WEBVTT - From the Vault: Devourer of Memories, Part 1 0:00:05.720 --> 0:00:07.320 Hey, are you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind? 0:00:07.400 --> 0:00:10.039 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and 0:00:10.080 --> 0:00:13.400 it's Saturday. Time for a vault episode. This one originally 0:00:13.440 --> 0:00:16.840 aired November nineteen nineteen, and it was part one of 0:00:16.840 --> 0:00:20.959 our Devourer of Memories series. Uh, this one was a 0:00:20.960 --> 0:00:24.759 lot of fun. We talked about research into flat worms 0:00:24.800 --> 0:00:27.240 that at least for a while, seemed to indicate that 0:00:27.320 --> 0:00:31.760 maybe you could gain some other organisms memories through cannibalism. Uh, 0:00:31.880 --> 0:00:34.159 that might not have held up so well, but but 0:00:34.200 --> 0:00:37.280 it's a really fun story along the way. Yeah. So today, 0:00:37.400 --> 0:00:39.080 if you are in the United States and you feel 0:00:39.080 --> 0:00:41.239 like you have the brain of a turkey after consuming 0:00:41.240 --> 0:00:43.919 the flash of a turkey, then this is the episode 0:00:43.920 --> 0:00:49.400 for you. Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind production 0:00:49.440 --> 0:00:58.120 of I Heart Radios has to work. Hey, you welcome 0:00:58.120 --> 0:01:00.000 to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert 0:01:00.040 --> 0:01:03.160 and I'm Joe McCormick, and today we're going to be 0:01:03.200 --> 0:01:06.480 embarking on a two part episode about the nature and 0:01:06.600 --> 0:01:10.920 physical basis of memory. So in the past we've explored 0:01:10.959 --> 0:01:13.800 the question where is my mind? We did an episode 0:01:13.800 --> 0:01:15.959 about this. I think a couple of years ago, Like, 0:01:16.040 --> 0:01:19.600 it seems obvious enough that cognition takes place in the brain, 0:01:20.000 --> 0:01:22.880 but this hasn't always been taken for granted. And today 0:01:22.880 --> 0:01:26.640 we're gonna look at a very strange narrative of twenty 0:01:26.920 --> 0:01:30.280 and some twenty first century research that asks a similar 0:01:30.360 --> 0:01:34.759 question about memories. What are memories made of? Like, if 0:01:34.800 --> 0:01:37.480 you have a memory of I don't know, you know, 0:01:37.560 --> 0:01:39.880 going down the street and seeing Hulk Hogan stomping on 0:01:39.920 --> 0:01:44.720 an ice cream sandwich, is that stored exclusively within the brain. 0:01:45.000 --> 0:01:47.960 If so, how is it stored in the brain? And 0:01:48.080 --> 0:01:51.320 more importantly, for today's episode, can I eat your body 0:01:51.400 --> 0:01:55.360 and gain that memory for myself? Yeah? This is you know, 0:01:55.680 --> 0:01:58.440 this is actually a really tremendous question. Of course, it 0:01:58.520 --> 0:02:00.680 does touch on a number of the mythical and fictional 0:02:00.760 --> 0:02:03.240 notions that we've touched on before over the years, such 0:02:03.280 --> 0:02:06.360 as can of Google eat your brains and become you 0:02:06.480 --> 0:02:09.959 for a limited amount of time? Or cannon immortal swordsman 0:02:10.000 --> 0:02:14.440 cut off another immortal's head and gain their vital power. Uh, 0:02:14.600 --> 0:02:18.040 do you know the living dead really eat brains because 0:02:18.040 --> 0:02:21.320 it makes the pain of being dead go away? Is 0:02:21.360 --> 0:02:24.880 there anything to indo cannibalistic funeral rites, you know, practiced 0:02:24.919 --> 0:02:29.360 by various cultures throughout history since ancient times. Or how 0:02:29.360 --> 0:02:33.120 about this, if Michael Caine loses a hand and receives 0:02:33.120 --> 0:02:36.440 a hand transplant from a murderer, does he become more 0:02:36.560 --> 0:02:40.079 likely to he himself murder? I assume that must be 0:02:40.120 --> 0:02:44.000 based on a real movie. But whatever, Oliver Oliver Stone 0:02:44.000 --> 0:02:46.120 directed it. As a matter of fact, what's it called. 0:02:46.200 --> 0:02:50.000 I think it's called the Hand. But Michael Caine's ended up. 0:02:50.000 --> 0:02:52.680 He probays like a comic book artist. I think so that, 0:02:52.720 --> 0:02:54.000 you know, that's the other side of it is he 0:02:54.200 --> 0:02:58.320 used an arc um. You know, it's it's early stone. 