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Speaker 1: Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My

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Speaker 1: name is Robert.

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Speaker 2: Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday. Time to

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Speaker 2: go into the vault for an older episode of the show.

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Speaker 2: This one originally published January tenth, twenty twenty three, and

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Speaker 2: it is part three in our series on throwing behavior

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Speaker 2: in non human animals and what else is there to say?

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Speaker 3: Enjoy Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name

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Speaker 1: is Robert.

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Speaker 2: Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and we're back with part

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Speaker 2: three in our series I'm throwing behavior in animals, especially

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Speaker 2: non human animals, but we'll be talking about throwing of

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Speaker 2: the human variety some today now. In previous episodes, we

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Speaker 2: discussed a paper documenting a kind of throwing or what

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Speaker 2: appeared to be a kind of throwing in octopuses in Australia,

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Speaker 2: which use their siphons to blast clouds of silt in

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Speaker 2: their neighbors' faces when they get a little too close.

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Speaker 2: We discussed the ability of elephants to throw with their trunks,

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Speaker 2: and we talked about mongooses doing brutal reverse granny shots

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Speaker 2: to bypass the defenses of armored millipedes and, as Mick

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Speaker 2: Jagger would say, get the meat. Today, our discussion continues

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Speaker 2: with a very important consideration.

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Speaker 1: Well, when I told my wife that this was the

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Speaker 1: topic we were going to be covering, the question she asked, goes, well,

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Speaker 1: what about Airbud? Are you going to talk about Airbud?

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Speaker 1: Handle the air Bud.

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Speaker 2: Question a very important facet of this issue.

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Speaker 1: Yes, Airbud is, of course a nineteen ninety seven motion

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Speaker 1: picture about a dog that plays competitive basketball based on

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Speaker 1: the At this point, I think classic sports movie trope.

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Speaker 1: There's nothing in the rule book that says a blank

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Speaker 1: can't play whatever the sport happens to be, And you

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Speaker 1: can put into that blank basically any animal, whatever animal

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Speaker 1: seems doable from a movie making standpoint and acceptable to

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Speaker 1: the human imagination. And I guess you could ultimately go

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Speaker 1: beyond the realm of humans into other things as long

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Speaker 1: as you could somehow cobble together a script around it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. I don't know if I've ever seen another one

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Speaker 2: of these. I think I saw Airbud when I was

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Speaker 2: a kid, But I know it's a tradition right there,

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Speaker 2: you know, there's a million movies like Jeremy the Football Horse.

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Speaker 1: Well, yeah, I think one of the earliest, if not

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Speaker 1: the earliest, examples of this. And I could be wrong,

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Speaker 1: because this is not a subgenre that I have personally

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Speaker 1: explored a lot. But I do remember seeing parts of

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Speaker 1: this one on TV the nineteen seventy six movie Gus,

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Speaker 1: which also had Ed Asner and Don Knot sent it

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Speaker 1: to give you an idea of the you know, the

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Speaker 1: caliber of talent that was involved in this, But it

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Speaker 1: was about a terrible NFL team. I think there's something

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Speaker 1: like the California Atomics or something, and they end up

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Speaker 1: deciding to field a donkey as a kicker in the game,

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Speaker 1: and I guess it works out for them. Again, there's

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Speaker 1: nothing in the rule, but this says a donkey can't

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Speaker 1: play inn FL.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. I imagine movies like this must just encourage an

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Speaker 2: overly stringent form of legalism when it comes to professional sports. Yeah, Like,

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Speaker 2: does it say games must take place on planet Earth

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Speaker 2: and so forth?

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Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, they will at this point. Surely the future

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Speaker 1: proof things. But if we're going just based on these films,

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Speaker 1: it would seem that for a while they didn't have

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Speaker 1: all the loopholes filled in on this, and and people

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Speaker 1: were just constantly rolling out new animals, like it doesn't

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Speaker 1: say anything about ardvarks. So ardvarks are in play huh

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Speaker 1: in Professional Curly Yes, okay. But outside of Gus and Airbud,

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Speaker 1: you also have movies like two thousands MVP Most Valuable Primate,

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Speaker 1: in which a chimpanzee plays soccer. There are also I

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Speaker 1: think thirteen additional Airbud sequels and spin offs.

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Speaker 2: Human they're also primates. All existing soccer players are primates.

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Speaker 1: Well, tell the producers of MVP Most Valuable Primate about that.

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Speaker 1: They maybe they actually touched on in the screenplay, but

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Speaker 1: I doubt it.

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Speaker 2: But I'm sorry you were. How many air Bud movies

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Speaker 2: are there?

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Speaker 1: Thirteen by Mike count, That includes the air Buddies like

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Speaker 1: spinoff series, and interestingly enough, two thousand and six is

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Speaker 1: air Buddies. That was Don Nottt's final film. He voiced

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Speaker 1: a bloodhound in it.

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Speaker 2: Oh.

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Speaker 1: Now, I don't know. Does that that means animals talk

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Speaker 1: in air Buddies. I don't know if animals talked in Airbud.

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Speaker 1: Perhaps you remember, I don't remember.

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Speaker 2: I'm inclined to think not. I think the Dog and

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Speaker 2: Air Bud was silent. But yeah, well, but by the

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Speaker 2: time they get into the Buddies movies, which by the way,

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Speaker 2: descend into titles like Space Buddies and Santa Buddies. As

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Speaker 2: far as I can tell, these are just an excuse

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Speaker 2: to have a screen full of Golden Retriever puppies for

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Speaker 2: eighty minutes. I think it is absolutely crass mercenary filmmaking.

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Speaker 2: It's just ultimate cute exploitation. But this was also the

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Speaker 2: series that in an episode long ago, we suggested should

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Speaker 2: do a crossover with the Clive Barker verse and create

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Speaker 2: hell Buddies.

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Speaker 1: Now. There's also just real quick a few other mentions.

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Speaker 1: There's nineteen ninety nine Soccer Dog, the movie. There's two

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Speaker 1: thousand and five's The Karate Dog, and then there's the

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Speaker 1: nineteen ninety six movie Ed, in which a chimpanzee plays baseball. Oh,

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Speaker 1: and then there's nineteen seventy eight's Matilda about a boxing kangaroo.

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Speaker 1: That one has interested me because I noticed its stars

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Speaker 1: Elliott Gould, and it was also one of the films

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Speaker 1: you could pull up on the Criterion Collections streaming service

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Speaker 1: at least several months back.

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Speaker 2: Boxing kangaroo. Is that a waltzing Matilda joke?

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Speaker 1: I imagine? So yeah, And I looked a little bit

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Speaker 1: into this related to this podcast episod, and I quickly realized, Oh, well,

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Speaker 1: the boxing kangaroo is a whole thing unto itself that

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Speaker 1: does have some basis in kangaroo behavior, but often in

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Speaker 1: like a misinterpretation of kangaroo defensive behavior. But it has

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Speaker 1: kind of like a life of its own outside of

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Speaker 1: this particular picture. It might be something to come back

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Speaker 1: to in the future.

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Speaker 2: Now, one more thing about the Airbud franchise. You know,

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Speaker 2: before they get to air Buddies, I think you were

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Speaker 2: saying that the Golden Retrievers end up doing a bunch

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Speaker 2: of different sports, and they've all got puns in the titles.

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Speaker 2: So the one where Airbud does baseball is called Airbud

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Speaker 2: Seventh Inning Fetch.

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Speaker 1: You got to get some puns in there, all right.

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Speaker 1: But bringing it all back around to today's episode, Okay,

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Speaker 1: some of these we can just instantly dismiss for now.

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Speaker 1: We don't need to concern ourselves with boxing kangaroos or

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Speaker 1: karate dogs because these do not involve throwing. You know,

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Speaker 1: we're going to focus on the sports that involve throwing

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Speaker 1: a ball. Gus, that's impressive, but he's a kicker. Despite

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Speaker 1: just participating in a game that has a lot of

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Speaker 1: throwing in it doesn't seem to be throwing anything. So

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Speaker 1: we really only have to worry about the concept of

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Speaker 1: dogs playing scoring games with balls and chimpanzees playing scoring

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Speaker 1: games with balls. Real quick, let's talk about dogs. And

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Speaker 1: you may have additional expertise on this to throw in

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Speaker 1: here experience from being a dog owner. But as far

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Speaker 1: as dogs go, they can obviously be trained to do

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Speaker 1: a lot of different things, often very impressive things, including chasing,

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Speaker 1: after catching, and fetching balls and sticks, and as is

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Speaker 1: evident in many videos online, they can also be trained

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Speaker 1: to bounce basketballs into baskets off of their noses, off

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Speaker 1: of their snouts.

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Speaker 2: That always, I don't know, Like a basketball is a

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Speaker 2: fairly massive object. I would think booping a basketball in

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Speaker 2: midflight with the snout would really kind of hurt.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm not sure, but I looked around, and as

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Speaker 1: far as dogs throwing, I'm not so certain about this. Drops. Yes,

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Speaker 1: they can. You'll see plenty of examples of dogs catching

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Speaker 1: things dropping them, But I'm not sure. I'm not sure

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Speaker 1: you really have anything like throwing even kind of a

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Speaker 1: you know, a tossing aside of a stick.

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Speaker 2: Or a ball, well, not targeted throwing. I mean, I

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Speaker 2: think what's quite common for dogs is something more like

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Speaker 2: what the mongoose did with the millipede. Dogs will, especially

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Speaker 2: dogs that have been trained in kind of unusual environments,

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Speaker 2: with say a puzzle type treat retrieval toy, you know,

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Speaker 2: so you have like some kind of toy where the

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Speaker 2: treat is hidden inside and the dog has to manipulate

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Speaker 2: the toy to get the treat out of the middle.

