Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from house
Speaker 1: stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Holly Fry, I'm Tracy V. Wilson Fan. I'm willing
Speaker 1: to bet Tracy that when you hear the term or robots,
Speaker 1: you think of things like Honda's Asimo or the I
Speaker 1: Robot roomba that might tutor around the house tidying up floors.
Speaker 1: I think of the bad Robot TV placard, Yeah, from
Speaker 1: J J. Abrams production company. Um, but they were actually
Speaker 1: way long before check playright. Carol Kapok coined the term
Speaker 1: robot in his Are You Are, which did for Rassam's
Speaker 1: Universal Robots. Uh, there were mechanized creations automata that we're
Speaker 1: being created without electronics or computers, and many were, you know,
Speaker 1: fairly simple, but they really paved the way for robots
Speaker 1: of today. So if you do a search for first
Speaker 1: robot or earliest robot online, you're probably going to find
Speaker 1: all kinds of different conflicting answers. Some of them are philosophical,
Speaker 1: some of them are mythological, and some of them are religious. Uh.
Speaker 1: We know that clockwork devices go back many, many, many years,
Speaker 1: but most historians on the subject are not really eager
Speaker 1: to pinpoint which exact one was first. Yeah, there's there
Speaker 1: are too many possible answers, because there are some mythological
Speaker 1: ones that aren't necessarily supported with hard evidence. Those ones,
Speaker 1: they're a little bit tricky. Some people even refer to
Speaker 1: like the biblical story of creation as kind of a
Speaker 1: first um, almost robotics experiment sort of thing. Uh so there,
Speaker 1: it's really hard. I mean, you get into a big
Speaker 1: philosophical debate with people if you say this was the
Speaker 1: first robot we know about for sure, because you're like,
Speaker 1: there's some other options. Yeah, so you don't want to
Speaker 1: do that. Some of them are so far back in
Speaker 1: his that this substantiation for them is just not add clear, right,
Speaker 1: And we're gonna look back at the early history of
Speaker 1: mechanized beings and clockworks and steampowered mini marvels, So you're
Speaker 1: not gonna hear us talk about the DARPA big dog
Speaker 1: or the Mars curiosity rover. We're going incredibly old school
Speaker 1: with this list, so nothing past the late seventeen hundreds,
Speaker 1: and we have just selected five for the sake of
Speaker 1: podcast length. But of course that means leaves out many
Speaker 1: many others, because there really are many more examples of
Speaker 1: this than I think many people realize. So think of
Speaker 1: this as just a sampling of some of mankind's ventures
Speaker 1: into automated beings. And really I'm telling a fib when
Speaker 1: I say it's five, it's sort of five instances, but
Speaker 1: some of them feature more than one. Yes, automota. So
Speaker 1: it's going to be fun. We're fudging our numbers, We're
Speaker 1: doing it with a good heart. Yes uh. And we're
Speaker 1: going to start with one that is not easily substantiated.
Speaker 1: We're going off of one text, but it's important, and
Speaker 1: that's Yan Cheese Automated Man. So the first one is
Speaker 1: in China. The reference to it can be found in
Speaker 1: a third century b c E. Taoist text, and the
Speaker 1: course of this text, a story is told of Kingmu
Speaker 1: of Chow, who reigned from nine to b c. E.
Speaker 1: In it, this so called artifice their presents an automated
Speaker 1: man to the king and his book Science and Civilization
Speaker 1: in China, Volume two, writer Joseph Needham quotes a translated
Speaker 1: text about this autuma time, and in his quote he
Speaker 1: says the king stared at the figure in astonishment. It
Speaker 1: walked with rapid strides, moving its head up and down,
Speaker 1: so that anyone would have taken it for a live
Speaker 1: human being. The artificer touched its chin, and it began
Speaker 1: singing perfectly in tune. He touched its hand, and it
Speaker 1: began posturing, keeping perfect time. As the performance was drawing
Speaker 1: to an end, the robot winked its eye and made
Speaker 1: advances to the ladies in attendance, whereupon the king became
Speaker 1: incensed and would have had young she executed on the spot,
Speaker 1: had not the latter, in mortal fear, instantly taken the
Speaker 1: robot to pieces to let him see what it really was,
Speaker 1: and indeed, it turned out to be only a construction
Speaker 1: of leather, wood, glue, and lacquer, variously colored white, black, red,
Speaker 1: and blue. Examining it closely, the king found all the
Speaker 1: internal organs complete, liver, gall heart, lungs, spleen, kidneys, stomach
Speaker 1: and intestines. And over these again muscles, bones and limbs
Speaker 1: with their joints, skin, teeth, and hair, all of them artificial.
