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Speaker 1: Welcome to Creature, feature production of I Heart Radio. I'm

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Speaker 1: your host of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology

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Speaker 1: and evolutionary biology, and today on the show cyclones, swarms

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Speaker 1: and murmurations or zooming way out and looking at animals

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Speaker 1: not as individuals but as herds, colonies, crowds, and flocks.

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Speaker 1: And we're going to find out that animals, including human animals,

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Speaker 1: share more in common with particles found in physics than

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Speaker 1: we may like to believe. Discover this and more as

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Speaker 1: we answer the age old question when doesn't aunt mosh

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Speaker 1: pit get deadly? Joining me today to talk about the

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Speaker 1: particle physics of bugs, reindeer, birds, and humans is particle

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Speaker 1: physicist and co host of Daniel and Jorge Explained the

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Speaker 1: universe Daniel Whitson, Welcome, Hi, Katie. Think very much, but

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Speaker 1: I have to admit it's been a long time since

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Speaker 1: I've been in a mosh pit with humans, particles or ants.

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Speaker 1: Is that all right? That is okay. I'm a fan

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Speaker 1: of metal, but I've never been in a mash pit

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Speaker 1: because it terrifies me. So I have spent a lot

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Speaker 1: of time in Europe driving in circles in one of

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Speaker 1: those roundabout yes, the cyclone. It's called the American trap here.

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Speaker 1: I'm so excited to have you on for this episode

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Speaker 1: because it's one of those times where usually I kind

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Speaker 1: of focus on the individual animals behavior, their biology. Maybe

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Speaker 1: when I zoom out, I'm kind of talking about evolution,

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Speaker 1: but in this case, it's looking at groups of animals

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Speaker 1: and what happens when you have this massive swarm or

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Speaker 1: a flock or herd, and how animals start to behave

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Speaker 1: in ways that can be eerily un animal like and

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Speaker 1: more like a particle, even like sub atomic part of

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Speaker 1: holes or or elementary particles. And it's it's I think

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Speaker 1: it's fascinating and a little spooky. Yeah. Well, one of

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Speaker 1: the amazing things that happens in physics is that you

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Speaker 1: have these tiny little particles which have certain behaviors, but

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Speaker 1: then when you get a lot of them together a thousand,

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Speaker 1: a million, ten to the twenty seven, new behaviors emerge.

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Speaker 1: You know, you get things like phases, liquids and crystals

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Speaker 1: and gases and plasmas that can do all sorts of

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Speaker 1: crazy things that particles themselves can't do. So I'm very

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Speaker 1: excited if we are now talking about emerging properties of animals,

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Speaker 1: or we're gonna be talking about like liquid ants and

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Speaker 1: crystals of reindeers and stuff like that pretty much. So, yeah,

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Speaker 1: animals have extremely interesting behaviors as individuals. But what happens

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Speaker 1: when individuals get together as a group. There's something very strange.

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Speaker 1: You get these group dynamics where the individual becomes part

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Speaker 1: of a larger whole, like a single molecule in a

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Speaker 1: stream of water. Er and the ways that groups of

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Speaker 1: animals behave, such as herds, flock, swarms, and even human crowds,

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Speaker 1: is uncannily like water or a fluid or even a gas.

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Speaker 1: It acts like it is a new thing, not just

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Speaker 1: a group of something like reindeer, but a new phenomenon

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Speaker 1: that is much greater than each individual reindeer, which is

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Speaker 1: I suppose very inspiring speech to reindeer. But yeah, that

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Speaker 1: is what we are talking about right now. Let's talk

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Speaker 1: about cyclones. So a weather cyclone forms when a core

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Speaker 1: of low atmospheric pressure causes the air currents to basically

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Speaker 1: like swirl around it kind of like water going down

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Speaker 1: a drain. But there are all sorts of cyclone like

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Speaker 1: activity in the universe. Uh, what I mean I am

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Speaker 1: not a physicist, so maybe this is wrong, but it

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Speaker 1: seems like the Milky Way kind of circles around a center,

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Speaker 1: like a big, very slow, but very huge cyclone. Yeah. Absolutely,

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Speaker 1: the cyclones are everywhere in the universe. It's super fascinating.

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Speaker 1: And it's typically, as you say, you have some low

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Speaker 1: pressure region or some force pulling you towards the center.

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Speaker 1: So in the case of a hurricane, you have like

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Speaker 1: warm water in the ocean which heats and moistens up

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Speaker 1: the air above it, which rises and creates this low

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Speaker 1: pressure center and things rush in. And you might wonder like, well,

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Speaker 1: why does a hurricane spin. Why doesn't everything just float

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Speaker 1: towards the center in straight lines, And the answer is

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Speaker 1: that the Earth spins, and this creates this weird effect,

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Speaker 1: this corioles effect, because winds at different latitudes are traveling

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Speaker 1: at different speeds, and so, for example, the equator is

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Speaker 1: traveling faster than other latitudes just because it's further away

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Speaker 1: from the axis of the Earth. And so if you

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Speaker 1: have something which is on the same scale as the Earth,

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Speaker 1: then you know particles moving away from the equator are faster,

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Speaker 1: and that makes the whole thing spin, which means that

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Speaker 1: on the other side of the Earth, they actually do

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Speaker 1: spin the opposite direction. It's not true that if you

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Speaker 1: flush your toilet in Australia it spins the other way.

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Speaker 1: But cyclones really do spin the other way on the

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Speaker 1: southern hemisphere. So a really big toilet, maybe it would

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Speaker 1: spin the other direction. Come on, Australia, you just called

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Speaker 1: I think you just called Australia a big toilet. Oh no,

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Speaker 1: I would never It's more like a giant Petrie dish

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Speaker 1: filled with the most dangerous animals in the world. But

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Speaker 1: I love I love you Australia, I really do. And

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Speaker 1: it's not something that's limited to Earth. We see cyclones

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Speaker 1: on Mars and dust storms. There are cyclones on Saturn.

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Speaker 1: You know, the Great Red Spot is like the biggest

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Speaker 1: storm in the Solar System. That's a cyclone. So you're right,

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Speaker 1: this sort of swarthy behavior is all over the universe

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Speaker 1: and also in animals as well. So, uh, the first

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Speaker 1: thing that we're going to talk about is actually we're

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Speaker 1: starting with a very small animal, one of the you know,

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Speaker 1: I wouldn't say one of the smallest animals, because of

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Speaker 1: course there are so many teeny tiny microscopic animals but

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Speaker 1: we're talking about ants. So uh, there is something called

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Speaker 1: an ant mill or death spiral, which I'll let you

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Speaker 1: decide which one would be the better metal band album name.

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Speaker 1: But what this looks like is a spiral of ants, uh,

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Speaker 1: circling around and around. Usually there's like a pile of

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Speaker 1: collapsed ants in the center. It's like this moustrum, like

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Speaker 1: this hurricane of ants. And they can basically do this

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Speaker 1: behavior until they die. So they form this cyclone and

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Speaker 1: keep walking around and around until they collapse and die

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Speaker 1: of exhaust gin. And this raises the question of like,

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Speaker 1: good God, why would they do this? So our aunts

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Speaker 1: really just like little mental robots that will follow the

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Speaker 1: instructions from pheromones even to their death pretty much. So yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's interesting because aunt colonies are quite intelligent each individual aunt.

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Speaker 1: While I hesitate to call any animal like stupid, they

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Speaker 1: it's not so much that they're stupid, but they depend

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Speaker 1: on a set of rules guided by their sensory abilities,

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Speaker 1: and they will they simply lack the perspective to know

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Speaker 1: that they are in a death spiral. So the key

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Speaker 1: thing is that this isn't just any ant that will

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Speaker 1: do this. This is done specifically by army ants. So

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Speaker 1: army ants, also known as legionary ants, is a name

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Speaker 1: for over two hundred species of ants. They are related

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Speaker 1: and they all show similar behaviors, although it's thought that

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Speaker 1: these behaviors may have evolved many different times in a

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Speaker 1: case of massive parallel evolution, which is always really fascinating

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Speaker 1: because if you have related animals and they're very similar

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Speaker 1: and they have similar behaviors, you assume that they it's

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Speaker 1: basically a tree branching off evolutionarily, instead of basically having

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Speaker 1: like many many different types of individual parallel evolution without

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Speaker 1: necessarily all sort of flowing along the same evolutionary path. Well,

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Speaker 1: I think you said something really interesting a minute ago

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Speaker 1: about how behavior emerges in ants, that the individual ants

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Speaker 1: are kind of dumb, but together they can be smart.

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Speaker 1: I think that's just another example of this like emergent phenomena,

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Speaker 1: where the individual pieces are doing one thing, but together

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Speaker 1: they're doing something really qualitatively totally different. Like our neurons

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Speaker 1: individually are not that smart, and some of them can

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Speaker 1: make decisions that lead you to your death, you know,

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Speaker 1: press the metal, press the pedal to the metal on

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Speaker 1: the highway or something, but collectively we do have some intelligence.

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Speaker 1: So that's interesting that ants can have both intelligence emerge

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Speaker 1: and also these weird death spirals emerge. Yeah, yeah, it is.

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Speaker 1: It's definitely a double edged toward this group behavior. It

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Speaker 1: can lead to an emergent greater intelligence, but it can

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Speaker 1: also lack the perspective that allows them to see basically, oh,

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Speaker 1: this is a bad situation, and so why doesn't this

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Speaker 1: die out evolutionarily? Like, if this leads to mass death

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Speaker 1: of them, you think that they wouldn't propagate this behavior. Well,

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Speaker 1: that's what's interesting is because typically the very things that

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Speaker 1: make them such a successful species and typical circumstances is

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Speaker 1: what occasionally will lead them to this death spiral. So

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Speaker 1: army ants, like any other kind of aunt, have hierarchical you,

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Speaker 1: so colonies they have a single queen, worker ants and

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Speaker 1: soldier ants. These are all females, and the soldier ants

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Speaker 1: are like these beefy ants with large mandibles. The only

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Speaker 1: male ants in the colony are there for reproduction. They

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Speaker 1: have wings, tubby bodies, and in fact they're called sausage

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Speaker 1: ants because entomologists are really judgmental. It's it's very funny

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Speaker 1: to me. It's like you have the worker ants and

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Speaker 1: the soldier is and the sausage ants and near Chicago

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Speaker 1: or they called sassage sassage ants. Yeah, man, I don't

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Speaker 1: put anything but mustard on your sassage ants. Nice little

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Speaker 1: sassage ant sandwich. What what would That's not what? They

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Speaker 1: don't call them sausage sandwiches in Chicago sassage sandwich is

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Speaker 1: like uh. Another key trait of army ants is that

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Speaker 1: they are nomadic. So when you think of ants, you

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Speaker 1: typically think of an ant hill, a colony. Maybe it's

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Speaker 1: in a hill, maybe it's in a dead log, maybe

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Speaker 1: it's in your cereal in your kitchen, but it is

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Speaker 1: one location that the ants stay in. They will build

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Speaker 1: their nests and tunnels and it's really fascinating. But army

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Speaker 1: ants don't do this. They are purely nomadic. Instead of

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Speaker 1: having a single home like an ant hill where they live,

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Speaker 1: they continuously roam, forming large migratory rivers of ants. Wow,

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Speaker 1: that sounds like a nightmare of ants. It is actually

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Speaker 1: for anything that gets in its path. It is a

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Speaker 1: true nightmare. So infamously, these rivers of army ants will

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Speaker 1: take down any animal in its path small enough to

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Speaker 1: fall victim, to the voracious troops of pillaging ants. Now

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Speaker 1: I say small enough because like, these ants aren't going

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Speaker 1: to take down say like a deer, but uh, they

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Speaker 1: can take down things that are much bigger than themselves.