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Speaker 2: In those cases, I've seen dogs throwing the toy in

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Speaker 2: order to try to extract the treat, but it's very haphazard.

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Speaker 2: They're not like hitting a target. They're more just kind

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Speaker 2: of like throwing it wildly by tossing their head and

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Speaker 2: it'll bounce off the wall or something, and maybe the

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Speaker 2: treat will tumble out.

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Speaker 1: Now. I also some discussions and some papers about the

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Speaker 1: possibility that a dog using a chewing stick is essentially

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Speaker 1: a form of tool use, and this would also apply

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Speaker 1: to any other animal that uses a stick in such

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Speaker 1: a fashion. So that's an interesting idea. To consider.

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Speaker 2: Hmmm, yeah, you can make that argument, I guess by

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Speaker 2: the same token, you could say, like a bear scratching

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Speaker 2: its butt against a tree would be a form of

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Speaker 2: tool use.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Chimps, However, chimps are a different case entirely. So

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Speaker 1: we're not saying that chimpanzees should be encouraged to play

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Speaker 1: baseball or soccer or any other professional sport or any

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Speaker 1: sport for that matter. But they have certainly demonstrated their

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Speaker 1: use of tools in both captivity and in the wild.

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Speaker 1: And this includes the targeted use of thrown objects. Now,

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Speaker 1: one of the objects or substances I guess observed to

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Speaker 1: be thrown a lot, and this is something that is

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Speaker 1: of course well documented online. In fact, when we were

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Speaker 1: researching other aspects of animals throwing things, some of the

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Speaker 1: search engines I was using, We're very excited to give

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Speaker 1: me content of animals throwing feces, particularly chimps throwing feces.

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Speaker 1: I was not looking for this information at the time,

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Speaker 1: but the Internet really wanted to desert it to me.

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Speaker 2: Uh huh.

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Speaker 1: Now this kind of goes back into something we talked

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Speaker 1: about earlier, the question if you're doing something with something

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Speaker 1: that came from your own body, is it truly tool use?

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Speaker 2: I don't know. I mean, I guess when I was

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Speaker 2: thinking about substances that come out of an animal's own body,

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Speaker 2: I was thinking about like things like spider silk, or

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Speaker 2: like the irticating hairs that come off of a tarantula's back,

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Speaker 2: where the ways in which these substances are used are

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Speaker 2: not very generalized, They're not very free form. Instead, they

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Speaker 2: seem to be pretty tightly controlled, instinctually determined behavioral patterns,

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Speaker 2: whereas I don't know, you could say, maybe like a

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Speaker 2: chimpanzee pooping and then throwing its poop at someone or

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Speaker 2: something that seems to be a little more free form.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess. Also, and this is not something that

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Speaker 1: any of the papers I looked that got into, But

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Speaker 1: I guess there's a difference between poop directly delivered to

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Speaker 1: the hand and then thrown and like poop that is

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Speaker 1: just like say, in a creature's habitat or in its

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Speaker 1: general area that it then picks up, maybe not even

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Speaker 1: its own poop. So I guess we'd have to consider

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Speaker 1: that as well.

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Speaker 2: Now, I do think we should be clear that feces

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Speaker 2: are not the only objects that apes like chimpanzees throw,

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Speaker 2: but it is a feces are often observed to be thrown,

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Speaker 2: especially in captivity.

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Speaker 1: I think, yes, yeah, definitely. The sources I was looking

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Speaker 1: at were definitely mentioning this because in captivity, especially historically,

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Speaker 1: there are often less things for the animal to interact with.

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Speaker 1: The poop is something that will happen eventually, will be

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Speaker 1: in the enclosure, and therefore is available to pick up, manipulate,

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Speaker 1: and throw if desired, whereas in the wild there are

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Speaker 1: other competitors out there, the other things that could pick up,

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Speaker 1: like sticks, like rocks that could be thrown, and we

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Speaker 1: have seen them throw such objects both in captivity but

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Speaker 1: also in the wild, and so it seems to be

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Speaker 1: a situation where there are far more incidents of poop

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Speaker 1: throwing in captivity versus the wild, though they have been

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Speaker 1: observed to throw poop in the wild as well.

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Speaker 2: So yeah, I guess I would not disqualify something from

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Speaker 2: counting as tool use just because it consists of an

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Speaker 2: animal's own excreta or something that came out of their body.

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Speaker 2: I mean you could use poop, I suppose, as a

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Speaker 2: tool for all kinds of things.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, this is kind of a tangent, but I

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Speaker 1: was looking around and back. In twenty seventeen, a team

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Speaker 1: from the University of Calgary hosted a competition to make

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Speaker 1: use of astronaut waste, and the winning submission was titled

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Speaker 1: Astroplastic from Colon to Colony, in which the DNA of

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Speaker 1: an E. Coli bacteria was modified so that it removed

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Speaker 1: acids from human feces, and they did not use actual

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Speaker 1: poop in the experiment. It used like a mixture of

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Speaker 1: things to simulate poop. But the idea was here that

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Speaker 1: this this modified E. Coli would produce a plastic that

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Speaker 1: can then be used in a three D printer to

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Speaker 1: produce simple tools like wrenches and screwdrivers. So the aim

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Speaker 1: here would be sort of twofold. So say you're going

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Speaker 1: to Mars on an extended mission. This way you don't

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Speaker 1: have to bring those tools with you. You don't have to

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Speaker 1: pay for the cost of getting those tools into orbit

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Speaker 1: and then to Mars, and then likewise you have to

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Speaker 1: worry less about getting rid of human waste on the journey.

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Speaker 1: That's quite brilliant. Yes, I one day hope to have

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Speaker 1: all kinds of plastic tools and toys made out of poop. Now,

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Speaker 1: this is sort of another aside, but this gets back

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Speaker 1: to chimps specifically, if you might get into the question

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Speaker 1: of why do chimps throw poop specifically, even if they

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Speaker 1: have a choice of their objects to throw? And I

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Speaker 1: found this rather fascinating older paper. This is from nineteen

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Speaker 1: ninety six. It is a rush and paper titled a

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Speaker 1: neglected form of quasi aggression in Apes Possible relevance for

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Speaker 1: the origins of humor. This was the current anthropology and

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Speaker 1: I'm just going to read a quote from it here.

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Speaker 1: According to people working at the Pavlov Center, at least

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Speaker 1: four adult chimpanzee males and one adult female would also

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Speaker 1: throw feces at people, expressing joy when the target was

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Speaker 1: hit by making a playface, hooting, clapping, and stamping around.

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Speaker 1: They did not, however, throw feces at persons of whom

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Speaker 1: they were afraid. We have received the same information from

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Speaker 1: people in charge of chimpanzees at the Saint Petersburg and

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Speaker 1: Moscow zoos at the Moscow Zoo. The same behavior was

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Speaker 1: observed in orangutanks.

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Speaker 2: Hmmm, so at least in these cases the chimpanzees seemed

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Speaker 2: to get a real hoot out of hitting somebody with

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Speaker 2: some poop.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and again this is older research, and I detect

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Speaker 1: at least a little bit of anthropomorphizing here, But the

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Speaker 1: distinction about fear was very interesting. So maybe in this

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Speaker 1: we do see the roots of something like humor. But

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Speaker 1: elsewhere primatologists do seem to agree that throwing poop, stone, sticks, etc.

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Speaker 1: And primates is often an act of communication, which matches

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Speaker 1: up with some of the things we've been discussing elsewhere

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Speaker 1: in this series.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and that we will get to in a little

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Speaker 2: bit when we talk about human evolution.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and with gimps, it's not even it's not even

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Speaker 1: a case of like of necessarily purely spontaneous communication. Like

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Speaker 1: it's easy, I think to make that leap. You think

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Speaker 1: of like an animal trying to say something, not having

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Speaker 1: the ability to say it, or having difficulty relaying that message,

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Speaker 1: and then sort of sort of spontaneously picking something up

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Speaker 1: and throwing it, or perhaps it already has something that's

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Speaker 1: hand and it throws it. And this would still be

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Speaker 1: very fascinating. I mean, even you think of like a

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Speaker 1: zoo environment, for example, the chimp is attempting interspecies communication,

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Speaker 1: even if that interspecies communication consists of throwing a rock

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Speaker 1: or some poop at somebody, right, but it's not always spontaneous.

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Speaker 1: Sometimes it is premeditated in the case of stone throwing,

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Speaker 1: that's been observed. One of the more famous examples of

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Speaker 1: this was Santino the chimpanzee born in nineteen seventy eight,

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Speaker 1: who made headlines multiple times, and I think sometimes the

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Speaker 1: news cycle would come back around to him because in

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Speaker 1: addition to being a pretty talented artist, he also had

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Speaker 1: some issues with people, like to collect stones ahead of

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Speaker 1: time so that he could throw them at visitors to

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Speaker 1: the Throuvic Zoo in Sweden.

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Speaker 2: Now that's really interesting, the collecting of stones in advance aspect,

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Speaker 2: because of course that indicates some kind of forethought or

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Speaker 2: premeditation or planning, like seeing the stone as a tool

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Speaker 2: for future use in a moment when it is not

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Speaker 2: currently needed for that use.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and apparently it wasn't an isolated incident. It's said

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Speaker 1: that he planned hundreds of stone throwing attacks on zoo

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Speaker 1: visitors over the years. Sadly from his enclosure in December

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Speaker 1: of twenty twenty two, and was subsequently shot along with

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Speaker 1: some other escapees, which was a pretty controversial incident recently.

