Speaker 1: Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My
Speaker 1: name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and we're
Speaker 1: out this week, so we're bringing you some episodes from
Speaker 1: the vault. This is part one of our series on thirst.
Speaker 1: Thirst like you feel in your throat and throughout your body.
Speaker 1: It's when you need something to drink thirst. Uh. This
Speaker 1: episode originally published on February one. I hope you enjoy
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey are you welcome to Stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your Mind? My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick,
Speaker 1: And today I wanted to start off with a short
Speaker 1: reading of a few lines from the Odyssey that will
Speaker 1: introduce the subject we're getting into for the next few episodes.
Speaker 1: So this is from the Odyssey book eleven. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: be reading from the m. Lee Wilson translation. But this
Speaker 1: is a section of the story where Odysseus is describing
Speaker 1: the horrors that he witnessed in Hades, and and there
Speaker 1: are different kinds of horrors, Like some of the horror
Speaker 1: of Hades is just a kind of profound, depressing disappointment
Speaker 1: with when he's confronted with the reality of how crappy
Speaker 1: it is to be dead, you know that, Like he
Speaker 1: he tries to talk to Ajax, and Ajax can't even
Speaker 1: really say anything. But then there's this other section where
Speaker 1: he starts seeing more Dante in Inferno, kind of horrors
Speaker 1: of actual tortures, and so he sees King Minos, he
Speaker 1: sees a Ryan, he sees Sisyphus famously, you know, in
Speaker 1: the futile labor of pushing the boulder up a hill,
Speaker 1: longing to see it rolled down again. But eventually he
Speaker 1: comes to a figure called Tantalus. And then here's what
Speaker 1: Odysseus says about Tantalus. I saw the pain of Tantalus
Speaker 1: in water to his chin so parched, no way to drink.
Speaker 1: When that old man bent down towards the water, it
Speaker 1: was gone. Some god had dried it up. And at
Speaker 1: his feet dark earth appeared, tall leafy trees hung fruit
Speaker 1: above his head, sweet figs and pomegranates, and brightly shining
Speaker 1: apples and ripe olives. But when he grasped them with
Speaker 1: his hands, the wind hurled them away towards the shadowy
Speaker 1: clouds now. When I look at the contraposition. Of the
Speaker 1: two tortures of Tantalus, You've got the one. You know,
Speaker 1: he always wants to reach up to get the delicious
Speaker 1: fruit from the tree, but the wind kicks up, it
Speaker 1: pulls it out from his hands, and he can't ever
Speaker 1: get the food. That's a that's a a torture in
Speaker 1: Tartarus by starvation, which is not good. Obviously, starvation is
Speaker 1: very bad. And it's probably more expressively phrase the second
Speaker 1: half of this, uh, the situation, but it's actually the
Speaker 1: first half that fills me with more horror when it
Speaker 1: talks about how he's he's standing in water, so it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, he feels it lapping around on his skin,
Speaker 1: but every time he tries to kneel down to put
Speaker 1: his face to it to get a drink, the water
Speaker 1: just is pulled away, as if by a tide. The
Speaker 1: gods dry it up away from his mouth, and he
Speaker 1: can't ever have a drink. To me, that's the more
Speaker 1: terrifying half of this situation. Yeah, yeah, I love the
Speaker 1: image of Tantalus. Is this um this being that is uh,
Speaker 1: It's he's like he's suspended between his desires, between his
Speaker 1: needs needs or desires, depending on how you want to
Speaker 1: frame it here, right, Well, I guess this raises questions
Speaker 1: about the the biology of your shade in hades or tartarus,
Speaker 1: Like does it actually need to eat and drink and
Speaker 1: he can't get it? Or is this just some kind
Speaker 1: of I don't know, psychological need his soul has that's
Speaker 1: not really biological. I guess yeah, given what we we
Speaker 1: we believe about the underworld the other myth cycles, I
Speaker 1: guess it's the idea that he doesn't actually need the
Speaker 1: fruit or the water to live, if you call this living.
Speaker 1: He's forever suspended in the state of of on death
Speaker 1: and on life. Um, but but wants to have the water,
Speaker 1: wants to have the fruit. Maybe that's the kind of
Speaker 1: question you're not actually supposed to bother thinking about this,
Speaker 1: like the annoying pedantic question that Plato would bring up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean well, Speaking of of philosophy, there is the
Speaker 1: concept of Burden's ass named for fourteenth century French philosopher
Speaker 1: gen Burden. This one. This is a basic idea that
Speaker 1: also pops up in the works of Aristotle and uh
Speaker 1: al Gazali various other writers. The more common thirst related
Speaker 1: version is if you have a donkey that is both
Speaker 1: hungry and thirsty and placed equal distance from both food
Speaker 1: and water, it will remain immobile and die. Now, this
Speaker 1: may be apart from the lesson that the the thought
Speaker 1: experiment is trying to produce, but I think that's not
Speaker 1: necessarily true. I think there might very well be biological
Speaker 1: priorities that would place access to water above access to food. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's one of the paradoxes that maybe doesn't You
Speaker 1: can't exactly recreate it in reality and expect it to
Speaker 1: be quite as a captivating but uh, abstractly it's it's
Speaker 1: kind of fascinating. So as Aristotle put it, quote, a
Speaker 1: man being just as hungry as thirsty and placed in
Speaker 1: between food and drink must necessarily remain where he is
Speaker 1: and starve to death. So obviously that's not going to
Speaker 1: be the case. If you're hungry and thirsty and the
Speaker 1: waiter brings you your sandwich and your your cola at
Speaker 1: the same time, you're not gonna die. You don't have
Speaker 1: to give the waiter special instructions. You will. You worked
Speaker 1: in restaurant industry, Joe. This is not like they don't
Speaker 1: tell you this, right, They don't say look, don't put
Speaker 1: the drink in the food in front of the customer
Speaker 1: at the same time, or they will they will just
Speaker 1: remain immobile and die. It is actually broadly considered very
Speaker 1: important in restaurants to get people their drinks before you
Speaker 1: get them their food. If you bring them food before
Speaker 1: they get their drinks, people will get very confused and upset. Well,
Speaker 1: and uh, I know, I I often hear you know,
Speaker 1: when you're a lot of times when you're hungry, you're
Speaker 1: actually thirsty, and therefore, to avoid and prevent overeating, you
Speaker 1: want to make sure you have plenty of liquids as well.
Speaker 1: So yeah, like, if I'm going into a restaurant situation,
Speaker 1: I definitely want my water first because I feel like
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna have a more balanced experience eating
Speaker 1: lunch or dinner there, you'll certainly have a more pleasant experience.
