WEBVTT - Listener Mail: The Day Begins 0:00:02.960 --> 0:00:05.280 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of 0:00:05.320 --> 0:00:10.960 My Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to Stuff to Blow 0:00:11.000 --> 0:00:14.080 your Mind. Listener mail, My name is Joe McCormick. My 0:00:14.160 --> 0:00:16.960 regular co host Robert Lamb is not with me today. 0:00:17.000 --> 0:00:19.599 I'm recording this one solo, but Rob is going to 0:00:19.640 --> 0:00:23.239 be back on Mike with us tomorrow. Today is Monday, 0:00:23.360 --> 0:00:25.119 the day of the week we typically read back some 0:00:25.200 --> 0:00:28.120 messages that you all of you out there, have launched 0:00:28.120 --> 0:00:31.080 into the mail harvester. And by the way, if you've 0:00:31.160 --> 0:00:33.400 never written into the show before and you'd like to 0:00:33.400 --> 0:00:37.320 get in touch to give feedback, corrections, commentary on a 0:00:37.360 --> 0:00:40.000 previous topic, or if you just want to share something 0:00:40.040 --> 0:00:42.800 interesting or say friendly hello, you can always reach us 0:00:42.840 --> 0:00:47.360 at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. 0:00:47.680 --> 0:00:49.839 By the way, Happy New Year everyone. If you are 0:00:49.920 --> 0:00:53.080 listening from an unsustainably crowded GYM or y m C, 0:00:53.280 --> 0:00:56.400 A good luck with that. Uh, today's mail bag might 0:00:56.400 --> 0:01:00.120 be a little bit weird due to holiday outages. Is 0:01:00.160 --> 0:01:03.160 I think all of these messages came in several weeks 0:01:03.160 --> 0:01:05.360 ago now, but we will do our best to get 0:01:05.360 --> 0:01:08.720 caught up two more recent emails in the coming weeks. 0:01:09.880 --> 0:01:18.480 All right, First, up in response to our episodes on 0:01:18.480 --> 0:01:22.240 the reptiles of the Galapagos, specifically our focus on the 0:01:22.280 --> 0:01:27.280 marine iguana, or, as one great scientists maligned them, those stupid, 0:01:27.440 --> 0:01:32.840 hideous looking creatures. Lurch rights the following, good morning, gentlemen. 0:01:33.160 --> 0:01:35.280 I think it was near the end of part two 0:01:35.440 --> 0:01:38.800 on the Galapagos reptiles when you mentioned the marine iguanas 0:01:38.840 --> 0:01:42.720 have slightly webbed feet, but you didn't see an evolutionary 0:01:42.760 --> 0:01:47.360 reason for the feature since they aren't used in swimming. Yes, 0:01:47.520 --> 0:01:51.040 or at least in our unexpert opinion, they didn't appear 0:01:51.080 --> 0:01:53.600 to be used in swimming, so you know, maybe they 0:01:53.600 --> 0:01:55.960 are in some subtle way. But anyway, going on with 0:01:56.040 --> 0:01:59.760 Lurch's message, I happened to be out romping with dog 0:02:00.000 --> 0:02:02.920 at the time. Uh. And this is dog with capital D, 0:02:03.240 --> 0:02:05.559 so I think Lurch here is referring to his dog 0:02:05.600 --> 0:02:09.280 who is named dog. So he's out romping with dog 0:02:09.360 --> 0:02:12.520 at the time. He listened to that episode as he 0:02:12.639 --> 0:02:16.959 enjoyed about eighteen inches of snow. Being half mala mute, 0:02:17.040 --> 0:02:19.640 cold weather and snow are like a birthday party for 0:02:19.760 --> 0:02:22.680 him every day. At the time he raised the question 0:02:22.720 --> 0:02:25.880 there was another dog, a German shepherd trying to keep up. 0:02:26.200 --> 0:02:29.000 He couldn't because he had to wade through an extra 0:02:29.120 --> 0:02:33.080 foot of snow the dog ran on top of. While 0:02:33.120 --> 0:02:35.960 all dogs, as far as I'm aware, have webb defeat 0:02:36.280 --> 0:02:39.320 what I call snow, dogs seemed to be able to 0:02:39.560 --> 0:02:43.360 deliberately spread their toes, bringing that webbing into play on 0:02:43.480 --> 0:02:47.160 snow and of course mud. This has the effect of 0:02:47.200 --> 0:02:50.480 spreading their weight over a larger area, letting them sink less. 0:02:51.000 --> 0:02:53.680 I've not seen any studies or anything on this. I'm 0:02:53.680 --> 0:02:57.359 basing it by comparing dog's footprint on pavement to that 0:02:57.520 --> 0:03:00.800 in snow. In the snow, his footprint is nearly twice 0:03:00.880 --> 0:03:04.359 the size of the one on pavement. How is this relevant? 