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Speaker 1: So things like grasshoppers, scorpions, spiders, giant beetles, anything that

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Speaker 1: is able to become basically overwhelmed by these ants in

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Speaker 1: a matter of just a couple of minutes, like they

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Speaker 1: will be taken down and broken down by these ants.

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Speaker 1: I imagine I could be overwhelmed if I was swarmed

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Speaker 1: with ants. It doesn't seem impossible to me if you

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Speaker 1: The thing is, though, as a human you start to

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Speaker 1: get bitten by these little ants and you go out

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Speaker 1: and you move away and swat your leg and you're

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Speaker 1: all right. Annoying, yes, but unlikely to kill you. Now,

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Speaker 1: if someone like tied you down, I guess, like a

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Speaker 1: damsel on railroad tracks, and then like set you in

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Speaker 1: the path of army ants and you could not move,

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Speaker 1: I would imagine that, yes, you may be in a

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Speaker 1: bit of trouble. Well, that's not a typical weekend activity

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Speaker 1: for me, so I have to worry. But I did

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Speaker 1: once have a brush with a river of ants in

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Speaker 1: real life, no joke. We have these tiny little ants

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Speaker 1: near my house in southern California, and one time, before

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Speaker 1: giving my son a bath, I turned on the water

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Speaker 1: and this river of ant poured out of the faucet.

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Speaker 1: They must have been like climbing up the pipes. It

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Speaker 1: must have been thousands and thousands of them. I was

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Speaker 1: just so glad that I hadn't put my son in

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Speaker 1: the bathtub before turning on the water. That's like, that's

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Speaker 1: like a horror movie where you turn on the faucet

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Speaker 1: and a bunch of spiders come out. This time a

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Speaker 1: bunch of ants coming out. Wow, that's incredible. This is

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Speaker 1: what happens when you encroach on nature in the southern

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Speaker 1: California suburbs. Yes, these army ants really do behave like

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Speaker 1: an army that will go around pillaging and destroying everything

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Speaker 1: in their path. And what's interesting is they don't really

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Speaker 1: follow a single leader, but they follow the pheromone trails

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Speaker 1: of their comrades. So if enough ants become interested in

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Speaker 1: a target like an insect that they want to eat,

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Speaker 1: others will follow that trail. And in as each one

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Speaker 1: follows that trail, they are also depositing pheromones, so that

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Speaker 1: trail gets stronger. You mentioned neurons earlier, which I think

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Speaker 1: is really interesting because neural pathways work in a very

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Speaker 1: similar way. You can strengthen neural pathways by using them,

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Speaker 1: like repeating them. So like with these ants, if you

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Speaker 1: think of these ants and the pheromones is like neurotransmitters.

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Speaker 1: The more they go along the same path, the stronger

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Speaker 1: that path becomes, the more likely other ants are going

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Speaker 1: to join them on That path just compounds on itself exactly.

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Speaker 1: And so another thing that is troubling for these ants

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Speaker 1: is that army ants are typically nearly blind, so these

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Speaker 1: pheromone trails are vital for them to group together. It

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Speaker 1: is they're basically they're only means of pathing, of of

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Speaker 1: forging a path forward, and that is what leads them

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Speaker 1: to their doom in these death spirals. So you know,

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Speaker 1: do you remember that game Snake. It would be on

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Speaker 1: like those old flip phones, and it's like you're a

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Speaker 1: little pixelated snake and you eat other pixels to get bigger,

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Speaker 1: but then if you hit your own body, it's game over.

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Speaker 1: You die. Oh. Absolutely, one of the best games ever invented,

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Speaker 1: is so simple and get so compelling. Yeah, no, that

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Speaker 1: was that was very exciting, obviously to any zoomers listening

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Speaker 1: right now. This may be a foreign concept, but we

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Speaker 1: used to have phones that would fold in half, and

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Speaker 1: we did not have an endless app store where you

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Speaker 1: could get any number of wonderful, colorful graphics, heavy games.

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Speaker 1: It was snake and that was about it, I think,

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Speaker 1: and you would just control this little snake. But it

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Speaker 1: was endless, endless hours of fun. Um. But this is

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Speaker 1: what happens to these poor army ants. If an aunt

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Speaker 1: accidentally crosses an older pheromone trail, this will cause it

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Speaker 1: to loop back around. So it hits this old trail

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Speaker 1: and then it goes instead of keeping forward. It's like, oh,

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Speaker 1: here's some pheromones. And then it loops loops back around

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Speaker 1: on its own old trail, and then it loops to

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Speaker 1: the front again. And now that's even stronger, and it's like, oh, hey,

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Speaker 1: this is a really strong trail. I should keep following it.

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Speaker 1: Other ants do the same thing, and they're all leaving

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Speaker 1: their pheromones around as well. I think you can guess

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Speaker 1: where this is going. So you end up getting this

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Speaker 1: massive spiral of doomed ants, not understanding that instead of

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Speaker 1: going forward on their typical path of destruction where they

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Speaker 1: eat everything in their way, they are spiraling around and

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Speaker 1: around until they are simply going to collapse and die

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Speaker 1: unless something interrupts them. If something fortunately happens to fall

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Speaker 1: in their path and then they get diverted, that may

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Speaker 1: save them. Otherwise they are doomed. Doesn't that mean you

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Speaker 1: can protect yourself from these ants just by spraying that

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Speaker 1: pheromone in like a circle around your house. Is any

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Speaker 1: animal like evolved to mimic this pheromone and like you know,

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Speaker 1: badgers or whatever. Yeah, you don't even really have to

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Speaker 1: spray a pheromone at them. You would just kind of

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Speaker 1: like if you just guided an ant to turn around

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Speaker 1: and hit its own pheromone path, that's enough. So I

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Speaker 1: don't know if any animal though that's exploited this about them,

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Speaker 1: but yeah, you know that that would be an interesting

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Speaker 1: evolutionary strategy, especially if you're an animal that like likes

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Speaker 1: to eat ants, because if you lead them to loop

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Speaker 1: around and around, basically you've got an aunt buffet. Yeah exactly,

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Speaker 1: It's like an ant smoothie that makes itself. I love that.

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Speaker 1: I'm sure many insectivores would love that idea. I just

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Speaker 1: don't know if any is actually taken advantage of that,

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Speaker 1: but you should patent that and pitch that to forest

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Speaker 1: dwelling in sectivores. Well, our mascot here at, you see,

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Speaker 1: irvine is the ant eater. So maybe we should develop

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Speaker 1: some like robotic ant eaters that have that sort of

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Speaker 1: strategy in them. There you go, what could go wrong

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Speaker 1: with robotic ant eaters. So the largest ant mill or

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Speaker 1: death spiral ever recorded was described in nineteen one. It

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Speaker 1: was one thousand, two hundred feet or three hundred sixty

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Speaker 1: five meters in circumference. That is a nightmare with a

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Speaker 1: horror movie. Yes, And the problem with the spiral is

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Speaker 1: that it runs counter to their evolutionary strategy. When they

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Speaker 1: form that river that's like marching forward and then kind

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Speaker 1: of diverting to insects that they find to eat. They

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Speaker 1: have a pretty good strategy, which is, as you go

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Speaker 1: forward in the forest, you're bound to come across prey

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Speaker 1: and be able to eat them. But if you're going

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Speaker 1: in a spiral, even if you happen to luckily find

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Speaker 1: some prey within that spiral, that's going to get eaten

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Speaker 1: pretty quickly. Uh, and then you're not going to find

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Speaker 1: anything else as you spiral around and around and around,

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Speaker 1: and eventually they just run out of fuel, which you know,

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Speaker 1: in biological terms that means dying of starvation. So what

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Speaker 1: fraction of all the ants on Earth were contained in

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Speaker 1: this one spiral? Oh? Probably in this one in I

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Speaker 1: don't know, probably point zero zero zero one person of

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Speaker 1: ants because there's a lot of ants, I know. So

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Speaker 1: if this one spiral is so big, it must have

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Speaker 1: had like what millions of ants in it. Now you're

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Speaker 1: telling me that it's a tiny fraction of all the ants.

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Speaker 1: Basically you're saying that Earth is all ants pretty much. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's uh. I believe the matt Like, if you added

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Speaker 1: up all the mass of ants, I think it's much

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Speaker 1: more than the mass of all humans. Uh So what's

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Speaker 1: fascinating about these death spirals is that there is not

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Speaker 1: there is no single ant that is deciding to go

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Speaker 1: into this spiral, and even collectively, they have not decided

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Speaker 1: that this is what they should do. They are following

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Speaker 1: a set of straightforward biological rules like computer programming, and

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Speaker 1: if they get stuck in the loop, there's no nobody

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Speaker 1: to tell them to get unstuck. There's no executive looking

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Speaker 1: at the ants from above. There's no like eyes in

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Speaker 1: the sky aunt traffic helicopter warning them on their little

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Speaker 1: Aunt radios that there's bumper to bumper snarl ant spiral.

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Speaker 1: So it is this emergent intelligence that when it goes haywire,

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Speaker 1: there's no executive function to unhywire it. I feel the

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Speaker 1: same way sometimes, you know, when my brain gets haywire,

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Speaker 1: I'm like, what is the magical button to press this disaster? Well,

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Speaker 1: that's what's That's something that's so interesting about human consciousness

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Speaker 1: is we are if we look at our neurons as

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Speaker 1: like these ants, you know, we do have this emergent

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Speaker 1: intelligence from neural activity, but we do have the sense

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Speaker 1: that we do have like an executive function. We're able

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Speaker 1: to like zoom out and maybe see problems as they're happening.

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Speaker 1: Or are we like that? That's a big question, is

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Speaker 1: like we we have the sense that we have a

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Speaker 1: central executive control over our brains. So we have that

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Speaker 1: like ant helicopter looking above at the ant spiral, But

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Speaker 1: do we really That's that's a huge question in psychology.

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Speaker 1: It's we have there's no like part of the brain

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Speaker 1: that you can point to, like here, this is where

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Speaker 1: the little you sit, you know, you're the president of

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Speaker 1: your brain, sits and oversees all of your brains activity.

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Speaker 1: That that doesn't exist, even though we have the sense

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Speaker 1: that we have this like executive control over our brain.

