WEBVTT - Listener Mail: The Moon in Silver Dreams 0:00:02.960 --> 0:00:05.360 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production of My 0:00:05.480 --> 0:00:11.640 Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. 0:00:12.000 --> 0:00:15.560 Listener mail. My name is Joe McCormick. My regular co 0:00:15.680 --> 0:00:18.000 host Robert Lamb is not with us today. He's in 0:00:18.440 --> 0:00:21.759 He's on vacation the day we're recording this, so instead 0:00:21.920 --> 0:00:26.800 I am being joined by our regular producer, Seth Nicholas Johnson. 0:00:26.800 --> 0:00:30.080 How you doing, Seth doing wonderfully? It is the fall, 0:00:30.320 --> 0:00:33.360 the best time of year for us as creepy people, 0:00:33.720 --> 0:00:36.120 but in particular for this podcast. Get to play all 0:00:36.120 --> 0:00:38.680 the fun creepy stuff. That's right. So yeah, we're doing 0:00:38.840 --> 0:00:42.120 horror movies all month on Weird House Cinema. We're talking 0:00:42.120 --> 0:00:45.199 about weird topics as we usually do on on our 0:00:45.240 --> 0:00:48.920 regular core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays all month. But Seth, 0:00:49.000 --> 0:00:51.519 since you're I mean, we all love music here, but 0:00:51.600 --> 0:00:53.960 you especially are a music guy, I figured it would 0:00:54.000 --> 0:00:55.880 be a good way to kick off today's episode to 0:00:55.920 --> 0:00:58.480 ask you what you are are spending on the record 0:00:58.480 --> 0:01:00.840 player this month? What? What is? What are some of 0:01:00.880 --> 0:01:05.080 your favorite seasonal Halloween themed albums? I mean, it's it's 0:01:05.160 --> 0:01:07.319 it's a it's a rocky road because a lot of 0:01:07.360 --> 0:01:09.840 it is geared towards children. There are a lot of 0:01:09.880 --> 0:01:13.840 like novelty children's Halloween albums, and most of them are 0:01:13.880 --> 0:01:16.759 actually not very good, you know, like it's it's kind 0:01:16.760 --> 0:01:19.440 of a garbage pile more or less. Like if you 0:01:19.440 --> 0:01:22.679 ever actually take the time to listen to the actual 0:01:23.240 --> 0:01:27.039 Monster Mash album by Bobby Boris Pickett, it's not a 0:01:27.120 --> 0:01:30.000 very good album. You could, of course, the Monster Mashes Beloved. 0:01:30.080 --> 0:01:33.160 We all love that song. The album not so much, 0:01:33.360 --> 0:01:35.480 you know, it's what what are the b sides on 0:01:35.520 --> 0:01:38.360 the Monster Mash? Oh my gosh, they all monster themed. 0:01:38.480 --> 0:01:41.080 Not only are they monster themed, but they are like 0:01:41.240 --> 0:01:44.959 woefully uninformed about what a monster even is. Like it 0:01:45.040 --> 0:01:48.200 starts talking about like the details of like Frankenstein's Monster 0:01:48.320 --> 0:01:50.600 or the Wolfman, and like the little you know, the 0:01:50.640 --> 0:01:52.920 little the little things that we all know as monster 0:01:52.960 --> 0:01:56.720 aficionados are all just false, like like what their weaknesses are, 0:01:56.760 --> 0:01:59.240 what their strengths are, who they are as human beings? 0:01:59.640 --> 0:02:02.480 Is doc or Jekyla and Mr Hyde actually the Wolfman? 0:02:02.640 --> 0:02:06.040 Like they just don't actually clearly. Bobby bores Picket had 0:02:06.040 --> 0:02:08.640 a hit with The Monster Mash and then just filled 0:02:08.680 --> 0:02:10.200 in the rest of the album with a bunch of 0:02:10.240 --> 0:02:13.239 garbage they made up like in a week. So it's 0:02:13.240 --> 0:02:15.120 that kind of things. So so there's a lot of 0:02:15.160 --> 0:02:17.920 that kind of stuff out there, but there's some great 0:02:18.040 --> 0:02:23.919 stuff too, both both like fun, nostalgic and modern day. Um, 0:02:24.160 --> 0:02:27.040 I'll give you one of each, Okay, because this month, 0:02:27.440 --> 0:02:30.240 if the listener doesn't know, I, I host a music 0:02:30.280 --> 0:02:33.480 podcast in my spare time called Rusty Needles Record Club. 0:02:33.960 --> 0:02:36.760 Look it up wherever you find uh, you know your podcasts. 