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. And
Speaker 1: unless the calendar is lying to us, this is the
Speaker 1: week of Valentine's Day, that's right, Yeah, which probably means
Speaker 1: different things to different people. Some may For some people,
Speaker 1: it may mean a celebration of the love that I
Speaker 1: am now in. For others, it is perhaps a reminder
Speaker 1: of a past love and uh and brings with a
Speaker 1: certain negative connotations or love that is not yet fully
Speaker 1: manifested in one's life, and then it can be equally problematic.
Speaker 1: Or maybe it's just how in the world am I
Speaker 1: gonna get reservations at a restaurant tonight to uh, to
Speaker 1: satisfy the uh, the significant other in my life? That's right?
Speaker 1: And I think that we've got a podcast that's that's
Speaker 1: gonna cater to some of this, right, But we're not
Speaker 1: talking about it. Well, I don't know. I don't know,
Speaker 1: because we're not talking like, uh, you know, roses and
Speaker 1: kitten farts here, are we? No, we're not. We're talking
Speaker 1: hardcore science and love, right though it is conceivable that
Speaker 1: a scientists could study either um, kitten farts or certainly
Speaker 1: they study flowers. But but yeah, we're we're dealing with
Speaker 1: scientists in love. And it's it's a it's an interesting concept.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's not out of everyone knows. Scientists are
Speaker 1: of course human beings, and they fall in love and
Speaker 1: no matter how nailed down there, they're one part of
Speaker 1: their life. Maybe with with the strict you know, realities
Speaker 1: of science. Uh, they're still subject to this weird human
Speaker 1: emotion that entangles all of us. That's right. And we've
Speaker 1: talked about scientists being that the obsessive kind before, right,
Speaker 1: so it would make sense that scientists and love would
Speaker 1: be super obsessed and too scientists and love doubly so,
Speaker 1: and might even their love might be so crazy and
Speaker 1: strong that it could eventually lead to maybe like the
Speaker 1: a bomb. Yeah, it's like, uh, you know, it's like
Speaker 1: the like love is an alcohol and uh in zeal
Speaker 1: for science is a caffeinated beverage. And then when when
Speaker 1: those two things mix, when they are in the same container,
Speaker 1: as we'll see in two cases, when when scientists are
Speaker 1: in love with each other and share that scientific zeal
Speaker 1: and and a and and this love, it becomes something
Speaker 1: that can potentially give you a heart attack. It's true.
Speaker 1: Right in the club were so specifically we are talking
Speaker 1: about well, first let's talk about the Sagans, that's right.
Speaker 1: The second Carl Sagan and Andrewin. Yes, yes, and they
Speaker 1: had they had a groovy kind of love, Yes, a
Speaker 1: cosmic kind of love. I guess you could say, um
Speaker 1: to uh. To set this in time, we are going
Speaker 1: back to the summer of ninety seven, and that's when
Speaker 1: Carl and a lot of you probably know Carl Sagan
Speaker 1: of course, the host of Cosmos, which you can get
Speaker 1: on you can get it on like Netflix streaming and stuff.
Speaker 1: It's it's still wonderful today. Most of the science still
Speaker 1: holds up. But you know, astronomer, astrophysicist, um, you know,
Speaker 1: cosmologists generally generally was just on the forefront of popularizing
Speaker 1: science and just being a a mascot for for scientific inquiry, right,
Speaker 1: particularly space, particularly space. Yes, and uh. He was involved
Speaker 1: in a little something called the Voyager project, and the
Speaker 1: creative director on this was one and Drew In. Now Voyager.
Speaker 1: You may remember this mostly from the Star Trek movie
Speaker 1: in which a a a fictional Voyager craft comes back superintelligent.
Speaker 1: But of course Voyager we were sending them out and
Speaker 1: they're still sailing out to the limits of of of
Speaker 1: man's discovery and space and uh aboard this particularly two
Speaker 1: particular crafts, Voyager one and Voyiger two, was a Golden Record, which,
Speaker 1: interestingly enough, jad Aban Rod and Robert Korich of Radio
Speaker 1: Lab referred to as quote the ultimate mixtape that's right
Speaker 1: of their love because they collaborated on this school record.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's also like a mix tape, like hey,
Speaker 1: aliens out there, here you go, and maybe we made
Speaker 1: a mixtape for you. But it's also it really represent
Speaker 1: this this bond that was growing between these two and
Speaker 1: this love that was growing between the two between these
Speaker 1: two in the summer of Yeah, I mean, it's literally
Speaker 1: documenting them falling in love and the moment that they
Speaker 1: fell in love in which they chose a specific piece
Speaker 1: of music for it, which is amazing, and it's just
Speaker 1: out there flinging itself into outer space. Yeah. And currently
Speaker 1: Voyager one is one hundred and sixteen point five astronomical
Speaker 1: units from Earth. Just to rewind, an astronomical unit is
Speaker 1: the distance between the Earth and the Sun. So it's
Speaker 1: that distance spread out a hundred and sixteen and a
Speaker 1: half times Voyager two is point two astronomic units from
Speaker 1: the Earth, and these distances continue to increase. And we
Speaker 1: talked about this a little bit in our previous podcast
Speaker 1: about alien etiquette, and the idea, of course of this
Speaker 1: Golden Record is that it would be intercepted and it
Speaker 1: might tell an extraterrestrial life form what life was like.
