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Speaker 1: M hey, everybody, Chuck here and welcome to another Saturday

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Speaker 1: Select Stuff You Should Know episode where Josh and I

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Speaker 1: take turns picking from the classics of some of our

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Speaker 1: favorite episodes. Because some of you may not know that

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Speaker 1: there are far more than three episodes that you see

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Speaker 1: at Apple Podcasts. We have over a thousand, so you

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Speaker 1: dig into the archives. And my pick this week is

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Speaker 1: from July two thousand fourteen. Is brain size related to intelligence?

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Speaker 1: I just remember loving this one. Super fascinated about the brain,

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Speaker 1: as is Josh. It's one of our one of our

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Speaker 1: favorite organs, to be honest, and how it relates to

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Speaker 1: intelligence is pretty interesting. So we get into all that

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Speaker 1: in this episode. Please to enjoy right now, Welcome to

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Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works dot com.

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Speaker 1: M hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark

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Speaker 1: and there's Charles W Chuck Bryant, and this is Stuff

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Speaker 1: you Should Know. Yes, I think this might complete our brain.

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Speaker 1: I don't know about that, because we've done Einstein's brain,

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Speaker 1: done difference between men and women's brains, and now we're

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Speaker 1: tackling brain size, which is sort of puts on both

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Speaker 1: of us a little bit. It does, but there's always

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Speaker 1: new findings. So yeah, that's what I'm saying. Now, if

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Speaker 1: there's ever an ongoing sweet, it's got to be the

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Speaker 1: brain man there. It's growing all the time, it's changing shape,

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Speaker 1: changing size, changing connections. You can almost say that sweet

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Speaker 1: is plastic plasticity. Baby. Yeah, that's right. Um, you sent

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Speaker 1: me something that I think we should talk about first, Chuck.

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Speaker 1: This is kind of like, um, this is just like

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Speaker 1: a grab bag hodgepodge of loosely related studies that all

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Speaker 1: find that we don't really know the answer to the

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Speaker 1: question like does big brain mean a smarter person? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: because there's a lot of different conflicting findings. Well, a

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Speaker 1: few million years ago, our brains started growing a lot,

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Speaker 1: and that kind of timed out with becoming smarter and

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Speaker 1: using tools and things. So I mean there's a little

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Speaker 1: bit of you call it evidence. Well, yeah, there's definitely

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Speaker 1: some plenty of evidence. I think that's what the confounding

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Speaker 1: part is that there's plenty of evidence that yes, as

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Speaker 1: a brain grows, it is correlated to intelligence. But then

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Speaker 1: that's only holding true up to a point. I sounded

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Speaker 1: like a Soviet immigrant. Just then that's only holding true

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Speaker 1: up to a certain point. A. Right, he's in Branson, Missouri, though,

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Speaker 1: did you know that. I think he's got like his

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Speaker 1: own restaurant or something. Well, he's own theater, and I

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Speaker 1: think all the theaters are food buttery. We should go

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Speaker 1: to Branson, man that I want to see what that

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Speaker 1: place is all about. Okay, you know, yeah, I mean

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Speaker 1: it's a parade of stars. If it's nineteen seventy three,

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Speaker 1: you know. Uh yeah, I bet your boy Ronnie mills

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Speaker 1: Up is there. Yeah, if he doesn't have a place there,

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Speaker 1: I'll bet he plays Branson fairly regularly. He sublets he

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Speaker 1: would play well there. Um, so Branson, how do we

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Speaker 1: even get them? Oh? Yeah? So brain size does correlate

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Speaker 1: to intelligence to a certain extent. But you can point

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Speaker 1: out like, well, sperm whale has a seventeen pound brain.

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Speaker 1: Holy cow, it must be the smartest animal on the planet.

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Speaker 1: Well it's not. I'm sorry to tell you sperm whale

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Speaker 1: fans that it's not the smartest animal on the planet.

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Speaker 1: Humans are the smartest animal on the planet, and don't

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Speaker 1: you forget it. But we don't have the largest brains,

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Speaker 1: so you kind of take that idea of Okay, Well,

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Speaker 1: if it's not brain size. Maybe it has to do

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Speaker 1: with the size of your brain in relation to your body.

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Speaker 1: Then we start to get a little closer to jack pot.

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Speaker 1: But even still, I just want to I want to

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Speaker 1: spoil it for everybody. There's no definitive answer. Yeah, but

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Speaker 1: sometimes those are the best ones because we get to

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Speaker 1: explore all this stuff and we can't really get anything

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Speaker 1: wrong because nobody knows what's right. Oh I like this,

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Speaker 1: then yeah, I've turned you know these Yeah, Now now

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Speaker 1: I feel good about this because I can't be wrong

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Speaker 1: right exactly. Well, I guess we should start off with

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Speaker 1: um a little bit about what determines what size brain

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Speaker 1: you do have. And again they don't know everything about it,

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Speaker 1: but they think that genetics plays apart. They know this

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Speaker 1: in part by studying twins and identical twins. Um have,

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Speaker 1: of course the same genes. Fraternal twins have about half

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Speaker 1: the same genes, and there's a greater correlation in brain

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Speaker 1: size if you're identical then fraternal. Yeah, so genetics, you know,

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Speaker 1: looks like it probably plays a role. Yeah, And they've

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Speaker 1: done a lot of exploration into what genes in particular

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Speaker 1: have to do with brain size, and they've isolated a

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Speaker 1: few um one is called beta catenin. There's a hyphen

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Speaker 1: in there too. It's pretty flashy. Gene not beta carotene,

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Speaker 1: no caten in. And who's who's coming up with the

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Speaker 1: naming convention for genes? They are all over the place,

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Speaker 1: Like you can't look at the name of a gene

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Speaker 1: and be like, that's obviously a gene unless there's like

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Speaker 1: a couple of weird consonants and a number and then

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Speaker 1: another consonant. Then you're like, well, that's a gene. But

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Speaker 1: you're right, that's a gene. It is a gene, and

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Speaker 1: it's a gene that they know controls brain growth because

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Speaker 1: they've injected poor mice with this stuff until their heads exploded.