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Speaker 1: There's a fair amount of coverage about that, but I

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Speaker 1: don't think everybody necessarily connected that this was the same

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Speaker 1: chimp that had made headlines in the past for the

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Speaker 1: throwing of rocks.

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Speaker 2: And for art apparently.

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Speaker 1: And for art. Yeah, you can find videos of him

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Speaker 1: online doing some painting, you know, manipulating of pigments on

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Speaker 1: a canvas to create some interesting works.

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Speaker 2: Well, sat in for Santino, but led an interesting life.

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Speaker 1: Now there's another interesting wrinkle in stone throwing with chimps

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Speaker 1: that I was reading about, because in the wild, chimps

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Speaker 1: will also engage in what is called a cumulative stone throwing,

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Speaker 1: as reported by cool at All in Nature Scientific Reports

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Speaker 1: back in twenty s sixteen, modern chimpanzees will actually create

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Speaker 1: stone accumulation sites that are reminiscent of human cares, of

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Speaker 1: human assemblages of stone, something that we often associate with deliberate,

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Speaker 1: cultured acts of human behavior something. And this is both

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Speaker 1: from an archaeological standpoint, when archaeologists find examples of stones

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Speaker 1: that have been gathered together in one area, and also

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Speaker 1: I think we just individually encounter this as well, whether

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Speaker 1: you see piles of stones that are put there for

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Speaker 1: a purpose, Like perhaps you're on a nature walk and

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Speaker 1: these stones are gathered together to help mark the path

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Speaker 1: you're supposed to be on, or you often see this

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Speaker 1: done out of for pure amusement. At times, you'll just

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Speaker 1: find places where humans have been around multiple stones and

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Speaker 1: there's like kind of this irresistible urge to arrange them

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Speaker 1: or stack them up.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and so it's interesting, But I also so I'm

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Speaker 2: hesitant to make the speculative leap here. I mean, I

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Speaker 2: know I was reading about this paper, and I know

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Speaker 2: what some people have said about the you know, the

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Speaker 2: accumulation of stones, like throwing stones into the into a

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Speaker 2: hollow tree or something until they really pile up. That suggests, well,

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Speaker 2: maybe they're creating some kind of like ritual monument, like

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Speaker 2: you know, like humans would create a care and for

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Speaker 2: some kind of purpose to be observed and to mean something.

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Speaker 2: I don't think there's really evidence present to jump to

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Speaker 2: that kind of conclusion, because that seems like a different

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Speaker 2: order of that symbolic behavior that, as far as I know,

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Speaker 2: is probably only the province of humans. But I guess

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Speaker 2: we could always be surprised. It seems kind of a

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Speaker 2: speculative leap to me, but it's still really interesting behavior. Nonetheless,

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Speaker 2: I mean that the chimpanzee is piling up the stones

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Speaker 2: for some interesting reason, even if it's not to like

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Speaker 2: create a symbolic marker for other chimpanzees to see.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, So this particular paper they're drawing on various

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Speaker 1: surveys and accounts, and they found four populations in West

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Speaker 1: Africa where chimps quote habitually bang and throw rocks against

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Speaker 1: trees or toss them into tree cavities, resulting in conspicuous

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Speaker 1: stone accumulations at these sites. They point out that chimps,

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Speaker 1: along with kibuchin monkeys and long tailed macaques, are known

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Speaker 1: to use stones as hammers to crack open and cased foods.

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Speaker 1: They point out that stone throwing in chimpanzees was first

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Speaker 1: described by Jane Goodall, who documented aimed throwing of sticks

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Speaker 1: and rocks by male chimpanzees during agonistic displays, and this

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Speaker 1: behavior was later described by researchers for other non human

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Speaker 1: primates as well, including Japanese macaques, wild baboons, and capuchin monkeys.

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Speaker 1: Female bearded kbuchins have also been observed to throw rocks

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Speaker 1: during courtship interactions, which I guess this would be like

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Speaker 1: tenderly throwing pebbles against a window to get their lover's

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Speaker 1: interest at night without awakening the parents downstairs, or maybe not.

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Speaker 2: I like it, but human metaphors aside, I mean like it.

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Speaker 2: It is interesting that they would throw rocks at each

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Speaker 2: other for apparent purposes other than threats or intimidation.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Again, coming back into the communication aspect of it now,

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Speaker 1: I mentioned the using some sort of nutcracking behavior with

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Speaker 1: rocks that can sometimes lead to those rocks accumulating in

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Speaker 1: certain places, which is a different type of accumulation versus

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Speaker 1: what we're talking with the chimps here. Also, the paper

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Speaker 1: points out the Japanese macaques engage in stone handling, which

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Speaker 1: isn't tool use but solitary object play behavior, and it

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Speaker 1: actually results in use where patterns on the stones and

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Speaker 1: the stones will then end up accumulating at quote unquote PlayStations.

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Speaker 2: So just sort of like handling, manipulating a stone, not

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Speaker 2: really doing anything in particular with it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, which is I get. You know, it's like

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Speaker 1: the monolith hasn't really kicked in yet, but they're but

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Speaker 1: they're handling the stone, but chimpanzees are well beyond all

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Speaker 1: of these, like chimpanzees are second only to humans in

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Speaker 1: the variance of their tool usage. They make use of

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Speaker 1: simple sticks, stone hammers, stone cleavers to link to cut foods.

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Speaker 1: They've even been observed to hunt sleeping bush babies with

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Speaker 1: wooden spears. So this is I think only been observed

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Speaker 1: in female chimpanzees. But they'll take take a stick and

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Speaker 1: sort of sort of sharpen it with their teeth or

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Speaker 1: chew on it, you know, to get something like a point,

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Speaker 1: and then use that stick to stab into the hollows

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Speaker 1: of trees where there's a sleeping bush baby and spirit

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Speaker 1: and pull it back out to eat.

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Speaker 2: There's so many surprising little little cases of tool uisu

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Speaker 2: pro to tool used to behavior in chimpanzees like this.

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Speaker 1: Now, this this paper basically comes down to two hypotheses

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Speaker 1: about why the chimps do this. The first, and I

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Speaker 1: think the main hypothesis, is that they accumulate stone throwing

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Speaker 1: behavior as a modification of male chimpanzee display. This would

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Speaker 1: make it mean that it would be kind of like

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Speaker 1: an addition to their hand and foot drumming, which is

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Speaker 1: a ritualized behavior found in all known chimpanzee populations, and

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Speaker 1: the use of the stones, throwing the stones into a pile,

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Speaker 1: into the hall of a tree, et cetera, would be

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Speaker 1: a way of enhancing this particular activity.

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Speaker 2: That's oh yeah, so like hitting a pile of stones

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Speaker 2: with a stone would probably make a louder sound than

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Speaker 2: just throwing a stone off into the dirt.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't think I would not feel comfortable going

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Speaker 1: as far to say that they're making music, though I

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Speaker 1: think I saw some headlines that were going in that direction.

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Speaker 1: They also say that the second area to consider this, say,

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Speaker 1: they could also not be male drumming. But if it's

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Speaker 1: not that, it would mean that it quote may need

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Speaker 1: to be considered in a more symbolic context. And I

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Speaker 1: think this is where things would get a little foggy.

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Speaker 1: You're a little potentially more nebulous, because you're getting in

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Speaker 1: to this area where there is a connection between quote

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Speaker 1: ritualized animal behavior and the repeated stereotype behaviors commonly observed

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Speaker 1: during human rituals unquote, which granted that could cover a

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Speaker 1: great deal of ground.

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Speaker 2: This is what I was alluding to earlier. I mean,

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Speaker 2: it seems like an interesting possibility, but I think i'd

432
00:24:21,720 --> 00:24:24,080
Speaker 2: need more evidence that that's really the right way to

433
00:24:24,080 --> 00:24:24,720
Speaker 2: think about it.

434
00:24:25,160 --> 00:24:26,879
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think I think that's basically what the

435
00:24:26,880 --> 00:24:30,040
Speaker 1: authors here were leaning towards. Like It's like, if it's

436
00:24:30,160 --> 00:24:33,119
Speaker 1: not just part of the hand and foot drumming of

437
00:24:33,160 --> 00:24:36,240
Speaker 1: the male chimps, then it's something else, and that's something

438
00:24:36,240 --> 00:24:39,719
Speaker 1: else will require more research and more observation.

439
00:24:40,000 --> 00:24:42,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, but a really interesting behavior either way.

440
00:24:43,280 --> 00:24:45,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, And one thing they'd point out is that it

441
00:24:45,520 --> 00:24:49,119
Speaker 1: could have some great importance not only for our understanding

442
00:24:49,160 --> 00:24:52,800
Speaker 1: of how chimps behave, but also archaeologically when we find

443
00:24:52,840 --> 00:24:55,840
Speaker 1: piles of stones and things that, again we can often

444
00:24:55,920 --> 00:25:00,280
Speaker 1: easily associate with human intention, it could be something else.

445
00:25:00,320 --> 00:25:03,800
Speaker 1: It could be chimps in a or you know, some

446
00:25:03,840 --> 00:25:07,320
Speaker 1: other human ancestor engaging in some sort of display that

447
00:25:07,440 --> 00:25:09,680
Speaker 1: involves accumulating throwing rocks.

