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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from house Stop

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Speaker 1: works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.

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Speaker 1: My name is Christian Sager and I'm Joe McCormick. And

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Speaker 1: our regular host Robert Lamb is out on vacation this week.

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Speaker 1: So this is Baby's first solo flight. Yeah, this is

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Speaker 1: our first time the two of us since we joined

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Speaker 1: the show early in the two of us doing an

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Speaker 1: episode without Robert, and we knew this was coming up

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Speaker 1: because it was a scheduled vacation. We also knew that

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Speaker 1: The X Files is coming back on January. This isn't

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Speaker 1: a commercial. I didn't get paid by Fox to do

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Speaker 1: this January. I think it's a Sunday Joe and I

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Speaker 1: are crazy X Files fans. We basically talked about the

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Speaker 1: X Files. I would say at least once a day

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Speaker 1: with each other. Yeah, we've referenced in on the show

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Speaker 1: a decent amount of times too. And I think that's

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Speaker 1: been basically because pretty much since we took over as

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Speaker 1: as hosts on the show. I think we've both been

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Speaker 1: going back through the back catalog of of the X

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Speaker 1: Files on Netflix. My wife Rachel and I have been

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Speaker 1: watching them and it has been so much fun. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I'm the same. I've been rewatching them along with comal

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Speaker 1: Non Johnny's podcast, The X Files Files, uh and just

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Speaker 1: loving every second of it. But um so, this is

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Speaker 1: our two part X Files extravaganza where we're going to

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Speaker 1: talk about the science of the X Files. Really kind

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Speaker 1: of the perfect angle for stuff to blow your mind, right,

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Speaker 1: because it's weird, it's interesting, it's sort of about the

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Speaker 1: strangeness of reality, and and it hits all of our

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Speaker 1: big themes here. I'd i'd say what we do on

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Speaker 1: this show is science the bizarre and big questions and mysteries,

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Speaker 1: and that's sort of what the show is all about,

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Speaker 1: though within with an admittedly conspiratorial kind of angle. If

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Speaker 1: you're not familiar with The X Files, we hope you'll

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Speaker 1: still be able to enjoy this episode anyway. So just

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Speaker 1: to give a brief set up of what the show is,

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Speaker 1: there are two FBI agents named Molder and Scully. Molder

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Speaker 1: is David Duchovny. Scully is Gillian Anderson Jillian or Gillian Jillian.

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Speaker 1: I think it depends because uh, you know, she's she's

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Speaker 1: I believe, like half British or something like that, So

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Speaker 1: maybe it's Gillian when she's on The Fall and Jillian

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Speaker 1: when she's on Hannibal. I'll just have to call her Scully.

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Speaker 1: So Molder and Scully are are investigating paranormal phenomena for

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Speaker 1: the FBI. And Moulder is a true believer. He believes

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Speaker 1: in whatever you could believe in. He believes in its

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Speaker 1: psychic powers, alien abductions, pyrokinesis, whatever it is. Yeah, he's

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Speaker 1: on board. And Scully is a skeptic. She's a scientific skeptic,

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Speaker 1: and she always wants to come up with an explanation

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Speaker 1: of phenomena based on what we actually know about science,

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Speaker 1: rather than referring to unproven phenomena that are just sort

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Speaker 1: of speculative, like alien abductions, and is usually trying to

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Speaker 1: find some kind of empirical way to figure out what happened,

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Speaker 1: and whereas Moulder just goes with these hunches. And let's

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Speaker 1: be honest here, like nine times out of ten, mulders

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Speaker 1: hunch is current. It's more than nine times out of ten,

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Speaker 1: it's every single time we were we were struggling to

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Speaker 1: think of an episode where the skeptical viewpoint turns out

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Speaker 1: to be correct. It never does, you, I think there's

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Speaker 1: a couple and the Scullies character. Along the way. As

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Speaker 1: she has exposed somewhere and more of this stuff, she

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Speaker 1: becomes less of a skeptic and more of like she's

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Speaker 1: willing to believe as long as there's quantifiable evidence available

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Speaker 1: to her, well as one should be. I mean, that's

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Speaker 1: sort of the spirit of skepticism. It's not that you

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Speaker 1: should never believe, but you shouldn't believe until until you've

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Speaker 1: got a good reason to. That reminds me at my

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Speaker 1: desktop here at work on my laptop that I'm reading

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Speaker 1: off of now, it's that picture of Scully, and it says,

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Speaker 1: our lady of skepticism. She is. She is a wonderful

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Speaker 1: patron saint and a good guiding light for us on

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Speaker 1: this show. Because while, as we've said on the show

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Speaker 1: The X Files, it's pretty much always the paranoia a

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Speaker 1: mole or the aliens or whatever that turns out to

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Speaker 1: be true, what we do on stuff to blow your

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Speaker 1: mind is often look at strange phenomenon and try to

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Speaker 1: understand what a scientific explanation for that phenomena is or

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Speaker 1: could be. Yeah, I think if Scully was born like

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Speaker 1: twenty you know, years later, she would have been a

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Speaker 1: great podcast host rather than at the I Agent, she

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Speaker 1: probably would have found herself working at How Stuff Works.

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Speaker 1: She's very she's very taciturn um. So we should mention

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Speaker 1: at the top here that we have one primary resource, uh,

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Speaker 1: that we're using on these episodes, and we we'd like

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Speaker 1: to give a shout out to that, especially that we're

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Speaker 1: gonna bring in some other sources to but our but

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Speaker 1: our best resource on this was a book by Gene

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Speaker 1: Cavelos called The Science of the X Files. It was

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Speaker 1: published in Gene Cavelos is an astrophysicist and mathematician now

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Speaker 1: a science and science fiction writer. And I was, I've

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Speaker 1: been enjoying this book. It's great, isn't it. Yeah, it's

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Speaker 1: a well researched book. One thing about it though, is

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Speaker 1: that it was written in nine and playing of science

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Speaker 1: has changed since then. So we'll also be trying to

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Speaker 1: update and incorporate new sources to go along with some

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Speaker 1: of the leads that she established in this book, which

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Speaker 1: by a large the double check whether the facts that

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Speaker 1: she said in nine were either still accurate or maybe

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Speaker 1: there had been some new scientific discoveries since then. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And there was another book there there were two books

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Speaker 1: that were published in the nineties about the science of

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Speaker 1: the X Files. It was such a popular show, then

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Speaker 1: it makes sense. The other one is called The Real

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Speaker 1: Science of the X Files Microbes, Meteorites and Mutants. And

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Speaker 1: unfortunately we couldn't get a hold of a copy of this,

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Speaker 1: and you know, I stupidly was like, oh, yeah, I'll

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Speaker 1: just download one of these to my Kindle or something

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Speaker 1: like that. Note they're not available on Kindle. They're out

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Speaker 1: of print. But luckily the local library here and we

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Speaker 1: we live in while I live Indicatur, Georgia, you're in

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Speaker 1: Atlanta now, uh, but it had a copy, so I

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Speaker 1: was able to reserve it and we've been sharing it

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Speaker 1: and it's you know, I gotta say, not only is

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Speaker 1: it great for these episodes that we're going to do

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Speaker 1: about the science of the X Files, but there are

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Speaker 1: topics in there that she just kind of casually brings

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Speaker 1: up that I'm like, oh, this is great fodder for

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Speaker 1: future episodes of stuff to blow your mind. So I

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Speaker 1: think we're marked that for later. Yeah, this is a

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Speaker 1: rich resource for us. Well, I think we should actually

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Speaker 1: get into some of the topics. Some of these, uh,

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Speaker 1: some of these episodes of the X Files and what

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Speaker 1: we can say about the science behind them or the

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Speaker 1: not so scientific concepts behind them. Uh and and at

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Speaker 1: least find some kind of foothold in the real world.

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Speaker 1: So if we're going to start, we've got to start

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Speaker 1: with what is probably the most recognized monster of the

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Speaker 1: week for the X Files, and that is, of course,

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Speaker 1: the Flukeman. If you have never seen the Flukeman, pause

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Speaker 1: this right now. Yeah, going google Flukeman and look at

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Speaker 1: a picture of this monster. I love this monster design.

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Speaker 1: It looks to me, I've said this before, like a

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Speaker 1: toilet paper mummy that gotten wet and has lipstick on.

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Speaker 1: So it's got this occurring open mouth with red lips,

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Speaker 1: creepy eyes, and then this kind of like melted white exterior. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I posted a photo of Flukeman to our Facebook page

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Speaker 1: yesterday as sort of a hint as to what we're

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Speaker 1: going to be working on this week, and there are

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Speaker 1: a lot of people who engaged with it and either

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Speaker 1: got really excited about because they recognized it from the

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Speaker 1: X Files or they condemned us to tell because they

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Speaker 1: were just yeah, yeah, So the premise of Flukeman, the

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Speaker 1: episode that Flukeman appears in is called The Host and

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Speaker 1: I believe it's right at the beginning of the second season. Um,

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Speaker 1: and so we're gonna try not to spoil the show,

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Speaker 1: but also the show is like twenty years old at

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Speaker 1: this point. You know, we're gonna basically describe to you

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Speaker 1: the premise of these episodes pretty quickly and then dive

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Speaker 1: into the science of of of how they work. Right, So,

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Speaker 1: the premise of the Host the Host episode is that

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Speaker 1: there's a creature that arrives in the United States. I

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Speaker 1: believe it comes over on a Russian oiled hanker. Yeah yeah,

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Speaker 1: or it's or maybe it's a freight or it's our

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Speaker 1: ship crossing the the ocean. It comes from a Russian ship,

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Speaker 1: and it is believed to be coming from Chernobyl. I

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Speaker 1: believe it's always like either toxic, like a combination of

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Speaker 1: like sewage and like radioactive waste from Chernobyl in this

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Speaker 1: ship or something. Why are they bringing that across the ocean.

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Speaker 1: They're probably just going to dump it in the ocean, man, right,

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Speaker 1: they want to dump it off the coast of New Jersey. Well,

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Speaker 1: sure enough they do. And or well, actually it begins

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Speaker 1: with this guy gets dragged into the sludge because the

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Speaker 1: flukeman is in there, right. But then there seems to

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Speaker 1: be a phenomenon emerging after this of something going on

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Speaker 1: in the New Jersey sewers, right right. Yeah, So there's

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Speaker 1: basically this creature that's crawling around in there. It's emerging,

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Speaker 1: and it's either feeding on humans or it's biting them

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Speaker 1: and infecting them with their parasitic young. And there's this

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Speaker 1: infamous scene from it where there's a guy who was

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Speaker 1: bitten by it, uh and and he's in the shower

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Speaker 1: and he just starts coughing up flukeworms and it's so disgusting.

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Speaker 1: I mean even now, like I rewatched it recently and

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Speaker 1: it's pretty disgusting. I can't believe that they got away

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Speaker 1: with it at the time. Eventually, the implication is that

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Speaker 1: this is some sort of strange mutant hybrid of it's

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Speaker 1: like a fluke and a human somewhere in between. Somehow

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Speaker 1: the radio activity affected the regular flukeworm flatworm, which is

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Speaker 1: also known as a trematode. Uh. These are basically parasites

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Speaker 1: that feed off hosts. They're real things, and they usually

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Speaker 1: attached themselves to our well in human cases to our

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Speaker 1: internal organs, but you can find them occasionally attached to

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Speaker 1: your exterior as well. So there's a human liver fluke right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's called Clinarcus senensis, and this is one of the

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Speaker 1: ones that Cavellos mainly focuses on in her examination of flukeman.

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Speaker 1: But this is a flatworm that wants to get inside

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Speaker 1: your body and make a comfortable little nest in your liver.

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Speaker 1: It's real and it is, you know, as with many

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Speaker 1: of the parasites that we've covered on stuff to blow

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Speaker 1: your mind over the years. Yeah. It's goal is to

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Speaker 1: go through a reproductive cycle and a life cycle within

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Speaker 1: a host, right, hence the title the host um. So

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Speaker 1: this particular flukeworm, it only becomes an adult once it

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Speaker 1: gets inside a human being and is in our bile

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Speaker 1: duct or another. Not just a human being, Yeah, any mammal.

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Speaker 1: And the way that they get in us is by

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Speaker 1: eating fish, by us eating us eating, So the mammal

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Speaker 1: eats the fish that carries the fluke. The fluke gets

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Speaker 1: in you and says I've done it. I've made it.

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Speaker 1: Time to mature, right, time to become a man, become

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Speaker 1: a fluke man, and Basically, what they do is that

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Speaker 1: once they're inside a mammal, they eat the tissue and

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Speaker 1: the blood close to your liver um. So this is

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Speaker 1: another common X Files theme, is it? Livers are tasty?

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Speaker 1: Uh yeah, we'll talk about that again later. So the

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Speaker 1: fluke real flukes, release their larva into your bile duct

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Speaker 1: and their hermaphrodites uh so they have both male and

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Speaker 1: female sex organs. And these larva leave mammal bodies through

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Speaker 1: feces and then a snail comes comes along and eats

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Speaker 1: the feces, so the larva gets inside the snail. And

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Speaker 1: then if the snail is eaten by a fish or

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Speaker 1: you know, some other kind of marine animal, uh, then

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Speaker 1: it is infested with these larva which subsequently end up

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Speaker 1: inside of us or a bear or dog or whatever.

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Speaker 1: The complicated life cycle. Yeah, and it's man. Parasites are amazing,

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Speaker 1: I know, like the Robert has gushed a lot about

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Speaker 1: them on the show, but I agree with them, Like

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Speaker 1: they have such specialized life systems that they've evolved into

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Speaker 1: to to uh connect with very particular kinds of hosts too,

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Speaker 1: And yeah, yeah that's nice. Um. So here's the thing.

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Speaker 1: When they get inside these fish. They're inside these cysts

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Speaker 1: that they formed that are like protective. I guess bubbles

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Speaker 1: is a good way to describe them. Right, So what

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Speaker 1: happens if you turn that fish into some sushi, Well,

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Speaker 1: if you eat raw fish, then that cyst is inside

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Speaker 1: your body and it emerges and turns into its adult

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Speaker 1: form of the flukeworm. So one of the things that

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Speaker 1: Cavelos notes that we we should probably mention is that

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Speaker 1: the title fluke Man that's given to this creature probably

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Speaker 1: is not accurate because this creature would have both male

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Speaker 1: and female organs, right right, it's a Misnow, it's not

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Speaker 1: really a flukeman. It's a fluke person. But you know,

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Speaker 1: here's some nerdy X Files knowledge for you. Uh my

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Speaker 1: favorite and I think your favorite to X Files writer,

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Speaker 1: Darren Morgan was the guy wearing the costume as this

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Speaker 1: fluke creature. So he was the West toilet paper mommy

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Speaker 1: with lipstick. Yeah, he had the fruit punch mouth there,

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Speaker 1: I think, h I think he. You know, maybe that's

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Speaker 1: why they called it a fluke man because there was

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Speaker 1: a man in it. But if I remember that costume correctly,

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Speaker 1: it's not like there were human reproductive organs or anything

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Speaker 1: like that, not that you could see. Yeah, so all right,

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Speaker 1: the fluke larva though, would not be coughed up like

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Speaker 1: they were in this episode. Right. So, fluke larva primarily

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Speaker 1: exit our bodies through the digestive track and the feces.

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Speaker 1: They're usually not coughed up. And this is a common

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Speaker 1: thing for lots of types of parasites that get in

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Speaker 1: your body. They reproduced by by making you, so a

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Speaker 1: lot of them cause diarrhea and stuff to be expelled

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Speaker 1: in your feces deliberately, or they just get out kind

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Speaker 1: of passively that way, hopefully to get into water supply

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Speaker 1: or to be eaten by some creature that will eat

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Speaker 1: your feces to make it to the next stage in

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Speaker 1: their life cycle. And this is a common theme of

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Speaker 1: the parasites and the X Files too. We're going to

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Speaker 1: talk about ice later and that is also how that

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Speaker 1: particular creature exit your body. But yeah, even in real

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Speaker 1: life with lung flukes, which are attached to your lungs,

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Speaker 1: you cough up their eggs if you have them in you,

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Speaker 1: but you re swallow them so they passed down through

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Speaker 1: your digestive tract. It's not like you're spitting up these

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Speaker 1: fluke eggs and then they hatch everywhere, right, because then

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Speaker 1: how would the snails get to them. I have to

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Speaker 1: imagine it would be an evolutionary disadvantage for a parasite

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Speaker 1: to exit the body coughing up huge mature worms, because

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Speaker 1: it seems like that'd be so alarming other creatures would

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Speaker 1: immediately want to get away from that creature. From New Hope,

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Speaker 1: it works great for TV, right, like these bloody flukes

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Speaker 1: in the shower, But it does parasitism is a stealth

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Speaker 1: game exactly. Yeah, and so Cavellos also notes, you know, yes,

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Speaker 1: radiation does produce mutations, but probably not as dramatic a

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Speaker 1: change is what we see with the fluke man. Well,

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Speaker 1: this is a common thing we see in science fiction.

