Speaker 1: Hey, every body, Welcome to a creature feature the show
Speaker 1: where we take one cup of animals, one cup of humans,
Speaker 1: some butter and make a tasty casserole. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Katie Golden. I studied psychology and evolutionary biology, and you
Speaker 1: know what, I've never been stung by a bee. I
Speaker 1: think that must mean I'm a be whisperer. Today on
Speaker 1: the show, we're talking fantasy creatures, explore the legends behind
Speaker 1: mythological creatures, the science behind them, and their real life
Speaker 1: animal counterparts. Will hunt down real unicorns, basilisks, griffins, aliens,
Speaker 1: and jackalopes to discover this and more as we answer
Speaker 1: the angel question why would anyone throw out a perfectly
Speaker 1: good para testicles? So we're fascinated by myths, even to
Speaker 1: the point of our own psychological detriment. A lot of
Speaker 1: kids were terribly disappointed by not receiving their Hogwarts letter.
Speaker 1: Urban Dictionary even has a term for it, ben curtains
Speaker 1: to phobia, the fear of not receiving a Hogwarts letter
Speaker 1: on your eleventh birthday. And also after watching James Cameron's Avatar,
Speaker 1: some people felt situational depression as they experienced the cognitive
Speaker 1: dissonance between the beautiful fantasy world and their blander reality. Well,
Speaker 1: fear not. Today we're going to talk about the stories
Speaker 1: behind mythological creatures and find out that they have real
Speaker 1: life animal counterparts who are just as magical. When you
Speaker 1: look at the variety of behaviors and morphology of real animals,
Speaker 1: you'll begin to realize that you don't need to escape
Speaker 1: into a fantasy realm or already living in one. Joining
Speaker 1: me today is Alex Schiffman, producer of Science, The Live
Speaker 1: Show About Science. Hi, Welcome Alex, Hi everybody, thanks for
Speaker 1: welcoming you. Katie. Of course, so I got admit. I
Speaker 1: just went to the Getty Museum and I learned a
Speaker 1: lot of this content that's going to be in the
Speaker 1: show from this exhibit. It's really good. It's the Book
Speaker 1: of Beasts exhibit. I think it's a limited one. So
Speaker 1: if you're in l A, you should check it out. Now,
Speaker 1: in l A and you're a snob or you're really
Speaker 1: trying to impress somebody on a date, go check it
Speaker 1: out right exactly. I mean, the Getty is free, but
Speaker 1: parking is expensive. That's where they get the shipping right,
Speaker 1: right exactly, but it is technically free, so great, great
Speaker 1: date location, as long as you like uber over and
Speaker 1: don't have the paper parking or you walk there like
Speaker 1: walking what I don't. Don't worry about it. We'll talk
Speaker 1: about that mythologically, right right, The mythological walking distance places
Speaker 1: in l a um all right, So we're going to
Speaker 1: get right into it. You know, Alex, if you couldn't
Speaker 1: use weapons or your fists or like weapons, which our
Speaker 1: weapons legally registered weapons. Mind too, by the way, anybody
Speaker 1: can legally register their fists as weapons. Right, I'm a
Speaker 1: purple belt? Is that a belt? I'm sure you could. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The reason I bring this up is I'm going to
Speaker 1: talk about the boncon. Have you heard of this mythological creature?
Speaker 1: I have not heard of this mythological creature? All right, Well,
Speaker 1: the twelfth century illuminated text The Aberdeen Beast Theory describes
Speaker 1: the bonacon as such. So in Asia an animal is
Speaker 1: found which men call bonacon. It has the head of
Speaker 1: a bowl, and thereafter its whole body is the size
Speaker 1: of the bowls, with a main neck of a horse.
Speaker 1: Its horns are convoluted, curling back on themselves in such
Speaker 1: a way that if anyone comes up against it, he
Speaker 1: is not harmed, but the protection which is forehead denies
Speaker 1: This monster is furnished by its bowels, for when it
Speaker 1: tries to flee, it discharges fumes from the excrement of
Speaker 1: its belly over a distance of three acres, the heat
Speaker 1: of which sets fire to anything it touches, And this
Speaker 1: way it drives off its pursuers with its harmful excrement.
Speaker 1: That's so round about. That's the most beautiful description of
Speaker 1: a of an animal that destroys things with fiery poop
Speaker 1: I've ever heard. So does it ship fire or does
Speaker 1: it breathe out it's fire, it craps fire, It breathes
Speaker 1: lightning and craps fire. Yes, it's uh uh and it
Speaker 1: it's I love these illustrations of it. It looks so
Speaker 1: kind of bemused by these people tacking it. And it's like,
Speaker 1: you do know my poop is made out of fire,
Speaker 1: right you guys chose the wrong right right? Uh? Yeah?
Speaker 1: So that um is oh wonderful animal. And as you
Speaker 1: may know from listening to the podcast, if you've listened
Speaker 1: to our Weapons of ass Destruction episode, the idea of
Speaker 1: weaponized poop is far from being a fantasy, so we
Speaker 1: could still be your fantasy, your personal true, but it
Speaker 1: is real, so your fantasy is reality. Good news, Good news. Um,
Speaker 1: So we did. Actually we talked about one of the
Speaker 1: closest real life examples of this, which is the Bombardier
Speaker 1: beetle uh and how when they're threatened they shoot at
Speaker 1: noxious chemical spray out of their butts as a defensive mechanism.
Speaker 1: So I want to talk about how hot that butt
Speaker 1: spray is, which we may not have discussed last time.
Speaker 1: Is always hot, so it reaches boiling points by the
Speaker 1: resulting chemical reaction from combining hydroquinone and hydrogen peroxide. And
Speaker 1: another interesting parallel is that the Bombardier beetles are mainly
Speaker 1: found in Asian Africa, where the bonicon was said to
Speaker 1: be from. They have quote horns, which are really just
Speaker 1: their antenna that can crawl inwards. Uh. And I wonder
Speaker 1: it makes me wonder. I have no actual evidence of this,
Speaker 1: but I'm just theorizing that maybe there were some descriptions
Speaker 1: of this beetle. Um. And then it just like telephone
Speaker 1: kind of like got past by word of mouth, and
Speaker 1: then eventually it became the size of a bowl and
Speaker 1: just this bowl that spewed fire over three acres. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's interesting. I also I love how they say it's
Speaker 1: got the head of a bowl and then it's the
Speaker 1: side of the bowl also where it's like that's kind
Speaker 1: of redundant. Well, but if you look at a lot
Speaker 1: of these animals in the beast area, it'll be like
Speaker 1: it's got the head of the bowl, and it's the
Speaker 1: size of the mouse, and it's got feet like a duck.
Speaker 1: And so they really just like to mix and match.
Speaker 1: Things had no measurements criterias, so they're like things are
Speaker 1: either bull size or mouse size between the bombit of
Speaker 1: your beetle is a really fascinating animal to me, especially
Speaker 1: evolutionarily because so it's got these two jets it shoots,
Speaker 1: and when they mix, it's like the opposite of Ghostbusters.
Speaker 1: You very much won across streams. But like, how did
Speaker 1: it get from normal ass beetle two bomba deer beetle?
Speaker 1: Like what were the stages where it was like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: this one shoots out hydrogen product peroxide from its ass,
Speaker 1: and that helps because you know when it's babies get cut,
Speaker 1: you know, like ships hydrogen peroxide on their cuts and
Speaker 1: then what were like the new the mutation accidents to
Speaker 1: eventually get it to like well now I'm shipping flames.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's that's hard to say. I think that
Speaker 1: it's just kind of one of those things where you've
Speaker 1: got millions or of years of evolution and you have,
Speaker 1: you know, a few different chemicals that can result on
Speaker 1: when we have a lot of like you know, it
Speaker 1: could have been something where it was originally, um, just
Speaker 1: kind of some waste material and then like one of
Speaker 1: them just had a mutation where it was like a
Speaker 1: a a specific chemical and then when it mixed it
Speaker 1: was like quite quite noxious. Um, it's one of it's
Speaker 1: It is one of those things where it's like you
Speaker 1: feel like all this feels so weird for it just
Speaker 1: to be random. But you have to remember that especially
Speaker 1: with insects where they are there are so many generations.
Speaker 1: They rapidly reproduce so much so there are so many
Speaker 1: individuals within just like one year and then you have
Speaker 1: millions of years. It's like, yeah, it's eventually gonna just
Speaker 1: explode and must get weird exactly. Would literally yeah, literally,
Speaker 1: I would love the the intermediate stage when it's got
Speaker 1: it going, but it doesn't have the projectile like my ass.
Speaker 1: No one wants to eat me, but my ass hurt's
Speaker 1: got a case of the hot ass. I also wonder
Speaker 1: if the bonakon got confused with hippos um because they
Speaker 1: do spray dunk um. Yeah, yeah, they love spraying dung.
