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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff

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Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow

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Speaker 1: your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick.

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Speaker 1: And Robert. You know well that on this show we

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Speaker 1: do our best not to demonize any inhabitant of the

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Speaker 1: animal kingdom. But I've got to ask your opinion on

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Speaker 1: one specific branch that is maybe maybe the most twisted

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Speaker 1: branch in existence. How do you feel about ticks? Uh?

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Speaker 1: Ticks are awful? Yes, Ticks. Ticks and mosquitoes are the

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Speaker 1: only specific animals that I tell my five year old

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Speaker 1: that it's it's okay to to hate on, to to

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Speaker 1: actively kill or be killed with. I'm hoping later in

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Speaker 1: this episode we can do a little guided meditation to

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Speaker 1: take anybody out there who's got hatred of spiders, fear

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Speaker 1: or hatred for for your little uh, for the good arachnids,

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Speaker 1: and to move that over onto the only animals that

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Speaker 1: really might deserve it, which are ticks. Yeah. I agree,

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Speaker 1: And for instance, I look back on my own life

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Speaker 1: and having like a revulsion at times too slugs garden slugs,

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Speaker 1: which is completely ridiculous given that garden slugs yes, are gross,

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Speaker 1: but pretty harmless. They're No, you're not gonna get hurt

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Speaker 1: by a garden slug. I mean unless you you know,

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Speaker 1: you're freaked out and your trip over something, etcetera, and

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Speaker 1: there you know there's some sort of crazy scenario that

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Speaker 1: you build up that enables the slug to kill you.

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Speaker 1: For the most part, slug doesn't care about you, and

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Speaker 1: it's not gonna hurt you. But but but mosquitoes, other

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Speaker 1: parasites such as ticks, these are these are major threats.

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Speaker 1: They are actively hunting us. They're actively trying to feed

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Speaker 1: on our blood and in doing so, putting us at

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Speaker 1: risk for a whole host of terrifying diseases. Now, yet again,

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Speaker 1: I know we're gonna hear from some tick lovers there.

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Speaker 1: Maybe you're a I doubt you're Maybe you're a tick

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Speaker 1: scientist and you're saying, hey, I study these things for

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Speaker 1: a living. You know you got to give them a

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Speaker 1: fair shake. Okay, okay, I want to give them as

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Speaker 1: fair as shake as I can. They are animals. They

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Speaker 1: exist in an ecology and a web of life, like

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Speaker 1: all animals. We try not to demonize anything here. I'm

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Speaker 1: just saying, if you have to demonize something. If you've

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Speaker 1: got that hate in your heart, the ticks are a

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Speaker 1: good place to put it. Yes, now, I will definitely

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Speaker 1: say that ticks are fascinating. I mean, we're doing the

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Speaker 1: whole episode here about ticks and tickborn illness, so yes,

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Speaker 1: it's a wonderful topic. They're fascinating organisms. Uh maybe even

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Speaker 1: a perfect organism. And I'll also say that, uh that

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Speaker 1: certainly we see cases where organisms like ticks and mosquitoes

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Speaker 1: their their their nuisance factor can be intensified by by

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Speaker 1: by what humans have done to the environment, putting things

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Speaker 1: out of balance, making things, introducing the threat into new areas,

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Speaker 1: and making the threat greater than it would normally be.

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Speaker 1: It's like taking a normally rowdy and annoying child and

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Speaker 1: giving that child a super soaker full of urine. But

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Speaker 1: but I still have to come back to the fact

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Speaker 1: that having grown up in in tick haunted wildernesses uh,

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Speaker 1: I mean, namely Tennessee, I associate ticks and also chiggers,

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Speaker 1: which are a type of MT closely related to ticks,

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Speaker 1: as we'll discuss. I associate these creatures with just a

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Speaker 1: dread of the outdoors. These are creatures that make going

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Speaker 1: out outside and enjoying nature difficult. Yeah. I love hiking

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Speaker 1: around in the woods, but whenever I mostly do it

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Speaker 1: by putting ticks out of my mind. And when they

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Speaker 1: come into my mind, that normally nice feeling of brushing

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Speaker 1: through the leaves, of feeling them rub across your skin

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Speaker 1: as you move through the trees, it turns into a

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Speaker 1: creepy nightmare tickle of disease. And hey, eight yeah like it.

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Speaker 1: It's really has has gotten to the point. Lucky, luckily,

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Speaker 1: I have never experienced, to my knowledge, any tick or

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Speaker 1: ugger born illnesses, or or mosquito born illnesses, you know,

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Speaker 1: knock on wood. But I now when I drive, especially

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Speaker 1: in the height of summer, when I drive, you know,

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Speaker 1: on the interstate, and I'm going through a portion of

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Speaker 1: say North Georgia or a portion of Tennessee, and I

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Speaker 1: look out into the into the wilderness, I just think

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Speaker 1: of all the parasites. I think that those those are

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Speaker 1: just tick and chigger haunted woods, just waiting to eat

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Speaker 1: me alive. Okay, So today we're gonna be talking about

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Speaker 1: ticks in biology, ticks in history, some zoonotic diseases, some

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Speaker 1: particularly interesting diseases and syndromes, that have been associated with

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Speaker 1: the lone star tick recently. And then I think we're

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Speaker 1: also going to end with a few practical tips on

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Speaker 1: what to do to protect yourself from the tick menace.

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Speaker 1: But first you had some notes about how a hatred

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Speaker 1: is not a recent phenomenon, right, Oh no, Um, ticks

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Speaker 1: and sugars are are worldwide creatures. Uh. Ticks and mites

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Speaker 1: as well discussed there are a lot of them, They're everywhere,

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Speaker 1: and annoyance hatred of them goes back quite a long ways.

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Speaker 1: In fact, we have writings about ticks from first century

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Speaker 1: Roman author and natural philosopher Plenty of the Elder. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: he probably familiar with Plenty. He described many a strange

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Speaker 1: and bizarre creature in his book The Natural History Now

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Speaker 1: full of many hilarious and accuracies. Yes, many many, uh

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Speaker 1: and and and some of them were pretty fabulous, right,

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Speaker 1: he talked about it was sometimes it was just a

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Speaker 1: weird echo of natural world creatures from a distant land.

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Speaker 1: You know, they were exaggerated through second and third hand accounts.

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Speaker 1: But he also talked about monstrous humanoid races like the

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Speaker 1: mouthless hairy humanoid as stoney and the belly mouth to blemmyes.

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Speaker 1: They were always one of my favorite. You know, they

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Speaker 1: have no head, but they have a face and on

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Speaker 1: their chest and a mouth where their belly is. Now,

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Speaker 1: you just gotta wonder did people read that in first

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Speaker 1: century Rome and say, yeah, yeah, that's true, or did

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Speaker 1: they back then read that and say, I don't know

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Speaker 1: about this. Well, I mean it's very similar to the

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Speaker 1: sea monsters, right. I mean again, you're you're not dealing

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Speaker 1: with with firsthand account. Someone like Plenty is not necessarily

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Speaker 1: going out and exploring the world and taking notes. I

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Speaker 1: just feel like I have a hard time modeling the

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Speaker 1: appropriate level of skepticism to pretend to be someone of

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Speaker 1: the ancient world. Yeah, well this would this would actually

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Speaker 1: be an interesting one to to discuss the nature of

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Speaker 1: exotic beasts represented in natural tones and to what extent

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Speaker 1: people back home took them seriously. Now, of course, he

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Speaker 1: couldn't have dreamed up anything as exotic as the real

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Speaker 1: arachnids of the animal kingdom, right, that's right. And he

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Speaker 1: really hated ticks. He called them quote the foulest and

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Speaker 1: nastiest creatures that be And uh, I had actually looked

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Speaker 1: up a passage from the Natural History and of course,

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Speaker 1: bear in mind that the scientific information here is quite outdated,

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Speaker 1: but the human disdain for ticks is not. He says,

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Speaker 1: there is an animal also that is generated in the summer,

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Speaker 1: which has its head always buried deep in the skill

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Speaker 1: of a beast, and so living on its blood, swells

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Speaker 1: to a large size. This is the only living creature

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Speaker 1: that has no outlet for its food. Hence, when it

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Speaker 1: has overgorged itself, it bursts asunder, and thus it's very

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Speaker 1: element has made the cause of its death. That is great,

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Speaker 1: He's saying. Picks can't poop, and they drink so much

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Speaker 1: of your blood, and they're so greedy that they just

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Speaker 1: explode and die. Yeah, they're like just a lesson in gluttony,

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Speaker 1: which h yeah, I mean when you think of the tick,

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Speaker 1: that's what you think of this thing. But it is

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Speaker 1: just engaging itself on your blood or the blood of

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Speaker 1: sable love pet to the point where they're just bags

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Speaker 1: of blood. Well, I guess we should look at the

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Speaker 1: real science of ticks, right yea, So we'll put aside

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Speaker 1: we're not gonna use plenty as a primate source on this, okay,

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Speaker 1: So what we'll we'll table that for now come back

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Speaker 1: to whether they just drink blood until they explode because

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Speaker 1: they can't poop. So ticks are what are they? They

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Speaker 1: are not insects. They are arachnids in the same class

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Speaker 1: as spiders and scorpions. Yeah, and as far as arachnids go,

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Speaker 1: the subclass akari is where all the real arachnid diversity is.

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Speaker 1: So in our previous episode on spiders, we mentioned forty

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Speaker 1: five thousand species of spiders, that being the about the

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Speaker 1: most recent count. But there are an estimated fifty thousand

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Speaker 1: species of mites. That's another kind of arachne right closely

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Speaker 1: related to ticks, and we'll get into those in a bit.

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Speaker 1: And then they are upwards of nine different ticks. A

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Speaker 1: good four variety of those mites, by the way, just

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Speaker 1: live in house dust. They they kind of live in everything,

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Speaker 1: living everywhere. And uh yeah, the ticks and mites both

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Speaker 1: benefit from worldwide distribution. Wow, So if you scoop up

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Speaker 1: some dust bunnies from your floor, you're likely to have

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Speaker 1: some great diversity of mites in your hands. Cool. Now, Okay,

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Speaker 1: ticks are of course obligate thematophagus ectoparasites of terrestrial vertebrates

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Speaker 1: now that that's a mouthful, let's break it down there.

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Speaker 1: Ectoparasites meaning they're parasitic organisms that work from the outside.

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Speaker 1: Unlike some other things. They don't try to get inside you.

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Speaker 1: They're happy to work through your skin. Their prey is

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Speaker 1: terrestrial vertebrates. This means land dwelling animals with backmones like mammals, birds,

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Speaker 1: and reptiles. They're obligate hematophages mean meaning that they live

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Speaker 1: by drinking blood and this is their determined survival niche.

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Speaker 1: So blood sucking isn't just an option for ticks. It's

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Speaker 1: not one tool in their survival toolkit. It's blood or bus.

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Speaker 1: This is how they have to survive. So there are

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Speaker 1: two primary superfamilies of ticks. There's the hard ticks, which

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Speaker 1: are exodoidea and uh, those are usually going to be

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Speaker 1: larger and they've got a harder exoskeleton, the outer the

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Speaker 1: outer shell. And then they're the argosoidea, which are the

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Speaker 1: soft ticks. Those are usually smaller and they've got a

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Speaker 1: softer body. Yeah, so the hard ticks generally we're talking

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Speaker 1: three point six to twelve point seven millimeters in size.

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Speaker 1: Soft ticks one point seven to six point one millimeters

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Speaker 1: in size, but both varieties can reach twenty to thirty

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Speaker 1: millimeters when they're fully engorged on precious blood, until they

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Speaker 1: just make themselves explode as they can't poop. Well, I

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Speaker 1: I guess this um. This observation comes from the fact

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Speaker 1: that they do become so in gorge that they are

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Speaker 1: easily popped in the fingers between the fingers if you're

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Speaker 1: say pulling one off of a dog, which you don't

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Speaker 1: want to do. By the way, this is something I

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Speaker 1: learned when I was a kid. I saw adults taking

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Speaker 1: ticks off of pets and off of people, and they

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Speaker 1: would intentionally crush them between their fingernails or crush them

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Speaker 1: with their fingers when they could while they were pulling

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Speaker 1: them off. We'll get into the full range of tick

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Speaker 1: tips later, but you don't want to do that. Ideally,

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Speaker 1: you want to remove the tick without rupturing its body.

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Speaker 1: Here's a question. Now we know it goes back to

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Speaker 1: plenty of the elder, but how much further back does

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Speaker 1: tick hate go? How long have other larger animals been

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Speaker 1: hating ticks? You can, I think safely say that dinosaurs

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Speaker 1: hated ticks because the fossil record indicates that ticks probably

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Speaker 1: first arose in the Cretaceous period between sixty and a

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Speaker 1: hundred and forty six million years ago. Well, I mean

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Speaker 1: there's a lot of vertebrate diversity during this time. This

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Speaker 1: was just a buffet, right, a lot of stuff to suck.

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Speaker 1: So uh, I looked into the history a little bit

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Speaker 1: about this. That there's a wonderful book that I've referenced

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Speaker 1: on the podcast before titled Dark Banquet Blood and the

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Speaker 1: Curious Lives of Blood Feeding Creatures by Bill Shoot. I

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Speaker 1: highly recommend it. He has a he talks a lot

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Speaker 1: about bats and a lot of and also about other

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Speaker 1: blood drinking organisms. So of course he talks about ticks

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Speaker 1: and he talks a little bit about their evolution. So

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Speaker 1: tick ancestors were likely mights. Again I mentioned it might

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Speaker 1: are very closely related to ticks, okay, and they evolved.

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Speaker 1: These might evolved to become obligate to sango var's obligate

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Speaker 1: blood drinkers like we've been discussing, um but but but

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Speaker 1: the difference here is that might are not obligates okay, like,

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Speaker 1: for instance, the modern and definitely foul jigger or red bug.

