Speaker 1: Welcome to Creature future production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host
Speaker 1: of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology and evolutionary biology,
Speaker 1: and today on the show Rats. There's rats in the
Speaker 1: walls and the sewers on the subway. Why are there
Speaker 1: so many rats around? And are they the most villainous
Speaker 1: pests or just misunderstood? From plagues to pets, rats have
Speaker 1: shaped human civilization in a variety of ways. Discover this
Speaker 1: and more as we answer the angel question. Welcome, rats
Speaker 1: get blamed for everything. Joining me today is front of
Speaker 1: the show comedian and host of the podcast Jeff Has
Speaker 1: Cool Friends. Jeff May welcome.
Speaker 2: Heyy welcome, It's me a rat.
Speaker 1: It's you a rat man. You pull up the human skin,
Speaker 1: look great.
Speaker 2: Yeah, most of my rat friends are in my legs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well you know, moved. I've seen this exact case
Speaker 1: so many times where top half kind of like a
Speaker 1: rat tar, like not a centaur, but a rat tar.
Speaker 1: Where it's like top half human bought and half a
Speaker 1: bunch of rats.
Speaker 2: Yeah, bundle a bundle of Dracula like rats, right.
Speaker 1: Sort of like all kind of like a Megatron made
Speaker 1: out of rats for the lower half.
Speaker 2: That's probably the best way to do it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. So, Jeff, you actually suggested this topic, what
Speaker 1: is what is going on in your life that involves rats?
Speaker 2: So? I had a uninvited rat roommate in my house
Speaker 2: not too long ago. I was. It's one of those
Speaker 2: ones where you start here and you're like, oh, I
Speaker 2: think we have mice, and then you see it and
Speaker 2: you're like, we don't. We don't have mice. We don't. Yeah,
Speaker 2: we don't have any mice. We do have at least
Speaker 2: a rat, right, And you know, we met a couple times.
Speaker 2: He was a little dodgy but also bold. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: I sorry for all of you friends of rats, but
Speaker 2: I got them.
Speaker 1: You got them because.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we got them, which I'm sorry, but also like,
Speaker 2: I don't need my house to burn down. If he's
Speaker 2: like chew an electrical wire.
Speaker 1: Or put a head out on this rat, it sounds like.
Speaker 2: You know, you know, that would have been nice. But
Speaker 2: I actually ended up doing it myself. Oh god, you know,
Speaker 2: like you like, instead of hiring an assassin to come in,
Speaker 2: you know, I will skit myself and just really went
Speaker 2: for it, which is also scary because it turns out
Speaker 2: I'm terrified of things that skitter.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, skittering is I think the problem with skittering
Speaker 1: is that you know, the skidery is up to something.
Speaker 2: Yeah. On top of that too, like when you think
Speaker 2: about skittering, it's the creepiest, most most aggressive way to
Speaker 2: run away from something. Yeah, but skittering is never at me,
Speaker 2: It's always away from me. And yet I'll clutch my
Speaker 2: if I see a cockroach, I'm gonna clutch my.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, No, I'm a lover of most things considered pests,
Speaker 1: but a cockroach. The problem is once it's in my area, right,
Speaker 1: like a rat or a cockroach or even a mouse,
Speaker 1: it's like there is a certain like I've made eye
Speaker 1: contact with it, and now it's tap danced away, and
Speaker 1: it's so inappropriate. It's so anti social to like aggressively
Speaker 1: tap dance away from me and be like, well, I'm
Speaker 1: in your house. By ah, it's upsetting, he was at.
Speaker 2: One point in time. They mean to assume that gender
Speaker 2: was like in because we have like a laundry room
Speaker 2: and and it has like the laundry room has basement energy,
Speaker 2: but it's connected to my bedroom. So in order to
Speaker 2: go into the laundry room to do my laundry. I
Speaker 2: started like kind of knocking on the door because I
Speaker 2: didn't want to see the rat.
Speaker 1: Right, like, are you in here doing rat?
Speaker 2: So then I realized it.
Speaker 1: I was just looking at rat pornography.
Speaker 2: Yeah, look at a little looking at some rat titty.
Speaker 2: But I realized I was treating it like a slightly
Speaker 2: hostile roommate. Yeah, like I was like, sorry for coming
Speaker 2: in your room, man, I just got to do some
Speaker 2: laundry real quick. Uh. And and yeah, I'm not a
Speaker 2: fan of the rat. Telling people that a rat snuck
Speaker 2: into your house through like a event or something. You
Speaker 2: might as well tell people that you grew a rat
Speaker 2: from all the pizza boxes that you sleeep in your house.
Speaker 2: You know. That's that's the energy that that having a
Speaker 2: rat in your house means, Like people automatically assume that
Speaker 2: you are a pig. Yeah, that you are like an
Speaker 2: absolute slob that you.
Speaker 1: Sort of leave like a trail of food scraps directly
Speaker 1: to your laundry room and little signs that says welcome rat.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like a little rat strip club right right, so
Speaker 2: that they can do that. But the reality is, you know,
Speaker 2: it's been cold in Los Angeles and rainy, and that
Speaker 2: we must have had like a hole somewhere in our house. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that had to get plugged up. Yeah, it's and it's
Speaker 2: not good like they sneak.
Speaker 1: In because the rat they do, and they do use
Speaker 1: air vents. I had a rat in my air ventt
Speaker 1: once and this was like this, I think it was
Speaker 1: a brown rat and it was large. It was large
Speaker 1: and very aggressive and the skittering aspect was interesting because
Speaker 1: like it was in the vents, so it would wake
Speaker 1: me up in the middle of the night with sort
Speaker 1: of this aggressive scratching and skittering. And what eventually worked
Speaker 1: was allowing my dogs to uh just go ham on
Speaker 1: the on the rat vent area whenever she pleased. So
Speaker 1: she usually would like sleep in her crate because she's
Speaker 1: a well trained puppy, but in this time I let
Speaker 1: her sleep on my bed so that she uh would
Speaker 1: just like every time the rat made a noise, she
Speaker 1: would spring up and start like screaming at this rat,
Speaker 1: which would wake me up for sure, But in the
Speaker 1: long term it was good because she terrorized this poor
Speaker 1: rat and basically trained the rat to like not be
Speaker 1: in my vents because like whenever it would make a
Speaker 1: sound in my vent, my dog would like slam into
Speaker 1: the vent and bark really loud.
Speaker 2: And if you're anywhere and something is like I'm gonna
Speaker 2: kill you, Yeah, you're probably gonna be like, I don't
Speaker 2: think I want to come back here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I felt sorry for the rat, you know,
Speaker 1: like because again I like rats in general. Obviously, when
Speaker 1: it's like in my vents pooping and keeping me awake
Speaker 1: at night, that's not tinnable. But you know, it's like
Speaker 1: I want to It's almost like, man, could I like
Speaker 1: build a rat hut? And the answer is no, because
Speaker 1: I didn't own this property, so there's no way I
Speaker 1: could build like a rat hut for the rat to
Speaker 1: live and I would get in trouble with the city.
Speaker 1: So but yeah, it's just it's just not a it's
Speaker 1: not a fun situation when you've got a rat in
Speaker 1: your Yeah.
Speaker 2: Like also it's a good reminder that like there's a
Speaker 2: massive difference between like getting a pet rat and having
Speaker 2: it at your house. Yes, and and an invasive it's
Speaker 2: like a person. It's like having a person, like if
Speaker 2: it's a diffuse and some home invader. Yeah, and then
Speaker 2: there's another another persons just in your house, You're not
Speaker 2: just like you know, every life is sacred. Yeah, you'd
Speaker 2: be like, this is a problem and we need to
Speaker 2: remedy it.
Speaker 1: Lad. I would construct a giant slab of wood and
Speaker 1: a hinge and a big metal bar and put a
Speaker 1: burger on it, an enticing burger on there.
Speaker 2: Big with and the burger would have like a nice
Speaker 2: and it would like the finger on under.
Speaker 1: The Yeah, the aroma, the aroma smell would form an
Speaker 1: anthropomorphic hand and lure the person over. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: I think so. Like one of the things with rat control,
Speaker 1: right is it's it is not great when it like
Speaker 1: falls upon us to try to get rid of rats
Speaker 1: from our places. And one of the one of the
Speaker 1: ideas of a more humane rat control is actually through
Speaker 1: like rat birth control, right, so instead of poisoning them,
Speaker 1: which is bad for the rats and bad for you know,
Speaker 1: other animals, right, like mountain lions, domesticated.