0:03:04.840 --> 0:03:07.440 I know next to nothing about the Galapagos Islands, but 0:03:07.600 --> 0:03:10.440 I wonder if the webbing on the Iguanas might be 0:03:10.560 --> 0:03:15.000 of use when crossing sand. Well, lurch Uh, I do 0:03:15.080 --> 0:03:19.240 not recall this observation about dogs having sort of natural 0:03:19.280 --> 0:03:22.880 snowshoes ever crossing my mind before. But I thought this 0:03:22.960 --> 0:03:26.680 was a really interesting observation about dog pause, so I 0:03:26.760 --> 0:03:30.520 decided to look it up in the zoology literature, and 0:03:30.560 --> 0:03:33.079 it seems to me like you are exactly right about 0:03:33.080 --> 0:03:37.520 snow dogs and especially their near wild ancestor, the gray wolf. 0:03:38.120 --> 0:03:41.360 So I was looking at a book called Wolves, Behavior, 0:03:41.400 --> 0:03:46.920 Ecology and Conservation edited by L. David Metsch and Luigi Boitani. 0:03:47.680 --> 0:03:50.840 This was from University of Chicago Press, two thousand seven, 0:03:51.760 --> 0:03:55.160 and this is in a chapter by H. Match one 0:03:55.200 --> 0:03:59.680 of the editors and rolf O. Peterson on wolf prey relations, 0:04:00.000 --> 0:04:03.560 typically the effects of snow and other weather conditions on 0:04:03.680 --> 0:04:08.440 interactions between wolves and the animals they hunt. One really 0:04:08.440 --> 0:04:11.840 cool observation the authors make here. They say that during 0:04:12.000 --> 0:04:17.320 midwinter thaws, wolves will sometimes sleep through the afternoon in 0:04:17.320 --> 0:04:20.839 the early evening and then wake up to hunt prey 0:04:20.880 --> 0:04:26.080 in the nighttime. Why is this, The authors suggest it's 0:04:26.120 --> 0:04:29.640 because the wolves are waiting for the temperature to drop 0:04:29.800 --> 0:04:33.560 at night, which facilitates the formation of a crust on 0:04:33.640 --> 0:04:37.440 the top layer of snow, which plays to their advantage 0:04:37.520 --> 0:04:40.919 during pursuit of prey. And so the main effect of 0:04:41.080 --> 0:04:44.880 snow on wolves primary prey animals is to slow them 0:04:44.920 --> 0:04:47.840 down and hinder their movements because they're wading through these 0:04:47.880 --> 0:04:50.600 big drifts. But that's not always the case with the 0:04:50.600 --> 0:04:54.360 wolves themselves, and certainly not to the same extent. So 0:04:54.440 --> 0:04:58.880 here match and Peterson write quote, most prey probably have 0:04:59.000 --> 0:05:02.680 a heavier foot loading than do wolves, so they would 0:05:02.720 --> 0:05:06.279 sink deeper and be hindered more than wolves. Estimates for 0:05:06.320 --> 0:05:09.160 footloading and deer, for example, range from two hundred and 0:05:09.240 --> 0:05:13.000 eleven grams per cubic centimeter to four hundred and thirty 0:05:13.000 --> 0:05:16.200 one to one thousand, one hundred and twenty four grams 0:05:16.200 --> 0:05:19.840 per cubic centimeter, whereas for wolves the estimate is about 0:05:20.000 --> 0:05:24.120 one hundred and three grams per cubic centimeter. Ungulates are 0:05:24.240 --> 0:05:27.800 usually much heavier than wolves and possess hard hoofs that 0:05:28.000 --> 