Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie slug Douglas.
Speaker 1: Happy Valentine's Day. This is our special episode, my Slimmy
Speaker 1: Valentine's a slug life, and indeed things are going to
Speaker 1: get a little sexy in this episode for all your
Speaker 1: listeners out there. And in fact, let's go ahead que
Speaker 1: up a little little Verry White just to sort of
Speaker 1: set the mood here, because you know, as humans, we
Speaker 1: live in this world of human sexuality, and we have
Speaker 1: all this baggage attached to it, all these thoughts about
Speaker 1: what is what is appropriate, what is taboo, what is
Speaker 1: a little risque? Uh? You know? And that music playing
Speaker 1: in the background there by the way, that was a
Speaker 1: little Verry White with can't get Enough of Your Love
Speaker 1: Babe nine four classic or can't get enough of that
Speaker 1: slug love Now you're yeah with the slugs. The slug
Speaker 1: serves as an example of just how wild and diverse
Speaker 1: and to humanize hideous uh, sexual reproduction really is in
Speaker 1: in in nature and and maybe how sanitized it is
Speaker 1: in humans. I don't know. That's that's a value judgment.
Speaker 1: I'll leave that for someone else to make. It shows
Speaker 1: us how much human baggage we bring to the situation.
Speaker 1: I'm going to tell you that some slug sex, in
Speaker 1: particular leopard slugs, and we'll talk more about them, kind
Speaker 1: of make human sex look a little milk toast, a
Speaker 1: little vanilla. Yeah, I will. I will admit that as
Speaker 1: repulsed by slugs as I am, like, I feel like
Speaker 1: this deep in my James repulsion to them, not in
Speaker 1: my blue jeans, but in my actual genetic material, Like
Speaker 1: there's a deep like there in my ancestral enemy um
Speaker 1: that that I am avoiding because I know they will
Speaker 1: crush me. You think you have ancestral memories exactly of slugs.
Speaker 1: As repulsed as I am, I have to admit that
Speaker 1: there is some thing weirdly beautiful about it. If not beautiful,
Speaker 1: then at least elaborate, Like it's it's elaborately grotesque. It's
Speaker 1: it's it's grotesque in a way that that that it
Speaker 1: becomes almost art. All right, So before we start talking
Speaker 1: about slug sex and all girding our loins for that,
Speaker 1: let's talk about slug anatomy. Because most slugs are hermaphrodites,
Speaker 1: they have both a penis and a genital opening, right,
Speaker 1: so when they have sex they can both fertilize and
Speaker 1: are fertilized. It's important to remember too that your coming
Speaker 1: slug it's ancestor had a had a shell. It is
Speaker 1: descended from shelled gastropods. So if your rear end is
Speaker 1: in a shell, where do you think evolution has put
Speaker 1: all of your important bits right up there at the head.
Speaker 1: So it's from the head that the penis of a
Speaker 1: of a slug protrudes right out the side like a
Speaker 1: weird hat. Yes, and they yeah, I think about the
Speaker 1: penus being over there too, is over there too, so
Speaker 1: so there's that. And again yes, this is because they
Speaker 1: are descended from snap the genital orifice, everything, the mouth,
Speaker 1: everything has to be upfront, has to be front loaded,
Speaker 1: because the rear is back there in the shell where
Speaker 1: Dr Doolittle rides. If you are a fan of that
Speaker 1: movie and really knowing all the stuff about snails makes
Speaker 1: that even weirder. So keep that in mind when we're
Speaker 1: talking about some of the configurations that these slugs make
Speaker 1: when they are engaging in their reproductive efforts because again,
Speaker 1: all the business is pretty much over there on the head. Yeah,
Speaker 1: face to face sex, because that's where it's two faces
Speaker 1: going at it. Alright, various ways as well, discuss let's
Speaker 1: discuss one of the ways one of the strategies that
Speaker 1: slugs approach reproduction. Yes, Now, it's important to to realize
Speaker 1: that what we're talking about here sexual conflict between among
Speaker 1: these creatures. And this is the idea that you have
Speaker 1: individuals in a species and they are competing with other
Speaker 1: individuals for mates. So they want to do whatever they
Speaker 1: can to ensure that their genetic material passes on and
Speaker 1: not the genetic material of rivals and other other individuals
Speaker 1: that that their mate is mating with. So you see
Speaker 1: various methods in various animals, whether the uses you see,
Speaker 1: for instance, their sperm plugs, which you can you can
Speaker 1: look up, which it's it's about. I've got mine in there,
Speaker 1: so I'm just gonna sort of block it up so
Speaker 1: that nothing else is gonna get in there too. You
Speaker 1: see barbed penises in various creatures, especially in in in insects.
