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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff

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

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Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Christian Seger. And

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Speaker 1: in this episode, we're talking about the a little book series,

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Speaker 1: a little TV show, a little franchise known as The Strain. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so this is something that Giermo del Toro originally came

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Speaker 1: out with as a series of novels with Chuck Hogan. Uh,

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Speaker 1: and it is primarily you know, we're gonna try not

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Speaker 1: to spoil this story for anybody during this episode. It's

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Speaker 1: primarily about vampires, but they have a very particular kind

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Speaker 1: of biology that's unique to this story. So what we

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Speaker 1: were thinking was that we could take a look at

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Speaker 1: that and how it relates to the biology of actual

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Speaker 1: parasites and vampire like creatures in nature. Yeah, it's kind

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Speaker 1: of in the same vein with some past episodes we've

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Speaker 1: done with Monster of the Week blog series, Monster Science

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Speaker 1: video series, that sort of thing. And uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: I know some of you out there I love The Strain.

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Speaker 1: Some of you out there may hate The Strain, and

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Speaker 1: a number of you have no idea what we're talking about.

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Speaker 1: Perhaps you end up checking some of it out because

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Speaker 1: of this episode. But but we're gonna use the show.

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Speaker 1: We're gonna use the books, which you've read, but I

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Speaker 1: have not. I have. Yeah, I've read the books, and

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Speaker 1: I've read the comics, and I've watched the first season, okay,

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Speaker 1: and I've watched the first and second season up until

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Speaker 1: like this right where yeah, where it's that now? So

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Speaker 1: we're not gonna we're not gonna get into spoilers related

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Speaker 1: what happens to characters in the book or on the

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Speaker 1: TV show. We are going to discuss the biology of

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Speaker 1: the fictional creature so as to discuss real world comparisons.

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Speaker 1: But but that's about it. So if you want, like

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Speaker 1: if you want to enter into the show just on

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Speaker 1: purist unspoiled, then I guess you should skip this episode

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Speaker 1: and come back to it later. But but for the

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Speaker 1: most part, you don't have to worry. Yeah, So for

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Speaker 1: the most part, what we're gonna do is stick to

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Speaker 1: the biology of these things. And I think I could

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Speaker 1: place to start is with Del Toro himself. So if

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Speaker 1: you're not familiar with his movies, Del Toro is I

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Speaker 1: think it's fair to call him a horror mastermind. Or

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Speaker 1: at least he's considered one. He's done movies about vampires before,

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Speaker 1: He's done of fantasy kind of fairytale movies, movies about demons.

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Speaker 1: He's very into the gothic horror supernatural genre. Uh, he's

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Speaker 1: has he done. He's also done some stuff that isn't supernatural, though, right,

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Speaker 1: I feel like has he I don't know that he has.

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Speaker 1: I feel like like even his you know, he has

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Speaker 1: these two types of films. He has the more personal,

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Speaker 1: artsy films and then the bigger budget stuff. But they

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Speaker 1: all seem to have monsters in them. Maybe he has

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Speaker 1: a monster free um film out there. I am totally

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Speaker 1: forgetting it. Yeah, I am too. Maybe maybe I'm I'm

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Speaker 1: wrong on this, but yeah. So the first two vampire

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Speaker 1: movies that he worked on, though, the first one was Chronos,

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Speaker 1: which is what like twenty years old at this point,

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Speaker 1: the first future film, yeah uh, and then he also

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Speaker 1: directed the classic Blade, to which I love. Yeah, I'm

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Speaker 1: a fan as well. And uh, there is a particular

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Speaker 1: kind of vampire and both of these that sort of

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Speaker 1: we can look back to as the you know, uh

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Speaker 1: vampire for Del Toro's Vampires in the Strain before we

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Speaker 1: get into that. I think it's really interesting. There's a

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Speaker 1: quote by him where he talks about why he was

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Speaker 1: interested in creating the show in the first place, and

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Speaker 1: he said that since he was a little kid, he's

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Speaker 1: always kept a notebook full of ideas about vampire mutations, biology, sociology,

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Speaker 1: and mythology. So this is just something he's been thinking

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Speaker 1: about since he was a child. He knows, you know,

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Speaker 1: he put he put some of it in Chronos, he

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Speaker 1: put some of it in Blade, But he really wanted

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Speaker 1: the strain to be like his his opus on vampires. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: he and you and you really get that from these properties,

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Speaker 1: you know, like, well, whatever failings there might be regarding

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Speaker 1: you know, the main characters in this or that, or

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Speaker 1: or the you know, the plot or the narrative, you

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Speaker 1: can't thought the monsters because the man, the man loves

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Speaker 1: his monsters. And it's it's it's clear the amount of

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Speaker 1: work he puts into it, the people that he brings

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Speaker 1: into design, like he's always bringing in such a fantastic

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Speaker 1: team of artists, And I understand he sets up when

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Speaker 1: when he's developing any of these properties, he sets up

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Speaker 1: in the middle of the art department, like it's not

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Speaker 1: another room. He's there in the middle of its saying

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Speaker 1: that's great. That's I believe. That's his background is that

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Speaker 1: he worked in television, I want to say, in Spanish

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Speaker 1: language television as like an art director before he started

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Speaker 1: directing and writing himself. But yeah, have you ever looked

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Speaker 1: at um there? They may even have published a version

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Speaker 1: of this of his notebooks there fascinating, Like each each

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Speaker 1: project he works on, he just fills a notebook with

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Speaker 1: drawings and little writings and scribblings. And he's an amazing

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Speaker 1: artist as well, so you get to see kind of

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Speaker 1: his ideas for how these things flesh out, literally flesh out,

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Speaker 1: because these really into them. Yes, but I mean it

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Speaker 1: seems like there's always a monster autopsy scene and any

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Speaker 1: film he does which is which is perfect, absolutely, and

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Speaker 1: he is seriously got an obsession with jaws and mandibles

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Speaker 1: and tongues like pretty much everything. I remember watching Pacific

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Speaker 1: rim which is what that's the last major feature that

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Speaker 1: he came out with. And yeah, and even the giant

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Speaker 1: monsters in that that the Kaiju had these like mandibles

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Speaker 1: that separated off of their face and these huge tongues

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Speaker 1: that shot out. He's he's really into that. Yeah. I

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Speaker 1: but I believe most of his recent films he's brought in.

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Speaker 1: Wayne Barlow is one of the artists. Is of course

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Speaker 1: his work designing alien physiologies and demonic physiologies all based

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Speaker 1: on a background that he and his parents had in

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Speaker 1: uh in in in Natural World Illustrations. This is Wayne Barlow. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: But Wayne Barlow's work is just so I mean, you

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Speaker 1: believe and he designed that he gives you it feels

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Speaker 1: like a real, actually creature that you've just never witnessed before. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So his his team that he works with, that he's

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Speaker 1: kind of he's assembled this like a team over the

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Speaker 1: years of working on project. But Wayne Barlow is a mainstay. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And then another guy who I'm a fan of his,

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Speaker 1: Guy Davis, who is a comic book illustrator who's worked

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Speaker 1: on stuff like the bpr D, his own book, The Marquee. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And he did a really interesting one of his first

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Speaker 1: comics was like a punk rock take on Sherlock Holmes

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Speaker 1: if Sherlock Holmes was a woman in the seventies who

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Speaker 1: was a punk rocker. It was fascinating. Uh. It's good stuff.

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Speaker 1: But guy is also just an amazing concept artist, and

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Speaker 1: so he's designed monsters as well along with that team

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Speaker 1: with Wayne, and then looking at the research that we

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Speaker 1: had for this episode, there were two guys in particular

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Speaker 1: that seemed to work with them on the actual special

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Speaker 1: effects and makeup. It was Steve Newberne and Sean Sansom,

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Speaker 1: or the team on the at least the first season

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Speaker 1: of The Strain, they were responsible for a lot of

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Speaker 1: the practical special effects. Now just go back to Chronos

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Speaker 1: and Blade Too for a second. Um. In Chronos, we

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Speaker 1: saw Vamporism as this kind of hybrid of an you know,

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Speaker 1: alchemical insect clockwork contraption that was pretty interesting, like it

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Speaker 1: kind of pins to you, sinks its teeth in, and

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Speaker 1: begins to transformation. Yeah. I had actually forgotten the main

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Speaker 1: plot of that movie because it's been so long since

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Speaker 1: I've seen it. So I reread the summary before we

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Speaker 1: came into the studio, and it really immediately came back

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Speaker 1: to me that what stuck with me was the aesthetic

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Speaker 1: imagery of that clockwork bug thing, you know, piercing people

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Speaker 1: more and and also the like sort of marble ish

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Speaker 1: white translucent skin yeah of the vampire. Yeah, that that

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Speaker 1: definitely stuck with me, and that's something he came back

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Speaker 1: to Emblade too as well for the Elder Vampire, and

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Speaker 1: that where you have this this ancient creature that is,

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Speaker 1: you know, at once beautiful and ghastly that it's it's

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Speaker 1: taken on this nos Ferato appearance, but it also has

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Speaker 1: the look of like a marbled statue. So it's that

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Speaker 1: kind of dichotomy that I feel like he captures really well.

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Speaker 1: And yeah, there's he does a great job. You know,

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Speaker 1: this is pop culture talking about science talk, but he

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Speaker 1: does a great job of honoring the sort of lineage

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Speaker 1: of vampire stories and incorporating aspects of notes ferra To

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Speaker 1: or Dracula into these things, but also putting his own

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Speaker 1: spin on it by adding weird science, I guess is

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Speaker 1: the best way to put it. Yes. Yes, the reapers

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Speaker 1: in Blade two, which is like bad new Strain of Vampires,

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Speaker 1: they are even closer to what we see in the strain. Uh.

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Speaker 1: They have these cool mandible jaws that opened like the jaw,

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Speaker 1: though the lower jaw splits down the middle and becomes mandibles,

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Speaker 1: and then there's a probiscus type tongue that comes out

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Speaker 1: to pump out blood and My favorite bit, which I

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Speaker 1: think I mentioned in the Stigmata episode is that they

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Speaker 1: have hardened bone plating front and back, so the only

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Speaker 1: way to stab him in the heart is to go

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Speaker 1: into the side. Yeah, like under the armpit, right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: where where you get into this into the course of

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Speaker 1: the Catholic imagery that del Toro is really into as well. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and uh, I think it's important to note to this

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Speaker 1: is also part of the strain in a number of

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Speaker 1: his uh designs, I suppose, but there's definitely a vagina

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Speaker 1: dentata theme going on with his vampire monsters, and that

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Speaker 1: like their monster mouth's kind of open up and have

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Speaker 1: teeths in a way that like the vagina dentata mythology

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Speaker 1: I think represents. Yeah. I remember listening to The Blade

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Speaker 1: to director's commentary, Oh, I have not heard that while back,

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Speaker 1: because like I said, I really loved that movie came

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Speaker 1: out and it's one of those I could probably watch anytime.

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Speaker 1: But I remember del Toro pointing to like different scenes

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Speaker 1: and saying, yes, that that door kind of looks like

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Speaker 1: a vagina. This is far away, it kind of looks

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Speaker 1: like a vagina. So who's like that Catholicism and monsters.

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Speaker 1: That's this thing. Did you ever see the third one? Yes,

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Speaker 1: because in the third one, I think they took it,

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Speaker 1: didn't they take his model? He did not direct it,

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Speaker 1: but they took his model and like applied it to

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Speaker 1: a Pomeranian dog. Yeah, it kind of has a cameo

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Speaker 1: with a Pomeranian. Yeah, just just to mock you with

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Speaker 1: how great that the second one was? So? All right

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Speaker 1: before basically, this is how we're gonna play this out.

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Speaker 1: We'll present to you how the vampires in the strain

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Speaker 1: are biologically formed, how their fictional biology works. And then

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Speaker 1: the second part of this episode, we're going to talk

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Speaker 1: about string oi, which is what they call them in

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Speaker 1: the series in the natural World. So everything from wasps

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Speaker 1: to uh, creepy worm, syphilis, you name it, we're gonna

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Speaker 1: try to cover it. Excellent, alright, so let's do it.

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Speaker 1: Let's dissect the strog i hear um. Do you want

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Speaker 1: to take us through this? Yeah? I will try so. Uh. There.

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Speaker 1: He definitely has thought out from beginning to end a

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Speaker 1: process through which these things go through. And it all

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Speaker 1: starts with a worm, this kind of capillary worm that

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Speaker 1: passes from one creature to another. Uh, and in the

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Speaker 1: case of the vampires, they you know, they bleed the

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Speaker 1: worms or you know, when they when they drink the

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Speaker 1: blood of their victims, they passed the worms onto their victims.

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Speaker 1: They might vomit it into your face. Yeah, is there

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Speaker 1: one or two of those as well? Yeah, um, I

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Speaker 1: mean it can really happen. Happen like any way that

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Speaker 1: like even if you like touch I think, like spilled

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Speaker 1: blood by one of these things, there's worms in it

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Speaker 1: that will burrow unto your skin. Yeah. They're always like

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Speaker 1: wiping off their swords because they with you know that

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Speaker 1: I corps on them with little little worms. So this

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Speaker 1: worm is essentially responsible for the whole fictional biology of

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Speaker 1: these vampires. And the way that it works is you

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Speaker 1: get infected by one of them, you lie in a

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Speaker 1: suspended state of animation for about a day, and then

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Speaker 1: the following night you rise as a vampire. And it's

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Speaker 1: so it's not like the idea of the vampire from

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Speaker 1: sort of past fiction where it kills the victim. They die,

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Speaker 1: they're buried, and then they rise. These people are still alive.

