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 Douglas. Julie,
Speaker 1: have you ever outrun an explosion every single morning? Yeah? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Ever been chased by a fireball? Yeah? Every afternoon? It
Speaker 1: kind of seems like that way at times, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: because we were just constantly hit over the head with
Speaker 1: this image of people out running explosions, out running fires
Speaker 1: and fireballs. It's I mean, as long as you are
Speaker 1: consuming action films and action oriented TV shows, it's everywhere. Well,
Speaker 1: even dramas have a bit of you know, fire spewing
Speaker 1: forth from time to time, and well like, yeah, I
Speaker 1: think you were mentioning even even Breaking Bad, right, which
Speaker 1: is considered has been considered the pinnacle of television in
Speaker 1: recent years. Yeah, Breaking Bad will dip into a couple
Speaker 1: of the tropes that you see when it comes to fireballs. Um,
Speaker 1: specifically I'm thinking about Walt and I hope this isn't
Speaker 1: a spoiler. This is early on in the series. This
Speaker 1: is when he kind of takes a turn down the road. Um,
Speaker 1: this is right after he shaved his head and he
Speaker 1: is dealing with a drug dealer named Tuco, and he
Speaker 1: has brought to the drug dealer something called mercury fulminate
Speaker 1: which is inexclusive. Now the drug dealer doesn't know this,
Speaker 1: thinks is the back of meth. What does Walt do
Speaker 1: when he feels threatened, He throws a little piece of
Speaker 1: this ampleca boom like the you know, the windows are
Speaker 1: blown out, there's a big fireball um and it's done
Speaker 1: to great effect, right, because at that very moment you
Speaker 1: love Walt even more because of his science smarts and
Speaker 1: his ability to create this um, this sort of chemical
Speaker 1: combustion that gets him out of a jam. In reality, though,
Speaker 1: with this work, yeah yeah, I mean, you'd have to
Speaker 1: have like a stick of dynamite along with the mercury
Speaker 1: fulm in it, and it just wouldn't be nearly as interesting.
Speaker 1: You have to sit there and wait for him to
Speaker 1: like stick a dynamite, and yeah, it's not not very
Speaker 1: cinematic um for me. One of the earliest examples comes
Speaker 1: to mind. Uh. It's probably from Predator, where not only
Speaker 1: does uh does Schwarzenegger out run the explosive device that
Speaker 1: the defeated predator sets off on its risk. Uh, it's
Speaker 1: like apparently a tactical nuke that goes off. Essentially, they're
Speaker 1: in the jungle. In the jungle, which is also key
Speaker 1: as well discussed, you know, roots and trees and everywhere,
Speaker 1: he's able to outrun this this tremendous detonation. Uh. And
Speaker 1: you know he's not in the sequel, but he's supposedly survived.
Speaker 1: Now I'm taking this from TV trips dot Org. They
Speaker 1: say a time bomb, super weapon, crash car, etcetera is
Speaker 1: about to explode. The heroes run as fast as they
Speaker 1: can and try to leap behind shelter just as it explodes.
Speaker 1: Often features a cool shot of the heroes diving towards
Speaker 1: the camera. And when I read that initially, I kind
Speaker 1: of felt that sort of mirrorner on motion, Like, yes,
Speaker 1: I know that I've seen that trope so many times
Speaker 1: that I feel the motion of that sentence. Indeed, I
Speaker 1: mean another one too, is, of course, the the badass
Speaker 1: walking away from the explosion. Explosion sets off. Generally, you
Speaker 1: know it's the the guy or gal in your action
Speaker 1: film is so in control of the situation. Uh, they
Speaker 1: know there's about to be a tremendous explosion. They know
Speaker 1: that they're safe, or they just don't care. They're that
Speaker 1: they're that awesome, uh that they just walk They're just
Speaker 1: walking and it's exploding behind them and they don't even care.