448
00:25:09,760 --> 00:25:12,520
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well it forces us to be humble about interpreting

449
00:25:12,600 --> 00:25:15,800
Speaker 2: archaeological evidence, because I think we tend to always want

450
00:25:15,840 --> 00:25:19,320
Speaker 2: to say, oh, if we find a non natural assemblage

451
00:25:19,320 --> 00:25:21,600
Speaker 2: of stones or something like that, you assume it must

452
00:25:21,600 --> 00:25:25,000
Speaker 2: have an almost kind of like industrial purpose. You know,

453
00:25:25,080 --> 00:25:28,560
Speaker 2: it's used for direct survival benefit. Maybe in the manufacture

454
00:25:28,720 --> 00:25:32,240
Speaker 2: of tools or something like that, which which of course

455
00:25:32,280 --> 00:25:35,120
Speaker 2: could be possible. Or the other side is people tend

456
00:25:35,119 --> 00:25:38,119
Speaker 2: to jump to religion you say is ritual use. But

457
00:25:38,160 --> 00:25:40,240
Speaker 2: then there are these cases that we observe in non

458
00:25:40,320 --> 00:25:42,879
Speaker 2: human primates today where it's like, it's not even clear

459
00:25:42,880 --> 00:25:46,520
Speaker 2: what this is for. Yeah, but I wanted to now

460
00:25:46,600 --> 00:25:52,040
Speaker 2: address the topic of the evolution of throwing in humans

461
00:25:52,640 --> 00:25:55,760
Speaker 2: because to the extent that animals throw, and we know

462
00:25:55,880 --> 00:25:58,720
Speaker 2: from everything we've looked at in these episodes that many,

463
00:25:58,880 --> 00:26:02,359
Speaker 2: many non human animals do throw, they don't throw like

464
00:26:02,520 --> 00:26:07,280
Speaker 2: we do. No animal out there comes anywhere close to

465
00:26:07,359 --> 00:26:12,480
Speaker 2: the combined levels of force and target precision that humans

466
00:26:12,520 --> 00:26:15,960
Speaker 2: are capable of. And to further explore this, I was

467
00:26:16,000 --> 00:26:19,879
Speaker 2: looking at an interesting paper by Michael P. Lombardo and

468
00:26:20,080 --> 00:26:23,760
Speaker 2: robert O. Diener published in the Quarterly Review of Biology

469
00:26:23,800 --> 00:26:28,040
Speaker 2: in twenty eighteen called Born to Throw The Ecological Causes

470
00:26:28,040 --> 00:26:31,600
Speaker 2: that shaped the Evolution of Throwing in Humans. Now, I'm

471
00:26:31,600 --> 00:26:33,879
Speaker 2: not going to address all the subtopics in this paper,

472
00:26:33,880 --> 00:26:36,080
Speaker 2: but wanted to pull out some highlights that I found

473
00:26:36,119 --> 00:26:40,280
Speaker 2: really interesting. So the authors begin by identifying two major

474
00:26:40,359 --> 00:26:44,200
Speaker 2: turning points in the relationship between human anatomy and human

475
00:26:44,240 --> 00:26:47,520
Speaker 2: behavior that sort of drove the evolution of the modern

476
00:26:47,600 --> 00:26:51,160
Speaker 2: human body. And they identified the shift to bipedal locomotion

477
00:26:51,720 --> 00:26:54,919
Speaker 2: that of course is well known, but also the development

478
00:26:55,000 --> 00:26:58,640
Speaker 2: of forceful overhand throwing, and they argue that the former

479
00:26:59,080 --> 00:27:01,280
Speaker 2: has gotten a lot more at tension than the latter,

480
00:27:01,359 --> 00:27:04,240
Speaker 2: but the latter might be considered equally important, if not

481
00:27:04,359 --> 00:27:09,439
Speaker 2: more so. There are other animals that throw in various scenarios,

482
00:27:09,480 --> 00:27:12,840
Speaker 2: as we've documented, but humans are the only primates that

483
00:27:12,920 --> 00:27:17,080
Speaker 2: can be observed to regularly throw targeted projectiles in order

484
00:27:17,119 --> 00:27:21,560
Speaker 2: to kill or cause injury to another animal. And I

485
00:27:21,560 --> 00:27:24,640
Speaker 2: think also it's worth noticing not only how much better

486
00:27:24,680 --> 00:27:27,840
Speaker 2: we are throwing than other animals, but how this is

487
00:27:27,880 --> 00:27:31,120
Speaker 2: pretty much the only feat of physical strength. They're one

488
00:27:31,119 --> 00:27:34,399
Speaker 2: of the only feats of physical strength where we surpass

489
00:27:34,560 --> 00:27:38,600
Speaker 2: our closest primate relatives. So compared to other primates like

490
00:27:38,680 --> 00:27:43,160
Speaker 2: chimpanzees and gorillas, humans are incredibly weak. The authors cite

491
00:27:43,200 --> 00:27:46,560
Speaker 2: some research it's older research from nineteen twenty six, attempting

492
00:27:47,080 --> 00:27:49,879
Speaker 2: to quantify the difference between the you know, like the

493
00:27:50,000 --> 00:27:54,240
Speaker 2: arm strength of a chimpanzee versus an adult human and this.

494
00:27:54,240 --> 00:27:57,600
Speaker 2: This older study concludes that, controlling for body size, an

495
00:27:57,640 --> 00:28:02,000
Speaker 2: adult male chimpanzee is on average roughly four times stronger

496
00:28:02,000 --> 00:28:05,439
Speaker 2: than a fit adult human male. Now this is probably

497
00:28:05,480 --> 00:28:08,320
Speaker 2: a very approximate guess, but I think it is utterly

498
00:28:08,400 --> 00:28:12,960
Speaker 2: uncontroversial to say that chimps are way way stronger than humans.

499
00:28:13,000 --> 00:28:15,440
Speaker 2: A chimpanzee could probably just rip your head off.

500
00:28:16,119 --> 00:28:20,120
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and I've seen some images of I've had.

501
00:28:20,119 --> 00:28:22,840
Speaker 1: I can't recall if it was a hairless gorilla or

502
00:28:22,880 --> 00:28:26,520
Speaker 1: a hairless chimpanzee, but it allows you to really see

503
00:28:26,520 --> 00:28:30,840
Speaker 1: the muscle definition, and it was terrifying how ripped this

504
00:28:30,920 --> 00:28:31,520
Speaker 1: creature was.

505
00:28:32,400 --> 00:28:37,040
Speaker 2: However, despite being several times stronger than a human on average,

506
00:28:37,359 --> 00:28:40,360
Speaker 2: in a general sense, their muscles are just stronger. A

507
00:28:40,480 --> 00:28:45,320
Speaker 2: chimpanzee is several times weaker than even an adolescent human

508
00:28:45,680 --> 00:28:49,440
Speaker 2: when it comes to forceful overhand throwing. And I was

509
00:28:49,480 --> 00:28:53,080
Speaker 2: looking to try to find this comparison quantified. I did

510
00:28:53,160 --> 00:28:56,040
Speaker 2: find it in the work of a Harvard researcher named

511
00:28:56,120 --> 00:28:59,560
Speaker 2: Neil Thomas Roach, who studies the evolution of high speed throwing.

512
00:29:00,280 --> 00:29:01,920
Speaker 2: I'm going to come back to some research he was

513
00:29:01,960 --> 00:29:05,480
Speaker 2: involved in a minute, but just quickly here, Roach cites

514
00:29:05,520 --> 00:29:09,360
Speaker 2: figures that even an adult male chimpanzee who has specifically

515
00:29:09,400 --> 00:29:11,479
Speaker 2: been trained to throw a ball, So this is not

516
00:29:11,600 --> 00:29:14,440
Speaker 2: just a naive chimpanzee who's never done this before. This

517
00:29:14,560 --> 00:29:18,320
Speaker 2: is one who has humans have trained them to throw

518
00:29:18,480 --> 00:29:21,280
Speaker 2: as hard as they can. One who has been trained

519
00:29:21,360 --> 00:29:24,520
Speaker 2: can only achieve top throwing speeds of about twenty miles

520
00:29:24,560 --> 00:29:28,520
Speaker 2: per hour, whereas among humans, twelve to thirteen year old

521
00:29:28,560 --> 00:29:33,680
Speaker 2: recreational baseball pictures can achieve pitches above sixty miles per hour,

522
00:29:34,200 --> 00:29:38,240
Speaker 2: and professional adult baseball players can throw fastballs in the

523
00:29:38,400 --> 00:29:41,600
Speaker 2: like ninety to one hundred mile per hour range. So

524
00:29:41,840 --> 00:29:47,200
Speaker 2: isn't that bizarre. A chimpanzee might be simultaneously three or

525
00:29:47,280 --> 00:29:50,880
Speaker 2: four times stronger than you in general, but you are

526
00:29:50,920 --> 00:29:54,760
Speaker 2: probably right now at least three times stronger than the

527
00:29:54,840 --> 00:29:56,440
Speaker 2: chimp when it comes to throwing.

528
00:29:57,400 --> 00:30:02,160
Speaker 1: Wow, that's a massive blow too. Any chimpanzee playing baseball

529
00:30:02,240 --> 00:30:05,880
Speaker 1: movies out there or basketball movies like it doesn't make

530
00:30:05,960 --> 00:30:06,880
Speaker 1: sense exactly.

