Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb, and I'm Julie Douglas. Julie,
Speaker 1: what is this thing that you have constructed on your
Speaker 1: side of the desk? Um, it's I guess it's kind
Speaker 1: of a note holder, and it's it's a made out
Speaker 1: of some sort of box that I found, and it's
Speaker 1: got paper clips that apparently aren't doing anything, but it
Speaker 1: is serving a purpose and a clothes pin apparently. Oh
Speaker 1: that's right. Well, I don't know where you got a
Speaker 1: clothes pin in the office, but well, some of us
Speaker 1: like to save energy. You are laundry here and floor balcony,
Speaker 1: we get a lot of wind out there. Yeah exactly, Yeah.
Speaker 1: I Um, I engaged in a bit of this is
Speaker 1: of course tool use that you're engaging in here, yes,
Speaker 1: and uh and I actually engaged in a little bit
Speaker 1: of this during our recent um great freeze that hit
Speaker 1: Atlanta Seddon Snowmageddon as some people call it. And uh,
Speaker 1: the situation was that we kept making hot tea because
Speaker 1: that was all we could basically, you know, it's just like,
Speaker 1: let's just what are we gonna do? Now, let's make
Speaker 1: hot tea? What we're gonna do? Now, let's play scrabble
Speaker 1: and let's make hot tea. And that was like, you know,
Speaker 1: four days of being trapped inside doing that, and our
Speaker 1: T ball was like the chain was broken on it.
Speaker 1: So ended up like constructing something where I took like
Speaker 1: the T ball and then I used some like some
Speaker 1: like butcher twine. Is a book called butter twine, Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: and uh, and like I used that to attach it
Speaker 1: to to like a metal skewer and uh and created
Speaker 1: a system of being of moving the T ball in
Speaker 1: and out of the the boiling kettle. So um wow,
Speaker 1: So I have to ask you, did you make so
Speaker 1: much tea that you guys broke it and then you
Speaker 1: needed to resort to tool using behavior. Yes, so you
Speaker 1: found out a little something about yourself during Snowmageddon. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I think I did. And it's it's interesting
Speaker 1: as we get into this and we start talking about
Speaker 1: tool use in the animal kingdom, you do see that
Speaker 1: captivity and uh, and we'll often bring out, um, the
Speaker 1: more innovative side of many animals. An animal that is
Speaker 1: not necessarily a tool user may become one in captivity.
Speaker 1: Uh well, and one that is capable of only say,
Speaker 1: like a very low level tool use is sometimes capable
Speaker 1: of higher level tool use if they're locked in a zoo. Okay,
Speaker 1: so boredom is the mother of invention, is what I'm hearing. Yes,
Speaker 1: also the mother of of injury. But but, but but
Speaker 1: luckily nothing went wrong with the the the t H
Speaker 1: ball invention that I came up with. So let's um,
Speaker 1: let's talk about tool use then. Yeah? Okay, so I
Speaker 1: guess we we normally think about tool use uh in primates,
Speaker 1: right and goodall witnessing a single blade of grass being
Speaker 1: stuck down into a termite mound and then a lovely
Speaker 1: snack emerging. Yeah, or just like you know, two thousand
Speaker 1: and one to Space Odyssey, monkeys picking up bones beating
Speaker 1: other monkeys on the head because weapons are ultimately ultimately tools,
Speaker 1: right right, But I think that we we we don't
Speaker 1: necessarily look to other animals and think, oh, well, I
Speaker 1: bet that they're an extraordinary tool user, right, But in
Speaker 1: fact they are. And my favorite example is the octopus. Actually,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, yeah, this one is is really cool? Now,
Speaker 1: this is uh an octopus? As we all know, does
Speaker 1: not have a a shell. There are various cephalopots that do.
Speaker 1: But the octopus depends on other methods of survival camouflage,
Speaker 1: of shape changing basically and uh and and being able
Speaker 1: to sort of creeper around and not draw a lout
Speaker 1: of attention to itself. Yeah. But what do you do
Speaker 1: if you've got across the sea floor and there's nothing
Speaker 1: to camouflage yourself against and I don't know, you've got
Speaker 1: another mile to go. Well, you could, I guess you could.