Speaker 1: Maybe they're even lighting a cigarette. Breaking bad has another
Speaker 1: example of that. Yes, in fact, it's the Salamanca Terror twins.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, those guys definitely badasses. And I believe that
Speaker 1: they one of them is smoking a cigarette and then
Speaker 1: they ignite a truck and they walk away. And in fact,
Speaker 1: there's a YouTube video that features this clip of them,
Speaker 1: and it's the title of it is cool guys look
Speaker 1: at explosions. Indeed they were. They were pretty cool and collected.
Speaker 1: And you know that you mentioned them mere neurons. And
Speaker 1: I think that's you know, when we watch somebody that's
Speaker 1: so bad and in control of this situation that they
Speaker 1: can just walk away from the explosion. I mean, that's
Speaker 1: who doesn't want that in their life, to have that
Speaker 1: kind of control, that kind of detachment from from the
Speaker 1: stresses and explosions, uh, literal and metaphorical in their life,
Speaker 1: which is why you may want to break out a
Speaker 1: little board game called Fireball Island. Ah. Yes, I fondly
Speaker 1: remember this uh board game published by Milton Bradley, which
Speaker 1: I had. I received it for Christmas, I think one
Speaker 1: year and uh, you'll you'll have to check out the
Speaker 1: commercial for this on include a link on the landing
Speaker 1: page in this episode because it was this brilliant like
Speaker 1: three D board. It's it's essentially an island, like a
Speaker 1: volcanic island, and impossibly, even as a kid, I knew
Speaker 1: this was just made no sense. Uh, but some ancient
Speaker 1: civilization has built this like demon shaped temple thing on
Speaker 1: top of the volcano, like you do. And then this
Speaker 1: thing would turn and it would spit fireballs red marbles,
Speaker 1: uh down these different pathways, and of course the people
Speaker 1: playing the game are trying to move their little dudes
Speaker 1: along the pathway and I think they were collecting treasure
Speaker 1: and if the marble came down and hit you, it
Speaker 1: would knock you all the way back down towards the beginning.
Speaker 1: But but yeah, even then, I had a lot of questions,
Speaker 1: like what is this fireball? We're out running? Is this
Speaker 1: just is this lava? Is this is this flame? Is
Speaker 1: it is it an explosion? What's going on here? What
Speaker 1: am I trying to out run? Why in the commercial
Speaker 1: is their actual flame coming from the ball and mine
Speaker 1: is just a big marble no flames. Um. I was
Speaker 1: looking at this on eBay. They are fetching up to
Speaker 1: three hundred bucks ones that are intact with all the pieces. Wow,
Speaker 1: that's that's pretty impressive. I wish I knew where mine was,
Speaker 1: right all right, So we're going to discuss this and
Speaker 1: today's episode. Now, we're not going to get into the
Speaker 1: fancy magical fireball idea, but we're going to get into
Speaker 1: sort of are equally magical and fanciful almost subconscious ideas
Speaker 1: about explosions and fire. Most of us do not encounter
Speaker 1: wildfires or explosions in our daily life. We encounter on TV.
Speaker 1: We kind of get this idea about how they work,
Speaker 1: and we take for granted the uh, the the reactions
Speaker 1: that are taking place. So first we're gonna talk about wildfires,
Speaker 1: then we're going to talk about explosions, and we're going
Speaker 1: to talk about our ability or inability rather to outrun
Speaker 1: either of these forces. Before we launch in, I want
Speaker 1: to ask you, Robert, because this is a kid sort
Speaker 1: of dinner party question. Uh, what is your relationship to fire?