Speaker 1: I suppose you used to say it was um during
Speaker 1: that time period, because it's going to be out there
Speaker 1: for a while. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, And I think that
Speaker 1: was the sort of the joke to us as well.
Speaker 1: Maybe they intercept this in fo years and then they'll
Speaker 1: be like, I don't even know what this chicken scratches. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's kind of a you know, it's it's kind
Speaker 1: of a time capsule as well. But but it it
Speaker 1: contained the just the record contained spoken greetings in fifty
Speaker 1: nine different languages, ranging from ancient Acadian to Wu, a
Speaker 1: modern Chinese dialect that's not to be confused with anything
Speaker 1: Wu Tang clan or but sadly with the record was
Speaker 1: was pressed and sent out before their genesis, but also
Speaker 1: Sounds of Earth ninety minutes of of selected music from
Speaker 1: both both Eastern and Western classics. Again no Wu tang,
Speaker 1: sadly and uh. Also the sound of a kiss, mother's
Speaker 1: first words to a newborn child, Yeah, baby crying right. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So a vast collection of our human experience, and most
Speaker 1: impressive of all, for the purposes of discussing the love
Speaker 1: between these two scientists of the sound of a heartbeat,
Speaker 1: that's right. What was the idea? Andrew And said, I'd
Speaker 1: like to have my heartbeat recorded, right, and then sort
Speaker 1: of data scrambled later to to sort of map this out.
Speaker 1: Take me down that road, Robert, Yeah, and it's it's
Speaker 1: it's fascinating because because the Sagan and and basically went
Speaker 1: down and had this recording done, like just just shortly
Speaker 1: after they had actually come because they've been professionally aligned
Speaker 1: for a while and they knew each other, they were
Speaker 1: working each other, but this was after they actually reached
Speaker 1: the point where they realized they were in love with
Speaker 1: each other, and and and and and just shortly after
Speaker 1: they had actually spoken about it with each other, and
Speaker 1: then they went and recorded her heartbeat. And now it's
Speaker 1: out there on the plate, and it's it's it's it's beautiful.
Speaker 1: It's the love and the science um intermingling with each other.
Speaker 1: And uh, and you know, maybe it's a little sappy
Speaker 1: if you're if you're not in the mood for it
Speaker 1: this week. But yeah, but there, I mean, there you go.
Speaker 1: You've got this, this incredible collaboration between two people. And
Speaker 1: we should also note to that Carl Sagon was married
Speaker 1: at the time that um he met Andrew and and
Speaker 1: as far as I know, nothing nuts or scandalous went on,
Speaker 1: so to speak. I think he actually declared his love
Speaker 1: for her over the phone after she had talked to
Speaker 1: him about a particular piece of music that they had
Speaker 1: been obsessing over. So it was sort of one of
Speaker 1: those things that I think that he was like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, I'm in love with this person. And then
Speaker 1: of course he dissolved his marriage, his first marriage, So
Speaker 1: I just want to point that out. I think that
Speaker 1: Carl Singgon was a perfect gentleman. I'd like to think that,
Speaker 1: but but I don't know that for sure. And of
Speaker 1: course Sagan died uh sadly in ninety six. But Anne
Speaker 1: continues on continued writing, and she believe currently resides in
Speaker 1: New York, YEP and she actually made a comment to
Speaker 1: for that radio piece saying something about how sometimes when
Speaker 1: she gets a little depressed or you know, nostalgic, thinks
Speaker 1: about the Golden Record and this, this document of their
Speaker 1: love just flung out into outer space can still traveling. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's kind of a beautiful thought. I think so as well. Yeah, so,
Speaker 1: and and it's one of those like grand I mean,
Speaker 1: he didn't do it for Valentine's Day, but you know
Speaker 1: it's it pretty much trumps anything that any of us
Speaker 1: might have us might be scheming for that week. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, helicopter ride. Sorry, Carl's got you beat. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But there's another pair, pretty famous pair that has come
Speaker 1: to white recently because of a book that's been written
Speaker 1: about them. Right though they've of course they've been you know,
Speaker 1: people have been studying the for want that this latest
Speaker 1: book has been really really fascinating, sort of re examining
Speaker 1: their relationship and their contribution to science. Yeah. The book
