Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot Com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. And
Speaker 1: today we're talking about something very universal. Um, it's everywhere
Speaker 1: in time and space. It leaks out of your face,
Speaker 1: even an intentional r there. Yeah, it is a shared
Speaker 1: emotional experience. Tears, it turns out, have quite a past,
Speaker 1: as we'll discuss, and the earliest written record of tears
Speaker 1: is found on cannonite clay tablets dating from the fourteenth
Speaker 1: century BC. Now, one of the fragments tells the story
Speaker 1: of the virgin goddess and not the sister of Ball
Speaker 1: the earth god, and when she hears the news of
Speaker 1: her brother's death to tell it says that she sated
Speaker 1: herself with weeping to drink tears like wine. And it's
Speaker 1: interesting that this first record that we have, or uh,
Speaker 1: this first written record of it, is detailing tears of grief. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because that's that's the thing about about tears. They're obviously
Speaker 1: various types of tears. They're various connotations for weeping. I mean,
Speaker 1: throughout human history we've seen good tears, bad tears, true tears,
Speaker 1: false tears, manly tears. Um. I think it was Dennis
Speaker 1: Leary that had a stand up bit about the only
Speaker 1: time it's acceptable for a man to cry, and this
Speaker 1: is like the nineties to date. It was gearing, a
Speaker 1: sports movie in which the main character dies of some
Speaker 1: sort of illness. Um, and only then then, and only
Speaker 1: then is permissible. Only then is it permissible for Amanda
Speaker 1: shed a tear, you know, other than being poked in
Speaker 1: the eye or maced or something. Obviously. But but that's
Speaker 1: the thing about tears, and that's one of the reasons
Speaker 1: it makes for an interesting so of you to discuss here,
Speaker 1: is because there's the purely biological aspect of there's the
Speaker 1: emotional aspect of it. And what happens when we try
Speaker 1: and uh and untie all of this. Right, we're gonna
Speaker 1: look at that today and uh, first we're gonna look
Speaker 1: toward Papa Darwin. Um. Now, in his book The Expression
Speaker 1: of Emotions in Man and Animals, Charles Darwin listed three
Speaker 1: reasons for the secretion of tears. The first was pretty
Speaker 1: much about lubricating eyes. The second, he thought, was to
Speaker 1: keep the nostrils damp quote so that the inhaled air
Speaker 1: may be moist and likewise to favor the power of smelling.
Speaker 1: And the third is to irrigate the eyes and flush
Speaker 1: out small particles. Um. But it when it came to
Speaker 1: actual emotional crying, Darwin was a bit flum mixed. He said, quote,
Speaker 1: we must look at weeping as an incidental result, as
Speaker 1: purposeless as the secretion of tears from a blow outside
Speaker 1: the eye. Okay, you know, and UH can sort of
Speaker 1: see where he's coming from there. He's approaching this from
Speaker 1: a very biological standpoint and saying, all right, anything else
Speaker 1: is just human garbage l haired over the basic machinery. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's kind of you know how Stephen Pinker will talk
Speaker 1: about music as auditory cheesecake. It's almost like the tears
Speaker 1: are the lachrymal cheesecake here cheesecake. Like yeah, and yeah,
Speaker 1: there is. There are reasons for it existing on an
Speaker 1: emotional level, and there are some really good theories out there. However,
Speaker 1: there are some really far flung, uh wild ones too. Indeed,
Speaker 1: I like to think that that Darwin. You know, he
Speaker 1: goes as far as his scientific background allowed him to
Speaker 1: in analyzing tears, and then he stopped. He stopped at
Speaker 1: the edge of that dark forest of the unknown. Others
Speaker 1: were very willing to just run willy nilly into the
Speaker 1: forest with their their torches of of science and coming
Speaker 1: up with their own sort of you know, crazy theories. Uh.