Speaker 1: I've seen them referred to as torture pholusis if you
Speaker 1: want to hear more about that. Check out our our
Speaker 1: episode that we did on the penis and the evolution
Speaker 1: of the penis. Um you. So you see a lot
Speaker 1: of sexual competition evolution trying to to to game this
Speaker 1: scenario so that the the the mating creature has the
Speaker 1: advantage over all the other creatures that are mating with
Speaker 1: its mate. I'm glad you cued that up because I
Speaker 1: think that it's it's important to keep this in mind
Speaker 1: when you think about um slugs in what seems sort
Speaker 1: of rough dealings with reproduction and of cour without anthropomising them,
Speaker 1: but um, we can't help to. But thinking of it
Speaker 1: in that context, I think helps you to better understand why,
Speaker 1: um it is maybe as dire seeming as it is,
Speaker 1: or I mean, it's a it's a brutal game with
Speaker 1: high stakes. The stakes are high. They couldn't be any
Speaker 1: higher because ultimately, the genetic mission of this creature and
Speaker 1: any any creature is to pass his genes on. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So let's look at the sea slug, all right. According
Speaker 1: to I O nine author Robert T. Gonzalez, uh sex
Speaker 1: is initiated when one slug uses a syringe like organ
Speaker 1: to gore its partner and that's where the stabbing comes in. Yes,
Speaker 1: and you you see the same activity in a number
Speaker 1: of air breathing land snails and slugs as well, So
Speaker 1: this is not particular to sea slugs, right, but in
Speaker 1: this particular instance, you've got that syringe like organ goring
Speaker 1: its partner and injecting prostate fluid into its body. And
Speaker 1: then they made a second time, this time with one
Speaker 1: slug inserting its penis into the partner's genital opening that
Speaker 1: they made through the stopping. So these are two separate acts. Basically,
Speaker 1: one is shanking and the other sexing. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: the way I like to think of it is the
Speaker 1: the final knife fight in dune Um between Paul Trades
Speaker 1: and Uh and the Harcone and kid played by a
Speaker 1: Sting in the movie you know there, it's this this
Speaker 1: vicious fight when they have to counter each other's shields
Speaker 1: with their slow moving daggers, and at least one of
Speaker 1: the daggers this poison divider call. So it's that kind
Speaker 1: of situation. There's kind of a it's like they're they're
Speaker 1: making love to each other, these snails, these slugs, but
Speaker 1: they're also trying to stab each other. It's it's it's
Speaker 1: often described by biologists is ultimately a joust sword fight
Speaker 1: because whoever gets their loved dart, which is the term
Speaker 1: that's often used for it, whoever gets their loved dart
Speaker 1: into their mate, they're going to increase the odds that
Speaker 1: their sperm is going to be victorious inside of that mate.
Speaker 1: That's right. And you know, it is said that most
Speaker 1: slugs would probably perfer to be the shanker rather than
Speaker 1: the shanky. Evolutionary biologist Rulanda Lang describes the penis thus lee.
Speaker 1: The penis bears four to five large hook shaped spines
Speaker 1: at its base in a crown of twenty to thirty
Speaker 1: minute fine pointed spines at its tip, which are spread
Speaker 1: like an anchor during mating. So there's still a question
Speaker 1: as to watch lugs will allow themselves to be penetrated
Speaker 1: beyond the amount needed to get the stores of sperm.