Speaker 1: is called Radioactive Marie and Pierre Curie by Lauren Redness. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then this just came out I think in December
Speaker 1: two ten. Yeah, followers, and we picked up our copies
Speaker 1: in the last week or two. Yeah, and uh, I
Speaker 1: was I this is a book. I was really not
Speaker 1: sure exactly what to expect um. And we're going to
Speaker 1: come back to the curies, but just to briefe, we're
Speaker 1: gonna talk about this book because I basically heard from
Speaker 1: my wife had heard something about it on the radio
Speaker 1: and she's like, hey, this sounds like there's a really
Speaker 1: cool book about the curious coming out. And the cover
Speaker 1: glows in the dark. There was you. Yeah, I'm like,
Speaker 1: all right, I'm there, you know, I mean I left
Speaker 1: things ago. I'm wearing glow in the dark shirt right now. Yeah. Uh,
Speaker 1: and we always record the podcast in complete darkness. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: which sometimes the candle well yeah, we have to see
Speaker 1: the notes and we only use extremely flammable paper, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: it makes sense. But but but anyway, this book, so
Speaker 1: I get it in right and it's you know, it's
Speaker 1: a large, hard bound book, and sure enough, the cover
Speaker 1: glows in the dark, but it is it's it's kind
Speaker 1: of hard to describe because it's not really one might
Speaker 1: be tempted to talk about it as a graphic novel,
Speaker 1: but it was that was my initial impression. But generally speaking,
Speaker 1: graphic graphic novels are more a case of sequential art,
Speaker 1: where you're having a little little boxes or large boxes
Speaker 1: of of images that tell a story. Um, and this
Speaker 1: is more I guess I would tend to think of
Speaker 1: this as an like an illuminated manuscript or a or
Speaker 1: just an illustrated biography. But it's not even even calling
Speaker 1: it a biography. It's not really accurate. No. In fact,
Speaker 1: I heard an interview on MPR with the author of
Speaker 1: Laura read Nous, and uh, the the interviewer has had
Speaker 1: actually made this um observation that he thought that it
Speaker 1: was more like sort of eliminated manuscript or journal like this,
Speaker 1: this imagined journal. Yeah, there of what might be Marie
Speaker 1: and pre curious experiences. It's kind of scrap bookie. And
Speaker 1: I say that in like the absolute best connotation, Like
Speaker 1: we're not talking Etsy here, We're talking science scrap bookie,
Speaker 1: if it makes any sense. But the reason that we're
Speaker 1: getting so excited about this is because Laura Redness really
Speaker 1: put a tremendous amount of research into this book. So
Speaker 1: she's looking at the trajectory of Marie and Pierre curious relationship,
Speaker 1: which is really the heart of this book and is
Speaker 1: interesting in and of itself, but she's also looking at
Speaker 1: UM what their discoveries UH bore out for us as
Speaker 1: humanity and UM. And she's also looking at the future
Speaker 1: generations of the curious and what they contribute or what
Speaker 1: their contributions were as well. So I mean she she
Speaker 1: went to great lengths really to mind a lot of
Speaker 1: information of this book. I think we should stop for
Speaker 1: a second, just for anybody listening out there is not
Speaker 1: really familiar with the curious or refresher UM. Marie Cury
Speaker 1: was born Marie Scouldwowski sculd Bwoska sounds good in warsaw
Speaker 1: poland um back in, I believe. And she went on
Speaker 1: to marry physics professor Purre Cury in uh Pierre Curry,
Speaker 1: sorry inn and the two dove into research together like
Speaker 1: this is again it's like the the the deal with
Speaker 1: with with Carl and Ann. They were they were both
Speaker 1: just really under their work, and suddenly they had they
Speaker 1: had the chance to be together too, and they fell
Speaker 1: in love and they threw themselves at the same research, right,
Speaker 1: And actually, let's just go with that, because I think
Speaker 1: it's interesting to point out that Marie Curie, who was
Speaker 1: really Maria, she changed her name to Marie Um when
Speaker 1: she was in Paris. But she was one of very
Speaker 1: few obviously women students at Sorbonne, and she was the
Speaker 1: first to get her PhD in science and I believe
Speaker 1: the first to become a professor there. Yes, and she
Speaker 1: was appointed after her husband's death. And she won not one,
Speaker 1: but two Nobel Prizes. Yeah, so first woman to win
Speaker 1: a Nobel prize, first person to win two alongside Pierre.
Speaker 1: So what I'm the reason why I think that's important
Speaker 1: is because these are incredible circumstances for this woman to
Speaker 1: be in. And the fact of the matter is she
Speaker 1: meant Pierre because she just needed some extra lab space.