Speaker 1: The king tried the effect of taking away the heart,
Speaker 1: and found that the mouth could no longer speak. He
Speaker 1: took away the liver and the eyes could no longer see.
Speaker 1: He took away the kidneys and the legs lost their
Speaker 1: power of locomotion. The king was delighted. So, and that's
Speaker 1: an often referred to text when people talk about the
Speaker 1: history of robots. And we don't have evident heart evidence
Speaker 1: of this automaton, but it's significant that it would have
Speaker 1: been mentioned in a historical Taoist text that refers back
Speaker 1: seven hundred years. Uh. It evidences this fascination with mechanical
Speaker 1: beings going way way way back into ancient history so early. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would be delighted too if I were the king,
Speaker 1: who would not. Uh. So that's our first one, and
Speaker 1: the second one is a little more recent than that.
Speaker 1: This one was a pigeon created by Archiitis of Tarentum
Speaker 1: and Archaetis was born around BC in a Greek controlled
Speaker 1: territory that's now part of southern Italy. He was a
Speaker 1: very accomplished man. He was a philosopher, a mathematician, an astronomer,
Speaker 1: a statesman, and a commander in chief. And sometimes he
Speaker 1: gets called the father of mechanics. He said to be
Speaker 1: the most advanced of the Pythagorean mathematicians, and he classified
Speaker 1: mathematics into four divisions, geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, and music. He
Speaker 1: was really influential in his time, and Archidis also influenced
Speaker 1: the work of Plato and Toddle. In fact, he said
Speaker 1: to have rescued Plato from Dionysius the Second. But historians
Speaker 1: are generally pretty quick to point out that the relationship
Speaker 1: between Plato and Architis was a complex one. It was
Speaker 1: pretty complicated. They had similar stances on many philosophical issues,
Speaker 1: but they also had some pretty obvious disagreements. But for
Speaker 1: today's interest, the accomplishment of Architis that's the most relevant
Speaker 1: is a mechanical bird. This bird, which he called simply
Speaker 1: the pigeon, was suspended at the end of a pivoting bar.
Speaker 1: It moved in revolutions around the bar, either using a
Speaker 1: jet of steam or compressed air. And while the bird,
Speaker 1: which was created somewhere between four hundred and three fifty
Speaker 1: b C. Is often listed as a footnote to Architis's
Speaker 1: body of work, it's really important to remember that he
Speaker 1: built this mechanism more than two thousand years ago, So
Speaker 1: it was this very simple little robotic pigeon. Yes, some
Speaker 1: people point to it as the first robot and recorded
Speaker 1: history but as we mentioned earlier, and it's a claim
Speaker 1: that a lot of people are just not willing to
Speaker 1: make for sure about any of these. And now there's
Speaker 1: kind of a big jump to our next one, because
Speaker 1: we are getting to Da Vinci, who many people know
Speaker 1: was really interested in mechanics. Uh. And so Leonardo was
Speaker 1: born in April of fourtift two. He's one of history's
Speaker 1: most famous men. So we all know his famous paintings
Speaker 1: like the Last Supper and the Mona Lisa, and his
Speaker 1: drawings of these Truvian man So he's not really a
Speaker 1: mystery to anyone who has even a passing knowledge of history.
Speaker 1: Late in his life, in fifteen fifteen, he created this
Speaker 1: automatal lion, allegedly to present to King France. At first,
Speaker 1: the faux feline was said to have walked forward toward
Speaker 1: the king, opened up its chest and revealed a cluster
Speaker 1: of lilies. And while there's some lack of specificity about
Speaker 1: the original lion uh and Leonardo did not leave any
Speaker 1: sketches of it, he did make detailed sketches of the
Speaker 1: mechanisms that he likely used in its construction, and he
Speaker 1: left some notes as well. And in two thousand nine,
Speaker 1: Renato Boretto, a master builder of automata, use those sketches
Speaker 1: and da Vinci's notes and he actually recreated the lion.
