Got you. Unless there's somebody, like, let's say somebody in Sacramento needed it and somebody at the Sacramento General Hospital died. Right. That's when that cooler comes in. Have you seen the one that's at the office? We have one here. We have an organ transplant cooler. Really? Yeah, it's pretty cool. There's roxanne keeper tab in it, probably. Exactly. You know what I thought was really cool is if you were on the organ donation list as a living donor, you are actually given consideration if you need an organ transplant yourself. Right. And they said that they won't bump you to the top of the list, but they will give that a little bit of extra weight, which I think is that's only right. Did you also see that if you are a living donor and usually your insurance company won't raise your rates after that, but if you move to another insurer or change like plans, they'll hit you with a pre existing condition? Yeah, that's how evil I am. Seriously, you sign up for a listing I will give someone my kidney as a living human. And the insurance companies are like, oh, well, I might have to charge a little extra for that. Don't you think we should start publicly executing CEOs of insurance companies? It should be part of the healthcare reform package. Right. Of course, we don't mean that. Right. Thanks for the COH. Sure. So, Chuck, when you're talking about people running around with coolers and all that, it kind of creates this hairy pace right in your mind. And that's very much true. You have a very short amount of time for an organ to survive. Remember I said even five minutes can kill a heart when it's deprived of oxygen, which it stops beating. Right. What happens when you die, too? The body undergoes all these huge changes that happen almost immediately. Like, there's this parasympathetic flood of chemicals right. Which is, like, kind of fight or flight on steroids, I guess. It's a sympathetic flood. Like, dopamine levels increase 800%. Wow. Epinephrine levels increase 700%. Norepinephrine levels increase 100%. So all these chemicals that are meant to either speed you up or slow you down or just flooding the body, that's why you have to take the drugs, right? Most times. Right. Well, no, this is when you die. So when they're trying to harvest these organs, they're, like, trying to get them out of the body before the flood just damages these things they're representing. I thought you meant as a recipient, that would happen. No, that would be pretty awesome, though, to have your dopamine levels raised 800%. Right. But it's not as easy as just throwing the new heart in there either. And sowing you up and say, good luck with your life. No, it's not recipient. No. And there's also some expectation that you lead a very healthy life after that. Sure. You're not supposed to be drinking or smoking or swearing, and you have to stay away from call girls and things like that. Yeah. You shouldn't get a new liver and then, like, dive into the vodka bottle. No. You're pretty much signing a contract to become Ned Flanders after you get your organ donation. Yes. I actually just over Christmas, heard of a friend of a family member that was a candidate for, I think, a liver transplant, and they would not do it because he wouldn't enter rehab. Really? Yeah. Wow. So that's hardcore. Yeah. That guy is dedicated to the booze, isn't it? Yeah, pretty much. And also, if you are a recipient, there's some expectation that you pay, like, for the lodging and travel expenses of the person who donated. Yeah. It's kind of an unwritten rule, from what I understand. Well, it has to be real. It's kind of against the law, really. Well, but it makes sense, though, because if you're let's say you want to donate a kidney to someone that lives across the country and you're spending money off from work and flying out there. And putting yourself up. Right. It's going to cost you some dough and a kidney. Yes. You'd have to be a really nice person to be an anonymous living donor. Yeah, that'd be cool. Hey, everyone. When you're running a small business, every second counts, and you can't afford to waste a single moment. So why are you still taking time out of your day to go to the post office when you could be using Stamps.com? Yeah. For more than 20 years, stamps.com has been indispensable for over 1 million businesses, because Stamps.com gives you access to all the post office and Ups shipping services you need, right. From your computer. That's right. You can streamline your shipping process with Stamps.com easy to use software. All you need is your regular computer and printer. No special supplies or equipment necessary, and you can get discounts you can't find anywhere else, like up to 30% off USPS. Rates and 86% off ups. So stop wasting time and start saving money. When you use Stamps.com to mail and ship, sign up with promo code stuff for a special offer that includes a four week trial, plus free postage and a digital scale. No long term commitments or contracts. Just go to Stamps.com, click the microphone at the top of the home page and enter code stuff. All right. So, Chuck, you want to talk about the black market? Yes. The black market does exist. Isn't that crazy? Yeah, but not surprising. No, but it's pretty interesting. It obviously exists, typically outside of the United States, although there have been some cases inside the United States. And this is what's so sad. Usually it's impoverished nations, and what will happen is there will be a couple of countries involved. You'll take someone out of a really poor country, offer them, like, $5,000 for their kidney, and then the middle man will get $100,000 for that kidney. And it's not like these are done in professional surgical rooms. A lot of times it's the back room, if you know what I mean. Sure. And that's actually exactly what happened in 2003 in South Africa. Yeah. They were importing people from, I guess, the city of God in Brazil. Yeah. Slums of Brazil. Yeah. And giving them five grand for the kidney, and then turn around selling it for 100 kwh. That's nuts. And what else did it happen? Villagers in India, they weren't getting nearly as good. No. They were getting about $800 for their organs, which is just unbelievable. And at one time, the Israeli organ brokers were obtaining these from Soviet bloc nations and doing the operations in Turkey. And this one guy made a middleman, made about $4 million before he was caught, which is not bad. Harvesting organs, although I imagine being an illegal organbroker is a fairly stressful job. Yeah, and it happens in the US. Too. Although customarily, it's an organbroker and a nefarious funeral director who harvest organs before cremation. Did you know this happened? No. I didn't either, and I saw all of 6ft under. Of course you did. Did you see the movie touristas? No, that wasn't very good. That was the deal there, though. Kids are like, captured in the jungle. Oh, is it an Eli Roth movie? No, but it was like an Eli Roth movie. Okay. It was, like, hostile, except they were harvesting organs. Got you. Basically, instead of just blind torture. Nice. And speaking of Teresa, that actually does happen in the world. It's not just old wives tales. Poor Herman. Legend Saleem Khan. Kidney theft does happen. It really does. Mohamed, what did you say his name was? Saleem Khan? Yes. He lived in Delhi, India, and he was looking for a day's work and agreed to go to a house under the premise that he would get about $4 a day for performing work. There construction work, all on the up and up so far. Then he is held at gunpoint for several days, along with two other day laborers. They were taken to an operating room, drugged, and they awoke with a horrific pain in their side and minus one kidney. Yeah, and when they took him to the hospital when he went to the hospital, he checked him out, and he had indeed been down one kidney. Not an urban legend. No, that really happened. Although it makes me wonder if the urban legend gave rise to the actual practice. Yeah, maybe so. And, Josh, the one US case that was in here was really interesting, too. Yeah. Yes. Michael Master Marino is an oral surgeon in New York, and he opened a company called Biomedical Tissue Services with an embalmer, which should have been a real red flag that he partners up with an embalmer. And this is in the year 2000? Not even that long ago. Actually, it was ten years ago. I'm old. For many years, though, they harvested human tissue provided by funeral homes and sold it to research facilities. And one of those bodies belonged to who? Alistair Cook, famous host of Masterpiece Theater. So he was chopped up and given to unwitting recipients, but they did harvest some of his tissue. Yeah. How about that? It's pretty awesome. So where are we now? I think we're at the point where we check those stats. I have them written down here as of 200 and 03:00. P.m.. What time is it now? Chuck's? Got to get out of his screen. It is 231. Okay, 231. I got to tell you, I'm disappointed. If this number hasn't gone down, I think all of our listeners will be, too. So we started out, Chuck, with a total of 105,288 on the waiting list. Where are we at? 288. Okay. Nothing has changed in 20 minutes. With the kidney, we are at 83,012. Well, it would be the same because that was the master stat. So the kidney didn't change either. Let's just hope Jerry didn't put a drum roll in anywhere. Right but I will say, though, don't be disappointed, because like I said earlier this morning, three people receive kidneys that were in search. It's awesome. Or else they died waiting. Yeah, let's like to think the other scenario hand out. Are you a donor? I don't remember. I was at one point in time. I went for that $7 off. I did, too, but I think I'm going to go ahead and do it. Yeah, this article inspired me because I'm of the belief that the human body, after you die, is like worm dirt. So I have no problem with donating my entire body or all my organs. None of that. Yeah. Well, if you want to learn more about organ donation, you can read Tomsheets article on how stuff works.com. You can also check out the what is it, Chuck? The organ procurement network for their side of the story. But I think you should also check out the LifeGuardian Foundation. They have a very much opposing view of organ donation. So such a controversial topic should probably get all of the facts before you make the very important decision of whether or not you're going to be a dead donor. And if you decide that you want to be, like Chuck said, let everybody know. Tell everybody, tell strangers on the streets. Just anytime you meet a doctor, go, I'm going to be an organ donor. You may want to make the decision with your loved ones as well. Sure. Even though ultimately it is your call. Right. So good luck with being a rag doll in the afterlife. Which leads us, of course, to listener mail. Yes, Josh, I am going to call this interesting Kleptomania story from Sarah. Okay. Hi, Josh. Chuck and Jerry. And she even spelled it correctly. Wow. I think that deserves a T shirt, don't you? Oh, actually, she didn't. Sorry. Two Rs. Okay. Close, though. Here's a story that I always think of when I hear anything about Kleptomania. A while ago, I was working in a large independent bookstore that had been a city institution for years. Like any retail establishment, they had experienced about 10% to 20% theft loss a year. Nothing too unusual. However, one day in the late 80s, they received a thick, densely written journal, which detailed to the day our moment, weather condition, et cetera, every single book this person ever stole from the bookstore. Wow. This guy turned it in. They showed it to us in sales training. It was written in a cramped hand, all pages, front and back, which is really creepy. When you're writing on front and back, you're either really green or you're like a serial killer. Sometimes a clipping or a picture from one of the stolen books is taped to it. So, of course, the bookstore said, maybe we should prosecute, since they confess basically to stealing over a period of 20 years, adding up to thousands of dollars. They contacted the people that return address and it turned out the person who wrote in was a son or daughter. A very prominent local family, active in politics and big charities and the like. The kind of family they named Wings of Hospitals after hoops. So, of course, they didn't want their good name dragged through the mud and apparently settled out of court for an undisclosed sum. Money can do that, I guess. That journal was something to behold, though. So that's what Sarah says. That is definitely a mania story. Big time. That's awesome. Yeah. Cool. Well, if anybody has ever sent you a cryptic or disturbing journal and you want to tell us about it, or if you just want to say hi, you can send us an email at stuffpodcast@howstuffs.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit housetofworks.com. Want more housestuffworks? Check out our blog on the Housetofworks.com homepage. Hey, it's summer, everybody, which means schools out, the sun's shining, the daylights longer, and best of all, there's plenty of time to get lost in a good, thrilling story. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music, My Favorite Murder from Exactly Right media, My Favorite Murder has something for everyone. Hosted by Karen Kilgarif and Georgia Hardstark, this true crime comedy podcast will share stories that will have you wanting more before you know it. Listen to new episodes of my favorite Murder. One week early on Amazon music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen today."
https://podcasts.howstuf…phen-hawking.mp3	Some Interesting Things You Didn't Know About Stephen Hawking	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/some-interesting-things-you-didnt-know-about-steph	Everybody knows that cosmologist Stephen Hawking has an enormous brain, but did you also know he has an equal wit? Learn about some of the lesser-known details about the celebrated physicist in this episode.	Everybody knows that cosmologist Stephen Hawking has an enormous brain, but did you also know he has an equal wit? Learn about some of the lesser-known details about the celebrated physicist in this episode.	Tue, 12 Nov 2013 14:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2013, tm_mon=11, tm_mday=12, tm_hour=14, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=316, tm_isdst=0)	30870160	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Brought to you by the allnew 2014 Toyota Corolla. Welcome to stuff you should know from housetopworkscom. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W, Chuck Bryant, and we're with us today is our friend and rotating guest producer, Matt. That's right. That's stuff they don't want you to know. Yes. Matt Frederick. He winsome and charming. Matt Frederick. Yeah, he wins some. He drunk texts me. Oh, my God. Can't tell people that here again. That's not very nice. He sober text me, too. So we're matt, he's all right. He's a great dude. Sure. And we're glad you're here. Matt, can you see us? There you go. Before we get started, I feel like we should give a shout out to our buddies over at Coed. Yes. You want to tell everybody about Coed real quick? Who doesn't know? Yes. The Cooperative for Education. We went on a trip to them with Guatemala a few years ago, and they are a nonprofit who tries to break the cycle of poverty through education for school children in Guatemala. Right. They have a great model. Yeah, it's very cool. It's good stuff. And we like to give them shout outs because we genuinely believe in their organization and we said that any Stuff You Should Know listener who became a scholarship sponsor with co ed, we would read your name on The Heiress. Thanks. That's right. So we're going to do that now because we've already done it once. And stuff. You should know listeners just keep continuing to give. So we have another batch of people. Nice. And if you're interested in giving, we don't have to read your name on the air. I mean, I think you need to give permission to Coed to tell us, like, yes, read these people's names. Got you. You can do it anonymously. You can do whatever you want, but just go to Coed uc.org and you'll learn all about coed, and there's all sorts of places for you to sign up to help in a lot of different ways. So we've got some people, some Stuff You Should Know, listeners that became scholarship sponsors, starting with Chris Moreno. Way to go, Chris. Yes. Linda McCarty. Yeah. And Mike Trick. I knew you were going to give me this one. Cameron Wisensi. Nice. Is that right? Viceeness or that vishness. Yeah. The W is pronounced like a V in Germanic languages, from what I understand. That's true. Yeah. Well, you know. Yeah. Who else, Chuck? I've got Raymond Breen. You skipped over Justin Sakina. That's why. S-Y-C-H-E-N-A justin Sakina. And I think we have one more on there. Caleb Week. Hey, we know Caleb. Yeah, we know Caleb. He's all over, like, Twitter and Facebook and emails us. Hey, Caleb. Yeah, he's a big fan and a big supporter of us as well. That's very nice. And finally we have Joe Barkovic. That's right. Thanks a lot, guys. We appreciate you giving the co ed. And we hope that more of you who are just hearing about this now will go out and do it yourself. Coed uc.org. That's right. All right. So, Chuck yes? We're talking about a guy, very special guy. Special. His name is Stephen Hawking. With a PH. That's right. With a PhD. You like that. Brilliant physicist. Brilliant mind. If you haven't seen the Arrow Morris documentary. Oh, I didn't know there was one on him. Yeah, he did A Brief History of Time, which is neat. A documentary about Stephen Hawking. Not really about the book. I think that's his name. A movie version of the book. I think I have heard that, too, but I haven't seen that. I haven't either. But that was his best seller, basically. Kind of doing what we do, explaining things in a more accessible way that are complex. He does it way better than I do. That's why he's, like, a darling of the media and of everybody, basically, because he's really good, typically, at explaining really complex stuff in a way that the average Joe can kind of understand. Yeah. That is what we strive to do. They're making a movie about them now, actually. Oh, yeah? Played by Jared Leto. No. Good guess. Played by Eddie Redmayne. He sounds like a World War I ace pilot or something. It kind of looks like one. Does he? Yeah. Have you seen the latest movie? No. Have you seen my week with Maryland? No. Okay. He was in US. Anything else? He was in other stuff, but those are the two most notable things. It's called the Theory of everything. It's the new one, and it's really about the love story between he and his first wife. And I saw pictures of him, and he looks just like him. They did a really good job. Oh, really? Yeah. I think they gave him some different teeth and put on the glasses and messed up his hair and put it in the wheelchair and it was him. Yeah. You're not Stephen Hawking, but I think they're shooting that, like, literally right now, so I'm looking forward to that one. Any release date on that? No, I have no idea. 2015, I think. Okay. It seems like a long time for moving like that. Yes. They're really putting their heart and soul into it. I guess so. There's plenty of stuff that I mean, everybody's heard of Stephen Hawking, but there's some pretty interesting little tidbits about the man, the myth, his life yeah. That I didn't know about until we read this article that I think is worth sharing, frankly. Because if we don't share it, what are we doing here? That's right. So one of the things, just to start off is that he never won the Nobel Prize. As smart as this dude is yeah. Has not yet won the Nobel Prize. Okay. You still got time. Yeah, for sure. I think I said has never. Yeah. I hope I did. It sounded like there was some finality it's never going to happen. Try all you want, but this pillar of the physics and mathematics community has never won a Nobel Prize. Surprising. It is surprising. We're going to rely on punch for this one. Okay. He was born on January 8, 1942, which was also the 300th anniversary of Galileo's death. Right. Which is just mere coincidence, but it's a nice tidbit. He says, who. And he obviously was diagnosed with ALS at the age of 21, lou Gehrig's disease, and given just a few years to live. And that was a long time ago. It was. He was born in 1942, so he's 71 now. He'll be 74 very soon, in about a month or so. Anyway, just before his 21st birthday, he started noticing he was in grad school at Oxford, and he started noticing that he was getting clumsier, running into stuff, having, like, tripping, that kind of thing. And it was apparently pronounced enough that his family said, you're going to the doctor while you're home visiting for Christmas break. And so he went into the hospital for a battery of tests for two weeks. That's an awful experience in and of itself, I'm sure. But then, to top it off, they said, oh, well, we found out what's wrong with you. You have ALS. Right. Which stands for Immunotrophic lateral Sclerosis or Lou Gehrig's Disease. Because Lou Gehrig most famously had it. That's right. And it's just a neurological condition where your voluntary muscle control is lost. Right? Yeah. And typically you will die a few years after contracting it from a couple of things. Well, after symptoms show up, but what? Motor neurons running your breathing muscles start to fail or deterioration of your swallowing muscles. That's a big one, too. So basically drowned. Yeah, like it ends up being respiratory usually go, but there's a lot of forms of it, and he doesn't have either one of those conditions. So he's good to go, basically, or has been for a long time. Especially with his talking box. Yeah. He controls it with his cheek. Now, that's pretty amazing. I have no idea how that works. He's got the ALS Lou Gehrig's disease. That's right. But he hasn't really let it slow him down prior to that. He wasn't exactly like a real athletic type anyway. But he was on the rowing team at Oxford, which is a huge deal. Rowing team at Oxford equals football team at Georgia. Sure. Maybe even more. What's more than that? Football team at Ohio State even. Oh, that's more lately. Did you see the Vanderbilt game? Yes. I don't want to talk about that. I don't either. So he was the cox, wayne on the rowing team. He's the guy who goes stroke, and I didn't know this until I read this article. The cox wing doesn't just set the rhythm for rowing, they also steer. You didn't know that? No, I had no idea. Yeah. I thought it was strictly being basically like a human metronome. Right. But this little pit squeaky guy was on the rowing team as the cock swing and really became popular, so much so that while he was at Oxford, he kind of threw himself into the rowing team, or crew, as we call it in America. Yeah. To the detriment of his studies, even for a while. Yeah. And speaking of studies, getting into Oxford wasn't a foregone conclusion for this guy because he wasn't a great student in grade school. And I wasn't so surprised by that, that he was average to poor in grade school, because I think a lot of these super geniuses not even beneath them, but they're still beyond that. They might have a hard time just in regular classroom settings. Oh, yeah. It was challenged like, you're probably not going to do very well in school. So those of you who are bored in school and don't have good grades, don't give up hope. You may be a genius. Yeah. But even at the time, there was something about him. He was obviously a smart kid, even though he wasn't getting good grades because his classmates nicknamed him Einstein, which is about as prescient as you can get. And it wasn't because of his fluffy white mustache he had in the fourth grade, but his parents both went to Oxford, and they wanted him to go there. And he was a great test taker. And he aced his exam. Yeah. Almost got a perfect score on the physics exam. Unsurprisingly shadowy. But rather than going into physics, his father, Frank, I believe his name is, yeah. Said, no, I want you to be a doctor. You're going to serve the world by being a doctor. And so little Steven goes and tries to take some biology classes and says, this is not science. This is imprecise, it's descriptive, it's subjective. No, I don't want to do this. Yeah. He was not into biology, and I wasn't either, but he was way into physics, whereas I was not. And when he went to Oxford, they were like, well, we got a couple of programs. We have the traditional particle physics where you study subatomic particles, and that's old school where we have this newish kind of thing called cosmology, which isn't even a real field yet. Like, we're trying it out here. Yeah. And he was like, I'm all over that because I want to learn about bigger things. Right. Not smaller things. Yeah. Because they're basically the two different approaches to the same thing, like particle studies, the very small parts that make up the universe, and cosmology is the sum of those parts and how they interact. Yeah, of course. You would get into both eventually. Yeah. Well, I think you kind of have to have an understanding of both of us. Although if you're a particle physicist, you can just kind of be in your lab running tests and setting out data. Yeah. And the cosmologists use that as well, I bet. Cosmology I bet they study particle physics more than particle physics. People study cosmology. Prove us wrong. That was the nerdiest exchange we've ever had. I think it's up there for sure, man. So out of the study of cosmology is probably the biggest contribution to date to science. To cosmology popular culture would be a brief history of time. But his biggest contribution to his field is something that the author of this article called the boundless universe theory, which I couldn't really find anywhere else. Oh, really? Everywhere else on the Internet. If you type in boundless universe theory, it just brings up this article. And, like, people copying and pasting this article in the blog post. Yeah, I guess so, because there is something out there that describes this, but nobody else calls it boundless universe theory. Really? Yeah. Wow. But this is the big contribution. And here it's about the time that your brain will start to melt. Yes. He worked with a guy named Jim Hartle and came up with a theory in 10 00 19 83 that the universe is limitless yet. Why is that funny? I could actually hear the hyphen in there. Yeah. It is a contained thing, yet it has no boundaries. Right. So, like I said, your mind melts. But wait, this is why Stephen Hawking is awesome. How can that be Josh? Well, he says visualize the Earth, the surface of the Earth, it's contained, but it's also boundless. Like, if you travel across the edge of the Earth, you never reach the edge. True. So he says just visualize the surface of the Earth. But surface of the Earth is two dimensional. This is four dimensional. See, that's where my mind is already blown. Yeah, I didn't even try to follow that. Yeah, four dimensions. But what they're saying is and the larger implication of this is that what Hartle and Hawking did was they took Richard Simon's quantum theory of the universe and married it to Einstein's theory of relativity to come up with this idea that the universe didn't emerge from a black hole. Right. Instead, it came out of the Big Bang. And as a result, space time, which is exactly what it sounds like, travels. If you're looking at it like the Earth, the Big Bang takes place at the North Pole. So as you're traveling southward toward the equator, these lines of latitude get bigger, right? And those represent space time. So it's kind of like time doesn't exist. And I don't think that's true, so don't email me. I'm just saying my own interpretation of this, right? At the big bang. Big bang happens. Time and space start to exist. They go outward, expanding, and then once you hit the equator, that's the apex, that's the peak. And then they start to come back in. And the upshot of this is that eventually, by Hawking's reckoning, in about 20 billion years, spacetime will collapse in on itself again, meaning our entire universe will collapse upon itself. Yeah. It's finite, but it's boundless. Mind blown. Right. And like, Chuck, what we just did isn't even that's probably the most rickety, terrible interpretation of that ever, but I think that's generally an interpretation. Yes, it is. Hey, I got one for you for listing Hawking things. And I just found this out today. Did you know that he had a really bad situation with his second wife? No. He married his first wife, Jane, and credits her with giving him reasons to live, like, right after he was diagnosed. But he met her the week he was diagnosed or somewhere after. Right there. And that's what they're making this love story about. And they were married for quite a long time, until the mid ninety s, and they divorced and he married one of his nurses, Elaine Mason. Reportedly she was an awful, awful person. Reportedly. Reportedly. Allegedly. Like, basically everybody who knew her. He was sort of estranged from his family for a long time because of her controlling, manipulative bullying and rumors and investigations into the fact that she may have physically abused him. Oh, that's awful. Yeah. His wife and nurse wow. Fractured his wrist by slamming it onto a wheelchair. And this is allegedly because he denied it, but people close to him said he would never admit that because that would admit that he really screwed up by making this decision. Let him pee himself by not giving him the means to do so. Jeez submerged him in a bathtub, like letting his tracheotomy tube fill up with water. Oh, my God. And left him out in the sun. And like the hottest days of the year, he had heat stroke and severe sunburn, and he denied that. They investigated. And basically, the cops, there's nothing we can do. He's saying this stuff didn't happen yet. He would show up, like bruises and cuts and things and say, yeah, like, I ran into a door again today. They're like, you're in a wheelchair. You can't really do that. I guess you can. And they divorced in 2006. When did they get married? 1995. Wow. There's a Vanity Fair article about it. It was, like, really disturbing. Yeah. If any of that is true. That's awful. Let alone all of it combined together. Yeah. Jeez so there's, that was uplifting. Chuck. Yeah. I've got one for you. All right. A couple of years back, HuffPost reported that he was a frequent visitor to a California sex club, Freedom Makers, and somebody who went there said that they'd seen him there more than a handful of times. Interesting. Like, basically getting lap dances. It's pretty unmistakable. Guy. I doubt you would confuse him, but Oxford, I believe it was Oxford came out and said, that is BS. Oh, yeah. He did go to this place once, basically, like, as a joke, as the guest of a friend or something like that. But he's certainly not a member. He's certainly not a frequent visitor person who is saying, this is a liar. Wow. It got dropped after that. But he does have a great wit. That's another thing. He's known for being a charmer. Yeah. And he was asked I think the Guardian asked him if there's anything that he didn't understand or that baffled him in the universe, and his answer was women. So they're a total mystery to me. So there is at least one thing, but black holes. Not the case. Yeah. He lost a bet on black holes and was man enough to admit it. In 20 14 97, he made a bet with a fellow scientist named John Preskill. Yeah. Well, let's talk about black holes for a second here, I guess. Okay. Stars are these big, huge things that burn tons of energy. Yeah. The sun is a star. The sun is a star. You should go back and revisit our sun podcast. That's a great one. And they have a ton of mass and a ton of gravity, which is great, as long as they're burning and doing fine. Good, because their nuclear explosions pushing outward. Yes. Gravity is pulling it inward. So they find this happy balance, massive amounts of mass and gravity. When they die, though, something bad happens, and the gravity says, I am why is that funny? Something bad happens. That's hilarious. Well, if you're a star, I guess, unless that's the apex of being a star, maybe I get to be a black hole to burn out. Yeah. Well, that was a spoiler. They become black holes. Gravity winds out and becomes stronger, and it collapses on itself. And that is what a black hole is. Right. All the matter in the star combined in this little dense ball that's so dense and has such an amount of mass clustered into one little part that it actually bends the fabric of space and time. Crazy. And so that's your black hole. It's really a black well in the fabric of space and time. And so that's a black hole. And supposedly not even light can escape once it passes an event horizon. Yeah. And who did he have the bet with? Prescott. So Prescott and Hawking disagreed about whether or not anything called information, which would be light sure. Particles, anything, anything at all escaping black holes. Hawking said no. Prescott said yes. And later on, Hawking figured out that Presco was right, that if you did go into a black hole, you would get all jumbled up and distorted, but information about you, particles, whatever could escape. And therefore, there's no such thing as a true event horizon. There's a pseudo event horizon, because if you have a genuine event horizon, nothing could ever come back out. I wonder what the that was. They don't say, I found out because it was information escaping a black hole is it like a Happy Meal? They bet an encyclopedia of the winner's choice. An encyclopedia being a place from which information is easily retrieved. And I think Prescott wanted a baseball encyclopedia because, you know, smart guys, if they're into sports, they're into baseball. Yeah, that's true. It's the thinking man's game. I thought it might have been a trip back to the gentleman's club. Freedom Maker. Yeah. You're buying. All right, here's one that I didn't realize. He's written children's books with his daughter Lucy, and they have a trilogy, and the first one in 2007 was called George's Secret Key to the Universe. And it's about a little boy named George who has these luddite parents that he can't stand. Yeah. So he kills him. He doesn't kill them, but his technology to kill him. No, but he has a neighbor who he really cottons, too, because he's a physicist and has a computer. He just happens to have the most powerful computer in the world at his house. That's right. And that computer offers portals that they can see in the outer space. So George is super stoked about this. Right. So there's George's secret key to the universe. They followed that up with George's cosmic treasure hunt. And then in 2011, they had George in the Big Bang. Yeah. And that was their children's book trilogy. And I think when they interviewed Lucy and him, people are like, we shouldn't be surprised, because this is sort of just another extension of what he's trying to do his whole life. Right. Which is explain things. And that's what the book does for children. It's not just a fantastical story. It kind of introduces them to things like physics and black holes or black wells. Right. You're going to claim that? I think it's somebody else. Already has. Okay. All right. Well, Chuck, before we keep going, we got some more stuff up our sleeve. Possibly the most surprising things you can think of about Hawking, coming up after this message break. All right, so you're about to blow my doors with some surprises. Okay. I think you know all this. You read the same article I did. I'm Bin Coy. Okay. Hawking has said publicly that he believes in the possibility of alien life, and not just primitive alien life, which he suggests is possibly common. He's actually a proponent of panspermia, which is basically like, say, a meteor bringing the basics of life from Mars to Earth, but also possibly intelligent life, although he says it's probably few and far between. Yeah, but the fact that he is on record for this is pretty surprising. Sure. He said it to NASA. He came out as an alien life supporter to NASA. I wonder if he went home and told his wife. He was like, I get this. I told NASA I thought there might be intelligent life out there. Here's where my mind was blown a little bit. He says we might need to be wary of them, though, if they come, because they probably won't be DNA based, which you just can't even wrap your head around. Oh, yeah. I remember having my mind blown as a younger person. I think it was Michael Crichton in one of his books, he just was mentioning off handedly how aliens might not even be they might be intelligent crystals or something like that. We wouldn't compromise at all. Which is, I think, probably the, likelier, case. Like he's saying DNA is not essential to life. It can be a lot of other things. As long as you have some sort of replicating basis of life. There you go. That's sort of old school, like lovecraft. And all those early Sci-Fi horror writers. Remember their common method was always to be like, it cannot even be described. Right. That was always their copy. Unnamable. Yeah. But the way he describes aliens and potentially smart aliens is sort of just like you would see in the movies. Like, hey, they may be nomads who ran out of resources and they're coming to Earth for hours. And that's straight out of a Sci-Fi movie. Or are we the aliens? Did you say that? No, I'm just saying that's kind of we're at the very cusp of that as well. Yeah. Remember when, like, in elementary school, when at some point the first mind blow was probably like we could be just a speck on the fingernail of, like, some giant in some other world. Yeah. Wasn't that neat that they ended The Grinch? Like that the movie? Yeah. I don't remember. Yeah, that's how it ends. What do you mean? Like Ron Howard starts panning out. Yeah. So Pan is only going in now. Panning is left and right. Okay. Where you push in or pull out. Okay. Well, he's pulling out and out now. And you finally realize that whoville is part of, like, an Adam that makes up a snowflake. I remember that. Yeah. That was a great way to end it. Pretty brilliant. Also, Stephen Hawking believes in time travel. He's been on the record about that. Remember in our time travel episode that we did at Comic Con, he theorized this huge machine that you could use to travel forward in time. Yeah. But not back. It wasn't his thinking. Yeah. Do you have anything else? Any surprising hawksax? He held a chair for 30 years, which is basically like a position at Cambridge. The Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge, in this chair of this position at this university dates back to 1663. He held it for 30 years. The guy who held it, the second position, the second person to hold that was Isaac Newton. Yeah, that's not bad. That's pretty cool. So his nickname was Einstein? He had the same job literally, as Isaac Newton. He's doing pretty good for himself. Yeah. Presidential Medal of Freedom here and commander of the British Empire. Which is what non Brits get. I think. Instead of being knighted, James Bond is a commander oh, yeah, but still nobel Prize? No. For Bond or Hawking. Yeah, well, I mean, Breaking Bad wanted on their last season. That's funny. Didn't they win the Nobel? I don't think so. I don't think they did. They wanted to me. If you want to learn more about Stephen Hawking, you can type that into the search bar. Stephen with the PH, remember@houseworks.com? And since I said search bar friends, it is time for listener mail. I'm going to call this Last Call for alcohol and this guy Dan describes something that we're familiar with, but we're going to read it anyway in case people don't know. All right. Hey, guys. I'm Dan, and I'm a big fan. I live in New York City and listen to you drop knowledge on my way to and from work at an East Harlem beer and wine bar called ABV. And it was here where I discovered a unique use for your work. I don't know if you guys are aware, but bars had something called Last Call. That is when the bartender offers folks one last drink before finishing up. Usually about 15 minutes before standard closing time. The idea is that the customer will use the remaining 15 minutes to finish up the drinks and then hit bricks. This system has served quite well for quite some time and is one of the unwritten rules of bar etiquette. But as Newton's law would suggest, sometimes the system breaks down. Sometimes folks just don't get the whole idea of a timely close. Want to linger? Herein lies one of the tougher spots for a bartender. How to get those loiters out without offending or upsetting anyone's delicate sensibilities. Most bartenders really didn't give a care about that at closing time. Well, the bars that I went to like in college, it was pretty rough, right? The Georgia bar, that was profanities. Consulting people families. You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here, right? Or playing really awful music was a great mess. Which is where we come in. Oh, no way. Yeah. You can stop the music, you can flash the lights, you can walk over and plainly tell them to leave. But you can try my new method peak Oil. Nothing will clear room of helpless hapless, drunks philanderers and miscreants like a thorough, thoughtful and wellmeaning discussion of the ins and outs of Peak oil. From the middle of the show and without warning or context, this tactic is subtle, it is funny, and it is amazingly effective. I cannot begin to describe the joy I experience watching the dilly dallyer suddenly gain self awareness and scurry for the exits for Clint. But one can only hope. But better informed. But in all seriousness, guys, you're doing the world in excellent service. Information is rarely conveyed with such grace and wit, and for that I thank you. And if you find yourself in need of a libation in New York, seek me out. But we will. Dan Morton at ABV in East Harlem. Awesome. We'll go do peak oil live at last fall. That is really cool. What a great use for that one. Sure, man. Thanks a lot, Dan. Thanks for the invite too. And anybody hanging out in New York, go check out Dan and ABB and you can get a little free stuff you should know action going on there at closing time. That's right. Yeah. So if you have figured out a new use for stuff you should know we always want to hear about stuff like that. You can tweet to us at syskpodcast. You can join us on Facebook. Comstuffychnow. You can send us an email to stuffpodcast@discovery.com. And as always, you can join us at our home on the web stuffyoustknow.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit housetofworks.com. Brought to you by the all new 2014 Toyota Corolla. Hey, everybody. I don't know about you, but I am excited that it's summer. School's out, the sun is shining, and best of all, there's downtime four days. That's where true crime podcasts on Amazon Music come in. They're the perfect activity for last minute road trips, long walks or, if you're brave enough, late nights. With so many killer shows like Morbid, my favorite Murder in Small Town Murder, you'll never be bored to death again. So download the free Amazon Music app to start listening to all your favorite true crime podcast. Plus, with Amazon Music, you can access new episodes early. Download the app today."
https://podcasts.howstuf…26-sysk-mpaa.mp3	How the MPAA Works	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/how-the-mpaa-works	You may be surprised to learn those ubiquitous ratings, from G to NC-17, put on movies in America are actually handed down by anonymous employees of a secretive organization that serves as a lobbying firm for Hollywood's six biggest studios.	You may be surprised to learn those ubiquitous ratings, from G to NC-17, put on movies in America are actually handed down by anonymous employees of a secretive organization that serves as a lobbying firm for Hollywood's six biggest studios.	Thu, 26 Jun 2014 13:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2014, tm_mon=6, tm_mday=26, tm_hour=13, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=177, tm_isdst=0)	40902809	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Welcome to stuff you should know from housetopworkscom. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles, Debbie, Chuck, Bryant and Jerry. But where's Waldo? Right over there, apparently. Man, I wish people could hear in between stuff. I think Jerry was recording that last one. Oh, yeah. I think so. She used to give us neat little outtakes, but she doesn't do that anymore. No. The days are long gone. They exist in the vault, though. How are you doing? Not good. I don't know what's wrong with me. I am off today. Out of your game? Yeah. It's weird. Well, I think this is the perfect podcast to set you straight. Why? Because it's something that we both have some passion about against. Yeah. I think anybody who's seen the documentary, this film is not yet rated. That would be very difficult to not be persuaded to feel strongly about the MPA and its practices. Yeah. And at least how they do things. But we're going to try to be objective. Yeah. I'm going to go ahead and say upfront, I have no problem with writing a film's content so parents can decide whether or not it's appropriate things valuable. But I think there are ways to do it that I don't think the MPA does. Yes. So I just wanted to float that early on. Okay. I think that was probably smart. Okay. I don't have kids, so I don't really whatever. But I mean, I can understand the value of that kind of thing. Yeah, but it gives you an idea. I like having an idea of what I'm about to see too. I feel like I can tell just from watching a trailer preview, seeing a movie poster. I'm pretty intuitive when it comes to the marketing techniques of movies. Yeah. But I think being a film nerd, it's like, is the new Avengers movie going to be rated R? That really tells you something. Right? It won't be. No, it never would be. Because PG 13 is the strike zone these days. It really is. Apparently, PG 13 movies pull in more money than all other ratings combined and it's a relatively new phenomenon. Do you want to talk about it's origin? Yeah, let's do it. So back in 1984, a man named Steven Spielberg had two movies out. Who? Stephen Spielberg. Right. He directed one indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. And he produced another gremlins. Yeah. And both of them he caught a lot of heat from both of them. Sure. Indiana Jones for the heart removal scene specifically. Yeah. But also the live snake at the feast thing. Yeah. The snake babies, the eyeballs, all that stuff. And then with Gremlins, it was just downright terrifying in a lot of different places, especially if you're a kid. And the reason he caught heat was because both of those movies were rated PG. Spielberg went to the MPA, the Motion Picture Association of America, and said, let's do something about this because these clearly aren't our movies, but they apparently aren't PG movies either. So maybe we should come up with something in between. And PG 13 was born. Yeah. And this was before he had all the sway in the world. He was influential, but it wasn't like Spielberg today, who could have just waved his wand and made it happen. Yeah, but I think even at the time, he's important. Yeah. There were very few directors at that time who could have gotten something like that done, too. So that's where PG 13 came from. And like you said, that's the strike zone now. And the reason why is because that is the kind of movie that caters to young teenage boys who apparently are the most successful at getting girls to go to movies with them. So if you can get a movie rated PG 13, you're going to make a bunch of money. Yeah. Plus, it makes sense. It's right there in the middle. But the problem is it's become a means of almost advertising that rating rather than cautioning parents. It's a way of attracting the audience. Yeah, true. It's like this isn't some kids PG movie. This is as close to an R movie as you can get in. Yeah. And I think filmmakers try to achieve that rating by either scaling back their R rated movie or juicing up their PG movie or adding more violence. Because apparently PG 13 movies have tripled in violence over the last few decades and they now have, according to one study, more violence than their Rrated counterparts. Yeah. And different kinds of violence that you didn't used to see. All right, I guess we should go back in time a little bit. But is it way back machine sure, let's go way back in time in Hollywood. All right. It's Hollywood. And vine is a viable intersection in Hollywood at the time, unlike now, although people are going to say, no, they built that area back up. Yeah. And that is when the NPA was born in the early 1920s. Yeah. And at the time, it was up to local authorities or your state or your municipality to either stamp something as moral or immoral. There were no ratings on movies. And thanks to a guy named Will Hayes, who was the first president of the NPA, he installed the Hays Code and said, you're either going to pass or fail. It's either going to be stamped in moral or moral. Right. And the reason Will Hayes, who is the MPAA president, came up with the Hayes code, which was really extensive. Yeah. It was like if you talk about the government, it always has to be good. Sexuality has to be repressed and just basically hetero how you think about all movies from The Squeaky Clean, basically, the division between good and evil is very clearly defined as the good guy always wins. And if he didn't fall into that haze code like you said your movie would be stamped Immoral. But the whole reason he came up with this code was because local municipalities could pass their own obscenity laws, and that could be bad for business and not even get your film exhibited. Right. Remember in the ACLU episode where we're talking about that one movie that New York just the Catholic said, no, you can't show that here. And the ACLU went to work getting the Catholics beaten in court. Right. Even though it was just a bad movie, nothing to do with well, I mean, it did, but it shouldn't have been shown because it was so terrible. Was it bad? I don't remember. Yes. I mean, it was supposed to be not very good. Okay. But it happened like that kind of thing happened a lot. Like Local Town said, no, we're not going to see that movie. So Hayes figured out if Hollywood police itself, then they could control what movies came out, and therefore everybody can make a bunch of money. That's right. And that's the point of the NPAA. They're the lobbying arm of six major Hollywood studios. Yeah. They work for them. Yeah. Well, yeah, that's one way to say it. And it's just those six, too, isn't it? Well, yeah. There's definitely an argument these days that independent filmmakers have a much rougher time with the NPAA. Yeah, but most of the indies, too, are eventually distributed by the majors. Anyway, I got you. You know what I'm saying? Okay, so flash forward a bit in our Way Back machine to the 1950s. Things changed a little bit after World War Two, and I guess the easiest way to say is people loosened up a little bit and didn't mind certain elements in their entertainment any longer. Yes. A big example of this article uses Frank Sinatra got an Oscar nomination for playing a heroin addict and the man with a Golden Arm. And that couldn't have happened in the 1940s. No. Millions of people hadn't died in World War II yet. I imagine that kind of loosens you up as far as seeing curse words and stuff in movies goes. Yeah, that's not a big deal. Like World War II is a big deal. Right. Get your haunches down. Exactly. That was the big one, the big first crack to the Hayes code. Yeah. And then there were I think that you said he won an Oscar, right? Yeah, it was a really good movie that kind of opened the floodgate so that by the end of the Got Some Like It Hot, tony Curtis and Jack Lemon are dressed like women hitting on Marilyn Monroe. And at that point, it was pretty obvious the Hays Code was dead. Yeah. I mean, they weren't passing the code, but they were still getting released. So once something is subverted like that, it's dead in the water. Right. So that was fine for a little while. I think the Hays Code just kind of fell to the wayside. And people were releasing movies without any kind of moral or immoral stamp. But the rating system as we understand it today hadn't come about yet. So it's kind of a limbo period until 1968. And a store owner in New York with the last name of Ginsburg got busted for selling nudie mags to 16 year old boys. And he took it all the way to the Supreme Court saying, you can't say anything about this. There's federal laws about obscenity, not local laws in the Supreme Court said, you know what? We really think it's up to local municipalities to decide what they want their minors exposed to or not. That got Hollywood's attention because all of a sudden, local municipalities could decide whether or not they wanted to show movies to minors or not. So what was old became new again. And Jack Valenti, who is in charge of the MPAA, said, we need another system, another self policing system. And it came up with the rating system that we have today. Yeah, and Jack Valenti was the head of the NBA for close to 40 years. And initially the intention was to stop censorship because he feared that the movies were going to start being censored locally. So I think the origins of the NPA's rating system were art centered. Art centered, but also money centered. Because, again, if you have town A showing the movie, but Town B through L deciding that the movie is obscene and not showing it, then you're losing that money and B through L. So what Valenti came up with was this idea that let us tell you what is appropriate for minors or not, what movie is, and we'll just make a simple rating system. Yeah. Gpgr or X? The old X and Ax, which wasn't even formerly a rating. It was just marketing tool. Yeah, because three X's. That's why I wonder if anybody ever came out with one with four X's. Yeah. Or double X, even. Yeah, we cut out that one part. Yes. Christian, our colleague here wrote a great blog post about the former X rated movie. Is that right? Yeah, let's check that out. And it's good for brain stuff. For Stuff. Genius on the Brain Stuff blog earlier this year. And you actually recommended it on your blog, the X rating. Yeah, the best. I remember this week. Yeah, I remember recommending one of his things. I just don't remember that one. That's good. I thought about asking him in here, but then I thought, yeah, we got it. So, yes, back then it was G through X. And we'll talk about how that changed, maybe after this message break. All right, so no longer do we have X rated movies. Now we have something. I guess we should just go through what these ratings mean today, in 2014. Okay, so you've got your G. G has always been G. General audience. Anyone can see it. Yes. And that's your family cartoon that kids love and parents are forced to go to. Right. Then you've got PG. That means no drug use, maybe a little violence, because as we'll learn, the NPA has less problems with violence and more problems with language and sex. Huge criticism. Huge criticism. PG 13, which we've kind of been through. Then you've got your R, and that is a suggestion that no one over 17 be admitted without a parent. And these aren't laws, though. That's one thing it's important to point out. Those are suggestions. And then theaters have policies. Yes. Let's kind of dig into that. So none of this is legally binding? No, none of them are anything more than recommendations. They're basically saying that this movie has X amount of profanity or X amount of nudity or lacks any drug use or something like that. Sure. And so for what the MPAA thinks, the average moral compass of the average American thinks about these different things, like sex, drugs, nudity, all that stuff, this movie falls into this rating. Right. And again, it's not enforceable. You don't even need to have a rating to release a movie. But if you want to get your movie in theaters, there's basically no theater chain out there right now, no major theater chain out there right now that will show an unrated movie. Yeah. It's a completely voluntary system to submit your film to the NPA ratings board. But it's de facto but you have to do it. Yeah, that's the rub. They say it's voluntary, but you actually have to pay a fee to submit your movie if you ever want to have it shown in theaters. Right. And the fee is anywhere from $25,000 for a big budget movie to $750 for short. Yeah. And so you submit your movie. Well, we'll get into it in a second. Let's talk some more about the rest of the ratings. Yeah, well, there's only one more, and that's NC 17, which replaced X. And that means this is a 1990 and it basically means that it's for adults only, and you should not come in if you're under 18. Right. And also means these days, foreign or about lesbian or gays, basically. Yeah. Not fully, but sure. It's pretty close. Yeah. And NC 17, the first movie to come out with that was Henry in June. I have to be confused with Benny in June. And it basically sunk, that movie, because everybody was like, oh, this is X now. Right. NC 17, if you jumble it all together, it looks like X. And the whole reason they came out with NC 17 was to replace X because X was associated exclusively with pornography in the minds of moviegoers. Yeah, exactly. All right, so let's get into this. The actual ratings board, there's the MPAA, and then working for the MPA is the Classification and Ratings Administration, Cara. And Cara doesn't say whether your movie stinks or not. Cara is eight to 13 people, and they are called Raiders, and they are overseen by senior Raider. And they sit down and watch these movies and take copious notes on what they think based on their standards is I don't want to say offensive, but just noteworthy, right? Like, maybe they're not offended, but they think the average mom and sheboygan might be offended, right? Supposedly. Which is kind of a thing, because the whole rating system, as you just kind of pointed out, is subjective. Totally subjective. They supposedly here's the other rub. It's all secret, right? You can find out a federal judge's name and address, but you can't find out who a rater is for your films. It's all conducted in private. None of this stuff is released. And that's one of the big rubs in that documentary. And with filmmakers in general, is it's all done behind closed doors. There's never any explanations provided. These people are supposed to have kids between ages of five and 17, but many of them do not either have kids at all or have kids that are older than 18. It basically frees them up from any accountability to do this all in private and in secrecy. And until that movie by Kirby what is Kirby's last name? Henry and June? No, the documentary. Oh, yeah. This film is not yet rated. Yeah. Until Kirby Dicks. This film is not yet rated came out. All of this stuff was just conjecture and Hollywood legend, he was the first one to really basically, he tailed these people, tailed them to lunch to find out who they were and eavesdrop on them and did some digging and found, like, these anonymous people did not fall into the requirements that the MPAA said they did. And so not only was it in secret, it was fraudulent. Basically, this rating system. So according to the standards you submit your film, this group of people, this anonymous group of people watch it, they rate it, then they come together and vote on a rating, and then they pass their vote along to a senior rater who talks to the movies distributor, director or producer, says, here's the rating. Here's why we rated it like this. And then you're faced with a choice. You can accept the rating, you can edit your film as per the Cara's recommendations, take out these bad words, cut the sex scene a little early, leave all the violence. Yeah. Or you can reject the rating and just release your movie as unrated. Yeah, well, you can try to release it, but since no one will show it, it's really sort of a misnomer. Right, but it's becoming increasingly a thing. Again, you need the rating to get your movie shown in movie theaters. Yeah, but what happens if you don't care if your movie comes out in theaters? Video on demand. Yeah. Or releasing it to the Internet. Now. I'm curious about that. How that's going to change the landscape? Well, right now, it's a huge threat to the MPAA because all of the power they wield is found in this rating system for theaters. Yes. If no one's going to theaters, then the MPA loses all of that power, which is a big deal, especially now, because the MPA is needed more than ever as a lobbying group because of online piracy, which we'll talk about some more. So it's a very precarious time for the NPAA right now, and it's a terrible time for them to be under as much scrutiny and public attack and critique as they are. Yeah. They got spears sticking out every which way, and their trunk is flailing and they're honking. That is true. One thing I should point out, as I said, is that there's no accountability. That's what the NPA says is the good thing about the secrecy, is that it frees them up. That anonymity does it frees them up from accountability. I just don't agree. Right, okay. So if you want to appeal, there is apparently a change made in response to Kirby Dick's movie, the Documentary. Before, if you were appealing your rating, which is very difficult, almost never was done. Well, you never won, that's for sure. Right. And when you were appealing, you couldn't reference any other film. It was totally done in a vacuum, which is pretty preposterous. Yeah. That's the only way to be able to tell us, like, wait a minute, if you said this about this, then why not this for my movie? Right. Which meant that there was no real standard that you could point to, or there were standards you can point to that just wouldn't be considered. Yeah. Or at the very least, if they do have written standards, they don't release them. So you don't even know what they are. Right. So the MPAA, they've got their rating system, they've got the appeals process, which was also in secret, unless that's changed. Right. I think I think the appeals board not only was the appeals board in secret, but they weren't even just raiders, they were people from the industry. Right. And the Theater owners association. Exactly. Whereas the people who are raiders are supposedly unaffiliated with the movie industry and are just like average, ordinary parents representing your middle America, we'll just call it even though I think that's insulting. The thing is, though, is a lot of people criticize the MPA and say these raters are really representing the six major studios who rake in 95% of the $10.9 billion made in the United States in theaters alone. Just ticket sales, not DVD or anything like that. And that's what the MPAA does. In addition to rating, they are, like we said, the lobby arm for these six studios. That's right. And they I guess we should talk about piracy now, huh? That's one of their other big. Besides from rating movies, they are heavy in the lobby against well, especially now with online piracy, because the digital distribution network seems like the way forward as far as distribution goes. Right. It's not the future, it's the present and the future. And the NPAA, they're accused of basically trying to quell new technology by just saying, like, let's just keep people from peer to peer file sharing total so that they can't steal movies in part. And if you go back to the early 80s, jack Valenti was known to have railed and lobbied against the legality of VCRs. People are just going to be recording things and handing them out to their friends. Exactly. Yeah. So the MPA has a long history of basically, like, just doing anything it can to stifle innovation in order to protect the profits of these big movie studios. The other problem with them lobbying in favor of the six movie studios is that they inherently have a conflict of interest against the studios that are not part of these six that they represent, but whose movies they still rate. Right. So they've been accused of more scrutinyly rating the movies of rival studios or foreign studios when assigning a rating. Well, and that's why filmmakers call consistently for transparency. I don't think there are many filmmakers out there saying there should be no rating, we should just maybe some, like large fontrier or Vernon Herdsaw. Right. They're probably like, no ratings at all. Yeah. But I think they just want transparency. Like, open it up and let everyone know how this is all done, who these people are, and give us an idea on what in the world we're submitting to voluntarily. Quote unquote. Pretty interesting. So you were talking about online piracy, and with digital distribution being a big deal, now the MPA is needed more than ever because they have to lobby Congress to fight online piracy at a time when more and more people are distributing online and going around the MPA. So it's losing its power, but it needs its power more than ever. So, like we said, it's a precarious time for the MPAA. Yeah. And they tried a few things. They were successful with the what was the first one in 2000? The digital SOPA? No. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Right. Which basically up until then, it wasn't a federal crime to share movies on peer to peer networks. That one did it. And they got that passed. The NPAA lobbied and got that passed. Yeah, they've cracked down on camcorder recording. Like when you're in New York City and someone has that brand new copy of Godzilla on a video cassette for you. That's because if you've seen Seinfeld, someone went and sat in that theater with a camera recorder and just made a stupid, awful quality pirated version. Yeah. And it says that those are the most common. I guess I kind of believe that they're also the worst quality. Like, sometimes people will get up and move in front of the camera. Like they go to the bathroom or something. Yeah. I've never seen one, but they're terrible. Yeah. I don't want to say more common, but probably more common these days are like copies of screeners. They send out DVDs to everybody who's members of the academy to vote on movies. And so around Oscar time, or before Oscar time, it seems like the Internet gets flooded with way more high quality copies of these major movies that are up for awards. Yeah. I think now, thanks to the NPA, have something coded to your name now on your copy. So, like, they'll know who leaked it or whatever. I think so. I'm not surprised by that. Apparently, if you want to show Frozen at your church yeah. You better have a public performance license because it is illegal to show a movie outside of your home. Yeah, that surprised me. But there are a lot of especially in the summertime, a lot of community screenings. Like every city now has atlanta shows them in, I think at Oakland Cemetery. Some other places in New York. They have them all over the place. Sure. And technically yeah, they're supposed to have a license to do so. I'm sure they do. The big ones? Yes, the big ones. I'm sure do. But like, at your community pool, when you want to show et, the feds could come and kick the gate down around the pool. Everybody. I bet they don't love HBO these days because HBO Go, people steal that. They're just like, hey, dude, what's your login? Oh, right, yeah. And HBO came out and they're like, who cares? Yeah, people are watching it. Yeah. Go watch True Detective. Maybe you'll sign up for HBO cause you liked it. Or maybe you'll just support the show period on social media even though you're getting it for free. Like, we're making enough money, basically. Yes. And that's something that a lot of people say, you know, film industry. We don't really feel that bad for you, Sean Austin, sit down. Because you guys made $10.9 billion in America in ticket sales alone in 2013. We don't feel that bad about this whole conundrum that the MPAA is facing with Sean essence. Yeah, okay. Yeah. I don't think I knew that. Yeah, I can't remember there was like a whole kind of push, an anti piracy push a few years back. And he was the face of it. Part of it. Yeah. And he looks really mad about things, too. But speaking of piracy, I remember there was a story that came out recently. If you think about it, at first it's like but then if you really kind of lend it some thought, it's really disturbing. There was a report of prisoners at a prison being shown pirated movies, and some of the prisoners were there for pirating movies. Oh, wow. Really think about the injustice behind that. That's just crazy town. Imagine if you've been selling counterfeit first and you go to prison and all the guards are wearing counterfeit fur coats pretty swing in prison. It'd be weird, but it would also be unjust. Yeah, true. But in relation to this, it's just more and more widespread every day. It feels like it's a losing battle, I think that the MPAA is fighting right now. Well, I think I read somewhere today that I think they might release a few of the Raiders names per film. Not all like 13. Right. But I need to look that up again because I don't know, I don't see why releasing a three out of 13 names does anybody any good. It does zero good. Yeah. And speaking of doing zero good, there's kind of a new attachment to the rating system that they have now. It's called check the box. And it's basically a brief description of why a movie is like PG 13. Yeah. So it'll say like intense Sci-Fi action or something like that. Some drug use. Yeah, that kind of thing. And some critics of the MPAA say it's just basically like shooting a laser beam into like a 15 year old boy's brain. Like brief nudity. Come see it. Right. CG 13. Check it out, kid. Yeah. I think a lot of people are looking at it like it's just kind of a disingenuous advertisement, cynical advertisement, because the MPA is accused of not regulating or even potentially directly marketing to kids under the age of the movies that are being advertised. So you're seeing a lot of ads for R rated movies on websites that are very popular among the 17 and undercrowd. There's a lot of tie in for PG 13 movies with kids, toys for kids who are under 13. And so there's like this idea that the MPA is supposedly serving America's moral compasses. But really at the same time, they're undermining that morality that they're supposedly defending by marketing and exploiting kids. Yeah, that'd be like a cigarette company having a cartoon animal as their mascot. Can you imagine? Be weird. Well, one thing about the subjectivity of it and the fact that it is a closed book and the filmmakers don't even know how to tailor their movie to achieve a certain rating. I mean, to within a certain degree. But they've learned how to manipulate it because there is no set standard by, if you watch that film, is not yet rated. And you've heard plenty of stories over the years about filmmakers intentionally putting in things that they never intend to be in the final movie. Oh, yeah. Just to sort of distract from some of the other things. So they'll shoot something kind of really outrageous to get the MPA's Raiders hunches up and what. They were never going to keep that part anyway. Right. So they're subverting the system because there is no set standard. Yeah. And the stuff they want to keep in is comparatively exactly, more palatable. And if you don't have the set standard where you can go and I wonder what those sheets look like. On the interior. I mean, that's the great mystery. Surely they have their own interior standards. They're not just like, watch it and see what you think. Well, they have group discussions too. Man, I'd love to sit in on those. So I read another criticism of MPA is that the difference between PG 13 movies and our movies these days is the profanity and the sexuality. That they're similar in violence, if not more violent in PG 13 movies, and that this is kind of messed up. That the MPAA has very little problem with violence. But when it comes to bad words or sexuality of almost any nature, except for women being objectified and men being gratified, then the MPAA suddenly puckers up. Well, yeah. A woman achieving receiving sexual gratification or a homosexual couple NC 17. Yeah. Virtually guaranteed, or depending on how they do it, are if it's coming out of one of the major studios. So, in other words, a man can receive pleasure from a woman. And of course it's scrutinized somewhat because any kind of sex is more heavily scrutinized than violence. Right. But if a woman does like you said, or if it's a gay couple, it's all over. So homophobic, misogynistic, you decide. Right. And fetishistic of violence. Yeah. Here's one example. There's a great article called don't Expect Any Major Changes to the NPA Rating System in 2014. And it's basically Chris Dodd, who is the new head and the gang digging in and saying, you know what? We talk to your average parents and we pull them and this is what they want. But they haven't released. No, none of those studies are released. Yes, none of those conversations are released. A movie like Filament, which you saw was rated R. Yeah. It was about a lady looking for a long lost son. It was so far from an R movie, it was ridiculous. Yeah, but it had a couple of F bombs in it. So they cut those out and they bring it to a PG 13. You might think, who cares? Cut up the F bombs, make it PG 13. But there's something bigger going on here. Yeah, there's a great AV club article about how just totally out of step a lot of the ratings are. And they have 15 movies listed and basically talk about their ratings. Like the first one they talk about once. That romantic. It wasn't like a romantic comedy, was it? No, I would say it was bittersweet. Just a modern day romance told through music. Right. It wasn't a musical. But there are a lot of musical numbers. Highly inoffensive. Love Story. Yeah. Very sweet movie. It had the same rating as Hostile Two. It's basically Torture Porn. They both got the same rating. Yeah. We should read this first line from the AV club. In early summer 2007, two films were released with our ratings. One featured a scene where a naked woman is suspended from a ceiling while another naked woman slashes her with a sith and baths in her blood. The other featured two Dublin musicians singing songs together, falling in love and opting not to act on it. There was never any sex scene. They didn't even get together, really? No. They're both rated R. Both rated R because of profanity. Rushmore rated R for the scene at the end where Max is putting on the play, the Vietnam play. And there is a shot of a couple of little kids looking at on the set. There's some Playboy center folds up in the locker, like on the Vietnam set. And it shows these little kids, like looking at those like a twelve year old would probably do. And it got an hour for that. Got an R for that. Happiness todd sold one of my favorite movies of all time. Yeah, they tried to give it an NC 17 rating and he said, you know what? I'm not cutting anything. You can just go take a long walk off a short pier, is what I think he famously said to them. And he released his movie as unrated. Oh, really? Yes. I don't think I knew that. We'd go, Todd Solens. Or if you're looking at some serious homophobia, the great 1989 movie Longtime Companion features no real sex acts at all. Nothing explicit. In fact, the AV club says it could show on network TV today with just a few alterations, but it was about a gay couple. And so it got an NC 17. Yeah, there was something called Afternoon Delight, which was a movie about a woman who hires a jiggle, and apparently it's heavy on the woman receiving sexual gratification. It got an R rating. It got an R rating after apparently the director cut a lot of stuff out and the director said, what the hey after Wolf of Wall Street came out? Have you seen this movie with like some very graphic, apparent sex scenes between a man and a woman? But Leonardo DiCaprio is the one enjoying it the most, so it's fine. It's an R, right? Blue is the warmest color. Yeah. Last year that teenage lesbian love Story 17 got a lot of attention. And there were some theaters that allowed high school age kids to go see that anyway, because, again, this isn't law for not binding it's up to the theaters. Yeah, it's just so strange that such a small group of people have such influence on such a large industry. The more you dig into it, the more conflicts of interest arise. And the more arbitrary the standards become, the more blood boiling it is. I highly recommend you go read some stuff like rated R for Ridiculous by Kirby Dick. His little op ed about the MPAA. That one US. News and World Report article you wrote or suggested was good. I wish I wrote it. Had you been there, would have been used correctly. How did they misuse it? What? Yes, I know, that's terrible. So the NPA will defend themselves and they say that there is no such bias and that all these objectionable scenes are rated on the graphic quality and how graphic it is. But if you just look at the you'd have to be a dummy not to see these correlations. Right. And the fact that they don't seem to care that much about violence in this age where I don't know, does it influence people to go shoot up a school? Who knows? Did you see that John Oliver quote that's going around? Yes, but what was it? It's like somebody unsuccessfully tries to carry a bomb onto a plane in their shoe. We all take our shoes off, right? There's like 30 something school shootings after Columbine, and absolutely nothing has changed. Yeah, or the Onion article that's going around, too. Now, is this something that can't be prevented as the only country where this kind of thing happens all the time? Something like that. I'm paraphrasing. Yeah, that's the Onion. Yes. Good stuff, NPA. Keep doing the fighting. The good fight. Yeah. Go check out just go start reading up on it. It's funny how much we just take this stuff for granted, but when just start digging just slightly beneath the surface, at the very least. See, this film is not yet rated. It's really good. Yeah. Really engrossing. And for every 100 documentaries that come out, five of them are like, really great. Sure, most of them are pretty good, some are terrible. So any really good one is worth seeing just in and of itself. Agreed. If you want to learn more about the MPAA, type those letters into the search bar athouseofworks.com and I said Search bar. So it's time for listing or mail. I'm going to call this wild parrots Josh mentioned in the Tattoo podcast today. I heard parrots like to hang together when free, and I wanted to burst in the podcast booth and tell you about the wild parrots of San Francisco. I'm not going to get into it except to say that over the course of my life, the parrots in San Francisco are sort of living legend that one would occasionally get the privilege of spotting now and then. However, about three years ago, I moved in with my aunt in the little San Francisco suburb of Brisbane, and apparently the famous flocks of parrots were also making our home there. Since it was warmer and less windy. These parrots were often hanging right outside my bedroom window, which is pretty amazing. I don't know, she says amusing. I say it's amazing, but also somewhat annoying. Especially since my first son was just a little guy then and a very light sleeper. And these suckers are loud. That is true. They are very loud. Also, guys, I'm sending you the link to watch the preview of the 2003 documentary the Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill. So I didn't know there was a documentary. I've heard that. I've heard of that before. I never knew what it was about. Amy, I will check that out. Thank you. Thank you for writing it. Yeah, thanks a lot, Amy. If you have a documentary recommendation, we are always interested in those. Heck yeah. You can tweet them to us at syskpodcast, you can post them on Facebook.com stuffyheanow, and you can send us an email to stuffpodcast@howstepworks.com. And as always, join us at our home on the Web The Beautifulstuffynow.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstofworks.com. Ah, summer school's out. The sun is shining. The daylight is longer. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music that's so good, it's Criminal Morbid. Part true crime and part comedy, Morbid takes you on a journey from murderous mysteries to major laughs, all in the same week. Hosted by autopsy technician Elena Ercart and hairstylist Ash Kelly, this chart topping series will have you hooked before you know it. Listen to new episodes of Morbid one week early, only on Amazon Music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen today by."
https://podcasts.howstuf…25-sysk-yawn.mp3	What makes us yawn?	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/what-makes-us-yawn	What is it that makes us suddenly draw in a deep breath through a wide-open mouth? The beautiful thing about yawning is that researchers really don't know. Whether the answer is physical, mental or even contagious there is pretty much no chance you won't	What is it that makes us suddenly draw in a deep breath through a wide-open mouth? The beautiful thing about yawning is that researchers really don't know. Whether the answer is physical, mental or even contagious there is pretty much no chance you won't	Thu, 25 Apr 2013 17:03:32 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2013, tm_mon=4, tm_mday=25, tm_hour=17, tm_min=3, tm_sec=32, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=115, tm_isdst=0)	25918973	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Welcome to stuff you should know from housetuffworkscom. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with Charles W. Chuck Bryant. You getting comfy? Yeah. Okay, well, you put the two of us together, and this is Stuff You Should Know. The podcast. Frank was squeaking. I thought I was in Frank. Oh, is that Frank? Yeah. I'm sorry. I'm in Francine. Okay. Sorry, Francine. You are in Frank. Who are you? That's still the chair. People have never heard this. Like, what are they talking about? Oh, they've already turned off. We name our chairs people. You name cars, boats, and chairs? Yeah, a surprising amount of people name chairs. If you don't, you should be paranoid because people are talking about you. That's right. Chuck? Yes. Have you ever ossetated? I have. I've even pandiculated. You've pendiculated before. I pendiculate every morning. You know what we sound like people running for the Senate in 1950. Florida. Yeah. There's like florida has a rich history of people running for political office using technical terms for things that sound way worse than they are to smear their opponents. Really? Yeah. There's this one guy who went and I can thank Uncle John and his bathroom reader for this okay. Who went after his opponent and said that his sister was a thespian in New York. And all these people were like, I hate and apparently the smear campaign was successful. That wasn't the only one. But this guy used that couple of technical terms. We should probably tell people what we're talking about. Right. Because you said you paniculate every morning. Easily every morning. And that is a what? That is a yawn and a stretch combined together and is one of my favorite things to do in the morning. It is. Did you see that painting? It was a self portrait. The artist self portrait seemed like it was from the 16th or 17th century of him paniculating. It's just this awesome oil painting of this Renaissance man stretching and yawning. Yeah. I love it because it feels good and it ties me to my pets because I see them do it. They see me do it, and I'm kind of like, hey, we all eat, we all pee and poop, and we all paniculate. My little cat will stretch and yawn. My dogs will stretch and yawn. Yeah. And I will stretch and yawn. So do you guys make one another stretching yawn? I'm going to start looking out for that because I have not noticed that. But apparently yawning can be contagious to animals, right? Yeah. There's a fun little game you can play. Dogs. Dogs supposedly chimps, for sure, but probably not cats. I don't know. Yeah. Just because it's not in here doesn't mean it's not true. There's a fun little game you can play. The next time you're hanging out with people, if you feel like manipulating them on a biological level, just yawn and just start paying attention to how many people yawn as a result. And it should start some sort of chain reaction among maybe 40% to 50% of the people because that's the statistic of how many human adults yawn in reaction to seeing somebody on seeing video of somebody on hearing about somebody yawning, reading about yawning. Like, how many times did you yawn while you read this article? A bunch. And people will probably yawn while listening to this? Supposedly it's pretty much impossible not to. Yeah. Do you ever this just really shows how deeply disturbed I am. I will suppress or cover up a yawn if someone else has made me on sometimes just so I don't give them the satisfaction. Oh, yeah, I've done that before. Sometimes, like just some stranger on an elevator, they'll yawn and I'll just be like, no, not me, buddy. One of those people who don't realize that they're just your mortal enemy for no real good reason. Yeah. When in fact they really don't even know exists. Right. They're like some guys on the elevator. Right. So yawning is involuntary. Yeah. And I've seen a range of weeks that a fetus has been observed yawning from eleven to 20. And that sort of disproves one of the while many things disproves one of the theories, which is that we yawn to oxygenate ourselves. Yeah. Because a lot of people think that fetuses breathe amniotic fluid in the womb and that is absolutely not true. They're oxygen through the umbilical cord. Yeah. So they're not clearly not yawning to oxygenate themselves. Right. We'll debunk that with other things in a minute. Sure. But still, it is a little bit of a mystery though, the other ideas for why we yawn don't really hold up in the fetus either. It feels like that's where the key to the mystery of yawning is going to be found in the fetus in the womb. All right. Should we go over some theories? Well, hold on. First you were saying it's involuntary. I found this one thing, Chuck, that there's a type of paralysis, like a lesion on the brain, where if you yawn, you still pendiculate. So like your paralyzed arm, if you yawn deep enough, will raise will rise. Really? Yeah. Wow. Pretty weird. Yeah. There's only been a few cases of it over the last 150 years, but it's been documented in a number of different places. That is such a surprise. Yes. Seriously. They're like, can I be tired more often? Yeah. So when you yawn, just physiologically speaking, you're going to open your mouth, you're going to suck in air into your lungs. I read one place that your eyes usually close. They did this big study and found that most time your eyes closed, but I don't think it's like all the time that's sneezing you're thinking of. No, they did a study on the eyes of the yarn. Well, that's part of the yarn too, as far as queues go. Like it's not just the mouth opening your eyes. Quint. Yeah. And I found, like, the really good deep yawn, my eyes will generally close. Got you. So you're going to flex your ABS. It's a good workout. It's going to push your diaphragm down. You're going to fill your lungs with air and then exhale. And that is a yawn. That's a stretch. You're pandiculating. Yeah. Also, parts of your brain become active. Right. Basically, what happens when all this when you go through all this process, a bunch of neurotransmitters and dopamine are activated. That is why a guy named Robert Provine thinks well, he says that yawns are basically a part of a change from one state of arousal to another. Yeah. Like, I was asleep and I'm awake, or I was alert. Now I'm bored. Right. Or I was, like, just hom. And now I'm, like, in the mood. Because you can yawn when you're sexually aroused. Oh, that mood. Yes, the mood. The mood. The Glenn Miller mood. Yes. That's what they had to call it back then, and that's what we have to call it today on this family friendly podcast. That's right. What's going on, too, is, physiologically speaking, is we are distributing something called the Surfactant, which sounds gross, and it kind of is. Okay. It's a wedding agent to coat alveoli in the lungs. But are they saying that's what happens, or that's why it happens? That's what happens. Okay. They're not saying the reason is to coat the alveoli with surfactant. Right. It could be. I mean, for all we know, they still don't know. No, we still have no idea what function yawning provides. Same with the yawning as a symbol of arousal or as a sign of arousal. They think that it's really just a byproduct of it. Right, okay. But it explains why people who are nervous or dogs I'm sure you've seen dogs who are nervous and they yawn in, like, that really kind of weird, unsettling way. Yeah. When they're super worked up. Yes. And humans, too, people will yawn when they're nervous. It's a sign that you're in a state of arousal. And what that state of arousal is depends on the situation. Yeah. They point to Olympians who yawn before, like, a race, which Papua's one theory that we're going to get to the theory should we just get to the theory? Let's get to the theory. Puppies. That theory, though, that you have to be bored or you have to be sleepy or tired. Yeah. Like, there's the boredom theory, and it's kind of been pretty fully shot down just by casual observation. Yeah. There's also the physiological theory, which is that this is the one that I'd always heard when I was younger, like, why are you yawn? Is because you're oxygen deprived, or you have an abundance of carbon dioxide, so you're drawing in a bunch of oxygen and, like, putting out a bunch of carbon dioxide. That's why you're yawn. And Provine, that you mentioned yeah. He tested this one, right? Yeah. Pretty simply. He just said, okay, well, let's just give some athletes a bunch of oxygen and see if they breathe, if they yawn any less. And they didn't. Right. He also increased the carbon dioxide in the ambient air, and people still kept yawning. Okay. So that one's gone, but they didn't yawn anymore. Yeah. So we can put that to bed. Yeah. Plus, also, there was a terrible proof associated with that hypothesis that explains why people yawn in groups, because when you have a big group, there's more carbon dioxide and less oxygen. Like, you're all fighting over the oxygen. Right. So you're yawning through yawning. Yeah. Whoever can yawn the deepest lives. Yeah. That doesn't sound right. Evolution could play a part. Some people think that maybe we used to yawn Tuktuk with yawn to bare his teeth to intimidate folks around him, or that it developed as a signal. Tuktuk would give a signal to his mates that, hey, we're hunting now, and we need to go now, gather wood. So I will yawn to tell you that yeah. Like pre speech, right? Yeah. Like a bird turning of the whole flock. Yeah. That makes a little bit of sense, but I still don't believe that one. I'm with the brain cooling theory that's, like the most recent one. That seems to be the one that people are subscribing to. Yeah. Scientists generally are leaning toward the fact that when our brains are warmer, yawning might cool it down. And a cool brain is a more whatever. A better brain, I guess I should say. That's better for thinking I just yawned. Did you? I did. Okay. I didn't see it. Well, I covered my mouth. You may have thought it was perfect. I think I did. So the brain cooling theory, that's the one that most people think is lately. That's the explanation. There's another piece of research that people are going into that is the idea that contagious yawning is the result of empathy. Right. The more you empathize with other people, the more susceptible you are contagious yawning. And we said earlier that I think 41% to 55% of human adults are susceptible to contagious yawning. Right. Which the mythbusters confirmed, by the way. Okay. So there is some sort of link between what we perceive as empathy and the susceptibility to yawning. When you see somebody else yawning or reading about yawning or whatever, I wonder if it's like, oh, boy, that guy's tired. Let me make him feel better. Well, the provine again, he's, like, really into yawning research. Yeah. He has done MRI scans where he shows, I guess, pictures of people yawning or talks about yawning, and they yawn. And when they do, he says that mirror neurons go off. Oh, yeah. Our old friends. Right. So our mirror neurons are activated when you see somebody else yawn, and apparently that triggers the yawn. But people take it a step further in this quest to prove that empathy and contagious yawning are work hand in hand and saying, well, then people with autism, they shouldn't be able to be susceptible to contagious yawning. Right. Because they're known to have less empathy. Right. They have trouble connecting with others, or they have trouble developing what's called a theory of mind about other people. And there have been a lot of studies about whether or not people who have autism are contagious is susceptible to contagious yawning. Yeah. And it's been proven not proven, but at least the data says that the more the stronger your autism, the less you will yawn, even though they will yawn when someone's pretending to yawn. Was that what it was, like, a real part? Yeah, I think it said that when they're watching video of people just moving their mouths, then nonautistic kids yawn more than kids with autism, when it was really yawning. Does that make sense? Yes. Well, hold on before we get to that, because this is like a whole thing to me. Sure. The idea that if you have autism, you're not susceptible to continuous yawning. Yeah. Let's first have a message break from our sponsor. Okay, josh, I believe we're talking about autism and yawning, which is I just learned a thing for you. Well, yeah. You said that they have found that if you have been diagnosed with autism, you're less likely to be susceptible and contagious yawning. Right. And they found that the higher on the autism spectrum you fall, the less, like, you would even be. Right? Yeah. Which would suggest that there is that link, because there's a link between empathy and empathy and contagious yawning. So autism and studying kids with autism is kind of like the fulcrum. Sure. So, yeah, it just seems to me to be kind of I don't know. I don't buy all the studies that have been carried out and other studies kind of contradict it. Yeah. Other studies have shown that kids with autism focus on people's mouths rather than their eyes. Maybe they're missing the cue. Remember we said that your eyes scrunch? So, like, a yawn is not just people opening their mouths. Right. It has all these other facial characteristics that might trigger a yawn in another person. So maybe kids with autism are simply missing that. You're saying maybe the data could be skewed by other factors? It could be. Plus, I just remember when I wrote this article, like, years back, I was kind of like yeah, it seems just slightly off. You got a good gut, though. Well, thanks, man. I've been working on it so bad. Well, we should also mention, too, that this goes back a long way. Like, I believe was it hippocrates? Yeah. Was the first person to start sort of postulating ideas, and he thought it was fever related, like sickness that could help cure you. So I got a fever, and the only prescription is more yawning. Yeah. That's why he is the father of medicine. That's right. Because he was the first guy to just start saying stuff. But that was pretty quickly disproven. Right. But the idea that yawning has something to do with increasing our alertness and awareness, which is kind of one of the current views of yawning that dates back to the 17th and 18th centuries. Yeah. Well, it increases your heart rate during inhalation only. Okay. I think it increases and then levels off and then just drops back down to normal pretty quickly. I got you. Yeah. But up to like 30 beats per minute increase. Right. Yeah. I read a real heavy article on this study that really just made my eyes cross. But that was the long and short of it. Right, but that's when they dealt with the eyes. Like they really measured all kinds of stuff. We said that fetus is from eleven to 20 weeks of development yawn in utero. And did you see any of the 4D ultrasounds of fetuses? Yawning is adorable. It's pretty cute. But it's also weird at the same time because they're not fully developed. So it's like, oh, you like a little baby platypus, kind of. But you have to be around age four before you're susceptible to contagious yawning. Yeah. Is there any way to put it besides susceptible to contagious yawning? I don't think so. Why do you feel like you've said that like 80 times? A lot. And I've had trouble with it every time, too. There's another couple of researchers who a couple of years ago, andrew Gallup and Omar Tansi Eldacar, they found that outside temperature could affect the amount of yawning. So if it's warmer than usual, then you're going to yawn less frequently. Because their explanation is the outside air is useless to the organism because it doesn't need to suck in more oxygen. I don't get how the temperature would affect that, though. Well, if it's warmer temperature and you're using the cooler air to cool your brain got you. If it's warmer than the temperature of your brain, then it should work. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. All right. Well, they had other tests, though, that showed that the amount of yawning increased both when outside temperature and the temperature of the brain increase all over the place. No one knows anything about yawning except Robert Provine, the foremost leading authority. Well, he's proven that seeing or hearing about somebody yawning, it triggers your mirror neuron. Yeah. I think somebody should do a documentary on these people that become obsessed with yawns. No, just like a certain small thing. See you're yawning right now. And that was unsatisfying. Can you make me laugh in the middle of it? I think, like, fast, cheap and out of control. I've talked about it before. Ariel Morris's documentary sort of did that, but that was about like studying naked mol rats or lion taming or what's it called when you clip the hedges to pierre gardening. Yeah, but someone they should do things that are even more like, mundane. Like this dude that is dedicated his life to yawning. I just think that'd be interesting. Like, what drives provine to figure this out when it really doesn't matter, you know what I'm saying? Well, I don't know, because and it's not just yawning. He frequently is cited as a yawning expert. He's an evolutionary biologist. Okay, but yawning, since it's involuntary and since you find it in all vertebrates, it kind of gives some peek into our evolutionary past. Plus, he probably just loves a good mystery. Sure. He had a great quote, too. We were talking about how arousal yawning is a byproduct of state of arousal. He was saying that he believes that yawns and orgasms share a neurobehavioral heritage. Oh, really? Yeah. So, like, they're possibly rooted in the same behavior. Like, remember you said it yourself, when you paniculate yes. Feels good. Same with orgasm. Yeah, I've heard those feel great. Right. So possibly if you trace the lineage of this behavior back far enough, you'd see, like oh, they both came from when humans used to stub their toe. They thought it was awesome. And then things diverged into these two things interesting into yawning and what happens when you're in the mood. The Glenn Miller mood. You got anything else? No, man, that is yawning forever until somebody figures it out. It's a mystery. Yeah, and I kind of like it like that, but at the same time, I think it's so amorphous that no one has a clue. Like, sometimes we've talked about stuff that science couldn't fully explain, but we almost always pick a theory. Like, this is the one, it just hasn't been proven yet. Right. This one, I don't feel like we did that. We both liked the brain cooling one, but it was kind of discarded. Yeah. And I'm definitely going to keep an eye on my pets, but then I don't know if, like, can you induce that just by noticing more? You know what I'm saying? Or maybe what I'll do is I'll watch Emily around the pets so no one's in on it. Just be careful you don't accidentally change their behaviors by observing it. Heisenberg Buckley farts every time he stretches, too. That's what I'm saying. We'll see if Emily farts while she fandiculates. Right? That'll be the test. Nice. Okay. I think if you guys want to learn more about yawning, you can type that word into the search bar@housetofores.com. And since I said search bar, it means it's time for listener mail. Not quite yet, my friend. We have a quick word from our sponsor again, and then we have a great listener mail, though, about Rodriguez. Oh, yeah. Okay. All right. So this is time for message break. Okay, and now it's time for listener mail. Yes, and I already gave it away because I wanted people to stick around for this. And it is called I hang out with Rodriguez. Wow. So we mentioned Rodriguez, the singer songwriter from the 60s, who, unbeknownst to him, was a huge hit in South America and no, South Africa. What did it say? South America, South Africa, both, like, down there, one's on the left, one is on the right. And then later in Australia So we covered that in our apartheid podcast. And you can see the documentary Searching for Sugar Man. It's super interesting. Which one? Best documentary this year, right? Yeah. Heck, yes. Have you seen how to survive a plague? That was up for Best Picture, too. No. Best Documentary. Yes. It was really good. It's about the early gay AIDS awareness movement, and it's just what they were up against is mind boggling. The idea of society was just kind of like, no, god's punishing you. Good luck with it, pal. Yeah, it was really something. Our friend Stewart of Superhuman Happiness, who they're fans of the show. He scored the soundtrack. Oh, nice. And he did a really good job with it, too. I'll have to check that out. I saw another trailer the other day for a documentary about this family of Jews who hid underground for a year and a half during World War II. And they never told their story because they didn't think anyone believe it. And this Caving cave diver not cave diver, caving guy found these human objects and traced them back to this family, and they came out like the surviving ones told their story of is amazing. Wow. Things called no place on Earth. Cool. And it's coming out soon. It's awesome. All right, well, there you go, everybody. We like to recommend documentaries around here. Okay, Rodriguez. Guys, it's so fun to hear you talk about Rodriguez because I've known him a little bit here and there. I'm glad he's getting recognition. And here is the story about the first day I met him. September 2007, I moved into a 101 year old apartment building in the Cast Corridor neighborhood of Detroit. It was a bar across the street called the Bronx. And after getting moved in, my boyfriend and I went over there, had a night of celebrating and talking with some old and new friends. Our friend Dale pointed out this dude wearing all black with sunglasses on said, you know, Rodriguez, that guy over there is bigger than eldest in South Africa, in Australia. I didn't understand the gravity of a statement at the time, but being friendly people, we talked. Late into the night with Dale and Rodriguez. The bar closed. We decided to walk back across the street to our new apartment, and Rodriguez followed us out with his guitar and toe. It was very quiet out about three in the morning. The apartment building was Ushaped with a big courtyard in the middle and low lighting. It was really beautiful. There was a single picnic table, and we sat there on it, talking more and more. Rodriguez pulled out a pint of brandy, offered us some, and then after we wanted to hear his new song and he just written it the other day, he said sure, because he seems so incredibly excited about it. He played the song for us and played it again, which I thought was interesting. He played it twice. Did you like that? You want to hear it again? Wait, before you answer, let me play it a second time and then we talk some more about music and love. And he played it once again. No way. I guess he played it three times. I saw many times over the next few years and met his middle daughter as well. But I played the same song every time. But I'll never forget sitting under the stars all alone with him in a majestic old Detroit courtyard, giving my boyfriend to me a private concert of a single song. That's cool. Played thrice and passing the cheap brandy. He really is as kind and happy of a soul as the movie says. That's cool. When you watch Searching for Sugar Man, you can see a couple of people talking to the Bronx bar and even see my old apartment in the background. I hope I see you guys soon. Love, Julia. Well, thanks, Julia. Hat tip to you for being aware of the word thrice. Yeah. And for, I guess, waiting out the storm in Detroit. Yeah. And for listening to that song three times. Very patient and understanding with that smile plastered on your face the last time. Yeah. Very cool memory, I imagine. Yeah. Let's see if you have a story about any sort of famous singer, songwriter, filmmaker. Anybody remember the guy who hung out with Henry Hill and became, like, really disenchanted as a result? Yeah. If you have a good story like that, we're always in the mood for a good yarn, especially if it's true. You can tweet to us if it's a really short story to SUSK podcast, that's our handle. The whole thing. You can join us on Facebook. Comstuffysheaknow all one word. That's our Facebook page. You can send us an email to stuffpodcast@discovery.com and friends, Romans, Countrymen, go to our website. What is your problem? It's called Stuffyoushodenope.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstoffworks.com. Hey, it's summer, everybody, which means school's out, the sun is shining, the daylights longer, and best of all, there's plenty of time to get lost in a good, thrilling story. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music. My favorite murder from exactly right media. My favorite murder has something for everyone. Hosted by Karen Kilgarra and Georgia Hardstark, this true crime comedy podcast will share stories that will have you wanting more before you know it. Listen to new episodes of my favorite Murder. One week early on Amazon music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen today."
https://podcasts.howstuf…ater-tunnels.mp3	How Underwater Tunnels Work	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/how-underwater-tunnels-work	It's a pretty amazing feat to dig a tunnel beneath a body of water that's big enough (and safe enough) to drive a train through. While humans have been digging underwater tunnels for thousands of years, it wasn't until the late 19th century that it became	It's a pretty amazing feat to dig a tunnel beneath a body of water that's big enough (and safe enough) to drive a train through. While humans have been digging underwater tunnels for thousands of years, it wasn't until the late 19th century that it became	Thu, 12 Dec 2013 14:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2013, tm_mon=12, tm_mday=12, tm_hour=14, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=346, tm_isdst=0)	30719661	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Brought to you by the allnew 2014 Toyota Corolla. Welcome to stuff you should know from housetoppers. Comm. Hi and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles wife, Bryant Noel is with us again in that's right. Really? It's just been a very short period of time since he was last with us. Well, who knows? We might release these weeks apart just to throw people. It's possible. How are you doing? Fine, how are you? I'm good, man. I'm great. I'm ready to tunnel through the show and get on. All of you. That's pretty lame. It was okay. It worked though, because what we're talking about has to do with tunnels. Yes. I don't know if you caught that. Yeah, we covered a little bit of this in the Subways podcast. Yeah. Cut and cover. Cut and cover. But this goes deep. Undercut and covering. You got to stop this. I know. Yeah. We're talking about underwater tunnels specifically. That's right. Which, by the way, we should probably say for those of you who are into semantics, the word tunnel is applied only to something that is bored entirely underground. Yes. Right. If you say, like we talked about with cut and cover in Subways, if you dig out a trench, put in your tunnel and then back fill over your tunnel, what you've created is a conduit. Yeah. And if you correct people when they talk about this kind of thing, that means you're so obnoxious or you're an engineer. Yeah, but engineers don't even do that because they so want to be liked. Yeah. They don't want to be that guy. Yeah. I think a lot of people wonder, how did you manage to get a tunnel under the water? We're going to tell you it's really not that hard. And there's a few ways yes. I don't know if saying it's not that hard is correct. Well, not that complicated in an engineering sense. No, I think none of these I was like, what? Right. They bore a tunnel under a river. Right. But just the overview. I mean, you can read this article and go build an underwater railway tunnel. Is that what you thought it was saying? No, I'm just saying, like, there's so much more to like, just the details. Yeah. You weren't saying that there's particle physics and there's digging a big hole under a river. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. We're going to hear from some angry civil engineer. No, I think it's great. I think it's modern marvel is what it is. It is. Yeah. So, Chuck yes. It's not necessarily modern. That's true. No. People have been digging under rivers since the Babylonians. Yeah. I was quite surprised by this. They managed to build a 3000 foot brick lined, arch supported tunnel, twelve x 15ft under, while they diverted the Euphrates River. And it was a pedestrian passageway. That's crazy. Right. This is 21 80 BCE. Right. I think they diverted it temporarily. Well, yeah. Sure. But even still, it's still a tunnel. And they still did this several thousand years ago, and they diverted a river, which is impressive on its own. I'm impressed with them. I'm glad to hear you are, too. Over the years, people kind of, I imagine, built and failed spectacularly and trying to build underwater. It wasn't until the 19th century that people really kind of started to advance by leaps and bounds over, say, the Babylonian methods to come up with some techniques that are still in use today. Yeah. As far as underwater goes, they were tunneling all during the 18th and 19th centuries. And in fact, the word under mine, I thought was fairly interesting. It came from the fact that there were miners who dug under castle walls to collapse them. That's a pretty good idea. Yeah, it's a very good idea. And I don't think we covered that in our castle podcast, either. No. I wish we had. Yes, that would have been complete. Now, I know that episode is incomplete, but like you said, it was 1800s when we finally said, hey, let's try this underwater thing again, because we think we can do it now. Yeah, and they kind of had it licked. And again, like I said, some of the techniques that they came up with at this time are still in use today. Yeah. I got a question for you, though. Okay. If it's dangerous and it's pricey, why do you tunnel at all? Why not just build bridges? That is a fantastic question, and I happen to have some answers. Okay. All right, so think about this. You build a bridge. It makes sense. It's beautiful. Bridge works. We know how to build bridges. We've been doing it forever. But what if you have a heavily trafficked shipping lane with ships that are taller than your bridge? You can build a draw bridge, but it's going to be up and down, up and down all day. And don't fool yourself. A drawbridge is pretty expensive, too. Sure. That's one. All right. If you are an enemy of the United States sure. Your bridge could be a target from air strike. Yeah. That's a problem for you. If you want to build it again afterward, it could be struck down again, and then again, you want your bridges to remain intact. Yes. I'm going to argue for tunnels here, though, my friend, and say that they withstand tides very well in currents and storms. It's not out in the open like a bridge is. You can go greater distances with a tunnel, and you can carry almost virtually unlimited amounts of weight. So score one for tunnel and chuck. Yeah. Because with the bridge, you have to worry about it collapsing. Sure. With the tunnel, it's like no, you're probably pretty firm against some sort of bedrock or seabed or something like that. You can put as many trucks as you want on it's. Not going to break. Yeah, I guess we'd call seismic activity a draw. Have you ever seen that? Not good for either one of the bridges. Yeah, that is nuts. Is that in Seattle or Washington? I don't know, man. But you look at that and think, how does that move like that without just completely breaking apart? It does. Pretty scary. So we're going to call that a draw, though, because earthquakes are not good for either. Well, cost. You said that bridges are costly. Well, bridges get costlier the bigger they are. Whereas tunnels get cheaper. The bigger they are. Yeah. The length with the tunnel, cost starts to drop as it gets longer and longer. Not so with the bridge. So why then would city planners still use tunneling as sort of a last resort? I guess because they like bridges more. Okay. All right. So that was an sin. We were play acting. It's not very well either. No, I thought it was pretty good. Oh, you did? Yeah, I thought it was. Okay, so let's talk about some of the tunnels they've got going on these days that are pretty remarkable. There's one that actually connects two islands in Japan. It's called the well, you're the resident Japanese expert. How do you pronounce that? The Saikan Tunnel. The Cyclone Tunnel. Saikan. And that is the one of those two holds the record for the longest and deepest underwater rail tunnel. And they did that in the 1950s after a typhoon sank some ferry boats and the Sugar Street and killed over 1500 people. They said, you know what, maybe we should go underwater with this operation. Yeah. And they did. So. And it connects Hanshu and Hokkaido. And Hokkaido is known for its sub factories. I knew you would have a tidbit for me. The Simpsons tidbit. Oh, is that from Mr. Sparkle? Faith, man. One of the best ever. So in 1988, they completed the Saikan Tunnel. Yeah. I'm going to go with Saikan. Okay. And it stretches 33 and a half miles, the whole tunnel does, yeah. That's impressive. It is. But then only 14 and a half miles of it only 14 and a half miles of it are underwater. But it goes close to 800ft deep, which is that's sort of the remarkable part. That's a long way down. Yeah. You have to pop your ears when you're on that train. Oh, I'm sure. The tunnel, which we were laughing about before we hit record, just the name. I know. And we should say it's called the Tunnel because it's actually the Channel Tunnel. It goes under the English Channel to connect the UK and France. Yes. And that was finished in the mid ninety s and twenty four of its 31 miles or underwater. But it only goes about 246ft down. Yes. Still impressive. Only. Yeah. It's so funny to use words like only with stuff like this. And then the newest member to the underwater tunnel family is the Marmara Tunnel in Istanbul that connects the Asian portion of Istanbul and the European portion of Istanbul, which means it's the only underwater tunnel or the first to connect two continents. That's right. And the name comes from the Sea of Marmara and the word ray, which is Turkish for rail, because it is another rail tunnel meaning train. And it's pretty cool. When they started digging it, this thing, this project went slow as molasses, not just because of construction, but because they came upon the Port of Theodosius, I think. Is that right? Sounds good to me. So it was a port in Istanbul back then. It was Constantinople. That was the busiest port in the world for about 1000 years. And it was lost. And they came upon it while digging this tunnel, and the archaeologists were like, okay, stop, stop. You got to turn. Yeah. They found 40,000 artifacts from this? No, they didn't turn, they went through it, but they documented everything and grabbed it for the museum. Well, if it hadn't been for that tunnel, maybe they would have never found that stuff. Yeah. Really? So that was an immersion tunnel. And it was the longest and deepest immersion tunnel ever built. Immersion tunnels are my favorite. Yeah, that's the one that I didn't think was super complicated. I saw a couple of videos and I'm telling you, there's a lot to it. Just the pontoon is a loner. Yeah, but it's like the kind of thing you can replicate in your bathtub. Right. That's what I mean by that. I see what you mean. Okay, so we're going to get into what that all means because there are quite a few ways to build tunnels. And three. Yeah. And three in use. I bet there are other dudes out there trying to figure new stuff out. Yeah, right. But one of the oldest that is still in use, it's called a tunneling shield, thanks to a remarkable dude, a Frenchman named Mark Isambard Brunel, who was eventually knighted for his work. As inventing the tunnel shield. Understandably so. Yeah, it was a big invention. Pretty amazing. He got the idea from watching a shipworm, which is like a naked clam. There's these little shells on one end. It's like the termite of the sea is what they call it, because this thing bores into docks and boats and basically tunnels into wood and leaves sawdust in his wake. And this guy saw this and he's like, hey, that's a pretty good idea. I think we'll make a tunneling shield. Exactly. Yeah. So he came up with the Brunelle shield, which is actually rectangular, but the best way to think of what a modern tunneling shield looks like. There's a description given in this article that makes sense. If you add one extra sentence, you take a coffee can. Imagine a coffee can without its lid. And the bottom part of the coffee can is pointed somewhat with some holes in it, and we dig it into the ground and then turn it on its side to bore horizontally. What you have is something like a tunneling shield. So at the front end, what part did they miss? They're going straight down. And it just completely confused me, the fact that it wasn't going to the side I couldn't wrap my head around until I finally was like, oh, I see what they're saying. Got you. So that coffee can. Imagine it jammed horizontally, underground. Let's go in and explore it. Right. In the front there's holes and you have different kind of compartments where people stand. They're called muckers, and they dig out the dirt in front of them. Right? Yeah. And in Brunel's case, they were cast iron shutters and they would just open the shutters one at a time and just take a few inches out and back then they used screw jacks, but now they use hydraulics and just inch away forward, little by little by little and reinforcing them, building the sides as you go. Right. And that coffee can, in the meantime, is holding that tunnel shape. Right. Because it's the exact shape of the tunnel shield. Yeah. While the guys in front are digging, the coffee can is giving them all support. And then right behind it are Masons and steel workers who are reinforcing the tunnel. And then the reinforced finished concrete tunnel provides the stability for those hydraulic jacks that slowly and little by little inch the whole thing forward. Yeah. It's like every tunnel. Although actually the immersion tunnels aren't. But when you're digging a tunnel, it goes back to the Babylonians. You dig support, advanced dig support, advance. Right. Just like Charles Bronson in The Great Escape. Oh, yeah. Was that his mantra? No, I'm going to go tunnel in this tunnel and build the frame. You did a good bronson. Well, it's sort of Bronson, but it's also sort of the guy from The Simpsons who were based on Bronson hank his area. Is that who does that? Sure, okay, sure. Yeah. I don't know that for sure, but is it? I'm positive. Okay. It's simpsons reference number two. Oh, yeah, nice. But remember, in The Great Escape, too, and of course we'll see this too, it's a very dangerous job and they needed air, so they had the, I think, fire bellows, something pumping bellows just to pump fresh air in there. Right. Because when you're 100ft in a tunnel underground, especially the size of one of The Great Escape, just like big enough for your body, you're going to run out of air. Yeah. And, well, that's something that they ran into. We talked about I don't remember what episode it was, but we were talking about building the Brooklyn Bridge. They had basically an upright coffee can that they dug the posts out of. They ran in the same thing when they were building the tunnel underneath the Thames River. Thanks to Brunel. He built it with his son. Yeah. Very short. It's like 1200ft but it took about eight or nine years. Yeah, there was a shutdown for seven years because it ran out of money. But it was deep enough so that you had to pump compressed air in to keep the water out. And since there was compressed air, you had to go through a series of airlocks or else you get the bent. Sure. And I don't know if we said this, it seems obvious, but the reason you're doing all this is because digging into soft earth is problematic because your leading edge is going to continually want to collapse on top of you unless you have pressurized there to keep the water at bay. And you have guys digging out through a support structure, E-G-A tunneling shield, sandhogs. That's method one. Yes. And it's an old one and it's a good one. It's still in use today. It has to be softer. You can't dig through bedrock because this thing moves through hydrolice. And there's guys digging if you run into some serious rock, the best thing to use is called a tunnel boring machine. Yeah. If you've ever seen Die Hard Three, you get a good glimpse. It was Jeremy Iron. Yeah. It's a pretty good one, in fact. Well, actually one of only two good ones. Sam Jackson. Yeah. The first one in that one were pretty good. The second one and all the other ones are just terrible. The second one, it wasn't so bad. It was all right. I love to see it at the airport. Yeah, it was okay. I love any kind of airport disaster flick at all. Oh, yeah, man, I'm crazy for those movies. Airport, airport 77, airport 82. Whatever. Airplane. Love them. What about that bad Tom Hanks movie where he played the foreign guy that lived in the airport? I never saw that. But did you know the terminal? Yeah. Did you know that it's based on a real guy? Yeah. He says on the movie. I didn't know that. I had seen the movie. That wasn't very good. I think the fact that it was kind of lighthearted and warm, that's not what the guy was like. Yeah, well, Spielberg plus Tom Hanks doing accents, man. Have you seen him doing Walt Disney? Yeah. I thought that looked okay in the preview. Now I can't tell. I did. I managed to get through only about 20 minutes of Cloud Atlas the other night. Oh, man. I just can't see. Tom Hanks is like this cockney rough ruby. Well, I love the guy. He's an amazing actor. But it didn't work. No. Why did they do that to him, too? Hodgman's got some good stories about Tom Hanks, by the way. I don't know if you should be telling people that. No, I'm not going to tell the stories. I don't even know if you all right. Man, that was a nice Hank seeing. Sidebar tunnel, boring machines. Die Hard Two three. Yeah. So these things are like a couple of stories tall. They're amazing. Their tunnel boring machines is the right word for them. They're all inclusive machines. They cut, they support, and they build as they go along. They're magnificent as far as mechanical engineering goes. Yeah. They have a spinning, cutting head, these basically huge, giant steel wheels that twist and turn in different directions. And then that whole thing turns and it's just a destructo mobile that goes straight ahead and lifts that pummels that rock and shoots it out on a conveyor behind it. Yeah. Just valve a shipworm. And then this is the part I didn't get that they're actually building it with an Erector as it goes. Yeah. Man, that's crazy. Yeah. It's all just one big machine that you just basically press start and it goes forward. Yeah. And they actually used tunnel boring machines, a pair of them, for the tunnel construction. One from one side and one from the other side. And thanks to good GPS, they were able to keep them on a course for one another rather than missing. Yeah. The first thing I thought was I would end up like 10ft above. Oh, man. I wouldn't even end up that close. Yeah. And you'd be screwed. You'd have to start all over. Mine would end up in Scotland. Yeah, that'd be great. We'd be like, tunnel up and get drunk. Yeah. For some distillery. But luckily, they had a lot smarter people than us working on the channel. Right. They drive forward at a rate of about 250ft per day. That's significant because we're talking, like, bedrock. Yeah. If you were able to take away all of the dirt and all of the water on Earth, what you would have is rock. That's the mantle, and that's what you're digging through, is this rock. It's made to support the Earth. Exactly. Heck. It is the earth. Yes. And this is what these machines dig through at a rate of 250ft a day. That's impressive. Yes. When they work, apparently something this violent is prone to breaking down. So I guess when you have them up and running, that's a good thing. When they're down, then you're obviously going to be losing time. Did you see how the author of this article put it? I did. I didn't even want to comment. You want to go ahead. He just says that they break down more often than he used Jaguar, except he probably said Jaguara. Jaguar? Yeah. I didn't know that. Or Jaguars. Are they famous for not working? Yeah. Really? Didn't know that. Older ones are. That's like any old car. Right. I think they and VW rabbits had pretty bad track record. I remember the rabbit or the cabriolet. Every sorority girl's favorite car. Right. What else? Remember Le car? Yeah. It even said, look hard on the side. Yeah. It's French for the car. Is it? All right. So, did you know, Josh, that they have been banding about the idea of a transatlantic tunnel for decades. It's pretty awesome. I don't think it'll ever happen, though. No, that would be very costly because it would be an immersion tube, but they wouldn't be able to go to the sea floor, obviously, because that's just crazy. It would be tethered floating essentially at about 150ft below the water. Right. Dangling from a pontoon on the surface. Yeah. And 54,000 football field sized sections. And we're going to get into that in a minute. But that's how they work with these immersion tunnels. They do it one section at a time, so it's just too much money and too much stuff. Well, there's actually an immersion tube tunnel that's proposed in Norway across the Sagna Fjord that sounds much more manageable than the Atlantic Ocean. Really? Just the idea of this pontoon getting pummeled by cyclones and just bad weather in general. Plus, why do it? These people who just want to drive to England from New York? I don't know. I don't know. The logic behind any advantage behind something like that, it just seems like it would just every foot of it is a potential for it to just break. And the whole thing is trashed. Yeah. But the one in Norway is that an ITT and a merch to the tunnel. It is dangling from a pontoon above. Oh, okay. That one's dangling. Right. So that technology exists. Well, it's in proposal stage. And, like, the thing I saw was still probably kind of an overview, but they seemed pretty confident about it. They had, like, title charts and all that kind of stuff, but it's only something that's like 20 km or 30 km, something like that. It's not all the way across the Atlantic Ocean. Got you. All right, so I guess we should fully explain the ITT then, which is our final way that you can tunnel underground. And again, my favorite. But before we get to it, let's do a message break. Okay. And Chuck, now we finally get to talk about my favorite type of tunneling, the immersion tube tunnel. That's right. So these rubber seals have gina gaskets, actually, is what they're called, and you winch the two together and you pump the water out. And these gaskets and seals, the change in water pressure compresses them and creates an airtight seal, but it's underwater. So you would go and say, we want an underground tunnel going from this part of land to that part of land under here. So we're just going to go in, we're going to dredge and dig and create a trench where we're going to eventually put the tunnel. But we're going to make the tunnel in individual pieces here on dry land, usually at some sort of shipyard. Sure. And they're going to use the amount, the equivalent of steel and concrete to make an average size ten storey building. So just tip it on its side and that's what your section looks like. That's one section, yeah. And then once the concrete cures, after a month, we'll take it out to sea in a pontoon crane, which is exactly what it sounds like, but they're gigantic. We seal it up first so that it floats. Sure. And it's sinking it. Right. And then once we do get it over the site roughly where we want it, we will kind of start to sync it a little bit, or I've also seen the weight it down. And then they'll sync the thing, and eventually they'll link it up to another segment. So they use winches to pull one segment to another. And then these rubber gaskets hold the seal. And in this bulkheads, these temporary bulkheads that are keeping the two segments separate inside the tunnel, you couldn't go through them yet. Right. You pump the water out. That change the air pressure, compresses the rubber gaskets, forming a watertight seal. Then you remove the steel bulkheads. Bam. There's two connected segments of the tunnel, and you just keep adding and adding and adding and adding until you've created your prefab underwater tunnel. Beautiful. Then you cover that up back, fill it or something with rock. And we have a guy named WJ Wilgas to thank for this because he invented it way back in the early 1900s. Yeah, that is in early 1900s. Name? Oh, yeah. WJ Wilkes. Look at my Immerse tube tunnel. We're the world's fast. And everyone said, this is a pretty good idea. Yeah. And he pioneered the technique when he built the Detroit River Railroad Tunnel connecting Michigan to Canada. So, technically, the first Immerse tube tunnel is a sewer line in Boston in 1894. And when he built that railway line, that was like, okay, this thing works because we've been shuttling poop in Boston. Exactly. And this is like, now we can do it with trains. And you are now the man of the hour, WJ, because what is a train except a lot of poop? There is a similarity in principle, but that has been the go to since then. There's been more than 100 of these built in the 20th century alone. And that didn't even count the 21st century. No. So I don't even know what's been going on the past 13 years. I saw, like, an engineering thing that referred to them as rare, but I don't have the impression that they're rare at all. I think they're kind of like the go to technique for any as many as possible. Yeah. Well, the one advantage is that you can make them any shape. It's not like when you have a tunnel boring machine. Right. It's going to have the shape of the tunnel bore. Or the same with the tunnel shield, as well. Yeah, I guess so. It's the size of the giant coffee can. But you could make a tunnel in the shape of a diamond if you wanted to. Right? Well, maybe not a diamond. You could it would be kind of crazy. To be a big waste of money, but, yeah, you can take any shape. And you will also have to use some of those other methods eventually, because this is just for what's along the bottom. To get down to that section and then out the entrances and exits, you're going to have to use some other methods. Right. You might have to tunnel through some sort of rock or whatever, but when you put these tunnel segments in and you pump the water out of the chamber, that connects the two. You take the bulkheads off. Like, there's your finished tunnel right there. I mean, you've got the floors, the walls, the ceiling, roadway. You go in and put the wiring in and the lighting and all that stuff afterward. But your tunnels set. Yeah, I just think it's neat. I think it's very neat. What else you got? I got nothing else. There's one proposed right now that will be the longest immersed tube tunnel in the world when it's finished in 2016. There's a 50 kilometer bridge that connects or will connect Hong Kong to Macau. Okay. And part of it is a 6.7 kilometer long immersed tube tunnel, which will probably be real nice. Awesome. Yeah, I guess that's it. All right. Go forth and build tunnels. Go forth and build underwater tunnels. That's right. Let's see. If you want to learn more about underwater tunnels, you can type that word into the search bar@housetofworks.com. And since I said search bar, that means it's time for listener mail. All right, I'm going to call this another chess email, and this is going to be it on the chest emails. But thank you to everyone who wrote in about your chess strategies and stuff. It's pretty great. Hey, guys, thanks for doing the podcast on chess. It's a great game. Here are a few things that you sort of missed. Jumping. Josh implied or maybe even outright said that a knight only appears to jump over other pieces, but really just goes around them. Knights actually can jump over other pieces. For example, if you were so inclined on your very first move, you could jump your night over your pond and place it in front of the rest of your pieces. There aren't any empty spaces to take your night around your islands in the stream. So that's jumping, baby. A little more on Castle. A couple of things. As you said, you cannot castle if either piece involved has moved during the game. You also can't do it if the king is in check or has to move through check to castle. So the opposition queen is attacking a square that the king has to go through to cancel it. It cannot be done. Yeah. Yeah. You got that? Yeah. You should probably all go back, rewind that, and listen to it again. That's right. And that's from Matt in Pittsburgh. I'm sorry, in La. Via Pittsburgh. But I did want to point out someone. Else. In another correction, I think we got the pond promotion right. Like, if you get your pond all the way to the other end of the table. But I don't think we pointed out that you can only promote it to a piece that you've already lost. No, we definitely did not. In other words, you can't have two queens. Okay. But if you lost, you typically said you have two queens. Oh, you did? Yeah. Okay. I genuinely didn't know that. I thought that I didn't catch that. I knew that, but I didn't catch it. So that was from someone else. But thank you. Matt in La via Pittsburgh. Yeah, thanks. He was the other person. Yes. He also described on Passant, but I think we've already taken that up in another listener mail. Yeah. Thanks for all the corrections on Chester. Yeah, everybody, thank you very much. If you want to get in touch with us, tweet to us. Our Twitter handle is Syskpodcast. Our Facebook.com pagessupychnow. You can send us an email to stuffpodcast@discovery.com. And as always, join us at our home on the web stuffyoushanenow.com. Summer school's out. The sun is shining. The daylight is longer. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music that's so good it's Criminal Morbid. Part true crime and part comedy, Morbid takes you on a journey from murderous mysteries to major laughs, all in the same week. Hosted by autopsy technician Alex Lena Ercart and hairstylist Ash Kelly, this chart topping series will have you hooked before you know it. Listen to new episodes of Morbid one week early, only on Amazon Music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen today."
bcb71932-361e-11ea-822e-971af9beafbc	Short Stuff: Mullets: 'Nuff Said	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/short-stuff-mullets-nuff-said	Business in the front, you know the rest. Listen in as we discuss the lifestyle choice that is the mullet.	Business in the front, you know the rest. Listen in as we discuss the lifestyle choice that is the mullet.	Wed, 29 Apr 2020 12:45:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2020, tm_mon=4, tm_mday=29, tm_hour=12, tm_min=45, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=2, tm_yday=120, tm_isdst=0)	12350323	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Hey, everybody. I don't know about you, but I am excited that it's summer, school's out, the sun is shining, and best of all, there's downtime four days. That's where true crime podcasts on Amazon Music come in. They're the perfect activity for last minute road trips, long walks, or you're brave enough, late nights. With so many killer shows like Morbid, my Favorite Murder, and Small Town Murder, you'll never be bored to death again. So download the free Amazon Music app to start listening to all your favorite true crime podcasts. Plus, with Amazon music, you can access new episodes early. Download the app today. Hey, and welcome to Short Stuff. I'm Josh. There's Chuck. This is going to be kind of short, which Chuck and I were just discussing. So let's go on with a long, meandering intro that has nothing to do with anything. Chuck? Well, maybe it's going to be short in the front. Wow. And then maybe, you know, what we should have done is we should have done like two minutes and then a commercial break and then ten minutes. That's a great idea. Maybe we will the mullet of podcasting. We'll edit out this part where we figure it out as we're doing it, too. All right. Maybe we should take a break. Nice, man. That's an ultra short mullet right there. All right. So we're talking about the mullet business in the front, party in the back. Always, I thought was very funny of this hairstyle where your hair is short in the front and top and long in the back. The one that really got me that I have never heard before. I know, it's fun. The Missouri Compromise. Yeah, that one or that's a good one. Kentucky Waterfall. I hadn't heard that one before either. I hadn't either. That one got me. But for some reason, Missouri Compromise really gets me. It's like the hair is working it out, right? Or the teenage Judas Priest fan is working it out with his mom. So let's go ahead and level set here and talk about our own history with a mullet. Have you had a mullet ever? No. Have you? I have. What? I did, man. There was a time, believe it or not, in the 80s, where the mullet was sort of a skater haircut. It was kind of short and spiky and then a little longer in the back. And this was pre Billy Ray Cyrus and pre anyone calling it a mullet. But looking back, it was definitely what you would consider a mullet. But it was kind of like a cool skater kid haircut. Yeah. Tony Hawk had one. Did he? Yeah. And one of the differentiators, too, was it wasn't just short bangs on top. Like it would come over the one eye from the side, but yeah, it would be spiky on top and then long in the back. It totally was a molar. I never put two and two together like that. But no, I still never had one. But there is a very embarrassing picture from me from the 10th grade, from a church whatever album annual yearbook. What are they called when they're churches? I have no idea. Well, churches used to put these out every few years. Bible yearbook hymnal. Yeah, it's a bible. And we were all in it. But I had a mullet. This is the only picture of me with a mullet in existence. And I was wearing a mullet and paisley maroon suspenders and a tie. Wow. And my brother still threatens to that's sort of his big thing he holds over my head. Attention, Scott. I'm speaking directly to you now. We demand to see that photo. Yeah. I will say that I got wise pretty quick. And by the end of 10th grade, it was a short lived haircut, and I had sort of the other skater look, which was just like long bangs, right? Yeah. So you just lopped off the back of that Tony Hawk cut. Yeah. And there was still a little hair back there. But actually, the most embarrassing haircut I had in high school is that mushroom when you would shave around your ears and then the bottom of the back and just have sort of a big poof on top. I'll have to dig up pictures. My high school haircut was a caesar. Remember those? Oh, sure. I had one of those for years and years and years. Didn't look good on anybody, especially not that guy on the original CSI series. Do you remember him? Did you ever watch that? No, I never saw it. There was a guy who was he was an older guy, like well, in the middle age who had a caesar. And it wasn't like, accidental. Like, he had a caesar haircut, and it was just an odd hairstyle choice, I think, for him. All right, maybe we should take a break and we'll actually talk about the mullet when we come back. Does that sound good? Sounds great. If you want to know, just listen. All right, Chuck. So let's get down to the mullet, aka. Hockey hair. That's another term for it. Yeah. Some credit the beastie boys with popularizing the term mullet. They had a song on ill communication in 1094 called mullet head where Ad Rock says, you want to know what's a mullet? Well, I got a little story to tell about a hairstyle. That's a way of life. Have you ever seen a mullet wife? It doesn't make that much sense, but it does seem to be, like, the first real reference to this hairstyle using the word mullet, from what anybody can tell. Yeah. And the term mullet head has long been around just as a general derogatory term for a dummy, which had nothing to do with the haircut. And they think that may have come over from the British derogatory term Mullhead. Yeah, that's what they said, but it still doesn't explain and maybe they just aren't related how the Haircut got this name after this weird looking fish. Right. So I guess Mike D wrote a little article about what they were talking about in that song Mullet Head, and he said that the mullet fish, the mullet fish is basically just like one long it's like oblong. It's like a drawing of a whale, basically. It doesn't have any kind of anything that would suggest its head is separate from its body. And apparently when it rots, it rots from the neck down, which kind of gives it the appearance, a bit of a mullet. Or people who have the mullet hairstyle look a little bit like a rotting mullet fish, I guess, as far as Mike D or Ad Rock thought. And that's how he explained where that term came from. But the use of the word Mullahead to mean kind of a dummy makes Mark Twain frequently cited as the guy who coined the term mullet, which is way off, because he was using it in that sense that you were saying, which is kind of thick headed or dumb or something like that. Yeah, I think the fun thing about this article, which we got from How Stuff Works was kind of tracing back the actual hairstyle through history. And if you go back and look, there's a great article on history.com. A woman named Linda Laciina writes about the ancient Greek poet Homer. And The Iliad writes about this group of spearmen called the Abantes. And they had their forelocks cropped and hair grown long at the backs. That's a mullet. That's a full mullet. Yeah. And Homer wrote the Iliad in the 8th century BCE. So almost 3000 years ago at the latest, people were already wearing mullets. And there's this other article from Dazed Digital by Oliver Lun that talks about and I've seen pictures of prehistoric peoples that look like they kind of have a mullet. And practically that kind of makes sense because if you're hunting and gathering, you need that hair out of your eyes. So you might cut it off with a stone tool up front, and then you want a little further in the back to protect from sun or from rain or to help keep you warm. Yeah, the sun is a big one. I suspect that's why Andre Agassi had one, because he had to go play tennis in the sun all the time and was very sensitive about his neck getting sunburned. Yeah. Agassi, you think of mullets, you think of Agassi, you think of Billy Ray Cyrus. And there was a basketball player for the University of Florida named Dwayne Shinsis. I think he played pro for a little while, but he was a big, tall center, and he had a fantastic boxy mullet. Did he really? Okay. I always think of sean Thomas. Scott. Sean. Williams. Scott. Kristen scott Thomas. One of those he was in. Dude, where's my car? The non escutcher guy. That was Kristin Scott Thomas. Right. He had a really fantastic mullet in Old School. You remember that? Yeah, old school. That was a good movie. Yeah, it was. I mean, it was funny. It was very funny. But he's the guy who shows up with I can't remember what kind of animal to the birthday party, the kids party. He has a drunkle as a gun that Will Ferrell accidentally shoots himself with. Is this stiffler? Yeah, Stifler. That's right. Yeah, he's funny. You know what other movie he was in that was Underrated and underseen is not? Step brothers. Big brothers. Oh, yes. Was that the name of it? Where he involved role models. Role Models, that's it. That is a good movie. You know, Paul Rudd wrote that himself. Oh, he did? That was a David Wayne directed movie. So it all makes sense. It was good all around. Everybody in. That was great. Yeah, he was very funny. Very underrated movie, I think. Should we talk about a couple of the cool examples of mullet in rock history? You're about to step into some controversy, but I'll watch you do it. Well, there's two that I can really think of. The one that's article mentions is David Bowie. That's the controversial one. Yeah. I mean, if you look at Ziggy Stardust in the era, he definitely has what you would consider a mullet. But it's also dyed red and he's wearing the Ziggy Stardust outfit. So it's hard to call that a mullet even though it kind of is. Well, from what I saw, the people who say it's not a mullet just basically say David Bowie was literally too cool to have what you would call a mullet even when he was wearing a mullet. That's their argument, basically. Which, I mean, that's pretty impressive as far as the cool factor goes that people will defend you like that. Yeah. The other example is there was a time in the 70s where both Paul and Linda McCartney had matching mullets. Right. And it was really puffy and spiky on both of them and very long in the back. So it was a look. It was a look for a couple, for sure. What about Jane Fonda and Clutter? That wasn't a mullet. Really? My mom had that hair cut for a little while in the sort of I mean, it's a fee mullet, if anything. Did you just coined that term? Oh, no, you never heard that? No. The lady mullet was always called a female it. But I know what haircut you're talking about. It was sort of like a haystack with a little bit in the back. Yeah, I guess that's a good way to put it. Florence Henderson had one for a little while. Kind of on the Brady Bunch, too. I think of Jane Fonda as a straight up mullet, but maybe it is just a fee mullet. Clutch was such a good movie. I never saw it. I'm not even sure what it's about. Oh, man, you should check it out. It's awesome. Okay, I will. It's a mystery, okay? Don't spoil it for me. Hey, speaking of mysteries and movies, get this. I went back and watched the original 70s Sidney Lumet version of Murder on the Orient Express. That was good. It is delightful. Albert Finney plays hercule pour out, and I couldn't even recognize him for the first 30 minutes. He does such a good job. It's a really great movie. It's on the Internet. You can find it. One final mullet where we should mention is none other than President James K. Polk. If you go look him up. He has a mullet. Yeah. And what was the name of I want to say Maguai, but it wasn't the bad guy. He wasn't a Mohawk. I can't remember what he was, but in The Last of the Mohicans, do you remember the bad guy played by West Duty? He had a mullet. Yeah, I don't care what you call it. That was a mullet he was wearing. And that was a great movie, too. Yeah. I was trying to think of a PC joke, but I can't. Okay, we'll just leave it at that, then. That's it for short stuff, everybody. That's it. We out. Stuff you should know is the production of Iheartradios how Stuff Works. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows."
https://podcasts.howstuf…cience-final.mp3	How to Donate Your Body to Science	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/how-to-donate-your-body-to-science	Donating your whole body to further science and medicine is probably the best thing you could do with your corpse. Which is why the industry that handles those gifts need regulating.	Donating your whole body to further science and medicine is probably the best thing you could do with your corpse. Which is why the industry that handles those gifts need regulating.	Tue, 01 Sep 2015 13:19:56 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2015, tm_mon=9, tm_mday=1, tm_hour=13, tm_min=19, tm_sec=56, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=244, tm_isdst=0)	40614015	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Welcome to stuff you should know from housetopworkscom. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W, Chuck Bryant and there's Jerry. So it's stuff you should know. How's it going? It's gone. Okay. I'm like a little congested. Yeah. I'm not sick. You never admit when you're sick anyway, so who would know? I'm not, though. Look, I got, like, tons of energy. Look. Well, I had that weird cough for three weeks when I got back from Oklahoma. It was very weird. And it wasn't like I was never sick. It was just postnasal drip. Oh, really? Maybe from allergies or something. I don't know. Maybe it was weird. I just couldn't kick it, but I've kicked it. That's great. I can tell. Well, I hope you feel better even though you're not sick. Thanks, man. Sure. I'm not sick. Because if you are sick, you could possibly die and donate your body to science. It's definitely true. I could and I may. I probably will. Yeah. When we did the organ donation podcast quite a number of years ago, this came up, and I think we may have even said, let's do one on donating your whole body. And here it is, years later, promised, I can tell you that you, me, most decidedly wants to donate her body to science. Yeah, I think I do, too. It seems like a pretty great thing to do. Agreed. Especially if by the time we all kick the bucket, they have a regulatory body overseeing this might be nice. It would be nice. It would make me feel a little better. Yeah. Well, they do point out in the article, like, the thought of some people are just turned off by the thought of your body being cut up. I don't care. No, I think that is the first mental hurdle that you have to go past to say, I think I will donate my body aside. People are going to be pouring over every part of your body naked while you're dead on a table, and that's before they cut you open, pull everything out, cut your hand off, your feet, your head, all that stuff. Yeah. I wonder if you can have a stipulation to be covered and have my privates covered. I'd have a merchant stipulation that's not me. I have a sock clause. Yeah. The other hurdle is, and I never really thought about this, was people just thinking about, like, jerk medical students, like, joking around and stuff. Yeah. So apparently that would be an enormous at least doing it for the class. It's an ethical breach, from what I understand. That's very taboo. This is taken very seriously. It's in very poor taste. Yeah. And so if you, say donate your body to a university and it ends up being used for anatomical study among gross anatomy students right. Probably. They're going to know your name. They're going to know how you died. They're going to refer to you and talk to you by your name, so you will be a person to them. You're not just a cadaver. You're not just a lump of meat. Yeah. It sounds like they go out of their way to be very respectful of what you've done for them. Right. They're taught to the instructors set that example. I read about one at I can't remember the university. There's a link to it on the podcast page where the instructor they make, like, a very big point of pointing out that this is a gift this person gave you. Medical student. The gift of their cadaver so that you can become a good doctor and save other people's lives and make money. This is a huge gift and it's to be treated with respect. Yes, totally. And also frequently most of these programs hold some sort of annual ceremony to kind of thank all of the people who just to honor them for the Dabber ball. Exactly. The dead man stand. Yeah, it's pretty great. People get loaded, can't find a date, no problem. Once you get past that hurdle, the idea of being poked and prodded and looked at by medical students, there is another hurdle that people face too, religious types at least that some religions prohibit this kind of thing. Who do you know? Well, Islam outright says, no, you can't do that. Like, the body is not to be cut up or dissected or messed with after death. But they said organ donation is okay. And I didn't see that. Really? Under Sharia law, it doesn't look like you're supposed to do anything to the dead body except take care of it. Okay. I think the stuff varies, though. I guess what I ran across said, like, no, you definitely can't donate your body. It didn't say anything about donating organs, but from the context, it would seem like organ donation would be a no no as well. Jehovah's Witness very famously do not accept or donate blood transfusions or any parts of blood. They consider that blood is basically life as a gift from God, and you were not to be messing with it with blood. But if all of the blood is removed from the body to prevent it from being used for transfusions, that body is okay to go to be donated, to, say, like, a medical school as far as Jehovah's Witnesses are concerned. That's right. Most other religions are like, do it. Why would you not? Yes. And I love how this article says Baptist. They break it down to, like I think the author may have been Baptist. You think that's why I took because it's weird. It's not to say Christianity as a whole and to break it down into denominations. Right. Because he said Baptist and Catholic say it's an act of charity. I've never heard that. I grew up Baptist. Maybe you missed that Sunday. I didn't miss any Sundays, my friend. You didn't? Nope. There aren't any hard and fast statistics because body donations can be donated to medical universities and colleges, to the US government, private firms. Who cares what it's donated to? Surely there is a central authority that all cadaver donations go through. No. Isn't that nuts? I don't think so. It's totally nuts, man. Think about it. Organ donation, heavily regulated, lots of oversight, no money is exchanging hands, or if it is, it's like just the bare minimum. There's no free market associated with this whatsoever. And everything goes through this central authority, at least on paper. There's a group that knows everything that's going on. Every organ that's being transplanted. Right. Makes total sense. But when you talk about like, bones, tendons, eyeballs, I don't know if those are organ donation or not, but whole bodies, this stuff is wrong to say that there is no regulation or oversight. There is. It's just not anywhere near as strict as organ donation. It's not taken nearly as seriously. Well, I have a real problem with that. I don't have a problem with that. I think the reason why is because organ donations are being used to put into other people. You're not taking a whole body donated to science. It's only for the David purposes. That is not true. What do they actually use parts on other people? Like what? Like bones, ligaments, tendons, muscles, but not like any sort of tissue or organ. Like from a cadaver? Yeah. No, not the organ itself. But they are taking a bone from you, the dead guy who donated your body. It might end up in a living recipient and you may be like totally fine with that. That's cool, right? I want to help somebody. I didn't think I'd be able to donate my organs, which is something we'll talk about later. So that's great. That's helping them out. My problem with it is somebody may have profited from your donation and that's where my problem comes from. I think donating your body to science or for reuse in some way, shape or form is going to help other people is wonderful. But the fact that there is not enough oversight or regulation and that there is a free market that's associated with this because it's illegal to sell a body part, but you could say charge a handling fee, and they frequently do. Yeah, it leads to this free market in body parts, but that starts out as an act of love, a gift, a donation, and then somewhere down the line somebody can profit from that. That's horrible. But there is handling. Like transporting a body isn't free. There is pay for that. There isn't. It's true. So this oversight committee or this government agency should say, here's how much it costs. We know how much an airline charges. We know how much it costs to ship a body. We know how much it costs to take a piece of bone, a femur from somebody and then transport it somewhere else. Right? Yeah. It'll be $1,000 for a bone. I totally disagree with that. I mean, let's think about organ procurement. Nobody is like, there's a free gray market that's growing up over organ procurement. That's not what happens in this country. But when it comes to tissue and stuff like that, it's a problem. And here's the other thing, Chuck. It doesn't just affect donors. It affects people who haven't donated their body. Because year after year after year, some news article comes up where some crematorium has been stealing body parts and selling them in this gray market. Yeah. Same is true for organs, though. There's a black market. Yes, it is true. I just have the impression that it's much harder to do with organ procurement than it is with tissue. And tissue, like a whole body donation is considered tissue. So sorry about that. That's right. So I think the sentence I was about to finish was there are somewhere around 20,000 whole bodies donated per year, they think, in the US. Right? Yeah, but that's, like I said, not an exact number, because, like you said, there is no US. Government body watching all this. So $20,000 sounds like a pretty decent amount, right? Apparently not enough. No. Apparently there is a real dearth of cadavers. Yeah. I think a lot of people don't realize you can really donate your whole body. And probably the idea seems a little daunting or weird or whatever. So my hope is that just from us talking about this, more people will come to see it as something that's totally doable, because from what I ran across, it really is totally doable. Totally doable. All right, well, we'll take a break here, and when we come back, we will talk a little bit about the history of whole body donation. All right, let's go back to the 19th century, early 19th century Britain. They're using animals a lot of times. Or criminals, dead bodies of people that have been hanged. Well, yeah, that was the only way that you could get your hands on a cadaver as a medical school, was if it was the body of an executed criminal. That's right. That was it. Or it's a pig or some other animal. Right. And a pig. Great. It's very satisfying to cut into a pig with a scalpel. Everybody knows. But you're not going to learn as much about the human body from cutting open a pig as you would from cutting open a human body. No. So they decided they needed more bodies because the capital crimes had dropped. And so grave robbing became a common practice. And it still is a common practice. Common, but it still happens in some parts of the world. Back then, they were called resurrectionists, and a lot of times it was slaves that were being having their graves robbed. Yeah. Did you read the Smithsonian article I sent you? Yes, I read that one. And there's a documentary out too, made by Dr. Sean Utsi of Virginia Commonwealth University, Gorams, called until the well runs dry medicine and the exploitation of black bodies. And in it, he talks about someone named Chris Baker, who is a famous resurrectionist in Virginia who would rob slave graze, basically. And it was robbing, but there wasn't a crime because slaves had no rights even after death. Right. And apparently they would employ slaves to do this because slaves couldn't be arrested for grave robbing slaves graves somehow, at least in Georgia. Well, yeah, because you sent this other case of what was his name? Grandison Harris. Yeah. He was Medical College of Georgia and Augusta. Then they discovered in 1089 in one of the old buildings above. Do you remember that? A bunch of bones. Remember when that happened? I was in high school, dude. I didn't watch the news. Weren't you like a 10th grader watching? I was like 8th to 9th grade. I just remember I was like, what? Because when they found all these bones, they were like, what is going on here? And then they figured out, oh, these were old anatomical specimens that had been robbed from the grave. Yes. Apparently, he was employed because he was huge and strong and he could rob a grave by himself, which usually needed a few people to rob a grave. But he was an efficient grave robin machine and made a lot of money and educated himself and rose up somewhat in white society, but was not really accepted by either whites or blacks. Yeah, the Smithsonian article puts it he occupied a liminal place between black and white society. He was shunned by everybody, but also grudgingly, respected and feared. Neat article. Yeah, it was pretty cool. And this Chris Baker, apparently, Dr. Sean Utzi says along with things like the Tuskegee experiments, he says that he thinks that medical colleges accepting grave robbed bodies of slaves is one of the reasons. He says that some African Americans today have, like, lingering suspicions about doctors in general. Oh, really? Yeah. Makes sense. And he says that that's a big reason that he feels like black people die more of preventable disease because of a fear of doctors. Yeah, maybe a mistrust of doctors after things like the Tuskegee experiments and grave robbing of slave graves. Got you. So it sort of makes sense. So pretty interesting. He's the professor of, I think, the head of African American Studies at UVA. Or not UVA, but Virginia, Commonwealth, BCU. So gray robbing became very widespread, not just in the UK, but also in America, and I think you said around the world, right? Yeah. And just deals being like, if you ever watch the nick, like, the police make deals with the hospital, like, they find a body, they get a little money on the side. Right. It was just basically, how can we get our hands on a body? Exactly. And finally, people figured out, like, oh, well, this prohibition on dissecting human bodies is leading to grave robbing, which now that we compared the two side by side, grave robbing is way worse. Sure. So let's just make it if somebody wants to donate their body or we can let that happen and that change happened, let's set up a government branch to screw it up. I'm telling you, man. I don't know, man. Just for me personally, I just don't trust our government to handle something as nuanced and delicate as a part of the end of life industry. I just think it would be a typical inefficient bureaucratic nightmare, and that's the last thing people need when they're dealing with the death of a family member. That's just me. I think the Oregon Procurement System network in place now is a sterling example of what could be done. It's great. Yeah. I don't know too much about the financials behind it. Well, that's the thing. I agree with you. It does cost a certain amount of money to operate, but then you could have not for profit businesses running these things. Right, so a not for profit business still creates income, but that goes into the business. It doesn't enrich shareholders or anything like that. Right. So with for profit companies and I'm not slamming all for profit companies, there are for profit body donation companies out there that are great. Right, but I'm just saying that the fact that that is allowed to me, allows this free market in body parts that I don't think should exist. There is not one process because there is not one governing body. So it depends on who you're dealing with. If it's a medical school, that's a good option. Could be a government agency, could be a private group like you were talking about. But what you're going to start out doing is filling out a lot of paperwork. You need to make sure your family knows and is on board, and that's being your will. And everyone's cool with all this? Yeah, because if you go on the Mayo Clinic website and look how to donate your body, one of the things they say is if you're next to kin, opposes it, we're not going to accept your body. Well, it's just too much of a headache. Well, plus, also, I think they don't want this to be a traumatic experience. It's supposed to be a gift. This donation of your whole body is supposed to be a gift. Not supposed to put your next of kin through hell. No, they don't want a headache. Let's be honest. Once you die, you are not guaranteed, even if you want to donate your body, that you can have your body donated. No, you need to be in decent shape. There's a lot of disease and things that they won't accept. HIV, one or two AIDS related deaths, hep B or C, syphilis, kidney failure, jaundice, viral infections, bacterial infections. Extensive trauma. Yeah. You can't be severely burned. They want you to be like, basically a typical human being. Yeah. You can't be too overweight. No, that's a big one. Some places will only accept people up to, like, 100 and 7181. Hundred and \u00a390. Yeah. For practical reasons. Yeah. Embalming adds about \u00a3100 to you, and they're going to have to move you around. If you're in anatomy lab for a year, some attendants are going to have to move you on and off gurneys, in and out of the freezer for a whole year. And they don't want to deal with a 400 pound cadaver when they can deal with 250 pound cadavers. Yeah. They also want to be able to find your organs very easily and not have to weigh through lots of tissue. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Yes. So if you're very serious about donating your body after death, you want to that's a good reason to take care of yourself. Also, you can help this much less, but if you're emaciated, grossly emaciated, you probably are not going to have your body accepted. Yeah. And this brings up a really important point. If your body is going to be rejected, which it very easily can be, you need to have a plan in place for the disposition of your body should it come back to your family. Or more likely, they're not going to ship it and the place isn't going to send it back, but they're going to call the place, and the place is going to be like, we can't use your relative. Right. And now your family is stuck with your dead body, which is not a situation you want to put your family in. Yeah. God, I would hope that most people would think, like, if this doesn't happen, then we can just cremate. Well, the thing they wouldn't be like, what do we do now? It's not like a sitcom. Yeah. Well, you can listen to our podcast, things to Do With the Dead Body. Right. Oh, I'm glad you bring that up because the Mayo Clinic uses what is it? Alkaline hydrolysis. Oh, really? The one that turns into goo. Nice. That's how they get rid of bodies. Well, one positive thing, actually, let's take another break here, and we'll talk a little bit more about the pros and cons of doing this right. For this. So, Chuck, there were a couple more things. Like, you were talking about the steps to donating your body, right? Yes. And they might not take you. If they do take you, it depends on what organization or company that you go with, right? That's right. One of the great things about a for profit company is your family. If you're accepted, and you probably will be accepted, they usually have the not the lowest standards, but the most leeway in accepting bodies. Well, yeah. With the free market, you can shop around okay. See who you feel most comfortable with. They are also the ones who are the least likely to put any costs onto your family. Right. So they will pay for things like transportation. They will pay for cremation. They will probably pay for the cost to return the cremated remains of you to your family. Yeah. Because when they use your body, there eventually will be a cadaver there that is no use to them. And then we'll cremate that and send you the remains. Right. And they're also usually pretty quick with it because with a lot of the for profit companies, they basically cut you into the various parts and then ship those out. And then they do this fairly quickly, and they take that leftover stuff and then bring your remains back to your family within a couple of weeks. If you donate your body to say, like a medical school, the medical school is going to be like, thank you, this is very nice. We need you to pay for some stuff. Sure. So transporting the body, which is why a lot of people will donate to their local medical school. Yeah. Like Emory. Yeah. So, like, if you live in Atlanta and you donate your body to Emory, emory will probably pay to come pick it up. Sure. But if you died in Alabama and you had plans to donate your body to Emory, your family might want to find a place in Alabama, because Emery is going to accept your body, but they're not going to pay to get it to Atlanta. Right. I don't think that medical school is in Alabama. Sorry. Alabama so mean. We're in Georgia, right? Yeah. We're just so high on the hog. I know, but Georgians are always like, well, we're not Mississippi, and Alabama not funny. Not fair. It's a little funny. I like Alabama. So that is definitely a pro of a for profit company. Like, the costs associated with this donation are low to nonexistent. That's right. So wherever your body goes, there's going to be some lots of paperwork to fill out. Your family is going to see your body off at the funeral home. Maybe the funeral home is going to hopefully is going to put your body into a casket. It's going to get on an airplane, or it's going to go down the road to Emory or whatever. And then you will have no say whatsoever in what happens to it after that point. Is that always true? Pretty much, yes. I figured there were some companies that allowed you some control. I don't think so. I think that I have heard that you can opt to not be used for cosmetic surgery, but I didn't see that anywhere in research. Interesting. One thing that some organizations allow you to do is to also be an organ donor. But generally they want your whole body with all its organs intact. Right. But some will allow again, because it's not one single body, no pun intended. Some will allow you to donate your organs, some organs first. And I only saw one that does that, which I thought was great. I didn't realize that you could do that. But the reason why they want all of your organs attacked is because you're serving as a teaching tool for medical students who need to cut into these things if you donate it to a medical school. Right. Yeah. So that was another thing, too, if you donated to, say, like a medical school yeah. You'll get your cremated remains back usually as well, but it will be well over a year because they're going to use you for that year of medical school. Yeah. And you're going to want to get right and your family get right with your ceremonies and how that's handled because you either won't have your cremains or it might take a little while. So just wrap your head around the fact that you're just going to have a memorial service for your loved one that may not include remains. Yeah. And, you know, some people still don't like they want a body there. Some people still need that closure of seeing the dead body sound awful. The problem is that that is not going to happen if you donate your body. No. Because you can't be donated embalmed. So you are shipped freshly dead. Yeah. It has to happen within a couple of days. Yeah. Very quickly. And in fact, grave robbers, when that was at its height, people at some point in some graveyards, their family would guard the body for three or four days until they figured it was too late. Right. Yeah. I think I remember hearing that. Man. Crazy, huh? It really is. So the point is the first step to all this is to tell your family and then get it down on paper, either in an advanced directive or will, something like that, and then start looking around. Yeah. And since a lot of these organizations will pay for the cremaines and all that, hopefully financial is not a purely financial consideration, but you can save a lot of money by donating your body to science because funerals and stuff like that is really expensive. That's right, Chuck. And actually there's a post on Getrichslowly.com about donating your body to science to save money. Really? Yeah, and I mean, it's a totally legitimate thing. The thing is you want to have a backup just in case your body is not accepted. You don't want to bet on the idea that you don't have to save anything for funeral costs because you're donating your body to science. Right, but yeah, funerals cost several thousand dollars, apparently. According to this article, it was about a little under $8,500 in 2012. That's the average. Yeah. And then cremation is 1500 and up to six grand for a cremation with funeral service and all the bells and whistles, unless you bring your own coffee can and save money that way. Lebowski reference. So you can save all this money, especially if you go with a for profit company and just give it to your heirs instead. Yes. What else? Well, there are some I think we talked about the cons, right? Yeah. Maybe they have a section here about creative ways to donate your body. There are other things you can do. You can donate your body to be used as a crash test dummy. Well, here's the thing. I don't think you really necessarily have say over that. Like, I think when you donate your body, you're donating it to potentially all this stuff in the US. I think you can donate it. Maybe I'm wrong. I didn't look it up. I thought you could donate it directly to the NHTSA. I don't know, maybe so. Or you could move to Michigan and make it that much more likely that it will be used by them. That's a good point. But they do use bodies of crash test on me. Yeah, they still do. There was a Wired article that was really good, and then I saw another one called The Driving Dead human cadaver still used in Car Crash testing. There's a place called the Laboratory of Technology and Systems for safety and automobiles. Is that at Wayne State. Tessa no, it's in Spain. Okay. In northern Spain. And it's one of six places in the world where they still use human body crash tests. Cadavers for crash tests? Yeah, and it's been happening for a long time. And the car companies have distanced themselves from it. They don't directly do it, but what they do is they get the data from these places that do it. Right, because they don't want to be directly tied to it. No. The Ford, very famously in 2011, I guess, was testing an inflatable rear seat belt. So I guess they said, here's our rear seat belt, why don't you see what happens with cadavers? And the National Highway Safety Traffic Safety Administration says we know what you mean. And so they get their hands on some cadavers and they wrap them up in body stockings and cover their faces. Did you see the pictures of that? Yeah. And they run them through the rigors and then do autopsies afterwards to see what happened to the body after it was in this crash. Well, there's lots of advantages, obviously, even though biomechanics and crash test dummies now are like way better than they used to be. Nothing beats a body. Nothing beats a body. You can't tell what's really going to happen to your internal organs. It's also imperfect because there are no two cadavers that are the same, so it's not going to be consistent. Also, cadavers are usually older and more fragile, and also young cadavers are hard to come by because the highest rate of death among young people are car crashes. Wow, how ironic. Yeah. A strange twist there. It's tough to get young at Averse for that research. There's a guy in the 19 thirtys named Lawrence Patrick from Wayne State University. I think you were talking about him, and he was somewhat of a he was the guy the crash test pilot staff. Yeah, colonel staff. He was sort of like him. He was his own test dummy and would just throw himself downstairs and do all sorts of stuff. And he even flung a Cadaver down a university elevator shaft to test the strength of a human skull at one point and found, like, oh, it can hold up. Yeah, pretty good. So he was, I think, led the charge at Wayne State. And they still do work there with Cadavers and highway Safety, don't they? Yeah. And it's so funny to me that this is, like, scandalous. Apparently some leak at GM started talking to the media about how Sob was running tests using dead bodies. That's a great use of a dead body to save other people's lives. There's this article from a guy at Wayne State who wrote in 1995 that could ever save about 8500 lives annually thanks to serving as crash test dummies. NASA actually used them as well to test the Orion capsule because it just isn't the same thing as using a robot or something like that. And they certainly don't want to put humans in there first, live humans, at least. That's why they use cadavers. I don't understand why this is at all scandalous. Again, I think donating your body is a fantastic thing to do. I think it could get scandalous, which was what we're about to talk about here with the body's exhibits, is how these Cadavers are sourced. Oh, that's where it gets scandalous. Lay it on me, buddy. Well, that was one of the other creative things you can do if you want to donate your body to be in one of those body exhibits. There are two main ones that I saw, body Worlds and Bodies. The exhibit. The exhibit, I can't remember which one. The exhibition, sorry, I think you mean I saw that one. Have you seen it? That's one in Atlanta. It's based out of Atlanta, actually. It's Astounding. It is Astounding. But they have been dogged by criticism because one group says that straight up, I think Bodies, the exhibition straight up says these are probably criminals from China. And we are going to be straight up and say they're unclaimed bodies. The other one is Body Worlds, and that's been in the US. Since 2004. And apparently they have death certificates, but the paper trail cuts off at a certain point. Oh, yeah. And they say it's with respect to anonymity, but certain people have called them out and said, you know what? You should have a paper trail. Like, you can't unequivocally say that these Cadavers are all on the up and up, can they? And they say they can, but they've come under a lot of fire, and those exhibits have in general, because of where they get these bodies from. Well, now I feel dirty for having seen that? Yeah, I mean like it's disrespectful to the dead. Well, in 2008 in New York, the Attorney General Force Premiere, which was the company behind, I think, Body Worlds, put a disclaimer that said this exhibit displays human remains of Chinese citizens or residents which were originally received by the Chinese Bureau of Police. The Chinese Bureau of Police may receive bodies from Chinese prisons. Premier cannot independently verify that the human remains you're viewing are not those of persons who are incarcerated in Chinese prisons. Yeah, so they forced them to put that up pretty out there. They're putting it out there. They probably have that sign after you pay your money to go in. That is so nuts. I doubt if it's right beside the ticket booth but apparently you can donate your body, although I don't know that you can because it sounds like they're not sourcing from donating from the United States. Yeah, I saw somewhere that they have a list of like 12,000 living donors just waiting to donate their bodies. Really? Yeah. Who knows what's real or true anymore? Who knows? The other thing you can do is what we talked about in our awesome classic episode on Body Farms. If you want to help out forensics study, you can donate your body to the University of Tennessee Govalve and you can be thrown out in the woods and decompose. That's right. Did you say govalls? Really? I have to keep it consistent. That's cool, man. Yeah, the Body Farm episode was great. I think the only thing I can't say is go G-A-G-A-T-O-R-S. Which is funny, because I can't even say those two things together. Yeah. I don't blame you. But my family is from Tennessee so I can root for most SEC teams. Except for the one in Florida. None of it matters anyway. Did you hear about the woman in New York whose body was accidentally donated for medical science and her family was like, what you do with Grandma? And the New York medical examiner went, oh, so we planted a tree in her honor. Right. Which apparently is what some medical schools will do. They said, here's some money, we're really sorry. That was apparently very traumatic for the family. I imagine they said that. Yeah. See, I'm not precious about after I'm dead. I'm not precious about this lump of cells and skin that remains to me. That means absolutely nothing to me. I'm totally with you man. I totally agree. To me the only thing is somebody profiting off of a donation by anybody else no matter what it is, whether it's body part or money, whatever that's wrong. Yeah. Respect my spirit and who I was not this dead carcass on the table. Yeah, that's not me anymore. That's right. I'm gone, buddy. I'm up there with the highwaymen. Oh yeah, yeah. I'm flying a starship, man. What else you got, skeleton? The University of New Mexico and Albuquerque. I didn't look up their mascot. But you said none of it matters anyway. I think they're the lobos. Lobos? I think so. They have a skeleton collection even though they aren't on display. No. And apparently the body farm in Tennessee, and we should say not the only body farm. There's several, but the one in Tennessee will put you in their skeleton collection afterward as well. Nice too. You can be very useful there. Maybe I would like to be. We have a skeleton here at house stuff, works, offices. I'd like to be put alongside him. Did you ever hear about the skeleton of the outlaw? I don't remember his name, but he was like a real live one of the last wild west outlaws in the early 20th century. And his body was put on display by the coroner and they charge people a nickel to come look. Sounds familiar from that. He ended up never being buried and he ended up in one of those house of horrors. That one of the rides, spook ride or whatever they call them. Dark rides. I've definitely heard about that. And it turned out that somebody was cleaning them or something once, decades later, and broke his hand off and realized that's a bone in marriage. It isn't a wax dummy. And they figured out somebody figured out who it was that it was this old criminal who was never buried and ended up in a real carnival ride. Yeah, I remember hearing about that. That's crazy. Yeah. You got anything else? I got nothing else. You could be turned into collagen to be used for facelifts. See, I don't want to chase anybody away from this. I just think like I want everybody to flood the market with donated bodies so much so that the price comes down and anybody who's in it who's a body part pirate gets out of the business because it's not lucrative anymore. Yeah. Bam. Since Check doesn't have anything more and I don't either. If you want to learn more about donating your body to science, a very virtuous thing to do. You can type those words into search barhouseupworks.com. Since I said virtuous, it's time for listening to mail. I'm going to call this underwater towns. Hey, guys. And you mentioned of an underwater town near you and you caught my attention and how droughts work. Originally from the Catskills, New York, where my family lived for a few generations, and I still live there in the summer, the Roundout Rondout. I'm not sure. It's Ronda reservoir. It's always fascinating to me because when you drive around it takes a little time and you pass signs that read former site of Eureka, former site of Montella, former site of lack of wack. After World War II, with the huge influx of GIS into New York City and Long Island, more water was needed and the three towns were condemned and flooded to create the reservoir. A few years ago, my grandfather passed away and became interested in creating a family archive. One of the many interesting things among my grandparents photos, papers and other items is the postcard that I sent to you. Picture of that is it's not signed, but according to my grandma, it was written by the postal employee of the town the last days of Eureka. It mentions on the back that he's sending it in part because he thinks that my great grandfather Bruce might want a photo of the mill that his father built. The Rondo is a water supply for New York City, so I wouldn't expect any golf globes to start breaking the surface if the water got low, but who knows? I have no idea who's down there. Pretty interesting story. Here's the postcard. I also think it's interesting that the time, apparently only a name and town was required to send a postcard. And that is from Patrick. Thanks, Patrick. And it was pretty neat. And I just think underwater towns are kind of sad and kind of cool all at the same time and creepy long to get people out of there. Yeah, well, initially they warn the residents first. I know, but you know how people are. They don't want to leave their homes. Oh, well, whatever. They were worn. There you have it. If you want to get in touch with Chuck or me or whoever, you can tweet to S-Y-S-K podcast. You can join us on Facebook.com. You can send us an email to stuff podcasterhousefworks.com. And as always, to enter home on the web stuffyouknow.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit houseofworks.com."
https://podcasts.howstuf…k-werewolves.mp3	How Werewolves Work	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/how-werewolves-work	If you've ever been bitten by a wolf, you're probably familiar with the anxiety of waiting for the next full moon to see if you become a werewolf. Learn all about the lore, mental illness and rules behind lycanthropy, one of civilization's oldest metaphor	If you've ever been bitten by a wolf, you're probably familiar with the anxiety of waiting for the next full moon to see if you become a werewolf. Learn all about the lore, mental illness and rules behind lycanthropy, one of civilization's oldest metaphor	Thu, 14 Nov 2013 14:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2013, tm_mon=11, tm_mday=14, tm_hour=14, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=318, tm_isdst=0)	31079515	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Brought to you by the allnew 2014 Toyota Corolla. Welcome to Stuff you should know from Housetopworks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clarke. There's Charles W, Chuck, Bryant and Jerry's over there. Okay. I'm not going to sing that song. What? Werewolves of London? That's not what I was doing. Okay. Was it Of London? No. It's An American Werewolf in London. Werewolves of London. Warren Devon. I never got into him. Me neither. Or that song. Yeah. I thought when I was young, I was like, it's for old people, and now I'm an old person. I'm like, no, not for me. Yeah, good for you. You're like, give me the band. Oh, yeah. Any day. So you want to talk werewolves? You got a good intro. You got something spicy. No, I was bored to kind of talk about some of my favorite werewolf movies. Well, we just talked about my favorite American Werewolf in London. It's pretty tough to top that one. It's great. And I watched the transformation scene again today, and it still holds up pretty well. Yeah. And the day of CG. I think this looks pretty good. It was direct. That's John Landis joint, right? Yeah. And the legendary Rick Baker did all the effects. And that's the same team, by the way, who worked on Michael Jackson's Thriller video. Yeah, his transformation was pretty good, too. It was good. And I think Rick Baker won the we're out of gas. Rick Baker won the inaugural makeup award, oscar award that year. Oh, yeah. He's the very first one. He was great. And some say they might have even created that award because of that movie. It's like the Grammy for the disco, right? Remember the one year, the one and only year they had it? Yeah. They only had one year. Yeah. I don't remember that. That's pretty funny. Have you ever seen that? Mystery Science Theater 3000 werewolf. No. Starring Joe Estevez, who is Martin Sheen's brother. Oh, really? It's good stuff. Wow. That one is definitely worth seeing. There's people I don't think I knew that in Arizona, but a lot of people in the movie have weird, like, Eastern European accents for no good reason. Wow. It's almost like if Tommy Wisow had directed a werewolf movie. It's a lot like that. Holy cow. And then there's another MSC. Three k. That was good. I Was a Teenage Werewolf. Michael Landon. So these aren't your favorite werewolf movies. So your favorite theater, right? Yeah, because if I saw them without the Mystery Science Theater applied, it would stink. Yeah. Who can forget Teen Wolf? That was a good one, too. Yeah. That's a TV show, didn't it? Or was for a while. There's a cartoon, and then now I think it's like a drama on MTV. It's not like the silly high jinks of the Michael J. Fox type. No, I think it's supposed to be kind of like True Blood, but it's like, got you teenagers. Yes. Have you seen that? Michael J Fox show? No. Is it in again? No, no, I watched some of it. Just out of curiosity, I'm not that much into the network sitcoms, but I love Michael J. Fox, and I thought, let me check it out. No, it wasn't that good. That's cool. Yeah. I mean, hey, you got to take a shot at doing some TV. Can all be family ties, right? Exactly. Or Team Wolf is. Right. Team Wolf a cartoon. That's right. But yeah, that was a good movie, too. Are there any other werewolf movies? What about the Wolf Man? Sure. Or like The Howling. Wasn't that a werewolf movie? Oh, yeah, the Howling. Or Wolf Silver Bullet. Yeah, that was a good one. With poor Corey, one of the core. Corey Hayman and Gary Busey, I think. Oh, my God, that was a doom cast. Wow. Jeez. Anyway, so those are some of our favorite werewolf movies, everybody. Thanks for listening. But anyway, the Wolf Man, not the Jack Nicholson version, the classic old version, right? Yeah. He did wolf. Yes, it was called Wolf. Yeah, that wasn't very good. Isn't Benicio del Toro one called the wolfman? I think so, but I have not seen that one. So I wonder if it's based on this this movie 41. Yeah, I think it's a take on the classic wolf man. Okay. Is it LAN? Jenny? Yes, I think it is lancheny. That's right. He was the wolf man. Lon Cheney, Jr. Okay, so in this movie, you said it was, I think, right? Yeah, lon Cheney, basically, they set the rules for werewolves. It was to werewolfs what Bran Stoker's Dracula was to vampires, or none of the Living Dead was to zombies. Like it's set the rules. Yeah, for sure. And one of the big rules that it said was that if you were a werewolf, you were up the creek for the rest of your life until somebody put a silver bullet in you. Yeah. You were doomed to. Well, I think in the sequel is when the full moon part came in before it was seasonal, the fall, we turn into a wolf, which isn't so bad because you turn into a werewolf twelve times a year. The other way. This is just like once a year. It's like, who can't handle that? That's true. The only cure is death. And of course, this is just the Wolf man. It was based on folklore, which will get into now that had all kinds of different rules. Right. But many years before, people have been writing about werewolves. But this is the movie werewolf. Yeah, right. But when you think of werewolf, you think of being killed by a silver bullet, transforming in a full moon, being warded off by wolf's bane, which I didn't know about until I read this article. But it's kind of like the werewolves, what garlic is to vampires. Yeah. And the fact that it's incurable that once you're a werewolf bitten by a werewolf, you become a werewolf, and you're going to be a werewolf until you die. All of those are since the 1940s. Yeah. And not every movie since then has followed that path. But that's definitely the most iconic, like, werewolf template. Right. But you're right. Werewolves have been present in folklore for many millennia. It turns out the first mention of werewolves comes from the epic of Gilgamesh. Yeah. That, to me, is a clue to what werewolves are really supposed to be. But in Gilgamesh, the goddess ishtar who doomed warren Beatty. And Dustin Hoffman originally is trying to get with Gilgamesh, and Gilgamesh is like, hey, lady, I've heard about your past with other guys. You turned one of them into a wolf. And just to make matters worse, in an ironic twist, the guy was a shepherd. So he's attacking his own flock. He's at odds with his own dogs. That was a mean thing to do. That's cruel, but you and I have no future. That's right. And she said, Fine. Out, wolf. So that was Gilgamesh. That's from the 18th century BCE. Yes. I thought you were going to say, like, 1840 something, right? Yeah. Another story. Ovid's, the Metamorphosis. A traveler visits King Lychon of Acadia, and he says, you know what? I think you may be immortal. So I'm going to have a little test. I'm going to feed you human meat, which I guess is a good test back then to see if someone's immortal. And the guests turned out to be Jupiter, the god Jupiter. And she said, Wait, this is human meat. I'm pissed off now. I'm going to transform you into a wolf. Licanos. Exactly. And that's where the word comes from. Lycos, the Greek word meaning wolf. And then lycanthropy is well, it's either turning into a wolf or in our modern times, thinking you're a wolf. Okay. Yeah. Like cancer. P is actually a diagnosis of mental illness. It's a real delusion. Okay. A self identity disorder. Wow. Where you think you're a wolf. Yes. Or you think you're a werewolf or a beast. That's pretty crazy. Yeah. So this was not unique. Shape shifting wasn't unique to a time period or a place, like, depending on where you are from. If you were from a place at wolves, it might be wolves. But no. Tracey is making the point. This is a Tracy Wilson jam, by the way. She makes the point that it's so ingrained into folklore that if a culture is from an area that had wolves, there's werewolf folklore. That's right. It's almost a given. But in Africa, you might turn into a hyena, or in Japan, you might turn into a fox, which is nice. Like shape shifting to a fox. Yeah. Shape shifting inspires fear for three main reasons. I thought it was kind of funny. This is one of the funniest bullet lists in the whole site. Reason number one, shape shifting inspires fear is general. You become a powerful carnivore. So that's scary. Right. Instill fear. Number two, you are actually transforming into something that you fear already. Right. So that's even scarier. Yeah. And you have no way of escaping yourself. So everybody is scared at this point, including the werewolf. Yeah. And number three, you are going to have to perpetually deal with this over, over and and over until somebody puts a silver bullet in you. So those are the three reasons that shape shipping. Inspires fear. That was so weird. Like, everybody that's reason enough to go onto the site and look at this article. Yeah. Just check out this bullet list. Agreed. It's not even bulleted, it's numbered. Yeah. That is some quality work. So a lot of times in this folklore and literature, lycanthropy is more of a punishment. Doled out oftentimes for being some sort of sexual deviant. And almost always a dude. Yeah, that's a big point. Like vampires, it goes both ways. It can be men, women, they're usually clean and they're very sophisticated. Typically, vampires are, at least from Brahmsoker onward. Sure. But with werewolves, it's very much supposed to be the epitome of masculinity gone feral. Yeah. Brutish. Yeah. Violent, hairy, muscular, strong. Sound like they want to add. Right, exactly. Seeking same for some crazy stuff. Cosplay there you go. You dress up like vampires. Exactly. So when it's a punishment, it varies. Sometimes it's a permanent thing. You're transformed to a wolf forever. Sometimes it's a number of years, usually seven or nine, that comes into play over and over again. Yeah. And Chase is making a good point here. There are distinctions among our modern understanding of werewolves and the folklore, which was like, it wasn't always a punishment. Sometimes it was a positive thing. As we'll see, it wasn't always permanent. Sometimes it just lasted for a very brief time. Yeah. But there are folklore. What's plural of folklore? Folklore. There are folklore. I don't know. Folklore stumbled upon a huge gaping hole in the language. Yeah. But in German folklore in particular, there's stories of stories of folklore. Stories of people turning into werewolves on purpose, under their own volition, voluntarily, in order to basically become wolf. Like to go hunt better because they're balding. Who knows? There's all sorts of reasons to become a wolf. And it's temporary too. So it's voluntary and temporary. Yeah. And a lot of times, if that's the case, there's like a belt made from wolf skin or something that will put on that will transform them, something like that. In northern Europe, like Germany and Belgium and the Netherlands, this is pretty common. And wolf stories are like big in northern Europe. Huge. Well, remember our Vikings episode? Yeah. The berserkers. Yeah. So they would put on bearskins, eat mushrooms and then just go crazy in battle. Yeah. They were berserk. They went berserk. There's an Icelandic tradition, also, of a type of warrior who would put on wolf skins and think he was transformed into a wolf and would fight viciously like that, too. Again, probably on mushrooms. Right. Wolf versus bear. Yeah. Mushroom. Mushrooms. Yeah. That sounds crazy. Mushrooms win. No, mushrooms. Like the ref. Okay. Like, fight. Yeah. That's the equalizer, I guess. So in some of these tales, clothing has a lot to do with it. Like, some of them, you have to remove your clothes in order to become a werewolf. Yeah. Are you seeing, like, the dichotomy here? In some, you have to put on a wolf pelt to become a werewolf. In some, you have to take your human clothes off. Yeah. And do you remember I was saying I feel like the epic of gilgamesh is a clue to what werewolves represent. So, you know, the epic of Gilgamesh we've talked before, is, like it was written at a time when civilization is emerging. Yeah. And, like, the whole thing of gilgamesh is basically like, hey, everybody get on board with society, right. And we'll live in cities and be civilized, and if not, then you're a wild man. I think that's the same thing with werewolf floor. If you acted outside of society's prescribed norms, you would go so far that you would become an actual beast and you would be cursed in this way. And it was basically like a cautionary tale. Yeah. Or it was also a way to kind of take a dig at a miscreant, somebody who wasn't living up to society. Like, you're nothing but a werewolf. You're a beast. Yeah. Get it together, man. It became kind of a catchphrase in certain societies. Sure. Not a catchphrase, but, like, you said something you would call a bad person. But I think that's what the metaphor of the werewolf is supposed to be. Yeah. Although Tracy goes to great links to point out just how sexually based it is. Yeah. Like, it also ties into puberty and menstruation. I never really considered that. So we were talking about the clothing having a lot to do with it. Sometimes, of course, you would turn into the werewolf and you would wake up naked and have to put your clothes back on. Sometimes you well, you have to take your clothes off to become the werewolf. Yeah. That's another indication that you're leaving society. You're taking off your clothes and becoming wild. Am I making my point? Yeah. Okay, because I feel like I'm all over the place. No, you're making your point. Okay. In one tale, a man removed his clothes, peed in a circle around them, and caused the clothes to turn into stone, meaning no one could take the clothes anywhere. And when he got back and turned back into a person, he would have his clothes there. But it didn't say, and I didn't find the tale, how he turned the stone clothes back into cloth. Yeah. Maybe it happened after the transformation or something. Or maybe he had to poop on him. No. To transform back into a human, he had to put his clothes back on. So he had to figure out as a wolf how to put on stone clothes. Yeah. Yeah. I think a lot of these stories are so old they don't get into like, the specifics like that. That's just stupid. They didn't think a podcast or 400 years later was going to nitpick stupid peasants. Yeah. And one tale called Biz cleverette. An adulterous wife steals the werewolf's clothes, which keeps him in wolf mode. Very good. He gets her back, he bites her nose off. Yeah. Like a good wolf. And in doing so, I don't think in Britain they necessarily said that, like, anthropy was transmitted, which is another good point about whether the metaphor of it could be disease, like transmitted disease. All right, but she would have, under certain traditions, become a werewolf herself for being bitten by a werewolf. That's right. But you mentioned that in some lore and stories and movies, it is totally voluntary as werewolves are a race, like a dwarf or a troll. Right. Like Twilight, they're like wolf people and they can transform at will from hunky long necked, long torsode dudes into long neck, long torsode. Yeah, that guy who the guy in Twilight? The werewolf guy? Yeah. I can't think of his name, but the dude's neck and torso are like 8ft long. Really? He's funny looking, but they can transform willynilly into wolf. Bad CG looking wolf right back out in like an instant. There's no transformation. Just like Rick. I'm a wolf. Oh, got you. Yeah. You never seen that stuff, have you? No, you shouldn't. Well, the transformation is very important. Well, not in twilight or true blood. It's the same thing in True Blood. They just like, boom, they're werewolves. Right, okay. Well, that actually follows the tradition. It's fairly recent, like, basically Rick Baker era where the transformation became really important and just kind of like, hey, everybody, check this out. Yeah, I think let's get into that after a message break. Okay, so we're talking about transformation. It's like one of the biggest deals in movies now, unless it's Twilight, like I said, and you just it's really strange. I would have thought that they I can see what you're saying. Yeah. In Twilight, it's so fast that he'll be like, running through the woods and jump up in the air and come down as a wolf to keep running. It really takes all the and they look so crappy. The CG is so bad. Really? Yeah, it's just terrible. And they're huge. It's really very poor werewolfing. But I can see skipping past that. If you are describing a race of people, more than one person. I get it. And they need to come in and out a lot. With a movie like An American Werewolf in London, it just follows the story of one hapless, like Enthrop yeah. Where the transformation is the biggest part of the story very important, and they show every bit of it. But if you go back and read the literature, the werewolf literature, you're not going to find too many descriptions of the transformation. No, it's mostly like a recent film thing. Yes. And in most of those movies, like, if you are fighting a werewolf and you cut off his arm, it'll instantly be like a human arm. Yeah. Pretty cool. It's very cool. Yeah. The same thing goes for when you kill a werewolf. In some traditions, if you kill the werewolf while it's a wolf, he's going to stay a wolf forever. I don't like that. No, he's got to turn back into the human. And I think it was part of the lore in American Werewolf in London. Doesn't he get hurt? And that's how somebody knows he's the werewolf, because he sustained an injury as a wolf, and now he's wearing that injury as a person again. Wait, how did he become a wolf? Is that we're talking about? No, how they knew he was a werewolf. Doesn't like the girl he's involved with know that he's a werewolf because he comes back injured. Doesn't he get his eye stabbed out or something? No, I think he and Griffin Dunn go off into the moors after being in a pub and get attacked by a werewolf. Right. Griffin Dunn dies. He goes to the hospital, and I think the nurse becomes his girlfriend. Okay. So later on, somebody stabs the werewolf in the eye, and when he becomes a man again, his eyes missing. I don't remember, I think, either that I'm just completely making this up, but I feel like I can see it. Well, if it's not that movie, it's another similar one. Right. But the point is, if you sustain an injury as a werewolf in most traditions, especially modern werewolf lore, you will have that same imagery as a person got you transformed back. Yeah, I see what you mean. I couldn't remember, too, until I rewatched it today, how he got out of his clothes, because I don't remember busting out of the clothes. He looks up at the window and sees the full moon and just gets up and starts screaming and rips his shirt off and takes his pants off. Does he? Yeah, naked. And that's where he starts the transformation. Once he's, like, naked in his apartment. That was a really good movie. Yeah, I enjoyed it. Funny. And apparently the studio executives had a big problem with it because they were like, it was genre bending. They're like, Wait, this is funny, but it's horror. We don't get it. It's not funny enough and it's not scary enough. And it ended up being a big hit. I didn't see the other one, though. The American world in Paris. I didn't either. Hawk and Julie Delpy before sunrise. Oh, yeah. Julie Delpy was in it, I think. Okay. That's why I'm thinking of that. Yeah. But now Ethan Hawke. So, Chuck, remember the witchcraft trials that were so famous over here in Salem, Mass. And the other colonies? Yeah. So there were actually witchcraft trials and witch hunts in Europe before then and at the same time but there was also werewolf hunts. Yeah. I never knew. This makes total sense, though. So apparently between 1520 and 1630, there were 30,000 recorded cases of werewolf reported werewolves. Werewolf people executed for being werewolves. And some of these things were not just neighbor turning in neighbors. So neighbor A can get neighbors b's, land or wife or children or whatever. Right. There were some cases of people who were executed because they were self confessed werewolves. Specifically, there's this guy named Gio Garnier. Yeah. What's his story? He was kind of a hermit. He and his wife lived out in the woods. Like, you had to kind of walk through a lot of woods to get to their place in a village in France. I can't remember where exactly, but Gio fancied himself a werewolf. He thought he really was a werewolf, and he was attacking children, like, tearing them to pieces with his hands and teeth and then eating them. He would eat them on the spot and would apparently get pretty far just as a human. He wouldn't, like, dress up? No, but he thought he was transforming. And so finally, he was caught in the act. Right? Well, he was caught in the act one by some people who confirmed that he wasn't a werewolf. He was in the form of a man, but he was still acting like a werewolf. Right. So they figured out that he wasn't really a werewolf, but the fact was he still ate a bunch of children that he killed and torn to pieces. So he was burned alive at the stake for just being a murderous goon. Exactly. But another guy who was named Jean Grenier, a few years later, he was actually holed up in a monastery for the same crime, but they found him insane. Yeah, these were just cannibals. Right, but they thought they were werewolves. Sure. And there's a bit of attendant lower to the whole thing. A lot of these cases are thought to be the result of hallucinogens, specifically Deterra, which has been shown to make people think that they are animals even today. Ergot, same thing. Yeah, that's the one. And they think that's a fungus that can make you hallucinate. And they think that had something to do with the Salem witch trials, too. Basically, people just messed up on drugs. Yeah. What else? Hypertrichosis is another strange disorder that people might have thought make you point out that guy. Yeah, it's pretty sad. Everyone has seen that. They call it like the wolf man syndrome, where hair grows all over your face. It does not look sad. He looks swab. He does look pretty swab. And then he yeah, his family actually. He's one of 19 people on the planet to be affected by a condition called congenital generalized hypertrichosis. And they're all in the same family, right? Right. In Mexico, yes. Just his family has this condition. He does look swab, though. He wears it well. Rabies is another reason. If you're bitten by something, you might go a little nutty in the advanced stages, hallucinating things, plus agitated. Yeah. And if you think about it, if you're just a bystander peasant in 16th century France and you see somebody get bit by a wolf, and then later on that person starts acting kind of wolf like because they're rabid and you don't know what rabies is, boom. There's your werewolf outbreak. Yeah. Wolf hybrids. Wolfs and dogs. Commingling and having the sex and making you can get those pets wolf dog hybrids. But it's the same kind of deal. They attack people in villages and they think we're under attack by werewolves. Yeah. There's this really cool Atlas obscure article about the beast of Gevaldan. So Gevaudan, and it's about, like, these wolf attacks, but they're like supernatural wolves, and they won't go away. And all these villagers kept being killed by wolves, and the last one was actually killed by a girl, a little shepherdess wow. Who stabbed this charging beast in the chest and finally ended this century of wolf attacks. But it's worth reading for sure. So let's take another little second for a message break. All right, so moving on. As recently as the in Africa and what's now Ghana, there was a belief, widespread, that people could turn into hyenas. So this isn't like hundreds of years ago. And as recently as the 80s, this practice in the Iberian Peninsula, I don't really get this. There was a ritual or a practice to keep people from turning into werewolves where children would act as godparents for their younger siblings. The 7th and 9th child, again, seven and nine, coming into play. So the werewolves would basically recruit excess children. A family had too many children. Got you. Then the werewolves would come after those kids. So the older siblings would be like, okay, well, you're my kid. I'm your godparent now. So they would do that up until the 1980s. Yeah. So on paper, it shaves off the number of kids that family technically has, at least as far as werewolves are concerned. But, yeah, they were doing this until the 80s. That's weird. Yeah. I don't think we mentioned not all werewolves are bad in literature and books and films. A lot of them have compassion from the audience because they're kind of saddled with this thing now that they have to deal with. It's a struggle between your higher and lower self, your primitive and your citizen stuff. But we have to mention, in the Harry Potter series, remus Lupin is benevolent. And of course, Buffy the Vampire slayer Oz, he learned to control his werewolfing so he could be a good guy and win Willow back. Did you watch that puffy? No, not really. It was pretty good. Yes. I'm not going to say it was the greatest thing ever, like some people do, but some people are crazy for that. Oh, yeah, it was huge. Yes. But yeah. To each his own. Agreed. Let's see. You got anything else? I got nothing else. Werewolves. Yeah, that was a good one. Next full moon, watch out. Yeah. Seriously, I haven't even thought that. And I can't remember the last time I looked at a full moon and thought, werewolves. Yeah, it's been a long time. Well, they haven't had any really good movie. Like the Bonito del Toro movie wasn't very good. Nicholson movie wasn't good. It's been a while since they've made a really good werewolf movie. Early 1980s, I would say. Yeah, 1981. Well, if you want to learn more about werewolves again, seeing this really interesting bullet list, you can type werewolf into the search bar@houseupworks.com, and it will bring up this article. And since I said search bar, it means it's time for listener mail. I am going to call this guide dog Feedback from Kate. Okay. Hey, dude. I've listened to you for ages, but never really had anything worth writing about until the guide dogs episode way back in the day. Around 2000, my fifth grade teacher, Mrs. Mccernnan, managed to convince our public school system to train a guide dog in her classroom. Her name was Kerik. That is Keric. And she was this adorable little black lab. Mrs. Mccornnin would bring her to class every day and took her home every night. And in the meantime, Kerrick was not only trained on basic commands by the teacher, but by all of the students as well. Pretty neat. That's a lot of input for that dog. I know. Well Kerrick didn't make it. Karen went with our classroom everywhere, including a few field trips, and she got her own school photo for the yearbook that year. It was pretty cute. I would have put her on the cover. Needless to say, we all bald when she was sent off to finish her training. Sadly, she was one of the dogs that did not pass final training. Maybe had something to do with the 30 kids. No, this is how you sit down. No, you sit down like this. No, I should mention I didn't read this part, but she did say that they got pamphlets on, like, everyone being consistent. Right? Okay, I'm just kidding. You know how I put in with listener mail? Sure. It's how I share. But in Kerik's defense, she was disqualified under a really hard test for any dog. She had to sit next to a wheelchair while a bucket full of tennis balls were dropped off a balcony and solve a Rubik's Cube at the same time. That's right. And she could not grab any of them, so that's ridiculous. After that, Mrs. McConnell took her back, though, and officially adopted her. And still. Brought her into new classes occasionally. Recently. Ms. McConnell, I have a really hard time I can say that word. Moved schools and has had carrot qualified under habit human animal bond in Tennessee as a therapy dog for her new school's students. So she said it was a great experience and it's worth telling your listeners it never hurts to ask your workplace and see if they can do something like we did. And I guess if you're going to train a guide dog, you want to really get them ready for that test with all the tennis balls. Yes. That's a rough one. That is from Kate. I bet the ones that do it are just like they're bleeding out of their ears concentrating so hard. Kate, thank you very much for writing in. We appreciate it. Back in the day of 2000 chief, if you want to share a story that makes Chuck and I feel super old, you can tweet to us at syskpodcast. You can send us something on Facebook. Comsto. You can send us an email to stuffpodcast@discovery.com. And as always, check us out at our home on the web stuffyousteneo.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstofworks.com. Brought to you by the allnew 2014 Toyota Corolla. Hey, it's summer, everybody, which means school's out, the sun's shining, the daylight's longer, and best of all, there's plenty of time to get lost in a good, thrilling story. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music, My Favorite Murder from exactly right media, My Favorite Murder has something for everyone. Hosted by Karen Kilgarif and Georgia Hardstarkk, this true crime comedy podcast will share stories that will have you wanting more before you know it. Listen to new episodes of my favorite Murder. One week early on Amazon music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen today."
https://podcasts.howstuf…es-death-ray.mp3	Did Archimedes build a death ray?	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/did-archimedes-build-a-death-ray	During the siege of Syracuse in 214 BCE, the city-state's resident genius, Archimedes, built a number of clever war machines to thwart the invading Roman fleet. One invention, the death ray, has been considered the stuff of legend. But could it have been	During the siege of Syracuse in 214 BCE, the city-state's resident genius, Archimedes, built a number of clever war machines to thwart the invading Roman fleet. One invention, the death ray, has been considered the stuff of legend. But could it have been	Tue, 08 Oct 2013 11:50:56 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2013, tm_mon=10, tm_mday=8, tm_hour=11, tm_min=50, tm_sec=56, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=281, tm_isdst=0)	32604662	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Brought to you by the allnew 2014 Toyota Corolla. Welcome to stuff you should know from housetopforkscom. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark and Charles W. Chuck brian is with me. Jerry's over here are there. And this is stuff you should know. That's right. Audio Adventure Hour. Yeah. I'm telling you, we need to change our name to the Audio Adventure Hours. Oh, I got you. Because people will be like, I said it on a recent one. And he said, Boy, that's going to stick. And now you can't even remember it. Yes. I have no idea what you're talking about. I'm sorry. Which episode was it? I think it was broken bones healing. That was pretty recent. It just dropped yesterday in real time. Yeah, that's a good one. Yeah. But here we are in October and it's long since forgotten. It was kind of agonizing, too, like just talking. What was it, the green tree or green stick where little kids bones break? Oh, yeah, man. We heard from a lot of people on that, too. Yeah. And everybody had a hard time listening to it. Yeah. And we got some pretty gnarly pictures. Yeah. That dude with the staples down his leg. Yeah. And the guy with a crooked wrist like, don't send us this stuff anymore. Please stop. So, Chuck yes. I know you're familiar with the work of economist Jeffrey D. Sachs. The Saxr don't mean bore you too much. I'll try to keep it brief. Okay. Of course. You're aware that Sax once said that humanity can most likely reproduce its way out of any dire situation. Global warming, climate change, starvation, reaching carrying capacity, running out of water. All of these things we can paradoxically get ourselves out of by producing more people. More people who are going to consume more of these things. And the reason, of course, that Sax is saying this is that the more people that are produced, the higher the chances that some of those people are geniuses. And the more geniuses you have running around the planet at any given time, the more likely those geniuses are to solve the big picture problems that we face. We need more geniuses. So apparently we're all supposed to reproduce more. Does he account for all the dummies? Yeah, I guess. What he's saying? When you put the dummies against the geniuses, even the dummies can on your mind the work of enough geniuses. Right. So one genius can for the undoing of 1000 dummies. Yeah, nice. But it's like then you have the Idiocracy problem. It's like, well, we need to make sure that smart people are reproducing, too. Oh, I thought you were going to say a movie based on one joke. I love that movie. That's a cute movie. I thought it was good. All right. It worked in for me. It didn't. Yes. No, actually it was okay, but it worked in. Okay. I'm not poopooing. Did you like office space? Yeah, sure. Okay. Who didn't? I don't know. I think everybody on the planet loved Office Space. Yeah, that was a big underground hit. Still is like, it's still part of the vernacular for people to say things like flare. And there's always one guy in the office that's talking about his tabler. Right, sure. Every office has got someone quoting Office Space, or he's a straight shooter with upper management written all over. Yeah. So, Archimedes yeah. Speaking of office space, well, we were talking about geniuses. It's something to be a genius now, but when you are a genius, you basically expected to immediately sell out to the man or the government, and your ideas are going to be used for nefarious reasons against everybody else. Yeah, that's kind of how it works a lot of times, you know, like that Matt Damon soliloquy and Goodwill Hunting, where he's how about NSA? Oh, that one. Yeah. Yeah. It's probably pretty accurate. Yeah. There was a time, however, where just being a genius, you could change humanity forever, and you can make an argument that it was easier to be a genius before because there was so much to be discovered. Yeah, sure. I totally agree. But still, you should take your hat off to guys like Archimedes. Yes. Some of the earliest geniuses, because Archimedes was thank you. You just did off my cap. He was somebody worth taking your hat off, too, let alone the one thing that's possibly the biggest thing that he figured out was calculating pie. Yeah. So he invented pie. Throw the people who can calculate pi to 150 places or whatever. Just out the window. Just throw them out the nearest window. People who are standing next to them right now. Because this guy came up with pi originally. Yeah, he calculated pi. If you don't know who Archimedes is, by the way, he was a mathematician and a physicist and an engineer and inventor and all around Renaissance man. Pre Renaissance. Well, let's talk about him a little bit. He was born in 287 BC in Syracuse, Orange, which is modern day Sicily. Yeah, he's just an Italian. Well, that was a Greek city state. Yeah, but, you know, like Sicily. Sicily, yeah, sure. You know the old saying, sicily. Sicily, right. And he was one of the OG Sicilians. A Syracusan. Yeah. And he lived his whole life there, and later in his life, he would do a lot to try and protect his fair city. Right. So basically, he's walking around Syracuse, aside from going and being educated in Egypt, which is where a lot of the early Greek thinkers went to study. Yeah, he, like you said, lived his life in Syracuse, and he was basically allowed to roam around being the local oddball because he was so smart, and he was he played that part pretty well. Yeah. Not only did he calculate pi first, it wasn't quite calculus, because calculus wasn't invented, but it might as well have been calculus. These proofs he was coming up with right. About 2000 years before calculus was invented. Yeah. So he was precalculus and not that class that you took in the 8th grade that you hated. I shouldn't knock math. I always knock math. I'm sorry. Don't apologize to me. I have a lot of hatred towards math. I don't want to school the youths of today, though. Go to take PREC calculus. You're going to love it. Yes. That's what I say. Yeah. I don't think you're telling them anything they don't already know, though. You know, like kids do. Math appeals to it. Yeah, you're right. I have a deep admiration for those kids and don't begrudge them anything. I think you're born into it. Yes. Like if you're into math and you're a kid right now, you're smarter than Chuck and Josh put together. Yeah. And you've got a big advantage in life, too, because your checkbook is going to be that's right. He came up with the principle of hydrostatics displacement, calculating the volume of the human body, or really anything. But at first it was a human body because he did it by getting in a bathtub and it spilled over. Let's talk about this. This makes sense. Yeah. And what did he do when he figured out that he ran around naked, apparently shouting, Eureka. Which means I've got it. Let's talk about the story behind this. Yeah. So there was a king who had a pretty favorable opinion of Archimedes. King hero II, I believe. Yes. And King Hero came to archimedes. This is a story with a crown that a local goldsmith had made. He had commissioned a local goldsmith to make for him. And the king said, hey, our communities, I suspect I gave this local goldsmith the goal to make this crown, but I suspect that he replaced some of the gold with silver and that this isn't a pure gold crown. And I wanted a gold crown. Can you help me? You're a smart guy. Yeah. Can you help me figure that out? Yeah. And our communities was like, oh, man, this is a tough one. And he thought and thought and thought and thought for a long time. And it was when, like you said, he was in a bath, he was lowering himself into the bath that some water spilled over that he came up with what's called archimedes principle of hydrostatics, which basically says that the volume of an object just places an equal volume of water. Right? Yeah. So we have things like airships, not water, but fluid, which can be water or air or gas, liquid or gas. So we have, like, airships aka zeppelins. Yeah. Ship. Ships. Ships. Ships, aka. Ships. Yes. Things that float and don't sink. We can thank our commuters for the math that led to those. Yeah. But anyway, so he's got this crown, right. And it was when he was in the bath that he realized how he could figure out how the crown is pure, whether it was or not. Right. He weighed the crown and then got a bar of gold that he knew was pure that weighed the exact same as the crown. He had a cylinder of water or baths of water. He had a receptacle of water filled to the brim with water, like we said, aka water. He drops the gold into. Is my natural aversion to understanding math showing? No. I feel like it is. No. He has this receptacle of water filled with brim. He takes this bar of pure gold, drops it into the receptacle, and it just places water. So now he takes the gold out, and the volume of water has been reduced. Some of it's filled out, right? Yeah. That's equal to the volume, which is produced by the density of the gold. Of the gold. Okay, so now he's got the gold crown. If he drops the gold crown into the receptacle of water, and it brings the water up to the exact level that it was before the gold bar was dropped in there, that means that the density of the gold crown and the density of the equal weight gold bar are the same. Meaning that the gold crown is pure. Yeah. And that's the key. I don't think you mentioned at the beginning was that the gold bar he had was supposedly the same amount of gold is what was used to make the crown same weight. Yeah. So it should have the same exact density. Now, silver has a different density than gold. So the same weight of a bar of gold and a bar of silver have different densities, which means that if the guy had added some silver to this, the amount of water wouldn't come back up to the top. So what happened? Who knows? Who cares? Oh, wait. You don't have an ending to that story. I don't. The ending is that he figured this out and he ran naked to the street shouting, Eureka. Oh, man. Now, I have to know, was the gold crown gold or was it gold and silver? We're going to go ahead and say it's gold. Because if it were gold and silver, then the king would surely have to slay the goldsmith. And I have the impression that King Hero II of Syracuse was a fairly beneficent king. Hold on. Before we go any further, what do you think about a message break? It's great. All right. So our committee is done talking for the rest of the podcast. No, you're not. So he was a smart guy. That's what that story equals. Yes, he was an inventor, but he was more than inventor, in my opinion. He was a modifier of inventions, like he didn't invent the Catapult, but he made the catapult into a variable range weapon instead of a fixed range weapon much more useful. Yes, he didn't invent the water screw. He didn't invent the water screw, I think, didn't he? Apparently, it's an Egyptian. Oh, really? Saying that he found and improved. Okay, well, good for him, though. I'm not saying that. Well, they call it Archimedes screw. Well, yeah, I have the impression he wouldn't have called it that. I don't think he was much of a self promoter. He was a producer. You think so? Yeah, he just got the work done. All right. So eventually, his tinkering and his obsession, like, he would get really fixated on his work would lead to his death. Although he was old. He was 75, and that's got to be old for that age. Oh, sure. Before the commentary. Five. Yeah. Heck, yeah. He was really old. And a Roman soldier. I've seen varying accounts of this story, but the gist of it is that a Roman soldier came in and said, hey, you need to go meet with General Marcellus, because Marcellus Wallace, we're in charge here now. Marcellus wants to meet with you. He's got a brief case. It's closed, and no one knows what's in it. And a mysterious band aid on the back of his neck. And so he goes in there, and he says, general Marcellus wants to meet with you. And Archimedes was in the middle of his math, basically trying to come up with some new proofs. Yeah. Like he's creating a geometric proof or something. Right. And he was in the middle of it. Yeah. And he had drawn this on the floor. It was all drawn out, and one account I saw, he said, no, I'm too busy. I can't go see him now. And the guy got angry and killed him with a sword. Yes. You found that he was beaten to death. Either way, he died. But he had said something along the lines of, don't disturb my circles. Very dismissively to this Roman soldier. Yeah. Which pissed him off. Yeah. And so the Roman soldier killed him one way or another. Exactly. And apparently the Roman soldiers didn't realize who he was. Well, no, general Marcellus was not too happy. No. Because he wanted to use him. Yeah. Archimedes was very well known around this area, and the whole reason that a Roman soldier was even in Archimedes house in the first place was because they were besieging and have been besieging Syracuse for two years. Two full years. Well, yeah. The Syracuse was surrounded by a 16 miles wall, so it was very fortified city. Right. So it wasn't the kind of place you could just waltz in and siege. Right. Like, this will be an afternoon siege. It was a two year siege. So here's the weird thing. For about 50 years of King Hero II reign, the city state, the Greek city state of Syracuse allied itself with Rome. Everything is fine. It was a time of peace. The Romans were pretty much conquering the world. Sure. At the forefront of everything. Yeah. And taking care of their friends. Including Syracuse. But King Hero successor, his son, decided to go and ally Syracuse with Carthage. The General Hannibal had recently had some pretty good victories and had caught the attention of Hero's successor. And as a result, his successor was assassinated in like 13 months. And there's a lot of civil strikes that kind of came about. As a result of this, syracuse is divided. We should ally with Carthage, we should lie with Rome. Well, whatever the case was, their complete alliance to Rome had been shattered. And Rome sent General Marcellus to negotiate at first, I guess, to get them back on their side. And when negotiations failed, he started to attack the city. And when he attacked the city, archimedes war machines were unleashed upon the Romans. Yeah, they went to Archimedes and they said, you're a smart guy, can you figure out some innovative ways to thwart these people? And he said, hey, it's no problem. So one of the things he came up with, and I love his work machines because it's just kind of cool stuff. Yes. Back in that day, it was all very practically oriented with pulleys and levers and things. It wasn't like nuclear fission. Hey, let me think how I can use these. Drop these big heavy things onto people. The best. Yeah. With the people that I have at my disposal, which is a lot of people. My favorite thing was the iron hand or the iron archimedes claw. Right. This was basically like a large lever with a grappling hook. And they would hang flush with the wall so they wouldn't see it. And then when the ships would come into the harbor, they would swing this thing out, they would lower the boom, literally. And this grappling hook would attach onto the front of a ship or any part of the ship would be great. And they would have all these people in oxen and things that would immediately yank it up and basically yank these ships either in half or tip them over and capabilities them or drop them in the front end out of the water and then release it and then drop it back in the water where the boat would break or capsize. Right, exactly. And the sailors would be shaken off. And these are big ships, supposedly. They were called Quinn querying. Yeah, that was the ship of the day. Yeah. And those things weighed about 100 metric tons. Had like 400 dudes on these things. They were not small. They weren't small. And there was supposedly this giant iron claw that could pick them up and shake the people off and then throw the ship back into the sea. It's pretty cool. And they think that it was probably balanced with the counterweight rather than say like pulleys, which some accounts have it as yes, because the counterweight would be would balance out the weight of this huge arm and the claw, meaning that just a few people could move it up and down and side to side when they needed to because the bulk of the weight was countered. And again, he didn't invent this, but he modified existing things to make war machines. Basically, and we should say it's entirely possible, the Iron Hand or Iron Claw didn't exist or existed in some less fantastic fashion, less James West fashion. But it's possible and probable even, that there was something like that that was used during the Siege of Syracuse. Yeah, that's one of the Romans. The coolest things to me is that this is so long ago that we don't have the great record, so there's a lot of speculation of how we did it. It's just like how the pyramids built. It's kind of fun to sit around and tease your brain with that stuff. Right. Or build these things like Discovery Channel did on their show Super Weapons of the Ancient World. They built an iron hand. Did it work? Heck yeah, it did. Nice. I mean, it's very basic. It's like, let me lower this big hook onto your ship and use a lot of force to pull it up and then drop it. It's like the claw that you use to win stuff at the bowling alley out of those machines. Well, an upside down version of that. Oh, is it like it's a hook? Yeah, it's a grappling hook. Okay, got you. But the nomenclature of the day, that was called a claw. I got you. Okay, so let's take another little second for a message break. Okay. All right, so let's get back to it. So you had the Iron Claw that was probably for real and used against Rome because it was mentioned several times by not necessarily contemporary historians, but Plutarch mentions it. Plutarch. A lot of the historical recording of the day for Archimedes, but it was about 250 years after Archimedes lived. Yeah, there was another one that was pretty cool that may not have existed, but it was possible, and it's called Archimedes Death Ray. Cool name. It's a great name. Greatest name for a weapon ever. Probably Archimedes Death Ray. What about a band name? I'm sure that someone has taken that one, don't you think? Yeah, there's an Archimedes Death Ray out there. Okay, all right, fine. Archimedes Death Ray has taken it's got to be. But it is a cool thing. The thing is, it's not mentioned. It's mentioned a couple of times by some historians, even a couple that are fairly close who wrote fairly close after the Siege of Syracuse. Well, now, what's considered fairly close? Couple of hundred years. Okay, so Galen does not fall into that category. Galen, that's about 350 years after okay, so let's say Galen mentions it, but he doesn't call anything a death ray, obviously. No, he basically says that Archimedes burn ships remotely. I don't remember exactly how he says it, but he says that Roman ships burned from afar because of one of our committee's weapons. Okay. And he just mentions it. Yeah, it's not until 500 Ad. About 700 years after the fact that they named it that. A guy named Anthemias of Trails, who is talking about mirrored surfaces, mentions offhandedly that archimedes probably used a mirrored parabola to burn these ships. So it was known that archimedes use something to burn ships remotely. And then it's not until 500 Ad. The anthemias says this is probably what it was. And the idea of the archimedes that ray really kind of took shape from there. Yeah. And if you've never seen one in action because a lot of people tried to recreate these sound very successfully. Yeah. I sent you that video. The 19 year old kid in 2011 named Eric Jacques Maine from Indiana, he built one out of a satellite dish and little disco ball mirrors. Yeah, the little squares. And it worked like, man, he could melt stuff and melt aluminum and catch things on fire. And he's pretty genius somehow melted a rock or singed a rock. Somehow. Yeah, he said it committed suicide. He thinks it burned itself in a barn, like the sun hit it wrong and it caught the barn on fire. But apparently he's making a new one. I don't know how he's coming along on that. Yeah, but it's pretty interesting little video to watch. Yeah, but the idea is that you're harnessing the energy of the sun just sort of like you would with a magnifying glass to create a very small focal point of extreme heat to catch a boat on fire. Right. But this is from reflection. You're using mirrors. The more mirrored and polished surfaces, the more genuinely it reflects the original beam of light back. And if you can take them and put them in a concave parabola, you can focus them all onto a point, like you said. And when you focus them onto that point, you have however many little mirrors reflections focus into a beam that you can use to set something remotely on fire. Now, did they have magnifying glasses at the time? They have mirrored surfaces? No, not mirrored. Did they have magnifying glasses? No, they didn't. No. They would have used mirrors. No, I'm not saying that. I'm asking if they had magnifying glasses at the time. I don't believe so. Okay. It's possible because I was wondering, if it's so much better than mirrors, why wouldn't they have used magnifying glasses? And my only thing I come up with is maybe they didn't have them at the time. I don't know. I don't know how old magnifying glasses are. It seems like that's something that would be pretty old. Yeah, I don't know, I'll look it up. They had glass back then, right? Surely. Well, if they had mirrors. Oh, yeah. All right, so we did a podcast on mirrors. That was a good one. Yes, surprisingly good one. Remember all the weird little facts about mirrors? Yeah. It's pretty cool. They're creepy things. Yeah. And the more highly polished we learned, the more energy they can bounce back at you. So that's what Archimedes used. Yeah. If you're using sunlight, sunlight has with a heat energy, so you're bouncing heat energy back and again. If you use a parabola with a bunch of different mirrors, you can concentrate that heat energy into one little spot and you can hit something and set it on fire. Especially a wooden Roman ship. Yeah. And legend has it that he burned a lot of them. They're in the Mediterranean Sea. They were parked anywhere from 200 to 1000ft away. And he burned them all, or not all, but enough to where they were like, we're getting out of here because I don't know what this death ray is, but it sucks. So like you said, some people have tried to recreate this. In addition to Eric Jacques Maine of Indiana, a group of MIT scientists created one in 2005, I think, and it was a ten ft version of a Roman ship, just basically like the side of one made of red oak. And they used 127 1ft square flat mirrors arranged in a parabola. And there's video of this on the web too. So it worked. Caught it on fire. Yeah. After ten minutes of sunlight uninterrupted by clouds. But that raises some issues here. Sure. This boat was stationary. It was just like basically a beam of wood. Yeah. It was on top on the roof of a building and not in the sea. Yes. And it wasn't moving. So if your target is a boat, it's going to move in the ocean, it's going to have some sort of motion in the ocean and that's going to make the area that your beam sitting kind of jump all over the place. Well, yeah. And the whole key to the death ray was you got to have that fixed, it's got to sit there long enough to heat up and if it's moving all over the place, it's not going to be effective. Although I bet some dudes on the boat as it passed by them, right? Yeah. If you go the sovereign building, just one building over, it has a bit of a convex oh, it does. Or concave surface. And if you stand where it's reflecting that light, it is way hotter really than just like a foot over. A foot over this way. Just on the side. One dangerous. Good. Check it out. I don't know if it's dangerous. It's uncomfortable for sure. So some other dudes called the Mythbusters is that it's pronounced Mythbusters. Tried twice in seasons one and three, and both times they declared it busted because they could not recreate the death ray of Archimedes. But again, the MIT group was able to recreate it. And a Greek researcher in 1973, that's the one to me because he actually did that on a boat in the water. Yeah. He set some row boats that were on the water or a robot on fire. But the way he got around the motion in the ocean was he used like, 50 soldiers. Yeah. He had live mirrors. Yeah. That could just adjust their position slightly to make up for the ocean. Ocean. That's a pretty good idea. How many guys? 50 dudes with five foot by three foot mirrors. And I mean, that's about the simplest way to recreate this. You don't have to build something, you just got to have a lot of mirrors and a lot of people. Yeah. And some time in the sun and a Sicilian army that's not doing a whole lot right, then I guess they weren't. So it is very possible for our committee's death rate to have existed or for it to have worked. Whether it existed or not is highly unlikely. Here are some reasons. You ready? It was never used again. That's my biggest sticking point, is if it was a death ray and it works so well, why didn't they ever use it again? Another point. A lot of historians wrote about the siege of Syracuse. Yeah. They mentioned the Iron Claw. Different historians. Nobody mentions the death ray until 700 years after it's. Another sticking point. Could have been an artistic license at work, maybe. Could have been. Another thing is that even if it had been deployed in the field during the siege, roman ships all have firefighters aboard, and they wouldn't have been too terribly threatened by something that caused like, a smoldering fire that they could easily get to right and put out. All you have to do is splash some water on that area and it would just completely undo any of the heat that you've generated in that spot. Hey, Hercules, go pee on that. Exactly. That bow, Hercules. Like, I can pee on that plenty. Are those all the reasons? There's a whole list of them. There's military, practical, all sorts of reasons why it probably didn't exist. I'm surprised that some modern military force hasn't tried to do some sort of version of this, like harness the sun to kill. We have missiles and guns, so we don't really need the sun. He has, like, logs and trey Bouchets. Yeah, but you never know. What if it was? I'm going to get to work on it. Well, wait a minute. Was it one of the Superman? Like a satellite captures all the sunlight and then shoots it back? Was it a James Bond? There was some movie in like the late seventies or early 80s where that happened. Maybe goldfinger. Not Goldfinger, no, that was just the laser. You do a kill, maybe. All right, you do a kill. Boy, that one stinker. The best one. We've had conversations. Tanya Roberts with Christopher Walken. Yeah. Walking. Grace. Grace Slick. No. Grace Jones. Yes. Have you ever heard of cover of Joy Division? She's lost control. No, it's good. Yeah. It's like kind of like a reggae. Dub version of it. It's really good. Yeah. What happened to her? I don't know. She was an odd duck. Grace Jones. If you listen to stuff you should know, write in and let us know how you're doing. Yeah, the last thing I remember seeing her in was Boomerang, Eddie Murphy movie. Remember? She was in that, wasn't she? Yeah, she was very funny in that, actually. Yeah, she's probably pretty cool. I bet she's very cool. So that's Grace Jones. All there is to it. She did exist. Or did she? If you want to learn more about Grace Jones or the Archimedes death rate, you can type archimedes into the search bar@housedeforks.com. And I'm not going to spell that for you. You have to figure it out yourself. Yeah. And since I said search bar, it's time then for listener mail. I'm going to call this Collagen or Weird collagen. Hey, guys. I've been listening to your podcast about broken bones and you mentioned the vital role of collagen in the body. I figured it'd be a perfect opportunity to send in this email. I have this weird and rare condition called Ellers Danlos syndrome. Eds. You ever heard of that? No. Essentially, it's a defect in the make up of my collagen. It's almost like my collagen is chewing gum. It keeps stretching and stretching and as a result doesn't hold my joints in place. I've had hundreds, maybe even thousands of dislocations since it first started affecting me badly nine years ago, when I was eleven. Wow. Every joint in my body has been dislocated at some point, the exception of my left elbow. Is it painful? It's got to be painful. Well, we'll find out here in a second. There's no cure for the condition, but my physiotherapy helps as it allows the muscles to build up around the joints and stabilize them, thus doing the job that collagen can't. My Eds is a lot better now. My shoulders only ever dislocate every few weeks or so. It's a tough person. Yeah, very tough. It's manageable with medication. I'm proud to say I've made it through my first year of university, despite these occasional setbacks. It'd be really cool if you could do a show on EBS, as it has a lot of different effects on its sufferers and it's pretty interesting. It is. Finally, I want to thank you for providing me with hours and hours of entertainment and information during the long nights of being kept awake by pain. Oh, no. It is painful. It is painful. Man, that is rough. I've learned a whole lot from you guys and you never fail to cheer me up. That is from George in Brighton, UK. George, you're a tough guy and congratulations on finishing your first year at college. Yes. My buddy Dave has a shoulder that dislocates quite a bit. Or not quite a bit, but happens five or six times. Not like George's. Not like George, no. Every couple of weeks is good for George. Yeah, hats off to you, George. Heck yeah. Maybe we will do an Eds and we have to look it up. Yeah, if you want to tell us about a condition you have and ask us to do a podcast on it, there's nothing wrong with that. You can tweet to us at our Twitter handle. It's S-Y-S-K podcast. You can hang out with us on our Facebook page. That would be facebook. Comwoodo. You can send us an email to stuffpodcast@discovery.com. And you can check out our super awesome website called Stuffyourhealth.com. Brought to you by the all new 2014 Toyota Corolla. Hey, it's summer, everybody, which means schools out, the sun's shining, the daylights longer, and best of all, there's plenty of time to get lost in a good, thrilling story. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music. My favorite murder from exactly right media. My favorite murder has something for everyone. Hosted by Karen Kilgarif and Georgia Hardstarkk, this true crime comedy podcast will share stories that will have you wanting more before you know it. Listen to new episodes of my favorite Murder. One week early on Amazon music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen today."
http://netstorage.discovery.com/DMC-FEEDS/MED/podcasts/2008/1215462840402sysk-sympathy-pregnancy-2.mp3	Can I feel pregnant when my wife is?	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/can-i-feel-pregnant-when-my-wife-is	Sympathy pregnancy is the condition where a man feels pregnant while his wife actually is. Learn more about the symptoms for sympathy pregnancy in this HowStuffWorks podcast.	Sympathy pregnancy is the condition where a man feels pregnant while his wife actually is. Learn more about the symptoms for sympathy pregnancy in this HowStuffWorks podcast.	Tue, 06 May 2008 18:18:06 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2008, tm_mon=5, tm_mday=6, tm_hour=18, tm_min=18, tm_sec=6, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=127, tm_isdst=0)	5505180	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know from housestepworkscom. Hi, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. I am a staff writer here at Haste Works.com, and with me is trusteeeditor Candacegiveson. Candace, is it editor or editorx? I'm going to go with editorxx just because it sounds authoritative. And I'm feeling pretty authoritative today because I've got a really weird question for you and I already know the answer. Can I assuming I'm, a man, feel pregnant when my wife is? The answer is a resounding yes, at least from anecdotal evidence. We're talking about Kuvet or Kuvad syndrome, first described by Hippocrates. I believe in 300 BC. Correct. That's right. And if you don't feel like whipping out your French, you could also call it false pregnancy or sympathetic pregnancy. And essentially what happens is a man develops pseudocyesis, which is a swollen belly. The phantom belly is that he's actually carrying a child. And now I've heard about men succumbing to their pregnant wives cravings and then also wanting chocolate cakes and French fries at three in the morning. Who doesn't? Well, naturally I do, every day. But when you get that phantom valley, I think you're going a step too far. You're really stealing your wife's thunder, don't you think? Yeah. And that's one of the theories behind Kuvet syndrome, is that the man has developed a rivalry with his wife. He wants in on the attention, the action, just the glamor of being pregnant. And it's worth mentioning, too, no men choose to develop phantom pregnancy anymore than they choose to develop man breasts. This is a psychosomatic condition and it's brought on by this emotional attachment or maybe confusion with all these changes that are happening. And it's also very important to mention, too that this isn't something exclusive to men. It happens to women who maybe have had a miscarriage in the past or they've lost a child and they have this extreme emotional need to actually bear a child again. And there's actually a pretty famous case of this. Have you heard of Bloody Mary? I have, actually. The woman where if you stand in the mirror and you say your name how many times fast, I'm not going to tell you because you're going to try to do it. I don't want to lose her on how stuff works. Yes, I have heard of Bloody Mary. Well, apparently one of the reasons she was so bloody reputedly is because she had this syndrome. She either had a lot of bad runs with miscarriages or she couldn't actually bear her children. And so she took her aggression out in a pretty violent way. And when women get this condition, a lot of times it results in more serious consequences than men. Because when men have it, I think they know innately they're not going to actually give birth to a child when all of a sudden, done, it goes away. After the woman gives birth, things get back to normal. But for women, at the end of the gestation period, they expect to see a baby. Lisa Montgomery was a woman who had a pretty extreme case of Cupid's syndrome. In December 2004, she actually murdered a woman who was pregnant. She cut, opened her womb and removed her unborn child because she felt very proprietarily. That was her baby. She should have that baby. That was a bad day for everyone. Indeed. My big problem with Sympathetic Pregnancy is this. Obviously, with Lisa Montgomery cases, that's pretty serious stuff, but specifically with men, it's psychosomatic. And it is across the board in every case. This isn't a physical malady. It's basically a mental disorder to a certain degree, and it is psychosomatic. It's the mind playing tricks on the body. That seems logical enough, but the thing is, the medical community hasn't really established a clear link yet, although I think they're hot on the trail with electrolytes and hormones. What do you think about psychosomatic conditions? Should people with them be pitied? Should they basically just be smacked around and told to get over themselves? Well, I'm not really sure because I'm a psychiatrist, but it does make for pretty great TV. Did you see the episode of Grey's Anatomy? Was the man who had this? No, I didn't. But I did watch a Law and Order SVU where a homeless woman had had several children taken by the state, and she developed CuveT syndrome. It made for moving television, I'll tell you that. The good news is, because this is in the media and more people know about it, there are ways for people to get help. You can get counsel, you can get psychiatrists. There are ways that you can sit down with your wife and talk about the feelings that you're having and see if maybe you can reach a level ground where she understands what you're going through and she's equally as sympathetic to your condition as you are to hers. All the while you're fetching her pickles and ice cream. Yes. Clearly what you're saying is that this could conceivably be worked out just by talking about it, which indicates it is a psychosomatic condition. It's the mind exerting some sort of authority over the body and causing physical symptoms. The bottom line for all this is, if you do have COO baby syndrome, seek help and be sensitive to people who have it. And be sure to read, Can I feel pregnant when my wife is on Houseepworks.com? It could save your life. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit houseepworks.com. What if they're what you think? Send an email to podcast@houseworks.com brought to you by The Reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you."
https://podcasts.howstuf…ysk-fractals.mp3	Fractals: Whoa	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/fractals-whoa	In the 1980s, IBM mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot gazed for the first time upon his famous fractal. What resulted was a revolution in math and geometry and our understanding of the infinite, not to mention how we see Star Trek II.	In the 1980s, IBM mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot gazed for the first time upon his famous fractal. What resulted was a revolution in math and geometry and our understanding of the infinite, not to mention how we see Star Trek II.	Thu, 07 Jun 2012 14:59:20 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2012, tm_mon=6, tm_mday=7, tm_hour=14, tm_min=59, tm_sec=20, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=159, tm_isdst=0)	33482358	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 camry. It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know from housetoporicscom. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, hanging on by by my fingernails. With me, as always, is Charles W. Chuck Bryant doing much the same as we are about to start speaking on Stuff You Should Know about fractals. Yay. More math. Theoretical math, even. Yeah. A new branch of geometry. It's non Euclidean, since you brought it up. Okay. Very new. Euclidean geometry was, like, 300 BC. Yeah. And fractals are 1975. So there's a little bit of a gap there. There is a little bit of a gap, and there's a lot of animosity among the Euclideans toward fractalians. They need to loosen up and look at some of those far out pictures. I know. Yeah. It's funny. Did you watch that one dock on? Yeah. Okay. Did you see the Arthur C. Clarke one? No. It was made in, like, maybe 86, 87. And it had nothing but, like, delicate sound of thunder rip off music going on the whole time. It was really trippy. Well, I posted a picture I don't know if you saw today on the Stuff You Should Know all of the mandalbert set. It's beautiful. It is, and it's very cool. And I didn't even say what it was. I just posted it. And I'd say about half the people were like, very cool. Man, this is rad. I love the man who brought set like, fractals. Talk about fractals. And then the other half were like, are you guys tripping out like Grateful Dead day? This is actually math, believe it or not. But it does look very it's very tiedye in nature, and that's why the hippies like it. Plus, also, I mean, if you've ever seen a fractal play out on a computer screen so we are talking about fractals. I don't necessarily want to give a disclaimer. Chuck and I are not theoretical mathematicians. We're not even, like, normal mathematicians. I balance my checkbook by hand just to keep that little part of my brain going so I don't forget how to add and subtract later on in life. I make myself do that, and I don't let myself jump ahead. I show my work. Oh, really? Yeah. And that's about the extent of math in my life normally. See, I was a kid in math. That when they said, you're not allowed to use calculators. I would go like, there are calculators in life, so why can't we use them? They made calculators, so we didn't have to do math. Right. But at the same time, I find that shoddy because it's like you're just circumventing learning something, and it's like the calculator is there to support you after you know what you're doing. I disagree. Well, I think this is a pretty prime example of, like, going around to get to the end. So when I was researching this, I was like, okay, well, they don't really know what they're doing with this stuff yet, so we can just totally be like, well, it's anything you want it to be, nothing at all. And then like, I started looking a little more deeply into. I'm like, oh no, they do kind of know what they're doing. Yeah, we really do know what we're talking about. So I feel like I have just from researching this a little bit, something of a grasp of what fractals are. Yeah, I need to a little bit. For those of you who don't know what we're talking about, take a second to look up, just type in fractal and search images on your favorite search engine and you'll be like, oh yes, of course it's a fractal. And that's what we're going to talk about because fractals are a new field, like we said, in geometry. And they do have used and they have usefulness that I think people haven't even considered yet. But the stuff that they have figured out how to use it for is pretty amazing stuff. Can I say what a fractal is? Yeah, at least so people know. This should clear it all up. It is a geometric shape that is self similar through infinite iterations in a recursive pattern and through infinite detail. Exactly. So there you have it. Boom. Do we need to even continue? No, but that sounds like really that put me off. This article was pretty well done by a guy named Craig Haguet. I don't know who that is. Freelancer, I guess. And it's a pretty well done article, but a sentence like that can put a person off pretty easy. Sure. And he even put it, he made a joke about it like, oh, now that you get it, whatever. Right. But when you think about it, if you take that apart, one of the hallmarks of fractals is that they are a very complex result from a very simple system. And there's like basically three hallmarks to fractals that you just pointed out. Right. There is self similarity, which is if you cut a chunk like a microscopic piece of a fractal off and compare it to the whole fractal, it's going to be virtually the same. Yeah. Or a fern. And the cool thing about fractals is to me, the coolest thing is that fractals, a point they made in the Nova documentary, is that all of our math up until they discovered fractals and described fractals was based on things that we basically created and built. Like all geometry, right? Euclidean geometry, you have length, width and height, which three dimensions, right? Yes. For like pyramids and buildings, sidewalks, cubes and all those things. And it's extremely useful and we've done quite a bit with this. But what Euclidean geometry, as far as the fractal geometry or geometry insists fail? That is when they said, okay, look at that mountain. That's a cone. It's an imperfect cone, it's a rough cone, but it's a cone shape. Right. So, yeah, the Euclidean geometry holds sway with the fractal geometry, say, is you could say that it's a cone, but if you tried to measure and describe it as such, you're not going to come up with a very descriptive, very detailed description of that mountain. So what's the point? What fractal geometry does is it says we're going to describe that mountain in every little Craig and peak possible. Right. And so what you have is the fractal dimension, which exists in conjunction with length, width and height. And what the fractal dimension describes is the complexity of the object that exists within those three dimensions as well. That's right. So finishing my point, the cool thing about fractals is that everything that we had done previously in geometry because of things we built, fractals help describe things that have been here since the beginning of time in nature. And one of the truest examples of that is the fern. Right. With self similarity, you take a little snippet off of a fern, although you shouldn't do that. Let's just look at it. It's going to look the same as the larger part of the fern, and then the whole fern itself, very self similar, but not necessarily exact. No, it can be. There is a form of self similarity that is exact and precise, but in nature that's rare, if not just completely not found. Right, that's right. So you've got self similarity, which is the smaller part is virtually the same or looks the same or structured the same as the whole. And this process of self similarity going larger or smaller in scale is called recursiveness. Right, yeah. And recursiveness is like those paintings where it's like a guy, I think Stephen Colbert, the one that he gave to the Smithsonian, has recursiveness in it, where it's a man in a painting standing in front of a mantle and above the mantle is the painting that you're looking at. And then it goes on and on and on and on. Yes. Anything that's infinitely repeating. Right. Same with if you're in a dressing room and there's a mirror on either side of the wall, you just keep going on infinitely. It's recursiveness. And with fractals, the recursiveness of self similarity. Right. So there are two traits is produced through this thing called iteration. That's right. And that's where you say, here's the whole, I'm going to put it into this formula, and the formula has the output of the formula produces the input for the next round of that same formula. Yeah. It's a loop. Exactly. So it's self sustaining and it can go on infinitely recursion. Right? That's right. So what we just come up with is the fractal is anything that has a self similar structure and it's recursive through iteration. That's right. Okay. So I came upon this kind of easy, one easy explanation of a fractal from Ben Wall mandel brought Site he died by the way in 2010. Yeah, he seemed like a pretty good guy. He was definitely thinking different. Yeah. And the way that Mandel brought described a really easy way to think of a fractal, is there's this thing called the serpentski gasket, and you take a triangle and you can combine them into a bunch of little triangles and spaces, triangular spaces that form a larger triangle. Right. So that one initial solid triangle is called the initiator. That's the original shape. Right. And then all those other triangles combined that form that larger triangle, or a selfsimilar version of that larger triangle of the original triangle, that's called Generator. Right. So the formula for creating a fractal would be to go into that Generator. The version that has all the little smaller triangles that make up a larger whole triangle. And say. All the ones that look like the initiator. The original just solid black triangle. Take that out and swap it with the Generator version. And all of a sudden you have one that's exponentially more detailed. There's more to it. And that's a fractal. That's all there is to it. You know what else is a fractal? What? The coastline. Yeah, that was a big one. Lewis Fry Richardson was an English mathematician, early 20th century, and he very brilliantly said, you know what? If you take a yardstick and you measure the coastline of England, you're going to get a number. If you take a 1ft ruler and measure the coastline, you're going to get a different number. If you take a one inch ruler and measure the coastline, you're going to get a different number. And it's basically infinite in that the smaller you go with your unit of measure or your tool is the larger number you're going to get, because the coastline is so infinitely varied in its little nooks and crannies. Right, exactly. It's a very cool way of thinking about it. There's a second part to that, too, Chuck, is that so, depending on what you're using to measure, the tool you're using to measure the perimeter of that coastline could go on infinitely, but it still contains the same finite amount of space within the paradox. That is a big time paradox, because things aren't supposed to be infinite and finite at the same time. Right. And Louis Fry Richardson, he basically established in that, coming up with that paradox, this kind of revolution and thought that fractal geometry is based on, that you can have the infinite mixed with the finite, and you can get it from pretty simple formulas that create very increasingly complex systems. Right. Yeah. And Fry, he was the first guy to really kind of put forth this idea of thought, but he wasn't the first one to notice his paradox. Yeah. And before people even knew there were fractals, there were artists like DaVinci that saw this pattern in tree branches. I know in the Nova documentary, in the article, they point out the Katsu shika Hokusai, 1820, Japanese artist created the great wave off Kanagawa. And those are fractals. It's ocean waves breaking, and at the top of the crest of the waves are little self similar waves breaking off into smaller and smaller self similar versions. And that's a natural fractal, or in this case, it's a depiction of one. So they were early African and Navajo artists were doing this, and they didn't realize that they were fractals, and there are fractals all around us. No, they just saw crystals and a snowflake are another good one. Yeah, exactly. They saw that what they were looking at was a repeating pattern that was self similar and recursive. Right? Yeah, that's it. That's a fractal. Right? Yeah. And Mandelbrot was the first one to say, you know what? We can use math equations to actually apply to this. And he was a big star for a while, and then they sort of turned on him and said, you know what? This is all cool and trippy looking, but it's useless. Right? And he said, oh, yeah, screw you guys. Watch this. And he wrote another book, which started to give some practical applications, which are pretty exciting. Yeah. So the whole thing, the whole principle that this is based on is that you can take a formula and plug in a very simple, relatively simple formula, like Mano brought formula. We'll take that one, for example. His is zed goes to z squared plus C. Right? That's what it's called if you're in England. Z. We say Z-A-B-Z. Anyway, Z goes to, which is the go to is the key right here. This is what makes it fractal. Goes to means that it's an equal sign. It looks like an equal sign with part of an arrow pointing towards Z, the other point pointing toward the rest of the formula, which means that there's that feedback loop where it's like, okay, once you have the number that this punches out, you feed it back in, and you'll get another number, and it'll just keep going and going and going. And every time, remember, you're swapping out the original, the initiator for the detailed version, the generator, and it's just getting exponentially more complex with just that one iteration of that very simple formula. That's right. And Mandel brought set, this is the one that's, like, it's probably the most famous one. That's the one that the deadheads like, because it's like this crazy juxtaposition between black and different colors and everything. And with his formula, two things happen with a number that you put in. It either goes towards zero, or it shoots off to the infinite. And what they did for the Mandal Brat Set fractals was they assigned a color to a number based on how quickly it goes off toward infinity. Right. So let's say that you have, like, four. If you plug four into this, and in ten generations, it will become an infinite number. Right. Then say that would be grouped into a blue color, like ten generations blue. Eight generations is red, 90 generations is orange. See what I'm saying? And then the other direction, like say if you put in 4.2 or something like that, it'll go towards zero. And any number that eventually will go towards zero is represented as black. So what you have then is this really intricate depending on where you're zooming in or out on the fractal, this intricate change of colors. And what you're really just seeing are numbers that are plots on a plane, and that's your fractal. And then the black parts are numbers that will eventually be zero. Right. And most of the Mendel Brat set is black. Yeah, but if you zoom in, that's the whole point. You zoom in on one of those little what do we call those little spikes? I guess you could call it a plot. A plot. And it's going to look like what you just saw. And the Nova documentary is very cool. When they zoom in on these, it's sort of mind blowing. Yeah, it is very. I strongly recommend watching that because they explain it way better than us. Well, it helps to see it, for sure. Oh, yeah, big time. Or draw it, as I have done off my page. I saw that. It's a pretty nice little fractal you have there. Yeah. Chuck yes. So we've talked about fractals, we talked about the Mandal Brought set. We talked about where they started to come from and the idea remember Lewis Fry Richardson? He was talking about measuring the coastline and going off into the infinite, but still containing a finite amount. A guy came after him named Helga Van Coke. Yeah, he came up with the Coke Snowflake, which is pretty cool. If you take a straight line or you take a triangle, and then on each side of the triangle in the middle, you bust out the middle into another triangular hump. You do that over and over and over again. It goes off into infinity. Although it contains a finite amount of space, the perimeter goes off to the infinite. A guy named George Cancer came up with a Cancer set, which is you just take a straight line and you take the middle out of it. And then for each of those two lines that produces, you do the same thing and it just keeps going on and on. And rather than going to nothingness, like you're like, well, if you take a six inch line, eventually you're going to bust it down to nothingness again. That doesn't happen. They found that it goes off to the infinite. So they realize Ben Juan Mandel Brought was plugging all these into computers because that's what it took. People realize this, like Jordan I hope that's how you say his first name. He was working in the 1880s. Gaston Julia, who came up with the Julia sets for producing a repeating pattern using feedback loop. All these guys were like 19th century, early 20th century mathematicians, and it was strictly theoretical until the late 70s when guys like Mandelbrot, who worked at IBM started feeding these things into these newfangled computers and seeing the results. Like this fractals, like the Mandal brought set that he saw. Right, right. So almost immediately, there was a practical use for fractals that came in the form of CGI. Yeah. They interviewed that one guy in the documentary who worked on the first CGI shot in Motion Picture History, which was Star Trek Two the Wrath of Con. Right. And he was tasked with making a CGI land surface like mountain range. Pretty mind blowing with it. Yeah. And he did. I mean, now you look back and it kind of looks silly, but at the time, it was completely revolutionary. And once he learned about fractals and the geometry and the math of fractals, it was pretty easy for him. He made it seem like he was like, oh, well, this is the key. This is how you do it. Right. And it is kind of easy, especially if you know what you're doing with computer programming and math, because what you're basically doing to create a fractal generator is teaching your computer to do something within a certain formula. That's a fractal formula. Right. And so what Lauren Carpenter, the guy who created the Star Trek Two landscape for the first all CGI shot ever, what he basically did was created a computer program that said, hey, computer, I'm going to give you a bunch of triangles, because I think that was the earliest stuff he was working with. Yeah, I'm going to give you a bunch of triangles, and I want you to take those triangles and generate a new fractal set from it. Right. And then I want you to do it again and again and again. And then every third time, I want you to start turning them 40 degrees so it's going to change the pattern slightly. And then all of a sudden, you have these infinite variations. The reason why when you go back and look at that shot that it still looks kind of today is because the computer he was working at didn't have the computing power to do that many times. Yeah, sure. Now we have higher computing power. And so what we're doing is telling our computers to keep going and going and going, swapping out the initiator that one single black triangle everywhere it can find it in this pattern of triangles in the fractal with a brand new fractal. So it's just creating more and more and more fractals, which creates a finer and finer and finer resolution, which makes something look all the more realistic. Yeah, like the part in the doc about the Star Wars that was making the lava splashing. It's amazing. Yes, it was, because they showed the first one. They did. It looks kind of plain. Right. And then once you fed it through this infinite feedback loop, it just shattered and fractured. Not fractured, although I want to say fractal off and just look more detailed. More detailed. More detailed until it looks like lava splashing. Right. Pretty amazing. Well, that's where the word fractal comes from, is mandel brought coined it in to indicate how things fracture off and they form a regular pattern. You can create a fractal that is regularly repeating, but it doesn't look as natural with, like, say, if you're creating lava, you've got to have that one rule that every third generation kicks 40 degrees or whatever the rule is that just kind of throws a little bit of dissimilarity into it because if something is too selfsimilar, it's not going to look right. It's not going to look natural, it's not going to look real. Which kind of leads you to think, Chuck, then, that there is an application for studying natural phenomenon using fractals. Right. Well, there are, I guess so. All kinds. Well, this isn't so much natural, but the documentary interviewed Nathan Cohen, who was a ham radio operator, and his landlord said, dude, you can't have that huge antenna hanging out of your apartment. Right. So he started bending wires, a straight wire into essentially a fractal and found that on the very first go, it got better reception merely by the fact that it was bent in that way and it was so similar. So he eventually used that to, I hope, make a lot of money. I got the impression that he did okay by applying that technology to cell phones. And the way they describe it is all the different things a cell phone can do. If you were to have a different antenna for each one of those functions, it would be like carrying around a little porcupine. So what cell phones now are based on is a fractal design called menjar sponge. Minger sponge. Yeah, I think menger and it's basically a box fractal. And if you crack open your little cell phone, you're going to see it wired that way. Yeah. You're going to be looking at a fractal. It's a square. Right. And then within it are a bunch of little squares in a recursive self similar pattern. And you friends are looking at a fractal. It's all around us. Yeah, it's also all around us in nature. In that same documentary, that Nova program, there was a team from, I think, University of Arizona. There was a team of academics yeah, that was pretty cool. Who we're trying to figure out if you predict the amount of carbon capturing capacity an entire rainforest has just by measuring and figuring out the self similar system that a single tree in that rainforest has, that makes sense. Well, it does, but it's kind of a leap. It's like, okay, so is one tree does it follow the same system that the whole rainforest does? And they apparently found that yes, in fact, it does. Right. The same branching system found in that tree is similar to the growth of the trees in the rainforest as a whole. Pretty cool. Yes. Tumors in the human body. One of the keys to getting rid of cancer is or any kind of tumor is spotting these tumors early on. But with our ultrasound technology, you can only get so small and so detailed that you can't see some of these natural fractals, that your blood vessels are fractals, essentially just like the branches of a tree are. They are now using geometry to now, I'm not sure if I got this right, but I think it shows the flow of the blood because ultrasound can pick that up through these fractals when they can't even pick up the vessels themselves. Right. Is that right? Yeah. Earlier tumor spotting. Right. Well, for all intents and purposes, they're looking at the vessels by finding the blood because they see where it's flowing. But yes, depending on the pattern that it follows, if it follows like a tree branching shape right. It's healthy. Right? Yeah. And then the tumors, all the veins are all bent and crooking, going in all crazy directions. The readout of a heartbeat. Yeah. It's not consistent. It's a fractal. Yeah. So they use fractal analysis now to study your heart rate and use that to better understand how arrhythmia happens through math, especially with natural systems. That's kind of like the biggest contribution that fractal geometries produced so far, I think, aside from CGI, is what medical? Well, just that whole understanding that was first really kind of voiced by Lewis Fryer with the coastline, that there are natural systems out there that we're not quite paying attention to, we don't really know how to deal with that. We're trying to apply something like Euclidean geometry to something that you can't really use that for. Right. That's what fractal geometry has really contributed so far, is to basically say, hey, there's a lot of natural systems out here that are self similar and recursive. And now that we kind of see in the fractal world, we see them everywhere and we have a better understanding of them. One of the best examples of that, I thought, was figuring out how larger animals use less energy than smaller animals. They use energy more efficiently. And this is kind of a biological paradox for a really long time. And these guys figured it out using. I guess. Kind of the same kind of insight that fractal geometry has. That if you take genes and genes are the mathematical formula or the equivalent of a mathematical formula. And you feed in these genetic processes. What it's going to put out is this self similar recursive pattern to where the bigger the organism is. The more this thing goes and goes and goes. The less energy it's going to use because there's more of it and it doesn't require very much energy to produce past a certain point. So if you have a very small animal, it's using a lot of energy to do these things, to carry this out. But there's that economy of scale because you're still using a relatively simple formula, your genetic code right. To carry out a very complex, seemingly complex system, which is your organs or you as an organism. Right. So in the end, an elephant uses less energy than a mouse. Yes. Because they're both using the same formula, the same input. And then eventually you reach a point where it just gets easier and easier and easier. It's crazy to use something simple to create a complex system. I love it. I do, too. I got one more thing. You heard this guy, jason Padgett. This is pretty crazy. This guy, like, nine years ago, I think, was mugged in Tacoma, Washington. Got hit in the back of the head really hard, knocked him out. And he acquired a form of synesthesia in which he sees fractals from being hit in the head. And basically, it's an acquired savantism, which is pretty rare to acquire this later on. And this guy hated math, and his family used to make fun of him, he said, because he was the worst at Pictionary. Couldn't draw a thing, couldn't draw a lick. Now, this guy can draw, reportedly, mathematically correct fractals by hand. Well, and he's the only person on Earth that can do this. Holy cow. And you should see these things. They're like a huge two by two fractal that looks like it was plotted by, like, a supercomputer. And this guy does this by hand now out of nowhere, because he got hit on the head. That's pretty amazing. Yeah, it's crazy. He got hit in the fractal center, huh? He did. That's strange that we would have, like, that ability latent in us. Yeah. Well, they studied his brain, of course, and they found that the two areas that lit up in the left hemisphere were the areas that control exact math and mental imagery. He's fine with it, although he says that he's a bit obsessive about it because it's one of those deals where everywhere he looks now, he sees fractals. Oh, yeah. Well, I got the impression that people who are fractal geometry have the same thing. They're like, look at that cloud. I can figure out how to describe it completely. Yeah. With math. Yeah. It's crazy. And then it's everywhere. Canopies of the trees. I got that impression as well, that once you start seeing fractals and natural systems, then everything becomes fractals and a lot simpler to understand. I realized today that I have always doodled in fractals. Oh, yeah? Yeah. Because I can't really draw, so whenever I doodle, it's always been little fractal shapes. Like, I would draw some kind of geometric shape and split off from that and make it smaller. And in the end, they're sort of like fractals. Well, your fractal trees that you. Show me is pretty awesome. So you got anything else? No. I would strongly urge you to read this article a few more times and then maybe go off and read some more about fractals because we definitely have not covered all of it. Watch that Nova documentary. Yeah, that's good stuff. What is it? Chasing the Hidden Dimension. Is that what it's called? Think you call it chasing the dragon. Well, there's a dragon curve fractal. It's pretty boss. That's right, it is boss. So you want to type fractals in the search barhousepworks.com to start, and that will bring up this very good article. And I said search bar, which means it's time for listener mail. Josh, I'm going to call this don't eat your peanuts around me, jerk. Yeah. Remember when the air traffic control I remarked that I never heard the announcement that no one can eat peanuts on the plane? I've flown a lot in my life. I've never heard that before. Yeah. So Ian Hammer writes in on the air traffic control episode, you were talking about peanuts being completely absent on some flights. And as a person that is really allergic to peanuts, I can shed some light. My allergy is bad enough to wear the smell of peanuts, which is really just the presence of peanut molecules in the air will cause me to get itchy and swollen. In the case that I am in contact with a peanut, I have the superpower of becoming a balloon, and I'll swell up to the point where I will be dead in a matter of minutes. I can delay the anaphylactic shock for ten minutes, give or take, with an injection of epinephrine. And this will only work twice. Like twice in his life, I think. So if I do have reaction, I have 20 minutes, plus the 15 minutes I have before. Normal anaphylactic shock would kill me. There really isn't a way to save me in that instance unless I can be administered the proper treatment that you can get only at a hospital. You can imagine when a plane is at 30,000ft, there's not much can be done to get me to a hospital within a 35 minutes time frame. So flying can be a pretty scary thing when someone near you decides that they really want a peanut butter cup. People do this sometimes, and it's a real pain to have to deal with. I just wanted to give you guys an overview of peanut allergy suffers when it comes to flying. Keep up the incredible work. Look forward to seeing the TV pilot. Ian Hammer. Incredible is right. If we were insensitive to that, then all apologies. He didn't indicate that, but we weren't. I just remember being surprised. Yeah, I was surprised. And I knew allergies could get bad, but man, I think on the plane I was like, what? I've known about this since I saw an episode of Freaks and Geeks. Were in one of the characters almost died because, like, some bully at school gave him some peanuts. Oh, yeah. It was the Martin star. The analog to Paul from Wonder Years. Okay, how about a fractal story? Yeah, if you know something about fractals that we don't, or you can correct us or explain it better than we did, which I'm not sure that that's much of a long shot. We want to hear about it. You can tweet to us at Xysk podcast. You can visit us on Facebook@facebook.com stuffyshno or send us an email at stuffpodcast@discovery.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit houseworks.com. Brought to you by The Reinvented 2012 camry. It's ready. Are you?"