Speaker 1: So someone was like, oh, you should check out the sky.
Speaker 1: He's got some extra space. You know, you could probably
Speaker 1: use it. So what happens, obviously, is they come together
Speaker 1: and they find that they are both the most hardcore
Speaker 1: science researchers that they know that exists, and that really
Speaker 1: bonds them. So they have this I don't know that
Speaker 1: I would call it a passionate sort of love. I
Speaker 1: don't know that we know that, but we know that
Speaker 1: they're passionate about their research and this really bonds them together. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: they become like a just just a team of effort,
Speaker 1: you know, and and uh and and what did they accomplish? Well, Okay,
Speaker 1: at the first Nobel prize I had to do with
Speaker 1: her with their isolation of polonium, which is a radio
Speaker 1: active elopment named Bymary for hooland her home contry. And
Speaker 1: uh and also radium, another radioactive element, and the one
Speaker 1: that was far more noteworthy, and we discussed a little
Speaker 1: more and she named that one that has the Latin
Speaker 1: for light, I believe. And then the second one was
Speaker 1: for actually her her inquiry into radioactivity and the fact
Speaker 1: that she even discovered that their elements could be radioactive. Right,
Speaker 1: So this book is about these two people coming together
Speaker 1: about the the thoroughly non scientific things in their lives
Speaker 1: that led them to each other. Like she fell in
Speaker 1: love with a with a noble um and son, as
Speaker 1: I remember, and he was too good for her according
Speaker 1: to the family, so it was heartbreak. And then he
Speaker 1: had another situation with where he was in love with
Speaker 1: someone and it just was not meant to be, you know, right,
Speaker 1: So they had both experienced heartache and when they found
Speaker 1: each other, um, I think that I obviously drawn to
Speaker 1: each other because of their love of science. But Marie
Speaker 1: also says, in the as told by Laura Redness in
Speaker 1: the book, he caught the habit of speaking to me
Speaker 1: in his dream of an existence consecrated entirely to scientific research,
Speaker 1: and asked me to share that life. So that, again,
Speaker 1: is unusual to have this pair of people, um at
Speaker 1: that time period saying okay, let's just throw all caution
Speaker 1: to the wind. We'll get married or research like we've
Speaker 1: never researched in our life. Maybe we'll have kids. The
Speaker 1: kids don't matter in the sense that you'll still research,
Speaker 1: and then they'll research too. That's right, create the little researchers.
Speaker 1: And so again that's that the was a not something
Speaker 1: that was commonly thought. Then it was you get married,
Speaker 1: you raised the children. Um, you know, I'll come home
Speaker 1: and you make me some you know, roast beef. Right.
Speaker 1: And she was still doing that, and she was doing
Speaker 1: the science. I mean she was she was going to
Speaker 1: the lab with him and working, but but also raising kids, cooking. Um.
Speaker 1: So the great thing about Redness is book. I mean,
Speaker 1: aside from just being beautiful to look through, I mean,
Speaker 1: the illustrations are magnificent, is that she weaves this the
Speaker 1: emerging love of the curious with the emergence of this science,
Speaker 1: of this fascinating science of radioactivity, right because radium and
Speaker 1: plonium by themselves is kind of like okay, yeah, all right,
Speaker 1: so there's the elements, but what what's what does that
Speaker 1: mean to our society today? Well, tremendous amount. And at
Speaker 1: the time that you really had this, especially with radium,
Speaker 1: there was just radium zeal. They really took off and
Speaker 1: uh and Redness discusses this at length in the book.
Speaker 1: And because it was a time, it's like, I think
Speaker 1: back to any time where we've developed a new technology, um,
Speaker 1: like when electricity was first becoming a thing and in
Speaker 1: the utilization of electricity in our lives, like people were
Speaker 1: tremendously excited about it, and you know, like you know,
Speaker 1: Tesla and Edison are doing all this stuff. It's like,
Speaker 1: let's let's show it off. Let's do it. Let's electrocute
Speaker 1: an elephant's electricating himself. Yeah, like electurting himself. And there
Speaker 1: was there was some fascinating talk in the time where
Speaker 1: people were discussing using electricity to execute criminals and some
Speaker 1: people were actually speaking up and saying this is just
Speaker 1: this is blasphemous because electricity is this holy, blameless creature
Speaker 1: and and you you you can't use that to kill
Speaker 1: a criminal. That's just that's what. That's horrible. How could
Speaker 1: it light up my life and allow me to to
Speaker 1: stay up late and kill a criminal or Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: just completely ridiculous. This presentation is brought to you by
Speaker 1: Intel Sponsors of Tomorrow. So you see, and you we
Speaker 1: end up seeing the same thing with radium today. You
Speaker 1: continue to to see. Anytime there's like any kind of
Speaker 1: new science, you can guarantee somebody out there is going
Speaker 1: to try and market something to make a buck off
Speaker 1: of it. And with radium at the time, it was
Speaker 1: it was really kind of crazy. Um. And we should
Speaker 1: also point out that the reason that this happened that
Speaker 1: radium sort of went nuts is that Marie and pre
Speaker 1: Cure decided not to patent radium because they thought, well, no,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, it's only gonna be a handful
Speaker 1: of scientist that really need to use it. We don't
Speaker 1: need to patent u. Yeah, and they were like and
Speaker 1: then they were like, this is a totally beneficial thing.
