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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff from the Science Lab from how stuff

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Speaker 1: works dot com. Hey guys, and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: This is Alice and I don't look at the science

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Speaker 1: editor at how stuff works dot com. This is Robert Lamb,

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Speaker 1: science writer at how stuff works dot com. Today we're

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Speaker 1: taking you on a journey. We're running with parasites. Yept

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Speaker 1: running running barefoot, actually, which I didn't. I really wasn't

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Speaker 1: that aware that this was a thing until you blogged

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Speaker 1: about it. Like people are really into doing like marathon

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Speaker 1: running with no shoes or socks on. Right, it is

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Speaker 1: a thing. It is a big thing. But first we

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Speaker 1: are you kind of a believer in going barefoot in

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Speaker 1: the summertime? No, because, um, I my family spent a

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Speaker 1: couple of years up in Newfoundland, Canada, but most of

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Speaker 1: my time has been spent in the South. So we

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Speaker 1: were very I mean, it was really hammered into us

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Speaker 1: that you just you don't go walking around outside barefoot.

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Speaker 1: You know, you know, things will crawl into you, or

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Speaker 1: you'll step on something gross or sharp or um. You know,

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Speaker 1: for any number of reason, keep the shoes on when

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Speaker 1: you're outside. That's funny because I didn't. I don't remember

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Speaker 1: having any of that sort of public health message drilled

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Speaker 1: into my head when I was a kid. I mean,

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Speaker 1: a sign of summer for me was taking off my

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Speaker 1: shoes running around, whether it was wait, where'd you grow

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Speaker 1: up in Connecticut? Ware? There there are no sharp things outside.

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Speaker 1: It's just christine and wonderful. I guess. So, I guess

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Speaker 1: Connecticut has has none of those things. I don't know,

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Speaker 1: it's just we. We never really I never really thought

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Speaker 1: about it. You know. I would go on like hot pavement,

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Speaker 1: I would go to the pool. I would probably go

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Speaker 1: on disgusting places that I should not have gone barefoot.

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Speaker 1: Well I will. I do. Think my shoes off at

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Speaker 1: the beach now, now that's different. That may not be safe.

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Speaker 1: So you don't peel your socks off at the shore's edge. No, no, Well,

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Speaker 1: a lot of people are going barefoot now, and they're

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Speaker 1: going barefoot running in particular. UM actually tried it one

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Speaker 1: night because I was so curious. I am a bit

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Speaker 1: of an amateur runner, and I was curious because they say,

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Speaker 1: UM that it can improve your form when you're out there.

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Speaker 1: If you lose the shoes, you can improve your running efficiency. UM.

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Speaker 1: And this is based in the idea that we evolved

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Speaker 1: with these feet and if these feet can't cut it,

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Speaker 1: I mean, you know, if God had minister where Nike's,

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Speaker 1: we've been born with them, right, absolutely, absolutely. Yeah. So

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Speaker 1: there's this whole athletic oriented subculture out there that's going barefoot,

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Speaker 1: and mostly it's runners. Um, but it's it's by no

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Speaker 1: means a new thing. I mean, in nineteen sixty there

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Speaker 1: is an Olympic gold medal winner shuffle along without shoes

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Speaker 1: in Rome. And before sneakers were invented, which was in

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Speaker 1: the early nineteenth century, UM, which incidentally was married to

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Speaker 1: the volcanization of rubber and Charles Goodyear. It's a whole

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Speaker 1: separate story, but pretty interesting. Um, before sneakers were invented,

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Speaker 1: you have to think that people weren't necessarily always running

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Speaker 1: in shoes. And then you have guys like Fitdipity is right,

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Speaker 1: the Porsche lab who had to you know, run the

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Speaker 1: first marathon. Who was the messenger for that barefoot I

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Speaker 1: don't know. I did a little searching on that. Well yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean they and and you had like naked wrestling

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Speaker 1: and all that. I mean, the old Olympics were pretty

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Speaker 1: h you know, don't let clothing get in the way

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Speaker 1: of a good sporting event, right, So we're kind of

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Speaker 1: getting back to our roots. Um with people running barefoot.