Speaker 1: If you could evolve, you could slowly develop some sort
Speaker 1: of a protective coating through uh, you know, through you know,
Speaker 1: one dead octopus after another dead octopus, until um, you
Speaker 1: end up you know, selecting that octopus that has a
Speaker 1: harder shell. Right, Yeah, yeah, I guess you could. Or
Speaker 1: in the short term, if you lived in Indonesia and
Speaker 1: you are an octopus and you saw a coconut on
Speaker 1: the bottom of the sea floor, you could take the
Speaker 1: two halves of it and you could crawl into it
Speaker 1: when you needed to and reassemble it. And no one
Speaker 1: would be the wiser, right, They'd be like, oh gosh,
Speaker 1: that that's not prey, that's just a stupid coconut, and
Speaker 1: I love that. I love that octopus is like, you
Speaker 1: know what this this is something that I can obscure
Speaker 1: myself in nobody's gonna know, and now I can resume
Speaker 1: my journey. Wow, that's really incredible. It's um and and
Speaker 1: and and it just goes to show that, I mean,
Speaker 1: all tool use really kind of close us into something
Speaker 1: to some serious cognition going on. Yeah, and an octopier
Speaker 1: pretty smart. As one of the reasons I me personally,
Speaker 1: I can't really eat them uh in sushi anymore. I
Speaker 1: just you know, I hear they're as smart as cats,
Speaker 1: you know, from various things. And then I look at
Speaker 1: my cat and I'm like, I wouldn't needt my cat
Speaker 1: on a californ in your role or yeah, if I
Speaker 1: did eat seafood, I have to say, just just the
Speaker 1: look of them, I don't know, it just seems it
Speaker 1: seems like a frightening proposition to have that in my mouth.
Speaker 1: But what I what I think is so cool too
Speaker 1: about this coke in that example is it totally reminded
Speaker 1: me of this invention. It's in Japan and have you
Speaker 1: ever seen this? It's this fold up coke machine. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: it's but I do really want to do an episode
Speaker 1: about amazing vending machines sometimes, so do all right, Okay,
Speaker 1: there's actually there's plenty of them, listeners. I think you
Speaker 1: wink wink, I think you might know we're talking about here.
Speaker 1: But this I love the idea of this, but it's
Speaker 1: super silly. I mean, it's flat packed, looks like a
Speaker 1: coke machine. When you unpack it, you hip yourself in
Speaker 1: it and then lo and behold you look like a
Speaker 1: plastic vending machine. So what happens when people put money
Speaker 1: into you or reaching to you for snacks? You have
Speaker 1: several choices in response. But I was thinking, you know
Speaker 1: that the octopus is is actually much more clever than
Speaker 1: us humans in trying to camouflage themselves on the streets,
Speaker 1: so to speak. Well, that's awesome. It's um, we're researching
Speaker 1: about this and a lot of tool use um. When
Speaker 1: it comes to you know, the brain comes down to
Speaker 1: something uh that we call body scheme schema schema. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and uh and this is uh, this idea has been
Speaker 1: around for about a hundred years and it's and it's
Speaker 1: the idea that our brains are just constantly processing visual
Speaker 1: tactile feedback about what our bodies are doing and how
Speaker 1: they're positioned, and you you create these different sort of
Speaker 1: versions of ourselves, you know. So like I like to
Speaker 1: think of it in terms of like martial arts movies,
Speaker 1: where like somebody goes into say like drunken monkey stance
Speaker 1: or or tiger stance, you know. But but we have
Speaker 1: but as tool users, we have a well as humans,
Speaker 1: we would have other stances like oh my goodness, don't
Speaker 1: hit me in the face of that ball stance or
Speaker 1: um or I'm gonna you know, I'm gonna chase the
Speaker 1: cat stands. That those you know, different body positions that
Speaker 1: are aimed towards particular tasks. But when you're throw in
Speaker 1: tools and you get all these differ different additional positions,
Speaker 1: you get like grumpy snow shoveler stance or intense polentis
Speaker 1: stir stands, toothbrusher stands. Don't forget rosota stands, the zota stands.