Speaker 1: A lot of great stuff is going to come out
Speaker 1: of this, and it just wouldn't be in the spirit
Speaker 1: of what we're doing. So along come the all these
Speaker 1: radioactive quack cures. Um. Just to just to run through.
Speaker 1: I feel like there were a lot of radium water
Speaker 1: jars where you just filled up with water and then
Speaker 1: you could have radium in your drinking water. Radioactive drinking water.
Speaker 1: It seems like a good idea at the time, right, Um,
Speaker 1: And it would there were there were rather far more
Speaker 1: questionable items such as suppositories. Again we're talking about real
Speaker 1: radium in this pository. Yeah, actual radioactive elements, uh, in
Speaker 1: a person's rectum for medicinal purposes. You can get radioactive toothpaste. Um. Again,
Speaker 1: it's just you could get these these radioactive plates to
Speaker 1: put in your cigarette package cigarette. At the at the time,
Speaker 1: it's like if you thought, oh, the cigarettes aren't good
Speaker 1: enough for me, now that let me add some radioactivity
Speaker 1: to that, just to just to boost the health actor
Speaker 1: or a little. Um. There were a refrigerator, freezer deodorizers. Uh.
Speaker 1: There you could get a flask you could radiate all
Speaker 1: your food in the freezer. Is that when I'm here? Right? Yeah?
Speaker 1: And and I mean it just went on and on
Speaker 1: and and and then on top of that, at the time,
Speaker 1: again everybody's willing to rate radium was a expensive and
Speaker 1: and and all this hope was wrapped up in it.
Speaker 1: The stuff is going to change the world, um. And
Speaker 1: and so for a brief time before the dark attributes
Speaker 1: of radium became fully known, it uh, it became like
Speaker 1: like like if you had had a if you had
Speaker 1: like a credit card back in the early nineteen hundreds,
Speaker 1: platinum or a gold, neither of those would have been
Speaker 1: your higher in card. No, you would want a radium
Speaker 1: card because you had it. Yeah, you had a number
Speaker 1: of these different radium branded products that were not in
Speaker 1: them in and of themselves radioactive. But you had like
Speaker 1: radium beer, you had radium nut x condoms, um, you
Speaker 1: had radium playing cards, radium cigarettes. Uh, you know, the
Speaker 1: list just goes on. So this is like when I
Speaker 1: see products in the store and that says all natural
Speaker 1: organic and they actually that's sort of like the greenwashing,
Speaker 1: they may not be radium washing. Yeah. Wow. So that's
Speaker 1: that was a crazy um amount of fervor around something
Speaker 1: like that. Yeah, And of course it was not meant
Speaker 1: to last. And that's one of against something that's beautifully
Speaker 1: woven into this text because it kind of I mean,
Speaker 1: it does parallel so often our stories of love where
Speaker 1: where love blooms and is awesome, but then they're either
Speaker 1: love faulters or it is complicated by other things, and
Speaker 1: it maybe it's maybe it doesn't fail, but it is
Speaker 1: forced to become a more realistic beast, you know, the
Speaker 1: half life it is stabilizes exactly nice. So what I
Speaker 1: think is interesting about this too is that you know,
Speaker 1: obviously Pierre and Marie didn't really understand how um dangerous
Speaker 1: it was to be handling this in the first place anyway.
Speaker 1: And the boy were they handling it? Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: they were. They were tossing it around at dinner parties, right. Uh.