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Speaker 1: Is sort of a very loose understanding of the idea

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Speaker 1: of how radiation causes mutations and organisms like radiation can

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Speaker 1: encourage the mutation, right, especially like in your germ cells.

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Speaker 1: If you're exposed to more radiation, you might give birth

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Speaker 1: to children that have more mutations than average. But generally,

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Speaker 1: like if you're hanging out near the near the reactor

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Speaker 1: wreckage in Chernobyl, that's not gonna that's not gonna make

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Speaker 1: you into a different kind of animal. It's probably just

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Speaker 1: gonna kill you, right, Yeah, you're more likely to get sick,

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Speaker 1: have cellular degeneration or deterioration, or just die. Yeah, And

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Speaker 1: so okay, Flukeman. Actually, you know, Robert wrote about Flukeman

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Speaker 1: years ago for Stuff to Blow your Mind. If you

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Speaker 1: go to the Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com,

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Speaker 1: there's a great Monster of the Week piece that he

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Speaker 1: wrote about Flukeman and flukes in general. So if you're

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Speaker 1: you're interested in more about this, go check that out.

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Speaker 1: And we also dug up a little bit of information,

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Speaker 1: uh that apparently in two thousand nine and two thousand

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Speaker 1: and ten, well after this book was written, in after

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Speaker 1: the X Files was over US, flukewarm infections increased significantly.

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Speaker 1: And there's a really weird reason why. It's because people

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Speaker 1: were taking a lot more river cruise trips, you know

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Speaker 1: those ones where you like, you get on those um

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Speaker 1: what do they call them those kinds of boats, not

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Speaker 1: quite river boat maybe paddle boats, paddle boats, that's what

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Speaker 1: I'm thinking of. Uh, and they started a paddle boat

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Speaker 1: with that wouldn't be a cruise boat. Steamboats, I'm sure

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Speaker 1: it's a boat boat anyway, it's a pite on these boats. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: they're designed specifically for you to join a sect luxurious

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Speaker 1: parasite cruise. They were feeding people raw crawfish, and uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, basically these raw crawfish were infected with the

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Speaker 1: fluke larva like we've been talking about um. And so yeah,

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Speaker 1: in the previous forty years before that, there had only

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Speaker 1: been seven cases of flukeworm infection in North America, but

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Speaker 1: just in two thousand nine and two thousand and ten

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Speaker 1: there were nine because of this particular thing. So I'd

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Speaker 1: like to think in the last five years that these

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Speaker 1: riverbrook boats have stopped giving people raw crawfish and growing

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Speaker 1: potential flukeman's inside of them, one would hope so well.

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Speaker 1: Of course, The Host is not the only episode of

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Speaker 1: the X Files to feature parasites. Parasites are a really

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Speaker 1: common theme, especially on these Monster of the Week episodes,

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Speaker 1: because I mean, it's it's fertile ground to uh to mine,

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Speaker 1: I would say for the sort of mixing metaphors is

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Speaker 1: a fertile ground. Mind fertile ground anyway, It's a good

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Speaker 1: place to look if you want some ideas for weird

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Speaker 1: ways that animals, especially mutations or aliens or something could

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Speaker 1: take advantage of the human body in ways that make

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Speaker 1: a squirm. Yeah. And so another one of these episodes

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Speaker 1: that addresses parasitism in a particularly gross yet maybe scientifically

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Speaker 1: interesting way is called f Emasculata. Yeah, and they're more

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Speaker 1: focusing on something that there's a differentiation here that we

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Speaker 1: will call out in a minute. They're parasitoids, not necessarily parasites.

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Speaker 1: But the premise of this episode is that I don't

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Speaker 1: even remember where it was, maybe South America or something.

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Speaker 1: It will wear the bug orginally came from. There's some

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Speaker 1: kind of bug. It's like a beetle, and it carries

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Speaker 1: a disease that has one of these parasitoids. And yeah,

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Speaker 1: they're in a prison. Somebody mails a leg of bore

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Speaker 1: I think, to a prisoner that's in and this leg

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Speaker 1: of bore is infected with this parasitoid. Uh. And so

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Speaker 1: subsequently these two prisoners get infected as well, but they

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Speaker 1: just happened to escape the prison. And so the episode

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Speaker 1: is basically Molder and Scully chasing these guys across the

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Speaker 1: United States to make sure that they don't spread this plague. Okay, now,

337
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Speaker 1: what kind of infection is this is it is? It? Does?

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Speaker 1: It kind of outwardly resemble a bacterial infection or something.

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Speaker 1: It's super gross. The attacks the human immune system, causing

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Speaker 1: pustules to form on your skin nice and and that

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Speaker 1: leads to death within thirty six hours. But the way

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Speaker 1: that it spreads is the pustules erupt So these the

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Speaker 1: gooey pustules pop stuff everyone people, which subsequently get more

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Speaker 1: larva on the people. Yeah. Um, so, first of all,

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Speaker 1: this episode presents the idea that this is an undiscovered

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Speaker 1: species that nobody has ever heard of before. Uh, and

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00:19:08,320 --> 00:19:10,440
Speaker 1: you know, I believe that, they say, you know, that's

348
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Speaker 1: why we were totally unprepared for this as a potential

349
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Speaker 1: health problem. Yeah, it's that is a hundred percent possible. Yeah,

350
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Speaker 1: there are tons of species that we don't know exists. Yeah,

351
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Speaker 1: at the time when this book was written in there

352
00:19:25,680 --> 00:19:28,920
Speaker 1: were somewhere between one point five and a hundred million.

353
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Speaker 1: That's how like vague it is. They don't know undiscovered

354
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Speaker 1: species Usually there's small things like ants or beetles like

355
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Speaker 1: that in this case, right, but the rainforest in particular

356
00:19:39,280 --> 00:19:42,600
Speaker 1: is home to an incredibly diverse set of species. So

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Speaker 1: that's why it's particularly difficult for us to catalog all

358
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Speaker 1: of them. And I know there have always been scientists

359
00:19:48,000 --> 00:19:51,399
Speaker 1: trying to update the estimate. You know what, what's the number?

360
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Speaker 1: We suspect to someday be able to find numbers of

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Speaker 1: species on the Earth that are unknown. So it seems

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Speaker 1: that the most recent estimate that I could find, at

363
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Speaker 1: least came in twenty eleven. There was a study that

364
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Speaker 1: estimated that Earth has almost eight point eight million species

365
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Speaker 1: in total, and we've only discovered about a quarter of

366
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Speaker 1: that eight point eight million. Uh So like there, I

367
00:20:15,240 --> 00:20:17,960
Speaker 1: think their estimate was something like one point nine million

368
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Speaker 1: have been found. But then this is the funny part,

369
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Speaker 1: right The study says, well, we could be off by

370
00:20:23,840 --> 00:20:27,919
Speaker 1: about one point three million species, uh and that this

371
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Speaker 1: number could anywhere be anywhere between seven point five million

372
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Speaker 1: and ten point one million total species. So it's you know,

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Speaker 1: again like super vague abroad reach. But yes, it's possible

374
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Speaker 1: that there's a bug out there somewhere in South America

375
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Speaker 1: that we don't know about, right, Well, I mean that's

376
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Speaker 1: certain that there are bugs we don't know about. The

377
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Speaker 1: question is like, could we discover something that really surprises

378
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Speaker 1: us and I think that that's plausible. Yeah, we could absolutely. Uh.

379
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Speaker 1: So there's about two hundred and fifty thousand or somewhere

380
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Speaker 1: between two hundred fifty five hundred thousand species of parasitoids. Um.

381
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Speaker 1: The example that they gave in the book was the

382
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Speaker 1: scuttle fly. That's kind of one of the more well

383
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Speaker 1: known ones. It lays its eggs in the head of

384
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Speaker 1: a fire ant, uh and when that hatches, it kills

385
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Speaker 1: the ant. And then that's not enough. It uses the

386
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Speaker 1: ant's head as a little cocoon, so a safe place

387
00:21:21,040 --> 00:21:23,440
Speaker 1: for it to mature in like a like a cradle

388
00:21:24,160 --> 00:21:27,880
Speaker 1: ant head cradle. And yeah, we know about wasp parasitoids

389
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Speaker 1: that can take over ants. They can take over spiders

390
00:21:30,800 --> 00:21:33,119
Speaker 1: and all kinds of other insects and they either end

391
00:21:33,240 --> 00:21:37,040
Speaker 1: up like draining their their life from within, or they

392
00:21:37,040 --> 00:21:39,800
Speaker 1: take their their resources, or sometimes they even you know,

393
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Speaker 1: we've talked about like a zombie type insects before on

394
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Speaker 1: the show. They'll they'll take over these animals, sorry, these

395
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Speaker 1: insects and force them to defend the parasitoid. Yeah, it's

396
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Speaker 1: not pretty. So almost all of these parasitoids are what

397
00:21:56,760 --> 00:22:00,280
Speaker 1: we understand as arthur pods right, uh, and these they

398
00:22:00,359 --> 00:22:04,639
Speaker 1: sometimes use other arthropods as their hosts, which is even

399
00:22:04,760 --> 00:22:07,680
Speaker 1: that's like imagine if a like a little person climbed

400
00:22:07,680 --> 00:22:10,600
Speaker 1: inside of you and was the parasite inside of you.

401
00:22:10,800 --> 00:22:14,280
Speaker 1: If yeah, like a like a like a tiny little

402
00:22:14,359 --> 00:22:18,080
Speaker 1: humanoid with arms and legs just climbed down your throat

403
00:22:18,280 --> 00:22:21,520
Speaker 1: and was the parasitoid inside you and then maybe burst

404
00:22:21,520 --> 00:22:24,040
Speaker 1: out a week later. Why isn't that an episode of

405
00:22:24,040 --> 00:22:28,840
Speaker 1: The X Files. Well, I haven't written it yet, yeah, um,

406
00:22:28,880 --> 00:22:31,399
Speaker 1: but so yeah, so we've got you know, they're not

407
00:22:31,440 --> 00:22:34,439
Speaker 1: necessarily all adapted from a million physiology. This is what

408
00:22:34,520 --> 00:22:37,040
Speaker 1: we were talking about earlier about how these things are

409
00:22:37,080 --> 00:22:41,000
Speaker 1: so fascinating, right because they're adapted very specifically for the

410
00:22:41,080 --> 00:22:45,040
Speaker 1: species that they live in conjunction with. Okay, so, but

411
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Speaker 1: this parasite, in particular, the F masculata, and I think

412
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Speaker 1: F that stands for like a genus name, So that's

413
00:22:50,800 --> 00:22:53,520
Speaker 1: like would imagine the name of the species. Here we're

414
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Speaker 1: dealing with. What does Cavela say about about it in

415
00:22:56,560 --> 00:22:59,840
Speaker 1: the end? Is it is it similar to anything in reality? Yes?

416
00:23:00,040 --> 00:23:02,560
Speaker 1: So she says that it's similar to the blow fly,

417
00:23:02,720 --> 00:23:07,399
Speaker 1: which is another parasitoid that we're you know, somewhat familiar with. Uh.

418
00:23:07,640 --> 00:23:10,600
Speaker 1: They don't actually kill their hosts. They burrow into wounds.

419
00:23:10,640 --> 00:23:13,840
Speaker 1: These are blowflies. They burrow into wounds and their larva

420
00:23:14,160 --> 00:23:18,320
Speaker 1: eat dead flesh. But did the wounds explode, Not to

421
00:23:18,400 --> 00:23:21,200
Speaker 1: my knowledge, but I believe with blowflies, like, aren't blow

422
00:23:21,200 --> 00:23:25,920
Speaker 1: flies the type of larva that we're used to clean

423
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Speaker 1: out wounds during Like I think it was like World

424
00:23:28,119 --> 00:23:30,439
Speaker 1: War One or World War two, Like you could you

425
00:23:30,480 --> 00:23:33,800
Speaker 1: could put their larva in an open wound and it

426
00:23:33,800 --> 00:23:37,080
Speaker 1: would clean out the necrotic flesh that was there. Uh.

427
00:23:37,160 --> 00:23:38,920
Speaker 1: And obviously you wouldn't want to leave it there because

428
00:23:38,960 --> 00:23:42,440
Speaker 1: then they would hatch. But they but they were used

429
00:23:42,520 --> 00:23:45,679
Speaker 1: actually for that function. Yeah, I mean maggot therapy is

430
00:23:45,720 --> 00:23:49,160
Speaker 1: a is a type of therapy that has been used

431
00:23:49,160 --> 00:23:51,840
Speaker 1: and I think in some cases still is used. They

432
00:23:51,880 --> 00:23:54,879
Speaker 1: eat the necrotic flesh and they leave the healthy flesh alone.

433
00:23:55,119 --> 00:23:57,879
Speaker 1: So Cavellos makes a distinction though, and I think that

434
00:23:57,920 --> 00:24:00,400
Speaker 1: this is a good one that m ski a lot

435
00:24:00,400 --> 00:24:05,640
Speaker 1: of isn't necessarily just the beetle, right, and it it's

436
00:24:05,680 --> 00:24:09,520
Speaker 1: two beings. It's the beetle and then it's a parasite

437
00:24:09,640 --> 00:24:13,960
Speaker 1: virus that exists in the beetle and that grows inside

438
00:24:13,960 --> 00:24:17,440
Speaker 1: the human body, suppressing the immune system and causing these

439
00:24:17,480 --> 00:24:23,159
Speaker 1: wounds which the bugs subsequently lays its eggs inside. So

440
00:24:23,520 --> 00:24:25,800
Speaker 1: she thinks that it's like a two parter here, that

441
00:24:25,840 --> 00:24:28,760
Speaker 1: there's more going on, and that scullion molder don't quite

442
00:24:28,720 --> 00:24:32,960
Speaker 1: have the biology right um, and that the virus needs

443
00:24:33,000 --> 00:24:35,600
Speaker 1: to bug needs the bugs to spread in the same

444
00:24:35,640 --> 00:24:38,040
Speaker 1: way that the bugs would need the virus to reproduce.

445
00:24:38,160 --> 00:24:39,679
Speaker 1: So in that way, it could be kind of like

446
00:24:39,720 --> 00:24:43,400
Speaker 1: a like a composite organism. Like right, if you look

447
00:24:43,400 --> 00:24:46,639
Speaker 1: at a lichen you know about like lichen or you know,

448
00:24:46,720 --> 00:24:50,800
Speaker 1: there are really two different organisms that have combined so

449
00:24:50,880 --> 00:24:54,119
Speaker 1: closely together that they've formed a sort of super organism.

450
00:24:54,800 --> 00:24:57,600
Speaker 1: Lichen Is is made of algae and then also made

451
00:24:57,640 --> 00:25:00,719
Speaker 1: of fungus, and they they've just become so depending on

452
00:25:00,600 --> 00:25:04,360
Speaker 1: one another that they're now like a single organism. Well,

453
00:25:04,400 --> 00:25:07,520
Speaker 1: that's a great segue into our next X Files Monster

454
00:25:07,600 --> 00:25:11,040
Speaker 1: of the Week, which is another parasite of a kind,

455
00:25:11,240 --> 00:25:15,960
Speaker 1: but it's a fungus parasite in particular, this fungus lives

456
00:25:15,960 --> 00:25:18,879
Speaker 1: in volcanoes. Yeah, so that would make it probably some

457
00:25:18,960 --> 00:25:21,880
Speaker 1: kind of extreme of file. Right. So we're talking about

458
00:25:21,920 --> 00:25:27,000
Speaker 1: the episode Firewalker, which is it's I don't know, it's

459
00:25:27,000 --> 00:25:29,480
Speaker 1: not one of my favorite ones, but the science is

460
00:25:29,560 --> 00:25:32,600
Speaker 1: kind of interesting in it, and it had guest stars

461
00:25:32,640 --> 00:25:36,040
Speaker 1: Bradley Whitford, which I really enjoyed. He's like the crazed

462
00:25:36,119 --> 00:25:40,320
Speaker 1: scientist who's left over from this mad exploration to the volcano.