Speaker 1: Because this happens, right, they get the storm stores of
Speaker 1: sperm that they need, but they still engage in is
Speaker 1: what we think of as a very vicious act um
Speaker 1: and it doesn't really increase the reproductive fitness to do it,
Speaker 1: but they still engage in it. So the idea is
Speaker 1: that perhaps the injections of prostate fluid might include nutrients
Speaker 1: that benefit the stab slug, So it's a bit of
Speaker 1: a trade off there. Yeah. And there was this old
Speaker 1: idea that the love dart was injecting calcium into the
Speaker 1: mate and therefore making a giving it a gift kind
Speaker 1: of a dowry, uh and staying here, here's some calcium
Speaker 1: us this to create the eggs that we have created together. Um,
Speaker 1: But I think they've kind of shied away from that,
Speaker 1: going more in this hormonal direction that it's uh, it's
Speaker 1: enabling this better chance of survival for the stabbers sperm again,
Speaker 1: reproductive fitness being the most important thing. And just as
Speaker 1: the you described the penis and pretty horrific terms, uh,
Speaker 1: the love darts, which are also called gypso bellums, Um,
Speaker 1: they vary a great deal as well. You can find
Speaker 1: images of these and they look like varying cruel harpoons,
Speaker 1: and and they're made of different substances. Sometimes it's calcium carbonate,
Speaker 1: sometimes it's cotton um, various shapes and sizes and uh,
Speaker 1: they can also vary between one and thirty millimeters in length. Um.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's more of a just kind of a stab
Speaker 1: in the side like a prison shiving. Sometimes the love
Speaker 1: dart goes all the way through, uh, the the mated slug.
Speaker 1: It's um, it's it's pretty fascinating and um it. We
Speaker 1: call it a love dart in English, but in Germany
Speaker 1: they call it a leaves field or love arrow. And
Speaker 1: there's some there's some people that that argue that the
Speaker 1: idea of Cupid and his arrow is ultimately um inspired
Speaker 1: by the love dart, even though the love dart again
Speaker 1: is just a it's a stabbing, more of a lance
Speaker 1: or a dagger in the side rather than anything that
Speaker 1: is actually a projectile. Yeah, and they do come in
Speaker 1: in various shapes. Um. Some look like spears. I thought
Speaker 1: one actually did look like a graboid as well. So
Speaker 1: it sort of depends on this species most some have
Speaker 1: just one um dart sack. Some have more than one. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then after they have used it takes a while
Speaker 1: to grow it back to re reload the gun as
Speaker 1: it were. All right, um, let's take a quick break
Speaker 1: and when we get back, we are going to talk
Speaker 1: about the love lives of leopard flugs. And you really
Speaker 1: don't want to miss this, Alright, We're back. Leopard slugs
Speaker 1: um now the very white yeah kes the berry wide again.
Speaker 1: The leopard slugs. They really make a show. They're they're
Speaker 1: really about putting on a show of their love for
Speaker 1: anyone who may be able to watch in stomach this nonsense. Yeah, alright,
Speaker 1: imagine these leopard slugs. They're nocturnal. They're grayish yellow with
Speaker 1: modeled black spots, hence the name leopard slugs. They measure
Speaker 1: about four inches long. Uh. Let's say that they're cruising
Speaker 1: through the forest. They pick up a scent in another
Speaker 1: slugs trail. They read the love poem and that that
Speaker 1: slug slime. Yes, come on, I don't know, is that
Speaker 1: very when? And so they follow it. They find this
Speaker 1: other slug and they stalk each other in a circle,
Speaker 1: again using their scent trails. And then they say, hey,
Speaker 1: let's take this up to a more private area. They
Speaker 1: go up a tree. They find a nice little tree branch,
Speaker 1: and that's when thing start to get a little bit weird.
Speaker 1: They begin to intertwine. It's quite beautiful. And as they
Speaker 1: are intertwining, they form a rope of mucus that comes
Speaker 1: down start to slay like imagine this rope of mucus
Speaker 1: extending from the branch, and then they continue intertwining together
Speaker 1: and they're suspended like that for a little while in
Speaker 1: this gooey embrace. Now, then the penises come out. That's right,
Speaker 1: as gonna say. If that's not the head, the side
Speaker 1: of their head, their penises are basically emerging, and they
Speaker 1: begin to glow blue. Yeah, and these are these are
Speaker 1: large phouls is um comparatively um like for a human.
Speaker 1: It would be like a like a baby's arm coming
Speaker 1: out of the sides of your head, or no larger
Speaker 1: than a baby's arn't like a like an eight year
Speaker 1: old army. So now I'm asked to say, I'm a
Speaker 1: little bit g right that you used that analogy, but
Speaker 1: it's effective to give you some idea of scale. So
Speaker 1: then these uh, these head placed penises begin to do
Speaker 1: the same, execute the same intertwining configuration right this embrace,
Speaker 1: and you see this glowing blue penises entwined and moving
Speaker 1: until they bloom into a pulsating blue flower like globe
Speaker 1: that's translucent. Yes, it's really alien and oddly beautiful to behold.