Speaker 1: Particularly here, I'm talking about aquatic ape hypothesis or it's
Speaker 1: also known as aquatic eight theory, and this was first
Speaker 1: proposed by German pathologist Max Vestenhoffer in nine two. And
Speaker 1: the basic idea here uh, and I believe we discussed
Speaker 1: this in our Mermaids episode of while back, is that
Speaker 1: the evolutionary ancestors of modern humans adapted to a semi
Speaker 1: aquatic existence at one point, so we took on various
Speaker 1: aquatic features, and the theory holds we still see echoes
Speaker 1: of those adaptations even in our modern form. Now, as
Speaker 1: this relates to tears, the basic idea is that emotional
Speaker 1: tears are seen only in humans and aquatic animals, and
Speaker 1: they evolved as a system to excrete excess salt, because
Speaker 1: again we're talking about aquatic ages living in a saltwater
Speaker 1: environment according to this theory. So, uh, where this falls
Speaker 1: apart and just you know, one key area here is
Speaker 1: that while there is salt and human tears. There's not
Speaker 1: enough to really uh make it a suitable primary excretory exercise.
Speaker 1: The salt content is similar to blood plasma, so he
Speaker 1: doesn't really shake out as as an example of oh
Speaker 1: that's extra salt, leaving the so as interesting as the
Speaker 1: aquatic eight theory as it doesn't really help us in
Speaker 1: our understanding of the emotional side of tears. And adding
Speaker 1: to all of this confusion is the cultural baggage that
Speaker 1: tears carry, because in one era crying would have been
Speaker 1: seen as pious or that kind of sensitivity. In another
Speaker 1: era it would have looked like hysteria and weakness. And
Speaker 1: I'll give you an example, um, or maybe even a
Speaker 1: cultural example right now in which it's okay that male
Speaker 1: crying that you had talked about related to sports. Boris Johnson,
Speaker 1: the Mayor of London, recalled his quote hot tears of
Speaker 1: patriotic pride at the opening ceremony of the Summer Olympics,
Speaker 1: and he also described the end of the games as
Speaker 1: quote a tear sodden, juttering climax, which that carries a
Speaker 1: lot of weight with it. Um. But on the opposite
Speaker 1: end of the spectrum, if you look at psychiatric literature
Speaker 1: of the late nineteenth century, public waterworks were really frowned upon.
Speaker 1: In fact, it was referred to as emotional incontinent, So
Speaker 1: basically peeing your face essentially like the the equivalent of
Speaker 1: paying your pants in public. Is it's the same. Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: Tom Dixon, writing h an article called on tears, actually
Speaker 1: says that there's a Yiddish term that the translation of
Speaker 1: crying is pissing out of your eyes. Yeah. Yeah. Moreover,
Speaker 1: if you consult the Treatise of Melancholy, a six tome
Speaker 1: written by English clergyman and physician Timothy Bright, you will
Speaker 1: see him described tears as quote, a kind of excrement,
Speaker 1: not much unlike urine. So the idea that's coming out
Speaker 1: of this is that to crying in public is to
Speaker 1: almost um yourself in public, and it's seen as a
Speaker 1: weakness of vulnerability. Yeah, I mean, and we'll get into
Speaker 1: some of that later, just the the the emotional um communication.
Speaker 1: You know, what are you saying to the world around
Speaker 1: you when you weep? So yeah, it's it's interesting to
Speaker 1: see those those various places where it's acceptable at the
Speaker 1: various times it's acceptable, But at the heart we're dealing
Speaker 1: with the tear. Do we just have one type of tier?
Speaker 1: Do we have two? Do we have three? Is the
Speaker 1: is the the stuff itself the same? Yeah, let's look
Speaker 1: at the tier itself. We produce about ten ounces of
Speaker 1: the stuff a day to help maintain our eyes. And
Speaker 1: these tears fall into three different categories. So the first
Speaker 1: is the basil tier. Now, this is a thin coating
Speaker 1: of three layers that helped keep dirt out and debris
Speaker 1: in check. And the first layer is the mucous layer,
Speaker 1: which keeps the tears in place. The second is the
Speaker 1: aqueous layer that keeps the eyeballs hydrated, and then it
Speaker 1: protects the cornea. And the third is the lip layer
Speaker 1: that's a bit like an oil slick, and it keeps
Speaker 1: things nice and smooth on the surface. Now, the second
Speaker 1: kind of tear, this, this is where it gets even
Speaker 1: more interesting when you look at the reflex tears, because
Speaker 1: they are reacting and they're springing forth when they sense
Speaker 1: an irritant and they come out in larger quantities. You've
Speaker 1: probably noticed before if you've ever gotten something in your eye.