0:02:58.360 --> 0:03:01.080 It's not political. It's all about uh, you know, people's 0:03:01.120 --> 0:03:03.600 hands coming off and being replaced by hand that then 0:03:03.760 --> 0:03:05.840 has the will of a killer within it, which I 0:03:05.840 --> 0:03:09.720 think has been explored in in other horror properties as well. Um, 0:03:09.760 --> 0:03:12.399 it sounds like solid Michael Caine. Yeah. And it also 0:03:12.400 --> 0:03:13.960 gets into an idea that came up in our recent 0:03:13.960 --> 0:03:17.320 episode on yoga, the idea of of of memories being 0:03:17.400 --> 0:03:20.240 stored in one's body, which of course is a little 0:03:20.240 --> 0:03:23.320 more complicated. All this is all is more complicated when 0:03:23.320 --> 0:03:26.960 you consider the human situation. But a lot of what 0:03:27.000 --> 0:03:29.000 we're gonna be talking about in this episode is not 0:03:29.120 --> 0:03:33.440 dealing directly with with with human cognition and human memories, 0:03:33.800 --> 0:03:36.640 but what we can observe in simpler but also very 0:03:36.680 --> 0:03:40.400 important and informative organisms. Yes. Uh, though that doesn't mean 0:03:40.440 --> 0:03:43.320 that people haven't tried to extrapolate all kinds of things 0:03:43.360 --> 0:03:47.120 about about human memory from this research, and that will 0:03:47.160 --> 0:03:48.920 be part of the story too. This is going to 0:03:49.000 --> 0:03:53.160 be a mostly historical pair of episodes looking at controversial 0:03:53.240 --> 0:03:56.480 past research and linking it to more recent studies, and 0:03:56.520 --> 0:03:58.240 it's also going to be in two parts. As I said, 0:03:58.280 --> 0:04:00.840 so I'd say it's it's important not to draw your 0:04:00.880 --> 0:04:04.880 conclusions until you've heard the whole thing. A significant part 0:04:04.880 --> 0:04:06.840 of what we're talking about today is going to be 0:04:06.920 --> 0:04:09.880 research that looked promising at one time but as widely 0:04:09.920 --> 0:04:13.840 regarded as as being on the wrong track today. Exactly, 0:04:13.880 --> 0:04:16.440 but still certainly there's a lot to learn by looking 0:04:16.440 --> 0:04:20.000 at these past cases. Absolutely. Uh So. The main human 0:04:20.040 --> 0:04:22.400 figure we're going to be looking at in the story 0:04:22.440 --> 0:04:27.600 today was an American psychologist named Dr James V. McConnell 0:04:28.000 --> 0:04:31.440 who lived nineteen twenty five to nineteen ninety, and I 0:04:31.480 --> 0:04:34.640 wanted to start off by mentioning several sources about McConnell's 0:04:34.680 --> 0:04:37.839 life and career that will be referring to in these episodes. 0:04:38.120 --> 0:04:40.760 One was an article about McConnell by the Michigan State 0:04:40.880 --> 0:04:44.880 University psychologist Mark Rilling that appeared in American Psychologist in 0:04:45.000 --> 0:04:49.400 nineteen called the Mystery of the Vanished Citations uh, and 0:04:49.480 --> 0:04:52.480 that title refers to a period where McConnell was doing 0:04:52.480 --> 0:04:56.000 a lot of very influential research, but today you don't 0:04:56.040 --> 0:04:58.960 see the citations of this research mentioned very much, and 0:04:59.000 --> 0:05:02.400 he's sort of exploring why. That is. Another article, it 0:05:02.480 --> 0:05:04.560 was a great article called Memory in the Flesh in 0:05:04.640 --> 0:05:07.559 the Verge by R. L. Do Haim Ross, and also 0:05:07.600 --> 0:05:10.159 a couple of pieces in like two thousand ten and 0:05:10.160 --> 0:05:13.600 two thousand thirteen for the Journal of the American Psychological 0:05:13.640 --> 0:05:17.600 Association by a sociology professor named Larry Stern. That Verge article, 0:05:17.600 --> 0:05:20.320 by the way, from and it's quite a good read. 0:05:20.480 --> 0:05:25.159 Yes it is so. James McConnell was born in Okamalgy, Oklahoma. 0:05:25.320 --> 0:05:28.680 I hope I'm saying that right, Okamalogy or Okmalgy. Yeah, 0:05:28.720 --> 0:05:32.400 And that sounds Oklahoma enough, I think okay uh in nineteen. 