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Speaker 1: The more technical term here is Trumpiculidae, which comes from

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Speaker 1: the Greek to tremble. So these creatures and if you've

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Speaker 1: if you've ever had to deal with these, these are

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Speaker 1: are just horrific creatures to have to to to live

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Speaker 1: in the same environment with. I've hated them indirectly and

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Speaker 1: that they have assaulted beloved members of my family, including

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Speaker 1: my wife before. But you never wanted to go out

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Speaker 1: of the fields and strangle the little things myself. No,

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Speaker 1: I don't think I've ever maybe when I was a kid,

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Speaker 1: I don't remember ever having a big chigger attack. But

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Speaker 1: they they they've gotten all up on the legs of

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Speaker 1: people I have known in love. I just remember them

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Speaker 1: being a huge problem when I would go to Scout

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Speaker 1: camps as a kid, and uh and and they seem

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Speaker 1: to just be particularly bad in areas that I continue

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Speaker 1: to visit, like as some friends who live in the

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Speaker 1: North Georgia Mountains they have a bad ugger problem. And

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Speaker 1: then my my mom's house the area surrounding it has

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Speaker 1: has quite a schigger problem as well. So the interesting

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Speaker 1: thing though about these chiggers, which are mites. Again, they

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Speaker 1: only feed on blood in their larval stage, so that

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Speaker 1: the larval stages when they're actually feasting on your blood

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Speaker 1: the rest of the time, and when they get become larger,

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Speaker 1: when they reach a maturity, they're living in the ground

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Speaker 1: feasting on arthropods and also arthropod eggs picks. On the

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Speaker 1: other hand, Uh, what what essentially happened here is that

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Speaker 1: they evolve to carry on their juvenile ways exclusively. And

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Speaker 1: this is a common route we see in evolution. Actually,

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Speaker 1: often the router species takes to become a new species

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Speaker 1: is carrying over some juvenile characteristics into adulthood. Yeah, essentially

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Speaker 1: becoming like a blood sucking Peter Pan, an eternal man

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Speaker 1: baby in everything but breeding. Because that's the key thing, right,

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Speaker 1: is that if you're going to remain a juvenile blood

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Speaker 1: drink or your entire life, you also need to be

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Speaker 1: able to reproduce as an adult. So how does that happen? Well,

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Speaker 1: according to Shoot, what occurs here is quote a change

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Speaker 1: in the timing of genetically programmed events, a process known

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Speaker 1: as heterochroni. So it might somehow maintain its larval feeding

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Speaker 1: behavior into adulthood. And and we actually have a few

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Speaker 1: examples of this that we can look to in the

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Speaker 1: contemporary world. The most well known process. For this is

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Speaker 1: a neotony by which an organism reaches sexual maturity while

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Speaker 1: otherwise juvenile, and the mud puppy salamander is an example

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Speaker 1: of this. It retained its gills through adulthood instead of uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, essentially leaving them behind um in it's in

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Speaker 1: its juvenile stage right, so it would have otherwise had

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Speaker 1: like this amphibious lifestyle cycle where it was like a

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Speaker 1: guild underwater organism as a larva and then became this

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Speaker 1: air breathing organism as an adult. But it maintains the

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Speaker 1: gills throughout adulthood. So the examples of the tick and

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Speaker 1: the chigger are interesting to look at because you see

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Speaker 1: the divergence there. One continues to stick to a very

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Speaker 1: successful strategy of only feeding on blood when it's small,

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Speaker 1: when it's when it's young, whereas the tick just continues

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Speaker 1: to do it. It was so successful, so good at it,

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Speaker 1: it doesn't need to do anything else. Oh, I'm so

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Speaker 1: tempted to do that thing here that biologists hate, where

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Speaker 1: you imply that a an organism that's taken a further

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Speaker 1: evolutionary route has somehow become more advanced. Now we know

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Speaker 1: that's not the case. And I hate it when people

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Speaker 1: use that metaphor, but I want to say the ticks

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Speaker 1: are just more advanced micro vampires. They are. Yeah. Well,

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Speaker 1: and the the the other interesting thing. I'll get into

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Speaker 1: the details here in a bit, but the tick is

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Speaker 1: the only one that is a true vampire. The trigger,

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Speaker 1: though it is essentially feasting on your blood, it's not really,

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Speaker 1: it's doing something a bit grosser to you. Now, if

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Speaker 1: we want to look back at tick history itself, a

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Speaker 1: lot of what we know about ancient ticks is through

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Speaker 1: ticks we've found preserved in fossilized amber, Yes, fossilized amber,

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Speaker 1: just like in Jurassic Park. And like in Jurassic Parks,

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Speaker 1: some samples of these, amazingly have maintained some of the

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Speaker 1: red blood cells, the ythrocytes of the mammals that these

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Speaker 1: ticks were feeding on millions of years ago. This brings

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Speaker 1: up an amusing idea. What you have Jurassic Park. All

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Speaker 1: these kids, you know, they go to it in this

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Speaker 1: fictional scenario, and they're excited about seeing the dinosaurs, but

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Speaker 1: instead all they have are ancient mosquitoes and ticks. Just

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Speaker 1: you're just riding around in in a special car and

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Speaker 1: you just look out and just ancient mosquitoes flocking to

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Speaker 1: the glass trying to get in, ticks kind of raining

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Speaker 1: from the trees like uh like snow, like evil fruit

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Speaker 1: dropping from above. Yeah, and they're they're giant ticks. I'm

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Speaker 1: not saying that they're actually were giant ticks, and we

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Speaker 1: can believe maybe. Yeah. I mean, if we're we're doing

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Speaker 1: the Durassic Park scenario and we're we're tweaking science a

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Speaker 1: bit for blockbuster success, everyone who wants to see giant ticks,

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Speaker 1: welcome to a matto phage park. Yeah. So one interesting

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Speaker 1: study here is in April of this professor emeritus of

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Speaker 1: Oregon State University, George George Poynard, Jr. Published a paper

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Speaker 1: describing a really interesting fossil find. So it was a

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Speaker 1: tick of the genus Ambiloma, which is a genus that

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Speaker 1: will come up later on. And it was engorged with

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Speaker 1: blood preserved in a sample of dominican amber. Not only that,

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Speaker 1: but there were two holes in its dorsal exoskeleton. So

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Speaker 1: the back of the tick, it's engorged with blood and

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Speaker 1: it's been punctured. And this indicates that the tick was

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Speaker 1: probably plucked off of its host by force, so you

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Speaker 1: have to imagine this ancient scene. Probably what happened is

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Speaker 1: that this tick was a casualty of primate grooming. So

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Speaker 1: one monkey plus a tick off of another monkey somewhere

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Speaker 1: between fifteen and forty five million years ago, punctures that

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Speaker 1: ticks in gorged body like you're not supposed to do,

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Speaker 1: then drops it into a puddle of tree resin which

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Speaker 1: hardens and then preserves it almost perfectly. And this also

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Speaker 1: preserved something amazing mammalian red blood cells pouring out of

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Speaker 1: the punctures in the ticks back. Even more amazing. Point

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Speaker 1: claimed that because of the preservation quality, you can make

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Speaker 1: out the evidence of a blood parasite known as pyroplasms

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Speaker 1: that are attacking the red blood cells that the tick

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Speaker 1: drank from the monkey. So at the micro scale, this

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Speaker 1: is a really cool fossil action scene. Oh that is

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Speaker 1: and it this brings to mind two things. The first point,

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Speaker 1: I want to make it totally non scientific, but I

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Speaker 1: wonder if anyone has devised a monster movie in which

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Speaker 1: someone tries to clone an ancient hominid or a or

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Speaker 1: an ape from blood like this, and since it's it's

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Speaker 1: blood from inside the tick. You end up with a

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Speaker 1: tick hominid hybrid get Roger Corman on the phone, brilliant. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it basically rights itself. But the other idea is, I

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Speaker 1: wonder if we do have any tick defenders out there,

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Speaker 1: if this is not an area of consideration. The role

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Speaker 1: that ticks might have had in the social evolution of

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Speaker 1: primate species is fecial humans. Yeah, I mean so, we

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Speaker 1: spent a lot of time at the beginning of this

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Speaker 1: episode dwelling on how easy it is to hate ticks

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Speaker 1: that might be programmed into us at a very basic level,

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Speaker 1: because it is what it may be a big part

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Speaker 1: of what gives us the social functions of our brain.

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Speaker 1: So if you look at grooming as one of the

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Speaker 1: primary social activities of primates and our brains as being,

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Speaker 1: according to the social brain hypothesis, primarily shaped by social relationships,

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Speaker 1: and like remembering who you've groomed, who grooms who? Uh,

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Speaker 1: the kind of power dynamics in these grooming relationships. So

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Speaker 1: you've got ticks. You've got ticks right there at the

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Speaker 1: center of what makes us who we are. Yeah. Hey,

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Speaker 1: here's a third bonus idea for any especially for startups.

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Speaker 1: I think tech startups stuff. What you do is you

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Speaker 1: introduce ticks into your office environment and then encourage social

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Speaker 1: grooming techniques to keep tickboard illnesses from uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: be abilitating your your workforce. I am foreseeing some hr complication.

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Speaker 1: All right, so let's let's move back to the tick

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Speaker 1: in my scenario for a second, because I want to

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Speaker 1: talk about their feeding practices. So, first of all, I

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Speaker 1: mentioned how ticks and mites, especially especially chiggers, and also

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Speaker 1: you could probably extend this stephen mosquitoes as well. These

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Speaker 1: are creatures that are not just mere parasites that they

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Speaker 1: hunt us. I feel like we often lose sight of that. Uh.

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Speaker 1: Ticks and mites use a combination of light, touch and

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Speaker 1: chemical stimuli to track you and then to spring and chickers,

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Speaker 1: especially your speed demons. So they move in, they find

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Speaker 1: the thinnest parts of your skin, such as ankles or armpits.

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Speaker 1: They crawl under any type clothing they encounter, and that's

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Speaker 1: often where they bite and then they and then when

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Speaker 1: once they buy, they start feeding. So what is chigger

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Speaker 1: feeding like? Oh, it's it's grotesque. It's you might expect

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Speaker 1: it to be more in line with what a tick does.

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Speaker 1: But the tick is more is really more specialized, and

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Speaker 1: what the chigger is doing is more in line with

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Speaker 1: Brundle fly. Ronin brings the fly um, so the chigger

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Speaker 1: attaches and then basically just shives the be Jesus out

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Speaker 1: of the target area, injecting their saliva into the wound.

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Speaker 1: Then the outer layer of the epidermis hardens into a

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Speaker 1: straw like style of stone. The saliva flows down this

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Speaker 1: tube and in the enzymes melt the surrounding tissue. And

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Speaker 1: this is where I want to quote quote Bill Shoot

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Speaker 1: because he puts this perfectly, says the rudest part of

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Speaker 1: the chiggers feeding gig begins as the liquefied dermal stew

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Speaker 1: is snorked up through the style of stone and into

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Speaker 1: the parasite's muscular fearings. Wow, so so it comes in

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Speaker 1: stabs you up real good, like it's like it's you know,

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Speaker 1: with an ice pick, breaking up some ice, and then

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Speaker 1: it puts some in zymes on you or is that right?

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Speaker 1: It does a little dissolving. Yeah, there's a Basically it

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Speaker 1: would be like imagine a dungeon and dragon scenario where

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Speaker 1: a evil goblinoid stabs you with a magical dagger that

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Speaker 1: like the wound caught arizes into a tube like a

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Speaker 1: grotesque infected tube, and then it uses that as a straw,

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Speaker 1: right to just to pump a bunch of dissolving saliva

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Speaker 1: into your body and then slop up the work snork

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Speaker 1: up the dermal stew afterwards. So so it's just it's

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Speaker 1: almost not fair to call it sucking because there you're

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Speaker 1: imagining a tidier process. It's more like, just go into

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Speaker 1: town on you, right, and while there are going to

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Speaker 1: be blood cells in that that that liquefied stew, it's

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Speaker 1: not drinking just blood, right, So well, to be fair

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Speaker 1: in some of what I've read, now, ticks are primarily

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Speaker 1: blood feeders, but they do get some other bits of

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Speaker 1: you in what they consume. Now, the immune reaction to this,

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Speaker 1: this awful violence against your flesh, that's what causes the

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Speaker 1: insane itching with chiggers. And it's worth noting that most

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Speaker 1: chiggers don't get to finish their human meals. They're gonna

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Speaker 1: get brushed off before they can actually fully engorge. Now

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Speaker 1: there's a whole host of so it's pointless too. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, they just cause all the suffering and they

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Speaker 1: don't even really get to finish. Yeah, yeah, they that

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Speaker 1: most of them don't even get to finish. Now, one

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Speaker 1: of the other things about chiggers is since they're so small,

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Speaker 1: so so difficult to observe, there there's a lot of

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Speaker 1: misinformation about out there about what they are and what

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Speaker 1: do you do about their bites. So one of the

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Speaker 1: common things I encounter is there's people that believe that

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Speaker 1: the chigger is still in the skin, that it crawls

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Speaker 1: inside you and is down there making you itch, and

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Speaker 1: that you therefore need to put like fingernail um uh

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Speaker 1: polish on top of it to suffocated in your skin. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but that's complete hooeie because the the the chigger beads

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Speaker 1: and then falls away. Often most of the time incompletely

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Speaker 1: feeds and then falls away. So once you have that

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Speaker 1: bite and you're having to contend with that bite, the

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Speaker 1: chigger is gone. Um, You're just gonna have to deal

425
00:25:10,720 --> 00:25:16,280
Speaker 1: with the subsequent immune reaction. Right, So, how is the

426
00:25:16,440 --> 00:25:19,680
Speaker 1: tick feeding process different than the chigger process? Okay, so

427
00:25:19,800 --> 00:25:24,120
Speaker 1: the tick uh is a more advanced drinker of liquids,

428
00:25:24,800 --> 00:25:27,360
Speaker 1: So unlike the chigger, it has an actual blood snor

429
00:25:27,440 --> 00:25:29,959
Speaker 1: cole that it uses thank god, I mean, use your

430
00:25:30,000 --> 00:25:33,000
Speaker 1: own blood funnel, don't forge one out of my flesh

431
00:25:33,119 --> 00:25:35,720
Speaker 1: like some sort of a jerk. So it latches onto

432
00:25:35,760 --> 00:25:38,640
Speaker 1: the flesh, It scissors its way into the host skin

433
00:25:39,280 --> 00:25:43,920
Speaker 1: with its uh chillisrae, which are pincer like claws, and

434
00:25:44,080 --> 00:25:47,520
Speaker 1: it drives this this straw and this the this, this

435
00:25:47,680 --> 00:25:51,320
Speaker 1: device that's known as a hippo stone. So this in

436
00:25:51,400 --> 00:25:55,359
Speaker 1: this hippo stone terminates in hook like projections. It holds

437
00:25:55,400 --> 00:25:58,440
Speaker 1: it in place, so it it essentially anchors itself and

438
00:25:58,520 --> 00:26:01,560
Speaker 1: your skin with this thing. And some species of ticks

439
00:26:01,640 --> 00:26:04,680
Speaker 1: have saliva that effectively clues it in place for the

440
00:26:04,800 --> 00:26:08,000
Speaker 1: duration of its feeding. And then they breathe through openings

441
00:26:08,040 --> 00:26:11,240
Speaker 1: in their adomen during office because you know, obviously you

442
00:26:11,280 --> 00:26:16,200
Speaker 1: can't expect them to breathe through the front of their body. Terrific. Well, Robert,

443
00:26:16,240 --> 00:26:17,760
Speaker 1: I think maybe we should take a quick break and

444
00:26:17,800 --> 00:26:20,200
Speaker 1: when we come back, we will get back into the

445
00:26:20,359 --> 00:26:24,080
Speaker 1: history of the tick or some crazy alleged facts about

446
00:26:24,320 --> 00:26:32,280
Speaker 1: tick torture. All right, we're back, Okay, So I wanted

447
00:26:32,320 --> 00:26:36,960
Speaker 1: to explore one morbidly fascinating but I think likely dubious

448
00:26:37,119 --> 00:26:41,000
Speaker 1: historical claim. I came across, and that is the claim

449
00:26:41,040 --> 00:26:46,199
Speaker 1: of Central Asian tribes using tick torture on prisoners, essentially

450
00:26:46,320 --> 00:26:49,200
Speaker 1: working with the ticks, if it were true. Now I'll

451
00:26:49,200 --> 00:26:51,399
Speaker 1: get to all the qualifications on that in a minute.