Speaker 1: And the aqueous layer of these tears contains antibodies to
Speaker 1: stop any microorganisms in their tracks. Now the third is
Speaker 1: emotional tears, right, and emotional tears act as mood stabilizers,
Speaker 1: and they contain higher levels of stress hormones like a
Speaker 1: C t H which is cortisol and and suffling, which
Speaker 1: is an endorphin and a natural pain killer. So how
Speaker 1: interesting that you are suffering from mental pain and you
Speaker 1: have a pain killer that's being released within your eyeball
Speaker 1: and shedding worth and purging this out of your system. Huh.
Speaker 1: So with the first two cases, you can kind of
Speaker 1: think it as think of it as the tier as
Speaker 1: security force. So you have your basic security force just
Speaker 1: out there to keep the peace. Then you have additional
Speaker 1: security force that comes in when things get a little hectic,
Speaker 1: a little extra irritants in the eye. And then that
Speaker 1: third area are kind of like at the grief counselors,
Speaker 1: the stress of UMM counselors that that that run out
Speaker 1: to the eyeball. Uh in times of emotional conflict. That's
Speaker 1: absolutely correct, all right. So now that we have that covered,
Speaker 1: we're gonna take the man hole off of the skin
Speaker 1: here and go underneath into the water works and look
Speaker 1: at the specifics. Yeah, grab raqel welch, grab donald pleasants,
Speaker 1: grab coolio if you want. They think of it as
Speaker 1: a fantastic voyage. If we were to climb into a
Speaker 1: miniature submarine and enter through the eye, what would that
Speaker 1: consist of. Well, you have two small openings at your
Speaker 1: disposal here when we call these the puncta. Uh, there's
Speaker 1: one in your upper eyelid, the upper punctum, and then
Speaker 1: the lower eyelid the lower punctum. Okay, and if you
Speaker 1: look in the mirror you can see these. You can
Speaker 1: you know, pry your eyeball, your eyelid back and notice
Speaker 1: them there. Um, that's where you're gonna want to point
Speaker 1: your submarine. Follow follow those, take either either out your choice,
Speaker 1: and you'll swim through twin tubes called the canal kus uh.
Speaker 1: And these connect to a fabulous place, probably a vacation spot,
Speaker 1: the lacrymal sack or the lachrymal lake as it's sometimes called.
Speaker 1: All right, and uh, this is tiers central. Now if
Speaker 1: you were to keep going, uh, there is the nasal
Speaker 1: lacrymal duct that allows passage down into your nasal cavity. Um.
Speaker 1: And and this is interesting to note too because if
Speaker 1: you've ever been especially with emotional tears, but also just
Speaker 1: uh in irritants. You see pictures of people who are
Speaker 1: maced uh footage, and you know there's a lot of
Speaker 1: nasal activity going on as well. So that the the
Speaker 1: the the tear ducts and the nasal connection. Uh, it's
Speaker 1: right there. Now, how did the tears come out? Well?
Speaker 1: Blinking in capillary action, push the tears through the lacrimal
Speaker 1: drainage system. Your lids move evenly across your eyes, and
Speaker 1: the blinking pumps tears into the punkta and they're drawn
Speaker 1: into the lachrymal sack down the nose, etcetera. I'm just
Speaker 1: trying to think about if this would be helpful to
Speaker 1: think about that whole process when you're trying to suppress tears.
Speaker 1: Have you ever been in that situation where were like,
Speaker 1: I feel them coming, you're not getting out. Maybe if
Speaker 1: you could slow it down and even just imagine that
Speaker 1: lachrymal way can say, Okay, we are not taking from
Speaker 1: that lake. It needs to keep its reserves. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: the water levels rising in there and the damn is
Speaker 1: going to overflow it way it may all right, We're
Speaker 1: gonna take a quick break. When we get back, we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about good crimes come back, Frond, All right,
Speaker 1: we're back. Why cry? Why do it? Well, as we've
Speaker 1: already touched upon. Uh. Of course, part of it is
Speaker 1: just you always have tears in your eyes. If you
Speaker 1: had somebody that was so much of that, they never
Speaker 1: had tiers, they would their eyes would dry out and
Speaker 1: fall out of their heads. Right. But the second area
Speaker 1: environmental stimuli that are causing the tears to well up.