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Speaker 1: I mean there's a there's a whole culture out of

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Speaker 1: their barefoot races, their barefoot forums online. And for some

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Speaker 1: barefoot runners there are of course parasites, and the big

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Speaker 1: one is hookworm. Yes, hookworms, which are which are pretty

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Speaker 1: pretty like a lot of parasites, pretty amazing creatures. Um. Basically,

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Speaker 1: the life cycle here is, uh, you step on a

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Speaker 1: hookworm larva, and it crawls up through the sole of

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Speaker 1: your foot, makes its way up into your digestive system

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Speaker 1: where it breeds and reproduces, and then come back out

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Speaker 1: through the form of excrement and then crawls away from

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Speaker 1: the excrement to be stepped on again. So it's this uh,

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Speaker 1: this cycle. So I guess the main thing is you

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Speaker 1: would hope that that he's a barefoot running marathons would

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Speaker 1: would not be going through latrine zones or uh dog

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Speaker 1: parks or anything of that nature. How prevalent is hooker

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Speaker 1: in the US, well, uh, much much better than it was.

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Speaker 1: I understand you can still you can certainly still get it.

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Speaker 1: But if it's interesting around. Uh. Uh. John D. Rockefeller Sr.

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Speaker 1: Was looking for his next big project, right, and he

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Speaker 1: really wanted to help out the American South, where incidentally

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Speaker 1: we're podcasting from right now. Uh. And he was he

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Speaker 1: was kind of perturbed by the by the fact that,

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Speaker 1: like the the economic engine of the South was not

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Speaker 1: really getting going again. And uh so he sent down,

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Speaker 1: he formed a commission and sent people down to like

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Speaker 1: crunch the number and stuff and you know, see what

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Speaker 1: was wrong? You know, what what do we need to

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Speaker 1: need to do to kick started? And they they're taking

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Speaker 1: a lot of sick days from hookorm manufactus. Well, they

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Speaker 1: just found that a lot of Southerners were slow, pale, weak,

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Speaker 1: kind of gollamy, you know, and um and you know,

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Speaker 1: so they were they came back and they said, well,

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Speaker 1: there's no nothing wrong with this, that or the other,

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Speaker 1: but they seem like they might have some sort of

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Speaker 1: a lazy disease. So then Rockefeller lazy disease. Yeah, So

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Speaker 1: Rockefeller sends down a bunch of of doctors and they

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Speaker 1: start looking at some of the factors and they start

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Speaker 1: seeing that a lot of it is tied to the

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Speaker 1: soil types, like areas where there's like rich soil rich farmers,

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Speaker 1: then you have a lot of these pale gollamy uh Southerners. Um,

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Speaker 1: and then the poor farmers tend to be a little

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Speaker 1: better off. So it turned out that the big deal

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Speaker 1: was hookworms. Um. This was this ended up leading to

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Speaker 1: basically the invention of the outhouse because they they conducted

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Speaker 1: some experiments right to just see like how far the

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Speaker 1: hookworms travel from said excrement. So they put the they

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Speaker 1: put the pooh if you will, in a sandbox. Um. Um.

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Speaker 1: One of the few times when poo and a sandbox,

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Speaker 1: I guess was was the it was okay, yeah, And

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Speaker 1: then they may they measured to see how far the

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Speaker 1: larvak traveled each day, all right, three days hookworm races, yeah,

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Speaker 1: basically yeah. And they found that in three days it

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Speaker 1: could travel three ft and then it couldn't go any

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Speaker 1: farther it was, and then it would live for seven

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Speaker 1: days total and then it would die. All right. So

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Speaker 1: the problem was that you had these uh, poor anemic

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Speaker 1: Southerners going out there, um and they would you know,

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Speaker 1: they would be using the restroom in the same general

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Speaker 1: area and uh, and then you know, every day they're

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Speaker 1: getting more hookworms because the hookworms are, you know, moving

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Speaker 1: three ft out in every direction from where they're going. Right,

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Speaker 1: So the answer is you dig a hole at six

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Speaker 1: ft deep, all right, so the hookworm can only go

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Speaker 1: up four ft and and then maybe it's like just

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Speaker 1: a superhero of a hookworm. It could you know, I

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Speaker 1: don't know, maybe it would go five feet, but there's

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Speaker 1: no way it's getting six right, not without just hookworm

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Speaker 1: in the in the Guinness World Book corrector's right, would

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Speaker 1: have to be some sort of super hookworm. So so yeah,

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Speaker 1: suddenly they Dundee Rockefeller people started saying, hey, how about this.

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Speaker 1: Let's dig a hole for everybody to poop in, and

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Speaker 1: we'll put a little house over it, and bam, the

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Speaker 1: outhouse is born. Excellent, excellent. They even had this cool

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Speaker 1: little film which you can actually watch online. The Rockefeller

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Speaker 1: people still have it up and uh and it's called

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Speaker 1: Unhooking the Hookworm, in which it refers to, uh, this

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Speaker 1: parasite is quote one of man's most dangerous enemies. Well

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Speaker 1: so it sounds like it certainly was for a while.