Speaker 1: It's that the other one that involves a lot of stirring. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I just know I'll be asked to stir something and
Speaker 1: and then I just I lose all memory of what
Speaker 1: I'm stirring. It's so it takes so long, delicious when
Speaker 1: it's done, but it's just it's quite quite an effort.
Speaker 1: But but anyway, um, so our brains are constantly you know, working,
Speaker 1: working this out, and it's it's it's definitely an instance
Speaker 1: of these tools becoming an extension of our bodies. They're
Speaker 1: a part of our body. Scam there, they become part
Speaker 1: of who we are. You know, we were used to
Speaker 1: hearing about this. One's like you hear people talking about
Speaker 1: like swordsmanship or golf, you know, and you hear it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: well you need to make the club an extension of
Speaker 1: your arm. Yeah, be one with the sword or something,
Speaker 1: you know. And that's exactly what's going on. Like the
Speaker 1: more you're you're able to, the better you are using
Speaker 1: a tool, the more the brain identifies it as a
Speaker 1: part of yourself, right right. And actually they were us
Speaker 1: on a study from the National Institute of Health on
Speaker 1: tool use tasks for toddlers, and they were talking about
Speaker 1: how toddlers um that we're using tools to act on themselves,
Speaker 1: like feed themselves, for instance. We're picking up on that
Speaker 1: and using that a lot more than externally. In other words,
Speaker 1: like you know, feeding Elmo some keenoir or something. Um.
Speaker 1: And so you do you see that that idea of
Speaker 1: it being an extension of yourself right there in that example,
Speaker 1: and that we automatically say, Okay, I'm a little toddler
Speaker 1: brain and I'm trying to figure this out for myself,
Speaker 1: and here's my spoon. Um. But you know, Elmo is
Speaker 1: not going to get his food until much later. But
Speaker 1: that brings me to this point. You know, we should
Speaker 1: probably talk exactly about what tool use is. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, it seems pretty obvious, but it's really defined
Speaker 1: as providing no benefit until they're used for a very
Speaker 1: specific purpose. So with animals, what's really cool about that
Speaker 1: is that it shows that the animal is capable of
Speaker 1: pre planning, advanced planning. Yeah, it's not just an animal, say,
Speaker 1: picking up a stick and beating random things with it.
Speaker 1: It's there's no purpose to that. So's that's not tool used. Now,
Speaker 1: something like that night develop into tool use in time.
Speaker 1: But but yeah, there's got to be a purpose in mind.
Speaker 1: That's right. We're saying a lot of cogitation going on.
Speaker 1: Cogitation party, um, and they're actually um, I've read that
Speaker 1: they're they're basically two types of tools. There is a
Speaker 1: what is good. Well, first, there's something called an artifact, right,
Speaker 1: An artifact is something that is crafted. For example, if
Speaker 1: a chimp, you know, like I say, we're all using
Speaker 1: like we used to seeing images of like a chimp
Speaker 1: sticking a poking a stick down a termite hole and
Speaker 1: coming up with termites to look off. Well, they've been
Speaker 1: Chimps have been known to chew the termite fishing stick
Speaker 1: so that it fits better into the holes. So they're
Speaker 1: creating an artific fact. Now, if they had not used
Speaker 1: their mouths to to alter it, they would have what
Speaker 1: is sometimes called a nature fact, which is kind of
Speaker 1: like just a found object tool like oh, here's a stick,
Speaker 1: I'll pick it up, I'll get some bugs on it
Speaker 1: and eat the bugs off the stick, but I haven't
Speaker 1: changed the stick. And then when it comes to these
Speaker 1: different artifacts, they're basically four levels. Uh. There is reduction
Speaker 1: where you reduce the mass of a functional object, like
Speaker 1: take the stick, choose something off of it, Now you
Speaker 1: can use it. Then there's conjunction where you combine two
Speaker 1: or more units to make a tool. An example of
Speaker 1: this where it would be you take like looking at
Speaker 1: early humans, Like you take a stone, sharpen it into something,
Speaker 1: and then you attach it to a stick to make
Speaker 1: a spear. Ghammo, you have a conjunction tool, and then
Speaker 1: they're the third level replica replication. This would be where
Speaker 1: it's conjunction but with two or more similar units. So
Speaker 1: if you made a two headed spear, you know, you're, you're, you're.