c41fdda4-5460-11e8-b38c-e30a55046ab8	SYSK Selects: Can Nuclear Fusion Reactors Save The World?	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/sysk-selects-can-nuclear-fusion-reactors-save-the	The world’s energy consumption is ruining the planet but for decades physicists have been working on what could solve the world’s energy and climate change woes for centuries to come – nuclear fusion. Learn about building stars on Earth in this classic episode.	The world’s energy consumption is ruining the planet but for decades physicists have been working on what could solve the world’s energy and climate change woes for centuries to come – nuclear fusion. Learn about building stars on Earth in this classic episode.	Sat, 28 Mar 2020 09:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2020, tm_mon=3, tm_mday=28, tm_hour=9, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=5, tm_yday=88, tm_isdst=0)	42379080	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Hey everyone, its me, Josh. And for this week's SYSK selects I've chosen can nuclear fusion reactors save the world? Well, it turns out probably if we can just figure out how to build one properly, will sit back, buckle up and prepare to be titillated with what I find to be the most arousing amazing form of future energy around. Enjoy. Welcome to stuff. You should know a production of Iheartradios how stuff works. Hi, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles debutuck Brian. There's Jerry. Whose barrel? Laughs and this is stuff you should know. She gave us the old quick start. Yeah, like I don't want to hear anymore. And press and record. Yes, she knows. It shuts me up. Or at least cuts off whatever conversation I'm chatting her with. It was great. I'm telling you, if we could release the 20 seconds before each show as its own show yeah, that would be terrible. No one would care. No, we'd think it was funny, but everybody else would be like, you edit this out for a reason. So, Chuck, how are you doing? Great. Have you ever been to Aison Province, France? No. Is that a place? Yeah. No, I haven't. It is a rustic little town in Provence and it is strangely, maybe even ironically, in the non hipster use, but in the actual word definition of the word. Also site to one of the most futuristic engineering projects humanity has ever undertaken. Meat. That's the sound it makes. Oh, I thought you were mocking me. No. For being thrilled by the thought of this thing. No, it is kind of funny that this thing's in a sleepy little town, a hamlet, maybe even CERN in Switzerland. That's not in the city, is it? No, you can't build these things in cities. That's why they're in sleepy towns. Exactly. Because no one knows they're being poisoned. Yes. And you can push the mirror around pretty easy. Exactly. This thing is called ITER I-T-E-R which is an acronym for the International thermonuclear Experimental Reactor. That's right. Which really gets the point across. Did you know the word acronym is an acronym? That's not true. Okay. I just want to see how long you would try and sort it out in your head. I would have kept going on 30 seconds. Maybe. That would have been a great joke. I could have just kept it going. I'm not going to tell you maybe 15 seconds because you would have gotten that much more. Sure. So I wouldn't have looked it up. I would have figured it out myself. Anyway, is this a colossal engineering project? Somebody compared it to the pyramids at Giza. Oh, wow. Yeah. That's exciting stuff. Sure. The thing is, it's a nuclear fusion reactor and it's the culmination of decades of attempts to create a nuclear fusion reactor because we got fusion down and we'll talk about the difference in a minute. But fusion has been very elusive. And nowhere is it more apparent than in the Ider project, because this thing is going to cost approximately $50 billion when it's completed. $50 billion. They started at 1993. They're hoping to turn on the switch in 2020, but it's looking like 2023 or 2024, and it won't be starting to produce anything until the earliest. So what's the point? I'll tell you the point. If we can figure out nuclear fusion, Chuck, the world, literally, the world's energy problems will be solved for millennia. Yeah. If we can just figure this out, we will have almost no radioactivity nuclear option, almost limitless fuel supply, totally green, clean, no pollution, no greenhouse emissions. Right. And with plenty of energy to spare using the already extant infrastructure, we have to supply power. Like, you don't have to completely rebuild everything to the electrical cables outside. It will be the exact same thing. Yeah. You can just go to a nuclear fission reactor and press the button that says fusion and it will all of a sudden join atoms instead of split them. Exactly. It's that easy. That's what the difference is with fusion, you're splitting atoms and you're gaining energy from that. With fusion, you're smacking them together and you're gaining even more energy because you're exploiting a different fundamental force. Yeah. And that I was being coy. Clearly, there is no button, because we would have pushed it a long time ago. Yeah. And when I say no pollution and no greenhouse emissions before the pedantic among you right. In. We know that just even shipping something from here to there causes pollution and greenhouse emissions. Good. But we're talking about that. The output of the reactor itself is very green. So if you want to know all about Ider, well, we're going to talk about it here or there, because you just can't talk about nuclear fusion reactors and not mention Ider. But if you want to know a lot about IDOR, there is a really great article called A Star in a Bottle, and it's by a person named Rafi Kachadoran, and it was written in The New Yorker not too long ago. And, man, it is every detail you want to know about the Idle Project written really well, and it's long, but it's totally worth the read. Yeah. It's all over the news lately, and for good reason. You said a lot of energy. I have a stat kind of throwback to the old days here. Per kilogram of fuel, if we're talking fusion and fission, fusion produces four times more energy than fission. I saw seven. It's probably one of those things where it's like four, five to ten or something. I found four times and 10 million times more than coal. 10 million times the energy as coal. And that's with equal fuel per kilogram of fuel. Right. It is the future. Yes. And you can say, well, that's great, because we want 18 million times the amount of power that coal provides, you can say, well, there, buddy. You can also bring it backwards because you can supply an awful lot of power with a lot less fuel. The advantages of nuclear fusion are mind boggling. Sure. And very few downsides, which we'll get to, of course. Yeah. I mean, really, genuinely, it's not just like some like, here's all the great stuff about it and just don't pay attention to all these really horrible aspects. There really aren't too many downsides. The downside is we are at this moment incapable of successfully creating a commercially viable nuclear fusion reactor. That's right. But we've got an understanding of what the challenges are ahead of us, thanks to the last 50 or so years of really, really smart physicists working on the problem of nuclear fusion. And the great inspiration for nuclear fusion is the sun. The sun and all stars like it are enormous, immense nuclear fusion reactors. So if you are building a nuclear fusion reactor here on Earth, you're essentially creating a star. And that is a very difficult thing to do, it turns out. Yes. The sun creates I know we talked about the sun in our very famous episode on the sun. The sun creates 620,000,000 metric tons. It fuses 620,000,000 metric tons of hydrogen at its core every second. So every second at the Sun's core, it produces enough power to light up New York City for 100 years. New York City every second. And that's the sun. And all we want to do is do the same thing on a much smaller scale. I think the guy there's this kid who built one in his garage, and he said he wanted to create this Ted Talk. He wanted to create a star in a box is what he called it. Yeah, I've seen it. Like, this New Yorker called it a star in a bottle. Yes. This kid's name is Taylor Wilson, and he's a nuclear physicist, and he's like 16. Wow. And he created yeah, he created a successful one. And the key, though, is not to be able to create the fusion. The key is to be able to harness enough plasma, which we'll get to at a high enough temperature and density for there to be a net power gain. You can create fusion, but in order to get out, more than you're putting in is the only thing that matters. Because what you want to do is create electricity. Exactly. There's two huge challenges right now to nuclear fusion. We pretty much understand it enough to start it going and get energy from it. The problem is material science isn't at a point where it can build a containment vessel to really house a thermonuclear reactor. And then the other big obstacle is, like you said, net energy gain. Like, if you're putting in as much or more energy than you're getting out of your nuclear reactor, then you're wasting energy, and it's the opposite of what you're supposed to be doing. Yeah. They're not just trying to impress people with their science knowledge. No, but up to trying to create energy. Up to now, though, Chuck, every single thermonuclear reactor that's ever been built has just been impressing people with knowledge. They haven't gotten any net energy out of a single thermonuclear fusion reactor. Right now they're up to, like, ten. Presently, they're at 10. Is that right? Yes. And that's more than they put into it, a net gain of 10 MW. Currently, everything I saw was when we turn this thing on, it should have a net gain, but I didn't see that they've actually done it. Yeah. 10 MW now In IDA is going to produce 500 MW once it's fully operational. Right. So the next challenge then is this. If we're already getting a net energy gain out of it, then that means that the net energy gain is not sustainable. Like you said, you want to keep the thing going so you don't have to keep starting from scratch to power it up. You want it to basically be self sustaining, so you just have to add a little more fuel to it. That's the dream. So let's talk about the history of fusion reactors, Chuck. Yeah, it kind of goes back to this guy named Lyman Spitzer. He's a 36 year old Princeton astrophysicist. And this was in the 1950s, and he was recruited to work on the H bomb and went out and got a copy of a paper that was released from Germany, I think. Right. No, argentina. Argentina. Yeah. They announced that they had to get that wrong, they had successfully built a fusion reactor. Right. So he gets this paper, goes on a ski trip, starts thinking about how he can do this, takes a little break from his job building the H bomb, and figures out, I think it's possible if we can harness this plasma. I guess we should just go ahead and define what plasma is, since we keep saying it. Well, there's the normal three energy states that we're familiar with water, solid, and gas. Liquid, solid and gas. Right. Right. There's a fourth one. It's plasma. And plasma is basically like an energetic gas where the temperatures are so high that whatever atoms you put into it, the electrons are stripped off and allowed to move around freely. Right. Basically, the surface of the sun is plasma. That's what plasma is. It's a gas. It's a roiling gas. It's really hard to control and is really unpredictable, which is when you see the sun, like that rippling, wavy looking thing. That's plasma. Right. And the reason the sun manages to stay together is because it is enormously, massive, and has a ton of gravity at its core. Yeah. We don't have that advantage here on Earth. We don't. So we try to make up for that by increasing the temperature. That's right. And he was onto it way back then in the 1950s. If we can just harness this if we can just get it hot enough. And he created a tabletop device called the Stellar Rater. And it was in a figure eight position. It was a pipe in a figure eight. And this would keep things from banging into walls? Theoretically, yes. And he was onto something because well, we'll get to Lockheed later, but they're using a similar device now. A figure eight. Yeah. I didn't realize that was a figure eight. It is, which is weird because what they eventually found out was that a donut shape was really the key to get that net gain. And the reason that they found out that a doughnut shape worked was because in the, I think the late fifty s, the US. Had run up against the wall. They're saying like, okay, we've got this, but we can't control the plasma. Because, think about it, what you're trying to do is create a star inside something, but it can't touch any of the vessel that it's in or else it'll just completely erupt it. Right? Yeah. They compared it to holding jelly and rubber bands. Right. They couldn't figure out how to control the plasma. So when the US. Ran up against this wall, they said, hey, rest of the world, we're going to declassify what Lyman Spitzer has been doing. Help us out and we'll share with you guys. Share. And it turns out that the Russians had already come up against this problem and licked it. They figured out that if you put the thing in what's called a toroidal shape, a doughnut shape, using electromagnets, you can tame the plasma, essentially. And the donut shape itself was pretty ingenious. But the real stroke of genius was by running electromagnets in rings around the doughnut. So it's like you have a doughnut and you put a bunch of earrings around it, right? Yeah. And those are electromagnets. So you're creating an electromagnetic force field which contains the plasma, but then you also put an electromagnetic force field in the middle of the plasma. So not only does it heat it up to the temperatures you want, it also stabilizes it further. So the Russians had invented what they call the Tacomac, which is this doughnut shaped nuclear fusion reactor that basically became the standard for the next 50 years or so. Yeah, you basically could achieve a really dense, super hot plasma and we'll get into temperatures and stuff in a bit. But since we can't create that kind of pressure that they have in the sun due to their gravity. Their gravity, the sun's gravity, the sun, all those people. Like you said, we had to make up for it here on Earth with temperatures. Right. Because apparently if you are in the middle of a nuclear reactor, a nuclear fusion reactor, you're going to find that the temperatures inside are about six times hotter than the core of the sun. Not even the surface of the sun, the core of the sun. And the reason why it has to be so much hotter is because, like I said, we can't replicate that density. We can get to those temperatures that we need, but we can't get to the density, so we have to make up for it. So, Chuck, we're talking about nuclear fusion, and it's actually surprisingly understandable at its most basic core. Yeah. You're fusing atoms. It's not the hardest thing in the world to wrap your head around. Yeah. So with fission, we're splitting atoms. You're taking an atom and you're splitting its nuclei apart. You're splitting the neutrons and the protons apart from one another. And when you do that, one of the four fundamental forces, electromagnetic force, pushes them away and you get this burst of energy. With fusion, you're taking nuclei from different atoms, you're taking protons and neutrons and you're smashing them together. And when you do that, you're unleashing what's called the strong force, which, appropriately enough, is stronger than electromagnetic force, which is why nuclear fusion yields more energy than nuclear fission. Yeah. Einstein himself said, each time you smash these things together, you're going to lose a little bit of mass. And that little bit of mass is a ton of energy, as it turns out. That's right. The famous E equals MC Square. Yeah. And I don't think he realized in 19 five. Or maybe Einstein did. Einstein probably did. Yeah, Einstein probably did. I would guess he did. So the problem is, even though it is very easy to smash some protons together, there is a tremendous amount of resistance to that smashing together. They don't want to smash together. No. Because it's just like if you take a magnet, two magnets, and you put the positive poles toward one another, they repel one another. Right. Yeah. Same thing. That's the same principle on an atomic level, too. If you take protons, which are positively charged particles, and try to put them together, they repel one another. And the closer you get them together, the stronger the repellent force is. The electromagnetic force. Right. But if you can get them close enough, the electromagnetic force is overcome by that strong force, the strong nuclear force, and they become bound together, because the strong force is one of those four fundamental forces of the universe, and that is the force that keeps atoms together. And that force is stronger than the force that repels like charged particles. Yeah. And when you talk about close, they need to be within one x ten to the negative 15 meters of one another. Right. So that is, if you indulge me. Sure. Are you going to read a bunch of zeros? Yeah. It's zero 1 meter apart. Right. That's how close they have to be. That's right. To get them to accept one another and to fuse. I have a theory that if they're not fusing because they think they're going to be made into a bomb, and if we told them that we're creating energy, they might be more willing to fuse together. Yeah. Because protons are peaceniks. Everybody knows that. Sure. When they do fuse together right. When you do cross that threshold and the strong force takes over and overcomes the electromagnetic force, like we said, a tremendous amount of energy is released, and it's released in part in the form of neutrinos neutrons right. Which are neutral particles which suddenly start carrying a tremendous amount of kinetic energy. So let's say you have one atom, you got another atom, and they're both like, I'm not getting close to you. We're not going to get okay. We got together. Yes. That force, that mass that is displaced, is transferred through the neutron that gets kicked off of the atom, right? Yeah. And is carried out. Now, a neutron doesn't have any kind of positive or negative charts. It's neutral. It's a neutron, which means that it can pass through the very electromagnetic fields that are keeping this plasma where this reaction is taking place together. Once that happens, Chuck, it can go out to what's called a blanket wall in a thermonuclear reactor warm it, and then that heat is transferred into a water cooling system. The water is warmed up, turned to steam, which I guess moves the turbine, and then all of a sudden, the turbine is producing electricity. Yeah. It's funny how it gets so complex, but all you're still trying to do is create steam and turn a turbine. It's like hooking the ISS up to a horse. Right. Move it over there. So there are a few types of fusion reactions. The ultimate goal right now, what we can do on a small scale is what's called a deuterium tritium reaction. That's the one that we can currently achieve. That's one atom of deuterium and one atom of tritium combining to form a helium four atom and a neutron. The ultimate goal. That's good. And that will create a lot of energy. But there are a few downsides. Tritium is radioactive, for one. You have to mine it from lithium. Yeah. And lithium is fairly rare. Sure. The ultimate goal is to reach deuterium deuterium reactions, which is two deuterium atoms combining to form that helium three in a neutron. And you can get that from the seawater. It's abundant, almost limitless. And I couldn't find this, but I think clean water can be a residual effect of this. Am I wrong? I don't know. Well, you're probably not injecting water, but to get the deuterium, I mean, desalination plants are the key to the future as far as supplying the world with fresh water. Yeah. I thought I saw somewhere where it was an actual byproduct. Is that right? Yes, but then I couldn't find it, so I'm not sure if that's right or not. You know what? You just jog my memory. I feel like in a hydrogen powered car, water is one of the byproducts, so maybe so. Yeah. All right. Don't quote me on that, though. At the very least, it's a great way to create energy. Right. You also can get tritium from helium, I believe. So even now, with the deuterium tritium reactions that we're working on, there's a workaround like you can create a thermonuclear reactor, that's a breeding reactor, to where the byproduct helium can be used to harvest more of the fuel. You're using tritium. Yeah. And aren't we running low on helium? We are. Remember when we were talking about the dirigible, the zeppelin? Which one was it? Blimps. How Blimps work. Yeah. And then a long time ago, we did one on the Mars turbine. Yeah, mars turbine. But yes, there is very clearly a helium shortage, and the idea that we're just using it for party balloons rather than this is scary. Yeah. And don't be confused. We say things like deuterium and it sounds super complex. All that is hydrogen with an extra neutron. Yeah. It's an isotope. Yeah. So there's three isotopes of hydrogen and they're all still the same element. They're all still hydrogen, but they have different configurations as far as their neutrons go. So protein is a hydrogen isotope with one proton and no neutrons. Deuterium is a hydrogen isotope with one proton and one neutron, and tritium is a hydrogen isotope with one proton and two neutrons. And like you said, tritium is radioactive, but the beauty of it is you need very little of it to fuel a nuclear emission reactor. And it becomes a stable helium, a nonradioactive helium in the reactor. So you don't have this leftover radioactive fuel. Is that also I think they said it would be equivalent of the radiation we just see every day and walking around on the street. Right. Yes. The background radiation. I believe I saw that, too. The thing is, the parts to the nuclear reactor themselves will become irradiated over time. Apparently, though, compared to the kind of radioactivity that's generated from nuclear fission, this stuff you could just disassemble and bury in the desert for 100 years, go back and dig back up and it'll be totally inactivated. So the stuff that is radioactive is extraordinarily manageable. Yes, it is. And like I said, we don't want to make it sound like this is perfect. They do predict the short to medium term radioactive waste problem. They say that's due to activation of the structural materials right. The actual thermonuclear device itself. Yeah. And while you don't need much tritium, even a few grams of tritium is problematic. But hopefully there's no accident. Although they say accidents with these, if you just turn the power off, it stops everything. Yeah. It's not like a chain reaction can occur, like a fission reactor. There's nothing out of your control. There's not a meltdown, which also, if you want to know more about that, go listen to her. How Nuclear Meltdowns Work episode that was pretty good. We released it right after fukushima but it applies to all fission reactors. That's right. So the goal is ultimately deuterium reactions where your tear down is clean together. It does. And the reason why is, again, it's abundant fuel. You can get it from desalinating seawater. And then secondly, it's not radioactive at any point, so it wouldn't make the thermonuclear reactor itself radioactive. That's right. The reason why we're not doing that already is because we can't achieve the temperatures necessary. That's right. Which leads us to the two big stumbling blocks. Everyone knows this is a great idea. There's no one out there saying, oh, I don't know about this fusion thing. Creating a star in a box sounds kind of weird. The problem is the barriers that we have here on planet Earth, which is one, temperature and two, pressure, we have achieved the temperature, which is the requirements, is 100 million kelvin, like you said. That's about six times hotter than the Sun's core, which is pretty intense. And the other is pressure. Like we said, we need to get them within. I'm not going to make you read all those zeros again, but smash them that close in order to fuse. And since we don't have that kind of mass and gravity that the sun does, there are a few pretty genius ways that we're working around that. Yeah, there's basically two as it stands, and then the Lockheed Martin one, which a lot of people are skeptical about, we should say. It's kind of a variation on one theme. But basically there's two ways that we figured out to create nuclear fusion reactors so far. One is using magnetic confinement, and the other is using inertial confinement. So magnetic confinement uses that Tacoma technology? Yeah, it's sort of like CERN. It's using magnets to create pressure. I guess in CERN's case, we're using it to create speed. Right. But in this case, it's to create pressure. Right. So what you're doing is you have this doughnut shaped chamber, and that's your reaction chamber. And then again, rings around the donut that go around the inside and outside of the doughnut. I know, I'm kind of imagining wonderful donuts we're doing Homer Simpson here. They create electromagnetic fields. Now, remember, this plasma is hydrogen gas that's been heated up to a temperature so hot that the electrons just float off and move around freely. And because of this higher temperature, these particles have become really energized, so they're moving and bouncing all over the place, and the pressure is building up. But because electrons are negatively charged, and because protons are positively charged, if you use alternating electromagnetic fields, you can contain this plasma so that this incredibly hot gas that's six times hotter than the core of the sun, can be contained within the electromagnetic field. That's right. And we talked about power in, power out. You need about 70 power to create this to start this fusion reaction. But you're going to yield about 500 MW. That's the ITER project, I believe. Yeah, that's the ITER, and that's only a 300 to 502nd reaction. But as we said earlier, the eventual goal is that it's sustaining itself. Right. Which is just a beautiful concept. Yeah. So basically what they do is they have the gas is injected into the chamber, the hydrogen gas, and then there's the electromagnetic fields that are holding the plasma in place. But then, remember we said the Russians figured out that if you put an electromagnetic field in the middle of the whole thing, it will stabilize that plasma, but it also heats it up. So it serves this double purpose. And then just to add a little extra temperature, they shoot it with microwaves and some other stuff and then heat it up. And then as the plasma goes crazy and all the fusion energy is released, the neutrons move their way outside of the electromagnetic field into the blanket, which they heat up, and the heat energy is transferred to power that turbine to remove the horse down the lane. And it's just creating steam. Yeah, that's what IR is doing right now. That's what they're trying to prove. And then also as aid, spending billions and billions and billions of dollars and running into tons of delays. And it's an amazing project. Lockheed Martin basically just came out and said, oh, by the way, this thing that you're trying to do that's going to be 100ft tall and require staggering amounts of energy and money. We're doing one that puts out the same amount of energy as yours, but it's a 10th of the size, which means it's almost out of the gate. Commercially viable. Yeah. That is their Skunkworks division of Lockheed, and they announced this like three days ago here in mid October. And they've gotten a lot of blowback from the scientific community because they wouldn't release data. They don't have data. They said it's a high beta device right now and kind of shut out the scientific community as far as questions go. And every scientist that I saw interviewed for this said they're trying to get some attention, to get some partners to join in. Well, yeah. Plus it makes you want to run out and buy Lockheed Martin stock because if one company can figure out how to create a thermonuclear fusion reactor here on Earth, that's scalable that fits in a truck. Yeah. That person would be very wealthy. Yeah. So it's a dubious claim, but they're working toward a good thing. I'm not like, poopooing the whole thing. Right. But until they have hard data and like some proof, then I think the scientific community has got their arms folded right now. Yeah, they have released some details. It's just not detailed enough for a scientist. It's detailed enough for Aviation Week. I bought it. Yeah, they wrote an article on it and basically what the guy they interviewed was saying was that over at Ider, they have a low beta ratio. Which is the amount of electromagnetism that you need compared to the amount of plasma you can put into the chamber. So there's like 5% plasma to 95% electromagnetivity or electromagnetism just to keep this plasma thing from just blowing up. Right, because that can happen. Sure. They might not melt down, but if everything went wrong, the whole thing could blow up. Well, and you know what an atomic bomb is? It's a fusion reaction. Right. This is a lot of those all put together in 100 foot tower. This guy was saying that the beta ratio for their machine is like 100%. So what he was saying is they figured out a way and again, it's not very detailed. Sure. But they figured out a way to contain the plasma, but in a way that also allows it to expand. Yeah, because if you think about it, the more plasma there is, the more hydrogen atoms there are. The more hydrogen atoms, more isotopes there are, the more nuclear fusion reactions or events you can have, the more energy you can yield. Right? Yeah. So they're saying they figured out how to contain the plasma. But again, like you said, the scientific community is really skeptical because they think it's just a PR sign. Well, I think they made the mistake by saying they invented a magic ometer to make it all happen and don't ask about it. Yeah, right. I did see, though, that where Lockheed was using the accelerator configuration, and I think that's true. I found a couple of more sources that were kind of vague about it, and I think the details on it are just vague, period. But I don't know why they would abandon the donut shaped if the figure eight was 1950s technology that sort of been disproven. Well, supposedly their whole jam was that even in the donut in the Tacoma, this donut shaped reactor plasma has a tendency to just move around and make its way out. Sure. Like it's still not fully contained. And they're using something, basically mirrors to catch the plasma that's getting out and moving it to parts of the electromagnetic field that are less dense. So there's a bunch of protons in this part of the field. That field is being strained, but then maybe there's not that many protons over here. So they use mirrors to direct the protons to the low density area to keep it all even the whole thing out, which makes sense. But again, if you're not releasing data, don't expect the scientific community to buy it. You got that right. So there's another way to build a thermonuclear reactor that's currently being worked on, too, and we'll talk about that right after this. So, buddy, magnetic confinement is pretty neat, and we talked about that, and that's understandable, and I love it. I want to date it. But internal confinement I want to marry because it has lasers. At the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore laboratory. They are actually using laser beams. They have a device called the NIF device, where they focus 192 laser beams on a single point in a ten meter diameter target chamber called a hall realm. That's got to be German. And basically inside that target chamber, they have a little tiny piece pellet of deteriorum, tritium, and a little plastic cylinder. It's funny that it can be plastic somehow. Yeah. You'd think it would introduce like, impurities or something into it. Yes. Or it would need to be like iron or something. I don't know, it just seems unstable. But that is 1.8 million joules of power from these lasers that's going to heat the cylinder up, generate some Xrays, and then that radiation will convert that pellet into plasma and compress it. So again, they're creating plasma, but instead of smashing it together with magnets, they're superheating it with lasers. So your money is on that one. I just think it's neat because I like lasers. But that's your preference. Of the two, yes. Well, actually, whichever one works is going to be my preference. Okay. And that one will yield 50 to 100 times more energy out than energy put in. Got you. So that's a good goal. So, yeah, I guess basically the whole point of magnetic confinement is that if you can do without electromagnets, you have a more simple and elegant you mean internal confinement or inertial? Inertial, yeah, that's what I mean. Inertial confinement. Basically, the whole thing just happened so fast, you don't even need these magnets to confine plasma because you're not creating the sustained ignition. Right, yeah, I might have said internal confinement before, by the way. It's inertial. Yeah, that's all right. So what about cold fusion? Buddy, that was all the rage I remember back in the 80s yeah. Because in 1989, some researchers said that they successfully created nuclear fusion using just room temperature stuff like palladium. They took palladium and banana peels and beer cans, pretty much heavy water, which had deuterium in it, and they put the whole thing together and created nuclear fusion without the high temperatures, hence the name cold fusion. And if you can get around these high temperatures, then you work out the whole material science problem. Right. And if you work out the whole material science problem, then it's a desirable thing to have cold fusion. The problem is a lot of scientists tried to replicate these guys findings and weren't able to. So basically they were kicked to the curb. So does that mean has cold fusion been abandoned or people still trying to get on that train? No. In 2005, some UCLA researchers basically said, we think we might have this thing down, and they did something called pyroelectric crystal fusion. Pyro electric fusion crystal, yeah. Basically it's the same result. They do what would be called cold fusion. The problem is it has a negative net energy yield. You have to put in a lot more energy than you get out of it. Right. Well, that's no good. No. It seems like they are making headway more than Lockheed, despite their claim. Like we said, it's in Europe and it's being financed by a bunch of different countries the US. Is in, but they're kicking in. I think the least amount only about \u20ac17 million. Last year, of course, we contributed dollars, but they're giving it to us in euros. Right. I think the EU spends the most, about 80 million. South Korea and China kicked in about 20 and 19 million, respectively, each. And I saw earlier where Russia was involved, but then I didn't see what they had contributed financially. Yeah, they're involved. Are they still all right, well, maybe they're just we're writing a chit for them for later. They'll just pay us back. All right. But it is a very expensive prospect, and you need countries getting together for something like this. It's not the kind of thing that the US. Can take on on their own, I guess, unless you're lucky. He'd martin right. And you don't have to prove your data. Right. So that's nuclear fusion. We'll see what happens. Yeah. You got anything else, man? No, I just say. Everybody should go read a star in a bottle on The New Yorker. It's really good. Yeah, it's pretty neat. You can also go to Instructables. If you want to build a nuclear fusion reactor in your garage, you can do so. You're not going to create energy, because, like we said, you're going to be putting more than you get out. But there are instructions, and that kid did it. His was a little more advanced than the Instructables one, obviously. Nice 16 year old kid. Yeah, he's amazing. Because his was legit. He's done more than that, too. His Ted talk was pretty impressive. Cool. He's, like, working on with Homeland Security already for various projects that have nothing to do with this. Yeah, sure. Yeah. Well, if you want to learn more about nuclear fusion, you can type those words in the search bar. HowStuffWorks.com. And since I said that, it's time for listener mail. And, Chuck, before we do listener mail, I want to give a shout out to our Kiva team. Yes. For those of you who don't know, we did a podcast many years back on micro lending in Kiva. Kiva.org is an organization where you can loan entrepreneurs in. Well, it used to be just developing countries. Now you can do it here in North America as well. $20 at a time that you can get paid back for. You can get your money back if you're not happy, or you can just keep reloading that money, and it helps them get their small business going. And we started Kiva team many years ago, and it is killing it. So you got some stats for us? So basically, as of October 19, our team has loaned $2.7 million to people in developing countries. Nice. And in the US. Here, there. And the big one is we've exceeded 1000 loans by our team. Our team only has 8079 members, so all 8079 of you guys, thank you. Way to go. Congratulations. Yes. And thanks, as always, to Glenn and Sonya are de facto Kiva. What would you call them? Presidents. Presidents of the stuff you should know. Team. Yeah. Captains of the stuff you should know. Team. No, presidents. Okay. Presidents. Presidente. Glenn's like yes. President. Yeah. They've been really, like, keeping it going for us. Yeah. And sometimes we'll forget and Glen will nudges. Hey, guys, remember the Kiva team? We should mention it, right? The next goal we have is for $3 million in loans, and we're on our way to it. So come join us. We don't begrudge people who are late to the party. Just go to Kivaorg slash teams. Stuff you should know and you can sign up. That's right. So now it's time for listener mail, right? Indeed, sir. I'm going to call this Skywriting follow up from Australia. You guys recently listened to How Skyriding Works, and it reminded me of something. Although this may not be suitable for listening to mail, which I disagree, actually, because I'm reading it clearly. I was maybe eight or nine when a few friends and I were out on the street playing and doing things that nine year olds would do. It's so awkward to say that. So you're not replacing something right there? No, they were just doing nine year old things. Okay. It's a good, clean fun. We looked up and saw planes starting to skyrocket and were instantly intrigued at what was being written. It started with an H and then an O. This went on for maybe 20 minutes until finally the word Hooters was scrawled across the sky, albeit backwards. So I guess they had the Hooters restaurant chicken wing chain in Australia. I guess the rich kid. Really immature rich kid. Yeah. Or that my brain couldn't comprehend how this person managed to screw up writing a word backwards. The best reason my childish brain could come up is that Skyrim took place somewhere between us and a group of people that it was initially intended for, that I just thought it was written up and downwards rather than across the sky. Until now, I never understood or bothered to learn why it was like that. So thank you for keeping the podcast. Great. Allowing me to figure that out. That is from Marlin. Oh, boy. Nice. Have you ever seen a word like that? Haurarachi hapurachi. Marlin from Sydney, Australia. Man. Thanks a lot, Marlin. H. And that's Marlin with an A. Even. Oh, yeah. Marlin. Well, thanks a lot, Marlin. We're going to say it like that. Sure. If you have an awesome last name and want to share it with us, you can tweet to us at syskpodcast. You can join us on Facebook. Comstuffystemo. You can send us an email to stuffpodcast@housestepworks.com and as always, join us at our home on the web stuffyhoodoe.com. Stuffysheatknow is a production of iHeartRadio's how stuff works. For more podcasts, my heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio App, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite show. Hey, everybody. I don't know about you, but I am excited that it's summer. School's out, the sun is shining, and best of all, there's downtime four days. That's where true crime podcasts on Amazon music come in. They're the perfect activity for last minute road trips, long walks, or, if you're brave enough, late nights. With so many killer shows like Morbid, my favorite Murder, and Small Town Murder, you'll never be bored to death again. So download the free Amazon Music app to start listening to all your favorite true crime podcast. Plus, with Amazon Music, you can access new episodes early. Download the app today."
https://podcasts.howstuf…whale-sharks.mp3	How Whale Sharks Work	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/how-whale-sharks-work	Whale sharks are the biggest fish in the ocean. Tune in as Josh and Chuck discuss these gentle giants, and recount their experiences swimming with them in the Georgia Aquarium, in this podcast from HowStuffWorks.com.	Whale sharks are the biggest fish in the ocean. Tune in as Josh and Chuck discuss these gentle giants, and recount their experiences swimming with them in the Georgia Aquarium, in this podcast from HowStuffWorks.com.	Thu, 30 Jul 2009 14:04:47 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2009, tm_mon=7, tm_mday=30, tm_hour=14, tm_min=4, tm_sec=47, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=211, tm_isdst=0)	26806721	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"The world doesn't need just another chardonnay. What it needs is Martha's Chard. The Martha Stewart Chardonnay from 19 Crimes? It satisfies the palette with bright notes of citrus and a crisp, clean finish. And what you need is to make with this refreshing crowd pleaser, the star of your next part of your gathering. Because Martha's Shard just might be the perfect summer wine. So come on, let's work hard, play hard, and drink martha's Shard. Available at a wine aisle near you and on 19 Crimes.com, please drink responsibly. Sharks. The most famous and majestic apex predators on Earth. Introducing Shark Week. The podcast. I'm Luke Tipple, the marine biologist and shark expert with over 20 years experience in the field. I'm going to take you on a dive with me. You are going to learn a lot about sharks, and you'll also hear exclusive interviews with the stars of Shark Week to get a behind the scenes look. Listen to Shark Week, the podcast on Apple podcasts spotify, or wherever you get your podcast, brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know from housetepworkscom. The future of our planet depends on the forward thinkers among us. Green technology, the power of community, and the future of our planet are things we can change together. Visit housetopworks.com and search forward thinking to join the movement. Hi, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Chuck Bryant. Chuck, are you falling asleep, buddy? Meditating. It's in the morning. This is not our usual time to record, so I'm very curious to see how much worse than usual this winter right now. But it is Friday morning. You know me. I'm big on the Friday recording. It's Friday, short. Say again? I know, Chuck. Looks like a straight up summer, babe. See my gams? Yeah, I call them. His legs look like milk bottles. Is that a good thing? They're pretty white. Okay, yeah. I thought you meant the curvature. No. Okay. The whiteness. Now that I look at it, Emily slathers me with sunblock, so I'm not allowed to be tan anymore. Do you have to wear, like, one of those big sun hats when you go out? I do. My dad dresses like that. He dresses like he's afraid of stars or something. He puts on a big old hat and a little surgical mask. The lawn. Oh, yeah. It's awesome. He gets very androgynous when he's mowing the lawn. Okay. It's weird. Chuck, we got a package recently that I would like you to describe. Josh, this is, dare I say, one of the cooler promotional items I've ever seen from a company. Agreed. Agreed. Yeah. This is from our parent company, Discovery, and what they did was they sent out to promote their Shark Week, which, as everyone knows, is huge. It is. Have you ever seen the shark on the building at Discovery HQ and describing well, it's a pretty standard looking building. Normally but around Shark Week time, they have a giant shark head coming on the building on one side and a giant shark tail coming out on the other. And I suspect a giant shark fin coming out of the top and on the sides. It looks awesome. It's pretty cool, actually. You can Google that if you're interested in looking at that. I think if you'd like to look at Discovery Headquarters Shark Weekend, sure. You can find pictures. And Chuck and I know a little bit about sharks. We've written tons of articles on them around Shark Week, haven't we? Many? And so what they sent out was it's a jar art directed to look like an old beat up jar that may have washed up on shore. And inside we were surprised to first find a pair of chewed up beach shorts. Bloody, blood stained beach shorts. And we've been warned that they were going to smell. They didn't, in fact, smell right. They did not smell like death or gorge. We got this cool giant shark tooth on a little keychain. Yeah. We got another little shark tooth, another little floaty keychain. There's an obit in there. There's an obituary type as if it was from an old newspaper of Chief Martin Brody from Jaws fame. And one of our marketing people, Samadorno, found that heroic turned up in one of the marketing packages, too. Right. Handing her own death notice on the date of her funeral. Interesting. Yes. Lovely. In Fetching Sam Adorna, sure, they sent out all the stuff and basically they sent them to just different companies and media outlets around the country. But they did it anonymously, right? Yeah, that's the trick, is you don't really know what it is. You just get this suspicious package that I never would have opened had I not known where it was from, to be honest. Yeah, it would have frightened me. It is pretty cool, but yeah, it is really cool. Good idea. But it directs you to go to Frenziedwaters.com, right? Yeah. And there's some pretty cool stuff on that. Thanks in part to our own Mr. Chuck Bryant. Yes. Who helped come up with some aspects of this marketing campaign, didn't you? I mean, what don't you do, Chuck? I do what I do. Yeah, you do. You wear many hats, and each one is more fetching than the last. Yeah. I did the fake diary thing from the shark attacks of 1916, and I'm really excited. It's an awesome cool thing to work on. And our sisters in arms over at Stuff You Missed in History Class, I think they just recorded one about the shark attacks of 1916, which really happened. Yeah, it's a great story. I was a little jealous. I got to do that one. Is that why you haven't been talking to either of them? I know. I boycotted them. Well, we happen to do something pretty cool recently. So back to us. Yeah, it's always about us. And that is that we swam with whale sharks, among many other types of fish and sharks and skates and rays. Yes. That mana ray was huge. We swam with the manoray. That was at least the size of me or Chuck. Yeah. I mean, the wingspan had to be six or 8ft across. It was a big boy. Very cool. The big attraction this is at the Georgia Aquarium the big attraction, though, is definitely the whale sharks, which were, I think, 16 to 20ft. The female was 20ft, yes. And you know what? It was a noticeable difference when that female came by. That's the coolest thing I've ever had the opportunity to do. Yeah. So let's talk about whale sharks. We'll talk about swimming with them a little more in a little more detail. But, Chuck, tell me about whale sharks. And this is based on an article on how stuff works.com that you wrote. Indeed. You are the whale shark experts. You spank me whenever we get into whale shark trivia. I stalk off crying, which is all the time. Yeah. Let's talk about the whale shark. Everyone knows that it is the largest fish in the sea. I didn't know that. Which also makes it the largest shark in the sea. And some of these can reportedly grow to over 60ft dude, which is like 20ft longer than a full size school bus. Yeah. Can you imagine seeing one the largest one we saw the other day? Can you imagine one three times that size? Yeah. No, I can't either. No, I mean, it's just mammoth. One of the other things that I noticed when we were swimming with them that I just found amazing. You remember the one right before we got out of the tank? Yes. I think it was the female. She was swimming right toward me and then dipped right below me really? And came within centimeters touching me. But at no point did she touch me. So they apparently have some really great sense of kinetics knowing exactly where every part of their body is in relation to other things. Right. Because I don't understand how it didn't brush against me. Yeah. A couple of times we had them swim kind of right under us. We didn't do a scuba dive, just so people know we were up top, but with a scuba tank and mass, and they swim right under us. And I turned around to look, and I would see that big tail coming at me, the big dorsal fin, and I just knew it was going to smack me on the way by, but it just it never did. It went right on by. So they're huge, and they do appear kind of lumbering, but really they're super graceful. I agree. Yeah, they're very cool. And they're cool looking, too. And there were hammerheads in there, too. There were. I was a little nervous. The hammerheads were kind of eyeing us. Yes. They kind of stayed down low, though, which is good. But it turned out to be the grouper who is the big threat. Right. Yeah. The grouper was cool looking because it was I mean, a grouper just looks like fish. If you look up fish, it just looks like a fish like you would see in a little small tank. Sure. But it was \u00a3300. It looks like some Land of the Lost giant fish. Yeah. And it was undergoing sexual transformation, like Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Right. Apparently when they turn about 25 or so, they go all her macrodite and change sex, and apparently it's not a pleasant process. So we had a grumpy grouper in there who's in a tank with different kinds of sharks rays. It was actually the biggest threat to us in that tank. Hard to believe. Yeah. They said it's the jaw could break your arm. It's a shit down. \u00a3300 of anything can break your arm. So back to the whale shark. The whale shark lives in warm ocean waters pretty much everywhere where it's warm. Except the Mediterranean. Exactly. Which I thought was a little odd. It is a little odd. I want to hang out in the Mediterranean if I was a whale shark. And they're starting to migrate in new and surprising places anytime they pop up. I was reading an article they popped up off the coast of Mississippi. Yeah, Louisiana, actually. I'm sorry. And some guy who spotted him was a commercial fisherman and they were hanging around and within like, several hours or a day, his commercial fishing vessel was suddenly a research vessel. All these scientists flew down and chartered his boat and went out there and took them out there to study them because we know so little about them. Right? Yeah. For the most part. They're starting to learn, though, since we've been able to keep them in captivity, they're learning a lot more as Chris Coco, our host and shark expert at the aquarium. Yeah, and Chuck and I aren't immune to the arguments about zoology and keeping animals in captivity, or the whole concept of a zoo. I definitely see both sides of the argument. I do, too. I know you do, too. But Chris Cocoa was able to produce some evidence that this exhibit at the Georgia Aquarium, and I think they're the only whale sharks in the Western Hemisphere in captivity. Right? Yeah. You can find them in Japan and then 15 minutes down the road from where we are. Yeah, it's pretty cool. Right? What if you were a global energy company with operations in Scotland, technologists in India, and customers, all on different systems? You need to pull it together. So you call in IBM and Red Hat to create an open hybrid cloud platform. Now, data is available anywhere, securely, and your digital transformation is helping find new ways to unlock energy around the world. Let's create a hybrid cloud that can change in industry. IBM, let's create, learn more@ibm.com. It's 2022, and things look different. Like doctors visits, for example. Sometimes you don't have to go into a doctor's office to be treated for nonemergency situations, like a sinus, infection or allergy. And that's why teladoc gives you the chance to connect with board certified physicians right from your home via phone or video. That's right. Doctors are standing by 24/7, so you can schedule a visit according to your schedule. You can see for yourself why teladoc is ranked number one by JD power and telehealth satisfaction with direct to consumer providers. Telecom is available through most major health plans and many employers. But even if you're not covered by insurance, everyone has access to use teletoc. That's right. If you want to check it out, download the app today or visit teletoc. comStuff. To register or schedule a visit today. That's T-E-L-A-D-O-C comStuff. For JDPower 2021 award information, visit JDPower. comAWARDS. So Chris said that they had gotten their whale sharks from Taiwan, which is like the whale shark fishing capital of the world. I think they consume the most whale shark meat of any country in the world as well. But since that exhibit opened and they formed a relationship with Taiwan, taiwan's kill quota went from, I think, a couple hundred a year for each individual to zero. And one of the reasons why is they were able to show that if you allow a whale shark to live, if you kill a whale shark in Taiwan, I read that fishermen would get about 10 or ten cents a kilogram. That was an odd conversion. Ten cents a kilogram for whale shark meat, which is kind of substantial, but really not so much. No, not really. In India, they get something like $4,000 a whale shark. A lot of money. It is, but that's it. That's all you made off of that whale shark, regardless of the size. Right. Okay. But at the same time you killed it, you can only make money off of it sale once. Right. Thanks to the burgeoning, I guess, sector of eco tourism, people are starting to figure out that you can make money over and over and over again off of a single whale shark through eco tourism. True. Right. What we did when we swam at the Georgia Aquarium, anybody can do for like, I think, $250 or whatever, 225 for a swim and then 350 for full scuba diving. And Georgia Aquarium is not the only place to do it. I mean, you can do it out in the wild, and people are realizing that you can make a ton of money off of it. I think. The Australia Conservation Union estimated that the annual value of each whale shark is somewhere in the neighborhood of 182 or $282,000. Really? And we're talking some of the economies where whale sharks hang out. We're not the richest in the world. Right. So they can generate serious income if these local economies can figure out how to really most efficiently shift from whale shark fishing to eco tourism. Right. And finning, which is gross. Yeah. Shark finning. For those who don't know, shark fin soup is a delicacy in certain parts of the world. And shark finning literally means you pull the shark up on your boat. Sometimes not even. Sometimes they do it from the water, dude, and cut the fins off and throw it back in the water. Or just keep it in the water where the shark dies. Right. And that's it. That's the only part they use is the fin. Well, they bleed the death. Yes. Awful. And they also without their fin, they lose any way of navigation. Right. So they're just kind of drifting about and bleeding to death. It's not a nice death. No. And we should also say too that the whale shark doesn't reach reproductive age until they think about 25 or 30 years. So the problem is, like a lot of animals who have a late reproductive cycle, you kill them before that time and what's going to happen? They're not going to have shark pups. Right. It has a huge impact on the species big time, because they have up to like two and 300 pups at a time. So every shark you kill before that age, you're shorting two or 300 potential sharks. Right. And its biggest predator, obviously, is the human. Yeah, absolutely. It's the biggest fish in the sea. There's not a lot of comers to take on a whale shark, which is funny because they're so peaceful and gentle. They really are. And their diet is actually really light. Yeah, let's talk about that. That's cool. Okay, so they are filter feeders. Right. They generally just eat plankton, which is really tiny, nearly microscopic plant and animal life, which is kind of suspended in the ocean. They're also surface dwellers, which is where the plankton is. In krill, too, which are like teeny little shrimp and actual little shrimp as well. And in captivity they also love dog food, it looked like. You remember those little brown cubes of nastiness they're feeding us? Yeah. That was a gelatin mixture that they made there at the aquarium. But for their size, they actually don't eat a lot at once. But they eat constantly out in the wild, right? Yes. All they do. So they're drifting along with their mouth open pretty much. And the plankton goes in, right. Like a little vacuum. And then whatever can't get out of the gills gets stuck there. And what do they do, Chuck? Well, the gills act as a strainer, so the water goes out and then the algae and the krill and everything are in the mouth. Right. Don't they cough? Cough? It like they hock up a bunch of plankton. Oh, yeah. If it's too big, I think 2 CM, anything over 2 CM, they'll hack back up and spit out. And I did ask Ashley, asked Chris, at the aquarium, like when you're feeding these guys one of these other fish because the other fish kind of hang out to try and get little leftovers. Yeah. Remember? I was like, do you ever see one of the bigger fish accidentally get sucked in this huge mouth? And he said, yeah, that's happened a couple of times, and they pretty much cough it back out really quickly. Yeah, he said that swims out of there. Fish is expelled at about twice the speed it was originally going in. I really wanted to see that happen. I did, too. Yeah. Fish make funny faces when they're scared. They do. So we have figured out some stuff about whale sharks just from the few studies that have been able to be conducted. I read an estimate, Chuck, that there was like 500,000, an estimated 500,000 in the wild. Really? Which is really low, especially considering that millions of sharks are killed each year recreationally. Millions, dude. Millions. The highest estimate I saw was 100 million. The median, I think, was about 30 million. Sad. But yes, if there's 500,000 of you and people are indiscriminately killing sharks, you're in trouble. Yeah. Well, they're listed as vulnerable by the world conservation union, so that's no good. But what we have figured out, for a long time, they thought that whale sharks actually laid eggs, right? Yes. Which is not the case now. They have pups. They do. I think in 1995, a female whale shark was killed, and they cut her open and found 300 whale shark pups in her belly. 16 to 24 inches. I bet that is one of the cutest things you've ever seen. Dead whale shark pups. Yeah, I forgot about the fact that they were dead. That's under pretty insensitive. I would just say, like, a two foot whale shark pup would be really cute alive, I'm sure, because they're pretty cute at 20ft. They are, yeah. Their mouths are at the front of their face. Right. Not under the unusual face shark. Yeah. And it's just this big, wide, narrow, gaping mall. Yeah. A big, square head. Really? And their eyes are really tiny and kind of on the side, and they're cute. You just want to cuddle with them. I know. I really wanted to touch one and kind of give it a hug. But they said and we'll actually talk about this when you're swimming with fish in the wild, it's called a soft encounter. Yeah. So basically you want to watch. You don't want to be a participant. No. Anytime they got near us, we had to lay flat still and just let them pass by and let them check us out. Pretty cool. Yeah. But whale sharks aren't the only things that you can have a soft encounter with. Right. We can have a soft encounter with you, big boy. That'd be super soft encounter. Even our producer Jerry got in on that one. Yes. You can also swim with humpback whales. It's pretty popular in the Dominican Republic. In the South Pacific island of Tanga, you can swim with humpback whales, another docile creature, and chuck. Actually, there's a place in the Philippines that has become kind of a hot spot for soft encounters. Soft and water encounters. Right. I don't know why soft encounter cracks me up so much. It is kind of funny. Yeah. And that's a donsal. Philippines. Right. They were really kind of the first to get on board with the soft and counter eco tourism thing, and they kind of provided a model for everybody else. Yeah, absolutely. You know, another creature that people like swimming with, but it doesn't usually work out. Dolphins. People love dolphins. Well. Yeah. You said in another article that you wrote, what was the name of it? What sea creatures can you swim with? Yeah. You would think that you just hang on to the dolphins, finn and go for a ride, and maybe it would let you, but all of a sudden you'd find that you were going really fast, and if the dolphin wanted to dive really deep and you would be in some serious trouble. Yeah, dolphins are fun, but there's no way you're going to do the flipper thing and hang on and take a little ride. Plus, also, they're deadly creatures and they hate humans. Dolphins. Sure. No, I thought they liked people. You're joshing. They're all about the soft encounter. There is another side of the coin here. You can also swim with sea lions, by the way, and stingrays and seals here and there. Like in the UK, you can swim with seals. But there is another side to this which a lot of wildlife experts kind of decry this whole practice, and they say you shouldn't be able to do this at SeaWorld. You shouldn't do this in the wild, because when you swim with sharks, like the small reef sharks and things will chum the water, they say that disrupts their feeding cycle. And just being humans, being around them, basically, it says disrupts their whole underwater system they got going there. Yeah, definitely. I mean, think about it. We're all pretty much lousy with swine flu these days. You don't need to bring that into their environment. It's terrible. So there are two sides to the coin. It's good for a lot of these places. It's a big part of their income as a country. A lot of these places are poor. They're not like swimming off the coast of Ibiza or anything like that. No, like Philippines not necessarily the wealthiest country in the world. Yeah. So they could use the money. Where do you fall? What do you think of eco tourism versus the butchering of sharks? Well, no, I mean, just period. Should they be completely left alone or should this stuff be allowed? I'm curious because I still don't know what to think. I think you can learn a lot, but who knows if there's any damage being done. Well, yeah. Also, the other problem is you posted about the French tourism board asking Parisians to smile at the tourist wine recently, right? I mean, there are a lot of Yokos out there who would love to just maybe get in a slap fight with a seal or something like that, right. So there's always that danger. But again, I think if it's the choice between making money, you have to make money. Humans have to make money. And if you're a coastal economy, you're going to make money off of the sea. Are you going to make money off of the sea through conservation that eco tourism can provide? Or you're going to do it by catching and killing whale sharks for their fins? Right. That's clearly the choice is obvious. True. But there's also more sustainable ways that you can carry out eco tourism as well. And I think that since it's such a new and budding economic sector, we don't really fully know how to do that yet. But I think it's good that that's the direction we're moving in. I agree. Yeah. That's my final judgment. What if you were a global energy company with operations in Scotland, technologists in India, and customers, all on different systems? You need to pull it together. So you call in IBM and Red Hat to create an open hybrid cloud platform. Now, data is available anywhere, securely, and your digital transformation is helping find new ways to unlock energy around the world. Let's create a hybrid cloud that can change in industry. IBM, let's create learn More@ibm.com it's 2022. When things look different, like doctors visits, for example, sometimes you don't have to go into a doctor's office to be treated for nonemergency situations like a sinus, infection or allergy. And that's why teladoc gives you the chance to connect with board certified physicians right from your home via phone or video. That's right. Doctors are standing by 24/7. So you can schedule a visit according to your schedule. You can see for yourself why teladoc is ranked number one by JD Power and telehealth satisfaction with direct to consumer providers. Telecom is available through most major health plans and many employers. But even if you're not covered by insurance, everyone has access to use Teedoc. That's right. If you want to check it out, download the app today or visit teladoc. Comsto register or schedule a visit today. That's teldoc.com stuff. For JDPower 2021 award information, visit JDPower comAWARDS what I want to do now is and I know I kept you because you were scuba certified, I apologize again. Don't worry about it. I kept you from scuba diving because I could not scuba dive, and we both had to stay together. That's my next goal. I want to get down there because we got the big whale shark and we got some of the smaller fish checking us out. But I wanted to get down there with the sharks, the hammerhead and the reef shark. What did you think about breathing underwater, though? How cool is that? Pretty cool. When you're actually completely submerged and you're breathing breathing underwater. It's the most amazing thing ever. Yeah, but it wore me out. We talked about that. I was exhausted. We were that day totally wiped for the rest of the wiped out. And it wasn't just the bacon, cheeseburger and chicken fingers we each had for lunch afterwards. It was definitely the compressed air. It has an effect, but it's still pretty cool hobby, albeit probably the most expensive one around. Aside from maybe private piloting. Yeah, I would say that's expensive too. I got one more thing for the whale sharks for you. What's he got? So India is a huge whale shark fishing capital. Okay. And there was a holy man named Murari Bapu who a couple of years back was visiting Varivelle, India, which is a coastal town. And he waited out into the water and saw a whale shark caught in a net and he blessed it and said that he would like to see this whale shark freed and left alone and this really bustling whale shark capital. Suddenly whale shark fishing dropped off really completely and the local government had been trying to prevent whale shark fishing for years to no avail. This guy goes out there, blesses a whale shark and all of a sudden they don't whale shark out there anymore. Really? Yeah. So maybe we could get Al Gore in a robe or something and just want this guy, too. Yeah. I don't know how much credit he would get in, say, Louisiana, but he's working his magic in India sportsman's paradise. So go Bapoo. Thank you. Have a soft encounter with him. That's it for whale sharks. And we would like to go ahead and tell you to head on over to Frenziedwaters.com that has Mr. Chuck Bryant and some of our other staffers from houseworks.com work on that site. You can also check out SharkWeek.com for a bunch of stuff on the Internet for Shark Week. And if you're too lazy to type, you can just watch Shark Week on Discovery Channel from August 2 to 8th. Yeah. And watch blood in the water. That's the show they did about the 1916 in Tax in New Jersey. It's really cool. I watched it. Oh, yeah? Good. And if you want to see the picture of Joshua's and I with the whale sharks, I put one up in the blog. Yeah. What was the name of the post? I believe it was Josh and Chuck swim with sharks appropriately. Yes. I should have been Josh and Chuck Have Soft Encounter but that would have been a different picture altogether. Yeah, you can find that. And actually you can also find some really nice articles that Chuck Bryant wrote on sharks in general on HowStuffWorks.com and Molly Edmonds. You wrote a lot of them. Sure. So did Toothman. Yeah, you can find those. On HowStuffWorks.com. And since I just said that word together, that means it's time for listener mail, right? Okay, Josh, I'm just going to call this one toxo listener mail. And I knew, dude, that when we did the toxoplasmosis that we would have one person that says, I've got it and here's what it's like. Well, technically, 80% of the people who write in should say that they have it. Yeah, but this guy just let me read it to you. This is from Josh. Oh, is this my life as a toxophetus? Yeah. Okay, just listen to your toxoplasmosis podcast and blew my mind. Or maybe my mind was broken already since I was born with the parasite. My mother grew up on a farm that was lousy with barn cats and often had the duty of changing the household litter box. When she was pregnant and I was in early term fetus, her doctor told her that she had high levels of toxoplasmosis and the test suggested that her baby me would likely have severe birth defects, including I am not making this up. The failure to develop a head. Awesome. Obviously, such a fetus would be still born and the doctor recommended that my mother consider her options, including an early term abortion. My mom stuck it out until her first ultrasound and a number of subsequent tests suggested that I did indeed have a head. So yeehaw, the doctor still warned of the possible mental handicaps, including mental retardation, but my eventual birth and years of elementary school test proved him wrong once again. So I suppose to take away from your listener is if you're pregnant woman with toxoplasmosis, don't give up hope because your baby just might pull through and have a head after all. Listening to your podcast, I found that many of the associated behaviors of toxoplasmosis hosts fit our situation. My mother is indeed warm and open hearted, and I am kind of a stubborn and dogmatic jerk. I don't have any fondness for cats. However, I wouldn't diagnose myself as schizophrenic that two of my other personalities would disagree. Josh is a funny guy. Hey, Josh, I very much enjoyed the podcast and hope you are both enjoying the Georgian summer heat. We are not, in fact, Josh at all. Yeah, that was from Josh here, who is a PhD candidate at the Department of Natural Resource Science at the University of Rhode Island. Thanks, Josh, and good luck to you on your doctoral candidacy. Also, we got a bunch of emails Chuck, from people who wanted to know how they could be diagnosed or not diagnosed with toxoplasmosis. And from what I understand, it's just a simple blood test to check for antibodies that developed to ward off the toxoplasmatic sip. Right. At your local CVS under the toxoplasmosis aisle, right. Not true. Or at Jimmy's Bait Shop and Blood Test. Galore. Right. He serves up live bait toxoplasmosis test and Espresso. Have you seen that place indicator that it says live bait pet taxes. Really? Yeah. Interesting. They sell live bait and do taxes and make you an express. If you want to talk to Chuck and I about any possible developmental diseases that you're in danger of having as a fetus, you can send us an email to stuffpodcast@howstuffworks.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstofworks.com. Want more housestoftworks? Check out our blogs on the Housetofworks.com homepage. Because you listen to this podcast, you're probably a forward thinker interested in topics like green technology, community renewable resources, and the future of the world as we know it. Are we right? If so, go to housestepworks.com and search forward thinking to find out more. Brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you? Hey, everybody, chuck here. Right now, there are millions of people around the world hosting on airbnb. I mean, there's no doubt it's a great way to earn extra income, but I've always wondered about their stuff, like what happens if somebody drops a wine glass? Well, now I know. Thanks to Air Cover for Hosts, people can welcome guests into their home with confidence. Air Cover for Hosts gives you damage protection for free every time you host. Learn more and host with peace of mind@airbnb.com. Aircoverforhosts, you know you're the best pet mom. When you growl back during playtime, give epic belly rubs and feed them halo holistic made with responsibly sourced ingredients, plus probiotics with digestive health. Find us at chewy amazonandhalopets.com."
436abd72-53a3-11e8-bdec-0ba5244cd4b2	I'm Spartacus!	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/im-spartacus	Spartacus was a real dude. He led a slave revolt, and was pretty successful to boot. I'm Spartacus. You're Spartacus. We are all Spartacus.	Spartacus was a real dude. He led a slave revolt, and was pretty successful to boot. I'm Spartacus. You're Spartacus. We are all Spartacus.	Tue, 05 May 2020 09:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2020, tm_mon=5, tm_mday=5, tm_hour=9, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=126, tm_isdst=0)	50849816	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Hey, everybody. I don't know about you, but I am excited that it's summer. School's out, the sun is shining, and best of all, there's downtime four days. That's where true crime podcasts on Amazon Music come in. They're the perfect activity for last minute road trips, long walks, or you're brave enough late nights. With so many killer shows like Morbid, my Favorite Murder, and Small Town Murder, you'll never be bored to death again. So download the free Amazon Music app to start listening to all your favorite true crime podcasts. Plus, with Amazon Music, you can access new episodes early. Download the app today. Picture this, friends. You could be packing a carry on for a trip to Hawaii when you realize you're going to need a bigger bag. But it's cool because you booked your flight with your City Advantage Platinum Select card. So you can check a bag for free on domestic travel and still have room for those souvenirs. And surprise, those souvenirs also earned you Advantage Miles. Actually, you earned Advantage Miles and loyalty points with each swipe. So let's start dreaming about your next next adventure. This could be you, and you could be anywhere with the City Advantage Platinum Select card. Learn more@city.com adventure and travel on with cityadvantage. Welcome to Stuff you should know a production of Iheartradios how Stuff Works. Hi and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's charles w chuck Bryan over there. It's just the two of us. That's okay because you're here, dear listener. Insert your first name after that. And this is stuff you should know. That's right. Stanley Cooper condition. Sort of. I went to go watch that last night. Oh, yeah. And then I was like, wait, I think that's really long. So I looked up the runtime. I was like, I'm not watching this. I've yet to see it. Yes. Watch Passive Glory instead. What was that? Is that the one about Barry Lyndon? No, that was Barry Lyndon. Okay, that's great, too. But if you're gunning for early kubrick, I would say Killer's Kiss if you want to go super early. And then Passive Glory, which is the other one he did with Kirk Douglas, the World War I trench warfare film. That's great. Okay. And Barry Lyndon, which is just a masterpiece when that ryan O'Neill, yeah. Boy, it's good. Yes. He's one of my favorite movies of all time. Paper Moon. That's right. And one of my favorite movies, the main Event. What was that? It was a romcom. He did. He played a boxer. Upset barber Streisand. Was she a boxer? No. Okay. It was not great. I mean, it was fine. It was one of the 70s romcoms. Got you. But not one of my favorite movies by any stretch. Speaking of romcoms, but minus the rom part and just the.com heavy on the.com have you seen Eliza Schlesinger's sketch show on Netflix? No. It is very good for that. How do I know that? Name. She's gotten pretty big as a stand up in the last couple of years. If you haven't discovered her yet, you're welcome. She's really great. I'm looking her up now, which is something I don't normally do. I don't think I recognize her. Okay, well, she's got some stand up specials that are definitely worth watching. And then she just debuted a season of a sketch comedy show that's pretty good. Definitely worth seeing. I have to check that out. Ryan O'Neill is not in it yet, but like I said, it's just one season. We want to shout out live science, by the way, we used How Stuff Works article on Spartacus and this great live science article on Spartacus, the real Spartacus, not Kirk Douglas. I also read an article from a guy named Kenneth, kenneth P. Czech. C-E-C-H. Like the Czech Republic, I guess. Okay, maybe that's where his family's from, who knows? But he wrote an article back in the 90s about Sparta because that was very exhaustive. That was helpful. And then there's also a historian named Barry Strauss, who I read some interviews and articles from him, too. He's a bit of a specialist on Spartacus, so shout out to those cats as well. Yeah. So the story of Spartacus, if you've watched the Kubrick film, there are bits of truth in there, but it's definitely not some real truthful biopic of his life. Good movie. But we're going to give you the real story of Spartacus life, which is that of the leader of an uprising of slaves who said, Rome, we're not going to take it anymore. No, we aren't going to take it. That's right. We're not going to take it anywhere in Rome. That's the original title. I think we met that guy. Well, actually, we passed that guy backstage once. Remember? D Snyder? That's right. What show was that? The Whatever Show. I think it was Jeff Brooks, wasn't it? No, it was the Whatever show with Martha Stewart's daughter. Yeah, she has a first name. Alexis. Alexis and Jennifer. Right. Jennifer and Alexis. Wow. Remember we were on TV every now and then? Yeah, we'd be on that. We were on Jeff probes. Do you remember the Jeff Probes show? He was interviewing us and he zoned out so hard. I almost said, like, Jeff, are you okay? While we were talking? Yeah. And we used to occasionally we'd be on CNN. They would have us on to do, like, talking head stuff, and then everyone just sort of stopped caring about us. It's cool. Well, we got really popular podcasting and they just all said, well, whatever, we don't need those guys. Yes. That's okay, though. No, I don't want to be on CNN or any news network. Yeah, we run the solid ed O'Brien show. We were interviewed by Christine Roman. She's like super legit journalist. It was pretty neat. So it's Jeff Probst, right? The tribe has spoken. Yes. And they said, who else? What? He said, the tribe has spoken. Yeah. And then he got that candle. He'd kick you in the seat of your pants on the way out. And you would think, God, because what a relief to be kicked off that garbage show. And it was good the first season or two, I think. I think I did watch the first couple of seasons, but I'm not going to. Yuck someone's. There's probably still Survivor shows going on. No, there are, I think, the most recent season they brought together like past champions or past people who got kicked off one of the two and said, who's going to win this time? Yeah. The only one I do like that is Top Chef, which has still maintained its integrity after all these years and never became dumb. And then for a little while I did that discovery had a show, I cannot remember the name of it, where it was like a post apocalyptic scenario where they would put people in this area and occasionally they would send in these Mad Max type people to mess with them and take their stuff and they had to build things and defend themselves. God, what was that called? It was really awful. Were the people naked? Because I can tell you the name of the show if they were naked. I have watched more than one episode of Naked and Afraid. I haven't. Did they just blur out the parts of their bathing suit covers? No, they're completely naked. And it just shows dong out the whole time? No, it doesn't. Like the Voyage or golden record. It's blurred out and kind of the first thing that the ladies do is fashion some sort of Eve like covering got you on her bits. And the men either do that or they're just like, hey, whatever. He's the guy at the gym that has a towel, like over his shoulder but not around his waist. Yeah, that guy. That guy wearing tennis shoes with no socks. Yes. Aka men who are proud of their genitals dong out. So I'm guessing Spartacus is probably dong out. Oh, sure. Are we back to Spartacus now, you think? Yeah. Okay, so Spartacus was this guy who everyone knows the name of, and you may even know that he was a gladiator. Maybe you know that he led a slave revolt. But this guy was really nuanced, really detailed. And actually, even after a couple of thousand years of history analysis falling in and out of favor of different cultures that come and go, he stands the test of time pretty well. Even after being draped in a lot of people's hangups and held up as a prime example of the ideals of whatever group are revering him. Even after you strip all that stuff away and look at the historical figure, he was still a pretty interesting and kind of upstanding guy as far as leaders of slave revolts go. That's right. And that's a good way to put it. He was Thracian, which means he is from Thrace. We don't know a ton about his early life because they just didn't bother recording the history of nobody slaves in ancient Rome. Why would they? It took him to do remarkable things for historians to take notice with their quill and paper. And the Romans at the time, this was an area, the race was in Southeast Europe, where they were always trying to subjugate this area of Europe and first century BC. And it was just not a good scene if you weren't sort of upper echelon Roman at the time. No, I get the impression that it was not really one to live under Roman yoke, but I think I also have the impression that they were in league with the Romans, but it was kind of like one of those we can either be an ally of yours or you can conquer us kind of thing. So I think there was a bit of a tense truce and there was a I don't think any contemporary text about Spartacus is still around today. Most of the earliest stuff we know about him comes from at the earliest, the first century Ce. And he was living in the last century or the first century BCE. So people were writing about him 100, 200 years later. But one of those old text says that he wasn't born a slave and that he actually was a Thracian soldier who was an ally who worked in the auxiliary or fought in the auxiliary for Rome. So he was a soldier under Roman command at some point, and they think that he was drummed out of the army for some reason. Unjustly, this ancient author says. And that kind of led on this path to him becoming abandoned and a criminal. Yeah, he was like the guy in the new Star Wars movies. Which one? The guy that was a stormtrooper and then said, you know what? I'm not a stormtrooper anymore. I want to kill stormtroopers. Okay. Yeah, that's one. Okay. But that was like a side story, right? That wasn't one of the actual canon. No. The last Jedi was. They made three main ones, part of the canon and then a Star Wars fans. You have words for all these things. Rogue One was the one that was outside, and then the Han Solo movie was outside and not outside canon, just not part of whatever, those movies. So rogue one is the one I'm thinking of. That was really good. Yeah, I enjoyed that one quite a bit. The other ones, I don't think I've been able to make it through a single one yet. Yeah, I like them, but they're Star Wars movies. I don't expect greatness. I just think they're kind of fun. Yeah, I mean, I love the first three. Yeah, sure. But not the first three sequentially. The first three that were released ever. You liked one through three sequentially or not? Yeah, good. I'm talking about a fan of minutes. This is the best of the bunch. All right, so he's like the stormtrooper guy in these new movies that is no longer a stormtrooper and wants to kill Stormtroopers. He gets captured at one point and he gets sold into slavery in Rome. And then there was this man that I love. This article says a man referred to at times as Vachya. I guess that's his name. Or maybe he just had a bunch of names. But the upshot is this guy had a gladiator school in Kapua, about 120 miles south east of Rome. And that's where Spartacus was set to train to be a gladiator. Yes. In Hawaii. Right. And I feel like we should take a break and get our Star Wars fact straight and come back. Oh, goodness. Okay. All right, we'll be right back. These days, you use your personal info to do just about everything, especially when you're online. 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And best of all, there's plenty of time to get lost in a good, thrilling story. Yeah. Whether you're road tripping or you're relaxing by the pool, you can tune into the podcast here. It's on Amazon Music. That's so good? It's criminal. Morbid. That's right. It's part true crime and part comedy. Morbid takes you on a journey through murderous mysteries and major laughs, all in the same week. Yeah. From the paranormal to the pretty spooky and everything in between, host Selena Ercart and Ash Kelly cover it all. And with two episodes released each week, you'll be hooked on this chart topping series before you know it. You can listen to new episodes of Morbid one week early, only on Amazon Music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen today. So when we left off Chuck, Boba Fett had left the army. You know, I'm not even going to do that to us. Have you watched Mandalorian? No. It's good. The one with Amy Sudaris. Yes, she is the Mandalorian. She did it, though. She gets to hang out with baby Yoda, I think. No, she isn't it I love seeing her in anything, but it does take me out of the moment just a bit. But it's a fun show. It's kind of like the ateam, if you'd like it. Oh, yeah, I probably would like it. Then it's like a week to adventure of the week type of thing. Okay, cool. Yeah, I might actually check that out. I've been looking for something new. I started Ozark and I'm like, man, this is really dark. Yeah. Where are you now? Fifth episode, I think, of season one. Okay. Starting burn through season one or anything? No, I've been taking it slow like that. Yeah. Been taking in small doses here, there. Yeah, I think I'm through the first four of the latest season. Okay. And by the way, correction. I think I said it was like Hartwell. It is. Lake Altoona. Okay, that makes way more sense because I was thinking, is that Alatuna? Yeah. You know where Alatuna is? For Damas. Yeah. Hartwell's up near South Carolina. It's not the same lake. Yeah, because we have friends who have a place on Hartwell. And I was like, I don't recognize it. But then I thought I probably wouldn't recognize this about any lake. I just kind of went with Hartwell is fine with tuna. Do you know that from what I learned, there is no such thing as a natural lake in the state of Georgia? That's right. And most of them are from the Georgia Power company. Yeah. It's so creepy to me sometimes, too. When you're swimming in a lake, if you start thinking about what's beneath your feet, it makes you want to get back on the boat sometimes. You mean like a former town? Yeah, town or the woods or something. Yeah, a car. Oh, God. Oh, man. How do we get off track? Okay, so we're talking about Spartacus, who left or was drummed out of the army, became abandoned, is captured, and when he's captured, he's taken to that gladiator school that you talked about, owned by a man sometimes called sometimes referred to as Bodia. And the thing about gladiators is, thanks to movies like Gladiator or, I don't know, other movies about gladiators airplane. The original Airplane. Right. We have this conception of gladiators is kind of like this awesome thing. But if you were living in Rome around the turn of the last two millennia ago, you did not think of gladiators very highly. There were some that rose to incredible prominence, like the rock stars, sport heroes, all mixed together of today. A gladiator could rise to that level, but it was incredibly rare. For the most part, they were criminals, prisoners of war, slaves, and they were considered the lowliest of the low, where the owner the owner, in this case Vada, who owned Spartacus, basically said, the only way for me to make money off of you is to make you fight for these gladiator battles and either bet on you or license you or something like that. And that was it. But as far as even the cast of slaves went, you were at the bottom if you were a gladiator. Yeah. And gladiators, if you've seen the movies, it's almost always depicted as a fight to the death. That's not necessarily the case. You could kind of tap out. Or if they drew blood, sometimes that would be the end. But if they drew blood, that might also be the end of you pre antibiotics. Either way, you might end up dead. But it wasn't necessarily always a fight to the death. And like you said, sometimes if you were a great gladiator and a great warrior, they didn't know what your face looked like. But you had this cool mask that you were identified by. Kind of like wrestling or something like that. Right. Or I guess the Lucillebre, the ones who always had the mask. But I can't believe we did an episode on that. It's so funny. It was a good one, too. But if you want a lot and you had a cool helmet, you could be a pretty big deal to the point where you might have slaves taking care of you and you might lead a bit of the better life. Right. But you're still owned by someone else. Yeah. You were a slave. You were a prisoner of war. You were a criminal. But when you were taken to gladiator school, it wasn't like you're just kept there. And then you were thrown into the ring to fight like you were trained. You were put on a diet, you were basically put through boot camp. And you were introduced to the specifics of certain types of gladiatorial combat. Apparently, there were a handful of different types. And one type of gladiator only fought one or two other types of gladiators. And the type that Spartacus was a Murmillo, which meant that he fought with a helmet, a very long, tall shield, kind of like the Roman Centurions used, and then a short sword called the gladias. And that's what he would have fought with. But there were other kinds of gladiators, too. I ran across a super cool one, the Reddarius, and they would have a trident in a net and a dagger. So, you know, like those gladiators that fought with a net, I think it might have been a Mad Max or something like that. Yeah. That's based on an actual type of gladiator that used to fight back in the day. And again here in the 21st century. We can sit there and think like, wow, this is really interesting stuff, but you have to stop for a second and think these people were being forced against their will into fights to the death, sometimes in front of spectators for the sheer bloodlust of the crowds. That was it. And you can't really forget that because it really puts you in the mind of somebody like Spartacus, who has been captured as prisoner, potentially unjustly, according to an ancient text, and being forced into this life of fighting, sometimes to the death, for the joy of the wealthy crowds who came out to see everybody. That's right. And that's why Spartacus looked around one day and said, guys, we're here at Gladiators University, and I know that sounds super cool, but I see where the end is for all of us, and that is dying for the entertainment value of rich Romans. And what do you say we get a group of us together, like, maybe 70 of us, we get the heck out of here and let's do it, guys. And they all said, that's a great idea. I don't want to go die in a ring. So they got together in 73 BCE. They hijacked a caravan that just happened to have a bunch of Gladiator weapons and armor. And they said, hey, you know what we are? We're a little army troop. All of a sudden, think about the luck that that took. Like, they broke out. They overpowered their guards with meat cleavers that they stole from the kitchen and broke out. And as they were breaking out, they ran across a supply truck of Gladiator armor and weapons. I got the feeling that was targeted. That was not the case. No, it happened to be coming in as they were leaving, and they were like, oh, we'll take this, or else they encountered it on the road headed to the Gladiator school. The timing was really fortunate. Well, at any rate, they got all this gear, and all of a sudden they were kitted up. And I think one of the people he was with, his wife. This lady sounds very interesting. Like we said, we don't know a lot about the actual historical record. We don't know her actual name. But Plutarch was a writer who wrote that Spartacus wife was a prophetess who was possessed by ecstatic Frenzys that were part of the worship of the goddionysis, which you know what that means. She likes a party. She did. That was the party called, for sure. And she apparently was one of the priestesses of this cult in Thrace. She was thirsty as well. Ecstatic frenzy. Yeah, I'll bet that was cool. But her name apparently is just totally lost. No one has any idea what her name is or what became of her. They assume that she probably died alongside with Spartacus, but she being a prophetess, a priestess apparently foretold his rise to power even while he was a slave in the gladiator camp. She lived with him there. I guess while he was sleeping one night or day or whatever, a snake coiled itself around his head. And she was like, well, that doesn't happen every day, and I'm pretty sure that Dionysis has something to do with this. So my husband is going to be pretty important at some point. But he's also going to have a very unfortunate end, too, that the snake foretells. And it turns out she was right. That's right. And then she said, so I'm going to go have an orgy with all these people and drink some wine with some goat fellas. So these dudes, this little kind of, for lack of a better term, battalion, all of a sudden, they start to train for combat. They're near Mount Vesuvius, which don't be afraid of the volcano, everyone. This is about 100 years before that happened. Isn't that creepy, though, to think like, this historic thing took place and they were trapping all over Vesuvius. They had no idea what was coming, just like a century from then. I like it. I think it's amazing. But not Vesuvius at this time. What we're saying is it was lovely and it was lush and you could farm there. It was very fertile. It was covered with vines, and they were down there training. And eventually Rome takes a little bit of notice, although they weren't seriously worried yet, they were hiding out and they were training. And one of his co leaders, this guy Crixes, who kind of factors in as one of his big co heads of state, I guess, and oana, mouse onames. No, I think you had it the first time. There was like an extra syllable in there. Oh, really? Yeah, but the way you said it the second time sounds better. Well, we'll just stick to that, okay? They would go around and raid for supplies. They would recruit slaves eventually, and we'll see later. They got so popular that they could even get non slaves to join up in the rebellion. And Rome was not super worried yet. They kind of heard about what was going on, but they were busy. They were fighting in Spain, they were fighting Crete, they were fighting in southeast Europe, and this little ragtime group of former slaves wasn't that big of a deal now. So the fact that they were fighting elsewhere, like Spain and Crete, that meant that their greatest military leaders and those military leaders armies were away. They weren't in Italy. And like you said at the time, they weren't taking Spartacus in his runaway slave band seriously at all. But they did take enough notice that they sent a prater there. And a parade is like a very high up elected official right under council, which is, I think, the highest elected official in ancient Rome. So they were really super high up, and actually, they might have been laterals to the councils, I'm not sure. But it was a very important person. But I get the impression that he was a very kind of low on the scale of important people because they sent him with a few Roman soldiers and said, hey, when you get to Vesuvius, just recruit some locals to go fight this band of runaway slaves. And be back by dinnertime, please. Yeah. Love the National Guard not knocking them, but it kind of reminded me of sort of sending in the National Guard to take care of something rather than the Marines. Storming beach. It's basically the story of John Rambo in first blood. Trust me, I thought of that more than what rap brian Dennehy, by the way. When? Like last week. What? How did I not hear that? I think it's just sort of been under the radar with everything going on. Was it from Coronavirus? No, I think he was like in his early eighty s and just passed away. Well, rip for sure he was good, but I definitely thought of Rambo a lot while I was reading this. The difference was that Spartacus had a team to aid in his uprising in Rambo was of course a one man army, an A team, if you will, but at any rate, they didn't send the best of the best because they were all busy. Glamorous little army. They said, you know what, we're not even going to attack Spartacus. We'll just block off the route up to Vesuvius, we're going to pitch our tents, we're going to hang out and get drunk, and he's going to starve to death and that's kind of going to be the end of it. So we think yeah. You said Glabor. Is that Prater? His name is Claudius Glabor. He sounds like an inept kind of person that you would send to take care of send Glabor, exactly. His name is just too close to Glavon, I think. So Glavour says, yeah, it's exactly what you said. He posted a couple of guys on the road to Vesuvius, the only road in or out, up the mountain, and then the rest of the group is at camp. Spartacus and his band, they know that they can't get down this road, but they're also not about to starve at the hands of a guy named Glabor. So they actually fashion rope and rope ladder out of the vines that are growing up on Vesuvius, and they climb down the mountain to a different spot and they come up behind the guys who are guarding the road, kill them, sneak into the Roman camp, kill all of them while they're bathing and sleeping, and have done two things. They just wiped out the soldiers of a Prater, a very high elected official, and they just captured a Roman camp with all of its supplies, all of its weapons, all of its armory, and these were really two really big first strikes, if you allow that, and I will. Thank you. It was a really big deal because word gets around and for the first time slaves in Italy, we're thinking, wow, there's actually some place we could go. It's not like in America where there were slaves in the south mainly, and they could escape to the north, right? It was just like that all over Italy. So they had nowhere to go. They had no safe harbor, no quarter. If I'm allowed, I will allow that as well. And they said, well, we got a place we can go. We can go join up with this guy Spartacus. He's out there sneaking up on Global and killing him while he's taking a bath, right? And that sounds pretty good to me. I want to get in on the fun. Yeah. I don't know if it was this historian. Erwin. From Murray State or if it was part of the article. But somebody says at some point that and I'm sorry. Not Irvin aaron Irvine is the name of the historian. But somebody says at some point that those slaves. Because they had nowhere to go. Like you were saying. But also because of the way that slave uprisings were brutally dealt with. That they very frequently didn't even require supervision. That there were whole rural areas and towns that Spartacus was moving around to where the slaves vastly outnumbered the freed people. And they were able to sustain that disproportionate population distribution because the slaves in Rome had such little hope of any different life than what they had. And so, yeah, like you're saying, Spartacus provided hope and something different, and all of a sudden, his little ragtag band of slaves and their slave uprising suddenly became a very large slave uprising in a really short time. They attracted something like 40,000 slaves from these rural areas up around Vesuvius and in northern Italy, I think northeastern Italy, they would just run away. And now they had a place to go. I E. Sparta kisses camp and they would join up there and show up with, like, kitchen knives and farm tools and stuff like that, and they would be trained in combat. And now, all of a sudden, it goes from this ragtag band of gladiator slaves who had escaped to something that looked a lot like an actual rebellion. And that's what Rome started to think that maybe they were dealing with. Yes. And I get the idea around this time that Spartacus becomes kind of an idea even more so than an actual human being, because when the word is getting around, it's not like the newspapers had front page headlines or anything. You get these whispers, and you get these stories and this spark of hope among the slaves and this idea that there is this rebellion, and he's a great boss. He splits everything right down the middle, and he's not some awful leader. He divides all the spoils equally, and he's getting non slaves to join up, because even if you're like, you might not be a slave, but if you're a very poor farm hand or something, it might look appealing all of a sudden because you're not part of the elite Roman kind of upper echelon class. Yeah. So the idea that he's splitting the spoils with people, that's huge, and apparently that stands up, that basically all of the ancient sources agree, like, this guy took all his plunder and distributed. He didn't keep it for himself. He didn't turn himself into a king, and he was running around freeing slaves. And that's one of the reasons why he did, like you said, become a hero, or an idea and a hero that still, to the state groups, kind of latch onto. So he's attracting more and more people. One of the things, one of the ugly truths about this is that when they were going around to these small towns in these rural areas, freeing slaves, getting them to join their ranks, there was also a lot of plundering going on. And they were not merciful with the slave owners who own these big, enormous estates that they were plundering. They would engage in rape, they would engage in torture, they would engage in murder. And from what I saw, it wasn't Spartacus that was doing that, that he actually commanded against that, but that his army had a mind of its own in a lot of cases, and that they would be pretty merciless and brutal with the freed people whose stuff they were taking. Yeah, I'm sure they were like, no, you rape and pillage. That's what you do. Right. That's how it is right now. Even in the movie, Spartacus, he refuses to take part in that. So there are a few things that Kubrick, he didn't write the screenplay. That was actually Dalton Trumbo, but he had that in the movie. So there were bits of truth throughout, for sure. Right. So this is going on. Rome finally is like, all right, we got to really deal with this guy. Can someone please go kill Spartacus for me? Right. Glamor sucked so bad, guys, we got to get a nonglabor in there to take care of business. And they did. They sent Publius verenius hit that Publius guy. He was another Prater. So they're sending, like, pretty important guys along with their soldiers. And Verenius, he was almost nearly captured, which would have been enormous. He was so close to being captured that I believe Spartacus himself stole the guy's horse. He got his horse. Which guy was this? Verenius. Publius Verenius. And that was a huge black eye to Rome. Not only is this band of runaway slaves able to engage Rome in battle, but he stole your horse and your insignia and almost got your guy. It was a big deal. And so all these victories, with each victory, Spartacus legend just grows, and he's able to attract more and more people. I think within a year that historian Kenneth Cheque said within a year, maybe a little more than a year, there was as many possibly as 125,000 freed slaves or slaves, escape slaves and commanders who had joined Spartacus army. 125,000. And he started with 70 gladiators the year before. Yes. 70. Not 70,000. Right. Just to reiterate. Yeah, no, it's worth saying. So, spring of 72, BC. Spartacus has these troops. Some of them stay in the south with his buddy Crisis. And then he said, the rest of you come with me. We're going to head toward the Alps because it's lovely this time of year. And I think at the time, these guys have great names. Rome sent army is led by Lucius Galius Publipicola and Neus Cornelius Linux. Claudianus. Those are great names. Wow. Those guys were councils, so they were the highest elected officials in Rome. As many as, like, 20,000 guys put together. Like this is serious business at this time to go take care of Spartacus. Yeah. I think when he almost captured Verenius, that really caught Rome's attention for the first time. Unfortunately, these two councils what were their names again, Chuck? Let's just call them publicola and cladanius. Okay, fine. They were no better equipped to fight Spartacus either, I think. By this time, he hadn't come close to 125,000 people yet, but he was up to 40,000. And both of the Peaches and Herb? Yeah, Peaches and Herb. Nice. They underestimated how many troops he'd had. They also were unaware that he had wintered in the, I think, the north of Italy and had spent the winter stealing horses and building up a cavalry unit, which they had no idea he had. This and one other thing, he puts a good use so remember, this guy is potentially a Roman army veteran from Thrace, which means he's familiar with guerrilla warfare that the Thresi's practiced and conventional warfare, which the Romans practiced. And he's, like, commanding tens of thousands of troops to great effect, built a cavalry. And he also, like some of those commoners who joined up who weren't slaves, but they were not well off, and they wanted to fight the power, so they joined. They were usually like herdsmen or shepherds or something like that from local areas who knew the areas really well. So he used them as scouts. And Peaches and Herb had no idea that, again, this band of runaway slaves had turned into an actual, like, legit army under the command of somebody who knew what they were doing. And he ate both of them alive. Yeah. Well, it was kind of tough because Peaches went down there to the south, where Cricket was, and killed him with a lot of the rebels. And then Herb came in from the north of Spartacus, where he was headed toward the Alps. He was ahead of them. So he came south from the north. Right. And he came in, and Spartacus was basically trapped between these two armies that had better equipment, better weaponry, better armor, more munitions and food and water and everything. And wine. Right. And they had no idea that this cavalry was waiting for him, that he had been working on. It was kind of his little Trojan horse in a way, and they had never seen anything like it. And he beat Peaches, I think. Or was that Herb? Now I'm all confused. He beat Herb, okay. He beat Herb and got all the supplies that Herb's army had, and then it was on in a big, big way. So I misspoke by this time. Yes. He probably had close to 75 to 125,000 people in his army. But they had split off because Crixes. Who was one of the gladiators that you just mentioned. One of the original gladiators he broke out of gladiator school with and who basically cooperated the army with him. He apparently wanted to split off and take it straight to Rome. Wanted to attack Rome and Sparta. Kisses. Whole thing was like, no, let's go north to Thrace, out of Italy. We can build our army up even better there and either just hang out and thrace and be great, or maybe then we can come back to Italy. And they had a disagreement, they had a falling out, and they split up. And Crixes took 30000 men. And like you said, I don't remember if it was Peaches or Herb who got them, but the Crixes and his men were killed. But simultaneously, even though Spartacus later beat both of those guys, he had just lost 30,000 of his troops, which is a pretty big troop reduction, especially, basically overnight. Yeah, but he still won in the end in that battle. He did. He fought very bravely. He rushed either Peaches or Herb, broke them down, captured their supplies, and then we don't know for sure if he defeated Herb or not, or if they just retreated. But at any rate, that was sort of the end of them, and they were allowed to go on to the Alps. Right. So you want to take another break? Yeah, let's take our last break, and we'll wind it up here with the Last Stand. Okay? These days, you use your personal info to do just about everything, especially when you're online. And guess what? With all that info just floating around out there, it can make the Internet a practical gold mine for identity thieves. And stealing your identity, it turns out, can be dangerously easy, which is not good. But now it's easy to protect yourself with LifeLock by Norton. Yeah. LifeLock monitors your info and alerts you to potential identity threats. And if you are a victim of identity theft, a dedicated US based restoration specialist will work to fix it. Identity thefts have had it easy for far too long. Now, finally, it's your turn. Just remember, no one can prevent all identity theft or monitor all transactions at all businesses. But everyone can save up to 25% off their first year by going to LifeLock. comStuff that's Lifelock.com stuff for 25% off your first year. LifeLock identity Theft protection starts here. A summer is here, my friend, which means school is out, the sun is shining bright, the days are longer. And best of all, there's plenty of time to get lost in a good, thrilling story yeah. Whether you're road tripping or you're relaxing by the pool, you can tune into the podcast here. It's on Amazon Music that's so good, it's criminal. Morbid. That's right. It's part true crime and part comedy. Morbid takes you on a journey through murderous mysteries and major laughs, all in the same week. Yeah. From the paranormal to the pretty spooky and everything in between. Host Selena Erkart and Ash Kelly cover it all. And with two episodes released each week, you'll be hooked on this charttopping series before you know it. You can listen to new episodes of Morbid one week early, only on Amazon Music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen today. So Spartacus is not only now beaten praters that the Romans sent, he's beaten councils in their armies. And Rome is full lipped out. I don't know if they knew that crisis, who, by the way, was a celt, which I find immensely interesting, but I don't know if they knew that he was coming toward Rome and that they just narrowly avoided being attacked by that contingent. But it was definitely on their mind that Rome was left unprotected. Because remember, the best generals and the best the best armies were in Spain and Crete. And there was a really angry group of impoverished and escaped slaves who had assembled themselves into a pretty respectable army possibly coming toward Rome. Yeah. And Rome was on thin ice at this point. I mean, they were still super powerful, obviously, but they make a good point in this article that they kind of relied on the fact that everyone thought they were great and was super scared of them. And they have these big scary armies and once they started getting these defeats and once they started getting defeats, especially at the hands of a former slave who was leading this kind of ragtag team that was revolting against them, there's a little chink in that armor. And Spartacus is out there winning battles and everyone hears about this and that's a big, big deal to Rome. All of a sudden they seem like they're defeatable. Yeah. Which if your society includes slaves and the slaves are kept in line by the idea that you are undefeatable that's right. They seem like they're defeated now. They're best armies and generals are away and they couldn't really find anyone to really take care of Spartacus until this guy stepped up. He was a wealthy praetor named Marcus Krasis and he said, you know what? I've got the dough and I'm a pretty brutal leader in my own right. Maybe you've heard of me. And so I'm going to finance this army and I'm going to go kill that guy. If there's a villain in this story, it is Crassus. He was a terrible, terrible person. Possibly the richest person Rome has ever seen. I read somewhere that he would go to places that had caught fire with his own personal fire brigade and would negotiate with the owner of the house or whatever to buy it. And if they would negotiate at just an extremely cheap rate to sell their house that was on fire, then Krasis would have his fire brigade put it out. If they didn't negotiate or sell, then he would just leave with his fire brigade and let it burn. He was that kind of guy. Krasis was like, hey, man, this place is on fire, and I'm offering to buy it from you, right? It's a fire sale. You should take this. Yes, but if they wouldn't, if they'd be like, no, this is completely unacceptable and immoral. He'd be like, all right, see you later. And his fire brigade would leave. That's just not good stuff. That's the kind of thing that if you do that, people continue to talk about it in a negative, like 2000 years later on some dumb podcast. So Krasse, you also might recognize his name. He was part of the first triumvirate with Pompey and Caesar. He was the third guy. Yeah, I remember that name. So KRAS steps up and he says, you know what? My father got a triumph, which is basically like a military parade for a great military victory. And I've always been envious. I want mine. I'm going to make mine the defeat of Spartacus. I'm going to go get them. I'm going to finance this army. I'm going to go pick up some of the other armies that have been defeated and kind of left scattered around Italy and reassemble them. And there was one in particular, I think it was the army of the Prater, who was almost captured. Verenius. Some of his people ran away, and kratis got them together, I believe, 500 people who had been accused of desertion and running away during battle. And he brought out of the old steamer trunk an old technique for keeping your troops in line called decimation chuck, which is a word that we've misused for years on this podcast. But this is the real deal that he was doing. Yeah, and I don't think we've been misusing it for years. I think it's now part of popular terminology, just not necessarily reduced by ten. Okay, fair enough. But what he did was he said, okay, all of you, 500, break up into 50 groups of ten, and in every group, all ten of you draw lots. Whoever draws the shortest lot gets executed. And he executed 50 out of 500 deserters in front of his troops to basically say, hey, let's get that morale up, everybody. This is what happens to you if you don't fight valiantly. And that was the kind of leader that he was. So he's a real jerk in business and a real jerk on the battlefield, too, even with his own troops, and a very selfish lover, from what I hear. He really was. He'd be like, well, that's it for me. Good luck to yourself. So he had a real b in his bonnet to get that victory parade. He goes and chases Spartacus all over Italy. And there was some infighting going on, which is what can happen a lot of times in a rebellion if you don't keep everyone's spirits up. So that kind of weakened his army a little bit. And so, in a last ditch effort, Spartacus said, you know, what we need to do is we need to go kill Krasis in front of everybody. And that'll do the trick. If everyone sees Crassus is gone, you cut off that head, maybe another one will not grow up in its place. And that didn't work out for Spartacus. He was actually cut down in battle. His army was finally defeated. They hunted down all 6000 of the survivors of the army and crucified them. He was not himself, Crucified, like in the movie Spartacus. And there was never that great moment in the movie, the I'm Spartacus moment, that never really happened in real life. Unfortunately, they never found his body, which is sort of a sad end to a leader who did some pretty great things for a little while. But not really, though, because I read he was last seen, he was really close to Krasis. He was headed to Krasus to kill him himself. And he, I think, killed two centurions in hand to hand combat on his way to crashes before he was swarmed on, like, Hollywood style and cut down by just a mob of dudes who overwhelmed them. Which is not a sad end. No. If you're living by the sword and dying by the sword, that's the way to go, for sure. Okay. I bet you he would have preferred to kill crasses. Sure, I'll give you that. But if he was never faded to kill grasses, if that snake coiled on his head and foretold that he would never kill crasses, that's the way to go. Well, in the end, he is gone. His rebellion is squashed, but some good comes out of it. Rome kind of says, you know what? This taught us a great lesson, which is maybe we should listen to the lower class a little bit more. It wasn't some huge, sweeping reform change or anything like that. I don't want to sugarcoat it, but there were a number of reforms that were passed that did strengthen the voice of the people as a whole. And they had a little bit more say in their government because they didn't want another Spartacus to come along. Yeah. And then over the years, like, many thousands of years later, like I said, he was kind of held up as, like, this hero, this ideal. So, like, the abolitionist movement in the United States held him up as a hero because he was known to free slaves. That was how he assembled his army. And he wasn't necessarily freeing slaves for the ideal of ending slavery. He was freeing slaves to help build up his army. But I'm sure there was a certain amount of like, this is a good thing that these slaves are no longer slaves when they're with me. That he must have entertained, at least. And then later on, like you said, dalton Trumbo wrote the script for the 1960 movie directed by Kubrick on Spartacus. And Dalton Trumbo was blacklisted from Hollywood because he was a Communist, or he wouldn't name names. I can't remember. And Dalton Trumbo wrote that script based on a novel written by a guy named Howard Fast, who had written the novel in jail because he wouldn't name names on the McCarthy hearings. And so Spartacus kind of became like a hero of Marxists because he freed slaves. He overthrew the oppressors, but he also took the oppressors wealth and redistributed it among the lower classes, which Marxists are just bonkers for. Pretty interesting stuff. Yeah, there's plenty more about Spartacus, Gladiators, all that stuff. This is really thick stuff. And this is stuff you should know. It's not what we do. We just kind of give an overview. So if this floated your boat at all, go look up Spartacus, start reading on them, and you will be fascinated. And since I said that, it's time for listener mail. I'm going to call this wastewater operator. Oh, good. Or former now retired wastewater operator. I see. Hey, guys. Just finished listening to the episode on wastewater treatment with a critical ear. Having worked for over 20 years as both a WW lab analyst and operator. While I understand you are aiming for the least knowledgeable common denominator in your audience. I feel like you did a disservice to all wastewater treatment plants and their employees by failing to mention that every treatment plant in America must abide by strict regulatory permits issued under the Clean Water Act tailored to the needs of these specific facilities. Influenced your words make it sound like we and operations made our own decisions as to how clean the water. How clean is clean enough? And that cannot be further from the truth. I want to stop here because I don't feel like we did that. Did we? We certainly didn't mean to. I don't think that we were just like, it's up to Texas who's running the levers to decide what's clean enough. If we did, sorry. We definitely don't think that. No, we didn't think that at all. In my position as analyst, I performed an average of 30,000 standard laboratory tests per year to maintain permit compliance and support operations. That number increased dramatically when there were operational upsets, process changes, influence variations, et cetera. In addition, operators collect and analyze process control samples several times per shift for the same reason. I think we knew that stuff was going on, right? Yeah. I don't want to sound defensive, but does this person listen or just say, oh, I see this title here's, all the things that are going to get wrong? No, I think they listened okay, good. I wish to thank you for attempting to educate the public on the vital role clean water and sewage treatment play in the health and prosperity of the United States. I firmly believe this is what truly makes America great. You don't hear people saying they need vaccinations and antibiotics to fend off waterborne illness when visiting the United States. Sorry to rant on. I appreciate your time. Thanks for reading. And please put out a big thank you to all wastewater treatment operators about whom nobody is paying attention but whom everyone needs. And that is from Anne Danielson, retired operator and analyst. Thanks a lot, Anne. That's good stuff. And, yes, agreed, if everyone doesn't know that we need wastewater treatment people and they're not paying attention. So hatch out to you and your colleagues from us. Agreed. Yes, I know that there's a lot of work and analysis and testing and if we didn't hammer that home enough, then we are now. Yeah, well, if we missed the mark on something or you just want to add something or just want to say, hey, you guys, nailed it. Nailed it. We love that. You can get in touch with us via email, wrap it up, spank it on the bottom and send it off to stuffpodcast@iheartradio.com. Stuff you should know is production of iHeartRadio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts, my heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite show. Hey, everybody. I don't know about you, but I am excited that it's summer. School's out, the sun is shining, and best of all, there's downtime for days. That's where true crime podcasts on Amazon music come in. They're the perfect activity for last minute road trips, long walks, or, if you're brave enough, late nights. With so many killer shows. Morbid, my favorite murder and Small Town murder. You'll never be bored to death again. So download the free Amazon Music app to start listening to all your favorite true crime podcasts. Plus, with Amazon Music, you can access new episodes early. Download the app today."
https://podcasts.howstuf…-destruction.mp3	What is Mutual Assured Destruction?	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/what-is-mutual-assured-destruction	In this episode of Stuff You Should Know, Josh and Chuck discuss nuclear profliferation, nuclear parity and the Cold War strategic doctrine called Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD).	In this episode of Stuff You Should Know, Josh and Chuck discuss nuclear profliferation, nuclear parity and the Cold War strategic doctrine called Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD).	Tue, 24 Nov 2009 16:10:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2009, tm_mon=11, tm_mday=24, tm_hour=16, tm_min=10, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=328, tm_isdst=0)	23323881	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Welcome to stuff you should know from housetopworkscom. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. With me, as always, as the lovely and talented Charles W. Chucker's Bryant. Hi. Hey, Chuck. Hi. Hi. Steve switched hats from when to when, from the Chicago Bears hat to the Atlanta Braves hat. Yeah, that was yesterday. You're a man of many hats, many fan allegiances. I'm not a Bears fan. You know what that was all about? Pumpkins. Yes. Pumpkin chunkin. Yes. Josh, we are going to mention once again, the Discovery Channel, our awesome parent company, is releasing two television shows on Thanksgiving night. Don't confuse people, Chuck. They're going to be on the Science Channel. Well, sure. On Thursday, November 26, which is Thanksgiving. Lots of dead turkeys that day. The road to punk and chunkin. And Punk and Chunkin. Right. The Road to Punk and Chunkin comes on at 08:00 PM. Eastern time on the Science Channel, followed by the real Punk and Chunkin at 09:00 PM. Eastern. I would follow it up with a show called The Road from Punkin. You're right. Going back home after pumpkin chunkin. In Delaware, no less. So that's that, right? Sure. All right. So, Chuck? Yes, Josh? This seems vaguely familiar. We're talking about mutual assured destruction. Okay, well, how does that seem familiar? Because I did it with Candace many moons ago on stuff you missed in history class. Really? Back when it was called factor fiction. Dude, that was another lifetime, wasn't it? It really was. I have so many more gray hairs now, and my posture is much more stooped. You have the Seattle slump. I do, actually. Nice one. Thank you. Chuck, we've talked about this, I think, here or there, we've mentioned it. Remember? We did a podcast on how easy is it to steal a nuclear bomb? Sure. We concluded that if the Jamaicans are buying it and you steal it en route to Jamaica, you could probably get away with it. Right. This podcast is specifically on a Cold War strategic doctrine called Mutual Assured Destruction, which is abbreviated as Mad, appropriately enough. Yeah, it's funny. It's scary as I'll get out, but it's also comforting in the same breath. It's weird. Well, yeah, because, I mean, if you think about it, you and I grew up we were Cold War babies. Sure. We grew up with the expressed knowledge that at any moment nuclear war could break out. And if that happened, everyone on the planet was dead. Sure. And that's how we were raised. Kids that were born in mid 80s, which is just nuts to me that there's people walking around that are sentient that were born in the mid 80s, but kids that were born in the mid eighty s and after did not grow up with that specter looming over them and I imagine are completely different people personality wise than, like, you and I. Well, that's like everyone else on our staff. Almost agreed. Did you ever think about that? I did not. There are a few old folks like us, although I'm much older than you, obviously. You definitely are. Point out, Chuck's wearing right now a jean jacket with a sharpie marker. Used to do the Journey logo on the back. It's pretty cool. You burn out. So, Chuck, as I was saying, we grew up as Cold War kids. Yes. And every once in a while, you have to stop and think, why didn't the US. And the USSR blow one another up? Are you asking me that? Yeah. Well, let's talk about the Cold War a little bit, because the answer is the end of the podcast. Okay. All right. So let's save that. All right. The cold ward. Josh, I had a couple of really scary moments, if you want to talk about those. I do. The Cuban Missile crisis. That was a pretty tense couple of weeks. Probably the first one. In 1962, President Kennedy threatened to strike once he found out that Russia had moved, or I guess the Soviet Union had moved missiles to Cuba and were pointing them at his face. And Cuba seems like a world away, but it's really just 90 miles off the southern coast of Florida. A short boat ride. Right. So if you have nuclear, long range nuclear warheads pointed at the US. They can hit their mark probably as far as Kansas City, let's say. Right. And they could definitely hit temperature. That was a scary couple of weeks. Sure, it was, because there was a standoff. Basically, we were saying, hey, we're going to nuke you if you don't remove these missiles. Right. And the Soviet Union said, oh, yeah, we'll nuke you back. You can point to this is perhaps the beginning of the Mad doctrine, right? Sure. And the other scary one was in the car. This was weird, Chuck. This actually happened, like, several times. This is probably the worst that's some bad communication going on. What happened was NORAD got some information that the Soviet Union had launched 2220 nuclear missiles our way. So, Chuck yeah. In NORAD, which is like, the command center for our missile system air defense deep in Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado nice. On some computer screen, some guy's computer screen that tracks Soviet missile movement, all of a sudden, it was just peppered with missiles that were coming this way. And National Security Director Brznyski. Nice job. Is that right? I think it's right. I can't remember a lot of consonants, and it's not that I can't remember, it's that I've never heard it. I haven't either. Prasinsky. Sure. We're going with Brzinsky. He was alerted it's pretty early in the morning, right? Yeah. 02:00 A.m.. He was alerted and woken up, and they're like, hey, there's a Soviet missile strike, an all out missile strike. 2220 missiles coming our way, sir. And he is picking up the phone to call President Carter, who I don't know what Carter would have done carter wasn't exactly the most militant president we've ever had. Great guy, great statesman, great diplomat. He might have pooped his pants and gone back to bed. Maybe so, but that's terrible. He never got that phone call because Brzzynski was informed that oh, wait, it's a computer glitch. Right. They whack the side of the monitor and it all corrected. So what shocked me was it was a seven minute window that we had to decide what to do. Well, it's a long way from the Soviet Union to the US, even by way of Alaska. Seven minutes. That's scary. You have to make up your mind in seven minutes whether or not you're going to destroy the world. Basically, I'm saying you would think that it would be less than seven minutes. Oh, well, yeah, okay. And I'm telling you, that was probably the worst case. But that happened many times during the course of the Cold War. And from what I understand, the Soviets had similar incidents, too, right? Oh, did they? Yeah. So we have these incidents. We have the Cuban missile crisis. Why didn't either side pull the trigger? Because of the doctrine, the Mad doctrine, basically, which indicates that everyone will die. So we blow everybody up on both sides. So let's not do that. Right. And the USSR in the United States could actually, very quickly, from 1947 to 1941, both nations were building up their nuclear arsenals. It's called nuclear proliferation, right? Yes, I think I got that out. That's sort of nuclear proliferation. Nice. You take that one for the rest of the podcast. Okay. Okay. So each side had this arsenal, and we're keeping up in step with one another. You know what that's called? Yes. Nuclear parity. Yes. Which is ideally what you want. Strangely, yes. In this case, you definitely do. So both sides had more than enough nuclear missiles to wipe out not just the other side, but the entire planet several times over. That's a really important point. Several times over. Why would you need a nuclear arsenal that could wipe out the world, the planet, several times over? Now, maybe if they destroyed some of our weaponry with air strikes, that's part of it. Okay. But another part of it is because if one side adds a missile, you got to add a missile. If you're seeking nuclear parity, which is really important, then it can't be out of whack. Did they release all this information to each other? Was it no, it was intelligence, guesses, that kind of stuff. All of a sudden, there's like a metal hole in the ground in Wyoming that wasn't there before. The Soviets probably assumed, oh, well, they have a new nuclear warhead there. They didn't im each other and say, built new missile. Lol Click I knew you were going to say that. So both sides are building up their arsenal. And early on, Chuck, I was reading another article on game theory, which we'll see plays into this written by our esteemed colleague in my BFF, Tom Sheave. Yeah. And he talks about how early on, apparently, Eisenhower, who is the second president to have the bomb, but really the first president to manage, like, an amassed nuclear arsenal to love the bomb. Yeah, he stopped worrying. He looked at them as like any other type of weapon because he was a military man. Right. But luckily, there was a game theorist named Thomas Schelling who had the ear of Eisenhower, managed to convince him that, no, these things are way more powerful and destructive than anything else in our arsenal. They exist in this vacuum that has to be kept separate and therefore they should be viewed only as deterrence. And he managed to change Eisenhower's view. And from that point on, the presence of a nuclear arsenal was a weapon in and of itself. It was the preventative. And not only to nuclear war, but the point that did you write this one? The point that you made, which I found interesting, was that it also was a deterrent to conventional war. Excellent point. Because conventional war, after the arms race, there was no such thing as conventional war. No, not between the US. And the USSR. Right. Or a guaranteed conventional war. It might start out that way, but it would escalate and all of a sudden, the button is pushed at some point. Right. Because our nuclear arsenal did exist in, say, a vacuum outside of the rest of our arsenal. But once you exhausted the rest of the arsenal, then the inevitable conclusion was that nuclear arsenal being deployed. Right, right. Or even if you didn't exhaust it, even if you just said you just got mad. Let's just end this game. Exactly. As a result, the US And the USSR just fought a cold war. They never directly engaged one another, but they fought one another through proxy wars in places like Nicaragua and Afghanistan. Right. Got a lot of good movies out of the Cold War. Definitely. Rambo Three. Yes. And some good James Bond movies in that time. I liked it when the Ruskies were the villain. You like the James Bond movies? Okay. Yeah. Maybe the early ones. I'm thinking like Timothy Dalton. Yeah. I mean, trust me, Roger Moore is kind of a laughable bond? Now that I'm older and look back, you're crazy. Roger Moore is the best because we grew up with them. But looking back, I mean, come on. Roger Moore was kind of a duff. Maybe. But I think that was his director that he was working with. Yeah. I kind of like Pierce Brosnan. He was good. He was okay. I'm pretty hip on the Daniel Craig he's all right. Well, that's the only direction they could take that. Really? What, blonde? No, just more realistic. Butt kicking with fists and that kind of thing. You don't think Moonbreaker was realistic? He was constantly, like, winking at the camera. You believe I'm saying? Yeah. It's like Jonathan Strickland is James Bond, I guess. Right. Good one. All right. So sorry about the sidetrack. Yes. What happened was we created a Daytone. It wasn't like, okay, we all have the same amount of weapons, so we're BFFs now and it's all good. It was a daytime meaning. It was sort of what's the best description? An uneasy truce. Basically, the US. And the USSR had our weapons and we're keeping an eye on one another. And anytime one added a new missile or some new capability, the other scrambled to catch up and vice versa, and we just basically went to sleep with one eye open for the next several decades. Right. So, Josh, what two things have to take place in order to achieve this weird stability? Well, the weird stability, the very fact that it existed, it wasn't organically created by the presence of nuclear weapons. Right. Okay. Henry Kissinger, who was Secretary of State throughout much of the Cold War. Love Kissinger. He actually was a huge fan of Game Theory. He took a lot of Game Theory classes when he was an underclassmen at Harvard, and he kept in touch with Game Theory and hung out with game theorists. And he actually was one of the people who is responsible for applying Game Theory to nuclear strategy. Really? Yeah. And other people kind of caught on and saw that there was a lot of merit and validity to viewing nuclear strategy through Game Theory. Right. So the two things really are having that part. Yeah, you asked that part. I'll answer my own question. What's key is A to have the weapons to begin with? Right. And then, as Robert McNamara points out, the Defense Secretary in 60s was that you have to believe that the other guys actually has the cajunes to pull the trigger. Right. And apparently both the US. And the USSR like to leak false information about how crazy their leaders were. Do you remember how we were brought up viewing the Russians? Sure. Like they were all nuts. Right. They would just push the button at any second. Yeah. They wanted American blood. Apparently that was planted by the Russians because you have to believe that the other guy is willing to strike. Right. And not just create a first strike, but definitely a counter strike as well. Right, sure. So if you are assured that if you launch a first strike, that the other side is going to launch a retaliatory strike right. What you've just done by launching that first strike is committed suicide. Pretty much the basis of mutual assured destruction is that nobody wants to die. Right. Okay. Yeah. Okay. And also at the time, at first, the way the nuclear warheads developed over the years is pretty cool because like you pointed out, at first, it was just a big, huge dopey bomb that would just blow up everything. Yeah. Have you seen pictures of fat boy and little man. Yeah, they really do. They do. They're like Bugs Bunny would drop out of the back of a plane. Yeah. Did you know they weren't the same type of bomb? Fat man, which was dropped on Nagasaki, was plutonium, and Little Boy, which was dropped on Hiroshima, was uranium. Interesting. I didn't know that. And they were working on both of these. So basically we split the atom in the late thirty s and all of a sudden we're just working on any kind of atomic bomb we want. Right. Nuts. So over the years though, that became very precise and much more strategic. So you could, let's say, send your nuclear warheads to specific military targets at first, obviously to wipe out some of that capability. Hold on, you're talking about escalation. Let's talk about the nuclear proliferation ladder of escalation. Well, hold on. Let's talk about where the nukes were. Right? Okay. So at the height of the Cold War, it wasn't just missile silos in Wyoming and the Ukraine. There was European theater, eastern and Western. We had nuclear warheads all over the place there at any given time. Both the Soviets and the US. Had aircraft in the air at any point in time with nuclear, with nukes. Right. We had nuclear submarines all over the globe. So Lancey and Air, both sides had it covered. Right? Okay. The world is completely covered with thermonuclear devices. Very high tech delivery systems specific. And both sides have enough to wipe the other one off the planet several times. We're at a Dayton. Right. So what happens if somebody does launch a first strike? Because it's no longer a holocaust where we're just shooting missiles anymore. We have the capability to launch precise surgical strike. Well, there will be a counter strike. There is. But this is where the latter of escalation you're talking about comes in. Well, yes. You liken it to a chess game. There's a strike, then a counter strike, and then increasing levels of strikes as they climb up the ladder. Right. How it works. Basically, yeah. It's like trading punches, right? Right. So you start out you start out soft and I hit you. I don't you bring it all from the beginning. Well, then I'm really glad you weren't at the helm of the United States and the USSR during the Cold War, but let's say we were evenly matched, right? Yeah. And I punch you, you punch me a little harder, I punch you a little harder. Right. And then it keeps going on until finally one of us is like, okay, stop. But what we've done is we've escalated the damage we're doing to one another. Right. But there's something very important that's easily overlooked in that trade of punches. There's a moment that comes after each punch where someone might quit, where somebody has the option to quit. Right. Or trade another punch. And if you trade another punch, you're going to escalate. Right. So in the case of nuclear arms that are real precise at this point. They take out a few of our military bases, we take a few of theirs out, and all of a sudden one of the leaders steps back and says, wait a minute, we're going to annihilate everybody. We have to stop. You win. Right. Exactly. And what's crazy is the fact that there would even be a retaliatory strike is all based on saving face. Sure. Which is kind of disgusting in and of itself, but yeah, both sides had this kind of agreement I can't remember what it was called, where it's like in The Ladder of Escalation, first you start with, say, nuclear silo. Right. And then the next wrong on the ladder is actual troops. Right. And then the next run after that is like, maybe a rural area. Then after that, it's like a city, and it keeps going. And they're immune each other between what? Give up. Yet both sides knew what was coming next. It was part of the latter of Escalation. Sure. Luckily, we never engaged in that. And luckily there was no instant messaging back then, too. I know it would have been fun. Or it could have saved. Well, I guess we were saved. But Chuck, I know you recognize the latter of Escalation because your favorite movie or one of them had this factor heavily into it. Sure. Games. Did we talk about this one in the steel and nuclear bomb? Or was it another one we've talked about at least one other time? Yeah, it's a great movie. What are we up to, like 10,090 podcasts so far? I think so. And we've mentioned four games in about half of those. I would say so. In 1983. Young Matthew Broderick. Extremely young. He still looks exactly the same. He really does, doesn't he? Doesn't age. Sarah. Jessica Parker hasn't aged either. Yeah, but if you look at Square Pegs Her versus Sex in the City Her, there's quite a difference. Okay. Although I still don't find her very attractive, to be honest. Oh, Chuck, I'm going to hear from the ladies on that one. And Sarah Jessica Parker, dude, if she listened to the show, that'd be great. You're really hot. Sarah Jessica Parker. Yeah. Josh in War Games, Matthew Broderick hacks into the NORAD system and to play some games, and what he chooses to play is thermonuclear war and the computer constantly at the end of the movie. It's like the only way to win is not to play. Right. Which is actually correct. And that is right on the money. It's also akin to an actual game theory exercise called The Prisoner's Dilemma. Yeah, that's cool. Tell us about that, Josh. Well, the Prisoner's Dilemma. Let's say you have two accomplices in a crime that are separated. Let's say it's you and me. All right? So, Chuck, you're being interrogated in room A. Josh did it. Well, we're both in trouble. Well, I'm in trouble. And you're not. Right. But let's say we're actually buddies and we like each other outside of the podcast. Sure, that'd be cool. And we've committed a jewel heist, so we've been caught, but nobody said anything yet. You're in interrogation room A. I'm an interrogation room B. The problem is I have no idea what you're doing. You have no idea what I'm doing? If you implicate me, I go to jail, you go free. If I implicate you, you go to jail, I go free. Sure. Right. We both implicate each other, we both go to jail. What's the best option here? To not say a word. Not say a word. And then either one of us is implicated and we both go free. Yeah, that's a classic TV and movie thing, too. You always split them up, and you always go into the one room and say, your partner's in there singing like a bird. Yeah. stooly. See, rocky's going to picture. See? Yes. And then all of a sudden, they get that prisoner or that criminal to rat out the other guy because they think that they're being rude, which is stupid. They should just keep your mouth keep your mouth shut. Yeah. Here's the lesson to our younger viewers. Keep your mouth shut. Yeah, that's good. It's always good. Never rat people out. All right, so if you want to read more about Mutual Assured destruction, frankly, I think that I wrote this Little Flowery. That's a good article, I think, but it was one of my favorite ones. It's just interesting. Yeah. You can type in mutual assured destruction on the site. It will also bring up Tom Shi's Game Theory article, which is definitely worth reading as well. And you will type that into the handy search bar, which means that it's time for listener mail. Indeed. Josh is going to call this our first genuine unicorn email. All right. Sort of. What about the ones where people sent us pictures of unicorns? It's not genuine. No. Okay. That's false. Hi, Chuck and Josh. You mentioned that you wanted some unicorn stories, and I couldn't resist sending you this one. It might be a good lead into a podcast on traditional medicines. This will make sense in a minute. Okay. I just got back from a trip to Vietnam, and as a part of my trip, I went into the hill country in northern Vietnam called Sapa. This is where many minority tribes are residing, and part of their way of life is selling their wares to tourists and offering home stays. Kind of cool. After a day hike, a group of us ended up at a family home, and they served us a delicious dinner of traditional food and something they called Happy Water. I like the sound of that. Some made rice wine. You can imagine why it's called Happy Water. It got us a little giggly to begin with, and what really got us going was seeing the lady of the house nonchalantly walk out of the kitchen with a cow's horn stuck to her forehead as if she were a unicorn. Okay. When we finally contained ourselves, we all felt like schleps because our guide explained that this is a traditional way of getting rid of headaches. You put the horn in the fire, you brand it to your forehead, and then after a short time, you take it off. For the next two weeks, you have the round red mark on your forehead. Maybe it hurt more than a headache and therefore to remind us of it. I'm not sure. Crazy. Yeah. Anyway, this is my semi unicorn story. Thanks for the great podcast from Ang, who is a Canadian listening in Indonesia. And say Vietnam again. Vietnam. Well, thanks aang. For that. Actually, yes, that is definitely the closest thing to an actual unicorn listener mail we've gotten so far. Indeed, if you have any Cold War stories or any unicorn stories, or your name is Ain or contains those letters in that same arrangement, send us an email. You can send it to stuffpodcast@howstuffworks.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit houseofworks.com. Want more Housetoftworks? Check out our blog on the Housetofworks.com homepage. A summer school is out. The sun is shining. The daylight is longer. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music that's so good it's Criminal Morbid. Part true crime and part comedy, Morbid takes you on a journey from murderous mysteries to major laughs, all in the same week. Hosted by autopsy technician Elena Ercart and hairstylist Ash Kelly, this chart topping series will have you hooked before you know it. Listen to new episodes of Morbid early only on Amazon Music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen today."
a6e6fdc4-5462-11e8-b449-a3a1e7d79be6	Geodesic Domes: The Wave of the Future That Wasn't	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/geodesic-domes-the-wave-of-the-future-that-wasnt	Sometimes a good idea doesn’t pan out in real life. Take Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic dome: It requires less energy to heat and cool, it’s cheap, and it’s durable enough to withstand a hurricane – but it’s also godawful ugly and that was its undoing.	Sometimes a good idea doesn’t pan out in real life. Take Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic dome: It requires less energy to heat and cool, it’s cheap, and it’s durable enough to withstand a hurricane – but it’s also godawful ugly and that was its undoing.	Tue, 18 Dec 2018 14:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2018, tm_mon=12, tm_mday=18, tm_hour=14, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=352, tm_isdst=0)	47773672	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Welcome to stuff you should know from housetopworkscom. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm British Josh. There's American Chuck and there's neutral Switzerland. Jerry, which, by the way, now we're saying Switzerland. Switzerland. They just decided because it's close to the end of the year and I'm about to die of exhaustion. I love it. On the Friendly Fire movie podcast. Ben Harrison Ben, he says Nazis. Nazis? That's like kind of like a throwback. That's like the greatest Generation way of saying it. Yeah. And I know he does it as an affectation. Sure. But now I got it from him, and he got it from God. Now swear his great grandpa maybe Nazis. Yeah, that's a pretty great way to say that. There's a lot of occasion to say the word Nazi. Sure. A lot, now that you mention it. And why did you say you were British? Because I chuck say Geodesic and you say Geodesic. And we just looked it up. That's like the first time in years the lady said Geodesic, and I was like, yes, I'm right. Or in America, Geodesic. And I said, we're both right. But then she didn't say, though it was British. It could be like, whatever. South African, I guess. South Africa. Connor. Well, afrikaner is not English. Well, yeah, you know what I mean. We are so far off course already. Jerry just got ramen coming through her nose. She thought that was so funny. Thanks for the laugh, Jerry. Well, we are talking about Geodesic desic. Maybe we should just say that every time. Say them both. I'm sure people would love that. I'm going to say Geodesic, because that's what I've always said. Okay, great. I'm going to say geodesic. That's fine. We're talking about domes. Geodesic domes. And if you have ever seen a weird contraption of a circular house, a ball house, you might call it a sphere house. You've seen a Geodesic dome if you've ever been to Epcot. Sure. When he was a kid, you've seen a Geodesic dome. They're all over the place. All right. Do you like these, like, people's houses in a neighborhood or wherever? No, I don't either, but I'm not going to yuck anybody's. Yum. You know what I mean? When reading and researching, they're cool, and there are a lot of great advantages that we'll go over. But I just don't care for them. Right. Aesthetically, I don't either. And actually, if you read a quote from Buckminster Fuller, the guy who actually didn't invent Geodesy Jones, we'll get into all that. Anyway, he said one of the reasons they never took off is because they're weird looking. They just are. Wow. I'm not going to say that. You tell me later. Okay. Yeah. I just don't care for them. I'm a California Craftsman bungalow type guy, which is about the opposite of a Geodesic dome. It's pretty angular, for sure. Yeah. And the Geodesic dome is angular. Everybody puts your laptops away. Geometry, nerds but it's not rectangular. And a Craftsman is definitely rectangular. You can even make a case. The roof is not a triangle. It's a rectangle on its side. I just made that case. How's it going? Yeah, pretty good. Although I probably will never live in one. I do love a modern like, a mid century modern. That's my thing. I love it. But it's not really, like, ultimately where I would want to live for the rest of my life. Okay. So I don't want to feel like I'm in Finland in the winter or something like that. I'm talking mid century American, actually, built for a family in, like, the mid 50s, early sixty s. I love it. That has all little cool details and built ins in the wall that doesn't even really need to be there, and you can see right through it because it's like, wood spindles. Sure. That's what I like. Yeah, me, too. Not ultra modern. Midcentury modern. Yeah. Okay. Mid cinch. Yeah, that's what we call it. But you don't think you could live in one of those Craftsman guy? We'd have to get all new stuff. Like, if we started over, if our god forbid, if our house burned down and we lost everything, I could start over like that. But the stuff that we have doesn't fit. Understood. Grandma's antique bar doesn't really go in that setting. I've seen that bar, and that thing is classic. Thank you. You could put it anyway. Grandma was a bit of a boozehound, huh? Well, they didn't use it as a bar. They had, like, humble figurines and stuff. No, I saw it. It was funny. When I first saw it, I was like, oh, God, I don't really want that. They're giving it to us. And then we turned it to a bar, and it's like it's amazing what 30 liquor bottles will do. Can really dress up a homophobe cabinet. So, clearly we're talking again about geodesic dome. And there was a period in time check. Where you could go into some neighborhoods around the country and you could find well to do hippie types, environmental types back to Earther, living in these geodesic domes. And it's not like they were living in a tent. It was their house. They had plumbing and heating and electricity and all this stuff. It's just that it was a dome. Yeah. There was one near where I grew up, actually, and we would pass it going to elementary school. It was always just sort of like, yeah, there's those weirdos that built the weird house. Isn't it interesting, though, like, that had some impact on who you are today, how minute or how small. But seeing that every day or every weekday, that had to have some impact on you. Yeah. And theirs was also one of those. It was also partially underground. Even. So there was an exposed dome, but then that was sort of built into a hill. And so they were full on. They had a lot of hippie credits. Yeah. They were going for it. And looking back, they were probably super cool people. Probably. They were wearing Birkenstocks way before anybody else is wearing Birkenstocks. So let's talk a little bit about the first geodesic dome, a little geodesic history. Okay. Okay. All right. You have to go way back, way, way back to 1926. And not only do we have to go back, we have to go to Germany. Jenna, Germany. I don't know where that is. I don't either. But there is a very famous optics company called Zeiss. I do know that. Sure. And Zeiss wanted to build a planetarium on top of one of their factories, their factory at Jenna, Germany. And they said, Please build us a planetarium. Walter Bowersfield, where if you didn't know if he was German or not, just listen to his name. Feld. Feld. Even more German. Yeah. And he said, sure, let me think about this and I'll see what I can come up with. And he came up with what's widely pointed to as the world's first geodesic dome. Yeah. And it was a good idea for this project in particular because they needed it to be light, because it had to go on top of a roof. They needed to hold a lot of people. And obviously, because it was a planetarium, that interior roundness was kind of key. It'd be weird to have a square planetarium, especially if you're like, I didn't know Venus can take a corner like that. I didn't know he could do that. Right. So that's what he did. And it really worked well. It did house a lot of people. I mean, not house, but it could hold a lot of people. It can withstand storms. And these are some of the factors that make them not only popular, but a good idea, depending on where you are. Like, if you're in Antarctica, they have them there. And it's perfect for that kind of weather. Yeah. There was a period in time, which we'll see in a second, where geodesic domes were like the house of the future. It was a very good idea that never took off because everybody said, no, we think those are kind of weird. You don't feel comfortable with that. Pretty much. So Bowersfeld planetarium actually kicked off a planetarium craze. It was apparently the first planetarium on Earth, which I would make the case that you can just say the first planetarium in the universe then. Probably so. But because there were people who started to build planetariums as a result of this, judy McDonald's kind of became a thing. Yeah. But it wasn't until a guy named Richard Buckminster Fuller of Carbondale, Illinois yeah, very big deal. Came along and actually patented the geodesic dome that they really became that house of the future things that I was talking about. Yeah. And he was an engineer and a sort of a visionary thinker one of the great Americans. I think we could do a show on him altogether, I think. Agreed. But his whole jam was like well, first of all, he saw the inherent, like, good points to these, and we'll get into all those. But first and foremost, you can have a huge volume of space with very little materials, very lightweight materials, and it'd still be super strong. Right. Which is awesome. Because of this, he thought he had a higher goal in mind, which is like, the housing in the future, they don't cost that much money. They can hold people safely. And this is how we should think about housing. Right. You could build it off site at a factory and deliver it by helicopter. That light kind of put it together. But like a kit. Yes. And like you're saying, it required because it could withstand more weight, it required less building materials, which meant it was lower cost. And supposedly you could put these things like a good kit together in a day if you were really cruising along at a good clip. Sure. You got some high grade 60 speed. Give it to all your couple of friends. Yeah, man, you got me with that one. This just became plainly obvious that this is going to be the house of the future. One of the other things about it is there is no other building structure that has a larger volume of space with the least amount of surface area. Yeah. And he got this idea through looking at nature. He very famously looked at things like crystals and seed pods and things like that and thought like nature. And a lot of people do this in design. They look to nature because nature has sort of proven to get it right, usually over the years. Yeah. Like, if you look at an eggshell, you're like, this thing shouldn't withstand anything. And yet it does. And it's a very curious thing, but it sure looks like it could slip out of a chicken's butt with ease. Right. Which is kind of what it does. Like, what if it was square? It slips out of the clawaca. That's true. So Bucky Fuller, as he's known, he apparently I don't know if he wasn't aware of bowersfeld's design or something. Did you get that impression? I couldn't tell if this was nefarious. He seemed like a good guy, so I don't think he stole this idea. Right. But he was able to secure a patent. He did. And there's a really great Time article, if you can find it. It's called dimaxian American di. Maxine was a word that was associated with him. He just made up words a lot, but it tells it from 1964. It says that he was trying to figure out a geometry of energy and he was using spheres as a model of energy. No idea. But he was putting spheres together. And his idea was that when you put spheres together, they would just make a larger and larger sphere. But that's not what happened if he took a central sphere and put other spheres around it and pushed it together. And what he found was that it started to make squares and triangles rather than a larger sphere. And he figured out that what he had just come up with was actually a very smart structure, that you could take those squares and divide those into triangles, and you could take the triangles and divide the triangles into even smaller triangles. And if you kind of curve the edges of the triangles inward towards some imaginary center inside the sphere, you actually create a sphere. And technically, it's a polyhedron. And most geodesic domes are acosta Hedrons, which, if you play Dungeons and Dragons, it's just a 20 sided die. But the more you cut the sides into smaller and smaller triangles, the closer to an actual perfect sphere you get. And that's a geodesic sphere. And if you cut it in half or cut a portion of it and just use one half of it, that's a Geodic dome. Yeah. Which is what you see. Like, it's not fully round because it has to be flat and sit on something. Right. Well, actually, the spaceship Earth geodesic dome is a full sphere, but that is pretty rare. And I thought it was interesting, too, that they said that if you were just designing something on paper, you could just design bigger and bigger, and it would just get stronger and stronger. But in reality, that's really not the case. Like, when rubber meets the road, there's really only so big you can kind of get yeah, because I had no idea about this. I was roughly familiar with geodesic domes. I didn't know any details. But one thing that I was surprised to find is that the triangles are not all the same size. They have to be adjusted to make this shape, to make the circle or the sphere. So if you're putting together one of these things, as we'll see, you have to be like, oh, this truck goes here, not here, and I actually put it here, up on the top, and now I have to go take the whole thing apart again. Right, yes. The less complex, the better in practicality. But yeah, you can really mess with it to make it virtually a perfect sphere out of triangles. Yeah. And you mentioned a minute ago that and I think people that pay attention were probably like, oh, Josh is so funny, or, what did he just say? Did Buckminister Fuller make up words? Yeah, he did, because he made up another word when it comes to these domes tensegrity, which is not a good word. It's not. He mixed two words together tensional and integrity. And so that's the relationship between the tension and compression. And that really kind of describes how these things fit together and why they end up being super strong, even though. When you look at it, you're like, man, I could blow that thing over. Right? So let's take a break, and then we'll get into the actual dynamics going on. Okay, angiometry? Yes. Promise? Yes. All right, chuck, I promised. It's time to talk geometry. How did you do in geometry? I failed the first time, astor. The second time, I'm actually really glad that I failed it, because when I was forced to take it again by the man and this is high school, right? Yeah, it clicked. And I've never understood any field of math. Like, I understood geometry. I don't quite remember it now, but I understood geometry. Like, I was pythagoras as, like, brother. I wasn't quite at that level, but I feel like because I have long sort of poo poo the maths. Yeah, but you did that, right? Well, yeah, but, I mean, just for my p brain, like, understanding it, I understood geometry more than all the other math. Right. And I did okay in it for an english nerd. Yeah, good enough. It's actually completely different than anything else, I feel like, in that geometry does seem like its own thing, for sure. Very much its own. Like, yeah, there's numbers, and sigma makes an appearance and stuff like that, but it definitely seems to be it's different than algebra, I'll tell you that, buddy. Shout out to ms. Carne, redan high school. I wish I could remember my geometry teacher, the one that clicked with she was great. She was one of those teachers that was 70 years old from the time that she was 28 to the time she was 70. She was great. And then she turned back into 28. Yeah, I remember she had this polka dot it's funny the things that you remember. She had this polka dot shirt where all the polka dots were collected at the bottom, and she said that it used to be all over, but she hung it up to dry. That was her big joke. She's like, welcome to my class. It's the only joke of the year. Let's get busy. Yeah. I bet you there's one person out there who had ms. Carne and knows that shirt. Yeah. I hope it's a great joke. Ms. Carne. Okay, so we're talking geometry, right? Yeah. Do you remember our bridges episode? Yeah. Remember we talked about bridge trusses, the bridges that are made up of triangular shapes, and we said those things are extraordinarily strong because they're triangles. Yes, man triangles. Same thing here. Can't beat them. A geodesic dome or sphere is a sphere made up of triangles. And if you actually take the triangular shape and build one, in reality, it is one of the strongest shapes you can create, because wherever you press on it, it transfers that pressure, that force to the rest of the shape. So it distributes that kind of weight or pressure force or whatever you want to lay on it. It distributes it evenly. And if you put another triangle together with one triangle, it sends it to the other triangle too. And so the more triangles you add, the more a force is distributed throughout it. That's basically it. That's why it's so strong. Like what you were saying, like, you look at it and you're like, I can blow that over. You might be able to push it over and make it roll away if it's a sphere, but you probably could not break it. Yeah. And when you look at like, if you're inside one of these, it's usually covered with wood or drywall or something, so it's not as evident. But on the outside, you generally can still see this frame of triangles all fitting together beautifully to make something super strong. Yes. And apparently the strongest version of a geodesic dome or sphere is one that's actually made not just out of triangles, but out of pyramids. If you look at the Epcot spaceship, Earth geodesic sphere, it's actually pyramids. All the triangles are actually pyramids. Yeah, that's it. That's the money. Geodesic dome. Yeah. And that one, since we're on that, is interesting in that one of the downfalls and we'll go over more later, but one of the downfalls of geodesic domes is sometimes rain doesn't treat them well. Yeah, but the one at Epcot was just like, we're not even going to pretend that we want to repel the rain. They have little grooves that actually collect the rain and then send it to one of those little corny lagoons. I love those lagoons. I know. I love everything about Epcot. I haven't been since I was in 7th grade. That's great. Do they update it or is it still very much like the World of Tomorrow today? No, they've updated it. I mean, the whole thing is still like that, but there's newer stuff. There's a really cool ride, an Immersive ride called Soren, where you get lifted up and you're in front of this huge, giant, curved movie screen and you're like, Soren through the world. Like a world tour. It's really neat. Did they move your little thing around so you feel like you're you definitely feel like you're soaring through there. Yeah. That's like when they debuted that Back to the Future ride years ago. Was it like that? Yeah, you sit in the DeLorean and it's on hydraulics and it's like moving all around, but it's a movie screen in front of you. Yeah. And you're going through but it's amazing how accurate they can sync that up to where you really feel like. Right. I remember there was at one point where the car was on the edge of a cliff and it was sort of teetering and it got really quiet and then it teetered over and then the car just stopped moving and you felt like you were falling. Wow. Just because it stopped moving. Right. And if you turned around and looked backwards, you're like, everyone's freaking out and you're just sitting in a car doing nothing, but everybody's going, oh, so great. I loved it. So we were saying, like, this thing pops up all over nature. The geodesic dome did this Time magazine article put it really beautifully, that it was like Buckminster Fuller had discovered a signature of God. Whoa. This made scare quotes because around God signature, the whole thing. Since it is such like an efficient structure that can support a lot of weight, you do see it in things like eggs, cornea, the testicle, which I'm like, sure. Really? I guess so. I couldn't find that anywhere else. And I definitely typed testicle geodesic dome into Google and it didn't really come back with anything. But this 1964 Time article says it so it's so well, the dome period is a pretty strong structure. The Romans were building really big, strong domes a long, long time ago. But they don't stay strong for long. That's sort of one of the problems with the dome, just a regular dome, is that you need a lot of super heavy supporting materials and walls to keep it up, and over time, they wear out. But what Fuller did was take that sort of same principle and applied this geometry to it. Right. And these triangles that the Romans didn't think of. And the rest is history, I guess. Yeah. What he found was that when you put these spheres together, you created what he called the vector equilibrium, that outward force of the thing that's trying to collapse it. You know how if you could press down on the roof of a house, it would collapse outward to the sides? Yes. Same thing was to happen in geodesic dome. But in a geodesic dome, that pressure outward from the force of gravity makes it stronger, is actually equal to the force that's being distributed around it, the circumferential force. And since they're in equal measures, they cancel each other out. So it's just like the thing is gravity free. Yeah. You definitely see why he was like, this is the house of the future. Because they were cheap, they were strong, they were lightweight, and they distribute like heat just blows around them. Because they're around, they're really efficient to heat and cool. There are a lot of really great advantages to them. Yeah. And so I can't remember when he made his first one. I think it was at a World's Fair. Was that the Montreal? Was that the first one? No, Montreal was 67. This fare would have been in Moscow, 54. Well, that's when he got his patent. Yeah, I guess this would have been before, right around the same time, but in 59. Yeah, I guess the first one must have been Ford. The Ford plant. Yeah. The Ford Motor Company wanted covering, and he said, Well, I think this is the trick. And he built it. He was like, I can and this is what Ford wants to hear or any company, he was like, it'll be better and cheaper, and I'll get it done faster than any of these other schmucks. And so bear in mind that when Ford called them from Dearborn, Michigan, that no one had ever come up with this before, they thought since they wanted to enclose their courtyard, the central courtyard and rotunda that they built, that it was going to have to be a traditional dome with buttresses and supports and, like, heavy walls and all that. The problem was because the courtyard was so far across, I think it was more than 30 meters, 90ft across, anything that they built would probably collapse the walls of this very sturdy rotunda building. So they had a problem. And when they called Buckminster Fuller, I don't know who got in touch with who. It was pretty brazen for him to say what you said. He said that he can get this done below cost in time. It's going to be super light. And he proved the world wrong. His doubters wrong, at least when he built the first geodesic dome over it. And it was pretty awesome. Also, we didn't mention he was a freshman college dropout, so he's self taught and he just came along and showed the world of engineering, basically a brand new type of structure and incredibly elegantly, efficient type of structure. He just showed the world that could be done. Yeah. Some people are just born with, like, a certain kind of brain. That's why he deserves his own episode. For sure. Yeah. So the Ford dome was great for a while until 1962, when it was leaking, and they said, hey, this thing is leaking. We need to do some repair work. So they were doing that and they were waterproofing and weatherproofing the panels, and they were using a waterproof see through transparent waterproof sealer, but to make it easier to spray, they heated it up, which makes sense. But unfortunately, those vapors ignited from a propane heater. This thing caught on fire. And I get the idea that the whole thing was done in like, an hour. Yeah, because they sealed a lot of it with the waterproofing, the highly flammable waterproofing stuff. So when a little bit caught, those vapors caught. The whole dome caught fire. And it was made of, like, aluminum and plastic, so it just went up like a match. And they were decorating for the Christmas fantasy exhibit below in the courtyard. All that stuff caught on fire. It burned the whole roof tundras down. I imagine there's nothing more flammable than Christmas decorations in the early 90s. Not a chance. Yeah, it's really sad. Everyone got out of there, which is good, but by the time the fire department got there, it was too late. It was toast 50 foot flames. I can't imagine what that scene looks like. And it burned the whole building down. This was actually a tourist attraction. Imagine going to Dearborn, Michigan to see the Ford Dome. Yes, that's what people did. I think it seemed like 18 million visitors in, like it's 20 or 30 years of operation. And this waterproofing fix burned the whole thing down at Christmas time. So I love how this article kind of brushes over. It says, no matter, buck. Mr. Fuller's geodesic dome had shown that it could be done. Yeah, it bears a little more digging in on that, for sure. But it is true. Like, he had shown the world there's this thing and we should start making them because they are efficient, cheap, affordable and highly transportable. And apparently the next people to call was the military, because they wanted to start using them as Antarctic bases or to cover radar dishes, that kind of thing. Yeah. He very famously, too, in 1967. Now, is this the World's Fair or is this a different thing? No, they just didn't call it worlds Fair. Right. The Universal Exposition in Montreal in 67 very famously had a 200 foot tall dome, and he was really trying to push the limits of what you could do. He dreamed of enclosing part of Manhattan in a dome and saying we could give you clean air and climate control and it'll pay for itself over time because you won't have to use snow plows and all these other things that cost money. It seems ghastly, almost like a Burnsian type of idea. Well, there would definitely be a certain class of people that lived in that thing. Yeah. I doubt if he'd be like, we'll do it over all of Queens, right? Well, yeah, it was lower. It was 22nd to 62nd, I think, from river to river in Manhattan. Wow. It was going to be huge. And he did say it could pay for itself just from snow removal. Not having to do snow removal. But imagine not having precipitation ever. It's wrong. There's something wrong with that. But it really captures the can do engineering spirit of midcentury America, for sure. Yeah. I mean, you can do a cool experiment with, like a biosphere type of thing, but you don't want Manhattan covered by a dome. Yeah. All the smells, maybe topeka or something like that. And that's one of the problems, is all the smells, apparently, they just fill up that dome. There's nothing to stop it. Right. Yeah. The sewer gas accumulating at the top and eventually exploding. Yeah, no good. The Ghostbusters run around shooting off proton packs inside that thing. No good. Man. It's been a while since the GB ref. Should we take a break? All right. We'll be right back. All right, so the come along, he's been doing his thing in the this is when the counterculture and the anti mainstream sort of vibe was hitting. And so it was sort of primed for these things to come into fashion. And they did just for regular old houses. Yeah. They didn't sweep the nation. No, but there were enough. People looking for ways to very blatantly thumb their nose at the establishment. Yeah, look at my round house, basically. Yeah. And again, it does provide a lot of benefits that other ones don't. Right. So because it's a sphere and it's basically one big room. Yeah. Well, yes, but you can build rooms inside of it. You can, sure. But the air distribution is really efficient, so it's very cheap to heat and cool. I think the average number that people reported was about 30% savings in energy cost. That sounds totally made up. It does, but I saw as high as 50, and it seems like the world said, no, we'll go with 30. Sure. We'll go with the lower. That seems believable. So you've got heating and cooling efficiencies, like you were saying, because it's round, it's not trying to stop wind. Like, cool wind, hot wind when it runs into your house. If it's a rectangular house, Craftsman, midcentury modern, who cares? It runs into it. And it's going to transfer heat or coal into your house. Yes. In my case, right through my windows. Okay. Yeah. It's a great example. The thing is, you don't want that heater that cool in there usually, so you're going to have to spend a lot of money to artificially pump it out. Right. Yeah. Through AC, with a geodesic dome, the wind kind of just moves around it. It's super aerodynamic. So it's not just running into this flat surface and trying to go through it's, just like, excuse me, I'll just go around. Yeah. And that's why they're great in Antarctica. They can withstand whatever kind of weather they throw. Antarctica and I have seen some of these at the beach. Again, they're not like the coolest looking beach house, but you see them. You'll see, like, Quaint old beach house, cape Cod, geodesic dome, and then, like, McMansion. And I imagine they do very well at the beach. Yes. Because after a hurricane, if a hurricane is bad enough, you see empty lot, empty lot, geodesic dome, empty lot. And apparently it's anecdotal. But that's been reported that geodesic domes can make it through substantial hurricanes when the rest of the houses around it did not. Yeah, it makes sense. Some of the disadvantages is, like, we were joking about the smell, but it's really true. Smell and sound. If you've just got a big globe that you're inside are really going to move around, there's not a ton of privacy, even though you can build out sort of like living in a loft, you can build out rooms. But if your rooms don't have a ceiling although I guess you could do that, too. You could. But then you're like, well, like, why am I even in a day? Right, exactly. Light as well. That's a big one. Yes. Like the little light on your router that's, like, really bright at night. Imagine that just being distributed throughout your entire house. Yeah, no good. No, that's not a good one. Plus, I mean, if you look at any piece of furniture that's ever been created in the history of humanity, it's all meant for rectangular structures. Yes. Unless it's some sort of custom piece for a geodesic tone, which is very expensive. Yeah. You have to get all this stuff made yourself. And the same goes true for, like, the construction world is set up for square. Right. So fixtures and plumbing and pipes and all that stuff has to be sort of and contractors get scared away from these things. Oh, yeah. They won't come near it. Yeah. Unless you're just a specialist. Sure. And you're probably, like, the highest paid contractor in the world who works, like, once a year. Yes. But those same disadvantages are also advantages. Right. Like, you have a lot more floor space. Yeah. But sometimes it's wasted. It can be like if you've got a big long couch, you've got a bunch of space behind it that's just sitting there, a little semicircle behind you. That's why a lot of and I think this is the reason why I'm not super hip on Geodesic Jones is a lot of this stuff is just kind of out in the center of the room. Right. And it looks adrift or unanchored. That's a good thing about a wall or a corner or something like that. It provides a visual anchor to your stuff. No one can sneak up on you. No. Maybe that's why I don't like it. What's? Behind me? Do you like your back against the wall in a restaurant? No, I don't care about that. Oh, man. Do you? Yeah. Really? You a gangster or something? No, I don't think I'm going to get whacked. I just feel exposed. And Emily is very sweet. She's usually like, Go ahead and take the seat, but lately she's been like, no, that's mine. Oh, yeah. Wow. What did you do? Nothing, man. It's just the time we're living in, she's doing it. So do you sit there and turn around every time somebody comes in? The waiter comes in and I punch them. I turn around and punch them. Don't touch my stuff. Rain. We talked about rain. It can be problematic. And it says in here that flat roofs are the best. What they mean are flat roofs at an angle because a truly flat roof is the worst. It's not good. Frank Lloyd Wright did a bunch of those, and his houses could be very problematic. He had a very famous exchange. I can't remember the person, but it was some very wealthy sort of noteworthy person. Frank Lloyd Wright built him a house, and he called and complained and said, the water is now dripping onto my desk. And supposedly Frank Lloyd Wright said, move the desk. That sounds like Frank Lloyd Wright. Yeah, for sure. I don't know if that's a true story, but I guarantee it's true. Yeah. So with the shingle roof, even with the flat roof. Like a flat roof is not moving water, but it's probably not coming down. There's not as many places for it to come down with a geodesic dome. Every place where your struts, the sides of the triangle come together at an angle. At the nodes, there is a point where water can get in and actually it can get in along where one triangle goes into another. There's a lot of places for water to penetrate geodesic dome. It's a water nightmare from what I can tell. Well, it's put together from a lot of little panels. Yeah. So let's just really briefly say that so one of the reasons why people were crazy for geodesic domes is you could put them together, like we said, in a day. Yes. You can get a color coded kit. You still can. And there are companies out there that will send them to you. And you can get your friends, get some good 60 speed in a case of beer or two and build your house in a couple of days and not sleep the entire time. That's right. So when you put these things together, you're building the structure and then you're coding the structure. It can be one kid I saw as a greenhouse. It's a really great greenhouse. I bet if you've ever been on a jungle gym that was built after the know those dome ones the best, the geodesic dome. But the structure can be made from hollow tubing, two x four, whatever. It can be wood, it can be whatever. And then usually the outside, the triangles that fill in over the structure, concrete or plastic or plywood or something like that, then you want to coat it. But all those different seals or those different seams, they're all just water heaven. Which is again a big problem. Well, probably problem number one, practically speaking. Yeah, it's interesting now that I think about it. It's sort of how tent design has gone over the years. Tents used to be just like camping tents, just like triangles, like a pup tent. And then the big dome tents came into fashion. And then I think the secret was to try and make dome tents with as few seams as possible because that's where your water gets in. Yeah. And it's few poles too. Yeah, just a couple of there you go. You got your tent. You could be a tent designer. Yeah. I want to go ahead and trademark what I just said. Okay. Should we talk about some famous stones? I think we should. That's always the best part. There's the Expo 67 one that, by the way, burned as well. Oh, really? This is not the structure stayed. They turned it into a biosphere in the believe so Brendan Fraser lives in there in Polly Short. Steven Baldwin. Sure. Man alive. That's where he's been. If you look up the how do you pronounce the one in Japan? The Fukuoka Yahoo OKU dome. Oh, is that the full name? Yahoo. OKU. With an exclamation point. Because Yahoo is that the sponsor got the naming rights. Yeah. So that is a baseball stadium. But when you look at these, to me, I think of Epcot. When you look at this baseball stadium, it doesn't feel I mean, it is the Geodesic Dome, but it just doesn't feel like that kind of futuristic, highly paneled, triangular thing. Well, what's cool about it is the dome part actually retracts. Yeah. Retractable roof in like, 20 minutes. And the reason it retracts so quickly is because it's so lightweight. Comparatively speaking. Yeah. So it's pretty sweet. It's the Tacoma Dome. Yes. Which is a wood dome. That just does not sound sturdy to me. Yes. What was it? Oh, our skyscrapers episode. There was that new wood skyscraper somewhere. Why do I want to say, like, Nebraska? I thought that was Japan, too. Oh, was it? I think so. That's one of the two. Right? It's easy to get them confused. Osaka, Nebraska. They sound alike. The Tacoma Dome is where the Sonics used to play. They're like, Kevin Durant's gonna love it. Oh, man, so sad. I wonder when the team leaves. I've always wondered if they just because I know, like, when the Browns left and became the Ravens, my stepfather was like, they were just dead to me. Wait, what? Yeah, that's where the Ravens came from. They were the Cleveland Browns. The Browns aren't playing still. No, there were no Browns for years. Okay. And then they came back and said, we'll give you a team again, Cleveland, and you can be the Browns again. Got you. But Art Model literally famously packed up in the middle of the night, like their footage of 18 wheeler trucks wow. At like 02:00 A.m., like hauling stuff. Yeah, you don't want to leave Cleveland. Ask LeBron. But they were dead to him after that. And I always wonder, like, if the Falcons left Atlanta and went to Birmingham, they'd still be the same guys. I wouldn't be like, no, screw that team. No, that's definitely how it went with Sonics. For sure. Yeah. Seattle was not very happy about that. They weren't. I don't blame them. Supposedly they're going to get another team. One of the Microsoft founders, I guess. Wozniak is talking about bringing them. Really? Somebody from Microsoft is going to bring a team? They're saying? What was it? Paul Allen? I don't think so. He just passed away, though, right? Maybe it was Paul Allen. I mean, he owned the Sonic, I think, but he was from Microsoft. I'm just getting all confused now. No, I think Allen was Bill Gates partner. He died? Yeah, I think he died kind of in the last, like, six months. Or maybe Seattle is not getting a basketball team. I'm not sure. Okay. Where did they go? Oh, Oklahoma City. Right. Yeah. It's so confusing. Everyone for two half sports guys. We don't even make a full sports guy. Who's your team this season? Well, I always root for the Hawks, but it's just they're a wasteland pretty bad, so I don't even care. Yeah. Who does Schruder play for now? He plays for Oklahoma City. Does he? I thought it was a different Western team. You like LeBron in La. Sure. We should have a sport show called the Worst sports show. This is a trailer for it. What about the Eden Project? That one is pretty cool. And aren't there two of these in the one in China as well? I think they're going to open one in China. I think there's a third one they're opening, but the original one is in Cornwall. I'm sorry, canal. Cornwall in the U K. God knows how you pronounce that. I guarantee it's not Cornwall. Probably Cornwall, maybe. This one's really cool, though. This is one where you look it up and you're like, this is what you should be doing. Within geodesic dome like experimentation, they build a biome. Yeah, that's one of the points of the geodesic dome, is you can create a different climate inside a larger climate. It's a bubble. You're creating a climate bubble. That's what the Eden Project did, at least. And they have two of them. They've got a tropical biome and then a smaller Mediterranean biome. So cool. And they're just beautiful. Lots of amazing plants and waterfalls and just great stuff. Apparently. It's a wonderful tourist attraction. I would go. I totally would. I think there's also a witchcraft museum in Cornwall that I want to go to. Let's do it, man. All right. We're going road trip. Yeah, we got to do a UK tour again. Yeah. That was awesome. And then we'll detour off the Cornwall, maybe do a show there. How many people are there? Cornwall. Let us know if we should do a show there. Let's do a live show inside the tropical biome. That'd be cool. Wonder if we could set that up. We could also do one at Epcot, too. We'll do a geodesic dome tour. Can we do one inside of the castle and the magic can ask. You have connections there, right? Yeah, from Brandon. That's right. Who built my site? The Joshclarkway.com I know. I'm going to have to get in touch with him. As my kid gets older. I have to finally drag Emily down there. He will happily help you out. He's a great guy. He helped my brother out. Oh, and by the way, I'm glad you brought that up. Congratulations to Brandon and Katie on the birth of their first ever child. Oh, wow. Yes. Cooper, born into Disney Royalty. Yeah, pretty much. That's pretty great. Congrats, dudes. I wonder if Cooper is going to go up and just be like, yeah, take care of it. I go, like, twice a week. Right? This is Euro Disney. I wish it was Euro Disney. Well, that is Spaceship Earth, of course. Is the one we're talking about there that we mentioned. 180ft tall silver geosphere. Very much the central sort of shining star of Epcot. That's what everybody thinks of with Epcot. Yeah, every shirt. Well, not every shirt, but 98% 78%. Did you know that Epcot is an acronym, Chuck? I did, but I remembered that from when I was a kid, but I can't remember now. What is it? Experimental prototype community of Tomorrow. That's right. And the name of the geodesic dome is actually called Spaceship Earth, and it was directly influenced by Bucky Fuller. Walt Disney was a big futurist. That's why there's like, tomorrowland and all that stuff, and why there's Epcot in general. But not only did he inspire Spaceship Earth the name Spaceship Earth comes from a Bucky Fuller essay. Kind of a novella called An Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth. You can find the PDF for free on the web and get a pretty good idea of Bucky Fuller's whole jam. You know what I heard? I heard that very famous Walt Disney signature is not his signature and that a cartoonist designer came up with that for him, too. Perfect. I could totally see that. Yeah, I'm not affected by that. I'm okay with it. Oh, really? He's not just a big fraud now in your mind? Basically, I let him off the hook. If you want to know more about geodesic domes, go make friends with a hippie. And since I said that, it's time for listener mail. I'm going to call one of our new young fans. Got a very sweet email from Veronica. Hey, guys. I'm Veronica, 15 years old, and I'm from Indianapolis, Indiana. I just heard about Sarah, the 13 year old super fan. She's like 50 now. Yeah. Sarah. She's Miss Corn. And I, too, am a super fan. I started listening when I was nine or ten with my mom every once in a while. Then I got an ipod and started listening to you regularly when I was eleven. I love listening to the show when I'm getting ready in the morning and I'm going to school or going to sleep before bed. Every time you guys do a tour announcement. I always hope you're going to stay somewhere close, like within 2 hours of Indianapolis, but I don't think that has ever happened. Dude, Cleveland is not that far from Indianapolis. I took a break from podcasts for about two months, but I missed listening to them, so I came back and now I'm back regularly again. I just want to stop in and say hi. If I'm lucky, I'll make it to the podcast, but I don't expect it. Just keep being you guys. Because I love to learn about the four different types of cat hair. The fact that cinnamon is a type of tree bark, perfume is made from whale vomit, and uris all is what makes poison ivy. So itchy wow. My mom really likes your beard, Chuck, and she hopes that someone gives you some beard lights for Christmas. Oh, I saw those. If you don't know what they are, they're just little ornaments that you hang in your beard. Have you seen them? And they light up super festive. Do you want some? No. Okay. I cut most of my beard off. I just noticed that it looks very trim. It's sort of like the old days. Looks nice. And that is she put signed Veronica, which is adorable. Thank you, Veronica. So, Veronica, I think we should we're trying to hit the major cities we've never been to eventually, right? I think we might want to put Indianapolis on the list for 2019. Oh, boy. And give Indiana some love. Okay, fine. This year, we were like, I don't know. Salt Lake City, phoenix. And they were great. It's true. Well, to be honest, Salt Lake City came out for us. They email us. They're like? Yes, please come. We got such an overwhelming response that we're like, how could we say no? So we should go to Indianapolis. I told her if we do, then we'll put her and mom on the guest list. That's very nice. Yeah. Okay. They have a dome there. We could go to a show there where the Colts play. We could is it the Colts? What did they play? Soccer? Yes, but they came from Baltimore, who then became the Ravens. It's just so weird. Everyone's moving all over the place. Who's the great leader of the Pacers now? Great leader? Yeah, he's a great leader. Kim Jong victor. I don't know their coach. No, he's like the captain, but yeah, he's a player. I don't know. Ron artest fixer right now. Victor Borgia. Yes, Victor Borgia. Anyway, we're going to lift him, too, once. I remember his last name, because he's Victor Victoria, if you want to know. Well, I already said that. If you want to get in touch with us, you can go to Stuffyhannow.com, and you will find all of our social links there. I don't know if I said it or not already, but I got a website, too. It's called The Joshclarkway.com, and you can always send us an email to stuffpodcast@howstuffworks.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstepworks.com. Hey, it's summer, everybody, which means school's out, the sun shining, the daylights longer, and best of all, there's plenty of time to get lost in a good, thrilling story. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music, My Favorite Murder from Exactly Right media, my Favorite Murder has something for everyone. Hosted by Karen Kilgarra and Georgia Hardstark, this true crime comedy podcast will share stories that will have you wanting more before you know it. Listen to new episodes of my favorite Murder. One week early on Amazon music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen today."
https://podcasts.howstuf…sysk-parkour.mp3	How Parkour Works	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/how-parkour-works	The art of parkour is an astonishing combination of agility and physical strength pursued across the world -- but how does it work? Join Josh and Chuck as they explore the philosophy, history and pursuit of this unique form of artistic expression.	The art of parkour is an astonishing combination of agility and physical strength pursued across the world -- but how does it work? Join Josh and Chuck as they explore the philosophy, history and pursuit of this unique form of artistic expression.	Tue, 03 May 2011 17:47:24 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2011, tm_mon=5, tm_mday=3, tm_hour=17, tm_min=47, tm_sec=24, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=123, tm_isdst=0)	26500353	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"This July, don't miss an entire summer of surprises on Disney Plus with Disney's High School Musical, the series season three Zombies, three Doctor Strange in the multiverse of Madness and the wonderful summer of Mickey Mouse. Plus new episodes of Marvel Studios, ms. Marvel and National Geographics. America the Beautiful from the award winning producers of Planet Earth, Frozen Planet and the Disney nature films, america the Beautiful takes viewers on a tour of the most spectacular and visually arresting regions of our great nation. All these and more streaming this month on Disney Plus. Are you looking for an escape? An immersive getaway experience? Well, there's a place for all your wildest dreams. Perhaps you enjoy wrapping along to paperboy. Or you believe that blessed be the fruit. Or you dream of one day smashing a glass while stealing Huzzah. Whether you're sworn to Team Kim or you just want a good old fashioned mysterious murder, there's a place that has it all. From Atlanta to only murders in the building, it's all on Hulu. So check into your obsession. Hulu subscription is required. Terms apply. Visit hulu.com for plan details. Brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 Camry it's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know from housetopworkscom. Hi and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. With me, as always, it's Charles W. Chuck Bryant and we are going to sit still for this episode of Stuff You Should Know. Not me, buddy. If you are, I'm going to do some convolting. Hey, Chuck, you went to the office, right? Yeah. Okay. Love it in season six, I guess, last year. Okay, second episode. Yeah. It starts out very funny with Michael, Andy and Dwight all engaged in a little something called Parkour. And they shout Parkour like every couple of seconds. And then what struck me as funny, especially after we decided to do this episode, is that Jim explains what parkour is for anybody who doesn't know, and he cites it as the Internet sensation of 2004. So it took Michael six years to finally catch on to it. What's up? Taking us seven to finally start podcasting on it. Yes, we've been had calls for this one since we started the show. People have written in, what about Parkour, dude? Yeah, I love it. Parkour. And we know it's old. Yeah. So we're not but we've not just discovered this. And this article clearly has been on the site since about 2006 or seven because there's actually a date cited in it, like 2006. And from the extra research that we did on this, it seems like this community has strengthened, expanded and gotten more legitimate. Whereas I'm sure with a lot of the rest of the world, it's like the awe and amazement of it or the newness is worn off. But I was heartened to see that the people who do Parkour are like, well, we don't really care if you like it or not. We're going to keep doing this and they've grown and gotten better. Yeah. I think most people that I know have the same reaction, though, when they see the Parkour videos for the first time, which is pretty cool. Oh, it's very cool. Yeah. No, I'm not saying anybody just sucks. The newness is worn off for the general public. Yes. But people are generally knocked out and then bored. Right. So, Chuck, I think we should begin to begin. Right. Great song in a little island in the Caribbean known as Martinique. You ever been there? No. Don't you think I would tell you every couple of days, like, oh, I've been to Martinique. Yeah, you probably would. Yeah. It's got a pretty interesting history in some trace. The Bertha Park were back to then a French naval officer named Lieutenant George Herbert I don't think that's how you say his name. What would you say in France? Georgia Bear. Georgia Bear. What happened was the volcano blew up in 19 two there, and he was Martinique. He coordinated the rescue of locals and Europeans there and had a chance to watch people fleeing this and saw a decided difference, I take it, between some of his European comrades and the local Caribbean. Well, people are trying to get around obstacles like chunks of flying rock that had landed right in front of them and running for their lives. Something about that scene struck E Bear like, wow, this is really amazing. Well, he saw a great deal of athleticism going on around him, and he said, you know what? You combine that with some courage, and what you have is what we're going to call in America to be strong and useful. How would you say that in French, Josh? Strong and use food. Nice. What I'm saying and that's the basis of the natural method, right? Yeah. The natural method, which in French would be what method? Natural. And that inspired French military training. That became the basis for French military training. Apparently, they were the first people to use obstacle courses or what the path of the warrior parkour? DeCapito. Yeah. So you hear that word parkour with the C? I heard it. That's where it came from. Yeah. Basically, this guy is like this French physical fitness guru that you've never heard of, but really has inspired a lot of the probably cleaner cut quarters of France. Right? Yes. So that formed part of the basis for the philosophy of what came to be known as Parkour because it inspired this kid named David Bell. Right. Well, first, his father, Raymond Bell, was a soldier in French special Forces. Okay. He learned all this stuff, passed it onto his son David and said, it's pretty cool. I want to learn this. Yeah. And we left out a very important point. The natural method is basically like physical fitness. All you need is what you find in nature. If you want to do some chin ups, go find a tree branch jerk. You want to work out your upper body, push a huge rock up a hill or isometrics push against the wall. Right? And then the point of that this is the other big point. The point of being physically fit is, like you said, so you can be useful to society in case of an emergency, in case an old lady needs help. Like, you can pick her up and carry her across the street with one hand, that kind of thing. There's something to be said for that. Okay, so David bell is 15 years old. It's 1988. He lives in lisa, France, which is a suburb of Paris. And his dad's been like, check this dude out. And he is just inspired by not only e bear, but also a guy named Bruce lee. That's right. Bruce lee's fluid movements, not as rigid as a lot of martial artists were before him. It's about adaptability, adapting to the situation. Yeah, sure. Somewhere in that in David bell's brain, he put that together. He put Bruce Lee, georgie bear, and a mailbox in front of him altogether and decided to leap over it with his hands rather than walk around it. Boom. Parkour. That's parkour. He added a k instead of a c, got together with his best buddy, Sebastian Fucan, and they established a group. They were called themselves tresurs. Traceur means to leave a trail in French. Okay? Tracer is slang in Paris for a hurry. Well, there you have it. Yeah, hurry up and make a trail. Yeah, that's what you're doing. So they organized a group, the first group of parkour enthusiasts, basically called the yamikaze. Not to be confused with yamazaki, which is saint tory time. It's Japanese. Single malt whiskey. Yeah, it's good stuff. Anyway, I had it in an economy station. Chances are, if you type in yamagazi on the internet, it'll bring up the other yamasaki, and you'll be buying liquor before you know it. And then you can watch some cool parkour videos while you and bob that's right. Hey, everyone. When you're running a small business, every second counts, and you can't afford to waste a single moment. So why are you still taking time out of your day to go to the post office? And you could be using stamps.com. Yeah. For more than 20 years, stamps.com has been indispensable for over 1 million businesses, because stamps.com gives you access to all the post office and ups shipping services you need right from your computer. That's right. You can streamline your shipping process with stamps.com easy to use software. All you need is your regular computer and printer. No special supplies or equipment necessary, and you can get discounts you can't find anywhere else, like up to 30% off USPS. Rates and 86% off ups. So stop wasting time and start saving money. When you use stamps.com to mail and ship, sign up with promo code stuff for a special offer that includes a four week trial, plus free postage and a digital scale. No long term commitments or contracts. Just go to Stamps.com, click the microphone at the top of the home page and enter code stuff. Luke Bissal, famous French filmmaker made the film called The Yamikaze. Definitely kicked up the awareness about what Parkour was. Right. And prior to that, he included it in his film Taxi, too. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So that was the first time Parkour was introduced to the general public in mass media. And because Luke Peson apparently was a huge devotee very early on. So in two different movies in two successive years, he made Parkour part of the theme. Yeah. And if you recognize Bell's buddy's name Sebastian Fukan, he was the dude who was chased in Casino Royale, the opening awesome parkour chase that Daniel Craig chases this dude. Yeah. So it starts to kind of percolate into the public consciousness in the early two thousand s the late 90s, we should say. By the late 90s, there is already a rift in the Parkour community. Yeah. Communities like this always like to battle. There's always Purist, it seemed like. And then people who want to change it and take it into what they feel like is the next level. Right. Like skateboarding. Same thing happened back in the 70s. So with Parkour, the point is, if you're a Purist with Parkour, you never move backwards. Everything is for utility, and you get from point A to point B most as efficiently as possible, which often includes jumping over a mailbox. Yeah. The main rule, and this is what's cool in Parkour, is that obstacles are used to increase your efficiency. So it's not like this is something I got to go around it's. Let me use this to vault forward faster and possibly gain some momentum. Maybe trade a little kinetic energy for a little potential energy. Yeah. And then turn that into more kinetic energy. Red Bull. Well, Red Bull actually sponsored one of the what was it called? The Red Bull Art of Motion tournament competition. And we'll get into that in a minute because the Purists don't like the competition aspect. But the motto of the WFPF, which is the World Free Running in Parkour Federation, I think that was established in seven. It is no obstacle, no freedom, K, no W for both. Get it? I do now. I didn't until you told me about the K, you know, your Freedom park Court, A to B, using obstacles, never going backwards. Free running, huge difference. You can go backwards. Now, going backwards, does that mean, like I get the idea from Parkour is that you're running toward the wall and you don't stop and go, all right, let me see. I should probably go, like, here, here. You just attack the wall, don't you? I think that's the case with both of them. But really, honestly, one of the main differences is free running allows for movement backward to continue going forward, where Parkour is like, no, you have to keep going forward all the time. And free running also allows for movements that are purely aesthetic in nature right. And not necessarily just the efficiency of moving forward. Those are the two differences between free running and Parkour flair. If you think that's stupid, well, the reason behind it is that there was a rift or separation and ideals between David Bell and his WFPF puts it, his then best friend Sebastian and Fukan. Yeah, they fell out, I guess. I think they're still buddies, but basically Fukons like, no, you can move backwards. And bell's like, no, you can't. And they were like, well, it looks like we have a problem here. Probably that's where free running came from. It split off from parkour. I bet you there was a little bit of, well, I founded it and you are in Casino Royale. Well, that came after so that split was in the late 90s. So that really cemented it then. Yeah. And then a lot of people are like, fucon is a big sell out. He's in ads, he's all flash and everything. And apparently that argument doesn't hold much water because David Bell has done quite a bit to bring Parkour into the public consciousness. Specifically, he introduced it to Britain in 2002, I believe. Right. With a BBC short. Yeah, Rush Hour. Did you see it? It's pretty awesome. Yeah, it's very much like an ad. He's sitting in his apartment and his clothes and then he gets up and takes his shirt off, of course, and strips down to the running pants and then just climbs out his window and takes off. And there's traffic going below and he's zipping all over the place like a parkour expert that he is. And then he eventually gets back in his apartment and sits back down the couch and it's like, yeah, I'm done. And so they show that on BBC One and everybody was like, what was that? That was awesome. And then they found out, well, wait a minute, the people actually do this. This guy is real. And that was the birth of Parkour, I think, a year later. Urban free flow, which is like the de facto British wing of Parkour and free running. Free running, yeah. For some reason, my brain just glitched and I was like, that's not right. Well, and almost immediately, kids started getting hurt because they didn't I don't know if they didn't realize, but Bell had a decade of training, of learning this craft. We're creating it. Creating it. And then teenager saw Rush Hour and like, let me go out and let me try to scale a wall. And there were a couple of deaths. There was one recently, actually, in California, right, in Sacramento in 2009. The kid was into Parkour and he died from falling off of an eight story parking deck. Yeah, we should have front loaded this, but this is where we say parkour can be very dangerous if you don't know what you're doing. It can be very dangerous even if you do know it. Yeah. It requires a high degree of skill with gymnastics, possibly martial arts. Yeah. If you look at Sebastian fukon, the dude is ripped. He's probably going to be able to hang on to a ledge with one hand if he really needs to. I can't the average twelve year old doesn't have that kind of upper body strength. Exactly. But the average twelve year old is the one who's like, really fascinated with this. Yeah. And if you are fascinated and there are a lot more it's been legitimized to the extent that there are a lot more training facilities, indoor padded things where you can practice this kind of thing. So you don't just go out and hit the streets and start jumping off of buildings. That's right. We would not advise that. No. All right. So, Chuck, I think in the public imagination, there's a lot of comparisons with skateboarding. Right. Other kids, like, they're right there in front of the courthouse and they're skateboarding, and they're not using a skateboard, but they like to be doing the same thing. Apparently. Especially parkour purists find this very offensive. That's not offensive. I don't think it's offensive either. Using buildings, same deal. They're basically like, no, skateboarders are bad kids. We're good kids. We're doing this so we can be useful to society when the time comes. Skateboarders are great kids. Agreed. And Josh like skateboarding. In the 70s, once the popularity increase, it started to be thrown, or prostituted, if you will, onto like, ads and TV shows and corporate events. They listed that. I did not know corporate events hired parkour people. Corporate event. If you got enough money to do everything. Okay. There's this great show of Bruce Hornsby playing for the food Jetsu corporations like Christmas party, and it's awesome. It's like an hour and a half long Bruce mornsby show, and he gets increasingly drunker to where he does a little and improv diddy about his scotch. Really? Yeah, it's really great. If you can ever get your hands on that bootleg, it's worth it. Well up in the air, which I know you didn't care for, but when they had hired young MC, that one corporate event to perform, that was pretty funny. Bus to move. Hey, everyone. When you're running a small business, every second counts, and you can't afford to waste a single moment. So why are you still taking time out of your day to go to the post office when you could be using stamps.com? Yeah. For more than 20 years, stamps.com has been indispensable for over 1 million businesses. Because stamps.com gives you access to all the post office and ups shipping services you need right. From your computer. That's right. You can streamline your shipping process with stamps.com easy to use software. All you need is your regular computer and printer. No special supplies or equipment necessary. And you can get discounts you can't find anywhere else, like up to 30% off USPS rates and 86% off Ups. So stop wasting time and start saving money. When you use stamps.com to mail and ship, sign up with promo code stuff for a special offer that includes a four week trial plus free postage and a digital scale. No long term commitments or contracts. Just go to stamps.com, click the microphone at the top of the home page and enter code stuff. Alright? Yes. Like skateboard. Also like skateboarding. Once competition started to be mentioned, Purist said, no, it's not about competition. We compete all the time against each other on the streets, man. But we don't need no metal, we don't need no judge. But like anything, Red Bull was like, oh yeah, what about this stack of money? Red Bull and Barclay world free running championships. MTV has a show now, of course, called Ultimate Parkour Challenge. The Pirates still aren't too happy about most of that, to be honest. There's a lot of complaining going on on pork or boards. And here we are representing both coasts, east and west. That's right. Let's talk about the moves. Let's do it. You want to talk about the cat leap first? Yeah. There's a few standard moves. So the cat leap is basically like, say, close your eyes unless you're driving right now, say you are on the edge of one five foot parking deck. It's 5ft off the ground. And then there's a gap, five foot gap in between it and the edge of another parking deck, which is 7ft off the ground, a wall in front of you. So let's say you're like, well, I think a cat leap would be best for this. What you do is you run off of the first parking deck, jump the gap, grab the ledge of the second parking deck and hit it with your feet. Just plant it right there on the wall and basically you're just hanging off the side for a nanosecond before you use the momentum to pull yourself up with your arms and jump the rest of the way onto the next parking. Yeah, very catlike. It's used to get onto a higher object than you're currently on. And it's a good way, that's much better place. The role very common. You've seen stunt guys do this forever. They jump off a building onto a lower building, and they always absorb the shock on their legs. They tuck and roll. They absorb it in their shoulder instead. Exactly. Tuck and roll, cover the head, pop back up and keep going. Because it's all about Ford movement with parkour. Yeah. Whereas I would jump off, I would land, probably break my ankle, vomit, and then later, until somebody found me. That's what Chuck would do. My favorite, as you know, is the Kong Vault. Oh, the conglomerate is the coolest. It's the coolest. It looks like what apes do. In the jungle, you run up on, let's say a wall and you leap forward and you push yourself off with your hands. Plan with your hands and don't let your legs touch at all. And just follow on through. And there's double cong rolls where you tap twice. There's triples even. We saw a quadruple in a gym. So basically when your hand is touching that wall, your body is laid out behind you. It's like you're diving toward it almost exactly. But you have like your two hands about just a little ahead of your shoulders. And then right when your hands touch, you bring your legs up basically through your chest and the wall. And then you just bound away. You vault away. Hence the name cong vault. Looks very animal like. And one of the early practitioners said that he noticed that it's like witnessing an animal in the jungle. Very aggressive. That's one of the goals of Parkour is that you can basically move as quickly and fluidly as an animal. And instinctually too, is what I understand. I will never know that sensation. No, but it's what I understand is the goal. You get the precision jump, which is pretty easy. It's basically like a standing broad jump. Just jump from one place to another. Yeah, but that's if I want to jump on that little two foot section of wall. Like you don't have the benefit of a role because there's nothing else there. And then the speed vault. Yeah, that's easy. I like how we do that. How any kid has ever jumped. Like a chain link fence. You just put one hand down and throw your feet the opposite side over. And I guess with Parkour, the difference is that you're doing this much more quickly. Yes. And you keep running. And those are just a handful of moves. There are many more junkatta like moves that you can do, like side wall runs and sliding. And people now are doing those little half flips, adding a little flair to it. I guess the Free Runners are pretty cool. So Chuck, let's say that you are listening to this. You're like, I have tons of upper body strength. I am 18 or older and no regard for my wellbeing. Right. And I'm really interested in this. Where would one go to find out more about Parkour or to learn Parkour? You go to a jam. Oh, that's one place that's when they get together and hit the streets. But if you want to learn, like I said, you can go to there's gyms all over the country now. There are there's academies where you you can can share pay. If you go to parkour Comgroups, you can look up basically people who are doing it in your area. And that's probably one of the most recommended ones, especially if you don't have any cash to shell out because you're going to learn in the context of other people who know Parkour. No more than you do. And so you'll learn. You'll learn safety as well, but you'll be challenged, too. And then, yes, there's academies as well. There's videos everywhere. Everywhere. YouTube has at least six different channels according to parkour.com of just parkour videos. And basically you want to wear a helmet at all times. You want to wear knee pads and one of those big sumo guy suits. I see a park where people wearing any of that stuff. Beginner. Okay. Yeah, beginners. You should always do that. Also, I should have probably mentioned at the beginning of this that by downloading this episode and pressing play, you immediately forfeited any rights to us or any of our parent companies. You'd be careful out there. Yeah. You know what my goal in life should be? I want to do a successful con leap. It's not going to happen. I want to do that. Dude, I will watch you try. I'm fast. I will watch you try anytime. I'm a lot faster than you would think. Let's go. Right now. I get these little legs pumping, and I get my upper body leaning in the right direction. Okay. And it's pretty funny. I will watch you and leave remarks about my cat like speed for a guy with a few extra pounds on him. Okay. I want to see this. I'm going to learn this. Okay. I want to practice, too. I don't want to see the final result. I'm going to perfect it. I want to see everything leading up to that. Now, you're not going to do I'm going to learn it in secret. And then next time we're in New York, I'm just going to bust it out one day and you're going to be like, that would be very surprising. I look forward to that day. All right. You too. If you want to learn more about parkour, type in P-A-R-K-O-U-R not with the C, because then it wouldn't be down at the street into the search bar. HowStuffWorks.com? And I said, search bar. I didn't say handy. Either way, it still brings up listener mail. That's right, josh, we're going to call this in the winter is because you and I have to decide. Did you get this from Matt from England? He and his wife, twisted couple. When you put me on the spot like this it's okay. I know you read it. Hey, guys. Philippin, great podcast. I love it. I'm a watch commander in the fire service here in Leeds, England, and my wife is an ane nurse. It's an entertainment. I think that's emergency room in England, maybe. I'm guessing because she sees some weird stuff right now. We have always tried to tirelessly one up one another at the end of each shift, which was the worst story of the day, because they both see odd things, odd and horrific. Generally, we tie on things like car wrecks, fires, burn victims, suicides, and by the way, I'm acutely aware of how sick this is, but it's the spice that keeps our particular chili going. That's what he said. Yeah. The only ones he's talking shopping about work. Sure. Basically the ones we really compete with are the extra disgusting ones. So here's a conundrum. On the last tour, I was sure I had a winner. We had to assist a morbidly obese gentleman from his house onto an ambulance gurney. Upon moving his portly frame, I felt something land on my leg. I couldn't initially jerry is getting grossed out already. I couldn't initially see what it was because my hands and face were pressed firmly into the mushy flesh at the time, but I could hear the intakes of breath in gipping noises from the firefighters on my shift. I don't even know what a dipping noise is. On inspection, it turned out that nine inches of this man's intestines were draped over my wet legs, stuck for what to do in such an instance. Should I push it back in, carry it with me, tuck it into his pocket? I opted to shuffle with him to the ambulance and then gently peel it free from my leg and set it beside him, making sure to break with the awkward silence with here you go, mate. You better take this with you. Regardless of this incident, I was sure I had my wife beat. And then she hits me with this. A guy walked into her triage department, pulled his pants down and had the tail of a fish sticking out of his rear end. Evidently it had been frozen and then fought out. I get the feeling this is one of those dock it was a million to one chance type of thing and when it bought out, the bone splayed out and it became stuck inside of his butt. So, boys, I need your help. Which one wins? Which is worse? Chuck. This is much like comparing apples to oranges. In some ways they are similar. They're both roundish, they're both fruits. But then they have many distinctions. The apple skin is smooth. The oranges are speckled. The orange is orange color. The apple is generally red, although it can be yellowish or green. You never see an orange apple, I guess is my point. I'm going to say that while they're both extremely interesting, both entirely gruesome, the fish story yes. Is far too comical to win this one, in my opinion. I think the man's intestines coming out and having to be put back in by hand with a gentle here you go, mate is by far the winner. I agree. I feel like judge on hudgeman all of a sudden. We render our verdict and we are going with you, Matt. You are the winner. Matt. And leads England. Congratulations for enduring the intestine on your leg. Yes, definitely. And he said anytime, if we're ever in Leeds, he will let us ride on the fire truck. Awesome. I would take him up on that. I would do. Yeah. So we really should have put that one after the decapitation podcast, if you ask me. Yeah, it would have been fitting either way. If you ever accidentally stumbled upon something, say, in your attic or at a yard sale that turned out to be extremely valuable, we love those stories and want to hear them. Send them to us. You can post them on Facebook. Facebook. Comstuffyshno. Twitter. Right. S-Y-S kpodcast. Or email it to us. Stuffpodcast@howstepworks.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit Howstepworks.com. To learn more about the podcast, click on the podcast icon in the upper right corner of our home page. The house upworks. iPhone app has arrived. Download it today on itunes. Brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 camry. It's ready. Are you? Summer school's out. The sun is shining. The daylight is longer. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music that's so good it's criminal. Morbid. Part true crime and part comedy, Morbid takes you on a journey from murderous mysteries to major laughs, all in the same week. Hosted by autopsy technician Elena Ercart and hairstylist Ash Kelly, this chart topping series will have you hooked before you know it. Listen to new episodes of Morbid one week early, only on Amazon Music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen today."
http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/netstorage.discovery.com/DMC-FEEDS/MED/podcasts/2008/1216921713205sysk-blushing.mp3	Why do people blush?	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/why-do-people-blush	Blushing from embarrassment is governed by the sympathetic nervous system, which governs involuntary processes. Although we know how people blush, we still don't understand why. Check out the theories of blushing in our HowStuffWorks article.	Blushing from embarrassment is governed by the sympathetic nervous system, which governs involuntary processes. Although we know how people blush, we still don't understand why. Check out the theories of blushing in our HowStuffWorks article.	Thu, 24 Jul 2008 17:58:02 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2008, tm_mon=7, tm_mday=24, tm_hour=17, tm_min=58, tm_sec=2, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=206, tm_isdst=0)	6725605	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know from housetopworkscom. Stuff you should know is brought to you by Visa. We all have things we like to think about. Online fraud shouldn't be one of them, because with every purchase, visa prevents, detects, and resolve online fraud. Safe, secure Visa. Hi, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, a staff writer. Here@housestuffworks.com with me is my permanent co host. We just got the news. Chuck's here for good. Charles, Chuck Bryant. Chuck, welcome. I hope you enjoy that seat, because you're not getting mine. That is your seat. I do. It fits my back end well, and I'm glad to be here. I hate to tell you this, but your fly is open. Well, maybe you should do something about that. Yeah. Sorry you guys can't see this because this is just an audio podcast, but Chuck is blushing with embarrassment. I've never seen Chuck blush before. It's okay, Chuck. I won't judge. I know this is not a locker room now, so I want to prepare for that. Handle your business, and we'll wait a second. Everything's good, so check. That actually brings to mind an article I wrote, why Do People Blush? Did you prep for this podcast? Did you read it? I did. It was a good one, Josh. I thought it's pretty interesting. Blushing is one of those things that people probably don't think about very often. Everyone blushes, and it's exclusive to humans. Yeah. That's odd, isn't it? No other animal on the planet that blushes. Exactly. But we know how we blush. But we don't exactly know why we blush. Yeah. And isn't that weird that something is ubiquitous and seemingly normal is actually abnormal? You want to tell the folks at home how we blush? Yeah. Well, it has to do with the old sympathetic system, which is also what controls the Fight or Flight syndrome. Or not syndrome. No. So the Fight or flight response. Right. I wanted to say that last time, too. So fans of Stuff You Should Know will probably be familiar with our podcast on hysterical strength. Right. Which I know all about. The fight or flight response. Yeah, it's the same thing. Your veins and dilate, and more blood gets pumping, and your pupils get larger, and then all of a sudden, you find that you might be able to throw a lawnmower off your granddaughter like Boots did. Hello, Bootsy. Hello, Boots. So, yes, one of the other things is that your blood vessels dilate, right? Right. Which is the case in blushing. Right. Except the thing is, the blood vessels in your cheeks actually become flushed or veins. And oddly, veins don't usually respond at all to adrenaline. For some reason. The veins in your cheeks, too, and those are the only veins in your body that flush or dilate when your fight or flight response goes off. What the heck is that? Yes, well, it's kind of weird because it's what everyone would see. If your knee caps blushed. No one would ever know if you're embarrassed. That's true. So it happens in your face for maybe for a reason, maybe not. But there are some theories about why we blush. Like what? Well, one of them is that it is, in fact, on the face so other people can see it because it's a form of public apology for a faux pas you might have had. Or if you stuck your foot in your mouth. Your blushing is a way to kind of be contrite and say, I'm embarrassed and I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that without actually saying that. So it's like a physical example of your emotional intellect. You're saying, I'm aware of this. Don't beat me, start a fight with me. Right. Sort of like the same thing that happens. Like if your dog hikes his leg on your dining room table and you walk in the room, it's a very good chance your dog might lower his head and kind of back out of the room slowly. Or roll over and show its belly. Yeah, show its belly. It's kind of a similar thing. I got you. Okay, now, I don't buy that one. I think it's kind of a clumsy theory. It's not my favorite. I've got a favorite theory with blushing. You want to hear it? We'll be that way. Josh, I'd love to hear yours. My favorite is NPA. It's the obscure theory about human personalities. And the theory is that all of them are created based on a foundation of narcissism, perfectionism and aggression. Right. And all personalities can be explained through these three outlook or views of life. There should be a balance between the three, and the more balanced it is, probably the more normal you are. People who have almost just one exclusively tend to be schizophrenic, that kind of thing. Right. That's no good. No. Well, you know so with MPA or under the MPA theory, blushing is actually a fight or flight response. But you're actually becoming enraged. You're not embarrassed. Right. Your narcissism has been affronted. I got to tell you, as a narcissist, the MPA theory really makes sense to me. Yes, I felt that way before, too. I think the rage a little less sorry. A little more than the embarrassment. Right. Yeah. So, I mean, maybe we're just confusing it. Who knows, really? At this point, as far as we know about blushing, you or I could come up with a pretty adequate theory for it. Right. Maybe we'll publish one soon. Maybe so. But the fact is we all blush. There's no denying that. Exactly. Now you can learn more about it on Howstep works.com by typing why Do People Blush? Into the search bar and stick around after this message for Chucks in my top five articles of the month right after this. Stuff you should know is brought to you by Visa. We all have things to think about, like, say, what's the best site to buy a new leather jacket? Or whether to buy the three or six megapixel camera? But thankfully, we don't need to think about online fraud because for every purchase you make, visa keeps an eye out for fraud with real time fraud monitoring and by making sure you're not liable for any unauthorized purchases. How's that for peace of mind? Safe, secure Visa. Thanks for sticking around. We're going to treat you with Chuck's in my favorite articles of the last month. Chuck, what's your first pick? My first pick, Josh, is how important is sleep? Very interesting article. I got one better than that. How Body Farms Work. Gross. Yeah, that's a good one. What else you got? I've got one called how the Prison Project Works. Also very interesting. Yeah. Erie, it's amazing how quickly humans can evolve into monsters. That's a very cool story. I'd like the one you wrote, how to Survive a Plane Crash. Yeah, that's a popular one, too. I guess people are interested in living through plane crashes. Exactly. And I guess the last one I have on my list is did DA Vinci sketch a car? Yeah. All worth reading. Of course, everything on our site is worth reading, but you want to go check out these five in particular on howstepworks.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit houseworks.com. Let us know what you think. Send an email to podcast@houseworks.com brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you? Hi, everybody. I don't know about you, but I am excited that it's summer. School's out, the sun is shining, and best of all, there's downtime four days. That's where true crime podcasts on Amazon Music come in. They're the perfect activity for last minute road trips, long walks, or, if you're brave enough, late nights. With so many killer shows like Morbid, my favorite, Murder in Small Town Murder, you'll never be bored to death again. So download the free Amazon Music app to start listening to all your favorite true crime podcast. Plus, with Amazon Music, you can access new episodes early. Download the app today."