0:02:36.760 --> 0:02:39.280 But this month, of course, October, we're doing what all 0:02:39.480 --> 0:02:43.280 great spooky people do. We're doing four spooky albums throughout 0:02:43.280 --> 0:02:47.240 the month of October's were a weekly podcast. So the 0:02:47.320 --> 0:02:52.560 best Halloween album of all time. It's a bit contentious 0:02:52.560 --> 0:02:54.880 because there are multiple versions of it, but any version 0:02:54.960 --> 0:02:57.480 you find will be a pretty good version. It's called 0:02:57.560 --> 0:03:02.480 Forgotten Freakouts, Lost Halloween Hits nineteen fifty four through nineteen 0:03:02.560 --> 0:03:06.840 seventy seven. Okay, I love it already. It's so good. 0:03:06.880 --> 0:03:10.480 Everything is like a real like Dr Demento, like surf 0:03:10.600 --> 0:03:15.760 rock nostalgia hits. Everything is like a parody. Everything is like, um, 0:03:15.760 --> 0:03:18.440 it's it's a novelty. Everything is a novelty song, but 0:03:18.480 --> 0:03:21.800 it all has that kind of like integrity of just 0:03:21.880 --> 0:03:24.760 something that's lasted throughout the years. A lot of surf 0:03:24.840 --> 0:03:27.680 rocky stuff, a lot of like a lot of kitch, 0:03:27.840 --> 0:03:30.959 A lot of kitch. That's the best one by Fall 0:03:31.200 --> 0:03:35.440 I see hold on now I see tracks by Lee Christofferson. 0:03:35.560 --> 0:03:38.480 Is that brother of Chris or no relation? Do you 0:03:38.480 --> 0:03:40.920 have to tell you? I couldn't tell you. Okay, what 0:03:41.000 --> 0:03:45.520 about secondly? There's a secondly? What about Lee, the Big Masher? 0:03:45.720 --> 0:03:51.320 Lily Like? Aren't these names amazing? I would say, uh, 0:03:51.360 --> 0:03:54.040 nearly every single one of these artists. I have no 0:03:54.120 --> 0:03:56.400 idea who they are. Nearly every single one of them 0:03:56.480 --> 0:03:59.160 must be just a forgotten one hit. Wonder if these 0:03:59.160 --> 0:04:01.920 were even hits. I can't even begin to tell you. 0:04:02.480 --> 0:04:06.360 But they're here. They're here in their grays. Is the 0:04:06.440 --> 0:04:10.160 Big Masher a play on the Big Bopper? I'm sure 0:04:10.280 --> 0:04:12.160 right it had to have been. It had been like 0:04:12.200 --> 0:04:16.360 a joke or something. So it's like a hello baby baby, 0:04:16.400 --> 0:04:19.640 but the call is coming from Dracula rights right, yeah, 0:04:20.160 --> 0:04:25.000 done with the bell of the ghostie voice. That's fun. Okay, 0:04:25.040 --> 0:04:27.120 I gotta listen to this one as soon as we 0:04:27.200 --> 0:04:29.520 finished recording here. It's a good one. And now now, yeah, 0:04:29.640 --> 0:04:30.839 keep an eye out for it because I know, like, 0:04:30.880 --> 0:04:33.680 for example, the version on Spotify is missing a lot 0:04:33.720 --> 0:04:36.599 of tracks, and then like the version I got I 0:04:36.640 --> 0:04:38.800 got off band Camp years ago, I know there are 0:04:38.800 --> 0:04:41.800 physical cassettes of this. Just keep your eye out. It's 0:04:41.839 --> 0:04:44.200 the best compilation of come across. Do your best to 0:04:44.200 --> 0:04:48.000 find the full version. Listening audience, Okay, now let's bring 0:04:48.040 --> 0:04:51.039 this modern modern. Have you ever heard of a band 0:04:51.040 --> 0:04:55.200 called the Marshmallow Ghosts. No, I haven't. The Marshmallow Ghosts 0:04:55.400 --> 0:04:59.080 is so so good. What it is so Actually, this 0:04:59.160 --> 0:05:02.320 is somewhat local to you, Joe. You live in Atlanta, Georgia. 0:05:03.200 --> 0:05:08.960 Over in Savannah, there's a record label called grave Face Records. 0:05:09.160 --> 0:05:12.320 It is founded and run by Ryan grave Face of 0:05:12.400 --> 0:05:16.520 Black Moth, Super Rainbow. Okay, next next time you're in Savannah, 0:05:16.760 --> 0:05:19.039 make sure you go there, Joe, because next door is 0:05:19.120 --> 0:05:23.880 like a like spooky house of mysterious museum stuff. You know, 0:05:23.960 --> 0:05:28.320 so it's like, uh, you know, mermaids were like Fiji mermaids, 0:05:28.360 --> 0:05:30.520 you know that kind of stuff, like real Ripley's Believe 0:05:30.560 --> 0:05:34.400 it or not, Pete Barnum type stuff you know, so anyway, 0:05:34.480 --> 0:05:36.880 exactly so so so anyway, Ryan grave Face is just 0:05:36.920 --> 0:05:39.120 a cool dude who runs a cool label and he 0:05:39.160 --> 0:05:42.200 has many bands, but one of them is an annual 0:05:42.320 --> 0:05:46.520 Halloween themed band called The Marshmallow Ghosts, where every year 0:05:46.680 --> 0:05:48.800 they pick a new theme they have, like a new 0:05:48.839 --> 0:05:52.200 release method they do, like just a weird little thing 0:05:52.720 --> 0:05:55.560 every year. This year, I've already pre ordered their record. 