Speaker 1: We've also talked about them before. I could hate hippos,
Speaker 1: but they're so cute and they want to kill you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're so deaf. So I want to go down on
Speaker 1: a trip to imagination Station with you as we as
Speaker 1: we do on this show, Alex. It's very serious. It's
Speaker 1: not laughing matter. Um. So imagine that you're in the
Speaker 1: late fifteen hundreds in warsaw o. God. Yeah, so many
Speaker 1: leeches and I definitely have dysentery. Keep going exactly there
Speaker 1: you go. You're also I'm Jewish, so I was probably
Speaker 1: not living in a nice point. No. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's been well hundreds. It's going to be a
Speaker 1: rough time anytime you go down and go go down
Speaker 1: in the time machine pretty much. So two little girls
Speaker 1: go missing, A mother and her maid go looking for them,
Speaker 1: and you know they're calling out. You know, everyone's kind
Speaker 1: of noticing that that they're searching for these girls. And
Speaker 1: then finally they go to an abandoned home and they
Speaker 1: look down into the cellar and they see the girls
Speaker 1: lying there, and they call out to them, but they
Speaker 1: don't respond. Uh. And the maid walks down the steps
Speaker 1: into the cellar and freezes completely petrified. The mother, you know,
Speaker 1: scared shitless, like, runs off to the town and starts
Speaker 1: telling everybody about what's going on. So you're hearing this
Speaker 1: story from her. Rumors spread and an investigation is launched,
Speaker 1: and people go down to the cellar. Uh. And you
Speaker 1: know that people are telling you that when they went
Speaker 1: to visit the seller, the air felt thick and foreboding,
Speaker 1: and nobody was brave enough to go down and recover
Speaker 1: these bodies. So they got some iron hooks and pulled
Speaker 1: them out. Uh. And when they were examined by a physician,
Speaker 1: I mean, they were obviously dead. Uh. And he found
Speaker 1: that their bodies were unnaturally swollen and their eyes bulged
Speaker 1: from their skulls. Uh. And if you were living at
Speaker 1: this time, like, what would you think had gone down? Uh? Witchcraft?
Speaker 1: I think the other people would have probably blamed it
Speaker 1: on me. Well, yeah, I mean Jewish people, we we don't.
Speaker 1: We are witches, this is true, but we don't go
Speaker 1: around like exploding children. That that is a myth. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a dang line. And whoever heard that on Alex Jones. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would probably think was some sort of witchcraft or
Speaker 1: basilisk or something like that. Yeah, well you're very close,
Speaker 1: because this is actually the historically verifiable and at least
Speaker 1: partially true story of the Warsaw basilisk. According to writings,
Speaker 1: officials who investigated the incident pinned the murder on a basilisk. Uh. So, first,
Speaker 1: for people who don't know, let's talk about what a
Speaker 1: basilisk is. It's a serpent with a rooster head who
Speaker 1: can kill by staring at you. Uh. It was said
Speaker 1: to leave a trail of poison wherever it tread. Even
Speaker 1: its blood was poison and could drip down any weapon
Speaker 1: used to try to kill it, and if it contacted
Speaker 1: your skin, you would die. Uh. And some basilisks were
Speaker 1: depicted as having rooster legs and leathery wings, and they
Speaker 1: weren't actually supposed to be very big, so they were
Speaker 1: like about the size of like a large rooster or
Speaker 1: a small dog or something. So the fear factors that
Speaker 1: they can stare at you and kill you or something
Speaker 1: just right, and they just they look super goofy though
Speaker 1: when you look at the illustrations of them. Um, but
Speaker 1: people were terrified. I mean especially you have these two
Speaker 1: dead little girls whose bodies are very disturbing, and it's
Speaker 1: you know, that's that's horrifying. According to the historical writings
Speaker 1: about the Warsaw Basilisk incident, uh, since nobody was brave
Speaker 1: enough to go down and try to kill the basilisk,
Speaker 1: convict was sent down to capture the basilisk, either Jan
Speaker 1: or Jan Bowdensen Bondosen, author of the Fiji Mermaid and
Speaker 1: Other Essays in Natural and Unnatural History, describes the hunt
Speaker 1: for the basilisk as such quote. The convict was dressed
Speaker 1: in creaking black leather, covered with a mass of tinkling mirrors,
Speaker 1: and his eyes were protected with large eyeglasses. Armed with
Speaker 1: a sturdy rake in his right hand and a blazing
Speaker 1: torch in his left, he must have presented a singular
Speaker 1: aspect when venturing forth into the cellar. He was cheered
Speaker 1: on by at least two thousand people who had gathered
Speaker 1: to see the basilisk get beaten. Today. This this convict
Speaker 1: covered in mirrors like a disco ball uh, carrying a
Speaker 1: rake and going like, well, I'm gonna kill this ruse
Speaker 1: just sna I guess got history is so dumb. It's
Speaker 1: so dumb. What else did you have that too? I mean,
Speaker 1: but think about it like you're in fifteen hundreds Warsaw.
Speaker 1: You're you've got you know, jack crap to do. You're
Speaker 1: just like like, well, I hope I don't get the pox.
Speaker 1: There's a disco ballman about to kill a magical lizard
Speaker 1: rooster thing. Hey, isn't that the dude who stole my bread? Yeah,
Speaker 1: they were going to chop his hands off, but they
Speaker 1: thought this would be funnier. Oh man, that would be great.
Speaker 1: It's I mean, it's like reality TV but old Timey's
Speaker 1: his outfit sounds like it sounds like when you think
Speaker 1: of the coolest D and D get up and then
Speaker 1: you put it in real life, because it's like, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I imagine the sound too, just like ching ching ching,
Speaker 1: leather under it too, ching ching. I'm going to kill Basseles. Well,
Speaker 1: this was not how I thought my wife would go.
Speaker 1: I was supposed to be an alchemist, so incredibly according
Speaker 1: to historical writings, he did in fact find and kill
Speaker 1: a basilisk um. But as we know, there's no such
Speaker 1: thing as like an actual basilisk So was this a
Speaker 1: bit of creative license on the part of old historians
Speaker 1: or did he actually find some kind of snake in
Speaker 1: that cellar that they just were like, yeah, that's it,
Speaker 1: that's the basilisk Uh. So there are a few parallels
Speaker 1: to an actual snake bite of that could have happened
Speaker 1: to these little girls. So snake venom can cause swelling,
Speaker 1: which is what the physicians observed on the girl's bodies. Um.
Speaker 1: But the problem is there aren't really that many venomous
Speaker 1: snakes in Poland. Um, but there is one. So the
Speaker 1: European adder. Uh, they're not actually typically all that dangerous,
Speaker 1: but they are venomous. Uh. They're not aggressive, their bites
Speaker 1: aren't typically fatal, but children do in fact succumb to
Speaker 1: their venom at times. So so some of the deaths
Speaker 1: that come from adders are typically among children, which and
Speaker 1: the victims were children. So I wonder like if this
Speaker 1: account is true, um, like, could it be that these
Speaker 1: two girls were playing with an adder like kind of
Speaker 1: just like molesting the snake until the snake lost it
Speaker 1: in like bit both of them and then that killed them.
Speaker 1: And then when the convict covered in mirrors went down,
Speaker 1: he found the snake. Uh And the maid was frozen
Speaker 1: in terror because obviously because there are two little girls
Speaker 1: who were like bloated and dead, and that's she's got
Speaker 1: like some trauma. Now the maid, no, no, she was
Speaker 1: um uh So it's the so people thought like, oh,
Speaker 1: because she's frozen in terror, that's because of the stare
Speaker 1: of the basilisk. But really it's probably like she just
Speaker 1: found the bodies of these two little girls. She could
Speaker 1: have even seen like a snake, like we have of this,
Speaker 1: Like even if you see a snake or a spider
Speaker 1: out of the corner of your eye, you get really anxious,
Speaker 1: even if you don't consciously register seeing it. Uh So,
Speaker 1: I think that it's really interesting to me, how you know,
Speaker 1: Mythical creatures are used to give explanation to really frightening,
Speaker 1: inexplicable occurrences because like when like when a child is
Speaker 1: killed and it's either a random accident or like even
Speaker 1: more horrifying, like another human being, we want a monster
Speaker 1: to pin it on, like a monster that can be
Speaker 1: vanquished and held up in the town square and like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I got it, and it's not humans, then the things
Speaker 1: you know aren't actually dark and evil. It's something outside
Speaker 1: of yourself. And it's also not just a random sad tragedy.
Speaker 1: It's like something you can blame rather than just random chance.
Speaker 1: Is it's so much easier to live in a world
Speaker 1: where there's something blame worthy rather than life is just
Speaker 1: right because you take a closure once you kill the basilisk,
Speaker 1: whereas if it's like, yeah, snake bit it and there's
Speaker 1: there's a snake bit these kids and there's a bunch
Speaker 1: of snakes could happen so or like a murder killed them,
Speaker 1: those are both way more scary because it makes you
Speaker 1: feel like I'm not safe. Anything could happen. But if
Speaker 1: but if you like kill the bass, looks like, well
Speaker 1: we took care of it, this won't happen again. Um So.
Speaker 1: Another potential origin of the basilisk myth in general um
Speaker 1: is that of the spitting cobra um. So it can't
Speaker 1: kill with a stare, but if you stare at it
Speaker 1: and it spits its venom into your eyes, you will
Speaker 1: go blind. Um So, spinning cobras are found in Africa
Speaker 1: and Asia. Um. There expectoration is very dangerous. Uh. So
Speaker 1: it's not actually spit, but venom from glands that are
Speaker 1: being um shot out by muscle contractions. Uh. They can
Speaker 1: spray up to two meters away, so you've got to
Speaker 1: give them a lot of personal space. Uh. And while
Speaker 1: the venom isn't dangerous when in contact with human skin,
Speaker 1: it can cause permanent blindness and corneal swelling when in
Speaker 1: contact with the eyes. Corneal swelling. That's a good I
Speaker 1: love that. That's a good D and D name if
Speaker 1: we're on that topic, sir, corneil of swelling. Um. But
Speaker 1: a spinning cobra doesn't really have the look of a basilisk.