Speaker 1: My relationship to fire? Uh? Currently? Um, the lighting of
Speaker 1: stoves with a little click click thing, um, the lighting
Speaker 1: of candles when necessary. Uh, And that's pretty much pretty
Speaker 1: much it, because I have these memories as a kid
Speaker 1: and my my babysitter, who is um giant hippie, loved her,
Speaker 1: but she would have us um put our hands through
Speaker 1: the candle to see if we could exert some sort
Speaker 1: of magic force on it and not burn ourselves. So
Speaker 1: that's sort of my first memories of that and trying
Speaker 1: to capture and harness fire. And I think it's one
Speaker 1: of the reasons why when we see these tropes we
Speaker 1: get sort of excited, not just because of the mirror neurons,
Speaker 1: but because it calls back to something primal, like, yes,
Speaker 1: here's this this element and could we in fact walk
Speaker 1: away from it if it were to try to consume us. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I definitely. I remember being into like matches
Speaker 1: and fireworks at some point when I was a kid,
Speaker 1: and I mean like the fire. The flamethrower is another
Speaker 1: example of something that like from a kid level, like
Speaker 1: sci fi action movie level, like flamethrowers are awesome, but
Speaker 1: then if you look at the reality of flamethrowers that
Speaker 1: they are hillacious, awful devices, awful weapons. Um, So there's
Speaker 1: always a divide between that. But we can't help. But
Speaker 1: but but find something magical in the flickering flame. So
Speaker 1: let's kick up with wildfire. Um and let's we're just
Speaker 1: gonna throw it out there. Humans versus fire speed? How
Speaker 1: does it? How does it pan out? Well? First, let's
Speaker 1: look at a human. According to the National Council on
Speaker 1: Strength and Fitness, the average human can run at a
Speaker 1: speed of fifteen miles per hour kilometers per hour for
Speaker 1: a short period of time. Okay, and as far as
Speaker 1: records go, the world's fastest runner, Hussain Bolt, has clocked
Speaker 1: nearly twenty eight miles per hour or forty kilometers per
Speaker 1: hour in the hundred meters sprint. Okay. Meanwhile, our friend,
Speaker 1: the wildfire travels its speeds up to fourteen miles an
Speaker 1: hour or twenty three kilometers an hour, and it does
Speaker 1: so by consuming everything in its path, for naturally occurring vegetation,
Speaker 1: to homes or even human beings. So in a short
Speaker 1: term race without any complicating factors, the average human probably
Speaker 1: has a slight leg up, and more gifted runners can
Speaker 1: probably smoke the fire completely. But it's those complications, uh
Speaker 1: that are that are definitely worth taking into account when
Speaker 1: trying to outrun a wildfire, right because these don't occur
Speaker 1: in a vacuum as we know. So complicating factors would
Speaker 1: include the fact that you're probably running through unfamiliar terrain,
Speaker 1: right if you're out in the forest, you probably don't
Speaker 1: know it like the back of your hand. Um, So
Speaker 1: that can add to the confusion when you're trying to navigate.
Speaker 1: In addition, a thick fog of smoke could be rolling
Speaker 1: through the area, making it hard to determine the best
Speaker 1: path forward, particularly when the wind shifts direction right and
Speaker 1: there's the heat from the fire because it turns out
Speaker 1: that many more people die from smoke inhalation and dehydration
Speaker 1: than from actual burns. So all of these things are
Speaker 1: making this this uh, this mays through a natural disaster
Speaker 1: that much more difficult. Yeah, and there's just so many variables.
Speaker 1: Like I can't help but think if you were if
Speaker 1: you were trying to to map and program the movement
Speaker 1: of a wildfire, and say a board game or computer game,
Speaker 1: there there would just be so many barreals, so many
Speaker 1: dice rolls would have to take place because because just
Speaker 1: the slightest change in the wind, for instance, can alter
Speaker 1: the course of the fire. Suddenly it's it's moving. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's moving to your left, etter to your right, etcetera.
Speaker 1: And then you have to take into account the fuel
Speaker 1: that it's consuming. You have grasses that are that are
Speaker 1: burning easily on dry, hot windy days, branches, twigs and
Speaker 1: leaves that are serving as as as as a tremendous fuel,
Speaker 1: creating more heat. And then you have dry tree bark
Speaker 1: that can carry the flames up to the tree tops,
Speaker 1: burning more material and causing the fire to break and spread.
Speaker 1: So it's, uh, there's there's so much chaos in the system.
