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 Joe McCormick and Robert.
Speaker 1: Let's not dally up, bit. We've got to get right
Speaker 1: into it today because I know you are ripping to
Speaker 1: talk about the connection between demonology and flatulence. That's right,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's it's hidden in the title itself, right,
Speaker 1: the Fartonomicon. We're going to be discussing not only the
Speaker 1: actual science of farts, but this this fascinating connection between
Speaker 1: demonology and flatulence. And I want to note by the
Speaker 1: way that the word fart predates flatulence and goes back
Speaker 1: at least to the fourteenth century. And of course the
Speaker 1: reality of human flatulence is is far older than humanity,
Speaker 1: of course it is, and it goes deep, deep into time,
Speaker 1: just as demons seem to do. Uh So, Yeah, demonology
Speaker 1: does him to have a whole lot of farting in it.
Speaker 1: And this is one of the funny things, you know.
Speaker 1: When I was growing up, I was taught at church
Speaker 1: not to say cuss words, and cuss words included a
Speaker 1: lot of potty language and words for defecation and things
Speaker 1: like that. But if you go back into say the
Speaker 1: Renaissance or the medieval period before that, you will actually
Speaker 1: find a lot of pious holy men writing about theological
Speaker 1: topics who are also quite potty mouthed. Yes that they
Speaker 1: have their head. They have their head both in the
Speaker 1: heavens and in the toilet at the same time. Yes, well,
Speaker 1: that connection between heaven and the toilet is something we'll
Speaker 1: discuss here. You know, one of my my favorite accounts,
Speaker 1: and this, of course, is a medieval account from one
Speaker 1: of the great works of medieval literature, and particularly Italian
Speaker 1: medieval literature, uh, Dante's Inferno, of course. Uh. To refresh everyone,
Speaker 1: of course. In in Dante's Inferno, Dante himself is guided
Speaker 1: by the deceased poet Virgil through hell, through the underworld
Speaker 1: in a journey that will eventually take him back up
Speaker 1: to Paradise. Now, I love the Inferno, but I honestly
Speaker 1: did not remember the farting segments. Oh man, the Inferno.
Speaker 1: So Robert, you're gonna you're gonna have to illuminate me,
Speaker 1: educate me on the farting. All right, well, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: set the stage here here we have our duo venturing
Speaker 1: into the Mala Boga the as a region of the
Speaker 1: hell with all these uh, these these pits, these boulders
Speaker 1: in which various tortures are taking place and roaming about
Speaker 1: are the Malibranchia, the the evil clause. This is a
Speaker 1: group of demons that are patrolling about and you know,
Speaker 1: torturing uh as part of their job. And they all
Speaker 1: have fabulous names like Scarmiglion, which means troublemaker, and Malacotah,
Speaker 1: which means evil tail. And he's apparently the leader of
Speaker 1: the group. So I'm gonna read just a bit here
Speaker 1: from this encounter. Oh me, what is it, master, that
Speaker 1: I see pray? Let us go? I said, without an escort,
Speaker 1: If thou knowest how since for myself I asked none.
Speaker 1: If thou art as observant as thy want is, dost
Speaker 1: thou not see that they do nash their teeth and
Speaker 1: with their brows are threatening woe to us. And he
Speaker 1: to me quote, I will not have the fear let
Speaker 1: them nash on according to their fancy, because they do
Speaker 1: it for those boiling wretches Along the left hand dike.
Speaker 1: They wheeled about, but first had each one thrust his
Speaker 1: tongue between his teeth toward their leader for a signal,
Speaker 1: and he had made a trumpet of his rump. Trumpet
Speaker 1: of his rump. That is like the ultimate hell signal.
Speaker 1: Now we see that kind of blasphemous behavior also in
Speaker 1: the Monty Python animations, you know, in Monty Python and
Speaker 1: the Holy Grail, there's a scene depicting like cartoon versions
Speaker 1: of the heavens, and it definitely includes people playing musical
Speaker 1: instruments with their butts. And then, of course I can't
Speaker 1: help but think of the French insult uh I fart
Speaker 1: in your general direction. Oh yeah, there's that too. The
Speaker 1: funny thing about about this uh trumpet of his rump
Speaker 1: business is that scholars have actually argued for more than
Speaker 1: a century. It seems like the last century has really
Speaker 1: been the period in which this has been a matter
Speaker 1: of scholarly debate over whether this is supposed to be
Speaker 1: funny or not. Why would it not be funny? I know,
Speaker 1: I mean I vaguely remember my college Dante professor thinking
Speaker 1: it was funny and generally enjoying the the humor that
Speaker 1: is to be found throughout Inferno. Especially, things get less
Speaker 1: funny as you get up to towards the paradise. But
Speaker 1: there there are plenty of moments that I think we
Speaker 1: can legitimately say are funny within Inferno. Yeah. Well, I
Speaker 1: mean it's it's definitely there. In the same time that
Speaker 1: Dante is uh depicting and sometimes very lavish and excruciating
Speaker 1: detail the terrors and tortures of Hell, he sometimes also
Speaker 1: seems to be sort of satirizing the foibles of humanity. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and skewering his personal enemies. Yeah. Yes. So for instance,
Speaker 1: those demon names that I mentioned earlier, Alex Scarmiglian, Apparently
Speaker 1: these these names are plays upon various family names that
Speaker 1: that Dante took issue with as well. Right now, in general,
Speaker 1: we should add there there's a lot of butt action
Speaker 1: when it comes to Christian demonology. Lots of demons speak
Speaker 1: from their butts. Uh. They seal packs with their butts,
Speaker 1: and of course they're all about doing things too human
Speaker 1: butts in hell depending on the depictions. Uh, and you
Speaker 1: can have a field day teasing apart all of the
Speaker 1: various elements wound up in this sort of butt centric
Speaker 1: myth making. Folks, if you haven't already figured it out,
Speaker 1: this episode is gonna be heavy with a lot of
Speaker 1: like butts and flatulence. So if you're not interested, uh,
Speaker 1: you may be warned to tune out now because it
Speaker 1: will continue, Yes, it will. It will not stop until
Speaker 1: we reach the end. Uh. So another thing I should
Speaker 1: point out this idea that you know, this link between
Speaker 1: demons and flatuents. There is this idea that you see
Speaker 1: where demons use flat uns against the faithful. I did
Speaker 1: run across this account of fourth century Christian monk I
Speaker 1: vag Risks of Pontus warning that demons may bloat the
Speaker 1: faithful with flatulence to distract them from religious observation. That
Speaker 1: is an insidious tactic. Did that go in the screwtape letters?
Speaker 1: That's that's smart it should have. Incidentally, I did run
Speaker 1: across a contemporary ride up where I think the the
Speaker 1: author was arguing for the demonic powers of yoga and
Speaker 1: how it was. It was one of these wonderful accounts
Speaker 1: where the like, yes, I too have been to a
Speaker 1: yoga class, and I thought it's connections to to a
Speaker 1: non Christian religion was was harmless. And then they talk
Speaker 1: about some of the the signs that you may have
Speaker 1: demonic spirit annual in. One of them is flatments. Really, yes, really, yes.
