Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of
Speaker 1: My Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your Mind. My name is Robert Land, and I'm Seth
Speaker 1: Nicholas Johnson. That's right, Joe is still out on parentally. Uh.
Speaker 1: He and his wife are somewhere in the zombie land
Speaker 1: of of of early parenthood. Uh, they're because they're completely
Speaker 1: in the dark. I haven't heard from him in a
Speaker 1: few days, so I think everything. I think he's in
Speaker 1: the upside down basically right now where where up is
Speaker 1: up is down, down is up. Uh. Sleep takes place
Speaker 1: whenever it can be obtained. Uh. Now how long does
Speaker 1: this period last? Do you know? Rob like like like
Speaker 1: the like baby won't sleep through the night phase. I
Speaker 1: I have no idea. Um, I'm not certain either. I
Speaker 1: think to some extent it varies from child to child.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I'm more knowledgeable what's sort of like general
Speaker 1: trends in in child sleep habits. And I know that
Speaker 1: that that, of course is going to vary a lot
Speaker 1: from kid to kid. Uh. My wife and I are
Speaker 1: fortunate that our our child has always been a very
Speaker 1: very committed sleeper. But but I know that's that's not
Speaker 1: always the case, well, well, best of luck to Joe
Speaker 1: right now in his uh, you know, parental duties right now,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure he is spending his free time listening
Speaker 1: to this podcast. So hello Joe. All right, So if
Speaker 1: you joined us on Tuesday, then you know that we
Speaker 1: began discussing some of this year's winners of the ig
Speaker 1: Nobel Prizes. Uh. This is a series of awards that
Speaker 1: are given out each year by the scientific humor journal,
Speaker 1: the Annals of Improbable Research, that has been edited for
Speaker 1: many years now by Mark Abrams and their stated purposes
Speaker 1: to quote honor achievements that make people laugh and then
Speaker 1: make them think, and so every year on stuff to
Speaker 1: bow your mind. Since I don't know how long I
Speaker 1: don't know how long I've been doing this, we generally
Speaker 1: look at at least some of the winners from from
Speaker 1: that given year and discuss them, talking about, you know,
Speaker 1: why they're funny, what's important about the studies, what's interesting
Speaker 1: about the studies. And it's generally a great exercise because
Speaker 1: a lot of times the stuff that wins it gets
Speaker 1: into an area that we might not otherwise explore, or
Speaker 1: we wouldn't devote an entire episode to certainly, and uh yeah,
Speaker 1: I always learned something new. So this is the second episode.
Speaker 1: But this is one of those situations where if you
Speaker 1: missed Tuesday and you're already listening to today's episode Thursday's episode,
Speaker 1: you're still probably good to go, because we're just looking
Speaker 1: at individual winners that revolve around generally one study. Maybe
Speaker 1: you're a handful of studies, but each one is kind
Speaker 1: of a self contained topic. So go ahead, feel free
Speaker 1: to listen to this one and then go back and
Speaker 1: listen to Tuesday's You'll be just fine. So last time,
Speaker 1: I think we talked about three different studies, and once
Speaker 1: again we're gonna talk about three more today. Uh seth,
Speaker 1: why don't you start us off with your first selection?
Speaker 1: This one is the winner of the Safety Engineering Prize.
Speaker 1: This was a paper written by Magnus Gens and it
Speaker 1: was for developing a moose crash test dummy. And uh
Speaker 1: that this was out of Sweden. This was published by
Speaker 1: the Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute, and it's
Speaker 1: it's just fun to picture crash test dummies in general.
Speaker 1: Do you remember in like the gosh, late eighties, early nineties,
Speaker 1: there was a crash test dummy trend for some reason. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I I definitely remember this because I remember being a
Speaker 1: bit into it. There were commercials right and had crash
Speaker 1: test dummies, but they also at least made action figures
Speaker 1: and in little crash sets, and I think I might
Speaker 1: have even had one of the action figures. I had
Speaker 1: a couple of myself. I had a car and two
Speaker 1: of the action figures of the dummies, because I believe
Speaker 1: they made an anime series based on it as well.
Speaker 1: My memory is kind of fuzzy about this, but I
Speaker 1: definitely remember the toys, and I definitely remember the live
Speaker 1: action commercials, and yeah, that the toys were interesting because
Speaker 1: they often had some sort of action where if you
Speaker 1: like pressed a button on their chest, you know, their
Speaker 1: arms would fly off or or like the doors would
Speaker 1: come off the cars or something. And yeah, hey, trends
Speaker 1: for children are very strange, but there was definitely a
Speaker 1: crash test dummy trend for children, uh, late eighties, early nineties.
Speaker 1: But but anyway, Oh no, no, I have to keep
Speaker 1: going on this because it raises the question now that
Speaker 1: I think I haven't really thought about this in a
Speaker 1: long time, but do you think that this was a
Speaker 1: situation where our desire as children to have action figures
Speaker 1: of dummies that were used in crash tests like industrial
Speaker 1: crash test. Was this entirely manufactured this desire and marketed
Speaker 1: to us, or did they anticipate the fact that children
Speaker 1: would see these ads and say, hey, I want one
Speaker 1: of those. This looks fun. I'm in I think this
Speaker 1: was a Geico Caveman situation where a company probably paid
Speaker 1: just for some standard like you know, public service announcement
Speaker 1: ads made some very colorful, friendly looking live action p
Speaker 1: s as, and when they aired on television, for some reason,
Speaker 1: children really glommed onto it. Maybe they were aired during
Speaker 1: the Saturday morning cartoon breaks or something, and for some reason,
Speaker 1: maybe the bright colors, maybe the action, the goofy like,
Speaker 1: you know, almost like live action Looney Tunes esqueness of
Speaker 1: like the explosions and whatnot. Maybe that just appealed to
Speaker 1: children so hard that some enterprising, you know, business person went,
Speaker 1: I know, let's sell this to those kids, you know.
Speaker 1: So I I think it was a television commercial they
Speaker 1: got too popular for its own good, and then they
Speaker 1: took advantage of it. That that's my guess. Imagine if
Speaker 1: they had known, they could have introduced a moose trash
Speaker 1: test down me as well, a talking moose that would
Speaker 1: have been amazing, like a funny sidekick Bowwinkle style. Everyone.
Speaker 1: I love that. So, so that is what we're discussing today.
Speaker 1: Just picture a moose crash test dummy and why they
Speaker 1: would need it. And here's a little chunk from the
Speaker 1: abstract from this paper quote. In certain areas of our
Speaker 1: planet there are big wild animals. One big species is
Speaker 1: the moose called elk in certain regions. Scandinavia has a
Speaker 1: very large moose population and car moose collision is a
Speaker 1: huge problem with many fatal outcomes. In order to reduce
Speaker 1: the number of injuries caused by passenger cars colliding with moose,
Speaker 1: a valid and repeatable method to arrange staged accidents is needed.