Speaker 1: And what I think actually inspired artists in terms of
Speaker 1: what the basilisk look like is a very real lizard
Speaker 1: who's actually called the common basilisk um. And it looks
Speaker 1: a little bit like a chicken and a lizard combined
Speaker 1: when you think about it. That makes sense because chickens
Speaker 1: and lizards are both descendants of you know, dinosaur relatives.
Speaker 1: Um and Uh, this basilisk lizard has a crest on
Speaker 1: its head and a fin on its back that when
Speaker 1: it's moving could probably be mistaken for like leathery wings.
Speaker 1: Let me get a picture of this where you would
Speaker 1: like to see this. You can kind of see right right.
Speaker 1: You could kind of see how that would confuse people
Speaker 1: because it's it's it's noses pointy, and it's like different colors,
Speaker 1: so you could maybe mistake that for a beak. It's
Speaker 1: got this like crop on the top of its head
Speaker 1: or a or a crest on the top of its
Speaker 1: head that could look like a rooster crest. And then
Speaker 1: it's got this big fin on its back and its
Speaker 1: tail that like when it's moving around, you could think like,
Speaker 1: that's a big wing. If I were a Marco Polo type,
Speaker 1: like somebody who grew up in a in a world
Speaker 1: where there were not basilists, and then I traveled to
Speaker 1: a place where one existed, all bets were off, like, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: anything is possible. This thing is insane looking. It'll kill
Speaker 1: me with the stare. It'll know my name just by
Speaker 1: looking at me. It knows the exact day and time
Speaker 1: I will die. Um, it smells like cheese. This thing is,
Speaker 1: it's real and anything is possible. So what's cool about
Speaker 1: these lizards um. So. First of all, they're found in
Speaker 1: Central and South America UM. Which so if you're a
Speaker 1: European and you like hear a story about it or
Speaker 1: you see one somehow, like it's gonna be like it's
Speaker 1: gonna blow your mind. Um. So they're small, they're only
Speaker 1: about two ft long. UM. And this allows them to
Speaker 1: achieve a little trick that merits them the nickname the
Speaker 1: Jesus Christ lizard, which I love that it's like how
Speaker 1: Jesus Christ lizard um. So wind fleeing predators, they're able
Speaker 1: to build up enough momentum that they can run across
Speaker 1: the surface of water. Uh. Their feet have scaly fringes
Speaker 1: that increase the surface area, distributing their weight such that
Speaker 1: they don't actually break the water tension uh. And also
Speaker 1: by rapidly slapping their feet against the water, they create
Speaker 1: air pockets that give them further buoyancy. Um. And another
Speaker 1: fun thing about just the word basilisk. So you may
Speaker 1: like basil and basil looks sound really similar, right, that's
Speaker 1: not a coincidence. So they both share the root Greek
Speaker 1: word little king. So the basilisk is the little king
Speaker 1: serpent and bays is little king of plants, I guess. Um.
Speaker 1: So there was this medieval myth that if you ate
Speaker 1: basil after being bitten by a snake, you would feel
Speaker 1: no pain. Um. The truth is, if you eat basil
Speaker 1: after being bitten by a snake, as you'll feel a
Speaker 1: lot of pain. With like a hint of sweet aromatic
Speaker 1: pepperinas it's a nice taste, it's a nice it's a
Speaker 1: nice sort of like um after taste to being bit.
Speaker 1: But you will be incredible pain and should go to
Speaker 1: a hospital. Definitely should. But if you really like a
Speaker 1: good scone, you should try to get bit by snakes
Speaker 1: as much as possible. So now I want to talk
Speaker 1: to you about the Rock. Not the rock but no,
Speaker 1: not Dwayne, damn it um, but similar So the rock R. O. C.
Speaker 1: Was a giant bird in Middle Eastern mythology that could
Speaker 1: carry off entire elephants. So, uh, which you know I mean,
Speaker 1: when you think about it, the rock could probably carry
Speaker 1: off I think he can fly to Secretly, I think
Speaker 1: he just knows that if he reveals he can fly, Um,
Speaker 1: his fame would become too intense movies. Anymore him to fly,
Speaker 1: we would we would adopt him as our god. And
Speaker 1: then like he couldn't make move like sort of mediocre
Speaker 1: actions anymore, because yeah, exactly. Uh. What I find so
Speaker 1: interesting about the rock myth is that there were really, really,
Speaker 1: actually real life giant flying birds. One such bird was
Speaker 1: the Argentavia's magnificence. Uh it was it lived about seven
Speaker 1: million years ago. Um, so it went extinct before humans
Speaker 1: were around. But it had a wingspan of up to
Speaker 1: one feet. Uh. They were the largest flying birds to
Speaker 1: ever exist. Um. But as you may not know, not
Speaker 1: the largest flying animal. We talked on the show about
Speaker 1: parosaurs and the catskotalists. Uh forgot the rest of its name,
Speaker 1: but it's it's the It was a huge flying reptiles,
Speaker 1: the cats coal. Yeah. Um, it was about the size
Speaker 1: of a small airplane. That's so cool. That's so I
Speaker 1: This is why I host a show about science because
Speaker 1: this ship is so rad. Yeah. So I loved when
Speaker 1: you said the Latin name of the Argentinian. It was
Speaker 1: a giant condo chargents magnificence. It was very similar to
Speaker 1: a condoria that the people who named it were like,
Speaker 1: this is magnificence. We got no better name for this
Speaker 1: thing when it was standing. So as the name implies
Speaker 1: it was found in Argentina. The fossil records um when
Speaker 1: standing on the ground, it was as tall as a person,
Speaker 1: and based on the the anatomical structure, researchers think it
Speaker 1: just like swallowed its prey hole. That's so cool. How
Speaker 1: big could a thing like that? Like? How much could it?
Speaker 1: What were its gains? I mean, you know, I think
Speaker 1: that it probably One of the things I read is
Speaker 1: there a speculation that it probably just instead of actually
Speaker 1: doing a lot of hunting, it's scared predators away from
Speaker 1: the prey. That its so like scared giant carnivores away
Speaker 1: because here's this huge flying thing of death coming at you,
Speaker 1: and then they would leave and then just like swallow,
Speaker 1: just grab their plate prey and swallow it whole. If
Speaker 1: you saw a thing with a twenty ft wingspan coming, yeah,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter if you are to look for it,
Speaker 1: I would actively like like say, hey, you come here,
Speaker 1: I will cook for you. Yes, please, I'll let you
Speaker 1: eat me. Honestly speaking, God, now you are my God.
Speaker 1: Now exactly so there are the rock Johnson and my
Speaker 1: God God. He can fly. I know it. We know
Speaker 1: you can fly the rock. If you're listening. You don't
Speaker 1: need to hide it anymore. Then then I know you
Speaker 1: are a fan of this podcast, right, and I know
Speaker 1: you and Dwying the Rock Johnson the best of terms.
Speaker 1: They both they both can fly there there, I mean
Speaker 1: everyone knows, but Vin Diesel. It's more like how those
Speaker 1: snakes can fly, right, it's a gliding can get can
Speaker 1: get sick altitude? Yes, he can. He can Pereguin falcon
Speaker 1: that yeah. Jason Statham can jump like a flea, but
Speaker 1: he can't fly. That is true. Kevin Costner can't actually
Speaker 1: make any air. He well, he can walk, he just can't.
Speaker 1: He can't jump. He can't lift a foot. No, no,
Speaker 1: he's too he's actually too entangled with the gravity of
Speaker 1: the Earth, like he cannot It's it's actually every step
Speaker 1: he takes is tremendous. You know the term gravity toss, Yes,
Speaker 1: it's for him, it's literal. He has literal gravty toss
Speaker 1: when he tries to move, so his feet he's always
Speaker 1: sliding right right right, that's he actually kind of moon
Speaker 1: walks around and just everyoneody noticed anytime you've seen Kevin
Speaker 1: Costner run, that's a body that is yeah, exactly. So
Speaker 1: there were also, uh, these giant birds called terror birds.
Speaker 1: Um again this is what I am. Yeah, so they
Speaker 1: went extinct about two point five million years ago. Um
Speaker 1: and uh so they were the apex predator in South America.
Speaker 1: Um again like the like the argent Taivis magnificence. Humans
Speaker 1: weren't around, luckily because we'd be boned. So some species
Speaker 1: reached up to nine feet in height and weighed over
Speaker 1: half a tongue. These are flightless birds, though, so they
Speaker 1: had long, agile legs, huge beaks, and massive talents, according
Speaker 1: to Brazilian According to the Brazilian ornithologist Herculno Alvingetu names sorry,
Speaker 1: he says, quote an ostrich the largest living bird, can
Speaker 1: swallow an apple. But phosphor rosid, that's the terror bird
Speaker 1: can swallow a medium sized dog in one gulf. Just like,
Speaker 1: oh that's okay, So an apple is our scale. What's next?
Speaker 1: Up from apple? What about watermelon? No dog? Dog? Dog? Well,
Speaker 1: because these were carnivores, so yeah, it's it's pretty. You
Speaker 1: can imagine these things just like stomping around, you know,
Speaker 1: squawking really loudly like and just swallowing tiny dog like animals.
Speaker 1: And those animals are like yeah, no, do it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to run from you. Yeah, just like well, okay,
Speaker 1: I give up. There goes my genetic lineage. This god
Speaker 1: wants me dead. The flightless bird, I think, in some
Speaker 1: ways is scarier than a flight full bird because all
Speaker 1: the things that make you flight right, the things that
Speaker 1: let you fly, like tiny legs, so you have to
Speaker 1: have delicate features. It features tiny legs to fly, and
Speaker 1: you you can be crazy muscular, but like not, you
Speaker 1: can't take a big thigh. It's those thigh thickness, thick thoughts,
Speaker 1: those thick ass meaty thighs where it's like thighs forever,
Speaker 1: thighs four weeks, thighs for years, for eons. Uh so there.