Speaker 1: Various irritants can cause the eye to to well up
Speaker 1: with tears, dirt, smoke, the fumes of an onion, uh,
Speaker 1: an eyelash, a troublesome contact lens. Um. We've all had
Speaker 1: had good cases where it's just that sometimes it's something
Speaker 1: you can't even tell what it was, Just some sort
Speaker 1: of speck of dust floating around in the air gets
Speaker 1: in there and suddenly it's, uh, it's gushing. Also, cold days,
Speaker 1: windy days, you'll notice some extra tears in there because
Speaker 1: the tears also protect those eyes from getting too dry.
Speaker 1: So that's an area when you'll see some sort of
Speaker 1: weepy eyes on cold days. Right. And then finally, allergies,
Speaker 1: infections like cold pink eye notice of course, known as
Speaker 1: conjunctive itus, inflammations of the eye are going to cause
Speaker 1: it to become watery, as well as any kind of
Speaker 1: physical assault of your of your of your eyes is
Speaker 1: can also reduce in tears if you get poked in
Speaker 1: the eye accidentally or intentionally. Now, in terms of emotional crying,
Speaker 1: we all have had that moment before where we've cried
Speaker 1: and it felt great and we moved on. It was
Speaker 1: this release, and then we've all had that moment to
Speaker 1: where you've cried and we actually felt worse afterwards. And
Speaker 1: researchers at the University of South Florida they were interested
Speaker 1: in finding out what makes a good cry good and
Speaker 1: bad cry bad. And they looked at three thousand crying
Speaker 1: related experiments, and you know, initially they said, Okay, a
Speaker 1: lot of this has to do with the circumstance at
Speaker 1: the time, who the person is, what they're doing, why
Speaker 1: they're crying. But they did did tease out some more
Speaker 1: universal insights into this, like the majority of respondents reported
Speaker 1: improvements in their mood following about of crying. However, one
Speaker 1: third reported no improvement, in a tenth felt worse after crying.
Speaker 1: So they drilled down a little bit more to figure
Speaker 1: out what was going on there. And they found out
Speaker 1: that those who cried and received support during their crying
Speaker 1: episode were the most likely to report improvements and mood
Speaker 1: as opposed to those who were alone, and especially those
Speaker 1: who were in a lab setting alone being videotaped, because
Speaker 1: then you bring up perhaps emotions like shame and embarrassment. Now,
Speaker 1: the other findings crying caused increased heart rate and sweating,
Speaker 1: but the calming effect like slow breathing, well, that out
Speaker 1: trumped everything else, and that lasted much longer than the
Speaker 1: other negative effects. And those that ten percent that felt
Speaker 1: really terrible afterwards. Um, those people tend to be uh,
Speaker 1: people with anxiety or mood disorders, and there of course
Speaker 1: least likely to experience positive effects of crying. In addition,
Speaker 1: and I thought that was just really interesting, this bit. Um.
Speaker 1: The researchers report that people who lack insight into their
Speaker 1: emotional lives, now this is a condition known as a exthemia,
Speaker 1: actually feel worse after crying. And the idea is that
Speaker 1: for these people, they lack the emotional insight um into
Speaker 1: a situation, and that could prevent the kind of cognitive
Speaker 1: change required for a sad experience to be transformed into
Speaker 1: something positive. Okay, So again, if you think of it
Speaker 1: as sending in the grief counselors, sending in the stress counselors,
Speaker 1: if there's some sort of breakdown in your ability to
Speaker 1: actually reflect and crunch that information, then I can see
Speaker 1: where you would lose that therapeutic effect. Yeah, because we've
Speaker 1: talked about this before. When you are trying to get
Speaker 1: through a difficult or painful situation, a lot of times
Speaker 1: you have to have the ability to reframe it. And
Speaker 1: you can only reframe it if you have insights into
Speaker 1: the problem that you can come back to and say, Okay,
Speaker 1: I have a different perspective on this, um. But if
Speaker 1: you have this condition that you just can't have that
Speaker 1: moment that catharsis that would allow you that the idea
Speaker 1: that that of weeping uncontrollable, almost as if you've lost
Speaker 1: control of your your your bladder or your bowels. Right. Uh. Well,
Speaker 1: there is one condition, an actual condition known as pseudo
Speaker 1: bulbar effect or p d a UM, which is also
Speaker 1: sometimes known as emotional incontinence, and according to MPR, two
Speaker 1: million people in the US actually suffer from this. Uh.