Speaker 1: A moose dummy was constructed after thorough research work. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so a couple of things, Like, first of all, like
Speaker 1: the moose is very large. The moose is much larger
Speaker 1: than a deer, and and hitting a deer with an
Speaker 1: automobile is already a serious concern. But on top of that,
Speaker 1: you also have behavioral differences with the moose, like a
Speaker 1: moose uh has a different or can have a different
Speaker 1: um attitude toward vehicles and in encounters. I've certainly heard
Speaker 1: tales of vehicles being charged by a moose before. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: and and they're huge, which we we will get to.
Speaker 1: We'll get into some very specific stats very soon. So, so,
Speaker 1: the two primary goals of this research were accuracy, and
Speaker 1: they wanted the cars that collided with the dummy moose
Speaker 1: to have a comparable damage to real cars that collided
Speaker 1: with real moose. So you know, I think most crash
Speaker 1: test folks have that goal in mind. And the second
Speaker 1: was repeatability. They wanted this moose dummy to be able
Speaker 1: to endure many crash tests before it had to be replaced. Again,
Speaker 1: makes sense. These are very expensive to construct. You know,
Speaker 1: you want to get your money's worth out of them.
Speaker 1: So first and foremost, animal collisions with cars are very common.
Speaker 1: They're dangerous, and they're also very unpredictable. Animals simply don't
Speaker 1: tend to follow the rules of the road. Uh, no
Speaker 1: matter how many signs we put up for them. You know,
Speaker 1: cross here, your dumb dear, this is your cross swak.
Speaker 1: But but they just don't pay attention to that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: add into that, having a disrupted environment which there are
Speaker 1: fewer predators to actually keep the numbers of say, dear down. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it becomes becomes a huge issue. No, No, this is
Speaker 1: their faults. We gave them a side cross here, this
Speaker 1: is your crosswalk, and they just don't they don't do it.
Speaker 1: So not. Now. Moose collisions are particularly dangerous because they
Speaker 1: are very top heavy, very tall, and have relatively spindly
Speaker 1: legs for a creature of their size. So the average
Speaker 1: moose is about six ft tall at the shoulder, and
Speaker 1: it can get obviously much bigger than that, and they
Speaker 1: can weigh as much as fourteen hundred pounds, and like
Speaker 1: I said, most of that weight is you know, pretty
Speaker 1: high up in the air. And if anyone out there
Speaker 1: has ever like seen a moose in real life, it's
Speaker 1: it's actually kind of kind of like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's awesome. It feels shocking to see a
Speaker 1: creature that large in person. Yeah, I have. I have
Speaker 1: very vague memories of my childhood and Canada of seeing
Speaker 1: these seeing a moose and it was quite I mean,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say it was terrifying, but yeah, it was
Speaker 1: kind of on inspiring. They're just so huge, Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1: So this study took place in Sweden, where annually thirty
Speaker 1: thousand car accidents involving cloven footed animals occur. That means
Speaker 1: ninety accidents daily, and thirteen of those ninety involved a moose.
Speaker 1: Unrelated to this study, the row deer is actually the
Speaker 1: cause of the majority of these collisions, but they are
Speaker 1: much smaller and lighter, so they cause far less damage.
Speaker 1: Those thirteen out of the ninety daily accidents are the
Speaker 1: ones that are I'm not gonna say almost always fatal,
Speaker 1: but are often fatal because, like I said, fourteen hundred pounds,
Speaker 1: six ft tall, and it's it's they're they're like a
Speaker 1: very heavy anvil on top of a very small spindle
Speaker 1: legged table. Like there, it's it's just not it's not smart,
Speaker 1: you know. So our researcher then has pages and pages
Speaker 1: of research to determine like the physiology of the moose
Speaker 1: to be replicated by the dummy UH formulas to determine
Speaker 1: the velocity during collisions typical car sifty practices that might
Speaker 1: be found in the average vehicle models, etcetera, ETCeteras. Now
Speaker 1: that they're going to start to build up this dummy
Speaker 1: moose one version, they take a bunch of water filled hoses,
Speaker 1: you know, to try and get that weight and that
Speaker 1: kind of like oh um that that animal pu push
Speaker 1: but also solidity didn't quite work. They tried another version
Speaker 1: with wires and would but but once again it was
Speaker 1: a bit too fragile that couldn't get the weight quite
Speaker 1: right with it, but ultimately ended up working. Were these
Speaker 1: big thick slabs of rubber kind of cross cut um. Specifically,
Speaker 1: they were thirty six rubber plates assembled vertically and assembled
Speaker 1: together through through through locking wires. The the way I
Speaker 1: can describe this is um. I remember as a child
Speaker 1: there were these like model kits where where they were um, hundreds,
Speaker 1: if not thousands, of these little flat you know, shapes
Speaker 1: that you would then stack on top of one another,
Speaker 1: and it would build like a three D model of something,
Speaker 1: usually a bust or something like that. You know I'm
Speaker 1: talking about rob Yeah, I had one of these of
Speaker 1: jar Jar Binks before the film came out. I didn't
Speaker 1: I didn't know who this character was. After the film,
Speaker 1: I perhaps would not have cared to build a model
Speaker 1: of this character. Uh So you can see these pretty
Speaker 1: easily online too, if you just search um crash test moose.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you'll be able to find them. You can
Speaker 1: also find actually some pretty good footage on television shows
Speaker 1: or things like that of people using them, and it's
Speaker 1: it's it's pretty beautiful. You'll know we're talking about the
Speaker 1: same one if you see this. There's basically like it
Speaker 1: looks kind of like a swing set hanging above the moose,
Speaker 1: and then there's a releasing mechanism with electrical magnets that
Speaker 1: will hold the moose like the correct height pre collision,
Speaker 1: but then ensuring that the mechanism won't contribute to the
Speaker 1: results of the damage. It will be completely free and
Speaker 1: clear when the collision actually occurs. Because once again, these
Speaker 1: animals are a mystery. So the dummy cannot stand on
Speaker 1: these little spindle legs on its own. It needs a
Speaker 1: little support structure to hold it at the correct height
Speaker 1: before the car actually gets there. Yeah, the sense I
Speaker 1: kind of get from the image here. It's like if
Speaker 1: you if you three D printed the torso of a moose,
Speaker 1: like from from romp to next dump, and then you
Speaker 1: you hung it from like a swing set structure of
Speaker 1: some sorry. Yeah, and and to represent the legs they
Speaker 1: got these uh, big wires hanging down, and they covered
Speaker 1: it with more rubber disks to represent the weight and
Speaker 1: the size of each leg. And there there are subtle
Speaker 1: variations between front legs and back legs. But but but
Speaker 1: you know, uh, the body was the big concern of this, know, uh,
Speaker 1: more or less it's um it's that big weight. It's
Speaker 1: that big high center of gravity weights that just falls
Speaker 1: on the car. Because I mean, if you think about it,
Speaker 1: um here here's more or less what happens to think
Speaker 1: about a typical car's height in relation to a moose
Speaker 1: and its anatomy, especially when you think about like where
Speaker 1: a bumper is on a typical sedan. So so the
Speaker 1: bumper is gonna come in real low, it's just a
Speaker 1: couple of feet from the ground, hits the moose in
Speaker 1: its tall, thin legs, and as a result, the animal
Speaker 1: will then rotate over the engine hood and crashed through
Speaker 1: the windshield pounds, which then releases all that weight directly
Speaker 1: onto the driver and the passenger. That's why it's often
Speaker 1: so deadly. It's it's not because it's heavy. It's not
Speaker 1: because they stand in the road and sometimes charge at you.
