1
00:00:03,760 --> 00:00:08,000
Speaker 1: Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history

2
00:00:08,039 --> 00:00:11,200
Speaker 1: is an open book, all of these amazing tales are

3
00:00:11,320 --> 00:00:14,680
Speaker 1: right there on display, just waiting for us to explore.

4
00:00:16,200 --> 00:00:29,280
Speaker 1: Welcome to the cabinet of curiosities. Livestock never fares well

5
00:00:29,400 --> 00:00:32,320
Speaker 1: in a tornado. I think many of us remember that

6
00:00:32,520 --> 00:00:35,520
Speaker 1: iconic scene in the movie Twister when a cow moves

7
00:00:35,600 --> 00:00:38,559
Speaker 1: across the screen as it's carried away in a funnel

8
00:00:38,560 --> 00:00:42,519
Speaker 1: of wind and debris. But tornadoes and the creature is

9
00:00:42,560 --> 00:00:45,280
Speaker 1: caught up within them can teach us a few things

10
00:00:45,320 --> 00:00:49,000
Speaker 1: about the wind and the way it moves. That was

11
00:00:49,040 --> 00:00:53,120
Speaker 1: the thought mathematician Elias Loomis had in eighteen forty two,

12
00:00:53,280 --> 00:00:57,360
Speaker 1: after hearing reports about naked chickens. Yeah you heard me right,

13
00:00:57,920 --> 00:01:02,560
Speaker 1: naked chickens. Farmers in Ohio had noticed their poultry walking

14
00:01:02,600 --> 00:01:05,760
Speaker 1: around without their feathers following a tornado that tore through

15
00:01:05,760 --> 00:01:09,000
Speaker 1: their town, and it happened enough that folks didn't really

16
00:01:09,160 --> 00:01:13,560
Speaker 1: think anything about it. Loomis saw the featherless foul as

17
00:01:13,600 --> 00:01:16,880
Speaker 1: an opportunity to measure a tornado's wind speeds, a feat

18
00:01:16,920 --> 00:01:21,680
Speaker 1: previously thought impossible. Keep in mind this was the forties,

19
00:01:21,920 --> 00:01:26,240
Speaker 1: well before animal rights organizations monitored how scientists use living

20
00:01:26,280 --> 00:01:31,200
Speaker 1: creatures in their studies. Elias Loomis had a hypothesis and

21
00:01:31,280 --> 00:01:34,920
Speaker 1: almost no oversight. I'm sure you can see where this

22
00:01:35,000 --> 00:01:40,000
Speaker 1: is going. Loomis killed a chicken and launched its body

23
00:01:40,040 --> 00:01:42,679
Speaker 1: out of a small cannon, clocking in at a top

24
00:01:42,720 --> 00:01:46,160
Speaker 1: speed of over three forty miles per hour. The bird

25
00:01:46,240 --> 00:01:49,400
Speaker 1: flew high and far, leaving in its wake a cloud

26
00:01:49,440 --> 00:01:53,200
Speaker 1: of feathers and enough meat to make a few chicken nuggets.

27
00:01:53,680 --> 00:01:56,600
Speaker 1: Tornadoes must spin at a slower rate, he thought, and

28
00:01:56,720 --> 00:02:02,960
Speaker 1: continued his research unfod Sinately, his test proved unsuccessful. The

29
00:02:03,040 --> 00:02:05,680
Speaker 1: technology being what it was at the time, he was

30
00:02:05,840 --> 00:02:09,400
Speaker 1: unable to gather enough data on just how quickly tornadoes turned,

31
00:02:09,760 --> 00:02:13,480
Speaker 1: nor their effects on the local livestock. It wasn't until

32
00:02:13,560 --> 00:02:17,520
Speaker 1: over a century later when Bernard, an atmospheric scientist at

33
00:02:17,600 --> 00:02:21,480
Speaker 1: Suny Albany, took a closer look. Bernard had spent his

34
00:02:21,520 --> 00:02:26,240
Speaker 1: early career at General Electric researching the atmosphere. He discovered

35
00:02:26,280 --> 00:02:29,359
Speaker 1: the effects of what happened when silver iodide was injected

36
00:02:29,360 --> 00:02:32,760
Speaker 1: into clouds. They formed ice crystals, and Bernard thought he

37
00:02:32,840 --> 00:02:36,200
Speaker 1: might be able to use this to control precipitation. In fact,

38
00:02:36,280 --> 00:02:39,440
Speaker 1: his work is still used today by cloud seeding companies

39
00:02:39,480 --> 00:02:42,880
Speaker 1: that can produce rain on demand in drought stricken areas.

