Episode Transcript
[00:00:03] Speaker A: Welcome to Brain Junk. I'm Amy Barton.
[00:00:05] Speaker B: And I'm Trace Kerr. And I hope you all are sitting down because if you haven't seen from our posts the last week on Instagram and Facebook, you're in for a little bit of a shock because this is, at least for now, our last episode.
328. That's it? That's all you get.
[00:00:28] Speaker A: For now, yes. When Trace and I started about, oh, six years or so ago, life was a little different. It was pre pandemic, so we could do three things in a week. And I don't know how we did what we did actually because we both had more kids at home and a lot more things happening every week. But life has just shifted for both of us and we've got some new projects in the work. I'm doing some professional development for work, which is wild good times. And a senior in high school and an upcoming senior in college and oh my God, life is just different now.
[00:01:02] Speaker B: Senior in college, that's almost.
[00:01:04] Speaker A: She's a junior this year, but it won't be long.
[00:01:07] Speaker B: Well, yeah, and I do the editing and stuff like that and I'm working on a horror web series that should be coming out in the beginning of the year and I have to do acting and recording and editing and I have to learn how to do video editing software. And I think I might die. And so we will talk about that.
[00:01:31] Speaker A: On our brain junk channels. So keep an eye out so that you can. What do you call our work in this field? I don't know, the next iteration of Trace Kerr.
[00:01:40] Speaker B: Oh, da, da. Yeah, no, I mean I've got. I've got a book that I'm thinking about self publishing and something else that I'm working on writing and then the post it note list across the bottom of my computer is massive. And all that is to say that we love doing this and we love being here with you guys, but we got a lot of stuff to do and it's time to try some new stuff.
[00:02:00] Speaker A: I have to finish that temperature crochet blanket from 2021.
Chris kind of said I need to like. You're right, you're right. And through September it's going to happen.
[00:02:13] Speaker B: Oh my gosh. You're almost there. The finish line is in sight.
[00:02:16] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:02:17] Speaker B: Now, are you using the 2021 temperatures?
[00:02:20] Speaker A: Yeah. So I finally went and wrote them all down so I wouldn't have to keep looking them up. So it's actually pretty fast. I just need to do. I chose a weird pattern so it's A little bit more work, but yeah, so that's. That's my thing.
It's important.
[00:02:35] Speaker B: It is important.
[00:02:37] Speaker A: So savor this episode. We've tried to pick some choice topics to bring you joy in this last official episode for a while.
[00:02:46] Speaker B: Yep. So it's Christmas Eve. Merry Christmas. A little bit early. And just remember we started out brain junk because we have a love of weird facts and weird things and we needed somebody to talk to. So we were talking to each other and then we just thought we'd share it with you. So today we're going to go out with a bang with everything you never knew you wanted to know about. All sorts of weird stuff we have squirreled away and you've got a juicy one. Oh, that's probably.
[00:03:14] Speaker A: That was an apropos introduction because I will be discussing the Puseum, which is a museum dedicated to fossilized fecal matter in Williams, Arizona. So on the cusp of the Grand Canyon, the scenic, beautiful Grand Canyon with all sorts of wonderful fossilized materials, you can go visit the Poozium.
[00:03:39] Speaker B: Oh my God.
[00:03:41] Speaker A: HTTPs.blogspuseum.com P O O Z E. Um, look it up later because you want to concentrate on what I'm sharing now.
[00:03:54] Speaker B: I'm like, do they have merch?
[00:03:56] Speaker A: Probably? I think so, yes.
They've been open in a brick and mortar building since May of 2024 and they have been a virtual entity for 10 years more since 2014.
The puseum is the brainchild of George Fransen.
He discovered coprolite in college, which is fossilized fecal matter, and he started collecting it like all of us do. When you go to any museum and you're like, that's cor. Corte, isn't it?
[00:04:29] Speaker B: Coprolite.
[00:04:30] Speaker A: Coprolite, sure. You can tell me either thing and I will say yes. I'm not going to say it much anymore. Anyway, we're going to move on to other descriptors.
[00:04:37] Speaker B: You're going to be like fossilized dinosaur shit. Why are you getting the fancy name?
[00:04:43] Speaker A: So he started collecting it and it just kind of interesting because you have this little very ang. Ancient thing. And so he started collecting and featured his collection online to make it accessible. Like you could do a comparative analysis.
[00:04:59] Speaker B: Oh, okay, yeah, yeah, I see that.
[00:05:01] Speaker A: Yeah. Videos, academic papers that the public could actually access. So now it's home to over 7,000 fecal specimens.
[00:05:09] Speaker B: Wow, that's actually remarkable.
[00:05:12] Speaker A: That's a lot from many different species too. Some of the more noteworthy, it's a four foot wide titanosaur Poop replica. So you could have your picture taken with the four foot wide poop.
[00:05:27] Speaker B: Not long.
[00:05:28] Speaker A: No, wide. So it's probably a pile because it would have fallen from whatever height the titanosaur was.
[00:05:35] Speaker B: What does he say in Jurassic Park? That's a big pile of shit.
[00:05:39] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly.
[00:05:43] Speaker B: There's a shirt here that I desperately want. It says coprolites aren't my favorite fossil, but they're a solid number two.
[00:05:51] Speaker A: And that is that in the gift.
[00:05:53] Speaker B: Shop in their Etsy store. Yeah.
[00:05:57] Speaker A: And they have it on their website. They do have some. And the style of their merch is really great. I actually probably will add something to my Christmas list.
Okay. The website. There's a lot to dig through here and so I'm not going to find it right now. But you should go on that journey so that you can see a copper light with a bite mark in it. Oh, and there's some with. This one has teeth in it, which means something ingested. Another thing, some coprolite looks rainbowy. And if you didn't know what it was, you'd be like, this rock is so beautiful. And it is. And it's rainbow poop. Fossilized rainbow poop.
[00:06:43] Speaker B: I mean, it's one of those things where it's like. Okay, this is kind of gross because you know, if I was picking this up and putting in a plastic bag after my dog, nobody would want this.
[00:06:52] Speaker A: But now that it sat. A million years. Well, yeah, not a million, but it's aged.
[00:06:56] Speaker B: It's aged a little. But there's a lot of information there, like you said, about the teeth and the colors of it and the composition, which tells us things that we would never be able to know.
[00:07:06] Speaker A: Exactly. Okay, you want to know about one of his world records? The largest coprolite by a carnivorous animal he has. It measures. Oh, where's my inches? Here it is. Centimeters are meaningless to me in a. Very. Sorry. It is 26.5 inches by 6.2 inches and it has measured length measured along central curve.
So 26 and a half inches. That's the. The height of a child.
[00:07:36] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:07:37] Speaker A: And this is.
I popped down in my notes. I have to pop back up. We don't want to miss any of this poop.
[00:07:43] Speaker B: No, we don't. Also, I'm frankly surprised that you don't have a, a Danny DeVito type measurement for the size besides a child because.
[00:07:53] Speaker A: It weighs 20.47 pounds.
[00:07:56] Speaker B: Wow. Now that's because it's rock. Right, so.
[00:08:00] Speaker A: So that's like two chihuahuas or two cats.
[00:08:03] Speaker B: I feel better about that. Thank you. I was like, is that six bananas? What? Like how long is a banana ended in.
[00:08:10] Speaker A: Yeah. So let's talk about this giant poo. It is called Barnum. It is the largest carnivore coprolite on the planet. Again, you could see it in Williams, Arizona. It is named after paleontologist Barnum Brown, who is the paleontologist that discovered the first T. Rex.
As we said before, that is 26.5 inches by 6.2 inches. And so you might wonder, how do they just see this thing and say, that's corporalite and it's definitely a T. Rex. There's several methods.
They can do an X ray fluorescence analysis and it's poop shaped, which.
[00:08:58] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:08:58] Speaker A: That's a traditional poo shape. Yeah.
[00:09:01] Speaker B: I love your super scientific test. They're like, well, I mean, it looks like a duck. Yeah.
[00:09:08] Speaker A: But the description too, in this article, they're like, well, it looks as though it's a long cylinder that fell from a height and therefore has a bend. Now it also, however, this is more conclusive. It contains a high percentage of crushed bone inclusions. So something got eaten and digested there and deposited. And the place that they found it was also that many T. Rexes in that area. And so it's not a surprise or too big a leap to say, oh my gosh. And based on the size, we found T. Rex poop, huh? Yeah. Barnum. The coprolite is encased in plaster to protect it. So when you see it, you see it from the backside like you've poured cake into a cake mold too. So it's a singular experience that you should have probably in person if you're ever in that area. It's two or three hours from both Sedona and Phoenix. So a nice little weekend trip. Yeah.
[00:10:06] Speaker B: Wow.
You never fail to amaze me with the things that you discover in the world.
[00:10:13] Speaker A: It's enchanting. Right?
[00:10:14] Speaker B: Right.
Yeah.
I remember the first time I found one of these as a child and my father was like, that's fossilized poop. And I dropped that thing so fast.