Speaker 2: Pets, you know, Yeah, like honestly, like feral cats.
Speaker 1: Feral cats.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's terrible, like like poisoning. I used to we
Speaker 2: were rescuing a colony of feral cats that were abandoned
Speaker 2: in a neighborhood and one of them just straight up
Speaker 2: we found dead. Yeah, and like based down on the ground,
Speaker 2: no impact or anything like that. We were like, well, somebody,
Speaker 2: some rat poison killed this cat.
Speaker 1: Yeah. That's also like there was that owl that poor
Speaker 1: owl I think in New York had been you know,
Speaker 1: kidnapped from I think the zoo and then escaped and
Speaker 1: then I think its name was Flacco, I think, and
Speaker 1: I think it died. The cause of death was mostly
Speaker 1: attributed to like poison in the rodents that it would
Speaker 1: try to eat.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yes, those owl pellets would be weird coming.
Speaker 1: Out, huh yeah, yeah, not great. And so you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, like I think that the idea that we should,
Speaker 1: like there are a few ways to control rat populations
Speaker 1: near humans that do not involve poison or you know,
Speaker 1: mass killing. It would involve like creating sort of birth
Speaker 1: control for Yeah.
Speaker 2: I'm fascinated by whatever the wherever you're going with birth
Speaker 2: control with rat.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's not like it would not be like
Speaker 1: tiny rat condoms. It would be capturing rats, sterilizing them,
Speaker 1: or trying to put out baits that would have some
Speaker 1: kind of sterilizing substance in it, so that the uh,
Speaker 1: then you would have rats that would it would basically
Speaker 1: waste the time of of other rats who are trying
Speaker 1: to mate with them, and would reduce the rat population.
Speaker 1: I do like the idea of rat sex ed though,
Speaker 1: where you just have like, uh, you know, teaching rats.
Speaker 2: About safe little rat bananas.
Speaker 1: Yeah, tiny rat bananas and so. But like, I do
Speaker 1: want to talk today about kind of this this complex
Speaker 1: relationship we have with rats, because rats are really interesting animals,
Speaker 1: you know, they're they're they're highly intelligent. They they're all
Speaker 1: these kind of emotions and behaviors in them that I
Speaker 1: think are very like humanizing that they can be tickled.
Speaker 1: They seem to show care and empathy for other rats.
Speaker 1: They'll want to help a rat who's stuck in a
Speaker 1: bad situation, even if it doesn't seem to directly benefit themselves.
Speaker 2: They're great chefs.
Speaker 1: They're great chefs. Sometimes if you put a rat on
Speaker 1: your head, it'll tug your hair that makes you cook
Speaker 1: really good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and that's who doesn't want that?
Speaker 1: Yeah? If I could just have if I could have
Speaker 1: a rat at tuy that helps me do my taxes,
Speaker 1: that would.
Speaker 2: Be on a little lawyer, a little account, right.
Speaker 1: Accounting rat. Rat who helps me do my taxes? Rat
Speaker 1: who helps me keep deadlines?
Speaker 2: You know, like I would like a house cleaning rat.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like a rat where you can just like zone
Speaker 1: out and listen to podcasts, but the rat is like
Speaker 1: pulling on your hair and having you vacuum. Perfect. That
Speaker 1: would be that'd be perfect.
Speaker 2: On it, Like or like a like a rummage sale
Speaker 2: organization rat. Yeah, where you can be like, I got
Speaker 2: all this stuff I don't the rat knows what I
Speaker 2: need and what I don't need.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like a rat helping you simplify a life coach rat.
Speaker 1: There's so many ratituey opportunities beyond just cooking, is our point, Like,
Speaker 1: like we need more variety of ratituey. But yeah, so
Speaker 1: let's let's talk a little bit about what what is
Speaker 1: a rat. Rats are in the Rattus genus, which you know, right,
Speaker 1: not really but yeah, like this includes brown rats, black rats,
Speaker 1: domesticated pet rats which are actually descendants from brown rats.
Speaker 1: And these are all in the Rattus genus. But there
Speaker 1: are some things that we call rats that are not
Speaker 1: really true rats. So pack rats, kangaroo rats, pouched rats, muskrats,
Speaker 1: none of these are in the Rattus genus. They're all rodents.
Speaker 1: What's that snitches? Well, it depends because I guess if
Speaker 1: you have a snitch, who is a rat? Right, Like, if.
Speaker 2: This would have to be like that would be another.
Speaker 1: Ratitude, it'd be a different ratitude.
Speaker 2: You get a snitch ratitude.
Speaker 1: Snitch ratitudey, that would be the I feel like that's
Speaker 1: not the most ideal ratitudey, like a ratituey that helps
Speaker 1: you do your taxes but then also reports you to
Speaker 1: the I R S.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's an inside rat is.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, exactly. There are over fifty species of rats,
Speaker 1: including domesticated rats bread to be pets or rats bread
Speaker 1: to be used in lamps. Rats are a cosmopolitan species,
Speaker 1: found all over the world, on every continent except for
Speaker 1: Antarctica because it's too cold.
Speaker 2: I feel that rat awesome if you're like, except for Europe.
Speaker 2: Yeah no, that's it's weird that they respect that border.
Speaker 1: Yeah no, they yeah, well we'll talk about Europe in
Speaker 1: a little bit, but yeah, So they have become invasive
Speaker 1: on islands actually sort of close to Antarctica in the
Speaker 1: southern Hemisphere, and they do threaten the nesting seabird populations there.
Speaker 1: Like when we think about rats as pests, we kind
Speaker 1: of think about them being in our homes or eating
Speaker 1: our grain stockpiles, Like I hate it when rats are
Speaker 1: like in my grain silos. One of the big things
Speaker 1: that is a problem with rats is being invasive in
Speaker 1: areas where they are not indigenous and out competing the
Speaker 1: native wildlife. Because rats are very good at survivors. They
Speaker 1: are like amazing. They're intelligent, they are omnivorous, they will
Speaker 1: eat pretty much anything that can be eaten. They are
Speaker 1: also very fecund. They are very fertile, and they have
Speaker 1: a lot of offsprings, so they are fantastic survivors. I mean,
Speaker 1: they it's interesting that we hate them so much because
Speaker 1: they kind of are very huge men like and how
Speaker 1: successful they are, Like they their ability to take advantage
Speaker 1: of resources, to colonize, to to you know, kind of
Speaker 1: like exploit things and mess up the eco system where
Speaker 1: they are. It's very humanized.
Speaker 2: I think it's important to note too that we are
Speaker 2: also pests.
Speaker 1: Yes, well yes, I mean depends on your perspective, but yeah,
Speaker 1: like if if, if we are talking about our impact
Speaker 1: on ecosystems, I think very much we could be considered pests.
Speaker 2: I'm viewing it from the agent smith perspective.
Speaker 1: Yeah that's yeah, that's I'm sure that's healthy. So yeah,
Speaker 1: the most infamous rat species, the ones you probably are
Speaker 1: most familiar with, are the black rat and the brown rat. So,
Speaker 1: despite the names, black and brown rats are not like like.
Speaker 1: It's not really the coloration difference that is the most
Speaker 1: notable difference between the species, because blacks can be different
Speaker 1: shades of black, gray, or brown, and brown rats can
Speaker 1: be gray rather than brown. So the main difference in
Speaker 1: appearance is the size and the body shape. So brown
Speaker 1: rats are bigger and chunkier, their tails are shorter than
Speaker 1: their overall body length, their snouts are boxier, and their
Speaker 1: ears are stubbier, and black rats are more slender. They
Speaker 1: have tails that are longer than their total body length,
Speaker 1: they have more pointed snouts, more sort of slender faces,
Speaker 1: and larger ears. So yeah, that's how you tell the
Speaker 1: difference if you care.
Speaker 2: I feel like Los Angeles is really good at brown
Speaker 2: rats and New York is much better with black rats.
Speaker 1: I think that's that's fairly accurate. Yeah, I mean they
Speaker 1: both of these guys are found pretty much all over
Speaker 1: the world.
Speaker 2: But yes, I Yeah, mine was a I'm pretty sure
Speaker 2: it was a gray brown rat. Yeah. I remember. I
Speaker 2: was in New York in twenty nineteen for Comic Con.