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Speaker 1: They're just undergoing like a metamorphosis. Yeah, yeah, like that definitely,

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Speaker 1: it's a situation where the parasite transforms the host um

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Speaker 1: into really a different kind of organism, and they the

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Speaker 1: primary thing, Like I think the first thing in these

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Speaker 1: vampires biology that changes is they grow a six ft

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Speaker 1: long stinger out of their mouth that fills up their

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Speaker 1: torso cavity. Uh. And I guess what's supposed to happen

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Speaker 1: is the lungs and the throat tissue all kind of

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Speaker 1: like melt down and recompose and modify into this stinger thing.

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Speaker 1: And it's hideously long too. Yeah, yeah, and it and

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Speaker 1: it uh is how they feed. They shoot it out

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Speaker 1: of their mouths and latch onto people or they also

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Speaker 1: that's how they pass on warms so other people to

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Speaker 1: spread the infection. Uh. And like the like we mentioned

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Speaker 1: with the mandibles of the blade to vampires, their jaws

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Speaker 1: are on this weird lower hinge and they kind of,

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Speaker 1: you know, drop so that the stinger has room to

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Speaker 1: come out of. And that I think in the storylines,

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Speaker 1: at least from my experience the books and the comics,

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Speaker 1: I think it takes like that's the first thing, Like

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Speaker 1: within eight hours you've got a stinger, and you might

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Speaker 1: still have a little bit of your personality. But then

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Speaker 1: it takes seven days for this other set of of

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Speaker 1: traits to change within your body. So, uh, your skin

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Speaker 1: becomes opaque, your digestive system gets fused together. Uh, the

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Speaker 1: stinger forms. Of course, you lose your hair and your

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Speaker 1: fingernails and your nose and also your genitals and ears.

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Speaker 1: So the vampires are are sexless kind of Uh, they're

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Speaker 1: they're very machine like you in a lot of ways. Right,

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Speaker 1: They just kind of dump all of the non essentials

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Speaker 1: of the human body. Uh, and then their fingers grow

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Speaker 1: into talent like things, which I don't know if they

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Speaker 1: use them as weapons as much as they do for

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Speaker 1: like crawling around on walls and stuff. Right, Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: think in the show you you do see them use

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Speaker 1: less as weapons, because I mean they got that stinger, right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: why would you don't have to use your close So

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Speaker 1: the idea then is that, you know, after seven nights,

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Speaker 1: they're fully formed into these sort of hairless, white stinger

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Speaker 1: beasts that troll around and you know, kill humans and

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Speaker 1: turn them into more vampires. And most of them are

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Speaker 1: kind of zombie like as apt to the very few

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Speaker 1: who have like a rational mind. Yeah, within the fictional world,

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Speaker 1: I'd say like there's only like two or three maybe

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Speaker 1: vampires that have sort of control or or individuality. The

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Speaker 1: rest of them sort of turned into this hive mind

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Speaker 1: of of almost like insects. Actually. Um So there are

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Speaker 1: a couple of ways that they used science, or they

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Speaker 1: tried to use science. It's kind of hokey pseudoscience, you know,

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Speaker 1: sometimes when when fiction meets science, you have to you

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Speaker 1: have to build the bridge a little bit between it.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and I certainly I think this is the

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Speaker 1: best part about the strain too. There was a lot

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Speaker 1: of attention put into this. But uh so the mythology

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Speaker 1: of vampires being vulnerable to silver, that's because silver has

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Speaker 1: an anti viral bacterial quality that disinfects these worms and

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Speaker 1: is somehow able to sort of burn through the tissue

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Speaker 1: that they've created. Uh And then they're also vulnerable to

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Speaker 1: UV light, which is where the you know, they can't

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Speaker 1: go into sunlight thing comes from, because the UV light

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Speaker 1: also has germicidal properties. It's on a certain kind of

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Speaker 1: wavelength that breaks down the tissue within the vampire bodies.

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Speaker 1: Um this is an interesting sort of science e thing

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Speaker 1: that del Toro thru into there. So his vampires can't vomit,

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Speaker 1: and all of their waste is excreted from a cloaca.

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Speaker 1: Uh that you know, they're they lose their genitals and

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Speaker 1: everything fuses down there into a cloaca, and their waste

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Speaker 1: is all just ammonious spray, which they usually emit while

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Speaker 1: they're eating, so like, while they're drinking the blood of

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Speaker 1: their victims, they're also spraying ammonia out behind them. And

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Speaker 1: he based this on ticks because apparently ticks have no

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Speaker 1: space inside of their bodies for the food that they eat.

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Speaker 1: So when like a tick is on you and it's

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Speaker 1: drinking your blood. This is all from Del Toro. I

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Speaker 1: didn't do tick research for this episode, but uh, he

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Speaker 1: says that they spray out their waist as they're drinking.

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Speaker 1: You know. That reminds me. I was reading about scorpions recently,

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Speaker 1: or actually it was a really cool article about the

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Speaker 1: anus and the evolution of the anus, and they mentioned

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Speaker 1: as a particular type of scorpion that can jettison its

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Speaker 1: tail when threatened, much like a lizard. Really yeah, autotomy

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Speaker 1: uh and uh And in this case though, when they

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Speaker 1: jettison their tail, they also jettison their anus, so they

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Speaker 1: can no longer defecate at that point, so they just

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Speaker 1: continue to balloon up with feces for the rest of

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Speaker 1: their life and then die from it eventually. Like there's

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Speaker 1: a toxic only here on stuff to blow your mind?

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Speaker 1: Will you go from anus to scorpion to vampire? Um?

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Speaker 1: You know, I do want to throw in real quick

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Speaker 1: that another interesting vampire myth uh tidbit that they employ

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Speaker 1: in the Strain is the whole vampires cannot cross moving

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Speaker 1: water of their own volitions, which which they never really

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Speaker 1: flesh out because it's it's kind of more of a

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Speaker 1: magical idea. But I think gets at least hinted that

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Speaker 1: this might have to do with like the evolutionary history

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Speaker 1: of the worm that like something in The Worm of

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Speaker 1: Whores moving water. There is I don't want to spoil

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Speaker 1: it for our listeners are for you, but there is

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Speaker 1: a explanation to it that comes in the third book,

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Speaker 1: I want to say, and maybe you know, I guess

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Speaker 1: if the TV shows a season for every book, it

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Speaker 1: would probably be in the third season. Well, I have

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Speaker 1: that to look for. Yeah, there is a sort of explanation.

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Speaker 1: I don't think it's science though, but I like you.

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Speaker 1: I like your idea better. Yeah, because it will end

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Speaker 1: up exploring um, you know, water moving water, parasites and

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Speaker 1: parasitositic manipulation of the host. Hugely important, hugely important. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we do see that in the real world. So Del

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Speaker 1: Toro himself has said in interviews that he based these

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Speaker 1: worms in the strain on two real worms. The first

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Speaker 1: one is the heartworm, which we're all familiar with if

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Speaker 1: you have a pet, if you have a dog. I

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Speaker 1: just gave my dog is heartworm pill this morning. Uh

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Speaker 1: and it you know, it's a worm that lodges itself

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Speaker 1: in the heart of dogs. It's not a thing that

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Speaker 1: you want. And then the other is an old friend

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Speaker 1: of stuff to blow your mind, the horsehair worm. We

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Speaker 1: did a video about this while back, and yeah, I'll

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Speaker 1: link to it on the landing page. It is. Um.

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Speaker 1: I gotta say this episode was a little tough for

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Speaker 1: me to research. Um I really, I really feel like

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Speaker 1: I've gotten my uh my, my badge of of stuff

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Speaker 1: to blow your mind courage this week, because there's some

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Speaker 1: pretty disgusting stuff in the biology of these different parasites

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Speaker 1: and insects. And just watching the video of the horsehair

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Speaker 1: worms squirm its way out of a cricket's body is

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Speaker 1: It just gives me goose bumps. Uh, it's it's chilling,

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Speaker 1: but it's also fascinating. I definitely recommend that you go

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Speaker 1: watch that video because I had not heard of it

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Speaker 1: before you did that episode. Yeah, that was one. I

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Speaker 1: think I mentioned it in the episode that I saw

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Speaker 1: it in like a junior high band class for some girl.

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Speaker 1: You saw a real one. Yeah, yeah, Like there was

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Speaker 1: a cricket on the floor and this girl on the

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Speaker 1: clarinet section. She was acting, she was acting like all

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Speaker 1: you know, grossed out by she she stopped the cricket,

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Speaker 1: which I thought was a little at the top, but

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Speaker 1: then in perfect karma, she was then legitimately horrified by

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Speaker 1: the side of the horsehair worm emerging, you know, impossibly

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Speaker 1: long from the belly of the cricket and crawling across

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Speaker 1: the band room floor. So yeah, they are. I mean

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Speaker 1: a lot of these things that we're about to talk

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Speaker 1: about are are pretty vile. And I'd like to quote

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Speaker 1: there was an article that I research I read for

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Speaker 1: this episode that was about the strain, and it was

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Speaker 1: the only other thing I could find that was like

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Speaker 1: this episode. It was about the strain and the science

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Speaker 1: behind parasites. Uh. And the science writer at Vox, her

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Speaker 1: name is Susannah Locke. She was the expert that they

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Speaker 1: spoke to about these uh and she had this quote

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Speaker 1: in this that I really liked. She said, for as

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Speaker 1: creepy as you can make some monster, there are almost

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Speaker 1: certainly ten or eleven things out there in nature that

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Speaker 1: are even creepier, which is that's nice. I like that,

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Speaker 1: and she's She's right, it's a there's just something about

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Speaker 1: these things that just are revolting. Yeah. I mean that's

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Speaker 1: the thing I find again in again with my Monster

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Speaker 1: the Week and Monster Science series is that, like, sometimes

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Speaker 1: I approach it by like, there's a cool article that

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Speaker 1: comes out and that's some neat biology. I wonder what

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Speaker 1: that matches up with and fictional monsters. But in other

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Speaker 1: times it's just if you think of any elaborate monster,

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Speaker 1: if you watch a film and you say, hey, that's

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Speaker 1: a really cool monster design, and then you wonder, is

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Speaker 1: there something in the real world that matches up or

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Speaker 1: exceeds that. There Almost always is, Yeah, I mean, obviously

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Speaker 1: it's where the imagination probably comes from in the first place. Uh.

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Speaker 1: Del Toro himself. You know, we mentioned earlier about how

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Speaker 1: he was obsessed with vampires as a little kid. Well,

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Speaker 1: he also refers to himself as a biologically perverse guy.

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Speaker 1: Uh And he said when he was a kid that

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Speaker 1: he's always keeping jars of things, like jars of animals

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Speaker 1: and blood, and he had little dissection tables. He would

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Speaker 1: just do his own little autopsies on animals, which is

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Speaker 1: terrifying and makes me think of that that old adage

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Speaker 1: that you know, the kind of people who torture. I mean,

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Speaker 1: he's not torturing animals, but you know, opening up animals.

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Speaker 1: His little kids are probably going to grow up to

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Speaker 1: be a psychopath. Instead, he grew up to be an

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Speaker 1: artistic genius. That's why I keep financing his films. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we're not. This episode is not financed by Crimson Peak

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Speaker 1: coming to a theater soon near you. One last thing

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Speaker 1: before we get into the examples, there was another great

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Speaker 1: piece of research that we found that was actually Susanna

407
00:21:36,560 --> 00:21:39,560
Speaker 1: Locke's article led to it. A guy named Ed Young

408
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Speaker 1: did a ted talk about parasites uh and, and the

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Speaker 1: kind of zombie ish effects that they can have on

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Speaker 1: various animals, mostly insects, but cats are covered as well. Um,

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Speaker 1: and he says, I think this is part of what

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Speaker 1: makes parasites so sinister and compelling. We place a premium

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Speaker 1: on our free will and our independence, we being humans,

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Speaker 1: and that the prospect of losing those qualities to forces

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Speaker 1: unseen informs many of our deepest societal fears. So this

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Speaker 1: gets right to the heart of what scared me the

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Speaker 1: most about vampires when I was a child. Uh, I

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Speaker 1: very clearly remember my my first interaction with vampire fiction

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Speaker 1: was an episode of Spider Man and his Amazing Friends,

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Speaker 1: and Dracula was the villain that they fought in that episode.

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Speaker 1: And something something happened where his Amazing friends Firestar, I

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Speaker 1: believe is the his female superhero friend. She was turned

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Speaker 1: into a vampire, and it I was I mean, I

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Speaker 1: was probably like four or five, and I remember like

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Speaker 1: doing that thing where you stand by the door and

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Speaker 1: you're watching the TV with one eye around the corner

427
00:22:50,680 --> 00:22:52,640
Speaker 1: of the door because I was so scared of this

428
00:22:52,920 --> 00:22:56,680
Speaker 1: cartoon Dracula. That's weird to Dracula himself showed up because

429
00:22:57,200 --> 00:22:59,399
Speaker 1: what's the name of the actual vampire that is in

430
00:22:59,560 --> 00:23:04,040
Speaker 1: like kind of the Blade and marvel omrbeous the living vampire. Yeah,

431
00:23:04,240 --> 00:23:05,960
Speaker 1: I don't know if he ever showed up in the cartoon.