463
00:25:40,480 --> 00:25:43,600
Speaker 1: So Bradley Whitford is the guy from the West Wing

464
00:25:43,680 --> 00:25:47,199
Speaker 1: who would do all those cute walking talks. Yes, that's him,

465
00:25:47,240 --> 00:25:49,639
Speaker 1: that's him. He was also on that other Aaron Sarkin

466
00:25:49,720 --> 00:25:53,480
Speaker 1: show was a Studio sixty on the Sunset Strip. I

467
00:25:53,480 --> 00:25:55,639
Speaker 1: don't know, I never saw it was a studio with

468
00:25:55,680 --> 00:25:58,680
Speaker 1: a number. I just don't remember the number. I'm I'm

469
00:25:58,680 --> 00:26:01,159
Speaker 1: annoyed by the cute walking talks. But I did like

470
00:26:01,240 --> 00:26:03,240
Speaker 1: him in Cavin in the Woods. Oh yeah, he's great

471
00:26:03,240 --> 00:26:05,720
Speaker 1: in that. Yeah. So the idea here is that he's

472
00:26:05,760 --> 00:26:09,360
Speaker 1: a scientist with another group of scientists that are studying

473
00:26:09,359 --> 00:26:13,639
Speaker 1: a volcano. They have a like robot called Firewalker that

474
00:26:13,680 --> 00:26:17,000
Speaker 1: they send into the volcano to do like examinations. The

475
00:26:17,160 --> 00:26:20,320
Speaker 1: robot gets these fungal spores on it and then it

476
00:26:20,359 --> 00:26:23,960
Speaker 1: comes back and infects everybody, and the fungal spores grow

477
00:26:24,040 --> 00:26:27,480
Speaker 1: inside the lungs of these people and then burst outward,

478
00:26:27,600 --> 00:26:30,480
Speaker 1: releasing more spores infecting more people. We're kind of seeing

479
00:26:30,520 --> 00:26:33,879
Speaker 1: a theme, yeah, the bursting. Okay, so the idea of

480
00:26:33,880 --> 00:26:37,960
Speaker 1: an organism that lives under extremely high heat conditions is

481
00:26:38,080 --> 00:26:40,399
Speaker 1: kind of strange because heat is one of the ways

482
00:26:40,440 --> 00:26:43,640
Speaker 1: that we think of as being most dependable to kill

483
00:26:43,880 --> 00:26:46,840
Speaker 1: off any organisms we don't want on sure. Yeah, I mean, like,

484
00:26:47,359 --> 00:26:50,400
Speaker 1: you know, you want to sterilize silverware or surgical instruments

485
00:26:50,480 --> 00:26:52,600
Speaker 1: or something like that, you heat it up, and we

486
00:26:52,680 --> 00:26:56,160
Speaker 1: typically think, well, nothing's going to survive, but that's not true. Uh,

487
00:26:56,200 --> 00:26:59,600
Speaker 1: and hopefully there aren't any extreme of files on our

488
00:26:59,640 --> 00:27:03,000
Speaker 1: surgical instruments. But yeah, Scully says something to that effect

489
00:27:03,000 --> 00:27:05,520
Speaker 1: in the episode. She's like, well, nothing can survive inside

490
00:27:05,520 --> 00:27:09,280
Speaker 1: of volcano. This is her skepticism, nothing can survive inside

491
00:27:09,280 --> 00:27:13,840
Speaker 1: of volcano. But you know, Cavello's points out extremophiles could, uh,

492
00:27:13,880 --> 00:27:18,120
Speaker 1: they grow best actually in these extreme conditions, right. So, well,

493
00:27:18,160 --> 00:27:21,040
Speaker 1: the kinds that are adapted to really temperature exactly, and

494
00:27:21,080 --> 00:27:24,720
Speaker 1: those are called thermophiles. We know about kinds that live

495
00:27:24,840 --> 00:27:29,000
Speaker 1: near underwater volcanic events or next to pools of boiling water.

496
00:27:29,080 --> 00:27:32,800
Speaker 1: And yeah, some even lived inside volcanoes. Are never heard

497
00:27:32,800 --> 00:27:35,239
Speaker 1: of that before. Yeah, this is what you know, she

498
00:27:35,320 --> 00:27:38,880
Speaker 1: mentions in there, and uh so, okay, here's the thing. Though,

499
00:27:39,680 --> 00:27:43,360
Speaker 1: the heat range established in that episode of the Firewalker

500
00:27:43,480 --> 00:27:48,040
Speaker 1: Robot is a hundred and forty three to three hundred degrees. Now,

501
00:27:48,080 --> 00:27:51,000
Speaker 1: I do feel pretty certain that no organism, no matter what,

502
00:27:51,119 --> 00:27:54,320
Speaker 1: could survive three hundred degrees. Yeah, And this is where

503
00:27:54,359 --> 00:27:58,040
Speaker 1: Cavellos kind of works around this is that she hypothesizes

504
00:27:58,200 --> 00:28:01,080
Speaker 1: that it might not actually be an extreme a file

505
00:28:01,480 --> 00:28:04,240
Speaker 1: this particular fungus and she but she's got an answer.

506
00:28:04,280 --> 00:28:06,879
Speaker 1: She's got kind of like before with the idea that

507
00:28:07,240 --> 00:28:10,440
Speaker 1: uh fm esculata is two beings instead of one being.

508
00:28:10,480 --> 00:28:14,600
Speaker 1: She's got an interesting hypothesis that contradicts what Scully comes

509
00:28:14,720 --> 00:28:19,359
Speaker 1: up with. Um. She says that it's unlikely that it

510
00:28:19,400 --> 00:28:23,080
Speaker 1: would be a fungus in particular, right because they the

511
00:28:23,440 --> 00:28:27,000
Speaker 1: fungus wouldn't be able to survive. But perhaps that is

512
00:28:27,040 --> 00:28:30,399
Speaker 1: the spore of a fungus that doesn't live in the

513
00:28:30,480 --> 00:28:34,240
Speaker 1: volcano but near the volcano, and the scores were blown

514
00:28:34,320 --> 00:28:39,840
Speaker 1: along to where the firewalker was maybe exiting the volcano. Okay, well,

515
00:28:39,960 --> 00:28:42,440
Speaker 1: I mean that makes it easier to Yeah, so maybe

516
00:28:42,440 --> 00:28:44,560
Speaker 1: it's not an extreme a file necessarily, but they just

517
00:28:44,600 --> 00:28:48,920
Speaker 1: kind of blew onto this robot or whatever. But um,

518
00:28:49,760 --> 00:28:52,400
Speaker 1: it opens up a possibility. Well but wait, hold on,

519
00:28:52,480 --> 00:28:55,400
Speaker 1: if you can say that, it's like, you know, oh well,

520
00:28:55,440 --> 00:28:57,680
Speaker 1: wait a minute, what if these aliens didn't really come

521
00:28:57,680 --> 00:29:01,160
Speaker 1: from space come from space? They came from can to death. Yeah,

522
00:29:01,200 --> 00:29:03,440
Speaker 1: I mean it's true, and that, you know, we get

523
00:29:03,480 --> 00:29:06,480
Speaker 1: to the Canadian aliens in season seven of the X Files.

524
00:29:06,520 --> 00:29:09,960
Speaker 1: But no, I agree with you. You're right, it's a

525
00:29:10,000 --> 00:29:12,080
Speaker 1: little weird. But I like that where she's going with

526
00:29:12,120 --> 00:29:15,280
Speaker 1: this because it opens up the possibility of talking about Um.

527
00:29:15,440 --> 00:29:18,360
Speaker 1: One of the problems with these extremely files is that like, yeah,

528
00:29:18,360 --> 00:29:21,080
Speaker 1: they can exist in these extreme environments, but then they

529
00:29:21,080 --> 00:29:24,479
Speaker 1: wouldn't necessarily also be able to exist, for instance, in

530
00:29:24,520 --> 00:29:27,000
Speaker 1: the human lung. Right, So I did a little bit

531
00:29:27,040 --> 00:29:29,240
Speaker 1: of looking up here to see, you know what, what's

532
00:29:29,240 --> 00:29:33,480
Speaker 1: the possibility here of these fungus spores blowing around on

533
00:29:33,520 --> 00:29:36,760
Speaker 1: a volcano. And sure enough, there have been fungal spores

534
00:29:36,800 --> 00:29:39,880
Speaker 1: that have been discovered on the volcanic desert of Mount

535
00:29:39,920 --> 00:29:43,280
Speaker 1: Fuji and Japan, so not inside it, but like, you know,

536
00:29:43,640 --> 00:29:48,719
Speaker 1: the outside volcanic area around it. So Okay, it's theoretical

537
00:29:48,880 --> 00:29:51,800
Speaker 1: that theoretically possible that one of these fungus has a

538
00:29:51,840 --> 00:29:55,360
Speaker 1: spore it gets blown up, uh maybe to the lip

539
00:29:55,520 --> 00:29:58,800
Speaker 1: or top of the volcano where Firewalker robot is roaming

540
00:29:58,800 --> 00:30:01,440
Speaker 1: around the and then gets on it there. Well, I

541
00:30:01,440 --> 00:30:03,720
Speaker 1: believe I remember in the show was going around in

542
00:30:03,760 --> 00:30:07,640
Speaker 1: these caves, these like hot caves that were lava tubes.

543
00:30:07,680 --> 00:30:11,000
Speaker 1: I guess, oh, yeah, on the volcano, so that might

544
00:30:11,000 --> 00:30:12,880
Speaker 1: be a different kind of environment too. But yeah, I

545
00:30:12,880 --> 00:30:16,240
Speaker 1: think we've you know, established probably not possible for it

546
00:30:16,280 --> 00:30:19,600
Speaker 1: to exist in a volcano. But you know, she's come

547
00:30:19,680 --> 00:30:22,960
Speaker 1: up with her best possible answer as to how this

548
00:30:23,040 --> 00:30:26,440
Speaker 1: fungus could have ended up this, especially this unknown fungus, right,

549
00:30:26,480 --> 00:30:28,440
Speaker 1: how it could have ended up on this robot. I mean,

550
00:30:28,480 --> 00:30:31,120
Speaker 1: what is it? What does it live on? If it's

551
00:30:31,120 --> 00:30:34,520
Speaker 1: in a kind of dark, super hot environment. Well, most

552
00:30:34,560 --> 00:30:38,800
Speaker 1: thermophiles consume sulfur of some kind or another, and they

553
00:30:38,800 --> 00:30:42,000
Speaker 1: say in the episode of Firewalker that this thing eats

554
00:30:42,080 --> 00:30:47,400
Speaker 1: hydrogen sulfide um So it's interesting though, because if the

555
00:30:47,440 --> 00:30:51,440
Speaker 1: fungus fed off sulfur, how would it still grow inside

556
00:30:51,520 --> 00:30:54,680
Speaker 1: human lungs? Right, Like, we don't have a ton of

557
00:30:54,720 --> 00:30:58,840
Speaker 1: sulfur in our lungs. But Cavellos again finds an answer

558
00:30:58,840 --> 00:31:00,760
Speaker 1: for that. She says, well, actually, and some of the

559
00:31:00,760 --> 00:31:03,640
Speaker 1: amino acids in our body, there are sulfides in there,

560
00:31:04,080 --> 00:31:08,160
Speaker 1: so maybe it would be like somehow pulling the sulfides

561
00:31:08,160 --> 00:31:10,920
Speaker 1: out of the amino acids. The problem with that, though,

562
00:31:11,000 --> 00:31:14,120
Speaker 1: is that within a moist lung environment, if the fungus

563
00:31:14,160 --> 00:31:19,400
Speaker 1: was producing sulfur dioxide, that would turn into sulfuric acid

564
00:31:19,720 --> 00:31:22,080
Speaker 1: inside our lungs, which would you know, pretty much kill

565
00:31:22,120 --> 00:31:26,040
Speaker 1: its human host. So Firewalker not so great at the

566
00:31:26,400 --> 00:31:32,080
Speaker 1: at the adapting spectacularly to exist with its host, right,

567
00:31:32,280 --> 00:31:35,240
Speaker 1: doesn't sound like it's it's been really thought through as well.

568
00:31:35,320 --> 00:31:37,840
Speaker 1: Maybe I'd be curious to see who the different writers

569
00:31:37,840 --> 00:31:41,800
Speaker 1: were on these parasite episodes and how much research they did. So.

570
00:31:41,880 --> 00:31:45,480
Speaker 1: The other thing that's really unique about the Firewalker life form.

571
00:31:45,640 --> 00:31:48,120
Speaker 1: I know that the robots called Firewalker, but I guess

572
00:31:48,120 --> 00:31:52,240
Speaker 1: we're calling this creature Firewalker as well, right, is that

573
00:31:52,280 --> 00:31:55,719
Speaker 1: they say in the episode that it's silicon based, silicone

574
00:31:55,760 --> 00:32:01,240
Speaker 1: based rather than carbon based, So almost all life as

575
00:32:01,280 --> 00:32:04,240
Speaker 1: we understand its carbon based. I think all life we

576
00:32:04,280 --> 00:32:07,200
Speaker 1: know about on Earth is carbon based. I mean, scientists

577
00:32:07,240 --> 00:32:10,040
Speaker 1: have talked about astrobiology for a while, has talked about, well,

578
00:32:10,480 --> 00:32:12,760
Speaker 1: could there be life forms on another planet that are

579
00:32:12,840 --> 00:32:16,720
Speaker 1: based on a different kind of atomic structure than that

580
00:32:16,840 --> 00:32:20,040
Speaker 1: on Earth? Because you know, we all are, right, we

581
00:32:20,080 --> 00:32:23,200
Speaker 1: all have DNA, you know, or even even viruses that

582
00:32:23,880 --> 00:32:27,200
Speaker 1: you know don't have all of the characteristics we would

583
00:32:27,200 --> 00:32:31,240
Speaker 1: think of as as being life necessarily still are carbon based,

584
00:32:31,680 --> 00:32:35,000
Speaker 1: and silicon is this proposed atom. It's like, well, you know,

585
00:32:35,040 --> 00:32:38,120
Speaker 1: maybe silicon based molecules could be the basis for some

586
00:32:38,240 --> 00:32:41,640
Speaker 1: other kind of biochemistry that's different than the biochemistry and

587
00:32:41,720 --> 00:32:45,520
Speaker 1: life on Earth. And I've read some criticisms of that.

588
00:32:45,600 --> 00:32:49,960
Speaker 1: I think some people I think that's very implausible. I mean,

589
00:32:50,320 --> 00:32:53,800
Speaker 1: you never really know for sure. Well, there's the classic

590
00:32:53,880 --> 00:32:57,720
Speaker 1: Star Trek episode where they meet the silicon based alien Horta.

591
00:32:58,640 --> 00:33:03,120
Speaker 1: I've never seen. That's basically empirical science. Yeah, I haven't

592
00:33:03,120 --> 00:33:05,600
Speaker 1: seen it either, but it came up when I was

593
00:33:05,640 --> 00:33:09,480
Speaker 1: researching the possibility of silicon life forms. So Yeah, you're right.

594
00:33:09,600 --> 00:33:14,360
Speaker 1: Carbon is the most conducive form for life, right because

595
00:33:14,360 --> 00:33:18,200
Speaker 1: it can easily form bonds with other atoms, it's flexible,

596
00:33:18,480 --> 00:33:21,600
Speaker 1: it can form thousands of different compounds. Those can be

597
00:33:21,640 --> 00:33:27,280
Speaker 1: broken down, and they can facilitate different processes within an organism. Right. Silicon, however,

598
00:33:27,480 --> 00:33:30,800
Speaker 1: is called it's known as tetravalent, so the bonds it

599
00:33:30,840 --> 00:33:33,760
Speaker 1: creates are either too strong to be broken down or

600
00:33:33,800 --> 00:33:37,320
Speaker 1: too weak to hold together for these particular processes, so

601
00:33:37,680 --> 00:33:42,440
Speaker 1: they don't form compounds with what's called handedness. Uh. And

602
00:33:42,600 --> 00:33:46,640
Speaker 1: the the analogy that Cavelos uses here, which I like, uh,

603
00:33:46,720 --> 00:33:49,440
Speaker 1: is that you think of a right hand trying to

604
00:33:49,480 --> 00:33:52,680
Speaker 1: wear a left handed glove. That's basically what it's like

605
00:33:52,760 --> 00:33:56,880
Speaker 1: with silicon trying to attach itself in a particular way

606
00:33:57,280 --> 00:34:01,720
Speaker 1: with enzymes in order to facilitate life. Uh. I mean yeah,

607
00:34:01,800 --> 00:34:05,480
Speaker 1: that that's another good point about the matching nous. I mean,

608
00:34:05,520 --> 00:34:08,400
Speaker 1: would a silicon based life form, even if it could exist,

609
00:34:08,880 --> 00:34:12,440
Speaker 1: could it possibly parasitize a carbon based life form? And

610
00:34:12,440 --> 00:34:14,719
Speaker 1: would the carbon based life form even have the kinds

611
00:34:14,760 --> 00:34:18,759
Speaker 1: of molecules available silicon based life form would need for

612
00:34:18,800 --> 00:34:23,359
Speaker 1: its metabolism and and much like how they're you know, speculating, Well,

613
00:34:23,400 --> 00:34:27,160
Speaker 1: if you have this sulfur dioxide creating thing in your lungs,

614
00:34:27,160 --> 00:34:30,800
Speaker 1: it would just make sulfuric acid. Also, the the products

615
00:34:30,800 --> 00:34:33,000
Speaker 1: that would be emitted from these silicon life forms wouldn't

616
00:34:33,040 --> 00:34:35,600
Speaker 1: necessarily work out, right. So, well, this is a thing

617
00:34:35,640 --> 00:34:37,960
Speaker 1: that comes through in a lot of these sci fi

618
00:34:38,160 --> 00:34:41,759
Speaker 1: scenarios about parasites is that typically parasites don't want to

619
00:34:41,840 --> 00:34:45,840
Speaker 1: kill their hosts. I mean, you always have killing in

620
00:34:45,840 --> 00:34:48,160
Speaker 1: in the in the science fiction because it ups the

621
00:34:48,200 --> 00:34:50,440
Speaker 1: anti You know, if it just kind of made you

622
00:34:50,480 --> 00:34:53,719
Speaker 1: feel sick and then you've got better, that wouldn't be

623
00:34:53,800 --> 00:34:57,600
Speaker 1: such a dramatic story. But but yeah, I mean a

624
00:34:57,760 --> 00:35:02,160
Speaker 1: parasite that kills its host is kind of doing bad job, right, Yeah,

625
00:35:02,320 --> 00:35:04,800
Speaker 1: So I think about it this way. Okay, So carbon

626
00:35:04,920 --> 00:35:10,279
Speaker 1: life forms they oxidized, right, We oxidized and unite oxygen.