452
00:26:51,480 --> 00:26:54,359
Speaker 1: So I first came across this in the Encyclopedia of

453
00:26:54,480 --> 00:26:58,159
Speaker 1: Entomology edited by John L. Capanira, and this looks to be.

454
00:26:58,440 --> 00:27:02,080
Speaker 1: This is a very solid, you know, respectable academic encyclopedia.

455
00:27:02,600 --> 00:27:05,119
Speaker 1: And there is an entry on the argusids or the

456
00:27:05,240 --> 00:27:09,320
Speaker 1: soft ticks by Hebrew University of Jerusalem and entomologist and

457
00:27:09,400 --> 00:27:15,040
Speaker 1: parasitologist Igor Uspinsky. And in this entry he's talking about

458
00:27:15,480 --> 00:27:19,879
Speaker 1: tick infestation of human and animal habitations, and he mentions

459
00:27:20,000 --> 00:27:23,200
Speaker 1: that the longer ticks go without food, the more aggressively

460
00:27:23,320 --> 00:27:25,960
Speaker 1: they attack those who come within range of them. And

461
00:27:26,040 --> 00:27:30,920
Speaker 1: then he writes, quote, in past centuries, special bug traps

462
00:27:31,080 --> 00:27:35,040
Speaker 1: full of hungry argusids were used by Central Asian rulers

463
00:27:35,440 --> 00:27:39,480
Speaker 1: for the torture of prisoners who died from exanguination, which

464
00:27:39,560 --> 00:27:44,359
Speaker 1: means bleeding to death by thousands of ticks. And I,

465
00:27:44,680 --> 00:27:47,640
Speaker 1: obviously you can guess why that got my attention. UH.

466
00:27:47,840 --> 00:27:51,639
Speaker 1: Couple of questions to follow up on. Is that possible

467
00:27:51,720 --> 00:27:54,919
Speaker 1: to be ex sanguineated by ticks, to be literally bled

468
00:27:54,960 --> 00:27:59,080
Speaker 1: to death by ticks? And is that historically true? So

469
00:27:59,200 --> 00:28:01,520
Speaker 1: I want to start with is it possible question? I

470
00:28:01,600 --> 00:28:03,760
Speaker 1: looked up some numbers and tried to do a little math.

471
00:28:04,359 --> 00:28:06,320
Speaker 1: Is it possible to be blood to death by ticks?

472
00:28:06,400 --> 00:28:09,720
Speaker 1: And how many ticks would it take? So there are

473
00:28:09,880 --> 00:28:14,119
Speaker 1: usually four stages of recognized blood loss which indicate varying

474
00:28:14,240 --> 00:28:16,840
Speaker 1: degrees of severity. You've got, you know, class one through

475
00:28:16,920 --> 00:28:20,600
Speaker 1: class four hemorrhage, and the final stage, which tends to

476
00:28:20,760 --> 00:28:25,080
Speaker 1: immediately proceed death without intervention, is the class four hemorrhage,

477
00:28:25,400 --> 00:28:28,440
Speaker 1: which happens when the body loses about forty percent of

478
00:28:28,520 --> 00:28:31,720
Speaker 1: its blood volume. Now, blood volume varies a lot with

479
00:28:31,880 --> 00:28:34,280
Speaker 1: body size, but if you average us all out, just

480
00:28:34,359 --> 00:28:37,760
Speaker 1: to have a typical average human adult, that that human

481
00:28:37,800 --> 00:28:40,280
Speaker 1: adult is going to have on average about five leaders

482
00:28:40,360 --> 00:28:43,640
Speaker 1: of blood or about ten point five pints. So to

483
00:28:43,800 --> 00:28:46,280
Speaker 1: bleed to death, the average person needs to lose about

484
00:28:47,160 --> 00:28:50,440
Speaker 1: of five leaders, which is two leaders of blood. That's

485
00:28:50,440 --> 00:28:53,719
Speaker 1: a lot of blood to lose. So how many ticks

486
00:28:53,840 --> 00:28:56,440
Speaker 1: would it take to get that amount of blood out

487
00:28:56,480 --> 00:28:58,240
Speaker 1: of you? I mean this is a This is basically

488
00:28:58,480 --> 00:29:01,000
Speaker 1: a death by a thousand cuts scenari area, right exactly.

489
00:29:01,840 --> 00:29:03,959
Speaker 1: So I tried to look up how much blood does

490
00:29:04,000 --> 00:29:06,640
Speaker 1: the average tick ingest? Again, this is going to vary

491
00:29:06,720 --> 00:29:09,800
Speaker 1: a lot by tick and by host, but let's just

492
00:29:09,880 --> 00:29:12,240
Speaker 1: try to get a ballpark guess. One study I found

493
00:29:12,280 --> 00:29:17,200
Speaker 1: from measured the blood meal size of four different hard ticks.

494
00:29:17,240 --> 00:29:20,000
Speaker 1: Now it's worth noting that Spinsky is alleging these are

495
00:29:20,120 --> 00:29:22,960
Speaker 1: soft ticks they are doing the sucking. But I found

496
00:29:23,000 --> 00:29:25,160
Speaker 1: this on the hard ticks. I will jump in and

497
00:29:25,480 --> 00:29:30,000
Speaker 1: in remind listeners of the earlier stat that shows that generally,

498
00:29:30,120 --> 00:29:33,560
Speaker 1: despite harder soft tick, uh, they can still bloat up

499
00:29:33,600 --> 00:29:36,440
Speaker 1: to around the same size. It seems so the hard

500
00:29:36,520 --> 00:29:38,960
Speaker 1: ticks are generally larger, but if they grow to about

501
00:29:38,960 --> 00:29:41,760
Speaker 1: the same size, you'd imagine their meals to be, you know,

502
00:29:41,960 --> 00:29:46,440
Speaker 1: again vastly varying across species, but having some kind of comparability. Yeah,

503
00:29:46,440 --> 00:29:51,040
Speaker 1: at least for the for the factoring of of this scenario. Right, So, uh,

504
00:29:51,360 --> 00:29:53,360
Speaker 1: I looked at it. So anyway, in the study, they

505
00:29:53,400 --> 00:29:55,640
Speaker 1: look at four different kinds of hard ticks, and you

506
00:29:55,720 --> 00:29:59,600
Speaker 1: get samples of averages like point eight one million leaders

507
00:29:59,640 --> 00:30:03,280
Speaker 1: per male point fifty five milli leaders, one point five

508
00:30:03,360 --> 00:30:06,800
Speaker 1: milli leaders, and point fifty one milli leaders. So I'd

509
00:30:06,800 --> 00:30:09,680
Speaker 1: say on average, we can say, just for the sake

510
00:30:09,720 --> 00:30:11,840
Speaker 1: of round numbers, the average tick meal is maybe like

511
00:30:12,000 --> 00:30:15,320
Speaker 1: one milli leader of blood. So if you take the

512
00:30:15,400 --> 00:30:17,920
Speaker 1: average tick meal is one milli leader of blood and

513
00:30:17,960 --> 00:30:20,640
Speaker 1: the average person needs to lose two leaders of blood

514
00:30:20,680 --> 00:30:23,680
Speaker 1: to bleed to death, you need about two thousand ticks

515
00:30:23,960 --> 00:30:27,800
Speaker 1: to lead you to death. On one hand, that's a

516
00:30:27,880 --> 00:30:30,400
Speaker 1: lot of ticks to have. On the other hand, that's

517
00:30:30,440 --> 00:30:32,960
Speaker 1: not that many ticks I mean to kill you. So

518
00:30:33,400 --> 00:30:36,600
Speaker 1: that that's my rough math. But there's still a question

519
00:30:36,680 --> 00:30:39,080
Speaker 1: of could it actually happened. Maybe something maybe that just

520
00:30:39,160 --> 00:30:42,479
Speaker 1: wouldn't happen in nature, like would something prevent ticks from

521
00:30:42,520 --> 00:30:44,880
Speaker 1: bleeding you to death? So I looked and tried to

522
00:30:44,960 --> 00:30:47,560
Speaker 1: find evidence in modern times of a human or other

523
00:30:47,720 --> 00:30:50,880
Speaker 1: large mammal being bled to death by ticks. I couldn't

524
00:30:50,920 --> 00:30:54,720
Speaker 1: find that. But tick infestations in the wild can reportedly

525
00:30:54,800 --> 00:30:58,920
Speaker 1: have really life threatening consequences, leading not only to disease,

526
00:30:59,000 --> 00:31:02,440
Speaker 1: but to like anemie and starvation in animals like moose,

527
00:31:02,640 --> 00:31:06,960
Speaker 1: and can also create what's known as the ghost moose. Yes,

528
00:31:07,120 --> 00:31:10,160
Speaker 1: this is a This is a grotesque example of the

529
00:31:10,920 --> 00:31:15,959
Speaker 1: the the sheer, ravenous hunger of the tick. So in uh,

530
00:31:16,440 --> 00:31:18,800
Speaker 1: what we're dealing with here is a cold weather tick

531
00:31:19,480 --> 00:31:23,360
Speaker 1: by the name of Dermocentaur alpha pictus, and this thrives

532
00:31:23,400 --> 00:31:27,440
Speaker 1: in Western Canada and it causes what's known as winter

533
00:31:27,640 --> 00:31:32,200
Speaker 1: tick disease in moose and other large ungulates. So what

534
00:31:32,360 --> 00:31:34,719
Speaker 1: happens is you'll have a moose that winds up heavily

535
00:31:34,800 --> 00:31:40,800
Speaker 1: infested by upwards of two thousand ticks, and they become

536
00:31:41,000 --> 00:31:44,200
Speaker 1: so infested by these things, so bothered by these ticks

537
00:31:44,320 --> 00:31:47,840
Speaker 1: that they they're grooming themselves incessantly. They're rubbing against trees

538
00:31:48,240 --> 00:31:51,840
Speaker 1: and the resulting hair loss gives them a grayish or

539
00:31:52,000 --> 00:31:57,080
Speaker 1: whitish coloration. Plus they're also emaciated from the blood loss

540
00:31:57,280 --> 00:32:01,160
Speaker 1: and exposure because all that time um rubbing against trees

541
00:32:01,240 --> 00:32:04,160
Speaker 1: and grooming themselves as time that they can't spend feeding.

542
00:32:05,480 --> 00:32:09,000
Speaker 1: So it's just pretty sad example. But I mean, unless

543
00:32:09,000 --> 00:32:11,080
Speaker 1: you're unless you're rooting for the ticks, and then yeah,

544
00:32:11,200 --> 00:32:15,120
Speaker 1: go ticks, because they just basically drained a moose. Well,

545
00:32:15,160 --> 00:32:17,480
Speaker 1: I mean, it makes me wonder Even though I haven't

546
00:32:17,480 --> 00:32:20,840
Speaker 1: found any cases where it's clear that a large animal

547
00:32:21,000 --> 00:32:24,840
Speaker 1: was exanguinated by ticks bled to death, I have to

548
00:32:24,920 --> 00:32:28,280
Speaker 1: imagine it may have happened at some point in history. Yeah,

549
00:32:28,400 --> 00:32:30,440
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess one of the problems when you're

550
00:32:30,480 --> 00:32:33,400
Speaker 1: dealing with the natural world, of course, is that if

551
00:32:33,480 --> 00:32:37,760
Speaker 1: a if a creature like a moose is sufficiently the

552
00:32:37,840 --> 00:32:42,360
Speaker 1: abilitated by its tick infestation, then it's going to potentially

553
00:32:42,480 --> 00:32:45,680
Speaker 1: fall to other predators, right right, So it's going to

554
00:32:45,760 --> 00:32:47,880
Speaker 1: kind of take care of itself. But how do you

555
00:32:47,920 --> 00:32:51,760
Speaker 1: compare that to an artificial environment where one human or

556
00:32:51,800 --> 00:32:55,480
Speaker 1: one group of humans is creating a tick infestation and

557
00:32:55,640 --> 00:32:59,240
Speaker 1: keeping both the individual fund from dealing with their investation

558
00:32:59,560 --> 00:33:02,720
Speaker 1: and key being other animals from taking advantage of it.

559
00:33:02,880 --> 00:33:05,600
Speaker 1: Can you imagine though, how disappointing that is for the

560
00:33:05,680 --> 00:33:08,600
Speaker 1: predator that comes in to take the Like so pack

561
00:33:08,680 --> 00:33:12,520
Speaker 1: of wolves comes up, like, hey, free moose, awesome, but

562
00:33:12,640 --> 00:33:15,760
Speaker 1: it's covered in ticks. Like if somebody offered you a

563
00:33:15,840 --> 00:33:19,360
Speaker 1: free steak and it's covered in ticks. Well, you know,

564
00:33:19,440 --> 00:33:23,120
Speaker 1: I guess it's kind of that's one of the downsides

565
00:33:23,160 --> 00:33:26,200
Speaker 1: to being a predator anyway, because pretty much any animal

566
00:33:26,240 --> 00:33:28,760
Speaker 1: you're going to prey upon is going to have its parasites,

567
00:33:29,080 --> 00:33:31,480
Speaker 1: and then there's a risk that those parasites are gonna

568
00:33:31,480 --> 00:33:33,160
Speaker 1: flee to you. I always think back to when I

569
00:33:33,200 --> 00:33:34,760
Speaker 1: was a kid. I was riding with my dad in

570
00:33:34,840 --> 00:33:37,800
Speaker 1: his truck and he struck a bobcat with the truck.