0:05:32.320 puncture snow much more easily than the spreading, webbed toes 0:05:32.480 --> 0:05:35.640 of a wolf foot. This difference can tilt the balance 0:05:35.680 --> 0:05:39.320 toward wolves during predation attempts on animals from the size 0:05:39.320 --> 0:05:42.479 of deer to bison. So this comes back to that 0:05:42.680 --> 0:05:46.680 observation that wolves might sometimes sleep through a warmer part 0:05:46.680 --> 0:05:49.560 of the day in midwinter to wake up in the 0:05:49.680 --> 0:05:53.479 dark and hunt. The crust that forms on top of 0:05:53.520 --> 0:05:56.800 the snow in the cold night air will support a 0:05:56.800 --> 0:06:01.800 wolf running on it, running on its naturally webbed biological snowshoes, 0:06:02.120 --> 0:06:04.599 and I think the technical term for the webbing between 0:06:04.640 --> 0:06:09.040 the toes is interdigital webbing. But a deer hoof will 0:06:09.080 --> 0:06:12.320 punch right through that crust and get stuck in the snow, 0:06:12.400 --> 0:06:14.960 so the deer will be unable to run at top speed. 0:06:15.920 --> 0:06:18.880 And I guess the question is do modern domestic dog 0:06:18.960 --> 0:06:23.040 breeds like the malamute have similar abilities. I didn't find 0:06:23.040 --> 0:06:25.720 any scientific research on this, but it seems to be 0:06:25.800 --> 0:06:28.839 just common knowledge among dog breeders that Arctic breeds like 0:06:28.880 --> 0:06:32.719 the malamute and the husky and so forth have characteristics 0:06:32.760 --> 0:06:35.200 that make them move well in the snow. And I 0:06:35.240 --> 0:06:38.400 found an article on the American Kennel Club website which 0:06:38.520 --> 0:06:41.560 does describe the malamute as having broad paws that helped 0:06:41.640 --> 0:06:44.760 distribute their weight over a larger surface area so they 0:06:44.760 --> 0:06:47.760 can run on the top of the snow. So, Larch, 0:06:47.839 --> 0:06:50.640 I think your observation about your half mallamute dog is 0:06:50.640 --> 0:06:54.719 probably exactly correct, and also probably not just a breed 0:06:54.800 --> 0:06:58.320 trait specific to the mala mute and husky and so forth, 0:06:58.360 --> 0:07:01.000 but sort of an ancestral trade that goes all the 0:07:01.000 --> 0:07:05.240 way back to their wolf ancestors or wolf like ancestors. Now, 0:07:05.279 --> 0:07:08.240 as for marine iguanas, I couldn't say. I couldn't say 0:07:08.240 --> 0:07:11.240 if movement on sand would have anything to do with it, 0:07:11.600 --> 0:07:15.960 though obviously I don't think the snow crust principle would 0:07:16.320 --> 0:07:18.920 really apply to sand, unless there's some kind of sand 0:07:19.080 --> 0:07:22.600 crusted phenomenon I've never heard of, so I don't know, 0:07:22.880 --> 0:07:26.800 but the interesting idea anyway, lurches email goes on from here. 0:07:27.280 --> 0:07:31.920 Lurch rights Iguanas hold a small special spot in my heart. 0:07:32.280 --> 0:07:36.080 In the aftermath of Hurricane Hugo nine, as I recall, 0:07:36.840 --> 0:07:39.080 I spent six weeks in the Virgin Islands as part 0:07:39.120 --> 0:07:43.400 of an emergency communications team. Nobody had electricity, including the 0:07:43.480 --> 0:07:46.800 hotel at which we stayed, so we left our doors 0:07:46.800 --> 0:07:49.760 and windows open at night to take advantage of the breeze. 