627
00:35:10,560 --> 00:35:14,200
Speaker 1: Maybe during burning it becomes a gas like carbon dioxide.

628
00:35:14,280 --> 00:35:19,080
Speaker 1: We emit carbon dioxide. But if silicon oxidizes, it becomes

629
00:35:19,080 --> 00:35:22,520
Speaker 1: a solid silicon dioxide, which is also known as silica,

630
00:35:22,600 --> 00:35:27,040
Speaker 1: which is sand. Right, So imagine this creature. I guess

631
00:35:27,239 --> 00:35:31,440
Speaker 1: it's just coughing up sand. Constantly. Um so. Yeah, So

632
00:35:31,520 --> 00:35:34,879
Speaker 1: that's one very simple reason why it probably couldn't support life,

633
00:35:34,880 --> 00:35:37,919
Speaker 1: although I'm sure somebody with an interesting enough imagination would

634
00:35:37,920 --> 00:35:42,640
Speaker 1: be able to envision a sand breathing creature of some type. Well,

635
00:35:42,680 --> 00:35:45,680
Speaker 1: actually sandworms of dune. I think Robert and I in

636
00:35:45,719 --> 00:35:49,000
Speaker 1: an episode we did about about alien life forms in

637
00:35:49,080 --> 00:35:53,160
Speaker 1: the shapes they could take. We talked about sand based life,

638
00:35:53,200 --> 00:35:56,560
Speaker 1: like a life that that had this silica basis, and

639
00:35:56,640 --> 00:36:00,560
Speaker 1: we referenced the Stephen King short story Beach where yeah,

640
00:36:00,719 --> 00:36:05,680
Speaker 1: it seems to have sentient sand dunes as a life form.

641
00:36:05,760 --> 00:36:10,239
Speaker 1: So this next X Files episode, which is yet another parasite,

642
00:36:10,280 --> 00:36:12,719
Speaker 1: and this is this is the last parasite. Yeah, and

643
00:36:12,760 --> 00:36:14,279
Speaker 1: it's well at least the last one we're going to

644
00:36:14,360 --> 00:36:17,840
Speaker 1: cover here. There's probably hundreds of bears the X Files.

645
00:36:17,880 --> 00:36:20,920
Speaker 1: But this is another classic X Files episode. It's I

646
00:36:20,960 --> 00:36:22,920
Speaker 1: think it's the best episode of the first season. It's

647
00:36:22,960 --> 00:36:25,960
Speaker 1: one of my favorites. It's called Ice. It's basically the

648
00:36:26,000 --> 00:36:29,480
Speaker 1: movie The Thing. Yeah, it's an homage to the Thing. Uh.

649
00:36:29,520 --> 00:36:34,120
Speaker 1: And they're basically paranoia worms that get inside you. And

650
00:36:34,160 --> 00:36:37,040
Speaker 1: in fact, last night I I rewatched the episode in

651
00:36:37,080 --> 00:36:39,319
Speaker 1: preparation for us to record this because I was just

652
00:36:39,520 --> 00:36:43,040
Speaker 1: I really like that episode. It's got some great moments

653
00:36:43,040 --> 00:36:46,080
Speaker 1: from other character actors. Felicity Huffman shows up in it.

654
00:36:46,320 --> 00:36:48,840
Speaker 1: So yeah, in this episode Ice, what happens? We have

655
00:36:49,160 --> 00:36:52,600
Speaker 1: Molder and Scully flying up to this Arctic research station

656
00:36:52,719 --> 00:36:55,040
Speaker 1: because it seems that all of the people on the

657
00:36:55,080 --> 00:36:59,720
Speaker 1: station have killed each other. And well, yeah, the cold

658
00:36:59,719 --> 00:37:02,879
Speaker 1: open begins with there's dead bodies everywhere, and there's two

659
00:37:02,880 --> 00:37:05,560
Speaker 1: guys left and they're about to kill each other, but

660
00:37:05,600 --> 00:37:07,560
Speaker 1: then they turn their guns on themselves and each of

661
00:37:07,600 --> 00:37:10,799
Speaker 1: them kills themselves and they keep saying over and over again,

662
00:37:11,440 --> 00:37:14,600
Speaker 1: we are not who we are, something like to that effect, right, yeah,

663
00:37:14,719 --> 00:37:17,400
Speaker 1: something like that. Yeah, And so Molder and Scully and

664
00:37:17,480 --> 00:37:19,640
Speaker 1: a team of other people get there, and this team

665
00:37:19,719 --> 00:37:22,040
Speaker 1: is kind of important because then we can we can

666
00:37:22,080 --> 00:37:25,600
Speaker 1: play the factions in Paranoia game. And they discovered that

667
00:37:25,640 --> 00:37:28,600
Speaker 1: this Arctic research station had come across what was it,

668
00:37:28,920 --> 00:37:33,680
Speaker 1: a frozen meteorite. Yeah, well they were they were researching

669
00:37:34,000 --> 00:37:37,240
Speaker 1: and drilling down into ice that was inside a meteorite

670
00:37:37,280 --> 00:37:40,400
Speaker 1: crater I believe, Okay, Yeah, and so it was it

671
00:37:40,480 --> 00:37:43,920
Speaker 1: was many thousands of years old, and they came across

672
00:37:44,000 --> 00:37:47,120
Speaker 1: this organism that they brought back to the research station

673
00:37:47,239 --> 00:37:51,040
Speaker 1: with them. That's a tiny worm of some sort, and

674
00:37:51,200 --> 00:37:53,880
Speaker 1: essentially what happens is the worm gets into people and

675
00:37:53,960 --> 00:37:57,560
Speaker 1: turns them paranoid and they started killing. Yeah, and it's

676
00:37:57,840 --> 00:37:59,960
Speaker 1: like all these other parasites that we've been talking about

677
00:38:00,000 --> 00:38:03,120
Speaker 1: out it it enters its host inside a larval form.

678
00:38:03,160 --> 00:38:06,840
Speaker 1: In this particular case, it's it's real gross. It moves

679
00:38:06,880 --> 00:38:09,040
Speaker 1: around on the back of your neck and somehow attaches

680
00:38:09,080 --> 00:38:11,919
Speaker 1: to your hypothalamus. You can see it's scuttling around under

681
00:38:11,960 --> 00:38:14,840
Speaker 1: the skin. Yeah, Yeah, it's it's not pretty. Uh, And

682
00:38:14,880 --> 00:38:18,600
Speaker 1: there's I had forgotten about this until I rewatched it

683
00:38:18,680 --> 00:38:20,520
Speaker 1: last night. But one of the ways that they can

684
00:38:20,560 --> 00:38:22,919
Speaker 1: tell if you're infected with the worm as you start

685
00:38:22,920 --> 00:38:26,440
Speaker 1: getting these like little black nodules growing under like your

686
00:38:26,520 --> 00:38:30,080
Speaker 1: armpit and stuff like that. Uh. But yeah, they say

687
00:38:30,080 --> 00:38:34,040
Speaker 1: that it's uh, it stimulates the chemical act of colon

688
00:38:34,280 --> 00:38:39,880
Speaker 1: that's in the hypothalamus and that this causes the hosts

689
00:38:39,920 --> 00:38:44,880
Speaker 1: in this case to exhibit extreme paranoia and then subsequent violence.

690
00:38:44,880 --> 00:38:48,239
Speaker 1: So that's why all the other scientists all killed each

691
00:38:48,280 --> 00:38:52,520
Speaker 1: other and themselves. They're infected by this worm, and it's

692
00:38:52,560 --> 00:38:55,880
Speaker 1: a paranoia worm. So let's set aside the alien stuff

693
00:38:55,880 --> 00:38:57,719
Speaker 1: for a second and just say, is some kind of

694
00:38:57,800 --> 00:39:02,880
Speaker 1: terrestrial paranoia worm visible at all? Well, it's probably not

695
00:39:02,960 --> 00:39:05,879
Speaker 1: an extreme aphile like we're just talking about earlier, right

696
00:39:05,920 --> 00:39:09,799
Speaker 1: with Firewalker, because again, how would it be able to

697
00:39:09,840 --> 00:39:13,640
Speaker 1: survive in both these extreme cold conditions and then also

698
00:39:13,719 --> 00:39:16,360
Speaker 1: in the relative heat of the human body. It wouldn't

699
00:39:16,360 --> 00:39:21,160
Speaker 1: be adapted for both, right, So it's probably of terrestrial origin,

700
00:39:21,239 --> 00:39:23,879
Speaker 1: even though Molder immediately is like, oh, this is from

701
00:39:23,920 --> 00:39:26,120
Speaker 1: matter space, it's an alien It was in a meteorite.

702
00:39:26,160 --> 00:39:30,239
Speaker 1: We have to document this. It's proof of alien life, right, right,

703
00:39:30,440 --> 00:39:34,600
Speaker 1: But the Cavella says in her book, sell you, Ule Molder,

704
00:39:34,840 --> 00:39:39,400
Speaker 1: it's probably actually terrestrial origin since it's evolved in particular

705
00:39:39,440 --> 00:39:42,680
Speaker 1: to be a parasite with mammalion hosts, right, or I mean,

706
00:39:42,719 --> 00:39:44,920
Speaker 1: I guess the possibility is that this meteorite is from

707
00:39:44,960 --> 00:39:47,480
Speaker 1: a planet where there are hosts that are just like

708
00:39:47,640 --> 00:39:50,719
Speaker 1: dogs and humans, because it also infects a dog in

709
00:39:50,719 --> 00:39:53,759
Speaker 1: the episode. Right. Okay, Well, as we've talked about in

710
00:39:53,840 --> 00:39:56,279
Speaker 1: the other episodes, one of one of the things that's

711
00:39:56,320 --> 00:39:59,680
Speaker 1: common to these worm infections in the body is that

712
00:39:59,719 --> 00:40:01,880
Speaker 1: they need to get out of your body to pass

713
00:40:01,960 --> 00:40:04,160
Speaker 1: on to the next host somehow, and typically they're going

714
00:40:04,200 --> 00:40:08,080
Speaker 1: to do that through the most attractive method of feces,

715
00:40:08,160 --> 00:40:11,040
Speaker 1: as we said earlier, right, and yet again in this episode,

716
00:40:11,080 --> 00:40:14,799
Speaker 1: like with the flukeman. Uh, it's it's well, it's not

717
00:40:15,040 --> 00:40:17,480
Speaker 1: entirely spelled out, but we know at least one person

718
00:40:17,520 --> 00:40:20,680
Speaker 1: gets infected from a bite, so that somehow the larva

719
00:40:20,840 --> 00:40:23,680
Speaker 1: of this worm or in the saliva of the dog

720
00:40:24,120 --> 00:40:26,920
Speaker 1: that bites a guy. He's the pilot in his name

721
00:40:26,960 --> 00:40:30,320
Speaker 1: is Bear. Uh. And Bear gets bitten by the dog

722
00:40:30,880 --> 00:40:33,120
Speaker 1: and then he gets infected, he gets paranoid and he

723
00:40:33,160 --> 00:40:38,160
Speaker 1: starts attacking everybody. Right, Uh so yeah, why why doesn't

724
00:40:38,160 --> 00:40:42,440
Speaker 1: it just go the good old right out the digestive system,

725
00:40:41,960 --> 00:40:46,680
Speaker 1: tried and true parasite method. Instead it's this bite thing.

726
00:40:47,320 --> 00:40:51,520
Speaker 1: And the other problem with this, right is that you're

727
00:40:51,680 --> 00:40:55,719
Speaker 1: even if you're provoked into violence, you're not necessarily going

728
00:40:55,760 --> 00:40:59,319
Speaker 1: to always bite your victim. Yeah, it seems like they're

729
00:41:00,239 --> 00:41:02,759
Speaker 1: I don't know, relying vaguely on the notion that this

730
00:41:02,840 --> 00:41:06,839
Speaker 1: is adapted to an animal that bites when provoked, though

731
00:41:07,080 --> 00:41:09,680
Speaker 1: humans don't necessarily do that. I mean, I guess if

732
00:41:09,680 --> 00:41:14,319
Speaker 1: you imagined it was adapted to mammals on Earth, a

733
00:41:14,360 --> 00:41:17,160
Speaker 1: lot of mammals probably bite when provoked. Yeah, And I

734
00:41:17,200 --> 00:41:19,719
Speaker 1: think that the writers were probably thinking along the lines

735
00:41:19,760 --> 00:41:21,960
Speaker 1: of rabies, sort of like a combination of a tape

736
00:41:21,960 --> 00:41:24,840
Speaker 1: worm in rabies here and that like it would be

737
00:41:24,880 --> 00:41:28,280
Speaker 1: spread by a bite, uh or or in the episode

738
00:41:28,280 --> 00:41:30,640
Speaker 1: that I had forgotten this but rewatching it last night,

739
00:41:30,680 --> 00:41:32,560
Speaker 1: they just at some points just take the worm and

740
00:41:32,640 --> 00:41:35,560
Speaker 1: shove it in somebody's ear, and that's how they get infected,

741
00:41:35,560 --> 00:41:39,840
Speaker 1: which is also gross. It reminds me Raphicon. It reminds

742
00:41:39,840 --> 00:41:42,480
Speaker 1: me exactly of that scene. So what's what's this stuff

743
00:41:42,520 --> 00:41:46,319
Speaker 1: you said that the worm produces that causes the paranoia

744
00:41:46,360 --> 00:41:49,560
Speaker 1: and violence? Would would that actually work? So it's it's

745
00:41:49,640 --> 00:41:53,680
Speaker 1: again it's a setal coline uh. And it's supposedly it's

746
00:41:53,719 --> 00:41:56,960
Speaker 1: interacting with that hypothalamust trying to trigger our fight or

747
00:41:57,000 --> 00:42:02,520
Speaker 1: flight mechanism, right, which would lead to the bites. I guess. Uh.

748
00:42:02,560 --> 00:42:05,080
Speaker 1: But like I said, in the episode, they're they're shooting

749
00:42:05,080 --> 00:42:06,840
Speaker 1: guns at each other, they're punching each other. So I

750
00:42:06,880 --> 00:42:09,800
Speaker 1: don't know if that does the worm any good. The acetalcoline,

751
00:42:10,280 --> 00:42:13,520
Speaker 1: it has a way more complex relationship with the human

752
00:42:13,560 --> 00:42:18,120
Speaker 1: body than just making you violent or paranoid. So, uh,

753
00:42:18,400 --> 00:42:20,919
Speaker 1: you know the research that Cavelos pulls out, she says

754
00:42:21,560 --> 00:42:25,239
Speaker 1: that toxins like saren like saren gas, Yeah, they can

755
00:42:25,280 --> 00:42:28,480
Speaker 1: break that down and they can cause similar effects of paranoia,

756
00:42:28,520 --> 00:42:33,680
Speaker 1: but it very low doses. At high doses acetalcoline, however,

757
00:42:34,120 --> 00:42:39,239
Speaker 1: it just basically stimulates your body's parasympathetic system and it

758
00:42:39,360 --> 00:42:43,320
Speaker 1: slows down functions like your heartbeat, blood pressure, and ultimately

759
00:42:43,400 --> 00:42:47,839
Speaker 1: leads to respiratory paralysis. So again, like the I don't know.