571
00:33:37,920 --> 00:33:41,400
Speaker 1: Oh you know, you know, pure accident. Uh. And then

572
00:33:41,480 --> 00:33:45,640
Speaker 1: he got the creature and it was dead, and he

573
00:33:45,720 --> 00:33:47,480
Speaker 1: put it in the bed of the truck, and you

574
00:33:47,560 --> 00:33:50,720
Speaker 1: could actually see the various parasites leaving the body of

575
00:33:50,800 --> 00:33:53,600
Speaker 1: the bobcat just crawling away from it, leaving it like

576
00:33:53,880 --> 00:33:56,680
Speaker 1: a sinking ship. That's sad and gross at the same time,

577
00:33:57,240 --> 00:34:00,920
Speaker 1: but it's you can just imagine you're a a large predator.

578
00:34:00,960 --> 00:34:02,960
Speaker 1: You've killed your prey, and yeah, you get to eat

579
00:34:03,000 --> 00:34:06,640
Speaker 1: it now, but also it's parasites potentially get to eat you.

580
00:34:06,960 --> 00:34:09,960
Speaker 1: I'm sure they're thinking lucky us. All I'm saying is

581
00:34:10,000 --> 00:34:13,520
Speaker 1: the woods are disgusting. That's that's that's but they're beautiful.

582
00:34:13,600 --> 00:34:18,120
Speaker 1: And so coming back to the historical side of Ospensky's claim,

583
00:34:18,160 --> 00:34:21,120
Speaker 1: it might be possible to to bleed human to death

584
00:34:21,200 --> 00:34:24,760
Speaker 1: with ticks. So not exactly clear, but it would probably

585
00:34:24,760 --> 00:34:28,120
Speaker 1: take at least two thousand ticks or Sospensky's claim is

586
00:34:28,239 --> 00:34:30,719
Speaker 1: not footnoted. So I went digging around to try to

587
00:34:30,840 --> 00:34:33,840
Speaker 1: find the earliest reference of this claim about Central Asian

588
00:34:33,920 --> 00:34:37,520
Speaker 1: tick torture. In a number of English language books and

589
00:34:37,600 --> 00:34:41,040
Speaker 1: magazines the nineteenth and early twentieth century, there are reports

590
00:34:41,160 --> 00:34:45,360
Speaker 1: like this, so sort of retelling this rumor, especially that

591
00:34:45,480 --> 00:34:49,359
Speaker 1: in the city of Bokara, which is in modern day Uzbekistan,

592
00:34:50,320 --> 00:34:53,839
Speaker 1: there was a prison known as Kana Kana in which

593
00:34:53,960 --> 00:34:57,319
Speaker 1: prisoners would be tortured and eventually killed by being kept

594
00:34:57,360 --> 00:35:00,960
Speaker 1: in a pit infested with thousands of tips. And the

595
00:35:01,160 --> 00:35:04,760
Speaker 1: earliest telling of this I found is in a Russian

596
00:35:04,920 --> 00:35:08,279
Speaker 1: book called Bokara, Its Emir and its People by the

597
00:35:08,360 --> 00:35:14,279
Speaker 1: Russian author Nikolai Vladimirovich Khannikov, with the English translation by

598
00:35:14,440 --> 00:35:18,320
Speaker 1: Baron clement A. Debode. And so here's its claim. I

599
00:35:18,360 --> 00:35:22,480
Speaker 1: want to read a quote. A corridor leads into another

600
00:35:22,600 --> 00:35:26,400
Speaker 1: prison more dreadful than the first, called Kana Kana, a

601
00:35:26,560 --> 00:35:29,400
Speaker 1: name which it has received from the swarms of ticks

602
00:35:29,520 --> 00:35:33,000
Speaker 1: which infests the place and are reared they're on purpose

603
00:35:33,120 --> 00:35:36,360
Speaker 1: to plague the wretched prisoners. I have been told that

604
00:35:36,520 --> 00:35:39,640
Speaker 1: in the absence of the ladder, some pounds of raw

605
00:35:39,840 --> 00:35:43,840
Speaker 1: meat are thrown in to keep the ticks alive. And

606
00:35:43,920 --> 00:35:47,360
Speaker 1: then later a deep pit at least three fathoms in depth,

607
00:35:47,680 --> 00:35:50,800
Speaker 1: into which the culprits are let down by ropes. Food

608
00:35:50,960 --> 00:35:53,640
Speaker 1: is lowered to them in the same manner. And then

609
00:35:53,680 --> 00:35:56,000
Speaker 1: the passage says that later the prisoners they have their

610
00:35:56,040 --> 00:35:59,520
Speaker 1: heads shaved and they're loaded with irons and sent barefoot

611
00:35:59,600 --> 00:36:03,040
Speaker 1: down to the damp pot bottom of this pit full

612
00:36:03,120 --> 00:36:07,400
Speaker 1: of ticks to await their judgment in the Registeran. So

613
00:36:07,719 --> 00:36:10,239
Speaker 1: this was reproduced in a review of the book in

614
00:36:10,320 --> 00:36:12,840
Speaker 1: an eighteen forty four issue of the Dublin Review. And

615
00:36:13,120 --> 00:36:16,160
Speaker 1: there are other nineteenth century reports along these lines, but

616
00:36:16,320 --> 00:36:18,520
Speaker 1: most of them look like they're either just repeating this

617
00:36:18,719 --> 00:36:23,239
Speaker 1: report or they're repeating other popular rumors about this. And

618
00:36:23,360 --> 00:36:26,160
Speaker 1: with stories about these, you never know what to think.

619
00:36:26,320 --> 00:36:29,080
Speaker 1: I'm kind of hesitant to believe them. One of the

620
00:36:29,160 --> 00:36:31,600
Speaker 1: things is it's a report about an Asian society to

621
00:36:31,680 --> 00:36:34,799
Speaker 1: a European audience in an age when you know, even

622
00:36:34,880 --> 00:36:39,000
Speaker 1: widely circulated mainstream books books couldn't really be counted on

623
00:36:39,120 --> 00:36:42,960
Speaker 1: for much accuracy. Uh, And We've certainly encountered our share

624
00:36:43,040 --> 00:36:45,799
Speaker 1: of nineteenth century travelogs that are full of stuff that's

625
00:36:45,840 --> 00:36:48,879
Speaker 1: obviously just made up to be sensational. You remember those

626
00:36:48,920 --> 00:36:52,000
Speaker 1: ones about the tribes around the world who worshiped man

627
00:36:52,080 --> 00:36:56,280
Speaker 1: eating trees and stuff. Uh. And also exactly the reason

628
00:36:56,360 --> 00:36:59,440
Speaker 1: it's a fascinating story also makes me more skeptical of it.

629
00:36:59,520 --> 00:37:03,640
Speaker 1: You know, it's sensational and lurid and memorable and exactly

630
00:37:03,719 --> 00:37:06,000
Speaker 1: the kind of thing that would be tempting to invent

631
00:37:06,200 --> 00:37:10,120
Speaker 1: or misrepresent for a sort of orientalist audience who's hungry

632
00:37:10,239 --> 00:37:14,000
Speaker 1: for strange and gory details about far off cultures. Yeah.

633
00:37:14,040 --> 00:37:17,520
Speaker 1: Plus it's it's so overly complex, right, Yeah, like they're

634
00:37:18,880 --> 00:37:21,640
Speaker 1: there are a lot of like baked into the premise

635
00:37:22,080 --> 00:37:25,160
Speaker 1: there there are some already excellent ways to be awful

636
00:37:25,200 --> 00:37:27,279
Speaker 1: to somebody, you know, just throw them down into a pit.

637
00:37:27,480 --> 00:37:30,600
Speaker 1: Like that's pretty terrible in and of itself. You don't

638
00:37:30,680 --> 00:37:33,440
Speaker 1: need to add this layer of having to to breed

639
00:37:33,560 --> 00:37:39,840
Speaker 1: and maintain uh this you know, enormous population of parasites. Yeah, However,

640
00:37:39,960 --> 00:37:44,040
Speaker 1: I can say apparently there's nothing materially all that implausible

641
00:37:44,040 --> 00:37:45,960
Speaker 1: about it from what I can tell, So I'd say

642
00:37:46,000 --> 00:37:49,239
Speaker 1: It's a very creepy historical possibility, but I wouldn't put

643
00:37:49,320 --> 00:37:52,080
Speaker 1: my money on it being true. However, if you're an

644
00:37:52,160 --> 00:37:54,800
Speaker 1: expert on the history of Uzbekistan and you want to

645
00:37:54,880 --> 00:37:57,319
Speaker 1: let us know you know one way or another whether

646
00:37:57,400 --> 00:38:00,400
Speaker 1: you think this account is accurate or all based on

647
00:38:00,880 --> 00:38:03,640
Speaker 1: a sliver of truth, you can write us a blow

648
00:38:03,719 --> 00:38:05,400
Speaker 1: the mind at how stuff works dot Com and let

649
00:38:05,480 --> 00:38:07,839
Speaker 1: us know what you think. Yeah, all right, at this point,

650
00:38:08,000 --> 00:38:10,759
Speaker 1: I imagine we should take one more break. When we

651
00:38:10,920 --> 00:38:13,560
Speaker 1: come back, we will get into the topic of tick

652
00:38:13,640 --> 00:38:19,279
Speaker 1: born illnesses, particularly those associated with the Loan Star tick.

653
00:38:22,040 --> 00:38:25,800
Speaker 1: Thank thank alright, we're back all right now. As we

654
00:38:25,840 --> 00:38:28,600
Speaker 1: set at the top of this podcast, we hate to

655
00:38:28,800 --> 00:38:31,120
Speaker 1: we we don't. We never want to encourage the demonization

656
00:38:31,239 --> 00:38:33,279
Speaker 1: of any non human animals, and we may have been

657
00:38:33,360 --> 00:38:36,240
Speaker 1: somewhat failing at that today because ticks are so easy

658
00:38:36,320 --> 00:38:40,480
Speaker 1: to hate. Um. But I want to suggest one way

659
00:38:40,560 --> 00:38:43,399
Speaker 1: to get something good out of tick hatred if it's unavoidable,

660
00:38:43,680 --> 00:38:47,200
Speaker 1: which is, take all the arachnophobia that makes you hate

661
00:38:47,280 --> 00:38:50,759
Speaker 1: spiders and and just take it off of the spiders

662
00:38:50,880 --> 00:38:52,920
Speaker 1: and put it on the ticks. You can do this

663
00:38:53,040 --> 00:38:57,320
Speaker 1: in your mind. You can imagine heavy cloud over a

664
00:38:57,400 --> 00:39:00,960
Speaker 1: big pool full of spiders, and make that cloud away.

665
00:39:01,080 --> 00:39:03,759
Speaker 1: Just drag it away from them and put it over

666
00:39:03,840 --> 00:39:05,800
Speaker 1: the ticks. If it's got to go somewhere, put it

667
00:39:05,880 --> 00:39:08,719
Speaker 1: on the ticks. Because spiders they're so helpful. Imagine a

668
00:39:08,760 --> 00:39:12,440
Speaker 1: world without spiders. You need them to control insect populations.

669
00:39:12,719 --> 00:39:15,600
Speaker 1: You'd be miserable in a world without spiders. The world

670
00:39:15,680 --> 00:39:19,000
Speaker 1: without ticks, I don't know. Yeah, I mean, even the

671
00:39:19,080 --> 00:39:23,640
Speaker 1: most dangerous spiders really they're they're not coming after you know,

672
00:39:23,840 --> 00:39:26,600
Speaker 1: not at all. The encounter between human and spider is

673
00:39:26,640 --> 00:39:30,279
Speaker 1: occurring more or less by accident. And we do know

674
00:39:30,440 --> 00:39:33,000
Speaker 1: that ticks are something to actually worry about in a

675
00:39:33,040 --> 00:39:36,120
Speaker 1: way that spiders are not. Ticks are a major vector

676
00:39:36,239 --> 00:39:39,719
Speaker 1: of zoonotic diseases and humans and animals. In fact, a

677
00:39:39,800 --> 00:39:44,080
Speaker 1: review of a scientific conference called the mid Atlantic Ticks

678
00:39:44,120 --> 00:39:48,680
Speaker 1: Summit concluded that ticks are the single most significant vector

679
00:39:48,760 --> 00:39:52,240
Speaker 1: of infectious disease in the United States, worse than fleas,

680
00:39:52,640 --> 00:39:55,239
Speaker 1: worse than mosquitoes. If you're in the United States and

681
00:39:55,280 --> 00:39:57,600
Speaker 1: you're worried about getting a disease from animals, you need

682
00:39:57,640 --> 00:40:01,040
Speaker 1: to be worried about ticks. That's right. There are there.

683
00:40:01,160 --> 00:40:06,560
Speaker 1: They're actually eleven key tick transmitted diseases, and this makes

684
00:40:06,640 --> 00:40:09,800
Speaker 1: them second only to the mosquito in disease variety. Is

685
00:40:09,840 --> 00:40:14,040
Speaker 1: that worldwide? Uh? That is that is worldwide? Yes? And uh,

686
00:40:14,280 --> 00:40:17,040
Speaker 1: but but in the US alone, we have eight tick

687
00:40:17,120 --> 00:40:23,080
Speaker 1: species with twelve particularly problematic species. Yeah, and tickboard illnesses.