432
00:23:06,080 --> 00:23:09,639
Speaker 1: But Marvel the old one, right, you're talking about that

433
00:23:09,720 --> 00:23:12,120
Speaker 1: really old Spider Man cart Yeah, the one from the eighties.

434
00:23:12,320 --> 00:23:14,600
Speaker 1: This one. There was an older Spider Man cartoon, I

435
00:23:14,600 --> 00:23:18,240
Speaker 1: believe in the late sixties, early seventies. But um, Marvel

436
00:23:18,600 --> 00:23:21,480
Speaker 1: had a string of horror comics that came out in

437
00:23:21,480 --> 00:23:25,440
Speaker 1: the seventies, and Dracula was one of them. I think

438
00:23:25,560 --> 00:23:28,880
Speaker 1: probably because I would assume the rights to that were

439
00:23:28,920 --> 00:23:31,119
Speaker 1: open and they could just do whatever they wanted with it.

440
00:23:31,960 --> 00:23:33,760
Speaker 1: Cool that I like that quote from from me young

441
00:23:33,840 --> 00:23:37,560
Speaker 1: that because because the whole issue of parasites and free will, uh,

442
00:23:37,600 --> 00:23:40,800
Speaker 1: the whole idea of vampires and free will, uh certainly

443
00:23:41,200 --> 00:23:44,440
Speaker 1: certainly resonates because in vampires you often see themes of addiction.

444
00:23:44,920 --> 00:23:49,000
Speaker 1: Um are are explorer, themes of disease, themes of parasites,

445
00:23:49,160 --> 00:23:52,320
Speaker 1: all things that suddenly turned the table on us and say, well,

446
00:23:52,359 --> 00:23:54,960
Speaker 1: maybe we are not in control of our bodies. Of

447
00:23:55,080 --> 00:23:58,480
Speaker 1: our bodies are telling us to drink this and making

448
00:23:58,480 --> 00:24:01,399
Speaker 1: these things happen to ourselves. You know, some stories have

449
00:24:01,440 --> 00:24:04,320
Speaker 1: gone so far as to make it a metaphor for

450
00:24:04,680 --> 00:24:08,440
Speaker 1: like HIV, for instance, like a blood borne disease, and

451
00:24:08,520 --> 00:24:10,600
Speaker 1: it again it changes our bodies against our will. We

452
00:24:10,640 --> 00:24:13,600
Speaker 1: don't have any control over it. Yeah, the I that

453
00:24:13,840 --> 00:24:18,800
Speaker 1: idea is I think inherently revolting, especially to human beings

454
00:24:18,800 --> 00:24:21,359
Speaker 1: and maybe maybe specifically to Americans. I don't know. There

455
00:24:21,440 --> 00:24:23,480
Speaker 1: might be a cultural study on that, but we value

456
00:24:23,480 --> 00:24:26,920
Speaker 1: our independence so highly in our culture that maybe there's

457
00:24:26,960 --> 00:24:29,320
Speaker 1: something to that that affects us more well, you know,

458
00:24:29,359 --> 00:24:32,440
Speaker 1: and that brings us to syphilis um and And I'm

459
00:24:32,560 --> 00:24:34,840
Speaker 1: we're not gonna go too in depth on syphilis because

460
00:24:34,880 --> 00:24:37,720
Speaker 1: we have two episodes in the path that we did

461
00:24:37,720 --> 00:24:42,080
Speaker 1: on syphilis, looking at syphilis as a disease, looking at

462
00:24:42,160 --> 00:24:47,639
Speaker 1: the Treponema palladium, the the organism that causes syphilis, as

463
00:24:47,640 --> 00:24:50,640
Speaker 1: well as the history and cultural impact of it um.

464
00:24:50,800 --> 00:24:55,840
Speaker 1: But just to to refresh Treponema palladium, it is a thin,

465
00:24:56,200 --> 00:25:00,359
Speaker 1: tightly coiled spiral key, this little little worm creature that

466
00:25:00,480 --> 00:25:03,880
Speaker 1: causes syphilis. Its sexually transmitted in the illness spread through

467
00:25:03,920 --> 00:25:07,520
Speaker 1: Europe from the mid fifteenth century onward, and before the

468
00:25:07,560 --> 00:25:10,040
Speaker 1: advent of antibiotics, it was one of the most common

469
00:25:10,080 --> 00:25:12,639
Speaker 1: infections afflicting up to tim per cent of the adult

470
00:25:12,680 --> 00:25:15,520
Speaker 1: population in Western in the Western world, and it was

471
00:25:15,560 --> 00:25:19,800
Speaker 1: an incura. It was incurable for four point five centuries UM.

472
00:25:19,880 --> 00:25:23,399
Speaker 1: And when you really start teasing apart the impact of

473
00:25:23,440 --> 00:25:28,240
Speaker 1: syphilis in the Western world, it's difficult to overstate it. Um.

474
00:25:28,280 --> 00:25:32,199
Speaker 1: It was widespread spread again, it was incurable. Uh, it

475
00:25:32,320 --> 00:25:34,840
Speaker 1: was a thing to be feared. And and of course

476
00:25:34,880 --> 00:25:36,920
Speaker 1: when we as we've been discussing when we we take

477
00:25:36,920 --> 00:25:39,920
Speaker 1: our monsters, where when when we create monsters, we're giving

478
00:25:39,920 --> 00:25:43,680
Speaker 1: our fears form and face and force all their own. Yeah,

479
00:25:43,760 --> 00:25:47,840
Speaker 1: I think that it's important to recall, like how prevalent

480
00:25:47,960 --> 00:25:52,200
Speaker 1: syphilis was at a time time before we were alive,

481
00:25:52,400 --> 00:25:55,320
Speaker 1: and that I imagine from what I've read of of

482
00:25:55,960 --> 00:25:59,159
Speaker 1: you know, the period that it was most active was

483
00:25:59,240 --> 00:26:02,000
Speaker 1: that I say most active as if it's like a

484
00:26:02,040 --> 00:26:05,440
Speaker 1: living you know, one single minded creature. But but but

485
00:26:05,920 --> 00:26:09,960
Speaker 1: it was really had a huge impact on the cultural

486
00:26:10,520 --> 00:26:15,439
Speaker 1: of zeitgeist. I guess, uh, you know, people were in

487
00:26:15,520 --> 00:26:17,520
Speaker 1: fear of it and there was also a sort of

488
00:26:19,119 --> 00:26:22,639
Speaker 1: uh disgust towards those who had contracted it. Yeah, because

489
00:26:22,640 --> 00:26:24,840
Speaker 1: it was I mean, you know, in the past, pretty

490
00:26:24,920 --> 00:26:28,399
Speaker 1: much any illness or physical ailment is tied to the soul,

491
00:26:28,880 --> 00:26:31,560
Speaker 1: but certainly with syphilis because it of course is is

492
00:26:31,640 --> 00:26:35,760
Speaker 1: tied to sexual contact, right, and so you know, and

493
00:26:36,000 --> 00:26:38,920
Speaker 1: not exclusively sexual contact. You could also there's also congenital

494
00:26:39,240 --> 00:26:41,760
Speaker 1: uh syphilis, in which you're just born with it. Yeah,

495
00:26:42,280 --> 00:26:45,160
Speaker 1: but there is an assumption in a lot of cases.

496
00:26:45,200 --> 00:26:46,960
Speaker 1: You know, if you found out that somebody had syphilis,

497
00:26:47,000 --> 00:26:49,200
Speaker 1: you assumed that they got it from you know, loose

498
00:26:49,240 --> 00:26:53,400
Speaker 1: sexual practices, right. Uh. And like I remember doing research

499
00:26:53,440 --> 00:26:57,720
Speaker 1: for another project about the Franklin Expedition going through the

500
00:26:57,760 --> 00:27:00,879
Speaker 1: Northwest Passage. This is in the mid eighteen hundred, and

501
00:27:01,040 --> 00:27:02,760
Speaker 1: you know, there were there were members on board those

502
00:27:02,760 --> 00:27:06,720
Speaker 1: ships who certainly had syphilis, you know, and the officers

503
00:27:06,800 --> 00:27:10,359
Speaker 1: looked upon them as being, you know, less than because

504
00:27:10,400 --> 00:27:12,760
Speaker 1: they had contracted such a thing. So it's this thing

505
00:27:12,800 --> 00:27:15,520
Speaker 1: that's spread from one person to another, and and it

506
00:27:15,600 --> 00:27:17,800
Speaker 1: has these various stages. And I'm not going to go

507
00:27:17,840 --> 00:27:21,040
Speaker 1: into into to the first two stages, but the the

508
00:27:21,200 --> 00:27:25,760
Speaker 1: later stage, tertiary syphilis, which occurs in ten to occurs

509
00:27:25,760 --> 00:27:29,199
Speaker 1: ten to twenty years after the initial affection, so you know,

510
00:27:29,280 --> 00:27:32,240
Speaker 1: quite a lot of time passes, and there are a

511
00:27:32,359 --> 00:27:35,359
Speaker 1: number of symptoms that it involves and we're talking about

512
00:27:35,359 --> 00:27:41,520
Speaker 1: tissue damage, muscle damage, organ damage, coordination problems, paralysis, numbness,

513
00:27:41,560 --> 00:27:46,000
Speaker 1: gradual blindness, dementia, uh, death. But where it really ties

514
00:27:46,040 --> 00:27:49,280
Speaker 1: in nicely with the strain Uh. Not only you know

515
00:27:49,359 --> 00:27:52,399
Speaker 1: the worms of course causing everything, but you would often

516
00:27:52,400 --> 00:27:54,639
Speaker 1: see with syphilis the loss of the nose or the

517
00:27:54,680 --> 00:27:58,600
Speaker 1: sinking of the nose into what was called saddle nose um.

518
00:27:58,800 --> 00:28:01,080
Speaker 1: And this is where we saw increased use of wigs,

519
00:28:01,200 --> 00:28:04,159
Speaker 1: the increased use of cosmetics, and the increased use of

520
00:28:04,400 --> 00:28:09,200
Speaker 1: fake noses to cover up your own essentially decaying nose. Yeah,

521
00:28:09,240 --> 00:28:12,800
Speaker 1: this is uh ironic because just yesterday I was reading

522
00:28:12,800 --> 00:28:15,040
Speaker 1: a piece that you had previously written in the Stuff

523
00:28:15,040 --> 00:28:17,840
Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind site on Stuff to Blow your

524
00:28:17,880 --> 00:28:21,719
Speaker 1: Mind dot com about the fake noses artificial noses as

525
00:28:21,760 --> 00:28:25,480
Speaker 1: prosthetics because of syphilis. But also there were other people

526
00:28:25,560 --> 00:28:29,200
Speaker 1: like the famous scientists or astronomer Tycho brah Hey, he

527
00:28:29,280 --> 00:28:31,000
Speaker 1: had his nose cut off in a sword fight, and

528
00:28:31,000 --> 00:28:33,280
Speaker 1: I believe they were a gold nose. Yeah, I think

529
00:28:33,280 --> 00:28:35,360
Speaker 1: he had. I think he had a couple, but but yeah,

530
00:28:35,359 --> 00:28:36,879
Speaker 1: I think he had a hit a like a brass

531
00:28:36,960 --> 00:28:39,160
Speaker 1: or gold nose at any rate, he was. He replaced

532
00:28:39,200 --> 00:28:41,280
Speaker 1: his nose, but was not shy about it. He was

533
00:28:41,320 --> 00:28:44,240
Speaker 1: just oh, he was very brash. He made it as

534
00:28:44,320 --> 00:28:47,960
Speaker 1: obvious as possible, kind of like I think. But in

535
00:28:48,000 --> 00:28:50,320
Speaker 1: the stream, you see these, you know, these characters that

536
00:28:50,360 --> 00:28:54,360
Speaker 1: have been degraded into these um, these nonspat tousque characters

537
00:28:54,440 --> 00:28:57,080
Speaker 1: by the parasite. They still have to interact with the world,

538
00:28:57,160 --> 00:28:59,280
Speaker 1: some of them. And in those cases, what do they

539
00:28:59,280 --> 00:29:00,520
Speaker 1: have to do. They have to put on wigs, they

540
00:29:00,560 --> 00:29:01,840
Speaker 1: have to put on cosmetics, they have to put on

541
00:29:01,880 --> 00:29:04,880
Speaker 1: a fake nose, um all in order to uh to

542
00:29:05,000 --> 00:29:08,440
Speaker 1: appear normal again. Also, you would see syphilis sufferers who

543
00:29:08,440 --> 00:29:10,760
Speaker 1: would use cod pieces. There's also where we saw a

544
00:29:10,760 --> 00:29:14,160
Speaker 1: resurgence of cod pieces, or not maybe not a resurgence

545
00:29:14,200 --> 00:29:18,000
Speaker 1: but a uh but you saw an increased use of