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Speaker 1: It's a it's not necessarily true. Yeah, it's actually a

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Speaker 1: really interesting question and active discussion in philosophy as well,

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Speaker 1: whether in principle it's possible for everything that we experience

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Speaker 1: to just emerge from the complex sort of tooing and

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Speaker 1: throwing of little bits following their microscopic rules. Can reductionism

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Speaker 1: explain everything? Can even consciousness be explained from little bits

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Speaker 1: and pieces, you know, like rocks we don't think are conscious,

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Speaker 1: but they're actually made out of the same things that

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Speaker 1: you and I are made out of. So somehow consciousness

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Speaker 1: would need to like emerge from how those pieces are

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Speaker 1: arranged and interacting with each other. But there are other

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Speaker 1: philosophers that argue that emergence has its own special rules,

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Speaker 1: that there may be properties of things at one scale,

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Speaker 1: like the human brain that don't just come from the

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Speaker 1: little bits they're made out of. There like extra additional

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Speaker 1: rules that come into play when things come together. I

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Speaker 1: don't know if I believe that, but it's an active

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Speaker 1: area of philosophical debate. But then what isn't right, which

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Speaker 1: again kind of is uncannily like what you physicists talk

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Speaker 1: about in terms of particle physics, where you have the

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Speaker 1: individual rules of say a single particle, but when they're

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Speaker 1: in a group, that group of particles will behave in

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Speaker 1: a way that is is unique and different than what

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Speaker 1: you would think just based on one individual particles behavior

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Speaker 1: might be possible. Yeah, and sometimes you can explain it

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Speaker 1: in terms of the underlying bits, and sometimes it's a

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Speaker 1: question mark. You know, in physics we look at the

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Speaker 1: passage of physics. We look at the interactions of tiny

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Speaker 1: little particles, and they seem, for example, to be symmetric

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Speaker 1: with time, Like the rules don't seem to care whether

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Speaker 1: time flows forwards and backwards. But when you drop an

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Speaker 1: ice cube into a hot cup of coffee, they definitely

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Speaker 1: moves in one direction and not the other. So sometimes

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Speaker 1: even in physics without consciousness, we don't understand how rules

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Speaker 1: emerged for the big stuff from the little bits. It's

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Speaker 1: a really fascinating thing to study, right, And what's interesting

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Speaker 1: is like, we don't even need little bits, right, we

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Speaker 1: can have something as big as like a reindeer acting

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Speaker 1: in a strange way when you put them in a group.

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Speaker 1: So like with aunts, I think it's easier to think

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Speaker 1: of like, yes, of course, and aunt may behave like

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Speaker 1: a particle. It's basically like a teeny tiny robot anyways.

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Speaker 1: But a reindeer um, while perhaps not the most intelligent

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Speaker 1: animal in the world, but I mean, what is this

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Speaker 1: a competition? They are, They're a large animal. They each

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Speaker 1: have their own, you know, ways of thinking, and they

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Speaker 1: are you know, we can have that sense of this

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Speaker 1: animal's consciousness much more clearly than we can with an aunt. However,

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Speaker 1: reindeer also will form things like cyclones. Now, fortunately, if

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Speaker 1: people are starting to get nervous that Santa's reindeer get

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Speaker 1: into a death spiral of their own, don't worry. In

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Speaker 1: this case, the reindeer cyclone is a great benef fit

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Speaker 1: to the reindeer. It protects them rather than harms them.

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Speaker 1: So reindeer are real animals. They are not just Santa's

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Speaker 1: means of conveyance. Uh. They're also known as caribou. They

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Speaker 1: live in a geographical circle around the North Pole and

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Speaker 1: they can form massive herds of up to a million individuals. Now,

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Speaker 1: of course, uh as, I seem to increasingly have to say, um,

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Speaker 1: you know their populations are declining due to climate change,

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Speaker 1: but they still conform these massive, massive herds. So you're

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Speaker 1: telling me that caribou and reindeer are the same thing. Yes, yes,

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Speaker 1: they are so. So every time I've ordered a caribou steak,

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Speaker 1: they might be giving me a piece of reindeer. Yep,

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Speaker 1: you might be eating rootolf. I do have to ask

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Speaker 1: how often you're able to get caribou steak. I don't

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Speaker 1: eat a lot of exotic meats, but my son is

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Speaker 1: keeping track of the number of different animals he's ever

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Speaker 1: eaten in his lifetime. So whenever there's an opportunity, you

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Speaker 1: see something on the menu, like oh, Ostrich Burger, let's

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Speaker 1: go for it. He's a bit like Darwin in that respect.

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Speaker 1: Darwin loved to eat animals, like animals he would newly discover,

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Speaker 1: and one of his main questions was what does it

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Speaker 1: taste like? Does echo better with cheese on top or

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Speaker 1: without cheese on top? A new paper by Charles Darwin

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Speaker 1: his Hidden Manuscripts. But reindeer are used to dealing with threats.

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Speaker 1: Even aside from your voracious son, there are a lot

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Speaker 1: of predators that have a taste for reindeer meat. Brown bears,

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Speaker 1: polar bears, wolves, human hunters. Even golden eagles will sometimes

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Speaker 1: prey on reindeer calves. So you can imagine that reindeer

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Speaker 1: have a reason to be a bit paranoid. But that

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Speaker 1: makes me wonder if army ants have ever taken down

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Speaker 1: a reindeer calf, Like, what's the biggest thing an army

426
00:26:58,880 --> 00:27:01,879
Speaker 1: ant could eat? Could cyclone of army ants takedown and

427
00:27:01,920 --> 00:27:08,520
Speaker 1: baby reindeer? I mean, they wouldn't inhabit the same habitats

428
00:27:08,720 --> 00:27:12,159
Speaker 1: at all. I don't think they could take down a

429
00:27:12,160 --> 00:27:17,080
Speaker 1: baby reindeer unless that baby reindeer again was like already

430
00:27:17,200 --> 00:27:21,760
Speaker 1: sick or couldn't move. Just a horrifying idea all around.

431
00:27:21,840 --> 00:27:25,320
Speaker 1: Thank you for bringing that up. I'm not saying we

432
00:27:25,320 --> 00:27:31,280
Speaker 1: should do the experiment. I'm just saying it's an open question. Uh.

433
00:27:31,400 --> 00:27:34,560
Speaker 1: You you just disappointed. Some biologists were like, oh, I

434
00:27:34,560 --> 00:27:39,719
Speaker 1: shouldn't do that experiment, darn it. Uh. But reindeer are

435
00:27:39,800 --> 00:27:42,920
Speaker 1: not so helpless. They have a trick up their furry

436
00:27:42,960 --> 00:27:47,040
Speaker 1: little sleeves. When a danger threatens the herd, they will

437
00:27:47,119 --> 00:27:51,919
Speaker 1: circle the wagons. They form a defensive cyclone. It's like

438
00:27:51,960 --> 00:27:55,639
Speaker 1: a whirlpool of reindeer. Uh, and it is it is

439
00:27:55,720 --> 00:27:58,840
Speaker 1: stunning to see. You should definitely look up video of

440
00:27:58,880 --> 00:28:01,280
Speaker 1: this and I'll will include that in the show notes.

441
00:28:01,320 --> 00:28:06,000
Speaker 1: But it is, it's it's mesmerizing. And is this like

442
00:28:06,040 --> 00:28:08,480
Speaker 1: a bug in the programming of reindeer the way it

443
00:28:08,520 --> 00:28:10,760
Speaker 1: is for army ants or is this actually like defensive?

444
00:28:10,880 --> 00:28:13,400
Speaker 1: Does this help them in some way? This is helpful

445
00:28:13,440 --> 00:28:15,760
Speaker 1: to them? It is not a bug, it's a feature.

446
00:28:17,320 --> 00:28:24,160
Speaker 1: So um by making this whirlpool, they make it extremely

447
00:28:24,240 --> 00:28:27,640
Speaker 1: difficult for a predator to focus on a single individual

448
00:28:27,720 --> 00:28:31,920
Speaker 1: and take them down. Even an intelligent predator like a human,

449
00:28:32,320 --> 00:28:34,760
Speaker 1: will find it difficult to do something like aim an

450
00:28:34,920 --> 00:28:39,080
Speaker 1: arrow as they swirl around and around in this dizzy mob.

451
00:28:39,680 --> 00:28:43,440
Speaker 1: It's because like you can't just necessarily, as a predator,

452
00:28:43,560 --> 00:28:47,440
Speaker 1: run randomly and start chomping like usually the goal is

453
00:28:47,440 --> 00:28:50,240
Speaker 1: you eye a certain target and try to take that down.

454
00:28:50,880 --> 00:28:53,200
Speaker 1: But if you can't even keep track of what your

455
00:28:53,200 --> 00:28:57,120
Speaker 1: target is, it's very difficult to take anything down. So

456
00:28:57,360 --> 00:29:01,720
Speaker 1: this behavior has actually been observed by researchers in captive

457
00:29:01,760 --> 00:29:06,680
Speaker 1: reindeer herds. When reindeer are corralled, they start to form

458
00:29:06,800 --> 00:29:10,120
Speaker 1: the cyclone. And this is what's so strange is that

459
00:29:10,200 --> 00:29:16,160
Speaker 1: this cyclone seems to typically run counterclockwise. This preference for

460
00:29:16,360 --> 00:29:19,960
Speaker 1: left word movement is also paralleled by a preference reindeer

461
00:29:20,000 --> 00:29:23,200
Speaker 1: have for using their left hoofs to dig up grass.

462
00:29:23,200 --> 00:29:26,320
Speaker 1: So they'll use these very these cup shaped hoofs to

463
00:29:26,480 --> 00:29:30,720
Speaker 1: dig up snow to get at like the vegetation underneath

464
00:29:30,720 --> 00:29:34,080
Speaker 1: the snow. And they tend to seem seem to favor

465
00:29:34,200 --> 00:29:37,840
Speaker 1: the left hoof. And they also run in a left

466
00:29:37,840 --> 00:29:42,400
Speaker 1: words direction when they form these cyclones like this counterclockwise direction.