40
00:02:44,280 --> 00:02:46,920
Speaker 1: After he left ge Bernard went on to work for

41
00:02:47,040 --> 00:02:49,720
Speaker 1: Arthur D. Little, the company that helped create the word

42
00:02:49,760 --> 00:02:53,720
Speaker 1: processor and the Nasdaq stock exchange, which eventually led him

43
00:02:53,760 --> 00:02:56,840
Speaker 1: to the University of Albany. It was there where he

44
00:02:56,919 --> 00:03:01,320
Speaker 1: learned about Elias Loomis's research on wind speed and naked chickens.

45
00:03:02,680 --> 00:03:05,280
Speaker 1: Bernard wasn't sure Loomis had been on the right track,

46
00:03:05,760 --> 00:03:08,760
Speaker 1: but technology had advanced to the point where new research

47
00:03:08,880 --> 00:03:12,240
Speaker 1: wouldn't need to harm animals in the process, so he

48
00:03:12,280 --> 00:03:15,320
Speaker 1: took a crack at it himself. He dropped some chickens

49
00:03:15,360 --> 00:03:18,480
Speaker 1: into a wind tunnel, the kind they used to test aircraft,

50
00:03:18,919 --> 00:03:23,360
Speaker 1: and then turned it on and it worked well, sort of.

51
00:03:23,919 --> 00:03:27,440
Speaker 1: The chickens lost plenty of feathers, but inconsistently, and not

52
00:03:27,600 --> 00:03:30,760
Speaker 1: enough to classify them as naked. They were honestly just

53
00:03:30,880 --> 00:03:34,440
Speaker 1: sort of patchy and ran around clucking angrily. It didn't

54
00:03:34,480 --> 00:03:37,280
Speaker 1: take long for Bernard to realize that chickens made terrible

55
00:03:37,320 --> 00:03:40,880
Speaker 1: gauges of wind speed, but that didn't stop him from

56
00:03:40,880 --> 00:03:46,360
Speaker 1: earning an ig Nobel Prize. In no not a Nobel Prize,

57
00:03:46,520 --> 00:03:50,960
Speaker 1: an ig Nobel Prize ignoble get it. It's a satirical

58
00:03:51,040 --> 00:03:55,600
Speaker 1: award given to ten bizarre or benign achievements in scientific research.

59
00:03:56,080 --> 00:03:59,560
Speaker 1: Bernard one for his paper Chicken Plucking as measure of

60
00:03:59,600 --> 00:04:05,440
Speaker 1: tornado windspeeds. Bernard's work also found its way into popular culture.

61
00:04:06,080 --> 00:04:09,280
Speaker 1: His research of ice crystal formations and clouds became the

62
00:04:09,320 --> 00:04:13,160
Speaker 1: basis for the substance ice nine in Kurt Vonnegut's nineteen

63
00:04:13,240 --> 00:04:17,080
Speaker 1: sixty three novel Cat's Cradle. It turns out Vonnegut had

64
00:04:17,120 --> 00:04:20,360
Speaker 1: worked as a publicist for General Electric in the late forties,

65
00:04:20,720 --> 00:04:23,640
Speaker 1: so he knew all about Bernard's work. Even though he

66
00:04:23,680 --> 00:04:27,039
Speaker 1: didn't have a college degree himself. Ge hired Kurt to

67
00:04:27,200 --> 00:04:32,640
Speaker 1: help advertise the company's scientific breakthroughs. To be honest, any

68
00:04:32,720 --> 00:04:36,280
Speaker 1: other applicant as unqualified as Kurt Vonnegut would have been

69
00:04:36,320 --> 00:04:39,200
Speaker 1: turned away at the door. But he had two things

70
00:04:39,240 --> 00:04:43,640
Speaker 1: working in his favor. First, he lied. He told Ge

71
00:04:43,839 --> 00:04:46,400
Speaker 1: that he held a master's degree in anthropology from the

72
00:04:46,480 --> 00:04:50,640
Speaker 1: University of Chicago, which he most certainly did not. His

73
00:04:50,720 --> 00:04:53,200
Speaker 1: other advantage was that he had a little help from

74
00:04:53,200 --> 00:04:56,960
Speaker 1: the inside. It turns out that his brother already worked

75
00:04:57,000 --> 00:05:01,560
Speaker 1: for Ge where he worked as an atmosphere scientist. His