546
00:29:18,040 --> 00:29:21,040
Speaker 1: them due to a potential damage to the genitalia. Well

547
00:29:21,040 --> 00:29:23,960
Speaker 1: maybe that's why some rock stars wear cod pieces. There

548
00:29:24,000 --> 00:29:27,520
Speaker 1: you go, I think that's a holdover from syphilis. It

549
00:29:27,560 --> 00:29:30,760
Speaker 1: could be, it could be um and uh in according

550
00:29:30,840 --> 00:29:35,800
Speaker 1: to um Slavic and comparative literature professor Thomas lav Langevic,

551
00:29:36,720 --> 00:29:40,680
Speaker 1: commentators have often drawn a line of comparison between hereditary

552
00:29:40,680 --> 00:29:44,560
Speaker 1: syphilis and vampirism um because one of the one of

553
00:29:44,560 --> 00:29:47,760
Speaker 1: the things that you see with the congenital um syphilis

554
00:29:48,160 --> 00:29:52,640
Speaker 1: is the formation of sharp, pointy teeth, which which are

555
00:29:52,680 --> 00:29:55,120
Speaker 1: known as Hudgetson's teeth. So it's you know, the different

556
00:29:55,160 --> 00:29:58,200
Speaker 1: deformations of the of the dums and teeth. You sometimes

557
00:29:58,200 --> 00:30:03,120
Speaker 1: see long nails, you see elongated skulls, um and uh,

558
00:30:03,160 --> 00:30:06,040
Speaker 1: you know, superficially, it's easy to look at extreme cases

559
00:30:06,080 --> 00:30:09,000
Speaker 1: of late syphilis and congenital syphilis because when you have

560
00:30:09,040 --> 00:30:12,880
Speaker 1: congenital syphilis, a lot of times the physical deformities are

561
00:30:12,880 --> 00:30:14,680
Speaker 1: really I mean they're taking place in the womb and

562
00:30:14,720 --> 00:30:18,239
Speaker 1: they're pretty severe early on in life. Um, but you

563
00:30:18,280 --> 00:30:21,280
Speaker 1: could you could easily make a comparison between count orlock

564
00:30:21,360 --> 00:30:26,600
Speaker 1: in Nosferatu and severe syphilis sufferer. Yeah. I remember the

565
00:30:26,680 --> 00:30:30,239
Speaker 1: research that I had done on syphilis again about the

566
00:30:30,360 --> 00:30:33,880
Speaker 1: sort of Arctic expedition time. Some of the photos that

567
00:30:33,960 --> 00:30:38,000
Speaker 1: I saw of like skulls or or or they had

568
00:30:38,040 --> 00:30:40,760
Speaker 1: done like molds of people's heads. I mean we're talking

569
00:30:40,800 --> 00:30:47,320
Speaker 1: like elephant man style deformations here. It looked incredibly painful. Uh.

570
00:30:47,360 --> 00:30:49,360
Speaker 1: And this is a side note about syphilis I don't

571
00:30:49,360 --> 00:30:51,040
Speaker 1: know if you've heard this before, but here's a little

572
00:30:51,040 --> 00:30:55,400
Speaker 1: tidbit fun fact. There's a theory that Leon Cholgas, who

573
00:30:55,440 --> 00:30:59,400
Speaker 1: was the man who assassinated President McKinley, that he possibly

574
00:30:59,440 --> 00:31:02,000
Speaker 1: had been in acted with syphilis and was in second

575
00:31:02,040 --> 00:31:05,520
Speaker 1: stage heading into third stage syphilis, and that it was

576
00:31:06,000 --> 00:31:08,520
Speaker 1: part of the disease acting upon his mind that made

577
00:31:08,560 --> 00:31:11,520
Speaker 1: him go mad and try to kill the president. But well,

578
00:31:12,120 --> 00:31:14,800
Speaker 1: you know, given the time period there, it seems very likely.

579
00:31:14,840 --> 00:31:17,600
Speaker 1: I mean, it's possible his nose didn't fall off, he

580
00:31:17,640 --> 00:31:22,120
Speaker 1: hadn't started turning into you know, a deformed third tertiary

581
00:31:22,200 --> 00:31:26,400
Speaker 1: stage syphilis victim. But uh, there's there's some some evidence

582
00:31:26,440 --> 00:31:28,560
Speaker 1: people think that points in that direction. Yeah, there are

583
00:31:28,560 --> 00:31:32,040
Speaker 1: people that argue that Bram Stoker may may he himself

584
00:31:32,280 --> 00:31:37,040
Speaker 1: have suffered from syphilis, and that the novel Dracula is

585
00:31:37,760 --> 00:31:41,760
Speaker 1: or was his own way of exploring his own syphilitic condition.

586
00:31:41,920 --> 00:31:45,920
Speaker 1: But there's not there's not any hard proof in that area. Uh.

587
00:31:46,000 --> 00:31:49,680
Speaker 1: So I feel like we've we've gotten syphilis pretty well

588
00:31:49,720 --> 00:31:53,520
Speaker 1: covered here. Uh And like you said, there's two previous

589
00:31:53,560 --> 00:31:55,400
Speaker 1: episodes all about it. So if you want to learn

590
00:31:55,400 --> 00:31:59,200
Speaker 1: more about syphilis, go back through the archives and certainly

591
00:31:59,600 --> 00:32:02,680
Speaker 1: take the deep dive with Robert and Julie on that. Uh,

592
00:32:02,840 --> 00:32:06,320
Speaker 1: let's get to another one. This is just one that

593
00:32:06,320 --> 00:32:08,680
Speaker 1: that guy Young mentioned in his TED talk. He talked

594
00:32:08,680 --> 00:32:11,160
Speaker 1: about the guinea worm. Is this one that you've encountered

595
00:32:11,200 --> 00:32:14,320
Speaker 1: in your various travels with parasites and monsters? I feel

596
00:32:14,360 --> 00:32:16,320
Speaker 1: like we've covered guinea worm in the past. Yeah, I

597
00:32:16,320 --> 00:32:18,920
Speaker 1: think we. I could be wrong on this, but I

598
00:32:18,960 --> 00:32:22,320
Speaker 1: think we did a something with the Carter Center about

599
00:32:22,320 --> 00:32:25,320
Speaker 1: guinea worm. Okay, well, yeah, that would make sense actually

600
00:32:25,400 --> 00:32:27,560
Speaker 1: given the work that they do, because apparently the way

601
00:32:27,560 --> 00:32:31,520
Speaker 1: that you are infected by these is from unclean drinking water. Uh.

602
00:32:31,560 --> 00:32:34,840
Speaker 1: And the community that I live in a suburb just

603
00:32:34,920 --> 00:32:37,320
Speaker 1: outside of Landing here are our water went off for

604
00:32:37,400 --> 00:32:40,840
Speaker 1: three days last week. Uh. And I don't think guinea

605
00:32:40,840 --> 00:32:43,280
Speaker 1: worms were what people were worried about, but unclean drinking

606
00:32:43,280 --> 00:32:45,800
Speaker 1: water was certainly on everybody's mind. We realized sort of

607
00:32:45,840 --> 00:32:49,080
Speaker 1: how privileged our first world society is. But yeah, so

608
00:32:49,200 --> 00:32:51,880
Speaker 1: you are infected by this thing, and then what happens

609
00:32:51,960 --> 00:32:54,800
Speaker 1: is it creates a burning blister on either your leg

610
00:32:54,920 --> 00:32:57,400
Speaker 1: or your ankle. So well, I guess your ankle is

611
00:32:57,400 --> 00:33:00,560
Speaker 1: your leg and that what happens is hurt so much

612
00:33:00,600 --> 00:33:04,200
Speaker 1: in it and it burns that your inclination is to

613
00:33:04,280 --> 00:33:06,360
Speaker 1: immediately go to the water. So here we go. This

614
00:33:06,560 --> 00:33:08,920
Speaker 1: ties into this sort of vampire can't cross the water

615
00:33:08,960 --> 00:33:12,600
Speaker 1: type thing and also vampire I'm not vampires, but parasites

616
00:33:13,040 --> 00:33:17,760
Speaker 1: um twisting your behavior, manipulating you to do things exactly right,

617
00:33:17,800 --> 00:33:20,240
Speaker 1: Like was it your idea to do this? Did the

618
00:33:20,240 --> 00:33:24,520
Speaker 1: parasite consciously say I need to make this host of

619
00:33:24,560 --> 00:33:27,960
Speaker 1: mine walk towards the river? But what happens is people

620
00:33:28,000 --> 00:33:30,680
Speaker 1: go toward the water, they try to wash the blister,

621
00:33:31,160 --> 00:33:34,400
Speaker 1: and what happens is the worm bursts out because they

622
00:33:34,400 --> 00:33:38,800
Speaker 1: can only mate in water, so immediately bursts out of

623
00:33:38,840 --> 00:33:41,760
Speaker 1: your skin and moves on. And then you know more,

624
00:33:42,400 --> 00:33:44,920
Speaker 1: I assume they must be microscopic in size when you're

625
00:33:44,960 --> 00:33:50,040
Speaker 1: drinking them from the unclean water. More produced. But then

626
00:33:50,560 --> 00:33:54,120
Speaker 1: let's get on. This is the big daddy monster parasite

627
00:33:54,280 --> 00:33:57,360
Speaker 1: that really connects to you know, uh, the del Toro

628
00:33:57,480 --> 00:34:01,000
Speaker 1: string oy, the horse hair worm. We just mentioned it

629
00:34:01,040 --> 00:34:04,240
Speaker 1: briefly earlier, but let's let's really investigate this thing. Yeah,

630
00:34:04,280 --> 00:34:06,720
Speaker 1: we we mentioned if you look at any videos of this.

631
00:34:06,840 --> 00:34:09,520
Speaker 1: It generally consists of some sort of an insect that's

632
00:34:09,560 --> 00:34:11,799
Speaker 1: been squashed or it's near the water, and there's this

633
00:34:12,680 --> 00:34:17,239
Speaker 1: enormous black worm. It looks like a like a thick

634
00:34:17,280 --> 00:34:20,520
Speaker 1: horse hair, you know, just long black, doesn't have any

635
00:34:20,520 --> 00:34:25,799
Speaker 1: others distinguishable features, extremely long, extremely wiggly, just writhing and

636
00:34:25,840 --> 00:34:31,279
Speaker 1: emerging from this creature's abdomen. And it's it's grotesque, its beautiful,

637
00:34:31,440 --> 00:34:35,279
Speaker 1: and yeah, you're right, it's both those things. If you

638
00:34:35,400 --> 00:34:39,840
Speaker 1: haven't seen it, I think it's important to to note,

639
00:34:39,880 --> 00:34:42,560
Speaker 1: like these things are like three or four times the

640
00:34:42,600 --> 00:34:45,000
Speaker 1: size of their host body in terms of like length.

641
00:34:45,920 --> 00:34:48,600
Speaker 1: So you see them start pouring out of like a

642
00:34:48,640 --> 00:34:52,960
Speaker 1: dead cricket or whatever, it's just wool. So nauseating because

643
00:34:52,960 --> 00:34:56,640
Speaker 1: you just they unfurl. Yeah, there there are a number

644
00:34:56,680 --> 00:35:00,880
Speaker 1: of different ones. They're all from the phylum U Nematomorpha,

645
00:35:01,719 --> 00:35:04,640
Speaker 1: And uh, the way it works is this, Uh, the

646
00:35:04,680 --> 00:35:08,000
Speaker 1: adults are free living, but the larva are parasitic, can

647
00:35:08,000 --> 00:35:11,240
Speaker 1: grow to adulthood in the body of an insect. Male

648
00:35:11,400 --> 00:35:15,520
Speaker 1: and female horsehail hairworms mate and damp soil and fresh water.

649
00:35:15,680 --> 00:35:18,440
Speaker 1: So you may if you were ever walking through the woods,

650
00:35:18,800 --> 00:35:20,800
Speaker 1: which I was once and I actually looked in a

651
00:35:20,840 --> 00:35:24,759
Speaker 1: puddle and I saw one squirming around. Yeah. Um, So

652
00:35:24,800 --> 00:35:27,439
Speaker 1: that the males and the females they mate in damp

653
00:35:27,520 --> 00:35:30,120
Speaker 1: soil or fresh water. The female lay is just millions

654
00:35:30,160 --> 00:35:32,880
Speaker 1: of eggs in this little puddle, and then the eggs

655
00:35:32,880 --> 00:35:38,680
Speaker 1: hatch and tiny larva um that they insist on vegetation

656
00:35:39,120 --> 00:35:43,879
Speaker 1: near the water's edge, which is probably likely to be eaten. Yeah,

657
00:35:43,880 --> 00:35:46,759
Speaker 1: that's what happens. Cricket or other host drops. By they

658
00:35:46,840 --> 00:35:52,239
Speaker 1: eat the vegetation, they end up consumingly insisted larva. Uh.

659
00:35:52,239 --> 00:35:54,640
Speaker 1: And in the case of say are carnivorous mantis, it

660
00:35:54,640 --> 00:35:58,600
Speaker 1: acquires the parasite by devouring an intermediate hook. So something

661
00:35:58,640 --> 00:36:00,759
Speaker 1: else eats the grass and then the antis eats it.

