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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name is

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Speaker 1: Dr Anton Jess, Professor of Monster Studies, and I am

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Speaker 1: Professor Griffith Wells Warden of the Howling Pit. Robert and

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Speaker 1: Joe have a delightfully ghoulish installment of the podcast for

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Speaker 1: you today, one guaranteed to curdle your blood and expand

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Speaker 1: your mind in the most cranium popping ways imaginable. It's

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Speaker 1: a science based stroll through the world of horror, anthology,

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Speaker 1: television and cinema, The Twilight Zone, the Night Gallery, Tales

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Speaker 1: from the Crypt Tree, House of Horror, and more So,

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Speaker 1: stake around bloodsuckers and find out which episodes they picked

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Speaker 1: and what sorts of scientific subjects they were able to

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Speaker 1: suck from their Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind

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Speaker 1: from how Stuff Works dot com. Hey you, welcome to

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Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb

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Speaker 1: and I'm Joe McCormick. And as you can tell from

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Speaker 1: our delightful intro there by a couple of colleagues of ours,

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Speaker 1: we'll just assume it was delightful. It was. They sounded delighted.

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Speaker 1: They sounded delighted there, but they always even the most

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Speaker 1: even in the most inopportune of times. Well, it comes

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Speaker 1: down to the things they delight in, I suppose. But

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Speaker 1: but what they told you is correct. We're gonna be

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Speaker 1: talking about horror anthologies today and then we're gonna we're

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Speaker 1: gonna ring some science from their their desiccated corpses. That

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Speaker 1: sounds like great fun to me. But Robert, So, by

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Speaker 1: horror anthology, you mean like TV shows where say it's

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Speaker 1: it's horror themed and it's not the same characters every episode.

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Speaker 1: We're we're not so much talking about like Monster of

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Speaker 1: the Week episode on the episodes on the X Files

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Speaker 1: are buffy, right, And we're also not talking about them

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Speaker 1: from modern version of this that you see with American

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Speaker 1: horror story where each season it's a different story. No,

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Speaker 1: we're talking about the likes of the Twilight Zone, Night Gallery,

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Speaker 1: Tales from the Crypt, uh, the Simpsons Treehouse of Horror

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Speaker 1: personal favorite of mine. Yeah, shows of shows of this

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Speaker 1: nature where each episode is a self contained story or

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Speaker 1: sometimes a pair of stories, or a short story and

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Speaker 1: a like a sliver of a little extra on there.

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Speaker 1: But they're they're self contained. They're they're essentially horror short

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Speaker 1: horror fiction that has been translated generally for television. But

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Speaker 1: then of course you also see uh, cinematic installments of

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Speaker 1: these shows as well, where you'll have a feature league

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Speaker 1: length film that consists of say three, four, maybe five

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Speaker 1: different short horror segments. Oh yeah, maybe we can do

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Speaker 1: Maybe we can include movies like that in the future.

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Speaker 1: I think we just did TV shows this time. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: there are a few, a few kind of branch out

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Speaker 1: into film a little bit um And of course, of

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Speaker 1: course we'd be remiss we don't end up talking about

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Speaker 1: any of these episodes. But Black Mirror, I think is

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Speaker 1: one of the finer examples of horror at times more

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Speaker 1: sci fi, but really most of those episodes are pretty terrifying.

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Speaker 1: I think you could make an argument that Black Mirror

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Speaker 1: is a horror anthology television series. Now, Robert, I'm a

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Speaker 1: little at a disadvantage in this episode because you have

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Speaker 1: seen far more of these types of shows than I have.

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Speaker 1: I'm I'm big on Simpson's tree House of Horror, but

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Speaker 1: I've actually seen pretty I've seen no Tales from the

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Speaker 1: Dark Side, I think, no Night Gallery. I've actually not

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Speaker 1: seen all that much Twilight Zone. A few episodes you know,

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Speaker 1: here and there, and The only full Tales from the

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Speaker 1: crypt episode I've actually seen that I remember is deeply

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Speaker 1: inappropriate one with Tim Curry, who is the most wonderful

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Speaker 1: actor ever in in all of acting his three but

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Speaker 1: it's just too grotesque to even talk about. Well, as

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Speaker 1: we'll get into, that description can go for just about

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Speaker 1: every Tales from the Cryptos like great actors and sometimes

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Speaker 1: great filmmakers, but kind of a deplorable story. Um. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: if if I've seen a lot of her anthology TV

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Speaker 1: sit shows, it's because I watched a lot of Sci

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Speaker 1: Fi Channel and syndicated cable back in the nineties. I

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Speaker 1: guess you could say it was my my teacher mother

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Speaker 1: secret lover U to reference the Triosa far Um, But yeah,

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Speaker 1: I watched like stuff like Ni Gallery, Twilight Zone, Outer Limits,

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Speaker 1: both new and old. I think on the original Sci

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Speaker 1: Fi Channel watch Tales from the Dark Side in like

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Speaker 1: Syndication on Sunday afternoons. It always felt like a particularly

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Speaker 1: unholy place for it to be. Well, you know what

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Speaker 1: I do expect to find if we get into If

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Speaker 1: I go back and start watching shows like this is

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Speaker 1: I bet I will recognize things from when I was kid,

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Speaker 1: and we would go on a trip and like stay

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Speaker 1: in a motel or something like that. And of course

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Speaker 1: they always had all the channels we didn't get at home,

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Speaker 1: so they had the sci Fi channel and I just

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Speaker 1: tuned into whatever in the hotel. And so occasionally I'll

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Speaker 1: see some crazy movie now and realize I saw a

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Speaker 1: piece of it as a child on vacation with my

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Speaker 1: family in a hotel. Well, I didn't have ready access

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Speaker 1: to Tales from the Crypt. I would what would happen

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Speaker 1: is occasionally that on HBO was on HBO. It was

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Speaker 1: really one of the original original HBO programs. But to

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Speaker 1: watch it, since we were not HBO subscribers, I had

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Speaker 1: to either hit it and just mainline it during HBO

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Speaker 1: preview weekends, or more often watched them half scrambled because

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Speaker 1: I could. It would be like it would be kind

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Speaker 1: of like pizza colored scrambled versions of it, or sometimes

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Speaker 1: you know, it would just become black and white. So

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Speaker 1: there are some episodes of Tales in the Crypt when

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Speaker 1: I go back and watch them now and I'm like, oh,

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Speaker 1: I had no idea. For instance, I had no idea

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Speaker 1: that would Tim Curry playing a female character, because clearly

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Speaker 1: the first time I watched it. It was too scrambled

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Speaker 1: for me to tell well in that episode. That's kind

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Speaker 1: of a mercy, I think. But wow, it's amazing the

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Speaker 1: things people will will put up with in the search

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Speaker 1: for for a story that they're into, you know, like

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Speaker 1: like the idea. I always think it's funny that, you know,

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Speaker 1: people watch like theater bootlegged videos that, like somebody will

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Speaker 1: record a movie with the camcorder inside a theater and

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Speaker 1: people will watch that. That's kind of look terrible, but

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Speaker 1: I don't. I mean people you're they're hungry for it.

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Speaker 1: They want that movie. And I guess you were like

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Speaker 1: that too, watching through through all the static and weird

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Speaker 1: color variations. Yeah, that was how you got to watch it. Um. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: So to today's episode for any long time listeners to

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Speaker 1: stuff to plow your mind. This is essentially the same

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Speaker 1: concept as the three Creepy Pasta episodes that I did

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Speaker 1: with Christian where we would pick a creepy pasta stories

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Speaker 1: and sort of squeeze the science out of them. And

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Speaker 1: I have to say, we we squeezed all the science

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Speaker 1: out of Creepy Pasta. I don't think there's there's much left.

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Speaker 1: So this feels like the next logical place to uh,

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Speaker 1: to start squeezing horror anthologies. Well, I say, let's get

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Speaker 1: right into our first selection of the day. All right. Uh,

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Speaker 1: my selection here for our first one is a Question

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Speaker 1: of Fear. And this is this is one of my

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Speaker 1: favorite episodes of Rod Serling's Night Gallery, his horror anthology

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Speaker 1: series that ran from nineteen ninety three. Uh, and then

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Speaker 1: of course just eternally on the Sci Fi Channel during

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Speaker 1: the during the nineties. Is this a picture of Leslie

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Speaker 1: Nielsen with an eye patch and a mustache? I'm looking

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Speaker 1: at Yes. This episode starred um Leslie Nielsen as Colonel

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Speaker 1: Dennis Malloy and it also starred actor Fritz Weaver as

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Speaker 1: Dr Mazzi. Weaver is terrific and this as well, I mean,

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Speaker 1: Nielsen is great. And this this is the pre name

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Speaker 1: could gun Nielsen. This is the serious actor Nielsen. Oh,

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Speaker 1: he was that way for a long time. What movie

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Speaker 1: did I just watch recently where he plays a straight character?