Speaker 1: Though actually sorry, I'm just introducing exceptions to every single
Speaker 1: thing we say so far. But this does come up
Speaker 1: in a paper that I want to look at later.
Speaker 1: There is a concept that's been documented widely in animal
Speaker 1: biology known as dehydration and do standardrexia, which is essentially
Speaker 1: the idea that many animals species. Certainly humans and rodents
Speaker 1: will naturally restrict their own food intake in response to dehydration. Again,
Speaker 1: there are some exceptions, some animals like get their water
Speaker 1: entirely from food and so forth. But but but typically,
Speaker 1: like if you get rodents and and they're thirsty, they
Speaker 1: will eat less at each meal you give them, not
Speaker 1: saying that's a way to live your life, though, I
Speaker 1: mean better to be hydrated. Well, you know, coming back
Speaker 1: to mythology a bit, I thought we might mention just
Speaker 1: a few other you know, bits of myth and folklore
Speaker 1: and legend and so forth concerning thirst. Uh, because I
Speaker 1: feel like, you know, we we have the sort of
Speaker 1: mythological echoes of the basic biological reality, and maybe these
Speaker 1: can help and inform and shape our conversation as we
Speaker 1: move forward. So there's one particular story I was taken
Speaker 1: with from from from ancient China. It's an ancient story
Speaker 1: dating back at least as far as the shan Haijing.
Speaker 1: This is the the Fabulous Book of Monsters that we
Speaker 1: we did an episode, did a couple episodes on I
Speaker 1: think last year, and have recently or will be rerunning
Speaker 1: those episodes very soon. I think the title is sometimes
Speaker 1: translated as the Classic of the Mountains and Seas. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of a lot of mythological beings
Speaker 1: and places mentioned in the book Um and Uh, and
Speaker 1: there's there is this account of Kuafu. It's a it's
Speaker 1: a it's a story that continues to be told today
Speaker 1: in modern China, and there have been many versions of it.
Speaker 1: According to Yang and and Turner. In Chinese mythology, basically,
Speaker 1: what you have in Kuofu is this primordial giant with
Speaker 1: two yellow snakes circling his ears and two more yellow
Speaker 1: snakes in his hands. And he's powerful, very powerful, certainly,
Speaker 1: but he overestimates his own power, and depending on the
Speaker 1: story and the exact telling, he either challenges the Sun
Speaker 1: to a race, or he just wants to chase the
Speaker 1: Sun's shadow and catch the Sun. I've also read a
Speaker 1: version where he wants to prolong the day by catching
Speaker 1: the sun, Like if I can just get my hands
Speaker 1: on the Sun and then it can't move away, it
Speaker 1: can't set, the day will never end. Oh that's a
Speaker 1: good plan. Yeah, Well, either way it works out. This
Speaker 1: giant runs after the Sun, intending to catch it um,
Speaker 1: but the Sun stays just ever out of his grasp,
Speaker 1: and what happens, well, he grows ever thirstier. So eventually
Speaker 1: he just has to stop for a second and he
Speaker 1: drinks the Yellow river. Um. Then he stops and he
Speaker 1: drinks drinks another river. But he's still so thirsty that
Speaker 1: he heads for the Great Marsh to the north. But
Speaker 1: on the way there he collapses. He dies of thirst.
Speaker 1: And this is one of those stories that is often
Speaker 1: used to explain geography. So they are different, all these
Speaker 1: different details about what happens to his body once he falls,
Speaker 1: what happens to his walking stick um or his club
Speaker 1: once it falls, what happens to the dirt from his sandals,
Speaker 1: you know, they become foothills, that kind of thing. But
Speaker 1: it's also a tale about just overreaching. And so the
Speaker 1: idea of of this giant chasing the sun is the
Speaker 1: idea that yeah, he's powerful, but he thinks he's more
Speaker 1: powerful than he is, and it's going to get him
Speaker 1: into trouble. Oh that's interesting because to bring it back
Speaker 1: to Tantalus, I mean, it's somewhat different, but both stories
Speaker 1: have the The problem with the character is that they're
Speaker 1: in some way brazen or over audacious in their challenging
Speaker 1: of celestial figures or gods because the While there are
Speaker 1: multiple stories of what Tantalus did in order to deserve
Speaker 1: this punishment in tartarus Um, but one of the most
Speaker 1: commonly received stories is that Tantalus well. So it's often
Speaker 1: said that Tantalus, like uh, shared a table with the gods,
Speaker 1: so he was a king, but he'd be invited up
Speaker 1: to Olympus to to dine with Zeus. And apparently at
Speaker 1: some point Tantalus was serving a banquet to the gods
Speaker 1: and as the main course, for some reason, he decided
Speaker 1: to kill and serve his own son. So he liked, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's that's a bad choice. So he yeah, he
Speaker 1: boils his own son, serves his meat to the gods. Uh.
Speaker 1: It's like this horrible samelier competition, like can you tell
Speaker 1: this is my son you're eating? And the gods can
Speaker 1: tell they are good semeliers, so they figure it out
Speaker 1: and uh. And apparently cannibalism and the kill of ken
Speaker 1: were considered among the worst taboos in ancient Greece, So
Speaker 1: it's like a story of the guy doing like the worst,
Speaker 1: most awful thing you can imagine in order to embarrass
Speaker 1: or humiliate the gods, and the gods catch him doing it,
Speaker 1: so they send him to this horrible punishment in the afterlife.
Speaker 1: And so I do think it's kind of telling that
Speaker 1: this is a guy who does like the worst thing
Speaker 1: you could possibly imagine doing in in ancient Greek ideas
Speaker 1: like that, he commits the worst violent taboos, killing his
Speaker 1: own son and trying to get the gods to commit cannibalism.
Speaker 1: And what what is the punishment for that? It's eternal
Speaker 1: unsatiable hunger and thirst. Yeah, yeah, there's this. There's something
Speaker 1: about thirst, especially that it's just so it's so primal
Speaker 1: and it's uh, and it's this thing that can just
Speaker 1: crescendo towards madness and of course death. Um. So we
Speaker 1: we we find numerous accounts where the gods become involved
Speaker 1: with human thirst. Um. There's an interesting story in Hindu traditions.