[00:10:31] Speaker A: And now adult you is like, that's interesting.
[00:10:34] Speaker B: I know. Adult me is like, why didn't you keep that? That's super cool.
[00:10:38] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:10:39] Speaker B: Oh, well, our, our tastes change. Okay, so they do.
When I sent you some notes earlier, you saw that I had mosquito madness.
[00:10:49] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:10:50] Speaker B: Okay, so let's, let's talk about that. We're gonna, we're gonna step away from poop. I think for me, almost the whole episode Anyway, so that might be it.
[00:10:58] Speaker A: For me too actually.
[00:11:00] Speaker B: Oh, well done, well done. Okay, so what to you is the quintessential sound of camping in the evening? Fire crackling okay, for me it's a.
That too of the mosquitoes. Because I, I am like for sure. I'm like a fine wine. I am, I am a.
I could be the only person with clothes on in a nudist colony and they will still come to me.
That's my role in life, is to protect my family. They don't need a citronella candle. It's just me for you. Yeah, I know. Isn't that thoughtful. So that mosquitoey sound, that's only the girls that you're hearing? Really is. Well, okay, they all make a buzzy sound, but if it's all up in your ears, that's the females. Cuz they're the only ones that suck your blood.
[00:11:48] Speaker A: Oh, I have so many questions.
[00:11:50] Speaker B: Okay, you can hit me with some questions.
[00:11:53] Speaker A: Why, how don't they is blood food? What else do they eat? What about what are the fellas eating?
[00:11:59] Speaker B: Well, they're using the blood to feed themselves and then also to like nurture their eggs. And, and the male guys, they're just there to have fun.
[00:12:08] Speaker A: Okay, so life is short. I had never considered. I know there are insects with very short lifespans.
[00:12:14] Speaker B: Yep, super short. Yeah. So the mosquito boys, they are interested in finding the girls. And while they are attracted to people because of our smell and you know, they're not looking for snacks, it's because that's where the ladies are hanging out.
[00:12:29] Speaker A: And the way they're window shopping, they are not going into the store.
[00:12:32] Speaker B: Yep. And so if you find a person in the woods, odds are there's going to be some gals there to breed with. But unlike a noisy bar or tinder, males find females by the buzzy sound of their wings.
[00:12:45] Speaker A: Oh yeah.
[00:12:46] Speaker B: So that a hum in the air is heard, love is found. They breed in the air. Few seconds of bliss and then get out of here.
[00:12:54] Speaker A: At least it doesn't eat his head off.
[00:12:56] Speaker B: This is true. I love that. It's like, well it's better than getting eaten.
[00:13:01] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:13:04] Speaker B: Okay, so scientists were like, but what if you could make the males deaf?
[00:13:11] Speaker A: They would just die unfulfilled.
[00:13:14] Speaker B: Yeah, well that's what they thought. So there was a study done at UC Santa Barbara that did just that. They took a bunch of mosquitoes, they knocked out one gene in Craig Montel's lab and they made deaf mosquitoes, males and females, and they mixed the Males with females and you could leave them in a room together and nothing would happen, really.
[00:13:36] Speaker A: Like, there's no. They're not feeling it. And compensating for that loss in any way.
[00:13:41] Speaker B: Nope. Yeah, they don't hear the. And so they're like, we're, we're in with a bunch of dudes, we don't know what to do. They do think that also maybe the gene, in addition to knocking out hearing, might affect their libido in some way. But they did find that the deaf females, most of them, still mated, so.
[00:14:03] Speaker A: Because they can make the noise and then the dude finds him and he shows up in their line of sight.
[00:14:06] Speaker B: And they're like, oh, hey, oh, what's going on, buddy? Yeah, so currently, I mean, the thought was because we're trying to figure out ways to control mosquitoes. Right. And currently they release sterile males to mate in the wild in attempt to control the population because the female mates with a sterile male. She's not pregnant, but she's like, that was fun, I'm good. And then, you know, goes off about her business.
[00:14:31] Speaker A: Yes. It doesn't add to the population.
[00:14:34] Speaker B: Yes. And while you could release deaf males, they aren't going to breed. But if there are males that can hear the females, breeding will still happen. And so they're like, well, currently, this is just interesting.
Now we kind of know how it works. Yeah.
[00:14:52] Speaker A: So I. Oh, yeah. So if the deaf female, she's been genetically modified, would she have deaf babies?
[00:15:03] Speaker B: Probably, but maybe not all of them.
[00:15:06] Speaker A: Okay, so it'd still be a genetic crapshoot.
[00:15:08] Speaker B: Yeah. So I mean, if you had a deaf female and a hearing male, do your Punnett Square, get it out, you know you want to.
You might have like 25% that's still here. And, you know, so, I mean, yeah, it might over time.
[00:15:20] Speaker A: We need a 15 year old to do the Punnett Square for us. That's in life.
[00:15:24] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. But, yeah, so it was one of those things where they go, I don't know, does it make a difference? It does. And, and then. Yeah, that's why this is a short. This is. That's why this is a shorty.
[00:15:37] Speaker A: Oh, that's very interesting. Also, I think of Jurassic park every time they're screwing around with genetics and like creating a new thing with a modified genetic situation and like, life finds a way. Did you learn nothing from Ian Malcolm?
[00:15:52] Speaker B: I know. Then the, then the female mosquitoes learn sign language and soon they take over the planet.
[00:15:58] Speaker A: Like an ant man. I can see an ant man situation. Here.
[00:16:02] Speaker B: Yeah, I've had this one. And they make these like rabies vaccine raviolis that they're dropping all over cities for raccoons to eat. But that's pretty much all that's. I know, right? But that's all there is to say about it. And so I was like, well, this is the.
[00:16:17] Speaker A: Is it like Narcan, where, like, it doesn't hurt you if you don't have it, but it fixes you if you do? It's a vaccine. It's a vaccine.
[00:16:23] Speaker B: It's a vaccine. Yeah. So I mean, a treatment. Yeah. So they're like. Possums are probably eating them because they. They're like.
[00:16:29] Speaker A: Like, it doesn't hurt you if you have it, but it's good if you need it.
[00:16:32] Speaker B: Yeah. All I could think was, is like, well, what if you get a really greedy raccoon eats like 80 or 90 of these things all over town. I guess he's super vaccinated. Right?
[00:16:41] Speaker A: Just standing near him. Vaccinates the others.
[00:16:45] Speaker B: Yeah. So, okay, well, we've talked about mosquitoes a little bit, about raccoons. Where are we going now?
[00:16:51] Speaker A: You want to circle back for some more museum chat? Well, yes, Blue whale museum chat. Blue whale is an early on topic for us because as you recall, the blue whale fart bubble is big enough to fit. What is it?
[00:17:06] Speaker B: A horse?
[00:17:07] Speaker A: You win.
Yes.
So we're not talking about blue whale farts, but we are going to talk about Kobo. His name is King of the Blue Ocean, which is a little bit of a mouthful. So at the New Bedford Whaling Museum, they call him Kobo.
[00:17:26] Speaker B: I want to be King of the Blue Ocean.
[00:17:29] Speaker A: Me too. He's not anymore. He's King of the New Bedford Whaling Museum.
[00:17:33] Speaker B: Oh, no.
[00:17:36] Speaker A: Which is curated by Robert Rocha. And anything I quote henceforth will be the words of Robert Roca. I'll try to remember to tell you when I'm quoting him, though. So Kobo has been at the museum since 2000 and they estimate that he was about 5 years old at the end of his life and he weighed about 80,000 pounds, which I didn't do falling down on the job. I didn't check to see what things are. £80,000.
[00:18:04] Speaker B: I can't even conceptualize that. £80,000.
[00:18:08] Speaker A: Just enormous.
However, £80,000 is still no match for a 486 foot long freighter. It was transiting from Belgium to Providence, Rhode island in 1998 and was accidentally had an interaction with the whale. And so scientists, that's always a sad thing. But there's this byproduct of scientists were able to bring Kobo to labs and study him and learn more. And now Kobo lives in the museum and everybody gets to see him. And so Kobo's had about two years of scientific research and then they brought him to the museum.
So that brings us to the most interesting part. So blue whales, we all have bone marrow. Blue whales are much richer in oil than ours because they store energy there. It's a source of reserve energy. I didn't know this, but apparently whales come routinely fast for long periods of.
[00:19:06] Speaker B: Time, and then they're living off their fat like a camel lives off the hump.
[00:19:10] Speaker A: And so that's where, like, their blubber and muscle can be a source. But then, if they really need it, they've got this reserve of the really oily marrow.
[00:19:20] Speaker B: Wait, marrow, like in their bones?