Speaker 1: You have two different, three different things going on there,
Speaker 1: and then there's a linkage. And this is the most
Speaker 1: more complicated form. And this is where you have physically
Speaker 1: distinct forms used in combination. And that would be like
Speaker 1: if you made a bow and you made an arrow.
Speaker 1: Bow and arrow are both rather different, but together you
Speaker 1: have a a single um tool that's very useful to
Speaker 1: early hunters. Okay, actually that was making me think about elephants. Um.
Speaker 1: I know that in South Africa, it was observed that
Speaker 1: an elephant, after digging a hole and drinking water and
Speaker 1: presumably expitting that water back in, stripped bark from a
Speaker 1: nearby tree and then chewed it into a large ball,
Speaker 1: so transforming it, and then plug the hole and covered
Speaker 1: it with sand, So essentially that the elephant was making
Speaker 1: m a canteen. Yeah, and then taking that that ball
Speaker 1: out again and slurping it up again. So that's that's
Speaker 1: something definitely the elephant transformed its environment in order to
Speaker 1: create this kind of groovy canteen. Wow. And yeah, and
Speaker 1: that's an elephant using like a level two artifact, right right. Um.
Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier about you know, how captivity can change
Speaker 1: the level of tool use involved. We see that, um
Speaker 1: with the Capucian monkeys. Um, if you've watched if you
Speaker 1: watched Life, the awesome Discovery slash BBC show, there's you know,
Speaker 1: great scenes in that and and various other documentaries that
Speaker 1: show these these guys taking rocks and using them to
Speaker 1: bust open nuts so they can eat the inside. And
Speaker 1: they're very selective about their rocks, right, it's no no
Speaker 1: rock will do right, and it takes them a while
Speaker 1: to learn how to do it, like they're there are
Speaker 1: also lots of cool you know, generally you see lots
Speaker 1: of footage of the younger ones trying to do it
Speaker 1: and just failing miserably, like picking the wrong stones, you know,
Speaker 1: et cetera. But uh, but the cool thing is that
Speaker 1: they can actually they've actually been seen a craft tools
Speaker 1: and captivity instead of because the rock that they're beating
Speaker 1: the nutwi is just that's a nature of fact, but
Speaker 1: ends captivity. Sometimes they make artifacts. They've been seen to
Speaker 1: sticking two pieces of straw together to make a longer
Speaker 1: probe to reach things that are outside of the cage.
Speaker 1: So so, so that's really cool. Again, you know, you captivity, boredom, invention,
Speaker 1: creative mayhem, as in the case with actually again with
Speaker 1: the octopive. I know there have been a couple of
Speaker 1: different instances in captivity that they've done some stuff, And
Speaker 1: one was at the Sona Santa Monica Pire Aquarium. There
Speaker 1: was a female California two spotted octopus who swam to
Speaker 1: the top of her tank, disassembled the valve with her arm,
Speaker 1: and then released two hundred gallons of seawater into nearby
Speaker 1: exhibits and offices. Yeah, so I mean that's pretty crazy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And then I understand the same octopus stole somebody's wallet,
Speaker 1: um made a xerox of their their driver's license, and
Speaker 1: was able to skip the entire state. Like I think
Speaker 1: they're still living in Nevada. Yeah I heard that too,
Speaker 1: but actually you say that, and it did make me think, like,
Speaker 1: what's going on in the octopus mind there. I mean,
Speaker 1: do you think that they're swimming around going, you know what?