Speaker 1: Marie had a little bar in a jar next to
Speaker 1: her bed that would you know, illuminate blue at night,
Speaker 1: which I'm sure was quite pretty. And and then there's
Speaker 1: also this uh, this case to where um it was,
Speaker 1: And Pierre goes into the United Kingdom's Royal Institution and
Speaker 1: there are all these guys, they're scientists from all over
Speaker 1: and he rolls up his sleeve to show a burn
Speaker 1: on his arm, or what looks like a burn off
Speaker 1: to everybody. And this is a wound that had been
Speaker 1: caused by radium salts which he had taped to the
Speaker 1: skin um for just ten hours fifty days earlier. The
Speaker 1: wound was still there. And while he's doing this, he
Speaker 1: ends up spilling some of the salts that he's showing
Speaker 1: off the table and the the the resulting contamination of
Speaker 1: the table was still detectable and in need of cleaning
Speaker 1: up like fifty years later. So and and you know,
Speaker 1: when we're saying it the way we're presenting it, it it
Speaker 1: probably it comes off a little weird and a little
Speaker 1: bizarre and maybe a little funny. But the way Redness
Speaker 1: presents it, I mean you really, she presents these two
Speaker 1: human beings and that are engaged in this thing they
Speaker 1: really care about in er enter, engaged in this relationship,
Speaker 1: and they keep they keep dealing with this dangerous stuff
Speaker 1: and they're getting they're getting more and more sick. It's
Speaker 1: having an effect on their bodies and their their well being,
Speaker 1: and they realize it on some level, but they she's
Speaker 1: still sleeping. They can't stop themselves. Like I was telling
Speaker 1: you earlier, it reminds me of of stories you hear
Speaker 1: about people that are in an abusive relationship and they
Speaker 1: can't They know that it's it's a bad relationship, but
Speaker 1: that they can't break themselves away from it because they're
Speaker 1: they're tied to it, they're obsessed with it. And that's
Speaker 1: that's the the way redness really presents it here, that
Speaker 1: that they they're they're so obsessed with the scientific discovery
Speaker 1: that they're working with it, they can't they can't separate
Speaker 1: themselves enough from it too to save themselves. Well, and
Speaker 1: I think it's because it's that quest for knowledge. They
Speaker 1: know there's there's more potential than they realize, and in
Speaker 1: fact they yeah, I mean they start to say, okay, well,
Speaker 1: if if this is killing healthy cells, maybe it can
Speaker 1: kill diseased cells, and therefore it could be used in radiations. Right,
Speaker 1: And after they had worked with they figured out ways
Speaker 1: that what would become X rays where it can be
Speaker 1: used to figure out what You don't have to cut
Speaker 1: into a limb to see what's going on with the bones,
Speaker 1: you can you can we kind of it's easy to
Speaker 1: overlook that today just how helpful uh an X ray is? Right, So, yeah,
Speaker 1: you've got you've got these two people completely obsessed with us,
Speaker 1: completely obsessed with the process, and you know, Rediness does
Speaker 1: do a great job of weaving what becomes that story
Speaker 1: of radiation, right. So what happens is that you know,
Speaker 1: they're playing around with it. They they have um a
Speaker 1: couple of daughters, Irene and Eve. And I'm jumping ahead
Speaker 1: a little bit because there's a lot of stuff that
Speaker 1: happens in marine Pierre Pierre Curie's life. But what happens
Speaker 1: is that Irene begins to study radium as well, and
Speaker 1: Mary's a scientist Frederick and they actually create artificial radioactivity,
Speaker 1: which is to say that they can take an element
Speaker 1: and make it radioactive. And then you begin to see
Speaker 1: that this is this is information that's being um relayed
Speaker 1: from one generation to another. And it makes me think
Speaker 1: about our past podcast about tool users and even about
Speaker 1: computer viruses, where we talk about how the human is
Speaker 1: just essentially a host for information, host for for technology,
Speaker 1: and that we're just they're just replicating it based on us.
Speaker 1: And that really is evident, I think, in this connection
Speaker 1: between the generations here, right, and and also like we're
Speaker 1: talking about that the optimism for for radium and all
Speaker 1: things radioactive, that optimism beginning to to to fall for
Speaker 1: a little and maybe become well, definitely become a lot
Speaker 1: more realistic. And part of that was realizing, whoa, that
Speaker 1: the Curries are getting really ill. But also when people
Speaker 1: were suddenly realizing, hey, we can we can make weapons
Speaker 1: out of this um not not only does there's certain
Speaker 1: negative health things going on here, but but we could
Speaker 1: make a bomb. Yeah, that's right. Is Einstein actually who
Speaker 1: who's looking at the situation and looking at the discoveries
Speaker 1: of the two generations and sends out a missive to
Speaker 1: FDR saying, hey, we we probably need to get behind us.
