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 --> 00:00:11,520 Speaker 1: is an open book, all of these amazing tales right 3 00:00:11,520 --> 00:00:16,640 Speaker 1: there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome 4 00:00:17,760 --> 00:00:29,440 Speaker 1: to the Cabinet of Curiosities. Her name was Sin, but 5 00:00:29,640 --> 00:00:33,120 Speaker 1: she's now known to many as Lady Dy. Born around 6 00:00:33,120 --> 00:00:37,360 Speaker 1: two b c. Lady Dye was an important figure during 7 00:00:37,400 --> 00:00:40,240 Speaker 1: the Han dynasty. She had an eye for the finer 8 00:00:40,320 --> 00:00:43,519 Speaker 1: things in life and was considered one of the social elite. 9 00:00:43,960 --> 00:00:47,800 Speaker 1: She wore mostly silk clothing and cosmetics such as blush 10 00:00:47,840 --> 00:00:51,080 Speaker 1: and powders to show off her wealth. Her lavish parties 11 00:00:51,120 --> 00:00:54,600 Speaker 1: were catered with foods and wines only ever tasted by 12 00:00:54,640 --> 00:00:59,600 Speaker 1: the royal family and the ruling class. She also entertained 13 00:00:59,600 --> 00:01:03,280 Speaker 1: her guest with performances by musicians who played only for her, 14 00:01:03,840 --> 00:01:07,280 Speaker 1: and when she wasn't hosting elaborate gatherings, Lady Dye could 15 00:01:07,319 --> 00:01:10,920 Speaker 1: be found playing the guchin, an instrument typically studied by 16 00:01:10,959 --> 00:01:16,000 Speaker 1: the upper crust of Chinese society. Unfortunately, for all the 17 00:01:16,040 --> 00:01:19,720 Speaker 1: whining and dining she did, Lady Dye didn't get around much. 18 00:01:20,160 --> 00:01:23,840 Speaker 1: It was her stationary lifestyle that most likely contributed to 19 00:01:23,920 --> 00:01:27,240 Speaker 1: her premature death. It's believed that at the age of fifty, 20 00:01:27,560 --> 00:01:30,000 Speaker 1: she suffered a heart attack brought on by a high 21 00:01:30,080 --> 00:01:35,240 Speaker 1: cholesterol diet. Her body was interred alongside her late husband 22 00:01:35,520 --> 00:01:39,960 Speaker 1: and eventually her son, in tombs deep underground. Buried with 23 00:01:40,000 --> 00:01:45,080 Speaker 1: her were clothing, boxes of makeup, musical instruments, eating utensils, 24 00:01:45,120 --> 00:01:49,559 Speaker 1: and other personal items. However, it wasn't Lady dys life 25 00:01:49,600 --> 00:01:52,240 Speaker 1: that proved to be that interesting based on what we 26 00:01:52,280 --> 00:01:55,120 Speaker 1: know today. She lived like many of her peers and 27 00:01:55,240 --> 00:01:59,000 Speaker 1: died young, her lifestyle proving a little too rich in 28 00:01:59,080 --> 00:02:03,600 Speaker 1: more ways than one. It wasn't until over two thousand 29 00:02:03,640 --> 00:02:07,920 Speaker 1: years later in n that we learned about one thing 30 00:02:08,040 --> 00:02:12,080 Speaker 1: that set Lady Die apart from everyone else. As mouse 31 00:02:12,320 --> 00:02:15,680 Speaker 1: Doong spread fear across China a vague threats from a 32 00:02:15,800 --> 00:02:20,240 Speaker 1: capitalist nation, meaning the United States, citizens all over the 33 00:02:20,280 --> 00:02:24,120 Speaker 1: country started digging bomb shelters beneath their homes, which is 34 00:02:24,160 --> 00:02:26,560 Speaker 1: why workers at a hospital in the capital of the 35 00:02:26,600 --> 00:02:29,680 Speaker 1: Hunan province had begun digging into the side of a 36 00:02:29,760 --> 00:02:34,440 Speaker 1: nearby hill. They had only dug about one feet down 37 00:02:34,480 --> 00:02:37,920 Speaker 1: before stopping for a smoke break. What they didn't know 38 00:02:38,200 --> 00:02:40,360 Speaker 1: was that just on the other side of the dirt 39 00:02:40,560 --> 00:02:44,840 Speaker 1: was an open shaft leaking a flammable gas right behind them. 40 00:02:44,880 --> 00:02:47,880 Speaker 1: They lit their cigarettes, which in turn ignited the air 41 00:02:48,040 --> 00:02:52,000 Speaker 1: and dazzling bursts of blue fire. A team of archaeologists 42 00:02:52,000 --> 00:02:54,280 