[00:19:23] Speaker A: Yes. Isn't that wild? This is very oily marrow. Normally, though, when a skeleton goes to a museum, it's either had a long time being out in the sun and so it naturally dries out, or there are processes that they can do. Like when it's buried on the sea floor, it's getting picked apart and barnacles are in it. So there's a lot of process that extracts that oil. And so most of the time, whales and the bones that arrive in a museum don't really have much left in their marrow. Kobo made a pretty quick transition, and no particular efforts to extract that marrow were made. So if Kobo was in sort of a cool, dry environment, it was all just sort of waiting there. And so people started noticing fairly early on that Kobo is hanging there. And, like one person recounts, like, he's standing there and observing the whale and something drips on him.
[00:20:20] Speaker B: Oh, my God.
[00:20:21] Speaker A: Oil from the bones? Yes.
So by 2010, they're like, this is an issue that needs to be addressed.
[00:20:30] Speaker B: Doesn't that smell? Oh, you know what? I'm looking at a picture and I have seen a picture of this whale. Doesn't that smell? I mean, wouldn't you walk in and the whole place would smell like an old can of tuna?
[00:20:40] Speaker A: Yeah. But the amount of oil that it's dripping. They started collecting in 2010, they installed a special oil catcher to see how much oil they could capture and to make it cleaner and safer. And so there's a catcher near the whale rostrum, which is near its beak and snout, where the oil seems to be coming from the most. And so it drips into this flask every day and the museum has 1,000 milliliters in a jar in storage and another 200 milliliters in catcher. So that's about 40 ounces. 33 ounces in one liter. 40 ounces is about half a Chihuahua.
So they've got a decent amount of this oil that's come from an animal that died in 1998. So it's 26 years. 24 in the museum and it's still dripping. And they missed a good 10 years of oil drippings. They said.
[00:21:42] Speaker B: You know what's so funny? I was just thinking of like the janitor who has been complaining about people. There's this oil. It's on the floor. I can never get it cleaned up. Why do you guys keep putting. And they're like we're not putting anything. The floor.
[00:21:56] Speaker A: Yeah. And so he's like who on earth is eating like super drippy pizza? What is going on?
[00:22:02] Speaker B: You people have to stop. It's getting tracked everywhere.
[00:22:05] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah. Robert Rocha did say it was certainly a lot wetter and messier for the first 10 years in the museum.
And if you're wondering do people use that oil? It wasn't commonly used. I think partly because it's so easy to get at that blubber. But around World War I, people did start figuring out we can use this oil that's stored in the bones. The British government was able to control the market on whale oil during World War I. And they would supply it to soldiers to rub on their feet to help prevent trench foot. Supposedly pilots would put it on their faces to help against the wind and sun. Which. That one does make sense. You were a lot more exposed in that era. So that's museum chat.
[00:22:51] Speaker B: And where. Where's the blue whale one again? East Coast. Right?
[00:22:55] Speaker A: Yeah. He's in the New Bedford Whaling Museum.
[00:22:59] Speaker B: Huh. I just leaking whale.
[00:23:02] Speaker A: So weird.
[00:23:04] Speaker B: Yeah. I'm gonna. I'm gonna be thinking about that janitor for a while.
[00:23:07] Speaker A: Uh huh. Yeah. Like the 10 years of dripping. And they're like this is kind of messy. You guys.
[00:23:15] Speaker B: How would never. How had nobody really noticed? That's just.
[00:23:18] Speaker A: Let's look at what's. 10 years is like 3,600 days. Right. I am no longer 40. They've got 40 ounces after 14 years. So probably at least actually not a ton. It's 0.01 milliliters a day.
[00:23:35] Speaker B: So a teeny tiny drip. Yeah. But still.
[00:23:39] Speaker A: Yep. The teeny tiny. Just a little bit of dripping every day.
[00:23:43] Speaker B: Huh.
[00:23:44] Speaker A: But you'd think that they would start noticing that it's Showing up in kind of around the same spot right, right.
[00:23:51] Speaker B: There in the atrium, you know, wherever it's hanging up. Huh.
[00:23:56] Speaker A: Some creative intern probably said, you know, science, and we could. This could be interesting and engaging.
[00:24:05] Speaker B: That's true. Okay. I have more science. I. And. And kind of a. Well, a short obituary. So it. Yeah, it's. But it's okay. She. It was a good long run. So Lyudmila trut might be tr. I'm going to say trut. On October 9, 2024, she died at the ripe old age of 90. So she had a good, good long run.
She was a Russian scientist who studied animal physiology and behavior at Moscow State University. And you know her for her biggest claim to fame, the 59 year study involving one of the most important biology experiments of our time, the silver fox domestication study.
[00:24:41] Speaker A: Okay. Foxes are one of the things that brought us together, everyone. If you've listened to early episodes, I think we talk about that, by the way.
[00:24:48] Speaker B: I think we did. I tried to find it and then I got tired, so I'm just going to talk about it again.
[00:24:55] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:24:57] Speaker B: So started by our mentor Dmitry Belyev in 1959. They wanted to study the process of domestication in real time. If I find the old episode, I know, I was like, I swear we've talked about this. And then like I said, well, I'll. I'll look anyway, if you've heard it already, too bad you're listening to it again. So we didn't really talk about ludmilla. She was 25 when she was recruited to do a research job on this project. They bought 130 of the most docile foxes they could find with fur farmers, silver foxes.
[00:25:32] Speaker A: And then they bred them because these are. These are beautiful foxes that could be used for their coats.
[00:25:38] Speaker B: Yes, that's exactly what they were used for. Very pretty foxes, very pretty fur. And they all look exactly the same because you're breeding them for, you know, that specific look. Okay. Which is important to know. The ones they started out with were not tame. Now they were in a breeding facility, but they were not tame. Very foxy looking, pointy ears, sharp faces, and at best wary of humans and at worst, unfriendly and prone to bite.
[00:26:07] Speaker A: Okay, okay. That's reasonable, to be honest.
[00:26:11] Speaker B: So out of every group, the top 10 tamest foxes were bred. Okay. Within six years, six generations, they had foxes that would lick people's hands, cry when they left, and wag their tails when people approached.
[00:26:26] Speaker A: Six generations.
[00:26:28] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:26:29] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:26:30] Speaker B: I know, right?
[00:26:31] Speaker A: That is a huge 180.
[00:26:33] Speaker B: Yeah. And here's the thing that they were interested in is soon their bodies also started to change. They started to get curlier tails and.
[00:26:42] Speaker A: Floppier ears, cuter tails and more inviting ears.
[00:26:47] Speaker B: Yep. Little floppy, little floppy dog ears. By 15 years they had half the level of stress hormones that wild foxes have.
[00:26:55] Speaker A: That makes sense actually, based on some of the other things we've learned about. Like we did a seagull one where the seagulls exposed to the sounds of predation developed differently.
And so I'm okay, so many things. Carry on please.
[00:27:10] Speaker B: Yeah, well, okay, so let's see. Their adrenal glands got smaller, they had more serotonin. That means the foxes were, you know, like happier. They, they were feeling, they were, you know, being more rewarded by their brain. Right.
And then as they went on. So this is 15 years, 15 generations at least. They got mutt patterns of fur. So they stopped all being exactly the same. They had splotches, they had different colors and they stopped looking like wild foxes and more like juveniles with puppy like features.
[00:27:45] Speaker A: So that's interesting because the first generations were very homogenous in their looks. But somehow whatever was dormant or non dominant came back.
[00:27:59] Speaker B: There's a lot of thought that the behavioral and physiological things that make them like the floppy ears and the curly tails and the chunkier bodies, those things that make them less foxy and more dog like, are the same things that change their behaviors.
[00:28:16] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:28:17] Speaker B: To make them, you know, more tame. They're interconnected in some way. And there's this adorable picture of mech mechta mecha mecha. It's the first recorded domesticated fox with floppy ears. That's in 1969 and that's just 10 years after the study started.
[00:28:34] Speaker A: Wow, that's really interesting. That just the whole thing. We've talked about this briefly but we didn't go into this much depth. So if you find the old episode, it'll be a bigger. Like a flyover.
[00:28:47] Speaker B: Yeah. That was younger us. That was younger us. Like we're just going to talk about a little bit of something. And older me is like, I want details.
[00:28:55] Speaker A: So I think this is very much fostered. We're like those foxes. This has fostered a spirit, a spirit of inquisitiveness in us.
[00:29:02] Speaker B: Ah, there we go. I don't have floppy ears, but when you show me data, my tail wags, my mental tail wags and I get.
[00:29:10] Speaker A: Spottier as I get older, I'm sure.
[00:29:12] Speaker B: Oh, this is true, this is true. The gray hairs, they be coming. Okay. So in 1985, Dmitry Believ, the man who started the study, he died and he left Lyudmila in charge. She claimed that, quote into a few decades, an ancient process that originally unfolded over thousands of years happened before our eyes.
[00:29:33] Speaker A: Sorry.
[00:29:34] Speaker B: Whoa. She chokes to death. It's so she's like research.
So there are people, and I thought this was kind of interesting, who disagreed. There was a 2019 article that said they got the foxes from fur farms. They were already becoming domesticated.
[00:29:52] Speaker A: Yeah. But I think if they had stayed in that environment, in the fur farm, it would have prioritized their look.