688
00:40:23,120 --> 00:40:24,680
Speaker 1: We're not going to cover all of them today. We

689
00:40:24,760 --> 00:40:26,600
Speaker 1: want to mention a few of the major ones and

690
00:40:26,840 --> 00:40:29,680
Speaker 1: some of the more recent interesting ones, especially a tick

691
00:40:29,800 --> 00:40:33,640
Speaker 1: acquired allergy. But just to cover a few, we've got

692
00:40:33,760 --> 00:40:36,400
Speaker 1: to start with lime disease, right. Yes, Uh, this is

693
00:40:36,480 --> 00:40:40,200
Speaker 1: a spread by the black legged tick, and lime disease uh,

694
00:40:40,600 --> 00:40:43,080
Speaker 1: in and of itself is a is a is a

695
00:40:43,840 --> 00:40:46,759
Speaker 1: a complicated illness that we still don't have a a

696
00:40:46,840 --> 00:40:50,920
Speaker 1: complete understanding of now. In addition to lime disease, the

697
00:40:50,920 --> 00:40:55,120
Speaker 1: black lighted tick also carries a maltilaria like infection known

698
00:40:55,200 --> 00:41:01,520
Speaker 1: as batasiosis and also a form of tick fever in cattle. Now,

699
00:41:01,840 --> 00:41:04,360
Speaker 1: the interesting thing about lime disease, to come back to

700
00:41:04,480 --> 00:41:07,400
Speaker 1: that is the white footed mouse is the primary reservoir

701
00:41:07,520 --> 00:41:11,120
Speaker 1: for this, so it carries lime disease without actually seeming

702
00:41:11,200 --> 00:41:14,440
Speaker 1: to suffer any ill effects. But then this spreads to

703
00:41:14,560 --> 00:41:17,040
Speaker 1: ticks and then do other animals such as humans, and

704
00:41:17,120 --> 00:41:20,040
Speaker 1: that's where you get the problem. Now you also have

705
00:41:20,160 --> 00:41:22,879
Speaker 1: the American dog tick, also known as a wood tick,

706
00:41:22,960 --> 00:41:26,200
Speaker 1: and this is the primary vector for rocky mounted spotted fever.

707
00:41:26,600 --> 00:41:29,840
Speaker 1: Not something you want. And this is potentially fatal and

708
00:41:30,280 --> 00:41:35,239
Speaker 1: it's caused by a particular bacterium, yeah, the Rickettsia bacteria. Yeah,

709
00:41:35,320 --> 00:41:39,879
Speaker 1: Rickettsia rickettsi. I believe it's a All of these these

710
00:41:40,400 --> 00:41:43,120
Speaker 1: these particular illnesses are kind of a mouthful. And then

711
00:41:43,200 --> 00:41:45,320
Speaker 1: we come to I guess one of the stars of

712
00:41:45,400 --> 00:41:51,480
Speaker 1: today's episode, which is the lone star tick Embloma american

713
00:41:51,600 --> 00:41:53,960
Speaker 1: um Yeah, and this is so so called because of

714
00:41:54,000 --> 00:41:58,520
Speaker 1: the star shaped silver marking on the females and this

715
00:41:59,000 --> 00:42:03,120
Speaker 1: particular um tick you can actually catch a number of

716
00:42:03,200 --> 00:42:06,759
Speaker 1: different diseases from it. So according to the University of

717
00:42:06,840 --> 00:42:11,960
Speaker 1: Kentucky College of Agriculture, Food and Environment, you can you

718
00:42:12,080 --> 00:42:15,560
Speaker 1: can catch the following illnesses from the lone star tick.

719
00:42:16,840 --> 00:42:19,480
Speaker 1: Air lichiosis, which you can also get from a black

720
00:42:19,560 --> 00:42:23,160
Speaker 1: legged tick. You can also get tulumia, this is also

721
00:42:23,239 --> 00:42:26,279
Speaker 1: president in the black legged and American dog ticks, and

722
00:42:26,640 --> 00:42:30,560
Speaker 1: uh tuluremia has an interesting history. By the way, it

723
00:42:30,680 --> 00:42:34,840
Speaker 1: only boast an overall five percent mortality rate, but the

724
00:42:35,040 --> 00:42:37,279
Speaker 1: micro organism that causes it is one of the most

725
00:42:37,320 --> 00:42:43,440
Speaker 1: infectious bacteria on Earth. Soviet Union report, Union reported ten

726
00:42:43,600 --> 00:42:46,640
Speaker 1: thousand cases of the illness, and then during the German

727
00:42:46,719 --> 00:42:50,160
Speaker 1: siege of Stalingrad the following year, the number skyrocketed to

728
00:42:50,280 --> 00:42:53,760
Speaker 1: one hundred thousand, and most of these occurred cases occurred

729
00:42:53,880 --> 00:42:57,120
Speaker 1: on the German side of the conflict. This is where

730
00:42:57,160 --> 00:42:59,839
Speaker 1: it gets a little bit, a little bit weird. Uh.

731
00:43:00,080 --> 00:43:04,800
Speaker 1: Former Soviet bioweapons researcher Ken Alabec argue that this surge

732
00:43:04,840 --> 00:43:08,719
Speaker 1: and infections was no accident, but the result of biological warfare,

733
00:43:09,480 --> 00:43:12,680
Speaker 1: and Alabec would go on to allegedly help develop a

734
00:43:12,800 --> 00:43:17,080
Speaker 1: strain of vaccine resistant u to Learmia for the Soviets

735
00:43:17,160 --> 00:43:22,080
Speaker 1: before defecting to the United States in Yeah. So, but

736
00:43:22,280 --> 00:43:24,840
Speaker 1: of course that's a whole added level of of humans

737
00:43:24,920 --> 00:43:30,640
Speaker 1: taking already terrible um biological threats and then augmenting them

738
00:43:30,840 --> 00:43:33,320
Speaker 1: in a way. This is the real life version of

739
00:43:33,440 --> 00:43:37,640
Speaker 1: the tick torture pit. So. In addition to this, the

740
00:43:38,000 --> 00:43:41,320
Speaker 1: lone star tick also carries uh that spotted fever that

741
00:43:41,400 --> 00:43:45,640
Speaker 1: we mentioned um also this uh something that is called

742
00:43:45,880 --> 00:43:50,239
Speaker 1: star eyes Southern tick associated ration illness, which is not

743
00:43:50,480 --> 00:43:53,920
Speaker 1: very well understood now but is can easily be mistaken

744
00:43:54,040 --> 00:43:57,239
Speaker 1: for lyme disease, though it's carried by a different tick. Right.

745
00:43:57,800 --> 00:44:01,480
Speaker 1: The interesting thing here is that for a while we

746
00:44:01,680 --> 00:44:05,800
Speaker 1: thought that that it was very similar to lime disease

747
00:44:05,840 --> 00:44:08,520
Speaker 1: and it was caused by a particular spial keet which

748
00:44:08,560 --> 00:44:12,120
Speaker 1: is closely related. But according to the CDC, research into

749
00:44:12,200 --> 00:44:15,680
Speaker 1: this did not bear the idea out and the current

750
00:44:15,840 --> 00:44:20,000
Speaker 1: cause is unknown. So we're getting into the mysterious realm

751
00:44:20,280 --> 00:44:21,880
Speaker 1: of some of these tick diseases. I mean, not that

752
00:44:21,960 --> 00:44:25,280
Speaker 1: they're magical or anything, but they're just they're just poorly

753
00:44:25,400 --> 00:44:29,040
Speaker 1: understood and and many of them have only really come

754
00:44:29,120 --> 00:44:33,239
Speaker 1: to the forefront of of research in recent years. Now,

755
00:44:33,280 --> 00:44:35,719
Speaker 1: in a minute, we want to focus on this one

756
00:44:36,000 --> 00:44:40,960
Speaker 1: very weird particular issue of acquired red meat allergies that

757
00:44:41,040 --> 00:44:43,960
Speaker 1: may be associated with tick bites. But first let's look

758
00:44:44,040 --> 00:44:46,560
Speaker 1: just a little bit more at the lone star ticket itself.

759
00:44:47,040 --> 00:44:49,120
Speaker 1: Give me the back of the baseball card. Stats on

760
00:44:49,200 --> 00:44:51,480
Speaker 1: the lone startick. Well, a lot of it comes down

761
00:44:51,640 --> 00:44:54,840
Speaker 1: to the differences between the lone star tick and the

762
00:44:54,960 --> 00:45:00,359
Speaker 1: black legged tick, which granted both are both are bad.

763
00:45:00,920 --> 00:45:04,280
Speaker 1: They're bad news. Both carry pathogens that are harmful to humans.

764
00:45:05,120 --> 00:45:07,719
Speaker 1: And the conflict here has been that we've seen, uh

765
00:45:08,320 --> 00:45:10,439
Speaker 1: we we've seen the case of the lone star tick

766
00:45:11,120 --> 00:45:15,399
Speaker 1: sweeping into the northeastern US replacing the black legged tick

767
00:45:15,520 --> 00:45:20,160
Speaker 1: is the most commonly encountered species by humans. So essentially

768
00:45:20,200 --> 00:45:22,560
Speaker 1: they're they're moving in on the black legged ticks turf.

769
00:45:23,040 --> 00:45:26,480
Speaker 1: They're becoming they're becoming more prevalent, and therefore the the

770
00:45:26,680 --> 00:45:31,719
Speaker 1: the pathogens that they carry are more prevalent, So the

771
00:45:32,000 --> 00:45:35,400
Speaker 1: lone star ticks are more mobile, making it harder to

772
00:45:35,520 --> 00:45:38,680
Speaker 1: create tick free zones for them with with mulch and

773
00:45:38,760 --> 00:45:41,480
Speaker 1: wood ship buffers for instance. So that's another thing that

774
00:45:41,600 --> 00:45:44,680
Speaker 1: the lone star ticks that have in their favor. Now

775
00:45:44,960 --> 00:45:46,840
Speaker 1: I've never heard of this actually, So you can you

776
00:45:46,920 --> 00:45:49,759
Speaker 1: can buffer them off of areas by by making what

777
00:45:50,040 --> 00:45:52,920
Speaker 1: like moats of mulch essentially, like I understand that that

778
00:45:53,080 --> 00:45:56,439
Speaker 1: that goes into some like playground in park planning. Yeah,

779
00:45:56,800 --> 00:46:00,480
Speaker 1: but that's not gonna work with the lone star as much.

780
00:46:00,800 --> 00:46:04,000
Speaker 1: So the difference comes down to habitat. So the black

781
00:46:04,080 --> 00:46:07,000
Speaker 1: legged tick is a forest dweller, but the lone startick

782
00:46:07,160 --> 00:46:12,120
Speaker 1: likes hot, dry spaces with an open spaces. So you

783
00:46:12,239 --> 00:46:15,680
Speaker 1: have an interesting scenario here where global warming is one

784
00:46:15,719 --> 00:46:19,040
Speaker 1: of the causes here behind this this turf war and

785
00:46:19,160 --> 00:46:22,160
Speaker 1: expanding in the expanding range of the of of the

786
00:46:22,880 --> 00:46:25,399
Speaker 1: of the lone star tick. But it's also because we're

787
00:46:25,440 --> 00:46:30,040
Speaker 1: displacing natural forest environments that the black legged ticks tick

788
00:46:30,160 --> 00:46:34,239
Speaker 1: likes with the sort of open, dry artificial environments that

789
00:46:34,760 --> 00:46:37,880
Speaker 1: lone star ticks like. So be it a be a

790
00:46:38,080 --> 00:46:42,000
Speaker 1: highway or you know, um, you know, a neighborhood kind

791
00:46:42,040 --> 00:46:44,960
Speaker 1: of community, that's the kind of environment that a lone

792
00:46:44,960 --> 00:46:48,600
Speaker 1: star tick is going to thrive in more more so

793
00:46:48,960 --> 00:46:51,360
Speaker 1: than a black legged tick. And see a lot of

794
00:46:51,440 --> 00:46:55,239
Speaker 1: delicious human skin. Yeah. And another factor here with the

795
00:46:55,480 --> 00:46:58,319
Speaker 1: expansion of the lone startick is that lone star ticks

796
00:46:58,360 --> 00:47:02,360
Speaker 1: feed on humans, coyotes, fox as other animals, but white

797
00:47:02,400 --> 00:47:06,319
Speaker 1: tailed deer and wild turkeys are favored hosts. Now, I've

798
00:47:06,400 --> 00:47:09,719
Speaker 1: read that the white tailed deer population and range is

799
00:47:09,800 --> 00:47:13,719
Speaker 1: exploding in decades and that is uh, and that's led

800
00:47:13,760 --> 00:47:17,120
Speaker 1: to some researchers to suspect that that the explosion of

801
00:47:17,160 --> 00:47:20,320
Speaker 1: whitetailed deer may play in a part in the recent

802
00:47:20,400 --> 00:47:23,640
Speaker 1: abundance of loan startics as well. Particularly, there was a

803
00:47:23,680 --> 00:47:27,640
Speaker 1: two thousand ten Washington University St. Louis study UH led

804
00:47:27,719 --> 00:47:31,320
Speaker 1: by a team of ecologist, biologists, and physicians. UH. And

805
00:47:31,600 --> 00:47:33,600
Speaker 1: so yeah, you have so you have three things happening,

806
00:47:33,840 --> 00:47:37,920
Speaker 1: and all of them are are the fault of human beings. Uh.

807
00:47:38,719 --> 00:47:42,520
Speaker 1: Alterations in the climate, the world growing warmer, UH, the

808
00:47:42,960 --> 00:47:47,680
Speaker 1: the alteration in in particular environments, changing forests into the

809
00:47:47,800 --> 00:47:51,320
Speaker 1: kind of wide open spaces that that the loan startic

810
00:47:51,480 --> 00:47:56,200
Speaker 1: is going to thrive. And then UH, an unbalancing of

811
00:47:56,400 --> 00:48:00,399
Speaker 1: the environment that enables a prey animal like the tail

812
00:48:00,520 --> 00:48:03,760
Speaker 1: deer to run rampant uh and with a few checks

813
00:48:03,840 --> 00:48:08,319
Speaker 1: to its population. Don't hate the ticks, hate yourself, Well,

814
00:48:08,520 --> 00:48:11,160
Speaker 1: don't hate yourself. Come on, it's not check for ticks.

815
00:48:11,320 --> 00:48:14,480
Speaker 1: It's not all on humans. I mean, the ticks are

816
00:48:14,480 --> 00:48:17,640
Speaker 1: pretty awful. But here we we do see a strong

817
00:48:17,760 --> 00:48:21,919
Speaker 1: case being made for the destabilization of the natural world

818
00:48:21,960 --> 00:48:26,200
Speaker 1: and enables uh, the villains of the of the natural

819
00:48:26,280 --> 00:48:29,839
Speaker 1: world to take a more uh predominant role. All right, well,

820
00:48:29,840 --> 00:48:33,520
Speaker 1: I want to hit you with a particularly odd ticks scenario.