Speaker 1: were called in to examine the scene, but the level 43 00:02:54,320 --> 00:02:57,720 Speaker 1: of funding needed for a full investigation could not be procured, 44 00:02:58,160 --> 00:03:01,080 Speaker 1: so they reached out for help to an unlikely source, 45 00:03:01,720 --> 00:03:06,920 Speaker 1: local high school students. Teens volunteered to dig and sift 46 00:03:07,000 --> 00:03:09,600 Speaker 1: as they worked their way down fifty feet of clay 47 00:03:09,760 --> 00:03:13,200 Speaker 1: into a series of cavernous tombs. Each of the three 48 00:03:13,240 --> 00:03:17,040 Speaker 1: noble corpses occupied their own tomb, but it was Lady 49 00:03:17,160 --> 00:03:20,839 Speaker 1: Dyes that proved to be the most extraordinary. In its 50 00:03:20,840 --> 00:03:24,760 Speaker 1: center stood a coffin painted black, a color signifying death. 51 00:03:25,200 --> 00:03:28,760 Speaker 1: Within that coffin were three others nested, one inside the other, 52 00:03:29,080 --> 00:03:32,000 Speaker 1: painted in different color schemes to depict the journey to 53 00:03:32,040 --> 00:03:35,960 Speaker 1: the afterlife. They had been adorned with images of clouds, animals, 54 00:03:36,080 --> 00:03:39,800 Speaker 1: and important places designed to tell a story of life, death, 55 00:03:40,240 --> 00:03:45,000 Speaker 1: and rebirth. It was inside the fourth and smallest coffin 56 00:03:45,120 --> 00:03:49,240 Speaker 1: where archaeologists made their most important discovery. Up until then, 57 00:03:49,440 --> 00:03:52,640 Speaker 1: the mummies discovered in places such as Egypt had experienced 58 00:03:52,640 --> 00:03:56,280 Speaker 1: significant levels of decay. Even with no exposure to the 59 00:03:56,320 --> 00:04:00,000 Speaker 1: sun or the elements, their bodies had been desiccated into 60 00:04:00,040 --> 00:04:04,600 Speaker 1: little more than dry skin on brittle bones. Lady Die, however, 61 00:04:05,160 --> 00:04:08,560 Speaker 1: was a sight to behold. Her skin was soft and pale, 62 00:04:08,720 --> 00:04:12,480 Speaker 1: with a presence of moisture. Her arms and legs could 63 00:04:12,480 --> 00:04:15,320 Speaker 1: still bend at the joints, and none of her organs 64 00:04:15,360 --> 00:04:19,920 Speaker 1: had deteriorated. Even her hair and eyelashes had remained in place, 65 00:04:20,320 --> 00:04:23,560 Speaker 1: and there were traced amounts of red blood in her veins. 66 00:04:24,920 --> 00:04:28,200 Speaker 1: An autopsy was performed, the results of which gave doctors 67 00:04:28,279 --> 00:04:31,120 Speaker 1: deep insight into how she might have lived when she 68 00:04:31,240 --> 00:04:34,760 Speaker 1: was still alive. They even found the vagus nerve, which 69 00:04:34,839 --> 00:04:37,880 Speaker 1: is as thin as a hair and controls the expansion 70 00:04:38,040 --> 00:04:41,560 Speaker 1: and constriction of the lungs. It often disintegrates with other 71 00:04:41,600 --> 00:04:44,360 Speaker 1: body tissue as the body decays, but it was still 72 00:04:44,400 --> 00:04:48,000 Speaker 1: present in Lady Dye. We know more about the Han 73 00:04:48,080 --> 00:04:51,240 Speaker 1: dynasty today than we ever had before. All thanks to 74 00:04:51,320 --> 00:04:55,120 Speaker 1: Lady Die. Her near perfectly preserved corpse, as well as 75 00:04:55,160 --> 00:04:58,039 Speaker 1: the array of items found inside her tomb, have shed 76 00:04:58,080 --> 00:05:01,400 Speaker 1: a light on an era of China's story, long thought 77 00:05:01,480 --> 00:05:04,600 Speaker 1: lost forever and there may still be more to learn, 78 00:05:04,960 --> 00:05:08,640 Speaker 1: either from her or the other tombs still hidden beneath 79 00:05:08,640 --> 00:05:12,719 Speaker 1: the streets. It seems the ancient Chinese understood that the 80 00:05:12,800 --> 00:05:16,080 Speaker 1: preservation of their dead was just as important as the 81 00:05:16,120 --> 00:05:20,680 Speaker 1: preservation of their history. Sometimes we just have to dig 82 00:05:20,760 --> 00:05:36,599 Speaker 1: a little deeper to find it. It's been said that 83 00:05:36,640 --> 00:05:39,560 Speaker 1: the eyes are the window to the soul, though I'm 84 00:05:39,560 --> 00:05:42,000 Speaker 1: willing to bet the eyes are more like windows in 85 00:05:42,120 --> 00:05:45,320 Speaker 1: more ways than One look through a warped one and 86 00:05:45,400 --> 00:05:49,599 Speaker 1: you're liable to see strange shapes or mismatched colors, or 87 00:05:49,640 --> 00:05:52,279 Speaker 1: you might not see color at all. The way the 88 00:05:52,320 --> 00:05:56,359 Speaker 1: eyes perceive light significantly affects how one sees the world. 