0:05:55.960 --> 0:05:58.240 This year it's all about j H. Holmes, so that'll 0:05:58.279 --> 0:06:02.719 be fun. You know, we're reviewing their one this year 0:06:02.720 --> 0:06:05.160 on my podcast. That one is called The Witching Hour. 0:06:05.560 --> 0:06:08.080 The theme of that one was there's a woman hosting 0:06:08.240 --> 0:06:11.240 a radio show and like, I think it's her either 0:06:11.400 --> 0:06:15.440 her her ex wife or her ex girlfriend. What they died, 0:06:15.520 --> 0:06:17.240 so I don't know if that counts as x whatever. 0:06:17.279 --> 0:06:21.160 Their former wife, her former girlfriend who died keeps calling 0:06:21.200 --> 0:06:24.160 into the radio show. But this woman's just still trying 0:06:24.160 --> 0:06:26.160 to do her job and play music. So it's like 0:06:26.200 --> 0:06:29.320 a little radio play, but also with new music peppered 0:06:29.360 --> 0:06:32.039 in throughout by the Marshmallow Ghosts and others like it's 0:06:32.200 --> 0:06:35.640 it's just cool stuff like that. So check out grave 0:06:35.680 --> 0:06:39.600 Faced Records, in particular, check out the Marshmallow ghosts nice. 0:06:39.680 --> 0:06:42.560 Oh and I guess lastly, check out Rusty Needles Record 0:06:42.600 --> 0:06:44.400 Club because that's where I'll be talking about these things. 0:06:44.400 --> 0:06:46.520 If you like talking about music or hearing about music, 0:06:46.839 --> 0:06:49.479 Rusty Needles Record Club it's a great show. I I 0:06:49.600 --> 0:06:52.320 myself may pop on their in in the near future. 0:06:52.360 --> 0:06:53.880 You've been on there in the past, and yeah, we 0:06:53.920 --> 0:06:56.680 hope to get you on again very soon. Alright, Sece, 0:06:56.720 --> 0:06:59.080 you're ready to talk some stuff to blow your mind? 0:06:59.240 --> 0:07:09.039 Listener mail definitely okay. This first message really got my 0:07:09.120 --> 0:07:13.080 hopes up. It ultimately turned out to be a complete bust, 0:07:13.520 --> 0:07:15.800 but it's a lot of fun and I really appreciate 0:07:15.840 --> 0:07:20.120 this listener getting in touch anyway. So recently Rob and 0:07:20.160 --> 0:07:23.640 I did a couple of episodes about elf shot. These 0:07:23.640 --> 0:07:26.480 are very much in the seasonal October Vain because elf 0:07:26.560 --> 0:07:30.440 shot was a folk belief that used to be found, 0:07:30.520 --> 0:07:33.080 especially in the British Isles, and the belief was that 0:07:33.680 --> 0:07:38.240 livestock and sometimes people would become ill, or they would 0:07:38.240 --> 0:07:43.680 even die, or they would experience mysterious pains because they 0:07:43.680 --> 0:07:48.160 had been attacked with supernatural weapons by the invisible folk, 0:07:48.360 --> 0:07:52.560 such as fairy darts or elf arrows, and one of 0:07:52.600 --> 0:07:55.840 the sources we looked at was a nineteen article in 0:07:55.840 --> 0:07:59.640 the journal Antiquity by an author named Thomas Davidson which 0:07:59.680 --> 0:08:02.400 collect did a bunch of alleged cures for elf shot, 0:08:02.840 --> 0:08:06.960 and one of these cures was sourced to the Shetland Islands, 0:08:06.960 --> 0:08:11.200 and it read as follows. Quote A variant prescription from 0:08:11.200 --> 0:08:14.840 the same area directs the wise woman to take tar, 0:08:15.280 --> 0:08:20.280 a needle, a bible, a firebrand, and some fairy crabs. 