0:07:50.200 --> 0:07:53.040 The third night, I dreamt I was being buried alive, 0:07:53.560 --> 0:07:57.240 rather terrifying, but wait, it gets worse. When I jerked 0:07:57.280 --> 0:07:59.840 awake and opened my eyes, I was nos to know 0:08:00.080 --> 0:08:03.400 is with the ugliest face I'd ever seen. The moonlight 0:08:03.520 --> 0:08:08.040 decidedly did not help. Teleportation is possible. But when I 0:08:08.080 --> 0:08:10.520 had stopped screaming, I was awake enough to realize I 0:08:10.560 --> 0:08:15.160 had been cuddled by three rather large iguanas. One of 0:08:15.200 --> 0:08:17.600 which had decided sleeping on top of me was a 0:08:17.600 --> 0:08:20.520 good joke. For the remainder of my stay, I always 0:08:20.520 --> 0:08:23.240 had at least one iguana share my bed at night. 0:08:23.600 --> 0:08:28.080 Seriously cool lurch. Uh wow, well that's a great story. 0:08:28.640 --> 0:08:31.200 Anybody else out there have that experience, Please right in 0:08:31.240 --> 0:08:33.760 if you've had iguanas crawl into bed with you. I 0:08:33.760 --> 0:08:46.000 don't think pets count. All right, This next message comes 0:08:46.000 --> 0:08:50.880 from Carl. Carl says, dear Robin Joe. Firstly, congratulations to 0:08:50.960 --> 0:08:53.880 Joe and family on their new arrival. Hope all are 0:08:53.920 --> 0:08:57.000 well and happy. Thank you very much, Carl, We all 0:08:57.080 --> 0:09:00.520 are indeed well and happy. In fact, I my first 0:09:00.559 --> 0:09:05.520 attempt at recording this episode, I had the creature on 0:09:06.000 --> 0:09:07.960 my chest in the baby Bjorn with me here. I 0:09:08.040 --> 0:09:09.920 was like, surely we can make this work. You know, 0:09:10.040 --> 0:09:13.360 she's just sleeping. Uh, she she can be my sort 0:09:13.360 --> 0:09:15.960 of silent co host. But the problem was she was 0:09:16.240 --> 0:09:18.120 not silent at all. In fact, she was she was 0:09:18.200 --> 0:09:21.800 breathing like Darth Vader, and it absolutely came through on 0:09:21.840 --> 0:09:25.000 the recording. So rather than have all the Darth Vader 0:09:25.080 --> 0:09:28.800 breathing and the Goblin snarls and all that, I decided 0:09:28.840 --> 0:09:31.959 to to wait to record this at at another time. 0:09:32.080 --> 0:09:34.679 So here we are. But maybe in the future she'll 0:09:34.760 --> 0:09:37.840 she'll join me on Mike when she's not quite so loud. 0:09:38.559 --> 0:09:42.960 Karl's message goes on onto eggs consumed raw. Now this 0:09:43.040 --> 0:09:45.080 must be related to the episode that Rob and I 0:09:45.120 --> 0:09:50.400 did on eggnog. Karl writes, when in Peru, maeen we 0:09:50.520 --> 0:09:54.280 drank many piece cooast sours, the national cocktail of Peru. 0:09:54.800 --> 0:09:57.680 One was served to us at the first opportunity on 0:09:57.800 --> 0:10:00.960 arrival and about every chance after that for two and 0:10:00.960 --> 0:10:04.400 a half weeks. It's made with Peruvian Piececo as the 0:10:04.440 --> 0:10:09.160 base liquor, UH fresh squeezed lemon juice, simple syrup, ice, 0:10:09.400 --> 0:10:12.840 egg white, and angustura bitters. It's shaken to a froth, 0:10:13.040 --> 0:10:15.440 strained into a glass, and topped with a few drops 0:10:15.440 --> 0:10:18.800 of angustura bitters. Quite tasty, by the way. The cocktail 0:10:18.840 --> 0:10:22.320 was invented by an American bartender, Victor Morris, in Peru 0:10:22.520 --> 0:10:26.320 in the late night in the early nineteen hundreds. Piececo 0:10:26.520 --> 0:10:29.679 is a high proof, local unrefined brandy that makes up 0:10:29.800 --> 0:10:33.040 most of the drink after ice. Maybe there's enough alcohol 0:10:33.080 --> 0:10:36.040 to kill any salmonella, but we never became ill or 0:10:36.120 --> 0:10:39.680 heard of anyone else becoming ill from drinking Piececo sours, 0:10:39.920 --> 0:10:43.960 which were even dispensed from vending machines in one remote area. 0:10:44.559 --> 0:10:46.800 I decided to serve them at a dinner after we 0:10:47.000 --> 0:10:50.080 after we returned home, but I used pasteurized egg whites 0:10:50.120 --> 0:10:52.800 from a carton. I still have the bottle of Piececo 0:10:52.920 --> 0:10:55.400 in my cabinet. It's not something you would enjoy over 0:10:55.440 --> 0:10:58.120 the rocks, say, and has no other uses I know of, 0:10:58.280 --> 0:11:01.840 but since it's been around before piece Coast hours were invented, 0:11:01.960 --> 0:11:05.880 it must have other uses. As always, I enjoy your podcasts. 