821
00:48:33,719 --> 00:48:35,960
Speaker 1: You may have heard about something like this, but if not,

822
00:48:36,200 --> 00:48:38,560
Speaker 1: you're in for a ride. All right, So Robert, you're

823
00:48:38,560 --> 00:48:41,200
Speaker 1: going out for a hike in the mountains of East Tennessee. Alright,

824
00:48:41,360 --> 00:48:45,439
Speaker 1: I a lovely uh, A lovely place to hike. Yeah, yeah, okay,

825
00:48:45,440 --> 00:48:48,040
Speaker 1: I've hiked there many times. But if you yourself at

826
00:48:48,080 --> 00:48:50,239
Speaker 1: home or trying to imagine doing that, and you're like,

827
00:48:50,320 --> 00:48:52,600
Speaker 1: why would I do that, Well, it's because it's where

828
00:48:52,640 --> 00:48:55,120
Speaker 1: you got abducted by aliens twenty years ago, and you're

829
00:48:55,120 --> 00:48:58,799
Speaker 1: trying to seek recommunion. Okay, But after you get back home,

830
00:48:59,200 --> 00:49:02,799
Speaker 1: disappointed a again, you discover a parasite on your body.

831
00:49:02,880 --> 00:49:05,480
Speaker 1: It's a small, reddish brown tick with a single white

832
00:49:05,600 --> 00:49:09,400
Speaker 1: dot on its back, and it's swollen. It's engorged with blood.

833
00:49:09,480 --> 00:49:11,400
Speaker 1: And since you've read your plenty of the Elder, you

834
00:49:11,520 --> 00:49:14,560
Speaker 1: know that it's gonna pop any minute because it can't hoop.

835
00:49:15,280 --> 00:49:17,200
Speaker 1: So you pluck it off, kill it, and you go

836
00:49:17,280 --> 00:49:20,200
Speaker 1: on with your life. But a few weeks later, you're

837
00:49:20,200 --> 00:49:23,640
Speaker 1: sitting down for a delicious cookout meal. You've got a

838
00:49:23,760 --> 00:49:26,440
Speaker 1: nice cut of aged ribi, and as you eat more

839
00:49:26,520 --> 00:49:29,920
Speaker 1: and more of this delicious glistening, medium rare beast flesh.

840
00:49:30,000 --> 00:49:32,200
Speaker 1: You might start to feel odd, or you might not.

841
00:49:32,520 --> 00:49:35,040
Speaker 1: It might it might take four to six hours before

842
00:49:35,080 --> 00:49:37,960
Speaker 1: you start to feel odd. But either way, eventually you

843
00:49:38,080 --> 00:49:42,120
Speaker 1: start itching all over and you develop red rashes or hives.

844
00:49:42,560 --> 00:49:45,640
Speaker 1: You realize you're having an allergic reaction, and it could

845
00:49:45,719 --> 00:49:51,080
Speaker 1: get worse. You could experience diarrhea, vomiting, trouble breathing, low

846
00:49:51,200 --> 00:49:54,800
Speaker 1: blood pressure, and if it's a particularly severe case, it

847
00:49:54,880 --> 00:49:58,320
Speaker 1: could even be life threatening. So perhaps you are not

848
00:49:58,480 --> 00:50:00,759
Speaker 1: one to learn quickly, and you keep trying to eat

849
00:50:00,840 --> 00:50:03,799
Speaker 1: red meat, only to discover that it happens every time.

850
00:50:03,880 --> 00:50:08,200
Speaker 1: You've developed this horrible allergic reaction that kicks in every

851
00:50:08,280 --> 00:50:11,520
Speaker 1: time you chow down on some red meat. So what's

852
00:50:11,560 --> 00:50:15,440
Speaker 1: going on here? Well, this is a question that actually

853
00:50:15,480 --> 00:50:18,120
Speaker 1: a lot of people have been asking in in recent decades,

854
00:50:18,200 --> 00:50:21,200
Speaker 1: and starting I think in the nineteen nineties, people really

855
00:50:21,239 --> 00:50:24,719
Speaker 1: started to notice there were these stories of acquired red

856
00:50:24,880 --> 00:50:29,799
Speaker 1: meat allergy syndrome, and an allergy and immunology researcher named

857
00:50:29,840 --> 00:50:33,040
Speaker 1: Thomas Platts Mills at the University of Virginia School of

858
00:50:33,080 --> 00:50:35,960
Speaker 1: Medicine has been studying this phenomenon for more than a decade.

859
00:50:36,560 --> 00:50:38,279
Speaker 1: And if you want to read more about this, there's

860
00:50:38,280 --> 00:50:40,680
Speaker 1: actually a really good recent article and Wired that tells

861
00:50:40,719 --> 00:50:44,160
Speaker 1: the story of how platts Mills and colleagues slowly unraveled

862
00:50:44,200 --> 00:50:47,040
Speaker 1: the story. But to give you the simple version, Platts

863
00:50:47,080 --> 00:50:50,040
Speaker 1: Mills have been hearing these reports for years that people

864
00:50:50,080 --> 00:50:53,960
Speaker 1: in certain regions the country, primarily the southeast, had picked

865
00:50:54,040 --> 00:50:56,919
Speaker 1: up the sudden allergy to red meat and this would

866
00:50:56,960 --> 00:50:59,919
Speaker 1: cause them to break out in sweats and hives after eating.

867
00:51:01,040 --> 00:51:05,319
Speaker 1: And oddly, the range of these reports almost perfectly overlapped

868
00:51:05,480 --> 00:51:08,440
Speaker 1: the range of the lone star tick, the tick we

869
00:51:08,520 --> 00:51:11,439
Speaker 1: were talking about a minute ago. And later he heard

870
00:51:11,480 --> 00:51:14,600
Speaker 1: of similar symptoms being developed by patients who were taking

871
00:51:14,719 --> 00:51:19,680
Speaker 1: a cancer treatment called satuximab, and apparently the drug was

872
00:51:19,760 --> 00:51:23,040
Speaker 1: proving effective, but after taking it, people with it would

873
00:51:23,080 --> 00:51:27,040
Speaker 1: have the same meat allergy symptoms in these same meat

874
00:51:27,080 --> 00:51:31,160
Speaker 1: allergy regions of the country. That's kind of odd. So

875
00:51:31,440 --> 00:51:34,800
Speaker 1: by teaming up with the drugs manufacturer, Platts Mills determined

876
00:51:34,840 --> 00:51:38,359
Speaker 1: that the people experiencing the reaction to this cancer drug

877
00:51:38,800 --> 00:51:43,520
Speaker 1: at enormous quantities of antibodies targeting a specific carbohydrate, a

878
00:51:43,600 --> 00:51:47,279
Speaker 1: carbohydrate that was in the drug but that's also in

879
00:51:47,680 --> 00:51:50,319
Speaker 1: red meat. Now you might be like, wait a minute,

880
00:51:50,360 --> 00:51:53,480
Speaker 1: I thought meat didn't have any carbs. Well, meat doesn't

881
00:51:53,480 --> 00:51:55,320
Speaker 1: have a lot of carbs, But red meat is not

882
00:51:55,600 --> 00:51:59,800
Speaker 1: just protein and fat. Mammalian muscle tissues contain a sugar

883
00:52:00,000 --> 00:52:04,120
Speaker 1: called galactose alpha one three galactose, known for short as

884
00:52:04,200 --> 00:52:08,480
Speaker 1: alpha gal and this sugar is found in meats like beef,

885
00:52:08,960 --> 00:52:11,880
Speaker 1: lamb and pork, and if you have an allergy to

886
00:52:11,960 --> 00:52:15,120
Speaker 1: alpha gel, consumption of that type of meat can be

887
00:52:15,719 --> 00:52:19,600
Speaker 1: a potentially life threatening risk. So after they found out

888
00:52:19,600 --> 00:52:21,680
Speaker 1: about this, over the next few years, Platts, Mills and

889
00:52:21,800 --> 00:52:24,759
Speaker 1: many colleagues and co authors published some papers in the

890
00:52:24,880 --> 00:52:29,000
Speaker 1: Journal of Clinical Immunology started to zero in on the problem.

891
00:52:29,239 --> 00:52:32,960
Speaker 1: In two thousand nine, they isolated what the meat allergy

892
00:52:33,040 --> 00:52:36,200
Speaker 1: patients had in common, which is that eight of them

893
00:52:36,239 --> 00:52:38,680
Speaker 1: are actually more than eight percent of them had reported

894
00:52:38,719 --> 00:52:41,680
Speaker 1: being bitten by a tick. And then later in two

895
00:52:41,760 --> 00:52:44,759
Speaker 1: thousand eleven, they published a paper in a Journal of

896
00:52:44,800 --> 00:52:48,840
Speaker 1: Clinical Immunology showing a direct link between tick bites and

897
00:52:48,920 --> 00:52:52,960
Speaker 1: the proliferation of I G E antibodies that's allergy antibodies

898
00:52:53,080 --> 00:52:56,880
Speaker 1: for alpha gel for this sugar that's found found in

899
00:52:57,000 --> 00:52:59,239
Speaker 1: meat and was found in that cancer drug that was

900
00:52:59,280 --> 00:53:02,480
Speaker 1: causing reactions in people. So it looks pretty clear that

901
00:53:02,520 --> 00:53:06,080
Speaker 1: people who get bitten by the lone Star tick are

902
00:53:06,160 --> 00:53:09,719
Speaker 1: the ones who are developing these meat allergies, but we

903
00:53:09,880 --> 00:53:13,400
Speaker 1: don't know why. We still don't know what's causing the

904
00:53:13,520 --> 00:53:16,320
Speaker 1: tick bites to create these I G. E. Antibodies, but

905
00:53:16,440 --> 00:53:19,359
Speaker 1: researchers are working on the problem. So there are lots

906
00:53:19,400 --> 00:53:21,960
Speaker 1: of questions. Could it be some pathogen, is it a

907
00:53:22,080 --> 00:53:25,120
Speaker 1: germ spread by the tick, or is it something in

908
00:53:25,200 --> 00:53:28,520
Speaker 1: the ticks saliva that's similar to alpha gel, which triggers

909
00:53:28,560 --> 00:53:32,839
Speaker 1: a sensitizing exposure in the immune system, and then later

910
00:53:33,040 --> 00:53:36,360
Speaker 1: your immune system mistakes alpha gel for whatever it encountered

911
00:53:36,400 --> 00:53:39,000
Speaker 1: in the ticks saliva. We don't know yet, so just

912
00:53:39,120 --> 00:53:41,719
Speaker 1: to recap it could be a new pathogen to add

913
00:53:41,719 --> 00:53:46,040
Speaker 1: to the established list of pathogens. It's very yeah, but

914
00:53:46,080 --> 00:53:50,160
Speaker 1: it's very possibly just something bioactive in the ticks saliva

915
00:53:50,239 --> 00:53:53,480
Speaker 1: because there's tons of bioactive stuff. They're essentially a complication

916
00:53:53,600 --> 00:53:57,920
Speaker 1: that arises in the battle between our immune system and

917
00:53:58,120 --> 00:54:01,800
Speaker 1: this the invasion of our tissue. Okay, yeah, this is

918
00:54:01,880 --> 00:54:05,120
Speaker 1: a I should I should mention that I actually have

919
00:54:05,160 --> 00:54:09,080
Speaker 1: a family member who who suffers from this who red meat,

920
00:54:09,440 --> 00:54:12,600
Speaker 1: who suffers from the red meat allergy? Uh, caused by

921
00:54:13,120 --> 00:54:17,120
Speaker 1: a lone star tick bite. Yeah, and uh, I mean

922
00:54:17,200 --> 00:54:20,160
Speaker 1: it's so does this family member that they just don't

923
00:54:20,200 --> 00:54:23,279
Speaker 1: eat meat anymore. They can they can still eat um

924
00:54:23,680 --> 00:54:27,560
Speaker 1: like poultry and fish obviously, but but yeah, they have

925
00:54:27,680 --> 00:54:30,879
Speaker 1: to they have to forego eating eating red meat, eating

926
00:54:30,960 --> 00:54:34,960
Speaker 1: pork steak. Was this person a meat lover? Yes, very

927
00:54:35,040 --> 00:54:38,560
Speaker 1: much so. So this isn't a certainly a scenario where

928
00:54:39,640 --> 00:54:41,040
Speaker 1: since I don't I don't need a lot of red

929
00:54:41,080 --> 00:54:44,359
Speaker 1: meat anymore. I have to kind of translate it into

930
00:54:44,400 --> 00:54:46,880
Speaker 1: my own diet and think what I have just just

931
00:54:47,040 --> 00:54:49,480
Speaker 1: because I got bit by a tick out in the woods,

932
00:54:49,560 --> 00:54:52,720
Speaker 1: suddenly I could eat I could not eat anymore shrimp.

933
00:54:52,840 --> 00:54:55,600
Speaker 1: You're allergic to coffee? Yeah, or coffee or you know

934
00:54:55,920 --> 00:54:59,560
Speaker 1: some other element that plays an important role in my

935
00:54:59,680 --> 00:55:02,640
Speaker 1: daily diet, And that that would just that would really

936
00:55:02,680 --> 00:55:05,400
Speaker 1: be some garbage news, especially if it's it's the fault

937
00:55:05,440 --> 00:55:08,800
Speaker 1: of this this stupid parasite that latched onto me in

938
00:55:08,880 --> 00:55:11,320
Speaker 1: the woods one day. Now, I have heard accounts of

939
00:55:11,440 --> 00:55:13,920
Speaker 1: people who are just like, well, you know, I've got

940
00:55:13,960 --> 00:55:17,480
Speaker 1: my EpiPen. I'll just I'll just get through. Don't this

941
00:55:17,600 --> 00:55:22,120
Speaker 1: can be dangerous, Like these anaphylactic reactions are are dangerous

942
00:55:22,280 --> 00:55:24,600
Speaker 1: and could potentially kill you if you have a really

943
00:55:24,680 --> 00:55:28,080
Speaker 1: severe one. So you shouldn't just try to say, well,

944
00:55:28,120 --> 00:55:30,000
Speaker 1: I'll get through it, I'll eat the red meat. I

945
00:55:30,080 --> 00:55:33,360
Speaker 1: want to deal with the hives now. I was in

946
00:55:33,440 --> 00:55:37,799
Speaker 1: reading some material from the University of Kentucky about about this, uh,

947
00:55:37,920 --> 00:55:41,239
Speaker 1: this redneat allergy that arises from the lone start tick bites.

948
00:55:41,600 --> 00:55:43,840
Speaker 1: It did point out that the reaction can occur in

949
00:55:43,960 --> 00:55:47,200
Speaker 1: people with a history of strong reactions to tick bites.