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Speaker 1: Exactly their heads they fell short of exploding, but a

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Speaker 1: lot of the mice died as a result of their

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Speaker 1: heads growing too big. But they're there. Their brains grew big,

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Speaker 1: and as a result of their brains growing big, they

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Speaker 1: exhibited um more intelligence, higher cognitive function. They injected these

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Speaker 1: things with a gene proteins your brain. That, yeah, that

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Speaker 1: made them smarter. Yeah, but that, like Molly points out

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Speaker 1: in this article, you can't. That doesn't mean we should

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Speaker 1: start doing that because these mice are dying, so you

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Speaker 1: can't just you can't play god as they say, no,

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Speaker 1: but it does make you wonder, like, Okay, you don't

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Speaker 1: want to shoot up beta cat and in like before

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Speaker 1: the S A T S or anything like that, but like,

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Speaker 1: is there a way to kind of tamper a little

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Speaker 1: less but still tamper with that gene? Something put under

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Speaker 1: your tongue and let it dissolve. Maybe sure, like you know,

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Speaker 1: just epigenetically, just a tad bit. Yeah not maybe you know,

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Speaker 1: amplify it, just a tad and see what happens. But

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Speaker 1: it would cause your brain to grow, because that gene

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Speaker 1: is partially responsible for the size that your brain gets too.

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Speaker 1: That's right as far as large brains go. Yes, like

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Speaker 1: it makes it larger. Yes, if you want to talk

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Speaker 1: smaller brains, there's another gene. And boy, you're right. The

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Speaker 1: names are all over the place, just convention wise. It's

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Speaker 1: not like they have different names that some are numbers

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Speaker 1: and dashes. And to get it together, people espm uh

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Speaker 1: it's an abbreviation for abnormal spindle like uh, micro cephally associated.

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Speaker 1: That's the name of the gene. Yeah, that's just shameful.

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Speaker 1: And they say, microcephaliely associated, because that is a condition

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Speaker 1: that you've probably seen before when you're born with a

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Speaker 1: small head and small brain, which probably means you're going

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Speaker 1: to have some cognitive impairment. So so right there, smaller

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Speaker 1: brain is is correlated to lesser or lower faculty your

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Speaker 1: cognitive function. Yeah, we should look into that more for

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Speaker 1: another podcast. So I think it's uh from the images

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Speaker 1: I saw, it looks like you remember, like the movie Freaks. Yes,

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Speaker 1: that that guy. I think that's so cute the deal.

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Speaker 1: I think you have like normal sized nose and ears

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Speaker 1: and eyes, but your actual head and skull and brain

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Speaker 1: are small. But you don't look like the the um,

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Speaker 1: the African safari guy from Beetlejuice not proportionately shrunk, right,

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Speaker 1: It's yeah, you get him down so small right, favorite,

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Speaker 1: What was that guy's name from Freaks? I've read about

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Speaker 1: him before. No, he had his stage name. It was

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Speaker 1: like Topsy or Flopsy or something like that. And he

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Speaker 1: apparently like the greatest personality of all times, just so

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Speaker 1: lovable and was just exploited basically his whole life until

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Speaker 1: that movie like kind of got vengeance for him because

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Speaker 1: he was a real life side show performer. Well that's good. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: Topsy It wasn't Topsy that was the elephant that Edison electrocuted,

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Speaker 1: but it was something along those lines. Just a fun,

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Speaker 1: fun name. Yeah, so check. There's another gene. This is

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Speaker 1: a little more genetically sounding e m x two. Yeah

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Speaker 1: that sequel. Sure it sounds like a dirt bike or

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Speaker 1: a gene Yeah, yea, yeah, it's UM. Again, we're not

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Speaker 1: We're not saying like, well, these are the genes that

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Speaker 1: provide you with your intellect. These are just genes that

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Speaker 1: they are saying. These things have to do with the

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Speaker 1: size of your brain, and they we also have figured

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Speaker 1: out that if you mess with these genes, you may

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Speaker 1: also be messing with cognitive function. So we're laying the groundwork. Everybody,

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Speaker 1: just bear with us. The e m x two gene

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Speaker 1: UM apparently has to do with the growth of your um,

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Speaker 1: the functional subdivisions of the cortex. You have different cortices,

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Speaker 1: they're responsible for different things. So like if in that

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Speaker 1: New York Times article you send me, the guy uses

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Speaker 1: the visual cortex as an example, UM, where like you

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Speaker 1: get all your visual sensory input and your brain puts

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Speaker 1: it all together. That cortex, that region of your brain

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Speaker 1: is responsible for a fairly specific but also very um

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Speaker 1: complicated task. Now, this one functional cortex that the e