21dc5158-28bb-4d5e-90ed-aeb4014a9766	Short Stuff: HR8 Gun Legislation	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/short-stuff-hr8-gun-legislation	Today we dive into HR8, a gun bill supported by 90% of Americans that will likely never get through the Senate. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.	Today we dive into HR8, a gun bill supported by 90% of Americans that will likely never get through the Senate. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.	Wed, 15 Jun 2022 09:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2022, tm_mon=6, tm_mday=15, tm_hour=9, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=2, tm_yday=166, tm_isdst=0)	14345758	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Picture this, friends. You could be packing a carry on for a trip to Hawaii when you realize you're going to need a bigger bag. But it's cool because you booked your flight with your City Advantage Platinum Select Card so you can check a bag for free on domestic travel and still have room for those souvenirs. And surprise, those souvenirs also earned you Advantage Miles. Actually, you earned Advantage Miles and loyalty points with each swipe. So let's start dreaming about your next next adventure. This could be you, and you could be anywhere with the City Advantage Platinum Select Card. Learn more at citi comAdventure and travel on with cityadvantage. Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh. There's Chuck. Jerry here in the saddle for Dave, and this is Short Stuff. Like I said. That's right. We're going to try and get through this next twelve minutes without our brains exploding and without screaming into the microphone and without receiving death threats when this episode comes out. That's right, because we are talking about HR Eight. It is the Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2021. It is a bill that originated in the House in the United States to try and close loopholes on gun purchase background checks. And we thought this might be a good way to dip our toe into the gun debate after the events at Uvaldi. And here we go. Yeah, the Uvaldi shooting is definitely, if you paid any attention whatsoever to the news, really kind of breathed some energy into the concept of background checks and some bills that were already out there like that. HR Eight, the Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2021, was introduced in March, and now all of a sudden, it seems like it's got some legs like it didn't have before because of that shooting, which is surprising to me, Chuck, because we didn't do anything after Sandy Hook. Somehow, I don't know, maybe two is too many now, who knows? But it does seem like the zeitgeist is kind of shifted after Uvaldi. Yeah, I think so. Just nuts and bolts of the bill. It passed the US. House, like you said, last March, 227 to 203, but of course died in the Senate, as so many bills do, because it gets filibustered by the Republican Party and they won't even talk about it. And there's a 50 50 chamber right now. We want to thank Patrick Kyger at How Stuff Works for this newsy article again. And Democrats wanted to I think they were hopeful that they could at least put it on the Senate. Democrats on the legislative calendar, that has not happened. But let's talk for a minute on how people buy guns in the US. When you buy a gun, especially if you buy a gun from a federally licensed gun dealer, they say, Here, fill out this form. And this form is submitted to the National Instinct Criminal Background Check System. And it has a bunch of different questions on it rather personal questions, but they make sense when you're buying a gun in that context. They say, have you ever been indicted for a felony? Have you ever been convicted of a felony? Have you ever used drugs? Have you ever been committed to a mental institution by a court order? Or have you ever been dishonorably discharged by the military? Have you been convicted of domestic violence? Are you a legal resident of the US? Are you going to fill this out? And then the firearms dealer is going to turn around, contact the FBI's Nic s service, and they're going to run a background check on you that's right. And see if everything checks out and if you are eligible to buy that gun. This was created in the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act because if we all remember, after Ronald Reagan had an assassination attempt on his life, there was gun legislation and they actually did something back then about it, including Ronald Reagan and Republicans. Well, yeah, because Brady was one of his staffers and he was paralyzed as a result of that assassination attempt. And so any gun control legislation that came after that usually bears his name. That's right. We are in a different place these days. It's a different Republican Party. And save your emails. We're not just picking on one party over the other. This is just straight up facts on how these bills go down. A lot of people and eventually we're going to get around to an NRA episode in full. I guess a lot of people will know what a lot of people will blame the NRA. But I personally believe, and I've seen articles sort of backing this up these days, that the NRA has already sort of done its job. And even if they went away completely. Things would still be about the same. Because what they have created is a situation where a more moderate Republican who might be in favor of common sense gun legislation that anywhere from 60% to 90% of Americans are in favor of. Won't even consider this legislation because they want to hold on to office because they will get primaried out by a further right Republican who says. I will not touch any gun legislation. So vote for me. And that's kind of where we are today. Yeah. So back to background checks. Like that NICs service started in 1998. There just wasn't background checks before then. And since then, they've done 300 million plus background checks for gun purchases. So that means that at least 300 million guns have been sold legitimately since 1998 in the US. And of those 300 million check, 1.5 million were flagged and were denied the ability to purchase that firearm because they didn't pass the NICs background check. And so on the one side, a lot of people say 1.5 million out of 300, that's pretty good math. On the other side, they say, yeah, like a bunch of that one, 5 million people were denied unfairly. It was ungrounded. There is a process to appeal your denial if you are actually denied. But the point is, as society is saying, there are certain kinds of people that we don't trust with firearms, and we're trying to root them out. And the best place to root them out is when they go to buy a gun. It makes sense, but there's a loophole to this that is so huge that anybody, including convicted felons, can walk right through it and purchase a gun on the other side. That's right. We're going to take a break, let you ponder that ridiculousness, and we will talk about that loophole right after this. What if you were a gigantic snack food maker and you had to wrestle a massively, complex supply chain to satisfy cravings from Tokyo to Toledo? So you partner with IBM Consulting to bring together data and workflows so that every driver and merchandiser can serve up jalapeno, sesame and chocolate covered goodness with real time, data driven precision. Let's create supply chains that have an appetite for performance. IBM let's create. Learn more at IBM. Comconsulting what if we could change the world one relationship at a time? Don't miss the second season of Force Multiplier, the award winning podcast from iHeartRadio and Salesforce.org, which is out now. Yes, listening it's host baritonee Thurston connects with leaders and doers out there tackling some of today's biggest challenges, like climate change, education, access, global health. You'll hear from organizations like the Trevor Project, doctors Without Borders, and the University of Kentucky who are using their platforms to maximize their impact. You'll also be introduced to action leaders like youth activist Juan Acosta and advocate Amy Allison, who are inspiring change in their day to day lives. So join them as they discuss new ways of collaborating and taking action. Listen to the second season of the iHeartRadio and Salesforce.org original podcast, Force Multiplier on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcast. All right, the big loophole is that there is a lot of gray area of what constitutes a licensed or a non licensed gun dealer. They talk about occasional sales or purchases being exempt from the background check requirement, and there is no real clear line establishing what that even means. It's a rule of thumb. It's very vague that someone who just sells a lot of guns and they want to make their living selling guns or make a profit selling guns, yet not even make a living make a profit selling guns has to be licensed to conduct these background checks. But you've heard about gun shows and the Internet and things like that. If you sell guns at a gun show, you can claim to not be like, hey, I'm just an occasional seller. I just go to these gun shows and sell tons and tons of guns for profit, right? And that enables people to walk in there and buy a gun without having any kind of background check. Yeah. So if you sell guns, you're still selling a gun. But if you say, I only do it occasionally, the government basically has to say, oh, okay, you don't need a license, and there's no requisite, there's no definition. Like you said, it's a very gray area on what constitutes occasional or who is required to have a federal license. But if you aren't a federally licensed gun dealer, that means that you can go sell a gun without doing a background check. In 2015, that's the most recent stat we have. The estimated 22% of gun owners bought their weapon within the previous couple of years without going through a background check. It is undoubtedly bigger now because whenever there are mass shootings, there is a rush on buying guns in the United States. People don't back off from buying them. They buy more of them. So I don't know what the percentage is now, but even if we go with 22%, that's a lot of people buying guns without a background check. Right. So if you're a person who you know that you are going to be like, you're going to be flagged by the NICs background check, all you have to do is find yourself a gun show or go on the Internet and find somebody who's selling guns on the Internet and buy from an unlicensed firearm dealer. And that ends up and like I said, with background checks, we're saying society doesn't want certain people to have we don't trust them with firearms. And one of those people are, again, convicted felons. They're not legally allowed to own a firearm in the United States after they've been convicted of a felony unless I believe that they are granted clemency by the President or the governor. Right. So there's kind of an unnerving stat then, that ties into that, and that is that in that same 2015 Annals of Internal Medicine study, they found that 96% of prison inmates who had been previously prohibited from owning a gun, and that was the gun that they used in the crime that they were in prison for. Now they'd obtain that gun from an unlicensed seller, and that is a big problem for every law abiding citizen of the United States. Right. And every law abiding gun owner, frankly, they're citizens too. That's right. If you're thinking like, well, there should be exceptions to this. You should be able to hand your gun down to your child if you're a hunter or sell your gun to your uncle instead of them having to go to a gun shop, they can do that. They have carved out some exceptions in HR eight that still hasn't passed. Law enforcement, obviously, could transfer guns without background checks. Family members could gift them to family members or sell them to family members. You could inherit a gun without a background check or like in the movies, if the zombies are coming in and you throw somebody the gun and they go, I don't know how to use this thing. And they say, Just point it at them and squeeze the trigger. You can even do that and not have to face a penalty as long as after the zombies are killed off, they say, here's your gun back. Right, because anybody can agree the zombies would get to you and eat your brain during the background check process. It's not that fast. So they carved it out, especially if there's a ten day waiting period, which is another House bill that might be voted on in the Senate soon, along with HR Eight. Right. This is not when it comes to polling the American public. This isn't something where it's like it's like 54% to 46% in favor of poll after poll. Comes in April 2021. Kinipiac University poll. Kenneth, how do you pronounce that? Kenneapak okay, a lot of polls, it's one of those for sure. 89% of Americans favored universal or nearly universal background checks. 2021 poll in March from Morning Consult was 84%, including 77% of voting Republicans. And then a 2018 Gallup Poll. The criminal criminal polls sure found that Americans favored mandatory background checks by 92% to 7%. The role of our elected officials is supposedly to act on their constituents desires, but again, this is not happening because of the things that I mentioned earlier. No, and again, I think it really bears repeating, there's nothing about closing the gun show loophole for background checks that is, taking guns from people who have guns, preventing legal, law abiding citizens from buying as many guns as they want under the law. It's simply saying, we're going to shut down this huge loophole that allows people who shouldn't have guns to go buy guns as many as they like. And yeah, that's just common sense. That's extremely mainstream thinking, and it doesn't violate the constitutional rights given by the Second Amendment in any way, shape or form. And again, it has the backing of the public. And so again, it's about to go die in public. They actually tied a blindfold around it and gave it a last cigarette as they're shoving it out into the Senate and it's just not going to go anywhere. But Joe Manchin apparently was quoted as saying he believes that the Uvaldi shooting is going to impel the Senate to actually start cutting deals and that something will get passed even if it's not exactly HR Eight. Yeah, I'm reading this on an hourly basis, and there are bipartisan talks that seem promising. So we'll see. Someone in Congress was quoted as saying, like, I've been here for many years and I've never seen this genuine bipartisan conversation about this in my life, in my whole career. So it does feel like things might be a little different now. But yeah, we'll see. It's also possible that nothing will change. Again, I know it's hard to even talk about, quite honestly, and I don't think anyone is full enough to think that this and other gun legislation laws will completely stop something like a mass shooting or in gun violence. But it is something that can help curb these horrific acts. And these people in the Senate will have to live with themselves for the rest of their lives if they continue to sit on their hands. For sure. You got anything else, Chuck? Nothing. Chuck said nothing. Short stuff is out. Stuff you should know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts my Heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio app apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows."
https://podcasts.howstuf…k-skywriting.mp3	How Skywriting Works	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/how-skywriting-works	Back in the 1920s, skywriting was invented to communicate with troops, but it quickly found its footing as a popular way for companies to advertise. Learn all about the aerial acrobatics and mental skill it takes to write mile-high letters backwards.	Back in the 1920s, skywriting was invented to communicate with troops, but it quickly found its footing as a popular way for companies to advertise. Learn all about the aerial acrobatics and mental skill it takes to write mile-high letters backwards.	Thu, 09 Oct 2014 13:48:58 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2014, tm_mon=10, tm_mday=9, tm_hour=13, tm_min=48, tm_sec=58, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=282, tm_isdst=0)	32522729	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Welcome to stuff you should know from housetopworkscom. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles Lee took Bright and Jerry's over there, who's the only well, one of the three of us. Yeah. This is cool. Crazy cray. You and I are both sick at the same time. Yeah. I'm getting over mine and sounds like in the throes of yours. I am. Yes. In the Fleming thickness of it. And it's the stuff you should know. That's right. It is written in the sky. It is. Or in the stars. Yeah. Well, now, you can't do that at night. No, but you could. They tried to make it yeah. Glow in the dark. Yeah. You saw that, too. Spoiler. Yeah. So we're talking about skyriding. Yes. Right. And I was trying to think back, Chuck, if I have ever seen something written in the sky, I'm like, Surely I have. You've never seen a Skywriting message? I have. I've seen pictures of them. Sure. Plenty. Like, you weren't like, what is this? I'm trying to remember back toward childhood, which is when I probably would have seen it. And I just can't quite place it, but I have a vague recollection and nothing. It's me standing and there's grass. But then I'm like, look up, dummy. Look up what's in the sky. I just walk off and eat a dandelion. This is actually my idea as an article. We're flooding the website with new material now, which is great. Yeah, man. And I pitched this, like, five weeks ago. Not even bam. And here it is. Here it is. I thought you knew. This is a good idea, Chuck. Thank you. I found this fascinating. Did you know much about it when you pitched it? Or have you seen a sky written message recently? I think I got the idea from the great comedian Kurt Bronnower did a Kickstarter in May to do a Skywriting message, and I think his quote was, It's so stupid, and I love doing stupid things. And thank God the Internet loves stupid, too, because they funded it and he let people vote on what to do, and they chose how do I Land? And he had that written above the skies of Los Angeles and got some attention for it. And it was a funny little gag. And Kurt's a great guy and a friend of the show, so that's where I got the idea, because I started wondering, how in the world do they do that? Like, I've seen them before, but I thought, when you're up there on the plane, it's got to be pretty tough. Spell something out to massage the clouds over, to beat them into letters. Right. That's how they do it. Correct. That's not how they do it. No, that isn't how they do it. They use a certain type of oil and some high horsepowered planes, and it takes a tremendous amount of skill, which is why it's not much of a surprise that it finds its origins among World War I flying aces. Apparently, the Royal Air Force there was a guy named John Clifford Savage who, I guess invented Skyriding for military purposes. Yes. And back then, I think there were several things they did with it in the military. One was to give messages when you're out of like radio control because I think you can see messages for like 2800 sq mi. Yeah, there's a little tricky math to it, but they say that on a clear day, if you're standing on say, the Great Plains or something, you can see a skywritten message or something like 30 miles. And if you take into account all those 30 miles and multiply them what did you say, like 2800, 2000 square miles. That's a lot of exposure. Yeah. And if you're in World War One, your walkie talkie back then might not have gone that far. So they would send messages and apparently they would also use it to cloak ships, I guess fly around and just cloak them in cloudy smoke. Yeah, good protection. Because what you're doing when you're writing a sky message is basically, I guess you're basically just flying parallel to the ground. Right? Well, I mean it's aerial acrobatics you're spelling with your plane. So you're Loopsy, loop, and you're doing all sorts of crazy stuff. Yeah. So after John Clifford Savage invented this, like within a couple of years after inventing Skyriding, somebody's like, you know, who would love this? Companies. And companies have money. That's right. So let's charge them money to advertise their stuff in the sky. And a dude named Captain Cyril Turner was the first person, I think to write a skywritten advertisement. Yeah. And I think he was I don't know if it was his original idea, but he seemed to be doing this as a proof of concept. Like, let me write Daily Mail, the British newspaper. Let me write that in the air and see how that works. And then later he went to the United States later that same year and said Hello USA over Time Square and then call Vanderbilt 7200, which is the hotel phone number where he was staying. And apparently the next two and a half hours he got the switchboard lit up. Literally. You can say that because it was the 1920s and they got 47,000 phone calls in just a couple of hours. And I think that was his way of saying this is going to work. Yeah, exactly. This is advertising. And it got the attention of some people, some companies pretty quickly. Lucky Strikes very famously got into Skyriding for advertising. Basically anybody who was anybody with a company back then was doing Skyriding because the other stuff you had was the side of a barn. Right. Maybe some radio advertising. But Skyriding, for the amount of money it costs, you could get a lot of exposure in ways you just normally couldn't. And Pepsi was starting out at this time. And they bought into Skyriding so enormously that the company and Skyriding are kind of they go hand in hand in a lot of people's minds. Yeah. In the 1930s, they didn't have as much money to advertise on the radio I'm sorry, from the they went all over the US. Cuba, Mexico, Venezuela, Canada. But that was their main form of advertising. Yeah. And the New York Times at the time, they thought the skies were going to be littered like polluted with ads and they called it celestial vandalism. And they predicted intricate pictures and colors and glow in the dark, like we said. Yeah. But none of that really came to fruition. No, it didn't. There was pretty good reason to kind of worry about this in Pepsi alone commissioned 2000 Skywriting projects. And for kind of more in the history of it, there's this good article called What Happened to Skyriding? That was in the Atlantic. That's worth getting to, by the way. But the thing that undid Skyriding, the answer to that question is television. Yeah. Period. Television advertising came in and thanks to our friends at the Nielsen Company, you could really kind of target and tailor your ad in ways that you couldn't before with radio. And for the amount of exposure you got, it was definitely worthwhile to save your money for television advertising and funnel away money from your Skyriding budget. Well, it seems silly now, but it was like a legit form back then of advertising. And as it points out in this article, you have to have ideal conditions as well. It's got to be a clear sky, can't be cloudy, can't be rainy, can't be too windy. So there was a lot of things that radio and television offered. Like it doesn't matter what the weather is like. Right. Basically, I mean, your reception is still going to suck. Well, that's true. People can still probably hear what you're trying to say. Yeah, that's a good point. And actually, Pepsi, I guess it's 50th anniversary or something like that, they commissioned one of their former Skyriding pilots to go find some plane, the type of plane that was used for Skyriding. And this guy found like the plane, one of the main planes that Pepsi used for its Skyriding campaigns because it was so deep into it, it maintained its own aerial fleet. Right. And this guy found it and they started another Skyriding campaign for another like 20 something years, I believe. Yes. It started in the 70s with the Mary Mi Sue commercial. Did you happen to watch that? No, I didn't get a chance to do that. Yeah, I remembered it when I saw it, which was from 1979. So that was the first startling thing that happened to me today. And you know how commercial Spectator just so like ham fisted, like it's this cowboy at a barn trying to propose to sue his wife, of course. And it's all act it out, but it's got music over it. So she's like, what are you doing? And he's like, oh, just wait. And she sees the word Mary. And she's like and then she sees, Marry me. And she's like, what? And then she sees her name, sue. And she's like, what? Yes, of course. And then they kiss, and the barn catches fire. Now they're outside. Okay. Barn. The barn. Oh, they said, Bar, I'm a little stocked up. Got you. But it's great. 70s commercial fine. I recommend watching it on the YouTube. It would have been great had the Wicked Witch of the west flown in and written Surrender Dorothy over Mary me, sue, because that showed up. Remember she sky wrote with her room? Really? Yeah. I don't remember that. I guess it was shortly after, which is about the gold standard, but I think shortly after she discovered her sister had been smooshed by Dorothy and that Dorothy was in Oz, and she jumps on her broom and flies up and surrendered Dorothy with it with black smoke. Was she, like, farting that out? She's squeezing flying monkeys, that broom exhaust that we all know about. So let's talk about how to Skyrite right after this. Chuck. Yes. They say in this article, but probably they in general, that Skyriding is a lost art. It takes a tremendous amount of skill, and it's been so underfunded over the last few decades that there's literally a handful of people, maybe four, five. How many people fit into a hand? Well, it says in here four people. I found that hard to believe. But the article also points out that it's a lost art because you can't learn it unless you learn from someone who does it right. And so few people do it these days. It's just a closely guarded secret. And back in the day, they wouldn't tell anyone because competition among pilots, they would keep their little secrets to themselves. You can't get on the Internet and learn how to Skyride. Yeah. There's not a handbook or anything like that. And we should say we're talking Skywriting. There's something separate called sky typing, which more people are involved with. Yeah, but for free hand Skywriting. There's seriously possibly four to six people in the world that know how to do it. Yeah, well, these days, too. I looked at a couple of the Skyriding websites. I think there's probably only two. Right? And it's Skyriding and Bannertowing, which is the big thing now, crop dusting. So you got skyridingcom and skyriding net, I would imagine. Yeah. And that's what you see more these days. If you want to add or marry me, Josh, you're going to attach it to a banner and pull it behind your plane instead of that stupid smoke stunt. And actually, one of the people interviewed, one of the very few people who know how to free hand Skyride, which is kind of redundant. It's Skyriding is freehand. Sure. She met her husband, who was a banner tower and taught him how to skyripe. She was a Pepsi smokeriter, and when she got a hold of her husband, he was just some backwards banner tower. She's like, I'm going to teach you a skill, friend. He's like, but all you do is hook it up here and fly. Right. She said oh, just wait. Oh, you're talking about that? He thought banner towing was, like, the difficult yeah, because he was crop dusting before that. Right. But Suzanne asbury Oliver and her husband, Steve Oliver, I believe they're possibly half of the total number of people who know how to skyrocket. Isn't that crazy? Yeah. And they're married. It's all in the family. Yeah, the secrets in the family. So these planes are going about 150 miles an hour. It's pretty fast. And in order to if you've ever seen a skyritten message, it looks a little like a child has drawn it because they're riding it with a plane, and it's just very difficult to do. Right. In fact, the word Pepsi itself apparently takes 17 different maneuvers, and I think, like, 14 smoke releases just to make those five letters. Yeah, that's pretty tricky. Right. Even before that, though, you have to have perfect conditions. Like you were saying, the whole thing starts at about 10,000ft up, because up there, it's cold enough, sometimes it's humid enough that the smoke will stay together. Right. So it will last as long as, like, 20 minutes under ideal conditions. Plus it can't be cloudy, or else your stuff just kind of blends in with everything else. Marry me, Blob. Right, exactly. So you have to have ideal conditions first, and then after that, you have to get in your little air Acrobatic plane. So they used to use I think the Pepsi plane was a traveler is what it was called. All right? That was the company that made it. And it's now in the National Air and Space Museum by Dulles, which is well worth the visit. There's a space shuttle there. There's SR 71 Blackbird. There's a lot of really great stuff there. And apparently there's a Pepsi plane, too. But Suzanne, asbury Oliver says that she uses a chipmunk now, which is a small, light, very highly maneuverable plane with a high horsepower. That's another key. Sure. Because with high horsepower, you can generate a lot of heat, and you're going to have to generate a lot of heat up there because you need to burn off your oil. Yeah, it's a paraffin oil, liquid paraffin, basically. And it needs to, in order to reach that smoke point, needs to hit the engine at 1500 deg, and then it is just spit out through the exhaust. And I think the letters themselves always wonder from the ground, like, how big they are. Apparently, the letters are about a mile high, and once the smoke expands, about 75ft wide right. Which is bigger than I thought. Yeah. I had no idea they were mile high letters, but 10,000ft, that would make sense. And Pepsi can be the word. Pepsi. It can be up to about 5 miles across. Crazy. Yeah. And so when you're doing this, you have no frame of reference. Like, you can't see what you're doing. As the author of this article points out, julia Layton says, it's basically like drawing a picture in the dark and backwards. And backwards. That's a very good point, which I didn't understand why they had to do it that way. Because the way you're flying, the ground is below you, but the people looking up at the message, the sky is above them. Yeah, sure. I guess that makes sense. So when you're writing Pepsi like this, if you were beneath, it'd be backwards to you. Right. So since you're doing it for the benefit of the people on the ground, you the skywriter has to write the whole thing backwards. They probably learn that the hard way a couple of times. Yeah, I would guess they're like, Hello, USA. Backwards. What does that say? Yeah. Apparently there was one guy I read in that Atlantic story in New York in the early days that did such a bad job, he landed and went back up and drew a line through his message and started over. Yeah. I like that, though. Yeah. I was wondering if there was a technique for flying through your old letters or whatever to break them up and start over, but a line will do it, too. I never thought about that. It's a good idea to make these letters. You're using the ground. Anything you can on the ground is like a frame of reference. Like, streets in some cities form a grid like pattern. So in an article I read, they basically said that's kind of like using lined paper. Yeah. You also can use the shadow on the ground that's reflected by the clouds to kind of show yourself, like, okay, that letter looks good. I can move on to the next one. But you're also using timing. Sure, too. So, like, for example, to make the upright in an F or P or an L or something like that, you're going to hold your smoke trigger for like 15 count or something like that. Right. And you'll know what that's going to look like. I mean, a lot of practice goes into this, too, for sure, because that's just one streak, right. When you have to go make the rest of the P or an R or something. That's very difficult. And Suzanne, asbury Oliver points out, writing Chinese is extraordinarily difficult. Like in the sky. Yeah. I wasn't sure what she meant by that. I think she meant in the sky. Really? Yeah. Man. I thought she was just equating it with writing Chinese on paper or something. I don't know. She's the best around. All right, so once you have written this message, if it is on a good day, and it's not super windy, you might get 20 minutes out of it. Usually less than that I've seen anywhere from like eight to ten before it starts to dissipate. And you can see it for a while, too, once it dissipates. But on a good day, what you're paying for is not a lot of time exposure time. So that's why back in the day they used to do over things like Times Square or sporting events, of course is where they do the banners now. Same idea back then. And like we said, Chuck, they use a paraffin based oil and they have a reservoir tank that usually holds something like 30 gallons, which is 114 liters for our friends outside the US and Liberia. And that's enough typically, to write about twelve letters. Not much, no. So these messages are typically fairly short, although there is one that's way more than twelve letters, and I couldn't find out, but it seems to me, from what I've seen, it's got to be the longest Skyriding message ever. The one that John Lennon and Yoko Ono commissioned over Toronto. Oh. Is it over? Toronto. Over Toronto? War is over if you want it. Happy exmus. They saved a few bucks there from John and Yoko. The only thing I can figure is they might have had a couple of planes at work, maybe, because that's way more than twelve letters. Yeah. I mean, if the thing sticks around for 20 minutes, I would guess they'd have to use more than one. And then over Austin in March of this year, that had to be for south by Southwest. Sure. The first several hundred digits of pi. So they must have had a couple of planes over that, too. Pie in the sky. It's going to cost you some money. In the article it says $5,000, but I saw the other website, maybe they're undercutting said that they started about one. $500 for the most basic message, which is just an, I guess, and it goes up from there. I know kurt Browneller raised. Like I said, about $6800. That's not bad for a lengthy message like that. Yeah. How do I land? Yeah, the Kickstarter. Apparently the founder of Kickstarter heard about it and was in town and delayed his trip an extra day because Kurt had a big party on a rooftop. Nice. And he stayed and went to the party just to, I guess, say like, this is what my company has become, or I had something to do with this too. Yeah, probably so. And if you're worried about what is being used for smoke, like we said, it's tariff and oil and it's actually non toxic biodegradable. It's a good stuff. And if you're like, hey, Skyriding is polluting, but I'm cool with air shows. Well, I have an eye opener for you, pal. They use the same stuff at air shows. That's right. And if you are a pilot, like, say you're a crop duster and you've got a little dabble in chipmunk. And you want to get into this because it seems like a good time to be getting into Skyriding. It's also the worst time to be getting into Skyriding, but it will cost you anywhere from three to six grand to outfit your plane to be able to do this. I mean, you can make that back in a couple of messages. Maybe one. Yeah, that's not bad. Yeah. If John Lennon hires you. I don't know if that's going to happen anytime soon. No, but Yoko still could. She's still around and kicking. That's true. We saw her in New York. In person? Yeah. No way. Way. What, just like walking? No, at a restaurant. Holy cow. That's a big one. It was a huge one. Yeah, very neat. Or if you're shy, of Labouflaboof. Oh, yeah. You know that guy? That jerk? He's not famous anymore. His bag says, so he had the Plagiarism scandal earlier this year. I didn't know what that was about. He did some I think I'm not sure exactly what he did, but he supposedly plagiarized Daniel Close a graphic novel, like pretty heavily, and he was just killed for it. For what? Did he have a graphic novel? No, I think he did. Maybe it was a play or something. I can't remember exactly. But he was called out, and nobody likes that guy anyway, so people are ready to pounce on him. Anyway, so he spent 25 grand to hire Skyriders. One that said, I'm sorry, Daniel Close, or Klaus, I'm not sure how it's pronounced. And then another one that said, Stop creating, because if you're a creator, they're going to come after you, I guess 25 grand. And I believe those were digital Skyriding, which is we're going to get into that right after this. So digital Skyriding, the wave of the future. Yeah, the wave of the future that originally originated in the yeah, I was really surprised to see that. So remember how we said there's, like, sky writing, which is freehand. There's also sky typing, which is basically like dot matrix printing, but in the sky. And in the guy named Andy Stennis, whose family is still involved in sky typing, they run one of the bigger sky typing companies. As you can imagine, he invented this process where you would use multiple planes, and they basically just fly across a patch of sky straight in formation. So kind of like you remember that chalk holder that you would make, like the music stripes? With music stripes, yeah. I think they use it when you're first learning cursive, like lined paper or if you got in trouble and you had to write something all over the chalkboard, you could just use that thing and knock out, like, five at once. I totally forgot about this. This is like that, but with planes. And in the 40s, Andy Stannis was like, I'm just going to put five planes in the service together. We'll fly in formation in one direction. We'll all go back and fly above that in the opposite direction, and then above that back in the original direction. And then you print out basically a message that way. So you're building it from the bottom up or the top down, going from side to side just like a dot matrix. Exactly like that. Yeah. The thing is, though, is it's going to look neater than your hand drawn one. It's not going to look like a five year old drew it. Well, especially since in the 60s, they introduced computer programs that control it too. Well. Exactly. And it's little puffs of smoke, like the matrix. So the computer controls it. The pilot just flies the plane. It's got the message all loaded into the whole program, and it knows when to burp out those little puffs of smoke five at a time, and then back and forth and back and forth until you've got whatever your silly message is. Hi le boof. Right. So if you're making a mile high message and the five planes are flying in like a half a mile wide formation, then one passes, they're going to make the bottom half of Pie or stop creating or something. Then the next pass will be the top half of it from one side to the other. And then you got a perfect, very nice, like you said, very clean sky typed message. Yeah. And you can still see the dots. I mean, it puffs out, but it never quite connects like a skywritten message. And I guess now, think about it. If you pay 25 grand, that's five planes at five grand apiece, right, which is the minimum price. So I guess that makes sense. Yeah. That's one of the main reasons sky typing is so much more expensive. You can get way more letters out of it. Like when they did Pie in the sky in Austin, they did, I think, a couple of hundred of the places. Wow. After the decimal, that's a tremendous sky type message. I wonder who paid for that. I'm sure it was like Google or somebody. Probably they got deep pockets. But that's one of the reasons why it's so expensive, because you have to hire five or more planes. Like it's a minimum of five planes. Yeah. You might need more than that. Yeah. And I think who wrote this one? Julia Layton says that the digital Skyriding requires less piloting finesse. I guess that's one way of saying it, because you're not doing loop D loops. But if you're flying five at a time in formation, right, that's some piloting finesse. It is piloting finesse, but they're not doing, like you say, a loop de loop to make the top part of an R. They're just basically flying in formation. And then some computer is measuring exactly like their altitude and their distance in relation to the ground and spitting out a puff of smoke to form these letters, like they're not doing any of the writing. Yeah, but it's still it's better than I can do, I'll give you that. Yeah. And there's predictions that Skyriding is making a big comeback, so much so. And I found this interesting. Microsoft did you see this? Where they got a virtual Skyriding patent? No. This is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. They got a patent where you can send in a picture of a blue sky and tell them tell them the message you want and they will insert a fake Skywriting message into your photo and you can show people, like, hey, I got a photo of a Skywriting message. That's not real. It's cheating. That's going to ruin the industry. Maybe, but apparently the picture that they used to get the patent awarded was of a real skywritten message that was actually copywritten. I think it still went through, even though they had infringed on a copyright to get the patent. And I don't think they've done anything with it yet. There's not an app yet, but no, I would know about it if there were. Look out for it in the future, my friend. You might be able to fake you me out. Yeah. Say. Look at this photo. And she's like, that's weird. But usually people just walk you outside and show you the thing. I would say, no time for that. Just look at the photo. We're a busy couple. And it does sound like there is something of a future for Skyriding, thanks to social media, because there's the novelty of a skywritten message, like a real one, not the Microsoft fake out one. Like, how do I land? And you've got things like Instagram and Twitter. So people are like, oh, check this out. What somebody did over the sky of Austin. And all of a sudden, something that was visible to everybody at south by Southwest is visible to the entire world. Well, that's how Kurt Brownellers blew up. It was on Reddit, and like, weeks after he had done it, he got a little bit of press and then it popped up on Reddit weeks later and he got a whole new round of press and did interviews about it. And it became a nice little comic stunt for Roll Kurt. Now he has a car. That's right. You got anything else? I have nothing else, sir. Okay, well, if you want to know more about Skyriding, this article commissioned by Chuck, you can type Skywriting one word into the search bar@housestepforce.com and it will bring it up. Since I said search bar, it's time for listener mail. I'm going to call this another Vulture Vomit revisiting. That's the gift that keeps on giving. Yeah, we did a podcast a while ago on vultures and how their defense is to vomit on you. And it happened to this guy, which is kind of neat. Hey, everyone. I'm a bit of an. Amateur speed lunker. A few summers ago, I made the precarious climb up a cliff to explore a cave overlooking a river. I had a friend with me, as you always should for such adventures, but the narrow ledge only allowed for one of us at a time to get to the mouth of the cave. So I went first. I got in to the cave, and the droppings in foul stench let me know that it was a vulture nest. But nobody seemed to be home. So I ventured a little deeper and found, to my surprise, a nest of hissing, angry little vulturelings. Those are adorable. I bet they are. They were as aggressive as they were fuzzy. And the biggest one tried to challenge me and chase me away, which I thought was really cute. It's the big brother. Until I heard a thump behind me in a much louder hiss. I turned around to see that Mama had returned and her bulk blocked almost the entire entrance of the small cave. I decided to make a fake rush and yell to scare her away, and when I did, she reared her head back and projectile vomited. Oh, my God. Getting me in the side of the face. Oh, man. I have to tell you guys, no other chemical deterrent in nature compares to vulture vomit. I was shocked for a moment, and when I caught the whiff of the disgusting mess running down my neck and into my shirt, I basically went mildly insane. I pushed past the vulture, leaped from the cave and slid down a tree growing next to the cliff, tore off my shirt, and jumped into the river in a mad dash to get away from that smell. Despite a good washing in the river, I still sank and I had to ride home in the bed of the truck. That, my friends, is why you should never scare a vulture. And that is from James Ashford in Springfield, Mizu. Nice. Thanks a lot, James. It's funny how vulture vomit will focus the mind. Yeah, I bet it's. Have you ever been skunked or been super close to something that's been stung? I've driven on the highway through skunk. Not the same. I've never been anywhere near it. Now, yeah, our dog Lucy got skunked when we lived in La. And I woke up I might have told this before I woke up in the middle of the night, and this was during post 911. I thought that someone had set off a dirty bomb. It doesn't smell like it does on the road. It smells like the harshest, most bitter, like, acrid chemicals in the air. And I was tasting in my mouth and I was like, we've been attacked. We've been attacked. Yeah, because there's something almost like, vaguely pleasant about, like, young smell far away. Yeah. I love it, but actually see how it would just make you lose your mind? It is not the same thing close up. Burn your skin or anything? No. It was really gross, though. I mean, she smelled for. We gave her the tomato juice bath, which is supposed to help. Did it work? It sort of masted a little bit, but it basically just has to wear off over the course of days and days and days. It was really rancid. Did you, like, shaver fur or anything like that? No. I thought about it. It was so gross. That is very gross. Yeah. I didn't know there were skunks in La. That might be the fact of this podcast. They're all over the place. Skunks, coyotes, mountain lions, and smelly dogs. This is a wild place. Tomato sauce dogs. Yes. If you want to tell us a story that has to do with one of our old episodes, we love hearing about that, especially if it brings up a counter story by Chuck, you can tweet to us at syskpodcast. You can join us on Facebook. Comstuffyshonow. You can send us an email to stuffpodcast@howstuffworks.com. We have an Instagram page. We have a pinterest page. We got it all, everybody. And the whole thing comes together at our home on the web stuffyshow.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstofworks.com. Ah, summer school's out. The sun is shining. The daylight is longer. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music that's so good it's Criminal Morbid. Part true crime and part comedy, Morbid takes you on a journey from murderous mysteries to major laughs, all in the same week. Hosted by autopsy technician Elena Ercart and hairstylist Ash Kelly, this chart toppings series will have you hooked before you know it. Listen to new episodes of Morbid one week early, only on Amazon Music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen today."
https://podcasts.howstuf…sk-migraines.mp3	How Migraines Work	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/how-migraines-work	Most people know what a migraine headache is -- some from painful experience -- but there's a lot more to this "neurobiological condition" than an achy noggin. Josh and Chuck explore the symptoms, triggers and mysteries of migraines in this episode.	Most people know what a migraine headache is -- some from painful experience -- but there's a lot more to this "neurobiological condition" than an achy noggin. Josh and Chuck explore the symptoms, triggers and mysteries of migraines in this episode.	Thu, 16 Dec 2010 17:03:53 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2010, tm_mon=12, tm_mday=16, tm_hour=17, tm_min=3, tm_sec=53, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=350, tm_isdst=0)	28109078	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Hey, everybody. If you want a great website, you want to do it yourself. With no must, no fuss. Turn to Squarespace. They have everything to sell anything. They have the tools that you need to get your business off the ground, including ecommerce templates, inventory management, simple checkout process, process, and secure payments. And if you're into analytics, hold on to your hats, because Squarespace has everything that you need. Just head to squarespace. comSK, and you can get a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use offer code s YSK to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. What if you were a global energy company with operations in Scotland, technologists in India, and customers, all on different systems? You need to pull it together. So you call in IBM and Red Hat to create an open hybrid cloud platform. Now, data is available anywhere, securely, and your digital transformation is helping find new ways to unlock energy around the world. Let's create a hybrid cloud that can change in industry. IBM. Let's create learn more@ibm.com. Brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 Camry it's ready. Are you? Welcome to stuff you should know from housetopworkscom. Hi, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. With me, as always, is Charles W. Chuck Bryant suffering from what looks like a headache. I just did that one. Okay. I was method podcasting. I know. And I was falling for it on purpose. So what's your witty intro? Because this is a fan request. One of our oh, is it? Superfan Buddies? Yeah. Cooper. Chuck. Oh, is it? Yes. Does he have migraines? Cooper? Well, say his name. Aaron Cooper. He didn't mind. He's all over the place. He has been asking for this podcast for a couple of years, and I finally wrote him today. I was like, Merry Christmas, jerk. Yeah. Can you imagine having a migraine? That's bad enough. Having a migraine in Kansas is, like, a million times worse. And having to listen to us to make fun of it? Erin requested this, and I just want to go ahead and say aaron has the auras, which we'll get to. He has alternating sides that they occur on. Sounds pretty since he was a kid. And he has his triggers food based, sometimes sugar, caffeine, water. And he has his treatment now, which is when he sees the aura, he knows it's coming. Two excedrin migraines, dark room and water and nap for, like, an hour and a half. And he says he's gotten way better at saving them off. Good. So that's koopa said it would feature you. So there. Now give me my money. There's the introduction. Is it really? I'm glad you did that because I had none. Okay, great. Yeah. Welcome to the podcast, Chuck. Yes. Well, let's talk about migraines. It sounds like, from what you just described, cooper is sadly a pretty typical migraine suffering that you have to really pay attention to. It yourself, figure out what works for you, what triggers it, when it's coming, and basically treat yourself. Because doctors don't really have much of an idea of what migraines are. We know that they're not headaches, because headaches are caused by vasoconstriction in the brain. Tightening of blood vessels, right? Yes, that is right, chef. They used to think that migraines were caused by vasodilation, just the opening of blood vessels in the brain. Right. That's still a common factor in migraines. But that's not the only piece to the puzzle. Right? Yeah. Like you said, migraines typically focus on one side or the other. They seem to be passed down among families. If one of your parents had migraines, you're about 50% more likely. And if both of your parents had them, you're 70% more likely. Now you are 70% in trouble. Yeah. Did you not your parents had them all? Did they? Have you ever had one? No. You don't get them? No. And I seem to remember my mom or my dad saying that they had them, but it may have been a cluster headache. We'll get to those later. There's other things. Ten times likelier that. It was your dad that said that then, because men are ten times more likely to get cluster headaches, but women are more likely to get migraines. Right. Like 18% of women get migraines and 6% of men. That would make women three times more likely. Yeah. That's in America. At least twelve to 24 Americans have migraines. 24 million. There's 100 homeless people worldwide. Correct. And this is the general overview. They can last anywhere from a few minutes to some reports of years without stop, which can you imagine? No. Why would you be alive still? Yes, exactly. I can't imagine that even an hour would be horrible. But years, days, months is horrible. I don't get headaches much at all, but when I do, I'm not a happy camper. No. Loss of vision, vomiting, tremors, stroke like symptoms. These are what migraines can do to you. Right. And you hit upon something with that last one. The stroke conditions or stroke symptoms. Yes, the migraine. It's been taken out of the realm of headaches and has recently been reclassified as a neurobiological condition. Yes, it's a big deal. And the stroke symptoms, you talk about some migraines, some type of migraine sufferer from these stroke like symptoms, like they have cognitive impairment, like they can't recognize words. All of a sudden, their arm will go numb. Yeah. They can't talk correctly. And when that happens, there's a migraine to come in, right? Yeah. There's a set up. Yes. Oh, also triggers. That's a big one, too. Yeah. There's always a trigger, and we'll talk about the triggers in detail, but they can vary it's all according to the person. They're different for everybody. Right. So here's what we know so far is going on in the brain, right? Yes. There's some sort of trigger, and we'll talk about triggers, but let's say the example used is you didn't eat like you normally do. Yeah. You didn't get out for lunch at noon. Right. And something in that lack of routine or changing routine sets off the nociceptors in the brain pain receptors. The nociceptors release chemicals called neuropeptides. And neuropeptides are unique. They're neurotransmitters, which means that this is how one neuron communicates with another. They create the electrochemical impulse that creates the language of the brain. Right. You know a lot about this stuff now. I do. Well versed in the the brain, my friend. Yes. And this is where it relates to migraines neuropeptides. These proteins can be a neurotransmitter, or they could be a neuromodulator. And a neuromodulator can turn the volume up or down on the transmission of other neurotransmitters. Right. In this case, these neuropeptides turn the volume way up on the pain receptors in the brain. And so all of a sudden, you start to experience a headache like you've never had before in your entire life. Yeah. Basically makes these pain sensing cells way more sensitive than they ever would have been. Right. The neuropeptides also, for some reason, relax blood vessels in the brain, which causes the vasodilation. But they also think that this is what causes the auras. Oh, really? Yeah. Now, the auras I don't even think we said what that is. It's like sort of a hallucinogenic visual thing that happens. Lights, lines, blurry things, common one, and they will proceed. It's a warning sign. Like migraines are coming maybe 30 minutes, maybe a day, but it's a coming. Right. So that's what auras are. Right. And they think that that comes from this vasodilation in the brain. Like, basically, your brain is just doing something screwy because all of a sudden, there's a lot more blood flow in it. Maybe something's getting pressed on, something's getting a lot more oxygen. It's overworking. Who knows? Well, they can also cause leakage, actual leakage. Right. And that makes the tissue around the brain swell in your skull. So you have a lot more oxygen, you have leaking blood vessels, you have these auras, and you have this cascade of heightened pain reception in the brain. And there is your migraine, as far as we understand it. Now, this is the most recent thinking of what migraines are. Some guy just told us this like 30 minutes 30 minutes ago. Hot off the presses. Yeah. And since we mentioned triggers, we should talk about this for a second. They can depend on they're not even the same for everyone. As Cooper pointed out, they can be different things for him. Like, sometimes he said caffeine will trigger it. Sometimes a lack of caffeine will trigger it. Right. It seems like a lot. The one constant in migraines is that they are triggered by change. Yeah, true. Do you like that? Yeah, that's really good. Thanks. So, like, food related? Some say that caffeine, alcohol, cheese, gluten, nuts, soy, MSG. They can be triggers. Smells. Strong smells with strong smells, like sauerkraut onions, cologne. You get an elevator with somebody with really heavy perfume. You might get off full water with an aura happening. Yes. And you're going to be like, curse you Snoop Dogg. They can be behavioral, like we said, if you don't get enough sleep or if you didn't eat on time, or if you're stressed or maybe you just had sex, or you're not having sex, or you're not having sex, that's a real bummer. You exercise too hard or you don't exercise enough, so you never can't tell. That's what makes migraines such jerks. No. And this is we should say, like, all of these are the characteristics, the symptoms of all of the migraine sufferers in the world. For one person, there might be no sex anchovy caffeine sufferer. That's my Friday night dude, right? Yeah. There's also hormones. Yeah. And that's why they think that women might have more than men because of hormonal changes that women experience that men do not. Right. And there's a lot of correlative evidence thank you. Among that implicate hormones in migraines, like migraines typically start after puberty in women, right. When the hormones really start kicking in. Yeah. They are very rare in women after menopause. When hormones are depleted, they actually can come about again. In post menopausal women with hormone replacement therapy, they can correlate with menstruation. Yeah. And when a woman becomes pregnant, has been pregnant, the migraines often subside or just go away completely. Right. So there's something to that. Oh, yeah, there's a lot to it. The sad thing is we have no idea what it is. Right. There's some poor schmo out there having a migraine right now, and there's nothing anybody can do to help them right now. Well, maybe the dulcet tones of Josh Clark and his earbuds will make that go away. You think? Maybe. Because there are environmental factors that can make them happen, so maybe they can make them go away. I think that the dulcet tones of my voice would cause a migraine like a flashing light. Like, remember the Nissan Pulsar? Do you remember the brake light went they actually had to slow the pattern because people were having seizures, apparently. Really? That is probably an urban legend, but it's a good one that I remember from the sounds very much like an urban legend. Loud noises, strong smells, like we said, weather pattern. Like rain. Yeah. Rain is a big one. Either when it's about to come on or it's just changed, subsided. Especially when it happens quickly. Eg. The summer. The change in barometric pressure, I suspect, has a lot to do with that. Josh, what are the types of migraines? Well, Chuck, there is the classic migraine. We're going to start with the second first. Okay. There's the classic migraine that is preceded by an aura of some sort. The head pain comes on and you're in big trouble. Right. There's also chronic migraines, which are arguably among the worst. More than 15 a month. Yeah. Basically a lot of classic migraines. Right. Common migraines. This is migraine paint with no aura. Yeah, no aura. This is like a burger king of horrible headaches, isn't it? Like, however you want it. Yeah. But they did say that the common migraine, though, while you may not have an aura, there might be feelings of euphoria or cognitive problems signaling, like, here to come in. Right. Which is so depressing if you think about it. Man, I feel great. And then you think, oh, crap. There are I'm sorry, ocular migraines, which you get rs symptoms without the pain of the headache, and they can just be like 30 minutes and they go away. So I don't understand that. There's no pain involved, and all you're getting is the hallucinogenic aura symptoms. Like, what's the ruby? Imagine it's distracting, but right. It's probably a little concerning. Like you're like, am I losing my mind? I have a brain tumor. And it's true. I'd like to hear from someone that suffers from ocular migraines, actually. I want to have a better understanding of that firsthand. Abdominal migraines common in children. Pretty awful. It's like all of the symptoms of a migraine except for the head pain. So you have sensitivity to light, nausea, vomiting, screeching at anybody who tries to talk to you, that kind of thing. Hey, everyone. When you're running a small business, every second counts and you can't afford to waste a single moment. So why are you still taking time out of your day to go to the post office? And you could be using stamps.com. Yeah. For more than 20 years, stamps.com has been indispensable for over 1 million businesses. Because stamps.com gives you access to all the post office and ups shipping services you need right. From your computer. That's right. You can streamline your shipping process with stamps.com easy to use software. All you need is your regular computer and printer. No special supplies or equipment necessary. And you can get discounts you can't find anywhere else, like up to 30% off USPS rates and 86% off ups to stop wasting time and start saving money. When you use stamps.com to mail and ship, sign up with promo code stuff for a special offer that includes a four week trial plus free postage and a digital scale. No longterm commitments or contracts. Just go to stamps.com, click the microphone at the top of the homepage and enter code stuff. You know, the other thing Coop said is that he very much used to experience well, he still experiences the nausea, but he said that he has gained such control over his vomit reflex that he has not thrown up since 1984. Since ghostbusters, he said. Well, yeah. And he also referenced seinfeld. Of course. I was going to say the black and white cookie. That's right. Then there are cluster headaches, which we mentioned that men get more often, and they are not migraines, but they say they may be the most painful headache of all. You remember in Donny Darko where Drew Barrymore tells everybody there's some linguists who said that cellar door is the most beautiful phrase in the English language? Cluster headaches. Those two words, they evoke. Do you know what a grape shot cannonball is? What it looks like, yeah. Okay, so I see one of those, but they're white and squishy balls that are connected together almost like tumors, but they're real circular. They're spherical. Right. What are you talking about? And they start to kind of drip and fall off, but they're constantly replaced. That's what comes into my mind when I hear the word the term cluster headache. Jeez. Well, it sounds like it's that bad because it's a sudden explosion of pain after you've gone to sleep. Like, you'll be asleep, and you'll wake up with this happening very quickly, and it's usually behind one of your eyeballs. I think that's what my dad used to have because he used to talk about it's right here, and he pointed his eye, and I would just laugh and say, dad, you're so funny. I'm getting that one in one way or another. The reason they call them cluster headaches is because they occur a bunch of times over the course of a couple of weeks, and they'll go away. Right. Like, for a year, maybe come back in clusters over several weeks or whatever, and then go ahead with a thunderclap headache, because I never heard of that. Thunderclap headaches are very sudden, very severe. They're pretty much cluster headaches, except they don't follow the same pattern. They just kind of come and go. They don't seem to follow any kind of pattern, really? Yeah, they're shorter. Right. But if you get a thunderclap headache, you may have blood pooling in your brain and you need to go see a doctor. Yeah. It's a pretty good sign that there's something very wrong with your brain. Yes. And we should say cluster headaches and thunderclap headaches don't tend to occur in families, whereas migraines do. So how do you know? How do you get diagnosed with this? Basically, you go in and say, I think I have a brain tumor, and the doctor starts running tests on you using MRIs, Cat scans, spinal taps. They rule everything else. Everything else is ruled out, and they go, I think you might have migraines. Right. But since we can't really explain migraines, I can't say for certain. Spinal tap. You ever had one of those? No. Oh, there's no reason that you should, have you? No, of course not. Well, no, of course not. People have them. But you always laugh at spinal tap because the band and the movie but you don't think about a needle going into your spine. It's what they're doing. They're tapping your spine like you tap a maple tree for syrup. And it's a big long, like pretty heavy gauge gingle. It's not like a tiny one, it's big. I'd need more than a local anesthetic for that. My friend. Knock me out completely. I don't know that they can, because I think you have to be cognizant and aware and in control of your body. And you don't move. No, thank you. Some weird symptoms. We talked about nausea and vomiting and stuff like that. You can also fart a lot. I saw that. Flatulence, right? Problem? Flatulence. You can urinate a lot. You can be really thirsty. You can smell weird things that aren't there. You can think that your appendages have grown in size. My arm has grown. If they actually have, it's probably just overeating. If your arm grows, if your appendages grow in size, food cravings, temporary blindness, no fun. This is what Cooper suffers from. Poor guy. And he still takes the time to do all those photoshop jobs of us. He did a really good job with the Step Brothers one. I mean, did you look at the detail in it? They're all really good. Yeah. So you got a migraine, josh, what do you do? Well, again, people seem to treat themselves, or tend to treat themselves to figure out what their triggers are. They become very aware. If you're a chocolate satar shouldn't exercise. Right. If that's you that's my Friday night. You're going to stay away from exercise, you're going to stay away from Saturday music. Pretty easy. And you're going to not eat chocolate, which sucks, but it's what you're going to do. And so you're going to prevent it. Right. There's acute treatment. There's preventative treatment. So you can prevent it by paying attention to what triggers these things pay attention to. Like if you get an aura, then your acute treatment kicks in. Maybe you are going to treat yourself acutely even before an aura kicks in. If you expose yourself to one of your triggers. Sure. And then if you do get the idea that you're going to have a migraine, you can often treat them, like Coop said, with a couple of eccedrine migraines, which are really just insane. Tylenol, Advil, non steroids or anti inflammatory drugs. Right. And that's going to keep your brain from vasodilating, supposedly, yeah. And with et cetera, we should say that they specifically made the migraine pill, and it's a combination of aspirin, acetaminophen and caffeine, which migraine people said, that works for me. Oh, totally. So they said, we'll give it to you. You take these before head pain comes on. Yes. Once your head pain comes on, you need something stronger called Sumo Metropan, which is also called Amitrex. Remember the Amitrix ads with the semi coming at you? Yeah. Right. Well, apparently this stuff works after your head has started exploding. It works pretty well from what most people say. Right. I think also it's one of those things where it either works for you or it doesn't. I guess if it works really well. You're going to call over the internet to how great it is. Right. But I think it cannot work in people. But if you have nausea, if you have vomiting, fortunately for you, there is sumatriptan. I hope that's how you say it's, nasal sprays. Yeah. So you can't puke that back up. There's also injections. If you go to the hospital with the migraine, they're probably going to give you an injection of that. But as the author says in this article, you can get your very own amitrex injection. Give yourself a shot. Preventative. They found that and this is always so weird with me for prescription drugs, when they find the off label use, they're like, well, your blood pressure meds are stopping your migraines. That's cool. And there's a whole host of these antidepressants, like I said, blood pressure medication, antihistamine, CPR, heptidine cholesterol drugs, cardiovascular, calcium, channel blockers. They can all help with migraine with channel blockers. I wonder if that has to do with if it slows down the transmission of neurotransmitters because they go through ion channels. That's where the actual molecules go through that. You're right. So I wonder if that has something to do with it. And then obviously with, like, blood pressure medicine, that's going to keep vasodilation from occurring. And then serotonin, they figured out that, like you said, antidepressants and other drugs that act on serotonin regulation or production have been shown to alleviate migraines or keep migraines from coming on. Right. So serotonin has something to do with serotonin hormones, anchovies, the crazy brain tar music. Botox, supposedly. Well, they just found that one of the weird side effects reported was that fewer migraines and fewer headaches, but no one should get botox to relieve their migraines. We're not saying that we call that a sidebar. We do. Hey, everyone, when you're running a small business, every second counts, and you can't afford to waste a single moment. So why are you still taking time out of your day to go to the post office when you could be using Stamps.com? Yeah. For more than 20 years, stamps.com has been indispensable for over 1 million businesses. Because Stamps.com gives you access to all the post office and Ups shipping services you need right from your computer. That's right. You can streamline your shipping process with Stamps.com easy to use software. All you need is your regular computer and printer. No special supplies or equipment necessary, and you can get discounts you can't find anywhere else, like up to 30% off USPS. Rates and 86% off ups. So stop wasting time and start saving money. When you use Stamps.com to mail and ship, sign up with promo code stuff for a special offer that includes a four week trial plus free postage and a digital scale. No long term commitments or contracts. Just go to Stamps.com, click the microphone at the top of the home page and enter code stuff. And what about what emily likes to call hokey pokey treatments and what other people call alternative medicine. Well, the one that jumped out at me is Butterburg. Yeah, I never heard of that. I hadn't either, but it's an herbal supplement. The problem is it may contain cancer causing compounds. Yeah. So it's like we're migraines or early death from cancer. I don't know. Riboflavin, eat your broccoli. Coenzyme Q, ten supplements. Coq Ten. Oh, you know about Coq ten. Sure. Fever few. It's an herbal supplement that apparently helps. It's an antiinflammatory. Yeah. And then there are different things you can do, like massage, breathing techniques, yoga. Acupuncture has been said to help some folks if you're into this alternative thing. I think whatever helps. Well, sure. Well, Chuck, let's finish this. Let's bring this migraine to an end with famous people. Yeah. So apparently there is a theory of the migraine personality that people who have migraines are more driven, more creative. And then there's a lot of people who are driven and creative or who had migraines, like, or were before migraines killed them. Right, exactly. Virginia wolf, servantes. Nietzsche. Elvis. Freud. Monet. Bengal. It's also possible that all these people just happen to have migraines and were creative famous, and there really isn't a migraine personality. You know Percy Harvin? He's a Minnesota Vikings receiver. He played for the Florida Gators. Yeah. I was like, I just have a visceral reaction to that name. Yeah, he's a migraine sufferer, and it keeps him out of practice, out of games. He has to go basically home and seclude himself in a dark room. Apparently they're really bad, despite the effect. He played for Florida. I don't want to wish that on anybody. Maybe Tim Tebow. Maybe. Who's this Auburn coach? Gene Chisholk. Yeah, what about him? Let's wish some migraines on it. You got anything else? I'm done. So, Coop, I hope, buddy, you have a good Christmas and that your migraines. I hope we enlightened you some. He's probably like, no, yeah, I already knew all this. Yeah, thanks anyway. This would have been waiting two years for well, how about this? Let everybody just go and wish that the scientists will hurry up and cure migraines. Okay? How about that? If you want to learn more about migraines and see a picture of a brain getting hit by lightning, you can type that word in. Oh, we didn't talk about the word migraine. Check the etymology of the word migraine. I should say it comes from two words hemocrania. Half a brain. Remember, it only hits part of your brain at once. And another word, megrim, which is actually now another word for migraine. But megrim back in the 18th century meant basically a low feeling on a whim or what a delicate woman would experience. You know how women used to faint or they think women fainted a lot or whatever this was associated with. The migraines were associated with women. So migrant hemocrania, migraine got you if you want to learn more about migraines and hemorrhenia and megrims and seagrams, sure. Type in either seagrams or migraine in the search bar@howstaffworks.com and that should bring up something interesting. It should, since I said, hey, search bar is time for a listener mail. Josh, this is about first kisses. We got a lot of great emails. I'm going to read one of them now because this is a nice message attached. Hi, guys, including Jerry. I just listened to your podcast on kissing and made me think about my first kiss. I'm 27 years old and my first kiss happened about two years ago when I was 25. Growing up, I never dated and sadly not by my own choosing. I would admire the popular boys from afar and imagine what it would be like to kiss them. Go ahead. Okay. When high school came around, I had a lot of friends but began feeling bad about myself because I never had a boyfriend. No one was interested in dating me. I was always the best friend who was just one of the guys. Wait, Jack, I'm confused. Is this from a guy or a girl? It's from a girl. Okay. It took a long time, but eventually I gained a tentative peace with just being single. Then one day strings swelling. Then one day I met Dylan. Awesome. We became friends. Six months later, a miracle happened. He actually was interested in me and I was interested in him. At the same time we started dating, we had our first kiss, which quickly turned into a full blown make out. Wow. Which usually the first kiss doesn't. That's going from zero to 60 pretty fast, right? It was amazing and completely worth waiting for. We are still together and the kisses are frequent. All to say that I want to encourage here's where the good message comes in. All to say that I want to encourage anyone out there who feels like they are a late bloomer in life. In the romance department, I believe there is a lid for every pot and someday that person who is worth the wait will show up in your life. On a side note, when I first started listening to your podcast, I thought the woman at the beginning was saying from house to forks.com. I was very confused how it related. That is from Leah in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Earth. Leah, thank you very much for writing in stay warm up there in Calgary this winter. That was a late bloomer, not 25. But you're just ignoring that. Well, you threw me off. I want to hear some late bloomer stories. No, there are none. I was just a late bloomer and people bloom at different times. That's what I'm still blooming, buddy. I want to hear late bloomer stories that don't necessarily have anything to do with kissing. But if you bloomed lately in some realm, I want to hear about it. Do you want to hear. About it? Absolutely. We want to hear some emails about it. You can wrap it up and send it to stuffpodcast@howstepworks.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit Howstepworks.com. To learn more about the podcast, click on the podcast icon in the upper right corner of our home page. The housetop works. iPhone app has arrived. Download it today on itunes. Brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you? Hey, it's summer, everybody, which means school's out, the sun is shining, the daylights longer, and best of all, there's plenty of time to get lost in a good, thrilling story. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music. My favorite murder from exactly right media. My favorite murder has something for everyone. Hosted by Karen Kilgueref and Georgia Hardstark, this true crime comedy podcast will share stories that will have you wanting more before you know it. Listen to new episodes of my favorite Murder. One week early on Amazon music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen today. 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4181cc1c-53a3-11e8-bdec-c3b3fb6658d1	How Free Range Parenting Works	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/how-free-range-parenting-works	Free range parenting is all about giving your child the freedom to play and explore life on their own. Are there benefits? Sure. Do some people hate the concept? Yes! Listen and learn right here.	Free range parenting is all about giving your child the freedom to play and explore life on their own. Are there benefits? Sure. Do some people hate the concept? Yes! Listen and learn right here.	Tue, 09 Apr 2019 14:09:20 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2019, tm_mon=4, tm_mday=9, tm_hour=14, tm_min=9, tm_sec=20, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=99, tm_isdst=0)	48609152	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Welcome to stuff. You should know a production of Iheartradios how stuff works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. And there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. And there's Jerry over there. And this is stuff you should know. Can I COA right off the bat here? I presumed you would. All right. There's a couple of COAS I want to issue. One, we are not telling anyone how to parent their children. Indeed. And two, we realize that the whole concept of free range parenting that will follow comes from a place of extreme privilege yes. To be able to entertain the idea of free range parenting comes from a place of extreme privilege. Okay. Can I amend that, or should I wait until we talk about that part to kind of amend it? No, you can amend it to me. Free range parenting. Having the freedom to free range parent, what I saw, it ties in with parenting that's already being done by people who might not have a choice. Are you saying that the ability to choose whether you want a free range parent or not is privileged? Yes. Okay. Yes. Agreed. I got you again. We'll get into that, but we'll get into that at the end. But I just want to just go ahead and leave that off because it's a lot of privilege involved with being able to say that you want a free range parent. Are you going to land one way or another on it? On whether or not I support free range parenting? Yeah. I mean, Emily and I don't title it or say, hey, I think we should do this as a style. But we, as it turns out, are sort of dabbling in free range parenting a bit as much as you can for a three and a half year old. So you're listening to your instincts. I've never read a parenting book. Not knocking them, but I've never read one. We parent by instinct, and our daughter has always had a lot of room to free play and explore and figure stuff out on her own and fall down and get back up and all that stuff. Okay, I'm reading between the lines. You guys haven't decided yet. All right, so, ready for your age parenting? Go. Okay, so do you remember when we were kids, Chuck, back when we used to hang out when we were kids and we would go ride bikes together at sunrise? We had no idea where we were going to go, but it might involve a swamp, it could involve a glacier. There may have been, like, rail riding hobos that we shared lunch with. Who knows what the day was going to bring, but we were up for all that and may or may not have engaged in any of that during that day. And then at the end of the day, around sunset, maybe a little later, depending on whether it was summer or not, we would ride our bikes back home, say, See you tomorrow, go to our respective houses, and then talk the night away on our soup cans that were connected by a rope. And that was our childhood. Right. We turned out yeah, sure. I have talked about my childhood some growing up, but I grew up in the woods, basically on a couple of acres of land with a creek and forest, not in a subdivision, but on a street with, like, seven houses in the woods. Right. And my mother had this giant iron bell probably about 18 inches across, mounted on a big telephone pole kind of right beside our driveway. And when it was dinnertime in the evening, she would go pull that bell and you could hear it from like a mile away, the bell tolling, and that's when Scott and I were like, all right, it's time to go eat. After having been out all day long with zero supervision. And I had a great mom. Like, she wasn't neglectful. This is just how it was done. Yeah. Were you a latchkey kid? I know your mom was a teacher, but did she stay at home with you? She didn't go back to teaching. She quit teaching to raise kids and then started up again when I was, like, I feel like 8th or 9th grade or something like that. Okay. Yeah. My mom took off until I was six, seven, I guess. Like kindergarten? No, maybe she's still around at kindergarten, I guess about first grade when I started school. And she was like, okay, I'm going back to nursing. And then after that point, I was a latchkey kid for the rest of my life. But I had older sisters who would be home around the time I would. But I had my own key to my house that was just a couple of blocks away from my school. And I would walk myself or ride my bike myself, and then I'd be home by myself if my sister was doing something else for a couple of hours until either my mom or my dad showed up. And I think I turned out pretty well, too, that I even had a housekey ever. Well, you guys probably didn't lock your doors if your mom rang a bell on a telephone pole to call you in for dinner. I don't think we locked our door. Okay. But you had free range, literally, of your house, your yard, the woods around you. But here's a really big caveat. From what I've seen, I think a lot of people who are, like, who aren't familiar, necessarily free range parenting assume that we could have done anything we wanted and gotten away with it because we had overly permissive parents. That's not the case for me, and I would dare say that wasn't the case for you as well, that we actually had plenty of rules and structure. We were just also given a lot of freedom to do things within that rules and structure, including geographic freedom, right? For sure. Okay. Yeah. So that is what I thought all kids had up to this time. And I knew that there was such things as piano and lessons or Mandarin classes, that kind of stuff, like things that kids were taking more and more and they were really busy and stressed out and they had iPhones at age seven, that kind of thing. But I still thought that this happened, and I was really shocked about as shocked as I've ever been. And researching an episode of Stuff You Should Know to find that that is not the case, that not only has this been kind of squeezed out by other activities, it's actually become criminalized behavior by society at large among the parents who are raising children today. I was blown away to find this out. I really legitimately didn't know. Yeah. And getting back to the activities, I played some soccer in high school, and then I did like church sports, which there's not a lot of. I think we did maybe one basketball practice a week, so it wasn't like everyday practice and stuff like that. I never took lessons of any kind. Like, I taught myself guitar and all that stuff. So I don't think I literally ever had a structured post school activity in my life. Yeah. Did you say church sports? Yeah, I played church softball and basketball. Did like, everybody win every game? No, it was actually fiercely competitive. Okay, I'm just kidding. No, it's it was legit. We had a pretty good basketball team, and the league was pretty impressive, too. Yeah. But I never had a single class like the idea of my mom having been like, all right, I'm going to take you to your violin lesson. And then on the weekends we have gymnastics and whatever else people are doing these days. We didn't do that. She was just like, Go play. Right? And we'll talk about all the reasons why. But there has been a movement away from the kind of childhood we had, a very pronounced one. If you look at culture as a pendulum swinging one way or another, it has swung very far, the opposite way to where kids lives are structured down to the minute, where they have actual calendars and schedules that they have to keep up with because they have so many things going on. And there has come about in reaction to that an antithesis, basically. And it is nothing more than letting kids grow up the way that you and I did. And it has become so novel in the face of the world and the culture that we have in raising kids in the United States now that it has its own name, it's a movement. They have to go to court to defend themselves. It's so weird, but really, if you strip it down and look at it, all they're doing is raising their kids the way you and I and Jerry, I'm sure, was raised well. Yeah, I mean, to a certain degree. But the whole idea and it's not just like, I want you to grow up the way I did. What it really is is an argument that says, you know what? Kids will grow up healthier and happier if they have freedom to play and they have freedom to fail and freedom to get in a playground scrap and to work it out with another kid on their own and figure things out for themselves. They will end up better people because of this. It's not, oh, I'm lazy, or I have nostalgia for my childhood. There's a lot of research into this now or some research that says, no, what we're doing is trying to make better future adults by not hovering over my child, scheduling them to death, and every time they fall, run over, pick themselves up and rock them to sleep if they get a boo boo. I sound so judgy. I don't mean that. Well, let's just take a second. Let's take a break real quick and correct ourselves, and then we'll come back and we'll really get into what free range parenting is. Well, now, when you're on the road driving in your truck, why not learn a thing or two from Josh and Chuck? Okay. Chuck. So I think you demonstrated something that has made free range parenting very unpalatable to a lot of parents who don't raise their kids that way. And that it seems to be a reaction almost in your face to some people's reaction or judgment of that helicopter style parenting where you're always kind of around your kid their entire life is very structured and supervised. Including playtime. And that free range parenting is meant to be a reaction to that. And in some ways it is a reaction to that. But it also stands on its own. And if you step back and look at it and look at free range parenting not as a reaction to helicopter parenting, but as its own thing, is its own philosophy for how to raise a kid. And you strip away, like, the judging us and all that stuff, it holds up to me. And like you said, there's been a lot more study recently. But the whole thing really started back in 2008 by a journalist. It wasn't a child psychologist. It wasn't a child development psychologist. It wasn't a child development child analyst, psychologist, none of those things. I made that last one up, by the way. It was a journalist named Lenor Ganazi. Yeah. So she is a New York mom. And in 2008 she wrote a column for the New York Sun called Why I Let My Nine Year Old Ride the Subway Alone. She was in a store one day in Manhattan, and her son had been badgering her to be able to ride the subway and bus back home by himself. And finally one day she said, all right, great. Let's do this. Here's a subway map. Here's a subway card. Here's $20. Here's some change for a payphone. Have at it. The kid made it home and she said he was, quote, ecstatic with independence. What a great quote. Yeah. And she got a lot of blowback from this, from like the judgment goes both ways. I mean, there were people that said it was neglect and abuse for her to do this and let her kid ride the subway alone. Oh, yes. If you had to divide the two sides up and start weighing which one was a little judgier, your hand would be much lower holding the helicopter. Parents. For sure. Yeah. If you're a free range kid proponent or you raise your kids following that, there's a whole burden, a whole social burden that you have in addition to the burden of raising your kids that you have to put up with. For sure. Yeah. And I should point out to you real quick that it all depends upon your kid, too. I don't think there are any sweeping generalizations. Sure. My daughter has always been very just instinctively kind of safe and smart about stuff. Other kids in her class are just like little wild banshees. And I would probably be a lot more worried if she was the kind of kid who has an instinct to jump out of a tree instead of back down very slowly out of a tree. So it's all different depending on your kid or a kid who can't seem to shake, being totally fascinated with matches or knives or something like that. I think that's a really good point. Like you shouldn't sweep or generalize, but I think that's an even larger point, too. People should be left to raise their children how they see fit, given a certain amount of trust invested in the parents that the parent isn't going to harm the kid or let harm come to the kid because it's their parent. Right, right. Okay, so this whole thing started with Leonor Skinazi, and like you said, she got a lot of blowback, but she also got a really positive response, too, and actually parlayed the whole thing from that New York Sun article into a blog that she called Free Range Kids. So from what I understand, she coined the term free range kids and started writing about this stuff. And at first a lot of it was just like, it's good, it's on its face. It's obvious that this is how you should raise a kid. Kids need play. They need to learn how to pick themselves back up when they fall down. And not only that, you're doing a disservice to your kids when you pick them up after they fall down because they're not learning how to get back up themselves. And over time, it kind of went as people became more and more enamored with her philosophy or this whole free range kids idea. More child psychologists started weighing in and the whole movement kind of took the shape. And they figured out that for a parent to kind of see the light, as far as they were concerned, they had to first change the mindset about what kind of world they were raising a kid in. Because if you're a free range kid parent, you probably don't feel as threatened by the world in general as say, a helicopter parent would ounce for ounce. Yeah, for sure. When parents have experimented with this, the changes that they've seen in their kids have been pretty striking. If anecdotal. There's this one woman, Dana Bloomberg, she's a school counselor in suburban Chicago. We should also point out depends on where you live as well. If you live in a very safe suburb or way out in the country, it's a little different than a kid, like in the middle of the city or something like that. But she gave her kid a lot of free range starting in the second grade and got some neighborhood parents involved in letting their kids do it. And they said before you know it, they had this little gang of kids kind of touring around the neighborhood on their own. And she's getting all these texts from these different parents saying like, what a big change has happened in their own kid. One parent even said it was life changing for her daughter, gave her a new sense of confidence and that's sort of what the free range thing could look like. But like you were saying, it all comes down to a swaging appearance. Fear. The biggest fear, which is my child will get abducted or my child, there'll be a sexual predator to target my child or heaven forbid, my child will get kidnapped and murdered. Right. Because you can understand and it's really tough to fault somebody who doesn't want their kid wandering around by themselves because they're afraid that something really bad is going to happen to their kid. So kind of the first step to adopting like a free range kid attitude is to adjusting how you see the world. And they think that with there are several things it's really fascinating to me. I love cultural changes. Especially when we can point to different things. Seemingly unrelated things that all kind of converge and has changed the world in ways you never think of. That seems to have happened to produce today's helicopter parents. Or at least to produce the level of fear. The climate of fear that the world is an inherently dangerous. Brutal. Sadistic place where children have no call to be wandering around themselves. That is actually you can trace that back to a convergence of things that have happened starting in the late seventy s and early eighty s. And in particular there were some high profile child murder cases basically that all kind of took place between 1979 and 1981 and those really changed a lot of parents minds about things. Yeah, in New York, the very sad story of six year old Eaton Patts disappeared and was later found out to have been murdered. John Walsh very famously, his son Adam, he's the one that does all the TV shows now. I think he's on the hunt on CNN now and really made this his life's work. But his son Adam disappeared and died in 1981. Obviously the Atlanta child murders from 79 to 81 and this all converged around the same time. Like you were talking about these strange things aligning, cable news coming out. CNN was launched in 1000, 1980. So all of a sudden you have parents that are getting this kind of constant flow of fear from the news about their children, right? Because prior to cable News 24 Hours News, if something happened to a kid somewhere in some state, maybe if it were just particularly egregious or outrageous or everything was kind of set up in just the right way, it would capture the attention of the national media and you would hear about it around the country. But that was really rare. And then second to that, the other place that you would hear about child abductions, child murders, horrific, like accidents that befell a child would be locally, right, like on your local news, that maybe expanded to a region, maybe the state. But it was pretty localized and so if statistically something like that happened fairly rarely, you weren't going to hear about it very often. And so in your mind it was a pretty rare thing and you weren't afraid of the world in general. But what a lot of commentators and a lot of well, some of the people I ran across and research propose is that with cable news, that potential pool of horrible things that befell kids to talk about expanded to the entire nation. Not just local, not just regional or even state, but the whole nation. So now all the bad things happening to all the kids around the nation was potential news fodder. And so when you were watching CNN, it seemed like every other story was about a kid who had been abducted and killed or sexually assaulted or any number of horrible things. And there's really no way to put it other than that that kind of stuff keeps people glued to their televisions. And so it's really in the best interests of news networks like CNN to feed people that because while you're glued to your television, you're also glued to the ads that they show too. And so from this model came a climate of fear that a lot of people point to is like, this is the source. And it's not just CNN CNN gets pointed to because it was the one that started it all. That was Ted Turtle who came up with this and started the first 24 Hours Cable News Network. But all cable news is guilty of this and became guilty of it pretty quickly because that's the model of cable news. And because cable news laid that foundation and showed that kind of you can really make some revenue. Nightly News tried its best to resist that kind of thing, but it kind of had to follow suit a little bit, too. So it would become more sensational from the 80s onward as well. Not nearly anything like cable news, but compared to how it had been before, it was much more sensationalized because it was following the cable news model. And all that put together created the foundation of why people are just scared to death about the world. Because we think that it's way more dangerous than it actually is because the statistics are inflated by hearing about this stuff all the time. Yeah. And there's another couple of things that contributed that Skinazie has pointed out. One, we live in what she dubbed an expert society. So again, on cable news or on social media, like everywhere you turn, there's another expert coming out with a new book they're trying to sell, basically telling you how you're doing it wrong as apparent how you should do it. And then the whole fact that we live in a very litigious society now, so what if I want a free range parent, my kid, and they go down and get their friend out of the house and they're riding bikes and one of them gets hurt, like, are their parents going to sue me because my kid went and lured them into the mean streets? Right? Yeah. That was another thing that happened, Chuck, in the idea of negligence became really big and there was what's called like a tort revolution to where you went from, well, your kid didn't know the other kid's arm was going to get broken, so you can't get sued for that. No, that was negligent and we're going to allow that. And more and more case law expanded to make people think like lawyers because of it, too. When you were a kid, that must have been a thing because did you ever have the lawsuit threat from another child? Yeah, that was such a thing. Yeah, I'm going to kick your butt or whatever. Like, oh, yeah, well, my dad's going to sue you for all the money. You got that's right. He's a dentist. That's so funny, man, to think about. In the 70s, he's children threatening lawsuits on yeah, I've forgotten about that. For like, ripping their shirt or something. Any number of things could generate a lawsuit, but in the end scenarios he says, and this is, I think, a pretty relevant quote, she said, all of this stuff combined has convinced parents that they have to be both omniscient and omnipotent because of fear and monitor every single move that your kid makes. So let's take a break and we're going to come back and talk a little bit about the facts about whether or not your kids are really in danger out on the streets right after this. Well, now, when you're on the road driving in your truck, why not learn a thing or two from Josh and Chuck? It's stuff you should know. All right. All right, Chuck. So like we were saying, to not be just scared to death because you're letting your kid walk home from the park or something like that, unsupervised. You have to go through a change in mindset. Like, you have to stop seeing the world is a very, very scary place. And sometimes statistics can be actually kind of comforting. So the free range kids movement has really made one of its foundational support polls. You'd think I would actually be getting better at this all this time, but no, I love it sometimes watching stumble through something like that. Anyway, they talk a lot about statistics and crime statistics related to kids in particular. And when you look at them in the cold, hard light of the day, it doesn't seem like it's a very dangerous world after all. Right. If you look at the numbers, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children says that just 1% of the 27,000 missing children cases are non family abductions. And that also includes, like, friends and acquaintances. So if you're talking about literally a stranger targeting your child and plucking them off a playground, it is exceedingly rare that that happens. Yeah. So 1% is non family. Right, right. But that also doesn't even break down. Like, if it's a friend or an acquaintance family or something like that. So little strangers snatching your kid rarely, rarely, rarely happens. Yeah. So even that even including, like, friends of the family, somebody who's not a direct family member, but known to the kids, a non stranger, that's 270 kids that happened to in 2017 out of 27,000, I think, which is that's awful for those kids that they were kidnapped. Right. That's another thing, too. When you throw out statistics like this, it's really easy to be like, see, that was it. But you don't want to do that because to those 270 families, that's all that matters. And that's really important to remember as well, when we're kind of tossing out these statistics, too. Yeah. And not to make light of family abductions, which is 91% of abductions, those are horrific and traumatic as well. We're just talking about the bare bones of the fear that if I let my kid go to a park, a stranger is going to pluck them. Right. So even that, even if you look at it, it's 27,000 out of all the kids in the United States in 2017, 27,000 of them went missing in 2017, and the vast majority of them ran away. So if you're worried that your kid is going to get plucked by a stranger specifically out of a park somewhere because you let them go to the park with the free range parenting, people are saying if you look at the statistics the chances of that are so small that it's actually not worth limiting your kids freedom of movement because of that outlier possibility. It just doesn't it's just a disproportionate response to that risk, is what they're saying. Right. If you want to talk about the worst thing that you can imagine, which is child murder. From 1980 to 2008, statistics about murders of children under five years old, 63% of the time, the parents are the ones who did it, followed by 23%. So that's 86% total. 23% are male acquaintances. So like mom's boyfriend or something like that. 7% are other relatives. So only 3% of all murders of young children are strangers. Right. Thanks. We're addressing the fear of strangers doing something to your child, not making light of these other statistics. And there are parents out there who are like, good, that's enough. The fact that it happens to one kid makes me want to protect my child and make sure that they don't do that. Okay, you're the parent. You're raising your kid in that way. I understand. But again, the what Free Range Kids people are saying is it really worth that kind of a response? And we'll get to that because you could say, like, if there were no negative aspects of completely ensconcing your kid in protection, then the Free Range Kids advocates wouldn't have anything. They could be like, okay, well, whatever, that's what you're doing with your kid. But there are suspicions that actually is detrimental to the development of a kid, protecting them from everything at all costs. And I think that's one of the big other foundational platform post tenants of the Free Range Kids thing, that one was for showing off. All right? So building on that, like you were saying, there has to be like in order to get a parent on board with a free range parenting lifestyle, it's not just I want to be lazy or I want to go back to my childhood. It's a parent who thinks there are actual benefits to doing so. And that outweighs the risk. Like you were saying. Of the 3% chance or the 1% or the 5% chance that something's going to happen to my kids if they're on their own. There is evidence. And it's growing and growing evidence that all these efforts to schedule all these activities for your kid are overlooking one big fundamental element of raising a healthy. Well adjusted child that seems to be getting lost more and more. Which is something called free play. The American Academy of Pediatrics has a report out that said that free play promotes I like it. It's the new way of saying it social, emotional, cognitive, language, and selfregulation skills that build executive function and a prosocial brain. And play is fundamentally important for learning 21st century skills like problem solving, collaboration, and creativity and executive functioning skills that are critical for adult success. Right. And they threw that last one in to be. Like, well, okay, maybe play is good but it's not going to help them in life. And they're saying, yes, it will actually help them in life and that by keeping them from playing you're basically creating a little adult from the nursery. Which is interesting to me, Chuck, because prior to the 19th century when you were a kid starting around age five or something, you had a job. If it wasn't around like your family's farm, maybe you were helping out with the wash that your mom took in. Who knows? But then there was no such thing as childhood really. And then we moved away from that and we developed childhood and now it seems like we're moving away from childhood. Now we're taking kids and they're not working on the farm. We're making them little CEOs and marketing directors and brand managers and stuff like that. But they're losing their childhood in that bargain is, I think, what they're saying. And from play specifically, play helps, but it helps also, like just in and of itself for its own sake, but it also helps eventually down the road. It's an investment that will pay off, I think, in terms that helicopter parents can understand. Yeah. There's another guy named Peter Gray. He's a developmental psychologist. He has a book called Free to Learn and founded a non profit, I believe, with Nazi called Let Grow little Play on words there. And he basically says that if you look back through human evolution, children, their education was through play with their peers. And if you look at societies and cultures in the world today, how would you classify these cultures, traditional societies? I'm not sure, maybe. But they say that children of these cultures that still play and explore freely, if they're left to do that, they will do so into their teen years. Like that is their natural instinct is to be among their peers. Free playing. Right. I think one of the problems that helicopter parents have with the idea of play is that it's a waste of time. The kids could be learning like cello or doing math flashcards or creating a better foundation for a better future for themselves and that if they're not doing that, they're falling behind. And so what Peter Gray and some of his ilk are saying is like no, play helps develop a child in ways that no other thing you could possibly come up with. Their supervisor get them to do can because this is what we've done all this time and this is how we've built society, is letting little kids play and figure things out on their own. And he says that if there's a parent around, if it's supervised a parent even within eyesight or earshot or, you know, there's a parent watching, it's going to be different. It has to be unsupervised, unstructured play so that the kids can be left to make up their own rules, can be taught by the group that actually no, that's not really fair or it's not really cool to take the ball and go home because you aren't winning. That's how you learn that stuff. And those are good things to learn. That makes you a more socially well adjusted kid then probably learning cello is going to well, yeah, I mean, you can try and teach your kid by showing and by telling as much as you can as a parent, and that is all valuable, but nothing will teach a lesson to a kid like learning it through experience with their peers. Right. I remember myself when I was a kid, the biggest lessons I learned were lessons that I learned among my peer group, hard lessons that a lot of parents, I think, try and even shield their kid from, because it's tough stuff sometimes. But and, you know, you don't want your kid to suffer traumas and things like that. And not to sound like a parent from the 1950s, but that stuff does help build your child's character. And, I mean, I guess that sounds sort of old school. What it does is it helps them learn how to regulate their emotions and how to fit in with their peer group, which is in turn going to be eventually just society at large. Right. It's funny you say that. That sounds kind of 50s, because this whole idea of free range kids is kind of based on that philosophy of Dr. Spock, who was like one of the first experts, one of the first child experts that America ever really paid attention to. And he wrote a book in 1946 called the Common Sense Book of Baby and Child. And he basically is saying all the stuff that free range kids parents say is let your kid play. Let your kid learn through their own way of exploring the world. Let them take risks, let them be themselves. Trust your instincts as a parent. And so that's what free range parents seem to be kind of getting back to is like the Dr. Spock school of thought. Benjamin Spock, not the other Spock, not live long in prosper Spock. Did he have a first name? Oh, I don't know, man. I didn't watch Star Trek. I didn't either. Just lay it on a million people who are going to send the email. We're waiting. There's something called the internal external Locus of Control scale. It's an odd name, but this has been around since the 1960s. It's a psychological indicator scale. And these days, since the 1960s, there's been a big shift in the scale and how teens report themselves and their internal control. And today teens report very little internal control over their own lives. And Gray believes, and I think he's really onto something here, that these high levels of anxiety and depression among kids these days has a lot to do with that. Meetings is directly related to the decline in free play over the last 40 or 50 years. Right. Which I want to say, this is like one psychologist opinion. It makes a lot of sense to me, and I'm sure it does to a lot of people, but this is not necessarily like gospel truth or set in stone. Sure, the jury is still kind of out, but there is a lot of evidence out there that does seem like overprotecting your kid can stunt them emotionally or developmentally and then letting them go be themselves and learn things on their own and learn that they can pick themselves back up and still survive. And failure is not the worst thing in the world can actually help them develop. Like, we routinely shoot holes in social psychology stuff all the time, and we do it gleefully, so I don't want to go the opposite way and just be like, but this one is right, because we agree with it. That's not necessarily the case. And I'm sure a lot of people disagree with it, but I tend to kind of favor that mentality, probably because it's how it was raised. Yeah. And like I said, it does sound like from the 1950 saying that failure breeds character, but it really does. It's sort of a simplistic way to say it, but when you fail, you hopefully learn something and build on that. And that does build character. Right. Literally, one of the things they call that is the dignity of risk, where you are showing your kid, I'm letting you go figure this out on your own. And another big misunderstanding with free range parents is that you just go from, like, zero to walking. Taking the subway in New York at the flip of a switch, that's not how it works. You slowly build your kid up for the big thing that you write an article about, but there's dozens or scores or possibly hundreds of little interactions that you're having to kind of make sure that your kid is up for this when you decide they're finally ready to. And it's not just like flipping a switch. It's very kind of thoughtful and protracted and planned, but not necessarily shared with the kid that's planned paying out of trust so that the kids can show you, yeah, I'm ready for this. I know what to do. I'm not just going to ball up on the ground in the subway and start crying until someone calls nine one and the cops come get me. Well, yeah. And I'm sure when she sent her kid on the subway home that very first time, it wasn't just like, all right, here's the stuff. See you later. I'm sure there was a very serious talk like, all right, dude, I trust you. I'm letting you do this. I know you know the way. We're going to give this a shot. If I see you on the news in the middle of Time Square, you're going to be in big trouble. Right. I'm sure there was a lot of thought and talk that went into that. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, totally. And kids get that stuff for sure. Kids are smarter than people give them credit for a lot of times. I think it's interesting when it comes to the law because it's such a new thing in Utah. Last year in 2018, it became the first state to pass what was called a free range parenting law, where it basically was just sort of redefining what child neglect was. And in Utah, I thought it was going to go the other way when I was reading this, but it actually went the way of sort of encouraging or being behind free range parenting. The new definition. A parent cannot be accused of neglect just because their kid is going to a store by themselves that's down the street, or playing outside alone, or biking to school on their own or at home without a parent there if they're a minor, which is pretty interesting. Yeah, I thought so, too. But most free range parents are like, we don't want to live in Utah, so hopefully our states will all come up with similar laws that decriminalize free range parenting. Because in a lot of states, things like latchkey kids are illegal. Like, you can have your kid taken from you if they are a latchkey kid under a certain age. I think in Washington, you have to be 14 to be left at home alone. You could lose your kids. And so there's a real problem with trying free range parenting because part of this helicopter parenting society is also helicopter. villaging but rather than picking up the phone and calling the parents whose kids you see wandering alone down the street like you used to have done, now people just pick up the phone and call the cops. And then the cops respond and they take the kid to Child Protective Services, and the parent has to go down and explain that they will never do this again and they're very sorry, or else Child Protective Services will take their kid from them. Because most states rule on what's called the best interests of the child, which is totally subjective. It's completely not based in any actual case law necessarily. It's just does the Child Protective Services person think that the kid is smart enough to walk from the playground to the house? No. Okay, well, we're taking your kid maybe permanently. And so it's really risky to raise your kid this way because people will call the cops if they see your kid walking down the street. And real trouble your parentship of your kid is in jeopardy at that moment, which has got to be one of the worst things that could possibly happen to a parent. Yes. And this is where we get back to the place of like, this is a privilege, has a lot to do with this because when it comes to the law and children and Child protective Services. You are way more likely to get a visit from Child Protective Services if you are poor or if you are a person of color or minority. They may write an article about you in the local magazine praising you if you're like, a white suburban parent of middle or upper middle class for letting your kid free range around. But in the case of, like, Deborah Harold in 2014 in South Carolina, she wasn't like, oh, I want to be a free range parent. She's like, I am a working mom, and I work at McDonald's, and I'm finishing a shift, and my nine year old daughter is playing in a park nearby until I'm done. And they sent her to jail for a night and took her daughter for two weeks away from her. Yeah. 17 days. Yeah. So it is very much a case of privilege to even be allowed to do this without getting a visit from Child Protective Services, right? So Skinny, Ze and some of the other free range parents say, right, this is why we need laws that are much more common sense and decriminalize this kind of behavior and put the trust back in parents to know that their kids are smart enough or if they think their kids aren't smart enough to be trusted with that kind of stuff. They wouldn't let them do that. They argue that this would benefit everybody no matter whether you're a minority or whatever socioeconomic status you have, which is true. That's a pretty sensible but I think that kind of underscores the larger problem, which is like, some people don't have the choice to get childcare if the school suddenly cancels class. You just can't afford it, what are you going to do? And then your work says, well, you can't bring them here. This is work. What can you do? Hopefully you've raised your kid to a point where you can trust them to go play next door at the playground or something like that, but that doesn't mean that you're not going to end up in trouble with the authorities. So it's a sticky situation that we're in, too. It is. Again, it depends on your kid. It depends on where you live. In my brother's neighborhood, if I live there, I would let my kid go out and do what she wanted when she was, like, seven. It's just so safe, right? And kids are everywhere on their own doing stuff very much like it was when we were kids at my house. I live next to a super scary busy street. I would never let her out of the front of my house, but even at three and a half, we let her go in the backyard by herself and do stuff all the time. Right. Just this past weekend, she was out in the backyard and with the dogs, and I went out about half an hour later. She was walking through the garden with a watering can singing We Will Rock You. And I was like, all right, everything's fine. But again, she's in my enclosed backyard. I wasn't sweating it. I would never just open the front door and be like, go have fun. Memorial Drive is right there. Cars are going 60 miles an hour. But that's the point. It's all context. You would have had to have worked up to that point. She would have had to have shown you that she was able to be trusted with that busy street, and maybe she'd be 16 before you would. But that's the point. It's context. Yeah. Again, just do the best you can. It's hard. There are a thousand ways to do it, and everybody thinks their way is the right way. That's right. Also, just before we sign off, I want to say I didn't mean to pick on kids who take cello lessons. Cello is, by the way, my favorite stringed instrument, which means it was the one that was easiest called to mind. That's why I kept bringing up the cello. So all of you out there learning cello, hats off to you, because that's my favorite string instrument. Yeah. What if Yoyo Ma has just been free playing? All right. But I'll bet Yo Yo Ma did free play. I bet he did both. And if he didn't, I'll bet he regrets it. If you want to know more about free range kids, we'll just go on the Internet and start reading because there's a lot about it. And since I said that, also, there's a pretty good article on how stuff works. You can read, too. Since I said that, it's time for listener mail. All right, I'm going to call this desert flooding. Hey, guys, listen to the podcast this morning on desert survival. And I live here in Phoenix, Arizona, and have for 19 years. And the flash flood issue is real, even in metro Phoenix. They have a stupid motorist law here, and that's capitalized in quotes. She said, after and during the heavy rains, a lot of washes fill with running water. A lot of the washers have been paved. Barriers will be put up when they flood, even if the water is only a few inches deep. But there is always someone who decides that their SUV or truck is hefty enough to get through. And their rescue is always on the nightly news. Oh, man. Because they have to pay for it. They actually have to pay for the cost of their rescue. Sometimes these daredevils don't fare too well. Actually, lives have been lost in less than a foot of moving water in a watch. Yeah. I believe that for six inches. Yeah. And Theresa Henberry closes by saying this. I do so enjoy your podcast. Nice. Thank you, Teresa. We do so enjoy your emails, too. Yes. I like the way she put that. Yes. If you want to be like Teresa and impressive with your verbal or written dexterity we love that kind of stuff. You can go to Stuffiesheno.com and you can look us up on the social links. You can also send us a podcast like Theresa did to Stuff. Podcasts@iheartradio.com. Stuff you should know is the production of Iheartradios how stuff works. For more podcasts My Heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Summer school's out. The sun is shining. The daylight is longer. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music that's so good it's criminal. Morbid part true crime and part comedy, Morbid takes you on a journey from murderous mysteries to major laughs, all in the same week. Hosted by autopsy technician Elena Ercart and hairstylist Ash Kelly, this chart topped series will have you hooked before you know it. Listen to new episodes of Morbid one week early, only on Amazon Music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen today."
8dae96b2-ba8a-11e8-a624-5b4d92fad720	Short Stuff: The Toxic Death of Gloria Ramirez	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/short-stuff-the-toxic-death-of-gloria-ramirez	In 1994 the body of a woman who died in a California ER somehow became toxic and sickened 24 people. To this day, no one is sure what happened.	In 1994 the body of a woman who died in a California ER somehow became toxic and sickened 24 people. To this day, no one is sure what happened.	Wed, 23 Oct 2019 09:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2019, tm_mon=10, tm_mday=23, tm_hour=9, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=2, tm_yday=296, tm_isdst=0)	11795705	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh. There's Chuck. There's Dave. Let's get to it. No need for further explanation. Let's just start. Let's go. Today, February 19, 1994, 31 year old woman brought into a hospital in Riverside, California, named Gloria Ramirez. I like where this is going so far, Chuck. It's succinct it's to the point was for 60 seconds. Right. She had been diagnosed with cervical cancer, but that's not why she was there. She was brought to the hospital because her heart was super beating. It was beating out of her chest such that the chambers were not filling with blood. Right. That was lowering the volume that her heart was pumping to the rest of her body, and her blood pressure was plummeting, and it was very dangerous and very strange for a 31 year old woman. Right. But like you said, she had cervical cancer. So they're like, okay, well, let's just figure this out, and we'll treat her, and we'll just take life saving measures and do what we can for. And so the Er staff started working on her like they would any other patient, but they were unsuccessful in bringing her back. In less than an hour, she was pronounced dead by the head of the Er. But it's what took place during that hour that has created a lasting mystery since February 1994 that remains unsolved to this day. Because by the time the head of the Er. Pronounced Gloria Ramirez dead, the entire emergency room, all of the patients, and almost all of the staff had moved out to the parking lot, had evacuated the emergency room because they wanted to get as far away from Gloria Ramirez as absolutely possible. Right. So the first thing that happened was they drew some blood, and they noticed that the blood smelled like ammonia, which is not what blood smells like. Yes. They started looking closer, and they found these crystals had solidified within the syringe in the blood. They were called manila crystals. I looked for 20 minutes on what manila crystals are and couldn't find it. Well, no, they were manila colored crystals. Okay, well, that makes sense, then. Yes. Ms. Ramirez, she herself was emitting an odor on her breath. They described it as garlicky and fruity. And then her body was seemingly covered in an oily sheen. Right. So far, that's not too bad or whatever. But the first big problem that they had, aside from the flex in her blood, the syringe full of blood, was that the nurse who had drawn the blood fainted in the Er. Which is pretty unusual, but even more unusual is that the nurse that she handed the syringe to also feed it staggered out of the room, sat down at a nurse's station desk, and just slumped over, dead away. Also super weird. But it got even weirder. A third nurse and then ultimately a fourth nurse all fainted, passed out. One of them started wretching from nausea, seemingly because of Gloria Ramirez. Something was happening with Gloria Ramirez in her body that was making the Er staff sick. And this was highly unusual. And that's about when they evacuated the Er to get everybody as far away from Gloria Ramirez as possible. Yeah. In the end, 23 of the 37 people on staff in the Er had at least one odd symptom, ranging from trimmers to apnea. One of them even was in intensive care for two weeks. Yes. Pancreatitis, hepatitis, weird things. It's like an X Files episode, basically. Yeah. That one nurse had. All of those were in one nurse. Hepatitis, pancreatitis, and something called a vascular necrosis, which is where the bone becomes starved of oxygen and starts to die. And this is concentrated in her knees. This is not supposed to happen when you're just administering routine life saving measures to somebody who's having atrial fibrillation. Right. So what they did was they said, let's seal the body in a bag. Let's seal that body bag and an aluminum box, and let's then seal that in a room until Hazmat can get here. Right. Hazmat arrived that night and they said, when we go to check this out, we assume we're going to find some kind of toxic gas, because everyone's getting sick here. Right. And it got even weirder when they discovered that Gloria Ramirez was not emitting any kind of toxic gas. Yeah. They expected to find something like sewer gas, maybe something coming from the Er, and not necessarily Gloria Ramirez, or phosgene gas, which can produce all sorts of horrible symptoms as well. And they found nothing, not just on her body, nothing in the bag, nothing in the box that they sealed her in, nothing in the room. There was just nothing. And yet she had made 23 of the 37 emergency room staff sick, so something had happened. But now they're like, okay, we've got a modern medical mystery on our hands. Should we take a break? I think we should. All right, we'll be right back. All right. So the Hazmat team checks out. Gloria Ramirez. Nothing unusual going on. Not only no weird gases, there were no viruses, no bacteria, they couldn't find any kind of biological source. And so they said she died of heart failure brought on by kidney failure, which was brought on by this cancer. Right. But everyone's getting sick, so they said, we need to up our game here and bring in Quincy. Pretty much. They brought in someone from Lawrence Livermore National Labs, and they had better equipment, and they were basically charged with sampling tissue and sampling blood and finding out just what had happened to her. Yeah. And so they found a lot of stuff that they expected to find, but they found three things that stood out to him. One was amines, which are a metabolite of ammonia. Another thing called nicotinumines, which is a B vitamin that you sometimes find in drugs because it can produce euphoria, and drug dealers will use it to extend their supply some. And the third one is dimethyl sulfone, which is a metabolite of an amino acid that the body is usually capable of breaking down. So it's an unusual thing to find. Even though it's found in the body, it's usually broken down and wouldn't have shown up on a test, which means that there was a lot of diamethyl sulfhone in Gloria Ramirez's body. Yeah, and that's what they honed in on. The amines, they said, is probably from breaking down from some drug that we gave her, because we were giving her cocktails of drugs to try and stabilize her. We weren't, but the Er was the second one. They said, well, this is quite a leap, in my opinion. Suggested maybe she was using PCP, even though they didn't find any PCP in her system. But at any rate, they decided to focus on the third one, the dimethyl cell phone, which seemed to make a little bit more sense than the other two, at least. Right. And, I mean, it was written off much less easily than the other two, so it was the one that was kind of left over. And one of the researchers that Lawrence Livermore said, hey, dimethyl sulfide, that's a type of sulfur with a single oxygen bond. But, hey, get this. If you add two oxygen molecules to this type of sulfur, you get dimethyl sulfoxide. And that's something that people use as, like, a topical pain reliever. Maybe Gloria Ramirez was using this dimethyl sulfoxide as a topical pain reliever because didn't you say that her skin was oily? So maybe that's where it came from. And everyone said, hey, that's great, but still, there's nothing toxic that could knock out an entire Er from dimethyl sulfone or dimethyl sulfoxide. Yes, but they said, oh, some chemical nerd stood up and said, but get this. You add four oxygen molecules, and it's just crazy how a couple of molecules can make something deadly. Yeah, really? But you had four, and you're going to get dimethyl sulfate. And that is a substance that, if it's in gaseous form, can kill you in 10 minutes. Right. And they went, oh, yeah, okay, this makes a lot more sense because there can be a burning sensation. There can be tissue death in the eyeballs and mucous membranes. It can lead to paralysis and coma and convulsions, and suddenly it starts to come into form a little bit. Right. So Lawrence Livermore went to the coroner of Riverside, California, and said, here's what we think. We can't prove this, but here's the best theory we've come up with. Gloria Ramirez was using dimethyl sulfoxide DMSO as a topical pain reliever for her cervical cancer. And when she was brought in for heart failure, the paramedics and the Er staff started flooding her system with oxygen. Well, that oxygen combined with breaking down dimethyl sulfoxide managed to combine into dimethyl sulfate and that turned into some sort of gas that emitted from her that poisoned the Er staff. And everybody said, okay, good enough. That's the best anyone has come up with. Kind of. I mean, that was a decent theory, but they couldn't show the exact pathway that that might have taken and why her body would have converted that sulfon into sulfate. It was a good guess, but they couldn't prove it necessarily, and they still can. It's still unproven, but some people say, well, this is just like no one's ever demonstrated how it happened, but this is probably what happened to a lot of people. And the symptoms didn't exactly match because we mentioned some of the doctors and nurses suffered nausea and wretching, and apparently sulfate doesn't produce those symptoms. And nobody said, my eyes burned or my mucous membrane burns, which would be like the primary symptom, and everybody in the room would have it. If one person was affected from being in close quarters with Gloria Ramirez, that's just what would happen first. And so the symptoms not matching. And then on top of that, the fact that Gloria Ramirez's family said she never used DMSO kind of shoots some holes into this theory. So over time, the fact that this has remained a mystery has allowed some other ideas to kind of float to the surface, too. Yeah, mass hysteria, which is I think that's just a go to anytime something happens you can't explain. Yeah, but it was particularly sexist, too, because they're like, look, it was mostly female nurses who were subject to this, so of course it was mass hysteria. Right, of course. Right. And then this one is really interesting to me, and also not true, but an urban legend arose that on the hospital staff, there were some people smuggling ingredients for methamphetamine manufacturing through the Er. And IV bags. So a little Breaking Bad operation going through there. Right. And that one of the staff accidentally gave her an IV bag with these methamphetamine ingredients, and that produced this toxicity. Yes. Pretty interesting stuff. Probably not the case, but it's still I mean, you can float interesting ideas like that because it's still not proven. Agreed. It may never be. Well, that's the case of the toxic corpse of Gloria Ramirez. May she rest in peace. And since I said, may she rest in peace, that means that this short stuff is over, right, Chuck? That's right. The short stuff out. Stuff you should know is the production of iHeartRadio's how Stuff Works. For more podcasts my heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio app apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows."
https://podcasts.howstuf…lloons-final.mp3	How Hot Air Balloons Work	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/how-hot-air-balloons-work	Arguably the most beautiful objects in the entire world, hot air balloons take advantage of some interesting physics and have a long history of killing their occupants. Find out more.	Arguably the most beautiful objects in the entire world, hot air balloons take advantage of some interesting physics and have a long history of killing their occupants. Find out more.	Tue, 25 Aug 2015 14:40:25 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2015, tm_mon=8, tm_mday=25, tm_hour=14, tm_min=40, tm_sec=25, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=237, tm_isdst=0)	44210127	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"With no fees or minimums on checking and savings accounts. Banking with Capital One is, like the easiest decision in the history of decisions. Kind of like choosing to listen to another episode of your favorite podcast. And with Capital One's top rated app, you can deposit checks and transfer money anytime, time, anywhere, making Capital One an even easier decision that's banking reimagined what's in your wallet terms apply. Capital One NA Member FDIC what if you were a global energy company with operations in Scotland, technologists in India, and customers, all on different systems? You need to pull it together. So you call in IBM and Red Hat to create an open hybrid cloud platform. Now data is available anywhere, securely, and your digital transformation is helping find new ways to unlock energy around the world. Let's create a hybrid cloud that can change in industry. IBM let's create. Learn more@ibmcom. Welcome to stuff you should know from Houseteporkworkscom. Hi, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles, Debbie, Chuck, Bryant and there's Jerry. We are up and away our beautiful podcast. You know what I was disappointed to learn today? Never read it, but around the World in 80 Days. Apparently, it wasn't like a balloon race story. I thought it was like, there's balloon on the cover of the VHS cassette tape. Well, the movie changed it. And I looked up today the original Jules Verne book. They said that he entertained the balloon thing, but then kind of disregarded it, saying it's not feasible. So it's like trains and other modes and chips and other modes of transportation in the book. Yeah, and apparently the movie version took it and ran with it with a balloon. And even such that a balloon is on the cover of a lot of the books now. So in the movie, it's balloon centric. They do it with a balloon, I think. But I haven't seen the movie. I haven't either, but whenever I think of that but in the book or balloon, julesburn is like, this is preposterous. We couldn't just do it in a balloon. I think that's the case. I mean, I just skirted through this research, so I'm sure fans will hold me to the fire for this. Well, I think we should both go see that movie because I want to see it, too. Go see it. Go to a television and see it where it's streaming. Yeah. Okay. I was like, I didn't know it was playing. Yeah, it said all the simplicity. Didn't Owen Wilson remake it, too? Somebody did. I accidentally ran across that one, and before I could, like, click no, close the tab, I saw, like, Jackie Chan was on it and Steve Coogan. Oh, I love Coogs. Yeah. Doesn't mean that it was a good remake. You know what? I agreed. So hot air balloons. Have you ever been in one? No. Have you? No, and I never will. Ever in my whole life. I won't it seems like something that would not be Joshy. No. Josh. No. One of my great joys in life is looking at pictures of hot air balloons on the ground. Yeah. Just realize with your feet sitting on the ground in your chair. But in the chair. Yeah, but it's true. I do love looking at pictures of hot air balloons. Have you ever seen a race going on or a gathering? Like, been out? No, my dad went on a hot air balloon ride. I've seen them out around Callaway Gardens. I've never been to, but there's like a really big hot air balloon expo there. Oh, really? Yeah, it's coming up, actually, in September, I think. Like September, maybe. Labor Day weekend, I believe. Why did you sound disappointed? Well, I have planned Labor Day weekend. No ballooning for me. No, but you can look at pictures of it afterward. Your hobby. Yeah, but no, I have never been in one. Will you? I mean, I would, but it's not on my bucket list or anything. Right. Like, if a fan wrote in and said, I'm a balloon pilot, I'd like to invite you on a free trip, then I would totally do it. I'll be by your house to pick you up, stand on your roof at 06:00 p.m.. Or I may be somewhere close by, because you never know where we'll land. There's probably fans at Callaway Gardens. You should go down there with the stuff you should Know T shirt on. Sure. And that was a teaser spoiler, by the way. That was not just a joke. I don't get it. That you never know where we're going to land. I don't get that at all. They don't know where they're going to land, necessarily. Didn't you read the article? Oh, yeah. I thought you were talking about us. No, I thought you're making, like, a reference to tour or something like that. No, I mean the hot air pilot. Hot air balloon pilot would say, I may land at your house to pick you up and I may be a mile or two away. Got it. I would put to you, Chuck, that no podcast has ever gone this far off the rails this early in I think we're right on the rails. Do you? We're talking about hot air balloons. See, we can't even agree on whether we're off the rails. All right, let's talk about this. Hot air balloons. Yes. They actually have not the longest history, you would think. Usually when we do something like this, we're like, hot air balloons are actually thousands of years old. Yeah. Ancient China. Not the case. No, the idea is that the understanding of the principles of how hot air balloons work have been around for a couple of thousand years. Right. But hot air balloons themselves and actually the first human to ever fly didn't happen until the 18th century, until, I think, the 1780s. Right. For the hot air balloon 1783. Yeah. With Joseph and Etian Montgolfier. Not bad names if you're going to be born in France. Those are good names to have. That's right. And they worked for a paper company, their family's paper company, and then on the side, like, the little floating Japanese lanterns, I think they made those for fun out of paper. Right. Because they had left over paper. And I didn't look into that too much, by the way, for this. Did you? The Montgolfier brothers? No, the lanterns. No. And I meant to. I always think of what was that movie about the tsunami? Oh, yeah. There's like a scene in there, isn't there, where they release, like, a bunch of those was the one with Naomi Watts? Yeah. Oh, boy. That was a tough movie. I never saw it. You should check that out. Yeah, it was very realistic and tough to get through. Which one should I watch first? That or around the world in 80 days. The one I can't think of the name of. Okay. What's it called? It's like the Great Beneath. I don't know. I can't remember it's. Something like that. Are you going to look it up? Because if so, I'll start talking about balloon history while you do talk about balloon history. So anyway, the brothers Montgolfier, they started fashioning little, basically model hot air balloons out of paper from their family's mail, like you've said. And they said, this works conceivably. If we make a big enough balloon, we could float livestock in the air if we wanted to. And they did. They ran a test, and they were so sure of this test that they actually invited the king, Louis the 16th, to come check it out. And they ran a test that involved a sheep, a duck and a chicken, which they put into a basket attached to a hot air balloon and said, Voila. They probably did say voila. Yes, I bet they did. And the king went, they did. And actually, those weren't random selections of animals. They chose the sheep because it was similar to humans as far as being a land mammal. Sheep is represented with hair. Well, one of the worries was sheep wouldn't be able to ducks have feet. Yeah. They wouldn't be able to breathe up there. So that's why they said, well, let's send a mammal up there to see if it survives. Yeah, that was one of the first things hot air balloons proved, was that humans or living things can breathe in the atmosphere. No one knew that before because no one had been into the atmosphere before. That's right. And the duck and the chicken, the rooster were chosen because they can both fly, so they were the control. But they can both fly at different altitudes. So they didn't just randomly throw three farm animals in. There a purpose behind each one. I'm sure. The sheep is like, what are you two worried about? You're the ones who can fly. Is that a French sheep? Okay. Sounded like droopy a little bit. It was a little bit. It was from the Burgundy region. That's what they sound like down there. Okay. By the way, the impossible. What was the name of that movie? The great underneath the impossible. Virtually the same thing. The greed. So they floated it up there. In the beginning, they thought that the smoke was what provided lift, because they were just silly 18th century goons, and the smoke was the only thing they could see, so they figured it had to be that. Yeah. And they were definitely producing a lot of smoke because they were using, like, straw, manure, whatever they could get their hands on to fuel these hot air balloons. Yeah. And their balloon was a rigid frame. It was a frame made of lightwood. And the balloon was cotton or silk. So it wasn't like the non rigid balloons that we have today. Yeah. The non rigid canopies need to be more specific. So the Montgolfiers were feted by King Louis XVI. They all ate some lamb's legs together, I would assume. Well, I bet. And then gout, yes. And then two months later, they're like, It's time for human trials. And they put two people not themselves in a balloon and set them up. Yeah. The King wanted convicted criminals at first to pilot it because they figured that's just what you do back in those days. Let's just use these criminals for something. Hey, that's what connects this episode to the next one. Convicted criminals spoiler. But he was talked out of that and said, no, we should probably get some people that kind of know what they're doing. So they got a major in the infantry named Marquis Francois de la DA. That's not bad, darland. Yeah. And you do the second one, a physics professor, pilotre de Rosier. Yeah, very nice. Pilotre de Rosier. Yeah. And de Rosier became not only the first human to pilot a balloon, but he became the first human to die piloting a balloon. Yeah. Not in that flight, though. A couple of decades later, he did. Right. Yeah. He tried to fly over the English Channel, and he had a great bad idea that was to put a hydrogen balloon inside of the hot air balloon. Yeah. Why? Just use air. Use something lighter than air. Yeah. And that didn't work out so well, because about 30 minutes into the flight, when you apply fire to a hydrogen balloon, it blew up. Yeah. And he died. Had he been a chemistry professor, this might have never happened. But he was a physics professor, so he did. But those two actually were the first human beings on the planet to fly, as far as we know. That's right. The whole world around in the history of humanity, those two did it. The first oh, you mean fly like you consider that flying pre. Right. Brothers. Yeah. And the Wright brothers are usually given the title of the first manned powered flight. Yeah, because it's a little bit different than floating. Apparently. They're not even that. Somebody else beat the Wright brothers to it, of course. That's a whole other podcast if you ask me. But this is the first flight of any sort as far as anybody knows. Yeah. Although didn't like the ancient Chinese hang glide. I don't know. I feel like they did. And we talked about it. Maybe we'll find out. I feel like the ancient Chinese did almost everything way before everyone else. Yeah. They just didn't tell anybody about it because they were isolationist, and look where it got them. Yeah. They're on the rise in the 21st century. So balloons fell out of fashion for a number of years because the dirigible, which we did a podcast on Blimps, came into fashion because you can steer those and you can take more people. Yeah, that's a big plus. You can steer them. You're not at the mercy of the vagaries of the wind. And then there was something called the smoke balloon. This sounds like fun. The thing about the Flying Allens? No. Did we talk about them in the circus family of stuff? No, but we should have because they were a circus family. And that's where a lot of the smoke balloon activity took place, was in circuses and fairs in the late 18 hundreds and early 1009 hundreds. Yeah. And it was an act. This I would possibly do. No, you wouldn't. I might go look at the footage because it would be over fairly quickly, your death. So tell them about we'll tell them what a smoked balloon is. Well, that's basically a balloon that's lifted from the ground with the fire, but it's not attached to fire. They basically just hold you to the ground until this thing is full, and then they let you go and you shoot up in the air. And you're attached to the balloon. Yes. And you are hopefully wearing a parachute. Yes. And everybody's holding the balloon down. And then when everybody lets go, like you said, you shoot up into the air. And then once you hit your apex and the balloon loses heat and starts to come back down to earth, you get away from it and parachute down. It sounds great. Well, the Flying Allen did all kinds of stuff. It was a family of teenager kids. They were all teenagers. Well, no, they were parents, but they were sending their teenage kids up, like three at a time, hanging and doing, like, trapeze work under these balloons. One of them brought a cannon up and was shot out of a cannon. Sure. Because that's what you do. And it's just crazy. There's actual footage of them trapezing under a balloon and then dropping and parachuting. Wow. And it's like a static line deal. There's no free fall. Really? You don't see that these days. Smoke balloon axe. All right. Because they're probably I would say they're dangerous. It sounds a little dangerous, but thrilling. Yes, I'm sure it was. So this was in the late 19th century, right? The smoke balloon, early 19 hundreds. So by the time this had happened, by the time smoke balloons were like a popular carnival attraction, hot air balloons had been basically totally abandoned in favor of dirigibles. Right? Sure. And it wasn't until the 1950s that they started to experience a revival. Apparently, the US. Military, I think the Navy, the Office of Navy Research, to be exact, from what I understand, they said, hey, we need to figure out a way to ferry sheep and ducks and chickens from point A to point B, but we don't want to spend a lot of money or put a lot of effort behind it. So you, Mr. Ed Yoast, come up with an idea for us. How are we going to move our sheep and chickens and ducks? Balloons? That's what he said. Yeah. He founded Raven Industries and in the mid 19 and 50s started designing these hot air balloons for the Navy. And that I think he's the one that kind of I don't know if he patented it literally, but he got on board with that light bulb shape. Well, I think he came up with it because his original designs were spheres were perfectly round balloons. Yeah. No good. No. We figured out that the way that the hot air heated up inside the balloon, the top of the balloon would be fully inflated, but the bottom wouldn't be. And that's not good. You want it pretty much uniformly inflated. So he just got rid of the bottom of the sphere and tapered it in to make what you like. You say the light bulb design, I'm pretty sure it was him or at least his company. Yeah. Basically said, you don't need this extra material. Right. So what you think of when you think of a hot air balloon from as recent as the that's right. And he started in the 60s, selling them after the Navy said, not so interested anymore. And he says, Well, I think they're civilian applications. Like fun. They're like, we have no problem with that. Just please stop corresponding with us. That's right. So it's a bit on history. And when we come back, we will get into how these crazy looking things work, right. For this. What if you were a global energy company with operations in Scotland, technologists in India, and customers, all on different systems? You need to pull it together. So you call in IBM and Red Hat to create an open hybrid cloud platform. Now, data is available anywhere, securely, and your digital transformation is helping find new ways to unlock energy around the world. Let's create a hybrid cloud that can change in industry. IBM, let's create. Learn more@ibm.com. These days, you use your personal info to do just about everything, especially when you're online. And guess what? With all that info just floating around out there, it can make the Internet a practical gold mine for identity thieves. And stealing your identity, it turns out, can be dangerously easy, which is not good. But now it's easy to protect yourself with LifeLock by Norton. Yeah. LifeLock monitors your info and alerts you to potential identity threats. And if you are a victim of identity theft, the dedicated US based restoration specialist will work to fix it. Identity thefts have had it easy for far too long. Now, finally, it's your turn. Just remember, no one can prevent all identity theft or monitor all transactions at all businesses. But everyone can save up to 25% off their first year by going to LifeLock. comStuff that's Lifelock.com stuff for 25% off your first year. LifeLock identity theft protection starts here. All right, Josh. Hot air balloons are based on one principle. And even though this article has four pages of incomprehensible science, it's like, seriously, we were saying earlier, it's like it's describing alchemy. Yeah, it's magic. It doesn't make sense. And we will get into the science more. But very simply, hot air is lighter than cool air because it has less mass. Right. So hot air rises. You've all heard that. It's going to be hotter. Your ceiling in your bedroom is at the floor. If you're trying to cool off, do not stand on a chair and put your face toward the ceiling. No, that's why you reverse your ceiling fan in the winter to bring that hot air back down. That's exactly right, Chuck. But a cubic foot of air weighs about 28 grams, which is about an ounce. And if you heat that by 100 degrees Fahrenheit, it's going to weigh 7 grams less. So essentially, each foot of that cubic air and a hot air balloon lifts about 7 grams, which is not much. No, it's not. And that's why they're so huge, to carry just that little basket with two or three people in it. Yeah, because if you can capture enough air and heat it all by 100 degrees, each cubic centimeter will lift its own 7 grams. And all those cubic centimeters put together will lift a lot of weight. So, for example, if you have 650 cubic feet of hot air, you can lift \u00a31000. That's pretty great. Like you said, that's why those balloon envelopes is what they're called are so big. Right. So, like you said, we'll talk a little more about the science in a minute, but let's talk about the parts of the balloon. Right, parts of parts. I just gave away the name of the balloon itself. The envelope. The envelope, yes. The most beautiful part of the balloon, because Wicker is ugly, frankly. But the balloon itself is gorgeous. Into Wicker. Not really. I would figure with your Macrame obsession, you would be way into Wicker. I'm obsessive Macrame because it's horrid. You know what I mean? But Wicker doesn't. It's horrid. It's too pedestrian to be horrid. You know what I mean? Boy, the Wicker Association is going to I'm sorry, I know they've got a very strong lobby, but I'm not afraid of them. They're going to put a wicker foot up your butt. Exactly how? Yes. The envelope is made up of nylon triangles called the Gores, a bunch of them. And those Gores are even made up of smaller parts sewn together panels, if you will. Yeah. Like the strip. You know how like a balloon has lines usually going down it? Those in between the lines, the whole thing from top to bottom. That's the Gore. Right. Yes. But the Gore itself is made up of smaller panels that you can't see unless you're close to it. That's right. Yeah. All sitting together. Nylon is what they use because it's light. And it also has the nice feature that it's not as flammable. No. It has a high melting point. Yeah. So you can get it kind of hot before it starts to melt. Like toast from Raiders of the Lost Ark. That's right. What they use as their fuel and their propellant is heat brought on by propane, but not the kind of propane gas that you use in your backyard. This is compressed liquid propane. Right. Which means that it takes up a lot less space. So you can use smaller canisters, which is important because you are carrying them aboard the hot air balloon with you in the basket. You want more space for paying customers than propane canisters. Well, you probably want the right mix of both. Sure, that's true. But if you can get a smaller and more propane and a smaller canister, that's ideal. Hence why they use liquid propane. The problem is that if you just burn liquid propane, it's not going to burn as efficiently as, say, gas propane. Yeah. You'll just burn through it. Well, they have figured out a way around this, Chuck, with these burners, the things that are at the bottom of the envelope in the little room, that's called the skirt. Those are the burners. Right. And they're connected by hose to the propane canisters in the basket. That's right. And on the burner itself is a coil that the propane comes into, and there's a pilot light that heats that propane and burns some of it as it's coming in. And then the heat from that burn off heats the coil, so it turns that liquid propane into gas propane at the burner, then it ignites it, and that's what burns into the hot air within the envelope. So it's pretty clever. Correct. So it converts the liquid propane to gas propane at the burner so that you have a much more efficient burn. Right. And sometimes, let's say, if they're flying over a field of cattle, that thing is pretty loud when they're burning the gas. Yeah. And they're like, we don't want to disturb the cattle. So there's another valve where they can burn. Just a straight liquid, like we were talking about, much quieter. It'll keep you aloft. Keep you aloft for a little while. I think it's a very nice thing to do because they don't want to scare the livestock well, and I imagine as a passenger, it's much more user friendly, rider friendly. If you just hear that little sound and not that big. Do it again. Yeah. That would annoy me at a certain point. I don't think it would annoy me. You're having a nice conversation. Oh, man. Right. And the pilot's like, Sorry, I'm just trying to keep us alive. Do you want to float or not? Right. Or fly. Excuse me? I think floats accurate, too. So the skirt that we mentioned, it is nylon as well, but it is coated in a fire resistant material, which is very key because that's where the hot stuff is. And so the basket is traditionally wicker. Not for any kind of throwback purpose. I had no idea. I didn't, either. I always figured it was throwback. I always thought they were just trying to annoy me. Like a beautiful hot air blue and then, like, the world's ugliest little box. Right. It turns out that wicker plays a role in absorbing the impact of landing. Yeah, it makes sense. I still have a hard time believing they can't build something better. Right. Something out of the same stuff they make Super Bowls out of. Yeah. Or something with shocks or springs or that's like kevlar. I don't know. Well, the other great aspect of it is when you add shocks or something, you're adding weight. Wicker. You need the wicker to stand in, but because it's woven, it will absorb that impact and distribute it across the wicker rather than up into your knees as much. So it makes sense. It kills several birds with 1 st. I think it's one of those if it's not broke, don't fix it deals. Probably, like, they've probably looked into it and been like, Wicker's fine, but can't they, like, wrap it in construction paper or something? One guy made a glass bottom basket. Sounds terrible. I think it's a great idea. They should all be glass bottom, because then you can just look, I know that I would totally lose my mind. The more fuel you pump in there, it's going to rise, rise, rise. But there is an upper altitude limit because the air becomes thin and you can't lift the balloon any further. Basically, at a certain point. Let's talk about what you're talking about real quick. Let's talk about the science. All right. All right. So why it doesn't make any sense that there would be an upper limit, that the balloon will only float up to a certain height in the atmosphere. It doesn't make sense until you understand the forces at play of what makes a hot air balloon float. Right. It's actually pretty simple. I would advise you strongly that if you want to understand this article, don't read this article. Go find it elsewhere on the Internet. Yeah. Just listen to us. Yeah, okay. Well, we're trying, I guess, is what I'm saying. But the hot air balloon floats because of the principle of buoyancy or the buoyancy effect. Yes. Right. And buoyancy is an upward force that counteracts gravity, right? That's right. So at sea level, gravity is at its strongest. Buoyancy is apparently at its weakest. Right. Okay. I believe maybe it's at its strongest. I just threw that in, and I could be wrong. I'm going to back off for that part. But I do know that gravity is at its strongest at sea level, at least until you get into the water, and then it gets more stronger and stronger, at least until someone emails us and tells us the air at sea level has a lot of gravity acting on it. And one of the reasons why it has a lot of gravity acting on it is because that's where the most molecules, air molecules, are found in the entire atmosphere of the Earth. Yeah. These air molecules are all around us at all times. We can't see them, but they're smashing into each other. They're creating energy, which is air pressure. Right. So the movement of these air particles combined with their mass, I mean, they're very tiny, but they still have mass. Sure. Because there's such a mind boggling number of air molecules in the atmosphere, there's enough of them. They have enough of a combined mass that they have a substantial mass that gravity can act on. That's right. And again, it has its strongest force at sea level. Right. So air pressure is strongest at sea level because the air is denser there. Okay. Okay. Now, if you have air that's lighter than the air at sea level, the air will float. That's right. And when you apply heat to it, it's going to be lighter. Right. And the reason it's lighter is because it expands. Right. Okay. So it's less dense. Yeah. Well, is it fewer molecules or just less dense? I think it's not necessarily fewer, they just occupy a larger space. Right, yeah, that makes sense. So it's less dense, which means, just like with water, if you take a cork, a cork is less dense than water, which is why when you put a cork in water, it's going to float. It's buoyant. Air is the same thing as water. They're both fluids. So the same principles are at work that Archimedes figured out years and years ago in the air as well. So if you could take this hot air and capture it in some sort of way in a very envelope of nylon yeah. Like a very light vessel like that, it will float and it will displace. It will be as buoyant as in an equal amount to the weight of the air. It displaces. That's right. So it has that lift. So that's all that's. At work. Warmer air floats above colder air because it's less dense. And all the hot air balloon does is capture warm air so that it will float. And you attach your basket onto it and you get to float with it. Nice job. Thank you. I'm sure I got a few things wrong in there, but no, I did okay. I think that was pretty damn close. It sounds like somebody has been killed in the other room. I know. We should go investigate. You want to take a break? Yeah, let's take a break. And we'll get to how to pilot these beasts. What if you were a major transit system with billions of passengers taking millions of trips every year? You weren't about to let any cyber attacks slow you down. So you partner with IBM to build a security architecture to keep your data network and applications protected. Now you can tackle threats so they don't bring you to a grinding halt and everyone's going places, including you. Let's create cybersecurity that keeps your business on track. IBM, let's create learn more@ibm.com. These days, you use your personal info to do just about everything, especially when you're online. And guess what? With all that info just floating around out there, it can make the Internet a practical gold mine for identity thieves. And stealing your identity, it turns out, can be dangerously easy. Which is not good. But now it's easy to protect yourself with LifeLock by Norton. Yes, LifeLock monitors your info and alerts you to potential identity threats. And if you are a victim of identity theft, a dedicated US. Based restoration specialist will work to fix it. Identity thieves have had it easy for far too long. Now, finally, it's your turn. Just remember, no one can prevent all identity theft or monitor all transactions at all businesses. But everyone can save up to 25% off their first year by going to LifeLock. comStuff that's lifelock.com slash stuff for 25% off your first year. LifeLock identity theft protection starts here. All right, Josh, nice job on science. I feel like you're jinxing me every time you compliment me on that. I think somebody is going to write it and be like, I'm embarrassed for you. How badly you got that wrong. So if you go to pilot one of these things, it's pretty simple. And when I say pretty simple, that is not to remove the amount of admiration I have for these pilots, because it takes skill. Like you and I can't just jump in one. We would kill ourselves. Oh, yeah. And if we piloted one, it takes hundreds of hours to become a good pilot of a hot air balloon. Yeah. It's kind of like when I went to Vancouver, I took that float plane trip with Reggie, the Vancouver pilot. Yeah. And I didn't mean to insult them, but while we were flying, I looked at them and I was like, reggie, I'm just looking at what you're doing and I said, I feel like I could do this. It doesn't look too hard. And he said it's not. He said flying in great conditions is super easy. He said it's flying in not great conditions is where you earn your stripes as a buyer. Yeah. And I was like, oh, yeah. Because he was just doing some levers and steering a thing and doing pedaling really stuff pedaling really quick. But I get the same feeling. It's like with a hot air balloon pilot, it's pretty simple at its basis, because all you're doing, literally the only controls you have are to make that thing go up and down. Right? Up. By releasing more hot air down, because you have a cord attached to the valve at the top. Yes. That releases valve. Yeah, it releases some of that hot air so you can sink and land. And that's it. Yeah. Basically, there's a strip, a circular strip at the very top of the balloon. And when you pull on that court, it opens it up, it pulls it away a little bit. And by releasing some of that hot air, you're cooling effectively the air inside the envelope. So you start to come down. So you got up and you got down. But Josh yes. How do they go left and right? How do they fly horizontally in different directions? It seems like you would just go where the wind takes you. You do. So how do they go in different directions? Well, apparently so, there is wind and then there's also something called wind aloft. And wind aloft is in the atmosphere and it goes in different directions at different altitudes. There you have it. So if you want to go, say, west, you rise up to 1300ft, where the winds blow west. If you want to go around in circles a few times, you go north. Yeah. By going up to 2800ft. That's right. So basically all they're doing is controlling altitude to control horizontal direction based on wind patterns. Yeah. Which, again, doesn't sound that hard. It still consists of up and down. It's just going up and down to the right places, depending on where you want to go. The thing is, this takes a tremendous amount of skill and experience, I would say, too. Yes. An experience almost like what you would call probably muscle memory, because it takes about 30 seconds for the balloon to respond either way to either the valve or the burner. Oh, man, that power lines right in front of me. Let me get out of the way. No, you got to see that coming from a long distance and you say, Let me get out of the way. Right. Like you're staring at a cruise ship or something. Did you see that video of the people that they had? That very thing happened to them? No, I don't watch those videos. I believe in Virginia in 2013 or 14, they just either didn't see a power line or I don't know what happened, but the guy tried to pull out, like, right before and go aloft higher up, and they hit the power line. The whole thing just caught fire. Wow. Yeah. Which is apparently as far as hot air balloon accidents go, that is a fairly common accident. Yeah. I would imagine that's. Sure. Power lines. Probably one of the most awful ways to go, I would imagine. Yeah. I would guess because it's slow, you can see it coming. It's not like a car crash. Right. You're like, all right, we're getting closer to your death. Closer to your death. Yeah. That would be pretty bad. And of course, I'm not making light of it. That's truly terrible. Sure. So I kind of joked earlier that they don't know quite where they're going to land, and that is true. They have an idea of where they want to land, and they've plotted this out. They're not just willy nilly up there, but if you'll notice when you're in a hot air balloon basket, one of the most vital people on your side, or the ground team. Yeah. Which you have to have if you're a hot air balloonist, the sum total of the people who are involved in your hot air balloon trip are not in the balloon. No. There are plenty of people following you in a car. That's right. Because they're basically following you to where you will eventually be able to land. Yeah. And again, you have an idea, possibly, of where you want to land, maybe the county or the state that you want to land in, but it probably doesn't go too much further than that. And I guess a safe pilot. Well, number one, there are some conditions that you want to look for when you're piloting. For example, before you go up, you want to have contacted a weather service sure. To find out which way the wind is blowing. At least look at your smartphone weather app. I'm sure that there's probably hot air balloon apps for that kind of thing. Yeah. They give you a little more advanced wind detail. Right. You also don't want a thunderstorm within 100 miles. No. Lightning is terrible for hot air balloons, and hot air ballooning in the rain is dangerous and no fun anyway. Yes, it is. So if you're a normal pilot, you're probably only going to want to fly in ideal conditions. Right. Like, nice day with just a little bit of wind. Yeah. You don't want too strong a wind either. Yeah. And you don't want the winds all off to be high, because even on the ground, the wind can be fine, but up in the atmosphere, they might be going like crazy. So you want to know all this stuff before you take off, and then when you do take off, you are constantly looking around for potential emergency landing sites. Yeah. That part was a little scary. Yeah. Whatever happens, you may need to land immediately. And it's not like pulling a car over on the shoulder of a highway, which can be dangerous enough at high speeds. True. This is like landing a hot air balloon again in a civilized world with lots of power lines everywhere and roads and lakes and all sorts of stuff that you don't want to fly into. So you constantly have to be looking out for a place to land. Yeah. You probably don't think about all the stuff around you until you're up in a balloon like that. And you know that each one of those things is a hazard. The other thing a pilot will probably do is send up just a regular old helium balloon. They call them pieballs pilot balloons, but it's just a balloon. And they'll send that baby up there just to see, like, okay, where's that guy going? Because that's where we're going to be going. Right. And they watch it and just kind of chart its course for a little while and then off they go. Oh, there's also some other things on board. Of course. It's not just a basket. They're going to have an altimeter and a variator. Right. Just to know where they are. Of course. But other than that, it's pretty rudimentary. Yeah. Really. And the ground crew also is not just there to follow you in the car. And one of the reasons they're there following you in the car is to give you a ride back home, because it's almost impossible to go land back at the same place you left from. Yeah. Because you started in Georgia and you landed in Alabama. Right, exactly. So the ground crew is also there to help you set up, which apparently is not as involved as you would think. It takes ten to 15 minutes to unpack fully a hot air balloon and have it floating. Yeah. It's basically in a big stuff sack, like a sleeping bag. They lay it out onto a covering, like a pad on the ground to protect it. Yeah. They start blowing it up with a fan, just a regular old fan, just to kind of get some air in that thing. And then they will start shooting it with the hot air and it starts to increase in size and then rise up. And they've got it tied to the truck or whatever they ask it. And everybody's holding to the ground, I imagine. Yeah. And then as it gets bigger and bigger, you just sort of sit around and wait. Put the champagne on ice. Because that's a tradition when you land. Yeah. It's the traditional leg of lamb per passenger. No, it really is the champagne toast that started back in the olden days to placate farmers when they would land on their land. Oh, they farmers. Champagne with them. Yeah. Farmers are like, I don't want you landing on my land. First of all, that thing scares me. B. You're landing on my property. You're scaring my cattle. And the guy would be like, well, what about some champagne? Yeah, they would offer him champagne and the farm would be like, My one weakness. Well, he was already drunk because it was in the champagne region. Oh, yes, france. He's like, I already have a bunch of this, I don't need your champagne. But that tradition still holds true today. Take a champagne toast when you land. You might say, soft winds and gentle landings. Or you might recite the balloonist blessing or balloonist prayer, which is, the winds have welcomed you with softness, the sun has blessed you with its warm hands. You have flown so high and so well that God has joined you in your laughter and set you gently back into the loving arms of Mother Earth. Clink guzzle guzzle Burp you didn't make that up just now. No. Isn't riffing that's the balloonist blessing. Good chuck yeah, that was just scatting a poem. You land, you drink the champagne and then you're done. You go about your day, everybody packs up customers, so you're just like, See you later. Yeah, but everybody else has packed up. Yeah, right. Like I said, packing up takes a little longer, but it's not too different than packing a parachute or a sleeping bag or something. No, it's like you said, it's like a stuff sack, just packing it back in there. That's right. And an experienced pilot, it's not the easiest thing to land these smoothly. You're going to bump and you might land a little too hard, but if you're an experienced pilot, you're going to bring it in nice and smooth. Yeah. Bump a little bit, give everyone a good and then the champagne comes out. And apparently the big draw of hot air ballooning is that it's a very serene experience. I just kept running into that word over and over again. Everybody's like, you're floating to the green and peaceful experience ever. I think it'd be amazing. I mean, it sounds nice, aside from just the height part. Oh, sure. I get why you don't want to do it. Yeah. I would never expect that. So, is it safe to do? Yes. I don't have any stats on death. I got some stats. From what I saw, it is, relatively speaking, safe thing to do. There have been what seemed like in upticks and balloon accidents. It's possible that reporting has increased or media coverage has increased, but over the last few years, there have been some very high profile accidents. Apparently, as of 2014, between 1964 and 2014, there were 775 balloon accidents in the US, with 70 fatalities and 16 people died. Ballooning from 2002 to 2012. So it does seem like there's an uptick in it somehow. 16 people over ten years, though, right. But 70 over. Yeah, I guess that's about right. I guess it is. I recently say it, but there were some high profile ones. The worst ever was in Egypt. Actually, I think over Luxur. 19 of 21 people on board a hot air balloon died when it caught fire. Yeah, we didn't point that out. They can make these baskets really large now, if the balloon is large enough, obviously I've seen double deckers, too. Yeah, I don't know about that. I haven't seen a double decker. That sounds kind of neat. That's pretty neat. But supposedly, overall, it's a relatively safe thing to do. Let's call it safeish. And if you have some money, it's something you could get into. If you want a little two person hot air balloon, it'll set you back about twenty two K and a three to four person $35 to $45,000 for your very own hunter balloon with everything. Yeah. They can be shaped like all kinds of crazy shapes. Now, if you've seen balloon shows yeah, I've seen them shape like a castle or like a car. Like Charlie Brown. I saw one with a spike through it. It was hilarious. I like it was punctured. That's the one I get in. Yeah. And then if you are into this kind of stuff, or you want to find out whether you're into this kind of stuff, if you're in Georgia or the Southeast, you can go to Callaway Garden Sky High Hot Air Balloon Festival. And then the big one is in Albuquerque. Sure. The Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta. It happens every year. I think it's in a couple of months. Nice. Yeah, I'd love to go to that. So there you go. Hot air balloons. Do you got anything else? Yeah, I got some more stuff from our buddies at Mental Floss. They had a great ten facts about hot air balloons. Here's one fact. Okay. There was a balloon duel in two Frenchmen were in a love triangle, and they figured the best way to settle it was to get up and shoot at each other's balloon. I feel like I've heard about that before. Pretty silly Frenchy thing to do. And one of the guys shot the other guy's balloon. The other guy missed, and the balloon crashed and killed the guy. Wow hooray. And then in the US. The Union army had a balloon corps. Abraham Lincoln started the Balloon Corps. They had seven balloons with names like the Intrepid, and they would track enemy movement. They've been using reconnaissance since the 1700 with the French Army. So the Union Army did that. And then the Confederates made their own, I guess, out of whatever clothing they had laying around, and they just had the one balloon. It was captured by the Union army. Oh, really? Yeah, in 1863. They were like, Give us back our balloons. Wow. Well, thanks, Chuck. Thank you. Friends at Metal Floss. Yeah. Thank you for listening to this episode of Stuff You Should Know. If you want to know more about hot air balloons and alchemy, you can type that word into the search bar athouseupworks.com and since I said alchemy, is time for listener mail. I'm going to call this surefire way to get on listener mail. You guys are writing me from the county of Essex in England. Only started listening about a month ago and I can't get enough. I've been trying to think of the best way to guarantee it's right on the air, so I found out some common traits. One, it should complement you and massage your egos in some way. And number two, for balance, the letter should point out a mistake or oversight, but also make an interesting contribution. Yeah, this guy's got it set. So, first of all, I love the podcast. You're both awesome and really funny and smart. Second, I really am intrigued by the podcast on left handy left handy, left handers. Let's just call them lefty lefties and particularly the bit about how being left handed can be an advantage in sports. As you were saying, I felt sure that you would mention the case of Raphael Madal. The tennis player was mentally imploring you to do so. But you're not familiar with the story, I guess? No. He was born right handed, but from the first time he picked up a racket, he was trained by his uncle to play with his left hand to give him an advantage and make it more difficult to beat. Most people believe him to be left handed, but don't you think that's amazing that a player can become the best in the world, or at least the best on Clay court ever? Perhaps playing with their weaker hand? Pretty neat. That is very neat. It also poses an interesting question over how much the dominant hand that we're born with is actually just a state of mind that can be retrained. Keep up the good work, chats. And that is from Joe Broomfield. Thanks a lot, Joe. Essex. Yeah, that works pretty well. That was a classic listener mail. Classic. If you want to try your hand at a classic listener mail, you can lay it on us. But we are also always willing to give points for creativity, too. Sure you can tweet to us at syskpodcast. You can join us on facebook. Comstnow. You can send us an email to stuffpodcastupworks.com. And as always, join us at our home on the web stuffysheno.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit housetepworks.com. You know you're the best pet mom. When you growl back during playtime, give epic belly rubs and feed them halo holistic made with responsibly sourced ingredients, plus probiotics for digestive health, find us at chewy amazonandhalopets.com hey, everybody. I don't know about you, but I am excited that it's summer school's out, the sun is shining, and best of all, there's downtime four days. That's where true crime podcasts on Amazon music come in. They're the perfect activity for last minute road trips, long walks or, if you're brave enough, late nights. With so many killer shows like Morbid, my favorite Murder and small town murder, you'll never be bored to death again. So download the free Amazon Music app to start listening to all your favorite true crime podcasts. Plus, with Amazon Music, you can access new episodes early. Download the app today. Bye."
c3bae200-5460-11e8-b38c-67911c936abd	SYSK Selects: Can you Treat Mental Illness with Psychedelics?	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/sysk-selects-can-you-treat-mental-illness-with-psy	Hallucinogenic drugs are currently illegal, but they were once commonly used in psychological treatment. In this classic episode, Josh and Chuck discuss the rise and fall of psychedelics in treating mood disorders -- and why they're starting to gain favor again.	Hallucinogenic drugs are currently illegal, but they were once commonly used in psychological treatment. In this classic episode, Josh and Chuck discuss the rise and fall of psychedelics in treating mood disorders -- and why they're starting to gain favor again.	Sat, 09 Nov 2019 10:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2019, tm_mon=11, tm_mday=9, tm_hour=10, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=5, tm_yday=313, tm_isdst=0)	39050457	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Hey there everyone, its me, Josh. And for this week's SYSK selects I've chosen. Can we treat mental illness with psychedelics? Spoiler alert. The answer is a big, big yes. This is one of those neat pieces of history where things just kind of fell out of place for something important. And we also have the rare luxury of seeing where it went wrong and exactly who was responsible. So enjoy this really interesting episode of Stuff You Should Know. Welcome to stuff. You should know a production of Iheartradios how stuff works. Whoa. And welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's. Charles cheech Bryant Cheeks. Yeah, man. Yeah. I wanted to start this one out like a twelve year old, so that's what I'm going with. A twelve year old on acid. Maybe it has happened before in France, actually. Really? Thanks to our old friends at CIA. Oh, those kids. They dust the whole town wow. To see what would happen. And one kid came at his grandmother and tried to strangle her. Really? Yes. I can't remember the name of the town. You would find that funny. Well, no, people were like, showing up at the hospital. A lot of it was funny in that, like, all these 1950s Frenchies are losing their stuff for no apparent reason. Right. But the suicides that resulted from that not very funny. Before we get started, I think we should do an official COA for this one. I think that is a very good idea because what Josh and I are about to talk about are illegal drugs. But we just find it fascinating that they used to be used for certain things and they're starting to be used again in certain scientific research labs for these things. It is extremely fascinating. Which is what we're talking about. Right? Exactly. I guess this could be a follow up to our MKUltra cast. It's a follow up and it's an epilogue and a prologue. Yes. Very nice, because we kind of came into the CIA LSD MKUltra podcast, like right in the middle of the history of LSD. Pretty much. Well, we toured the beginning, but one of the things after 1943, when Albert Hoffman right. Yes. The chemist who created LSD LSD 25. Yes. It was the 25th attempt and tried it on himself intravenously, as I understand it, he injected it. Well, it says first he took it by mistake. Yeah. Because it was a blood thinner. And then he took it for real. Yeah. After that first bike ride home, he was like, got to do some more. Can I read his quote, please? I became aware of the wonder of creation, the magnificence of nature. Yes. Create Doctor Hoffman. Yeah. And he was just some Swiss guy, some chemist. He was the first person to come up with a synthetic hallucin gym back in 1914. A German chemist who worked for Merck, the pharmaceutical company, came up with MDMA, better known as Ecstasy. That far back huh? Yeah. And here's a tip for you, Chuckers. Anytime. According to the Associated Press, you write about a designer drug and use it by its designer name, you capitalize it. So ecstasy is always capitalized the word ecstasy when you're talking about the drug. Yeah, sure. Yeah. And not just the euphoric feeling you get from life. That's different. Yes. That's lower case. Okay. But it should be all caps. Yeah, sure. So it was MDMA was created. That's crazy. Yeah. And I guess it served as a it's not a catalyst, because I think it's changed, but it was to be used in the synthesis of other chemicals. Right. And it kind of sat on the shelves for a little while until somebody along the way and then tried to wonder, what happens if I take this stuff? And they did. And the CIA again looked at it, wanted to see what it could do, passed it up. And a guy by the name of Alexander Shulgen, right. Yes. He's a Dow chemist. And in 1978, at the age of 74, he published a study on the euphoric effects of MDMA. It was the first time anyone had ever published a study. One year. Wow. But he was 74, and he first noticed the euphoric effects because he liked to take it and go to cocktail parties. Of course he did. Yeah. So he's like, hey, man, this stuff is the bomb, and here's my study on it. Here are my findings, and lets everybody start taking this. So he starts giving it to his friends, including some psychiatrists. Did he give out Pacifiers? Not yet. Okay. That's coming, though. That's very close. 1978. Pacifiers came about 1988. Okay. So Sheldon's gives some to a friend who's a psychiatrist. Psychiatrist. Some of the more avantgarde psychiatrists start giving it to their patients, and it gets called Adam for a little while. While this is going on, it's being used by established psychiatrists. A mysterious financier in Dallas, Texas, finds out about this stuff and starts taking it, hires an underground chemist and has it made himself and then start selling it at clubs all over Dallas. And so this illicit use of this substance, simultaneous to its emergence on the club scene in about the mid 80s, led to the outlaw of MDMA. We'll get into it more, but the point is to this very long and rambling intro. Both of these drugs and others were legal at one time. Sure. Were put to good use, beneficial use, and then outlawed, possibly unfairly. And then now we're starting to see them come back into use. Hallucinogens being used to treat mental illness and mental harm in legitimate circles. Very legitimate. Quick question. Was that Dallas person? Was that Cowboys owner Jerry Jones? I don't know. I don't think anybody knows who it is. It's start, maybe. Yeah, I think, to begin with. So, Josh, you mentioned the CIA. I do want to point out it wasn't just the americans, the Canadian government and British's work. Britain's. Mi Six also experimented with LSD. And between 1950 and 65, 40,000 people all over the world had been treated with LSD in treatments. Yeah. Kerry Grant. Yeah. Can we go back to Hollywood? Yeah. So a couple of guys set up shop. Arthur Chandler what was the other guy's name? Hartman. Hartman. Mortimer Hartman, who was a radiologist, took acid mortgage and said, you know, I'm going to get into psychiatry. These guys set up a shop called the Psychiatric Institute of Beverly Hills. Yes. Right in the middle of Beverly Hills. And this is back in the day when things were clean living going on. Aside from the rampant alcoholism and cigarettes being smoked. Yeah. Adultery. Probably some marijuana use going on here, there. But that was among the hop heads. Yeah, exactly. So he sets up a couple of rooms with a couch and starts booking patients at a rate of, like, six or 8 hours a session, depending on what was going on with the person. And five days a week they were book solid $100 a pop. Which was a lot of money back then. Sure. And I guess that included the drugs. The drugs and the time that you were there, right? Yeah. So they would sit with you. They will give you some blinders to block out distractions. And then you would go into sort of like the more meditative sort of acid trip. Essentially, you were tripping hard because you were on pharmaceutical grade LSD produced by the Sandos Company. Yeah. We're talking about Alice Huxley, novelist. And actually he died tripping. Did you know that? Really? Yeah. He had throat cancer, I think. And the last thing he ever wrote was a note to his wife requesting such and such milligrams of LSD or micrograms of LSD injected intramuscularly. Really? And that was about 6 hours before he died. So he died tripping and a Grateful Dead record. That was his last request before the Grateful Dead chucking screenwriter Charles Bracket took it. Director Sidley Lament. Is it Lamay or Lament? Lamette, I think. Okay. I always said late, but I think I'm wrong. He took it a few times, went through sessions, called It wonderful. He reexperienced his own birth, which apparently a few people did. I'd never heard of that. I haven't either. And Claire Booth Loose was a playwright married to Time magazine publisher Henry Lewis. She was also an ambassador and possibly an agent for the US. Government. And they both took acid so much that Henry Louis in Time magazine said, we need to write about this. This is awesome. Yeah. There's a lot of good press that Time magazine gave LSD in the 50s as basically a cure all. And again, Kerry Grant got into it big time. Apparently. He had at least 100 trips, I believe. Yeah. Let's talk about him for a second because he was one of these guys that carefully constructed his persona he worked very hard. Apparently the line he always gave was, a lot of people want to be Carrie Grant, and I'm one of them, indicating that this suave Mr. Cool persona was completely fabricated and created by himself so he could get the fame and everything. But deep down, he suffered as a human until he started taking acid. Right. Well, he had some pretty interesting revelations, one of which I read. Somebody thought to write down the stuff that he some of the insights he had, some were kind of deep. Others were like, if I have to look at a man, he should be required to comb his hair and brush his teeth and wear a clean shirt. That was an acid revelation. Yes, it was interesting. So it kind of ran the gamut, but yeah, he became a real devotee of LSD. His ex wife, too. Yeah, that's it. Well, she got him into it, right? I think so. Who wrote part of this? We're basing this part on a Vanity Fair article. Really good article. Yeah. It's called carrying the sky with diamonds. But he was a huge advocate for LSD. He wasn't the only one. But he lived to see it outlawed and public sentiment turned against it. Right. Yes. Just like MDMA, pilocybin, magic Mushrooms, and part of the well, really, one of the you could say that Timothy Leary almost single handedly led to the tremendous suffering of a lot of people who might otherwise have been helped by LSD. Ironically, with his naive bravado. The establishment just needs to get over its hang ups and we should all take acid. Yeah. Whether or not you agree that that's a good idea. It's a stupid thing to say. Sure. Leery was originally a Harvard psychiatrist, right? Yes. And he started taking, I think, mushrooms. And then he eventually started taking LSD and was fired from Harvard because he turned into a hippie. And that was pretty much the beginning of the end of LSD. Yeah. They may have continued to use LSD as treatment for mental patients, mental illness and depression, if not for Timothy Leary, who was trying to spread the word about acid. That's right. Back to Kerry Grant real quick. He was so into it, Josh. He had a couple of stories written about him in 1000 959 in look magazine, the Curious Story Behind the New Carrie Grant gave a glowing account of LSD. And then this is the best. The following year. The Good Housekeeping magazine. It got the Good Housekeeping Seal of approval in the 1960 issue and they called it the Secret of Grant's second youth. I want to get a copy of that magazine. Yeah. How awesome would that be? Yeah. And that's kind of like the theme of this podcast is so weird that these things were considered incredibly wonderful and benign, and now they're just viewed as just so they're evil and they're outlawed simply because they were made illegal or prohibited. Right. And again, there's kind of a movement toward saying, hey, maybe Timothy Leary did give us a bad name. Maybe that underground chemist in Dallas really kind of put a terrible spread on this. And we should look at these again. Right. Can I tell one more story? Yes. From Hollywood at the esther Williams, famous diva actress from the MGM studio, friend of Carrie Grants, called Carrie Grant up after these articles and said, hey, can you introduce me to your doctor, Dr. Hartman? He did. So at the time, she was aging, just had gone through a divorce. Her husband left her with huge debt with the IRS, and she was still struggling with the death of her 16 year old brother. She goes in the office, she takes acid, does her session, goes home to her parents, still on acid, has dinner with them, and then goes into the bathroom mirror, says goodnight to her parents, look in the mirror and I'm going to read this quote. I was startled by a split image. One half of my face, the right half was me. The other half was the face of a 16 year old boy. The left side of my upper body was flat and muscular. I reached up with my boy's hand to touch my right breast and felt my penis stirring. It was a hermaphroditic phantasm. And I understood perfectly in that moment when my brother died, I took him into my life so completely, he became part of me. Yeah. That's a pretty huge thing to understand. Pretty jarring way to come to terms with that, right? Yeah. But that's what they're finding out now, though, is that these people are having these breakthroughs in the throes of their final days of, let's say, cancer. And they have these epiphanies. LSD is outlawed. We're following a timeline here. Yes. LSD is outlawed in, I think, 65, something like that, at the latest. 1970. Yeah. They shut down the shop in Beverly Hills. Yeah. And Sando stopped making it. It was outlawed and pushed underground. MDMA made it until 1985. And MDMA's story is linked very closely to a guy named Doctor George Ricuarte, who is Johns Hopkins researcher. Displored Me. So in 1985, about the time the DEA is reeling from being caught totally unaware by the crack epidemic yeah. And basically a lot of people think looking for a whipping post. Sure. They start considering Outlawing MDMA. At that moment. This guy, Dr. George Ricarda, publishes a study that he says, this drug depletes your serotonin levels permanently causing brain damage. Right. It can kill you. Yeah. That came out later. Yes. Okay, so this guy, who is unknown at the time, publishes the study, starts to get National Institute of Drug Abuse funding. So basically, this is his job. He starts a career creating scientific evidence in favor of banning drugs. Leads to the outlaw of MDMA. Right. Yes. That wasn't quite enough. They scheduled it. The Feds went after MDMA even harder. And in 2002, they came up with this thing called the Rave Act. That's okay. What does rave stand for? Reducing Americans vulnerability to ecstasy. I wonder how long they sat around looking at the word rave, saying, we got to make it fit. We got to make it fit. Yeah. So the Rave act basically said, if you are a club owner and somebody gets caught taking ecstasy or has ecstasy at your club, we're going to shut down your club. Right. It was a huge law, and it was bolstered by another study by Dr. George Ricardo that found that he tested on ten monkeys. This is the big one. He injected them with MDMA. A bunch of them went psychotic. Some of them showed early signs of Parkinson's all of a sudden, and two of them died almost immediately after being injected. Yeah. So people started asking questions about this, like, what are you talking about? People have been taking this drug forever, and this has never happened. Right. So they started kind of going after recording, and they found out that he had actually injected him with methamphetamine. Right. Not DMA. The first thing that tipped him off was he injected them because people were like, well, you don't inject ecstasy, so that's kind of a weird way to do it. Right. And then they found out it was methamphetamines, which he blamed on a mislabeling of a drug shipment, which they traced back, and they went, no, the label right here. Yeah. The drug provider is like, don't blame us, pal. It's pretty clear. So by this time, the Rev Act has already passed, or the Rev Act didn't get passed, but something that included that right, was passed. By that time, the study that record produced was published in Science, the journal Science. That's as highbrow as you get as far as scientific journals. Right. And finally he gets beaten up enough that he prints a full retraction. Yeah, he came clean. Science runs this retraction, saying, the whole study that I produced right. Just forget it ever existed. I bet that doesn't happen much. No, it doesn't. That's very unusual. Yeah. So required, I get the impression, is kind of this well, it just kind of seems like the scientific community views him largely as a shill for the government. Yeah. There's a couple of articles that he shows up in reason magazines were checking out. Yeah. And, you know, the other interesting thing about that whole story about the big fake study he did with methamphetamines as ecstasy is that the Parkinson's Foundation, the people Parkinson's researchers said, I don't think that that's true. That doesn't make much sense to us either, that they would show signs of Parkinson's. Right. So they looked into it. People went about reproducing a study, and the people who run the Parkinson's Foundation actually issued a statement saying, ecstasy does not do this. So they basically came out in favor of ecstasy. It's kind of neat to watch from the outside because there's this guy who's, again, kind of viewed as a shill for the government, who's beating up on this drug that a lot of people who are also in the scientific community feel as being unfairly outlawed, and so they're kind of beating up on him in retaliation. It's kind of neat to see egg heads beat up on one another. Yeah. Nerd fights. And the Nida went so far that the Nida just kind of quietly pulled their fact sheet on ecstasy. And I was like, let's just take this down off the website. After the retraction in 2003, we'll rewrite it. I'm sure it's back up now. Sure. As something else. Yeah. But it doesn't include immediate death and Parkinson's disease, I would imagine. That's. Right. So Timothy Leary dies. He gets shot into space. He's out of the picture entirely. Everybody gets sick of hippies, generally. Yeah. George Ricardis basically the guy who's single handedly getting ecstasy outlawed. His work comes into great question, and people start going back and looking at MDMA again, and they start looking at LSD again. And that's where we find ourselves right now. Slowly but surely, people are starting to run studies on whether or not you can use these hallucinogens to treat mental illness. And the results are pretty astounding, actually. Yeah. And you know where they're leading the charge? In Switzerland. In Los Angeles. Yeah. All these years later, same place. Yes. Hippie freaks. Yeah. So yeah, Josh, they are, I think, in Switzerland, in Solo Thorn, Switzerland, they have been experimenting with LSD psilocybin, which you might know is magic mushrooms. Yes. Ketamine. You might know Special K. That kind of surprised me that that was in there. Yeah. I hadn't heard much about that one either. And they're getting these studies published in Nature Reviews Neuroscience and other leading industry peer reviewed publications. Yeah. It's not all under the table backroom experiments. Oh, no. These are very heavily overseen. You have to be a very legitimate researcher to get government approval. They're not funded, though, still. They say they're still having a hard time with funding, and they're just sort of looking to get some restrictions loosened. They're not saying, make all this stuff legal. They're not battling a legalization front at all. No. But the reason why so many people are kind of starting to put their reputations on the line is because the results that they're seeing so we have antidepressants, right? Yeah. They take weeks to kick in. Sure. They have all sorts of side effects. Sure. And what we're seeing in these studies now are that the things like Ketamine, MDMA, LSD are having, like, a huge impact right out of the gate. There's one study that came out in July, I believe, and it was a study of twelve people who were diagnosed with PTSD. Posttraumatic stress Disorder. Yeah. That's one of the big ones. Yeah. That's huge. That they're looking at. Well, it's what we used to call shell shock. You go through traumatic experience and you relive it over and over again and it's debilitating. They found that of the twelve people in this study, ten of them, after going through the study, after taking MDMA, no longer met the criteria to be diagnosed with PTSD afterward. Ten of the twelve, yeah. And from my understanding in most of these studies is it's not like you have to stay on ecstasy your whole life. A lot of people have these epiphanies and they quit taking it and they have changed their outlook. Is that right? Yeah. That's the impression I'm getting, too. Ketamine, apparently, is good for depression in the same way. Just a very tiny dose. I can get you over severe clinical depression or that's the results. The early results, we should say. Yeah. And everything from quitting smoking to suicidal thought. Yeah. Cluster headaches. Yeah. Harvard studying. Those are migraines from men, right. What they call migraines. I think so. I know they're so debilitating that you consider suicide, or not everyone does, obviously, but it's just this awful, awful pain. You can't leave your house, you get to sit in a dark room, and so it's helping there. And what I thought was interesting johns Hopkins, you might have heard of them. Sure. Little reputable institutions those are required from was it? They did an experiment where they gave psilocybin to emotionally stable individuals like this. Wasn't even people that were mentally ill, people that had never taken hallucinogens before, which is interesting that you would be I think they had a 64 year old that signed up for this. Yeah. It's crazy. And they said ages 24 to 64 and they said the experiment a year later, they said the experience was one of the most meaningful and spiritual experiences of their entire lives. Yeah. And those were mentally stable folks. Sure. And this is a year on right. It still had an impact on them. They're also finding that OCD and basically mood disorders are the primary target of hallucinogenic treatment. Right. Psychedelics for treatment, yeah. And the reason being, we think, is because they target serotonin in the brain. This is another reason why they're not addictive. They don't employ the reward circuit in the brain. Right. Which is how we become addicted to things we're flooded with. Dopamine remember it just affects the mood circuits. Is that right? Serotonin. And we don't really have a very good grasp on serotonin and exactly how that works, but we do know that there's correlations between high levels of serotonin or low levels of serotonin and depression. Right. And we know that using antidepressants, which block the re uptake of serotonin reduces symptoms of clinical depression in people. So we know that serotonin is in there somewhere. Yes. We know that the more serotonin you have, the better, generally. Or low serotonin bad. Right. And then we also know that hallucinogens target this somehow. That's pretty much where the research stands right now. It makes you wonder, where would we be if LSD and MDMA hadn't been in the wilderness for the last few decades? Well, yeah, they may have a pill, like a low dose pill, because a lot of these studies, just so you know, back in Kerry grand state, that means it was full on acid trips. But a lot of these, like, the psilocybin pills, they'll give you a very low dose. So I get the feeling that it's not like this huge mushroom trip that a lot of these patients are going through, because it said, I think, 80% of the people recognized when they did not have the placebo. So if it wasn't 100%, then it was probably a pretty low dose. Yes, would be my guess. If everything was legalized and MDMA came to be prescribed for just happiness. Right. Would you take a happy pill that was legal and didn't have side effects? Not to say MDMA doesn't have side effects. There's, like, basically the three days after a depression that follows when your serotonin levels are repleading themselves. I don't think I would, because there are quote unquote happy pills now. And it's not like I'm against antidepressants or things like that, because people definitely benefit from those who need them, but I don't need that kind of thing, so I would not. Sir, you are not alone, Chuck. There is a survey conducted for this BBC series on Britain of British people that found that 79% of them said that they would not take a happy pill that was legal and had no side effects. It's interesting. Yeah. Because I think that for a large segment of the population, the idea of synthesizing happiness is untoward. Yeah, yeah. It's a little weird. I mean, that's not to say I'm a square and I don't like to get down. Another aspect, Josh, we're talking right now about literally the effect it has on your brain and your serotonin levels and your moods. Right. They've also found that patients, cancer patients in particular, who consume hallucinogens or people with just traumatic events from earlier in their life, they have the ability to relive some of these memories and events from their past. They can unlock buried traumatic episodes, deal with them psychologically, put them to rest and come out the other side with a new understanding, free from these demons. Right. You remember in the Hypnosis episode where we were talking about how the way it's viewed now is that you're accessing the subconscious yeah. More easily, like popping open a control panel. That's what they're seeing. With MDMA, apparently, you are able to access things from a very empathetic way. I think the term I've heard for it is called a psychotherapeutic catalyst. Like a Kickstarts. Right. Things. And I think one researcher called it it's psychotherapy sped up what psychiatrist called it. Yeah. It's like psychotherapy on acid. LSD specifically hasn't been the greatest friend to everybody who's ever taken it. Yeah, sure. And what's funny in this article that it's on the site, can we treat mental illness with hallucinogen and genes? Tom Sheep, your buddy, has to go to the 60s psychedelic rock scene to find examples of people who have had a bad time on acid. I know. And apparently what the conventional wisdom is, if you are predisposed to mental illness, LSD can exacerbate that. If you have a bad trip, you're going to have a really bad trip because you're already predisposed to mental illness. Yeah. He's Brian Wilson and Syd Barrett as the two examples, and those are stellar examples, they really got to say, but they're also counterintuitive to what we're seeing with PTSD. You are already suffering from a mental illness. So here's some MDMA. Right? Probably LSD would be horrible to give to a PTSD survivor. Yeah, right. I would say so. And what else, chuck, can we talk about Pamela Sekuta? Sure. Yeah. It's a very interesting story. This is a woman, aged 57 at the time of this article, who was in the final stages of colon cancer. She had outlived her prognosis. She was anxious and depressed. She was worried about her family, her husband, and what they were going to do without her. It was not a good life. She was living here at the end, and she was prescribed antidepressants, of course, didn't work. Didn't do a thing for her. So she volunteered for an experiment at UCLA in 2005 and started taking psilocybin, the magic mushroom pill in pill form. She had a lot of breakthroughs. They brought her husband in at the end of one of the sessions, and he said, there's my Pammie. She was just beaming with light, and I haven't seen her that joyous in so long. She was totally alive and happy, and she continued to take it until she didn't need it anymore. She had these breakthroughs, and then all of a sudden, her husband and Pamela were going to concerts. They went hiking at the Grand Canyon. They went on vacations. They did all these things that she hadn't been doing in a long time because of the epiphany she had under the influence of psilocybin. And sadly, she died. Well, she had cancer. Yeah, that's what she died from in 2006. And her husband said she died in his arms. But her husband was very appreciative. And they actually did a benefit about a week before she died for the institute that was doing this work at UCLA. So it's pretty interesting. Yeah, definitely. One of the applications that they're finding is end of life care for using MDMA or LSC or psilocybins. Sure. We're Special K, apparently. What about this ibogaine? They're finding that ibogaine works really well. Ibogaine is from a hallucinatory root plant in Africa, I believe, and they're finding that you go on a 36 hours trip. That's a long time. But they're finding that it's really effective in. Breaking addiction and like, serious addictions, too. Like heroin. Yeah. And cocaine. So being on this stuff just for 36 hours creates a break in the addiction cycle itself. Sure. But what they're finding that's most notable about it is there's a lack of withdrawal symptoms that you see in every other type of crazy addiction removal, especially with heroin. Like heroin, you're supposed to have physical withdrawal withdrawal symptoms. And people who are taking ibogaine are not experiencing that like they would if they tried to kick the habit without it. It's pretty remarkable. Yeah, it is very remarkable. It's very interesting. We should probably say, I don't know if we have yet, that this podcast is in no way an endorsement of going out and buying yourself some street drugs, seeing what happened. It's a study of what we find to be very fascinating, the fact that there's been a resurgence in this. And these qualified doctors, UCLA, Johns Hopkins, they're saying we should look into this stuff. Yeah. And they definitely are. And they're getting some very interesting results. What about the a guy? We should mention that really quickly. That was pretty funny. Oh, yeah. Bill Wilson. Yeah. One of the co founders of AA. Yeah. He apparently took LSD in the 50s. Was it? Yeah, long after he was sober from alcohol in the think I had it. Yeah. So he takes LSD in the it's like, this is really helpful. So I think everybody who comes into AA should take LSP. And they were like, you should probably not do that. They talked about it, but the reason why he found it helpful is that hallucinogens part of a twelve step program is to really reflect on past wrongdoings and then elucidate them to another human being. And apparently LSD, MDMA, these other drugs help. They serve as a catalyst for that process. Tap into that. That's why Bill Wilson thought this is really helpful, because again, it's like a therapy sped up. Fascinating. Very fascinating. I will say this, though. I'm going to go out on a limb and say, even though we're not saying, oh, you should go out and do these things, I will say that some chemically created in a lab pill called an antidepressant. What's the difference? The difference is, I think, in my opinion, from what I've seen, one is marketed and legal and the other is illegal. It's as simple as that. One is made by Merck and one is not made by Merck. But Merck used to make this, which is ironic. Public sentiment counts for everything. Yes. It's the same reason the alcohol. You can go into a bar and get completely wasted out of your mind and get in a car, but you can't walk into a bar and smoke a joint. Or shoot heroin. Or shoot heroin. And we're not lobbying for anything. It's just interesting that the things that society has deemed acceptable alcoholism is just fine. Well, it's not just fine, but it's legal and you can do it right? Even though it kills all these people and this is not acceptable. It's funny how we've evolved to think some things are evil and some things are just great. I wonder what the future holds, Josh. I wonder myself. We'll find out. Yes, we will. If we live that long. That is about it for this one. You should probably check out. Can we treat mental illness with hallucinogens on the site? Be sure to check out Carrie in the sky with Diamonds. Great Vanity Fair article. Type in George RTE R-I-C-U-A-R-T-E in the Reasons website. That will bring up some cool stuff. There's a killer Time magazine article from, I think, 2000 or 2001 on ecstasy, on MDMA, happiness and a pill. I guess it's time now for listener mail, right? Yes, I have a listener mail. Josh from RIA. And this is about octopus or octopi. We were corrected. The octopus not right. But she says it. Octopi is so right. Well, we have these people saying actually, the Latin thing. Hi, guys. Your podcast on octopi made my day to day. Thank you. I work as an aquarist at a San Francisco aquarium, and one of my favorite responsibilities is our cephalopod gallery. Nice. I get to do enrichment with giant Pacific octopods, make sure all of our eight legged friends stay out of trouble. And I'm currently teaching a two spot octopus how to open a jar to get his favorite food, which is live crabs. I'm right there with you, Mr. Octopus. It was great to hear someone besides myself get a little too excited about these critters. And we got great feedback on this. People love the octopus because they're so freaky. The story about lucrative medieval especially cracked me up. I work with a GPO that's the giant Pacific octopod that might give her a run for her money. For the past few weeks, I've been walking around with what my colleagues call octopus kisses up the length of my arms. But I'm afraid my husband is getting a little suspicious about the number of ickies I've been acquiring. So that's from the little suckers. Right? The little suckers. Clearly. These were given to me while I tried to remove the individual from blocking the flow to his tank and stop his flooding of the entire aquarium. It's never a boring day with cephalopods in your life. Guys, thanks for all the great podcast. If you're ever in San Francisco, one of my favorite places, Josh, yeah. Let me know and I'll see if I can work out some behind the scenes cephalopod goodness. Nice. And that is from RIA. And she says, and don't worry, by the way, I have trouble pronouncing hectocodolis as well and have taken a calling in the sperm tentacle works. Spermicle is what she says. She says it's time to rename that organ. Yes. Well, thanks. RIA, right? Yes. Thank you. My dad always said, life is better with the cephalopods in it. Really? Yeah. If you have a fantastic saying that your father, mother, grandfather, some old timing person told you we want to hear it, wrap it up in an email, spank it on the bottom, and then send it to stuffpodcast@howstuffworks.com. Stuff you should know is production of iHeartRadio's how stuff works. For more podcast My Heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio App, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Summer school's out. The sun is shining. The daylight is longer. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music that's so good it's criminal. Morbid. Part true crime and part comedy, Morbid takes you on a journey from murderous mysteries to major laughs, all in the same week. Hosted by autopsy technician Elena Erkart and hairstylist Ash Kelly, this charttopping series will have you hooked before before you know it, listen to new episodes of Morbid one week early, only on Amazon Music. 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https://podcasts.howstuf…friday-works.mp3	How Black Friday Works	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/how-black-friday-works	On the day after Thanksgiving, Americans go kind of crazy for the deep discount sales that kick off the holiday shopping season in stores. So crazy, in fact, at least four people have lost their lives and as many as 63 others have been injured during Blac	On the day after Thanksgiving, Americans go kind of crazy for the deep discount sales that kick off the holiday shopping season in stores. So crazy, in fact, at least four people have lost their lives and as many as 63 others have been injured during Blac	Thu, 28 Nov 2013 14:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2013, tm_mon=11, tm_mday=28, tm_hour=14, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=332, tm_isdst=0)	38371652	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Hey, everybody. If you want a great website, you want to do it yourself. With no must, no fuss. Turn to Squarespace. They have everything to sell anything. They have the tools that you need to get your business off the ground, including ecommerce templates, inventory management, simple checkout process, process, and secure payments. And if you're into analytics, hold on to your hats, because Squarespace has everything that you need. Just head to squarespace. comSK, and you can get a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use offer code SYSK to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. What if you were a trendy apparel company facing an avalanche of demand to ensure more customers can buy more sherpa lining jackets? You called IBM to automate your it infrastructure with AI. Now, your systems monitor themselves. What used to take hours takes minutes, and you have an ecommerce platform designed to handle sudden spikes in overall demand, as in actual overalls. Let's create It systems that roll up their own sleeves. IBM, let's create. Learn more@ibm.com It automation. Brought to you by the all new 2014 Toyota Corolla. Welcome to stuff you should know from housestepworkscom. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and with me, as always, is Charles W. Chuck Bryant. Jerry's over there. And that makes the stuff you should know. You just checked. Make sure Jerry was there. She's very quiet. You literally turned your head and body, right? Yes, she's there. I did the bigfoot thing, though. Like, I had to turn the whole side of my body to look over my shoulders. That's how you know that was real footage. Well, typically when you know Jerry's here, because you can just smell like miso soup or something emanating from our right side or my rights side. But it's not emanating from you. It's coming from Jerry. Yeah, she stinks like miso, which is actually a very pleasant smell. Salty and new mommy. That's right. So, Chuck yes? Have you ever been to a Black Friday sale? No. And I want to say h no. Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, not for me. That's a decent qualifier, though, because it's not like an average sale, and if you don't go to a Black Friday sale, it's a pretty good reason why is because you're scared. Well, yeah, and I think this is one of those very divisive topic. You're probably either really into going or it's the last thing on earth you would rather do. I don't know. A lot of people are like, maybe I'll go check out a doorbuster at 03:00 A.m.. I think there are people who do have that kind of idea, but maybe not at 03:00 A.m.. Sure. It's almost like a multifaceted creature, like it is for some people. Like just in the middle of a normal shopping day on the Friday after Thanksgiving, they'll go to a store and it's fine, and there's some sales or whatever, but then hours earlier, these hardcore people who had bathed in the blood of their fellow shoppers well, sadly, yes, we'll see. Had already come through and gotten all the best deals. Yeah. And then there's those of us like us, who are just, like, going out. And I'm not overstating this because people always say literally when they mean figuratively, but it's literally one of the last things I would ever, ever do in my life. Yeah, I can't think of many. I'd rather go to the DMV than go to a doorbuster. The DMV? Yeah. In between North Korea and South Korea. No, that's the DMZ. Right, okay. I always get those two confused now. I'd rather go take the last ticket from the DMV and have to wait all day then go to a doorbuster sale. Yeah, no, I don't blame you. All right, so we'll get to more hate spewing about this later. Right. And I should state my opinion. I feel like if this is your thing, that's awesome. Well, true. I'm not, like cast dispergence on people who disparaging remarks. Is dispergence a word? No, it is now, though. You're like your own American dictionary, the new Chuck dictionary. We should make that up. I like it. Yeah. We could add, like, five or six words already. Chuck isms'yeah agreed. I'm not saying, like, poo pooing people who do it. If you're into it, great, as long as you conduct yourself in a reasonable manner and you don't turn into a monster like others do. Right, but there are obvious criticisms of the day, too, which we'll get into. But I think first, Chuck, we should explain what the, as you would say, h we're talking about to the people who listen to this podcast and don't live in the United States, because Black Friday is pretty much a uniquely American experience. It is, I think, most people probably know. But just very quickly, it is the day after Thanksgiving now, in the United States is known as Black Friday, and we'll get into the pretty interesting history of it. But it's the biggest shopping day of the year. Right. And there are all these crazy specials that they run, and we'll get into that as well. But quite simply, it is the busiest shopping day of the year, day after Thanksgiving. Right. And it's origins while the origin of the term Black Friday goes back kind of a waste, apparently, to the mid 20th century, but the idea of going shopping, starting your Christmas shopping on the day after Thanksgiving actually goes back to the late 19th century, early 20th century, thanks to department stores like the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. And as a part of those parades, there's no accident. No, it's a Macy's parade. Right, exactly. Yeah. It's still a good parade, though. Have you ever been? No, I haven't. Yeah, I've never been to the parade, but a couple of times, Emily and I've gone to the day before when they blow up the oh, yeah. Which is really neat. Pretty cool, you mean? I have a friend who's actually holding one of the floats of the balloons. Cool this year. Yeah, it's fun to do. Although we did it like, eight or nine years ago, and it was really neat and sort of crowded, and then we did it a couple of years ago, and it is nuts now. Is it? Yes. It's kind of gone overboard. Got you. The word got out. I think I saw something last year in the news. Yeah. It's not a place to go if you don't like strollers. Let's just say that. Yeah. Strollers with all terrain tires. Yeah. But the idea of starting your Christmas shopping the day after Thanksgiving came from those parades, and they came from those parades because all of those parades, pretty much to a parade, featured Santa Claus. Yes. And usually at the end, kind of like bringing up the rear. And that means we're kicking it off. That's the official start of the holiday season. That's right. Santa Claus has made his first public appearance. So from the association of those two came holiday shopping the day after Thanksgiving. That was in the late 19th century, in the 50s, they think, or early 60s. Well, the 50s calling the day after Thanksgiving Black Friday came about, but it didn't necessarily have anything to do with shopping by then. It was from factory owners, who apparently coined the term. Yeah. And there's also the other competing theory that it was the day that stores would go into the black, meaning starting to show profit. Right, but that's not quite right, is it? No, that fallacy. Well, it's a made up fallacy to gloss over the original meaning of Black Friday. And it came out of Philadelphia in the cops and the bus drivers and the city workers who work downtown came up with calling that day Black Friday because apparently tons of out of towners would leave their homes on Thanksgiving, converge on Philadelphia to watch the Army Navy game on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. But they had a day to kill, so they all started doing their Christmas shopping because there were sales in downtown Philly every year, and the place would be nuts. And this was where Black Friday came from. Apparently, the police department wanted to basically keep people away, so they'd be like, well, you don't want to go to downtown Philly. It's Black Friday. Right. And that was the original origin of the term. Yeah. I see. You saw in here article from the AP in a sales manager at Gimbals was quoted as saying, that's why bus drivers and cab drivers call today Black Friday. They think in terms of the headaches that it gives them. So I learned something new when I read this. Yeah. And then I had no idea it spread out of Philly. And then years later, the retail lobbies and retailers themselves said, we got to come up with a better origin story for this because we want this to be a day that people want to get out of their house and go shopping. But we should point out, even though it is not the day that companies go into the black, as it were, which, by the way, comes from when they did accounting by hand, you would write in red ink or black ink, depending on if you were ahead with money or behind. Red ink meant you were in the hole. Yeah, black meant everything's good. Exactly. Even though it does not mean that the holiday shopping season is when stores make up between 20% and 40% of their retail profits. That's a lot. Yeah. I mean, even Emily's small business, like, I don't know about majority, but a large percentage of her yearly sales or a couple of months. Yeah, and it's not just her. Apparently in 2013, the National Retail Federation is predicting that Americans just in November and December chuck, are you ready for this? Yeah. Americans are going to spend $602,000,000,000 in November and December. That's cry. That's a lot of cash in two months. Yeah. I don't spend like I used to on Christmas. Emily and I sometimes will spend on gifts on each other or do that couple of thing where you go in and just do something nice for your house. And then like the adults on my side of the family, we don't exchange gifts anymore. Just dirty looks. Yeah, you exchange dirty looks. Like, my brother and my sister will chip in usually and get my mom something kind of nice or offer her a service. Like last year, we replaced her fireplace with like a gas fireplace or build her a garden fence or tile her kitchen, like something like that. Wow. Your mom's got it. She's uneasy. Street is what you call that. Yeah, but Emily's family, they also exchange gifts. So I have my Christmas gift swapping. Jones. Satisfied? Nice. Yes. You get your Christmas present on. Yeah. What if you were a global energy company with operations in Scotland, technologists in India, and customers all on different systems? You need to pull it together. So you call in IBM and Red Hat to create an open hybrid cloud platform. Now, data is available anywhere, securely, and your digital transformation is helping find new ways to unlock energy around the world. Let's create a hybrid cloud that can change in industry. IBM, let's create learn More@ibm.com only 45% of high school students feel they are prepared for college or careers. Stride career prep is helping change that. Stride Career Prep lets students take charge of their education and their future. By combining real world skills training and traditional academics, students can earn college credit while in high school or get the training needed to land a job right after graduation. Stride Career Prep prepares your team for indemand careers in business, tech, health, science, criminal justice, and more. Students can take courses developed by industry professionals, prepare for certifications, get hands on experience network, and most importantly, gain the confidence they need to succeed. Stride career prep is backed by over 20 plus years of experience in online learning and education. Take charge at K twelve. Compodcast. That's K twelve. Compodcast, and start taking charge of your future today. Okay, Chuck. So the idea of shopping after Thanksgiving and then Black Friday, that day being called Black Friday, it's been around for a while and it's a really valuable day. Yeah, it kicks off that two month period where $602,000,000,000 is going to be spent on stuff. But it was recreated like Valentine's Day. It was literally created and then the myth kind of became reality just because they said everyone's going to shop today, it's the busiest day. And it became that. Yeah. It wasn't until 2004, usually the Saturday before Christmas was actually the busiest shopping day of the year, thanks to me. But the retail federation and all the retailers were like, well, we can't tout that as the busiest shopping day of the year. We want to get people spending over the course of a couple of months, not the Saturday before Christmas. So they basically said black Friday is the day. And like you said, it just kind of became true just from people saying it over time. I'm surprised that they haven't come up with a catchy name for procrastinators day or something to pump up that last Saturday again or something, right, or to keep you from it. So they call it like Shame of the Nation Day, something like that, to make you go do Black Friday, black Friday, Saturday. And there's a website called Black Fridayericivecom. It's actually like kind kind of cool if you like nostalgic ads or whatever. Nostalgia going back to 2007, I should say. But it's just like scans of Black Friday print ads from those years, which are kind of neat. If you're totally bored out of your mind, go check out Black Fridayarchive.com. Black Friday became a smashing success. Like 20 04, 20 05 it's a relatively recent thing that became what it is today here in the States, which is an out of control juggernaut shopping and consumeristic frenzy. Right. So it was so successful overnight that the retailer said, well, let's figure out ways to extend this whole week. Yeah, so they came up with Cyber Monday in 2005. Yeah, that's pretty recent. And it is the online shopping version of Black Friday, the Monday after Thanksgiving. And that was another thing. They just made up another self fulfilling myth that they said that the workers go back to their computer after Thanksgiving on Monday and they do all their online shopping. Well, that wasn't really true, but now it is because the retailer said it was in the media reported it. And not to be outdone, in 2010, American Express invented Small Business Saturday, which is when you go out and support small businesses with your money, especially ones that take American Express. Exactly. So it's interesting literally creating days to tell people, basically, if you're not shopping today, you're missing out on really good deals. Right, exactly. The more days, the better, as far as retailers are concerned. But there's only so many days after Thanksgiving. So they started to think recently like, well, what if we pushed in the other direction, rather from Friday on? What's behind Friday? Oh, yeah, Thanksgiving. We can't touch that. For shame. Well, starting in 2012, they started touching it. Walmart actually opened at 08:00 P.m. On Thanksgiving in 2012, and there was a general strike called that we'll talk about later because of that, because these stores are not supposed to be open on Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is its own day. It's a day of being with family and celebrating. Up until 2012, it was sacrosanct. Yeah. This year, Macy's and JCPenney for the first time are opening on Thanksgiving, and Sears and Toys R US as well on Thanksgiving evening. And Kmart is opening at 06:00 A.m. On Thanksgiving, basically extending Black Friday through the weekend, 41 hours. That's not a day, that's how long Kmart is going to be open. Black Friday at Kmart lasts 41 hours. Yeah. That's pretty crazy. And at shopping malls, you're going to have some smaller stores doing the same thing. An estimated 20% to 25% will be open at 08:00 P.m. On Thanksgiving Day, and two thirds will open at midnight. So essentially what's happening is Thanksgiving evening is being ruined by retail. Yes. I think the retailers would say, well, we don't have it. We've seen that people start lining up Thanksgiving afternoon, Thanksgiving evening, to wait for us to open, like that the next morning, so why don't we just open? I think it goes both ways, but I pretty much see where you're coming from. Yeah. Well, this year it's a little trickier, too, because Thanksgiving comes on November 28, which is the latest suspend in eleven years. Yeah. Is that right? Yeah, 2002. So weirdly, because they still sort of have to enforce Black Friday. They're actually shortening their own shopping season a little bit this year. Right. Which is probably why some of them are opening on Thanksgiving. That's exactly why it's six days shorter than usual this year. So just by the very existence, by making up Black Friday, they've screwed themselves this year a little bit. They have week. Yeah. Because in other countries, like Canada, the UK, the Netherlands, countries that observe the Christmas holidays like we do in America, meaning everybody gives everybody else presents and things like that, and they spend money. But those countries don't have a Black Friday, a day that officially kicks off the holiday shopping season. Right. Those countries spend more over the course of the holiday season because they have a longer period of time to shop. So without Black Friday in America, the retailers would possibly make more money. So they've definitely painted themselves into a corner by making Black Friday such a thing. And this year it's really kind of pointing out, like, we may be shooting ourselves in the foot here, so what can we do? Well, the solution has been, well, we'll just take over Thanksgiving too, but that's not necessarily sustainable. And there's a lot of people who are saying Black Friday is going to go the way of the dinosaur. Yes. I read an interesting article in the New Yorker this morning, a finance article. I think it's New Yorker. It might have been New York Times, but this financial analyst is basically analyzing how the sales go and sort of saying that it's really not financially the smartest approach to take for shoppers or the retailers for the retailers to offer these huge, deep discounts and sort of blow it out in one day. A better, smarter financial approach would be to elongate the seas shopping season and not even discount things, maybe even raise prices. And his contention is that they're shooting themselves in the foot, right? I think he's right. He probably is. But at the same time, if you're one of those people like me, frankly, who went to the mall the day after Halloween and saw that the lights were up, the garland was out, santa's workshop was ready to go, like Halloween, November 1. Wow. The place was totally decked out for Christmas with Christmas carol's piping through. Yeah, see, that's ridiculous. But that was the great thing about Black Friday. It's like you had a month of just kind of chilling out, everything getting ready between Halloween and Thanksgiving. Then you had Thanksgiving and then the holiday season started without Black Friday. It's kind of like this dam that's holding back the holiday season from spilling into basically October. But with retailers figuring out that it's an impedance to them making money, it probably won't start the official season any longer. It'll probably be further back from now on. Yeah, well, I think we're in I don't know about well, technically slightly in the minority. In 2013, 53% of the population of American adults said they will shop on Black Friday. So 53%. Yeah. That puts us in the minority by a bit. In 2011, 152 Americans, but they spent $500 billion. Yeah. 52 really rich Americans. 152,000,000 shopped on that day for an average of 3 hours at a time, which is not too long. 3 hours is like it's longer than us ever. But I saw a woman who did 16, though, like a 16 hours stretch of shopping. She better have gotten it all done. At least I hope so. Yeah. Like, if she shops for 16 hours and only got, like, three gifts, it's not time well spent. There's also evidence that the Internet is basically knocking on Black Friday's door. Thanksgiving Day is the fastest growing online shopping day, and I think 70% of the people who said that they're going to shop on Black friday said they'll do some or most of it online. Right? So the Internet is still there for retailers to make money, but the idea of Black Friday in store sales going extinct is probably not going to happen because it's its own thing. Like, there's this one consumer psychologist or consumer analyst, I think, pointed out that it's a tradition, number one, now it is. And number two, there's a certain element of sport to it. It's more than just getting a good deal. It's like throwing a fist at somebody while you get a good deal. There's something to it that transcends the whole thing. So we mentioned doorbusters. It's a central part of the cog that is Black Friday, and it goes back in print, believe it or not, to the year 1917 in Anecdotally to 1895, where in a retailer will basically say, you know what, we have one item, or usually it's a few now, but some really deep, deep and really super great deals on just a few select items. So, like, for example, a good laptop for $180. Yes. Deals like the ipods for half off or TV for 200. Really, like you said, very good discount. But here's the deal. It's a scam, people. It's a bait and switch. It's a bait and switch. They've only got a very limited amount of these select items, which is why the violence happens, which we'll get to in a minute. And then after that, they're hoping you get in there. You don't get that laptop, but you're like, screw it, I'm at Walmart at 05:00 a.m.. I might as well buy some stuff, regular priced or slightly discounted items. And that's how they get you in the store. That's how they get you. It is. And it's true that these items do exist, and they are for that deal. They're for that price, I should say. But there's only like ten, and in the fine print, it's like one per person. And that deals is for in stock only. Like you can't get a range check or anything like that? No, but the concept that these deals do exist for those items that are in the store coupled with whoever physically gets their hands on that item first, gets that deal, leads to doors actually being busted. It's called recipe for disaster. Yeah. All right, so before we get to the dark days and the bad stuff that can happen, truly, let's do a little message break. Okay? What if you were a trendy apparel company facing an avalanche of demand to ensure more customers can buy more Sherpa line jackets? You call IBM to automate your it infrastructure with AI. Now, your systems monitor themselves. What used to take hours takes minutes, and you have an ecommerce platform designed to handle sudden spikes in overall demand, as in actual overalls. Let's create It systems that rule up their own sleeves. IBM, let's create learn more@ibm.com Itautautomation. Only 45% of high school students feel they are prepared for college or careers. Stride career prep is helping change that. Stride Career Prep lets students take charge of their education and their future. By combining real world skills training and traditional academics, students can earn college credit while in high school or get the training needed to land a job right after graduation. Stride Career Prep prepares your team for in demand careers in business, tech, health, science, criminal justice and more. Students can take courses developed by industry professionals, prepare for certifications, get handson, experience network, and most importantly, gain the confidence they need to succeed. Stride Career Prep is backed by over 20 plus years of experience in online learning and education. Take charge at K. Twelvecom podcast. That's K twelve.com podcast and start taking charge of your future today. All right, let's go back a little bit to 2008 and probably the well, I was going to say the darkest incident, but I think the Toys R US may be darker. I think this one's darker because dark people were involved. Yeah, that's true. All right. 2008 in Valley Stream, Long Island. It was at a Walmart. And it was 05:00 PM. On Thanksgiving. So basically people there the day before, it wasn't one of those days where it was open on Thanksgiving. They're to wait until 05:00 A.m.. So at least 12 hours ahead of time. There were about 1000 people already set up there. Some people are camping out in tents, they're waiting, they got their coffee. They're probably slugging some gym beam to warm the belly. And so the police came out and said, you know what, let's set up a buffer zone, a barricade, which worked till about 02:00 A.m. When that was breached. And the cops basically said, we're out of here, this isn't part of our job. Yes, the crowd had turned angry a little bit after that. One of the store employees had some family members come and they took them out of the line and took them in the store. Not a good idea. Yeah, but even if everyone in the crowd would have been cool with it, I don't think everybody in the crowd realized that they were family members of an employee. Sure. So the crowd actually turned like ugly. Yeah. They broke through the barricade and were squeezed against how stores have the entrance and then that little glass investigal area, and then usually a second entrance to get into the store itself. So by this time there was about 2000 people waiting for the store to open. It was 04:00 A.m., the store is going to open at five, and a couple of hundred were in between this little buffer zone and those front exterior doors and being pressed up, literally crushed to death. And there's this fascinating article in the New Yorker by a guy named John Sebrook called Crushpoint. And it's about not just this incident, but just crushing in general where a crowd can crush somebody. Yeah, we covered that like years ago. It seems like it, yeah, totally. But anyway, you should check out that article. Yeah. People literally yelling, pushed the doors in, chanting this. And just before 05:00, it's a pretty bad scene, and workers in that vestibule area realized that there was a pregnant lady named Lianna Lockley being crushed against the doors. And so they're like, we got to get this lady in here, open the doors enough to squeeze her through. She got in and then the crowd surged forward and it just kind of went downhill from there. And they still did the countdown. Isn't that mind boggling? It's mind boggling that they didn't well, first of all, that the cops left. Yeah. They said apparently in a court deposition that the cops, when they left, said, controlling this crowd is not in our job description. Good luck. Walmart had hired a security force of two for the event. One person hadn't shown up, the other one was inside the store. Not helping. So they got a bunch of their stock guy, their biggest dudes that they could find, and said, come stand as vestibule and help anybody who, like, falls down. Or that's what I would have been like, dude, that's not in my job description. Exactly. Well, they didn't say that. And when the doors finally opened after the festive countdown, while these people were being crushed against the front unbelievable. The doors started to open. And right when they opened, they actually gave way and were literally busted by this wave of humanity. Yeah. And at that point, the employees, their little red Rover line was completely ineffective. People are getting knocked down. Some of the workers are getting blown out of the way. Some are jumping on vending machines. It's ridiculous. Yeah. A couple of them climbed up the Coke machine to get out of the way for safe harbor. One guy who was in the way of the crowd when the doors gave way, this article by John Seabrook puts it that he was blown back. So again, there's a vestibule, there's the outer doors, there's a vestibule, and then there's inner doors, and then there's the store. This guy got blown from the outer doors all the way through the vestibule, through the inner doors, into the store by this wave of people. 2000 people. Yeah. Just coming in all at once, all trying to get their hands on that door buster. Yeah, like an iPad or something. Yeah. So that's not the end of the story, sadly. People are getting crushed. This pregnant woman trips over some old woman. She's on the ground at this point. Pregnant. Yes. Leanna Lockley in danger of being trampled to death. And then she somehow managed to get to her knees and saw an employee. Do you know how to pronounce his first name? Jim Tay dimOr. Jim Te Damore. He was assigned to help people in case anyone fell fell down next to her. The doors fell. On top of him and 2000 people trampled over those doors and killed him. Yeah, he was trampled to death. He died of asphyxiation being crushed under the door and he was a stop guy at 06:00 A.m.. 06:03 A.m. He was pronounced dead 1 hour after the festive countdown to let people get into shop. And that was at the hospital an hour later. So he most likely died on the scene and pretty awful. What's? Crazy chuck, if that store is not bad enough, trampolines are actually really common and like somebody might not die, you might not be asphyxiated and he might not have died had he not gotten caught under the door but people getting knocked down. If you want to see this, just go on to YouTube and type in Black Friday. Not even Black Friday. Trampolines. Just type in Black Friday and you will see tons of compilations of store security footage of people coming in right when the store opens on a Black Friday sale. Just climbing over one another, knocking each other down. Some people help other people up or drag them out of the way or whatever. But just as frequently people just climb over the ones who are down for a sale. It's insane. I seriously encourage everybody to go check out some video of it. Yeah. I can't believe that after this incident that there wasn't a law passing outright Black Friday sales. That is not happening. Well, but it's ridiculous because economists and analysts have proven that you can have like even it's not like they lose money. They would probably make more money if they didn't have these blockbuster sales. So it's not like they could say you're keeping me from doing my business. I don't know. I just can't believe they can't outlaw something like this. So that was a pretty horrendous example of a crowd crush and a trampling. But other things do happen. You mentioned the Toys R US in Palm Desert, California, a couple of years back, right? Yeah, that was in 2008. These two women got in a fist fight and then their husband got into it. And basically first of all, these two men were carrying guns into a Toys R US for Christmas shop, which is a little weird. And they started a shoot out with each other, basically. Yeah, and not a very skilled one apparently. I read about it. Like one guy forgot to cock his gun. Right? The other guy, his didn't work either. So they start chasing each other through the store. Through the store shooting at each other. Yeah. Luckily no one else died. Right, but those two gentlemen shot each other and died. Yeah, they did Toys R US because of their wife's got in a fist fight. Yeah. On Black Friday at a toys of rest during Christmas shopping. I'm surprised no one else that they're running through store shooting. I think everybody cleared out of their way. Yes, I know. I wouldn't follow them around and be like, hey, guys, what are you doing? Where's the door buster? In 2011, a woman at Los Angeles Walmart pepper sprayed some people in the video games. Initially, the cops thought, well, this lady was some Black Friday jerk, which would make her a pretty awful person. Yes. But apparently the real story is, and she actually got out of it, was that her children were attacked, punched, kicked, thrown to the ground by shoppers trying to get an Xbox from these children. And so she defended her kids by pepper spraying these jerks. Right. And this thing still hasn't been settled. The most recent thing I saw was that a year on. So last year, the cops still hadn't filed charges, so I guess they believed her story, but she shopped anyway after that happened and bought her items. So she pepper sprays a bunch of people, affects 20 people, causes a bit of a trampling pandemonium, and then two horrible things happen after that. One, like you said, the lady took her kids and her items and went to the store and checked out, bought her stuff. Second, the people outside the immediate circle where she pepper spray, but still in that little area stuck around, still tried to get their hands on the sail item, and they're, like, checking out in. Their eyes and nose are watering, just ringing up, let me get home. Yeah. And then, of course, Chuck, there's the workers as well. Well, yeah, I mean, no one wants to work on Thanksgiving. And this year, like we said, a lot of retailers are opening on Thanksgiving, and there's really not anything they can do about it if they want to keep their job, which is really sad. And Walmart employees planned a strike, I think, last year in 2012, and it didn't work. Only 26 of the 4200 stores reported striking employees. So for fear of losing their jobs, probably they had to come to work anyway. Well, Kmart in particular was criticized this year for opening at 06:00 A.m. On Thanksgiving. And Kmart said, these people don't have to work. Like, we're not forcing them to work. And their critics are saying, well, actually, that's not necessarily true because you're using part time seasonal employees, and there's no federal mandate that those people have to have holidays or time off. So therefore, they're in a position where they either work or you can fire them legally. So they kind of do have to work. There's a lot of ugliness on Black Friday, but Chuck, if you are just the average normal person, like, my brother in law loves to go Black Friday shopping, and he'll go at midnight, go to the doorbuster sales, but he's not crazy. Well, the majority of them don't end in violence because this happens all over the country, and these are isolated incidents. So it's not like at every doorbuster sale you're going to get trampled. But there is a risk there is and the people you want to look out for. Apparently there's a study of consumer behavior at Black Friday sales, and it was a legitimate study. Sure. It said that you want to look out for the people who have done a lot of planning because they exhibit the most anti social behavior, like shoving, pushing, yelling. They've got their plan in place. Exactly. And nothing's going to alter that. And they feel like they've really put the time in and they're not about to lose that doorbuster who's never done it before and just showed up, who just locked into line or whatever. Remember the famous who concert in the 70s where the people were trampled? Yeah, that's in the New Yorker article, too. They got rid of general emission seating after that. Like, why can't they do something about this? I think the law stepped in and said, wait a minute. You can't just open the doors to a concert venue and say, first one in, get front row. Are they still a general admission? Not for big arena shows. Oh, yeah. Well, you know that there was just one door open and four others locked, and people were getting crushed up against the locked doors, and the people inside who are working at that concert just never opened the doors, even though people were dying. I didn't remember what we covered that in. Man, it's so vivid in my mind from way early on because we studied the science of crowd surges. I don't know what it was either, because this article is not that old. It's just like, no, it definitely wasn't about this. It had to do with something else. But yes, dirty bad stuff. Or you can take another approach. Yeah, this is a different approach. You could say in the 99 years, an artist named Ted Dave gave birth to what's now called buy nothing day, wherein people are encouraged to not buy anything for 24 hours and to fight the power and consumerism by not showing up at all. And not just fight the power. The guy who created Ted Dave, he's a Vancouver guy who came up with it in the 90s. It was also not just to stick it to the man, which I can only imagine if nobody bought anything in America on Black Friday, what kind of crippling effect that would have on the economy. But he was also saying personally, that's a good day to not buy anything and take stock of how much you do, maybe waste or spend or whatever. Just think about your consumer, your consumerism for one day. Dirty hippy. And during that time, don't buy anything and don't gas up your car the night before. Don't get a bunch of milk the night before. Like, just be normal. And on one day of the year, don't buy anything, and that's buy nothing day. And it's kind of become this big thing. Ever since adbusters the people who gave us Occupy Wall street kind of found out about it and adopted it and just took the whole thing worldwide. It's pretty amazing. It is. So if you go to a Black Friday sale and you see a bunch of people dressed as zombies, they're making fun of you. They're making fun of zombie consumers. Same with the people who are dressed as sheep. And then there's venter claws. Maybe I'll do that. Maybe I'll dress up as a sheep. Yeah. And just walk around and buy in people's faces. Yeah. And then if I'm there, I might pick up a laptop. Right. There's also credit card cut up stations. Yeah. Where you can get rid of your credit card and shoe because consumerism. Yeah. And then there's my favorite what is it? The Whirly Gig conga line. Oh, I haven't heard of that. Is that to disrupt shoppers? The whole point is just kind of serve as a mirror, I think, to people like, look at yourselves, you're ridiculous. You think I look stupid? You're the one that looks stupid. Right? We're not even buying anything. It's kind of a twofold thing. It's one, like, just kind of reflecting personally, sticking it to the man as an individual consumer, like, realizing your power in the grand scheme of things is all kind of hinges on you spending your money, and if you don't, then you're taking the power back or pointing out to other people just how ridiculous they're being at consumers. As consumers, people probably be like, where did you get the cheap costume? Right? Exactly. What all is that on? So I've got one last thing I noticed the other day. I had never heard of this before. In China, you think we like to shop? Chinese love to shop. And they have something that they have created called single stay. Okay. And it is on November 11, so 1111 the four ones stand for single people. And they're basically like, hey, because in China, I think you're encouraged to marry. So this is like, hey, be single. Go out and treat yourself to something online and buy something because it's singles day and you should celebrate being single. Really? And it's a huge deal. They spent well, this ecommerce platform in China called Alibaba is the one who really got behind it recently, and they spent $5.7 billion on single stay this year, which dwarfs Cyber Monday by three times, almost. Wow. And it's the biggest online shopping day in the world. And in the first six minutes this year, just a couple of weeks ago, they spent $160,000,000 in the first six minutes wow. Online in China. Jeez. Just to celebrate being single. And they're encouraged to shop for themselves, which I don't think we pointed out. A lot of people on Black Friday, when asked, say that they do some of the shopping for themselves. Not all gifts. It's like, I want that laptop. I think 47% or 41% of people who said they're going to shop on Black Friday, so they'll do most of the shopping for themselves. I usually do that whenever I go out, like genuinely Christmas shopping, I'll pick up something for myself. But these people are saying they're mostly shopping for themselves. No, mostly, but I'll just treat myself. And I want to say, Chuck, we don't begrudge anybody going to Black Friday sales. If that's your thing, enjoy it. That's fine. Just act like a human being. Yeah. Don't take anyone's life. No. Don't trample over somebody who's fallen down. And most importantly, have a very nice Thanksgiving. Enjoy the people you're with, whether they're friends, family, old acquaintances, new acquaintances. Take some time to really enjoy this Thanksgiving Day and relax and just be. I agree, my friend. It's Thanksgiving. Be with your family. Turn off your smartphone, maybe even, wow, really get crazy and just be in the moment. Yeah, how about that? And we give you permission to shout down anybody who says that tryptophan is what makes you sleepy. That's right. You go ahead and set them straight. Yes. Happy Turkey Day, Americans. And other parts of the world. Whatever you're doing, I hope you're will. Yeah, nice, Chuck. And Chuck, we should say that as usual, if everyone wants to send us Happy Thanksgiving wishes, they can tweet to us at s yskpodcast, they can join us on Facebook.com. Stuff you should know, you can. And if you want to know more about Black Friday, you can go to houseofworks.com. I think there's like a Ten Worst Moments in Black Friday History article up there. You can send us an email directly to stuffpodcast@discovery.com. And as always, you can join us at our very festive and thankful home on the Web stuffyoustnow.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit HowStuffWorks.com. Brought to you by the all new 2014 Toyota Corolla Summer school's out. The sun is shining. The daylight is longer. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music that's so good it's criminal Morbid. Part true crime and part comedy, Morbid takes you on a journey from murderous mysteries to major laughs, all in the same week. Hosted by autopsy technician Elena Erkart and hairstylist Ash Kelly, this chart topping series will have you hooked before you know it. Listen to new episodes of Morbid one week early, only on Amazon Music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen. Today you want your kid eating the best nutrition, right? And by that, we mean your dog. Halo Elevate is natural, science based nutrition guaranteed to support your dog's top five health needs better than leading brands? Find Halo Elevate at Petco pet supplies plus and select neighborhood pet stores."
8dc19514-ba8a-11e8-a624-23bd93d8929c	Short Stuff: Macadamia Nuts	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/short-stuff-macadamia-nuts	Macadamia nuts aren't nuts! They're seeds! And they are delicious. And good for you in the right amount. Learn all about them today.	Macadamia nuts aren't nuts! They're seeds! And they are delicious. And good for you in the right amount. Learn all about them today.	Wed, 04 Dec 2019 10:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2019, tm_mon=12, tm_mday=4, tm_hour=10, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=2, tm_yday=338, tm_isdst=0)	12142175	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Hey, welcome to Short Stuff. I'm Josh. There's Chuck. There's Jerry over there. This is short stuff about macadamia nuts. You heard me. Macadamia nuts. I love macadamia nuts. I do too. They're not my favorite nuts, but they're pretty high up there. I love them. You can't eat a lot of them because they're very oily and very rich, and they are delicious, but they're the kind of nut that and I find this with a lot of nuts for me, if you eat too many of them, you get a little what I call nut stomach. Yeah. Get a little nauseous. Not nauseous, but just a sour belly. You can't see straight. Yeah, it's no good for your car. But I do love macadamia nuts, but they are not nuts like Brazil nuts. They are seeds. Yes. And I was like, okay, what's the difference between nuts and seeds? It's hard to explain. Nuts are the fruit of the plant, and they're surrounded by a hard shell, and they actually contain seeds. And seeds are an actual tiny version of the plant itself, an embryo of the plant. And it's surrounded by the seed coat, which nourishes the plant's food for the plant as it grows. That's right. And this one is chock full of good and, like, dinner party factoids and yes, I'm using the word factoids and chock full. So another one is, you think, macadamia. Hawaii, of course, is where these things first came from. Sure. Like, the number one brand of macadamia nuts is Mount Aloe. And if that's not Hawaiian, I don't know what is. Yeah, well, a lot of them do come from Hawaii for a bunch of reasons, but they originated from our dear friends down under in Australia, and they were brought over by a man named William Purvis. He planted macadamia trees, which are nice looking, by the way. They are. They're very pretty. He planted them on the big island in 1881 because they were growing a lot of sugar back then. I imagine they still grow a lot of sugar in Hawaii. And he wanted a windbreak, so he was like, these trees look nice, and they provide the wind break that I need, so let me plant these things. And they don't produce nuts until they are four or five years old. So to his delight, they bore a delicious yummy seed. So I saw that he wasn't around to see that the seed could be eaten, or at the very least, to see it become popular. Oh, really? To say he died within four or five years? No, but they didn't become popular until the 20s, about 40 years ago. Oh, sure. That's what I mean. But surely they ate them right. Now? I genuinely don't know. I don't know when they figured it out. Interesting. But I know that some people I guess some people have figured it out by about the turn of the century, because in around 1900, the entire global coffee market collapsed because Bolivia, no, Brazil ramped up its production and overproduced. And so supply outstripped demand, and the prices just collapsed. And that was really bad for Hawaii because its economy was built in large part on coffee, too. So they set up the Hawaiian Agricultural Experiment Station, which, if it wasn't affiliated with the University of Hawaii back then, it is now. And they started saying, hey, you know what? The government will subsidize your land if you start planning macadamia nuts. And they actually didn't have very many takers at first. No, you get a five year tax exemption, which is some pretty good dough. Sure. But I think it just they didn't know that the world was going to go crazy for this stuff yet. Right. So no one was throwing their hat in the ring. When they did find out that people like them, they really threw their hat in the ring. I think it says here from 1932 to 1938, production went up from 423 acres to over 1000 acres in Hawaii, which I don't think we mentioned. The climate in Hawaii is just perfect for this stuff. That's why they grow it there. Yeah, right. So, like the cultivars, which, I didn't know this, but cultivar is actually a combination of the words cultivated varieties. Did you know that? Yeah, I thought we talked about that in one of our foodie episodes. Maybe we did. It didn't stick with me. But a cultivar is basically where we say, hey, we really like this plant that's native to Australia. We're going to really work it over and basically breed it into a different version of itself. And that's what a cultivar is. And with the cultivars that have been used in Hawaii for a century or so now. They don't grow very well outside of Hawaii. Which. From what I can tell. I mean. If you read between the lines here. Hawaii has basically the market cornered on macadamia nuts. Which is good for Hawaii and for Hawaii's macadamia nut farmers. But bad for the world because the global demand for macadamia nuts just keeps growing. And it's not like the Hawaiian islands are growing anymore. So it's actually created a bit of a problem market wise, which we'll talk about in a little bit. All right, we'll be right back. All right. So if you've ever been to the store, you're like, man, I want to crush up some sweet macadamia nuts and I want to dredge my fish filet and that stuff and cook it up in the oven. You're like McDonald's filet of fish? No. Have you ever done that? It's really good. I have, as a matter of fact. There's a restaurant chain called Roy's Hawaiian, and they have a macadamia crusted fish that's really good. It's very delicious, very easy to do. But you might find that you're spending as much on your macadamia nuts as you are your fish. Yeah, because it's expensive. They consider it what's called a dessert nut rather than what's called a commodity crop, like any old other dumb nut that you can just get tons and tons of or seed, because who can tell what's water anymore? Exactly. But here's the deal. There's quite a few factors that go into why you already mentioned that they really have the market quarter in Hawaii, so that's a big deal. It takes seven years for a nut tree to produce a crop. So that's obviously going to drive up prices when you have to wait a long time for an output. Yes. We said, like, four to five earlier. It's somewhere between four and seven, I think. Yeah, the person in the interview said seven years, but yeah, between four and seven. He may have been, like, inflating the numbers, you know? Yeah, maybe. So another thing is there are labor shortages in the agricultural field in Hawaii, so they're having to pay them more and pay them more benefits. So that's driving up cost. They're invasive pests that hit macadamias. They felt it. I was going to say Coxid. Coxid. That's what I'm going with. That's going to drive up the price. And the most important thing probably, though, is what you were alluding to, which is Hawaii is very expensive. The land is really expensive, and because you have to wait four to seven years to get a crop, it's just not feasible to expand all these orchards. So you're kind of, like, just don't have a ton of growth. No, that's right. So, like, the production and supply is basically remaining steady while the demand goes up, which is how you get macadamia nuts that go for $25 a pound. And that's a lot of money. So really, if you think about it, depending on the fish you're eating, it's maybe twice as much as that fish that you're using the macadamia nuts to crust. You think, I'm bringing some trash tilapia in there? Garbage fish. I've heard tilapia is referred to as the rats of the sea. Have you ever heard that? No, but I definitely learned a lot over the years because in my younger days, I thought, like, tilapia was a very fancy thing. Yeah, I used to like it, and then I heard it called the rats of the sea, and I was like, I can't eat this anymore. Although seeing lobster called cockroaches of the sea didn't do much to thwart my love of lobster. No, I'll take a buttered mayonnaise cockroach roll any day. Delicious. So our macadamia nuts, they're super high in calories and fat, but does that mean they're bad for you? No, supposedly they're very good for you, especially if they haven't been coated in delicious Meiji chocolate. Yes. You don't need that stuff. No, you do, but just don't count it as, like, healthy. Have you ever had the Meiji chocolate covered macadamia? No, it is delicious, but I'm just saying a macadamia nuts, to me, isn't something you have to dress up. What about delicious? Have you had the spam dusted macadamia nuts? I think someone sent us those. Yes, and they're amazingly good spam dust. But if you're just talking about just the plain old natural roasted macadamia nuts, it actually is pretty good for you. They're very high in calories, but they also contain a lot of really good fats, monounsaturated fats, which are the kind that actually lower your LDL cholesterol. That's right. They have a lot of carbs, but they also have a lot of fiber. And so anybody who's ever been on a keto diet, like Atkins or something like that, can tell you it's the net carbs that you care about. So you subtract the grams of fiber from the total grams of carbs, and you end up with net carbs. And those are the ones that you start counting. And apparently with macadamia nuts, the net carbs are actually fairly low. And because they're high in carbs, the low in net carbs, that means the fiber in them, like plant fiber, is among the best stuff you can eat. It keeps you so healthy, it keeps your gut by microbiota happy and thriving. So apparently macadamia nuts are chock full of them, as you would say. Yeah. They are also chock full of vitamins and minerals. Manganese, diamond, copper. Yeah. Which copper apparently AIDS in what? Some sort of transport and absorption. Oh, really? Yes. I can't remember what it was. It says in here, and I was like, I didn't know copper did that. God bless copper. No wonder people are stealing it from houses. Iron absorption. Okay. Which is good. Yeah, people do steal it, don't they, from, like, AC units or catalytic converter. Come on. Sure. That's somebody else's catalytic converter. So despite being high in calories, chock full of that good fiber, those good heart healthy fats and proteins and vitamins and minerals. Right. You still don't want to sit down and eat a bowl full of them, because, like I said, they're very rich. But they say it's a good filling nut. So if you grab a handful between meals or something, that's way better than eating potato chips or some ultra processed foods, right? Yeah. And it'll keep you full, like, between meals or something. Sure. You just made me think of, like, sitting down and eating an actual bowl full of macadamia nuts. You just sick from overeating macadamia nuts. Can you imagine? No, I talked about the oil content, though. They are 72% oil, and I did not know this. Here's another little factoid to finish this off. You can throw any nut into water, throw it in the toilet and see if it floats. And if it's got 72% oil, like that macadamia nut, it's going to float. Yeah. And if it doesn't, apparently they just go flush. Flush them down the toilet. I don't think macadamia nuts are actually tested in a toilet. No, I don't think so either. I'm hoping not. Well, that's it for Macadamia nuts. Charles. I'm sorry. What about you, Jerry? Anything? That's right. Well, thank you for joining us on Short Stuff. Short stuff away. Stuff you should know is the production of Iheartradios how stuff works. For more podcasts, my heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows."