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Speaker 1: I can't remember right now, But of course he was

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Speaker 1: in Forbidden Planet, was he? Yeah, you don't remember. He

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Speaker 1: was like the main he was the commander astronaut and

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Speaker 1: Forbidden Planets, I mean Forbidden planets. Great, it's not great

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Speaker 1: for the astronaut characters who as usual or just like

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Speaker 1: some stiff white dudes. Well you could say that Leslie

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Speaker 1: Neilson was also one of those those stiff yeah white

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Speaker 1: dudes for sure. Um, he's kind of like put him

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Speaker 1: in the same category as Peter Graves, you know. Uh

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Speaker 1: and and like Peter Graves and was later used to

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Speaker 1: terrific effect in comedy as such as in the Airplane

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Speaker 1: movies and the Naked Gun movies. Uh. And in this

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Speaker 1: he's he's pretty great because he plays just a very um,

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Speaker 1: just a very hard cold character. This colone only plays

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Speaker 1: he's a fearless mercenary. Uh that has you know, just

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Speaker 1: been in multiple wars and even after World War two

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Speaker 1: is over, you know, he couldn't get enough. So it

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Speaker 1: just continually works as a mercenary and kind of Lee

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Speaker 1: Marvin type. Yeah, very much, very much a Lee Marvin

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Speaker 1: type character here also reminds me a lot of the

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Speaker 1: kind of character that, say, um, Lee van Cliff would

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Speaker 1: have played. Oh yeah, okay, so in this episode, it

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Speaker 1: starts off with a gentleman's club and here is Colonel Malloy, uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, talking it up with the other gentleman there,

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Speaker 1: and one of the gentleman there, Dr Mazzi, played by

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Speaker 1: Fritz Weaver, starts talking about an episode at a haunted house,

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Speaker 1: some sort of an encounter with a haunted house where

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Speaker 1: it was just too terrifying for anyone to survive, and

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Speaker 1: of course the fearless colonel here. He starts talking about

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Speaker 1: just how fearless he is and how fear is a disease.

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Speaker 1: He says, I'm careful, but I am incapable of fear. Okay,

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Speaker 1: So this leads to a bet, as of apparently tends

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Speaker 1: to happen in stuffy gentleman's clubs. Momzy says that he

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Speaker 1: bets he cannot survive one night in this haunted mansion

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Speaker 1: without being scared to death. And uh, and he puts

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Speaker 1: ten dollars on the line. Yeah, that's a load of cash,

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Speaker 1: and so of course our mercenaries up for it to

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Speaker 1: prove how fearless he is and to uh and to

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Speaker 1: to get a nice pay day. He says, of course

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Speaker 1: I'll do it, so uh. And that's one of the

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Speaker 1: fabulous things about this episode. It's basically a two person show.

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Speaker 1: It's just just Weaver and Nielsen so, and you don't

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Speaker 1: even see Weaver again physically. He only appears on a

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Speaker 1: television set. So what happens is that Malloy braves the

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Speaker 1: ghost effects in the house, you know, all these smoke

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Speaker 1: and mirror effects that seem intended to scare him out

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Speaker 1: of his pay day. He definitely fires a few rounds

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Speaker 1: and does some obvious special effects. Uh. And just the

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Speaker 1: audience is clear that they're special effects, or it's obvious

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Speaker 1: within the story that they're special effects. I think a

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Speaker 1: little of both, especially the modern viewers. Uh. The effects

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Speaker 1: aren't like outright tear double, but anything they're lacking I

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Speaker 1: think actually enhances this aspect of the episode. So it's

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Speaker 1: like supposed to be visible to Malloyd that it's fake, right,

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Speaker 1: or certainly after he's through, you know, emptying his gun

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Speaker 1: into it, he's like, oh, you're this is in real. Um.

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Speaker 1: I dealt with the problem the way I deal with

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Speaker 1: all my problems. I attempted to murder it, uh, and

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Speaker 1: then I saw that it wasn't anything to be afraid of.

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Speaker 1: So uh. He eventually, though, he settles into bed, he

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Speaker 1: has a little coffee for some reason, and then he says,

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Speaker 1: all right, I'm just gonna go to bed, and when

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Speaker 1: I wake up, I'm gonna be ten thousand dollars Richard

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Speaker 1: dreaming of mounting ghost heads on this wall. Right. But

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Speaker 1: then the second he settles in, iron bar snap into

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Speaker 1: place over him, and a pendulum starts descending from the ceiling,

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Speaker 1: and he still refuses to give into the fear. He's like, yells,

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Speaker 1: all right, Mamsy, you can do this, you can kill me,

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Speaker 1: but you're not gonna win because look at me, still

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Speaker 1: not afraid, not afraid to die. And uh. And so

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Speaker 1: he ends up going to sleep, and when he wakes up,

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Speaker 1: he makes himself breakfast and Mazy communicates with him via

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Speaker 1: a live TV train ends mission and he reveals the following.

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Speaker 1: First of all, Malloy apparently encountered Mazzi's pianist father in

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Speaker 1: Italy during the Second World War, where he tortured him

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Speaker 1: for information, pouring gasoline over his hands and setting them

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Speaker 1: on fire. WHOA, So, as you can imagine Mazzi's for

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Speaker 1: to find Malloy and to break him. You burn my

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Speaker 1: daddy's hands, I'll get you for this, right Yeah, So

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Speaker 1: now we know it's a revenge piece. So Mazzi reveals

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Speaker 1: at this point that he is a biochemist, one of

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Speaker 1: the greatest biochemists in the field, and is highly respected

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Speaker 1: UH in the realm of biochemical warfare. And he says

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Speaker 1: that he and his colleague recently discovered a way to

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Speaker 1: convert a complex enzyme in the human body into that

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Speaker 1: of an earthworm. And by injecting this, he says, quote,

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Speaker 1: the bones of the body disintegrate without affecting the nervous

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Speaker 1: system or the vital organs, until the victim is as

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Speaker 1: near as can be an earthworm able to move on

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Speaker 1: its belly, but without vertebrae, unable to stand, able to feed,

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Speaker 1: able to pass waste matter, but unable to use its

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Speaker 1: arms and legs except to assist with a slithering motion

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Speaker 1: in the manner of an earthworm. I can't help but

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Speaker 1: notice this sounds like a better and more interesting version

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Speaker 1: of a movie I don't like to talk about. Yes,

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Speaker 1: I have long thought about this. We've had a couple

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Speaker 1: of movies that have come out over the past ten

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Speaker 1: years in which a deranged scientist wants to turn somebody

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Speaker 1: into a creature of some sort, generally a lesser invertebrate.

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Speaker 1: And and I find that all of those men like that.

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Speaker 1: The concept is initially revolting and appealing, but then you

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Speaker 1: realize it's not really dealt with in any depth. It's

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Speaker 1: only rolled out to to revolt the audience, whereas in

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Speaker 1: this episode, I feel like it is it is leveled

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Speaker 1: in a in a very intelligent way. Uh so, so yeah,

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Speaker 1: to continue going. Malloy initially doubts this. He's like, you're

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Speaker 1: you're full of it, but Mazi tells him, oh, well,

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Speaker 1: why don't you look in the cellar and see what

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Speaker 1: became of my colleague and says that he was a

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Speaker 1: large man, but now he's reduced to something like a slug.

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Speaker 1: And indeed, earlier in the episode, when when Leslie Nilsen's

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Speaker 1: character is looking around the mansion, one of the things

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Speaker 1: he encounters is this unexplained trail of slime through the cellar. Uh,

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Speaker 1: and there's this it's it's it's it's a legitimately creepy

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Speaker 1: moment and certainly seems a little different from the uh

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Speaker 1: the ghost effects that are thrown at him. So then

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Speaker 1: he tells Molloy. Massy tells Mooy that the transformation is

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Speaker 1: going to take time, but that he's going to go

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Speaker 1: down in medical history, and there's no stopping it. He said,

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Speaker 1: you can after you leave here, you can tell the police,

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Speaker 1: you can go to a specialist. But first of all,

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Speaker 1: the specialists probably won't believe you, and even if they do,

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Speaker 1: they're not going to be able to help you because

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Speaker 1: this cannot be reversed. Wait, so at this point he's

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Speaker 1: done something to Malloy. He's like injected him or something.

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Speaker 1: That's what he claims. Yes, em Malloyd calls his bluff,

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Speaker 1: but but he's already beginning to give in the fear.

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Speaker 1: Massy tells him, Uh, look, you should just wanted to

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Speaker 1: check your inside forearm. I believe that is you'll find

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Speaker 1: an injection point. We drugged your coffee, and I snuck

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Speaker 1: in and injected you while you were asleep. And and

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Speaker 1: if you still don't believe me, then go into the seller.

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Speaker 1: Go into the seller and see what my colleague became.

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Speaker 1: And at this point he's like really working Malloy up.

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Speaker 1: And Molloy begins to move towards the seller and he

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Speaker 1: sees the trail of slime this time, uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: working through the hallways and descending into the cellar. And

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Speaker 1: then he turns around and he tells Mazzi that he

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Speaker 1: still isn't that there's no way mass is gonna win,

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Speaker 1: that that that that he Malloy is going to win,

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Speaker 1: and then he shoots himself with his own gun. And

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Speaker 1: at this point, um Mazzi uh admits he says, actually

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Speaker 1: I win because there's nothing in the seller that's pretty good. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean I this is just my retelling of it.

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Speaker 1: So certainly the episode itself is a is a finer

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Speaker 1: version of the tail than my synopsis here. I love

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Speaker 1: the Uh. It's a common thing, apparently in horror to

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Speaker 1: just talk to people through TVs. I'm thinking about those

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Speaker 1: saw movies And isn't there a segment in Creep Show

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Speaker 1: where somebody talks to somebody through a TV? Yes, I

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Speaker 1: believe it is actually Leslie Nielsen. I think so, in

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Speaker 1: the bit where Ted Danson and I can't remember the

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Speaker 1: other actor's name, where they're buried up to their necks

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Speaker 1: in the surf in the sandy, and Leslie Nielsen's like, moaha, ha,

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Speaker 1: I'll talk to you through a TV. Yeah, that's a

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Speaker 1: that's a nice connection between this episode and Creep Show

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Speaker 1: horror anthology film, which, incidentally enough Fritz Weaver is also

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Speaker 1: in in the crate segment. He plays the professor. Uh.