Speaker 1: It is kind of odd to see in the modern
Speaker 1: day people associating an evil spirit or kind of a
Speaker 1: I don't know. I feel like generally the idea of
Speaker 1: an evil spirit has been more abstracted these days, But
Speaker 1: it is very true if you go back into history,
Speaker 1: there's a very physical kind of quality to it that
Speaker 1: it that it is embodied by bad smells and bad
Speaker 1: physical forces and excrement and things like that. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: yet still you have to realize that all of these individuals, uh,
Speaker 1: they experienced flatulence as just a regular aspect of their
Speaker 1: lives and everyday reality of their biology. Yeah. If this
Speaker 1: guy gets flatulence in church, is that also a demon
Speaker 1: possessing him? Yeah? I mean, let's let's not be silly
Speaker 1: about it, like that those those guys are gonna fart
Speaker 1: in church. It's just going to happen, no matter how
Speaker 1: holy the monk, Uh, there is going to be a
Speaker 1: bit of a flat us in play. Now. It's obvious
Speaker 1: that many people in the Middle Ages, and lots of
Speaker 1: people involved in creating Christian theology and mythology have been
Speaker 1: interested in the idea of flatulence and the role that
Speaker 1: plays in demonology. But sometimes it goes beyond the demonology.
Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier that that some of these theologians really
Speaker 1: do seem to have their head in the toilet. And
Speaker 1: who I mainly had in mind was Martin Luther, because
Speaker 1: I know Martin Luther loved some potty humor jokes, and
Speaker 1: he he was he had a he had a wicked,
Speaker 1: witty pin and he would fling just powerful volleys of scatological,
Speaker 1: excoriating invective against his enemies. Yeah, they're a number of different,
Speaker 1: uh Martin Luther quotes that use scatological references, probably with
Speaker 1: the most famous one is quote but I resist the devil,
Speaker 1: and often it is with a fart that I chase
Speaker 1: him away. That's great because so it's not just a rebuke,
Speaker 1: but it's also like a an implied diminishment of the
Speaker 1: power of the devil. Right, It's like, I don't need
Speaker 1: powerful spiritual forces or strong weapons or anything like that
Speaker 1: to chase the devil away. I dismissed the devil. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not just merely a get behind me satan um.
Speaker 1: It's get behind me satan. Now here comes a tuot.
Speaker 1: And of course there are other examples of this as well.
Speaker 1: I was looking at a book titled luther Man Between
Speaker 1: God and the Devil by he ik A Oberman, who
Speaker 1: points out that Luther often used poopy language against the
Speaker 1: Devil and his work. So here are just a few examples. Uh,
Speaker 1: and and Joe, maybe you can you can read these
Speaker 1: with me. Uh. Here's one. But if that is not
Speaker 1: enough for you, you devil, I also have and wipe
Speaker 1: your mouth on that and take a hearty bite o ruh. Okay,
Speaker 1: we got another one here. A slanderer does nothing but
Speaker 1: ruminate the filth of others with his own teeth and
Speaker 1: wallow like a pig with his nose in the dirt.
Speaker 1: That is also why his dropping stink most surpassed only
Speaker 1: by the devil's. And though man drops his excrements in private,
Speaker 1: the slanderer does not respect this privacy. He gluts on
Speaker 1: the pleasure of wallowing in it, and he does not
Speaker 1: deserve better according to God's righteous judgment. When the slanderer whispers,
Speaker 1: look how he has on himself, the best answer is
Speaker 1: you go eat it. He's almost there's almost like a
Speaker 1: childish glee. It is that is that is present in
Speaker 1: these quotes. Yes, and of course Luther being the author
Speaker 1: of the Christian Reformation, you know, the birth of Protestantism. Luther,
Speaker 1: of course, had a lot of farty invective for the pope. Quote,
Speaker 1: I will give a fart for a staff you Satan,
Speaker 1: Antichrist or pope can lean on it a stinking nothing man.
Speaker 1: This is making me think I would not want to
Speaker 1: make enemies with Martin Luther. Yeah, I mean, he's going
Speaker 1: to really let you have it, maybe physically. Now, all
Speaker 1: of this makes me think that you could actually write
Speaker 1: a whole book on the cultural significance of farting in
Speaker 1: Middle Age Europe. You could, And in fact, Valerie Allen
Speaker 1: did just that, Yeah, in her book on Farting, Language
Speaker 1: and Laughter in the Middle Ages, published in two thousand seven.
Speaker 1: And Uh, this is just this is a rich tone.
Speaker 1: This is truly a part anomicon, uh in its own right.
Speaker 1: So I just wanted to pull a few choice tidbits
Speaker 1: from the text. So she she, for instance, mentions uh
Speaker 1: the fourteenth century Icelandic tale of uh poor Stein's pattern Skulks,
Speaker 1: in which a demon arises from the depths of a
Speaker 1: twenty two seat toilet to confront our hero whoa So
Speaker 1: is it like the number of seats is proportional to
Speaker 1: the depths of degradation that the toilet embodies. I guess,
Speaker 1: so you know, because I'm guessing that those twenty two
Speaker 1: seats share a common pit of foulness, and it's it takes.
Speaker 1: It's that sort of foulness from which the demon must arise.
Speaker 1: She also notes that late medieval art often depicts demons
Speaker 1: is covered in fecal matter, as well as the mystery
Speaker 1: plays of the time. So an example of this from Alan,
Speaker 1: she says that in the drama The Fall of Lucifer,
Speaker 1: as Lucifer quote thuds to his stinking sty, he wails
Speaker 1: for fear of fire, I crack a fart, and then
Speaker 1: in the Fall of Man you have this character Diabolos,
Speaker 1: and he cries out, and this is of course the translation.
Speaker 1: On account of this fall, I am starting to quake
Speaker 1: with a art my britches I break, which again is
Speaker 1: just kind of another almost like grade school poopy insult
Speaker 1: or parody leveled at at the devil. It has some
Speaker 1: of the wit of the couplets you see in like
Speaker 1: Dryden and Alexander Pope. Yea more like Alexander poop, though
Speaker 1: I'm alright, um, so I want to share one more
Speaker 1: quote from Valerie Allen because she she sums up a
Speaker 1: lot of this very nicely, and and she says the
Speaker 1: following quote. If in the popular theatrical imagination, Satan's descent
Speaker 1: to bottomless perdition is punctuated by flatulence, it is a
Speaker 1: natural consequence to picture him as the load that Heaven
Speaker 1: discharges into Hell the show of the Cosmos. I I
Speaker 1: just love that because it does it just sums up
Speaker 1: so much of this this energy and inner interconnectedness between
Speaker 1: bodily movements and flatulence and these demonic entities and just
Speaker 1: the overall like theological structure of the universe. Christian cosmology
Speaker 1: reduced to us your everyday bowel movement on the potty.
Speaker 1: And of course, the Christian tradition is not the only
Speaker 1: tradition to to play with flash lens, not at all.
Speaker 1: So yeah, we will leave the Christian tradition for a
Speaker 1: moment and look at the fact that fart humor goes
Speaker 1: way back and covers pretty much the entire world. There
Speaker 1: are fart jokes everywhere, and they go deep into history.
Speaker 1: There's actually a writer and academic named Paul McDonald who
Speaker 1: he teaches at the University of Wolverhampton and he was
Speaker 1: involved in this list that came out a few years back.
Speaker 1: That was where they were trying to find the oldest
Speaker 1: jokes known in history, and it turned out that, according
Speaker 1: to this University of Wolverhampton list, the oldest known joke
Speaker 1: at the time was a fart joke. It is a
Speaker 1: fart joke from ancient Mesopotamia. It's a Sumerian joke that
Speaker 1: traces back to about nineteen d BC e, making it
Speaker 1: almost four thousand years old. And it reads in translation
Speaker 1: as the following quote, something which has never occurred since
Speaker 1: time immemorial. A young woman did not fart in her
Speaker 1: husband's lap. Okay. I think maybe like the the particulars
Speaker 1: of the joke don't don't carry well across you know,
Speaker 1: more than four millennia. But it does seem to, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's lost something in in translation, maybe language wise and
Speaker 1: definitely culturally. I don't know if this is topical humor
Speaker 1: for the time. Is it like there was a big
Speaker 1: problem with I don't know, dudes getting married and then
Speaker 1: their wife farting in their lap. I don't know, but
Speaker 1: that's what it seems to suggest it's like everybody will
Speaker 1: be like, oh, yeah, that always happens. Uh. It's sort
Speaker 1: of a mandatory contemplation here. Do you think that the
Speaker 1: presence of an ancient fart joke like this supports uh,
Speaker 1: the idea of of the camera a mind Julian James's theory?