0:05:33.600 --> 0:05:36.919 He spent almost all of his professional career on faculty 0:05:37.000 --> 0:05:40.599 at the University of Michigan, beginning in nineteen fifty six 0:05:40.680 --> 0:05:43.359 after he got his PhD from the University of Texas 0:05:43.800 --> 0:05:47.279 and lasting until his retirement in nineteen eighty eight, and 0:05:47.320 --> 0:05:50.280 from the sixties through the eighties he also served as 0:05:50.279 --> 0:05:53.920 a research psychologist at the Mental Health Research Institute of 0:05:53.960 --> 0:05:58.880 the university. So McConnell overall was a very controversial figure 0:05:58.920 --> 0:06:02.040 in American psychology for multiple reasons that we will explore 0:06:02.120 --> 0:06:07.120 throughout these episodes. Widely known as innovative, enthusiastic, humorous, but 0:06:07.240 --> 0:06:12.080 also perhaps as reckless, sometimes un serious, and undisciplined. One 0:06:12.120 --> 0:06:14.560 interesting fact about him that will I think become more 0:06:14.640 --> 0:06:17.520 relevant as we go on is that early on before 0:06:17.600 --> 0:06:19.880 his academic career, he did some work in radio and 0:06:19.960 --> 0:06:24.640 television as a DJ and a scriptwriter before going into psychology, 0:06:24.720 --> 0:06:27.200 and of course this would prove valuable in a career 0:06:27.600 --> 0:06:32.040 as a public science communicator and something of a celebrity scientist. Now, 0:06:32.080 --> 0:06:34.080 apart from the research that we're going to be looking 0:06:34.120 --> 0:06:37.159 at today, I think McConnell was probably best known for 0:06:37.440 --> 0:06:43.360 founding a strange magazine called The Worm Runners Digest. I 0:06:43.680 --> 0:06:48.120 think one major problem many psychologists had with James McConnell 0:06:48.240 --> 0:06:52.200 during his life, UH was typified by the spirit of 0:06:52.200 --> 0:06:56.599 this journal, which published real reports of real scientific research. 0:06:56.640 --> 0:06:59.320 In some ways, it was kind of a clearing house 0:06:59.440 --> 0:07:02.720 for parts of research that wasn't yet in the It 0:07:02.839 --> 0:07:06.120 wasn't yet ready to be submitted to peer reviewed journals. 0:07:06.160 --> 0:07:08.960 So kind of scientists would submit, uh, you know, worm 0:07:09.000 --> 0:07:11.560 training reports and things like that to this as a 0:07:11.760 --> 0:07:15.560 preliminary measure. But then it would publish that real research 0:07:16.160 --> 0:07:20.840 uh and and real manuals for replication, right alongside bizarre 0:07:21.120 --> 0:07:26.160 jokes and poems and cartoons and hoaxes and satirical articles. 0:07:26.720 --> 0:07:29.360 So for a few article titles cited by Larry Stern, 0:07:29.440 --> 0:07:32.280 one is the effects of physical torture on the learning 0:07:32.280 --> 0:07:37.280 and retention of nonsense syllables. One is called operant conditioning 0:07:37.280 --> 0:07:41.600 in the domestic darning needle Spina farrika. So a lot 0:07:41.640 --> 0:07:46.360 of like weird psychology in jokes, sort of jokes about 0:07:46.400 --> 0:07:50.640 the field psychologists trying to write parodies of their own 0:07:50.760 --> 0:07:53.920 research and the and the problems they encountered within their 0:07:53.960 --> 0:07:57.680 sub fields. Okay, okay, that's a very very specific audience 0:07:57.680 --> 0:08:00.760 in mind them. Yes, Larry stern all So writes that 0:08:00.880 --> 0:08:05.480 there were spoofs of Freudian theory, including quote some comments 0:08:05.520 --> 0:08:08.720 on the addition to the theory of psycho sexual development 0:08:08.840 --> 0:08:13.679 by Sigmund Fraud, which introduced the nasal stage occurring between 0:08:13.720 --> 0:08:17.520 the anal and phallic stages, in which the libido quote 0:08:17.560 --> 0:08:20.600 is localized primarily in the mucous linings of the nose, 0:08:21.520 --> 0:08:23.960 which I guess is a strange reminder that, you know, 0:08:24.000 --> 0:08:25.760 in the middle of the twentieth century, I think a 0:08:25.800 --> 0:08:28.440 lot of psychology journals would still be dealing with a 0:08:28.440 --> 0:08:33.360 pretty significant contingent of Freudian trained psychoanalysts. But and I 0:08:33.400 --> 0:08:35.839 figured this would be of special interest to you. Robert 0:08:35.880 --> 0:08:39.360 McConnell actually was also a science fiction writer and a 0:08:39.520 --> 0:08:42.920 charter member of the Science Fiction Writers of America, which 