Speaker 1: It's it's difficult to map, certainly difficult to map on
Speaker 1: the ground dealing with all of these complications. And yeah,
Speaker 1: you can try to be strategic about it. So if
Speaker 1: you could figure out which way the fire is moving,
Speaker 1: and you situated yourself parallel to it, this is called
Speaker 1: the flank of the fire, then that puts you in
Speaker 1: a much better position as opposed to say, in front
Speaker 1: of the fire, which is kind of like a dot um.
Speaker 1: Another thing you could do is you could look for
Speaker 1: a path with little or no vegetation. So a rock,
Speaker 1: gravel or dirt path would ensure that you're not surrounding
Speaker 1: yourself with tinder. All of those dry branches and twigs leaves,
Speaker 1: that would create a little bit more forced um tinder
Speaker 1: there for you, and then you would want to move
Speaker 1: downhill if you could. That's because the fire will burn
Speaker 1: faster uphill, you know. That's because the flames can easily
Speaker 1: reach more unburnt fuel in front of the fire, and
Speaker 1: then radiant heat preheats the fuel in front of the fire,
Speaker 1: making the fuel even more flammable. And that's not to
Speaker 1: say that any of these strategies are a guarantee of safety.
Speaker 1: In the house Stuff Works article Can You out Run
Speaker 1: a Fire? By Alston Cooper, she points out that the
Speaker 1: Yarnell Hill airs on a wildfire in June two thousand
Speaker 1: killed nineteen members of the Granite Mountain hot Shots. And
Speaker 1: the hot Shots, of course, are they have advanced strategies
Speaker 1: and they are experts in maintaining um the fires and
Speaker 1: extinguishing them. So what happened during this particular wildfire is
Speaker 1: that the wildfire was aided by fifty mile per hour
Speaker 1: or eighty kilometers per hour down drafting winds of an
Speaker 1: approaching thunderstorm. We're talking about covering one d yards in
Speaker 1: nineteen seconds. And the firefighters who were in a box
Speaker 1: hand and were trapped when the fire essentially rushed into it.
Speaker 1: They we're talking about a dangerous and at times unpredictable
Speaker 1: force here. It's not not the fire in your heart,
Speaker 1: it's not the fire on your barbecue. This is a
Speaker 1: This is fire that is quite literally wild, consuming materials,
Speaker 1: shifting around, and it's easy to get caught in the
Speaker 1: wrong place at the wrong time. Indeed, all right, we're
Speaker 1: going to take a quick break. When we get back,
Speaker 1: we're going to look at what it would take to
Speaker 1: outrun an explosion. All right, we're back out running an explosion. Possible, impossible.
Speaker 1: I think you will find it is the latter of
Speaker 1: those two options, despite again how often we see it
Speaker 1: done in our TVs and movies. Let's start with just, uh,
Speaker 1: just getting down to brass tacks here. What is an explosion?
Speaker 1: What is an explosive? Even um, All explosives are little
Speaker 1: more than elements that burn or decompose at an incredible speed.
Speaker 1: Um and explosions occur when a large amount of energy
Speaker 1: is released into a small volume of area in a
Speaker 1: very short time. So it might be hydrothermal, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: naturally occurring in the earth. It might be chemical arising
Speaker 1: from say a man made explosion, or it might even
Speaker 1: be nuclear. Now, the reaction produces a massive amount of
Speaker 1: heat and gas in a very short period of time.
Speaker 1: An explosive chemical action breaks down compounds into highly compressed
Speaker 1: gases as well as heat resulting from compound molecules being
Speaker 1: blasted apart. Then the gas expands rapidly and the heat
Speaker 1: speeds up individual gas particles to increase expansion speed even more.
Speaker 1: And this rapidly expanding gas is called a pressure wave,
Speaker 1: and it's key to any explosives destructive power as the
Speaker 1: pressure If the pressure wave is fast enough to break
Speaker 1: the sound barrier, it also generates a powerful shock wave.