0:08:20.920 --> 0:08:24.480 Waving the burning brand, she walked three times wider shans, 0:08:24.640 --> 0:08:29.440 meaning counterclockwise, around the cow, jabbing the animal with the needle, 0:08:30.080 --> 0:08:33.240 waving a leaf of the Bible over its back, and 0:08:33.320 --> 0:08:37.199 muttering an incantation. The firebrand was placed in a pot 0:08:37.240 --> 0:08:40.320 of tars and set at the cow's head so that 0:08:40.360 --> 0:08:43.400 the fumes would make her cough. She was then given 0:08:43.440 --> 0:08:47.400 the fairy crabs to eat alive. The ashes of the 0:08:47.480 --> 0:08:50.760 firebrand were later mixed with the tar into three pills, 0:08:51.080 --> 0:08:55.520 which were administered to the animal on three successive mornings. Now, 0:08:55.679 --> 0:08:58.720 Rob and I were unable to figure out what the 0:08:58.960 --> 0:09:03.640 quote fairy crabs referenced in this cure actually were. Were 0:09:03.679 --> 0:09:06.560 they literally some type of crab is this just a 0:09:06.679 --> 0:09:10.199 cute name for some other kind of animal or object. 0:09:10.600 --> 0:09:13.880 There is actually a species of crustacean that is sometimes 0:09:13.960 --> 0:09:16.160 called a fairy crab, but that seems to be in 0:09:16.400 --> 0:09:19.760 twenty one century sources, and it cannot be what the 0:09:19.760 --> 0:09:22.120 source is talking about. For one thing, because it's native 0:09:22.160 --> 0:09:24.480 to the opposite side of the world. It's a Pacific 0:09:24.800 --> 0:09:29.040 squat lobster around Australian Indonesia. And also I think the 0:09:29.280 --> 0:09:33.200 appellation there is much later than this folk belief. So 0:09:33.360 --> 0:09:36.520 we were asking listeners, does anybody have any idea what 0:09:36.600 --> 0:09:40.320 the Shetland Islands fairy crab might be? All of that 0:09:40.360 --> 0:09:43.320 to set up that listener, Carl wrote in with what 0:09:43.400 --> 0:09:46.360 it first looked like a very promising solution to our question. 0:09:46.720 --> 0:09:49.840 So Carl says, Dear Robin Joe, while listening to elf 0:09:49.840 --> 0:09:53.040 Shot Part two, I paused to find the attached search result, 0:09:53.280 --> 0:09:55.920 which seems to indicate that fairy crabs are some sort 0:09:55.960 --> 0:09:59.520 of insect found on the underside of leaves, and then 0:09:59.600 --> 0:10:03.360 Carl touched some search results for us. Uh. Now, the 0:10:03.400 --> 0:10:06.680 actual text appearing in the Google search preview here was 0:10:07.120 --> 0:10:11.400 very promising because it sounded like a scientific description of 0:10:11.440 --> 0:10:15.920 an animal, including a very official sounding Latin scientific name 0:10:16.040 --> 0:10:19.520 for the species. And it's an animal, as said by Carl, 0:10:19.760 --> 0:10:21.880 described as spending the majority of its life on the 0:10:21.880 --> 0:10:27.280 ground that roams around and behavior similar to a tiger beetle. Now, 0:10:27.320 --> 0:10:30.480 this was very exciting because it did look legitimate at 0:10:30.520 --> 0:10:33.199 first until you look at the domain that this result 0:10:33.280 --> 0:10:36.520 is coming from, and it was dv and R dot com. Yeah, 0:10:37.040 --> 0:10:40.319 at what point did you realize the the U R 0:10:40.440 --> 0:10:43.080 L there? When? When did that? Well, pop pop, the 0:10:43.080 --> 0:10:45.760 pop the balloon of your hopes. Well, my hopes were 0:10:45.800 --> 0:10:48.080 still up because I was like, Okay, this is a 0:10:48.160 --> 0:10:50.839 dv and art post that's referencing something I could look 0:10:50.920 --> 0:10:54.800 up else. Okay, So I wanted to yeah, yeah, and 0:10:54.840 --> 0:10:58.040 then find the the like the scientific name of this animal, 0:10:58.120 --> 0:11:00.720 and then search for it in other sources and see 0:11:00.920 --> 0:11:03.640 what's out there. Uh, And yet I didn't really find 0:11:03.679 --> 0:11:06.880 anything when I tried that. I tried some other search terms, 0:11:07.320 --> 0:11:10.679 and uh. I I kept going, still thinking maybe there 0:11:10.720 --> 0:11:15.240 was something here, but unfortunately I realized that this is 0:11:15.280 --> 0:11:18.320 really the only source for this information and it appears 0:11:18.360 --> 0:11:21.600 to be some user generated content on deva and art, which, 0:11:21.600 --> 0:11:24.160 as best I can tell, is some type of fictional 0:11:25.360 --> 0:11:31.160 bestiary or fictional animal taxonomy that includes scientific sounding names 0:11:31.200 --> 