[00:29:59] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:30:00] Speaker A: And I don't think others. I mean, clearly there's still fur farms out there. And so we're not seeing these changes in the fur farms.
[00:30:06] Speaker B: Well, we're not. And Lyudmila and I didn't realize this, I don't know which of us talked about it in the past, but she bred a group of foxes for aggression.
[00:30:16] Speaker A: Oh, really?
[00:30:17] Speaker B: And she had a control group.
[00:30:19] Speaker A: Oh, how did that go?
[00:30:21] Speaker B: Do they say, well, none of them underwent the same physical changes of curly tails or spots or floppy ears like the tame foxes did.
[00:30:29] Speaker A: That makes sense because they would want stealth and that, like, cuteness is not valuable for them.
[00:30:35] Speaker B: Yeah. No. And like relying on people and all those. Yeah. So to me, that says, okay, yes, they were probably less wild because they are on fur farms. I get that. But the fact that you're like, you take the bottom 10% and they just get meaner and meaner and meaner and they don't get all floppy and cute.
[00:30:55] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:30:56] Speaker B: Says to me that something is happening and it happened rather quickly. So. Yeah.
[00:31:01] Speaker A: To be able to see what usually is such a long, slow process again, feels a little Jurassic park to me.
[00:31:09] Speaker B: It does. It does.
[00:31:10] Speaker A: Less genetically modified, though. Like, they're just seeing what happens if they help natural selection along, which is.
[00:31:17] Speaker B: And I will die on this hill. That is genetic modification. Right. Because you, instead of doing it with crispr, you're just, you're.
[00:31:26] Speaker A: You're restricting the pool.
[00:31:27] Speaker B: Yep. And cross breeding things and, and. And you're doing it manually or in this case, womanly.
[00:31:37] Speaker A: It's such a fascinating thing to be able to. Like, that's such a little chunk of science that she was a part of to see.
That's amazing. That's excellent. Do you want to talk about why 60 degrees in fall feels different than 60 degrees in spring?
[00:31:57] Speaker B: Oh, yes. Because that's my favorite temperature and guts.
[00:32:01] Speaker A: And I've always wondered. My sister lived in Bellingham For a while and we went to stay with them. And whatever temperature it was here in Spokane, it was the same over there or warmer. And I froze overnight. It was terrible. And I'm like, why am I suffering so much? We're going to talk about it.
[00:32:21] Speaker B: See, I grew up on the west side and I have some theories, but I don't want to spill, so I'll.
[00:32:25] Speaker A: Keep them myself so you can see if I confirm your theories or not.
One thing that. Well, I learned many things, but one of the interesting things that seems like it would be kind of a common thing, but I've never thought about is that air temps are measured that we see on our daily forecasts are often using weather stations that are about six feet off the ground. So a little bit taller than we are. It's kind of the air that we're experiencing right at the top of our bodies or slightly above us.
[00:32:54] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:32:55] Speaker A: That does not take ground temperature into account. Then air temperature changes quickest and then liquids change a little slower and solids change the slowest, temperature wise. So there's always a little lag with water and liquids. Kool Aid probably too. You know, any liquid and the ground lags even more. So if It's September and 60 degrees out, your ground is probably still kind of warm. But if you're early spring, that ground is not warmed up yet or you know, whatever your seasonally is happening. However long that temperature change has been happening, the ground and liquids are still catching up a little. So in summer the ground is warm. In cooler seasons, of course it's changing slower. And in general there's less fluctuation in the ground temperatures. It's just a slower process that never fully catches up. The ground is not 100 degrees.
[00:33:55] Speaker B: It might be on the surface, asphalt maybe in Texas. Yes.
[00:34:01] Speaker A: But you dig down a little bit and it's not 100 degrees. That's why places like Coober Pedy in Australia are a cozy. What is it, like 68 degrees or something there? It's beautiful.
[00:34:10] Speaker B: When they live in their houses under the dirt. Yeah, yeah.
[00:34:13] Speaker A: So that's a big factor in your perception of the temperature. It's definitely going to be biased by the ground temperature. If the ground is feeling warmer, you will feel warmer. At 60 degrees it is the same 60 degrees, but that at 6ft in the air it's the same 60 degrees, but from your feet up it's not.
[00:34:36] Speaker B: Hmm.
[00:34:38] Speaker A: And interesting fact. These are all interesting facts. They're all my favorites and they're all interesting. 60 degrees in the middle of a city versus in the middle of the forest also feels different. In the city, the asphalt just gets hot. All the energy is turned into heat. In a heavily forested area or with a lot of green stuff, the green things are turning that heat into energy.
So you could be in Central park and step out onto the street and it will feel different because of that factor too.
So that was interesting. That's a fun one. And what about humidity, you ask?
[00:35:23] Speaker B: See, that's what I was thinking about.
[00:35:26] Speaker A: It does not magically go away in the cooler months.
There's dry heat, there's wet cold. Wet cold generally feels more uncomfortable than dry cold. And again, the reason for that is that gas is change temperature quickly. Liquid changes temperature a little more slowly, and solids are the slowest. So with the dry cold, our bodies are still losing energy from the heat, but the air around us is warm and warms more quickly because it's dry.
And so when there's a lot of liquid in the air, that temperature feels cooler because the liquid's changing temperature slower.
[00:36:03] Speaker B: Yeah, that wet cold is no joke. I mean, if you have arthritis, wet cold will destroy you. Yeah, yeah. And you just feel like it's one of those things where you get cold and then you're stuck. Like you have to take a shower.
[00:36:17] Speaker A: Yes.
Yep.
Do you want to know how this relates to goosebumps?
[00:36:24] Speaker B: Yes, you do.
[00:36:25] Speaker A: Trust me. Yes.
[00:36:26] Speaker B: Yes, I do.
[00:36:26] Speaker A: The answer is a quick yes. Goosebumps turn your hair on your body into, like a tiny down coat. So the hairs. Goosebumps makes your hair stand up on end, and that can sort of capture a little bit of air. And so the hairs on your arm are keeping that hair close to your. The hair's close to your body all the time. The air. So what? I know the air is. I'm sorry, the pizza guy is here. So if you're hearing thumping right now, the pizza guy.
[00:36:57] Speaker B: Oh, my God, you're having pizza without me. I hate you. This is why it's really over this right here.
[00:37:04] Speaker A: Anyway, hairs are standing up on your body and they're cushioning just a little bit of air in there. And so you have that tiny little. It's probably a very small effect, but it's something your body can do. So the hair is next to your arm, your skin warms it up a little. Furry people probably stay warmer.
[00:37:21] Speaker B: All of the science. Yes, yes, absolutely. But I was thinking it's like when you've had a run of 32 degree days. Actually, no. Like in the winter, we might have 20 degree days. Okay. And you go outside and it's cold, and then you have a 32, 35 degree day. Okay. That's like 15 degrees warmer. That's like going from 60 to, you know, 75. Right?
[00:37:44] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:37:44] Speaker B: And you walk outside and you're like, wow, it's really warm out here this morning. Yes.
[00:37:48] Speaker A: Your nose does not immediately freeze. You feel good about life.
[00:37:52] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:37:53] Speaker A: So your brain can tell you this is great. When it's not.
[00:37:57] Speaker B: Yes. So thinking about the 60 degrees in spring, if it's been cold for a long time, that first 60 degree day, you're like, I'm gonna die. It's so hot out here. And then you head into fall, and it's been in the 80s and 90s and 60. I'm like, I need a sweater. So.
[00:38:11] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah. Well.
[00:38:13] Speaker B: And I just run hot all the time. It's an. It's obnoxious.
[00:38:17] Speaker A: So I get cold at bedtime. My feet get really cold.
[00:38:21] Speaker B: Do you wear socks?
[00:38:23] Speaker A: I do.
Which is a shorty that I'll talk about later.
[00:38:28] Speaker B: Oh. Oh, wow. It's like I read your mind. Okay.
[00:38:30] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:38:34] Speaker B: Wow. Yeah. No, the temperature thing. We keep our house at 60 degrees during the winter, and everyone is. Oh, I know, I know. But I. I actually prefer to feel slightly cold.
[00:38:47] Speaker A: You get to wear all your best cozy clothes.
[00:38:49] Speaker B: I know. I also think I might just be a lizard. But we do have heaters. We have a heater that I finally bought. It looks like a fireplace. And so when people. When normal people come over, I used to turn the heat up. And then I was like, I feel like I'm going to die now. I just put people under, like a. A warmer.
And. And that works great.
[00:39:08] Speaker A: It's awesome.
[00:39:09] Speaker B: So funny what we're all comfortable with, huh?
[00:39:12] Speaker A: And now you know a little bit more about why.
[00:39:14] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:39:16] Speaker A: Oh, my goodness. I was mindlessly scrolling the Internet and I came across this woman at a baseball game, and she. Her head was shaved. The baseball. It was an outdoor stadium.
[00:39:28] Speaker B: Oh, yes. And she's just steaming.