Speaker 1: This one appears in the Mahaparata. It's about a desert
Speaker 1: dwelling sage by the name of utanka Uh and Utankah
Speaker 1: is Uh. There are various accounts of you know, of
Speaker 1: what he got up to, but there's basically one of
Speaker 1: the key ideas here is that he was witnessed to
Speaker 1: Krishno's universal form. So this is the same universal form
Speaker 1: that shown to Argina during the famous uh you know,
Speaker 1: now I am become death encounter. Oh yeah, okay. But
Speaker 1: with Utanka, he's given a special divine boone. Uh. So
Speaker 1: he's told whenever he feels thirst, his thirst will be quenched.
Speaker 1: Um So. You also there's this idea that he's followed
Speaker 1: by by rain clouds even in the desert, and so
Speaker 1: sometimes uh you'll see these clouds in real life referred
Speaker 1: to as Utanka's clouds. Um So, the clouds sent by
Speaker 1: the gods to follow him around ound. And there's another
Speaker 1: story to that involves him him thirsting and the thirst
Speaker 1: being quenched uh and but water being sent to him
Speaker 1: via a member of a lesser cast, a lower cast,
Speaker 1: and and then he refuses. As it turns out the
Speaker 1: water in question was going to be uh the potion
Speaker 1: of immortality, but he was not ready to receive it
Speaker 1: spiritually because he was not willing to accept it from
Speaker 1: this individual. M hmm. Coming back to the earlier detail
Speaker 1: in this where Utanka has given the boon that whenever
Speaker 1: he is thirsty, his thirst will be quenched. I wonder
Speaker 1: what is the what is the more specific imagination of
Speaker 1: that scenario, like that that water will appear somehow for
Speaker 1: him to drink, or that there's a kind of quinching
Speaker 1: without water, in which case it kind of makes you think,
Speaker 1: what is quinching? Because that when I think of the
Speaker 1: feeling of quenching thirst, it is specifically the feeling of
Speaker 1: like water filling your mouth and going down your throat. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: the it's not just the idea that we're going to
Speaker 1: suddenly feel magically, I'll go across. How would that happen? Right?
Speaker 1: You can't just turn it off with a switch. Our
Speaker 1: our one our primary means of alleviating thirst is to
Speaker 1: drink water. And therefore, you know, it's hard to disconnect
Speaker 1: the too well. Actually, one of the some of the
Speaker 1: studies I want to talk about as we go on
Speaker 1: in this series have to do with the what is
Speaker 1: the relationship between the feeling of thirst quenching and the
Speaker 1: hydration of the body. It's not as direct as you
Speaker 1: might think. Now, another example of supernatural thirst, and in
Speaker 1: this case also hunger um. Of course, you have in
Speaker 1: verious Eastern traditions, you have hungry ghosts and the the
Speaker 1: gaki are a type of hungry ghost in the tradition
Speaker 1: of Japan, also described as as always hungry and always thirsty,
Speaker 1: just monsters of torments, so that have huge bellies, be
Speaker 1: steel heads, talents, and so forth. And their home is
Speaker 1: the barren wasteland realm of Gakito, and they sometimes dragged
Speaker 1: the dying to hell, but they can be driven out
Speaker 1: through ceremonies. I think that they also are often illustrated
Speaker 1: as having very narrow necks, so it's like their hunger
Speaker 1: there is great, their belly is great, their neck is narrow,
Speaker 1: like their their throat is narrow. Their ability to quench uh,
Speaker 1: their their bodily hunger and thirst is entirely insufficient. Of course,
Speaker 1: how hungry ghosts are, you know, widespread again in Eastern traditions.
Speaker 1: But but I ran across an interesting tradition from pre
Speaker 1: Islamic Arab culture that I'd never heard of before that
Speaker 1: I thought was really interesting, and it concerns owls. I
Speaker 1: was reading Echoes of a Thirsty Owl by T. M. L.
Speaker 1: Hammer and published in the Journal of Near Eastern Studies
Speaker 1: from so The author here writes that there was an
Speaker 1: idea you know again in the pre Islamic Arab cultures
Speaker 1: that the soul of a bird was quote unquote spread
Speaker 1: out through the body of a human being, and when
Speaker 1: the human died, um, the resulting birds are called the
Speaker 1: body and cried out over the grave of the deceased.
Speaker 1: So the and then in time this bird grows and
Speaker 1: it becomes a savage and shrieking owl, and the owl,
Speaker 1: of course haunts the places of death. Well that almost
Speaker 1: makes me wonder. I mean, I think about the spooky
Speaker 1: movie trope of having an owl hooting in the darkness
Speaker 1: in the graveyard. But I don't know. The more I
Speaker 1: think about that, that's probably a coincidence. Well, I mean,
Speaker 1: owls are are are are associated with with death and
Speaker 1: and the supernatural throughout various cultures. You know, because they're
Speaker 1: they're creatures of the night. They fly so silently that
Speaker 1: it's almost like they're not even there. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: they have those large eyes, their their their head appears
Speaker 1: to have various kind of humanoid qualities. Uh So, you know,
Speaker 1: I think there is some connection there, maybe not not
Speaker 1: a direct connection, about a connection via the the the
Speaker 1: widespread associations and various cultures between the owl and the
Speaker 1: and the dead, and also the various omens. You know,
Speaker 1: sometimes in different cultures the owl is a is a
Speaker 1: dire omen to behold. Well, I guess this would depend
Speaker 1: on the owl species, but also their vocalizations have to
Speaker 1: play a role in in spooky associations. Yeah, yeah, and
Speaker 1: I think and also I mean, sometimes owls don't make
Speaker 1: a sound at all. Again, either they're flying silently or
Speaker 1: they're just sitting there silently, just kind of watching, and
Speaker 1: so uh may be connected to that. That that that
Speaker 1: it's also said that these owls may also just sort
Speaker 1: of check in on sons and grandsons to see what
Speaker 1: happens after they have died. Other traditions say that the
Speaker 1: owl returned to the grave once every century. And then
Speaker 1: there's this idea that in the event that the deceased
Speaker 1: might seek vengeance for something or another, the grave of
Speaker 1: the dead should be watered to quote slake the thirst
Speaker 1: of the dead. Oh wow, yeah, now, of course, and
Speaker 1: this we're probably getting into that. You know something we
Speaker 1: we hinted out already, the idea that that thirst takes
Speaker 1: on so many different forms, and the water quenches the thirst,
Speaker 1: or the liquid the quenches that thirst takes on so
Speaker 1: many different forms in our traditions. Like is thirst. Uh,
Speaker 1: thirst is of course something we all feel. It's a
Speaker 1: you know, we all need water. But depending on how
Speaker 1: it's written up, you could you can describe thirst as
Speaker 1: a as a as a need, or as a desire,
Speaker 1: as something that your will has the ability to overcome
Speaker 1: or not overcome. Uh. You know, thirst can be uh
Speaker 1: portrayed as something positive, like the thirst for knowledge, the
Speaker 1: thirst for for for for God. But also thirst can
Speaker 1: be seen as like the thirst for for wine, or
Speaker 1: for blood or for vengeance. Well, yeah, exactly. So I
Speaker 1: was also thinking about the abstract metaphors of thirst that
Speaker 1: we use um and what it means to to choose
Speaker 1: that word, in particular, to to say that you want
Speaker 1: something by saying that you thirst for it. So, in
Speaker 1: the example of someone who has a thirst for vengeance,
Speaker 1: how is that different from just wanting vengeance? To me?