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Speaker 1: m X two gene is responsible for, UM has to

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Speaker 1: do with basically input, sensory input and motor output. So

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Speaker 1: your behavior, Like, um, if I came across this desk

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Speaker 1: at you and like pinched your cheeks, you'd like jump back,

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Speaker 1: I'd say, what is it Wednesday? Right? Right? Yeah, you

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Speaker 1: would make the connection that's Wednesday. Your behavior would occur. So, UM,

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Speaker 1: this e m x two gene has to do with

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Speaker 1: that cortex and its size. What they found is that

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Speaker 1: bigger is not necessarily better. If you have a lower

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Speaker 1: expression of it and you have a smaller subdivision of

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Speaker 1: that cortex, you're not gonna do very well behaviorally functionally,

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Speaker 1: Like you won't be able to hit a baseball very well. Right,

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Speaker 1: But if it's too big, if that gene over expresses,

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Speaker 1: you don't get better at hitting a baseball. With this

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Speaker 1: in particular, it seems to be fine tuned. So if

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Speaker 1: you're not hitting that sweet spot, you're never going to

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Speaker 1: hit a baseball. And there may be myriad other problems,

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Speaker 1: but you're definitely not going to hit that baseball. So

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Speaker 1: that means you're born with baseball talent pretty much. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: because it's genetic, and there's like there's some people who

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Speaker 1: are so close to perfect that like baseball just comes

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Speaker 1: naturally to the right, right, like Robert Redford exactly, he

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Speaker 1: really gave those lights a wall. Yeah, he's the natural.

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Speaker 1: So that's the genetic basis of it, Chuck. Yeah, and uh,

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Speaker 1: I guess we should talk some about size if it's important,

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Speaker 1: because this is sort of the debate that keeps going

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Speaker 1: on and on. Is brain size corollary to intelligence levels? Uh?

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Speaker 1: They did find or they have found links between if

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Speaker 1: you have a lot of brain growth, um, if it's

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Speaker 1: disproportionate early on, Um, they've linked that and early on

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Speaker 1: meaning the first twelve months too, they've linked that to autism.

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Speaker 1: So super rapid growth may what it may do is

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Speaker 1: just prevent those neural connections from happening like they should right. Um.

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Speaker 1: And actually, well that's kind of links into that tethering

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Speaker 1: thing I sent you too, it does, which we will

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Speaker 1: talk about later. Um. In biology, though, is there's kind

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Speaker 1: of this consensus that it's that's not the only determinant. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that has a lot to do with um environment as well,

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Speaker 1: I think kind of as a whole. People who investigate

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Speaker 1: correlations between brain size and intelligence have totally abandoned the

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Speaker 1: idea that UM, like, your brain is predetermined to grow

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Speaker 1: a certain way and then that's that. Yeah, well, size wise,

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Speaker 1: they've also found that eight if you have a d

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Speaker 1: h D, if you're an adolescent, your brain might be

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Speaker 1: three to four percent smaller than your classmate who does

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Speaker 1: not have a d h D. UM, and your brain

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Speaker 1: shrinks as you get older, but doesn't necessarily lose functionality

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Speaker 1: because of the shrinkage. It's not to say when you

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Speaker 1: get older, you don't, you know, lose functionality, but it's

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Speaker 1: not due to the size. No, they think that, um,

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Speaker 1: it's probably mostly due to build up. Really okay, that

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Speaker 1: you're you're synapses are just kind of built up with

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Speaker 1: gunk remnant proteins from years and decades of firings. Then

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Speaker 1: you shake that off by can tinuing to use it. Yes,

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Speaker 1: that's one thing. But also they've recently found that um,

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Speaker 1: while you sleep, they think now the function of sleep.

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Speaker 1: They didn't notice it before until I don't know what

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Speaker 1: kind of new imaging technology they used, but they found

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Speaker 1: out that there's this whole channel of like basically a

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Speaker 1: sewerage system that just clears out all the gunk from

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Speaker 1: your brain while you're sleeping at night, and it just

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Speaker 1: that's why you are cognitively refreshed. That makes sense from sleep.

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Speaker 1: And we've done we did one on why sleep so important? Right, Yes,

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Speaker 1: I think that was in there. We've done a bunch.

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Speaker 1: There's a whole sleep suite too, alright. So one of

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Speaker 1: the reasons why, uh, people are still debating whether or

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Speaker 1: not brain size equals more intelligence or less intelligence is

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Speaker 1: because when there are a lot of different ways to

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Speaker 1: measure the brain um, you know, like do you take

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Speaker 1: a tape measure and go around it or do you

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Speaker 1: go from the middle out or do you do it

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Speaker 1: proportion to your body size, which is a real measurement

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Speaker 1: called encephalation quotient. And if they're talking about your body size,

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Speaker 1: what if you're super fat? Like there are all these

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Speaker 1: different ways and no one, I don't think has ever

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Speaker 1: come to a consensus on the best way to actually

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Speaker 1: do the measurement in the first place. No. And there's

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Speaker 1: another really big outstanding question is how do you measure intelligence?

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Speaker 1: Like our i Q tests actually legitimate. Yeah, So when

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Speaker 1: you have two parts of your equation that are both hinky,

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Speaker 1: how can you come up with an answer? Well, it

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Speaker 1: depends like if you're comparing species to species that in

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Speaker 1: sephilization quotation and actually has been proven to be pretty effective.