[00:39:31] Speaker A: Yeah. And she's just eating her snacks, and there's nothing she can do about it. So she's made peace with it.
[00:39:36] Speaker B: It was remarkable how much steam was coming off of that lady's head. You know, they always tell you, you should wear a hat. You're losing heat. Well, she is, like, the perfect example. Wow. You really are.
[00:39:46] Speaker A: It's crazy.
[00:39:49] Speaker B: Yeah. No, that was nuts. Let's talk about animals and alcohol.
[00:39:52] Speaker A: Yes, please. We all want to know about that. And then everybody's like, no, don't do that to your pet. So. No.
[00:39:58] Speaker B: Okay, yes. We're not talking about getting your dog high. We're not talking about putting vodka in your cat's drinking water. We're talking about still doing this. No, don't do that. But we're talking about animals doing it in the wild, so.
[00:40:11] Speaker A: Oh, yes, yes.
[00:40:12] Speaker B: At my house we used to have a rowan tree. They're the ones that also. People call them mountain ash. They have the orange berries all over them.
[00:40:20] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:40:21] Speaker B: And yeah. So by the end of the summer, it would be covered with bright orange berries and they would sit on the tree through winter. And in early spring, it used to be in Spokane, robins would congregate. You know, sometimes like February, March, you'd have, you'd hear them and they'd move through the neighborhood and they were eating fruits and berries. Well, they would come to my yard and eat all the berries on the tree. A group of 50 or more, and they would be absolutely blitzed on fermented berries.
[00:40:50] Speaker A: Really?
[00:40:51] Speaker B: Yeah. I would have them crashing into the lawn. They'd be laying on their backs, they'd be hitting the house. I mean, they were drunk. Awesome.
[00:41:01] Speaker A: Or not awesome if you're trying to like get to your car or something.
[00:41:04] Speaker B: Well, that's true. But I would be out in the backyard just making sure no cats were taking advantage of the fact that these robins were just crocked. I mean, just completely, completely off their little feathers. Well, so you take a sugary fruit and the natural yeast on the skins, add a little heat and time and tada, You've got a natural ethanol filled treat.
[00:41:26] Speaker A: Amazing, right?
[00:41:29] Speaker B: And for the longest time, I mean, we know that this happens, but we thought that people were the only ones consuming alcohol, like on purpose.
[00:41:39] Speaker A: Yeah. Yes.
[00:41:40] Speaker B: And that if, if it happened to animals, that it was mostly by accident.
[00:41:45] Speaker A: Oh, but it's not wrong.
At least. Excellent.
[00:41:52] Speaker B: At least that's what's been proposed. In an October 2024 paper, they talked with ecologists who have seen firsthand examples of animals seeming to go out of their way to get completely sloshed.
[00:42:08] Speaker A: Well, you hear social media, it pops up every once in a while, makes the rounds about dolphins and puffer fish. Dolphins getting high on puffer fish.
[00:42:15] Speaker B: Yes. And, and then some people are like, no, it's not really happening. And there is a video. If you go to, if you go to YouTube and you type in animals getting drunk, there's this long video and it's, it shows like elephants and monkeys and things like that. That turns out is a Fake video.
[00:42:30] Speaker A: Oh, that's a shame.
[00:42:32] Speaker B: It was like smash cuts of, like, elephants that have been tranquilized. And so they're starting to like, you know, so that's not real, but it does happen. So let's talk about the fruit. So fruit can make about 1 to 2% alcohol by volume, just hanging on the tree.
[00:42:50] Speaker A: That's decent.
[00:42:52] Speaker B: Well, yeah, but like, so overripe palm fruits, some of them found in Panama, can be as high as 10.2% alcohol.
[00:43:00] Speaker A: That's beefy. Wow.
[00:43:02] Speaker B: That's stronger than beer but less than wine.
[00:43:04] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:43:05] Speaker B: So if you ate like, a couple of them, it'd be like a frat party, right?
[00:43:10] Speaker A: Yes, for sure. Yeah. Yes. No driving heavy machinery or making big life decisions after.
[00:43:18] Speaker B: Yeah, right. Like, that chimpanzee should not be using a bulldozer. He needs to stop it.
[00:43:22] Speaker A: Should not call his ex.
[00:43:24] Speaker B: Oh, God, put the phone down. But so a lot of birds and fruit eating mammals have genes that allow them to metabolize alcohol. Human beings, we do the same thing.
[00:43:35] Speaker A: Like she Hulk, they don't get sick very quick.
[00:43:37] Speaker B: And so. Well, but if you eat fruit, you don't want to be walking around drunk, right? Because you might get eaten like the robins in my backyard.
[00:43:44] Speaker A: True.
[00:43:45] Speaker B: But if you eat enough quickly, like the robins in my backyard, they are eating more than what their body can convert quickly.
[00:43:53] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:43:54] Speaker B: Right. So the researchers aren't sure if they are eating it for endorphins or dopamine or they just like that high floaty drug feeling or because they had an argument with their parents. I don't know why, but they do think that fruit flies really like fermented fruit because they put their eggs in it and their little babies are in there because it's got more stuff in it. So they're like, well, maybe they're getting an extra dash of protein that they know they'll be bugs in there.
[00:44:24] Speaker A: Oh, yes, for sure.
[00:44:26] Speaker B: But we have documentation of wasps getting drunk. Cedar wax wings, primates. They found a moose stuck in a tree in Sweden blitzed on fermented apples.
[00:44:37] Speaker A: Yes. You do see that from time to time. A large moose or a deer.
[00:44:42] Speaker B: Yep.
Slow loris. And tree shrews can also get absolutely toasted.
[00:44:48] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:44:49] Speaker B: So happy hour isn't just for people anymore.
[00:44:53] Speaker A: That's amazing and delightful. I love to think of the idea that they're there on purpose. It's like their Friday.
[00:44:59] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
Yeah. They're like, hey, guys, it's March. Let's. Let's go out and eat those berries. Because, and see, that was funny because when we first moved into this house, I'd never had a rowan tree. And here it's got all this fruit on it. And I was like, nobody ate it over the whole winter. The squirrels didn't eat it, the birds weren't eating it. We had some cedar wax wings come through and they ate some of the berries. But I mean, it was still covered with. Of course, by the end of winter, they are wrinkly, kind of nasty looking little berries.
And then that first time, we had a herd of robins come through. And I mean, I look out and there's this one robin face down, ass up in the grass, wings outspread. I mean, I thought it was dead. And they're dying. I know. And then I realized, no, they're all wasted.
[00:45:45] Speaker A: And they kind of snort and laugh and you're like, oh, oh, yeah, that's amazing. I know I'm anthropomorphizing, but I will never stop. I've watched too many great movies that anthropomorphize. Yes.
[00:46:01] Speaker B: Well, and that was part of the thing in the paper they said that, you know, we've, we've been, we've tried so hard to not anthropomorphize this behavior and any animal behavior.
[00:46:10] Speaker A: Right.
[00:46:10] Speaker B: We're just going to be like, well, an animal just does it because an animal does it. I'm sorry if you see this happening all the time.
[00:46:16] Speaker A: Yeah. It's intentional.
[00:46:18] Speaker B: Yeah, it has to be. At least in some. It's to some degree. I refuse to believe anything else. Same drunk. Drunk animals.
[00:46:27] Speaker A: That's great. We're gonna take a less funny but an interesting turn.
[00:46:32] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:46:33] Speaker A: Are you familiar? Are you a baseball family? Do you watch much?
Are you into more like you're playing D and D and setting up characters?
[00:46:41] Speaker B: Yeah, I was like, if you met me, we don't do sports.
[00:46:44] Speaker A: I just, you know, I wanted to check.
[00:46:47] Speaker B: No, I. I did have a brief summer of watching every single baseball game in high school because there was someone cute. Because people had on tight pants and yes, there was someone cute. So I new baseball for just a season.
[00:47:04] Speaker A: It was a great season.
Yeah. So a thing that I didn't know. But if you close your eyes and think of a scene in baseball where they're setting something up, you see, and they do it slow. You see somebody get some dirt and they put it on the ball and it's golden and beautiful in the background. And the dirt. So they're sort of rubbing the ball and the dirt's floating away in the breeze. And it's like the iconic tension builder. Something magical is about to happen in every baseball movie. There's that scene, I feel like. Yep, that's actually a thing. They call it magic mud. There is a company that sells magic mud. Oh, this is the craziest thing to me that there is, truly. And it's not just you can get any mud from anywhere. It comes from Lena Blackburn Baseball Rubbing Mud Company.
[00:48:02] Speaker B: Oh, wow.
[00:48:03] Speaker A: And what this does for anyone, like kids at the Salem lot could be doing this, too. It improves grip on the ball because the fresh ball is really shiny.
Dulls that sheen. It creates a little more texture. So a study was done. This has been a question that was asked by somebody somewhere in my notes.
And this person whose name I will.
[00:48:25] Speaker B: Eventually stumble upon, I will reveal at some time.