0:11:06.200 --> 0:11:09.040 It's good to have Joe back. Carl. Well, thank you, Carl, 0:11:09.080 --> 0:11:11.840 it's good to be back. I've never tried a piaccoat sour. 0:11:12.120 --> 0:11:15.680 I will say, I don't know if I would fully 0:11:15.800 --> 0:11:19.920 count on the alcohol content of a cocktail to kill 0:11:20.040 --> 0:11:23.680 salmonilla bacteria that might might be present in a contaminated egg, 0:11:23.760 --> 0:11:28.040 especially immediately, because you might remember they found in one 0:11:28.080 --> 0:11:30.200 of those experiments we talked about in the egg nog 0:11:30.240 --> 0:11:34.320 episode that it actually took several days, from several days 0:11:34.360 --> 0:11:38.040 up to several weeks for a batch with alcohol content 0:11:38.800 --> 0:11:42.120 to become sterile. And I think the more likely explanation 0:11:42.679 --> 0:11:45.040 for the fact that you never became sick after drinking 0:11:45.040 --> 0:11:47.240 one of these drinks is that you just never got 0:11:47.240 --> 0:11:50.880 a contaminated egg. Like most eggs are fine. The CDC 0:11:51.120 --> 0:11:53.760 used to cite an estimate that it was about one 0:11:53.920 --> 0:11:57.200 out of every twenty thousand eggs produced annually in the 0:11:57.240 --> 0:12:00.840 United States that carried salmonella. Uh. By the way, I 0:12:01.120 --> 0:12:03.440 after the episode, I tried to look up and find 0:12:03.440 --> 0:12:06.200 the original source of that claim, and I believe it 0:12:06.360 --> 0:12:09.920 is a paper called Estimating the Annual fraction of Eggs 0:12:09.960 --> 0:12:14.679 Contaminated with Salmonella in tarot Titus in the United States, 0:12:14.720 --> 0:12:19.120 and this was by Eric Ebel and Wayne Schlausser published 0:12:19.120 --> 0:12:22.079 in the International Journal of Food Microbiology in the year 0:12:22.080 --> 0:12:24.679 two thousand. Now that number may have changed in the 0:12:24.760 --> 0:12:27.160 last twenty two years one out of every twenty thousand, 0:12:27.160 --> 0:12:29.560 If so, hopefully it's even lower, But I have not 0:12:29.600 --> 0:12:32.080 found a more recent estimate, so as far as I know, 0:12:32.200 --> 0:12:36.240 that's that's still the most recent guests anybody's come up with. Now, 0:12:36.240 --> 0:12:38.520 what does all that mean. I'm of course not advising 0:12:38.559 --> 0:12:41.240 people to eat raw eggs. You definitely do not want 0:12:41.240 --> 0:12:44.520 to get salmonella. It is awful. Uh so, caution with 0:12:44.640 --> 0:12:47.480 raw eggs is great, but also I mean, no reason 0:12:47.520 --> 0:12:56.439 to be overly fearful. Most eggs are fine. All right, 0:12:56.559 --> 0:12:59.640 on to the next message. This one comes from Chuck 0:12:59.800 --> 0:13:03.720 all so concerning egg based cocktails related to our eggnog episode, 0:13:04.000 --> 0:13:08.040 another discussion of the piececo Sour and our Vault episodes 0:13:08.160 --> 0:13:11.480 on the invention of the mirror and various psychological effects 0:13:11.480 --> 0:13:15.560 related to mirrors. Chuck says, dear Robert and Joe, happy 0:13:15.600 --> 0:13:19.200 holidays and great tidings to you both, and congratulations to 0:13:19.320 --> 0:13:21.880 Joe on the new addition to the family. These are 0:13:21.880 --> 0:13:23.719 the days that will seem so long, and it will 0:13:23.800 --> 0:13:27.320 vanish faster