531
00:30:06,920 --> 00:30:09,479
Speaker 2: Yeah, so like Chimp Rookie of the Year, that movie

532
00:30:09,560 --> 00:30:13,680
Speaker 2: that's based on a false premise. Yeah, but I think

533
00:30:13,720 --> 00:30:15,760
Speaker 2: this makes more sense the more you think about the

534
00:30:15,840 --> 00:30:19,040
Speaker 2: act of throwing in granular detail. So throwing comes so

535
00:30:19,280 --> 00:30:23,280
Speaker 2: naturally and so easily to us as a species, it

536
00:30:23,360 --> 00:30:27,840
Speaker 2: takes real, deliberate effort to understand what an extremely difficult

537
00:30:27,880 --> 00:30:33,760
Speaker 2: and complex behavior, forceful targeted throwing is. It requires split

538
00:30:33,880 --> 00:30:38,840
Speaker 2: second mental calculations regarding force, angle, and timing, as well

539
00:30:38,880 --> 00:30:43,200
Speaker 2: as coordination of lots of precise and rapid movements by

540
00:30:43,280 --> 00:30:46,239
Speaker 2: many different parts of the body. So think about all

541
00:30:46,280 --> 00:30:48,920
Speaker 2: this stuff. Think about everything your muscles and your brain

542
00:30:49,160 --> 00:30:52,240
Speaker 2: have to do together to throw a rock and hit something,

543
00:30:52,320 --> 00:30:55,200
Speaker 2: especially if the thing is moving. You have to track

544
00:30:55,280 --> 00:30:59,600
Speaker 2: the target, anticipate future motion of the target, take into

545
00:30:59,640 --> 00:31:03,480
Speaker 2: account the physical features of the projectile, for example, like

546
00:31:03,560 --> 00:31:06,200
Speaker 2: its weight and its shape and so forth, which will

547
00:31:06,240 --> 00:31:09,160
Speaker 2: affect how it travels. You have to understand the object

548
00:31:09,160 --> 00:31:14,240
Speaker 2: you're throwing to throw it effectively. You have to understand

549
00:31:14,280 --> 00:31:16,960
Speaker 2: how exactly to draw back and extend the arm for

550
00:31:17,040 --> 00:31:20,280
Speaker 2: the throw, how to grip the object in preparation for

551
00:31:20,320 --> 00:31:24,120
Speaker 2: the throw, exactly how and when to release the projectile

552
00:31:24,160 --> 00:31:26,840
Speaker 2: from the grip. And that's like a you know, tiny,

553
00:31:26,920 --> 00:31:29,520
Speaker 2: tiny window, and you have to time all of those

554
00:31:29,600 --> 00:31:33,200
Speaker 2: muscular movements in exactly the right sequence, which might all

555
00:31:33,240 --> 00:31:37,560
Speaker 2: take place in less than a second. Throwing behaviors are

556
00:31:37,600 --> 00:31:41,840
Speaker 2: one of the fastest motions produced by the musculoskeletal system

557
00:31:41,920 --> 00:31:42,760
Speaker 2: of the human body.

558
00:31:43,560 --> 00:31:46,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, which makes it all the more depressing when you

559
00:31:46,040 --> 00:31:48,600
Speaker 1: throw a cat toy and the cat doesn't chase after

560
00:31:48,680 --> 00:31:50,280
Speaker 1: it and doesn't take the crass, like did you not

561
00:31:50,360 --> 00:31:52,960
Speaker 1: see what I just did? But in the case of

562
00:31:52,960 --> 00:31:55,120
Speaker 1: throwing a cat toy, you know, I'm not trying to

563
00:31:55,160 --> 00:31:58,840
Speaker 1: actually make the toy go anywhere specific. But if I'm

564
00:31:58,920 --> 00:32:01,200
Speaker 1: say bowling, which I guess I don't know if you

565
00:32:01,200 --> 00:32:02,560
Speaker 1: would call bowling throwing, I.

566
00:32:02,560 --> 00:32:04,719
Speaker 2: Guess it's sort of like I think it counts.

567
00:32:05,240 --> 00:32:07,880
Speaker 1: But when I'm doing that, that's one of those rare

568
00:32:07,880 --> 00:32:11,760
Speaker 1: instances is where I'll occasionally stop and think and try

569
00:32:11,800 --> 00:32:14,480
Speaker 1: and sort of focus on what all I'm doing to

570
00:32:15,440 --> 00:32:17,960
Speaker 1: carry out this physical act. And yet it's, like you said,

571
00:32:17,960 --> 00:32:20,160
Speaker 1: there's so many things going on that we don't even

572
00:32:20,200 --> 00:32:24,800
Speaker 1: really have conscious control of, or not privy to, or

573
00:32:24,840 --> 00:32:26,480
Speaker 1: and if we think too much about it, we're just

574
00:32:26,520 --> 00:32:29,240
Speaker 1: going to drop it on our toe. Anyway. It's really

575
00:32:29,320 --> 00:32:29,960
Speaker 1: quite amazing.

576
00:32:30,480 --> 00:32:34,280
Speaker 2: That's another interesting aspect of throwing that I think a

577
00:32:34,280 --> 00:32:37,600
Speaker 2: lot of people can attest. From their own experience. When

578
00:32:37,640 --> 00:32:39,880
Speaker 2: you think too much about throwing, you tend to get

579
00:32:39,880 --> 00:32:43,000
Speaker 2: worse at it. Isn't that strange like this, You tend

580
00:32:43,000 --> 00:32:45,800
Speaker 2: to throw more accurately when you kind of turn off

581
00:32:45,840 --> 00:32:48,960
Speaker 2: your analytical brain and just let your intuitions take over.

582
00:32:59,200 --> 00:33:02,400
Speaker 2: So anyway, that we are so much better adapted for

583
00:33:02,520 --> 00:33:07,160
Speaker 2: targeted overhand throwing than other primates, even our most closely

584
00:33:07,200 --> 00:33:13,320
Speaker 2: related primates like chimpanzees, suggests specific selection pressure on our ancestors,

585
00:33:13,360 --> 00:33:17,480
Speaker 2: favoring the development of skeleton, muscular, as well as neurological

586
00:33:17,520 --> 00:33:20,880
Speaker 2: adaptations that allow us to excel at throwing to the

587
00:33:20,920 --> 00:33:24,840
Speaker 2: extent that we do. We seem quite clearly biologically shaped

588
00:33:24,840 --> 00:33:28,520
Speaker 2: for throwing, and that requires changes in multiple parts of

589
00:33:28,560 --> 00:33:32,200
Speaker 2: the body, the muscles and the skeleton of like the

590
00:33:32,360 --> 00:33:34,479
Speaker 2: arm and the shoulder and the torso, but also the

591
00:33:34,560 --> 00:33:38,560
Speaker 2: brain and the nervous system. Now, lest you think, I

592
00:33:38,600 --> 00:33:42,200
Speaker 2: don't know how useful in real world struggle could throwing be.

593
00:33:43,160 --> 00:33:46,160
Speaker 2: I think this is uncontroversial. But the authors do spend

594
00:33:46,160 --> 00:33:50,920
Speaker 2: a fair amount of time just providing evidence that they do.

595
00:33:51,000 --> 00:33:54,280
Speaker 2: Observations of pre modern practices in hunting and warfare to

596
00:33:54,480 --> 00:33:58,720
Speaker 2: show the prevalence and utility of targeted overhand throwing. They're like, yes,

597
00:33:58,760 --> 00:34:02,640
Speaker 2: it's incredibly useful. They say that human quote, hunters and

598
00:34:02,640 --> 00:34:08,400
Speaker 2: warriors used human muscle power to propel bolas, boomerangs, darts, knives, sticks, stones,

599
00:34:08,440 --> 00:34:11,920
Speaker 2: and spears thrown with or without the aid of oddo lattles.

600
00:34:12,400 --> 00:34:14,279
Speaker 2: If you're interested in the oddo loattle. By the way,

601
00:34:14,280 --> 00:34:16,439
Speaker 2: we did an episode of invention on that a long

602
00:34:16,440 --> 00:34:18,640
Speaker 2: time ago that I think was one of my favorites.

603
00:34:18,680 --> 00:34:21,840
Speaker 2: I remember that being really interesting. Anyway, many of the

604
00:34:21,880 --> 00:34:25,279
Speaker 2: technologies that replaced these practices in hunting and warfare have

605
00:34:25,320 --> 00:34:30,120
Speaker 2: simply replaced the muscular power with mechanical or chemical sources

606
00:34:30,160 --> 00:34:32,480
Speaker 2: of energy to power the throw, and that can be

607
00:34:32,520 --> 00:34:35,120
Speaker 2: everything from the tension of a bow string to the

608
00:34:35,160 --> 00:34:40,520
Speaker 2: combustion of gunpowder in a firearm. So the question is

609
00:34:40,680 --> 00:34:45,280
Speaker 2: how did our hominin ancestors make the leap from something

610
00:34:45,320 --> 00:34:49,960
Speaker 2: like the occasional low specialization, low utility tossing behaviors we

611
00:34:50,000 --> 00:34:53,600
Speaker 2: see in our closest primate relatives like chimpanzees, to the

612
00:34:53,719 --> 00:34:59,080
Speaker 2: kind of habitual, powerful, targeted overhand throwing that is characteristic

613
00:34:59,120 --> 00:35:03,960
Speaker 2: of humans today. Now, like many questions in evolutionary anthropology.

614
00:35:04,200 --> 00:35:05,960
Speaker 2: We don't know the answer to this one for sure.