89 00:05:57,000 --> 00:06:00,720 Speaker 1: I mean, entire swaths of the Internet have waged war 90 00:06:00,920 --> 00:06:06,880 Speaker 1: over the color of one particular dress, a gold dress. However, 91 00:06:06,920 --> 00:06:09,200 Speaker 1: there is a condition of the eye that doesn't affect 92 00:06:09,240 --> 00:06:12,080 Speaker 1: how we see color, and it's a bit more complicated. 93 00:06:12,640 --> 00:06:15,839 Speaker 1: It's called stereo blindness, and it affects three to five 94 00:06:15,920 --> 00:06:20,600 Speaker 1: percent of the population. People diagnosed with stereo blindness or 95 00:06:20,640 --> 00:06:24,640 Speaker 1: unable to accurately determine the depth perception of objects. A 96 00:06:24,680 --> 00:06:27,800 Speaker 1: forest of trees might look like one flat panel of 97 00:06:27,880 --> 00:06:30,919 Speaker 1: green and brown, someone might knock over a bottle of 98 00:06:30,920 --> 00:06:34,560 Speaker 1: soda on the table, not realizing it's six inches away 99 00:06:34,680 --> 00:06:40,640 Speaker 1: rather than two feet. Neurobiologist and professor Susan Barry, also 100 00:06:40,839 --> 00:06:44,600 Speaker 1: known as Stereo sus, suffered from stereo blindness in the 101 00:06:44,680 --> 00:06:47,320 Speaker 1: nineteen fifties when she was only a few months old. 102 00:06:47,920 --> 00:06:50,440 Speaker 1: During the first several years of her life, she underwent 103 00:06:50,520 --> 00:06:55,080 Speaker 1: a number of operations to attempt to realign her eyes. Unfortunately, 104 00:06:55,120 --> 00:06:57,720 Speaker 1: they didn't have the intended effect, and she still had 105 00:06:57,760 --> 00:07:00,920 Speaker 1: trouble reading road signs at a distance or seeing hands 106 00:07:01,000 --> 00:07:04,159 Speaker 1: raised at the back of her classroom. Years later, she 107 00:07:04,279 --> 00:07:07,000 Speaker 1: worked with a vision therapist who would help her achieve 108 00:07:07,080 --> 00:07:13,040 Speaker 1: true stereoscopic vision. Bruce Bridgeman was another such person plagued 109 00:07:13,040 --> 00:07:17,200 Speaker 1: by stereo blindness, and his story is somewhat stranger than Sue's. 110 00:07:18,200 --> 00:07:22,320 Speaker 1: Born in nine, Bruce had always been a three dimensional 111 00:07:22,400 --> 00:07:26,280 Speaker 1: person living in a two dimensional world. Doctors examined him 112 00:07:26,280 --> 00:07:28,760 Speaker 1: from a very young age, and while the idea of 113 00:07:28,800 --> 00:07:32,560 Speaker 1: surgery had been considered, his parents decided not to pursue it. 114 00:07:33,040 --> 00:07:36,120 Speaker 1: They let nature take its course, and Bruce lived a 115 00:07:36,160 --> 00:07:41,040 Speaker 1: perfectly normal, if a bit flattened life. You see, while 116 00:07:41,120 --> 00:07:44,600 Speaker 1: most people's eyes point forward, thus allowing them to perceive 117 00:07:44,680 --> 00:07:49,560 Speaker 1: depth and distance. Bruce suffered from a condition called exotropic strabismus, 118 00:07:49,600 --> 00:07:53,160 Speaker 1: also known as lazy eye, except instead of only affecting 119 00:07:53,200 --> 00:07:56,680 Speaker 1: one of his eyes, both of them pointed outward, hindering 120 00:07:56,760 --> 00:08:01,840 Speaker 1: his vision. Like Sue, Bruce was also a neuroscientist and 121 00:08:01,920 --> 00:08:05,080 Speaker 1: had studied his own vision since the nineteen eighties. He 122 00:08:05,160 --> 00:08:08,360 Speaker 1: noticed how freeway signs were unreadable until he had already 123 00:08:08,400 --> 00:08:11,560 Speaker 1: passed their exits, and how other people had trouble understanding 124 00:08:11,560 --> 00:08:14,960 Speaker 1: of he was looking at them or not during a conversation. 