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Speaker 1: That works with how Hobrook's character. Oh okay, and he's

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Speaker 1: fabulous in that as well, like he's he really should

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Speaker 1: go down as more of a horror anthology legend. Well,

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Speaker 1: I I got to see this episode. This is pretty

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Speaker 1: creepy just hearing you describe it. Yeah, it creeped me out.

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Speaker 1: Then it still creeps me out now even though there's

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Speaker 1: no actual transformation, it's described so well. It's a it's

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Speaker 1: set up so well that you don't even care like

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Speaker 1: it it It doesn't deflate the horror of it when

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Speaker 1: when you have this final twist at the end. But this,

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Speaker 1: uh yeah, particularly this concept of transformation into an earthworm,

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Speaker 1: I feel like there is a lot of dread here

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Speaker 1: and it and uh and I'd like to know discuss

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Speaker 1: a little bit why uh we feel that sense of

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Speaker 1: dread when we imagine being turned into what is essentially

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Speaker 1: a noble organism, uh, the earthwork. Now, I can think

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Speaker 1: of quite a few culturally common body transformation or deterioration phobias.

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Speaker 1: People have phobias about loss of teeth. That's a common

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Speaker 1: when people have nightmares about losing their teeth. Uh, there's

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Speaker 1: like the penis retraction phobia. You know, people have genital

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Speaker 1: deterioration fears, but I've never heard of bone disappearance phobia before.

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Speaker 1: That's a new one. Uh, it's it's a great one. Though.

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Speaker 1: There's actually an episode of The Ray Bradberry Theater from

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Speaker 1: the eighties which has a similar plot line, in which

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Speaker 1: I believe Eugene Levy plays an individual who goes to

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Speaker 1: a doctor for some sort of skeletal issue and he

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Speaker 1: like removes his skeleton and reduces him to a like

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Speaker 1: essentially an invertebrate. Oh so he like becomes a human

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Speaker 1: jellyfish basically. So perhaps it's not explored enough the the

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Speaker 1: bone removal or disintegration um sub genre body horror. Well, Robert,

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Speaker 1: I assume you're going to tell me something about the

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Speaker 1: science of earthworms, right, Yeah, this gave me a good

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Speaker 1: excuse to look into the science of earthworms. And I

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Speaker 1: have to apologize to earthworms and humans who have been

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Speaker 1: transformed into them, because you know, we could do a

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Speaker 1: whole episode just on the importance of earthworms and the

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Speaker 1: evolution of earthworms. That's probably true of any of the

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Speaker 1: subjects we discuss in this episode that we could probably

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Speaker 1: expand them into a whole episode of their own. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: if we were. If I was a little more of

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Speaker 1: a grown up about it and was and didn't want

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Speaker 1: to just use these things as an excuse to talk

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Speaker 1: about night gallery. Um the so yeah, the uh, we're

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Speaker 1: talking about the annelids here from the analytic phylum, which

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Speaker 1: includes all the segmented worms such as earthworms, leeches, and

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Speaker 1: a whole host of polychete marine worms such as the

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Speaker 1: bristle worm, which I recently got to see on a

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Speaker 1: vacation in Costa Rica in the tide pools. Yeah. Um,

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Speaker 1: what do they look like? Are they bristly? They are

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Speaker 1: bristly And if you touch them, especially with a five

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Speaker 1: year old touches them, uh, they will they will sting you.

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Speaker 1: But the child was fine. It was a friend of

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Speaker 1: my son's. Okay, yeah, he was fine. He got that.

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Speaker 1: But he did get to have a very up close

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Speaker 1: and personal experience with with the bristleworm. Um. So, the

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Speaker 1: this particular phylum contains more than nine thousand species and

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Speaker 1: six thousand species of earthworm. They live everywhere except Antarctica,

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Speaker 1: and there are even bioluminescent earthworms. Oh I don't think

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Speaker 1: I knew that. Uh yeah, I found a couple of

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Speaker 1: great sources on them, in particular Dr Frank Anderson and

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Speaker 1: Dr Samuel James. They did a blog post at Biomedical

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Speaker 1: Central titled the Evolution of Earthworms. So earthworms are fabulous,

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Speaker 1: their their ecosystem engineers working, draining, aerating the soil. I

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Speaker 1: feel like nowadays most people realize that, hey, have you've

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Speaker 1: got worms living in your garden? Earthworms, they're they're doing

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Speaker 1: the Lord's work. That's good. But what did we not

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Speaker 1: always realize that worms were good for the soil? Well,

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Speaker 1: it seems like we didn't. I mean, you can look

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Speaker 1: back to the writings of say Aristotle, who referred to

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Speaker 1: them as the intestines of the earth, which is in

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Speaker 1: many ways true. It seems like a good thing, right,

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Speaker 1: you don't want to not have intestines. But but apparently

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Speaker 1: before Charles Darwin came along with his interest in earthworms,

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Speaker 1: there was this idea, at least in the Western world,

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Speaker 1: at least in in Europe, in Britain specifically, that earthworms

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Speaker 1: were kind of a pest in your garden, that they

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Speaker 1: weren't really doing anything get them out of there. By

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Speaker 1: the way, Dr Anderson and James. One of the things

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Speaker 1: they discussed in their their article is that roughly one

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Speaker 1: third of the earthworms species in North America were introduced

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Speaker 1: for Europe or Asia, and some were introduced into northern

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Speaker 1: forests which had been free of earthworms since the end

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Speaker 1: of the Last Ice Age roughly eleven thousand years ago.

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Speaker 1: Oh wow, I've never thought about that, the way um

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Speaker 1: like the soil fauna has to recover after areas have

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Speaker 1: been covered by glaciers. I guess yeah. I believe we've

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Speaker 1: touched on this in the past on the show. Maybe

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Speaker 1: it was a very old episode about the idea of

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Speaker 1: of earthworms being brought in by by colonial forces from

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Speaker 1: the from the Old World into the New World. Anyway,

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Speaker 1: But earthworms, there are a lot of them out there.

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Speaker 1: The largest is the giant African earthworm. Uh. It's typically

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Speaker 1: typically reaches fifty four inches or one point thirty six

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Speaker 1: ms in length, but its record length is twenty two

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Speaker 1: ft or six point seven ms. What. Yeah, Now, even

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Speaker 1: this species before anyone pictures like a full Leslie Nielsen

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Speaker 1: transformed earthworm, Uh, this species was still the giant here

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Speaker 1: was still less than an inch in diameter. Uh so

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Speaker 1: nothing that could scare a man to deathness seller that

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Speaker 1: makes me wonder what are the upper limits of Like

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Speaker 1: how how filament like an organism can be. Like at

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Speaker 1: some point you would think that the strains of moving

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Speaker 1: something that long and that thin would want to rip

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Speaker 1: it apart or something. I guess that's why, because you

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Speaker 1: see them remaining so thin, you don't see them reaching

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Speaker 1: sandworm or gravoid size. So Anderson and James that they

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Speaker 1: believe that the ancestor of all living earthworms probably lived

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Speaker 1: over two hundred nine million years ago, making earthworms about

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Speaker 1: as old as mammals and dinosaurs. They based this estimate

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Speaker 1: on DNA sequencing as well as the fossil record, which

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Speaker 1: they said, you know, ultimately doesn't tell us a lot

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Speaker 1: regarding earthworms, but it does give us leech cocoon fossils

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Speaker 1: from the late Triassic two one million years ago, so,

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Speaker 1: which presents a minimum age for leeches and earthworms. But

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Speaker 1: the idea of a human becoming an earthworm, the loss

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Speaker 1: of our vertebrate status, I think it terrifies us because

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Speaker 1: it also, you know, it reduces us to the activities

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Speaker 1: mentioned by dr MASI right, moving, eating, producing waste, and

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Speaker 1: these are all things we do naturally. But but we

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Speaker 1: tend to focus on all the other aspects of our

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Speaker 1: human existence. I mean, sometimes to the point where we

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Speaker 1: want to reject our inner worm. You'd say, I think

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Speaker 1: generally bones are pretty important to our lives. Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: agree with that. We we need our bones. But but

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Speaker 1: but also just the idea that the worm doesn't do

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Speaker 1: anything else, I mean does a lot. Again, but to

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Speaker 1: the sort of the human perspective, digging around in a

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Speaker 1: garden and not knowing what the earthworms are doing, all

425
00:23:43,520 --> 00:23:46,239
Speaker 1: it seems to do is just food goes in one end,

426
00:23:46,240 --> 00:23:48,919
Speaker 1: poop comes out the other. It crawls around. It is

427
00:23:48,960 --> 00:23:53,879
Speaker 1: like just the stripped everything more interesting away from the

428
00:23:54,320 --> 00:23:58,080
Speaker 1: certainly the human experience and the mammalian experience as well. Well. Yeah,

429
00:23:58,080 --> 00:24:01,520
Speaker 1: I mean a common feature of body horror. You know,

430
00:24:01,600 --> 00:24:04,400
Speaker 1: long before we had David Cronenberg, we had older strains

431
00:24:04,400 --> 00:24:06,439
Speaker 1: of body horror, the kind of horror that's based not

432
00:24:06,560 --> 00:24:09,679
Speaker 1: saying a monster chasing you, but in the transformation of

433
00:24:09,720 --> 00:24:13,440
Speaker 1: yourself into something you don't like or recognize. I mean

434
00:24:13,680 --> 00:24:17,840
Speaker 1: that the most common version of that is say reduction

435
00:24:17,920 --> 00:24:22,320
Speaker 1: to what people would consider a lower strata of animal existence,

436
00:24:22,440 --> 00:24:26,520
Speaker 1: you know, being made into a beast that's less than human.