[00:48:30] Speaker A: It's like a full page lower. Matthew Gutierrez, a sports writer, asked a group of scholars at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, to study the magic mud. He wanted to know if it really, indeed made baseballs perform better.
[00:48:49] Speaker B: Oh. He's like, is this a placebo? You know?
[00:48:52] Speaker A: Right. And could it be any mud? Is it the magic mud?
So they did indeed do a study in 2019, which is like, yeah, probably. It kind of does, but it was a brief study. It wasn't in depth. And so in 2021, they started digging deeper. And this is Engineers in environmental sciences at UPenn Philadelphia, which is a good combo. I like that because they're looking at mud, and so they need to know properties, which is definitely more in the biology and environmental sciences zone. But the engineers can quantify the action that's happening. So this team, the Magic team, studied. And so let's reverse back to BaseballRubbingmud.com is where you're going to find out about this.
[00:49:41] Speaker B: That sounds like something you shouldn't look into.
[00:49:44] Speaker A: No, but this is a very wholesome site. It's very sweet. This a family business that was. It's only had three owners since 1938, if I remember the lineage. And so they.
It feels like sandpaper when it's dry, but it can be smeared and dampened. So it's like a facial cream in texture, apparently. And it only gets gritty when it dries. This is used by every major and minor league baseball organization for the past about 75 years. What? And it comes from a secret location along the Delaware river estuary in southern New Jersey. So there's Secret squirrel about it, too, which I love.
[00:50:26] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:50:27] Speaker A: And it begins in 1938 when an umpire complained To Lena Blackburn, he was a third based coachman.
Nope, not a coachman. That's the horse guy. He was, yes. He was a third base coach for the old Philadelphia Athletics. And so there's this discussion about these baseballs are in such bad condition, they're hard to manage. And that at that time they were using mud, but it was just whatever mud at the field they were. And so the ball's cover would get soft because the liquid from the mud would absorb into it and apparently could make it more tamperable, leave it, you know, leave it open to tampering.
So they needed to get that shine off but not soften the ball. You can go to the website to read the whole story, but Lena is the one who started this. He's like, I have a solution for this. So they would go out and they did a little bit of searching and digging in the area and finally came up with like this, this is the mud. And they go. So each July, people from the company, there's a crew that heads out in a boat to the old mud hole and they scoop up hundreds of pound of the magic pounds of the magic mud. They get it in buckets and they take it back. They get a whole season's worth and it rests in barrels until the following spring. So it sits there and it just hangs out. And then it shipped out to the majors, the minors, a lot of independent leagues and even some colleges. And so back to our studies. 2019. Matthew Gutierrez. Is it really a thing? And they're like, it's not conclusive, but it seems like maybe. And so clearly from 2019 to 2021, the stayed in the mental hopper and it poked around. And so by 2021, the team devised three sets of experiments to determine if it actually works. And so the first experiment measured its spreadability, the second its stickiness. And the third, the effect, the mud's effect on friction against the fingers.
[00:52:33] Speaker B: Huh.
[00:52:34] Speaker A: So you want to talk science? Do you want me to use science words?
[00:52:37] Speaker B: Oh, my God, yes.
[00:52:38] Speaker A: This is the last.
[00:52:39] Speaker B: You know, I love science words.
[00:52:42] Speaker A: The spreadable, spreadability and stickiness could be measured by two existing pieces of equipment, which is always good because you don't need to requisition or figure something new out. The rheometer measured spreadability, so they smeared it between two plates and rotated them. So I'm imagining like an Oreo when you twist and open an Oreo so they could see how it flows.
[00:53:04] Speaker B: Like the Oreo machine. Yeah, yeah. Yes.
[00:53:06] Speaker A: So they were seeing flow and viscosity and Then atomic force microscopy looked at the stickiness on an atomic level.
[00:53:17] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:53:17] Speaker A: And so they could see how well it would improve grip.
[00:53:20] Speaker B: Hmm.
[00:53:21] Speaker A: The frictional effect required some creativity. The team needed to build some new experiment. And so they actually figured out a way to mimic the properties of human fingers. Sometimes I think we should do video because then you could see I'm wiggling my fingers in the air.
So they created a rubber like material, had the same elasticity as human skin. They covered it in what seemed like an equal amount of oil that would be on a human skin. And they carefully and systematically rub the oil and the material against strips of baseballs in the manner specified by Major League baseball. And it will be no surprise to you that I did not go back and read the study to see what that manner was. But you can. It is easily found on the Internet.
I didn't get that weedy. But here's the results.
According to the team, it was revealed that what the pitchers have been saying is true and what the players have been saying. It has exactly the right amount of stickiness, spreadability, and friction in a way that allows that great texture. But doesn't. It doesn't. The liquid doesn't absorb into the mall since the ball.
[00:54:37] Speaker B: Interesting.
[00:54:40] Speaker A: So the three properties have to come together. So it must be light enough that the air can dry that liquid fast enough that it doesn't seep into the ball.
[00:54:50] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, it's like it's clay, right. That they're going and getting and having thrown pots.
[00:54:56] Speaker A: Yeah, it's different.
[00:54:57] Speaker B: Different kinds of clay. You know, they. It can be sticky, it can be really soft. It can be. Oh, my gosh. There's some. It's like it's got gravel in it, so.
[00:55:06] Speaker A: Exactly. So this is the right ratio of like sand and clay material. It's just right.
So it spreads like there's no sand at all. But once it dries, it's like, oh, it's sandy.
[00:55:19] Speaker B: So porcelain.
[00:55:21] Speaker A: Just. Yeah, yeah. It's just right. Fine and sticky particles. Huh.
So.
[00:55:28] Speaker B: Yeah, because see, I'm glad they tested this because this is really funny because I also looked into this to. To cover today.
[00:55:35] Speaker A: Oh, did you? Great minds.
[00:55:38] Speaker B: But I didn't look very far because I was like, I don't want to talk about baseball because I'm a big loser, but you're making it so much more interesting.
[00:55:44] Speaker A: I'm really into into it for the mud angle.
[00:55:48] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:55:48] Speaker A: I've always had a deep love for mud, but not in a scientific way, just in a messy way.
[00:55:53] Speaker B: I've always loved mud. Yeah. Well you know, that's very funny. No, but I. Because I was thinking is it a ritual that you know, it's just, you know when you pick up the brain.
[00:56:04] Speaker A: Is things to the small heart making it.
[00:56:06] Speaker B: Does it. Does it really make any difference? And I. And see. And that's as far as I went.
[00:56:12] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:56:12] Speaker B: And now you're like different. Yeah.
[00:56:15] Speaker A: And they have not been able to create a synthetic replica.
[00:56:20] Speaker B: Ah. It's just this is what you got to use.
[00:56:22] Speaker A: Yeah. Magic mud continues to be the product.
[00:56:25] Speaker B: Huh.
[00:56:27] Speaker A: So I wonder about their source. Like if it's right along a river, it's probably continually refilling. But a river could change. Clearly it's been like 75 years. And so.
[00:56:38] Speaker B: Yeah, but it's not the. I mean like it's a pocket. It's because when you go to like a clay deposit, it's like a hill. They are going to probably at some point. Unless they like they'll run out.
[00:56:51] Speaker A: Prices are going to go way up for that stuff.
Yeah. So they don't talk about that. I'm sure it's a fear for everybody, but.
[00:56:57] Speaker B: Oh yeah. No, they're like, no, there's tons. Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it.
Huh. Wow.
And I mean probably you could use a lot of different dirts. But they've decided on this one because then it's fair. Right. Because everybody's using the same.
[00:57:13] Speaker A: You'd think that scientists will have to analyze it and say okay, the dirt in also the Mississippi Delta is an analog. It would work as well.
[00:57:24] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:57:25] Speaker A: But that would require a large database of samples that is cross checkable.
[00:57:30] Speaker B: Yeah. And now it's probably a fairness issue, you know. Yes.
Huh.
[00:57:34] Speaker A: Magic mud. Do you have anything else?
[00:57:36] Speaker B: I do.
[00:57:37] Speaker A: Oh good.
[00:57:40] Speaker B: I have cowlicks.
[00:57:42] Speaker A: Tell me about them. Because I feel like might have gotten worse in certain areas over time. Oh, can that happen?
[00:57:50] Speaker B: Well, no.
[00:57:51] Speaker A: I choose not to believe that.
[00:57:53] Speaker B: Okay, that's fine. We can argue about that. We can arm wrestle later. Okay. So you can call them hair whorls or cowlicks. No matter what you call them, we all have at least one. Even if it isn't super visible. It's that whirl of hair usually on like the top back crown of your head and that affects how the hair lays on your head. And so I was going to ask you, do you have any? And so yours are getting worse.
[00:58:16] Speaker A: I have one in the back. Left or right? Left. I think that's been weird lately. And so I'll put My hair in a ponytail and I have this weird lump and you can see the scalp. I have to be very intentional about making it lay down. And then I've got two in my bangs. Heavy sigh.
[00:58:33] Speaker B: Yes. Okay, so I. I also have a bunch. I have some in my bangs which make it terrible to cut bangs, because if you cut them straight.