Speaker 1: It's because they're heavy and they're tall, so that our
Speaker 1: cars are almost like engineered to get hurt the most
Speaker 1: from this creature. It's it's it's a it's a difficult thing.
Speaker 1: So ultimately this stummy was successful. They were able to
Speaker 1: you know, repeat their crashes multiple times with this giant
Speaker 1: rubber body. And also it was able to accurately duplicate
Speaker 1: the real life damage from these creatures. So. Um, currently,
Speaker 1: if if you see the images of this, I haven't
Speaker 1: seen any with a head yet. They say that eventually
Speaker 1: they do plan to build one with a head and
Speaker 1: antlers because apparently there's a pendulum like effect when the
Speaker 1: body is hit, then the head follows afterwards, etcetera, etcetera. Um,
Speaker 1: but that's secondary damage. Like I said, they're focusing on
Speaker 1: that big, hulking pound body. And this study came out
Speaker 1: in two thousand one, so maybe they have done the
Speaker 1: head since then. Yes, yes, perhaps so. Uh So, So
Speaker 1: why is this funny? Um, it's a it's a most stummy.
Speaker 1: It's it's very specific, it's very silly, and ultimately moose
Speaker 1: are just kind of like an interesting, odd creature. Um. Also,
Speaker 1: I can say that as as a lifelong fan of
Speaker 1: the TV show MythBusters. I have to mention that this
Speaker 1: subject was also tackled in season six, episode one of
Speaker 1: that show. This was in their Alaska special UH. Specifically,
Speaker 1: what they did is they tested the myth that it's
Speaker 1: better to hit a moose going quickly rather than slowing down.
Speaker 1: So so, like I, I I believe in this show they
Speaker 1: may have used the exact same crash test dummy from
Speaker 1: this UM from this UH, from this paper. However, I
Speaker 1: couldn't find the exact footage, so I can't confirm that
Speaker 1: I'm just going based on memory that myth was busted
Speaker 1: going really fast. The The myth was that if you're
Speaker 1: going really fast when you hit the moose, that like
Speaker 1: like the aerodynamic kind of curve of a car will
Speaker 1: just fling the moose directly over your car and you'll
Speaker 1: be perfectly safe. That is not the case. Like I said,
Speaker 1: it's four pounds, Nah, it's it's it's crushing that front
Speaker 1: of your car. Unfortunately, you can, like I said, you
Speaker 1: can see footage. You can look this up on YouTube.
Speaker 1: It's wild to see. UM. So yes was busted. Don't
Speaker 1: think that going extra fast will make you safer when
Speaker 1: when running into a moose and which brings me to
Speaker 1: why this is important. This can genuinely lead to saving lives,
Speaker 1: particularly in areas like Scandinavia or the Pacific Northwest regions
Speaker 1: of of the of North America, basically anywhere that a
Speaker 1: moose can be found easily. This data can you know,
Speaker 1: be duplicated and given to car manufacturers, so they can
Speaker 1: know which parts of their cars, especially cars that are
Speaker 1: sold often in these regions where they need extra you
Speaker 1: know enforcement, you know, Uh, can they make a moose
Speaker 1: proof windshield? Is that even possible? Will will cars have
Speaker 1: like not not not a cow catcher, but a moose
Speaker 1: catcher in the in the near future who knows, who knows?
Speaker 1: But but now they can test it over and over
Speaker 1: again and hopefully make safer cars for these regions that uh,
Speaker 1: you know, are I want to say moose proof, but
Speaker 1: that's probably a bit too ambitious. Well, I mean, the
Speaker 1: moose test is definitely a thing. Um. Just doing a
Speaker 1: little searching around, I found this is a website called
Speaker 1: hot cars dot com and they have an article five
Speaker 1: cars that have passed Sweden's moose test and five that failed.
Speaker 1: And yeah, these are all different vehicles and they just
Speaker 1: look like normal automobiles are just about normal automobiles with
Speaker 1: enough like safety protocol and um like structural integrity I suppose,
Speaker 1: and in some cases larger looking vehicles but sometimes not
Speaker 1: so large um that that have done well. So I
Speaker 1: guess in a way, I'm not disappointed that there are
Speaker 1: no crazy Swedish moose proof vehicles that look like the
Speaker 1: front of a train, but it is great that they've
Speaker 1: been able to take this data and then use it
Speaker 1: to ensure safety in various vehicles. This is a complete tangent.
Speaker 1: But have you ever seen Land of the Dead, the
Speaker 1: George A. Romero film? Is that the one with the
Speaker 1: tower and John Lacosama. Yes, yes, exactly, I have, but
Speaker 1: I haven't seen it since it came out, so I'm
Speaker 1: a little foggy. There's a vehicle there's a vehicle in
Speaker 1: in that film called Dead Reckoning, which is like their
Speaker 1: major like vehicle for like going out into the world,
Speaker 1: and it's basically zombie proof. And in the end of
Speaker 1: that movie they all hop in Dead Reckoning and they
Speaker 1: drive to Canada and that's like they're like, hey, where
Speaker 1: we're okay? And I think you know what, I think
Speaker 1: Dead Reckoning is moose proof. So that would be that'd
Speaker 1: be a real kicker, that'd be a real down or
Speaker 1: ending where they escape in this vehicle, then they hit
Speaker 1: their first moose and they're just done for. They could
Speaker 1: survive the zombie hordes, but they can't survive a zombie moose.