437
00:24:26,880 --> 00:24:28,560
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean I can't help but think, of

438
00:24:28,600 --> 00:24:32,520
Speaker 1: course of Offcas, the metamorphosis. Yeah uh though, of course

439
00:24:32,600 --> 00:24:35,480
Speaker 1: that that beast like he was turned into. I think

440
00:24:35,520 --> 00:24:40,240
Speaker 1: the term directly translated into translates into something like vermin,

441
00:24:40,400 --> 00:24:43,119
Speaker 1: but it's often interpreted as like a you know, a

442
00:24:43,119 --> 00:24:47,080
Speaker 1: cockroach or something like that. But yeah, he the weird

443
00:24:47,119 --> 00:24:49,960
Speaker 1: thing there is he retains all of his mental faculties.

444
00:24:50,000 --> 00:24:52,879
Speaker 1: You know, he has full sentience. He's just said his

445
00:24:52,960 --> 00:24:56,040
Speaker 1: body transformed. I absolutely love that story. That is. I

446
00:24:56,040 --> 00:24:58,240
Speaker 1: think that is the only horror story that I've actually

447
00:24:58,240 --> 00:25:02,200
Speaker 1: read in a foreign language. I read it in German class. Yeah, yeah,

448
00:25:02,240 --> 00:25:04,080
Speaker 1: what was it like in German? It was. It was

449
00:25:04,119 --> 00:25:07,880
Speaker 1: a cool experience. I've since forgotten any you know, smidge

450
00:25:07,920 --> 00:25:09,879
Speaker 1: of German that it was. That was that Reading that

451
00:25:09,920 --> 00:25:14,520
Speaker 1: story in German was the absolute peak of my, my, my,

452
00:25:14,520 --> 00:25:17,359
Speaker 1: my German language reading ability. Well, it sounds like a

453
00:25:17,359 --> 00:25:19,719
Speaker 1: good peak to climb before committing to the valley forever.

454
00:25:20,800 --> 00:25:23,640
Speaker 1: So I mentioned Charles Darwin earlier. Charles Darwin, of course,

455
00:25:23,680 --> 00:25:28,480
Speaker 1: the famous naturalist who gave us the theory the theory

456
00:25:28,520 --> 00:25:31,399
Speaker 1: of natural selection. He was quite interested in earthworms, and

457
00:25:31,440 --> 00:25:33,760
Speaker 1: in fact they were the subject of his last book,

458
00:25:34,280 --> 00:25:38,000
Speaker 1: eight ones, The Formation of Vegetable Mold through the Action

459
00:25:38,040 --> 00:25:41,840
Speaker 1: of Worms. And despite this, you know what makes him

460
00:25:42,080 --> 00:25:45,640
Speaker 1: dry subject matter? Perhaps, Uh, it was still the most

461
00:25:45,680 --> 00:25:50,520
Speaker 1: successful book published during his lifetime. And uh and uh yeah,

462
00:25:50,640 --> 00:25:53,640
Speaker 1: And according to Anderson and James, it was pretty key

463
00:25:53,680 --> 00:25:57,040
Speaker 1: in changing Western views on earthworms. Uh. They were no

464
00:25:57,119 --> 00:26:01,959
Speaker 1: longer soil pest. People realized they had importance and tying

465
00:26:01,960 --> 00:26:05,360
Speaker 1: in without directly with our Night Gallery episode, it's it's

466
00:26:05,440 --> 00:26:09,000
Speaker 1: success inspired an eight eight two Punch, which was a

467
00:26:09,000 --> 00:26:12,200
Speaker 1: publication punch magazine. I guess you would call it um.

468
00:26:12,280 --> 00:26:16,560
Speaker 1: They had a cartoon that depicted worms evolving into monkeys

469
00:26:16,600 --> 00:26:20,359
Speaker 1: and monkeys evolving into men in you know, kind of

470
00:26:20,440 --> 00:26:25,040
Speaker 1: a spiral around a cartoon version of Charles Darwin Well.

471
00:26:25,560 --> 00:26:27,880
Speaker 1: I feel like I should know the answer to this question,

472
00:26:27,920 --> 00:26:32,680
Speaker 1: but I honestly don't. Are is a worm like organism

473
00:26:32,720 --> 00:26:36,200
Speaker 1: at some point believed to be part of our philo

474
00:26:36,200 --> 00:26:40,920
Speaker 1: genetic history? Or is or have worms always been separate

475
00:26:41,080 --> 00:26:45,359
Speaker 1: from whatever became vertebrates and eventually became us. Well, there,

476
00:26:45,480 --> 00:26:48,040
Speaker 1: they've been a lot of studies over the years looking

477
00:26:48,040 --> 00:26:50,919
Speaker 1: at nematodes in particular. Um Like, if you just do

478
00:26:51,119 --> 00:26:56,120
Speaker 1: some searches for uh, human genetics and worms, you'll find these, uh,

479
00:26:56,160 --> 00:26:58,160
Speaker 1: these articles. And I was tempted to go into those

480
00:26:58,200 --> 00:27:01,399
Speaker 1: deeper here, but then realized that's it's really deserving of

481
00:27:01,440 --> 00:27:05,359
Speaker 1: a of a whole episode. But but either way, I

482
00:27:05,359 --> 00:27:07,679
Speaker 1: mean whether or not some type of worm is a

483
00:27:07,720 --> 00:27:11,240
Speaker 1: direct ancestor. Obviously we share common ancestry, so the question

484
00:27:11,320 --> 00:27:14,040
Speaker 1: is how much do we have in common? Well, I

485
00:27:14,080 --> 00:27:15,840
Speaker 1: was looking at a paper that goes into this, a

486
00:27:15,840 --> 00:27:21,000
Speaker 1: bit titled Earthworm Genomes, Genes and Proteins The Rediscovery of

487
00:27:21,080 --> 00:27:25,879
Speaker 1: Darwin's Worms, and this was by strussan Baum, Andre Kylie

488
00:27:26,040 --> 00:27:29,200
Speaker 1: and Morgan was publishing two thousand nine in the Proceedings

489
00:27:29,200 --> 00:27:31,800
Speaker 1: of the Royal Society b SO. I I'd like to

490
00:27:31,960 --> 00:27:36,119
Speaker 1: read just a section where they referenced Darwin here and

491
00:27:36,160 --> 00:27:39,159
Speaker 1: in particularly the referencing that illustration I talked about with

492
00:27:39,200 --> 00:27:44,639
Speaker 1: the worms transforming into monkeys. Quote. The illustration is a

493
00:27:44,720 --> 00:27:49,040
Speaker 1: humorous construct, but an examination of the earthworm structure and

494
00:27:49,080 --> 00:27:54,520
Speaker 1: function reveals cells and tissues and cell types with vertebrate counterparts.

495
00:27:54,920 --> 00:28:01,000
Speaker 1: Earthworms are ce limit protostomes, possessing an anatomicle and functionally

496
00:28:01,200 --> 00:28:08,600
Speaker 1: differentiated alimentary canal with brush bordered absorptive epithelia, a closed

497
00:28:08,600 --> 00:28:13,440
Speaker 1: blood circulation with hemoglobin in free suspension, an organized nervous

498
00:28:13,480 --> 00:28:19,040
Speaker 1: system with cepholic ganglia and neuro secretary activities, a multifunctional

499
00:28:19,160 --> 00:28:24,720
Speaker 1: tissue for which carbohydrate metabolism and storage properties are reminiscent

500
00:28:24,760 --> 00:28:29,960
Speaker 1: of mammalian heptocytes, a series of paired tubules in each

501
00:28:30,000 --> 00:28:34,120
Speaker 1: segment with renal urine forming functions, and a systemic immune

502
00:28:34,160 --> 00:28:38,560
Speaker 1: system comprising leukocite like cells. So I realized there's a

503
00:28:38,600 --> 00:28:41,840
Speaker 1: lot of the very technical information there that I had

504
00:28:41,840 --> 00:28:45,320
Speaker 1: to stumble through. Uh, but you know what it's basically

505
00:28:45,320 --> 00:28:48,600
Speaker 1: getting down to is that, yes, we're very different from earthworms.

506
00:28:48,640 --> 00:28:51,480
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that earth worms and humans are basically

507
00:28:51,520 --> 00:28:55,560
Speaker 1: the same thing, but when you start looking at genetics

508
00:28:55,560 --> 00:28:58,840
Speaker 1: and just sort of life itself, we're not that different.

509
00:28:59,520 --> 00:29:03,480
Speaker 1: They've got a lot of similar anatomical counterparts, some of

510
00:29:03,480 --> 00:29:05,520
Speaker 1: the same stuff you'd see in mammals, and in a

511
00:29:05,560 --> 00:29:09,000
Speaker 1: way you can see them as a reduced version of

512
00:29:09,000 --> 00:29:11,520
Speaker 1: what we are. Right Um, and in fact, when you

513
00:29:11,560 --> 00:29:14,280
Speaker 1: look at our genes. Uh. One thing that the author's

514
00:29:14,320 --> 00:29:16,600
Speaker 1: pointed out here is the earthworms share something like two

515
00:29:16,800 --> 00:29:21,000
Speaker 1: d and twenty genes um of their of their then catalog,

516
00:29:21,160 --> 00:29:24,280
Speaker 1: that eight thousand, one hundred twenty nine gene objects with humans.