760
00:42:47,960 --> 00:42:50,319
Speaker 1: And there was another aspect in the episode that I

761
00:42:50,360 --> 00:42:52,640
Speaker 1: noticed last night that they didn't really talk about even

762
00:42:52,680 --> 00:42:56,000
Speaker 1: in caveluss book, which is that this thing like exists

763
00:42:56,080 --> 00:43:01,319
Speaker 1: specifically in ammonia, like it's evolved to be an ammonia

764
00:43:01,440 --> 00:43:05,400
Speaker 1: dwelling worm. And there's some implication that there'd be a

765
00:43:05,400 --> 00:43:11,120
Speaker 1: connection the ammonia and the aceticcoline. I that doesn't particularly

766
00:43:11,160 --> 00:43:16,120
Speaker 1: line up, so I guess we'd have to go no, Uh,

767
00:43:16,160 --> 00:43:18,759
Speaker 1: this thing couldn't exist in the ice as it did, right,

768
00:43:19,000 --> 00:43:21,640
Speaker 1: and also be did not exist in the ice and

769
00:43:21,719 --> 00:43:24,520
Speaker 1: be it and be a parasite that could infect humans

770
00:43:24,560 --> 00:43:28,520
Speaker 1: and other mammals, and then the acetacoline. It would have

771
00:43:28,600 --> 00:43:32,799
Speaker 1: to have a very refined way of accessing that within

772
00:43:32,840 --> 00:43:37,839
Speaker 1: the hypothalamus in order to get those specific, violent paranoid

773
00:43:37,880 --> 00:43:39,880
Speaker 1: reactions out of people. Yeah. I think this is a

774
00:43:40,000 --> 00:43:42,520
Speaker 1: thing that you see in science fiction writing a lot

775
00:43:42,680 --> 00:43:47,080
Speaker 1: is they'll take a supposed fact about a neurotransmitter or

776
00:43:47,200 --> 00:43:49,680
Speaker 1: some kind of hormone or chemical that they know of

777
00:43:49,760 --> 00:43:52,480
Speaker 1: that's active in the body and kind of oversimplify what

778
00:43:52,600 --> 00:43:56,239
Speaker 1: it does or overstate a correlation. You've probably read some

779
00:43:56,239 --> 00:43:59,560
Speaker 1: stuff along these lines. For example, with the hormone oxytocin.

780
00:43:59,640 --> 00:44:02,440
Speaker 1: Remember people say, oh, this is the love hormone, it

781
00:44:02,480 --> 00:44:05,839
Speaker 1: makes you be in love, and you know that that's

782
00:44:05,880 --> 00:44:09,040
Speaker 1: not exactly accurate. It's much more complex than that. It

783
00:44:09,560 --> 00:44:14,560
Speaker 1: causes complex cascading effects, and it is involved with other

784
00:44:14,600 --> 00:44:17,800
Speaker 1: hormones and combinations of things. It's just not as simple

785
00:44:17,880 --> 00:44:23,040
Speaker 1: as this one neurotransmitter causes this macro behavior on the

786
00:44:23,280 --> 00:44:25,680
Speaker 1: on the large scale exactly. So I think we can

787
00:44:25,760 --> 00:44:28,840
Speaker 1: safely scratch ice off as being something that we should

788
00:44:28,840 --> 00:44:33,239
Speaker 1: be terrified of making its way into the human population.

789
00:44:33,320 --> 00:44:35,960
Speaker 1: From watching this X Files episode, so with that, I

790
00:44:36,000 --> 00:44:37,839
Speaker 1: think we need to take a break, but we when

791
00:44:37,920 --> 00:44:40,600
Speaker 1: we come back, we're going to transition away from parasites

792
00:44:40,640 --> 00:44:49,760
Speaker 1: and talking about some other strange science of the X files. Perfect. Hey, everybody,

793
00:44:49,840 --> 00:44:51,960
Speaker 1: So one great resolution that you could make for the

794
00:44:52,040 --> 00:44:55,600
Speaker 1: new year is to maximize every minute and every dollar

795
00:44:55,760 --> 00:44:58,279
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796
00:44:58,440 --> 00:45:00,960
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797
00:45:01,000 --> 00:45:04,040
Speaker 1: dot Com. Think about how much time you've wasted going

798
00:45:04,040 --> 00:45:05,680
Speaker 1: to the post office. Joe, I'm gonna tell you a

799
00:45:05,719 --> 00:45:09,320
Speaker 1: story here Christmas. A week before Christmas, I'm at the

800
00:45:09,360 --> 00:45:11,560
Speaker 1: post office and I'm like, I really wish I had

801
00:45:11,600 --> 00:45:14,520
Speaker 1: access to our stamps dot com account because I get

802
00:45:14,560 --> 00:45:17,200
Speaker 1: to the post office and it's closed and they've just

803
00:45:17,239 --> 00:45:19,439
Speaker 1: got that one machine and I waited in line for

804
00:45:19,440 --> 00:45:22,680
Speaker 1: forty minutes to mail a gift to my grandmother. Yeah,

805
00:45:22,920 --> 00:45:25,960
Speaker 1: so think about how much time you have wasted, just

806
00:45:26,000 --> 00:45:28,439
Speaker 1: like I wasted at the post office. You got all

807
00:45:28,440 --> 00:45:30,719
Speaker 1: that stuff to deal with, but stamps dot com is

808
00:45:30,760 --> 00:45:32,920
Speaker 1: a much better way to do it. Just use what

809
00:45:33,000 --> 00:45:36,400
Speaker 1: you already have, your computer, your printer, get official U

810
00:45:36,520 --> 00:45:39,160
Speaker 1: S postage for any letter or package, and then your

811
00:45:39,200 --> 00:45:41,160
Speaker 1: maim man just picks it up because that's his job.

812
00:45:41,320 --> 00:45:43,960
Speaker 1: So right now, sign up for stamps dot com and

813
00:45:44,080 --> 00:45:47,440
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814
00:45:47,480 --> 00:45:50,440
Speaker 1: a four week trial plus a hundred and ten dollars

815
00:45:50,480 --> 00:45:53,400
Speaker 1: of a bonus offer and that includes postage and a

816
00:45:53,440 --> 00:45:57,200
Speaker 1: digital scale. So don't wait. Go to stamps dot com

817
00:45:57,200 --> 00:46:00,239
Speaker 1: before you do anything else. Click on that microp owned

818
00:46:00,239 --> 00:46:02,800
Speaker 1: at the top of the homepage and type in stuff

819
00:46:03,040 --> 00:46:11,840
Speaker 1: that stamps dot com into s t U F F. Alright,

820
00:46:11,880 --> 00:46:16,000
Speaker 1: so we're back. We're moving now from parasites into another

821
00:46:16,200 --> 00:46:19,400
Speaker 1: classic X Files A way to come up with a

822
00:46:19,520 --> 00:46:22,120
Speaker 1: villain for a Monster of the Week. It's a mutant,

823
00:46:22,320 --> 00:46:24,560
Speaker 1: right of course, and some of the most famous ones

824
00:46:24,719 --> 00:46:28,520
Speaker 1: are mutants. We've got Tombs who we're going to talk

825
00:46:28,560 --> 00:46:32,480
Speaker 1: about from the classic episode Squeeze and uh, of course

826
00:46:32,920 --> 00:46:35,520
Speaker 1: Leonard Betts. We gotta talk about Leonard Betts. That's one

827
00:46:35,520 --> 00:46:38,480
Speaker 1: of the most famous X Files episodes. Uh. And I

828
00:46:38,600 --> 00:46:40,920
Speaker 1: learned this from listening to Comin on Johnny's podcast. But

829
00:46:40,960 --> 00:46:44,440
Speaker 1: apparently it was the most watched episode of all time

830
00:46:44,880 --> 00:46:48,240
Speaker 1: because it happened to air like right during a Super Bowl,

831
00:46:48,280 --> 00:46:50,239
Speaker 1: like right after a super Bowl. Well, it's not a

832
00:46:50,280 --> 00:46:54,520
Speaker 1: bad one to do exactly. Yeah. So let's just established

833
00:46:54,560 --> 00:46:57,000
Speaker 1: right up front from Kveliss book and also just from

834
00:46:57,000 --> 00:47:01,560
Speaker 1: general science about mutations. Uh that that you know, the

835
00:47:01,600 --> 00:47:07,520
Speaker 1: possibilities here are about inheritance evolution and how mutation could

836
00:47:07,760 --> 00:47:12,200
Speaker 1: alter instances of I guess we would consider them natural selection,

837
00:47:12,360 --> 00:47:15,400
Speaker 1: right ull, sure, Yeah, I mean, mutation is an inherent

838
00:47:15,520 --> 00:47:19,560
Speaker 1: part of evolution. It's it's how random change occurs, but

839
00:47:19,960 --> 00:47:24,600
Speaker 1: mainly it's beneficial traits that are bred into this particular species,

840
00:47:24,680 --> 00:47:28,360
Speaker 1: right right, Well, all kinds of mutations occur, and most

841
00:47:28,440 --> 00:47:33,120
Speaker 1: of them have no effect whatsoever, or they are slightly detrimental,

842
00:47:33,560 --> 00:47:37,880
Speaker 1: but natural selection tends to mean that those mutations are

843
00:47:37,920 --> 00:47:42,040
Speaker 1: eliminated over time. And so if you have a mutation

844
00:47:42,080 --> 00:47:45,400
Speaker 1: that makes you worse at surviving, obviously you're less likely

845
00:47:45,480 --> 00:47:48,720
Speaker 1: to pass that gene onto your kids because you won't

846
00:47:48,760 --> 00:47:51,600
Speaker 1: be having any kids, or you'll have fewer kids than

847
00:47:51,719 --> 00:47:54,399
Speaker 1: the one with the beneficial gene or at least without

848
00:47:54,440 --> 00:47:57,960
Speaker 1: the negative gene. But are are we likely to encounter

849
00:47:58,360 --> 00:48:01,560
Speaker 1: mutants in the real world, as in mutants with these

850
00:48:01,600 --> 00:48:07,359
Speaker 1: big noticeable powers that powers fundamentally change, Yeah, how they

851
00:48:08,160 --> 00:48:11,520
Speaker 1: interact with their environment? You're gonna meet somebody who has wings. No,

852
00:48:11,920 --> 00:48:15,160
Speaker 1: you're not, because in one sense, yes, we're all mutants.

853
00:48:15,280 --> 00:48:18,319
Speaker 1: I mean we all inherit some amount of mutation from

854
00:48:18,320 --> 00:48:21,440
Speaker 1: our parents germ cells than our selves. Of course continue

855
00:48:21,480 --> 00:48:25,080
Speaker 1: to mutate throughout life, but in the most relevant sense,

856
00:48:25,640 --> 00:48:29,719
Speaker 1: we're not going to be able to mutate to have wings,

857
00:48:30,280 --> 00:48:34,400
Speaker 1: or mutate to become goo and then reform into a human,

858
00:48:34,880 --> 00:48:38,799
Speaker 1: or have any of these other huge macro mutations and mutations.

859
00:48:38,840 --> 00:48:42,440
Speaker 1: And creatures that survive into adulthood tend to have extremely

860
00:48:42,640 --> 00:48:46,880
Speaker 1: small or almost non existent impacts on the body. And

861
00:48:46,920 --> 00:48:50,080
Speaker 1: the way species change over time is through the accumulation

862
00:48:50,200 --> 00:48:54,480
Speaker 1: of mutations, not through one gigantic mutation that makes you

863
00:48:54,880 --> 00:48:58,759
Speaker 1: massively different. Alright, so let's get into Leonard Bets then.

864
00:48:58,800 --> 00:49:01,759
Speaker 1: So the premise of the Leonard Bets episode uh is

865
00:49:01,800 --> 00:49:05,200
Speaker 1: basically that this is a guy with a mutation in

866
00:49:05,239 --> 00:49:08,560
Speaker 1: which all the cells in his body are cancerous. Right, yeah,

867
00:49:08,640 --> 00:49:12,759
Speaker 1: So well we don't get there first, right, First, Heason E.

868
00:49:12,920 --> 00:49:16,239
Speaker 1: M T who gets his head cut off, that he

869
00:49:16,360 --> 00:49:19,680
Speaker 1: survives the decapitation exactly, so he gets his head cut

870
00:49:19,760 --> 00:49:23,920
Speaker 1: clean off in an ambulance accident. Leonard is fully decapitated,

871
00:49:23,960 --> 00:49:28,200
Speaker 1: and later his headless body gets up, flees from the

872
00:49:28,239 --> 00:49:32,840
Speaker 1: morgue and gets busy trying to regrow ahead. Okay, and

873
00:49:32,880 --> 00:49:34,359
Speaker 1: I believe the way he does that is by like

874
00:49:34,520 --> 00:49:37,160
Speaker 1: taking a bath in iodine. Right, Yeah, he gets into

875
00:49:37,200 --> 00:49:42,000
Speaker 1: some iodine. Don't know why. I don't think even Cavello

876
00:49:42,040 --> 00:49:45,320
Speaker 1: has had an idea about why iodine, But he gets

877
00:49:45,320 --> 00:49:47,520
Speaker 1: into it. He gets into a bath. Yeah, and a

878
00:49:47,560 --> 00:49:49,919
Speaker 1: bath of iodine is creepy, I guess. It leaves these

879
00:49:50,040 --> 00:49:54,040
Speaker 1: weird brown stains on him, and so that looks creepy enough,

880
00:49:54,080 --> 00:49:57,840
Speaker 1: I guess. But and he eventually regrows ahead through powerful cancer,

881
00:49:59,239 --> 00:50:02,680
Speaker 1: the powers of cancer. I mean to say, he is, actually,

882
00:50:02,800 --> 00:50:06,160
Speaker 1: we find out, made of cancer and eats cancer and

883
00:50:06,239 --> 00:50:10,120
Speaker 1: eats cancer, and so he's he's participating in a wonderful

884
00:50:10,160 --> 00:50:14,760
Speaker 1: cancer economy that allows him to regenerate not only lost limbs,

885
00:50:14,800 --> 00:50:20,520
Speaker 1: but a lost head. Now, it's not uncommon to hear

886
00:50:20,560 --> 00:50:26,440
Speaker 1: discussion about the extremely brief, momentary survival of decapitation, but

887
00:50:26,520 --> 00:50:30,560
Speaker 1: that's usually talking about the head of surviving decapitation, not

888
00:50:30,719 --> 00:50:34,400
Speaker 1: the body. So, for example, there there are legends that

889
00:50:34,440 --> 00:50:37,000
Speaker 1: the heads of people like Charles, the first of England

890
00:50:37,120 --> 00:50:40,440
Speaker 1: or or Anne Boleyn appeared to try to talk after

891
00:50:40,840 --> 00:50:43,560
Speaker 1: they were severed from the bodies of the people. Yeah,

892
00:50:43,600 --> 00:50:46,000
Speaker 1: I've heard that. We did an episode of the of

893
00:50:46,120 --> 00:50:48,440
Speaker 1: the show What the Stuff video show that Joe and

894
00:50:48,480 --> 00:50:51,680
Speaker 1: I write for, and I wrote about the Worst Ways

895
00:50:51,719 --> 00:50:55,320
Speaker 1: to die and decapitations were in there and that those

896
00:50:55,400 --> 00:50:58,000
Speaker 1: legends showed up right, And so the debate sort of

897
00:50:58,000 --> 00:51:02,280
Speaker 1: continues about whether severed head can can experience consciousness beyond

898
00:51:02,320 --> 00:51:04,960
Speaker 1: a second or two. Maybe they do, maybe they don't,

899
00:51:05,160 --> 00:51:07,920
Speaker 1: But like we said, that's the head. The really weird

900
00:51:08,000 --> 00:51:11,080
Speaker 1: thing about the story of Leonard Bets in this episode

901
00:51:11,160 --> 00:51:15,319
Speaker 1: is that the body survives decapitation and his body gets

902
00:51:15,400 --> 00:51:19,040
Speaker 1: up and walks away from an ambulance crash. Yeah, walks home,

903
00:51:20,000 --> 00:51:22,680
Speaker 1: I think, or maybe walks out of the morgue somewhere

904
00:51:22,719 --> 00:51:25,919
Speaker 1: to take. Walks to the iodine store and says, give

905
00:51:26,000 --> 00:51:30,920
Speaker 1: me all of you, like a whole. Yeah. And the

906
00:51:31,880 --> 00:51:34,080
Speaker 1: best part of the dumbest part of this episode, Multa

907
00:51:34,160 --> 00:51:36,920
Speaker 1: walks in s he's a bathtub full of iodine and

908
00:51:36,960 --> 00:51:39,880
Speaker 1: doesn't bother to look in it. He's just like, okay, cool,

909
00:51:40,239 --> 00:51:42,040
Speaker 1: it turns around, it walks out, and then this guy's

910
00:51:42,080 --> 00:51:45,759
Speaker 1: body emerges with a newly grown ahead. Whenever I see

911
00:51:45,760 --> 00:51:48,600
Speaker 1: a bathtub full of iodine, I reach in. Yeah, exactly,

912
00:51:48,640 --> 00:51:50,640
Speaker 1: that's what you should always do. You take like a

913
00:51:50,640 --> 00:51:53,200
Speaker 1: broom handle, just stick it in there. See what's going on.