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Speaker 1: But I mean, hookworm is not the only thing that

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Speaker 1: you could encounter while you're running barefoot. Um, there's a

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Speaker 1: whole host of nasty infections out there that are just

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Speaker 1: waiting for your poor, unsuspect acting but faster feet. Um well,

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Speaker 1: I mean let's start with the basic one. There's there's

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Speaker 1: also athletes foot or tinya pettis. Yeah, and then there's

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Speaker 1: also stuff like you could get a staff infection, of course,

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Speaker 1: and nobody wants a staff infection or um fungal mace atoma.

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Speaker 1: And this one, I just dare you to look at

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Speaker 1: some pictures of this on the web. It is Oh,

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Speaker 1: it's terrible, It's terrible. It tends to occur more in

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Speaker 1: a tropical uh climate such as Mexico. And then like

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Speaker 1: what what do the photos look like? It's just narrowly

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Speaker 1: like what color? Is it more like a red or

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Speaker 1: a green? Well, actually, the foot that I saw was

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Speaker 1: it was kind of a brownish color um that was

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Speaker 1: starting to sort of fold in on itsse. It was

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Speaker 1: really terrible. And then um, you have stufinitely like sporo chicosis.

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Speaker 1: And this is um an infection that comes from handling

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Speaker 1: thorny plants, phagnum moss or stuff like build Hey, and

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Speaker 1: granted we're not going to be handling this stuff on

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Speaker 1: a daily basis. Maybe it's not something you might encounter

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Speaker 1: on a roadway, but if you're doing a little trail

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Speaker 1: running your stuff like that, you could technically encounter something

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Speaker 1: an infection like this. Do they run trails barefoot as well?

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Speaker 1: I'm not sure. I think actually the bare road is

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Speaker 1: your is your friends when, because otherwise it sounds like

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Speaker 1: these guys would just be running around on like just

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Speaker 1: big gross stumps, you know, with things crawling in and

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Speaker 1: out of them. So if you're still looking to run

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Speaker 1: barefoot or somewhat barefoot, we we came up with a

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Speaker 1: couple of solutions for you. Yeah, one and this is

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Speaker 1: pretty These are pretty cool. I I do not own

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Speaker 1: a pair, but I have a friend who has some.

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Speaker 1: There the Vibram five fingers and like a foot glove

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Speaker 1: basically like they tend to be like the ones I

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Speaker 1: saw the ones that my my friend has or are black,

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Speaker 1: so they kind of look like like guerrilla feet they

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Speaker 1: put on, and you know, and you can you can

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Speaker 1: you can wiggle his toes in them and all and

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Speaker 1: uh and yeah you just run with those. They you know,

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Speaker 1: you wouldn't want to wear them like on a date,

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Speaker 1: but uh, but they're pretty cool. For the whole barefoot

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Speaker 1: running thing. And uh in the manufacturers, yeah, they're yeah,

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Speaker 1: they're they're there. They can be kind of prices. I

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Speaker 1: think it's comparable to a tour running shoet. I think

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Speaker 1: they price up at about eighty dollars or something. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so that's one solution. Well, what's the difference between a

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Speaker 1: vibr and five finger do hicky and just running with socks?

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Speaker 1: You don't run outside in your sock feed, did you.

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Speaker 1: Your folks weren't into that either, and then that was

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Speaker 1: one of our rules. You walk outside in your sock feed,

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Speaker 1: you can't get wet. But what if you read outside

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Speaker 1: in socks with those little you know, the skitter things

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Speaker 1: on the bottom, you know, like they make kids socks

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Speaker 1: with those little still, you're gonna step in a puddle

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Speaker 1: or something and it's gonna be gross. But these, I

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Speaker 1: think the vibr and five fingers they're you know, like

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Speaker 1: they have some grip to them, but they're they're rubbery.

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Speaker 1: You know, they're not going to soak up a bunch

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Speaker 1: of gunk. Okay, all right, So then you could always

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Speaker 1: also run indoors, right, yeah, and that would cut out

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Speaker 1: some things. But I don't know, it's like we're talking

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Speaker 1: about you know, like there's a lot of athletes foot

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Speaker 1: in gyms. So right, so infections don't really respect the

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Speaker 1: indoor outdoor boundaries that we make for them. Well, of

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Speaker 1: course your last option is you could just take your

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Speaker 1: chances and run outside. Be damned. Uh. And you know,

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Speaker 1: as far as the hookworms are concerned, um, as they

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Speaker 1: go into on an episode of Radio Lab, there are

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Speaker 1: some people think these aren't that aren't that bad? Um.