125 00:08:16,680 --> 00:08:19,280 Speaker 1: It wasn't until two thousand twelve when Bruce got a 126 00:08:19,320 --> 00:08:23,280 Speaker 1: whole new perspective on life. Literally. He and his wife 127 00:08:23,280 --> 00:08:26,360 Speaker 1: decided to go see the new Martin Scorsese film Hugo, 128 00:08:26,640 --> 00:08:29,440 Speaker 1: which was being shown in three D at the local theater. 129 00:08:30,120 --> 00:08:32,760 Speaker 1: As the movie started rolling, Bruce slipped on his pair 130 00:08:32,800 --> 00:08:35,880 Speaker 1: of three D glasses and marveled at how everything on 131 00:08:36,000 --> 00:08:38,600 Speaker 1: screen seemed to jump out at him. He was able 132 00:08:38,640 --> 00:08:41,920 Speaker 1: to determine the depth between characters and scenery for the 133 00:08:41,960 --> 00:08:45,160 Speaker 1: first time in his life. He never experienced a film 134 00:08:45,200 --> 00:08:48,600 Speaker 1: this way before, and for two hours he felt like 135 00:08:48,720 --> 00:08:53,240 Speaker 1: everyone else. When the movie ended, Bruce removed his three 136 00:08:53,320 --> 00:08:57,000 Speaker 1: D glasses, expecting to re enter that flat, two dimensional 137 00:08:57,040 --> 00:09:00,559 Speaker 1: world that he'd left behind earlier. Instead, he noticed how 138 00:09:00,600 --> 00:09:03,560 Speaker 1: things were a little brighter. There was a lamp post 139 00:09:03,640 --> 00:09:06,800 Speaker 1: across the street. And I'll say that again if it 140 00:09:06,840 --> 00:09:11,040 Speaker 1: didn't sink in, there was a lamp post across the street. 141 00:09:11,760 --> 00:09:14,920 Speaker 1: Hours before, there had been no such thing as across 142 00:09:15,000 --> 00:09:20,040 Speaker 1: the streets in Bruce's world. Now, scientifically speaking, there's no 143 00:09:20,160 --> 00:09:23,439 Speaker 1: official proof as to what really happened to Bruce's vision, 144 00:09:23,720 --> 00:09:26,280 Speaker 1: but the working theory is that the three D film 145 00:09:26,640 --> 00:09:30,720 Speaker 1: jump started his visual system somehow. It realigned his eyes, 146 00:09:31,040 --> 00:09:34,680 Speaker 1: allowing him to perceive depth. And while what happened to 147 00:09:34,679 --> 00:09:38,960 Speaker 1: Bruce isn't something that can fix everyone facing stereo blindness, 148 00:09:39,080 --> 00:09:44,959 Speaker 1: under his specific circumstances, it worked like a charm. Despite 149 00:09:44,960 --> 00:09:47,640 Speaker 1: the apparent movie theater miracle, though there's still a lot 150 00:09:47,720 --> 00:09:51,040 Speaker 1: more work to do. Bruce continues to train his eyes 151 00:09:51,160 --> 00:09:54,640 Speaker 1: and improve his stereo vision. So while the film didn't 152 00:09:54,880 --> 00:09:58,040 Speaker 1: entirely cure him, it's obvious that the effects of three 153 00:09:58,120 --> 00:10:02,400 Speaker 1: D technology made all world of difference. I guess you 154 00:10:02,440 --> 00:10:09,400 Speaker 1: could say it was worth the price of admission. I 155 00:10:09,400 --> 00:10:12,920 Speaker 1: hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. 156 00:10:13,280 --> 00:10:16,400 Speaker 1: Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about 157 00:10:16,400 --> 00:10:20,959 Speaker 1: the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show 158 00:10:21,160 --> 00:10:24,439 Speaker 1: was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership with how 159 00:10:24,520 --> 00:10:28,120 Speaker 1: Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore, 160 00:10:28,360 --> 00:10:31,960 Speaker 1: which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and 161 00:10:32,000 --> 00:10:34,240 Speaker 1: you can learn all about it over at the World 162 00:10:34,240 --> 00:10:38,640 Speaker 1: of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.