615
00:35:06,040 --> 00:35:08,720
Speaker 2: This is not one where somebody can tell you the answer,

616
00:35:09,080 --> 00:35:11,799
Speaker 2: but there are a few hypotheses that are informed by

617
00:35:11,800 --> 00:35:14,799
Speaker 2: some interesting evidence that we can take a look at. Now,

618
00:35:14,840 --> 00:35:17,600
Speaker 2: before we can figure out how that advance from sort

619
00:35:17,600 --> 00:35:21,440
Speaker 2: of occasional, low utility throwing to human style throwing might

620
00:35:21,480 --> 00:35:25,600
Speaker 2: have occurred, it's worth discussing the major hypothesized uses of

621
00:35:25,640 --> 00:35:30,600
Speaker 2: overhand throwing in an ancestral hominine environment. Hunting is a

622
00:35:30,680 --> 00:35:33,520
Speaker 2: very obvious one, right, Being able to throw a rock

623
00:35:33,640 --> 00:35:35,640
Speaker 2: or a stick with force and hit a prey animal

624
00:35:35,680 --> 00:35:39,759
Speaker 2: would be extremely useful, But the authors also call out

625
00:35:40,120 --> 00:35:44,160
Speaker 2: intra specific and agonistic encounters, which means conflict with other

626
00:35:44,239 --> 00:35:47,239
Speaker 2: members of the same species. And then, finally, I thought

627
00:35:47,280 --> 00:35:50,600
Speaker 2: this one was really fascinating, and this one may help

628
00:35:50,640 --> 00:35:53,920
Speaker 2: explain and help you see how this bridge could have

629
00:35:53,960 --> 00:35:59,880
Speaker 2: been crossed behaviorally, the practice of power scavenging, which means

630
00:36:00,360 --> 00:36:03,439
Speaker 2: not just regular scavenging, not just wandering around looking for

631
00:36:03,520 --> 00:36:08,120
Speaker 2: a dead animal to feast upon. Power scavenging means waiting

632
00:36:08,239 --> 00:36:11,600
Speaker 2: for other predators to take down a prey animal and

633
00:36:11,640 --> 00:36:15,120
Speaker 2: then chasing those predators away. From the kill and taking

634
00:36:15,160 --> 00:36:16,040
Speaker 2: it for yourself.

635
00:36:16,760 --> 00:36:21,440
Speaker 1: Yeah. There was a fabulous BBC documentary several years back

636
00:36:21,560 --> 00:36:25,640
Speaker 1: titled Human Planet that was narrated by John Hurt, and

637
00:36:26,280 --> 00:36:29,600
Speaker 1: it had to do with various human practices of often

638
00:36:29,680 --> 00:36:34,200
Speaker 1: hunting or scavenging that have been practiced to some degree

639
00:36:34,480 --> 00:36:37,759
Speaker 1: into the modern age, and one of them involved stealing

640
00:36:38,520 --> 00:36:42,040
Speaker 1: part of the kill from a lion, which would be

641
00:36:42,040 --> 00:36:44,960
Speaker 1: an example of power scavenging something where you want to

642
00:36:44,960 --> 00:36:46,920
Speaker 1: get in there like that the lion has done the

643
00:36:47,040 --> 00:36:50,640
Speaker 1: I guess the hard part and has brought down prey,

644
00:36:50,960 --> 00:36:53,359
Speaker 1: but now you're going to do an also hard thing.

645
00:36:53,760 --> 00:36:57,080
Speaker 1: You want to get in there, drive the predator away

646
00:36:57,160 --> 00:36:59,279
Speaker 1: long enough to get yourself a little bit of the

647
00:36:59,320 --> 00:36:59,919
Speaker 1: meat as well.

648
00:37:00,200 --> 00:37:04,160
Speaker 2: Right. So, for this hypothesis, the authors cite a work

649
00:37:04,200 --> 00:37:06,920
Speaker 2: by Bingham and Susa from two thousand and nine which

650
00:37:06,920 --> 00:37:09,560
Speaker 2: makes the case that during the time of transition from

651
00:37:09,760 --> 00:37:13,359
Speaker 2: Australiopithesenes to the emergence of the Homo genus to which

652
00:37:13,360 --> 00:37:17,240
Speaker 2: we belong, climate conditions in Africa may have given rise

653
00:37:17,320 --> 00:37:23,399
Speaker 2: to these little, isolated savannah environments containing hominins, but these

654
00:37:23,480 --> 00:37:27,880
Speaker 2: environments also quote lacked dangerous predators and power scavengers like

655
00:37:27,960 --> 00:37:32,200
Speaker 2: lions and hyenas, but contained smaller and less dangerous predators

656
00:37:32,200 --> 00:37:37,279
Speaker 2: such as leopards and cheetahs. So if that's correct, it's

657
00:37:37,480 --> 00:37:40,560
Speaker 2: it's maybe easy to imagine how with leopards and cheetahs

658
00:37:41,040 --> 00:37:44,920
Speaker 2: you could more more plausibly chase them away, or early

659
00:37:44,920 --> 00:37:47,879
Speaker 2: hominins could have chased them away from a kill by

660
00:37:47,960 --> 00:37:51,399
Speaker 2: throwing things at them, even without very specialized weapons, maybe

661
00:37:51,440 --> 00:37:55,719
Speaker 2: just by like throwing rocks or unmodified sticks. And this

662
00:37:55,760 --> 00:37:57,600
Speaker 2: could be thought of as a kind of high risk,

663
00:37:57,680 --> 00:38:02,040
Speaker 2: high reward strategy. Like with power scavenging. You can get

664
00:38:02,040 --> 00:38:06,120
Speaker 2: a big meat payday with relatively little energy investment since

665
00:38:06,160 --> 00:38:09,240
Speaker 2: you don't have to chase the prey animal down yourself.

666
00:38:09,800 --> 00:38:12,600
Speaker 2: But it's dangerous. You do have to confront one or

667
00:38:12,600 --> 00:38:15,680
Speaker 2: more predators for the kill, and this type of strategy

668
00:38:15,840 --> 00:38:18,239
Speaker 2: might not be worth the risk if you have to

669
00:38:18,280 --> 00:38:21,200
Speaker 2: fight a leopard with your hands or with handheld weapons.

670
00:38:21,600 --> 00:38:23,759
Speaker 2: But if you can just throw rocks at it from

671
00:38:23,800 --> 00:38:26,000
Speaker 2: a distance until it runs away, that could be a

672
00:38:26,000 --> 00:38:26,680
Speaker 2: really good deal.

673
00:38:27,719 --> 00:38:31,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, and again not necessarily drive it off completely, but

674
00:38:31,800 --> 00:38:35,040
Speaker 1: just create an opening during which you can carry out

675
00:38:35,040 --> 00:38:36,879
Speaker 1: some power scavenging and then get out of there.

676
00:38:37,160 --> 00:38:40,319
Speaker 2: Yeah. Now another question to look at is what is

677
00:38:40,360 --> 00:38:43,640
Speaker 2: the earliest we have, like totally clear physical evidence to

678
00:38:43,719 --> 00:38:48,000
Speaker 2: establish the use of thrown projectiles by humans. The author's

679
00:38:48,040 --> 00:38:51,480
Speaker 2: write quote unambiguous archaeological evidence of the use of modified

680
00:38:51,520 --> 00:38:55,319
Speaker 2: throwing weapons manufactured by members of the genus Homo. Are

681
00:38:55,360 --> 00:38:59,080
Speaker 2: these stone spear points manufactured approximately three hundred thousand years

682
00:38:59,120 --> 00:39:02,600
Speaker 2: ago in Africa. Hunting spears with their center of gravity

683
00:39:02,640 --> 00:39:05,000
Speaker 2: one third of the way from the tip, suggesting that

684
00:39:05,040 --> 00:39:07,960
Speaker 2: they were thrown were found in Germany and date from

685
00:39:08,000 --> 00:39:11,040
Speaker 2: three hundred thousand to four hundred thousand years ago. These

686
00:39:11,040 --> 00:39:14,719
Speaker 2: two examples are evidence that manufactured weapons were thrown by

687
00:39:15,160 --> 00:39:18,120
Speaker 2: members of the Homo genus at least three hundred thousand

688
00:39:18,200 --> 00:39:21,439
Speaker 2: years ago. But while it's harder to be certain about

689
00:39:21,480 --> 00:39:24,080
Speaker 2: what happened before that, the authors infer that human ancestors

690
00:39:24,120 --> 00:39:26,959
Speaker 2: were probably throwing sticks and rocks going back a couple

691
00:39:27,080 --> 00:39:30,520
Speaker 2: million years, so there was probably use of throwing of

692
00:39:31,280 --> 00:39:35,200
Speaker 2: less modified or unmodified objects from the environment before. We

693
00:39:35,280 --> 00:39:38,120
Speaker 2: have evidence of these modified throwing weapons from like three

694
00:39:38,200 --> 00:39:41,480
Speaker 2: hundred to four hundred thousand years ago, And one idea

695
00:39:41,600 --> 00:39:44,359
Speaker 2: I came across in trying to locate the origins of

696
00:39:44,440 --> 00:39:48,799
Speaker 2: habitual forceful throwing is based on studies of anatomy, and

697
00:39:48,960 --> 00:39:51,200
Speaker 2: this brings us back to that researcher I talked about

698
00:39:51,200 --> 00:39:55,720
Speaker 2: a minute ago, the anthropologist Neil Thomas Roach, who along

699
00:39:55,760 --> 00:39:59,680
Speaker 2: with some colleagues studied the bodies and behavior of practiced

700
00:39:59,760 --> 00:40:05,120
Speaker 2: human throwers like baseball pitchers. And let's see the citation

701
00:40:05,280 --> 00:40:11,480
Speaker 2: here is Roach vinca deson Rainbow and Lieberman from twenty

702
00:40:11,520 --> 00:40:15,560
Speaker 2: thirteen published in the journal Nature, and the paper title

703
00:40:15,640 --> 00:40:18,880
Speaker 2: is Elastic Energy Storage in the Shoulder and the Evolution

704
00:40:18,960 --> 00:40:22,880
Speaker 2: of high speed Throwing in Homo And basically, these authors

705
00:40:23,280 --> 00:40:27,040
Speaker 2: contend that the anatomical difference that makes human so good

706
00:40:27,040 --> 00:40:31,160
Speaker 2: at throwing is our ability to store elastic energy in

707
00:40:31,239 --> 00:40:33,680
Speaker 2: our shoulders. So it's not just like the strength of

708
00:40:33,760 --> 00:40:36,640
Speaker 2: the muscles, but the fact that the human body is

709
00:40:36,719 --> 00:40:40,319
Speaker 2: designed to sort of cock back the arm before a

710
00:40:40,360 --> 00:40:45,520
Speaker 2: forceful throw, and a human essentially creates a biomechanical sling

711
00:40:45,600 --> 00:40:49,440
Speaker 2: shot by stretching the tendons and the ligaments surrounding the

712
00:40:49,480 --> 00:40:52,520
Speaker 2: scapula or the shoulder blade, and this tension could be

713
00:40:52,600 --> 00:40:55,320
Speaker 2: thought of as analogous to the tension in a bowstring.