Speaker 1: It's it's it's really weird. Now, the reason that they're
Speaker 1: doing this big light show, this big circus slay. Hey,
Speaker 1: look at us, you know, intertwined getting it on um
Speaker 1: is that they're passing sperm to and fro and that um,
Speaker 1: that sort of flower configuration because again there hermaphrodites. They're
Speaker 1: both male and female. And it's just amazing because I yea,
Speaker 1: this is this is the attempt to for alize each other.
Speaker 1: And it's amazing because it looks like this Toluly sculpture
Speaker 1: rights class blown sculpture that's happening before your eyes. But
Speaker 1: my favorite part of this is that you have this
Speaker 1: entirely intricate, beautiful, disgusting display of reproductive fitness, and then
Speaker 1: there's just this unceremonious drop of one of them PLoP
Speaker 1: onto the fourth floor, Like you would think that they
Speaker 1: would have come up with a more elegant way to
Speaker 1: to end it. But it's quite it's quite a sight
Speaker 1: to behold. If you wanted to seat yourself, check out
Speaker 1: I O nine h Sex Life of Leopard Slugs. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I believe they're embedding a video created by Discovery and BBC.
Speaker 1: Atinborough narrates it, narrates it, and I want Attenborough narrating
Speaker 1: well anything in the natural world, but especially slugs doing
Speaker 1: it because he's got that great wink wink, nudge nudge
Speaker 1: with his voice that he does. So imagine it applied
Speaker 1: to this scene of beauty before you and I know
Speaker 1: what you're thinking, Well, that's where it ends, right, maybe
Speaker 1: this uh, and we're generalizing the entire vast buffet of
Speaker 1: slug sex in this. But you begin with a little
Speaker 1: gentle stabbing. Then you you go up into the trees
Speaker 1: and you you intertwine, and you intertwined penises and create
Speaker 1: a glowing flour and swap sperm and you think, well,
Speaker 1: then then you're done. Right, not necessarily because in some
Speaker 1: slugs you see something that we call apophylation, which is, uh,
Speaker 1: maybe not as sexy as it sounds. This is when
Speaker 1: one slug choose the other's penis off. Occasionally we'll shoo
Speaker 1: its own penis off and swallow it. Yeah, that's auto apophylation,
Speaker 1: auto appophilation. Yes, So what is all this sexual cannibalism?
Speaker 1: What is it about? Right, because we've we've encountered we've
Speaker 1: talked about sexual cannibalism before, where you have like the
Speaker 1: female will eat the male or part of the male
Speaker 1: following mating. Sometimes because Hey, the male was only there
Speaker 1: to mate, and then once he's done, there's no sense
Speaker 1: keeping him around. Might as well make a meal out
Speaker 1: of him, right, female or spiders right right? In this
Speaker 1: case though, these are these are amaphrodites. So what's what's
Speaker 1: going on here? Well, these these banana slugs in particular,
Speaker 1: of course called banana fligs because of their yellow color
Speaker 1: and their occasional black spots. Uh, they're not entirely sure
Speaker 1: why the chewing is going on, but let me just
Speaker 1: kind of give you a little bit of information about
Speaker 1: these guys. Uh. They are the second largest slug in
Speaker 1: the world, so imagine that. Imagine that when you start
Speaker 1: to talk about the slug penis, which is usually the
Speaker 1: length of the slug itself. It is also the official
Speaker 1: mascot of the University of California, Santa Cruz. Really, really,
Speaker 1: they're the banana slugs. Oh God, I assume they don't
Speaker 1: have a sports program like this has to be just
Speaker 1: like chess club or something. I don't well, but or
Speaker 1: the more mild school. I just can't imagine like a
Speaker 1: football mascot of the banana slug. I mean, it's better
Speaker 1: than a dog, I guess, but I mean it would
Speaker 1: inspire fear in the competitor, right, like I'm gonna chew
Speaker 1: your penis off. Yeah, if they really want all out
Speaker 1: with it, I guess it would work. Yeah yeah, um okay.
Speaker 1: It's scientific name is dolly phallus, which means one penis.