Speaker 1: So anytime you have a land explosion, a real life
Speaker 1: land explosion from hand garnades took a dynamite exploding car,
Speaker 1: you name it, Uh, you're gonna have a situation where
Speaker 1: the blast can just almost instantaneously burned skin, tear apart, limbs,
Speaker 1: propel objects and shrapnel through the air. Um, it's a
Speaker 1: it's it's a dangerous situation and and uh again, we
Speaker 1: often sort of fall into a magical way of thinking
Speaker 1: about the explosion as just this sort of blast, this
Speaker 1: this big fiery thing that happens, and not this this
Speaker 1: this really fast chemical reaction that just sends out this
Speaker 1: pressure wave. Yeah. To illustrate that, let's look at a
Speaker 1: C four explosive. Now, this is typical typically used by
Speaker 1: the United States Armed Forces, and when it is detonated,
Speaker 1: gases are released from the explosive at the rate of
Speaker 1: twenty six thousand, four hundred ft per second or eight
Speaker 1: thousand fifty per second. Yeah, which means that if you
Speaker 1: are within twenty four thousand feet of it, your toast
Speaker 1: within just one second. So that really I think that
Speaker 1: shatters the illusion pretty quickly, unless you're watching the Flash
Speaker 1: or Superman or something. It's it's putting it outside the
Speaker 1: normal range. Now, some other explosives like a pipe bomb, well,
Speaker 1: the U. S Department of Homeland Security says the minimal
Speaker 1: safe distance from a five pound or two point two
Speaker 1: kilogram bomb pipe bomb is twelve hundred feet or three
Speaker 1: hundred sixty And then you'll see as the size of
Speaker 1: the bomb goes up, so to just the since that
Speaker 1: you should be away from it. So a fifty pound
Speaker 1: briefcase bomb you should be about eighteen hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: feet away or five hundred sixty four a tractor trailer
Speaker 1: bomb that would be about nine thousand, three hundred feet
Speaker 1: or two thousand, eight hundred that you would want to
Speaker 1: be away from it. So again the question arises, could
Speaker 1: you get from point A to point B this safe
Speaker 1: zone in any of those scenarios, And it's just not likely.
Speaker 1: Even if you are Usain Bolt, who could cover two
Speaker 1: hundred meters in nineteen seconds um, which is about thirty
Speaker 1: four ft per second, that's still not gonna get you
Speaker 1: to where you need to be. Indeed, I mean pretty
Speaker 1: much the only scenario that even works from any kind
Speaker 1: of film or actions situation would be if there's a
Speaker 1: timer and you're you're not out running the explosion itself,
Speaker 1: but your your character is attempting to it to that
Speaker 1: uh that that manium that minimum evacuation distance before it
Speaker 1: goes off. But even then, the minimum evacuation distance is
Speaker 1: just the range at which life threatening injury from the
Speaker 1: blast or fragmentation hazards are unlikely. Uh So, a person
Speaker 1: within the safe zone of uh surrounding this explosion. They
Speaker 1: can still suffer injuries, they're not life threatening. You can
Speaker 1: still get hit by shrapnel, you can still be knocked
Speaker 1: down by the shock wave. Um, all of that is
Speaker 1: still in play, which could significantly uh impact your badass
Speaker 1: walk away from the explosion, right because the badass walk away.
Speaker 1: You don't tend to see the hero or the anti
Speaker 1: hero with pock marks of you know, damage done by
Speaker 1: the shrack knowledge, hearing loss or anything. No, they're completely intact. Um.
Speaker 1: So yeah, again, abbous, but this is not very realistic.
Speaker 1: Even the countdowns and we see them depicted in TV
Speaker 1: and film aren't being true to the actual time that's passing. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And and it goes without saying a lot of times
Speaker 1: when you have a really cool explosion in a film,
Speaker 1: you end up kind of seeing it in slow motion anyway,
Speaker 1: so you get this kind of false idea about what's happening.