Speaker 1: The theory why these one extinct is actually that they
Speaker 1: were too awesome. Well no, sadly, when the North American
Speaker 1: predators like sabored tooth tigers migrated, when North and South
Speaker 1: America like smooshed together and started the Great Continental Smosh,
Speaker 1: the Great Continental smoosh. Um, so the sabre tooth tigers
Speaker 1: took over their niche. Oh so they like hunted. They
Speaker 1: didn't hunt the terror bird, but they hunted the terrible
Speaker 1: r exactly. So they couldn't get enough, right that, I
Speaker 1: guess they were too. The problem was they were too awesome,
Speaker 1: so they never had to compete. Exactly, they were not
Speaker 1: they were. They peaked in high school, like evolutionarily speaking,
Speaker 1: and then like as soon as this, like who used
Speaker 1: to be a nerd in high school? And then they
Speaker 1: turned out to be awesome. They have a great personality,
Speaker 1: exact hobbies, and really long teeth. Right. They used to
Speaker 1: get made fun of for their orthodontics, but then it
Speaker 1: turned out that these massive teeth and just like Agile
Speaker 1: is ship that guy who's really into karate in high
Speaker 1: school and you thought was a Nina warrior, right exactly.
Speaker 1: The Chimera was a mythological beast that had the head
Speaker 1: and body of a lion, with an extra goat head
Speaker 1: sticking out in the head and body of a snake
Speaker 1: as its tail. It was said to breathe fire, and
Speaker 1: it's thought to have been inspired by the real Unartist
Speaker 1: Mountain area in Turkey's Olympos Valley. Here, gas vents under
Speaker 1: the ground allows small fires to continually burn, making it
Speaker 1: seem like a place where magical creatures breathe undying fire.
Speaker 1: Even stranger there are real life chimeras found throughout the
Speaker 1: animal and human realm. A genetic chimera is an individual
Speaker 1: who has cells of more than one genotype, typically meaning
Speaker 1: two or more zygoats used to form a single organism.
Speaker 1: And animals, this can cause stark, bilateral symmetrical patches of
Speaker 1: different fur or eyes, like a cat with black fur
Speaker 1: on one half of its face an orange fur on
Speaker 1: the other. Hetero chromia two differently colored eyes can be
Speaker 1: caused by chimerism, but it's more often caused by mosaicism,
Speaker 1: a genetic scenario where an individual has more than one
Speaker 1: genotype but only from a single zygote, meaning that there
Speaker 1: was some weird cell replication abnormalities within that zygote. Chimeric
Speaker 1: humans are extremely rare, with only about one hundred currently
Speaker 1: documented cases, one of whom is American singer Taylor Mule,
Speaker 1: whose torso is pink on one side and lighter on
Speaker 1: the other side. But there aren't any chimeras like in
Speaker 1: myth where multiple animal DNA in one organism or are
Speaker 1: there in Researchers at the Salk Institute in San Diego
Speaker 1: injected human stem cells into a pig embryo, creating a
Speaker 1: human pig hybrid kinda sort of the pig embryo was
Speaker 1: only about zero point zero zero one percent human and
Speaker 1: was only allowed to develop for twenty days in the
Speaker 1: pigs womb. So no talking pigs of my nightmares yet.
Speaker 1: Speaking of nightmares, we have to take a break for
Speaker 1: some bad advertisements, but we'll be right back. When it
Speaker 1: comes to understanding human and animal behavior in psychology, we've
Speaker 1: had a bit of a rough start over the past
Speaker 1: few centuries. In medieval times, Beasti area authors thought that
Speaker 1: lions breathed life into their young, and bears licked their
Speaker 1: young into shape. We know, of course, that they were
Speaker 1: likely licking the amniotic sack off their newly born young,
Speaker 1: but it's easy to see how such a behavior was misinterpreted.
Speaker 1: Human behaviors, too, have been wildly misinterpreted, and the history
Speaker 1: of psychology is a doozy. Throughout human history, people have
Speaker 1: thought mental illness was a sign of demonic possession. In fact,
Speaker 1: in ancient times, people practiced treppending, the art of drilling
Speaker 1: a hole in the skull or chiseling a chunk of
Speaker 1: the skull bone out, which was thought to release evil
Speaker 1: spirits from the brain. Not all Trumpening patients survived, but
Speaker 1: some did even as far back as the Stone Age,
Speaker 1: as we have artifacts of Treppen skulls where the skull
Speaker 1: hole healed over. Drilling a hole in your skull sounds bad,
Speaker 1: but what about biting off your own testicles? What would
Speaker 1: you rather, alex uh, drilling a hole in my skull? Yeah,
Speaker 1: because if I bit off my own testicles, I'd have
Speaker 1: to somehow figure out the logistics of getting my mouth
Speaker 1: down there, which would I think hurt almost as much
Speaker 1: as the actual act. Right, You'd have to remove a
Speaker 1: few vertebrae first, or like a few ribs or something,
Speaker 1: or I'd have yeah, a few, or someone really strong
Speaker 1: will just have to force yikes. I'd have to get
Speaker 1: Dwyn the Rock Johnson to do it for me. Well,
Speaker 1: at least you're not a medieval beaver. That's something I
Speaker 1: often remind like when I'm feeling down and I've given
Speaker 1: myself a pep talk, I'm like, well, at least I'm
Speaker 1: not a medieval beaver. I really want that as a poster.
Speaker 1: I'm moving apartments right now and I'm doing a lot
Speaker 1: of Etsy shopping for cool posters, and I would love
Speaker 1: a poster of you saying that at least you're not
Speaker 1: a medieval beaver. Our other catchphrases don't you noodle, stay
Speaker 1: in scoodle, which is about not noodling catfish. So here's
Speaker 1: a medieval theory about beavers. They were said to chew
Speaker 1: off their own testicles and throw them at hunters to
Speaker 1: avoid being captured. So you may be asking why would
Speaker 1: this be helpful in any way, shape or form. So,
Speaker 1: beaver testicles used to be prized for their medicinal value. Um.
Speaker 1: Hunters were after that sweet sweet juice called castorium, which
Speaker 1: we talked about last time as uh, it's actually used
Speaker 1: as artificial vanilla flavoring today. What yeah, beaver nut is
Speaker 1: used as artificial vanilla flavor. Sorry, I need you to stop. No,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna, but they wait. So like when I
Speaker 1: eat cheap vanilla ice cream, it's not made in a lab.
Speaker 1: It's taken from beaver testicles, not always, but it is
Speaker 1: FDA approved as generally regarded as safe. So fuck damn it.
Speaker 1: I mean most vanilla things are probably vanilla extract. Sorry
Speaker 1: I almost said vanilla astract, which is more accurate when
Speaker 1: it comes to castoreum um. But in medieval times, this
Speaker 1: was thought to be medicinal um. So the thought is
Speaker 1: that if beavers bite off their own testicles then lift
Speaker 1: a leg to show hunters that they no longer have
Speaker 1: those sweet, sweet castoreum balls. Uh, then they would be safe. Uh.
Speaker 1: This is also a weird Christian parable for living chastely
Speaker 1: so you wouldn't be captured by the devil. So basically
Speaker 1: sacrificing your your gonads to not like get tempted by
Speaker 1: Satan or something, which I don't know. I guess they're saying, like,
Speaker 1: cut off your own ball, cut off your own balls,
Speaker 1: and then then spread your legs for Satan to say,
Speaker 1: look at this, at this Satan, Satan, I can't come. Actually,
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's true. But castrated people, that's
Speaker 1: not my area. Well, it's definitely you're not you'd be
Speaker 1: shooting blanks, that's true, So maybe you can still. I
Speaker 1: got no juice. You know the phrase vanilla sex. Yes,
Speaker 1: I'm never again going to think that that means boring sex.
Speaker 1: It's gonna mean something beaver like. I suppose something beaver
Speaker 1: like and with castration. In the last time I was
Speaker 1: on the show, we like talked about a lot of
Speaker 1: interesting sex practices and hot Water for being a little
Speaker 1: too judgmental, and I'm not going to do that year. No,
Speaker 1: don't judge, don't judge. I don't want my testicles bitten off.
Speaker 1: Well for vanilla sex, I'm gonna I'm actually going to
Speaker 1: judge people for biting off testicles. There, I did it.
Speaker 1: Hot I said it, hot take, hot take. It's contra virtual.
Speaker 1: But you know, so hunters at this time, we're wrong
Speaker 1: because what they thought they were getting were testicles, but
Speaker 1: they were actually, uh this is disgusting, but they weren't balls.
Speaker 1: They were just glands that were holding the castor am
Speaker 1: Why is that more disgusting than if it was Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm like two in it, right, Yeah, yeah, it's a bit.
Speaker 1: I'm doing a bit. But the real testicles were inside
Speaker 1: the beaver the whole time, because they were the balls
Speaker 1: are coming from inside the beaver um. And they did
Speaker 1: not bite off their own testicles. But they may have
Speaker 1: believed this because the testicles weren't internal, so they were
Speaker 1: like looking for testicles and they couldn't find them, and
Speaker 1: they're like, oh, it's clearly they put them off or something.