0:11:35.240 and scientific sounding descriptions, except with some cryptic references to 0:11:35.360 --> 0:11:38.720 obviously some kind of fantasy context, Like it says that 0:11:38.800 --> 0:11:44.280 this animal inhabits the barren lands. So so I think 0:11:44.280 --> 0:11:46.720 this is this is just somebody creating some kind of 0:11:46.720 --> 0:11:50.559 fun fictional world. But it kind of reminds me of 0:11:51.080 --> 0:11:53.000 uh Seth that I don't remember if you're actually on 0:11:53.040 --> 0:11:54.559 the show at this point, so this may be before 0:11:54.600 --> 0:11:57.000 your time, but it reminds me of when we were 0:11:57.160 --> 0:12:01.440 covering the invention of cinema and Louis La Prince, who 0:12:01.640 --> 0:12:05.000 was an inventor of an alternate early form of of 0:12:05.040 --> 0:12:10.040 moving pictures, uh, alternate to Edison's method, and we we 0:12:10.160 --> 0:12:15.480 came across this what originally looked like a historical paper 0:12:16.040 --> 0:12:19.120 but in fact I think was actually a fictional found 0:12:19.320 --> 0:12:24.960 document that was purporting to uncover Thomas Edison confessing in 0:12:25.000 --> 0:12:27.880 a diary entry to the murder of Louis La Prince, 0:12:28.600 --> 0:12:31.640 and this this fictional art. I don't think it was 0:12:31.679 --> 0:12:34.600 a hoax. I think it was intentionally meant to be 0:12:34.720 --> 0:12:37.800 a piece of fiction to be understood as such. But 0:12:37.880 --> 0:12:41.040 it was not labeled that way, and so I think 0:12:41.120 --> 0:12:44.959 people got confused to the extent that some good looking, 0:12:45.040 --> 0:12:48.200 kind of serious articles about La Prince reported the plot 0:12:48.280 --> 0:12:51.760 of this fictional document as fact. That that's that's a 0:12:51.800 --> 0:12:56.120 hard part about creating historical fiction at all, just period, 0:12:56.160 --> 0:12:59.400 full stop, is that sometimes you're too convincing, and sometimes 0:12:59.400 --> 0:13:02.880 people don't understand things like satire and and they can't 0:13:02.960 --> 0:13:04.920 figure it out. I mean, that's the same reason why 0:13:05.000 --> 0:13:08.480 so many news sources accidentally, um, you know, make make 0:13:08.520 --> 0:13:11.040 their reference back to the onion, just because they don't 0:13:11.040 --> 0:13:14.680 know they can't figure it out. It's yeah, it's it's 0:13:14.760 --> 0:13:16.960 it's fascinating. And you know, I'm looking at these drawings 0:13:17.160 --> 0:13:19.360 for all, not just the fairy crab, but for the 0:13:19.520 --> 0:13:22.680 orc crab and the elve crab and the goblin crab, 0:13:23.200 --> 0:13:25.720 and I have to say, like clearly these are done, 0:13:25.760 --> 0:13:28.480 you know, quickly with like a like rough hand more 0:13:28.559 --> 0:13:31.840 or less. But they're like it's not like a child's drawing. 0:13:31.920 --> 0:13:34.240 They took the time to like get the proper number 0:13:34.280 --> 0:13:36.040 of legs, that took the time to make them, you know, 0:13:36.080 --> 0:13:40.480 bilateral cemetry, you know, like they they they clearly have 0:13:40.679 --> 0:13:42.840 something that they're going for with this, So I commend 0:13:42.960 --> 0:13:46.080 them on their effort, you know. Yeah, congratulations to DV 0:13:46.200 --> 0:13:51.360 and art user the Siren Lord. Yeah exactly for some 0:13:51.360 --> 0:13:56.360 some some convincing world building. Anyway, do appreciate the message, Carl. 0:13:56.440 --> 0:13:59.120 Even though this didn't pan out, it does seem like 0:13:59.160 --> 0:14:02.600 the fairy crab mystery remains. It's good to know that 0:14:02.640 --> 0:14:06.040 other people are considering the fairy Crab. That perhaps someone 0:14:06.080 --> 0:14:08.160 else went down the same train of thought that we're 0:14:08.160 --> 0:14:10.920 going through now, which is, wow, I heard this word, 0:14:10.960 --> 0:14:14.240 what could it possibly mean? And perhaps they also couldn't 0:14:14.240 --> 0:14:16.680 find any informations they had to craft it themselves. You 0:14:16.679 --> 0:14:19.160 know that That is the way a lot of mythology continues, 0:14:19.640 --> 0:14:21.760 is just