Speaker 1: It's really really interesting to watch. You can find video
Speaker 1: of it online and will link to some of it.
Speaker 1: You know, it's kind of sobering to watch this sample
Speaker 1: of robotics that's based on early fifteen hundreds ingenuity, because
Speaker 1: it's still a pretty impressive piece today. To see this,
Speaker 1: it almost looks like a giant toy. It's life size,
Speaker 1: but it's you know, carved, so it doesn't look like
Speaker 1: a real lion, but it just it moves along and
Speaker 1: it kind of has wheels and its feet and it
Speaker 1: rolls as its legs move along the floor, and it
Speaker 1: tilts its head side to side, and it's kind of
Speaker 1: mind blowing to me to think that that was designed
Speaker 1: hundreds of years ago. Leonardo also designed a fully automated
Speaker 1: man that was styled to look like an armored knight,
Speaker 1: with a rope and gear mechanism to raise and move
Speaker 1: the limbs, but there's no record of this actually being built.
Speaker 1: Italian robotics historians have also constructed a machine based on
Speaker 1: these designs. Yeah, it's um it can't do quite the
Speaker 1: amount of moving on its own that the lion can,
Speaker 1: which is why we focused on the lion for this one.
Speaker 1: But I thought that the the armored man she cold
Speaker 1: at least to mention. And then we get to a
Speaker 1: couple of entries that are really really mind blowing. The
Speaker 1: first is Kanson's flute player, and like I said, this
Speaker 1: one is U kind of a two for it's not
Speaker 1: really just the one. We're going to talk about his
Speaker 1: famous duck automaton as well, which when I have mentioned
Speaker 1: to our colleagues that we were working on this podcast,
Speaker 1: everyone asked about the duck and I just kind of shrug.
Speaker 1: We'll get there. So Jacques de Vokinson was born in
Speaker 1: Grenoble on February seventeen o nine, and he was the
Speaker 1: youngest child of ten born to a glovemaker and a
Speaker 1: devout Catholic wife. And the story goes that Jacques was
Speaker 1: obsessed with mechanical things at a very young age. Uh
Speaker 1: he studied with the Jesuits as a youngster. He even
Speaker 1: entered a monastery but the age of sixteen as a
Speaker 1: means of supporting his scientific studies because at that point
Speaker 1: his father was gone and his mother couldn't really just
Speaker 1: pay for him to play in his mechanized world. And
Speaker 1: then later in sight, he left the monastery to study
Speaker 1: medicine and anatomy in Paris, and throughout his life of
Speaker 1: Wilkinson was inspired by medical science, and his passion for
Speaker 1: an insight into the workings of anatomy garnered him several
Speaker 1: patrons that supported his work through the years. His most
Speaker 1: famous automaton was a gold plated copper duck. And what
Speaker 1: a duck it was. It could do many of the
Speaker 1: things real ducks could do. It could it could quack
Speaker 1: and drink water, and flap its wings and mimic the
Speaker 1: digestive process, reminding me of many novelty items owned by
Speaker 1: my grandfather. So yes, it's the famous pooping robot duck.
Speaker 1: If everybody knows about uh, you know, it's one of
Speaker 1: the like when you go, oh, ancient robots like pooping
Speaker 1: robot duck. Right. Yes. In a letter written to the
Speaker 1: Abbe de Fontaine, he wrote, my second machine or automaton
Speaker 1: is a duck in which I represent the mechanism of
Speaker 1: the intestines which are employed in the operations of eating, drinking,
Speaker 1: and digestion, where in the working of all the parts
Speaker 1: necessary for these actions is exactly imitated. The duck stretches
Speaker 1: out its neck to take corn out of your hand,
Speaker 1: It swallows it, digested and discharges it digested by the
Speaker 1: usual passage. And I feel compelled to know it didn't
Speaker 1: actually digested it. There was no chemical breakdown of whatever
Speaker 1: you handed it. You could hand it buttons and it
Speaker 1: would those would pass through its automated little system. And
Speaker 1: I think when modern ears here they think of it
Speaker 1: as this cookie novelty thing. But really he was trying
Speaker 1: to represent a full um anatomical being. Like to him,
Speaker 1: it was more about the science of and study of,
Speaker 1: you know, biology than it was like, look, my duck poops.