467
00:29:42,720 --> 00:29:46,440
Speaker 1: And it's completely unknown why this happens or if there's

468
00:29:46,480 --> 00:29:50,480
Speaker 1: even a significance to this happening. Wow, and do they

469
00:29:50,520 --> 00:29:54,840
Speaker 1: also vote Democrat? I don't know. I'll do a straw

470
00:29:54,880 --> 00:29:56,800
Speaker 1: pole of the reindeer, but I'm worried they just eat

471
00:29:56,840 --> 00:30:00,760
Speaker 1: the straw um. But I have a question, is this

472
00:30:00,880 --> 00:30:04,960
Speaker 1: surrounding the Is this surrounding the danger? If something wants

473
00:30:04,960 --> 00:30:08,000
Speaker 1: to eat the reindeer, they'll surround it or the or

474
00:30:08,040 --> 00:30:10,160
Speaker 1: the danger is like on the outside of the cyclone

475
00:30:10,360 --> 00:30:12,720
Speaker 1: and it can't even like and it can't even like

476
00:30:12,880 --> 00:30:15,960
Speaker 1: visualize which one to eat. It's the latter. Yeah, So

477
00:30:16,080 --> 00:30:19,680
Speaker 1: they're not surrounding the predator. It's usually the predators on

478
00:30:19,720 --> 00:30:23,840
Speaker 1: the outskirts, and it's trying to pinpoint a reindeer to

479
00:30:23,880 --> 00:30:26,280
Speaker 1: pick out to try to take down, but it can't

480
00:30:26,320 --> 00:30:30,080
Speaker 1: because it's just the swirling vortex of reindeer. Uh in

481
00:30:30,160 --> 00:30:34,520
Speaker 1: the center. I have read that sometimes in the center

482
00:30:34,680 --> 00:30:39,200
Speaker 1: it's like the younger reindeer the calves, but I have

483
00:30:39,360 --> 00:30:43,360
Speaker 1: been unable to find like research that has verified that.

484
00:30:43,400 --> 00:30:47,000
Speaker 1: It's just like sort of observation of it seems like

485
00:30:47,040 --> 00:30:50,440
Speaker 1: maybe the younger reindeer tender stick in the middle. Um.

486
00:30:50,680 --> 00:30:55,760
Speaker 1: And what's so interesting about this is that, I mean,

487
00:30:55,800 --> 00:30:58,080
Speaker 1: first of all, I mentioned that that I haven't been

488
00:30:58,120 --> 00:31:00,520
Speaker 1: able to find research on whether it's true that like

489
00:31:00,680 --> 00:31:03,360
Speaker 1: reindeer calves are in the center. It's because research on

490
00:31:03,400 --> 00:31:08,719
Speaker 1: these reindeer cyclones is kind of surprisingly incomplete. Um. And

491
00:31:08,760 --> 00:31:11,760
Speaker 1: so it's it's hard to really know exactly what's going on,

492
00:31:12,280 --> 00:31:15,680
Speaker 1: which is a big hint for you know, Santa out

493
00:31:15,720 --> 00:31:19,920
Speaker 1: there to start funding some research on reindeers. Um. But yeah,

494
00:31:20,080 --> 00:31:23,560
Speaker 1: what is so strange about this is what exactly is

495
00:31:23,600 --> 00:31:27,200
Speaker 1: going on with these reindeer. They don't use pheromones in

496
00:31:27,200 --> 00:31:30,400
Speaker 1: the same way that army ants use um. But I

497
00:31:30,520 --> 00:31:34,440
Speaker 1: suspect that it's not so much that the reindeer have

498
00:31:34,560 --> 00:31:38,040
Speaker 1: decided to form this cyclone. There's not like a all

499
00:31:38,120 --> 00:31:42,200
Speaker 1: hooves meeting that they, you know, decided like, well, if

500
00:31:42,240 --> 00:31:44,760
Speaker 1: we come across the predator, let's form the cyclone, so

501
00:31:44,800 --> 00:31:48,720
Speaker 1: it confuses them. Instead, what's far more likely is that

502
00:31:48,800 --> 00:31:52,840
Speaker 1: they have a set of instinctive rules. And when you

503
00:31:52,920 --> 00:31:57,680
Speaker 1: have each individual reindeer with that set of instinctive rules

504
00:31:57,880 --> 00:32:00,640
Speaker 1: and you combine them in this herd, you get a

505
00:32:00,800 --> 00:32:03,320
Speaker 1: similar group behavior as you see with the ants. So

506
00:32:03,400 --> 00:32:07,520
Speaker 1: even though reindeer are more complex more intelligent than an

507
00:32:07,600 --> 00:32:10,200
Speaker 1: army ant, once you get them in this group setting,

508
00:32:10,480 --> 00:32:14,200
Speaker 1: they're probably operating on a similar set of rules that

509
00:32:14,320 --> 00:32:19,240
Speaker 1: these army ants. Instead of using pheromones, they're probably using

510
00:32:19,760 --> 00:32:24,760
Speaker 1: their relative closeness to other reindeer, and they're probably using

511
00:32:24,920 --> 00:32:29,000
Speaker 1: directional cues from these other reindeer. And by using the

512
00:32:29,120 --> 00:32:34,400
Speaker 1: set of rules, they then collectively form the cyclone without

513
00:32:34,440 --> 00:32:39,920
Speaker 1: any individual knowing exactly what they are achieving. Here, it

514
00:32:39,920 --> 00:32:42,280
Speaker 1: feels to me, like when you're that kid who wants

515
00:32:42,280 --> 00:32:44,560
Speaker 1: to get on the Merry go Round, Like when you're

516
00:32:44,640 --> 00:32:46,520
Speaker 1: when you're that kid who wants to get on the carousel,

517
00:32:46,680 --> 00:32:48,920
Speaker 1: but it's already started and it's moving too fast, and

518
00:32:48,920 --> 00:32:51,280
Speaker 1: so you can't even like grab onto one of the

519
00:32:51,360 --> 00:32:53,880
Speaker 1: horses or the reindeer to jump on it. But that

520
00:32:53,960 --> 00:32:58,400
Speaker 1: makes me wonder, like in my mind, all carousel's spin counterclockwise.

521
00:32:58,520 --> 00:33:01,960
Speaker 1: Is that true? Is that the arrived from the reindeer vortex?

522
00:33:02,920 --> 00:33:08,200
Speaker 1: That's an interesting interesting thought. I think like the carousels

523
00:33:08,280 --> 00:33:11,280
Speaker 1: tended to be they weren't they like originally sort of

524
00:33:11,320 --> 00:33:15,480
Speaker 1: a a toy that was supposed to be mimicking sort

525
00:33:15,480 --> 00:33:19,760
Speaker 1: of uh, combat on horseback, like where you you know,

526
00:33:19,840 --> 00:33:22,320
Speaker 1: you'd have your lance, and like I think originally like

527
00:33:22,360 --> 00:33:24,480
Speaker 1: there was like a golden ring that you're supposed to

528
00:33:24,520 --> 00:33:26,640
Speaker 1: try to like hit with a stick or something while

529
00:33:26,680 --> 00:33:30,280
Speaker 1: you're on the carousel. That's supposed to be mimicking sort

530
00:33:30,320 --> 00:33:33,040
Speaker 1: of lancing. So that that was a really interesting question.

531
00:33:33,440 --> 00:33:36,680
Speaker 1: But now I want to see a reindeer carousel because

532
00:33:36,760 --> 00:33:48,320
Speaker 1: that would be much more biologically accurate. We've talked about

533
00:33:48,320 --> 00:33:51,840
Speaker 1: a couple of cases of group dynamics and how instinct

534
00:33:51,920 --> 00:33:55,200
Speaker 1: can lead to complex mob behavior that can either be

535
00:33:55,320 --> 00:33:58,600
Speaker 1: deadly in the case of those poor army ants, or

536
00:33:58,760 --> 00:34:02,680
Speaker 1: life saving in the case of reindeer cyclones that protects

537
00:34:02,760 --> 00:34:06,520
Speaker 1: them from predators. But now I want to talk more

538
00:34:06,520 --> 00:34:11,440
Speaker 1: about the actual physics behind a group behavior. So, Daniel,

539
00:34:11,719 --> 00:34:14,560
Speaker 1: you are a particle physicist. Do you think that an

540
00:34:14,600 --> 00:34:19,600
Speaker 1: animal can behave like a particle? Well, particles follow physical laws,

541
00:34:19,680 --> 00:34:22,520
Speaker 1: and so do animals. You know what can particles do?

542
00:34:22,880 --> 00:34:26,600
Speaker 1: They can like fly through space. They can also change directions,

543
00:34:26,600 --> 00:34:29,200
Speaker 1: but to do that they have to like emit something.

544
00:34:29,239 --> 00:34:31,399
Speaker 1: They have to like cast ne to like shoot off

545
00:34:31,400 --> 00:34:33,960
Speaker 1: a photon for example. Like if you're an astronaut and

546
00:34:33,960 --> 00:34:36,160
Speaker 1: you're floating through space and you want to turn, you

547
00:34:36,200 --> 00:34:38,759
Speaker 1: gotta fire a little rocket or like throw a rock

548
00:34:38,800 --> 00:34:41,600
Speaker 1: off in one direction to change direction. So there's not

549
00:34:41,640 --> 00:34:44,800
Speaker 1: that much that particles can do other than fly through space,

550
00:34:44,960 --> 00:34:47,600
Speaker 1: change direction, and bounce against each other. But you know,

551
00:34:47,840 --> 00:34:49,960
Speaker 1: put them together in a huge collection and then they

552
00:34:49,960 --> 00:34:52,400
Speaker 1: can do all sorts of other weird stuff like become

553
00:34:52,480 --> 00:34:57,040
Speaker 1: chocolate cake. Oh I like, I like the idea of

554
00:34:57,200 --> 00:35:00,600
Speaker 1: particles becoming chocolate cake, But that does make the segue

555
00:35:00,640 --> 00:35:04,680
Speaker 1: weirder because we are talking about starlings, who, as far

556
00:35:04,760 --> 00:35:08,440
Speaker 1: as I know, you know, you can bake them into

557
00:35:08,480 --> 00:35:14,040
Speaker 1: a pie, but that seems kind of disgusting. Starlings are

558
00:35:14,160 --> 00:35:19,200
Speaker 1: these beautiful, little black but also iridescent birds, and they

559
00:35:19,239 --> 00:35:22,560
Speaker 1: have these white speckles, and that's why they're called starlings.