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Speaker 1: So like the proportion of your brain to your body

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Speaker 1: size is a pretty decent predictor of your e Q

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Speaker 1: is what it's called as a mammal. Yes, as as

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Speaker 1: a mammal. When you go outside of mammals, that it's

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Speaker 1: less and less effective. Um. But with humans, for example,

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Speaker 1: we our our brain is like two point seven pounds

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Speaker 1: on average, it's something like around two to three. I've

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Speaker 1: seen as much as five, but I think it's about

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Speaker 1: three percent of our body weight. Um. But it uses

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Speaker 1: up about of the energy, which is another measure, Yes,

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Speaker 1: like how much energy is your brain require? The more

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Speaker 1: energy your brain requires. In addition to things like e Q,

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Speaker 1: you can get a pretty good idea of like how

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Speaker 1: intelligent that being is. Well, Einstein's brain remembers this was

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Speaker 1: the same size, but different parts were bigger than others. Right,

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Speaker 1: so supposedly let's come under fire lately. Yeah, somebody was

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Speaker 1: like you, these studies are terrible, Like, you can't make

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Speaker 1: these huge leaps and bounds and um in conclusions just

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Speaker 1: from a couple of strips of brain tissue, But apparently

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Speaker 1: most studies have. Well I think that's sort of like

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Speaker 1: a juicy thing that people like to talk about Einstein's brain. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you know, I could see people making that leap, right,

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Speaker 1: and the idea that like, oh, well, Einstein's brain is

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Speaker 1: just like anybody else's, well, that means that anybody could

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Speaker 1: be a genius. You know, it really argues in favor

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Speaker 1: of the nurture side of things. But if his brain

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Speaker 1: is structurally different, well, the genius is an inborn natural thing.

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Speaker 1: It's just nature versus nurture played out on poure. Einstein

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Speaker 1: sliced that brain. Yeah, that lived in a garage for

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Speaker 1: many years, like everyone's brain. So here's the most controversial thing.

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Speaker 1: Like when you're comparing species to species, like you said,

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Speaker 1: especially among mammals, chuck, um, it's easier to say like, yes,

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Speaker 1: this eq thing works, But within a single species, that's

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Speaker 1: when things starting to fall apart. For instance, specifically among humans,

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Speaker 1: um men tend to have about a hundred grahams more

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Speaker 1: mass to their brain than women. But if a bigger

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Speaker 1: brain means that you are more intelligent, then does that

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Speaker 1: mean that men are more intelligent than women? I think

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Speaker 1: we all know that women are more intelligent than men. Okay,

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Speaker 1: so then brain size really has nothing to do with it,

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Speaker 1: at least intra species, That's what I'm saying. But um,

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Speaker 1: there have been plenty of studies that I'm sure got

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Speaker 1: a lot of people's hackles up. Um. One guy named

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Speaker 1: Michael McDaniel, who's a psychologist, basically entered the news cycle

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Speaker 1: bursting onto the scene in two thousand five, which is

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Speaker 1: always a little bit like, yeah, who's this guy? Right? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but he came up with a study that was ready

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Speaker 1: made for CNN. Yeah. I mean he said flat out

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Speaker 1: that bigger brains means you're smarter, and that I E

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Speaker 1: or e G. Which one is it? Uh? I EVE

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Speaker 1: in this case, men are smarter than women. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's what he was saying. Yeah, because he basically put

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Speaker 1: brain imaging tests an i Q tests together and said, well,

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Speaker 1: there's a direct correlation between the two. And again with

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Speaker 1: these tests they did, uh, they compared um or they

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Speaker 1: converted s a T scores of a hundred thousand seventeen

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Speaker 1: and eighteen year old to an i Q score and

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Speaker 1: I don't see why they even had to do that.

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Speaker 1: And they found that males average three point six three

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Speaker 1: IQ points higher, but um, I don't know. It just

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Speaker 1: seems really hinky because first of all, they used ten

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Speaker 1: thousand more females and males, so that's gonna excue things.

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Speaker 1: And then it's an S A t R. What does

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Speaker 1: that even mean? Yeah, which has been proven time and

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Speaker 1: time again to be biased. Yeah, and then they converted

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Speaker 1: that to an i Q S cource with some like

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Speaker 1: I guess machine. Seems like some things would be lost

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Speaker 1: in translation. Yeah, I think it's a bunch of bunks.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, I think you're not alone in the idea

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Speaker 1: that it's a bunch of bunks. So a lot of

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Speaker 1: um scientists have said, okay, all right, this whole brain

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Speaker 1: size correlating to intelligence sting of phrenology. Yes, when you're

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Speaker 1: talking about looking at it just in the human species, right,

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Speaker 1: So what is it though? I mean, surely there's got

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Speaker 1: to be some biological part or aspect of the brain

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Speaker 1: that correlates to intelligence. If it's not size, then maybe

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Speaker 1: it's the number of neurons that you have, Yeah, neural connections.

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Speaker 1: A lot of people have thought that that was kind

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Speaker 1: of the second to most recent wave in thinking about

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Speaker 1: what brain structure correlates to intelligence. Yeah, this, um was

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Speaker 1: this the New York Times one about the tether hypothesis.

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Speaker 1: This is just December of last year, so it's pretty recent.