a lack of information and then filling in 0:14:21.800 --> 0:14:24.960 your own gaps and then someone else goes, oh, that's plausible, 0:14:25.000 --> 0:14:27.800 and then it becomes canon. You know. So yeah, may 0:14:27.840 --> 0:14:36.040 maybe this is the birth of that. All right, I'm 0:14:36.080 --> 0:14:38.880 ready to move on to this message from Matt about 0:14:38.920 --> 0:14:43.640 cattle mutilation. Are you ready? Seth most definitely all right, Matt. 0:14:43.840 --> 0:14:47.200 This this listener has written several times before to talk 0:14:47.240 --> 0:14:51.200 about or to speak from personal experience about topics related 0:14:51.200 --> 0:14:54.680 to farming and ranching, and so Matt says, good day 0:14:54.680 --> 0:14:59.160 fellas loved the cattle mutilation episode. ILL have an opener 0:14:59.240 --> 0:15:01.360 like that, but that I would add a few thoughts 0:15:01.400 --> 0:15:06.640 from an agricultural perspective. I've seen many of the visuals 0:15:06.640 --> 0:15:09.880 described in the episode and can confirm predators play a 0:15:09.920 --> 0:15:14.520 big role in the avian realm. Corvid's meaning ravens and 0:15:14.560 --> 0:15:18.280 crows do play a significant part, and one which I 0:15:18.320 --> 0:15:21.880 don't think the average person quite understands. Here's a couple 0:15:21.880 --> 0:15:25.120 of examples for you, both pertained sheep, but the general 0:15:25.160 --> 0:15:28.280 idea applies to cattle as well. Warning to the listeners 0:15:28.280 --> 0:15:31.160 this will get a little bit grizzly for a few paragraphs. Here, 0:15:31.480 --> 0:15:34.800 Matt writes, I know some sheep farmers, for example, that 0:15:34.880 --> 0:15:38.680 have to keep ornaments reminiscent of owls and other species 0:15:38.720 --> 0:15:42.080 at the entrances to their barns, because if they don't, 0:15:42.640 --> 0:15:45.800 ravens will fly in and kill their lambs by pecking 0:15:45.840 --> 0:15:50.520 out their eyes. Further feasting commences from there if there's time, 0:15:50.640 --> 0:15:55.000 but they always go for the eyes first. It's pretty metal. Similarly, 0:15:55.040 --> 0:15:58.080 I've talked to sheep farmers in Ireland who lose full 0:15:58.120 --> 0:16:01.560 grown sheep to predatory birds. It happens in part because 0:16:01.600 --> 0:16:04.800 sheep become immobilized when on their backs. You might have 0:16:04.840 --> 0:16:08.120 seen this if you ever watch somebody shear a sheep's wool. 0:16:08.720 --> 0:16:11.200 If they fall over or misstep on the mountain or 0:16:11.280 --> 0:16:15.040 pasture for whatever reason, or become immobilized for another reason, 0:16:15.440 --> 0:16:18.840 the birds will go straight for the exposed soft tissues. 0:16:19.240 --> 0:16:21.960 This includes the inner thigh and gut by which the 0:16:22.000 --> 0:16:25.960 birds peck their way into the fallen animals innards, nasty 0:16:26.000 --> 0:16:29.880 stuff wow. Although cattle are much larger, calves can be 0:16:29.920 --> 0:16:33.720 particularly vulnerable to these kinds of things, particularly if they 0:16:33.760 --> 0:16:37.160 become immobilized for many of the reasons previously discussed, but 0:16:37.720 --> 0:16:40.480 in general, these things can happen to livestock of all 0:16:40.640 --> 0:16:44.720 kinds and sizes. I can also confirm that bloating can 0:16:44.720 --> 0:16:49.720 create clean looking tears, slash slice like damage to flesh. 0:16:49.920 --> 0:16:51.960 Like a lot of these things, bloating is something which 0:16:52.000 --> 0:16:54.400 also freaks people out if they're not familiar with the 0:16:54.400 --> 0:16:58.720 physiological process, though it is generally unpleasant for just about anyone. 0:16:59.240 --> 0:17:02.040 You can see why a bloated bovine with its legs 0:17:02.040 --> 0:17:05.080 sticking out at odd angles a rupture here and there, 0:17:05.400 --> 0:17:08.160 and a clean cut on the belly does look pretty odd. 0:17:08.440 --> 0:17:11.160 I'm sure a few cattle mutilation calls were made by 0:17:11.160 --> 0:17:14.439 folks who were less than experts. Anyway, just a bit 0:17:14.480 --> 0:17:18.280 of my own experience. Nothing more surgical than a hungry corvette. 