914
00:51:53,719 --> 00:51:56,400
Speaker 1: So this might be kind of obvious, but it's probably

915
00:51:56,400 --> 00:52:01,960
Speaker 1: worth saying. Why does a decapitation kill you? Obviously, the brain,

916
00:52:02,160 --> 00:52:04,920
Speaker 1: especially the brain stem, is sort of the command center

917
00:52:05,000 --> 00:52:08,040
Speaker 1: for the impulses that control the body. So without the

918
00:52:08,080 --> 00:52:12,120
Speaker 1: command center, you can't breathe, you can't digest food, you

919
00:52:12,160 --> 00:52:15,680
Speaker 1: can't perform directed movements of the muscles. It's kind of

920
00:52:15,719 --> 00:52:18,680
Speaker 1: like taking the CPU out of your computer. You're just

921
00:52:18,800 --> 00:52:22,000
Speaker 1: nothing much is going to happen. Then, of course, on

922
00:52:22,080 --> 00:52:24,960
Speaker 1: top of that, you've got for the body itself, you'll

923
00:52:24,960 --> 00:52:29,080
Speaker 1: have catastrophic blood loss. So many blood vessels carry blood

924
00:52:29,120 --> 00:52:30,920
Speaker 1: up to the head and it's a very high pressure.

925
00:52:30,960 --> 00:52:33,120
Speaker 1: It's gonna pump it up there, right, So you're gonna

926
00:52:33,120 --> 00:52:37,680
Speaker 1: get a nice like Quentin Tarantino blood squirting effect. Yeah,

927
00:52:37,760 --> 00:52:39,880
Speaker 1: when you cut the head off, you're just gonna gush

928
00:52:40,000 --> 00:52:44,040
Speaker 1: blood out, have immediate loss, immediate massive loss of blood,

929
00:52:44,520 --> 00:52:47,400
Speaker 1: and that massive sudden loss of blood and blood pressure

930
00:52:47,400 --> 00:52:49,800
Speaker 1: means blood can't get to all the lower body tissues

931
00:52:49,920 --> 00:52:52,600
Speaker 1: to supply them with nutrients, and they're just they're out

932
00:52:52,600 --> 00:52:55,040
Speaker 1: of luck. And then of course the final thing is

933
00:52:55,160 --> 00:52:58,399
Speaker 1: you can't eat without a mouth. Yeah, I guess that's

934
00:52:58,400 --> 00:53:02,759
Speaker 1: a problem. So it's pretty obvious why creatures like us

935
00:53:02,800 --> 00:53:06,640
Speaker 1: can't survive decapitation. But one of the weirdest facts is

936
00:53:06,719 --> 00:53:12,680
Speaker 1: that some animals sort of can not forever. But I

937
00:53:12,760 --> 00:53:15,920
Speaker 1: want to talk for a second about cockroaches. Now. I

938
00:53:15,920 --> 00:53:19,400
Speaker 1: found this great old Scientific American article from two thousand

939
00:53:19,440 --> 00:53:25,319
Speaker 1: seven that spoke to several experts about cockroach decapitation. So

940
00:53:25,560 --> 00:53:29,160
Speaker 1: you can cut a cockroach's head off and its body

941
00:53:29,239 --> 00:53:34,080
Speaker 1: doesn't immediately die. That's I mean people out there, I'm

942
00:53:34,480 --> 00:53:38,040
Speaker 1: I just kind of genuinely generally don't like cockroaches, But

943
00:53:38,080 --> 00:53:40,399
Speaker 1: there's people out there who are like definitely afraid of them.

944
00:53:40,520 --> 00:53:43,640
Speaker 1: That's got to really squip them out. So cockroaches don't

945
00:53:43,680 --> 00:53:46,480
Speaker 1: have blood vessels and high blood pressure like we do.

946
00:53:46,840 --> 00:53:49,280
Speaker 1: So you cut a cockroaches head off, it doesn't gush

947
00:53:49,320 --> 00:53:53,160
Speaker 1: all of its important fluids out immediately. A cockroach has

948
00:53:53,200 --> 00:53:56,120
Speaker 1: an open circulatory system. This is what it's referred to,

949
00:53:56,200 --> 00:53:59,080
Speaker 1: so it doesn't have blood vessels. It's just kind of

950
00:53:59,120 --> 00:54:02,759
Speaker 1: a it's just kind of a bag of juice. And

951
00:54:02,800 --> 00:54:04,480
Speaker 1: when you get it, when it gets its head cut off,

952
00:54:04,480 --> 00:54:06,799
Speaker 1: it doesn't all gush out. It can just kind of

953
00:54:06,840 --> 00:54:10,520
Speaker 1: like seal itself off and then it's it's it's still okay.

954
00:54:10,560 --> 00:54:16,400
Speaker 1: Basically being called blooded, cockroaches don't need to eat as

955
00:54:16,480 --> 00:54:19,360
Speaker 1: much as animals like us, so they can also survive

956
00:54:19,440 --> 00:54:22,680
Speaker 1: decapitation much longer without eating, you know, because the head

957
00:54:22,760 --> 00:54:25,360
Speaker 1: isn't there to eat, so the body can kind of

958
00:54:25,400 --> 00:54:27,600
Speaker 1: hang around for a while. You could also just like

959
00:54:27,640 --> 00:54:30,560
Speaker 1: maybe take a like a slurry ivy and just plug

960
00:54:30,600 --> 00:54:33,799
Speaker 1: it right into the decapitated head part, just feed it

961
00:54:33,840 --> 00:54:37,640
Speaker 1: that way. According to this Scientific American article I read,

962
00:54:37,640 --> 00:54:40,719
Speaker 1: there have been experiments in the lab, but yeah, they

963
00:54:40,840 --> 00:54:45,200
Speaker 1: there's this entomologist named Christopher Tipping at Delaware Valley College

964
00:54:45,200 --> 00:54:48,239
Speaker 1: and Doylestown, Pennsylvania at least at the time, and and

965
00:54:48,320 --> 00:54:52,080
Speaker 1: he'd done a bunch of cockroach decapitation to study. He

966
00:54:52,200 --> 00:54:56,080
Speaker 1: did it very carefully, I'm sure he did. And then

967
00:54:56,120 --> 00:54:58,920
Speaker 1: they got some dental wax to seal up the wound

968
00:54:58,960 --> 00:55:01,720
Speaker 1: after they cut the head off off and this prevented

969
00:55:01,760 --> 00:55:04,959
Speaker 1: them from losing all their fluids. Yeah, and they said

970
00:55:05,000 --> 00:55:09,120
Speaker 1: that the bodies without the head lasted for several weeks

971
00:55:09,239 --> 00:55:13,440
Speaker 1: in a jar. Wow weeks. Yeah, these things live for

972
00:55:13,520 --> 00:55:18,000
Speaker 1: weeks without their head. So imagine this like performing this

973
00:55:18,200 --> 00:55:24,080
Speaker 1: experiment on human being. You cut its head off, you

974
00:55:24,160 --> 00:55:26,600
Speaker 1: see it with dental wax, and then you put it

975
00:55:26,600 --> 00:55:29,440
Speaker 1: in a giant jar. Now, the body doesn't necessarily even

976
00:55:29,440 --> 00:55:32,840
Speaker 1: the cockroach body doesn't necessarily do a whole lot without

977
00:55:32,880 --> 00:55:36,840
Speaker 1: the head. Uh, But insects don't necessarily control all of

978
00:55:36,880 --> 00:55:40,000
Speaker 1: their body movements with the brain alone. They were still

979
00:55:40,040 --> 00:55:43,280
Speaker 1: able to do some things because they have these clumps

980
00:55:43,280 --> 00:55:47,080
Speaker 1: of ganglia throughout the body tissues which can act sort

981
00:55:47,080 --> 00:55:51,200
Speaker 1: of like simple local mini brains. Yeah. That's one of

982
00:55:51,200 --> 00:55:54,719
Speaker 1: the reasons why cockroaches and this is something else we

983
00:55:54,760 --> 00:55:57,600
Speaker 1: could cover in a cockrotch episode, But why they're such

984
00:55:57,640 --> 00:56:01,840
Speaker 1: a great model for building robots off of actually because

985
00:56:02,160 --> 00:56:07,200
Speaker 1: their legs and limbs act both centrally from you know,

986
00:56:07,239 --> 00:56:09,239
Speaker 1: like a central nervous system. But then each one has

987
00:56:09,280 --> 00:56:13,560
Speaker 1: its own independent movement and it's almost like it has

988
00:56:13,560 --> 00:56:15,880
Speaker 1: its own little brain. That's not the right way really

989
00:56:15,920 --> 00:56:19,240
Speaker 1: to put it. It's not the right metaphor, but uh,

990
00:56:19,280 --> 00:56:22,160
Speaker 1: they act independently of the central nervous is. Yeah. One

991
00:56:22,200 --> 00:56:24,960
Speaker 1: of the crazy things that was in this Scientific American

992
00:56:25,040 --> 00:56:27,920
Speaker 1: article is that apparently roaches need their whole body in

993
00:56:28,040 --> 00:56:31,279
Speaker 1: order to remember things. So you can also cut a

994
00:56:31,400 --> 00:56:33,919
Speaker 1: roaches head off in the head can continue to live

995
00:56:34,200 --> 00:56:38,560
Speaker 1: under lab conditions, but the head without the body won't

996
00:56:38,640 --> 00:56:42,359
Speaker 1: remember things that the roach could remember before it got

997
00:56:42,400 --> 00:56:47,440
Speaker 1: its body cut off. Oh that's interesting, Okay, some memories

998
00:56:47,440 --> 00:56:51,719
Speaker 1: stored there. So there are some animals that might sort

999
00:56:51,760 --> 00:56:53,920
Speaker 1: of be able to live without a head for a

1000
00:56:53,920 --> 00:56:57,839
Speaker 1: little while and that and that's pretty creepy on its own. Now,

1001
00:56:57,880 --> 00:57:02,720
Speaker 1: what about regrowing ahead as Leonard bed steps. That sounds

1002
00:57:02,760 --> 00:57:07,239
Speaker 1: like kind of a tall order because right exactly, Uh,

1003
00:57:07,239 --> 00:57:09,640
Speaker 1: it's it's not exactly a head in the way we

1004
00:57:09,680 --> 00:57:13,120
Speaker 1: think of. But there is an excellent little animal called

1005
00:57:13,400 --> 00:57:17,240
Speaker 1: snail fur that I read about. They can regrow its

1006
00:57:17,360 --> 00:57:19,240
Speaker 1: head in a way, though, like I said, it's not

1007
00:57:19,320 --> 00:57:22,160
Speaker 1: like a skull with a brain in it. It's it's

1008
00:57:22,240 --> 00:57:25,280
Speaker 1: this tentacled upper part of the animal. Snail fur are

1009
00:57:25,320 --> 00:57:29,120
Speaker 1: these tiny stalk like animals that look like living hair

1010
00:57:29,320 --> 00:57:32,680
Speaker 1: and You can find them growing on hermit crab shells,

1011
00:57:32,760 --> 00:57:35,600
Speaker 1: and they give the hermit crab this look like it's

1012
00:57:35,640 --> 00:57:39,920
Speaker 1: a crazed insect, and a clown wig. It's this this

1013
00:57:40,040 --> 00:57:44,480
Speaker 1: hilarious pink clown wig. And sometimes fish come along and

1014
00:57:44,680 --> 00:57:48,080
Speaker 1: bite off the heads. They just chop off the end

1015
00:57:48,080 --> 00:57:49,840
Speaker 1: of the stalk of the snail fur that has its

1016
00:57:49,880 --> 00:57:54,760
Speaker 1: little tentacles, and then the stalk grows it's tiny tentacled

1017
00:57:54,840 --> 00:57:58,439
Speaker 1: head back in a couple of days. And it does

1018
00:57:58,480 --> 00:58:02,560
Speaker 1: this using retained embrion stem cells that detect the head

1019
00:58:02,640 --> 00:58:05,760
Speaker 1: is missing and then grow to replace the lost tissues,

1020
00:58:06,200 --> 00:58:08,520
Speaker 1: which is kind of amazing. But then again, it's not

1021
00:58:08,600 --> 00:58:13,880
Speaker 1: a head like our head. Yeah, but then again, there

1022
00:58:13,920 --> 00:58:17,960
Speaker 1: are some interesting possibilities about what humans could be able

1023
00:58:18,000 --> 00:58:19,640
Speaker 1: to regrow. I mean, obviously we know that if you

1024
00:58:19,640 --> 00:58:22,000
Speaker 1: cut a human's arm off, they don't grow an arm back,

1025
00:58:23,040 --> 00:58:27,760
Speaker 1: but some animals do. And we also know that we

1026
00:58:28,000 --> 00:58:32,080
Speaker 1: our genome has the knowledge about how to grow an arm,

1027
00:58:32,200 --> 00:58:34,640
Speaker 1: how to grow a leg, and how to grow ahead.

1028
00:58:34,800 --> 00:58:38,240
Speaker 1: Because it's done it before. This has already happened to

1029
00:58:38,320 --> 00:58:42,280
Speaker 1: you once. The question is why won't it do it again? Well, um,

1030
00:58:43,280 --> 00:58:45,800
Speaker 1: you look to like salamanders or newts for an answer

1031
00:58:45,840 --> 00:58:48,720
Speaker 1: to this, right, So they regrow limbs all the time.

1032
00:58:48,840 --> 00:58:51,120
Speaker 1: The way that they do it is by differentiating their

1033
00:58:51,120 --> 00:58:55,760
Speaker 1: cells underneath the wound, by basically making the cells go

1034
00:58:55,840 --> 00:59:00,920
Speaker 1: back to like an embryonic state, like cancer cells. Right. Uh, So,

1035
00:59:01,280 --> 00:59:03,760
Speaker 1: you know, maybe there's some plausibility there with the whole

1036
00:59:03,880 --> 00:59:08,480
Speaker 1: cancerous aspect of Leonard Bets. But you know, as they grow,

1037
00:59:08,560 --> 00:59:12,520
Speaker 1: they recognize whether they have a normal or abnormal neighbor

1038
00:59:12,720 --> 00:59:15,760
Speaker 1: around them, and that's how those sentiment or a new

1039
00:59:15,920 --> 00:59:18,600
Speaker 1: cells regrow into the right kinds of things. Right, That's

1040
00:59:18,600 --> 00:59:20,800
Speaker 1: how they know how to grow into a hand or

1041
00:59:20,840 --> 00:59:24,080
Speaker 1: a finger or whatever you need. And they're mainly guided

1042
00:59:24,160 --> 00:59:28,400
Speaker 1: by fibroblast cells. But then of course, there there's the

1043
00:59:28,520 --> 00:59:33,120
Speaker 1: question of if an organism could regrow its head, would

1044
00:59:33,120 --> 00:59:35,040
Speaker 1: that still be you? I mean, if you could get

1045
00:59:35,080 --> 00:59:38,040
Speaker 1: your head cut off and then grow a new one back,

1046
00:59:39,360 --> 00:59:41,800
Speaker 1: would that really be you growing a head back? Or

1047
00:59:41,800 --> 00:59:44,440
Speaker 1: would that just mean you were dead and then a

1048
00:59:44,480 --> 00:59:47,760
Speaker 1: different person that's basically a clone of your body grows

1049
00:59:47,800 --> 00:59:49,720
Speaker 1: a new head. Yeah, I mean, I think the sci

1050
00:59:49,760 --> 00:59:53,560
Speaker 1: fi implication of the Leonard Bets episode is that his

1051
00:59:53,680 --> 00:59:56,920
Speaker 1: consciousness is like stored in every cell of his body,

1052
00:59:57,440 --> 00:59:59,840
Speaker 1: and so he can lose his head and then re

1053
01:00:00,120 --> 01:00:04,360
Speaker 1: grow it and remember everything because like every cell contains

1054
01:00:04,480 --> 01:00:09,400
Speaker 1: is I don't know, overall memory. Well that's obviously ridiculous. Yeah, yeah,