Speaker 1: The Germans are working on it. Yeah. So again it's
Speaker 1: like this very interesting in traductory between like the relationships
Speaker 1: and how the relationships are bearing out science, which you
Speaker 1: know implicates all of us really when you look at it. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The book also goes it goes a lot into like
Speaker 1: it'll it'll deal with the curies and the nodile flash
Speaker 1: forward to Robert Oppenheimer, um, you know, contemplating uh, nuclear weapons,
Speaker 1: or it will it will skip to Hiroshima or m
Speaker 1: or three mile three mile island and in the noddle
Speaker 1: it back to the curies. So it it jumps around
Speaker 1: in time, A little man gives you this complete picture
Speaker 1: of of of what they're working on and what it's
Speaker 1: ultimately going to become. Uh, the the atomic tests in
Speaker 1: Nevada and the and just like I was not aware
Speaker 1: before reading this that anyone ever had a mushroom clop
Speaker 1: party where you would go out and have like a
Speaker 1: barbecue and I mean not close up but like the
Speaker 1: distant smoke. Right yeahar in Las Vegas this was a
Speaker 1: big deal, right whatever the years between nineteen and nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty three that you would have a mushroom club party,
Speaker 1: I guess until they went underground and started detonating there. Um,
Speaker 1: but yeah, you see that picture, you see the you
Speaker 1: see Radium sort of being born and being teased into
Speaker 1: this other, this other thing that becomes this other thing
Speaker 1: that becomes the a bomb, just as you see Iren
Speaker 1: being born and having this relationship in furthering that technology
Speaker 1: and then having she and her husband having another child,
Speaker 1: which is the great grandchild or excuse me, the a
Speaker 1: child of Murray who becomes a nuclear physicist. Of course. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, the book does, as you say, jump around,
Speaker 1: but you keep going back to that story of Marie
Speaker 1: specifically sort of suffering for her knowledge in a sense. Um.
Speaker 1: And you look at how she and Pierre detailed the
Speaker 1: accounts of their own decline. Marie more so because Pierre
Speaker 1: was killed. Um, he had untimely death. He was killed
Speaker 1: in nineteen o six, I believe. Yeah, he was run
Speaker 1: over by a carriage carrying thirteen thousand tons of military gear.
Speaker 1: Was bal part. Yeah. Um. But Marie at the end
Speaker 1: of her life, when she was very, very sick, and
Speaker 1: she died from a classic anemia, which is of course
Speaker 1: caused by that radiation, she ch unicled her deterioration and
Speaker 1: data columns with entries on her body temperature, her color,
Speaker 1: her urine discharged and pus and she tracked her level
Speaker 1: of pain. I mean, it's just so interesting that even
Speaker 1: at the very end of her life that she's sort
Speaker 1: of handling it the only way that she knows, County,
Speaker 1: which is to make it into data that she can
Speaker 1: try to understand. Um. But you know, that's that's the
Speaker 1: interesting thing about this is it's the slow death of herself,
Speaker 1: and even Irene and Frederick, her daughter and son in law,
Speaker 1: are exposed to radiation and also getting ill as well. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's uh again, it's it's a really powerful book. I
Speaker 1: I fin it, actually read the second half of it
Speaker 1: last night before going to sleep, and so I just
Speaker 1: I had all these dreams where where somebody was testing,
Speaker 1: like testing nuclear weapons on a college campus, and I'm
Speaker 1: when I was getting like really because they were doing
Speaker 1: some sort in the dream, they were doing some sort
Speaker 1: of like war game, and I just was so angry.
Speaker 1: I was like, why are you doing this? This is
Speaker 1: so destructive to all of us, And don't you know
Speaker 1: that now I'm going to deal with the zombies after
Speaker 1: the apocalypse and treat to a mall now I know.
Speaker 1: Luckily the zombies didn't show up in the dream, but
Speaker 1: that's good, I think. Though. Again, looking back at their accomplishments,
Speaker 1: you just have to look at how amazing it is
Speaker 1: that they took four years of their lives just specifically
Speaker 1: for radon excuse me radium. Um, it's grueling work. They
Speaker 1: are in a shed in Paris, they had forty tons
Speaker 1: of corrosive materials to go through to extract just one
Speaker 1: tenth of a gram of radium. And the reason they
Speaker 1: had to do this because they had to prove that
Speaker 1: it physically existed, because just to say you know, Okay,
Speaker 1: well we've we found this and to try to get
Speaker 1: this published, the scientific community wasn't necessarily gonna um take
Speaker 1: that at face value, right, so they think about all
Speaker 1: that exposure in that time, going through a heat pile
Speaker 1: of corrosive materials kind of creepy. So anyway, it's, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, we're we're not being bribed to say this,
Speaker 1: but it's a great book. So if you if you're
Speaker 1: interested in a an atypical science uh book, pick it
Speaker 1: up if you want to want to read, if you're
Speaker 1: you want to read a romance that has science in
Speaker 1: it and and also a store a story of science,
Speaker 1: tific advancement and all the complications that come with it
Speaker 1: in human culture. Uh, It's it's a really good read.