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Speaker 1: And a couple of neuroscientists from Havred so you know,

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Speaker 1: they're right. Um, they had a pretty simple explanation. Um,

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Speaker 1: when back in the day, when tooktok had a little

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Speaker 1: bitty tiny brain. Uh. Their argument is that the neurons

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Speaker 1: were tightly tethered in a pretty simple connection pattern, and

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Speaker 1: that when our brains started getting bigger, those tethers were

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Speaker 1: torn apart and it formed Uh, it enabled us. We

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Speaker 1: formed new neurons and new neural pathways and new circuits. Right,

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Speaker 1: That's that makes a lot of sense to me. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: It's like the brain size might have been about the same,

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Speaker 1: and it was, but the neuro connections were still following

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Speaker 1: the primal animal connectivity, where it's like they they connect

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Speaker 1: in a predictable way, whereas with this untethered idea, they

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Speaker 1: just blossomed out. And do you know the idea of um,

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Speaker 1: like like what neuro connections look like today. Rather than

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Speaker 1: following like straight predictable lines, they were all over the place,

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Speaker 1: and from these new connections, new associations arose, and that

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Speaker 1: gave rise to intellect. According to this, yeah, it's pretty

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Speaker 1: simple smart. Yeah, Like I think sometimes the simplest hypotheses

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Speaker 1: might be on target with acam's razor my friend, or

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Speaker 1: maybe they just speak to me because I'm a dummy,

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Speaker 1: rightether of got play the other ball? Um, So that's

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Speaker 1: that is a competing explanation. Another one that I've seen,

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Speaker 1: uh says that it's not not the neurons, not the

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Speaker 1: number of neurons, not even the number of neural connections,

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Speaker 1: it's the chemistry and the complexity of the neuro transmitters

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Speaker 1: that are being conducted between these neurons. And from this

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Speaker 1: has kind of come this new idea that it's folly

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Speaker 1: to even say, well, humans are obviously smarter than a

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Speaker 1: bottle knows dolphins, even though they're smart because the bottle

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Speaker 1: knows dolphins. Um experience understanding of life is so radically

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Speaker 1: different from humans. Yeah, you can't. You can't compare intellect intellect. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you can't say, well, a dolphin can't you know, talk

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Speaker 1: and speak, but I can't do things a dolphin can do, right,

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Speaker 1: Or maybe dolphins are speaking, I mean to one another,

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Speaker 1: just not to us. That doesn't make them less intelligent

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Speaker 1: along and thanks for all the fish and we're not Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's a good one. And we're not like anthropomorphizing here. Basically,

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Speaker 1: there's there is very little um point I guess. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I don't get it to comparing the two. There's tremendous

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Speaker 1: point to getting to cracking this code and understanding dolphin

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Speaker 1: intellect for bird intellect, degreed octopus intellect and human intellect.

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Speaker 1: But to compare them is it's an exercise and futility.

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Speaker 1: There's no point to it. I don't get it. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, compared dolphin A to dolphin B one, maybe

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Speaker 1: smarter one might have a little patchy mustache and hang

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Speaker 1: out at the gas station a lot. That's not the

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Speaker 1: smart one. Yeah. I think people do this to either.

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Speaker 1: I think they're trying to claim some either superiority of

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Speaker 1: animals over humans or humans over animals, right, And that's

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Speaker 1: kind of that's a big issue these days, Like there

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Speaker 1: there are groups um animal rights groups that are trying

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Speaker 1: to further animal rights by getting them inalienable rights like

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Speaker 1: humans have right which would really screw up the zoos system. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you can look for our podcast on that too. We did. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that was a good one. Yeah. I think we landed

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Speaker 1: pretty heavily against zoos. Yeah we did. But to each

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Speaker 1: their own. But I haven't been to a zoos since then.

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Speaker 1: What is this Project Enigma? I thought that was pretty interesting.

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Speaker 1: It was another genetic thing, this UM. It was. It

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Speaker 1: was neat though in that like this Australian re which

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Speaker 1: just said, hey, we have something called the Internet and

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Speaker 1: m R I S and willing participants, so everybody starts

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Speaker 1: sending in your brain scans. Is that who proved that

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Speaker 1: the complexity of the neural activity was the most important thing?

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Speaker 1: Was that project? No, that was a different one. That

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Speaker 1: was there was a new scientist or no scientific American

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Speaker 1: article that UM that explored that idea as the the

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Speaker 1: synaptic proteins that create intellect or intelligence. But the Project

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Speaker 1: Enigma basically found that there is a single mutation on

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Speaker 1: a specific gene where if you have a C instead

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Speaker 1: of T, I think you um have a bigger brain.

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Speaker 1: And they correlated that to more intelligence. Yeah, but again

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Speaker 1: using the i Q test. Well, what I'm tired of

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Speaker 1: are the studies that throw out the results that don't

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Speaker 1: make a good fun headline. You know, right. There was

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Speaker 1: this one um from Smithsonian magazine from December of last

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Speaker 1: year that uh, well they it wasn't from them, was

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Speaker 1: from the Proceedings of the Royal Society b and Smithsonian

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Speaker 1: reported on it. But it was a study of country

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Speaker 1: mice and city mice. Well a bunch of animals. But

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Speaker 1: they found that city mice and vole. I don't even

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Speaker 1: know what that is vl e perrie voles, what is

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Speaker 1: that like? They're very sweet. They they are monogamous, like

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Speaker 1: a bowl weevil. No, that's a bug. A vole is

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Speaker 1: like a like a prairie dog. You should look up

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Speaker 1: prairie balls. Very cute and the idea that they're very