517
00:29:24,680 --> 00:29:27,880
Speaker 1: And that's more than with fruit flies sixty eight genes

518
00:29:28,000 --> 00:29:31,680
Speaker 1: or nematode worms forty nine genes. Despite the importance of

519
00:29:31,720 --> 00:29:36,120
Speaker 1: fruit fly and nematoed genes in human research, there's so

520
00:29:36,160 --> 00:29:38,040
Speaker 1: you know, so there are a whole lot of vertebrate

521
00:29:38,760 --> 00:29:42,760
Speaker 1: homologies in there. They wrote in summary that more earthworm

522
00:29:42,840 --> 00:29:47,560
Speaker 1: genes are conserved between earthworms and humans. Provides anecdotal support

523
00:29:47,800 --> 00:29:51,880
Speaker 1: of the original Punch Cartoons strapline quote, man is but

524
00:29:51,960 --> 00:29:55,240
Speaker 1: a worm. That's wonderful. And I like how they have

525
00:29:55,760 --> 00:30:00,000
Speaker 1: fundamentally conclusively proved that you can inject somebody with an

526
00:30:00,080 --> 00:30:01,680
Speaker 1: zimme and turn them into an earth No no, no no,

527
00:30:01,680 --> 00:30:05,680
Speaker 1: no no, that's still pure science fiction. But but I

528
00:30:05,760 --> 00:30:07,800
Speaker 1: think maybe it does lean into the idea that it

529
00:30:07,920 --> 00:30:12,320
Speaker 1: is science fiction and not just pure sorcery. Like there

530
00:30:12,360 --> 00:30:14,560
Speaker 1: there there is a connection. There are there is a

531
00:30:15,000 --> 00:30:20,040
Speaker 1: wormy slimy trail descending through the Haunted House of Human

532
00:30:20,080 --> 00:30:23,360
Speaker 1: Evolution if we dare follow it. Well, I have greatly

533
00:30:23,480 --> 00:30:26,040
Speaker 1: enjoyed following the slimy trail, Robert. Yeah, I think that's

534
00:30:26,040 --> 00:30:28,240
Speaker 1: part of the fun of going after these, like sort

535
00:30:28,240 --> 00:30:32,040
Speaker 1: of picking an episode from an anthology series and then

536
00:30:32,160 --> 00:30:35,120
Speaker 1: just seeing what kind of science you can problicbly squeeze

537
00:30:35,160 --> 00:30:37,720
Speaker 1: out of it. Um. On that note, let's take a

538
00:30:37,760 --> 00:30:40,160
Speaker 1: quick break, and when we come back, I believe you

539
00:30:40,240 --> 00:30:43,680
Speaker 1: have a selection for us. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

540
00:30:44,360 --> 00:30:47,680
Speaker 1: All right, we're back, okay, Robert. Treehouse of Horror. Do

541
00:30:47,680 --> 00:30:50,719
Speaker 1: you have a favorite Treehouse of Horror of all time? Oh? Well,

542
00:30:50,960 --> 00:30:53,840
Speaker 1: I have a I definitely have a favorite episode, yes,

543
00:30:53,840 --> 00:30:56,800
Speaker 1: that I watched last night, because it has some of

544
00:30:56,840 --> 00:30:59,880
Speaker 1: the best segments it has. It has the shinning oh yeah,

545
00:31:00,080 --> 00:31:03,600
Speaker 1: which I referenced already in the episode. It also has

546
00:31:03,720 --> 00:31:07,000
Speaker 1: Nightmare Cafeteria, the one where the you know, the all

547
00:31:07,000 --> 00:31:09,600
Speaker 1: the teachers in the lunch room are turning to cannibalism

548
00:31:09,680 --> 00:31:12,920
Speaker 1: and eating the children. But it also has has one

549
00:31:12,920 --> 00:31:16,800
Speaker 1: more just really stellar segment. Yes, and this is of

550
00:31:16,840 --> 00:31:20,680
Speaker 1: course the Simpsons Treehouse of Horror segment Time and Punishment,

551
00:31:21,120 --> 00:31:23,920
Speaker 1: one of the great Simpsons treeouse of horror shorts of

552
00:31:23,960 --> 00:31:27,040
Speaker 1: all time, maybe maybe the best one ever, So I'll

553
00:31:27,080 --> 00:31:30,440
Speaker 1: give you the quick rundown. Homer Simpson breaks the toaster

554
00:31:30,640 --> 00:31:34,840
Speaker 1: by getting his hand jammed in it twice. Uh, the

555
00:31:34,880 --> 00:31:37,880
Speaker 1: best gags ever on the show. It still makes me

556
00:31:37,960 --> 00:31:40,240
Speaker 1: laugh every time. The second time he gets his hand

557
00:31:40,320 --> 00:31:42,719
Speaker 1: jammed in there, so I think Lisa's like, Dad, your

558
00:31:42,720 --> 00:31:45,120
Speaker 1: hands still in there, and He's like, there's just so

559
00:31:45,200 --> 00:31:51,560
Speaker 1: much fabulous screaming and sprawling about. Anyway, So toaster's broken.

560
00:31:51,560 --> 00:31:53,600
Speaker 1: He has to do some repairs. So in doing so,

561
00:31:53,840 --> 00:31:57,920
Speaker 1: Homer accidentally turns the toaster into a time machine that

562
00:31:58,000 --> 00:32:01,320
Speaker 1: takes him back to the Cretaceous period, and upon arriving,

563
00:32:01,560 --> 00:32:04,560
Speaker 1: he recalls the advice his father gave him on his

564
00:32:04,600 --> 00:32:07,120
Speaker 1: wedding night, which is, if you ever happen to travel

565
00:32:07,120 --> 00:32:10,360
Speaker 1: back into the past, don't change anything, because the ripple

566
00:32:10,440 --> 00:32:15,640
Speaker 1: effects through time could be disastrous. Unfortunately, of course, Homer

567
00:32:15,720 --> 00:32:19,360
Speaker 1: ends up killing bugs and you know, generally messing stuff

568
00:32:19,400 --> 00:32:21,840
Speaker 1: up in the past. And so Homer comes back to

569
00:32:21,840 --> 00:32:23,960
Speaker 1: the present the first time to find a kind of

570
00:32:24,080 --> 00:32:27,800
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty four scenario where ned Flanders rules the earth,

571
00:32:28,720 --> 00:32:32,200
Speaker 1: a kind of nineteen a diddle for if you will,

572
00:32:33,040 --> 00:32:36,280
Speaker 1: and uh, it's just too good. So eventually Homer he

573
00:32:36,680 --> 00:32:39,240
Speaker 1: goes back through time again to try to fix things,

574
00:32:39,840 --> 00:32:41,800
Speaker 1: and every time he changes something in the past, the

575
00:32:41,840 --> 00:32:45,320
Speaker 1: future changes in horrible ways. Finally, in the end he

576
00:32:45,400 --> 00:32:48,280
Speaker 1: settles for a present in which things are basically normal,

577
00:32:48,320 --> 00:32:51,240
Speaker 1: but everybody has forked lizard tongues. He says like, yeah,

578
00:32:51,280 --> 00:32:54,040
Speaker 1: good enough. Yeah uh. And of course this seems to

579
00:32:54,040 --> 00:32:57,160
Speaker 1: be based on Ray Bradbury's short story A Sound of Thunder,

580
00:32:57,200 --> 00:33:01,000
Speaker 1: which was originally published in Collier's Magazine and teen fifty two.

581
00:33:01,280 --> 00:33:03,920
Speaker 1: And by the way, Robert, I think I'm to understand

582
00:33:03,960 --> 00:33:07,640
Speaker 1: you have not seen the two thousand five movie version

583
00:33:07,720 --> 00:33:10,080
Speaker 1: of A Sound of Thunder with Ben Kingsley and that

584
00:33:10,200 --> 00:33:13,080
Speaker 1: dude with an attitude from Saving Private Ryan. No, I

585
00:33:13,440 --> 00:33:16,640
Speaker 1: haven't you sent me a trailer for it? And somehow

586
00:33:16,960 --> 00:33:20,880
Speaker 1: I totally missed this movie ever even existed. It has

587
00:33:20,960 --> 00:33:24,760
Speaker 1: some of the most deliciously awful c g I monsters

588
00:33:24,840 --> 00:33:27,720
Speaker 1: of all time. It's you know, that kind of early

589
00:33:27,880 --> 00:33:30,960
Speaker 1: two thousands c g I that at the time people

590
00:33:31,040 --> 00:33:34,440
Speaker 1: just thought was amazing, and now you can't look at

591
00:33:34,480 --> 00:33:37,640
Speaker 1: it without laughing. Yeah, it's it's a. It's a shame,

592
00:33:37,840 --> 00:33:39,600
Speaker 1: you know. It's like, it's not like some of the

593
00:33:39,600 --> 00:33:42,800
Speaker 1: stop motion animation you find in older some older horror films,

594
00:33:42,840 --> 00:33:45,440
Speaker 1: like this is the Puppets. Yeah, yeah, puppets like this.

595
00:33:45,640 --> 00:33:49,880
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe you know, our taste will change, Maybe we'll

596
00:33:49,880 --> 00:33:52,960
Speaker 1: look back on them in ten years and we'll love them.