than you could imagine how true that is. 0:13:27.400 --> 0:13:29.679 And then Chuck takes a paragraph here to say some 0:13:29.880 --> 0:13:32.840 very kind things about the show. But then he goes 0:13:32.880 --> 0:13:37.440 on to say, I'm writing specifically because of your eggnog episode. Personally, 0:13:37.520 --> 0:13:40.320 I want to like eggnog more than I actually do. 0:13:40.520 --> 0:13:43.840 Every year I'm tempted by the ingredients and try a glass, 0:13:44.200 --> 0:13:48.080 but then I find it particularly revolting. Maybe it's the 0:13:48.120 --> 0:13:50.720 type of rum that's in it. I do recall, however, 0:13:50.800 --> 0:13:53.160 that back in the nineteen eighties, when I was a 0:13:53.240 --> 0:13:58.120 latchkey kid, Carnation made an eggnog flavored powder you put 0:13:58.160 --> 0:14:03.840 in milk as an instant break fist. Oh boy um. 0:14:04.040 --> 0:14:07.000 To my little brain, the flavor was amazing, but it 0:14:07.040 --> 0:14:09.880 could only be purchased as part of a mixed box 0:14:09.960 --> 0:14:14.480 of instant breakfasts containing vanilla, strawberry, and chocolate flavors. I 0:14:14.520 --> 0:14:17.839 think my desire to like eggnog comes from that nostalgia. 0:14:18.320 --> 0:14:20.880 That being said, I will no doubt keep trying eggnog 0:14:20.960 --> 0:14:23.880 every year to see if I strike gold. You guys 0:14:23.920 --> 0:14:27.320 also mentioned a dearth of egg based cocktails. If no 0:14:27.360 --> 0:14:29.960 one else has said this to you, uh and as 0:14:30.040 --> 0:14:32.040 you see now, we've got several messages about this. But 0:14:32.560 --> 0:14:35.560 Chuck says, I'd like to offer up the Piececo sour 0:14:36.000 --> 0:14:39.520 Piaceco is a brandy from Peru. I was introduced to 0:14:39.560 --> 0:14:41.880 the liquor by my wife, who is originally from the 0:14:41.920 --> 0:14:46.400 Peruvian city of cheek Clio. There are myriad varieties of 0:14:46.400 --> 0:14:50.480 piececo Piasco sours are kind of the national cocktail of Peru. 0:14:50.520 --> 0:14:53.880 Though Chile and Bolivia may claim Piececo, they, as my 0:14:53.960 --> 0:14:57.680 wife says, are wrong. Basic piececo sours are made up 0:14:57.680 --> 0:15:00.880 of piececo egg whites, sweet syrup, and some lime juice. 0:15:01.240 --> 0:15:03.480 This is shaken with ice to foam the egg whites 0:15:03.520 --> 0:15:06.360 and mix well, and then the ice is strained out. 0:15:06.400 --> 0:15:08.600 When you poured into a glass a few drops of 0:15:08.640 --> 0:15:11.960 Angustura bitters and you have an amazing drink. I heartily recommend. 0:15:12.360 --> 0:15:14.760 Chuck goes on to say two asides to set this 0:15:14.840 --> 0:15:17.560 first one up. It's going to reference a series of 0:15:17.600 --> 0:15:21.600 studies we talked about in our episodes on mirrors. These 0:15:21.680 --> 0:15:25.320 studies identified what has been called the strange face in 0:15:25.360 --> 0:15:29.160 the mirror effect, which is a phenomenon where if you 0:15:29.200 --> 0:15:32.160 put people in a room with dim lighting and you 0:15:32.240 --> 0:15:34.600 have them stare at their face in the mirror for 0:15:34.640 --> 0:15:38.640 at least ten minutes, the majority of subjects will report 0:15:38.800 --> 0:15:44.760 strange visual hallucinations and illusions, including everything from blurring and 0:15:44.840 --> 0:15:48.960 deformations of the facial features to seeing their face as 0:15:49.000 --> 0:15:53.720 another face entirely either belonging to another person known or unknown, 0:15:54.280 --> 0:15:57.760 or changing into a cat or a pig, or an 0:15:57.800 --> 0:16:03.040 alien or a monkey monster. And basically all UH respondents 0:16:03.920 --> 0:16:07.200 reported that in some way they