714
00:40:55,320 --> 00:40:58,759
Speaker 2: It allows very rapid extension of the arm after the

715
00:40:58,840 --> 00:41:02,200
Speaker 2: wind up. Now how come we can do this and

716
00:41:02,239 --> 00:41:06,399
Speaker 2: our nearest relatives like chimpanzees cannot. The researchers here argued

717
00:41:06,440 --> 00:41:09,960
Speaker 2: that there are basically three important anatomical changes that are

718
00:41:10,000 --> 00:41:15,719
Speaker 2: found altogether around two million years ago in the species

719
00:41:15,760 --> 00:41:20,560
Speaker 2: Homo erectus. So these three changes are the expansion of

720
00:41:20,640 --> 00:41:24,200
Speaker 2: the waist and this sort of lets the torso rotate

721
00:41:24,280 --> 00:41:27,799
Speaker 2: above the hips, which generates more rotational force. So when

722
00:41:27,840 --> 00:41:30,680
Speaker 2: you're like cocking your arm back to throw overhand, you

723
00:41:30,760 --> 00:41:34,800
Speaker 2: typically you twist your torso, and that change in Homo

724
00:41:34,880 --> 00:41:38,000
Speaker 2: erectus allowed them to twist their torso like that. The

725
00:41:38,040 --> 00:41:41,760
Speaker 2: second is a lower positioning of the shoulders on the torso,

726
00:41:42,520 --> 00:41:46,160
Speaker 2: and this changes the orientation of the muscles around the shoulder,

727
00:41:46,200 --> 00:41:48,960
Speaker 2: again helping us to store more energy in the wind

728
00:41:49,040 --> 00:41:52,480
Speaker 2: up of an overhand throw. Again, this is found in homoerectus.

729
00:41:52,560 --> 00:41:56,759
Speaker 2: And then the twisting of the humorous bone, which is

730
00:41:56,840 --> 00:42:00,000
Speaker 2: the upper arm bone, and that twisting is yet another

731
00:42:00,200 --> 00:42:02,879
Speaker 2: way to stretch the bow strings, storing up even more

732
00:42:03,000 --> 00:42:06,719
Speaker 2: energy in the wind up. And you can see these differences,

733
00:42:07,200 --> 00:42:09,480
Speaker 2: there's a diagram. They include you might be able to

734
00:42:09,480 --> 00:42:12,799
Speaker 2: look up for yourself if you see a comparison of

735
00:42:13,160 --> 00:42:16,040
Speaker 2: like a muscle diagram or the scapula of a chimpanzee

736
00:42:16,040 --> 00:42:18,680
Speaker 2: and a human, and you can see some of these differences,

737
00:42:18,920 --> 00:42:23,240
Speaker 2: particularly the lower position of the shoulder on the human body.

738
00:42:23,320 --> 00:42:26,080
Speaker 2: You know, you look at the upper musculature of a

739
00:42:26,160 --> 00:42:28,399
Speaker 2: chimpanzee and you're like, well, I really would not want

740
00:42:28,440 --> 00:42:31,640
Speaker 2: to be clubbed by this animal, And I imagine that

741
00:42:31,680 --> 00:42:34,879
Speaker 2: animal can really like climb a tree really well. But

742
00:42:35,000 --> 00:42:38,080
Speaker 2: there's there's some kind of different twisting of the shoulder

743
00:42:38,160 --> 00:42:41,320
Speaker 2: and the pectoral muscle in the human body that apparently

744
00:42:41,360 --> 00:42:45,200
Speaker 2: allows us to perform this cockingback or wind up behavior

745
00:42:45,239 --> 00:42:47,960
Speaker 2: before an overhand throw so much better than a chimp can.

746
00:42:48,800 --> 00:42:51,800
Speaker 1: This also means, according to the cillustration, the chimpanzee nipple

747
00:42:51,880 --> 00:42:56,160
Speaker 1: is also just a little bit higher, It's true, portly comparatively.

748
00:42:57,160 --> 00:43:00,759
Speaker 2: So. Roach and colleagues argue that these anatomical changes that

749
00:43:00,880 --> 00:43:06,000
Speaker 2: favor throwing coincide with archaeological evidence showing increased hunting activity

750
00:43:06,280 --> 00:43:09,520
Speaker 2: in these hominins, so like more processed animal bones at

751
00:43:09,520 --> 00:43:13,680
Speaker 2: occupied sites, stone tool work, and so forth. So that

752
00:43:13,719 --> 00:43:17,920
Speaker 2: would make a link between these anatomical changes that favor

753
00:43:17,960 --> 00:43:21,200
Speaker 2: the ability to throw, and what human ancestors were eating.

754
00:43:21,239 --> 00:43:25,760
Speaker 2: The homoerectus was apparently dining on more meat. Now, coming

755
00:43:25,760 --> 00:43:29,240
Speaker 2: back to that paper by Lombardo and Deaner from twenty eighteen,

756
00:43:29,440 --> 00:43:32,040
Speaker 2: they examine a number of other different things, like talking

757
00:43:32,040 --> 00:43:35,960
Speaker 2: about the prevalence and effectiveness of overhand throwing in warfare

758
00:43:36,000 --> 00:43:38,080
Speaker 2: and hunting, and they also look at things like sex

759
00:43:38,160 --> 00:43:42,279
Speaker 2: differences in throwing behavior. For example, in chimpanzees, there's some

760
00:43:42,320 --> 00:43:46,480
Speaker 2: evidence that male chimpanzees tend to throw more and relative

761
00:43:46,520 --> 00:43:49,680
Speaker 2: levels of lethality and targeted throwing behaviors and so forth.

762
00:43:49,719 --> 00:43:53,319
Speaker 2: But to come to the conclusion regarding that transition, like

763
00:43:53,400 --> 00:43:56,879
Speaker 2: how did the leap happen from you know, sort of occasional,

764
00:43:57,160 --> 00:44:00,719
Speaker 2: non specialized throwing like we see in chimpanzees today to

765
00:44:01,040 --> 00:44:04,840
Speaker 2: the habitual, targeted, forceful overhand throwing that humans can do.

766
00:44:05,800 --> 00:44:09,799
Speaker 2: The conclusion, they argue, is that this adaptation grew out

767
00:44:09,840 --> 00:44:12,760
Speaker 2: of quote a way for throwers to manipulate the behavior

768
00:44:12,800 --> 00:44:18,640
Speaker 2: of targeted individuals during intraspecific agonistic interactions and then later

769
00:44:18,760 --> 00:44:23,319
Speaker 2: transitioned into use during power scavenging and hunting by hominins,

770
00:44:23,600 --> 00:44:27,759
Speaker 2: perhaps in the australiopithesceenes. So why do they think it

771
00:44:27,960 --> 00:44:33,920
Speaker 2: started with manipulating the behavior of other hominins within the

772
00:44:33,960 --> 00:44:38,239
Speaker 2: same species and agonistic interactions. Well, I think we can

773
00:44:38,320 --> 00:44:41,879
Speaker 2: get some clues by looking at our closest primate relatives. Again,

774
00:44:42,280 --> 00:44:44,960
Speaker 2: this in no way clinches the argument. We don't know

775
00:44:45,000 --> 00:44:47,480
Speaker 2: for sure, but it's an interesting line of evidence. So

776
00:44:47,480 --> 00:44:51,279
Speaker 2: they say, if you look at our relatives like chimpanzees, bonobos,

777
00:44:51,400 --> 00:44:55,160
Speaker 2: gorillas and so forth, these animals have all been observed throwing.