42dea09e-53a3-11e8-bdec-ff58c5c9c133	The Disappearance of Flight MH370, Part II	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/the-disappearance-of-flight-mh370-part-ii	In the absence of an official explanation of why flight MH 370 disappeared in 2014, conjecture and conspiracy theories have filled the vacuum.	In the absence of an official explanation of why flight MH 370 disappeared in 2014, conjecture and conspiracy theories have filled the vacuum.	Thu, 09 Jan 2020 10:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2020, tm_mon=1, tm_mday=9, tm_hour=10, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=9, tm_isdst=0)	43653422	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Are you looking for? An escape? An immersive getaway experience? Well, there's a place for all your wildest dreams. Perhaps you enjoy wrapping along the paperboy, or you believe that blessed be the fruit. Or you dream of one day smashing a glass while stealing. Who's. Ah. Whether you're sworn to Team Kim or you just want a good old fashioned mysterious murder, there's a place that has it all. From Atlanta to only murders in the building, it's all on Hulu. So check into your obsessions. Hulu subscription is required. Terms apply. Visit Hulucom for plan details. San Francisco, we're coming to see you soon. Yeah, we're going to be there on Saturday, January 18, Chuck. And since it's San Francisco, we're going to be wearing nothing but appropriately placed clumps of rice. errone, that is the San Francisco Treat. Yes, and we're the San Francisco Treat, too, whenever we're in town. So everybody should come see us. That's right. It's part of Sketchfest. As always, we love performing there. You can go to Sysklive.com for details or SF sketchfest.com. And if you're around Sunday night, you can come see me do Movie Crush live. And a very small, fun venue where you can shake my hand. Very nice. So come see us, everybody. You won't regret it. We're pretty sure that's correct. And, hey, another thing. This is weirdly edited in real time. We're recording this in our time, two days previous. I'm great. Melted out of my ear. Well, we wanted to kind of front load this with a listener mail because of what's going on in Australia. All this was sort of happening. It's been happening for a little while, but over the holiday break, when we weren't in here and had a chance to do something. This is from Sally M guys who live in Sydney, New South Wales. You've probably been hearing about the catastrophic wildfires that have been happening across the country since September. Having lived in California before, I thought I knew what to expect. However, this has been truly unprecedented. Minor inconveniences for us have been happening, but compared to what? So many other Aussies and our wildlife is experiencing yet another example of the far reaching effects of this emergency. There's so much need in Australia and I thought the stuff you should know army might be primed to help out. This is from Sally M, and this is something that has been on our radar for a little while. But obviously, being across the world, america is becoming more aware and engaged, thanks to social media in recent days and weeks. It's just devastating to see what's happening there. We've always had such incredible support from Australia, and when we had a chance to visit there just were charmed by the people and by the beautiful country, and it's just heartbreaking. So we want to direct people to quite a few places because there are lots of ways that you can give money to help out. Do you have some. I've got some, too. Yeah, I've got a bunch. All right, go ahead. I mean, you can do the usual. Australian Red Cross, the Salvation Army, Australia, St. Vincent DePaul Society. There's something called Food bank in Australia. Those are some pretty good places to start. Yeah. And we're huge fans of animals and held koalas and petted kangaroos while we were there. And to see these images of these animals in need has just been really tough. So the World Wildlife Fund is always a great place to start. There's an organization called Wires. Capital wires. The Port Macquarie Koala hospital, the RSPCA of New South Wales is all going to help out our animal friends. And if you want to help out the firefighters directly, the New South Wales Rural Fire Service has set up funds for the families of volunteers fighting the fires who have died. Fighting the fires. Yeah. So do what you can. It is a dire situation right now and I think people can come together and spare a few bucks. Every little bit helps. Yes. In Australia, we are thinking of you. The whole world is sending you good vibes, big time. And hang in there. All right, so, finally, let's get on with the show. Welcome to stuff. You should know a production of Iheartradios how stuff works. Hi, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark and there's Charles W, Chuck Bryant, and this is part two of two about MH 370, the most mysterious disappearance of any airliner in the history of modern aviation. That's right. We won't do a full recap, but where we're picking up now no, wait, you won't do a full recap? 20 minutes easy. We are at the point where the plane has crashed and we're going to pick up with post crash investigations, which, like many airline crash investigations, were bungled in a lot of ways. Oh, yeah. So Ed points out that kind of oddly, that there are a lot of crash investigations you can point to that kind of deferred toward the airline manufacturer when they were at fault or tried to do some cover up or was not great. None of them, from what I can tell, compared to this one. No. Agreed. This is very not good. And there seems to be the roundly accepted reason for the whole thing being bundled was that Malaysia at the time was a dictatorship and you could disappear if you weren't doing your job very well or if you offended the people in charge. And a crash of a Malaysians airline flight in particular was kind of a dicey thing to talk about because Malaysian Airlines was the pride of Malaysia and it was, at the time, a largely government owned and controlled airline, a stateowned airline. Malaysia was the majority owner of stock and it was publicly traded, malaysia Airlines was, but they owned the majority of it. They called the shots. And after 2014, which proved to be a terrible year by any airline standards because not only was MH 370 did it vanish, MH 17 was shot down over Ukraine the same year. Just less than six months later, the Malaysian government set about buying back all of the shares that were outstanding of Malaysian Airlines and took it off of public listing, made it a fully state owned company. Yes. So they certainly didn't want the bad pressure to follow. No. So there's a lot of people who say the Malaysian government covered this up, not because they did anything nefarious, but because they were worried that something embarrassing was going to come out. And this is not a government that could handle embarrassment very well. Right. And so they literally obfuscated the investigation into what happened at MH 370. Yeah. So the first problem here is we know now that this plane crashed in the South Indian Ocean and it took a week before they were looking in the South Indian Ocean. So the first 24 hours was in the South China Sea between Malaysia and Vietnam. They ended up hooking up and creating a joint agency coordination center, or actually Australia's who created that. And they led the search efforts because it was close to them and they found no trace. Even after they did all this ocean floor mapping, they had that 7th arch pegged searched all along there, 120,000 sq. Mi. Yeah. Which is, even if you find that 7th Ark and you know it's somewhere in here, that's still a vast, vast area. And this thing is on the bottom of the ocean at this point, and we should say it, by this time, Australia has stepped up and been like, well, this happened not too far from us. I guess we're the closest major country. Yeah. Certainly Western democracy in this area. We'll head this up. Malaysia will help you out. And they footed a lot of the bill, which was pretty cool. Yeah. $60 million. Yeah. From what I understand. Yeah. And I think it was the most, and still is the most expensive search in aviation history. Yeah. Which is kind of surprising. You'd think that more would have been spent. But I think they usually find them sooner than this. This was not found. They searched for two solid years for this thing. Just on that 7th arc. There's a lot of people who at the time were like, no. You know how it forms a circle? Well, there's a Northern Ark and a Southern Ark. And some people said, no, Northern Ark somewhere. It's in Kazakhstan. The southern Ark was in the Indian Ocean. Most people said it's probably the Southern Ark. Right. So that's where they searched and they still didn't find it. Yeah. And it took so long to even get there by that point. There were a lot of things. If you had that 1st 24 hours, it's sort of like a murder investigation. That first day is so key. The first 48 yeah. Is it 48. I'm narrowing it down to 24, buddy. Yeah. Okay. So Malaysia then heads up what's called a joint Investigation team. The US. Was involved? China, Britain and France. This was the one that was meant to follow the protocols of just the internationally agreed upon accident investigation to make everything safer for everybody. And Malaysia did not help out very well. No. So they issued the Malaysian Ministry of Transport issued a preliminary and a final report. The preliminary report Ed described as more or less a reprint of the Boeing Seven Seven manual, just like, well, here was the plane, which I think is kind of standard to have technical information, but not as the whole report. Right. And then the second one, the final report, basically pointed out where air traffic control failed along the way. Yeah, and I saw in that language article that they were, politically speaking, the easiest targets. There wasn't going to be any backlash by kind of taking them to task, especially taking the Ho Chi Minh air traffic controllers to task, too. They should have been taking the task. 18 minutes is a very long time to let an airliner in your jurisdiction just be disappeared. Right. So that was a big problem. But the Malaysian Air Force also should have been criticized for covering up the fact that they hadn't done anything for an hour, that they were tracking this unidentified airplane in their airspace and let an entire search, multinational search, be mounted in the South China Sea. You in the wrong place for, like, a couple of days before they were like, actually, we think they went this way. Yes. Because it takes a long time to even assemble that kind of search squad. So I think if they search for two days and didn't get started until a week later, that's like four days just to move. Right. And so in that time, an oil slick, a debris field, all that stuff can just vanish. Yeah. And an airliner really can in an area the size of the Indian Ocean, especially even when you know where to look, can just disappear. And that is why a lot of people say we will probably never find MH 370. There's another couple of reasons why, too. Are we going to get to those? Sure. Okay. The police and Malaysia and this bore a little bit of fruit. They conducted some background checks on everyone on the plane, and they did find two passengers who were Iranians that had stolen passports. Apparently, they were just seeking political asylum, though, although that does factor into some of the conspiracy theories that pop up later on. Yeah. Anytime you have two Iranian nationals traveling under fake passports on a plane that disappeared, some people are going to say, sure, I don't know about that one. Yeah, exactly. And then here was the one thing about their final report from the police is they described Captain Zahari basically saying, like, this guy was great. Nothing wrong. He was a great pilot. Nothing to alarm anybody here about Captain Sahari. Nice to see here and that's in the final report and we'll get to him. But that does not appear to be true. No. So after the search, after two years and $160,000,000 and 120,000 think it said square miles, still a lot of square miles searched. The Australians, the Malaysians and the Chinese that made up the tripartite commission that were kind of running the show in the search said, officially, we don't know what happened. All we can say is that we believe MH 370 ended somewhere in the Southern Indian Ocean. That's the official stance on what happened to a vanished airliner that they said, we don't know. And that's as far as we're going to go. Yes. And I do want to point out quickly there was one private agency called in or I think volunteered, called Ocean Infinity from Texas. Yeah. They performed a search basically pro bono if they find the plane, to get paid. But just as sort of a nerd in this way. I looked at that company. They are awesome. Yeah, they are. It's really cool, man. They call it seabed intelligence and it's like James Cameron style stuff. The resources and the toys that these dudes play with. It's pretty cool. Yeah. They'll have a mothership. Well, at least this is what they did for the MH 370 search. They have a mothership, and I think the mothership goes through and maps the underwater terrain in three D first, and then that forms their search area. They release some autonomous drones. Yeah, they look like torpedoes. Yeah, but they're drones that can be controlled from the mothership. And they go through and scan using sonar. It can detail the seabed. So cool. And Iris photography, really cool stuff. It works really well. Ocean Infinity has a great track record finding stuff. They're who I would call. They found like a missing submarine from Argentina. They found a bunch of other things. I would call them, too, by the way. We should hire them out for the Tabby Island nuke. We totally should. I'm surprised they haven't just done that for fun. Yeah. As a matter of fact, I think they should solve a mystery. Yeah. The broken arrow or the empty quiver, and they're like, we spent how many multi millions of dollars just to say we solve that mystery. Right. Wait, is someone going to pay us for this? No, they're from Texas. So anytime they find something, they don't think about that. Instead they just shoot their six shooters into the air. That's right. Forgot about that. Right. So that's fine. That's a good enough for them to pay. Enough. But Ocean Infinity? Yes. They know what they're doing. And they still couldn't find yeah, they couldn't find it either. There were some things that were found in the search. Number one, this is uncharted territory. And now huge swathes of it are now mapped. They found an underwater volcano, an enormous one that they had no idea existed before. They found a couple of shipwrecks from the 19th century that had just been totally lost. But they still found no trace whatsoever of MH 370, despite two major searches in an official final report from Australia saying, we don't know. We will probably never know. All we can say is that the flight ended almost certainly in the southern Indian Ocean. That's right. And we should shout out the independent group. This is an online group of enthusiasts Internet sleuth yeah. Who got together to try and figure this out and even pointed out, like, you know, you hear Internet sleuth and you're like, Come on, get off the tinfoil hat. But it turns out that these people, a lot of them were engineers. They worked in aviation formerly or currently, and they were really interested in trying to help, and I think ended up helping in a lot of ways. Yeah. And even beyond. Like Tinfoil had internet. They've done things like identified John Doe and Jane Doe. Yeah, for sure. They've done a lot of cool stuff, but typically, they're not qualified in what they're doing. They're just very interested and very dogged in their pursuits. Right. With the independent group, these are actual, like, people with PhDs in electrical engineering and secondary radar and satellites. And the stuff that they're doing, they just all happen to come together, bound by their common interest in search for this plane. And if you go and read, I will give you $1,000 if you can make it through one of their blog posts. It's so dense and so scientific. I looked at one of them, but they're so legitimate that the Australian government, when they wrapped up their search, maybe at some point during it, they actually acknowledged and thanked the independent group for their work because they were relying on it to some extent. Yes. And I'm sure no one ever in this kind of thing, or search and rescue, no one ever wants this to happen, but this is their chance to really get involved and try and do some good. Who, the independent group? Yeah, sure. They also agitated for more transparency in this stuff, and I think they got their hands well, they went around about way they made friends with some of the family of MH 370 just by the families hearing about what they were doing. And from one of the families, they got the raw Mrsat data. At a time when MRSA was saying, this actually belongs to Malaysia or Malaysian Airlines, we can't release it. Malaysia was saying, well, no, Mrsat has to release it. They just went around both and got the raw data, and we're able to really do some much better calculations than they had before with the raw and are settled data. All right, so let's take a break and we'll go start up our own Internet sleuthing. Concern. Get that ramped up. What are we going to get to the bottom of puppies? Sure. Okay. Why are they so darn cute? That sounds like us. All right, we'll be right back. Hi, everyone. When you're running a small business, every second counts and you can't afford to waste a single moment. So why are you still taking time out of your day to go to the post office? And you could be using Stamps.com. Yeah. For more than 20 years, stamps.com has been indispensable for over 1 million businesses. Because Stamps.com gives you access to all the post office and Ups shipping services you need right. From your computer. That's right. You can streamline your shipping process with Stamps.com easy to use software. All you need is your regular computer and printer. No special supplies or equipment necessary. And you can get discounts you can't find anywhere else, like up to 30% off USPS. Rates and 86% off Ups to stop wasting time and start saving money. When you use Stamps.com to mail and ship, sign up with promo code stuff for a special offer that includes a four week trial, plus free postage and a digital scale. No long term commitments or contracts. Just go to Stamps.com, click the microphone at the top of the homepage and enter code stuff. Okay. Chuck. Are we at Wreckage? Not quite yet. I want to talk about the yeah, we are at Wreckage. I think they'll tie in nicely to what I was going to say. Yes. Because this thing disappeared. That is not to say there were no traces, because we have pieces of this plane now. Right. There are people sort of like these Internet sleuths that are captured by a story such that they will spend a large portion of their life trying to solve it and looking for stuff and savings. Yeah, sure. A lot of money. I think by people you really mean person. No, there were a lot of other people. There was one man called Zaheed Raza who searched for years, and he was murdered in Madagascar. So his job was, as the Malaysian Council to Madagascar. He's like the ambassador to Madagascar. Yeah. And the conspiracy minded will say, no, this guy is finding stuff and they took him out. So there was a dude who did leave his life in, I think, Seattle and moved well, actually just started moving around the world, which he did normally, anyway. But his name was Blaine Gibson. Attorney. Yeah. He factors big into that William Langwich article. He talks about him a lot. But he just became moved by this and decided that he was going to go start finding wreckage. And he has. Yeah. I think a third of the debris found from MH 370 has been personally found by Blaine Gibson. Just globe trotting, basically. Amazing. But he figured out if it was the Southern Indian Ocean, then this wreckage is probably going to start to show up somewhere around the southwest coast of Africa, south Africa, Mozambique, Madagascar. And he was right. And the first piece turned up in 2015. It was a six foot piece of an airplane. And it wasn't what he felt like. No, I can't as a matter of fact, I mean, looking for this and then finding it, it's like a searching for a needle in a haystack. But it was found on Reunion Island off of Madagascar. I think it's under the control of Mauritius. And this was a really big deal for a couple of reasons. One, it showed incontrovertibly that the Southern Ark was correct. It hadn't flown north into Kazakhstan, that the flight had ended to the Indian Ocean. Yeah, I mean, it showed that it crashed. That's a big one. It showed that it had broken up. Like, it wasn't like a fire or anything like that had come apart. Well, and it wasn't secretly landed somewhere because some of those conspiracies get pretty out there. Right. But the other effect that this had was that it devastated the MH 370 families who had been holding out hope. Yeah, because it was disappeared. This airliner vanished and people were saying, no, it actually is in the air base. Diego Garcia under US. Control. No. It's under Russian control in Kazakhstan. It's somewhere. Our people are somewhere. Maybe there's this hope. This dashed those hopes, and it came more than a year after the plane disappeared. So they had been, like, really holding on to this hope to a desperate degree for more than a year, and then it was dashed. So it was a big deal when it was found. And that was the first of several pieces that washed up in that area. Yeah, this was a part of the airplane called a flaperon. It's on the back edge of the wing and it's a control surface. You know, the kind of flaps up and down on it. It's a great name for it. It is now all know, and the serial numbers confirmed it. So it was definitely from MH 370. And then many other pieces have, I think, what, dozens at this point? The pieces of plane have been found. What's creepy is other pieces have been found, but they're not from MH 370. It's like, well, what planes are these coming from? That's creepy. Yeah, I think maybe every is there any way to completely tag every square inch of an airplane? I don't know. And not necessarily with a stamp, but I don't know. I know what you mean. Some kind of technology. You could probably attach some sort of marker to atoms eventually, and you would be able to tag any part of any plane down to the like you find a little four inch piece of metal and you know what it is? You just analyze the atomic makeup and be like, oh, look, MH 370. But that's the future, everyone. That's not too far. Once we get into nanotechnology, that will be commonplace. Yeah. We'll also probably be able to make planes that don't come apart. All right, so the other thing to suggest, too, is that the plane hit and we talked earlier about when a plane is descending into an ocean like that is going super fast. And this really kind of confirms that because they didn't find much wreckage, these parts probably ripped off on the way down. And most of the plane, fairly intact, hit the ocean and went south very fast. Yeah. Right to the bottom. Right to the bottom. So this also dashed the hopes of the families even further in that those four electronic location transmitters, the life beacons that were supposed to go off and all four failed. Some family members and a lot of conspiracy theorists are saying all four of those failing. No way. It means that the plane didn't descend quickly, didn't catch fire, didn't hit water, because some of those transmitters are supposed to go off when they hit water. But if they broke up on the way down because here's the thing is, the planes, if it entered a steep decline at 600 miles an hour, which is about what they think it was cruising at, if it drops from 35,000ft at 600 miles an hour, within two minutes, it's going to just break up either on the way down or the moment it hits water. So much so that some of these beacons that are designed for the scenario are not going to function. And there is one beacon that is designed to go off on impact. It's designed for that kind of thing, but it needs 50 seconds above water to transmit to the satellite. So they think this thing hits so fast that the beacon might have just gone right down underwater and not been able to transmit in that 50 seconds. So it's an explanation that the plane came apart in the Southern Indian Ocean. It didn't just crash in the southern Indian Ocean. It came into a million pieces in the Southern Indian Ocean. Yeah. And we mentioned the black boxes in the previous episode. Obviously, we don't have these black boxes. They're down there with everything else. Hasn't recovered anything like that. But they think that they probably wouldn't tell much of the story anyway. No, not unless there was some sort of final communications or something. That's what it would take. It would take whoever was in charge of the plane at that time still talking and explaining. And if you were the only person alive on this plane, who would you be talking to? Well, let's go ahead and talk about who this might be because all indications point that it was the captain of the airplane himself. Captain Shaw. Yes. Captain Zahari Ahmad Shaw. That's right. So the wreckage basically, I mean, there's a lot of clues. Again, we can't say anything for sure. No. But no one ever claimed it's unlikely it was terrorists, because one thing terrorists do which is what makes them terrorists, is claim responsibility. They like to brag. Well, so everyone knows who it was. No one did this. No one even falsely did this, which happens sometimes. The same can be said for a kidnapping because there are some theories about that. That there were some important people aboard, that they wanted to disappear or something. Right. Like, if you were kidnapping somebody, you want them alive. And they can't be alive if the plane is in a million pieces in the Southern Indian Ocean. That's right. And there were only two people on that plane who knew and had the knowledge and access to do this stuff, and that was Captain Shaw and First Officer Hamid also. Yeah. There's something really important to point out here, too, Chuck. There was no distress call. Right. And if it was a hijacking between the time that Zahari said, goodnight, Malaysian three 70 yes. And the transponder went off at exactly the right time right. When it hit a Ho Chi Minh air traffic control jurisdiction, it would have taken a minute for terrorists to make their way into the cockpit, which was sealed with an electronic lock super bolted. It would have taken less than a minute at a precise moment in time for terrorists to take control of the plane. That just would not have happened. No. The idea that these two are working together is not very plausible. The idea that it was First Officer Hamid himself is not plausible because, like we said, this is a greenhorn. He was just getting started in his career. He was super happy to have this job, this great job, flying the pride of Malaysia. Nothing at all points that he had anything to do with this. No, it doesn't. And also, it would have been much harder for him to get Captain Shaw out of the cockpit. Yes. Once you go take a bathroom break yeah. Captain Shaw would have been like, I don't need the boss of you. He's like, no, but seriously, go do it. I'm wondering how Captain Shaw might have gotten him out. So one thing langwich. This is a well, I will keep going back to all day long the langwich. Well, yeah. He said that Captain Shaw was known as somebody who wanted to know all the details of what was going on. So it would have been very normal to go back and check on something. Exactly. Yeah. It would have been very normal. It would have been very easy. And First Officer Hamid would have hopped right up and gone right out of the cockpit, leaving Shaw alone to lock the door. Lock them out. Yes. And that's all it took. That's all it took. So we said that the report from the Malaysian police came back as a glowing report for Shaw. When you start doing a little digging around, that's not exactly the case. Before this plane disappeared, in the months before he had separated. From his wife. He was living by himself. Apparently, he was having an affair with a married woman. I think a platonic affair, but a weird emotional affair also involved her children that he was really into. Right. He apparently was very big on social media, but he did not leave, like, a Facebook post. No suicide note. No suicide note, no video. And he was on YouTube. He did DIY repair things on YouTube videos, which is pretty remarkable. Yeah. But here's the big clue to me and everyone else, is that Microsoft has this flight simulator that's a lot of fun. Have you ever played around with one of those? Not for many years. It's a ton of fun. I've crashed tons of planes. It's really hard, as it turns out, to fly one of these. But he loved doing this. He loved flying these. It was one of his hobby, was flying the flights so they were able to get into the flights that he flew preceding this disappearance. And one of them really closely matches the flight path of MH 370 right into the Indian Ocean. Some people might say, like, hey, listen, that doesn't prove anything. But all the other flights that he had played around with, he took from takeoff to landing. This is the only one where he jumped forward, like a podcast commercial. Can't say that he's skipping forward in time on that flight alone to see how these fuel calculations were going to play out and where this plane would be when it ran out of fuel over the Indian Ocean flight SIM over. Right. That is so suspicious. I know you can speculate, but it's almost open and shut case when you hear that. It's so suspicious. I saw one member of the independent group said that he left it as a breadcrumb. Oh, interesting that he wouldn't have learned anything from Microsoft Flight Simulator, which is, to a guy in the 777, basically a game that he was just basically leaving something behind. That was one guy's interpretation in the independent group. Well, the very least, he could say, if I'm here and I'm on this header and I put it on autopilot, who knows? He may have killed himself. Yeah, he may have wanted that thing to fly into the ocean for sure. The idea is that Captain Zahari took control of the plane by locking First Officer Hamid out of the cockpit, turned off the electrical system, took the 777 in a hard turn, back tracking, and probably going up to about 40,000ft at the same time. Accelerating the effects of depressurization in the cabin. Yes. Killing everyone on board. Killing everyone on board. Putting it on autopilot and setting a course for the Southern Indian Ocean with a plane full of dead people for a good six something hours. He may have killed himself at some point. He may not. There's some data that suggests that the plane running out of fuel and dropping from the sky would not have hit the ocean as hard as the wreckage suggests that it hit, and that it might have taken somebody driving the plane into the ocean. Oh, really? So he may have been alive to the very bitter end. And if he was a 777 pilot dying by crashing a plane in the ocean, I'm betting that he wouldn't have killed himself before the crash. It just doesn't seem right. But the idea is that he killed his passengers and then killed himself by crashing this plane into the Southern Indian Ocean. And the mind recoils from that idea. But the problem is it's happened before. Pilots have killed their passengers four times. Yes. Multiple times in the history of air travel. Yeah. And here's the other final clue, which to me is kind of the cherry on top, is that really? I found this one tough to oh, really? Yes. I didn't think so, because we mentioned earlier he took a very deliberate path to do a little flyby of Panang Island that was out of the way, and he grew up on Panang Island, and I don't know, man, that was it. I don't think that was an accident. Okay. I think a final little flyby. I could see it. Sure. To me, it's the simulator. Well, it's like a smoking gun. Both those things to me. So we were saying that people have done this before, right? Yeah. German wings. Flight 95 25. I remember that one. Lemo Zambique. 470 Egypt, area 990. And that's another article you should read. I'm not reading any of these. You got it. Man, he's so good. Chuck, then silk Air flight at 185. They murdered everyone on board. There's no other way to take your own life. Yeah. There's so many other ways to take your own life that don't involve the innocent lives of your passengers that this is one of the most despicable things you can possibly do. Absolutely. And so in response, a lot of people are suicide bomber. Sure. A lot of people say, there's no way he did this, including his family. They are like, no, this guy did not do that. He was a nice guy. He wouldn't kill a bunch of people. But if you follow the evidence, and again, nobody can say for certain, and probably no one will ever be able to say that it was Captain Shaw that did this. But if you follow the evidence and you form your own opinion, it's pretty convincing that he did. Yeah. But a lot of people say no way. And because they've not been able to explain what happened, it's formed this vacuum that's being filled by conspiracy theories. And there's a lot of them. Yeah. So we'll take our last break here, and we're not going to go too deep into those, but we will kind of rattle off some of the leading ones right after this. Hey, everyone, when you're running a small business, every second counts and you can't afford to waste a single moment. So why are you still taking time out of your day to go to the post office when you could be using Stamps.com? Yeah. For more than 20 years, stamps.com has been indispensable for over 1 million businesses, because Stamps.com gives you access to all the post office and Ups shipping services you need right from your computer. That's right. You can streamline your shipping process with Stamps.com easy to use software. All you need is your regular computer and printer. No special supplies or equipment necessary, and you can get discounts you can't find anywhere else, like up to 30% off USPS rates and 86% off Ups. So stop wasting time and start saving money. When you use Stamps.com to mail and ship, sign up with promo code stuff for a special offer that includes a four week trial, plus free postage and a digital scale. No long term commitments or contracts. Just go to Stamps.com, click the microphone at the top of the home page and enter code stuff. And Chuck, before we rattle off some of these conspiracy theories, I want to say, because we can't explain this, nobody can say that it was Captain Shaw. Sure, there are some things you can say. It's not like it wasn't an accident, it wasn't terrorists or anything like that, but you can't say definitively that, yes, it was Captain Straw. And if this floats your boat, there's a whole rabbit hole for you to dive down with MH 370. There's a lot of other interpretations, but this seems to be among air disaster experts, the likeliest explanation. Yes. We are not saying, to be clear, that it was Captain Shaw. Nobody can say that it was. Yeah, we're just sort of following Occam's Razor here and the findings of experts. Like you said, it's the cleanest explanation there is. All right, well, some things that aren't so clean. Should we go over some of these? This was compiled by theweek Co UK the Week. Yeah. I didn't see any authorship, though, on this one. Yeah, maybe they're like the economists and they don't it's all the economists speaking. It's all the week speaking. You know what I mean? Exactly. They're collective. So let me see here. One of these is that Captain Shaw parachuted out of the plane to meet that woman on a boat. Totally unnecessary because he and his wife had already separated. Yeah, he was living alone. That's right. But that was actually written by a journalist in a book called The Hunt for MH 370 by E. Ann Higgins. Okay, what else? This one is interesting, that it was cyber hijacked. This is in another book called Beneath Another Sky Colon a Global Journey into History. And this is the suggestion that Boeing's Honeywell Uninterruptible Autopilot onboard computer was hacked and reprogrammed yeah. On the ground. That ties into another one that the CIA got their hands on the plane remotely, but I don't know that it's true. But there's a definite thread through conspiracy minded groups that after 911, they have engineered some sort of mechanism on the airliners so that they can be remotely controlled in case they are hijacked. So nobody can fly something into the World Trade Center or anything like that. Again, makes sense. It does make sense. It makes so much sense that I'm like, wait, did they actually do that? But that's like step one to that conspiracy theory. Step one is that exists. And then step two is that somebody used it to vanish MH 370. Yeah. What else? Asian Bermuda Triangle. No. That's all you need to say. Well, this one, I thought it was funny because it said that when you look at where it crashed, it's the exact opposite of the Bermuda Triangle on the other side of the globe. And then I guess someone just looked, they're like, no, it's actually not right, so go ahead and throw that down. The Duke. Maybe in the general neighborhood, but definitely not on the and also there's no Bermuda Triangles causing plane crashes. Yeah, that's a big issue with that. What have you got? Another one is that it was used as MH 17. Remember I said that 2014 was a terrible year for Malaysian Airlines, and the idea is that they hijacked. They. Meaning probably the CIA or the US government or some shadowy cabal hijacked MH 370. Safely landed it in some Diego Garcia air base or somewhere under US control. Killed everybody. Or maybe they were dead from hypoxia to begin with anyway. Put them in freezers. And then staged this. Changed the call sign from an O to a D on the plane. Easy enough. And then used it to be shot down over Ukraine. And supposedly there are reports from Ukrainian journalists and humanitarian workers and even Ukrainian rebels saying that the corpses that fell from this shot down plane MH 17 over Ukraine were already decomposing and rotting as if they died weeks before. I've not found anybody who actually said that or anything like that, but the whole thing is that it was a big false flag operation. Okay, but isn't it nuts that if you can't explain something like a disappeared airliner, people go onto the Internet and write books and say, here's what really happened, and that it's this think about the level of distrust we have for the people running the show, that this has an audience. I do not blame anybody who believes stuff like this because we've been lied to for so long that you can buy this, that some government agency would hijack a plane, kill everybody, and then use it to pin it on Putin controlled Ukrainian forces. Right. Come on. Yeah, it was Hunter Biden. So here's another one that I thought was interesting and not I'm saying it's interesting is like, could it be? But if you go to look at passengers on an airplane and try and find a thread, you might want to look at the fact that there are 20 people that worked for a company all on board called Free Scale semiconductor. So I hear that, and I think, well, we should at least look into this. Is there any reason someone would want to tank this company or tank 20 people that work important people that work for this company. And the theory is that they might have been killed by a plane crash, either for secret technology or to manipulate stock prices. Right. And apparently that company helped the NSA or the CIA or the US. Government in general create some of its prism program surveillance technology. So they were supposedly already in cahoots with shadowy agencies within the US. Government to begin with. And since this plane was headed to Beijing, China right, perhaps this company was going over to work with China now, and the CIA didn't like that, so they did this. Pretty interesting, as you said. Interesting? Yeah. That's all it is. Yeah. And then there are other various ones, from life insurance scans to false flag hijackings to alien abductions. Apparently, 5% of Americans surveyed believe it was abducted by aliens. Believe MH 370 was abducted by aliens. I saw that, and my brain wouldn't accept that. I think I just saw it. As 5% of Americans believe in alien abductions. No, I can't hear what you're about. Dumb survey. Okay. You got anything else? No? Well, if you want to know more about image 370 friend, meet your new hobby, because it is all over the internet, and you can follow whatever thread you like. And since I said that, it's time for listener mail. This one is a bit long, but boy, is it a good one. And super important one for this gentleman and his family. Hey, guys, my name is Tyler. I live in Michigan. I got a story for you. The Sunday before Thanksgiving, my family and I woke up and went around business as usual. I was playing a video game with my two boys, and my wife said she was going out to the garage to get something and walked out the door. After about ten minutes, my neighbor banged on the door. I opened it to see my next door neighbor pointing at my wife laying motionless on the ground in front of my car, full on panic mode set in. I ran the 10ft or so to find her not breathing. Her fingers and face already blew, and my neighbor started calling 911. Luckily, I remembered some advice from your CPR episode. Not only how much pressure to apply to the sternum, which is a lot, but the rhythm that I began to sing staying alive. That is so great. By the VGS in my head as I did the chest compressions. Trying to sing along while my adrenaline was pumping was not easy. But I did my best to stay calm and keep singing. That part of the song in my head. The colors started coming back to her face a little bit after I started the EMTs and police were at my house within five minutes and used to always mess that word up. Defibrillator on her three times, gave her three shots of epinephrine oh, my gosh. Before they finally got her heart beating again. Her brain went without blood for 20 minutes, though, and as a result, she's been diagnosed with brain damage. She's got a long road to recovery ahead of her, but the doctors think she has a good chance because of her age. Her heart had a severe arrhythmia that ultimately caused cardiac arrest. I'm doing the best I can for her and my kids while she heals. I'm the primary provider for my family, while my wife was the primary caregiver. Having to take off work and take care of my kids has been really scary, but I've gotten tremendous support from friends and family here in my time of need. So I just want to thank you guys for the work you do. Without your podcast, I likely would have been burying my wife instead of visiting her in the hospital. Right? This is like Christmas time too, Chuck. I wasn't prepared for this one. You could have given me, like, sorry, tuck me in the hand with the needle or something first. Sincerely, thank you both so much. That is from Tyler Elliott. He said if you guys read this on the show, could you shout out my best friend Justin? Sure. He got me into the show back in the day and has been there for me and my family every step of the way. So Justin is the one who should be thanked, really. It all, in a weird way, comes back to Justin Ma'am. What is his name again? Tyler Elliot. And I hope your wife is recovering. Yeah, same here. Tyler, best of luck to you, man. That's quite a hearing experience. Not only are we thinking of you, but everybody listening to this podcast right now is thinking about you, too. That's right. Sending out the best vibes into the universe. Agreed. Wow. Well, if you want to try to top Tyler's email, best of luck. Good luck. You can go on to Stuffyoushenknow.com and check out our social links there. And you can also send us an email yourself to stuffpodcast@iheartradio.com. Stuff you should know is a production of iHeartRadio's how stuff works. For more podcasts, my heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Hey, everybody. I don't know about you, but I am excited that it's summer. School's out, the sun is shining, and best of all, there's downtime for days. That's where true crime podcasts on Amazon music come in. They're the perfect activity for last minute road trips, long walks, or, if you're brave enough, late nights. With so many killer shows like Morbid, my favorite Murder and Small Town Murder you'll never bored to death again. So download the free Amazon Music app to start listening to all your favorite true crime podcast. 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http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/podcasts.howstuffworks.com/hsw/podcasts/sysk/2017-02-21-sysk-death-tax-final.mp3	The ins and outs of the DEATH TAX	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/the-ins-and-outs-of-the-death-tax	The estate tax, also known as the death tax, is not new. It's actually been around in some form since ancient Rome. Some say it's a necessary tax to help prevent resting on your inheritance laurels. Others say it's straight up double tax robbery. Learn al	The estate tax, also known as the death tax, is not new. It's actually been around in some form since ancient Rome. Some say it's a necessary tax to help prevent resting on your inheritance laurels. Others say it's straight up double tax robbery. Learn al	Tue, 21 Feb 2017 08:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2017, tm_mon=2, tm_mday=21, tm_hour=8, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=52, tm_isdst=0)	47263745	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Welcome to stuff you should know from housetuffworkscom. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's charles W, Chuck Bryant. There's Jerry. You put us together in a room, get a little air conditioner noise going black out the windows. It's stuff you should know. Put egg crates on the walls. Yeah. Bring in a cup of water for me. And, like, I got nothing. Why don't you have four beverages? I don't know. It's a weird day. That is so weird. They're out of Pellegrillo. Yeah, I know. I'm sitting here like, I've never seen you without a beverage within 3ft of your body. And I also am really tired of the coffee here. It's not okay. Oh, really? Oh, man. Are you drinking it right now? No. Okay. Good for you. Jack Truck. Yeah, that's right. Although it's funny, over the years when I go into restaurants, usually like some sort of, like, an ethnic restaurant and ask for my name, and I say Chuck. They almost always say jack. Oh, is that right? And I just go with it. Yeah. I'm like, yeah, Jack. Because what kind of person is like, no. Get my name right on the little thing you write down on my ticket. You just grabbed the pinnacle by Lapels. Yeah, I didn't care. Well, it's the perfect segue into what we're talking about today, Chuck. Yeah. Jack the death tax. That's right. One of our Scintillating internal Revenue centered cash. We have done a bunch of tax related episodes, if you think about it. Yeah. This one I'm surprised we haven't done this one. And actually, I didn't check. We haven't. Right. I checked. We have not. Okay, good. Yeah. But it did seem familiar here. There. But I definitely double checked. Yeah, I thought it was pretty interesting. Especially a lot of this will be the history of it, which basically is, we're going to war. Let's get the death tax going. Right? Exactly. The rich are getting too rich. Let's get the death tax going. Yeah. So we should probably say, what the death taxes? And actually death tax, we should be saying death taxes, because there's a couple of different kinds of death taxes, and that's basically the term that's used by people who aren't in favor of death taxes to kind of make it seem like it's just a stupid idea. Like you have to pay a tax to die. Come on, people, snap out of it. So basically, you have two types of death taxes. As it stands right now, here, in 2017, you've got, at least in the United States, you have the estate tax and you have the inheritance tax. Correct. And both of them are basically death taxes. The estate taxes, where you die, you have an estate, and your estate is the total of all of the stuff you own and all the debts you have. So the first thing that happens to your estate, your debts get paid off. Sure. And then your executor gets paid off for their troubles. Yeah. Your funeral gets paid off. And then Uncle Sam standing there with his hand out. He got out of a cannon that costs $45,000. Right. Take that off the top. Yeah. So Uncle Sam standing there and he says, hey, lay it on me, guys. I want 40% of that. That's your estate tax. Yes. Then after that, in some states, the money goes to the heirs, and then the states come along and say, it's our turn now, because states rights aren't what they used to be. Right. And then your city comes along and they want theirs. And then if the city comes along, you don't have to listen to them. Then your next door neighbor comes along. So you didn't pay the neighborhood tax on that. Right. Can I have my lawnmower back? Yeah. Basically, if you die in a state that has inheritance tax, you're going to pay an estate tax and an inheritance tax on your estate after your death, you won't care, but your heirs, well and you may care every moment leading up to that last one. After that, you'll be fine. I think the Beatles had it right on the money there. That song Come Together. You're like Lucy in the sky with diamonds. No, tax man. It's a great song. If you drive a car on Texas Street if you take a walk I'll text your feet it's very libertarian. Yeah. Come to think of it. Right in the background, if you play it backwards, it goes, who is John Gaul? Do we do what I'm back masking? No. All right. We're going to do that one day, too. Okay. All right. So you just described the estate tax. I described both. Okay. You said the inheritance tax. Yeah. Okay. That's the one where the state's like, can we have our cut, too? Right. Where they text your heirs, not your estate. Yeah. Like after you get the dough, then you're taxed. So you're right. Both of those together make up the death tax. Well, over the years, it's been debated both economically and philosophically, and I guess we should go back in time in the way back machine to ancient Egypt. If we fire it up. Did you forget it? I did. Okay. So if you go back to ancient Egypt, they actually have existing papyrus that tells the story of men basically either trying to dodge paying a death tax or paying a death tax. Right. Two different versions of that story. I guess, depending on who the guy was, you could tell which one you're supposed to do because the guy dodging it. He was in the middle of a circle with a slash through it. That's right. Don't be this guy. And of course, in ancient Rome, they were big on trying to modernize everything and of course, meant the tax code as well. And Caesar Augustus instituted something called the visitina. Hera titanium. Is that right? I think so. My Romans not what it used to be heritodium. Apparently that translation is 20th penny of inheritances and tax, secessions, legacies and donations after death. Right. They should have called it death tax. They should have. Whoever came up with that, I couldn't find who did. But it's pretty clever. And like I said, there's long been debate even in ancient Rome there were exemptions for close family back then. You could give away some charitable donations, which is kind of similar to what you can do today. That's a very long standing tradition. And it should be. I mean, if you want to give a bunch of money to a charity man, that should be unfettered. Yes. And in fact, you should maybe even get a little tax break for that. Sure. As people do at least a pat on the back from everybody in your community. And then planny the younger, not the elder beer man. Which one is the one that's so hard to get? I think planning the Elder is the beer that's hard to get, right. I don't know. It might be the other way around. So there's a plan of the younger beer as well, versions. One you can get basically all the time. The other one, like you have to stand in line for a week and a half outside of the brewery to get it. And they give you you have to bring your own bucket, right. And they fill it up and they make you chug it right there and then they kick you in the butt as you're walking away. Yes, they're doing it right. Well, regardless of I'm not sure which one, planning the younger criticized this tax and he's like, you know what you're doing? You're taking advantage of people of these families that are distraught over the death of a loved one. Yeah. How unfair is that? I would guess that plainly the younger may have been rich from that quote. I bet you're right. Where else? We can go to England and France. Yes, I mean, we jumped over several centuries. Well, yeah, sure. I don't know though, if the Holy Roman Empire was in death Texas, but by the time we arrived in, well, feudal England, that still would have been the Holy Roman Empire. I think in the 13th century in England, by the time they founded the Magna Carta, death taxes were so unpopular that it's like one of the first clauses of the Magna Carta. You got to lay off on the death taxes. You could do them, but not so much. I think that was the verbatim quote in the Magna Carta. Every time I hear Magna Carta, I think of Johnny Dangerously. Did you see that? I don't remember that. I think it's the end when they're taking maybe Johnny to his execution and they have the fake priests and he's doing this fake Latin Magna Carta master charge. So dumb. Whenever I hear Magna Carta, I think of that one, Simpsons, where Marge is training to be a realtor and Lisa is teaching her like that. If you make a song out of what you're trying to memorize, she's like in 1215 at Ronny. It's funny, there's historians out there right now going, when I hear of Magna Carta, I think of the Magna Carta. Right, exactly. But moving on to the United States, because that's mainly kind of what we're talking about here. With the death tax, it was debated in Scotland, which carried over eventually into our own founding fathers. But some notable philosophers and economists, and they used to be very heavily tied, which I think is interesting. Yeah. Philosophy and economics. Yeah. I guess it still is in some circles. Yeah. I think economists like to pretend that's not the case, but I think you're right. I mean, there's a certain philosophy to it, but we talked about people like John Locke and Bentham and Adam Smith before, and they kind of remain locked step with their principles on the death tax. Right. So Smith and Lock were saying, no, that is not the government's role to tax a person's heirs after they die. Blackstone, the very famous magician, said, no, we absolutely should be taxing people's estates when they die because we want to prevent dynasties. And finally somebody in history comes out and says it like that's basically the point of the estate tax. Yeah. And then I think Jeremy Bentham said basically the same thing, like, yeah, wealth should not be able to grow exponentially in a single family. That's bad news. Yeah. And that's sort of, like you said, been the root of the philosophical debate from blackstone to Bernie Sanders saying, and we'll get into what people commonly call the pros and cons. But one of the cons is and whether or not I don't know if you can prove it's true, but one of the cons that people point to is you leave these kids all these millions of dollars, they're going to end up on dope. Well, they're much less likely to be super. Not much less likely, necessarily, but they're not as incentivized to be constructive contributors to society. No, they're not that's well put. Yes. So like I said, this kind of transferred over to the founding fathers of the United States. Yeah. Because, again, the US. Was founded very much on enlightenment thinking. So the guys who founded the US were looking over to Europe and saying, like, what are those guys saying right now? What do we think about that? How does that apply here? I say, what are they saying over there? I don't know. I'll let you know in six months. We'll send a message on a boat. The stamp tax is 1797. And this kind of begins a long tradition of, hey, we're going to war. We need to raise some dough. Yeah. Because at first they resisted the death tax. Right. Yeah. But they needed to protect the colonies. And that's expensive. Sure. So to fund a war against France and naval war, they said, how about a stamp tax? Which, when I was a little kid, I heard of the stamp tax, and I didn't get it. Me either. But basically, it was a tax on every piece of paper printed, right. Like every official document and newspapers and stuff. If you had a document that you needed to file right. For the judge to release somebody's personal effects to you, their heir, you had to show them this document, and for the judge to release, it had to be stamped and you had to pay for that stamp. Yeah. So, in effect, it was a government tax, because this whole transaction couldn't happen till the government officially got its cut and the stamp was proof that the government had gotten its cut and the transaction can proceed. Yeah. So anything from an administrative letter to receipts for legacies, even the attorney's license, like, apparently attorneys had to pay like, \u00a310 powder for the wig just to get license, which is about $1,000 now. Oh, really? Yeah. I'm sure they passed that savings on to you. I'll bet you it costs about that much these days. You think? Probably ten grand for an attorney's license. I could see it. Does that sound about right? Sure. They make that up pretty quickly, though. I think so. Just a couple of hours. A couple of hours. Sitting at the desk, watching the little bird dip and speak in the water, thinking about the smurse. I'm just kidding. Attorneys out there, we love you. Yes, everyone does. Sure. They did have rules back then, though. Even for the stamp tax, which were kind of carried out throughout the years in one way or another. Estates under $50 were exempt, and then anything above 50 had a graduated scale of tax. Right. Which is still kind of what we have today. Yeah. I read this post by this guy on, I believe, Forbes, and his name is Bob Rywick, and he wrote a book on death tax. He wrote the book on death tax pretty much literally. And he was saying that for most of history, especially the history leading up to America, there was not a question of whether there should be a death text or not. It was how much is the upper limit and what are the exemptions? Right. What's the minimum and what are the exemptions? That's basically it, which is kind of where we ended up in the modern times, just sort of debating and going back and forth. Right. But even still, I mean, like, right out of the gate back in Rome, we talked about how there were exceptions where if you donated to, like, a charity yeah. Or here, it's like if you put voice club above Rome right. Or if your state's $50 worth $50, there's like, no one wants that. It's fine. Even back in the late 18th century, that wasn't very much. Yeah. It's like $100 today. So the stamp tax was repealed in two because the war ended, or at least that particular war that they were funding ended. Yeah. And they thought about it again during the War of 1812, but that war ended before they had a chance to get it through. Maybe we should take a break here and pick up with more history. So, Chuck, naval war with France, funded by the Stamp Act, death taxes go away for awhile and they came back. They actually stayed low in the United States until the Civil War. Yeah. We should point out these death taxes didn't fund entire wars. There were many other taxes involved for this stuff. Right, okay. And when I mean stay low, I mean, like, nonexistent. Not that the rates were low. So in the Civil War, death tax came about and it was different than what had been proposed with the Stamp Act. So the people who received the inheritance were the ones who are taxed. So it was an inheritance text, not an estate tax. Right. Yeah. And it wasn't like, hey, we're going to tax these stamps. Which is really kind of a roundabout way of making a death estate tax. Right, exactly. This was like, actually, your uncle died. You got that money, give us some or we're going to break your legs. Yeah. All those four Italians. Right. After that, there was an amendment two years later where it wasn't just like personal effects or maybe stocks or cash or whatever, but real property came to be taxed as part of the estate as well. Yeah. And then lastly, I think as part of that 1864, there's also a gift tax. And this is a big loophole that people would take advantage of. Yeah. It's funny how early on, even people figured out a way like, oh, well, here's what I'll do. I'll just sell my assets and even if it's for even less money, just to get it off the books. Well, to my kids or something like that. Yeah. My dad sold me a car once for a dollar. Nice. That's a sweet deal. Yeah, it was all right. Did you pay them in, like, pennies? No, he actually wanted the dollar and it ended up costing me, like, a lot of money in repairs and stuff. That was sort of not a great deal in the end. Did he say buyer beware chump? No, and I don't want to look at gift horse in the mouth. It was a nice gesture. Sure. Very nice. So let's move on, shall we? Yeah. So the big loophole with that gift tax is if you want your kids to have all of your stuff and you wait until you die to pass it onto them, well, if there's an estate tax, the government is going to take a big chunk. But if you're alive and you say, hey, kids, I'm feeling a little over the hill and I think I'm going to die soon. So I want you to have all of this stuff from my estate. You can have a tax free because there is no gift tax. The government finally said in, I think, 1864, wait a minute, there's a gift tax now. Right, we see your loophole. But I think they even made it. The gift tax was still less than it was for an estate tax or an inheritance tax. Yeah, I think so. It was still advantageous, if you're a very wealthy family, to pass on your estate while you were living than it was to leave it after you died. Right, but it would still be taxed. They would eventually equalize those, right? Later on. Yeah, but not for a few decades. All right, so let's get into the 20th century here. Industrialization. One of the byproducts of that was it led to a concentration of wealth for a lot of families. So the government was like, all right, see all your wealthy families out there thinking you can earn all that money and keep it and pass it to your kids. They can pass it to their kids. We want our cut. And it wasn't just the government. As a matter of fact, I'm not sure how much the government had to do with it, but there was a populist movement that arose that was basically like, we want our cut. And wizard of Oz was written during that time. Frank oh, really? Frank L Baum, the author of The Wizard of Oz was a populist. And apparently it's a populist allegory yeah, lots of it. Like the Yellow Brick Road is some commentary on the gold standard. The fact that it's in Kansas has to do with the agrarian roots of the popular movement. The scarecrow is, I don't know. Elvis? Sure. Something weird like that. Right? Yeah. Put on some Pink Floyd. Right. So there was this big movement, and part of this big populist movement was, hey, there's a lot of really wealthy people here. You guys should stop this procession of wealth, you guys being the government. And they started to get there. There was an income tax instituted in 1894. I didn't realize this. I thought the first income tax came later in 1916, but they took a crack at it in 1894. But it was ruled unconstitutional for reasons other than the fact that it was an income tax or a death tax. Right, but it was ruled unconstitutional, but not because of the death tax, for different reasons. So they said, we'll get that income tax. Don't you worry. Right. That's plenty constitutional. Just wait 20 years, 22 years, then comes along another war, the Spanish American War. And they instituted the War Revenue Act of 1898. And this one looked a lot like the one that we have today. Well, it was an estate tax rather than an inheritance tax. Yeah. And it had familiar exemptions this time under $10,000 left to a spouse fell under the exemption, and the rate of tax depended on, of course, how big your estate was and then who you were giving it to. Yes. And those are still around a day in a lot of places. Yeah. If you are somebody's nephew, you're probably going to pay the full bracket of taxation. Oh, really? Or vary according to yes, according to who you are. Or if, like, you're a drinking buddy, you're going to pay the full amount. If you're like a grandchild, you pay less than the drinking buddy, but more than the spouse. And then the spouse and has been for a very long time. Whenever there's an exemption within estate tax, the spouse is usually completely left alone. There's no tax if the entire state goes over to the spouse. So that's the current rules, too. Yeah. Boy, I need to look up drinking buddy. I got to take care of Climb. Right, well, Climb is going to pay through the nose, I'm afraid. Oh, boy, he's not going to like that. He's really counting on me dying. Right. Leaving in my podcast, fortune. So with that one, the War Revenue Act of 1898 again, war ends in 19 one congress repealed the tax. Yes. Which is weird. I kept reading that, like, what do you mean repealed the tax? When did they stop doing that? But apparently they used to institute new taxes, get the money they needed, and then they would say, we got enough. Now they have everybody. And then just more new taxes. Right. Yeah. This kind of marked a turn where people started to get who wrote this? Was this Jane McGrath? Jane McGrath. I remember Jane. Yeah. She calls it a growing distaste for inherited wealth. And it started to kind of pick up steam, most notably in the form of President Teddy Roosevelt, who was not a fan. No, he actually around this time, there was another big push for the income tax. Remember it had been repealed. Yeah. And Roosevelt was like, I'm not sure about the income tax, but I'll tell you what is great idea, that estate tax. Let's get one of those in there. He said, basically, our national legislators should enact a law providing for a graduated inheritance tax. The prime object should be to put a constantly increasing burden on the inheritance of those swollen fortunes, which it is certainly of no benefit to this country to perpetuate. Yeah. I mean, that kind of lays it down there. Like go out and make your own money, essentially. Well, yeah. And I think part of the other point that really seems to apply today, if you've listened to our dark money episode, too. Yeah. Money very easily translates into political power now. It translates into political speech, but it's always translated into political power. And if you have more and more money just being passed along from one generation to the next, that family is not just amassing more and more money. They're amassing more and more power. And that's not good for democracies. It's good for monarchies, but not democracies. And that's what Roosevelt was saying. So Roosevelt supported it big time. It also was supported by Taft and Wilson, but it still took a little bit of time and another war before Congress would get back on board again with another death tax. World War I. Yes, World War One. The US. Lowered tariffs on our allies and wanted to build up a stronger defense. And all of a sudden they said, wait a minute, we need dough. Yeah. Those newfangled tanks aren't cheap. They're not building themselves. Right. So they went back and said, all right, maybe that income tax ID is a pretty good one. So they came up with the Revenue Act of 1916, and that's where the modern income tax and the modern estate tax were born. And there's been no going back. No, there really hasn't, because apparently initially they planned on repealing it after the war, and they were like, this feels pretty good. I, like rolling in piles of money, so let's just keep it going. Yeah. At this point, the exemption was $50,000 and had a graduated rate of 1% on amounts under 50 grand, up to 10% on amounts over $5 million. Right. It's a lot of dough back then. It also takes real and personal property. If you transfer something at death or even in the two years before death yeah, that loophole. Yeah. It was taxed and then the gift tax. But there is still a loophole. Like, if you did it three years if you transferred all of it three years before your death yeah. You're fine. You just had to live in poverty for the last three years of your life and hope that you called it correctly and that it wasn't like, 17 years. So in 1924, Congress said, we see what you're doing. We're coming back with that gift tax again. That was a good idea. I don't know why we ever forgot it. We lost our institutional memory, but we're putting it back in. So they put in this gift tax and now all of a sudden, it was not smart. It was not a loophole any longer. Yeah. And the Great Depression had a lot to do with that because obviously income tax went down during the Great Depression and they said, our coughers are getting low, so we need to equalize this again. That's right. And I think the gift tax has stayed since then too, right? Yeah. It never went away. Yeah. Because I guess it was challenged in court and it was upheld by the Supreme Court to be constitutional, but Congress is like, I will repeal it. And then yeah, they brought it back and it's been there ever since. Yeah. And here's a staggering stat. We've talked before about past income tax and how even though it might not seem like we've got it pretty good today compared to certain years. But the estate tax from World War II, when they raised rates, 1941 until 1977, the very top estate tax was 77%. Yes. Isn't that crazy? Yeah. Wow. That's pretty high. Yeah. That's like Gerard departure, fleeing for the borders high, you know what I mean? Yeah. Like you made all this dough in your life and your family gets to keep 23% of it after you die. Yeah. And give us a smile. Yeah. So they stayed that way, actually for a really long time. It wasn't until 77 yes. It wasn't until 1977 that Congress brought that highest rate down from 77% and they just brought it down to 70% then. And then Reagan came in and started whittling it away little by little, and it got as far down as, I think, 35%. Yeah. That was the Tax Reform Act of 1976. And another thing that came along with that was something called the GST tax, the generation skipping transfer tax. Another loophole. Yes. Which is like, oh, well, I'm not going to give my fortune to my kids, I'll give it to my grandkids. Wink wink. And then if you had a really good estate planner, they could teach you how to leave your assets to your grandkids, but make your kids the beneficiary of any interest in income arising from those assets. Right. So both generations were taken care of tax free. So in 1976, they closed that loophole with the generation skipping transfer tax and grandchildren around the world cried and cried. Yeah. And that's when the well, the exemption at that point in 1976 went from sixty dollars to one hundred and twenty thousand dollars. And you know what? Let's take a little break here. I'm going to leave people in suspense. I think we should, because I'm starting to get excited. All right, all right, Chuck, you've left us in suspense long enough. What? So that exemption rate I said in the Tax Reform Act of 1976 went from 66, 67, and we've explained what the exemption was. Right? Or did we not even I feel like we did, but if not, just make it more clear. The exemption is where the value of your estate comes. And that's part of the process. Everybody goes in and says, this is worth this much, and then they come up with the value of your estate. If that value was less than 60 grand at that point, then you could transfer it to Clem tax free. It's exempt below the level of 60 grand. Okay. So super clear. So that rose to 120 grand and change. And then in the 1990s, things kind of started rolling a little bit. We had this big budget surplus. I remember that. Yeah. The good old days. And then George W came along, said, you know what we're going to do? We got this big surplus, we're going to start giving it back to the American people, and especially the wealthy American. People, and the threshold really started climbing. In 2009, it had climbed to $675,000. Not bad. And it jumped from six hundred and seventy five thousand dollars to three point five million dollars in 2009. So it went from the 80s no, I'm sorry, the years later, three and a half million dollars. The exemption was yes, that is quite a climb, but it had an even more astronomical climb from 2009 to 2013 because it went chuck in the Taxpayer Relief Act. So remember George W. Came in and said, hey, it's not government's role to have a bunch of taxpayers money and you don't know what you're going to do with it. Give it back. I'm the man who's going to get it back. And like you said, certain people got it back, some other people got it back. But it was a transfer of wealth. Right. Yeah. Barack Obama came in and said, you know what, that was screwed up. I'm going to get some of that money back for everybody. I'm going to tax the wealthy. I'm going to get rid of these so called Bush tax cuts, which is what they were called, and he didn't at all. As a matter of fact, he signed into law in 2012, the Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, which took the Bush tax cuts, which had expired already, but then had been extended temporarily for two years. He took those Bush tax cuts, he campaigned on getting rid of and actually enshrined them in law. And now, for the indefinite future, the exemption is up to $5 million for an estate. Yeah, more than that now, actually. So it must have been at least five. Well, it's indexed for inflation. Yes. Now, for 2016, it was 5.45 million. Right. For a single individual, 10.9 for a couple. For a couple, yeah. And then the tax rates were set at 40% maximum. Right. And that's after it had gone down to 35% under Bush. Right. So I think that was part of the compromise. Let's bring it up to 40%, but let's basically make it permanent at 5 million. Yeah. And there was even a year in there. This is crazy. Do you remember this whole back and forth, like getting rid of the Bush tax cuts? What's going to happen in 2010? Yeah. And in 2010, I guess they didn't sign a paper fast enough or something, but there was no death tax in that year. So if your wealthy Aunt Gladys died in 2010, you locked out because the very next year those cuts got restored, or those taxes or state taxes get restored. And don't think that there weren't some people in 2010 that were peeking in on a Gladys holding a pillow in their hand. Right. Yeah. It's not funny at all. Killing a relative for their inheritance is not funny. No, it's not. Certainly not in practice. So here's the deal, and we're going to get to the pros and cons in a second but like I said, for 2016, because of inflation, $5.45 million is the lifetime exclusion amount. They have this chart that you can basically throw out the window that says if you have a taxable state of 400 grand, you'll lose $70,000 plus 34% of $150,000, because you have to pay percentage on the amount in excess of the lower limit. It's all mind numbing if you're just a layperson. Right. But throw that all out the door, because anything under 5.45 million, let's just call it $5.5 million, is under that exclusion amount. But here's the weird part, because it's the United States, and we can't just make things simple. It's a unified credit. It's how it's structured. So what you have to do is you have to structure it to pay on the full amount, and then they give you a tax credit back. Convoluted that's not okay, though. You pay the full amount and then they're like, and then we'll pay you back what you I don't think you pay, actually. I think it's just in the computation. Okay, well, that's different, but it still seems just unnecessarily. Convoluted sure. Like, you should just knock it off the top and see what you got left. Here's the other trick. If you have a lot of money and we should say that we do not qualify as tax experts, or if we're giving tax advice, dude, if you're subject to the estate tax and you're using our tax advice no. How did you come up with that money? Yeah, the gift thing. There's an annual gift tax exemption of $14,000 per person. Oh, yeah. So if you have three kids, that's per year. Yeah. Okay. If you have three per person per year. So if you've got three kids and they're all three married and they have ten kids between them, and they all are successful, they don't have drug habits or anything like that. Right. You can give $14,000 a year to each one of them per spouse. So that's $448,000 a year to those three kids, their three spouses, and those ten grandkids. And if you plan ahead way before your death, you could potentially give away all your money 100% tax free by the time you die through gifts. So that seems legit to me, because that is clearly middle class. It's upper middle class, but that's middle class. That cap the 5 million. No, that gift tax. That cap of 14 grand a year. That's not going to help funnel a massive estate tax free onto the heirs. But it does give a break to middle class. Upper middle class, but middle class families. Well, but you would only be giving that away, though, if you were going to be above the $5 million, right. Because anything under that is exempted. So that ain't middle class. No, that's true. You're right. Okay, well, that was a stupid thing for me to say. So if you're out there thinking, even with the deduction of 40% rate is a lot of money on an estate tax. They give an example here in this article. Let's say you have a $7 million estate. Knock off the 5.45 million, that's 1.55 million. At 40%, that's about $620,000. So if you didn't look at that for the whole $7 million state, that's only about 9%. Yeah. And actually, I saw a 2013 Brookings study, tax Policy Institute, I think study found that in that year, of all of the estates that had to pay taxes, they paid an average effective rate. What they actually paid of 16.6%. Okay. Nothing like 40%. Right. And in that same year, there's another one, too. There's a lot of objections we should talk about some of these objections, right? Sure. Some of the objections to this is they're basically they go into two tranches. One is that this kind of tax stifles investment that it is the very wealthy and the very rich who are really the economic engines of America and capitalism because they introduced capital to the markets, and that's what drives the markets and makes the economic engine. And we're all better off as long as the wealthy are pumping money into this. Well, if we don't let the rich pump more money into it, meaning the government comes along and says, your father just died. Give us 40% of that vast estate that you just inherited. Well, that's 40% going to Uncle Sam rather than potentially into the market. Yeah. And also, some people would say, hey, that's a tax for being successful. Well, that's the other tranche is that it's basically morally incorrect for the government to come in and say, give us some money, wealthy person. Right. Yeah. That it's a tax on success that the government has no business taxing interfamily fortunes. Yeah. And then again, that it stifles economic growth and development. Yeah. And another thing, if you're against this, someone might say is, hey, we were already taxed on that stuff to begin with during life. Right. And not only that, but my dad inherited that and paid in a state tax, so it's just double and triple. And who knows? Depends on how long your family wealth goes back, is how many times it's taxed. Yeah. Because not only was it taxes income, it could be taxed multiple times, as in a state. The same estate is what you're saying. Then, of course, a lot of people drop the mic with it's a wealth redistribution scheme. Right. You're trying to take money from the wealthy and give it to the less wealthy, eg, the poor and homie. Don't play that. I remember homey. The cloud. That was great. Sure. That was a great show. Yes. In Living Color. Yeah. It's crazy how many things kind of, like, carried over and are still part of the lexicon. And we don't play that home. We don't play that. Two snaps up. Let's bring all that stuff back. Two snaps. Another knock is that people say, you know what? This estate tax is less than, like, 1% of what the government collects annually. And they probably spend that much going after it and litigating this stuff because nine times out of ten, wealthy people are fighting this tooth and nail. Right. And it just costs too much to go get it. Right. A lot of these, it turns out, are pretty disingenuous. Like, they sound right, if you don't look into them. Right. But apparently a lot of them are not correct. Like the idea that the effective tax rate is 16% or 17%, not 40%. Another one is that it hurts small businesses and farms. This is a big boogie man with the estate tax as well. If you go in a family owned business or a family owned farm, if the government goes in there and says, you own 40% on that just because your father died, so go sell some of the cows, go sell a tractor, you hate seed and give us the money, that's going to have a really negative effect on the family farm or the family small business. It may even cause it to go bankrupt. It may cause the farm to go under. That's not good. The government can't do that. Yeah. You hear that and you think, of course, that's awful, right? But the facts don't bear that out. Correct? Right. That same 2013 Brooking study found that in 20 13, 20 small businesses and farms owed any estate tax at all. And on average, those 20 small businesses and small firms that did have to pay estate tax paid an average of about 4.9% of the value of the estate. Okay. There are special rules, especially for calculating the value of farmland, for estate taxes in particular that reduces their value so that the tax is inherently lesser. Right. Another reason someone might say that they're unfair or I'm sorry, might say that they're fair is what we alluded to a little bit earlier about the concentration of wealth is not a good thing, not just economically, but when it comes to power. And it's dangerous to a democratic society to have the influencers of this country be so few and only influencers because they have so much and the average Joe's Voice is lost in the process. Yes, I saw somewhere somebody pointed out that the estate tax is the most progressive part of the entire US. Tax code because it truly only affects the people who actually can afford it or who are actually wealthy. It has no undo or disproportionate burden or any burden on people of lower socioeconomic status or even middle socioeconomic status. Something like 210 of 1% of households are subject to the estate tax in the United States this year, I think. Oh, really? Two tenths of 1%. Oh, wow. Yeah, that's not much. Yeah, that's true. And then another one to address the idea that it doesn't bring in very much and the government spends more money than it takes in. Oh, like fighting it? Yeah, or fighting for it. Supposedly. I saw estimates of 200 billion. I saw one estimate of 275,000,000,000 between 2017 and 2026 is how much they expect the estate tax to take in, which isn't much. It's like less than 1% of the government's tax revenue. But the author of this one article I saw pointed out that's, like, the combined budgets of the FDA, the CDC, and the EPA combined right. So it's actually paying for stuff. And apparently they cost about 7% for enforcement and administration. Got you. Whereas income taxes cost about 14% to chase down deadbeats. So there's about half the state tax problems. Debunked, you got anything else? No, I thought that was fairly interesting for someone who doesn't like I go a little foggy when I start talking about finance and taxes, but for some reason, this one kind of interested me. Do you do your own taxes? No, I love it. No, I love it, man. I love doing taxes. Not only do I not like it, but I would say that I can't put a percentage on it, but having a professional involved, really, financially is beyond worthwhile. Like 1000% worthwhile? Yeah. For what? They can save you. Oh, no. I'm sure we're having somebody go back over my figures this year, and I don't like paying taxes. It's not fun, but it's like this big, horrible ball. Like hair and teeth work into a usable figure. I got to turn it into the gummy Venus de Mila. So you take a teratoma and you form that into a beautiful statue right. With no arms. And then I cry. That's Texas. If you want to know more about death taxes, type those words into the search bar@howtofworks.com. Since I said search bar, it's time for listener mail. I'm going to call this fan that found us through Delta. All right. I knew this would pay off one day. I don't know if we're still on, but for a while we were on Delta flights. We're supposed to be back on this year. Are we? Yeah. I always kind of wondered, like, we got booted off. Does anyone actually discover us board on a flight? That's what I'm saying. We have one person. Awesome. So Ethan lives in Los Angeles and says he found us on a Delta flight. Been a loyal listener ever since. I'm sure many fans have their favorite episodes, favorite suites, band names, ideas. Here are a few of my favorite jokes, and I didn't remember a couple of these, so I'm going to test your memory. Josh, you had one. Okay. Look at these shoes. I'm the King of Rotterdam. All right. Do you no, he said he laughed for five minutes on that one. Chuck, the language of the beard. He says he's still laughing at that. In fact, anytime I need to pick me up, I scroll to the 43 minutes mark of how the digital organs work. The whole exchange is hilarious, including Josh's reaction. The joke verges on toilet humor. It doesn't quite belong in that category, so I don't remember that one. I have to look it up. These are arcane. I do remember this one. Chuck, the runner up is Chuck's line when you realize that diesel fuel is named after a person. Jimmy Gasoline. I remember that one. I don't remember what episode it was in, though, but I do remember that. But he has a little factoid for us. He finished the Alexander Hamilton Show and he says, visited The Grange a couple of years ago and loved it. While there, I learned something I'm surprised you didn't mention. As a testament to his character, not only did Hamilton shun slavery, as you mentioned, he also defended Tories and British subjects as a lawyer in court. And this was only six years after the Declaration of Independence. What a guy. Well, he really was top notch. Yeah. That's from Ethan Barbour. Thanks a lot, Ethan. Ethan Barbour. Or Barber. One of the two. No, it wasn't, Barbara. It was spelled different. Barbour. I know. Like the hunting gear, right? I don't know, Barbara. Whatever. If you want to get in touch with us, like Ethan did ethan. Right. Ethan. It's his last name that's up for grant. Yeah. You can tweet to us at syskpodcast. You can join us on Facebook.com stuffysheno, you can send us an email to stuffpodcast@houseofworks.com. And as always, join us at our home on the web stuffyshow.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howtofworks.com. Hey, everybody. I don't know about you, but I am excited that it's summer school's out, the sun is shining, and best of all, there's downtime four days. That's where true crime podcasts on Amazon Music come in. They're the perfect activity for last minute road trips, long walks, or, if you're brave enough, late nights. With so many killer shows like Morbid, my Favorite Murder, and Small Town Murder, you'll never be bored to death again. So download the free Amazon Music app to start listening to all your favorite true crime podcasts. Plus, with Amazon Music, you can access new episodes early. Download the app today."
https://podcasts.howstuf…narco-states.mp3	How Narco States Work	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/how-narco-states-work	In this episode of Stuff You Should Know, Josh and Chuck discuss Narco States, places where illegal drugs are traded openly with government support -- or without government interference.	In this episode of Stuff You Should Know, Josh and Chuck discuss Narco States, places where illegal drugs are traded openly with government support -- or without government interference.	Tue, 15 Dec 2009 18:28:46 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2009, tm_mon=12, tm_mday=15, tm_hour=18, tm_min=28, tm_sec=46, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=349, tm_isdst=0)	30601790	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Hey, it's summer, everybody, which means school's out, the sun shining, the daylight's longer, and best of all, there's plenty of time to get lost in a good, thrilling story. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music, my Favorite Murder from exactly right media, my Favorite Murder has something for everyone. Hosted by Karen Kilguera and Georgia Hard Stark, this true crime comedy podcast will share stories that will have you wanting more before you know it. Listen to new episodes of my favorite Murder. One week early on Amazon music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen today. Hey, everybody. If you want a great website, you want to do it yourself with no must, no fuss, turn to Squarespace. They have everything to sell anything. They have the tools that you need to get your business off the ground, including ecommerce templates, inventory management, a simple checkout process, and secure payments. And if you're into analytics, hold on to your hats, because Squarespace has everything that you need. Just head to squarespace. Comsysk and you can get a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use offer codessysk to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Welcome to stuff you should know from howstepworkscom? Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. With me, as always, is Charles W. Zonkers bryant. Zonkers. Yeah. I just sit here and wondering what you're going to call me. How's it going? Great, sir. You pretty good. You look good. You're as good as you were ten minutes ago when you recorded that other podcast. Chuck, have you ever been to Mexico? I have been to Mexico. Have you been to TJ? I've been to TJ. Have you been to Juarez? No, just TJ in, like, the Baja area. Okay, well, had you gone a little further east along the border to Juarez okay. You would have been in a narco state. Yes. And you know what? I'm ashamed to say, Josh, that I did not know what a narco state was. Really? I've heard of it, but I didn't really know what it was. I can't remember if I pitched this one or if Chanel did, but it's a good one. Well done, sir. Thank you very much. Thank you. Yeah. Chuck and I are talking about narco state, as you probably were tipped off by the title of this podcast. Sure. And for those of you who don't know what anarcho state it is, Josh, I'm just going to give my own definition. Okay. Which is it is a country where they sort of allow drug trafficking and in some cases even participate in the drug trafficking. Yeah. And it's very rarely an entire country. Okay. Most of the time, it's like a region of a country, a very small area city. Although there are cases where there have been narco states, like fully functioning countries that are run by drugs, like their gross domestic product is almost fully funded by drugs. The government's in on it, military is in on it. And right now, as far as I could tell, there's only one functioning narco state in the world. Afghanistan. No. It's close, though. Guinea bison. Oh, yeah, sure. In Africa. Yeah, west Africa. I can't wait to tell that story. It's a good one. Yeah. Okay, so narco state, as Chuck said, is basically any area where the government is either directly involved or turning a blind eye to drug trafficking. Yes. In Central Mexico. Central America? South America always known as being rife with this kind of thing. Because chances are, if you're doing drugs in the US. Chances are it did not come from inside the United States. No. Unless it was meth. Sure. Or pot. Yeah. And even then, chances are it probably didn't. Although there's a lot of domestic meth labs and pot farms and stuff like that. Yeah. But the chances are it came through Mexico, if not from Mexico. Right. Mexico didn't used to be nearly as violent. Juarez, which we were talking about, had, I think, 300 murders in 2007, and then all of a sudden there was a drug war started. It's still going on now. Right, and in 2008, they had 1500 murders. Yeah. That's a heck of a stat. Yeah. Detroit had less than 300 murders in 2007. So Detroit safer than some place. Safer than Juarez, believe it or not. Well, thank God for that. Yes. I didn't get the stats on Tempe, though, so I can't say. Right. Yeah. So one of the reasons why and we'll see that American intervention, one way or another usually has an impact on the formation of a narco state. One of the reasons why Juarez and some of the other border towns along Mexico have turned into narco states is because the Coast Guard and the DEA effectively shut down the Caribbean in the 90s. Right. That was the main route from South America to the US. For coke. And Americans love coke. A lot of the world does. And one thing that I learned from reading this article, and just by living as a human in the world, is that drugs will find a way to get into the country. They definitely will. Like, for example, when the Caribbean was shut down, they started moving it through Central America and up through Mexico. Came another way, one way or another. And the reason why is, like I said, Americans love cocaine. We consume 40% of the global supply of it every year. Yes, europe does a lot of cocaine. Europe loves the junk, too. Oh, no. Europe is the heroin. Yeah. They have 11% of the global population in Europe. Right. But they have one third of the world's heroin addict. Big deal. Yeah. It's weird how it's localized like that. It is. But think about it. Think about how much closer Europe is to the heroin producing countries of South Asia. And think about how close we are to the cocaine producing countries of South America. Yeah. Which affects the price, of course. It definitely does. You want to give them that stat, Josh. A kilogram of uncut cocaine, as you hear on the cop shows, it goes for $22,000. That same kilo fetches about $120,000 in Moscow. That's a big mark up. It's a huge mark up. Is that street value, as they call it? I'm sure those are way off. I'm sure you could get a kilo for a lot less or pay off or whatever, but one of the things the Feds like to do is pump up their numbers so that they can get more funding. You can definitely get a kilo of cocaine in America a lot cheaper than you can in Russia, Chuck. All of those kilos add up pretty quickly. And the drug trade, the global drug trade makes an estimated $300 billion a year. Yeah. That's nuts. That is a lot of cash. You could bail out two AIG for that. So, Chuck, we talked about the narco state being an area where governments either looking the other way or selling drugs directly. Right. Or helping them out. Maybe there's a big problem with this. I would say so, but you just think about it. You're like, oh, the government's not supposed to do that. Stop and think why? The government is not supposed to do that. Yeah. Well, because they're supposed to protect their citizens. Yeah. There's something Thomas Hobbes called the social contract. Right. And basically it said, in exchange for certain freedoms, like, we can't just do anything we want to that we give to the government, we're going to give that power to the government. One of those things is the state monopoly on violence, right. Where, like, the government can put you in jail, the government can kill you, execute you. But the government is supposed to be the only one who does it. So if somebody shoots your kid, you don't go shoot them in the head. You get the government to go after this guy and incarcerate or kill him. Right. Yeah. And in the civilized world, the social contract is kind of how we've developed as nations of the world, and it works pretty well for the most part. That's a whole other podcast right there. But in narco state, it's a little different because that's a little bit of a sham. They kind of have that contract as long as it doesn't interfere with the drug trade. Right. The government has given its power to drug traffickers at the expense of the people they're supposed to be protecting and representing. So that's number one. Yeah. Right, sure. So how does this happen? Right. Well, one reason why that might happen there's a bunch of different ways that could happen, but one reason is if, let's say you're in Columbia and all of a sudden you've heard the term Colombian necktie. I have, yeah. All of a sudden, your judges and your council people and your politicians are getting knifed and executed in back alleys by the dozens. All of a sudden, the government might say, wait a minute, we might want to not go after these drug traffickers. Right. Because if the state doesn't have a monopoly on violence any longer, if paramilitary groups affiliated with drug traffickers do. Yeah. Apparently in Columbia, they came at the Justice Building with tanks. This wasn't the military, this was rebel faction. Yeah. I think it was Fark that did it. Right. Josh fark? That is FARC. That stands for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia. Translated into English Right. And they're actually a communist guerrilla group. They're an army. They are. And they actually got into drug trafficking in the think. Indeed. Okay, so you have a huge armed guerrilla army attacking your Justice Department in the country's capital. That's a good way to get a narco state started, right? Yeah. Sometimes you're bribed into it. That's another one, too. All of a sudden, if your coffers are being filled, a lot of politicians are willing to look the other way. And also, if your intelligence services become compromised by drug traffickers, you're in big trouble. Yeah. Those are corrupted. You're finished. Yeah. Because the intelligence services are usually toward the top of the military hierarchy, and if they're corrupted, they can turn the entire military against the government, which there is a division. And after that happens again, you're in big trouble. And anarchosta conform. Yeah. Plus they know a lot about smuggling, the intelligence community. And if all of a sudden they're on your side, then all of a sudden you know a lot about smuggling. Right? Yeah. You have to know how to get people or arms or something in and out of countries without being detected. So you know where all the airfields are. You have access to planes and boats and stuff. You just start throwing kilos of coke in there and all of a sudden you're a drug smuggler. Yes. Boom. Done. Yeah. And it's kind of tough for us to think about this in the United States because we've had a pretty stable government for the last couple of hundred years. Yes. But in areas in countries where there's been high government turnover and lots of internal conflict, let's say infrastructure, like roads, bridges, water, electricity, these things have been cut throughout the civil wars and the government is too poor to fix them, all of a sudden, the government's delegitimized and another like, rebel faction can step in and say, hey, we're taking over. And by the way, we love drug traffic. Right. Hey, everyone. When you're running a small business, every second counts and you can't afford to waste a single moment. So why are you still taking time out of your day to go to the post office when you could be using stamps.com? Yeah. For more than 20 years, stamps.com has been indispensable. For over 1 million businesses, because Stamps.com gives you access to all the post office and Ups shipping services you need, right. From your computer. That's right. You can streamline your shipping process with Stamps.com easy to use software. All you need is your regular computer and printer. No special supplies or equipment necessary, and you can get discounts you can't find anywhere else, like up to 30% off USPS rates and 86% off Ups. So stop wasting time and start saving money. When you use Stamps.com to mail and ship, sign up with promo code stuff for a special offer that includes a four week trial, plus free postage and a digital scale. No long term commitments or contracts. Just go to Stamps.com, click the microphone at the top of the home page and enter code stuff. I got a couple of stats for you along those lines. Guatemala endured a 36 year long civil war, el Salvador and a twelve year long civil war. And Nicaragua had one that lasted 19 years. So what this means is it's a very unstable region, easily swayed by whoever has the power, drug traffickers or the government. And it also means there's a lot of guns. Yeah. And a lot of former veterans that are out of work, but know how to use those guns sure. And can serve as a guerrilla army. Yeah. And a lot of times these are poor countries, too. In fact, I would say almost every time it's a poor country. And you don't have to be a genius to figure out you got guns, you got these former military guys, you got really poor people, and you have loads of drugs. It's worth a lot of money. It's really not too hard to devolve into a narco state. No, it's not. And of course, the root of all narco states is money. Either, like Chuck said, bribes, that kind of thing, or the GDP. Afghanistan, apparently their GDP is like 6 billion annually, which with the United States, I think has 14 trillion GDP. Yeah, something like that. So it's kind of like, holy cow, how do you live like that? They've been doing pretty good, but half of that has been through heroin. Right, puppies? So cars. I carzai. Who was I'm going to make air quotes? Elected President of Afghanistan twice and made air quotes again. He just reelected, right? Yeah, reelected. He is well known for turning a blind eye while saying, we need to get rid of these poppies. And the US. Is like, okay, well, let us spray. And he's like, no, we have to do it all by hand. Right. And apparently the American forces over there have to well, the DEA is over there as well, but the American commanders of the armed forces in Afghanistan don't let the DEA in at all. And they're frustrated pulling their hair out because they're not getting any support whatsoever. And it's kind of one of those things, like, everybody knows that Afghanistan produces poppies. As a matter of fact, in 2006, they produced the highest poppy harvest in recorded human history. Yeah. Just a couple of years ago, it was double what it had been the year before. So clearly they're not pulling enough by hand. No, because cars, I won't let them spray overhead. Yeah. Which is I should explain that's a common method to like, you crop dust fields to put chemicals on them. You do the same thing if you want to eradicate and kill them. Right. And it is very effective. It's worked in Columbia. Columbia has a president, I shouldn't say finally, but Columbia as a president, is very sympathetic and friendly to the US. And he has the DEA in there, and they have eradicated a lot of cocoa fields using that method. Yeah. So it does work. But cars. I was like, no. And apparently there's been more and more and more reports of the people who are involved in the central government are all drug lords, and most of them are drug lords, too. So Afghanistan is teetering right on the edge of being a narco state, if it's not already. Right. So contributing to half of your GDP. That's another reason for narco state to develop. Yeah. And, well, since we're on money, another thing that money brings is bribes and corruption. Like we were talking about. And I have to mention this because you uncovered this great fact from Guatemala, the federal judge. That's just hard to believe. Yeah. Federal judge was accused of accepting thousands of dollars in bribes to dismiss a drug trafficking case, and at the end of the seat, dismissed the case. At the end of this trial, this judge was seen driving the defendant from court. Yeah. So it goes pretty deep. Yeah. And Guatemala is a de facto narco state right now. Yeah, big time. And in Central America itself, like we said, since the Caribbean has been shut down, central America started to play a really key role as a supply line between South America and North America. Yes. And actually, because of all those conflicts that you mentioned earlier, there's now a ratio of five to one illegal, unregistered guns to guns held by legitimate police and armed forces. Not good now. So let's keep an eye on Central America. That means trouble is coming. Okay, so Central America again, we talked about how it's been destabilized by conflict. There's tons of guns, there's terrible infrastructure, there's plenty of drugs and narco state. And you know what else, dude? In Guatemala, they have corrupt government officials there, have drafted legislation that prevents extradition. And as we know, extradition is a really valuable tool for us when we're trying to prosecute these drug lords. Right. And they said, you can't do it. So that kind of says right there, let us make our money, us stay out of our hair. Yeah. Once you have the Congress and the judiciary in your pocket, that's even more valuable in the military. Although the military is a really good first step. Yeah, that's true. All right. So, Chuck, one of the reasons why you might notice that Central and South America keep popping up one of the reasons why is because Central America specifically was a Cold War battleground where the US and the USSR fought one another in proxy wars throughout the Cold War. Basically, both countries just completely used nations in Central and South America to fight one another, try to bleed one another out. You know what that means? That means that these people that live there are being trained by either Russian or American military. They're being supplied with guns and ammunition and all the things that you need once you stop and say, Cold War is over, all those guns and trained dudes are still there. Right. And they're like, well, what should we do with all this stuff? Yeah, let's run it out. And not only that, we are not getting funding from the Soviets and the Americans anymore. Exactly. But we still the war didn't end for them. The conflict didn't end for them. The power struggle didn't end for them. Just because the Americans and the Soviets suddenly lost interest. It's still going on. And they are funding it through drugs. Right. Yeah. And also the US backed right wing paramilitary groups or right wing dictatorships. And the Soviets, of course, backed left wing groups like Fark. Right. And FARC has a reputation for being extremely brutal. They use child soldiers, they engage in kidnappings, bombings, kill their own people. Sure. At one point, they offered $1,000 to anybody who killed a government official. So they were outsourcing their terrorism. And they're Communists and they were supported by the Soviets. So, of course, they're horrible. The US supported equally brutal regimes and groups like Locko Freedom. You know about them? They're Guatemala. Yes. They were very much supported by the US. And they helped kill as many as 200,000 of their own people during that civil war. Yeah. Josh Lacafrito wasn't the only one. Right. Remember the 1980s when President Reagan launched the war on drugs? You know what was going on? At the same time, we were providing funding and weapons for the same anti Communist paramilitary groups that were producing and distributing this cocaine. Yeah. Right. At the same time we were fighting a war on drugs. Yeah. It doesn't add up, does it? Not only that, you remember Manuel Noriega. We went down to Panama in 1989. Delta Force was there. Special Forces was there. And we captured him and then put him in prison in Miami for a couple of decades. Yeah. He was a CIA asset for eight years. Yeah. He was operating in Narco state under our supervision. Yeah, you could say. Yes. And then once news leaked out to the general public that he was a drug dealer, we went down and removed him from power. Right. And Gabe, I believe he's still in prison, right? No, he just got out. Oh, really? Yeah. Okay. Like a year ago or something like that. Good for him. And again, this is the same thing that's going on right now in Afghanistan. We're well aware that Carsii is totally cool with the heroin production in that nation. Right. Which, by the way, is far and away the largest producer of heroin or opium poppies in the world. So it's still going on. Yeah. Although we donated a lot, or donated, I guess it's not the right word, but we gave them close to $800 million for counternarcotics operations and measures. I'm sure every penny went to that, too. Sure. So it's still going on. But the reason why it's really disturbing that this is still going on is because we haven't learned a very clear lesson from this, and that's when we support groups that engage in drug trafficking, it invariably comes back to bite us in the ass. Yeah. Like I mentioned lacofrida, right? In Guatemala, the two guys who are running that show, running Guatemala as an archa state, were both trained by the United States at the School of the Americas. Fort Benning, I think. Yeah. Right here in Georgia. Yeah. It's where they train foreign people. No, specifically Latin America. Latin Americans specifically to train them. Yeah. Pretty controversial. Yeah. Because they trained them in assassination, in assembling guerrilla armies and destabilizing central governments, that kind of stuff. So we're training these guys to go fight the Soviets. But then again, after the Cold wars over these guys, they're still around. Yeah. The Mexican Gulf Cartel, which has become hugely violent and kind of big, is run by a couple of guys who were also trained at the School of the Americas. So, basically, the world's biggest drug dealers were trained by the United States in the art of smuggling and all sorts of other stuff. They were trained in their craft. Yes. And I think the Russians used Escobar, right? Yeah. To help guard their poppy fields. Is that right? Or the cocoa. Yes. Fark actually started out guarding Escobar cocoa fields in Colombia for the Medellin cartel. Right? Yeah, Medellin. And then apparently they're like, wow, this guy is making a bunch of money. We're going to go out on our own. And they became rivals. And then again, Delta Force goes down there and oversees the assassination of Escobar, which I don't mean to sound paranoid. I really researched this article, and all this is fact. Everything that isn't fact, I've made, like, verbal air quotes with this is documented stuff. And so much money and legitimate publication. It's all about the greenbacks. Yes. There's so much money at stake. So let's talk about Africa, man. That's the place to be these days. Well, if you're into Narco state. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Africa has really risen since the mid 80s. That was the first sign of a drug presence in Africa, in Zambia, although it was marijuana in zambia at the time. That's how it started out, at least. Right. The gateway drug. Even when you're talking narco state. Sure, yeah. Funny. Zambia exposes the narco state. Apparently the government wasn't aware of this one, but a group of prominent citizens were operating like a sub state. Sub narco state. Just under the noses of the functioning government. And again, very poor people, which is key. Yes. If people don't have any money and all of a sudden people come and give them gobs of money, they'll yes. Okay. You want to be a drug mule? We'll give you this much money. Sure, no problem. Hey, everyone. When you're running a small business, every second counts, and you can't afford to waste a single moment. So why are you still taking time out of your day to go to the post office? And you could be using Stamps.com. Yeah. For more than 20 years, stamps.com has been indispensable for over 1 million businesses. Because Stamps.com gives you access to all the post office and Ups shipping services you need, right. From your computer. That's right. You can streamline your shipping process with Stamps.com easy to use software. All you need is your regular computer and printer. No special supplies or equipment necessary, and you can get discounts you can't find anywhere else, like up to 30% off USPS. Rates and 86% off ups. So stop wasting time and start saving money. When you use Stamps.com to mail and ship, sign up with promo code stuff for a special offer that includes a four week trial, plus free postage and a digital scale. No long term commitments or contracts. Just go to Stamps.com, click the microphone at the top of the home page and enter code stuff. So Zambia was the first to start it in Africa, and then the reason why it picked up speed in the 90s is because it was the end of colonialism. It just ended within the last decade or so. And this European influence and influx of money and exploitation left a vacuum. Economically, financially, and oftentimes with central governments, there's just a vacuum and nobody's doing anything. There's no way to make any money or anything. So narco states are setting up. Senegal was another one. Yes. In the believe, heroin and cocaine really were on the rise. And here's a stat that you dug up. It was pretty good. In 2008, the Telegraph newspaper in England reported that the cost of a bribe to look the other way at the airport when you're flying in in a car with drugs. Nine grand per kilo of cocaine. Right. And Chuck just mentioned a little funny little word, and it was cocaine. You don't associate Africa with cocaine normally. Well, yeah, that's true. You do now, though. Yeah, big time. And one of the reasons why it's popped up in Africa is because West Africa is a perfect stop for cocaine en route to Europe. Right. We talked about Europe having a huge problem with heroin. One of the reasons they didn't have a big problem with cocaine is because the colombians and other south americans haven't figured out how to get it to them. Now, all of a sudden, west africa is devolving into narco state because they finally figured out we need a port. And west africa is it. Right. Specifically, guinea basal. This is, like we said earlier, the one true functioning narco state right now. Yeah. $150,000,000 worth of cocaine passes through the borders of guinea busa each month, and that was in 2007. And what is a $150,000,000 times two to them? Their gross domestic product. It's half of their gross domestic product. So the entire nation, all of the goods and services produced in guinea basal above the boards equals $300 million a year. Right. And they have half of that coming through their country in cocaine. Cocaine a month. Yeah. Tell the story of how this started there. So interesting. It is. What year was it, chuck? 2005. There are a group of guinea bissouw and fishermen who were out in their boats, and there was a big old package floating or maybe several smaller packages floating there. So they haul them in with their nets, and they took them back to land. They open them up, and there is this white powder inside they never seen before. Right. They didn't know what to do with it, so they actually used it as fertilizer on their crops, which had killed their crops. Did they really? Yeah. I didn't know that. And then finally, one day, while they're still puzzling over this stuff, god knows what else they do with it. Yeah. A south american man shows up and says, hey, I believe you have something that belongs to us. Yeah. And that's cocaine. That's our cocaine. I'll give you a million dollars for it. Yeah. Which is 1300 of the entire gross domestic product, remember, of guinea bistao. And so they say, okay, and by the way, can we do this again? Yeah. And that was the birth of the guinea basal and narcos. Yeah. It completely happened by accident. It did. Can you imagine that? And guinea Bisau is a perfect narco state. The cops literally in the capital, Basau, it's the capital city of the country. The cops have five cop cars, and they almost never have gasoline to fuel them. And they have $150,000,000 worth of cocaine going through the borders with five cop cars. Right. It was a former portuguese colony. The portuguese left, and there's not an airplane associated with that country, but they have airfields out on, like, barrier islands that are just totally unused, unpatrolled. Right. And what's more, the military is completely in the pockets of the I think they're mostly colombians that took the place over built stucco mansions. They have direct TV antennas on their roofs in this incredibly poverty stricken country. They stick out like sore thumbs. They don't care. One of the reasons why. Is like I said, the military is on their side. How do we know that, Chuck? Josh, in September of 2006, cops, they're arrested to Colombian guys in a house with 700 kilos of cocaine. And the soldiers came, they showed up at the police station, surrounded it and said, give me the cocaine and the men. And they did so and they got in their cars, loaded up the coke and drove away. The cops watched the military load up the coke and just leave with the guys. Thank you for your time. Yeah. And that was it. That was the beginning of the end. The military engaged in an all out war with the government and ended up assassinating the President after laying siege to his mansion for several hours. Yeah, just this year, right, march. He was assassinated in March. So there's no central government in Guinea Bissau. The Colombians are there selling drugs, using it as actually, they're not selling it in Guinea Basau, as far as I know. They're using guinea busy and as mules. Right. They're even more perfect because it was a Portuguese colony. They don't have to have visas to get into Europe. I mean, it's like Pablo Escobar went, god, I need you to do me a favor. I got some friends back there on Earth and they need a place in West Africa. They need a perfect narcotic. They give us a perfect narco state. And God's like give me bizarre. Sure. And I think you said the average annual income there is like $500 a year for a civil servant's job. Yeah. So it's clear that if you start waving just small amounts of money under their nose that they're going to be at your beck and call. Yeah. So getting to sell one to watch, I mean, it's just insane right there. Sure. It's not a safe place to be. No. So that's narco state. I have a headache just from talking about it. How about you, Chuck? I do. Kind of dense, isn't it? It is. It's a really good article though. Thanks, man. If you want to read the article that I wrote and poured my blood, sweat and tears into, you can type narcostates. That's two words in the handy search bar@howstepworks.com. And that means it's time for listener mail. Yeah. You know what's funny? This morning Emily asked me when we were getting ready for our day, what we're going to podcast on, and I said Narco state. She said, what's in archaic state? And I don't know, in here, like 8 hours later, my mind is there is to know about necrosis or at least enough to talk about it for 25 minutes. Yeah, because it only been 25 minutes. 35 minutes. Jerry says 35. Josh, I'm going to call this DNA database london email. Hello, Josh and Chuck. Love your show. Thought you may be interested in a little story in regards to the podcast about crime databases. I am from Yakima washington, but I've lived in the UK for the last decade. I'm a train driver engineer. Lisa is 30. She's an American train engineer living in England. Isn't that interesting? So a friend of mine who is also a conductor had a recent experience with the British Transport Police in regards to this. He was spat on by a member of the public who was abusive while carrying out ticket duties. So the police were called on the day and for weeks after. My friend was pretty much harassed by the police because they wanted a DNA sample from him for, quote, exclusion purposes. He steadfastly declined each request to the point where he put it in writing to the police that he would get a solicitor involved to ensure he never had to submit a sample. The outcome is basically that the offender went unpunished because the police won't follow it up anymore because the guy who is attacked and spit upon won't surrender his DNA for exclusion purposes. So I just thought you may want to know. Here in England, even victims of crime are being coerced into giving samples. Keep up the great work. From Lisa. XXX from Lisa. Wow. Not an XO, buddy. XXX. That's from Lisa and Stoke Hammond Buckingham shire. And I guess that's a place. Yeah. You know, I've been spit on before and spit back. Did you get spit on? By his cab driver and niece. Really? Jerk. And tried to charge me $20 for like, an eight block cab ride. I was like, I'm not giving you that much. And he was like, yes, you will. And I just blinked and put my hand in my face and sure enough, there's a spit and I just spit right back in his face. This is France. I thought he was going to explode. Not even in a narco state. It was in nice. Did you pay him? I paid him some I didn't pay him $20. What a jerk. Spit on Josh? No, he's got a meeting with me scheduled. Thanks, buddy. I'm going to go find this guy. Yeah. Let's go to Nissan. All right, well, if you have any stories about spitting on or being split upon, you can send in an email to stuffpodcast@housestepworks.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstofworks.com. Want more housestuffworks? Check out our blog on the housetofworks.com homepage. Hey, it's summer, everybody, which means school's out, the sun's shining, the daylights longer, and best of all, there's plenty of time to get lost in a good, thrilling story. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, tune into the podcast series on Amazon music my Favorite Murder from exactly right media. My Favorite Murder has something for everyone. Hosted by Karen Kilgarra and Georgia Hardstark, this true crime comedy podcast will share stories that will have you wanting more before you know it. Listen to new episodes of my favorite Murder. One week early on Amazon music. Download the free Amazon music app and listen today you know you're a pet mom when you plan your vacation around your pet at Halo, we get it because we're pet moms, too. We make natural, high quality pet food that's rooted in science. It's the world's best food for the world's best kids. Learn more@halopets.com."
7877f318-361e-11ea-97d9-07df00b1092f	Short Stuff: The O.K. Corral	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/short-stuff-the-o-k-corral	Listen in as we detail, in short, the legendary shootout at the O.K. Corral.	Listen in as we detail, in short, the legendary shootout at the O.K. Corral.	Wed, 29 Jan 2020 10:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2020, tm_mon=1, tm_mday=29, tm_hour=10, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=2, tm_yday=29, tm_isdst=0)	12202780	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"What if you are a gigantic snack food maker who needs to satisfy cravings from Tokyo to Toledo? So you partner with IBM Consulting to manage your supply chain with realtime datadriven precision. Let's create supply chains that have an appetite for performance. IBM's, let's create. Learn more@ibm.com. Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh. There's Chuck. There's Jerry. Let's get to it. Giddy up. Draw. Indeed. That's pretty good. Laser pee shooter. A laser. That's right. So we're talking about the gunfight at the OK. Corral? I've been there. Have you ever been there? No. You've been there? Sure. Wow. What's it like? Dusty, I'll bet. I was going to say Dusty hot. Where there are tumbleweeds. Sure. Everywhere. Varmints. You wouldn't believe the varmints. Rap, scallions, sasparilla. Yeah, all that good stuff. Nice. Have you ever tasted sasparilla? Sure. They kind of like root beer. That's what I've always thought, but I don't know. Yes. I'm not sure. I think I had one back then, but I don't remember that when I was a child. Okay, but we are talking about the gunfight at the OK. Corral the very famous gunfight between the Herps and Dock Holiday and the cowboys. A very simplistic way to look at this, which was in the otherwise pretty good, how stuff works short article is the herbs were the good guys, the bad guys were the other guys. Wrong. But there's some nuance there because the herbs and I think, like most lawmen of the time out west, they're criminals, too. Sometimes the thing that differentiated them was the badge and the fact that they were able to enforce the law. Yes. And not to say that they were all awful people and they were horse thieves and no good cusses, as this article says, for the bad guys. But there was definitely, I think it was kind of few and far between where you had a truly just and righteous lawman. Well, so Wyatt Earp, he had been run out of California for horse thieving. So he was an actual horse thief. He moved to Wichita and he was a marshal there for three years before he was run out of Wichita for corruption. And then he ended up in Tombstone where his brother Virgil was the marshal there. That's right. And then Wyatt and his brother Morgan became basically deputy Marshalls under their brother. And they kind of selectively enforced the law. But when it came to those cowboys the Clinton gang is another way to put it. They enforce the law extra judiciously very frequently. Yeah. They also had a buddy named John Henry Holiday. He's from Griffin by the name of Doc. Was he? Yeah. His dental office is still in Griffin. I think it's like your museum now. So he was good with a gun and not shy with a trigger finger. And we should mention the bad guys. He said the client and gang was a man named Billy Clayborn. And then I can billy Clinton and then Frank and Tom McLaren. And they weren't just like, lowlife cowboys. They were actually from wealthy ranching families, from what I understand. Yeah. But it was sort of a thing back in the day, I guess. You could still be a rich low life. Really? Yeah. Kidding me. They're everywhere. These two groups of men did not like each other, though, for a full year in Tombstone. They really went through a population explosion when someone found not gold in the dark hills, but silver. Good enough. Good enough at the time. And they said, we need some law enforcement. And it was literally the Wild West out there at the time. I know that word is used a lot, but it's the Wild West. And podcasting with all these shootouts. Sureman. You know who's clicking on the draw is that Roman Mars? Sure, man, that guy's good. But they went to the town leaders and they had a lot of the town leaders on their side. They went to Virgil and White Earp. It's like, you guys are good enough, I guess. You've done it before and you're not afraid to shoot someone in the face, right. So go shoot them in the face. So you've got, like, this history of runins between the herbs and the cowboys. There was bad blood between them. I read elsewhere that Wyatt Earp had designs on becoming sheriff of a neighboring town or a neighboring county. And so he wanted to make his name by bringing the Clinton gang down. So we actually went to Ike Clanton and said, hey, why don't you turn on your brother and the rest of the gang members and I'll make sure that you get off scot free. What did you say? Apparently, Ike was thinking about it. That was a great cattle wrestler, I think. But Ike was thinking about it, but he ended up not doing it. So Wyatt realized that he was in a bit of a pickle here because it would harm his reputation if it was found out that he was making charter the table deals with bandits. And so he decided that I needed to go the evidence against him need to be rubbed out. So that's basically, from what I saw, that actually led to this gunfight at the OK. Corral that the Earth boys were spoiling for a fight. They were actually stalking the Clanton Gang that day. The Earp DeRps. Yeah. Wow. All right, well, let's take a break and we'll come back and talk about what happened. Not High Noon, but about 300, I guess it was high noon somewhere on October 26, 1881. 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And if you're into selling stuff, squarespace is everything to sell anything. They have all the tools you need to get your business off the ground. They have ecommerce templates, inventory management, really simple checkout process, and secure payment. So whatever you want to sell, you can sell it on Squarespace. Yeah, don't just take our word for it. Head to squarespace. comSK and start your free trial today. And then when you're ready to launch, use our offer code SYSK, and you'll get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. That's Squarespace.com. Sysksksquarespace. All right, so here's the deal. In Tombstone, it was against a law to carry weapons in Tombstone in 1881. That's silly, which is shocking. Yeah. Don't they know about the Second Amendment? I don't know. So Virgil Earp and Virgil, he was the marshal at the time. He said, cowboys, you know, you're not supposed to have your guns. And there were some other run ins that day. There were a couple of violent pistol whippings. I Clinton and Tom McLaren were kind of beat down by the Earps earlier in the day. Yeah, I didn't see anything about that elsewhere. Well, it basically came to a head at about 03:00 on October 26. And this is crazy to think about, but the gunfight at the OK. Corral lasted about 30 seconds. There were about 30 to 40 shots fired between how many guys was it six? No, I think it was more like eight or nine. But estimates say that they were about 6ft. Apart from one another. Can you imagine? They're just in a little circle, basically. It'd just be like shooting at each other. Stop. I'm surprised they all didn't end up dead. A couple of them did. I know that. I think both of the Clinton brothers ended up dead. Right. Billy Clinton died and then both McLaren brothers. Okay, so three of the cowboys died. None of the herbs died, but Wyatt got off scot free. He had no scratches on them. Virgil almost died. He got shot through the back and just narrowly missed his spine. Right? No, that was Morgan. Okay. Virgil got hit in the leg. Okay. But yeah, Morgan, it just was like a through shot, but I mean I know I'm sure that felt great. Yeah. Doc got a little scrape, and I think he said this is Kevin Costner. Yeah. That's some pretty terrible shooting right there. From 6ft away from 6ft, right? Yeah. That's basically like closing your eyes and just firing in a direction, that level of contact. Yeah. You would have seen my boot spurs running in the other direction in a zigzag pattern. So the shootout at the OK corral lasted 30 seconds. It was not at high noon. And another little known fact is that it wasn't even at the OK corral. It was in a vacant lot behind the corral between a boarding house and a photo studio. Oh, really? Yeah. I don't think I knew that. It's true. Is it an Owen Mills? Yeah. Afterward, Doc Holiday went and got a picture where it's like, face on and then up in the corner, he's, like, looking off into the moon. So here's how it apparently went down. Like I said, those brothers, or McLaren Clinton, had been pistol whipped earlier in the day. The cowboys came into town pretty ticked off about this and kind of looking for a fight, supposedly. But also supposedly the earps were just like, waiting to start a fight with these guys. Yeah. Actually, the Herbs were almost charged with murder for a second there. I think you said Ike survived, right? Yes. I Clinton, a couple of days later, formerly accused the herbs of murder, basically saying that they had ambushed the cowboys. That's right. There were a lot of eyewitnesses, but there was one kind of apparently really important eyewitness named Eddie Borland, and she said, quote, I didn't see anyone holding up their hands. They all seem to be firing in general on both sides. Right. They were firing on both sides at each other. Right. So what historians think actually happened is that the herbs came upon the clans who were caught by surprise, and the herps said, Drop your weapons or we'll start firing. Right. They actually said it out loud, but then started firing before they even had a chance to drop their weapons. The Clinton gang starts firing back. Right. But again, they were ambushed. They were caught by surprise, and they weren't given a chance to actually surrender. And so there were kind of some things in there in the favor of a case of murder against the herbs. But the thing that got them off is that earlier witnesses had overheard the Clinton saying that they were going to kill the herbs. Right. So the herbs are like, see, this is all just self defense. Yeah. And there was an actual hearing because of that call for murder. Old timing. Name, please. Justice of the Peace will Spicer. Beautiful. Had a hearing and he basically said no. You know what? It seems to me like they were well within their rights as marshals and what they called special policemen to do their duty. And because of Addie Borlan's testimony, and I clinton came out and he had his own testimony, but it looks like they just frontier justice they cited on the quote unquote law. Yeah, I think I Clinton said that he and his brother and gang members have their hands up and we're still fired upon and supposedly borland at least one of them might not have had a weapon, depending on who you ask on the Cowboys side, yes. So that's how it went down. The gunfight at the O. K. Corral in a vacant lot at 03:00 P.m.. That's right. And later on, there was an attempt, assassination attempt on Virgil Earp in December of that same year. Morgan Earp was murdered in a billiard club in early 1882. And everyone is like, well, this is clearly the work of Clinton. Although who knows? Because it's frontier justice. It could have been anything. He could have snored too loud. I'm sure the Earp brothers had more enemies than just Ike Clinton, but people still suspect that it was him. And as for Clinton, he was killed in 1887 in the Arizona Territory by a detective, and Wyatt Earp lived until 1929 to the ripe old age of 80. Where he died. Where else? Los Angeles. Where he was a DJ and a sometime music producer. That's funny. That's it for short stuff, everybody. If you want to get in touch with us, send us an email. You have to go listen to the regular episodes to find out where to send it to. Short Stuff is out. Stuff you should know is the production of Iheartradios how stuff works. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows."
https://podcasts.howstuf…-kleptomania.mp3	How Kleptomania Works	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/how-kleptomania-works	In this episode of Stuff You Should Know, Josh and Chuck discuss kleptomania, a disorder in which people have an overwhelming impulse to steal unnecessary items.	In this episode of Stuff You Should Know, Josh and Chuck discuss kleptomania, a disorder in which people have an overwhelming impulse to steal unnecessary items.	Thu, 17 Dec 2009 17:21:39 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2009, tm_mon=12, tm_mday=17, tm_hour=17, tm_min=21, tm_sec=39, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=351, tm_isdst=0)	24563268	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"This July, don't miss an entire summer of surprises on Disney Plus with Disney's High School Musical, the series season three Zombies, three Doctor Strange in the multiverse of Madness, and the wonderful summer of Mickey Mouse. Plus new episodes of Marvel Studios, ms. Marvel and National Geographics. America the Beautiful. From the award winning producers of Planet Earth, Frozen Planet, and the Disney nature films, america the Beautiful takes viewers on a tour of the most spectacular and visually arresting regions of our great nation. All these and more streaming this month on Disney Plus. Hey, everybody. If you want a great website, you want to do it yourself with no must, no fuss, turn to Squarespace. They have everything to sell anything. They have the tools that you need to get your business off the ground, including ecommerce templates, inventory management, a simple checkout process, and secure payments. And if you're into analytics, hold on to your hats, because Squarespace has everything that you need. Just head to Squarespace.com SYSK and you can get a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use offer code SYSK to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 camry. It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know from housetuffworkscom. Hi, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. The Chuck, the Chuck. The chuck is on fire. How are you doing, Chuck? You've been sitting on that one for a while. Just since yesterday. We actually have not recorded in two weeks, and I have a feeling that Josh has been planning that for two weeks. I just told you I came up with it yesterday. I was listening to your sweet voice while I sweat the floors in my house. Okay. When you think of dog hair or you think of me, I thought it was your voice that made me think of Jeez. I thought, man, I've been opening up the show pretty boring wise lately. Well, I'm glad you're talking about this now, then. Yeah. Anyway, Chuck, how are you doing? Good, sir. It has been a long time, hasn't it? Okay, so you know it's stealing season, buddy. Is it? Yeah, it pretty much kicks off in November and really goes up through the roof on Black Friday. It's much more difficult to steal during Cyber Monday, but, yeah, as Christmas comes around, people love to steal. People love to hold people up with guns, knives, threats of physical violence, that kind of thing. Wow, this is inspiring. Yeah, it is. And actually, it turns out that this stealing season will probably be worse than usual because there was a report released called the Global Retail Theft Barometer. Okay. And it was released mid November, a couple of weeks back. The GRTP. Yes. I'm a fan. I know you are. And it said that this year businesses have lost retail businesses have lost $115,000,000,000 worldwide from stealing from theft. What's America do you have that 45 billion. Wow. Because in our article, it says 10 billion is like an average. So that's a huge increase. It is, actually. I'll tell you what. Usually, I guess there's an increase every year, and usually worldwide, it increases by about 1.5%. I wonder if that's in direct relation to the cost of goods increasing. That actually does have something to do with it. In this Time article I read, this year, 6% increase worldwide. Okay. And in North America, there's an 8.1% increase. Wow. So people are just stealing left and right. And the authors of the study, the center for Retail Research, apparently talked to cops, talked to shoplifters and said, what's going on? They talked to shoplifters? How so? Do you know people who've been busted for shoplifting? Okay, I thought you meant that had not been caught. No, they just hang around Macy's and are like, you look like a shoplifter, you scuzball. Or I saw what you did, and I won't report you if you answer these five questions exactly and give me a sawbuck. What is that, a 20? I think we've gone over this before. I think it's a fiver. Okay. No, it's a ten. I bet we get some lesser mail. I bet it's either a five or a ten. So, Chuck, what they found from talking to these people is that there is an increase in the perception that companies are making off with all this money while everybody else is having hard times, and so they kind of feel justified in stealing. Got you. And they're seeing a much rise in the middle class stealing people who can afford stuff and just aren't paying. Right. And apparently this victimless crime, that's kind of another perception since you're stealing from a giant corporation in the United States. We paid an extra $436 a household in consumer goods prices. Yeah, that's what happens. Yeah. Same with credit card fraud, with shrinkage along, right? Yeah, same with credit card fraud. That's not all. Why? But one reason why the interest rates are so sky high. Because people say, I just charge a bunch of stuff and not pay. It insurance fraud. It's just that stupid credit card company is going to take the hit. But they don't. Although they should. They don't take a hit. They pass it all along. Of course they do. That's how it works. We're all slaves, Chuck. Suckers. Anyway, somewhere in those statistics I just spewed out, but there are a very tiny percentage of that population that are kleptomaniacs. I feel like I just gave birth to a watermelon. A square watermelon. Yeah, exactly. In fact, it's not at all shoplifting. Shoplifting is the means by which you would perform your kleptomania. That's an excellent definition, Chuck. And I've read this article, too, and I know that was not in there. That was a CBD special. I just made it up. Yeah, good one. Although I would say you could steal from anyone, and that would be clept to me. It doesn't have to be a store. Yeah, but apparently it is generally stores. Really? Or parties. But, yeah, if you're going to steal from an individual, it's usually at a party, I think. Right. But it generally is retailers. What differentiates kleptomaniacs from shoplifters? Well, there's actually a definition, as outlined by the American Psychiatric Association's diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders that says that they outline this criteria. Josh? The individual repeatedly fails to resist the impulse to steal items that are not needed for personal use or monetary value. That's number one. Yeah. The individual experiences tension before stealing. The tension is relieved after stealing, and the theft is not due to anger, revenge, delusions, hallucinations, or impaired judgment. Right. And I think there's one more. Psychological disorders can't account for the stealing behaviors. Different other psychological disorders. Let's do a little play acting. Oh, I love this. Okay, I'm going to be a kleptomaniac. Okay. You are going to be a tube of lipstick. All right. Okay. Hold on. Let me get into character, man. You are a master. Okay, I'm there. Okay. All right. So I'm walking into the store, and I'm looking for some sunglasses that I intend to purchase, and all of a sudden, I feel this horrible tension. My stomach is tight. I'm starting to sweat a little bit because I just spotted Chuck, the tube of lipstick, who is sitting there as an inanimate object, because if you talk, then that's delusion, and it doesn't count as kleptomania. So I'm looking at Chuck. I'm feeling this horrible tension. I know that I'm going to steal. I don't want to steal, but I have to because it's the only way to relieve the tension. So I just grabbed Chuck and put them in my pocket, and I don't even wear lipstick. There's no explanation for this. I make it out of the store, and as I enter into the rest of the mall and start to feel like I'm not about to be caught, that tension goes away, maybe replaced with a little bit of a thrill, a kick. Right? And then boom, I get hit by this crushing guilt I've just stolen again. Not only have I stolen from something, from somebody, I have failed to yet again resist this overwhelming urge. So I take the lipstick, and I go to my grandmother's house, who is now dead, but in the scenario, she's actually alive. And I just put it in with the rest of her lipstick, go about my business, feeling generally bad about myself. TADA, can I talk now? Yeah. First of all, it was a little weird being in your pocket. Let me say that. I liked it. But, yeah, dude, you just hit on a lot of the major points tension, relief of tension, guilt, a rush, giving away what you stole, stealing something you don't need or hoarding. Sometimes hoarding. Yeah. A lot of times people will hoard it. I read a case of a woman in the early 20th century who was caught shoplifting, upper middle class. They caught her, went to her house and found all the stuff that she'd stolen with the price tag clearly not used. They don't use the stuff that they steal. I've got a hoarder for you, buddy. Let's hear it. This dude, in April of this year in Israel was busted. They went to his house and they found motorcycle helmets, watches, Louis Vuitton handbags, 150 pair of shoes, 200 pair of sunglasses, olive oil, laundry detergent, all kinds of stuff unopened in this guy's house. Literally stacked in every corner of the house from room to room. And he admitted that he'd been shoplifting for a decade. Every time he went to a store, he shoplifted for a decade. And he clearly lived alone. Now he has a wife and son. Wow. He has a family to keep their mouth shut. Well, this is the funny part. And of course this is from an Israeli newspaper. It says his wife and son are suspected of knowing of his activity but doing nothing about it. I don't know if that's a formal charge, but he also was busted with a big roll of stickers that say, like paid for, thank you for coming, that kind of thing. That was part of his deal. He would go in there and put that on his big TV box or whatever. I wonder if that disqualifies him as a kleptomaniac, though. I don't think so. Why? Because he pre planned it. Because one of the things Freud and Rich is that how we say his name, the author of this article, PH. D. No. Freudick, isn't it? No, I thought it was Craig Freud. Like no, there's no l. There's not. I totally invented that. OK. I've been reading it that way for two and a half years. We're going to call them Dr. Freud. Okay. Dr. Freud pointed out that people who are Kleptomaniacs through Kleptomaniacs, from what I gather, we don't call them Kleptomaniacs. We call them people with Kleptomania. Right. Don't go into a store intending to steal. They don't go to steel. They're just overcome by the impulse when they're in a store. Yeah, that makes sense. The other thing that makes that guy Hinky as a candidate for a person with Kleptomania is that he's a man. Yeah. Women more often and this is a little hinky too, but women are more often diagnosed with Kleptomania. But that is slanted a little bit because I think it said that women are less likely to admit to it or to report it to like their psychiatrist, that kind of thing? No, men who still go to prison, women who still do psychiatric evaluations. Yeah. So that could definitely slam the population. But traditionally people think that Kleptomania is a feminine disorder. Yeah. You ever seen the Ice Storm? No. I need to oh really? That's a great movie. You said that shamefully. I do feel kind of ashamed, actually. The mother and daughter, Joan Allen and Christina, reached both shoplift in that film at separate times. Heartbreakers. That's the Gurney Weaver and what's her name? Jennifer Love Hewitt. Yeah. No, I'm talking about the ice storm. I don't think so. I don't think so. Yeah. In fact, I think Joan Allen actually steals lipstick. There you go. Maybe that was me. It is one of my favorite movies. Yes. Josh, early teens and 20s. If we're talking more about the pattern, it's usually when it begins. Yeah. But it can run up to I think they found Kleptomaniacs in their late 70s. Yeah. Didn't we do a story about Japanese elderly that are stealing just so they'll get caught and have a friend? Yeah, they're so lonely, they're trying to basically make friends with the police by being arrested. So that's not Kleptomania, that's just shopping. I don't know. I was thinking about when I saw that in the late seventy s, I thought of that Seinfeld episode where Jerry finds out that his parents steal batteries and in turn finds out that almost all elderly people steal batteries. Yeah, that's good for the tip. Calculators. Is that what it's the Willard I'm ruined. You know, another thing, Josh, is you hit on it again with your little play acting. They usually steal stuff they can afford and stuff like shampoo. It listed. And sunglasses are big, like, famously. Winona Ryder. Winona Horowitz. Excuse me? No. Really? That's her name. I had no idea. She famously stole several thousand dollars from Sex Fifth Avenue. $5,000, I think. Yeah, she can definitely swing that. Yeah. And I don't know if it ever came out. Did they ever plead Kleptomania or anything with her? Did they? No, she quietly tried to pay their fine. Yeah. And that brings up a pretty good point, is a Kleptomania defense is really hard to prove or to successfully get off on. It is, you know why? Why? Well, your defense lawyer must argue when the argument that there was no reason for you to steal it, no financial gain, no revenge, they got to prove all those things beyond a reasonable doubt, first of all. Yeah, that's when you want to follow up. Well, I know that the Justice Department doesn't recognize Kleptomania as a defense. So if you're up for federal charges, don't even try it. Yeah, exactly. And that's like the Americans with Disabilities Act. That's in legislation. Right. Good luck, Chuck. Kleptomania, what is it? Is it an actual disease? Should it be covered in the Americans with Disabilities Act? Should the DOJ finally open up their eyes and be like, okay, there's such a thing as Kleptomania? Well, we don't know for sure. Some people think it's, like, tagged on to other psychological disorders. Like what? Like obsessive compulsive or personality and mood disorders. Okay. So it may possibly like it could be a symptom or a byproduct of a larger disorder. Right? Yes. Okay. But by and large, it's classified as an impulse control disorder, like gambling or pyromania fire starting. Awesome. Or trichotillomania. Yes. Tricotalomania. I never heard of that. Yeah. Obsessive hair pulling. Yeah. I wonder if that means pulling your own hair or other people's. Probably both. I don't know. That's an excellent question, actually. And it got our producer Jerry giggling, so, you know yeah. So it's either a symptom of a larger disorder or it's his own impulse control disorder. One of the reasons we don't know is because treatments for Kleptomania are hit or miss. Yeah. And they haven't studied a lot. And the other thing is, it hit me. Like everything else with the brain, it's still sort of a mystery. It is. And one of the reasons why they have had trouble studying Kleptomania is finding Kleptomaniacs. I found a study from 2002 that was just getting off the ground at Stanford, and these people were looking for 24 Kleptomaniacs for their study. And we're having to go on TV, radio, everywhere to try to find, like, true Kleptomaniacs. And one of this guy who was quoted in this article on the study, a guy named Will Cupcake, which is a pretty cool name if you ask me. Agreed. He's a Toronto psychologist. He said in the 450 cases I've assessed, probably only one or two of the people were actual Kleptomaniacs. Really? We're talking about a very, very small, fascinating part of the larger population, didn't they? I think I saw someone in the article. They said maybe 5% of psychiatric patients admit to being or are diagnosed as Kleptomaniac. Right. And you revealed something else, too. I think a lot of it is admission. Remember when me, the play act and Kleptomaniac left and went to the malls crushed by guilt? I remember that. I wanted to get the object away from me. Do you remember the desire to keep this secret? I think probably keeps a lot of people from coming forward. Yeah. So we have no idea how large or small this population is, but I think from people who examine shoplifters, they find that the actual Kleptomaniacs among them are very small population. Right. You know who has studied it? The University of Minnesota School of Medicine. Yeah. Specifically, psychiatrist John Grant. And he studied the brain, and there are a few little he posits a few theories here. One is that a defect in a molecule that transports serotonin might be messed up. Yeah. Well, not the defect is messed up. It would clearly be messed up. If the defect is messed up, then you're okay, potentially head trauma could cause something like this. It could damage the circuits in the frontal lobes. Right. That could maybe happen and decrease in the fine structure of white matter in the frontal lobe. But it's all in the frontal lobe. Right. And the Limpic system, which, as of course, we know, is the brains reward center that's in the front lope. Right. Which also controls impulse, or the frontal lobe controls impulse. Mood. There you have it, dude. Yeah. So clearly it could be its own disorder in the finals going on up there. So did we say that treatments don't work all that well? Like, sometimes SSRIs work, but not all the time. Cognitive therapy works sometimes. You want to talk about some of the cognitive therapy? Yeah, cognitive therapy cracks me up a little bit. Like snapping a rubber band on your wrist when you have, like, an impure thought. Right. Covert sensitization, Josh, is when a patient wants to steal, and then all of a sudden, you're trained to imagine the consequences, which to me, I thought that's what you're just supposed to teach people. No, it's like you'll get in trouble spraying a cat in the face, like, every time it does something you don't want with a little water bottle. Yeah. Aversion therapy. That is, if you feel the urge to steal, you will be told to do something, like holding your breath until it's literally painful. Oh, I'm sorry. That's the one that covert sensitization. That is kind of what we as humans should be walking around doing at all times, right? Yeah. Thinking about the consequences of your actions. Sure. And then the last one they use is systematic desensitization, which is relaxation therapy and substituting relaxing feelings instead of the urge to steal. All of those are probably the most difficult thing Kleptomaniac will ever attempt to I found another little study, though. Let's hear it. Check. In April of this year, they started a test where they gave Kleptomaniacs, or Kleptomania what do we call them again? Those with Kleptomania? People with Kleptomania, I guess no one wants to be called a maniac in any way. They studied. They got 25 habitual thieves, men and women between 17 and 75, and they gave them the drug naltrexone, which is what they give alcoholics and drug addicts to curb their bad behavior. Is that the stuff that makes your hangover really bad? I think so. It's supposed to quell those impulses, and it kind of worked. After eight weeks, they found that two thirds of the people who had not given the placebo had no urge to steal, and only like 8% had placebo did. They also ate their vegetables and went to bed when they were told to be good drug. Yeah, we could use that. Chuck. Is that it? Almost. We're going to travel back to the beginning now. Or this should have been at the beginning. Okay. Club Domania. I think it first appears in literature in 397 Ce. Okay. St. Augustine admitted to lusting, to thieves. Boy. St. Augustine was something else. He really was, if he existed at all. Sure. And then it ends up in the medical literature. In 1816, a Swiss physician by the name of Matthew wrote of a unique madness characterized by the tendency to steal without motive and without necessity. There you have it? Yes. And then Freud came in and said that had something to do with penis envy. No kidding. And now it's a 45. Well, not just a Kleptomania, but shoplifting is a $45 billion in this country. Yes. Took off from 1816 to 2009. Jeez, good stuff. All right. Well, that's Kleptomania. If you want to know anymore, you can read the article by our own Doctor Freud by typing in Kleptomania. Remember, it begins with K and the handy search bar@howtofworks.com. And since I just said that, of course, dear friends, this means listener mail. Josh. I'm just going to call this hippie Rob. Followed up your old buddy Hippie. Should you say something about Hippie Rob? Well, let's wait till after. Okay. Hi, Josh and Chuck. I like them when they start that way. I don't normally write into TV shows or radio shows, et cetera, but I've heard Josh talk about Hippie Rob, and at the end of The Hangover podcast, he mentioned that he wanted to hear from people who knew of his whereabouts. I do, in fact, know a Hippie Rob and wanted to offer my knowledge of this person to determine if it was the same Hippie Rob. And I've seen this email and I know that it's a real Hippie Rob because it capitalized the H and the Rob. The Hippie Rob I know is originally from Venom Haven, Maine, a medium sized island off the coast of down east Maine's. Weird up there. Down east. His full name? I didn't say his full name here, but it's Robert Blank and he has thick blonde dreadlocks. He's sure telltale sign of a hippie. Sure. He was about 510 and never talked about his age, but I would put him in the upper thirty s and possibly lower forty s and nineteen ninety eight. He loves coffee, hates alcohol, and he mentioned one of his other habits that he loves, which we're not going to mention on the air, but his name is Hippie Rob, so fill in the blanks. Right. He squatted at my apartment in Portland, Maine in the summer of 1998. This is so close. At the time, he was living off the Social Security from a, quote, permanent work related accident. I think we've all known a hippie Rob. Yeah, but something told me that his permanent disability was not physically related. I would see him every few summers in Maine and he would shoot the breeze. We would shoot the breeze while drinking coffee and doing other things. He was a terrible mooch. I know that he loved to travel the warm places in the winter with his favorite being Hawaii. And if you read this on the air, could you give a shout out to my girlfriend Kristen, who is an amazing sport about me listening to the podcast Galen from Portland, Maine. So, Josh, is it? Hippie Rob? No, there's a couple of things missing here. It is so close. I mean, the age one thing is, no one knows the origin of the real hippie rock. No one knows where hippy rocks from. Dreadlocks. He does. And he's blonde. Although you would say more like strawberry blonde. Sure. Not true. Blonde, has beard. Kind of a little guy. In 1998, he would have been late 30s or so. World class mooch. Oh, man. Big time. Yeah, we used to like, we'd buy beer and we'd buy cera Nevada beer, and Rob didn't have any money for a while, and then he'd get paid and it'd be his turn to buy the beer, and he'd buy like a twelve pack of Milwaukee Beast Ice. And we'd be like, this is not the same Rob, right? There's a dog missing. And this is a very key point. The dog, Sedona, I'll have to tell you about him sometimes, okay? He's a wolf dog named Sedona. Hippie Rob owned. Yes. Okay, no, they were best friends. There was no of course he has a wolf dog. Exactly. Appropriate. He's best friends with. And then the real giveaway was that Hippie Rob loved alcohol. Right? Even now, he could have given up foods. No one would say hippie Rob hates alcohol. He just doesn't drink it anymore. And he probably still has hippie Rob loves alcohol. So that was the one tail giveaway. All right. So not Hippy Rob. Unfortunately, yeah. And I guess if you know where Hippie Rob is, I've revealed some more clues here. Send us an email. We still want to know. We're looking for them. And is it Kristen or Kirsten? Chuck in the email? Galen's girlfriend, Kristin. Kristen, special thanks to you for letting Galen listen to us. We appreciate that. If you have any cool stories about your significant other letting you do something that you want to do, put it in an email. Also, if you know where Hippie Rob is, we want to hear that too. You can email Chuck and me at all times at stuffpodcast@housestuffworks.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstofworks.com. Want more howstofworks? Check out our blog on the Howstepworks.com homepage, brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you? Hey, everybody. I don't know about you, but I am excited that it's summer, school's out, the sun is shining, and best of all, there's downtime four days. That's where true crime podcasts on Amazon Music come in. They're the perfect activity for last minute road trips, long walks, or, if you're brave enough, late nights. With so many killer shows like Morbid, my Favorite Murder, and Small Town Murder, you'll never be bored to death again. So download the free Amazon Music app to start listening to all your favorite true crime podcasts. Plus, with Amazon Music, you can access new episodes early. Download the app today. You know you're the best pet mom when you growl back during playtime, give epic belly rubs and feed them Halo holistic made with responsibly sourced ingredients, plus probiotics for Digestive Health. Find us at chewy. Amazonandhalopets.com."
https://podcasts.howstuf…igial-organs.mp3	How Vestigial Organs Work	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/how-vestigial-organs-work	Darwin asserted that seemingly useless organs and behaviors are left over from our evolutionary history. But as more are found to have a function, the idea has become a flashpoint for the battle between science and religion.	Darwin asserted that seemingly useless organs and behaviors are left over from our evolutionary history. But as more are found to have a function, the idea has become a flashpoint for the battle between science and religion.	Tue, 13 Oct 2015 13:14:25 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2015, tm_mon=10, tm_mday=13, tm_hour=13, tm_min=14, tm_sec=25, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=286, tm_isdst=0)	42381974	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Welcome to stuff you should know from housetepworkscom. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W, Chuck Bryant, and there's Noel over there. Are there so this is Stuff You Should Know for everyone is wondering if Jerry's been kidnapped. She has been, and we are refusing to pay the rent. It's only, like, $20. But I don't know. They sent her a finger, and we said we need more proof. You know why we don't send the $20? Because we don't negotiate with kidnappers. No. It's just a policy. Jerry probably understands, don't you think? No. That finger they sent was pointed in our direction. I know that. Well, Jerry, from all of us here at House, of course we miss you, and we wish you the best of luck. That breathing tube holds up. So, Chuck yes. You were correcting me. I think we should get this out on the air as well. Vestigial organs? No, you have to say it like you're eating a meatball. Vestigial. Yeah, sure. So you're saying it's vestigial? Yeah. It's not vestigial. No, vestigial. I'm a vestigial fan. All right. Yeah. And you're the correct fan. I'm not a fan of either. I just, for once, looked up the pronunciation of something. So how are you feeling about vestigial organs? Are you liking it? Yeah, I mean, I thought it was good. Oregon is a little misleading. It should be, like, body parts, I think. Yeah. Vestigial parts. It can also be traits, behaviors. Yeah. Like what about what's? Like the go to vestigial trait. Oh, the Palmer grass reflex. Yeah, it's a great one. Yeah. That's one of the first things they test on a baby. Yeah, it says a lot about the baby. It's like, can you hold on to my fingers and lift your little body? Yeah. So we should just go ahead and say human babies are born with the ability where if the palm of their hand is stimulated, you tell it a joke or give it some candy or something like that. The baby will grasp onto the finger, just reflexively, and the baby grasp so hard and we're talking like newborns. The baby grasp with enough strength that you could pick the baby up with your finger, and it will dangle from your hand and look very cute. Yes. 37% of babies, I think they said. So that doesn't make any sense. Why would a baby be able to do that? So they can hang on to your furry coat as you run through the jungle. That is the predominant answer among science. Yeah. And Ruby grabs my beard like it's rope. Yeah, I remember you saying that. And pulls herself up my chest. Yeah. So it's like a little animal. Yeah, apparently. Have you ever tickled her feet? Because they grasp with those, too. Yeah, I've had leg hair pinched by little feet. Man, already? Boy, having a kid sounds like a lot of fun. That's rough. Your beard, your leg hair getting climbed on. It's all worth it, though, isn't it? I don't know. We'll see. Good for you, Chuck. I'll let you know in 18 years. So what is it called again? The Palmer grass reflex. And the one that's also from the feet. That's a vestigial trait. It's something that used to serve a purpose further back on our ancestral line. It still serves a purpose in things like primates sure. Higher apes, but it doesn't in humans anymore. The thing about it, though, is that the whole idea of vestigial organs, vest digital body parts, vestigial traits, gives a tremendous amount of credence. In fact, it's one of the main points of the theory of evolution that we have these traits left over. Because if you trace our ancestry back far enough chimps, and we had a common ancestor. Yeah. And if you trace it back even further, snakes, and we had a common ancestor, and so on and so on, these are just remnants from that distant past when we needed things like a tailbone to support a tail. Sure. Or to be able to grasp your mom's fur the moment you're born, basically. So you can hang on and be around. There's a couple of different definitions, too. If you ask Darwin, he will say that it doesn't necessarily mean that it has no function now. It just means that it doesn't serve the original purpose that it once did. And that's a huge point, because vestigial organs is a flashpoint between creationists and scientists. Yeah, huge, man. I had no idea. But it's like a battlefield in that battle between creationism and science. Yeah, I looked that up about the conflict of religion in the vestigial organs, and at least some of the sites I went to said that we're fine with vestigital organs, and we think that after God created Adam and Eve that they may have changed over the years. Oh, I didn't run into that at all. Yeah, I saw a bunch of sites that said that. I ran into it. They can coexist, basically, and said that we agree there could be a loss of genetic information over the years, or that Adam and Eve were created and changed as well. But it was just all God's work at hand. Yes. Which, I mean, the scientists would be like, no, still disagree. But I like the way you're thinking. Generally, the sites I ran into were just like, no, evolution is flat out wrong. I think one of them said that. And there is no such thing as a vestigial. Oregon, the very fact that you're saying that there are vestigial organs because of evolution begs the question. The whole idea is that we don't understand what these organs are for. Not that they're useless. Right. God wouldn't put anything useless in the human body. God don't make no junk. Exactly. The old saying. Right. And science does face. Paul. Yeah. Well, I'm sure it goes on and on neither side is winning this. But I was surprised to find that this was like, you know, you just kind of stumble onto a social war or a battle of war being waged. Right? Yeah. Sure. I knew that that war was being waged, but I didn't realize that this is one of the battlefields. It was just really interesting to me. But you mentioned Darwin, man. Yeah. He was not the first person to point out the essentials origins. No. And we should point people to our Charles Darwin episode. That and the evolution or natural selection. Natural selection is what we did, and I'm very proud of those two are great, because he was a fascinating guy. Whether or not you agree with us, all that science science junk. You may also want to go listen to our enlightenment episode. It kind of ties in. Yeah. Agreed. Like you said, he was not the first dude. There was another guy in 1893 named Robert Vitasheim who said he had a big list, running list going that had up to 90 parts that he claimed were vast digital, and a lot of those were proved not to be. And even some of the ones we might as well go and talk about the appendix a little bit. Sure. Because everyone for a long time said, we don't need the appendix. It does nothing in our bodies. We can just take it out and suffer no ill consequences. Yeah. So the idea is, well, if you can take it out and not die, then what's the point? Yeah. Then it's vestigial. And I read an article, and you're like, you kind of have to be careful saying stuff like that, because I can cut my leg off and not die, but I still could have used it. Sure. And with the appendix, for many years, like you said, after successful appendectomy after successful appendectomy, there was this predominant idea that it was just this useless organ. One of the reasons why it was officially labeled vestigial right out of the gate is because you can find it elsewhere in the animal kingdom, which is another big part of the definition of a vestigio organis, is a functioning organ in the animal kingdom. Correct? Yes. So you can find the same thing elsewhere in the animal kingdom, and it performs a more robust function. So with the appendix in particular, for animals that have a diet high in fiber, this serves as an extra, like, digestive tract or an extra part of the digestive tract. In humans, it has no role in digestion whatsoever. So, scientifically speaking, it's lost its original purpose. Yeah. Which people long thought when we used to be plant eating, for the most part, plant eating peoples, that that's what the appendix aided in digestion and cellulose when you ate a lot of plants. Right. But now we don't eat plants, so we don't need it. So it's just a little sad sack. It is pretty sad looking, it is a sad sack compared to a chimps mighty appendix. Yeah, this is sad. But, Chuck, they have found, and this is pretty much the story for almost all vestigial organs. There's really only two that remain where we're just like we have no idea what these do. But with the appendix, we've come to find that either it performed this role simultaneously to chewing cud for us, or it evolved to perform this role. So it's not totally useless. It's like, don't cut me out, I'm doing something. But it's a store for beneficial bacteria. Yeah, it's basically a reserve in case you get really sick with diarrhea or some other gut infection and it vacates all that good bacteria. Then you have this appendix waiting in the wings saying, hey, I've got this. I'll reboot your system. Right. And he goes, Stand by, I'm going to spit some up. Right. And it spits bacteria into your gut. But they say because we have medicines that take care of all that stuff, that we never need the appendix. Right. Because we have medicine now to do that. Perform that same function, essentially. Yeah. That's a pretty pro Western medicine concept, though. Like, if you take a bunch of antibiotics, you're probably going to be able to use your appendix to repopulate the flora in your gut. Yeah. You know what I mean? Because antibiotics go through and they just, like, laid away all bacteria, beneficial or otherwise. So after a round of antibiotics, if your appendix is functioning, you should probably be able, theoretically, to recover better than if you've had your appendix removed. So we may not even know that our appendix is functioning. No. But Molly Edmunds comes up with an evil genius idea, and she doesn't overtly say that we should try it, but she suggests that at the end, the only way to really tell if we need her appendix is to start taking them out of people in the undeveloped world who have less access to the same healthcare that we have. I think what she meant was study people who have had appendectomies, not necessarily just bring people in. What happens if they have appendicitis? Hopefully that's a pretty routine procedure and that it can be removed. But that's another thing that people argue, like, no, this thing is useless. Not only does it not chew card for us any longer, it can become really infected and kill you. So we should just take appendixes out. That was the predominant thought, and I think they're kind of slowing it down lately. Yeah. Well, we should talk about wisdom teeth. I was just about to bring those up. Well, you want to take a break first, or you want to keep going with wisdom teeth? No, take a break. All right. So I teased everyone with wisdom teeth. I've heard Duck Dennis say you should just always take out your wisdom teeth, and others say, well, no, if your mouth has enough room. Not everyone needs their wisdom teeth out. Right. But this goes back to the evolution as well. Like, we needed back when we ate roots and tubers and plants and we had bigger jaws, we had room for those teeth and we needed them. See, that to me, wisdom teeth are the definitive evidence of vestigial organs as support for the theory of evolution. Because our jaws, they're not shaped like they were before. Right. Because our diet has changed, our skulls have changed shape, and so there's not room for that third molar that there used to be room for, which is why it grows in all messed up, aka impacted. Yeah. We needed once we started cooking food and vegetables and making them soft. Unless you're on the Paleo diet and you eat raw veggies. Yes. But if you're rich and you're on the Paleo diet, you probably pay for somebody to chew them up first and spit them in your mouth. That's what rich people on Paleo do. Yeah. So now we don't need those teeth. And so clearly that's an example of this digital body part. Correct? Yes. But not only do we not need them, there is no room for them in most people's jaws. I just think, like there you go. That's it. Drop the mic right there. Yeah. We talked about this before, but I had mine when I was 16, I think, or 17. How old are you? Like 1819 something. Okay. I feel like it's usually in that range. Whenever I hear about someone that's older that has some teeth in, it just I don't know, it seems like an outlier. Yes. I think it's about the normal age, like in your teens, late teens? Mid to late. Yeah. Kind of like tonsils. I don't know any adults who have their tonsils removed. I'm sure it happens, but then now that you've brought up tonsils, this is a rabbit hole. So that's another thing that a lot of people say, just go ahead and get removed. The thing is, if history has taught us anything, just getting vestigial organs removed effectively is not a good move. Just in case, if they are getting infected a lot and they threaten your health yeah. You probably should get your tonsils removed. But just as wisdom teeth, to me are definitive evidence that we've evolved and have vestigial organs, so too are tonsils, because no one has any real idea why we have tonsils. And as a matter of fact, they can harm our health. Yeah. This one article you send says they are supposedly the first line of defense against inhaled pathogens. That's the best thing to come up with. I like it, I guess. But that's a pretty weak system. There's this kind of it rings the edges. Yeah. It's not even like a net. No, we should evolve a net. A throat net. A throat net that falls to the side when we need food to go through, but when we're just breathing. Or if you're dieting, you can have the throat net shut and everything will just bounce back up. That'd be great. That's a great idea. Chewing up food and spitting it out as a weight loss method is dangerous. But some people think that, hey, it makes sense, man. I just want to taste it. What else? Oh, I like the goosebumps. That's a good one. Yes, that's one of my favorites, too, because when you get scared or chilly, you'll see the goose bumps. What are they called? The erector ply. Goosebumps is so much more fun. Well, the erector peeli are the muscles that give you goosebumps. It's kind of like the Marines at Iwojima raising the flag. These muscles do that to your hair follicles and you get goosebumps. Yeah. And that is left over from when we wanted to wear animals and we wanted to appear larger. We could puff up our fur in defense or to hold in to keep yourself warm. The air gets trapped in between the hair when it stands up. And if you think about it, when you have adrenaline running through your veins and you're scared or you've got the fight or flight thing going on, you can get goosebumps. Same thing with when you're cold. You get goosebumps leftover from when we have fur. I never get goosebumps. Oh, really? Well, I'm never cold. The only time I get them is when I like I get the creepy sugar. And that doesn't happen much either, just because the horror movie industry is really stinks. Me. No more goosebumps. I'm working my way through that list. That the grabster prepared for us. Oh, yeah. So nice of them. You've been on a horror kick? Yeah. Have you seen a pre October horror kick even? Yeah. Right when it started to get a little even, slightly cool, you got a blankie out. Yeah. And you and you. Me snuggle up and watch horror movies. Yeah. That's great. Emily won't watch them at all, which is very disappointing. Well, I mean, you may be in the room, but she's not paying that much attention. I'm like, Why are you watching this? But I saw a Ponny pool on The Grabsters recommendations as a very good creative movie. Have you seen it? No, I haven't seen that one. It's on Netflix. I don't think it's ever been off Netflix in the history of Netflix. I think it's always been there. See, the problem is because Emily doesn't watch them, and then I'm saying, well, I'd like to spend a couple of hours alone tonight with Ponte Pool, which happens enough with sports. So add horror movies in there, and then all of a sudden, what's the point of being married? I'm with you. I think that's good of you, Chuck. That's upstanding, choosing your wife over a horror movie. Yeah, I'll watch Nashville, actually, that's not true. You won't watch Nashville? No, I'll be in the room when it's on but again, I'm not watching. I've never seen it. Am I missing it? No. Even she's like, it's so terrible, but still watches it. It's one of those why do people do the things they do? You know? Speaking of tangents, like the one we're on now, I listened to our pez episode. It is tangent city. Yeah. I mean, even as far as our normal stuff goes, it is tangential. We could call our tangents vest digital material. Yeah. Serves a purpose, kind of, to some people like it. Some people hate it. Yeah, hate it. So we brought up the tailbone earlier. Is it coccyx? I thought it was coccyx. Coccyx. I'll go with that. Okay. That is not the same thing as when you were born with a tiny little tail bump. That can happen. But that's an atavism. Yeah. Not the same thing as the cossacks. Well, it's attached to the cossack. So the cossacks is itself a vestigial thing. Right? Yeah. We don't need that bone. And those bones are found in other animals that have tails and it's where the muscles connect to to control the tail and everything. Right? Yeah. So we don't need that. But then some people are even born with an actual tail. And then, like you said, that's an atavism, which is a relic that appears once in a while rather than in most people. Right. That's the only difference, isn't it? I think so. And I was going to say we should do an episode on that, but I look at our article and I don't know, there's not a lot to it. So there you go. We just did Addivism. I guess so. But with the castle's, some folks think that there is in fact a reason that it kind of the best I can see is that it acts like as the holder of things in that area, it kind of cinches everything up, like the anus and other organs in that area. Is that right? Yeah, that's the best they could come up with. Okay. But they've removed caustics from people before and the anus didn't prolapse or anything like that, from what I understand. Yet they're just taking time. That's a horror movie. Yeah. Waiting to happen. I have never seen, or at least I've never noticed Darwin's point on someone's ear. It's right here. Now I know what they are, but I've never noticed that anyone had one right now. Yeah, but that's not the ones I've seen online is a literal extra bump that looks like an elf. Mine is going downward. Yes. The ones I've seen on the outside online, I've never seen in real life, is what I'm saying. So it's called the Darwin's point. Right? Yeah. And they're just saying, like, it's leftover from when our ears used to be bigger and weird. Yeah, like when we had to listen out for stuff. Yeah, ears are weird, period, if you really look at them. Yeah. I think supposedly people who can wiggle their ears. That's a sign of less evolution. That's your forehead. My ears are wiggling too? No, just your forehead. Well, your forehead's wiggling too. I really can wiggle my ears. Really? Well, I must be tired because I can do them, like, one at a time and do The Star Spangled Banner to it. Can you raise both eyebrows individually? Oh, that's pretty good. I can also roll my tongue. Can you do this? Yeah, I can do the clover, too, but I can't no, I can't do the clover. I can't raise my left eyebrow by itself, which is weird. You can do your right now. You just look very suspicious of me. I don't believe you. But your eyebrows I wish you guys could all see this. Oh, yeah. It's scintillating. Also with the earth. There are muscles in the ear that we say we don't need anymore because we don't need to move them to locate things like a satellite dish. That's why not everybody can wiggle their ears. And people who can have an atavistic trait, which is that muscle group still left over. Yeah. And there's a lot of different muscle groups that pop up as far as the stigital organs go. There's one called the subclaviaus muscle, which is up here on your chest, around your upper arms and chest. And that's supposedly left over from when we could walk on all fours or mostly walked on all fours. Now, some people have it and some don't. Yes. Is it something you can see or does it give you the ability, like how muscle dudes bounce their pecs? I'm sure the ones with subclavio muscles are aces at that. Yeah. That's so gross. Yeah, it's to stop. There's a pulmonary and a plantaris muscle that we don't need anymore. So much so that if you are having some sort of muscle or tendon surgery, the doctor will go in and harvest those for use elsewhere in your body so you can move your forehead. Wow. Like Ruben Kink in The Partridge Family. Remember him? He could separate his forehead from his hair. Was it just a trick he did? Yeah, I don't remember that. It was his thing. The guy couldn't act. He wasn't an actor. He could just basically move his hair from where it was normally to like, halfway back his head on his head. With his own just muscle or with his hands? With his muscles. See, I worked a commercial job with Ponch from Chips once. Oh, yeah, Erica, right? Yeah. He did a trick where he did it with his hands, but it looked like it was a toupee. The way he could move it with his hands. It was really like, imagine if he could do that without his hands. Yeah, that's what Ruben King Kate could do. I got a great picture of him acting like he was arresting me. He had, like, put me up against the police car and had a hand behind my back. Wow. Yeah, he's a nice guy. He sounds like it. He still love being punched too, man, I got to tell you. Well, I mean, that was it for him. Yeah, but, like, the other guy, John was in his trailer the whole time for the most part. What were you doing? It was Chips had that reboot TV movie, like, I don't know, probably 15 or 16 years ago. I don't remember that. And they did a promo for the movie that I worked on in the art department. Nice. And John stayed in his trailer, and Ponch was all about the ladies in the neighborhood. He was, like, hanging out. Let's go. It's Eric Estrada. Yeah, he got a lot out of it. You could tell, which is good for him. All right, let's take a break. We'll talk about some more vista working this one. All right, we're back. What else you got? Oh, we can keep going. So I found a couple of articles. One was from IO nine. That was pretty helpful. Yeah, it's a great website. I found another one on Discover magazine. They had even more. Some people have neck ribs. Have you heard of this? What? Neck rib? Talk about a throat net. This is like a neck rib, basically. You've got your highest ribs up here, your clavicle. Not the Mic rib. No. I think we can all agree these are less delicious than the Mic rib. Okay, so feel right here. That's your clavicle, right? Yeah. That's your top rib. People have higher ribs. They go into the neck? Yeah, they go from your neck bone at an angle above that. Wow. And those are called neck ribs. And they think that that's leftover from reptilian ancestors. Are those the people that have really long necks, or does that not matter? I didn't notice that. Sinuses. Yeah, that's another one. It's like there's no reason for this. Yeah, well, they think there are reasons. They enhance our voices. They make our skull not so heavy. And they think that one theory is that they help with the mucus, help humidify the air we breathe in so it's not so dry. Right. However, a lot of other people say, I don't know about that stuff. We may not need sinuses at all. No. And they think that if you look around the animal kingdom, sinuses found in other animals are most useful in ones that have something called the Vumero nasal organ, which is like a pheromonesing organ. We have them, which is another vestigial thing. It's in our septums. It's on either side of our septum. Right. But it's not connected to our brain. So we can sense pheromones, but we can't actually sense them. Right. Because the Venero nasal organ that's a tough one to say. It is. It's not connected anymore. So how do we sense it? We don't remember that one thing. We talked about this before. There was, like that one TV show had people, like smell shirts of other people. Yeah, I remember. And ended up choosing mates based on it. And it turned out those people had the most varied immune systems yeah. From our own. So we would make more robust children. Right, exactly. The thing is, we don't have any way, as far as science knows, to actually sense pheromones. We have the means to do it, but we can't actually pull the trigger on it because that organ isn't connected to our brains anymore. But it's located around the sinuses. And then in other animals, the sinuses contain muscles for moving whiskers and a lot of olfactory receptors for sensing smells. Interesting. But in humans, they just get infected. They need to hook that thing back up. I was thinking if I were a mad scientist of, like, the human centipede ilk, that's probably what I try to do. Oh, you wouldn't just put someone's head in the person's butt in front of them over and over again? Yeah, I wouldn't. That seems like a waste of time. I would try to connect the veumero nasal organ to the brain. Yeah. Or maybe bring back all of the original purposes of this digital parts. Okay. That's pretty ambitious. So just one thing at a time. Yeah. All right. That's how the human system started too. Yeah. I would use anesthetic and I would make sure the pudding cups were top notch for recovery. What's the top notch pudding cup consist of? Just a good brand. Yes. You just don't want an off brand, you know what I mean? Sure. Like, if you haven't heard of it. Or there's a boy wearing overalls and no shoes on the label. Yes. Like Uncle Dance pudding Cups. Right. You don't want that pudding cup. What else do we have in here? Oh, yeah, here's one. What's it called? The third eyelid. Yeah. Of course, there's another name for it. Go ahead. Plica semilunaris. Yeah. I think that's perfect, actually. So, you know the little almond? Yeah. That's something else. It's the thing next to that right in your eye. We should say it's your third eyelid. Yeah. It's from reptiles and amphibians and birds and I think I've seen this in lizards and things when they have, like it's clear, like a membrane that washes over their eye and goes back, but it moves horizontally rather than vertically, like our eyelids. So this is a leftover trait from when we could do that because that was probably pretty neat to do. Yes. Oh, man. Can you imagine how free, if you could do that? So we've got the tissue, we just apparently don't have the muscles to move it any longer. Are you one of those kids that would turn their upper eyelids inside out? I never knew how they did it. I couldn't do it either. It was just freak show. Yeah. I always admired them deeply for it, but I couldn't do it. It was always just some. Creepy boy trying to get a girl's attention, usually. Yeah. Tap her on the shoulder. I don't think I ever saw a girl do it. Of course not. It's always a boy. Yeah, because girls are smarter. Yes. But yeah, you tap for others to turn around and scream and then everybody's laugh, and then we go have Uncle Dance putting cups. Because I went to public school, we got taken to task for me saying dumb guys in an email. I saw that. I was like, I'm just kind of kidding around. Even though I do think women are generally smarter and guys do a lot of dumb stuff that women don't do. Just relax. Yeah. Did someone really need to take up the mantle for men? I know. It's kind of like men have a pretty good here on Earth. Yeah. Agreed. I think you can get away with saying dumb guy here or there. Agreed. All right. Well, there's a couple of more body hair in general. I think we did a whole show in that, didn't we? Or did we? I don't remember. It seems like it because didn't we talk about, like, the water ape theory? I think so. Well, recap it. The water ape theory. I think there's this idea that humans actually lost their body here because we went in the water for a little while after we were evolving from apes, lost our hair there because we didn't need it, and then came out of the water. I'm just totally going from memory. Got you. So we won't hold you to that. Thanks. But essentially, aside from your eyebrows, which keeps sweat out of your eyes, which is pretty good function, and I guess hair on your head, which will keep your head warm, and the hair on your nose you use, too. It like traps nats and juju fruits and whatever is trying to get up there. I think generally they're referring to, like, leg hair and back hair and arm hair. There really is no use for that any longer. Yeah, but we still have it. Yeah. There's no use for back here, I can assure you. I agree, man. Yeah. Kind of stinks. But we still have it. It's evolving out, it seems like either that are a lot more dudes wax than I realized. Yeah, I haven't done that in a while. Have you done waxing before? Yeah. Emily, we get a little at home kit. She'll just clean up my neckline a little bit. Oh, nice. But I don't have a super hairy back. It's just sort of up top there. I've never tried waxing. You usually just, like, uses matches. What burns it? I mean, that would work, but it's stinky. Yeah. And that would stink, so well, you're like yeah, we have to do it outside. And then male nipples. I know. We did a show on this. Yeah. And it's really pretty simple. We have nipples because women have nipples. Not for the same function, but because we're made of the same stew, essentially. Right, exactly. Like, there's a single plan or blueprint or whatever for humans, and nipples emerge before sex differentiation takes place. So everybody has nipples. And I found from researching this, there's actually useless, tiny ovaries attached to men's prostates. Oh, really? Yes. And there's supposedly the beginnings of little vast deference nodules on women's. Ovaries. Totally useless. So sex differentiates. So we have ovaries. We have, like, ovary. Like ovaries. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. I had never knew that. That's crazy. It is true. Or ovaritas. Yeah, there you go. That's more appropriate, I think. Well, there are other animals, too. I mean, it's not just humans. Well, that's another thing. Like, an ostrich has wings, but they don't fly. Same with penguins. Yeah. Still have the wings. That's true. Vestigial. But this one's further credence to vestigio organs as evidence for evolution. Yeah, we did our podcast on cave dwellers, and some of those have non functioning eyes. Why are they still there at all? And seriously, go listen to that one. That was one of my favorites. It's tucked deep in the archives. It's called Biospeligy was the name for that one. Yeah, I think we did two. I think we did one on Cave Dweller, specifically, and then we did one on caves, maybe. I'll bet we did, because you went caving after we did one on caves, so I think we did two. Boy, it's really getting tough now to remember all these episodes. Yeah, and then there's another one, too. Whales and snakes actually have pelvis bones. Don't eat them because they don't have legs. Weird. But at some point, they may have before and creationists, thanks to a paper that came out. It was a scientific paper, but the guy doing interviews with me is like, yeah, we're having to totally rethink this. Like, maybe it's not vestigial. They found that it actually enhances and AIDS in sex, but that could be a secondary thing. Oh, interesting. Yeah. And get this, this one extra thing. I think it was on Fresh air. There was a woman who wrote a book about dolphins and dolphin research, and specifically this researcher who used to take a lot of acid with dolphins that he would also give acid to. What? And try to teach English language, too. He would give dolphins. LSD that's not nice. You have to hear this thing on Fresh Air. Yeah, it's mind blowing. But they believe that dolphins evolve from wolves. What? Yes. It's kind of like that water rate theory for humans that some wolves just started hanging out in the water and eventually evolved into dolphins. Wow. I definitely need to hear that. Yeah, that's pretty amazing. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's right. You're there. I blacked out while I was listening to it and form that false memory. But I'm pretty sure that was in that interview. Or you were on LSD. Somebody was on LSD, right? Yeah, maybe there is fresh air. Well, if you want to learn more about vestigio organs, type that word, those words into the search bar@housetofworks.com. You don't have anything else, do you? No. And since I said search bar, it's time for listener mail. No, sir. It is time for Facebook questions. So occasionally I will have gotten not a lot of great listener mails lately. So we will throw out ask you some questions on Facebook for the next couple of episodes. We're going to read some of these and answer, so pick at your own. Well, my friend, I'll go ahead and start with Matt Thurman says, would you ever consider live shows in the UK, Matt? Not only would we consider it, we actively want to, and we are hoping to at some point. So it's not the easiest thing in the world to pull off. We have to book a ship to sail over there. Right. Not a nice ship either. I know it'll take a while, but I mean, we have a pretty good idea that London might be a good town to hold a show in the UK. But if you have a recommendation of other places to do, too, let us know. We're actively looking. I think we could get support in London and Ireland and maybe even Scotland. So we would like to hear from people on that. Okay, I got another one. This one's from Avery Wcraps. What is a controversial topic you haven't covered yet that you're a little hesitant to do? Sure. Remember, it used to be Scientology for both of us, and now we're just like it's done. Yeah, for me, it's breastfeeding. I really want to do it. And we will eventually, but we have to really know what we're talking about because it is a foreign stuff. Yeah. Mine would be vaccines. Oh, man. I wouldn't want to touch that with a ten foot pole. Sure. All right. I got one from Matthew masuto. I keep meaning to write you guys and ask whatever happened to the young man who was helping come up with ideas for stuff you should know? I can't remember his name. That was Sam. And Sam is in college now. That's so nuts. And we haven't heard from Sam. So Sam, if you're listening, or Sam's mom if you're listening, we would love an update, but I even wrote letters of recommendation for Sam, and he's in school, so maybe he's all grown up now and doesn't need us anymore. No, he's fine. We'll see. Remember he was in our TV show as well? Yeah. He played a football player. He's the bad boy. That's right. That was great. So, yeah, if you've ever wondered what Sam looked like and you can figure out how to get your hands on the what was that one? Make it rain, I believe. Make It Rain episode. Check out the bat boy, and you will see Sam from the famous Summer of Sam. That was the same day the union shut us down and we had to leave work. That was crazy, man. What a day. Yeah. Here's one from Dave Malin. Chuck, this is a question for you. When is Chuck's Beard going to get its own podcast? No, come on. People like your beard. Yeah, hear let's the beard's voice at least. Okay. Is the beard regurgitating right now? No, that's the language of the beard. Well, get used to that. Dave Mallin. This is from Mike McKel. Duff Mckelldough, he says. How much do you guys personally remember from podcast you've done? Well, I think we kind of demonstrated today not a lot. Now, it's really weird because they say the brain has basically an infinite capacity to remember stuff, but old stuff getting crammed out as new stuff gets pushed in these days. And it hasn't always been that way. Yeah, it's been that way for like a year and a half, maybe two years. Yeah. I always like to say that I think I remember about as much as the average listener might like a few tidbits here and there from each topic. Yeah. But like, any time a hardcore listener comes up to us and wants to talk to us about something, or even an average listener comes up and just heard something from 2013, I'm like, sorry, I have to go back and research again, and then we'll hold the conversation. But that'd be like going up to Conan and being like, remember that joke you told on that monologue three years ago? It's just not fair. Yes, he'd have something funny and charming to say instead of go ahead, your next. This is a great one. I don't have an answer for it, but we're going to get to the bottom of this. This is from Brian Geppert. Why do coupons have a cash value listed at the bottom? Smile emoticon. Do they? Yeah, they're like worth 100th of a cent. The actual coupon itself is oh, wow. So you could trade that in, I guess, or stores can, you know what I mean? Interesting. That's probably it, but we'll look into that. You know what I heard recently that when you go to the grocery store and they'll have a drive to like, hey, would you like to donate a dollar or whatever? Not donate, supposedly. They just gather that up as a big massive tax write off. Is that true? Yeah. And I mean, the charity is going to ultimately get that, but the store is getting all the write off and your one dollars gets bundled in with not even necessarily that one drive. Right. They may bundle it in with other drives and who knows where that dollar is actually going. You should not that's pretty sneaky. You should not feel bad about saying not today when they ask you, but you should also take it as an impetus to go donate yourself or go do some volunteering or something like that as a reminder. Agreed. Rather than actually being pressured to giving a dollar for that grocery stores tax write off, which is disgusting. Yeah, to get your name on a balloon piece of paper that shaped like a hot air balloon. Yeah. All right, let's do like, two more. This is from Shane Elliott. When you guys going to do a blooper reel? Surely Jerry has stored some up in the archives. My friend Jerry, about once a season. I don't like telling people this. Why? Because they're going to hack in and find it. Yes, Jerry does a blue reel and only we can hear it. Yeah, and you will never, ever hear it. Although I think we could sell them for a dollar a piece and probably get rich easy. I got last one. This one's from Marco. Ripala. Which one of you is the Batman and which one is Robin and Marco? You've been looking at it all wrong. Yeah, you should have asked which one is the Joker and which one's the Penguin? Whoa. Great answer. And we're not going to answer. I love that. I got nothing more. If you want to get in touch with us, you can post questions any day or night on our Facebook page at facebook. Comstepyshow. You can tweet to us at syskast. You can email us directly at stuffpokast@houseworks.com. And as always, join us at our super awesome home on the web stuffynow.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit houseupworks.com. Hey, everybody. I don't know about you, but I am excited that it's summer school's out, the sun is shining, and best of all, there's downtime four days. That's where true crime podcasts on Amazon Music come in. There's a perfect activity for last minute road trips, long walks, or if you're brave enough, late nights. With so many killer shows like Morbid, my Favorite Murder, and Small Town Murder, you'll never be bored to death again. So download the free Amazon Music app to start listening to all your favorite true crime podcast. Plus, with Amazon Music, you can access new episodes early. Download the app today."
20ba9fa2-121b-11eb-85ed-278d98de27a0	Short Stuff: Is It Theater or Theatre?	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/short-stuff-is-it-theater-or-theatre	Have you ever noticed sometimes theaters – we mean, theatres – oh, forget it – places where you see movies or plays – are sometimes spelled two different ways? You can thank Noah Webster, author of the first American dictionary, for that.	Have you ever noticed sometimes theaters – we mean, theatres – oh, forget it – places where you see movies or plays – are sometimes spelled two different ways? You can thank Noah Webster, author of the first American dictionary, for that.	Wed, 06 Jan 2021 10:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2021, tm_mon=1, tm_mday=6, tm_hour=10, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=2, tm_yday=6, tm_isdst=0)	10805552	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh, this is Chuck, and this is Short Stuff, and the one where we get into explaining why some places you go to see movie or a play are spelled theater theatre. And others are spelled theater theater. And has nothing to do with one being futuristic or anything like that. And I love this because when we go on live tour chuck yeah. It's almost invariably theater, but every once in a while you run up against a place, a venue that spells it theater with the Er instead of re. And it's mind boggling. It's probably the worst thing that happens on tours, is having to deal with the differentiation between those two. Yeah, it's funny, I had a feeling you were going to mention that, because when we do our tour website there through our old pals and squarespace, I always have to go back and double check. And you're right, it usually is re, it seems like. And I like the way that looks on paper and on a billboard. Yeah, it looks very regal. It reminds you of Rich, like red, deep red velvet curtains and things like that. It's like an evening with Josh and Chuck. Not just Josh and Chuck. Yeah. Come see Josh and Chuck if you want. Who cares? That's the Er version. The re version is, like you said, an Evening with Josh and Chuck. That's right. So this all came about from one man, and his name was Noah Webster. And at first I was thinking, wait a minute, did Mel Gibson play him in a movie? But I looked it up and that was the guy who was writing the Oxford English Dictionary. Oh, really? Not Noah Webster. Who wrote Webster's Dictionary? What book was that? The movie. Was that the man with two faces? No, it was the professor and the madman, I think. I have never heard of that. Okay, so I've heard the story before that there was a dictionary out there. I thought it was the American English Dictionary, not the Oxford one. Like there was a guy who was in an asylum for decades and contributed significantly to that dictionary. Right. That's the one. Yeah. I haven't seen it, but I've heard good things. I didn't know Gibson was in it. Yeah, the famous antisemite. Right. So we're talking instead about the other dictionary, not the Oxford English Dictionary. The American English Dictionary created by Noah Webster, who turns out to have been a bit of a polymath back in the 18th century. Cool dude, from what I understand. Yeah, he seems like quite the Renaissance man. He was born in Connecticut in 1758, and after the Revolutionary War started in 1775, he was in college at Yale. War ends, he's in a militia, like a patriot militia graduates and then becomes a teacher and then an attorney. And then started to say, your Articles of Confederation are garbage in the way they're laid out and it would be much better if you did these things. Yes. I couldn't find what he was credited with, as far as that goes, although I did see some free speech stuff. He may have been a big advocate of free speech. Well, he was a member of an anti slavery society. He was a founder of the Connecticut Society for the Abolition of Slavery. Yeah. So that tracks. And he also helped found Amherst College in Massachusetts. But he's known as Dictionary Guy. Yeah. And he had this whole thing where he felt like America needed to come into its own intellectually or celebrate its culture more intellectually. And that a good way to do that was to kind of separate itself education wise from the old British system and the old British books and used brand new, beautiful American books. And there weren't any at the time. So he said about creating one himself, he found out, like, actually, little American school kids are learning from the old British books. And he was very upset about that. So he said, you know what? I'm going to create something different. Yeah. And predictionary, which we'll get to after the break. He wrote something called the American Spelling Book, which was also referred to as the Blue backed speller, I guess. Blue cover on the back, I can think of. Or it was referring to a character who had a blue back in the book. Maybe so, but it was a big success. It sold about 100 million copies by 1883, which is just astounding, and we know now, because we have a book that is not sold 100 million copies. No, Chuck, it was 100 million copies by 183. So in 100 years, that's really astounding. And it's still in print today. Yeah, but it helps standardize American English for teachers. And then he thought, this is great, but what I really want to do is write a dictionary. And we're going to take a little break and tell you about that result right after this. Noah Webster is riding high on his blue backed speller and the success of it, and he's done something he wanted to do, which was help de Britishize American school kids learning. That was a good first start. But then he said, you know, yes, I believe the children are future, teach them well and let them lead the way, etc. But I also think that we need to get to the adults as well. We need to just basically create a tone, a text that is the definitive guide to American English, because everybody's running around here saying things a little differently, but we're still spelling them the British way. And that has to end, say, I know a Webster. That's right. And it ended up being that 70,000 word dictionary, the American Dictionary. I'm sorry, and American Dictionary of the English Language is the full title. And he said, you know, the word color, it doesn't need that. You you don't hear it. It's useless. We're wasting ink. Drop it. Plow. You want to plow a field, just go out and plow w that field. Don't PL O-U-G-H that field, because that's a waste of time. Right. What you want to do is go hit it with the W, the PL o W. And I'm very grateful to him that we have words like draft spelled with an F rather than a Ugh or plow spelled the right way, and color without a U or honor without a U. It all makes sense. And I guess it had to do with, like I said, the way that people were pronouncing words in America. We were still saying the same word, but we were saying it slightly differently, so it made sense to kind of alter the spelling. Some words he went after, though, did not stick, though, did they, Chuck? Yeah, it looks so funny on paper. I wish they would have stuck. Because he proposed spelling tongue T-U-N-G which for some reason just looks infinitely dirtier. It looks sexual, for some reason, to me. And women. W-O-M-E-N he proposed should be spelled W-I-M-M-E-N. Women. Yeah. Which sounds derogatory, almost like Tom sounds dirty and women sounds like who cares? Kind of spelling. You know what I'm saying? So I'm glad that those two stayed the same. Yeah. And it just looks very strange. Of course, had they made those changes, we would look at tongue tongue and think, that looks very like draft, T-R-A-U-G-H-T. We would think that looks weird because it's just what you know, growing up. But theater is what we're here to talk about, and theater was one of those, I think, pre Webster, it was always R E. Is that right? Yes. There was no other way to spell theater except T-H-E-A-T-R-E. Until Webster came along and said nuts to that. Yes, swap them out. But this is an example of one that kind of half took. There is no correct way. You can use either one. There is a notion within the world of theater that if you're talking about the world of theater, you spell it with an R E. But you actually perform at a theater with an er. And I think I kind of knew that. But that's not even the hard and fast rule that makes sense to me. But I don't think, Chuck, I've ever encountered anybody who actually like any normal person just walking around that believe that, or that held that viewpoint. Have you? No, I think I've heard that. Like I said, theater with an Re might refer to the industry of putting on plays and shows, but I've never seen anyone write in the theater. We perform at a theater and then spell that two different ways. Yeah. I've never encountered it before, but it does make sense and apparently some people do kind of see the world like that. But for the rest of us, we're just going to stay muddled and confused till the end of time, swapping out re and er for theater. Because in the end, it doesn't really matter. Whoever you're talking to is going to know what you're talking about. And if you're a prescriptiveist no, a descriptiveist. That's language. That's what counts. That's right. And I think the end result is hopefully sometime next fall and winter, you might be able to spend an evening with Josh and Chuck at a theatre. Right. Or if you're just kind of feeling super American at a theater. Right. Okay, well, since we said theater two different ways, I think everybody, it's clear that this is the end of short stuff, and short Stuff says adios. Stuff you should know is the production of iHeartRadio's how stuff works. For more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows."
41921c98-53a3-11e8-bdec-2b8c968567c0	Is birth order important?	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/is-birth-order-important	There have been a lot of studies over the years regarding birth order. Some conclude that it's a big deal, while others more or less discount its importance. Learn all about it today.	There have been a lot of studies over the years regarding birth order. Some conclude that it's a big deal, while others more or less discount its importance. Learn all about it today.	Tue, 23 Apr 2019 13:35:58 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2019, tm_mon=4, tm_mday=23, tm_hour=13, tm_min=35, tm_sec=58, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=113, tm_isdst=0)	49273703	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Welcome to stuff. You should know a production of Iheartradios how stuff works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clarke. There's Charles Dubbeach Bryant. There's Jerry over there. And this is stuff you should know. What was your birth order? Oh, Jerry's a middle child. Two of two or two or more. So you're the baby. You don't know this? No. Did you? Sure. No, I've known Jerry for like 13 years. So have I. Well, not that long. Twelve years. So have I. No comment. Well, what am I? I don't know. That's right. I know I'm the baby. You know that. Yeah. I didn't ask what you were. I know you know what you are. What am I? This isn't quiz time. You're not going to just yeah. I wasn't calling you out. Oh, I was calling you out. You were? In a humorous way, and I called you out. It's hard not to look at this stuff through your own lens, though, of your own family, you know? Are you changing the subject? No, I'm getting on with it. Okay. Because as the youngest of three and all of us have three distinct personalities, it's hard not to kind of like, think about birth order. Right. And if that's a thing. Right. And it may be. And it may not be. Yeah. Depends on which scientist you're asking. I tend to think like there's just no way it doesn't have any effect. No, I think it definitely has an effect. But as we will see, it is one part of a huge pie that indicates what kind of person and personality you might have. Well, plus also it's devilishly tricky to analyze, to study because of how big that pie is. Yeah. There's so much going on with your personality that to just pinpoint one thing, even a big thing like where you're born in a family, it's just tough to pin down. You're the youngest, right? Yes, I am. I knew you were the youngest. I wear that on my sleeve. I feel like I kind of do too, I guess, in some ways. But I was reading this checklist for the youngest. Yeah. I'm like, yeah, I guess so. Let's do that. Should we go over that stuff first? Yeah, totally. Alright. So this is like the sort of macro view of how a lot of people think of birth order. Pop psychology. Yeah. So if you were born into a family, there's basically four ways that you can be born in some sort of order. You can be the first born, you can be a middle child or you can be the last born. And then if you're a real outlier okay, you're right. So there's five or triplet. Oh, God. Yeah. Get me started. Let's say a multi. Okay. A multi. Or you can be an only child, too. Sure. And all of them have distinct personalities, again, according to pop psychology, but also according to every person who's ever been born into a family, especially. Yeah. And so with the first born. The whole theory of basically birth order. Where you're born into the family unit that you're born into and what effect that has on your personality and how it develops. It all seems to come down to this idea that you are born into a family where there is a finite resource called parental attention. And then that is a pie that gets increasingly divided up into smaller and smaller pieces the more and more children that are born. Because your parents can't possibly give five kids the same amount of attention that they could give an only child. Yeah. It's just not possible. And so what dynamics are created in the personality of the kids born into that family, depending on how many others are born and depending on where they fall in that birth order. That's kind of the premise of the whole thing. And over time, people have said, well, this is what the first born is like, this is what the middle is like, this is what the baby's like. Yeah. And a lot of this, these are generalizations, but they are generalizations. Like you said, that kind of everyone who's ever been in a family can kind of say, yeah, that's kind of true. Right. When you have your first kid, this article references as that first sort of experiment. You don't know what you're doing yet. You're probably going all in, depending on how lazy you are, how motivated you are as a parent, with this being a super parent. And then if supposedly, as you have more children, it's not only is your attention divided, I think, but there's the notion that you also are like, you know what? I probably don't need to be as crazy with number two and number three. Leave them to their own devices as a third kid. I'm not going to get into too many depressing details of my family growing up, but by the time I was ten and eleven, my parents had other things going on, and I wasn't fair. Are other kids on the side? Not exactly. I wasn't feral by any means, but I did not have rules imposed on me like my brother and sister did not have. I was allowed to go to Panama City for spring break, and they weren't I was allowed to kind of do my own thing, and I was trustworthy, so that probably had a lot to do with it. If I would have been a real problem, they might have clamped down a little more, or maybe not, and they probably wouldn't have necessarily clamped down. Like, we need to give Chuck way more attention and guidance than we have been. They would have probably been like Crime and Punishment. They would have been like, we're sending Chuck to rehab, or whatever. You know what I mean? Let rehab, take care of a reform school or something like that. Right? Because once you get X number of kids in. You're just so tired. Yeah, so tired. And you're older too. Sure. Like when you're chasing a little kid around in your forties or fifties, s that's different than when you're chasing a little kid around in your mid twenty. S. I can't imagine a world of difference. Yeah. There's a lot of resources, not just parents attention, but also their time, intellectual attention that they'll give a kid, like hanging out, teaching the kid to read, that kind of stuff. And just attention in general. And also financial resources. The family resources in general are a pie that must be divided among all the financial, emotional, all that stuff. Instructive. So generally speaking, firstborns people say, tend to be very conscientious and structured and reliable and high achievers. Yeah. Because their parents are focusing like a laser on them. They know everything that kids got going on, maybe a little too much. And the kid is responding to this by basically becoming a perfectionist and really wanting to be around their parents, their parents, friends. More mature. Very much mature. Because all of the people or most of the people are hanging out with are adults. Yes. Okay, so that's a firstborn, typically. Right. Everybody knows it. Don't try to deny it. Middles in general are peoplepleasing, which is so my brother. That's weird to me because when I think of middle children, I think of Jam Brady. And Jam Brady was not a people pleaser. She was just like a lump with a cloud over her head. Poor Jan. But that's true. I would not characterize Jam Brady as a people pleaser. Would you? No. She was going to burn something down eventually if the Brady Bunch had stayed on the air long enough. Was also a blended family. So what was the it was Bobby and then was it Peter? Peter was her lateral, I guess you'd call it. Was he a people pleaser or just a Peter pleaser? Jan more than Jan. But blended families do confound things. We'll get into that. Yeah, for sure. But people pleasing, somewhat rebellious, which is not my brother at all. Large social circle, not really my brother. And a peacemaker. Totally my brother. He's the best. He's the best. And then the young ins like us. Most free spirited, fun loving, uncomplicated, manipulative. I've been called some of these things to varying degrees. Self centered, attention seeking and outgoing. Check and check. Combine you and I, and we're sort of like the proto youngest uncomplicated, though I'm like I don't get that. I'm exquisitely complicated on the surface. You wouldn't think it, but I'm pretty complicated. Sure. As we all know in this room. But that's the only one that I question. Yeah. All the rest of them are like, yes, that makes sense. It's like the Chinese zodiac. You look at that menu and you're like, oh, total dog. Yes. And mugabe pan sounds great right now. Only no siblings. You are what they call almost like a super firstborn. All of the traits of a firstborn on steroids. Right? Very much perfectionist, very much more mature for your age. Conscientious, diligent, prone to be leader, can leap over tall buildings. And then this is where it gets interesting. And this sort of starts to finally, everybody. This is where it starts to get interesting. Well, this is where it gets in a little bit, like how complicated it can get because there's so many factors at play. Like, what if you're in a blended family? Because that kind of throws it all out of whack. Yeah, dude, because you can if you're born a firstborn and your parents get divorced and you go with your mom who gets remarried, to a dude who has to a smashing cool architect, for sure, and he has a kid that's a little older than you. Greg. Greg's the first born. You're not the first born anymore. The best you can hope for is to form some sort of confederacy or alliance with Greg to rule the rest of the siblings. But you're not the head honcho anymore. You're not in charge. That's a big deal. I can't imagine many more traumatic experiences, especially when that follows closely on the heels of your parents'divorce or the death of your other parent. That's got to be one of the most traumatic things that kids can go through, is to lose their identified perch in the family order. Yeah. And we were talking about, like, the first born, like, the baby of the family, if all of a sudden there's a younger no good. No. I remember my parents, for some reason, talking about adopting a kid. I can't remember how old I was. I must have been about seven. And I remember breaking down and crying and just being like, you can't do this. You cannot bring in someone younger and cuter than me. Blended family, all of a sudden, you'll be younger or, God forbid, a baby. Just forget about it. Can't compete with that. You got to kill that baby. Well, that's what happened to when Brady Bunch started to lose ratings. Apparently your family was losing ratings, so they brought in cousin Oliver, a new baby. I don't think Bobby was very happy about that either. No, but just think about Jan. It all makes a little bit more sense. Like, she was like the middle child, and then they brought in three more, and she's like, I'm even more middle. Yeah, you're diluted. The middle child is diluted. And if you have multiple middle children, forget about it. That's right. However, here's the thing with blended families. They say by about the age of five that a lot of your personality is set. So if you're older than five and all of a sudden your family is blended, they say it may not make that much of a difference. No, that's where it's trouble. If you're younger than five and your personality is a little more plastic. If you were born a baby of the family and suddenly you're a firstborn or you're a middle kid, you'll adapt to that a lot better than you would if you're like, older and you're more solid in your birth order. Yeah, I didn't mean not trouble. What I meant was, like, if you're like twelve years old and the family blending happens, it's trouble, but it's not like your personality is like all of a sudden I'm the youngest, or you know what I mean, like you don't all of a sudden swap to a different birth order personality, I don't think. Right, but if you're younger and it happens, you do right under the age of five. Which goes to show that if this is a thing and we'll talk about whether it is or not soon yeah. It has nothing to do with biology. It has everything to do with nurture, not nature. Because a kid can adapt depending on when this happens, they can adapt to a change in birth order if they're young enough. That means it has nothing to do with biology. It's all the environment you're raised in, which is the most boneheadedly obvious thing on the planet. And then before you take a break, there are also gap children. Supposedly, if there's at least a five year gap between births, then it just sort of resets. That was like me and my older sister. She was 13 years older than me, right. She was just like this older, cool person, but not like an older sister. Not at all overbearing, really, for me, I guess, a little bit. Or like a second mom, kind of to an extent. Because that does happen, too, if there's a big gap or a big family. Like, I dated a girl in New Jersey that had those like six or seven of them, and by the time she came around, she was kind of fully being raised by her siblings. Right. So what happens when there's enough of a gap? A new family birth order forms. So like, if you have an oldest and then there's multiple years, like say ten years between your oldest and your middle, and then two years between your middle and your baby, the middle and the baby are going to form a firstborn and a last born type relationship. Yeah. The last born is always going to be the last born. Yes. Regardless of gap. But then twins, like you were saying, is one last confounding thing. Twins or triplets multiples, as you call them. Yeah, I think so. They form their own family unit within the family, too, with each other. And apparently, no matter where they're born, twins never act like middle kids. They always act like the firstborn or the baby, but to one another. Right. And I think they generally come together to kill the parents. Basically. They hold hands. It's like an elevator of blood washes around them and then finally with adoption, they say that depending on when your child is adopted, the same kind of scenario happens as in with gapped and blended families. Right. Whereas if the kids young enough, he or she will tailor their birth order to the family that they're adopted into. But if they're older, they'll be trouble. All right, that's a good overview, I think. I think it was a great overview. Chuck glowing from it. You do have that overview glow. We're going to take a break and we're going to talk about science right after this. All right, Chuck, as promised, we're going to talk about science because like I said, this is so boneheaded and obvious to every single person who's ever been born into a family. Everybody knows this stuff. But as far as science is concerned, this is not proven that birth order effects, as they're called, actually exist. That science is saying your role everybody, we can't actually prove that what everybody knows is actually true. Some studies show that, yes, there is such a thing as birth order effects. Other studies show that there is no birth order effect whatsoever. And then some studies suggest that if there are birth order effects, they're so small that they are basically a blip on your personality that all the other factors that form your personality, things like the socioeconomic status of the family you're born into, your racial background, your gender, all the other stuff, that is what really forms your personality, not the order you're born into your family. That's kind of science's position right now. Yeah, but what they all agree on is that it is therapy. Cash cow, right? Yes. It's a useful framework to approach psychotherapy from. They all want to talk about it at high hourly rates. See, to me, I'm like, this is true, this is exactly what forms your personality. But I get science's position. I respect it. So if we go back in time to the early 1009 hundreds, there was a man named Alfred Adler. He was a contemporary of Freud. And this is when all these dudes were getting together to talk about all this stuff and this burgeoning science, and they all thought they were so cool and important. He was one of the only ones among his peers, though, at the time that was talking about birth order that early. And he went on to form what we know as a Laryn psychology or individual psychology. And it's basically a therapy based on how you perceive your own level of power in your family, at your workplace, in the world at large in general, like your perceived power, place of position or status, right? Yeah. And if he believed in birth order having a significant influence on your personality, then that in turn would influence how powerful you may or may not feel. Yeah, because the Adler, how you perceive your own power, not necessarily how powerful you are, but your own perception of power was the driving force of how you interacted with the world. Your personality birth order would make total sense because birth order, as everybody knows, is nothing but positions of superiority or inferiority. And it's as simple as that because when you're born and you're a little kid and you're born into a family with an older sibling, they are a couple of steps ahead of you because they've already been through a bunch of stuff. So they're inherently superior to you. They can also beat you up on a very basic level. They can twist your arm behind your back until it feels like it's going to break. And matter how many times you say uncle, uncle, uncle, they won't stop until they're satisfied or protect you like my big brother did. That's great. From his friends that were jerks to me, right. He wouldn't stand for it. No, we went at it too. We were brothers. But he never picked on me. No. You know why? Because you're Chuck and he's Scott. In the 80s is when there were always studies starting since Adler and Freudstein, but in the 1980s is when it really blew up thanks to the Big Five and cocaine, the Big Five personality trait view of things. And that's when things in the 80s, that's when everybody was just like eating this stuff up. Yeah, because the Big Five Personality Inventory is we've talked about it before, but basically it is a self reported measure that is actually valid. It actually works. Like you can say this person is highly neurotic or this person is extroverted or well, three others that I can't bring to mind right now. But these things are also kind of broken into subcategories. Like these are big umbrella terms. They have more specific subcategories, but it's actually like valid. Like somebody who fills the survey out, it's going to be an accurate assessment of their personality. So if you have somebody's personality that's huge, right. You can say, all right, if this person's neurotic, they're highly neurotic. Let's see what birth order they are. They're a middle child. Let's compare them to other middle children who filled out this personality survey, scored high on neuroses, and all of a sudden we can show if you're a middle child, you are far likelier to be highly neurotic under the Big Five Personality Inventory than the firstborn is right. Boom, boom. It just proved that birth order effects exist. Or did you? Yes, we can put people further into a box and label them. Sure. Or did you? Because that is sort of the paradox that we arrive at, which is you pointed to it a little bit earlier. There are so many influences that go into what makes you you that it's hard to look at birth order as a mere small part of that. Yes, you can account for some of these and studying it. There's a lot of studies over the years and they do their best, but you can't account for all of them. Well, okay, so we'll go back to that example. So you've just gone to your peers and said, look, I have just proven that middle children are highly neurotic compared to other children in birth orders, right? Yeah. Then you're shaking your own fists around your shoulders and triumphs and they say, well, wait a minute, wait a minute. Did you control for socioeconomic background? And you go, no, I didn't. Well, wait, did you control for race? No. Did you control for gender? No. And so all of a sudden you realize there are all these different independent variables out tons in this case would be confounding variables. That might actually be the thing influencing it. It might be the fact that they are women born into families of a low socioeconomic state that is driving neuroses. Right? That's actually the thing that is driving it rather than birth order. It has nothing to do with being a middle child. It's just a fluke, a coincidence. And like you said, there's so many confounding variables and so many things that make our personalities who we are that some people who are like birth order effects do not exist. Basically say that any birth order study that shows that they do exist has some confounding variable. That's the actual hidden thing that's driving it that you can't possibly control for everything to make a perfectly designed experiment for birth order. Yeah. Like when you start to think about like if you were just to sit there and sort of jot down things as non scientists, just regular schmoes like us, right, and just jot down a list of what other factors might be at play, we could probably come up with a list of 100 things between us. Let's start now. But if I was studying the stuff and I started to make that list, I would just walk away and go into another line of study. Sure. I would be like, dude, were your parents married? Were they divorced? When did they get divorced? Did you like hot dogs? Did you live with mom or dad? How far apart did they live? What could do? Were you suburban? Were you urban? Yeah. Did you live in an exorb? Did you go up in the woods? Did you start work at twelve? Were you like old timing? I started working at twelve. I guess I did, too. I did paper route. Yeah, I was a bus boy. Oh, nice. Oh wait, was that where the guy put his foot into the yes. What a criminal. I told you, that's a Title Max now. That restaurant I drove by not too long ago? Yeah, K. Taste barbecue. Title max, now. They're putting their foot on titles just stomping on them. Yeah. They got your money, your money, your real money. They're never going to sponsor us. Now, another few things that can confound these studies are things, and Ed helped us put this research together things like demographic shifts. So he gave a great example of like the baby boom. If there's a big population bulge, that also coincides with a lot of other stuff. And the example he used was prevalence of cigarette smoking. There may be a false correlation there between being a first born and smoking. Whereas if you were second born twelve years later, August, that would fall outside that range though of gap child. Maybe, but that's even more confounding. The point is still valid. Sure that there's just way more firstborns who smoke than second borns, but that's because smoking was more prevalent when there were a bunch of kids born who were all of the same cohort in all firstborns. Right. That's just one of the ways this thing can be confounded. Yeah, this one really speaks to me. Which is labeled as growth. When a birth order effect does appear, it is strongest when the subject is with their siblings. Yeah, when you're a family reunion, it falls back into it is so funny how that happens. I see myself do it. Good example. I turned 48 a couple of weeks ago. My family, my sister and her husband happened to be in town. Didn't come for that, but we were texting and I was like, hey, this is great. Let's all go out to dinner. She's like, oh, I just figured you wouldn't want to spend your birthday with your friend. You'd want to spend your birthday with your friends and not your family. And I saw Michelle when she got in town and she said the same thing in person. I was like, Dude, I'm 48. Yeah, I'm not 22 year old Chuck some burnout like I used to be, and she just sort of laughed. But that's a perfect example of how, like, no matter what happens in my life, I will always be the baby and she will probably feel like she has to look out for me, which is a nice feeling. It is. I see Emily fall into patterns with her family. What is she? Well, she's an interesting case because she was an only and then has a half brother and a half sister. Okay. Yeah. Her dad went and had a son with another woman and then her mom got married to her father in law Steve, who already had a daughter. So it's sort of a weird mix. But I just mean in general, not even with siblings, just in how their family dynamic. Is she's a different person when we go over there? Yeah, I think all of us, I think everybody is around their family. So strange. Yeah. So this is when it sort of started me down the path of like, what is personality? Is a personality trait? Is it repeated behaviors? Is it a set of behaviors? Is that personality? Are you asking me? Yeah. I mean, I don't even know what is personality? We should do a show on that. Oh, we totally should. But from what I understand, just kind of briefly put it, personality is the kind of predictable way that you'll react to the world. Right. Is it easy for somebody to press your buttons? Are you laid back? However, if somebody were presented with that this is going terribly. If somebody were presented with an event in life okay. You could say Josh should probably respond to, like, that. Yeah, that's a personality. Right. But is that something inherent, or is it birth order? No. Is it just a collection of learned behavior? I think it's a collection of learned and reinforced behaviors, too. If you're told you're the baby of the family all the time, you're going to act like the baby of the family. You're going to act self centered, you're going to act manipulative. It's reinforced. If you're told, you can do anything. You can go out and do anything. You can literally walk through walls because someone told you to, they reinforce that behavior. But I think that's a personality. Is this just me talking? I also believe in birth order effects, by the way, but I think that is learned and reinforced, which means it can be unlearned. You can learn to be different. Yeah. At that same birthday dinner, I picked up the check for everyone. Oh, nice. And there was a bit of not an argument, bloody struggle. My mom and I were kind of off to the side with the people who worked there doing the credit card battle, and she wasn't super happy, and I should have just let her pay, but it's part of that thing, like, I'm the baby of the family, and I kind of just finally told her, listen, mom, it's my turn to pay. Nice. I'm not the baby anymore. Like, quit writing me a check for $100 on my birthday. Do you catch this? Yeah. I mean, I generally just put it in my kids bank account. That's a good thing to do. Yeah. We don't catch the ones because I also don't want to take away the joy that she gets from writing me that $100 check. That's not cool. No, I don't need that from her. But that's what brings her joy. Yes. Giving you money, it's complicated. So let me teach you a little trick, okay? If you don't want to get into that tussle, if you just wanted to be done, sorry, it's too late. When you order, when you hand the menu back to the server, just be holding your credit card with your thumb and give them a look. It's universal, dude. They all know, and they'll take it and be like and you got to first. Nobody else does that. They always wait, and they pretend to go to the bathroom, like, after everybody's done. It's so obvious. You got to start before the food even comes, before the drinks even come. You know what I did? What? When we got to the restaurant, the very. First thing I did was go up to the manager while everyone was being seated, said, listen, dude, my mom is going to try and pay, or one of these other jumps in my family is going to try and pay. Like, I don't want any of them paying. It's like twelve people. I picked the place. I picked a nicer place. I don't want to do that. And I was like, so just, here's my credit card. Please make sure that the server there's no battle. They didn't follow your order? No, because my mom, she tried to jump me later on the side and didn't realize I had already jumped her. So it should have been done. I know, but then we went over there. He was like, Listen, man, your mom is over here now. Like, she's the mom. We generally side with the parents on this stuff. What place was this? It was just a restaurant. I demand to know. My move should have just trumped all moves. No, I agree. And that's what I basically said. And I was like, Listen, man. I was like, there are factors at play here that I don't want to talk about. I was like, Just please and my mom got a little mad. I blame this manager. I think you should expose them. Well, I'm glad it all worked out in the end. Oh, man. Should we take a break? That's how we were right now. No. All right, we'll be back right after this. All right, we're back. Chuck. Yes. And like we said, we showed science is kind of like we're not quite sure about the birth order effect. That hasn't kept, like, a whole cottage field of psychology from continuing since the 80s, basically non stop. If you go look up birth order effects, it's very rare. You're going to run into anything that says, this is all BS. Most of it's like, yeah, this is true. Everybody knows it. There have been some prominent people in favor of, like, let's say yes, there is such thing as birth defects. And there was one guy in particular who made a big splash in 10 00 19 96 with a book called Born to Rebel. Yeah, soloay. Yeah, Frank Soloay. Frank J. Soloway, if you want to be fancy about it. And he got a MacArthur genius grant in 1984 to kind of study this and write about it. And he did. He wrote a book called Born to Rebel. It was about birth order. And the whole premise of the book was he looked at scientific revolutions throughout the ages. It's pretty interesting. Identified which scientists were on which side of it, either in support of this revolutionary thinking or opposed to it, meaning that they were in favor of keeping the status quo and then determined what birth order they had. And he found after the study, which is really a big study, a lot of legwork and a lot of research, he determined that first borns are much more likely to support the status quo, whereas second borns or later born, as he calls them, are much more likely to support revolutionary thinking. Yeah. And just one example as far as he used Darwinism, he said later borns between 1859 and 1875 were 4.6 times more likely than firstborns to support Darwinism. That's one of many examples, I think. There were 121 historical events with 6500 individuals either supporting or opposing them. So it was a big work for sure. Yeah. He put some reasoning behind it, too. He was like, if you're later born, you might have a hard time competing with your older. You might have a tighter bond with the parents, maybe. And so that sort of symbolically forces you as to be almost an outsider within your own family. So you may be more prone to join up with an outsider opinion right. To go look outside of the family unit and all of the values and the ideas that it holds to make your own mark in order to get attention or support or whatever from your parents. Whereas if you're a firstborn, you just got the easiest thing to do is just fall in line with your parents and hence support the status quo. It makes sense. But Born to Rebel was torn apart by some scientists. Like, this is just pure pop psychology tripe. I think that's an unfair characterization of it. Like, the guy worked for basically 20 something years on this stuff, and it was a very robust study. One of the pitfalls that he seemed to have run into, though, was he was analyzing historical figures, which is really sticky stuff. You can't analyze people even from afar, even if they're contemporary, let alone they've been dead for a couple of hundred years. So to base it on that is kind of difficult and tricky. But I just want to say he worked really hard on it. Another part plucked from his research I thought was pretty interesting was the idea that part of this less rebellious nature of a firstborn might be due to the long standing but now sort of antiquated practice of primogeniture, which is the first born gets the inheritance. So they're more likely, just through thousands of years of this, more inclined to not ruffle the feathers of the parents. Right. And then the laterborns who are like, I've got basically zero chance of inheriting the family titles in a state. I'll just go do my own thing. I don't have to fall in line. That makes sense as well. And the other interesting thing with that is another factor was the removal of a child from a family. He found that a laterborn who was removed from the family and reared by a relative will end up behaving like a typical firstborn. Right. And again, I'm assuming if that's under the age of, like, five. So I'm wondering if that just is supported by other research or if all of the parenting magazine articles that mention that the personality is tailored is really just citing that work. Because that's one of the big problems with pop psychology in general is it's self reinforcing. One person says one thing and it gets picked up by a bunch of people and they're all pointing to the same thing. But since so many of them are pointing, there's so many of them out there doing the pointing. It seems like it's a very robust and widespread body of work when really it was just one study that said one thing that everybody's citing. Well, yeah, like in his case, he likes to cite this Norwegian study. It found a difference of 2.3 IQ points between first and second born children. Sample size of 241,000 subjects. That's big. It is big. But then it sort of brings up a good point, like, okay, maybe, but is the 2.3 first of all, IQ tests are problematic. They're bumped for a lot of reasons. They're bunk, possibly bunk. But even if they're not, is a 2.3 IQ point difference even meaningful enough to be like, well, look, two points. So no, it's not meaningful in that. That's not going to lead to any closed doors or open doors or anything. It's just such a narrow difference. But if that's like an average and it is found across firstborns and later borns in a very large population like that, it does make you wonder, like, what would that come from? It does raise more questions, you know what I mean? So, yeah, it's an insignificant difference as far as, like, actual intelligence goes, but it does suggest that there's something weird going on there that does have to do with birth order. Well, I guess that brings us to this really interesting thing that I had never heard of before. Oh yeah? Had you heard of this fraternal birth order effect? Which is basically the idea and a lot of studies have backed this up. Meta analysis of tons of studies have backed this up. The idea is that if you have multiple boys in your family, each successive boy that's born, and this is if it's just boys, has a higher chance of being gay. Right. When I first saw that, I was like, that can't be real. And then I did a lot more poking around and I was like, wow, it is real. The statistics sort of bear it out. Yeah. If there's a big disagreement about whether actually just regular birth order effects exist, this one is much more supported by the data, the fraternal birth order effect, and so much so that there is a sexologist, which if that were my field of study, I'd be like, call me psychologist Josh, please. I can't find his name as Ray something. He said, and I'm not sure what he was basing this on, but he said that there is an increase of 33% in likelihood that you will be gay. With each additional older brother you have now. So that means if you are born into a family and you're the youngest of four brothers I did this math. What does that mean? Because I know these people have 0% chance, I guess, that you are going to be hetero, you are 100% chance going to be gay. Right. Well, how many? It could be 160% chance. Right. It just keeps going. Right. I think that can't be right. Eventually you become so gay you pop out the other side and you're straight because you have like ten brothers. Well, I did see that meta analysis of multiple studies indicated that between 15 and 29% of gay males owe their sexual orientation to this effect, supposedly. Okay. And we should say there are some studies that have not found this. There was a big one that had a survey of British young men that surveyed like 11,000 of them or whatever and did not find this. But so many studies have found it that science is like, this actually might be a thing and we're not quite sure what it is. And at first they explained it that the more boys there are, the less social pressure there are for you to be like, hetero and responsible for carrying on the family line. Right. Like after two, three brothers who are going to carry on the family line, go crazy, go do what you want. And that was the idea behind why it became likelier that you would be gay if you had more older brothers. There's a couple of things with that kind of suggests that being gay or not is a choice or being straight or not as a choice rather than something biological. Right. Whatever. That has kind of gone out the window with another really surprising finding that has to do with handedness. That really undermines that whole idea. Yeah. So this is so just mind blowing and interesting. So the increase in probability of a boy becoming gay is only if that boy is right handed? Right handed, yes. So if you're left handed among left handed men, there was no statistical difference in the incidence of homosexuality, even if you've got 1000 brothers. And the weird thing about that is that they found if you are taking birth order out of the equation, if you are left handed, there is a slightly higher incidence of being gay. Just period. Yes. For being left handed. And that's with men and women, apparently. So the idea that not only does it not make you more likely to be gay as far as fraternal birth order is concerned, it actually negates the effects of fraternal birth order. It negates. It shows that social pressure from brothers doesn't have anything to do with it. Right. Because a right handed or left handed kid is not going to be under any more or less social pressure from older brothers to be straight. Right. That makes no sense whatsoever. And that would also suggest, as it's handedness, that it has something to do with genetics, too. If you're ambidextrous, are you bisexual? I guess so. Where's that study that makes sense? So I did a little more digging in this, but I don't understand it at all. But more recently, as in just a couple of years ago, they think they found an actual physiological, biological explanation for that. Did you understand that? I don't know if they found it or if somebody made it up. And everybody's like, for now. I read a bunch of papers that said they think this may be it. Okay. But I didn't get it. So what they think is that when a mom carries a boy, her body has a reaction to the male proteins. The stuff that makes him a male creates an allergic reaction of sorts in the mom, and the mom produces antibodies. The first time the mom's body totally caught off guard has basically no effects whatsoever on the boys development as a boy. As more and more boys are born and gestate in that same poor mom, the antibodies get better and better at recognizing these proteins and can actually get to the point where they affect the expression of these proteins. And so what makes the boy straight from the basis of these proteins is actually affected and they develop differently starting in the womb because the mom has developed antibodies to basically maleness, which is the most mind boggling amazing idea I've ever heard. That summary was so much better than the scientific paper summaries that I read today. Thank you, Chuck. Good job. Thank you. You should do that. Thank you. I do for a living. I just did. It's a good point. I thought this was interesting, too. We've kind of gone over most of these birth order theories, I think, in general. But this one I don't think we super touched on. And I think it's really interesting, the Confluence theory. So this is sort of like resource dilution of parents that we were talking about. Like, only so much emotional support or financial support to go around. But this takes it down to the sibling level. And it's sort of basically like if you were first born, you are then have a degraded emotional environment and intellectual environment once you get younger. Yeah. So it's like playing tennis against better or worse competition. If you're the better tennis player, you're not going to play as good against a lesser tennis player. And they're saying that kind of happens with firstborns because they have to spend time with this dumb kid, this dumb baby. But the dump baby gets a leg up. Exactly. That's when you play tennis against someone better than you. Right. Eventually, that's called the tutor effect. They surpass that first born, the student becomes the master. That's right, exactly. And your skin turns to alabaster. Really? Interesting. Well, the police. Okay, sure. I thought you were like Dream of the blue Turtle Sting? No, I'm more of a nothing like the sun. Yes. Synchronicity. That's good, too. I'm still mad at them for that reunion tour. Oh, yeah. They really phoned it in. You said they just phoned it in. Hey. So I just thought of the police and Stewart Copeland, which made me think of less. Claypool. Remember he was in that band with Less Claypool and Trey? Anastasio yeah. It's called Kill Me. No, it's three talented individuals. But then they made me think of Les Claypool, who was in a documentary I just saw on the Residence. Have you seen it? No. The residents were the mystery band, right? That were the big ping pong heads. Eyeballs. Eyeballs. Right. Still are a mystery band. Still going. Really? Yeah, they're good, but it's good. It's an intellectual kind of, like, examination of their history and everything, but it's really interesting. But less Claypool's in it. Do you think when Les Claypool fish guy what's his name? Tray. Anastasia Tray. Anastasio and Stewart Copeland. And Stewart Copeland. You think when they got together to form that band, all they did was just sort of work out whose solo is next? Probably. I want to do the bass solo first, and then we can go right into the guitar solo, and then the drum solo, and then the song is over. Hopefully the birth order of the three worked out so that they were like, yes. This all makes sense to me. I mean, there's nothing better than old videos of Stuart Copeland pitching Fitz. Oh, did he? I always heard it was Sting. That was the jerk to Stewart Copeland. Was Stuart Copeland, the jerk. Well, Stewart Copeland was a hothead, and stealing could poke his buttons. Yeah, it's pretty fun. Copeland. No, don't feel bad for Stewart Copeland, man. He might be I think he might be the best drummer ever lived. Everybody says Neil Pert. I don't know, man. Stuart Copeland was pretty good. Oh, yeah. And, like, crazy doing his own thing. And he's from Macon. What? Yeah. Macon, Georgia. Macon, Georgia. Wow. I didn't know that. This concludes this episode of stuff you should know if you want to know more about birth order, go talk to your family. We don't care. That's time for listener mail. Did you watch the Motley Crew movie yet? On Netflix? No. I didn't know it was out. And it's out. Okay. Is it good? No, but based on that book history, not good, but it's great. You know what I mean? Yeah, it's based on the book. Okay. But it feels like one of those VH one. Are you literally making a note? It's sort of like one of those VH one music movies. Okay. Like the Jacksons one. It's good. Okay. I'll check it out. All right. Who plays Vince Neil? You know what? Not the only thing. There's a lot of distracting parts, but the guy who plays Vince Neal in his hair looks a lot like Garth. It looks like Dana Carvey and Garth, so it's kind of hard to fully go there. The guy who played Tommy Lee is pretty good. Was it Christian Navarro? No. Did he want he can't play Tommy Lee. He could tommy Lee's like six five. That kid can play anybody. Well, no, I agree. All right, it's time for listener mail. I said, Chuck, the bar is more of Mcmars guy. Okay. All right, here we go. Is that Dawkins? No, mick Mars is smartly crew. Who is that? He's a guitar player. Oh, the old creep. Yeah, sure, I know who you are. But I guess I never knew his name by creep. He was a creep. He was creepy. Sure. That's what I mean. Bill is all right, here we go. This is from Sam. I'm just going to call this heartfelt. It's always nice to hear this. Hey, guys, probably could have seen this a million times, but tonight I really felt the need to. You were with me when I transitioned from high school to college. You were there the night my dad died two years ago. And now you're here as I'm in the process of dealing with my girlfriend dumping me after three years. You're always there. Guys, I'm sure you hear this all the time, but I want to tell you that some tough days on tough days, you really help keep me same, plain and simple. Help keep me sane and simple. Not that we keep him plain and simple. I read that wrong. That's like eight shoots and leaves. That's right. I have depression and anxiety, and the podcast is a huge help on nights like this when nothing seems to help or is comforting, I can tell if things get really bad if even the podcast doesn't help. You guys have also been like role models for me. This is all just to say thank you so much, guys. Who knows how much darker some spots in my life have been without you? Could say much more. But I think I got the message across. That is from Sam, and he says, PS. I am a Hehem. And I spanked this email on the bottom. Oh, good. That's how we got here. That's right. Nice work. If you want to get in touch with us like Sam did, thank you very much, Sam. By the way, that was very sweet of you to tell us all that. Hope you're pulling through. Yeah, hang in there, man. You can get in touch with us by going to Stuff youhano.com and clicking on our social links. And you can also send us an email like Sam did. Don't forget to spank it on the bottom. To Stuffpodcast@iheartradio.com. Stuff you should know is production of iheartradios how Stuff Works. For more podcasts, my heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio app apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite show. Hey, it's summer, everybody, which means schools out, the sun's shining, the daylight is longer. And best of all, there's plenty of time to get lost in a good, thrilling story. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music, My Favorite Murder from Exactly Right media, My Favorite Murder has something for everyone. Hosted by Karen Kilgueref and Georgia Hardstark, this true crime comedy podcast will share stories that will have you wanting more before you know it. Listen to new episodes of my favorite Murder. One week early on Amazon music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen today."
874aafde-3b0e-11eb-9699-8fb39d94f0a6	Palm Trees: Technically, Giant Plants	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/palm-trees-technically-giant-plants	Palm trees. You see them all over the world and for good reason. There are more than 2,500 varieties. Learn all about these giant plants today.	Palm trees. You see them all over the world and for good reason. There are more than 2,500 varieties. Learn all about these giant plants today.	Tue, 14 Dec 2021 10:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2021, tm_mon=12, tm_mday=14, tm_hour=10, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=348, tm_isdst=0)	50260098	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Hello, everybody. It's your old pals Josh and Chuck. And you will have the chance to see us live in person for the first time in two years. Friday, January 21, in San Francisco. Right, Chuck? That's right. We're returning to the stage at Sketchfest Th. We're very excited about it. We can't wait to see everyone. It is a vax only show. Bring your vax card. It is a mask only show. Bring that mask. Can't wait to see a third of your faces. That's right. You can get tickets@sfsketchfest.com. And again. Friday, January, sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco, California. We will see you there. Welcome to stuff you should know a production of iHeartRadio. Hi, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck. Chuck Chucklek Bryant. This is going to be a good one. I can tell by your nickname, Chuck. And this is stuff you should know. The podcast. The podcast. Nice. Was that off the cuff or do you have it written on your notes? It was off the cuff. Wow. That's probably about as funny as this one's going to get. There's not a lot of room for jokes in here. But, Chuck, this is the topic that I didn't know I wanted to know more about. Oh, really? I had no idea. When you threw out palm trees, palms, I genuinely was puzzled. I'm like, I have to know what triggered that, because it's not something that you're walking around. I live around palm trees all the time. They're all over the place. And I've never stopped and been like, we should do an episode on palm trees. So what caused that? I thought I told you. No, no, and this is very true, is I went to Los Angeles to go to a sales dinner, as you know. Right. And they were bringing a bunch of new salespeople on board at Iheart, and they had a dinner because they had not met in person. And they said, hey, let's get Chuck out here because we know Josh didn't want to go. Somebody said. What about Josh? They're like, no, just Chuck. Believe me. No, I think they just didn't bother because you'd have been like, are you serious? Just to come say hi and stuff. And sales people were picking my brain and being inquisitive and saying, how do you get your topics? How do you get your topics? And I literally said, you just look at the world around you and they come to you. And I looked outside in Santa Monica and I said, like palm trees. That could be an episode. And they said, make it an episode. That is a great ad sales impression, by the way. No, none of them talk like that. In fact, it's quite opposite. Sales people are very smooth. Oh, I'm guessing so. I mean, they sell ads, for Pete's sake. Yeah. So they just said, wow, really? And I said, yeah. And in fact, I will do it and I will dedicate this episode to ad sales. That's awesome. This is the episode that everybody wants to hear, the episode on palm trees dedicated to ad sales. That's right. Well, no, they do a great job and they keep the show nice and free for everybody. Oh, that's right, man. That is right. So hats off to the ad sales people. This one's for you guys. But that is how it came about. It's just sort of an example of you just sort of look around sometimes. And I lived in La for quite a few years, as you know, and I loved palm trees. I have a palm tree in my backyard. And I was like, wait a minute, there's a lot of different kinds and I wish I knew more about them. And now I have a very unfun podcast episode to do. I don't know, it's fun in that. It's super sciencey and there's a lot to it. There's a lot of stuff that most people don't know and we're going to impart it to them in an approachable manner. Okay. Yeah. It wasn't as exciting as I thought afterward. I was kind of like, okay, well, what about poor Dave Rubs, who helped us out with this one? I think Dave enjoys this stuff. Okay, I hope so. We're talking palm trees, Charles. And did you know this? Let's start with this. There are more than 2500 different species of palm trees. Did you know that when you were wandering around La. No, I knew there were quite a few, but I thought dozens. Okay, sit there. Please continue to sit. Did you know that palm trees are in no way, shape or form? Actually, I should take that back. They are not actually trees as far as botanists are concerned. I definitely did not know that. Very nice. And then lastly, Chuck. Well, that's it, really. Those are the two big crazy facts. Palm trees are not trees. And that's a big one because if you look at a palm tree, you say, no, it's a tree. It's got bark, it's very tall, has leaves that kind of branch out from it. It's a tree. Don't be ridiculous. And again, to a botanist, it's not a tree. And we're going to get very, very detailed into why it's not actually a tree. But it helps to understand this. If you just step back and look at a palm tree, even the tallest, biggest palm trees, those ones along Hollywood Boulevard and that Morris video, those are giant plants. And those aren't trunks, those are stems. Yeah, that is pretty cool. And a botanist will tell you that someone else not as hung up on the botany might say, well, you know, what they function is trees, though. Smarty. So take that fact and stick it where the sun don't shine. And then that's kind of the end of that conversation because they just got hostile. Well, no, somebody comes in and says peas. Peas, children. Let's put it like this. It's a little of both palms are upright, tree form plants, and everyone says, thank you. Happy International Tolerance Day, everybody. That's right. But palms are closer, categorically speaking to grasses and grains like something like corn than it is that's mighty oak. So, again, it's just a tall, giant plant. Not a tree, a plant. And in fact, giant is a really good way to put it, because a lot of the growth patterns that palms undertake are a form of gigantism. They're like plants on steroids, basically. So there you go. That's some good groundwork for the whole thing, if you ask me. I think so. Maybe we could start at angio sperms. There are about 300,000 of those bad boys, and these are flowering plants. And I think a lot of the stuff people, it may ring a bell to, like, high school biology, because when I was going through it, I was like, wait a minute, I learned about this many years ago, and it's all kind of coming back to me. But angiosperms are those flowering plants that have the seeds encased in a fruit. Right. And it's the largest group in the plant kingdom, and within that you've got mono COTS and die cuts. And palms are monocots. And that's important because you can't talk about palm trees without talking about the specificity of, like, how they grow and how they operate. Yeah, because they're in those details, lies, why they're not trees, why they're something else, while they're basically gigantic plants. So you said palm trees are monocots. Diecots are what we're used to when we look at a tree. Things like elm trees, beach maple trees, all of those are die cuts. Right. When you're looking at, like, a pine tree or an evergreen, usually that's a gymnasperm. That's like a completely different kind of plant altogether. It doesn't have its seeds in a fruit, it bears its seeds on, like, the outside of, like, a cone or something totally different thing. We don't need to talk about gymnosperms again. Instead, we're talking about monocots and die cuts. Both angiosperms. Right. And if you've ever planted a little die cut seedling, the first thing you're going to notice when it pops up out of the ground is you're going to have two. I think it's called a cataloden. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. And you're going to see two of those. And that's why it's called a die cut, because there's two. Like a palm will only have one. Yes. And caudaldeen is just the first leaves that come out of a sprout. And so you got two. And like you said, with the monoculture, you've got one. That's a big difference. But that's surely not a big enough difference to be like, well, palm is not even close to a tree. It's something totally different. You're right. Yeah. It goes on, I guess, is what I'm trying to say. The differences continue. It does. If you look at a die cut leave, if you take, like a maple leave or an oak tree leaf and you look at the back of it or at the front, but you can really get a good look at the back or hold it up in the sun. You'll see the little weblike pattern of veins coming off from that central stem on a leaf, that's different. On a die cut. On a monocot, it does not do that. They run parallel. Yes. From, like, rear to tip. That's your vein right there. Just the tip there's. Also, die cuts have something called a Cambium layer. And this is really important to me. This is the big differentiator between palm tree and die cut tree. Like a maple tree, right? Yes. The big difference is that palm trees don't make wood and die cut trees like a maple tree does. And it does that because it has what's called secondary growth, where it has a bunch of cells, xylem and flowum cells, which are vascular tissues, and they line up in a circle, and they form a ring in this nice tight pattern, and they grow outward and outward and outward every year. So that if you cut a tree down and look at the stump that's left, you see rings. And those rings are annual growth of springwood and autumn wood. But the upshot is it's actually growing wood every year as the tree grows outward, it gains girth, and that is secondary growth. And the big distinction between monocods and diecots is that monocods don't have secondary growth. They don't grow like that. They don't grow outward, they grow upward. That's a huge distinction. Yes. And this is where it can get a little word Parsy. Monocuts generally do not have secondary growth. Palm trees do have a kind of secondary growth, but it's not real secondary growth. What's the word for it? Anomalous secondary growth. Is that the one? Yeah, anomalous secondary growth. So, like, every plan has primary growth. If you go and you shouldn't do this because it's bad for the tree, but if you went and carved your name into a mighty oak, that's not going to grow up. That's not going to be 10ft above your head in 30 years, because the tree is going outward. A palm tree, like you said, it grows from the top. So when you see a palm, you're going to generally see those palm fronds sticking out of the top of it. And if you say, yeah, but there's some underneath it, too, those are just fronds that haven't fallen off yet on the way up. Right, exactly. So another way to put it is that palm trees grow up. They don't grow out. Right. But they do have gerth. Yes. In some cases. I know gerth. Just the tip. Growing wood. Good Lord. Oh, man. The ad sales people are blushing. I know who saw this coming. Yeah, they do have girth, but they have growth for a totally different reason. You can look at a palm tree and be like, yeah, it's huge. It's thick. That's a trunk. Some of them are really thick, too, at the bottom. Yeah. I think the biggest one get to like 3ft in diameter. That's a big old trunk. But the thing is, if you cut a palm tree down and you look down inside of it, you're not going to see neat pattern of tight rings of those xylem and flow cells. They do have xylamin flowing cells because those are vascular cells. They carry water, minerals, sugars throughout the plant. So all plants and trees have xylem and flowing cells. But in a monocad like a palm tree, they grow just kind of willy nilly and they grow upward. What gives the palm tree its girth is when those vascular cells themselves grow in size. So you got more vascular cells growing up through the plant, through the stem of the plant, which you think is a trunk. You have more of them, and then they increase in size. That actually increases the growth of the stem. But the stem itself is not growing outward. It's not adding layers of growth outward because that would be secondary growth, and monocots don't engage in secondary growth. That's right. And the other really cool thing about a palm is and one of the things that separates Monica from Die COTS, is that monocots don't have that central tap root. So if a storm came along and pulled up a palm tree, you would see basically where the I was about to call it a trunk. We'll probably call it a trunk here and there, but it is a stem where the stem meets the ground. If it's uprooted, you'll just see just a spider web of smaller roots. It doesn't have this big one central tap root from which the other routes go. It comes straight from the base of that stem. That's right. And those are called, I think we'll get into a little bit later. But it's called inventitious root growth, right? Yes. Which is not super deep. I think the deepest you're going to find is maybe a few feet. Yeah. But they really go out yeah, like 50ft out from the trunk in either direction. It's really something to see. But the problem is that also makes them often susceptible to being blown over in hurricanes because they often grow along the coast. Yes. And if it's a shallow, grounded area, a lot of times you can see a lot of that root system sort of sitting level with the ground. It's neat in some kinds, I think, including king palms, maybe royal palms. Those are nice. They look like big fat cigars growing out of the bottom of the tree at the base. It's pretty cool looking. Should we take a break? Oh, man, you took the words right out of my mouth. I think that's a good teaser for the first part. Yeah. I say we take a break and let the ad sales people do their thing. Are they going to read the ads? We'll find out. Okay. Okay, Chuck. So it turns out the ad salespeople did not read the ads, but they did sell them. And we appreciate that. So palms are actually super duper old. Some of the oldest plant fossils we've turned up, and by we, I mean you and me specifically, are palm fronds that are upwards of 70 million years old. But they think that they're actually much older than that because there's a theory that palms are found all over the world because they were growing on Gondwana, which is part of a supercontinent. After Pangaea started to break up, gondwana was one of the big, massive pieces of earth that started to break up between 180 and 145,000,000 years ago. And they think the palms were like goodbye, family, goodbye as the land spread out and formed the continent as we know them today. And then started to do all sorts of weird stuff as they evolved in isolation from one another. That's right. And weird stuff, meaning there can be tiny palms that are about five to eight inches tall. And I encourage people to safely look up some of these because it is pretty amazing to see the variety. Like when you look up the wax palm, these are the ones I think generally found in South America that are so tall and skinny, you think that some of those in La are tall and skinny. Nothing compared to these wax palms, where you look at them and they just seem to sort of defy gravity and you wonder, how are they not just snapping in half constantly with wind? It's anomalous secondary growth. That's the answer. But those wax palms grow in the mountains, in the Andes. So if you climbed up one of them, I think they're up to 200ft tall, which is about 70 meters tall, and you fell off the top, it gets even worse because you'd also be falling off a mountain. So you don't want to climb a wax palm unless you're just a dummy. That's right. Those stems that we talked about, what most people might call the trunk, like we said earlier, they do vary wildly. Some of them are very small, just a few millimeters. And then those I have different kinds that are my favorites, but one of my favorites are those really big, thick stemmed ones that are sort of low to the ground, very big around, and have big just sort of almost like a fireworks display of blooms. Like a palmetto? No, not a palmetto. Palmetto. I don't think you can really see the trunk very much, can you? Shrubby. I saw palmetto, yes. I think they get tall after a while. They stay short, and then they achieve the correct girth, and then they grow longer. But I mean, there's 2500, so I'm sure there is a variety of something to suit your fancy, you know what I mean? Yeah, that's exactly right. And that one that grows only to be five inches tall and has a stem just a few millimeters thick, that one's called Dipsys Manuta and it's pretty cute. That's not planned by the way. Really? Yeah. I don't buy that. I swear I will. Photocopy. I'll scan this page and send it to you and you will not see it on there. Well, that's because you and me standing with a big cue card in front of you. That's how I could get away with this. But you figured me out. I think the one that we have in our backyard is a windmill palm and we planted it when we first got to Atlanta. Emily worked as a producer on a TV commercial and sometimes you might have noticed this a little bit with the TV show. Sometimes there's things that you get for a TV show or commercial or a movie that you can't return or do anything with and so at the end of the job they'll be like who wants this? Whatever that we can't do anything with. And Emily said we would love that palm tree. Nice. And it was kind of small and we planted it here in Atlanta and it is really flourished. They are very easy to take care of. You really don't do anything and they have managed to. And this is kind of one of the points of how robust they can be even though they generally grow in the tropical areas around the world. This thing has had plenty of snow on it and plenty of hard freezes in Atlanta over the years and it's just as healthy as can be. Yeah. Now there's some palms that can thrive in zone five b I saw which is like south Nebraska and South Iowa. The needle palm does just fine there. Jersey Shore palms? Yeah, it has bleached orange spikes rather than green fronds. That wasn't written down either. I like that one. But yeah, it's just like 2500 plus species. They're going to learn to adapt everywhere and they've been around for hundreds of millions of years so they've actually gotten pretty good at doing things like putting up with snow. Which is surprising because again, you kind of associate the palms with like a tropical rainforest and for good reason because they are found a lot in tropical rainforests all throughout, right above and below the equator around the world. Apparently in the Amazon they make up 60% of all the trees that you'll find there. So they're pretty successful as far as plants go. Gigantic plants. That's right. Should we talk a little bit about what makes up a palm tree? We've talked a little bit about it. There are those roots that extend way out in a pretty shallow manner. There is that elongated stem. And one thing you'll notice when you're looking at a palm stem or if you want to go up and hug one of those guys, is sometimes you might get hurt. It doesn't have bark. It has the scars of fronds that came before. And depending on what kind of tree that is, it can be kind of smooth, but usually they're kind of rough and sometimes they're really rough and kind of pointy and spiky. Yeah, for sure. I think people kind of trim those kind back a little bit. But I was also reading about over trimming them that you don't really want to you don't want to trim them too much. And you definitely don't want to trim any kind of palm frond that isn't totally brown and crusty musty. Because if it's not. Even if it's yellow. That means that there's still a bunch of nutrient stores in there just hanging out. And the palm is like. Hey. You just took a lot of my energy away. So you want them typically either fall off naturally like they do, or wait until they're just so brown and desiccated that even you can tell this palm front can be taken off without hurting the tree. It's pretty obvious. It is pretty obvious. But what I thought was really interesting is the idea that's not bark. These are just like leaf remains, the remains of basically where the leaf hit the tree at one time. And if you look, they point this out. And I never really put it into words before, but it's exactly true. It looks like the palm fronds have been moving down the base of the tree, forming this trunk all the way down, forming the bark all the way down. But really, the stem has been growing up and out of each leaf scar that's left behind, that forms what looks like the bark. So it's almost like an optical illusion, a palm tree. Yes. Yeah, I kind of get what he's saying there. Have you ever driven next to a car and the wheels are spinning so fast that they start to look like they're spinning backwards much more slowly? Yeah, I think it's akin to that. Do you know what I thought you were going to say is that thing where the car next to you, you see out of your peripheral vision, starts to move, and you think you're rolling forward and you freak out a little bit. Go. Oh, my God. Yeah, that's even better. I like that one even more. But it has nothing to do with palm trees. No, it does, because they're all optical illusions. Okay, should we talk a bit about well, we talked about how they grow. They grow from the top. When those leaves pop out of the top, it's called a spear, and it pops out of what's called the apical maristom, or the apical maristin. And that's the thing that if it were a die cut, that's where the wood would be growing from. But it's not. It depends. They both have apical marathms, from what I can tell. But the tree has a lateral marathon as well. And that's where that girth around the sides grows to make it wider. Yeah, the woody girth. But another thing that differentiates the palm tree from a die cut tree is that a diecut tree has a bunch of different places where it has an apical marestem and those we call branches, the place where branches grow off. So an apical marestom is wherever primary growth, which is upright, vertical growth of a plant comes from, like a maple tree has a bunch of them, those are the branches. And then eventually like smaller branches and even into the leaves, that's all apical maristem growth. A palm tree has one place aside from the roots, one place on the entire plant where it is growing. Everything else is already grown, gone, left a scar behind, or it even looks like it's growing, but it's already grown and it's just sitting there photosynthesizing, like a big old palm frond. But right in the middle of the top of the plant is the apical marastem. And that's where those new leaves shoot up from, and that's where the xylem and flow divide, and that growth occurs. And that's it. There's the one spot. And that's it for the palm. Yeah, and if you have a palm near you and it's low enough to see the top of it pretty well, you will see many times among all those beautiful green fronds, sometimes like big windmill fans, you'll see that little spiky things sticking kind of straight up, and that's called the spear. And it will unfold into the frond and it will become a beautiful front at one point. So it's almost like a caterpillar becoming a beautiful butterfly. Yeah, except as a leaf. Except as a leaf. And if you've ever seen the palms that have we talked about the stem, how it's just sort of that rough scar all the way up. Sometimes you'll see them, they have a really smooth green part that kind of looks like and we'll get to coconuts kind of looks like the very outside of a big coconut. That's called the crown shaft. The king palm is famous for these and that's that little smooth green section between where the trunk is rough and where the leaves pop out of the top. Right. And all those are the layered leaves folded around the top of the stem. And as those leaves unfold and become fronds and hang out and photosynthesize, and then the energy stores that they have is used up and they fall off those kinds of palms. They fall off very cleanly. So compared to other rougher exterior palms, like a king palm is very smooth even below the crown shaft, where it's kind of gray and layered in horizontal stripes. But those are still scars left from the leads that used to be attached there that unfolded at the crown shaft and grew and lived and died and then fell off. There are so many weird sexual innuendos with palm trees. Yeah. I had no idea. It explains a lot about how I felt about palm trees for a long time. I had no idea why. It probably doesn't hurt that we're twelve years old as well, right. Because there are plenty of people out there like what have they been talking about? Yes, that's true. Those are eight years old. Right. So let's talk about these palm fronds or the palm leaves. There are a few different kind of shapes they can take. There's the feather like pennate. If you see a coconut palm, this is what you're going to see. It has a couple of rows of those leafs kind of sprawling out from that central rib down the middle. That rib is called a ratchus, where it meets and this is a lot of sort of technical talk here, but the thick part where it actually meets the trunk, that's called the petiole. Yeah. Where the ratchet meets the trunk. Right. That's right. And then those leads are all individual. They're disconnected. The only place where they join is at that rack, is at that central rib. But other than that, they're not connected, which makes them different from a palmate type of those are good. Those are really good. I think Paul Mate might be my favorite. Where they seem disconnected. But if you follow them back to their terminal point, where they connect to the branch, you'll see that they're all connected at one central point. And they're kind of fanned out almost in a circle or semicircle radiating away from that one central point where they're all connected. And that central point is called the Hastula. So that's Palmate. That's another good one. And then there's Costapalmate, right? Yeah. The Costa Palmate is a little bit of both. If you like a little pennate, you like a little Palmate, then you get your Costa Palmate. That is the fan shape as well, and it is attached to a central rib called acosta. And that extends from that pettyole into that leaf blade. It's interesting when these things fall off, those fan shaped ones, and you gather them off the ground, you really get a sense of their potential uses, which we'll talk about that stuff a little bit later, but like primitive uses as a fan or as a broom or there are all kinds of things. When you have a big handful of those dead palm fronds, you can see even here in modern times, I could see how this could be useful. Yeah. Just think about how much thought the writers of Gilligan's Island put into that. Yeah, right. I can't watch that show anymore. How about you? I haven't tried in a long time. Why not? I think it just ran its course in my brain. It was great when I was a younger person. Now I'm like, I can't watch this. Yeah. I had a recurring. Dream when I was a kid. The first recurring dream I remember had to do with Gilligan's Island, but it was scary. Like the boat was washed as shore on the beach. And I remember I was in the back kind of hiding from somebody who was trying to get me or something. But I had that dream over and over for a while. So wait a minute. Somebody was trying to get you while you were in the ship that was being shipwrecked? No, it had already been shipwrecked. And it was just like a shipwrecked boat on shore that I was hiding in behind the back seat. Did you ever figure out who it was? No. You know, I don't think I've ever had a recurring dream. All of my dreams are all original material every time. That's interesting. I think so too. Did you have imaginary friends? No. No. They seem silly and superfluous to me. The only reason I thought of that is because someone sent that in as a request. And saying that imaginary friends is a sign of later successes in various ways, supposedly. Well, that explains a lot as well. No, but look at you now. No, but think about how successful I could be if I had had imaginary friends. I could be president of the world. My daughter has what she calls ghost friends and always has, and now ghost parents. And we wonder sometimes if that is something to do with being adopted. Oh, yeah. Or if it's just the regular old imaginary friend thing with kids. Or your house is haunted and she can see things you can't. Or that that's number three be pretty awesome. She's spelling it out for you, Chuck. Right there. Right. Should we take another break? Sure. All right. We'll talk about those not so beautiful palm flowers right after this. All right. If you've ever walked past the palm tree and you've seen what looks like a blob of yellow orange. Orange is a big one. Yeah. I mean, what do they even look like? They look like just little tiny grape bunches, but not really. They're not very attractive to me. But I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Those are the flower of the palm tree. So one thing I have to say, though, is, Chuck, you would probably have your eyes open if you spend a little time on Google Images looking at different palm inflorescences. Some of them are okay. Yeah. There's some that are just straight up dazzling. I saw one that was like a nice pink and it looks like a really tight like, sometimes people have dreadlocks that have been around so long they actually merged into one big dread. Sure, it looks like that, but like a hotel pinkish purple. Yes. But a hot pinkish purple version of that. It's very pretty. And again, there's like 2500 or more species of palms. So there's a lot of different variety. But that said, I agree with you. Most of the palm Florence I've ever seen are not pretty at all. I think what my problem is, is I feel like it disturbs even the pretty ones. It doesn't jive with the rest of the look. So it looks like a really attractive person wearing maybe a really nice hat, but that doesn't go with the rest of the outfit. Okay, all right. I totally get your meaning. I think you nailed it. It just doesn't seem to fit in. But you keep calling them inflorescences instead of flowers. What do you mean by that? Well, I mean, inflorescence is just another name for a palm flower. And palm, it's an angiosperm, which is by definition, a flowering plant. It just doesn't look like what you and I would think of as flowers, but that's exactly what it is. And with the palm, from what I can tell, everything is a frond. It's some version of a frond. And the inflorescence is no exception. It's a specialized, weirdo version of the palm frond that grows out. And depending on the kind of palm, it's going to have either male flowers, female flowers, or it's going to have male and female flowers, in which case it's self pollinating. And the upshot of all this is when the female flowers get pollinated, they will produce fruit. And because we're talking about 2500 different species of palms, you get a lot of different kinds of fruit that come along. Yeah, it's pretty interesting, actually. If you look at your standard coconut palm that has both the male and female parts, so that makes it menacious. This is stuff that we learned in high school biology. Again, haven't seen that word in so long. I know. I even was calling it monoesius for a while. I was like, I know that's not right. That's what I was trying to remember. No, it's monetius and dieseus. Those o's are silent and diese. Palms only have male flowers or female flowers. And like you said, depending on the fruit, if you're a coconut palm, then you're going to have both. But you got to fertilize that female flower. If you're a date palm, it's diese. So you can only harvest from the female tree. But you need to have both again to fertilize. Right. And get that delicious bad date. But that is dates are actually a fruit from palms, from, appropriately enough, date palms. I didn't know that. I didn't either. And dates are delicious. And researching this made me want this. But if I had to choose, I'm a fig person for sure. Are figs from a palm? No fig tree. Yeah, but there's like dried fruit, dates and figs, they seem to go hand in hand. So I don't think you have to choose, which is just a stupid thing to even bring up. I'm sorry I did well, I don't know that I've ever had. In fact, I can almost say certainly I've never had a fresh date, like right off of a tree, you mean? Yeah, like not dried, like raisins or fig style, but like in Raiders Lost Ark, the bad days. Those are bad dates. That's right. That poor monkey. I mean, it was an evil monkey, but I think he was trained to be evil. Oh, you think? With the Nazi salute? Yes. I don't think he was born knowing how to do that. I think he was trained to do that and it made him a bad monkey. But I still don't think he deserved to be poisoned by bad dates. You know, that Movie has been under fire in recent years because of the nature of Indy's relationship with Marianne Marion and how old she was. Oh, yeah. And he's also, like, fairly rough with her as well. Yeah, but there's those lines at the beginning where he talks about, you know, what you were doing. I was a child, or whatever. And I think for many years, everyone's just like, yeah, whatever. And then someone's like, wait a minute, how much of a child was she? Right. And I think people have tried to do the math over the years to work it out. So with the time period where it wasn't that bad, but I do know that and this something I talked on Movie Crush a little bit about. But Lucas and Spielberg, when they were discussing it all at the beginning, one of them was pushing at the time for him to make it creepy. Like, no, man, let's make a really young and make it really kind of a bad thing that he did. Was it George Lucas doing that? I think it might have been. I don't know. I should look all this stuff up, so I'm not I'm glad Spielberg was like, yeah, great idea, great idea. We'll definitely workshop that later. Right? Anyway, bad dates. Bad dates. And dates, by the way, Chuck, are droops, as are all palm fruits. Did you know that? I didn't know that, but I did know that they were similar to peaches and olives and cream. Say what? Peaches and cream. Yeah, peaches and cream in the way that they have that hard outer that kind of stony, like, covering around the seed. Right. But they're usually also covered with some sort of flesh that we like to eat. That's not always the case. So I think coconuts are the reverse of that. So, like, if you're eating, like, a peach, the seed itself is that hard is inside the hard pit in the fruit. Right. Coconut seed. No, a coconut is the opposite of that. It's got that hard, woody outer shell you can knock, knock, knock on just and have some fun with that's. Exactly right, Chuck. Nice. Actually, no, that's the endocarp. The hardest part that you knock on the EXOC. You're talking about the hard green outermost layer? No, that would be the exocarp. The endocarp is the hard brown woody one. That you can knock on. Yeah. That you can use as a bowling ball on Gilligan's Island. Exactly. Or like a tiki cocktail cup. Right. Again, on Gillige's Island. And it's the stuff inside that's the actual seed. And that's what we eat in the coconut, the endosperm and the liquid endosperm, the stuff you eat from a coconut that's actually like the seed that you're eating, whereas like a peach, you're eating the outside, the meat that's outside of the seed. Right. And that endosperm is the solid part, is that flesh, that white. Deliciousness coconut milk. And then the coconut water is the liquid endosperm. So next time your friend is having a coconut water, just go up to them and say enjoy the liquid endosperm, and they'll say, what are you talking about? You can't say stuff like that. They'll do spit take. I hope not, because that coconut water is delicious. It is. And expensive too. And if you're like well, wait a minute. I thought coconut water was coconut milk. You are wrong. Wrong? No. Coconut milk is taking coconut meat, grating it up into a paste and then adding water to that. That's coconut milk. That's delicious too. It is. It's super high in fat, but they're really healthy fats. I understand. That's a good fat. And I'm not a big sort of Caribbean drink cocktail guy. Oh, you don't like the tinky drinks? No, I'm not really into them. They're just a little too sweet. Maybe one of them, but they're a little sweet for me. But that coconut milk, man, with some rum is a really nice combination. People have been drinking that for eons. For good reason. They sure have. You know what else they've been drinking even longer than that? Chuck a little sperm, a little something called palm wine. Oh yeah. So I didn't know that this existed, but it sounds awesome. But there are a lot of different kinds of palm species that you can tap, including coconut palms and date palms and the Chilean wine palm, which they were like, well yeah, of course. But you can tap the SAP of these things and what comes out context the air. And just a little bit amount of microbes in the air that come in contact with the stuff immediately caused it to start to ferment and within hours it has gone from palm SAP to an alcoholic beverage. And then hours after that, within about a day or so of it being tapped, it turns into vinegar. So you have to drink this stuff, which turns into like a 4% alcoholic drink just by sitting out in the air a few hours after it's tapped. Within a day of tapping it, yes. Which is why it is one of the oldest boozes, because you could get it quickly and pretty naturally. Yeah, you didn't have to do anything for it. Apparently they've caught monkeys actually drinking it too. Oh yeah? Yeah. I think they found evidence that of humans drinking it as far back as 180 years ago. It's a very long time and that because they've caught like primates, other primates thinking it's possible that it goes even further back in our evolutionary history. Very interesting, I thought so too. There's also palm oil that is in food products, it's in a lot of skin products. It is sort of an environmental disaster these days. There are plantations in Indonesia and Malaysia where basically you just clear cut forest to plant more palms to get palm oil and getting sustainably sourced palm oil is difficult to impossible for your products. There are some people who say there is no such thing and that if something is labeled officially sustainable they're like, well no, just go back 15 or 20 years and there was once natural forest growth there too. So it's kind of a meaningless title when just a handful of years have to go by before you say oh no, this palm field was here already. Right? From what I understand, that's just not the case. Yeah, that was one of those things where I looked into I was like, okay, another reason to be pessimistic and lose hope. There's the Akai, those little Akai berries, I didn't know they came from palms. Is it a kay? I thought it was a saiy. I've always said a cai, but it's probably a sai. Never said it out loud. So it's like supposed to be a superfood rich in antioxidants and I was like, that rings a bell. We did an episode of Antioxidants. Did we surmise that it's BS? And I went back and I read a transcript of it and it may be so take that however you like. But it definitely does have all sorts of antioxidants, including anthocyanins because that's where it has its purple color from the Acai. Acai does okay. Is it really asahi? I feel foolish ASAI I've never heard it said. Well, now you have from your pal Josh. I don't think I've ever said it out loud until now in front of millions of people. Right, so it's no biggie. Yeah. You got the hearts of palm, of course, that you'll find usually in a can on a shelf in your grocery store. That's the apical merit stem chuck that is just about to say that, and it is right there at the core. You get them in Hawaii, in Costa Rica, or some places in South America and you chop that thing down and it's got that little tender core and the reason it's usually in a can is because it doesn't last very long. Yeah, so it's pickled typically, right? Yeah. What about betel nuts? Did you know about those before? Because I had heard of them, but I had no idea what the deal was. I knew about them because I know that chewing them, which is popular in certain Asian countries, can be really bad for you. It can make your teeth like red and black and give you cancer. But it's a stimulant, right? Yeah, it gives you a pretty good buzz. So it all works out in the end. Does it really? Something like 20% of the people in the world chew betel nuts, and that makes it the fourth most used psychoactive material, I guess, or substance after nicotine, caffeine, alcohol, and then battle nuts. What about written if you've ever been to peer one import and sat in a wicker? What are those things called? The big bowl? Oh, papa thon chair. Papa thon. That is made from palm, ratan from ratan palms, and it's very hearty. And how I mention that those fronds are very useful. Like, this is the stuff over the years that they use fronds for rooftops and rattan to make really strong furniture. Very useful, yes. I had no idea. But ratan has really wicked mean barbs and thorns sticking off of it because it uses it to climb up other trees. And the stem is really pliable. It's not upright, but it grows vertically. But it's like a vine, and apparently the stem can get up to, like, 500ft long. It's a lot of pure one wicker. A lot of wicker. What was the name of that chair? Do you remember the chair that they would sit in for prom pictures in the Isaacs? Like Moses? Yes, exactly. I don't know. There's a name for throne, sort of like exactly. Ratan throne. That's exactly right. That's a heck of a chair, too. So I guess we could finish up with a couple of little fun facts. One of them, Dave included a few of these. The double coconut palm has I don't know if it's the largest seed. Is it the largest one in the world? Yes. Okay. A mature coconut from that double coconut palm can weigh about \u00a390, and the seed inside is about 55. And Dave said something about the way they look. I can't remember exactly how he put it. Suggestive. Suggestive. And I looked it up, and it looks like a butt. Oh, that's not what it suggested to me. I thought it looked like a butt in an anus. Okay. Did you think it looks like female parts? No, but just come around to the other side of a dude. You thought it looked like a scrotal sack. Yeah. Well put. I thought it looked like a butt and a butt hole. No, I could see how you would think that, but it looked like a scrotal fact to me. I thought that was the avocado. Yes, for sure. Avocados got it going on too. I've got one more fact. What else do you have? Nothing. I want to hear your last fact. Well, I think it'd be kind of fun to just talk about what happened in Florida with all those palms. Oh, yeah, I'd love to do that. This is a good one. The reason Florida has so many palms is because of a shipwreck in January of 1878, the spanish brigantine, the providencia crash landed with a bunch of coconuts on board. Yeah, coconuts and a bunch of other stuff. But there were like 200 coconuts and a guy named William Lanehart. Who was one of the early pioneers along this settlers of European descent. I should say. Along this stretch of Florida beach where this shipwreck happened. Bought the whole shipwreck and all of its cargo for like $20 and proceeded to try to sell the coconuts for. What was it. Like two cent each or a half cent? Two and a half cents. And he only sold about 1000 of the 20,000, but still it's like a couple of $100. He's like, oh, sure. Made his money back. Yeah, ten times over. And then he said, I think I'm just going to plant the rest of these. I think it'd be easier than trying to drum up a market for these things. And that's it. That's where palm beach is now. Yeah. All of the coconut palms that you see there are not native. They are descended from that original shipwreck cargo of coconuts. Very cool. It is very cool indeed. And also, Chuck, they mentioned Henry flagler in their founding palm beach and west palm beach. Flagler college. That's right. In flagler county. He was like an old ford executive who made his money, well, from working at ford early on and then started like a railroad and then started like, founded palm beach and was just fabulously wealthy. But I know we've talked about going to providence, rhode island, and touring some of those old gilded age mansions. He has one in palm beach. So if you ever make your way down to palm beach, go see the flagler house museum. It's one of the most amazing houses you will ever walk in in your entire life. It's astounding. I will check that out. My bestie friend from high school rad the map drawer, the cartographer. Yeah, sure, he went to flagler, and this was in st. Augustine, though. But I went to flagler a couple of times in st. Augustine is a lovely town. Well, just make your way a little further south, a couple of hours down to palm beach and check out Flaglers. I'll do it. Okay, well, since Chuck said I'll do it, that means, of course, everybody, it's time for listener mail. I'm going to call this josh and the simpsons. I'm sure you saw this. I figured we could just answer this on the air. I think I know the answer. I was worried about this. Hey, guys, we were going to read it. Okay. Hey, guys, just listen to the hot dog episode. I was little surprised that Josh let the whole episode go by without sighting homer's famous line about hot dogs from the episode where he tries to get into the grease business. Then I realized this is a phenomenon I've noticed several times. Like, Josh, I'm a simpsons super fan so I feel like I have to take issue with everyone who has written in to say, you missed this quote or citation. On the contrary. What's happening, I think, is josh is biting his tongue and letting, I would guess, one to three opportunities pass by per episode. Wow. Because he doesn't want to be known primarily as bet simpsons dork, and avoid owing royalties to matt graining. Josh, please validate my hunch. That is from g. Thanks, g. You're not holding your tongue, are you? Occasionally I do, actually, very rarely. I think g is giving me way too much credit. And at the risk of sounding like a fraudulent simpsons fan, there are a ton of references that people write in and be like, you walked right past this one. And I'll be like, I don't remember that one at all, or, I totally forgot about it. Didn't think about that. But every once in a while, I will hold it back, because you just have to keep the proportion of simpsons fandom at a certain threshold. Other than that, stuff you should know. It's stuff you should know. The simpsons fans, we're more well rounded than that. So, yes, every once in a while, but not three times an episode. No, that's what I'm saying. That's overcrediting me, for sure. All right, fantastic. Well, thanks again, gene. If you want to be like g and ask a question or see if your hunch is confirmed, send it to us via email to stuffpodcast@iheartradio.com. Stuff you should know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts my heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio app apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows."
https://podcasts.howstuf…ferson-bible.mp3	Did Thomas Jefferson rewrite the Bible?	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/did-thomas-jefferson-rewrite-the-bible	Thomas Jefferson is famous for his role in shaping the United States of America -- and for creating his own, revised version of the Bible. Learn more about the Jefferson Bible in this episode.	Thomas Jefferson is famous for his role in shaping the United States of America -- and for creating his own, revised version of the Bible. Learn more about the Jefferson Bible in this episode.	Thu, 01 Jul 2010 16:29:46 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2010, tm_mon=7, tm_mday=1, tm_hour=16, tm_min=29, tm_sec=46, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=182, tm_isdst=0)	22984084	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Sharks, the most famous and majestic apex predators on earth. Introducing Shark Week. The podcast. I'm Luke Tipple, the marine biologist and shark expert with over 20 years experience in the field. I'm gonna take you on a dive with to me, you are going to learn a lot about sharks. And you'll also hear exclusive interviews with the stars of Shark Week to get a behind the scenes look. Listen to Shark Week, the podcast on Apple podcast spotify or wherever you get your podcast binge, listen this and all your artist stations, plus any song from our library of millions of songs, all ad free. Get your free 30 day trial of iHeartRadio. All access. You'll love it. Don't be basic, be extra. Start your free 30 day trial of iHeartRadio All Access now. Brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you? Welcome to stuff you should know from housetuffworkscom. Hi, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. With me, as always. It's Charles W. Shuckers Bryant. And that makes this stuff you should know. I'm always here for you, Josh. Yeah, hey, whatever. I'm glad you are, Chuck. Sure. This is day two, episode two in the new studio. Yes. The walls are closing in on us. I kind of like it in here now. I'm already used to it. Chuck. Josh. So the Bible has been popping up in my life a lot lately. Really? Yeah. How so? Yummy. And I just started subscribing to Harper's Monthly Weekly, one of those two. It's like this magazine from 1889. Yeah, okay. And in the first article, the first issue that we got there's, I guess, a notes section by a guy who says that the Old Testament is an allegory for the Neolithic revolution, remember? From hunting and gathering to agriculture. And he made some really cool points. Interesting. Like, for example, Cain and Abel. Able was a herdsman. Cain was a farmer. Cain murdered Abel. Yeah, right. Slew. He slew. First murder ever, as far as we know. Really? Oh, that's right. Yes. I can't remember what he said about Adam and Eve, but basically that's the beginning. It was actually kind of a cautionary tale. Oh, really? Yeah. Be careful. There's all this other stuff associated with agriculture that you're not seeing. Right. So I found that intensely interesting. Then you suggest we do one on the Jefferson Bible, and I'm like, what is going on here? Right. Third one. Number three, this elderly woman by all right, she's in her eighty S. Ninety S. Spitfire lady. Still, though, sure doesn't like to use a blinker when she stops suddenly in parking lots when I'm right behind her. They never do. So I went around her. I was a little irritated, and I wanted her to know it. She lays on her horn and I stick my head out and I'm like, Be quiet. Like, go in park. You did not. I go in park and I go into the public. This woman comes and finds me. Oh, my goodness. And it's like, sir, are you the gentleman who went around me in traffic, blah blah, blah? And she's like, berating me loudly in the middle of public. He said, I'm no gentleman. So finally she ends it with, you need to get to church. And I was like, that's true. I swear to God. I'm not kidding you. My friend Tom, my BFF Tom was on the phone with me. He can verify this. And you said, Betty White is coming after me in a public? I wish. This is Betty White. This woman was terrifying. She was wearing, like, clam diggers with white socks pulled up, black SAS shoes, her skin hung loose and she had fire in her eyes. She wanted to kill me. What did you say? Did you apply anything or did you just sheepishly? I wasn't sheepish. You're not going to say what you said? You can tell me afterward, though, right? Sure, okay. But I wasn't sheepish. I wasn't entirely mean, but frankly, as you know, I quit the Boy Scouts because I think that it's a bad idea to just give blanket respect to the old people because they're old. Okay? I've met some old jerks in my time and the church is actually one of them. But this week, man, three, that's an exciting week. I never talk about the Bible. It never comes up. Church never comes up. But here we are. All right, chuck, did Thomas Jefferson right or rewrite the Bible? Fact or fiction? Hey, that's old school, Josh. That is faction, because he did not rewrite the Bible, but he did cobble together his own version of the Bible that he thought was valid and should be read in fitting. I'll just say that. Which is actually, if you think about it, a pretty pretentious and arrogant thing to do. Yeah. This wouldn't go over well in today's President. If someone said Obama put together different parts of the Bible and said that this was what I think the Bible should be, he wouldn't last too long. No, I don't think it would have ever gone over if Taft had done it. He would have been like, running out of town on a rail. Like, you can't do that in the early days, so you get away with anything back then. I suspect that Thomas Jefferson had asperger's. Okay. From some of his demeanor, weight, carrying himself, his incredibly high level of intellect, I suspect that he had something along those lines. Right? He might have. You can also say that he could not have cared less what people thought of them. No, he did his own thing. Highly intelligent guy. And like you said, if it had come out that the President had done that a lot of people are unaware of this, that it wouldn't go over very well. Which is why he didn't let it out. I don't know. That's why he didn't let it out. I think he just was doing it for himself, genuinely. I don't think he was trying to be secretive about it. But you were saying, like, it wouldn't go over well today. It's kind of fashionable in certain quarters to point out that the Founding Fathers were bent on founding and Christian nation. It's a very contentious thing to say, although a lot of people that's how they see the United States, right? Yeah. I think Thomas Jefferson cutting up the Bible and cutting out all the miracles and what he considered gobbledy cook yeah. Kind of undermines that argument a little bit, don't you think? Well, he was a deist. It's a good time to bring that up. George Washington was a deist. Benjamin Franklin and a Deist. These are what we call founders. They differ from traditional Christians because they reject miracles, basically. A lot of the prophecies and they embrace the notion of a well ordered universe created by God. But God then withdrew into detached transcendence. So they believe, like, a lot of things Christians believe. But a lot of people at the time said this was a way for you to reconcile your Christianity with all these amazing new scientific findings that we're finding that kind of fly in the face of Christianity. Right. And deism was the Enlightenment religion. Right. And basically the way it looked at God is there's a creator God, but he's kind of like a clock maker, and he created this clock of the universe wounded up and just stood back to watch it go. That's a great way to say it. And do you remember, like, in the really uber paranoid late 90s, right before the millennium, there's kind of a concept that the universe is the result of an alien experiment that's kind of, like, in the same vein, actually, there's some higher power right. That doesn't have a hand in our individual lives, but created all this. Yeah. Pretty interesting. It is. That was TJ. That was TJ M-B-F and G-W-T Jeff? That's what his nickname today would be. T jeff. His nickname today is TJF as of now. Yeah. So he also pinned the Declaration of Independence, we should say, which most people know. He was also the one who first elucidated the wall of separation between church and state. Yeah. It did not come from the Constitution. No. So there's this Baptist Convention of Danbury, the Connecticut committee of the Danbury Baptist Association, and they wrote to Jefferson saying, is this a Christian nation or not? Basically, he basically pointed to no. He said, no. I'm sure you agree with me that religion is between a man and his God. Right. And really eloquently said, no. There's a clause in the First Amendment that says that Congress won't establish a religion. And so I, Thomas Jefferson, as president and one of the guys who wrote that, see it as a wall of separation between church and state. Yeah. He thought it was a very personal thing. Religion was spirituality was a very personal thing. No one should step in and tell you what to think about it. Right. It's so personal that he decided to craft his own Bible. Yes. And one of the reasons he did this, because, like we said, he was Deist or Deus. Deus, I think he can go either way. He's a Deus. And he was also very skeptical of who wrote the Bible, the Gospels in particular. He thought they were quote, unlettered and ignorant. Yeah. Basically how he saw the Bible writers los Angeles. That's where the name comes from. Yeah, those are the Gospel writers. But they were also platonics. They followed Plato. Right. And wrote around the time of Plato. And they remember when we were talking about, like, Halloween, Christmas, easter. Pagan holidays. Yeah, they're all pagan holidays that we've adopted and Christianized in an effort. Easter. Yes. Spring harvest. Equinox. Fernando Equinox, I think, is what it's called. Right? Yes. Fernando Equinox. And Esotero was a pagan goddess. Right. Anyway, this is how he viewed the Bible being written. Like, there was a person named Jesus of Nazareth. Sure. He walked. Awesome guy, great philosopher, incredible philosopher. Had this amazing moral code. Great. And then espoused it to people who remembered it, passed it down orally, and then somebody finally wrote it down. But when they were trying to write it down, they were also trying to establish a church. And so they added some magic so that they could bring the pagans into the fold, aka. Miracles. Yes. And he also believed and this is where he really wouldn't jive with today's system as a politician. He did not believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ. He did not believe that he was the Son of God. He thought that he was like Plato, essentially, like a spot on philosopher. But he thought a lot of them. He wrote a letter to John Adams in 1813 and said that the book that he ended up putting together, which we'll get into the nuts and bolts of that, but he called it the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man. Yeah. Jesus's philosophy. Yeah. So he clearly thought a lot of jesus's philosophy, and he thought a lot of the Greek philosophers and I imagine other religious philosophers as well. But what he was saying was that what Jesus had come up with was as good as it gets. He kind of bashed Plato, though. Did you see that? Yes, he read Plato in the original Greek and was like man yeah, exactly. He found it lackluster. Yeah. Well, I guess he's hard to please. He read the Bible and he cut it down to 46 pages. He did. Christopher Hitchens put it like this he's not a big guy on religion. No, he kind of actively combats it, but yeah. There's a 46 2nd clip on YouTube of Christopher Hitchens debating somebody. And he describes the Jefferson Bible as what was left after Jefferson took a pair of scissors and cut out anything that could not, by any intelligent person, be believed. It makes for a slender, convenient read. If you hate Christopher Hitchens, this is no surprise to you. If you love Christopher Hitchens, this is no surprise. Yes. But he got one thing wrong. He apparently used a razor and not scissors. Small detail, right. He went through and was scratching stuff out. Really? And then I think he went back and started cutting stuff out. Well, he probably found himself scratching so much out it got tiresome. He was like, I should just see cut out what I do like, instead of scratching out what I don't like. All told, there are 31,103 Bible verses. Numbered Bible verses. Right. But he was just doing the New Testament. So we're talking 7957, right? And specifically the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, which well, there was more than that, but he used a lot for Matthew and Luke. 2222 Matthew and Luke. And all told, he only had the Jefferson Bible, only had 990 verses. You want your kid eating the best nutrition, right? For all their days at the dog park and nights sleeping in bed. Your bed. Yep. We mean that kid your dog. Halo Elevate is natural sciencebased nutrition for their best health. It's guaranteed to support your dog's top five health needs better than leading brands. That means digestive health, heart and immunity, support healthy skin and coat hip and joint support and strengthen energy. Find Halo Elevate at petco pet supplies plus and select neighborhood pet stores. Learn more@halopets.com. The world doesn't need just another chardonnay. What it needs is Martha Shard. The Martha Stewart chardonnay. That's the newest addition to the 19 Crimes family of wines. Martha Shard is a contemporary lens on 19 Crimes. It's the wine that disrupts the chardonnay category. Brought to you by Martha Stewart. The original influencer, Martha Shard is light and drinkable with a medium straw color, satisfying the palette with bright notes of citrus and round stone fruit with a crisp, clean finish. Framed by a distinctly sweet oat character, martha Chard is exactly what the world needed. And what you need is to make this refreshing crowdpleaser the star of your next party or gathering. Because Martha Shar just might be the perfect summer wine. So come on, let's work hard, play hard, and drink. Martha's Shard, available at a wine aisle near you. And on 19 Crimes.com, that's one nine Crimes.com. Please drink responsibly. He definitely pared down quite a bit. Big time. He took out everything about yeah, he took out everything about Christ's birth, the virgin birth. Yeah. That was gone. He left in the crucifixion, but it ends at the burial. There's no resurrection. Yeah. Basically, the last verse was John 19, and they ended it. His book ends with, they rolled the stone in front of the sepulchre and the end a lot of the Last Supper in, but kept the part of the Eucharist out. Right. This is my body, which is my blood and all that. Yeah. So basically, he just kept in, basically, the life and times of Jesus of Nazareth and his philosophy. Yeah. In the article, he left what they called what he considered genuine events, like the Sermon on the Mount, certain parables, the way to live your life. And see, that's always been my deal. I don't want to get too personal, but, you know, I was raised Baptist after the last 200 episodes. A little late for that. I was raised Southern Baptist and it wasn't the best experience for me. But I still say I still maintain that the Bible is a great moral code and there's lots of great parables that teach you how you should act as a human. And apparently I'm in Jefferson's camp because that's what he ended up using. Sure. As he ended up calling it initially the Philosophy of Jesus of Nazareth and then changed that title later to The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth. Right. And then in the 1910 edition, there was a subtitle or how to Get By in Queens on a Dime a Day. How long have you been working on that one? Just now. Really? Yeah. Shut up. No, seriously. So it clearly wasn't called how to Win Friends and Influence People, because this probably wasn't a very popular thing to do even back then. No, I'm sure it would have the same effect as how to Win Friends and Influence people, though. Yeah, but he did keep it quiet. He said it was for himself. Again, I don't think he kept it quiet. I think he was just keeping it for himself. I disagree with Part A of the sentence you just said, but agree with Part B. Thank you. Yeah. I have a quote from him, if you want to hear from the man himself. I do. Josh is wrong. No, sorry. He said, I performed the operation for my own use by cutting birth out of the printed book and arranging the matter which is evidently his and which is easily distinguished as diamonds in a dung hill. It's kind of harsh, but he's saying that the stuff that really came from Jesus's mouth is the gold, the diamonds and the dunghill. So he extracted all that and that was what he believed in? Well, yeah, he thought the platonics were sell outs, that he should have just maybe not added quite so much. So what happened to it, Josh? What happened to it was basically, again, he did it for himself. I think I read a reference that he did it kind of on a whim or in response to a question from a friend of his, Doctor Benjamin Rush, and he said, how would you characterize your view of Christianity? So he went about doing that. I think that's where I got the idea. Yeah, exactly. Got a razor and it was in his private library, which apparently somebody inherited, and a Smithsonian library came across it. Yes. Cyrus Adler. What I found funny is Cyrus Adler is a government employee, came across this and was like, oh, I'm going to sell this to the Library of Congress. Right. They bought it. Yeah, they did. And they started putting it in print. Congress ordered it in print. Thomas Jefferson is considered the father of the Senate. He was the first Vice President, and he wrote the rules of the Senate that are still in use today. He just did it because he was bored one day, sure asperger's same reason, cut up the Bible. Yeah. And so Congress started publishing. I think it published, like, 9000 copies. And even still today, it's a customary welcome gift to new members of Congress. I find that interesting. Yeah. The same Congress who are like, this is a Christian nation. Right? Yeah. But, I mean, it's still in there. That's the diamond. But it is very interesting that they would give an altered version of the Bible as a gift. Yeah. I mean, it's not as odd as if they were to give, like, Alistair Crowley's memoirs, but it was definitely a little odd. When I read that, I was slightly shocked. Yeah. Well, it kind of reveals a certain disingenuousness, doesn't it? A little bit, possibly. You know you're a pet mom when you growl back during playtime and you insist on feeding them the highest quality food you can find. Enter Halo holistic made with only whole meat, no meat meals and probiotics for digestive health, our first ingredient is always responsibly sourced protein raised with no antibiotics. And bonus, our fruits and veggies contain no GMOs. It's a lifestyle and a pet bomb thing. Find Halostic at chewy amazonandhalopets.com the world doesn't need just another Chardonnay. What it needs is Martha Shard. The Martha Stewart chardonnay. That's the newest addition to the 19 Crimes family of wines. Martha Shard is a contemporary lens on 19 Crimes. It's the wine that disrupts the chardonnay category. Brought to you by Martha Stewart. The original influencer, martha Shard is light and drinkable with a medium straw color, satisfying the palette with bright notes of citrus and round stone fruit with a crisp, clean finish. Framed by a distinctly sweet oat character. Martha Starr is exactly what the world needed. And what you need is to make this refreshing crowd pleaser the star of your next party or gathering. Because Martha Shard just might be the perfect summer wine. So come on, let's work hard, play hard and drink. Martha's Shard, available at a wine aisle near you. And on 19 Crimes.com, that's one nine Crimes.com. Please drink responsibly. Makes you think, at least. Well, and it lets you know what was in Thomas Jefferson's mind. And he's easily one of the most fascinating historical figures we have. Anything else? No. If you want to know more about the Jefferson Bible. You can read this pretty cool article by Jane McGrath. You can find it online. The whole Bible? You can do both. How about sure, let's get some people to the site first. That's true. Just type in Jeffersonbible and the handystarchbar@housetofworks.com, and then after that, you might as well just go read the Jefferson Bible, right? Yes. Which leads us to listener questions. So, yeah, we put out a call on Facebook a couple of weeks ago for questions, and we got bombarded. So we're actually having to do this in installments because there are a lot of good questions. Really? We need new questions, man. No. Old. No, these are brand new. Oh, they are? You're lying. Two weeks ago. But they're still new because we haven't used them. So we're going to bust a lot of these pretty quickly. Chuck says, who's taller? Between Josh, Tucker and Jerry, josh is the tallest at a robust 6ft or so. I'm about feet on the no, I'm about 510. Jerry, how tall are you? Jerry five eight behind the curtain. Jerry five eight. Go ahead. I've got one from Colin. Who would win in a fist fight, IRA Glass or Josh? I think it would be a we can actually size them up physically in person now. I think it would be like a humiliating slap fight for both guys. I don't know that there would be a fight to be more like do you remember Adam Goldberg and Daisy confused? Yeah. Yes. Do you remember when he's being pulled off or when Nikki Katz being pulled off of him? Yeah, I think it would be like that. But both of us is Adam Goldberg, right? Yeah. Trip says, can you finally reveal the name of the big box appliance store that did not do check, right. With his extended warranty? I don't think that that would be very smart. Do you know that? Even I don't know what it is. I don't think that would be very BrandsMart to do, josh so I'm not going to thank you, Trip, for the question. Wow. Chuck I'm not reading this one. Okay. So here's another one from Natalie. Would you consider doing six degrees of separation from your listeners? I go first. My sister Kathleen went to Radan High School with Shock. Kathleen Egan. Awesome. So that's not a question. It even ends in an exclamation point. Yeah, I got it. Tom says, what's it like being so old, Chuck? Tom it is awesome. Go ahead. Okay, this one from Hannah. Which is better, cake or pie? What do you call a soft drink? I call it soda. My hubby calls it pop. That's two questions. I call it coke. I call it Coke as well. I grew up calling it pop. What's better, cake and pie? Actually, there's nothing better than a good cake. Pie. Yes. I like cake. Cake. Pie. Like pie, too. Britney. Oh, this is Brittany from New York. And actually, to answer that question. Pie is better. Okay. Remember Britney Brit? Brit. Yes. Britney says, does Hippie Rob participate in the SYSK drinking game, which we don't sanction, no one knows where Hippie Rob is, and if so, is he the all time record holder? I don't even know that Hippie Rob knows that SYSK exists. Of course he doesn't. I don't think he does. So this one's from Bobby. What are your favorite bands of all time or your favorite songs? My favorite band of all time clear. Winner is the Pixies. Chuck. Really? Oh, yeah. Probably go with the who or pavement. Maybe Zeppelin. Bryanna our favorite fan. Bryanna says, what were your first impressions of each other? I thought Josh was like me when I first met him, and it turns out he sort of is and he's sort of not true at all now. I knew we were like fellow. I thought you were a cool guy. Reformed bad boys. You had that pack of cigarettes rolled up in your sleeve. That was the dead giveaway. I've got one from EBA. How does Jerry work? She doesn't. Not true. Go ahead, Christopher. What's it like living in Atlanta, particularly now the summer starting? It is awful. And I grew up here and still awful. And it's not like you get used to. Oh, it's gotten exponentially worse even since I moved down here in 1990. You can't breathe. It's like you're swimming outside. Yeah. I got one more. Shoot. This one is from Mark. If you could have one superpower, what would it be? Flying invisibility. Okay, well, those are the questions. Oh, no, I'm not done yet. Okay, I got two more quick ones. Josh, Sean says, would you like cheese with that? Always, of course, is the answer to that question. Okay. And Joe says, what is the best, most unique piece of free swag anyone has sent you? And I think we just got it this week. I'm going to have to go with the RootSuit. Are you? Yeah. The Roots suit, for those of you that are always sunny in Philadelphia fans, is the Green Man costume that Charlie wears. I requested a Green Man outfit and you won't take it off, and I got it. And I wrote the guy today and said, thank you so much for the Green Man thing. I'm really excited. And he said, your new life begins now. Your new life of leaving absolutely nothing to the imagination. It's disturbing. Nobody wants to see this. So if you have a question for us, go join our Facebook fan page. Jerk. It's Facebook.com yada yada. Stuff you should know. Follow us on Twitter, S YSK podcast, and as always, you can send us an email. We still like those. It's very late 90s, but still it's cute. You can send it to stuffpodcast@howstepworks.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit houseofworks.com. Want more housetoftworks? Check out our blogs on the housetofworks.com. Homepage brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 camry. It's ready. Are you? Hey, it's summer, everybody, which means schools out, the sun shining, the daylights longer, and best of all, there's plenty of time to get lost in a good, thrilling story. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music, My Favorite Murder from Exactly Right media, My Favorite Murder has something for everyone. Hosted by Karen Kilgarriff and Georgia Hardstark, this true crime comedy podcast will share stories that will have you wanting more before you know it. Listen to new episodes of my favorite Murder. One week early on Amazon music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen today sharks. The most famous and majestic apex predators on earth. Introducing Shark Week. The podcast. I'm Luke Tipple, the marine biologist and shark expert with over 20 years experience in the field. I'm going to take you on a dive. With me, you are going to learn a lot about sharks, and you'll also hear exclusive interviews with the stars of Shark Week. To get a behindthescenes look, listen to Shark Week, the podcast on Apple Podcasts spotify or wherever you get your podcast."