560
00:35:22,640 --> 00:35:27,239
Speaker 1: They look like a star speckled sky. To me, they

561
00:35:27,360 --> 00:35:31,000
Speaker 1: look like a night sky. That and that rainbow sheen

562
00:35:31,320 --> 00:35:33,520
Speaker 1: on their wings actually kind of looks like one of

563
00:35:33,560 --> 00:35:37,960
Speaker 1: those NASA colored images of a galaxy. They're they're stunningly

564
00:35:38,040 --> 00:35:42,040
Speaker 1: beautiful in my opinion. Yeah, and so you're saying that

565
00:35:42,080 --> 00:35:44,799
Speaker 1: you've never seen enough starlings come together to make a

566
00:35:44,880 --> 00:35:50,960
Speaker 1: chocolate cake, not yet, one can hope through sheer probability. Well,

567
00:35:51,000 --> 00:35:53,120
Speaker 1: you know, the number of particles in a chocolate cake

568
00:35:53,239 --> 00:35:56,120
Speaker 1: is approximately ten to the twenty six, So I think

569
00:35:56,160 --> 00:35:59,160
Speaker 1: probably you just need to wait for enough starlings together

570
00:35:59,440 --> 00:36:03,000
Speaker 1: and the huge cosmic chocolate cake might just emerge. But

571
00:36:03,040 --> 00:36:06,359
Speaker 1: again another open question in science. I think the math

572
00:36:06,480 --> 00:36:12,960
Speaker 1: checks out on that. So, uh, starlings do form giant flocks,

573
00:36:13,000 --> 00:36:15,680
Speaker 1: not quite tin to the what tinto the twenty six

574
00:36:16,000 --> 00:36:19,279
Speaker 1: is what you said, not quite that large, um, but

575
00:36:19,680 --> 00:36:24,279
Speaker 1: millions of individuals. So when they are in these giant flocks,

576
00:36:24,320 --> 00:36:28,640
Speaker 1: if you live somewhere where these starlings live, or if

577
00:36:28,680 --> 00:36:33,920
Speaker 1: you've just seen videos, they will generate these murmurations. What

578
00:36:34,000 --> 00:36:37,440
Speaker 1: a murmuration is is when you see like a flock,

579
00:36:37,520 --> 00:36:40,680
Speaker 1: and then you see a pattern kind of like flow

580
00:36:40,719 --> 00:36:44,320
Speaker 1: across these birds, like a dark band kind of flow

581
00:36:44,360 --> 00:36:50,480
Speaker 1: across these birds. Um, it's these undulating patterns and designs

582
00:36:50,560 --> 00:36:54,280
Speaker 1: where they kind of look like there's some singular shape

583
00:36:54,280 --> 00:36:58,840
Speaker 1: shifting creature in the sky or smoke or or something.

584
00:36:58,960 --> 00:37:02,480
Speaker 1: But really it's just a bunch of birds responding to

585
00:37:02,520 --> 00:37:05,799
Speaker 1: each other's movements. It's amazing and I always wonder what's

586
00:37:05,800 --> 00:37:08,160
Speaker 1: it like to be one of those starlings. Is it

587
00:37:08,280 --> 00:37:12,080
Speaker 1: wonderful you're like doing synchronized swimming with a million of

588
00:37:12,080 --> 00:37:14,759
Speaker 1: your friends, or is it like a nightmare, like you're

589
00:37:14,760 --> 00:37:17,640
Speaker 1: stuck in traffic like American in the traffic circle in Europe?

590
00:37:17,680 --> 00:37:20,040
Speaker 1: You know, is it fun or is it terrible? Well,

591
00:37:20,040 --> 00:37:22,439
Speaker 1: that's a really interesting question. I think it very much

592
00:37:22,480 --> 00:37:27,640
Speaker 1: depends on the circumstances. Sometimes these murmurations are in response

593
00:37:27,680 --> 00:37:31,480
Speaker 1: to predators, So in that case, yeah, I'd imagine they're

594
00:37:31,520 --> 00:37:35,600
Speaker 1: a little bit concerned. But sometimes these birds will form

595
00:37:35,680 --> 00:37:38,799
Speaker 1: these flocks and start to do these murmurations, and it's

596
00:37:38,800 --> 00:37:41,920
Speaker 1: not even exactly clear what they are responding to what

597
00:37:42,040 --> 00:37:45,359
Speaker 1: they're doing, or if it's simply fun for them. So,

598
00:37:45,840 --> 00:37:49,759
Speaker 1: just like we may sometimes run and jump when we

599
00:37:49,840 --> 00:37:53,120
Speaker 1: are scared when there's something coming at us, sometimes we

600
00:37:53,200 --> 00:37:55,480
Speaker 1: run and jump because it's fun. So I think it's

601
00:37:55,680 --> 00:37:59,400
Speaker 1: very situationally dependent how these birds feel. But I would

602
00:37:59,400 --> 00:38:02,440
Speaker 1: say in gen role they like the traffic, like when

603
00:38:02,480 --> 00:38:05,040
Speaker 1: they are inside that flock. If I was to kind

604
00:38:05,040 --> 00:38:06,880
Speaker 1: of get into the head of a starling, I think

605
00:38:06,920 --> 00:38:10,799
Speaker 1: I'd feel much more secure inside the flock than on

606
00:38:10,840 --> 00:38:14,680
Speaker 1: my own. I don't think i'd feel claustrophobic or social anxiety.

607
00:38:14,719 --> 00:38:17,560
Speaker 1: I think I would know if I'm surrounded by birds,

608
00:38:17,680 --> 00:38:20,919
Speaker 1: I'm much like less likely to become a snack for

609
00:38:21,000 --> 00:38:25,600
Speaker 1: some predatory bird. I mean, you also prefer like line dancing,

610
00:38:25,640 --> 00:38:28,560
Speaker 1: because you're surrounded by hundreds of people doing exactly the

611
00:38:28,560 --> 00:38:31,560
Speaker 1: same moves, nobody can make fun of you. Well, It's

612
00:38:31,760 --> 00:38:35,840
Speaker 1: why I enjoy improv better than stand up because with improv,

613
00:38:35,920 --> 00:38:38,840
Speaker 1: you've got a lot of people that cover your mistakes

614
00:38:39,280 --> 00:38:41,520
Speaker 1: with stand up. You've got nobody. And so if you

615
00:38:41,560 --> 00:38:45,920
Speaker 1: start crying, everyone notices. If we bomb, at least we

616
00:38:46,040 --> 00:38:49,920
Speaker 1: bombed together exactly exactly. So I'm very I very much

617
00:38:49,960 --> 00:38:55,840
Speaker 1: have a starling personality. The evolutionary advantage of these big flocks,

618
00:38:55,920 --> 00:38:59,120
Speaker 1: these murmurations very much is like the reindeer we talked about,

619
00:38:59,160 --> 00:39:02,879
Speaker 1: where they can dodge away from predators, and by being

620
00:39:02,880 --> 00:39:06,160
Speaker 1: in this huge flock, not only is it more confusing

621
00:39:06,200 --> 00:39:08,960
Speaker 1: to predators, but it's just law of large numbers. You're

622
00:39:09,040 --> 00:39:12,640
Speaker 1: less likely to be the one picked out of the group. Um.

623
00:39:12,719 --> 00:39:16,600
Speaker 1: But the huge difference between these birds and the reindeer

624
00:39:16,640 --> 00:39:19,800
Speaker 1: in terms of physics is the birds are in completely

625
00:39:20,000 --> 00:39:25,759
Speaker 1: unrestricted three dimensional space. Reindeer run along the ground. I mean,

626
00:39:25,840 --> 00:39:29,040
Speaker 1: I know reindeer are three dimensional and their movements are

627
00:39:29,080 --> 00:39:33,000
Speaker 1: strictly speaking three dimensional, but they are more or less

628
00:39:33,080 --> 00:39:37,600
Speaker 1: on a plane and like spiraling around this plane, whereas

629
00:39:37,600 --> 00:39:40,839
Speaker 1: the birds can move in any direction that they want.

630
00:39:40,880 --> 00:39:44,040
Speaker 1: It's much like in space when you have spaceships, and

631
00:39:44,080 --> 00:39:47,240
Speaker 1: in sci fi it's always confusing why you'd have rear

632
00:39:47,320 --> 00:39:51,239
Speaker 1: thrusters and not every which way thrusters, because you are

633
00:39:51,320 --> 00:39:54,880
Speaker 1: an entirely three dimensional space. Are you telling us that

634
00:39:54,960 --> 00:39:57,600
Speaker 1: reindeer don't fly? I mean, you're just like really cracking

635
00:39:58,360 --> 00:40:01,839
Speaker 1: your younger listeners. I hope they're I'm only talking, of

636
00:40:01,880 --> 00:40:05,719
Speaker 1: course about the non magical reindeer. Of course, the magical

637
00:40:05,760 --> 00:40:09,839
Speaker 1: reindeer fly, but Santa has to select those reindeer and

638
00:40:10,440 --> 00:40:14,160
Speaker 1: feed them royal reindeer jelly that causes them to sprout wings.

639
00:40:14,160 --> 00:40:16,880
Speaker 1: And I think I'm actually talking about bees now or

640
00:40:16,920 --> 00:40:22,800
Speaker 1: aunt anyways, um birds fly in this three dimensional space

641
00:40:22,960 --> 00:40:27,000
Speaker 1: up down side to side three hundred sixty degrees. Uh,

642
00:40:27,040 --> 00:40:32,319
Speaker 1: and so this causes really interesting waves and undulations that

643
00:40:32,400 --> 00:40:37,480
Speaker 1: you won't necessarily see in other crowd behavior. So statistical

644
00:40:37,600 --> 00:40:44,160
Speaker 1: physicist Dr Andrea Cavna and theoretical physicist Dr Irene Jardina

645
00:40:44,320 --> 00:40:48,520
Speaker 1: studied the mini starling flocks found here in Italy, and

646
00:40:48,560 --> 00:40:52,720
Speaker 1: they found that these birds were acting similar to particles

647
00:40:52,800 --> 00:40:58,000
Speaker 1: or molecules whose group movements can be described as scale

648
00:40:58,040 --> 00:41:02,480
Speaker 1: free correlation. So I'm not a physicist, so Daniels, stop

649
00:41:02,520 --> 00:41:06,800
Speaker 1: me if I say something wrong here, but from my research,

650
00:41:07,040 --> 00:41:11,840
Speaker 1: it seems like scale free correlation is when individual particles

651
00:41:11,960 --> 00:41:17,200
Speaker 1: or individual birds move not only based on their immediate neighbors,

652
00:41:17,239 --> 00:41:21,440
Speaker 1: but on the entire flock or entire group of particles.

653
00:41:21,600 --> 00:41:24,279
Speaker 1: Is that more or less correct? Yeah. Effectively, it's when

654
00:41:24,680 --> 00:41:27,680
Speaker 1: your choices, your directions, are not just influenced by what's

655
00:41:27,680 --> 00:41:31,560
Speaker 1: immediately around you, but sort of like longer scale forces

656
00:41:31,719 --> 00:41:35,560
Speaker 1: or influences. That's exactly what is happening with these birds.

657
00:41:35,600 --> 00:41:39,600
Speaker 1: The movements of one individual bird will affect the movements

658
00:41:39,600 --> 00:41:42,880
Speaker 1: of a bird way over on the entire other side

659
00:41:42,880 --> 00:41:47,320
Speaker 1: of the flock. So each starling will adjust its direction

660
00:41:47,480 --> 00:41:52,400
Speaker 1: and velocity based on its immediate neighbors. But that also

661
00:41:52,440 --> 00:41:56,279
Speaker 1: means that the starling's next to that starling change their

662
00:41:56,360 --> 00:42:00,560
Speaker 1: velocity and trajectory and so on and so forth. Uh.

663
00:42:00,600 --> 00:42:03,480
Speaker 1: And what this means is that because these birds are

664
00:42:03,520 --> 00:42:08,239
Speaker 1: so sensitive to changing their flight behavior based on their

665
00:42:08,239 --> 00:42:11,400
Speaker 1: neighbors and their neighbors based on their other neighbors, they

666
00:42:11,440 --> 00:42:15,879
Speaker 1: are the actions of one starling in the flock has

667
00:42:15,920 --> 00:42:19,520
Speaker 1: an impact a measurable impact on every other starling in

668
00:42:19,560 --> 00:42:24,880
Speaker 1: the flock, and vice versa, and it creates this incredible complexity.