597
00:33:53,040 --> 00:33:54,960
Speaker 1: Right now, it's very difficult. Well, I mean I do

598
00:33:55,120 --> 00:33:57,880
Speaker 1: love them, but not for the reason they were expecting

599
00:33:57,920 --> 00:34:01,760
Speaker 1: people to love them. It's hilarious like reading movie reviews

600
00:34:01,800 --> 00:34:05,520
Speaker 1: from the late nineties and early two thousand's where critics

601
00:34:05,560 --> 00:34:07,960
Speaker 1: will say, like, well, this movie wasn't very good, but

602
00:34:08,040 --> 00:34:11,279
Speaker 1: at least it has dazzling special effects. Some people were

603
00:34:11,320 --> 00:34:15,080
Speaker 1: just they're out of their minds in the late nineties

604
00:34:15,160 --> 00:34:17,760
Speaker 1: and early two thousands for these c g I movies

605
00:34:17,840 --> 00:34:21,440
Speaker 1: that looks so bad you cannot keep your eyes focused

606
00:34:21,480 --> 00:34:24,120
Speaker 1: on them. You have to look away. I remember seeing

607
00:34:24,560 --> 00:34:26,879
Speaker 1: the Spawn movie when it came out and thinking, oh, well,

608
00:34:26,880 --> 00:34:29,279
Speaker 1: that that had some pretty cool looking action in it. Yeah,

609
00:34:29,320 --> 00:34:32,280
Speaker 1: and I recently like glanced back like a glant. Granted

610
00:34:32,280 --> 00:34:34,000
Speaker 1: I didn't watching him full I just watched a few

611
00:34:34,560 --> 00:34:37,319
Speaker 1: scenes on YouTube, and I was just really astounded at

612
00:34:37,360 --> 00:34:40,080
Speaker 1: how bad the c G I was, it's it's amazing.

613
00:34:40,120 --> 00:34:42,799
Speaker 1: But anyway, this movie, it takes this story. At one

614
00:34:42,840 --> 00:34:45,600
Speaker 1: point there's this monster, this kind of like a baboon

615
00:34:45,719 --> 00:34:50,080
Speaker 1: velociraptor hybrid. It's just amazing. But anyway, so what what

616
00:34:50,280 --> 00:34:52,560
Speaker 1: is uh the plot of A Sound of thunder ray

617
00:34:52,560 --> 00:34:56,759
Speaker 1: Bradberry's original story, Well, it involves hunters traveling back through

618
00:34:56,800 --> 00:34:59,920
Speaker 1: time to go on a safari through time and kill

619
00:35:00,000 --> 00:35:03,600
Speaker 1: al Turannosaurus Rex. And so this time travel safari in

620
00:35:03,680 --> 00:35:06,160
Speaker 1: the story is believed to be safe because scouts have

621
00:35:06,239 --> 00:35:09,279
Speaker 1: gone ahead and selected an animal that was about to

622
00:35:09,360 --> 00:35:12,560
Speaker 1: die anyway, so killing it shouldn't change too much about

623
00:35:12,560 --> 00:35:15,040
Speaker 1: the past. But then in the story, won one of

624
00:35:15,080 --> 00:35:17,160
Speaker 1: these safari guys. I think this rich guy pay in

625
00:35:17,280 --> 00:35:19,560
Speaker 1: to go on this trip. He sort of goes off script.

626
00:35:19,600 --> 00:35:23,280
Speaker 1: He falls off this levitating path that they've constructed, uh,

627
00:35:23,320 --> 00:35:26,160
Speaker 1: and he changes too much about the past, especially in

628
00:35:26,200 --> 00:35:29,040
Speaker 1: the end by discovering that he crushed a butterfly under

629
00:35:29,080 --> 00:35:32,000
Speaker 1: his boot. And so then when they return to the future,

630
00:35:32,520 --> 00:35:36,799
Speaker 1: everything's weird. English words are spelled different, and a fascist

631
00:35:36,880 --> 00:35:40,120
Speaker 1: politician has come to power. It's a fabulous story. I

632
00:35:40,120 --> 00:35:42,560
Speaker 1: should also point out that. I think it's the third

633
00:35:42,600 --> 00:35:45,719
Speaker 1: season of the Ray Bradberry Theater had an adaptation of

634
00:35:45,800 --> 00:35:48,080
Speaker 1: this that I think was actually scripted by Ray Bradberry,

635
00:35:48,440 --> 00:35:52,120
Speaker 1: and I remember as being pretty good. Yeah, so do

636
00:35:52,200 --> 00:35:55,400
Speaker 1: not feel like you only have that that awful c

637
00:35:55,520 --> 00:35:57,919
Speaker 1: g I film to fall back on. But but isn't

638
00:35:57,960 --> 00:36:01,759
Speaker 1: it interesting that probably more people have been exposed to

639
00:36:01,800 --> 00:36:06,759
Speaker 1: this concept through The Simpsons then through the Ray Bradberry Theater,

640
00:36:06,960 --> 00:36:09,400
Speaker 1: or certainly that the writings of Ray Bradberry. Oh, I

641
00:36:09,400 --> 00:36:11,680
Speaker 1: think that's how it often is. I mean, lots of

642
00:36:11,920 --> 00:36:15,440
Speaker 1: classic sci fi stories ended up as Simpsons episodes, and

643
00:36:15,480 --> 00:36:18,200
Speaker 1: that's what people primarily know them from. Just like I

644
00:36:18,200 --> 00:36:21,800
Speaker 1: bet more people of roughly our generation know the Tale

645
00:36:21,800 --> 00:36:25,319
Speaker 1: of the Monkeys Paw as the Twisted Claw episode of

646
00:36:25,360 --> 00:36:28,759
Speaker 1: Are You Afraid of the Dark. I mean it makes sense.

647
00:36:28,760 --> 00:36:32,279
Speaker 1: We're essentially talking about folk tales and myths, and these

648
00:36:32,280 --> 00:36:35,600
Speaker 1: things evolved, These things change with the teller historically, and

649
00:36:35,640 --> 00:36:37,600
Speaker 1: so it makes sense that they should change with the

650
00:36:37,640 --> 00:36:41,239
Speaker 1: teller even today. Yeah. But so this is sort of

651
00:36:41,239 --> 00:36:44,520
Speaker 1: a timeless story in a way, because it's illustrating a

652
00:36:44,600 --> 00:36:48,080
Speaker 1: concept that if you've ever really thought about time travel

653
00:36:48,160 --> 00:36:50,200
Speaker 1: and what it would mean if time travel into the

654
00:36:50,200 --> 00:36:53,120
Speaker 1: past could exist. If you think about it hard enough,

655
00:36:53,160 --> 00:36:56,759
Speaker 1: you're likely to stumble across some version of what's come

656
00:36:56,800 --> 00:37:00,080
Speaker 1: to be known in in chaos theory and meteorology and

657
00:37:00,160 --> 00:37:03,719
Speaker 1: mathematics as the butterfly effect. Now, there are plenty of

658
00:37:03,760 --> 00:37:06,880
Speaker 1: popular misconceptions about the butterfly effect. You heard about it

659
00:37:06,920 --> 00:37:10,800
Speaker 1: in Jurassic Park and stuff. One of the common misconceptions

660
00:37:10,920 --> 00:37:14,520
Speaker 1: is that the term actually comes from Ray Bradberry's story

661
00:37:14,560 --> 00:37:17,000
Speaker 1: A Sound of Thunder, Because what do we find out

662
00:37:17,040 --> 00:37:19,200
Speaker 1: at the end that this guy stepped on a butterfly

663
00:37:19,400 --> 00:37:22,319
Speaker 1: and he sees it on his boot and realizes, oh no,

664
00:37:22,600 --> 00:37:26,840
Speaker 1: that caused these cascading effects through time and changed everything. Uh,

665
00:37:26,960 --> 00:37:28,880
Speaker 1: this is not the case. That the term does not

666
00:37:29,040 --> 00:37:31,959
Speaker 1: come from that story. In reality, credit can be given

667
00:37:31,960 --> 00:37:35,319
Speaker 1: to the m I. T. Meteorologist Edward Norton Lorenz, who

668
00:37:35,400 --> 00:37:39,960
Speaker 1: was discussing the accuracy of weather prediction models. And Lorenz

669
00:37:40,000 --> 00:37:45,480
Speaker 1: found while working on meteorological computer programs that extremely tiny

670
00:37:45,719 --> 00:37:50,400
Speaker 1: changes in initial inputs would lead to huge differences in

671
00:37:50,480 --> 00:37:55,080
Speaker 1: predicted weather patterns over time, such that unavoidable errors in

672
00:37:55,120 --> 00:38:00,040
Speaker 1: our inputs will probably always make weather fundamentally unpredictable be

673
00:38:00,080 --> 00:38:02,800
Speaker 1: on to certain distance into the future. And you actually

674
00:38:02,840 --> 00:38:05,120
Speaker 1: know this from your own experience. Right, you look at

675
00:38:05,120 --> 00:38:09,720
Speaker 1: today's weather forecast, it's probably pretty accurate. Tomorrow's is probably

676
00:38:09,719 --> 00:38:12,800
Speaker 1: pretty accurate. You try to go seven days into the future,

677
00:38:13,640 --> 00:38:17,239
Speaker 1: it's it's kind of a crapshoot. Then, in predicting, say

678
00:38:17,280 --> 00:38:20,719
Speaker 1: whether a month into the future, is almost useless. And

679
00:38:20,760 --> 00:38:23,680
Speaker 1: this is because even though we have very good weather

680
00:38:23,760 --> 00:38:28,239
Speaker 1: prediction models at this point, their accuracy just deteriorates over

681
00:38:28,320 --> 00:38:33,400
Speaker 1: time because of the amplification of tiny initial differences that

682
00:38:33,520 --> 00:38:37,839
Speaker 1: you can't ever totally eliminate. So you know, uh, you

683
00:38:37,840 --> 00:38:41,320
Speaker 1: you make a tiny, tiny, you know, many many decimal

684
00:38:41,400 --> 00:38:45,960
Speaker 1: places behind the zero change to some initial input in

685
00:38:45,960 --> 00:38:49,560
Speaker 1: a weather prediction model, and then you run that, run

686
00:38:49,600 --> 00:38:53,319
Speaker 1: that alongside something with the original input, and one day

687
00:38:53,360 --> 00:38:56,719
Speaker 1: into the future they'll be pretty similar. But five days

688
00:38:56,760 --> 00:39:00,520
Speaker 1: into the future they will be dramatically different. So whatever

689
00:39:00,560 --> 00:39:03,680
Speaker 1: you've got slightly wrong today, however tiny that error is,

690
00:39:03,760 --> 00:39:06,400
Speaker 1: will mean you just can't predict the future in a month.