Speaker 1: All Right, For the next one, I'm gonna be talking
Speaker 1: about the Art History Prize. So I suppose the other
Speaker 1: side of covering Ignobile Award winning studies is that sometimes
Speaker 1: it forces us to cover topics that we might not
Speaker 1: otherwise cover um at least these days, and that's certainly
Speaker 1: the case with the r History winner. For two honored
Speaker 1: are this page is This paper from was published in
Speaker 1: the Journal of ethno Pharmacology by Peter de Smett and
Speaker 1: Nicholas Hellmuth, titled a Multidisciplinary Approach to Ritual Enema Scenes
Speaker 1: on Ancient Maya Pottery. So, just to kick things off,
Speaker 1: why is it funny? Well, I guess it's supposed to
Speaker 1: be funny because it features enemas, but I also kind
Speaker 1: of have to I mean, just in general, yes, I
Speaker 1: buy that logic. I didn't particularly find this one to
Speaker 1: be a humorous inclusion, but I mean everyone's sense of
Speaker 1: humor is going to vary on this sort of thing,
Speaker 1: and I suppose it's it's the juxtaposition to that, if
Speaker 1: you are to see depictions of enemas, you don't expect
Speaker 1: it to be on your your pottery, on on your
Speaker 1: on your fine china. Yeah. Yeah, I suppose so like that,
Speaker 1: it's art history and that and and that's the thing
Speaker 1: because because the next question why is it important? Well,
Speaker 1: it's kind of a double whammy here, because first of all,
Speaker 1: the discipline of ethno pharmacology is highly fascinating. It can
Speaker 1: also be illuminate. It can also be rather illuminating and
Speaker 1: potentially illuminating about the use of various substances that Western
Speaker 1: medicine has not quite come around to yet. And then
Speaker 1: also we're talking about Mayan history here, my in history
Speaker 1: and culture, so I feel like it is the sort
Speaker 1: of thing that shouldn't be ignored. So I'm not going
Speaker 1: to lean as much into the humor on this one,
Speaker 1: but it was all very fascinating and I want to
Speaker 1: explain it all a bit, maybe demystify it. So to
Speaker 1: kick things off, though, I feel like what we should
Speaker 1: have a little refresher on Mayan civilization that kind of
Speaker 1: refresher is very much in order. So we're talking about
Speaker 1: the Mesoamerican civilization that occupied southern Mexico, Guatemala, and northern Belize.
Speaker 1: The Mayan pre Classic period is measured back to two
Speaker 1: thousand b C, with the Classic period running to fifty
Speaker 1: c Eed and nine and the post Classic period running
Speaker 1: up until fifteen thirty nine. This was an advanced civilization
Speaker 1: with agriculture, a sophisticated right system, mathematics, calendar and astronomical systems,
Speaker 1: and a highly developed architectural and artistic style, as we've
Speaker 1: discussed on the show before. Of course, the arrival of
Speaker 1: Europeans to to this region constituted a kind of outside
Speaker 1: context event that designated the civilizations and cultures of the Americas.
Speaker 1: But many aspects of Mind culture survived and are cherished.
Speaker 1: I believe something like thirty Mind languages are still spoken today.
Speaker 1: And there has been a pan Maya movement that's an
Speaker 1: ethno political movement in Mexico and Guatemala by often marginalized
Speaker 1: Maya people there. And of course, on top of this,
Speaker 1: there have been many efforts to better understand and celebrate
Speaker 1: the culture and history of the Mayans. Despite all the
Speaker 1: Spanish initially destroyed. Okay, so that's your refresher on the Mayans.
Speaker 1: Now let's get into a refresh on enemies. So strictly speaking, uh,
Speaker 1: an enema is an injection of liquid into the lower
Speaker 1: bowel through the rectum, and the most often reason for
Speaker 1: this procedure is to relieve constipation or to prepare for
Speaker 1: medical procedures. It's it's simply stool evacuation. It's liquid aided
Speaker 1: stool evacuation. Now, the mere act of waste leaving the
Speaker 1: body already kind of has a myriad of real and
Speaker 1: imagine benefits, because obviously waste leaving the body is a
Speaker 1: good thing. We've kind of talked about this in the
Speaker 1: last episode. What happens when a scorpion loses its anus
Speaker 1: and it cannot relieve itself, Well, its stuff builds up
Speaker 1: and uh and it's it's not necessarily great for the scorpion.
Speaker 1: So excess materials do need to leave the body after
Speaker 1: our bodies have extracted as much from the matter as
Speaker 1: can be extracted. But then on top of that, again
Speaker 1: we have this, we have this deep history of humanity's
Speaker 1: attempt to to understand our bodies and also conflating and
Speaker 1: confusing hygiene with purity at times. I'm reminded particularly of
Speaker 1: a book I had to pick this one off the
Speaker 1: shelf for this one A little Bit UH by Virginia
Speaker 1: Smith titled Clean, A History of Personal Hygiene Impurity, which
Speaker 1: is a great read if anyone's interested in like the
Speaker 1: history of things like like just bathing rituals and so forth.
Speaker 1: Sona rituals and how you have these sort of dual
Speaker 1: columns of the ways that these things are actually good
Speaker 1: for us, the way they actually cleanse us. And then
Speaker 1: on the other side are complicated understanding of purity, spiritual purity,
Speaker 1: and also getting into various um, you know, pre medical
Speaker 1: theories of how the body works. So, for instance, Smith
Speaker 1: points out that according to Greek humoral theory UH, a
Speaker 1: strong bowel movement was an indicator of of a healthy
Speaker 1: body ridding itself of dangerous waste. And if this didn't
Speaker 1: seem to be the case with them in a an
Speaker 1: an individual, if you didn't seem to to to be
Speaker 1: having good strong bowel movements, well, then a whole host
Speaker 1: of quote herbal or mineral purges and emetics might ensue.
Speaker 1: Now coming back to those to the detail that the
Speaker 1: entire gut is all about processing organic material and absorbing
Speaker 1: water and nutrients from it, and then displacing whatever can't
Speaker 1: be digested at all or can't be digested in a
Speaker 1: timely matter. UH. It shouldn't come as a surprise that
Speaker 1: even at the very final leg of the journey, the
Speaker 1: system is still capable of absorbing water and due to
Speaker 1: the rectum's blood supply, the rectum can also absorb various
Speaker 1: substances and drugs such as alcohol, tobacco, and UH, and
Speaker 1: also various like hallucinogenic materials as well. Now at this point,
Speaker 1: I know some of you might be thinking of various
Speaker 1: like shocking headlines and scare headlines that have appeared in
Speaker 1: the media over the years, and I do want to
Speaker 1: just drive home. Do that you should not try this
Speaker 1: at home. UH. Do not try to absorb things on
Speaker 1: your own recreationally through your rectum. UH. Two major issues
Speaker 1: to keep in mind here is that, first of all,
Speaker 1: there's usually a lower threshold for the side effects of
Speaker 1: a given substance if it's taken rectally. And also if
Speaker 1: you take it rectly, it bypasses your body's natural defense
Speaker 1: of vomiting. UH. So the the level entering your system
Speaker 1: might be too high and you can't just vomit as
Speaker 1: a means of your body trying to rid yourself of
Speaker 1: that substance. This makes me wonder if there has ever
Speaker 1: been a headline where someone, let's say, did get alcohol
Speaker 1: poisoning through a ingesting alcohol the wrong way and basically
Speaker 1: the headline just said rectum damn never killed him. Maybe
Speaker 1: so and some of you more scandalous newspapers and the
Speaker 1: kind of newspaper you find in a barber shop that
Speaker 1: kind or if you get your news from like a
Speaker 1: mad magazine that sort of thing, you know, or the
Speaker 1: crip keeper, I guess. But but at any rate, this
Speaker 1: is the same issue though. This is why it is
Speaker 1: sometimes an advantageous route for medication and by medical professionals,
Speaker 1: because it's a way of bypassing nausea and vomiting. So
Speaker 1: if some sort of condition is keeping the individual from
Speaker 1: you know, being able to really keep anything down, well,
Speaker 1: then the the rectal application of the medication might be
Speaker 1: the best way to go via suppository. So this is
Speaker 1: nothing that the humans figured all of this out quite
Speaker 1: a long time ago. I was reading about this a
Speaker 1: little bit the ancient Egyptian uh Ebber's Papyrus from fifteen
Speaker 1: fifty b c. E makes mention of of medical enemas,
Speaker 1: and other evidence indicates that it was an important tool
Speaker 1: of ancient Egyptian medical practice, and it was said to
Speaker 1: have been invented by the god thought, the divine physician,
Speaker 1: and the God of secret knowledge. Now I'm not going
Speaker 1: to go through the entire global history of enema usage,
Speaker 1: but I think if one had the appetite for it,
Speaker 1: one could probably do an entire episode of stuff to
Speaker 1: blow your mind on it. There's a lot of stuff
Speaker 1: out there. They are numerous notable examples from historic writings
Speaker 1: from Greece, from Babylon, from China, and of course Western
Speaker 1: European cultures across the centuries. And the reasons for these
Speaker 1: practices breakdown into basic traditions of of either cleansing or
Speaker 1: drug and alcohol absorption, or in some cases mere sensation.