[00:58:40] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:58:41] Speaker B: They don't. They don't lay straight. And According to a May 2020 paper about scalp whirl patterns, that might mean that I have autism and central nervous system. Ab. Abner. See, I have abnormalities.
[00:58:55] Speaker A: So the more you have, the more likelihood. Because I got at least three.
[00:59:00] Speaker B: Yeah. I got a ton of them. Yeah.
[00:59:02] Speaker A: Oh, that's fun.
[00:59:03] Speaker B: Yeah. Let's keep going. So, fact is, with the hairy ball theory, any three dimensional object, like your head, is going to have at least one swirl because your hair can't all go the same direction. Right. Because it's, like, around too uniform. Yes, it's. Yeah. And that's all we're gonna do on that. Because Barbie. No. I went out for a walk with Chaz and. And I got a whole thing on the hairy bowl theory, which.
Yeah. Anyway, so I was like, nobody wants to know about that. Instead, we want to talk about why, where, and how we have these things. Okay.
[00:59:40] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:59:41] Speaker B: So the majority of white people, of which you and I are on that team, 95.5%, have only one clockwise cowlick.
[00:59:52] Speaker A: Really?
[00:59:53] Speaker B: What? Yep. I know 90% of the black population have a double whirl that also goes clockwise. One, two. And there's a whole host of thoughts about the direction of the whirlwind. Some people think that a counterclies cow. Cowlick. Oh, my goodness. Counter clockwise cowlick might indicate left handedness.
[01:00:18] Speaker A: Oh.
[01:00:20] Speaker B: Or in men, that it might mean that they're gay. But that's been disputed in other studies.
[01:00:25] Speaker A: Okay.
[01:00:26] Speaker B: And often cowlicks are genetic. My kids have very similar ones to mine.
[01:00:32] Speaker A: Mm.
[01:00:34] Speaker B: And probably because of what I said before about the autism and central nervous system stuff, they probably have the same mental illnesses that I do.
[01:00:43] Speaker A: The same neurodiversity.
[01:00:46] Speaker B: Isn't it great? Yeah. And there's some reasons for that. So there are a few people who don't have them because.
[01:00:54] Speaker A: And their heads look like a Barbie head.
[01:00:56] Speaker B: Well, yeah. I mean, if you think about it, we don't have hair. Unless you're like a very furry person, you don't have hair that goes all the way around your whole head. So I guess you. Your cowlick would be like, where you don't have hair. In the front.
[01:01:07] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:01:08] Speaker B: But they think that could be an indicator of brain damage. Or not. Because the paper I looked at only studied 500 white children. And, you know, take that as you will.
[01:01:20] Speaker A: Yep.
[01:01:20] Speaker B: Okay, so. But guess what? This is the thing that's so funny to me. Cows get cow licks, too.
[01:01:26] Speaker A: That's delightful.
[01:01:28] Speaker B: Yes. I mean, I've seen horses that have cow licks, but I just love that it's cows have cow's licks. That makes me very happy. And there are a ton of studies on how the location of a cow's cowlick might predict its temperament.
[01:01:42] Speaker A: Oh, the cows with cowlicks. I'm reasonably agreeable.
How about the cows with many cowlicks? Are they.
[01:01:52] Speaker B: Yeah. Okay. Yeah. All right, so I found two articles, one co authored by Temple Grandin, if you know who she is. She's me too. Super, amazing science researcher. She did a lot of stuff with cows. Okay. So cattle with hair whirl patterns above the eyes, and they have. They have like, a whole diagram. It's like, right side, left side, above the eye, below the eye, way down on the nose. Okay. But above the eyes are more behaviorally agitated during restraint.
[01:02:21] Speaker A: Oh. So you should get those ones out of the way or save them to the end. Whatever you're.
[01:02:26] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, so some people are, like, breeding the cows so that their cowlicks.
Right.
[01:02:34] Speaker A: It actually makes a lot of sense.
[01:02:36] Speaker B: Yeah. Are lower on their face and. Okay. So it turns out that spiral of hair is genetic in cows, too, just like people. Because hair patterns in a fetus form at the same time the brain forms.
[01:02:49] Speaker A: Oh, I guess that makes sense.
[01:02:51] Speaker B: Right. And so as your brain is forming, your hair is coming in, and it's coming in in certain directions because of how your brain is going. Which is why they do think that some mental disorders. Although I don't know if I'd call autism a disorder, but that's how they put it. Can be linked to these variety of different cowlicks that can happen all over your head. And so in a cow. In that diagram that I talked about, they were like, if you find a whirl here or here, there's a one to four scale of what that might mean when they're trapped in a squeeze chute. So higher on the face, more likely to panic. The fact that I have cowlicks in my bangs might explain my anxiety levels.
[01:03:34] Speaker A: Well, that's actually pretty reasonable. And.
Yeah, that's amazing.
So they're specifically breeding cows with cowlick so that they're very docile in the Shoots.
[01:03:48] Speaker B: And the theory. Yeah, like, they're, like, lower on the nose. And there was a cow, and it had a cowlick. It would be for you to have a cowlick, like, right on the bridge of your nose with the. With the hair and the. Okay, so you said that you think you're getting more cows. You're not getting more cowlicks. But here's the really unfortunate.
[01:04:10] Speaker A: That actually makes sense based on what you've described them not getting.
[01:04:13] Speaker B: As we age, though, our hair follicles change because you're getting gray hair, and your hair texture can change and that change in texture because you're a curly, curly person.
[01:04:22] Speaker A: Yep.
[01:04:22] Speaker B: It's just coming out thicker or weirder or twistier.
[01:04:26] Speaker A: And the texture is changing because it's getting grayer. Yeah.
[01:04:29] Speaker B: Yep. And then that cowlick is just doing you dirty.
[01:04:32] Speaker A: Yeah. I'm gonna embrace it and, like, put a tiny smiley face in the spot where it sometimes is. Just bear.
[01:04:41] Speaker B: My mom. My mom calls cowlicks monkey butts. Oh.
[01:04:50] Speaker A: I kind of like that better.
[01:04:51] Speaker B: Actually, I don't, because now when I see someone with a really obvious cowlick, it's all I can think about, and it's a little disturbing, so.
[01:04:58] Speaker A: Well, that's true. I'm going to stay with Calyx. You're right.
[01:05:02] Speaker B: I like me. Well, I don't like Mia cowlick because I have a lot of them. Like, when you go to the hairdresser and they go to cut your hair, and they're like, where does the cowlick end in your head begin? I don't know.
[01:05:12] Speaker A: Yeah. And the ones in my bangs aren't particularly pronounced, and, like, they're only sort of like half a cowlick because it's like a rainbow. A rainbow is a whole circle. But these ones are right at the bang. So it cuts it off halfway, and so it just results in a weird bump in the hair.
[01:05:27] Speaker B: Yes. Yeah. Like, if I. If I try to trim my bangs, like, damp, straight across, then they dry, and, like, half is longer. Like, if I push them down, the variety of lengths that I have in my bangs is ridiculous.
[01:05:41] Speaker A: People will be, like, one length, and they just look bumpy all the time. Or, you know, I've killed them to death with the flat iron.
[01:05:49] Speaker B: Yeah. And. Yeah. And see, if I flat iron, I'll have some that are almost half an inch longer than the rest of them.
It's crazy. Yeah.
[01:05:58] Speaker A: Cowlicks.
[01:05:59] Speaker B: Aren't they great? And that's why I'm anxious, so don't put me in a squeeze. Shoot. I'm Gonna freak out.
[01:06:07] Speaker A: Noted. If we're ever in social situations that start seeming like they can go that direction. Yeah, Give her some space. She just needs some space.
She would get very hostile.
Okay, are you ready for my favorite part of the recording?
[01:06:27] Speaker B: Yes.
[01:06:28] Speaker A: It's trashy research time.
[01:06:31] Speaker B: Yes.
[01:06:32] Speaker A: So it is important to us that we present accurate information to you. And so news sites that are more entertainment news sites.
[01:06:43] Speaker B: Oh, no. Are you going to give me a stress headache?
[01:06:46] Speaker A: No, no, no.
However, like it is, you could see something that is completely true in an entertainment news site. However, their sources are not. Like they might be third source down the line. And so for us to get you information that's actually accurate takes sometimes a little bit of clicking, a little bit more reading. And so I gave myself the gift of finding a reasonable primary source, skimming, and then asking AI to tell me the concept so that I did not have to do any of the work. So this. And so I've read enough about them to know that the AI distillation is correct. But I let AI do all the work. So would you like to know about wearing socks to bed? It does help you sleep because of distal vasodilation. It's the process that occurs when the body increases blood flow to the hands and feet in preparation to sleep by lowering your body core temperature. So by putting socks on that help stress some of that heat down there, you go to sleep faster. That's literally all I learned about this, but it makes sense to me and I'm happy. So you all have the Internet. If you'd like to dive deeper, we're moving on.