691
00:39:06,800 --> 00:39:10,640
Speaker 1: And illustrate this concept, Lorenz used the image of a bird,

692
00:39:11,040 --> 00:39:14,080
Speaker 1: I think a seagull or a butterfly flapping its wings,

693
00:39:14,440 --> 00:39:17,120
Speaker 1: leading to changes in the weather that would create a

694
00:39:17,160 --> 00:39:20,359
Speaker 1: tornado that you wouldn't have had otherwise. Now, one thing

695
00:39:20,440 --> 00:39:22,279
Speaker 1: I also want to make clear is that this is

696
00:39:22,320 --> 00:39:26,440
Speaker 1: talking about the predicted movements of like specific weather patterns

697
00:39:26,440 --> 00:39:29,520
Speaker 1: and events. Right when they're trying to say where rain

698
00:39:29,640 --> 00:39:32,640
Speaker 1: will be at a certain time, and how the front

699
00:39:32,719 --> 00:39:34,960
Speaker 1: the you know, the the air fronts will move and everything.

700
00:39:35,480 --> 00:39:38,120
Speaker 1: We can, on the other hand, make some solid predictions

701
00:39:38,120 --> 00:39:41,720
Speaker 1: about whether just based on climate and statistics. For example,

702
00:39:42,040 --> 00:39:44,120
Speaker 1: you can predict it is much more likely to be

703
00:39:44,200 --> 00:39:46,879
Speaker 1: raining in Seattle tomorrow than it is to be raining

704
00:39:46,880 --> 00:39:50,360
Speaker 1: in Death Valley tomorrow, and you you are likely to

705
00:39:50,440 --> 00:39:53,160
Speaker 1: be correct based on those predictions made on on the

706
00:39:53,200 --> 00:39:57,080
Speaker 1: basis of knowledge about climate and statistics. But still, if

707
00:39:57,080 --> 00:39:59,319
Speaker 1: you're trying to predict far in the future with specific

708
00:39:59,440 --> 00:40:01,959
Speaker 1: movements of weather patterns, you're you're gonna have a really

709
00:40:02,000 --> 00:40:05,680
Speaker 1: hard time doing it. Another misconception about the butterfly effect.

710
00:40:06,000 --> 00:40:09,480
Speaker 1: I think a lot of times people interpreted exactly the

711
00:40:09,560 --> 00:40:12,120
Speaker 1: wrong way. It's like the opposite of what it means.

712
00:40:12,160 --> 00:40:16,160
Speaker 1: They think that it means you can identify small changes

713
00:40:16,680 --> 00:40:19,799
Speaker 1: that lead to big effects in complex systems, and this

714
00:40:19,880 --> 00:40:22,240
Speaker 1: is the opposite of the point about the butterfly effect.

715
00:40:22,280 --> 00:40:25,920
Speaker 1: The butterfly effect is specifically about the lack of deterministic

716
00:40:25,960 --> 00:40:31,239
Speaker 1: predictability in complex systems with sensitivity to initial conditions, and

717
00:40:31,680 --> 00:40:36,120
Speaker 1: the technical term for this would be deterministic non linear systems.

718
00:40:36,160 --> 00:40:40,320
Speaker 1: Nonlinear systems are systems where the outputs are not directly

719
00:40:40,360 --> 00:40:43,319
Speaker 1: proportional to the inputs. You know, you can slightly vary

720
00:40:43,360 --> 00:40:45,719
Speaker 1: an input and get big changes in the difference of

721
00:40:45,760 --> 00:40:49,080
Speaker 1: the output. So the point is not that you can

722
00:40:49,120 --> 00:40:51,440
Speaker 1: see a tornado and actually trace it back to a

723
00:40:51,480 --> 00:40:54,720
Speaker 1: butterfly flapping its wings. Rather, the point is that weather

724
00:40:54,760 --> 00:40:59,480
Speaker 1: systems emerge from complex interactions over time with extreme sensitivity

725
00:40:59,520 --> 00:41:02,160
Speaker 1: to initial conditions, meaning that if you move far enough

726
00:41:02,200 --> 00:41:04,799
Speaker 1: back in time, you could not have predicted that a

727
00:41:04,840 --> 00:41:08,000
Speaker 1: tornado would emerge. It's not about predicting the future of

728
00:41:08,040 --> 00:41:11,520
Speaker 1: a complex system based on tiny initial changes. It's about

729
00:41:11,600 --> 00:41:15,040
Speaker 1: how complex systems are more and more unpredictable the farther

730
00:41:15,120 --> 00:41:17,719
Speaker 1: into the future you try to predict. This, of course,

731
00:41:17,800 --> 00:41:20,759
Speaker 1: is one of the fundamental concepts of chaos theory, and

732
00:41:20,800 --> 00:41:22,759
Speaker 1: maybe maybe we should come back and devote a full

733
00:41:22,760 --> 00:41:26,200
Speaker 1: episode to this one day with special guestian Malcolm. I've

734
00:41:26,200 --> 00:41:30,160
Speaker 1: never really thought to look critically at whether the way

735
00:41:30,200 --> 00:41:33,240
Speaker 1: I M. Malcolm tries to apply chaos theory and Jurassic

736
00:41:33,239 --> 00:41:36,239
Speaker 1: Park is a legitimate application of that theory. Maybe maybe

737
00:41:36,320 --> 00:41:38,560
Speaker 1: the maybe it is, I don't know. That would would

738
00:41:38,560 --> 00:41:40,200
Speaker 1: actually be fun to just to do a breakdown of

739
00:41:40,280 --> 00:41:43,080
Speaker 1: the original Jurassic Park film. Uh And it would give

740
00:41:43,120 --> 00:41:47,400
Speaker 1: us more opportunity to rail against what Jurassic Park, especially

741
00:41:47,440 --> 00:41:50,520
Speaker 1: the recent films, are doing the understanding of dinosaurs. I'm

742
00:41:50,520 --> 00:41:55,520
Speaker 1: really into kids now whose favorite dinosaurs are fictional dinosaurs

743
00:41:55,560 --> 00:41:57,920
Speaker 1: from this most recent movie, and I feel like it's

744
00:41:57,920 --> 00:42:00,879
Speaker 1: a shame. Real dinosaurs are good enough. Come on, Yeah,

745
00:42:00,880 --> 00:42:03,760
Speaker 1: it's like everybody they're like, Oh, it's this blue velociraptor

746
00:42:03,880 --> 00:42:05,759
Speaker 1: or something. I don't know, I haven't seen it yet.

747
00:42:05,760 --> 00:42:08,120
Speaker 1: Maybe it's wonderful. I suppose I should just be played

748
00:42:08,120 --> 00:42:10,480
Speaker 1: that they're interested in dinosaurs at all. But they're just

749
00:42:10,520 --> 00:42:15,200
Speaker 1: so many wonderful actual species, and our current scientific understanding

750
00:42:15,239 --> 00:42:17,239
Speaker 1: of them I feel like should be reflected to some

751
00:42:17,320 --> 00:42:20,400
Speaker 1: extent in our fiction totally. Uh So, it's pretty widely

752
00:42:20,440 --> 00:42:23,440
Speaker 1: accepted that something like the butterfly effect applies to whether

753
00:42:23,600 --> 00:42:26,160
Speaker 1: I think there are actually are some who dissent and say, no,

754
00:42:26,400 --> 00:42:28,920
Speaker 1: it's just you know, problems with our models or something.

755
00:42:29,520 --> 00:42:32,480
Speaker 1: But the question is would it apply to the biological

756
00:42:32,560 --> 00:42:36,040
Speaker 1: history of Earth? Would stepping on a fish seventy million

757
00:42:36,120 --> 00:42:40,520
Speaker 1: years ago change the present substantially? And how would it

758
00:42:40,640 --> 00:42:44,080
Speaker 1: change the present? Unfortunately, this is not a question that

759
00:42:44,160 --> 00:42:46,279
Speaker 1: I think has a firm scientific answer. I think this

760
00:42:46,360 --> 00:42:48,440
Speaker 1: is just something people we don't know what the answer

761
00:42:48,480 --> 00:42:51,879
Speaker 1: to this question is. Uh. One thing I think, though

762
00:42:51,880 --> 00:42:54,480
Speaker 1: I could be wrong, is that I think stories like

763
00:42:54,520 --> 00:42:59,480
Speaker 1: this often get the scale of the changes wrong. Like that.