0:08:43.160 --> 0:08:47.000 again I would say probably didn't help his professional reputation. Yes, 0:08:47.040 --> 0:08:49.640 perhaps not uh so from what I could find. His 0:08:49.679 --> 0:08:53.600 sci fi stories also often seemed to be humorous and 0:08:53.800 --> 0:08:56.520 aimed at parody of the fields that he worked in. 0:08:56.600 --> 0:09:00.400 For example, Rilling rites about McConnell's one of mc connell's 0:09:00.440 --> 0:09:04.640 stories called Learning Theory published in nineteen sixty five, and 0:09:04.720 --> 0:09:07.400 in this story quote, McConnell is the protagonist who is 0:09:07.440 --> 0:09:11.160 abducted during the preparation of a lecture on learning theory, 0:09:11.480 --> 0:09:15.280 into an interstellar lab ship to become a subject confined 0:09:15.320 --> 0:09:18.440 to a series of chambers that resembled the skinner box, 0:09:18.679 --> 0:09:21.880 tea maze, and lashly jumping stand. And I had to 0:09:21.880 --> 0:09:24.240 look up that last one. But the lastly jumping stand 0:09:24.320 --> 0:09:27.960 was an apparatus for the study of operant conditioning, and 0:09:27.960 --> 0:09:30.280 it gave a rat an option to jump over a 0:09:30.280 --> 0:09:33.480 gap to two different visual stimuli. One would offer a 0:09:33.559 --> 0:09:35.840 reward and one would cause the rat to fall into 0:09:35.880 --> 0:09:39.000 a net below. Okay, so another just another tool that 0:09:39.120 --> 0:09:42.600 was used in behavioral studies, right, So he's in this story, 0:09:42.679 --> 0:09:46.160 he's writing about himself being put into the studies that 0:09:46.280 --> 0:09:48.880 people were doing on rats in the fifties and I 0:09:48.920 --> 0:09:51.880 guess the sixties. Two. But picking up with Rillings description 0:09:51.920 --> 0:09:54.840 of the story quote. After first behaving according to the 0:09:54.880 --> 0:09:58.680 predictions of learning theory, McConnell realizes that he will be 0:09:58.720 --> 0:10:02.240 returned to ann Arbor if he misbehaves by violating the 0:10:02.280 --> 0:10:05.760 predictions of his captor's theory of learning. McConnell was an 0:10:05.920 --> 0:10:08.600 iconic last and his story is a spoof fun learning 0:10:08.640 --> 0:10:12.480 theory in nineteen sixty. So I think the idea is, uh, 0:10:12.600 --> 0:10:16.800 he's poking fun at the sort of the rain of 0:10:16.880 --> 0:10:21.120 conventional wisdom by saying that if he were a subject 0:10:21.120 --> 0:10:25.400 in alien psychological research, if he didn't confirm their pre 0:10:25.440 --> 0:10:28.280 existing theories, they basically throw him out and say he 0:10:28.320 --> 0:10:32.360 wasn't a valid research subject. Interesting. According to an obituary 0:10:32.400 --> 0:10:35.559 I found by some University of Michigan colleagues, McConnell was 0:10:35.600 --> 0:10:38.960 also a cultivator of orchids, as well as a lover 0:10:39.040 --> 0:10:42.760 of computers and poker, and known by many students for 0:10:42.960 --> 0:10:48.239 quote personal zest to joy in teaching, intellectual animation, infectious enthusiasm, 0:10:48.360 --> 0:10:52.319 and individualized attention that he brought to his classes. Uh 0:10:52.360 --> 0:10:55.559 and Rilling points out that while much of his cannibalistic 0:10:55.679 --> 0:10:58.240 memory transfer work that we're going to be focusing on 0:10:58.760 --> 0:11:02.720 was later considered wrong and misguided, McConnell was actually a 0:11:02.800 --> 0:11:06.920 really important pioneer in research into invertebrate learning and memory, 0:11:07.400 --> 0:11:09.960 and that scientists today should be able to learn from 0:11:10.000 --> 0:11:13.160 both his successes and his failures. Now I want to 0:11:13.160 --> 0:11:15.200 make an admission that I'm afraid I'm going to say 0:11:15.240 --> 0:11:17.480 something wrong in one of these episodes because I keep 0:11:17.559 --> 0:11:22.839 accidentally calling James McConnell Jerry O'Connell, who was not a psychologist. 