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Speaker 1: sweetest even better. You wouldn't like shoot one for being

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Speaker 1: on your property. No, I mean some people would, but

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Speaker 1: not good people. I know someone who does that kind

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Speaker 1: of thing shots at voles, not voles, but wood chucks

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Speaker 1: with with the air rifles. That's not nice. He knows

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Speaker 1: who he is. Boom. But the study basically said that

423
00:27:02,200 --> 00:27:07,560
Speaker 1: city mice and city bowls had larger brains than country mice,

424
00:27:08,040 --> 00:27:10,160
Speaker 1: And of course that makes a big headline because people

425
00:27:10,640 --> 00:27:12,399
Speaker 1: are going to try and make the point that, you know,

426
00:27:12,480 --> 00:27:14,639
Speaker 1: people that live in urban environments are smarter and the

427
00:27:14,880 --> 00:27:18,520
Speaker 1: hillbillies out in the country are dumber. They study ten animals,

428
00:27:18,520 --> 00:27:20,239
Speaker 1: only two of them showed that, and some of them

429
00:27:20,280 --> 00:27:25,080
Speaker 1: showed the opposite that the I think bats and shrew's

430
00:27:25,320 --> 00:27:28,760
Speaker 1: actually the country versions had larger brains. So they don't

431
00:27:28,760 --> 00:27:30,399
Speaker 1: say any of that in the study because they just

432
00:27:30,440 --> 00:27:32,840
Speaker 1: want a headline that says, you know, if you live

433
00:27:32,840 --> 00:27:35,080
Speaker 1: in a city, you're smarter. Yeah, and we I mean,

434
00:27:35,080 --> 00:27:39,080
Speaker 1: we've been addressing this lately, like there is like a

435
00:27:39,160 --> 00:27:45,000
Speaker 1: symbiotic collusion between bad science and bad science reporting, you know,

436
00:27:45,119 --> 00:27:47,840
Speaker 1: yeah that results and stuff like that, where it's just like,

437
00:27:48,920 --> 00:27:53,000
Speaker 1: you know, city city people are smarter than country people, right,

438
00:27:53,200 --> 00:27:57,120
Speaker 1: says this one study that where the data was massaged, right, Well,

439
00:27:57,119 --> 00:27:59,800
Speaker 1: can you city person, can you go make butter with

440
00:27:59,840 --> 00:28:03,600
Speaker 1: your hands? I have to say, can you farm land? No?

441
00:28:03,960 --> 00:28:09,320
Speaker 1: Of course not um, but there it is possible that

442
00:28:09,359 --> 00:28:14,200
Speaker 1: there's a basis to this or as city people are

443
00:28:14,720 --> 00:28:18,840
Speaker 1: their brains are more stimulated than country folk. Perhaps and

444
00:28:18,920 --> 00:28:22,680
Speaker 1: so more neural connections, more plasticity takes place. I don't

445
00:28:22,800 --> 00:28:24,879
Speaker 1: I don't think that's true. I think there's just as

446
00:28:24,960 --> 00:28:28,359
Speaker 1: much stimulation in nature as there is in a city

447
00:28:28,359 --> 00:28:31,879
Speaker 1: full of people spends once you're stimulated by Look at Darwin,

448
00:28:31,960 --> 00:28:34,120
Speaker 1: he spent his entire life living in the country. Yeah,

449
00:28:34,160 --> 00:28:36,920
Speaker 1: for sure, But I mean like we're also we also

450
00:28:36,960 --> 00:28:41,080
Speaker 1: have hundreds of thousands of years of latent inhibition built

451
00:28:41,160 --> 00:28:43,320
Speaker 1: up against a lot of the stuff in nature, whereas

452
00:28:43,360 --> 00:28:46,760
Speaker 1: the stuff in Times Square is relatively new, so our

453
00:28:46,800 --> 00:28:50,520
Speaker 1: brain isn't doesn't defend against it quite as easily. So

454
00:28:51,000 --> 00:28:53,800
Speaker 1: hence we're possibly more stimulated. I think it depends on

455
00:28:53,840 --> 00:28:56,320
Speaker 1: what you're doing with your time. Sure, if you're in

456
00:28:56,400 --> 00:29:00,200
Speaker 1: the country sitting around watching reality TV, if you're in

457
00:29:00,240 --> 00:29:04,320
Speaker 1: the city in your apartment watching reality TV. I found

458
00:29:04,320 --> 00:29:08,440
Speaker 1: this other study today to UM from Germany about pornography

459
00:29:08,600 --> 00:29:13,160
Speaker 1: may reduce your brain size another kind of sexy headline

460
00:29:13,880 --> 00:29:18,360
Speaker 1: and um sample size at three And it's always self

461
00:29:18,440 --> 00:29:21,160
Speaker 1: reported to and when you're dealing with porn and self reporting,

462
00:29:21,680 --> 00:29:24,440
Speaker 1: just do you look at porn? Check the box. Do

463
00:29:24,480 --> 00:29:27,920
Speaker 1: you think your brain is small? Check the box? Boom, Yeah,

464
00:29:28,240 --> 00:29:31,240
Speaker 1: how smart are you? Somebody called news Week. Uh, they

465
00:29:31,280 --> 00:29:34,560
Speaker 1: cannot say that watching porn caused a decrease in brain matter,

466
00:29:34,640 --> 00:29:38,280
Speaker 1: but they did say they found that the volume of striatom,