Speaker 1: You do see like this fireball expanding, and uh and
Speaker 1: you know, we just we just don't. Most of us
Speaker 1: do not have explosions occurring in our daily life and
Speaker 1: have any kind of real, uh you know, real down
Speaker 1: to earth understanding about what's happenings as far as the
Speaker 1: chemical reaction goes well, and if you did, you probably
Speaker 1: would have a pretty strong case of PTSD. Right. Um,
Speaker 1: So this, this unfortunately is the reality for some people.
Speaker 1: And we were talking about this earlier. Probably one of
Speaker 1: the more realistic depictions of explosions is something like the
Speaker 1: hurt Locker, where they do quite a bit of really
Speaker 1: good camera work to try to bring some sort of
Speaker 1: very similitude to what is happening on screen. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: did a great job at also making you feel that
Speaker 1: bombs and particular really the explosive devices that they were diffusing,
Speaker 1: our nasty weapons, these are not these are not fun explosions.
Speaker 1: And it gets into that flamethrower are discussing earlier. You know,
Speaker 1: there's just there's this huge disconnect between the cool explosions,
Speaker 1: the cool weapons that we encounter in our our our
Speaker 1: fictional media, versus the generally hillacious reality of their use.
Speaker 1: All Right, we are going to take a break. When
Speaker 1: we get back, We're going to attend to some listener mail.
Speaker 1: All right, we're back. Indeed, let us call over the
Speaker 1: robot here and uh and catch up on a little
Speaker 1: bit of listener mail we received so many great comments
Speaker 1: from you guys and gals, and you know, sadly we
Speaker 1: we don't always have time to h to read them
Speaker 1: here on the podcast, but today we have changes. Indeed,
Speaker 1: all right, we have an email and I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: share her name because she did not say whether or
Speaker 1: not we could share it, but she's said, hey, guys,
Speaker 1: have you ever researched how second hand embarrassment works? Because
Speaker 1: I suffer from it pretty bad and I can't find
Speaker 1: a lot about it scientifically. And I thought that was
Speaker 1: that's really interesting. We have an upcoming episode on our
Speaker 1: to do list about shame. And it it also made me
Speaker 1: think about empathy. And I know I've mentioned this before,
Speaker 1: but there's a book called The Empathy Exams. It's really great.
Speaker 1: It's a bunch of essays that deal with empathy and
Speaker 1: how it frames our world and even how it affects
Speaker 1: our bodies, our health. So guys check it out if
Speaker 1: you'd like. All Right, I have another bit of listener
Speaker 1: mail here. This one comes from an anonymous listener or
Speaker 1: listener that wishes to remain anonymous. Says, Hi, Robert and
Speaker 1: Julie stumbled upon your podcast by accident, and I'm glad
Speaker 1: that I did. It's quite interesting, to say the least. Recently,
Speaker 1: I've been catching up on some episodes and I just
Speaker 1: finished listening to the one you did about the zen
Speaker 1: of pain, and one thing came to mind. I have chronic,
Speaker 1: almost constant pain right next to my right shoulder blade
Speaker 1: as well as in my right at hand. It's not
Speaker 1: something I enjoy by any means, far from it. However,
Speaker 1: the things that seemed to help me with it are
Speaker 1: certain exercises uh there. They were prescribed by a professional,
Speaker 1: which also caused pain, quite a bit of pain, putting
Speaker 1: a lot of pressure on my shoulder blade to the
Speaker 1: point of almost crying out with pain. But this helps too.
Speaker 1: For some strange reason, I also know a few other
Speaker 1: people who feel the same way about some of the
Speaker 1: pains they are having. From extremely unscientific observations, it would
Speaker 1: seem as if physical pain not only helps us reach
Speaker 1: a liberation for from our guilt and other bad feelings,
Speaker 1: but also from physical pain. I just thought it was
Speaker 1: interesting observation and wanted to share. Maybe you could do
Speaker 1: an episode on that too in the future. Keepon podcasting
Speaker 1: and have a wonderful day. An anonymous listener from Canada.