Speaker 1: I need to show all these other sea creatures who's
Speaker 1: the boss here and what sort of force I have
Speaker 1: and the power that I have in this aquarium. I'm
Speaker 1: going to flood this place. O. Man, It's like a
Speaker 1: like rock Stars trashing a hotel room. Yeah, totally, and
Speaker 1: that's what I like. Pretty great. There was another one
Speaker 1: UM who actually disassembled a robot. There was a Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's this little robot puttering around the aquarium. I don't
Speaker 1: know why they put it in there, but piece by
Speaker 1: piece it was. That is awesome. Yeah. I've seen some
Speaker 1: cool videos of polar bears um going and they have
Speaker 1: these like ice flow robots. I posted on the Facebook
Speaker 1: A want back. But they have like these little robots
Speaker 1: that are disguised just like chunks of ice and they
Speaker 1: either flowed or they sort of crawl around on the ice.
Speaker 1: But polar bears, you know, there's not I guess there's
Speaker 1: not a lot to do. They're curious animals. They'll see
Speaker 1: this man end up just tearing it to pieces. Of
Speaker 1: course they're like, what is this? I need to help
Speaker 1: bear come into my realm and and I think it's
Speaker 1: going to get away. That's right, I'll show you. Um.
Speaker 1: But again, octopy really smart creatures obviously, And another really
Speaker 1: cool thing about them is that they use their section
Speaker 1: comps like pincers like we do. And they have so
Speaker 1: many neurons actually firing in their arms and and neuron
Speaker 1: neuron power. I guess you could say that they can
Speaker 1: take every single one of those suckers and make them pincers,
Speaker 1: which just really like blows our ability out of the
Speaker 1: water there no pun intended. But a lot of this
Speaker 1: is because these guys have like their ganglia is is
Speaker 1: uh is, all grouped together, whereas with the molluskin nervous
Speaker 1: system in other creatures like clams, for instance, they're all
Speaker 1: over the place. They're widely dispersed. But you don't see
Speaker 1: clams using a lot of tools. No, no, they don't. Sorry,
Speaker 1: they might have a lovely pearl, but that's about it. Um.
Speaker 1: But that's the cool thing about the octopia that they
Speaker 1: do have this group of ganglia so to speak, and
Speaker 1: that gives them the edge over other cephalodes I suppose. Now,
Speaker 1: another interesting critter in the ocean that's been known to
Speaker 1: use tools, as of course the dolphin, which comes as
Speaker 1: less a surprise because everybody's on the you know, especially
Speaker 1: thanks to John c. Lily. I was about to say, like, like,
Speaker 1: I have to have to say like this again to
Speaker 1: to to remind people who may or may not have
Speaker 1: heard the podcast that we did on the Strange Life
Speaker 1: Lives of Scientists. Uh. John cy Lily worked extensively with dolphins,
Speaker 1: and what we know is that dolphins can actually court
Speaker 1: other humans given the right circumstances. Yeah. He uh, I
Speaker 1: mean he's he's one of them. You really have to
Speaker 1: trace the whole dolphin mania and our in a lot
Speaker 1: of our cultural respect for dolphins back to this guy,
Speaker 1: though he definitely had some made some very questionable choices
Speaker 1: in his research. Um. But but yeah, so to today,
Speaker 1: to you know, the post Flipper era, it comes as
Speaker 1: no surprise that, yeah, dolphins can use tools. Yeah, of
Speaker 1: course they can court us. That can flash us, you know,
Speaker 1: the flashes of the oceans. Um. But the tool that
Speaker 1: they use is really cool yeah sponges right, yeah, which
Speaker 1: they used to stir the ocean bottom sand uh, to
Speaker 1: uncover and disorient prey. Yeah. And the really cool thing
Speaker 1: about this is that researchers have found that it's a
Speaker 1: hunting technique that originated in a single female and has
Speaker 1: passed from mother to daughter. Yeah, And what they did
Speaker 1: is they analyze the mitochondrial DNA, which is the DNA
Speaker 1: passed down by females, and they found that that the
Speaker 1: thirteen spongers and one d seventy two non spongers. They
Speaker 1: found the trait appeared to be passed on mostly within
Speaker 1: a single family line and from mother to daughter, and
Speaker 1: that sponging most likely originated in a recent ancestor. So