Speaker 1: Not so much to be something you would buy in
Speaker 1: the back of a spencer gift, but that duck was
Speaker 1: actually created to boost attendance at an exhibit of another
Speaker 1: of Vokinson's works, which was his Automatic Flute Player. The
Speaker 1: flute player was allegedly conceived in a fevered state while
Speaker 1: he was ill. A famous marble statue by sculptor Antoine
Speaker 1: Koiservo was the inspiration for the shape of the figure,
Speaker 1: although Wolkenson's version was made of wood and then painted
Speaker 1: to look like marble. And this figure was five point
Speaker 1: five feet tall, which is about one point seven meters. Uh.
Speaker 1: And in the modern book Living Dolls the Magical History
Speaker 1: of the Question Mechanical Life Gabby Wood rights of the
Speaker 1: Mechanical Flute Player, nine bellows were attached to three separate
Speaker 1: pipes that led into the chest of the figure. Each
Speaker 1: set of three bellows was attached to a different weight
Speaker 1: to give out varying degrees of air, and then all
Speaker 1: pipes joined into a single one equivalent to a trachea,
Speaker 1: continuing up through the throat and widening to form the
Speaker 1: cavity of the mouth. The lips, which bore upon the
Speaker 1: whole of the flute, could open and close and move
Speaker 1: backwards or forwards. Inside the mouth was a movable metal
Speaker 1: tongue which governed the airflow and created pauses. This automaton breathed,
Speaker 1: which is cool. It's really cool. Um. It's an incredibly
Speaker 1: complex design. And of course, uh, you know, the flute
Speaker 1: is a hard instrument to play when you're an actual human.
Speaker 1: So he had to do something tricky. Yes, So, borrowing
Speaker 1: from his family's roots, he gave the flute player's hands
Speaker 1: a skin covering to mimic the soft touch that you
Speaker 1: need to play a flute. That's a tricky instrumental master
Speaker 1: even for people, and his macanoid minstrel could play twelve
Speaker 1: different tunes. And this flute player went on display on
Speaker 1: February eleventh of set eight, and the cost of entry
Speaker 1: to see this marvel was roughly equivalent to a week's
Speaker 1: worth of wages for the average manual laborer. So this
Speaker 1: was a serious money maker because people were paying that
Speaker 1: to go see it. I mean it was too fantastical
Speaker 1: to skip, uh, which is why when the attendants fell off,
Speaker 1: Vokinson added the duck to the exhibit, as well as
Speaker 1: another piece called the Tambourine Player. In an effort to
Speaker 1: bring audiences back and keep the money flowing. He sold
Speaker 1: off his mechanical creations in one and at that point
Speaker 1: became Francis Inspector of silk manufacturer. His adventures in that
Speaker 1: job could really be their own podcasts, they really could.
Speaker 1: He really sort of revolutionized looms um. But the flute
Speaker 1: player in the other automeda changed hands several times, and
Speaker 1: the flute player was last seen in the possession of
Speaker 1: Gottfried Christoph Barres, doctor to the Duke of Brunswick, and
Speaker 1: then he disappeared from history. After the doctor's death, the
Speaker 1: duck turned up a couple more times, and uh, there
Speaker 1: are allegedly there are pictures of it or something that's
Speaker 1: very much like it that you can find online. But
Speaker 1: the flute player, we don't. We don't know where it landed,
Speaker 1: which is a pity because I would really love to
Speaker 1: see how that works. And then for our final entry
Speaker 1: in our list of five instances, there are actually three
Speaker 1: pieces in this but uh, they're quite marvelous. Yes, they're
Speaker 1: the work of Pierre Jacquedras, who was born on July
Speaker 1: seventeen twenty one in Switzerland. His family was primarily involved
Speaker 1: in two modes of employment, farming and watchmaking, and in
Speaker 1: seventeen thirty eight Jacquedras opened up his own watch shop
Speaker 1: in Le chad Defont, and initially he specialized in pendulum clocks,
Speaker 1: but eventually he turned his attention to automated mechanisms and
Speaker 1: eventually began to sell small automeda to a special clients.
Speaker 1: I also feel like we should mentioned that he is
Speaker 1: It's kind of a side note, but he's often credited
Speaker 1: with creating a wristwatch. So he was very much into
Speaker 1: shrinking mechanisms down, which plays into his work in Automeda.