Speaker 1: It is a neurological disorder. I want to stress that
Speaker 1: where it's Uh, it's neurological and nature. It's not an
Speaker 1: emotional issue. It's all in the wiring of your brain
Speaker 1: UM and it's characterized by involuntary crying, uncontrollable episodes of crying,
Speaker 1: and occasionally it spills over into areas of laughter as well.
Speaker 1: But it occurs when disease or injury UH cause a
Speaker 1: malfunction in the brain circuit involved in expression of emotion.
Speaker 1: So we're talking about it appearing is a symptom of
Speaker 1: multiple sclerosis, a LS, Alzheimer's, parkinson stroke, traumatic brain injury,
Speaker 1: and the outburst can often be very disturbing and erassing
Speaker 1: to the person UH that's afflicted with it. UH. It
Speaker 1: can hit like a seizure, lasting for seconds or minutes,
Speaker 1: and it can happen several times of day. So it's
Speaker 1: a Again, it's quite an ordeal to have to suffer
Speaker 1: through it as a symptom of a greater disease. But
Speaker 1: it's interesting that there there is a treatment for an
Speaker 1: FDA approved treatment out there called dextro metamorphine, a key
Speaker 1: ingredient in cough medicine and the one that leads to
Speaker 1: recreational use of cough medicine in so called robo tripping,
Speaker 1: which we do not encourage you to do, and it's
Speaker 1: used here in treating p B A. Actually came out
Speaker 1: of its out of researchers exploring its potential use as
Speaker 1: an A L S treatment. It actually didn't help in
Speaker 1: the treatment of A L S. But while they were
Speaker 1: exploring the options here, they observed that it cut down
Speaker 1: on emotional outbursts in A L S patients that were
Speaker 1: also suffering from p p A as a symptom. Now
Speaker 1: that's a scenario in which the person cannot help themselves.
Speaker 1: They are not trying to cry on purpose. Obviously the
Speaker 1: wires are crossed. But if you look at Dutch psychologist
Speaker 1: ad vinger Hoots work, he says that if you're someone
Speaker 1: who does not suffer from that in your crying, it
Speaker 1: could be a kind of social signaling. Um. He calls
Speaker 1: tears highly symbolic, and he and psychiatrist John Bilby point
Speaker 1: to the early childhood mother child bond at play, in
Speaker 1: which he says that you know, crying plays a really
Speaker 1: critical role because it communicates suffering in an engender's empathy. So,
Speaker 1: from an evolutionary biology perspective, Fingerhoots is basically saying that crying,
Speaker 1: shedding a couple of tears is far safer um for
Speaker 1: our ancestors, right then crying out, which a predator might hear.
Speaker 1: You know, a silent tear falling can communicate to any
Speaker 1: member of someone's family that they are suffering in their
Speaker 1: own need of help. So he's coming at it from
Speaker 1: that perspective. And to support this, he points to the
Speaker 1: enlarged visual cortex and humans and primates. Now, this part
Speaker 1: of the brain is something that allows us to read
Speaker 1: really subtle um facial signaling in the face, whether it's
Speaker 1: a micro expression blushing or tears. So he says that
Speaker 1: you know, tears part and parcel of this kind of
Speaker 1: um arsenal of ways that you can nonverbally communicate what's
Speaker 1: going on emotionally, and it is an instant communication. I mean,
Speaker 1: you see somebody on the on the train and they've
Speaker 1: done some tears in your eyes, are instantly at least curious,
Speaker 1: if not compassionate for that individual. Even with my my
Speaker 1: my son two going on three, Like he sees another
Speaker 1: kid crying, he instantly like starts asking questions like what happened?