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Speaker 1: This is based on the idea that or the observation

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Speaker 1: that asthma is less likely uh in someone that has hookworms,

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Speaker 1: and that that asthma and allergies aren't as common in

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Speaker 1: the developing world. UM, so many places you still have

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Speaker 1: you know, a lot of these sanitation issues. And the

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Speaker 1: argument is that that hookworms and humans have co evolved

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Speaker 1: over thousands of years. Uh and to the point where, um,

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Speaker 1: you have an individual that would be susceptible to asthma

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Speaker 1: or um um or allergies or any number of conditions

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Speaker 1: that are basically the immune system turning on itself, right

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Speaker 1: and in these people to hookworm. UM it manages to

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Speaker 1: keep those things in check almost like a symbiotic kind

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Speaker 1: of relationship. There's because there are arguments that like, if

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Speaker 1: you have like tin hookworms more or less, like that's

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Speaker 1: like a good Advocates are saying that's a good number

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Speaker 1: of hookworms to sort of keep your body in check.

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Speaker 1: But you're not. You get like fifty and you're getting

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Speaker 1: into into you're gonna become an emic. And that's where

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Speaker 1: we get the slow pale um. But that's we should

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Speaker 1: stress that's not an approved treatment. But but the one

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Speaker 1: guy that actually interviewed on Radio Lab, this guy Jasper

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Speaker 1: Lawrence of deranged dot com, he actually traveled down to

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Speaker 1: uh uh I think it was Cameroon and got himself

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Speaker 1: some hookworms. Yeah, got himself some hookworms, took a taxi

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Speaker 1: out to some latrine areas and marched around in his

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Speaker 1: bare feet and uh, last last I heard, he was

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Speaker 1: still selling his own hookworm um from his own feces

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Speaker 1: online to people who were interested in this uh again, uh,

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Speaker 1: non approved treatment. Thank you, Jasper for making that service available.

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Speaker 1: So I'm pretty sure I'm not going to go out

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Speaker 1: and buy some hook rooms. But this whole podcast did

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Speaker 1: make me think about um shoes and shoes and their

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Speaker 1: role and culture. Are you guys. The shoes off household,

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Speaker 1: um increasingly so, especially of course when it's when there's

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Speaker 1: snow and slush outside. But but I think after our

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Speaker 1: we traveled to Thailand in the fall, and they're very

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Speaker 1: much a shoes off culture, and are you know, very

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Speaker 1: big on also like things like don't point with your shoes, etcetera.

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Speaker 1: You go, you you fly on Thai airlines and you

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Speaker 1: have to put your shoes in a separate box than

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Speaker 1: your like pocket things, because to combine them into one

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Speaker 1: box would just be um grotesque, you know. And really,

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Speaker 1: I mean these are I mean, these are shoes. These

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Speaker 1: are things we walk around all over you know, the

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Speaker 1: subway with, or we we kill bugs. They're you know,

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Speaker 1: et cetera. They're they're kind of nasty, and you know,

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Speaker 1: maybe we should take them off at the at the

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Speaker 1: front door more often, or even in the office. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I'm wearing shoes right now. But yeah, we should have

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Speaker 1: a bin as soon as you walk in the office

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Speaker 1: where you check your shoes and people just walk around

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Speaker 1: and stocking feet all day, where everybody has their own slat.

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Speaker 1: Although what could happen as happened in Sex in the City,

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Speaker 1: is you could lose a sweet pair of shoes. On

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Speaker 1: the other hand, think about it. If you're not caring

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Speaker 1: about your shoes, then think about you know, your shoe

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Speaker 1: budget goes down, you're spending less money. Who cares, You're

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Speaker 1: just going to be cruising around and flip flops all

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Speaker 1: the time. So it does make me curious if like

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Speaker 1: extensive shoes or a thing in Thailand as well, I

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Speaker 1: don't have to look into that or you know, please

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Speaker 1: contact us. So if you'd like to learn more about

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Speaker 1: marathons or green marathons or even skin parasites, you can

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Speaker 1: head to our home page at how staff works dot com.

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Speaker 1: And while you're there, check out our blogs, where we

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Speaker 1: talk about all sorts of stuff, from you know, breaking

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00:14:54,320 --> 00:14:57,720
Speaker 1: science news to whatever articles we happen to be researching

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Speaker 1: for the week. And if you want to tell us

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Speaker 1: about your adventures with parasites, are running or both, send

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Speaker 1: us an email at science stuff at how stuff works

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Speaker 1: dot com for more onness and thousands of other topics.

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Speaker 1: stuff works, check out our blogs on the house stuff

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