86e7d558-3b0e-11eb-9699-4f63c074f42a	How Numerology Works	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/how-numerology-works	The premise of numerology - that numbers are responsible for our destinies and personalities - is plainly nuts, but the history and thinking behind it is too interesting to skip.	The premise of numerology - that numbers are responsible for our destinies and personalities - is plainly nuts, but the history and thinking behind it is too interesting to skip.	Tue, 28 Sep 2021 09:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2021, tm_mon=9, tm_mday=28, tm_hour=9, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=271, tm_isdst=0)	42156689	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Welcome to stuff you should know a production of iHeartRadio. Hey and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's Chuck. And Chuck's a seven and I'm a nine. And this is stuff you should know. Oh, yeah. Did you figure yours out? Are you a nine? It depends on my nine for my birth. I'm a nine for my birth as well. My life path number. We're both nines, but you're a seven for your destiny number. I figured yours out. Hey, that means this all makes sense now. Yeah. That's why we were meant to be together on the show. It was preordained by the spirit herself. So we're talking about numerology, which I guess an overarching definition would be it's a pseudoscientific practice in which people base things on numbers like your destiny and who your romantic partner should be and maybe what job you should have and stuff like this. And I just want to say at the beginning of this that there are many different kinds of numerology and depending on where you're from and there are many different methods and many different charts, and we're not going to get too far into the weeds on those because it's all fake because it would just be a super long, like, four hour episode on numerology. So this is kind of just an overarching. It's what we do. It's basically what numerology is and how it works and not all the specificities of each system. Yeah, because your brain starts to melt a little bit when you start getting into all that. And they're all kind of the same. It's just different variations of sort of the same thing. Absolutely. And I think the fact that there are so many variations that are supposed to arrive at a precise figure kind of also warns the person to take the whole thing with a grain of salt. But it's apparently way more popular in 21st century America than I realized. Is it? Yeah. Man going to Bustle and the Cut and there's numerology.com, and there's a lot of sites that have if they're not overtly dedicated to numerology, they have whole sections dedicated to numerology and all that stuff. Are the cool kids doing it? I think so. I can't tell if it's the millennials or Gen Z. I don't know. That in there a supreme sweatshirt talking about numbers. That's right. I just met someone who works for them, who works for Bustle, works for supreme. And we should chat out, too. It's a master guitar player and is the Stuff You Should Know fan Matt Sweeney, who in the mid 90s had the indie rock sort of math rock band Chavez oh, yeah. And now has played with everyone from Johnny Cash to Adele. I know him from his work with Bonnie Prince Billy and I just saw them live. And I just got to hang out with Sweeney, had a great four hour dinner with Matt and his girlfriend Jr. And Jr works for supreme and was telling me all about it. Well, that is fantastic. I have someone I'd like to shout out. Let's do it. I'd like to shout out listener Jimmy McLeod, who took guitar lessons from the same Toledo metal band guitar. I saw that at Pmail. That was great music in Toledo. I was like, oh, my God, this is all absolutely correct. And he said, yes, indeed. This guy was inattentive at best. He would just go out and talk to people in the store in the middle of the lessons. I was like, yeah, that's right. So thank you, Jillian, for that. That was putting all those pieces together for me. My brain don't work so good. Yeah. Multiple shout outs. Is there anything else we can talk about that's not numerology? I've got another one. This is a long time overdue, but our friends at Flathead Lake Cheese oh, sure. Sent us an entire wheel of their Hopping Mad Gouda, which is maybe the best cheese anyone's ever made. That's good stuff. And I believe they give discounts to stuff you should know listeners, or every once in a while they have a stuff you should know sells or theme sales. So check out Flat Head like Cheese because they're great. And thanks to the Lowses for introducing us to them. That's right. Hilary and Mike okay, that's it for shout outs, buddy. All right, that's it. So how do we even get oh, supreme, right? Yes. All right, let's talk about numerology. So there is a thought among some people that numbers have these mystical properties that's the basis of the whole thing. The basis of the whole thing. And that some people even think that these numbers, like all things on the planet, have an inherent vibration and a unique vibration. And that if you guide your life by numbers that have vibrations that are in sync with one another, then you can lead a more complete life and lead your best life. Yeah. And the way that it ties into numbers is the idea that numbers basically run everything, that the properties that an individual number has can be attributed to things that are associated with that number. And you can break everything down into a number. And if you can break something down, if you can divide something's number, you can figure out what lies ahead for them, what their personality type is going to be, what their challenges are. Depending on some numerology systems, you could figure out what your lucky day is, what numbers you should play in the lotto, like all sorts of different stuff. But the idea goes well beyond, like, picking something at Roulette. It's like the idea of numerology is very much akin to astrology, where, based on your name, your date of birth, and a few other factors that are inherent to you, if you combine those into a number, you can figure out what number you're associated with, and hence what your destiny will be that's basically the general basis of all numerological systems. Right. And the father of Western numerology is Pythagoras, the Greek philosopher, born in 569 BC. Who studied numbers and studied music and art and all kinds of things. But I think one of the things Pythagoras like to do is say, like, hey, you can actually take the pluck of a leader string and you can break that down into a number, like that unique vibration of that note has its own number that we can assign to it. That was huge. Yeah, he was coming at it through some interesting angles at first, I think. And this was in 569. This was the 21st century. Right. This is when this probably sounded about as good as anything. Yeah. Pythagoras and his followers, known as the Pythagoreans, that school, and I think southern Italy, they were some of the first people to really apply a study of mathematics and geometry in particular, I think, beforehand. Geometry, I thought it described as basically a loose set of principles that you could use to build a house with or something like that. It wasn't like math in and of itself until Pyeoras came along and they started realizing, like, oh, wait, math exists on its own, like, it's its own thing, and started studying it like that and started finding it everywhere, like you said. I saw a description that Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans figured out that music, like resident like music that's not discordant, but the good stuff is it follows whole integers. And he figured it out by hearing how different hammers in a blacksmith's shop harmonized. And he went and looked, and he saw that those hammers were related mathematically. One would say a \u00a31 hammer, and the other one was part of a whole integer, like a half pound hammer. And he realized there's such a thing as octaves. And these were the discoveries they were making. And so this is some really cool stuff. It is. And just stuff we take for granted is, like, just matter of fact today, like they were figuring out. They also seem to have taken a lot of maybe mushrooms at the time. Yeah. And then it got weird. They were drinking reindeer pea, I'm not sure, but they really went down the rabbit hole with numbers and started finding these things everywhere and came to the conclusion that numbers were the basis of the fabric of existence in life, in the universe and everything, and that the answer to the purpose of existence was 42. All right, I think that's a good set up. Thank you. All right, well, let's take a break now, and we'll talk more, maybe shout out some more personal friends and friends of the show, and then we'll also talk about numerology. All right, so you mentioned the Pythagorean, the people who listened to and followed Pythagoras there in Southern Italy and studied with him, they also came up with some legit bedrock math that we still think of today and use today. Sure. Like if you've ever heard of the Pythagorean theorem, it's still very popular in math class. In maths? Yeah, everybody's got that T shirt when they're in 6th grade. And that's the old in a right triangle, the square of the length of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides. A squared plus B squared equals C squared. There it is. And it's interesting that they were coming up with all this bedrock stuff and this really cool stuff about figuring out mathematical proportions of musical harmonies like you were talking about, and I'm so down with all that. And then someone goes, hey, if you add up a series of odd numbers beginning with one, the result is always going to be a square number. And everyone went and then Pythagoras said, yeah, all is number. And then they all together said, all his number. That's exactly how it is. And from there, things got a little weird. And some people hear all his number and they say, well, that means that you can just measure everything in the entire world and you can describe it in terms of math and numbers and proportions. Fair enough. That's basically the basis of our understanding of geometry and physics. Yes. And then other people said, no, all his number, man, means everything in the world is made of numbers. That tree is a number. You are a number. Right. Because they're licking those toads. Yes. And in the background of reindeer pees quietly into a bucket. Bucket is then distributed into small mugs. The second part of all his number is the basis of numerology. And that's where it kind of veers away from science. And I was reading this VIRS. It takes a really hard turn. Yeah. Steps on the gas. Okay. And then that was virus means I think veer is a very gentle turn. Oh, I thought I think okay. Careen is away from science. Yeah. There you go. Okay. All right. So I saw a really interesting article on Bbdm, BBVD. BBVD open mind, I can't remember, but they were talking about Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans and how they're like this fulcrum where numbers went from mystical things having a mystical quality to bringing them into science and then taking it right back into mysticism again, which is really odd. But that's really what happened. And it was partially because they got so wrapped up in the idea that all his number and they were a really weird group of people. They met their end really violently in southern Italy, where their school was sacked and burned. At least 50 of them were killed. But like you said, they had created a real foundation for our understanding of math, and the idea that math was this thing that exists out there waiting for us to discover and that it has a lot to do with our life, but that the mystical qualities associated kind of died with Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans. That's right. I guess. Should we get into a little bit of kind of what they were laying down there? Yeah. All right. So they were studying these mathematical concepts and they said, all right, here's what we're going to do. We're going to sort numbers into buckets, into categories, not the reindeer P bucket, but into mathematical categories, levers we can pull. Yeah. Let's say one, four and nine are square, because if you take pebbles, the corresponding number of little pebbles or rocks or whatever, you can arrange them into a square. Pretty soon again, geometry coming into play. One, three, six and ten are triangular because one, three, six or ten little pebbles can be arranged into regular triangles. The use of one is both the square and triangle. It's like I dispute that, too. You're going to have to pick one or the other pythagorean. All right. So it would be falling apart for you already if you were back there. Just there, though. Just there. Everything else. I was like, yeah, all his number, give me some more, baby. Two, six and twelve, or oblong. So the corresponding number is rectangle. And so they're doing this kind of thing and then they start getting into non numerical stuff and saying, all right, odd numbers are masculine, even numbers are feminine. The number one is creative because if you add multiple ones, you can create any other number. Bro. What else is there? Well, two, so odd is masculine. Even our feminine, like you said. So two is the first feminine number. It represents duality. There's two three is the first masculine number because, like you said, one is its own thing. It's a creator number. And so, yeah, five represents marriage because it's where the first masculine number and the first feminine number add up to just stuff like that. These people clearly have way too much time on their hands to think of something like that. Yeah. And so each number one through nine, this is very important because we didn't say it earlier when we introduced numerology, but in numerological systems, one through nine are the prime. And I don't mean that mathematically. The most important, the most used, the most useful numbers. Yeah. Tell you the word price. Right. So one through nine are the ones to focus on, and that also came directly from the Pythagoreans. They focused mostly on the numbers one through nine as well. Right. And I think a goal for a lot of these charts is to get your number down to one of those single digits eventually. Right. Yeah. For most systems and with most numbers, we'll talk about it, but yes, you ultimately want to get it down to one of those single digit numbers. Yeah. Because you can't be ten, because ten is a sacred number, because someone said, you know, if you add up the first four digits, it equals ten. Bro. And they did stuff like that. They did stuff like that. But also, I just want to point out one of the other things they did that I didn't even know these existed, so I'm still impressed. They were the first ones to detect perfect numbers. And perfect number is a number where the divisors add up to form the number. So six is a perfect number because if you add as divisors being one, two, and three, they add up to six. So, I mean, there is some neat stuff that is actually, I think, useful that came out of it. But yes, other stuff is like, yes, ten is sacred, because if you add up one, two, three, and four, it comes up to ten. It's like, what about 5678 and nine jack? You just can't ignore those. Yes, we are. Yes. The number ten also led to the list of ten fundamental opposites, a few of which are one in many, rest in motion, good and evil, stuff like that. Yeah. Straight and crooked. Sure. Light and dark. Straight and crooked. Yin and yang. That's not in there, is it? No, you had to look. All right, here's the thing, because there's a really ironic end to the Pythagoreans because they looked too hard into numbers and how numbers related to the universe that they actually found that everything doesn't fit into some neat and tidy box like they thought. And supposedly one of the Pythagoreans was kind of hanging around, doing some equations, some formula at some point and tried to come up with the square root of two and discovered the existence of irrational numbers. And an irrational number is a number that has a nonrepeating, non terminating decimal. It just goes on infinitely. Like, pi is an irrational number. The square root of two, like the Pythagoreans figure as an irrational number, and it can't be represented in a simple fraction like every other number. Rational numbers is what they're called. And apparently, when they found this out, it kind of like their worldview crumbled. This all his number thing crumbled because they couldn't figure out how this would apply to an orderly, beautiful universe. And apparently, even before they were sacked and burned and killed, the school kind of like, fell onto dark times once they figured out there were such things as irrational numbers. Yeah, that's what happens when you're in a cult. Yeah. Kind of. You're faced with reality, and it usually doesn't go very well. So after the death of Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans, the mysticism, all this stuff kind of faded away a little bit and was resurrected in the 1800s, kind of notably with the writings of a book from Mrs. L dal Ballet. A-K-A. Josie. I don't get it. That was her name. Okay. I think it Josie. Her husband's name was L Dow. Her name was Josephine. Josie Ballette. I'm sorry. I was looking up anything on this person, and she is just nowhere, but she wrote a bunch of books, but very little is known about her except she died at age 84 in Atlantic City, I read. Very interesting. But she was the first one to kind of come along and say vibrations. Right, yeah. And there were other people that were writing books and stuff. It didn't completely, completely go away. But I think these books that talked about vibrations and they talked about music and numbers and colors being because there's a little bit of synesthesia sort of thrown in here as well. If some of this kind of sounds familiar with colors and numbers representing the same thing, she was talking about everything and all these numbers having vibrations, people, food, a tree, a bicycle, anything has a vibration. And this idea that I spoke about earlier, if you want to live in harmony in the world, then your environment should and the numbers of your environment that have been assigned need to match your own vibration and your own number. Right. Definitely. This is kind of what we think of as modern numerology at this point. Yeah. One interesting thing about vibrations, especially about like an old timing 19th century writer, new age writer basically talking about vibrations, is that's actually the basis of some of the theories of how sub atomic particles behave. Vibrations. Like string theory. Is based on the idea that sub atomic particles are actually vibrating strings of energy that vibrate at different frequencies and that those differing frequencies produce their shape or their form. Which is I just find that endlessly fascinating that it's almost. In some weird way. Predicted string theory. But it's just one of those things where it's like yeah. I mean. Vibrations. Especially if you're into things like music. It's not like that far of a stretch. Or was it like yeah, they were tapped into some sort of weird preternatural understanding of subatomic physics. Yeah. Super interesting. Pythagoras also believed that this vibration could have had something to do with what was called the music of the spheres, which is what he believed. Like, the planets were embedded in these transparent physical spheres, and the distance between them corresponded to these musical ratios. And these are the sounds that these vibrations that the planets and the sun make while orbiting the Earth. A little off on that one. Wasn't that on the Golden Records? Didn't Carl Sagan create, like, an homage to that on the Golden Records? I think so. I know it sounded familiar. Yeah, we've definitely talked about it before. I do also want to shout out a company. If you're looking to get a kind of the best wind chime that you can buy. Wind chimes? No, there's a company out of Austin called Music of the Spears. Oh, cool. And they're amazing. I've got several sets in different places, and I wanted to shout them out for a while because when someone just makes something great, this ain't no big box. Sure. Wind chimes? No, wind chimes are us. These beautiful sounds? No, it's a music of the sphere. So wait a minute. You're poking fun at people who are talking about how ten is a holy number, because one through four up to ten, and you have multiple wind chimes at your house. I love wind chime. I got one of those big donors at my camp, like, way up in a tree. And these things, it took a lot to get them up there. They're heavy, but they're like, 5ft long. Yeah, I've seen that. I'm sure the local squirrels are really happy you've moved in. Hey, we've still bears, despite the chime. Oh, is the bear back? Has it been back? No, but I put the chime up and the bear came afterwards, so I think they're attracted to it. I got you. It says, Bears, come get a picnic basket. So where are we here? Well, we're talking about modern numerology, right? Yeah. I guess we should talk a little bit about should we take a break and then talk about that? I think you're right, Chuck. All right, we'll take a break and we'll talk about sort of modern numerology and how we come up with our own numbers and what that even means right after this. All right, so we talked about how one through nine are inherently important to modern numerologists. And the Pythagoreans too, right? Correct. And that each of those numbers, one through nine, has its own vibration, and those vibrations give that number a certain property. And I'm talking properties like leadership, harmony, karma, wisdom, curiosity, like intangible, but important properties that humans could conceivably possess. These numbers different numbers inherently have. That's right. And depending on what system you're you're using, there is going to be a chart where a letter corresponds with a number and can be as easy as A is one, B as two, and so on. And like we said, there are a lot of different kinds of charts. So depending on which system you're using, you're going to use that chart, and what you're going to do is eventually end up with that single digit number, unless there are a couple of exceptions to that, right? Well, yeah, we'll get to those, but there are a couple of different numbers that you can get. You can use your name, like your first, middle, and last name by birth. I saw here in this article where it said you have to use your birth name nicknames and change names don't count. That's what I saw. But I also saw other places where when you change your name, that changes your destiny. Oh, really? And so you're supposed to refigure that. I saw one place that allowed for nicknames in addition to given names, but almost everywhere else said, no, your birth name is the one that's important. And the reason they gave is the same reason that's in this article, that before you're born, you basically communicate to your parents what your name should be so that your given name is going to suit your numerological number that you're destined to have. Yeah, that's where you get it from. That's where your parents get your name from. It's actually from you little psychic baby in the womb. Yeah. And I think the idea is if you use your name to come up with a number, like, there's a couple of different numbers. There's your name number and then your birth date number and your name number is kind of your personality in the interview where your birth number is what has been referred to as your life path number or your destiny number. And using these two numbers, if you're into this kind of thing, you can make decisions on how to move forward in your life and align these numbers with the rest of your life. Yeah, I saw the destiny number, and we'll explain how you get that. That's derived from your name. That's how you'll reach the goals that are part of your life path number. Right. So it's actually really interesting stuff to start with. The destiny number, also called the expression number. You take that full name from what I saw from birth, I hadn't seen that you're choosing a different name altered your path. It's pretty interesting. But if you stick with just your chosen name, it has to be your full given name of birth, first, middle, and last name. And if you don't have a middle name, that's okay. You can just do your first and last name. And that when you add up the numbers from the corresponding letters from each of your names. You come up with three numbers. You add those together. So, for example, Chuck, your first name, Charles is 30. Wayne comes up to 23. Brian Pythagoras is my other middle name. Bryant adds up to 26. If you add those together, you get 79. Well, 79 is virtually meaningless as far as numerology is concerned. So you want to add seven and nine. You get 16 getting closer, but still not really useful. So you had one and six. And now we finally come to your true destiny number, Chuck, which is seven. Right. So seven is my destiny number. And if you look up, you can look up like, attributes for each of these numbers. And this is where it's basically if you're thinking it sounds like astrology and horoscopes or the Zodialogical birth calendars, you're right. All of this stuff is kind of that. Yeah. So seven means is magic, wisdom, intelligence, mystery, solitude that's you all over. What's your number? I'm a nine. And interestingly, there's different well, I'm a nine from my life path number. I'm not sure from my name number. All right, so we're both nines on the life path number, which I looked up a thing that said your life path number is the number of completion resolution. Those with number nine, this is for both of us tend to have a humanitarian and almost a utopian quality to their being because we're compassionate and philanthropical, we are likely to be drawn toward global issues that deal with the helping of the whole humankind in the world. But Josh, we need to be wary of overextending ourselves and sacrificing too much of ourselves and losing the greater perspective in the pursuit of our goals. We have to learn to say no sometimes. In other words, yeah, we've gotten better about that over the years. That is definitely well, that's because we're following our destiny numbers toward our life path number. So you just kind of, like, said something I think is really important to point out about numerology that you're going to encounter if you get a numerological reading is the number has the best of you and the stuff you need to avoid, it's all encompassed in that one number. And you have multiple numbers, so each of those have things to avoid, things to focus on, things to improve on, things that are going to challenge you in your life, which I find pretty interesting. Yeah. And it gets more complicated than that, too. If you want to drill down, there are numerologists who use these big charts and diagrams that end up kind of looking like astrological charts. And that's when they're sort of drilling down to how you relate to people in your family, maybe, or to the person you're married to, or if you want to find a romantic partner or avoid negative tendencies, or just find out what your lucky number lucky day is. Yeah. And also there's some systems that I've seen multiple places that just rely almost like shorthand on the date of your birth. So the day of the month that you were born on, like, that's it. I was born on July 15, so that would make me a 6th. And that's it. That's what they use. They don't do the name thing. They don't do your whole birthday. They just do the day of the month that you were born on. Almost much more like a zodiac logical sign or astrological sign. And so as a six, I can do things like I need to look for foods that are pale purple and blue. Those are going to vibrate with me most harmoniously. I should live in a city, maybe Madras or Baton Rouge. Surprising to me. And then I should associate mostly with number five. It turns out that I'm most harmonious with them. Is you, me a five? I don't know. No, she's a three, I think, because she's a ten. She's a ten. That's very nice, Emily. And you, me are ten s. That's why we married them. That's right. Let's just go with eleven. Mine goes to eleven. I love that. And this is actually in the House of Works article. I can't believe you found one that we haven't mind yet, but this is from Tracy Wilson, our still colleague. Almost. Hit former because we just don't see them anymore of the virus. Are you about to route her? No. Okay. Over at stuff you missed in history class with Holly. Right. Are you about to out her from a numerologist no. As a determined Harry Potter fan. Oh, I didn't even think about that. This all makes sense now. There's a lot of Harry Potter in this. There's a lot of Harry Potter in this article. This all makes sense now. Okay. Tracy's defense was written in 2008 when the kind of thing was super hip. But yeah, it's pretty funny how much Harry Potter pops up. Yeah, she use Harry Potter as the example of finding Harry Potter's number and all that. And in the intro, too, she talks about her Miami practicing arithmency. Yeah. Which is a big deal in Harry Potter. But I brought it up because Tracy referred to and she's probably not the first, but she referred to numerology as a version of a kind of applied mysticism. And I like that definition, basically, where you correlate a mystical symbol with somebody's life. I think that kind of says it best. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of things you could do that kind of fall under the New Age umbrella as far as numerology astrology, where you can look at it a couple of ways. Like, you can give responsibility for your life over to your numerological number or your astrological sign, associate with some people and stay away from other people or certain foods or whatever, and just kind of, like, not have to think about life quite as much or make your own decisions. That's like the bigger criticism of New Age stuff. But there's a much more generous way of interpreting it, too, and saying, like, if you're feeling a little lost or unmoored or unrooted and you're trying to figure out what direction to kind of set your compassion, you could do worse than doing your numerological sign and being like, oh, I should focus on being more creative and need to look out for being too dependent on others. Does that apply to me? Maybe it does. Let me just kind of go forth from there. And I wouldn't recommend doing a daily numerological thing or anything like that, but I'm saying in some ways, New Age stuff can be harmful because it kind of takes the purpose out of life for a lot of people. But in other ways, it can kind of be a guide, just the same way that like religion or Friends or a television show that you think is speaking directly to you. Can I hear you? Do you? I do. We're kind of at that point, I guess, about some criticisms. And one thing Tracy does mention, and I think this is just more as an example, not as specifically as applies to the practice of numerology, but just people believing, like, in a special number in their life and how they always see that number. I know people that see numbers and think that they mean something. Like there's a certain number and I always see it. And that's sort of that confirmation bias at work generally, where you notice that number more, you're really seeing all kinds of numbers, but you notice 1111 on the clock because you've told yourself that 1111 means something to you, right? Or you've heard that it does. Yeah, you've heard that it does. And you don't think about all of the other times that you've seen on the clock all day or all the numbers you see all day long. And that's fair enough. I think another criticism of numerology is that the whole thing is based on an invented system accounting grouping by ten. And that's not even the first or I was about to say the most legitimate, I guess it's not the original system of counting, it was just made up by people to begin with. It's the basis of the metric system. I would say it's legit. Well, not illegitimate, but it was invented by humans, right? Yes. And it's not the only way that we know how to count. Same as like using the English alphabet to divine your future because you're applying a number, an Arabic numeral, to a letter from the English alphabet. Those aren't the only number systems or the only alphabet system. So yes, it's made up and you could make a case that a numerologist might make and say, well, you were born English speaking in an English speaking country that uses Arabic numerals. So of course that's going to apply to you. I haven't heard what the response would be for. Like if you were born in China, where the average person needs to know about 2000 different characters in their alphabet to make their way through life, like how that would apply to numerology. But yes, the basis of this whole thing is there's just so many holes you could drive a truck through every single one of them. But if it's providing some sort of comfort or even guidance to somebody and it's not hurting other people, damaging their lives, or shortening or narrowing their prospects, then I mean, is it harmful? I don't know, I could be missing something in that sense. I know what you mean. And even if someone would be like, yeah, but what about these people that pay money and flush their money down the toilet? You say that's the problem with a numerologist. Another person might say, well, you know what, I think that it's a waste of money talking to a therapist who doesn't know you. Or they could say they're stimulating the economy. Well the point is if the person walks away from that experience happy and satisfied, then it's a victimless crime. It's not a crime at all, it's someone paying money for something that they feel like they got something out of. If you walk out of there and you're like, what a rip off. I can't believe I paid $10 for someone to look into a crystal ball or to read my numerological chart. Then it's a problem. But if you want to spend your money that way, we're not going to yuck your yum. If you feel good about it, good on you. Yes. I have one caveat to that, though. Okay. That makes me anxious about this, just signing off on that. And that is that I feel like this resurgence and numerology we're seeing, I'm sure most of the people who are like the younger people who are into it today don't realize that it was huge in the then apparently it was huge in the 19th century. It just keeps coming back at certain times in certain ways. This time that it's come back around, it's correlated with, again, this death of trust in expertise, and it's anti science sentiment. And that way I don't like anything that promotes an anti science sentiment or makes you believe that your opinion is just as good as somebody who's gone and studied whatever you're talking about for a dozen years. Super valid. Yes. So in that sense, I do not endorse it if it does kind of promote that. But again, if we can just bring it back to if it's just making them happy, then, you know, and it's not harming them or society in general, then I'm good with that. All right, great. Like that matters. I guess my big takeaway from this article was at the very end, Tracy kind of snuck in. A cool fact that I never knew was that the reason that we here in the west count things in groups of ten or it's sort of a ten based system is probably because we have ten fingers. And that the old English language. And the old English words for numbers reflect this groups of ten. And the word eleven means one left and twelve is an abbreviation of two left. Yeah, like one left over ten, two left over ten, and then third. That's the fact of the show for me right here at the very I think you're right, Chuck. I totally agree. That means that we should be seeing twelve in. Twelve in is how we're going to say twelve from now on. I'll be like, look it up, and then think about 13, too. That's like 310, 410, 510. Twelve. If you want to know more about numerology, I guess go visit thebussle or numerology.com and see what you think. See if it's right for you. But God help you if you stop believing in expertise or become anti science, because that is not a good thing, anybody. But thinking for yourself is as well. So maybe we can figure out a way to balance all that together. Since I said, let's figure out a way to balance all that together. It's time for listening mail. This is from Cassie. Sounds like lassie in Statesborough, Georgia. Oh, yeah. Shroom. Burger down there. That's right. So this was in reference to the Georgia lizard that we had quite a few people right in. It is not a leopard gecko or whatever you said it was. Everyone's wrong but me. Okay. Because they don't have those in this country. They're big in Pakistan, apparently. But yeah, that's probably it. From my time living in Pakistan, I've never had a reason to send an email till now, guys. But here it is. In response to the short stuff on chameleons, check what's going on about the skinks. And Josh was saying that they're geckos. I'm pretty sure that he's wrong, because way back in 99, my family moved to Georgia from Minnesota, and I was living in Minnesota. I worked at a pet store that sold lizards, among other animals. Had chameleons iguanas geckos. And is it pronounced anole? A-N-O-L-E? Anoli. Canoli leave the gun. Take the Anoli. Oh, boy. Well, that's anole. The reason I'm saying this is because when we moved to Georgia, started seeing these anollies, or anals analysis analysts go with Anoli everywhere. My twelve year old brain was cooking up his scheme to catch them and sell them for the going rate back in Minnesota, which is $20 each. Wow. Those are $90. Yeah. So it'd be like today. I know those are grunge dollars. I learned that it was against a lot of own native species in Georgia, so I didn't go through with that plan. If you read this email and you get a chance, search Enoli and see if that's the lizard. And that is indeed the lizard, Cassie. So thank you and others for figuring that out for us. Very nice. Thank you. Cassie rhymes with lassie. Cassie said that, right. You didn't say that. Yeah, she said. Well, if you want to be like Cassie rhymes with lassie, you can write to us and tell us your name and what it rhymes with, and maybe we'll end up reading your email on listener mail, wrap it up, spank it on the Enoli, and send it off to stuffpodcast@iheartradio.com. Stuff you should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts myheartradio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows."
c5e8b73c-5460-11e8-b38c-3b95400af575	Selects: Horoscopes: Written in the Stars?	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/selects-horoscopes-written-in-the-stars	A lot of people read their daily horoscopes, but does anyone really take stock in them? Turns out the answer is yes, even though there is no evidence of their accuracy. Learn all about horoscopes today in this classic episode.	A lot of people read their daily horoscopes, but does anyone really take stock in them? Turns out the answer is yes, even though there is no evidence of their accuracy. Learn all about horoscopes today in this classic episode.	Sat, 01 Jan 2022 10:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2022, tm_mon=1, tm_mday=1, tm_hour=10, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=5, tm_yday=1, tm_isdst=0)	47189357	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Hey, everybody. It's your friend Josh. And for this week's select, I chose our 2016 episode on horoscopes, and I was pretty proud of us on this one because we took something that both Chuck and I were engaged incredulous about, and we talked about it on its own terms, which can be tough to do. So I'm kind of proud of this one, and I hope you, at the very least, enjoy it. If not, feel proud of us too. Welcome to stuff you should know a production of iHeartRadio. Hi, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W, Chuck Bryant, and Jerry's over here, and we're just relaxing here in studio one eight. So this stuff you should know oh, I thought it was astrochat. Yeah, that's what we would call it. Astro Chat is a great name. Or horoscope or podcast. I say horoscope. No, you shouldn't say that. No. Would you ever want to do a horoscope or astrology podcast? Oh, you mean on its own? Yeah. No, I would not. See, well, we were talking about this briefly until I didn't do it this time, but normally whenever this is a secret, Chuck, that I'm about to share with everybody. Oh, the pretaping secret. Yeah. If we start to talk and get too involved in the topic before we start recording, usually one of us will be like, stop, this is golden. Just save it for the podcast. Sure. We didn't do that this time. I think we just kind of naturally discontinued conversations sort of figured out. Right. But you were saying that you are, and I don't know if you're ready to admit this or not this early in the episode. You're a little incredulous about horoscopes and astrology. Yes. Okay. I am as well. But I think the difference between us is you're just kind of like, Come on. And as I was researching it more and more, I was like, this is really interesting. I could sit here and read about this all day, and now that it's been brought up, I'm like, I could probably do a skeptical, but not with the aim to destroy it, but just from a skeptical standpoint. Podcast on astrology. I think that would fascinate me personally. I know that one day, maybe. So, yeah, I think we got on that because I was having a hard time wrapping my head around a couple of I'm not going to say scientific parts, but a couple of the sciencey parts of this. And I kept going back to, like, who cares? It's not real. Yeah. So it's hard for me to commit to the learning of it. And we typically have a thing where it's like, you know, poopoo people's beliefs. Yes. We're not really doing that here, but there have been a couple of occasions where we're just kind of like, there's just no way. One of them was crop circles. Yeah. I don't plan on poopooing this throughout, but I think it's good for us to state our beliefs from the get go, all right. So that we don't mislead anybody who does believe in it. Well, I had my astrological chart done once. You did? Yeah. I didn't seek it out and pay for it. My friend's mom is really into this and she asked me one time, she's like, do you want me to do your chart? And I went, sure. So she did my chart and I remember looking at it and thinking like, wow. Kind of like when you look at your sun sign, we'll go ahead and say that's what most like when somebody says, what sign are you? Yes. Or if you read your daily horoscope, it's based on your sun sign. I would look at things like that, or whatever my year is on the Chinese zodiac and think like, oh, wow, I am some of these things. Right. But then I'm like, not about half of those things. Sure. So I just think it's interesting. I think it's interesting as well. But again, from a standpoint of where I don't actually believe it's effective or real, but just the thought put into it. And Ed wrote this article, The Grabster, and he makes a really good point, saying like, even if you don't believe it or not, getting your chart done is interesting in and of itself. I think so. Sure. And at the very least, it's going to force you to be a little more introspective about yourself than you normally would be. Because you're being presented with basically like, here's your personality according to the cosmos. And you can't help but think, am I introspective? Do I set things on fire? I think anything that can spur self reflection is valuable in some ways. Yes. I think that's where interests like I would go to a palm reader just to know what that's like. Right. But I wouldn't leave thinking like, oh, boy. Right. My life is set out before me. Yeah, exactly. You know Nancy Reagan. Well, we'll get to that, but spoiler, I am not Nancy Reagan. We should probably say for those of you who are confused, they're like, how are they poopooing this? Like this is the science of Neil degrasse Tyson and Carl Sagan. I don't understand. We're talking about astrology, not astronomy. Right. So astrology is basically the idea that distant objects out in the cosmos, planets, stars, constellations, specifically have an influence on our lives and events on the planet. Right. And it's very old. I saw as far back as 5000 years ago, people were starting to develop astrological systems. I saw more frequently 3000 years ago at the Babylonians that Western astrology kind of started to develop. Yeah. Should we talk about history a little bit? Yeah, I think I finally figured out my beef with it. Should I hold on to that or should we talk about history first? That's up to you, man. How do you want it to play? Out. Just don't forget if you hang on to it. All right, I'm going to write beef at the top of my page. You're going to actually shoot a duck later on. Okay. It's like memento, I'll come back to that. So history, we need to go back in the way back machine way back to ancient times, to Babylon. Yeah. When basically people we and we are going back to Babylon, basically, when people were, like, looking around at everything and going, I don't get it. Why is all this stuff happening? Why did the Earth just open up and swallow fish mail? Why is it raining? Why is it not raining? Yeah. Why are the crops doing well? Why are they doing terribly? Yeah. Why is that? Sun up half the day and down half the day? Yeah. So as humans started to get a little more I don't know about intelligent, but inquisitive. Inquisitive. I was about to say answer seeky. But inquisitive is the word for that. As they started to get a little more answer seeky, they started to make things up that made them feel better about what was going on. Right. I mean, they did apply a certain measure of science to it, which is where a lot of people who believe in astrology get the idea that it's scientific in some way, shape or form, because it does involve the movement, studying and tracking the movement of the planets and the constellations, the cosmos. Right? Yeah. And Ed makes a good point. Back then, astronomy and astrology were the same thing. Right. Because you took those observations, astronomy and then you used them to predict or explain the stuff that was going on here on Earth. Right. Which we now call astrology. Right, yeah. I don't even know what they called it back then. They called it reality, probably. So but it wasn't just the Babylonians who are doing this. Like, all over the planet, basically every culture that's ever lived had some sort of astrological system. Yeah. The Aztec and Incas and the mines in South America, they had a zodiac of 20 symbols, including things like earthquake and ape and rain, and when they died out, they took it with them. It didn't seep into modern forms of astrology, like the Babylonians, for instance. No Spanish Jesuit was saying, so can you explain your astrological system to an Inca emperor that was being tortured to death? What else? The Chinese, of course, they had their own by 1000 BC. And they had 24 divisions in a year. Yeah. They had like the most complex one, probably, of all time. Not surprising. No. I don't know why that's not surprising. They're complex people. Maybe when I think of the zodiac, I think of the Western zodiac and then Chinese zodiac. Yeah, me too. The only thing I knew about Chinese zodiac coming in was what year animal I was. What are you from? The menu at the Chinese restaurant, that's where I learned it too. Yeah. I'm the dog. Oh, I'm a dragon. Yeah. Jerry, are you a cat? She just meowed. That was weird. Her first instinct. There is a year of the cat. That Al Stuart song. Are you the year of the fish, Jerry? Jerry said that she was the ox, the year of the oxy meow. But when she called upon to do an animal sound, she meowed. I think it's cute. What if ox's oxen meowed? Maybe an ox that was raised by cats. Sure. And it imprinted might learn to meow. I think that's what Jerry was saying. This one's getting silly. The horoscope one is getting silly. It is. Is there gas leaking in one of our vents that I don't know about? All right, so back to China. 24 divisions, 28 part lunar zodiac, and then the twelve branches that correspond to the animal. And then those animals have further subdivisions. Like you could be a fire dog or a water dragon. Right. Which we'll get to that stuff in a minute, too. Yeah. And I didn't know that you could be like an elemental animal. I thought it was just straight up animal. I did not know that either. Yeah. That's one thing about astrology, no matter what system you're looking at, there's like, oh, there's this one layer, and then let's add this other layer, and another layer, and another layer. Right. That's what fascinates me. It's just the thought that's going into it. Sure. What about Babylon, though? What do you mean? Well, I mean oh, that's like the origin of the Western. Yeah. And here is where it becomes painfully obvious that astrology can't possibly be correct or real. Yeah, I know what you're about to say. So our idea of the constellations here in the west came from the ancient Babylonian people and astronomers and astrologers who looked up and they said, oh, Mars is red, so blood can be red. Yeah. So Mars is probably associated with war. Right. They just kind of just made that up. They made it up. And that is fundamentally the basis of astrology. Stuff that was made up by the Babylonians can't possibly be true. It's just basically a fact. The other big thing is the Babylonians divided the zodiac into twelve equal parts. But according to their own stories, there were 13 constellations in the zodiac. So they just picked one and left it out. Yes. Which was ophechus. I like how you said that. Opiates. I don't know, man, I've never tried to say that out loud. O-P-H-I-U-C-H-U-S. It's like the hidden zodiac symbol. Well, not hidden, they just kind of said twelve kind of works out better. Right, so let's just leave it out. Yeah. And if the Babylonians prove anything, it's that for thousands of years, humans have always preferred things to be nice and tidy and neat. They don't like it to be messy, because if you really look at what they were trying to do. It's super messy. So, for example, if you are dividing the night sky into twelve, trying to assign a month to each horoscope, you've got constellations slopping over into other zodiac signs. Sure. The actual movement of the constellations behind the sun is way less than a 30 day standard. I think Scorpio is actually in line with the sun for about seven days out of the year, whereas one of the other ones is around for like, 45 days, I believe. I don't think we even said what that means, though. Maybe explain that we should start from the beginning, shall we? Yeah. We got the history down. Yeah. Do you want to take a break first? Yeah, why not? I'll go check my horoscope and see if it says we should continue. Okay. Well, lucky for us, the horoscope said finish show. It said Ask again later. Yeah, it said finish show the magic, but take it easy on me. Yeah. Lay off, jerks. I had even resolved to not poopoo astrology. I think the first thing I did was launch into it I'm sorry, astrology. So we should get to the basics of all this, and there's two things that we have to point out. One, we would have to spend years researching astrology to really get everything right. Yes. Two, even if we spent years researching astrology, we would still get stuff wrong, depending on who you are, because there's a lot of contradictory things. Like, for example, I saw that the Moon is a fire sign. I also saw that the Moon is associated with water. Yeah. How is that? Well, I think there's just been so many permutations over the years that it's been kind of mixed together. Okay, so we are going to get things that will contradict your understanding of astrology, I'm quite sure. But for the most part, I feel like if we're sticking to the basics of it, we can get it fairly right. Right. Yeah. I mean, the most basic thing is sun sign astrology, which is really just seeing where each planet was when you were born, the day you were born. That's the most simplistic way to look at it. Right. And when you ask somebody, what's your sign? PISCES. Okay, I'm Cancer. All that's saying is that on the date of our births, the PISCES constellation allegedly was behind the sun as it rose. Right. And when I was born, the Cancer constellation was behind the sun when it rose. I like to think the sun shining a little brighter when we were born, but probably I can't prove that. No, but you can just make a pretty good assumption. So the way that you do this is you basically take the sun and the Earth in its orbit around the sun, which equals a year, and you draw a line, an arrow, even from the Earth. Put it flat. Lay it flat. I forgot to say that right. And you draw an arrow from the earth through the sun and then out the other side of the sun and wherever that arrow is pointing, which is actually the opposite side of the sun, opposite to earth. Whatever constellation that is, that's your sign. Right. Pretty simple stuff, right? So you can think of a circle around each if you looked at it as a circle, each sign would be its own little zone. Zone, exactly. A pizza slice, a pie slice, whatever. If you have a sweet tooth or a salty tooth, you're going to go with either one of those. Right. What about cake? I guess a cake too. Are you cake or pie? Both. What's your favorite cake? I like a good coconut cream cake or coconut frosting cake. What's your favorite pie? Probably coconut green pie. No, actually it sounds gross. I would say a good key lime pie, but does cheesecake constitute pie? I think you've just opened up a hornet's nest. Well, I love cheesecake, basically. I don't really discriminate. I recently started trying cherry pie and I was like, where have you been my whole life? Why did I ever discriminate against you? It's just been sitting there in the pie safe, rotting because no one eats cherry pie anymore. Yeah, and then I came along and ate all the rotten cherry pie and loved it. Alright, what about you? Cake pie? Oh, I love the good key lime pies like you were saying. But I don't eat a lot of either. I don't just keep like cake and pie around the house. It's probably a good move. And I don't really eat dessert in the restaurants either, so just neither probably more cake. Just because cakes are the occasion dessert. Like people bring in cake for birthdays or whatever. Like public cake is awesome. There's standard cake with buttercream icing. Yeah, never had it. Oh, Chuck. I'll bring you a slice. I like a good pecan pie. Oh yeah, those are good too. I eat the pecan now, but I used to not like the nuts. I would just slice that off because I like the jelly. You get rid of the candy pecans? Yeah, but I don't now because now I'm grown up. Okay, just eat the jelly man. Pecan pie. Pumpkin pie, sure. All right, I'm going all in on pie now that I think about it. Okay, pie. Alright. Wait till you try the public cake though. Where are we? Sorry, we were talking about how slices. Right. And each one of those slices is one of the twelve constellations of zodiac. Right. Okay. So whatever constellation is opposite the earth on the other side of the sun, that's your sun sign. And when you were born, that constellation has a bunch of different personality traits and they are basically imbued on to you. You were born under that sign which means you are going to have those personality traits. That's the point of what's called the sun sign. That's right. In Western astrology, there you can subdivide it into three groups. Mundane astrology. And this is basically what is your aim with these mundane astrology is examines world events and makes predictions about big things like the economy and war. Interrogatory astrology seeks to make predictions, very specific ones. Or analyses for events or your life, maybe. Like for you, the individual. Yeah, more like you say it's like when somebody says they'll consult the stars to see what the best course of action is. That's what they're talking about. Which seems like it overlaps with the last one. I think all three of them could, definitely. If you're doing like a serious chart to figure out something, a deep dive, you would probably do all three. So what would that be? Natal astrology. Like birth astrology. Yeah. And that's when you read your daily horoscope. And that's based on the idea that everything that happens to someone is expressed by the very beginning. Like that moment you were born. Right. But ironically, the moment you're born at the moment you were conceived. So really, that's when the astrology starts. Not the moment you're conceived, but the moment you were born. Right. But the idea, this law of beginning says that the moment you're born, the stars basically make everything in your life predestined and therefore predictable. If the person knows how to read the stars correctly, that's the basis of astrology. Yeah. And then what? You would come up with these predictions, this chart that is your horoscope. That's right. And then there are different the signs that can be subgrouped into four elements you've heard of. Like I'm a water sign. You're a water sign. Sure. We're both water signs. How about that? Yeah. So fire sign, that would be Aries, Leo, SAGITTARIUS, enthusiasm, action, leadership, open to change. Water signs. Besides cancer and PISCES, you get Scorpio, emotion, sensitivity and compassion. Earth signs taurus, Virgo, Capricorn, practicality and a focus on material goals. And then air signs. Gemini, libra and aquarius signifies intellect. Right. And those are the big groupings, the elemental groupings. Right. So here we've kind of come up with another layer, right? Yeah. Since each sign on its own has its own qualities. Like, for example, the cancer is very domestic, imaginative, thorough, shy, interested in the past and tradition. That's me all over. Is it really? All those things? Yeah, basically. Then you lay over the water sign. Right. That it's a water sign. So that adds to the emotion of the sensitivity or the compassion of it. Where it really starts to get interesting is the idea that there is a relationship between the element and the sign. And those are with the cardinal fixed or mutable. Right. Whether or not you're resistant to change, you're able to change or what's cardinal just general movement. Cardinal is that it moves. Right. So these three things, it's like a whole other layer. Basically, they have to do with the solstices and the equinoxes, we should say. There's a couple of kinds of Western astrology. One is Sidreal, which follows the movement of the stars. So your birth sign is Cyril, astrology. There's another one called Tropical that really just has nothing to do with the stars. It has to do with the Sun's relative position to the horizon. So it has to do with things like solstices and equinoxes. Yeah. So when you go into the Tropical type of astrology, that's when the cardinal fixed immutable comes up. So a cardinal sign. Right. Each element has a cardinal sign. So there's four cardinal signs. And for example, Cancer is the cardinal water sign. Right. Each element also has four fixed signs. So Leo is the fixed fire sign. That has to do with persistence, perseverance, resistance to change. And then lastly, mutable means you're flexible, adaptable, suggestible. And Gemini is a mutable air sign. There's four different mutable air signs. Right. So you put them all together and what you have is interaction between the elements and the signs themselves. So that you have sometimes contradictory stuff. You have things that enhance other things, but it's yet another layer. So now you have three layers deep of interpretations, not just the sign. And it's up to an astrologer to extract however they want to read it. Basically, like Ed makes a point. You can ask a hundred different astrologers to look at your chart and they might give you 100 different readings. Yeah, because it's ultimately the astrologers interpretation of the information that's presented by the signs and whether they're cardinal or fixed or mutable or what element they are. Right. Well, they can also be masculine or feminine, which Ed points out is not really I can't think of it in terms of gender. It's more like the concept of yin and yang. Right. Which makes a little more sense. Yeah. But when I look at mine, PISCES, February 20 to March 20, mutable water, feminine. Okay. So that's where I am. Emotional? Sure. Self sacrificing? Sometimes. Adaptable, sometimes. Empathetic? Almost always. Religious? Not anymore. Versatile? Sure. Talkative? Sometimes. You get paid for it? Yeah, sometimes I'm really quiet, though. I don't want to talk. Okay. But that goes against all astrology. Often takes on the behaviors of others. I don't know about that. Creative, I hope. Impractical? No, I'm pretty practical. But more like half and half, maybe. Would you say half? I feel like you did. Or maybe more. Maybe 70 30. Yeah, that sounds about right. But even still, I mean, it doesn't prove anything. No, of course not. But it did just get you to think about yourself. Exactly. Right. That's the whole point. Right. From what I understand, that's how Ed tells it. So you've got all these different layers to just the sign that you were born under, right? Yes. But there's even deeper layers to the whole thing. Right. That has to do with the movement of the constellations or the movement of the sun. And it also has to do with more than just the sign you were born under. Like, when you sit down and you do an astrological chart, you're basically looking at the position of everything that's taken into account in the cosmos, rather than just where the constellation, what constellation was behind the sun when you were born. We're going to dive even deeper into this stuff after this message break. So, Chuck, we're talking about how we've got, like, the fixed layers, right. And then depending on when you're born, where you're born, there's a lot of stuff to take into account when meaning, like, literally the minute and second even. Yeah. Because one of the odiacs well, the houses when you add this other layer, the houses of the zodiac, which are the same thing as the zodiac signs, but they're different. In this case, they represent the 24 hours movement of the Earth on its axis. Right. So now you have the added layer of time to the moment that you were born to create a genuine astrology chart. So not only are you taking into account time and your sun sign, but you also want to look around if you're a good astrologer and say, okay, where was the Moon? What house was Venus in? And you start to start to basically go through and find the position of every planet, including the sun and the Moon. And all the Moon are considered planets. Right. As far as astrology goes. Right. And then when you put all this stuff together, there's a huge, extremely complex interplay between all these different components that are all supposed to point to the person that you were born as. Right. This is where I think I should say my beef now, okay. I think it's a good time for that. My beef is that I couldn't find anywhere, and this is me looking for science. Where there is none is why, like, the position of the stars and they all affect who you are and what you're going to be like. All right, well, explain that to me. How does it do that? Oh, yeah. What scientific forces are behind this? Zero. That cause this? Like, I get what you're saying, people, the stars are aligned and these things are all in a certain place, and you're going to be a certain way. All right, well, how does it do that? It doesn't. That's my beef. So, I mean, that's a legitimate beef. There's no how. No, there's not. There's none. I guess I'm not hung up on that fact. I think I just kind of accept it. And it's almost like coming upon the belief system of another culture yeah. It's so hard. And knowing that around, it like, I don't subscribe to it, but I'm interested in what they believe right. And how it applies to their life. But that doesn't mean that I believe in it. I'm just kind of interested in an academic sense. Yeah, well, we're curious people. I get that. Right. So get hung up on the fact that it doesn't actually work and you'll be interested in I promise. No, I do think it's interesting. And I used to read my horoscope here and there just for fun. Just the same way I look at a fortune cookie. Right. It's just a parlor trick. To me, though. It's not, but take me seriously. I think in astrologer, even if they said, fine, you don't believe in it, it's fine. But this is more than a parlor trick. Like, they're really sitting down and applying this. It takes a tremendous amount of time, calculation, a certain measure of science. You have to understand astronomy, at least, because you have to go figure out when someone was born where, what was where. Right, yeah, sure. And so when you're sitting down and doing your chart, you were born a PISCES, right? Yes. So the PISCES constellation was behind the sun, but where was Saturn and why would Saturn matter? Well, Saturn is a melancholy planet, right? It sure is. So if Saturn is in a house associated with happiness, you might have a thread of bittersweetness that runs through your whole life. That might be one interpretation of it. Or you might be happy sometimes and sad sometimes, maybe. Which is every person ever sure. Yeah, definitely. And again, I'm not explaining how this works. I'm just saying, like, this is what an astrologer would sit down and think, or Mars is war. Like, well, if Mars was in, I don't know, a house associated with aggressiveness, you might get into fights your whole life according to this astrology chart. So that's just each planet, right? Right. Let's say that you have Mars in an aggressive house and you have Saturn in a happy house. How do those interact with each other? How does that getting in fights all the time interact with the bittersweetness that runs through your life? And that's open to interpretation as well. And that's where the I think I was saying astrologist earlier. Is that even a word? I think so. Okay. It seems like I've heard that before. Well, at any rate, that's where they come into play with their varying interpretations. But not just the interpretations. They're actually going to sit down and figure out what was where, what that means, according to the astrological tradition. And then the third step is for them to interpret it for you. Right. You know what I mean? Yeah. So, I mean, there is a tremendous amount of work to it, from what I can tell, for a genuine astrological chart. Your friend's mom hooked you up when you were yeah, I mean, she didn't dash it off in five minutes, I'll tell you that. There was math involved and angles and stuff. So the main thing you're getting if you're looking at like, a newspaper or if your son up for some sort of Internet daily. Horoscope is it's usually some sort of personality profile advice on your life. Maybe some sort of map for finances. You might want to think about investing soon. That's where people probably get in trouble. Yeah. But it's pretty much personal advice stuff. Not so much long term future type of thing. Not like predicting your future, necessarily. Well, they do to the extent of, like, you'll have a so so day today. Yeah. Today will be rather unremarkable. Yeah. Or, like, a lot of times it can be, I think today might be a good day to reach out to an old friend, and if you follow that advice, then that's great, because your old friend probably would want to hear from you, and then you have lunch with that friend, and it goes great, and you might say, well, see, there? My horoscope said to reach out to an old friend, and it went awesome. Or if it went really horribly, you'd be like, Why? Are you punishing me? Stars. Yes. Or what if you get killed on the way to the lunch? Like, sure, you don't hear those stories. No, but that's the great thing about astrology. It removes personal responsibility from your decision. That's funny. And I should say also there are even more layers to the whole thing than what I said. Sure. I hope we kind of got the point across that there's layer upon layer upon layer, and they all interact with one another. But, I mean, like, a good astrologer will take into account, like, whether planet was in retrograde and what that means when you were born or if it's in retrograde right now. There's just so much to it. I think that's what fascinates me. Well, Ed makes a good point. If this is a true science, then it should have it should pass the muster of repeatable testing. Right. Which, of course, it doesn't. No, it really doesn't. But some other people might say, you know what? It's beyond science. You shouldn't try and quantify it in terms of science. This is something that you can't even understand it. Right. Your puny science cannot explain this outside that realm to something that we don't know and understand. And, hey, I'm a science guy, but I'm not foolish enough to think there isn't anything out there that I maybe don't know about or we can't prove. I think that's very healthy. My hat is off to you. You're 40 in, and you don't even know it. Seriously, to me, that's the pinnacle of what a thinking person can aspire to. Well, I think that's when you stop looking, when you think that we've got it all figured out. Right. Yeah. Especially when you aggressively attack other people who say otherwise. Well, yeah. If this conversation is floating your vocals in the Enlightenment episode that was good. That was a good one. Had a lot to do with that. They have done studies, though, on the viability of astrology as far as divorce rates. Are they compatible or do they comply or correlate with the compatibility of two people? Astrologically speaking? Yeah, they don't yeah. There's supposedly interaction amongst the signs where virgos don't get along with Capricorns or something like that. Yeah. And that doesn't hold up through scientific study. And if you cherry pick examples in your life, of course you might think it does. Well, yeah. That's why a lot of people are like, astrology is. Right. A selection bias is what you're encountering. You're ignoring this stuff that disproves it or that suggests that it's not true and instead just focusing on the amazing facts where it lines up. Right. That's the selection bias. Correct. I think so. I need to know more about all the different biases. It's interesting. We should say another thing that kind of suggests that astrology is not accurate. The zodiac signs are no longer where they're supposed to be. If you're going by your birth date, for example, I was born July 15, so I would be a Cancer. If you actually follow the constellations, I'm a Gemini. Oh, really? Never knew that. So Geminis are concerned with information. Highly literate, curious, adaptable, absent minded, love to travel. Whoa. I am a Gemini. Wow. So the reason why is because when astrology was first created, the constellations were lined up with where they were originally. Right. As the Earth rotates on its axis, it wobbles, per se, over the last couple of thousand years, it's wobbled so that those constellations are no longer where they were when they set them 3000 years ago. Right. So today we have totally different signs. What would mine be? Can we figure that out? So you were born in the eyes of March. You're still a PISCES man. I'm sorry. Oh, no. I love it. I am now a Gemini because it got moved. So let's go through because I think a lot of people don't know this and NASA blogged about it a couple of years ago and really caused a stir. Is Jerry still a cat ox? Jerry's birthday is April something, right? Your birthday is Valentine's Day. I didn't know that. Jerry just said her birthday is February 14. Because we have to edit out any Jerry talk. Right. Jerry, what are you supposed to be? Normally you are a Capricorn. You are january 20 to February 16. As far as NASA is concerned, you're a Capricorn. So it starts and we should say, I don't think we said this, but the Zodiac officially in the west starts with Aries and moves on. Yes. So starting with Capricorn because NASA is like, no, we're going to start with the beginning of the year, capricorn, january 20 to February 16. Okay. Aquarius is now February 16. March 11th. And you'll notice these aren't necessarily 30 day period. So close. Yeah. You are PISCES. March 11 to April 18. Aeries april 18 to May 13. Tourists may 13 to June 21. It's a long one. Gemini june 21. July 20. That's me now. Cancer. July 20 to August 10. I used to be a Cancer. Leo august 10 to September 16. Virgo, september 16. October 30. Libra, october 30 to November 23. Scorpio. November 23 to 29th. That's six days. You got six days to be a Scorpio. Wow. It's kind of neat. O. Fyuchis. Yeah. The long forgotten November 29 to December 17. Wow. Isn't that crazy? There's people out there who don't even know that they're that signed. Yeah. Or how to pronounce it. Right. No one does. No one alive knows how to pronounce it. And then SAGITTARIUS december 17 to January 20. Wow. I don't even know anything anymore. No, no one does. Chuck I think this is fascinating stuff, though. I've been thinking a lot lately about what does shape your personality and what you become in life as far as nature and nurture, and some people might throw this in there. I think we should totally do a podcast on birth order. Oh, yeah. It's a good one. Super fascinating to me. Or whether hearing your name or the vibrations caused by saying your own name throughout your life has an effect on your personality. What? You heard that one? No. Yeah. Supposedly, the vibrations or the frequency made from hearing and saying your own name throughout your life makes your personality a certain way, weird. Yeah. And it's probably not true, but it's interesting. Well, we teased Ronald Reagan earlier, but he didn't tease Ronald Reagan. He did, but we can't talk about astrology without talking a little bit about the Reagan administration, because in Ron, Nancy were outage sort of exposed yeah. As having an astrologer on the payroll to the tune of about how much? Three grand. Three grand per what? Reading a month. Three grand a month? Yes. That's not bad. No. This lady was working hard, joan Quigley down under. It's her nickname. Medicine Woman. And it was revealed that she wrote up star charts and basically detailed even down to the minute, supposedly, depending on who you listen to, what Reagan's schedule should look like. Right. So this lady was definitely doing mundane interrogatory and natal astrology combined to create a chart. Yes, for sure. And Chief of Staff Don Regan wrote in his memoir this is not a matter of debate or anything. No, this is for real. But Don Regan wrote in his memoirs and he talked about capturing the public's attention like that was a big deal because it looked like what was going on was going on, which was that his schedule was kind of being determined by an astrologist. You can't talk to Gorbi today. This is a bad day to propose the Salt Treaty. Wait until November 18. That's when you talk to Gorbi. And then Don Regan would be told by Nancy he should be talking to Gorby on. She would meet with Nancy. I only met Ron once, supposedly. And Nancy downplayed. It a lot. Of course, they all tried to distance. She said, Charlie is so stupid. Well, they said it was more of a hobby. And she definitely had no impact on decisions. It was really just about scheduling. Okay, is what they said. Scheduling decisions. But she wrote a book, actually, Ms. Quigley, in 1990. It was called this is the most on the nose book title of all time. It was called. What does Jones say? Colin my seven years as White House Astrologer to Nancy and Ronald Reagan by me. Ms. Young, did you get it? And she said, quote, I was responsible for timing all press conferences, most speeches, the State of the Union addresses the takeoffs and landings of Air Force One. I picked the time of Ronald Reagan's debate with Jimmy Carter and the two debates with Mondale. All extended trips are broad as well as shorter trips and one day excursions, end quote. So, yes, the leader of the free world, arguably the most powerful American president in recent memory, had his schedule determined by an astrologer. So weird. I got a couple more things right. What you got? So apparently, Americans, around the time of Reagan had hit, like, basically a low in believing in astrology. They did a poll after that news came out, and they found that American belief overall in astrology was at 12%, which was down from this is an 88, which is down from 29% ten years before. Yeah, which makes total sense. Coming off of the hippie age and the goofy 70s, what's your sign into the very kind of cynical late 80s? Sure. It aligns perfectly. Right. The stars. Somebody forgot to send Nancy and Ron that memo. So in 2004, another poll found that it had gone back up to 29%. Yeah. I have no idea why. And then another poll I saw that asked something different. Rather than, do you believe in astrology, would you say that astrology is, quote, not at all scientific? In 2000? And 466 percent of Americans said that in 2000, and it was not scientific. Not scientific. So basically, they don't believe in astrology. 66%. And then in 2012, 55% said that. So apparently belief in astrology is still on the increase. Interesting. Even more interesting, in China, 92% of the public says they don't believe in astrology, compared to about 45% here. And then lastly, I have one more story. You ready? Yeah. And there's actually a blog post you can go recall the genius mural at St. John's. Okay. By you? Yeah, from years back. But I just came across this story. It's amazing. There's this place called St. John's Anglican Church. It's in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. Okay. And it was built in 1754, and it was built with a mural on the ceiling of the night sky with gilded stars. Lovely. And they were remodeling the church, and they wanted to redo the mural right. Recreate it exactly as it had been. But they realized they didn't have any dead on photographs of it, so they had to kind of, like, figure out what to do. So they hired an astronomer, and he started poking around into it, and he realized that the mural, which had been constructed in 1754, was the exact scene of the night sky over Lunenberg on December 24, one ce, which is in the Christian tradition as the night Christ was born. Somebody in 1754 accurately calculated what the sky had looked like 1754 years before wow. On December 24 and turned it into a mural in that amount. Amazing. I love that story. Pretty cool. Yeah. That's astrology. And what's the name of that story? The genius mural at St. John's. Nice. Thanks, man. You got anything else? No. I could talk about this all day. You sure? I think we did right by it. If you want to know more about astrology, go read Joan Quigley's book. And since I said Joan Quigley, it's time for listener mail. I'm going to call this Star Wars action figured. Hey, guys. Love the show. I can say, like all the other fans is definitely my favorite thing to listen to. I'm a transplant to Texas from Tennessee, and I always get excited when I can make that long drive back home and binge on your interesting material. Just listen to action figures. And was thrilled to hear you talk about Star Wars action figures. I'm one of those Star Wars guys you mentioned that read way too much of the fan fiction and knew way too many characters, too many of the character names I wanted to share. Fact I thought was interesting about the Kinner toys and two of the bounty hunter characters seen in the Empire Strikes Back. Kenner, when originally packaging the characters mislabeled for Lom. I'm probably not even pronouncing that right for the number four. L-O-M originally the Droid and Zuck us Z-U-T-K-U-S-S. Originally the bug looking guy and switched their names. I bet somebody got fired for that one. Do you believe it? The name stuck until 1989. And you can see on newer packaging of the Hasbro toys that their names have been switched back. I always thought it was interesting and interesting mishap. Thanks for all you guys do, and I've learned so much, and it's love referencing your show every chance I get. Sincerely, Harrison Ford. Adam west. No. PS. Sadly, I'm not him. Oh, wow. How great would that be? Man. That nice email, Adam. It was full of drama, suspense, facts, and I could do my cone nerd voice, which I completely stole from him. Sure. Just want to make that clear. Yeah. Not claiming it as your own. Right? An homage to Conan. Yes. Well, Adam, thank you. That was a great one. If you want to get in touch with us, like Adam did, you can join us on facebook. Comstuffyshno. And you can also hang out with us at yskpodcast send us an email to stuffpodcast. Howtofworks.com and as always, join us at our home on the web. Stuffyheanough.com stuffychenknow is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, my husband radio, visit the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcast or wherever you listen to your favorite shows."
4548e8d2-ba8a-11e8-9ed2-8b6b498ddc32	Short Stuff: Olestra	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/short-stuff-olestra	In the 90s a fat free miracle food came out that promised we could eat all we wanted and not gain weight. But there was a caveat: it could also make your bowels unpleasantly loose.	In the 90s a fat free miracle food came out that promised we could eat all we wanted and not gain weight. But there was a caveat: it could also make your bowels unpleasantly loose.	Wed, 16 Jan 2019 15:12:03 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2019, tm_mon=1, tm_mday=16, tm_hour=15, tm_min=12, tm_sec=3, tm_wday=2, tm_yday=16, tm_isdst=0)	10959412	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh Clark. And there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. And there's Jerry. So let's get started. Everybody be quiet and listen. Get ready to feel like you're going to poop your pants because we're going to talk about Olester, which would make you poop your pants. Yeah. So this one starts back in the 50s. We can't talk about Alyssa without mentioning the Seven Countries Study, which was very famous in the 50s for fooling science and the world into the notion that fats are terrible, they will kill you. Don't eat them. So all foods started saying, great, we're going to put out no fat stuff and start pumping in high fructose corn syrup into our things to create flavor, and the world is the worst for it. Right? Yeah. I think we need to do a straight up Stuff you Should Know episode about the Seven Countries Study. Okay. For sure. So let's stop talking about it now. Okay. So the upshot of what you just said is that we live in, I think the we lived in like a fat free obsessed society, right? Yeah. And the manufacturers of food said, hey, sure, we'll give it to you. We'll do some of those amazing things that Chuck just mentioned, and we'll give you low fat food, as much as you can take. And by the mid ninety s, the whole thing was at its peak, man. You remember Healthy Choice? I think Healthy Choice is still around. So they came out with a line of foods, and in 1994, Healthy Choice, just the Healthy Choice line of food, made $1.3 billion in sales. Well, that's how much that people were like, here, take all my money. Just give me some fat free foods, cause fat s going to kill me and make me fat. And I hate fat. Don't you hate fat? Yes. Because it's the word fat and you don't want to be that word. Right, right. Plus, also, I think everybody was scared to death that we're all going to die of heart attacks if we ate, like, any fat whatsoever. So the solution was fat free foods, and it was in full swing in the 90s. So by this time, I believe it was Procter and Gamble that came up with A lister. Right? Yeah, they came up with that. That's just their trade name for polyester sucrose. And this was developed by them in the late 60s, but it took to the 1990s to really catch hold in full. And this is one of those where they it's not like they didn't do product research. They did a lot of testing and research, and they learned that Olester would make you poop your pants. And they pressed on anyway and went forward knowing this, which it was an interesting decision, to say the least. Yeah. Like they were searching for a fat substitute for formula to feed premature infants. Yes. Which is a sweet start. It is a sweet start. And hopefully they realize very quickly that no infant should ever have polyester sucrose passed through its mouth. It's probably hard to tell with babies. Yeah, that's true, but it's not hard to tell with adults. And like you said, their product testing showed there are some real problems with alexa. When you ate it, you would get abdominal cramping, you would get flatulent, you would poop your pants. Like you said, there were a lot of things that came back that were red flags and should have been to Proctor and Gamble that should have told them, like, don't put this into food products and then sell them to consumers because this is going to be bad. But Proctor and Gamble had spent hundreds of millions of dollars developing this stuff by this time and been in development for like 30 years. And so they said, no, we're going to do this, we're going to go get the FDA to approve it. And the FDA said, OK, we'll give you approval, but you have to put a warning on any food item, like the container of any food item that you sell this stuff in. Yeah. And that label, I remember seeing it, it literally said it could cause abdominal cramping and loose stools. They were marketed for their line for like Pringles and Freedom A as well. All upper case exclamation point. And despite the fact that it said on the label, like, hey, this will give you diarrhea, people are like, Well, I get that, but can I eat a whole bag of chips and not have any fat? And the label said, sure. And I think that actually increased the diarrhea and the cramping was the fact that people probably over indulged even. Right, because they could. Yeah. And so we should probably talk real quick about the science behind this, right? Yeah, let's do it. So polyester sucrose mimics fat in its taste, its mouth feel. It does everything that fat does except get metabolized by the body. Right. So like a triglyceride, a naturally occurring fat is a molecule, fatty acid surrounded by three chains of hydrocarbons. And when you eat that thing, that molecule, your body metabolizes it by breaking the hydrocarbon chains off of it and using that fatty acid either for energy or to store later, to use as energy as fat. Okay. Yeah, that's the naturally occurring stuff. So for polyester sucrose, it has a sucrose molecule and it's surrounded by hydrocarbon chains too, but there's a lot of them. So much so that the parts of your body that normally metabolize fat can't break through all those hydrocarbon chains. And so that molecule of polyester sucrose goes through your body untouched. It comes out the other end just like it went in. So you get the mouth feel, you get the taste, sort of, yeah. You get the experience of eating fatty foods with no fat and no weight gain whatsoever. The problem is on the other side when it does come out, it comes out with a lot of poop and a lot of cramping. And there's another problem with this whole thing that we'll talk about right after this. Alright. So nice job, by the way, with the science. Thank you. I appreciate that. You're welcome. Because I was not ready anytime. So they discovered with oledra. This is great. It just comes out the body like it goes in. These idiots will still eat it. It doesn't metabolize. Here's the big issue with that, is the body is used to metabolizing fats, but now all of a sudden, your body gets confused because it's used to doing things one way. And all of a sudden, your body is like, oh, wait a minute, maybe I shouldn't metabolize any fats. Fool me once. Yeah, kind of. Yeah. And so it messed with the body chemistry because it literally confused. It in these artificial fats. And I think this is true a lot of times with artificial ingredients, your body doesn't know how to react to that. And so all of a sudden, you're gaining weight even though you're eating fat free foods because your body is not metabolizing any fat. So when you eat, you indulge on that cheesesteak. It's not getting metabolized. No. Because the polyester sucrose gets passed through, your body doesn't absorb it, but your body will absorb naturally occurring fats even if they're not metabolized. Sure. It gets stored for fat later. So if your body is not metabolizing either of it, then all the fat that's going through is just being packed on. So people who were eating this fat free fat substitute were actually gaining weight from recent research shows. Amazing. Even worse than that, possibly, is that the Electra was like a magnet for vitamins and nutrients. So when it passed through your digestive system untouched, it actually was taking vitamins and nutrients that were already present with it. So you could actually develop a vitamin deficiency from eating too much Electra. However, despite all of this, I know this is the kicker. In 1998, initial sales of these chips, just those wild chips, about $400 million in that year. That was, I believe, the first year that Procter and Gamble debuted these chips. Everyone is pooping their pants, they're eating. I think they found in studies that the wow doritos. If you ate 16 of those chips, 50% of the participants, half the people that ate at least 16 chips got diarrhea. Right. So you would think they find this out, they make their money, and then they get out and they're just like, all right, we're done with Oleg, because I don't see a Lester anymore on any packaging. Right? Yeah. It's gone the way of the dinosaur. Is that the case, my friend? That is absolutely not the case. No, it's just not called a Lester anymore. Yes. Back in 2002, the FDA said, you know what? We were pretty wasted when we made you put that warning label on. We have since entered the program, and we want to make amends. So you don't have to put the warning label on any longer. You can just take that off. Yeah. And now you don't see them as well, because that got a bad name by association. Now you just see them as light chips or fat free crackers and things like that. Yeah. So they're still using polyester sucrose in certain products, like Lays, like potato chips or Ruffles Light or fat free ritz or fat free wheat things, but they just don't call it Alekstra or olen or anything like that. It's still the same thing. But I think that Proctor and Gamble managed to get that label taken off because they successfully argued that the results were really no worse than if you ate a lot of high fiber. They're like, hey, look at prune juice. Yes. You have a special label on that. Everybody loves prune juice, but there's no label. Nobody likes prune juice. No. What are prunes made from? Are they dates or I always get those confused. The dehydrated. You know what I'm talking about? I know. Prunes. Right? So what is a prune? Is a date a dehydrated version of something? I'm just enjoying this, all right? I think a prune is a plum. Okay, great. Well, then a date is a dehydrated fig, my friend. Raisin is a dehydrated grape. That's right. And that concludes this episode of Short Stuff. Oh, okay. Well, if you want to get in touch with us, send us an email to stuffpodcast@housestepworks.com."
https://podcasts.howstuf…airy-tales-2.mp3	How Grimm's Fairy Tales Work	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/how-grimms-fairy-tales-work	Unless you were raised alone in a basement (in which case you may be the subject of one), you probably grew up on fairy tales. That's appropriate because they may be humanity's greatest psychic projection screen.	Unless you were raised alone in a basement (in which case you may be the subject of one), you probably grew up on fairy tales. That's appropriate because they may be humanity's greatest psychic projection screen.	Thu, 05 Nov 2015 14:43:12 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2015, tm_mon=11, tm_mday=5, tm_hour=14, tm_min=43, tm_sec=12, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=309, tm_isdst=0)	49399929	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Welcome to stuff you should know from housetopworkscom. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's charles W, Chuck Bryant. There's Noel. He's back. He's actually sitting in for this one. And that makes this stuff you should know. Yeah. We left a trail of breadcrumbs or pebbles, depending on what part of the episode we're talking about. That's my favorite one. Now that and the juniper tree are my favorite. Gretel and the juniper tree. This is a two parter. You should have already previously listened to one. We probably should have put this one out first and then done the other one. Hey. But whatever. We just think this is a nice I really enjoyed these two, actually. I think if you can make the case that we did it in the right order because now people have thought about fairy tales and have gelled and bathed in them for the last day or so, and now they're ready to understand what's been haunting them. But where did they come from? Right? What's the deal? And we're going to tell you what's the deal. I really did enjoy these, though. This kind of reignited my kind of brought up a lot of stuff. Oh, yeah. Did you find yourself weeping? Not weeping, just kind of like remembering childhood and enjoyed it, I guess. I didn't read that many fairy tales. It reminded me that fairy tales are awful. No, they're not awful. They're just very dark. Yes, but I appreciate that part. I think it's more just that have you ever seen a picture of a human being without a face? Yeah, sure. I think that's kind of how I think of fairy tales. Okay. They're blank, they're anonymous, they're flat. I've actually run into that term a lot in researching for this episode. There's certainly not a lot of character development. No. And that's part of their charm. They're allure but it's also like that's the memory I formed of them is like, wow, I'm used to characters. Psychology is lacking as well. Totally. Because people do stuff for almost no apparent reason whatsoever, and a lot of it's horrible stuff. Yeah. And that's actually kind of set the stage for fairy tales to be told and retold and retold and interpreted and analyzed. And I think that's what makes them so enduring is that they're so minimalist that they just survive because humans will change and update and will go from wearing bell bottoms and macrame vest to wearing, like, silver jumpsuits, which are in right now. Yeah. But ultimately we're still very similar to what we were 60,000 years ago. Yeah. And I think fairy tales reflect that. Well said. And also, I can say that because from what I understand, despite the fact that there is serious study of fairy tales, no one really has any definitive say over what they are. Like, try to define what a fairy tale is, Chuck. It's a story usually encompassing, like a moral or ethical lesson. Right. But isn't that fable fantastical elements? Sure. Okay. That often had dark undertones or overtones. That's actually a pretty great definition. But it does raise some questions. It's like, what is the difference between a fairy tale and a fable, or a fairy tale and a nursery rhyme? What is it specifically about? Fairy tales? I think they're all very similar, and it's all part of folklore. So if you listened, I think in February this year, we did one on folklore. So it ties in heavily with that, for sure. And also, I don't know why we just defined fairy tale, because we never defined what vocal fry was, apparently. I feel like we did. Yeah. We got some complaints. Like, you never said what it was, but we demonstrated it over and over. Yeah. And we said it's like a flat, creaky way of speaking. Yeah. I don't know. I feel like we got the point across. Okay, so fairy tales. Yes. Specifically, when you think of fairy tales, you might think of Disney, but if you give it a little more thought, you're probably going to come up with the brothers crim. Yeah. Matt Damon and Heath Ledger. Right. R-I-P. Yeah. For real. Yeah. Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. And of course, let's just go ahead and say there's a couple of types of fairy tales. Yeah. There's the oral tail. Yeah. The oraltail, which is and the Graham brothers kind of exist between the two worlds. But one is the oral world, which we talked about in folklore, the age old tradition of passing stories down via mouth parts over and over, changing them, adding some spice, just like telling a joke or a ghost story or something like that. Right, exactly. And fairy tales specifically, as far as they went with oral tales, are typically associated with women and typically associated with women undertaking domestic chores. That that's typically where they were passed down. So you've got the oral tail. Well, which makes sense, though. When I read this, I was like, why are there so many fairy tales that have women at the loom or spinning stuff? Because apparently that's where they were told. Exactly. It makes sense now. Yeah. It's like, hey, I'm bored out of my mind here, spinning this straw into gold. Let me eat some peyote and make up a story. And you sit there and listen. There's also the literary fairy tale, which appears to be there's a handful of people like Charles Perrault or Charle Pearl. Right. And then there's also Hans Christian Anderson, very famously. Sure. And these people are reputed as having created many fairy tales. And those are called literary fairy tales. Yeah. Like, they were original authors and made these up. Right. That's apparently a total misattribution. Like, for example, Little Red Riding Hood. Right, yeah. Is a great example. That's typically attributed to Charles Perrault in the, I think, the 17th or 16th century. Not Charles Perrault. No, charles Perrault his ancestor and Charles Perrault, he was very famous, as famous as Hans Christian Anderson was for writing down fairy tales and collections and just being delightful. Right. And he was great. And at the end of every one of his, there was a moral to the story, but people tend to think that either. If he didn't come up with it, it was originated right before then. But we found an article that was from it covered a 2009 study carried out by a cultural anthropologist who basically went to some biologists and said, hey, do you guys know how you trace species and create the tree of life, the taxonomy of biology? Can you do that with Little Red Riding Hood? And they said, man, you are one crazy lady. You are one of it whacked out hep cat. Actually, it may have been a man. Doctor Jamie Toani it was a man, yeah. And still is, probably. I mean, it's only been six years. You never know. So Dr. Tirani went to some biologists and figured out how to apply the same methods to this story, Little Red Riding Hood, and he found that not only was it not just like a few years older than Pearl's version, it was as much as 2600 years old, basically. Yeah. They found variations in China and Iran and the Middle East. They found some for the ASAPS fables, another person, they found some of those from 6th century BC. So basically what they're saying is maybe nobody made these up. Well, someone at some point did, at least as far as Little Red Riding Hood goes, that there's some common ancestor that predates 2600 years before the present. And it's a very widespread tale. Not only did Dr. Terani trace the lineage back to 600 BCE, he found that you could take these tails all around the world and lump them into groups, just a handful of groups, and that places as disparate as Iran and Nigeria and Europe all were in the same group, whereas, like, Japan and Burma and China were in their own group. Right. But they all kind of bear this resemblance where there is a lion or tiger or a wolf who is posing as something else in order to get the drop on someone else. Yeah. And it's usually a little girl, but I think in Iran it was a little boy. Yeah. So details change. Again. Simple folklore, I think. But the structure, the skeleton of the story is still very much the same, traceable back 2600 years. So that kind of answers the question that I don't know if we raised or not yet. Who owns who came up with fairy tales, but humans did. That's the best answer you could possibly come up with. Humans came up with it. And over the years, like you said, people embellish it, people add, people subtract. And the Grim brothers did exactly that same thing. All right, let's talk a little bit about these Grim bros, jacob and Wilhelm. Did I already say that they were born in Jacob in Part one, which I appreciated. Yeah, jacob was born in 1785, just a year later. And they were kind of rich kids. Their dad was a lawyer, and they had some money. Sure. Their original house, if you look at it, it's funny. It looks like I mean, it's a total Bavarian like gingerbread owl. Sweet. And they grew up in Germany, and when they were ten years old, their dad died of pneumonia, and all of a sudden, they didn't have the kind of dough that they were used to having. No, they did. Was not good and a little scary. I don't get the sense that they were, like, dirt poor or anything because they still had some relatives that had some catch. Well, plus, also, they made it all the way through law school in honor of their father. So, I mean, that wasn't free even back then. Yeah. I think their aunt paid for school. They graduated each graduated at the top of their class and I guess what would be considered high school. And then their aunt paid for law school. And it wasn't long after law school that they got into the I was about to say writing. They did write. They were editors, for sure. The collecting and editing and writing business. They were what's called phylologists curating is the word I meant. Right. Yeah. And they considered themselves and were considered linguists as well. And by the way, they were Hessians, which means that they were from the same place as the Headless Horseman, from the Sleepy Hollow legend. Really? He was a Hessian mercenary. I don't remember that. Yeah. So, anyway, they graduated from law school during this period called German Romanticism, which is basically this idea that years before, in the midst of history, the Germanic people were very interesting. They had a very good grass bond things, and a lot of this was passed down through oral folk folklore sure. And that this stuff was disappearing thanks to industrialization. So you get the idea that there's a little bit of nervousness, at least among the intellectual people of Germany at the time, that this cultural history was drying up very quickly and there was a movement to collect this oral knowledge before it disappeared. And that's what the Grim brothers were doing when they said about collecting these stories, although they weren't very honest about it, at least at first. Yeah. We know them now as just simply the Grim brothers fairy tales. Yeah. But the original collection was called Nursery and Household Tales or Dikinda und House. Mitchen nice. In German, man, your German is coming back. There were 86 stories originally in the collection. And by the way, big shout to the article from the New Yorker. Once upon a time, allure of the fairy tale by Joan at Cosella. Yes, very nice. I think that's it. Yeah. She wrote a great article. And that's largely the basis of our podcast, by the way. That's right. So thanks for that. But 86 original stories, and like you said originally in the forward in the introduction, they were like, this is all German all the time, basically, word for word. We went around to the peasantry and collected was it marching or marking? For what? The tales. German for tales. Is it Martin or Martin house? Merchant. Merchant. That's the umlad at work. So they went around to the Volk, the peasantry, and collected the merchant from them. Yeah, it didn't change the word specifically. They said they had a primary source, a woman named Dorothea Viman, and she was a peasant in a village near them. But it turns out that all of this, again, was folklore, which I can't fault them too much because that was their business. No, but they did bumped it up to be a little more folksy than it was. Well, they all basically lied in the introduction in the first edition, which was published in two volumes in 1812 and 1815. Right. And so this nursery and household tales became known as Grimm's Fairy Tales. And at first it was definitely much more of an intellectual pursuit. There are lots of footnotes. Yeah. They tried to make it seem like they were just collecting and preserving this German folk knowledge and all that, but it turns out that they did have that primary source and that woman, but she was pretty far from a peasant. Apparently she was the wife of a tailor, which was part of the merchant class, not the peasant class. Yeah. And she was just one source. They relied on friends and family and relatives and other collections of folktales and fairy tales that they just lifted. We're not suggesting there were thieves. This was a common thing to do. It was. But again, the bald facedly lied in the introduction, in preface, which is funny, but they were trying to adopt an aura for their project that they wanted it to have sure. That it didn't necessarily have. Yeah. And I don't think we mentioned that one source wasn't even a German descent. She was French. Yuganaut. Yeah. So they even kind of trumped that up. Right. Which means that a lot of the stuff that Red Riding Cap is a ripoff of Charles Perrault's Little Red Riding Hood or an adaptation, whatever you want to call it. But again, this is in the midst of this German romanticism where German culture was trying to be promoted and celebrated and preserved. So all of this stuff was very much painted as German, even though not necessarily any of it was German and origin, but it was far more ancient than even the French that they were lifting it from. That's right. All right, here, let's take a little break and let's come back and let's talk a little bit more about these grand brothers. Okay, and we're back and chuck. Before we get back to it, I want to shout out to guest producer Noel, who is responsible for the fairy tale themed jingle this episode. And the first one, too. Yeah. We asked and he was like, Too easy. I'll do it with my eyes closed. Yes. While I'm asleep with an alligator chasing me. That's right. So, thanks, Noel. Awesome. All right. These Grim brothers, they were tight. They were really close with each other. They worked really close with each other. They were buddies, from what I can tell, and apparently for most of their career, they worked at desks facing each other. That classic writing partner. Like we are now. Yes. Even though it's one desk. Right. And we only sit here to record. Yeah. I guess there is some similarity here. There sure. We're making magic. And they were, too. I think that's the similarity. Right. Sure. Jacob was a difficult introvert, and Wilhelm was pretty laid back. Wilhelm would eventually get married because he was more outgoing and had four kids, whereas Jacob stayed a bachelor his whole life. Right. And they were tight. They worked as librarians together for a lot of their career. And like you said, they were philologists. It's a tough word to say. It is. They worked on most things, I think. Eight things together. Jacob wrote 21 books on his own, wilhelm, 14, and one of them wrote a book on grammar. One of them wrote, like, a history book. They were smart dude. They were smart dudes. But their life's work, aside from the fairy tales, ended up being they seem to be sort of obsessed with making a German dictionary. Right. Complete, like writing a dictionary. Yeah. They made it to F, I believe, before they died. Yeah. And then some other people came along and said, we're going to carry on this work and finish it. And it was completed. But it was a massive project. Yeah. For decades they worked up just to get through F. Right. And I think who died first? I believe Wilhelm, the younger one, died first. And Jacob carried the dictionary on for four more years, even after his death. But Jacob said, okay, I'm done with the fairy tales. I'm going to move on to other stuff. And Wilhelm actually edited that thing for 45 years. It went through seven editions of the fairytale thing. Yes. The nursery and household tales. The Grim Fairy Tales. Yeah. I thought you were on the dictionary. I'm sorry, I switched. It went from, I guess, 18, 12 57 was when he released the last edition. And they were very different books by the time the first edition and the last edition came out. And even between the first and second editions, they were tremendously different books because the Grim brothers decided that their book wasn't selling like they thought it would. E g. Hotcakes. Yeah. If you listen to the previous episode, it was originally much darker and aimed at adults and was poorly reviewed and didn't sell well. Right. And for grammarians listening by Eg, I'm an example. Not that is, I would have said I E if I meant that. But they decided that if they could just kind of alter their book just a tiny bit, it would sell a lot better. So they went through and took out all the sex, basically. Yeah. And tradition of modern Americans, take out the sex, pump up the violence. Right. But these are like early 19th century Germans doing this. And I guess it's the same thing. And here Chuck. I have a question. Yes. And it's a rhetorical question. You know how nursery rhymes, fairy tales are just weird? They're very weird. Sure. There's a lot of random things that just seem really out of control, like talking eggs that break. Right. But also, like really horrific violence for a children's story and all that. Yeah. I think that this is the point where that weirdness sets in because they went through and they took the same tales and they altered them just slightly for children. But it went from adults. These are stories for adults meant to be told from one adult to another, not for kids to let's adapt these for kids. And in that adaptation, that weirdness set in that's still there today. Yeah. I think that's when it happened, that wasn't even a rhetorical question. That was just a statement. Thank you. You're putting it out there. Had I ended in upspeak, though, I could have made the case that it was rhetorical. So in the very next edition, out of the seven, they went ahead and after the bad sales and stuff, and like I said, they sanitized it and geared it to kids. But they also dropped that stuff from the intro. All the lies in the intro, I guess. Why do we even do that? Yeah, they're like, we're sorry, everybody. That was just dumb on our parts. It was Wilhelm. No, it's Jacob. And it just goes back and forth for eight pages. So in the previous podcast, we mentioned rapunzel. Basically, the lady in question got pregnant after having sex. Rapunzel? Yeah. So they would whitewash that kind of stuff. They would sanitize the sexier parts. Right. They just took out the fact that she got pregnant and didn't mention what the prince and she were doing. Right. They just left it up to the parents to imagine and the kids just be dummies and not know what they were talking about. Right. But like we said, too, the violence stayed and in some cases even got worse. Like when Hansel and the violence got worse. But they also did sanitize it a little bit just to make it a little more palatable. Like in Hansel and Gretel in the previous show, we mentioned that it was a stepmother, an evil stepmother, which we'll talk about later as a recurring motif that took the children out in the woods to abandon them. And the original version, it was both a real mother and a real father. And they were like, all right, you know what? That's really bad. So let's at least make it an evil stepmother that the dad tries to battle and say, no, don't do this. Right. But eventually it gives into gets into, and the kids are still taken out in the woods to die. Right. But it's just a little bit more like, okay, well, it's not the real parents because that's just horrific. So the violence is still there, but they've taken away a little bit of the psychological terror by replacing the mother slightly with a stepmother. Right. I guess that is something of a cleansing process as far as editing goes. But the violence is still in there. And it seems very weird, especially today when you look back at this and think like, they were reading this to kids. But there's a very smart woman named as Byt, who's a children's author herself, but also an expert on children's books. And she wrote the introduction to a collection, I think, actually in addition of The Grims Fairy Tales by Maria Tatar, who is basically the foremost expert on fairy tales working today. Yeah, zip is not around anymore. He's retired because that guy, he's still available for comment, for sure. But Tata seems to be she's taken up the mantle from him. And in this edition, as byt rights in the introduction of it, that, yes, this violence seems weird, but if you step back and think of it as 17th and 18th century Tom and Jerry cartoons, it becomes way more understandable and at the same time way more acceptable as well. Think about all the horrible things that Jerry did to Tom and what you're looking at is the same exact stuff in a fairy tale. So it's not quite as odd as you would think. Yeah. And as far as the historical motif or the motif of the evil stepmom, there's a historical realism there that someone else pointed out that at the time, women died in childbirth a lot, and so oftentimes there was a widower left with kids that they would bring in a stepmother and resources could be scarce. So you'll see this recurring motif over and over, this evil stepmother who basically is competing for both the affections and food of their little children that they inherited that they don't like. Right, exactly. So that's why you see it pop up over and over and over because that's kind of what happens sometimes. Yeah. And that's the socio historical interpretation of fairy tales, which basically takes fairy tales largely on their face. I mean, like, if you have a talking egg or something like that, you're not going to be like, well, obviously in the 12th century, eggs talk. But there's a lot of context and background that I think people imbue with a lot more fancifulness than need be. For example, like the presence of wicked stepmothers throughout, or in the case of Hansel and Gretel, a child abandonment. Like, if you look back at the 14th century during famines and plagues, I think it was the Black Death in particular that just leveled Europe. A lot of people abandoned their children because they just couldn't feed them any longer. So this wasn't like so outlandish that it only belongs in fairy tale. It might have been like a fairly approachable theme that people talked about to kind of hash out the feelings of collective societal guilt at the fact that child abandonment was rampant. Absolutely. I think the sociohistorical interpretation is probably my favorite. Can we talk about the juniper tree real quick? I love this one. So like we said in fairy tales, there's incest, there's cannibalism, there's murder, there's torture, there's buried alive. There are all kinds of things that can happen in the juniper tree. I don't know, maybe the worst one of them all. So in this case, we have an evil stepmother, of course, who hates her stepchild, who is a boy. So she comes home and says, hey, you want an apple? And the boy says, sure, let me lean in there and get one. And it's a trunk. And she slams the trunk down and cuts his head off. Yeah, and that's just the beginning. So she's like, all right, probably not a wise move. Let me put the kid in a chair. Let me stick this head back on his neck and wrap a scarf around it. And just here, open his eyes here and put a little smile on his face. And then her real daughter comes in. Not a stepdaughter, right? Her favorite real daughter. And it's like he looks all weird. Why is he just sitting there like adult? She says, I don't know. Go slap him and bring him around a bit. Box his ear, I think is what she told me. Yeah. So she boxes his ear, his head falls off. And by the way, the little girl, which makes it even more horrific, what you're about to say, loved the little boy, even though it was a step brother, even though in the mom's eyes they were rivals for these scarce resources. Little girl loves a little boy, so go ahead. So she knocks his head off, and the mom's like, you knocked your brother's head off. But you know what? We're going to just keep this quiet between us and you won't get in any trouble. Let's just cook them into a stew and feed them to your father, or Stephen in this case. And the little girls like, beside herself with guilt and shame and horror at the fact that she killed her beloved step brother. But she goes along with it because this is what her mom's saying. And the father comes home and he eats the stew. And actually it's black pudding. Yeah. Not sure what that is, but the father eats it and he's like, this is all for me? Yeah. Then he had a little misogyny and greed on the end because he's like, no one else in this family is going to eat this but me. It's pretty nuts. And in the end, the little girl takes the boy's bones and buries them by the juniper tree, and he's reborn as a bird and ends up killing the wicked stepmother and then comes back to life as the boy. So it all works out in the end for the boy, but it's pretty nuts as far as these stories go. That has it all. Do you want to talk about how children played butcher with each other? Yes. This one is very short, and we should point out many of these are very short. Like Little Red Riding Hood was only four pages long. I think Rapunzel is only two or three. But that also in and of itself was the work of the Grim brothers. They would embellish this stuff tremendously and often double it in size. Double it from a few paragraphs to a couple of pages. Right. So still short. And by the way, if you want to read a really neat analysis of the juniper tree, read Ernest Parkinson's analysis on words and edge ways. Yeah, it's pretty cool. He finds a lot of neat symbolism in it. All right, here's how children played butcher with each other. It's a great title. A man once slaughtered a pig while his children were looking on. When they started playing in the afternoon, one child said to the other, you'd be the little pig, and I'll be the butcher, whereupon he took an open blade and thrust it into his brother's neck. Their mother, who was upstairs in her room bathing the youngest child in a tub, heard the cries of her other child, quickly ran downstairs, and when she saw what had happened, drove the knife out of the child's neck and in her age, thrust it into the heart of the child who had been the butcher. Then she rushed back to the house to see what her other child was doing in the tub, but in the meantime, it had drowned in the bath. Wow. The woman was so horrified that she fell into a state of utter despair, refused to be consoled by the servants, and hanged herself. When her husband returned home from the fields and saw this, he was so distraught that he died shortly thereafter. The end. That's like the episode of Dragnet where they have a pot party and the parents forget their child is in the bath and it drowned. Was that on Dragnet? Wow. So of course I'm laughing because you can't take that seriously, right. If you watch Dragnet, you can. Oh, no. I mean, that story, it's so over the top and weird and violent and dark. Right. And stuff just happens again. There's almost no psychology to these things. People just do stuff. Well, supposedly. I think Wilhelm Grimm said specifically about that one. Like, no, the clear lesson here is don't play with knives and things. And that's a good point, and I don't know if we've even said that the predominant theory for why these things even exist is as far as being taught to children goes, they are lessons. They are tales on how to grow up, how to avoid strangers. Sure. Stay away from knives, stay away from I guess witches, like, don't eat houses made of gingerbread. Just good life lessons, that kind of stuff. Yeah. There's sexual predators out there. Yeah. Which we'll talk about, but let's take another break. You're ready for it? Yes. Okay. So, Chuck, you said that there are sexual predators out there in the Little Red Riding Hood in particular. If you read it, especially if you read the Grim version and not the Charles Perrault's version, everything comes out great in the end. She saved. You can read between the lines a little bit. And that's the key, though. Like these fairy tales, even after they became sanitized through seven additions, even after they became Disneyfied, there's still this underlying thread, the theme, the central theme, the message, look out for sexual predators. Don't cut your brother's head off with the knife. Like, they can't be expunged. And the story still remain the same. It's so woven into the fabric of them. And I think that's one of the things that makes them interesting. But alternately, something else I ran across, and I think that as Buy it article was the idea that they don't have any designs on you. Right. They're not trying to teach you a lesson necessarily in and of themselves. They just are what they are. Right. Maybe the person telling you that fairy tale wants you to learn that lesson. The fairy tale in and of itself couldn't care less whether you learned that lesson or not. It's just here's a snapshot of what happened in 1217 to this little boy who played with knives with his brother will learn it. Or don't. We don't care. Yeah, but what was Zip's first name? Jack. Jack Zipz. He may still be. You said he's retired now? Yeah, he worked at the University of Minnesota, comparative literature professor and German professor Golden Gophers. And he for many years was the preeminent fairytale dude. He was where you would go. He turns up all over the place in his research. But he said, though, that there usually is a comeuppance. Like, he says, whoever is a tyrant, a witch and evil brother or mother who wants her own daughter dead, they will always be punished. There will always be justice. Yeah. And usually the characters that are of humble origins go on to have great success. Like the poor maiden marries the prince in the end. In most cases, it's true, but not always. Or the king, who wants to have an incestuous relationship with his daughter, ends up getting killed or something like that. Yeah. In that case, I believe his wife was dying and he said, I will only remarry if I can find someone as beautiful as you. And turns out that's my daughter. Right. What was that one called? Like Burza Minnie or something like that. It's called the Creep King. Yeah, but that's a recurring theme. Actually, it's a very ancient one. It falls under the Cinderella story, which apparently I don't know if we mention it or not, but there's a folklore cataloging device, like cataloging convention, and I think Cinderella Stories, which is the Persecuted heroin, is number 510 A. Really? Yeah. For real. It's the ARN Thompson Uter classification 510 eight persecuted heroine. Cinderella Stories. The Uther Pin Dragon. Yeah. And that's another cinderella is another one. Like, there was one woman in particular who collected 385 different versions of the Cinderella story from around the world, and I think they've identified as many as 15. So Cinderella is another very ancient one as well. And the one that you recounted about the king, he wants to marry his daughter. That particular one is from Greece. Yeah, I think that was called All Kinds of Fur, which is a weird type. It's all hyphenated. Like, that's her name or something. I think that's very creepy. So we're talking about sanitizing it. And Joan Echisella comes to the Grims defense, like saying, you can't really fault these guys for changing this stuff because again, it doesn't really belong to anybody. They belong to Ages and the Grimm just put their stamp on it. And then also, if you just take an oral tradition and faithfully write it down, it's going to be virtually unreadable. Yeah. So they definitely stylized it. They added some more pros, and they made it a lot more memorable. And it became a beloved book. It's a UNESCO book, memory of the World, I think, collection. So it's a very well beloved book. But some people say, why should the Grims be the only ones to be able to change fairy tales? Why does it have to end with them? Right. Maybe it's time to rewrite them some. Well, isn't that what Tatar tatar? That's his position. No, but I thought the woman who tatar, is that her name? Yes. Isn't that what she's done? Didn't she release a new version in 2005? She released an annotated version, but she didn't rewrite them. What? Here's the basic story. Go rewrite it as your own. And there have been some feminist collections that are rewritten stories. Yeah. Like, why is every girl defenseless and needs a man to rescue her from poverty or danger? Right. And that's a feminist interpretation of a lot of the fairy tales. Some people say if you look a little further, like yes, all the ones that Disney picked and all the most popular ones are very much patriarchically slanted to where it is a damn de distress as a prince that has to come help her and she's helpless until he comes along, and then whatever. But if you look a little further, there are other ones where they're resourceful heroines. Think of Hansel and Gretel. Gretel tricks the witch and kills her all by herself without the help of Hansel, who's being fattened up by himself. Right? Yeah. And I'm sure Disney, Walt Disney himself was just like, man, they love this stuff. Of course I'm going to. They're eating it up. Yeah. But you can also look at Hollywood, too, as a means of taking these classic fairy tales and rewriting the Grim versions. Like, there's a huge I don't want to call it a movement, but there's like a trend, I guess, trend to taking these things that were Disneyfied versions of the stories and restoring them back even to their pre grim, darker routes, just making them dark again. They're Grimmer routes. They're Grimmer, pre Grim roots. Have you ever seen Freeway With? Reese Witherspoon? Yeah, that was Little Red Riding Hood. Little Red Riding Hood. If you're a feminist, I guarantee you appreciate that version of Little Red Riding Hood, because she takes no guff. No Guff and comes out on top. And at no point this other one yeah. And Brooke Shields is his wife, and she like, it's crazy. That's a neat movie, but that's a good example of a rewriting of a classic fairy tale. No, it doesn't have to end with the Crimps totally in the company of wolves. Wasn't that there was a rewrite or redo of Little Red Riding Hood, too. A little more of a horror, though, right? I think so. I didn't see it. I didn't either. I think it was Neil Jordan. Right. Crying Game. Yeah. Like one of his early movies. Yeah. We have to talk a little bit about the Nazis here, because the Nazis were big on co opting things for their own purposes. And one of the things they co opted were Grimm's Fairy Tales. And since World War II, there's been a big I don't know about big. Again, maybe it's just a trend, but there were folks who said that when you look at these, they're talking about German nationalism and discipline and violence and order and obedience. And I think the Grand Brothers were like, yeah, it's totally nationalism. We are all about Germany, but we died, like, decades before Hitler was even born. Yeah. I don't think they would have appreciated that it was co opted by the Nazis. And Hitler saying, like, put these in schools. This is awesome. Read this stuff. Put them in Boy Scout rooms everywhere. That's funny. So the Allies came in and occupied Germany, and one of the things they said was, like, you guys can't teach this grim book anymore, and banned it. A lot of towns around Germany became very political because it was very much associated with the Third Reich. And one of the reasons why is because the Third Reich said, go teach this to young German kids to make sure that they know they're German and that they will triumph over the Allied wolf because they're all little road riding hood. That's right. Little Nazi kids. That's right. So, again, people make the case that you can't really hang that on the Grim brothers. They didn't foresee Nazism. And this German nationalism in and of itself isn't necessarily inherently evil. And if you put it in the context of German Romanticism, most countries in Europe were undergoing nationalist fever. There was some anti Semitism, though, and some of the tales yes. And that can't be gotten around either. Yeah. One was called The Jew and the Brambles, where the protagonist torments a Jewish person by making them dance on a thicket of thorns, calls him a dirty dog. And then there's various I think it said three, basically, of the 200 tales had Jewish characters, and they were never, like, favorable. Yeah. The other two reference the Jewish stereotype of being stingy with money or something like that. Yeah, the good bargain. And a lot of people are like, well, let's just expunge those, too. And some people have from their collections. I think that's the other thing, too, is you can the Grimm kind of set a precedent for you can take these tails and cleanse them if you want or do whatever you want to them, like they belong to the ages. Well, and that then comes in the people who posit, whether or not that's good for us. Should we sanitize it? Should we not? W. H. Alden. I love this. He described the people who sanitize them as the Society for the Scientific Diet, the association of Positive Parents, positivist Parents, the League for the Promotion of Worthwhile Leisure or the Cooperative Camp of Prudent Progressives. That is so whedon. Yeah. He couldn't just leave it at one description. No way. So he clearly wasn't in favor of it. Some people think it's good for us. A man named Bruno Bettelheim. Great name. Bruno Bettelheim. It totally is. Seems like a Bond villain or something. Yeah. 1976. He had a book called The Uses of Enchantment, and he was very Freudian in nature. He basically says that all these kids have these unconscious desires, and these books help what? Like these repressed desires come out? Help them deal with them? Yeah, it helps children deal with their repressed desires. Like the example of the so we talked about the socio historical interpretation of the presence of wicked stepmothers, right? Right. There were lots of stepmothers, and they were competing for resources. Baddielheim. And the Freudian say, well, no, the stepmothers are there because children love their mother, but they also hate their mother. Right. And this gives them a way to work through that complex combination of emotions where they can hate the wicked stepmother, but they can also love the biological mother who's absent or appears early on and then dies, but who is always very loving and kind. Right. So they can work that out. That's a great example of it. Yeah. And then you have Zip, who jack Zip says what it really is, is children see the fairy tale as, like, a counterworld, a reflection of their own world, and it allows them to consider what's going on in that world and then take steps in their own world to reform it and not do those things. Right. And specifically, it teaches children to identify tyrants and people who are power mad and people who hoard money or harm other people, because those people almost invariably come to a terrible end in those things in fairy tales. Right. Yeah. So you've got all these different interpretations. Freudian. Carl Young got into it. Socio historical, feminist interpretation, jack Zip's own personal leftist interpretation. Right. Yeah. And all of them, although they compete here or there, none of them are wrong and none of them are right. And again, it's the beauty of fairy tales. It's like a blank white piece of plywood that we project our own thoughts and fears and hopes and ideas onto culture by culture, age by age. Yeah. And Tatar in her collection did a pretty smart thing. I think she actually collected some of the more disturbing ones in the back of the book under the title Tales for Adults. Basically, read these first on your own. See if you want to read them to your kids. Don't front load it with the juniper tree. Right. And actually, Joan Acicella says that you should take an Xacto knife and just cut the juniper tree out of your you said that. I thought that was pretty funny. Yeah. I don't know if your kids got a strong fortitude. It's up to the parents. But it wasn't always up to the parents. There was a big movement in the mid 20th century for realism among children's books. Yeah. And the Grims were first on the chopping block there. Instead, it was replaced by, like, Judy Goes to the Firehouse as a Cassella says. Right. Think about it. It's like a total 50s children's book. Like seeing Dick and Jane run and I guess Maurice sendache with Where the Wild Things Are who said yeah, we're not doing that anymore. He brought the call back to children's books. He definitely did. Yeah. I haven't read many children's books lately, but I think there's a lot of you read Daddy Sat on a Duck, right? Yeah, I did read that one. Lots of Far chokes in that one. Yeah. That was written by one of our listeners. Highly recommended. It is. It's very good. But I think these days there's a mix of things going on realism, fanciful stuff, stories. I know. Well, this is more of a young adult novel, but Colin Alloy of the December is sort of three part children's novels, like big, big books oh, yeah. About this fantastical world in Oregon, this forest in Oregon where I bought them all. I can't wait to read them. Yeah, it's cool, man. Yeah. I think that's more the tradition of the lion, which in the wardrobe. Right. That's what I thought of when you say that. I wanted to say Avalanche is not the name. Narnia. Narnia. Yeah. I have no idea where children's books are these days either. I wonder, though, what it reflects about society at large, whatever phase children's books are, whether it's realism or fancifulness. When you're in an economic downturn, is realism or fantasy the one that steps in? Yeah, I would guess fantasy because people want escapism then. I was way into that stuff. I wasn't into, like, Hobbit and Lord of the Rings and stuff like that. But I love Maurice Syndak. Really? And Dr. Seuss and stuff. That was really kind of out there. I love Dr. Seuss. I found out that not every boy read Ramona Quimby books. I thought it was unisex. Apparently not. Yes. I read some Judy Bloom. Yeah, of course. And I did read the first couple of The Chronic. What? Calls of Narnia. Did you ever see that, Skip? No. It's one of the Saturday Night Live shorts. They were doing Chris Parnell and Sandberg. We're doing a wrap. The Chronic what? Calls of Narnia. I didn't see that. It was like a very weird misplaced. What did you see? Mr shows coming back on Netflix. Yeah. Well, we're going to get to Mr. Show. I don't think they can call it Mr. Show. No, they're calling it with likewise. I can't wait, man. I saw a couple of clips, and it looks like it's going to be as good as it ever was. I'm pretty psyched. Me, too. Before we leave you, since we're talking about fairy tales, we thought it'd be appropriate to mention that two of our horror fiction contest submitters are published. Once published again. J McMurray published The Dreamings of Leonardjm Leaper. And you can check that out at tape publishing.com. Not Leper. No, Leaper. Okay. And then also you can find Patrick Scott. He wrote play, I believe, which was in meet for Tea magazine. And you can find information about that@meatforty.com. Since I said meet for tea, it's time for listener, man. I wish it was time for us to meet for T no. M-E-A-T. Yeah. Okay. I'm going to call this a little bit more on vocal fry. We got a lot of response from this one. I think it's second in controversy on homelessness. Yeah, a lot of ladies wrote in. Women that were very appreciative. A lot of men wrote in who are not appreciative. Many were, too. Yeah, many were, but a lot of dudes wrote in. I think they're part of the men's movement. It was divided like you would expect. But there were men who wrote in to support us. There are women who wrote in to criticize vocal fry that agreed with Naomi Wolf. Yes. And I just want to clear up. I don't mean all old white men are awful. You don't even need to say that. If you're not one of the ones that are doing these things, then great. Who cares? Yeah, you don't need to defend the ones who are. No. All right, here we go. Hey, guys. Just want to say thanks so much for your recently for recently tackling some very charged gender issues in the most mature but no apologist of ways. I like how this email is going so far. Whether it be female puberty. Vocal. Fryer your excellent double duo with the stuff you miss in history class crew. And listen to male. You nailed what I consider to be the best way to handle the ubiquitous double standards that women find themselves held to state that it is unequivocally wrong. Then calmly and rationally pick apart why you are not trying to start a gender war. Though I'm sure there are those out there who will take it as such the beginning of this email. But you meticulously undercut the arguments and unconscious justifications that allow these attitudes to endure. Underneath all the truths by consensus and familial and cultural norms, very little remains to give weight to these perspectives, and I believe that both genders are, albeit slowly, shedding them, thanks to the efforts of you and many others on this path. Very well said. Right? This is the road to equality. Dudes, I threw that in there. And I cannot say how much I appreciate your proper championing of it. We are all persons, no matter our gender, and should be respected as such, free as much as possible of worthless generalizations. Also, as a side note, I was, once upon a time, a linguist and very much agree with your handling of socio linguistics. A linguist? Sorry, Chuck. Is that because I said, like, linguistic linguisticators or something weird linguisticators? A linguist's most fundamental tenant is that no use of language to communicate is wrong, and thus linguistic evolution should be no more surprising than that of pop music or fashion. Yeah, the prescriptivists are just screaming at their ipods right now. Ideas and perspectives change, and language, by its nature, will rise to meet it. Cheers. That is from David. A long time stuff you should know. Fan. Thanks a lot, David. That was a very kind email. Very well said, representative. I would say about half of the emails that we got about vocal Friday. The other half, if you want to get in touch with us, you can tweet to us at syskpodcast. You can join us on facebook. Comstuffystoe. You can send us an email to stuffpodcast@housestuffworks.com. And, as always, join us at our home on the web stuffyshow.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit houseofworks.com."
http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/podcasts.howstuffworks.com/hsw/podcasts/sysk/2017-07-15-sysk-amelia-earhart.mp3	SYSK Selects: Why can't we find Amelia Earhart?	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/sysk-selects-why-cant-we-find-amelia-earhart	In this week's SYSK Select episode, famed aviator Amelia Earhart's disappearance in 1937 is a mystery that endures to this day. Why don't we know what happened to her? In this episode, Josh and Chuck examine the facts and evidence behind the famous case.	In this week's SYSK Select episode, famed aviator Amelia Earhart's disappearance in 1937 is a mystery that endures to this day. Why don't we know what happened to her? In this episode, Josh and Chuck examine the facts and evidence behind the famous case.	Sat, 15 Jul 2017 19:12:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2017, tm_mon=7, tm_mday=15, tm_hour=19, tm_min=12, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=5, tm_yday=196, tm_isdst=0)	27384784	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Picture this, friends. You could be packing a carry on for a trip to Hawaii when you realize you're going to need a bigger bag. But it's cool because you booked your flight with your city Advantage Platinum Select Card. So you can check a bag for free on domestic travel and still have room for those souvenirs. And surprise, those souvenirs also earned you Advantage Miles. Actually, you earned Advantage Miles and loyalty points with each swipe. So let's start dreaming about your next next adventure. This could be you, and you could be anywhere with the city Advantage Platinum Select Card. Learn more at citi comAdventure and travel on with cityadvantage. You want your kid eating the best nutrition, right? And by that, we mean your dog. Halo Elevate is natural sciencebased nutrition guaranteed to support your dog's top five health needs better than leading brands? Find Halo Elevate at petco pet supplies plus and select neighborhood pet stores. Hey, everybody, it's me, Josh. And for this week's SYSK selects I chose our episode. Why can't we find Amelia Earhart? Which first aired in December of 2010. Recently, a photo has been making the rounds that purports to show Amelia and her navigator, poor Fred Noon, after they disappeared, which supposedly gives credence to the theory that the Japanese captured them. So I thought it was a good reason and a good time to revisit our episode on it. Hope you enjoy. Welcome to stuff you should know from housetopworkscom. Hi, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's charles W, Chuck Bryant. Chuck Trayn. Jerry's in the other room with a golf putter that she's going to come in here and swing at us any second now, which makes this Stuff You Should Know. I think we're on our last nerve today. Yes. Well, it's Friday, so last Friday in October, it's like 03:00, and we're going to get out of here after that. Yes. Plus, we've been gone all week, and then we just get carried in here by our minions on our thrones, and we were plopped down and we just told Jerry to make it, so yeah, when that standing ovation from everyone we work with. Just amazing that we touch you. Yeah, I'm kind of used to them by now. Chuck? Yes? Do you ever get any Time Life books? No, I've never gotten them, but I used to love those when I was a kid. The commercials. Yeah. There's some cool ones, the Old West ones, especially. I like the ones that were just kind of, like, out there, like, what the heck is going on? I first heard of Trepidation and thanks to Time, like, oh, really? Ancient brain surgery from the what the heck is going on? Series. Yes, exactly. Very underrated. There's one. The Wild West one, huh? Oh, yeah. He once killed a man just for snoring too loud. That had a big impact on me. Yes. I don't snore. My dad liked the World War II ones. Yeah, but he liked anything World War II for a while now. He's kind of out of it. Really? Yeah. He's like yeah, kind of. Well, there is a book, it's still in print, as far as I can tell. It's life, not Time life. Because I think time went on with Warner and AOL. Okay. Which, by the way, someone at Time Life or Time Warner said that their acquisition of AOL was one of the worst mistakes in the history of business recently. That's not nice. No, but there is a life book called the Greatest Mysteries of All Time. Oh, yeah, those are great. And it's like a top 50, and it's things like, was Anastasia alive? Princess Anastasia. And she escaped the Bolshevik Revolution. Pompeii. That's not really a mystery. Oh, did they figure that one out? No, I'm in Atlantis. Okay. Yeah, they've got that one licked. We can go there. Actually, if you'll pay for the plane tickets, there's Jack the Ripper phase. And among them, as she should be in all lists of the Greatest Unsolved Mysteries is Amelia Earhart. Yeah, right. In 2007, we saw the 70th anniversary of her disappearance. She just kind of flew into history, and I wrote an article about it last summer, and I was really shocked to find that there's a lot of pieces in place that if one thing would change, we'd know for sure what happened to her. But still this mystery endures and it drives people crazy and makes them want to go. People spend tons of money and time and effort to try to figure out what happened to her. And some people have come up with some theories that are interesting. One was that she was actually captured by the Japanese. This is right before World War II. They were kind of adversarial. What they leave out is that the Japanese actually helped with her search. Right. So that's not true. But that is a theory that still is going on that she was captured by the Japanese and either executed or forced into servitude to become Tokyo Rose. Who group of English speaking women who basically said, GI, your girlfriend back home is having sex with Captain America and Superman. Right. Yeah, it's true. They said things along those lines. That's good. Another one is that there was an alien abduction. That's what I'm siding with. Have you heard of Irene Craigmyle Boleham? Yeah. Apparently there was one theory that Amelia Earhart just assumed the life of a New Jersey housewife by that name. A successful banker who retired to become a New Jersey housewife. She's a very worldly woman. She had her pilot's license in the was a lot of stuff that she actually had a mutual friend with Amelia Earhart. So they kind of ran in the same circles, and not much is known of her life before World War II. She kind of appears out of nowhere, supposedly. So alleged. This guy who was about to release a biography in 1970 saying, this lady is Amelia Earhart. And the woman sued and won $1.5 million. And the book was never published, I believe. Interesting. Yeah. But the guy was relentless. After she died, he asked to be able to photograph and fingerprint her body. Really? And the family was like, no, but he's taking it like, exactly. Why would you not let me do that? Because I think it was before she was buried. He was trying to get things on her. Well, still. I have a theory, Josh. I'd like to hear it. I have a theory that if you asked 1000 people who Fred Newton was that 999 of them would have no idea who you're talking to. Yeah, I had no idea who he was until I researched this. Fred Newman was in the plane in the Lockheed Electra as the navigator that went down on July 2, 1937. Or supposedly, you might not have seen him. There's a picture of him in Earhart, and he is the quintessential old timey navigator. Oh, yeah. His button down shirt is buttoned all the way up to his apple. He's got, like, some papers in this front shirt pocket, pocket protector. His pants are pulled up to just below his nipples and he just looks like he's, like, all business. That's who I would have hired. Definitely. And here's a good guy, apparently, before they went off on their equatorial trip around the world. Yeah. Explain to people, because some people might not even know the backstory we assume everyone knows, but what they were trying to do was circumnavigate the globe along the equator. Along the equator as long as you could possibly take to get around the globe. Right. Obviously, not all in one shot. They did this in installments. But they were definitely not doing it in installments of four or 500 miles at a pop now. And by this time, we should also say this is 1937 when they undertook this trip. But by this time, Amelia Earhart was already, like, this worldwide, internationally famous figure. She was a well known pacifist, which is pretty cool. She was a women's rights advocate. Very cool. Like, women can do anything that guys can do kind of thing. Right. She was a studying contrast, though. Apparently, one of her friends had given her a 50 50 chance of surviving this trip, and she actually agreed with it. And she had said that she wasn't worried for herself because she maintained this what she called a feminine conceit, that she was afraid of aging. Right. So she wasn't really worried about dying, but she was worried about Fred because he was, like, this nice guy with the family. And she was right to worry because on July 2, 1937, they disappeared off the face of the Earth. So what you're saying is she had guts of steel. She did steal. She'd already been awarded the Flying Cross by Congress. She received the National Geographic Award from President Herbert Hoover. She was the first woman to cross the Atlantic ten years before she had broken an altitude record. She was the first woman to fly around the world. Well, all this in about a ten or twelve year career. She's done all this stuff. So when she disappeared, the whole world knew. Oh, yeah, it was big news. We'll talk about where she disappeared broadly because they still don't know for sure, which is one of the problems. She departed in her Lockheed Electra, which is to me, one of the coolest looking planes ever built. Shiny, silver, just really cool looking plane. And she departed. Lai papa. New guinea. Yes, papua New Guinea. To probably escape a Kiri outbreak. Oh, really? I don't know. That's the only place that is found. Well, they departed lied to for one of the longest stretches of this flight, and they were setting out for Howland Island, which was about 2500 miles away from when they were going. Right. So consider this, Chuck. They'd already flown most of the way around the world. Yeah. They had 7000 miles short. Yeah. And then this was the longest stretch and it was going to eat up a lot of that last 7000 miles. It was 2500 miles from Papua New Guinea to Holland Island. And Holland Island itself is pretty small. Yeah. A mile and a half by a half mile. Yes. Tiny little toll. And it only rows 20ft out of the Pacific Ocean. And basically these are tolls out there in the Pacific. Just are basically columns coming out of the ocean floor. And that's it. So there's like no shelf on either side? Yeah. I'm trying to land on a postage stamp, I would think. Right. And it was very apparent to everybody, including New NAN and Earhart and the US coast Guard and government, that this is a very dangerous this is probably the most dangerous leg of the journey. So they had a Coast Guard cutter, the Itasca, who was tasked with tracking them. It was Itasca. Right. Yeah. And they also had two additional ships for markers to help her along. Right. So she wasn't just completely out there alone, they were trying to keep up with her because clearly everyone had a stake in her being successful. Right. And I say her and Fred. Poor Fred. He never gets any accolades. No one even knows who he is. No one knows who he is. So Fred was trying to use celestial navigation, but it was really overcast, so he couldn't do that. They fell out of radio contact and at dawn, the Ataska picked up a transmission where she said that Noonan kind of figured that they should be just over where they were, right over the boat, which was right off of the shore of How Long Island. Right. But apparently they didn't see her. And the Lockheed Electra, there was no trace of pretty sure that they were way off and about an hour after that, they knew the fuel was running low. And about an hour after that, they got the final transmission from her, which basically just said, we are running north to south. These were her last words that anyone ever heard. Yeah, very sad. Hey, that's the sound of another sale on Shopify, the all in one commerce platform to start, run and grow your business, isn't it, Chuck? That's right. Shopify gives entrepreneurs the resources once reserved for big business, so upstart startups and established businesses alike can sell everywhere, synchronize online and in person sales, and effortlessly stay informed. Scaling your business is a journey of endless possibility. You can reach customers online and across social networks with an ever growing suite of channel integrations and apps, including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest, and more. And you can synchronize your online and in person sales, so you gain insights as you grow with detailed reporting of conversion rates, profit margins, and beyond. It's more than a store. Shopify grows with you. So just go to Shopify.com stuff all lowercase for a free 14 day trial, and get full access to Shopify's entire suite of features. Grow your business with Shopify today. Go to shopify. comStuff right now. Hey, everybody. I don't know about you, but we're pretty excited about summer. I mean, what's not to like? School's out, the sun is shining, and best of all, there's downtime for days. That's right. And that's where True crime podcasts on Amazon Music come in. They're the perfect activity for last minute road trips, long walks, or, if you're brave enough, late nights. Yeah, and with so many killer shows like Morbid, My Favorite Murder, and Small Town Murder, you'll never be bored to death again. Prepare to go deep and become your own detective in the world of serial crimes and unsolved mysteries. Get lost hearing spooky stories with a combination of detailed research and lighthearted analysis. Whether you're a lifetime fan of true crime or you just feel like being entertained while doing the dishes at night, there's a podcast out there for you. So download the free Amazon Music app to start listening to all your favorite true crime podcasts. Plus, with Amazon Music, you can access new episodes early. Download the app today. So about that time, the news got back that they never showed up to Howard Island. And President Roosevelt, who was a friend of hers, he also was a great admirer of hers as well, ordered a massive search by the Navy. And remember we said the Japanese helped as well? It was a multinational search and rescue mission that covered a quarter of a million square miles. Yes, that is a huge area. Yeah. Texas is a little less than $270,000, so it's just slightly less than the state of Texas. Right. And it was open water that they're searching. Yes. Right. The old joke is, look at all that water, and the reply is, yeah. And that's just the top of it. Right. That's one of the problems. Yeah, exactly. You're scanning an area the size of Texas and what possibly lies beneath all that. Right. But you're hoping that if the thing broke up, you would find some wreckage, some sign of life. Sure. They found nothing that they could link to Earhart or Noon, like, they just disappeared. And actually, FDR took a lot of flak, we should say, because he spent $4 million in the middle of the Great Depression just to search for this one person. Well, these two people. See poor Fred Newton, but he always stood by that, as far as I know. Again, though, it was a fruitless search and they turned up nothing. Right. I think that'd be a great band name. I know I say that, but poor Fred Noonan. That's a good one. You have to remember that in case L Cheap Over breaks up. After the Navy search, they basically discontinued their search and said, you know what? We can't find her and Fred, and we're going to send a destroyer out to Gardner Island. It was called Gardener Island back then, and now it's Nicumarro. Nicumarro. Nicumarro, yeah. And they did this because radio transmissions on her frequency were being broadcast in that area, which is pretty substantial. But, yes, this is an uninhabited area, and this is still an unexplained aspect of this mystery. There were sporadic bursts of radio transmissions, and no one still can say why. They were from some guy named Fred Newton. And they didn't pay any attention. Right, exactly. They're like, who is that? You see? A millionaire, I guess there's a swimmer. So they basically sent a couple of dispatch planes to that island, found nothing, and said, all right, we're calling off this area that she's not out here. No evidence of life. Right. And that would have been that. That was right, yeah. And the planes went back to the destroyer or the aircraft carrier and left. That probably would have been the end of the association between Gardner Island, Nicumaro and Amelia Earhart had it not been colonized by the British in 1938, had it not been for their pinchant for colonization. Yes. Period. If British imperialism didn't exist, these artifacts never would have turned up. But how they like to colonize things. They colonize this remote outpost, actually gathered up some other islanders nearby and said, hey, you're going to live here now. And when these islanders went on the island, they found evidence that a castaway had been there recently. They found some pretty jarring stuff. Right, Chuck? Yeah. Most certainly. It cast away because they found a woman's shoe, a man's shoe right. Liquor bottle, and a container for a sextant, which is one of those are the cool looking navigational device that you hold up. And it looks like something out of League of Extraordinary Gentleman or something, which Fred Newan had on the plane with them. Of course he did. Yeah. Fred and then they also found certainly not the least of which would be human skull and bones. Yeah. Here's where this thing would be just done, probably, in my opinion, where they just say, this is them. Yeah. They found one set of human remains. The islanders took this to the governor of the island. His name was Gerald oh, I can't remember his name. Gerald Gallagher. Thanks, buddy. Yeah. They took it to Gerald Gallagher. Gallagher says, I suspect I know who this is. Let's get a physician looking at this. The physician examines it and the bones are promptly lost forever. No one has any idea what happened to them. Luckily, this physician took pretty methodical notes and wrote descriptions and drew drawings of the bones. And so in the 90s, some forensic anthropologists got their hands on these notes and they said, pretty much unequivocally, that these bones were the bones of a woman of Northern European ancestry bingo. Who was about five foot seven and Amelia Earhart was five foot eight. Well, there you have it. Well, you would think they were off by an inch. It wasn't her exactly. But in this day and age, you have to have DNA evidence to prove controverstably. Right, sure. So the bones go missing, we can't get a DNA match. But consider that on an uninhabited island where they think that Amelia Earhart might have gone down, the remains of a woman of Northern European ancestry who was pretty much the same height as Melia, were found a few years after disappearance. I say score. I say score games that match. But they also found some other cool stuff in the area of the island was called Seven Site, and that was the little encampment that they believe was used by them. Right. And they found some other cool stuff, like clamshell fragments that basically they were smashed open by somebody right. And exposed to fire, which, unless they were struck by lightning, that's pretty much definitive evidence of human use. Well, yeah. And they also found bones of fish and birds and turtles that had been exposed to fire. Right. So in other words, somebody was cooking up something to eat. What else did they found? They found pieces of bottle that show signs of use as cutting and sawing tools. Yeah. They also found a little piece of a knife, which they managed I don't know how they did this because you sent me this link. There's a picture of just the knife blade. And they went back and managed to identify it as a type of jackknife that was produced within this time period by this company in Rhode Island. So it was produced from 1930 to 1942 or something like that. And then they went back this year. This group called the we should say their name the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery, or Tiger. Yes. They've been, I think, three or four different times over the years in this island. They went this summer, as I was writing this, they were preparing for expedition and they found the rest of the knife. And this is where they hope to get DNA evidence from. Well, yeah, the reason that the knife discovery is important or the rest of the knife, they originally found the blades only, and then they found the knife this summer and it showed that the knife blades had been forcibly removed from the knife, indicating that maybe that they took out each blade. And of course you're speculating, but maybe to attach it to an end of a spear or something like that for fishing. Anyone who's seen Castaway knows what that's all about. I saw that the other day. Again, by the way. They also found Gardner Island, by the way, became uninhabited in 1963. There was a prolonged drought and the British government were just like, Just forget it, everybody just leave. And the group Tiger, when they went to excavate around there, they found in the abandoned village folk art made of aluminum, aircraft metal, right. Which they can't definitively prove came from her plane. Obviously, there's a lot of circumstantial evidence. Female, cast away handicrafts. Right? Or maybe Tom, he was the big crafty guy, but I don't think Tom made it. I think Amelia Earhart made it. I think Tom was maybe killing, impact or drowned and Amelia made it to the island and died there alone. Quite possibly. And she may have even eaten him. No, that's a new theory I think he just launched. That goes in with your disappearance of the neanderthals. That's right, they melted. Hey, that's the sound of another sale on Shopify, the all in one commerce platform to start, run and grow your business, isn't it, Chuck? That's right. Shopify gives entrepreneurs the resources once reserved for big business, so upstart, startups and established businesses alike can sell everywhere, synchronize online and in person sales and effortlessly stay informed. Scaling your business is a journey of endless possibility. You can reach customers online and across social networks with an ever growing suite of channel integrations and apps, including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest and more. And you can synchronize your online and in person sales, so you gain insights as you grow with detailed reporting of conversion rates, profit margins and beyond. It's more than a store. Shopify grows with you. So just go to Shopify.com stuff all lowercase for a free 14 day trial, and get full access to Shopify's entire suite of features. Grow your business with Shopify today. Go to shopify. comStuff right now. Hey, summer is here, my friend, which means school is out, the sun is shining bright, the days are longer, and best of all, there's plenty of time to get lost in a good, thrilling story. Yeah, whether you're road tripping or you're relaxing by the pool, you can tune into the podcast here. It's on Amazon music that's so good, it's criminal morbid. That's right. It's part true crime and part comedy, Morbid takes you on a journey through murderous mysteries and major laughs all in the same week. Yeah. From the paranormal to the pretty spooky and everything in between. Host Selena Erkart and Ash Kelly cover it all. And with two episodes released each week, you'll be hooked on this chart topping series before you know it. You can listen to new episodes of Morbid one week early only on Amazon Music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen today. The reason we're talking about these objects that they've recently recovered, though is because they are trying to get some DNA called Touch DNA off of a few of these items submitted. Ten, I believe out of 101 of the reasons why finding that knife was very important. Huge because I believe they submitted the blades and then they found some glass from what looked like a cosmetics jar and a couple of buttons and they submitted these things to a place in Canada. And I think as of today I still don't think they have the results of that DNA testing done. Either that or I didn't see that they had it done yet. So guarded. But they would it be such enormous news that we would have known. That's what I think. Chuck. There's a lot of people out there who also think that her plane survived intact and is at the bottom of the Pacific. That's awesome. And people still, I think tigar included, undertake sonar searches of the ocean bottom. And there's a good chance that the plane did make it. They were flying supposedly at about 1000ft, which is extremely low and they were doing about 100 miles an hour, which is pretty slow for a plane, especially a Lockheed Electra. So conceivably didn't necessarily bust into a million pieces, right? Yeah. So it's possible it's still out there at the bottom of the ocean. Well, I am totally sold. And I know I said like every single Jack the Ripper killer we brought up, yeah, he sounds like the guy. But I'm completely convinced that this is where she spent her last days, like you and that she ate Fred Newton. I don't know about that. Poor Fred. Poor Fred. We should also mention too that they used a new well, it's new to them at least. Ground penetrating radar GPR for the first time on this last trip this summer. And that is when you can actually look beneath the surface for anything that was buried like Fred. It's magic. And they didn't find anything though. Not because there was anything there necessarily but there were lots of roots and air pockets underneath the thing. And I get the feeling that this looks, since you're looking for something buried, looked for pockets of air. And so that was completely inconclusive. They threw it in the ocean. She may have also pulverized his bones to cover up her abomination, maybe so. Yeah, I think that's what happened. I wonder how long they survived, though. I wonder if it was weeks or months or what. Well, consider it. I mean, if her plan went down in 1937 and they started colonizing at 1938, she lasted less than a year. But can you imagine if she, like, just gave up, and then, like, a week later, the British come to colonize Gardiner Island? I mean, how horrible would that be? So she made it less than a year. If she made it to Gardner. Islander nico. Moro. What I'm surprised about, and maybe she tried to do this and Fred tried to do this, I'm surprised she didn't leave something behind. Like instead of doing a handicraft, maybe try and scratch the name Amelia into the aluminum and bury that or something. Or maybe something is there and they just haven't found it yet. Yeah, there's a tree that says Crow atone on it because she was a history buff. Yeah. Emilia was here. Well, that's it as it stands so far. Do you think we'll ever do an update if they find her? We always say we will and we never do. And we never do. So the answer to that question is no. If you want to learn more about Amelia Earhart and see a picture of how cute Fred Newton is in his little old timey aviator get up, you should type Earhart into the search bar Hostelforks.com. That's E-A-R-H-A-R-T. That should bring it up, I would think. Unless we have articles on other Earharts. I don't think so. I guess it's time then, for listener mail, right? Yeah. I got one here. I asked for rehab experiences quite a while ago, and I've got one that I meant to read earlier. And here it is. Okay. And I'm going to jump around here. It's kind of long. This is from Scott. And in 2005, he had pretty much worked himself into a rehab hospital. He was working three different jobs, hit a wall, couldn't decide to walk this way or that way, or even pick up a pencil. So he went to the Er after a 15 minutes interview with a psychiatrist, who he said was quite attractive. I'm not sure why he told me that. He said she left and a guard came to stand outside the room. And she said, you're not just going to take a break. She said, you need to be checked in. And this is how I learned of the 72 hours hold where a doctor decides you're at risk. So that's what happened to him initially. Next, I wound up in an ambulance for a trip to a cyclock downward called Station 22. It sounds like the beginning of a very bad movie. Like a horror film. Yeah. Station 22. Exactly. They dropped me off behind two heavily locked doors, and the next thing you knew, I was relieved of my laces and belt. Now, I should say I was not suicidal. I was just really. Out of ideas. I don't know what that means. What out of ideas? Like he was indecisive. He couldn't no, I think he means he was burned out. Was he having a nervous breakdown? Out of options? Out of ideas? Yeah, it sounds like it. Spent eight days in station 22 and saw some interesting things. And here are a few. A meth addict was admitted. She looked like she should weigh about 110 to \u00a3120, but she weighed more like 80. She took one drink of orange juice, promptly dropped to the floor like a set of bones. And this is what I learned what a code red was, the crash cart, the er, and the whole parade. After leaving station 22, I transferred to a place in the suburbs for a 28 day program. It was pretty cool. I met a very well known author and many other fascinating people. I saw the girl sneaking out of the guy's room. The whole thing had to bear the AA rhymes and sayings, and I totally understand Sandra Bullock in 28 days. Now, the big news was the guy who wrote a million little pieces was coming the next week because he had stayed there before when he was writing the book. And the oprah people came on site to work out camera locations and blocking. And two days before they were to descend, the I made it up scandal occurred. So he never showed. Well, clearly. And here are just a few other little tips. People in rehab are insane about sweets. I think there's a definite link between sugar and addiction. Everyone seemed to want to hook up with something sweet. I have seen that heroin sickness looks worse than dying in a fire. Wow. That's pretty bad. That's pretty bad. And a surprising number of people were repeats. I'm talking like, yeah, this is my 7th time here. And I also saw a lot of people who snuck off for a drink and got kicked out. So Scott is doing much better now. He is back on track, living a great life. Way to go, Scott. And he says, I love what you guys do and how you do it. I now give to kiva and co ed. Awesome. And pretty much pace the halls until your next episode. Awesome. Thank you very much, Scott. I'm very glad you're feeling better. Right, Chuck? As long as you're not pacing the halls of station 22, buddy. Keep in touch with us on Facebook and Twitter. Yeah. Quickly, can I say that if you have written listener mail, we don't answer all those anymore because there's just too many. Facebook is a great place to submit questions and get answers quicker or at all that's facebook. Comstuffyou shouldn't. But we still read the listener mail. Sure. Twitter is syskpodcast. We also of that kiva team. Kiva.org teamstepyshouldo coed's website is coeduc.org. And you can always email us. Like Chuck said, we don't always respond. I do sometimes. Do you still. Yeah. Okay. Send us an email to let us know what you do or what you think you would do, or what you should do when you run out of ideas, wrap it up. Send it to us at stuffpodcast@howstepworks.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit Howstofworks.com. To learn more about the podcast, click on the podcast icon in the upper right corner of our home page. The House of Forks iPhone app has arrived. Download it today on itunes. Summer school's out. The sun is shining. The daylight is longer. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music that's so good it's criminal Morbid. Part true crime and part comedy, Morbid takes you on a journey from murderous mysteries to major laughs, all in the same week. Hosted by autopsy technician Elena Ercart and hairstylist Ash Kelly, this charttopping series will have you hooked before you know it. Listen to new episodes of Morbid one week early, only on Amazon Music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen. Today you want your kid eating the best nutrition, right? And by that, we mean your dog. Halo Elevate is natural sciencebased nutrition guaranteed to support your dog's top five health needs better than leading brands halo Elevate, As, Petco, Pep, Supplied Plus and select neighborhood pet stores."
4398a700-53a3-11e8-bdec-0f99312161eb	How Project Star Gate Worked	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/how-project-star-gate-worked	In yet another testament to how amazingly great the 70s were, in 1975 the US started a program that tried to harness the powers of clairvoyance to remotely spy on the Soviet Union. Since clairvoyance doesn’t seem to exist, it wasn’t super successful.	In yet another testament to how amazingly great the 70s were, in 1975 the US started a program that tried to harness the powers of clairvoyance to remotely spy on the Soviet Union. Since clairvoyance doesn’t seem to exist, it wasn’t super successful.	Tue, 09 Jun 2020 09:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2020, tm_mon=6, tm_mday=9, tm_hour=9, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=161, tm_isdst=0)	51231008	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Hey, everybody. I don't know about you, but I am excited that it's summer, school's out, the sun is shining, and best of all, there's downtime four days. That's where true crime podcasts on Amazon Music come in. They're the perfect activity for last minute road trips, long walks, or you're brave enough late nights. With so many killer shows like Morbid, my Favorite Murder, and Small Town Murder, you'll never be bored to death again. So download the free Amazon Music app to start listening to all your favorite true crime podcasts. Plus, with Amazon Music, you can access new episodes early. Download the app today. Are you looking for an escape? An immersive getaway experience? Well, there's a place for all your wildest dreams. Perhaps you enjoy wrapping along the paperboy. Or you believe that blessed be the fruit. Or you dream of one day smashing a glass while stealing Hooza. Whether you're sworn to Team Kim, or you just want a good old fashioned mysterious murder, there's a place that has it all. From Atlanta to only murders in the building, it's all on Hulu. So check into your obsessions. Hulu subscription is required. Terms apply. Visit hulu.com for plan details. Hey everybody, it's Josh and Chuck, your friends. And we are here to tell you about our upcoming book that's coming out this fall. The first ever Stuff You Should Know book. Chuck? That's right. What's the cool, super cool title we came up with? It's stuff you should know. Colon an incomplete compendium of mostly interesting things. That's right. And it's coming along so great. We're super excited, you guys. The illustrations are amazing. And there's the look of the book. It's exactly what we hoped it would be. And we cannot wait for you to get your hands on it. Yes, we can. And you don't have to wait. Actually, well, you do have to wait, but you don't have to wait to order. You can go preorder the book right now, everywhere. You get books. And you will eventually get a special gift for preordering, which we're working on right now. That's right. So check it out soon, coming this fall. Welcome to stuff. You should know a production of Iheartradios how stuff works. Hi and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's charles w chuck Bryan over there. Jerry is here, floating around the office somewhere. But she's here. Everybody back. Yes, Jerry is here in the flesh. She does exist. She's real. She also has clothed. Not just flesh. That's right. And because the three of us are hanging out, even on the Internet, it's stuffy snow. Yeah, it's good to see her. Her hair is long. She's like a hippie now. Long for Jerry is not very long. But it's swoopier than usual and looks quite nice. That's great, man. So she cares. She's staying home. Stay home, save lives. Jerry. Yeah, that's right. You know what else may have saved lives, Chuck? Project Stargate. Project Stargate. Do you know why I hedged and said that it may have saved lives. Sure. Why? Well, I mean, you tell your version, but because we don't even know if this stuff is real or not. Yes, I was going to say that I said it may have saved lives because it totally didn't save any lives as far as it's a bunch of made up gobbledy cook and CIA boondoggle and US military boondoggle from the but some fun anecdotal stories though it is. It's one of the more interesting chapters in CA history. CA history is awfully interesting. It has a lot of interesting, horrific chapters. This one's not horrific. I think that's one of the big differences of it. It's just interesting. There's not a lot of horror to it. I know the menus are at Goats by our pal John Ronson, really kind of devolves into horror toward the end of it when he gets an MK Ultra. But this is separate from MKUltra. It came from the same mindset, for sure. This idea that there are powers to the mind that could conceivably be unlocked to do ill or good or neutral stuff, who knows? But this one, it was fairly benign as far as CIA projects go, don't you think? Yeah. And believe it or not, I never saw that movie. It was okay. That's why I didn't. I think I had everything I love in a movie, which is Jeff Bridges and George Clooney and John Malkovich. Right. Yeah. But some funny spots in it, too. For sure. Yeah. I don't know why that one got past me. I think I read Tepid reviews and I just kind of was like, yeah, if you watched it, you would not want the 2 hours of your life back. But you wouldn't just be like, I'm going to dedicate my life to making sure everybody sees this movie. It wouldn't be like that. Okay. And I haven't read the book. Sorry, John, if you even listen to us anymore. But I'm quite sure, from what I understand, the book is vastly superior to the movie, which when does that ever happen? Sure, if John Ronson's hands were involved in his brain, then I'm sure it was better. You love that guy. Yeah, he's a good guy. He doesn't like to wear shoes for people who might not have seen him. Here's another fun fact that you probably don't know. He was on one of the first editions of Movie Crush and he swears that he sits on the very front row, far left seat. That's torture. It's torture. It was so weird. No, I know. I heard that episode. His movie was Annie, right? No, not true. What was it? Do you remember? It was let the right one in. Oh, man, that's a great movie. Yeah, sure is. If you ever go to a movie theater in New York and you see some guy front loose shoes with no shoes, then go tap him on the shoulder and ask for his autograph. Yup. Okay, so we're talking Project Stargate, which was the general code name for the secret project that was declassified around 2000. I think it's very telling that it was declassified in 2000 because the project was finally canceled in 1995. Normally when the CIA connects a project, especially if that project yields valuable stuff, they don't declassify it in just five years. It takes decades before that stuff starts to trickle out. But with Project Stargate, they said, here you go, here's everything. We can throw everyone a bone. This is my yeah, it's great reading, but this project ran from officially, I believe, 1975 to 1995. And I had a couple of different names, and it got passed along from different agencies. But the whole thing started even back before the CIA got involved. And from what I saw, there was a Soviet woman named Nunel Koolagnia who was on TV in the Soviet Union, and she was demonstrating her telekinesis, and apparently some defense intelligence analysts saw this TV show and said, hey, I think the Soviets might have some sort of mind weapon that we might want to look at. And it scared the bejesus out of the United States, and they got busy trying their own hand, starting with the USS Nautilus, the first submarine to make it to the North Pole. Yeah, I think what's so funny about the early history of this is that the Russians started doing it because they thought we were doing it, and we started doing it because we thought they were doing it. And I don't know if either one of us technically were officially doing it. No, the woman on TV did not necessarily mean the Soviets had some sort of program, but it was that whole goofy Cold War thing where it's like, if there's even the slightest possibility the Russians are up to something, we've got to do that too, and then do it better. And they had the exact same mentality. So there was a constant arms race for everything, including ESP and what we'll find out what's called remote viewing. Yeah, I mean, that's kind of the deal. I guess we should tell everyone what this means. It's sort of like an addition of Karnak the Magnificent from the Johnny Carson show. At least this is how they trained. And we'll get into that specifically. But it was, hey, you have a gift. Maybe we're going to test you to see. But sit in this room and tell us if you can locate whatever, a missile base in the Soviet Union or a hostage in the Middle East or just whatever they needed to know that they didn't know. They were like, just sit here quietly and think it into reality. And that was sort of the basis of the program, was trying to use PSI, which we've talked about before, to our political and, I guess, military advantage. Yeah. So in that respect, it was really again, very benign. They weren't trying to explode somebody's head, although there were reports of programs like that. But with Project Stargate specifically, it was just people trying to come up with descriptions of secret places or, like you said, the location of certain people. Just kind of astrally projecting is another way to put it. Clairvoyance is another way to put it, but just kind of not just reading somebody else's mind, but actually traveling somewhere else in the world and connecting into a person or a thing or a place and getting that information remotely through means other than the normal senses. That's why another name for remote viewing, which is what it came to be called, is anomalous cognition, which is you've got this information, you're getting this info that you'd normally get from your ears or your eyes or your tongue or something like that, but you're getting it just into your mind. Sure. Hey, go look that thing. Tell me what you think. See if you can figure out the secret code word to get into that base by licking the keypad. You're getting it from not just your sensory perception, it's an extra sensory perception. Right. Is that what that means? That's what that means. Right. So that's the whole jam with this, is that the CIA and then the Soviets have their own thing going on, too. We're saying, like, let's do this. Let's use this potential capability to see if it works. And if it does work, let's use it to gather intelligence without having to go anywhere, without having to spend virtually any money on this. Just like you said. Put them in a room, maybe with some saltines and some grape koolaid. Sure. Let them relax and figure it out. Yeah. So in 72 is when the Dia, the Defense Intelligence Agency, first got wind of the Soviets potentially doing this for real. And the CIA said, all right, you know what? We're going to start funding these private research firms to see if this is possible. And 73, this started happening at the Sri International in California, which stood originally for Stanford Research Institute, but they weren't a part of Stanford at the time. And there was a guy there named Doctor Russell Targ who was one of the researchers, and he wrote a book called Mind Race, which is great title for something like this. Sure. And he had some early examples of sessions that he thought sounded promising, at least. Right. I was going to say I'm not sure how he got into it, though, but I don't know if he was already into it and then the Dia got into it or started funding him or something like that. But yeah, from what I can tell you is the earliest one. I bet he was into it, but not for espionage type purposes or anything like that. No, I think it was just kind of like this early beginning of the New Age movement. This guy was like on the leading edge of that whole thing. So in 1976, there was this experiment that he championed is like, hey look, this could work, everyone. There was a remote viewer, someone in the offices in California, their Sri, and Dr. Targ was in New York City and no one knew anything about where he was. Supposedly, I think we're going to say supposedly a lot in this podcast. And they said, all right, where am I? And he said, well, let me see. In my brain I'm seeing something. I'm seeing a cement depression. Yes. It's almost like a dry fountain. Yes. There's a cement post in the middle and there are pigeons flying around. Oh my God. Dr. Targ said hello. I'm in Washington Square Park, and the fountain is empty. Yeah. And Chuck, there's pigeons pooping everywhere. Because it's in New York. Yes. And so with this apparently successful remote viewing session, doctor Targ was able to get funding from the Dia at first, and that's where it really kind of kicked off. Pretty amazing, this whole study. That one, I think came through in 76, but it certainly kept his funding going. But he had anecdotal data from remote viewing sessions previous to this that really kind of kicked things off. And so the CIA is like, well, I mean, if this guy can sit there and figure out that this guy is in Washington Square Park just with his mind's eye, without leaking anything, right. No licking at all. Certainly no pigeons are being leaked here. We could probably put that to good use, having him think about Soviet stuff and we can steal their secrets that way. That's right. And in 1976 we had a President elect in, Jimmy Carter, who asked a couple of questions around the office and he got in touch with Yuri Geller, the famous Yuri Geller. He's a great mentalist if you haven't we've talked about him plenty of times, I feel like, yeah, but I really want to do just an episode just to show on him. He's pretty great. Did you know that he ended up getting very rich by Dowsing for oil companies? Oh, really? Can you believe that? I can. I can too, because I think oil companies will pay anybody anything if they think it will lead to oil. Do you know where the oil is? You got some oil, man? Give me some oil. So Carter said he had a private meeting with them and he kind of asked about what was going on. And Geller said, you know these Russians, they screen school kids and see if anyone has particular talents, like paranormal power talents, and they send them to special places to be trained. And Carter said, well, maybe we should look into this. It's 1977 now. And they didn't find any evidence of that kind of thing. But by this point, the chicken was out of the coupe, I think, and they were going to spend a little bit of money to kind of pursue this. Yes. I think the only evidence that that little line that Yurie Geller gave to Jimmy Carter was that Yuri Geller had seen Escape to Which Mountain the year before. That's the problem with all this is, like, BS baguettes more BS. So Yuri Geller had a meeting with Carter, started talking out of his A, and next thing you know, the United States is funding a study to find out whether it's true. It's like, come on. Yeah, I'm going to just fess up here. I was very bugged the entire time I was researching this particular one. It was like crop circles all over again. Yeah, but more fun than crop circles. I think it was more fun, but you know what kind of sucked the fun out of it for me? I'll just go ahead and say it now. I was going to save it for the end, but I read something somewhere that really kind of drove it home. That the problem with this kind of stuff is that if you let it really kind of get a foothold or get started, it paves the way for the kind of thinking that just doubts science and that doubts expertise, and that is like, no, don't you know, people can bend spoons. You don't need to like, you don't have to believe in science. This stuff happens. This is real. What's the horrible right? Exactly. And then all of a sudden, you have people believing anything that they hear. Yeah, that's true. That's the problem with it. And it really bugged me, especially on today of all days. Yeah, of course. Okay, so around 1978, and we don't know all this stuff for sure because a lot of this stuff is still I don't know if it's still top secret, but the timelines aren't like, we don't know specific dates. But around 78, the CIA stopped funding this, and the army said, hey, we'll take over. No problem. We got a bunch of money we don't know what to do with. Yeah. And how about a cool army code name? We'll call it project grill flame. Yeah. One word. I don't know why that's weird. Well, I think that's the point of a project name. It's meant to kind of baffle you. I think some of them are kind of cool and relatable to the thing now, but to me, it's like, well, you don't want any outsider to figure out what the project is about. That's true. Plow share. Okay, you're right. That was a really good one. You're right. So Project Grill Flame from the army was based in Maryland at Fort Meade, and they had remote viewers, or people who claim to be remote viewers or show talent as remote viewers in barracks. And they would do the karnak routine. They would hand them an envelope and said what's inside? And that was kind of the extent of their testing at first. Yeah. While they were allowed to open the envelope. I'm sure they would just once a while, as a joke, put it to their forehead, right? But they would give them an envelope with maybe somebody's picture, maybe a note card that has latitude and longitude typed on it, maybe somebody's name. That was it. And they were told to think about that latitude and longitude or told to concentrate on that person's picture or think about their name. And they wanted all the information that came. And so when it was latitude and longitude, typically you would know, like you're supposed to be viewing remotely, like a site or some sort of secret base or some sort of weapon or satellite dish or radar dish or something like that. And if it was a person, who knows? Maybe they were a lost person. And some of these people, some of these remote viewing subjects would say, like, I need a little more info, or something like that. And then it would kind of get them going. And then they would write down what their impressions were. They would maybe dictate it. They would draw it. Maybe they would do all three. And then after 20 minutes. 30 minutes. However long they dedicated to it. They would stop and all of their info would be taken away and then analyzed by a defense intelligence analyst. CIA analyst. An NSA analyst. Who knows somebody whose job is going through intelligence that was given to them by spies and satellites and all that. Would every once in a while get a package slipped to them between 1975 and 1995 that somebody had literally pulled out of thin air and put down in words. And here you go. See if this holds up or helps you in any way in figuring out what's in that mountain in the Urals. Yeah. So there was a guy named Joseph McMonigle, and he was a recruit for Grill Flame, and he worked into the he has some pretty good stories, and there's a lot of good stories in here. And is this stuff true, is the thing no, like, it was frustrating. You think this stuff is all made up. Here's the thing. For every one of his stories I went and tried to cross reference with declassified CIA documents. I couldn't find anything. Like, all of the guys'stories are anecdotal. Here's the problem. They get reported not necessarily as fact, but they get reported in an actual profile of the guy in the Washington Post, Newsweek or something. And then all of a sudden, right, and then all of a sudden when somebody cross references some weird thing they read in some fringe book, it pops up in a Washington Post article, too. That's true. It's true. It's just bad reporting. That is continuing this to go on. But as far as I know, I could not find any corroboration from any declassified documents for any of his stories. So one of his examples in 1979, he said that he could see where Skylab, the very famous satellite in the, going to crash eleven months before. So this is also precognition, which is another part of Sigh. And supposedly that was correct. In 1981, he also got another tip, a mental hot tip that there was a hostage, brigadier General James Dozier, that was being held in I don't know if it's Padua or Padwa. Padua. Padua. Neither one. I think it is Padua. And supposedly the tip arrived in Italy and the day that he was released in that very town. What else? What about the KGB agent? This one's pretty great. So there's a KGB agent in South Africa that the CIA had been watching in, and they couldn't figure out how he was contacting his KGB handlers back in Mother Russia. And I guess McMonigle was focused on a calculator. He saw that this guy really was obsessed with his calculator. And it turns out when the CIA looked at his calculator, they figured out it was a short wave radio. Yeah. And also just check the guy's calculator. Sure. Like, check out the electronics that he has. He has a cigarette lighter and a calculator. We looked at a cigarette lighter, found nothing. We just gave up after that. Yes. We looked at the calculator and held it upside down. It just said Boobless. Remember the professor ones, like the mortar cap and all that? No, what are you talking about? You don't there was one that had a drawing of, like, an old wise man with a graduation cap on. It was a pretty famous, like, 70s calculator for kids. Oh, you mean the calculator itself? Yeah. No, I think you know what you're talking about. I thought you meant some weird trick where you type in numbers and turn it upside down. It says. Oh, I see. I was like, that's pretty impressive. You're like, I can just type boobs. So in 85, the Dia took control of this program, I guess took it back from the army. It seems like nobody wanted it. Every few years they would just be like, who wants to take this over now? But the thing is, it kept getting funding. And from what I read, either Targ or Edwin May, who comes in later as the director of this program, they said it was a year to year funding, but it kept getting funding every year for 20 years. I would think, too, that once it went from one agency to another, maybe it would survive once, but it survived all these transitions. Yeah. So they take it back in 85 and started funding Sri again. International. They're back on the scene. And then another contractor, private contractor, came on called Science Applications International Corporation, also in California. And this is where they name it Stargate In. And it had to be after the movie, right? I don't think so, man. I think the movie came out a few years after that. Really? I'm going to look, that's easy enough to check. Let's find out. The whole time I was wondering about that. And that was the name from its end in 1995. I'm sorry, not end in the CIA took it back over. Right. And then the CIA finally said, you know what? We're not sure about this anymore. We're going to defund this thing and let it go away again. This is and five years later, they declassified, as far as we know, everything that had anything to do with it. I think some of the people like McMonagle who were involved are saying, no, there's still plenty of classified stuff you guys don't know about that really proves everything. Right. They're just not showing you the good stuff. Yeah, but I read, I guess, a transcript of a Skeptoid, our buddy Brian Dunning's podcast, who we went we had a flame war with over whether or not it could rain frogs. Did we? Yes, we did. Well, he tried to start one. I just ignored him. When was this? This is when we had the can it rain frogs episode. I know, but that was years ago, wasn't it? Yeah. Okay, I have a long memory. I can hold a grudge. But anyway, I'm skeptical. He was basically saying, like, the very fact that all these people are allowed who were verifiably in this program run by the CIA for 20 years, the fact that they're allowed to walk around and talk about this and haven't disappeared, it just lends further credence to the idea that there was nothing that came of this. Right. Because they would all just be vanished. Kind of. I think the CIA is not above that kind of thing. Well, at any rate, the CIA said it's not worth this money that we're spending, so let's just get the typical thing. Let's get a third party report that will solve it all. And in 1995, the American Institutes for Research published an evaluation of remote viewing colon research and applications and said, you know what? This is pretty compelling stuff, but we can't use it for intelligence because you noted the word intelligence, zing. And they shut it down. They shut it down. In 1995, they did 20 years, $20 million, looking for everything from new Soviet submarine designs to lost gun missiles to people being held by foreign kidnappers. All of it just down the toilet. That's right. And in the old days, this would be the end of the episode. But in today's stuff, you should know it's our first message break. Hey, everybody. I don't know about you, but we're pretty excited about summer. I mean, what's not to like? School's out, the sun is shining, and best of all, there's downtime for days. That's right. And that's where True crime podcasts on Amazon music come in. They're the perfect activity for last minute road trips, long walks, or, if you're brave enough, late nights. Yeah. And with so many killer shows like Morbid, my favorite murder and small town murder, you'll never be bored to death again. Prepare to go deep and become your own detective in the world of serial crimes and unsolved mysteries. Get lost hearing spooky stories with a combination of detailed research and lighthearted analysis. Whether you're a lifetime fan of true crime or you just feel like being entertained while doing the dishes at night, there's a podcast out there for you. So download the free Amazon music app to start listening to all your favorite true crime podcasts. Plus, with Amazon music, you can access new episodes early. Download the app today. Hey, everyone. When you're running a small business, every second counts, and you can't afford to waste a single moment. So why are you still taking time out of your day to go to the post office? And you could be using Stamps.com. Yeah. For more than 20 years, stamps.com has been indispensable for over 1 million businesses. Because Stamps.com gives you access to all the post office and Ups shipping services you need right. From your computer. That's right. You can streamline your shipping process with Stamps.com easy to use software. All you need is your regular computer and printer. No special supplies or equipment necessary, and you can get discounts you can't find anywhere else, like up to 30% off USPS. Rates and 86% off ups. So stop wasting time and start saving money. When you use Stamps.com to mail and ship, sign up with promo code stuff for a special offer that includes a four week trial, plus free postage and a digital scale. No longterm commitments or contracts. Just go to Stamps.com. Click the microphone at the top of the home page and enter code stuff. That might be a record. Chuck a 30 minutes first act. 25. Oh, yeah, that's right. I was looking we started a little late after we started recording 25. I don't think that's the record. All right, so should we keep talking about project Stargate just because it's fun? Yeah, let's I'm not trying to poopoo people's imagination. I've got the same thing. I love the same stuff. Mine eyes have been open, and they can never be closed again. Did you just say mine eyes? Yes. And again. Oh, goodness. So with Stargate, right, the whole basis of this was that it was allowed to continue on for 20 years because the people involved were very much impressed with what they saw. Yes. And what they saw kind of went a little bit like this. Like, the earliest tests, I think the ones that Russell Targ was doing were basically like, tell me about some Soviet submarine floating around somewhere in the world. Let's see what you can do. Just really free loosey goosey hippie stuff, right? And then a guy named Dr. Edwin May came along, and he took over, I think, 1985. But he'd been working on the project starting at the Stanford Research institute beginning back in 1075. He was on this. Project, I believe, for the full 20 years in one capacity or another. And when he took over, they weren't even paying him for the last ten. No, he was just hanging around, living off a Celtic and great culinary that's right. With his red stapler. Yeah, kind of. But he instituted way stricter protocols for conducting these remote viewing experiments and tests, too. Not just remote viewing experiments were conducted. He wanted to kind of show that these things could work, too. So he came up with something called ranked order judging, which is part of a larger type of test called force choice. Yeah, and I'm going to get you to explain that in a second because I didn't fully get the redo. But May is a pretty interesting guy. He was a doctor. He was a PhD in nuclear physics. And while it's easy to sort of cast someone like this as just sort of a loopy hippie type, he's really intelligent guy, but he was also a loopy hippie type. He got his postdoc in San Francisco in the 1960s, so you know what that means. And he literally used the words. He became a professional hippie, did a lot of drugs, did a lot of psychedelics, got into parapsychology, and did what you do, if that is your path. You go to India at some point, just hoping to sort of soak up some cool Esoteric knowledge. Bump into Rupert Sheldrake. Yes, perhaps. And he came back and didn't really get a lot out of India. I'm sure he had a great time and everything. Sure. But didn't come back. Didn't come back with anything he could use. Came back in 75. And then that's where he got a job as a research assistant at Sri International working with Telekinesis. And he was like, this is it for me, baby. This is the job. You pay me for this. And he just kind of took off from there. And I just took over as director in 1985. Right? Yeah. So he was the one that started this different sort of testing method called not first choice, but forced choice. Right. It just wasn't quite it wasn't anywhere near as free and easy as the free response ones. Basically, it kind of went like this. Okay, let's say that you're holding one of these tests. Ideally, you have three people involved. You have the remote viewer, you have the sender who's actually thinking of the thing that the remote viewer is supposed to be tapping into and gaining information from. And then you have a judge. Okay. Ideally, you said. Yeah. And also ideally the sender and the remote viewer should not be in contact with one another before or during the experiment. Another kind of important one, too, and these are things that, like, Edwin May was instituting that really kind of scientific fide. The whole thing definitely gave it a more legitimate glean. For sure. Yeah. So what happens is the sender chooses a photo from 100 photos in a National Geographic photo set. That's usually what they use. And also, ideally, we could point out that they would use way more than 100 photos and not those same photos over and over. That's a big one too, as we'll see for sure. That's a big problem if you use the same photo set and the same remote viewers. Right? Yes. So the person who is the sender would sit there and they would pick a photo and then they would think about that photo and the remote viewer would be ideally somewhere else thinking about what the sender was thinking of. And then they would write down their impressions. They would draw their impressions and then they would compile this little document, basically, of what they saw during the remote viewing session. Okay, that's the first step. Yes. The second step is that you take five other pictures from that same National Geographic photo set and you could even physically put them as printed photos into an envelope. And then you give that to the judge who has nothing to do with any of this to this point. They've just now been given an envelope of photos and then they've also been given the remote viewers document that they whipped up from their remote viewing session. And so the judge is supposed to take the remote viewers impressions and basically match them to one of the photos. And so they rank the photos. If you have six photos, there's one photo that's your number one photo that you're saying, like, this is what the remote viewer was seeing. This one is the second, likeliest the third, likeliest 4th, fifth and 6th, likeliest so you rank the photos. If the remote viewer got it right, then the photo the judge chose is the number one photo, should be the photo that the sender was thinking of when the remote viewer got their impressions. Okay, sure. It's actually, in a weird way, very scientific because you can insert statistical analysis into this whole thing. And they did. And they found that over time, some remote viewers did do much better than chance, just random chance, where out of every 100 tries, any photo should be chosen out of a set of five twice. Yeah. I think the direct quote was from the report was far beyond what is expected by chance. Yes, that supposedly came from a true believer statistician who had done an analysis of this. But yes, there was this idea that some of these people were capable of drawing impressions of what somebody else in a different room was thinking based on a photo they were looking at. And then there are now we can talk about all the explanations of how that probably wasn't any sort of clairvoyance. Yeah. And what bugs me just before we even get to that is in the report it said it was far beyond what is expected by chance. Tell me what percentage chance is and what percentage they got, not your opinion on what is far beyond and what isn't. Right. So that bugs me right off the bat. That's a big one right there. There's also subjectivity running through this big time because the judge is doing a subjective analysis too, right? Yeah. And if they're picking like I mentioned, another one of the problems is they use the same set of 100 geo images. So I imagine after a couple of times they know it's going to be something about nature at the very least. And if they say, let's say lion attacking elk, they're like, no, but it's a tiger attacking an antelope, you win. And then if that is the only photo with anything like a lion and an elk or whatever a tiger in the photo set, the rest is like an oil Derek and a lake and some other stuff, then of course that's the one that's going to win, that the judge is going to choose and they're going to have a hit. So there's a lot of real problems with this. Even though they tried to add science to the whole thing, you just can't do it just as science. Right, exactly. And then that was just the experiments that they conducted to kind of show and demonstrate that this worked. A lot of the stuff that they used for intelligence, that was much more along the lines of the Free Association one. It's not called free association. What is it called? The Free Response Experiments, where they just tell us about the Soviets, any new submarine designs the Soviets are working on or something. So can we tell some of these stories that were supposedly successes? Yes. All right. The West Virginia site is the first one. Doctor Targ relayed this story and these were from the early days and the early 70s in which a remote viewer in California was given the longitude and latitude coordinates of somewhere in West Virginia and said what do you see? And the remote viewer described like what was going on with the terrain above the ground and about a secret underground government site and supposedly provided names of personnel who worked there, code words used for the top secret projects. And apparently the description was really accurate, so accurate that the CIA said well, I don't know if it was the CIA, I assume it was, but they said that we've got a leak and we need to find out what's going on and investigate this. Right. That's the kind of thing, I think like you said, that was in the early seventy s, doctor target one, something like that, that prompts an investigation into a leak that will get you more funding for a while. That definitely will cement your giving funding, yeah, for sure. Especially if people are jumpy about what the Soviets might be onto this kind of thing too, when we got to get on it. Sure. And apparently that same remote viewer remotely saw an underground site that was similar in Russia in the Ural Mountains. Describe that. That was supposedly verified as, quote, substantially correct by the CIA. Yes. So that was one of the big ones that people kind of tout as evidence that Project Stargate worked. Right? Sure. There's also one called the Microwave Generator Report. It's a good one. This one was with Dr. Edwin May, and the remote viewer was, as is typical, just given longitude and latitude, maybe given, like, a little more evidence, I think they were told that it was a technical site in the US. And the remote viewers started describing a microwave generator on site. And the most astounding thing about it is that the remote viewer said that this microwave had a beam of divergence angle of 30 deg, which is not something that you should be able to glean from somebody telling you the latitude and longitude coordinates of a technical site. Sure. So that is pretty impressive. And then later on, Doctor May took the whole description, which, as we'll see, is rare in these cases, and determined that the specs of the generator itself were 80% accurate and that the site as a whole were 70% accurate. 70% reliable, though. Okay. 70% reliable. No idea how you would conclude that or quantify that kind of thing, but exactly. Again. This is the kind of thing. Like. You're starting to build like. A lore around this department. This agency that people who are already kind of into the existence of this kind of thing can come and participate in and talk about what their friends and while people at cocktail parties with the Russian crane this one came from Dr. Targ remote viewer was given. Again. Coordinates of a site near a city in the former Soviet Union. And what do you see? What the drawing details was a large industrial crane called a Gantry crane. And they said, you know what? There's no way that this person could have known how to draw this Gantry crane unless they saw it through remote viewing or someone told them this. No other explanation. Yeah. And that was what the analyst who has handed this was like. Wow, that's really impressive. So the Russian crane stands on its own, too. And then there's also one called the Lowell Fugitive. There's a woman named Angela Ford who was a long time participant in Project Stargate. And she used a kind of mediumship where she had three different spirit guides who would cause her to carry out automatic writing. That's how she did her remote viewing. Right. She would go down to Fort Mead at the barracks and do this right. Under army supervision, which is so bizarre, but that's what would happen. Right. So Angela Ford was given the name of a guy named Charles Jordan, who is an interesting cat in and of himself. He called himself the ruler of the Florida Keys. I thought that was Jimmy Buffett. He's the prince of the Florida, okay? He was a crooked customs agent who had turned into a drug smuggler down there and also was very easily bribed so that other drug smugglers could smuggle their drugs. So it was Jimmy Buffett. He got caught and went on the run, and so they were looking for him. So they asked Angela Ford if she could find them for him. That's right. And she said, I'm seeing or my ghost friends are telling me, and I'm automatically writing this city, Lowell, Wyoming. And it turned out that he was apprehended 100 miles west of Lavel, Wyoming, with a V, but 100 miles west of a place that she still didn't name. Some people say, though, that Charles Jordan admitted to being in the town, okay, on the day Angela Ford did her remote viewing session. Proven right. So you've got all this stuff, all of these anecdotes that are just coming together into, like, get this. Check this out. Get a load of this. All these things that you can point to and write books on and say that this is for real and that the Washington Post can report on. And that's what's kept this legend, this stuff about Project Stargate being for real going all these years. And if you dig into it, it's really hard to pull apart because the people who were there will tell you in an interview, like, oh, this person said this. But then if you interview somebody else to say, well, no, they didn't say that. She didn't say Lowell. She said northern Wyoming. Somebody else would say, no. She just said somewhere in the west or something like that. So as the story of Charles Jordan being captured in Yellowstone comes out later, the story of Angela Ford remotely viewing him in Wyoming gets piled on an attitude over the years until you have heard just missing the letter of the word or the word by one letter and then seeing him in that town on the day that it happened. And that's how this stuff goes. It's just anecdotal stuff that really did happen. Like, she really did have this remote viewing session, but the accuracy of it is what's always been in doubt. The problem is, Chuck, is there are examples of people doing some really spectacularly, amazingly accurate hits over the years that really kind of lengthened to it in some way, so much so that the American Institute of Research paper still said, look, there are some weird, unexplainable stuff in here. Does it prove that remote viewing is real and that it exists now? There's a lot of things that could explain these spectacular accurate hits, but overall, no, it's not going to. It doesn't show that this is real because these are the hits. There was so much garbage produced that by the time 1995 rolled around, the CIA was like, even if remote viewing does exist, it's so useless as an intelligence tool that we're not going to fund it anymore. Should we take another break? Yeah. All right. Let's take a break and we'll be right back after this. Hey, summer is here, my friend, which means school is out, the sun is shining bright, the days are longer, and best of all, there's plenty of time to get lost in a good, thrilling story. Yeah. Whether you're road tripping or you're relaxing by the pool, you can tune into the podcast here. It's on Amazon Music. That's so good? It's criminal. Morbid. That's right. It's part true crime and part comedy. Morbid takes you on a journey through murderous mysteries and major laughs, all in the same week. Yeah. From the paranormal to the pretty spooky and everything in between. Hosts Selena Erkhart and Ash Kelly cover it all. And with two episodes released each week, you'll be hooked on this chart topping series before you know it. You can listen to new episodes of Morbid one week early, only on Amazon Music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen today. Hey, everyone. When you're running a small business, every second counts and you can't afford to waste a single moment. So why are you still taking time out of your day to go to the post office, then? You could be using Stampscom. Yeah. For more than 20 years, Stamps.com has been indispensable for over 1 million businesses. Because Stamps.com gives you access to all the post office and Ups shipping services you need, right from your computer. That's right. You can streamline your shipping process with Stamps.com easy to use software. All you need is your regular computer and printer. No special supplies or equipment necessary. And you can get discounts you can't find anywhere else, like up to 30% off USPS rates and 86% off Ups. So stop wasting time and start saving money. When you use Stamps.com to mail and ship, sign up with promo code stuff for a special offer that includes a four week trial, plus free postage and a digital scale. No long term commitments or contracts. Just go to Stamps.com, click the microphone at the top of the home page and enter code stuff. All right, so here's the deal. And this is sort of the big question, which you kind of answered before the break. Sorry. No, it's all right. I couldn't help myself. It was a nice tease. Is it a useful spy tool? Because we can have fun all day funding something and doing these fun experiments and getting them sort of right or not. But the whole purpose of all of this was, can we actually use this stuff as actionable evidence or intelligence? Right. And you can't, really. Like we said, they are anecdotal. They might be impressed by a certain part of a thing. And you mentioned that it's rare that they ever included, like, the full drawing or the full discourse on whatever they supposedly saw. I didn't see they would sort of pick out something that was right and say, look, they got this one part right that's amazing, but that's sort of where it ended, with a Gantry crane. They got that Gantry crane. Right. But there was so much stuff that was wrong that they said, we can't use this. Right. And that's sort of the point of all this, is we can't use this stuff as intelligence because it's just partial. People that defended it would say, and Jordan McMonagle is one of them said, this isn't supposed to be the end all, be all. This is supposed to work alongside real intelligence and just see if it could help support some of this stuff or give them a hint in the right direction to start using real intelligence. And it was never supposed to be a standalone that you go and raid a Russian village because some remote viewers said there was a nuclear weapon there or something. Yeah, and I think the CIA always viewed as that, too, and that it was benign. It was very cheap and inexpensive. It can be done easily. But the problem is, if you have somebody who's producing tons and tons of garbage intelligence, the analyst still has to sift through that. And in some of that garbage intelligence, there may be something that leads them down the wrong path. And while they're doing that, they missed some other intelligence that actually is useful and good. It's kind of like a metaphor for what pseudoscience in general does the society there's garbage on there that kind of distracts you from the stuff that you could be doing that would actually be beneficial. That's what it did to intelligence analysts, too, and that's why they ultimately abandoned the whole program. Right. But for 20 years, they thought there were three big reasons why it was attractive, and they all kind of boiled down to why not, which it's a passive operation, so it doesn't require a lot of resources. I don't know how many people they had remote viewing at their max, but I doubt if it was that many. It didn't cost a lot. $6 million a year isn't that much money in the defense budget. And then it's what's known as no known defense. So even if it's working, let's say, then the enemy can't really stop this, I guess, except for rooting these people out and tracking them down and killing them. Sure. But aside from that, those are the three reasons. For 20 years, they threw $6 million a year at it. And I'm sure that kind of wavered in and out. But they spent over $100 million. No, I think they spent $20 million over 20 years. Oh, is that all? Yes. Man, that was it for the whole time. I thought they spent 6 million a year. No, I think it might have been up to, like, $6 million at the end of it. But over the course of it, I don't think this is really necessarily adjusted for inflation, but starting in 75 and ending in 95. $20 million on paper is what got spent. Got you. So those first years, it was like, here's $100,000 in a bucket of weed, kind of. I think so. And some grape koolaid and salteen. All right, well, $20 million, but yeah, that's not a lot of money if you're talking overall defense budgets. No, it's not. It's so cheap that we're even vaguely promising or vaguely helpful. The CIA would have been fools not to keep funding this, or the Defense Department would have been fools not to keep funding it. Somebody you and I could have kept funding it if we really put our minds to it, but it not only wasn't useful, it was actually harmful as far as an intelligence tool is concerned. That was, I think, what I gather from them finally canceling it. Yeah. And this last bit about the representative from North Carolina, Charlie Rose, not the TV guy, who turned out to be quite a jerk, but he kind of summed it up. And this is why I think the deal is and this is what started it to begin with, if you think the Soviets are doing this, you can't just sit back, or at least that's the rationale. You can't just sit back and say, well, it's probably so silly and not even real, but we're certainly not going to let them be the only ones trying this. Yeah, like, if the Roost keys have it, we sure as heck better be on it ourselves. Exactly what I was going to say. Luckily, that mentality faded with the Cold War. But it's back, everybody. Hey, the 80s are back. Yeah, they are. Big time people wearing fanny packs. And apparently what's that one thing where you touch the shirt and your handprint would be a color? Oh, sure, like the Heat shirts or whatever. I can't remember what they're called. But anyway, they're currently back. Yeah, very cool. The 80s are back. So that's it. That's Project Stargate. There's a lot to read about it if you are fascinated by it. Whether you're fascinated by it, it's just completely crackpot thing, or you're like, no, I don't believe you. Josh and Chuck, I think you're covering up for the government and the illuminati. Whatever. Go read more about it. And in particular, I want to direct you to Mars Exploration, may 22, 1984. It's a declassified transcript from a remote viewing session of Mars, where they ask, I think, Joseph McMonigle to wander around Mars in the year 1 million BCE. And it's fascinating stuff, but it also tells you everything you need to know about Project Start Date, if you want to know. I already said that kind of thing, didn't I, Chuck? I guess it's time now for listener mail. I'm going to call this heroin podcast. And this is from Anonymous. Yo, thanks for your Heroin podcast. You spoke fairly about something that is usually wrought with bias. I grew up in the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia. It's one of the largest drug markets in the world, most of which is heroin. We are ground zero now for the opioid epidemic. Growing up around so much heroin messes with you. My childhood best friends turned to sex work to pay for it while we played video games upstairs. People were odd. In middle school, the class clown's dad was one of the biggest runners in the city, so when he was arrested, the kid was never the same. It's very difficult to explain what being around groups of people on heroin is like. The link below is an excellent New York Times article about the Kensington Avenue area. Luckily for me, I suppose, I got out relatively unscathed. A lot of people see people who are addicted as animals and criminals. I struggle with where I stand. I know as a group it's a public health issue, but it is also hard when looking at the individual's actions. Kensington was a middle class haven from the early to mid 19th century until the crack epidemic of the 80s. According to my parents, a Sunday event was walking to the shops on Kensington Avenue. Did not happen after that. And that here's the article. It is called Trapped by the Walmart of Heroin by Jennifer Percy from New York Times, October 2018. And that is from anonymous man alive anonymous, I'm glad you made it out alive. Totally, because that is very scary stuff, man. It's crazy. It makes you realize what a lottery birth is not just in your socioeconomic class or your race or what country you're born into, but what neighborhood you're born into, too. I never heard of it. I didn't read that article. That looks good. Yeah. Well, thanks a lot and we appreciate you getting in touch with us. And if you want to get in touch with us, please do. You can send us an email to stuff podcast at iheart. Stuff you should know is production of iHeartRadio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts my Heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Ah, summer school's out. The sun is shining. The daylight is longer. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music that's so good it's criminal. Morbid. Part true crime and part comedy, Morbid takes you on a journey from murderous mysteries to major laughs, all in the same week. Hosted by autopsy technician Elena Ercart and hairstylist Ash Kelly, this chart topping series will have you hooked before you know it. Listen to new episodes of Morbid one week early only on Amazon Music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen today."
https://podcasts.howstuf…cal-research.mp3	Should chimps be used for medical testing?	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/should-chimps-be-used-for-medical-testing	If you've got half a heart it's an easy question to answer. But if you're happy living without polio and hepatitis B you may want to question further. Learn about what makes chimps special and the history of medical testing in this episode.	If you've got half a heart it's an easy question to answer. But if you're happy living without polio and hepatitis B you may want to question further. Learn about what makes chimps special and the history of medical testing in this episode.	Tue, 13 Mar 2012 16:58:03 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2012, tm_mon=3, tm_mday=13, tm_hour=16, tm_min=58, tm_sec=3, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=73, tm_isdst=0)	30844645	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know from housetopworkscom. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. With me, as always, is Charles W. Chuck Bryant. And that makes the stuff you should know the podcast. The Chimpanzee Centric podcast frequently. I told you about the time that chimp held my hand, right? Yeah. That was just the best thing ever. Yeah. I think about it today. My heart melts a little. Just a little? Just a little. You're a weepy guy. Yeah. This is, like, 1012 years ago. Oh, it's still worn off. Yeah, it's still melting now by degrees. Do you think it will melt forever? Every time I think of that little chimp holding my hand, it will melt a tiny bit. Why don't you just go buy a chimp, and you can have it happen all the time? If I didn't have three dogs and two cats, I would have a chimp in my house. Would you really? Even after that one story? Remember when we started blogging, it happened that chimp, that lady's face or something tore it off. Yeah. Because that was such a big deal. It made the news, and I don't think it just doesn't happen all the time. Okay. I would totes have a chimp. When did you start talking like that? You're talking like my friend Adam, and it's unnerving. Adam says totes. Oh, yeah. I think he's funny like that. Like everything's abbreviated. Yeah. Emily and I do that totes on the totes train. Are you? I just think it's funny. Jerry's laughing. Start saying natch. Okay. Oh, that's old school, though. I know. I still don't like it. All right. I never did toads. I can handle more than that. Okay. You ready? Yes. Okay, chuck, I want to tell you about a certain lady. Her name is Winka. Okay. And she has kind of a rough life story. Let's hear it. She was born into a family in Disarray, you might say. She was born in 1954, and when she was just two years old, her mother died after being mistakenly poisoned. Her mother's father, her grandfather, he was a morphine addict who died as a result of his addiction. Her grandmother maternal grandmother died of dysentery on her father's side. She was one of 40 grandkids. Can you believe that? She was adopted out at a very young age, but returned back home at age three. At 15, she had her first daughter, and her daughter was born down syndrome. Wow. She died at 17 months. Eventually, Winkle went on to have another boy and a boy and another girl. And here's the mind blowing part. She's a chimpanzee. Yes. Wow. I can see that coming. I know. I was sitting there like, how is there a way to do this at the top of the chimp podcast? That's not somebody not know, because it sounded like you were talking about a human story. But think about all of the stuff that her family went through. If they were humans, wouldn't she feel pretty bad for her? Yeah, well, feel bad for Wankatu, and here's why. She is, as far as anyone knows, the oldest primate in captivity that's still being used for research here in Atlanta. She was born in 1954. Okay. And she's been experimented on ever since. She went back to the Yorkies Primate Institute at age three. And her mom, the one who was mistakenly poisoned, was one of the original ones that Yerkes got his hands on in the what, the 40s, right? No, the well, in the 20s, yes. Robert, your case started messing around with behavioral research. Not as much medical research, no. At first you think like, oh, well, that's way better. But have you looked into some of the behavioral experiments that they were conducting? I'm sure it's not fun. So, like, one young chimp, I believe, for the first 36 months of his life, had plastic or some sort of obstruction over his hands and his feet, so he couldn't use either of them for the first three years of life. A lot of social isolation, like, chimps spent the first two, three years of life without seeing, hearing, touching anybody else. That's like a little Albert chef. Yes, very much so. Wouldn't it, lil Albert? Yeah. Little Albert was on a human, though the air conditioning. The equivalent to that was Harry Harlow's experimentation of separating chimps from their mothers and raising them with, like, wire and cotton fake reconstructions that they would cling to and treat as their mother. Because what he found from these experiments is that moms are really important. That's the saddest thing I've ever heard. Yeah. All right, so we're talking about we started this off on well, didn't we? This isn't the brightest of topics. Although the ending is fairly uplifting. Yeah, it is. Or at least headed that way. Yeah, we won't ruin it. So, Chuck, let me set you up here. We have only just, in the last few years, come to think that animals deserve some sort of rights. Right. It's a very new idea, isn't it? It is newish. Okay. For sure. Like, maybe 18th century newish. Yeah. England leads the way. Our British friends passed the first anti cruelty laws against animals in 1822. Well, even before that, Jeremy Bentham, he wrote a paper on how animals could possibly suffer and maybe we should start treating them differently. Late 1700. Yeah. Kudos to him. Yeah. And did you know that he is mummified and they bring his body out for some annual dinner for Dancing with the Stars at the college? He's a judge at the college where he was a professor. Really? They bring his body out for dinner every year. Wow. Isn't that crazy? That's a little weird. Yeah. Well, good for him. He still looks great, by the way. Does he really? So PETA didn't start until 1980. A lot of people might think that Peter has been around, like, since the 60s or so. Yeah, I was surprised to see that fairly new. And then the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was started in pretty new and a world view. Right. But the big picture specifically, and that's general animal rights, but chimps in particular, I guess the idea that they maybe deserve even more special rights than the average lab rat is based on something that's also fairly recent, which is the discovery or the idea that we share a tremendous amount of similarity with them. There's no other animal that is closer to humans than chimps, right? Yeah. I think the number is just over 95% of DNA sequence. 98% to 99% of DNA. DNA based pairing. The other part, I can't remember what it's called. I should have written that down. Well, no, people throw that out. Like, chimps are 98% similar to humans, and that's very misleading. Yeah. Like you said, the genetic sequence of the chromosomes that we share or that are similar in apes and humans are 98% similar. Okay. It's not like if you took our DNA and put it side by side, only 2% would be different. Right. It's not like that. And in fact, chimps have 10% more DNA than humans do. Oh, really? Yeah, it's very misleading. But the point is they are very genetically similar, probably more than any other animal. And we've known that since the 20s. Yeah. And similar enough to that. At a certain point, people said, you know what? We've experimented on human prisoners long enough, and they say we can't do it anymore, which is a drag. So let's get these chimps in here and give them disease. And here we reach the title of the podcast. As much as we would like to think that it is a very easy, moral, ethical question, like, should chimps be used for medical research? It's not now, because, as we were saying before, if you like walking around not having polio or hepatitis B yeah. You can go ahead and thank a chimp for volunteering. I'm sorry, wait. That was the absolute worst word I could have used for being basically a test animal on those vaccines and treatments. Same with contraceptives. If you like our understanding of addiction, you can thank chimps for that, for being a space animal. Let's go ahead and call that out. That's where it all began. The US. Air Force said, hey, we got a space race going on, right? Let's go get some chimps from the wild. Shoot them up into space, put them in sled cars, test g forces on them, see what can happen. Put them on the GWiz rocket slide. I guess what's his face was getting a little tired at that point. Colonel Stapp. Yeah, he couldn't see because of all the blood pools in his retina. So pre NASA, the Air Force went and got 65 chimpanzees from the wild. And a lot of these chimps are used today are descendants of those original chimps because they couldn't keep going to get them after the Site Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species in 75, which basically said, like, hey, man, you can't just start going and grabbing chimpanzees. These are other animals out of the wild. They're in danger. Exactly. So they started breeding these chimps. Right. The ones that they already had after Sites was passed, they said, okay, well, we'll just start making them here in America. Making them made in America. Yes. And I did find it odd, or not odd, but a little like distressing that a lot of these chintz today are descended from those original 65 because of breeding. It makes sense. But who knew? Well, same with Yurkeys. His primates that he had in the 20s was original four. That was the captive breeding program as well. Oh, yeah. I think he definitely supplemented them with imports because it was prior to sites, but he had bred them. They bred bread. They did it. Yeah. And like you pointed out, we should say that your keys is now in Atlanta here at Emory University. After being in Florida for 20 some odd years, they moved to Atlanta and sponsored by Yale before. Yeah. And they got 2.5 acres at the main station here in Atlanta and then in Lawrenceville, just up the road. Yeah. They have the field station. 117 acres of chimpanzee breeding and testing facilities. Yeah, that's where chimps go to get their drugs. Chimpanzees are endangered, they are native to Africa, and because of their similarities, they thought this HIV thing in the 80s, maybe we should start injecting these chimps and see how and if they develop AIDS. That's what changed everything. The combination of sites and the appearance of AIDS combined with chimp similarity really changed everything. We had a captive breeding program. The federal government sponsored it and so it became very big. A mysterious new disease. Yes. The fear of AIDS and HIV was so enormous that within just a few years of this captive breeding program that was started by the National Institutes of Health in 1086, I think maybe within a year or two there were, I think, 500 chimps running around with HIV. That's right. The big problem was we soon found out that while they can carry HIV and chimps are the only other animal besides humans that can contract HIV because cats have their own, dogs have their own, other apes and primates have their own. But only humans and chimps can have HIV. That's right. We found that chimps don't get AIDS. They don't move into full blown AIDS. Yeah. At least not like humans do. And so it was kind of a big failure on that front. And all the progress we've made on Asia Church has been because of human experimentation, basically, or watching and seeing well, this is another way to put it. The animal Welfare Act outline minimum care requirements for all animals in captivity. Right. So these chimps were before the Sites program, the ones that they were importing, they still had some sort of protection, but there weren't that many bells and whistles. It was pretty. Southwest Airlines? Not really. Singapore Air. I would thought you would have said, like, Virgin Atlantic or something. Singapore Air really nice. Really? It's up there with, like, Emirates, Singapore. Japan Airlines is pretty nice, too. Concord, remember that? Yeah. We should do one on that. Do you remember the time that Phil Collins played a show in London? Live Aid? Was it for Live Aid? He played two shows in two different continents, 6 hours of each other. Awesome. Thank you, Concord. Thank you, Phil Collins. Yeah. Well, I thought that might go without saying. I can just open my shirt and show you my T shirt to say that. Yeah. And by the way, that's a huge urban legend that he saw his girlfriend's rapist in the audience, drowning. Not true. Makes for a good story, though. Yeah. All right, getting back to Animal Welfare Act, you said it didn't have the bells and whistles. Said temperatures had to stay between 45 and 85 deg. Not bad. Keep them comfortable. Got to give them food and water. Got to isolate the sick ones, even though you can get a waiver on that if they're supposed to be sick among their friends. Right. I imagine that wasn't too hard to get that exception. Right. And basically it applied to all chimpanzees for both biomedical and behavioral research, which was good. And all animals, any animal that's being experimented on, any warm blooded animal or in captivity period. Okay. I think it just applied to zoos and everything. Got you. That's good. Yeah. So we had that in place in 66. Sites came along in 75. The chimpanzee breeding program came along in 1986. And then when that collapsed and failed, the US government was like, oh, what are we going to do here? We've got literally hundreds of chimps running around with HIV. If they come in contact with people, especially sickos, it can spread. Right. Well. And they don't live to be twelve. No. Yeah. And they cost money to house and thousands. $15 a day. Yes. Does not sound like a lot, but that adds up. Especially when there was only about, I think, 500 that had HIV. But there was something on the order of like twelve to 1500 that the government was responsible for. And it wasn't just the failure of the HIV AIDS studies. You can thank Jane Goodall and groups like PETA and the ASPCA and the Humane Society in the early 80s, around this time, when chimp research was really at its peak for kind of alerting the public to the cruelty of animal testing and research. The army of the Twelve Monkeys. Yeah, you can thank them. I did. We should talk a little bit about the CALSTON or Coulston Foundation that is now defunct. It was shut down in 2002. And here's the deal. It's controversial, depending on who you ask. Frederick Coulson was the guy who was a toxicologist who helped develop treatment for malaria and hepatitis B and AIDS, or it was a house of horrors. And he performed experiments on human prisoners and then moved to chimps. And when one test, chimps had their teeth smashed in with a steel ball so they could practice reconstructive dental surgery. 1995, three chimps were cooked to death when the temperature and this is New Mexico, and their unmonitored enclosure topped 140 degrees. Oh, my gosh. And since 33 chimps, and I think 45 animals and all died, quote unintended, deaths at the Coulson Foundation. So it sounds like some awful, awful thing going on. But then again, he's developing these treatments for these awful diseases. So it's a very dicey situation. Oh, it is. But they were shut down in 2002 because negligent care on a lot of fronts. Yeah. There are plenty of people who have, like a really good they have really good ground to stand on, but any animal testing is bad. And it doesn't matter how well you treat these animals, like, you shouldn't be experimenting on right. Where they put on this earth to test to save humans. Some people back that some people don't. Right. Very recently I saw there was some researcher associated with the center for Great Apes. Apparently there's a number of them and one of them is in Des Moines, and apparently somebody slashed the heels of an infant chimp to keep it from being able to stand upright. And this is like December, like a couple of months ago. Wow. So one of the researchers acted as a whistleblower. Yeah. Or for a test. I don't think that was the experiment. I think it was related to it. Okay. But one of the researchers there was like, I'm getting this chimp and all the rest of them out of here and taking them down to another center for Great Apes, the main one in Florida. Yeah. Well, just to finish up on the Coulson Foundation, the good news is, as of 2010, about half of the TCF chimps are now living at Save the Chimps, which is basically where you want to be if you're a retired chimp. Yes. Swinging, playing, running around, eating bananas, holding hands, all that good Jim stuff. So well, let's talk about this. That's the result of that sea change that was started by Jane Goodall and Peter and the Animal Liberation Front and Matthew Broderick. Yeah. What was the name of that? Project X. That's right. And interestingly, real quick, I just saw today I didn't realize this Project X was a movie that raised awareness for mistreatment of chimps, obviously, in medical research, but Bob Barker at the time accused them of mistreating animals on the set. Yeah, he was a huge animal cruelty guy and he got sued for defamation for that. Really? Yeah. And settled out of court. Actually against his wishes. He settled out of court because he still believed that they were mistreated and said that there were, like, clubs and billy clubs and batons used and they used, like, a snake to scare the chimps and stuff. To get reactions. Yes. But that was just a joke. That was just a prank on set in between takes. But yeah, project X. Go see it. Helen Hunt. Go see it in the theater near you in your time machine. Did you see the Ferris Bueller commercial? I saw it out of the corner of my eye at the Superb Owl. Were you disgusted? I was looking forward to it because I heard about it beforehand and it was pretty bad. Yeah. Hey, man, he's got to support his kids. Oh, dude, I'm sure he made a mint. Good for him. So, okay, we were talking about Matthew Broderick and his career. Yes. Which led directly to a sea change in how people feel about animal testing and specifically about chimpanzee testing, which is kind of evidenced by the fact that Congress and its endless ability to pass legislation with cutesy names and acronyms. I know. This one was surprised me even. In 2000, Congress passed the Chimpanzee Health Improvement Maintenance and Protection Act. And guess what that spells out? Chimp. Yes. They passed the Chimp Act in 2000. And basically this said, your captive breeding program is gone. Once the chimp is retired from biomedical testing or behavioral testing, I believe, too, you can't kill it. Sorry? All those monkeys running around with HIV, you can't euthanize them. You have to provide for their care for the rest of their lives, their natural lives. Sure. Which is pretty cool. It's bad enough that you've given them HIV, at least care for them. But this extends only, as far as I know, to federally funded chimp programs, pharmaceutical companies that own it's. Federally funded, and pharmaceutical companies. All the chimps in the United States are owned by them that aren't pets, I should say, right? Pharmaceutical companies exist outside of this act. Of course. So, Josh, if I were to ask you how many countries in the world still experiment on chimpanzees legally, what would be your answer? I would say, since the United States is such a standard bearer of human rights and animal rights true. That if the United States still allows it, at least 90 to 105 other countries allow testing on chimpanzees. Am I right? You did a very good job of playing down there, by the way. Now, United States and Gabon are the only two countries in the world that still perform biomedical testing on chimpanzees. 97 great Britain said no more. Netherlands in 2002. I can't even speak Dutch. That would be a travesty. Sweden in 2003, austria, 2006, japan 2006. Everyone said, we're drawing a line in the sand. United States still allows it, but two months ago, three months ago, december of last year, big news. The NIH suspended all new grants. Awesome. For biomedical and behavioral research on chimps or apes. The great apes, which, by the way, the great apes are chimps, gorillas, bona, bows and orangutans. Correct. So they suspended all new grants. That doesn't mean that you can't test anymore, but they basically establish some pretty rigorous criteria moving forward, which means it's got to be necessary for human health and there must be no other possible way to accomplish it. And basically it's kind of being looked at as the beginning of the end, because they're finding that nowadays with cultures and cellular research, you don't need to experiment on chips anymore. You can find out all you need to know. Petri dish. Yeah, the NIH said, hey, over the next four years we're going to HyperCharge our biomedical testing. Like you said, it can just exist in the Petri dish. From now on, we don't have to, well, basically single sell animals that are going to start to bear the brunt of our desire. Ceaseless quest for immortality. But you can't hold the hand of an amoeba. No, but if you could, I'll bet it would melt you, too. Hepatitis C, apparently, is one of two areas that they think it could still be useful for, but it sounds like they're genuinely phasing it out. That's great. It's about time. It is. After that, it'll just be on Gabon. So hats off to places like Save the Chimps and what were some of the other ones? The center for Great AIDS, which, by the way, I don't want to defame them at all, not even for legal reasons. They do a good job. Sure. I looked them up. I looked up. Save the chimps chimp haven the Great Ape project. I found one in Massachusetts, and if you go on some of the charity watches and rating sites, there's nothing bad for them, except for the fact that they haven't filed with the IRS, even though they should for some reason this morningstar doesn't have anything on them. These golden laptops, but all of them seem to be legit. But the Great Eight Project, the one that's mentioned in this article, that lobbies on behalf of the great apes for testing and basically animal rights, they're located in Brazil. But you're thinking. You're saying grape ape. Yeah, the Grape Ape project. The center for Gray Apes is bona fide. And good too. I couldn't find much on anything that seemed to smack of, like, the Coulson Foundation or anything like that. Yeah, well, the Coulson Foundation actually morphed into Save the Chimps. Okay, yeah. That's in Florida, right? Yeah, fort Pierce, along with Chimp Haven and the Fauna Foundation. They're chimp sanctuaries. It's a nice thing. Yeah. So I guess go there, give them some money, ask in exchange for a chimp to hold your hand. Do not feed chimps antidepressants and keep them at your house. Is that what happened to the one yeah. Remember the woman was like, oh, yeah, he's on antidepressants. He shouldn't have done this. And everybody's like, Wait, what did you just say? She's like, Nothing. Do you remember? I don't remember the antidepressants. Yeah, it came out on the Today show or something, like a couple of days after. She was like, I had him on antidepressants. I don't know what happened. Boy, she was messed up, too. Yeah, it was pretty gnarly. The lady? Yeah. The victim. That was something, man. Okay, well, we were all over the place there. If you can figure out where we stand on this, hats off to you. You got anything else about chimps? Four great apes. What are the four great apes? Chimpanzees orangutan tangs. Macaus. No, it's a bird. Macabre. No, clinic. Swede that's everywhere. Clyde. Right. Right. Turn. Clyde. Bonobo. Bonobos. Bonobos. Orangutans gorillas. And chimps. That's right. And humans. Zippy the Chimp was my favorite toy growing up. Had a little hand you could squeeze and it made a little squeaky noise. So, yeah, that was my favorite little toy. Zippy the chimp. Awesome. I bet you I can get one on ebay. Okay. Because mine is probably disintegrated because I'm 90. I'm glad somebody finally said it. Okay, well, that's it for chimps, then. I was not expecting you to mention that when I said, do you have anything else? Yeah, actually, I just remembered about Zippy the chimp. First time I thought about that. 20 something years. That's good. Okay, if you want to learn more about chimps and biomedical testing, including the delightfully named Chimp Act of 2000, you can type in what's it called, chuck, what happens to chimps? Use the medical research. Or any one of those. Kristen conger, right? Yeah. She wrote both of the ones we recorded today. This was Ark. Yeah. Hey, congarde. And the Search Bar@housetepworks.com. And let's see. I said housetupworks.com and search bar, right? Yes, ma'am. So, of course, as ever, without interruption or fail, it's time for listener and mail. Except there's interruption and fail. What? You wanted to talk about our million what is it called? The million. March for the millions. The Million Dollar March. March for the Millions. That's good, too. March for the Millions sounds more like a car sweepstakes or something like that. The million dollar march on Kiva. Our Kiva team is rounding the band toward having lent a million dollars. That's just baffling to me. By the end of March, we're well on the way. We're assured by Glenn and Sonya and, yeah, we are the official team Captain Stone. So we set the goal. You set the goal, didn't you? Yeah, I typed it up. It's nice of you, but we are not snobs. Our Kiva team is extremely open and accepting. And if you'd like to join and lend, don't just join. Why would you just join and not lend? That's weird. People do it. I get joining Facebook and just stalking people, right? Or just like sitting there and saying like, okay, I'm here, I'm not going to do anything on it. This is different. This team is all about action, baby. Just one loan. Just do one loan or do several. Well, sure, but the team is very supportive. The message board is very helpful. If you have any questions, you can ask and people will tell you and you can say, hey, I think these people need their loan fulfilled. Help them and people will go and it's fun, it's cool. Agreed. But we are almost to a million dollars and if you want to join and help, you can join us on www.kiva.org teamstepyshenknow and join up and start lending and it will be cool. And we don't mind if you join up here at the last minute and kind of receive some of the credit as hey, I helped them reach a million bucks even though I just joined a month ago. Who cares? We love that bandwagon ears are welcome. Yes, that's fine. As long as you're doing some good. Yeah, agreed. And I guess that's it. That is it. If you want to get in touch with us, you can send us a tweet to syskpodcast. You can join us on Facebook at facebook. Comsteno. Again, join our Kiva team kiva.org teamstepyshno. And you can send us an email to stuffpodcast@discovery.com. Be sure to check out our new video podcast, stuff from the Future. Join House of Work staff as we explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. Brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 camry. It's ready. Are you?"