Speaker 1: Or is it? Or is it? Or is this uh?
Speaker 1: Or is this some some ammunition one could use against it?
Speaker 1: I don't know. I guess i'd say it's neutral. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I certainly wouldn't say supports okay, But but I do
Speaker 1: wonder what would one, given the particulars of of the
Speaker 1: bicameral theory, would would one have to be conscious as
Speaker 1: a modern human is conscious in order to make a
Speaker 1: fart joke like this? That's a good question. I don't
Speaker 1: know how humor would play into the presence of consciousness. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I will say though that I love Julian James's theory,
Speaker 1: and I would I would hate it if it were
Speaker 1: an ancient fart joke that truly brought it down, like
Speaker 1: this was the this was the arrow that managed to
Speaker 1: to kill the beast. That's the nail in the coffin.
Speaker 1: It's a fart joke, Yeah, sorry, James could be well,
Speaker 1: I say, we look elsewhere for more fart jokes in history.
Speaker 1: One of the best that I have come across is
Speaker 1: actually not a verbal joke, but it is a series
Speaker 1: of amazing illustration sans from medieval Japanese art. So, Robert,
Speaker 1: have you seen these medieval Japanese fart scrolls? I had
Speaker 1: not until you showed them to me this morning. I mean,
Speaker 1: I've seen so many different bits of Japanese art that
Speaker 1: depict basically just all sorts of body horror, be they
Speaker 1: in the form of yokai or other monster stories, or
Speaker 1: or even just like the magical testicle based ability of
Speaker 1: the raccoon dogs. So in Edo period Japan, which is
Speaker 1: the early seventeenth to mid nineteenth century, some artists or
Speaker 1: group of artists created a collection of artworks that have
Speaker 1: now been digitized and you can find them at the
Speaker 1: website of Waseda University Library. And these artworks are contained
Speaker 1: on a scroll known as hay Gassin or Fart Battle,
Speaker 1: and the name says it all. You've got dudes blasting
Speaker 1: each other with farts in every way you can imagine,
Speaker 1: but not just any farts. These are kind of a
Speaker 1: supernatural high powered fart that appears to have the power
Speaker 1: to knock people over and do all kinds of damage.
Speaker 1: It's represented in the artwork as a kind of spreading
Speaker 1: beam of darkness that comes out of the butt. And
Speaker 1: so it's you've got dudes farting and enemies while riding
Speaker 1: on horseback. You've got dudes farting through holes in the walls.
Speaker 1: You've got farting on cats, I don't know why, sometimes
Speaker 1: farting at cats and the cats are like And then
Speaker 1: you've got people farting into bags and then releasing the
Speaker 1: bags on rivals and then repelling farts with handheld fans.
Speaker 1: That's pretty smart, like Mortal Kombat. Yeah, right there, all
Speaker 1: kinds of havoc and destruction. And this particular scroll actually
Speaker 1: appears to be part of a larger tradition of fart
Speaker 1: battle artworks. I found one academic article discussing medieval Japanese
Speaker 1: fart battles in art, and it was by Akiko Yano.
Speaker 1: The article was called Historiography of the Fallic Contest hand
Speaker 1: scroll in Japanese Art in the Japan Review, and Yano
Speaker 1: describes one art scroll housed at the Mitsui Memorial Museum
Speaker 1: in to Kio, which is known as catchier a maki,
Speaker 1: and it's a hand scroll that contains both the phallic
Speaker 1: contest component that was in the title of the paper,
Speaker 1: which is a competition quote among men with surrealistically huge
Speaker 1: male members, and then it's also got a fart battle component.
Speaker 1: And in the fart battle section, the only text is
Speaker 1: a few brief descriptions of what is happening in some
Speaker 1: of the artworks. Examples of the explanatory text include quote,
Speaker 1: they prepare to fart like arrows by drinking cold water
Speaker 1: to chill their bellies, picking sweet acorns and eating them
Speaker 1: with raw chestnuts. Their stomachs are chilled. Now they line
Speaker 1: up to fart like arrows by eating hot rice porridge. Okay,
Speaker 1: now this lines up with some of the science will
Speaker 1: be discussing later. Yes, And finally they collect the farts
Speaker 1: in a bag and prepare to volley fart arrows. Fart arrows,
Speaker 1: fart arrows. All right. I really like the way that's written,
Speaker 1: as if it's like you should already know what a
Speaker 1: fart arrow is. But yeah. Another interesting thing Yano points
Speaker 1: out in the article is that many of the figures
Speaker 1: depicted in these artworks releasing these huge sort of fart
Speaker 1: Hadukins are supposed to be priests. They're dressed as priests,
Speaker 1: so you have to wonder. It's like, is there a
Speaker 1: satirical aspect to this? Yeah, I mean we see this
Speaker 1: in East and West, right, this idea perhaps that you know,
Speaker 1: no matter how holy this particular holy man or woman
Speaker 1: may seem, we all know that they fart, and we
Speaker 1: can imagine it, and sometimes, if we're lucky, we can
Speaker 1: hear it, and it's it serves to sort of knock
Speaker 1: them down a peg, at least in our minds. Okay,
Speaker 1: I got one more good one, Robert, did you did
Speaker 1: you know previously about Roland the Farter? I had not
Speaker 1: heard of Roland the Farter. No, do tell of Roland
Speaker 1: the Farther. Well, there's a really great Warren Zevon song
Speaker 1: about him. I'm getting confused for something else, roll on
Speaker 1: the head of Thompson Gunner. Yeah. So there is a
Speaker 1: section on good old Roland in the book A Social
Speaker 1: History of England nine to twelve hundred, edited by Julia
Speaker 1: Crick and Elizabeth van Houts, and this is discussing what
Speaker 1: went on in the court of the English King Henry
Speaker 1: the Second, who ruled in the middle of the twelfth century.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to read this quote quote at the
Speaker 1: royal court, Christmas was evidently a time for special entertainments,
Speaker 1: as suggested by the records of one Roland le Patur,
Speaker 1: also called rue Landas Lefarterre, who was granted a sergeanty,
Speaker 1: apparently of the late twelfth century. And aside, note, a
Speaker 1: sergeanty was part of the feudal system, where a person
Speaker 1: would be awarded control of a feudal estate in exchange
Speaker 1: for some non standard service rendered. So basically it was
Speaker 1: kind of like a feudal knighthood. You'd be given a
Speaker 1: grant of land, except instead of being a night in
Speaker 1: service of the King of the queen, you would do
Speaker 1: some kind of other service. But going back to the quote,
Speaker 1: his grant is typical of that given to favored entertainers
Speaker 1: as well as to others of service to the king.