Speaker 1: this is sort of a new thing for them. Um,
Speaker 1: And they say, well, okay, why what about the males
Speaker 1: have coming? This isn't happening with them. And apparently they
Speaker 1: hypothesized that male bottlenose dolphins tend to form close bonds
Speaker 1: with other males and so those alliances aren't really seated
Speaker 1: to seabed foraging since it's time consuming and it's a
Speaker 1: solitary activity. I don't That seems kind a weak sauce
Speaker 1: to me in terms of a theory, but well, it
Speaker 1: reminds me a little bit of the the the cheetahs
Speaker 1: that bring down ostriches and uh that it's covered in
Speaker 1: one of the episodes of life where uh, since it's
Speaker 1: only only the males doing it, Uh, it's not getting
Speaker 1: passed on because the male cheatahs are not involved in
Speaker 1: uh in rearing and and and raising of yawns. So
Speaker 1: so yeah, it's interesting to think. It's like it's one
Speaker 1: thing to develop to be able to to to develop
Speaker 1: tool use, but you've got to be able to pass
Speaker 1: it on. It's got to you know, because I guess
Speaker 1: conceive what you could have have an animal out there
Speaker 1: that that learns to use a tool, But is it
Speaker 1: is it using it a is it using it a lot?
Speaker 1: And be is it taking that and passing it on
Speaker 1: to the next generation to where it becomes like standard practice,
Speaker 1: right like you seem like you do. Another example of
Speaker 1: being in captivity is I remember working at the zoo
Speaker 1: um and finding out that the orangutans there were uh
Speaker 1: trying to get out of the enclosure. Of course, as
Speaker 1: they all tried to all the primates do, and the
Speaker 1: first generation would just get electrocuted from the wire right,
Speaker 1: And they did that, I don't know, maybe like five times,
Speaker 1: and they said, okay, I'm gonna stop. The second generation. Uh,
Speaker 1: they actually taught them like the wires hot be careful
Speaker 1: and started, and so they started to try to build
Speaker 1: things to get over the fence, and they were unsuccessful.
Speaker 1: And then the third generation again looked at all of
Speaker 1: this going on and realized that they could actually like
Speaker 1: short the wire by jumping on the I guess like
Speaker 1: a tree, I can't remember exactly what it was, and
Speaker 1: so they could then escape the enclosure that way. So
Speaker 1: there you go. Yeah, there's a there's a there's a
Speaker 1: really interesting recent radio Lab episode that dealt would a
Speaker 1: again with the orangutanks trying to escape their their enclosure.
Speaker 1: And this one involved like an orangutank that was apparently
Speaker 1: using a little piece of metal to pick a lock.
Speaker 1: So it's it's it's incredible what the higher primates can
Speaker 1: it up to. Other examples from the Animal Kingdom, you
Speaker 1: have gorillas that's sometimes use walking sticks. Then they'll use
Speaker 1: them to test the depth of water to keep their
Speaker 1: balance as they cross, which is really cool looking and
Speaker 1: I've seen that before. If you go to YouTube you
Speaker 1: can probably find it, especially when they take it and
Speaker 1: they shake it at the younger gorillas and tell them
Speaker 1: to to get off their lawn. Um, you have a
Speaker 1: chimpanzees using clubs. There was another interesting recent case where
Speaker 1: a chimpanzee to zoo was like stockpiling rocks to throw
Speaker 1: because it was old and grumpy, apparently to throw at
Speaker 1: the zoo visitors. I can advance planning, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: if you're going to use as a projectile, Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: some thought that needs to go in there, poor zoo goers. Um.
Speaker 1: And of course we mentioned chimps foraging um and uh
Speaker 1: and and also a macaques using rocks to bust open nuts. Um.
Speaker 1: Some more interesting examples, This was one I had never
Speaker 1: heard of before, but up naked mole rats crafting masks.
Speaker 1: And first of all, I love naked mole rats, Like
Speaker 1: they're just an amazing animal. If you get to see
Speaker 1: some of the zoo, definitely see them because they're like
Speaker 1: they're living in like a hive environment. There's they're naked,
Speaker 1: they're funny looking, they walk backwards, they there's just they're
Speaker 1: just a complete wind as far as as the animals go.