Speaker 1: So I'm not gonna I'm not gonna listen through all these,
Speaker 1: but I did have two that I wanted to bring
Speaker 1: up because I was cross checking some stuff in a
Speaker 1: book titled The Mystery of the Exploding Teeth and Other
Speaker 1: Curiosities from the History of Medicine by Thomas Morris. This
Speaker 1: is a really fun book and it contains multiple mentions
Speaker 1: of enemas. Uh some Sometimes you'll you'll have a even
Speaker 1: a very serious history book and you go to the
Speaker 1: index and they don't have anything about enemas. Uh clean.
Speaker 1: The book I referenced earlier really only has one mention
Speaker 1: of enemas in it, and it's not listed in the index.
Speaker 1: But Morris has your back on enema mentions multiple mentions
Speaker 1: in this in this tone, and want to I want
Speaker 1: to highlight a couple of them. First of all, this
Speaker 1: is a headline from an eighteen fifty eight study published
Speaker 1: in the British Medical Journal eight quote port wine in
Speaker 1: amata as a substitute for transfusion of blood in cases
Speaker 1: of postpartum hemorrhage. Needless to say this, uh this, This
Speaker 1: may have seemed like a possible sensible alternative at the time,
Speaker 1: but it turns out this would this would not be
Speaker 1: the best practice. Yikes. I mean, I'm not going to
Speaker 1: jump into conclusions. But what they like, their their their
Speaker 1: their structure of thought was back then, But was the
Speaker 1: idea like, oh it's red wine, so you know, it
Speaker 1: looks like blood. What I didn't get into this one's
Speaker 1: super deep. But it does seem a little late for
Speaker 1: for that kind of logic, but uh, it was. It
Speaker 1: was presented as a possibility. Morris also discusses a seventeen
Speaker 1: sixty nine version of the Swiss physician Samuel Tissot's medical writings,
Speaker 1: but and and so this was like a Swiss physicians
Speaker 1: writings that then were then also published. And to some
Speaker 1: extent it was a little foggy on what exactly has
Speaker 1: meant here. But essentially this comes out again. It's from
Speaker 1: years earlier, but then it comes out again in seventeen
Speaker 1: sixty nine, with amateur physician and founder of Methodism John
Speaker 1: Wesley also credited on it. I think basically Wesley was
Speaker 1: a fan of Samuel Tissett's writings, and one of the
Speaker 1: recommendations in the book is to revive near drowned individuals
Speaker 1: by not only blowing tobacco smoke into their lungs through
Speaker 1: their mouths, but also pumping it into quote the fundament.
Speaker 1: Tissa advised using pipe and bladder system to do this,
Speaker 1: which was not a new method, as European doctors were
Speaker 1: already using this treatment as an attempt to revive the sick.
Speaker 1: Elsewhere in Europe, I think it was like there there
Speaker 1: was a Dutch method in particular that used this technology.
Speaker 1: So this was not new. This was not an invention
Speaker 1: of Samuel Tessed, but he was very much advocating, Yes,
Speaker 1: if you have somebody that may have been underwater too long,
Speaker 1: then you might want to pump smoke into any orifice
Speaker 1: available to you. Wow, and we all have a new
Speaker 1: uh euphemism, the fundament, The fundament. Yes, I've never heard
Speaker 1: that one before. Yeah. This, Uh, that's another thing. Some
Speaker 1: of these writings will you'll find. I mean it varies,
Speaker 1: I guess from source to source. But some don't really
Speaker 1: want to get into this particular part of the human
Speaker 1: anatomy or into various animate treatments. But I mean, I
Speaker 1: guess one of the things is, first of all, clearly
Speaker 1: humans have been using this technology for a very long time.
Speaker 1: And I guess if you're getting into situations of life
Speaker 1: and death, yeah, I mean, people were like, well, what
Speaker 1: can we try? What have we not tried? Have we
Speaker 1: tried pumping tobacco smoke uh into their body by any
Speaker 1: means necessary? Yeah? Wild? I mean, hey, trial and error,
Speaker 1: you know, over the years, it has benefited us that
Speaker 1: someone tried putting tobacco smoke in someone's fundaments. Again, listening
Speaker 1: at home, do not attempt any of this at home. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: in the Americas, however, where of course we're ultimately going
Speaker 1: with all of this, there's evidence that the oldmes used
Speaker 1: inema technology to administer psychoactive substances and smoke inemas were
Speaker 1: definitely used by various North American tribes, and this is
Speaker 1: also mentioned in Morris's book. But finally coming back around
Speaker 1: to the Mayans. So the Mayans certainly engaged in ritual intoxication.
Speaker 1: For example, they drank this substance called bal cha, which
Speaker 1: was made from the bark of the evergreen tree Luncho
Speaker 1: Carpus violachias. It was soaked in water and honey and
Speaker 1: then it was fermented. So they had this this drink,
Speaker 1: this balcha. Also, the honey apparently would have been from
Speaker 1: ease who fed on a high ergine morning glory. This,
Speaker 1: according to F. J. Kared artall in hallucinogenic drugs in
Speaker 1: pre Columbian Mesoamerican cultures from So this is where it
Speaker 1: gets interesting with the ball cha though, And this is
Speaker 1: this is the way Kara Artel explains it. So ball
Speaker 1: cha is alcoholic at the end of this process, but
Speaker 1: it's it's kind of low in its alcohol level, so
Speaker 1: you have to drink a lot of it to reach
Speaker 1: the desired level of intoxication to the point. It sounds
Speaker 1: like that you'd become sick well before you reach that point.