Speaker 2: I I had a panel and I was just kind
Speaker 2: of like exploring the area and I cut off the
Speaker 2: subway and I came up and immediately saw just like
Speaker 2: a black rat running around like a little park area,
Speaker 2: and I was like, ah, yes, metaphors. It's good to see.
Speaker 2: Like it's definitely like beginning of a movie energy where
Speaker 2: you're like, there's a rat. You're in New York.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that's it's interesting, right, because it is
Speaker 1: used as this thing of like, ah, you're in New
Speaker 1: York because here, here's all the rats. And I mean
Speaker 1: the reason that rats are drawn to New York is
Speaker 1: like the same reason that people are drawn to New
Speaker 1: York or major cities, right, It's because there's because there's
Speaker 1: a lot. I mean, they are drawn to where there
Speaker 1: are huge, dense populations of people because they like the
Speaker 1: same things we do. They like warmth, they like structures,
Speaker 1: and they like food, and they like our food and
Speaker 1: there I'm neverous. They'll eat pretty much anything that we
Speaker 1: can eat, so like they love people. We may not
Speaker 1: like them, but they love a us.
Speaker 2: You know What's it's so funny because and I can
Speaker 2: guarantee we're going to get to this. But for those
Speaker 2: of you that are not aware of my previous career,
Speaker 2: I taught medieval history. I taught about the Middle Ages.
Speaker 2: I taught about everything that happened between the Fall of
Speaker 2: Rome and the Renaissance. And so thirteen forty seven showed
Speaker 2: up and we did a whole unit on it. And
Speaker 2: hearing you say that to me is just giving me
Speaker 2: flashbacks of saying that to eighth breakers. So it's like,
Speaker 2: it's very fascinating because I'm like, oh, yeah, they do
Speaker 2: they do do that.
Speaker 1: I'm so excited because I am not much of a historian,
Speaker 1: so I just did some you know, research for this podcast,
Speaker 1: So I'm excited for you to be able to fill
Speaker 1: in the gaps or correct my mistakes.
Speaker 2: Don't dust off my degree. Yeah yeah, in twelve years. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But yeah, like we kind of we kind of have
Speaker 1: this disdain for rats, but the reason they're so populated
Speaker 1: in areas where we live is because we produce waste
Speaker 1: and we build buildings, and they will eat our food
Speaker 1: and they will live in our buildings, and the best
Speaker 1: way to like sort of control the problem with rats
Speaker 1: is to you know, manage our waste, produce less food waste,
Speaker 1: have good building infrastructure, and you know, I think that
Speaker 1: is kind of all we can do in terms of
Speaker 1: you know, because like when we do things like poison
Speaker 1: rats and stuff, it doesn't actually really make that much
Speaker 1: of an impact on their population, and it just causes
Speaker 1: a lot of problems.
Speaker 2: That they're not getting the word out about the poison.
Speaker 1: They kind of are. Actually that's the thing that they're
Speaker 1: so smart is that they will they will test food
Speaker 1: sometimes and wait to see whether it has an effect,
Speaker 1: or they'll watch another rat test food and then wait
Speaker 1: to see if it has an effect on them. And
Speaker 1: then they because they have they learn that things can
Speaker 1: be poisonous, and then they will be careful about new
Speaker 1: food sources. There's actually a pretty insidious way sometimes we
Speaker 1: kill rats, which is with an I think an anticoagulant.
Speaker 1: You give them the anticoagulant and they don't realize it
Speaker 1: because it's the effects take so long to set in
Speaker 1: that they don't realize it's poisoned. So even if they
Speaker 1: do the little testing thing and then they eat it.
Speaker 1: It takes a lot, there's a long delay in terms
Speaker 1: of the effects, but then the effects happen later and
Speaker 1: kills them in a pretty gruesome way.
Speaker 2: And by an you're with an anti coagulant, does that
Speaker 2: mean you're basically just like giving them like any bola.
Speaker 1: Virus sort of like it's it's not a virus. I mean,
Speaker 1: it kind of works like a snake bite works in
Speaker 1: some cases where like some some snake bites can be
Speaker 1: have a pro coagulant, like a more likely to form
Speaker 1: blood cloths or be anti coagulants, and the anti coagulant
Speaker 1: effects can cause like eternal bleeding. Yeah, it's pretty it's
Speaker 1: pretty horrific. So you know, but you know, the there
Speaker 1: are real problems that we face from rats, like in
Speaker 1: terms of spread of disease, and we, like you kind
Speaker 1: of hinted at Jeff, we cannot we cannot get through
Speaker 1: this episode without talking about plague because it's such a
Speaker 1: huge part of human history and when people think of
Speaker 1: rats like they think of plague, and it is true
Speaker 1: that rats can inadvertently spread plague. But we're gonna take.
Speaker 2: Oh sorry, I was gonna say so if I may
Speaker 2: and of course, I I apologize if I'm getting anything
Speaker 2: wrong here, but so essentially like rodents, so like we
Speaker 2: give rats because rats are social. The reality is all
Speaker 2: of the cases of plague that hit in modern times
Speaker 2: are not usually provided rats. Actually, and first and foremost,
Speaker 2: it's important to note that rats are not the ones
Speaker 2: that are delivering the Eucinia pestis bacteria to people. It's
Speaker 2: it's almost always going to be fleas. Yes, the folice
Speaker 2: that are are hanging out on the rats, they're the ones.
Speaker 2: They they have rat blood in there inside of them
Speaker 2: that is contaminated. They jump on us, they bite, they
Speaker 2: then vomit that blood back into our open wounds, a
Speaker 2: little bit of yeah, a little bit, a little bit
Speaker 2: of the Rcinia bestest bacteria. And that's how it happens.
Speaker 2: More most often comes through uh, like in the American Southwest.
Speaker 1: Yeah, prairie dogs actually from prairie dogs, yes, yeah, because
Speaker 1: there's a reservoir in prairie dogs, whereas uh, there is not,
Speaker 1: you know, like the I think are ability to kind
Speaker 1: of like do hygiene and use antibiotics to treat plagu
Speaker 1: when it pops up like it is not it doesn't spread,
Speaker 1: so easily to major cities nowadays, which is very good,
Speaker 1: but this did not always. This was not always the case.
Speaker 1: So we're going to take a quick break actually, but
Speaker 1: then when we get back, we are going to talk
Speaker 1: about plague and the discussion over how much blame do
Speaker 1: rats have for the plague and what even is plague?
Speaker 1: How does it work? And Jeff, I'm this is such kisman.
Speaker 1: I had no idea that this is what you taught,
Speaker 1: but it says if yes, I'm so excited. I don't
Speaker 1: plan this, but maybe it's like the rats are just
Speaker 1: communicating through me to bring this moment about a great
Speaker 1: cosmic rat, you know, using us like puppets. Anyways, the
Speaker 1: point is we'll be right back and when we come back,
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about the plague. Yeah, So Jeff gosh,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm so I'm so excited because, like again, history
Speaker 1: is not like my strong point. But I did, I
Speaker 1: did do a little bit of homework before this episode,
Speaker 1: but I'm hoping you can fill in some of the
Speaker 1: details here or at least correct me if I say
Speaker 1: something egregiously wrong or mispronounced something. So the plague, right,
Speaker 1: it's like not I think when we think about or
Speaker 1: when we think about plague. I think a lot of
Speaker 1: people just think about the Black Death. But that was
Speaker 1: not the only plague. It was a bad one. It
Speaker 1: was a big one, for sure. But there were three
Speaker 1: plague pandemics, and one was relatively recent. There was the
Speaker 1: first plague pandemic from about five forty to seven fifty.
Speaker 1: There was the second plague pandemic from about thirteen thirty
Speaker 1: to eighteen fifty five ish, and then the third plague
Speaker 1: pandemic from about eighteen fifty five ish to nineteen sixty.
Speaker 1: Is that about right?
Speaker 2: I it might be. I take an interesting form of
Speaker 2: umbrage with the fact that we went thirteen roughly thirteen
Speaker 2: thirty to eighteen fifty five. That's a big span. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's a pandemic, but that's again, that's that's mostly that's
Speaker 2: not me correcting you. That's just me being like, in
Speaker 2: my head, I'm.