Speaker 1: Did they bite off? No? They didn't do anything. No,
Speaker 1: that the amount of intelligence, the amount of human type
Speaker 1: intelligence ascribed to the beaver to say knows the hunters
Speaker 1: coming from my balls, I will therefore bite my balls
Speaker 1: up and throw them at the hunter, plus show the
Speaker 1: hunter my empty ball area. Is like, that's at least
Speaker 1: a fourteen or fifteen year old human level of right, right,
Speaker 1: that's yeah, I mean beavers, they have their strengths. I
Speaker 1: don't think intuiting that people want their balls is one
Speaker 1: of them. I could not build a dam with my
Speaker 1: teeth and change in ecological niche for myself, but I
Speaker 1: could figure out if hunters were coming from my ball, right,
Speaker 1: And you could figure out that if you rip off
Speaker 1: their your balls, you no longer have anything to offer
Speaker 1: the world. But that hurts because it's true. So I
Speaker 1: couldn't find any examples of an animal biting off its
Speaker 1: own testicles. Um uh. And we do know that there
Speaker 1: are cases where animals do ditch a part of their
Speaker 1: body to evade predators, like the autonomous tales of reptiles.
Speaker 1: They'll pop off, wiggle around, distract the predator why the
Speaker 1: wizard escapes. But there are some orb weaving spiders called
Speaker 1: Nephilingi's malabaronet cys there we go. Who will detach their
Speaker 1: penises during mating? Didn't we talk about this last time?
Speaker 1: Is on this podcast? We may have talked about I
Speaker 1: think a different detachable penis um because you talked about
Speaker 1: the king missile song. Yes, yes, the Dutch very catchy song.
Speaker 1: I think we're talking about c slug. Yeah that was it. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: But so the female or weaver of the species is
Speaker 1: a sexual cannibal. She'll eat the male after mating. So
Speaker 1: the male, by detaching his penis, allows his penis to
Speaker 1: keep working after he's dead. Uh. Scientists found that the
Speaker 1: penis continued to pump sperm into the spider's reproductive tract
Speaker 1: long after being detached, to twenty minutes. That's straight up.
Speaker 1: So there are two other theories why this is beneficial. Uh.
Speaker 1: There is the plugging hypothesis, which is that it literally
Speaker 1: just plugs up the females genital opening, preventing other males
Speaker 1: from copulating. But my favorite one is called the gloves
Speaker 1: off strategy. UM. The ideas that Unich spiders are better fighters.
Speaker 1: Um by dropping their palp, which is basically their penis um,
Speaker 1: it allows them more agility to fend off competitors, like
Speaker 1: punch them away from trying to mate with the female
Speaker 1: that they just made it with. Um. So the one
Speaker 1: thing keeping you back from being tough is your dick
Speaker 1: in this instance, Yeah, if you're an orb weaving spider,
Speaker 1: because like Pickle, I mean, I don't think so. It's
Speaker 1: interesting because like researchers did find that Unich males were
Speaker 1: more aggressive and by dropping their penis they increase their
Speaker 1: endurance and speed dramatically. Um that this keeps I know
Speaker 1: I keep talking about dungeons and dragons, but I want
Speaker 1: that to be a character feature. Buff Yeah. Now, um,
Speaker 1: the amount of things evolutionarily that creatures go through to
Speaker 1: make their sperm win is so fascinating. Have you ever
Speaker 1: I I know this book has gotten a lot of pushback,
Speaker 1: but have you ever read Sex at Dawn? I've heard
Speaker 1: about that book. Yeah, I hadn't read it. It's interesting.
Speaker 1: I think it deserves a read with a critical eye.
Speaker 1: But there hypothesis about human mating behavior is sperm competition.
Speaker 1: So it's not like man to man fighting because that
Speaker 1: you know, we're not guerillas, We're not built like gorillas.
Speaker 1: So it's like we're competing with our sperm, and it's
Speaker 1: a it's definitely a bit utopian. You reading, you're like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, I like want to live in a tribe
Speaker 1: where everyone's sucking all the time and people are happy,
Speaker 1: like but Nobles, Like, it's definitely pushing for that, and
Speaker 1: they have good evidence. But I've also seen other you know,
Speaker 1: biological anthropologists pushing back against that evidence. But that the
Speaker 1: whole human penis anatomy is for sperm competition, Like it's
Speaker 1: just trying to pull the other competitor sperm out. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's possible, but there are there is evidence of that
Speaker 1: in other animals, like um, we talked about it on
Speaker 1: the show, but like there are penis shapes in animals
Speaker 1: that literally are used as like shovels to scoop out
Speaker 1: competitor sperm. So it's it's very possible that that's the
Speaker 1: case for humans. I think it's just like as we
Speaker 1: can tell, like with these whole mythological things of misinterpreting
Speaker 1: the evidence to mean something like in old times, we
Speaker 1: do the same thing today where we can misinterpret um
Speaker 1: evidence like the shape of a wiener uh to mean
Speaker 1: something that may or may not be true. It's that's
Speaker 1: it's such a tricky thing with evolutionary history. But I
Speaker 1: would be really interested in I think I think that
Speaker 1: maybe would present a difficulty for studies to try to
Speaker 1: find out, like how human wieners work during sex. I
Speaker 1: think they've done it just with anatomical models, like really interesting,
Speaker 1: because it's I think pretty good for pulling it out.
Speaker 1: I'd love the idea of a programmer spending like like
Speaker 1: hours and hours in weeks and weeks, like doing a
Speaker 1: mathematically correct model for how a wiener works during sex.
Speaker 1: That's oh, I was thinking they did it with like
Speaker 1: physical models, But I like the idea of like it's
Speaker 1: still good, still good dynamics. Someone just like like thoughtfully
Speaker 1: watching a fake rubber wiener just going not right. You know,
Speaker 1: it needs more liability. So, speaking of sexual cannibals, in
Speaker 1: medieval times, they thought that female vipers conceived by biting
Speaker 1: off the male heads. According to the Aberdeen Beastierry, the
Speaker 1: female viper conceives by biting off the male's head, her
Speaker 1: young bite through her stomach to be born, and then
Speaker 1: she dies, which fuck, that's so metal. It's not true though,
Speaker 1: vipers don't do this, but certain species of praying mantises
Speaker 1: do bite off heads, and I think a lot of
Speaker 1: people are aware of that idea that mantis is will
Speaker 1: bite off the female mantis bites off the males after copulation.
Speaker 1: But one kind of myth busting thing is that they
Speaker 1: don't do the us all the time. So even amongst
Speaker 1: the species, certain species don't do it at all. Amongst
Speaker 1: the species that do practice sexual cannibalism only do it
Speaker 1: between thirteen and twenty eight percent of the time according
Speaker 1: to studies. And I love this so. Sydney Brannock, a
Speaker 1: mantis expert at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, says, quote,
Speaker 1: maybe if the female is starving or the male irritates her,
Speaker 1: she might engage in that behavior. But they don't always
Speaker 1: do it. Just like the males like being being a
Speaker 1: real sex pest and she's just like eats his head.
Speaker 1: Well that's how you know then if you're a good lay,
Speaker 1: if you're praying mantis. Right, I'm still alive. I've had
Speaker 1: sex three times. No one's killed me yet, right, right? Uh?
Speaker 1: And it actually there is a benefit to biting off
Speaker 1: the male's head, so it may be good for for
Speaker 1: the children. Think of the children bite off the male's head.
Speaker 1: So when female Chinese mantises eat their partners, they lay
Speaker 1: twice as many eggs, and the amino acids they get
Speaker 1: from the male's head are incorporated into the eggs they lay,
Speaker 1: So there is a there's an evolutionary benefit and a
Speaker 1: good dad. And then right exactly, just like our dad
Speaker 1: may be dead, but hey we got we got that
Speaker 1: sweethead juice. I thought my dad sacrificed the well. Speaking
Speaker 1: of sacrifice, when you think about moms who sacrifice, typically
Speaker 1: think about like, you know, picking it up from school
Speaker 1: every day and and helping you with your homework, maybe
Speaker 1: working a job, and uh, you know, always being there
Speaker 1: for you. But what about literally letting you drink her
Speaker 1: life blood? Yeah, that's pretty cool. Tell me about this
Speaker 1: awesome thing. So this is called Any sort of form
Speaker 1: of eating your own mom is called nature Fiji. Yes,
Speaker 1: I love Latin sciences. I love that there's a word
Speaker 1: for this. Of course there is. So the writers of
Speaker 1: Best Here were like super into it. These board monks,
Speaker 1: just like these board heteronormative monks, these probably hornyren't for pelicans.
Speaker 1: So they would talk about that there's this myth that
Speaker 1: the pelicans were thought to bleed themselves to feed chicks,
Speaker 1: so they would use their beaks to stab their chest
Speaker 1: and then use that to have the chicks look at
Speaker 1: a pelicans stupid face structure and say, oh, that giant
Speaker 1: pocket beak, it's for like bleeding yourself. How can you
Speaker 1: not you know, I guess you're right if you're a
Speaker 1: board medieval monk, I guess that's where you go with it.
Speaker 1: Like a lot of the stories in the beast Eeries,
Speaker 1: this was another Christian allegory. The so the story goes
Speaker 1: that the pelican um like got annoying. This is a
Speaker 1: really funny story. So, like the one of the main
Speaker 1: recurring myths is that there's this pelican it's young, grow
Speaker 1: up and they're really annoying. So she like sits on
Speaker 1: them and then accidentally kills them, and she feels so
Speaker 1: guilty that she like pierces her own breast and then
Speaker 1: her blood revives the chicks and they come back to life.