Speaker 1: In seventeen seventy four, he and his son Henri Louis,
Speaker 1: and a clock maker, Jean Frederick less Show presented their
Speaker 1: three creations, which are still considered to be marvels of
Speaker 1: mechanical engineering. The Musician is the first one, and it's
Speaker 1: a female and um she plays an organ, and it's
Speaker 1: not an actual organ, it's a custom instrument that looks
Speaker 1: like an organ, and she will bow at the end
Speaker 1: of her performances, and she plays five different tunes, and
Speaker 1: the mechanical works are actually all concealed beneath her gown,
Speaker 1: but her fingers move super briskly and they tap along
Speaker 1: at the instrument's keys, and it's really quite something to watch.
Speaker 1: The draftsman can draw floor pictures, and he'll also blow
Speaker 1: dust and graphite off of this page. And the draftsman
Speaker 1: looks more like a little boy, and he looks almost
Speaker 1: identical to the third one, which is an automaton that
Speaker 1: people sort of hold in this extremely high regard because
Speaker 1: it's really quite a marvel. It's called the Writer, and
Speaker 1: it's um to my mind, and I think the mind
Speaker 1: of many other others that study this subject. It's the
Speaker 1: most impressive of the three because he can write as
Speaker 1: many as forty letters in sequence, and because he has
Speaker 1: built with a series of coded gears in his back
Speaker 1: that can be moved, he can actually be programmed to
Speaker 1: write new sequences. His messages aren't static, uh, and he'll
Speaker 1: dip his pen in an ink well so that it
Speaker 1: needs to be refreshed whenever he writes, and he carefully
Speaker 1: scrawls out the program message onto paper, and his eyes
Speaker 1: actually follow his pen as he's working, which is sort
Speaker 1: of amazing and wonderful. The fact that this one can
Speaker 1: be programmed to do different things would probably put him
Speaker 1: higher on the list in like the Nitpickers list of robots,
Speaker 1: because one of in terms of today's terminology, one of
Speaker 1: the hallmarks of robotics is that these are programmable things,
Speaker 1: not just things that work on like a remote control
Speaker 1: or some kind of teather Yeah. Uh. And Jacque Drows
Speaker 1: would take these automota around with him on tour while
Speaker 1: he was visiting wealthy families, and he would, you know,
Speaker 1: have them do their little activities and show off and
Speaker 1: then he would use those charms to sell his high
Speaker 1: end watches and smaller automoda to his elite clientele, and
Speaker 1: he would also book them into hotel rooms and then
Speaker 1: charge admission for people to just come and see them.
Speaker 1: And the Jaque Drew's name is still famous for its watches. Um.
Speaker 1: Just as Paul Pare, who we discussed in a previous podcast,
Speaker 1: brought branding into fashion houses, Jacquie Drews did a similar thing,
Speaker 1: and he understood the idea of building a brand in
Speaker 1: his industry, and his touring automoda were part of that brand. Today,
Speaker 1: this trio lives in the Museum of Art and History
Speaker 1: in Switzerland and they all still work, which is a
Speaker 1: testament to the extraordinary engineering and skill that went into
Speaker 1: their creation. Yeah, those are other ones that you can
Speaker 1: see lots of video footage of online. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: people carefully programming them. And I've noticed in some of
Speaker 1: them the writer he's a little um squeaky. At some
Speaker 1: point they have to scoot the paper along form a
Speaker 1: little bit because the paper actually gets kind of moved
Speaker 1: on this little um carrier that goes back and forth
Speaker 1: underneath his hands. But generally he's still I mean they're
Speaker 1: all still in great working order and pretty amazing, and
Speaker 1: I feel like, um, we should mention as we wrap up,
Speaker 1: we're not going to talk about this one, but uh,
Speaker 1: I know people will ask why we didn't include it,
Speaker 1: which is the katakuti ningio, which are Japanese automata uh
Speaker 1: that are generally referenced from like sixteenth through early nineteenth century,
Speaker 1: And I really think they deserve their own podcasts, so
Speaker 1: stay tuned. It would be weird to talk about robots
Speaker 1: and not mentioned Japan at all, so I wanted to
Speaker 1: make sure we at least pointed those out. Uh. They
Speaker 1: also kind of go past the point in history where
Speaker 1: we wanted to do the cut off, not so much
Speaker 1: the early. It's a little later than early. Some of
Speaker 1: it's in this realm that I was talking about, but
Speaker 1: it goes on a little bit further and there are
Speaker 1: many different types, and I feel like they just they
Speaker 1: deserve their own whole little discussion because they're really quite amazing.