Speaker 1: Like, I can't be no reason. So there is a
Speaker 1: little bit of uh, you know, I think that that
Speaker 1: is sort of the general span in terms of like
Speaker 1: how they categorize these pandemics. But it's not like there
Speaker 1: were a bunch of pandemics within that, And it's kind
Speaker 1: of like there's some disagreement on how exactly one should
Speaker 1: categorize these time periods, right, like this is it's not
Speaker 1: like it's a little bit. It's kind of like a
Speaker 1: taxonomy with animals, where it's like sometimes it's like, well,
Speaker 1: where is exactly the cutoff with where one starts and
Speaker 1: where the other begins.
Speaker 2: It's important to note that the plague, that is the
Speaker 2: famous plague. It's important because plague in general just means
Speaker 2: an epidemic or however we want to say at a
Speaker 2: pandemic or whatnot, that is sweeps across a massive amount
Speaker 2: of the population. And again, if you're a pedant listening
Speaker 2: to this, jumping into the comments, tell me I'm wrong.
Speaker 2: I'm probably wrong about some stuff. It's been twelve years
Speaker 2: since I've taught this. I have a degree, obviously in history.
Speaker 2: My minor was in biology, and actually the focus on
Speaker 2: that was infectious diseases. So I do bring a little
Speaker 2: bit in here, but I'm not a scientist.
Speaker 1: Plague heads are plague heads are coming for you, Jeff.
Speaker 2: They might so, but I do need to classify that
Speaker 2: because you know, I haven't been a teacher of this
Speaker 2: since twenty twelve. But essentially the one we talk about
Speaker 2: like the main one, because that's the one that everybody discusses,
Speaker 2: right if you're talking like five fifty seven or whatever,
Speaker 2: you know you're talking, you know, that's an earlier one.
Speaker 2: That's not the one that's super famous. Roughly, we look
Speaker 2: at the period and it's generally considered that thirteen forty seven,
Speaker 2: that's like, yeah, that.
Speaker 1: Was like when that's the Black plague, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the Black Death, and the Black Death is
Speaker 2: you know, it really comes down due to the growth
Speaker 2: of towns in trade. So the growth of a market
Speaker 2: economy is what led to this epidemic. When you talk
Speaker 2: about where Europe was in the thirteen hundreds and when
Speaker 2: you were establishing trade routes, and you look at the
Speaker 2: areas that were affected the most, you see that it's
Speaker 2: coming in into these trading towns, these trading centers, and
Speaker 2: then it is being spread because the people that got
Speaker 2: infected by those fleas from those rats in those areas
Speaker 2: are then going to travel. And when all of you,
Speaker 2: all of your hearers and blames are like about God,
Speaker 2: you're kind of screwed. The results of plague created the
Speaker 2: modern world, and that is something that is a very
Speaker 2: ugly benefit, because there are massive benefits that happened as
Speaker 2: a result of the Black Death.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like a silver or sort of blackish bloody
Speaker 1: lining to the plague.
Speaker 2: It's it's probably I would say that Black Death has
Speaker 2: the silverist lining in of all pretty much horrible events
Speaker 2: that have happened. And I know that that sounds really careless,
Speaker 2: because you know, estimates go from anywhere from twelve to
Speaker 2: thirty percent of the population where wiped out. But the
Speaker 2: middle class rip was created. Around this time, the church
Speaker 2: took a massive hit in its influence and power. The
Speaker 2: church no longer became the global dominator that it once was.
Speaker 2: The nobility and feudalism started to crash heavily. Like it Also,
Speaker 2: the Renaissance is birthed of this. The awakening of science
Speaker 2: and technology and medicine is starting to grow. And it
Speaker 2: really all comes from the fact that like the failures
Speaker 2: of the survivors and like the wealth that was accumulated
Speaker 2: and the pulling of the population, which is such a
Speaker 2: dystopian sci fi thing that they do. Yeah, we're like,
Speaker 2: you know, half the time, if you're ever on like
Speaker 2: an episode of hype Cast or something, with Tom Rayman
Speaker 2: and David Bell or whatever, and they're like, hey, there's
Speaker 2: another sci fi movie coming out, and they're like, we
Speaker 2: have to kill eight percent of the population.
Speaker 1: The thing is, like, the thing about like the idea
Speaker 1: of calling is that we don't I mean, like, I
Speaker 1: definitely agree that there were direct results of the of
Speaker 1: the uh, the Black Death and the plague that resulted
Speaker 1: in good societal changes, but we don't have the counterfactual, right, Like,
Speaker 1: if it hadn't happened, we could have also had really
Speaker 1: good societal changes, and we just don't know what would
Speaker 1: have happened.
Speaker 2: Yes, but we can also use historical patterns.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we could guess.
Speaker 2: You can make a pretty strong hypothesis that there are
Speaker 2: certain things that would have been maintained. And the status
Speaker 2: quo at that time was pretty strong. And when you
Speaker 2: look at you know, warfare being what it was, and
Speaker 2: I don't know it's the church would not have been
Speaker 2: would not have lost the power that it did, right,
Speaker 2: and the middle class would not have risen the way
Speaker 2: it did. We can't say for sure, but we can
Speaker 2: say judging from the patterns of societies at that time,
Speaker 2: judging from the fact that you know, Islam had been
Speaker 2: stopped at Spain as opposed to crossing over and then
Speaker 2: spreading all the way across. Like there are certain tent
Speaker 2: pole or if we want to go pop culture canon
Speaker 2: events that had happened up to that point which had
Speaker 2: established patterns in there, Like if Islam had spread, maybe
Speaker 2: science and technology would have moved faster at that time,
Speaker 2: but it didn't. It was yeah, it was you know,
Speaker 2: it was stopped Charles Martel stopped him at tour and
Speaker 2: pushed him back. So at that point in time, then
Speaker 2: you have to be like, all right, well, the plague
Speaker 2: caused certain things to happen. Yeah, and those things led
Speaker 2: to that immediate and it's like it's not that gradual,
Speaker 2: it's a relatively immediate shift. When you talk about wages
Speaker 2: going exponentially higher, a lot of that came from the
Speaker 2: fact that people weren't supplying the labor that they needed,
Speaker 2: so the market equilibrium for that went up. But also
Speaker 2: past that, like there was a lot of superstition that
Speaker 2: was leading people to not work with like the irony
Speaker 2: being that, like the people that worked with dead bodies
Speaker 2: were the safest people, and they also were like the
Speaker 2: most well paid.
Speaker 1: Why were they the safest, did they like practice better
Speaker 1: hygiene or was it that like by the time someone
Speaker 1: was dead, the fleas were gone.
Speaker 2: Thing, Go, Yeah, it's exactly that. So like fleas don't
Speaker 2: they don't hang out on a dead body. They don't
Speaker 2: like a cold body, so they would leave.
Speaker 1: Yeah, then I correct me if I'm wrong. But I
Speaker 1: think there were other jobs that people saw as potentially
Speaker 1: really dirty but that actually didn't actually resulted in lower
Speaker 1: death rates, like people who would clean like sort of
Speaker 1: the sewage systems, which were sometimes just like canals through
Speaker 1: the streets, and people would wash more regularly when they
Speaker 1: did that because it was stinky and the plague didn't.
Speaker 1: Like there was this idea that foul odors might cause illness.
Speaker 1: And while there's something really kind of interesting about that
Speaker 1: right where it's like there's a bit of a there's
Speaker 1: a bit of an yeah, exactly a correlation in this case,
Speaker 1: like plague was not spread through feces, uh, And so
Speaker 1: people who worked directly with feces, well not always some
Speaker 1: like there's certain types of plague. We'll get into that
Speaker 1: a bit, where there is a type of plague that
Speaker 1: could potentially be spread from the bodily fluids of people.
Speaker 1: But the main spread was through fleas, and so people
Speaker 1: who would work, who would work with like you know,
Speaker 1: the sewage, they would be washed a lot because it
Speaker 1: was gross, and so that washing actually may have had
Speaker 1: a protective effect where they didn't get as many fleas.
Speaker 2: It's a lot like how religions that forbade pork, you
Speaker 2: had a significant drop in trichinosis.
Speaker 1: Yeah, just by chance essentially.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's just like, oh, okay, well.
Speaker 1: Either by chance or that either by chance or people
Speaker 1: made a correlation, but they didn't know why this happened.