0:17:18.520 --> 0:17:22.760 Matt uh. Thanks for sharing your experience, Matt. Yeah, one 0:17:22.800 --> 0:17:25.720 thing I wonder about so, you know, we did the 0:17:25.760 --> 0:17:28.600 episode on the cattle mutilation panic of the seventies, and 0:17:28.640 --> 0:17:31.439 then we did the movie The Return, which is a 0:17:31.560 --> 0:17:34.760 you know, a fictional thriller about aliens and cattle mutilation. 0:17:35.920 --> 0:17:38.440 And one of the things we saw in the movie, 0:17:38.520 --> 0:17:41.880 at least was that the rancher was the one who 0:17:41.960 --> 0:17:44.720 was saying, you know, I've never seen a cow that 0:17:44.760 --> 0:17:47.159 looked like this. This is you know, completely out of 0:17:47.160 --> 0:17:50.399 the ordinary. Animals couldn't have done this to it. But 0:17:50.560 --> 0:17:53.280 I wonder if it was often actually people with a 0:17:53.280 --> 0:17:57.879 lot of agricultural experience who were relaying the reports that 0:17:57.920 --> 0:18:00.520 allegedly happened in the seventies. I wonder if times it 0:18:00.600 --> 0:18:03.600 was like the cop who arrived on the scene, who 0:18:03.680 --> 0:18:06.440 put together the report that ends up sounding really crazy 0:18:06.480 --> 0:18:10.159 to somebody. And also you mentioned in that episode that 0:18:10.240 --> 0:18:12.919 a lot of the cattle mutilation happened on the smaller farms, 0:18:12.960 --> 0:18:15.600 not on the larger farms. That might have something to 0:18:15.640 --> 0:18:17.359 do with it too. Just like the law of averages, 0:18:17.840 --> 0:18:21.080 if you have ten cows, you may never see certain 0:18:21.440 --> 0:18:26.240 rarer you know, horrible diseases that can attack to your cows. 0:18:26.480 --> 0:18:29.399 But if you run a large, you know, cattle ranch 0:18:29.520 --> 0:18:32.719 that has thousands upon thousands of cows, I bet you've 0:18:32.760 --> 0:18:34.600 actually seen a little bit of everything. Like when you 0:18:34.640 --> 0:18:37.159 come across this is like, oh, I know what this is. 0:18:37.240 --> 0:18:39.840 I saw this once before, so so that that might 0:18:39.880 --> 0:18:41.639 have something to do with it too, is just pure 0:18:41.720 --> 0:18:45.360 law of averages versus a small cattle ranch and an enormous, 0:18:45.440 --> 0:18:47.840 you know, cattle ranch. That's a really good point. Yeah, 0:18:48.040 --> 0:18:51.320 But as always, Matt, thank you for providing the agricultural 0:18:51.320 --> 0:18:54.359 perspective and for letting us know once again just how 0:18:54.400 --> 0:19:06.359 sick the corvids are. Alright. This next message is in 0:19:06.440 --> 0:19:10.080 response to a somewhat older episode. It was the series 0:19:10.160 --> 0:19:12.760 we did called The Lesser of Two Crab Claws, which 0:19:12.840 --> 0:19:16.879 was about asymmetry and animal bodies, And this is from Morgan. 0:19:17.240 --> 0:19:20.920 Morgan says, Hi, Robert and Joe, longtime listener Morgan here, 0:19:20.960 --> 0:19:23.920 and I've been catching up on my backlog of podcasts. 0:19:24.280 --> 0:19:27.760 Started maternity leaves, so I've thankfully been blowing through a 0:19:27.840 --> 0:19:30.200 large chunk of it during the day while my older 0:19:30.200 --> 0:19:33.600 one is a daycare and my husband works parentheses. Baby 0:19:33.640 --> 0:19:36.520 hasn't come yet. I just listened to the series on 0:19:36.640 --> 0:19:42.360 biological asymmetry, which included your annotation about cilia, and as 0:19:42.400 --> 0:19:46.400 a brief reminder here, the context was that silia are 0:19:46.440 --> 0:19:50.720 these tiny hair like filaments that line the surfaces of 0:19:50.760 --> 0:19:54.240 some cells in our bodies, and one of the ideas 0:19:54.280 --> 0:19:57.920 we talked about in that episode was how silia can 0:19:57.960 --> 0:20:03.040 create currents in the flu it surrounding cells, and how 0:20:03.200 --> 0:20:08.200 the role of cilia in early embryonic development, maybe in creating, 0:20:08.240 --> 0:20:12.360 in guiding the current of fluid moving around the developing embryo, 0:20:12.800 --> 0:20:16.719 may have something to do with the link between having 0:20:16.760 --> 0:20:22.000 