Speaker 1: But so but they have these powerful protruding teeth that
Speaker 1: they used to burrow, and their lips are on the
Speaker 1: inside like behind their teeth and all. Um. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: they're they're really crazy looking. And and and since they're naked,
Speaker 1: they all have to sleep in big piles to keep
Speaker 1: their body heat. Going on, I'm gonna make a joke there,
Speaker 1: but but they but to keep their lungs U up clear.
Speaker 1: Some of the scientists have observed the mole rats um
Speaker 1: placing wood shavings behind their teeth in front of those
Speaker 1: lips to create like a basically a simple mask. I mean,
Speaker 1: it doesn't look you know, when I say mole rats
Speaker 1: with ask, it may sound like they're creating like big
Speaker 1: tribal uh you know, masks. It's not really the case.
Speaker 1: But they're they're crudely using uh you know, little wood
Speaker 1: shavings to help protect their face. So yeah, I read
Speaker 1: about that. That is pretty cool. And and then with humans,
Speaker 1: of course, our tool uses just all over the place
Speaker 1: and has been like just an important part of our
Speaker 1: our evolution. Like their studies that have that that relate
Speaker 1: to dart throwing, like all the like, our risks are
Speaker 1: really complicated. Um in the dart throwing motion, is that
Speaker 1: the scenario that that that is getting a fair amount
Speaker 1: of study because the evolution of these amazing risks we
Speaker 1: have apparently has a lot to do with our ability
Speaker 1: to use tools. So the dart throwing is this like, Uh,
Speaker 1: did this come with the advent of pubs? Yes, ancient
Speaker 1: caveman pubs where where they they learned to to brew
Speaker 1: a hard cider and uh, and then they started a
Speaker 1: plain dark All right, you'd have to establish your prowess
Speaker 1: with the darts, and therefore we have a nice complicated
Speaker 1: risk to think. No, that's completely not true. But hey,
Speaker 1: speaking of creatures developing things like uh, pubs and hard cider,
Speaker 1: we have some listener mail uh and it is what
Speaker 1: I have here is some stuff related to our recent
Speaker 1: podcast on animal junkies or Junkies the Animal Kingdom, which
Speaker 1: received a fair amount of feedback. We're not able to
Speaker 1: read everything, but the first one, this one I was
Speaker 1: really excited to get because it comes from Jana Uh
Speaker 1: in Newfoundland, Canada. Um, and we're I spent part of
Speaker 1: my childhood. I mentioned mentioned this in in the podcast
Speaker 1: when we're talking about mooses or moose mooses. Yeah, she says, Hello,
Speaker 1: I'm from rural Newfoundland, Canada. First of all, I'm glad
Speaker 1: to hear you lived here once. Plus I would like
Speaker 1: to second what you said about about the moose mooses here. Sorry,
Speaker 1: we have hundreds of moose accidents a year here and
Speaker 1: some of these often result in death, which is always
Speaker 1: sad and unnecessary. The moose come out out to the
Speaker 1: highway to lick the salt on the road, that is
Speaker 1: that's put on the road to reduce ice. Many people
Speaker 1: here have have started a group to get the government
Speaker 1: to allow more moose hunting license if they're extremely overpopulated,
Speaker 1: uh and put up moose fences along the main highway
Speaker 1: to reduce accidents. Just thought this is another cool but
Speaker 1: sad junkie story. That's interesting. Yeah, because you have it's twofold.
Speaker 1: You have the the the moose coming in to eat
Speaker 1: the salt and then uh becoming a pest to uh
Speaker 1: well becoming a pest. Two drivers though, I guess you
Speaker 1: could say the drivers of the pest and also where
Speaker 1: you know they're the ones that are responsible for the overpopulation.