Speaker 1: And then it became sort of religious doctrine because it
Speaker 1: like there were certain recipes for medications and stuff where
Speaker 1: you would say a prayer as you were doing it,
Speaker 1: and that actually provided the timing for like a chemical
Speaker 1: reaction and it had obviously nothing to do with the
Speaker 1: prayer incantation, but that kept time because people didn't have
Speaker 1: stop watches.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's wild like the stuff that happened, Like there
Speaker 2: were like touring groups of flagelens that would like they
Speaker 2: would just go to different towns whipping themselves and being
Speaker 2: but they were also like generally like scummy people that
Speaker 2: would go by and would self flagellate in order to
Speaker 2: like absorb the sins of the community, you know, like
Speaker 2: because the thing about it was is like the church
Speaker 2: was the center of everything at the time, and the
Speaker 2: church fell apart during the Black Death, and the papacy
Speaker 2: had already sort of revealed itself to be self serving
Speaker 2: as they had relocated to Avignon in France at the time,
Speaker 2: so during the.
Speaker 1: Plague, always taking a charter plane off to Avignon. As
Speaker 1: soon as stuff hits the flat, stuff hits the fan.
Speaker 2: Well, so like there was the great Schism of where
Speaker 2: they moved the papacy from Rome to Avignon, which caused
Speaker 2: Rome to like fall apart anyway, and then you know
Speaker 2: it was really just a king buying a pope and
Speaker 2: having him live in his area. So it's one of
Speaker 2: those things where like the papacy people were already like
Speaker 2: this doesn't seem it doesn't seem very godly that you
Speaker 2: guys just decides that you can move it. And then
Speaker 2: when this shit's going down and the churches are closing,
Speaker 2: they're refusing to give last rites while these rock star
Speaker 2: flageleans are walking around and like they're like we'll do it,
Speaker 2: and they became you know, you hate to say it,
Speaker 2: but like they're like the Tea Party of very populous
Speaker 2: that era, where like they're they're being populist, They're they
Speaker 2: they're the ones that are diagnosing and recognizing problems. They
Speaker 2: don't have an actual cure for it, but by recognizing it,
Speaker 2: people felt seen. That's that's kind of one of the
Speaker 2: ways that Trump got elected if you really think about it,
Speaker 2: of he sees a problem and diagnosed it the way
Speaker 2: Hillary didn't. He didn't have a plan forul no, but
Speaker 2: just by seeing people people were like, oh, okay.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I mean it's a good point. I mean
Speaker 1: I think that like, I mean, obviously there are a
Speaker 1: lot of uh there, there are a lot of scapegoats.
Speaker 1: During the plague times, there's a ton a ton of
Speaker 1: anti semitism because you know, whenever, whenever there's a social problem,
Speaker 1: it's just like, well, let's slap some anti semitism and
Speaker 1: see how that works.
Speaker 2: Ah poison Well term yeah was really popularized because of
Speaker 2: the plague and the plug ROMs that would happen because
Speaker 2: of the plague.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And but really what the plague was caused by
Speaker 1: was Ersinia pestis, which you mentioned earlier, like in every
Speaker 1: case in like regardless of your your feelings about like
Speaker 1: the years that you categorize these plagues, the first plague pandemic,
Speaker 1: second plague pandemic, and the third plane plague pandemic, the
Speaker 1: most recent one, all caused by this Orcinia pestis bacteria.
Speaker 1: There are different forms or there are different types of
Speaker 1: infection that this can cause. It can be pneumonic, which
Speaker 1: is long infection, septusmic.
Speaker 2: That's the coughing and sneezing one that's the mnemonic is
Speaker 2: the one that spreads like wildfire.
Speaker 1: Yes, because that one doesn't spread just through fleas. That
Speaker 1: can also spread through body fluids and even droplets.
Speaker 2: Of yes, because I think the words that they used.
Speaker 1: There's also septasmic, which is blood infection, and bubonic, which
Speaker 1: is I think the most well known one. And the
Speaker 1: bubonic is infection of the lymph nodes, and those lymph
Speaker 1: nodes when they swell, they form the bubos, the like
Speaker 1: gross gnarly grape like bubbles on your skin, which is
Speaker 1: really these like super inflamed lymph nodes.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So so bubonic plague is the one that we
Speaker 2: equate for the most part with and the two major
Speaker 2: ones were numonic and bubonic at the time. Yeah, those
Speaker 2: were the ones that people would see obviously knemonic can
Speaker 2: see somebody coughing near you. That is going to give
Speaker 2: us a much more recent example of a pandemic that
Speaker 2: you have to be you know, it's one of those
Speaker 2: things where like you can see now, and like why
Speaker 2: I was really on edge because I also when I
Speaker 2: was a teacher, I got swine flu. I got swine
Speaker 2: flu from the kids I taught about plague. And so
Speaker 2: when the pandemic had hit in twenty twenty, I was like,
Speaker 2: and everyone's like, masks don't work. I was like, let
Speaker 2: me explain to you how these like. I was like, look,
Speaker 2: I'm not an expert, but I do. I am an
Speaker 2: expert in the specific thing. So, but bubonic plague it
Speaker 2: became the one that like was the visible, like oh
Speaker 2: scenario and people the one thing people don't forget, like
Speaker 2: it was isn't the death sentence that we think it
Speaker 2: was at the time. People did survive it. There are
Speaker 2: instances where there was like one town that like clearly
Speaker 2: had immunity to it. Yeah, where they had gone through
Speaker 2: and like there's also been fascinating studies about survivors of
Speaker 2: plague having their descendants having an immunity to the HIV virus,
Speaker 2: which is a weird phenomenon. That I'm not smart enough
Speaker 2: to kind.
Speaker 1: Of ampogenetic change maybe.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, like literally changing DNA to do that, and
Speaker 2: that that's wild to me. But and again, I cannot
Speaker 2: stress enough that even though I feel like I'm sounding smart,
Speaker 2: I'm a very dumb mate. So don't ask me.
Speaker 1: We're just we're all we're all dumb dumbs struggling in
Speaker 1: this big world.
Speaker 2: So like when you talk about your lymph nodes, the
Speaker 2: ones that we most often think are right sort of
Speaker 2: right the sides of your throats, right under the back
Speaker 2: of your jaw, Yeah, the armpits and uh, unfortunately you're grond, you're.
Speaker 1: Grind sort of in the you know where, like where
Speaker 1: the Barbie Doll hinges are. It's the v But yeah,
Speaker 1: we actually have we have many more lymph nodes than
Speaker 1: that we have. Yeah, we have like a pair at
Speaker 1: the back of our neck. We have a pair, like
Speaker 1: there's both a pair like under your chin and then
Speaker 1: at the base of your neck. Like you said, armpits.
Speaker 1: We also have lymph nodes in the legs.
Speaker 2: But yeah, they're clustered, they're most there, Their most visible
Speaker 2: clusters are on those folds, I guess.
Speaker 1: Right, And you'll feel them like if you have if
Speaker 1: you ever had an infection. Sometimes you'll feel them and
Speaker 1: they actually swell up a bit because they get inflamed
Speaker 1: because they are kind of like the uh, waste management
Speaker 1: centers of the body, where like they will help with
Speaker 1: the flow of inflammatory cells. Uh. And then like when
Speaker 1: when sort of like inflammation goes down, a lot of
Speaker 1: that material is carried into the lymph nodes. Uh. And
Speaker 1: so like it is kind of like they are very
Speaker 1: reactive when you have an infection. But that's generally a
Speaker 1: good thing, right because like you do want it's a
Speaker 1: sign that your immune system is working.
Speaker 2: Yeah. The unfortunate thing is that you're the human The
Speaker 2: average human body cannot handle the speed at which your
Speaker 2: siniopestics bacteria replicates. And so therefore it's basically and I'm
Speaker 2: I'm trying to find a way to use this without
Speaker 2: using another disease, but it's essentially giving your lymph nodes
Speaker 2: a cancerous form of replication almost and I know that
Speaker 2: that's not technically correct, but it's.
Speaker 1: The exponential, right, It's the exponential growth of the bacteria.
Speaker 1: It's like, there are so we can especially today, we
Speaker 1: treat a lot of things with antibiotics, a lot of
Speaker 1: bacterial infections with antibiotics, and so a lot of times
Speaker 1: like bacterial infections are not such a big deal because
Speaker 1: it's like, all right, we take an antibiotic and that
Speaker 1: clears it up. There are some bacterial infections where it's
Speaker 1: like the rate of replication of the bacteria are so
Speaker 1: fast even our modern antibiotics can struggle to take care
Speaker 1: of the infection. So things like necrotizing fasciitis is a
Speaker 1: type of bacterial infection usually from like flesh wounds, where
Speaker 1: it's just the rate of the bacterial growth is so
Speaker 1: fast that it can be hard to treat it with antibiotics.