662
00:36:00,880 --> 00:36:02,880
Speaker 1: And that's another common theme we're going to see with

663
00:36:02,920 --> 00:36:05,680
Speaker 1: some of these creatures today. Yeah. Yeah, because the parasite

664
00:36:05,719 --> 00:36:07,960
Speaker 1: is playing kind of the long game, right uh. And

665
00:36:08,000 --> 00:36:10,359
Speaker 1: so once inside the final host, be it the thing

666
00:36:10,400 --> 00:36:12,120
Speaker 1: that ate the plan or the thing that ain't, the

667
00:36:12,120 --> 00:36:15,960
Speaker 1: thing that hint the plant um, theys covering dissolves an

668
00:36:16,000 --> 00:36:18,800
Speaker 1: insects gut and it allows the juvenile warm to escape

669
00:36:19,200 --> 00:36:24,040
Speaker 1: bore through the gut wall and start absorbing nutrients. Uh.

670
00:36:24,080 --> 00:36:26,319
Speaker 1: And and that's you know, similar to what we were

671
00:36:26,320 --> 00:36:27,960
Speaker 1: just talking about with the guinea worm. That's when it

672
00:36:28,000 --> 00:36:31,200
Speaker 1: bursts free right after after it's sort of taken as

673
00:36:31,239 --> 00:36:34,160
Speaker 1: many nutrients as it can. Yeah, once it's reached full size.

674
00:36:34,160 --> 00:36:36,760
Speaker 1: But here's the thing, and this is something that researchers

675
00:36:36,800 --> 00:36:40,000
Speaker 1: are still exploring. So if you if the host dies,

676
00:36:40,080 --> 00:36:43,040
Speaker 1: if somebody squashes it on a band room floor, the

677
00:36:43,120 --> 00:36:46,160
Speaker 1: worm emergence. But obviously this is a situation where spaceship

678
00:36:46,200 --> 00:36:49,520
Speaker 1: cricket is going down, and so the parasite that is

679
00:36:49,560 --> 00:36:51,799
Speaker 1: piloting the spaceship at this point it has to get off,

680
00:36:52,000 --> 00:36:55,759
Speaker 1: has to has to just embark. But remember how we

681
00:36:55,800 --> 00:36:58,160
Speaker 1: talked about the puddle, right, the puddle is where it

682
00:36:58,200 --> 00:37:02,759
Speaker 1: needs to go, right, so it unlike the guinea worm,

683
00:37:02,800 --> 00:37:07,720
Speaker 1: it doesn't encourage its host to go towards wet areas well,

684
00:37:07,880 --> 00:37:10,359
Speaker 1: or is that they happen. Still trying to figure that out,

685
00:37:10,440 --> 00:37:14,600
Speaker 1: because there are two possibilities one either the the Either

686
00:37:14,640 --> 00:37:18,160
Speaker 1: the horsehair worm waits until its host inevitably returns to

687
00:37:18,200 --> 00:37:20,480
Speaker 1: an area in your water and then punches out through

688
00:37:20,520 --> 00:37:25,720
Speaker 1: the abdomen, or it manipulates the host into seeking out water. Okay,

689
00:37:25,760 --> 00:37:29,680
Speaker 1: so this is again very much very vampire vamporistic. And

690
00:37:29,680 --> 00:37:32,920
Speaker 1: there's all there's actually some some compelling evidence toward the

691
00:37:33,400 --> 00:37:38,440
Speaker 1: brain hacking situation, like observations of of of Mandis is

692
00:37:38,600 --> 00:37:41,880
Speaker 1: jumping into the water like you know, living style. You

693
00:37:41,920 --> 00:37:43,799
Speaker 1: know now that you're saying this, I do remember from

694
00:37:43,840 --> 00:37:47,440
Speaker 1: Young's talk that he said that there's evidence that they

695
00:37:47,480 --> 00:37:51,640
Speaker 1: release a certain kind of protein into the crickets brains

696
00:37:51,680 --> 00:37:55,000
Speaker 1: that addle their brains so that they head towards water. Yeah. Yeah,

697
00:37:55,080 --> 00:37:57,319
Speaker 1: Like I said, I feel like the the evidence for

698
00:37:57,719 --> 00:38:00,759
Speaker 1: brain hacking is pretty compelling here and ultimately makes the

699
00:38:00,760 --> 00:38:03,640
Speaker 1: creature all the more fascinating. Now, I know what you're wondering.

700
00:38:03,680 --> 00:38:07,680
Speaker 1: Can it infect humans? Well, yes it can. They are.

701
00:38:08,080 --> 00:38:12,640
Speaker 1: Human infections are possible, though not that likely. The human

702
00:38:12,719 --> 00:38:15,200
Speaker 1: is not, of course, the intended host. But there were

703
00:38:15,200 --> 00:38:18,879
Speaker 1: two Japanese cases reported in two thousand twelve, but these

704
00:38:18,880 --> 00:38:22,839
Speaker 1: were due to, of course, just accidental ingestation of infected insects.

705
00:38:22,880 --> 00:38:26,240
Speaker 1: So these two humans had eaten a cricket or something

706
00:38:26,320 --> 00:38:30,399
Speaker 1: like that, and that cricket had yet to burst. It's uh,

707
00:38:30,560 --> 00:38:33,480
Speaker 1: it's horse hair worm. Yeah, I actually have a quote

708
00:38:33,480 --> 00:38:36,800
Speaker 1: from the study here said the woman vomited a worm

709
00:38:36,840 --> 00:38:39,799
Speaker 1: after gargling with a sailine solution as she felt something

710
00:38:39,880 --> 00:38:41,919
Speaker 1: was caught in her throat while she was lying in bed.

711
00:38:42,280 --> 00:38:45,279
Speaker 1: She had eaten vegetables harvest from a private garden. The

712
00:38:45,320 --> 00:38:47,960
Speaker 1: other worm, from the mouth of a boy, was removed

713
00:38:47,960 --> 00:38:52,400
Speaker 1: by his mother. So, so, uh, you said that you've

714
00:38:52,440 --> 00:38:57,160
Speaker 1: seen these, So I'm assuming that they're indigenous to southeast

715
00:38:57,320 --> 00:38:59,799
Speaker 1: United States, where we live. It sounds like they're also

716
00:38:59,840 --> 00:39:01,880
Speaker 1: in US to Japan. Are they just everywhere? I think

717
00:39:01,920 --> 00:39:04,160
Speaker 1: they're just everywhere. Yeah, They're in They're in Asia, They're

718
00:39:04,160 --> 00:39:07,440
Speaker 1: in Europe. There in the United States, they're um anywhere

719
00:39:07,480 --> 00:39:11,200
Speaker 1: there is a warm, safe insect belly in which to grow.

720
00:39:12,040 --> 00:39:14,000
Speaker 1: Here you will find the horse hair worm, and maybe

721
00:39:14,000 --> 00:39:16,960
Speaker 1: inside us. Yeah, I think, right, how well you washed

722
00:39:16,960 --> 00:39:19,319
Speaker 1: your grains well. It also makes me kind of went right, like,

723
00:39:19,680 --> 00:39:23,759
Speaker 1: how many autopsy tables have you know, somebody dies and

724
00:39:23,800 --> 00:39:26,000
Speaker 1: then all of a sudden a little worm just kind

725
00:39:26,040 --> 00:39:29,080
Speaker 1: of pokes its way out and makes its way over

726
00:39:29,080 --> 00:39:30,920
Speaker 1: to the sink or something, you know. I mean, I

727
00:39:30,920 --> 00:39:33,759
Speaker 1: don't think that they're that insidious, obviously, but this is

728
00:39:33,800 --> 00:39:37,319
Speaker 1: clearly where del Toro got the inspiration from. Uh. There's

729
00:39:37,360 --> 00:39:40,719
Speaker 1: one last creepy fact about the horse are worm I

730
00:39:40,760 --> 00:39:43,160
Speaker 1: want to throw in here. This is also from Young's talk.

731
00:39:43,400 --> 00:39:47,759
Speaker 1: He said, there's a Japanese scientist named Takuya Sato who

732
00:39:47,800 --> 00:39:50,760
Speaker 1: found one stream where there were so many of these things,

733
00:39:51,120 --> 00:39:54,080
Speaker 1: and they'd infected so many crickets that it just had

734
00:39:54,200 --> 00:39:57,680
Speaker 1: filled up the stream with crickets and over six of

735
00:39:57,719 --> 00:40:01,279
Speaker 1: the local trout's diet where the crickets who had been

736
00:40:01,280 --> 00:40:05,839
Speaker 1: infected by horsehair worms and then subsequently horsehair worms themselves. Uh.

737
00:40:06,560 --> 00:40:08,839
Speaker 1: I also remember reading in one of these articles that

738
00:40:09,040 --> 00:40:12,480
Speaker 1: generally the host has only one horse hair warm inside it,

739
00:40:12,760 --> 00:40:14,680
Speaker 1: but it is possible to wind up with twins. So

740
00:40:14,840 --> 00:40:19,920
Speaker 1: you have two of these things. Wow, okay, all right,

741
00:40:19,960 --> 00:40:21,640
Speaker 1: well let's let's move on. What else do we have

742
00:40:21,719 --> 00:40:26,360
Speaker 1: on the parasitic pop ladder. Well, we've got a zombie

743
00:40:26,360 --> 00:40:30,279
Speaker 1: fungus here, and uh, you seem familiar with this when

744
00:40:30,280 --> 00:40:32,680
Speaker 1: we were first talking about this, but I believe it's

745
00:40:32,680 --> 00:40:37,359
Speaker 1: pronounced opheo corti SEPs. That correct, court sps. Okay, so

746
00:40:37,400 --> 00:40:41,200
Speaker 1: this is also commonly known as the zombie fungus. And

747
00:40:41,239 --> 00:40:44,840
Speaker 1: what I had heard was that, I say, I heard

748
00:40:44,920 --> 00:40:47,280
Speaker 1: like down on the street. You know they talk about

749
00:40:47,320 --> 00:40:51,719
Speaker 1: the zombie fun I read about it. It drives carpenter

750
00:40:51,800 --> 00:40:54,320
Speaker 1: ants like so that they get infected with this fungus,

751
00:40:54,320 --> 00:40:56,840
Speaker 1: and carpenter ants then go to find a more suitable

752
00:40:56,880 --> 00:41:00,000
Speaker 1: home for the fungus and then it bursts out. So uh,

753
00:41:00,080 --> 00:41:02,200
Speaker 1: young jokes about this and it's talk. As you can

754
00:41:02,239 --> 00:41:04,560
Speaker 1: already tell. The common theme is something gets in you,

755
00:41:04,960 --> 00:41:06,880
Speaker 1: it drives you to go somewhere, and then it bursts

756
00:41:06,920 --> 00:41:10,320
Speaker 1: out of your body and kills you. Now you had

757
00:41:10,360 --> 00:41:13,239
Speaker 1: some other research on the there's more than one court

758
00:41:13,280 --> 00:41:15,879
Speaker 1: of steps. Oh yeah, there are thousands of different court

759
00:41:15,880 --> 00:41:18,200
Speaker 1: of steps, and each one is aimed at a different

760
00:41:18,239 --> 00:41:22,280
Speaker 1: insects species. Uh. For instance, though bullet ants are infected

761
00:41:22,280 --> 00:41:25,360
Speaker 1: by one particular type of court of steps, and it

762
00:41:25,440 --> 00:41:27,840
Speaker 1: manipulates the behavior of the ant. It causes it to

763
00:41:28,320 --> 00:41:34,880
Speaker 1: climb up about five centimeters above the usual ant trail,

764
00:41:35,040 --> 00:41:39,440
Speaker 1: usually facing northwest, clamp on with its jaws generally around

765
00:41:39,480 --> 00:41:42,560
Speaker 1: noon and just not let go, and then within six

766
00:41:42,640 --> 00:41:45,240
Speaker 1: hours it dies. A few days later, a tube sprouts

767
00:41:45,239 --> 00:41:47,440
Speaker 1: out of its head, and this is the fruiting body

768
00:41:47,440 --> 00:41:50,240
Speaker 1: of the fungus it you know, blast out the spores

769
00:41:50,280 --> 00:41:55,200
Speaker 1: and then these end up infecting a new ants. So um,

770
00:41:55,239 --> 00:41:59,200
Speaker 1: it's uh, it's it's it's kind of essentially it makes

771
00:41:59,239 --> 00:42:01,680
Speaker 1: the the ant go raise itself up like a flag

772
00:42:01,680 --> 00:42:04,880
Speaker 1: on a flagpole, die and then spread. It's it's a sport.