0:11:22.880 --> 0:11:25.240 He was the guy in Scream Too, and he played 0:11:25.280 --> 0:11:28.800 the football player and Jerry McGuire. No, no, I actually 0:11:28.800 --> 0:11:32.720 haven't seen Jerry McGuire. Um, but you've got some vhs? 0:11:33.000 --> 0:11:35.719 Do I have some VHS tapes? Because I'm I'm saving them. 0:11:35.720 --> 0:11:38.200 I have to contribute them to the pyramid that is 0:11:38.240 --> 0:11:39.880 being built in the desert because we do have to 0:11:39.920 --> 0:11:43.040 return all the Jerry's home. But yes, I have to 0:11:43.040 --> 0:11:45.320 actually have not watched it. Well, you know he was 0:11:45.360 --> 0:11:49.440 like a hunky dude in the nice but no different guy, 0:11:49.520 --> 0:11:52.439 not the actor Jerry O'Connell, James McConnell. So if I say, 0:11:52.520 --> 0:11:54.680 Jerry O'Connell, you've got to reach across the table and 0:11:54.679 --> 0:11:57.800 slap me. Will will you? Will you keep this pledge? Um? 0:11:57.920 --> 0:11:59.440 I don't know if I feel like getting up to 0:11:59.440 --> 0:12:02.800 slap you, but I will try and jump in. Um. So. 0:12:03.040 --> 0:12:06.880 Dr McConnell explores some pretty radical ideas during his career 0:12:07.400 --> 0:12:09.520 you know, one of them will be the primary focus 0:12:09.600 --> 0:12:12.719 for these episodes. But he also later wrote about the 0:12:12.800 --> 0:12:17.160 potential of using behavioral modification on criminals to enable their 0:12:17.200 --> 0:12:20.440 re entry into society yea um. And he thought that 0:12:20.480 --> 0:12:23.959 this might be used to eliminate crime and mental illness altogether. 0:12:24.720 --> 0:12:27.320 There was a lot of enthusiasm in the mid century 0:12:27.400 --> 0:12:30.280 among the behaviorist school of psychology for this kind of 0:12:30.320 --> 0:12:34.680 like society revolutionizing potential of behavior modification. Right, And we 0:12:34.720 --> 0:12:37.160 have to go back to some of these character attributes 0:12:37.200 --> 0:12:39.480 we've touched on already, that he was when he was 0:12:39.520 --> 0:12:42.720 excited about an idea, he was very excited about it 0:12:42.760 --> 0:12:47.400 and infectious with his excitement. And he was something of 0:12:46.760 --> 0:12:50.280 a public figure and would engage is kind of a 0:12:50.280 --> 0:12:54.800 celebrity scientist. He could engage with science on a show 0:12:54.840 --> 0:12:58.720 biz level, not just on a research level, and in 0:12:58.800 --> 0:13:03.479 fact often maybe did so to the detriment of public expectations. 0:13:03.880 --> 0:13:08.360 He was accused by some colleagues of over hyping and 0:13:08.480 --> 0:13:13.120 over interpreting and over speculating from what research existed. So 0:13:13.240 --> 0:13:16.200 it's thought that this is the reason that it is 0:13:16.200 --> 0:13:19.199 particularly some of these ideas that he was pushing in 0:13:19.240 --> 0:13:23.320 this enthusiasm he was pushing regarding the behaviorism that this 0:13:23.360 --> 0:13:26.199 is what attracted the attention of a man by the 0:13:26.280 --> 0:13:30.520 name of Ted Kazinski. Yeah, which most people probably recognize 0:13:30.559 --> 0:13:32.800 that name. If not, you might know him by his moniker, 0:13:32.880 --> 0:13:35.160 the UNI Bomber. We were talking about this before we 0:13:35.200 --> 0:13:37.440 came in. That, Like, I bet a lot of younger 0:13:37.480 --> 0:13:40.320 listeners out there don't even remember the UNI Bomber. I 0:13:40.320 --> 0:13:42.640 remember from when I was very young. I mean, it's 0:13:42.679 --> 0:13:46.000 also easy to only remember, you know, a few pictures 0:13:46.000 --> 0:13:48.480 here and there, Remember that police sketch, and remember like 0:13:48.520 --> 0:13:51.600 a courtroom picture where you know, Kazinski looks, you know, 0:13:51.640 --> 0:13:54.360 completely unhinged, that sort of thing. But yeah, McConnell was 0:13:54.480 --> 0:13:57.920 one of his targets. Kauzinski mailed his tenth bomb to 0:13:58.120 --> 0:14:00.880 Dr McConnell in an assassination at and this was in 0:14:01.040 --> 0:14:04.800 nineteen eighty five. UM he had at that time he 0:14:04.840 --> 0:14:08.720 was working with a graduate student assistant UH named w 0:14:08.880 --> 0:14:13.280 what is Nicholas Sueno, And so they're working together. They 0:14:13.320 --> 0:14:17.440 opened the package and triggered the explosion. Now, thankfully both 0:14:17.480 --> 0:14:21.880 individuals survived with only only minor injuries and mild hearing loss, 0:14:21.920 --> 0:14:24.880 as well as what sounds like some level of PTSD 0:14:25.040 --> 0:14:27.640 based on the experience, which I think is quite understandable. 