778
00:44:55,360 --> 00:44:59,080
Speaker 2: But when and how do they throw? Well, do they

779
00:44:59,120 --> 00:45:02,799
Speaker 2: throw to hunt? The answer there seems like either no

780
00:45:03,280 --> 00:45:07,560
Speaker 2: or almost never. There are almost no claimed observations that

781
00:45:07,680 --> 00:45:11,120
Speaker 2: any of these animals use projectiles for hunting, with basically

782
00:45:11,160 --> 00:45:14,320
Speaker 2: one possible exception, and that's a report by Jane Goodall

783
00:45:14,400 --> 00:45:18,239
Speaker 2: actually in nineteen eighty six, where to read from the

784
00:45:18,239 --> 00:45:21,920
Speaker 2: paper here quote Goodall reported three observations of throwing by

785
00:45:21,960 --> 00:45:26,320
Speaker 2: hunting chimpanzees. In two instances, stones thrown by an adult

786
00:45:26,360 --> 00:45:29,200
Speaker 2: male may have been intended to cause the prey adult

787
00:45:29,239 --> 00:45:32,560
Speaker 2: bush pigs to run rather than to harm them. In

788
00:45:32,600 --> 00:45:37,319
Speaker 2: another instance, six male chimpanzees hunting baboons threw stones at

789
00:45:37,320 --> 00:45:40,680
Speaker 2: male baboons that were attacking the hunters. None of these

790
00:45:40,680 --> 00:45:44,359
Speaker 2: accounts closely resembles the highly skilled aimed throwing used by

791
00:45:44,400 --> 00:45:49,080
Speaker 2: human hunters, so even if these instances count, they appear

792
00:45:49,200 --> 00:45:52,840
Speaker 2: to be somewhat ambiguous and relatively unique. There are basically

793
00:45:52,880 --> 00:45:57,920
Speaker 2: no other reports of apes throwing to hunt, and instead

794
00:45:58,000 --> 00:46:00,480
Speaker 2: apes and monkeys seem to use throwing as part of

795
00:46:00,520 --> 00:46:04,479
Speaker 2: communication behavior during encounters with other members of the same

796
00:46:04,520 --> 00:46:09,400
Speaker 2: species or sometimes with other animals such as humans. Most

797
00:46:09,520 --> 00:46:13,200
Speaker 2: often it's used for agonistic interactions, a kind of threat

798
00:46:13,239 --> 00:46:16,840
Speaker 2: display that you might throw rocks or sticks at another

799
00:46:17,080 --> 00:46:19,799
Speaker 2: member of the same ape species or another animal to

800
00:46:19,880 --> 00:46:22,839
Speaker 2: sort of drive them away or intimidate them. So if

801
00:46:22,880 --> 00:46:26,600
Speaker 2: a chimpanzee is trying to display dominance or intimidate another one,

802
00:46:26,880 --> 00:46:29,239
Speaker 2: or trying to get an interloper away from the group,

803
00:46:29,320 --> 00:46:32,360
Speaker 2: throwing rocks and sticks is a common behavior there, but

804
00:46:32,400 --> 00:46:35,720
Speaker 2: it's also not just aggressive interactions those are the most common.

805
00:46:35,760 --> 00:46:39,080
Speaker 2: There are, also, in fewer cases, more benign examples, like

806
00:46:39,360 --> 00:46:42,799
Speaker 2: particularly in bonobos and some monkeys, where throwing can be

807
00:46:42,840 --> 00:46:45,839
Speaker 2: a bid to initiate play or some other type of

808
00:46:45,880 --> 00:46:47,359
Speaker 2: non threatening communication.

809
00:46:48,080 --> 00:46:50,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, of pebbles on the winddill again here.

810
00:46:50,800 --> 00:46:53,239
Speaker 2: So for the most part, it seems chimps don't really

811
00:46:53,360 --> 00:46:57,320
Speaker 2: hunt or power scavenge by throwing. They throw most often

812
00:46:57,360 --> 00:47:01,200
Speaker 2: as a threatening display toward other chimps or to communicate

813
00:47:01,239 --> 00:47:03,239
Speaker 2: in some way. But you can see how this behavior

814
00:47:03,600 --> 00:47:08,000
Speaker 2: could bridge over into power scavenging if you're generally throwing

815
00:47:08,040 --> 00:47:12,359
Speaker 2: to threaten, so you know, it starts off with agonistic interactions,

816
00:47:12,440 --> 00:47:15,800
Speaker 2: and then maybe sometimes you throw to threaten a predator

817
00:47:15,840 --> 00:47:19,319
Speaker 2: that is there with a kill, and instead you drive

818
00:47:19,360 --> 00:47:22,120
Speaker 2: the predator away and you take the meat. This creates

819
00:47:22,120 --> 00:47:25,240
Speaker 2: an association between throwing to threaten and a meat reward

820
00:47:25,440 --> 00:47:30,280
Speaker 2: that could increasingly lead to throwing to hunt directly, especially

821
00:47:30,280 --> 00:47:33,719
Speaker 2: if you were able to create modified projectiles such as spears.

822
00:47:34,280 --> 00:47:37,560
Speaker 2: So it makes me wonder like if those specific chimpanzees

823
00:47:37,600 --> 00:47:40,799
Speaker 2: observed by Jane Goodall, if they were in fact using

824
00:47:40,920 --> 00:47:43,560
Speaker 2: rocks to hunt or aid in hunting in some way.

825
00:47:44,560 --> 00:47:46,200
Speaker 2: You kind of have to wonder if maybe they're on

826
00:47:46,239 --> 00:47:49,040
Speaker 2: the bleeding edge of chimp technology in some way like

827
00:47:49,760 --> 00:47:52,200
Speaker 2: the one. Those are the ones who, if left alone

828
00:47:52,239 --> 00:47:54,960
Speaker 2: for a few hundred thousand years, might evolve to select

829
00:47:55,000 --> 00:47:58,920
Speaker 2: anatomical traits that favor throwing, and you know, modify objects

830
00:47:58,960 --> 00:48:01,960
Speaker 2: from their environment to make their throwing more effective.

831
00:48:03,000 --> 00:48:06,359
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, this fascinating, this sort of you can see

832
00:48:06,560 --> 00:48:11,280
Speaker 1: the links here between, like this sort of growing understanding

833
00:48:11,520 --> 00:48:15,040
Speaker 1: to some degree that being able to throw an object

834
00:48:15,040 --> 00:48:19,800
Speaker 1: at another creature is a way to alter its behavior

835
00:48:19,960 --> 00:48:22,799
Speaker 1: or disrupt its behavior at a distance. Yeah, and then

836
00:48:23,080 --> 00:48:27,600
Speaker 1: that potential extra step in realizing that this also can

837
00:48:27,680 --> 00:48:30,960
Speaker 1: harm the animal, and then there are ways to enhance

838
00:48:31,000 --> 00:48:35,719
Speaker 1: the materials so as to increase harm. Yeah, it's fascinating.

839
00:48:36,400 --> 00:48:38,640
Speaker 2: So what do I think about their hypothesis here. I

840
00:48:38,680 --> 00:48:41,320
Speaker 2: wouldn't say I'm one hundred percent convinced, but it seems

841
00:48:41,400 --> 00:48:43,279
Speaker 2: very plausible. They make a pretty good case.

842
00:48:43,920 --> 00:48:48,120
Speaker 1: All right, So hopefully this episode will help us, you know, Spook,

843
00:48:48,160 --> 00:48:50,719
Speaker 1: you will help mess you up the next time you

844
00:48:50,800 --> 00:48:53,920
Speaker 1: need to try and throw something with intention and direction,

845
00:48:54,640 --> 00:48:58,160
Speaker 1: maybe in your next softball game, maybe the next time

846
00:48:58,239 --> 00:49:02,719
Speaker 1: you go to beer somebody at an outdoor party. They'll

847
00:49:02,760 --> 00:49:05,879
Speaker 1: just be that moment of doubt where you run through

848
00:49:05,920 --> 00:49:08,440
Speaker 1: the evolutionary history of getting to this point and then

849
00:49:08,480 --> 00:49:09,480
Speaker 1: you miss your target.

850
00:49:09,680 --> 00:49:11,360
Speaker 2: Yep, overthink it and then slice.

851
00:49:11,680 --> 00:49:15,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, well, we'd love to hear from anyone

852
00:49:15,640 --> 00:49:18,600
Speaker 1: out there if you have any thoughts and feedback related

853
00:49:18,600 --> 00:49:22,360
Speaker 1: to this episode or other episodes in this series about

854
00:49:22,719 --> 00:49:27,080
Speaker 1: humans throwing things, animals throwing things right in we'd love

855
00:49:27,120 --> 00:49:29,400
Speaker 1: to hear from you. And of course we could potentially

856
00:49:29,680 --> 00:49:32,880
Speaker 1: keep going with this topic. So we're gonna we're gonna

857
00:49:32,880 --> 00:49:36,359
Speaker 1: discuss after we wrap this episode and see if we're

858
00:49:36,480 --> 00:49:39,040
Speaker 1: going to part four now or if we're gonna come

859
00:49:39,040 --> 00:49:40,440
Speaker 1: back in the future. I don't know. We don't have

860
00:49:40,440 --> 00:49:43,400
Speaker 1: to tune in Thursday to see what happens. In the meantime,

861
00:49:43,440 --> 00:49:45,520
Speaker 1: we'll remind you that Stuff to Blow Your Mind is

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Speaker 1: a science podcast that publishes core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays,

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Speaker 1: and the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast feed On Mondays,

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Speaker 1: we do listener mail, on Wednesdays we do a short

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Speaker 1: form artifact or monster fact episode, and on Fridays we

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Speaker 1: set aside most serious concerns to discuss a weird movie

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Speaker 1: on Weird House Cinema.

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Speaker 2: Huge thanks to our audio producer JJ Posway. If you

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Speaker 2: would like to get in touch with us with feedback

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Speaker 2: on this episode or any other, to suggest a topic

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Speaker 2: for the future, or just to say hello. You can

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Speaker 2: email us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind

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Speaker 2: dot com.

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Speaker 3: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

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Speaker 3: more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

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Speaker 3: or wherever you're listening to your favorite shows.