Speaker 1: At least in that case, thirst as a metaphor, as
Speaker 1: a metaphor for want, implies a kind of irrational desperation
Speaker 1: in the in the acquisition behavior, something that will be
Speaker 1: sought without hindrance and without reason. Now, obviously that wouldn't
Speaker 1: exactly apply to other metaphorical uses of thirst, like you
Speaker 1: said the thirst for knowledge. But again that that word
Speaker 1: choice seems to me to imply something different than somebody
Speaker 1: just saying somebody likes knowledge or seeks knowledge. It suggests
Speaker 1: a kind of primal need. I guess, yeah, And I
Speaker 1: guess you also have to factor in that. You know,
Speaker 1: for a lot of us, we live in in very
Speaker 1: water rich environments and water rich cultures and uh socioeconomic places.
Speaker 1: So you know, we we we don't feel true thirst
Speaker 1: for the most part. You know, we don't. We don't
Speaker 1: feel the thirst that is approaching madness and death, um
Speaker 1: and the and and then again it comes down to,
Speaker 1: like what is the person thirsting for? If you're talking
Speaker 1: about somebody feeling a mighty thirst, but you're alluding to
Speaker 1: their desire to have an alcoholic beverage, like that's that's
Speaker 1: a slightly different thing that just talking about Oh well,
Speaker 1: this is this is thirsty work that they're doing, and
Speaker 1: you know, implying that they're just they're just building up
Speaker 1: a natural uh need for a big draft of water
Speaker 1: to satisfy their thirst. It seems when people use thirst
Speaker 1: to talk about alcohol. I always detect an air of
Speaker 1: of irony, and that just like it's supposed to be
Speaker 1: a little bit funny that you're using it that way,
Speaker 1: right because if you're truly thirsty, alcohol is not what
Speaker 1: you should be using right now. Just to come back
Speaker 1: to the the idea of these owls briefly, apparently some
Speaker 1: writings say that the blood and the brain in the
Speaker 1: in the deceased fused together after death to form the owl.
Speaker 1: Others would say that it was born of one's bones
Speaker 1: and that the owl would then erupt from the head,
Speaker 1: which I think is a wonderful and horrifying supernatural uh picture.
Speaker 1: But it was a reference in a number of different
Speaker 1: poems um by a lot of pre Islamic Arab poets.
Speaker 1: The Arabic poet Alan Bari wrote, quote and it is
Speaker 1: said that man, when he has killed and his revenge
Speaker 1: is not taken, an owl comes out of his grave
Speaker 1: and then continues screeching, quench me, quench me, continuing so
Speaker 1: until his killer is killed. Anyway, that that article is
Speaker 1: titled Echoes of a thirsty owl um. If anyone's interested,
Speaker 1: I recommend reading that. He also compared, you know, compares
Speaker 1: it to various other traditions concerning the owl as some
Speaker 1: sort of a supernatural being. He talks a little bit
Speaker 1: about about the role of the owl and Greek mythology
Speaker 1: and so forth. Now we we can't very well cover
Speaker 1: a complete cultural history if him and thirst here, but
Speaker 1: it is worth thro having him that thirst is an
Speaker 1: important aspect of history and civilization UM, in in obvious
Speaker 1: ways and maybe sometimes in less obvious ways. I was
Speaker 1: reading a article in the Journal of European Archaeology by
Speaker 1: uh Slavamil Vehicle titled the Archaeology of Thirst, and in
Speaker 1: it the author points out that naturally, the human satisfaction
Speaker 1: of thirst is an essential part of the human experience,
Speaker 1: and it's a it's of course of great interest in archaeology,
Speaker 1: but a number of obstacles have to be overcome. So
Speaker 1: first of all, you just have the volatile nature of liquids.
Speaker 1: You also have the scant chemical signatures to be found
Speaker 1: inside ancient drinking vessels UM, also scarce paleo botanical analysis
Speaker 1: of those residues. UM. They also mentioned quote the functionally
Speaker 1: unspecific nature of most vessels, which I thought was interesting,
Speaker 1: reminding me of our our holiday discussion of leg shaped vessels. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a hard. A lot of times people are like,
Speaker 1: I don't know what people would put in this leg. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like we can assume they would put oil in it,
Speaker 1: you know, but it depending on what the vessel is
Speaker 1: and what the culture is, and how much additional information
Speaker 1: we have. We might just have to guess and be like, Okay,
Speaker 1: it seems like you might drink out of this, or
Speaker 1: you might just or maybe this is just for storing
Speaker 1: some sort of oil. On top of that, we often
Speaker 1: have scant iconographical information. Also, this is a big one,
Speaker 1: and this is this applies to far more than just
Speaker 1: drinking vessels. But if the vessel is organic in nature,
Speaker 1: we may not have any uh, surviving examples of what
Speaker 1: it was. And on top of that, by and large,
Speaker 1: we tend to focus on exceptional examples of drinking and
Speaker 1: storage vessels, which of course limits study to a very
Speaker 1: slim part of a given culture. You know. So it's
Speaker 1: like a highly ornate decorative piece that you know, maybe
Speaker 1: is of the same shape and basic function is what
Speaker 1: people would have in general been using to drink water
Speaker 1: or store water, etcetera. But maybe not like maybe it
Speaker 1: is um it's it's more about looking interesting as opposed
Speaker 1: to anything else. But the archaeology of thirst ends up
Speaker 1: encompassing some very ancient examples UM, including things like neolithic wells. Um.
Speaker 1: Water is the most basic means of meeting human thirst,
Speaker 1: and it's taken on mundane and fantastic connotations at times.
Speaker 1: But on top of this, of course humans have come
Speaker 1: to drink SAPs blood, of course, various concoctions such as
Speaker 1: meat and wine and beer and more. But but I
Speaker 1: guess water, you know, water remains the big one. Obviously.