Speaker 2: I mean, do you know what isn't one of those though, Yeah,
Speaker 2: lague is a routine cycle of antibiotics will eliminate nowadays.
Speaker 1: It is. It is something that is highly treatable. You
Speaker 1: just do have to get it treated because if you don't,
Speaker 1: it'll have the same effect as someone living, you know,
Speaker 1: in the dark ages it's.
Speaker 2: It's certainly one of those things. I see this happen
Speaker 2: a lot on social media where somebody will share a
Speaker 2: story about how somebody got plague Phoenix man gets plague.
Speaker 1: And people panic.
Speaker 2: And they go, oh, like we need this again.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it happens. It happens every year. A few
Speaker 1: people get plague in the US, about.
Speaker 2: Twelve people a year. Yeah, get plague in the US.
Speaker 2: It is the it's it's funny because of how dominant
Speaker 2: it was back in the Y. It's like Michael Jordan
Speaker 2: playing for the Wizards. You're like, man, you were dominant
Speaker 2: at one point in time. I'm just not impressed.
Speaker 1: Yeah. There's a few. Yeah, there's a few reasons that
Speaker 1: plague is no longer a huge concern. One is like antibiotics,
Speaker 1: that the power of antibiotics is really incredible. Also hygiene,
Speaker 1: the fact that we human beings are no longer covered
Speaker 1: in fleas and body lice pretty much at all times
Speaker 1: we used to be. And so the combination of like
Speaker 1: hygiene and antibiotics, like changes in our hygiene practices and
Speaker 1: in our anti like people did not people would not
Speaker 1: regularly bathe a lot like they would do some washing
Speaker 1: like it's not true that they just like would never
Speaker 1: wash themselves right there. There would be some forms of washing,
Speaker 1: of course, like people people were not so fundamentally different
Speaker 1: in you know, the olden times like in the Middle
Speaker 1: Ages or medieval period that they also did not want
Speaker 1: to reek and be stinky and gross. But it's not
Speaker 1: like they had showers, and like heating up enough bath water,
Speaker 1: getting enough bath water to take a bath was really hard.
Speaker 1: So people would do things like wipe themselves down essentially
Speaker 1: right like they do like little bird baths, like to
Speaker 1: kind of like wipe themselves down to clean themselves. But
Speaker 1: having like it's not like everyone had soap. That was
Speaker 1: not like, you know, something that everyone could afford to have. Uh,
Speaker 1: certainly people didn't just all have indoor plumbing. That was
Speaker 1: you know, the mass availability of plumbing of like water.
Speaker 2: Explaining chamber pots to eighth graders was real fun and
Speaker 2: something something to wit to which we had mentioned earlier,
Speaker 2: and I forgot to mention that like obviously like feces
Speaker 2: doesn't carry plague, rats don't hate feces, that's true, and
Speaker 2: and so they would Uh that's actually one of the
Speaker 2: problems would with sort of the rats, and how it
Speaker 2: was spread is that the as you had said, essentially
Speaker 2: you'd have ditches, like sewage was ditches in the streets
Speaker 2: that people would empty their pots into and the rats
Speaker 2: fucking loved that. They that is like that is like
Speaker 2: a rat yeah and so h and so in that
Speaker 2: regard too, like that's that is how a lot of
Speaker 2: people would you know, literally that the process of showing
Speaker 2: away a rat could get Yeah, the thing that would
Speaker 2: have given And actually.
Speaker 1: Like even if it was like, well we can kill
Speaker 1: rats and that should help with the plague, right, Well,
Speaker 1: when a rat dies, where do the fleas go?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, they're not going to stick around, so they're
Speaker 2: going to move.
Speaker 1: So like, in fact, a lot of plagues were preceded
Speaker 1: by something called rat fall, where it was like a
Speaker 1: bunch of rats dying and then you started seeing plague
Speaker 1: and people because the rats would get the plague first
Speaker 1: and they'd start dying. And then when the rats die,
Speaker 1: the fleas jump to somewhere else, which was often humans
Speaker 1: because they lived near humans, and so you would get
Speaker 1: this kind of like very notable rat die off before
Speaker 1: a plague outbreak. But something that is really interesting is
Speaker 1: like the commonly understood knowledge is that rats were the
Speaker 1: main drivers of plague and we're the drivers of the
Speaker 1: Black Death. But there is a more recent sort of
Speaker 1: method of research that is examining this and it's not
Speaker 1: it's not questioning whether rats transmit the plague. That's absolutely
Speaker 1: know that we know that rats carry plague and can
Speaker 1: transmit it to humans and can definitely either spark a
Speaker 1: plague or contribute to a plague. But the question is
Speaker 1: we're rats the main culprits behind the Black Death plague.
Speaker 2: That's interesting. I'm interested to see where this is going.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So this is covered by a National Geographic article
Speaker 1: by Michael Greshko which highlights a paper in PNAS called
Speaker 1: Human Ectoparasites in the Spread of Plague in Europe during
Speaker 1: the Second Pandemic by Dean Krawer, Wallow, and Schmid. So,
Speaker 1: these researchers used these models to kind of plot out
Speaker 1: essentially expected human versus rat caused propagation of plague. So
Speaker 1: like if you they looked at like, okay, if you
Speaker 1: if it was primarily rap to human propagation of plague
Speaker 1: or human to human propagation of plague, what would it
Speaker 1: look like in this model? That they created and then
Speaker 1: compared that to historical records of mortality patterns during the
Speaker 1: Second Plague pandemic during like different kind of plague outbreaks,
Speaker 1: different cities, and they found that not in all, but
Speaker 1: in most cases that they examined, the human spread model,
Speaker 1: like primarily it being from human to human was a
Speaker 1: better fit for historical mortality records than rat to human driven.
Speaker 2: That's interesting. I obviously, you know, I'm not an expert
Speaker 2: and I'm not s studying that. I think that that
Speaker 2: also does kind of feel like it has a slightly
Speaker 2: semantic point to it, which is like, well, once it
Speaker 2: got into the humans, they spread it faster. It's like, well, yeah,
Speaker 2: we hang out with humans more than we hang out
Speaker 2: with rats. But the fact that the usiniapesist bacteria lays
Speaker 2: essentially dormant in a rat's body, it doesn't particularly kill
Speaker 2: them the way it kills us, obviously like they're going
Speaker 2: to have a more a greater efficacy in doing that,
Speaker 2: as opposed to the humans who are like, oh yeah,
Speaker 2: these swellings in here. People are like I'm out, I'm gone.
Speaker 1: No, I mean, it's an it's an unexpected thing, right,
Speaker 1: But like the idea is not necessarily that I think
Speaker 1: it's like, it's not it's not necessarily semantic, because it
Speaker 1: is the idea of like what because if it's kind
Speaker 1: of tracking like the patterns of the Black Death and
Speaker 1: the plague in terms of like, was it like these
Speaker 1: human sort of social and travel patterns driving plague or
Speaker 1: was it that you know, you had, say, like a
Speaker 1: rat population in this area that was the one that
Speaker 1: like triggered the plague or drove the plague. And in
Speaker 1: terms of like, I think that the the interesting aspect
Speaker 1: of this is like, obviously it's not like disproving that
Speaker 1: rats can cause or exacerbate plague in areas. It is
Speaker 1: kind of figuring out what exactly, like what drove specific
Speaker 1: plague outright, Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: Exactly, Yeah, absolutely, trade and and so that that's that's
Speaker 2: a point. That's a part of it is that you know, yes,
Speaker 2: humans did that, but also it's important to note how
Speaker 2: many rats like to hang out on trade chips.
Speaker 1: No, I mean that's a that's a really complicating factor.
Speaker 1: I mean, well, rats and trade routes, like trade routes
Speaker 1: determined the where rats ended up because rats are not
Speaker 1: it's not like rats suddenly popped up on every continent
Speaker 1: in the world. Rats probably originated I mean I think
Speaker 1: they may have originated in Southeast Asia or China, and
Speaker 1: then they eventually got into all corners of the route
Speaker 1: of the world through human trade. So like so if
Speaker 1: you're looking at trade routes, right, it's it's gonna be
Speaker 1: hard to tease a part whether the humans on the
Speaker 1: boat were spreading plague or whether the rats on the
Speaker 1: boat were spreading plague, because there was not a boat
Speaker 1: that didn't have rats on it at this time.