773
00:42:05,000 --> 00:42:08,960
Speaker 1: What's um? I mean, surely it seems very specific northwest

774
00:42:09,040 --> 00:42:13,600
Speaker 1: at noon? What's the specific? Um? There must be some

775
00:42:13,680 --> 00:42:15,960
Speaker 1: kind of reason for that, like as the sun as

776
00:42:16,000 --> 00:42:18,720
Speaker 1: it's at its highest, and that subsequently makes it easier

777
00:42:18,760 --> 00:42:21,440
Speaker 1: for the fungest to bloom or something. I don't know,

778
00:42:21,440 --> 00:42:23,440
Speaker 1: I guess though, Or it's you know, tapping into existing

779
00:42:23,560 --> 00:42:27,359
Speaker 1: you know, behavioral maybe that's the ant. But um, if

780
00:42:27,400 --> 00:42:30,760
Speaker 1: the generally what happens to in these these social ant colonies,

781
00:42:30,800 --> 00:42:33,800
Speaker 1: if they discover a worker that is exhibiting some of

782
00:42:33,840 --> 00:42:37,000
Speaker 1: the characteristics of a court accepts infected AUNT, they'll remove

783
00:42:37,080 --> 00:42:39,320
Speaker 1: them and take their body out and dump them somewhere

784
00:42:39,320 --> 00:42:42,560
Speaker 1: else because they know the real yeah, that they are prized.

785
00:42:42,600 --> 00:42:45,520
Speaker 1: So they're like the vampire hunter ants. Yeah, yeah, like

786
00:42:45,560 --> 00:42:48,280
Speaker 1: they they are. They are aware of the vampire issue

787
00:42:48,400 --> 00:42:51,680
Speaker 1: and they will remove them if there's something fishy. Huh.

788
00:42:51,840 --> 00:42:54,600
Speaker 1: This reminds me of recent movie Aunt Man that's just

789
00:42:54,640 --> 00:42:59,040
Speaker 1: come out to where apparently through some science, like they

790
00:42:59,080 --> 00:43:01,839
Speaker 1: just wear like blue too. It's basically in their ear

791
00:43:02,239 --> 00:43:05,040
Speaker 1: that allows them to control ants. And now I'm wondering

792
00:43:05,080 --> 00:43:08,480
Speaker 1: if they could backtrack and do a pseudoscience explanation of

793
00:43:08,480 --> 00:43:10,759
Speaker 1: it by saying that they've they've infected these ants with

794
00:43:10,760 --> 00:43:13,480
Speaker 1: the zombie fungus. Well, you know, there there's a lot

795
00:43:13,520 --> 00:43:17,880
Speaker 1: of interesting um species that live among ants. Um one

796
00:43:17,920 --> 00:43:19,560
Speaker 1: in particular I was reading about the other day as

797
00:43:19,600 --> 00:43:21,520
Speaker 1: a as a type of beetle. And if you want

798
00:43:21,520 --> 00:43:23,239
Speaker 1: the details on this, I did a monster the week

799
00:43:23,239 --> 00:43:26,160
Speaker 1: about the thing. Carpenter is the thing, and I'll link

800
00:43:26,160 --> 00:43:29,239
Speaker 1: to it on the list pretty recently. Yeah, but but

801
00:43:29,320 --> 00:43:32,440
Speaker 1: in that I tied in this this particular beetle that

802
00:43:32,560 --> 00:43:36,279
Speaker 1: lives among the ants, and it uses scent and an

803
00:43:36,280 --> 00:43:40,120
Speaker 1: audible cues to convince the other ants that it is

804
00:43:40,320 --> 00:43:43,240
Speaker 1: either work or ant or sometimes even royalty within the colony,

805
00:43:43,560 --> 00:43:46,520
Speaker 1: so that you can live amongst the ants undetected, eat

806
00:43:46,560 --> 00:43:49,400
Speaker 1: their larva, and also benefit from the protection of the

807
00:43:49,480 --> 00:43:51,600
Speaker 1: high because it's like it's like living in a bank vault,

808
00:43:51,600 --> 00:43:53,319
Speaker 1: you know, it's like living in a medieval castle in

809
00:43:53,360 --> 00:43:55,560
Speaker 1: the insect world. You're pretty safe in there. And if

810
00:43:55,560 --> 00:43:57,360
Speaker 1: you're if you can get away with eating some of

811
00:43:57,400 --> 00:44:00,440
Speaker 1: the babies in the castle, all the better. Yep. Resolutely

812
00:44:01,640 --> 00:44:03,920
Speaker 1: wasn't that dark. But I believe that they just said

813
00:44:03,960 --> 00:44:08,200
Speaker 1: something very quickly about pheromones. You know, that's usually just pheromones.

814
00:44:08,280 --> 00:44:11,279
Speaker 1: That's how we do it. So what do we we

815
00:44:11,360 --> 00:44:17,480
Speaker 1: have a parasitic castration next? Yes, because of course the

816
00:44:17,520 --> 00:44:20,319
Speaker 1: Strain has some wonderful scenes where the characters who are

817
00:44:20,400 --> 00:44:24,279
Speaker 1: changing suddenly realize that they're genitals are rotting and or

818
00:44:24,320 --> 00:44:27,120
Speaker 1: falling off, and then whoops, they finally dropped their pants,

819
00:44:27,120 --> 00:44:29,000
Speaker 1: look in the mirror and there is this kin doll

820
00:44:29,200 --> 00:44:32,040
Speaker 1: like molding. Yeah. As I mentioned at the top, it's

821
00:44:32,120 --> 00:44:34,680
Speaker 1: like they get rid of everything that that that that

822
00:44:34,719 --> 00:44:39,919
Speaker 1: the the vampire biology no longer needs, and it falls off.

823
00:44:40,040 --> 00:44:42,680
Speaker 1: They I do remember this from the television show that

824
00:44:42,719 --> 00:44:46,640
Speaker 1: they made a rather big production about one character going

825
00:44:46,719 --> 00:44:51,160
Speaker 1: through that process, and um, yeah, it was grizzly. Yeah,

826
00:44:51,239 --> 00:44:53,880
Speaker 1: but yeah, you're right, they've got the sort of action

827
00:44:53,960 --> 00:44:58,440
Speaker 1: figure Barbie doll body, uh, and they're very smooth. So

828
00:44:58,480 --> 00:45:01,200
Speaker 1: all that stuff falls off. So the pair citocratic castration

829
00:45:01,280 --> 00:45:03,440
Speaker 1: is similar to this. Yeah, and it's you know, it's ghastly,

830
00:45:03,480 --> 00:45:07,240
Speaker 1: but it's purely economical because in the case of the strain,

831
00:45:08,320 --> 00:45:11,120
Speaker 1: the little stragary worm, it does it doesn't need these

832
00:45:11,120 --> 00:45:14,120
Speaker 1: host creatures to breed, and it doesn't This is not

833
00:45:14,160 --> 00:45:17,279
Speaker 1: a part of its functional biology anymore. And so in

834
00:45:17,360 --> 00:45:21,319
Speaker 1: the natural world we see parasitic castration as a as

835
00:45:21,360 --> 00:45:24,080
Speaker 1: a tactic where they shut off reproduction in the host,

836
00:45:24,360 --> 00:45:28,120
Speaker 1: generally in order to hoard all the energy resources for themselves.

837
00:45:28,560 --> 00:45:31,440
Speaker 1: Because this is your host. You're were you were gaming

838
00:45:31,440 --> 00:45:35,360
Speaker 1: this organism, and so any energy expenditure, and and certainly

839
00:45:35,600 --> 00:45:39,839
Speaker 1: in organisms mating, energy expenditures are kind of high. So

840
00:45:39,880 --> 00:45:43,520
Speaker 1: if you can shut that off, then you've streamlined the

841
00:45:43,520 --> 00:45:47,759
Speaker 1: the the the energy efficiency of the organism for yourself. Um.

842
00:45:47,880 --> 00:45:51,719
Speaker 1: There are numerous accounts of this, but one one that

843
00:45:51,800 --> 00:45:55,560
Speaker 1: came to mind here is a parasitic parasitic barnacle called

844
00:45:55,920 --> 00:46:01,040
Speaker 1: Sacculina carcini, and this parasite stops rep production in the

845
00:46:01,080 --> 00:46:04,440
Speaker 1: host crab and stand and end up ends up stimulating

846
00:46:04,440 --> 00:46:08,160
Speaker 1: the female crab to disperse parasitic eggs. In this with

847
00:46:08,239 --> 00:46:10,560
Speaker 1: the same behavior that you would normally use to lay

848
00:46:10,560 --> 00:46:13,279
Speaker 1: her own eggs, So us want the same mouth well

849
00:46:13,320 --> 00:46:16,080
Speaker 1: I don't know their mouthparts, but using the same the

850
00:46:16,120 --> 00:46:20,960
Speaker 1: same physiological gifts to distribute the parasite young that she

851
00:46:21,000 --> 00:46:25,839
Speaker 1: would normally use to distribute her own eggs. I you

852
00:46:25,880 --> 00:46:29,080
Speaker 1: have a note here too about how trematode parasites also

853
00:46:29,360 --> 00:46:32,640
Speaker 1: use this to destroy the gonads of their victims. Yeah,

854
00:46:32,680 --> 00:46:35,279
Speaker 1: because again, what does it have gonads for? This is

855
00:46:35,960 --> 00:46:38,279
Speaker 1: you know, the parasites essentially saying this is not a

856
00:46:38,360 --> 00:46:43,239
Speaker 1: free roaming crab or insect. It's it's it's my car now,

857
00:46:43,400 --> 00:46:49,080
Speaker 1: and I my card does not eat gonads. Okay, So, uh,

858
00:46:49,719 --> 00:46:52,440
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say this. There's a particular one that we're

859
00:46:52,440 --> 00:46:54,920
Speaker 1: gonna get to that I had a nightmare about last night.

860
00:46:54,960 --> 00:46:59,040
Speaker 1: So we're heading towards it, though, But the parasitic castration,

861
00:46:59,239 --> 00:47:01,320
Speaker 1: and you think of about it. This is the first

862
00:47:01,360 --> 00:47:03,520
Speaker 1: time working on an episode of stuff to blow your mind.

863
00:47:03,520 --> 00:47:06,360
Speaker 1: I've had a nightmare. Well, welcome to the show, Christian.

864
00:47:08,400 --> 00:47:10,920
Speaker 1: So another one is this is not the one I

865
00:47:10,960 --> 00:47:13,200
Speaker 1: was thinking of, but the the the hookworm which many

866
00:47:13,200 --> 00:47:17,479
Speaker 1: of us are familiar with her which also called a nematode. Uh,

867
00:47:17,640 --> 00:47:20,560
Speaker 1: you know, This is just your your average hookworm parasite

868
00:47:20,600 --> 00:47:23,919
Speaker 1: that sucks the blood from within its host, very vampiric. Uh.

869
00:47:23,960 --> 00:47:26,640
Speaker 1: It burrows into your skin and migrates to small intestines.

870
00:47:26,680 --> 00:47:29,759
Speaker 1: And we're talking about humans here. And yeah, especially in

871
00:47:29,800 --> 00:47:33,680
Speaker 1: the South here, we're big on the hookworm not too

872
00:47:33,800 --> 00:47:36,879
Speaker 1: not too long ago. Sometimes they can suck so much

873
00:47:36,920 --> 00:47:39,440
Speaker 1: blood from within your body that you can get anemia,

874
00:47:39,719 --> 00:47:42,520
Speaker 1: so you will probably be aware of this. And here

875
00:47:42,600 --> 00:47:45,600
Speaker 1: is a stunning fact. When I was looking this up,

876
00:47:45,840 --> 00:47:49,320
Speaker 1: they currently infect six hundred million people in the world.

877
00:47:50,000 --> 00:47:51,920
Speaker 1: So that's a lot. I mean when you think about it.

878
00:47:51,960 --> 00:47:53,719
Speaker 1: You know, I was joking earlier about our sort of

879
00:47:53,800 --> 00:47:57,919
Speaker 1: first world uh plumbing problems of having clean water that's

880
00:47:57,920 --> 00:48:01,960
Speaker 1: readily available, but uh man, six hundred people and six

881
00:48:02,000 --> 00:48:04,920
Speaker 1: hundred million people in the world are carrying around hookworms

882
00:48:04,960 --> 00:48:07,520
Speaker 1: and can't do anything about it. Well, then you have

883
00:48:07,560 --> 00:48:11,360
Speaker 1: the interesting situation where hookworm free individuals have sought them

884
00:48:11,400 --> 00:48:15,000
Speaker 1: out there. There's been some interesting content to come out

885
00:48:15,640 --> 00:48:18,799
Speaker 1: in previous years about this where there's the argument that

886
00:48:19,040 --> 00:48:22,040
Speaker 1: humans have had hookworms for so long that we've kind

887
00:48:22,040 --> 00:48:24,520
Speaker 1: of co evolved with them, and we've reached the point

888
00:48:24,560 --> 00:48:27,879
Speaker 1: where we kind of don't work right if if we're

889
00:48:27,920 --> 00:48:32,160
Speaker 1: missing the hookworms. Really so you have you've had cases

890
00:48:32,200 --> 00:48:36,520
Speaker 1: where certain individuals have claimed that as hookworm free organisms

891
00:48:37,040 --> 00:48:40,520
Speaker 1: there they don't work right, they're not properly. They have

892
00:48:40,560 --> 00:48:44,080
Speaker 1: all these allergies, etcetera, or some kind of some some

893
00:48:44,200 --> 00:48:46,680
Speaker 1: kind of modern maladay. Yeah, and I think a lot

894
00:48:46,680 --> 00:48:49,600
Speaker 1: of times it is just excessive allergies. And then they

895
00:48:49,600 --> 00:48:53,360
Speaker 1: seek out the hookworm infection and uh and and and

896
00:48:53,600 --> 00:48:56,720
Speaker 1: the choir hookworms by saying going to treem filled field

897
00:48:56,719 --> 00:48:59,160
Speaker 1: in Africa. There was this American life about this one

898
00:48:59,200 --> 00:49:01,960
Speaker 1: individual britishdividual who did this. I think he was British

899
00:49:02,000 --> 00:49:05,040
Speaker 1: where he ended up fleeing to Britain anyway, he um,

900
00:49:05,080 --> 00:49:07,319
Speaker 1: he went acquired hookworms and he was actually selling them

901
00:49:07,320 --> 00:49:11,640
Speaker 1: online for a little bit to like minded individuals. Um.