Speaker 1: Another idea worth mentioning in all of this that I
Speaker 1: was reading about UM is the idea that, okay, so
Speaker 1: human thirst is of course ubiquitous. Everybody is going to thirst,
Speaker 1: everyone needs water UM. And so if you look back
Speaker 1: um to to Jewish and Islamic traditions, you you find
Speaker 1: in both legal traditions this idea of the right of
Speaker 1: thirst UM. The the idea of being that like every
Speaker 1: every every human government by this law, has this right
Speaker 1: of thirst UH to this right to water via their
Speaker 1: own thirst. And in Islamic law, apparently this extended to
Speaker 1: animals as well. Animals had the right of thirst, which
Speaker 1: gave them meant that they had a right to access
Speaker 1: water based on their thirst. But but it's also it's
Speaker 1: interesting how you know this sort of this this foreshadows
Speaker 1: a lot of our our modern relationship with water, the
Speaker 1: idea that that the right to water is classified as
Speaker 1: a basic human right by the United Nations. UM. But
Speaker 1: of course, at the same time, uh, not everyone has
Speaker 1: equal access to to water and uh, and this is
Speaker 1: going to continue to be a problem moving forward, and
Speaker 1: of course you can't help. But then take all of
Speaker 1: that and relate it back to our metaphorical treatment of thirst.
Speaker 1: You know, how does the how does that change? You know,
Speaker 1: if you're if you're if you're talking about thirst in
Speaker 1: reference to spiritual needs and um, and you know, a
Speaker 1: thirst for knowledge, Like, how is that different if you're
Speaker 1: if you're expressing that, uh within a you know, in
Speaker 1: a place where there where water is plentiful, where a
Speaker 1: drinking water is plentiful, or a place where access is
Speaker 1: more limited. But I guess before we can answer any
Speaker 1: of these questions, we need to back up quite a
Speaker 1: bit and just talk about thirst as a biological reality.
Speaker 1: What is it and how does it work? Yeah, And
Speaker 1: so this was actually rather interesting to me because it
Speaker 1: turns out I knew less about thirst than I realized.
Speaker 1: And uh, and what we do know about thirst and
Speaker 1: what we don't know about thirst are both pretty interesting.
Speaker 1: So I was reading an article called just called Thirst
Speaker 1: that was published in Current Biology in sixteen by David E. Leeb,
Speaker 1: Christopher A. Zimmerman, and Zachary A. Night. And this article
Speaker 1: is essentially a summary of all the existing research on thirst.
Speaker 1: It is, as of the year twenty sixteen, a sort
Speaker 1: of perfect primmer catching everybody up on what do we
Speaker 1: know about Thurston? What do we not know? Now? Before
Speaker 1: we get into the meat of that discussion? I guess, uh,
Speaker 1: to to just cover the very basics, Uh, the first
Speaker 1: fact before we get into anything else. You are a
Speaker 1: water bag. That that is what we are. That is
Speaker 1: what all of us are. We we are not just
Speaker 1: simple water bags, but our bodies are essentially water bags
Speaker 1: over any other material description. All the animal life that
Speaker 1: currently lives on land evolved from creatures that used to
Speaker 1: live in the ocean, where you're surrounded by water all
Speaker 1: the time. And when we evolved to live on land,
Speaker 1: we had to create essentially bags that would contain water
Speaker 1: to take with us. Because all of the of the
Speaker 1: biological chemistry, the biochemistry of life takes place in water,
Speaker 1: in solutions of water, and so as water bags. You know,
Speaker 1: we we are complex autonomous water bags. But most of
Speaker 1: those complex autonomous activities actually re wire that there be
Speaker 1: a fairly precise amount of water in the bag and
Speaker 1: a fairly precise concentration of various substances things like sodium
Speaker 1: for instance, that pretty precise amounts be dissolved in the
Speaker 1: water in the bag, and so various processes of life
Speaker 1: are constantly leading to water coming in and out of
Speaker 1: the bag. So there there are several common routes of
Speaker 1: water to be added to the bag. Were familiar with
Speaker 1: the most common of those, which is drinking fluid, drinking
Speaker 1: water or or fluids that are mainly water, or eating
Speaker 1: food with water content. And that the second one, they're
Speaker 1: eating food with water content, is less prominent for humans
Speaker 1: because you know, we typically drink a glass of water
Speaker 1: with food or between meals or whatever. But there are
Speaker 1: some animals that that basically get almost all of their
Speaker 1: water from their food. Yeah, this includes certain desert species
Speaker 1: such as the kangaroo rat and the kangaroo mouse, which,
Speaker 1: of course, on the planet Iracus becomes the the the
Speaker 1: the mouse. Deep. Um. We also have things like the
Speaker 1: sand cat, the sand gazelle. Um, and uh, I know,
Speaker 1: just in my household, it also seems to include my cat,
Speaker 1: who does not seem to drink water at all anymore. Um.
Speaker 1: We we have to lean heavily on moist foods to
Speaker 1: get to get her her liquids, so feeding her wet food,
Speaker 1: adding a little bit of water like sneaking it into
Speaker 1: the wet food. And yet if we make the wet
Speaker 1: food too wet, she will say, no, it's too much
Speaker 1: like water. I will not have it, And then we
Speaker 1: put out water for We've tried the fountains, we've tried everything.
Speaker 1: The only thing she ever actually drank out of was
Speaker 1: a fish tank when we had a fish tank, and
Speaker 1: then she would not stop drinking out of the fish tank.
Speaker 1: But any other thing we've tried, she hasn't gone for.