Speaker 2: And it's it's important to see too because obviously, like
Speaker 2: when when I would teach about trade and you would
Speaker 2: talk about like, look, it's the answer for all trade
Speaker 2: is water. Like water is is your trade inlet so
Speaker 2: like your highways. And if I may kind of branch
Speaker 2: off for a split second, I would I would actually
Speaker 2: compare because this was you know, you know, twenty twelve,
Speaker 2: and before I would, I would compare towns and cities
Speaker 2: to malls. And you would say, like if you pick
Speaker 2: a mall, like imagine a mall in your head, and
Speaker 2: anybody who is listening picture your local mall if it's
Speaker 2: still open, and you will know that it is among
Speaker 2: two major trade routes, and by say trade routes, I
Speaker 2: mean highways. So like malls are almost always wedged between
Speaker 2: two major highways, Los Angeles has a slightly different scenario
Speaker 2: on that because it's a more of a whatever.
Speaker 1: Endless web of tangled intersections.
Speaker 2: But for most people, like if you live in you know, Massachusetts,
Speaker 2: and you're like, oh, the Auburn Mall, because that was ours,
Speaker 2: the Auburn Mall, and I'd be like, look, there's the
Speaker 2: mass Pike, there's two ninety, there's three ninety five, there's
Speaker 2: rough twenty right in the middle of those intersections as
Speaker 2: a mall, and you would do that with every major
Speaker 2: mall in an area. Yeah, and you'd be like, here's
Speaker 2: where the two highways intersect. There's them all, and the
Speaker 2: bigger the highway, the more successful to them all that
Speaker 2: so that same thing. Waterways were the highways of history obviously,
Speaker 2: and so the more waterways you had, if you look
Speaker 2: at it, you're going to say, obviously, the more trade.
Speaker 2: But that's also going to show you the more plague.
Speaker 1: Deaths, right, and the more and the more rats.
Speaker 2: Which is yeah, which is why Italy got hit so
Speaker 2: brutally is because they were the trade center of Europe. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and so you know when you talk about you know,
Speaker 2: the Lombard Leagues and all the stuff that went through
Speaker 2: there and all the trade battles and wars that were
Speaker 2: going on.
Speaker 1: And also Italy used to be a bunch of different
Speaker 1: countries ruled by like incredibly wealthy families.
Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, everyone thinks Italy is super old, and
Speaker 2: it's like that's like eighteen eighty or something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, definitely stuff is super old here because
Speaker 1: like there's the buildings still exist. But yeah, Italy is
Speaker 1: a unified countries relatively recent from the eighteen hundreds.
Speaker 2: Italy and Germany are incredibly young countries, yes, just they
Speaker 2: happen to be existing on incredibly ancient Yeah.
Speaker 1: Younger than the US.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, by like by a century, yes, but so
Speaker 2: like but when you see like Italy got decimated and
Speaker 2: then you look at like all the different trade porting
Speaker 2: cities in all these different areas and they got absolutely destroyed.
Speaker 2: It's actually one of the reasons that the like the
Speaker 2: web the crust of the of Britain got absolutely decimated
Speaker 2: because of of all the trade. Like islands got hit
Speaker 2: real bad because you know, there's no there's no escape really.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And so I think like when you're looking at
Speaker 1: like whether it fall, it's it absolutely follows trade routes.
Speaker 1: But then that doesn't really inform us too much about
Speaker 1: whether it was humans or rats. Right, Like you could
Speaker 1: say like, well, humans caused it because we're the ones
Speaker 1: on the boats, But when we're talking in terms of
Speaker 1: sort of an epidemiological perspective, it's like, well, y is
Speaker 1: it from rat to human or human to human? And
Speaker 1: so what this these researchers are contending is that while
Speaker 1: it doesn't account for all of the outbreaks, like a
Speaker 1: lot of outbreaks at this time may have been mainly
Speaker 1: like driven from human, like direct human to human transmission
Speaker 1: rather than rat to human. Even if the rat to
Speaker 1: human initiated it, there may have been greater amounts of
Speaker 1: like human to human transmission once the ball got rolling.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's I think it's it's the rats are the
Speaker 2: match and the forest fire happened, Yeah, exactly off the match.
Speaker 1: So one one last thing I want to talk about
Speaker 1: with in terms of rats is there's this really interesting thing,
Speaker 1: which is that because rats are so closely tied to
Speaker 1: humans in terms of they I mean, they love us,
Speaker 1: they love our buildings, they love our food, and anywhere
Speaker 1: humans go pretty much rats will follow. They can actually
Speaker 1: give us clues in terms of human history, archaeological clues
Speaker 1: when we can't say use like direct evidence from humans,
Speaker 1: we can actually examine rats, you know, rat bones in
Speaker 1: order to understand what humans were doing at the time,
Speaker 1: because the rats would be essentially hanging around the humans.
Speaker 1: So there's a study by Swift at All that looked
Speaker 1: at rat bones found on Polynesian islands, and analysis of
Speaker 1: these bones allowed researchers to actually infer the diet of
Speaker 1: humans from two thousand years ago, because the rats were
Speaker 1: understood to have probably eaten a lot of our scraps.
Speaker 1: And so if you find these rat bones that have
Speaker 1: sort of interesting sort of composition in an area of
Speaker 1: the island, you can actually kind of infer like what
Speaker 1: kind of agriculture were we doing? Were people eating a
Speaker 1: lot of fish or were they eating a lot of
Speaker 1: sort of you know, fruits and vegetables and stuff and so.
Speaker 1: And the reason you would use rat bones not human
Speaker 1: bones is just because of the abundance of rat bones.
Speaker 1: Rats are super abundant and they can provide a huge
Speaker 1: amount of archaeological samples over vast periods of time, so.
Speaker 2: Many bones, so many bones. We love a rat bone. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and again like it's one of those things where we
Speaker 2: came in here, and like, obviously there's a lot of
Speaker 2: negativity about rats. I get it, Like I understand. I
Speaker 2: don't feel comfortable when I see a rat. No, I
Speaker 2: feel like if we're over someone like there are there
Speaker 2: are also like and this is weird, not to be
Speaker 2: not to insult any listeners, but like rat ownership is
Speaker 2: like right on a par with snake ownership with me,
Speaker 2: where like when I know somebody that has one of
Speaker 2: those animals, I'm like, I don't think we need to
Speaker 2: hang out, maybe a little judgmental.
Speaker 1: I like them. I don't have a rat or a snake,
Speaker 1: but if someone owns a rat or a snake, I
Speaker 1: want to pet the rat. Well, I don't want to
Speaker 1: pet the snake. I want the snake to just I
Speaker 1: want to chill with the snake because I don't think
Speaker 1: the snake likes to be pet but I'm into it.
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't like to me. The the problem
Speaker 1: with owning a rat to me is I feel like
Speaker 1: I would make an emotional connection to this rat. And
Speaker 1: the rats live span is pretty short. It's like two
Speaker 1: to four years, and that just feels because like apparently
Speaker 1: rats get really like attached to you and like they
Speaker 1: will snuggle up to you and come when you call
Speaker 1: their name and stuff, and that's like like okay, So
Speaker 1: essentially this is a small trash dog and so if
Speaker 1: it's got such a short live span, I feel like
Speaker 1: it would destroy me.
Speaker 2: Every two years, you'd have to make across to that
Speaker 2: rainbow bridge.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, no, it's that's too much. That's too much
Speaker 1: for me. But look, I I I understand the appeal
Speaker 1: of them as pets because they are I mean, you.
Speaker 2: Can tickle the guys.
Speaker 1: You can tickle, you can tickle them, and then they
Speaker 1: I mean, we can't necessarily hear uh these squeaks because
Speaker 1: they're so high pitched. But you can tickle them and
Speaker 1: then they make really high pitched squeaks because they're essentially
Speaker 1: giggling and that's adorable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then you know, they wipe out a massive population. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Also and also like take little dumps by my laundry. Well,
Speaker 2: and I don't like that. Well, I don't like that
Speaker 2: I have to I have to. I had to take
Speaker 2: a little dustbuster and suck up some turds that were
Speaker 2: next to my.
Speaker 1: Uh who among us hasn't done taken a dump near
Speaker 1: Jeff's laundry?
Speaker 2: Though, well it is fair. I do have a rotating
Speaker 2: scenario where that does happen.