Speaker 1: What happened? To that boy, you know, and and uh
Speaker 1: and and so I definitely, I definitely buy into some
Speaker 1: of these ideas of the social communication of tears. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and Fingerhot said that if you look at people who
Speaker 1: are watching a Hollywood tear jerker in the studies that
Speaker 1: he's conducted, when they're doing this with a friend, they
Speaker 1: tend to cry and then have an improvement in mood
Speaker 1: or report an improvement in mood. But when they watched
Speaker 1: the tear jerker alone, there's no improvement in mood or
Speaker 1: overall in his findings. So that again points to his
Speaker 1: idea that this could be social signaling, because if there's
Speaker 1: no one around to see it, it's kind of like
Speaker 1: a tree falling in the woods. I'm I'm I'm sadden
Speaker 1: that the study didn't go into look what happens when
Speaker 1: you shed tears for a piece of media that you
Speaker 1: do not want to make you cry? You know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying? Like example, well, okay, to be a pieces
Speaker 1: of media that I instantly can remember having shed a
Speaker 1: tear got a little worked up over um In Madmen,
Speaker 1: there was a character death in there that that that
Speaker 1: was really emotional and that that that really choked me. Up,
Speaker 1: and I was like, all right, madman, you're a great show,
Speaker 1: you're well put together. I'm totally okay with you tinkering
Speaker 1: with my emotion. But then then once and this was
Speaker 1: not like heavy weeping or anything, but I was watching
Speaker 1: Sons of Anarchy and uh, and I had and I
Speaker 1: had a little tear crop card on my face and
Speaker 1: I'm like, Sons of Anarchy, you did not get to
Speaker 1: make me cry, but you know, kudos you managed to
Speaker 1: do it. But I feel like they're there are other
Speaker 1: cases of that. Have you ever had that happened to
Speaker 1: you where the media maybe it's your mood or something,
Speaker 1: the media gets into you when you really would rather
Speaker 1: it not to have that power over your emotion. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's when it's usually more of a modeling moments that
Speaker 1: don't normally buy into this sort of you know, saccharine,
Speaker 1: sugary moments that that feel, um, not very authentic, And
Speaker 1: every once in a while it'll it'll catch me unawares.
Speaker 1: Why am I crying about this Lifetime special? I'm just kidding, um,
Speaker 1: But you know, some sort of piece of media that
Speaker 1: doesn't feel like it's earned it, you know, Yeah, like
Speaker 1: you don't get my tears um and which you know
Speaker 1: makes you kind of wonder, are we the only animals?
Speaker 1: Are we the only organisms on this earth who cry emotionally?
Speaker 1: And you know, the the jury is still out on this.
Speaker 1: We know that other animals cry, just not emotionally. So
Speaker 1: we're talking about apes and elephants, even camels um. Last year,
Speaker 1: Discovery News reported on a spate of elephants who were
Speaker 1: observed to cry after traumatic events. For instance, quote rescuers
Speaker 1: of a male elephant brutally abused for fifty years in
Speaker 1: India claimed that after the chains and spikes were removed
Speaker 1: from elephant Raju's legs, tear streamed down its face. And
Speaker 1: animal behaviorist Mark beck Off says that some mammals may
Speaker 1: cry due to a loss of contact comfort and that
Speaker 1: this could be a hardwired response to not feeling touch.
Speaker 1: So he's parsing at out more in physicality and physiology,
Speaker 1: but that sort of boils down to emotional crying, right,
Speaker 1: because if touch is soothing, and soothing is playing into
Speaker 1: your emotional response, well then they're all connected. That being said,
Speaker 1: the jury is out. You know, at the top of
Speaker 1: this episode, you mentioned the drinking of tears like fine wine.
Speaker 1: And uh is we're discussing the animal world, and we
Speaker 1: really need to point out that you do find tier
Speaker 1: vampires in the world, um specifically tear feeding moths and butterflies.
Speaker 1: You'll find these in Africa, Asia, South American and they
Speaker 1: mainly feed on large blasted animals such as a deer
Speaker 1: and antelope, a crocodile. They getting close, they drink some
Speaker 1: of that moist goodness, uh, you know, as if it
Speaker 1: were morning dew, and then they get out of there.
Speaker 1: I mean, why not. It's there, it's it's liquid, it's drinkable,
Speaker 1: Drink it if you can, and get out before something happens.