669
00:42:26,280 --> 00:42:29,440
Speaker 1: It's amazing to me that it's not just chaotic. I mean,

670
00:42:29,440 --> 00:42:32,040
Speaker 1: if you have so many objects that are very sensitively

671
00:42:32,080 --> 00:42:35,040
Speaker 1: responding to other objects. Why isn't it just like a

672
00:42:35,080 --> 00:42:38,000
Speaker 1: crazy mess? You know, if you throw like a million

673
00:42:38,040 --> 00:42:40,839
Speaker 1: ping pong balls down the steps, you don't get any

674
00:42:40,880 --> 00:42:43,920
Speaker 1: sort of like emergent pattern, You just get insanity. And

675
00:42:43,960 --> 00:42:46,799
Speaker 1: so it's amazing to me that the starlings don't just

676
00:42:46,960 --> 00:42:49,319
Speaker 1: create a big mess. There must be some instinct to

677
00:42:49,520 --> 00:42:53,239
Speaker 1: also follow their neighbors, not just respond to them. That's right,

678
00:42:53,360 --> 00:42:56,000
Speaker 1: that's right, And that's actually very good question because this

679
00:42:56,080 --> 00:43:00,640
Speaker 1: is exactly what these physicists, these biological physicists are look into,

680
00:43:01,280 --> 00:43:04,719
Speaker 1: and they found that these starlings are operating on a

681
00:43:04,920 --> 00:43:09,160
Speaker 1: very precise set of rules um because they do not

682
00:43:09,280 --> 00:43:12,439
Speaker 1: want to crash into their neighbors, but they don't want

683
00:43:12,520 --> 00:43:16,080
Speaker 1: to leave the flock because if they're the slow one,

684
00:43:16,160 --> 00:43:19,319
Speaker 1: the one that like makes a wrong direction and accidentally

685
00:43:19,400 --> 00:43:22,160
Speaker 1: leaves the safety of a flock, they are going to

686
00:43:22,280 --> 00:43:25,160
Speaker 1: instantly be a target of like a hawk. So it

687
00:43:25,280 --> 00:43:29,439
Speaker 1: is so important for each individual's survival to be able

688
00:43:29,440 --> 00:43:32,200
Speaker 1: to set follow a set of rules, which is, I

689
00:43:32,239 --> 00:43:36,640
Speaker 1: want to maintain proximity to my neighbors, close proximity to

690
00:43:36,719 --> 00:43:41,040
Speaker 1: my neighbors without crashing into them. But I also want

691
00:43:41,040 --> 00:43:45,160
Speaker 1: to change my direction sensitively to my neighbor. If my

692
00:43:45,239 --> 00:43:49,040
Speaker 1: neighbor turns left, I also want to turn left. Um

693
00:43:49,120 --> 00:43:52,480
Speaker 1: but I And so by the fact that they have

694
00:43:52,560 --> 00:43:56,120
Speaker 1: these complex rules means that the entire flock actually starts

695
00:43:56,160 --> 00:43:59,800
Speaker 1: to behave more like a fluid or a gas. And

696
00:44:00,360 --> 00:44:04,560
Speaker 1: when you look at um murmurating flock of starlings, it

697
00:44:04,560 --> 00:44:08,839
Speaker 1: really doesn't look like it. It looks like something kind

698
00:44:08,880 --> 00:44:11,080
Speaker 1: of alien or or you know, like when you look

699
00:44:11,120 --> 00:44:13,600
Speaker 1: at say, you know, when you blow a candle out

700
00:44:13,640 --> 00:44:16,520
Speaker 1: and you see like the smoke kind of swirling around,

701
00:44:16,520 --> 00:44:20,840
Speaker 1: it has these to our eyes unpredictable movements. But uh,

702
00:44:20,920 --> 00:44:24,560
Speaker 1: it really is predictable movements if you have sort of

703
00:44:24,560 --> 00:44:28,319
Speaker 1: a mathematical model of how this smoke behaves. But it's

704
00:44:28,480 --> 00:44:32,320
Speaker 1: very complicated, so we can't just looking at this smoke

705
00:44:32,520 --> 00:44:34,400
Speaker 1: kind of predict which way it's going to go, what

706
00:44:34,520 --> 00:44:39,759
Speaker 1: it's going to do. And the really weird thing is

707
00:44:39,920 --> 00:44:45,160
Speaker 1: that these starlings are acting like the kinds of particles

708
00:44:45,239 --> 00:44:49,279
Speaker 1: that you studied, Daniel, because they don't just adjust their

709
00:44:49,360 --> 00:44:54,040
Speaker 1: velocity and direction based on their neighbors, but the sharpness

710
00:44:54,080 --> 00:44:58,319
Speaker 1: of turns. So some physicists some of these physicist who

711
00:44:58,320 --> 00:45:01,040
Speaker 1: are studying these birds actually call it the spin of

712
00:45:01,120 --> 00:45:06,280
Speaker 1: the starling, similar to the spin of an elementary particle. Wow,

713
00:45:06,320 --> 00:45:09,040
Speaker 1: and that makes me wonder if there are quantum starlings

714
00:45:09,040 --> 00:45:11,680
Speaker 1: out there spin up or spin down, or if you

715
00:45:11,680 --> 00:45:14,880
Speaker 1: can have entanglement of starlings. I guess that's where the

716
00:45:14,880 --> 00:45:18,520
Speaker 1: starlings are trying to avoid actually tangled up in each other. Yeah,

717
00:45:18,600 --> 00:45:23,120
Speaker 1: they don't exactly want to become entangled. It does mean

718
00:45:23,160 --> 00:45:27,319
Speaker 1: that they have the conservation of spin. So the cumulative

719
00:45:27,480 --> 00:45:31,279
Speaker 1: spin of the flock is conserved when the starlings match

720
00:45:31,360 --> 00:45:36,480
Speaker 1: their their neighbors. So like once starling doesn't just like

721
00:45:36,520 --> 00:45:39,719
Speaker 1: if one starling turns left, the other starling isn't just

722
00:45:39,800 --> 00:45:43,520
Speaker 1: thinking okay, I turn left now. It is also matching

723
00:45:43,680 --> 00:45:47,680
Speaker 1: that sharpness of the turn. And like I mentioned earlier,

724
00:45:48,000 --> 00:45:51,319
Speaker 1: the actions of one starling affects the actions of the

725
00:45:51,480 --> 00:45:56,040
Speaker 1: entire flock and vice versa. And so this means that

726
00:45:56,440 --> 00:46:02,040
Speaker 1: the entire flock of starlings can change its spin or

727
00:46:02,080 --> 00:46:05,839
Speaker 1: the sharpness of its turns almost on a dime. And

728
00:46:05,960 --> 00:46:10,080
Speaker 1: this allows them to change directions in response to danger

729
00:46:10,200 --> 00:46:13,920
Speaker 1: as if they are a single organism moving rather than

730
00:46:13,960 --> 00:46:20,160
Speaker 1: a group of birds. That's incredible. Well, it's almost like

731
00:46:20,400 --> 00:46:25,160
Speaker 1: together the starlings are a super brain. Yeah. And what's

732
00:46:25,280 --> 00:46:28,719
Speaker 1: weird is that the mathematical models used to describe the

733
00:46:28,760 --> 00:46:36,719
Speaker 1: physics of starlings are identical to that of super fluid helium.

734
00:46:36,760 --> 00:46:42,040
Speaker 1: So when helium is cooled to almost absolute zero, Uh,

735
00:46:42,080 --> 00:46:45,880
Speaker 1: it becomes like a liquid, right Daniel, mm hmm. Yeah,

736
00:46:46,320 --> 00:46:49,759
Speaker 1: the viscosity drops really really low, so you can like

737
00:46:49,840 --> 00:46:52,960
Speaker 1: slide past itself with almost no friction and yeah, and

738
00:46:53,000 --> 00:46:56,799
Speaker 1: that almost completely absent viscosity is the same thing that

739
00:46:56,840 --> 00:46:59,719
Speaker 1: happens with these starlings because remember they don't want to

740
00:46:59,760 --> 00:47:02,799
Speaker 1: buy into each other, right, because that that would also

741
00:47:02,840 --> 00:47:06,080
Speaker 1: mean death. Like if you stray too far from the flock,

742
00:47:06,239 --> 00:47:08,560
Speaker 1: that means death. You collide with the neighbor and you

743
00:47:08,600 --> 00:47:12,400
Speaker 1: both fall, that means death. So it is in in

744
00:47:12,560 --> 00:47:16,600
Speaker 1: evolutionary terms, they have been turned into such precise flying

745
00:47:16,640 --> 00:47:21,160
Speaker 1: machines where they are very careful not to collide, and

746
00:47:21,200 --> 00:47:25,840
Speaker 1: by not colliding, they don't have friction. There's not that viscosity,

747
00:47:26,400 --> 00:47:31,279
Speaker 1: and so they act like super fluid helium almost exactly.

748
00:47:31,320 --> 00:47:33,440
Speaker 1: And I think the mathematical models that they use for

749
00:47:33,480 --> 00:47:37,400
Speaker 1: these birds are the same ones, or at least incredibly

750
00:47:37,520 --> 00:47:41,319
Speaker 1: similar to the ones that they use for super fluid helium.

751
00:47:41,360 --> 00:47:44,200
Speaker 1: It's incredible to me that we find these little mathematical

752
00:47:44,239 --> 00:47:47,000
Speaker 1: stories that can describe the universe, and they don't just

753
00:47:47,080 --> 00:47:49,600
Speaker 1: describe one part of the universe. You can use the

754
00:47:49,640 --> 00:47:53,600
Speaker 1: same kind of mathematical stories to describe super fluid helium

755
00:47:53,680 --> 00:47:56,960
Speaker 1: and also flocks of starlings. It's incredible and it makes

756
00:47:56,960 --> 00:47:59,800
Speaker 1: me wonder if the mathematicians who say that the universe

757
00:48:00,080 --> 00:48:04,080
Speaker 1: self is mathematical are really onto something. I mean, it

758
00:48:04,200 --> 00:48:08,920
Speaker 1: is there's something. I guess it depends on your relationship

759
00:48:09,000 --> 00:48:13,440
Speaker 1: with math. It's either spooky or it's inspiring that math

760
00:48:13,640 --> 00:48:17,200
Speaker 1: does seem to be behind so many things, Like you know,

761
00:48:17,280 --> 00:48:20,040
Speaker 1: you look at a flock of birds and it's like, oh, well,

762
00:48:20,080 --> 00:48:23,680
Speaker 1: you know, this is described by the same equation that

763
00:48:23,719 --> 00:48:27,640
Speaker 1: you use to describe something that is about as different

764
00:48:27,760 --> 00:48:30,359
Speaker 1: from a bird as you can think in terms of

765
00:48:30,400 --> 00:48:34,680
Speaker 1: just like our superficial understanding of things like super fluid helium.