Speaker 1: But anyway, it's great to hear from somebody in Newfoundland
Speaker 1: your Yeah. Um. We also heard from um um a
Speaker 1: listener by the name of Craig who grew up in Chattanooga, Tennessee,
Speaker 1: and uh he let us know that he used to
Speaker 1: live in a neighborhood called Bramblewood, so called because of
Speaker 1: a very large BlackBerry bramble and uh uh they weren't
Speaker 1: apparently weren't able to pick all of the blackberries, so
Speaker 1: they said, uh says the berries we couldn't pick would
Speaker 1: ferm it in the summer sun and seem to attract
Speaker 1: animals from all over. As the more rotten the fruit got,
Speaker 1: the more birds you would see sluggishly hopping around the
Speaker 1: ground or just collapsed in a heap on a branch.
Speaker 1: The rodents got in on the act as well, and
Speaker 1: it was quite a sight to see startled squirrels leaping
Speaker 1: for branches and missing. All This uh concentration of slow
Speaker 1: moving prey eventually attractive snakes, and by the end of
Speaker 1: BlackBerry season you could always find several snakes lying beneath
Speaker 1: the brambles with bulges in their bodies. It's hard to
Speaker 1: tell if a snake is drunk, but if you were
Speaker 1: going to uh going to ever get one to consume alcohol,
Speaker 1: I suppose this would have to have been the way.
Speaker 1: So that was I love that because we obviously Atlantas
Speaker 1: in the South and we know those those uh warm,
Speaker 1: crazy hot summers and I can just imagine all of
Speaker 1: these creatures laying around, you know, drunk on their on
Speaker 1: their BlackBerry brambles and getting eaten by snakes. It's happened
Speaker 1: to friends of mine, doesn't Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna say
Speaker 1: it has like a very like Faulkner esque ring in
Speaker 1: the Animal Kingdom and uh and then on this is
Speaker 1: actually on our Facebook page, Oe. We had to listen
Speaker 1: by the name of Cynthia, who was inspired by your
Speaker 1: mention of how cat nip or the nip uma is
Speaker 1: sometimes uh or at least used to be used as
Speaker 1: a t for humans. So she says, quote, thanks to
Speaker 1: the Animal a Junkie's podcast, I brewed some catnip tea
Speaker 1: and gave it to my kiddies yesterday with some pretty
Speaker 1: excellent results. I would definitely be doing that again. Thanks
Speaker 1: for the idea. I love the podcast, and so I
Speaker 1: had to get more details on that. So I asked
Speaker 1: a few questions and she she provided these details. She says, well,
Speaker 1: I deluded the t two to one because I didn't
Speaker 1: want to overdo it, so they didn't finish all of
Speaker 1: the deluded stuff. I saved the rest for next time,
Speaker 1: but I left the tea cup with the dregs in
Speaker 1: it on the ground as well, and that was gone
Speaker 1: in a couple of seconds. Then there were just two
Speaker 1: cats rubbing their faces on the water bowl and around it.
Speaker 1: You gotta love it. Yeah, yeah, I have to say
Speaker 1: that listeners don't try this at home. Kids, don't try
Speaker 1: this home because I know that Cynthia is an expert
Speaker 1: key brewer. Yeah, yeah, don't don't. Yeah, this is and
Speaker 1: this is an experiment carried off vira own free will.
Speaker 1: We did not contradate. We didn't at all. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: just don't want to be responsible for any uh you know,
Speaker 1: weird key related um epidemics out there, marauding cats, gangs
Speaker 1: of marauding cats. Yeah. So there you have it. If
Speaker 1: you have any thing to add about animal john kies,
Speaker 1: about animal tool users, or even like your own children
Speaker 1: learning to use tools. I find that fascinating as well. Um,
Speaker 1: then then you know, let us know. You can find
Speaker 1: us on Facebook and Twitter is Blow the Mind and
Speaker 1: we frequently update that with all sorts of cool links
Speaker 1: to how stuff works content, as well as content from
Speaker 1: elsewhere around the web, and you can always drop us
Speaker 1: a line at Blow the Mind at House to forks
Speaker 1: dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics.
Speaker 1: Is that how stuff works dot com. To learn more
Speaker 1: about the podcast, click on the podcast icon in the
Speaker 1: upper right corner of our homepage. The How Stuff Works
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