Speaker 1: In his case, it included the requirement of performing saltum,
Speaker 1: siffletum petum, or a jump, a whistle a fart before
Speaker 1: the king on Christmas Day. The phrase was a stock
Speaker 1: expression and seems to represent standard buffoonery, the kind of
Speaker 1: thing that would constitute a jester's performance, and so it
Speaker 1: is likely that Roland the Farter was a royal jester
Speaker 1: and the fart was his stock in trade. I wonder
Speaker 1: if these were legitimate farts or were these like sort
Speaker 1: of clown based farts. Did he have some sort of
Speaker 1: cushioned devices at a poem in the armpit kind of thing? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would tend to suggest they wouldn't settle for anything
Speaker 1: less than the real thing. Isn't that interesting because you
Speaker 1: can in the same way that you know, we have
Speaker 1: these these festivals in which the fool has made king
Speaker 1: for for a day, you know, everything is the reverse
Speaker 1: for the For the jester in the in the actual
Speaker 1: king's court, to fart in the king's presence, Uh, could
Speaker 1: be a extreme embarrassment. It could It could diminish your
Speaker 1: standing in the royal court. And yet the opposite is
Speaker 1: true for the jester. What it would if he has
Speaker 1: called upon to to do his performance and he has
Speaker 1: no flatuss upon which to call it? Could that could
Speaker 1: be disaster? That could could cause his head to be
Speaker 1: separated from his body. Yeah. I can't remember the details,
Speaker 1: but you've just called to mind a story. I think
Speaker 1: I recall about some lord or some some noble dignitary whoever,
Speaker 1: who was appearing before Queen Elizabeth the First and who
Speaker 1: I've heard this one farted in her presence and it
Speaker 1: was so embarrassing that he essentially had to leave the
Speaker 1: country or at least disappeared to somewhere somewhere far away
Speaker 1: for a while, but then came back. Is the version
Speaker 1: of the story that he came back years later and
Speaker 1: it presented himself before the Queen and she said, I
Speaker 1: remember you. You're the boy who farted again again if
Speaker 1: it was, and it's your whole identity. Yeah, that's like
Speaker 1: a I think that's a human fear like that if
Speaker 1: if if you let one rip in the wrong context, Uh,
Speaker 1: that fart will haunt you forever for no good reason,
Speaker 1: because again everyone does this, This is a basic aspect
Speaker 1: of of human behavior. Well, unfortunately, that is exactly the
Speaker 1: route that the role in the farter story goes down,
Speaker 1: So it has a kind of sad ending. According to
Speaker 1: stories collected. Actually, oh you know what, I just realized
Speaker 1: in a book that's the same Valerie Allan book you
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier. Yeah, so in that same Valerie Allen book,
Speaker 1: apparently she She talks about how a later king, probably
Speaker 1: Henry the Third, took the crown, and the story goes
Speaker 1: that the laughs dried up and this king did not
Speaker 1: find Roland's act very funny, and he revoked Roland's grant
Speaker 1: of land, citing the fact that his buffoonery was indecent.
Speaker 1: But Alan also notes that some things about the timeline
Speaker 1: don't really add up. These chronicles would have role in
Speaker 1: the Farter having a career that was like a hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty years long or more so. Something about the
Speaker 1: story is probably garbled or wrong, but there does appear
Speaker 1: to be some kind of historical core to it. We
Speaker 1: do think there was a role in the farter who
Speaker 1: farted for his bread and butter. Huh, Well, I wonder
Speaker 1: if it This is near speculation on my part, but
Speaker 1: I wonder if it could have been more of a role.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like Bozo the clown, or you could
Speaker 1: have different actors playing Roland the Farter, and therefore he
Speaker 1: could live for the doctor. Yeah, yeah, you know, every
Speaker 1: time the doctor disappears, you have a new role in
Speaker 1: the Farter time Lord shows up. Yeah, the basic that
Speaker 1: basic transformation scene, except with farting sounds at it. Get
Speaker 1: on at Hollywood. I want to see the Roland Roland
Speaker 1: at the farther chronicles. All right, I think we should
Speaker 1: take a quick break and when we come back we
Speaker 1: will look at the science of flatulence. Than alright, we're back.
Speaker 1: So what exactly is flatulence? Tell me, Robert, Well, when
Speaker 1: you you boil it down to just the basics, it's
Speaker 1: gas produced during digestion and flatus. Only A applies to
Speaker 1: gas expelled through the anus, So not the cloaco or
Speaker 1: a specialized glander duck. We're talking about gas from your
Speaker 1: anus or the anus of any anally empowered animal. Because,
Speaker 1: of course, as we do. We discussed on our our
Speaker 1: anus episode, which I'll link to on the Landing page
Speaker 1: for this episode stuff to blow your mind dot com.
Speaker 1: There's always more, Yeah, there's there's always more content out there.
Speaker 1: But as we mentioned in that, uh, not every creature
Speaker 1: has an anus. Now that being said, it should also
Speaker 1: be noted that not every animal farts, and we will
Speaker 1: get back to that truth as well. But let's talk
Speaker 1: about the composition of the average two. Yeah, so how
Speaker 1: much does the average person far it? Alright, so, sure
Speaker 1: people out there are wondering like am I am I
Speaker 1: farting too much? Not enough? I've got to know, uh yeah,
Speaker 1: And you know, it is one of those things that's
Speaker 1: probably difficult for most people to gauge because it's depending on,
Speaker 1: like I guess your what kind of household you grew
Speaker 1: up in, and what sort of culture you're a part of. Uh.
Speaker 1: Sometimes farting is something that must be done in secret
Speaker 1: uh and blamed upon children and animals. But apparently the
Speaker 1: average person uh, let's rip between five hundred and two
Speaker 1: thousand million leaders of gas per day and each about
Speaker 1: is likely to be thirty five to ninety million leaders. Okay,
Speaker 1: I just did some extremely rough math on that, and
Speaker 1: it looks like that would average out to about twenty
Speaker 1: farts a day on average if you go for the
Speaker 1: middle of those ranges. All right, Well, I would be
Speaker 1: curious to hear from listeners who want to uh speak
Speaker 1: truth to that number. Does that line up with your experience?
Speaker 1: What do you think? Uh? Incidentally, I also have run
Speaker 1: across um uh some material in the past that spoke
Speaker 1: to at least in uh in some cultures and maybe
Speaker 1: all cultures. I don't know, but the you're gonna have
Speaker 1: different volumes with with men and women depending on is
Speaker 1: it is it seem more proper for men to regularly
Speaker 1: pass gas versus women, and therefore women might um contain
Speaker 1: themselves more more than the men. I'm not sure how
Speaker 1: that research actually lines up with our figures here, though.
Speaker 1: Is there fart injustice being done? Yeah? I mean again,
Speaker 1: we come back to the basic reality that this is
Speaker 1: something that everybody's body does. So, according to Jeffrey Klueger,
Speaker 1: writing for Discover magazine and nineteen and fabulous article in
Speaker 1: which is primary source is gastro inturologists and two thousand
Speaker 1: thirteen Nobel Prize winner Dr Michael Levitt, who will keep
Speaker 1: coming back to because Levitt is a big name in
Speaker 1: the fart science community. Yes. Uh, but according to this
Speaker 1: article of Flatus, is carbon dioxide, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, and methane.
Speaker 1: I read somewhere that among some people tested, the nitrogen
Speaker 1: seemed to be the greatest component by volume. Okay, and
Speaker 1: these are all either swallowed in or with the food
Speaker 1: or released during digestion. Now this is all odorless is
Speaker 1: the interesting part to consider here? Uh. In the methane,
Speaker 1: the remaining one percent of the composition is to blame
Speaker 1: for the smell, and it's the byproduct of the microbe
Speaker 1: legions that live in your gut aiding in your digestion.