0:14:28.680 --> 0:14:31.280 But but yeah, just a refresher on the UNI bomber 0:14:31.960 --> 0:14:34.920 for anyone who doesn't know or as a little foggy 0:14:35.440 --> 0:14:40.120 uh Ted Kazinski born in ninety two was a was 0:14:40.160 --> 0:14:44.320 a former mathematics professor and mathematician who took two acts 0:14:44.320 --> 0:14:48.160 of murder and domestic terrorism to advance his manifesto, which 0:14:48.160 --> 0:14:52.280 was titled Industrial Society and its Future, in which he 0:14:52.320 --> 0:14:57.280 heavily criticized his post Industrial Revolution society and he also 0:14:57.320 --> 0:15:01.000 criticized what he referred to as leftist psychology. Yeah, he's 0:15:01.040 --> 0:15:03.560 sometimes he can be kind of hard to pin down 0:15:03.600 --> 0:15:06.000 in terms of his ideology because he doesn't fit with 0:15:06.040 --> 0:15:09.480 a lot of the standard ideological kind of groupings you 0:15:09.560 --> 0:15:13.360 see with mass murderers and terrorists that are motivated by ideology. 0:15:13.400 --> 0:15:16.840 He was more of a kind of idiosyncratic lone wolf terrorist. 0:15:17.840 --> 0:15:21.480 But but he's sometimes referred to as like an anarchist primitivist. 0:15:21.840 --> 0:15:25.880 He wanted people to return to nature and reject modern 0:15:25.920 --> 0:15:30.080 technology and science, right, which I mean, they're they're versions 0:15:30.120 --> 0:15:32.840 of that that of course, that are that many people 0:15:32.840 --> 0:15:35.720 listening to the show might agree with uh, and I 0:15:35.960 --> 0:15:38.160 they wouldn't resort to murder exactly. And I mean that's 0:15:38.200 --> 0:15:41.480 that's the big thing to drive home here, you know. He. Yeah, 0:15:41.480 --> 0:15:45.680 he argued for this nature centric anarchism, and in his 0:15:45.760 --> 0:15:50.239 bombings he targeted individuals involved in modern type mostly individuals 0:15:50.720 --> 0:15:55.680 involved in modern technological advances. And that's why McConnell's work 0:15:55.720 --> 0:15:59.200 is sometimes hard to figure out, like why this attracted 0:15:59.240 --> 0:16:03.000 the attention of Kazinski, because it doesn't quite seem to 0:16:03.000 --> 0:16:05.560 fit the profile at first glance. Yeah. The article I 0:16:05.600 --> 0:16:10.680 was reading by Mark Rilling identifies McConnell's public communication on 0:16:10.720 --> 0:16:15.840 TV and another media about behavior modification use uh, you know, 0:16:15.880 --> 0:16:20.200 in use in criminal justice and and human behavior reform 0:16:20.240 --> 0:16:23.479 at the large scale as the likely culprit in attracting 0:16:23.560 --> 0:16:27.320 Kazinski's hire. Yeah, because Kazinski did criticize modification of the 0:16:27.400 --> 0:16:31.680 human condition, especially behavioral modification, which McConnell had become an 0:16:31.680 --> 0:16:36.400 outspoken proponent of in the media, and Kazinski saw him 0:16:36.520 --> 0:16:40.080 as an advocate of society's attempts to change humans to 0:16:40.120 --> 0:16:44.040 fit the system rather than the reverse. Yeah. Between nineteen 0:16:45.440 --> 0:16:48.840 Kazinski killed three people and injured twenty three. Uh, he 0:16:48.960 --> 0:16:52.400 was the to the target of an intense um search 0:16:53.240 --> 0:16:55.760 for his identity, but finally he was arrested in nineteen 0:16:56.400 --> 0:16:59.440 and remains in prison serving a life term as with 0:16:59.520 --> 0:17:03.600 this record. Yeah, and fortunately both McConnell and and the student, 0:17:03.880 --> 0:17:06.920 so we know survived the Attechnic, and so McConnell lived 0:17:07.400 --> 0:17:10.639 several years after that he passed away in So this 0:17:10.720 --> 0:17:14.159 is just something about just a bizarre aspect of the 0:17:14.200 --> 0:17:18.600 overall story and just certainly a historically noteworthy part of 0:17:18.720 --> 0:17:22.919 McConnell's biography. Uh, that he just ends up, you know, 0:17:23.000 --> 0:17:27.000 wandering into the path of of this individual and becomes 0:17:27.040 --> 0:17:30.440 part of the Kazynski story as well. Yeah, but that's 0:17:30.480 --> 0:17:32.320 not the main part of his life