1055
01:00:09,520 --> 01:00:14,360
Speaker 1: that much more than that sounds made up than being

1056
01:00:14,400 --> 01:00:18,120
Speaker 1: made of cancer and growing a head back. Uh, this

1057
01:00:18,160 --> 01:00:20,920
Speaker 1: whole concept of Leonard Bets being made of cancer. I mean,

1058
01:00:20,920 --> 01:00:24,960
Speaker 1: there's a reason they invoked this in that, like we said,

1059
01:00:25,160 --> 01:00:28,880
Speaker 1: there is a sort of similarity or association between the

1060
01:00:28,960 --> 01:00:32,760
Speaker 1: kinds of stem cells that differentiate into body cells and

1061
01:00:32,800 --> 01:00:36,800
Speaker 1: then become a new arm or become ahead or something

1062
01:00:36,800 --> 01:00:39,160
Speaker 1: when you're when your cells are dividing and you're growing

1063
01:00:39,600 --> 01:00:43,400
Speaker 1: and cancer cells because cancer cells are cells that that

1064
01:00:43,560 --> 01:00:48,360
Speaker 1: grow rapidly. They have uncontrolled cell division. And the other

1065
01:00:48,520 --> 01:00:51,440
Speaker 1: issue with them is that they don't differentiate into the

1066
01:00:51,480 --> 01:00:54,240
Speaker 1: body tissues that we would normally use. And normally a

1067
01:00:54,320 --> 01:00:58,200
Speaker 1: cell divides and it's a type of cell that is

1068
01:00:58,240 --> 01:01:01,160
Speaker 1: dedicated to making a certain kind to body tissue. It's

1069
01:01:01,200 --> 01:01:04,240
Speaker 1: the you know, a muscle cell or a liver cells

1070
01:01:04,320 --> 01:01:07,000
Speaker 1: what its role is, right, Yeah, the cancer cells are

1071
01:01:07,000 --> 01:01:09,440
Speaker 1: more they're just kind of glop they're saying, no, I

1072
01:01:09,440 --> 01:01:11,440
Speaker 1: don't want to be a brain cell. I want to

1073
01:01:11,440 --> 01:01:14,720
Speaker 1: be just some cancer, right. And in fact, for cancer

1074
01:01:15,000 --> 01:01:18,360
Speaker 1: cells to continue to grow to like tumor, suppressing genes

1075
01:01:18,520 --> 01:01:22,040
Speaker 1: usually have to be damaged as well the genetics that

1076
01:01:22,120 --> 01:01:26,000
Speaker 1: we have that keep those cells from growing into tumors.

1077
01:01:26,040 --> 01:01:29,920
Speaker 1: So you're looking at either genetic damage, like a mutation

1078
01:01:30,040 --> 01:01:34,240
Speaker 1: like where I guess assuming Leonard bets hash or something

1079
01:01:34,240 --> 01:01:37,880
Speaker 1: that's epigenetic, right, something that's external that changes the expression

1080
01:01:37,920 --> 01:01:42,640
Speaker 1: of those genes. But Leonard Betts, Yeah, I don't know

1081
01:01:42,680 --> 01:01:45,120
Speaker 1: if that exactly works out. Yeah, I mean, part of

1082
01:01:45,120 --> 01:01:49,480
Speaker 1: the problem is that Leonard bets body cells couldn't really

1083
01:01:49,480 --> 01:01:52,760
Speaker 1: be cancer cells because he has a body. I mean,

1084
01:01:52,800 --> 01:01:54,800
Speaker 1: if his body were may just be a pile of

1085
01:01:55,400 --> 01:01:57,440
Speaker 1: it would just be cancer. I mean, part of the

1086
01:01:57,440 --> 01:01:59,800
Speaker 1: whole thing, like we're saying about cancer cells is that

1087
01:02:00,120 --> 01:02:03,600
Speaker 1: they don't make useful normal cells. And so if he's

1088
01:02:03,640 --> 01:02:06,800
Speaker 1: got muscle cells to move around and brain cells to

1089
01:02:06,840 --> 01:02:10,080
Speaker 1: think with, and cells for digesting food and all the

1090
01:02:10,120 --> 01:02:13,440
Speaker 1: other cells that make a body, then that seems almost

1091
01:02:13,480 --> 01:02:17,600
Speaker 1: by definition not cancer. Well. So okay, So in Cavello's book,

1092
01:02:17,640 --> 01:02:20,080
Speaker 1: she has a hypothesis for this. She says that she

1093
01:02:20,120 --> 01:02:22,960
Speaker 1: thinks that the pathologist that looks at Leonard Betts cells

1094
01:02:22,960 --> 01:02:25,440
Speaker 1: and says, oh, they're all made a cancer. That the

1095
01:02:25,520 --> 01:02:29,640
Speaker 1: reason why is because you can mistake some kind of

1096
01:02:29,680 --> 01:02:32,440
Speaker 1: cells basically for kids, like if you just look closely

1097
01:02:32,480 --> 01:02:35,240
Speaker 1: at the cells instead of outwardly at the at the

1098
01:02:35,280 --> 01:02:39,600
Speaker 1: macroscopic effects exactly. Yeah, and that like the distinctions would

1099
01:02:39,640 --> 01:02:42,400
Speaker 1: be if they're crowded together because of their rapid division,

1100
01:02:42,880 --> 01:02:46,000
Speaker 1: and then also if they have a small skirt of

1101
01:02:46,040 --> 01:02:50,040
Speaker 1: cytoplasm around them. So you know, she posits that maybe

1102
01:02:50,040 --> 01:02:53,240
Speaker 1: this person, the pathologist just saw that and went, but

1103
01:02:53,440 --> 01:02:57,480
Speaker 1: it's cancer. Okay. So we've pretty much, I think debunked

1104
01:02:57,520 --> 01:02:59,920
Speaker 1: the idea that Leonard Betts is going to be a

1105
01:03:00,040 --> 01:03:03,440
Speaker 1: functional mutant, right right, unless he's a cockroach in disguise,

1106
01:03:03,600 --> 01:03:05,680
Speaker 1: ye I I just even then, I don't know that

1107
01:03:05,760 --> 01:03:08,800
Speaker 1: it adds up necessarily, but we this is a good

1108
01:03:09,040 --> 01:03:11,640
Speaker 1: opportunity for us to move from Leonard Betts, who was

1109
01:03:11,720 --> 01:03:14,120
Speaker 1: the most watched episode of the X Files, to probably

1110
01:03:14,200 --> 01:03:19,600
Speaker 1: the most famous other than the flukeman Uh mutant of

1111
01:03:19,720 --> 01:03:23,600
Speaker 1: the X Files. And this is of course Eugene Victor

1112
01:03:23,680 --> 01:03:28,320
Speaker 1: Tombs from the episodes Squeeze and Tombs another mutant. Yeah,

1113
01:03:28,360 --> 01:03:31,280
Speaker 1: so Eugene Victor Tombs is played by Doug Hutchinson. You

1114
01:03:31,280 --> 01:03:33,440
Speaker 1: you might remember this guy from a Lost or from

1115
01:03:33,440 --> 01:03:38,360
Speaker 1: the Green Mile. He's he's a uh ubiquitous creep in Hollywood.

1116
01:03:38,440 --> 01:03:41,480
Speaker 1: He always shows up playing a creepy looking guy. And

1117
01:03:41,600 --> 01:03:43,760
Speaker 1: he shows up in the third episode of The X File,

1118
01:03:43,840 --> 01:03:46,200
Speaker 1: so he's very early on and he sort of establishes

1119
01:03:46,400 --> 01:03:49,360
Speaker 1: the monster of the Week model. I would say he

1120
01:03:49,440 --> 01:03:52,560
Speaker 1: plays a serial killer with creepy, glowing yellow eyes who

1121
01:03:52,560 --> 01:03:55,880
Speaker 1: has this recurring pattern where he hibernates in a cocoon

1122
01:03:55,960 --> 01:03:58,960
Speaker 1: made of newspapers and bile for thirty years and then

1123
01:03:59,120 --> 01:04:02,080
Speaker 1: wakes up. He kills five people and eats through livers.

1124
01:04:02,440 --> 01:04:04,240
Speaker 1: Then he goes back to hybrid. So that's back to

1125
01:04:04,280 --> 01:04:07,800
Speaker 1: the old that that livers is and good that some

1126
01:04:07,880 --> 01:04:10,840
Speaker 1: of those parasites love the liver. The fictional X Files

1127
01:04:10,840 --> 01:04:14,120
Speaker 1: pars I saw a story saying that they came up

1128
01:04:14,160 --> 01:04:16,760
Speaker 1: with the idea for him to eat livers after Chris

1129
01:04:16,800 --> 01:04:21,240
Speaker 1: Carter rates some fuag raw. That's true. It might not

1130
01:04:21,320 --> 01:04:24,480
Speaker 1: be true, but that that's the story at least, So anyway,

1131
01:04:24,800 --> 01:04:29,000
Speaker 1: he stalks his victims using a pretty amazing power, and

1132
01:04:29,040 --> 01:04:34,720
Speaker 1: that power is to squeeze himself into and through tiny openings,

1133
01:04:34,840 --> 01:04:39,000
Speaker 1: for example, a six by twelve inch chimney, a six

1134
01:04:39,040 --> 01:04:43,280
Speaker 1: by eighteen inch ventilation shaft in an office building, and

1135
01:04:43,320 --> 01:04:45,480
Speaker 1: at one point he even seems to be trying to

1136
01:04:45,560 --> 01:04:48,800
Speaker 1: come up through a toilet sewer pipe, but if I

1137
01:04:48,840 --> 01:04:52,200
Speaker 1: recall correctly, he is thwarted by a childlock on the

1138
01:04:52,240 --> 01:04:55,880
Speaker 1: toilet lid, which is got to be the most interesting

1139
01:04:55,880 --> 01:04:59,800
Speaker 1: way a serial killer was ever prevented from doing his duty.

1140
01:05:00,280 --> 01:05:03,560
Speaker 1: So how how realistic is this could even if you

1141
01:05:04,760 --> 01:05:08,400
Speaker 1: were a mutant, uh, you know, which is basically what

1142
01:05:08,440 --> 01:05:13,080
Speaker 1: they just say in the episode. They're like, oh, it's

1143
01:05:13,120 --> 01:05:14,880
Speaker 1: I think this guy's a mutant who has been living

1144
01:05:14,920 --> 01:05:17,439
Speaker 1: for hundreds of years or whatever, right, and of course

1145
01:05:17,440 --> 01:05:20,880
Speaker 1: he's right. Well, you know. Cavelos in her book points

1146
01:05:21,200 --> 01:05:26,080
Speaker 1: to this famous circus contortionist with the Jim Rose Circus

1147
01:05:26,080 --> 01:05:29,760
Speaker 1: side show act, known as the Armenian rubber Man. And

1148
01:05:29,800 --> 01:05:32,720
Speaker 1: I found a photo online of this guy from a

1149
01:05:32,800 --> 01:05:35,040
Speaker 1: show he did in the nineteen nineties where he's playing

1150
01:05:35,040 --> 01:05:38,360
Speaker 1: an electric guitar with his legs behind his head. So

1151
01:05:38,440 --> 01:05:42,440
Speaker 1: he's very, very flexible and can fit through tiny openings

1152
01:05:42,480 --> 01:05:47,200
Speaker 1: and stuff. This guy, according to Cavelos, could fit his

1153
01:05:47,320 --> 01:05:51,240
Speaker 1: whole body through the frame of a tennis racket, and

1154
01:05:51,400 --> 01:05:53,720
Speaker 1: not through those huge tennis rackets we used today, but

1155
01:05:53,760 --> 01:05:56,640
Speaker 1: those like tiny old tennis rackets you see people using

1156
01:05:56,680 --> 01:06:00,880
Speaker 1: in old movies, which that's this oval about eight inches

1157
01:06:00,960 --> 01:06:04,840
Speaker 1: by eleven inches, so that's tiny. So for Toombs is

1158
01:06:04,880 --> 01:06:07,760
Speaker 1: early stunts with the six by twelve inch chimney and

1159
01:06:07,800 --> 01:06:11,720
Speaker 1: the six by teen inch ventilation shaft. This might be

1160
01:06:11,760 --> 01:06:16,080
Speaker 1: a case where no superhuman mutation is required, just simply

1161
01:06:16,200 --> 01:06:20,640
Speaker 1: pushing the limits of human contortionist mobility. Somebody might be

1162
01:06:20,680 --> 01:06:24,200
Speaker 1: able to do that, right, Yeah, yeah, well somebody who's

1163
01:06:24,200 --> 01:06:28,120
Speaker 1: a contortionist, somebody who's either practiced this or has some

1164
01:06:28,200 --> 01:06:33,400
Speaker 1: kind of physiological abnormality that allows them to squeeze their bodies.

1165
01:06:33,800 --> 01:06:36,720
Speaker 1: But but is there any sort of inherited condition that

1166
01:06:36,760 --> 01:06:39,960
Speaker 1: can make you any more squeezeable than even the average

1167
01:06:39,960 --> 01:06:45,640
Speaker 1: contortions born born Eugene Victor Tombs leave out the eating

1168
01:06:45,680 --> 01:06:48,200
Speaker 1: livers part and the sewer pipe, which I'm gonna get

1169
01:06:48,200 --> 01:06:52,000
Speaker 1: back to, so maybe sort of Cavello's points to a

1170
01:06:52,040 --> 01:06:55,600
Speaker 1: condition known as Ailer's dan Los syndrome. And I went

1171
01:06:55,600 --> 01:06:57,920
Speaker 1: and look this up, and there are actually many different

1172
01:06:57,920 --> 01:07:00,600
Speaker 1: types of Ailer's dan Los syndrome. What they have in

1173
01:07:00,680 --> 01:07:04,360
Speaker 1: common is that they affect the body's connective tissue, like

1174
01:07:04,400 --> 01:07:08,320
Speaker 1: the collagen that your body generates to form ligaments and

1175
01:07:08,360 --> 01:07:12,400
Speaker 1: connecting tissues in between bones and muscles and things like that.

1176
01:07:13,240 --> 01:07:16,720
Speaker 1: And all the different types of this disorder affect the

1177
01:07:16,840 --> 01:07:20,040
Speaker 1: joints and the skin, and they're associated with what's known

1178
01:07:20,080 --> 01:07:25,080
Speaker 1: as hypermobility, which is unusually mobile joints, both large joints

1179
01:07:25,080 --> 01:07:27,680
Speaker 1: and small ones, so like your knees and your fingers.

1180
01:07:28,480 --> 01:07:32,080
Speaker 1: And one particular subtype of Ailor's DANLST is known as

1181
01:07:32,120 --> 01:07:36,160
Speaker 1: the hypermobility type, affecting up to one in every ten

1182
01:07:36,200 --> 01:07:40,960
Speaker 1: thousand or fifteen thousand people. Really, yeah, and the hypermobility

1183
01:07:41,040 --> 01:07:44,760
Speaker 1: subtype of the disease and is especially intense in causing

1184
01:07:44,800 --> 01:07:49,000
Speaker 1: this hypermobility condition. Where the hypermobile joints um they're not

1185
01:07:49,040 --> 01:07:52,160
Speaker 1: really a superpower, but they are. They have a much

1186
01:07:52,440 --> 01:07:57,560
Speaker 1: wider range of flexibility and movement than normal people's joints do,

1187
01:07:57,840 --> 01:08:02,520
Speaker 1: but they're also prone to freak went dislocation and partial dislocation,

1188
01:08:02,560 --> 01:08:05,280
Speaker 1: which can be very painful and cause difficulty with many

1189
01:08:05,320 --> 01:08:08,520
Speaker 1: activities in life. So this is not a condition you want.

1190
01:08:08,840 --> 01:08:14,400
Speaker 1: So it's possible that somebody with this condition could contort

1191
01:08:14,480 --> 01:08:16,639
Speaker 1: themselves in such a way to make it through these

1192
01:08:16,760 --> 01:08:21,320
Speaker 1: very tiny openings. But let's establish this. There's two episodes

1193
01:08:21,360 --> 01:08:24,840
Speaker 1: of the Eugene Tunes. The first is Squeeze and the

1194
01:08:24,840 --> 01:08:28,400
Speaker 1: things that you described there, that somebody might be able

1195
01:08:28,439 --> 01:08:31,120
Speaker 1: to make it through those things, like the ventilation shaft

1196
01:08:31,200 --> 01:08:33,320
Speaker 1: thing isn't all that big, but that they ca all

1197
01:08:33,320 --> 01:08:35,640
Speaker 1: that small that they find him in like in the

1198
01:08:35,640 --> 01:08:40,080
Speaker 1: parking garage in that episode, But in the following episode

1199
01:08:40,080 --> 01:08:43,040
Speaker 1: he doesn't totally bonker stuff like squeeze his face through

1200
01:08:43,360 --> 01:08:47,519
Speaker 1: like prison bars and stuff and coming up through the toilet. Yeah,

1201
01:08:47,600 --> 01:08:51,360
Speaker 1: you know, I mean that that's just I find that

1202
01:08:51,600 --> 01:08:57,680
Speaker 1: unlikely person would be able to write, yes exactly. I

1203
01:08:57,680 --> 01:09:00,240
Speaker 1: mean I'll get to that in a second. Now, there

1204
01:09:00,280 --> 01:09:06,120
Speaker 1: are some animals that have really really amazing uh fit thruitiveness.