467
00:29:38,400 --> 00:29:41,600
Speaker 1: a brain region that's been associated with reward processing and

468
00:29:41,680 --> 00:29:48,040
Speaker 1: motivated behavior, was smaller the more pornography you consumed. And

469
00:29:48,080 --> 00:29:50,760
Speaker 1: basically where they're at is, we don't know whether it's

470
00:29:50,840 --> 00:29:54,840
Speaker 1: causing this or if people that oh yeah, they get

471
00:29:54,880 --> 00:29:57,959
Speaker 1: struck down and they're like, yeah, they're just end up

472
00:29:57,960 --> 00:30:03,240
Speaker 1: watching porn more so again Idiocracy Again, that movie. There's

473
00:30:03,320 --> 00:30:06,360
Speaker 1: probably been no other movie that's made more of a

474
00:30:06,440 --> 00:30:11,440
Speaker 1: legitimate appearance in our episodes than that movie than Indiocracy. Yeah, yeah,

475
00:30:11,480 --> 00:30:13,920
Speaker 1: I think you're right. Yeah, Mike Judge, he's onto something.

476
00:30:14,560 --> 00:30:18,560
Speaker 1: Do you watch Silicon Valley? I haven't, I know, Uh,

477
00:30:18,720 --> 00:30:21,160
Speaker 1: Kamal nan Gianni's in it. Yeah, he's funny. Does he

478
00:30:21,240 --> 00:30:24,240
Speaker 1: do well? Yeah, Martin Starr, it's uh yeah, it's a

479
00:30:24,240 --> 00:30:26,560
Speaker 1: good show. Nice, it's I think it was high time

480
00:30:26,600 --> 00:30:28,480
Speaker 1: that someone took on the tech industry and like a

481
00:30:28,480 --> 00:30:32,400
Speaker 1: comedy like that. Yeah, leave it to Mike Judge. I know. Yeah,

482
00:30:32,480 --> 00:30:37,040
Speaker 1: if there's any crusade or satiric crusader, people feeling good

483
00:30:37,040 --> 00:30:41,400
Speaker 1: about themselves. Right, Yeah, it's Mike Judge. Uh. If you

484
00:30:41,760 --> 00:30:46,920
Speaker 1: want to know more about brain size in relation to whatever,

485
00:30:47,480 --> 00:30:49,760
Speaker 1: just type in brain in the search bar. How stiff

486
00:30:49,800 --> 00:30:53,360
Speaker 1: works dot com and it's get lost. That's what I say. Yeah,

487
00:30:53,480 --> 00:30:55,960
Speaker 1: type in brain and just go on a trip. Man.

488
00:30:56,640 --> 00:31:00,800
Speaker 1: All right, that's right, journey. I think that the slogan

489
00:31:00,920 --> 00:31:04,440
Speaker 1: for how stuff works. That's right, um answers, I said,

490
00:31:04,440 --> 00:31:08,959
Speaker 1: search parts time for what listener mail? Yes, okay, I'm

491
00:31:09,000 --> 00:31:13,720
Speaker 1: gonna call this help for a fan in need. It's nice. Hey, guys,

492
00:31:13,720 --> 00:31:15,240
Speaker 1: I want some help please. My wife and I are

493
00:31:15,240 --> 00:31:17,880
Speaker 1: expecting our first kid this summer, and thirteen days ago

494
00:31:17,920 --> 00:31:20,080
Speaker 1: we also found out that my wife has staged four

495
00:31:20,400 --> 00:31:24,160
Speaker 1: breast cancer. So we are spending our third trimester getting chemo.

496
00:31:24,680 --> 00:31:27,480
Speaker 1: My goodness, I know. Uh, we're gonna kick cancer in

497
00:31:27,520 --> 00:31:30,560
Speaker 1: the butt. We have no doubt, but we're scared and overwhelmed. Obviously,

498
00:31:31,160 --> 00:31:33,320
Speaker 1: we're doing chemo now. Then we'll have the baby. Get

499
00:31:33,360 --> 00:31:37,720
Speaker 1: more chemo than bilateral mystechtomy than radiation. We have great

500
00:31:37,760 --> 00:31:40,080
Speaker 1: doctors and great fins and families, so even in the

501
00:31:40,080 --> 00:31:42,880
Speaker 1: face of this, we feel very lucky. Uh. And by

502
00:31:42,920 --> 00:31:47,840
Speaker 1: the way, I gotta follow up more recently, that says, uh,

503
00:31:47,960 --> 00:31:51,480
Speaker 1: there is no gestational diabetes and the cancer is already shrinking.

504
00:31:51,600 --> 00:31:53,600
Speaker 1: Oh it's great. So things are going great so far.