https://podcasts.howstuf…-whats-funny.mp3	Laughter: What's so funny about that?	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/laughter-whats-so-funny-about-that	The response to humor starts with electrical activity, potentially translating to physical responses that make up laughter. Science still can't pin down what makes one thing amusing and another not (which is pretty funny). Tune in to learn more.	The response to humor starts with electrical activity, potentially translating to physical responses that make up laughter. Science still can't pin down what makes one thing amusing and another not (which is pretty funny). Tune in to learn more.	Thu, 11 Aug 2011 15:10:29 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2011, tm_mon=8, tm_mday=11, tm_hour=15, tm_min=10, tm_sec=29, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=223, tm_isdst=0)	40757378	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Hey, friends. You know, dating is a journey with ups and downs, for sure. But all the effort is worth it when you meet someone special, right? And when you decide it's time to find a meaningful relationship, eharmony is here for you. Eharmony. Is passionate about creating real love for all, rooted it in compatibility. Eharmony's process reveals truths about yourself, like, I don't know what you want in a relationship. And it helps you connect with a uniquely compatible partner who is right for you. Don't believe it? See for yourself. So start for free today, because every 14 minutes, someone finds love on Eharmony. Hey, everybody. I don't know about you, but I am excited that it's summer. School's out, the sun is shining, and best of all, there's downtime four days. That's where true crime podcasts on Amazon music come in. There's a perfect activity for last minute road trips, long walks, or if you're brave enough, late nights. With so many killer shows like Morbid, my Favorite Murder, and Small Town Murder, you'll never be bored to death again. So download the free Amazon Music app to start listening to all your favorite true crime podcasts. Plus, with Amazon Music, you can access new episodes early. Download the app today. Brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 camry. It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know from housetofworkscom. Hi and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's. Charles w chuck Bryant a yeah. You have tape on your new light cover. Well, that's because it's mine and mine alone. I'm going to write Chuck on it. That's going to affect something. No, it will. How does he sound? Jerry all screwed up. For those of you that don't know, I got my own microphone cover because all the other ones here smell bad. So I got one to keep in my drawer and it's Chucks, and I'm paranoid that I'm making the microphone cover smell bad. Well, there's three of them now. Yeah, but you keep switching them out and I can't smell it, so I'm like, oh, all right. I got something for you. Speaking of me just laughing right there. You're ready for this? Yes. All right. What do you think? I have integrity? I'm buying a Cinnabon right now. I'm buying a Cinnabon at the airport that I arrived at. You understand why that's extra disgusting, right? When you're leaving, when you're at the airport, you're leaving. You can go like, oh, I got to eat. I need food because I might be trapped in the sky forever and I should eat right now. But this is I've landed. The trip is over. Not too shabby. Check. This is the great Louis CK. If I'm not mistaken. Yes. Who I think is one of the funniest people on the planet today. I agree with you. You started as a Saturday Night Live writer. It doesn't surprise me. And that was from his special, right? Like what's it called? Chewed up. Yes. Chewed up his stand up special. One of his stand up. It's very good. Okay, so I've got one for you. Okay. All right. Let me see if I can get you to laugh here. Listen up, Chucker. All right. When I finished high school, I wanted to take all my graduation money and buy myself a motorcycle. My mom said no. See, she had a brother who died in a horrible motorcycle accident when he was 18, and I could just have his motorcycle. That's too Chevy. He's that guy. That's Anthony Jezelnick. He's hilarious. You saw him live? Yeah. South by Southwest. Okay. That was that guy. Okay. All right, we're laughing. This is a pretty auspicious start to the podcast on how laughter works. Yeah. Now we just have to be as funny as Louis K. Yeah. I don't think we should even try. No pressure. Yeah. No, I think we should just be ourselves here and explain how after it works. Like, this is a robust how stuff works article. I thought this was really good, actually. It was written by Marshall Brain himself, and he went to town figuring out exactly how laughter works, why we laugh, and came up with a bunch of really good data on it, which we're going to share here. He gets right into it, too. Did you notice that? With the joke with nothing, man. It was like, oh, no, I cut all that out, I think. Oh, you did? You didn't see the joke about Bill Gates and the president of General Motors? I cut all that out. No wonder it seemed like he got right into it. Yeah, I cut that part out. Well, yeah, after that. After the intro, he does start out with, first of all, laughter is not the same as humor. No, that's a pretty good point. Laughter is a physiological response to humor, right? That's right. So humor is a joke. Or Mo Howard? Slapping Larry. Fine. Whatever is your bag? Tom chasing Jerry. Jerry makes it into his mouth hole and then Tom smacks his face. Or Motobitenda. Right. That's where I thought you were going when you said Mo. No, mo Howard. Another funny Mo. That's Mo. What's Mo's last name? Mo de Batanda. No, he has a last name. Does he? Yes. Is it like I don't know what it is. His first name is Momar, but I can't remember what his last name is. Yeah. So I don't know. Well, anyway, so any of that is humor. And then we respond to in a certain way. And what's awesome is although we can't really say, like, why things are funny or why we even have a capacity to find things humorous, we have a pretty good understanding of what happens in the brain. Right. We do. And we also know that what happens physically, there's a cascade of events that takes place. That's right, Josh. In a very unfunny way that starts with your face. Right. That's right. Right off the bat, 15 facial muscles will contract. It's going to stimulate the zygomatic major muscle, which is apparently the lifting mechanism of your upper lip. Yes. And think about it. When you're trying to stifle after, what you're doing is focusing on keeping that muscle from lifting, like closing, because once it hits that one point of no return, you just crack up. That's right. Isn't that crazy? Your respiratory system is upset and your epiglottis apparently half closes your larynx, so that's why you sometimes can't catch your breath. And if you really get going, it's going to activate your tear ducts. That's why you cry with laughter sometimes. Yes. And I guess those happen in a sequence depending on how hard you're laughing. Right. Not only that, you talked about the epiglottis closing the larynx. Right, I did. So you're trying to gasp for air, which is also why sometimes you can go for a pretty long period of time without making any sound whatsoever, because your epiglottis has completely closed your legs, you can't breathe, right? Exactly. But when you're drawing in and gasping, it makes the laughter sound right. Or why you snort, right, yeah. You don't snort normally when you're walking around. No, it's absolutely true. Do you snort ever when you laugh? Sometimes, once in a while, yeah. Me too. It's funny. It's such an embarrassing thing, too. It is snort, right? Exactly. I'm proud of oni snort because that means I'm really laughing, right? Sure. And when I cry, it means I'm really laughing. Oh, yeah. It's wonderful when we're drawing air in to try to survive and live, where we make a sound and we make a certain sound. And what I found is that it's universal. Ho ho ho. I thought you meant when you're breathing or ha ha ha. That's the laugh. Right. What's crazy is it happens, like, almost universally, people say ha ha ha, or hoho. Right. And they deliver that same laugh at about the same rate, about every 210 milliseconds. That's right. That's like sonic structure. Yeah. And the H is almost a delivery vehicle for the vowel, either the O or the A, the long or the long A for the short A. Maha. I've never paid that much attention to myself. But you don't intermix them ever. No one has ever, in the history of humanity ever genuinely intermixed hot and low into a real laugh. Isn't that interesting? It is. And you also have your own signature laugh, just like your voice is your own and your hiccupping pattern is your own, your laugh generally is the same. Like, it might range, but that is your laugh. You're never going to laugh, like, wow, that sounded like someone else all of a sudden. Right? That'd be weird. Yeah. My signature laugh is pink, surely. I don't know what that means, but I'm laughing. Well, there you go, then. It was successful. Apparently, humans have some sort of laughter detector as far as I know, since we call it a laughter detector, it means science hasn't figured out what that is yet because it has to do with the brain. But just based on observation, we have an ability to pick up on other people's laughter. And for some reason that can make us laugh. It's contagious and as we laugh, it can make the other people laugh and so on. And laughter just kind of keeps going. That's right. Something else interesting about laughter is the more you try to stifle it, say you're trying to really keep your zygomatic major muscle in a relaxed position, the funnier the situation becomes church giggle. The church giggles? Sure. I think we've all had that. Even heathens know that it's called the church giggles. If you've never set and footed side of church, you still call the church giggles. Right? And I have actually gotten the church giggles in church really big. Oh, yeah, sure. When I was a kid, I remember being specifically being a teenager. This one time I got the church giggles really bad because something a guest preacher said he misspoke in a funny way and it's something you shouldn't have laughed at. And I couldn't help it. And I literally for like I had to excuse myself. I was the only person that had to get up and leave. Did he shout sinner at you on your way out? No. So one last little universal aspect, or pretty much universal aspect of laughter specifically, and we should say, like this is based on the article How Laughter Works, but it includes humor quite a bit as well. Yes, sure. But laughter specifically, there's this aspect of it called the punctuation effect, where it doesn't normally I know what you're saying, I know your idea, but it doesn't normally come in the middle of a sentence. It normally comes at the end of a sentence or the end of a phrase or in a dead space period. Hence the name. Punctuation effect. Yeah. That's one of those things where I was like, do you really need some researcher to tell you that you laugh after you speak? Because you can't do both at the same time. No, but I think the point is you're not like most people don't in the middle of a joke, laugh and then continue on with the joke, and then laugh and then continue on and then deliver the punchline. And if they do, everybody thinks they're a terrible joke teller. Well, if you're laughing at your own joke anyway, you're probably doing it wrong. Or when henry Hill and good fellas, right? He's just ticking off Joe Pesci. Yeah. And he tells me he's a funny guy and he's like, what am I, a clown? Do I amuse you? You think I'm funny, right? Yeah. And then the attention is relieved and he jumps on him. No, he doesn't jump on him yet. And he goes, you really are a funny guy, and then they start laughing again. He didn't go, you really are and laugh a funny guy. It's a punctuation effect. Yeah. I think that's lame. Okay, let's move on into why we laugh. This is one of the parts where we just don't fully understand. Well, some people have their ideas. Obviously, it all goes back to and people think that initially it might have been as a release of tension from the passing of danger. Tooktok and his buddies are sitting around and the Sabre two Tiger is nearby and they are all quiet. And then they think maybe laughter started as a relief that the danger is now gone. Or maybe took Cook farted right afterwards. I think we had to get one of those in there. Another explanation is that it's a form of social bonding. Sure. That you don't really laugh around people you don't trust. At the very least, don't genuinely laugh around people you don't trust. Right. Yeah. You have to be at ease to laugh, generally speaking. It's also a means of asserting dominance, as far as I understand that dominant individuals in societies, whether it be human or maybe chimp the jerks, in other words, tend to create laughter more, but it's not necessarily genuine laughter. It's not comfortable laughter. It's a way of controlling the social climate. But as far as genuine laughter goes, there seems to be a necessity for trust. And there's some sort of positive feedback loop right. Where when you laugh with somebody, you feel comfortable around them and they laugh and they feel comfortable around you. And that level of comfort can lead to more laughter. And it's, again, a positive feedback. And then you're all just having a rip or a good time. Right. And then afterward, after you've shared this experience with this person, you feel even closer to them than before. That's right. When you share a good laugh with someone, it bonds you. Yeah, I feel that way, for sure. So in that sense, it's a social signal. And there's other studies that back up the idea that this laughter is expressly designed for as a social bonding glue. Yeah. You're 30 times more likely, apparently, to laugh in a social setting than when you're alone with the TV off. And again, I wonder about that. It's like, don't you need some sort of stimuli when they didn't have anything on the study, like, did they put someone in a room alone and give them a funny book or something? I don't understand how that works. Probably. Okay. I think that maybe a book would do it. It says no pseudo social device like a television. So what are you laughing at then? You're just in a room. But that's not saying maybe you just are reading jokes on strips of paper. Okay. Like Bazooka gum jokes nobody laughs at that explains that. Well, in nitrous oxide, they found German physiologist named Willowald Rook. That's a funny name. He found that laughing gas is even less effective when you're alone. Yeah, which is true, because you're just high. Is that the deal? Oh, yeah. I can't remember if I ever had laughing gas, to be honest. Oh, really? No, I've never, like, had surgery. You don't necessarily. I mean, you do kind of laugh and you're funny and everything seems funny. And I have noticed, like, when you're at the dentist and the dentist and the hygienist are in there and they got you nice and loaded, everything's kind of funnier and you're talking and all that. And then when they leave and you're by yourself, you're just like looking at the ceiling tile because it looks crazy, but not necessarily funny. You should try it, man. It's my whole life free. I hate the dentist, too. That would probably change that experience. You'll still hate the dentist, but you'll be like, at least there's this. Yeah, okay. I got you, Doctor feel good. The study of laughter. Josh has a name. It's called gelotology or gelotology. That's the physiological study of laughter. That's what you said. Right, but I just want to make sure that that's clear because we're kind of vacillating between laughter and humor. Yes, this is the physiological study of humor. Of laughter. Thanks for clearing that up. Emotional responses start in the I'm sorry. Emotional responses are the function of the frontal lobe, but when it comes to laughter, it's all over the map. It's not just the frontal lobe. They hooked people up to EEGs and showed them funny things and found that all parts of the brain are involved in the laughter response. So it's not just emotional, but it's not necessarily all over the map. I mean, it is all over the brain, but it follows a prescribed neural circuit. That's right. Like, they can go, oh, it's going here next. See? What parts of the brain does it include? The cerebral cortex. An electrical wave moves through there. And now, I didn't really understand this, but if the wave takes a negative charge, then you're going to be laughing. If it's a positive charge, then there's no response. So I guess that just measures whether or not you think something's funny, I guess. I don't know. Or else, literally, one type of electrical charge will trigger this response and another type won't. It just passes over. You can trigger that, though. Well, either way, an electrical wave is generated when something that's potentially funny stimuli is encountered by the brain within four tenths of a second. Yes, this electrical signal is generated and it's determined, I guess, in 410, whether you thought it was funny or not. But that's a great question. I mean, like, that's a Carter the Horse kind of question. Like, does it turn positive or negative because we found it funny, or do we find it funny because it turned positive or negative? I think it's the humor. You have to find it funny. And then the brain reacts to that response, right? That's what I think. Hey, summer is here, my friend. Which means school is out, the sun is shining bright, the days are longer, and best of all, there's plenty of time to get lost in a good, thrilling story. Yeah. Whether you're road tripping or you're relaxing by the pool, you can tune into the podcast here. It's on Amazon Music. That's so good, it's criminal. Morbid. That's right. It's part true crime and part comedy. Morbid takes you on a journey through murderous mysteries and major laughs all in the same week. Yeah. From the paranormal to the pretty spooky and everything in between, hosts Selena Erkhart and Ash Kelly cover it all. And with two episodes released each week, you'll be hooked on this chart topping series before you know it. You can listen to new episodes of Morbid one week early, only on Amazon Music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen today. What if you were a global bank who wanted to supercharge your audit system? So you tap IBM to UNSILO your data and with the help of AI, start crunching a year's worth of transactions against thousands of compliance controls. Now you're making smarter decisions, faster, operating costs are lower, and everyone from your auditors to your bankers feels like a million bucks. Let's create smarter ways of putting your data to work. IBM, let's create. Learn more@ibm.com. So let's say that it does take a negative charge, this electrical wave that just covers your brain and it starts spreading through this neural circuit, starting with the left side of the cortex. Right, which analyzes the words and structure of a joke. Yes. Making sense of it. All of the words themselves. The frontal lobe, which is in charge of a motion. That's right. You got the right hemisphere, the cortex, which basically it sorts out whether or not the junk makes sense to you. Right. Well, that's where you put it together. Like the right hemisphere, the frontal lobe is the place where we manage to construct emotion and intellect yes. Of the cortex. And that's where you get the joke. Right. They've also found that since you need all these different systems in the brain, but that's the part when it's damaged that produces the most damage to experiencing humor, getting humor. Finding anything funny? Yeah, it's real sad. Of course, you have the motor sections that get all the physical responses going, like slapping your knee or doubling over or whatever you do. It's wacky when you laugh. And there's also another big one that I didn't think of, but it made perfect sense when I thought about it, which is the sensory processing area of the occipital lobe towards the back of the head. But that's where you visualize things. So it's like imagine what a snake wearing a vest does look like. And then that makes you laugh as well. So it's almost like all of these different, like the structure of the joke, the words and all that pulling in past emotions, your emotional response. Right. Then going visualizing the thing that's just been described. All this stuff is brought together to produce the sensation of finding something funny. And then that motor part is triggered. Yes. And that's when you start crying and you can't breathe, and you say, ha ha, every 210 milliseconds or flail your arms about or whatever you're into. Stop it. The limbic system. I didn't get a lot out of this part, especially the comparison to the alligator. I have a big question mark right now I didn't really understand. There's a whole paragraph in this article, everybody, that has no purpose for being there. Chuck and I can't make heads or tails of it if you can email us later, but Chuck the limbic system part didn't make much sense to me until I found a theory that we can talk about. Call incongruity theory. What's that? Well, it's one of the theories of why we have the ability to find things funny or why things are funny and others aren't. And incongruity theory says that remember with curiosity, that was also a theory for why we're curious. This pencil just fell up, right. And I want to go find out why. That's a theory to explain why things make us curious. There's also a similar theory for why things can be found funny. And when you tell a joke, the joke tellers riling up the expectation and the listener, right. And then delivering something totally different, that moment of incongruity that makes the brain like, whoa, I just slipped on ice. Right. And it's regaining its footing is thrilling. That's one explanation. The other explanation for incongruity theory is that we find things funny so that we can learn how not to think or how not to act. Right. You just don't walk around acting like the Three Stooges. We find it funny because it's something we don't do. We learn to not do it like that. Or we can't cannot follow logic. Just kind of magcap screwy logic that is attendant to jokes by finding them funny as well. Yeah, I think that's one part of some types of comedy for sure is when the punchline is unexpected in some way, right. In Congress. Like, for instance, the other day, I was hanging out at the house with Emily, and I was singing songs to my dog. There's a lot of goofy things like that in our home. Okay. And I was playing patty cake with my dog Charlie, who was a girl. Okay, wait. Well, you got to know that because he's killing me here for the song to make sense. And so I was singing the song, and I said, patty cake, patty cake, baker's chick bake me a cake that's shaped like a standard cake. Emily just thought that was the funniest thing she'd ever heard, but that's a good example. Like that limerick thing where you I mean, it's the same. What's the old limeric joke where you think you're going to say something dirty and it's actually something very normal. Right. I know what you're talking about. I can't think of it right now. But it's that unexpected, incongruous thing that works so well in comedy so many times. Yes, you have. Me? You thought I was going to say something else. I did. And I blushed. You did. Your face got a little red. So incongruity theory is old and very widely accepted, although it's also criticized for being overly broadly explain a lot of stuff. Totally. But it's like, I don't understand why everybody has to have a theory for everything. Why can't it be like, yes, incongruity explains some type of humor. Sure. Superiority explains another. Well, that's another. That's what I like to call the America's Funniest Home Videos humor, which is we've talked about before, and that's when you focus on stupidity or misfortune. A gafa not a good fall, that's a laugh, a boner, a mistake, and it makes you feel superior to the guy that just got kicked in the groin. And you think that's funny because it's not. You getting kicked in the groin? I guess I've never analyzed it like that, but yeah, I guess better him than me is what I'm thinking. He kicked in the groin. Would you think it was funny? No, I wouldn't. But that doesn't explain why I find it funny when it happens to somebody else. Well, in a way, it's the superiority theory, and I don't think that literally means you feel superior, but it's just funny to see someone fall down sometimes. Then they should call it something else. Okay, let me say one more thing about incongruity. Okay. There's a dude out there named Alistair Cook who came out with a book and in it I know him. You did? Well, not personally. Really? I hadn't heard of him until recently. Anyway, he came out with a book, and in it he came up with an equation to basically figure out how humorous something is. So humor equals are you ready for this? The guy came up with a formula to explain humor. Humor equals the amount of misinformation present in the joke. Right. Which is part of incongruity times the potential for the joke listener to take it seriously. Right. So the bigger the whopper is and the more finesse with which you tell it yeah. The more humorous this joke is going to be. That makes sense. There's also the comedy is tragedy plus time. We've all heard that things that aren't funny today might be funny in ten years. That's why too soon. And also get a laughing, actually just by saying too soon when you make a bad joke in poor taste. Or Alan. Alfred, did you ever see Crimes and Misdemeanors? Woody Allen movie? Alan Alda was this really pompous director in that movie, and he was trying to explain comedy to Woody allen and he said, if it bends, it's funny, if it breaks, it's not funny. But that's kind of true, though. It's that take it to a certain point, but don't break it. Right. Because then it's just not funny. Sometimes it's funny to break it. I think there's always just because you don't take something as funny doesn't mean that someone else does. Well, it's on the delivery. Sure. Yeah. I don't think you should ever begrudge somebody for taking something funny, even if it offends you. There's not a lot that offends me. As you know. The last one is relief theory, which is, like you were saying, some people populate was the first experience of laughter. Sure was. Some danger passed and everybody was just relieved, so they were laughing. Right, right. Have you seen Emerson, the baby that's scared of his mom blowing her nose? No. Oh, it's awesome. You got to see it. This kid is terrified. Like you've never seen a human being terrified. Whenever his mom blows his nose and then he starts laughing, he does it again. He's terrified again. And I'll send you the link. Yeah, awesome. But yeah, he supports relief theory. The other thing, too, about superiority theory, before we move on, is that's the basis of a lot of comedy, period. Like, Louis C. K is so funny because he's talking about how fatty is and how he never has sex anymore and what a piece of crap he is as a human and a bad dad. And that's not just him, that's a lot of comedians take that route. It goes beyond self deprecating, even. Make fun of myself. Like everyone laugh at me and how miserable I am. Right. And feel better about yourself because you're not fat and bald. Yes. And then relief theory also explains how laughter is a great way to defuse a Mexican standoff. Right. Because you're in there and you got your gun on one guy and he's got his gun on you. And then if you laugh and you can convince him it's a genuine laugh, he becomes disarmed, and then blam. Right. You're the last man standing. I'm going to remember that. Haven't you ever seen any movies? Yeah, sure. That happens to the movies. You're right. That's why that's scientific fact. Are there really Mexican standoffs? Has that ever happened? Three people? It has. I think you can do it with two, but yeah. I thought the definition was three people. No, I don't know. I know that if you have your gun on somebody and they have their gun on you, I think that's a Chilean standoff. All right, so we just dragged humor through the mud, and basically we just eviscerated it. We vivisected it. So let's find out what's not funny. Tuckers apparently it comes down to and again, there's researchers out there. There's a guy named Robert Provine who's quite a career for himself, like, studying humor and laughter. But this laughter or humor. Research has yielded that there's basically two factors in somebody not finding something funny that's age makes sense, and attachment to the subject or the victim that says it all. When you're a little baby discovering the world, you think your mom sneezing is funny? No. Terrifying? No, I was just using a different example. Okay. Or your dog lapping water is funny because it's all brand new. You get a little bit older, things are going to change. When you're a little toddler, you're going to think poopoo is funny. Well, I know when you're an adult you might think poopoo is funny. When you're an awkward teenager, you might be more into jokes that make fun of authority figures that focus on sex and like all these new things when you're trying to figure yourself out. Right. And then as you mature, supposedly you're supposed to get a little more evolved with your humor and barriers are broken down much more. And like, you may joke about work, right, sure. The old boss, the old man, the old lady. Right. And with all of these each of these stages, even though, like, an adult thinks a teenager sense of humor is just crap, right. Yeah. If you kind of take away that evaluation and look at all of them equally. Sure. People laugh about or find things funny based on what's a stressor in their life. So what stresses a teenager out is totally unrelatable for an adult. So they're not going to find it funny. It's not a stressor. So mainly most of the stuff we laugh about or we find funny are based on stressors in our lives. Yeah, that makes sense. And your intelligence level has a little something to do with it as far as what you find funny. I've known people, and I'm sure you have, that were dumb and that didn't get jokes or humor. I used to have a rule of measuring stick for intelligence. Do you remember the show, Dr. Katz? Yeah. Did you ever meet anybody who was like, oh, I can't watch that show that squiggly lines just drive me crazy? Yeah, sure. Yeah, you have it. That's pretty good. They should still use that. It was infallible. Yeah. Or I mean, there's a lot of TV shows like that, but it's all just I don't know, it's all subjective, I guess. It's not right to say someone's not smart, but I've known some dummies that in a quick paced, funny conversation, they just sit there like, I don't get it, they're lost. Yeah, it's sad and drags everybody else down and really they should just stay in their rooms. Right. Hey, everybody, I don't know about you, but we're pretty excited about summer. I mean, what's not to like? School's out, the sun is shining, and best of all, there's downtime for days. That's right. And that's where true crime podcasts on Amazon music come in. They're the perfect activity for last minute road trips, long walks, or if you're brave enough, late nights. Yeah. And with so many killer shows like Morbid, my Favorite Murder, and Small Town Murder, you'll never be bored to death again. Prepare to go deep and become your own detective in the world of serial crimes and unsolved mysteries. Get lost hearing spooky stories with a combination of detailed research and lighthearted analysis. Whether you're a lifetime fan of true crime or you just feel like being entertained while doing the dishes at night, there's a podcast out there for you. So download the free Amazon Music app to start listening to all your favorite true crime podcasts. Plus, with Amazon Music, you can access new episodes early. Download the app today. What if you were a global energy company with operations in Scotland, technologists in India, and customers, all on different systems? You need to pull it together. So you call in IBM and Red Hat to create an open hybrid cloud platform. Now, data is available anywhere, securely, and your digital transformation is helping find new ways to unlock energy around the world. Let's create a hybrid cloud that can change an industry. IBM, let's create aws@ibm.com. So, Chuck, Josh, lastly, I guess where you come from is another aspect of what you find funny and what you don't. Cultural, for sure. May I play an example of that? I brought another one today. Okay, I have a joke. There is a chair walk with a shoot. You walk on the streets, you're walking, right? Yes. Well, it's a funny image. Yes, it is nice. That one was using her occipital lobe. Boy, that was from the genuinely perfect movie Borat. Yeah, there's not much funnier to me than Borat. I love it. Yes, but it's a great example of how something could be funny in theory to a foreigner, the person in the culture outside of that, and that's the whole basis of that's all he does, right. Talk about things that are funny in Kazakhstan. British humor. You've always heard about British humor. Very specific. And if you think like, I didn't like faulty towers. Well, you just don't get British humor. I might not thought it was funny. Yeah, it was hit or miss. Faulty towers. Monty Python was even hit or miss. Sure. I mean, just sometimes you're not in the move for absurdity. Agreed. And there is a British humor, but I found the Brits are a little prone to get up on their high horse about like, well, you just don't get it, right? Well, no, you have a British friend, don't you? Oh, yeah, Justin will tell me I don't get it too. Okay, it's British humor you don't understand. Right? Leave me alone while I eat my beans drenched in ketchup. Yeah, Justin's been here since he was 17, though. He's 41. So he's American. He's American, Georgian even, until the girls come around. So, Chuckers, lastly, if you have an attachment to the subject yeah, say your brother really did die in a motorcycle accident, you're never going to find that. You might not find that Anthony does joke funny. Right. Or if you literally couldn't care less about people dying in motorcycle accidents, you're probably not going to find that funny. And that researcher provine has basically divided that up into two ends of the spectrum based on things people commonly say, which is, is it offensive or what's the point? Or it is I'm sorry, it is offensive or what's the point? Right. Well, there you have it. Yeah. That probably means you have a personal something at stake. Yes. And you found even and time won't even cure that. Yeah. That's like the Twin Towers falling. It was the first comedians to start joking about that. I remember that being a very tense thing when people started making jokes about that. But I think one of the ways to digest raw and negative emotions is to eventually laugh about it. Right? Yeah. Because it's the best medicine. So speaking of medicine, Chuck set up, there is no less than two groups dedicated to studying humor. These are international associations. Well, one is American what is it? The American Association for Therapeutic Humor and the International Society for Humor Studies. And they are bona fide. They have conferences all over the place. Because it's real, dude. It is. And there's like a definite hint of patch atoms in there. So I'd like to just skim right over this. But there is a physiological effect to laughter that is totally beneficial to the body. That's right. Right. And it kind of goes back to fight or flight in a way. Very much so, because we've talked about this a gazillion times. When the fight or flight response kicks in, that kind of a lot of your other bodily functions cease to happen and everything freezes up. And when we laugh, though, is that laughter shuts off the stress hormones, certain stress hormones that the fight or flight response would normally be shutting down your immune system. It shuts that down and actually boost your immune system. Right. Temporarily. Not only that, it boosts the production of gamma interferon B cells and T cells, which are all engaged in warding off disease or boosting the immune system. Right. The production of blood platelets increases salivary immunoglobulin A, which protects against respiratory diseases. All of these cells and antibodies, their production is boosted. So basically, we're just inherently healthier when we laugh. Which is pretty awesome, if you ask me. So not only is the fight or flight the sympathetic nervous system, like, deadened, we're actually getting healthier. Right. That's awesome. It's pretty amazing. It also gives you a pretty good workout. They found that laughing 100 times is about the same as 15 minutes on an exercise bike. Works out your diaphragm, you know. You've had your stomach hurt from laughing so hard. Yes. It's like doing crunches. I know. It feels so good. It feels so good. It's better when your stomach hurts and you realize you've just peed yourself a little. But I've never peed myself laughing. Really? It's a gas. There's a guy named Norman Cousins. Have you ever heard of this dude? No. He is, or was an author, humorist, political activist, and he studied the biochemistry of emotions for many years, and UCLA, and he struggled with heart disease and then eventually a severe form of arthritis. And he watched Marks Brothers films and basically found that belly laughing for ten minutes. Watching one of these Marks Brothers films allowed him to sleep pain free for 2 hours. Wow. And then it literally he could feel it wearing off as if it were a medicine, and then he would watch funny stuff again. If only I could laugh at March Brothers films, I'd be a happier person. You don't laugh at March brothers. No, I'm more like in awe. Wow. These guys were comic geniuses. But to find something a comic genius doesn't necessarily mean to find it funny. I don't. Although I do have to say, and maybe I'm a fan of the poor man's Mark Brothers, but I do laugh out loud. You mean I both laugh out loud at Three Stooges? Now, I would think you would laugh at March Brothers because they I watched it. Man, that's not even, like, higher class of comedy than three studios. I'll have to check it out again. No, Garcia, he was a sharp tack. Yeah, sure. And I think that kind of translates so a different part of my brain is activated where I'm like, watching him on an intellectual level, where with the Three Stooges, I can just turn off, and it's just funny. I got you. All right. Do you got anything else? Yeah. UCLA has a study they're doing now, too, where they inflict pain on children. There it is. The funniest thing of this whole podcast, they take healthy kids and they wire them up and then ask them to put their hands in ten degrees Celsius water and hold it there for as long as they can. It's painful. It's not like inflicting damage, though, you know what I'm saying? And on average, kids can hold their arms in the freezing water for 87 seconds. But if they're shown funny videos while they're doing that, their heart rate, blood pressure, and breathing, and all their vital signs get better and stronger, and they can last up to 40% longer. Wow. And then afterwards, they sample. We've talked about cortisol, the stress hormone before, and there's saliva, and laughing helps their bodies recover much faster. So it's physical baby. That's very neat. It's all in the spit. I guess that's the point of this whole how laughter works podcast. It's all about your spit. Is that the deal? Hey, you should check out. I think it's a National Geographic. Maybe Nat Geo Nova. It's one of those two documentary on stress, like the physiological effects of stress. I read about that, too. Really awesome. It's very good that's that article actually physical Effects of Stress. It's good. It's streaming on Netflix. Check it out. All right. You got anything else? I got nothing else. All right, well, if you want to learn more about laughter, type in Laughter in the search barhowtuffworks.com. Which brings up Chuck. It's been a little while. Listener mail Josh. We asked for bear stories and we got him. Yeah, we did. And this is what I thought was the best one. This is from Chris F in Vancouver, BC. Canada, British Columbia, two years ago. The bear population came out of the mountains early because of poor berry supplies. Basically, this guy's neighborhood was rampant with bears for a summer. I'm sorry. In the spring I'm sorry, in the autumn, he returned from walking his dog, walked into his carport, and there was a large bear cub chowing down on my garbage. My dog was an energetic Labradoodle, howled in happy excitement of what he thought was the biggest squirrel he had ever seen and chased after the cub, who he named Boo. Dog ran around, chased his cub in the backyard, and all of a sudden, Boo's mother came around the corner, and they later named this one Moriarty. She weighed about \u00a3250 and walked up to this guy and the dog, who was barking 4ft away when I hit her on the head with my golf umbrella. The sal stopped dead in her track, sat back on her haunches, shaking her head in disbelief, and was very surprised to be smacked with the umbrella for about 5 seconds. And then she came straight at me in the garage, and I smacked her again with significantly less profound effect. Gave me time to back out of the carport and do the only thing I could think of, which was to open the umbrella in her face and yell and scream and close my eyes. Yes. That sounds like a reasonable thing to do. Yeah, that makes perfect sense. Man, I am so tense right now. What happened? I opened my eyes again, and Moriarty was gone into the brush along with Boo. But they became regular visitors throughout the rest of the fall, ranging through the neighborhood for scraps. And then they returned the next summer with a new small cub that we name Boo too. Happy ending for Christ. And we are proud Kiva contributors, which is really what I team is killing it. We're about to hit 600K in loan. Wow. Yeah. So, go guys. If you want to send us an email about laughing, something you thought was very funny, or even better than that, because we probably wouldn't find it that funny, send us a link to something that's actually funny. Right? And we will judge you. We'll judge your laughing skills. Send it to stuffpodcast@howstuffworks.com. Be sure to check out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join Housetofworks staff as we explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. Brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you? Hey, everybody. I don't know about you, but I am excited that it's summer. School's out, the sun is shining, and best of all, there's downtime for days. That's where true crime podcasts on Amazon music come in. They're the perfect activity for last minute road trips, long walks, or, if you're brave enough, late nights. With so many killer shows like Morbid, my Favorite Murder, and Small Town Murder, you'll never be bored to death again. So download the free Amazon Music app to start listening to all your favorite true crime podcasts. Plus, with Amazon Music, you can access new episodes early. Download the app today. You know you're a pet mom when you plan your vacation around your pet. At Halo, we get it because we're pet moms, too. We make natural, high quality pet food that's rooted in science. It's the world's best food for the world's best kids. Learn more@halopets.com."
http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/podcasts.howstuffworks.com/hsw/podcasts/sysk/2018-02-24-sysk-mpaa.mp3	SYSK Selects: How the MPAA Works	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/sysk-selects-how-the-mpaa-works	You may be surprised to learn those ubiquitous ratings, from G to NC-17, put on movies in America are actually handed down by anonymous employees of a secretive organization that serves as a lobbying firm for Hollywood's six biggest studios.	You may be surprised to learn those ubiquitous ratings, from G to NC-17, put on movies in America are actually handed down by anonymous employees of a secretive organization that serves as a lobbying firm for Hollywood's six biggest studios.	Sat, 24 Feb 2018 13:00:02 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2018, tm_mon=2, tm_mday=24, tm_hour=13, tm_min=0, tm_sec=2, tm_wday=5, tm_yday=55, tm_isdst=0)	42315525	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Hey, everybody. This is Chuck and welcome to this weekend's stuff You Should Know selects episode this one. I picked out how the MPAA works from June 26, 2014, just a few years ago. And I picked this one because well, it's kind of because I'm doing my new show, Movie Crush, where I talk to people about their favorite alltime movie and my new episodes called Mini Crushes where I don't have a guess, but it's just NOL. And I in here kind of rapping about stuff recommendations and calling Facebook questions and stuff like that. And it just kind of got me thinking along the lines of movies in this episode on the Motion Picture Association of America is a really good one. And if you are just confused by the NPAA, what they do, this will clear it all up for you. So please do enjoy how the MPAA works. Welcome to stuff you should know from housetopworkscom. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W, Chuck Bryant and Jerry. But where's Waldo? Right over there, apparently. Yeah. I wish people could hear in between stuff. I think Jerry was recording that last one. Oh, yeah. I think so. She used to give us neat little outtakes, but she doesn't do that anymore. No. Those days are long gone. They exist in the vault, though. How're you doing? Not good? No. I don't know what's wrong with me. I am off today. Out of your game? Yeah. It's weird. Well, I think this is the perfect podcast to set you straight. Why? Because it's something that we both have some passion about against. Yeah. I think anybody who's seen the documentary, this film is not yet rated. That would be very difficult to not be persuaded to feel strongly about the MPA and its practices. Yeah. And at least how they do things. But we're going to try to be objective. Yes. I'm going to go ahead and say upfront, I have no problem with rating a film's content so parents can decide whether or not it's appropriate. I think it's valuable, but I think there are ways to do it that I don't think the NPA does. Yeah. So I just wanted to float that early on. Okay. I think that was probably smart. Okay. I don't have kids, so I don't really whatever, but I mean, I can understand the value of that kind of thing. Yeah, but it gives you an idea. I like having an idea of what I'm about to see, too. I feel like I can tell just from watching a trailer previewing a movie poster. I'm pretty intuitive when it comes to the marketing techniques of movies. Yeah, but I think being a film nerd, it's like, is the new Avengers movie going to be rated R? That really tells you something. It won't be. No, it never would be. Because PG 13 is the strike zone these days. It really is. Apparently, PG 13 movies pull in more money than all other ratings combined. And it's a relatively new phenomenon. You want to talk about its origin? Yeah, let's do it. So back in 1084, a man named Steven Spielberg had two movies out. Who? Stephen Spielberg. Right. He directed one indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. And he produced another gremlins. Yeah. And both of them, he caught a lot of heat from both of them. Sure. Indiana Jones for the heart removal scene specifically. Yes. But also the live snake at the feast thing. Yeah, the snake babies, the eyeballs, all that stuff. And then with Gremlins, it was just downright terrifying in a lot of different places, especially if you're a kid. And the reason he caught heat was because both of those movies were rated PG. Spielberg went to the MPA, the Motion Picture Association of America, and said, let's do something about this because these clearly aren't our movies, but they apparently aren't PG movies either. So maybe we should come up with something in between. And PG 13 was born. Yes. And this was before he had all the sway in the world. He was influential, but it wasn't like Spielberg today, who could have just waved his wand and made it happen. Yeah, but I think even at the time, he's important. Yeah. There were very few directors at that time who could have gotten something like that done, too. That's where PG 13 came from. And like you said, that's the strike zone now. And the reason why is because that is the kind of movie that caters to young teenage boys who apparently are the most successful at getting girls to go to movies with them. So if you can get a movie rated PG 13, you're going to make a bunch of money. Yeah. Plus, it makes sense. It's right there in the middle. But the problem is it's become a means of almost advertising that rating rather than cautioning parents. It's a way of attracting the audience. Yeah, true. It's like this isn't some kids PG movie. This is as close to an hour movie as you can get in. Yeah. And I think filmmakers try to achieve that rating by either scaling back their R rated movie or juicing up their PG movie or adding more violence. Because apparently PG 13 movies have tripled in violence over the last few decades and they now have, according to one study, more violence than their R rated counterparts. Yeah. And different kinds of violence that you didn't used to see. All right, I guess we should go back in time a little bit. But is it way back machine sure, let's go way back in time in Hollywood. All right. It's Hollywood. And vine is a viable intersection in Hollywood at the time, unlike now. Although people are going to say, no, they built that area back up. Yeah. And that is when the MPA was born in the early 1920s. Yeah. And at the time, it was up to local authorities or your state or your municipality to either stamp something as moral or immoral. There were no ratings on movies, and thanks to a guy named Will Hayes, who was the first president of the NPA, he installed the Hays Code and said, you're either going to pass or fail. It's either going to be stamped immoral or moral. Right. And the reason Will Hayes, who is the MPAA president, came up with the Hayes code, which was really extensive. Yeah, it was like, if you talk about the government, it always has to be good. Sexuality has to be like repressed and just basically and hetero how you think about all movies from the just Squeaky Clean. Basically, the division between good and evil is very clearly defined, and the good guy always wins. And if you didn't fall into that haze code like you said, your movie would be stamped immoral. But the whole reason he came up with this code was because local municipalities could pass their own obscenity laws, and that could be bad for business and then not even get your film exhibited. Right. Remember in the ACLU episode where we're talking about that one movie that New York just the Catholic said, no, you can't show that here. And the ACLU went to work getting the Catholics beaten in court. Right. Even though it was just a bad movie, it had nothing to do with well, I mean, it did, but it shouldn't have been shown because it was so terrible. Was it bad? I don't remember. Yeah, I mean, it was supposed to be not very good. Okay. But it happened like that kind of thing happened a lot. Like Local Town said, no, we're not going to show that movie. So Hayes figured out if Hollywood policed itself, then they could control what movies came out and therefore everybody could make a bunch of money. That's right. And that's the point of the MPAA. They're the lobbying arm of six major Hollywood studios. Yeah. They work for them. Yeah. Well, yeah, that's one way to say it. And it's just those six, too, isn't it? Well, yeah. There's definitely an argument these days that independent filmmakers have a much rougher time with the MPAA, but most of the indies, too, are eventually distributed by the majors. Anyway, I got you. You know what I'm saying? Okay, so flash forward a bit in our way back machine to the 1950s. Things changed a little bit after World War II, and people I guess the easiest way to say is people loosened up a little bit and didn't mind certain elements in their entertainment any longer. Yeah. A big example this article uses, frank Sinatra got an Oscar nomination for playing a heroin addict and the man with the Golden Arm. And that couldn't happen in the 1940s. No. Millions of people hadn't died in World War II yet. That's right. I imagine that kind of loosens you up as far as seeing Chris Words and stuff in movies goes. Yeah. That's not a big deal. Like World War Two is a big deal. Right. Get your haunches down. Exactly. That was the big one, the big first crack to the Hayes Code. Yeah. And then I think that you said he won an Oscar, right? Yeah, it was a really good movie that kind of opened the floodgate so that by the end of the Got Some Like It Hot, tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon are dressed like women hitting on Marilyn Monroe. And at that point, it was pretty obvious that Hayes Code was dead. Yeah. I mean, they weren't passing the code, but they were still getting released. So once something is subverted like that, it's dead in the water. Right. So that was fine for a little while. I think the Hays Code just kind of fell to the wayside and people were releasing movies without any kind of moral or immoral stamp. But the rating system as we understand it today hadn't come about yet. So it's kind of a limbo period until 1968. And a store owner in New York with the last name of Ginsburg got busted for selling nudi mags to 16 year old boys. And he took it all the way to the Supreme Court saying, you can't say anything about this. There's federal laws about obscenity, not local laws. And the Supreme Court said, you know what? We really think it's up to local municipalities to decide what they want their minors exposed to or not. That got Hollywood's attention because all of a sudden, local municipalities could decide whether or not they wanted to show movies to minors or not. So what was old became new again. And Jack Valenti, who is in charge of the MPAA, said, we need another system, another self policing system. And he came up with the rating system that we have today. Yeah. Jack Valenti was the head of the NBA for close to 40 years. And initially the intention was to stop censorship because he feared that the movies were going to start being centered locally. I think the origins of the NPA rating system were art centered. Art centered, but also money centered. Because, again, if you have Town A showing the movie, but Town B through L deciding that the movie is obscene and not showing it, then you're losing that money and B through L. So what Valencia came up with was this idea that, let us tell you what is appropriate for minors or not, what movie is, and we'll just make a simple rating system. Yeah. GPG, R or X. The old X and Ax, which wasn't even formally a rating. It was just a marketing tool. Yeah. Because three X's, that's like, Whoa, I wonder if anybody ever came out with one with four X's. Yes. Or double X even. We cut out that one part. Yeah. Christian, our colleague here, wrote a great blog post about the former Xrated movie. Is that right? Yeah, let's check that out. Yeah, it's good for brain stuff, for stuff of Genius on the Brain Stuff blog earlier this year. And you actually recommended it on your blog, the X rating. Yeah, the best. Yeah, I remember recommending one of his things. I just don't remember that one. That's good. I thought about asking him in here, but then I thought, yeah, we got it. So yeah, back then it was G through X. And we'll talk about how that changed maybe after this message break. Alright, so no longer do we have X rated movies, now we have something. I guess we should just go through what these ratings mean today in 2014. Okay, so you've got your G. G has always been G. General audience, anyone can see it. Yes. And that's your family cartoon that kids love and parents are forced to go to. Right. Then you've got PG, that means no drug use, maybe a little violence. Because as we'll learn, the NPA has less problems with violence and more problems with language and sex. Huge criticism. Huge criticism. PG 13, which we've kind of been through. Then you've got your R, and that is no one under seven. This is suggestion that no one over 17 be admitted without a parent. And these aren't laws, though. That's one thing it's important to point out. Those are suggestions. And then theaters have policies. Yes, let's kind of dig into that. So none of this is legally binding? No, none of them are anything more than recommendations. They're basically saying that this movie has X amount of profanity or X amount of nudity or lacks any drug use or something like that. Sure. And so for what the MPAA thinks, the average moral compass of the average American thinks about these different things like sex, drugs, nudity, all that stuff, this movie falls into this rating. Right. And again, it's not enforceable. You don't even need to have a rating to release a movie. But if you want to get your movie in theaters, there's basically no theater chain out there right now, no major theater chain out there right now that will show an unrated movie. Yeah, it's a completely voluntary system to submit your film to the NPA ratings board. But it's de facto but you have to do it. Yeah, that's the rub. They say it's voluntary, but you actually have to pay a fee to submit your movie if you ever want to have it shown in theaters. Right. And the fee is anywhere from like $25,000 for a big budget movie to $750 for a short. Yes. And so you submit your movie. Well, we'll get into it in a second. Let's talk some more about the rest of the ratings. Yeah, well, there's only one more and that's NC 17, which replaced X. And that means this is a 19.90. And it basically means that it's for adults only. And you should not come in if you're under 18. Right. And also, it means these days it's foreign or about lesbian or gays, basically. Yeah. Not fully, but sure. It's pretty close. Yeah. And NC 17, the first movie to come out with that was Henry in June. Yeah. Not to be confused with Benny in June. And it basically sunk, that movie, because everybody was like, oh, this is X now. Right. NC 17, if you jumble it all together, it looks like X. And the whole reason they came out with NC 17 was to replace X because X was associated exclusively with pornography in the minds of movie goers. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. All right, so let's get into this. The actual ratings board. There's the MPA, and then working for the MPA is the classification and ratings administration. Cara and Kara doesn't say whether your movie stinks or not. Cara is eight to 13 people, and they're called Raiders, and they are overseen by a senior Raider. And they sit down and watch these movies and take copious notes on what they think based on their standards is I don't want to say offensive, but just noteworthy. Right. Like, maybe they're not offended, but they think the average mom and she bought might be offended. Right. Supposedly. Which is kind of a thing, because the whole rating system, as you just kind of pointed out, is subjective. Totally subjective, supposedly. Here's the other rub. It's all secret, right? You can find out a federal judge's name and address, but you can't find out who a Raider is for your films. It's all conducted in private. None of the stuff is released. And that's one of the big rubs in that documentary. And with filmmakers in general, is it's all done behind closed doors. There's never any explanations provided. These people are supposed to have kids between ages of five and 17, but many of them do not either have kids at all or have kids that are older than 18. It basically frees them up from any accountability to do this all in private and in secrecy. And until that movie by Kirby what is Kirby's last name? Henry and June. No, the documentary. Oh, yeah. This film is not yet rated. Yeah. Until Kirby Dicks, this film is not yet rated. Came out. All of this stuff was just conjecture and Hollywood legend. He was the first one to really basically, he tailed these people, tailed them to lunch to find out who they were and eavesdrop on them and did some digging and found, like, these anonymous people did not fall into the requirements that the MPA said they did. And so not only was it in secret, it was fraudulent. Basically, this rating system. So according to the standards you submit your film, this group of people, this anonymous group of people watch it, they rate it, then they come together and vote on a rating, and then they pass their vote along to a senior rater, who talks to the movies. Distributor or director or producer says, here's the rating. Here's why we rated it like this. And then you are faced with a choice. You can accept the rating, you can edit your film as per the Cara's recommendations, take out these bad words, cut the sex scene a little early, leave all the violence. Yeah. Or you can reject the rating and just release your movie as unrated. Yeah, well, you can try to release it, but since no one will show it, it's really sort of a misnomer. Right, but it's becoming increasingly a thing. Again, you need the rating to get your movie shown in movie theaters. Yeah, but what happens if you don't care if your movie comes out in theaters? Video and demand. Yeah. Or releasing it to the Internet? No, I'm curious about that. How that's going to change the landscape? Well, right now it's a huge threat to the MPAA because all of the power they wield is found in this rating system for theaters. Yes. If no one's going to theaters, then the MPAA loses all of that power, which is a big deal, especially now, because the MPA is needed more than ever as a lobbying group because of online piracy, which we'll talk about some more. So it's a very precarious time for the MPA right now, and it's a terrible time for them to be under as much scrutiny and public attack and critique as they are. Yeah. They got spears sticking out every which way, and their trunk is flailing and they're honking. That is true. One thing I should point out, as I said, is that there's no accountability. That's what the NPA says is the good thing about the secrecy, is that it frees them up. That anonymity does it frees them up from accountability. I just don't agree. Right, okay. So if you want to appeal, there is apparently a change made in response to Kirby Dick's movie, the Documentary. Before, if you were appealing your rating, which is very difficult, almost never was done. Well, you never won, that's for sure. Right. And when you were appealing, you couldn't reference any other film. It was totally done in a vacuum, which is pretty preposterous. Yeah. That's the only way to be able to tell us, like, wait a minute, if you said this about this, then why not this for my movie? Right. Which meant that there was no real standard that you could point to, or there were standards you could point to, they just wouldn't be considered. Yeah. Or at the very least, if they do have written standards, they don't release them. So you don't even know what they are. Right. So the MPAA, they've got their rating system, they've got the appeals process, which was also in secret. Unless that's changed. Right. I think the Appeals board not only was the Appeals Board in secret, but they weren't even just raiders. They were people from the industry. Right. And the Theater owners association. Exactly. Whereas the people who are raiders are supposedly unaffiliated with the movie industry and are just like average, ordinary parents representing your middle America, we'll just call it even, though I think that's insulting. The thing is, though, is a lot of people criticize the NPAA and say these raiders are really representing the six major studios who rake in 95% of the $10.9 billion made in the United States in theaters alone. Just ticket sales, not DVD or anything like that. Yeah. And that's what the MPAA does. In addition to rating, like we said, the lobby arm for these six studios. I guess we should talk about piracy now, huh? That's one of their other big besides from rating movies. They are heavy in the lobby against well, especially now with online piracy because the digital distribution network seems like the way forward as far as distribution goes. Right. It's not the future, it's the present and the future. And the MPAA, they're accused of basically trying to quell new technology by just saying, like, let's just keep people from peer to peer file sharing in total so that they can't steal movies in part. And if you go back to the early 80s, jack Valenti was known to have railed and lobbied against the legality of VCRs. Yeah, they're just going to be recording things and handing them out to their friends. Exactly. Yeah. So the NPA has a long history of basically, like, just doing anything it can to stifle innovation in order to protect the profits of these big movie studios. The other problem with them lobbying in favor of the six movie studios is that they inherently have a conflict of interest against the studios that are not part of the six that they represent, but whose movies they still rate. Right. So they've been accused of more scrupulously or scrutinously rating the movies of rival studios or foreign studios when assigning a rating. Well, and that's why filmmakers call consistently for transparency. I don't think there are many filmmakers out there saying there should be no rating. We should just maybe some, like, large Font tree or Vernon herdsaw. Right. You're probably like, no ratings at all. But I think they just want transparency, like, open it up and let everyone know how this is all done, who these people are, and give us an idea on what in the world we're submitting to voluntarily. Quote unquote. Pretty interesting. So you were talking about online piracy, and with digital distribution being a big deal, now the MPA is needed more than ever because they have to lobby Congress to fight online piracy at a time when more and more people are distributing online and going around the MPAA. So it's losing its power. Right, but it needs its power more than ever. So, like we said, it's a precarious time for the MPAA. And they tried a few things. They were successful with the what was the first one in 2000? The Digital SOPA no, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which basically up until then, it wasn't a federal crime to share movies on peer to peer networks. Right. That one did it. And they got that passed. The MPAA lobby then got that passed. Yeah, they've cracked down on camcorder recording. Like when you're in New York City and someone has that brand new copy of Godzilla on a video cassette for you, it's because if you've seen Seinfeld, someone went and sat in that theater with a camera recorder and just made a stupid, awful quality pirated version. Yeah. And it says that those are the most common. I guess I kind of believe that they're also the worst quality. Like, sometimes people will get up and move in front of the camera, like to go to the bathroom or something. Yeah, I've never seen one, but they're terrible. Yeah. I don't want to say more common, but probably more common these days are, like, copies of screeners. They send out DVDs to everybody who's members of the academy to vote on movies. And so around Oscar time, or before Oscar time, it seems like the Internet gets flooded with way more high quality copies of these major movies that are up for awards. Yeah. I think now, thanks to the NPA, have something coded to your name now on your copy. So, like, they'll know who leaked it or whatever. I think so, but I'm not mistaken. I'm not surprised by that. Apparently, if you want to show Frozen at your church, you better have a public performance license because it is illegal to show a movie outside of your home. Yeah, that surprised me. But there are a lot of especially in the summertime, a lot of community screenings. Like every city now has atlanta shows them in, I think at Oakland Cemetery and some other places in New York. They have them all over the place. Sure. And technically, yeah, they're supposed to have a license to do so. I'm sure they do. The big ones. Yeah, the big ones. I'm sure do. But like, at your community pool, when you want to show et, the feds could come kick the gate down around the pool. I bet everybody I bet they don't love HBO these days because HBO Go, people steal that. They're just like, hey, dude, what's your login? Oh, right, yeah. And HBO came out and they're like, who cares? Yeah, people are watching it. Yeah. Go watch True Detective. Maybe you'll sign up for HBO because you liked it, or maybe you'll just support the show, period, on social media even though you're getting it for free. Like, we're making enough money, basically. Yes. And that's something that a lot of people say, you know, film industry, we don't really feel that bad for you, Sean Austin, sit down. Because you guys made $10.9 billion in America in ticket sales alone in 2013. We don't feel that bad about this whole conundrum that the MPAA is facing. What's? John Aston Steel? Is he one of the voices? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I don't think I knew that. Yeah, I can't remember. There was like a whole kind of push, an anti piracy push a few years back. And he was the face of it. Part of it. Yeah. And he looks really mad about things, too. But speaking of piracy, I remember there was a story that came out recently. If you think about it, at first it's like, wah wah. But then if you really kind of lended some thought, it's really disturbing. Yeah. There was a report of prisoners at a prison being shown pirated movies, and some of the prisoners were there for pirating movies. Oh, wow. Like, really think about the injustice behind that. That's just crazy town. Imagine if you've been selling counterfeit first and you go to prison and all the guards are wearing counterfeit fur coats. Pretty swing in prison. It would be weird, but it would also be unjust. Yeah, true. But in relation to this, it's just more and more widespread every day. It feels like it's a losing battle, I think that the NPAA is fighting right now. Well, I think I read somewhere today that I think they might release a few of the raiders names per film. Not all like, 13. Right. But I need to look that up again because I don't know, I don't see why releasing a three out of 13 names does anybody any good. It does zero good. Yeah. And speaking of doing zero good, there's kind of a new attachment to the rating system that they have now. It's called check the box. Yeah. And it's basically a brief description of why a movie is like PG 13. Yeah. So it'll say, like, intense Sci-Fi action or something like that. Some drug use. Yeah, that kind of thing. And some critics of the NPA say it's just basically like shooting a laser beam into, like, a 15 year old boy's brain. Like brief nudity. Come see it. Right. PG 13. Check it out, kid. Yeah. I think a lot of people are looking at it like it's just kind of a disingenuous advertisement, cynical advertisement, because the MPAA is accused of not regulating or even potentially directly marketing to kids under the age of the movies that are being advertised. So you're seeing a lot of ads for R rated movies on websites that are very popular among the 17 and under crowd. There's a lot of tie ins for PG 13 movies with, like, kids toys for kids who are under 13. And so there's like, this idea that the MPAA is supposedly serving America's moral compasses, but really at the same time, they're undermining that morality that they're supposedly defending by marketing and exploiting kids. Yes. That'd be like a cigarette company having a cartoon animal as their mascot. Can you imagine that'd be weird? Well, one thing about the subjectivity of it, and the fact that it is a closed book and the filmmakers don't even know how to tailor their movie to achieve a certain rating. I mean, to within a certain degree. But they've learned how to manipulate it because there is no set standard by if you watch that film, is not A rated. And you've heard plenty of stories over the years about filmmakers intentionally putting in things that they never intend to be in the final movie. Oh, yeah. Just to sort of distract from some of the other things. So they'll shoot something kind of really outrageous to get the NPA's Raiders hunches up and what. They were never going to keep that part anyway. Right. So they're subverting the system because there is no set standard. Yeah. And the stuff they want to keep in is comparatively, exactly, more palatable. And if you don't have the set standard where you can go and I wonder what those sheets look like on the interior. I mean, that's the great mystery. Surely they have their own interior standards. They're not just like watch it and see what you think. Well, they have group discussions too. Man, I'd love to sit down on those. So I read another criticism of MPA is that the difference between PG 13 movies and our movies these days is the profanity and the sexuality. That they're similar in violence, if not more violent in PG 13 movies. And that this is kind of messed up. That the MPAA has very little problem with violence. But when it comes to bad words or sexuality of almost any nature, except for women being objectified and men being gratified, then the MPAA suddenly puckers up. Well, yeah, anything receiving sexual gratification or a homosexual couple. NC 17. Yeah. Virtually guaranteed, or depending on how they do it, if it's coming out of one of the major studios. So, in other words, a man can receive pleasure from a woman. And of course, it's scrutinized somewhat because any kind of sex is more heavily scrutinized than violence. Right. But if a woman does like you said, or if it's a gay couple, it's all over. So, homophobic, misogynistic, you decide. Right. And fetishistic of violence. Yeah. Here's one example. There's a great article called don't Expect Any Major Changes to the NBA rating system in 2014. And it's basically Chris Dodd, who is the new head and the gang digging in and saying, you know what, we talk to your average parents and we pull them and this is what they want. But they haven't released. No, none of those studies are released. Yes, none of those conversations are released. A movie like Filamena, which you saw was rated R. Yeah. It was about a lady looking for a long lost son. It was so far from an R movie, it was ridiculous. Yeah, but it had a couple of F bombs in it. So they cut those out and they bring it to a PG 13. You might think, who cares? Cut the F bombs, make it PG 13. But there's something bigger going on here. Yeah, there's a great AV Club article about how just totally out of step a lot of the ratings are. And they have 15 movies listed and basically talk about their ratings. Like the first one they talk about once. That romantic. Wasn't like a romantic comedy, was it? No, I would say it was bittersweet. Just a modern day romance told through music. Right. It wasn't a musical, but there are a lot of musical numbers. Highly inoffensive. Love Story. Yeah. Very sweet movie. It had the same rating as Hostile Two, which is basically torture porn. They both got the same rating. Yeah. We should read this first line from the AV Club. In early summer of 2007, two films were released with our ratings. One featured a scene where a naked woman is suspended from a ceiling while another naked woman slashes her with a sith and baths in her blood. The other featured two Dublin musicians singing songs together, falling in love and opting not to act on it. Like, there was never any sex scene. They didn't even get together, really? No. They're both rated R. Both rated R because of profanity. Rushmore rated R for the scene at the end, whether Max is putting on the play, the Vietnam play, and there is a shot of a couple of little kids looking at on the set. There's some Playboy center folds up in the locker, like on the Vietnam set. And it shows these little kids, like looking at those like a twelve year old would probably do. And it got an R for that. Got an R for that. Happiness todd sold one of my favorite movies of all time. Yeah. They tried to give it an NC 17 rating, and he said, you know what, I'm not cutting anything. You can just go take a long walk off a short pier, is what I think he famously said to them. And he released his movie as unrated. Oh, really? Yes. I don't think I knew that. Way to go, Todd. Solin. Or if you're looking at some serious homophobia, the great 1989 movie Longtime Companion features no real sex acts at all. Nothing explicit. In fact, the AV Club says it could show on network TV today with just a few alterations, but it was about a gay couple. So I got an NC 17. Yeah, there's something called Afternoon Delight, which is a movie about a woman who hires a jiggle, and apparently it's heavy on the woman receiving sexual gratification. It got an R rating. It got an R rating after apparently the director cut a lot of stuff out and the director said, what the hey. After Wolf of Wall Street came out, she's like, have you seen this movie with like some very graphic apparent sex scenes between a man and a woman. But Leonardo DiCaprio is the one enjoying it the most, so it's fine. It's an R, right? Blue is the warmest color. Yeah. Last year, that teenage lesbian love story NC 17 got a lot of attention, and there were some theaters that allowed high school age kids to go see that anyway, because, again, this isn't law. It's not binding. It's up to the theaters. Yeah. It's just so strange that such a small group of people have such influence on such a large industry. The more you dig into it, the more conflicts of interest arise. And the more arbitrary the standards become, the more blood boiling it is. I highly recommend you go read some stuff like rated R for Ridiculous by Kirby Dick. His little op ed about the MPAA. That one US news and World Report article you wrote or suggested was good. I wish I wrote it. Had you been there, would have been used correctly. Oh, did they misuse it? What? Yes. I know, that's terrible. So the NPA will defend themselves and they say that there is no such bias and that all these objectionable scenes are rated on the graphic quality and how graphic it is. But if you just look at the you'd have to be a dummy not to see these correlations. Right. And the fact that they don't seem to care that much about violence in this age where, I don't know, does it influence people to go shoot up a school? Who knows? Did you see that John Oliver quote that's going around? Yes, but what was it? It's like somebody unsuccessfully tries to carry a bomb onto a plane in their shoe. We all take our shoes off, right? There's like 30 something school shootings after Columbine, and absolutely nothing's changed. Yes. Or The Onion article that's going around to now, this is something that can't be prevented. Says the only country where this kind of thing happens all the time. Something like that. I'm paraphrasing. Oh, yeah. That's the onion. Yes. Good stuff, NPA. Keep doing the fighting. The good fight. Yes. Go check out just go start reading up on it. It's funny how much we just take this stuff for granted, but when just start digging just slightly beneath the surface, at the very least. See, this film is not yet rated. It's really good. Yeah. Really engrossing. And for every 100 documentaries that come out, five of them are, like, really great. Sure, most of them are pretty good, some are terrible. So any really good one is worth seeing just in and of itself. Agreed. If you want to learn more about the MPAA, type those letters into the search barhousofworks.com. And I said, search parts. It's time for listing or mail. I'm going to call this wildparrots. Josh mentioned in the Tattoo podcast that he had heard parrots like to hang together when free, and I wanted to burst in the podcast booth and tell you about the Wild parrots of San Francisco. I'm not going to get into it, except to say that over the course of my life, the parrots in San Francisco are sort of living legend that one would occasionally get the privilege of spotting now and then. However, about three years ago, I moved in with my aunt in the little San Francisco suburb of Brisbane, and apparently the famous flocks of parrots were also making their home there. Since it was warmer and less windy. These parrots were often hanging right outside my bedroom window, which is pretty amazing, she says amusing. I say it's amazing, but also somewhat annoying, especially since my first son was just a little guy then and a very light sleeper. And the suckers are loud. That is true. They are very loud. Also, guys, I'm sending you the link to watch the preview of the 2003 documentary the Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill. So I didn't know there was a documentary. I've heard that. I've heard of that before. I never knew what it was about. Amy, I will check that out. Thank you. Thank you for writing it. Yeah, thanks a lot, Amy. If you have a documentary recommendation, we are always interested in those. Heck yeah. You can tweet them to us at syskpodcast, you can post them on facebook. Comstuffyturnnow and you can send us an email to stuffpodcast@howstuffworks.com. And as always, join us at our home on the web the Beautifulstuffyoushouldnow.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit housetofworks.com. Hey, it's summer, everybody, which means school's out, the sun's shining, the daylight's longer, and best of all, there's plenty of time to get lost in a good, thrilling story. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing pool site, tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music, my Favorite Murder from exactly right media, My Favorite Murder has something for everyone. Hosted by Karen Kilgara and Georgia Hardstark, this true crime comedy podcast will share stories that will have you wanting more before you know it. Listen to new episodes of my favorite Murder. One week early on Amazon music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen today."
https://podcasts.howstuf…sysk-cicadas.mp3	How Cicadas Work	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/how-cicadas-work	Cicadas are crawling out from underground, where they have been hiding in the darkness for almost two decades. As of May 2013, they're invading the East Coast from North Carolina to New York. But why? Learn more about cicadas with Josh and Chuck.	Cicadas are crawling out from underground, where they have been hiding in the darkness for almost two decades. As of May 2013, they're invading the East Coast from North Carolina to New York. But why? Learn more about cicadas with Josh and Chuck.	Tue, 21 May 2013 20:05:20 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2013, tm_mon=5, tm_mday=21, tm_hour=20, tm_min=5, tm_sec=20, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=141, tm_isdst=0)	27498856	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Ah. Summer school's out. The sun is shining. The daylight is longer. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music that's so good it's Criminal Morbid. Part true crime and part comedy, morbid takes you on a journey from murderous mysteries to major laughs, all in the same week. Hosted by autopsy technician Elena Ercart and hairstylist Ash Kelly, this chart topping series will have you hooked before you know it. Listen to new episodes of Morbid one week early, only on Amazon Music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen. Today, you want your kid eating the best nutrition, right? And by that we mean your dog. Halo Elevate is natural sciencebased nutrition guaranteed to support your dog's top five health needs better than leading brands. Find Halo Elevate at Petco, pet supplies plus, and select neighborhood pet stores. Welcome to stuff you should know from housetepworkscom. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's charles W, Chuck Bryant. And put the two of us together. Put us in a room with a $2 Ikea lamp and $3 Ikea table and $1,000 with a microphone. Yes. That's what matters. And Jerry. And you've got yourself stuff you should have. And a million dollars worth of Jerry. Yeah, she's just like, one day. That's right. You got a good intro for this? No. Do you? No. This is toxic at us. That's what I was thinking. I guess if you'd like me to give an intro, it would be something like, chuck, have you ever experienced summer? I have in the south. Summer in the south for me. Cicadas. I associate cicada. Cicada. Either one. They say Josh. What? You say cicada. I say cicada. I say cicada. Yeah. It is sakata. Actually. I have a very quick, funny story. I have a friend named Andrew who had a friend who tried out as a singer for some Broadway show or something, and she did that song, but she had never heard the song, I think, and she sang You Say Potato, I Say Potato, and didn't know. And that was how she auditioned, like she just had read it, I guess. So she got it wrong or read or something, and it was potato, potato, tomato, tomato, and got a good laugh out of the people. That's a good story. Yeah, I thought so. That's a good one. If Andrew is listening. He's probably not. Hello. Hey, how's it going? All right. So, moving on sorry. Cicadas. Yeah, cicadas. I think we should agree to say cicadas. Well, it is cicada. Okay. I was just goofing. Okay. And if you're talking about cicada, you have probably a certain type in mind. But there are actually a number of species I've seen anywhere between 202,500, depending on who you ask. There you go. The one, though, that I think everybody thinks of when they think cicada, especially when they think cicada. Infestation is the magic. Akada is the species name. Yeah. They're periodical Cicadas. And that's what we're going to be concentrating on. Right. And those are the ones that are all over the news. If you're on the Eastern Seaboard right now, you've been hearing them or hearing about them. Cicada Invasion. Cicada Invasion. And in fact, if you go to magica that's how I say it, I like magic.org. There's a map there that shows you where they are currently hatching. Yeah. They have a lot of great resources on that site. Yeah. People get really excited because it's such a weird, freaky, unique thing. Yeah. Well, that's not true. It happens more frequently. But each brood will hatch every 17 or 13 years. Right. It happens every year depending on the type of brood. Exactly. Brewed two this year. Yes. And there are two types of broods, or two types of periodic broods. And by the way, periodic broods, the ones that emerge after 13 years or 17 years are native and indigenous only to North America. Oh, yeah. So it's like our special thing. Oh, cool. Yeah. So if you're talking about Cicada Invasion 2013 to a British person, are going to be like, I don't know what you're talking about, but we should say, Chuck, we're going to be a part of this in our own way. Yeah. We're going to be on the TV for Science Channel Cicada Invasion 2013 on Sunday, May 26, Right. Yeah. They're doing lots of cool programming and they have gotten us to provide some little bumpers and moments in between with a cool professor that's going to be joining us. And with Professor Mike. Yeah. Professor Mike Rap. He is the foremost, utmost and foremost right. Esteemed expert on Cicadas. Yeah. And he's Maryland Terrapin. Is that right? I believe so. All right, so, yeah, it's called Cicadas Innovators 2013. It's on Sunday, May 26 on Science Channel. It goes from eight to 11:00 P.m., but we're hosting the nine to 11:00 P.m. Segment, which includes the dramatic climax. Yeah. So we're going to be there on Science Channel on that day. So go check it out. That's right. So we know a lot about Cicadas and this is why. That's right. So, again, you said magic. I like magic, akada. For that. But the 17 year breed species is what's coming out along the Eastern Seaboard, and they're going to be eventually black with orange veined wings and red eyes. Yeah. Generally they have red eyes, although you can occasionally spot a very rare blue eyed or silver eyed, but you cannot get money for those. Did you hear about that rumor? No. In 2004, I think there was a rumor that Johns Hopkins was paying money for blueeyed Cicadas, if you could find them, and they were like, no, please stop bringing those here. It's neat and it's rare, but we're not offering money up for this. Right. But thank you. We'll take them for free, though. Sucker. Yeah. But generally they're a little steep assumen looking red eye things. Right. And we should also say here's what the big deal is. This is why it's called, like, Invaders and the Invasion in Cicada Apocalypse. I just made that one up in 2013. For people who don't live here, this happens with the brood, like, every 17 years. And broods are incredibly well synchronized, and there are billions of these things. And because they're synchronized, billions of cicadas are going to all emerge from the ground pretty much at once in an area. Yeah. In fact, Professor Ralph himself was quoted in a thing I read today. It said there's a boatload, there could be a billion per square mile, dude. Right. Not a billion overall. Right. Like a billion in you and your neighbors backyards. Yeah. It's crazy. Yeah. I think it's more like one and a half million per acre at its peak. Oh, really? So you and three other neighbors, you got one and a half million. So Rap was wrong. No, he said it's square mile. Oh, okay. Square mile. Got you. No, I don't think he's wrong about anything. That has to catatus. Yeah, we haven't met him yet. We're leaving a couple of days, actually. No, but we're in real time. We have high hopes. Yeah, of course. So I guess you want to talk about what these guys look like. Guys and gals look like. Yeah. All right. Aside from the orange veins. That's right. They are in the order him up terra, which anything that has piercing and sucking mouth parts is in that order. Right. And you got a wingspan between two and a half centimeters to 15. And have you seen the big ones? Man, they're huge. Yeah. Like palm of your hand big. Yeah. The ones in the tropics are up to, like, six inches long. Wow. Their body, not their wingspan. That's crazy. They are bad flyers. I guess I'm going to just guess here and say, because they're not around long, they don't have a lot of experience. They're probably kind of heavy. They're not very aerodynamic. They're heavy for their wings. Yeah. And I think he just kicked off .1 of what makes cicadas the affable lovable member of the insect balls that they are. They have two sets of wings. One. Two pairs of wings. And they can't fly very well. Yeah. So that's one yeah, they have the outer wings are glassy and transparent, and they're longer, and they covered the shorter opaque wings, and they look formidable when you look at the wings, they're all veiny and they look sturdy. Yeah, they're not they're not for the cicadas. Here's the other funny thing. They have three pairs of legs, but they're not good jumpers, even though they try to yeah. All their legs are about the same length, so they're kind of clumsy. They can't fly very well. They can't jump very well. It's zero two. So they have those big, goofy red eyes, and then they have three eyes. Yeah. Compound eyes. Right. And three tiny little eyes in between on the top of their head called oscillate. And they, of course, watch for the birds and other predators that lurk above. Right. So they have really great peripheral vision and the compound eyes on the side. And then great, I guess, airborne vision, worms eye vision. That's right. And a couple of little Bristol like antenna behind the little Oscilla. oscille eyes. Ocelli, I guess that would be repetitive to say. Or redundancy osoly eyes, because that's what they are. But you know what I'm saying. Then they have those mouth parts that we mentioned and they are in a sheath, a beak like sheath called labium, which they kind of just tuck there between their legs unless they need to use it, which is what they do. And they eat that sheath. The labium holds four little stickers called stylus. They are needle like and they jam it into the plant or like the leaf, and they just suck it up like a straw. And reproduction, that's the point of the cicada's life. Yeah, well, that's what they did. Reproduction. That was really the point. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. They like to do it. They're like rescuting. Boy, people can be like that's a random thing to say weeks later, you'll understand. So they're famous, though, not only for their weird 17 year or 13 year emergence, but their loud singing. And before we go on to describe it, we might as well just hear it, don't you think? Yeah. So a brief little audio bit here from Jerry. This is the cicada singing. Jerry is going to make a cicada call. That was really good, Jerry. And really good, Mr. Cicada. And I say Mr because it's only the men that are singing, the males. Why do they sing? Well, two reasons. To attract females, to mate and to scare off birds. Because it is so freaking loud that it will scare off birds. So it is extraordinarily loud. The cicada call the male's mating song. Yeah. Especially when they get together. I've seen that. Doctor Mike said that it was recorded at 94 decibels, which is like a standing next to a lawn mower, basically. But this is a sound made by an insect and it's everywhere. It fills the air. For someone who hasn't experienced like a chorus of male cicadas all singing together, it's everywhere, it's really loud. And in fact, you said lawn mower. The females can actually be attracted to lawn mowers and weed eaters. Is that right? Yes. That's crazy. And just to give you an idea, between 80 and 90 decibels is when the threat of hearing loss begins. And like you said, lawn mowers. And about 120 is a rock concert, about 140 is a jet engine. And these things are a little tiny insects. Right. Remember that again, Dr. Mike said 94 was what he'd seen recorded. Yeah, but I have also read up to 120 decibels. That's crazy. Yeah. That's really loud. Yeah. And apparently you can get so high that humans can't hear them, but if your dog is going berserker you're in North Carolina or Maryland or something, that might be why. Yes. Smaller species make higher pitched ones, I guess. So how are they doing this? Well, they have actually a lot of people think that it's a shirt, maybe like a cricket rubs its legs together. You would be wrong. Right. We should say that cicadas are closer to aphids than crickets. Right. And they're also not using any vocal cords because they lack those. What they do have are these little membranes on the sides of their abdomens, and these membranes are called tibbles. And they're connected to well, I guess they're inside. Yeah. Their muscle by a little muscle. Right. And when the muscle contracts, the tumble bends, crease forms in it, and then when the muscle relaxes, the timbal goes back to taut again, and that makes a clicking sound. If you do that a bunch of times, what you have is a cicada song. Yeah. And they don't know why it's so loud or how it's so loud. Right. I did read something. I'm not sure if it's verified that there are pockets in the abdomen that make it louder or something, but still like such a small insect. Right. I mean, it's like I said, it can be big, but it's still an insect. Right. And the sound, like you said, it messes with birds. It can scare them off, but it can also even the ones that aren't scared off, it prevents birds from hunting and packs because they can't communicate with one another because it's so loud. So it's also a defense mechanism. It's a mating call. And apparently certain species make a certain sound to prevent, I guess, interspecies mixing. Well, they want to be with their own kind, right. Because they don't have too many shots at this. And they're doing all this up in the trees. Right? Yeah. And it's usually during the heat of the day when this music is going on. You say music, I say chainsaw. Does it bother you? I think it's so soothing. Have you ever been among the invasion? Yes. Yeah. To me, it's not soothing because it's so loud and so continuous that it's sort of like driving me mad eventually. It's neat, though. Oh, it's cool because you know it's going to end and it crests and it falls. And it crests and it falls. I just think it's really neat. It is neat. Only 45% of high school students feel they are prepared for college or careers. Stride career prep is helping change that. Stride Career Prep lets students take charge of their education and their future. By combining real world skills training and traditional academics, students can earn college credit while in high school or get the training needed to land a job right after graduation. Stride Career prep prepares your team for in demand careers in business, tech, health, science, criminal justice and more. Students can take courses developed by industry professionals, prepare for certifications, get handson, experience, network, and most importantly, gain the confidence they need to succeed. Stride career Prep is backed by over 20 plus years of experience in online learning and education. Take charge at K. Twelvecom podcast. That's K twelve.com podcast. And start taking charge of your future today. Hey, that's the sound of another sale on Shopify, the all in one commerce platform to start, run and grow your business, isn't it, Chuck? That's right. Shopify gives entrepreneurs the resources once reserved for big business, so upstart, startups and established businesses alike can sell everywhere, synchronize online and in person sales, and effortlessly stay informed. Scaling your business is a journey of endless possibility. You can reach customers online and across social networks with an evergrowing suite of channel integrations and apps, including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest and more. And you can synchronize your online and in person sales, so you gain insights as you grow with detailed reporting of conversion rates, profit margins, and beyond. It's more than a store. Shopify grows with you. So just go to shopify. comStuff all lower case for a free 14 day trial, and get full access to Shopify's entire suite of features. Grow your business with Shopify today. Go to shopify. comStuff right now. So it is so loud, though. They even have a protective measure for themselves. Males and females have these mirror like membranes, a pair of them called Timpana, and they're sort of like their ears and basically there's a short tendon connected, and when they're shouting out with their call, they will retract the tendon and it basically just sort of creases and closes their ears so they don't have to hear. Right, it's like, shuts it. Yeah, it's like a little mechanical function. Yeah, exactly. All right, so let's talk about the mating and the egging and the overpositing. So this is like pretty much the whole reason a cicada comes to life. This is why they invade, is to mate and reproduce. Right? So once the males have attracted some females over, like, they search for one another, they do some terrible jumping and some bad flying and hey, mama. They'll finally come up upon one another and be like, I like you, I like you. And then they go off. And after they mate, the female carves some notches into the stomach of plants. That's crazy. Yeah. And then uses her o depositor, which is an egg laying appendage, and deposits up to 600 eggs in one little session. And then the eggs start to hatch and they actually fall down out of the tree as larvae. Yeah. These little nymphs. Yeah. Okay, so they're nymphs then. Yeah. So they go through the larval stage in the tree and then fall down out as nymphs. And then they burrow. Yeah. They immediately root underground as a protective measure, and then they start growing and repeatedly shedding their skin over 17 years. 17 years. So think about this. The average cicada lives 17 years. If it's a periodic 17 year cicada, average lifespan is 17 years underground. Right. And then two months above ground. Yeah. And then they die. Yeah. Like four to six weeks, generally. Yeah. So they spend almost all of their life as young, immature cicadas, getting ready to be adults for two months or less so they can reproduce once. Isn't it nuts? It is nuts. It's pretty neat, though. If you don't have cicadas and you're like, what's going on? It means you probably don't have a lot of deciduous trees where you are. Yeah. They like fruit trees, too. Yeah. So don't get bummed out. Just go visit your neighbor if they have some. You've got any oaks? And the question, why are they under there for so long? There are a bunch of theories. I can't wait to talk to Professor Mike, though, in a couple of days. But the leading theory I've heard is that it's like an evolutionary rhythm that they developed to not get eaten and avoid predators. Now, that is why there are billions of these things in a square mile or two, and that's because they have relatively few predators underground. There's a type of fungus that can attack them. I saw that. And it can be transferred from generation to generation. There are beetle larvae that will eat them, but for the most part, they're out of the grasp of their main predators, like birds or whatever. So they do manage to survive, but then so many of them come up and die very quickly. That actually something called predator satiation. Yeah. That's it comes about. Which means that the birds just fly off because they're so full they can't eat anymore. And it still doesn't significantly impact the number of cicadas. Yeah. There's still enough afterward to mate and keep the species alive. Right. And for their billions. Yes. You tired of eating us yet? I'm so full of cicadas. Like, fine, now we'll mate. Yeah. Let's get it on. The birds are full. Apparently a lot of them are born cripple. Yeah. Especially thanks to long chemicals. Yeah. And there's a time lapse on YouTube of one coming out of its exoskeleton. It's pretty awesome. So we should say when they emerge from their burrows, from their chimneys, little mud chimneys. Right? Yeah. They're adults, but they're called tenorole adults. They're not quite to the adult stage yet. What happens is they have to mold their exoskeleton, which you'll find, like, attached to a tree or something like that. Yeah. It's cool and crazy. Oh, it's super cool. Yeah. And then once they molt, then that's the last time they're going to then they're full fledged adults and then they have like four to six weeks. Yeah. Maybe that's if you successfully make it through bird season and get them made right. Like a lot of these guys die within days or weeks. And they take themselves out, too, with little shovels on there. It's almost like shovels on their legs. Yes. And they just dig up and they're like, hey, we're here. Look out for that bird. I'm already dead. Oh, shoot, I'm crippled. Or man. I can't fly. 17 years and I can't fly. Yeah. And here comes a bird. And apparently one of the things that will kill a cicada is incomplete molting. Like they'll just get stuck and die. Yeah, that's going to be a bad way to go. Yeah. I guess, since there's billions of them, there's all manner of awful things adding to most of them. Yeah. So we should say cicadas are known for just huge infestations invasions, whatever you want to call it, a 13 year or 17 year cycle. And there's so many of them all at once because there's so many of them. A, but also because they're, like, in synchronicity. And they think the reason why they all emerge usually at night, all at once, is because they're all following the same queue, and they're pretty sure it has to do with ground temperature. Oh, really? Yeah. They think that evolutionary rhythm. Well, is that another theory? I guess? No, I think it's probably tied together. That rhythm is based on the temperature changes. Okay. And then there would have to be some sort of rhythm because the temperature is going to hit. I think when the temperature averages starts to average 64 degrees Fahrenheit, the ground, that's when you're going to start to see cicadas emerging. Yeah, but that's going to happen 17 times or 16 times before that 17th year. So there does have to be some other pattern that they're following so they don't emerge sooner. Right? Yeah. It's just one dude right at the front. It's like Ralph the old man. All right, guys, it's been 17 years. Let's do it. Yeah, let's do this thing. And you mentioned the temperature change, but that makes sense because they hatch from a southernly to northernly northern or northernly southerly northerly. Yeah. Let's hear other than up the coast. Okay. Yeah. You'll see them in Georgia first, and then North Carolina and then Virginia and then DC, and then all the way up the Hudson Valley of New York, apparently. So if you were in Philadelphia or DC or New York City, even, you might see some cicadas this year. There's a mathematical formula for predicting when you'll see cicadas in your neck of the woods. So you go to Weatheronderground.com and you find out. You go on there, Almanac, and look at April and you figure out what the average April temperature was in Celsius. Write that down. And then here's the mathematical formula, e, which is the emergence state in May, because you see the number it's close. E equals parenthesis 19.65 minus T, which is the average April temperature, and Celsius divided by zero point 56 that number will give you the date that the cicadas are going to emerge around your area. And apparently it's tried and true. Or you can go to magiccicada.org and click on the map if you're not in the math and you like pictures or if you like both. Do both. Yeah, that's true. I don't think I have anything else. I would definitely go look up that time lapse on YouTube. It's pretty cool. I've got more. All right, let's hear it. Well, you know how I said that they're kind of the stumbling, bumbly, lovable, affable creatures of the insect world? Yes. So not only can they not fly very well, they can't jump very well. They genuinely lack defenses. Aside from their call, they can't do anything well. They don't bite or sting people, even though they look scary. They don't carry disease. They prey on trees only. They're herbivores, if you can call it insect that. But even if a tree flags is what it's called, it becomes weakened from too many cicada feeding on it. Trees still bounce back, so they kill nothing while they're alive. Sure, you don't need to be afraid of them. They look intimidating. But if they land on you, like, hold them in your hand. Well, even still, even if you hold them in the hand, a male will make a defensive buzzing. That's kind of scary and scary. It's all show. They'll talk. They're not going to bite you. They're not going to sting you. They're really sweet little boogers. And I welcome them. Yeah, if also you welcome them into your belly or you want to. There's a lot of cicada recipes out there. I have a bad feeling we're going to be asked to eat some of this stuff. Is that right? It's possible. I guess everyone's going to have to tune in on Sunday, May 26 to find out. I'm not as adventurous as you are when it comes to eating things. Baking a cookie, I would try it. I don't think they do that. I think it's more like no. Yummy made cicada cookies and she said, tastes like cookie. Well, but I think the traditional way is to eat them like you would crickets, put them in a pan with some salt. No, I saw some, like, serious in depth recipes. Yes. I mean, sure, you could grind up cicadas and put them in lasagna or your pizza or whatever. I didn't see grind up. I saw Blanched Tenoral adults. So you want to get them before like she said, it was fine, but she didn't grind them up. She just put a wholesale in the cookie. I don't know how she made them like that. Maybe broke them up. Interesting, because they didn't get the impression that it was like she was just kind of like yes. Nothing really. I would imagine that they were broken up in some way. Yeah, I would think so. Or maybe it's like the M and M cookies. You just stick it in the top when it's right. I saw those, too. It's just a little disgusting treat in the middle. So you should probably wait for them to die of natural causes, maybe an incomplete molt. And grab some of those and bake them. There you go. Or kids grab some exoskeletons because they look neat and they look just like the shell of the cicada. So bring one of those to school and throw it on your friend. Yeah. And if you get into this and you find it very thrilling, there's a lot of citizen science projects around here that has to do with counting cicadas, measuring Cicadas, trying to do Cicada calls. I just made that last one up. But you could do that if you wanted. There's a culture surrounding this. It's interesting to go online and look it up. If you want to know more about Cicadas, first of all, you can watch our special Cicaders and Invaders 2013 on Science Channel on Sunday. Cicaders like you're British, right? And Invaders. Yeah. On Sunday, May 26, from eight to 11:00 p.m.. And we're going to be on nine to 11:00 p.m. On science. Yes. And since I just said that, it's time for message break, right? That's right. And then listen. Only 45% of high school students feel they are prepared for college or careers. Stride career prep is helping change that. Stride Career Prep lets students take charge of their education and their future. By combining real world skills training and traditional academics. Students can earn college credit while in high school or get the training needed to land a job right after graduation. Stride Career Prep prepares your team for in demand careers in business, tech, health, science, criminal justice, and more. Students can take courses developed by industry professionals, prepare for certifications, get handson, experience network, and most importantly, gain the confidence they need to succeed. Stride Career Prep is backed by over 20 plus years of experience in online learning and education. Take charge at K twelve. Compodcast. That's K twelve. Compodcast, and start taking charge of your future today. Hey, that's the sound of another sale on Shopify, the all in one commerce platform to start, run and grow your business, isn't it, Chuck? That's right. Shopify gives entrepreneurs the resources once reserved for big business, so upstart startups and established businesses alike can sell everywhere, synchronize online and in person sales, and effortlessly stay informed. Scaling your business is a journey of endless possibility. You can reach customers online and across social networks with an evergrowing suite of channel integrations and apps, including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest and more. And you can synchronize your online and in person sales, so you gain insights as you grow with detailed reporting of conversion rates, profit margins, and beyond. It's more than a store. Shopify grows with you. So just go to shopify. comStuff, all lower case for a free 14 day trial, and get full access to. Shopify's entire suite of features. Grow your business with shopify today. Go to shopify. comStuff right now. And now it's time for listening. Yeah, I'm going to call this truth serum in Columbia. Remember we did that show on Truth Farm? Yes. All right, this is from Calorie Zurbos and listeners since 2008. That is a great name, didn't it? Yeah. Guys, you recently aired a podcast on the existence of a truth serum and mentioned the use of scopai. You also referenced the Vice TV article in which they claim drug traffickers use it and shout out the Vice. By the way, we're going to be doing some blogging for them soon. Yeah, good program. Stay tuned. Well, guys, I just want you to know I lived in Columbia for twelve years, loved every minute of it, and I've known several people who have been victims of scopolamine attacks. However, it is not drug traffickers who use this, but rather just bans of thieves and criminals. Drug traffickers actually do not need to attack random people to full income. It's the petty thieves who do. All occurred in the middle of the day in good neighborhoods of Bogota by well dressed middle aged attackers. It's most commonly dusted onto a piece of paper, which is then handed to the victim by the culprit under the guise of asking for directions. Within ten to 15 minutes, you're out, wide awake, compliant and unaware, but unable to remember what happened afterwards. You were also quite ill, and more often than not you end up in the hospital with your stomach pocket. Usually your bank account and valuables are emptied in the apartment. In one case, a friend of mine had his entire apartment emptied of everything. Oh, my God. And he was just sitting there the whole time, basically. I guess so, man. Anyway, it's pretty frightening and at times lethal. Most Colombians therefore, will not accept anything handed to them on the street and in clubs. Well, no one ever puts their drink down, if you know what I mean. Thanks again for the excellent show. And that is again, calorie turbos. And that is frightening. Yes. I bet when Colombians go to Vegas, they're just like overwhelmed on every street corner guys are trying to handle. Oh, yeah. They freak out. Yes. Seriously, tell me the name again. Kalari Zeus. Thank you very much. Calorie Zarbos Kaleroy Zerbos. K-A-L-E-R-O-Y. That's not Calorie. Like counting Calories, right? Caloroy Zervos. That has a great name. I agreed. If you want to let us know your name, you can tweet to us at syskpodcast. You can join us on Facebook.com stuff. You should know it. And you can send us a good old fashioned email to stuffpodcast@discovery.com. And then don't forget, join us at our home on the web stuffyoushineknow.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstofworks.com hey. Netflix streams, TV shows and movies directly to your TV, computer, wireless device or game console, you can get a 30 day free trial membership. Go to www. Dot. Netflix. comStuff and sign up now. Summer school's out. The sun is shining. The daylight is longer. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music that's so good it's criminal. Morbid. Part true crime and part comedy, Morbid takes you on a journey from murderous mysteries to major laughs all in the same week. Hosted by autopsy technician Elena Erkart and hairstylist Ash Kelly, this chart topping series will have you hooked before you know it. Listen to new episodes of Morbid one week early only on Amazon Music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen today. You know you're a Pet mom when you plan your vacation around your pet. At Halo, we get it because we're Pet moms. Two, we make natural, high quality pet food that's rooted in science. It's the world's best food for the world's best kids. Learn more@halopets.com."
https://podcasts.howstuf…k-gross-body.mp3	8 Reasons Why Your Body Is So Gross	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/8-reasons-why-your-body-is-so-gross	Your body right now is home to a liter of mucous, countless fat-loving mites, acid that can dissolve metal and plenty of other gross and interesting stuff. Learn all about your body and its functions here.	Your body right now is home to a liter of mucous, countless fat-loving mites, acid that can dissolve metal and plenty of other gross and interesting stuff. Learn all about your body and its functions here.	Tue, 20 May 2014 11:40:32 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2014, tm_mon=5, tm_mday=20, tm_hour=11, tm_min=40, tm_sec=32, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=140, tm_isdst=0)	44941148	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Welcome to stuff you should know from housetepworkscom. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with Charles W chuck Bryant. And this is News Flash. Is that the wire coming through. Yeah. Oh, I'm watching The Wire, by the way. Oh, yeah, the TV show. Yeah. Wasn't it either recommended that to me. I don't think so. I've only seen, like, one episode of it. Oh. Which is the show that you said started at all. The Shield. Oh, no, I'm sorry. I like The Shield. Okay. So it's like the shield would be like you like the stones or the beetles. You like the wire or the shield? Way before this was Oz. I thought the wire was before Oz. Oz was before the wire. Oh, yeah. By like a decade. I'm taking The Wire. Yeah. I've heard nothing but good things. I think it was, like, deadwood. I saw an episode of I was like, I don't have room in my life for this right now. That was so great. Yeah, I'm sure. Yeah. But yeah, I was just like, I can't commit to this. The Wire is a slow burn. That was before they were trying to blow you out of the water every week with some amazing final scenes. It's almost a documentary ask. Oh, nice. Yeah, it's really good. Yeah, I guess I kind of picked up on that. Although the episode I saw was exciting. Well, now I got to watch Oz, too. Yeah, you do. I was all pissed off. I thought I was going to impress you and you'd be like, your homework is done. Yeah, no, you have a lot to do, Chuck. With Oz, I think there's at least like three or four seasons. Oh, that's an odd start to this episode. It is. Because in this episode oh, Jerry's here. By the way, in this episode, we're talking about your body. Yes. Which I guess the human body was on display to some degree and in different ways in Oz. But that's not what we're talking about. Really, in this. We're talking about how, like, you sitting there. You probably feel pretty good right now. You may be showered. You just got a haircut recently. Your hair. Yes, haircut. Your hair smells like pencil shavings. Yeah. And let's see. What else? Did you know that a haircut to yummy. Smells like a recently sharpened pencil? I did not know that. Isn't that weird? Every haircut? Yeah, weird. Like a haircut does, like, cutting the grass smell like butter, cooking ice cream smells like almonds. And then she has a feature. Interesting. Well, I hope she's okay. She's fine. She just smells pencil shavings with haircuts. But you're feeling pretty good. Back to my little intro. And by you. I'm talking to everybody out there. What you don't realize is this you're disgusting. You're disgusting bag of nastiness, basically. Wow. If you really want to get down on a granular cellular, even just internal level yeah. You're gross. Thank you. Yeah, I'm gross too. Okay. I'm not sitting in judgment. Like I have all of these things as well. Most likely it's about to say, So are you? Well, yeah, it's not like I like perspective. When you say you, it's like a J. Mcnirney novel. It's like put you in the first person of the action, so all of a sudden you're the one who has a coke problem and it's like four in the morning on a Tuesday in Manhattan and you have to go to work in 2 hours. You know, it has more impact when you're saying that. Yeah. I'm going to nod and act like I know what that reference was. It's a bright lights, big city reference. Okay. Surely you've read that. I never read that. You haven't read that? No. Is it awesome? Yeah, it was good. Okay. It was good. Saw the movie. Yeah. It's in that whole Brett Eastern Ellis vein. Sure. Like partying too much, less Than Zero kind of thing. Yeah, well, I read American Psycho. And less than zero. Okay. Yeah. Well, this is one of his contemporaries. He's still around. Juniorney or Jay Mcgeenye, something like that. They both like their drugs and loud music and dancing. And Michael J. Fox is in the movie. Bright lights, big city. Anyway, it's a good book, but it's all in, like, that. First person. Second person. Yeah, second person familiar. Anyway, you're gross. Let's get too wide. Chuck. Okay, so we're going to talk about some of the gross things going on inside the body. And I think this article had ten, but since we've covered bacteria and poop so thoroughly, plus it's a long standing stuff, you should know tradition. Never do all ten of any ten lists. Agreed. Yeah. And we should also say it's arbitrary that all lists on how stuff works in ten, I think. Yeah, it's a nice round number. All right, so I guess we'll start with eyelash mites, which I didn't know about until now. Did you? No, I didn't either. Mites are little arthropods. They're in the same family as ticks. And they, if you are generally an older person, are living on your eyelashes. Yes, and not just your eyelashes. There's actually two types of what are called dermodex mites. I'm sorry. Demo is basically Latin for lard, and dex is a boring insect. So it's a fat, boring insect. The demo decks might and you have two kinds. Ones that live in your hair follicle, the one that live in your pores, basically, from what I understand. Yeah. Dogs. There's another kind for dogs, too. Well, there's like tens of thousands of types of demo decks mites, but there's only two that live on humans. Okay. And they live on our faces. Yeah. And like I said, more likely if you're older, because as you age, you produce more oils, like sebum. Kids don't produce a lot of sebum, so you're probably not going to have a child with eyelash mites. Right. If you do, then Social Services is probably going to come out. Right. Although they won't be able to tell because these things are very tiny. Like, they apparently move around at night. There's a really good, very exhaustive article on Demo decks mites by science writer Ed Yong. Are you familiar with him? The Youngster yeah, dude, speaking of stirs, you know The Grabster, ed Grabnowski, who writes some of the best articles that have formed the basis for some of the best episodes of Stuff You Should Know, he finally came out and claimed his birthright on Twitter. I saw that. He said, I am the Grabster. I'm coming out and saying hi. And he did. And I had never seen his face before. I had once, because he commented on some other, like, a Dungeons and Dragons forum or something like that, it came across the comment and it was pretty much the same picture. Yeah. It's definitely kind of weird because if anyone, the Grabs are almost like the fourth Stuff You Should Know team Member yeah, we probably covered more of his articles than anyone else, I would guess. So welcome, Ed, anyway, into the world. Ed Yong had a good one on Demo decks mites on Discover magazine's blog. It's basically everything you could ever want to know about them, and I think that's even the title of it, too. Oh, really? Yeah. Well, like you said, they move around at night because they don't like light at a very slow pace. Eight to 16, you can't see them, but they're microscopic. They're below the threshold of human sight. Yeah. And while it might sound gross for your grandparents to have mites in their eyelashes, there's really no trouble with them. They're not going to cause you any pain or suffering. Generally. Yeah. They think it's possible that one of the two varieties are responsible for rosacea. Right. If you're particularly sensitive skin wise, you may find them irritable, but for the most part, you probably have especially if you're over age 60, you probably do have demo decks Mites living in your face and just don't even know it, and they're crawling across it at night while you sleep. And I found another little interesting mite fact today that was just in the news. There's a Southern California mic called the Paratarsotomas Macro Palace, played by Brendan Frazier. No, I think it's Shia LaBouf. Brendan Fraser, man, he was in and you know man yeah, that's a good one. Polly Shore and Sean Austin had, like, the early 90s triumph. Sean Austin was in that. Yeah, I believe he was the street man. So this might have just been recorded as the fastest land animal, beating out the cheetah. Wow. This might move 322 body links per second. So obviously it's tiny, but that's super fast because the cheetah only moves 16 body links per second. Yeah. So it's the new fastest animal. Well, remember, I think it was the cockroach episode where we figured out that's the true measure of speed when you're comparing different size things because remember, the cockroach give me like 50, I think, body lengths a second. Yeah. Which is way faster than it's 300 and what, 22? That is fast. Well, my hat has been taken off for this might. It's a demo deck mite. No, it's not. No, that would be a lot of eyelash to cover. Okay, well, let's see. We move on. All right. We'll go from the eyelash over a little bit to the ear where you may or may not know you have something called ceramic gross inside ceremon. I like it either way. I think anything with the word S-E-R sound sort of oily. It's C-E-R. Oh, is it C-E-R-U-M-E-N. Yeah. Which I guess you can make it with a hard seat like cerumin. No, I don't think so. If you're a German, you could. So you're talking about earwax, though, in layman's terms, serumin earwax. Right. Everyone's got it and we don't like it. Americans spend about 60 million North Americans, so I guess that includes our hat and our pants spend more than $60 million a year on earcleaning products. Yes. And what's crazy is a lot of those ear cleaning products, including cotton swabs attached to sticks, generic, those actually supposedly are detrimental to or counterproductive to cleaning earwax out because your earwax is produced in the outer third of your ear when you use a cotton tip or anything. A cotton swab? Yeah, or anything. Even your finger, and you push it into your ear canal, you're not removing earwax, you're pushing it further in. And it's not meant to be in there, and it doesn't go in there unless you jam it in there. So when you're using some sort of swab or anything to clean out your doing the opposite, you're creating what can become a hardened build up. And then you really have problems. Yeah, like real problems. The ear is pretty much self cleaning. Real blockage only occurs in about 6% of people. But you might know that you have an impactation if you have decreased hearing or dizziness or pain or if it sounds like you have your fingers in your ears or ringing or itching or drainage. That means you've either had it happen naturally and you're one of 6%, or you've stuffed it in there with a cotton swab and not done yourself any favors. Yeah, that and elbow grease mixed together. Not good. Can we talk about ear candling too? Sure. You know the deal with the ear candling, right. What they claim is that you have this cone of paper. What is it? Like a waxy paper? You light it on fire, stick in your ear, and it's supposed to create a vacuum supposedly that sucks out this wax. That is not true. It is a big falsehood sold to you by the makers of ear candles and they can actually be dangerous and they do not create a vacuum and they do not pull wax out of your ears. Right. So if you're an ear candler, you're doing the wrong thing because doctors say it can be dangerous and it's actually illegal. They have them in the US, but it's illegal to sell them making any claims. Oh, I thought you were going to say they're just straight up illegal. No, but if you notice, your Kindling packages can't say anything about, like, increases your hearing or medically sound. Got you. If you've seen the candles rolled open and all that disgusting stuff that didn't come from your ear, that's a product of the burning of the paper, is that right? Yeah. Wow. So it's just a bunch of bunk. So apparently, if you believe you have a hardened build up of earwax in your ear canal, the first thing to try is just a couple of drops of mineral oil. Oh, yeah. Because basically all that earwax build up is it's dried ear wax. Like you said, earwax is part of a self cleaning process. Anytime you chew or move your jaw, you're actually moving the earwax further and further out side your ear and then you can just kind of rub it out. Or if you're a gross person, you just leave it and let it get caught up in your ear hair for some reason. But if you have a build up, just a little bit of mineral oil will kind of reconstitute it a little bit and so it drains out. Yeah, I guess it'll work itself back out again. Yeah. I used to cotton swabs occasionally, but I try to be responsible and be aware of not jamming things down in there and try and just like, swab along the outer, outer thing. I do not use swabs and my ears are perfectly clean. Yeah, they are. I do use the end of a football, though. That seems to work. Yes. I have great memories about my mother treating me with warm oil for ear aches when I was a kid. For some reason. It's just a very comforting feeling. I remember that warm oil, like, filling up my ear and it closing. Yeah. And it worked. Yeah. I think it helped the ear ache and it's just one of those soothing, like, mom things from when I was a kid. I have had earaches before, but I didn't have them chronically. Yummy. Did, I guess, too. And it just seems so awful to have, like, chronic ear aches. Yeah, I had bloody noses and earaches. Weird. Did you fall down a lot or no, and I haven't had a bloody nose since I was a kid. Yeah, I remember kids who had bloody noses chronically. I wouldn't say mine was chronic. I wasn't like it seems like now when you look around, if there's somebody with Kleenex like, sticking out of their nose, you're like, oh, my God. Are you okay? Yeah, but when you're a kid, it's, like, commonplace. Like, half of your class has kleenex sticking out of their nose at any time. I wonder what that is. We'll have to see how bloody noses work. Yeah. Or we could do a follow up to this of why kids are so disgusting. Yes. Kids are especially gross even though they lack their demodex mites. Yes, true. All right, you ready for another one? Yeah, this one's so gross. Lipoma, or fatty deposit, is something that you have in your body. Well, once you go ahead and explain about fatty sales period okay. And why these might want to leave that scene. Actually, we don't even know what causes this still. No, I mean, like, you accumulate fat in your body through your metabolic processes. Like, different macronutrients are converted in the liver, I think, to fats. Right? Yes. So the fats are generally stored in certain areas, like around your gut and your lower back, in your buttocks, in your breasts. There's just places where fat normally goes. That doesn't mean that's where it has to go. And technically, fat build up can happen anywhere. And when it happens in a place that just seems kind of weird. We've dubbed those lipomas or fatty deposits, which are technically a benign form of a soft tissue tumor. And it's just a bunch of fat cells that have come up on your face or your neck or something, where you're just like, man, this is not a good day. Yeah. Your neck, shoulders, arms, upper back, upper thighs, and your butt are where you're most likely to get them. And it's between the skin and the muscle, and it's just like a little sort of soft, doughy lump that you can move around with your finger. Yeah. And touch and squishes around because most of the time it's not painful. And if it is painful, it's recommended that you go have a doctor check it out pretty quick. Yeah. It's probably not any cause of alarm if you have one period, like you said, if it starts to hurt, though, or if it ruptures and oozes anything, then yeah, that's when you should go to the doctor. The problem is they don't tend to really go away. Right. Once they arrive, they either won't grow much beyond that or they'll grow very slowly. But the problem is they don't reverse course, and just pushing them isn't going to push them back down and spread them out. Right. So you generally have two options when you have a lipoma that you don't want and that's liposuction, which may or may not be effective, and then surgical removal, which is apparently like an inpatient local anesthetic procedure that you can just go and have it done. If you have a high pain threshold and a lot of gauze, you could technically do it yourself, but you don't want to do that. Let me just reiterate, you don't want to do that. That was a total joke. Do not remove your lipomas yourself. No. Although I go to the dermatologist occasionally, get the little skin tags removed. Is there any kind of local anesthetic for that? Yeah, they do just a quick little injection, but I don't even think they need to. And my doctor the point I was making was my GP said, you can do that yourself. I said, really? If you want, just get some super sharp pliers or scissors or something. Not pliers, but snippers. Right, pliers. Get some bolt cutters. Yes. Oh, man. Yes. I was kind of surprised to hear him say that. Yeah, just do it yourself. Yeah, because doctors love money. I know they want your money. Well, he's not my dermatologist. My dermatologist probably be like, no. Was he like your plumber or something? No, my GP, they love money. They're doctors. How about mucus? Mucus sounds great. Let's cover it right up for this message. Okay. Mucus. Let's talk about it. Boogers and mucus and snot. Are you a snotty person? You're not very snotty. I'm not snotty because I don't have allergies, and I think that's people with allergies are definitely snottier. Oh, yeah, for sure. Emily, sadly, is very snotty. Yeah, well, snot is a snot production. Mucus production is part of the immune response to things like irritants, aka. Buffalo wing sauce. Yeah. And people who drink milk, it can be activated by that. Sometimes milk can make people kind of snotty. But mucus production is not strictly the result of an infection or an invasion or an irritation. It's a very natural, beautiful biological process that's ongoing every day. Yeah. I mean, we need mucus in our body. It acts as a lubricant and a liner of things like your stomach, and we'll get to stomach acid later. But if it wasn't for mucous, then you would be in big trouble in your stomach. Your body makes about a quarter to a half a gallon most good foreshadowing. A quarter to a half a gallon of mucus a day. Say that again? Yes. Your body makes a quarter to a half gallon of mucus a day. I think you swallow, like, a liter of that or something. Yeah, I think so. I can't remember I remember reading that earlier, though. And we should say for our friends who are listening, outside of the US. And Liberia, that's one to two liters a day of mucus that your body produces. Which I have to say, and I feel like a chump for not looking it up and not thinking about it until now. Where does it go? Do you pee it out? No. I mean, if you're swallowing, it doesn't go into your stomach. Okay. But then you expel the stuff that's in your stomach one way or another, and it's probably part of your poop. I'm sure it's part of it. But where did your mucus go? Yeah. Oh, man, I wish I would have thought of this before? Because that's a great question. Well, in the age old question, if you're sick, does it make you healthier or not as healthy to swallow your mucus? I don't know. Do you know? Yes. I think I looked it up and I think it's not supposed to make any difference. So I found that you know how mucus turns green and it's a sure sign of an infection? Not necessarily true, right? No. It does mean that you probably do have an infection going on, or at the very least, your body thinks it does. You do. Okay. But it doesn't indicate the presence of bacteria in your mucus. That's not what turns it green. There's a type of white blood cells that have a greenish tint, and when it's fighting off an infection, when they accumulate in your mucous, they turn it kind of greenish color yellow green. So it's actually a type of white blood cell that's making your mucus green, but it probably means that you have some sort of infection there. Yeah. And if you're sick and you're hacking up that yellowy, greeny, brown stuff, then it's disheartening, at least concerning. That's the time to apply mind over matter and be like, no, I'm not getting sick. I don't care if my mucus is yellow. That's your whole thing. It works. Yeah. Knock on wood. Yes. So dried mucus is called the boogers, and those are in your nose. You're going to tell them about the video? Oh, yeah, if you want to see, I almost posted it to the Facebook page. It's like, no. Yeah, there's a video on YouTube. It's something about, doctor removes booger from hell. Yes. From man's nose in 30 seconds of your life. I'm not recommending you watch it. That you'll never forget. I can say this. I was not prepared for how large what came out of that man's nose was. No, at all. I thought, Well, I'm sure this will be interesting. I didn't know anything could get that large. And either one stay in there or be brought out. It's rough. It's really rough. Like, it's a cathartic nauseating experience to watch this thing. It is. And I didn't listen to the video, so I don't know if it was it a booger. Do you know? Did he say? Yeah, I believe so. Yeah. I didn't listen to it. They just are like he's like, wow. Now you can see why I was so uncomfortable. Yeah, I'm sure. But boogers are nothing but dried mucus, and they're actually I tried to look up why children eat their boogers. Mucophage. Yeah, that's right. If you're really into it. Rhino television mania. So it's a mania. Well, I guess it can be. I think they found people with obsessive compulsive people pick their nose more, which sort of makes sense. But why do kids eat their boogers? I couldn't come up with a definitive answer other than they think it's like our natural instinct. Because it may make you healthier and that eating your boogers could be like an injection of immunity for your immune system because of the bacteria and stuff. I don't think little kids are smart enough to think this. Well, no, that's what I'm saying. They're not smart enough. But it's their instinct got you to do so. And it is all people's instinct. If you believe some people to eat your own boogers. Who says that? People that say that's why kids do it. It's because it's our natural instinct as humans to do so because it helps keep us healthy. Yeah, it's new research. I'm not making this stuff up. I got to check that out. Yeah, and I'm not endorsing it. I'm just saying no, I know you're not. Tissues are the way to get it out. Supposedly. Picking it can cause more problems because of bacteria on your fingers. Doctor says I wouldn't get so many nosebleeds if I kept my finger out of there. I'm a fan of the snot rocket, though, which I'm trying to teach Emily to do, but she's not very good at it. Oh, yeah. It's so gross. Dude. Do you really like doing that? Not like if I have a choice. If I'm out for a run in the wintertime, I don't let snot just run all over my face. I'd blow it out real quick. I would just rather wipe it on my shirt. That's not gross. No, it's gross, but at least it's, like, gross. No, that's gross, man. You just turn my stomach, not rocket. Let me bring back the hanky. Are you? Yeah. That seems so uncivilized. It was so gross to me as a child. I remember seeing the old man in church that would just blow just copious amounts of snot into that thing, fold it up and put it back in their pocket. You're like, you're not going to eat that. Don't, you know, help your immune system. Then my nose will bleed, and I just walk off. All right, so that's enough on boogers and mucus, huh? Yeah. Again, my stomach is not okay right now. All right, so we should talk about gas. And I was fascinated with the notion that everyone farts. As a child, I used to think about the least likely person in the world to fart and just laugh and laugh. Like, who did you come up with? Gandhi or something? Yes, gandhi or the Queen of England, stuff like that. But now it's more like Kate Blanchett or people that I consider to be, like, refined. But everyone farts and everyone burps. Yes. It's a part of health. Right. And supposedly if you try to hold your flatulence and there's an urban legend that it's very bad for you, is that true? It just makes it better later. Right? Well, the guest comes out one way or another. Yeah. And your belch and your flatulence are not the same thing. It's not like the same piece of gas or volume of gas coming out one way or the other. Piece of gas. Yeah. It's not coming from the same pocket. No. There's a belt comes from your stomach and flatulence comes from your intestines. But they do come from the same thing, and that's incompletely, broken down food. Right. So if your food is totally broken down, I guess technically you wouldn't produce any gas. But our bodies, our digestive systems aren't 100% efficient. So as a byproduct of this breakdown, the gas is produced by these bacteria that break down our food for us. Right. And I guess there are some chunks that they have problems with, and it's like, forget it, I'm just going to create some gas. I'm done here with this London broil. All right. And so it comes out one way or another. Yeah. At the rate of between 14 and 23 times a day for both burping and Farting together. Which might seem like a lot, but over the course of 24 hours, because it does happen while you sleep. I think we've all experienced that. Are you sure that I have? I know that. I have. And of course, I'm not shaming you like everyone else. You're like the Queen of England or Cape Planchette? I'm like those two mixed together. So you're Judy Dench. Yeah. She Parks. Do you see Philomena? No, not yet. My God, that is a good movie. Yeah, that's on the list. There's a good movie. I think that one in Twelve Years of Slave are the only two, like big. You haven't seen twelve years of slave either. No, not yet. Man a life. You need to see that. Oz, you have to go home after this. Well, you have to get up for a movie like Twelve Years a Slave. Oh, yeah. It's not like anytime mood movie. No. And you just kind of have to walk into it. Like walking into a thresher or something like that. Yeah. When I say get up for it, I don't even get psyched. I mean, getting the right framework tailgate first. It is a very brutal experience watching that movie. Yeah. And I tend to avoid those when I can. But you should see it. No, I mean, it's still just like an amazing movie. Yeah. So what is actually in Burps and Farts, besides oxygen? Yeah. There would be oxygen, there's methane, CO2, nitrogen, hydrogen, sulfur and Farts only. Yes. And all of this is well, like I said, part of it is from a breakdown of food. I think I might have said all of it. It's not entirely true. Yeah. A lot of your gas build up in your body. It can be simply from swallowed air. Oh, sure. It can be from a change in pressure, like how you tend not me, but everybody else tends to shoot ducks on airplanes more. Oh, really? Interesting. As a result of just the change in pressure, even in a pressurized cabin, it's not. Dead on with whatever atmosphere you're used to where you live. Yeah. So you can get a little gassy on the plane, but it's the worst place to ever be, gassy. It is. Luckily, though, with airplane flatulence, a lot of times it doesn't have any attendant smell to it because it's not true methane or sulfur based. It's just air. Yes. The amount of gas volume that your body can hold right. Then has decreased. So you're having to evacuate some of the air and you're like, hey, it didn't smell. Yeah, well, no, you're just kind of looking around furtively right, and looking to see if anybody's like and turns to the side away from you in their seat. And if they don't, then you're fine. Yeah. I wouldn't risk it. It also helps to ask for a blanket first. And yeah, you can make yourself burp, too. I guess that makes sense about the swallowing air. Right. That's a big discovery as a young boy when you can master that technique. Right. And because there's methane in your farts, they are flammable. And I would not recommend you do this, but if you're a college age boy, you've probably tried to he's not a lawyer. Yeah, it can be great fun, but it's also dangerous. Have you done that, Chuck? Well, sure. Not in the past, like, 20 years, but yeah. And I think some of the times it's just to prove to other people that no, that's an urban legend. Scientific fact. Watch. Exactly. Well, it is. Yeah. I'm sure YouTube is loaded with videos of that. Yeah. So you don't have to do it yourself. Right. If you're interested, you can look it up. And I recommend that we move on to the next thing. But first, Chuck, before we get into it, how about a message break? Yes. All right, so we have a few more here. Vomiting. Yeah. The word vomit has always been in my top five, like, most hated words. Oh, yeah. I mean, it seems to really kind of capture what the process, the feeling, the end product. Vomit. Yeah. It's gross. It is. But it's a natural fact of life. It's in you now. Potentially, whatever your stomach contents are could turn into vomit. Is it only vomit when it's expelled? I believe so. Okay, good. Because you're expelling, like, bile, gastric, juices, saliva, food, liquids, whatever. And all of those things were once just a happy part of your stomach contents, and now they're not. So therefore they, by definition, become vomit. Right. And the average stomach holds about three quarters of a gallon of whatever you've ingested, food and beverage. Right. And it is possible. It's super rare. But if you've ever said, I feel like I'm going to burst, you can eat and drink so much that your stomach will rupture. But it's really rare because what happens is your body's gag reflex takes over and you vomit if you get too full. Like, if you've watched the eating. We did a show on eating competitions. Yeah, we did, like 80 years ago. Yeah, it was a good one, though. And sometimes those guys just spontaneously puke. Yeah. Remember, they're called gergitators, which is the opposite of regurgitating. But if they regurgitate, they have to swallow it back down or else that doesn't get counted. God, if I remember correctly. So gross. But luckily you have that gag reflex. But there have been a couple of documented cases. There was one in Japan in 2003 where a man was found dead in a public restroom and they found that his stomach had ruptured in two places, plus the movie Seven. Oh, yeah. It is true. He was force fed. Stomach ruptured. Now, if you don't vomit, there is another plan. See that your body has where the lining of your stomach starts to just kind of leak contents out into the rest of your body, which is really bad, but it's not at least a full on rupture. What you are designed to do, if you believe in intelligent design, I guess, or what you will do but I just walked into a minefield right then, didn't I? Yeah. Is to vomit up your stomach contents as a result of your chemo receptor trigger zone being stimulated. And there's a bunch of ways that can be stimulated. This little part of your brain is also called the area posttrauma. So that's what triggers the vomiting mechanism. That's the vomiting center of your brain. And it is function. Yeah, it's function. It receives signals from your vagus nerve, which is attached to your gag reflex from your nervous system. So when you're in chemotherapy, this thing kind of triggers your vomit reflex from your stomach, your gut. There's like four or five different places in your body. Your inner ear is one that can send chemical messages to your chemoreceptor triggers on to say, hey, we need to vomit here because this guy is either going to like, this guy just ate poop, and as we know, you're not supposed to do that, so we need to get it out of them. There's something wrong with this guy. Yeah. So let's just go around him and get that poop out by making him vomit. So what happens is the CTZ, the chemoreceptector trigger zone, is stimulated one way or another. So you start to salivate a little more. You're breathing salivation giveaway. Yeah. You start to get real queasy. Yeah. You pull the car over. Yep. You start heaving or wretching. That's going to take place before you actually vomit. It's almost like your diaphragm is getting ready, like Jack Elaine or something. Right? Well, sort of a violent action. Yes. The pyloric sphincter, which guards the lower end of the stomach, it becomes relaxed and the pressure in the abdomen rises. So the pressure in your chest or thorax is lowered. Okay. Which is basically what happens is the pressure below increases. Well, the pressure above decreases. So it's like what was once below can come back up. Right. And the sympathetic nervous system is activated, leading you to start sweating. And all of a sudden you just vomit. It's like a contraction. Wow. It's not pleasant. No, it's not. And while the end results, like if you have a stomach flu or if you're just nauseous, could cause some relief, I don't know many people that look forward to the experience. No, that is not something you ever want to do. No matter even if, you know, like, it's going to bring you relief, you still don't want to throw up. And you'll put it off and put it off because it's just the worst thing in the world. It is. But what has always fascinated me is the idea that something nausea, which is kind of like the body's warning, like, you want me to make you throw up? Right. Well, then stop looking at this. Stop eating poop. Stop thinking about eating poop. We have an emotion called disgust that is primed to trigger nausea and then possibly vomiting if it's bad enough or threatening enough, so that we have an instinct to not eat burgers or to not eat poop or to stay away from vomit or decaying meat or something. We have this emotion that primes us to stay away from things that will make us vomit. I just find that fascinating. It is. Or in movies I should add this to the movie tropes. If you're just too emotionally distressed about something that will trigger in movies that will make you vomit. Right, yeah. Like if you see the wrong thing and all of a sudden you just have to run over and vomit behind a tree. Right. That cop. They were cop vomits on the body. It's a movie trope. Yeah. That was a really good list you came up with 26 overused movie tropes. I think so. I did a gallery on the Stuff You Should Know website, and it was fan source. Like I asked people on Facebook. Oh, yeah. And people just went nuts for it because they're so overused. Check it out on stuff you should know. Maybe I'll do a part two because there was a bunch of more. And I'll add the vomiting cop. Yeah, that's a good one. You can't handle the murder scene. All right, here's what we missed in our halitosis episode. And we heard from people that have tonsil stones or chronic tonsil stones. Another word for it is what is it? Tonsilolis. Pronounced lifts. Like it ends in L-I-T-H-S. Yeah. So terrible. Terrible word. It is. But we heard from people who suffer from this, and it can be a cause of Halitosis and those if you don't have a chronic version, you might have just coughed one up occasionally. A little like whitish yellow chunky thing. That is one of the worst smells that you can ever imagine in the world. Yeah, it's a tonsilstone. All of that funky smell you get whenever you floss your teeth, but combined into a ball that looks a bit like cauliflower, like super concentrated. Yeah. Remember in the High Latosis episode, we said that the back of your tongue is like this trap for dead cells, the bacteria that eats those dead cells and then whatever other gunk well, these tonsil pockets where the tonsil stones form are, like, make your tongue look like pristine wonderland. They just accept these deposits that build up and up and up, and then yeah. Those things stink. I wonder if the guy that was sitting next to me in the movie theater had those, now that I think about it, maybe because it's possible. Yeah. I feel sorry for people that suffer from it. Well, it's pretty fixable, supposedly. Yeah. You can do this at home. It's not like a lipoma. So how do you fix it at home? Well, you can do tons of irrigation. Okay. Basically, from what I understand, like, a little squirt bottle. The ones with the 90 degree straws that football players use? Yes. Like that. And you just squirt your tonsils and it can clean them out. I believe brushing your tongue can help because it stops. It helps prevent the accumulation. Scraping your tongue, too. Right. And then what else was there, Chuck? I think non alcohol based mouthwashes can help. Yes. Or if you have a chronic case of it and you could get your tonsils removed. Right. Which I would like to do if I had a chronic case of tonsil stones. Sure. Because it's not just the bad breath that comes along with it. Like, you can get ear aches, sore throats, inflamed tonsils. It's not like your body is just like, whatever, tonsil, stones, who cares? It hurts it. Yes. And this is another one. All these gross things, for some reason, like childhood, is where you discover a lot of them. And I remember distinctly my brother, the first time he coughed one up and smashed it and made me smell it. Oh, my God. Yeah, because I'd coughed him up before, but I'd never smashed it and smelled it. Oh, man. You've seen these things? Yeah. He's like, Smell this. Oh, man. What happened to you? Did you vomit? No, I didn't. But yes, it made me realize, wow, that's what those are, and that's what they smell like. That's really gross, man. This whole episode, I'm just kind of like I'm over it. We talked about some funky stuff before, too, but this is the first time where I've had, like, kind of an ongoing stomachache. Yeah. So I guess we'll finish it up with something not super gross. No, that's stomach acid. Yes. Which is hydrochloric acid. Which is the same kind of hydrochloric acid that you can use to dissolve metal. Got a gun? You want to get the serial number off of hydrochloric acid that is in your stomach. And, like, I kind of spoiled earlier because your stomach is coated with mucus on the inside. That is the reason that hydrochloric acid isn't burning through your stomach. Yes. That was some great foreshadowing. It was. Do you have anything else on that stomach acid? It's in there. Yeah. I mean, it's just there. It's a combination of hydrogen and chloride. When it combines, you get some HCL action, and there you have it. Some of the grossest things in your body as we speak. Yeah, I guess probably that's why it burns, to throw up, because you have a tremendous amount of mucus lining your stomach to keep it from dissolving. And you have some along your throat and airways and your esophagus, but not as much. That's why bile burns. Yeah. And I know if your stomach bile, if you suffer from bulimia, that acid, you can end up having, like, bad teeth because of it. Just wearing them down. Yeah, wearing down the enamel from the inside out. And supposedly the stomach rupturing is more common if you suffer from bulimia, because you may have a bad gag reflex as a result. So it may not react when it should if you're overeating. Got you, man. Lots of stuff going on in the body, huh? I said it before and I'll say it again, you're gross. Yeah. Thank God we're wrapped in skin and hair. Yeah, because that's lovely stuff all the time anyway. Yes, it is. If you want to learn more about ten gross things in your body, we didn't cover two of them, so there's two more for you to check out. At least you can type gross body into the search bar@howstepworks.com and be sure to check out Chuck'smovietropesgallery Two@stuffyshow.com. And since I just plugged two sites in one, you know, it's time for listener mail. I'm going to call this high five from a feminist. Nice. Hey, guys. My name is Wendy. I'm the editor for the Feminist website. Good girl. I just wanted to drop you a line and see how much I enjoyed the podcast on burlesque. To be honest, I'm not the biggest fan of neo burlesque, not for any feminist reason. It's just not my bag. But I was surprised how enthralled I was with its history more than your background. The part of the podcast that really stood out was how well you two handled the two feminist perspectives that surround it. I thought you did a really bang job of presenting the argument, framing each side, but respectfully acknowledging that as men, it's probably not your place to make a definitive statement on it. Feminism and gender are tricky subjects, but they're also so interesting and exciting to talk about, because I'm always sad, and I'm always sad when guys feel like they can't take part. I think a lot of dudes feel it's not their place to comment. But you just showed that anyone is welcome. And to talk about women's rights, it just needs to be approached with a bit of tact. It's a great job. I love the show. It's one of the highlights of my week. My friends are always joking that I start every second sentence with talking about blank. Did you know? Don't worry, I always make sure to name check you guys as my source. That is from Wendy Cypress and she is the editor of Goodgoodgirl, which you can find@goodgoodgirl.com nice for all your feminist needs. Nice. I highly recommend it. Yes. Thanks for writing in, Wendy. We appreciate that. We appreciate the accolades. Sure, yeah. And if you want to get in touch with us for any reason whatsoever, you can tweet to us, right? Yes. S-Y-S Kpodcast. You can join us on facebook. Comstepyshonow, send us an email to stuffpodcast@discovery.com and again, check us out at our website, stuffyouhet.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit householdworks.com."
https://podcasts.howstuf…quitos-final.mp3	Mosquitoes: The Worst	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/mosquitoes-the-worst	Sun Tzu said know your enemy, and so it is in this spirit that we present this episode on one of the worst airborne pests in the world.	Sun Tzu said know your enemy, and so it is in this spirit that we present this episode on one of the worst airborne pests in the world.	Thu, 25 Jun 2015 13:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2015, tm_mon=6, tm_mday=25, tm_hour=13, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=176, tm_isdst=0)	41246033	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Welcome to stuff you should know from housetopworkscom. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with Charles W, Chuck Bryant and Jerry's over there. Be a little prankster. Yeah, pretty you show shenanigan. Yeah. Well, this is stuff you should knowcom. No podcast. There is a stuffyou know.com. Yeah. That was not so subtle way of working in a plug for our website. I thought it was great. How about plugging Twitter? Yes, you should do that as well. Okay. Go to Twitter and Facebook. Yeah. Look up SYSK podcast. That's right. A lot of people, if you go to itunes to listen to our show, you might think, man, these 300 episodes are awesome. I love these guys. Here's a fact for you. We have close to 750 or more. Is it more now? I think we'll be right at it. Right at 750 right now? That's right. So you are getting really short changed. So all you need to do is go to Stephanie.com. We have our entire podcast archive there. Yeah, I think it's wishuno. Compodcastarchive. Something like that. Yeah. You should go listen to the early episodes when we just rambled on about nothing for 5 minutes at the beginning of every show right before we got tight and professional bam. Tight as a drum. Mosquitoes go, I hate them. Who doesn't? I mean, everybody hates mosquitoes. And I was thinking, I understand, like, mosquitoes need some blood to go procreate. So what's the big deal if they take a little of your blood and go lay some eggs and it's fine. It's part of the circle of life. And then I remembered how many mosquitoes need your blood and how much disease mosquitoes carry. They're a disease vector, and a pretty good one, too. I'm one of those people that they flock to. Oh, yeah. My mom used to say it's because I was sweet. But what she really meant was, it's because you're a sweaty monster. It's because you probably admit a lot of everything. Well, you definitely do. Nonaldheheide. What? I don't why can't I say that nonnano? Your eyes just roll back in your head. I mean, it's spelled you can pronounce it however you like. N-O-N-A-N-A-L. But it's an oil that mosquitoes are bonkers for. I must have it in spades. Yeah. Chuck is half that non and all bam. And then it's technically non and alldehyde. I was just inhabited by a spirit that can really say some words. No, he's gone. All right. Mosquito buddy is Spanish for little fly or little nat or a little nat. Yeah, I think in Europe they called them nats or maybe still call them nats, right? I think so. Are they not on the mosquito train? I don't know. I haven't asked. Somebody from Europe, let us know. Let us know what you call mosquitoes. That's right. And the use of the word mosquito dates back to about 1583 in North America, which is weird that they can trace the etymology back to that. Yeah, that is weird. But I saw no sourcing. No, like, oh, well, it was vasco de gama or something like that. Who said mosquito? It's a little nat, let's call that. Yeah. No idea where it came from, but I've seen it as honed as 1583. Yeah, that sounds made up. Maybe. Online etymology dictionary is usually pretty on point. And they said 1580s, but had no attribution. Really? Interesting. Well, they've been around for 30 million years, no more. Yes. Well, I figured at least 30 million. The oldest fossilized blood that's ever been found was found in, I think, Wyoming in a mosquito that was 46 million years old. Was that one in amber? And did they extract its DNA to make dinosaurs? It was in granite, but it was still colored so you could see the blood. It's crazy. It's intact. Like it went and ate, and I was like, oh, something killed me. Now I'm fossilized the blood of Tuktuk. By the way, go listen to our fossils episode. That is fascinating stuff. It is a good one. Agreed, sir. So mosquitoes, they like to drink your blood, which we'll get into later, but they do this. That makes them, by the way, hematophogic and jerks or hematophobic. Yeah, it's one of those, too. Yeah. There's nothing creepier than being on your deck and seeing a brand new mosquito land on you and you smash it, and there's a lot of blood already there. And you know, it's not yours. It's not yours because to you, it's brand new. You're covered in your neighbor's blood. Guy down the street. Who knows? And who knows what's in that blood? Yeah. Which is why mosquitoes are disease vectors. That's right. So they're going to find you and attack you by using and I like how this article puts it. It sounds more like a military aircraft than an insect because all these sensors, they have chemical sensors that can sniff out that carbon dioxide and lactic acid up to 100ft away. Yes. And if you're breathing, you're giving that junk out. Oh, yeah. You exhale. CO2 and mosquitoes hone in on that. They actually have a neuron receptor that's designed to accept CO2 and say, oh, well, there's a bunch of CO2 over here. I'm going to go attack whatever it's coming out of. There's a blood meal waiting to happen. Exactly. And so they track CO2 they track non and aldehyde. I got it. And other stuff, too, that comes out of your lactic acid in your sweat. They track that, too. So very much the way that we smell things or taste things or see things or hear things. Mosquitoes, since CO2 and other volatile compounds that humans and other warm blooded animals emit yeah. They actually have visual sensors as well. So if you're in the green woods and you're wearing a white T shirt, if it contrasts heavily with the background, you're going to stand out. You want to wear camouflage clothing at all times, all the time, even when you're not in the woods. Just to show off to others. Yeah. And that movement if you're moving around, if you're doing a dance out in the woods with your white frock, you're going to get attacked because you can be sweaty, too. If you're a member of the Polyphonic Spree at a show in the woods, you're getting bit by a mosquito. That's right. And what else? Heat sensors. This one is pretty unbelievable. They actually can detect heat infrared. Like The Predator. Yes. They are basically like the predator. So you want to talk about body parts? Yeah, Tommy, I mean, we kind of have to. Oh, I'm sorry. It was Joey was an airplane, right? Yeah, it was Joey. I saw about half of that the other night. For the first time in forever. I could watch it every week. It's so classic. And Emily wasn't laughing. I was like, this is not your bag, is it? She said, I laughed a lot when I saw it when I was twelve. She didn't like it anymore. It didn't hold up. She's not a big fan of the absurdist scene. That's a shame. It's a good movie still. Yeah, I like it. I haven't seen airplane tuning forever, but I'm quite sure it's still pretty good. Joey, ever been to a Turkish prison? So wrong. You couldn't even make that joke today. No. It's like, write a pedophile joke into your new comedy and see how quickly that kid is like, OOH, why don't we just take that out? It'll sound funnier coming out of Rupert Everett. All right, so body parts. You have your head, and that's where all these lovely sensors are that we talked about. The chemical vigilant heat sensors and the biting apparatus. Yeah. Which the probiscus depending on whether it's a male or female, it's long standing, what you would think is a myth of some sort. That it's just females that bite female mosquitoes. It's absolutely true. The men are just like little hippies eating flower nectar. Yeah. They're not even equipped to bite. Nope. They're incapable of biting you. So if you're ever bitten or stung, whatever you want to call it, by a mosquito, that's a lady. That is a lady. Although she's not acting very ladylike. Blood meals aren't very ladylike. No, she's like the bride. That's right. You're also going to find two compound eyes, some antennae, and then the mouth parts, which we just mentioned. The proviscus mouth part for the lady. Just call it a mouth. Mouth part makes it so gross. Yeah, but I get it. It's science. Okay. And then the PALPAs is another mouth part. Another disturbing word. Thorax. That's the body segment where the wings and legs are attached. Yes. All this makes it insect has two wings and six legs. Yeah. Attached to a thorax. That's an insect, buddy. That's right. They actually have a heart, a little compound heart in that thorax. And then they have their abdomen, which is where they store the digestive organs. And it's where the poops from. Yeah, that's where the blood is, too, I imagine, right, yeah, where their blood meals stored. Blood meals. Really gross. It is. That was from what, the flea episode? Ticks and fleas and yeah. Anything that needs a blood meal. No, thank you. 2700 species of mosquitoes all over the world, and about 13 genera right here in the US. And Chuck, there's actually the Big Three is what they call them. That's what I call them. The big Jordan. Magic Johnson. Larry Bird. You wouldn't include LeBron in that list? Not yet. I think already he just surpassed, like, Jordan and two other guys, I think, last night in stats. He needs to win some more championships before he's on that list. How many Jordan have? Anyone? Like seven or six. Okay. Yeah, I hear that. I see your point. LeBron has got time, though. Yeah, he does. Jordan doesn't. Jordan's time is up. He's finished. Sorry, Michael Jordan, we still think very highly of you. He's going to have someone who's going to put out a hit on both of us. We saw his plane once at PDK Airport. Had to have been his plane because it said Air Jordan. It had the Air Jordan logo, but in North Carolina blue. We're, like, pretty sure that's Michael Jordan's airplane. That's roughly. And it was nice, too. That's awesome. I went and saw him play baseball when he played minor league baseball. Oh, yeah. It was pretty neat. He wasn't very good. No, he went over for four, but it was just neat. Sure. To see Jordan. Absolutely. Went over to Birmingham, Alabama. Oh, yeah. That's what we played for. Over the feeder team for the White Sox. Yeah, I think so. It shows how hard baseball is. He's like one of the greatest athletes of all time, and he didn't hit a curveball. Yeah. All right. I was talking about the Big three. Oh, right. And you facetiously pretended I was talking about basketball players, but no, I was talking about the big three species of mosquitoes that afflict the US. All right, so break it down for me. What are they? Edis Floodwater mosquitoes. Right? Yeah. And those include the yellow fever mosquito, which basically does what it says on the tin spread. Yellow fever. That's right. As advertised. And the Asian tiger mosquito, which I think is probably my favorite mosquito just because of how it looks. Really? They just look compact and striped and just like little sleek meant for business. Yes. The second one is called the anophelis. I think so. And they breed in permanent fresh water, and the malaria mosquito is a member of that one. So that's when you want to avoid as well. Yeah. No good. And then lastly there's qlex or culx. I think it's QUIX. Yeah, that's what I would say culex. And they breathe in quiet standing water, water that's entered introspective repose. Like the stuff that builds up in an old tire or something like that. Yeah, they sound like the dumbass. What the standing water like in an old tire in your yard? Because that is going to breed the heck out of some mosquitoes, especially sulex or kulix. These sound like kind of the dummies of the mosquito world. They only live for a few weeks in the summer, and I think these are the ones that attack me most in Georgia, I'm not mistaken. They're weak flyers is what it says. You can imagine those ones that kind of, like, come at you like, I can't land very well, I just need to bump into you with my probiscus. But actually, the kulax prefer birds over humans. Oh, really? Kind of like that weasel jumping on the back of the woodpecker. Oh, that's right. I feel terrible when I think about a bird being bitten by mosquitoes and not having an arm, just a hand to smack it. Yeah, I do the same thing when they're around my animals, too. You smack them? No, I don't like it. No. No one eats a blood meal off of my dog except me. All right. How about we go splash our faces down with some aqua velvet and continue talking about the lifecycle after this? All right. We mentioned that mosquitoes were insects, and that means that they hatched from eggs. That's right. Like all insects, they could also be precocious birds. In this case, they're not. They're insects. The females are going to lay their eggs in that water, then the larvae and pupa stages are going to live in that water. Pupa essentially change into adults. Right. They leave the water and they become the annoying pests that you hate so much. Yeah, and I didn't realize this, but mosquitoes, they can live from a few days to several weeks, depending on the species, depending on the environmental conditions. And I would have thought that they live a shorter period in colder weather, but actually the opposite is true. They hunker down. Yeah. A female can stay alive in a cool, damp spot over the wintering months until spring comes around. She can get a blood meal and then lay some eggs, which is why she needs your blood. You have proteins in your blood that she needs, and she needs it to lay some eggs. So let's say she's got a blood meal, right? She stuck you and she goes and she lays some eggs, and she's going to lay them in water. And again, depending on the species, different types of water are going to attract them. Like aided, which is a very tough word to say. It's almost all vowels. They're going to lay their eggs in a place that will eventually water will come in contact with it and carry them away rather than directly into water. If you've ever seen standing water, like in that old tire in your backyard, and you see a little grouping of little white looks like a lot of little eggs floating together. Those are mosquitoes. Those are eggs floating together. That's exactly what they are. Exactly. They're sort of laid there in a group, and I think you said this, but it's one blood meal per hatch for egg laying. Yeah. Any time they want to lay eggs, they have to drink that blood meal. And is that the only reason they drink the blood meal? That's all that's what I saw, yes. So when you have a mosquito biting you, that means that they have eggs that they're ready to hatch. Yeah. So when you're killing that mosquito, you're actually even better killing all of its future young. Wow. That makes me feel even better. And then you can also, apparently, you can tell what kind of mosquito species you're looking at based on what hatches. Are the eggs the larvae? Because the eggs hatch and live. They spend the larvae stage and the pupil stage in water. I think, like you said. That's right. The larvae are also called wigglers. And if you've ever seen that same group of eggs look like teeny teeny, teeny little worms, that's the larvae. Yeah. And so anophyles larva will be parallel to the surface of the water, like almost like floating right below it or on the water surface. And then ads and CULC extend down into the water, and they breathe through air tubes like Bugs Bunny. Using a reed. Yeah, like a bamboo reed. They're going to the library's, going to malt, which is shedding their skin a few times, and I believe it's on that fourth malt is when they become real. Is that right? No, they become pupa. Okay. They become the pupa, or pupae or tumblers is what they're called. Basically, they stop eating, and they get ready to spin a sort of cocoon of sorts around themselves, although they're not spinning. Sure. They're enclosing themselves, and then they go in and they turn into adults. They grow their wings, their legs grow out, their probiscus grows out. If they're the hippie male version, their hair grows out down to their shoulders. They actually bust out of that case with air pressure. Yeah. And I looked this up, this article. It makes appearances all over the Internet in various forms. Like, it has been ripped off plenty of time. Really? And I can't find anybody who's like and this is how this is how they use air pressure to break open the cocoon. I have no idea. The only thing I can think of is that they flap their wings enough that it increases the air pressure inside of the enclosure, and it breaks open. I see. I was going to say they blow it out. There promiscuous or something, but what if it's a male? Like, they don't have a probiscus, they can blow it out, or they have mouth parts. They can blow it to their mouth parts. No, I don't know. Yeah, that's as legitimate and suggestion is mine. Or maybe science got to that point and they're like, who cares? Yeah, just kill them. Yeah. When mosquitoes finally do spread their wings and fly like beautiful doves, they want to go out and like most animals find a mate and mate to make more of themselves. That's right. It's like their job, basically. And so the males, they're just sitting there feeding on plant nectar and they're like, me. Okay. Me. Yes, you great. And the female is like, yes, let's do this. And then I'm going to go get a blood meal. And you go off and die and then I'll die later on. Yeah, pretty much. Not a lot of purpose to the mosquitoes life. Well, we'll talk about that a little bit later about whether or not we even need mosquitoes. Oh, good. I would love to talk about that. Okay. But not right now. Let's talk about the bites. When they bite you with that probiscus, they actually have an anticoagulant protein in the saliva that they're going to spit out on you and it's going to keep that blood free flowing while they're sucking it up. Exactly. A female mosquito will eat until she's full. And apparently if you cut the sensory nerve to her abdomen and cut off her indicator that she is full, she just eat until she exploded. Yeah, that's what the sadist with too much time on his hands does and very tiny tools. Yeah. He captures mosquitoes severs that thing so they can gorge themselves. Here's an arm. Go to town. Can you imagine seeing that? Oh my God, I kind of have seen it. There was a Tabasco commercial from years ago where like this kind of cajun dude is eating pizza with Tabasco on it, remember? No. And then like a mosquito comes and sucks his blood and flies off and it's flying away and explodes in flames. So you have seen it kind of on TV. That's very nice. After you get bitten, the saliva is what causes that immune response that you know, as the bumpy itch. But science calls it a wheel wheal. Yeah. That's the puffy area around the little center prick part. Yeah. And that's your body's immune response being mounted against that anti coagulant saliva that remains after the mosquitoes flown off. And the wheel will eventually get better and go away, but the itch will remain and the itch is an indicator that your white blood cells are still fighting off or breaking down that protein in the anticoagulant saliva. Have you ever heard the old wives sale that if you put an X or cross with your fingernail it won't itch? No. You never heard that? No, that was a big childhood thing. Like if you cross make an X on the mosquito bite with your fingernail really deeply, it won't itch anymore and it always seemed to work, and I looked that up, and it's actually a thing researchers at the American Allergy Institute released findings about four years ago that said that's actually an effective technique, and they said it outperformed. They did study the on several hundred people and outperformed any anti. Itch remedies, like over the counter stuff that you could put on it. They reckon that it works because it limits the immune response from the binding of antibodies to antigens in the saliva. Basically, it just digs deep and disrupts that. So there you have it, apparently. It's true. Old wives, right again. That's right. So, Chuck, in addition to having an itch from a bite and having the anticoagulant protein from the mosquito saliva stuck in your skin, it gets way worse than that as far as mosquitoes go. Mosquitoes, like I said, I said it before and I'll say it again, mosquitoes are a disease vector to the Nth degree. Yeah. One of the things that they're very famous for spreading, as a matter of fact, as we saw, there was a mosquito species that included a type called the malaria. Mosquito is malaria. And malaria is a viral infection. No, I'm sorry. It's a parasite that you catch from the anopheles mosquito. Yeah. And it takes anywhere from a few days to a few months for symptoms to develop. As the infection grows in your bloodstream and you're in big trouble. Yeah. You're going to be headache and muscle achy and feverish and chilly. It can kill you. But they do have antimalarial drugs, and I think that's one of those you can get not a vaccine, but can't you take drugs before you go on a trip like that? To combat malaria? Yeah. And you can drink gin and tonics, which originally developed by the British when they took over India and were exposed to malaria. Really? Yeah. Tonic water contains quinnine, which is found in the bark of the chicona tree, aka the fever tree, and it cures and prevents malaria. So they would drink gin, which they already had on them all the time, and this tonic water and then apparently, tonic water was even more bitter back in the day than it is today. So they would add something like lime or cucumber or something like that. But lime had the added benefit of kissing off scurvy as well. Or preventing scurvy. Yeah, I knew that. So the average stay sailor in the British Navy in the mid 18th or 19th century had a supply of gin, tonic water and limes. Put them all together, you got a gin and tonic and you're preventing malaria. Or preventing it doesn't ward off mosquitoes, does it? No, it prevents malaria. Okay. I guess it prevents the parasite from spreading in your body. Got you the chinchona. The quinine prevents the parasite from taking hold. Well, I guess I'm safe, then. You're safe. But apparently 1 million people die every year still from malaria. Unbelievable. That's inexcusable in this day and age, with the ubiquity of malarial drugs in the west. Agreed. It's like share the wealth. A million people a year from malaria. That's really sad. It is. Yellow fever is another big problem. We don't have it here in the US or Europe anymore, but it is still all over the place in South America and Africa, and it's sort of symptomatic like malaria, except worse. But nausea, vomiting, jaundice. And it can also kill you. Yes. They treat the symptoms, but there is no cure, right? Yeah, there is no cure. And the only prevention, really, is to prevent mosquitoes from biting you, which is a tall order, I imagine. Parts of South America. Yeah. Then there's encephalitis, and the most famous of the encephalitis that spread viral cephalitis that spread by mosquitoes. West Nile virus. Yeah. I thought this is interesting. It said several types include Equine, Eastern, Equine, West Nile and St. Louis. Yeah. Just sort of stood out as odd to me. You will get a high fever, stiff neck, headache, confusion, laziness, sleepiness. I might have west last night, now that I think about it. We'll talk a little more about west. Now, when we talk about mosquito repellent, there's a couple more that mosquitoes are well known for spreading dengue fever spread by my favorite, the Asian tiger mosquito that produces everything from viral flu to hemorrhagic fever. Apparently, it just mainly stuck around East Asia. And then in 1985, it made its first appearance in the United States. Introducing dengue fever in the US. Yes. And then worms, too. They spread worms. Oh, really? Specifically types of worms that like to root into your eye and make you blind. Wow. Yeah. They're disease factors. HIV is not spread by mosquitoes. Everybody knows this by now. Don't you remember being a kid, though, and being like, oh, God. Yeah. I remember growing up in that generation thinking, wait a minute. And I didn't see it on the news as a concern. I remember having my own original thought of, hold on a minute. If you can get HIV through blood and mosquitoes, that's not my blood. And it's like a little needle. I know, actually, it's like, someone's going to get this and things are going to change. But luckily, thankfully, they found out that the virus cannot survive in a mosquito. No. Apparently it has a lot of trouble surviving outside of its human host. Yeah. It just doesn't live very long. We really need to do an HIV. I know it's been long promised. We will do that very soon. So, Chuck, we talked about all the stuff mosquitoes can spread, and a lot of these things like yellow fever and West Nile virus, they're difficult to treat, and the best thing you can do is to prevent mosquitoes from biting you. Actually, I mentioned what was it, dengue fever that made its appearance in the United States in 1985? Yeah. In 1999. I don't know if you remember this or whatever, but there was a panic. I do. All of a sudden, in New York State, I think something like five or six people, seven people died in just over a month from September to October of 1999. They died of viral encephalitis. Right. Yeah. And the health officials were like, what is going on? And they couldn't find anything in common with these people. There was no normal epidemiological marks. Right. They just couldn't figure out where it's coming from. And then they finally identified it as West Nile virus that was being carried by mosquitoes, and everybody freaked out. Sure. Part of the problem with this was that at the time, a lot of people were suddenly questioning what we were using as mosquito repellent, which is also called deep. That was the primary mosquito repellent that was in use and still is today. And at the time, people were just starting to question because there are a lot of studies about whether DEET was safe specifically for pregnant ladies and kids. Yeah. Do you want to read the word that is DEET? Sure. All right, go ahead. N n diethylm Tulumide. Yeah. To luamide. Almost had it, man. Try again. N n diethylm tulumid. Yeah, I think that's exactly right, my friend, which is DEET somehow. That's what it's abbreviated as. Yeah. DEET. And it was created by the USDA, the Department of Agriculture, in 1946. Of course, for the army, it was a military thing, like, so many things created, and eventually it made its way over to consumers in the 1950s. And like you said, over the years, it's been sort of maligned and embraced like a roller coaster. Sure. But in 1999 and the height of this West Nile panic, it was the bottom of fake 8th in DEET as a safe product. That was Deet's lowest day. Yes. It's a dark day. So one of the reasons that people were suspicious of DEET is that it's a plasticizer, which means it can melt plastic. Yeah. That's one thing. That's enough for me. So spray that on your skin. And then there was a study in 2002 of about 900 pregnant women in Thailand, and it investigated their bloodstream for DEET. And the thing is, with DEET, when you put it on your skin, most of the time, it's absorbed at a rate that your liver can break it down. And when you finally pee it out, it's been completely metabolized. And it's safe, I guess. Right. That's what they said. Well, the study in Thailand showed something different, and it scared everybody. Yeah. It showed that they actually found the chemical in the umbilical cord of 8% of the women. Yeah. So that crossed the placental barrier, and that freaked people out. Yes. So understandably. Right. That spread like wildfire. Everybody was freaked out about deep, and then simultaneously, there were long standing reports of children having seizures from using DEET. Yeah. Is that true? I can't. Quite tell. What I get is if you use DEET in normal concentrations on your skin, which they say it used to be 75%, but then they found that anything over 50 is really about the same. Right? Yeah. It's diminished returns. Yeah. So you want to just use 50 or no more than 50. And when they figure that out, they just dropped it down to 30. They rounded down for some reason. Right. But apparently if you use it in normal concentration on your skin, you're okay, allegedly. And a bunch of different groups have come out and said, deep is okay as long as you follow the label and you're using a normal concentration. If you get it in your mouth, for example, though, then all of a sudden the concentrations are hundreds of times higher than if it's on your skin. So these kids licking their arms and stuff, supposedly that was the common link to the seizures in kids, but apparently it was never demonstrated to everyone's satisfaction. Some people are like, well, seizures are way more common in children than in adults. So maybe it's just a coincidence that these kids also had bug spray on at the time they had their seizure. Got you. I try not to use deep. No. And you are one of enough people that there's a pretty decent market for alternatives to deep for mosquito repellents that have been developed over the years. That's what I usually do. What do you use? Back in the day, I used the old Skin So Soft, which yeah, I don't know. Maybe it worked a little bit. Well, you know, it's funny. It's like this whole deep scare. People started asking questions about deep, and they're like, well, how does it work? And apparently, scientists, they had to say, like, we're not 100% sure. Oh, really? We think that it confuses it masks the CO2 that's emitted by humans. Interesting. So that's what they think. They've also found that since Deed is really effective at doing that, they found other compounds, too, that do similar things that fit a CO2 receptor or a non on all receptor. And so the mosquito is confused and doesn't know where to bite or sting or whatever. Got you. I think Emily made a little homemade concoction once, I think, out of that lemon eucalyptus oil that you mentioned in your own article. Yes, that's one. Lemon eucalyptus oil there's soybean oil. Yeah. That's supposed to work pretty good, right? Supposedly, a 2% concentration of soybean oil prevents mosquitoes from biting between one and a half and 7 hours. That's pretty great. And this is soybean oil. This is the same stuff you can, like, eat in your food, so it's very safe. What about citronella oil? Because Jerry came in here bragging about all her citronella oil plants that she has surrounded her lavish gardens. Jerry was wrong. So the citronella oil apparently does kind of work, but it works way better if you extract the active ingredient. Right. Geraniol. So if you've got the citronella torches, then that's doing a better job than just having the plant around, correct? I would guess, if anything, that's probably attracting them through the heat. Oh, attracting them, I would guess. But see, I think the smoke helps get rid of them, too, though. So there's two things you can do with mosquitoes, right? You can protect yourself by masking yourself from the volatile compounds that you're emitting. Right. And then you can also distract them, bait them. Somebody did a study in 2013 at UC Riverside. They analyzed half a million compounds that had a structure that fit mosquito CO2 receptors, and they found 138 that were safe ish. Yeah. And they zoned in on two of them. One is Ethyl pyrovate, which has a fruity smell that humans find pleasant, and testing it's safe for use in foods, and it apparently masks the skin as well as deep does and own, which has a minty smell nice. That attracts mosquitoes that you could use for a trap that you put in the back of your yard. Right. I will say this, they make a lot of things like mosquito traps, bug zappers, which do not work. If you have a bug zapper, all you're doing is killing a lot of really cool insects, like moths and things. Right. Those things that you hook up to like a tank and roll out into your yard. I don't think those are supposed to work very well. It's like propane. I don't know what it is. I've seen it before, though. Okay. I don't think it's propane. I'll have to look into that. But I've heard they don't work. Do you remember that years back it was kind of a trend among radio stations? They said that they were playing a low frequency sound, that mosquitoes that humans couldn't hear, but repelled mosquitoes. Why? Just to listen to their station, I guess. I don't know if it was actually transmitted or if it was just a hoax. It sounds like a hoax to me. So you said you had something about mosquitoes and whether we actually need them or not, right? Yeah, but real quickly. They also make mosquito proof clothing where iron suits no, but chemicals are actually in the fabric itself to ward off mosquitoes. I remember I wrote something about that at one point, and I just remember thinking, I'm never going to buy something like this and wash them with my regular clothes. Yeah. Maybe I'm an alarmist. Supposedly there's a chemical that is just to be used on your clothing, not your skin is, because it's a deadly poison neurotoxin to humans. Yeah. We should actually say the name of that. Permethrin. Yeah. That is for clothing only. And if I see something like that, I'm just not going to use it. Right. Don't get any on your skin, but you can put it on your T shirt just fine. Don't look at heppy funball. So we have another article on our website called what if Mosquitoes went it's extinct? Because apparently there are some scientists that have been investigating like how to increase the male population enough that there just aren't females anymore and no more offspring. Yeah, and there's a few things. There are some birds in the Arctic tundra that migrate and feed on mosquitoes, so it could disrupt that. And then of course, the whole chain reaction thing that we've talked about before in the food chain. What could that mean? There's actual mosquito fish and other fish feed on mosquitoes in their larvae. But the general consensus from science is if mosquitoes went away, they'd probably just adapt and find other meals and it wouldn't set off some awful reaction like bees would. Well, we could use this as proof positive once and for all that humans are capable or never ever should intervene in ecology and ecological stuff. Let's do it. Let's see if we can remove mosquitoes from the planet. And a lot of what happened, I was waiting for some big thing like mosquitoes are really so important, right? But not really. Nope. Like the animals, they'll just those fish. The mosquito fish, I guess will be the whatever, the natfish or the fly fish. Yeah, like fly larva more. Anyway, I don't care. Yeah, I say that's worthy of an experiment. Let's get rid of it. I have feel not bad at all about saying that. If you want to know more about mosquitoes, you're born enemy. You can type that word into the search bar. Howstep works.com. And since I said search bar, it's time for listener mail. I am going to call this one. What is this? I see dead people. Guys, I've been listening to your awesome show for about a year and I'm working my way through the back catalog. Last week I listened to you how stunt men and stunt women work. It's a great episode. Chuck mentioned the Vic Morrow helicopter accident from The Twilight Zone and said it was actually on YouTube, which is something I never knew despite the warning from Chuck not to watch. I did it. Yeah, next time I'll listen. Pretty rough. It is rough. One thing I did learn, though, from the accident was the subsequent research on it was that John Landis directed that segment, which I knew because he brought up on charges. This brings me to the reason I'm writing. I met John Landis a couple of years ago at the Burbank airport. He was really friendly and jovial and took a picture with my friend, in my opinion, in the opinion of many others. By the way, Landis's actions heavily contributed to the tragic death of Vic Morrow and the two children. Despite living in La. And working in the entertainment industry, I really don't meet many celebrities and consider life to be easier because of it. However, other celebrities I have met include Aaron Hernandez, who's the new England patriot that's in for murder right now. Yeah. And Ray Lewis, who was acquitted of murder back in the day. And while I didn't officially meet him, charles S. Dutton was in my office once, and we exchanged polite nod. So when you add them all up, the celebrities I personally encountered range from definitely to possibly responsible for nine violent deaths. Wow. How about that? Jeez. Charles Dutton. Did he kill somebody? Yeah. He spent his youth in prison. That's right. He went to prison and got out and became famous. Right. Okay. I've learned a great deal from your podcast over the year that I've been listening, and now I have learned that for my own safety and for the betterment of humanity in general, my celebrity interactions must be kept to a minimum. I know for legal reasons, this email will never make it unlistener mail. Reverse psychology. That kind of always works. Actually. I don't see what the legal reasons are. It's nothing. This guy's, like, signed a lawyer inflammatory in here. And that is from name Redacted. Thank you, name Redacted. You have an unusual name. Yeah, he also goes by Anonymous. Oh. Or Yad. Detroit. That's right. That's what we should use as a name. Redacted or Anonymous. Yeah. Detroit. All right. Thank you, Detroit, for that email. Way to go. Yeah. Detroit. If you want to get in touch with us and let us know any weird stuff about yourself, that's pretty cool. You can tweet to us at syskpodcast. You can join us on Facebook.com stuffycheanow. You can send us an email at the stuffpodcast@housetofworks.com. And as always, join us at our home on the Web stuffyshow.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit housestepworks.com."
http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/podcasts.howstuffworks.com/hsw/podcasts/sysk/2017-08-26-sysk-stockholm.mp3	SYSK Selects: Is Stockholm Syndrome real?	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/sysk-selects-is-stockholm-syndrome-real	In this week's SYSK Select episode, since a hostage standoff in Sweden took place in 1972 a peculiar and mysterious psychological phenomenon has had a name. But is Stockholm Syndrome real? And what conditions have to be present? Join Chuck and Josh as the	In this week's SYSK Select episode, since a hostage standoff in Sweden took place in 1972 a peculiar and mysterious psychological phenomenon has had a name. But is Stockholm Syndrome real? And what conditions have to be present? Join Chuck and Josh as the	Sat, 26 Aug 2017 20:56:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2017, tm_mon=8, tm_mday=26, tm_hour=20, tm_min=56, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=5, tm_yday=238, tm_isdst=0)	32630166	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Hey, everybody, it's me, Josh. And this Saturday for SYSK selects I chose is Stockholm syndrome real? It originally ran in November of 2012, and it's got it all, mostly kidnapping, but some other stuff as well. It's just one of my all time favorite episodes, so check it out. Hope you enjoy it. Welcome to stuff you should know from housetopworkscom. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. With me, as always, with Charles W, Chuck Bryant, and I'm still sick. I'm sorry about that. This is actually me with my nose blown. I think at this point we could recommend to listeners who typically listen with earbuds or headphones, maybe give this one a try just in your car speakers. It's probably a good idea. Yes. Jerry was like, dude, have you heard this through headphones? Did you listen to it? No, not yet. But we don't wear headphones here, which is odd for audio recording. Yeah. A lot of people like hearing headphones right in there. I don't like that. We're told we're the only ones here who don't do that. Hey, we're trailblazed. Maybe that's the secret. Chuck? Yes? Have you ever been kidnapped? Not in the strictest of senses. I have been kidnapped in the fun church youth group way. Oh, for like, diabetes or something? Yeah. Like when someone comes back and kidnaps you for a cause. Right? Yeah, which is an odd thing to do. I always felt kind of left out because no one ever kidnapped me for any cause. Yeah. Maybe I'll do that one day. Just get the crap out of you, break into your house, ski mask on duct tape. I probably recognize you by your clothes. You can wear a ski mask and be like, smell. What are you doing? Yeah, I know that kidnapper. I know that beast. Do smell. Anyway, it's a good thing that you were kidnapped just for a cause, because there's a very low likelihood that you would have suffered from what's known as Stockholm Syndrome, from being held basically ransom until you raise X number of dollars for Juvenile Diabetes Foundation. Right. There are a lot of cases, a surprising amount of cases, even in the statistics that are used to poopoo the concept of Stockholm Syndrome or its prevalence. Right. It's still a surprising amount of cases of people who are abducted, people who are held as slaves or hostages. Yeah. It's not like a ransom deal. It's just I'm going to take you now and put you in my seller for 15 years, depending on how you look at it. But yeah, it depends on the factors involved. But there is a weird phenomenon that we do not yet have fully pinned down yet. Even that toy dinosaur can tell you what it is. And it's called Stockholm Syndrome. That's right. And it's a crazy thing because it's a psychological disorder that almost no one ever will endure. The press loves it, so they talk about it all the time, and it has an awesome backstory. So basically it has everything there for everyone to just overestimate the prevalence of it. Yeah, I think the press loves it because it has the name and like you said, the cool back story. But I don't agree. But to the press, I think they think it's just like, how can anyone ever feel for their captor? It's so remarkable that this happens. But when I read this article, I'm kind of like I get it a little bit. In some cases, especially in this day and age, after so many incidents of it being reported and covered in, like, us and people and time and whatever, it almost comes off as disingenuous where the press, the tabloid press particularly, is like, how could this person identify sensational and not, like, empathetic, it seems like. But that's the point, though. I mean, I guess we should probably define what Stockholm syndrome is for that one person who doesn't know. Yeah, it's well, when you're held captive for some period of time and you end up and it's actually not always being held captive because they said in battered spouse cases or slave master relationship, you end up feeling empathy and identifying somewhat with your captor. Yeah. Destructive culture. Another one. Yeah. And I would advise everybody to go listen to the Brainwashing episode if you've already heard it. A lot of this stuff is going to sound kind of familiar because the two share a lot of common traits. Very true. There are some specific traits to Stockholm syndrome, some factors that psychology generally agrees have to be present for somebody to develop Stockholm syndrome. But let's talk about where this came from. You want to? Sure. The first 73, I wonder what they called it before this. I saw two other names for it, but I don't know if they predated Stockholm syndrome. Terror bonding and trauma bonding. Terror bonding or traumatic bonding. A new kind of phrase. It seems like a traumatic bonding. Was the other one that's the no frills, like, we're not sensationalizing here. This is the real deal. Well, it came from a bank robbery in Stockholm, Sweden, and this article actually has it wrong. It says two men entered the bank. Yeah, it was actually just one dude, Olson, entered the bank. Cops showed up for this bank robbery shootout happens injures some cops. He takes some hostages, and then he demands that his buddy Olafsson, who I think just got out of jail. No, he was in jail. I thought. Oh, he was in jail? Yeah. And they freed him and sent him to this bank and I guess was like, thanks, buddy. Yeah. Here's a gun. Yeah. You're now in a hostage stand off with and he was kind of a career criminal, so I doubt if he was like, well, great. Now I was two months from being let out. Now here I am holding people hostage. Yes. The second guy I thought looked a little bit like Koresh. Oh, really? Yeah, a little bit. Which one, olson or Erickson? Because olson. Olafson. Okay. Yeah. Olson or Olafson? Yeah, Olson looks kind of like Charlie Manson a little bit. Then again, 1973, everybody looks like Charlie Manson. So what happens in this case is it's a standoff, there's a hostage situation. And reportedly the hostages ended up showing love for the captors and were sort of against the cops. And one reason I saw sighted was because they felt like the cops were put them in more danger with their violent tactics that they thought were coming down upon them. Yeah. So that's what happened. They said Stockholm syndrome. I read this right up by the guy, a psychologist named Nils Bergerott. He was actually one of the hostage negotiators, a liaison for the police to these hostage takers at Credit Bonkan. Is that how you say it? What? The bank? Yes, credit Bonkan. Yeah, credit Bonkan. So he was there, and he's usually credited with coining the term Stockholm syndrome. But he was saying, like, after talking with these guys, that they weren't insane, they weren't on drugs. They were, like you said, career criminals. And every move they made was to benefit themselves or their situation. It was beneath them to hurt these people, to hurt their hostages. But they love shooting at cops because they hated cops, and they were not above threatening these hostages lives to the point where the hostages were taking it seriously. But, yes, it seemed like the police were putting them in danger with these raids. Yeah. What surprised me was how quickly the only reason Stockholm syndrome makes sense to me is that when it takes place over, like, years, this was a little weird to me. Okay, here's the thing. There's a great debate over whether and by great debate, people disagree over whether Stockholm syndrome develops over a short, intense period or a long protracted period. So, like in the case of, say, Natasha Campus yeah. Let's tell her story, I guess, real quick. Okay. She was an Austrian girl who disappeared in 1998 on the way to school, and she was kept in a 54 square foot seller with soundproof with no windows by Wolfgang Pricopelle and told her the doors and windows were boobytrapped. You can't escape. How many years was this? She was held for eight years. Sorry. And they ended up she went on a ski vacation with them. Eventually was like, let out of the basement during the day, had to go back at night always. And I would go to restaurants occasionally. And she eventually escaped when she was vacuuming, and he took a phone call, went in the other room. She left the vacuum running and bolted, which is pretty smart. And when he found out, she eventually made it to a neighbor's house and went inside. And this old lady called the cops, and she's like, I'm this girl that's been missing all these years, and eventually he jumped in front of a train when he found out she got out, killed himself, and apparently she cried and lit candles at the morgue where he was kept and also denied that she suffered from Stockholm syndrome. Okay, so can I give you another one? Yeah. JC. Lee Duggard. Yeah, I remember that one. Much more recent, much more familiar, I'm sure, to those of us in the US. Especially those of us who pay attention to us weekly, but she was held for 18 years. She assisted her captor with his home business captures with their home business emailed customers, took phone calls from customers, greeted customers at the door by herself. Basically, it was a lot like Natasha's story, where she was living out in plain sight with these people and had all these opportunities to make a run for it, and like, never did. He was a kidnapper. He was already served time for kidnapping. Yeah, I believe so. When she was finally freed, I guess her stepfather was explaining it to the press that she really had strong feelings for this guy and that she thought of this as like a marriage. Basically, she was held captive for 18 years. Right. So on one side, those are two really good examples of Stockholm syndrome, to coming to see your captor as your husband or to cry and light candles at morgue for your captor after he kills himself. But then on the other side, there's like the remember the TWA hijackers? Yeah. Somebody who was freed after that relatively short standoff said that they weren't bad people. Quote, the terrorists weren't bad people. They let me eat, they let me sleep, they gave me my life. Wow. And that was a really short, brief, intense encounter. And those are kind of the different sides of the whole thing. So, like, which one, if you become a member of your captors family, is that Stockholm syndrome? Or is it a slightly different animal if you come to see your captors, your savior, simply because they're letting you live over the course of, like, 24 hours while they're holding you, is that Stockholm syndrome? Which one is which? Because we have slightly different things going on, and they're both really abnormal, psychologically speaking. Agreed. And I think it was the girl in Austria said that, on the plus side, I didn't drink or do drugs or smoke, and I didn't hang out with bad kids. Right. Yeah. Because I was a seller. Obviously, we're not laughing at her, but it was definitely a unique take on being held captive. Yes. And one of the things too, I guess, we'll eventually get to Patty Hearst, but in the case of these girls, they were like the one was ten years old when she was originally kidnapped. Right. So, I mean, when you're ten, I think you would be much more susceptible to something like this over the course of your entire adolescence, growing up as your teenage years like this. It makes sense to me a little bit that you accept it and see these people as your protectors anyway. But that's the common thread, whether it's a short, brief, intense period or 18 years of captivity. Right. The common thread is that Stockholm syndrome developing it is seen as a survival strategy. Yeah. So let's talk about the factors involved, shall we? We shall. What traits must be present? The three traits are a severely uneven power relationship, which makes sense. The captor is completely in charge of every facet of your life. When you eat, when you sleep, how you sleep, where you sleep, what you eat, what you drink, if you can shower or not, like, everything if you can talk. Yeah, true. Whether or not you're, like, chained to a bed or a threat of death or physical injury. And a lot of times that includes, like, rape and assault and severe beatings. There's another one. I'll talk about that in a second, but there's a disagreement about whether that can be present or not. Really? Yeah. And then finally, self preservation instinct, which is what we were talking about, they believe, like, the only way my butt's going to get out of here is if I obey. Yeah, obey. And it's called a healthy ego self preservation instinct. Like, your ego starts to take over and says, okay, we need to figure out how to stay alive here with the lotion on the skin. Right, exactly. Or else it gets the hose again. The ego takes over because all other normal tactics available to any free human being to stay alive grabbing a gun, calling the police, shouting, whatever, are stripped from that person. Well, sure. In the case of the Austrian girl, she was told things were booby trapped, like windows and doors and that he said he had a gun on them at all times. And when you're ten and you grow up like this, how are you going to figure this out? You're not watching TV. You're obviously not on the Internet. Like, for all she knew, things were booby trapped and she's trying to live. There's two other factors that usually have to be present, too, is the prisoner has to believe that escape is impossible, like you were saying, whether it's booby traps or whatever, that there's just no escape. Right. There's no other thing to focus the mind on. Like, how can I dig my way out of here? It's totally focused on the captor being the means of escape or survival. And then the prisoner also has to be isolated. So this one kind of, like, undermines the idea of somebody who's held captive in plain sight for 18 years developing classic Stockholm syndrome. Right. Because if you are totally isolated from the outside world, other opinions of the captor are sequestered from you. Yeah. So that Lieutenant Denzel Washington out there, an inside man, and what he thinks of Clive owens is not coming through. Right. All you have is your increasingly deranged mind to tell you what you think about Clive Owens. Right. I'm going to add my own here, too. Okay. I think that part of it has to do with just human's desire to connect with another human. Oh, yeah. And if all you've got is this one person, and it's over the course of eight to 18 years, that's going to take over at some point, and you're going to want to connect with this person. You know, I think you may have just hit upon the distinction between the short, intense period and the long duration. Yeah. Because think about it, if you are just kept apart from everybody else, you do still have that need to connect with that's. Brilliant, Chuck. That may be the most brilliant thing you said yet. My dinosaurs clapping. Yeah. It's better than the caveman melton. The neanderthal is a good theory. Okay. So we know all of the stuff that has to be present. Right. Basically, you're a hostage that is totally subject to the whims of your captor. You think you're going to die. You don't think there's any escape. You're sequestered away from other people. And your captor likes to remind you that he or she is in charge. Yes. Okay, let's talk about the stages. Well, that is the first stage. Yeah. I just went over it. Okay. Also threatening the family, like, hey, you love your little brother and your mom and your dad? Well, I can kill them very easily if you try to escape. And if you're talking to a little ten year old girl, that's going to do some serious damage. It has more effect than, say, I'm like a 40 year old single guy. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Or a married guy. Well, no, I don't know. You could still threaten a married guy's family. A family man's family. Yeah. But I think they would react like Harrison Fordwood on Air Force One. Not cowering. They'd be like, oh, yeah. What was the famous line? You shouldn't test me. No, it was Get off my plane. Oh, yeah, that's what it was. You shouldn't test me. That's pretty good, though. I think that was in the initial script. Of course, my line got revised. Very funny. So time goes on, and then what happens is the captor gets stressed out, because I'm sure it's pretty stressful to keep someone captive like that. So the captain, the kidnapping, sees these wild mood swings, maybe, and maybe feels threatened by this. And in order to survive again, they feel like they have to learn the emotional patterns of this person. What happens is they end up connecting by learning about this person, by studying their behavior, they get to know them in, like, that sense. Right? Yeah. And that's like when they figure out that just obeying everything the person says is not enough. Right. Because the fuzz outside shooting tear gas into the bank vault is really starting to tick the hostage. Take her off, and you can obey all day long. But the police are screwing things up. And that's also about the time when that third step where you come to see the outside world, the people who are trying to rescue you, as harmful as a threat. So you get to know your Captor, you're obeying, and then it comes, this part where if you listen to the Brainwash episode, this will make a lot of sense. Your Captor displays some minor bit of kindness towards you. Yeah. This is the key, I think. And this is why they think possibly abuse can't be present, because it breaks down this very essential ingredient of kindness. Or it can. Well, or if the abuse stops, they said sometimes just the lack of violence from a certain point is seen as like, will you do me a kindness? Okay. Quit beating and raping me. So I would agree with you on that one, but for the most part, say it could be offering food. It could be something as simple as stopping abusing somebody or just saying, I'm not going to kill you yet, or just not killing that person yet. Right. And the hostage comes to see the Captor as some sort of savior, because the Captor not only can kill you because he's got your life in his hands, he's not killing you, which means he's protecting you. And now your brain just broke a little bit. Well, if they're the one bringing you your food and water and books and magazines, they're essentially the one caring for you because they're keeping you alive. And in the case of JC. Lee Duggard, I think on the very first day after she was handcuffed and raped, the guy started to tell her amusing stories and things. I mean, this dude was seriously twisted. Wow. And would get her fast food and things like that. So kind of right out of the gate, he would, like, do these little random acts of kindness, which I'm sure just confused the hell out of her. Oh, yeah, I'll bet. Because she was pretty young when she was I think she was 1011. There's nothing like you imagine you could do to these people that would be as bad as what they did to those. No, it's absolutely true. There's another woman, whose name I don't recall, who was kept in a box wow. Under a bed. Elenah. No, it was like, for real. For years. She wasn't allowed out or anything like that. She was kept in a box. Yeah. And it's like you raised a pretty good point. What can you possibly do to somebody who did that to someone else? I mean, do you think just desserts. Like eye for an eye? Yes. Well, you put them in prison and they eventually get out. Or don't. I guess that's similar. But prison, although it has some of those hallmarks because the guards are in charge and can beat you up and do a lot of stuff, you're still connected in some ways to the outside world, and there's still a lot of independence that prisoner would have that somebody like being held hostage like this. It would probably be solitary confinement for the duration. The old Quaker sentence, right? Yeah. Remember, they're the ones who came up with solitary. Oh, yeah, that's right. So you could think about what you did. The Captain now has emerged as your savior and as a friend, kind of. And I think it's in the sense of, you know, when you go through something, like, really hardcore and intense and threatening with somebody, but it's not because of them, you can feel either tight with that person, or you can feel like Homer and Mr. Burns getting trapped in the house during the avalanche. I can never want to talk about it again. Yeah, you never want to see that weirdo again. Yeah, right. That's true. But this would be type A. But you're identifying with your captor like. You guys are going through this crazy. Intense thing together. And you're throwing out the window the fact that the Captain has started all this and has dragged you into it. Put your life in jeopardy. And now you're friends with this person. And you think that if you guys work together. You can get out of this mess and maybe. Like. Go live in Jamaica and hang out. Well, and I'm sure that the captors, at some point over the course of these years, say things to reinforce that. Like, what are we doing here? What's going on? I've kept you in this thing, and look at this mess we are in. You think, oh, I'm just surmising, but, yeah, I think well, like, say in a bank robbery or something. It's like if you have classic Stockholm Syndrome, you're saying, like, let me talk to the cops. I'll get us out of here. I'll tell them that they got it all wrong, or something like that. That level of identifying with your captor is now you just raised yourself to the same level as the bank robber as well, which I guess probably gives you a little bit of humanity. Yeah, sure. So the prevalence of this stuff is definitely debatable. There's an actual database, Chuck, called the Hostage Barricade Database System, and it's an FBI database, and it's 4700 cases of people basically taking hostages. Wow. And surveying this, they found about 73% of hostages, showed no signs whatsoever of Stockholm Syndrome. Are these kidnappings or hostages or both? I would say hostage taking. I believe so. That means 27% of people do show some affinity. It's pretty high. You would think so, but at the same time, you can also say, well, like, some high percentage of hostage taking or domestic disputes where you know the person so they already have an affinity for them. Yeah, that's true. If they shoot themselves, then you immediately feel bad for that person, too. So we almost need a set of data just about, like, strangers taking strangers hostage. Exactly. That would give us probably a better view of Stockholm syndrome. That's true. I think I had a larger point, but I don't remember what it was. Yeah. Oh, I've got it. Are you ready? Yeah. So despite a lot of law enforcement people poopooing the idea of Stockholm syndrome or it's prevalent, they do think that there's something to it. And they actually, hostage negotiators encourage the formation of Stockholm syndrome. Because it keeps the guys alive. Yes, because when you hit a certain point where you've got a classical Stockholm syndrome case going on, but with the hostages identifying with their captor as a friend, they may turn on the police, and it may make prosecution, even down the road, harder, because the people may refuse to testify. But in the short term, it can help keep the hostages alive, because the captor, in turn, will start to see the hostages as human beings, because these are people who are coming at them like friends. So what's going on? And, like, what's your first name? And kids? And now the idea of executing these people is much more removed. Interesting. So, yeah, hostage negotiators will try to, like, get the whole stock home thing going. So now this can live in a suite with brainwashing cults hostage negotiations. Yeah. And that's probably it. Right. Amazing. It is now a four podcast suite. It is. Where it was previously. Three. It is. We're not done yet. No, we're not. So I guess we should wrap up with Patty Hearst very famous case of Stockholm syndrome. Granddaughter of William Randolph Hearst, the newspaper magnet was famously kidnapped by the Symbiones Liberation Army in the was reportedly abused and brainwashed to a certain degree and ended up sort of joining them in a famous robbery. Yeah, she turned into a bank robber, like, with the bray and the machine gun and the whole deal. Everyone seeing the photo. Yeah. But then after she was freed, she publicly came out against the Civilian Liberation Army right. And opposed it, which is unusual for somebody with Stockholm syndrome. And a lot of people thought maybe she was faking it, maybe she was making it up. But I think the consensus now is that it was just a survival tactic. Yeah, but I remember many years ago, when I was a little kid hearing about this, like, oh, some people thought she like you said, now she's tricking all us. She really did get into it. And she's trying to save her bacon. Right, because look at that photo with a machine gun in the beret. It's very convincing. Yeah. But definitely interesting. And then it's a war hall, isn't it? Didn't he paint that? Oh, really? I think so. He painted that photo, and then he went on to or she went onto starring John Waters. Movies? Yes, oddly enough. Have you seen the thing on the video of verna Herzog, like, figuring out that John waters is gay? No. It's pretty great, really. He's talking to people, and, you know, the accent is just what makes it so priceless about how people are just people. To me, I don't even think about gayle straight or something. And I've known John Watters for like, 20 something years, and I love him. And I said to my wife recently, I said, I think he might be gay. And everyone in the room just cracked up. He was just illustrating a point. Like, I just don't even see people like that. It never dawned on me that John Watters was gay. Yeah, it's pretty funny. All right. That's all I got. That's good. If you want to learn more about Stockholm syndrome, you can type that word into or those two words into the search bar@housedifference.com, and it'll bring up the spawn article. And I said, search bar, so that means it's time for listener mail. Josh, I'm going to call this I'm a musketeer. Did you read this one? No, I missed that one. It's a good one. This guy. All right, I'll just read it. Lauren McNet my father and I are abbot outdoorsman and carry a flintlock muzzle loader whenever we can. Cool. We've configured our flint locks to be 20 gauge shotguns as well. Geez, I know. I would be so nervous pulling the trigger. They know what they're doing, though. We go through the same process as the minute man. We load the powder, charge, load the patch, load the ball, charge the pan, cock the hammer. We got to charge the set trigger and finally pull the main trigger, at which point the flint and the hammer strikes the frizzen, showering the pan with sparks. That ignites the black powder in the pan, which is adjacent to the touch hole. This guy's just showing off. That, in turn ignites the powder charge, sending the 180 grain lead ball out of the barrel at about 1850ft/second, which is faster than the speed of sound. Wow. There is a difference in that. True. Muskets do not have rifled barrels where our do, because it increases accuracy. We've been hunting for many years. We aren't anywhere near the speed of the minutemen, which was three shots per minute. We also don't have targets that fire back, obviously. But they hunt like this. Yeah, they hunt deer, turkey, bear, and ducks with flint locks, and it's really challenging, and it takes careful consideration, special tools, and lots and lots of patience. 100 yard shots are possible, but we generally try to get within 40 yards with the rifles and 20 yards with the shotguns, and he can confirm the inclement. Weather does take a toll on the ability to fire, even on humid days, it can dampen the powder so it will not ignite. And then he just goes on to point out that they are. Responsible hunters, they typically only get one shot. They do their best to ensure that it is the swiftest, cleanest harvest possible. And then they process the animals themselves and waste as little as possible as a way of honoring the animal and being respectful of nature. So that's Lauren McNet. PS. Keep the powder dry. They must have T shirts. Thanks, Lauren. Yeah. Pretty cool. That is pretty cool. We did it for the killing animals part, but I get it. You're hunting. We did a member that is knife hunting the Fairest Way to Hunt episode. Oh, man. That's an old one. It is, but it was a good one. Remember we ended up talking about how if a ball comes at you and you have a knife and that's it, you're on pretty much equal footing. Yeah, that's pretty fair. But then towards the end, we started to go off on Internet hunting. Yeah, that was a great episode. Dig that up, everybody. Is knife hunting the Fairest way to Hunt. That's the only article I ever refused to write, was the Internet hunting. Yeah. I was assigned that and I was like, I'm not going to write about this. Yes. Good for you. And it went away because of that. It did. Like the next day Internet hunting. Yeah. No, but it has gone away about that time. Let's see if you want to tell us about something. It can be anything. Anything at all. So if you've ever had Stockholm syndrome, how about that? Yeah. Then I would feel very bad for you. But I would like to hear story for sure. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit houseofworks.com. Summer school's out. The sun is shining. The daylight is longer. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music that's so good it's Criminal Morbid. Part true crime and part comedy, Morbid takes you on a journey from murderous mysteries to major laughs, all in the same week. Hosted by autopsy technician Elena Ercart and hairstylist Ash Kelly, this chart topping series will have you hooked before you know it. Listened new episodes of Morbid one week early, only on Amazon Music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen today."
http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/podcasts.howstuffworks.com/hsw/podcasts/sysk/2017-07-25-sysk-ghost-fishing-final.mp3	What is Ghost Fishing?	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/what-is-ghost-fishing	It sounds cool, but ghost fishing is actually a tragic byproduct of modern fishing practices, where abandoned nylon nets can trap and kill sealife for hundreds of years.	It sounds cool, but ghost fishing is actually a tragic byproduct of modern fishing practices, where abandoned nylon nets can trap and kill sealife for hundreds of years.	Tue, 25 Jul 2017 13:00:02 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2017, tm_mon=7, tm_mday=25, tm_hour=13, tm_min=0, tm_sec=2, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=206, tm_isdst=0)	43219979	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Hey, everybody. We're going on tour in 2017, so listen up. That's right. You can get all the deeds@sysklive.com. Current cities who love us toronto, Vancouver, Atlanta, Chicago, Minneapolis, Apple is no, they don't love us so much in Chicago. Oh, yeah. They're coming around, though. And Austin doesn't love us, so we need Chicago and Austin to come out and see us so you can explain why there's no love. Yeah. And everybody else go to Sysklive.com and buy your tickets now because they're going fast. Welcome to stuff you should know from howstuffworkscom? Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with Charles W, Chuck Bryant and Jerry Jerome. Roland put three of us together, get us to talking. You got stuff you should know. You have afternoon tea? I am having some tea right now. I see that, yeah. What's that tazo stuff with the passion fruit and hibiscus and everything? I think that's the task of passion fruit hibiscus tea. Yeah, that one. Is that buzz marketing? Buzz market for worse than tea. I guess. Maybe a local heroin dealer who puts fentanyl in it without telling you. Yeah, I'd like to be Jimmy on the corner. Right. We should probably not talk too much about heroin, though, Chuck, because I'll bet you this episode gets played in a decent amount of, like, middle schools. Yeah, and I'm glad we got in a couple of jokes early on because I think ghost fishing will rank alongside, like, the Ms show and the HIV shows as the least funny things to talk about. Yes, it is pretty sad, actually. I want to actually find ways for humor, and I was like, yeah, this is really awful and sad. Well, we'll just take our usual tech where if it rears its head, we'll jump on it and shake it around and hold it up for everybody to see. Yeah, I think that's what we do. I think one of the things that was most depressing, depressing to me, was the I didn't know about all this. And I'm like in the mid forty s, and I'm just learning about this. Well, you know how we learned about it. You remember first hearing about this? We got an email from and I feel like such a heel. We got an email from a class, like a group in a class. I want to say it was probably a middle school class who had done a project on ghost Fishing. And they said, you know, who would want to do an episode on this is Josh and Chuck. So they're the ones who brought this to our attention. And I cannot find the email. It's gone. So I'm very sorry, group from class that I can no longer identify. But you guys, if you wrote in to tell us to do an episode about ghost fishing and gave us some sources to start with, you're the only ones who did. So we're talking about you. I think it was mrs. Bailey's oceanography class at that's right. At Sherman Hemsley Middle School in Round Rock, Texas. Man, that show Amen was all right. I never watched that. Oh, you didn't? It was pretty good. I mean, it was just basically George Jefferson as a preacher. Yes. Which is great. Yes. Because I watched George you could watch him do anything. George Jefferson as a garbage man, george Jefferson as the president, george Jefferson as rescue and sea turtles for ghost fishing. Is he still with us? I don't know. All right, so this is definitely one of the ones we should not just start talking about without defining at first, most people don't know what ghost fishing is. Yeah. And sadly, like you said before we hit record, jerry always asks us what we're doing today. And you said ghost fishing sounds a lot cooler than it is. Yeah. When you send it over, I was like, oh, ghostfishing. That sounds really neat. But no, there's nothing neat about it. No. But it does have a cool name. Agreed. Yeah. Technically, the definition is called abandoned, lost, or Discarded Fishing Gear. ALDFG. And what this is is professional commercial fishing gear. And I'm sure there's a small amount of recreational fishing gear, but that's not the real issue. Sure. But commercial fishing gear that has been left out to sea, that then goes on to just kill and maim sea life for hundreds of years. Yeah, it's awful. Yeah. And it's a really big problem. Just to give one example, we'll kind of go around the world a little bit later, but just in the northeast Atlantic, they found in one fishery. So if you look at a sea, an entire sea is going to have different fisheries, different areas where there are lots of fish. Typically in just one of those little spots in one C in the world, they found something like 25,000 nets. This is what the estimated net, 25,000 nets totaling about 1250 km in length that were lost every year. Every year. So I want to put that into scale. Right. I did a little Google mapping. 250 km will get you from New York to Chicago. How many Big Macs? Like 100 million. All right. It will get you from Brisbane to Canberra. Don't know where that second place is. They're both in Australia. Okay. And then it will also get you a little under a round trip between London and Edinburgh. Wow. Yeah. That's a lot of netting. And that's just what's lost in that one fishery every year. Yeah. We might as well just throw out a few of these, because this is going to be a lot of staggering stats. The UN environmental program UNEP and the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations. And this is a conservative estimate. They said that 640,000 tons of fishing gear are left in the oceans each year. Yeah, I did another. A little bit of more googling. You ready? Okay. That is equal to 556,521 ford Fiestas just dumped in the ocean every year by weight. Pick out Ford Fiesta just to sell their name? I don't know. Ford Fiesta is a well selling car all around the world, so everybody knows what a Ford Fiesta looked like. I probably couldn't pick one out on the road, but sure you could, too. You would just know intuitively that that's a Ford Fiesta. Here's another example. Washington state right here in the United States. They did a little clean up job there recently. And we'll get to the cleanup efforts because it is happening on a smallish scale, hopefully increasing. But in this one area, they wrangled 870 ghost nets, and that contains more than 320 marine animals. Yes, 32,000. This is just in one part of Washington State. Well, who cares about marine animals? Well, everyone included 500 birds and mammals. Yeah, and we're talking, like, big mammals, like whales. This affects everything from whales on down to little tiny fish. These things are just out there floating around. They get loose one way or another, and they just float through the oceans, and they can travel very long distances. And along the way, animals get trapped in them. I mean, the whole point of commercial fishing gear is to trap animals. The problem is, when they're operating correctly, they're reeled in and they bring the animals with them, and then people eat them. And you can have issues with that or whatever, but at least they're not just completely going to waste, which is the problem with ghost fishing. These things are like floating little islands of death that trap all manner of sea life. And then they just die one way or another. Either very quickly. Depending on whether they need to breathe. Like they're a marine mammal and they can't surface. Or they're a sea turtle that can't feed any longer because it's got a net growing around its mouth because it stuck its head through a loop when it was a juvenile. Yeah. And said, oh, what's in there? That looks neat. Let me stick my face in it. And now I have a net. And then I grow bigger, and the net stays there and potentially cuts into my skin and becomes a part of me. Little turtle mothers tell their turtle babies this. Like, don't put your head through a loop, just like the human mothers tell their kids, don't stick your arm out of a school bus. Yeah, same thing, I would guess. Here's another stat. The World Animal Protection Group estimates that getting Snared and go skier kills about 1360 seals, sea lions, and large whales every year. Some of these animals are already endangered, so any conservation efforts are being, at the very least, blunted by or stunted. I guess both by these other things going on. It's a staggering problem. The plastics that they use back in the day, they used to actually not even that long ago, nets were made of things that would biodegrade, like sometimes they were cotton or hemp. And now, as we quote, advance, unquote. With synthetics, they have these plastics that these things could be out there for five or 600 years. Yeah. And if they do break up, then the animals eat that stuff and die. Yeah. Do you remember our great Pacific Garbage Patch episode from years and years ago? Yeah. That factors in for sure. Yeah. Well, a lot of this stuff goes and is attracted to those huge gyres out there in the ocean. And we talked about in that episode about how plastic photo degrades when it's just out there in the sun, the motion of ocean currents combined with the sun photo degrading it, it breaks it down into smaller and smaller bits that become part of the food chain, which is not good. You don't want your food chain eating petroleum based plastic now. And that's what commercial fishing gear is made out of, which, again, that's why it lasts so long, hundreds of years, which is what you want. You want something very durable in your fishing gear. But when it gets loose, it's a big problem. And like you said, it's a fairly recent problem, too, because it wasn't that long ago that people were using nets that degraded a lot easier. Yeah. It says in here, I'm not sure where you source this, but 50 or 60 years ago. So in the history of fishing, this synthetic netting is pretty new. Right. And this isn't just like and we're going to talk a lot about animals because that's sort of the main problem. But it's an issue to the industry, too. Like, it says right here that here in the US. They've estimated that one single ghost net that's lost or discarded or whatever can kill almost $20,000 worth of Dungeonous crab over a ten year span. Just one net. Right. And then there's like you could buy seven Ford Fiestas with that amount of money. I need to get some comedy in there. And then there are the small vessels, even larger vessels that can get tangled in the stuff. They're divers that can't navigate through the stuff. So there is a bit of a human impact as well. Right. I think we should take a break, though, because I'm getting hot under the collar. Okay. And we'll come back and talk about more of this stuff right after this. All right, Chuck, so we've kind of given a good overview, but let's get into just how fishing gear could kill marine animals. And there's a number of different ways, and it kind of depends on the animal. Sure. So to start off with, we mentioned how a sea turtle might be like, oh, what's on the other side of this loop? Danger. Right? Yeah. Young seal pups might be doing the same thing. There's a very famous picture of a turtle with a six pack ring. Yeah. Man. I haven't seen that. And it's shell is normal size on either side of the six pack ring, but then it looks like it's one of those waist trainers, people who have worn a corset for ten years. It's basically the same thing. That nylon. That's exactly what this commercial fishing gear is made out of. It's made out of plastic. Nylon or nylon. Plastic. And it holds fast. And when a turtle gets stuck in it or gets stuck around them when they're young, as they grow, basically, they have to grow around this thing. Yeah. And it's not good. It's not good for your physiology, it's not good for low commotion. You're going to be a stunted little turtle when you grow up like that. Yeah. I think you mentioned, obviously, marine mammals that need to surface, they could die within minutes just because they're simply trapped. They can be affixiated immediately like that, or over the course of months and years, slow, more awful deaths. They can prevent them from feeding, like you said, if something gets wrapped around their mouth and they literally just can't open their mouth, they will starve to death. Or locomotion can be affected too. Right. So if you are a slow turtle yeah. You're going to have trouble going after food and you may starve to death like that as well. Yeah. Or swim in circles for the rest of your life. Right. Because, like, one side of your body isn't tangled. Right. So you said that you can kind of break down the manner of death into acute or chronic. One of the sad chronic ones that got me was from towing. Right. Yeah. So let's say you're a whale, you're a decent sized mammal. Thank you. You're swimming along and you get a net stuck on you, like, held fast. You're stuck. Yeah. You could still conceivably swim along for a while, for a very long while, but now you have basically, what amounts to an extra appendage, a ghost net dragging from you. That's bad enough as it is, because these nets are enormous. Like, I was reading about tuna nets, some tuna fishers use these nets that fall like, 700ft deep and are a mile wide. So you get a segment of that, even just a segment of one of those nets on you, it's going to drag you down and make it harder for you to just move normally. But then, on top of that, that net is probably going to catch other animals over time. So not only are you dragging this net, you're also dragging all the animals who have been caught in that same net and have probably died. And then eventually you're just going to not be able to keep up any longer and you drown. Yeah. I can't imagine a lot of things more just shameful for humans than seeing a blue whale dragging a 100 foot net full of dead sea animals behind it until it dies. Pretty bad. I couldn't even have conceived of something that awful. Until I learned about this stuff, its last word is Why? Yeah. Seriously, humans. I know this is not a happy episode. The other problem is, I think this is one reason a lot of people haven't heard of this, too. It's like, how many more problems can we have to deal with? I know. It's just add one more to the pile, and it makes it really hard not to just get, like, catastrophe fatigued. But you can't you can't do that. You can't let it happen. You got to go take a break, shake it off, and come back at it with vigor. Or you need to say, this one means something to me. Sure. So much so that I'm actually going to do something about this. I'm not just going to cluck my tongue and shake my head and keep scrolling through my Twitter feed. I'm going to do something about this. No matter whether it's dealing with ghost fishing or dealing with climate change or whatever strikes you in that way, go after it. That's probably the best thing you can do, rather than trying to take on everything at once. I totally agree, man. And I also poopoo the idea that you can't say this is bad when you still do this. Yeah. It can all be bad. Yeah. Not everyone can tackle everything. So if you want to be an advocate for dogs on the street and go do that, because the obvious thing would be for people to say, well, don't eat fish. Don't support the industry. Right. How can you be a dog advocate and still eat fish? Right? Going on, you're worse than Hitler. But I say, find whatever is meaningful to you and try and effect change there right. As best you can. And then you can say, I spent every weekend for the last year cleaning up ghost fishing nets and saving seal pups. What did you do? Judgy? So how does this happen? I think that's enough. Like, we've hit people over the head pretty hard with this stuff. Are you sure? I mean, there'll be some more stats in here, but I think they get the point. All right, how does this stuff happen? And I'm asking us both, and I'll go ahead and say one thing, okay. Sometimes it's accidental. Sometimes there's bad weather, and you have to abandon your gear. Yeah. There was a 2009 United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization report that found that most ghost fishing gear is not intentionally discarded, that most of it is accidentally lost. Right. Which is good. That makes you feel a little better. Right. And it's not just fishermen going like, who cares? Cut it loose. Yeah, see you in healthcare. But that also does happen. It does. Sadly. It's nice to know that that's not the bulk of it. Right. So when it's unintentional, when it's accidental or something like that an act of nature, a lot of times it's just severe weather. Like, a big storm comes up and just breaks your lines and all of a sudden all of your nets are lost. And believe me, if you're a commercial fisherman, that is about the worst thing that can happen to you short of sinking while you're out. Sure. Especially if your net was already full and you're reeling it in and you lost it because of nature. Yeah. That's bad for everybody. Another thing that can happen is, and this is one of the bad ones you could have illegal gear or be fishing illegally, maybe using a method you shouldn't or in a place you shouldn't be. And there's what's called enforcement pressure. And you abandon your gear because you don't want to get in trouble. Yeah. You hiked it out of there, basically just kind of whistle. I wasn't doing anything. There's also what they call spatial pressure, where if you have some nets floating along and another boat comes into the area, doesn't see it and runs over them, basically cut some loose from their moorings, and that has just become ghost fishing gear itself. Yeah. The economic pressure. I don't fully get this. What I would imagine that could mean is it would cost us more to go out and retrieve these things than to just go back to port and get these guys off the clock. That's part of it. That is definitely part of it. I think more often than not is if your gear is all torn up or whatever, and if you take it back to port and you're charged a fee for dumping it because it's considered waste. Right. I think that's how it's treated in the Netherlands. It makes more sense for you just litter. If you're going to have to pay to have it disposed of properly. Well, the sea can take it. I'll just cut it loose and look the other way and go back home and say, what, fishing gear? I don't have anything to throw away. So that's economic pressure to me, we'll talk about later. That is the key to solving ghost fishing, if you ask me. Yes, and really quickly. I don't think we said for sure. It's not always just nets, like crab pots and traps, nets for sure. Fishing line hooks, rope. And the one that really chafes me is packing bands. So these bands around bait boxes and stuff, those are clearly just dumped. Oh, yeah. They just tossed it over the side. Yeah. And that's actually in violation of a United Nations convention from 1973 that basically was looking to stop pollution from ships. And you're not supposed to throw anything over the side from those packing bands to cooking oil that you fried your French fries in. Like, nothing is supposed to go over the side except possibly fishing trails from cleaning fish. It's called the don't be a Huge jerk convention. Yeah. Of the heck of a convention. Some of the indirect it was, wasn't it? It was basically like a Max funcon convention. I remember that. And Fred Rogers, that was the keynote speaker, was pretty great. Some of the indirect causes, and we'll see here in a bit. One of the biggest, biggest problems is, like you said, when you come back in with maybe unwanted fishing gear and there's nowhere to dispose of it just simply a lack of these facilities at Port is a big, big problem. Yeah. Is that what you said could fix it all? No. Putting it from being an economic burden to an economic incentive to bring in your old fishing gear, I think that will change it. But what you just said is a huge part of that. You need to have places for people to either take it and get money in exchange for their old stuff or at the very least, just throw it in a bin somewhere yeah. And not get charged for it. Yeah, exactly. Because if you know that you can just throw it away right when you get to shore, it's only going to take up that space on your way back in. There's a pretty good chance that you're not going to litter a mile wide net. Yeah. Especially if you can get money for it. Yes. And another one of the big problems here in this one article you sent was, I think these commercial fishermen. I used to watch Deadliest Catch. I know how these guys are. They're notoriously stubborn about new technologies, or ironically, it wouldn't be a new technology if they tried to go back to biodegradable nets. Right. But just convincing these men and women to add extra expense or add an extra trip to buy something that will help the environment, it's a hard sell, even though, like, dude, you're costing yourself crab money because 20 grand, one lost net can cost $20,000 worth of crab over ten years. I think they live more in the trip to trip mindset. Yeah. But I think that their industry as a whole thinks of it as like the over ten year kind of thing. And so from what I understand, the industry is kind of woken up to this a little more and it's starting to take measures a little bit. We'll talk about that, but yeah, it's entirely possible. The individual fishermen are just kind of like, it's just not worth it. Yeah. This one quote in here really kind of drives it home. And I'd never heard of the phrase tragedy of the commons, but I like it. It says, as with so many tragedy of the common scenarios, the responsibility to act lies with everyone and the incentive with no one. And that kind of drives at home. A lot of times you're in international waters. I know when they have made inroads with some of these big commercial companies, they're a little hesitant to get to involve because all of a sudden their name is printed in an article. Even if they're trying to do the right thing, just being associated with this stuff they don't even want. Right. Even if they're trying to help out a little bit. Yeah. Because again, it's just one more problem. One more issue. Yeah. Like, if a company stood up and said so and so company is making an effort to now do this, then the flip side is like, well, what have you been doing? That's true. Why did it take this long? Yeah, that's definitely true. And so companies a little reticent to even get involved. Yeah. But I think as of 2015, there is a kind of a new initiative that started that's bringing more people into the fold and making it safe to join up. I remember it was a McDonald's something. I can't remember the MCDOT. No, MC Pizza. It was some new sandwich or something that said it's, like, now made with real chicken or something like that. And that was like you put that on a sign, because everyone that saw that was like, what was I eating for the past 30 years now? With ingredients that may not kill you. Well, let's take another break, and then we'll come back, we'll take a quick trip around the world, and then we'll talk about what some people are doing to combat ghost fishing. Yeah. A little bit of good news. Okay. All right, Chuck, we're back, and we're in the home stretch. We're going to solve this problem. But first, let's go shame different parts of the world. Yes. How about we step onto my little dinghy and take a trip around the world? Okay. It'll take us a while because my little dinghy is slow, but we'll get there eventually. Let's head to the Northeast Atlantic. Yeah. Where we already talked about the 25,000 nets that are tossed in there every year. All right. We've already been there, and so I just wasted our three months getting there. Apologies. All right, so we're stuck in the Northeast Atlantic. I apologize. It's now going to take us six months to navigate through the Midwest of the United States, through Nebraska and Kansas and our boat. Maybe we should we're portaging that's a long portage all the way to the Northeast Pacific yes. In Washington State. Well, that would be northwest or northeast pacific Ocean, I guess. Northwest US. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah, northeast Pacific. So Washington State has oh, man. We already talked about this, too, remember? Out of 870 gil nets, they rescued or they found 32,000. Man, we already made it here. I hate backtracking. All right, come on, carry it back. All right, let's go to the Northwest Atlantic. All right. Surely we haven't been there. I don't believe we have. The Gulf of St. Lawrence, for God's sake. No, we haven't. Okay. Snow crab. This is one snow crab fishery. They lose about 800 traps a year in this one fishery, and some say that each boat may lose up to 30% in a year of their traps. And this is an old like this isn't an old fish tail. That's the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Chesapeake Bay office thing. An old fish tail? Yeah. This isn't Finding Dory. I never saw that one. But I did like what was it? Nemo. Finding Nemo, I think. Right, okay. I haven't seen either one of them. Oh, you haven't seen Finding Nemo? No. Well, save it. Save it. Well, Emily doesn't like any of those movies ever. Does it make her cry? Yeah, because every one of them has some sort of sad death. After Bambi when she was a kid, she's like, I'm done. Yeah, this one has that too. Yeah, most of them do. And I said, that's a significant reason it's a good movie. Well, that's the theory. That's why they do that, is to kind of teach kids about death. Sure. Because, I mean, it's so sanitized and kept out of sight in our society. That's a good service. All right. Finding Nemos on the list, then. Yeah, you'll like it. You won't regret seeing it. Where should we go? Southwest. Southeast Asia? Well, the Arabian Sea. Let's make a little stop over there. They're all woke over there. They figured out that their people were losing back in 2002, about 260,000 traps per year. Wow. Yeah. Which is a problem. Not just for, like, say, the lobster or crab or shrimp that they're intended for. There's a lot of by catch that, say, like a lobster trap can catch as well. Like, fish can make their way in there too. So you've got 260,000 traps floating around, no longer providing any seafood for anybody. They're just death traps. Literal death traps. That's the problem. And so the United Arab Emirates ruled that you had to put a biodegradable face or panel on the traps from that point on, from 2002 on. So eventually they would just open. Yes, eventually. That one fish that came in last would be freed. All the other ones were, like, in the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico. This pretty staggering. Around Guadalupe, they lose about half of their traps every year during hurricane season, which is about 20,000 traps. Yeah. Half. Man, that's crazy. And then in Louisiana alone, they think that they lose four to 10 million blue crabs lost to their traps. Just in Louisiana. Wow. Four to 10 million blue crabs lost. All right, so this has all been super depressing. What can be done about it? People are trying to take action. There was an initiative in 2015 in London founded by the World Animal Protection. It's an NGO. And the global Ghost Gear Initiative. It's a pretty cool name. Yeah, it is. And here's the deal. Sadly, when you're first getting efforts like this going, a lot of the stuff that they're doing is, like, simply gathering data because it's hard to get support because people say, well, what's the data? What's it looking like? And if you say, well, we don't really. Have great data yet, then they're kind of grounded. Wow, you don't got good data. Yeah. So the very first steps is evidence building and reviewing policies and kind of not rubber meets the road kind of things. But unfortunately those have to be the first steps. Right, but they're starting to gather data from some of the rubber meets the road stuff. Yeah. So like if we can go back over to the Pacific Northwest, right, to the Northeast Atlantic, I think there's like a little pilot program in Washington State to clean up ghost fishing stuff. And Evan, they recovered 481 lost gill nets, right? Yeah. So this kind of stuff where you've got people, I think they had like a few million dollars from the government and just started a program. When you've got people doing these things and then you have a central organization like the Global Ghost Gear Initiative, then the gears start moving, the wheels start moving, like things start happening because then you start to generate the data. Then you can start to make the press releases, then you can start to get the public aware of this kind of thing and then you get pressure on industry and then industry shapes up. Yeah. Here's one of my favorite things too. And this is not just for this industry and this problem, but one of my favorite, favorite things in the world is when someone comes along and says, hey, I'll take that waste product you have because I can use it. That's what I'm saying is going to be the key. Yeah, for sure. And this is already happening a little bit because like a lot of things you can generate power through some of this stuff. So that's one way that I think there's a company called Networks. It's like an.org oh, an.org, yeah. There's a few companies that came together to make networks, I think. Well, in their case, I don't think they're turning into energy, but they're turning fishing nets into carpet tiles. Carpet tiles. Boom. Great. Right. There is one called Fishing for Energy. That's like Noah Covanta energy. And then of course, Schnitzer Steele, the face of Ghost Gear, they all came together and started putting gear recycling outposts and I think eleven states all over the place, all over the coast of eleven states. So that when fishermen come in, whether you're just a little solo person and you've got some monofilament line leftover or you're a commercial guy, you can just throw your old gear in here and it gets recycled. Right. And then they take it and I think Schnitzer Steel takes it and gets strips all the metal from it for recycling. And then what's left goes to Covanta Energy and they turn it into energy. I looked high and low to exactly how they do that and I couldn't find it. So it makes me a little nervous about what they're doing to turn this into energy. But they supposedly have created enough energy from the stuff that's been recycled to power, like, 2200 homes for a month. That's amazing. Yeah. This is stuff that otherwise would have just gone out, stayed out in the sea and drowned whales and turtles. He likes skateboarding. Sure. There's a sustainable skateboard retailer name B-U-R-E-O Bureau, and they are turning fishing nets into skateboards. How cool is that? Yeah, it is pretty cool because they're actually buying fishing net from fishermen, like the use stuff. So they're giving money for it and then they're turning around and using it to recycle it's. Pretty cool. And then there's a lot of stuff you could do if you don't have a skateboard company or you're not an energy company. There's a group called Ghost Fishing, and I think that's what they're called, right? Ghost Fishing. I'm not sure which one is this. I think it's just ghost Fishing. Anyway, they're a group of divers. Oh, yeah. They were wreck divers in the North Sea. I think they were originally based maybe in the Netherlands. And they noticed on these wrecks that there's tons of ghost gear. Apparently, it's a big problem with shipwrecks, so that's why it's kind of dangerous for humans and then also gets caught up on coral and stuff, too. So they started cleaning up they took it upon themselves to start cleaning up some of these wrecks. And then little by little, this little group of friends that were wreck divers, that started cleaning it up, started making connections with other groups of divers all around the world. And all of a sudden, the Ghost Fishing Alliance, or initiative, is this multinational network of people who love scuba diving and who spend some of their scuba diving time cleaning up ghost nets. And there's actually pictures of these people, like, freeing seal pups from ghost fishing nets. Yeah, it's pretty cool. If you're into scuba diving, there's something you can do right there. Yeah, I imagine there are not many better sleeps at night you can get than having spent your day freeing steel pups. Yeah, I don't think so. You probably sleep pretty well, I would guess, too. In Australia, we can't leave you out. There are a couple of cool things going on there. There's a program called a group called Ghost Nets Australia and they've been partnering with indigenous groups to basically help cleaning up the stuff in individual areas. Right. And then there's another fishery. Like, we kind of have been picking on the fisheries and some of these companies, but some are getting on board. There's one in Australia called the Northern Prawn Fisheries. So definitely give them your support if you live there. They're working with the World Animal Protection Group. They report sightings, they report go skier locations, basically. Like here's where it is, at least. And sometimes they're even involved in retrieving some of this stuff and setting some of these animals free when they come across it. Yeah, I think that's part of it. You got to have the government involved to set up recycling stations or whatever to fund pilot programs to get the data going. And then with industry, you have to educate industry, you have to give them financial incentives to keep their nets, to bring them back to shore. And then because they're also the ones who are out there in the sea to make it so that they have incentive to stop and take in ghost gear when they see it. And part of that is like what just happened for North Prawn Fishery? They just got free advertisement for being the good guys because they got involved. Yeah, absolutely. So good. I think we just solved the problem. I don't think so. I'll give you another shout out too. There's a brewery from Delray, Florida, delray Beach, Florida called Saltwater Brewery. And they made some news recently because they debuted a six pack ring that is made to biodegrade and it's also edible. So rather than growing around a turtle or keeping a turtle from growing correctly, a turtle can actually eat the six pack ring when it encounters it, if it makes it into the water. Oh, wow. Yeah. Well, a lot of the craft breweries don't even use the rings anymore. They have the recycled plastic kind of lid things. Yeah. Good job. You had me at brewery. If you want to know more about ghost fishing or ghost gear, you can type those words into your favorite search bar and it will bring up some pretty good stuff. And since I said stuff, it's time for listener mail. I'm going to call this one T shirt ideas. Got an email from a dude that has kind of kept up with our t shirt names. Sure. And he wants us to pick all three of us to each pick our favorite. Okay. That would be Jerry. Jerry, you just knock like a horse on the ground. When I get to a T shirt, you like, hey guys, love your show and your tangents are hilarious. But what really cracks me up, for all the funny band names and T shirt ideas you come up with, I collected a few of my favorites over the years and the time has come to turn a few of these T shirt dreams into reality. I'm going to design and print a few T shirts, but my problem is I can't decide which phrases to use. So if you could each pick one, it would really make my day. And there are twelve, so starting with number one, trusses Rock exclamation point, friends, don't let friends eat your candle. That's actually Emily has that shirt, so that's the thing. Really? Yeah. Okay. I think someone might have sent that in, actually. Okay. Yeah, because that's happened from time to time. Like we got Mike's on pants off T shirts. Yeah. Number three, if you have a beacon, a probe and a shovel, you could be okay, I don't even know what that one is from. Well, he tied them to the episodes, but for brevity I'm just going to read these. Okay. Mystery is Weird. I like that one. Not too bad. To Each Their own. Seems a little snotty these days to have that, like, on a shirt. Aggressive and hostile. Yeah, whatever. Master of Engagement meant that may be mine. Is it? I think so. So far. Mine is mystery is weird. I listened to the Tick episode. I do remember that. That's for everybody. This one's pretty good. Find your own butter. Jerry just knocked on the floor. Okay. There's Jerry. I Viking. Oh, that's an old one. Yes. Natural selection, Colin. It just makes sense. Yeah, that's a good one. A little preachy. Don't scrutinize me. And finally, let's wash our hands as often as possible. Mine is definitely mystery is weird. Okay, I'm going to go with Master of Engamant. And Jerry definitely likes to find your own butter. Okay. In fact, I think Jerry said that to me in this office. Who was that wrote that in? That is from Steve Rickert in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Steve. And he said, if you send me your shirt sizes, I'll be sure to make an extra of each. So I'm in. Excel. You're probably at what, large? Yeah, man, I'm right on the border between large being a little drapey and medium. Like, really showing off way too much TMI. Is there something in between medium and large? I guess large. Jerry, what are you jerry is a medium. Did she stamp that out? She did. Medium unisex, she said. And then finally he closes with PPS in a place in time where people with big platforms often use their voices to create divisions. So refreshing to listen to your show. I admire the respect you show to all people and the effort you put into being inclusive and empathetic. Yes. Thank you, Steve. Yeah, thanks a lot, Steve. But, hey, find your own butter. All right, everyone, turn on Steve. If you want to be like Steve and just come up with a great email, well, you can start by tweeting to us. If you don't like the email, I'm at Josh Clark. We're also at SYSK podcast. You can join us on Facebook at Charles W, Chuck Bryantstepychnow, either one of those two. You can send us all an email to stuffpodcasterhousoforce.com. And as always, join us at our home on the Web stuffyshow.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit houseofworks.com. Summer school's out. The sun is shining. The daylight is longer. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, tune into the podcast series on Amazon music that's so good it's Criminal Morbid. Part true crime and part comedy, Morbid takes you on a journey from murderous mysteries to major laughs, all in the same week. Hosted by autopsy technician Elena Ercart and hairstylist Ash Kelly, this chart topping series will have you hooked before you know it. Listen to new episodes of Morbid one week early, only on Amazon Music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen today."