Speaker 1: So what we find when we look at slugs getting
Speaker 1: it on is that again they find each other via
Speaker 1: the chemical traces in their slime trail. They make a
Speaker 1: bed of slime to cuddle on. Essentially, there's some head waving,
Speaker 1: they get very close to each other, and then they
Speaker 1: begin to actually, when I say they get close together,
Speaker 1: they're in a gangyang configuration. Um. Then they began to
Speaker 1: gently bite gentital openings of each other. So what happens
Speaker 1: next is they their penises spring out from their heads
Speaker 1: and they insert the penises and the nearby genital splits,
Speaker 1: and then intercourse lasts for hours for hours, and then,
Speaker 1: with their multiple pairs of teeth known as the radula,
Speaker 1: sometimes one or both of the slugs gnaws the penis
Speaker 1: off the other. This is the appiphiliation. So the idea
Speaker 1: at first was that they were doing this because the
Speaker 1: penis was getting stuck and I ran across that that
Speaker 1: theory that they were their intertwined is like, how do
Speaker 1: we get out of this? Well, we could bite through
Speaker 1: these penises and then they do. But but the but
Speaker 1: what we're really getting down to ultimately is again sexual conflict, right, yes,
Speaker 1: because it's not about that, because actually what happens is
Speaker 1: that the penis, when it is not erect, it's not
Speaker 1: a problem for it to pull out. Okay, again, imagine this,
Speaker 1: This penis san is the length of the actual banana
Speaker 1: slug itself. So, uh, they do think it has to
Speaker 1: do with this idea of Okay, well, I'm gonna chew
Speaker 1: your penis off and I'm going to ensure that my
Speaker 1: sperm from now on is the main deal out there.
Speaker 1: I'm going to remove you from the playing field. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, it's it comes down to sexual conflict
Speaker 1: because every slug is both male and female. But then
Speaker 1: after the mating is done, Yeah, if you can, if
Speaker 1: you can bite the penis off of the other slug,
Speaker 1: then you have taken a male competitor off out of
Speaker 1: the out of the game, while leaving a perfectly functional
Speaker 1: female slug out there for what you know, for for
Speaker 1: public use. So it's it's pretty amazing stuff. Yeah. Now
Speaker 1: I saw one of the videos that had the uh,
Speaker 1: the case of auto appiphiliation and uh, and this one
Speaker 1: was a situation where the slug engaged in sex and
Speaker 1: then they went off without chewing penises off, because sometimes
Speaker 1: that happens, like sometimes there's no penis chewing off and
Speaker 1: when a when a penis is chewed off again, it's
Speaker 1: still a perfectly functional female slug. So it really doesn't care.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like, all right, you got me, but
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go on carry out out my business now.
Speaker 1: But in this one example, they were looking at the
Speaker 1: the slug had survived, its penis was still intact, but
Speaker 1: it had not retracted, and so the slug just turned
Speaker 1: and bit it off and ate it down. So they
Speaker 1: really weren't sure what to make of that. But maybe
Speaker 1: there's something not functioning there. It decided, well, I'm not
Speaker 1: just gonna walk around with this thing sticking the side
Speaker 1: of my head. I look kind of stupid. I better
Speaker 1: eat it. Do you think slugs will could experience phantom
Speaker 1: limb I get the impression they don't. I get the
Speaker 1: impression there they don't really think that hard about it.
Speaker 1: You know that it's that it Ultimately it's like, uh,
Speaker 1: you know you got me, all right, good on you
Speaker 1: you ate my penis off. But but I'm still I'm
Speaker 1: still a functional female slug. I'm was I'm a hermaphrodite
Speaker 1: for goodness sake. So that's right. They can still engage
Speaker 1: in the act. Yeah, yeah, and do so all right,
Speaker 1: I mean, guys, happy Valentine's Day. Um, you know, maybe
Speaker 1: you're going to go to an intimate dinner with your
Speaker 1: loved one and what you will talk about. Maybe you're
Speaker 1: going to an anti Valentine's Day party, and this is
Speaker 1: also what you'll talk about. Right, Yeah, if there's a
Speaker 1: computer there, look up some some YouTube clips of this
Speaker 1: stuff and uh, and we'll try to include them on
Speaker 1: the blog post that accompanies this, uh, this episode, so
Speaker 1: you can cue them up and just just step back
Speaker 1: and enjoy some some good times, you know, play them
Speaker 1: very white in the background. Watch watch these slugs and
Speaker 1: snails stab each other with their their love darts. Watch
Speaker 1: them make love on a tendril of slime. Watch them
Speaker 1: eat each other's penises off to keep them from doing
Speaker 1: anything behind their back and cheating on them or not
Speaker 1: that last part. You don't have to do that. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: don't do it. I'm just saying you can watch it happen. No,
Speaker 1: that's what I mean. You don't know if you're not
Speaker 1: into the penis chewing watching. Yes, yeah, and yes, but
Speaker 1: do not imitate any of this stuff except for maybe
Speaker 1: the if you want to try doing it in slime
Speaker 1: I think is lovely. Yes, really, but you're gonna have
Speaker 1: a hard time getting getting polymers that are going to
Speaker 1: be that sticky that you can suspend yourself from some
Speaker 1: of you working in the lab, though you might get
Speaker 1: a source or two. Yeah. There. Slime has as we've
Speaker 1: discussed in our last episode, slime has a number of purposes.