766
00:48:34,760 --> 00:48:39,239
Speaker 1: That's that's not birds, but it is acting. But you know,

767
00:48:39,680 --> 00:48:42,120
Speaker 1: when you look at if you were like an alien

768
00:48:42,160 --> 00:48:45,440
Speaker 1: who could only see in terms of these mathematical models,

769
00:48:45,440 --> 00:48:47,440
Speaker 1: you would think like, well, these two things must be

770
00:48:47,560 --> 00:48:50,880
Speaker 1: very closely related, this flock of birds in this super

771
00:48:50,920 --> 00:48:54,680
Speaker 1: fluid helium, because the math that describes them both is

772
00:48:54,680 --> 00:48:57,719
Speaker 1: is identical. Yeah, and that would make you wonder, as

773
00:48:57,760 --> 00:49:01,239
Speaker 1: an alien scientist, what happens if super cool down a

774
00:49:01,320 --> 00:49:04,800
Speaker 1: flock of starlings? Does it become even more viscous or

775
00:49:04,840 --> 00:49:08,120
Speaker 1: even less viscous? I'm just saying the question is open

776
00:49:08,160 --> 00:49:12,440
Speaker 1: in science. If you had become an evolutionary biologist instead

777
00:49:12,440 --> 00:49:15,040
Speaker 1: of a particle physicist, you would run a foul of

778
00:49:15,280 --> 00:49:22,280
Speaker 1: so many of the ethics boards involved in designing biology experiments. Okay,

779
00:49:22,400 --> 00:49:25,720
Speaker 1: I hope that wasn't an unintentional punt running a foul

780
00:49:26,239 --> 00:49:29,560
Speaker 1: of these ethics sports. That's gonna that's gonna get you

781
00:49:29,640 --> 00:49:38,960
Speaker 1: even more trouble with the ethics sports. So we've talked

782
00:49:38,960 --> 00:49:44,319
Speaker 1: about animals and their group physics Starling's reindeer ants and

783
00:49:44,440 --> 00:49:47,000
Speaker 1: you think that you may think that group physics are

784
00:49:47,040 --> 00:49:52,200
Speaker 1: only for these simple animals and not for intelligent animals

785
00:49:52,239 --> 00:49:56,320
Speaker 1: like us humans. But uh, you'd be wrong. So even

786
00:49:56,440 --> 00:50:02,040
Speaker 1: highly intelligent animals such as people, are subject to mob physics.

787
00:50:02,600 --> 00:50:08,120
Speaker 1: Human crowds don't necessarily inherit the intelligence and decision making

788
00:50:08,239 --> 00:50:13,239
Speaker 1: of each individual human. Human brains in groups can be

789
00:50:13,360 --> 00:50:17,040
Speaker 1: quite powerful, but that's only when the brains are capable

790
00:50:17,160 --> 00:50:21,840
Speaker 1: of communicating. So, like you know, we have as societies

791
00:50:21,920 --> 00:50:27,360
Speaker 1: developed amazing technologies, amazing medical breakthroughs and discoveries. Um, but

792
00:50:27,520 --> 00:50:31,280
Speaker 1: that's because that is our brains kind of pulling together.

793
00:50:31,840 --> 00:50:36,080
Speaker 1: But when you're in a physical crowd, our ability to communicate,

794
00:50:36,320 --> 00:50:40,280
Speaker 1: one of our biggest strengths as humans, can be hindered.

795
00:50:40,800 --> 00:50:44,760
Speaker 1: So like beach or facial expression can get drowned out

796
00:50:44,760 --> 00:50:48,879
Speaker 1: by a big enough crowd and more chaotic crowd, and

797
00:50:49,160 --> 00:50:53,040
Speaker 1: the movements of people actually start to mimic not a

798
00:50:53,080 --> 00:50:57,640
Speaker 1: group of intelligent creatures, but a group of particles. That's incredible,

799
00:50:57,719 --> 00:51:00,239
Speaker 1: But I guess it doesn't surprise me, because like economics

800
00:51:00,440 --> 00:51:03,719
Speaker 1: is a thing, right, we can describe the behavior of

801
00:51:03,800 --> 00:51:07,200
Speaker 1: huge groups of people based on the individual little choices

802
00:51:07,239 --> 00:51:10,640
Speaker 1: they're making buying and selling and not buying nikes because

803
00:51:10,640 --> 00:51:12,359
Speaker 1: they're more than a hundred bucks and buying them when

804
00:51:12,360 --> 00:51:14,879
Speaker 1: they dropped to ninety bucks. So I guess that makes

805
00:51:14,920 --> 00:51:17,040
Speaker 1: a lot of sense that there are emergent phenomena on

806
00:51:17,080 --> 00:51:22,160
Speaker 1: the scale of societies as well. Yeah, not like in economics,

807
00:51:22,200 --> 00:51:26,960
Speaker 1: like when you have things like inflation that increases too quickly,

808
00:51:27,120 --> 00:51:31,520
Speaker 1: sometimes that is due to these like small individual decisions

809
00:51:31,560 --> 00:51:34,880
Speaker 1: that are being you know, it's maybe it is what

810
00:51:34,920 --> 00:51:38,040
Speaker 1: did I call it a scale free scale free correlations,

811
00:51:38,120 --> 00:51:43,160
Speaker 1: scale free correlations, because like your individual decision making will

812
00:51:43,280 --> 00:51:47,520
Speaker 1: impact the entire economy, and the entire like economy, impacts

813
00:51:47,520 --> 00:51:51,279
Speaker 1: every individual's decision making. So is this feedback loop. And

814
00:51:51,320 --> 00:51:56,200
Speaker 1: it's the same thing for for group physics crowd physics,

815
00:51:56,600 --> 00:52:00,480
Speaker 1: and it can get actually quite dangerous as the movements

816
00:52:00,480 --> 00:52:05,600
Speaker 1: of people start to resemble a fluid rather than a

817
00:52:05,719 --> 00:52:09,439
Speaker 1: group of individual people who have brains and can think.

818
00:52:09,640 --> 00:52:13,360
Speaker 1: So researchers are actually looking into how to model human

819
00:52:13,480 --> 00:52:19,040
Speaker 1: crowds through hydro dynamics, using observational data from real life

820
00:52:19,040 --> 00:52:23,799
Speaker 1: crowd situations such as marathon runners, because the hope is

821
00:52:23,840 --> 00:52:28,200
Speaker 1: that by modeling human crowd behavior we can actually save

822
00:52:28,400 --> 00:52:32,680
Speaker 1: lives in crowd situations such as in stadiums or other

823
00:52:33,000 --> 00:52:36,680
Speaker 1: enclosed spaces, where the crowding of people can actually lead

824
00:52:36,719 --> 00:52:41,759
Speaker 1: to injury or even in some cases death. Um So,

825
00:52:42,040 --> 00:52:46,000
Speaker 1: crowd crushes are a rare but very tragic event in

826
00:52:46,040 --> 00:52:50,239
Speaker 1: which people get crushed in crowds, not due to malicious

827
00:52:50,280 --> 00:52:54,839
Speaker 1: actions by other people, but simple physics. So like if

828
00:52:54,880 --> 00:52:58,200
Speaker 1: you have a big crowd in a stadium and then

829
00:52:58,239 --> 00:53:02,920
Speaker 1: a choke point, things can get very dangerous very fast

830
00:53:03,800 --> 00:53:06,920
Speaker 1: because the people at the back of the crowd can't

831
00:53:06,960 --> 00:53:09,919
Speaker 1: see or hear what's happening in the front, so they

832
00:53:09,960 --> 00:53:13,160
Speaker 1: may continue to move forward while the group of people

833
00:53:13,160 --> 00:53:18,160
Speaker 1: in the front start to get condensed together unable to move. Uh.

834
00:53:18,160 --> 00:53:20,799
Speaker 1: And this is again it's like sometimes in these like

835
00:53:21,000 --> 00:53:24,080
Speaker 1: crowd crush things, people think it's due to an unruly

836
00:53:24,239 --> 00:53:28,239
Speaker 1: riot of people or people being you know, behaving in

837
00:53:28,320 --> 00:53:30,600
Speaker 1: some kind of bizarre way, and that's not at all

838
00:53:30,600 --> 00:53:34,360
Speaker 1: the case. It's just because of the way that a

839
00:53:34,520 --> 00:53:38,640
Speaker 1: huge group will basically run into the constraints of physics,

840
00:53:39,080 --> 00:53:42,600
Speaker 1: and then the inability of the people in the front

841
00:53:42,680 --> 00:53:45,000
Speaker 1: of the crowd to be able to communicate to the

842
00:53:45,040 --> 00:53:47,520
Speaker 1: people in the back of the crowd. So basically you're

843
00:53:47,560 --> 00:53:52,120
Speaker 1: saying physics kills respect our local physicists as if they

844
00:53:52,120 --> 00:53:58,000
Speaker 1: were a swarm of army and your words, not mine. Uh,

845
00:53:58,040 --> 00:54:00,920
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean it is of course, you know,

846
00:54:01,000 --> 00:54:05,279
Speaker 1: like physics is. It is the guiding principle of our

847
00:54:05,840 --> 00:54:10,320
Speaker 1: entire lives and our our physical bodies. And so when

848
00:54:10,360 --> 00:54:13,640
Speaker 1: you're in a crowd, you have to respect the physics

849
00:54:13,640 --> 00:54:15,520
Speaker 1: of a crowd just as much as you have to

850
00:54:15,560 --> 00:54:19,000
Speaker 1: respect the physics of gravity if you're jumping out of

851
00:54:19,000 --> 00:54:25,080
Speaker 1: a plane. So people who have survived crowd crushes or

852
00:54:25,160 --> 00:54:28,680
Speaker 1: crowd collapse describe it as being carried away by a

853
00:54:28,840 --> 00:54:31,799
Speaker 1: fluid force, like as if they're being carried away by

854
00:54:31,800 --> 00:54:35,560
Speaker 1: a river. Sometimes their feet aren't even touching the ground.