Speaker 1: That one percent is their waste gas. So yeah, what
Speaker 1: exactly are these odor carrying compounds? And by god, there's
Speaker 1: a study on that. So this is a study by Suarez,
Speaker 1: Springfield and Love at the same Levet we mentioned earlier
Speaker 1: called identification of Gases responsible for the odor of hum
Speaker 1: inflate us and Evaluation of a device purported to reduce
Speaker 1: this odor, published in Gut And so I've not heard
Speaker 1: of the journal Gut before. That's great. Yeah, all your
Speaker 1: gut needs met in one place. So they took sixteen
Speaker 1: healthy subjects and fed them pinto beans and stool softener
Speaker 1: and hooked them up to quote rectal tubes. Getting off
Speaker 1: to a good start. So results results were that most
Speaker 1: but not quite all of the malodorous calm pounds and
Speaker 1: human flatus where sulfur based compounds, and the following where
Speaker 1: the major sulfur compounds detected yet hydrogen sulfide, which has
Speaker 1: a rotten eggs smell, and it's associated with the microbial
Speaker 1: breakdown of organic matter in an oxygen free environment. So
Speaker 1: if you've ever had that really bad microbial decomposition smell,
Speaker 1: it's often coming from some kind of anaerobic source. It's
Speaker 1: breakdown occurring where there's no oxygen in the breakdown area,
Speaker 1: and it's it's producing these horrible sulfurous by products. And
Speaker 1: this was followed by methane thiol, which is sometimes described
Speaker 1: as the smell of rotten cabbage, and it's a major
Speaker 1: component of bad breath, and then also by dimethyl sulfide,
Speaker 1: which has a strong bad smell, also sometimes described as
Speaker 1: cabbage like. In fact, I've read that it's produced when
Speaker 1: you boil cabbage. So part of the bad smell of
Speaker 1: boiled cabbage is going to be this stuff dimethyl sulfide,
Speaker 1: but it's also in lower concentration when paired with other smells.
Speaker 1: One of the major components of the smell we identify
Speaker 1: as the smell of the ocean, which is funny because
Speaker 1: when you think about the smell of the sea, it's
Speaker 1: one of those that that's kind of sitting on the
Speaker 1: fence between a good smell and a bad smell, right right,
Speaker 1: And it's kind by context really exactly, it's kind of nice,
Speaker 1: but it can also get kind of kind of foul. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess it's when you're actually at the ocean. You
Speaker 1: know that you have you have all the other sensory
Speaker 1: information to to skew it into a more positive place
Speaker 1: and in a definite uh oceanic vibe. It's kind of
Speaker 1: like the whole like like cheese versus smelly shoes or
Speaker 1: smelly socks situation where oftentimes that you're essentially talking about
Speaker 1: a very similar odor, but when associated with the shoes
Speaker 1: it is gross. But when associated with a particular cheese,
Speaker 1: if you are a cheese eater, then it will excite you.
Speaker 1: I think that's a good point of comparison. Now, so
Speaker 1: the human judges in judging the malodorous nous of different farts,
Speaker 1: they apparently were able to significantly correlate the worst smelling
Speaker 1: farts with hydrogen sulfide concentration. So it seems like the
Speaker 1: more hydrogen sulfide is in the flate US, the worse
Speaker 1: it smells. Now, as a side note, the study also
Speaker 1: looked at a couple of methods for eliminating the odor
Speaker 1: of flate US quote. Odor intensity was also determined after
Speaker 1: treatment of FLATEUS samples with zinc acetate which binds sulfidril
Speaker 1: compounds hydrogen sulfide and methane thiol or activated charcoal utilizing
Speaker 1: gas type milar pantaloons. Yes, gas type milar pantaloons. The
Speaker 1: ability of a charcoal lined cushion to adsorb sulfur containing
Speaker 1: gases instilled at the anus of eight subjects was assessed,
Speaker 1: and what they found was the activated charcoal anus cushion
Speaker 1: worked best and it adsorbed more than of the sulfur
Speaker 1: based gases. So if you want your farts to not stink,
Speaker 1: you can use an activated charcoal anus cushion and it
Speaker 1: will apparently work pretty darn well. How come that's not
Speaker 1: a standard feature in these, uh, these various underwears that
Speaker 1: one can order online these days. I think maybe there
Speaker 1: actually is underwear you can get like that. I don't
Speaker 1: know if it uses activated charcoal, but there are I've
Speaker 1: seen advertisements for underwear that is supposed to get rid
Speaker 1: of the bad smell of farts, and I don't know
Speaker 1: how effective it is or what it's made out of,
Speaker 1: but I know I've seen that before. Interesting, Now, Robert,
Speaker 1: here's a question I've got. I know people are very
Speaker 1: often prone to link the prevalence of farts and the
Speaker 1: bad smell of farts to certain elements in the diet.
Speaker 1: But when people talk about this, it sounds completely random
Speaker 1: to me. It sounds like they're just making up one
Speaker 1: thing or another because there's no consistency whatsoever, and what
Speaker 1: people say leads to lots of farts or bad smelling farts,
Speaker 1: except maybe beans. Well, and then here's the thing to
Speaker 1: write anything that you any particular food you associate with
Speaker 1: a fart to speak of it. Uh. Thus lee is humorous,
Speaker 1: so that if you were to say, oh, man, someone's
Speaker 1: got the tutsie roll toots today, or I have a
Speaker 1: bad case of the beef farts, huh uh yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it actually gets funnier. I think the more mundane the
Speaker 1: food you say, is like, oh, you know, Terry's got
Speaker 1: bread farts over here. Yeah, there's there's nothing that isn't funny.
Speaker 1: But as it turns out, there there is a science
Speaker 1: to what's going on here, and we can classify our
Speaker 1: foods into different toot categories. The more complex the carbohydrates
Speaker 1: in your diet, the more pungent the odor is likely
Speaker 1: to be. Yeah, so meat, fish, nuts, and berries not
Speaker 1: too much to worry about citrus, bread and potatoes. Those
Speaker 1: are full of complex sugars. Uh, So you get a
Speaker 1: two tier consistency. And then the beans, bananas and milk
Speaker 1: foods such as this. That's where you really in your
Speaker 1: fart city. And this is because the more complex carbohydrates
Speaker 1: are more difficult to break down, requiring more work in
Speaker 1: the lower regions of the bowels. In general, however, it's
Speaker 1: not only the creature's diet that's gonna be a major factor,
Speaker 1: but also the specific gut floor that they have, the
Speaker 1: specific uh you know, microbes that are residing within them
Speaker 1: to aid in their digestion. But and then also overall
Speaker 1: health of the individual. So these are gonna character These
Speaker 1: are gonna influence not only the character but the volume
Speaker 1: of the toots and high fiber diets. They have a
Speaker 1: lot of veggies in them. For instance, these have been
Speaker 1: linked to increased flash lens as well as have dairy
Speaker 1: starch and fructose. That's interesting. I mean, not knowing anything
Speaker 1: going in, I might have assumed, Hey, who's gonna fart
Speaker 1: the most, don't I don't know, Maybe people who eat
Speaker 1: a lot of meat. No, it's the it's the curse
Speaker 1: of the vegetarian, but but also Brussels sprouts and meat
Speaker 1: are also examples of foods with high concentrations of sulfur
Speaker 1: leading to the production of that hydrogen sulfide that we've
Speaker 1: mentioned already, the smell of rotten eggs, but also hey,
Speaker 1: the smell of fire and brimstone. Oh, that brings us
Speaker 1: right back to the demonic associate. Yes, I wonder, I
Speaker 1: wonder now speaking of fire and brimstone. Mary Wroach actually
Speaker 1: breaks down the flammable components of platus in her excellent
Speaker 1: book Gulp Adventures in the Alimentary Canal. Uh. This is
Speaker 1: this is a fabulous book I've mentioned on the show before.
Speaker 1: Uh and and Mary does a fabulous job exploring fart
Speaker 1: science and at least two different books that she's written.
Speaker 1: So here's some of the facts. Methane and hydrogen are
Speaker 1: explosive in concentrations higher than four to five percent, and
Speaker 1: then up to eight of plates is hydrogen. That's interesting.
Speaker 1: I wonder how that compares to what I read that
Speaker 1: a major component is nitrogen. I guess maybe it's got
Speaker 1: to be highly variable, right, I imagine. So, now we've
Speaker 1: all heard tales of lighted farts and if you're like me.