1205
01:09:06,800 --> 01:09:09,400
Speaker 1: Let's call it this trade, the ability to squeeze through

1206
01:09:10,040 --> 01:09:13,240
Speaker 1: amazingly small openings, and one of them would be the octopus.

1207
01:09:13,880 --> 01:09:17,080
Speaker 1: So I found this video it's a Bermuda Institute of

1208
01:09:17,120 --> 01:09:21,120
Speaker 1: Ocean Services student Raymond Decal and his advisor James B.

1209
01:09:21,280 --> 01:09:24,639
Speaker 1: Wood didn't experiment in November two thousand six, and it's

1210
01:09:24,640 --> 01:09:27,680
Speaker 1: on tape. You can watch it on YouTube where they

1211
01:09:27,720 --> 01:09:32,000
Speaker 1: got this octopus to speak. The species was an octopus macropus,

1212
01:09:32,120 --> 01:09:35,080
Speaker 1: or the white spotted octopus. And they put this octopus

1213
01:09:35,160 --> 01:09:39,920
Speaker 1: in an enclosed, clear plastic box underwater, and the box

1214
01:09:40,000 --> 01:09:42,600
Speaker 1: had a single hole in the side where the octopus

1215
01:09:42,600 --> 01:09:47,160
Speaker 1: could escape, except the hole was only one inch in diameter,

1216
01:09:47,479 --> 01:09:49,680
Speaker 1: like two and a half centimeters. And this was not

1217
01:09:49,840 --> 01:09:52,840
Speaker 1: a tiny octopus. This wasn't one of those little little guys.

1218
01:09:53,240 --> 01:09:56,040
Speaker 1: This species can grow up to fifteen centimeters long in

1219
01:09:56,080 --> 01:09:59,160
Speaker 1: the body and up to a meter long including the arms.

1220
01:09:59,200 --> 01:10:01,600
Speaker 1: It's hard to tell a exactly how big the particular

1221
01:10:01,600 --> 01:10:06,680
Speaker 1: one in the video was because it's very uh okay, yeah,

1222
01:10:06,720 --> 01:10:09,960
Speaker 1: but it looks at least two feet long arms included,

1223
01:10:10,479 --> 01:10:14,080
Speaker 1: so it's big. And it squeezes out through the hole.

1224
01:10:14,120 --> 01:10:17,719
Speaker 1: It squeezes out through this inch wide hole that's just tiny.

1225
01:10:17,760 --> 01:10:19,840
Speaker 1: It puts its whole body through. You can see the

1226
01:10:19,880 --> 01:10:22,599
Speaker 1: part where it's beak kind of pops through and then

1227
01:10:22,640 --> 01:10:26,439
Speaker 1: after that, it's it's just going. And there's a whole

1228
01:10:26,479 --> 01:10:29,000
Speaker 1: other video I found that's sort of less scientific and

1229
01:10:29,080 --> 01:10:32,040
Speaker 1: kind of sadder of people on a boat with an

1230
01:10:32,040 --> 01:10:34,000
Speaker 1: octopus on the deck and I don't know how it

1231
01:10:34,040 --> 01:10:36,639
Speaker 1: got there. I assume they caught it somehow. And it's

1232
01:10:36,640 --> 01:10:41,240
Speaker 1: a very large octopus and it pokes one of its

1233
01:10:41,400 --> 01:10:45,280
Speaker 1: arms through a through a hole in the side of

1234
01:10:45,280 --> 01:10:48,120
Speaker 1: the bulwark on the boat and I guess feels water

1235
01:10:48,240 --> 01:10:50,640
Speaker 1: down there. Oh, I've seen this as well. Yeah, and

1236
01:10:51,080 --> 01:10:53,960
Speaker 1: they're yelling at it. They're like, look, it's escaping, but

1237
01:10:54,120 --> 01:10:57,719
Speaker 1: it's squeeze. It's amazing watching it squeeze through this tiny,

1238
01:10:57,800 --> 01:11:01,439
Speaker 1: tiny slip much smaller than the octopus his body. And

1239
01:11:01,720 --> 01:11:04,320
Speaker 1: James b Would the guy, one of the guys associated

1240
01:11:04,320 --> 01:11:06,880
Speaker 1: with that first video I mentioned. He explains that this

1241
01:11:06,960 --> 01:11:10,640
Speaker 1: is not just extreme survival behavior for the octopus. This

1242
01:11:10,680 --> 01:11:13,360
Speaker 1: is not like the the Octopus equivalent of the James

1243
01:11:13,400 --> 01:11:16,160
Speaker 1: Franco movie where he cuts his own arm off right,

1244
01:11:16,520 --> 01:11:20,120
Speaker 1: And this is normal behavior for an octopus. In an

1245
01:11:20,160 --> 01:11:23,840
Speaker 1: email to National Geographic for an article about this, uh

1246
01:11:24,080 --> 01:11:27,720
Speaker 1: Wood told them that octopuses typically live in layers with

1247
01:11:27,840 --> 01:11:32,120
Speaker 1: restrictive openings to protect them from predators, and every time

1248
01:11:32,160 --> 01:11:34,960
Speaker 1: they enter or leave their house, they squeeze through small

1249
01:11:35,000 --> 01:11:37,400
Speaker 1: holes or crevices. So this is just part of the

1250
01:11:37,400 --> 01:11:40,599
Speaker 1: octopus's normal life to squeeze through, you know, a hole

1251
01:11:40,680 --> 01:11:43,560
Speaker 1: the size of a quarter or something. But do octopus

1252
01:11:43,840 --> 01:11:47,559
Speaker 1: pie We've had this conversation before. The octopuses do do

1253
01:11:47,680 --> 01:11:52,000
Speaker 1: Octopuses eat each other's livers and then live for hundreds

1254
01:11:52,040 --> 01:11:54,679
Speaker 1: of years in piles of newspaper. You know, I don't

1255
01:11:54,680 --> 01:11:56,800
Speaker 1: even know if an octopus has a liver, Probably and

1256
01:11:56,840 --> 01:12:00,080
Speaker 1: an octopuses eat each other that they cannibalize. Remember we

1257
01:12:00,280 --> 01:12:02,800
Speaker 1: we look that up for a previous episode. They are

1258
01:12:02,920 --> 01:12:06,240
Speaker 1: serial killers. We established that before. In fact, sometimes when

1259
01:12:06,280 --> 01:12:09,640
Speaker 1: an octopus catches another octopus to cannibalize, it takes it

1260
01:12:09,680 --> 01:12:12,639
Speaker 1: back into its layer and then it places rocks over

1261
01:12:12,680 --> 01:12:15,360
Speaker 1: the entrance to the layer so it can eat with privacy.

1262
01:12:15,520 --> 01:12:20,800
Speaker 1: So Eugene Tombs is part man, part octopus. That sounds

1263
01:12:20,840 --> 01:12:23,800
Speaker 1: about right, can squeeze and it and it eats its

1264
01:12:23,800 --> 01:12:27,080
Speaker 1: own kind. So yeah, but of course, then again the octopus.

1265
01:12:27,800 --> 01:12:30,519
Speaker 1: It's it's less impressive for the octopus to do this

1266
01:12:30,600 --> 01:12:32,439
Speaker 1: than for a creature like us, because they don't have

1267
01:12:32,560 --> 01:12:37,120
Speaker 1: rigid structures like bones, except for maybe the beak um.

1268
01:12:37,200 --> 01:12:40,320
Speaker 1: So no matter how flexible or hyper mobile, even if

1269
01:12:40,360 --> 01:12:44,960
Speaker 1: Tombs had some kind of condition that caused hypermobility and

1270
01:12:45,000 --> 01:12:47,120
Speaker 1: the joints, he wouldn't be able to fit up a

1271
01:12:47,160 --> 01:12:51,720
Speaker 1: sewage pipe because being human, he has a skull and

1272
01:12:51,800 --> 01:12:56,120
Speaker 1: he has a rib cage, and these structures do not flex. Yeah,

1273
01:12:57,200 --> 01:12:59,599
Speaker 1: if they do, I mean the purpose of the skull

1274
01:12:59,640 --> 01:13:02,599
Speaker 1: is to put checked the brain from physical trauma. So

1275
01:13:02,640 --> 01:13:05,320
Speaker 1: assuming he did have a flexible skull like made out

1276
01:13:05,320 --> 01:13:08,240
Speaker 1: of flexible cartilage like the bones of a shark might

1277
01:13:08,240 --> 01:13:11,919
Speaker 1: be or something, he would almost definitely suffer brain damage

1278
01:13:11,920 --> 01:13:14,720
Speaker 1: and organ damage. Coming up through a tiny pot. Does

1279
01:13:14,880 --> 01:13:17,639
Speaker 1: seem to kind of have a bit of brain damage,

1280
01:13:17,680 --> 01:13:20,719
Speaker 1: doesn't he? In those episodes, like I remember him being

1281
01:13:20,760 --> 01:13:25,519
Speaker 1: like a little, uh like unfamiliar. Maybe it's just from

1282
01:13:25,560 --> 01:13:28,160
Speaker 1: him being an hibernation for dozens of years, right, but

1283
01:13:28,240 --> 01:13:31,160
Speaker 1: he's like very unfamiliar with how things work around him

1284
01:13:31,160 --> 01:13:33,559
Speaker 1: and how to interact with with other human beings. But

1285
01:13:34,200 --> 01:13:36,679
Speaker 1: so maybe that's possibilities or it could just be because

1286
01:13:36,680 --> 01:13:39,639
Speaker 1: he's smushing his brain too hard. Yeah, he sleeps every

1287
01:13:39,640 --> 01:13:43,639
Speaker 1: thirty years for thirty years, I guess, okay, And there's

1288
01:13:43,680 --> 01:13:48,080
Speaker 1: one more episode where Scully and another guy both get

1289
01:13:48,120 --> 01:13:53,240
Speaker 1: tattoos that cause hallucinations and talk to them because the

1290
01:13:53,320 --> 01:13:56,760
Speaker 1: tattoos are contaminated with ergotism. Yeah, And the reason why

1291
01:13:56,840 --> 01:13:59,040
Speaker 1: we feel like we have to mention these is because

1292
01:13:59,280 --> 01:14:01,720
Speaker 1: stuff to Biliar mind is just this year talked about

1293
01:14:01,840 --> 01:14:05,040
Speaker 1: ergotism and about the hallucinatory effects of them. So we're

1294
01:14:05,040 --> 01:14:06,680
Speaker 1: not gonna spend a ton of time on it here

1295
01:14:06,720 --> 01:14:08,559
Speaker 1: because there's a whole another episode that you could go

1296
01:14:08,680 --> 01:14:11,080
Speaker 1: listen to it. But that is absolutely a real thing. Yeah,

1297
01:14:11,120 --> 01:14:12,960
Speaker 1: you should go check out the episode Robert and I

1298
01:14:13,040 --> 01:14:17,280
Speaker 1: did from last summer called the Psychedelic Nightmare of Ergotism. Uh,

1299
01:14:17,400 --> 01:14:20,000
Speaker 1: it is true that ergotism is a real thing, and

1300
01:14:20,040 --> 01:14:23,479
Speaker 1: it is not pretty, and it's not just Ergotism shows

1301
01:14:23,560 --> 01:14:25,360
Speaker 1: up several times in the X Files. It's not just

1302
01:14:25,439 --> 01:14:27,840
Speaker 1: in that Never Again episode with the tattoos. It's also

1303
01:14:27,960 --> 01:14:30,920
Speaker 1: in some other episodes. As Cavello's points out, well, I

1304
01:14:30,920 --> 01:14:33,720
Speaker 1: mean it's a convenient it's a convenient plot point if

1305
01:14:33,760 --> 01:14:37,800
Speaker 1: you want to explain some violent, nightmarish hallucinations. Yeah, yeah,

1306
01:14:37,840 --> 01:14:41,760
Speaker 1: absolutely so. Yeah, if you want to learn more about that.

1307
01:14:42,240 --> 01:14:44,080
Speaker 1: I don't think that you guys end up getting into

1308
01:14:44,240 --> 01:14:47,680
Speaker 1: why Jodie Foster would particularly be the voice of ergotism

1309
01:14:47,720 --> 01:14:51,720
Speaker 1: inside your head, but as she is in this episode. Yeah,

1310
01:14:51,880 --> 01:14:55,040
Speaker 1: so this guy gets a tattoo and it's Jodie Foster's voice,

1311
01:14:55,080 --> 01:14:59,320
Speaker 1: talking trash about other women stuff and essentially just encouraging

1312
01:14:59,400 --> 01:15:01,880
Speaker 1: him to do evil. But but but this is yet again

1313
01:15:01,920 --> 01:15:04,840
Speaker 1: like another example of the writers on X Files doing

1314
01:15:04,880 --> 01:15:07,800
Speaker 1: some research, and you know, they stretched things a bit

1315
01:15:07,840 --> 01:15:11,280
Speaker 1: here and there, but there's scientific basis to this, all right,

1316
01:15:11,360 --> 01:15:13,559
Speaker 1: So that's gonna have to be it for the first

1317
01:15:13,640 --> 01:15:16,360
Speaker 1: part of our exploration of the science of the X Files.

1318
01:15:16,400 --> 01:15:19,160
Speaker 1: But please come and join us again. Next time. We're

1319
01:15:19,160 --> 01:15:22,400
Speaker 1: gonna explore some recurring themes to the show, like monsters

1320
01:15:22,439 --> 01:15:26,120
Speaker 1: based on insects and deep regression hypnosis. Yeah, we'll talk

1321
01:15:26,120 --> 01:15:30,400
Speaker 1: about alien hybrids and uh, all kind of big themes,

1322
01:15:30,840 --> 01:15:34,400
Speaker 1: weaponized bees. Oh yeah, it's gonna be fun. So if

1323
01:15:34,439 --> 01:15:37,599
Speaker 1: you've got questions related to this first episode or any

1324
01:15:37,640 --> 01:15:40,280
Speaker 1: comments or feedback, you can get in touch with us

1325
01:15:40,600 --> 01:15:44,759
Speaker 1: on Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler. Those are all blow the mind

1326
01:15:45,479 --> 01:15:47,800
Speaker 1: and if you want to talk to us on periscope.

1327
01:15:47,840 --> 01:15:50,400
Speaker 1: You can try to catch us at noon Eastern Standard

1328
01:15:50,400 --> 01:15:53,800
Speaker 1: time on Friday's when we will be doing periscope most weeks. Yeah,

1329
01:15:53,840 --> 01:15:56,760
Speaker 1: And as Robert would say, there you have it. If

1330
01:15:56,800 --> 01:15:58,599
Speaker 1: you want to have more of it, though, you could

1331
01:15:58,600 --> 01:16:00,240
Speaker 1: go to stuff to Blow your Mind dot com um

1332
01:16:00,320 --> 01:16:03,120
Speaker 1: where we're going to have all kinds of things related

1333
01:16:03,160 --> 01:16:05,639
Speaker 1: to this, and the landing pages for these podcast episodes

1334
01:16:05,760 --> 01:16:09,000
Speaker 1: will link out to the various content that we've been

1335
01:16:09,040 --> 01:16:12,240
Speaker 1: talking about throughout the case throughout this episode, such as

1336
01:16:12,680 --> 01:16:16,960
Speaker 1: theogoutism episode or how to how to live without a head.

1337
01:16:17,840 --> 01:16:19,640
Speaker 1: And if you want to email us Christian, how can

1338
01:16:19,680 --> 01:16:22,519
Speaker 1: they do that? Well, for that direct form of communication, Joe,

1339
01:16:22,680 --> 01:16:24,880
Speaker 1: you would email us at below the mind at how

1340
01:16:24,920 --> 01:16:36,759
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Well more on this and thousands

1341
01:16:36,800 --> 01:16:47,120
Speaker 1: of other topics. Is that how stuff works dot com.

1342
01:16:45,000 --> 01:17:01,040
Speaker 1: Remember ba ba blah bla blah blah bla fire than

1343
01:17:01,120 --> 01:17:01,240
Speaker 1: Si