Speaker 1: And this is like Christian imagery of like the fall
Speaker 1: of man kind and then the blood of Christ redeeming
Speaker 1: man or something. I don't it's a it's a bit
Speaker 1: of a um what if sin is like being sad
Speaker 1: on by a pelican, and Jesus is sack or so
Speaker 1: Waite is God the pelican who sits on us. Yes,
Speaker 1: I guess, yeah, yeah, that's about right. So really we
Speaker 1: know that pelicans feed their chicks with sweet sweet ragurgitation,
Speaker 1: just like most birds. But you know, I was curious
Speaker 1: that there's like a real example of a mother animal
Speaker 1: allowing its babies to drink its life. But it's called
Speaker 1: mat um like matrimony, but matrophegi um, and there kind
Speaker 1: of is an example. So we actually have talked to im.
Speaker 1: I swear this is not a clip show, even though
Speaker 1: I keep referencing other episodes. Um, there was the Woe
Speaker 1: Mama episode where we talked about, you know, matro Fiji
Speaker 1: and animals where they often eat their own moms, but
Speaker 1: I don't think we talked about this example. So the
Speaker 1: female um it's called a sticko dipus lineatus uh spider uh.
Speaker 1: It's found in Mediterranean Europe. They're pretty smaller, about half
Speaker 1: an inch big um, and in order to feed its babies,
Speaker 1: it will regurgitate its last meal as well as of
Speaker 1: her body mask out of her face, including her own
Speaker 1: guts and stomach. So she just like basically disembowels herself
Speaker 1: by vomiting everything out uh to feed her young and
Speaker 1: she dies obviously, and the babies gleefully eat the mom pudding. God,
Speaker 1: here's a picture if you like it. Fuck no, fu
Speaker 1: shit funk. I'm sorry to the editor for hearing me scream.
Speaker 1: Oh damn it, that's so bad. But I just showed
Speaker 1: Alex and what'll probably post online for you guys to
Speaker 1: enjoy is a picture of this spider with a bunch
Speaker 1: of babies just covering her face eating her. I can
Speaker 1: just think of the single spider of the species that
Speaker 1: hasn't had kids yet and like all of its friends
Speaker 1: who are about to die. No, it's so great. It'll
Speaker 1: just love it. You're gonna love being a mom. Being
Speaker 1: a mother is like the greatest sacrifice you can make
Speaker 1: because you're litterally dying. There's nothing more beautiful. There's nothing
Speaker 1: more beautiful than when you vomit your guts out of
Speaker 1: your face and you know that, like, yes, you will
Speaker 1: die for sure because your guts are now outside of
Speaker 1: your body, but it's to nourish your children. It's beautiful.
Speaker 1: You're dying for something bigger than you. God, I mean
Speaker 1: Mother's Day for these spiders must be a odd affair, right.
Speaker 1: Just as myths were an attempt to understand animal behavior
Speaker 1: before more scientific methods were discovered, legends may be a
Speaker 1: way to describe unexplained dangers in our environment and may
Speaker 1: help keep us safe. An example is that of the
Speaker 1: nine eighties six Lake Nios disaster and Cameroon, when an
Speaker 1: eruption of c O two from the lake killed thousands
Speaker 1: of people and animals, displacing the breathable air and suffocating them.
Speaker 1: But even before scientists investigating the incident understood the disaster,
Speaker 1: local legend had documented magical killer springs that killed animals
Speaker 1: that approached to drink the water. Learning about these myths
Speaker 1: led scientists to discover that the hot springs had high
Speaker 1: concentrations of volcanic gases, and that's such a spring was
Speaker 1: likely at the bottom of the lake, spewing gas and
Speaker 1: causing a high concentration of c O two to build up,
Speaker 1: and this may not have been the first time the
Speaker 1: lake killed. Local legends warned people the haunted Noos Lake
Speaker 1: that could explode or swallow up and kill people. The
Speaker 1: indigenous people consider the shores of Lake NEOs to be
Speaker 1: cursed and only newer immigrants lived there. In this case,
Speaker 1: the superstition actually saved the lives of those who followed it.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying every myth is true, but if someone
Speaker 1: warns me about a haunted lake, I'm think I'm gonna
Speaker 1: pass Before a more modern understanding of evolutionary biology. Humans
Speaker 1: have been weaving fantastic tales from fossil records and animal artifacts,
Speaker 1: like how dinosaur bones were thought to be dragons. But
Speaker 1: unless you think modern society is immune to coming up
Speaker 1: with fantastic explanations for odd discoveries, here's a contemporary example.
Speaker 1: You may have seen the image of a small, strange
Speaker 1: looking humanoid mummy. It has an elongated skull, elongated limbs,
Speaker 1: and looks like the remains of a tiny alien. The skeleton,
Speaker 1: called Atta, named after chilis Aticama desert in which it
Speaker 1: was found, was thought to be evidence of aliens by ufologists,
Speaker 1: or is thought to be the ancient remains of some
Speaker 1: strange humanoid. But when researchers analyzed the body, not only
Speaker 1: did they find that it was only forty years old,
Speaker 1: but it was unmistakably human. The genome sequenced identified it
Speaker 1: as a female fetus with a number of genetic mutations
Speaker 1: that affected its connective tissues, as well as a bone
Speaker 1: aging disorder that resulted in the fetus is alien like appearance.
Speaker 1: But back before we had the technology of genetic sequencing,
Speaker 1: we had to rely on hunches, like in the case
Speaker 1: of the mystical unicorn. So you like unicorns, alex uh,
Speaker 1: personally no, But for the sake of this bit, why
Speaker 1: don't you like unicorns? I don't like unicorns because I
Speaker 1: think they've come to like mean like I'm wacky. Oh
Speaker 1: I see, I'm unique because but that's silly, because I
Speaker 1: like the appeal of a magical unicorn and so universal.
Speaker 1: It doesn't make you wacky way or unique. It's like, oh,
Speaker 1: I like pizza, like I'm interesting. So not everyone likes pizza.
Speaker 1: Magical horse, a magical horse that like grant two wishes, Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: of course you're gonna like it. What's not to like
Speaker 1: a magical battle horse? Right exactly. So the legendary unicorn
Speaker 1: may have arisen from real animal bones and sidings, like
Speaker 1: from the description of the monoscerous or rhino. So the
Speaker 1: most iconic unicorn horns look eerily similar to the narwhale husks,
Speaker 1: the husk of the tusk of a narwall. In fact,
Speaker 1: the Vikings used to sell narwhal tusks as unicorn horns,
Speaker 1: which were ground into powder and used to neutralize poison
Speaker 1: supposedly and cure melancholy like which is a form of depression,
Speaker 1: I guess, And obviously it couldn't do either of those things.
Speaker 1: But hey, you know, so here's the real story behind
Speaker 1: that unicorn horn, which is actually just the narwal tusk,
Speaker 1: and it's actually super incredible and more incredible than a
Speaker 1: unicorn horn. Um. So you may have already heard this
Speaker 1: if you listen to Stuff to Blow your Mind episode
Speaker 1: on teeth or I talked about the narwhal horn um.
Speaker 1: But here's a quick rundown. So it's actually an oversized
Speaker 1: canine tooth um and it's uh, typically the upper left canine,
Speaker 1: so it's asymmetrical, uh. And it's very rare that an
Speaker 1: oral actually has two symmetrical tusks um. And it's a
Speaker 1: bit of a mystery as to why they have it. Um.
Speaker 1: One theory is that that is that it's a mating display,
Speaker 1: because it's typically males that have it, Although of females
Speaker 1: can have it. But the more interesting theory is that
Speaker 1: it's actually a sensory organ because it has millions of
Speaker 1: nerve endings and is actually composed of what's closer to
Speaker 1: the sensitive parts of the tooth than the outer enamel UM.
Speaker 1: And they have all the little holes and channels that
Speaker 1: allow the water to flow in and hit the nerves.
Speaker 1: Uh So, the theory is that they could be collecting
Speaker 1: information about the water um and also that males who
Speaker 1: rub their tusks together aren't fighting or doing some kind
Speaker 1: of sexual competition, but they're like communicating about like the
Speaker 1: quality of the water, like sharing information by like sort
Speaker 1: of like rubbing I guess the water that was trapped
Speaker 1: in their tusks into the other tusks and showing them
Speaker 1: where they've been. So awesome, that's so great. The the
Speaker 1: idea of different sensory apparatus trips me out so hard.
Speaker 1: We did a science the show show about like having
Speaker 1: different senses and um there there's always forget the name
Speaker 1: of this researcher, but I love him, and my co host,
Speaker 1: who's our science producer, loves this guy's research. But he's
Speaker 1: the guy who's like built the vest with vibrating motors
Speaker 1: on it that can like read the stock market and
Speaker 1: give you extra senses. And the here of what kinds
Speaker 1: of senses are out there that we don't have is
Speaker 1: so and that your sense is just a giant ass
Speaker 1: tooth that's all the sensitive cold like the part of
Speaker 1: your teeth that you hate. What do you eat cold
Speaker 1: ice cream? And you're screaming like, let's just put that
Speaker 1: sounds like my hell yeah, it seems like there's got
Speaker 1: to be a good reason or like that the brain
Speaker 1: can interpret it not as pain, but as like another
Speaker 1: sense um. One of the reasons it may be important
Speaker 1: for them to have that sensory tooth is that if
Speaker 1: they can detect salinity, like where there's high salt concentrations,
Speaker 1: it can indicate that ice is forming and getting trapped
Speaker 1: within the ice is a real danger for narwhals because
Speaker 1: because they they're they're mammals, they have to breathe air.