Speaker 1: And so when she's had some issues before, it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, she's clearly dehydrated. In the past, we even
Speaker 1: had to I had to use an ivy to give
Speaker 1: her the water. So we we still have a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of bags of fluid around in case she has
Speaker 1: any any flare ups. Of her issues, but in terms
Speaker 1: of just like drinking straight water, she's not interested at all. Wow. Well,
Speaker 1: simultaneously that is kind of fascinating, But also I feel
Speaker 1: for her and I feel for you guys that that's
Speaker 1: very frustrating. Now we're weird. I mean, everybody seems to
Speaker 1: be at a comfortable level right now. She's she seems
Speaker 1: to be getting all the liquid she needs through her
Speaker 1: her meat paste. But but it's it's weird with cats
Speaker 1: because yeah, I think some people have this experience with
Speaker 1: with cats where they really have to be tricked into
Speaker 1: drinking water, but others will just drink it on the
Speaker 1: fly out of toilets or dripping faucets and so forth. Right,
Speaker 1: So all of that is direct water acquisitions. Of course,
Speaker 1: you get water from drinking water. You get some smaller
Speaker 1: amount of water from eating food that contains water. But
Speaker 1: then apparently there's there's a secondary route for water acquisition
Speaker 1: by eating food through what's known as metabolic water, which
Speaker 1: is in your metabolism oxidizes various energy containing substances that
Speaker 1: you eat and produces water in the process. So some
Speaker 1: water is created at the molecular level by your metabolism,
Speaker 1: and there are some organisms that get a large amount
Speaker 1: of their their water content from metabolic water. Humans only
Speaker 1: get a very small amount from it. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean I think like some desert dwelling organisms and some
Speaker 1: birds and stuff get get all or almost all of
Speaker 1: their water by by chemical reactions that happen inside their
Speaker 1: body after they eat food and turn parts of that
Speaker 1: food into water molecules. Now, one of the interesting things
Speaker 1: I was reading about some of these desert species um
Speaker 1: and at least with some of them. You know, if
Speaker 1: they're in a captivity and they are offered water, well,
Speaker 1: then when they they theirst builds up, they will drink
Speaker 1: the water. So it's not it's not like everything. I
Speaker 1: don't want to imply that anything out there that gets
Speaker 1: most of its water through its meat is going to
Speaker 1: be like my cat and just refused to drink water.
Speaker 1: You know, she has her own issues going on. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm sure that varies by organism. Okay, but those are
Speaker 1: the routes in you've got directly through drinking and eating
Speaker 1: and then secondarily through metabolism. But then you've got a
Speaker 1: number of routes for water to be to be eliminated,
Speaker 1: So you've got urination of course, and then you've got
Speaker 1: lost through defecation. You've got evaporation through the lungs of
Speaker 1: people sometimes don't think about this, but you lose water
Speaker 1: when you exhale water, vapor comes out of your mouth
Speaker 1: or out of your nose, and then there is also
Speaker 1: evaporative loss of water through the skins just through sweating,
Speaker 1: so uh, and then other other more minor things. I mean,
Speaker 1: obviously some extremely tiny amount of water evaporates off of
Speaker 1: the liquid on the surface of your eyes and so forth,
Speaker 1: but but those are the big ones. The defication is
Speaker 1: worth mentioning, probably stressing again because I think most people
Speaker 1: are probably familiar with this. But obviously if one is
Speaker 1: in a UH, is suffering from a condition the results
Speaker 1: in you know, um um diarrhea or um, you knows,
Speaker 1: some sort of dysentery situation. You end up losing more
Speaker 1: and more water through defecation, and therefore you have to
Speaker 1: make sure you're drinking more and more water to make
Speaker 1: up for that water loss. Also, just a reminder out
Speaker 1: anyone out there, a well fitted and well manufactured still
Speaker 1: suit will collect all of this as it leaves your body. UH.
Speaker 1: All the routes out will be covered and you'll lose
Speaker 1: no more than a thimble's worth of water per day.
Speaker 1: We've gotta stress well fitted though. You get the still
Speaker 1: suit on there, you're gonna have all kinds of gaps
Speaker 1: and things not working right. That's right. You don't know
Speaker 1: how to work the straps and you're not you don't
Speaker 1: have that forehead piece on correctly. It's just not gonna
Speaker 1: work um at an optimal level than right. Well, anyway,
Speaker 1: I want to come back to some of the findings
Speaker 1: that are summarized in that current biology paper by leave
Speaker 1: at all that I mentioned earlier than again, this is
Speaker 1: from so there will be more research that we get
Speaker 1: into from after that adds to some of these findings.
Speaker 1: But this is where we were when this when this
Speaker 1: good summary came out. So in the human body, the
Speaker 1: brain monitors the body's water content, and when certain thresholds
Speaker 1: are reached in the that information monitoring system, it motivates
Speaker 1: the body to drink fluids. Of course, it's not only
Speaker 1: the decrease of fluid volume in the body that makes
Speaker 1: us thirsty. One of the most important things to understand
Speaker 1: in the maintenance of the body's water content is the
Speaker 1: importance of something known as OSMO reality. That's O s
Speaker 1: M O L A l I T Y. This is
Speaker 1: the concentration of various particles such as electrolytes like sodium,
Speaker 1: that are dissolved in the body's water content. And you'll
Speaker 1: you'll see this often described as blood OSMO reality. It's
Speaker 1: basically functionally the same thing. The liquid part of our
Speaker 1: blood plasma is roughly water, So when people talk about
Speaker 1: blood OSM reality, they're talking about OSM reality of the
Speaker 1: body's water content. The brain is actually incredibly sensitive to
Speaker 1: changes in blood OSM reality. An increase in just one
Speaker 1: percent of of the blood osmality can cause an animal
Speaker 1: to feel thirst and the author's right quote. This sensation,
Speaker 1: in turn is sufficient to orient and energize all of
Speaker 1: an animal's actions towards the goal of finding and consuming water. Thus,
Speaker 1: the study of thirst is the study of how the
Speaker 1: brain performs this remarkable transformation, such that small changes in
Speaker 1: the composition of the blood become a potent and specific
Speaker 1: motivational drive. Uh And and the more I thought about that,
Speaker 1: the more interesting it became that essentially just sort of
Speaker 1: eating a small amount of salt, for example, is enough
Speaker 1: to to motivate my brain to change all of my
Speaker 1: behavior because my osmolality goes up, the salt dissolved in
Speaker 1: my body's water content increases. In order to balance that out,
Speaker 1: my body wants me to go get some more water
Speaker 1: to drink, and that I will interrupt whatever I'm doing
Speaker 1: to go do it. And we and we did not
Speaker 1: even really think about this. We don't think, oh, now
Speaker 1: my body has need of water, I must go get it.
Speaker 1: It's just like, it's just what you do. Yeah. Like
Speaker 1: I mean, right here, as we're recording, and I have
Speaker 1: a big thermis of water and I just end up
Speaker 1: casually sipping on it the whole time. Yeah. Same here.
Speaker 1: I always get a nice big glass of water before
Speaker 1: we start recording. But but the question would be, why
Speaker 1: are our bodies so sensitive to these tiny changes in
Speaker 1: osmolality in the amount of of osmolites dissolved in the blood.
Speaker 1: Why would like a one percent increase in salt concentration
Speaker 1: really cause that much of a problem. Well, the authors
Speaker 1: offer some explanations. They say, first of all, you've got
Speaker 1: this thing in your body known as the electrochemical gradient.