Speaker 1: You might have seen it done on stage that at
Speaker 1: an Atlanta improv show. Do not take that as an
Speaker 1: endorsement of this behavior. This podcast is not recommending lighting fart,
Speaker 1: which is actually seriously dangerous behavior, right and you and
Speaker 1: you will see why it's dangerous as we roll out
Speaker 1: some of the details. Um but but Roache does describe
Speaker 1: a few of the more harrowing cases of flate is fire,
Speaker 1: such as the fatal N seven mishap during a colonic polypectomy,
Speaker 1: that is, the surgical removal of polyps from the colon. Wow,
Speaker 1: how did this happen? So the gastro intrologist here was
Speaker 1: using electrocoagulation to cut to cut down on bleeding, and
Speaker 1: about eight seconds into the procedure there was an explosion.
Speaker 1: The patient's body jerked on the table. Uh, and then
Speaker 1: the the colonoscope was quote completely ejected from the body,
Speaker 1: which Mary interprets is essentially it was launched out of
Speaker 1: the anus by the explosion. It is horrifying. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: basically what happened is that there is there the gas
Speaker 1: in the colon was flammable, and the the the electro
Speaker 1: cauterization device touched it off and bamo. This is why
Speaker 1: Roach says there's so much overkill in pre colonoscopy bowel cleansing.
Speaker 1: The patient in this case had followed the pre surgical instructions.
Speaker 1: He'd taken the laxative manitol to clear everything out. But
Speaker 1: but while there was no fecal matter inside of him,
Speaker 1: there was gas. Now important note here manitol is not
Speaker 1: used anymore. So Mary Road churches everyone not to worry
Speaker 1: about exploding during the colonoscopy. Uh and she She also
Speaker 1: points out that doctors will blow air or carbon dioxide,
Speaker 1: which is non flammable, into the colon as they work. Quote.
Speaker 1: Inflating the colon also helps them see what they're doing.
Speaker 1: Air creates the magnificent billowing flatulence that rings through the
Speaker 1: colonoscopy recovery room. I've never considered that. Apparently it's the thing.
Speaker 1: If only the Fart Battle illustrators had known, I know,
Speaker 1: it would be a much more fiery affair right unexplored
Speaker 1: territory here. So some of you might be wondering, well, heck,
Speaker 1: if there is a lethal amount of gas in my
Speaker 1: colon right now, should I be afraid? Should I? Should
Speaker 1: I step away from campfires? Etcetera. And uh, Roach says,
Speaker 1: don't worry. Basically, so the hydrogen and methane dilutes as
Speaker 1: you pass gas, so basically as it comes out into
Speaker 1: the atmosphere, very quickly disperses and enters a concentration. That's
Speaker 1: not dangerous. That's right. Too light of fart. And again
Speaker 1: we do not encourage you to do so, you'd have
Speaker 1: to hold the match. So the flame made contact with
Speaker 1: the gas the second it left the body, too close
Speaker 1: for comfort. In other words, I feel like the commercial
Speaker 1: like showing people skateboarding, do not attempt, do not attempt. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we can't drive that home enough here. Oh, and I
Speaker 1: have to mention this this section from from from the
Speaker 1: book Gulp as well, because Roach chats with University of
Speaker 1: Alabama's Stephen Secor. Uh. If you look him up, he's
Speaker 1: almost always draped in a which is which is an
Speaker 1: encouraging sign of a biologist. And Secor has this interesting
Speaker 1: theory regarding the myth of the of the fire breathing dragon.
Speaker 1: So imagine this, imagine us, Uh, the sort of gas
Speaker 1: a large snake would generate. Snakes do fart? Yeah, like yeah,
Speaker 1: that they do. And and so this would be like
Speaker 1: a python or a constrictor. Right now, imagine in that
Speaker 1: inside that snake of a vegetation gorged mammal that is
Speaker 1: also decomposing. Okay, so like snake eats a ruminant herbivore, right,
Speaker 1: that's that it that itself had just previously eaten a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of grass. Now, bear in mind that many
Speaker 1: plant eaters lacking rumans, have a seasome as a pouch
Speaker 1: between the small intestines and the colon, and animals like
Speaker 1: rabbits have extra large ones. And the interesting thing is
Speaker 1: that pythons and boas do as well, not for the
Speaker 1: plants they're not eating, but for the plant eaters their gobbling,
Speaker 1: gobbling down whole. So that's quite a lot of methane
Speaker 1: building up in there. So imagine some prehistoric hunters dragging
Speaker 1: a gorge snake homeb to the campfire. You know, something
Speaker 1: that's just thick with its recent meal, some sort of
Speaker 1: whole large herbivore just lodged in its gut being broken down.
Speaker 1: So the hunters dragged this back to the campfire and
Speaker 1: they PLoP it down in front of the fire hard
Speaker 1: enough to blast the creature's mouth open, and then this
Speaker 1: brilliant burst of flame. I will say that as a
Speaker 1: highly contrived scenario, but I like it nonetheless. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's it's beautiful in its own way. Now I mentioned
Speaker 1: that Mary Roach has more than one book that explores
Speaker 1: the science of flatus. Uh. The other is Packing for Mars,
Speaker 1: which is because this actually matters in space. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's a big it's a big deal. Um.
Speaker 1: She She explores the threat of of NASA fart studies
Speaker 1: in a couple of her books, and these are just
Speaker 1: a couple of the choice nuggets. Here she mentions that
Speaker 1: Edwin Murphy researched unquote experimental bean meal h fed to
Speaker 1: volunteers who had been rigged via erectal catheter to out
Speaker 1: gas into a measurement device. Yea, he was interested in
Speaker 1: individual differences, not just in the overall volume of flate us,
Speaker 1: but in the differing percentages of the gases, and owing
Speaker 1: to differences in intestinal bacteria, half the population produced no methane.
Speaker 1: No methane, Yeah, no methane. And this so this would
Speaker 1: make them attractive as astronauts. But I can also see
Speaker 1: this can make them a target of chauvinistic attitudes about
Speaker 1: how real farts contain methane. True, but Murphy even reported
Speaker 1: that he had found an individual who was flate as free.
Speaker 1: So here's a quote. I don't believe that you, Oh, well,
Speaker 1: I don't know. It's it's it's a tough pill to swallow.
Speaker 1: But here's the quote of special of special interest for
Speaker 1: further research was the subject who produced essentially no flateus
Speaker 1: on one hundred grams dry weight of beans. So he
Speaker 1: suggested that the astronauts be selected from quote that part
Speaker 1: of our population producing little or no methane or hydrogen. Now, also,
Speaker 1: it's it's worth noting that NASA used to keep our
Speaker 1: flatest expert and again future Nobel Prize winner biophysicist Michael
Speaker 1: Levitt on retainer as a consultant, and he ruled that
Speaker 1: the capsules uh that they were using at the time
Speaker 1: were large enough and and well circulated enough to prevent
Speaker 1: the dangerous concentrations of gas from building up. God, can
Speaker 1: you imagine that being the requirement? Though? That shut you
Speaker 1: down to become an astronaut. So it's like you've ever
Speaker 1: since your little kid, you've trained, you've worked hard in school,
Speaker 1: you've worked hard to stay fit. You you're ready to
Speaker 1: go to space. You're in perfect shape, you know all
Speaker 1: the astrophysics, you've been a test pilot, god knows what else,
Speaker 1: and you're ready to be an astronaut. And they put
Speaker 1: a rectal tube in you and they say, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: you produced too much late us. You can't go to Mars. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's like you're super qualified, but your farts are weird.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry now, you know. In the past, we've we've
Speaker 1: talked about the prospect of genetically engineering astronauts, and of
Speaker 1: course the main objectives here would be, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: to to make them more resistant to uh, solar and
Speaker 1: cosmic radiation, or or make them resistant to micro gravity
Speaker 1: bone loss. But perhaps we also want to ensure a
Speaker 1: fart free space faring human uh, either via genetic changed
Speaker 1: in the individual or manipulation or genetic engineering of gut
Speaker 1: flora itself. Oh, yeah, that that could be a thing.