902
00:49:11,680 --> 00:49:13,760
Speaker 1: The thing is he's kind of acting ahead of the research.

903
00:49:13,800 --> 00:49:16,200
Speaker 1: There's actual research that's looking into this, say saying, you know,

904
00:49:16,280 --> 00:49:20,480
Speaker 1: to what extent, how do we uh, do we benefit

905
00:49:20,560 --> 00:49:23,799
Speaker 1: from a mild hookworm infestation in our bodies? You know,

906
00:49:23,880 --> 00:49:28,360
Speaker 1: not enough to actually cause anema anemia, but enough to

907
00:49:28,360 --> 00:49:30,440
Speaker 1: to sort of balance things out and give our body

908
00:49:30,880 --> 00:49:34,640
Speaker 1: the in the the level of infection and occupancy that

909
00:49:34,719 --> 00:49:37,040
Speaker 1: it has come to expect. So it's sort of like

910
00:49:37,160 --> 00:49:45,239
Speaker 1: the symbiotic relationship many animals have with parasitic uh, parasites

911
00:49:45,280 --> 00:49:47,680
Speaker 1: have with their hosts. Yeah, I mean across the board

912
00:49:47,680 --> 00:49:51,600
Speaker 1: when you look at parasites and symbiotic relationships, there's often

913
00:49:51,680 --> 00:49:53,960
Speaker 1: kind of that gray area like when does when does

914
00:49:54,000 --> 00:49:56,720
Speaker 1: the parasite stop being a parasite and start being becoming

915
00:49:56,760 --> 00:49:59,600
Speaker 1: a symbiotic organism? At which point does it stop becoming

916
00:49:59,600 --> 00:50:01,879
Speaker 1: a paras side and become a part of who you are,

917
00:50:02,000 --> 00:50:05,279
Speaker 1: such as you know, all the bacteria in our bodies. Yeah,

918
00:50:05,280 --> 00:50:08,320
Speaker 1: Like I'm thinking of Lamprey's where I grew up in

919
00:50:08,360 --> 00:50:12,439
Speaker 1: New England. Lampreys are really common in the rivers around there,

920
00:50:12,680 --> 00:50:15,880
Speaker 1: and they certainly work off of hosts and kind of,

921
00:50:15,960 --> 00:50:20,360
Speaker 1: you know, to maintain one another's ecology. But there's also, um,

922
00:50:20,400 --> 00:50:22,640
Speaker 1: what are the what the what are the I'm forgetting

923
00:50:22,640 --> 00:50:26,320
Speaker 1: the name right now. With the fish that cleaned sharks

924
00:50:26,800 --> 00:50:30,440
Speaker 1: believe so yeah, the little yeah little cleaning Yeah yeah, yeah,

925
00:50:31,040 --> 00:50:34,080
Speaker 1: maybe that's maybe the hookworm is our remora. Yeah, I

926
00:50:34,080 --> 00:50:38,720
Speaker 1: mean there, I've I've read some interesting speculative biology about

927
00:50:39,280 --> 00:50:41,839
Speaker 1: about the origins of the vampire bat, and there are

928
00:50:41,880 --> 00:50:46,560
Speaker 1: some there's some theories that vampire bats originated as as

929
00:50:46,400 --> 00:50:49,840
Speaker 1: his creatures that would would feed clean up the wounds

930
00:50:49,960 --> 00:50:53,200
Speaker 1: of giant you know, megafauna, and then over time that

931
00:50:53,280 --> 00:50:58,040
Speaker 1: develops into just full blown parasitism. Yeah, well that is

932
00:50:58,480 --> 00:51:01,879
Speaker 1: you know, if your stomach hasn't hearn from our hookworms

933
00:51:01,880 --> 00:51:04,600
Speaker 1: and syphilis and zombie fungus, what have we got next

934
00:51:04,640 --> 00:51:07,520
Speaker 1: for you? That's like a vampire from a from a

935
00:51:07,560 --> 00:51:10,160
Speaker 1: science fiction TV show. Of course, we could keep going.

936
00:51:10,200 --> 00:51:12,759
Speaker 1: We're actually gonna have to cut a couple of parasites

937
00:51:12,800 --> 00:51:14,960
Speaker 1: from our notes just to so that we don't go

938
00:51:15,000 --> 00:51:17,560
Speaker 1: too long here. But the next one we're gonna look

939
00:51:17,560 --> 00:51:22,400
Speaker 1: at if simon Thoa exigua, which is this cool isopod

940
00:51:22,440 --> 00:51:24,879
Speaker 1: creature that a number of you are probably familiar with.

941
00:51:25,200 --> 00:51:27,680
Speaker 1: It kind of looks like a like a sand louse,

942
00:51:27,760 --> 00:51:30,799
Speaker 1: a little bit like a kind of beetle or an

943
00:51:30,920 --> 00:51:33,040
Speaker 1: enlarged tick or something like that. Yeah, I think it's

944
00:51:33,080 --> 00:51:36,239
Speaker 1: actually kin to like the little roly poly creatures you see.

945
00:51:37,040 --> 00:51:39,600
Speaker 1: If you've seen the horror movie The Bay, which came

946
00:51:39,600 --> 00:51:43,200
Speaker 1: out about to maybe three years ago. The whole movie

947
00:51:43,320 --> 00:51:47,760
Speaker 1: surrounded the idea of these sort of mutated isopods infecting

948
00:51:47,800 --> 00:51:50,239
Speaker 1: human being. Did you see it? I did. Does it

949
00:51:50,239 --> 00:51:53,800
Speaker 1: actually like replace their tongue? Yeah? Yeah, I mean the

950
00:51:53,840 --> 00:51:57,120
Speaker 1: whole movie sort of builds up to, uh that that's

951
00:51:57,160 --> 00:52:00,960
Speaker 1: the big scene, but they cut it's found footage, so

952
00:52:00,960 --> 00:52:04,439
Speaker 1: they cut it with footage of actual isopods inside fish

953
00:52:04,480 --> 00:52:07,279
Speaker 1: mouths replacing their tongues. Yeah. I mean, I think a

954
00:52:07,320 --> 00:52:09,080
Speaker 1: lot of our listeners are familiar with this one because

955
00:52:09,080 --> 00:52:12,120
Speaker 1: I think we've covered in on the podcast before, and

956
00:52:12,400 --> 00:52:14,440
Speaker 1: it's it's also one of these things that just really

957
00:52:14,800 --> 00:52:17,640
Speaker 1: became viral because it's horrifying. This the idea that you know,

958
00:52:17,800 --> 00:52:20,800
Speaker 1: you look at the fish's mouth and there instead of

959
00:52:20,840 --> 00:52:25,319
Speaker 1: the fish's tongue, you have this little crustacean that is

960
00:52:25,360 --> 00:52:28,440
Speaker 1: just setting there, perched on the on its tongue stump,

961
00:52:28,920 --> 00:52:31,319
Speaker 1: acting as its tongue, just like you know, you open

962
00:52:31,400 --> 00:52:34,759
Speaker 1: this mouth and there's a little guy in there's hello. Yeah. Yeah.

963
00:52:35,040 --> 00:52:38,120
Speaker 1: I think there's some some lovely cartoons out there they

964
00:52:38,160 --> 00:52:40,880
Speaker 1: explore that. Um, this is so I mentioned earlier I

965
00:52:41,160 --> 00:52:43,160
Speaker 1: had a nightmare doing the research of this episode, and

966
00:52:43,160 --> 00:52:45,279
Speaker 1: this was I think it was sort of an amllegation

967
00:52:45,320 --> 00:52:47,360
Speaker 1: of all the parasites that we're talking about here, but

968
00:52:47,400 --> 00:52:49,799
Speaker 1: the isopod in particular is one that gets me. I

969
00:52:50,480 --> 00:52:53,840
Speaker 1: before I went to bed last night, my my throat

970
00:52:53,920 --> 00:52:56,239
Speaker 1: was a little inflamed, I think, like my allergies were

971
00:52:56,239 --> 00:52:59,040
Speaker 1: bothering me. And in the night I had this you know,

972
00:52:59,440 --> 00:53:02,960
Speaker 1: horrifying there about something crawling around in my throat. It

973
00:53:03,040 --> 00:53:05,360
Speaker 1: was probably mixed in with the strain as well, with

974
00:53:05,480 --> 00:53:08,040
Speaker 1: the you know, the whole idea that your voice box

975
00:53:08,080 --> 00:53:10,680
Speaker 1: and lungs collapse and fuse into the stinger thing. But

976
00:53:10,719 --> 00:53:13,720
Speaker 1: the isopod is really I mean, that's that's pretty close

977
00:53:13,760 --> 00:53:16,200
Speaker 1: to the strain there where your tongue is replaced by

978
00:53:16,239 --> 00:53:19,280
Speaker 1: a living thing. Yeah, and it's horrifying to think of

979
00:53:19,280 --> 00:53:21,600
Speaker 1: of a fish experiencing this because the fish can't just

980
00:53:21,680 --> 00:53:23,719
Speaker 1: reach in and do anything about it. It's just kind

981
00:53:23,719 --> 00:53:26,000
Speaker 1: of it's just got to roll with it. At this point.

982
00:53:26,280 --> 00:53:30,040
Speaker 1: This thing painfully like drains your tongue juice out and

983
00:53:30,080 --> 00:53:33,320
Speaker 1: then you're just atrophies and then attaches to the stump

984
00:53:33,800 --> 00:53:37,040
Speaker 1: and then it becomes your new tongue and then you know,

985
00:53:37,160 --> 00:53:41,359
Speaker 1: feeding off of morsels of food and mucus it's it's horrifying. Yeah.

986
00:53:41,360 --> 00:53:44,479
Speaker 1: And to be clear here, uh, my understanding is that

987
00:53:44,840 --> 00:53:47,000
Speaker 1: they do not do this to humans. There hasn't been

988
00:53:47,040 --> 00:53:49,359
Speaker 1: a case where humans tongue has been replaced by one

989
00:53:49,400 --> 00:53:53,600
Speaker 1: of these things. And that movie exists, it's fictional. Yeah,

990
00:53:53,680 --> 00:53:56,319
Speaker 1: and the the the isopods in question here, they don't.

991
00:53:56,440 --> 00:54:00,319
Speaker 1: Uh My understanding too that that we we still need

992
00:54:00,320 --> 00:54:02,239
Speaker 1: a lot more research on and there isn't a lot

993
00:54:02,280 --> 00:54:04,640
Speaker 1: of of of of there isn't a lot of study

994
00:54:04,719 --> 00:54:08,880
Speaker 1: into their biology, uh and their their life cycle. But

995
00:54:08,880 --> 00:54:10,520
Speaker 1: but hopefully in the years the years to come, well

996
00:54:10,800 --> 00:54:13,839
Speaker 1: learn more about their their marvelous lifestyle. But yeah, if

997
00:54:13,840 --> 00:54:16,200
Speaker 1: you certainly, if you want to see some twitchy imagery,

998
00:54:16,840 --> 00:54:19,720
Speaker 1: do an image search for isopods because just in general,

999
00:54:19,760 --> 00:54:23,760
Speaker 1: not even just the ones the Simothia, as you mentioned earlier,

1000
00:54:24,360 --> 00:54:27,759
Speaker 1: uh that they're creepy, there's some there's something about them

1001
00:54:27,920 --> 00:54:32,400
Speaker 1: that just doesn't doesn't work for me. Uh So, okay, wasps,

1002
00:54:32,680 --> 00:54:36,279
Speaker 1: there are a lot of different parasitic wasps, so there

1003
00:54:36,320 --> 00:54:38,920
Speaker 1: this is sort of a broad category, but I think

1004
00:54:38,920 --> 00:54:40,920
Speaker 1: it's important for us to cover in this relation to

1005
00:54:40,960 --> 00:54:44,839
Speaker 1: the strain because there's so many of them. But they

1006
00:54:44,880 --> 00:54:49,160
Speaker 1: They commonly have this this trait where they lay eggs

1007
00:54:49,160 --> 00:54:52,839
Speaker 1: inside of a host. The generic one that I read

1008
00:54:52,880 --> 00:54:55,359
Speaker 1: about was that they lay eggs inside a caterpillar, right,

1009
00:54:55,960 --> 00:55:00,360
Speaker 1: and they these eggs hatch inside the caterpillar's body, devour

1010
00:55:00,480 --> 00:55:04,800
Speaker 1: it from the inside out, and then you know, burst

1011
00:55:04,800 --> 00:55:09,120
Speaker 1: out of its body again, like the stereotype of all