76
00:05:01,720 --> 00:05:21,600
Speaker 1: brother Bernard Vonnegut. Before Atkins, before South Beach, before jazz Er,

77
00:05:21,680 --> 00:05:27,080
Speaker 1: Size and Soul Cycle and Tibot, there was Battle Creek Sanitarium,

78
00:05:27,240 --> 00:05:30,720
Speaker 1: founded in eighteen sixty six in Battle Creek, Michigan. The

79
00:05:30,839 --> 00:05:34,000
Speaker 1: sanitarium wasn't a mental health facility like we're used to

80
00:05:34,040 --> 00:05:38,000
Speaker 1: seeing today. Back then, the word sanitarium was a variation

81
00:05:38,000 --> 00:05:40,920
Speaker 1: on the word sanatorium, which came to define a health

82
00:05:41,000 --> 00:05:45,680
Speaker 1: resort for injured soldiers. It had been owned and operated

83
00:05:45,720 --> 00:05:49,240
Speaker 1: by the Seventh day Adventists, the denomination of Protestants who

84
00:05:49,240 --> 00:05:52,600
Speaker 1: believed in healthy living straight from the Good Book. No meat,

85
00:05:52,960 --> 00:05:57,120
Speaker 1: no shellfish, and definitely no alcohol or tobacco were allowed.

86
00:05:57,600 --> 00:06:01,360
Speaker 1: It was strict, but some people believed it was also beneficial.

87
00:06:03,000 --> 00:06:05,479
Speaker 1: Strangely enough, not a whole lot of people went for

88
00:06:05,560 --> 00:06:08,599
Speaker 1: that sort of thing. Battle Creek started small, with no

89
00:06:08,680 --> 00:06:11,440
Speaker 1: more than a hundred patients in the beginning, but when

90
00:06:11,520 --> 00:06:14,000
Speaker 1: Dr John Harvey arrived at the turn of the century,

91
00:06:14,040 --> 00:06:17,640
Speaker 1: he wanted to change all of that. Under Dr John's leadership,

92
00:06:17,680 --> 00:06:21,040
Speaker 1: he quickly grew the sanitarium's meager attendants from one hundred

93
00:06:21,279 --> 00:06:24,440
Speaker 1: to over seven thousand patients, with a staff of over

94
00:06:24,480 --> 00:06:28,480
Speaker 1: eight hundred assisting at any given time. He turned Battle

95
00:06:28,520 --> 00:06:32,480
Speaker 1: Creek into a well oiled machine dedicated to making lives

96
00:06:32,520 --> 00:06:38,560
Speaker 1: better for a nominal fee. Of course, John was himself

97
00:06:38,680 --> 00:06:41,800
Speaker 1: a Seventh day Adventist, and as part of his theology,

98
00:06:41,960 --> 00:06:46,040
Speaker 1: believed strongly in the churches, pushed towards vegetarianism and away

99
00:06:46,040 --> 00:06:49,479
Speaker 1: from sin. In order to achieve the latter, he developed

100
00:06:49,480 --> 00:06:52,880
Speaker 1: what was referred to as a bland diet, consisting mostly

101
00:06:52,920 --> 00:06:57,400
Speaker 1: of yogurt's, nuts, peanut butter, and starches. A bland diet

102
00:06:57,560 --> 00:07:00,200
Speaker 1: was the key to abstinence in his mind, brought on

103
00:07:00,320 --> 00:07:04,680
Speaker 1: by the lack of stimulation of the taste buds. Patients

104
00:07:04,760 --> 00:07:07,520
Speaker 1: at Battle Creek were also encouraged to take part in

105
00:07:07,640 --> 00:07:11,480
Speaker 1: various activities to aid in their recoveries, in light therapy,

106
00:07:11,840 --> 00:07:15,960
Speaker 1: afternoon marches around the premises to assist with digestion, and

107
00:07:16,040 --> 00:07:19,680
Speaker 1: even regular enemus. John believed the root of all evil

108
00:07:19,720 --> 00:07:23,240
Speaker 1: in the body was bacterial toxins, and his combination of

109
00:07:23,280 --> 00:07:26,720
Speaker 1: a bland diet with rigorous exercise was meant to help

110
00:07:26,800 --> 00:07:31,480
Speaker 1: clear all of that nastiness right out. While he ran

111
00:07:31,560 --> 00:07:35,320
Speaker 1: Battle Creek, John filed patents for several inventions that would

112
00:07:35,360 --> 00:07:38,640
Speaker 1: help those who stayed there, including a radiant heat bath,

113
00:07:38,960 --> 00:07:43,640
Speaker 1: massage tools, and exercise equipment. He made numerous strides and

114
00:07:43,720 --> 00:07:47,440
Speaker 1: medical devices under what he called physiotherapy, but there was

115
00:07:47,640 --> 00:07:50,920
Speaker 1: something missing, something from the other side of the equation.