Speaker 1: I mean, I wonder if one way to do that
Speaker 1: would be not so much through genetic engineering from birth,
Speaker 1: but through say like fecal transplants, Yeah, to change the
Speaker 1: gut flora profile. Yeah, I mean really, there's there's so
Speaker 1: much left to learn about the the connection between our
Speaker 1: gut flora, uh, and other aspects of our health, not
Speaker 1: only physical health, but even mental health. I believe we've
Speaker 1: talked about this on the show before, the idea that
Speaker 1: in the future, one of the treatments for certain cases
Speaker 1: of say, depression, might be treatable via something like a
Speaker 1: fecal transplant. Yes, some of the amazing implications of gut
Speaker 1: flora for all kinds of body health up and down
Speaker 1: the line are discussed in that great book I recommended
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago, Ed Young's I Contain Multitudes,
Speaker 1: which is all about the It's about microbes and the microbiome,
Speaker 1: and it's just fascinating. I mean, the dimensions of ramifications
Speaker 1: posed by gut flora within humans specifically, but microbes all
Speaker 1: around us generally are are just unbelievable. Alright, Well, on
Speaker 1: that note, we're going to take another break, and when
Speaker 1: we come back, we're going to discuss some of the
Speaker 1: notable toots of the Animal Kingdom. Thank thank Alright, we're
Speaker 1: back now, Robert. There is a book that I know
Speaker 1: you have been super psyched about ever since we got
Speaker 1: a copy. Yes, uh, and I've actually just in the
Speaker 1: past couple of days we decided to do this episode first,
Speaker 1: But since then I've noticed in the past couple of
Speaker 1: days on the Internet other people are catching onto this book. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's making a buzz, that's right. The name of the
Speaker 1: book is Does It Fart? The Definitive Field Guide to
Speaker 1: Animal Flatulence by Nick Caruso and Danny Rabbiotti, illustrated by
Speaker 1: Ethan co Chak. It's uh, it's been a bit of
Speaker 1: a hit in my household thus far as you can.
Speaker 1: This is one of those books that you can just
Speaker 1: flip through it land on any particular page and there'll
Speaker 1: be a profile of a specific animal. It's it's very
Speaker 1: easily digestible, Yes, very easily digestible. It has some just
Speaker 1: delightful illustrations. Uh. And I've been reading sections of it
Speaker 1: to my wife, to my five year old son, to myself,
Speaker 1: and it's it's tremendous fun. So I highly recommend getting
Speaker 1: a copy of this. I'll make or there's a link
Speaker 1: to it on the landing page for this episode is
Speaker 1: stuff to Blow your Mind dot Com. Well, let's talk
Speaker 1: about a few examples, all right. Well first, uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: a few examples of just exceptional tutors in the animal Kingdom. Uh.
Speaker 1: The first one I want to profile here is that
Speaker 1: the West Indian manateee. I was really impressed with this
Speaker 1: one because we've discussed manatees a couple of times on
Speaker 1: the podcast this year, and I've I've recently got to
Speaker 1: see some both in the wild and and in an
Speaker 1: aquarium setting, but I had not heard this particular tidbit.
Speaker 1: The authors point out that quote, the manatees and testines
Speaker 1: have small pouches throughout that allow for gas storage. This
Speaker 1: unusual anatomy allows the West Indian manateee to manipulate its
Speaker 1: farts as a mechanism for buoyancy. By storing gas within
Speaker 1: specific areas of their intestines, manatees can make their bodies
Speaker 1: more buoyant and float towards the surface, while the compression
Speaker 1: and release of flatulence makes these animals sink. Amazing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so they're they're it's it's almost like they're these these
Speaker 1: fart powered blimps flying through the ocean. Uh. And they
Speaker 1: point out that in fact, if if a manity is constipated,
Speaker 1: it screws everything up and will often float with their
Speaker 1: tail too high because there's too much gas built up there.
Speaker 1: Throws off the blancy. You know, I was flipping through
Speaker 1: this morning and I found a section on iguanas, and
Speaker 1: so I was that that intrigued me Iguanas. Sometimes they've
Speaker 1: got this look in their face like I don't fart,
Speaker 1: look a little proud. Yeah. Yeah, but they're they're lying.
Speaker 1: They're lying to you, because iguanas do fart, like geckos
Speaker 1: and other lizards, they fart. The Rhinoceros iguana or Cyclora cornuda,
Speaker 1: they apparently tend to produce quote wet sounding farts, uh,
Speaker 1: and they fart more when they have high fiber diets
Speaker 1: that makes sense, or lots of parasitic infestation. Green iguanas,
Speaker 1: which are popular pets, are herbivorous, which means more farts,
Speaker 1: and iguana owners have actually commented pretty often that their
Speaker 1: lizards produce loud fart steering defecation. One that I found
Speaker 1: interesting was the termite. You don't they might not think
Speaker 1: about farting termites, but here's the thing. They're kind of
Speaker 1: super farters and according to the authors here, they produced
Speaker 1: five to nineteen percent of global methane emissions. Yeah, is
Speaker 1: that possible? Or point to seven percent of greenhouse emissions. Termites, Yeah, amazing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just in there, munch in wood and tuting. Now they
Speaker 1: also get into dinosaurs a little bit, specifically talking about sauropods.
Speaker 1: So as we'll discuss, birds do not fart, so it's
Speaker 1: possible that they're dino ancestors did not either. But sara pods, however,
Speaker 1: these are the you know, the gigantic uh plant eating
Speaker 1: engines of of prehistoric times. They likely depended on hindgut
Speaker 1: fermentation to break down those massive meals, resulting in quite
Speaker 1: a bit of gas. The author's point to one studies
Speaker 1: estimate of one point nine kilograms of methane per sauropod
Speaker 1: per day. Now, speaking of methane producing herbivores, I think
Speaker 1: we should look at the cow. There's actually a section
Speaker 1: on the cow in this book, but I also did
Speaker 1: some extra research on the cow because obviously the cow farts.
Speaker 1: But you might be surprised to find out how because
Speaker 1: you might have heard that, for example, cows are a
Speaker 1: major source of greenhouse gas emissions, and whether that's true defend,
Speaker 1: depends on how you define major. But it is true
Speaker 1: that methane and other gas emissions do contribute to climate change.
Speaker 1: There was a report produced by the UN Food and
Speaker 1: Agriculture Organization, and it estimated that in two thousand eleven,
Speaker 1: methane emissions from livestock accounted for thirty nine percent of
Speaker 1: all greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture. Now that's from agriculture,
Speaker 1: not thirty nine of total emissions from all sources. And
Speaker 1: just to put that in context, according to an analysis
Speaker 1: by the U s d a UH, they estimated that
Speaker 1: agricultu sure accounts for about ten percent of US greenhouse
Speaker 1: gas emissions, So that'd bet of ten percent. And among
Speaker 1: that thirty nine percent of agricultural emissions produced by livestock,
Speaker 1: a full seventy four percent came from cattle. There was
Speaker 1: from beef cattle, and nineteen percent from dairy cattle, and
Speaker 1: the rest were from things like buffalo and sheep and goats. Now,
Speaker 1: a lot of this gas production comes down to the
Speaker 1: cows herbivorous diet and digestion method which Caruso and Rabbiati
Speaker 1: say can produce between a hundred and two hundreds of
Speaker 1: methane emissions per cow per year. And when you're measuring
Speaker 1: in kilograms, you're you're thinking about a gas, So it's
Speaker 1: like that much gas weighing that much. It's kind of
Speaker 1: hard to fathom. But you might have often heard this
Speaker 1: idea or this line of thinking summarized as, Wow, cow
Speaker 1: farts are really contributing to climate change. Although cows do fart,
Speaker 1: the majority of their emissions comes here's the kicker, not
Speaker 1: from farts, but through the other end of the cow,
Speaker 1: straight out the mouth. So cows expel a great deal
Speaker 1: of methane through burps and through simple exhalation when they
Speaker 1: were when they're breathing. And some researchers think cow emissions
Speaker 1: can be curbed by altering their diet in targeted ways,
Speaker 1: such as like feeding them different types of seaweed that
Speaker 1: inhibit the production of gut methane. But they've got this
Speaker 1: ruminant digestion method right, and so they end up just
Speaker 1: spitting out a lot of carbon dioxide, methane and greenhouse
Speaker 1: gasses from the mouth. Well, you know that leads in
Speaker 1: nicely to the first of a few notable abstainers we're
Speaker 1: going to mention here from the book, Does it fart?