Speaker 1: Uh. Anyways, Jeff, before we go, we got to play
Speaker 1: a little game called Guess Who's squaw and the Mystery
Speaker 1: Animal Sound Game. Every week I select a sound for you,
Speaker 1: and you the listener, and you the guests, try to
Speaker 1: guess who is making this sound. It can be any
Speaker 1: animal in the world. The hint for this one is
Speaker 1: this is a very common sound, so the trick is
Speaker 1: more about the timing. All right, you.
Speaker 2: Got any guesses, I'm gonna guess it's We used to
Speaker 2: call them peepers, the little frogs, A little frog.
Speaker 1: That is a very good guess. This is actually a cricket,
Speaker 1: but it has been slowed down significantly. So this is
Speaker 1: the sound that a cricket chirp makes. And we're not
Speaker 1: just slowing it down to trick you, although that's definitely
Speaker 1: part of it, and I love tricking people. But part
Speaker 1: of it is this concept that something like a cricket
Speaker 1: may experience the world in a different way that we
Speaker 1: do in terms of like the sort of the idea
Speaker 1: is that there is a rate at which their brains
Speaker 1: can process information that is a lot slower, and so
Speaker 1: when they would experience the world things would actually kind
Speaker 1: of be slowed down in a crickety way. It's hard
Speaker 1: to know what it would be like to be a
Speaker 1: cricket because they're just so incredibly different. It's not like
Speaker 1: avataring a human consciousness inside a cricket body.
Speaker 2: No, you'd have to like rub your legs together.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well essentially, yes, So crickets use stridulation to produce
Speaker 1: their chip chirping sound, which is rubbing these textured parts together,
Speaker 1: like their legs, and male crickets chirp to attract females
Speaker 1: as well as worn males away from their territory. Weirdly,
Speaker 1: sometimes they also will chirp after mating as a way
Speaker 1: to encourage the female to kind of like stick around
Speaker 1: and lay our eggs rather than just go off and
Speaker 1: mate with another male immediately. So very romantic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I I always like, uh so not to make
Speaker 2: this episode about things that have been in my house,
Speaker 2: but like you know, whenever a cricket gets in the house.
Speaker 2: Cricket gets in the house and it starts chirping, and
Speaker 2: you're like, you're not gonna get laid in here, man, Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's not gonna work. What are you doing. Let's get
Speaker 2: out of here.
Speaker 1: This isn't This isn't speed dating for crickets. It's the
Speaker 1: laundry room with a pile of rath turns in it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just two humans in a rat. You're not
Speaker 2: going to get anything out of this, right.
Speaker 1: That would be a great name for like a singles bar, though,
Speaker 1: two humans in a rat, Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean that's that. Seems like every third person would
Speaker 2: get side eyed pretty hard in there.
Speaker 1: Yeah. But you know, if we could have like a
Speaker 1: ratituey for dating, right, like a Ratituey wingman, I guess
Speaker 1: that was in the movie.
Speaker 2: That would make my life so much easier. Oh my god.
Speaker 2: If I could have a ratitudey for dating, I think
Speaker 2: I think a lot of men have tried that, and
Speaker 2: those are called the rats are called pickup artists.
Speaker 1: Right exactly, We've already got I'm not going to.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to insult rats, no compe them to
Speaker 2: mystery like but I think.
Speaker 1: If you put a rat on your head, just a
Speaker 1: normal rat, not even a Pixar ratituy rat, just a
Speaker 1: normal rat, you would still be more attractive to women
Speaker 1: than if you listen to a pickup.
Speaker 2: Artist and that's your peacocking putting the rat on you,
Speaker 2: I'll be like, what's that rat on.
Speaker 1: Your You will be I can guarantee you. I can
Speaker 1: guarantee you this. You will be noticed if you put
Speaker 1: a rat on your head. So here is another sound
Speaker 1: for you to give. This is the hint for this
Speaker 1: one is uh. It gets its name from the sound
Speaker 1: it makes, not for sitting at the cool kids table
Speaker 1: in high school? All right, Jeff, you got any guesses?
Speaker 2: Was the sound I was listening for that little like knocking?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 2: Oh cracle, yeah circle?
Speaker 1: You got it?
Speaker 2: Did I guess that? I mean? Now? That was that
Speaker 2: that I couldn't even figure out, Like I was so
Speaker 2: focused on the uh, the hint that I was like,
Speaker 2: not from the cool kids table? Got nothing?
Speaker 1: All right? Is it c ercle or cucku Burrough? Well
Speaker 1: we'll find out next time on Creature feature. Jeff, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for joining Where can people find you?
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me? Well I am at hey there,
Speaker 2: Jeff row h y t h e r e j
Speaker 2: E f f r O on all social media, including
Speaker 2: my YouTube. My YouTube. Every Wednesday I opened up packs
Speaker 2: of trading cards on camera and Katie it is the most.
Speaker 1: Fun thing that it sounds very fun.
Speaker 2: It's so fun and people really like it, so I'm
Speaker 2: gonna keep doing it. But you can check that out.
Speaker 2: I do some would say too many podcasts, but not me.
Speaker 2: I have shows like Jeff Has Cool Friends, which you
Speaker 2: had mentioned earlier. I do a great show called Nerd
Speaker 2: with Drey Alvarez and U Fine with Kim Crawl. Those
Speaker 2: are all available at pictureon dot com slash Jeff may
Speaker 2: for early access to on some episodes with bonus content,
Speaker 2: or you can get them for free Otherwise. I do
Speaker 2: Tom and Jeff watch Fatman with Tom Raeman of Gamefully Unemployed,
Speaker 2: and I do a lot of shows with Adam Todd
Speaker 2: Brown on that you don't even like podcast Networks, which
Speaker 2: is you don't even like this show, you don't even
Speaker 2: like sports, and you don't even like sports live every
Speaker 2: Wednesday at four o'clock on his YouTube. I also do
Speaker 2: a live stand up show called Mint on Card the
Speaker 2: second Friday of every month at Blast from the Past
Speaker 2: on Magnolia and Burbank, California. It is a comedy show
Speaker 2: and a toy store for free. It's my favorite. I
Speaker 2: have a lot of really fun things that I do,
Speaker 2: and I love my little life that I get to do,
Speaker 2: and I get to work with lovely people like Katie Golden,
Speaker 2: brilliant and charming and making great, great shows. So I
Speaker 2: love that I get to do that.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you for that. That's very kind. And yeah,
Speaker 1: podcasts are kind of like rats, like once you've got one,
Speaker 1: probably got a whole bunch of other ones too.
Speaker 2: I'm invested with podcasts.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you guys so much for listening. And if
Speaker 1: you're enjoying the show and you leave a radio or review,
Speaker 1: that's greatly appreciated. I read every single one of them.
Speaker 1: And thanks to the Space Classics for their super awesome
Speaker 1: song ex So Lumina. Creature features a production of iHeartRadio
Speaker 1: for more podcasts like the one she us Hurd Is
Speaker 1: it a hurryo app Apple podcast? Or Hi guess what
Speaker 1: wherever you listening to your favorite shows. I'm not your
Speaker 1: mom can't tell you what you do. You got to
Speaker 1: live your own life, make your own decisions, your own mistakes.
Speaker 1: Can't let a ratituy do everything for you. You know,
Speaker 1: at a certain point you got to pick yourself up
Speaker 1: by your own pants and make your own decisions.
Speaker 2: Learn, learn to cook those reviews. I this is actually
Speaker 2: something that I will say, and this is something that
Speaker 2: I think our mutual friend Logan Trent had started doing
Speaker 2: when he'd got when he guests on podcasts. Folks, please
Speaker 2: go rate and review this podcast, leave a comment. All
Speaker 2: of those free things. These things are free for you
Speaker 2: to do, to leave a review, to give a rate, comments,
Speaker 2: to subscribe to notifications, bell thing the free stuck helps
Speaker 2: get these people paid better.
Speaker 1: It puts food on my family and for my mini
Speaker 1: rats that I your many rat like.
Speaker 2: It's such a free thing you could do, Like, just
Speaker 2: do that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I have hundreds, I have literally hundreds of mouths
Speaker 1: to feed all the rats that I am.
Speaker 2: So many rats and horny crickets.
Speaker 1: Horny crickets rats. My apartment is so full of life
Speaker 1: and fun and laughs, live, laugh, love, feed all the
Speaker 1: rats in my apartments live, laugh, louse perfect. See you
Speaker 1: next Wednesday.