116
00:07:51,480 --> 00:07:54,640
Speaker 1: He'd done all he could for the patients physically, but

117
00:07:54,680 --> 00:07:59,480
Speaker 1: now he needed to revolutionize their diets. The idea had

118
00:07:59,480 --> 00:08:02,040
Speaker 1: come to him in a dream one night. It was

119
00:08:02,160 --> 00:08:04,480
Speaker 1: for a new kind of bread, one that would be

120
00:08:04,520 --> 00:08:07,680
Speaker 1: easier to chew at breakfast when people had just woken up.

121
00:08:08,200 --> 00:08:10,960
Speaker 1: The following day, John walked down to the kitchen and

122
00:08:11,120 --> 00:08:14,560
Speaker 1: mixed a dough made of wheat, oats, and corn. What

123
00:08:14,680 --> 00:08:17,720
Speaker 1: came out wasn't very appetizing, and he left it there

124
00:08:17,720 --> 00:08:21,360
Speaker 1: for a few days while attending to sanitarium business. When

125
00:08:21,400 --> 00:08:24,760
Speaker 1: he came back, the mixture had hardened and John almost

126
00:08:24,760 --> 00:08:28,920
Speaker 1: threw it out, But then he had another idea. Rather

127
00:08:28,960 --> 00:08:31,440
Speaker 1: than waste all of that food, he rolled it out

128
00:08:31,560 --> 00:08:34,080
Speaker 1: and baked it, and what he ended up with were

129
00:08:34,160 --> 00:08:38,000
Speaker 1: crispy little flakes. John had stumbled onto something big here.

130
00:08:38,600 --> 00:08:40,959
Speaker 1: So big it would go on to spawn an entire

131
00:08:41,040 --> 00:08:45,200
Speaker 1: new category of food, the breakfast cereal. It just so

132
00:08:45,240 --> 00:08:51,000
Speaker 1: happened that John Harvey Kellogg had invented corn flakes. But

133
00:08:51,080 --> 00:08:54,560
Speaker 1: the story doesn't end there. Just when Kellogg's corn flakes

134
00:08:54,640 --> 00:08:57,840
Speaker 1: had hit the sanitarium's breakfast tables, a down on his

135
00:08:57,920 --> 00:09:01,320
Speaker 1: luck businessman sought out Dr Kelly to help cure his

136
00:09:01,400 --> 00:09:06,400
Speaker 1: chronic health problems. This businessman, inspired by the doctor's delicious

137
00:09:06,480 --> 00:09:09,840
Speaker 1: new breakfast cereal, returned home with ambitions of his own.

138
00:09:10,400 --> 00:09:13,720
Speaker 1: While his first product, a serial beverage called post Them,

139
00:09:14,040 --> 00:09:17,760
Speaker 1: didn't do so well, his sophomore endeavor was a huge hit.

140
00:09:18,480 --> 00:09:21,960
Speaker 1: It was called grape Nuts, named for the fruity aroma

141
00:09:22,120 --> 00:09:27,040
Speaker 1: given off during the manufacturing process, and its creator C. W.

142
00:09:27,400 --> 00:09:30,800
Speaker 1: Post had inadvertently kicked off what would be known for

143
00:09:30,880 --> 00:09:38,520
Speaker 1: decades as the serial wars. I hope you've enjoyed today's

144
00:09:38,559 --> 00:09:42,200
Speaker 1: guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free

145
00:09:42,240 --> 00:09:44,920
Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by

146
00:09:45,000 --> 00:09:50,000
Speaker 1: visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by

147
00:09:50,040 --> 00:09:53,640
Speaker 1: me Aaron Manky in partnership with how Stuff Works. I

148
00:09:53,760 --> 00:09:57,560
Speaker 1: make another award winning show called Lore which is a podcast,

149
00:09:57,640 --> 00:10:00,600
Speaker 1: book series, and television show and you can learn all

150
00:10:00,640 --> 00:10:04,160
Speaker 1: about it over at the world of Lore dot com.

151
00:10:04,200 --> 00:10:09,240
Speaker 1: And until next time, stay curious. H