Speaker 1: So there are a lot of images in the Mayan
Speaker 1: art of individuals vomiting from the drink. And it also
Speaker 1: sounds like you would actually wear some manner of of
Speaker 1: bag around your neck, like essentially you'd have a barf
Speaker 1: bag on hand um to use while consuming it. Now,
Speaker 1: of course, this this wouldn't be the only right of
Speaker 1: using some sort of a substance that involved vomiting. I
Speaker 1: mean this is also common to things like you hear
Speaker 1: about this in ayahuasca uh ceremonies and so forth. So
Speaker 1: at any rate, very hard to reach this desired level
Speaker 1: of intoxication with this stuff, you're gonna be vomiting. Also,
Speaker 1: other substances were also taken, including tobacco laced with datura
Speaker 1: and in addition to ball chay, psycho stimulants and hallucinogens
Speaker 1: were also consumed and ritual animals were also taken, and
Speaker 1: we see that on various surviving examples of Mayan pottery,
Speaker 1: including I included a picture of this for you. Seth Uh.
Speaker 1: There is a ritual jar from the met collection and
Speaker 1: it's from the eighth to ninth century, and it seems
Speaker 1: to display wise women aiding or instructing men in the
Speaker 1: use of the enemas with the liquid for the enemies
Speaker 1: originating from a large jar like the artifact itself here
Speaker 1: with some sort of foaming liquid in it. And this
Speaker 1: is I think widely thought to be a fermented drink,
Speaker 1: likely ball chay. It's quite beautiful to this piece of pottery. Um,
Speaker 1: if you were just walking through a museum and you
Speaker 1: glanced at it, you wouldn't think twice about it. But
Speaker 1: then you you take that second look, and uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's even more interesting. Yeah. I don't remember this
Speaker 1: from any visit I've I've had to the mat. It
Speaker 1: may not be something that is of course on regularly
Speaker 1: on display, uh, but it does seem like the kind
Speaker 1: of thing that one could easily walk by and you
Speaker 1: not realize that this is the subject of it, and
Speaker 1: this was perhaps the purpose for the artifact. I think
Speaker 1: this is an important lesson to all of us that
Speaker 1: we need to pay more attention when we're in the museums. Yes,
Speaker 1: I mean especially in the matt there's so much to see.
Speaker 1: But at any rate, this would all make sense given
Speaker 1: the fact that again balja had a lower alcohol content
Speaker 1: to it, and if you were to take it via enema,
Speaker 1: this would enhance absorption of set alcohol and also it
Speaker 1: would bypass the whole barfing thing. Now what where it
Speaker 1: gets also interesting here is that you might hear all
Speaker 1: this and it sounds um hedonic, you know, it sounds
Speaker 1: like some sort of you know, crazy rich will um.
Speaker 1: But according to smit at All, this is the This
Speaker 1: is the the the authors of the ignoble winning paper,
Speaker 1: the Mayans were largely understood to have been a contemplative people.
Speaker 1: So on one hand, this seems to have sort of
Speaker 1: presented a conundrum to some people studying the Mayans, because
Speaker 1: it seemed maybe out of character that they would that
Speaker 1: they would, you know, do all these other serious minded things,
Speaker 1: but then engage in this sort of ritual. Well uh,
Speaker 1: And I should also add that smit at All also
Speaker 1: suggests that while the substance used may well have been alcohol.
Speaker 1: Some scenes also might suggest the use of tobacco and
Speaker 1: quote water lily or some other flowering plant as key ingredients.
Speaker 1: At any rate, the argument, sort of the counter argument,
Speaker 1: I guess made by a caret artal is that this
Speaker 1: wasn't a hedonic practice. This was a spiritual practice, and
Speaker 1: it was typically conducted in caves uh and these would
Speaker 1: have been considered places that were closer to the spirit realm.
Speaker 1: And that the consumption of the these various substances I
Speaker 1: mean basically like a whole cocktail of mind and body
Speaker 1: alternating substances that would have included apparently psychoactive mushrooms as
Speaker 1: well potentially, and these were widely used among Mesoamerican cultures.
Speaker 1: That all of this the location the ritual, like the
Speaker 1: non psychoactive aspects of the ritual, just the performative aspects
Speaker 1: of it, and then of course the psychoactive aspects of it.
Speaker 1: That this would all serve to bring you closer in
Speaker 1: line with the spirit world. And again this would have
Speaker 1: been a spiritual ritual that everyone was engaging in here.
Speaker 1: Needless to say, the Spanish disapproved of all of this,
Speaker 1: even the production of ball Chay itself, So I find
Speaker 1: I found all this rather interesting. Um again, not a
Speaker 1: topic I would think I would I would have I
Speaker 1: would have normally researched on my own. But once you
Speaker 1: start getting into it and uh and taking it apart.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, very fascinating. Yeah yeah, the the the twists
Speaker 1: and turns of this, it goes deeper than I would
Speaker 1: have would have thought. It's it's not not just the
Speaker 1: punch line, right, but if that punchline forces people to
Speaker 1: look a little closer at it than than Yes, the
Speaker 1: Ignal Bells have done their purpose here sneaker at the
Speaker 1: study or the or the paper, but then look closer
Speaker 1: and and learn a few things. So I applaud them
Speaker 1: for this selection. Thank you, thank you. All Right, We've
Speaker 1: got one last study today from the Igno Bell Award winners.
Speaker 1: This was the Applied Cardiology Prize, so this had multiple contributors.
Speaker 1: We had pro Jakova, Saksi, Baron's, Lynde, and Kretz. And
Speaker 1: this was for seeking and finding evidence that when new
Speaker 1: romantic partners meet for the first time and feel attracted
Speaker 1: to each other, their heart rates synchronize. It's a bold
Speaker 1: claim and I was fascinated by this just from the beginning,
Speaker 1: and I will say that's that's a bit of a
Speaker 1: sensationalist headline, and I think it's actually a bit deeper
Speaker 1: than that, but but still it's it's it's pretty accurate, yeah,
Speaker 1: because if you're just taking it faith value, it sounds
Speaker 1: sort of like a scientific attempt to understand something you
Speaker 1: saw on a Looney Tunes cartoon. It's like when a
Speaker 1: wolf sees of a pretty lady, does do his eyeballs
Speaker 1: really stick out like that and his heart fall on
Speaker 1: the table and crawl around and his tongue grows twelve
Speaker 1: sizes and and unrolls like a carpets. Yeah. Yeah, these
Speaker 1: are all facts. So to determine what drives attraction, the
Speaker 1: researchers measured the physiological dynamics between real people on real dates.