Speaker 1: But uh, those are, like I said, a little sampling
Speaker 1: of historical robotics and automata that I just I think
Speaker 1: it's sort of beautiful and wonderful that's going back these
Speaker 1: thousands of years. We've always been obsessed with creating sort
Speaker 1: of mechanized versions of ourselves and other natural elements of
Speaker 1: the world. And a lot of these remind me of
Speaker 1: stuff that happened much later, or things that that later
Speaker 1: would not have been quite so impressive, like the Um
Speaker 1: you look at the movie Hugo and the book that
Speaker 1: it was based off of, like that was a much
Speaker 1: more recent era of of clockworks and steam based things
Speaker 1: and automata that could write things. Um, and this predates
Speaker 1: those sort of things by some hundreds of years. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's very very cool. So that's historical. Robots will hopefully
Speaker 1: do more perhaps in the future, in addition of the
Speaker 1: Japanese ones, because robots are awesome. They're really cool. I also,
Speaker 1: as as we're reading this, I just like every description
Speaker 1: sort of have ended with the sentence and then they
Speaker 1: all came to life and the doctor had to come
Speaker 1: and save us, because that, along with the intriguing idea
Speaker 1: of making mechanical life, is the idea of that going
Speaker 1: horribly wrong in the human consciousness that they seem to Nope,
Speaker 1: they all none of them came to like running, They
Speaker 1: didn't take over the world. So let's take a moment
Speaker 1: to have a word from our sponsor. You also have
Speaker 1: some listener mail, do you. Indeed? This mail is from
Speaker 1: Elizabeth and it is yet another email about our podcast
Speaker 1: on the domestication of cats. She's gotten a bunch of
Speaker 1: and also lots of people sending cat pictures. Keep them
Speaker 1: coming because I love that the cat pictures are really
Speaker 1: brightening our listener in bar. They're so fun. Uh. And
Speaker 1: Elizabeth says, I really enjoyed your recent podcast about the
Speaker 1: domestication of cats. I'm an evolutionary biologist, so I'm always
Speaker 1: super excited when you guys makes a little science in
Speaker 1: with your history. The straight up history podcasts are awesome
Speaker 1: as well as someone who works who were ras a
Speaker 1: lot about wildlife conservation, though there was one point I
Speaker 1: wished you'd emphasized more. Cats may be fascinating animals and
Speaker 1: wonderful pets, but the fact that humans have introduced these
Speaker 1: deadly little predators all over the world has had a
Speaker 1: devastating impact on wildlife. Domestic cats are implicated in the
Speaker 1: extinction of several bird species and are also a huge
Speaker 1: threat to reptiles, amphibians, and small mammals. As much as
Speaker 1: I empathize with cat owners desire to let their pets
Speaker 1: room outside. Even well fed domestic cats kill quite a
Speaker 1: few wild animals. There's actually a project at the University
Speaker 1: of Georgia right in your backyard that seeks to quantify
Speaker 1: this by attaching cameras to outdoor cats callers. Here's a
Speaker 1: link to web comic about the project and what about
Speaker 1: the project page itself, which we can also share with
Speaker 1: our listeners. If you guys ever touch on this or
Speaker 1: a similar topic again, it would be great if you
Speaker 1: could encourage fellow cat lovers to minimize their pets impact
Speaker 1: on local wildlife by following some of the recommendations from
Speaker 1: the Kittie Caams project. Thanks for letting me bother you
Speaker 1: about this, and thanks for all the amazing podcasts. IU.
Speaker 1: This is one of those things that I'm actually surprised
Speaker 1: I didn't mention it either. Well, and I think the
Speaker 1: reason that I didn't mention it is that I sort
Speaker 1: of take for granted that that people know should they
Speaker 1: should keep their pets indoors, which I don't know why
Speaker 1: I would take that for granted, because I see cats
Speaker 1: running around outside all the time. Yeah, not everybody feels
Speaker 1: that way, and it can be a very divisive subject
Speaker 1: if you bring it up among people that have cats. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I'm definitely like an indoor only cat owner,
Speaker 1: me too, But I know lots of people feel like
Speaker 1: it's not fair to the cats, and there there's a
Speaker 1: debate to be had about it, um, but it really
Speaker 1: they really do have quite an impact on the natural
Speaker 1: world outside when they go out, because they are predators,
Speaker 1: and even if, as Elizabeth mentions, even if they're well fed,
Speaker 1: that doesn't necessarily cut their prey drive down right. And
Speaker 1: my keeping my cats indoors is really motivated by my
Speaker 1: desire for their own safety. Yeah, more so than not
Speaker 1: killing the birds and the reptiles and all those things. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm definitely a nervous nellie when it comes to that.