https://podcasts.howstuf…sk-fda-final.mp3	Does the FDA Protect Americans?	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/does-the-fda-protect-americans	The FDA was the first consumer protection agency in the US. Since 1906, it's been issuing regulations meant to protect Americans from tainted food, ineffective drugs and pacemakers that don't work. But is the FDA too cozy with industries it regulates?	The FDA was the first consumer protection agency in the US. Since 1906, it's been issuing regulations meant to protect Americans from tainted food, ineffective drugs and pacemakers that don't work. But is the FDA too cozy with industries it regulates?	Tue, 12 May 2015 17:07:25 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2015, tm_mon=5, tm_mday=12, tm_hour=17, tm_min=7, tm_sec=25, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=132, tm_isdst=0)	55445712	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"This July, don't miss an entire summer of surprises on Disney Plus with Disney's High School Musical, the series season three zombies, three Doctor Strange in the multiverse of madness and the wonderful summer of Mickey Mouse. Plus new episodes of Marvel Studios, ms. Marvel and National Geographics. America the Beautiful. From the award winning producers of planet Earth, Frozen Planet and the Disney nature films, america the Beautiful takes viewers on a tour of the most spectacular and visually arresting regions of our great nation. All these and more streaming this month on Disney Plus. Hey, everybody. I don't know about you, but I am excited that it's summer, school's out, the sun is shining, and best of all, there's downtime for days. That's where true crime podcasts on Amazon Music come in. There's a perfect activity for last minute road trips, long walks, or if you're brave enough, late nights. With so many killer shows like Morbid, my favorite murder, and Small Town Murder, you'll never be bored to death again. So download the free Amazon music app to start listening to all your favorite true crime podcasts. Plus with Amazon music, you can access new episodes early. Download the app today. Welcome to stuff you should know from Housetepworks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with Charles W, Chuck Bryant and Jerry over there. So this is stuff you should know. The podcast. How do you, sir? Doing fine, how are you? Great. Yeah. That's good. I enjoyed learning about the FDA. Yeah, you know, we've broadcasted on them before. Why does the FDA regulate herbal supplements? Right? Man, we did that long time ago. Remember that's where the herbal Elvis comes out. Oh, yeah. Was that the first appearance? Pretty sure. Hey, man, give me some supplements. How your dad talk? Yeah, he just like would go around the house. Yeah, when he was on herbal upper. Sure. Yeah, man. How'd you talk on the herbal downers? He didn't. He just slept a lot. Got you. No, of course. So we have talked about the FDA before, but yeah, this is a much more in depth look. That's right, chris walking. No. Was that Chris walken? No, not really. I mean, the weird pauses, but other than that I was more doing Chatner. Oh. But I didn't go up in octave, which I should have. Sure. Pretty good though, huh? Yeah, pretty clear. Bill Shatner. So did you know most of this stuff? Well, I know that the FDA has a history of controversy of people saying you don't act fast enough. We need these drugs to help people stop acting so much. Exactly. You're going too fast and rushing these things to market. Right, exactly. So it's a bit of a tough thing to reconcile. You know, I'll acknowledge they're in a tough spot. They really are. And I think that's a good caveat or disclaimer to put at the front of this because it is a very controversial agency. It's the first consumer protection agency in the United States ever. It's the oldest one. And call me liberal or what have you, but I think it is a very important agency to have. Oh, I don't think that makes you liberal. Some people may say, so what? They don't think we should regulate anything in this country? Yeah, there's people who think that the FDA is just completely in the way of business. It's a federal fetter. Okay, I see what you mean. A fetter. Right. That's the thing. Sure. Because unfettered, if you can be unfettered, you can be fettered. Right. But is there something that can fetter? And would that be a fetter? Sure. So it's a fetter to business in some people's mind. I just think that when you are talking about something as elemental as food or drugs, things we put into our bodies in the hopes that we will be have a greater well being, that you kind of do have to have a big kid on the block looking out for all the little kids. Well, I think when big bucks are involved, it's pretty clear that companies themselves probably aren't going to pull back on their profits in order to just be super safe. It's been proven throughout history that they'll generally want error on the side of making the money. You're a commie. Oh, boy, this one's going to be fun. Okay, now that we got that out of the way, chuck, let's dig into the FDA, because if you want to see whether or not you think the FDA is necessary, all you have to do is go back to the days before the FDA, which wasn't too terribly long ago. I mean, the FDA really only finds its origins in on paper. It goes a little bit back. Before that, I think, the Abraham Lincoln administration, who was a pinko himself let's climb in the wayback machine, shall we? Oh, yeah. It's been a little while, man. It smells like cat urine in here. I know. Well, I took a little ride with Lauren and the wizard and sorry about that, man. How are they doing? Well, they're doing great, but I forgot to bring a litter box, so it was an accident. So here we are in the way back machine, and we're going all the way back, like you said, to the times of Lincoln. And what he did, he kind of kicked the man. I couldn't say that the other day in private. Kick the bucket. No, I want to say get the ball rolling and kick it off. And I said, kick the ball kick the ball rolling. I said that the other day. It's like twice. It's okay. So he wanted to kick the ball rolling. He appointed a chemist named Charles Weatheral to analyze agricultural materials. Sniffed them on the case? Yes, he sniffed them on the case. Not off. Said, hey, food and soil and fertilizer. Maybe look into that. We have the new department of Agriculture. And then his successors, Harvey Wiley and Peter Collier, were the dudes who really got things going in, like, a serious way for the FDA. Well, they saw, like, a real reason for an agency that was in charge of safeguarding the purity of food and drugs that the American public was ingesting. They basically saw what was going on. It was like, hey, we might need to step in here, because prior to this, we talked about it in our bizarre medical treatments episode, I think, where we were just talking about little kids being given morphine in a prescription that in no way, shape, or form said there was morphine in it. It just calmed colicky babies, and it calmed them by bringing them to the brink of death on a morphine overdose. But you could buy it over the counter. Oh, you shouldn't regulate that. That's business. Right. It's private. And that was the one that actually used morphine. I'm sure others that were out there that were much more lethal sure, use knockoff morphine or something like that, that cousin Tony made in his basement. You could do it, put it in a bottle, and if the person bought it and they died, well, buyer beware. So the guys like Wiley and Collier, especially Wiley, though, were really adamant about getting some sort of regulation and specifically taking this agency that they've been handed and building it into a real powerhouse. Yeah. And over the course of about 25 years, they got Congress to look over about 100 bills for the food and drug industry. Right. I guess Congress said, no, we're pretty deep in the industry's pocket, so we can't really do anything right now. We agree with you. Yeah, totally. Great idea. But I'm sorry, but a car is about to be invented, and I want to own one pretty bad. Well, that'll change, though, my friend. In six, when reporter novelist Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle, which everyone sort of this very famous book that exposed the practices of the meat packing industry in Chicago in particular. But it was a big deal, and it caused a lot of people to really freak out. It was and it was a novel, which means he was fictitious, and he was a journalist, too. It was based on his experiences, I guess, working undercover in the Chicago meat packing plants. And apparently, I guess, Roosevelt, Teddy Roosevelt, set up an investigation, a committee to investigate claims. He's no fan of Sinclair's at all. But I think everyone was so repulsed, he had to do something. Yeah. I mean, like, it really got the American public up, because the stories are things like they were using disease cows for meat, and there were rats that were crawling around on the cows. Yeah. And so they poisoned the rats, and then the dead poisoned rats with the poison, and the diseased cow meat would all be put into a grinder. And there was your potted meat on the other side. Yeah. I still won't eat potted meat. Yeah. I don't care what year it is. You take me to the future and 2312 and I'm not going to eat potted meat. I wish the way Back machine could go to the future. Well, that's the way Forward machine. Oh, we have one of those. Oh, no forking on it. Okay, good. It'll be a while. So they had to do something because there were even accusations of people being in meat, which apparently was not true, and that was really fictitious. Right. But that committee that investigated Sinclair's claims in the jungle found that pretty much everything else he said in that book was true, except for the guy being ground up with the beef because he fell into a meat grinder and they were just like, no. All right, again, the meat business not able to police itself and say, maybe we shouldn't put disease rats in meat. So the government was forced to step in. And on June 30, Congress passed the Food and Drugs Act, aka the Wiley Act, and that prohibited trade of mislabelled and contaminated food, bevies and medicines across state lines. So I guess you could still sell it in Illinois. That's the one thing I never get, is the shipping thing. That's the only thing that they can enforce. Yes. The federal government is there has always been a struggle between state and federal. Right. Yeah. And so the line has been drawn at the state borders where it's like, once you cross the state border, all of a sudden you're part of the United States rather than just the state, and you want to leave it up to the state. But over time, the federal government is taking more and more power from the states. Right. With the Wiley Act, though, Chuck, I mean, it's named after Wiley, so it gives you an idea of, like, the links that this guy went to try to establish some sort of standards for purity and food. Right. Yeah. One of the things he did was set up what came to be called the Poison Squad. Yeah. That's a great name, isn't it? It really is. And it was a sensational name. And at first he fought it and then he finally saw, he was worried that with a name like the Poison Squad, they had their own little Poison Squad anthem. And the articles written about the Poison Squad really sensational. And, like, can you believe how crazy these guys are? Yeah. And at first Wiley fought it because he was like, this is a really serious scientific undertaking. Sure. And then finally he saw the writing on the wall. It was like, you can get America behind this whole idea if you just give them the Poison Squad as they want. The Poison Squad gives them an anti have added everybody. Did they have an anthem? They did. It's in this article from the FDA's own consumer magazine or whatever from, I think, 2002. The Boys and Squad. The Boys and Squad. It's kind of like that. It's like when they take these bites, they won't feel any pain, but when they wake up in the morning, they'll probably never be the same. And just stuff like that how they used to make jokey songs in the early 1900s. Interesting. So what the Poison Squad was was a group of men volunteers, we should point out, who signed up for this and repeatedly signed up for this and signed away their right to sue or anything. They were fully on board to eat poison and to basically in a kitchen there in Washington, DC. In the basement of the FCA's building. Yeah. They would have a chef that apparently made some great meals laced with all kinds of poison. Formaldehyde, borax, what was a really harmful one. It was called copper sulfate. Right. Which is now a pesticide. Correct? Yeah. And they use it to make can pies appear bright green. And that kind of gets to the heart of the matter. Chuck, these guys weren't just eating poison just for fun. Oh, no. They were testing out stuff that was being used as preservatives and food at the time. Exactly. Additives and preservatives and stuff like you said, to make your peas greener. Right. So people used to use formaldehyde to preserve meat. Makes sense. Right? People used to use borax to get formaldehyde. Look how long that human head's been in that bucket. Exactly. Let's put it on beef. So did you touch that head, or did you just poke it? He didn't poke it. At the end of a moment, no. His face bobbed up at me, and I was just like, all right, here it is. Hello, sir. So the poison squad made great headway. They really determined a lot of stuff that shouldn't be used as preservatives. Like that copper sulfate that was used to make peascreen. Yeah. National heroes in a way. Well, yeah. They also proved overall that selling adulterated food wasn't just a buyer beware kind of thing. Right. That it actually posed a real public health hazard. Yeah. They got super sick. They did. And they got publicized. These guys are getting sick on purpose from the same stuff that you're feeding your kids. Yes. Which is why they shut it down eventually. Right. And the public all of a sudden is like, well, we don't want this stuff in our peas. I don't care whether they are green or not. I'm not eating this. And then public pressure led to finally Congress enacting the Food and Drug Act. I wonder if when I was reading this, I was wondering if that has something to do with the thing with peas. I don't think people generally like peas, and I wonder if that has anything to do with it. Peas are correct. I like peas, but I wonder if that was, like, a stigmata on the P when this stuff came out have blood on its palms, blood on its p, maybe, I don't know. I don't either. Surely it had some effect. I would guess. Well, it's probably a lot like how they spray produce in the produce section, even though it increases its rotting time dramatically. Why do they do that? To make it look prettier, to make it look fresh. It's ridiculous, but it's probably the same exact principle. I bet you're right. Here's some poison to make your bees look great. So the FDA, when they formally evolved, they evolved out of some other agencies. They've been through a bunch of name changes and reorgs through the years. But in 19 six they were under the Department of Agriculture's, Bureau of Chemistry, and they were the ones charged with enforcing that Food and Drugs Act. They split them up in 1927 into two groups, the Food and Drug Insecticide Administration. They handle the regulations, and the Bureau of Chemistry and Soils handled the experiments. Yeah. Before it had been just the Bureau of Chemistry doing both. Yeah. So they split them up. Eventually they dropped in 1930 the name Insecticide, and it just became the FDA. And from there they were under the guys or under the purview of several agencies until the late seventy s, and they finally landed where they are now, which is the Health and Human Services. That's right. Yay HHS green peas. So today, the way they're organized loosely they're not organized loosely, but this is a description is this they have a top layer of the office of Commissioner of Food and Drugs. They report to the Director of the Secretary of HHS, who used to be Tommy Thompson. Really? Yeah. Under Bush. Oh, that's right. Do you know who it is now? I don't. There's probably no one there. Obama has been able to get anybody confirmed, like either term. That first layer also has seven supporting organizations that support the commissioner. And they're mainly they're not like the rubber meets the road. They're on the policy side of things, basically. Litigation and stuff. Well, yeah, the big stuff, the big overarching we are the FDA. Yeah. And then below them are broken down into components that handle rubber meets the road stuff. Yeah. Those are the five deputy commissioners. And like you said, they're the ones that really are heading up the field offices. I think there's 227 field offices. And then they have their big home in Silver Spring, Maryland, where they have about close to 15,000 employees. And Chuck, let's do a quick quiz. You're ready? Yes. Okay, you got to wait. Sorry. I know you're very excited right now. Just hang in there. The FDA regulates true or false X ray machines. I'm going to say true. That's right. They regulate radioactive or radioactivity emitting machines like X rays, pesticides. False. That's right, Chuck. That's the USDA, from what I understand, illicit drugs like cocaine and crack cocaine. They don't regulate that. No. That's true. They don't. Yes. Let's see, what else what about donated blood? True. That's true. They regulate biologics. Doing great, man. Vaccines and blood. Yeah, thank you. Tobacco. They do regulate that, I believe. Yes. And then what about poultry? Chicken. Yes, of course they do. No, because it's food. No. USDA, again, although the FDA does regulate, apparently the dairy industry. Yes. But not meat and poultry. No. Talk about mind boggling. They do regulate cosmetics, but obviously, because we did a podcast on it, they don't regulate several supplements. Yeah, that was a good one, if I remember correctly. We really, like, got to the heart of the matter. Yes. And there's a lot of and I think we talked about it then there's a lot of slippery language that can be used in body products, period. Which always aggravates Emily to no end. Yeah. Because she has completely natural body products. But you can throw names on packages these days on foods, too, that just say, like, pure and natural and just these buzzwords that mean nothing. And there's no regulation for when you can use those words. And they're trying to sell people on something that's not true. It's really sad. Like light beer. I remember hearing years and years and years ago that light beer only has to be light and color to be called light beer. Really? Yeah. But now that I'm growing, I'm like, who regulates that? I'll bet you it doesn't even have to be light in color and light in color compared to what? Yes. You can probably call something light beer if you want to. Well, it's light in calories. Right. Buyer beware. But your point is it's not regulated, right? Probably not. A beer has to be under this many calories to be called a license. Yeah. I don't believe it is. Yeah. And now I think I'd probably be the FTC that would be in charge of that kind of thing. But they got bigger. Or the ATF. Yeah, man, the government should just have a lot of lettered agencies. Yeah. One last thing about the FDA, though. There's a group of special agents in the criminal unit that carry guns. Really? FDA agents that carry guns and will shoot you for doing what? I've got a great example of it. Okay. Had they caught whoever it was that poisoned the Chicago area Tylenol in 1982, they probably would have shot that person. Yeah. Do you know about that? I do. You want to talk about that now? Sure. Might as well. Yeah. I remember this. I do too, man. Yeah. I was a six year old whose eyes were just opening to the ideas of poisoning and drugs and learning to fear things that you bought at the store. Yeah. I didn't know the specifics because I was only eleven, and I never really researched further as an adult, but twelve year old girl died in suburban Chicago after taking Tylenolaced with cyanide. As it turns out. Right. She was dead by the next day, I believe. No, a couple of hours. Oh, a couple she took it that morning, then. Yeah. And she died. So that same day, a 27 year old named Adam Janice of suburban Chicago died, and then his brother and sister were consoling the family. They thought it was a heart attack. Were consoling the family and just sort of doing the post death family stuff. Very stressed, got headaches. They took Tylenol and they both died. Yeah. I had no idea that connection. Three more people died over the next couple of days, all from they found out upon investigating, all of them had taken Tylenol right before they died. Yeah. Right. They started looking into it, and it turned out that there was poisoned Tylenol in the Chicago area. And everyone freaked out because at the time, Tylenol was like, that was it. Sure. You had an over the counter pain reliever. It was Tylenol. And they didn't have tamper resistant bottles at the time. What they later figured out is that somebody bought Tylenol, took it home, I guess, laced it with cyanide, and then brought it back and made it look like it had been unopened. And people bought them and died from they still don't know who did it. They made it look like it was unopened by just closing the lid again. Right. Because, again, no tamper resistant packaging. Right. This changed everything. So the company that makes Tylenol under Johnson and Johnson issued, like, a national media alert that said, everybody should probably stop taking Tylenol and send us your Tylenol and we'll send you new stuff that we know is good, but don't take Tylenol, which is kind of cool for a company. Yeah, they really like I mean, they had no choice, I think, but to super go on the offensive with this and it's actually due to Johnson and Johnson. It wasn't the FDA saying, hey, we need to get tamper resistant packaging. Johnson and Johnson actually said, hey, I think we should start investigating tamper resistant packaging. Right. So they sort of led the charge. Yeah. And then in 1983, Congress said, let's make tampering with medicine a federal crime. Yes. And then just six years later, the FDA said, let's make these awesome tamper resistant bottles mandatory. I don't know why it took six years to do that. We're talking about a federal bureaucracy here. I know, but it seems like that's something you could have sped through. Just my opinion. Right. But anyway, 1989 is when that's why it's so hard to get into pill bottles these days, thankfully. Yeah. Little foil coatings and all that stuff. Doesn't mean you can't open it, but it means you will know if someone has opened it. Yes. Like, if you buy it and you're like, wait a minute, that foil is poked through by a human thumb. Right. I can see it. And this stuff is glowing. Yeah. Tylenol is not supposed to glow. All right, so let's take a break, okay? And after this, we'll talk a little bit more about how they regulate stuff you should know. Hey, everybody. If you want a great quality website, you want to do it yourself with no must and no fuss. Then there's nowhere else to look in Squarespace. That's right. Squarespace has every single thing that you need to put together an awesome website. Everything from growing and engaging your audience with email campaigns, collecting donations for your cause through Apple, Pay, Stripe, Venmo, PayPal Plus. You can also make your website optimized for mobile, which is great for your user on the go. That's right. And if you're into selling stuff, square space is everything to sell anything. They have all the tools you need to get your business off the ground. They have ecommerce templates, inventory management, really simple checkout process, and secure payment. So whatever you want to sell, you can sell it on Squarespace. Yeah. Don't just take our word for it. Head to Squarespace.com SYSK and start your free trial today. And then when you're ready to launch, use our offer code S YSK, and you'll get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. That's Squarespace.com SYSK. Squarespace. You want your kid eating the best nutrition right. For all their days at the dog park and nights sleeping in bed. Your bed. Yep. We mean that kid. Your dog. Halo Elevate is natural sciencebased nutrition for their best health. It's guaranteed to support your dog's top five health needs better than leading brands. That means digestive health, heart and immunity, support healthy skin and coat, hip and joint support and strengthen energy. Find Halo elevate at Petco Pet supplies plus and select neighborhood pet stores. Learn more@halopets.com. Well, first of all, how much do they regulate? And the answer is a ton of products. Yeah. Some estimates say that every dollar we spend is on a product that's regulated by the FDA. It comes under their purview. Yeah. Which means they have too much to do supply. That equals about they regulate about $1 trillion worth of goods and services. Well, goods. Wow. Yeah. All right, so they regulate we already talked about what they do regulate. They also offer guidance at times on maybe advice on how regulations should be carried out. So that's one of their tasks as well. Right. Maybe you guys should make your pill bottles tamper resistant. Our criminal enforcement unit isn't going to come shoot you if you don't, because this is a guideline. But now that it's 1989, now it's mandatory. Yeah. Or they may visit you. They do about 16,000 facility inspections per year, everything from dairy farms to blood banks. But like we said, they're way more facilities than they have field workers. I think they do well, they use the element of surprise. Sure. Or the element of potential surprise. Right. So, surprise inspection, surprise visits. I hope. Hope. And I'm pretty sure that the FDA doesn't call and schedule inspections ahead of time. Right. If they do, then write your Congressperson and make sure that this gets changed immediately, because we're talking 14,000 employees in total, not just inspectors. In total, for all the FDA, less than 15,000 people are in charge of not only visiting factories and dairies and places that use X ray machines and all this stuff, all the things that they regulate, not just in the US. But like in other countries, too. They do, yeah. They just set up their first office in Beijing in the last decade or so. What? Yeah, because they have to watch what's coming into the country as well, because Americans don't just ingest American products, ingest products for overseas. And those things have to have to follow the same guidelines as any other product that's sold or used in America. Because the FDA jurisdiction isn't stuff that's made in America, it's stuff that is consumed in America. Yeah, I guess I just thought that would be maybe the FTC or something. But I imagine they all kind of work hand in hand to get the job done. They all quietly hold hands while they do their research. And how do they do this? They do it because they are funded through the tune of $4.4 billion. About 2.6 of that comes from the treasury. And in other words, your tax dollars and the remaining close to 2 billion comes from user fees, which are very controversial. You want to talk about the user fees? Yeah, I see that man before, what was it, I believe? I think so. The FDA was fully funded by taxpayer dollars. It got all of its funding from the treasury. And then in 1992, Congress passed a law that said the FDA can start generating its own revenue by accepting user fees. Yeah, the prescription drug user fee act. Right. So in that act, it says if you are a prescription drug company, a pharmaceutical company, and you want to have your drug examined by the FDA, and in a lot of cases, most cases, you have to have it submitted for review by the FDA. Sure. You also have to pay a fee. Call it an application fee, call it a user fee, what have you. Well, there are many different fees. Right. Let's say you want to get your drug fast tracked. You can pay an exorbitant fee, and we'll put it at the top of the pile even. And so all of a sudden now, Chuckers, the FDA is not policing the pharmaceutical companies any longer. It is servicing the pharmaceutical companies. And the pharmaceutical companies, as of 1992, became the FDA's clients. Yeah, that was really bad as far as consumer protection goes. Yeah. And there are many different ways of looking at this. One is that way, which is that the pharma lobby is writing checks to the FDA to the tune of billions of dollars. And that can't be. Good. Right, right. The FDA, I read this great article on PBS where they just interviewed a bunch of people for a variety of opinions. Yeah. It was very balanced. It was very balanced. Fair and balanced. Not like us. It's bad. The FDA's rebuttal will look a little something like this. What it's done is it's really helped us out. We've increased our productivity by close to 80%. We've been able to hire so many more people, which means we can regulate so much more. It's really helped us in the review process. Right. The farmer lobby says this is great because it gets things going super quickly. It's very efficient. It's not fettering. Yeah. And it hasn't changed the review process. It's just made things faster. And we can get these drugs to people quicker because people need these. Yeah. So there's a lot of different ways of looking at it. If you asked Raymond Woodley, who was the vice president of Health Sciences at University of Arizona, I think this was like 2002, he was up for commission of the FDA. He's a safety guy. Yeah. He was rejected and he flat out said in an interview, like, it's pretty clear that people that really care about drug safety will never get this job again. Right. The commissioner of the FDA, and he said, it's a great sadness to me that people who care about drug safety and food safety to the level that they get involved, they try to make a difference and can't be accepted to regulate the agency. And he said, for me, it should be protection first and then serving second. Serving meaning the industry. Right. And that's sort of not the way it's gone since the user fees have been introduced. Yeah. From the research that we've done, it seems like every critic of the FDA, from all walks of life and all stripes, points to that user fee as possibly the number one problem as far as coziness between industry and the agency that their funding regulates. Yeah. I think it's total shit. You want to separate those two things generally. And then the other problem is funding for the FDA itself, that it is a grossly underfunded agency for what it's tasked with doing. So it does have to rely on those user fees, whereas I think it's a lot like campaign finance reform, where if you could just take that and replace it with public money, then you can separate these two things that aren't supposed to be cozy with one another. A government agency that's not supposed to rely financially on the industry that it's regulating. Yeah. And I know you want to do a show on lobbying soon. That's going to be a firestorm. It is. We're going to just be sitting there, like, gripping the table the whole time. Well, what you mentioned, though, how they're funded, though, it's interesting. I think until recently, the way the money was even divided, like how the budget money was spent was pretty hinking because you couldn't even use any of that user fee money to regulate safety at all. All of that had to go into the service side of things, right. I think now they are starting to be able to use that money for safety as well. But I think that's not happening fast enough for people that are truly concerned about the safety of our country. And I think I sent it to you. There's this Forbes article from 2014. About a year ago, there was a Yale study that came out that really just raked the FDA over the coals. And there was an analysis of a bunch of different FDA approvals from 2005 to 2012. Yes, publicly published stuff. It's not like they had to dig in, right? They just went and did an analysis of it, and they found that these FDA studies were all over the place as far as the data they accepted, what got cleared and what didn't, the sample size, how long trials went on. And it was basically used to publicly shame the FDA, saying, like, you guys aren't even using good science. You're not even trying to keep up this pretense that you're following your own standards, or that you even have standards. You're just rubber stamping pharmaceuticals. And to kind of give an opposing point of view, this guy on Forbes said, well, wait a minute, this is totally unfair because the FDA is actually what they're being criticized for here is actually a certain kind of nimbleness that the end user, the patients who are taking these drugs really want. So they're saying for something, that's a really huge, sweeping drug that's going to be used by a lot of people, like heart drugs, right? They should and typically do follow some pretty stringent guidelines. They have to have a huge population sample. They have to carry these studies out for years, and they require a lot of really good data. But if you have something that is like a really obscure disease or a drug that treats a really obscure disease like morgulons, sure, they're going to accept data that used the population size of like 100 people, because there's just not that many people out there with this disease. And it may be a shorter live study, because if it's a really fatal disease, these people want this drug and to get it out the door yeah, quicker. And there may only be the one study, you may not have to duplicate it and replicate it like three or four times. So he did a good job of presenting the other case and really pointing out how the FDA is. Very typically it's in a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation on a daily basis, because in that same study that found that it will accept a population of 100 in a study, and it goes out the door very quickly and the approval process happens fast in that sense. On the other hand. When the FDA doesn't do that and really takes its time and digs in and studies. It gets accused of basically just letting people die. Which was the case with the advent of AIDS in the HIV drugs were being tested. And people in the HIV community at large in the country were saying advocates were saying. Hey. People are dying. And these drugs are very promising. Let us try them out. I do get it, man. Like, they've been accused of dragging their feet, going too fast, and finding a happy medium. I don't know. I don't know if it's a happy medium or if you should only strive for safety and if it takes too long. It takes too long. Or if it is super quick. It's super quick. Yeah. Like, safety should be the most important thing. And it doesn't seem like that's the case. No, it should be the most important thing, but at the same time, there should also be an awareness of what's going on outside the doors of the lab. Like, there are people dying. You want a safe drug, but also if you have people who are saying, like, remember, with the Ebola outbreak, there are people are like, I will die from this drug. I'll sign whatever you need. Just give me the drug. Yeah, let me try it. Right. And they went ahead and let people use unapproved drugs. It's like the poison squad? Almost. These people were volunteering, right? Willfully volunteering. Well, they were also dying of Ebola at the time. Well, yeah, sure. The poison squad were totally healthy. Yeah. Until they joined the poison squad. Right. Did you know also the Poison Squad, it was a very scientific study. The guys were not allowed to eat or drink anything outside of this dining room except for water. They had to turn another poo and pee. All of it? All of it. Not a drop or a spec was allowed to go unmeasured and unanswered? No, not a drop. No skid marks. But the FDA and AIDS activist collision from the early 80s have you seen how to Survive a Plague? No. Great documentary, but the documentary deals in part with that, and it's really interesting. And that was actually scored. The soundtrack was scored by our friends, superhuman Happiness. Oh, nice. Listen to this show. Hey, guys. Good for them. Yeah, so go see it. It's a very good documentary. I will check it out. Is that on the old Red streaming service? Yes. I'm sure it's not called something like Netflix. That's exactly what it's called. Okay, you're confusing me, Chuck. All right, so let's take another break here, and when we come back, we'll talk a little bit more about some of the various successes and failures of the FDA, stuff you should know. Hey, everybody. If you want a great quality website, you want to do it yourself with no must and no fuss. Then there's nowhere else to look than Squarespace. That's right. Squarespace has every single thing that you need to put together an awesome website. Everything from growing and engaging your audience with email campaigns, collecting donations for your cause through Apple, Pay, Stripe, Venmo PayPal. Plus, you can also make your website optimized for mobile, which is great for your user on the go. That's right. And if you're into selling stuff, squarespace is everything to sell anything. They have all the tools you need to get your business off the ground. They have ecommerce templates, inventory management, really simple checkout process, and secure payment. So whatever you want to sell, you can sell it on Squarespace. Yeah, don't just take our word for it. Head to squarespace. Comsysk and start your free trial today. And then when you're ready to launch, use our offer code SYSK, and you'll get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. That's squarespace. Comsysk. You know you're a pet mom when you growl back during playtime and you insist on feeding them the highest quality food you can find. Enter halo Holistic, made with only whole meat, no meat meals, and probiotics for digestive health. Our first ingredient is always responsibly sourced protein raised with no antibiotics. And bonus, our fruits and veggies contain no GMOs. It's a lifestyle and a pet bomb thing. Find Halo holistic at chewie amazonandhalopets.com all right, can we talk about this Harvard paper? Yeah. This is from an article titled risky drugs colon why the FDA cannot be Trusted. And it was basically about a paper published in the Journal of Law, medicine, and Ethics from Harvard University, where they contend that they present evidence, actually, that 90%, roughly, of all new drugs approved by the FDA over the past 30 years are little or no more effective for patients than existing drugs. They're saying they still beat placebo. Typically, yeah. What they're saying is all these new drugs aren't any better than the old drugs. There's this competition on an already saturated market. Exactly. So it's like, why put the FDA through that? If they're already overstretched, then why can't those resources be allocated to something else that it's dropping the ball on? Right, sure. And they also try to make a point about the safety level of these drugs that we are taking when they point out things like every week, every week, 53,000 hospitalizations occur and 2400 deaths occur every week in the US. Because of people taking properly prescribed drugs to be healthier. So that's just a bad reaction to an approved drug. That's how I read it. Reading that wrong. One in five drugs approved ends up causing serious harm, while one in ten provide a benefit compared to existing established. So that's the 10%. So the data is then this is what this Harvard paper is saying. It's saying that, yes, one in ten drugs that comes onto the market that the FDA is approved provides a benefit that no other drug does in the past 30 years, which I think now I kind of make a connection with something else. Another article that they were really touting like, there's no other drug like this. It provides a benefit that other drugs don't. Right. So I think that's a big, like, buzzword. It provides other benefits. Right. But one in five of those drugs will go on to cause some sort of harm. Right. That's crazy. Yeah. And they go on to say in that paper that the FDA, they feel, lend's credibility to widening and lowering criteria for prescribing drugs, what they call the selling of sickness. And what you're talking about, like, a new and improved drug. Basically, drug companies are raising prices from year to year on the same drug. And they said, we're the only country in the world that allows a drug to have its price increase without showing, like, here's why here's the benefit, here's why it's improved, and here's why it costs more. And apparently the US. Is the only country that does that. Wow. Yeah. If you want to read that article, really? All the articles we mentioned, you can go to our podcast page on stuffyshotknow.com. The page for this episode. It's got all the additional links. Yeah. I'm glad we're doing that now. I think that's good. Yeah, it's definitely opened things up for the truly curious. Yeah. You really want to dig in, baby? We got it for you. Can we talk about antibiotics and livestock? Yeah. This is a big one. You found this in the Atlantic, right? Yeah. It's just a big issue these days, period, about what is going into the meat that people are eating, like in factory farms and stuff. The FDA in 1977 basically said, we're not going to put antibiotics in livestock because it's dangerous. And just in 2012, they filed papers in court that acknowledged that they weren't safe. It says more studies, a series of additional studies were conducted by other government agencies and non governmental organizations during the 90s, all of which generally support the FDA's concern regarding public health threat posed by antimicrobial resistance. Yeah. So what happens is you give healthy livestock, otherwise healthy livestock, antibiotics in their food. Right. Because the living conditions are basically ripe for an epidemic. Yes. Or it helps them grow faster. Right. But if they're on antibiotics, they stay healthy despite these living conditions. Well, the problem is the bugs that these antibiotics are fighting off develop resistance to the antibiotics, and some of which are zoom out of these bugs. And so they leap from, say, cattle to humans, and they're already resistant to our antibiotics that we've been giving healthy cows. So now you have an antibiotic resistant superbug, and that's a really dangerous thing. And what you've just said is that since the FDA has publicly said that this is dangerous and it should not go on any longer, but they didn't do anything about it. No. Their tack right now is to say that the livestock industry can police itself. It doesn't seem like that's happening, but that is their position at this point. And this is why you see a lot of meats now in your store that say antibiotic free. It's like a big selling point because even, like you said, even the FDA says it's really dangerous, but they just haven't enacted any law about that. Although that's not entirely true. They have listed some antibiotics that I know. They called out one in the article that said, you can't use this one. Right. But apparently it's only used in, like, zero point 25 or it's only yeah. 00:20 5% of all antibiotics. Cephalosporins yeah. So people that want to live more purely are saying they're not taking enough efforts. I mean, they were sued by the National Resources Defense Council saying, you have to take action on this. Well, and that's to protect us. It takes the courts to force a government agency to protect consumers in that way, in a way that the agency itself is saying, like, yes, this is dangerous. Somebody should do something. Who will do something? And then everybody's like, well, it's kind of your job to do that. And they're like, oh, don't worry about it. That's fine. Yeah. I mean, actually, the FDA pulled public notices at the Federal Register that had been around for 30 years. They literally just made them disappear overnight. Yeah. When this became controversial in the 2010s, they just said, we're going to take those briefs where we said that it's dangerous and somebody should do something. We're going to stop having those published. Right. They also were largely criticized a few years back for basically just sitting on their hands about the GMO labeling. Remember that? Yeah. Dan Quayle kind of changed history with that many years ago. What did he do? I think he was the one that pushed for the legislation that allowed GMOs. Okay, so this is fine. You got GMOs, you got a label food that contains GMOs. That's it. Don't do anything else. You just have to say on the label, this product may contain GMOs. Right, right. There was a big push. Apparently a million signatures were generated from the Just Label it campaign and were submitted properly to the FDA. And the FDA rejected all but 394 of the signatures that were given to it because about a million of them were in a single electronic document. And they were like, These don't count. Wow. So they didn't do anything about it, and there's still no GMO labeling. So regardless of how you feel about GMOs and GMO labeling, that's pretty shady stuff. Sure. To just overtly reject a million signatures, especially as part of a large national public campaign. Yeah, absolutely. Vioxx is a painkiller that was approved by the FDA 1999. This is fun, by the way, just to cover this stuff. In 2000, this study showed that the drug posed a big heart attack risk when compared to a similar painkiller. And Merck, who was a manufacturer of, kind of blew it off and said it's really beneficial. And the FDA said, okay. Vioxx remained on the market for another four years, and they estimate between 88,140 thousand heart attacks were caused by Vioxx in that time. And it wasn't the FDA. Whoever removed Vioxx, it was Merck bowing to public pressure. Merc just took it off the market itself because it was starting to look bad. And the FDA was like, what's going on? What are you guys doing? How about a success? In the 1950s in Germany, there were scientists who created something called thalidomide, which was a sleeping pill. Right. And they said it's over the counter. It's totally safe all over Europe for pregnant women even. Yeah, it's a sleeping pill. Not so safe, though, because children were being born with malformed limbs to the tune of 10,000 worldwide, but not very many in the United States, because France's, oldham kelsey of the FDA was really resistant and made a big push to not allow thalidomites. She didn't think it was safe. No. She was in charge of reviewing the data and said, what is this? This is basically anecdotal, like, where's your real data? And withstood a lot of pressure to approve this drug and would not cave in. And as a result, only 17 babies were born with malformations because of the living in the US. And the whole reason that there were any was because they found out that the drugmaker was pushing the drugs for free onto American doctors to distribute as samples while the FDA was holding up approval. And so 17 children were born with deformities because of it, because of these free drugs. Apparently in Canada, the story was even different. The Canadian government, it was totally legal and approved in Canada, and for months after it became worldwide known that thalidomide caused birth defects because it crosses the placental barrier and arrests development of the fetus. Right. Canada knew. Everybody knew about it. And it took months before Canada finally outlawed it. So there's like this real big public shame hanging over Canada's government agency regulating drugs. Wow. Still to the state because of that. And Billy Joel wrote a song about it. Oh, yeah. Well, it was in that terrible talk. We didn't start the phone. Oh yeah, children, no toilet. Yeah, I forgot about that. But yeah, that was one of the FDA's great successes. And as a result, actually, the congress passed something, an amendment to the food and drug act, the cafaver Harris amendments of that really expanded the FDA's scope of duties. Have drug ads have all those disclaimers that's from the 1962 amendments. Advertising is under the jurisdiction. They read those so fast. And the last one is an early death. Right, exactly. Like they need to say early death. No. Prior to, the FDA had 60 days to respond to an application. And if they didn't get to it in time. Well, that's fine. I'm sure it's fine. You can go to market. That changed to, I think, 180 days, and it's just a respond. And then also, drug makers only had to demonstrate that their drug was safe, not effective. That changed in 62 as well. Yes. They also said that they had to control the marketing of generic drugs to keep them from being sold as just, like, jacking up the price under a new name, basically. Yeah. That was a great amendment. The Kerfuffle Harris amendment. Is that right? Kefarber. Oh, Kefar estus kefalver. Another great success. Yeah. Well, that was the same one. Well, no, I mean, in addition to the wood of mine got you. And then in the news recently, you dug this up, the Zohydra painkiller. You didn't hear about this? No, I haven't heard of this until today. Apparently, it's pure Oxycodone. Correct. It is, for the first time, yeah. All the other stuff, like Vicodin and OxyContin even, are safer because they contain at least something else, like acetaminophen or some other drug. This is just pure hydrocodone. And you remember there was a huge problem with pill addiction to OxyContin in particular. Yeah. It wasn't just Rush Limbaugh. A lot of people yeah, we're really hooked on OxyContin. And as a matter of fact, the current heroin addiction crisis in the US. Is a direct result of the FDA stepping in and saying, like, hey, you guys need to do something with OxyContin. Like, people are crushing it up and injecting it. You got to do something. We'll just do heroin. Well, there's a tamper resistant thing where when you crush up OxyContin now, it turns into this goo that you can't inject or snore it. Right. Can you lick it off a mirror? You can, I guess, but I don't think it has the same effect. Right. Because when you crush it up, it was time release, and when you crush it up, it's not time release anymore. It's, like, all there to give you this immediate yeah, that's what drug abusers will often do. Right. So now that when you crush up OxyContin, it turns into a goo. Everybody's turned to heroin. Right. So now there's a heroin epidemic. This company making Zohydra came along and said, well, that's cool. We'll just release this completely pure hydrocodone pill without any tamper resistance. So we're going to go back to square one, everybody. Okay. And there's a huge outcry against this drug, and the FDA had stepped up and became a mouthpiece for it. Yeah. And the FDA, they will defend it, the decision, by saying, well, putting things like acetaminophen has well known liver damage risk. Okay. This is actually more pure. You can actually take Hydrocodone now. People in severe pain can take this drug without that liver toxicity risk. I mean, that's the point. No, it is a point. And if you're in severe pain in life and need this to function or live out your life, then great, but make it tamper resistant. Yeah, that's not what people are arguing about. They're saying that this is a very high level for abuse. Right. Because there's no tamper resistant. Yeah, exactly. So people are going to die because of this drug. Yeah, I think in 2010, prescription hydrocodone and other prescription opiates accounted for almost 170 deaths, which is a fourfold increase from just ten or eleven years earlier. Right. And that was all OC before they made it tamper resistant. Orange county. There's probably a lot of it in orange county. I bet there is. So there you go. Crazy stuff. It is crazy stuff. I kind of with that professor from Arizona that's just like safety. It's sad that the chief of that organization can't be someone who's super pro safety above all else. Yeah, that's their job. There's such a tug of war between the public and I guess corporations over safety and the FDA is not pulling on our side necessarily. Yeah. And I'm sure we'll hear from all kinds of people, from the pharmaceutical industry that will tout how seriously they take their testing and stuff. And we're not saying they don't. No, I think there are great protocols and samples and procedures, but there's also plenty of times where they just overtly dropped the ball and public safety suffered as a result. Agreed. If you want to know more about the FDA, you can go to the FDA website FDA. Gov. You can go to houseutworks.com and type in FDA in the search bar. Don't forget to go to our podcast page on STUFFYou knows.com for the FDA episode that you're listening to now. And since I said search bar in there somewhere, it's time for listener mail. I'm going to call this we inspired a writer. Awesome. Hey, guys. Jerry, first off, thank you so much for what you do. I've been a fan for over three years, steadily working my way through the backlog, living in constant fear of the existential dread that will settle upon me the day I finish. I took my sister as well. And whereas our conversations used to be 100% simpsons quotes, now it is 90% simpsons. 10% stuff you should know. That's a high honor, she says. But I digress. I'm writing because I'm an author of dark humor novels for young adults and I wanted to express how helpful your podcast has been with inspiring and informing various elements of my books. For example, the one I'm currently writing is about a creepy candle factory in a creepy small town with a big creepy mountain where wax sculptures come to life after listening to your ear wax episode, mount ceremon was born. Pretty neat. Ever since, the haunted house episode had been itching to ride a horror about a horror attraction that goes terribly and hilariously wrong number stations equals something awesome and so on and so on. So we're inspiring her all over the place right. I never know where your inspiration is going to come from, but your show provides me with a steady stream of delicious possibilities. I wanted to thank you the best way I could, so I named a couple of off screen high school characters after you guys in my most recently published book, hellhole Sweet. How about that? That is a huge honor. Pretty neat. And she's going to send us some copies. And one for Jerry, too, of course, she says. So I'm going to send her mailing address and thank you, she says. Thanks for the brain snacks. And that's from Gina. Domico damico. And she has a website, and you can check out her kind of weird, funny, twisted young adult novels at her site and support writing creativity. Thanks for Gina, right? Yeah. And make sure you get L Ol so you can see our names in print. You don't like HS, do you? That was waiting for Guffman joke. Oh, was it? Well, you'll explain to me later, right? How are you? If you want to get in touch with us to find out that Waiting for Guffman joke Chuck just made, he'll respond to each inquiry personally. Right? You can tweet to us at syskpodcast. You can join us on Facebook.com. You can join us on Facebook.com stuffyyshow. You can send us an email to stuffpodcast@howstoughforks.com. And as always, join us at our home on the web stuffyoushorenow.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howtofworks.com summer school's out. The sun is shining. The daylight is longer. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music that's so good, it's Criminal Morbid. Part true crime and part comedy, Morbid takes you on a journey from murderous mysteries to major laughs, all in the same week. Hosted by autopsy technician Elena Ercart and hairstylist Ash Kelly, this chart topping series will have you hooked before you know it. Listen to new episodes of Morbid one week early, only on Amazon Music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen today. You know you're a pet mom when you plan your vacation around your pet. At Halo, we get it because we're pet moms, too. We make natural, high quality pet food that's rooted in science. It's the world's best food for the world's best kids. Learn more@halopets.com. I'm."
c41a7a58-5460-11e8-b38c-a39514337545	SYSK Selects: Virus Talk with Josh and Chuck	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/sysk-selects-virus-talk-with-josh-and-chuck	Viruses are big jerks that invade regular cells and hold them hostage, making you sick while they're doing it. Learn everything you ever needed to know about viruses, including how the common cold works, in this classic episode.	Viruses are big jerks that invade regular cells and hold them hostage, making you sick while they're doing it. Learn everything you ever needed to know about viruses, including how the common cold works, in this classic episode.	Sat, 21 Mar 2020 09:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2020, tm_mon=3, tm_mday=21, tm_hour=9, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=5, tm_yday=81, tm_isdst=0)	31782548	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"This July, don't miss an entire summer of surprises on Disney Plus with Disney's High School Musical, the series season three zombies, three Doctor Strange in the multiverse of Madness, and the wonderful summer of Mickey Mouse. Plus new episodes of Marvel Studios, ms. Marvel and National Geographics. America the Beautiful. From the award winning producers of Planet Earth, Frozen Planet, and the Disney nature films, america the Beautiful takes viewers on a tour of the most spectacular and visually arresting regions of our great nation. All these and more streaming this month on Disney Plus. Summer school's out. The sun is shining. The daylight is longer. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music that's so good it's criminal Morbid. Part true crime and part comedy, Morbid takes you on a journey from murderous mysteries to major laughs, all in the same week. Hosted by autopsy technician Elena Ercart and hairstylist Ash Kelly, this chart topping series will have you hooked before you know it. Listen to new episodes of Morbid one week early, only on Amazon Music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen today. Hello, friends out there. It's Chuck Bryant, here on a Saturday to intro my select pick for this week from October 14, 2014. Virus talk with Josh and Chuck. Not a spin off show, but a podcast episode we recorded about viruses. Very, very interesting stuff. Give it a listen right now. Welcome to stuff. You should know a production of Iheartradios how stuff works. Hi, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clarke. There's charles W, Chuck Bryant. There's Jerry. And this is Stuff You Should Know, featuring my enormous stopped up nose. And how appropriate. Yeah, well, that was one of the reasons why I wanted to do this one. I figured, I'm a little sick right now. Yeah. Still. And I wanted to know more about the monster inside me. That's right. I'm not feeling great. And knowledge is power, like we always say. Exactly. Just from researching this, I was like, starting to break a sweat and tremble. And I was like, I'm getting better. And then I passed out and hit my head. Yeah. And I didn't have enough time to finish studying. So good. I'm going to have to make a lot of this up, Chuck. Cool. Yeah. We covered Ebola recently, and we are definitely going to cover HIV at some point. We just haven't gotten around to it. Yeah, but both of those are viruses. There's another one we talked about that seemed to come up in this I don't remember what it was, but the herpes. No, we never talked about herpes. Well, not mixed company. What was it? I don't remember, but there was definitely microbiome, maybe. Yeah, no, I don't remember what it was. But we've talked about viruses and viral infections. But to me, I think viruses are one of the most fascinating things on the entire planet. They're jerks. Like, we don't know where they came from. We don't quite know how to classify them because they really kind of operate on the line between a living and a non living thing. Yeah, this article said, like most scientists, agree, but I found a lot of people that said that they're not living things too. Yeah, but who cares, really? They still definitely have an effect. The weird thing is about a virus is why some people say it's living and some people say it's non living is that to be a living thing, you have to have something like arms. Yeah, you have to have arms. Rocks don't have arms. No point proven. You have to be able to carry out the processes that keep you alive. Like self sustaining. Yeah. A cell is the smallest living organism. It's the smallest possible living organism because you get lower than that and you have maybe the things that make up a cell, but they can't sustain themselves. A cell can sustain itself and things can be made up of cells like us. And therefore we are a living organism. The cells that make us up are living organisms. Plants are living organisms. But viruses, they don't have any means of carrying out the processes that keep them alive. Which doesn't matter, because they're not alive. But more important, they don't have any processes that allow them to reproduce. Yeah, they're just like, by themselves, that they're not worth very much. They need to glam on. They're always glamming on to everyone else's junk. Exactly. Which is basically what a virus does. But for something as simple as a virus is, and we'll talk about how simple they are in a second, they have devastating effects when they do start to really get busy. Sure. Yeah. So, Chuck, I was saying they don't know exactly where viruses came from. They know they're very old. But there are a couple of theories. My favorite one, probably the one that's right, is that they were former bits of cells that basically evolved into freelance renegades. Really? Yeah. Which explains why certain viruses fit with certain cells. Well, that makes sense. So they could have just been basically like drifting genetic material that evolved enough to say, I'm going to learn to reproduce by hijacking renegade drifters. So are you saying that viruses are John Rambo? Pretty much. So let's talk about what makes a virus. Yeah, well, like you said, a cell is on its own. It can do its own thing. Viruses cannot. Viruses are super tiny, about 1 million of an inch long, which is 1000 times smaller than bacteria, which are smaller than human cells, most of them. There are some viruses that are actually larger than the average size bacteria, but for the most part they are smaller, which is still super tiny. Sure, it is like you need an electron microscope to view these bad boys. Right. And they can infect just about any living thing as a matter of fact, any living thing could be theoretically infected by a virus. Like a bacteria can get a viral infection. Man, that's crazy. Isn't that crazy? I don't even know what that means. Seaweed can get viruses. Yeah. Donkeys. Yes. All sorts of stuff. The whole gamut from seaweed to donkeys. The virus itself, if you just want to look at what that little tiny particle is it's a virion. Is that how we're going to say that? Virion. Virion, yes. Why didn't they just leave the second eye out in VIRIN? Yes. So much better. Basically what it is, is a set of genetic instructions. Can be either DNA or RNA, can't be both. And it's, you know, it's just instructions. That's all it is. Well, that's the nucleic acid that is part of a virus. Like a virus is like a particle. It's like an individual viral particle. Yeah. And part of that is the nucleic acid. Yeah. And that's surrounded by capsid, which is just a protein coating to protect it. And then sometimes if it's an enveloped virus, it will also have an envelope around that capsid. If it's naked, it doesn't need, or I guess it just doesn't have that other protein coat. Right. And the enveloped ones are enveloped with this lipid, a fat of some sort. But for a naked virus, it's made up of two things. It's got its nucleic acid and it's protein coating that protects the nucleic acid. So it's not just nucleic acid floating around. That's right. And the nucleic acid is, like you said, it's basically just a blueprint for how to make more viruses. Because if speaking teleologically, a virus is its whole purpose is to make more viruses, that's all it cares about. And you can say, well, that applies to just about any living organism. If you get down to the bare bones just to put the gate yeah. With the virus, it's like that's it man, it's not doing anything else. It doesn't care about playing cards. It doesn't want to do anything but reproduce and make you sick. Yeah, pretty much. Their shape varies a lot, but there are basically three types. Helical or helico. It's like a tube. You got your polyhedrals, it's sort of like a soccer ball. And then you have your complex shapes. And they are complex. They can look crazy, they can have tails, they can have crazy looking spider legs. They have both. Which one looks like the Apollo lunar lander? I'm going to go with complex. I don't know that's for sure, but I don't think it could be polyhedral. It's startling how much it looks like that. It looks like it was made to look like a cool little lunar lander. Or that the lunar lander was modeled after the virus, maybe, which didn't make much because they wanted to infect the moon, which we may have astronaut jokes. So unlike cells that can do their own thing, viruses don't have enzymes like cells do. That basically allow it to operate independently as their own little units. Some do. Some viruses contain just enough enzymes to take their DNA or their RNA and do something with it to basically prime it to be transcribed or something like that. Or they have enzymes that go hijack the enzymes in the cell. So some do, most don't. Right. But yeah, that's the whole point of infecting a host cell. If all the virus wants to do is reproduce, but it can't reproduce, that's where the host cell comes in. That's right. They basically move into the factory and say, we're going to use your equipment. Right. They're like, if you don't mind, there's going to be some big changes around here because there's a new sheriff in town to kill you. The virus. Yes. Although all viruses don't kill people. We should point that out. No. Depending on what kind of virus it is, whether it's naked or enveloped yes. It will attach itself to the host cell and either inject it. If it's naked, it has to stay outside of the host cell and it basically injects its genetic material into the host cell. Or if it's enveloped, that fat lipid coding that makes it an enveloped virus basically connects to the host cell's own fat lipid coating. And that protein cod virus can basically slip through, just absorb right into the cell and say TADA when it makes it on the inside. Yeah. Is that what an antigen is? I think that's the protein that has to match, like the antigen looks for another like protein so it can get that tight bond. And if they're not similar enough, they can't bond and infect that cell. I might be wrong in that. Is that right? I don't know if that's the it sounds right. The reason it sounds right is because I saw elsewhere in the research that that's why viruses go after specific kinds of cells. Okay. They recognize the type of cells that they're capable of infecting. Right. And say, I can bind to you very tightly, my friend. Exactly. So let's dance. Exactly. All right. Right after this message, we are going to get down to the nitty gritty on what happens once they have bound themselves to that cell. These days, you use your personal info to do just about everything, especially when you're online. And guess what? With all that info just floating around out there, it can make the Internet a practical gold mine for identity thieves. And stealing your identity, it turns out, can be dangerously easy, which is not good. But now it's easy to protect yourself with LifeLock. By Norton. Yes. LifeLock monitors your info and alerts you to potential identity threats. And if you are a victim of identity theft, a dedicated US based restoration specialist will work to fix it. Identity thefts have had it easy for far too long. Now, finally, it's your turn. Just remember, no one can prevent all identity theft or monitor all transactions at all businesses. But everyone can save up to 25% off their first year by going to LifeLock comStuff that's Lifelock.com stuff for 25% off your first year. LifeLock identity theft protection starts here. What if you were a global bank who wanted to supercharge your audit system? So you tap IBM to UNSILO your data and with the help of AI, start crunching a year's worth of transactions against thousands of compliance controls. Now you're making smarter decisions. Faster operating costs are lower, and everyone from your auditors to your bankers feel like a million bucks. Let's create smarter ways of putting your data to work. IBM, let's create. Learn more@ibm.com. All right, Josh. They moved into the cell. They liked the looks of it. It's a nice open concept floor plan, which everyone loves these days. What happens from there? Well, it depends on the virus. So let's say it was one that injected it. It's got its genetic material floating around. Maybe there's an enzyme that's assisting the genetic material. Or if the virus itself showed up, it's releasing its genetic material all over the place. But basically what happens is that sounds pretty gross. Yeah, well, it is pretty gross, teenage boy. It happens exactly like you think. Yeah. But once inside the cell, you'll see a lot that the virus hijacks the cells processes. Yeah. Like, hey, we need to use your deal because we don't have our own. Exactly. The reason people use the word hijack is because it really gets the point across. But it's also because science isn't 100% on how viruses do it. What they think, basically, is that if there's an accompanying enzyme or something, the enzymes basically wait for a line of other enzymes, the cells on enzymes to go past, and then it grabs the last one in the line of that old trick, hits it over the head yeah. Hypnotizes it and Blazing Saddles, basically, and then sends it back out to go recruit other enzymes. And then all of a sudden, the cell is enzymes. It's workers. If you think of the enzymes as, like, the workers in the cell yeah. They're all working for this virus. Sure. And the cells like, what the heck is going on? It's too late. The enzymes are focused on transcribing the DNA, which ultimately just makes more DNA or RNA for the virus, and then assembling it with proteins that the enzymes are now making. So they're now making more and more and more viruses. It's a hostile takeover. It is very much a hostile takeover. That's one way to go. There's another thing called a retrovirus, which I'm a huge fan of. Some of the worst viruses around are retroviruses, which is ironic because they actually have the softest impact on the host cell. But a retrovirus goes in very quietly, hangs around with her 80s clothing. Right? Yeah. Because HIV is a retrovirus. Sure. I think Flu is a retrovirus, too. I think but it goes in and it just inserts its DNA into the cell's DNA. All right? So it's like, hey, go about your business or whatever. But now there's this extra sequence that when you go over it and you transcribe it and you do what this DNA or this genetic material is telling you to do to make you're going to also as a byproduct spit out viruses. So it's just duplicating itself. It is. So there's a lot of different things that can go on, but it's like you said, there's a hostile takeover or the cell is tricked into making more viruses. But what happens is more and more and more viruses are being made within the host cell, which can be pretty bad for the host cell, ultimately. Well, yeah, because eventually the virus is going to leave and they can either. If it's a naked virus, it'll bust out and just destroy the wholesale and be like, hey, I'm tired of your little apartment. I'm just going to burn it down because I'm my own thing now, right, and I can live on my own. Or if it's an envelope virus, then it'll just kind of pinch away and keep that protective cell membrane and just be like, well, fine, I'll just take my stuff and then leave and you're free to do what you want. Right. Well, that's another reason why retroviruses are easy on the host cell is because all retroviruses are enveloped viruses. So these newly made viruses just move to the outside membrane and bud off. And then what happens when they bud off or when the cell breaks open because there's so many new viruses? It ruptures the cell, which is pretty horrific if you think about it. I know. All of a sudden you're contagious. Yeah. And it's duplicating and spreading all throughout your body at a pretty rapid rate. Lots of these guys. So let's look at you, for instance. Okay. What have you got right now? I got something, some sort of viral infection. Not the cold, not the flu, probably. Are you achy fevery? No feverish. I mean so what do I have, Doc? Well, I would say you have a cold. Okay. But I had a cold that turned into a sinus infection. I may have one of those. From the color of the stuff that's coming out of my nose, I would say I probably have a sinus infection, yes. Would you describe it as Khaki? I would describe it as a Drab. Olive. Oh, man. Way worse than khaki. When I was sick a couple of weeks ago, I had some serious, bright, almost fluorescent yellow coming out, which is all very gratifying to get rid of, either with your nettie pot or just blowing your nose or whatever. I've been nettie potting like a madman. Yeah, you can overdo that when you're sick, apparently. Yeah, I can imagine because just the salt, there's too much salt up there. And I think just fluid. Like, unless you really get it all out, it's better. Like you need to dry out completely in between. Yeah, I definitely am. All right, we'll just take two of these and come back and see me next week. Well, you're diagnosing me. What was going on? Oh, well, you've got a cold, I think, but let's say you're in the office. I think we should make this as real as possible. Let's say that I'm hanging out with my sweet little four year old niece who herself has a cold. Is she the person? I don't want to name names, but I think she's entirely possible. But she's on your list now. All right. So your little niece probably sneezed or something or just put her dirty little hands all over your face because she loves Uncle Josh. Her dad would not allow her to have dirty hands. Okay. I think she's probably coughing around me. Okay. Yeah. And what you probably did was inhaled a virus particle, and that probably attached to the linings of your nasal passages and your sinuses, because apparently there's basically only three ways that a virus gets into your body. You inhale, it attaches to your mucous membranes, like your nose or your gums, or enters through a break in the skin. That's right. So your whole cell is going to break open. Your virus is going to move in there and say, I'm going to use your equipment like we talked about, then maybe travel to your bloodstream, travel to your lungs, and you're going to end up getting, let's say maybe one of the first signs is a runny nose because you're losing cells in your sinuses. And now that fluid is going to be loosened up as a result. Yeah. The literal cellular lining of my sinuses is rupturing. It's under attack. Because here's the thing. When you go through and look at, like, what a virus does, you're looking at what one individual virion is doing. Yeah. You don't necessarily just pick up one individual Virian. You can be exposed to many variants, and they are each reproducing, producing thousands more just in one cell. So all this is going on. It can have a pronounced effect. Like if you just lost one cell in your nasal lining, it's not going to do much. You're probably never, ever going to notice. But if you lose a ton of the cells at the same time, you're going to have a runny nose. Yeah. Or if it happens in your throat, you're going to have a sore throat. That's right. That's just fluid. It's attacking those cells in your throat and the lining and it's dripping and just causing like, usually some sort of inflammation. Yeah. And because those ruptured cells are being carried down by your nose juice to the back of your throat, it's what I was raised on, mucus, which in turn nose juice. Okay. Which in turn they attach and attack to the cells lining your throat and then this whole thing is just going on and on and on again. Yeah. If you've ever had aches and pains because of maybe a flu, that's because your muscle cells are being attacked. And it sucks because you don't know that this is going on at first. Like, it's just this war being waged inside of your body. And you're like, hey, I'm just going to the grocery store and I'm feeling pretty good. Exactly. And by the time you start to feel, it's too late. It is too late. I'm glad you brought that up because I did a don't be dumb on when you're actually contagious. Yeah. What's the final on that? So it depends on does it vary how long you're contagious? Varies, but when you start is about a day before you start showing symptoms. Okay. So like, remember how I said if you have one cell burst and you're not going to notice it, it's going to take many cells to burst before you finally have a sore throat? Yeah. Well, while those things are bursting after that first one bursts, you're contagious, buddy. So for a day before you even know you're sick, you're walking around infecting other people with a cold, you go from the day before symptoms to about four days after. And with the flu, you go from the day before symptoms to five to seven days after. Got you. So you can still be it is true when people are like, I'm not contagious anymore, they're usually probably totally wrong. But say their flew last eight days. They say that on day eight, they're actually right. Most people say it by day three or four or whatever. All right, well, they need to watch. Don't be dumb. Josh's award winning web series. So many awards, man. I think the next award it's going to win is the most divisive web series because more than half the think are like, man, this is the best thing ever. Half of people are like, I don't get it. Why is Josh acting so weird? Yeah. And I'll just respond with, yeah, you don't get it. Yeah, it's definitely not for everybody. I've learned. Well, it's very funny. I think these days you use your personal info to do just about everything, especially when you're online. And guess what? With all that info just floating around out there, it can make the Internet a practical gold mine for identity thieves. And stealing your identity, it turns out, can be dangerously easy, which is not good. But now it's easy to protect yourself with LifeLock by Norton. Yes, LifeLock monitors your info and alerts you to potential identity threats. And if you are a victim of identity theft, a dedicated USbased restoration specialist will work to fix it. Identity thefts have had it easy for far too long. Now finally, it's your turn. Just remember, no one can prevent all identity theft or monitor all transactions at all businesses. But everyone can save up to 25% off their first year by going to LifeLock. comStuff. That's lifelock.com stuff for 25% off your first year. LifeLock identity theft protection starts here. What if you were a gigantic snack food maker and you had to wrestle a massively complex supply chain to satisfy cravings from Tokyo to Toledo? So you partner with IBM Consulting to bring together data and workflows so that every driver and merchandiser can serve up jalapeno sesame and chocolate covered goodness with real time data driven precision. Let's create supply chains that have an appetite for performance. IBM let's create. Learn more at IBM. Comconsulting. It turns out you ask me if I feel feverish, and I don't. Apparently my body slacking on the immune response. Well, I think you don't always get the fever, but fever is a good thing because your body is wired to operate optimally at 98.6, even though I heard that was 98.7. Now, is that right? Yeah, I heard that they kind of abandoned that as like an average body temperature because it varies enough between human beings. They're like, now it's this between this, right, rather than 98.6. And if you don't have that, you're sick. So somewhere in that range, let's say, chemical reactions and basically anything going on in your body, that's the temperature it likes. So when you get a fever, it's actually slowing all those processes down, including the viruses spread, because it's like, oh man, it's hot, I can't work as much. That's right. Which is kind of a weird indirect, roundabout way of slowing a fever down or slowing an infection down, I guess, if it works. So it's good to have a fever. It is good to have a fever. And it actually makes sense in a strange way because some infections, some viruses attack the very cells that are meant to mount the immune response. Like, remember Ebola? Yeah. It goes right after every immune response cell it can find. HIV goes after T cells, which attack and destroy foreign bodies to slow them down and to slow the spread so that the immune response can continue and mount a full attack is kind of clever. Yeah. And since you mentioned HIV, it's another scary one because it's one of those viruses that can just lay in wait, and they even call it sleeping at some. Sometimes it's not obvious. You could have HIV and be spreading HIV without ever feeling any kind of sick or any kind of symptoms, and basically, eventually that virus is going to do its thing. It could lay in wait for years even without acting. Right. And it depends on the virus, but they figure that there's some sort of environmental trigger. One I saw was like exposure to UV Blight or something like that. But it's the same thing. Herpes. Is a virus like that? Yes, it sleeps, which is why people who have, like, say herpes simplex sure don't always have cold sores. It'll just flare up right. It will flare up. And they often say, like, in times of stress or something like that. Well, the virus isn't like, oh, this person is stressed out, let's go there's. Probably cortisol triggers the virus to start reproducing, but one of the the devious aspects of this is when that virus sneaks in and inserts its DNA or RNA into the DNA of the cell and just hang back and wait. Well, that cell is dividing like normal again and the virus unwittingly right. Without the virus even being reproduced. Now, set up to be reproduced rather than in just one cell now four or eight or 16 or 32. And then all hell breaks loose when all of them start going at the same time because they were all exposed to cortisol. Wow. That's what I'm saying. Yeah. Viruses are amazingly interesting and wicked, wicked things. They are. So here are some tips the way if your office is sick or you're around your four year old niece, here are some tips from your buddies here to keep you from getting sick. You know that there are carrier organisms like mosquitoes and fleas that can spread viruses. We know it can be airborne. We already talked about bodily fluids, whether that's nose juice or saliva or blood or semen or vaginal secretions as one way you can get a direct transfer. True. Surfaces on which bodily fluids have dried, which is kind of scary to think about. Yeah. I want to keep all those secretions off of surfaces because the virus can live outside of the body for a while, apparently. Flu virus can live for seven days just on the surface. Yes. That's why you sneeze in your hand and you open the door to your office. Then there could be a little virus on that doorknob. And that's why they super advice. And one of the things that we're advising now is to wash your hands a lot if you're sick or if you know that there is sickness around you. Right. I wouldn't be in Howard Hughes about it, but I wash my hands a lot when I know that there are viruses going around. I started washing my hands a lot more once I found out or was told what you're actually doing when you're washing your hands, you're not actually killing anything on your hands any germs. What you're doing by introducing soap is you're creating something that will basically go and cling to germs on your hands. And then when you wash off the soap, you're washing off the germs. So you're not like waging war or anything like that. You're basically just rinsing your hands clean, literally. Yeah. So once I realized that, I was like, oh, yeah, washing hands makes a lot of sense because before that, I was like, soap doesn't do anything, really. Yeah. And I don't even use antibacterial soap as a rule, so I was like, it's definitely not doing anything now. I'm like, it. Is doing something. So let's wash our hands as often as possible. That's a good idea. And a really long T shirt. If you are sick, you are going to want to cover your mouth when you sneeze and cough, because that's just common decency. You want to avoid contact with anyone else's bodily fluids, whether you're sick or not. And whether they are sick or not, it's just you don't want to have anyone else's bodily fluids on you or in you. Yes. Unless you're married or something. Unless you really love that person, then fluids are welcome. And antibiotics. Yeah, this thing's gotten blue a few times. It's a very sexy show. Yeah. Sexy virus. Antibiotics aren't going to help with a viral infection. That is obviously for bacterial infections only. Yes, but it occurred to me, Chuck, that if you could cure a viral infection in a bacteria with antibiotics, it would be kind of like euthanasia. Right? But it would cure the viral infection. That's a good point. A bacteria infected with the virus. That's how tough viruses are. And we have no idea how they originated or where they came from. We don't. That's true. We just know they're super old, and the ones that are the oldest are the ones that kill the least. Oh, really? Yeah. If you think about it, a virus would, just by Rite of Natural selection, evolved to be able to reproduce without killing the host, because if the host survives, then that just increases the chances of the virus to be spread from a really deadly virus is probably newer as far as humanity is concerned. And a virus that can infect more organisms, more types of organisms, like one that could make grass sick but also make a human sick. That's probably a pretty old virus. Yeah, old virus just sounds intimidating. Well, we have, like, basically what amounts to fossilized viruses in our DNA from all those viruses, those retroviruses that came in, inserted its genetic material, and our body learned to mount a defense against them. But that stuff is still in the human genome. Crazy viruses. They're also immunizations, of course, and how they work. They preinfect your body so it knows how to mount the fight against it. Right. To make sure it has all the right equipment. It's like putting up wanted posters in your body. Yeah. But those viruses change slightly, ever so slightly, enough to where you have to keep updating these vaccines. So it keeps working. Yeah, they evolved fairly quickly. Lastly, Chuck, I want to address something. There is a, I guess a misconception or urban legend or whatever, that you can tell whether you have a viral infection or a bacterial infection or what kind of virus you have based on the color of your mucus. We talked about your fluorescent or something like that. They don't in and of themselves relate to a specific type of virus or bacterial or viral infection or anything like that. It's not true. So it's viruses. Yeah. I got nothing else. It is good to know how this stuff works, though, because when you get sick, you understand it a little better. Maybe you can mentally fight the stuff more effectively. I'm doing it right now. Do you see how I'm bleeding for my scalp? Oh, my God. I'm using a lot of mental power. It's amazing. If you want to know more about viruses, you can start by typing that word into the search bar@howstoughforks.com and it will bring up this cool article. And I said how stuff works. So it's time for a listener mail. I'm going to call this headstones. My name is Georgia Gilbert. I'm a new but enthusiastic fan from the University of Washington. I was listening to your tombstones podcast and I want to say that the move to churchyard burials is a bit more complicated than you implied. If I remember correctly, burials and churchyards began mostly as a common practice because of the plague. Churches would sell spots for burial within the church itself, in the walls and the floors, etc. Or because there was a common belief during the Middle Ages that being buried in a church was being buried closer to God. And if you're buried closer to God, the better off you're going to be in the afterlife. The reasoning goes, many people would actually get spots within their local church to be buried, or at least very close to the walls outside. During the play gears. However, the amount of bodies accumulated to be buried became too much and they began to bury people further outside the church, even if they had paid for a spot inside. I read a great book on death in London through the ages that talked about it. That was called Necropolis. I highly recommend it. So thanks for teaching me such awesome stuff, guys. I can now ask my mother in law intelligent questions about growing up in Germany during the Cold War, thanks to your Berlin Wall program. Nice. And that is from Georgia. That was fascinating. The plague, by the way, was bacterial, not viral, in case anybody was wondering. Like me. Yeah, we did one on the plague, right? We did Black Death or Black Plague? Yeah. Anyway, who is that again? Georgia. Thanks a lot, Georgia. We appreciate that. That was a great email. If you have a great email, you can try to tweet it to us. If it's short at syskpodcast, you can post it on Facebook, if you like, at facebook. Comstuffysheno. Or you can send us an email like a normal person to Stuffpodcast@howstuffworks.com. And as always, in the meantime, hang out with us at our home on the web. Stuffyshow.com. Stuffyhoodnow is the production of iHeartRadio's how stuff works. For more podcasts, my heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite show. Hey, everybody. I don't know about you, but I am excited that it's summer school's out, the sun is shining, and best of all, there's downtime for days. That's where true crime podcasts on Amazon music come in. There's a perfect activity for last minute road trips, long walks, or, if you're brave enough, late nights. 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https://podcasts.howstuf…ay-gap-final.mp3	How the Gender Pay Gap Works	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/how-the-gender-pay-gap-works	The gender pay gap is the amount of time into the next year a woman must work to earn as much as a man did the previous year. And it's narrowing at a snail's pace.	The gender pay gap is the amount of time into the next year a woman must work to earn as much as a man did the previous year. And it's narrowing at a snail's pace.	Tue, 12 Apr 2016 14:16:53 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2016, tm_mon=4, tm_mday=12, tm_hour=14, tm_min=16, tm_sec=53, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=103, tm_isdst=0)	39249790	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"This episode is brought to you by Squarespace. Start building your website today@squarespace.com. Enter offer code stuff at checkout to get 10% off Squarespace. Set your website apart. Welcome to stuff you should knowcom. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W, Chuck Bryant and Jerry so it's stuff you should know. Oh, is this coming out on equal payday? I don't think so. Well, equal payday may have come and gone by now, but it was April 12, 2016. That's right. And do you remember when we did this Day in History? Weirdo series or video series? That was pretty great. It was a little odd. It was lynchian. It was. But one of the ones that we did was on Lily Ledbetter. Yeah. And I think it was on equal payday. I think I remember it. But we mentioned Lily Led better, for sure. But equal payday, for those of you not in the know, is a day in the United States where working women who work full time year round would have to work until to get the equal amount of pay that their male counterparts got for the year before. Right. So it is 2016. So take our pay for 2015 and don't take our pay. We want to keep that. But take a man's pay, a real man's pay right. From 2015, and a woman in the same position would have to work. It changes every year. Right. The date if the amount of pay changes or the pay disparity changes. Right. But the significance of that date would be, like, a woman has to work until April, whatever, in the following year. Just make as much as the man made in the previous year. Right. I think I just basically said the same thing you said. Sure. Just in a weird way. And this is nothing new, actually, this idea that there is a disparity pay gap, if you will, between men and women in the United States, and actually it's around the world. And the idea behind it is that women's work is just inherently less valued than men's work. And there's a lot of debate over this. Barack Obama and the State of the Union address in I don't remember the year said it might have been his last one where he said, women make 79% of what men make. Yeah, and that's not okay, we need to do something about that. That kind of sounded like Obama. Thanks, man. Look at you. I looked up for a minute. I was like, is President Obama in the room? You really did look up. You guys couldn't see it, but Chuck really did look up. That was good. The National Committee on Pay Equity, who began holding Equal Pay Day in 1996, apparently was it in 1950 is when they started kind of gathering data on this. Yeah, I think the Bureau of Labor Statistics really started looking at it hard in the 50s. But the pay disparity goes back way further than that, basically, at the beginning of the country. Yeah. So when people started working and earning money sure. And when women were even allowed to work, we need to do an episode just on wage labor and the origin of it and the history of it. It's super fascinating. Interesting. So go back in time. Some things used to be a lot worse, believe it or not. Women earned $0.30 on the dollar. In the early, the dawn of America, when we were farming, mainly during the Industrial Revolution, things got a little bit better. About 50%. Up to 50%. But here's the distressing thing. In 1963, Congress passed the Equal Pay Act. Right. And since then, it was about 60% for a little while. But in the 80s, it climbed up to 75%, and then 30 years later, it's only climbed up 4%. Yeah. It's basically stagnated. Yeah. It's very much leveled off. And the sad thing is, what you're seeing then is as men's wages grow, women's wages aren't growing, then it's a big deal. It's a big problem because women are losing out on a tremendous amount of money over their lifetimes just for what seems to be gender discrimination. And I want to say now, before anybody just loses their mind, there are a lot of theories behind this. Yes. And gender discrimination is one of them, but none of them are actually proven, necessarily. No. And like most things, I think it's probably a combination of many, many things, most likely. But as I was saying, whatever the cause, women are losing out on a lot of money. So, for example, Chuck, in 2011, a 25 year old woman earned about five grand less per year than her male counterpart. Yes. And this is just woman who worked full time, year round. Man who worked full time, year round at age 25. Right. And five grand, you're like. Yeah, that's a lot. You can see a lot of movies with five grand. You can. But when you add it up over the woman's career, and by the time she makes it to 65, she will have lost out on $430,000 in wages compared to her male counterpart. Yeah. If that remains consistent throughout her career, that's a lot of dough. That's a lot of movies. And these are white women. It gets much worse. If you go across the races, an African American woman, the figure dips to 60%. 60.5%. Hispanic female is even worse. And by the way, we're going to say male and female because we're talking about studies here. Yeah. Lay off. 54%. 54.6% for Hispanic women. And only Asian women did better than white women, with 83.5% of what their white male counterparts made. Yeah. And eye openingly, if you look at the earners in the United States, white men are not the top. Asian men are actually the top earners. They earn on average in 2014, 113.5% more than white men. Really interesting. I want to say something to you. Also, the equal payday, where a woman would have to work to to make the wages that's a white woman would have to work to April 12, if you are an African American woman, you would have to work until June to make what? The average or the median pay of a white man for the year before the Latino woman all the way into October. Yeah. So it's almost like twice as long. Right. All right. So here's how it's determined. And this is one of the problems with trying to get behind the reasons, because it's one thing to talk about this stuff, but unless you can make change and help us out, then it's just talking about it. To make a difference, you need to really understand the underlying problems. Yeah. But I think step one is what's being done now and has been done since 1996, shining a spotlight on it. Sure. Absolutely. And I think step one is being undertaken still that we're trying to understand it, but yeah, it's definitely not settled. Like, here's the problem. Right. So one of the problems in trying to is data and getting really good data. The way they get the pay gap figure is they take all the women working full time, year round, find their median salary. It's not an average. Median is in the middle. Right. And then they take that same calculation for men, and they say, well, subtract those two, and this is the wage gap. Okay. So that's actually the earnings ratio. Right. So when you see something like women make 79% of what men make yeah. That's very frequently in this article, does it all over the place. It's called the wage gap. That's not the wage gap. That's the earnings ratio. Okay. The wage gap would be 21%. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. But it's confusing because if you think about it, you're like, wow, the wage cap is 79% and the wage cap is 21%. The earnings ratio is 79%. Yes. But people tend to use that bigger number because it's more I popping when you're a media mogul. Right. You know what I mean? Yeah, absolutely. So a lot of people say that just that calculation is too broad to draw a conclusion. And it probably is. You need better data, for sure. Yeah. And this article even points out that you can't take that one statistic and say, this is all you need to know about pay inequality. I don't think anyone saying that. No. Well, dummy. But the one thing that does, though, unfortunately, is it gives critics a chance to poke holes in it and dismiss it outright. Yeah. Because they're saying, okay, let's take a step back here. You're taking the median salary for all of the men who worked in the United States, full time professionals, all jobs. Yeah. And then you're taking the median salary for all the women who worked full time in the United states throughout the entirety of 2014. And that's comparing apples to oranges, they say. Right. And there's a number of reasons why they say you're actually comparing apples to oranges. There's a lot of different jobs that are being done. There's a lot of varying educational backgrounds. There's a lot of different experience backgrounds, and you just can't compare the two. So let's not talk about this again. Okay. Right. The follow up should be so let's drill down further and get better data and talk about it even in a more detailed way. That's nice. Which some people are doing, which we'll get to. This was fascinating to me about job clustering or occupational clustering. I know about job clustering. 45% of all working women are employed in just 20 fields. It's crazy. It is crazy. If you look at men, about 30% to 35% work in the top 20 occupations for males, which are we're talking a lot of times managerial and supervisional roles, but also roles that are more physically demanding, too, and may pay more. Yeah, or more dangerous sometimes. Like, they make the point that you probably find a man working as, like, a long haul trucker. Although we've heard from quite a few women who are doing it. Large March? Have you not seen PewDiePie's Big Adventure? Have you seen the new one yet? Not yet. Is it good? I haven't seen it yet. I can't wait. I'm kind of afraid to. I did see Stitches the Clown, though, and it's got, like a one star rating, and usually on Netflix, that means, like, stay away for real. But for you, it means dig in. Well, I read about it online, too. It made me kind of interested. I don't think I know what that is. It's an Irish black comedy horror movie about a clown that was murdered that comes back from the dead to take his revenge in the most gruesome and gory ways possible. They might as well call that tailor made for Josh Clark. But it's hilarious, too. It's meant to be tongue in cheek. I'll have to check that out. Yeah. We were talking about how some women are in the trucking industry. That's right. But the cluster of occupations for women, generally speaking, pay less than the cluster of occupations that men prefer. Yeah. Here's the thing. When you take a woman in the trucking industry salary and compare it to a man in the trucking industry salary, it's still going to be less. And then conversely, when you look at a man who has entered a female dominated field, say, like nursing, they're still going to probably make more than their female counterparts. Yeah. Elementary school teachers, human resources administrators, the pay gap is only 1%. But it's still there. No, exactly. It's still there. Like, literally, if they compared same experience, same job, working the same amount of hours, almost always across the board, men will still make more. Even like you said, if it's nursing, which historically, people might think is a job that more women prefer. What you're talking about, though, Chuck, is called occupational gender segregation. Yeah. And that in and of itself is a big problem here. It's saying, we here in the United States really tend to value the work that women do less than the work that men do just by saying these jobs that are traditionally women staffed are just traditionally paid less. The whole field is yeah, and it's not like the 1930s and where it's like, you just go be a secretary now and we'll take care of the business. But it's still there to a certain degree. There are more women who work as secretaries than men. Right, but I just want to get back to that stat real quick. When you're talking about even when you compare apples to apples, men still made more. It's like 2% 534 occupations tracked by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and seven out of the 534 paid women more than men. Yeah, seven. And apparently the most lucrative, if you're a woman, you want to make more than a man, you should be a respiratory therapist, because their salaries are 6.4% higher than men's in their field. Right. Should we take a break? Yes. All right. We'll be back with more staggering stats. So, Chuck, you said if you compare apples to apples, it's a few percent. The Bureau of Labor Statistics, they like to throw a little wrench in the works. They surveyed, like, 534 occupations, you said, and when they do their statistics, they use weekly salaries rather than annual salaries, and they actually come up with less of a pay gap. But one of the things the Internet has given us, one of the great things, is crowdsourcing. And there are a lot of companies that accrue data as almost like a byproduct or maybe the real under the table product, what they're doing. One of those companies is Glass Door, where you can go look for job listings, but also rate your employer, rate the company. And it's basically the masses reviewing employers. It's a pretty cool idea. And Glassdoor did a study in 2016. It just came out this month, as a matter of fact, and they surveyed 505,000 employees. The last Bureau of Labor Statistics thing I saw was, like, 50,000 people. This is like half a million employees and their salary reports, and found that if you compared women who are equally qualified in the same position at the same company as a man, they still made, on average, 5% less. Right. And among computer scientists, which I guess is developers and stuff right. The pay gap was the worst 28% for a woman in the same position, equally qualified at the same company as a man. And this is like brand new data that just came out. Well, one of the reasons they say this is ongoing is that maybe women don't know that they're not making as much as their counterparts because we still are in a, I guess, society, or at least a work environment most times, where you're not only not encouraged to talk about your pay, but some companies like prohibitive. Yeah. So you can't talk about your pay exactly. With your fellow employees. Right. I guess as draconian as it is, you can kind of understand where the company is coming from because they want to get away paying their workforce as little as possible. So they don't want their workforce comparing salaries and realizing that people are being paid substantially different stuff. Right, true. Still, it's mean to say, like, no, you can't talk about your salary that we pay you to this other person. Be quiet. Yeah. And there's been a lot of reform that we'll talk about as far as that's concerned. But that's a big thing. There appears to be among a lot of women this idea, and I'm sure a lot of men, too, don't realize this as well, that there is a gender pay disparity. And part of the reason why is because of a lack of transparency. Yeah. Last year. Last May, those woman named Lauren Vosswinkle got on Twitter and said, here's a new hashtag tak pay. T-A-L-K-P-A-Y. He said, tweet out your job titles, how experienced you are, where you've been in life and what your salary is. And then at Talkpay Anon came out, which is probably smarter way, just anonymous about. Well, there were a lot of tweets, but most of them were, of course, people just complaining. And I'm sure there were plenty of trolls, too, but just complaining about the situation, which is fine, but about 1300 actually tweeted their actual salary. And a lot of people say this is kind of one of the first steps, is at least getting the information out there. So a woman might say, wait a minute, you make $4,000 more than me for no reason at all. That's right. And there are websites, too, where you can compare things. There's one called Pay scale. Yeah. And one called Comparably. Right. It's a little awkward title. It's beautiful. It's like stellar door. It makes sense. I believe you mentioned some of the things that are doing that the government is doing. Right. President Obama signed an executive order in 2014, so that's when his State of the Union address must come. Oh, was it? Probably. He barred federal contractors from punishing an employee for comparing their salary and a memorandum on the same contractors to submit data, compensation data, if there was any, to see if there was any wage discrimination going on. Right. So if you worked at a company that was a government contractor and you're a woman who suddenly got an unexpected raise and pay, it may have had something to do with that. Maybe so. California actually also is leading the way on this. What is his name? Jerry Brown. The governor. The second time around, he signed into law this act that prevents companies from punishing employees for talking about their pay, their salaries, and it mandates, at first mandated, same pay for the same work, which is actually the language in the Civil Rights Act. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act says you have to pay people the same pay for the same work, regardless of their gender, of their race, of their religion, any of that. They still have to get the same pay, and women are protected by that as well. But that was the specificity of the language, same work for same pay. It's so specific that it's just easy to get around. You just say, well, it's not the same work. Right. I'm not going to give these people the same title or whatever with the California legislation kind of opened that and said, you have the same pay for the substantially same work. Right. Yeah. And the Equal Pay Act of 1963 specifically says employers may not pay unequal wages to men and women who perform jobs that require substantially equal skill, effort, and responsibility and that are performed under similar working conditions within the same establishment. And then it goes down to break down what is defined as skill, effort, responsibilities, working conditions, and establishment. So it definitely gets way more specific. Right. Which is good. And apparently the reason why California is leading the way on this is because Silicon Valley is one of the worst offenders out of all of them. Oh, yeah, that's California. Sure. They also signed a $15 minimum wage into law recently, too. Yeah. Should we talk more about Lily Led? Better. Yeah, because if you want to talk a wage equality law, you got to talk Lily Led Better. So she worked for a good year tire. And over the years, I think she worked there for 19 years. She was given low rankings and annual performance and salary reviews pretty consistently in low raises compared to her fellow employees. Right. So she sued them, and a jury initially said, you win $3.5 million. And then a district goodyear was like, what? We can't afford that. Sorry. A district judge later said, let's reduce that from 3.5 million to $360,000 and good. You're like, still. Well, they did because they appealed. Basically what they did was they cited a Title Seven provision. They said, any discrimination complaint needs to be made within 180 days of the bad deed, basically of the conduct. Yes. They give you your first paycheck and it's discriminatory pay. Then you have 180 days. So this lady worked for 18 and a half years longer than she could have submitted a Title Seven complaint, which is BS. That's right. And they basically eventually said, well, what you can do is you can only sue for the last 180 days worth of discriminatory conduct. And then it went to the Supreme Court of the United States, and she lost by five four vote, basically holding to that claim that it was time sensitive. Yeah, the idea that you get your first paycheck and you just immediately go, well, this is discriminatory. Right. This woman worked for 19 years without realizing it. And the reason why she finally did come to understand it was because a coworker passed her an anonymous note telling her so at a retirement, basically. So she had been played for a SAP, basically, by Goodyear, as far as the lower courts are concerned, for 19 years, but because 19 years earlier, in 1979, she didn't immediately recognize that she was getting less pay. So you have to basically be Inspector Clouseau the first time you get paid to get a successful Title Seven complaint cleared by the claimants. It's just ridiculous in dissent. I love reading the Supreme Court, like, when they actually write why they find it in favor or not. It's really interesting stuff. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and her descent called it out of tune with the realities of wage discrimination in, quote, a cramped interpretation of Title Seven incompatible with the statute's broad remedial purpose. In, quote so basically the whole purpose of this you're just shirking the whole purpose of this to begin with. Yeah. The purpose isn't to protect corporations from lawsuits. Right. It's so that you keep employees from getting screwed over by their employers. So, again, Obama came in with another thing. He signed into law the Lily Led Better Act, which said we'll stick to 180 days thing. But that's from the last discriminatory paycheck. So she could have found out at her retirement and gotten her last paycheck and had six months to sue for the whole shebang her whole career, basically, and probably would have won had that law been in effect at the time. All right, well, let's take another break and we'll talk a little bit more about this right after this. All right, so what are the reasons behind this? They are myriad. And the thing is, critics of the gender pay gap saying this is not discrimination. Like, employers are not saying, like, you're a woman, I'm going to just treat you poorly compared to your male counterparts. That doesn't happen. It may happen, but it's not happening on a systemic scale. But if you look at the explanations for this and economists have investigated this and thought long and hard about it and argued over it and really drilled down into it rather than stop talking about it. Right, right. What's still going on is still ultimately gender discrimination. It's just not this nefarious, handlebar mustache version of it that people look for because everyone wants a smoking gun or a got you moment. You know what I mean? But when you look at the explanations and the reasons behind purportedly the gender discrimination gap or the gender pay gap, it is still discrimination based on gender, most likely, and race, too. Yeah, we don't mean to undermine that or diminish that at all. It's even worse based on race. Yeah, for sure. There was a freaking omics podcast episode. Mr. Dubner did a great episode in January of this year that I listened to freakonomics. It seems like they kind of get to the real reasons behind things. Sure. This is called the true story of the gender pay gap, and he sat down with a few people. One of them was claudia golden. She's an econ professor at harvard. So the long and short of it is, after reading and listening to this, was that claudia golden and other economists have tried to compare apples to apples more and found that there are many, many reasons why there is a pay gap, but they can't prove that discrimination is the leading cause, and they think that it's probably one of the minor causes. Well, yeah, it's most likely not a major cause at all. When you look at that mind boggling 21% gap 79% ratio, when you start comparing apples to apples, most of it vanishes. But there is a mysterious, like, three, four, 5% that can't be accounted for by things like experience or educational background or what have you. Oh, yeah. And that's 3%. I mean, that's too much. Any percent is too much if there is gender discrimination going on. 0%. Exactly. Exactly. Thank you. You just said it so succinctly. So one of the theories that people say is that men are better at bargaining for their salary and asking for raises and getting tough in that room and demanding the raise and valuing their work more. Yeah, and valuing their work. And there may be some truth to that, but this economist from Harvard says, well, if that were true, then you would be able to look at men and women right out of college with the same degree, getting the same job, the men should be making more money. And she said, when you look at that, they actually make almost the same thing. Right. The gender pay gap is less earlier on in the career. Right. But even if there is that small bit right there at the beginning, if you start out lower, your raises over time, and your promotions over time are going to be lower, too, and that can actually accrue and make the gap wider by the end of the career, which is what you see, right? Yeah. And what she contends in this other woman, anne Marie slaughter, who is a public policy scholar who wrote a book called unfinished business. And Mr. Dudner sat down with her, too, and they kind of peg it down to it seems like two things. Henry slaughter calls one of them the care penalty. And it's not just having a baby and staying home with the baby. It's women are more likely to care for their parents when they get old. A sibling that needs help. Like they have cancer. And they need to come live with you. And I need to take time off work to care for my brother. Sister and especially children. When you have kids is most assuredly a care penalty because they found that men sometimes work even harder after they have a baby. Right. They're staying away from home. Maybe staying away from home. Or maybe it hits them like, I need to work harder to make more money now, whereas women fall to more, like, I want to care for this child. So I'm going to select a job that will pay less because it's either part time or it offers more flexibility. And then I saw another interview with golden right. Is her name. Yeah. And she pointed out that if women are more likely to get a job that's closer to home, that's more fulfilling, say, than something a man is looking for, then there's going to be more competition for those jobs, which is going to drive wages down. Just from supply and demand theory. Yeah. She calls it temporal flexibility. Yeah. Men tend to favor income growth way more than women do, whereas women tend to favor temporal flexibility more. Right. I want to be near the house so I'm not stuck in my car, so I can be around my family more, so I can be a better family member, basically, overall. Sure. Which is seems like men don't care as much about that. Right. The most overt example of this is child care, where, especially in the US. Yeah. You're lucky to get X number of days off as a father. As a woman, you get a guaranteed three months off. Twelve weeks off by federal law. Yeah. Men there's no guarantee whatsoever. Right. So you may get zero off. And that reflects, again, this gender bias, if not outright gender discrimination, that does tend to set some women back, because even if they're just out for three months or something, they're missing out of the flow of their career. Right. You couldn't go on that work trip, so we're going to send right, exactly. So they're missing out on future promotions, future raises and future experience. And all of those things count for future income wages. Yeah. And I want to rephrase what I just said, that men don't care as much about being a good family member. What I meant to say is men might have a different outlook on what is being a better family member, and in that case, it's going out and working harder to make more money. Oh, yeah. Does that make sense? Sure. Because I get roughed up for being too hard on white men. I do. We get emails all the time. I know. Chuck, why do you hate white men? I don't know. I don't hate. I am a white man. And it's not self loathing. No. I love myself. Yeah. And I love you. Thanks, man. This just got warm in here. So temporal flexibility is one of the big things, actually. Golden says that if women were allowed to work flexible hours of. Their choosing, then she believes that the gender pay gap might actually vanish. Right. Well, and Amarie Slaughter said if you take the other big one is the care penalty. If you take that off the table and you don't have any care giving obligations at all, it climbs to about 95%. But there's still that 5%. Right. Where is that coming from? I think it's got to be discrimination. I can't remember her name, but I was reading an interview in The Atlantic with a Cornell economist who studies this, and she was saying that if you look at Europe, they're much more even or equal with their paternity leave and their maternity leave. Right. Actually, and I don't know that it's old enough to have had a demonstrable effect, but I wonder if having something like that here in the US. Where I don't remember the country she cited some Scandinavian country, obviously, but a family is given an allotted amount of paternity or maternity time, and X amount of it has to be paternity, and the dad can either use it or not, but the mom can't take that on. So it's kind of like you're going to spend some time with your kids or not right up to you. And so there's a lot more guys taking that than there was before, and so there's a lot more equality and caregiving. Which way is America going to go? Is it going to be women need to spend less time at home and get into the workforce more, or men need to spend more time at home caring for the kids and make the whole thing more of an equal thing, and then maybe that will erase some of the pay gap. Yeah, for sure. In that same freakinomics episode, they kind of close with asking ms. Golden, what kind of legislation? How can you fix this? Like, more laws. More laws. And she had a pretty good idea. She was like, you need to start at the school level because you send your kids off to school, and what happens is they get out at two or 03:00. Unless you want your kid to be a latchkey kid, someone's going to need to be home with them. And then they're a lot of times out, like, for a couple of months during the summer. So someone needs to be there then. Right. So she argues for extending school days and the school year such that it doesn't require well, they're doing that now. One of the family members to have to take off work or take a part time job for months yeah. Instead of a full time job. Well, I remember when I was a little kid, my mom was home until I entered, I guess, kindergarten. Yeah. My mom quit teaching to raise all three of her kids up until I was, like, 15, and then she went back to work as a teacher, and then so, I mean, how much further back in their careers were our moms staying home hugely. You should not be penalized for raising two stellar sons. Yeah. And I have to say and a stellar daughter is kind of personal, but, like, my parents got divorced, and so divorce proceedings can get ugly. And a woman in a divorce court says, well, I took off, like, 18 years to raise my children, and now I'm going back to school at a much lower wage than I would have, because that needs to be valued. And it's tough, man. It is tough. As we said, if there's any percentage that's based on gender discrimination or race discrimination, that's too much. Agreed. Yeah. I don't know what to do, what the answer is, and I guess the reason why we can't say, here's the answer, because we don't fully understand which of these factors it is or what combination. Yeah. We should just go sit down with all our fellow podcasters and talk about what we all make. Right. We should. There's something else I noticed, too, Chuck, if we keep going at the same rate. So there's actually a huge jump from 1980 to 1994, 35% of the pay gap that had been there before vanished. And it was because women that had entered the workforce starting in the 60s gain the kind of experience to where their wages were reflecting those of men. That's one theory behind it. But then after that, it's stagnated. It's been stagnant pretty much the last decade or so. Yeah. And apparently, at the pace that it's going now, 2058 is when parity for white women will be reached. It's very frequently called, like, women won't reach gender parity until 2058. That's white women. If you are African American, it'd be sometime toward the end of the next century for an African American woman to reach parody with white men. And around the world, this is an issue as well. Apparently, women around the world make, on average, half of what men do around the world. Half? Eddie yeah. Half. And so the average woman in the world by 21 33 would reach pay parity. Well, I have one final stat here. Just depending on what state you live in, it's going to make a big difference. Washington, DC. Leads the way as far as the smallest gender pay gap, their earnings ratio, women are at 90% of men. Okay. Georgia, our own state of Georgia, is 15th on the list at 82%. And if you are a woman living in Louisiana, you have the distinction of living in the worst state in the United States at scant 65% earnings ratio. Wow. Pretty low. So 35% pay gap there. Yeah. And huge thanks to I was able to lean on that freaking Omics episode so heavily to Steven Dubner. That was a really good episode. Yeah, that was nice of him to send you a gold thumb drive with it on. That was very nice, Stubs. Yeah. Well, if you want to learn more about this kind of stuff. Gender pay gaps and pay disparity and wages, that kind of thing. That tickles economists fancy. You can type those words into the search bar@housethoughts.com. As I said, search bar. It's time for listener now. I think it's a little clumsy in that one, so apologies, people. What I just felt that was a little clumsy. That's how I felt in the tornadoes. Really? There was a lot of points I wanted to get across the right way, and that's usually when I find myself really saying things exactly the wrong way. Well, you corrected yourself on that one thing, right? Well, I tried. All right, I'm going to call this nostalgia. Immediate nostalgia. Oh, yeah. From Jason Tardy. Don't be late. Hey, guys. I was recently listening to the nostalgia show while going on a trail run. I didn't get a chance to finish it, and later I went to listen to the podcast again. I started over from the beginning and I skipped ahead to find where I left off. And I was hit with instant nostalgia of that trail run. Certain phrases I heard you say during my run were tied with images of the beautiful trail. Every time I skipped ahead, I saw a different image and could remember exactly where I was. When I previously heard you say that phrase, it brought up warm feelings of happiness of the trail. While listening to you guys, I don't know if that's nostalgia it's. Thanks for everything you do. I wish you all the best. You've been a great distraction while training for my marathon, driving long hours on the road as a performance artist, and keeping me sane during the craziness of having my wife go through breast cancer while still keeping the house clean with two kids. Wow. So, Jason Tardy of auburn Mane, hats off to you, sir, and best of luck to your wife. And good luck, Karen, for those kids. Yeah. Best wishes, guys. Party family. Yeah. We'll instantly nostalgia you whenever you want. If you want to get in touch with us, like Jason did, you can tweet to us at syfkpodcast. You can join us on Facebook.com stuffysheanow. You can send us an email to stuffpodcast@housedefords.com. And as always, join us at home on the web stuffyouw.com. For more on this and I'm thousands of other topics, visit housetopworks.com."
8d9b208c-ba8a-11e8-a624-ab9a27300e50	Short Stuff: Scurvy	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/short-stuff-scurvy	Scurvy seems like a terrible way to go: Your gums swell so you can’t eat, your teeth fall out and your brain and/or heart hemorrhages. Fortunately, all you need is an orange to cure you. Or some – blech – broccoli.	Scurvy seems like a terrible way to go: Your gums swell so you can’t eat, your teeth fall out and your brain and/or heart hemorrhages. Fortunately, all you need is an orange to cure you. Or some – blech – broccoli.	Wed, 18 Sep 2019 09:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2019, tm_mon=9, tm_mday=18, tm_hour=9, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=2, tm_yday=261, tm_isdst=0)	12603594	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Hey, friends. You know, dating is a journey with ups and downs, for sure. But all the effort is worth it when you meet someone special, right? And when you decide it's time to find a meaningful relationship, eharmony is here for you. Eharmony is passionate about creating real love for all. Rooted it in compatibility. Eharmony's process reveals truths about yourself. Like, I don't know what you want in a relationship. And it helps you connect with a uniquely compatible partner who is right for you. Don't believe it? See for yourself. So start for free today, because every 14 minutes someone finds love on Eharmony. Yar. And welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh. There's Chuck. There's Jerry, the scurvy dog. And this is short stuff. Like I said, I'm already wasting time. Let's start. Yar. Good Lord, I can't believe this is a show. It is, yeah. For like twelve years, almost. Yeah. Ish eleven, I think. Short Stuff in particular, though, chuck has just about approached its one year anniversary. That's great. Yep. The little bro. So let's talk about scurvy, which is a disease that you can get when you don't get enough vitamin C for a long period of time. So it's got to be a long period of time. If you go without vitamin C for a few days or a few weeks even, you're going to be fine. Right. But if you are, let's say, on a pirate ship and you go months without vitamin C sure. Then you're toast. Yeah. And technically, any ship, or technically any massive land movement where you don't have vitamin C in your diet, or even if you just choose not to eat vitamin C, you can be living in the middle of an orange grove. Yeah. Just a total jerk. But it takes about like two to three months before the effects really start to set in. But it is really odd to think that I hadn't thought about that. You could just remove vitamin C from your diet. It wouldn't be that hard. Everyone thinks like, well, oranges, lemons, limes rich in vitamin C. Sure. But did you know that broccoli has about twice as much vitamin C as an orange? Yeah. And I love broccoli. And you hate it. Yes, but I would eat broccoli if I was starting to show signs of scurvy. I prefer to eat the oranges and the limes and lemons because I love me some citrus. Sure, me too. Maybe a grapefruit here or there. Not in the grapefruit. A little bitter for me, but I would choke it down if my life depended on it. Sure, you should try. I've got something for you then, Chuck. Fresh squeezed grapefruit juice and orange juice. Fresh squeezed in equal proportions. I think I've had it mixed and can have it. And also think I have a thing for my childhood in the early 80s, when a half a grapefruit covered in sugar was like a meal for moms. Right. I don't know, it just bugged me. That and cottage cheese. Yeah, that was a super seventies diet thing. Alright, so let's talk about vitamin C because it's super interesting to me that tons of animals, 4000 kinds of mammals even, can produce their own vitamin C. But humans, primates more specifically. Yeah, that's a big one. Guinea pigs and fruit bats lost the ability to a long time ago. Yeah. And other animals can synthesize vitamin C so they don't need to ingest it like you were saying, because they have a functioning guillogene, the gloonolactone oxidase gene, which is beautiful words, but the guillo gene, we have a full script of it. It's there. There's just some mutation that occurred way back in our evolutionary history, which is pointed to by the fact that other apes can't synthesize vitamin C either. So this has been way before humans were around. And as a matter of fact, the fact that we do have a guillo gene that is no longer functioning is pointed to as evidence of evolution by people who still argue such things. But the fact that the guillotine is there but not functioning is the whole reason we can't produce vitamin C. So we have to ingest it elsewhere. Which wasn't a problem, at least at first, when we were just strictly a subtropical species like we evolved to be initially, yes, because we were surrounded by fruits and vegetables and ate them a lot. But then as we migrated around the globe to places where that stuff wasn't so abundant, it quickly became a problem. It did. And so there are vitamin C pops up in other, like, non subtropical crops or crops that we've adapted to non subtropical climates, which is to say everything outside of the tropics and subtropics, right? That's right. Red peppers. Yeah, red peppers, potatoes. Onions are another one. Sure. Tomatoes. Tomatoes and actually, strangely enough, some raw meat and then say, like the livers of certain animals are also very rich in vitamin C. Which is why people living up in the Arctic Circle, like Inuit populations and other indigenous tribes that lived way far north, surprisingly didn't suffer from scurvy because they had plenty of vitamin C and they're almost entirely meat rich diet. That's right. It pops up in other places. But if you don't get it, you can't synthesize vitamin C, which is extremely important to building collagen in your body, which it turns out collagen is way more important than just keeping the cuticles of your nails healthy. Yeah, we need collagen. It's a protein. And if you like your connective tissue in your body staying healthy and connective, then you need that. Collagen bones are going to get a lot of their strength from collagen fibers. If you have like a boo boo on your skin, collagen is going to heal it. It'll help the walls of your blood vessels stay strong and healthy. If you like to keep your blood inside your vessels, you're going to love collagen, in other words. That's right. And if you are getting enough vitamin C, which they say is about 75 to 90 mg a day, you're going to be burning through about eight to ten milligrams of this vitamin C if you want to keep synthesizing that collagen. Right. So you want to have a store reserve of it at all times. And supposedly if your store drops below 300 milligrams that's right. That's when the scurvy starts to happen and it's going to first start to be noticeable very faintly. You're going to feel weak, maybe a little bit of fatigue. Sure. You're not going to be like, it's scurvy, I'm a scurvy dog. It's going to take a little longer and some other stuff to really point to the fact that you are suffering from scurvy. You'll go through weight loss due to reduced appetite and then the real dead giveaway for a lot of people is that you start to get your mouth just undergoes a massive horrific transition in a number of ways. Yeah, it's pretty gross. We're talking bleeding gums, swollen gums, teeth loosening and falling out. This is my worst nightmare. Yeah, it's not good. Joint and muscle pain. Your skin. We talked about the collagen helping to form scar tissue and heal boo booze. You will not be able to heal your boo booze. And old boo booze might reopen because they're not healing like they should be. Bones start to become brittle. It's really bad and grotesque. It's a bad jam for sure. And then eventually, because remember, your blood vessels are weak and because remember we did our episode, like, does the body really regenerate itself every seven or nine years or something like that? Your tissues are constantly being regenerated, but part of that regeneration is from adequate supply of vitamin C. So if you don't have that, you're not regenerating these things. And then eventually some really important blood vessels, like ones that supply your brain or your heart with blood, are going to fail and you're going to die of a blood hemorrhage in your brain or your heart. That's right. So let's take a break and we're going to talk about what pirates and sailors have to do with all this right after this. You know you're a pet mom when you growl back during playtime and you insist on feeding them the highest quality food you can find. Enter Halo Holistic, made with only whole meat, no meat meals and probiotics for digestive health. Our first ingredient is always responsibly sourced protein raised with no antibiotics. And bonus, our fruits and veggies contain no GMOs. It's a lifestyle and a pet bomb thing. Find Halo Holistic at chewy amazonandhalopets.com a summer is here, my friend, which means school is out, the sun is shining bright, the days are longer, and best of all, there's plenty of time to get lost in a good, thrilling story. Yeah. Whether you're road tripping or you're relaxing by the pool. You can tune into the podcast here. It's on Amazon Music that's so good, it's criminal. Morbid. That's right. It's part true crime and part comedy. Morbid takes you on a journey through murderous mysteries and major laughs, all in the same week. Yeah, from the paranormal to the pretty spooky and everything in between. Hosts Selena Erkhart and Ash Kelly cover it all. And with two episodes released each week, you'll be hooked on this chart topping series before you know it. You can listen to new episodes of Morbid one week early, only on Amazon Music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen today. All right, so we kind of gave it away earlier by saying, if you don't have vitamin C and you're in a place where you can't get it, scurvy will set in early on. This was a problem, like during the Crusades, because armies were where there were no fruits and vegetables. During the Irish potato famine, it was a big deal. During the American Civil War. Scurvy was a big deal. But the early sailors of the world, the Vikings and the Phoenicians, they had fruits and veggies, so they were all fine. Between 1500 and 1800, though, and this is hard to believe, it was the leading cause of naval death. Around 2 million sailors died of scurvy. Yeah, like far and away the leading cause. And it was like a really bad death. Like your gums would become so inflamed and swollen, they would grow over your teeth to allow you to chew your food because otherwise you just starve to death because you couldn't eat. The naval surgeons would cut your gums away to expose your teeth once more. This is the kind of like stuff that was happening to you. You're dying of scurvy. And at the time this is, say, like the age of discovery, starting around the late 15th century, early 16th century onto the middle of the 18th century, there were just millions of people died this way, suffered from this. And it's not like they didn't already know how to cure scurvy through, like, folk medicine here or there. People kind of figured out, like, oh, if you eat an onion, you're going to be fine, or try some citrus or something like that. But it wasn't like, widely disseminated and certainly not scientifically based knowledge until a guy named James Lynn came around. And in 1747, he, I think, on behalf of the Royal Navy, conducted the first controlled experiment that showed that citrus actually can cure scurvy. Yeah, I mean, James Lynn comes around, says, you're on these boats, you're eating hardtack, drinking beer and salted meat and you're dying grotesque deaths. Throw a lime in that beer and you'll be fine. Yeah, make it a Negro modelo and it's even better, sort of, because scurby can I mean, it is really pretty easy to cure. You can add like you can reverse the effects of scurvy if you add that vitamin C back in, and it's really easy as that. But they didn't have access to it. That's why it's so closely associated with sailing. Right, but it's still out there today. It's not like we cured an eradicated scurvy. Cured, I guess, in a way. But we didn't eradicate it because in poor places where people don't have access to vitamin C, low income families, even in the United States, you see scurvy popping up every now and then. Yeah. It's a really sad situation in orange groves where obstinate people are just sitting around. That's right. Suffering from scurvy. Yeah, it is. So as malnourishment has kind of increased because of the Western diet, so have cases of scurvy. Like, in the developed Western world, people get scurvy. It's more frequently seen whenever there's, like a terrible famine or something like that. But it can happen in people's everyday lives. They can start to develop scurvy. The great thing is, and this is what Lynn showed way back in the 1740s, is that give somebody some orange juice or some vitamin C pills, and within 24 hours, their gums are going to stop bleeding. Within three months, they should be expected to make a full and complete recovery. Like, it's extremely treatable. It's a really treatable disease. It's just before James Lynn came along and saved a lot of people from excruciating deaths, there was no kind of codified knowledge about how to cure and treat scurvy. That's right. And after a few months, you're completely fine. Yes. It's great. It is. It's great. It's the best thing. Just go ahead and get some scurvy. Just keep some vitamin C nearby, and it'll be a wild ride. I've got two more things. Okay. One, I believe the reason why the British are sometimes pejoratively referred to as limes is because of that lime juice ration that the sailors got to cure scurvy. Oh, yeah. And then the second thing, you said that scurvy was kind of a big deal in the Civil War. I saw that there was a campaign poster in Chicago, I think a union campaign poster that said, don't send your sweetheart a love letter. Send an onion, because they knew that onions would combat scurvy. That's great. I think that's pretty great. It's a great thing. We should start doing that for Valentine's Day. All right, Chuck, that's it for short stuff, right? That's right. Chuck said, right, everybody. That means that short stuff is out stuff. You should know it's production of iHeartRadio's. How stuff works. For more podcasts from my heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio app apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows."
2a8e5e7a-3b0f-11eb-a672-5bcf03268ea2	Leeches: Oh Hell No!	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/leeches-oh-hell-no	Leeches are pretty creepy. They feed on blood, they stick to you body. We get it. But they're also pretty fascinating and worthy of discussion. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.	Leeches are pretty creepy. They feed on blood, they stick to you body. We get it. But they're also pretty fascinating and worthy of discussion. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.	Tue, 15 Feb 2022 16:46:32 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2022, tm_mon=2, tm_mday=15, tm_hour=16, tm_min=46, tm_sec=32, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=46, tm_isdst=0)	48487934	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"What if you were a global bank who wanted to supercharge your audit system? So you tap IBM to UNSILO your data and with the help of AI, start crunching a year's worth of transactions against thousands of compliance controls. Now you're making small, smarter decisions. Faster operating costs are lower, and everyone from your auditors to your bankers feel like a million bucks. Let's create smarter ways of putting your data to work. IBM let's create. Learn more@ibmcom. Picture this, friends. You could be packing a carry on for a trip to Hawaii when you realize you're going to need a bigger bag. But it's cool because you booked your flight with your city Advantage Platinum Select Card. So you can check a bag for free on domestic travel and still have room for those souvenirs. And surprise, those souvenirs also earned you Advantage Miles. Actually, you earned Advantage miles and loyalty points with each swipe. So let's start dreaming about your next next adventure. This could be you, and you could be anywhere with the City Advantage Platinum Select Card. Learn more@city.com adventure and travel on with City Advantage. Welcome to stuff you should know a production of iHeartRadio. Hi and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's Chuck. And Jerry is here. And this is the leeches episode that we've all been waiting for for about a million years. Yeah, I love this kind of stuff, though, because there's the general Stuff You Should Know classicbuganimal kind of show. Okay, got it. But then you got your whole second half of the episode, which is super interesting. Yeah, I mean, the other stuff is interesting, too, but you know what I mean. Yeah, I know. It's basically a Perfect Stuff You Should Know episode. Dave Rus called it a SYSK softball, as if to say that he couldn't have gotten it wrong. It was just too great of a stuff you should know topic. Yeah, he did a great job, though. Always does. He did great. Yes. So we're talking leeches, and I think Chuck, actually, this episode was inspired by our dentistry episode, where we talked about using medical leeches for dentistry all the way up until, like, the 19 teens, I think. Yeah, leeches on the gums. Not a pleasant thought. No, and it sounds bonkers and wacky and repulsive, but they have come back into fashion in some medical circles. And not just like New Agey circles, like actual medical circles. So it's like you said, we're going to make this kind of a two parter in one episode. Let's do it. So we're talking leeches, and we should probably start with leach biology. And if you want to know what a leach is cousin to, you need look no further than a few inches underground in some fertile soil at our friend the Earthworm, which is another great Stuff You Should Know episode. Yeah, that was a really good one. But yeah, if you want to get up close and look at a leech, which you probably are not prone to do. They are ringed, just like our little friends, the Earth worm. They have 32 segments in their little gross looking bodies and they inch long like worms do as well. They have a head sucker up at the front and a sucker in the rear. No jokes necessary there. Yeah. Oral and anal is it really called the anal sugar? It's also called the anterior and posterior sucker, too, or the business in the front party in the rear. Sure. I couldn't tell if Dave was joking. I figured it was called an anal sucker. But yeah, they just inch along just like an inch worm or a worm might by expanding and contracting and using those suckers. That's right. I saw that the oral sucker, the anterior sucker was the one that's typically used for feeding and that the sucker on the rear is the one that's used to help propel the leach forward. I didn't see definitively that it can't feed on the rear anal sucker, but it's possible it can't. I did see that it's primarily used for locomotion. So whatever science writer wrote that was hedging their bets. Yeah. The other thing I thought was interesting was land leeches, which we're not going to talk too much about because most of the leeches that we're acquainted with you will find in the water. But land leeches do a tick like thing and they're both blood suckers. Remember how ticks will attach to a plant? Totally. And then just like start snapping their little lobster claws everywhere, hoping something walks by. Yeah. They're like, hey, come get me somebody. The land leach does a similar thing. It attaches the rear sucker to a branch or leaf or something and then just sort of does a little shimmy shake with their head, hoping that something will walk by so it can just stick its little face into it. It sits there in chimneys and you like this, you like that, come get it. And they're both blood suckers and they both do very desperate things to attach to a body. I know. They also took a turn off. Yeah, I know. Kicks and leeches both also share the trait of being able to detect co, too, as a way to detect prey, at least the land leeches, too. So yeah, that definitely stuck out to me as well. And I feel like there's some really great myths out there on the internet that we are going to get to just crush crumble myth. Crushers. Crush. Yeah, that's perfect. We're going to crush those myths. And one of them is that leeches have 32 brains, which is definitively false. No, they have 32 body segments. And you will see people on the internet that say they have a brain in each segment, but they don't. They have two brains, one up front and one in the back. And like a lot of little critters that can be cut off and still function, you can cut their brain off and they can survive and do quite well. Yeah. The reason that people say 32 brains, by the way, that's what Google says. If you just type in Leach brain, it serves you up. Leash has 32 brains. There's ganglia, which are basically relay stations between these two brains in each of the segments. And those ganglia can make each segment function autonomously and be responsible for some other stuff. So that's why people are like, yeah, each one is a brain, but it's really not. It's not each of brain. It's just kind of like an extended, stretched out segmented brain. Yeah, but they're not 32 ganglia either. Right. The ones on each end are kind of fused together. So there's 21 total. Yeah, that's what I saw. The computers are all wrong. Yeah, Google's got it wrong again. It's the computer. Right? Well, I'm really getting old. The computer is wrong. Yeah, you sound like somebody who types onto the keyboard like this, right. Hey, you're allowed. The computer is wrong. Remember what I said to you, like 14 years ago before we were even podcast hosts? I remember what I say you pay me the high compliment of saying that when I type, I type very loudly, especially when I'm into it, that it sounds like thelonious Monk gaming away. I can't believe you remember that. Oh, yeah, it was a very high compliment as far as I took it. Like, I had a tattooed on my armpit, my inner armpit, and I made Yumi get the same tattoo. She's like, It doesn't make sense, but I love you. So leech species are about 6700 of them, and they generally fall into three categories depending on what they eat. Because we know they're blood suckers, but not all of them are exclusively blood suckers. No. And if they're blood suckers, they are called two of the greatest words. Take your pick, sanguivorous or hamatophagus. Either way, it means that they subsist on blood. They don't want any of your skin or your flesh or your muscles or great steak. They just want the blood. But yeah, like you said, not all of them are blood suckers. There's some called worm leeches that eat entire invertebrates, very small invertebrates, but they don't really care about the blood or else they're not just interested in the blood. But most leeches, as far as we as we think of leeches, are sanguiverous. Yeah, but the other two categories are pretty horrifying in how they get their blood out. It's like one sounds really bad and then the next one doesn't sound much better kind of thing. The Jaw Leach is the one that we're most commonly, when you're watching Stand By Me, and poor little Will Wheaton gets a leech on his PP, which now that we've seen that, and I should say now that we've researched it, they got it so wrong. Those kids really did it wrong when they removed the leeches. Oh, for sure. And it's probably unlikely that that leach would have made its way to its PP that quickly. Although you never know. Yeah, you never know. I heard they do, like, kind of a warm, secluded area to do their work. Well, we used to listen to the show. I doubt if he still does all. I doubt it. Remember the early days? Shout out to 2010. Will he's, like, quit talking about my PP? But that's the jaw leech, the one that's kind of the most common and most familiar with. And we're going to talk about medicinal leeches later. That's what they use there. But these things will feed on almost anything that they can latch onto that has blood. Mammals, frogs, birds, fish, basically anything they can get a hold of that has blood it'll latch onto. They strongly prefer mammals, though. The rest of the stuff is just kind of I'm hungry junk food, basically, for them, from what I can tell. Can we talk just for a second about how the jawed leeches how they do their thing yeah. With those little razor sharp teeth. Let's do it. It's scary. Yes. If you look at a picture of a jawed leach mouth, everybody says it looks like a Mercedes emblem, and it does. There's really no better way to put it. Yeah, but if you zoom in closer, there's a bunch of little teeth on there, right, called denticles, and they act as, like, circular saws. So the leech itself starts making this kind of sucking motion or inhale exhale really quickly and creates, like, suction within its body cavity. So when it puts its lips on you, it actually creates suction. And then when it uses those little denticles that act as, like, little circular saws, it just keeps sawing deeper and deeper into your skin, finally reaching a blood vessel. When it strikes gold, red gold, which you and I would call blood, it just sucks out into the leach because it's created a vacuum pump. Yeah. And I love this. Where did you get this that you sent? Do you remember? I think parasite of the day. I don't remember. I wrote down everything else. But this might be the parasite of the day site because it sounds like this one part sounds like it was written by a Midwestern exterminator when they're talking about anything, basically can attach to anything, like sandpaper, glass, paper, velcro, fine wire, plastic, wicker, work fabric. Yeah, just like lists all these weird things out that I guess that they've put a leach on and it stuck to. That was a great Midwestern impression, by the way. Hey, thanks. It says even vertically positioned surfaces coated with vaseline are no major problem for a leach to climb. The deal with these teeth, though, is that they're so sharp that it's more scalpel like a leach bite can hurt. Mainly land leeches. But when you hear, like, razor like teeth, you think it would be super painful, but they're so sharp that they really don't hurt that bad, right? Yeah. And let's crumble another myth here. You want to? Sure. Leach saliva contains anesthetic myth or not? By the way, I like that we're myth crumblers now instead of thrushers. Yeah, that's right. I like crumbler better. Okay, cool. That is a myth. Awesome. Yes. Another myth crumbled. There's a TV show in there, I think. I think so. It's very graphics heavy. Like whenever we do the myth, it'll just crumble away like a cookie. Oh, that's great, that's great. But we'll use it as a wipe from one scene to the other. You and your wipes. I can't wait. Go ahead and say it. Star wipe. Star wipe. Yeah. The king of all wipes. Yeah. But this crumble wipe, we really might be onto something. Yeah, there is no I mean, you can find textbooks that say that, too, right? Yeah, it's all over the place. There's a lot of misinformation about leeches, it turns out, but that is one. And they do have all sorts of cool stuff in their saliva that are amazing, that do amazing things and we'll talk more about those, but those are not anesthetic is not one of them. It's just that for the jawed leeches, they're little semicircular denticles that they use as circular saws are so sharp and they go so what's the word? So shallow into your skin that you might not feel them being there. That's what it is. Opposite deep. I have so many jokes, I just can't pick one. There's also the jawless Leach was the other kind, which includes the giant Amazon Leach, which can grow to 18 to 20 inches. Look up a picture of these things. It's horrifying. Think about it. They say that your wrist to your elbow is the same length as your foot. Have you ever heard that? I haven't, but I'm looking and there's no way my foot is smaller than that. I think that's an optical illusion. Is it really? Let's just say it is. So I've got like I wear size eleven and I could see that being that that would mean that a leach is actually almost one and a half times the length one of those leeches is one and a half times the length of the distance from my wrist to my elbow. Can you imagine having one of those on you? Not on me. But when you look up photos of the giant Amazon Leach, all you see are pictures of people with them, like, hey, I put it on my arm to show you how big it is. Yeah, it's frightening. Those are the same people who seek out insects on the Schmidt stinging pain index, I think. Right. But this one I said there were two different equally horrifying ways in which they can draw blood. This one doesn't have the circular saw teeth. It has a hypodermic needle, basically a proboscis that it sticks into your body and draws it out, just like you would drawing blood. Yes. I don't know which is worse. The denticles the three denticle saws are proboscis coming out of a leach. Can we take a break and think about it? Yeah, let's. All right, we'll be right back. What if you were a major transit system with billions of passengers taking millions of trips every year? You weren't about to let any cyber attacks slow you down. So you partner with IBM to build a security architecture to keep your data network and applications protected. Now you can tackle threats so they don't bring you to a grinding halt and everyone's going places, including you. Let's create cybersecurity that keeps your business on track. IBM, let's create learn more@ibm.com. Okay, friends, so imagine you're in an accident and your injuries are extensive enough that not only do you have to spend time in the hospital, but you're going to need rehab, too. Well, you have insurance, so no problem, right? Well, not entirely. You get back from the hospital and notice there's a gap, and that your insurance is only covering part of your bill. And it's a big bill. Yeah. And until you get back on your feet, you can't get to work. And now you have this financial burden hanging over your head like some dark rain cloud. So what do you do, Chuck? Well, if you have Aflac, you can worry less knowing they can help with the expenses health insurance doesn't cover. Aflac pays cash, which can be put toward expenses, which may be impacted by a covered medical event. Things like your medical bill, copays, or even routine things like rent, groceries, childcare and more. Yeah, that's Afflac in a nutshell. They care about what health insurance doesn't cover so those they insure can care about everything else. And care has always been part of Affleck's DNA. It's the foundation that the company was built on more than 65 years ago, and it's at the core of who they are still today. That's right. They believe the cost of health care shouldn't come at the expense of peace of mind, which is why they are on a mission to help close health and wealth gaps for Americans everywhere. So when the unexpected threatens your peace of mind, let Aflac stand in the gap to help you. To learn how Afflac can help with expenses health insurance doesn't cover, visit Aflac.com. That's Aflac.com. Josh, my friend, do you know where your passport is right now? Well, you better dig it up, because Adventure is around the corner, and there's a card that's going to get you closer with the city Advantage Platinum Select Card. Every swipe earns you advantage miles and loyalty points, and two times Advantage miles at restaurants and gas stations, so your everyday purchases can take your travel to new heights. Plus, card members get access to built in travel benefits. For example, your first check bag is free on domestic travel so you and your family have room to pack for every possibility, like coming home with extra souvenirs and with preferred boarding, you'll be in your seat sooner, ready for takeoff into Adventure. The hard part is deciding where you'll go first, because when you earn 50,000 advantage bonus miles after qualifying purchases, adventure is on. So fasten your seatbelt and put away your tray table because there's so much world to see. And the cityadvantage Platinum Select Card is your ticket. You can learn more at City comAdventure and travel on with Cityadvantage. What's your result? Which is worse? I've decided I don't have to choose. I think they're both terrible and awful and I don't want either one of them happening to me or anyone I love or care about. Thank you. Am I in that group? That includes you, buddy. Yeah. Jerry, of course. Sure. Dave? Yes, dave, too. Who else you got? What about the other Dave? Sure, Daven. I'm sorry? Dave Coustin livia julia Layton the Grabster frankfurt Chair. Oh, yeah, sure. Of course. Remember when we used to have our regular guest producers just float in and out? Yeah. There's Matt Noel. Care about them, too. Don't want leeches on them either. Who else guests produced us? I don't know. I'm sure there are people out there that actually know this, though. My friend, I forgot to say something at the top of this episode and I wonder if you can indulge me on a tangent of epic proportions. Yes, my sweet niece, Mila, I think I've told you before, she's gotten some parts and movies. Yeah, a little performer. Her first big one where she's like one of the main characters, is coming out February 25 on Hulu. No way. It's huge. It's a big 20th Century Fox production called no Exit. It will be out on Hulu on February 25. I saw the trailer. She gave me chills. She plays a kidnapped young girl who is just terrified and has to be rescued by a slightly older girl, havana Rose Lou. Wow. That's super exciting. It is very exciting. We're all very proud and I wanted to make sure everybody knew about it in case you wanted to see it in a cash call. Am I right? Yeah. She's rolling in it. She doesn't even drive. She's got, like, a whole garage full of cars already. Wow. That is super cool. That is awesome. My daughter is funny and fun, but she can't act up. Tried to see if she could. She can't. So it takes a lot more than personality. Like, you've got to really have talent. It's absolutely true. It's, like, really tough for an adult to watch a child actor most of the time. She does superbly. That's what I was saying. We're all really proud of her. She does, like, actual great work in this movie. So where to go, Mila? Way to go, Milan. Send me a text when that's out so we can watch it. Okay, I will. I'll send you the trailer, too. All right. So back to leeches. Oh, yeah, definitely send me the trailer. We have fossils of leeches from 400 million years ago, and it seems like they can see better when they're younger. They do have what's called simple eyes, where they can kind of see blurry, shadowy, fuzzy things, and the young ins kind of rely on that. But I think when they get older, I guess their eyesight either fails or they just get so good at sensing vibration that they don't really need those eyes. Yeah, I read that it's the latter. They're so good at sensing vibrations, they have little hairs on their bodies that act as sensory organs so that they can detect movement in the water. And I'll tell you what, I can really relate to leeches, because after I saw my niece Mila in the trailer for no Exit coming out February 25, the hairs on my arm were standing on and I could have detected vibrations in water with those things. That is a hodgman level plug. Thank you. No, we don't need to stop. Leeches are amazing swimmers. They can kind of inch along in the water very deftly. And then when they hit your skin, they are going to probably not go toward your bits, but they will probably hit you around the ankles or the shins or someplace and try and do their thing down there because it's thin skin, they have less to deal with. Exactly. So one of the things we said, that their saliva really does have some pretty neat compounds in it and things that science is just now, you know, that whole arrogance of science that science went through after it was like, oh, all this is just witchcraft and folk magic. We can't be associated with this. And they turn their backs on some, like, legitimately good stuff. Leeches was one of them. And they're just now, as we'll talk about coming back around to really looking into leeches, because they're kind of a medical marvel gift from nature itself. And the reason why is because in its saliva, it contains a bunch of chemicals, not the least of which is called, I believe, here you didn't. Do you think I'm pronouncing that correctly? That sounds right. Here I'm thinking, here you didn't. Yeah, and we'll talk about it more in depth in a minute. But it is pretty amazing that this thing that allows them just to feed better because it thins the blood and it doesn't coagulate, and it just gives them dinner. It's pretty amazing that it actually has, like, legitimate medical properties. Yeah, because it's so powerful, when that leach injects some of its saliva containing herriotin in it, like your blood just starts flowing. And one of the things you'll find is that if you get a leach bite, once that leach is gone, whether you get it off of yourself or it fills up and wanders off, you're going to still keep bleeding for up to 10 hours afterward because that hiring is so powerful. As far as anticoagulants go, I also saw there's another compound in there. I can't remember which one it is, but it's a vasodilator, which means it opens up your blood vessels so that more blood pumps out more freely. Yeah, this is a little evolutionary miracle. It's not a bug, but slug. Yeah, slug bug. Really? They will drink blood like crazy. They will drink as much as ten times their body weight sometimes because they are a bit like the camel of the lake, and that they go a year or so, sometimes many months at least, between meals. And they can store this stuff up in a little pouch where they have these enzymes, because blood will eventually go bad. But they have enzymes that protect it and keep it fresh. Yeah. Another thing that they're studying with leeches these days is it's a microbiota in its stomach and its gut, just like they're studying our microbiota, which I think is the most fascinating thing of all time. They're also studying leeches to figure out what's going on in there to keep the blood from spoiling, because they might go six months or a year between meals. It doesn't take them that long to digest it, but it still takes weeks and weeks for a leach to digest its meal. And it takes long enough that I mean, the leach probably only feeds it a few times in its life, I believe. Yeah, because they don't live that long. But I think no more than a few years, probably, max. That would be my guess as well. We should talk about the tyrant King leech, the Tyranno dela Rex. And this is a one job sucker, also in the Amazon River. And these are the stuff of nightmares because this is one of those leeches that's like, forget the ankle, forget the shin. What I really like is to get inside of you and up in that mucous membrane so it will get into your nasal cavity. You can be a kid, and there are many reports of kids and teenagers who were bathing in the Amazon or playing in the Amazon and ended up with a leech up their nose or somewhere, like, deep within their nasal cavity, which is the stuff of nightmares to me. It gets even worse than that because they found these kinds of leeches in eyeballs, like, attached to the mucous membrane around your eyeball, your urethra, so much so they will block your ability to pee, your anus or your vagina. I'd rather have one there than the other two places or your vagina. They found leeches and vaginas, these kinds of leeches. And the other worst part about them, Chuck, is that a leach that's feeding on you externally, like a typical jawed leach. It'll feed for maybe 20 to 30 minutes, something like that. These guys stick around for weeks, maybe months. And sometimes people detect that they have one of these internal leeches because they feel what's called foreign body movement, like there's something moving around inside of them and their body is like, I want to get this checked out because I'm about to puke everything up right now. Oh, man. I just can't help but think of when I pulled that spider out of Emily's ear cavity and she was like something like buzzing. That's not a good sign. No. Oh, man, that was so funny. It was funny for me, right? And she handled it pretty well, I got to say. Can we read that thing from 1835, since we're just at maybe the grossest part of this whole episode? Yeah, go ahead, hit it. Do you know the one I'm talking about? I think so, yeah. Okay, I see it. There was a case study that was mentioned on a site, a historian site called Gerrywalton.com, G-E-R Iwalton.com, who is a historian, and she wrote about a girl who was gathering water crests in 1835, and there was a leach that went around her ankle. And then for some reason, the leach made its way all the way into the girl's leg and just climbed up to her thigh, where finally her thigh was about twice its natural size, tense, red and shining and very painful. And finally the doctor cut out this blood clot of blood and pussy says, I know you were going to say it, which he drained and emptied into a bowl on emptying the matter from the bowl on a clean flag outside the door, the girl's mother was surprised to find among a leach coiled up, quite alive and moving actively. Yeah. I mean. This isn't something leeches are known to do. Like burrow and move around inside your body. Like from the skin. Like you'll crawl up your nose or if you swallow one. This limb. Nattus niloticta is one of the ones that doesn't have the power to break the skin with its little teeth or jaws. So it hangs around and waits for you to drink it or a cow to drink it. So they'll get in that way, but they're not known to generally do what happened in this girl. Right. No. Which is why 185 years later, 87 years later, we're talking about it on stuff you should know because it is so messed up that almost fainted when I first read it, and it takes a lot to make me feel like I could faint if I don't stop imagining putting myself here in this situation. Yeah. I mean, that's horrifying. I guess it hasn't happened a ton since then because that was 1835, right? No, it is extremely rare and even like you said, that one that will like, you'll drink it up when it attaches, that's actually killed some people. It famously killed some of the Napoleon soldiers in Egypt in 1799. They drank from a water. Source that some leeches attached to like their esophagus and as they became engorged from feeding, it blocked the soldiers airways and some of them died from suffocation. Yes. I mean, what's probably not going to happen almost certainly is you're not going to be bled out by leeches. But there have been cases where people have gone to the emergency room with like more than 100 leeches on them and they were anemic or light headed or both. And so that can happen. But you're generally not going to die from a leach unless you're in Napoleon's army. Right. And you deserve it. So you want to talk about how leeches reproduce? Because that's pretty interesting as well. Sure. They are hermaphroditic. Yes. They have male and female sex organs. They are internal sex organs and they have sperm, they have eggs, they have ovaries. And in order to mate, they get together. And I thought we had talked about this before, or some insects that did something similar probably kicks maybe, where they attached to each other and kind of just line up where their parts should be and the bombs away sort of fit. The male produces a container, like a syringelike container of sperm called a spermatophore and it pierces the skin near that sex organ. And I guess they say it's close enough for rock and roll. And they somehow find a way to the ovaries and then they produce these little cocoons that are very hearty yeah. Out of a little part of their body called the clutellum. It produces a thick fluid that the fertilized eggs are enshrouded in that cocoon and then they attach the cocoons to plants or put them in the mud or something like that. In a few weeks or months later, baby leeches hatch. And they hatch like fully formed and just grow over time as they feed. But they do this reciprocally yeah, that was right. Where each leach fertilizes one another's eggs. So as the leeches mate, they are fertilizing one another's eggs. They're both receiving and sending sperm. And it's pretty neat. It's kind of a real tip for tad arrangement. It is. And those cocoons are really hardy. Dave talks about, says that they're tough enough to be swallowed by waterfowl and just go right through them and come out the other end and be okay. Which gave rise to the famous saying that went through me like a leach cocoon through a waterfowl, which is what I always say. Sure. No good. No, it's good. I liked it. What about the kangaroo leech? I think that one Bear's mentioning as well, too, as far as reproduction. Yeah. I mean, these things come out kind of ready to take on the world. They don't need a lot of care, but they are doting parents in some cases, which is pretty interesting, especially the kangaroo leech, which has a little pouch like a marsupial does, and they carry around their little leach in the pouch until they're ready to fit for themselves, which is sort of adorable. And this definitely was from the daily pairsite.com, but they said that the leach basically shoots them the pouch of baby leeches explosively onto a passing frog. When it says, Fly away, little birds, it's time for you to live on your own to make sure that they get a good first meal. So some poor frog gets splattered with baby leeches because they happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I know that they can't kill a human. Can leeches kill a fish or a frog? I think they can kill livestock if you don't get them off. Yeah, I think one of the reasons they have trouble killing humans is because we have opposable thumbs and we can get them off. We can get them off a lot easier. I read that poor elephants will be driven, like, almost crazy when a leach gets up inside of its trunk. And I thought, yeah, there's a lot of animals are just sol in a lot of cases. So, yeah, I think they can kill animals because they can't get them off as easy. Poor elephants. I know. Sucking that water up, having fun, very sad. So I say we give everybody the good people some advice about how to get rid of a leach if you find one on you, and then let's take a break. How about that? Yeah, like I said, you don't need to be too freaked out. Even though it's pretty scary looking. They're not poisonous, they don't carry they haven't at least been known to carry human bloodborne diseases. It's a big one. Yeah. Anytime there's, like a blood circuit, you kind of might want to worry about that, but not in this case. But what you want to do is don't panic and just tear it off of you because it might detach and part of it might get left kind of like a tick. Again, you don't want any of it left in your skin. Right, right. Because that remnant, usually the jaw can get infected. And another one that you want to do is you don't want to treat it too rough. Like, you might want to beat it up and really show it who's boss. But you don't. You want to treat it very gently because if you, like, squeeze a leash or a lot of people recommend putting a little table salt or even, like, alcohol or lemon juice on a leash. If you disturb it biologically, like they are physiologically like that, you might make it vomit, and that's bad because it's vomiting up some of its stomach contents into your body, and you can get an infection from that as well. So the key here is to treat the leach very gently and go against every fiber of your screaming nerves in your entire body and just be like, oh, fiddle. DD there's a leach on me. I better carefully remove it. Let me dial up the stuff you should Know episode and listen all the way through the 32 minutes until I get to the point where they tell us to be gentle and just use a little Dave said, like a credit card or your fingernail or something and gently kind of press on the side of its head. Hopefully it will detach that sucker. And then Dave said to flick it off before it reatches. And that is an understatement. Yeah. I mean, you're just trying to break that seal that the leach creates with its mouth and your skin, and then enough for it to be like, hey, man, what the heck? So that it pulls its jaws out too, as well. And again, that wounds going to bleed for maybe 10 hours, I saw in a popular science article. So you got to clean the wound, you got to dress it, and you're going to have to redress it probably more than once, because it's going to just keep bleeding. Yeah. I feel like I had a leech on me at one point or another when I was a kid, but nothing stands out story wise. But I'm pretty sure I remember it happening. You? I don't think I've ever had a leach on me. No, I've had plenty of ticks, but never a leach. Well, keep that street going. I'm trying. That's what I say. I'm trying. I steer clear of fresh water, salt water. You don't get in the water. I don't go to Japan or Indonesia. I'm steering clear of the leeches. I see that's. My problem is I am one to jump in any body of water that I can jump in. I remember once when I was a kid and we had this creek that we used to swim in, and we were hanging out with some kid who didn't normally hang out with us, and he saw the first of us go into this creek and start swimming, and he goes, that kid wants Dysentery, or something like that. And, I mean, we're like, ten. I don't know how this kid even knew about Dysentery, but I knew what he was talking about enough to be like, oh, you don't want that. You can get that from creeks. I better steer clear of creek. That made a huge impression on me. Yes. I grew up with the creek behind my house, so I don't know, I'll always try and get water if I can. The other thing that scared me, too, in that same creek with somebody saying, like, what about water moccasins? Everybody always has a story about how somebody jumped into a pit yeah. Bed of water moccasins. And that was that. That kind of steered me clear of creek, too. I get it. I don't really regret it. All right, well, let's have a little pause for the cause. And we will. Geez, it just turned into Johnny Fever, R-I-P by the way. Howard, Hesman what? He just passed away. What a BS year already for celebrity, man. I'll tell you who turned out to be a great person in retrospect was Bob Saggy. My goodness. You read any of the tributes to him? Yeah. Pretty heartwarming. Have you read John Stamos'eulogy? Yeah. Amazing dude. I think very highly of Bob Sagin now, but also John Stainless, too. Yeah. And weirdly, John Mayer. I don't know if you read any of that stuff. I didn't know they were good buddies. He likes John Mayer a lot. She didn't like his music, but she thinks he's pretty cool. Yeah. So that's how we kind of got sucked into the whole Bob Saga death thing. Okay. All right. And Jeffrey Ross, too. He was a really good friend of Bob Sad. My brother worked with Saga, and I remember years ago saying that he was, like, the nicest dude. Yeah, he seems to have been the real deal. For sure. Rip everybody who we've lost this year. How about that? Yeah. Now let's take a break and we're going to talk about bloodletting right after this. What if you were a trendy apparel company facing an avalanche of demand to ensure more customers can buy more sherpa lined jackets you call IBM to automate your It infrastructure with AI. Now, your systems monitor themselves. What used to take hours takes minutes. And you have an ecommerce platform designed to handle sudden spikes in overall demand, as in actual overalls. Let's create It systems that rule up their own sleeves. IBM, let's create. Learn more@ibm.com It automation. Okay, friends, so imagine you're in an accident and your injuries are extensive enough that not only do you have to spend time in the hospital, but you're going to need rehab, too. Well, you have insurance, so no problem, right? Well, not entirely. You get back from the hospital and notice there's a gap and that your insurance is only covering part of your bill. And it's a big bill. Yes. Until you get back on your feet, you can't get to work, and now you have this financial burden hanging over your head like some dark rain cloud. So what do you do, Chuck? Well, if you have Aflac, you can worry less knowing they can help with the expenses health insurance doesn't cover. Aflac pays cash, which can be put toward expenses, which may be impacted by a covered medical event. Things like your medical bill, copays, or even routine things like rent, groceries, childcare and more. Yeah, that's Afflack in a nutshell. They care about what health insurance doesn't cover so those they insure can care about everything else. And care has always been part of Aflac's DNA. It's the foundation that the company was built on more than 65 years ago, and it's at the core of who they are still today. That's right. They believe the cost of health care shouldn't come at the expense of peace of mind, which is why they are on a mission to help close health and wealth gaps for Americans everywhere. So when the unexpected threatens your peace of mind, let Aflac stand in the gap to help you. To learn how Aflac can help with expenses health insurance doesn't cover visit aflac.com. That's Aflac.com. Josh, my friend, do you know where your passport is right now? Well, you better dig it up, because adventure is around the corner and there's a card that's going to get you closer with the city advantage Platinum select card. 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Okay, Chuck, so we're finally at part 235 minutes in where we're talking about the history of bloodletting and using medicinal leeches and just a brief overview of blood lighting. It's based on the humoral theory of health and disease, which says that we have four humors, right? We've got blood, slam, black bile and yellow bile. And over time, people said, I think blood's like the real money humor, we need to keep things in balance. So if you want to keep everything in balance to be healthy, you need to get rid of some excess blood. That's the real problem. And so for a long time, people use like knives or whatever and cut into your veins to bleed you out, to remove some of that blood. And somewhere along the way, people said, I think leeches are a better treatment for this because it's a lot gentler and kinder than cutting into somebody's arm. Sure. And you probably don't lose nearly the amount of blood. No, we covered this years ago. It had to have been in one of our weird medical top ten. But I know we talked about medical leeches at some point, but here we go again, because they use them a lot back then. I think the early 19th century is when in Europe they were like, this is really the best kind of treatment we've ever heard of. We would call that the golden age, at least so far, of leaching or leach mania, of losing blood via leach. And there was a man, specifically a doctor in Paris, doctor Francois. Would that be bruse? Nice. Okay, Tracy, he basically was like, you know what? Everything that's wrong with anyone is inflammation of your intestines. It all goes back to that. So anybody that comes by my clinic, my military hospital, the first thing that we're going to do, I don't care what you say is wrong with you, is we're going to throw 50 leeches on your body right out of the gate to see what happens. Yeah. He earned the nickname la vampir de la medicine, which seems appropriate, but he was hugely popular, so much so that and leeches were hugely popular, too. But the ideas of Bruce were so popular that he even reached into the fashion world where people would wear dresses with leeches embroidered all over them. Like, Leach mania seems to be a really good descriptor of this period of time. And I saw and I could not find what happened. But Britannica said that his theories about bloodletting and leeches were hugely influential until a cholera epidemic in 1832, and his methods proved disastrous and he fell out of favor. Interesting. I couldn't see what happened, but you can probably guess that a lot of people died because he mistreated them by massive bloodletting or whatever. But it seems to have ended that Leach mania thing. And then, like we said before, the leeches kind of fell to the wayside because modern medicine was like, no, that's clap trap, that's quackery. We need to separate ourselves from that, even if there was really something to it. Yeah. And if you're wondering, it takes a lot of leeches. It's not like a doctor would have, like, six or eight of these laying around. 35 million medical leeches were being imported every year into France alone in the 1830s. And if you're asking yourself, how do you get this many leeches, you get them the old fashioned way. There were people like Leach. I mean, Dave calls them leech gatherers or leech hunters. They would wade into waters with their pants rolled up or maybe no pants at all, and they would get leeches to attach to themselves and then pull them off and sell them. Yeah. On Jerry Walton's website, I saw she wrote that they would, in this manner, gather about 500 leads a day. That's crazy. They were doing a good job. It is crazy. She wrote a whole post on leech gathering as a weird profession that finally kind of fell to the wayside. And it did indeed fell to the wayside until, I think, the 70s, when some daring, adventurous physiologist started studying what's called Herudotherapy. And it became kind of important first in reconstructive surgery. And it just makes utter incomplete sense that you would use it for this. So I guess they were starting to study it in the 70s. But it wasn't until 1985 when a plastic surgeon named named Joseph Upton really put it to the test. I get the impression it was mostly clinical or lab studies and maybe just kind of postulation. And Upton said I'm trying it. I'm at the end of my rope. I'm going to get it. Yeah, it is pretty amazing. There was a boy, a five year old boy in Boston who went in and said, my radia was bitten off in the park. It was wicked by a wicked dog and very sad. I'm just kind of kidding around, but that all ends well, don't worry. That's the reason I'm telling that joke. He reattached the ear, but the tissue was suffering from necrosis. It was starting to turn black and dye because it was swelling up with blood that couldn't go anywhere. It was pulling up and becoming stagnant. And this was an ongoing, and still is an ongoing issue when you're trying to reattach a body part to get that blood flow not just going one way, but going the other way. Like, they can attach a major artery to send blood to a thing, but they don't attach all the little tiny veins that send blood back away from it. So that risk of pooling is always there. So this doctor, Upton said, you know what, I remember reading this. Just stay with me, kid, this crazy article about leech therapy. And he said, let's give it a shot. And he ordered 30 leeches, had them shipped overnight from Britain, from a leach farm. They attached two of them to this kid's ear and the leeches did the work and were sucking that blood up enough to where it regained its color and he made a complete recovery. Yeah, and it did that by that vasodilation. So it improved blood flow. It kept that blood from coagulating so it wasn't clotting, so it was flowing even more smoothly. And the leeches themselves were steadily pumping the blood out so there wasn't any blood to pool and turn, rancid and become stagnant. The veins can do amazing things. Your blood vessels do spectacular things. Whenever they face an obstacle, they will figure out a way to go around it and grow around it and make new connections. So by using leeches, you are giving those veins enough breathing room to kind of figure it out themselves and reconnect and reinstitute that kind of blood flow out of that area. It's pretty spectacular. And that was like, everybody just found the closest leech and put it on their shoulder and the leech shook his hands on either side of its head in triumph. So leeches kind of came back in a big way starting in the 1980s, and science has really been taking them seriously ever since. It's amazing. It's almost like they are meant to do this. This is their one little function that can benefit humankind. So much so that in 2004, the FDA said, medical leeches approved. It's actually approved. And this is why I definitely remember us talking about it. It's approved as a medical device. I know what you're thinking of what? We did an entire episode on Maggots okay. And they're also approved as a medical device for similar stuff, but really removing like dead and infected tissue. And I wonder if that's what you're thinking about. I don't know. Pretty amazing for both of them, though. Yeah, totally. So they are legit medical devices. I think the actual quote from the FDA was for the purpose of overcoming the problem of Venus congestion by creating prolonged localized bleeding. Sounds like something Galen would have written. And this is the sort of sad part, is they're single use so they use these leeches and then they euthanize them in alcohol instead of, I don't know, take them outside, throw them in the shrubbery. Well, there's got to be something you can do. Especially if you leave them on until they are done, it seems like. Yeah, we could kind of retire them or let them go off and digest their meal in like a used leeches jar or something like that. I think it's sad. An old folk sum for leeches. Sure. At least let them stay alive for the next few weeks so that they can digest that meal and enjoy it. This is just the worst kind of using somebody. Well, there was that one attorney, that lawyer years ago, who had a couple of leeches that he said saved his life and he kept them in a jar like a good guy, but he was a little wacky. He actually named them and would supposedly asked their opinion on cases that he was handling as a lawyer and looking at how they swim as some sort of divining indicator of how he should which direction his case should go crazy. Kind of like that octopus in the World Cup. Yeah, I remember that. Yeah, exactly like that. And that was Thomas Erskin and he's part of this really interesting article from JSTOR Daily by Amelia South that I think Ruse found that it's really good if you're into that, if you want to read about that whole leech mania. Because it was way more than just the medical profession. It was like the whole society just kind of revered. Kind of like what you said, almost like they were intended to do this. That's how they kind of saw it. And they really kind of respected leeches for a while because yeah, but while the medical community is legitimately using them, the wellness community is probably overusing them. There are clinics in Arizona, there are some in England and other parts of the world where their leach therapy is really far reaching and basically saying it can help with everything from arthritis to cancer to carpool herpes to hemorrhoids. Not sure exactly where that treatment, how that goes, but I have a pretty good idea. Yeah, but there are other uses, therapeutically that doctors are looking into, but they are roundly saying like places like this you need to be really wary of because the jury is still out on a lot of this stuff. And I don't know if we should go back to the 17th century Europe or wherever that was, right. But, yeah, they do think that they're anti inflammatory properties, anti tumor properties. Like in those bleaches saliva. It's pretty neat. You never know. Keep an ear out for Leech update in ten years from us. Okay? Maybe a leach will be in the Senate by then. There's already a few in there, I would say. Hey, you got anything else, Chuck? I got nothing else. Chuck has got nothing else, everybody, which means it's time for listener mail. Hey, guys. I know you don't always worry about pronunciation, but it's different on an off repeated phrase, and I just can't help myself. So we're going to allow this? Robin, we usually don't take pronunciation emails very seriously because we famously mispronounced things almost on purpose, right? Almost. The Arctic fox episode is the latest, and Josh said the phrase cousin where he correctly left the P silent but incorrectly said fat gras in French is fat with a silent last letter like foie gras instead of grass. Silent e, but a soft C loosely sounds like grass. That's what you were doing your best. But foie gras is a decidedly different thing for macuda grass. Okay. I teach French to little people. What I generally say is that the last letter is silent. So if there's an e, that means a consonant in front of it, isn't the last letter and is not silent. That's the difference between petite and petite with an e on the end. Or not. You don't have to read my message on the show. Please take I dare you not to, but please take the message to heart. And now back to the adorable Arctic Fox. And that is Robin. Who is she? Her in Victoria, BC. Great town. That Victoria BC. Robin, thank you very much for that little French lesson. It's been many years since I had one. I will try to remember from now on. Everyone says coup de Grasu. Everyone says it. Yes, but everybody's got it wrong. I mean, it's American thing. You say coup de gras at the next dinner party and prepare to be laughed out of their Yoko. I'm going to try a different one. I'm going to say kudagrachi. Okay, that's good. Okay, if you want to get in touch with us, like Robin did with a little French lesson, a little Italian lesson, who knows some other kind of lesson. We don't care. We want to hear it. You can send it to us via email at stuffpodcast iHeartRadio.com. Stuff you should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts My HeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows, you know you're the best pet mom. When you growl back during play time, give epic belly rubs and feed them halo holistic made with responsibly sourced ingredients, plus probiotics. For digestive health. Find us at chewy amazonandhalopets.com the Neogen device developed by Rst Synthesis is a Wellestablished advanced quantumbased medical device using electric cell signaling technology. Treatment is noninvasive, safe, effective, and used in managing pain associated with neuropathy and other painful conditions. It helps improve circulation, offers better rehabilitation through pain relief, and activates the recovery processes, giving better patient outcomes. Visit Neogenreliefspane.com now for provider benefits. About the Neogen system? Come chat with us. That's Neogenreleavespane.com. Your patience will thank you. Shady Ray's is an independent sunglasses company that gives you the features of $200 sunglasses for a fraction of the price and the strongest protection program in all of Eyewear. 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https://podcasts.howstuf…hic-disorder.mp3	How Body Dysmorphic Disorder Works	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/how-body-dysmorphic-disorder-works	People who suffer with body dysmorphic disorder have a distorted, unhealthy view of their bodies. Learn more about this compulsive disorder in the following podcast from HowStuffWorks.com.	People who suffer with body dysmorphic disorder have a distorted, unhealthy view of their bodies. Learn more about this compulsive disorder in the following podcast from HowStuffWorks.com.	Thu, 25 Jun 2009 18:09:14 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2009, tm_mon=6, tm_mday=25, tm_hour=18, tm_min=9, tm_sec=14, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=176, tm_isdst=0)	23218136	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know from housetopworkscom. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Chuck Bryant. Hi, Chuck. Hi. How's it going? I just thought I'd try and throw you off, but that can't happen. Dude, you're a pro. Thanks, Chuck. I appreciate that. I imagine if I took off my shirt that way, it might be unsettling enough to throw you. No. You want to try? No. Come on. This will actually work really well with the topic at hand. I never want Gerry to see my naked chest. Jerry, do you want to see his naked chest? He should not want to. She's saying, hey, let's see what you got, chuck is not going to happen. All right, well, do you want me to take my shirt off for this? Oh, good. Gosh, no. Okay. Chuck, it's no secret to you that I grew up a little fat kid. I want to see pictures, by the way. Okay. I'd love to see that. I'll bring some in. Yeah, I was a little fat kid. I was the Pillsbury Doughboy was my nickname. That was chunky than thin. And they called me the Dough Boy, too. Did they push the belly button and all that? Yeah. And I would do the little wow, we're alike. It's so funny and traumatizing. Yeah, exactly. It was kind of traumatizing. And I've always wondered I'd heard of body dysmorphic disorder before, and I don't think I have it to a clinical degree, but it occurs to me that what I'm seeing when I look in the mirror is not necessarily what everybody else is seeing. I wasn't going to bring it up, but since you did, when I read this article, I thought, wow, that sounds an awful lot like Josh in certain cases. Really? Are you sure you didn't read How Narcissism works? Well, that was a different article. I got you. You're like? Yeah, this one's definitely Josh. I think they kind of are similar in some ways, actually. They seem to be. Yeah. Because they're both centered around a focus on oneself. Right. At the expense of paying attention to your surroundings or other people. Right. Yeah. That was awkward. I'm glad you got it out there first. Thanks. I appreciate that. Of course, body Dysmorphic disorder BDD is the little abbreviation that I'm probably going to use because Dysmorphic doesn't roll off the tongue. It's also called Dysmorphophobia. Yeah, that's no better. No. We'll call it BDD. Okay, well, then let's stick with BDD. Okay. You know, I have a speech impediment as well as body Dysmorphic disorder. I know. Basically what we're talking about, folks, out there in podcast land, is that if you're completely preoccupied with flaws on your body and not just one flaw, but several yeah. Your nose, which, strangely, I don't have any kind of BDD around my nose. I'm just kind of like I have a big nose. You don't have a big nose at all. Look at this thing, dude. No, it's not big. I have giant nostrils, too. Well, that's a different story, Chuck. BDD also frequently is a oh, what's the word? It's a comorbidity with other mental, I guess, disorders like obsessive compulsive disorder, anorexia and clinical depression. Right. Which is why it's misdiagnosed sometimes. Or they think it's probably under diagnosed. I think about 1% of the population is believed to have BDD, but, yeah, they think that it's probably much higher for a number of reasons. Number one, somebody might not want to talk about their flaws or their therapist. Yeah. And you don't want to come across as some vain, superficial jerk. But we both go to shrinks. Let's just go ahead and toss that out there. I can't believe you said that's. A lot of disclosure checks. Yeah. I think healthy people go to shrinks, as my shrink always says. I worry about the people who don't go to shrinks. Yeah, those are the ones that dress up in black and shoot up school. Right. Of course. He says that as I'm writing the check. Yeah, right. Just keep coming back. So yeah. People are afraid to say that to their psychiatrist or psychologist. They're ashamed of the flaws so much that they don't want to discuss it at all. Not just being ashamed of being vain. They're so ashamed of their popularity or whatever. Or they may be a lot more likely to go to, say, a cosmetic surgeon over a psychoanalyst of some sort, which I'll go ahead and ruin this one, too. The results of cosmetic surgery usually don't work when you have BDD. No, this is scary. You'll get the surgery and you'll still be really ticked off. You're worried that it's going to come back, or your obsession will transfer over to another part of your body. Right. Or you get really angry at the surgeon and say that they didn't fix it. Right? Right. Yeah. That's a scary profession for a number of reasons. So John Rivers, I think, might be high on the list. You think? Oh, have you seen her lately? I feel bad for people who don't who get tons of cosmetic surge. I mean, think about, like, the depth of their self loathing that they continuously go they're junkies for it. Yeah. I don't know. It's hard for me to drum up a lot of compassion there, but I guess you're right. That's a good point. Thanks, Chuck. I feel somewhat shamed. Well, you should feel shamed and not just about your body. Right, but the point is, John Rivers looks like a sea trout. Is that even real? Yeah, she looks like a speckled trouser. She's a dream sailor. Back to BDD. Yeah. We hit upon something. I said that the obsession will transfer. Sure. BDD is a compulsive disorder. Symptoms of it are repetitive and irresistible, basically. Right. What are some of the symptoms for people out there who are thinking, I used to be a fat kid. Well, this is pretty obvious, but constantly checking your appearance in the mirror or any reflections, avoiding mirrors and reflective surfaces entirely go either end of the spectrum. Yeah, that makes sense. Constantly comparing your appearance to others. Check. Picking at or otherwise attempting to fix an imagined flaw. Like excessive grooming. Yeah, check. Yeah, I guess measuring, touching or checking the defect. Changing your clothes a lot, refusing to be photographed. Constantly asking for reassurance about your appearance. Check. And check camouflaging, masking or disguising the flaw. I do wear a lot of makeup. Like if you have a big belly, like wearing this big Hawaiian shirts, you're just a fun fat guy there. That is a signal to everybody else that you're a fat guy. You wear Hawaiian shirts all the time. Absolutely. Happily. Everybody also just thinks that you're ready to party. Right? True. The life of the party. I see. I have a bit of a belly, as it were, and this is a known fact, but I found that when I wear a tighter shirt and not tight, but a fitting shirt, people say, hey, dude, you look like you've lost weight. But if I wear the moo moo oh, no. Yeah, definitely. It actually makes you look bigger when you reach a certain point of, I guess weight loss or something. Especially if you go from chunkier. Right. Well, you're pretty smart now, but I definitely hit a point where I realized I look fatter in extra large shirts than in large shirts. Yeah, exactly. It's a good realization. It is. Yeah. That's all the big ones. Anxiety and fear when you're around other people, obviously. Excessive dieting and exercising suicidal thoughts. Yeah, that's the really downside, I guess, when you're at your worst. And actually there's a lot of people who I think something like on the order of 80% of people who've been diagnosed with BDD have reported that they've considered suicide, and about 25% have actually tried it. I don't know how many successfully, but yeah, that's really sad. It is sad because at the point where you just hate yourself so much, you're like, I'm just going to try this over again. Right. And with most disorders, that's the darkest end of the spectrum. And there is a big range from mild to really severe. I'll tell you the dark end of the spectrum, my friend. Oh, boy. Are you ready for this one? People with BDD sometimes self perform surgery. Can you imagine mutilating yourself now to just try to get rid of this flaw? No, because a love handle isn't as much worse than a gaping wound were. Like this missing hunk of flesh used to be. Yeah, I think alcohol might be involved. I could see someone just getting completely ripped and you're like, I got to get rid of you. Get out the kitchen knife and gone. Go. Leave. That was chilling, actually. We're making a lot of that. That does happen, and people do reach those depths. So that's an awful thing to make fun of. Sure. Which you just did. I was just trying to reenact what it might be like. Yeah. Well, Chuck, thank you for that. It's actually what happened to me last Friday night. What would you carve off? Oh, just a little bit of a love handle. I got you. And then I was like, ow. I thought you looked like you'd lost some weight. Yeah, just a hint of a love handle. It's very painful. So let's talk about what BDD is. We're not entirely certain how a person gets this or we know how it manifests itself, but we're not entirely certain what's going on. If you think about it, it's kind of bizarre that you don't see yourself the way other people do when you're looking at your reflection in a mirror. Right. I think a lot of people have that to a certain degree. Sure. Because, I mean, how many people, when they see a photo of themselves, say, god, do I look like that? Mine's always do I sound like that? Oh, really? You got a great voice, though. Thank you. They've done some research as far as the biological causes. Let's go ahead and start with the biological. Is that okay? Yeah. And some researchers showed 25 people, half of which so I guess twelve and a half people, I noticed, that had BDD, and the other half did not. And they would show them three different images of faces and different resolutions. High, regular and low. Sure. Large, medium and small. All right. And they hooked him up to an MRI, and they showed that the BDD folks use the left side of the brain, which is the analytical side, indeed, to process all of the images. And the other participants use the left hemisphere only for the high res images. So that means, josh, is that or what it could mean is that the minds, the brains of people with BDD want to acutely process visual details. Even when there are no visual details, they're always looking for that one explanation. It's reasonable. Moving on. I've got one better for you. Okay. Hit me. It's much more likely, in my opinion, that it is an imbalance in the brain chemistry, specifically with the uptake of serotonin. All right, let's hear it. All right. So serotonin is a neurotransmitter. Right. It's produced in the brain. Actually, it can be produced anywhere in the body. But the stuff that affects your mood and sleep and things like that, it's actually produced in the brain by tryptophan. Tryptophan, as you know, is from you can find it in Turkey. It's an amino acid. Everyone says it makes you go to sleep, supposedly. Actually, ironically, tryptophan works best on an empty stomach. Right. And when you eat a bunch of stuff at Thanksgiving we covered this. In fact, I I think we did too. So I'll just stop there. Well, basically gorge yourself anymore. Right. You're actually digesting. That's what's making you sleepy. But tryptophan is uncommon in that it's one of the few amino acids that can cross the blood brain barrier. So you eat some tryptophan, it gets separated from your turkey and crosses the bloodstream into the brain, where it's used as an essential ingredient in serotonin production. Right, right. In a paddleboat. That's how it gets yes, with the giant frog. And so once the tryptophan gets to the brain, you got serotonin. Right. Yeah. Did you like that explanation? Very scientific. Serotonin, it's a neurotransmitter. So it goes from the presynaptic neuron, which is the one where it's produced, to the post synaptic neuron, where it's accepted, but it loses a little love on the way. It does. Not all of it is taken in by the postsynaptic neuron. Right. And it's just kind of floating there in the synaptic cleft, that space between neurons where these electrochemical messages are firing between. Right. And actually, that can be good. If it accumulates too much, then it's not too good because you've got basically a blockage, and you have enzymes that actually clear out the serotonin. But if it lingers a little longer, the communication is stronger. Right, right. What SSRIs are. I'm sorry. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. Do they actually prevent some of the serotonin from being taken back by the presynaptic neuron? So we're talking about the maximum. Right. What they do is they allow some of the serotonin to linger, which makes for a stronger message, which improves mood. Actually, it stabilizes mood. What we're seeking is a stable mood rather than ups and downs. That makes sense to me. Does it really? Holy cow. Well, I mean, not only did you do a fine job of laying that out there, but I think anytime you're dealing with something like this, sure, there's certain other explanations, but the brain, dude, that's where it's at. I agree. The brain is the thing. So the reason why they think that BDD is a chemical imbalance or the result of a chemical imbalance is because BDD patients respond very well to selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors like Zoe and stuff like that. PAXEL selects all of prozac. Yeah. All those antidepressants, all that good stuff. Yeah. Cultural factors. Should we talk about that? Are we done with biology? Those are the only two theories that I know are going on right now biologically. Okay, well, let's move over to the cultural and physiological side of things, which this one, of course, the media and magazine gets blamed. It does. Media is too lazy to really do anything that's actively bad, in my opinion. Yeah, that's true. I think it's all the result of just an inability to do real research. Yeah, sure. That's pretty lazy to blame it on the media, but we'll do that right now. Sure. The media, of course, with all the perfect bodies and the perfect faces, it certainly doesn't help. I don't think you can cause this, but I don't think it helps the situation. If you're born with, like, a mile case of BDD, you seeing giselle on the cover of a magazine. Try to make you feel any better about the harry mole on your lip? Probably not. Although if you see a picture of Cindy Crawford, you probably feel pretty good about the hairy mole on your lip. That's a beauty mark, buddy. Same thing. It all depends on what face it's attached to. Exactly. Yeah. I always thought that was pretty funny. Yeah, because that on my face would be a mall. Or worse, talking mall. A talking mall. Sydney Crawford. Not too bad. It would command you to burn things. Was that a Simpsons, was it? Yeah, ralph's Leprechaun commands him to burn things. Right, okay. I thought you meant the talking mall part. So yeah, those are the societal cultural theories, and this is the one that they've documented as far back as the 1800. That's so funny. He just referenced another podcast. I know. I'm all over the place. Yeah. Which kind of undermines the idea that it's media sensationalism. Because it was before media. Well, yeah, pretty much. Would you have, like the Saturday Evening Post in there? They showed a little ankle, and all of a sudden women are like, my ankles don't look like that. Right. Norman Rockwell is disturbing millions of people. I think also this would be a good point to say that this does not just affect women, it affects men as well. Sure. But in a very sexist way. Men have their own version of it. Muscular body dysmorphia. Right. Which is the need to be buff and muscular, which I clearly could care less about that same hair. Same hair. But it's not just related to the muscles or the lack of muscle. It's also related to thinning hair, genitally speaking. It has something to do with that. Sure. Do you ever see that one kid's in the hall with Mr. Cabbage Head? Do you remember him? Yeah. Where he was trying to pick some woman up and he was like, it's not a cucumber, it's a gerkin. It's a gerkin, exactly. Yeah. He probably would have had muscular body dysmorphia disorder. Probably so. Sure. There are also maybe some childhood traumas that could kick start this whole thing. Being beaten about the head and neck. Yeah. And that makes sense. And teasing like you were talking about. They did a study. They found 78% of the participants reported mal treatment during their childhood. The study of people with BDD. Yeah, but the study didn't say whether they didn't ask whether the mal treatment happened before or after the onset of BDD. It's slightly dodgy, but they also found that 40% said the mal treatment was severe. All right, so that kind of makes sense at all. I think it could be a soup of all these things. You may be born with a little bit of it. Society chimes in with making you feel worse about yourself. Maybe your parents did schoolmates, that kind of thing. Right. And I'm saying, this is a former fat kid. Eventually you have to get to a point where you can't let other people define you. You know what I'm saying? Eventually, you have to stand on your own 2ft and just say, yeah, I was a fat kid when I was little, and I had some jerks poked me in the stomach. Who cares? Yeah, say it. They're all digging ditches right now. Do some therapy. And look at you, buddy. I just did. I was a late bedwetter. Oh, my God, Chuck. Were you really? Holy cow. All right, let's see if I can one up to you. Oh, really? No, do it. You got some worse than late bedwetter. For those of you out there that are late bed weather, it's okay. And it will stop at some point, eventually. Or you could just stop drinking late at night. Still waiting on that day. Yeah. So, Chuck, do you have any more revelations? Well, it affects, supposedly about 2% of the general population, which late bed wedding? No, sorry. The BDD. Okay. But they think that might be kind of low because of the lack of diagnosis and stuff like that. Nice. Well, how do we treat this, Chuck? We already said SSRIs. SSRIs is one. And then you have the old CBT, cognitive behavioral therapy. Yes. Which was developed in the 50s. It's psychotherapy, where you got different approaches. You focus on the concept that your thoughts are the root of the behavior and the feelings, as opposed to, like, outside influences. So it's sort of tackling from the inside out. Not eating and smoking cigarettes helps a lot, too, as I understand it. Right. Sure. So, in closing are we closing? Yeah, let's do it. In closing, I would say just from someone who has had issues with weight here and there, in bed wedding. And bed wedding is no one's perfect. You're going to live a long life full of let's hope, and you're going to have issues with yourself here and there. Get over it. And it's not that big of a deal. Everyone has their flaws, and so just accept your own. Yes. That's my advice. Beautiful, Chuck. Beautiful words from a beautiful, beautiful man, inside and out. Right. Surround yourself with people who support you. Agree. And the jerks out there that are calling you names and stuff, they don't know what they're talking about, you know? Yeah. We should probably especially target this to our younger listeners, too. Sure, it ends eventually, but it ends when you allow it to. And, you know, I guarantee you, and I can say this is an older guy, those same jerks who are teasing you and poking you and prodding you, like Josh said, they're probably losers, and they will go on, and their true colors will come out later. Agreed. And they will be losers for life. All right. So that's body dysmorphic disorder. Actually, this is a fine article written by Jessica Toothman. I thought it was excellent. The twister the tooth. And in it she says that if you think or suspect you might have body dysmorphic disorder, you should go seek help from a therapist. Sure. Absolutely. Even if it just seems mild, because oftentimes it's a lot worse than you think it is. Yeah. And you don't want to get out of hand. Yeah. So yeah. That's body of dysmorphic disorders, I just said. Which means that it is time for listener mail. Maybe. Why not? Josh, I'm going to call this corrections and suggestion because there's one suggestion. Okay. And two corrections. I'm going to go through these kind of quick. This comes from Julie. She says a geologic nitpick from the CCS podcast. Pronunciation of I believe we said basalt. I said basalt. You said basalt. And she says it's actually pronounced basalt. Basalt. With the influence on the emphasis on salt. Salt, right. Salt. That comes from Julie, our friendly neighborhood pedantic geologist is how she feels herself. Yeah. So thanks for that, Julie. Thanks, Julie. This comes from Peter, and this is about Tesla. Wait, Tesla the band or the guy? The Nikola Tesla. Jude. Okay. And we've gotten this email from a few folks that we were knocking PC power boo DC. It's actually got lots of great applications. Yes. And we didn't highlight those. We might do that later. Is there a camp of people who are fans of DC electricity? Yeah. Wow. You stated a couple of times that DC is a poor transmitter of electricity across long distances. Actually, a lot of talk is going on now in the energy business about the possibility of using high voltage DC or direct current to transmit electricity across long distances. At high voltage, direct current experiences much lower line losses than AC. That is not what I understand. He said they're looking into it, buddy. Okay. You want to take Peter to task? No. Okay. That means you don't want to email them back. And then this final one is from Andrew in Nashua, New Hampshire. Or Nashua. I'm not sure how it's pronounced. He says he has an addendum to our innovations podcast, and he thinks a really cool one would be wireless electricity. And don't say battery. And he said don't say battery. Sustained energy with wireless would be really cool. So when you take out your vacuum cleaner, you just use it around your house via wireless power. No cords to trip over. Now having to move from outlet to outlet. And you could have an infomercial with a woman in black and white whose hair is all frazzled over a vacuum cord. And then looking into the camera with a frustrated look, she blows the unkempt hair out of her face, then show her in full color, smiling from ear to ear as she wirelessly vacuums. And I think that is a very sexist infomercial, buddy. Yeah, I think it should be a guy. This guy's really thought this out, though. Yeah, that'd be cool. Yeah. I'm not sure how practical it is. It seems dangerous. If you ask me. You'd have to beam that electricity somehow. That's a good point, Chuck. Whatever. But thank you. You should close that. Whatever. But we want to thank Andrew and New Hampshire for sending that sounds like a pretty groovy idea. Thanks to all three of you for writing in and everybody who's written in. Even if we haven't gotten to your letters, we actually do read every single one. It's pretty cool. If you want to send us a letter, it may or may not be read on the air, but at the very least, you'll know Chuck's beautiful eyes have gazed over it. You can send that to stuffpodcast@howstuffs.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howtof works.com. Want more howstoftworks? Check out our blog on the houseofworks.com homepage brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 camry, it's ready. Are you?"
https://podcasts.howstuf…ence-project.mp3	How the Innocence Project Works	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/how-the-innocence-project-works	The Innocence Project is an American non-profit organization whose mission is to exonerate wrongly convicted individuals and reform the legal system. Josh, Chuck and a special "guest" explain how the organization works -- and why it's necessary.	The Innocence Project is an American non-profit organization whose mission is to exonerate wrongly convicted individuals and reform the legal system. Josh, Chuck and a special "guest" explain how the organization works -- and why it's necessary.	Tue, 15 Jun 2010 18:30:18 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2010, tm_mon=6, tm_mday=15, tm_hour=18, tm_min=30, tm_sec=18, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=166, tm_isdst=0)	34155859	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know from housetoporgcom. This episode of Stuff You Should Know is brought to you by GoToMeeting. We all have have to meet, but the average cost of a single business trip is $1,000. With just one click, you can save time and money and have your meetings online with affordable and easy to use GoToMeeting. Use GoToMeeting for sales presentations, product demos, training sessions, collaborating on documents and more. And at $49 per month for unlimited meetings, it saves time, money, and travel. Try GoToMeeting free for 30 days. Visit Gotomeeting.com stuff that's gotomeeting.com stuff. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. With me, as always, is Charles W, Chuck Bryant, and our newest co star, Jerry Roland. Yeah. Jerry has been getting people like her more than us now. Oh, yeah. Can we just say that? Yeah. Guatemala debut. They're like, we love cherry. She's getting marriage proposals. It's been suggested she should get her own Facebook fan page. And she's taken to smacking me on the bottom whenever I walk past her and she tells me to go get her some coffee or something. Chief. Yeah. She calls you chief her guy. Yeah. So it's weird. Jerry's kind of blown up. Yes. It was hard to fit in this room with her head in here at the same time. It's a little warm in here, isn't it? Yeah, it's hot. So, Chuck, Josh, you and I had a rare opportunity recently, a perk, I guess you could say, of working for Mother Discovery. Sure. We spoke to Ms. Paulazan. Yes. Legendary broadcaster, journalist, newswoman. Newsperson, yeah. And we were approached by our marketing people who said, hey, you guys want to talk to Paul is on? We said, of course we want to talk to Paulazan. Wouldn't do you want to talk to Paul is on? They're like, you don't need to get all defensive. And we're like, well, would you? And it just kind of went on like that for a little while. Right. And then finally we ended up on the phone with Paul is on and just started talking to her. She's got a show on investigation discovery ID for those of us who work for Discovery. Sure. And it's called on. The case with Paul is on. It's on every Sunday at 10:00 p.m.. And we started talking to her about true crime. Right. Yeah. It's pretty cool. We get interview set ups like this sometimes. We're kind of like, I don't know about that, but I'm way into courtroom drama and crime and really a good hour long show like that. So I was way down with it. Right. And she started talking about if you've gotten in the impression that we weren't really certain what we were going to do with the interview, you were right. But she started talking about this one case that she did an episode on that the Innocence project factored into, and that kind of rang a bell. But we started looking into it, and we remembered that last October, there was a big kerfuffle about the Innocence Project out of Northwestern University's Medile Journalism School. And I think the Cook County Chief prosecutor, maybe the state's attorney okay, even stronger, more potent wanted to subpoena all of the notes and the grades of all the students on this case. Right. And it was just a big stinky deal. Yeah. Because the deal was these were journalism students as opposed to law students. Right. So it's a bit of a fine line there between journalists aren't supposed to give up their sources telling these journalists they have to student journalists they have to turn over all their information. And so it's kind of a big deal as to where this thing ends up. Right. And as far as I know, it's kind of cold, right? Yeah, I think so. But it was enough to spur our interest in looking up the Innocence Project a little more, and we realized, ding, ding, ding, this is it. This is what we're going to do it on. This is just a cool program, right? Yeah, I'd heard of it before. Basically, the Innocence Project, if you haven't heard of it, is when you hear about a murder case where someone's been in prison for 20 years for a murder case or rape case or it doesn't really matter what kind of case it is, as long as there is DNA evidence that they can dig back up and retest with modern methods, they can exonerate an innocent person. Some mug. Yeah, some mugs who've been in jail for a long, long time. And these are the people that you see on the news. It's like, I was in jail for 28 years, and now I'm a free man. And thanks to the Innocence Project, the group themselves, it was founded by a couple of guys named Barry C. Sheck and Peter J. Newfield. Yeah, Sheck, he was on the OJ team for a while, wouldn't he? Yeah. And they founded this project in 1992 as part of the Benjamin Cardoza School of Law, Yeshiva University. Right. And basically what they do is poor people. And by poor, I mean both senses of the word literally and figuratively, who have been incarcerated wrongly get really top notch, quality legal aid for free from law students, mostly law students. But then in the case of Northwestern University, it can also be journalism, right. Who start pounding the pavement, interviewing old leads, coming up with new ones, trying to find the person who actually did the crime. Yeah, it's based in DNA evidence, but the students actually do a lot more investigating, as if it was just an open case. It's not only DNA. It's pretty cool. Out of the DNA exoneration cases, there's been 254 since the first one in 1989. But out of those 254, in 111 of those cases, the actual perpetrator has been found from the DNA investigation. Yeah. And that's something that sheck likes to point out. Obviously, he's hanging his head on that. Right. So you say, well, why do you need a group of do gooders, scooby, do law school kids to go do this? The reason why you have to do is because you virtually need a law degree or to be well on your way to earning a law degree to navigate the kind of legal waters it takes to file an innocence appeal, a post conviction appeal, saying, I'm actually innocent and I need you to go conduct some DNA tests that weren't conducted before. Right. Because my court appointed attorney was lazy or because there wasn't DNA testing before, or because a lot of the original evidence was destroyed. Which we'll get to, which happens way more than I was comfortable with. Yeah. That, I think, is the key takeaway for me from researching the Innocence Project is that our legal system is fundamentally flawed. In a lot of ways. Yeah. In more than one way. Sure. You're absolutely right. Anybody who saw the Tom Stella movie An Innocent Man knows cops aren't always on the up and up. Yeah. A lot of times you'll get it. I mean, a lot of these cases that we reviewed and we're not knocking cops, believe me, you're detectives. But there's often a lot of pressure on these high profile cases to find somebody, and if there's some material evidence there or some eyewitnesses that may or not be too credible, sometimes there's a little coercion, sometimes there's a snitch, and all of a sudden you have somebody that's going to prison for something they didn't do. Right. There was this really big landmark deluge case out of the LAPD, I think in 2000, where one of the guys on this elite crash unit was busted with \u00a36 of stolen cocaine that he was dealing. One of the cops? Yeah. Okay. And he started dropping bombshells like nobody's business. He and other people on the force have been shooting innocent people wow. And framing them with guns, stealing drugs, dealing drugs, stealing money, framing people. And as a result, between 100 and 150 convicted felons were released. They had their convictions overturned because they've been framed. So it definitely happens. It's not just in Los Angeles and it's not just in Denzel Washington movies. Right. You kind of get the idea that there's a systemic kind of informal procedure for railroading somebody that you are pretty sure is guilty, but you don't really have a slam dunk case. Well, that's the case, Florida one, which we'll get to remember how they found out that several people had been convicted in the same manner right after this guy. Yeah. Which is kind of chilling because you're seeing how the investigators and the prosecutors down in Bravade County functioned in the early 80s. Let's talk about how people end up wrongfully convicted. Right. Yes. There are many ways that this can happen. But here are a few eyewitness. Misidentification is a huge one. It was a factor. They've got some stats here, which is awesome. This kind of testimony has been a factor in 75% of post conviction DNA exoneration. So when they have let someone free with the Innocence Project, or maybe not with the Innocence Project, 75% of the time there's been misidentification. And one of the big problems is involving race. Cross racial identification is usually the culprit, and they found in studies that people are less able to recognize faces of a different race than their own. Right. Other studies have shown that it's not linked to racial bias. It has nothing to do with racism. Our brains aren't wired to recognize people of other races easily. So it's called the other race effect. Right. And it can be very problematic in court cases. So yeah, I can imagine that. 75% is what you said. Yeah. That's a lot. That makes it the number one vendor, right, for wrongful convictions, right? Yeah. The second one, Josh, is invalidated or improper forensic science. And that comes in second at 50%. It played a role in 50% of the cases. And that's basically sloppy work to a large degree. Well, not just that. I was surprised that most of the stuff you see on CSI hasn't been scientifically vetted fully, according to the Innocence Project. Right. You've got things like serology, which is like blood typing or semen sampling, that kind of stuff. Fluid, sticky, gross stuff. Right? Sure. That is vetted. That is hard science. But they're saying, like, firearm tool marks, like shoe print comparison. What else? Hair microscopy. Bite marks. Yeah. So all this stuff is basically based on good guesses rather than hard science, which is one reason why the Innocence Project and others rely so heavily on DNA. It's cutting edge as it gets. It's the best we have right now, and it's gotten way better since it even started using DNA samples. So number three, buddy, is false confessions and incriminating statements. And about 25% of the time that's been a factor. And in 35% of the false confessions, the defendant was 18 years or younger and or developmentally disabled. Yeah. There's a famous case of a woman named Victoria Banks who was in prison for two years in Alabama. I think I've heard of her. Yeah, she was a mentally handicapped woman who confessed to killing her newborn child. Thing was, no one had ever seen this child or seen her pregnant, and she actually underwent a physical exam, and they found that she had her tubes tied at the time that she supposedly was pregnant. She never had a kid, Eric. She never could have killed her kid. Right. And yet she was still in prison for two years before she was exonerated and released. Two years. That's pretty good. And you don't want to lose two years, but I think what was the average? 13. Yes. The average amount of time someone has been in prison and then released by the Innocence Project is 13 years. Right. And that's something that I've always kind of wondered about but never got around to looking into why somebody would make a false confession. I understand being mentally handicapped or being underage and either being badgered or misled by overzealous cop source, basically like, look, just admit to it and things are going to go a lot more easily for you. Yeah. But there's another factor that's involved. If you're an indigent or poor defendant and you don't have money to make bail, or we did our bail podcast. Right. If you don't have money to make bail, you're sitting in jail until your court date, and if your court date is six months from now right. Right. And they come to you with the plea deal and say, hey, we'll let you out in three months if you cop to doing this crime. Right. Which one are you going to do? Right. Or top to a lesser crime, maybe? Sure. That you still didn't commit. Right. So what are you going to do? Sit in jail for three months or six months? Right. You're probably going to go for the three month thing. So that's a wrongful conviction right there, too. Based on false testimony or false confession. Well, if you're poor and indigent, you might not know all of your options. You might not be the most educated person in the world, and, you know, you're between a rock and a hard place many times. Right. So number four Joshua Snitches. Snitches, snitches. 19% of the cases involve dirty, rotten snitches. And I say that because most times or many times, these snitches are flat out lying and they're trying to get themselves out of trouble in some way. Right. As was the case. And finally we've arrived in Bervard County, 1981. Chuck yeah. There's a guy named William Dylan, and he was, I think, like, 1817, something like that, down in Bravade County, Florida. He lived down there. He was a bit of a pothead, and he already had a drug beef against him, but nothing heavier than that, right. No, I don't think so. Some guy named James Davarak winds up dead. He's found beaten to death on the beach at Canova Beach, Florida. Right. And the cops are trying to figure out who did it. Well, Bill Dylan happens to be sitting in his brother's car, hanging out, smoking a joint with his brother when the cops come up and ask him what he's doing there. Right. And then they get a little suspicious when he knows a little too much about this case, even though the case has been all over the news for five days, for some reason, the cops and the prosecutors liked William Dylan for this murder, so they started basically investigating him to make their case around his guilt. Yeah. Right. And one of the things that they used was a prison snitch who said that on the night Dylan was booked for this murder, he was in the holding cell, and Dylan said, I totally did this, and here's how he did it. Right. And no one else witnessed his confession. It was just that one guy. Right. And coincidentally or not, after this trial, Dylan's trial, the rape charges against the snitch were dropped by prosecutors. Right. 27 years later, I think the same snitch came into the courtroom for Dylan's exoneration trial or hearing. Oh, really? And he said, I made this up. I didn't make it up. I was told to read this by a cop, by an investigator who gave me this story, and I went ahead and did it, and I'm very sorry. Right. But Chuck well, here's Paul's on talking about it. Right. She covered the case, sir. Here she is. It gets even more outrageous than that, because another woman who testified against Bill Dylan, who was his girlfriend, ended up admitting that she had had an appropriate relationship with the lead investigator on the case and made it clear that she testified against Bill Dylan because she thought that a potential federal drug charge she was facing was going to get dropped. So in exchange for having this relationship with the lead investigator, her charge would go away, and then some total of four or five witnesses testified and then recanted their testimony a number of times, as this woman did. So here's this poor guy basically convicted on lies. Lies, indeed, Josh. And you want to hear some more? Yeah. The night of the murder, there was a guy driving down the road in Brevard County County, and he told investigators that he picked up a hitchhiker, and the hitchhiker was wearing a bloody yellow T shirt that had the word Surfeit on it. He later told investigators that the guy was sweaty and had blood on his shirt and blood smeared on his leg and shorts. He agreed anyway to drive the hitchhiker to a tavern, a bar just 3 miles away. And this is what's the most startling part to me, believe it or not, in that three mile journey, the two men there was an oral sex act committed between the two of them. Between the guy who just picked up the stranger and the stranger who was covered in sweat and blood. Yeah. What undermines the guy's credibility is the fact that he was blind in one eye. Yeah. And he still picked William Dylan out and said, this is the guy, even though he described the guy at first as having a mustache, meaning six foot. Bill Dylan didn't have a mustache, and he was six foot four. Yeah. And in fact, it said, I love this part, too. It says he's physically unable to grow a mustache. Yes. Which is pretty much a slam dunk as far as that eyewitness testimony goes. Still, that guy, coupled with the prison snitch, who really kind of shut the case. And the girlfriend who slept with the lead investigator, there was one more big player in this, and he was a guy named John Preston, and he was a scent dog handler. And he and his dog Harass Two yeah. Who has nothing on harass one. Right. They were on Bill Dylan like white on rice. Yeah. I always pictured him, when I was reading this, as the dude from First Blood. Remember the old guy with the dogs? Go get him. Brian, Donohy. No, the guy that brought the dogs. Remember, through the woods. And he brought the dogs to chase after Rambo. The colonel? No, he was a civilian. He's an old codger that had some bloodhounds. John Rambo. Anyway, that's who it reminded me of. So he brings Harass, Too and they conduct a couple of tests, one of which, what we should say real quick, that while in the car, after the sex act, the guy, I guess, took his shirt off and leaves the shirt in the guy's car that picked him up. The guy realizes the shirts in there and just throws it in the trash. Police come the next day, pick up the shirt from the trash. Right. Which is pivotal because we should probably just cut to the chase here. Bill Dylan is convicted, sentenced to 26 years, right? Yeah. Or more. He served 26 years and he sentenced to life. Was he okay? Yeah. So he serves 26 years. In that time, fingernail scrapings, other kind of biological samples are just completely destroyed, lost, thrown away. The only thing remaining from this case, which was in long before any DNA testing was going on, was that T shirt. Thank God for Bill Dylan. Bill Dylan starts representing himself, per se, and he's trying to navigate the seas of post conviction appeal. And he keeps getting turned down because he's not following legal formalities, that kind of stuff. Right. Finally, the Innocence Project heard about him because they had exonerated another guy who had been convicted based on a prison snitch fake eyewitness testimony. And John Preston, the dog handler, who turned out to be, as the Arizona State Supreme Court put it, in charlatan. Yeah. Well, can I say real quick what the test was that he did with the dog? Yeah. I can't believe they convicted a guy based on this. He got harassed, too, and they made him sniff the T shirt. And then they made him sniff some paper that Bill Dylan had held in his hand. And I guess harass two reacted in such a way where John Preston said that's your man. Right. Harass, too, smelled the two things and link them. That was it. He's convicted on a dog's sniff, which, again, we should say partially. Dog scent identification has never been proven. No. Scientifically. And later on, when they call them a charlatan, they did some testing and the dog harassed, too, failed all these tests? Yes. Because he's got nothing against the guy. Right. And like I said, he has nothing on harass one. So build Dylan sprung. Right. Because of the Innocence Project and because of this T shirt. I don't want to steal. Paul is on the thunder, Chuck. I assume you don't either, right? No. Let's let her take us home. On Bill Dylan, the key piece of evidence that actually freed this man was DNA evidence. And miraculously, a T shirt that had been worn the night of the murder by the alleged murderer was kept in a courtroom by some court reporter. This is long. 25 years ago. They didn't do DNA testing, and she just happened to keep this piece of evidence. William Dylan's attorneys were able to test it, and guess what? It wasn't his blood on the shirt. So that was the key part of overturning this murder conviction. But once again, you saw his countenance as he goes across the country telling people the legal system worked. I'm a free man today. Well, it worked, but in his case, I would argue very slowly and cost him 25 years of adult living that he could have enjoyed. That's unbelievable. I can't imagine anything like that. So, Chuck, you like to think that, okay, Bill Dylan, who, by the way, now gives lectures on how the legal system actually works, or else he wouldn't have ever been strong. Yeah, that's hard to believe. He's not a bitter man. Paul is on, right? Yeah, that's what she said. You would like to think that this guy, he represents a very rare case. The evidence is that that's not true, that there's actually a lot of people in jail who are actually innocent, right? Yeah. I've got a few stats just from what the Innocence Project has done thus far. There have been 254, you might have said this post conviction exoneration thanks to DNA in 34 states. 17 of those actually were on death row or had served time on death row. Yeah. One guy came within five days of being executed, actually. That's crazy. Yeah. Could you imagine? No, no. 22% of the cases closed by the Innocence Project were closed because of lost or missing evidence. So these people might be innocent, too, but there's nothing they can do about it because the evidence was destroyed. Right. The Innocence Project DNA exoneration is not the only way you can be exonerated. No. Right. I read a study that was written in 2004, and it was about exonerations from, I think, 1989 to 2003. And the author of this paper was saying that death row inmates in 2001 hit a peak in the US. Representing one quarter of 1% of the entire prison population. Right, right. But death row inmates represented 22% of the total exonerations for the 15 years prior, from 1989 to 2004. Wow. Okay, so what this guy was saying was, okay, there's two ways of looking at it. Number one, that death row cases are actually more likely of being wrongly imprisoned because of the pressure to catch somebody for a horrible crime. And he's saying that's probably correct to an extent, but he's saying the other hand is probably correct as well in that there aren't necessarily more death row inmates who are wrongfully imprisoned right. Than in the general prison population. If that's true. Right. That 22% of the total population of exonerations. That's true. Then between 19 and 89. In 2004, there should have been 28,500 non death row exonerations rather than 255. Wow. Yeah. So potentially that many people are riding in prison right now. Tens of people tend thousands of people. Unbelievable. Yeah. Another thing, too, dude, is the Innocence Project is part of the larger Innocence movement altogether, which is 59 affiliated law schools and programs that work with us. And a guy in Texas, David Dow, as a law professor at the University of Houston, and he's seen that in the last five years, he says way fewer death cases, and prosecutors are asking for death less and less because of the work of the Innocence Project. And juries know about some of these exonerations. So he thinks, beyond the exonerations, that people are starting to become a little more careful in what they're trying to prosecute here. And well, they should. I mean, we're talking about people's lives. Absolutely. Let alone they're being incarcerated for a couple of decades. Yeah. How they decide is they get thousands of letters from inmates that are sitting in prison that say that they're innocent. And they say the letters range from really formal and well written to one that came in in 2000 that said simply, I am not the man who did this rape. All I want is to go home. He couldn't even spell, and he did go home. Oh, good friend. Yes. His name was Ricky Johnson and Angola prison in Louisiana and he was freed thanks to the Innocence Project and DNA. Wow. So they have basically a bunch of volunteers, including a high school teacher, an ACLU veteran, former journalist, and a poet, who plow through these letters that they get and try and determine if they merit. And they don't do it on whether or not their heart strings are pulled. They do it on whether or not there's actual DNA evidence still out there that they can work with, because if not, they're kind of fighting a larger battle. The problem is there's only about half of all of the states have laws in place that say you have to preserve evidence after a conviction. Right. Right. In most cases, a conviction is made and the evidence gets thrown away, or most of it does. And there's also even in states where you have to preserve evidence, either there's a statute of limitations where you basically are just like, okay, it's been five years, and we can throw it out to make room for more evidence, or there's no kind of penalty or, I guess, punishment for somebody who does throw away or destroy evidence from a case. Yeah. Didn't Congress pass something on that? Yeah, but it's called the justice for All Act. The most metallica of all the acts. Yeah, of course. It was passed in 2004, and basically it offers financial incentives to states that have programs where evidence is maintained, and then they withhold money from states that don't have these programs. So it's pretty flimsy. Carrot and stick when you're talking about something as important as wrongful incarceration. I've always thought the metallica thing I've always thought the Ride the Lightning Act was the most metallica. No, it's close. Okay. Yeah. So Innocence Project. Yeah. I think I had one more interesting note here. That's right, barry Scheck, he is what he really wants the feather in his cap out of this. Eventually, he wants to prove that a person has wrongly been put to death after the fact. Clearly. Oh, I'm sure he'll eventually be able to do that. And he's not done that yet. He came close a couple of times, but it has not yet happened. Yeah. And, Chuck, look for a podcast from us on capital punishment sometime. Are we going to get into that? Yeah, man, I know. So there's tons more on the Innocence Project. This is just scratching the surface. They actually have a database of every single DNA exoneration case person. You can read about them. You can read about the work they're doing. It's just really interesting. Valuable stuff, right? Yeah. You can also watch the Bill Dylan episode of on the Case of Paula's on on the Investigation Discovery website, right? Yeah. It's a good one. I went and checked it out. It's from season two. It's called killing and Canova beach. If you go to Investigation Discovery.com and search Canova Beach in their handy search bar, it'll bring it up and you can watch it, and it's pretty cool. Yeah. And thanks to Paulo Zan for classing this turkey up a little bit. Seriously, this episode of Stuff You Should Know is brought to you by go to meeting the affordable way to meet with clients and colleagues for your free 30 day trial visit. Gotomeeting.com stuff. So, Chuck, listener, Ma'am, Josh, I'm going to call this Brightening Days for our listeners and taking names. Excellent. This comes to us from Becca. And Becca's a Facebook regular. She's a cool lady. Hi, Josh. And Chuck. And Jerry, of course. She says, you know those days when everything you touch, think, say goes utterly and spectacularly wrong? Yes. That was my day today. Here was Becca's day. She gives a short version. Here the highlights. I woke up as awoken awakened at 02:00 a.m. By the teenage son of the friends that I'm currently staying with to save on rent because I'm sleeping on a couch where his friends need to crash. I'm not sure I get that, but the point is, she's sleeping on a couch. Interesting. Since I've gone. To bed in my own room. Apparently I've started sleepwalking again because I woke up on the couch. Now you get it. Yes. Managed to make about 472 stupid mistakes at work while also being slided ignored and or flat out insulted through email and Facebook throughout the day. Hopefully not our Facebook. No. Then I was off for my hour long drive to work to go to a nursing home till 10:00. P.m.. She works at a nursing home so she can get her nursing assistance license. Well, after 5 hours of being pooped on there, figuratively and literally, I was finally the last student to finish my rounds. As everyone had to wait for me was quick to point out becky is having a bad day. Yeah, that's a bad day. At that point I was totally wrecked. Didn't even make it out of the building before I burst into tears an hour and a half drive ahead of me. I could barely see through the tears and I was beating myself up for fear that I made a huge mistake by quitting my teaching job and changing careers as I just happened to grab my ipod. You see where this is going? No, not yet. If we made her feel worse, this could be the most depressing email ever. By the time I was finished with how midnight regulations work, I was actually laughing at your discussion on the number of syllables in squirrel. Squirrel. Remember that one syllable? Squirrel. Squirrel. If you're from up north, it's squirrel. Two syllables. Apparently. If you're Woody Allen, it's two syllables. Yeah, he's from up north. New York. I can honestly say I can't think of anything else that would have redeemed my otherwise crappy day. Thanks for making me laugh, guys, for giving me something to do while I wait to put my scrubs in the dryer so I can do it all over again tomorrow. From Becca. Thanks for writing in, Becca. At the very least, you're quite a go getter, so that's fantastic and we're glad we could turn that day around. Yeah. Leaving her job as a teacher to work in a nursing home, so it's like she's covered either way on the good Samaritan front. Yeah, very much. If you have an email about a bad day Chuck, or a good day, that's a good one too. You have an email about the greatest day of your life. Yeah. Send it to us. We want to read it. You can wrap it up, spank it on the bottom and send it along on its way to stuffpodcast@howstuffs.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howestofworks.com. Want more? HowStuffWorks? Check out our blog on the houseofworks.com homepage brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready are you? Hey, everybody. I don't know about you, but I am excited that it's summer, school's out, the sun is shining, and best of all, there's downtime four days. That's where true crime podcasts on Amazon music come in. They're the perfect activity for last minute road trips, long walks, or, if you're brave enough, late nights. With so many killer shows like Morbid, my Favorite Murder, and Small Town Murder, you'll never be bored to death again. So download the free Amazon Music app to start listening to all your favorite true crime podcasts. Plus, with Amazon Music, you can access new episodes early. Download the app today."
https://podcasts.howstuf…avy-crockett.mp3	Why was Davy Crockett king of the wild frontier?	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/why-was-davy-crockett-king-of-the-wild-frontier	If there is an American legend who is both real-life and larger-than-life it is Davy Crockett. While he may not have ""kilt him a b'ar"" when he was three, he definitely did personify both the best and the worst of American individualism during the age of	If there is an American legend who is both real-life and larger-than-life it is Davy Crockett. While he may not have ""kilt him a b'ar"" when he was three, he definitely did personify both the best and the worst of American individualism during the age of	Tue, 13 Aug 2013 14:20:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2013, tm_mon=8, tm_mday=13, tm_hour=14, tm_min=20, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=225, tm_isdst=0)	34177040	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Welcome to stuff you should know from housetopworkscom. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark and there's Charles W, Chuck Bryant and Jerry's Back. Yeah. Where's that little a plastic clapping machine. Jerry's back. Yeah. Jerry, can I mention, had surgery on her back to add a third limb. See that's not having a third limb. But she's been awhile on her back recuperating, then eventually was in a chair and now she's walking around and now she can do push ups with that third arm coming out of her back. It's pretty awesome. But soon enough Jerry will be like pain free for the first time this year. Which is very exciting. Yes. But for the time being, she's on some pretty dynamite pills. Oh yeah, you tried to talk to her. Jerry, how are you doing over there? So, welcome back, Jerry. We didn't know how much we missed you until you were gone. For real. Alright, again the applause. That's about as much sentimentally allow. My throat dried up. I had some sort of adverse reaction to that. All right, let's do this. Oh, really? Yes, man. Fine. Davy Crockett. I should point out first off that when I was a kid visiting my grandparents in Memphis, Tennessee yeah. Baby Crockettland. Yeah. I have a great picture and people always say like, why don't you ever post the pictures you talk about? But I had this great picture of me when I was like five years old. Coon skin cap, fringe vest wow. Boots, little plastic Bowie knife, long muzzle loading musket, I think. I know this is a very musket you're talking about. Yeah. So I was just like totally rigged out and obsessed with watching the old Davy Crockett show even though it was like 1975 and that show ran the 50s. It was one of those deals like we still grew up on Gilligan's Island on these older shows. Yeah. I think. Disney walt Disney Presents or something like that. They re ran a lot of that stuff years later. Yeah, I was way into it. That's awesome. Because I was into camping early on and it was just it really fit the bill for me. I love the song, the whole deal. Yeah. I had a Coonskin cap too, but so did Jerry. Yes, she did. The only extra acoustr mall I had was a deer skin water bag filled with wine. Oh, yeah. A boata bag. Yeah. I didn't have one, but Emily does and she still puts wine in it and mix it in the concert. What else is it for? All right, so let's do it. So, Chuck, you made reference to Davy Crockett from the Disney thing. Yeah. Not Daniel Boone? No. Daniel Boone was prior to Davy Crockett. Davy Crockett became Daniel Boone's successor is the personification of the American push westward for a long time. David Crockett personified. The conquering of the Indian wrestling of the bear, the taming of this land through America. Yeah. Although he spent his entire life in Tennessee. Pretty much. No, that's not true. He went to Texas. He did. But he spent a lot of time in Alabama and actually homesteaded there for a little while around Talladega. Not for too long now. For long enough. Like, his family in Tennessee are all very adamant about him being a lifelong Tennessee guy. Right. In his heart, he would agree with that entirely. Sure. He was born in Tennessee, near Knoxville, Tennessee. Green county. Yeah. He spent most of his life there. Even when he R-U-N-N-O-F-T. He was in Tennessee, I believe, for the most part. His autobiography was titled david Crockett of Tennessee Parenthesis. Really? Yeah. Not Alabama. Yes. He went to West Tennessee for a while, too. We'll get to all this. But yeah, let's go back to the Disney. He's a volunteer, so 20 years after yes, he is. Is that where it came from? Him? No, I don't think so. Okay. Because he did volunteer. Maybe. You never know. Maybe it didn't. I wonder if that was, like, kind of a thing and it wasn't just him. But yeah, Tennessee is a volunteer state, and David Crockett was a big time volunteer. Or maybe he felt pressured to because he was in Tennessee. He's like, I really the peer pressure state. I don't want to, but I guess I must. Yes. So Disney I'm talking about Disney whether you like it or not. No, let's do it. I love that show. So 20 years after Disney runs five episodes that's the run of The Davy Crockett Show. Yeah, there was only five episodes. I didn't look that up. So I was like, that can't be right. Yeah, I saw 100 of them. Yeah. You saw those 520 times each. I did. So they ran from 1954 to 1955. And you as a kid in 1975, one full year before I was born, by the way. Yes, I was four. Was still watching it, loving this stuff. So I had staying power. But what had even more staining power was David Crockett himself. Because the Disney thing ran a full 115 years after David Crockett died. Yeah. He was already kind of a legend in his own time as well. But this Disney thing, there was Disney Davy Crockett fever in the mid 50s. Yeah. Supposedly at its peak, 5000 Coon skin caps a day. We're selling. Yes. Within a couple of months of the premiere of the first Davy Crockett episode, $100 million had been made off of the Davy Crockett franchise. 1950. $4. Yeah. He just came on like a ton of bricks. Yeah. And of course, you know the Coonskin cap, if you Simpsons, Jeb Bush. Springfield is in Scottsdale. What is the bronze is that a bronze statue? I can't really tell. It's on TV in a cartoon form. So it's a statue. Yeah. And we don't know for sure if he actually wore a Coon skin cap. He did? Well, no, not what I saw. I saw that Daniel Boone did not, for sure. And Davy Crockett more likely wore wildcat or fox and possibly coonskin on occasion. Okay, I was going to say that it was very apropos, that picture of you all dolled up like David Crockett was taken in Memphis, because that is supposedly the first time he wore the little fringe hunting shirt and the coonskin cap when he headed out from Memphis to Texas, which we'll talk about later. That's what I saw. Man alive. This is interesting, but I think this illustrates a really great point about Davy Crockett. There are few people who definitively lived who have more legends and possible half truth swirling around them than Davy Crockett. Yeah, I think some people out there might even think that he wasn't even a real dude. It's just like a tall tale guy. Yeah, he very much lived. And we got to mention the song. Well, first of all, FES Parker starred as Davy Crockett. Fest Parker also starred as Daniel Boone. Is that right? I guess they were like it's typecast, is what that is. Sure. And the TV theme song was sung by the Wellingtons, the famous song King of the Wild Frontier. But in 1955, four different people recorded it, and all four of them in the same year, recorded the same song, landed in the top ten. That's how popular that song was. Or that's how this kind of undemanding audiences were in the radio audience. Maybe so, but FES Parker did one of the versions. He also did? Yeah. Man, that guy made some dough off of David Crockett. Unbelievable. Ironically, he was afraid of snakes. Fess Parker. Was he really? Isn't that a wine, too? Fess Parker? Is that a winery? Not that I know of. That's a dingy winery right there. It's wine pasture. Fest Parker. There's some winery that has a name similar to that. Fest Parker? Yeah. I don't know. Tess Parker. I don't know. I know. I'm getting confused. So tell them about the US. Army's, Davy Crockett. That was a rocket. Did you see that thing? No. Is it cool? Yes, it was in the army. It was an artillery launcher, lightweight, that fired mortars that had nuclear warheads. And they called it the Davy Crockett yeah, it fired 70 pound nuclear warheads. That's what it was designed to do. And they never deployed it. But it was basically a bunch of pipes that you drive up on your Jeep about one to 2 miles away from the enemy in Europe, the Ruskies, I guess, and assembled this thing real quick and dropped the 70 pound warhead mortar in it and shot it off onto the enemy. It was never used, though. Not as far as I know. It was tested. And there's pictures of, like I mean, it might as well be like a GI. Joe drawing. Like, the pictures of this thing being tested with the jeep and the guy standing next to it and there's like, it's just cool. I have to check that out. Yeah. Luckily, I don't think anyone's ever set off a warthead on anybody in battle aside from Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Aside from us. Right. All right, baby. Crockett. Shameful. All right, so he was born in Tennessee in 1786 at twelve years old. His dad sent him off to this dude, Jacob Siler to help drive cattle to Virginia as a twelve year old. They were working hard back then. Oh, yeah. And this dude the job ended up ended and the Silas guy like forcibly detained him as like a slave of sorts. Yeah. Basically. And he was like, screw this, I'm going to hike 7 miles in the snow out of here in the middle of the night. What's crazy is in 2 hours yeah. He ran it. I don't even think I could run on a flat plane 7 miles and 2 hours. Well, they don't write songs and TV shows about you, though. No, they don't. Actually. We did have a TV show on a song about us. Yeah. But we commissioned it virtually. Yeah, that's true. All right. So he drops out of school while he does a lot of hooky and his dad gets pretty ticked off at him. He's like, basically, I'm going to leave home at a young age because I'm not into the schooling thing. Yeah. Across his lifetime he became a very successful person and he kind of wore the fact that he didn't have much schooling as a badge of honor. Like he was very proud of how far he got in life without formal education. But yeah, as a kid he hated school, is the impression I have. Yeah. He called it a strategic withdrawal and left for two and a half years. Came home like a grown person. He was like 16 and his family was like, who is this larger version of my son that lived? And they forgave him and it was all good. Yeah. He actually stuck around and helped work off some of his father's $76 debt sure. For a year and went to school as a peace offering for another six months and then said, okay, that's it, forget it. I'm going to go make my own way. And this is when he begins to volunteer. That's right. Volunteered with the Tennessee Militia. Yeah. His military career started. There lots of militia action going on. Like he was in a bunch of different militias, it seemed like. Yeah. And what he was part of is one of the more despicable parts of American history, the removal of Indians, specifically in this case, the Southern Indians and their lands. There was a lot of land in what are now the southern United States, the southeastern United States that was ripe for cotton growing and there were a lot of people who wanted that land and there were a lot of treaties. Basically the militias would go in battle, the Creeks or the Chalk Talls or the Cherokees or whoever, and then, after their defeat, would force a treaty on them. Andrew Jackson, who later became president, was personally responsible for nine of eleven treaties between 1814 and 1824, which means nine of eleven Indian massacres, basically. American massacre. Yeah. And there are massacres on both sides. And David Crockett actually took place in one of the massacres. A retributive massacre. Right. Yeah. I think that was his first military duty. He enlisted to avenge the attack on Fort Ma'am, Alabama, and with Andrew Jackson did so. Indian massacre. Right. Very sad. Yeah. It was the name of the town was Talusahachi, and it was in Alabama. And I believe they killed about 200 Indian men, and 84 women and children were captured. And then whoever is left alive, I guess, interjection came in and negotiated a treaty. Yeah. They probably kept one man alive to sign the treaty. Right, exactly. And it basically said, all the rest of you have to get off this land, but you can go west. And then as this happened time and time again, more and more Americans move south and establish plantations around this time. Right. So that's the context of what was going on when David Cracker was volunteering with the militia. Basically, yeah. And it seemed like he really hopped all over the place between some military militia work, because when you enlisted, it was like a 90 day enlistment. It wasn't like years and years. And then like some political work before he got real serious, he was a town commissioner for a little while. He was a justice of the peace for a couple of years. So he was just sort of floating around. Little militia work, a little political work. Indian fighting. Yeah. He was a man of many fringe jackets, I guess he really was. Well, before we keep going, you want to do a message break? Yeah, I think it's a good time. And then things get serious for David Crockett. Yeah. So we were talking, Chuck, about how Davy Crockett wore many, many hats. Sure. Many skin caps. And we want to say also that although he was an Indian fighter and actually became very much respected as one, that's part of his initial legend was that he was an Indian fighter, which was very much admired among Americans at the time. Sure. He eventually parted from that image very publicly, but first he kind of had to create a public platform to do that on, I guess. Right. Yeah. He was a commissioner for a while in Tennessee, and then he was elected to the Tennessee legislature. And then finally, in 1825, he won a seat in Congress. Yeah. His first, like, he was actual congressional representative for Tennessee, was it 1825 or 1820? 718 27. That's right. And he served two terms. Yeah. And then lost basically the third term because he came out so vehemently opposed to what Jackson was doing with taking back the land. Yeah. So the Supreme Court ruled that Native Americans had a right to occupancy, yes, they can live in North America, but that is trumped by Americans right of discovery. Somehow they decided that we discovered this land that you already lived on, which trumps your right to live on it. Did anyone ever say, no, we discovered it because we're here. Right. And they were cut down where they stood, probably. So I guess the idea of the issue of Indian removal in this time was being played out in the courts. Andrew Jackson becomes president, gets the Indian Removal Act passed through, which basically says, I'm the President. I deal with treaties with Indians. I'm taking this out of the hands of the courts. And by the way, Andrew Jackson and you know how I feel about Indian removal. You all can get out west. Right. And apparently this is egregious enough to make David Crocket say, you know what? I'm totally rethinking this land use policy, this land grab, the Indian Removal Act. And even though we're both from Tennessee, we're both in the same political party, I'm publicly separating myself from you and your policies, Mr. President. Yeah, that's a big deal. Well, he lost because of it. He did, but he lost very narrowly, I believe, 252 votes. Yeah, it was close. And actually, we have a video series, people called Trapped in a Meeting. And in this week's Trapped in a Meeting, we learned that while Andrew Jackson was in office, he had an assassination attempt on his life. And Davy Crockett, this guy, like this mentally ill guy, went to shoot Andrew Jackson on the steps of the capital, I think. Yeah. Remember we talked about in the insanity defense episode? Yeah. And Davy Crockett was one of the guys who subdued he jumped into action because he's David Crockett. Yeah. Even though they already opposed one another politically at this point, he's still going to help save the president. Stand up guy. Yeah. David Crockett turned out to be a pretty cool dude. Yeah. So he loses that after his third bid, three consecutive term, he loses his bid and he goes off and starts making money by making and selling barrel stays. Like the slats he used to make whiskey and wine barrels. Yeah. Apparently it's pretty lucrative at the time. Yeah. Doing it, though. Yeah. It was a boat wreck on the Mississippi River, carrying those barrel staves. And he almost died then, and he almost died earlier in his life when he had malaria, when he was home studying in Alabama. Yeah. He was a rough and tumble guy. Oh, for sure. Supposedly. Also during this time, he killed 105 bears in a year. Yeah. Killed him one when he was only three. Well, that's a Disney legend. And also, we should say that the idea that he was King of the Wild Frontier, that term, that label came directly from Disney as well. He obviously didn't wrestle a bear when he was only three, but he was a very well known bear hunter. Whether he killed 105 or not, that's kind of up for debate. But if you want to read his first hand account of it, there's an awesome article called Bear Hunting in Tennessee davy Crockettels Tall Tales. It's on George Mason University's website. Nice. Check it out. He's a pretty awesome author. He's talking about how he's hunting with his eight dogs and his dogs are the best dogs on the planet, flushing out bear. And he saw some other fellows come up and they wanted to hunt with them and they had like 20 dogs, but all the dogs were terrible. He said they couldn't bark at a bear without having to lean up against the tree to rest for a little while. So he left the dogs behind and let them chew on some bare bones and he took his dogs out. It's awesome. Like this guy is totally uneducated frontiersman who also went to Congress and kind of a humorous too. Yeah, I think the song actually originally went hike 7 miles in the snow in 2 hours when he was only twelve. They're like, let's just make something up. Kill them a bear. It wasn't even killed. It's K-I-L-T kilt him a bar. Yeah, part of that song is still just like instantly comes to my head, the lyrics and everything. So he lost his third Congressional bid and then he starts gaining more fame and notoriety. And this is at a time where it was pre internet. Yeah. Was it pre internet? It was pre internet. And it was a time where it wasn't the easiest thing to gain this kind of notoriety. That just shows how popular he was. Like, he was one of the most famous people in the country. Yes. They had these David Crockett Almanacs published lots of books written about him. One lied and said that it was an autobiography to sell books and the almanacs actually came out of that. They use that book as the basis of it. Oh, really? Yeah. So that just kind of perpetuated all these lies. And since it was attributed to him, that gave him a reputation for spinning tall tales about himself. That wasn't necessarily untrue. He didn't spin him quite as much as other people did about him. There was a play by James Kirk Paulding called The Line of the west, and the character Nimrod Wildfire was based on Davy Crockett. And he finally did get together with because as he said, he wasn't educated, so he got a little help. But he eventually did write his own autobiography with the help of a co author. Yeah, he did. And you can very much compare it to Barack Obama writing The Audacity of Hope because it was released at a time when the Wigs were starting to tout Davy Crockett as a possible challenger, I guess, to Andrew Jackson for the presidency. Right. A Narrative of the Life of Davy Crockett of the State of Tennessee by Thomas Chilton. And Davy Crockett was the official one. Yeah. So the problem is, Chuck, he didn't win his reelection bid, so his idea of going into the presidency, the primary, I guess, in 1836, was that his plan? Yeah, he was going along with that. And some of the wigs were like, let's do it. But since he was knocked out of Congress in 1835, he did make a third trip back to Congress from 1833 to 1835. Right. But then he was defeated by a peg leg lawyer yeah. Named Adam Huntsman very narrowly. But he lost. So I think at that point, he was like, I'm kind of done with Congress for a while. Yeah. And his losing to that pegleg lawyer he was dubbed it gave rise to his famous quote, since you have chosen to elect a man with a timber toe to succeed me, you may all go to hell, and I will go to Texas. And he was basically like, I want to go check out Texas and see what's out there. Yeah. He didn't go westward, like, to California or anything like that? Texas was super west at the time. Yeah. It was a Mexican state that was in a struggle for independence. There was a rebellion going on there. Yeah. That's not why I went, though. No. Apparently he got caught up in that, but he went there just to explore and was going to settle down with his family and just live on the land. Right. There's a lot of money to be made there. Well, yeah. He said what I've seen in Texas, there is a world of country here to settle. I'd rather be in my present situation than to be elected to a seat in Congress for life. Yeah. So he really thumbed his nose at politics at that time, or he was just really happy, too, with Texas. Yeah, that's true. It didn't take very long for him to get there and I guess get caught up in the rebellion that was going on. That really kind of spoke to him in his spirit. Yeah. They said he loved a good fight. Yeah. I think he just couldn't resist. Yeah. I mean, he was a bear hunter, for goodness sake. So he gets there and basically aligns himself with the rebel movement, who asked him and his traveling companion to sign an oath of allegiance to it. And it basically says, like, i, Davy Crockett, pledge allegiance to this rebellion and any future government that may come out of it. David Crockett is like, I'm not signing that unless you put Republican before government. Because he wasn't about to sign his allegiance over to some tyrannical government that came out of the rebellion. He didn't know. Yeah. So he was one to heads his bets. That's right. Very smartly. So he signed it and very famously died at the siege of the Alamo, which I know you have visited the Alamo. There is no basement. There is no basement. And I always hear from everybody that visits, I have not how small it is. Everyone's always underwhelmed. It's basically like one room. Yeah, yummy. Took me there, and it's in San Antonio. You go in and you're like, it's this lump of history in the middle of downtown San Antonio. Yeah. And it's like, is this a bank or was it the LMO? Yes, there's a couple of side rooms, but it's really just one main room. Yeah. I was just pictured some huge fort. Yes, you'd think so? I'll visit it one day, for sure. The gardens, the grounds are amazing. Oh, yeah. It's very cool. It's worth going to, for sure. Yeah. Well, I love being at historical landmarks. You know what you should do? South by Southwest, fly into San Antonio and drive to Austin. Yes. That's what you did, right. Yeah. So the Alamo is great. I'm going to visit. He famously died defending the Alamo, but there are many versions of how exactly that went down. From died surrounded by 16 dead Mexicans that he killed with his hand on a knife in the back of one. To captured and executed to killed at the very beginning of the thing and didn't even see much action. Yes, but we think we have a pretty definitive story. Yeah. There's some other stuff that he supposedly did do. He was documented as running all over the Alamo, like keeping everybody animated. Keeping them where's? The basement. Right, exactly. And he supposedly played his fiddle a lot, like very rousing tunes. Just tried to keep everyone's spirits and energy up while they were defending the small little building. He supposedly took out five gunners in secession who were trying to shoot a cannon at the Alamo. Yeah, with old Betsy, his musket. Yeah. And he also supposedly came very close to hitting Antonio Santa Ana, the general who's leading the siege, but just missed him, even though Santa Ana thought he was well out of range of the guns. Yeah, I see him. But there's no way he can do it. Yeah, exactly. So he did do some stuff. He's documented doing something, probably truthful. But the problem there was always a problem with how he died in that he was captured. And a great brave Indian fighting bear hunter who represents all of America isn't supposed to be captured, because if you capture, that means you put your gun down. You didn't die fighting. Well, it's supposedly ran out of bullets and then started clubbing them with his gun, killing them with his bare hands in a butt of a gun. Right. So that's the fictitious version. Yeah. The other versions from Eyewitnesses contradict that. So America long struggled with how David Crockett died. And then in 1975, the diary of one of the Mexican army soldiers who was there at the siege was published and it basically laid to rest, like yes. David Crockett was among those captured. It was five or six people. Yes. Everybody else had been killed or woman, basically. And Crockett was among, like, five or six soldiers who were captured despite Santa Ana saying, don't take any prisoners. Yeah, they did anyway. Yes, they did. But the account says that he wasn't shamed, though he still died bravely. They were bayonetted and shot. And the quote, penous quote was the Mexican soldier whose diary was right. These unfortunates died without complaining, without humiliating themselves before their torture. So I think it was like one of those Red Dawn scenes where they start singing America the Beautiful. Yeah. Probably you're about to shoot me, but my head is held high. Yeah. Or like, who is that? We did last week, the lady. Oh, Madahari. Yeah. Matahari. Yeah. David Kraken and Matahari. They're virtually indistinguishable. That's right. So his reputation remained intact and died. The Alamo. And then Walt Disney got a hold of it, and 100 years later, it became a sensation. Yeah. I mean, even beyond it remaining in Tech, dying at the Alamo, defending the Alamo mushroom clouded his personality and his reputation as legend. Like, it just sealed it forever. Like David Crockett, american hero, king of the wild frontier. Yeah. Timber. Toe. No, not a timber toe. I actually had to look that up. I was like, what does that mean? I was like, oh, wooden leg. Yeah. Toe. Timbert. Got it. He was pretty clever. Yes. And that quote, by the way, was said while he was drinking with his buddies in Memphis at the Union Hotel. And I did a little digging, and that is the Union Hotel was what is now the grounds of AutoZone Park, where the Memphis Redbirds play ball. Oh, yeah. I need to get back to Memphis. My family is all gone from there now. So aside from visiting the graves of my grandparents, there's really no other reason to go back. Grave of Elvis. Yeah, well, I've been there. Yeah, we'll go again. All right, then. The state is not going to fund itself. Yeah, that's true. Okay. You got anything else? No, sir. David Crockett. Oh, you know what? I have one other thing. Something occurred to me while we were researching this. If you think of David Crockett and you're an American, all these images come to mind. It's a national hero and he's complex and everything. Think about how every single country has at least somebody like that. Sure. And just how totally unaware we are of those people that are like that in all those other countries. Yeah. Like, who is Finland's? Davy Crockett. Exactly. Yeah. But it's neat to think that there's somebody like that out there for at least one for every country on the map. Yeah. France has a David Crockett, I'm sure. Napoleon Davy Croquette. Nice. Yeah. And you know what? In listener. Mail, we should ask for your country's version of David Crockett. Let's do that. Okay, so until then, if you want to learn a little more about David Crocket, you can read this article that I wrote years and years ago by searching Davy Crockett in the search bar. And that's Davy, the early 19th century version of Davy. Yeah. And where else? What was that website we also use to get this information? If you look in the source list on the Lots more information page of my article, it's in there. Okay. There's some good stuff. I think it's like The Texas Online Handbook, maybe. Yeah, something like that. Yeah. And don't forget to go read that first person account of bear hunting with Davy Crockett on George Mason University website. Since I said George Mason. I mean it's time for listening. This is about ECT electroconvulsive therapy that we podcast it on and about civil rights of people forced into stuff like this. It's from Jamie. Hey, guys. In your ECT podcast, you mentioned anti psychiatry with regards to the resistance of ECT. Hope that one day you'll do a podcast about the consumer survivor ex patient movement, CSX. It's one of the remaining civil rights movements in the country and around the world. Mindfreedom.org is a great resource to start with. It was one of the first CSX organizations in existence and still going strong today. Robert Whitaker, a journalist, wrote Mad in America, where he describes inventors of torture devices pedaling their machines to various mental institutions, which held the belief that patients can be shocked or tortured into sanity. Lobotomies were finally discontinued because Thorazine was introduced as he knew lobotomy through a pill. Yeah. Metropol injections and insulin shock were torturous and highly feared by patients who received them. Much of what went on in one floor of the cuckoo's nest is still true for today's modern institutions, including forced ECT. Nowadays, the tortures are more subtle. I was on a drug personally called Haldol that to this day, I believe would make an excellent torture drug. I was also literally blinded by another drug called Melarill, which was forced upon me while in a hospital. My eyesight was restored many years later, thanks to Emory Eye Center here in Atlanta. But I was never warned about the possible side effects of Melanoma were given a choice to take it or not. Today's, modern medications routinely cause diabetes and rapid weight gain, as well as dependence and early death. When people try to discontinue their use, they're faced with symptoms far worse than the symptoms for which they were originally treated. In fact, many school shooters were either on one of these drugs or withdrawing from them. When you do the research. I was a patient in the mental health system for 20 plus years, and now I operate an alternative to traditional mental health services indicator Georgia, which is near where I live. Recovery is possible when you reclaim your power taken from you in psychiatry. And guys, I am not antipsychiatry, but I am no longer blinded or threatened by the tactics that they can sometimes use. I believe in civil rights for people who've been diagnosed and labeled as mentally ill. Please understand that anyone walking into a psychiatrist office can effortlessly walk out with a label that will follow them for the rest of their lives. Yeah, there's a stigma attached. Totally. So I hope you will consider podcasting on this powerful but often oppressed civil rights movement. I love the podcast a lot. Thanks a lot, Jamie. That is very interesting. I've not heard of that before. Yeah, CSX movement. I will definitely be checking it out. That is a great listener mail where we're told about something we've never heard of before in our entire lives but find intensely interesting. That's a good one. Thanks, Jamie. Yes, I forgot. If you have a national hero in your country and you're not in the US, like myth and legend and truth all wrapped up for a like right. We want to know who that is and know a little bit about them. If you're in the US. Or her. Oh, yeah. Good one, Chuck. If you're in the US. You can still have an opportunity to write in, tell us something that we don't know about that's intensely interesting. There's your homework. Everybody get to work. You can tweet to us at SYSK podcast on Twitter. I should say I want to presume. Everybody knows what tweeting is true on Facebook.com. You can join us at Stuff You should know. That's our page name. You can send us an email to stuffpodcast@discovery.com, and you can join us on our website. The very awesome, the inimitable, the amazing stuffyoushow.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit houseofworks.com. This episode of Stuff You Should Know is brought to you by State Farm."