Speaker 1: And this was outside of the lab environments. It was
Speaker 1: still controlled environments, but it was not happening inside a lab.
Speaker 1: They gathered the data in multiple ways. Um they had
Speaker 1: eye tracking glasses with embedded cameras. They had a heart
Speaker 1: rate monitors and skin conductivity sensors all happening at the
Speaker 1: same time while they did their multiple prodding and testing,
Speaker 1: which I'll get into. So so there were multiple findings.
Speaker 1: Three specifically, one, women were typically more expressive than males. Two,
Speaker 1: men stared at women more than women stared at men.
Speaker 1: And most importantly the point of this paper from from
Speaker 1: the ignoble point of view, three visible signals that can
Speaker 1: be controlled, such as facial expression or gaze did not
Speaker 1: predict attraction. Instead, attraction was predicted by synchrony and heart
Speaker 1: rate and skin conductance between partners, which is involuntary, unconscious,
Speaker 1: and very difficult to regulate. So with a modern dating
Speaker 1: culture the way it is right now, you know, you'll
Speaker 1: just go into your mind of either things you experience
Speaker 1: or your friends experience. Uh, you know, we're all utilizing
Speaker 1: dating apps and dating websites, which has become far more
Speaker 1: common than it ever has been before. The three big
Speaker 1: consequences that this paper pointed out from that are that
Speaker 1: people are dating strangers far more often. It's not just
Speaker 1: like your friend's friend or a co worker or whatever,
Speaker 1: it's just someone you met online. Um, so ergo, less
Speaker 1: time is spent with a potential partner before you decide
Speaker 1: on having subsequent dates, and that like the potential dating
Speaker 1: pool and the candidates for dating is much much larger.
Speaker 1: But also kind of much more anonymous. So, you know,
Speaker 1: with all these potential limiting factors with relationships that's happening
Speaker 1: in today's world, people still, you know, get attracted to
Speaker 1: each other, People still date, people still get married. So
Speaker 1: they really wanted to research what was the root predictor
Speaker 1: for attraction and that was the goal of this research.
Speaker 1: So they set up a series of tests and they
Speaker 1: were fascinating and really wild. But um, I'm going to
Speaker 1: try and describe it, but they they had actual graphs
Speaker 1: in the paper, So look up the paper if you
Speaker 1: want to see some artists renderings of how this all looked.
Speaker 1: But basically, they set up a blind date for the participants.
Speaker 1: They set them up in this nice little cabin where
Speaker 1: they set them down at a table and then there's
Speaker 1: a partition and in between them, okay, and it can
Speaker 1: raise and lower on a timer or as the researchers needed.
Speaker 1: So with the the there was a wide variety of circumstances.
Speaker 1: You know, the partition is up, the partition is closed.
Speaker 1: Now I want you to talk freely for two minutes.
Speaker 1: I want you to look at each other for two
Speaker 1: minutes but not talk, etcetera, etcetera. Etcetera. All kinds of
Speaker 1: different tests and variables and controls. They they all were
Speaker 1: there and they were all pointed out in this paper.
Speaker 1: After gathering their data from this you know, blind date
Speaker 1: into cabin with robots, uh, the researchers would then ask
Speaker 1: the participants a series of questions about their date. Number one,
Speaker 1: do you think your partner would want to date you again?
Speaker 1: Number two? How attractive do you think your partner is?
Speaker 1: And number three how attractive do you think your partner
Speaker 1: finds you? So here here are the findings with the
Speaker 1: question do you think your partner would want to date
Speaker 1: you again? Only about fifty were correct. Females were slightly
Speaker 1: more accurate than males. Females got correct while males got fifty,
Speaker 1: but all pretty close to overall pretty much just you know,
Speaker 1: flip of a coin. With the questions involved in attractiveness,
Speaker 1: their findings were pretty fascinating. The more attractive the subject
Speaker 1: found their partner, the more likely they were to think
Speaker 1: that their partner was attracted to them. I'm gonna say
Speaker 1: that again, just kind of be as clear as possible.
Speaker 1: The more attractive the subject found their partner, the more
Speaker 1: likely they were to think that their partner was attracted
Speaker 1: to them. Okay, So so to sort of translate, like,
Speaker 1: the more out of your league you find the other person, statistically,
Speaker 1: the more likely you think that that person is actually
Speaker 1: attracted Yes, yes, which which is fascinating I I I
Speaker 1: would think that that that the opposite was true. But
Speaker 1: but here we are now. May maybe it's got something
Speaker 1: to do with like flood Like maybe it's like part
Speaker 1: of our evolution of like flooding our body with endorphins
Speaker 1: when you are attracted to someone just to give you
Speaker 1: the confidence to ask them out on a date or whatever.
Speaker 1: So huh but uh, there was no correlation found in
Speaker 1: that at all, and it was actually found to be counterintuitive. Uh.
Speaker 1: If you look at the graphs, it's not exactly a
Speaker 1: wrong to right, but it's close to it. The graphs
Speaker 1: are moving in opposite directions, so so that is a
Speaker 1: wrong estimation. And in general, it was just proven that
Speaker 1: people are not very accurate when reading a partner's romantic
Speaker 1: intentions full stop. Like that's just one of the biggest
Speaker 1: things they found. Um, so, ultimately, our biology is a
Speaker 1: much better judge of what's happening than our than our
Speaker 1: thoughts that are than our brains. More or less, here's
Speaker 1: a chunk that's going to kind of explain that this
Speaker 1: is directly from the paper quote. Intriguingly, people are often
Speaker 1: una were of being influenced by others effective displays. This
Speaker 1: is evident from studies showing that friends and lovers implicitly
Speaker 1: mimic each other's nonverbal behavior, such as gaze and facial expressions. Remarkably,
Speaker 1: a series of recent studies demonstrated that committed romantic partners
Speaker 1: synchronize their heart rate and skin conductance, and that the
Speaker 1: level of synchrony was positively associated with the quality of
Speaker 1: relationship emotional ties, such as the amount of time spent
Speaker 1: together and the ability to identify the emotions of one's partner.
Speaker 1: Contemporary theories proposed that behavioral and psychological synchrony results from
Speaker 1: the biologically mediated tendency to adapt to incoming social information. Specifically,
Speaker 1: during an interaction, individuals continuously exchange information via verbal and
Speaker 1: non verbal routes like a date, for example. Continuing during
Speaker 1: this process, the sensory receptors convert vibrational energy from the
Speaker 1: partner's face and body to electrical impulses that the brain
Speaker 1: then uses to acquire social and emotional information. A recent
Speaker 1: fmr I study showed that the human brain possesses a
Speaker 1: neural mechanism which attracts individuals to partners who effective nonverbal behavior.