Speaker 1: And if you want to know more about slime, do
Speaker 1: check out that episode trilogy of Slime and you'll learn
Speaker 1: all about the various properties. Because slime is ultimately it's
Speaker 1: about it's about moving around, it's about look emotion, it's
Speaker 1: about communication, it's about defense, it's about offense. It is
Speaker 1: it is about protecting an organism against parasites and pathogens.
Speaker 1: It's really a remarkable substance and sometimes it is the
Speaker 1: backdrop for love, slugs for love and slugs. All right, well,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna, you know, read a quick bit of listener
Speaker 1: mail here if we'll call the uh the robot over
Speaker 1: all right. This one comes to us from Eric, and
Speaker 1: this one's kind of suitable for a kind of a
Speaker 1: sexy episode. Uh. This is a response to our Undercover
Speaker 1: Cops episode about what happens when we layer our lives
Speaker 1: and fiction and what that does to our perceptions of
Speaker 1: self and reality. Eric says, I have a friend who
Speaker 1: is a female police officer who works undercover from time
Speaker 1: to time, primarily as a street prostitute. She gets very
Speaker 1: into her role and it's quite convincing. She told me once,
Speaker 1: shortly after she started doing this work, a car with
Speaker 1: a very familiar face stopped to talk to her. She
Speaker 1: was horrified to realize it was her favorite teacher from
Speaker 1: when she was in high school. She told me she
Speaker 1: felt physically ill when she realized she was going to
Speaker 1: have to bust him, likely destroying his career. She was
Speaker 1: relieved when he told her that she was way too
Speaker 1: smart to be doing this and begged her to let
Speaker 1: him help her. He even remembered she'd wanted to be
Speaker 1: a cop. When she realized he wanted to help her
Speaker 1: get off the streets uh cleaned up. She was happy
Speaker 1: to tell him that she was a cop working undercover.
Speaker 1: I don't think she has any trouble letting her prostitute
Speaker 1: self take over, as she only does this for a
Speaker 1: few hours a month. She did tell me it's a
Speaker 1: lot of fun, but I think she is slightly crazy. Eric,
Speaker 1: So there you go a little insight into the double
Speaker 1: life of a of an undercover vice officer. It's always interesting,
Speaker 1: as always an area that has fascinated me. I can't
Speaker 1: imagine how you wouldn't be a little bit crazy from
Speaker 1: having that kind of job. I think all of this
Speaker 1: are various amounts of uh nuts and craziness, um, and
Speaker 1: that's what makes us human. But yeah, trying to keep
Speaker 1: that up day after day it would be very difficult night. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because it seems like you've got to be the type
Speaker 1: of crazy to where you can just turn it on
Speaker 1: and off and it doesn't bother to you, or you've
Speaker 1: got to be the kind of crazy where it does
Speaker 1: kind of bother you a little because you've so become
Speaker 1: the role that you're taking on. So anyway, thanks Eric,
Speaker 1: that was really interesting to hear about so if you
Speaker 1: if you have any time left in your Valentine's and
Speaker 1: you want to talk to us online, want to want
Speaker 1: to maybe a share with us how the how your
Speaker 1: Valentine's dinner went when you brought up the sex lacke
Speaker 1: of slugs uh. Then you can find us on Facebook
Speaker 1: and tumbler. We are stuffed abow of your Mind on
Speaker 1: both of those, and we also have the Twitter feed
Speaker 1: Blow the Mind, and you can always drop us a
Speaker 1: line at Blow of the Mind at discovery dot com
Speaker 1: for more on this and thousands of other topics. Is
Speaker 1: it how Stuff Works dot com