Speaker 1: I don't know that we had talked about pain in
Speaker 1: terms of transformation in a more positive way before, but
Speaker 1: that's an interesting angle. Yeah. I mean I have noticed,
Speaker 1: like in just doing stretches and stuff, and if I have,
Speaker 1: you know, ultimately you know, minor sores going on with
Speaker 1: my with my muscles. Like sometimes you end up going
Speaker 1: into a position or a stretch that you're you are
Speaker 1: causing a bit of tension there, but your the tension
Speaker 1: is kind of combating another lingering pain. It's indeed, there's
Speaker 1: a there's there's a there's a lot of complexity in
Speaker 1: uh in in the the the pain pleasure system. That's
Speaker 1: what I think is interesting about yoga. Um not so
Speaker 1: much that sometimes you feel pain, and in fact, if
Speaker 1: you feel too much pain, you should definitely back off.
Speaker 1: But when you're in a pose and you're pushing yourself,
Speaker 1: there's a level of discomfort that they yoga teacher will
Speaker 1: often say, is your opportunity to dwell with that discomfort
Speaker 1: and not keep pushing it away, but sort of meeting it.
Speaker 1: And a lot of the discomfort in your in your
Speaker 1: body can translate to the discomfort that you feel in
Speaker 1: your mind and We've talked about how emotional pain and
Speaker 1: physical pain overlap each other quite a bit, so it's
Speaker 1: an interesting exercise in and of itself. A one and
Speaker 1: to read this next email. This is from Emmily and
Speaker 1: she says, Hello, Julian Robert. I wanted to say good
Speaker 1: job on the Blue podcast. I listened to it while
Speaker 1: I was coloring pages for a comic book. Part of
Speaker 1: being a colorist means a lot of color theories, so
Speaker 1: I thought you guys touched on the subject very well.
Speaker 1: I thought I might add a couple of ideas if
Speaker 1: you do a few other color related podcasts. There have
Speaker 1: been studies I've seen saying how certain stores or fast
Speaker 1: food restaurants will use color to make people hungry but
Speaker 1: not wish to stay too long in the restaurant. Also,
Speaker 1: don't remember if there's been a podcast on the Man
Speaker 1: to Shrimp, But these guys are extraordinary little creatures of color.
Speaker 1: Here's a comic I love, and she's talking about oat.
Speaker 1: Mail says, and uh, I'd love to point people to
Speaker 1: for a little bit of information on them. Also, it's
Speaker 1: a fun read. And this is so great. A couple
Speaker 1: of things about this one is we are planning a
Speaker 1: podcast episode that has to do with sensory manipulation, and
Speaker 1: restaurants certainly are within that. It's a really big, uh
Speaker 1: tangled topic, so when we unravel a little bit, we
Speaker 1: will definitely cart it out for you guys. I want
Speaker 1: to let Emily know that we're working on that. The
Speaker 1: second thing is the Manda shrimp is great. That the
Speaker 1: Oatmeal comic takes this on and talks about how the
Speaker 1: manta shrip has sixteen color sensitive receptor cones, which is amazing.
Speaker 1: They're they're an entirely different sensory world into themselves. Yeah.
Speaker 1: That that oat Mill comic in particular is great. And
Speaker 1: if I remember correctly, I think that one followed on
Speaker 1: the heels of a really really solid Radio Lab episode
Speaker 1: where they talk about the Man of Shrimp. So that
Speaker 1: was kind of like the those two elements came together
Speaker 1: to really propel the Mantis shrip into its current Internet
Speaker 1: celebrity status. Yeah, the Matthew and Mean, the creator of Oatmeal.