Speaker 1: They can easily understand. From this point of view, emotional
Speaker 1: expressions that people display do not only communicate emotions, they
Speaker 1: embody human feelings, build social bonds, and promote attraction. It's
Speaker 1: a pretty big thing to find. I mean that that
Speaker 1: that really does I. I know you and I are
Speaker 1: both both married men, but it makes me think that
Speaker 1: I would approach dating differently knowing that, you know, like
Speaker 1: like just just kind of thinking about like how I
Speaker 1: feel and and just kind of like duplicating the intentions
Speaker 1: and the subtle signals of of my potential dating partner.
Speaker 1: Like it's just I don't I think, thankfully I haven't
Speaker 1: had had to date someone in like twenty years, but
Speaker 1: it's still it's a fascinating idea. Yeah, I mean, especially
Speaker 1: when you think about the things that prepare one to
Speaker 1: enter the dating world are it's it's stuff you're you're hearing,
Speaker 1: maybe parentally, just to varying degrees depending on what the
Speaker 1: parental presence is, like also socially, Also things that are
Speaker 1: presented to you in media, but and in music, you know,
Speaker 1: obviously in movies and so forth. But uh, but there's
Speaker 1: there's never I don't think there's ever like a time
Speaker 1: when someone says, all right, here's the science of what
Speaker 1: you're about to go out and do. I mean, certainly
Speaker 1: when you get down to uh, physical sexuality, yes, hopefully
Speaker 1: there is going to be that in place, but in
Speaker 1: terms of like, this is actually what's going on when
Speaker 1: you're just even anticipating how another person feels about you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is so going back to the data, this is
Speaker 1: what they found to be true, Um, when these attractions
Speaker 1: were genuine, not based on what people thoughts, but actually
Speaker 1: like you know, is this person attractive yes? Is this
Speaker 1: person attractive yes? Completely separates isolated answers. They found that
Speaker 1: analyzing the heart rates during the dates, it was far
Speaker 1: more accurate, I mean, like absurdly more accurate than just
Speaker 1: asking you know, do you think they liked you? Like
Speaker 1: it was it's just off the charts different. This also
Speaker 1: went with uh, skin conductivity, but the heart rate was
Speaker 1: the part that they really focused on on this paper. Um, so,
Speaker 1: I mean they even did some things. Once again, you
Speaker 1: should read the paper, it's fascinating where they just just
Speaker 1: to test their theory, they started matching the heart rates
Speaker 1: from randomly selected other dates to see if perhaps this
Speaker 1: was just something that happened to anyone on a date
Speaker 1: with anyone. But no, no, they didn't match up at all,
Speaker 1: Like like, it wasn't something that happened. That there is
Speaker 1: a subtle, unconscious, non verbal pairing that's happening, and and
Speaker 1: the closer that pairing occurs biologically, the more you are
Speaker 1: attracted to each other. And it's fascinating that that this
Speaker 1: might have much deeper implications that are provided just here
Speaker 1: in this paper. But it's it's it's a really interesting,
Speaker 1: uh piece of information. Uh So, So basically keep in
Speaker 1: mind that facial cues, movements, and words would sometimes attempt
Speaker 1: a similar mimicry in these dates, but the heart was
Speaker 1: the best indicator for sure. So why is this funny?
Speaker 1: It's it's kind of proving like an old adage, you know,
Speaker 1: you should listen to your heart, you know, if you're
Speaker 1: out on a date with someone, you know. It's it's
Speaker 1: funny because in so many um instances of like you know,
Speaker 1: romantic love, the heart really is like the center point.
Speaker 1: It's saying like this is you know where love comes from?
Speaker 1: Valentine's etcetera, etcetera. Hearts, hearts, hearts, and then like you know,
Speaker 1: maybe being a bit cynical, we go, oh, it's actually
Speaker 1: from the brain, it's from personality, etcetera, etcetera. No, No, no, actually,
Speaker 1: you know Valentine's are kind of right that that your
Speaker 1: heart really does factor in in a pretty substantial at
Speaker 1: least in terms of accurately predicting attraction. And why this
Speaker 1: is important is that self awareness and self analysis is
Speaker 1: always a good thing. It's it's important first of all
Speaker 1: to know that perhaps your um perception of whether or
Speaker 1: not someone is attracted to you, you could be way
Speaker 1: off on that, substantially way off. And perhaps if you
Speaker 1: use heart monitors on yourself and your date, then you'll
Speaker 1: have a more accurate representation. Uh. If this is actually
Speaker 1: going somewhere, so that rock Set was right, listen to
Speaker 1: your heart. There's nothing else to Rocks that were right.
Speaker 1: Rock Set was a duo now I'm remembering, Yes, the
Speaker 1: Rocks that was not was not an individual but to
Speaker 1: Swedish pop stars, I believe, and I think that wraps
Speaker 1: up our Ignobles for two. I believe it does now.
Speaker 1: There there were some other winning studies from this year
Speaker 1: we're not going to cover here. If you want the
Speaker 1: full list, you're gonna have to go to Improbable dot
Speaker 1: com slash i g. That's their website and just look
Speaker 1: look up Improbable Research on any search engine and it
Speaker 1: will be one of the first two things that come
Speaker 1: up for you. They always do a great job of
Speaker 1: just on one page you can see all the winner
Speaker 1: since they have links to the various studies. Now, sometimes
Speaker 1: those studies are gonna be hidden behind pay walls or
Speaker 1: in one case, for one of the award winners this
Speaker 1: year entirely in Japanese. There's one about like how do
Speaker 1: people turn a door knob? That I wanted to know
Speaker 1: more about, but I could not find an English translation
Speaker 1: of the study, so I'm just had to be like,
Speaker 1: all right, I just I'm gonna have to leave this
Speaker 1: whe it phays value. So anyway, check that out. There
Speaker 1: always a lot of fun, and of course we have
Speaker 1: past episodes of stuff to blow your mind that have
Speaker 1: looked at winners from years past. So that's gonna be
Speaker 1: it for this episode. But let's see just to run
Speaker 1: through a few things here. Um. First of all, yes,
Speaker 1: core episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind come to
Speaker 1: you on two days and Thursdays. And the Stuff to
Speaker 1: Blow your Mind podcast feed, where you can find wherever
Speaker 1: you get your pot gusts. On Monday's we do listener mail,
Speaker 1: on Wednesday's we do a short form monster fact or
Speaker 1: artifact episode, and on Fridays we do Weird How Cinema.
Speaker 1: That's their time to set aside most serious concerns and
Speaker 1: just talk about a weird film. Thanks as always to
Speaker 1: Set for producing the show and of course on this
Speaker 1: episode co hosting while Joe was out on for rental leave.
Speaker 1: And if you want to get in touch with us
Speaker 1: about anything we discussed here about other ig Nobel Prize
Speaker 1: winning studies, about past episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind,
Speaker 1: present episodes and Stuff to Blow Your Mind or future episodes,
Speaker 1: just drop us a line at contact at Stuff to
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