typically functioning cilia and having the common a asymmetrical arrangement 0:20:22.160 --> 0:20:24.359 of internal organs, you know, with the heart on the 0:20:24.440 --> 0:20:26.439 left and the liver on the right and so forth, 0:20:26.680 --> 0:20:29.879 And how there are conditions where if you're silia seems 0:20:29.960 --> 0:20:33.040 to function atypically or to be damaged in some way, 0:20:33.280 --> 0:20:36.080 this can lead to having your internal organs swapped to 0:20:36.119 --> 0:20:39.399 the other side. So Morgan continues, when you were talking 0:20:39.400 --> 0:20:42.480 about the functionality of cilia and a recessive human trait 0:20:42.600 --> 0:20:46.280 of cartagen or syndrome, and how oftentimes people diagnosed with 0:20:46.280 --> 0:20:49.480 the syndrome have organs flipped, it made me have to 0:20:49.600 --> 0:20:52.600 stop and rewind and listen again. I have a brother 0:20:52.640 --> 0:20:55.040 who was born very premature and as a baby and 0:20:55.119 --> 0:20:58.479 young boy, was very medically involved. From what I've been 0:20:58.520 --> 0:21:01.960 told through my mom's journey as my brother's medical advocate, 0:21:02.280 --> 0:21:04.480 I've learned that part of why my brother was so 0:21:04.560 --> 0:21:08.920 medically complicated was the cilia in his lungs pushing mucus 0:21:08.960 --> 0:21:13.080 from respiratory illnesses down instead of up and out, causing 0:21:13.119 --> 0:21:18.440 severe pneumonia regularly and eventual deterioration of his respiratory cilia. 0:21:18.680 --> 0:21:22.440 Along with the complications of his premature birth, respiratory illnesses, 0:21:22.520 --> 0:21:24.919 as well as open heart surgery in his youth. My 0:21:25.040 --> 0:21:29.560 family also learned that my brother's internal anatomy is completely reversed, 0:21:29.960 --> 0:21:34.199 including how his blood flows parentheses in verse us total us. 0:21:35.040 --> 0:21:37.439 When my brother has had the heartbeat leads connected to 0:21:37.520 --> 0:21:40.400 him in a medical setting. If the healthcare professional does 0:21:40.440 --> 0:21:43.399 not know of this internal trait, his heartbeat on the 0:21:43.440 --> 0:21:47.159 monitor will read upside down. However, if the leads are 0:21:47.160 --> 0:21:50.600 reversed on the machine, it will appear normal. Now, as 0:21:50.640 --> 0:21:53.240 he is an adult, his health has improved and treatment 0:21:53.280 --> 0:21:56.200 of illnesses is relatively minor compared to how things were 0:21:56.240 --> 0:21:58.840 when he was younger. I will probably have to explain 0:21:58.920 --> 0:22:02.080 to doctors in the few sure my brother's medical idiosyncrasies 0:22:02.440 --> 0:22:04.879 because of his rare and unique medical history as he 0:22:04.880 --> 0:22:07.600 gets older. But until then, it's just a random, weird 0:22:07.680 --> 0:22:10.159 fact that I know about him. Thank you for the 0:22:10.200 --> 0:22:12.719 interesting podcast, and keep up with the topics that keep 0:22:12.800 --> 0:22:17.600 me engaged, Sincerely, Morgan. That's wonderfully fascinating, And I can't 0:22:17.640 --> 0:22:21.159 imagine like how many situations that must come up and 0:22:21.200 --> 0:22:23.919 when it creates just kind of like you know, little 0:22:23.960 --> 0:22:26.520 things like you know, from something as simple as just 0:22:26.600 --> 0:22:28.919 you know, checking your blood pressure all the way up 0:22:28.960 --> 0:22:31.000 to like, oh no, I have to get my appendix removed. 0:22:31.359 --> 0:22:34.439 I need to really assure my doctor where it is 0:22:34.480 --> 0:22:37.719 in my body. Like what a wild set of like 0:22:37.960 --> 0:22:41.240 strange complications that must create for you, you know, Yeah, 0:22:41.560 --> 0:22:44.520 the Morgan definitely glad to hear his his health has 0:22:44.560 --> 0:22:47.399 improved since he's gotten older, for sure, and I'm glad 0:22:47.600 --> 0:22:50.720 that it seems like there are workarounds for this, like 0:22:50.720 --> 0:22:53.040 like putting the leads on backwards and stuff like that. 0:22:53.040 --> 0:22:56.080 That's really fascinating to me. Yeah, So thanks for getting 0:22:56.080 --> 0:23:05.520