Speaker 1: Also would make for a pretty cool Valentine's Day gift
Speaker 1: if you that that other person in your life is
Speaker 1: uh is interested in science at all. And I would say,
Speaker 1: even it sort of extends beyond that. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: it's about humanity, right, Yeah, it's that. It's it's bigger
Speaker 1: than just mere romance. Yeah. And I don't mean to
Speaker 1: get all goofy here, but I admit that I had
Speaker 1: like a tier yeah at my kitchen table. And it
Speaker 1: wasn't the love story part of it. I was just like, Wow,
Speaker 1: she did a great job and really capturing, um what
Speaker 1: science means to us, I think on an individual level. Yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah it is. Yeah, it's a great book. Right, enough
Speaker 1: with my earnest exclamations, Robert, take us on home. Okay, uh, yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: I believe we have a little listener mail here. Okay,
Speaker 1: we have have one here from a listener by the
Speaker 1: name of Peter, and he writes in Julian Robert regarding
Speaker 1: the future of pain podcast. First of all, what is
Speaker 1: an Indian burn? I grew up with three boisterous brothers,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure that we tortured each other in various ways,
Speaker 1: but I've never heard this particular infliction of paint. Um,
Speaker 1: do you want to answer that? When in the doing
Speaker 1: burnus it's when you take someone's arm, for instance, and
Speaker 1: you put both of your hands on and then you
Speaker 1: twist in opposite directions until This is my understanding of that.
Speaker 1: Other people may have other variations, but you do it.
Speaker 1: This is my John my brother method. Um, until your
Speaker 1: skinny hands raw and hurts a lot. Okay, alright, So anyway, Uh, Peter,
Speaker 1: there you go, and I don't know the atymology, haven't
Speaker 1: a matter. Yeah, I don't think it's actually Native American
Speaker 1: or air vedic in uh in its origins. Anyway, Peter continues, However,
Speaker 1: my bigger question is whether this is an approbo when
Speaker 1: he goes on to ask about the racial and ethical references.
Speaker 1: So there he goes, that's our answer to Probably doesn't.
Speaker 1: But anyway, his main point is, I want to come
Speaker 1: back to the new anesthetic technique called continuous peripheral nerve block.
Speaker 1: In two thousand nine, I was in a truly horrific
Speaker 1: head on car crash caused by a drunk driver, resulting
Speaker 1: in severe trauma and burns. I was hopped to hospitalize
Speaker 1: for five months, and I am truly grateful for pain
Speaker 1: management with opiates. These drugs certainly made me somewhat loopy
Speaker 1: and confused, but I wouldn't call it a high. Even so,
Speaker 1: these side effects may may have been been side effects,
Speaker 1: may have been beneficial. In retrospect, I think that it
Speaker 1: was helpful to only gradually become conscious and cognitive of
Speaker 1: my permanent injuries if my physical discomfort had been controlled
Speaker 1: in such a way that my thoughts were clear and present.
Speaker 1: I think that I would have been pained and traumatized
Speaker 1: in other ways. It was difficult enough to accept my
Speaker 1: missing fingers and toes, large areas of grafted skin, and
Speaker 1: generally shattered existence. In addition, I was essentially immobilized on
Speaker 1: my back for three months in the narcotic effect of
Speaker 1: oxycotton and other medications certainly made this miserable time more tolerable. Fortunately,
Speaker 1: as I have continued to recover, I am not in
Speaker 1: any constant pain or or even in any significant intermitted pain.
Speaker 1: I have learned to walk again, and I am composing
Speaker 1: this message with voice recognition software, and I'm working halftime
Speaker 1: in my profession. I do have some long term side
Speaker 1: effects from the extended period on opiates, such as chronic
Speaker 1: difficulties sleeping sleeping, but no addictions. Opiates were definitely worth it.
Speaker 1: I'm a regular listener. Thanks for the great podcast, so
Speaker 1: h Peter, thanks for writing in that was the The
Speaker 1: nerve blocking technique is something we've discussed as well as
Speaker 1: the use of opiates, so it's it's really nice to
Speaker 1: have some listener feedback on how this actually affects one's
Speaker 1: live Yeah, and We're glad that you're doing well as well.
Speaker 1: So yeah, thank you for listening. So, hey, if you
Speaker 1: have anything that you would like to share with us,
Speaker 1: one place you can find us is Facebook, the other's Twitter.
Speaker 1: On both of those we are Blow the Mind. And hey,
Speaker 1: I actually have a correction within this podcast right now,
Speaker 1: right here, and that is that I've been referring to
Speaker 1: Lauren Redness as Laura. So Lauren, my apologies and if
Speaker 1: you'd like to email us, please do so at Blow
Speaker 1: the Mind at how stuff works dot com. For more
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com. To learn more about the podcast, click
Speaker 1: on the podcast icon in the upper right corner of
Speaker 1: our homepage. The how Stuff Works iPhone app has a ride.
Speaker 1: Download it today on iTunes