855
00:54:36,040 --> 00:54:38,600
Speaker 1: They're just unable to move of their own volition and

856
00:54:38,719 --> 00:54:41,600
Speaker 1: just being carried away like they're being swept away by

857
00:54:41,600 --> 00:54:45,680
Speaker 1: a river. Uh. And when people like if people see

858
00:54:45,880 --> 00:54:49,839
Speaker 1: people ahead of them getting hurt, they of course may

859
00:54:49,920 --> 00:54:52,799
Speaker 1: want to stop, and mentally they're thinking, oh, no, I

860
00:54:52,840 --> 00:54:55,279
Speaker 1: don't want to run into this person. I don't want

861
00:54:55,280 --> 00:54:58,040
Speaker 1: this person to get hurt. But at that point they're

862
00:54:58,080 --> 00:55:00,960
Speaker 1: actually kind of stuck as being a part article and

863
00:55:01,080 --> 00:55:04,640
Speaker 1: this like fluid force of the crowd, and that, I mean,

864
00:55:04,680 --> 00:55:07,840
Speaker 1: it's one of the one of the more scary things

865
00:55:07,880 --> 00:55:11,440
Speaker 1: that I can imagine. Yes, the famous person particle duality

866
00:55:11,840 --> 00:55:14,680
Speaker 1: we know of humankind. Sometimes you're a person and sometimes

867
00:55:14,680 --> 00:55:17,920
Speaker 1: you just feel like a particle. Yeah, exactly. And this

868
00:55:18,000 --> 00:55:20,960
Speaker 1: has been a problem for humanity for as long as

869
00:55:21,000 --> 00:55:23,799
Speaker 1: there's been crowds, and has actually been recorded since the

870
00:55:24,000 --> 00:55:28,839
Speaker 1: seventeen hundreds. Uh. Sometimes it's blamed on the crowd, like

871
00:55:28,920 --> 00:55:33,520
Speaker 1: during the Hillsboro disaster in nine where people in a

872
00:55:33,520 --> 00:55:37,520
Speaker 1: football stadium were injured and killed during a crowd crush. Um.

873
00:55:37,560 --> 00:55:40,279
Speaker 1: But this was not at all the people's fault. It

874
00:55:40,440 --> 00:55:44,480
Speaker 1: was simply due to uh, the design of the stadium

875
00:55:44,600 --> 00:55:47,600
Speaker 1: and the crowd control there was, you know, it was.

876
00:55:48,880 --> 00:55:51,080
Speaker 1: It is one of these situations where it's like you

877
00:55:51,239 --> 00:55:53,719
Speaker 1: if you have a jug of water and you pour

878
00:55:53,800 --> 00:55:55,560
Speaker 1: it into a cup of water and it kind of

879
00:55:55,560 --> 00:55:59,200
Speaker 1: sloshes and splashes around. That is not the fault of

880
00:55:59,239 --> 00:56:02,200
Speaker 1: the part coals inside the water. It's not the fault

881
00:56:02,200 --> 00:56:06,839
Speaker 1: of the um the water molecules inside for splashing around.

882
00:56:06,880 --> 00:56:10,319
Speaker 1: They are simply caught up in the group dynamics of

883
00:56:10,360 --> 00:56:14,040
Speaker 1: being part of this group of water molecules that will

884
00:56:14,120 --> 00:56:16,400
Speaker 1: behave as a fluid. It sounds like you're setting up

885
00:56:16,400 --> 00:56:20,000
Speaker 1: physics to take the blame here. The fall guy. Uh,

886
00:56:20,080 --> 00:56:22,239
Speaker 1: Physics is always the fall guy. Really when you think

887
00:56:22,280 --> 00:56:26,440
Speaker 1: about it, the whole reason we fall anyways, So I

888
00:56:27,160 --> 00:56:30,360
Speaker 1: will take credit for that one. So I bring this

889
00:56:30,560 --> 00:56:34,920
Speaker 1: up not to not to demonize physics or physicists, but

890
00:56:35,040 --> 00:56:39,440
Speaker 1: to demonstrate some of the importance of understanding biological physics.

891
00:56:40,120 --> 00:56:43,240
Speaker 1: If you can model the fluid dynamics of a crowd,

892
00:56:43,600 --> 00:56:47,160
Speaker 1: you could use that data to plan the construction of

893
00:56:47,200 --> 00:56:51,440
Speaker 1: things like buildings and stadiums, or the implementation of crowd

894
00:56:51,480 --> 00:56:55,239
Speaker 1: control to make things safer for people. So it's these

895
00:56:55,320 --> 00:56:58,480
Speaker 1: kinds of things that we research. It's like, as amazing

896
00:56:58,520 --> 00:57:01,040
Speaker 1: and interesting as they are, I think on their own,

897
00:57:01,120 --> 00:57:04,400
Speaker 1: Like I want to know that birds can behave like

898
00:57:04,560 --> 00:57:07,560
Speaker 1: helium because that's really cool, but it can also be

899
00:57:07,600 --> 00:57:11,680
Speaker 1: really important for our society. Yeah, it's a fascinating topic

900
00:57:11,719 --> 00:57:14,319
Speaker 1: with all sorts of wrinkles in physics, in biology, and

901
00:57:14,400 --> 00:57:19,640
Speaker 1: in psychology. Yeah. Absolutely. But before we go, I do

902
00:57:19,920 --> 00:57:22,880
Speaker 1: want to play a little game called Gifts Who Squawk

903
00:57:22,960 --> 00:57:26,720
Speaker 1: and the Mystery Animal Sound Game. So every week I

904
00:57:26,760 --> 00:57:29,640
Speaker 1: play a mystery animal sound and do the listener. I

905
00:57:29,800 --> 00:57:32,640
Speaker 1: try to gifts who is making up sound? It can

906
00:57:32,680 --> 00:57:36,520
Speaker 1: be any animal in the world. Does that include physicists?

907
00:57:36,560 --> 00:57:39,280
Speaker 1: Could be a physicist, could be a physicist that's right,

908
00:57:39,360 --> 00:57:44,360
Speaker 1: you bunch of animals. Um So last week's uh mry

909
00:57:44,400 --> 00:57:47,840
Speaker 1: animals sound hint was we've talked about the elephant in

910
00:57:47,880 --> 00:57:51,520
Speaker 1: the room, but what about the rhinoceros in the room,

911
00:57:51,600 --> 00:58:02,840
Speaker 1: who's not really a rhino? So ignore the bird sounds.

912
00:58:02,840 --> 00:58:05,760
Speaker 1: But did you hear that like hissing sound? Yeah, that

913
00:58:05,880 --> 00:58:08,680
Speaker 1: sounds like what I hear in my freshman physics classes

914
00:58:08,680 --> 00:58:14,440
Speaker 1: when I assign homework. So you're saying that your physics

915
00:58:14,440 --> 00:58:19,480
Speaker 1: students are a group of rhinoceros beetles, because this is

916
00:58:19,640 --> 00:58:26,040
Speaker 1: a rhinoceros beetle. Congratulations to the three fastest guessers, Joey P.

917
00:58:26,480 --> 00:58:31,760
Speaker 1: Michael D. Shana S who gets correctly. Also honorable mentioned

918
00:58:31,800 --> 00:58:35,440
Speaker 1: to Zoe H and Grant W. Who gets the specific

919
00:58:35,560 --> 00:58:40,360
Speaker 1: species of rhino beetle, the common rhino beetle from Australia.

920
00:58:40,920 --> 00:58:43,480
Speaker 1: And thanks to everyone else who wrote in and gets correctly.

921
00:58:43,720 --> 00:58:47,120
Speaker 1: Excellent job you guys. I am so so impressed. I

922
00:58:47,160 --> 00:58:49,960
Speaker 1: don't think I could be as good as you guys

923
00:58:50,000 --> 00:58:52,120
Speaker 1: at this game. I make the game, but I don't

924
00:58:52,200 --> 00:58:56,040
Speaker 1: guess it, so uh, great job everyone. So this is

925
00:58:56,040 --> 00:58:59,960
Speaker 1: the rhinoceros beetles, specifically the zylo troop. As you list

926
00:59:00,040 --> 00:59:05,240
Speaker 1: these Australicus found in Australia, when they are bothered, they

927
00:59:05,280 --> 00:59:08,400
Speaker 1: will hits that you like a cat. But that hissing

928
00:59:08,560 --> 00:59:12,080
Speaker 1: is not coming out of vocal cords, which the rhino

929
00:59:12,240 --> 00:59:17,720
Speaker 1: slurspeetle lacks. Instead, it's stridulation, the vibration of its wing

930
00:59:17,840 --> 00:59:22,920
Speaker 1: covers against its abdomen. Now onto this week's mystery animal sound.

931
00:59:23,200 --> 00:59:25,960
Speaker 1: Don't blame the dog for this one, but it is

932
00:59:26,000 --> 00:59:35,960
Speaker 1: the sound of a happy carnivore. So I promise that

933
00:59:36,080 --> 00:59:38,440
Speaker 1: is not a rude sound. But if you think you

934
00:59:38,520 --> 00:59:41,720
Speaker 1: know who is squawking, you can write to me a

935
00:59:41,800 --> 00:59:45,800
Speaker 1: Creature Feature pot at gmail dot com. I'm also online

936
00:59:45,840 --> 00:59:49,080
Speaker 1: at Creature feet cot on Twitter. That's t f ET.

937
00:59:49,240 --> 00:59:52,840
Speaker 1: That is something very different. Thank you so much to

938
00:59:53,120 --> 00:59:56,000
Speaker 1: Daniel Whiteson for joining me today. If you want to

939
00:59:56,040 --> 00:59:59,360
Speaker 1: hear more from Daniel and hear him talk more about

940
00:59:59,400 --> 01:00:03,240
Speaker 1: the Mr Reads of the Universe and particle physics, check

941
01:00:03,280 --> 01:00:07,760
Speaker 1: out his podcast, Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe and

942
01:00:07,920 --> 01:00:11,040
Speaker 1: sometimes I'm a guest host on that podcast, so yes,

943
01:00:11,200 --> 01:00:13,840
Speaker 1: check that out. Thanks very much for having me on, Katie.

944
01:00:14,120 --> 01:00:16,680
Speaker 1: Thank you guys so much for listening. If you're enjoying

945
01:00:16,720 --> 01:00:18,880
Speaker 1: the show and you want to leave or rating or review,

946
01:00:19,720 --> 01:00:23,880
Speaker 1: I would appreciate that so so so much. I read

947
01:00:23,960 --> 01:00:26,480
Speaker 1: every review and it means the world to me. It

948
01:00:26,520 --> 01:00:28,560
Speaker 1: also really helps me out. Like when you leave a

949
01:00:28,680 --> 01:00:32,080
Speaker 1: rating or review, it helps the podcast out. Uh. And

950
01:00:32,240 --> 01:00:37,080
Speaker 1: it is a wonderful freeway to express your joy for

951
01:00:37,160 --> 01:00:41,280
Speaker 1: the podcast and to help support the podcast. And thanks

952
01:00:41,280 --> 01:00:44,400
Speaker 1: so much to the Space Classics for their super awesome song.

953
01:00:44,520 --> 01:00:47,840
Speaker 1: Exoluminous Creature Feature is a production of I heart Radio.

954
01:00:48,160 --> 01:00:50,439
Speaker 1: For more podcasts like the one you just heard, visit

955
01:00:50,480 --> 01:00:52,439
Speaker 1: the I heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or Hey guess

956
01:00:52,440 --> 01:00:55,760
Speaker 1: what wherever you get your favorite shows. I do not

957
01:00:55,880 --> 01:00:59,120
Speaker 1: judge you, and I will not tattle on you. See

958
01:00:59,120 --> 01:01:03,760
Speaker 1: you next Wednesday. Ay,