came to see their 0:16:07.240 --> 0:16:10.960 face after prolonged staring in low light, as as other 0:16:11.160 --> 0:16:13.840 in some way as somehow not belonging to them, or 0:16:14.160 --> 0:16:18.080 or had some kind of dissociative experience. So the main 0:16:18.120 --> 0:16:20.640 study here was called the Strange Face in the Mirror 0:16:20.640 --> 0:16:25.040 illusion illusion by Giovanni bi Caputo in the journal Perception 0:16:25.280 --> 0:16:27.840 in two thousand ten, but it's been replicated under a 0:16:27.920 --> 0:16:31.800 variety of conditions in other studies. Sense anyway from here, 0:16:31.880 --> 0:16:35.040 Chuck writes one, I read a book when I was 0:16:35.040 --> 0:16:40.440 a teenager about exploring your past lives. Oh boy, I 0:16:40.480 --> 0:16:42.800 can't remember the title or author, but one of the 0:16:42.880 --> 0:16:46.360 techniques in it was to stare in a mirror at 0:16:46.480 --> 0:16:50.360 length in dim lighting until you quote see the faces 0:16:50.480 --> 0:16:54.560 you had in those previous lives. I'd forgotten all about this, 0:16:54.680 --> 0:16:58.000 but it rushed forward in my memories during your mirror episodes, 0:16:58.200 --> 0:16:59.920 and I've been meaning to write you to let you know. 0:17:00.320 --> 0:17:03.280 Apparently the staring in a mirror in the dimness technique 0:17:03.640 --> 0:17:06.080 was known and written about at least thirty five years 0:17:06.080 --> 0:17:08.920 ago by metaphysical believers. It's cool to get the true 0:17:08.920 --> 0:17:12.680 science about this now. Yeah. That that is really interesting, Chuck. 0:17:13.000 --> 0:17:16.920 And it's interesting about using the mirror to allegedly see 0:17:16.960 --> 0:17:21.400 faces of past lives, specifically because of a similar thing 0:17:21.480 --> 0:17:26.119 in Caputo's study. A full eighteen percent of respondents in 0:17:26.359 --> 0:17:31.000 that research reported seeing their own face transformed in some 0:17:31.040 --> 0:17:34.960 way to resemble one of their parents faces, And of course, 0:17:34.960 --> 0:17:38.639 seeing like a parent or an ancestor seems maybe to 0:17:38.640 --> 0:17:41.160 to suggest a similar strain of thinking to like seeing 0:17:41.160 --> 0:17:43.919 a past life. But there was another part of the 0:17:43.960 --> 0:17:47.840 result that was that there was an aggregate category of 0:17:47.920 --> 0:17:52.560 hallucinations which included seeing quote, an archetypal face such as 0:17:52.640 --> 0:17:55.880 that of an old woman, a child, or a portrait 0:17:56.080 --> 0:18:00.280 of an ancestor. Now, I suppose the causation in here, 0:18:00.320 --> 0:18:02.240 if there is any, could go either way. It could 0:18:02.240 --> 0:18:06.280 be that the strange face in the mirror illusion naturally 0:18:07.280 --> 0:18:11.560 tends to cause a substantial fraction of people to hallucinate 0:18:11.640 --> 0:18:14.320 their own face as transforming into that of an of 0:18:14.359 --> 0:18:16.400 a parent or what they believed to be the face 0:18:16.400 --> 0:18:19.120 of an ancestor, and that could give rise to this 0:18:19.160 --> 0:18:21.679 idea that you see past lives of your own in 0:18:21.720 --> 0:18:24.760 a mirror. Or it could be that if people widely 0:18:24.840 --> 0:18:28.600 believed you could see past lives by turning down the 0:18:28.680 --> 0:18:31.080 lights and gazing into the looking glass, that might have 0:18:31.320 --> 0:18:34.080 in fact primed people to report stuff like this in 0:18:34.119 --> 0:18:40.240 these experiments. So interesting. I wonder how widely um believe 0:18:40.440 --> 0:18:44.240 that that thing that you read in the book was Uh. 0:18:44.280 --> 0:18:47.000 One last thing about the strange face in the mirror illusion. 