950
00:55:47,560 --> 00:55:49,759
Speaker 1: This is redness and itching at a bite side to

951
00:55:49,880 --> 00:55:53,640
Speaker 1: last for weeks or from many bites from a single incident.

952
00:55:54,400 --> 00:55:57,239
Speaker 1: So again, there are a lot of questions and a

953
00:55:57,320 --> 00:56:02,120
Speaker 1: lot of a lot of unanswered questions regarding this particular ailment.

954
00:56:03,320 --> 00:56:04,920
Speaker 1: But you can, you can, you can. I think that

955
00:56:05,000 --> 00:56:08,239
Speaker 1: helps to find the problem a little bit. Now. One

956
00:56:08,280 --> 00:56:11,400
Speaker 1: way that this problem has gotten even weirder in recent

957
00:56:11,520 --> 00:56:14,839
Speaker 1: years is that people outside the normal loan startick range

958
00:56:14,880 --> 00:56:18,120
Speaker 1: have started showing up with symptoms of the alpha gel allergy.

959
00:56:19,120 --> 00:56:22,200
Speaker 1: It's not exactly clear why this is uh, These people

960
00:56:22,280 --> 00:56:24,839
Speaker 1: may have like picked up lone star tick bites while

961
00:56:24,920 --> 00:56:29,080
Speaker 1: traveling into lone startik territory. Could be it or is

962
00:56:29,120 --> 00:56:32,440
Speaker 1: it that the lone startick is expanding its range? And

963
00:56:32,640 --> 00:56:34,799
Speaker 1: there are some clues, as we discussed a minute ago,

964
00:56:34,880 --> 00:56:37,080
Speaker 1: that this might be the case, since we already know

965
00:56:37,680 --> 00:56:40,719
Speaker 1: the loan startik has expanded its range significantly over the

966
00:56:40,800 --> 00:56:44,600
Speaker 1: last two or three decades. And if it's primary prey

967
00:56:44,680 --> 00:56:48,839
Speaker 1: animal is like white tailed deer and that's exploding all

968
00:56:48,920 --> 00:56:51,879
Speaker 1: over the place, wouldn't be all that hard to see

969
00:56:52,080 --> 00:56:56,880
Speaker 1: why the tick would be expanding. Indeed, another poorly understood

970
00:56:57,000 --> 00:56:59,520
Speaker 1: stood condition I think we may have mentioned it earlier

971
00:56:59,840 --> 00:57:02,600
Speaker 1: associated with the lone star tick is this starry disease,

972
00:57:02,680 --> 00:57:06,160
Speaker 1: which as we said, stands for Southern tick associated rash illness.

973
00:57:07,320 --> 00:57:09,879
Speaker 1: And and this just mainly manifests as like a red

974
00:57:10,040 --> 00:57:12,640
Speaker 1: bulls eye rash around the side of the bite that

975
00:57:12,760 --> 00:57:15,800
Speaker 1: expands to a diameter of about eight centimeters in some

976
00:57:15,960 --> 00:57:20,560
Speaker 1: way similar to lyme disease, but not the same disease. Now.

977
00:57:20,680 --> 00:57:22,960
Speaker 1: In in Bill Shoots a book, he he made a

978
00:57:23,040 --> 00:57:24,880
Speaker 1: couple of points about this. He said that one of

979
00:57:24,960 --> 00:57:27,480
Speaker 1: the plus sides. Is that's just that the star I

980
00:57:27,840 --> 00:57:31,600
Speaker 1: is milder than lyme disease and the other uh, the

981
00:57:31,760 --> 00:57:34,040
Speaker 1: the other plus here if you want to call it.

982
00:57:34,160 --> 00:57:37,720
Speaker 1: That is, according to him, the bite of the lone

983
00:57:37,760 --> 00:57:40,640
Speaker 1: star tike is more painful than many other varieties of tick,

984
00:57:41,080 --> 00:57:45,520
Speaker 1: giving you perhaps a heads up on on the on

985
00:57:45,640 --> 00:57:47,880
Speaker 1: the bite and the presence of the parasite, and giving

986
00:57:47,960 --> 00:57:52,000
Speaker 1: you because as we'll discuss this, one of the key

987
00:57:52,040 --> 00:57:54,320
Speaker 1: things with with ticks is if you have one attached

988
00:57:54,400 --> 00:57:56,920
Speaker 1: your body, you want to go ahead and get it off,

989
00:57:57,000 --> 00:57:59,280
Speaker 1: and you want to get it off in the correct fashion. Yeah.

990
00:57:59,360 --> 00:58:01,880
Speaker 1: Now we are about to get into some practical tick

991
00:58:02,000 --> 00:58:04,960
Speaker 1: tips in just a minute. But right before we do that,

992
00:58:05,040 --> 00:58:08,680
Speaker 1: I wanted to quickly note the most awful tick story

993
00:58:08,680 --> 00:58:10,840
Speaker 1: I've ever heard. It's even worse than the tick torture.

994
00:58:10,880 --> 00:58:13,439
Speaker 1: I think, just in case you were still considering going

995
00:58:13,520 --> 00:58:19,080
Speaker 1: outside this summer, Joe is going to dissuade you. Paper

996
00:58:19,160 --> 00:58:23,200
Speaker 1: published in two thousand one in the Archives of Ophthalmology.

997
00:58:24,120 --> 00:58:29,160
Speaker 1: I found this through an image search indirectly. Um. This

998
00:58:29,360 --> 00:58:33,840
Speaker 1: paper is titled lone star tick bite of the conjunctiva.

999
00:58:35,000 --> 00:58:38,480
Speaker 1: The conjunctiva. If you're not familiar. It's your eye as

1000
00:58:38,520 --> 00:58:43,440
Speaker 1: in conjunctive itis. Yes, so uh. They report two different

1001
00:58:43,480 --> 00:58:47,440
Speaker 1: cases of lone star tick bites to the eyeball in

1002
00:58:47,520 --> 00:58:50,160
Speaker 1: this both in the summer of two thousand the year

1003
00:58:50,240 --> 00:58:53,800
Speaker 1: two thousand, and both within a hundred mile radius of

1004
00:58:53,880 --> 00:58:58,160
Speaker 1: each other. Very odd. So, in July two thousand, a

1005
00:58:58,280 --> 00:59:00,920
Speaker 1: five year old girl showed up in an Arkansas hospital

1006
00:59:01,000 --> 00:59:03,720
Speaker 1: with a spot on the white of her eye. It

1007
00:59:03,880 --> 00:59:07,120
Speaker 1: was a lone Star tick sucking her eyeball. Fortunately, she

1008
00:59:07,280 --> 00:59:10,320
Speaker 1: was sedated and the tick was successfully removed. And then

1009
00:59:10,400 --> 00:59:13,200
Speaker 1: in August of two thousand, a two year old girl

1010
00:59:13,400 --> 00:59:15,959
Speaker 1: also showed up at a hospital within a hundred miles

1011
00:59:16,000 --> 00:59:18,440
Speaker 1: of the first one with a tick on her eyeball,

1012
00:59:18,480 --> 00:59:21,880
Speaker 1: again successfully removed. In both cases, the patient was fine.

1013
00:59:21,960 --> 00:59:23,840
Speaker 1: So you don't need to worry about these kids. They're

1014
00:59:23,920 --> 00:59:27,080
Speaker 1: they're all right. They how old would they be now?

1015
00:59:27,240 --> 00:59:29,320
Speaker 1: You know they're they're in their twenties. They're they're fine. Now,

1016
00:59:30,120 --> 00:59:32,320
Speaker 1: I mean, actually I don't know, but I assume they're fine.

1017
00:59:32,360 --> 00:59:35,680
Speaker 1: There's no reason to assume they're not fine. But yeah,

1018
00:59:35,760 --> 00:59:39,200
Speaker 1: crazy question, why so close together we're ticks? Deciding In

1019
00:59:39,280 --> 00:59:42,240
Speaker 1: the summer of two thousand in this region around Arkansas

1020
00:59:42,360 --> 00:59:44,880
Speaker 1: to start biting people's eyes or was there some kind

1021
00:59:44,880 --> 00:59:47,840
Speaker 1: of tick ritual going on? Are you just looking at

1022
00:59:47,840 --> 00:59:49,880
Speaker 1: the picture, Robert, Oh, yeah, I'm sorry, I have just

1023
00:59:50,280 --> 00:59:52,240
Speaker 1: we have. It's a black and white image too. It's

1024
00:59:52,280 --> 00:59:55,440
Speaker 1: not even the full color that's present for you on

1025
00:59:55,520 --> 00:59:59,320
Speaker 1: the screen. But yeah, okay, now that's the full color there. Yeah,

1026
00:59:59,400 --> 01:00:01,880
Speaker 1: it's it's serving. And on top of this, the case

1027
01:00:01,920 --> 01:00:04,919
Speaker 1: has to involve small children, which makes it even more horrific. Yeah,

1028
01:00:05,200 --> 01:00:08,720
Speaker 1: come on, ticks, have you no shame? Okay, well, I

1029
01:00:08,800 --> 01:00:11,840
Speaker 1: think we should finish up with some practical advice on

1030
01:00:11,960 --> 01:00:14,960
Speaker 1: how to avoid tick problems. Now, obviously this is not

1031
01:00:15,120 --> 01:00:18,840
Speaker 1: a medical advice show. We are not doctors. If your

1032
01:00:18,960 --> 01:00:22,080
Speaker 1: doctor tells you something conflicting with what we're saying, obviously

1033
01:00:22,160 --> 01:00:24,720
Speaker 1: trust the doctor, not us. But we're just trying to

1034
01:00:25,320 --> 01:00:28,240
Speaker 1: report on what major authorities, like the CDC you have

1035
01:00:28,400 --> 01:00:32,200
Speaker 1: to say about avoiding tick born illness. Um, So here

1036
01:00:32,240 --> 01:00:36,400
Speaker 1: are a few basic tick protection rules. So, first of all,

1037
01:00:36,480 --> 01:00:40,320
Speaker 1: never go outdoors, never go into the woodlands of of

1038
01:00:40,400 --> 01:00:43,240
Speaker 1: East Tennessee. You can't do that. That's true. If you're

1039
01:00:43,440 --> 01:00:47,920
Speaker 1: you're denying yourselves the wonders of the natural world. One

1040
01:00:47,960 --> 01:00:51,680
Speaker 1: thing you can do is while encountering the wonders of

1041
01:00:51,720 --> 01:00:55,080
Speaker 1: the natural world, you can certainly tuck your pants into

1042
01:00:55,120 --> 01:00:59,480
Speaker 1: your socks, wear socks, wear shoes, and uh, put on

1043
01:00:59,600 --> 01:01:03,000
Speaker 1: some d eat uh some bug spray with deet in it,

1044
01:01:03,160 --> 01:01:07,400
Speaker 1: generally on exposed skin. That stat coming to us from

1045
01:01:07,400 --> 01:01:10,840
Speaker 1: the University of Kentucky. Yeah, CDC recommends a minimum of

1046
01:01:11,680 --> 01:01:14,920
Speaker 1: solution of deet in your in your bug spray. Another

1047
01:01:15,040 --> 01:01:17,520
Speaker 1: thing that can help if you're out hiking around in

1048
01:01:17,520 --> 01:01:19,760
Speaker 1: the woods, because obviously you can't stay inside. I mean,

1049
01:01:19,840 --> 01:01:22,680
Speaker 1: it's beautiful out there. I love the woods. So one

1050
01:01:22,720 --> 01:01:24,640
Speaker 1: thing that does help is just stay on the trail,

1051
01:01:25,080 --> 01:01:28,640
Speaker 1: avoid walking through brush in a way that brings your

1052
01:01:28,680 --> 01:01:32,440
Speaker 1: body into lots of direct contact with plant matter. Now

1053
01:01:32,480 --> 01:01:34,280
Speaker 1: why does that work, Well, it helps in a little

1054
01:01:34,280 --> 01:01:37,560
Speaker 1: bit about the hunting strategy of ticks. Ticks can't fly

1055
01:01:38,240 --> 01:01:41,600
Speaker 1: or leap out at you like fleas or something. A

1056
01:01:41,880 --> 01:01:44,880
Speaker 1: hard ticks hunt for hosts with a trick called questing.

1057
01:01:46,160 --> 01:01:48,480
Speaker 1: Nice word, and what it means is they find a

1058
01:01:48,560 --> 01:01:51,000
Speaker 1: nice little spot on a piece of vegetation like a

1059
01:01:51,120 --> 01:01:54,520
Speaker 1: leaf or strand of grass, and they clutch that surface

1060
01:01:54,600 --> 01:01:57,200
Speaker 1: with their back legs and then they reach out with

1061
01:01:57,320 --> 01:01:59,680
Speaker 1: their front legs. And I want to add that that

1062
01:02:00,000 --> 01:02:04,080
Speaker 1: eggers use the same the same method resting. Yeah, so

1063
01:02:04,280 --> 01:02:07,560
Speaker 1: if you brush by coming into contact with this plant,

1064
01:02:07,640 --> 01:02:10,360
Speaker 1: matter where they're hanging out, it will grab hold of

1065
01:02:10,480 --> 01:02:13,320
Speaker 1: you with its front legs and hang on and then

1066
01:02:13,400 --> 01:02:15,960
Speaker 1: try to find a space to bite. So if you

1067
01:02:16,000 --> 01:02:18,240
Speaker 1: don't give them a chance to grab hold, it's much

1068
01:02:18,840 --> 01:02:21,240
Speaker 1: less likely that you're gonna get ticks. So does that

1069
01:02:21,360 --> 01:02:23,680
Speaker 1: make sense? You just don't push through the leaves, try

1070
01:02:23,760 --> 01:02:27,160
Speaker 1: to keep some distance between yourself and the plants. Well,

1071
01:02:27,200 --> 01:02:30,479
Speaker 1: I think that the way to translate this into into

1072
01:02:30,600 --> 01:02:33,440
Speaker 1: your encounter with the wilderness is if you're going on

1073
01:02:33,520 --> 01:02:37,640
Speaker 1: a hike, stay on the trail exactly. Don't go, you know,

1074
01:02:37,760 --> 01:02:41,480
Speaker 1: trouncing off into the into the into the waist high grass.

1075
01:02:42,120 --> 01:02:44,480
Speaker 1: Uh for you know, certainly to use the restroom. This

1076
01:02:44,680 --> 01:02:48,680
Speaker 1: is that's already bringing them mind too many horrific scenarios.