we're going to 0:17:32.400 --> 0:17:35.280 be focusing on in these episodes. We're gonna be looking 0:17:35.320 --> 0:17:39.080 more at his research on memory, and specifically memory research 0:17:39.200 --> 0:17:42.919 with a group of flat worms known as planaria. So 0:17:42.960 --> 0:17:44.800 should we take a quick break and then come back 0:17:44.840 --> 0:17:47.960 to talk about planarians. Yes, let's go ahead and cut 0:17:48.119 --> 0:17:54.280 the episode right here. All right, we're back. So before 0:17:54.280 --> 0:17:57.120 we look at the experiments of James McConnell and colleagues, 0:17:57.160 --> 0:18:00.840 we should meet a major character in this science sentific narrative, 0:18:00.920 --> 0:18:05.160 which is a type of flat worm called planaria. Right now, 0:18:05.200 --> 0:18:10.720 for starters planaria, there is a genus planar area. But 0:18:10.720 --> 0:18:12.879 but but it's not who we're talking about here, is 0:18:12.920 --> 0:18:16.240 not just organisms within that genus. Yeah, it can be 0:18:16.240 --> 0:18:19.400 a little confusing because there are multiple things called planaria. 0:18:19.440 --> 0:18:22.600 Planaria is also used to refer to a larger family 0:18:22.640 --> 0:18:25.480 of related flat worms, and most of the worms that 0:18:25.520 --> 0:18:29.080 are called planarians are outside the genus of Planaria, in 0:18:29.200 --> 0:18:33.480 classes in the class Tubularia or the family Planaria. Day, 0:18:33.520 --> 0:18:37.160 so we're gonna be talking about this broader class of planarians. Yeah, 0:18:37.200 --> 0:18:39.199 the oil. You'll find them living in both fresh and 0:18:39.280 --> 0:18:42.520 salt water. In the water, but also on land. A 0:18:42.640 --> 0:18:46.440 terrestrial planaria are found in the soil or or damp 0:18:46.480 --> 0:18:50.240 areas or humid places. Some are even parasitic, but most 0:18:50.240 --> 0:18:53.800 feed on protozoans, tiny snails and worms, and they mostly 0:18:53.840 --> 0:18:58.920 feed at night. Mostly they're they're soft. They tend to 0:18:58.960 --> 0:19:02.159 be soft leaf shaped creatures that range from three to 0:19:02.240 --> 0:19:06.560 fifteen millimeters, but they can reach longer lengths. They have 0:19:06.840 --> 0:19:10.200 two eyes, and those two eyes are often quite notable 0:19:10.240 --> 0:19:14.200 because they look like googly eyes. Yeah, you've probably seen 0:19:14.240 --> 0:19:17.359 these before in actual photos of these worms zoomed in 0:19:17.640 --> 0:19:21.399 their cross side. Uh. Some some of them have tentacles, 0:19:21.400 --> 0:19:25.159 they have of ventral mouth opening and no body cavity. 0:19:25.240 --> 0:19:28.680 They may swim via undulations or crawl like a slug. 0:19:29.480 --> 0:19:34.159 They're also simultaneous hymaphrodites, having both sexes within a single individual. 0:19:34.640 --> 0:19:37.960 Yet some utilize sexual reproductions and and some utilize a 0:19:38.000 --> 0:19:42.760 sexual reproduction. And of course their legendary for their regenerative powers. Yes, 0:19:42.800 --> 0:19:45.720 and it's these regenerative powers that are gonna play a 0:19:45.760 --> 0:19:49.399 central role in a lot of this research. Uh. And 0:19:49.400 --> 0:19:52.320 it may have played a role in your individual research 0:19:52.359 --> 0:19:55.760 and even science education growing up. Oh sure, yeah maybe, 0:19:55.840 --> 0:19:58.480 I mean so, I mean you could not have a 0:19:58.560 --> 0:20:02.600 planarian highlander situation. You would have a real problem with 0:20:02.760 --> 0:20:06.800 trying to keep a planary in decapitated, that's right. Uh. 0:20:06.840 --> 0:20:09.480 And And to really drive this home, let's talk about 0:20:09.520 --> 0:20:13.760 just how amazing their regenerative powers are. Basically, they can 0:20:13.760 --> 0:20:16.520 be cut in half in each half will form into 0:20:16.600 --> 0:20:20.480 a fully formed individual. In fact, it's been estimated that 0:20:20.520 --> 0:20:23.760 a mere one two hundred and seventy nine of the 0:20:23.880 --> 0:20:28.760 organism can once removed regenerate into a fully formed individual. 