Speaker 1: But the most interesting of the tier vampires is actually
Speaker 1: a species of off in Madagascar discovered in two thousand six,
Speaker 1: and it drinks the tears of sleeping birds. And the
Speaker 1: name of the species is mcreadtoids hieroglyphica. I do like
Speaker 1: the hieroglyphic part. It does, it does, And as you'll
Speaker 1: see this, this is a creature that has some significant
Speaker 1: panache when it comes to stealing some tears. It's a
Speaker 1: delicate theft that involves a specialized harpoon like probiscus that
Speaker 1: they insert under the eyelid of the sleeping magpie robins
Speaker 1: and Newtonian birds. And then this hooks into place, and
Speaker 1: scientists dur eniture if there is some sort of chemical
Speaker 1: compound going on here as well to deaden the sensation
Speaker 1: of those hooks. But they don't perceive them right. But
Speaker 1: at any rate, they hook into place without probiscus, and
Speaker 1: then they slurp away at some tears and they think
Speaker 1: this is probably to make up for a lack of
Speaker 1: salt in their diet, because we mentioned earlier there is
Speaker 1: salt and tears about the same that you'll find in plasma. Uh,
Speaker 1: they drink it up and may get out of their
Speaker 1: and uh it's it's amazing, So kudos Hieroglyphica stealthy stuff there.
Speaker 1: Now those are a kind of vampire praying on tears. Um,
Speaker 1: but could you prey on tears blood? Oh? You you
Speaker 1: would have to be very you could. You have to
Speaker 1: be a very specialized vampire. And as we discussed in
Speaker 1: our episode on vampire bats and the evolution of vampire bats,
Speaker 1: that's already a pretty pretty rough road as it is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you suffer from a very rare disorder called hemolacrea,
Speaker 1: which causes tears that are partially or entirely made of blood.
Speaker 1: I urge you not to hang out near a livestock,
Speaker 1: particularly in South America, because that is where a vampire
Speaker 1: bat may detect those tears. Indeed, now we've known about
Speaker 1: this condition for fair while. You'll see accounts of it,
Speaker 1: uh from a sixteenth century Italian physician Antonio Brassavola. He
Speaker 1: wrote about teaching a nut who wrote about treating a
Speaker 1: nun who wept bloody tears when she was menstruating. Modern
Speaker 1: film fans probably remember this best as UH one of
Speaker 1: the quirks of Bond Villain the Chief in two thousand
Speaker 1: six Casino Royale, played by Mad's Mickelson. He would have
Speaker 1: a little a little bit of blood that would come
Speaker 1: out of his eye there at particularly poignant moments of
Speaker 1: the narrative. Um. But in most cases, what we're dealing
Speaker 1: with here, uh, it's you're talking about it being a
Speaker 1: symptom of a head injury, a tumor, a blood clot,
Speaker 1: a tear in the tear duct um, a common infection
Speaker 1: such as conjunctive ittis pink i that causes the bloody
Speaker 1: tear to well up. Now, there are other cases that
Speaker 1: have shown up over the years, even in recent years
Speaker 1: there too in Tennessee that that popped up where it's
Speaker 1: it's a little harder to get to the truth of
Speaker 1: and part of it is when you we took you
Speaker 1: through the tear duct and uh, it's there's a lot
Speaker 1: of very small mechanisms going on there. So it's difficult
Speaker 1: to really get in there and do a size study
Speaker 1: in all these cases. But um, for the most part,
Speaker 1: we are talking about injuries and uh, inflammations and infections. Uh,
Speaker 1: there are outline cases that scientists continue to explore. But
Speaker 1: can you imagine before science did explore this phenomenon would
Speaker 1: have looked other worldly to people? Oh indeed, I mean
Speaker 1: just that we already have so much and we've already
Speaker 1: built up so much supernatural wonder about blood and then
Speaker 1: the fair amount of of wondering on mysticism about tears,
Speaker 1: and have the two come together as one. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's crazy. What's gonna happen next? Are they gonna sweat
Speaker 1: blood too? Well, if you're hippo, right, although it's not
Speaker 1: actual blood, right, but but yeah, but even that, the
Speaker 1: early early analysts looked at that and like, what's happening here.
Speaker 1: It's blood. What's why? Is the creature the creature of
Speaker 1: Sado massacust I don't know, devil creature? Alright, guys, If
Speaker 1: you want to look further into crying, how stuff Works
Speaker 1: has an article called how Crying Works. Check it out.
Speaker 1: It's real tier jerker for sure. Nice yeah, and hey,
Speaker 1: for the rest of what we've been doing over the years, here,
Speaker 1: come on over to step to bow your Mind dot com.
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Speaker 1: you name it. And if you have thoughts on ocular
Speaker 1: ejaculations let us know. You can email us at blow
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