Speaker 1: I don't know how people can let their cats just
Speaker 1: go outside, because it's the very thought of it strikes
Speaker 1: fear in my heart. Well, the cat that I grew
Speaker 1: up with lived outdoors almost exclusively. She would come inside
Speaker 1: and it was really cold some of those two. This
Speaker 1: was also in you know, in a world. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she was terrified of the road. So that was the
Speaker 1: thing that we didn't really have to worry. We didn't
Speaker 1: have to worry about her being hit by a car
Speaker 1: because she was absolutely terrified not go near it. No,
Speaker 1: she would not. H Yeah, I mean, I know people
Speaker 1: do worry that their cats won't get enough stimulation and play.
Speaker 1: And as she mentioned, there are some great resources that
Speaker 1: are linked on the Kitty Camps website and those are
Speaker 1: just fascinating pictures. I actually know a friend of a
Speaker 1: friend was one of the people whose cats was used
Speaker 1: in that study, and I think she was pretty shocked
Speaker 1: when she saw some of the images that told the
Speaker 1: story of where her cat would go during the day.
Speaker 1: Uh and you know, many people found out that their
Speaker 1: cats actually had franchised other families and we're double lives
Speaker 1: and uh so it's kind of interesting from that point
Speaker 1: of view. But uh yeah, safety and not killing all
Speaker 1: the all the lizards and and mice and other things. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they've definitely been case studies of I knew there's one
Speaker 1: story of like the light keep the lighthouse keeper who
Speaker 1: brought his cat to his post at the lighthouse and
Speaker 1: the cats single handedly exterminated all of the birds on
Speaker 1: the island where the lighthouse at Lighthouse was. Yeah, they're
Speaker 1: they're very efficient little predators. They really are even Uh.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've known this is just experiential evidence, but
Speaker 1: I've known even people who are like, well, my cats
Speaker 1: de cloud. I've seen d cloud cats take down birds
Speaker 1: no problems. So uh, you just gotta keep them stimulated
Speaker 1: inside and make sure they're getting that prey drive met
Speaker 1: by indoor activities and clawing has its own That's a
Speaker 1: whole other controversial party train. Uh. But yeah, so be
Speaker 1: kind of the environment and be mindful of what your
Speaker 1: your bets might do to it. Is so thank you, Elizabeth,
Speaker 1: because it took me a while to get to that mail,
Speaker 1: not because I didn't love it, but just because other
Speaker 1: mail jumped up in the wing. Uh. If you would
Speaker 1: like to write to us, you may do so at
Speaker 1: History Podcast at discovery dot com. You can also touch
Speaker 1: based with us on Twitter at missed Industry. You can
Speaker 1: also go to Facebook dot com, slash history class Stuff,
Speaker 1: or visit us at mist in history dot tumbler dot com.
Speaker 1: You can also find us on Pinterests. If you want
Speaker 1: to learn a little bit more about robots, you can
Speaker 1: go to our website. Type in the word robots in
Speaker 1: the search bar, and you'll get an article called how
Speaker 1: Robots Work, which is more about modern robots, still very
Speaker 1: fascinating and clearly the result of activities like we're going
Speaker 1: on with these early automeda If you want to learn
Speaker 1: about almost anything else you could possibly think of, you
Speaker 1: can go to our website to do that, and that
Speaker 1: is how Stuff Work dot com for more on this
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics. Does It Has to Works
Speaker 1: dot com. Audible dot com is the leading provider of
Speaker 1: downloadable digital audio books and spoken word entertainment. Audible has
Speaker 1: more than one hundred thousand titles to choose from to
Speaker 1: be downloaded to your iPod or MP three player. Go
Speaker 1: to audible podcast dot com slash history to get a
Speaker 1: free audio book download of your choice when you sign
Speaker 1: up today.