Speaker 1: They have to surface to breathe, so if they are
Speaker 1: trapped under the ice, they will die. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: the science is far from settled, but I think that
Speaker 1: makes it more intriguing. Like I'm really interested to see
Speaker 1: as research on this develops. And see, like what the heck,
Speaker 1: because like, why would they have like supersensitive teeth that
Speaker 1: don't actually do anything so massive. It's like having the
Speaker 1: most sense. It's like having a comically big penis that
Speaker 1: you're just carrying around, waving around, waving around detected, like
Speaker 1: dipping it into water and the like this water is
Speaker 1: just right, this is too salty. So now I want
Speaker 1: to talk about the legendary griffins who could carry away
Speaker 1: cows and humans alike. Uh, most people know what a
Speaker 1: griffin looks like. But it's got the head, wings and
Speaker 1: front claws of an eagle and the hind legs and
Speaker 1: tail of a lion. Um. And in the thirt hundreds
Speaker 1: they found evidence of griffins giant talents and giant eggs.
Speaker 1: So these claws were thought to be only obtainable by priests,
Speaker 1: and so they're actually kept in church treasuries. Um and
Speaker 1: uh so, and they really do look like giant claws.
Speaker 1: Let me show you a picture of this thing. Um,
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, what the fund is? That? Is that a
Speaker 1: mammoth tusk? No? I mean that definitely looks like it.
Speaker 1: But uh so, uh the typical uh, the typical griffin
Speaker 1: claw was actually an ibex horn. So, uh, the Ibex
Speaker 1: is a species of goat that lives in the European Alps.
Speaker 1: The males have huge horns that are used in sexual contests.
Speaker 1: So these horns can grow up to five feet in
Speaker 1: length and grow constantly. Uh. So horns are really interesting
Speaker 1: because they're actually live extensions of the skull. They have
Speaker 1: a bone core that's alive and then a keratin exterior,
Speaker 1: and they're actually, I think kind of an interesting thing
Speaker 1: is they're different from antler's. Antlers are actually dead bone
Speaker 1: material covered in like live skin often um, whereas horns
Speaker 1: are live bone covered in keratin um. And then the
Speaker 1: eggs of a griffin were probably ostrich eggs, which are
Speaker 1: the largest eggs uh in the world currently, well not
Speaker 1: not the largest eggs. I think the largest actual egg
Speaker 1: is the whale shark egg sack, but they're the largest
Speaker 1: bird eggs. Why wouldn't you know that that was an
Speaker 1: ibex horn, like if you were living in the Alps.
Speaker 1: Well maybe they weren't living in the Alps. They just
Speaker 1: like showed up and everyone was like, don't tell that
Speaker 1: fucking English guy about our ibex. Like you see an
Speaker 1: ibex just prancing around. A lot of them probably didn't
Speaker 1: see the ibex or if they. I mean, it's also
Speaker 1: I think just the it's like, why would you confuse
Speaker 1: a snake for a basilisk? You want? It's like when
Speaker 1: there are mysterious things like cows disappearing or people disappearing,
Speaker 1: having that monster that can be eat it, or this
Speaker 1: this actual thing and a reason for like the bad
Speaker 1: random crap that just happens. I think it's so compelling
Speaker 1: that yeah, you know, like it's like the Fiji mermaid,
Speaker 1: Like yeah, we know, it's like a it's like a
Speaker 1: monkey skeleton sowned to a fish. But like just you
Speaker 1: want there to be weird mermaids and you want to
Speaker 1: be the one who knows about So I would be
Speaker 1: remiss if I didn't mention that my alma mater, Sarah
Speaker 1: Lawrence College, we were the Griffins. That was our our
Speaker 1: mascot because we didn't really play sports, because you know,
Speaker 1: we're a bunch of like theater and art kids. But
Speaker 1: it's the same thing. We're like, well we know a
Speaker 1: thing you don't. We're smarter than yeah, Like we're actually
Speaker 1: a magical beach you can carry away cows. But only
Speaker 1: priests can find our cows. Um. So, Now finally I
Speaker 1: want to talk about one of my favorite mythical creatures,
Speaker 1: which is the jackalope. Uh So it's really it's been
Speaker 1: popular I is by North American folklore. Um. And it's
Speaker 1: a jack rabbit with uh so called antelope horns. But
Speaker 1: these horns that you see aren't actually from antelopes. Um.
Speaker 1: I think the closest thing would be the North American
Speaker 1: prong horns, also called the prairie antelope, because they have
Speaker 1: those kind of like um pointy deer like horns. A
Speaker 1: little bit, but most of the taxidermis of these jackalopes
Speaker 1: that you have in your head, they actually just use
Speaker 1: deer antlers. So uh, the horned hair actually didn't originate
Speaker 1: in North America. So thirteenth century Middle Eastern art depicts
Speaker 1: rabbits with a single horn. Uh. Seventeenth century natural history
Speaker 1: texts depict horn hairs throughout Europe and in Central America.
Speaker 1: Mythology has described horned rabbits for for many many ages.
Speaker 1: In North America, it was popularized by taxidermist Douglas Herrick
Speaker 1: in two who just like got a dead rabbit had
Speaker 1: some deer antlers and put it put them together. What
Speaker 1: do you got? You got a jack jackalope on and
Speaker 1: he coined the term jack lope and um. People were
Speaker 1: really taken with it. They loved just this kind of
Speaker 1: American mythos um. But the origin of the jackalope throughout
Speaker 1: history may have actually come from real sightings of rabbits
Speaker 1: with horns um. So, the chope papaloma virus uh is
Speaker 1: a real virus that infects rabbits that can cause horny
Speaker 1: protrusions to form on these poor little bunnies. So let
Speaker 1: me show you a picture of a really severe case.
Speaker 1: Oh fuck, that looks like a zeno bite. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So it is these growths called keratinis Carcinoma's basically there
Speaker 1: growths made out of carraton, which is the stuff found
Speaker 1: in fingernails and coating the outside of horns. Um. Unfortunately
Speaker 1: for the bunnies, uh, these are real bad news. They
Speaker 1: can um a test to size, or they can interfere
Speaker 1: with feeding and functioning. Um. Yeah yeah uh. And it's
Speaker 1: actually uh, it's actually similar to the human version of
Speaker 1: the virus. No, it's a pepaloma virus, which is a
Speaker 1: family of viruses that also can infect humans. So that
Speaker 1: includes HPV or that's human pepalouma viruses basically, and so
Speaker 1: you may think of HPV as being the thing that
Speaker 1: causes um cervical cancer, but it causes that. It's a
Speaker 1: whole family of viruses. So it's responsible for warts um
Speaker 1: all over your body can be like uh, you know,
Speaker 1: uh it can also as I mentioned, it can cause
Speaker 1: some cancers um and so uh, that's it's a similar
Speaker 1: virus that infects uh, these wild rabbits. You can't get
Speaker 1: it from a rabbit, but it is really interesting and
Speaker 1: the show Papaluma virus was discovered in Midwest cotton tail
Speaker 1: rabbits in the US UM, but it can affect many species,
Speaker 1: so jack rabbits and European rabbits. So I don't see
Speaker 1: why not like this. You know, it's a virus. It's
Speaker 1: probably been around for a really long time. And so
Speaker 1: those sightings of horn rabbits could have been real rabbits
Speaker 1: that had uh these uh, these growths on their heads
Speaker 1: that really do look like horns, and in fact, compositionally
Speaker 1: they're very similar to a lot of horns, and that
Speaker 1: they are made out of an outer layer of keratin.
Speaker 1: What a strange virus. I wonder what viruses evolved like
Speaker 1: anything else, Like why is this the evolutionary path? Does
Speaker 1: the does the horn help it spread like a fungus?
Speaker 1: I don't think so. I don't think that. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think it's that it is UM. It's a you know,
Speaker 1: the viruses. Whole thing is replication. Uh. And then if
Speaker 1: it is causing these like UM like with cancer and stuff,
Speaker 1: it Uh, A virus can cause a cancer by uh,
Speaker 1: you know, inducing these genetic abnormalities that cause these replication errors.
Speaker 1: And UM cells normally have something where it's a it's
Speaker 1: a it's sort of a suicide function, so the cell
Speaker 1: will die, which is good for your body because you
Speaker 1: don't want to sell that has uncontrolled growth and doesn't
Speaker 1: die UM. So with a with a cancerous growth UM
Speaker 1: that sort of like it's called apoptosis, it doesn't go
Speaker 1: through that. So you get these uncontrolled growths UM, which
Speaker 1: is not necessarily like a quote unquote goal of the virus.
Speaker 1: It's just it's fussing with your with your DNA, and
Speaker 1: it's UM causing these these abnormalities. It can even like
Speaker 1: cause your body to send out growth hormone transmitter signals
Speaker 1: that is telling your body to give resources to this
Speaker 1: this growth, like grow blood vessels towards a tumor um.
Speaker 1: So purely random, it's doing its own ship because not
Speaker 1: all because not all cancers are even caused by a virus,
Speaker 1: So the virus is just one potential cause of a cancer.
Speaker 1: The cancer and the growth is just your own cells
Speaker 1: going wacky. Um. So it's uh, yeah, it's a it's
Speaker 1: a freaky thing. And if you look at these pictures
Speaker 1: of these poor bunnies, you can see some pictures like
Speaker 1: they just look like a couple of horns on the
Speaker 1: rabbit's head. I've actually seen one in real life. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it was, you know, It's kind of one of
Speaker 1: those things where you it was all surreal because you
Speaker 1: see this rabbit with a big horn on its head
Speaker 1: and you're like, ohh where were you? Just like it
Speaker 1: was in San Diego. It's just happened around. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was crazy. You immediate response wasn't to like kill it, no, no,
Speaker 1: because I knew what it was, um, but it was
Speaker 1: it's I did feel bad for it. I guess I'm
Speaker 1: one of the villagers with the torch and the with
Speaker 1: the race and a suit covered in mirrors leather. I'm
Speaker 1: here for the party excellent. Yeah, yeah, No, I feel
Speaker 1: like if i'm I'm too soft and too much for softy.