Speaker 1: You mean animals that do not fart? Yeah, or may
Speaker 1: not fart in some cases that the science is still out.
Speaker 1: But the first is the sloth. So sloth, I don't
Speaker 1: believe it. Slots must fart. You just look into their
Speaker 1: sort of lazy eyes and you just assume that there's
Speaker 1: some farts going on. My ignorant intuition trumps any science
Speaker 1: on this matter. I know sloths fart, all right. Well,
Speaker 1: here's the thing. According to the author's sloths, of course,
Speaker 1: are famously slow, and they boast incredibly slow digestion, As
Speaker 1: many as five days can pass between their poops, at
Speaker 1: which time, of course, they often climbed down from the
Speaker 1: tree print canopy to do their defecation. And they have
Speaker 1: an incredibly leafy diet as well, and simplified gut flora
Speaker 1: that doesn't produce flatus, it produces methane, but the methane
Speaker 1: is absorbed in the sloth's blood and is breathed out. Wow.
Speaker 1: So the takeaways here, Uh, sloths maybe the only mammals
Speaker 1: that don't fart. We'll discuss another possible mammal or variety
Speaker 1: of mammal in a second. And it also gives me
Speaker 1: hope that the giant sloth megathereum breathed fire oh along
Speaker 1: the lines of the dead snake. Yeah, like maybe it was.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure how it would get that spark. The
Speaker 1: spark is the hard part. But if you have a
Speaker 1: giant sloth breathing out a bunch of methane, then there's
Speaker 1: there's hope for fire breathing. I'm trying to imagine how
Speaker 1: it would happen. What would you have, Like you'd have
Speaker 1: a megatherium who had a symbiotic relationship with some kind
Speaker 1: of commensile bombardier beetle. Maybe that like spits some kind
Speaker 1: of hot compound in front of its mouth right as
Speaker 1: it was exhaling, and then you got the fire coming out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm trying, yeah, or I don't know, some sort of
Speaker 1: like uh, you know, flint based like scraping of rocks.
Speaker 1: I get carries them around in its mouth. But we're
Speaker 1: getting into dragon territory on this. Well, you mentioned another
Speaker 1: mammal doesn't fart, or at least possibly doesn't fart. I
Speaker 1: want to know what that is, all right, Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: this would be and that this is an open question.
Speaker 1: But possibly the bat so their mammals, and so they
Speaker 1: have the right gut bacteria to produce flatus, but their
Speaker 1: digestion is rather speedy to cut down on weight for flight.
Speaker 1: The authors point out that even the largest species of bat,
Speaker 1: the so called flying fox fruit bat, has a mouth
Speaker 1: to anus digestion time of twelve to thirty four minutes.
Speaker 1: That's crazy that that is fast. And also, if you've
Speaker 1: never seen what a flying fox fruit bat looks like,
Speaker 1: just look up a flying fox. These things are too
Speaker 1: big to have wings, or at least too big to
Speaker 1: be mammals to have wings. I guess there might be
Speaker 1: bigger birds. I don't know. They're huge. They are very
Speaker 1: sizeable creatures. And the idea that they're digesting their food
Speaker 1: and around thirty minutes or less is incredible. One. When
Speaker 1: you see a flying fox hanging upside down, you're kind
Speaker 1: of tempted to think that this could be the inspiration
Speaker 1: for like the idea of bats's vampires, because they don't
Speaker 1: they look kind of like people. Yeah, they have this
Speaker 1: like humanoid like, like a loupine appearance. Now, the other
Speaker 1: major category of note here are the birds. Birds don't fart.
Speaker 1: They have all the right, you know, bits of their anatomy,
Speaker 1: but they lack the gut bacteria to produce the gas.
Speaker 1: So the authors of does It Fart? They mentioned a
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty three observation by a Cornell graduate student by
Speaker 1: the name of Alan Richard vice Broad, who described a
Speaker 1: quote small puff of whitish gas uh during a blue
Speaker 1: jay's defecation, but experts later that they argue that, like,
Speaker 1: you were basically just observing warm water vapor in the
Speaker 1: cool air, and this was not a fart. It's like
Speaker 1: when you can see your breath, right, that's not a fart. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean really, when you come down to the like
Speaker 1: the scientific observation of farts, like that's how do you
Speaker 1: how do you see that? It's kind of like trying
Speaker 1: to see a ghost. That's why you have to have
Speaker 1: rectal tubes and whatnot. I mean, is there really a
Speaker 1: reason to inflict rectal tubes on blue jays? No? I mean,
Speaker 1: especially since everyone seems to agree that birds do not fart,
Speaker 1: So let's not go inserting any tubes that aren't strictly
Speaker 1: necessary for science. Robert, this has been such a wonderful exploration.
Speaker 1: It has. This has been a fun one. We got
Speaker 1: from demons to jesters to sloths. I don't know how
Speaker 1: this happened, but it happened. And here we are closing
Speaker 1: the fabled fartonomicon at least for now. Uh, we would
Speaker 1: ask our listeners, Hey, would you like to hear more
Speaker 1: about the science of farts? Uh than let us know?
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe there's more. I'm sure there's more, A deeper
Speaker 1: dive into a medieval fart literature perhaps, uh. And also,
Speaker 1: I'd love to hear from any of those nearer toothless
Speaker 1: individuals that we referenced earlier. Are you one of those
Speaker 1: rare individuals who produces a little or no uh um,
Speaker 1: hydrogen or methane in your flatus? Are you in space
Speaker 1: right now? Let us know we would love to hear
Speaker 1: from you. We're just inviting people to lie to us. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't fart. Yeah, I wonder how much lying is
Speaker 1: perpetrated around flash lens. It has to be one of
Speaker 1: the major contributors, surely. Yeah. Yeah. So Hey. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: go to stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. That's
Speaker 1: where you'll find all the episodes of the podcast, including
Speaker 1: this one, with links to some of these books we
Speaker 1: were referencing. Uh. Also, I'm going to try and put
Speaker 1: together some sort of a gallery to go along with
Speaker 1: this episode, because we've referenced some fabulous works of art here.
Speaker 1: Maybe I can collect a few examples for you, uh
Speaker 1: and hey, it's stuff to blow your mind dot com.
Speaker 1: You will also find links going out to our various
Speaker 1: social media accounts such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, et CETERA.
Speaker 1: Huge thank you as always to our wonderful audio producers
Speaker 1: Alex Williams and Tory Harrison. If you would like to
Speaker 1: get in touch with us to let us know your
Speaker 1: feedback on this episode or any other, or do you
Speaker 1: suggest a topic for a future show, or just to
Speaker 1: say hi, you can always email us at blow the
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