505
00:31:53,680 --> 00:31:55,840
Speaker 1: Thanks for keeping us in suspense. I know I was

506
00:31:55,840 --> 00:31:57,920
Speaker 1: gonna wait till the end. Uh. And he asked for

507
00:31:57,960 --> 00:31:59,760
Speaker 1: a couple of favors. He said, First of all, if

508
00:31:59,760 --> 00:32:02,280
Speaker 1: you want follow and promote my tumbler uh to keep

509
00:32:02,280 --> 00:32:06,000
Speaker 1: people updated, it is um H T T P colon

510
00:32:06,040 --> 00:32:12,000
Speaker 1: slash slash gala freakidiki g A l l i U

511
00:32:12,360 --> 00:32:14,640
Speaker 1: f R e k y d e e k y

512
00:32:14,800 --> 00:32:18,240
Speaker 1: dot tumbler dot com. He says, we're huge nerds and

513
00:32:18,280 --> 00:32:20,880
Speaker 1: doctor who fans. So that was lost on me some

514
00:32:21,080 --> 00:32:23,480
Speaker 1: doctor who reference. I guess apparently. So does that have

515
00:32:23,560 --> 00:32:26,080
Speaker 1: to do with the phone booth? Maybe that's the only

516
00:32:26,080 --> 00:32:30,080
Speaker 1: thing you know about same here. Um. Secondly, I'm biking

517
00:32:30,080 --> 00:32:33,440
Speaker 1: a hundred and fifty miles to raise money, and could

518
00:32:33,480 --> 00:32:35,320
Speaker 1: you plug that and you can go to g O

519
00:32:35,440 --> 00:32:40,920
Speaker 1: O dot g L slash two w j z x Q.

520
00:32:41,640 --> 00:32:44,120
Speaker 1: These people don't like normal words. Well that's one of

521
00:32:44,120 --> 00:32:46,520
Speaker 1: those shortened r L s. Oh. I see it's a

522
00:32:46,560 --> 00:32:49,760
Speaker 1: Google uh. And then third how about a shout out,

523
00:32:49,800 --> 00:32:51,800
Speaker 1: and I think that's what we're doing here. My wife

524
00:32:51,880 --> 00:32:54,120
Speaker 1: is a little shy, so just use her nickname, the Mayor.

525
00:32:56,480 --> 00:33:00,240
Speaker 1: That's hilarious. So where's a sash during chemo and child birth?

526
00:33:00,360 --> 00:33:02,240
Speaker 1: I guess so, I mean I call Emily of the boss,

527
00:33:02,280 --> 00:33:05,719
Speaker 1: So I guess it's the mayor. The mayor is like

528
00:33:05,760 --> 00:33:08,600
Speaker 1: the boss of several bosses, I would guess. Yeah. We

529
00:33:08,680 --> 00:33:10,240
Speaker 1: used to call my friend Justin who you know, the

530
00:33:10,280 --> 00:33:13,800
Speaker 1: mayor of Atlanta, because everywhere you went nobody knew him.

531
00:33:13,800 --> 00:33:15,880
Speaker 1: He's a sociable fellow. But now we just call him

532
00:33:15,880 --> 00:33:18,440
Speaker 1: the manager of Atlanta because everywhere you go he has

533
00:33:18,480 --> 00:33:20,960
Speaker 1: some improvement to that place, like the lighting is not

534
00:33:21,040 --> 00:33:23,120
Speaker 1: quite right, or the doors should be over there in

535
00:33:23,160 --> 00:33:28,040
Speaker 1: the kitchen is not located properly Brits. Yeah, uh, and

536
00:33:28,040 --> 00:33:30,800
Speaker 1: then forth. My wife works in public policy, specifically helping

537
00:33:30,800 --> 00:33:33,880
Speaker 1: women and families get themselves out of poverty and advocating

538
00:33:33,880 --> 00:33:36,760
Speaker 1: for low income workers. So there you have it. An

539
00:33:36,760 --> 00:33:40,360
Speaker 1: awesome and incredible woman who dedicates her considerable talents helping others,

540
00:33:40,760 --> 00:33:43,720
Speaker 1: is pregnant and his breast cancer kind of hard to say. No, right,

541
00:33:43,960 --> 00:33:48,400
Speaker 1: I'm not above guilt tripping so Bob from Swithmore, Pennsylvania. Um,

542
00:33:49,880 --> 00:33:51,600
Speaker 1: there you go. People should go and check out that

543
00:33:51,640 --> 00:33:54,200
Speaker 1: stuff and support your bike ride. And I hope things

544
00:33:54,200 --> 00:33:56,760
Speaker 1: have continued to progress well for your wife and child

545
00:33:56,800 --> 00:34:00,840
Speaker 1: and keep us updated. Yeah, and you keep me updated

546
00:34:01,400 --> 00:34:04,520
Speaker 1: at the very least. If not everybody listening, I will. Okay,

547
00:34:05,400 --> 00:34:07,960
Speaker 1: thanks a lot, Bob and the mayor. Good luck to

548
00:34:08,000 --> 00:34:11,320
Speaker 1: you both. And um, let's see if you want to

549
00:34:11,320 --> 00:34:14,680
Speaker 1: get in touch with us, whether you're a mayor a

550
00:34:14,719 --> 00:34:18,480
Speaker 1: provincial governor who knows. You can get in touch with

551
00:34:18,560 --> 00:34:22,080
Speaker 1: us on Twitter at s Y s K podcast. You

552
00:34:22,120 --> 00:34:24,480
Speaker 1: can join us on Facebook dot com slash stuff you

553
00:34:24,520 --> 00:34:27,000
Speaker 1: Should Know. You can send us an email to Stuff

554
00:34:27,080 --> 00:34:31,000
Speaker 1: Podcast at how stuff Works dot com and join us

555
00:34:31,000 --> 00:34:33,080
Speaker 1: at our home on the web, Stuff you Should Know

556
00:34:33,200 --> 00:34:40,920
Speaker 1: dot com For more on this and thousands of other topics.

557
00:34:41,160 --> 00:34:49,960
Speaker 1: Is it how stuff Works dot com