1077
01:02:49,360 --> 01:02:51,560
Speaker 1: Just stay on the path and hold it you get

1078
01:02:51,600 --> 01:02:54,280
Speaker 1: to an actual restroom, or just go on the trail.

1079
01:02:54,400 --> 01:02:56,880
Speaker 1: There's no shame. If someone of Jackson says, what are

1080
01:02:56,920 --> 01:02:59,280
Speaker 1: you doing? That's gross? You say, look there are ticks

1081
01:02:59,320 --> 01:03:02,560
Speaker 1: out there, triggers out there. Um, you can just look

1082
01:03:02,600 --> 01:03:06,480
Speaker 1: the other way while I finish. Exactly, it's all nature.

1083
01:03:07,520 --> 01:03:11,440
Speaker 1: Another thing. You can treat clothes with permethrin. CDC says, Uh.

1084
01:03:11,960 --> 01:03:14,480
Speaker 1: But let's say you've got a tick. All right, you've

1085
01:03:14,520 --> 01:03:17,040
Speaker 1: gone out, you realize you've got a tick. What to do?

1086
01:03:18,200 --> 01:03:20,680
Speaker 1: Find it and remove it as soon as possible. So

1087
01:03:20,760 --> 01:03:23,480
Speaker 1: it's important after you get done with a hike or

1088
01:03:23,520 --> 01:03:25,400
Speaker 1: being out in the woods or something, shower as soon

1089
01:03:25,480 --> 01:03:28,120
Speaker 1: as you get home from outdoor activity and search your body,

1090
01:03:28,280 --> 01:03:32,120
Speaker 1: clothes and your gear for ticks. And maybe even most importantly,

1091
01:03:32,160 --> 01:03:34,720
Speaker 1: if you take your pets with you, search your pets.

1092
01:03:35,320 --> 01:03:38,000
Speaker 1: I love my dog, but he is a tick magnet.

1093
01:03:38,520 --> 01:03:41,520
Speaker 1: He loves to It's it's almost as if he's directly

1094
01:03:41,680 --> 01:03:44,200
Speaker 1: avoiding the advice we just said a minute ago about

1095
01:03:44,240 --> 01:03:46,760
Speaker 1: staying in the middle of the trail because he wants

1096
01:03:46,840 --> 01:03:50,040
Speaker 1: to brush against all of the vegetation. It's like he's

1097
01:03:50,040 --> 01:03:54,280
Speaker 1: doing it on purpose. Yeah. Yeah, certainly acquaint yourself with

1098
01:03:54,360 --> 01:03:58,480
Speaker 1: your own body after a venture into tick land. And

1099
01:03:58,560 --> 01:04:01,280
Speaker 1: if you have a small child, that's so important. Uh

1100
01:04:01,640 --> 01:04:04,720
Speaker 1: look them over. Yeah, Like in my family, like already

1101
01:04:04,760 --> 01:04:07,160
Speaker 1: with my five year old. Uh. Tick check is just

1102
01:04:07,280 --> 01:04:10,640
Speaker 1: what you do after you've been around the woods. Yeah, Uh,

1103
01:04:10,920 --> 01:04:12,960
Speaker 1: not that hard to do. You just look around, make

1104
01:04:12,960 --> 01:04:15,280
Speaker 1: sure you don't have anything. Uh, let's say you do

1105
01:04:15,440 --> 01:04:18,480
Speaker 1: find one. You're back home. You've discovered a tick on

1106
01:04:18,600 --> 01:04:21,200
Speaker 1: your body. How to remove it? You you've probably heard

1107
01:04:21,240 --> 01:04:24,080
Speaker 1: a million different things. Put vasiline on it, put mayonnaise

1108
01:04:24,160 --> 01:04:26,080
Speaker 1: on it, kill it with fire, you know, use a

1109
01:04:26,280 --> 01:04:29,840
Speaker 1: use a lighter or a hot needle or something. Ceed says, C.

1110
01:04:30,040 --> 01:04:33,080
Speaker 1: D C says, don't bother, forget it all. Just get

1111
01:04:33,200 --> 01:04:35,080
Speaker 1: the thing off of you as fast as you can.

1112
01:04:35,880 --> 01:04:39,840
Speaker 1: And the method they recommend is tweezers. Get a pair

1113
01:04:39,920 --> 01:04:42,360
Speaker 1: of tweezers, and what you do is you grab the

1114
01:04:42,440 --> 01:04:45,520
Speaker 1: tick with tweezers as close down to the skin as

1115
01:04:45,560 --> 01:04:47,240
Speaker 1: you can. What you're trying to do is grab it

1116
01:04:47,400 --> 01:04:51,120
Speaker 1: by its head and not by its swelling abdomen, and

1117
01:04:51,240 --> 01:04:54,120
Speaker 1: you squeeze gently, trying not to crush it, and you

1118
01:04:54,240 --> 01:04:57,160
Speaker 1: pull it upward with a steady, gentle motion. And you

1119
01:04:57,200 --> 01:05:00,600
Speaker 1: don't twist, you don't jerk. You're trying not to break

1120
01:05:00,680 --> 01:05:04,240
Speaker 1: off the tick's mouth parts inside your skin. If you

1121
01:05:04,400 --> 01:05:06,840
Speaker 1: do break off the mouth parts inside your skin. You

1122
01:05:06,880 --> 01:05:09,280
Speaker 1: want to try to remove those with the tweezers as well.

1123
01:05:09,800 --> 01:05:12,720
Speaker 1: Then you want to clean the bite area with disinfectant

1124
01:05:12,760 --> 01:05:16,760
Speaker 1: like alcohol or iodine or soap and water. Once you've

1125
01:05:16,800 --> 01:05:20,080
Speaker 1: got a removed tick, do not crush it with your fingers,

1126
01:05:20,520 --> 01:05:22,760
Speaker 1: drop it in alcohol or some of their poison to

1127
01:05:22,840 --> 01:05:25,120
Speaker 1: safely kill it, or just drop it in the toilet

1128
01:05:25,200 --> 01:05:28,240
Speaker 1: and flush it down. And if you do get a

1129
01:05:28,320 --> 01:05:30,160
Speaker 1: tick bite and you get a rash or a fever

1130
01:05:30,280 --> 01:05:32,120
Speaker 1: within a few weeks of the bite, you see a

1131
01:05:32,200 --> 01:05:34,520
Speaker 1: doctor and tell them about it. Yes, And in the

1132
01:05:34,600 --> 01:05:37,000
Speaker 1: case of star I believe that can manifest it as

1133
01:05:37,040 --> 01:05:41,840
Speaker 1: soon as seven days. So so yeah, it's not once

1134
01:05:41,960 --> 01:05:45,400
Speaker 1: the tick is removed. Uh, keep an eye on how

1135
01:05:45,560 --> 01:05:50,240
Speaker 1: the bite area is behaving, yes, exactly, and also also

1136
01:05:50,360 --> 01:05:52,920
Speaker 1: keep an eye out for for general symptoms of signals.

1137
01:05:52,960 --> 01:05:55,560
Speaker 1: If you get headache, fever, things like that, see a doctor.

1138
01:05:55,640 --> 01:05:57,840
Speaker 1: Tell them you were bit by a tick, remember when

1139
01:05:57,880 --> 01:06:00,400
Speaker 1: you got bit. Especially if you can tell what the

1140
01:06:00,480 --> 01:06:05,480
Speaker 1: tick looks like, that'll help too. Yes, indeed, back if

1141
01:06:05,520 --> 01:06:07,440
Speaker 1: you were if you're drowning the thing in alcohol and

1142
01:06:07,520 --> 01:06:10,160
Speaker 1: not flushing it down the toilet, you could even hang

1143
01:06:10,240 --> 01:06:13,560
Speaker 1: on to the specimen. Should that become important later on, Hey,

1144
01:06:13,680 --> 01:06:16,440
Speaker 1: I got a shot glass full of whiskey and seventeen

1145
01:06:16,520 --> 01:06:19,000
Speaker 1: ticks f last summer in it. Yeah, I mean, don't

1146
01:06:19,000 --> 01:06:22,160
Speaker 1: get don't go crazy with it, don't start a tick collection. Um,

1147
01:06:23,000 --> 01:06:26,240
Speaker 1: we'll get into uncomfortable territory there, I think, pretty quickly.

1148
01:06:26,960 --> 01:06:30,320
Speaker 1: But making now, you could hang onto it, or I

1149
01:06:30,360 --> 01:06:32,000
Speaker 1: guess you could take a photo of it. That's maybe

1150
01:06:32,080 --> 01:06:35,600
Speaker 1: less grotesque if you have the appropriate you know, zoom

1151
01:06:35,800 --> 01:06:38,840
Speaker 1: on your your camera. I think the moral of today's

1152
01:06:38,920 --> 01:06:40,880
Speaker 1: story is that at some point in your life you

1153
01:06:41,040 --> 01:06:43,880
Speaker 1: will get a tick in your eyeball. Oh no, no, no,

1154
01:06:44,000 --> 01:06:47,560
Speaker 1: no no. I I think the argument is, don't worry

1155
01:06:47,560 --> 01:06:49,720
Speaker 1: about the ticks in the highball, don't worry about the

1156
01:06:50,440 --> 01:06:53,840
Speaker 1: the the exotic pits full of ticks, or even about

1157
01:06:53,920 --> 01:06:57,080
Speaker 1: the uh you know that the tick borne pathogens that

1158
01:06:57,160 --> 01:07:00,880
Speaker 1: have been uh that have been altered in Soviet bio

1159
01:07:00,960 --> 01:07:04,360
Speaker 1: weapons labs. But yeah, just the worry. Let even don't worry,

1160
01:07:04,400 --> 01:07:07,800
Speaker 1: but be aware of the everyday a threat posed by

1161
01:07:07,840 --> 01:07:12,280
Speaker 1: tickborn path Don't worry, be vigilant, safe, be vigilant. Ticks

1162
01:07:12,320 --> 01:07:13,840
Speaker 1: are a part of your world. Chiggers are a part

1163
01:07:13,880 --> 01:07:18,360
Speaker 1: of your world and just act accordingly. So there you

1164
01:07:18,440 --> 01:07:21,120
Speaker 1: have it, an introduction to the world of ticks and

1165
01:07:21,440 --> 01:07:24,320
Speaker 1: some of the mites, what you need to be aware of,

1166
01:07:24,520 --> 01:07:27,520
Speaker 1: what you need to to do to remain vigilant against them.

1167
01:07:27,880 --> 01:07:30,240
Speaker 1: I'm worried I may have gone overboard today and giving

1168
01:07:30,280 --> 01:07:33,680
Speaker 1: into my tick demonization feelings. So I know, I know,

1169
01:07:33,960 --> 01:07:35,600
Speaker 1: I know that's not what we do here. We don't

1170
01:07:35,680 --> 01:07:39,880
Speaker 1: demonize animals, even when they're scary. But but you've got

1171
01:07:40,000 --> 01:07:42,680
Speaker 1: to keep an open eye even if you don't hate them. Well,

1172
01:07:43,080 --> 01:07:45,480
Speaker 1: the thing is, they're coming after your blood. And it's

1173
01:07:45,560 --> 01:07:48,200
Speaker 1: like that scene in The Mosquito Coast where where Harrison

1174
01:07:48,280 --> 01:07:51,439
Speaker 1: Ford's the character kills the mosquito on the kid's neck

1175
01:07:51,800 --> 01:07:54,360
Speaker 1: and says, uh, says, that's that's your blood, not his,

1176
01:07:55,880 --> 01:07:57,920
Speaker 1: or I guess it would be hers. Right, it's a mosquito.

1177
01:07:58,320 --> 01:08:00,320
Speaker 1: I can't I can't remember the exact quote, but it's

1178
01:08:00,320 --> 01:08:04,480
Speaker 1: a valid point. Uh. Yes, you know, honor the natural world,

1179
01:08:05,400 --> 01:08:07,840
Speaker 1: be considerate in your dealings with other life forms. But

1180
01:08:07,920 --> 01:08:11,760
Speaker 1: if that life form is after your blood, you're gonna

1181
01:08:11,800 --> 01:08:14,120
Speaker 1: have to step to the threat. Right, that's where you

1182
01:08:14,200 --> 01:08:16,960
Speaker 1: draw the all right, and stay in the middle of

1183
01:08:17,000 --> 01:08:19,880
Speaker 1: the past. Indeed, Hey, if you want to check out

1184
01:08:19,960 --> 01:08:21,600
Speaker 1: more episodes of Stuff to Blow your Mind, head on

1185
01:08:21,680 --> 01:08:24,640
Speaker 1: over to stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. That's

1186
01:08:24,680 --> 01:08:27,639
Speaker 1: where you'll find all of the podcast episodes. You'll find

1187
01:08:27,680 --> 01:08:31,040
Speaker 1: some videos, you'll find a blog posts on various topics,

1188
01:08:31,320 --> 01:08:33,719
Speaker 1: and you'll find links out to our social media accounts

1189
01:08:33,760 --> 01:08:38,120
Speaker 1: like Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler, Instagram all of those. And hey,

1190
01:08:38,240 --> 01:08:41,519
Speaker 1: you can get the podcast pretty much anywhere you get

1191
01:08:41,600 --> 01:08:44,280
Speaker 1: podcasts these days, and wherever you get us, if there's

1192
01:08:44,360 --> 01:08:46,720
Speaker 1: a there's a place to leave a nice review to

1193
01:08:47,040 --> 01:08:49,960
Speaker 1: throw us a five star, six stars, seven stars, whatever

1194
01:08:50,000 --> 01:08:53,519
Speaker 1: the maximum star value. Maybe, oh, why don't you do that,

1195
01:08:53,640 --> 01:08:56,200
Speaker 1: because that'll that'll help the show out, and that will

1196
01:08:56,240 --> 01:08:58,880
Speaker 1: help that will enable us to continue to bring lots

1197
01:08:58,960 --> 01:09:02,040
Speaker 1: of disturbing con tent like this one, like this episode

1198
01:09:02,479 --> 01:09:04,200
Speaker 1: to your ear home. And if you want to get

1199
01:09:04,240 --> 01:09:06,519
Speaker 1: in touch with us directly, as always, you can email

1200
01:09:06,640 --> 01:09:09,519
Speaker 1: us at blow the Mind at how stuff works dot

1201
01:09:09,600 --> 01:09:21,960
Speaker 1: com for more on this and thousands of other topics.

1202
01:09:22,280 --> 01:09:23,599
Speaker 1: Is that how stuff works dot com