Speaker 1: The cells in our bodies are selectively permeable to specific ions.
Speaker 1: Quote resulting in an electrochemical gradient across the plasma membrane
Speaker 1: that is exploited for numerous cellular functions. So this means
Speaker 1: that there's a difference in the electrical charge and the
Speaker 1: concentration of various chemicals on opposite sides of the membrane
Speaker 1: that surrounds each of our cells, and the difference or
Speaker 1: the gradient here, the fact that it's different on each
Speaker 1: side of the membrane is what permits the transportation of
Speaker 1: ions across the membrane so that cells can do things,
Speaker 1: so that they can send and receive things. So if
Speaker 1: you change your blood osmolality, you say, increase the concentration
Speaker 1: of salt in the body's water content, You change this gradient,
Speaker 1: and you change the water contents inside cells, and you
Speaker 1: quote degrade normal cellular function. Now, I was trying to
Speaker 1: think of a rough analogy, and here's what I came
Speaker 1: up with. This may be very rough, but it's my
Speaker 1: best attempt. So when you change your blood osmolality away
Speaker 1: from its ideal, I would say your body sort of
Speaker 1: becomes like a city that starts having system wide problems
Speaker 1: opening and closing doors. Now, is the problems opening and
Speaker 1: closing doors of all kinds throughout a city get worse. Eventually,
Speaker 1: this would just cause myriad diverse problems throughout the city. Uh,
Speaker 1: much like it would in your body. Well that did
Speaker 1: that just sounds like chaos. That just sounds like like
Speaker 1: all order is falling out out the window, right. And
Speaker 1: you can actually see that the represent visual representation of
Speaker 1: that chaos in a chart that the authors include in
Speaker 1: their paper, where it shows what the typical symptoms are
Speaker 1: as the blood osmolality goes too far above or below
Speaker 1: what it's supposed to be. Uh and uh. Basically on
Speaker 1: both sides, it's sort of a mirror image with a
Speaker 1: few differences. So you've got the normal range, but then
Speaker 1: you start getting away from it, you get things like irritability, lethargy, aussia,
Speaker 1: a taxia, trembling, hypothermia, and then in both cases you
Speaker 1: end up in the seizures and death territory. So yeah,
Speaker 1: so basically, yeah, we have this this thin little realm
Speaker 1: of stability and to either extreme it's just madness and death. Right,
Speaker 1: So the body has to very carefully keep that concentration
Speaker 1: of osma lights in the right range, and if it
Speaker 1: gets off there, there are it will take drastic measures
Speaker 1: to get it right again. But then the authors identify
Speaker 1: another major reason that the body has to keep fluid
Speaker 1: volume and osmalality at the right levels, which is blood pressure.
Speaker 1: You know, they say, your body uses blood to transport
Speaker 1: oxygen and other essential nutrients to all of its tissues.
Speaker 1: Everything in the body needs to get oxygen, uh that,
Speaker 1: you know, from the lungs in the heart, and the
Speaker 1: blood has to get there to do its work. If
Speaker 1: the volume of water in the body drops below ideal levels,
Speaker 1: blood volume actually decre recess. There's not enough blood, which
Speaker 1: means the circulatory system has to work harder and harder
Speaker 1: to keep blood pressure up where it needs to be
Speaker 1: to get to all the parts of the body and
Speaker 1: deliver those nutrients. So, in addition to maintaining the right
Speaker 1: concentration of those dissolved things like sodium, you also just
Speaker 1: need to have enough water in your body to keep
Speaker 1: your blood pressure up to allow your heart to keep
Speaker 1: getting blood to all the parts of the body. It
Speaker 1: just it kind of comes back to what you said
Speaker 1: earlier about it. You know that we're there's water bags,
Speaker 1: we're creatures made out of water, and if we don't
Speaker 1: have enough water, we don't have enough of us, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: nothing nothing works without it anyway. The authors say that
Speaker 1: the bodies of animals have evolved to carefully preserve blood
Speaker 1: volume and blood osmality, and then they describe some of
Speaker 1: the main components of this system that we know about. So,
Speaker 1: first of all, there are neurons that monitor blood osmalality
Speaker 1: and volume. You've got especially dedicated cells in the central
Speaker 1: nervous system that pay attention to this stuff, and when
Speaker 1: they detect a problem, they quote trigger a coordinated set
Speaker 1: of autonomic, neuroendocrine, and behavioral responses that defend these parameters
Speaker 1: against change. So one of the main measures the body
Speaker 1: can take to defend against changes in OSM reality is
Speaker 1: modulating kidney function. So as OSM reality increases, you get
Speaker 1: a surge of anti diuretic hormone, which makes the kidneys
Speaker 1: change tack to keep more water inside the body and
Speaker 1: make the urine more highly concentrated, make it less deluded
Speaker 1: with water. Of course, the kidneys can't do their job
Speaker 1: alone because they also have to do other things. In
Speaker 1: addition to that, they have to help purge the body
Speaker 1: of toxic substances and other kinds of waste and of course,
Speaker 1: some some water volume will necessarily be lost in that process. Also,
Speaker 1: the body loses water through these other means we mentioned
Speaker 1: a minute ago, sweating, breathing, and so forth, So eventually
Speaker 1: the body will be forced to consume new water to
Speaker 1: restore the balance and the volume of the blood plasma.
Speaker 1: So so that's the chemistry and the physiology. But eventually
Speaker 1: you have to get to behavior. At some point, the
Speaker 1: brain has to trigger behaviors to get new water in
Speaker 1: so an animal thinks I need to drink water. Of course,
Speaker 1: this behavior can be costly there you know, there are
Speaker 1: factors working against an animal's motivation to do it because
Speaker 1: it might involve spending energy finding and traveling to a
Speaker 1: water source. It might involve taking big risks. I mean,
Speaker 1: think of all the nature documentaries you've seen where predation
Speaker 1: happens at the water's edge, whether it's a crocodile jumping
Speaker 1: out of the water or a predator sneaking up while
Speaker 1: an animal is distracted by lapping up water. And then
Speaker 1: some of those predators have been traditionally been human beings.
Speaker 1: Oh totally. And of course drinking water just involves temporarily
Speaker 1: de prioritizing other important things. Like you know, in the
Speaker 1: natural context, maybe forging for food or pursuing reproduction, but
Speaker 1: even think you know, it might force you to get
Speaker 1: up from gaming or whatever. Well, I mean, this is
Speaker 1: one of those areas again where like with humans, so
Speaker 1: many of us are are are fortunate that we never
Speaker 1: have to hunt for water. You know, the drinking water
Speaker 1: is readily available to us. We have all that we need.