Speaker 1: I see a weird animal and I'm like, oh, I
Speaker 1: want to be friends with you. It's like eating my hand.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'll get a little hand kissies. That's why
Speaker 1: you have friends. And I'm a missing thro I see
Speaker 1: something weird and like, no, I'm not going to deal
Speaker 1: with it. I'd rather be alone. That's why I get
Speaker 1: peeted on by a lot of weird animals or insects
Speaker 1: that I pick up and then they just like pee
Speaker 1: goo on me. I'm like, cool, that is your claim
Speaker 1: to fame, Katie Golden. Been peered on by a lot
Speaker 1: of weird things. Yeah, And like I I there's this
Speaker 1: big ball of bees that I found on the street
Speaker 1: and I was just like sitting next to them, like
Speaker 1: being like, whoa, you're a big bald bees on the ground.
Speaker 1: Like they didn't sting me, and I knew they probably
Speaker 1: wouldn't because like when they're when they're in that state,
Speaker 1: they aren't aggressive. What are they doing? They're looking for
Speaker 1: a new hive, but since that's not their hive. They're
Speaker 1: pretty docile, they're not territorial, so but it was still
Speaker 1: fine because there's still like bees kind of buzzing around
Speaker 1: and like investigating you, and you're like, this could go
Speaker 1: very wrong. I wouldn't recommend it, but you know it was.
Speaker 1: It was so cool. That's very brave of you. We
Speaker 1: should all take a page out of your book, but
Speaker 1: only one. Well, don't screw around with bees, especially because
Speaker 1: some people are allergic and can be really bad. I
Speaker 1: don't think I'm allergic, but yeah, you don't want to.
Speaker 1: You don't want to risk it. And don't screw around
Speaker 1: with rabbits with weird growths on your head their head,
Speaker 1: because you know they could be a deadly jackal. Probably
Speaker 1: you never want the idea of desecrating a corpse like
Speaker 1: that is terrifying to you mean, like a jack Oh,
Speaker 1: you mean like the taxidermy that someone is like, this
Speaker 1: will be fun. Let's so one part of this animal
Speaker 1: onto another part of that animal. There's a taxidermist and
Speaker 1: I can't remember the artist's name, but they's so a
Speaker 1: bunch of animals together and they were actually really talented taxidermist.
Speaker 1: But it was extremely disturbing because some of the animals,
Speaker 1: I think we're like threatened or endangered, and it was
Speaker 1: just like really like they claimed that they hadn't been hunted,
Speaker 1: but it was still there's something off about it. And
Speaker 1: I enjoy a good a good natural history taxidermy. I'm
Speaker 1: not put off by taxidermy for educational purposes, but like
Speaker 1: the novel Team Mice Taxidermy where they're like in scene
Speaker 1: that that kind of I've never gotten gotten that. I
Speaker 1: am okay, So I am recently single. I need to
Speaker 1: announce that to the looking for tax looking for taxidermists
Speaker 1: like you, when you're exploring the dating world, there's like
Speaker 1: a subset. I'm sure there are men like this too,
Speaker 1: but like women which I'm singularly interested in or like
Speaker 1: into dark things and taxidermy and like dark shit is
Speaker 1: fine if that's your thing, but like once it's like
Speaker 1: dark shit. And also so I like taxidermy, like what
Speaker 1: you like, that's cool, but I am so put off
Speaker 1: by that. I talked to a woman who I was
Speaker 1: um when I moved to l A. I was looking
Speaker 1: for roommates and she is a taxidermist. And I hung
Speaker 1: out around taxidermy a lot because it was you know,
Speaker 1: went to the Natural History Museum a lot. I watched
Speaker 1: um taxidermists professionally like stuffing birds, and it's like there's
Speaker 1: something sort of there's something a little unnerving about it.
Speaker 1: But it's also like when you're doing it with respect
Speaker 1: and doing it to preserve specimens, there's something kind of
Speaker 1: like almost you know, it's like how doctors have to
Speaker 1: like dissect cadavers. It's there's something a little bit more
Speaker 1: a bit about it, but it's for a greater purpose.
Speaker 1: But then I was talking to her and she was
Speaker 1: like talking about how she was like collecting road kill
Speaker 1: and like when her dogs die, she's gonna like taxidermy
Speaker 1: their ears and keep them. Like, well, it was certainly
Speaker 1: nice talking to you. I'm sure she's a really nice
Speaker 1: person that I was just like, and I was thinking
Speaker 1: the smell for malde hyde is probably just everyone in
Speaker 1: that situation. But speaking of crazy frightening taxidermy, um, there's
Speaker 1: this artist Katie Clark who no, no, put that away.
Speaker 1: It's what she likes to do. It's not a real human,
Speaker 1: but she she does taxidermy where it's an animal like
Speaker 1: an antelope with a human face on it and the
Speaker 1: human face looks a little bit like it's real, but
Speaker 1: it's not for anybody who likes anime. I'm getting a
Speaker 1: real strong, full metal vibe from that ship. Oh fuck,
Speaker 1: it's a it's quite upsetting. How are you just looking
Speaker 1: at this? Oh just at a at a human face
Speaker 1: plaster to a dead antelope. I don't know. I mean,
Speaker 1: it is, it's weird. It's it's kind of it's a
Speaker 1: little bit fascinating, but it's also just like that's a
Speaker 1: bridge too far for even me. Is the You're staring
Speaker 1: at it so calmly? Well, you know, what have you
Speaker 1: seen that? This isn't well? I mean, I don't know
Speaker 1: if I should get into it. I've held a brain before,
Speaker 1: uh like human an a monkey brain. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: held a dead dead sea angler with a the male
Speaker 1: attached to it. That was pretty cool. That's cool, But like,
Speaker 1: why are you not disturbed by this? I mean, I am,
Speaker 1: I'm just like you know, it's all on the here's
Speaker 1: the key. You bottle up all your emotions and you
Speaker 1: never express them, and then that's that's how you go
Speaker 1: through your life. My recommendation, Um, well, it's been great.
Speaker 1: Havn't you on the show will end on the note
Speaker 1: of human faces attached to antelope. Um, so you've got
Speaker 1: anything to plow? Yeah, yeah, I do have stuff to plug.
Speaker 1: So Science the show, which is a live show, but
Speaker 1: it's called Science exclamation point. The show is a live
Speaker 1: monthly show we do right here in Los Angeles. L
Speaker 1: A has some of the best comedy in the world,
Speaker 1: but it also, weirdly enough, has some of the best
Speaker 1: science in the world. We have JPL cal Tech. Uh,
Speaker 1: we have all the u S schools. There's so much
Speaker 1: amazing science that happens here. And we found that a
Speaker 1: lot of people don't know that science it's a thing
Speaker 1: that happens right around the corner from you. Scientists are
Speaker 1: real people just like you, and that they are also
Speaker 1: down to party and like jokes and can be weird
Speaker 1: and nerdy and awkward and super fun to talk to.
Speaker 1: So our goal has always been to humanized scientists, um
Speaker 1: and the science they do. So we run it like
Speaker 1: a night of stand up. We have an amazing local
Speaker 1: l A stand up perform Every month, we do sort
Speaker 1: of an impromptu science experiment among myself and the other
Speaker 1: to host Russell Cohen Hoffing, who's a working research psychologist
Speaker 1: in Dylan far who's an amazing, hilarious stand up. And
Speaker 1: then we end the night with uh, an amazing presentation
Speaker 1: from a scientist. We we say it's like a Ted
Speaker 1: talk for people who don't know much about science presentations,
Speaker 1: but it's a lot more fun and a lot less
Speaker 1: like looking down its nose at you than a Ted talk.
Speaker 1: And then we have a Q and I so you
Speaker 1: can get all your burning questions answered. So find us
Speaker 1: wherever you find people on social We're on Twitter, Facebook,
Speaker 1: and Instagram. We will one day have a podcast coming out.
Speaker 1: We're just trying to figure out how to make that
Speaker 1: not just three dudes talking about science, because no one
Speaker 1: needs that in their life. And then, Um, I used
Speaker 1: to do a podcast called at Least There's this show
Speaker 1: about some of the small good things in our world
Speaker 1: of garbage. Katie was on an episode a bird. It
Speaker 1: was really fun. Um some of your favorites from this
Speaker 1: network have all been on that episode. It's been on
Speaker 1: hiatus for about a year plus, but I'm gonna be
Speaker 1: bringing it back sporadically in the next few months, so
Speaker 1: a few more episodes will drop, so catch up with
Speaker 1: all of those. You can find that Facebook, Instagram, iTunes
Speaker 1: at at least pod and find me on Instagram at
Speaker 1: a period f period shiftman s h I f m
Speaker 1: an check me out. And as always, you can find
Speaker 1: us at on the internet at Creature Feature pod dot com,
Speaker 1: on Instagram at Creature Feature Pod, on Twitter at Creature
Speaker 1: Feet Pod f e T not f e e T
Speaker 1: you'll find something very different. H. You can find me
Speaker 1: at Katie Golden and of course, as always I am
Speaker 1: at pro bird writes and you should follow that because
Speaker 1: being a bird is pretty great, I gotta say. And
Speaker 1: we will be back next Wednesday with more Creature Feature
Speaker 1: and thanks to the Space Classics for their awesome song
Speaker 1: x Alumina