0:18:47.400 --> 0:18:51.480 An interesting finding of subsequent studies was that a mirror 0:18:51.800 --> 0:18:56.320 was not strictly part of the illusion. Instead, the necessary 0:18:56.440 --> 0:19:01.200 ingredients seemed to be dim light conditions, time, and a face, 0:19:01.359 --> 0:19:05.120 though not necessarily the reflection of your own, because there 0:19:05.160 --> 0:19:07.199 was another study that I think was also done by 0:19:07.240 --> 0:19:11.680 Caputo in which found similar effects simply by having people 0:19:11.720 --> 0:19:16.639 stare at each other's faces intersubjective facial gazing for prolonged 0:19:16.680 --> 0:19:20.360 periods in low light, and that this also produced kind 0:19:20.359 --> 0:19:25.679 of strange hallucinatory or perceptive illusion effects. Uh, if you 0:19:25.720 --> 0:19:29.680 did it long enough. Anyway, back to Chuck's message, and 0:19:29.680 --> 0:19:31.879 this is the second part of his his two part 0:19:31.920 --> 0:19:35.240 tangent to probably everyone that writes has a weird house 0:19:35.240 --> 0:19:39.240 cinema suggestion. And if I may, I suggest Big Trouble 0:19:39.280 --> 0:19:42.240 in Little China. Not only is it my favorite movie ever, 0:19:42.320 --> 0:19:45.080 but I know you guys referenced it all the time. Uh, 0:19:45.119 --> 0:19:47.440 and you've said that you should do a John Carpenter movie. 0:19:47.640 --> 0:19:50.000 I've seen it so many times I generally failed to 0:19:50.040 --> 0:19:53.399 realize how just plain weird the movie is. It was 0:19:53.480 --> 0:19:56.000 so odd that the marketing had no idea what to 0:19:56.000 --> 0:19:58.280 do with it. It dealt with themes and characters no 0:19:58.320 --> 0:20:00.399 one in the West had any deep, non colledge of, 0:20:00.760 --> 0:20:03.520 and the main character, the awesome Kurt Russell, of course, 0:20:03.600 --> 0:20:07.120 was actually the sidekick the whole time. I suspect many 0:20:07.119 --> 0:20:09.560 of your listeners have seen this very quotable film, but 0:20:09.600 --> 0:20:13.720 a weird house examination would be greatly appreciated. Yeah, Rob 0:20:13.760 --> 0:20:15.880 and I do mention this movie a lot. It's it's 0:20:15.960 --> 0:20:20.040 it's a it's a common it's a house favorite. Uh. Finally, 0:20:20.119 --> 0:20:21.919 Check says, thank you for taking the time to read this. 0:20:22.040 --> 0:20:25.560 You guys rock me. Have a great three sincerely, Chuck 0:20:26.119 --> 0:20:29.479 right back at you, Chuck. Alright. Well, I think that 0:20:29.520 --> 0:20:31.959 does it for today's mail bag, but we will be 0:20:32.000 --> 0:20:34.919 back with more of your messages next week and in 0:20:35.000 --> 0:20:37.639 the meantime, if you're new to the show, you can 0:20:37.720 --> 0:20:40.400 check out all of our other episodes anywhere you get 0:20:40.400 --> 0:20:44.919 your podcasts. Monday's we Read Listener mail, Tuesdays and Thursdays 0:20:44.960 --> 0:20:47.680 are our core stuff. To Blow Your Mind episodes. Those 0:20:47.720 --> 0:20:51.520 are usually about science and culture in some way. Wednesdays 0:20:51.600 --> 0:20:54.879 are our short form episodes. Those are called the Artifact 0:20:55.000 --> 0:20:58.080 or sometimes the Monster Fact Friday, as we do a 0:20:58.080 --> 0:21:00.200 movie show, Rob and I just kicked back and talk 0:21:00.240 --> 0:21:03.560 about a strange film, good or bad, on a series 0:21:03.600 --> 0:21:07.320 we call Weird House Cinema. Saturday's we haul out an 0:21:07.320 --> 0:21:10.760 episode from the Vault, and Sunday's we publish nothing at 0:21:10.760 --> 0:21:15.359 All Big thanks to our audio producer, Max Williams. 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