0:20:28.800 --> 0:20:32.639 So we're talking total sourcer as apprentice territory here, and 0:20:32.640 --> 0:20:35.560 that's really not an overstatement. Yeah, it would be like, 0:20:35.640 --> 0:20:37.720 you know, if you could chop my finger off and 0:20:37.760 --> 0:20:40.280 it would grow a whole new me. Yeah. Really, And 0:20:40.280 --> 0:20:42.600 that's I mean, that's amazing because we've we've talked on 0:20:42.600 --> 0:20:46.280 the show before about the regenerative powers of of various 0:20:46.359 --> 0:20:49.480 vertebrate organisms. For example, you know, and it's impressive that 0:20:49.520 --> 0:20:52.639 a lizard co jettison its tail and re mostly regrow 0:20:52.720 --> 0:20:55.359 that tail. Things of that nature. Many of the healing 0:20:55.400 --> 0:20:58.960 abilities of even the human body are pretty substantial when 0:20:59.000 --> 0:21:02.480 you really set back in and consider them. But this 0:21:02.600 --> 0:21:06.400 is this is something far beyond most of those examples. Yeah, 0:21:06.400 --> 0:21:09.240 I would say this goes even beyond the impressive examples 0:21:09.280 --> 0:21:13.479 we see in like amphibians, like salamanders. You can even 0:21:13.480 --> 0:21:16.520 cut their head in half kind of like you started 0:21:16.560 --> 0:21:18.840 to cut them in half with a sword and then 0:21:18.880 --> 0:21:21.760 you got bored like around the neck. Uh you can, 0:21:21.840 --> 0:21:24.679 you can, you can cut their head in half and 0:21:24.720 --> 0:21:27.680 then just stop and then they'll they'll develop two heads 0:21:27.720 --> 0:21:30.800 and live that way. In some cases, Uh, they have 0:21:30.920 --> 0:21:33.119 there have been some very interesting experiments in how they 0:21:33.200 --> 0:21:36.760 regenerate in micro gravity as well. For instance, normally a 0:21:36.800 --> 0:21:39.840 two headed planaria is a rare occurrence in nature, but 0:21:39.880 --> 0:21:43.359 in one experiment, space exposed worms were far more likely 0:21:43.440 --> 0:21:45.760 developed a second head, to the tune of one in 0:21:45.880 --> 0:21:49.800 fifteen worms. Uh. In amputating this worm within result in 0:21:50.040 --> 0:21:53.280 more two headed worms. And this is this is just 0:21:53.359 --> 0:21:56.360 one area where you know, there their further study can 0:21:56.400 --> 0:22:00.239 help us understand their biology and you know, to help 0:22:00.320 --> 0:22:03.720 us better understand the effects of micro gravity on an organism. 0:22:03.920 --> 0:22:07.159 But of course their regenerative powers in general continued to 0:22:07.160 --> 0:22:10.400 garner a great deal of research attention. Yeah, I mean 0:22:10.680 --> 0:22:17.800 the medical applications of regenerative biology itself are very important. Yeah. 0:22:17.960 --> 0:22:22.320 Worth noting that Darwin actually observed these amazing creatures as well, uh, 0:22:22.320 --> 0:22:25.480 and their amazing ability. I will read a quick quote 0:22:25.480 --> 0:22:28.960 here from Charles Darwin. Alright, this is from a journal 0:22:28.960 --> 0:22:31.919 of researches into the natural history and geology of the 0:22:31.960 --> 0:22:37.320 countries visited during the voyage of HMS Beagle around the world. Quote. 0:22:37.480 --> 0:22:41.040 Having cut one of them transversely into two nearly equal 0:22:41.080 --> 0:22:43.679 parts in the course of a fortnight, both had the 0:22:43.720 --> 0:22:47.040 shape of perfect animals. I had, however, so divided the 0:22:47.080 --> 0:22:50.320 body that one of the halves contained both the inferior 0:22:50.480 --> 0:22:54.600 orifices and the other in consequence none In the course 0:22:54.640 --> 0:22:57.520 of twenty five days from the operation, the more perfect 0:22:57.560 --> 0:23:00.920 half could not have been distinguished from any other specimen. 0:23:01.359 --> 0:23:03.840 And there's more that you know here, obviously, but that's 0:23:03.840 --> 0:23:07.439 just a taste of his fascination with the organism itself 0:23:07.520 --> 0:23:10.600 sitting in the be goal cutting up worms. And they 0:23:10.720 --> 0:23:13.600 continued to fascinate researches as well. Uh, you know, for 0:23:13.640 --> 0:23:17.040 a number of reasons, um as pointed out by a 0:23:17.200 --> 0:23:22.720 doctor only our pagan author of the first Brain. Uh. 0:23:22.720 --> 0:23:25.040 He pointed this out in a two thousand fourteen interview 0:23:25.040 --> 0:23:29.000