1012
00:55:09,160 --> 00:55:12,319
Speaker 1: these things. Right. Here's where it gets even weirder. Some

1013
00:55:12,480 --> 00:55:15,400
Speaker 1: of these wasps stay behind in the corpse of this

1014
00:55:15,480 --> 00:55:20,280
Speaker 1: caterpillar to defend other wasps that are still metamorphosizing inside

1015
00:55:20,320 --> 00:55:23,960
Speaker 1: of it, and they will, like like people wearing a

1016
00:55:24,000 --> 00:55:28,320
Speaker 1: horse costume sort of, they manipulate the the caterpillar's corpse

1017
00:55:28,800 --> 00:55:31,279
Speaker 1: so it seems like it's still alive, and they try

1018
00:55:31,280 --> 00:55:34,319
Speaker 1: to chase away predators. The move it and kind of

1019
00:55:34,360 --> 00:55:38,759
Speaker 1: twitch it around, and it's it's a horrifying Yeah, when

1020
00:55:38,760 --> 00:55:41,400
Speaker 1: you start looking at parasitic wasps, there's so many fables examples,

1021
00:55:41,400 --> 00:55:43,440
Speaker 1: Like there's a study that I was just reading, an

1022
00:55:43,440 --> 00:55:46,080
Speaker 1: embargo study that's coming out and we'll have come out

1023
00:55:46,080 --> 00:55:49,239
Speaker 1: by the time this episode airs, uh, in which a

1024
00:55:49,239 --> 00:55:54,920
Speaker 1: particular wasps actually makes the infected spiders build it build

1025
00:55:54,920 --> 00:55:58,719
Speaker 1: a protection for it. Yeah, And One of my favorites

1026
00:55:58,960 --> 00:56:04,399
Speaker 1: is a particular wasp dino campus Cocanella, and it does

1027
00:56:04,400 --> 00:56:07,480
Speaker 1: the you know, the traditional parasitic set up here, It

1028
00:56:07,640 --> 00:56:13,359
Speaker 1: ambushes a ladybug, implants it's it's egg inside it, and

1029
00:56:13,400 --> 00:56:18,759
Speaker 1: then and then runs off. Right, So, eventually the the

1030
00:56:18,760 --> 00:56:22,560
Speaker 1: the young wasp emerges from the host organism, and a

1031
00:56:22,600 --> 00:56:24,399
Speaker 1: lot of times, you know, you would expect the host

1032
00:56:24,480 --> 00:56:28,440
Speaker 1: organism to mercifully die off, but in this case, not

1033
00:56:28,480 --> 00:56:32,399
Speaker 1: only does the ladybug live, but a little behavior modification

1034
00:56:32,640 --> 00:56:35,360
Speaker 1: from the parasite forces it to hang around and guard

1035
00:56:35,800 --> 00:56:39,080
Speaker 1: the parasite baby as it grows into full adulthood beneath

1036
00:56:39,120 --> 00:56:42,600
Speaker 1: the protective bulk of the ladybug. And they think it's

1037
00:56:42,680 --> 00:56:45,439
Speaker 1: due to secretions that are left by the larva when

1038
00:56:45,440 --> 00:56:48,600
Speaker 1: it bursts out that you know, functionally reprogram it. And

1039
00:56:48,600 --> 00:56:54,680
Speaker 1: then on top of that, the ladybug doesn't even dive. Then, um,

1040
00:56:54,800 --> 00:57:00,600
Speaker 1: the researchers found that of the cases, the ladybugs recovered

1041
00:57:01,160 --> 00:57:06,320
Speaker 1: normal behavior following the ordeal. Really, so this is really

1042
00:57:06,360 --> 00:57:09,240
Speaker 1: gets to the heart of that theme of taking away

1043
00:57:09,760 --> 00:57:15,080
Speaker 1: independence these parasitic organisms doing so, but also that it

1044
00:57:15,080 --> 00:57:17,840
Speaker 1: it gains it back, it gets it gets its life

1045
00:57:17,840 --> 00:57:22,120
Speaker 1: back afterwards. If so, what I mean it has nice

1046
00:57:21,880 --> 00:57:25,640
Speaker 1: that I can't help but imagine like a human scenario,

1047
00:57:25,720 --> 00:57:28,080
Speaker 1: like we lived in a world where occasionally you're just

1048
00:57:28,120 --> 00:57:31,320
Speaker 1: impregnated by a parasite and you essentially give birth to

1049
00:57:31,440 --> 00:57:34,000
Speaker 1: this thing that emerges from you, you know, alien chess,

1050
00:57:34,040 --> 00:57:36,720
Speaker 1: but Verster style. But then you live on to you know,

1051
00:57:36,880 --> 00:57:41,240
Speaker 1: go to support groups for likewise parasite afflicted into well.

1052
00:57:41,240 --> 00:57:43,240
Speaker 1: I mean I suppose that that you could argue that

1053
00:57:43,240 --> 00:57:45,320
Speaker 1: that's what's going on with some people of hookworm or

1054
00:57:45,360 --> 00:57:50,640
Speaker 1: codeworm and and such, but they're not reprogrammed to guard

1055
00:57:50,800 --> 00:57:55,480
Speaker 1: the tape worms layer. You know. Uh. There's another just

1056
00:57:55,520 --> 00:57:58,800
Speaker 1: one more parasitic wasp that I wanted to touch on here,

1057
00:57:58,840 --> 00:58:02,360
Speaker 1: the Ampilex compre us so, which is the emerald cockroach wasp.

1058
00:58:02,880 --> 00:58:05,560
Speaker 1: This one does a similar thing that for the ladybug,

1059
00:58:05,600 --> 00:58:07,880
Speaker 1: but it's with cockroaches like that they all have their

1060
00:58:07,880 --> 00:58:11,880
Speaker 1: own like like specific breed of other insects that they

1061
00:58:12,200 --> 00:58:15,760
Speaker 1: you know, mind control and destroy. So this one lands

1062
00:58:15,760 --> 00:58:20,360
Speaker 1: on a cockroach, stabs it when it's fertilized with eggs.

1063
00:58:20,400 --> 00:58:23,640
Speaker 1: The wasp the stinger that it stabs it with is

1064
00:58:23,720 --> 00:58:26,080
Speaker 1: also a sense organ, so it kind of roots around

1065
00:58:26,080 --> 00:58:30,440
Speaker 1: inside the cockroach and touches its brain, and it injects

1066
00:58:30,480 --> 00:58:34,200
Speaker 1: a certain kind of venom into the cockroach's brain that

1067
00:58:34,280 --> 00:58:37,600
Speaker 1: basically takes away the cockroach is motivation to escape danger

1068
00:58:37,640 --> 00:58:41,000
Speaker 1: at all. So the cockroach becomes placid and just follows

1069
00:58:41,120 --> 00:58:44,160
Speaker 1: the wats. Well that's a gift, really, right, yeah, I

1070
00:58:44,160 --> 00:58:48,320
Speaker 1: mean taking away you know, fear, so you know they give,

1071
00:58:48,400 --> 00:58:52,480
Speaker 1: they take. But this is where it gets really nasty.

1072
00:58:53,160 --> 00:58:57,360
Speaker 1: It leads the cockroach away from where it lives back

1073
00:58:57,440 --> 00:59:00,560
Speaker 1: to the wasp layer, lays the egs in it, and

1074
00:59:00,560 --> 00:59:03,800
Speaker 1: then what do you think happens? Um, everyone goes through

1075
00:59:03,840 --> 00:59:09,160
Speaker 1: separate ways. Unfortunately no, uh, the uh wasp bags hatch

1076
00:59:09,360 --> 00:59:12,760
Speaker 1: and burst out of the corporach and kill it. So

1077
00:59:12,840 --> 00:59:15,440
Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of bursting, more bursting. It's

1078
00:59:15,440 --> 00:59:19,520
Speaker 1: a beautiful world, the beautiful para. I mean, I would say,

1079
00:59:19,560 --> 00:59:21,920
Speaker 1: you know, we're specifically trying to associate these with the

1080
00:59:22,000 --> 00:59:24,400
Speaker 1: vampires from the stream, but I would say that a

1081
00:59:24,440 --> 00:59:29,080
Speaker 1: lot of these resonate with the xenomore from Alien. Oh yeah, definitely.

1082
00:59:29,120 --> 00:59:32,320
Speaker 1: And it's very very parasitic in that regard. And the

1083
00:59:32,360 --> 00:59:35,800
Speaker 1: crazy thing is like is is elaborate as the crigory

1084
00:59:36,200 --> 00:59:39,520
Speaker 1: um life cycle is as elaborate as the zenobore f

1085
00:59:39,520 --> 00:59:42,880
Speaker 1: life cycle is. You look at some of the the

1086
00:59:42,880 --> 00:59:46,640
Speaker 1: the charts showing you various parasitic life cycles and all

1087
00:59:46,680 --> 00:59:48,520
Speaker 1: the different hosts they have to go through, and some

1088
00:59:48,560 --> 00:59:51,240
Speaker 1: of these are tremendously complex, Like you could never do

1089
00:59:51,280 --> 00:59:53,360
Speaker 1: a TV show about them, because everyone would have to

1090
00:59:53,440 --> 00:59:56,560
Speaker 1: keep referring to, uh, you know, flash cards to keep

1091
00:59:56,640 --> 00:59:58,720
Speaker 1: up with your life style, especially when you get these ones,

1092
00:59:58,760 --> 01:00:00,640
Speaker 1: which we didn't we didn't cover that much here, but

1093
01:00:00,720 --> 01:00:03,960
Speaker 1: the ones that go from one host to another host

1094
01:00:04,040 --> 01:00:07,320
Speaker 1: to another host, so they they they're ultimate end goal.

1095
01:00:07,400 --> 01:00:10,080
Speaker 1: For instance, is like a flamingo that they get eaten

1096
01:00:10,240 --> 01:00:13,320
Speaker 1: by a cricket or something first, and then they they

1097
01:00:13,360 --> 01:00:15,400
Speaker 1: they're inside the cricket, and then the crickets eaten by

1098
01:00:15,400 --> 01:00:18,200
Speaker 1: a flamingo or something like that. You know, uh, it

1099
01:00:18,800 --> 01:00:20,400
Speaker 1: move on and on and on to get to the

1100
01:00:20,440 --> 01:00:23,400
Speaker 1: eventual thing that they can reproduce in yeah, and then

1101
01:00:23,600 --> 01:00:25,720
Speaker 1: and then I'm very often they're hacking the mind of

1102
01:00:25,720 --> 01:00:28,600
Speaker 1: the host. They're manipulating behavior in order to gain it

1103
01:00:28,680 --> 01:00:33,320
Speaker 1: back towards that that that start point or that endpoint. Right, exactly.

1104
01:00:33,960 --> 01:00:36,800
Speaker 1: All right, So there you haven't the strain the world

1105
01:00:36,800 --> 01:00:39,560
Speaker 1: of parasites, and I'll make sure that the landing page

1106
01:00:39,560 --> 01:00:41,800
Speaker 1: for this episode includes links to a whole bunch of

1107
01:00:42,520 --> 01:00:45,240
Speaker 1: stuff to blow your mind content about parasites in their

1108
01:00:45,240 --> 01:00:48,240
Speaker 1: wonderful ways. Yeah, I was gonna say this research really,

1109
01:00:48,400 --> 01:00:52,120
Speaker 1: I think is in the uh golden zone for stuff

1110
01:00:52,160 --> 01:00:55,320
Speaker 1: to blow your mind. There's a lot of previous episodes

1111
01:00:55,360 --> 01:00:58,320
Speaker 1: and videos and posts that you've done over the years

1112
01:00:58,320 --> 01:01:02,400
Speaker 1: on this, and uh, you know, I would love to

1113
01:01:02,440 --> 01:01:06,720
Speaker 1: hear from our listeners as well about their experience with

1114
01:01:06,800 --> 01:01:08,680
Speaker 1: these things, whether you know, maybe there's somebody out there

1115
01:01:08,680 --> 01:01:11,440
Speaker 1: who's had hookworm, or maybe there's somebody who's had experience

1116
01:01:11,520 --> 01:01:13,960
Speaker 1: researching these things and could tell us more about them.

1117
01:01:14,000 --> 01:01:16,640
Speaker 1: It really is stuff we're gonna just keep on covering

1118
01:01:16,720 --> 01:01:19,440
Speaker 1: because it's fascinating and there's always more research. They were

1119
01:01:19,520 --> 01:01:22,960
Speaker 1: continually finding cool, new cool new parasites and new understandings

1120
01:01:23,000 --> 01:01:25,640
Speaker 1: without existence sites work. So if you want to tell

1121
01:01:25,720 --> 01:01:29,160
Speaker 1: us your stories about these you can contact us on Facebook, Twitter,

1122
01:01:29,280 --> 01:01:33,080
Speaker 1: or Tumbler where we are blow the Mind, or you

1123
01:01:33,120 --> 01:01:36,280
Speaker 1: can write to us at blow the Mind at how

1124
01:01:36,360 --> 01:01:42,480
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com for more on this and thousands

1125
01:01:42,480 --> 01:01:50,800
Speaker 1: of other topics. Is it how stuff Works? Dot com