https://podcasts.howstuf…l-inventions.mp3	10 Accidental Inventions: By the Numbers	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/10-accidental-inventions-by-the-numbers	Every once in a while Chuck and Josh do things by the numbers and here's a good example. Turns out a surprising amount of ubiquitous items in our everyday lives were stumbled upon by accident. This episode explores a few of the more noteworthy ones.	Every once in a while Chuck and Josh do things by the numbers and here's a good example. Turns out a surprising amount of ubiquitous items in our everyday lives were stumbled upon by accident. This episode explores a few of the more noteworthy ones.	Thu, 21 Jun 2012 17:33:55 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2012, tm_mon=6, tm_mday=21, tm_hour=17, tm_min=33, tm_sec=55, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=173, tm_isdst=0)	35126635	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"I was in the at and T store for an upgrade. I left with at and T's best deal on a smartphone and a choice of plan. But on my way out, here comes this new guy, a noncarrier phone and a plan that raised eyebrows. I felt for him when I tell you we left the store store grinning from ear to ear with the same deal. I love watching people prosper. You feel me? That's when I learned that whether you joined today or have been with at and T for years, they'll have the same best deals for everyone on every smartphone. Eligible plan required. Offers vary by device. Restrictions may apply. See att. Comdealsfordetails. Hey, everybody. If you want a great website, you want to do it yourself with no Muslim fuss, turn to Squarespace. They have everything to sell anything. They have the tools that you need to get your business off the ground, including ecommerce templates, inventory management, simple checkout process, and secure payments. And if you're into analytics, hold on to your hats, because Squarespace has everything that you need. Just head to squarespace. Comcysk and you can get a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use offer code SYSK to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know from housetopworkscom. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's charles W, Chuck Bryant. And since we're here together, you can't see us, but we are here. Don't be so solid system, I swear. Thanks. Did I get that all right? I think so. Okay. It's stuff you should know. Yeah. Here we are. How are you doing? I'm great. Oh, I'm glad. I like these little top tens. I think they're a nice digestible light form of hey, I'm going to tell a couple of these at the next dinner party I throw. Yes. They're like or dervs. Yeah, exactly. They're like pigs in a blanket. Yeah, good. Homemade pigs in a blanket. They're like cocktail wheaties in that particular barbecue ketchup mixture. Yeah, that stuff. Yeah, they're all that more chunk. That's right. I've got one for you. Let's hear. We're talking about ten accidental inventions. Yeah. And I know we've talked about this a lot, but I think it bears repeating. The accidental discovery of LSD of acid. Yeah. Probably one of the funniest things that's ever happened to a chemist ever. Yeah, sure. Albie Hoffman, back in, I think, like, 1929, he started working at Sandos Pharmaceuticals in Switzerland, and he decided he was going to get to the bottom of Argott and ergot. It's a mold, I believe, or fungus. I'm sorry, that grows on rye in particular, and has long been known to make people do crazy, weird stuff. And they think that maybe the Salem witch trials were the result of ergot poisoning. Sure. Or the Enlightenment was the result of air got poisoning. It's possible. A lot of quote unquote poisoning. Right. Ergot craziness albie Hoffman is trying to albie? Like albie? Yeah, he's dead. He can't hear me. Okay. He was trying to figure out what you can do with this. He's been studying it for a while, and he came up with lysergic acid diplytomide, and he made several attempts at it. And on his derivative LSD 25, he got some on his hands, I guess, ingested it somehow. Yeah, fingertips. So he has it on his fingers? Yes. And he goes home to lay down. He starts seeing, like, fractals and colors and a kaleidoscope. And it interested him, I guess you could say. Sure. So he started researching heavily, like injecting it and getting bike rides from his assistant and all that stuff. Yeah, he took it on accident, and then three days later, he was like, Maybe I should try that for real. And then he got a ride home on the bike from his assistant. And April 16 is now referred to as Bicycle Day. About those hippies. Yeah. And one of his quotes that I thought was really great when he first described it, he said it was, quote, a not unpleasant intoxicated, like, state. Yeah. And that was on the first time. Apparently the bicycle trip got a little hairy. Oh, really? Yeah. But then he passed through that wave into the wave of not unpleasant once again. Right. And then he started wearing Captain. So it was an accidental discovery of the nature of the psychedelic nature. And he said we should start using this stuff for, like, medicine. Yeah, well, the hippies had other ideas. Yeah, sure. He ultimately referred to LSD as his problem child. He wrote a book called My Problem Child in I think it was kind of one of those ones where it's like, you're my problem child. Come here. Here's some money. He wrote that 1980? Wow. Yeah, I believe so. Boy, I didn't realize he lived that long. That's pretty cool. Yeah, he was an old guy. Well, I mean, he drank a tablespoon of LSD every day, and that's what gave him his longevity, I think. So that's number one, right? Or that's actually number ten. That was the intro. Well, it counts. I don't think it should count. So you got another one then? An extra? Yeah, I'll just make it up, apparently, is what we do. Josh number nine, Cornflakes, is fictionalized in the TC. Boyle book the road to wellville, was that a TC? Boy? Yeah. I didn't know that. He's great. Oh, I love him. Did you see the movie? Yeah. I've not seen the movie or read the book. Yeah. Matthew Broderick, Anthony Hopkins. Yes, it was good. I've been to Battle Creek before then. Oh, you really have? Yeah, when I was a kid. And that's the home of cereals, right? Kellogg's Cereals, basically. Kellogg's Cereal. Here we go. Wilkeath Kellogg, he was interested in medicine and he was working as a doctor at the Battle Creek Sanitarium with his brother, helping him out with and this is in the movie with their diets. He was trying all sorts of weird treatments. Big on animals. Oh, yeah. Huge on animals. He also discovered or created the first acidophilus, soy milk. Oh, really? Yeah, and some sort of meat alternative that ultimately led something to something like American Tofu or something. Yeah. Boy, what a genius. And he is responsible by accident for cornflakes. Oh, will was and I'm sorry, John Harvey, his brother, was responsible for those two things. Well, it runs in the family. Yeah. He was making bread one day at the old sanitarium there in Battle Creek. He left boiled wheat sitting out for a little too long. And he came back and he rolled into the dough and it became flaky, which is not what he was looking for. But he was like, you know what? I'm going to throw this in the oven. Anyway, let me see what happens. And it baked these little flakes that the patients here were like, boy, these are delicious. We should pour some milk over this stuff and cut a banana into it. Yeah. And put it in a box. Can we get some free striped strawberries added? Exactly. And eventually he tinkered with it and switched it over to corn as the main ingredients of wheat. And that was cornflakes, my friend. That's how I took off. What's he added or used corn? I'm sure it was kind of like, this isn't good, but what is this weedies? These are terrible. Yeah, exactly. And then he tried it with corn and they were like, oh, that's really good. And that formed the Battle Creek Toasted Cornflakes Company, which eventually became Kellogg's accidental serious whenever he came up with the Battle Creek Toasted Cornflakes Company name. Yeah. You know, he's wearing spats. That name just like Scream spats. What are spats? The little white covers that go over your shoes. Yeah. Like Mr. Monopoly or Buster. Still learning that terrible movie gangster. Yeah. Oscar. Yeah. I thought stats might have been the little sock leggings, but those are probably just called socket leggings. I think those are called spenders or garters. Yeah, we should bring that back. No, this died out for good reason. All right, moving on. Or do you have any other Kellogg's fax? I have neither Kellogg's fax nor anymore spats jokes. So I think we should go on because this next one is dynamite, named for the Greek root meaning connected with power. Alfred Nobel, Swedish scientist, accidentally discovered dynamite when he was working on basically with nitroglycerin. He's working on explosives, trying to make it stable. Well, his father built mines. Is that how that started? And you build mines using explosives, specifically nitroglycerin. But back then it was kind of like, okay, 80 people died because of nitroglycerin. Just exploded because someone looked at it wrong. Well, because we have it in a jar in the back of a horse cart. Right. That's part of the problem, too. But he lost a brother and three other people at his lab in Stockholm when he was trying to figure out how to stabilize it. Very sad. But he kept with it. And so in the article, it says that he was transporting it and saw it packed in this stuff, this mud that we like to call keeslegur. Yeah, right. But I read elsewhere that it wasn't that ultimately he came up with using Keysl ger. Yeah, I read that he dropped it on the sawdust. That's what I read. He thought he was going to die as he watched this vial fall of nitroglycerin fall out of his hand, but it landed on sawdust and was absorbed. And he went, that's weird. So he started studying. If you mixed it with an inert material, you could conceivably blast it by adding a fuse to it. He finally came up with Keysel Ger, which is like this it's like sedimentary mud. Right? Yeah. It's real powdery. It's a combination of crushed fossil and marine life. Got you. It's what they use actually, you'll probably see it. It's what they use on film sets when they want to make stuff look dirty. Oh, okay. Because it's just, like super light and powdery and makes it look really super dirty. Got you. Yeah. Keel ger. Yeah. Fuller's earth. Well, he also there would be something. He figured out how to stabilize nitroglycerin and created a stable explosive. Sure. But he combined it with another previous invention of his based on the initial ignition principle, which is not just using a fuse, but having a fuse go to a blasting cap and having a smaller explosive blow up your bigger explosive. Yeah. He put all that together. And that was dynamite. Truly dynamite. It was. Again, he was doing this to build minds. But in his lifetime, he saw his invention used to destroy human lives. Yeah, he blew up a lot of things himself by accident. A lot of his factories. It wasn't just that one time. No. Yeah. They basically said, you can't do this anymore on the mainland. So you started working on a barge. Yeah. And I think the barge might have even blown up. I'm sure everything blew up. He was like King Midas, but everything exploded. That's right. So as part of his legacy, he created the Nobel Peace Prize. Right. Well, I guess he bequeathed it to basically say, hey, a lot of people have died because of my invention, so let's promote safety and harmony and peace. And then later the IG Nobels. Yeah. Which kind of brought it full circle, in a way. They did. He first named it Nobel's Blasting Powder. Then eventually it became dynamite. Not to be confused with TNT. It's different. Okay, so AC DC was wrong. TNT I'm dynamite. It's not true. I know what you're saying. What they should have said was TNT, I'm not quite Dynamite, or I'm less effective than Dynamite. That should have been the song. So what is TNT then? Dynamite is 60% greater energy than TNT. Wow. So it's two totally different things. It's not just like a lesser degraded version. They're both high explosives, meaning they detonate instead of, like, burning. Yeah, but yeah, two different things. So Fan Scott, he was on the drink, as we all found out. Really? Like, he died because of the drink. The dude with the hat? Yeah, that's the second guy. Brian Johnson, the first lead singer for the first however many albums died in his car. He passed out after a night drinking and did the old choke on the vomit thing. But he was the one that sang TNT Dynamite. I thought those two guys were like, what? I thought TNT and Dynamite were up until a minute ago. Now. Brian Johnson came along later. Back in Black was his first album, so all that good early AC DC ponscon. What do you think about Sammy Hagar? A summer is here, my friend, which means school is out, the sun is shining bright, the days are longer, and best of all, there's plenty of time to get lost in a good, thrilling story. Yeah. Whether you're road tripping or you're relaxing by the pool, you can tune into the podcast here. It's on Amazon Music that's so good, it's criminal. Morbid. That's right. It's part true crime and part comedy. Morbid takes you on a journey through murderous mysteries and major laughs, all in the same week. Yeah, from the paranormal to the pretty spooky and everything in between, hosts Selena Erkhart and Ash Kelly cover it all. And with two episodes released each week, you'll be hooked on this chart topping series before you know it. You can listen to new episodes of Morbid one week early, only on Amazon Music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen. Today whiskey are a major transit system with billions of passengers taking millions of trips every year. You aren't about to let any cyber attacks slow you down, so you partner with IBM to build a security architecture to keep your data network and applications protected. Now you can tackle threats so they don't bring you to a grinding halt. And everyone's going places, including you. Let's create cybersecurity that keeps your business on track. IBM, let's create learn more@ibm.com. So Saccharin is up next. Chuck, I feel like we should talk about Saccharin. Let's do it. Well, we are just really going down the line here, aren't we? Yeah. It's an accidental invention. Number seven. Okay, there's a guy who is named Constantine Fallberg. He's a chemist working in the labs at Johns Hopkins under a guy named IRA Remsen. Yeah. IRA calls Constantine a jerk. He does, but not quite for the reasons that are displayed here. Right, so Falberg and Remstone are working on, apparently substitute for coal tar. That's all I could come across. That's what I did. His quote, he was saying, like, I've made many discoveries in my search for coal tar, some of them accidentally, and here's one, but he doesn't say, like, what I was doing was synthesizing chemicals in a search for substitute for coal tar. So I'm not going to stand 100% behind it, but that's what I think. Right. He said he was in a great hurry and left the lab without washing his hands. Apparently, he wasn't wearing gloves or anything either while he was working in the lab with these chemicals that he didn't know what they were. And he went home and he ate dinner. Right. And he was eating a piece of bread, and his bread was really sweet, and he realized that that was weird. So he put the bread down and wiped his hands in his mouth and his beard with the napkin. The napkin is sweet. Yes. He thought the napkin was super sweet. And he's like, okay, there's something weird going on. He put two and two together and realized it must have been that powder that he had on his hands from the chemical that he spilled on it that he didn't think to wash off before he ate with his hands. Exactly. And it turned out to be Saccharine. So what does he do? Well, he says, I can probably make some money off this, and I'm under the impression that he shut out Remsen. So what he did was Remsen was a total research. He was a total lab rat. He didn't care a thing about patents, and he was apparently fine with the idea that Falberg went off and independently patented it. Until it started making money. No, until he started telling people that he was the one that created this thing. He was the senior researcher right then. Now he's screwing with Remsen's lab rat status. That's when Remsen was like, Shut your mouth. So it didn't have as much to do with money. No. His rep. Exactly. Interesting. Yeah. So Falberg ended up with the patent for saccharin, and years and years and years later, the 80s happened. People are all coked up. They're looking for ways to lose some weight, and Sweet and Low comes along. It's saccharin. And it has so few calories in it, apparently five calories a gram that it's just listed as zero calories because those packets are a lot less than a gram. Yeah. And the reason why it's non caloric is because it's never metabolized by the body. It just goes out the way in the same format came in. Yeah. It has zero food energy value. It's like if you were trapped, freezing in the woods and you had a big bucket of Sweet and Low, it wouldn't be the same as if you had a big bucket of sugar. Yeah. You'd want the big bucket of sugar trapped in the woods with a big bucket of sugar, huh? Well, you get food energy. Okay. Trapped in the woods with a big bucket of sweet and latter you're screwed. Yeah. Can you imagine, like, the fuzzy jackets on your teeth after eating a bucket of sugar in the woods? Since it was brought on the scene, it's kind of been added and removed quite a few times, too. You can eat this, it's fine. And it's probably not great for you list, but right now it's in good standing. It is approved because I remember in the late eighties, early nineties, like after everybody had been drinking it for a while, they took like a hard look at Saccharin and we're like, well, it may cause cancer in laboratory. I put it in my unsweet iced tea I've seen because that's the only thing I can find, that you put sugar in there and it just sinks to the bottom. That's why you have to use simple syrup. Yeah. Or put the sugar in the hot brewed tea where it will melt. But if it dissolves, if you're not going to do that, then you simple syrup is fine. It works really well. Or just drink unsweet tea, for God's sake. I'm on an UN sweet tea kick right now. A little lemon. Yeah, see, I like the sweet tea. Or if I drink green tea, obviously that's just straight up. Yeah. Not the same. Have you ever had this oolong tea? Yeah, sure. Yeah. That is something OOlala. It's crazy. All right, Josh, I didn't think the microwave I feel like we've talked about that before, like 800 times. We have, yeah. So let's skip it. Okay. Viagra? Yeah. I hadn't heard of this one. I didn't realize it was accidental. You haven't heard of viagra? Please. I've heard of Viagra, yes. I haven't heard of the story behind it. Got you. I see what you're insinuating. How's McCoy, Simon Campbell and David Roberts were researching for Pfizer, trying to develop some blood pressure and heart medication for angina. And they tested it on people doing some trials. And these guys were all like, I still have some angina and I have a massive erection, which is a weird side effect. You might want to look into this. Yeah. And they did, and they went, wow, this could pay dividends in the invalid. Yeah. They basically said, okay, FDA, forget everything we said, forget the angina. We're just going to stick to amyl nitrate. Yeah. Instead, we're going to start over, do more clinical trials, but we're going to use to treat Ed and we're going to target handsome, salt and pepper haired men of a certain age who like to bathe in bathtubs outdoors next to their partners who are also in bathtubs watching sunrise. That is our target market. Yeah. It's all the same, though. I wonder if it is all the same. You probably just got a suit by the pharmaceutical. Actually, they're not all the same. Each one has different covalent bond. I'll bet it's covalent bond. Well, they just have different properties. Some work for 24 hours, some work for 2 hours, some you take every day just in case you happen to run into someone and need to have sex. That's right. But all of them, no, preupism is not funny. I don't think it's funny because it's not. No, of course not. Okay. It's not. But it was popular. Sales peaked, I think, in 2008 at $1.9 billion in the US. Alone. Since then, obviously, Viagra was the first on the scene, but it has been chipped away at by its competitors. Like who? Cialis? And what's the other one? Davitra? Or is that heart medication? I can't keep track. I think we found that there's a fine line. Yeah. Anyway, this was originally for the treatment of angina. It works. Sure. I think that happens quite a bit, actually. Well, it's all about blood flow, so yeah, it makes sense that it had that side effect, I guess. It's all about blood flow and self confidence. That's right, Pacemaker. I thought this one like my eyes started bleeding during this one. All right, we can skip it because as people know, when we do our top tens, we generally do like six or seven of them. We like to drive traffic to the site. That's right. Velcro. This one I have to give a shout out. I want to tell everybody. This is so amazing. So I first heard the story of Velcro when I was just a young pup. The story of Velcro? Yeah. You're aware, right. The real story. Yeah. Okay. Not the fake NASA story. No, not the NASA story. The George de Mastral story. He was a Swiss, swiss, I don't remember what he was, but he turned out to be a Swiss inventor, electrical engineer. Okay. And he was hiking the Alps with his dog one day and came home and there were birds attached to his dog. And he said, that is ghastly. He said, what's going on here? Why are these birds attached to my dog? I'm going to take a closer look. And he realized that the birds were composed of little hooks and that his dog's fur were acting as little loops, and the hooks went into loops and stuck and attached. And he said, I can recreate this. You know what I'll recreate it with? Nylon. And that's what he did. And that's what all Velcro is, a system of hooks and loops made of nylon. Now, I first learned that story when I was probably like, seriously eleven or twelve. And I read it in Uncle John's bathroom. Reader and every Christmas I would get in a Bathroom Reader, and every like December 29, I'd be done with the 500 page Bathroom Reader. Wait, another year. Yeah, a lot. Just for this reason, I would be reading this book over and over, just constantly. And so one of the reasons that we're here today one of the reasons I'm here today is because my curiosity was developed and honed through Uncle John's bathroom reader. Oh, yeah. Yes. And it's been good and bad. Like, they were also where I learned that Genghis Khan supposedly killed, like, 187 million people in 1 hour, which kind of led to that article and all that cool. But my eyes were open. We shouted out to them, like, recently, and they tweeted that we shouted out to them, and I realized that they listened to this podcast. Wow. That's pretty cool. It's, like, the highest honor I have ever enjoyed as far as my career goes. That's awesome. That was it. This group that made me, in part, in large part, who I am today is a fan of what we're doing. That's awesome. Yeah. I imagine Mad magazine could only come close if they got in touch with you. Yeah. They would definitely be out there as well. That's awesome. Okay, so that's velcro. Yeah. And a couple of more little factoids. It's a combination of two French words velours, which means velvet, and crochet, which is hook. Yeah. And velour does not breathe very well as a fabric. That's right. Nylon was very new at the time, so he had a hard time with it. And this is a lesson for all your kids out there who fashion yourself or fancy yourself. Excuse me. As the inventors, don't give up. It took him ten years from the moment he discovered what velcro could be till the time that he could manufacture it successfully. And he worked and he worked, and he worked. Ten years later, he marketed it as the Zipperless zipper. And the rest is history. And don't get cheap Velcro because you can tell the difference. Oh, man, you really can. Same as cheap duct tape. You really get what you pay for. Yeah, that's definitely true. With duct tape. You don't want duct tape that doesn't have the threads clearly visible. Yes. That form, like, kind of almost the rebar of it. It's exactly what it is. If you can't see it clearly, like, in the role, then just keep on moving. Little advice from your Uncle Josh, but that stick to it advice. Yeah. Not the duct tape. Stick to it. Yeah. That was good advice. Decade of work. Penicillin. Yeah. This one I don't think I realized penicillin was an accident. Alexander Fleming, he was a bacteriologist in Scotland. He decided to get a little lazy and go on vacation for two weeks. Luckily for us, in 1928. Comes home, sees a petri dish with this weird mold that he hadn't seen before growing in it. And he noticed, like, there's no bacteria around this mold. Right. It was like, hugging the side of the pantry. Just like, Get it away from me. I know this stuff is killing me. And he went, Well, I might be on something here. Right. But the problem was the strain of penicillin mold that he discovered. He left his window open the guy was a bacteriologist in the 20th century and he left his window open. Right. Anyway, the mold, the strain he found was he couldn't reproduce it in mass quantities, so therefore, by definition, it was useless as medicine. Sure. And then 13 years later, a trio of guys, flora, Heatley and Moyer, found a strain of penicillin that they could just grow very quickly in large amounts. Bam. Antibiotics. Nice. Millions and millions, possibly billion LiveSave. The greed. But don't take too much of it. No, I think we prescribe it these days. You should always know your limits. Yeah. No, I'm just saying I think penicillin is one of those people get thrown up penicillin and amoxicillin for everything these days. Right. Well, the other part of the problem, supposedly, is that if you don't finish your course, that makes it that much easier for bacteria. Yeah, that's what I hear. Microbes to evolve immunity. Yes. I almost never finished my course, though. Because you're part of the problem. Gives me bad diarrhea. Well, you need to ride it out, as they say. Get yourself an Uncle John's bathroom reader. In fact, when I'm on pennicillin, for one reason or another, I call them diarrhea pills. I have to take my diarrhea bill because I take it and they say that's a possible side effect. But of course, with me, it's a certain side effect. At least you don't get preappresented from it. All right, number one, josh, the last one. I thought this was pretty interesting because going back all the way to the 1008 hundreds, we used to think people are all stuffy. Didn't know how to have a good time. All they did was just go to school, go to church, walk to work and study hard. Turns out that they were having laughing gas parties. Yeah. In Ether Frolics. Ether Frolics. Where they would sit around and suck on laughing gas and just laugh the night away. Right. Which is where the phrase It's a gas comes from. That's nice. That makes sense. Sure. You're big time into entomology, aren't you? Yeah. And entomophagy. Yeah, that's right. Hey, everybody. I don't know about you, but we're pretty excited about summer. I mean, what's not to like? School's out, the sun is shining, and best of all, there's downtime for days. That's right. And that's where True Crime podcasts on Amazon music come in. They're the perfect activity for last minute road trips, long walks, or, if you're brave enough, late nights. Yeah. And with so many killer shows like Morbid, My Favorite Murder and Smalltown Murder, you'll never be bored to death again. Prepare to go deep and become your own detective in the world of serial crimes and unsolved mysteries. Get lost hearing spooky stories with a combination of detailed research and lighthearted analysis. Whether you're a lifetime fan of true crime or you just feel like being entertained while doing the dishes at night, there's a podcast out there for you. So. Download the free Amazon Music app to start listening to all your favorite true crime podcasts. Plus, with Amazon Music, you can access new episodes early. Download the app today. What if you were a trendy apparel company facing an avalanche of demand to ensure more customers can buy more sherpa lined jackets? You called IBM to automate your it infrastructure with AI. Now, your systems monitor themselves. What used to take hours, takes minutes, and you have an ecommerce platform designed to handle sudden spikes in overall demand, as in actual overalls. Let's create It systems that rule of their own sleep. IBM, let's create. Learn more at IBM. Comitautomation. So what happened was anesthesia was accidentally discovered by it seems like a few different people realized about the same time from those parties. Yeah. Crawford Long. He's an Atlanta guy, right? Yeah, he's somewhere around Atlanta. Yes. William Morton and Charles Jackson and Horace Wells. They had all experimented with nitrous oxide. Maybe not. Went to some of these parties. I don't know if we can verify that. I have seen that they were at these parties. Okay. I went back in time and looked in the way back machine. At some point, someone said, hey, I just whacked my leg really hard and it didn't hurt at all. And it was bleeding. Yeah. And there was no pain experience from it. And I think it was Crawford Long. I was like, what do you mean you're not experiencing any pain? Do it again. Yeah, let me hold your ether for a minute. Yeah, exactly. And then they started experimenting with it. And I think Horace Wells used it for dentistry and I was using it for surgery. Yeah, for minor surgery. Carpet long, like amputations and stuff like that. Because this is at a time when it was like, here's your broomstick, here's your bottle of whiskey. Bite down on that, your leg off. And a skilled surgeon was quick. That was the definition of a skilled surgeon. Someone you could take your leg off in less than a minute. Well, I think your best case scenario is that you'll pass out from the pain, right. But they also loaded you up on, like, booze and drugs. Like you'd smoke a lot of opium first or take a lot of opium somehow. Right. So you just wouldn't really care. Got you. Have you heard about the flesh eating bacteria that's going around right now? Yeah, it's crazy. That's very scary. I better watch it out with the netty pots, dude. Yeah, actually, I haven't netted in a little while. Yeah. Just remember, still water and then maybe boil it already more. Boil it anyway, I suppose. Well, at the very least, I do a lot of camping and fishing and rivers. I'm not getting in with any open sore anytime soon. No, but that girl in Georgia, she was on a zipline. She fell and created an open source, aka a wound, and it got in there pretty good, apparently. Yeah. Emily and I've been following that story closely. That's like ever. Yeah, but she's got a great attitude apparently about it. Oh, really? Yeah, like her dad went in and said, finally told her we're going to have to invitate your hands, your other foot. After her leg was already gone, she was like, let's do it. So Yummy has been telling me about this and she was saying that they just got her fingers, that her hands are intact right now. I don't think so. Are her hands gone? I think so. Wow. Yeah, it's very sad. This one ended on a strange twist. I know. Wow. Do you have any more accidental inventions? I know you do, but don't say them. No, there's a few more. Go to the website and read all about it. Yeah. Type accidentalinventions in the search bar athousedupportst.com and it will bring up this fine article. There's actually a few articles that have similar ones, but different ones too. You'll just read them all, you love them. I said search bar@houseupworks.com again. Which means it's time for listener mail. Actually, wait, we can't do listening or mail yet. This again? Yeah. Okay. It's plug fest time. That's right. So, Chuck, we have a horror fiction contest going on, don't we? That's right. Real quick, give them the broad strokes. Well, if you're familiar with our Halloween episodes the past two years, we do readings from Poe last year and what's his face the year before that. HP. Lovecraft. HP. Lovecraft, yeah. And this year we want to read a story written by you, someone out there. So we are throwing a contest and Josh wrote a great blog post outlining the details. You can find out how stuff works. Yeah. You can go to blogs at How Stuff Works and it's called Stuff You should Know. Horror Fiction Contest. Get your official rules right here. Yeah, it's got everything you need to know on there. Everything. What's the highlight? Well, the highlights are that it started on June 18 and it runs until July 20 at 11:59 p.m.. It has to have been previously unpublished and that includes websites. If you put it up on your own blog, I think it's okay. But if you gave it to somebody else and they published it sorry. And it needs to be between 3004 thousand words, no more, no less. Okay. And this is really important. In the email that you send this in, you send it, by the way, to Howstaffordscorecontest@discovery.com. Okay. In that email, when you enter your submission, you need to write the words, by entering this contest, I agree to abide by the contest rules. Okay. Without that, we have to disqualify you. So that's basically you're signing off that you understand the rules by acknowledging that statement. Right. Okay. Go to the blogs and read the rules first. Take a quick glance at them. If you have a question, it's probably answered there. Yeah. And sadly, we know, and we understand that this is only for residents of the United States, and we're sorry, but that's just how it goes. I've said it a million times. We can't win your country's contest either. Right? It's just how contests work. Yeah. Pick it up with the contest gods. Yes. If you're 17, even if you're going to turn 18 within the contest, you're out of luck. You have to be 18 as of Monday, July or June 18. People don't like rules. No, they don't, but we're not making them. Got to have them. Yeah. So send it off. US and maybe a couple of other writers or editors will judge these things. We're going to select the top 16 and then enter them into a bracket contest. Then let the people vote, and then we pick the and then the winner is chosen, and we read it on Hard. Pretty cool. Yeah. All right, what else? We're going to Comic Con in San Diego for the first time ever. And Thursday we don't have the time yet, but Thursday, July 12, we will be doing a live podcast panel with special guests. Yeah. What are we doing it on? You want to say, or do you want to keep it a surprise? Let's keep it a surprise for now. All right, so, Comcon, if you're going to be there, come see us thursday afternoon, I think, right? Yeah. You'll be able to find out. We'll post it once we can reveal all the Tory details. Very cool. So there you go. That's plug fast. Now it's time to listen to me, right? Yes, Josh. I'm going to call this, what? Medical marijuana. And by the way, on email, I've been answering more and more lately because I've had more time, but still, if you write in and I don't answer, we have read it, I promise. And if you send in just a simple suggestion for a show, we log those, but you may not get the email back on, something like that. So just don't want anyone to feel bad if they emailed them we didn't respond. You're a valued member of our fan base. Okay. Medical marijuana. Your show on MMJ is what some people have been calling on. I always think it's like, Martin and you or something like that. It reminded me of a funny story I can share. During the early 80s, my father had a rare cancer. It's even rare these days from the surprise my doctors have when I give my medical history. At one point, my dad's doctor suggested he tried marijuana to help with the chemo sickness. Of course, there was no way to prescribe it back then. You had to get it on your own. My parents started asking around to see whose kids could get some trustworthy stuff. With no luck where we live, my mom turned to a relative who lives in another state. So clearly, like the stoner cousin, like, two states over. She could get it, but I don't know the details how. Probably for the best. Yeah. The next problem was how to get it to us. She often flew to visit every few months, but was afraid of putting it in her luggage or mailing it. Even though everybody back then, I bet. Yeah. So one of her coworkers had an idea. They worked in a doctor's office and decided she would hide it between her breasts and bandage her as if she had recently had breast surgery. She was sent with a note saying under no circumstances for the bandages to be removed. They thought that if she was hassled the airport, a note would get her out of trouble. They did this actually a few times and never got caught. Oh, my God. I know. Isn't that crazy? As it turns out, my father couldn't smoke the stuff. It made him sicker. Oh, my God. I know. So he decided to brew it in tea, and I'm sure there was a little baked snack put in his lunch bag every now and then. Unfortunately, my father passed away in 1084 when I was 16. I wasn't completely involved in all this other stuff. The stories were retold later. There are a lot of hijinks going on in the house over those years, so this is totally plausible. I remember vividly the little tee ball sitting in the sink when I washed the dishes every night, asking, can I clean this thing? And I would get a resounding no from about five people in the house at the same time. So that is from Cindy. Cindy Brady? No, not Cindy Brady. But she asked if I could read this, and she said yes. And then she wrote me back and said I ended up talking with my mom about this and we all had a good laugh all over again. And remember my father. Finally. That's nice. She said her mom ended up smoking some for her anxiety, so you should probably wipe your hard drive clean of that email less somebody sure the Feds come in and compensate your computer. Yeah, if you have a wacky family history story, those are awesome. Don't we all? That's pretty wacky, though, man. Yeah, it's like Little Miss Sunshine. Wacky. I haven't seen it, I just know of it. Funny. We want to hear it. So tweet to us at Syskpodcast facebook.com STUFFYou know or email at stuffpodcast@discovery.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit houseofworks.com. Brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you? Hey, it's summer, everybody, which means school is out, the sun shining, the daylight is longer, and best of all, there's plenty of time to get lost in a good, thrilling story. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing Poolsite, tune into the podcast series on Amazon. Music. My favorite murder from exactly right media. My favorite murder has something for everyone. Hosted by Karen Kilguera and Georgia Hardstark, this true crime comedy podcast will share stories that will have you wanting more before you know it. Listen to new episodes of my favorite Murder. One week early on Amazon music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen today. You know you're a pet mom when you plan your vacation around your pet at Halo, we get it because we're pet moms, too. We make natural, high quality pet food that's rooted in science. It's the world's best food for of the world's best kids. Learn more@halopets.com."
https://podcasts.howstuf…2-sysk-sugar.mp3	Sugar: It Powers the Earth	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/sugar-it-powers-the-earth	Since sugar spread from Polynesia a few thousand years ago, the world has been crazy for it. Insanely high prices, wars and even slavery couldn't undo world's need for a sugar fix. Today that fix is responsible for the obesity epidemic facing the West.	Since sugar spread from Polynesia a few thousand years ago, the world has been crazy for it. Insanely high prices, wars and even slavery couldn't undo world's need for a sugar fix. Today that fix is responsible for the obesity epidemic facing the West.	Thu, 12 Jun 2014 13:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2014, tm_mon=6, tm_mday=12, tm_hour=13, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=163, tm_isdst=0)	41968613	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"This July, don't miss an entire summer of surprises on Disney Plus with Disney's High School Musical, the series season three Zombies, three Doctor Strange in the multiverse of Madness and the wonderful summer of Mickey Mouse. Plus new episodes of Marvel Studios, ms. Marvel and National Geographics. America the Beautiful. From the award winning producers of Planet Earth, Frozen Planet and the Disney Nature films, america the Beautiful takes viewers on a tour of the most spectacular and visually arresting regions of our great nation. All these and more streaming this month on Disney Plus. Hey everybody. I don't know about you, but I am excited that it's summer, school's out, the sun is shining, and best of all, there's downtime for days. That's where true crime podcasts on Amazon music come in. There's a perfect activity for last minute road trips, long walks, or if you're brave enough, late nights. With so many killer shows like Morbid, my Favorite Murder and Small Town Murder, you'll never be bored to death again. So download the free Amazon Music app to start listening to all your favorite true crime podcasts. Plus with Amazon Music you can access new episodes early. Download the app today. Welcome to stuff you should know from housetepworkscom. Hey and welcome to the podcast. And Josh Clark. There's chose to be Chuck Bryant. How deep? Hi sugar. I was thinking about it earlier. That was an Archie song. Oh, sugar, honey, honey. You called your girlfriend like a sugar or honey or your wife or whatever and this is all sweet thing? Yeah, that all makes sense. Do you hit your head? Yeah. I mean you wouldn't call your wife something bitter, right? Like Korean melon. I was trying to think of something bigger. I couldn't think of anything. Arugula. Come here my little Korean melon. I bet someone said that. Who? I don't know. Someone's Korean. Oh, in Korea they just call melons. That's true. Man, this is the worst start ever. This is the worst ever. I knew we would achieve it. We've been building towards it. Well, we top ourselves every episode. Really. That's right. Chuck? Yes. Have you ever tasted sugar? I have. I'm trying to bring it back from the brink. Yes, I have. I have. Two. Sugar is a big popular sweetener these days. It is. And it's been around for a while. I don't know if you know this or not, but apparently they think sugar is indigenous to the island known as New Guinea and the South Pacific around Polynesia. And that as long as 5000 to 8000 years ago the Polynesians were cultivating it and going like this is the jam. Yeah. Sweet and yummy and give us energy and makes us fat. Remember that Simpsons where I guess Bart grows up to be like a paid taste tester? Yeah. And he drinks that soda and turns into like this horrible huge disfigured thing and he goes sweet. And the guy with the clipboard goes pleasing taste some monsterism you remember? I don't remember that. It's crazy. Was that the one where was there all of their future selves? No, it was like just a momentary daydream. Got you. And it goes back to his normal self, and he's like, cool. Like, he can't wait to grow up to be a professional taste. Awesome. You know the table reading we set out on that should be coming out. I can't wait. This year, right? It was a good one. Yeah, it should be coming out. It's exciting. I'm excited. We can't say what it's about. No, we don't know if we can. We're just covering. We're going to err on the side of caution, because the last one we want is for the symptoms to be mad at us after all these years. For real? Yeah. All right, so where are we? Sugar? So I guess, apparently, island hopped from New Guinea across Polynesia, made its way up to Indonesia, and then finally landed in India. And when it was in India, it really started to spread. Everything spread from India back then, trade routes. And thanks to the Crusades, it was brought to Western Europe. Well, even before that, the Persians started conquering the land and they encountered sugar and brought that with them. That's right. And then you got Columbus. That jerk brought sugar cane itself to the Caribbean and said, like, some roots samplings, and said, let's try and plant this stuff here. And it turned out it was a great place to plant sugar cane. It really was, because sugar cane is a tropical plant. Yeah. The cane, you can't grow it just anywhere. No, but you can grow it in places like South America, the Caribbean, south Africa, southern United States. Sure. Hot places. India, as we already mentioned. And it just kind of spread like wildfire across the world, especially when it came to what's known as the New World, like you said, via Columbus. Unfortunately, it became an agent of slavery. Yes, it certainly did. It fueled the slave trade for quite a while. And then by 1750, there were 120 sugar refineries in Britain. They call it white gold. Yes. And it was up until that point, it had been kind of a luxury. Well, a little before that, it became a little more widespread. It was a complete luxury. Like, literally, it was for royalty, pretty much. It was so rare and hard to come by. Apparently the first Seaborne international sugar exchange was between Venice and England in 1319. I saw that Venice was the first place where they were refining it really well. Right. And the Venetians, that was a merchant city if there ever was one. Yeah. So they were selling it, and one of the places they sold the first place they sold it to overseas was England, and it was in 1319. And they sold 50 tons for what's, the equivalent of about $11 million today. And that's tons with an NNE I'm sure. Yes. Right. Now, you could get that for about $20,000. It was $11 million back then, so it was very expensive. But then two things happened that opened the sugar industry and made it available to the general public. The Reformation, which actually, strangely, led to a decrease in honey, because monasteries were the major producers of honey. Monks kept bees, and the Reformation led to a closure of a lot of monasteries. And secondly, sugar just became more available. Like, those two things happened at the same time, and all of a sudden, it was something that the average person could get their hands on. That's right. And it actually led to a huge increase in tea consumption. Oh, yeah. Because before then, people drink tea, but once they started putting sugar in their tea, they were like, we love tea. Right. And that's when it became like the national drink of Great Britain. Man, I love a good English tea with a little cream and little sugar in it. Just delicious. You're a tea guy. I like the herbie kind more. No, I like it all, man. I love green tea, I love English breakfast tea, I love black tea. I'll even do a little I'll try it up every now and then. Oh, wow. I'm into all of it. It's a wild sidewalk. From about 1792 to 1815, there was a lot of warring going on in Europe, and there were naval blockades by Britain that basically Europe needed that sugar fix, and they were like, but you can't cut us off, we love sugar now, Colombia. And so in 1747, they realized that the sugar beet, which is the other way you can get sugar, was a great way to do it. And that's how they get their sugar today still. Yeah. And the beet looks like a beet that's not purple, it's a root. Right. And it grows up out of the ground. Looks like a little sort of whitish, light brown. Looks like a turnip. Yeah, sort of like a turnip, but it's sweet. It is. About 17% of the sugar beet can eventually become sugar, as opposed to only about 10% in the cane. Right. Which I thought was unusual. Yeah. So you have these two plants that can be processed separately, independently, and both will produce sugar indistinguishable to the average person. Yeah. Pretty neat. And the reason why, Chuck, the reason why it would be indistinguishable is because all plants have sugar. That's right. It's a carbohydrate, a simple carbohydrate, and sugar is a part of photosynthesis. But you can't go out and get a plate of switch grass and get enough sugar out of it to make sugar. Right. Even though there's sugar in it, it's only abundant enough in the beet and the cane to really produce sugar. Sugar, exactly. But sugar is kind of this a molecule that powers the earth. Yeah. Really? Like humans, plants, everything is powered by sugar. It's pretty neat. It is pretty neat. You can use it as a preservative. It prevents bacteria from growing in jam. Sometimes you can change the texture. They use it as like a food additive to make something look and feel different. Not only just taste different, they're like, this doesn't put fuzzy little jackets on people's teeth when they eat it enough. So let's add some sugar. And our favorite use of sugar is to make booze accelerates fermentation. My favorite uses of sugar are to make booze and to make Reese's Pieces. Okay, let's leave that out. Yes. It's an important part of the production of alcohol and Reese's Pieces and Reese's Pieces, and it does make the world go round. And the world actually produces quite a bit of sugar. So in this article from a few years ago, it says that the world made about 78 million tons of 71 metric tons of sugar cane annually. Is that accurate still? Do you know? Well, that's just sugar cane. But I know that sugar cane accounts for 80% of sugar production. 80% about. And then sugar beets account for about 20%. The other 20%. But in, I think, 2013, the world produced 165,000,000 metric tons of sugar. Okay. Yeah. So I guess you'd have to be a mathematician to figure out that formula. But plus, you probably have to have more info than we just gave. Yeah, the cane, sugar cane looks sort of like bamboo. The stock does. It's a tropical grass, so the top of it looks grassy. And it takes about a year to grow. It takes about 18 months from planting, but once it's planted, you cut it back to the root and it'll take another twelve months for that to grow back up to be harvested again. Right. So what's the 18 months thing then? The 18 months is if you plan it brand new oh, got you. Okay. From seed, I guess. I see. And it grows in breaks. They call them cane breaks, which I always think is like one of the neater, like earth science terms. Cane breaks. Cane break, yeah. It is grown and not always AIDS refined near where it's grown, but is harvested and processed initially close to where it's grown so it doesn't rot. Sort of like when we did coffee. You want to do most of that stuff near where it's grown. Right. And there are some steps you have to take to harvest sugar, at least even get it to the raw state. But yeah, not every processing place refined it all the way to what we would call tablespoon. Yeah, sometimes it's sent to a refinery. So I guess we can cover that in broad strokes here, but it's pretty complicated. Yeah. If you're looking for the end all, be all of how sugar is produced, then go watch an hour long video on YouTube. Remember how incredibly complex chocolate making is? Remember talking? Oh, yeah. I love all these. These are some of my favorite ones. Salt sugar, coffee, commodities. Yeah. The commodity suite. We got to do tea. We haven't done tea. Okay. And wine. We still haven't done wine yet. Yeah, that one that just bugs me. We got a great offer from a nice guy. I don't have his name in my memory, but I have his email in the same folder, and he was like, you need some help with this stuff? I've got experts who are ready to talk to you about wine. That should be a sweet. That's a dense topic. All right, so sugar beets. Let's talk about that in the process. Okay. Usually they're going to extract over the winter months between September and February. And as we said earlier, sugar beet is about 17% sugar. Yeah. So not too bad bang for your buck wise, considering the cane is only 10%. Yeah, I mean, you could pick it up and eat it and be like, this is pretty sweet. I guess 17%. If you're in Russia, you could yeah, that's true. That's their racist pieces. Sugar beets, international incident. No, things are tense right now, you know? Yeah. Between us and Russia, it's like 1977 again. Oh, they're kicking us out of the space station. I know. Star wars just came out. So if you're going to process sugar beet, you're going to slice it, and you're going to put it in hot water, and you're going to boil it, and it's similar to sugar cane. They're going to make a sugary juice, then they're going to filter it, purify it, concentrate it, isolate those sugars, and eventually you're going to get sugar crystals developing because you send that syrupy juice through what's called a centrifuge, and that's going to separate the crystal from what is known as the mother liquor. Whatever is left, which is one of my favorite terms. Whatever's leftover that's not crystal is mother liquor, like byproducts and the original juice. And apparently that can be extracted a few times, I would guess. So to get all the crystals out of it. Yeah. And I think sometimes they need to add a little sugar dust to spur that crystallization. Wow, that sounds like a magical process. There's mother liquor, there's sugar dust. Actually, now that you bring up sugar dust, do you remember down in Savannah in 20 07. 20 08? That sugar refinery that exploded? Yeah. It was sugar that exploded. Oh, dust in the air. Yeah. Sugar dust is particulate matter, and when it gets into the air, it can catch fire and explode. That's crazy. And it did. It blew that place sky high. Yeah. When was that? I wrote about it when I got here, so I would guess, like, 2007 or 2008. What was the article like? How can sugar explode? I think I remember seeing that we should have touched on that. I just did. But, I mean, you should go back and check out that now that you realize that it was just sugar that blew the place up. It formed a crater. Basically, it just blew the whole refinery. I know. Flour could do that, too. Right. Same principle. Yeah. Any particulate matter can do that. I think that's nutty. Yeah. All right. So sugar cane is a very similar process. They're going to pulverize the stalk, add water and lime, and that's going to be your syrupy sweet juice. And not lime like limestone. Yeah. Not like squeeze limes into it. I had to double check. No, you're right. Because it's tropical. Exactly. And they're also going to run that through the centerfuge. And you're going to get your mother liquor and your crystals, and that is also going to be washed and filtered and refined further until you get your sugary white. Goodness. Yeah. Evaporation is going on. It's one of those things that sounds complicated, but it's actually pretty simple. It's the same as when you're, like, making a simple syrup at home or you're boiling sugar and water. It evaporates. Often you're going to end up with something super sweet. So, Chuck, there are byproducts to this whole process. Yeah. Essentially, molasses is chief among them. Yeah. I never knew that. Yeah. It's a byproduct that comes from boiling sugar, right? Yeah. That's what makes brown sugar dark or sugar in the raw. Dark is molasses. Right. The molasses isn't extracted as much as it is with refined white sugar. Yeah. Refined white sugar has zero molasses in it. Like sugar in the raw has more and more. It's less refined. And then the greatest byproduct of molasses is, of course, Rome. Yeah. I put a little molasses in my when I make my own barbecue sauce. Oh, yeah. It's good. It's nice. Another byproduct is called bagasse, and that is the pulp, essentially, of the cane. Are you making these words up? No, those are rewards. Okay. What mother liquor and bagasse? Bagasse, I think another process we studied. Yeah. It's not central, just the sugar. It's just the pulpy fibrous matter left over from this kind of process. I wonder what we talked about that. And was it coffee? No. Maybe, but the gas is used. Is it by gas? Because I think I remember us discussing whether it's the gas or by gas. It's the gas. I listened to it today. Okay. Yeah, we definitely covered that before. I'm starting to feel like an old man, because when we have 700 topics or so yeah. Vaguely familiar, but you don't want to sound dumb, so you don't say anything, and then you just spend the next week in your head going over this. I'm telling you, one day we are going to rerecord a show and not realize it, man. And we're going to hear about it. Well, what was it? It was crystal Skulls. We never released that one. Right. But remember, I was like, I thought for sure we recorded this. No. Dreams. That's what it was. We went to record dreams and it just wasn't there. Yeah. So Bagasse, we definitely talked about, and bagasse is a great byproduct because that's can be used to power the sugar refinery. They actually burn that as fuel to create the steam used to power some of these machines. So that is one way that sugar production can be green. However, mass production of anything like this isn't super green because they're transporting stuff over large distances and there's clear cutting of land. Well, that's a big one with sugar. Yes. Deforestation. Like in the Amazon, right? Yeah, that's exactly right. Yeah. So even though they're using things like the gas as a byproduct to help power why is that funny to you? Because I always hear by gas in my head, okay. Anytime you say it, but it is not looked upon as one of the more green products that is used and produced. No, like they have to use baby lambs to really refine it to its whitest. Well, it uses their souls, at least, I guess, if you want to get technical. The souls of baby lamb. Yeah. And then they're just left to wander the Earth for the rest of their natural lives. Like not feeling anything. Let's do a message break, all right? And then we'll get into types of sugar. Okay. 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That's Right hosts Karen Kilgarif and Georgia Hard stark banter with each other, sharing their favorite true crime tales, and explore unique hometown stories from friends and fans alike. And they're both great, and it's a fun show, and you should listen. So listen to new episodes of my favorite murder. One week early on Amazon music. Download the free Amazon Music app and listen today. All right, so there's a lot of types of sugar. There are. When you think about sugar, especially here in the west, you think that really white, like really pretty powdery granular stuff, and that's called table sugar. And that's what's known as sucrose. That's right. Sucrose is 50 50 glucose and fructose. Yes. Sucrose also apparently occurs naturally, but there's a lot of different types of sugar that you're going to find in plants and from some animals, too. Yeah. So cow's milk sure. Contains lactose and galactose. Yes. Both of which are sugars. Yeah. Sucrose. Again, that's typically table sugar, but I believe you can find that in plants. Yeah. And that's glucose and fructose, like you said. Yeah. And it's 50 50, even one molecule glucose, one molecule fructose. Put them together, you got sucrose. That's right. Fructose is commonly found in fruits. It's also found in honey fructoses. Yeah. And then glucose. This is the one you commonly think of when you think the body and sugar, because glucose is what the body runs on. And we'll talk about that a little more in depth in a little bit. Yeah. And that's in honey and fruits and veggies. Yeah. And then something called xylos, which I'd never heard of. That's in wood and straw. It's pretty interesting. Yeah. There's a sugar alcohol called xylotto. Oh, yeah. That's very sweet. Yes. There's sugar alcohols, and they supposedly circumvent your blood sugar, your normal metabolic blood sugar process. So they taste sweet, but they don't have any impact on your blood sugar. And one of them is called zylidel. Zylitl. Is that the name of the product? Yeah, there's a Danish or Swedish gum that's like the best sugar free gum you can possibly get your hands on. It's called zylaidal. It's so good. Terrible name now, but it's named after the sugar, which apparently is based on I guess it's probably wood sugar alcohol. Wow. It's pretty creative. I'm just recounting here. No. I know you did. Oh, you weren't complimenting me. No. Sugar comes in different granulations and from icing sugar, which is if you've ever heard of confectioner sugar, that you daintily sprinkle on top of your what's it called? Did you get at the fair? Your funnel cake. Yeah. Right. This is so good. They are. I haven't had one in years. They're good. I don't indulge in that stuff. What is going on? Chuck? Well, I'm overweight, and there's just like you don't want to be the overweight guy walking up to the funnel cake stand. That's how you sneak around the back. Yeah. Get someone else to go get it and eat in the alley and cry. I've never done that. Now. I avoid that stuff. Ice cream is my big downfall. Oh, it's your ice cream? What's your favorite? Well, Ben and Jerry's. Sure. But which one? Chubby Hubby. Oh, it's a good one. Ironically. Yeah. I got to tell you. Have you had Bluebell? Yeah. Okay. Bluebell is, like, the third best selling ice cream brand. It tastes just like this, but you can only get it in, like, seven states. Oh, really? That's how good it is. Oh, wow. And they have a banana pudding flavor. That is, if you're in Nevada, and the closest you can get it is in Mississippi, it's worth driving there for and it's like $8 for like a gallon or a half gallon. Ridiculously expensive. But it is so good. All of their flavors are good, but their banana pudding one is like, I'm about to cry. Yeah, they're radio commercials. Have you heard those? The songs? They're horrible. Oh, it's the funniest stuff you've ever heard. The TV version of it is even worse. Yeah, it seems like a joke. Are they serious or is this campy? No, they're serious. Yeah. It's like an 85 year old Baptist preacher is in charge of their ads. It is campy, and they don't mean it to me. It is. For those of you who don't know the songs, it's literally like Mama's baking the apple pie and putting it in the window still. And the picket fence is outside and we're eating Blue Bell Ice Cream because it tastes like the good old days, right? It's really funny. It rhymes more than that, but that's the gist of it. I'm sure it's on YouTube. Just type blue Bell ice cream ad. Yeah, it's good stuff. Man. That was a nice sidetrack. So then you got castor sugar, which is larger than powdered sugar, but smaller than granulated sugar. Yes. Which I didn't know about until like a couple of months ago. I don't remember what recipe it was, but there was a recipe that Yummy was making that called for castor sugar. She was like, what? Yeah, both of us were. Yes. Apparently you can make it. It's like, what the coffee grinder? You can grind your regular sugar. Yes. She came across that. I think we finally found her. She ordered it online or something like that. Is she making a meringue? Because they use a lot of meringues, evidently. I don't remember. Maybe. I don't remember. Did she make you banana pudding? Why did she do that? For me, I'll figure it out on my own time and let everybody know in the next episode. How about that? Rather than all of us sitting here until I remember what the recipe is, and then I pick up the phone and call her and ask. Right. That's good radio, my friend. Yes. Then you have your granulated sugar, and this is your table sugar. And then you've got preserving sugar, which looks sort of like sort of rock salty. It's chunkier. Or like sea salt. Right, of course, sea salt. Sweeter than sea salt. And that's used to preserve yes, much sweeter. Yeah. Because that's another property of sugar. It's a preservative as well. You can throw it in to some jam if you want to make it extra sweet, but it will also keep the bacteria away at bay. That's right. Which is why, like you said, simple syrup can last for so long. Yeah. You can just make that and put it on your bar at room temperature, right? Yeah, I keep it in the fridge, but yeah, you keep it on hand, make it yourself. Yeah. Awesome. It's very easy. Plus also, if you like, toss some lavender in there. That lavender simple syrup which goes with anything with gin in it. Oh, it's so good. You can put in some like all spice and some anise seed and stuff like that. You ever use lemon Verbina? No, but I have made lemon just from the peel. Oh, yeah. Lemon Verbina is just the green leaf. We grow a lot of that in the herb garden. If you smash it up, it smells so good. Nice. Like, I imagine it would be good muddled in a drink if I was into that. You're not. You know that I'm not into the cocktails. I thought you were whiskey over ice. Yes, but you can jazz it up a little bit here and there. No, not me. Okay. So I guess we should talk a little bit about high fructose corn syrup. We did a whole show on it, which you can go back and listen to, but it bears mentioning here because it gets a bad rap and the evidence is sort of inconclusive right now. Yeah. I think what we determined is it's not necessarily any worse for you than sugar, but it's in a lot more stuff and you may not know it. I don't remember what we concluded, my understanding is at this point and that was from 2009. Yeah. There's a really great article on the New York Times called is Sugar Toxic? It's very long, but it's very in depth, and it really goes into the evidence that's out there that it really is for the highlights. Well, like you said, high fructose corn syrup isn't molecularly different very much from sucrose, which is 50 50 sugar. Yeah. Most high fructose corn syrup or the stuff that's most widely used is like 55 45 fructose to glucose. Right, okay. So that 5% difference in fructose shouldn't make much difference, but apparently it does. The other aspect of high fructose corn syrup is that the extra fructose or all that 55% fructose that is processed in the liver, any cell in your body can process glucose. Right. When you eat something that has glucose in it, your pancreas releases insulin and insulin goes, hey, open up cells. Yeah. And the glucose goes in and it's converted, it's biochemical energy is converted to ATP and then you have this packet of energy that can be used by any cell. Any cell can do that, which means your entire body can metabolize glucose. Fructose has to be broken down into glucose. Right. And that's done in the liver. The liver has some options to it, Chuck. When it's presented with fructose, it can use it for energy, it can convert it into fats in the bloodstream, which are called triglycerides, or it can convert it into fat stores. Fat, yeah. Right. That's if you have too much of it. Right, yeah. Now, with high fructose corn syrup, apparently evidence shows that when it hits the liver, It's just automatically converted to fat, and that the speed with which it's metabolized also has an effect on how much or how frequently it's converted to fat. And with high fructose corn syrup, it's syrup. And syrup apparently hits the liver a lot faster than, say, an equal amount of apples that you're getting fructose from. Got you. So it's being converted to fat automatically. Okay. That's why they think that high fructose corn syrup is actually far worse from you than just regular fructose or even sucrose table sugar. Right. Well, the obesity epidemic has sort of matched year to year with the introduction of high fructose corn syrup as far as increase. So that makes sense. Yeah. I read an article today that said that added sugars overall is the problem, whether it's high fructose corn syrup or regular added sugar. Added sugars in a product, that's the USDA's line. And the USDA doesn't want to upset the sugar industry or the Corner Finders association. So that's kind of become the predominant government line, like, yeah, everybody's eating too much sugar. That's the problem. Right. Well, then there's a whole group of people out there who are saying, like, no, yeah, sure, that's a problem. But this is an even bigger problem with high fructose corn syrup. Yeah, that makes sense. That it's different and it's affecting people differently. Right. And it's not the same as sugar. Well, I think a lot of people think we're ingesting too much corn based products, period. Sure. 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Prepare to go deep and become your own detective in the world of serial crimes and unsolved mysteries. Get lost hearing spooky stories with a combination of detailed research and lighthearted analysis. Whether you're a lifetime fan of true crime or you just feel like being entertained while doing the dishes at night, there's a podcast out there for you. So download the free Amazon Music app to start listening to all your favorite true crime podcasts. Plus, with Amazon Music, you can access new episodes early. Download the app today. We need to do GMOs at some point, too, you know. Yeah. Everyone keeps calling for it. Some guy sent us a photo on it. Yeah. Did you read it? No, I haven't read it yet. Apparently, 16% of Americans calories come from added sugars, which is just like totally empty calories. So, again, there's an argument over those numbers. Yeah, sure. No one really knows, but supposedly the numbers are very artificially low and that the average American eats about \u00a395 of sugar a year. Oh, yeah. Wow. And the global average is something like \u00a366. But Israel eats something like \u00a3145. Really? Per person? Per year. What about that's? From sweets? Yeah. Packaged foods. Yeah. Are we done with HSEs, then? For now, yeah. I go back and listen to the episode. It was a good one. One of my favorites. Yeah, it's been a while. I meant to re listen to that, but I didn't get a chance. So, sugar in the body. And this also harkens back to our episode on taste. It corresponds molecularly with your taste buds on the tongue. Because of the shape of the molecule. We talked about that the molecules are shaped to fit. When sugar hits it, it matches up perfectly with that molecule and sends a message that, hey, there's something sweet, as opposed to salty or bitter or sour or, umami the fifth. Right. This is four, and then names five, which I thought was, I even changed it on my sheet. And they recommend something that I do not recommend, which is if something tastes sweet in the wild, it's more likely to be safe to eat than something bitter. Right. Sort of true. But you should never, ever go in a survival scenario and just try and eat something even a little bit. There's a test you can do which I won't get into, but it involves, like, rubbing on your skin first, waiting a certain amount of time. They may be touching it to your tongue. Waiting a certain amount of time. You should never just go like, I wonder if this is edible. Let me taste it. Right. It's not a good idea. Good going. Even if it is sweet, you're a survivalist. I've done some things. So, you know we said that sugar is found in all plants, just to varying degrees, and plants create sugar as a byproduct of photosynthesis, and they use it for energy, for growth. They also use it to take sugars and turn them into more complex sugars to use for cellular structure, like cellulose. But they also use sugar in their nectar to attract bees and other things to help them pollinate and propagate their species. Because it's sweet stuff. I love it when I see the little bee getting in there, getting a little something sweet. Yes. I feel like they're getting a little treat. That's right. And then they're vomiting it up and we eat it as honey. That is true. Sugar is bad for your teeth. Everyone knows that. Specifically, when you eat sugar, it's going to form something called a glycoprotein, that little sweater on your teeth. And bacteria love to eat that stuff, and then they love to poop out lactic acid afterward onto your teeth. Yeah. Specifically, streptococcus mutants. That's the culprit for cavities. Really? We've said streptococcus before. That's not a good word. No, but there are different kinds of strep. Okay. But when they poop out that lactic acid, that's what's on your enamel. That's what's going to wear down your teeth. Right. So eating sugary stuff really is bad for your teeth. That's not like something your mom tells you if it's a lie. No. And the bacteria also produces a biofilm around all of this stuff, which traps it in there and traps in the lactic acid as well. So you're in trouble. Yeah. You're dead. Not dead, but you may get diabetes. Yeah, you can get diabetes from too much sugar, apparently. It's crazy that there's a real parallel between the six country study and the 7th country study that we talked about in the Paleo diet episode of fats. Apparently there was arrival all along that said, it's not fat, it's sugar. We're both after the same problem, but this guy went after fat, this other guy went after sugar. And now they're starting to think, like now that they're thinking it's not fats after all, that contributed to heart disease and obesity that they think is actually sugar. And the way that it's sugar is through something called metabolic syndrome, to where if you eat too much sugar, your body becomes resistant to insulin. And remember, insulin gets glucose out of the bloodstream and into your cells and is converted to energy. Right. Well, if your body starts sucking at doing that, then you have a lot more glucose in your bloodstream, which means your pancreas is producing more and more insulin. Right. Insulin, remember, triggers fat storage. So you have more and more insulin, you have more and more fat storage, you have obesity, you have heart disease. And they think that possibly the number one contributor to heart attacks is metabolic syndrome and not necessarily saturated fats. Right. Interesting. But as a result of this aside result is insulin, you develop diabetes. Type two diabetes is the result of insulin resistance, where you have to inject insulin into your body because your body is not producing enough any longer because it's overtaxed your pancreases. Yeah. We got a lot of great responses from the Paleo episode. It was a really interesting one. Yeah. And people saying, like, dudes, we know so little still about nutrition. Right. And things are changing so much with the things we eat and put in our body that it's hard to keep up. Which is why it's so insulting when some industry that has a vested interest in yeah. So they got all figured out. Yeah. And don't worry about it. Just keep eating it. That's insulting. All right. Can sugar power your car? Yes. How? I'll explain there's a couple of ways. So there's sugar based ethanol, which Brazil was basically running on for many years. Yeah. I didn't realize that. They're big into flexials and ethanol. They were basically energy independent in the first decade of the 21st century because they said, we're tired of being dependent on foreign oil. Let's figure something out. And they did. They put all their sense. They started looking into sugar cane, making ethanol from sugar cane. And there's, like, corn based ethanol, which Chris Palette and I talked about in the Grassoline episode. Yeah, I remember that. And apparently, ethanol made from sugar cane has 800 times more energy output. And so they were making ethanol in 2000, and 850 percent of the fuel sold in Brazil was ethanol. That's awesome. Made from sugar cane right there in the country. Well, then gas prices lowered and people started using gas again because they'll use whatever's cheapest. Right. But Brazil, even though it's on its heels, the ethanol industry there is they proved it's a completely viable alternative fuel. Yeah. The problem, though, again, with refining more and more sugar for these purposes is deforestation and worker wages. And I feel like anytime we've covered any commodity like this, there's some worker somewhere in the world getting screwed over. Right. And sugar is definitely not any stranger to that process. Well, also, it drives up food prices, too, because if there's two different huge sectors competing for the same commodity, it's going to drive the price of that commodity up. Yeah, that's true. So if you have energy and food going after sugar, price of sugar goes up. Right. I wish people could have seen that demonstration. It really brings it home. And what else is the other? I remember I think we talked about this, too. Sugar devouring microorganisms, basically feeding on sugar and making energy in the process that's viable way in the future, maybe to power things. Yeah. So there's certain types of microbes are more sugar hungry than others. Yeah, but yeah, when they're eating sugar, they manage to separate electrons and loosen electrons. And as the electrons flow, as we mentioned in our electricity episode, the flow of electrons is electricity. So if you direct that flow across, like something that can use it, you create a current. And the cool thing about microbial fuel cells is when that electron makes it to the other side, it combines to form water. So that's the byproduct of this. So it truly is a very environmentally friendly alternative fuel. Yeah, we covered that at some point, too, I remember. Surely our world is getting smaller. Yeah. Because we're explaining it. That's right. You got anything else? No, I don't think so. Mother liquor bagasse. All these words I made up just for the show. You did good with the making up the words, man. Thanks. Yeah. I don't have anything else, Chuck, but if you want to learn more about sugar, I'm sure there's some words we left out of this article. You can type sugar into the search bar@houseofworks.com. And since I said search bar, it's time for listener mail. I'm going to call this refuting listener mail. We read a listener mail from a creationist not too long ago. Man, that got a certain response from some quarters. Yeah. So then a lot of people write in responding to that listener mail. So we might just continue this for the next year. Just reading rebuttals. Okay. Hey, guys. You received an email from a creationist explaining that both creationists and scientists believe in natural selection and that both groups believe in microevolution but disagree on macro evolution. What the person did not mention is that macro and microevolution describe the same process of natural selection just on different timetables. Micro is short term, macro as long term. It simply does not make sense that natural selection works on the short term but is somehow reversed on the long term. Natural selection introduces changes to a population subgroup as they adapt to their environment. But the changes are small. The population subgroup can naturally breed with the original population. That is micro revolution. Okay? Once the changes are significant enough that the subgroup can no longer naturally and successfully breed with the parent population, the subgroup is considered a new species. That's a special event. That is macroevolution. To believe in micro and not macro is to ignore how nature works. Say you put two separate populations of the same species put in very different environments. Each population would slowly adapt to its new environment and change over time. Microevolution, each group will become better adapted to its new environment and the differences between the two groups will only grow in time. However, if you don't believe in macroevolution, you don't believe in new species. So you have to believe that no matter how different each group becomes, nature does not work like this. Also, the previous writer claimed to be a creationist botanist and that is like a doctor that does not believe in germ theory. I'm sure they might exist, but I would definitely take their expertise with a large dose of salt. Quite a rebuttal. Yeah. And I didn't have a name. I feel bad. So I'm just going to say thanks you thanks, Richard Dawkins. Yeah, I appreciate that. So the evolutionists have rebutted. What say you, creationists? Let us know. And everybody stopped tweeting and sending emails about how dare we put a creationist views on in listener mail. Yeah, there's no way to go through life trying to silence your opponents. You debate and engage. I was surprised. There were a lot of people that said you shouldn't give equal time to this stuff because it's just not true. Yeah, somebody said, I thought discovery stood for something interesting. Yeah, well, hey, I think debate is healthy and they think you're not right either. Yes. Debate is healthy, Chuck. Exactly. If not, Bill and I wouldn't have done it. Boom. If you want to contribute to the debate, we want to hear from you. You can tweet to us at s yskpodcast. You can join us on Facebook. Comstuffyshno, send us an email to stuffpodcast@howstepworks.com. And as always, check us out at our home on the web stuffyshow.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit houseoffworks.com. Ah, summer school's out. The sun is shining. The daylight is longer. So whether you're road tripping or relaxing poolside, tune into the podcast series on Amazon Music that's so good it's criminal. Morbid. Part true crime and part comedy, Morbid takes you on a journey from murderous mysteries to major laughs, all in the same week. Hosted by autopsy technician Elena Erkart and hairstylist Ash Kelly, this charttopping series will have you hooked before you know it. 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https://podcasts.howstuf…sk-apartheid.mp3	How Apartheid Worked	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/how-apartheid-worked	After WWII, while the rest of the world grew more socially progressive, the government of South Africa turned inward to focus its attention on domination of the white minority over the non-white majority. It took an internal struggle and the voice of the	After WWII, while the rest of the world grew more socially progressive, the government of South Africa turned inward to focus its attention on domination of the white minority over the non-white majority. It took an internal struggle and the voice of the	Tue, 19 Mar 2013 19:21:32 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2013, tm_mon=3, tm_mday=19, tm_hour=19, tm_min=21, tm_sec=32, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=78, tm_isdst=0)	34380140	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Hey, friends. You know, dating is a journey with ups and downs, for sure, but all the effort is worth it when you meet someone special, right? And when you decide it's time to find a meaningful relationship, eharmony is here for you. Eharmony. Is passionate about creating real love for all, rooted it in compatibility. Eharmony's process reveals truths about yourself, like, I don't know what you want in a relationship. And it helps you connect with a uniquely compatible partner who is right for you. Don't believe it? See for yourself. So start for free today, because every 14 minutes, someone finds love on Eharmony. What if you were a global bank who wanted to crunch billions of transactions against thousands of compliance controls? So you tap IBM to UNSILO your data, and now you can supercharge your audit system with AI. Let's create smarter ways of putting your data to work. IBM, let's create learn more@ibm.com. Welcome to stuff you should know from housetepworkscom. Hi, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. And there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. And that makes the stuff you should know the podcast I've been working on, my Africana accent was that it? Sort of. I've also been told by some people, chuck, we love your accents because they're kind of bad, but they're funny. And other people said, My God, please don't ever do accents again. Oh, you got to keep doing that. Of course. People keep telling me what to do. I think your Aprican or is a little rough, especially compared to your Italian. Well, sure. That's easy, though. That's no problem. So do you want to say a word in Afrikana? I think I know that you know one. Apartheid. Yes. And it means a partner in Africana, yes. In Afrikaans, yes. Sure. Which is the language. Yeah. Well, where do I get Africana? That is, the person is an Afrikaner guy. Speak Afrikaans. So in Afrikaans, apartheid means a partner. You capitalize it. The reason you capitalize it is because for about 50 years, a little less than 50 years, it was a national policy in South Africa, and it was brutal and awful, and the whole world said, you know what? South Africa. We judge you. And for good reason. Yes. I remember being a kid, and we'll get to this later, but the Artist Against Apartheid was the first time I ever heard that word as a young teenager, bono telling me, don't play Sun City. Sun City was built in 81. Okay? Sun City, first of all, is a resort in South Africa. And little Steven Van's, aunt of the Sopranos and the East Street band wrote the song called Ain't Going to Play. Sun City got all these people to sing on it, sort of in the world era, it was like, you two to Curtis blow to Africa. Boomboda. To Peter Gabriel. Like, so many people were on that song. All of these Miles Davis was on there. Yeah. Like, everybody was on. It was a good song. Yeah, it was a good song. It's okay. But it was like, I ain't going to play Sun City. And not only was it a song, but it was like a movement and an agreement, like a creed that you're kind of signing. So who played? I saw the Elton John and Queen and Linda Ronstadt played during Apartheid. Sinatra played. Yeah. They knew ahead of time that there was, like, sun City was not a good place to be, and it was in apartheid. It was a good place to be if you were in a pro apartheid South African with a lot of money because it was a very nice resort. Yeah. And you want to gamble, and they would get big name acts. But if you went there and played there and made money there, even if you didn't make money there actually, the UN had an anti apartheid unit, and they kept track of who was playing there, and they would publish a blacklist, and there was a huge backlash against it. Most people were just like, sorry, if you said publicly, I'm very sorry that I went and played Sun City, I'm not going to go to apartheid South Africa again. As a performer, they would take you off the list. Okay. But it was still, like it really smacked of McCarthyism because they used a blacklist for suspected communists in the entertainment industry. And this is the same thing. Yes, but in this case in this case, they were on the side of right. The blacklist. But yeah. So if you went to Sun City, you ended up on this list. And actually really interestingly, tim Reed, Venus Flytrap, he went down to South Africa with Howard Hessman. Johnny Fever of WKRP in Cincinnati, because WKRP in Cincinnati was a really huge hit down there. Really? Yeah. So they had Venus and Johnny Fever come down, and Tim Reed was one of the first African Americans invited to apartheid South Africa to not perform. Like, this is just a publicity tour. Right. And he spent the whole time speaking out against apartheid. Good. And he still ended up on the UN's blacklist. Really? Because he received, like, a per diem or something during his publicity tour there, and he spoke out. There's a Chicago Tribune article from the time from 1986 that interviews him, and he is a really smart guy speaking out against this blacklist, or at the very least, like, how clumsy it was that they weren't using a scalpel at all. They were just like, oh, you went to South Africa and they gave you some money and now you're blacklisted. Right. He's like, I was speaking out against apartheid. Like, what are you doing? So let's talk apartheid. Where did this come from? Chuck? It was instituted in 1948, but it was way older than that. Yeah, racial suppression was going on sort of from the 17th century on in Africa or at least in southern Africa, and it wasn't South Africa at the time, we should point out. We'll get to that, though. Yeah. But the Dutch came there in the 17th century just as a little stop off station. They wanted to set up on the spice route, dutch East India Company. They were like, we need a place to kick back a little bit and rest on this trip. Right. And so I was about to say, they said, do you mind? I don't think they asked. No, they did not. They just sort of set up shop there and they were not there to colonize initially. It's just to set up a waste station. Yes, just to set up a station. But because they were Europeans, they did bring along with them the thought that white people are supreme to black people. Right. And to prove it, the world along black slaves with them. That's right. So that notion is immediately set up, like, hey, we're better than you, right? You can't tell us what to do. We have guns and we're more advanced, if you follow those European lines of what advanced is. Right. And because they were Europeans during the age of exploration, they said, let's colonize anyway. Let's do it. That's true, they did. And they started setting up settlements that weren't united, but were basically the Dutch. And then later on, the British, into a much lesser extent, the French, basically saying, just undergoing a land grab that involved basically taking land from the indigenous people there and then setting up farm. Sounds like another country. Yeah, it sounds really familiar, doesn't it? Yeah. They basically would try to negotiate for land, and if that broke down, they were like, all right, we're taking it. Right. And then they would take the land, turn it, turn the land into plantation, start growing stuff for export, and then the people would say, we're starving out here. And the Dutch people would say, well, come on in and work for us for, like, next to nothing. At the very least, you'll live long enough to till our fields. And that's how the whole thing began. Yeah. Basically, they would end up killing the fields that they at one point owned themselves or use themselves as slaves. Right. And this was the Dutch at first, until about the mid 1700, then British activity picked up in the region. And at the time, it was, I think you said, just like, various separate societies, farming, living, agrarian lifestyle, ranching, hunter gathering. And then the Dutch and then the Brits came down there with their own slaves and took the land and said, you know what? We're going to battle with each other over this area. And eventually Britain gained control in the early 19th century from the Dutch, even, but the Dutch were still there, sort of running things. Is that how it worked? Yeah, there were way more Dutch settlers than British, but the British had managed to gain control of it. Now, it was a British colony, and they said, but slavery is not legal. No, but you are a servant, basically, and we're going to codify this. And now, for the first time in this area, blacks were legally subservient to whites. Yeah. So instead of master slave, it was master servant, big diff. And even though it was a British colony, it was still basically run and operated by the Dutch. That's right. And some Dutch didn't like that, so they pressed further and further inward and ultimately creating more and more of an area for the future of South Africa by dominating these tribes with guns, germs, steel, that whole thing. And then around about 1860, something really big happened a little bit into the interior. They discovered diamonds and gold, and they said, oh, we're staying. Yeah. And they said, you know, we know you love farming and all that good stuff, but we think you'd be much happier working in a mine for next to nothing. At the very least, it would make us happier if you were working in our minds. That's right. And you know what? We're going to brutalize you. We're going to segregate you. We're going to give you the most dangerous jobs. Yeah. And humiliate you and do cavity searches. And you know what? Now you have to have a pass book to go to your job as a minor, and you're going to be paid a lot less. And the past books, reason we mentioned that as it soon became a staple, that you couldn't go anywhere you weren't supposed to go without a passbook. Right. Initially started as a work thing, though, in the minds of South Africa. That's where apartheid was born. And a lot of the apartheid techniques, like you say, past books, and just the general degradation of blacks in South Africa area, it all began I mean, it was already in place, but just the brutality of it, I take it, really picked up in the minds. Yeah, for sure. So that was what the yeah, and that was pretty much the way it was. It was a British colony in South Africa. It wasn't South Africa yet, but it was a British colony. The Dutch were ruling it. The blacks, they're the African indigenous natives, were on the losing end of all of this in a very brutal fashion. And then in the early 119 thousand hundred, and I think the people who are running this British colony, Dutch, said, hey, man, we want a little more authority here. Yeah. And at this point, they were Afrikaner, right. In the past century, they had changed a lot. They had this weird hybrid language that developed, and they were Dutch in heritage, but they were starting to become a new people in Southern Africa, which is African. They probably felt about as Dutches, like you and I feel British. Yeah, that's a good point. So, yeah, they were like a whole new group. But the basis of this was that they were a whole new group who had grown up in charge of another group, and they wanted to make sure that they had a free hand in dealing with these other subclasses. And also, I want to say, like, anytime you hear me say subclasses, I'm making air quotes, everybody. Yeah. And when I say big difference between master slave and master servant, I was being sarcastic. Right. We're anti apartheid. Okay. So these Afrikaners running the show send a new constitution to Britain. And Britain said, okay, go ahead. We're going to go ahead and grant this. It's going to be called the South Africa Act of Ten. And with that, British decreed that the state of South Africa was born British colony, but it was officially under efferconnor control. That's right, yeah. One other thing. Black people can't hold office ever. Yeah. That's like the first of what would be many, many restrictions, and that's a huge one, because all of a sudden you have an allwhite made up of white people who feel that is their white man's burden to keep you from being shiftless and lazy and thieving and just killing yourselves and cutting off your own hands and killing one another. It's up to the white man to make sure you don't do that. And we're going to keep you safe by subjugating you. And the first way we're going to do that is to just have an all white government. That's right. The second thing we're going to do is we're going to take your land, because even though we only make up 20% of the population is white people, we need 93% of the land. So we're going to shuffle 80% of the people onto 7% of the land. Really crappy land. Really bad land was a really bad housing. And that was under the leadership of General Lewis or Lewis or Louis Botha, first Prime Minister of South Africa. And the Native Lands Act of 1913, basically, was when they said, you know what? We're going to move all these communities. If we kill you along the way or you die, no big deal. If your whole life is disrupted, no big deal. And we're essentially going to shove you onto these tiny parcels of crappy land. So that began what's called the segregation period. You can't go here. This is white land. Right after during the segregation period between the 1913 Lands Act and the bunch of other things happened for the blacks who came to be called bantus indigenous Africans. They lost the right to vote in the 30s. In the 20s, they had lost the right to unionize. And basically, they're just being pushed further and further out of a meaningful participation in society. Yeah. They tried to hamper their access to education, even early on, and fired them from jobs, even if they were totally more skilled than a white worker. Yeah. If you were a skilled craftsman, and you had apprenticed, you couldn't carry out your craft any longer. No. But legally, they could go in and be like, you know what? There's a white guy who we think is better for this job, so you're fired. Yeah, because that was the government. Right. This was even before the Afrikaner Nationalist party. This was before apartheid officially. Yeah. That didn't come around till 1940. 819 48. Win again. With an all white government that had been in power for 35 years, this extreme right wing, basically a fringe movement, the Afrikaner Nationalist Movement came to power, and they officially instituted what we call apartheid. They're apartheid policies starting in 1948, but really kicking off in 1950 with the Population Registration Act. Right? Yeah. And this is under Prime Minister DF Mollin at the time, and with the Population Registration Act is when they created, officially the Bantu, like you said, and named the indigenous black population. So there's Bantu, there's white, and then there's colors, which is mixed race. And you have to register yourself and be legally classified as one of these three races. Everyone was everybody. If you're white, good news for you. Yeah. Because you got 93% of the land. Yeah. If you're bond to or mixed race, then bad luck for you. Right. And then at first, Indians were left out, and Indians, I guess, because it was a British colony. Since India was also a British colony, south Africa was kind of a place to be for Indians, including Gandhi, who was one of the early protesters of the segregationist idea and was imprisoned for, I think, 20 years in South Africa. Yes, he was. Or he was imprisoned while he was there for 20 years. He spent part of it in prison for protesting segregation peacefully. Of course, ultimately, Indians were excluded as foreigners. But then, just to keep problems from happening, to keep the bureaucracy going, they were added as a fourth race. That's right. What if you were a major transit system with billions of passengers taking millions of trips every year? You weren't about to let any cyber attacks slow you down. So you partner with IBM to build a security architecture to keep your data network and applications protected. Now you can tackle threats so they don't bring you to a grinding halt and everyone's going places, including you. 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And start taking charge of your future today. You could not get married between races if you were born to and loved with someone of mixed race. You couldn't even marry them. Very restrictive. And then next came another act called the Group Areas Act. And this really escalated the segregation because now you needed essentially passports to go from one area to another. Some you weren't even allowed in. And that even went further in the Bantu Homelands Act of 1951, which basically said, you know what? Wherever your area is in South Africa, that is now your homeland and you're not even South Africa anymore. Yeah. If you're Bantu, you live in this area. If you're Bantu married to a colored person, your colored spouse lives in a different area. Yeah. Your family is just ripped apart now. Well, they took away basically they said, you're not in South African, right. And we're allowing you to stay here. Basically, if you stay in this one area that your pass book says that you can stay in, right. Because you can't stay here because you're no longer a member of this country. Unbelievable. I drew exclamation points next to that one just because they literally moved in, took over these people, and then said, you're not even a part of this country that we've established. So they've been pushed out of participation in society. Anybody who is not white is now forced onto a reservation. Yeah, essentially. And then they really kind of started indoctrinating the next generation with the Bantu Education Act of 1953. And basically, if you were Banu, you would be put into a school where the student teacher ratio was about 56 to one. On average, you went to school 3 hours a day. They did it in two shifts. A teacher would see two different classes, 3 hours for one and 3 hours for another. And you would be taught basically how, like, the history of your people was that you were kind of dumb and meandering and you hadn't really done anything with the land before, and how you were reliant on the white people who came to rescue you and your people. You were taught how you could work in a factory and that's about as good as it got for you. Yeah. And basically they were taught to be servile and better servants to the white afrikaners. Yeah. Well, that was the plan at least. But it backfired because in the 1950s and 60s, instead of becoming more docile, they rallied and became more upset and basically raged against the machine. In the same time that the US civil Rights movement was going on, the same thing was kind of starting to happen in South Africa. And it was the beginning of what would be a 30 year end of apartheid. Yeah, I guess you could say. Yeah. People got mad. Rightly. Yeah. And this wasn't just indigenous people. There are also white liberals at the time, just like here in the US, that were very much against apartheid and also suppressed when they tried to raise awareness or fight back. Right. Because one of the things about the apartheid government, it wasn't just racial segregation. They were, like I said, extremely right wing. And they were very much into isolationism. They kept a very tight control over what their population, white or nonwhite, had access to. As far as the news one. Oh, yeah. Music. Have you seen Searching for Sugar Man? Yeah, it's a good one. And you saw what they did. There was a song on his record. Rodriguez yeah. And they scratched the song, the vinyl, so it couldn't be played. They did stuff like that. You got to see that they just won the Academy Award. And we don't want to spoil anything, though, because it unfolds in a really great, mysterious way. It's a good documentary. It's a great documentary. And that's what inspired this decision to do this, actually. Right. So the government is fairly close to totalitarian. Like, if you dissented against the government, black, otherwise you would go to jail. But despite this, and despite the brutality that the police were engaged in, for example, there was a strike in 19 46 75,000 unarmed black miners went on strike. A peaceful protest. 1000 people were killed by the police. Yeah. They would just open fire on crowds. Yeah. Like peaceful crowds, even. Right. And this is one of the reasons why I think people were so resistant to being indoctrinated into apartheid mentality, in part because of the brutality of the police tactics. So let's talk about this in the 60s, like you were saying, when the US civil rights movement was really starting to brew and take shape, nelson Mandela emerged as a member of the African National Congress huge organization. And then there was also the Pan Africanist Congress, and they were basically peaceful protest groups that were set up to counter the apartheid philosophy. Yeah. And like we said, even though it was peaceful, it didn't matter. The Sharpville massacre in 19 60, 10 00, black Africans left their passbooks at home and said, you know what? We're just going to go to the police station and turn ourselves in because we don't have our passbooks. What are you going to do? Processes all now they're going to open fire on the crowd. Killed 69 people, wounded hundreds, apparently. And then they said, you know what? We're going to ban public gatherings then. And they also ban the African National Congress and the Pan African. Like, you're all illegitimate now. And Nelson Mandela. You're going to jail. Not yet. Not yet. They drove the Pan Africanist Congress in the African 63. He went to jail. Right. But in 1960, they drove them underground. And as a result, these groups went from being peaceful to becoming actually, they form paramilitary wings. And Mandela led the African National Congress's guerrilla wing. Yeah. And he actually later on said, yeah, we were guerrillas and possibly terrorists, and there were human rights violations by my group, and I regret that. Yeah, but they were good terrorists. But he was jailed for sending to a life in prison and remained in prison for 30 years. And most people, unless you're super young, remember Nelson Mandela free nelson Mandela being a rallying cry up until, like, freaking 80s, which is ridiculous that this is still going on then. Yeah, but that's the way it went there. 1976, another protest, peaceful. Soweto this time it was students. And it was because they were trying to make Afrikaans the primary language in black upper schools, even though not many of them even spoke it. Right. So what good is that? So they went to protest this, and again, open fire. Two children were killed this time, and it started a bunch of riots. And in the end, 3000 people, up to 3000 sits between 575 and 3000. Probably depends on who you're asking. Right? We're killed by the police. Yeah. And again, just following the same script that they did with Sharpville in 1000 1960, the government said, all right, any dissent groups are completely banned outright. And that included the South African Students Organization, led by a guy named Steve Biko. And Steve Biko, he was a medical student. He was, like, 30, I think, when he died. He had founded what was called the Black Consciousness Movement. It was basically like it was teaching African self worth, countering everything that was taught through the Bantu Education Act and everything you learned in school. African self reliance, economic self reliance. And it had spread outside of Africa. He was a pretty big figure. And he was pulled over with a buddy and a bunch of anti apartheid pamphlets, and the police arrested him. They beat him, they left him with the head wound, and he died of his injuries. And when Steve Biko died, that changed everything. Yeah. He was detained under the Terrorism Act 83, which basically said, if we suspect you being a terrorist, we can detain you for up to 60 days, and then we can renew that 60 days, by the way, indefinitely, without telling anyone, without releasing who's there. And it was basically a way to make people disappear. Usually, if you were detained under this act, you were never heard from again. And Beco eventually found himself in a coma because of torture. And then eventually they said, after about three weeks, we should probably take this guy to a prison with a hospital, at least. So they threw his naked body in the back of a truck to take him to a hospital, and he died. They said it was a hunger strike. It was actually brain hemorrhage from being beaten upside the head. And years later, Denzel Washington would play him in cry freedom. Nice. And Peter Gabriel wrote the awesome song. Bico. Yeah. And Tribe called Quest. Has Steve Bico song stirred up? Yeah. So the Soweto uprising and the police killings of those two children was followed right on the heels by Steve Biko's death, which was a big deal, like, around the world. Yeah, it was. The US. Ambassador to South Africa, I think probably was a huge protest move. Went to Steve Biko's funeral. Yes. Steve Biko dying. That was a big deal. Yeah. And we should shout out to Helen Susan. Shout out. She was the one voice of reason in South Africa's. All white parliament. She was the one voice, anti apartheid voice. And she was like, if you look her up today, man, she's an amazing, amazing woman. She decided a few years ago. Yeah, but she was at the funeral. And this is when it became, like, a thing around the world, like, hey, you know what? We're going to start pulling our embassies out of South Africa. We're going to start boycotting sanctions against South Africa, economic sanctions. And this was happening with the United States, Great Britain, other Western nations, and basically, South Africa became the evil empire, like, exposed. It was pretty cool. Finally, in 1086, the US Congress got its act together enough to pass the Comprehensive Anti Apartheid Act, and it banned any new investment, any new business setting up and dealing in trade with South Africa. South Africa was banned from doing business here in the US. So South African airlines couldn't land at any US. Airport. Didn't want to hurt, basically. Yeah, big time. The Rand fell in value is a big deal. And Reagan vetoed it, actually. And his veto is overridden by Congress. Awesome. That's how badly they wanted to do it. And it was a very important thing. Right in the middle of this is like when we were kids. You remember that Keith Harring poster in South Africa? There was like the incomplete sun city. Yes. The song. Free Nelson Mandela. I remember that one. Yeah, it was a big deal. The whole world was opposed to South Africa. There was this great thing called divestment that actually may have really been the thing that killed apartheid in South Africa. Yes. What was the deal there? So divestment is and it's going on now, but with apartheid, it was basically where people it started with colleges. Colleges have huge endowments that are heavily invested in all sorts of stuff. And they said, you know what? We're not going to invest in anything that has anything to do with South Africa anymore. Coca Cola, if you're doing business in South Africa, we're not going to invest in you anymore. Whoever. And so they divested rather than invested. They got all their money out, and a lot of universities did this, and they did it at the prompting of some of. Their students. Like in Harvard, the students erected a shady town to show what the people who lived in the shady town in south Africa were living like. Wow. And got all these endowments to start divesting. And I think cal had the biggest one. They divested $3 billion from the south African economy. Holy cow. And they think that that was the thing that really opened the bleeding go bears. Yeah. So this divestment combined with this international political pressure all over the world, and south Africa still says, go to hell. We're not getting rid of apartheid for years. Still? Yes. Through the 80s. Yeah. And then finally, it was 1993. Well, 1989 is when the big turning point came. That's when f. W. De klerk became president of apartheid south Africa. And between 89 and 93 is when you basically repealed everything on the books and said, this is going in a different direction now. Let's release Nelson Mandela. And in fact, when we have our first democratic election in 1994, nelson Mandela wins. So what a great ending to that story. It really is. And despite being in prison for 30 years, on may 10, 1994, when Mandela was giving his speech, he closed by speaking in Africans. This is his inauguration speech. Yes. Which is like the fact that he even spoke in that tongue to me, says a lot about the man. And he said, what is past is past, and here's a nobel peace prize. Mr. Mandela and Mr. De klerk, like, you both get it in. And I like the article pointed out, it was a shockingly peaceful transition. And I'm sure there are still many, many more years that are needed for the healing. You don't get over something like that overnight if it's been hundreds of years. But I think things are definitely headed in the right direction now. Yeah. Well, one of the things that they did was they set up a truth and reconciliation commission, which was, like, basically a tribunal that heard stories of human rights violations that gave victims a voice to say it in public. Like, this happened to me. Right. In some instances, people who perpetrated these could be prosecuted. They could also be forgiven publicly by this court, the tribunal. It was a really good move to kind of help this national healing, because yeah, all of a sudden, apartheid's gone over a four year period. But, I mean, there was a lot of people who were kind of into that, and they did a lot of stuff, and they're not protected by the government anymore. And a lot of bad things happen to a lot of people are still alive. Like, what do you do? And I think that was a really good move to move not just the government, but also the society to post apartheid life. Yeah. I'd like to hear from people in south Africa about the state of things today. Yeah. And watch searching for sugar man. People yes. It's really like, through this great story of music encapsulates this whole time period really well. Right. And then, I guess ever since the aliens landed over Johannesburg, that's kind of taking up a lot of their attention. Oh, yeah. What was that? District Nine. Yes. Which was really based on apartheid. Pretty much. What was that, the inspiration for that movie. That was a good movie. Yeah. So watch that. Watch District Nine searching for Sugar Man and watch Cry Freedom. Yeah. Go. Listen. Tribe called Quest. Peter gabriel. I have not listened or seen the rugby movie yet. Or Morgan Freeman plays Mandela with Victoria. What is it invictus? Yeah, I need to see that one. Okay. That's it for parkside, huh? Thank goodness. If you want to do words from our sponsor yeah, we got lost in the mail coming up, but word from our sponsor first. What if you were a gigantic snack food maker and you had to wrestle a massively, complex supply chain to satisfy cravings from Tokyo to Toledo? So you partner with IBM Consulting to bring together data and workflow so that every driver and merchandiser can serve up jalapeno, sesame and chocolate covered goodness with real time, data driven precision. Let's create supply chains that have an appetite for performance. IBM, let's create. Learn more at IBM. Comconsulting. Only 45% of high school students feel they are prepared for college or careers. Stride career prep is helping change that. Stride Career Prep lets students take charge of their education and their future by combining real world skills training and traditional academics. Students can earn college credit while in high school or get the training needed to land a job right after graduation. Stride Career Prep prepares your team for indemand careers in business, tech, health, science, criminal justice, and more. Students can take courses developed by industry professionals, prepare for certifications, get hands on experience, network, and most importantly, gain the confidence they need to succeed. Stride Career Prep is backed by over 20 plus years of experience in online learning and education. Take charge at K twelve. Compodcast. That's K twelve. Compodcast, and start taking charge of your future today. Now it's time for listener mail, right? That's right, Josh. I'm going to call this surfs up. I just listened to how surfing works. As someone who surfs 300 days a year all over the world and teaches surfing for a living, just wanted to say that you guys did an excellent job. For two guys who don't surf in a very limited experience with it, your definitions and descriptions were pretty much spot on. And I would have to agree with you, Chuck, that it is very difficult to learn. It has one of the slowest, most miserable learning curves of any sport. I always tell people that if you don't enjoy sucking at it, then you won't enjoy surfing so quickly. Did you surf on your vacation? Yeah, I did. How did you do? I've been waiting to ask. Yumi was watching from the shore, and she agrees that I did get up at least once. Okay. She says possibly twice, but I only stand by one. And by get up, I mean I was virtually crouching. Sure. And then fell off after like 5 seconds. And how many days did you try it? Just one, and I didn't even take a lesson. Okay. You just went out there. Do you know how? Well, our podcast exactly. Yeah, so I figured out how to do it. I did, kind of but I remember we were talking about how it's very easy to get on your hands and knees and then get up. Yeah. But you don't want to learn that technique. Is that the technique? That's what I learned. Yeah, sure. You got to crawl before you can walk. Exactly. Also, I should clear up that in general, learning to surf on a longboard is usually preferred as they catch waves easier and are easier to stand up on than a shortboard. But being that catching a wave is the hardest part for beginners, you're usually better off learning that way. Did you have a shortboard? Yeah, it was shortage. Yeah, it definitely wasn't a long board. They turn easier, but turning is pointless if you can't catch the wave in the first place. Right? Yeah, there was no turning going on. It was surf riding. Surf riding. Anyway, I just want to say good job, guys. I'll be teaching surfing all summer in Southampton, New York. If you're up in New York this summer, hit me up. I'll take you out for a surf. And that is miles from Santa Cruz. PS. Big Wednesday is the best movie ever. Of course you think that, because that's what surfers did. That's nice, Miles. Yes. 300 days a year. Can you believe that? It sounds like Miles got a pretty decent life if he's living in Santa Cruz and then teaching in New York in the summers. Yeah, that's cool. Thanks for writing in, miles. If you are an expert or you do something that we've talked about 300 days a year, we want to hear from you, because it pretty much makes you an expert. You can tweet to us at syskpodcast. You can join us at facebook. Comstepyshow. You can send us an email, right? Is that what those are? Called? To stuffpopcast@discovery.com. And check out our website, stuffyshenow.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstofworks.com summer school's out. The sun is shining. 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c4ccbf38-5460-11e8-b38c-fbb69edafc9d	SYSK Selects: Who Gets to Name Continents?	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/sysk-selects-who-gets-to-name-continents	America is named after Amerigo Vespucci, right? Maybe not. And who named Australia? Find out the unusually uncertain origins of the continents and other interesting stuff in this classic episode.	America is named after Amerigo Vespucci, right? Maybe not. And who named Australia? Find out the unusually uncertain origins of the continents and other interesting stuff in this classic episode.	Sat, 14 Nov 2020 10:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2020, tm_mon=11, tm_mday=14, tm_hour=10, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=5, tm_yday=319, tm_isdst=0)	39658987	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Hello, everybody. Who gets to name continents? That's a great question, and we answer that on March 22, 2016. I think this is a Josh pick a really interesting, interesting topic, because, heck, I didn't know who gets to name continents, and now I do. And if you haven't listened to this one, give it a listen now. It's a very, very cool episode. Who gets to name Continents. Welcome to stuff. You should know a production of Iheartradios how stuff works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W, Chuck, Bryant and Jerry's over there. So this is stuff you should know. Geography. We are in North America. That's right, Chuck. According to some. Yeah, actually, according to everybody. No, not everybody. Oh, yeah. We'll get to it. Okay. We don't want to spoil basically the facts of the podcast. Right. Already, this is, as I said, about geography, and if this kind of thing floats your boat, I strongly suggest you go look at how maps work or listen to that episode. Yeah, that was a good one. It was. Remember we found that other people see the map upside down. Sure. Yeah. It all depends on how you look at it. Agreed. And that actually kind of comes into play, not just with how you look at a map and say, oh, I'm on top and you're on bottom, so therefore you must be developing. Right. Naming continents is a kind of a we humans are kind of big on names, I guess. Yeah. We're big on location. Sure. We're big on identifying with where we're from, with where we live, that kind of stuff. Yeah. It's a whole in group, out group BS. Yeah. And, boy, I have to say, for a shortish podcast, which this is going to be our longest one let's take an eyebreak. No, not yet. I hazard to say that I learned more in this than Ten Barbie podcasts. Actually, that's not true. I learned a lot in that one, too. I love that one. But this is just loaded with interesting stuff because I am not the biggest geography buff for someone who is a maps buff. Yeah, for their artistry. Right. Yeah. And I just ordered a great new map. I wish I could remember the guy's name, but I read an article on this super detailed, awesome map of the United States that this guy spent years and years drawing, plotting the RVs all over the country. Not an army's map. That would be great, though. Although you can just follow your nose. You don't really need it. Always knows. Yes. Just like smell the horsey sauce. I love that stuff. Although the RV sauce is by far the superior of the two. Well, I think you got to mix them. That's the key. Not always. I'm more of a beef and cheddar mix with the RV sauce. It's delicious. And the horsey sauce, although I'm okay with horsey sauce sometimes. I haven't had arby's in forever. Oh, yeah. It's delicious. I have a fairly disgusting roast beef sandwich is so good, right? Yeah. All right. Anyway, I ordered this amazing map, and it hasn't arrived. I can't wait for it to get here, though. I'm going to frame this one, I think. Okay. Do you have all your maps framed? No. You need, like, a huge wing of your house and just have every map you have framed on the wall. That should be like I'm starting to see a pattern here. That would mean I have a huge room to my house all to myself. And that's not true, unfortunately. You know how to swing a hammer, don't you? Yeah. Just build another room. Chuck room. I wish, my friend. So, Chuck, we were talking about continents and their names and all that stuff, right? Yes. It turns out that when you think about the continents names, some of them seem kind of hohum or whatever, but there's actually some really great stories behind these things. Agreed. We should probably start at the very beginning, way back, way back in 1000, 948, even further back than that, 200 million years ago, if you looked at the planet Earth, you would have seen that there weren't a bunch of different continents. There was actually one huge continent that wore a headband and had enormous, like, four arms named Panjea. Yeah. What a stud that continent was. And there was one ocean, and the name of that ocean was Panthelasa. Yeah. It wasn't all divided up. It was just one big chunk of land and surrounded by one massive ocean. Right. And then, as we'll see later and this is prominent theory, by the way. Right. Okay. No one was around back then to a million years ago and be like, no to 2016. This is the way things are land wise around here. This theory, actually, we've talked about it before. It had to have been in the earthquakes episode. This guy was awesome. Alfred Vegener. Yeah. Back in, I think, 1915, he published his theory on continental drift. Yeah, it's pretty amazing. Well, there's some reasons behind it, but the theory is that the Earth has made up these big plates. If you listen to our volcanoes or earthquake episodes, we talk a lot about that. And over time, these things cracked apart and shifted and drifted. And we now have many continents. Right, but that's not what people thought for a very long time. I guess they just took for granted that the continents were the way they were. But Alfred Wegner, first of all, he noticed on a map, like, wow, it looks like you could really tuck West Africa into the eastern part of South America really nicely. Yes. And in fact, the more I look at it, the whole thing looks like a puzzle that kind of fits together if you have a brain. So that's where he got his idea first, and then he started setting about proving it or supporting coming up with evidence. How about that? Yeah, that's good. And one of the things we looked at was coal steams along edges of these puzzle pieces and found that they were composed of basically the same stuff. Yeah. Like Colon, Pennsylvania. Deposits in Pennsylvania were similar or the same to those in Poland and Germany and Great Britain. Yeah, which shouldn't happen because what coal is basically compressed former organisms, decaying matter. Right. And so you would think that these different organisms would have evolved differently on different continents if they weren't together. And the fact that they were the same and decomposed in about the same amounts suggest that they were all part of the same land mass at one point. Pretty neat. And then he also found fossils on different continents that really shouldn't have been the same. Yeah, he saw plant fossils and said, Wait a minute, I'm finding this stuff in places that are wildly different from one another, these fossils. So maybe again, that lends to my theory. Or how about this mountain range, the Appalachian Mountains, very similar to the Atlas Mountains of Morocco. Maybe it was all one big mountainous mass at one point, and it turns out they probably were. That's right. What was the name of that mountain range that the Appalachians were part of? The central Pangaea Mountains, which apparently formed through the collision of the supercontinents of Gondwana and Laurusia. Yeah, because in addition to this How Stuff Works article, you found a great article by Tia Ghost, who writes for Live Science and writes some pretty great stuff. Yeah, this is really good. And Ghost basically just broke it all out, like how Pangaea formed, what Pangaea broke into. It's a really interesting article. Yeah. And concise. I like articles. It's not fluff. Right. Just, like, packed with text. Get to it right at the beginning. Okay. I love it. And don't let up. Don't stop until you have enough. So in the article, they talk about the process that spend a few hundred million years with a continent called Laurentia that's a great continent name, which includes part of North America and some other microcontinents that formed eventually. Your America. That's not bad. It sounds like a craft work album. Oh, it does. Totally. Your America crashes into Gondwana, which I mentioned before. I like Gonzwana, too. I'm just going to come out and say it. I like these pre current continent continent names. Pre white dude name, right? I guess so, but I think they were named by white dudes, probably. Okay. More creative white dudes. And Gondwana included. Africa, Australia, South America and Indian. Subcontinent. Yeah. It's so hilarious that all of these ideas of nationalism and all this man, if you've just gone back a few hundred million years ago I used to be one. You'd be neighbors. Let's all just lighten up. Exactly. And that's actually a thing that we talked about in the maths episode, too, is like when you draw a map, you are making a political statement. There's such a sense of otherness and togetherness based on geographical distribution. It's interesting. It says a lot about the human psyche. Yeah. We should do a podcast one day on the human family tree. Yeah. Super interesting. So, getting back to the supercontinent, a couple of hundred million years ago, Gundwana split off from Laurasia. That's a good one too. 50 million years later, Gundwana broke up, and then 60 million years ago, North America split off from Eurasia. And these are all the prominent theories again. Yeah. Well, they follow the continental drift theory and, I mean, it's not like they're just like, let's say the Indian subcontinent broke off from this continent. They have gone through and done the geological comparisons and have seen when this basically matched up to that. And that's what they've come up with. It's pretty astounding that. You can do that if you have enough patience. Yeah. And brains. So interestingly. They talked a little bit in the article about a climate and what it might have been like back then. And maybe the interior of this large supercontinent was completely dry because it was surrounded by mountains. Maybe parts of what is now North America used to be like the Amazon rainforest. Like a super lush jungle. Right. Would be kind of cool. Yeah. But once you got into the interior, when you cross the what was it, the central Pangaea Mountains. Apparently there was a ring of mountains that ran around the middle of the whole Pangaea in the interior and it just produced rain shadows that kept rain out from the interior of the continent. So it would have just been just a totally arid desert. Pretty cool. It is cool. And of course, this isn't over. They point out in the article that things are still changing. Australia is creeping up on Asia very slowly, of course. Yeah. Pretty cool. And part of Eastern Africa is trying to get out of the rest of Africa. Yeah. Eastern Africa is staying so long, I'm going off on my own. I'm going to seek my own fortune and adventure. Of course, this is over the course of hundreds of millions of years. You will likely not be around unless the singularity happened soon. Yeah, exactly. Then you may and you can be like, this is pretty cool. The people of Sydney will have a docking party with the people of Hong Kong. I love that. So you want to take a little break here and then we'll talk a little bit about these names. Yes. So, Chuck, that is the theory of continental drift and the whole idea is that there's a layer of magma and then on top of it are the continental plates and they're constantly shifting and moving again, albeit very slowly. And when they do, they expose a fissure and you've got volcanic activity or two plates slide up against one another or one subduct below the other one, and you have earthquakes. So there's a lot of evidence that continental drift is real and that things like Hollow Earth are probably not correct. Probably. Have you noticed every time we do any kind of geography, especially when we mentioned plate tectonics, that the Hollow Earth people come out of the woodwork and just send us emails and leave comments? They're like the high fructose corn syrup people. They're, like, really active in the comment section. Yeah, frodo and the gang. Oh, wait. That's Middle Earth difference. In Pangaea, we should mention, is Greek for all lands or all Earth. So that's a great name for the original supercontinent. Right. And Panthelasa is all ocean, the ocean that surrounded it. And Pangaea was considered a true continent. We should say this because they'll come up later, but a true continent is a land mass surrounded by ocean on all sides. I'm looking at you, asia and Europe. I know, I know. In fact, part of actually, I think you sent this idea, didn't you? Yeah, the whole idea for the show was from you, but not too long ago, I think Emily asked me, she was like, what is Russia? Is it Asian or is it European? And I was like, well, I don't know. Asia. Let's go look. Well, it depends. Part of it, really? Well, yeah, part of it. And same with Turkey. It's split. And some people identify with Europe, some people identify with Asia. Wow. That's why the term eurasia. Well, no, I got that, and I got it from this article, but I didn't know that Russia itself was split. Yeah, that's what it says. Like Kazakhstan or something, being, like, straddling the sides. But I didn't realize, like, Russia itself was split. That's pretty interesting. Yeah. Maybe some Russians will write in. Tell us how you identify. Yeah. Are you Asian? European? Which one? Yeah, because obviously a lot of these lines are drawn culturally. Right. Because they're mountain ranges that separate it. I mean, it's a geographical border, but when you're speaking in continents, it's not incontinence. Right. Should we tell them Jerry's bad joke? Yes. Before we started, Jerry said, I guess we're technically all incontinent. And I said, no, technically, we're all on continent. And then she said, or within continent. And none of the three things that we said were funny. That's how things happen before we hit record. Yeah. That's why we don't release this stuff beforehand. It's usually much better than that. So let's get down to this, Chuck. All right. Let's talk about naming continents. Right. All right. Apparently, with continents, if you are prominently involved with this discovery, you typically get some sort of naming rights. Yeah. And a lot of these are very just conjecture goes into maybe who named these and who didn't. One big exception is Antarctica. Right. Because it's newish. It's like Pluto. Yeah. As far as when people discovered it. In fact, you can go to The New York Times and read in about the naming of Antarctica. Yeah, if you were so inclined to be bored to tears. No, I love those old articles. I like a lot of them, too. Like, remember the subway accident where people got shot out of the subway tunnel that was being dug? Yeah, that was an interesting article. This one is bad. Oh, did you read it? No, just the sonography. Well, a man named Sir John Murray was a great explorer and oceanographer. He was part of the famous HMS Challenger expedition, which for my money, is the greatest of all ocean going explorations. The Challenger. Yeah. Man 69,000 nautical miles. Wow. Unbelievable. If you look at the map of this thing, the route, it was just staggering. Do you have a map of it? I don't own one, but I looked it up today. Okay. It's pretty neat. And I never knew what HMS stood for. Did you know that? Her Majesty ship? Yeah. I never knew that. It's just like HMS. There's another one that I don't like. RMS? I don't know. And is the USS just United States ship? I don't know. I never thought about that either. Probably someone from the Navy can maybe point us in the right direction. So anyway, John Murray, even though the expedition, the Challenger expedition did not, they kind of buzzed Antarctica. They didn't actually see the land, but they came close. But he would later go on to actually go to Antarctica. Okay, I was going to say, like, then how did he know anything about it? I guess his interest was piqued. He saw icebergs and stuff. I'm coming back because this place is cold. I'm coming for you. Taro and Giro. So in, he actually was able to name it as a combination of ant, oposite and Arctic, the North Pole. So it's opposite of the North Pole, aka the South Pole. Pretty neat. And which one has penguins? So the Antarctica has penguins and the North Pole doesn't, isn't that right? I don't remember. But that's the case, right? Doesn't want to have one and the other one doesn't? I know, we got a lot of emails. We did. I don't know why I'm doing this again. I know. I might as well just hook a car battery up to my nipples. It'll get the same effect I got you on that one. Yeah, that was good. So let's talk about America. I just realized something. Chuck this may be played in geography classes in, like, middle school and stuff. So if that's the case, I want to go ahead and apologize to all the middle schoolers just had to hear me say that. That's okay. And don't try that at home. Bad idea. It doesn't matter what grade you're in or how long out of school you are. Agreed. The name America. If you want to take civics class or geography in elementary school and high school, you probably got the story that Emerito Bespucci was named after him. European explorer. Yeah. That guy has been slandered maligned, maybe worse than Columbus, even. Apparently he had a lot of rivals back in Italy, and they worked very hard to sully his name, and it was quite effective over the centuries to the point where there was almost a revival in hatred for Emerigo Vespici. Interesting. And a lot of really inaccurate ideas were revived based on propaganda, contemporary propaganda against him. So what's the idea that he ripped off Columbus? Well, that's not it depends on your definition of ripped off. I don't have the impression that he ever said, I discovered America. He said Columbus discovered America. But the distinction between Vespucci and Columbus is that Columbus didn't realize that he hadn't hit undiscovered or previously undiscovered by European land. Right. He thought that he had just found another route to the West Indies, apparently, until he died, vespucci was the one to say, no Europeans never seen this before. Please. That was great. No, it wasn't. I like it. And so he is the one who supposedly this continent was named after because he was the one to recognize it as previously uncharted land. Yeah. And it's on record in Cartographer. A German cartographer named Martin Valla. Our two favorite accents. Yeah. Italian and German. Two are the only two you can still do these days. Right. And not get taken to death for us. Sure. He very famously made a map that was a big effort in France in the really bring the modern map into the forefront. And like, these old maps, these were made by a bunch of dummies who didn't know anything. So let's really expand our geographic knowledge. Well, yeah. This is when Mercators started working. Yeah. So this woodcut map that Baltimore made was the first to depict a separate Western Hemisphere, the first to show the Pacific Ocean as a separate thing. Oh, this guy, he's like, get that sea monster off of there. I'd leave a sea monster. Okay. Just for fun. It's an Easter egg. Yeah. There was one of these maps. There is one of these maps still existing. And in 2003, the Library of Congress bought it with a donation from Discovery Channel. Oh, is that right? Apparently. Nice. For $10 million. It was in a castle for 350 years in southern Germany. And they're like, wow, let's buy it and display it. I read about a guy who found an original copy of the Declaration of Independence folded up behind a painting that he bought at a yard sale for $4. Amazing. And I think he sold it for a few million, and then Norman Mailer bought it for, like, 8 million. Wow. But yeah, if somebody just found the Declaration of any sense, I guess, in much the same way. That's amazing. Yeah. I got nothing in my attic. I even looked. Oh, you did look. I was going to say, you don't know, but I guess you do have some old doors. Doors can be worth 30, $40. Yeah. The door from the early 1930s? Yes. People love those things. They go crazy for them. I think it's neat, but I wanted, like, a stash of gold bullion or something like Prohibition era money. Yeah. My house isn't old enough. Where's your house built, like, 1930 Prohibition? Yeah, I guess so. Maybe some old booze, some old moonshine. Right. That'd be delicious. So the reason this map is significant by Balsamulla is that it says America, like North South America are designated America by this map. And this map is in question was from when was it? And somebody said, hey, buddy, why did you call it America? And he said, I did it in honor of America Vespucci. Sure. So the first guy who really uses the word America is on record, apparently is saying he named it America after America Vespici. But a lot of people said, that's a lie. It's a historical fallacy. It's inaccurate. Right. One guy went so far as to say that Emerald Vespici actually changed his name after America was named and that his real name was Giovanni VISS. Pucci no, albergo Vispici. And that he changed his name to Amerigo from Albergo to conveniently align with the naming of America. Right. But apparently and again, this is contemporary stuff people said, you changed your name, you big liar. Right. And then in like, the think, some historians revived it, and that was the idea. But somebody else went back and apparently found his baptismal certificate that lists him as Emerugo Vespucci. The thing is, that still doesn't mean that America was named after Vespucci. Chuck true. There is a long tradition among cartographers that had already been established by the time America was discovered to name new lands. If you're naming it after an explorer, you named it after the explorer's last name. If you wanted to name it after royalty, you named it after the royalty's first name. So think about it. Georgia. Yeah. Virginia. And then Columbus. Sure. Or Hudson, like the explorer's last name or royalty's first name is how you name things. So they would have named America Vispucci land, the United States of Vespucci. Exactly. Rather than America. Yeah, that'd be great. But if it's not named after Vispucci, then where did America come from? Well, there are some theories. One is that it was named after the Amerik American. It's a Mayan word, actually. Yes. Mountains in Nicaragua. This is where my money goes. You think so people think that Columbus and Vispucci both went to these mountains after American. Neighbors said, hey, there's gold in themdar hills. Right. Which, of course, is really all they wanted anyway. Well, that's not true. They wanted to discover new lands, but hopefully new lands with gold. Right. And people you could subjugate. Exactly. So that they went there, and then it was named after those mountains. Yeah. Not bad. And did you say both Columbus and Vaspucci supposedly traveled to these mountains. Yeah. Because they wanted to gold. Right. So that's a pretty good reason to call it that. And when you combine that with the evidence that a cartographer likely would have named it Vespucci Land rather than America after a merge go, it's entirely possible that America is actually named after an indigenous Mayan word for some mountains. I think it means place of wind in Mayan. Interesting. Yeah. Another theory, and this one, I don't think it holds water, but there was a British royal rep named Richard Amerik. Amerike. And supposedly explorer John Cabot became the first well, this isn't supposed in 1497, he definitely became the first to sail under the British flag to the New World. And apparently when he got back, he got a big wad of cash from Amarik and he was like, hey, I'm going to name the country and continent after you then. But there's really nothing to substantiate that, right? No. And then Cabott retired to make some pretty decent butter. Oh, yeah. Is that him? I think so. Okay, surely it's him still maybe several hundred years old. Do you want to take a break again? Yeah, let's break and then we'll talk about our favorite continent, Australia. So, Chuck, you were telling everybody our favorite continent is Australia. Yeah. That's what Lex Luthor Jean Hackman is. Lex Luthor, wanted in Superman. He wanted Australia to his own or Superman two. Yeah. Remember Electric, the three terrace stamp and the gang came down and like, flew through, was working in cahoots with them, and they were like, well, what do you want in return for delivering Superman? He said Australia. I don't remember that, man, gina Hackman was great. I saw this the beginning of a movie with Robin Williams and Walter Matthew. Robin Williams was like a baby at the time, but they foil a robbery and become heroes. Yeah. They go to like a survivalist camp or something. Yeah. I think it's called survivors. I think so. I saw like the first ten minutes. I totally know the movie, but I was like, man, there is no one, no one on the planet like Walter Mathau anymore. He was awesome. And I was like, God, I just can't imagine Robin Williams and Walter Matthew working together and then didn't they do like, Moscow and the Hudson, too? Wasn't that one I don't think Matthew was in that one. Oh, he wasn't? I thought he was. Maybe he wasn't. I could be wrong because I never saw it. Those early Robin Williams movies were great. Were you? According to Garp? I never saw that one. That was by the guy who did Cider House Rules, right? Yeah. John Irving. Yeah, he's pretty great. Oh, yeah. But then it made me think about Couch Trip. You remember that movie with Dana Royd and Walter Matthew? I didn't see it. Was it good? Yes, it was so good. I haven't seen it. In decades, but I guarantee it still holds up. I mean it's. Matthew and Ackroyd. One's like a con man pretending to be crazy, and the other one actually is crazy, who is the only person who can sense that this guy is a con man? I've never been the hero. No, I'm sorry. He's a con man pretending to not be crazy. Okay, that makes more sense. It's great. I've never been the hugest Dan Ackroyd guy. He definitely is Dan Ackroyd. Dan Ackroyd. And I don't dislike him, but Walter Math, I was providing a nice slow burning distraction over here. If you don't like Dan Ackroyd, you'll still like couch chip. Yes. And boy, the odd couple. Matthew and Lemon. I don't know if I ever saw that original one so good. All right? That's called movie sidebar with Josh and Chuck. And it started with Gene heckman, we didn't even talk about him. Oh, I love Gene Hackman. He needs to unretire is what I'm saying. Seriously, go make another movie. Your swan song. That's what I say. All right. We own you, Gene Hackman. Australia, which is what Gene Hackman is like flutor wanted. It is a bit of a mystery to most people will point to Matthew Flinders in 18 Two as the namer because he was the first to circumnavigate it and create that map. And Australis means southern, so it all makes sense, right? Yes. Back in the day, the Cartographers were already aware of Australia before Matthew Flinders circumnavigated it, but they called it the Terra Australis, which is the southern land. Matthew Flinders is like I like the sound of Australia more. It's more pleasing to the ear, apparently, is how it was put. All right, the thing is, for a very long time, that's how Australia was named, as far as anyone was concerned. But then Australia's National Library discovered a way older map before yeah. From a German astronomer named Dumbarth. That's a great name. Great name. Not at all German, if you ask me. Except for the yacht thing. Sumbath is. But that Siri Yako definitely doesn't look German. No, but yeah, 1545. That's, like, way, way before. Yeah. And apparently there's maps that are even slightly older than that around, and one of them might have been produced by Mercator himself that also referred to the area around Australia as Australia something. So not everyone was referring to it exclusively as the Terra Australis. Okay. But it's probable that the Siriaco Yacob Zumba that was the one who first labeled it Australia. All right. We should do a podcast on the history of Australia. Sure. Super interesting. Starring Hugh Jackman for the World War II part. By the way, when I mentioned Hugh Jackman is PT. Barnum. Okay? He is, in fact, playing PT. Barnum in an upcoming musical version of the movie. But I either didn't know or I subliminally knew. Okay. But I didn't overtly know. I thought later on, after I found that. Out that you've just been messing with me the whole episode. Well, I apologize for assuming that. That's all right. I either didn't know or maybe I had read that and just forgot or something because you said it like three times. I know. Or maybe I should get into cash. If you didn't know, then hats off to you, because that was prescient. So now let's move on to did you see some of the suggestions we got, though, for PT. Barnum? Yeah. I think my favorite one was John C. Riley. He'd be an odd PT. Barnum, but he could totally do it. Yeah, I saw one. Someone said, Tom Hardy. He'd be great in anything, but he's in everything right now. He's so hot right now. And then someone sent Colemani, who is sort of like the name. I know the name. Who is it that he's like? The English John C. Reilly? He sort of looks like him. He's older, though, right? Or he may be Irish. Yeah, he's a little older. Yeah, I know who he is. They kind of look alike a bit. Coleman, he's got a little more dapperness to him, a little more suaveness, maybe. Well, there's nothing about John C. Riley. Have you seen we need to Talk About Kevin. Oh, you'll love it. The movie The Sleeper with John C. Reilly and Tilda Swinton about they have a kid who's a bad kid and so the Swinton is having to deal with it. Interesting. It's a really great movie. It's on Netflix right now. I love John C. Riley. He's kind of a prop in the background for this. It's mostly Tilda Swinton and I'm sure pretty good hearing that he knows. Okay. There's no way he played that role and doesn't know. All right. I never knew we could talk so much about movies in this one. I didn't see that coming. So let's talk about the other continents. Africa, Asia and Europe. Basically what it boils down to with the rest of these is they were likely named by sailors who had to call them something. Yeah, probably. And Africa has a few different contenders that are pretty good. There's the Affirm people who are in the northern part of Africa. They're Berber tribe. Not a bad source. Makes sense. And then apparently Eprik in Greek or Aprica in Latin means sunny, right? Yeah, makes sense, too. So who knows? The point is there's no documentation for when Africa was first named. And it was most likely Africa. Europe and Asia were named by seafaring folks who were like, we're going this place. And they needed a name for this place so their families would know where they were to go look for them if they didn't come back. Yeah. And so they came up with names like Europe and Asia. Yeah. Phoenician sailors. It's believed they may have used their proximity to the sun because Asia might come from ACU a queue for sunrise or east and europe, which is, of course, west, closer to the sunset if you're standing in the east. Right. Er e b arab, which means sunset or west. That's a phoenician word. Right. So it's possible phoenician sailors named Asia and Europe. There's other ones, too. Like Europa is a Greek mythological figure, right? Yeah. And then Asia could have been named after a ruler named Ozeos. A Trojan ruler. Yeah. I don't think that's it. That's the fun thing about things where it's like, no one knows. You can be like, that's not right. Yeah. You read theories and some make sense to you and some don't. I like that. That's why I think math never appealed to me and why it does appeal to math fans. Because rules apply and, like, there is a right and a wrong. Sure. I'm much more prone to be, like, to think about something and have theories about it. Well, you know, they say you read a lot of fiction, right? Yeah. They say that people who read fiction are much more open to ambiguous resolutions or non resolutions or lack enclosure. And because you so frequently get that from fiction, it leads to the question, though, which is, first, are you attracted to fiction because they usually have resolutions like that, or have you been trained to accept resolutions like that from appreciating fiction? Well, back to movies. One of my favorite things which really bothers a lot of people, or movies with ambiguous endings, if done right, I think it's one of the coolest things you can do in a movie is to not wrap it up in a little bow and kind of leave the end with a decision like what's going on here? Plus it leaves it open for a sequel. Well, maybe. I bet math majors hate that, though, now that I think about it. Oh, yeah. And then finally, some people still, depending on where you are in the world, don't recognize all the continents. No. And this actually makes sense to me because we said earlier, continent is a body of land surrounded on all sides by a body of water, right? Yes. So that means that a lot of the continents that we recognize over here in the west, as continents, ain't continent. They're incontinence. So according to some parts of the world, north America and South America, it's just America. Yeah. And then Europe and Asia. Just Eurasia. Yeah. And that's it. I've got a great Pavement T shirt that has North America on it and it says Canada and then Mexico, and in the middle it says Pavement. And I get a lot of compliments on it. And I think it's from people thinking I'm making a statement, like, the United States is just a bunch of pavement and Canada and Mexico aren't, when in fact it's just the band. Or maybe they're all just Pavement bands. Yeah, maybe. You can't tell. You can never tell these days. Did I tell you I'm Facebook friends with Bob Nastanovich from Pavement? You didn't. I tricked him because we had some mutual friends. Your mom said that you have to be friends with me on Facebook. It's pretty great, though. I like seeing insight into these, like people are revere. Sure. He's a big horse racing guy. Oh, yeah. He likes the ponies. I don't like going to the track necessarily, but I like the big three. Yeah. Although I would go to the track. We just don't have them around here. Yeah, we don't. And bring it on. Send an email about how I'm wrong for going to the track or wanting to. If you want to know more about naming continents or geography or any of that jazz, head on over to hostepworks.com and type in geography in the search bar. And it will bring up a massive great article. And I said, Mess, it's time for listener mail. I'm going to call this road tripping. We get a lot of emails from people that listen to us while they're road tripping. Yes. Very nice. Hey, guys. My husband and I are adventuring on a road trip from Texas throughout Florida. I've been addicted to the show for a couple of months now, but my husband has not listened to a podcast in his life. I started the driving in the trip and he asked if I could make it all the way to Florida. First of all, husband Tom. Yes. That's pretty serious stuff. All right. We're in Texas, hon. Can you make it all the way to Florida? Yeah, I got to catch some ZS. I need to show that I said that if I could listen to Stuff you should know, then I wouldn't stop driving. He sighed regrettably. And then let me turn the episode on. Five days into the trip, every time we get into the car, he now says, educate me on stuff I should know. Nice. Our biggest debates are deciding on which podcast to listen to next. We literally made it to one of our destinations and sat in the car for another 15 minutes after a three hour drive just to finish an episode. That's wonderful. Thank you so much for what you do. And that is from Kim and Tom Kepler. And since we are not recording too far out these days, they are most likely still on their trip. Yes. Enjoy the trip, be safe, have fun and drive every now and then. Tom. Yes. Really, Tom? Let's get it together, shall we? That's awesome. I hope they just heard this. Yeah. If you want to get in touch with us because you love us on a road trip or whatever, you can tweet to us at xysk podcast. You can join us on facebook. Comstepynow. You can send us an email to stuffpodcast@househothworks.com. And as always, join us at our home on the web. Stuffysheno.com. Stuff you should know is production of iHeartRadio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts. My heart radio visit the iHeartRadio App Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite show."
02ef2652-3b0e-11eb-947e-57b9c9457672	Poison Control Centers: A Good Thing	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/poison-control-centers-a-good-thing	Poison control centers are one of those things you don’t think about until you need it. With all the poisons in our homes you very well may someday. When you do there is a cadre of toxicological specialists ready to oversee the process of saving your life.	Poison control centers are one of those things you don’t think about until you need it. With all the poisons in our homes you very well may someday. When you do there is a cadre of toxicological specialists ready to oversee the process of saving your life.	Tue, 29 Jun 2021 09:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2021, tm_mon=6, tm_mday=29, tm_hour=9, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=1, tm_yday=180, tm_isdst=0)	49030043	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Welcome to stuff you should know a production of. iHeartRadio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles, David, Chuck Bryant, and Jerry is over here. And this is how are you doing, man? I'm great. I have not been poisoned yet. I have no need to get on the phone and call an expert at this point. Luckily, my daughter has never been poisoned, although that's a big concern for parents. Yeah, no joke here. No, not joking. Nothing funny about poisoned children, unless you're talking about little young Brett Michaels. He was a stitch and a cut up. Wow. He's a little Ricky rocket. I was confused, tickled, and then disappointed myself all within, like, half of a second. Oh, I thought, you're going to stay disappointed in the joke because that's the fourth stage of recovery. I thought it was great. Maybe like a month from now, I'll be like, you know, that joke about poison wasn't that great? Yeah, but who knows? Maybe I'll also be laughing about it years later. For example, I watched UHF the other day for the first time in a little while. Still haven't seen it. And just today, out of the blue, apropos of nothing, I cracked myself up thinking about one of the jokes. Which one? So there's a segment about Conan the Librarian. Somebody asks for a book on astronomy, and Conan grabs the guy and lifts him up by his shirt, and he goes, don't you know the Dewey Decimal System? Was it Arnold? Was he in it? It was a really good approximation of Arnold. For a second, I thought it was Bruce Campbell, and I actually looked on the credits, and it's not, but it looks exactly like Bruce Campbell doing Arnold Schwarzenegger. You know what I watched the other day for the, I think, first time ever? Did we talk about this? Pumping Iron. Yeah. I've never watched it. I think we might have already spoken about this, though. I did on the show. Even within weeks, maybe. No, definitely not within weeks. No. Unless, like, my brain is sloshing around. Probably has everyone out there is going if. Josh, you mentioned it three episodes ago and you're both stupid. It rings a bell that you did mention it, but it was not weeks ago. I think you're confusing your other podcast, Movie Crush. I don't think so, because one of them is good and one of them is, you're crazy cutting up. But you're talking about a movie, and it couldn't possibly have been mentioned on the movie podcast is what your position is. Maybe it was okay, but Movie Crush is the good podcast. Well, I resubmit my you're crazy. I'm sorry I just poisoned you. Yeah. And a million listeners. So maybe we should just get going on this. I thought this is really interesting. I think we should take an ad break. No. So, yeah, it was interesting, and it wasn't, like, based on anything, but curiosity, I realized that I had no idea how poison control centers worked. Like you, I have never had occasion to call one, luckily. But they're there, and it's kind of like a really great thing that they're there and that they are there to keep scared parents from freaking out because their kid ate something weird or their dog ate something weird, or they ate something weird. And to basically say like, no, you need to get to a hospital. And not only that, I'm going to help you throughout this process of going to the hospital and staying at the hospital, because poison control centers are the most hands on remote medical discipline there is. Yeah. And if it was 100 and change years ago, you'd be lucky if whatever you accidentally drank in your house even has ingredients listed on it. And if it did have ingredients, you'd be lucky if they were accurate or truthful, because no one cared and you wouldn't be able to call anyone to help. And if you went to your local community doctor, good luck if they're even available 110 years ago. And if they were, they'd probably be like, jeez, I don't really know what to do, except maybe try to make you vomit. Yeah, nothing more than a two bit bumpkin. Was what you had for a doctor back then treat his sody pop? Yes, exactly. The cessafras. And so you might say, well, like, what is 100 years ago matter? Why not further back? That's a really good question. And the answer to that is that poison control is a fairly recent invention. Not because people just thought of it, but because we didn't really need it before, because we didn't really have poisons around us prior to about the Industrial Revolution. Like, the closest thing you had to poison was a snake that made its way into your house. You definitely didn't open your cabinet beneath the sink, probably because you didn't have a sink. But also, even if you had a sink, you didn't have, like, household chemicals at your disposal until industrialization came around. Yeah, I mean, before that, there might have been you could extract some poison type things from plants and maybe got something at a traveling kind of snake oil situation. But it wasn't like they were on the general store shelves all over the country and then later stores, like you said, until the Industrial Revolution, when we said, hey, it turns out that we can use chemicals and they can be very handy. They are dangerous. But who would drink a bottle of floor cleaner? People know better than that, right? We don't have to tell them that, do we? Right, exactly. They said, Actually, yes, we totally do. And I saw a comparison on a poison website that still today people apparently get poisoned, including adults, from accidentally drinking things that they think are other safer things. And they had bottles of stuff next to bottles of other food and you're like, wow, that really, actually does bear a passing resemblance. Like pine saw. Looks a lot like apple juice when you put it next to a bottle of apple juice. And there's a brand of apple juice that looks roughly like the pine salt label. It's not anything you could drink. The most you would do is probably embarrass yourself. But I see things that look like toothpaste a lot that you would not want to put on a toothbrush and put in your mouth. Where are you hanging around with that looks like toothpaste that you wouldn't want to brush your teeth with? Well, I mean, there's all sorts of, like, lubes. Are you lubeing it up like calamine? And I feel like I've seen some other creams and things that look because it's obviously a good way to carry a toothpaste like thing and tube like that, but a lot of them look alike is my point. I see. So do you have to be like, don't brush your teeth with this reminder? No, I use a children's toothpaste so it has big dinosaurs on it. I think it wasn't so much back in the day like now, today, there's basically no excuse because we spent the last 100 years being inculcated into the idea that there are a lot of dangerous things in our everyday lives. But back in the day, this is all brand new to people, and they just didn't know. Sometimes manufacturers actually didn't know, and they found out the hard way. And because people were suffering from this, it was obvious that there was a need for people to say, okay, we need to start studying these things a little more. And a lot of the great meaning, like, really fantastic and triumphant government bureaucracies here in the United States arose from protecting everyday people from the stuff that they were eating as food or using his medicines, like things you're supposed to be able to trust, they couldn't trust back then. So entire sub disciplines of the medical profession kind of developed to protect people from those things. Yeah, it was mid to late 1800 when people started saying, hey, this is a problem, this is an issue. I think a lot of journalists did great work early on to expose a lot of this stuff, a lot of these dangers, and say some of these medicines can be really dangerous. Then a guy came along named Dr. Harvey Wiley. He ran the Bureau of Chemistry, which preceded the FDA, and he had a group called the Poison Squad who were these healthy young men who would poison themselves, they would eat chemicals to see what happened. Because, as you'll see kind of throughout this whole episode, much of the work of poison control from the very beginning, all the way up through today, is just simply categorizing and listing out things that make people sick and exactly how they make them sick. It's like a big database, right? And then in the best case scenario, how to treat somebody who accidentally ingest that thing, too. Yeah, but we talked about Wiley and the poison Squad. We did an episode years ago called does the FDA Protect American? And we talked about them and, like, hats off to them, but between the Muckrakers and Dr. Wiley, not just government was kind of forced into action, but the public started to become educated about just how dangerous their everyday life was, where before they hadn't really realized it on any kind of collective level. Yeah. And I know we talked about the Pure Food and Drug Act. Right? Didn't you just say that? Not yet. Okay. That was also called it the Wiley Act after Harvey Wiley, and it basically said, hey, you got to start labeling stuff. You got to be really clear about what's in certain products, especially if it contains alcohol, heroin, caffeine, cannabis. You got to let people know what's in these products. And again, with the media, they were bringing it to light. And if you were a company at the time, it became a thing where, like, just from a PR standpoint, you needed to start doing this and be a little more transparent. Otherwise you would get a bad name if a poisoning was in the newspaper and your product was kind of to blame. Yeah, which, I mean, that's kind of what the Pure Food and Drug Act of 19 six was predicated on the idea that a company would want to protect its image or its business and not suffer ruination from bad PR. But they found out in, I guess, the mid 1930s that that just wasn't the case. Well, I think we should do a short stuff on this episode. It's just nuts what happened. But the upshot is that a preparation of sulfanillamide, an antibiotic, was prepared using antifreeze. Yeah. And to give it, like, a sweet flavor. Raspberry flavor. That's sweet. Sweet. And a freeze. That's right. But the upshot of the whole thing was that there was no regulation that said, you guys need to test this first. They can just market it. And they actually got them on a technicality. But 100 people died from this, and that really hastened the law. I think it was an amendment to the Pure Food and Drug Act that basically said, okay, not only do you have to label stuff now when it has any kind of chemicals or weird ingredients, you also need to test these things first before you release them to the public. That was a huge foundation that was laid to protect just people like you and me from the stuff that's in our kitchen or our bathroom. And it's not like somebody said, okay, next up, poison control centers. But that was kind of like the zeitgeist that was churning as poison control centers started to come along tangentially to that. All right, so the groundwork is laid. Let's take a break. And we'll come back and get going with in earnest poison control centers. I love these episodes, Chuck, where we spend a full third talking about not the thing. No, but this is all important. I know. Take it easy on yourself. I'm trying. I'm still recovering from that haymaker you threw earlier. Movie Crush. Yeah. Oh, by the way, since we don't do any kind of podcast promotion for our shows at our network, I would like to promote the Allen Ball 6ft under anniversary episode. If you were a fan of 6ft Under, I'm really proud of this episode and go check it out. It's out now. So you interviewed the Allen Ball creator? 6ft under. I know. I'm in my basement on my zoom. It's so awesome. Great. Did you say 6th anniversary? Couldn't be 6th. No, 20th. 20th. Okay. I thought you said 6th for some reason. Yeah, that's really and plus, I guess that'd be kind of a bizarre anniversary to celebrate, now that I think about it. The 6th anniversary? When does that come out? It's out. It's life. That's great. Congratulations. Thanks, man. It was a good one. All right. You were being unkind to my friend when I had to make that plug. Who? Dr. Chevalier Jackson? No, you. Emily and I always say that when we're beating ourselves up, we'll say, Be nicer to my friend. That is very sweet. All right, so 20th century is going strong. People are starting to understand, and they were making efforts to try and catalog some stuff, but it was really sort of all over the place in the early few decades. I think in the 20s, lie that you made soap with and some people still make soap with was kind of one of the big poisoners of children, because depending on what form you had it in, it could look like milk or sugar. And there was a doctor named Doctor Chevalier Kihodi Jackson who was a larynologist. That's got to be how you say it, right? Not a laryngealist. I guess so. I never said it out loud. I've always said it in my head, but I've never noticed how I say it. I think you said it. I mean, laryngologist would be what you think, but laryngeologist sounds more correct, even though it sounds funny. Laryngeologist. Yeah, it's got to be. That how many call them an ENT. Maybe it's laryngealogist or laryngealist. No, you're missing a couple of letters there. Laryngealist. Laryngealist. Yeah. There you go. Oh, goodness. It still cracks me up. Say that word for the rest of the episode. It still cracks me up after 14 years when people sweethearts right in and say, hey, you know, I'm an expert if you want to help pronunciating something. Right, exactly. Hit me up. I'll help you pronunciate all day long. Goodness. All right. What's funny is it'll be like, from a laryngealogist. I know. And we'll just never mention laryngealists again, hopefully. Unless it comes up a lot. Like our new friend Molly Binium. Yeah. Molly B. Molly B is all over. All right, so this laryngelogist was having a lot of cases of kids coming in and swallowing lie wouldn't kill you, but it would tear up your esophagus so bad that you might die because you can't eat, which is just awful. So Dr. Jackson said, we got to really do something about this lie problem, and really championed the Federal Caustic Poison Act of 1927, which basically covered I don't know if it only covered Lie, but it only covered Caustic poisons. Yeah, it was pretty narrow and pretty specific. And it basically just said, you have to put a warning symbol on right now on those specific things. But it was an early law related to the idea of household chemicals being dangerous to people and letting people know, because up to that point, the producers of Lie were like, no, we have no interest in labeling. Our product is dangerous. Why would we tell people that? In fact, a lot of them marketed the exact opposite, where, like, safe on skin, gentle, like a mountain rain, that kind of stuff. And it's like, no, it's Lie. This is like drain cleaner or oven cleaner. It's like the worst of the worst. But that law got it passed, so that helped lay the groundwork as well. And then in the 30s, there was a guy who came along named Doctor J. I mean, it's spelled arena, so maybe it's one of the two. And he was a pediatrician at Duke, and he basically said, look, this problem extends a lot more to Beyond Lie. Like, there's a lot of chemicals that are poisoning kids. I think he actually did write a thing about Lye in particular, but he was saying, like, no, this is worth cataloging. And I think he started the process. He started the whole cataloging poisonous trend that became so huge in the he wrote a book called beyond the Lie Colon. Just kidding. The subtitle is terrible. So if you want to look at the who might be the father of the Poison Control Center? Yeah, this is the guy. Not quite as awesome as being like, the Godfather of Soul or the Queen of Soul, sure, or the father of hip hop or Father Time, but if you're the father of the Poison Control Center, you've done a lot of good. And it was a pharmacist in Chicago named, I'm going to say Lewis Dolman with a silent G on the front. Does that make sense? I was going to do a shout out to our Australian listeners and say, his name is Lewis Godalman. For all I know, it is Louis Gidalman, but I'm going to say Louis Dahlman. And he was the first person to really start collecting this data, and he did it on index cards. Like I said, much of the early work, and still a lot of the work they do is categorizing and cataloging the stuff just because you got to know what card to look up if someone calls in to say they've been poisoned. And this was through the he established a hotline. Again, this was only in the Chicago area, but you could, for 24/7, basically call and get information, call assistance. He would answer the phone day or night. Yes. He basically said, I'm starting this by God, I'm going to be known as the father of something, and if it's Poison Control Center, so be it. He had his little recipe book cards, literally, and would just sit there and thumb through him and read what he thought was going on. It's amazing. He was very famous. His catchphrase was. Hold, please. Right. And then you could hear him sorting through and be like, no, that's not bad. Eventually those made it to microfiche, thank goodness. Right. So he was not just because he created these index cards and started taking calls 24 hours a day. That's not the only reason he was the father of the Poison Control Center. He actually started sounding with another guy, dr. Edward Press. The first poison control centers that were beyond like, his bedroom at three in the morning. Right. He founded, I think, eleven of them to start, and then eventually they created a trend that would be followed later where they were consolidated into a single one, which, it turns out, as far as poison control centers, is definitely way more efficient than having a bunch of different poison control centers. They had like nurses, they had doctors working there, they had people who knew what they were talking about, and they were creating like the first database, the first generalized information about poisonings, about toxicology, like really helping establish this field from taking data from real world examples that were the people who were calling in for help. So it was like a two fold thing. They were helping the people, they were helping the doctors who were helping their patients, and they were also gathering data to create kind of this foundation for understanding the effects of toxic chemicals on the human body. Yeah. And I think within five years of that Chicago system, there were 265 centers opened in the US. But again, still no sort of central database or national framework or even certification process. They were doing a lot of good work. But these first efforts were really different than today's in a couple of big ways. The biggest one is that when you call now, you are the human that has just swallowed something calling back in the day, if you were poisoned, you called your doctor, then the doctor would call the Poison Control Center and get their advice from there. And I think 1961 is when these direct calls from the public started to be introduced, which was a big super necessary change. That is a huge deal to just go straight to the Poison Control Center, because before you had to go to your doctor. And then they went to the poison control center. And apparently that's still the case in a lot of European countries. But in the United States, you can just call somebody who knows what they're talking about with poison. And that is a really big effect that poison control centers have, is they prevent unnecessary healthcare spending. Because, as we'll see, the vast majority of calls to poison control centers can be resolved at the place that's happening, whether it's work or whether it's at your house or something like that, you don't actually have to go to the hospital. So if you're not showing up to an emergency room or a doctor's office or something, that means that's time that somebody else who does need to be there can be having attention paid to them, and it's just less money spent on healthcare for you showing up. And I saw on some Massachusetts Rhode Island poison control center website, they estimated that for every dollar invested into poison control center, it saves $13 in healthcare spending and lost productivity. It's amazing. It really is. And that's a huge function that they play. You think of, like, poison control centers as basically being like, I just accidentally drank some antifreeze or something, and I need to call and get some help. But there's these other roles that are easily overlooked that are really important as well, that they play that's kind of evolved over time totally. So I mentioned the two big changes over the years, and one was that you call in and said to your doctor. The other big one was back then, in the early days, it was almost entirely centered around pediatric poisoning. And we have some stats we'll get to later. You can see why children are still the most poisoned in the population just from accidents, but they just didn't have a lot of data on adult poisoning back then. So it was really child focused, and they could help with adult poisonings. It's not like they would hang up or anything like that. But kids getting their hands on poison was kind of the big concern. Yeah. So they're starting to develop in the an important person named Leroy Edgar Bernie, who was a surgeon general of the United States in the late 50s. He got involved. He took an interest in the idea of poison control centers. Started National Poison Awareness Week. I believe. And founded the National Clearinghouse for Poison Control Centers. Which took that database idea that started out as index cards that Lewis Dolman created in his kitchen and really kind of professionalized it and made it like this big thing that everybody at all the poison control centers around the country could contribute to and making it this growing body of knowledge. And it also became something of a magnet for grants and funding and all that, because everyone recognizes this role of collecting data for toxicology is really important. And that's where a lot of the funding, especially any federal funding that poison control center might get, is kind of aimed toward yeah. And they were still, at the time, using literal carbon paper to create multiple copies of these things. I think in 74, there was a commercial toxicology data set put together finally, kind of Internet called Poison Decks. I love it. It's pretty good. Still in use today. But it was funny reading all this stuff. I don't know if there's ever been an institution that was more crying out for the Internet to be born. As far as just as we'll see with consolidation and efficiencies and sharing of information, the Internet changed everything as far as this stuff goes for the better. But poison control centers really like, when you're mailing pamphlets around the country and you're putting things together with carbon paper and index cards and even microfiche, it's like all they needed was the Internet to really make it a robust system. Yeah. And I think they added by hand. The Internet, like 50 million incidents were eventually added little by little. Yeah, it's a lot of hard work to what became known as the National Poison Data System, the NPDS, and that's still in use today. So there's a ton of information. Like, every time you call poison control and they start a case, the details of that case end up being added to the poison data system. So the database is growing every day. Should we take that second break? I think so. All right, let's take another break, and we'll flash forward to the wild seventy s and eighty s and see what was going on in the poison control centers. Okay, chuck it's the poison control centers are taking pills themselves, sometimes have to call in for help. The 80s weren't much better, and there's some other stuff going on. Yeah. So in the 70s, there with the advent of more people abusing pills, that became a larger focus of poison control centers. And the toxicology, I think, in 74 was when the prescription pill bottles and I think we talked about this in the was it in the title at all? No, because that was over the counter. Yeah. Prescription pills were in 1974 as far as child proofing, and that really made a marked difference over the next couple of decades in kids being poisoned by drugs. Yeah. Between 74 and 96, the incidence of kids dying from prescription pill poisonings decreased by 45%. So that was a really good federal law. And what's interesting is. Because of that law and because of these information campaigns that were drummed up to kind of. Like. Not just let parents know about the hazards of dangerous chemicals. But also let kids know. Too. Poisonings of children actually declined so dramatically that there was a vacuum left open. Basically free time that toxicologists and poison centers had to start investigating and better understanding adult poisoning incidents as well. So there's kind of a shift in the in that sense. Yeah. And then in the 60s, another one of my favorite things in pop culture history happened is when they decided that we're using the skull and crossbones to indicate something is poisonous. And it turns out children love pirates, so that's probably sending a mixed message. So we need to do something about this. So they mounted in Pittsburgh what's called the Mr. Yuk Yuk Campaign, and it was to get a new logo, basically, that kids would not want to go drink the product because they thought it was pirates juice or whatever, pirates rum. And they did a little thing where they got all these different logos and designs created, showed them to a bunch of kids and said, which ones do you least like? Which one of these designs is Yuck to you? And they chose a picture of Martin Scully's face. It was amazing. Well, that was quite a build up. I wish I could read out all the different faces I have on this page before I settled on Martin Scruley. Who else you got? I don't really think I can because I took them off for reasons oh, I see. Because you can't go after someone hard unless it's a guy like that. Yeah, I got you. Sure. Okay. Because I got to know. Forget about everybody else. I just need to know. No, it was actually what they called it was Mr. Jack, and it was what you see now a lot of times is that sort of sick, green emoji face that's really upset. It looks like it's kind of pukey. And kids were like, I don't like that face. So they said, Well, I guess that's what we'll start using. Then I said, Perfect. That was pretty successful, too. And then one of the other things that really kind of happened during this time, because I guess poison control centers were a bit of a victim of their own success. There was this push for consolidation. There was just so many poison control centers, and now they were working, thanks to the National Poison Data System. They were, like, working in tandem with one another. Like, they were sharing information and knowledge and that kind of stuff, but there were just too many of them. There's an unnecessary, unnecessary number. And then even more inefficiently. Despite the fact that there were 650 almost poison control centers in the United States, only about half of the American population was covered by a poison control center. Like, if you were poisoned in Topeka, say, you had to drive to Kansas City and use the phone to call a poison control center. I made that up, but I bet it's pretty close to accurate. And if those cities aren't correct, the general sentiment is, okay, everybody just lay off. And even the most robust poison control centers were getting, like, maybe ten calls a day. So that's just really inefficient. Like you said, they were sharing information. That was good. But it was ironically, sort of the lack of budgeting that led them to start it wasn't like they said, hey, let's just start shrinking the number of these centers. They were kind of forced to and then the writing was on the wall, like, there's a much more efficient way to do this because we're talking about call centers, you know? Yeah. Is there anything that Ronald Reagan couldn't do? Chuck he never won an Academy Award. I believe it have you seen any of his movies? I haven't, actually. Oh, he was not a great actor. Really? No, they weren't good, particularly. Yeah, I haven't seen any of those old Westerns. But the upshot of it well, he was also in Hellcats of the Navy. That's where he met Nancy, and that was a World War II picture. Okay. I didn't see that one either. I didn't either. I've seen bits of it. How about that? You know, I have to see the whole Ronald Reagan movie. He wasn't a great actor. But the upshot of it was that there were fewer poison control centers, and it actually panned out to be a good thing. Yes. What was surprising to me was, despite the fact that automated switching was introduced in the 70s or the invented in the 70s, introduced in the 80s, it wasn't until 2001 or 2002 that there is a single national 800 number for poison control centers in the US. We should say that number. I agree. We should mention it. That would be totally us. I actually wrote it down on the front page. It's 802-22-1222, like a TV commercial. Okay, do it. That's 1802 22122. Again, 1802 22122. We're making a joke, but that's what you're supposed to do three times. You got to do it. I think by 2002, that number had shrunk to 64 PCCs in the US. And that's when that toll free number was introduced. I'm sorry. It was in 2001, I think, that was introduced. And by that time, it went from 650 servicing half the United States to 64 servicing all of the United States. Yeah. I think it's down to 55 now. It's a lean, mean efficiency machine. Yeah. Thank you. Thanks to that national number. And so there's 55. That doesn't mean there's one in every state, and five states have two. There's actually some states that don't have any. Like I was saying, there's a shared regional poison control center between Massachusetts and Rhode Island. So there are some states that don't have their own, but everybody is served because they can call that number. It gets routed to either your closest poison control center or a poison control center whose line isn't busy right then, because what you're ingesting in San Diego is probably the same product that you would be ingesting in Burlington, Vermont. So it doesn't really matter who you talk to. They're going to also be working from the same data set, the National Poison Data system. So whoever can get to the phone, you're going to be talking to somebody who is either a doctor, most likely a nurse, or there are specialists, a poison control specialist who is basically an information person. They're not a health care provider, but they work under the auspices of, say, like a nurse or a doctor at the Poison Control Center, and they are certified and ongoing, educated in toxicology, so they know what they're talking about. Yeah. So you could go work for a poison control center if you wanted to and not go to medical school or get medical training. You would just get on the job training. I think there's a lot of pharmacists, too, to take these calls and as efficiently as they run. Maybe this is why the day to day apps are still not federally funded. No, they do get some federal funding, like through the CDC for data collection, but a lot of it comes through affiliated institutions, local health departments, like I said, a little from the CDC. And I think there was another act, the Poison Control Center Enhancement and Awareness Act provided I think they provided the funds for the number. Yeah, but they're still like, hey, you want to keep the lights on and keep it staffed. You're not getting federally funded, which is no interesting. I mean, it's working, though. So I guess maybe there's something to be said for getting the federal government out of this situation. Sure. But at the same time, it makes you wonder, like, what they could be doing if they weren't chronically underfunded. Like if they didn't have to have bake sale. True. Do contract poisonings for local mobs or ask for donations, like that stat. I got about one dollars being invested and turning into $13 saved. That was from a donation page for a poison control center. I mean, come on. Those things should be they don't have to be like bloated or anything like that, but they shouldn't be underfunded. That's just dumb. Yeah, and I think just so people don't misunderstand, I wasn't saying, like, good, the federal government funds too many things, but the fact that they are a lean, mean poison control machine, it doesn't surprise me that the federal government is involved. You know what I mean? Yeah. You're like, watch everyone as I turn into a fiscal conservative before your very eye poof. All right, what just happened? I don't know. Did you convert back? No, I'm good. That was close. All right, what happens? You call the Poison Control center, right? You're going to get that call answered, like you mentioned earlier, not necessarily by the one in Atlanta. If they're busy, they may route you to just a different one. They'll be very friendly, they'll keep you calm. Yeah, that's the impression I have. I didn't actually call one because I didn't want to scare, too, but apparently you can just to get information if you want. Sure. The first thing they're going to do, though, is route your call. If you just mistakenly called the number, because the first one you could think about after a car accident, they would say they would route you to 911 and say they'd be like, boy, you must have hit your head or something. That was dumb. You remembered. 802, 22122, two over. 911? Are you kidding me? Crazy things have happened. And also that's another thing, too. You can call 911 and they can actually route you to poison control centers. Yeah, it goes both ways, but I saw frequently they get calls from people who are suffering or think they're suffering like food poisoning. They don't handle that kind of thing, but they will make sure that you get to somebody who does. Right. So they're going to talk you through that to begin with, reroute you if they need to. They're going to start immediately providing treatment advice. If it's in a real emergency, they're going to kind of tell you what to do in the immediate minutes that you're on the phone, consult with anyone else they need to. And if you do need emergency care and we'll go over the stats here in a second. Of how many actually do, which is not as many as you would think, they will call the paramedics. They will call ahead to the local Er. They're going to say, hey, you got someone coming in. His name is Josh Clark. He drank pine salt. He thought it was apple juice. And they'll say, Josh Clarke, the podcaster. Yeah, he's pretty dumb, apparently. And they will arrange kind of for all that ahead of time. They might even order tests in the hospital. Maybe a pizza. Maybe a pizza or some other treatment. And they will even monitor and follow up on cases. Yeah, even if you're you're going to the hospital, they might coordinate you being transferred to a specialized center. They are really, like I was saying, hands on. And then even if you stay at home, if they're like, okay, this is good. You're fine. Okay, this is fine. You're overwhelmed by oven cleaner fumes or something like that. Just open the windows, go outside. It will take a few minutes, but you're probably going to be okay. I'm going to stay on the phone with you, whatever. After you get off the phone, they'll probably call you back in a half hour, an hour, something like that, to check on you, to make sure you're still doing okay. I love poison control specialists. I think they're just the bomb. You know what? Now I'm remembering. We did call Poison Control one time when my daughter was a baby. I totally forgot about this. I don't even remember what it was. It turned out to be nothing that's good. She didn't drink anything or get poisoned, but we thought something might have happened. So you call, and I remember now. This triggered it because I remember them following up almost in a child welfare sort of capacity. It felt like, did you do something? I remember getting grilled a little bit, or Emily getting grilled and us being like, man, poison control is no joke. Yeah, I'll have to ask her tonight when she gets home. But I definitely remember now that I remember the follow up part of it well and the fact that my daughter lived. I remember that part. Yeah, that part too. So if you do call and they walk you through the case and everything, like we were saying, they'll follow up and all that stuff gets logged into the National Poison Database every eight minutes across all those 55 poison control centers, all of their new information gets uploaded to the CDC wow. Where there's a team of toxicologists who are engaged in toxo surveillance, who scan all this stuff to look for signs of, say, an outbreak of disease, an outbreak of poisoning, an outbreak of a new drug of abuse that people are suddenly using. And that is one of those big unsung functions of poison control centers. They can be the group who notices something that's happening all over the country to where the individual ers. It's just one person coming in. But to these poison control centers, there's 50 people suddenly around the country who are dropping dead from heroin. Well, that's not supposed to happen. What's going on with the heroin? There was actually a case in 96, I think, where poison control centers noticed that people were showing up to Ers in the Northeast from heroin, and they figured out that somebody had added scopolamine to heroin and people were having really bad reactions to it. And it was the poison control centers who noticed that those are what are called sentinel events, which is there's a signal exactly that something is afoot, and they can help advise on how to treat it. They can contact the CDC. There's a bunch of stuff they can do. So they're like the first line of defense and monitoring, that kind of stuff. Yeah. They've also, in the last couple of decades, been more involved with helping to tackle environmental toxic exposure. So, like, after the 911 attacks, obviously, when there was so much bad stuff that first responders were breathing in the anthrax attacks that happened later on that year, stuff like that, they're more and more involved in. So they're really more and more on the front lines of sort of tackling bigger things than my podcast host partner drank some pines all, although that's up there, it tasted so bad, too. But, man, it looks like it was going to be some apple juice. Should we wind it up with some stats? Yeah, let's. Although there's one other thing I want to say. We've been touting its virtues, and for good reason, but it's not a perfect system. And that was evidenced in, I think, 2012, 2016, I cannot remember. But they kind of famously poison centers missed the rash of Tide Pod poisonings. The little kids were like, this thing looks delicious, let me eat this, and that there were poisonings as a result, but there was no code that could be entered in the National Poison Data System. So the poison centers kind of knew what was going on, but they weren't really able to share this information and basically create this. Notice that this was a sentinel event because of basically a clerical problem, a clerical issue. And I think they've since solved it, but it's still an evolving, ongoing process hammering out how to do this. But I think we were right in generally trumpeting how great the system is. Yeah, of course. Statistically, a couple of years ago in 2019, 43% of all the calls and were kids six and under, 42% were adults. So I guess that leaves, what, 80, 515 percent? Between 16? If you were under six. Most of the poisonings were one and two year olds. More boys are poisoned than girls if you're 13 and under, but more girls than boys if you're older than 13, which is sad because it indicates the spike in self harm that poison control centers see as kids enter the teenage years. And it is largely girls. It's not exactly like girls just leaving boys in the dust, but they're definitely in the majority or they're in the lead, I guess, when it comes to self harm, as far as poison control statistics go. But that's also seen in the unintentional poisonings. Like 99.2% of kids six and under their poisonings are unintentional. Sure. Adults, 60% are unintentional. With teenagers, only 33% of the poison calls that come in are unintentional. The rest are considered either self harm or it's like a drug overdose, which they're not setting out to overdose on drugs, but it's still considered intentional. And the fact that they intentionally injected themselves or snorted that thing or whatever else you do with drugs. Right. In 2019, I think a little more than 76% total were accidental. 18% total were almost 19% total were intentional. And I think 68,000 calls that you were for animals. We did mention that animals, you still want to call your vet, but if your animal ingested a toxic poison from your house, you can call a poison control center to get kind of quick information. And then I think I said earlier, Chuck, that you can just call and ask them questions and they're totally cool with that. There's a decent number of calls that come in every year from people saying, like, hey, I want to take the St. John's Wart, but my doctor prescribed me this heart medicine. Is that going to go OK with that party? Right. Those will be the people that you would call and they will give you the info that you need. And if you're looking around your house wondering what's going to do, it the top culprits for accidental poisoning at 11% to eleven and a half percent were cosmetics and personal care products. Imagine that. Well, they're so frequently left in easy to grass places. They also smell good. They taste good. 1% more than household cleaners. And I think at 9% you've got pain relief medications, algae blooms, toxic mushrooms, Sharden batteries. Those are also problematic, too, I think, though 66% of all cases are resolved at home, at least they were in 2019, so that is a pretty decent majority. What's that number again? Chuck? 180-22-2122. Yeah. You can also go to poisonhelp.org. That's the Poison control Centers website. And you can actually report online, too. Do it. There you go. Only if you have a poisoning or a good question, I guess, too. But since we said a good question, of course, everybody, that means it's time for listener mail. I'm going to call this a couple of quick corrections. This is two for your money. Okay? Hey, guys. Dr. John Vera van my physical metallurgy professor. I know this one. Yeah was from the superior Iowa State, not University of Iowa. I'm sorry. Goof that one up. We have a proud metallurgy tradition, including the purist uranium used in the original Manhattan Project experiment produced by Doctor Harvey Wilhelm. Go, Cyclones. And that's from Bren Sutton. Sorry about that, Bren. And all of these cyclones out there, I apologize. This is another one. This is from Dr. Great Art, aka Doctor Mark Staff, brandel Dosant and Associate Professor Emeritus in Switzerland. Right. Says there was much to compliment about the Art mystery show, but I have one small complaint. Caravaggio signature and the Malta falter pieces. The F is very well known and not a mystery. There are thousands of paintings by hundreds of artists with this. It is indeed it is certainly an abbreviation for Facet. The best translation would be was made by this email message. E, G is F, Mark, Staff, Brandle, wink, wink. So he says, that was really not a mystery and that was a common thing. So we did not know that. Well, thank you, Dr. Great Art, and also thank you, Bryn, for that. And also, I think I said that the KFC yum center was in Lexington. When it's in there, boy, you don't confuse those two. That's very bad. No, I'm just going to go ahead and say I've been secretly trolling everybody, that I'm well aware of all of these. Pretty big rivalry there, right? Yeah. Sorry, everyone. I'm so sorry. I probably won't be back after this. So I guess in the meantime, if you want to send us an email, send it off to stuffpodcast@iheartradio.com. Stuff you should know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts my Heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows."
http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/netstorage.discovery.com/DMC-FEEDS/MED/podcasts/2008/1228338747992hsw-sysk-extended-warranties.mp3	Extended Product Warranties: To Buy or Not to Buy?	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/extended-product-warranties-to-buy-or-not-to-buy	Statistically speaking, extended product warranties aren't generally worth the money, but there are some purchases that warrant extra insurance. Find out when it's smart to buy -- and when you should say "no thanks" -- in this HowStuffWorks podcast.	Statistically speaking, extended product warranties aren't generally worth the money, but there are some purchases that warrant extra insurance. Find out when it's smart to buy -- and when you should say "no thanks" -- in this HowStuffWorks podcast.	Thu, 11 Dec 2008 13:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2008, tm_mon=12, tm_mday=11, tm_hour=13, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=346, tm_isdst=0)	15892999	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know from housetopworkscom. Hey. Welcome to the podcast. How are you, Jack? I'm good. This is Tattoo two. We rarely do two takes, but Josh messed up so bad, we had to take two. Should we tell him what I said? No. Okay, because then we have to do take three. All right. Well, anyway, this is stuff you should know. And as Chuck just said, it's Josh here and Chuck there. And we were talking earlier about how it's getting to be that time of year again. Right. Tis the season. Time to go. Cut down a perfectly healthy tree, prop it up like some sort of corpse in the corner. Hang things on it. Yeah, exactly. Decorate it. Shuffle into the malls and turn out our pockets. Right. Buy things for your family and friends. Have the endless debate over whether or not Walmart greeters should say Happy Holidays or Merry Christmas. Right. And just basically celebrate another year past of surviving. Right. That's what we do. In my house, Christmas is all about the survival of it. Another year opening soup cans with pen knives and good stuff. Yeah. So, yeah, I guess what Chuck and I are saying, it's the holiday season. It's upon us. And clearly, the one question that always comes to mind for me is, should I or should I not buy an extended product warranty? Right. And I know a lot of times our podcasts are really interesting tidbits that you can share the water cooler. Well, no, this isn't interesting in that way, but I think a lot of people don't know whether or not to purchase them because they're faced all of a sudden at the register, and they're kind of in a panic. We're trying to help you out. Exactly. This is precisely why we're broadcasting this podcast. I never knew, and when I found out, I was happy to know, actually. Sure. Because yeah, it's become, like, this real high pressure sales pitch, and it comes, like, when you're almost out the door, and all of a sudden, oh, of course you want the extended warranty. Right. Right. I don't know. Do I? Right. It's like, do you want the apple pie? And McDonald's? Yes. All of a sudden, you're thinking, I don't want an apple pie, but I want an apple pie, but I want an apple pie. And I got to say, especially back when it was fried, I always wanted an apple pie. They're not fried anymore. No, they're baked. They're still pretty good. But, dude, compared to the fried ones yes. You can still get the fried apple pies at Checkers. By the way, can you get a warranty on the apple pie? Is what I want to know. You could maybe if you should. Probably not. Right. And that's actually one of the reasons there's no definitive answer whether you should or shouldn't get an extended warranty on a product. Sorry to break it to you. We can't just say no and we'll get into some reasons or some situations where it is a good idea to maybe opt for one or not a good idea. Right. We'll do both. But if you look at it from the law of averages across the board, it's a bad idea to buy an extended warranty. Right. Just statistically speaking, either the product you have is going to break within the first year, which is covered by the manufacturer's warranty that all items come with, right? Generally, yes. Or it's going to break after the extended warranty has lapsed. So either way, speaking just on averages, you're going to have just wasted X amount of dollars for something you never used. Right. It's really just an insurance policy, which, again, is a form of gambling. For the most part, an extended warranty is a losing bet. But there are some instances where you might want to stop and say, you know what, sales jerk, I am going to buy that extended warranty. Right. You want to give them a few? Well, I mean, first I want to throw out statman, a quick stat. Americans spend $16 billion a year on warranties. Extended warranties. Yeah. That's a lot of dough. I've got another stat for you that's going to pop your eyes out. Okay. 80% of that profit. Yeah. Only 20% of that 16 billion spent on warranties is ever shelled out in repairs or replacements. Should we just send the podcast right there? Exactly. Happy holidays, everyone. That sounds like your answer. Yeah, that's pretty much speaking by the numbers, you're a sucker if you buy an extended warranty. Right. But there are some instances where you're not a sucker. And actually, another stat for you there, Chuck. Did you know that Circuit City 100% of its operating income in 2004, as far as securities analysts were concerned, came exclusively from the sale of extended warranty? And I think something like that. They're going out of business now, so maybe that should tell you something. Well, the problem is, if you're not selling electronics, you're not going to sell an extended warranty. If you're dependent on extended warranties and, yeah, you're going to go under when the electronic sales plummet, no wonder they push it so hard at the registry. Oh, yeah. It's big time. And Best Buy, actually, I think in that same year, 50% of their operating income came from extended warranties. Yeah. I'm not allowed to go within 100ft of a Best Buy. They have everything you need. I wouldn't know. My wife won't allow it. She has a complete boycott call. You don't know what you're missing, Chuck. They have everything. It's good. But yeah, actually, Best Buy also has extended warranties on absolutely everything. There is a guy who no gal, I'm sorry, who is writing for Business Week, wrote an article on extended warranties that I came across, and she said that Best buy sells a 49 99 four year extended warranty on a Magnavox DVD player that they sell for 39 99. Wow. That doesn't make sense economically. I don't know what Adam Smith would say about it, but famous economist. Oh, I know. Okay. He's one of my heroes, as you're well aware. Right. So we got a little yeah. We could sit here all day and punch holes in extended warranties and call you a goon if you've ever purchased one. Right. To each his own, though. That's kind of our unofficial motto here at Stuff you should know. Exactly. So let's tell them sometimes when they should. Right. One reason I've got for you, Josh, is if it's a high dollar item, if you're going to spend several thousand dollars on an item like, let's say a big flat screen or something like that, it may be worth a couple of cover it a little longer. Yeah. Because you've already sold out several thousand. What's the harm? And this actually comes into play most often with rear projected TVs, which can run into several thousands of dollars. And apparently the typical rear projections TV, the bulb using the projector is rated for about 5000 hours of use. And if you buy an extended warranty, if you're an average American, you're going to watch more than 5000 hours on that TV within that three year period on TV. Man, it is. But yeah, I think just speaking on averages and statistically, you're going to watch that much in three years. Right. So when that bulb finally goes out, you'll be covered. So that is a specific instance where it's a pretty good idea to go ahead and sell out an extra $400. Right, I know. If you have a PC laptop or home PC, it might also be a good opportunity to buy one because I think there's a 37% chance that it's going to need repair within that three year period. Yeah. And actually, PCs rank at the top for needing the percentage that they'll need a repair in three years. And it's not cheap to get it fixed either. That's something else you have to consider. No. And those things usually come with tech support, which I think Apple their tech support after their manufacturers one year warranty goes away, each call goes up to like 40 or $49. And that's pretty much industry wide. They're expensive phone calls. They're dialing straight to India. So imagine exactly. Did you know that there's a McDonald's in Massachusetts where the drive through you're actually speaking to a call center in Colorado. You're kidding. No, I kid you not. They outsourced the order taking and then the people type it in on a computer screen. And then back at the Massachusetts McDonald's, your orders filled. It's mind blowing. That's what they call tangential, right? Yeah. So let's get back to times when you should get an extended warranty. Right. Cell phones you mentioned was a good one because they're easily breakable or lost. Yes. If you are absent minded, if you lose stuff a lot, you probably want to spring for some sort of extended warranty, specifically with the cell phone. A lot of extended warranties won't cover loss, theft, or accidental damage. They'll usually cover some sort of manufacturer defector if the thing died in natural death within this time. But the cellphone warranties are designed specifically for people who lose their phones. So you're going to pay, like, $5 a month extra. Right. And then you're going to be selected the deductible when you call it in. But say it's a $400 BlackBerry right. And your deductible is $125, you're still going to pay less than you would forgetting that BlackBerry. Right. So it's kind of up to you to do the math and to look at yourself in the mirror and determine if you're one of those people. Exactly. Forgets and loses and breaks. And that's our advice to you. Don't go into a store to buy a cell phone or rear projection TV or anything else without doing some homework first. Find out if it will break within that time. Or Consumer Reports Action. Yeah, exactly. That's a very helpful site, and it's actually worth the subscription, too. There's some really great information on there you can't get unless you're a subscriber. Right. So know the product, know yourself, and then when the sales guy says, oh, yes, of course you want the extended warranty, you'll know, on the spot. Yes or no. Yeah. It's good to have your army yourself ahead of time. Exactly. And you won't have to second guess yourself. Right. If you do second guess yourself and you didn't get an extended warranty, but you decide that you want one, most states actually state law says that you've got 30 days to purchase an extended warranty for that price. Right. And I believe most states also give you 30 days to cancel it after you get it. You should probably check with your state. I have no idea what State Department would concern themselves with that. Right. But I'm pretty sure if you type in extended warranties into your Secretary of State there you go. I'll bet you that's it. If you type that into your Secretary of State search bar, you're probably going to come up with something, right? Right. I would say so. Okay, so now, you know some instances when it's a good idea. When is it not a good idea, Chuck? Well, no, I would say it's a bad idea. First of all, you should look at your credit card. Most credit cards, American Express and Mastercard will automatically insure your item for an extended period of time upon purchase. The high end Visa and Mastercard is the more expensive ones they'll ensure, but I think all Amex cards insure. Yeah. Add an extended warranty on. Right. So you may be paying for something that's already covered. And another thing that we failed to mention earlier is because you're automatically covered for a year from the manufacturer. You're paying for three years. It's not three years at the end of that one year. Right. It's three years from the point of purchase. So you're actually paying for a year that's already covered anyway by the manufacturer's warranty. Right. So it's three years of scam. There it is. A three year extended warranty is actually just a two year extension exactly. On top of the warranty that you're getting. Right. You also have to pay for shipping most times both ways. So if you're going to ship your cell phone to Verizon and then back, you might be spending more money and waiting on your phone. It might be worth it just to go in and get another phone yeah. And recycle the phone that you had. So basically, I guess if we were to sum this up, we would say if you are caught on the spot and asked whether you want an extended warranty and you can't make up your mind, go with no. If you decide that you do want one, actually purchase from the manufacturer. You don't want to purchase an extended warranty from a retailer sorry. Big Box Electronic Stores. Because they basically take out insurance policies on each warranty and pocket a substantial amount of the money you've just given them. Right. The manufacturer's warranty should be a lot cheaper, and there's no middle man for you to ship to. You can just deal directly with the manufacturer. Right. Plus, you have 30 days to consider it, so don't jump on the spot. Right. This Christmas season, remember the reason for the season, knowing whether or not you should purchase an extended warranty. Right. I had a really bad experience with one recently. Let's hear it, Jeff. Well, I'll just do it quickly here. You typically never buy them because I think it's a little bit of a sucker's bet, but I bought a kind of a high end washer and dryer from a store. Can I mention our producer, Jerry Sang, shaking her head no. So we will not mention the Big Box appliance store that I bought it from. But we bought the warranty, the washer broke, and it took seven visits, seven separate visits that I had to take off time seven times from work. Wrong parts were ordered. Basically the problem was the company that they had contracted to fix it was awful. And this Big Box appliance store, their argument was, take it up with them. My argument right back to them was, since you don't give me a choice of who to use, then they are you essentially sure. Right. And they didn't see it that way. And they basically just quit returning my calls. I fixed it myself and they quit returning my calls. Wow. So what did you do? Burn the store down, anything? No. I'm going to go in and try and get my money back on the warranty at some point, but I will never shop there again. And I've tried to spread the word even though I can't do it. Yes. There you go, listeners. Now you know what store to avoid, apparently big box electronics store. If you see one with that sign hanging out front, stay away, but stick around because it's time for listener mail. Right, Chuck? That's right. Okay. So, Chuck, I get to read this one. Yeah. This one is from a guy named Alexander. This is complimentary, which makes me feel good. It is very complimentary. It was probably the highest compliment that's ever been paid to us via email, via electronic mail. Right. Alex writes to us from Edelboro, Massachusetts, and it's on How Prayer Healing Works podcast. Alex says that he likes our podcast. He appreciated it. Knowing your love for all things scientific, I thought for sure it was going to be open season on any religious topic, especially prayer healing, but the fair and even discussion of the subject really speaks to your dedication to truth and discovery. I appreciate your discipline in applying the same high standards of research to this topic, despite any of your personal opinions. That's real integrity and now have an even greater respect for your work. How's that? That's high praise, Chuck. Actually, he says that he's a Christian Scientist and he gives extra kudos to you for knowing their preferred method of treatment and how the results would be different than prayer plus medical procedure. Right. So. Way to go, Chuck. Way to go to both of us. Yeah. Made me feel good. Yeah, you should feel good, Chuck. We try and be fair and balanced. Forget Fox News. This is where it's fair and balanced. Exactly. Yeah. So if you want to let Chuck know, give him extra kudos. Let us know we're fair and balanced. Tell us that you hate us because we are against big box consumer electronic stores. Send us an email to stuffpodcast at HowStuffWorks. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstofworks.com. Brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you?"
bff1ef1b-98c4-4710-ae3e-aedd010aefaf	How Menstruation Works	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/how-menstruation-works	<p>Two dudes talking about menstruation? You bet! And there’s no way you could be any more nervous to listen than we were to record it. But give it a listen, we think you’ll find it enlightening – whether you menstruate or not.</p><p>See <a href="https://omnystudio.com/listener">omnystudio.com/listener</a> for privacy information.</p>	<p>Two dudes talking about menstruation? You bet! And there’s no way you could be any more nervous to listen than we were to record it. But give it a listen, we think you’ll find it enlightening – whether you menstruate or not.</p><p>See <a href="https://omnystudio.com/listener">omnystudio.com/listener</a> for privacy information.</p>	Thu, 28 Jul 2022 09:00:00 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2022, tm_mon=7, tm_mday=28, tm_hour=9, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=209, tm_isdst=0)	55367962	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Welcome to stuff you should know a production of iHeartRadio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's Chuck. And Jerry's here with us for oversight. And this is stuff you should should know. Just a couple of dudes talking menstruation. That's right. And it sounds totally normal when you say it like that. It sounded like the making copies guy. You sounded to me like Troy McClure. Yeah, you're right. I am. I'm definitely more right than you were. Troy McClure. That's right. That's exactly right. That was dead on, actually. You weren't even trying. Oh, I used to do Troy McClure back in the day. Yeah, that was one of my bets. Well, you still got it, buddy. Thanks. And I don't know, I think long time listeners will have picked up Chuck that we're stalling right now. New listeners might be like, what are these guys doing and talking about? I'm never listening to them again. But hang on, wait, just chill out. We do this sometimes, especially when we're taking on a topic that we're only equipped to understand as researchers. Yes, I think is a good way to put it. We are researchers. It's what we do. And anybody who researches something well and with an open mind, I think is perfectly legitimate, in a perfectly legitimate position to talk about whatever it is, carving out our territory here. I guess so, yeah. We're talking menstruation today. We are. And another bit of just upfront knowledge that we want to drop is we're going to use different terms. We're going to say girls, we're going to say women, we're going to say people who menstruate because we don't want to overlook the trans community. And even though most websites you go to will still say girls and women, we're going to just sort of interchange words here and there to cover all our bases and to be respectful of everybody. Yeah. Another one will be menstruators. Yeah, we should just say menstruators, period. Didn't even mean that. Yeah, I think that was really good to say. And it's not like I'm sure we'll fall into women girls pretty frequently. And that's not to say that we are judgy or critical of the concept of men menstruating. It's just that it's a fairly new concept to us and we're still getting used to it. So please accept our apologies in advances if we do that. And also for our younger listeners, especially the young girls who listen to our show, in addition to our Female Puberty podcast, we did male Puberty, too, right? We did both. Yeah, we did both. This is something that I think a lot of anxiety comes with. We'll go ahead and say the word monarchy, which is the first period, the first menstruation cycle that someone can undergo. We've used that before. It's one of our favorite words from the early days of the show, from, I think, the totem pole episode. I think so, because Native Americans celebrate the monarchy. Isn't that right, monarchy? That's right. But especially to those listeners, we just want you to know that we hope that you embrace this as the wonder of human biology, that it is, because it's just an amazing thing that happens. And knowing more about it, I think it's just powerful for little boys, little girls across the gender spectrum, and men and grown men and women alike. I suspect out of all those groups, grown men are the most childish about it and probably know the least about it. But we're dying off slowly but surely, and we're being replaced by way cooler, smarter, with it people. So that's cool, it'll go away eventually. But what we're talking about is menstruation, which is and again, we're going to say some stuff like four weeks is a menstrual cycle, a biological cycle. But we know that there are wide ranges of times there are people who don't menstruate at all or whose menstruation is occasional. There are all sorts of reasons for all these things. So we're using a lot of averages and average terms here. So just know that going in. But it roughly takes place every four weeks. And what is simply happening, which is amazing, is that the lining of the uterus, the endometrium, is getting ready to host an egg that is fertilized. And that thing sheds and with that shedding comes blood and become some tissue. And that's called menzies. And it starts generally with that monarchy, anywhere from twelve to 13. It ends generally at menopause somewhere around 50 to 52, 53. So that means that between the ages of twelve to 13 in the early 50s, someone will go through an average of 456 cycles or about 6.2 years of their life. Isn't that interesting? Wow. That's amazing. Nice math. Yeah, there's a lot of lifetime math I figured out. So I think even people who have had cycles, they're reaching the end of their what did you say, 436, 56? Give it 456 cycles. Maybe they're on 455 and they're like one more baby. By the way, if you're just going through monarchy, it doesn't actually work like that. I'm just teasing. Right. But my point is that I think even people who menstruate and have menstruated for years and decades don't necessarily know why women menstruate in the first place. Why would a human being menstruate? There's practical reasons which we'll get into, but evolutionarily speaking, we don't fully understand it. And the reason why we don't really understand is because so few mammals actually menstruate. There's plenty of other adaptations for getting an egg ready to be fertilized. And then what happens if the egg doesn't get fertilized? What do you do after that? But menstruation is fairly rare in the animal kingdom. Humans are one of just a handful of bright, shiny people. Yeah. They have companions and some primates, like the chimp, or the large headed capuchin, the fulvus fruit bat. Interestingly. There's a shrew, an elephant shrew. And a mouse. Did you look those up? Yeah. Oh my gosh, they're cute. And the spiny mouse, they all minstrate. But most mammals undergo something called an estro cycle. It could be a seasonal thing, which is why you have things like mating season. In the case of some other mammals, like cats, it's actually or our friend squirrels, friendly squirrels that we just talked about, for sure. It's actually brought on by the act of sex, which is really interesting and sort of makes sense last minute. Yeah. But it also makes sense. It's like let's not get into anything before it's really time. Right. So that to me makes a tremendous amount of sense. And the reason that there would be any kind of cycle at all, whether it's an estro cycle or a menstrual cycle, is because there's a really high energetic and metabolic cost to keeping the uterus prepared to host a fertilized egg. And that if you're an animal that constantly has a uterus ready to accept an egg, you're going to expend way more energy, way more of your metabolism keeping that uterus fluffy, as they say sometimes, and ready for an egg, a fertilized egg, then an animal who just does it once in a while or when it's triggered by sex. So evolutionarily speaking, it makes sense for it to be seasonal or activated by sex or even a monthly thing. Yeah. And that's something I never thought about. I never stopped and thought, well, why can't you just get pregnant any time, evolutionarily speaking? Because that would seem like a big time advantage if you're trying to put people out if you're tucked up and you're trying to help put people out there in the world. Right. But it does make a lot of sense and they've seen evidence in this. Like if someone in a developing nation maybe have extreme nutritional deficiencies, they may not menstruate at all because their body extends that drastic of, I guess just a workload on the body. That's one of the things that can get rid of if you're malnourished. Yeah, malnourished. It also pops up in the lead athletes because they are exercising so much and also usually have such a small amount of body fat. So there's like I guess your body does like a body check every month and it's like, okay, are we equipped to do this? And if not, okay, we'll just skip it. If so, let's go through it. Yeah. And the really interesting thing is we were talking about some of the mammals that go through the estracycle. They don't actually bleed. They don't have an external shedding process. They reabsorb it and it is literally digested in the body by enzymes that are there just to do that. So that question is still there. Like why would evolutionarily speaking, why would the menstruation process to where you literally shed that lining out of your body take place and they're not really sure why no, but there's theories. One of the predominant ones up until the 1990s. And after I say this, you'll be like, you mean the 1890s? And I'll say it again no, the 1990s. They used to think that the purpose of menstruation was to wash the uterus out of pathogens that might have been introduced by semen during sex. Until the 1990s, that's what they thought that menstruation was for. And then finally, somebody was like, let me study this. And they did. They conducted a study where they tested bacterial loads of different phases from a woman's uterus and found that, no, that's actually not the case at all. So that one finally got discarded. It did. And whoever proposed it to begin with, they're like, sure, yeah, man, I got a nirvana show I'm trying to get to. Sounds good to me. Nirvana. This is the 99. That was kind of a dud. I'm sorry. I tried to bring forth a chuckle, a laugh or something. I can't do it like you. That's okay. The other thing they thought might at least be related to this is maybe the size of the animal or the size of the uterus in relation to the size of the animal. But there's such a large range of uterine size in the animal kingdom that dominstrate that they basically kind of toss that out as well. Yeah. And the reason why that was a theory because you're like elephant shrew. Spiny mouth. What kind of stupid theory is that? We've just very recently discovered that other animals meant straight. We didn't know that at all. So that's why that theory was so long standing. And then also, they think maybe it has to do with the way the endometrium forms or the fact that some animals carry their young and placenta. Those are still the juries out on them. But, yeah, we don't really have any idea of what menstruation is actually for. We know what it does, but how did it come along? And so it remains a beautiful mystery of the springtime of womanhood. All right, should we take a break and get into the nitty gritty? Yes. All right. We'll be right back after this with details on menstruation. Chuck no one can see me right now, but I'm holding each elbow very tightly, and I didn't realize I was even doing it. I'm really anxious right now. We got this. We shouldn't get nervous about this stuff. Every time we tackle something like this, we always get great support and say, you guys do what you do, which is research something. And it's not like we're not serial killers yet. We've talked about them. I would say that almost all the things we talk about, we don't have experience with. No, definitely. I'm not really anxious about that. What I'm anxious about is screwing it up, giving a 13 year old some bad information, or making it harder to understand them before I just want to be helpful with it. And I'm anxious about not being as helpful as we could be. That's what I'm worried about. No, I'm totally with you. And I think this nitty gritty part is straight ahead. Science pretty easy, so let's do it. Yes. But we have to say so Ed helped us with this one. Ed doesn't mean straight either, but he's a really good researcher, too. And our hats off for really kind of diving into this and wrapping his head around it. But he points out something that is not commonly seen. But I researched it and I guess the more clinical and medical you go, the deeper into it, the more it becomes apparent that the menstrual cycle is actually what we think of the menstrual cycle is actually a couple of different cycles. And Ed did the clinical way and really broke it out into these two different cycles that are happening simultaneously into the same end. Right. So we're talking about the ovarian cycle in the menstrual cycle. Right. And like I said, generally, like, when you think about, you know, a period or something, you think about a week or so in someone's life, but it's a four week cycle and each part is triggered by the release of hormones and it's sort of always going on. And these two different cycles are sort of working with each other to get ready to have a baby, basically. Yeah. And an easy way to remember it or think about it that I kind of stumbled upon is that the menstrual cycle gets the uterus ready for an egg and the ovulation cycle gets the egg ready for the uterus. What a beautiful dance. Thank you. You know, I wasn't crediting you of that. I was crediting biology and nature, but sure. Well, I consider myself God. I created all of it. So in this case, we're going to describe it. And I think Ed does a good job of where he places us in the cycle as a listener, or in this case, as readers. But we're going to start at the midpoint of the cycle, right after the period has stopped. And at this point, like we said, that the uterus, the lining has been shed. That would mean it's at its thinnest point at that point. And this is the beginning of what is known as the proliferative phase. Yeah, the proliferative phase of the menstrual cycle. The big star of that is a hormone called estratiol, which says, hey, endometrium get a little thicker, double in size. How about we build some new arteries and blood vessels called spiral arteries to bring blood to all this new tissue that's being developed, new structures are being built. The cervical mucus. Take a break normally, kind of, yeah, or chill out, I think is the way to put it. The cervical mucus usually has a PH of 2.8 to 4.5 or 3.8 to 4.5, which is very acidic. And the PH raises more toward neutral like around seven during this time, which makes the uterus much more hospitable to sperm. Because sperm thrive in about a seven PH, they would die very quickly in the normal acidity of the uterus. So this is the process. It's like the very beginning of the phase of prepping the uterus for an egg, if it happens. That's right. And while this is happening, the ovarian cycle kicks in with the follicular phase. There are two ovaries and they have hundreds and hundreds of thousands of eggs within these little sacks called follicles. And the hormones control all this, like we said. So in this case, it's a follicle stimulating hormone, is going to allow a few follicles to mature and eventually most of them will die off. And then there will be one follicle left that's in to rule them all. That's right. One to rule them all. And this lasts about ten to 14 days. It's a little bit pre. The proliferative man. That's such a hard word for me. Proliferative phase, the menstrual cycle, and that's also about ten to 14 days. So as you can see, it's all sort of kind of syncing up. Yeah, I saw the follicular phase actually begins on day one of the menstrual phase, so it has a couple up to maybe five or so days head start on the proliferative phase. But the two work in conjunction, right. Eggs start to get ready, the endometrium, or the uterus is starting to get ready too. That's right. Now we move on to two more fun phases with fun names. The luteal phase, in the case of the ovarian cycle, and then the secretary, or secretory phase, I would say secretory. Me too. And that's part of the menstrual cycle. Yeah. And they call the secretory phase that because no, there's a lot of secretions going on. That's right. And this is when, like those initial preparations that were begun in the proliferatory phase. Proliferative phase, all those preparations that were like the very basic structure of the endometrium that was being developed really starts to fill out. And I said the womb is frequently referred to as being fluffy at this time, it's maybe doubled in size. It's much more hospitable through an egg. And then the reason it's called the secretory phase is the chemicals that are being secreted are all sorts of, like, proteins and hormones and other things that will sustain carbohydrates, too, that will sustain an egg. If a fertilized egg shows up in your uterus, all sorts of secretions are being fed into your endometrium so that the egg will be nourished as it grows into a little bouncing baby. That's right. Back to the luteal phase. At this point, the follicle is going to rupture, and this is called ovulation. It's when the egg is released and the egg travels down that fallopian tube toward the uterus. And if it becomes fertilized, ideally, if everything goes right in the wide end of the fallopian tube where it meets the uterus. You can also undergo what's called an eptopic pregnancy. That's when it implants on the outside of the uterus. Emily and I went through one of these with one of our miscarriages that leads to a miscarriage. It's very sad thing, but also quite common. At some point, we should probably do a whole episode on miscarriages because that is something that people don't talk nearly enough about. Yeah, and it happens like 25% of the time, and it's just not the sort of thing that people bring up with one another. But once it is brought up among friends and family, more people start saying, oh, yeah, I had one, I had two. Yeah, I had three. Definitely. Sure. And it's all very sad stuff, so we'll cover that at some point, but I wouldn't have the daughter I have now had. Our life not taking us in that direction, so I can't imagine things any other way. It's like Garth Brooks said, chuck, some of God's greatest gifts are unanswered prayers. You sure that wasn't Chris Gaines? Chris Gaines covered that cardboard song. Even a head spinning dose of postmodern irony. But at this point, if everything is going well, you have the egg again at the wide end of the fallopian tube. Yeah, so that's where it's fertilized. If it's fertilized, it goes poop and falls into the uterus, where it sticks to the endometrium and gets secreted all over and nourished and fed with lots of carbohydrates and proteins and there's hormones going berserk and the pregnancy begins. That's if the egg is successfully fertilized. And we should say that ovulation phase is the shortest phase of this whole cycle. It lasts only 24 hours. That's how long you have for your egg to become fertilized into a blastocyst is what they call it. It's a very unromantic name for a fertilized egg. But that's that. So you've got 24 hours. And if that doesn't happen, the luteal phase keeps going. So you've got that Follicle that the egg came out of that turns into like this kind of conductor that's conducting the symphony that's going on in your uterus that's making it just more and more hospitable for a fertilized egg if it shows up. So the egg has 24 hours, but the luteal phase keeps going on well beyond that 24 hours. It doesn't know immediately that the fertilized egg isn't coming, so it keeps preparing for it as if it's going to for many days. I think something like a week and a half the luteal phase lasts, and then eventually they realize that the fertilized egg isn't going to show up. And so that follicle. That's a conductor that's putting out progesterone suddenly just stops putting out progesterone, and all of a sudden you have a huge imbalance between your progesterone levels and your estrogen levels, and it can make you extraordinarily irritable, sad, anxious, and a bunch of other stuff. Just a few days before your actual period starts. And that's what they call premenstrual syndrome, aka PMS. That's right. It is a very normal thing to happen. This is something that we could probably get a whole episode out of this. It can be very severe in some cases and be very disruptive in some cases. When that is the case, it's called pre menstrual dysphoric disorder. And it's funny, Emily and I were talking about menstruation because I was researching this and she just got back from the doctor and they told her flaxseed can really age with PMS symptoms. Oh, yeah. And it's like, here we are, she's cruising up towards 50 years old and it's just learning this stuff about flaxseed. So there's always room to learn, I guess, is what I'm saying. You said that the progesterone and estrogen are going to cease to be produced at this point. But what does happen is a substance called prostaglandin is going to come along and it's going to constrict all those spiral arteries that made those connections to get ready for their big scene. And that's going to cause them to tear themselves apart. And basically you're not going to get the blood flow to the endometrium that you had going on. So it's going to start breaking down away from the uterine wall. And so that is the menzies. That is the menstruation. And that's what's happening, is those blood vessels, that's where the blood comes from. Right. And then the tissue is your actual endometrium, the lining of your uterus that was built up into like this fluffy fertilized egg loving habitat that's no longer needed because the fertilized egg never showed up. So you got to get it out somewhere. And again, animals that go through estrous, they reabsorb this, animals that. Menstruate get rid of it, they discharge it. And the reason why is because if you didn't, that stuff would build up awfully quick over the course of even just the first year, you started to have periods. And also, as we'll see, it could cause you a whole host of health problems. So it's actually really good and really smart, evolutionarily speaking, and biologically speaking, to have the menstruation phase of the menstrual cycle. And one of the things with that endometrium that I saw, Chuck, it can come out almost intact as a whole. It can come out in the shape of the uterus. Like the whole lining just comes out in one chunk. It's very rare. But if you go look on the Internet, it's actually a real thing. They're called decidual cast. Like a cast of something, not a cast of like a play, a cast of like you'd make of a statue. All right, that's it in a nutshell, right? Yeah. I would say even more than a nutshell like that's. Several nutshells worth acorn squash shell. Yeah, I think that's good. But we should say that you wouldn't need an acorn squash shell to hold all of the blood that comes out because typically when you go through the menstrual phase of the menstruation phase of the menstrual cycle, what you call your period, usually it only results in about five or six tablespoons of blood over the course of like, five to seven days. That's right. But it can come at inconvenient times. People can be caught off guard and we'll talk about all that stuff. But first, let's get into some of the disorders and problems that can happen with the menstrual cycle, because it can be a very finicky thing. If you are someone who has just a super regular, very straightforward menstrual cycle, then you should count yourself lucky, because it can go in all sorts of different ways. There's one way it can go called dysmenorrhea, and these are cramps. Basically, there are changes to the uterus that can cause these muscle contractions. And that cramping is very normal. And I think most people, humanstrate have some amount of cramping generally, but it can get really severe and also, as with other things, very disabling and disruptive. Right. There's also amenaria, which is where you just don't menstruate when you should be menstruating, at least biologically speaking. Right. So they say that there are two kinds. Primary amenaria is after a girl who has turned age 15 still hasn't had her first period. That's primary menara. And then a woman who has had periods regularly before, and then all of a sudden, Mrs. Three of them, and we should say, who is also not pregnant at the time. That would be secondary menara. And both of them are nothing necessarily to be super scared about or anything, but they're probably something you would want to go talk to your gynecologist about. One other thing. Well, a bunch of other things that can cause a menara, too. Like I said, elite athletes get it from too much exercise and not enough body fat. You can be malnourished for whatever reason, or maybe have an eating disorder that causes you malnourishment. Stress can do it. Your doctor might say, I think you're sniffing too much cocaine. That can definitely bring on a menaria. There's a lot of lifestyle changes that you can make that are probably fairly easy that would bring your period back again, if you want that kind of thing. Right. And we'll talk about it. But birth control pills, sometimes people get on birth control pills to regulate their period, and it really has less to do with getting pregnant or not. Yeah. So what else is there? Menarasia? Is that what you're going menarashiya? I heard I've looked it up, but again, with these pronunciations, sometimes you'll get three different ones. So it's kind of frustrating. But I saw or heard rather minor AIA. Okay, I'm going to go with minora gia. Well, this is essentially heavy flow, right? Yes. And again, usually you're looking at, what, three to five tablespoons of blood that comes out, again, over the course of five to seven days on average. That is not there are plenty of people who menstruate out there who are like, yeah, like quadruple that or whatever, they're people who have heavy bleeding and either they bleed for longer, like, beyond seven days is considered menarasia, or if you apparently soak five sanitary products a day, or you soak two or more in 2 hours, you definitely have mental Asia. And the two or more in 2 hours actually means you want to go to the emergency room because you're losing blood, don't forget. And there's all sorts of things that can happen when your blood levels drop, like iron deficiencies, like anemia all sorts of terrible stuff. So you want to go to the, er if you're bleeding that often or that much. Yeah, you're probably passing more clots as well. And you're probably also going to be having much more severe cramps if you're undergoing mineralgia. Sounds no fun. It does sound no fun. And I guess we should talk about dealing with periods. I mean, that's all part of it, right? Or should we take a break and do that? Yeah, say we take a break, Chuck, and we come back all fists and elbows, talking about dealing with periods. All right, let's do it. All right, we talked a little bit. I talked a little bit in the beginning about just getting past monarchy can be very anxiety inducing. Getting into the world of menstruation, for someone at the age of 13 or so, can be very anxiety inducing. But again, it's a wonder of nature. It's not unusual, it's not gross, it's not weird. At the same time, it is blood coming out of your body. So it's something that you want to take care of. I read that, god, I can't remember the statistic, that the amount of ruined underwear that a person goes through in their lifetime administration and just the simple cost of that. So if for no other reason than that, and health and sanitation, it's something that you're going to want to take care of with what's called a sanitary product. Yeah. And from what I can tell, the desire and the drive to use sanitary products is almost innate to where it's like you said, there's nothing to be ashamed of. But at the same time, you will want to use the sanitary products. So much so that I've seen it described as a human right. Access to sanitary products for menstruation is considered a human right. Everyone should have it, because if you don't have access to them, it can induce so many hits to your wellbeing, like, anxiety hits to your social life. Like, you might stay home from work. You just don't want to leave your house or interact with people. You just don't feel comfortable doing that because you have no protection between your period and the rest of the world, which is one of the big points, one of the main points of sanitary products in. The first place. Yeah. I mean, it's an evolutionary thing. If you see your body bleeding, you either want to stop the bleeding or if you can't, you are going to be wiping it off your arm or your leg or wherever it's coming out. Right, exactly. And nobody wants that. And most of all, the person who's menstruating that's. Right. There are many different ways to deal with this. I think most people sort of probably experiment around until they find something they like or can at least tolerate. I think the word like is probably not the right word to use there. I don't know. I think so. There's definitely like a fit to it. I think that you can feel reassured by it, maybe. Yeah. I mean, absolutely in that kind of way. But I don't think any of them are any kind of picnic to deal with. Okay, I agree. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, I do. The one that you tolerate best and that you deal with the best I think is probably what you're going to end up going with after you kind of try different things out. One of them is a menstrual cloth. This is sort of the nondisposable diaper of the sanitary product world in that it is fabric that is washed and rewashed and reused. Again, you're probably not going to see this used very often in developed nations. It's mainly in places that are poverty stricken or in an emergency, or if there's like a refugee crisis going on. Right. If you take that menstrual cloth and you add wings to it so that it stays fast into the underwear, what you have is a reusable pad, basically. And with both of them you can actually remove them after they become saturated, wash them out really well and then reuse them so they're reusable. And because they're reusable, reusable pads in particular are starting to see an uptick in use in countries like the United States. Because environmentally speaking, they're way preferable to things like disposable pads and tampon. You also have the disposable pad and the tampon. These are the two, I think the two still the two most common used in the US. Far and away. A pad is going to have some absorbent material. There's going to be some plastics in there. There'll be an adhesive to hold it in place in the underwear. These, like I said, are disposable along with the tampon, which is a cylinder. It's also absorbent. This is inserted into the vagina and it's going to soak up that menstrual blood on the inside before it actually leaves the body. And again, obviously disposable. And we'll talk about toxic shock syndrome in 1 second. But I did a little calculating, or actually I went to websites that did the calculating for me to get it wrong. And I was just wondering about costs. Like we hear about the pink tax, isn't that what it's called? Yes. Which is just sort of the amount of money that women pay over their lifetime for stuff like this and other things that men don't have to pay for. And I think that they said for tampons, you're looking at close to $2,000 for a lifetime. Pads, about $4,700 for a lifetime. Far and away the best deal going is the menstrual cup. This is sort of like a bell shaped cup that's flexible. It's usually like silicone. And this is reusable. It's washed through. And I think you're supposed to boil it, like, once a month. You're still not going to use that one for your whole life, but they say about $80 maybe over your life. And there are also menstrual discs and the difference between a menstrual disc and I think that they're newer than menstrual cups, if I'm not mistaken. But a cup sits in the vagina below the cervix and extends into the canal. It depends on the brand, of course, but the disc fits back into the vaginal forenix, which is where your cervical canal meets your cervix. Thankyouhealthline.com for that direct quote. Very nice. Menstrual cups. They're usually made of, like, silicone. And yeah, I saw that you use them for about two years before you need to get another one. They're also considered fairly green, especially compared to pads and tampons. But like you said, pads and tampons remain far and away the most popular sanitary products in the United States. So much so, Chuck, that in the same paragraph, I saw that 62% of Americans use pads, while 42% used tampons, which means that there's 104% Americans out there who men straight in the same paragraph. It wasn't from two different sources either. It's weird. The other thing I did want to mention I found was interesting is we didn't get into too much history here, but apparently in ancient Rome, they use wool. In Africa, they rolled up grasses, sort of like a tampon, and they used to tell about Hawaii ferns. Isn't that beautiful in a way? I think so, yeah. It sounds like I would hope it's very pleasant and not like not pleasant, but yeah, ferns, I saw that, too. I wouldn't think they'd be very absorbent, but I guess I don't know. I guess it's better than nothing. Who knows? Sure. There's also hormonal birth control or the birth control pill, which we did an entire episode on a while back. And you can actually prevent menstruation on birth control pills if you don't eat the sugar pills or placebo pills that fill up the week at the end of the pill pack. If you just jump right into your next birth control pill immediately, you won't menstruate. And the reason why is because those hormonal pills keep your estrogen levels nice and even. So there's no spike. And if there's no spike in estrogen levels, there's no signal to trigger the follicular phase or the luteal phase, because both of those phases, which are really important in dropping an egg are triggered by estrogen. So if there's no estrogen spike, there's no egg that's going to come out of the Follicles. Very interesting. Yes, I'm sure we talked about that in birth control, right? I'm sure we had to too. Yeah. But apparently they've decided now, once and for all, that if you're not trying to get pregnant, you could just stay on birth control constantly and never have a period if you didn't want to. And from everything gynecologists and biologists can tell, there's not really any ill effects that come out of that. Interesting. Supposedly safe to just do well. A minute ago we mentioned toxic shock syndrome with a promise to go back to it. And this is something that can happen if you leave a Tampon in too long. It is a pretty rough bacterial infection, and it can include dizziness, vomiting, diarrhea, it can include organ failure and death. And it is a very specific toxic staff bacteria that can really grow and flourish in the fibers of a Tampon. And this has led a lot of people, especially in politics, women in Congress, to say, hey, you know what? These Tampons all have these proprietary constructions and what goes into a tampon? And we need to know, like, there needs to be more transparency here of what is in these things. I mean, it's generally thought to be like cotton and rayon and, quote, synthetic fibers. But like I said, each one is proprietary, so they don't release the ingredients. And these bills just repeatedly die on the floor and just spend years and years and still haven't gotten through, I don't think. Right. No, that's absolutely the case. Supposedly in response, like, the pads and tampon makers have started to release more information about what goes into their products on their websites, but they also still point to the FDA. A lot of people don't realize this, but Tampons are regulated as a medical device in the United States, which means the FDA supposedly tests them, verifies their safety and make sure that the stuff that's being sold in the US. Is fully safe. Again, ostensibly we've done plenty of episodes about how the FDA has dropped the ball here or there, but there is still kind of this ongoing struggle to find out exactly what is in tampons and pads. But yeah, again, the FDA regulates Tampons, at least, so I find that curious. It is curious. I think the reason why they got into a Chuck was from that toxic shock syndrome and realizing that that staff can grow on the fibers of the Tampon. And I think that's when the FDA got involved and started claiming domain over Tampons in particular. Interesting. And then Chuck, we talked about all these different sanitary products again, which is what they're called, and even if you use them, there can be times where they just malfunction or don't work or it wasn't in right or however you want to put it. And accidents happen. And I think if you are a teenager in high school and this happens to you, you probably feel that your life is over. And I just want to take a moment to assure you that as embarrassing as it probably is for you, your life is not over. Eventually it's going to become something that you laugh about, make fun of, and you will get past. So please don't let that don't feel like that's going to frame the rest of your life, even though it does feel like it now, of course. And that kind of leads us to just sort of the culture around it, period. Not only here in the United States, but worldwide, because in some countries, it's really awful how menstruation is treated and how people can be ostracized for menstruating, or even if they might be menstruating. I think Ed points out that the Khoi, the Koi people, they eat their meals separated by gender just in case someone might be menstruating. Yeah. Those are the people from the gods. Must be crazy. From the Calahari. Yeah. So that's a really good example of a very ingrained social taboo against menstruation that you find in undeveloped or less developed cultures. And those of us in the west tend to be like that's, so undeveloped. Of course, there's a weird social taboo, but we should not judge so fast, because it was not very long ago that Europe had its own well ingrained social taboos against menstruation as well. Right, yeah. I mean, we're talking late 1800s, which is not that long ago. France, which you would think is a very advanced country, they barred women who are menstruating from working at food production jobs. Like, if you are a winemaker, you had to take off and not work and therefore not get paid when you are menstruating. And as late as the 80, 90s in Britain, even, there were doctors that refused to perform surgeries on women who are menstruating. Right. There's, like, reasons behind this. I think part of it is just simple misogyny, just a way to keep women feeling ashamed, feeling controlled by society. I think that's a big part of it. And then also, definitely tied into it is the idea I mean, there's blood, and humans are just hardwired to not be comfortable at the site of blood or want to go toward it or anything like that. So I think those combined probably at least partially explain where some of these social taboos came from and how they've remained for so long. Yeah. And there are some countries that actually celebrate it. We did talk about the monarchy being celebrated in certain Native American cultures. There are other countries where they really take care of women who are menstruating. Whether it's like in Ghana, menstruating women have an umbrella that they sit under and little tints that they sit under, so they can at least be in the shade when they're having their period. And you found another country, too, that did something similar, right? Well, it was a Native American indigenous group, the Ojibwe. Okay. And they consider women who are menstruating actually on their period, in that phase of their menstrual cycle, as being spiritually powerful. Like, this is a time where they might have visions, where they usually use it to self reflect or to learn from elders. And they actually would seclude women who are menstruating on their period. They would put them in, like, these little houses that were purpose built for it. But it wasn't to be like, Get away from us. It was like, you're in a really significant place right now, and you should go use this time to, again, reflect on yourself, reflect on what you're learning from your elders and just basically making the most out of this spiritually powerful few days out of this month. Yeah, it's great hearing those stories. There are far too many places where it is the opposite. There's a term we should talk about briefly called period poverty. These are cultural barriers, political barriers, economic barriers to sanitary products, to services, to education. And they affect everything. Everything from hygiene to your job, to your health, to your education and going to school. And it's a problem in the world. And there are all kinds of great organizations that if you want to help provide menstrual products to people in need, there are some great charities out there doing it. Just Google that, like, menstrual product charity. And there are many of them. There's one called Freedom for the Number Four Girls, but there are lots of them, and you should just check them out if that's something that you feel like is worthwhile. Because it is. Yeah. I mean, it's a really easy thing to overlook in the United States or Canada, Australia, the UK. And then it's especially easy to overlook in those countries as a man. Like, you just don't think about that kind of thing. But even in those countries, people do experience period poverty. So, I mean, it's not like you're just helping people in less developed nations. You're helping people in your own country, too, who don't have access to it. And again, that access to sanitary products is considered a human right or it's becoming more and more considered a human right. Absolutely. Should we close with some menstrual myths? Yes. This is fun. It is fun. This is a myth that I heard so much in my life I assumed it was true, which is that women, if they hang out a lot together, like in an office or a small business or in a dorm or a sorority house, that they will sync up. It can be called Minstrel Synchrony or the McClintock Effect, which is named after who is to blame for this, which is by Martha McClintock about women in a college dorm. That was published in Nature magazine. And it got a lot of attention, and I think people still think that women can sync up, and that just has proved not to be the case. It's been debunked over and over, and they found a lot of problems with the initial study. So I saw a couple of things. I thought that was discredited and debunked, and I also saw that it remains unproven. And apparently Mcclintockson's initial study left a lot to be desired. So her methodology was not really great, so the whole thing couldn't be reproduced using her exact methodology. But apparently, anecdotally speaking, it's so prevalent that people just refuse to believe it just doesn't exist and say, we just haven't figured out how to prove it yet. Well, what I saw and again, maybe the jury is still out, but what I saw was that the variability of the menstrual cycle among people who menstruate and the days that it can change and get thrown out of sync and it can last longer or be shorter, then that overlap is what accounts for people thinking that they're syncing up. I see. But who knows? I think maybe the jury is still out, but we can definitely say that no one proved that women sync up. That's fun, right? Let's both say that, yeah. What other myths are out there? We've got some good ones. Chuck, this is one that I didn't realize either. The idea that you can't get pregnant on your period, news flash, you totally can. Yeah. And then really take that to heart. You can get pregnant in your period. And the reason why is, if you'll remember back to what we were talking about when we kind of were doing the nitty gritty of the menstrual and ovulation cycles, they kind of overlap. So that Follicular cycle starts when you start your period. And if you have a short Follicular cycle, you might drop an egg pretty shortly after you stop your period. That's fine and dandy. The problem is sperm is viable for up to five days in the human body, in a woman's body. So if you drop an egg and there's sperm that's hanging out on day five, it can fertilize the egg even though you're still on your period. You had sex while you were on your period. That's right. So again, you can get pregnant on your period. Very important if you're just getting started in your sexual life to understand this, or at any time in your life. Yeah, I was going to say or you don't want a big surprise in your midlife. Right. What about sharks and bears? Despite what Steve Carell said in Anchorman, which is one of the very funny scenes, it really is. Apparently some people think that's true. And what's weird is there was a 1988 study that was conducted that the National Park Service hosts on their website or mentions on their website that said that it's entirely possible that a period could attract bears because bears have such an amazing sense of smell. But that they would not be any more attracted to that odor than any other odor that might attract them. So it's not like you're just guaranteed to be attacked by a bear if you go into the woods while you're menstruating. Right? Like the bear smells, it might as well be an uneaten Hot Pocket to a bear. That's the equivalent of menstruating as far as bears are concerned. Did you see the part about polar bears, though? No. They did. This is on the same NPS site. They did an actual study. And it seems that, or at least in the study, polar bears actually were specifically attracted to menstrual blood. Oh, my God. So we not only didn't bust the myth, we actually supported a myth. Well, they said grizzlies and black bears, they did test where they had like, tampons and stuff out with other things, and the grizzly bears and black bears didn't really care, but the polar bears did. And I don't know how foolproof that study is, but they basically said the jury is still out on polar bears. And polar bears are just super aggressive anyway. They're one of the only animals that will stalk a human, I think polar bears, lions, and I think there's one more so that it may be due to that, but jury still out on that. I think sharks is a definite no, right? Yeah. From what I saw, from what our friends at you by Cotec say, it's definitely no. That's where that one came from. Yeah. Goodness. Just a couple more things to button up before we go. We definitely didn't want to scare you about toxic shock syndrome. It's actually exceedingly rare. I think there's something about like 50 to 80 cases a year. And you can stay on top of it by staying on top of changing your tampon regularly, I think no longer than 8 hours. And then also don't use one that's more absorbent than you need because again, they proliferate on the fibers. So more fibers means more chance for that bacteria to proliferate and create those toxins. That's one. And then also one other thing. Even if you're not worried about getting pregnant on your period, you can still catch sexually transmitted diseases on your period. So you should be wearing a condom in that case anyway. That's right. Good job, buddy. Thank you. Good job to you. There's also a tampon shortage going on right now. Chuck, did you see that? I did. There's a lot of things that there's a shortage of right now, so that's obviously worrisome, especially with these organizations that try to send these to places where they really need them. Yeah, for sure. But there's a few shortages that can be attributed to Amy Schumer. And this one has been, at least in part there's a big Tampax ad campaign featuring Amy Schumer that Tampax said was so colossally impactful and sales went up so high that they blame part of the tampon shortage on that ad campaign. I'd buy anything Amy Schumer told me to buy. I love her. Sure, she's America's greatest national treasure. She's one of them. She's better than the Declaration of Independence and Abe Lincoln's hat rolled together, which is what some people used as tampons during the Civil War. That's right. Nice. You got anything else? I got nothing else. All right, Chuck. Way to go, buddy. We did it. And since I just said that, it's time for listener mail. We had our drowning episode run on our Saturday Selects recently, and got a lot of people writing in again about that. And this is a water safety PSA from someone who worked as a lifeguard. Her name is Ellifeinberg. And Ellis has a couple of things, one of which is water wings are not safe parents. And these are the things that parents put their little kids in that goes around their chest and then their arms. They're called floaties. They put their little tiny arms through there. Sure, many parents think they're legit floatation devices. I don't blame them. But they don't secure under their arms very well. And there is a very real risk that if a kid goes under the water, wings will float up to their wrists and not do anything to keep their actual head above water. And news flash you can't breathe if your hands are above the water. That's the second news flash of this episode. If only your hands are above water. And here's another news flash. Ellis says something you didn't mention is if you are not a strong swimmer and you don't have a flotation device with you, do not help someone who is drowning. And it fights probably most people's instinct. But you see stories all the time about two people drowning instead of one person drowning, or maybe causing that person to even drown quicker because you're not a good swimmer. But Ella says, just reiterates a few different times, just do not attempt to rescue a drowning victim. If you can't swim very well yourself, call your local emergency number, wait for someone, go screaming for help, and fight that instinct. And that is from Ella Feinberg former lifeguard. Nice. Thanks a lot, Ella. I think you really did some good work here, and we appreciate you and hello to your husband, because they listen together. Nice. Well, if you want to be like Ella and share some really great, important information, we would love to share it with everybody else. You can share it with us via email at stuffpodcast@iheartradio.com. Stuff you should know is a production of iHeartRadio Podcasts, my Heart Radio. Visit the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows."
https://podcasts.howstuf…aerosol-cans.mp3	How Aerosol Cans Work	https://omny.fm/shows/stuff-you-should-know-1/how-aerosol-cans-work	In the 87 years since they were invented aerosol cans have protected soldiers, temporarily fixed flat tires, killed a boy who used too much deodorant and had their contents banned by most countries for wrecking the ozone layer. Tune in to learn more.	In the 87 years since they were invented aerosol cans have protected soldiers, temporarily fixed flat tires, killed a boy who used too much deodorant and had their contents banned by most countries for wrecking the ozone layer. Tune in to learn more.	Thu, 16 May 2013 15:24:31 +0000	time.struct_time(tm_year=2013, tm_mon=5, tm_mday=16, tm_hour=15, tm_min=24, tm_sec=31, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=136, tm_isdst=0)	22722423	audio/mpeg	https://chtbl.com/track/…3c7-ae270180c33e	"Hey, everybody. I don't know about you, but I am excited that it's summer, school's out, the sun is shining, and best of all, there's downtime four days. That's where true crime podcasts on Amazon music come in. They're the perfect activity for last minute road trips, long walks, or you're brave enough late nights. With so many killer shows like Morbid, My Favorite Murder, and Small Town Murder, you'll never be bored to death again. So download the free Amazon Music app to start listening to all your favorite true crime podcasts. Plus, with Amazon Music, you can access new episodes early. Download the app today. Picture this, friends. You could be packing a carry on for a trip to Hawaii when you realize you're going to need a bigger bag. But it's cool because you booked your flight with your City Advantage Platinum Select card. So you can check a bag for free on domestic travel and still have room for those souvenirs. And surprise, those souvenirs also earned you Advantage Miles. Actually, you earned Advantage Miles and loyalty points with each swipe. So let's start dreaming about your next next adventure. This could be you and you could be anywhere with the City Advantage Platinum Select Card. Learn more@city.com adventure and travel on with cityadvantage. Welcome to stuff you should know from housetepworkscom. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's charles W, chuck Bryant. And this is stuff you should know. Yeah. Are you excited about this one? I'm going to try to be excited for everybody. Enough for everybody. Because I imagine, like, there's a lot of people out there who don't listen to every single episode. Sure. I find it biting and weird because I do that with my podcast, though. Like, if I look at Mark Marrons, I listen to that one if it's a guest that I'm not super into. Sure, right. That's other podcasts. I'm talking about stuff you should know, man. Got you. You must be confused. Yes. I feel like every single one of them is worth listening to. Agreed. I suspect, though, that people are going to skip over this one. Well, I am going to take the rep because I picked this one out. I like it, but as I looked into it, I was like, you know what? I don't know how an aerosol can work. Exactly. And I would like to and it's not super complicated. As a matter of fact, now that you read this and researched it, you understand how an airsoft can work. You can go to the hardware store on a Saturday when you're bored and just stand around and explain it to people and get like, applause. I can do that. Anyone who listens to this episode will be able to do the same thing. Yeah, that would be like Ace Hardware and there'd be some 75 year old guy with a red vest next to me, like, all pissed off. They always have old timers working there yeah. Well, they are big on keeping the economy going on the backs of aged baby boomers. Is that there's a slogan? Yeah, I think it's Ace is the place. Well, you have to read between the lines. Chuck. Have you ever seen a movie called Style Wars? It's a documentary from no, I haven't. It's pretty cool, man. It basically chronicles the rise of graffiti. I was about to say hip hop clothing and stuff. And break dancing. Okay. Just that whole culture. Yeah. And it's amazing the stuff that people were doing even back then, as far as graffiti goes, and break dancing and hip hop and all that. Sure. But it's just like the seminal documentary that you just kind of have to see. It's just so cool. It kind of makes you feel cool watching it. You know what I mean? Well, I need that in my life. But the reason I raised Style Wars is because the graffiti that was being carried out would not have ever been able to be done had it not been for a Norwegian engineer named Eric Rothheim, who in 1926, put in the first patent for an aerosol cannon Norway, and then five years later, the first one in the US. Yes. And they have the little photo of some of his initial drawings. And the author of this article points out that although it has evolved somewhat, he was pretty right on with that first design. Right. Almost out of the gate. Yeah. Because, as we said, it's kind of simple. Yeah. One of them was simple to me. One of them I didn't quite understand. Well, okay. So, rough time. He comes up with this patent files. It kicks back and waits for the money to come rolling in, but it doesn't. It took many years, 15 or so, maybe a little less. Sure. Before anyone fully understood the value of an aerosol can. And it was insecticides bug bombs, cans of insect spray that was being used by soldiers in the Pacific in World War II when people finally said, oh, that is a good idea. Yes. They had atomizers and things at the time. I wonder if that was his initial inspiration, was to take that concept and jam it into a can, basically, because that's what's going on. You're atomizing a product. Yeah. And there's a lot of advantages to itemizing number one. If you spray something in a fine mist, it doesn't hit the ground as a bunch of liquid that seeps into the groundwater. Usually sticks to whatever you're spraying it to. Sure. And it's delightful if you wear perfume. Or have you ever had the rose water sprayed on your face? Like the face sprays? I thought you meant like an air sacrament of perfume. No, just atomizing in general. Yes, sure. I've had an avian spritz sprayed on my face. You mean? I have before. It's very nice. Yeah. I've had, like, the rose water. Emily will spray me occasionally that is very nice. It just feels good. Does she, like, hide behind around the corner? No, that's the mace. She maces me occasionally for kicks. So, yeah, there's advantages to atomizing things. There's reasons at the very least. It's lovely. It is. And the whole premise behind this, though, the delivery method of an aerosol can, like we said, it's very basic, it's very old, and all you have to do is understand a little bit about fluid dynamics to get what's going on. So let's give a brief primer on fluid dynamics, shall we? Yeah. In fluid period, fluid isn't necessarily liquid like you might think. Right. It's an actual thing. Fluid is any kind of substance that has free flowing particles. It's made up of that. And it could be something liquid, could be something gas. Those are both fluids. It just can't be a solid, basically. Pretty much, yeah. As long as it's got those free flowing particles. These particles, if it's a liquid, they're loosely bound, but they're still bound. Right. So it means it's going to have a fixed volume if it's a liquid. Yes. Which is why when you put water into a glass, it doesn't just keep going and going and going. That'd be terrifying. No, it would have a gaseous characteristic then. That's right, because gas does expand to fill the volume that you put it in. That's right. And, well, spoiler alert, that's what happens with gas. It expands. If you heat liquid, applying energy to it, basically, it's going to vibrate and it's going to break those forces and they're not going to be bound together anymore. Then you're going to have a gas. And that's called boiling. Yeah. And I mean, we think of boiling as like, applying enough heat that you will burn your skin. Right. But boiling points vary for different types of fluids. So any volatile fluid is a fluid that boils or turns from a liquid state to a gaseous state that's boiling at room temperature. Right, yeah. Which that's the part I had a hard time getting my head around, because I associate bowling with heat and hot. Yes. Because you think of boiling, you think of water. Yeah, exactly. And it takes a certain amount of temperature, of heat, energy, to break those intermolecular bonds, to turn water from a liquid into a gas. That's right. But it takes less for alcohol or for propane, whatever you want to use. Sure. And so, lastly, there's another fluid dynamic trait that we have to have down, and then we'll have all of the stuff in place to understand an aerosol can expansion of gas. Yeah. So we said that when you put gas into something, it expands to fill the volume. Yeah. And gas will decrease in pressure as it expands, which is why, like, a tiny little CO2 cartridge is like tons of pressure in there. And that's why it can shoot your awesome industrial arts model car down the track. Right. Did you ever do that? No. Really? I had a Pinewood Derby racer once. What's that? Like the car you sit in? No, that's the Cub Scout car. Okay. It didn't have any CO2, though. You'd be immediately disqualified. Yeah. In high school, we made the little cars that have the CO2 cartridge in the back. Oh, I know what you're talking about. And we raced each other. Nice. My brother one county, of course. Yeah. And then flash this winning smile, and three years later it's so funny. I forgot all about this. I tried to copy his car design when I took the class, and mine was not nearly as like, it just wasn't quite right. And I didn't win county. I didn't even win my classroom. Somehow the compressed air decompressing into the atmosphere, made like a sad trombone. This is so cool. And that really kind of just sums it all up with my brother and I. He was always really great at stuff, and I always tried to do that and was not nearly as good at it. You're good at other things. Well, yeah, I can run my mouth. Okay. If that's how you want to put it. Anyway, that's compressed gas. And when gas is compressed, it can do some great things, like shoot the car, or in this case, spray paint or something. Right, exactly. Okay. So you have compressed gas. You have all these fluid dynamics, and you have everyone now, right? Yes. Okay. So all an aerosol can is all of these principles kind of put into a very simply, mechanically functioning state. Right? Yeah. So you have a can, and you have two things in there. You have the propellant, which is the stuff you use to force the other thing, the product out. Yeah. And it could be hairspray, bug spray, could be paint, cooking oil, could be that foamy stuff. You ever use that? The stuff to seal, like, insulation or yeah, or like, fix the flat. It has myriad uses. Okay, right. So you've got the product in liquid state. Yes. It's just kind of floating in the bottom of the can. Sure. You put it in the can, you seal it so there's no air going in. Airtight. Yeah. This is part one. There are two ways to do this. This is the first one. Right. This is the simple way. Yeah. And then you add some sort of compressed air to it. Call it air. Compressed air. Okay. Okay. So you have the propellant in there, and it's basically filling up as much of it as it can until it's reaching the top of the can. The sides of the can on the top of the water. Yeah. And it pushes all the product down to the bottom. Right. Which is one reason you got to shake it up. Exactly. So you have a tube going down from the nozzle at the top of the can. Yeah. The valve system all the way down to the bottom of the can where the liquid is, right? Yeah. And that valve has a seal that's being pushed up by a spring. So the head the nozzle, when it's not being pushed, it's sealed tight. But when you push it down, a channel opens, it goes below the seal, and you now have the outside atmosphere, which is at a much lower pressure than inside the can. Yeah. Opened up to the inside of the can at that much higher pressure, and it drives it up the tube, out the little tiny, tiny hole which atomizes it. And that's basically the simpler method of the aerosol can. Yes. The air pushes the liquid down and then up the tube. Yeah. Because it's like, I want to get out, too. Exactly. It expands. Done. I mean, that's pretty easy. Yeah. What if you were a gigantic snack food maker and you had to wrestle a massively complex supply chain to sex by cravings from Tokyo to Toledo. So you partner with IBM Consulting to bring together data and workflows so that every driver and merchandiser can serve up jalapeno, sesame and chocolate cover goodness with real time, data driven precision. Let's create supply chains that have an appetite for performance. IBM, let's create. Learn more at IBM. Comconsulting. Hey, everybody. If you want a great quality website, you want to do it yourself with no must and no fuss. Then there's nowhere else to look than Squarespace. That's right. Squarespace has every single thing that you need to put together an awesome website. Everything from growing and engaging your audience with email campaigns, collecting donations for your cause through Apple, Pay, Stripe, Venmo, PayPal. Plus, you can also make your website optimized for mobile, which is great for your user on the go. That's right. And if you're into selling stuff, square space is everything to sell anything. They have all the tools you need to get your business off the ground. They have ecommerce templates, inventory management, really simple checkout process and secure payment. So whatever you want to sell, you can sell it on Squarespace. Yes. Don't just take our word for it. Head to squarespace. Comssk and start your free trial today. And then when you're ready to launch, use our offer code SYSK, and you'll get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain that's Squarespace.com. So the second way that this can happen, and I didn't know this is the more common way, but it is these liquefied gas. So that is the propellant. You still got the same product, and the product is sitting there at room temperature just fine as a liquid. So they just pour that in, then they seal it up. And then the same way with the other way, they pump in this liquefied gas. And it mixes, though, this time, right? Or does it press it down? This is where I got a little confused. So a liquefied gas, you said, is a gas that goes into a liquid state under a certain amount of pressure. Right? Yeah. Okay, so under high pressure yeah. So it does mix because it's all liquid in there. Once it gets in there, the whole thing turns liquid, and you keep that pressure up so it doesn't have any room to expand. So it's just in there mixed together. Exactly. Okay. And then when you press the nozzle down and you break the seal, as it were, you form a channel with the outside air and the inside air. The change in pressure converts some of that propellant into gas, and it does the same thing as that standard can. The gas presses down, forces the liquid up. But some of that propellant is still in liquid form, mixed with the product, and as it goes out, it evaporates. Right. It turns into gas, and it turns that liquid product into a finer mist. Yeah. But what I don't get is that it actually boils in the liquid gas system. It's like once you relieve that pressure, it starts to boil, and that's what does it. That's what I was a little confused about. Yeah. I have a feeling that this is a different part of fluid dynamics. Okay. That it's not necessarily the boiling point. Although it could be, because I don't think any average gas turns into a liquid under all under pressure. Right. There's just certain kinds that do, I think. Okay, so I think what's your question? Well, it's actually boiling in the second in the liquid gas type of airsoft. At the very least, it's converting into a gaseous state because of the release of pressure. Okay. Right. All right. And why did the cans sometimes get cold? Did you figure that out? No. Okay. Boy, there's some people in chemistry lab right now that are just like, oh, my God. I know, you guys. I thought we had this one, man. I think we do. I could have done a tap dance doing this earlier. Now it's like, oh, wait, let me complicate it a little more. No, I think the message got through. In the case of paint, sometimes you need a little help mixing these things together. So that's why a spray paint can, we have the little metal ball bearing on the inside. Right. Because you actually do want to mix the propellant and the product together in a liquefied can. Liquefied gas can. Right. Because it helps atomize it, as you said. And that's very pleasant. Exactly. What about the rounded bottom of the spray can? You know why that's that way? I do. If it was flat, it's so pressurized, it could be a bad scene. It could actually go the other way. And everyone knows, if you studied architecture, that a dome is more structurally sound than just a flat surface. So that's basically the same concept at play. So that's one reason. It's to protect the integrity of the can. And the second one is so you can help get all of the product out, because if it was flat, it's like when you're down at the bottom of your soda cup with your straw and you're making that terrible little noise, and you're tilting the cup and trying to stick the straw on the little corner where it meets the edge. This does it for you. If it's around the bottom, it just puts all the product there at the edge, and that's where the little tube is. So you're all set. Nice. Yes. And did you notice about 19 billion steel and aluminum cans that include aerosols and other products that are recycled every year? And that's equal to enough to build 20 Golden Gate bridges? Really? Yeah. Wow. Isn't that amazing? So we mentioned that there's a variety of different products that you can have that you're trying to get out of your can, from foam to, like, whipped cream to bug spray, stuff like that. Hairspray. Although, does anyone still use aerosol hair spray? I think some people do. Do you remember the Bizarre Ways to Die episode? The Deodorant boy who used to aerosol deodorant that he died? Totally. Man, that was a long time ago. So the way they accomplished this with a different product is you can have a variety of consistencies, and what they do is they just play with the ratio propellant to product. Maybe the chemical makeup of the propellant to product has to be just right. Maybe the pressure of the propellant has to be a little different depending on what kind of product you're working with and then the size and shape of the valve system. Like in the case of a fix, the flat that you put in your tire, it's not the same as a spray can. It's not atomizing. It's got, like, the tube hooked up. And if you've ever sprayed that stuff in your house, like the filla crack, like a whole can of it, it's amazing how much stuff is packed in there. Yeah. Like, when it gets out, you're just like, wow. It's like the clown car of the industrial engineering scene. Do you want to know a little bit about CFC's floral carbon? And then, yeah, I didn't get a chance to look into this, but I'm glad you did. So prior to the late 20s, there was people were using ammonia in refrigerators and dying from ammonia leaks, and it was just a bad scene. And so everybody said, well, we've got to figure out some sort of nontoxic chemical that we can use as a refrigerant. And a General Motors engineer, of all people, came up with what Dupont later turned into freon. Right. A chlorofluoroc carbon, which supposedly was non toxic. It basically changed everything. It was much less harmful compared to, like, ammonia. It allowed us to make cheap refrigerators, car, AC, window units. Like, all those things came from the advent of chlorofloor carbons. Right? Yes. And it was also very ubiquitous as a propellant in aerosol cans. Price sure. Okay. Well, I think that's why everyone quit using aquanit, right? Because everybody was going into spraying these things and they were going up in the atmosphere and everyone's like, look at them go. It's cool. They're like inert non toxic chemicals going up in the atmosphere. But we're all getting cancer. The problem is when a CFC enters the atmosphere and gets high enough and it's exposed to UV radiation, it breaks down and into its constituent components, one of which is chlorine. Chlorine wreaks havoc on the ozone layer. One atom of chlorine can destroy about 1000 ozone molecules, and we need those molecules. The ozone layer protects us from UVB rays from the sun, which are the kind that give you skin cancer and destroy crops. Right. So in 1974, some scientists realized that CFCs were doing this in the ozone layer, and it's going to be big trouble. 74. And then in the 80s, we figured out that there's a hole in the ozone layer over the Arctic. Right. So a bunch of countries, I think 70, signed on to basically outlaw CFC production in the then later on, another, like 120, I think, signed another treaty. So it's very difficult to find CFCs these days. But they're still around, are they? Yes, they still use them in some nasal sprays, and they're also used in Haylon, which is a fire extinguisher for airplanes. Did they not still use Freon? No, I don't believe so. Okay. Yeah, it's basically like we did away with those. It's going to take a while to repair. But they found that the ozone layer is no longer growing. The hole in the ozone layer is no longer growing. It's just holding steady and hopefully patching itself back up. They just forced people to go out and be innovative and find different ways to do these things. Exactly. And if you compare your aerosol can propellant today to one that had CFCs before, you're not going to notice the least bit different. So that can of aquaman that looks exactly the same as it did in 1957 is no longer dangerous. Not to the old zone layer. Right. It is the spider. So if you have a lighter yes. Don't ever do that. Kids no, that's it for aerosol cans. Unless you have like another ten minutes on it. No, that's all I got. What else is there? I genuinely looked and there is nothing else. Yeah, go out and do some graffiti. That's what I say. Artful graffiti, though. Don't go where I'm tagging stuff. You should probably practice at home first. I hate that. Just stupid. Educate yourself on different types of nozzles like practice. Don't be a punk. Agreed. Be an artist. If you want to learn more about aerosols, or at the very least want to see the article where we told you everything there is to know about aerosols, you can type that word. A-E-R-O-S-O-L-S into the search barhowtopworks.com, and that will bring it up. And I said search bar, which means it's time for message break. What if you were a global energy company with operations in Scotland, technologists in India, and customers all on different systems? You need to pull it together. So you call in IBM and Red Hat to create an open hybrid cloud platform. Now, data is available anywhere, securely, and your digital transformation is helping find new ways to unlock energy around the world. Let's create a hybrid cloud that can change in industry. IBM. Let's create learn More@ibm.com hey, everybody. If you want a great quality website, you want to do it yourself with no must and no fuss. Then there's nowhere else to look than Squarespace. That's right. Squarespace has every single thing that you need to put together an awesome website. Everything from growing and engaging your audience with email campaigns, collecting donations for your cause through Apple, Pay, Stripe, Venmo, PayPal. Plus, you can also make your website optimized for mobile, which is great for your user on the go. That's right. And if you're into selling stuff, square space is everything to sell anything. They have all the tools you need to get your business off the ground. They have ecommerce templates, inventory management, really simple checkout process, and secure payment. So whatever you want to sell, you can sell it on Squarespace. Yes. Don't just take our word for it. Head to Squarespace.com SYSK and start your free trial today. And then when you're ready to launch, use our offer code, SYSK, and you'll get off your first purchase of a website or domain that's Squarespace.com, SYSK. Squarespace. And now it's time for listener mail. I thought you might say that. Okay. Josh listener mail time. I'm going to call this please sketch eyewitness Stuff good morning. It's from Terry Bennett. Hey, guys. I listened to the police Catches episode and wanted to share my story. I was robbed when I was a teller of a bank in 1977, and at that time, bank robbery was a federal crime. Probably still is. I was immediately taken into the back room of the vault and the FBI was called in. When they arrived, a sketch artist brought a large binder, not full of women, but full of pictures of faces and eyes and noses and mouths, et cetera. Transparencies of face shapes for the base, and the rest of the face was built on the base, one eye and nose at a time. I was not allowed to talk to anyone, including the staff of my bank, until I talked to the FBI. I was instructed to write everything I could remember about the robber and the robbery before talking to anybody else. In those days, of course, we did not have digital cameras and the film had to be sent out for processing. I love it. In those days, it was the same, like seven or eight years ago. Right? Yeah. Actually. When did digital come around? Early 2000. It seems like it became, I guess it's more than seven or eight years. I know. We're getting old, man. So the pictures took a couple of days to get back and my composite drawing was posted in the paper. And my robber was actually caught a couple of days afterward at a methadone clinic in town. When the film was developed, the side by side pictures were incredibly close, so she did a pretty good job. Sounds like. By the way, he was caught using my composite and not the true picture. It's pretty cool. Yeah, it's very cool. We were trying to observe all these details and also to watch for the six foot mark as the robber left the building. Like you talked about at cold stores. Yeah, because they have those at banks. Luckily, even though I was only 20 years old, the training had taken a hold and gave me great resources to catch this guy. And to this day, I always observed shady or odd things in everyday life, including license plates like you talked about. By the way, my robber had robbed eight other banks up and down the coast in California, and I got to be hero for a minute. Wow. And that is Terry Bennett. And that's a cool story. Yeah, that's very cool, Terry. Thanks for sharing. I bet she just eyeballs everybody, right? Yeah, she's a weird lady. Now she takes out methadone clinic. Yeah. What are you doing? Just getting a methadone. If you want to give us a story, we love our stories. You can tweet a very short story to us at syskpodcast. That's our Twitter handle. You can post one on Facebook.com stuffychannow. You can send it in an email to stuffpodcast@discovery.com. And you can't really tell us a story. But you can hang out with us at our home on the web stuffyshadow.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit housetoftworks.com. 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