Speaker 1: And likewise, through human civilization we we tend to have
Speaker 1: the food situation knocked as well. Again, and ideal circumstances,
Speaker 1: you're not going to have to spend um most of
Speaker 1: your day foraging for food, which is going to be
Speaker 1: the case with many different species of animals, you know,
Speaker 1: where most of the day is about just finding the food,
Speaker 1: eating the food, and of course there's no there's no
Speaker 1: room for anything else. And if you're having to hunt
Speaker 1: for extra water along the way, then you're that's getting
Speaker 1: in the way potentially of this this vital food hunt. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just as an aside, easy access to clean, drinkable running
Speaker 1: water is like my go to example of what's good
Speaker 1: about modern civilization. You know, there are a lot of
Speaker 1: people who kind of demonize modern civilization, and there are
Speaker 1: a lot of things about it not to like. But
Speaker 1: but easy access to clean water is like, that is
Speaker 1: the most unambiguous good thing I can think of, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, to the to the to the extent that
Speaker 1: it's ridiculous in some in many cases you know where
Speaker 1: someone might ask, what what is this? What is this
Speaker 1: water in your toilet? Well, this is drinking water, the
Speaker 1: drinking water that comes into the house, he goes into
Speaker 1: the toilet. We just make sure that the water in
Speaker 1: there it's perfectly fresh and drinkable. Um, which I guess
Speaker 1: is good for the dogs and the cats. But um,
Speaker 1: you know certainly that I think you see these various
Speaker 1: you know, gray water models, Um, that certainly make a
Speaker 1: lot more sense, Like why should the drinking water be
Speaker 1: the water in the toilet. Can't the water from the
Speaker 1: washing of my hands be the water in the toilet?
Speaker 1: Wouldn't that make more sense? Of course it requires more work, right,
Speaker 1: But to come back to the the wild context, I mean,
Speaker 1: obviously there are all these things that would be factors
Speaker 1: pushing against your your acquisition of water, and your body
Speaker 1: needs it. So of course what an animal needs is
Speaker 1: intrinsic motivation. Actually, they're demotivating factors that are just natural
Speaker 1: parts of the environment. So acquiring water needs its own
Speaker 1: intrinsic motivation, hence the motivating desire of thirst. It is
Speaker 1: a moment to moment drive to acquire water that's calibrated
Speaker 1: by the constantly updated feedback on blood volume and osmality,
Speaker 1: though there may also be some other interesting and more
Speaker 1: surprising inputs on it that will get to in a
Speaker 1: bit now. The authors point out that thirst appears to
Speaker 1: have both positive and negative motivating mechanisms, and I think
Speaker 1: you can think about food, food and hunger as an
Speaker 1: analogy here, because there's something sort of along the same line.
Speaker 1: So you've got positive reinforcement of fluid drinking behavior by
Speaker 1: just making drinking water when you're thirsty feel really good,
Speaker 1: you know, when you're very thirsty, that glass of water,
Speaker 1: it's it's delicious, it's wonderful, it feels great. And then
Speaker 1: you've got the negative reinforce smith side, which is that
Speaker 1: thirst is inherently unpleasant. It is experienced as a type
Speaker 1: of discomfort or pain that has to be alleviated by
Speaker 1: drinking fluid. So we all know from experience that these
Speaker 1: things are true. That you have this positive and negative
Speaker 1: reinforcement mechanism within the brain for thirst and the drinking
Speaker 1: of water. But what's very interesting is that, at least
Speaker 1: at the time of this paper in two sixteen, how
Speaker 1: these two mechanisms of thirst are instantiated in the brain
Speaker 1: is still not fully understood. There are some major question
Speaker 1: marks remaining, and I think there are at least a
Speaker 1: few other studies that we can refer to in subsequent
Speaker 1: parts of the series about that where where some ideas
Speaker 1: have developed since then, but there's still a lot of
Speaker 1: questions out there, and this is This is one of
Speaker 1: the reasons that I thought it would be so interesting
Speaker 1: to pursue Thirst as a series on the show, because
Speaker 1: it's surprising that there are things we still don't know
Speaker 1: about it. It seems like one of those things that
Speaker 1: would be absolutely totally understood at this point. But but
Speaker 1: there's some great outlining questions about thirst and and UH,
Speaker 1: how we experience thirst, what are the neural pathways there,
Speaker 1: how is thirst SAYD and so forth, So maybe we'll
Speaker 1: have to call it for this first part here. I
Speaker 1: know I'm only halfway through discussing this uh from repaper,
Speaker 1: but if we go on through the end of this
Speaker 1: one this first episode is going to be two hours
Speaker 1: long or something, so so maybe we should call it
Speaker 1: What do you think, Rob? I think so, yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: actually almost out of water here and I'm going to
Speaker 1: have to refill. But yeah, I'm excited to keep going
Speaker 1: with this. There are a number of little areas I'm
Speaker 1: hoping we'll get into the manipulation of thirst by other
Speaker 1: organisms the end and life forms the I want to
Speaker 1: get back to the taste of water. Uh, this is
Speaker 1: something that's always fascinated me. I'm granted water, the taste
Speaker 1: of of of water will change depending on where you're
Speaker 1: getting the water. But you'll sometimes hear people say, well,
Speaker 1: I don't like the taste of water, or we'll think
Speaker 1: of water as having no taste at all. Um. I
Speaker 1: actually found some some some some papers dealing with this
Speaker 1: topic a little bit, so I think they could be
Speaker 1: fun to discuss. People who don't like the taste of water.
Speaker 1: That is a telltale sign of vampororism. Just add some
Speaker 1: red food coloring to it. Then then you're then you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is great, this is wonderful. Okay, well, all veins
Speaker 1: to drink from when we return, All right, in the meantime,
Speaker 1: if you want to check out other episodes of Stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind, you'll find them in the Stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind podcast feed wherever you get your podcast.
Speaker 1: Core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, Artifact episodes on Wednesdays,
Speaker 1: listener mail on Mondays, and on Fridays, we do Weird
Speaker 1: how Cinema. That's our time to set aside most serious
Speaker 1: matters and just discuss a weird film. Huge thanks as
Speaker 1: always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If
Speaker 1: you would like to get in touch with us with
Speaker 1: feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a
Speaker 1: topic for the future, or just to say hello, you
Speaker 1: can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your
Speaker 1: Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for my Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listening to your favorite shows