Bang, bang, bang.
[01:08:06] Speaker B: Speed round.
[01:08:06] Speaker A: That's right. Do cats really hate water? And clearly Instagram has told us no, they don't all hate water.
[01:08:14] Speaker B: No. I follow a cat that takes a shower every Sunday, and it fills my heart with joy.
[01:08:18] Speaker A: Me too. I love the hairless cats in their little bonnets. Oh, they're so weird, but I love them. So cats are individuals, as are we all. And so some breeds are more known for swimming. Maine coons, Bengals, Turkish vans. I don't know what those are.
They like to swim.
[01:08:37] Speaker B: Aren't those?
[01:08:38] Speaker A: The Turkish van is even nicknamed the swimming cat.
One of the reasons we might not see swimming as much is cats have evolved in dry climates. And now in our modern world, as pets, they just do not have as much exposure to water, potentially. Also, anybody with hair will tell you it can be uncomfortable when it's wet. And cats are covered in it. So wet fur can be uncomfortable and heavy and could Take a long time to dry. So if the cat can catch it prey without getting wor wet, that is probably ideal. Some cats do have a fear reaction to water. Others don't. Um, so if you can get your cat when it's a kitten and it doesn't have a particular opinion, you might be able to encourage your cat to like water. There's another cat out there that's on a sailboat, and I saw one where they're like, no, no, don't jump yet. It's not time to jump to the dock. And it jumped early in its little life jacket. That cat does not seem to like water.
[01:09:36] Speaker B: No. I had a cat that when Beckett was little, you know, if you had a bathtub with three inches of water, that sort of situation.
[01:09:45] Speaker A: Yes.
[01:09:45] Speaker B: Haku would get in and walk around, but then.
I know. And it was so cute. But then as he got older, he was like, I don't. I don't think I need to do that anymore.
[01:09:56] Speaker A: Yeah, agreed. Well, one of the things that they noted in my AI Distillation is that cats are finicky about their appearance and controlling their own situations. So it could just be like, no, I don't have time for that today.
It could completely be a personality thing.
[01:10:16] Speaker B: I'd believe that.
[01:10:17] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay. Hot dog buns and hot dogs, different numbers. Okay.
[01:10:22] Speaker B: Yes. Why is it 8 and 6 or whatever it is that's so crazy?
[01:10:25] Speaker A: 10 hot dogs are about a pound. The buns are baked in four roll pans. So it is simply. We always sell about a pound of meat. We don't always, but often. That is tradition. Over time, you do see that changing. Now, like, there's five and six packs of the fancy hot dogs, but the buns are still largely sold in eight packs. And it's just that manufacturing cost of replacing your pans and doing it differently. Why would you do that? Let the hot dog people change. Theirs is just a convention of the system.
[01:10:59] Speaker B: Because I hate that. Because then you're like, well, now I have two packets of hot dog buns.
[01:11:03] Speaker A: I would have to buy 64 hot dogs and buns to make it all turn out. I don't know what it is, but I did the math once. But.
[01:11:10] Speaker B: But then. But then people are like, well, you're having sandwiches on hot dog buns because we've got, you know, extras.
[01:11:17] Speaker A: I made bread pudding. It's hot dog buns.
Yeah.
Okay.
[01:11:24] Speaker B: Wow. Huh?
[01:11:25] Speaker A: Lightning round continues.
[01:11:26] Speaker B: Oh, okay.
[01:11:27] Speaker A: Dye. Oh, yeah. There's more. The dye in Doritos can make mice transparent.
[01:11:31] Speaker B: Okay. I love Everything about that. Yes. Yes, me too.
[01:11:36] Speaker A: Okay, so it's tartrazine.
[01:11:39] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:11:39] Speaker A: That's a yellow orange dye that they use in Doritos. And here's how it works, because I skimmed that headline and did not click through. And you might have done the same thing.
[01:11:48] Speaker B: No, I read the article.
[01:11:49] Speaker A: The dye. You what?
[01:11:51] Speaker B: I read the article.
[01:11:52] Speaker A: Okay. So you can fact check here. The dye changes how light interacts with tissue, so that's how it gets to be see through. The tartrazine molecules absorb blue and ultraviolet light, which allows light to pass through the skin more easily. So researchers apply a mixture of water and tartrazine to the skin of live mice, and they massage it in. So they're getting a little rubber on their tummy and their hind legs. And that allows scientists to monitor what's happening inside without dissection. And so that's good. Yes, it's.
[01:12:27] Speaker B: I. I'm sure the mice are, like, a plus now. We have to tell people they're naked mice.
[01:12:31] Speaker A: Yep.
[01:12:32] Speaker B: Okay. No fur in the way.
[01:12:34] Speaker A: No. And our skin's too thick.
[01:12:36] Speaker B: I know it. Yeah.
[01:12:38] Speaker A: Just a little disappointing.
[01:12:39] Speaker B: I agree. But then I also was thinking, what if it wasn't too thick and you went for, like, your abdominal diagnosis sort of thing, and they rub the stuff all over you, and then they don't get it all off all the way. And you go home and take off your shirt and you can see your guts.
[01:12:58] Speaker A: I feel like it would take a while. Like, this effect is going to take a little while to start.
[01:13:05] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:13:06] Speaker A: Because it has to get into a molecular level. If I understood my AI skimming well.
[01:13:11] Speaker B: And, like, what if they rubbed it on your face and then you just went. I mean, like, that would be a horror show.
[01:13:18] Speaker A: Yeah. We've seen all sorts of the zombie movies. That would be amazing.
[01:13:23] Speaker B: It's like, I didn't have to get an ultrasound, but I can't look at myself for 48 hours or else I'm gonna vomit.
[01:13:30] Speaker A: Yeah. Veils would come back into fashion.
Yeah. I wonder how much it would take to rub on human skin for it to actually happen. Probably, like an unsafe amount.
[01:13:44] Speaker B: Yeah. And we're just too thick. I mean, you know, these mice, it's just like little bit of skin and then their bodies. And if you have any body fat in the way. And I think even our skin was too thick.
[01:13:54] Speaker A: Yes, that's what AI says. So it's like 10 times thicker than.
[01:13:58] Speaker B: You could rub it on your eyelid and see your eyeball.
[01:14:01] Speaker A: Gross. Awesome.
[01:14:03] Speaker B: Yes.
[01:14:04] Speaker A: Let's try it on Someone else.
[01:14:06] Speaker B: Yes. Not me. I don't volunteer for that. Thank you.
[01:14:09] Speaker A: No, but let's do it.
[01:14:12] Speaker B: So, yeah, no, I. And those will all be in the show notes. We'll find those things. So you can just go and click on it.
[01:14:18] Speaker A: It is amazing. But I'm just telling you about it because you're smart enough to look it up.
Please feel free to do that yourself.
[01:14:25] Speaker B: You're like, don't talk down to them. They can figure it out.
[01:14:29] Speaker A: Don't facilitate their laziness. Make them work for it. You guys aren't lazy. I know you're busy.
[01:14:35] Speaker B: We're not facilit. We are simply providing a service. Oh, my God.
Okay, so I think we're like at an hour and a half, I'll be very.
[01:14:45] Speaker A: Yeah. There might be some things to cut.
[01:14:47] Speaker B: I don't know. I mean, it felt. It felt like chat show gold to me.
[01:14:50] Speaker A: So I had a good time.
[01:14:52] Speaker B: I did too. See, and this is the problem, guys. We have a good time. We love doing this. We have been so busy the past year. It has been like, okay, maybe we'll just do an episode every two weeks and we can still kind of get things done. But we want the quality to be good. We brought. We brought it here at the end. We. We're out of the park. I got that mud. Hit that ball.
[01:15:17] Speaker A: That's right.
[01:15:20] Speaker B: Thank you for being with us for six years. Yeah, I feel kind of old saying that and a little, like, I might vomit a little bit.
[01:15:29] Speaker A: But thank you.
[01:15:30] Speaker B: We will still have Instagram reels. I'm thinking about doing some, like, little science things and jumping on there and doing short little movies occasionally. Science and history between writing and other podcast projects.
[01:15:43] Speaker A: So yeah. Might surprise you with episodes now and again. We might find something. And we're like, we need to break out the mics. This must be spoken of. So don't worry. The key. The website's still up and the episodes are all going to be available and we'll keep an eye on Instagram. So hit us up whenever you need a little brain junk. You can hit the back catalog. There are like 328 episodes now.
[01:16:06] Speaker B: Yep.
[01:16:07] Speaker A: So you can still like and subscribe and it'll still make us feel really good.
[01:16:11] Speaker B: Oh, now I feel sad.
[01:16:13] Speaker A: I know when I saw. I'm like, oh, wait, that's the very last line.
[01:16:18] Speaker B: It is the very last line.
[01:16:20] Speaker A: It's horrifying.
[01:16:21] Speaker B: Oh, my God.
Amy and I have loved filling your brains with the whole junk drawer of everything you never knew you wanted to know. And we guarantee you were never bored.