Speaker 1: He also has this great bit about how the manta
Speaker 1: shrimp is one of the most creatively violent creatures on
Speaker 1: Earth and I won't give it away. Need to go
Speaker 1: check out the comic to see that. All right, here's
Speaker 1: a little bit of listener mail from listener Sophia. Sophia says,
Speaker 1: I recently found your excellent podcast and was immediately hooked,
Speaker 1: starting with the episode about rats. I am in fact
Speaker 1: listening to your podcast right now. I was catching up
Speaker 1: and I came across the Mad Gasser and mass Hysteria episode, which,
Speaker 1: in passing, talked about a phenomenon among school girls at
Speaker 1: a boarding school. This phenomenon appeared after Christmas break and
Speaker 1: manifested itself in cold like symptoms, fever, trouble walking, etcetera.
Speaker 1: You explained how this was caused by the stress of
Speaker 1: leaving their families after seeing them for only a short
Speaker 1: period of time. I have in fact experienced this myself
Speaker 1: last January, right after I had moved back to school
Speaker 1: after spending time with my family at Christmas break, I
Speaker 1: began experiencing a myriad of unsettling symptoms. I had a
Speaker 1: loss of balance, a sensitivity to even weak sunlight to
Speaker 1: the point that my pupils would virtually disappear when I
Speaker 1: was outside, migrains, chills, and even feigning spells. This lasted
Speaker 1: for about a month and a half and in interestingly
Speaker 1: only abated when I found out that my mom was
Speaker 1: going to visit for my graduation in May. Thank you
Speaker 1: for clearing up any a paranoia about my symptoms, as
Speaker 1: I was very con concerned about them for a while
Speaker 1: and thought it might be some fearful or netherious disease
Speaker 1: manifesting itself. Your show is amazing and very informative, and
Speaker 1: I will be a listener for a very long time
Speaker 1: to come listening faithfully, Sophia. Thanks Sophia, Um, we really
Speaker 1: appreciate you sharing with us your own experience, which I
Speaker 1: think really underscores that whole um body mind connection here
Speaker 1: when it comes to empathy and to emotional contagion. Indeed,
Speaker 1: I mean this is definitely one of those subjects that
Speaker 1: we we are ultimately approaching as outsider. So anytime we
Speaker 1: can get that insider perspective on a topic, we love
Speaker 1: it all right. The next one is from Katie. She says,
Speaker 1: I don't have a specific request. I just want to
Speaker 1: say thanks for the great show. I love how often
Speaker 1: gender and sex comes up. I could listen to you
Speaker 1: to talk for hours about the amazing biodiversity of sex,
Speaker 1: organ sexual reproduction, and sexual behavior and you always connected
Speaker 1: so well with the human bias and baggage that comes
Speaker 1: along with sex, sexuality and gender. On second thought, maybe
Speaker 1: I do have a topic suggestion. Have you've done an
Speaker 1: episode on sex changes, not specifically in humans, but in
Speaker 1: animals in general. I feel like the subject comes up
Speaker 1: but only tangentially in other subjects. It seems like you'd
Speaker 1: have fun with the subject. Um. I agree, Yeah, that
Speaker 1: sounds like a like an excellent topic to to jump into. Yeah, thanks, Hattie.
Speaker 1: We actually have on the house stuff works dot com website,
Speaker 1: we have an article called how gender reassignment works. And
Speaker 1: we have an article called why some species change sex? So, um,
Speaker 1: I certainly think we should put the latter on our
Speaker 1: to do list. Indeed, indeed, all right, So there you
Speaker 1: have it. If you listener mails to uh satisfy the
Speaker 1: robot and uh and hopefully listeners as well, and uh Hey,
Speaker 1: if you want to check out more of our podcast
Speaker 1: episodes past and hey maybe even future. You want to
Speaker 1: check out our videos or blog post links out to
Speaker 1: our social media accounts, head on over to stuff to
Speaker 1: Blow your Mind dot com. That is our central homepage
Speaker 1: and that is where you will find all of our
Speaker 1: things in the meantime, unders your thoughts, and you can
Speaker 1: do that by emailing us at stuff to blow your mind.
Speaker 1: At how stuff works dot com for more on this
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works
Speaker 1: dot com.