764
00:42:59,680 --> 00:43:03,040
Speaker 1: It's interesting these stories tend to assume kind of nonsensical

765
00:43:03,440 --> 00:43:07,600
Speaker 1: esthetic changes around the margins of reality. But where the

766
00:43:07,640 --> 00:43:11,120
Speaker 1: broad strokes are the same, uh. You know, example would

767
00:43:11,120 --> 00:43:14,319
Speaker 1: be Ned Flanders still exists, the Simpsons, the Simpsons still

768
00:43:14,360 --> 00:43:18,440
Speaker 1: exist there apparently the same people. Uh. Ned Flanders is

769
00:43:18,440 --> 00:43:21,320
Speaker 1: still the Simpsons, Simpsons next door neighbor, but is also

770
00:43:21,400 --> 00:43:24,200
Speaker 1: the dictator of Earth, you know. And I know that's

771
00:43:24,239 --> 00:43:25,920
Speaker 1: a parody. I'm not trying to like rag on the

772
00:43:25,960 --> 00:43:29,040
Speaker 1: Simpsons for that, but it's a It's a good parody

773
00:43:29,120 --> 00:43:31,879
Speaker 1: because it highlights the kind of absurdity that you see

774
00:43:31,920 --> 00:43:34,440
Speaker 1: in stories like this, like in a Sound of Thunder,

775
00:43:34,920 --> 00:43:38,959
Speaker 1: the idea that you'd still basically have the same uh

776
00:43:39,040 --> 00:43:42,280
Speaker 1: people existing in the same like candidates running for offer

777
00:43:42,320 --> 00:43:45,920
Speaker 1: It's office, but a different one of the candidates one yeah,

778
00:43:46,000 --> 00:43:48,080
Speaker 1: and the back to the Simpsons, like why would everything

779
00:43:48,080 --> 00:43:50,839
Speaker 1: be the same except for the tongue? Right? So, I

780
00:43:51,000 --> 00:43:52,640
Speaker 1: you know, I could be wrong, but I would tend

781
00:43:52,680 --> 00:43:56,240
Speaker 1: to say, just intuitively and based on you know, using

782
00:43:56,239 --> 00:44:00,799
Speaker 1: the weather analogy, that butterfly effect type changes from deep

783
00:44:00,800 --> 00:44:05,160
Speaker 1: into the past would result in let's say, larger amplitude

784
00:44:05,360 --> 00:44:09,000
Speaker 1: changes tens of millions of years down the road, bigger,

785
00:44:09,080 --> 00:44:12,960
Speaker 1: bigger amplitude changes than which candidate wins an election. Would

786
00:44:13,000 --> 00:44:16,640
Speaker 1: people even exist if they did with the same individual

787
00:44:16,800 --> 00:44:20,480
Speaker 1: people even exist? I don't know. It seems kind of doubtful.

788
00:44:20,719 --> 00:44:23,680
Speaker 1: There's that great scene in that episode where Homer sits

789
00:44:23,760 --> 00:44:27,239
Speaker 1: on a creature emerging from the water yes um, which

790
00:44:27,280 --> 00:44:29,080
Speaker 1: I love that because I feel like it kind of

791
00:44:29,120 --> 00:44:34,160
Speaker 1: calls back to um paleo art in our science textbooks

792
00:44:34,320 --> 00:44:36,360
Speaker 1: where you're told about the evolution of life and you

793
00:44:36,360 --> 00:44:39,359
Speaker 1: see this picture of some sort of creature waddling out

794
00:44:39,400 --> 00:44:42,719
Speaker 1: of the water talking about like life coming from the

795
00:44:42,760 --> 00:44:46,080
Speaker 1: sea and then becoming terrestrial. But it it can it's

796
00:44:46,120 --> 00:44:48,799
Speaker 1: kind of accidentally put this idea in your mind that

797
00:44:48,880 --> 00:44:53,640
Speaker 1: there was one fish. There's one creature like that, just

798
00:44:53,719 --> 00:44:55,760
Speaker 1: like this is the one and if you sat on it,

799
00:44:55,760 --> 00:44:59,480
Speaker 1: it would change everything. Yeah, that that kind of misconception,

800
00:44:59,640 --> 00:45:03,000
Speaker 1: Like one fish got brave and it climbed out of

801
00:45:03,000 --> 00:45:05,719
Speaker 1: the water, and if it hadn't done that, there never

802
00:45:05,800 --> 00:45:09,160
Speaker 1: would have been uh any kind of like water to

803
00:45:09,360 --> 00:45:12,879
Speaker 1: land dwelling vertebrate transition. Yeah, I mean maybe that's part

804
00:45:12,880 --> 00:45:16,719
Speaker 1: of like an American exceptionalism, right, kind of kind of

805
00:45:17,000 --> 00:45:20,000
Speaker 1: you know, accidentally drained into our science like that fish.

806
00:45:20,040 --> 00:45:24,879
Speaker 1: Really it was a freethinker. It really changed everything. It's

807
00:45:24,880 --> 00:45:27,960
Speaker 1: the great Man theory of history. And of course we

808
00:45:28,040 --> 00:45:31,760
Speaker 1: got no time for that. But hey, this story also

809
00:45:31,880 --> 00:45:36,319
Speaker 1: deals to the practical effects of time travel, something that unfortunately,

810
00:45:36,360 --> 00:45:39,120
Speaker 1: again is in in the speculative realm. But at least

811
00:45:39,160 --> 00:45:42,520
Speaker 1: we can offer some informed criticism even if we can't

812
00:45:42,560 --> 00:45:45,640
Speaker 1: have a like, you know, a proven scientific theory about

813
00:45:45,680 --> 00:45:48,200
Speaker 1: time travel. So one of the things we often point

814
00:45:48,200 --> 00:45:50,560
Speaker 1: out on the show is that, of course time travel

815
00:45:50,600 --> 00:45:53,080
Speaker 1: into the future is easy. In fact, you're doing it

816
00:45:53,200 --> 00:45:56,200
Speaker 1: right now in more ways than in more than one,

817
00:45:56,320 --> 00:45:58,319
Speaker 1: more than one way, more way than one, more ways

818
00:45:58,320 --> 00:46:01,800
Speaker 1: than one anyway. You are traveling into the future, of course,

819
00:46:01,960 --> 00:46:04,600
Speaker 1: at a rate of one second per second. But beyond that,

820
00:46:05,320 --> 00:46:08,359
Speaker 1: you are in fact time traveling into the future in

821
00:46:08,480 --> 00:46:11,480
Speaker 1: the way that many stories imagine, meaning you're going into

822
00:46:11,520 --> 00:46:15,439
Speaker 1: the future faster than other things are because of time

823
00:46:15,480 --> 00:46:19,240
Speaker 1: dilation effects, You're closer to the center of gravity of Earth,

824
00:46:19,360 --> 00:46:22,480
Speaker 1: so you are actually going into the future faster than

825
00:46:22,560 --> 00:46:25,120
Speaker 1: objects farther away from the center of gravity of Earth

826
00:46:25,120 --> 00:46:28,120
Speaker 1: that are moving at the same velocity as you. Also,

827
00:46:28,160 --> 00:46:31,279
Speaker 1: because you're moving faster, that's dilating time in a way,

828
00:46:31,360 --> 00:46:34,359
Speaker 1: speeding up your travel into the future. If you get

829
00:46:34,400 --> 00:46:37,360
Speaker 1: in a spaceship and travel even even faster than you

830
00:46:37,400 --> 00:46:41,200
Speaker 1: will even more greatly speed up your relative travel into

831
00:46:41,200 --> 00:46:44,480
Speaker 1: the future. You will get old slower than things that

832
00:46:44,520 --> 00:46:47,120
Speaker 1: are not traveling with you in that fast moving spaceship.

833
00:46:47,320 --> 00:46:50,120
Speaker 1: So yeah, time travel into the future is totally real,

834
00:46:50,360 --> 00:46:54,640
Speaker 1: proven feature of relativity, and it's just it's actually almost

835
00:46:54,719 --> 00:46:57,439
Speaker 1: kind of easy. Um. On the other hand, we often

836
00:46:57,480 --> 00:47:00,000
Speaker 1: talk about how time travel into the past is perhaps

837
00:47:00,000 --> 00:47:05,000
Speaker 1: it's impossible, and if not impossible, at least very very hard. Uh,

838
00:47:05,080 --> 00:47:07,160
Speaker 1: the ways in which it has done. I was I

839
00:47:07,200 --> 00:47:10,879
Speaker 1: was reading a post about this, UH on Sean Carroll's blog,

840
00:47:10,880 --> 00:47:14,560
Speaker 1: The physicist Sean Carroll, Caltech physicist. He writes a lot

841
00:47:14,600 --> 00:47:16,880
Speaker 1: of great, you know, popular science writing these days, and

842
00:47:16,880 --> 00:47:19,319
Speaker 1: he's got a great blog. One of his posts from

843
00:47:19,320 --> 00:47:22,000
Speaker 1: two thousand nine is called rules for Time Travelers, where

844
00:47:22,000 --> 00:47:24,440
Speaker 1: he just says, Okay, if we were to try to

845
00:47:24,480 --> 00:47:28,880
Speaker 1: make scientifically accurate time travel movies, what would happen in them?

846
00:47:28,960 --> 00:47:32,279
Speaker 1: He argues that traveling into the past is difficult, it

847
00:47:32,440 --> 00:47:35,680
Speaker 1: might not be impossible. If you can do it, it

848
00:47:35,719 --> 00:47:38,840
Speaker 1: would be based on what's you know, basically like bridges

849
00:47:39,000 --> 00:47:42,799
Speaker 1: through space time known as closed timelike curves. And if

850
00:47:42,840 --> 00:47:45,600
Speaker 1: it is possible to travel into the past, one of

851
00:47:45,640 --> 00:47:48,279
Speaker 1: the things about this is that it is not possible

852
00:47:48,360 --> 00:47:51,759
Speaker 1: to change the past. So you might be able to

853
00:47:51,800 --> 00:47:54,920
Speaker 1: travel back in time, but you couldn't create a paradox

854
00:47:54,960 --> 00:47:57,880
Speaker 1: by say, going back and killing your grandfather or whatever,

855
00:47:57,960 --> 00:48:01,000
Speaker 1: so that you never existed. In fact, act, anything you

856
00:48:01,040 --> 00:48:04,200
Speaker 1: went back into the past and did, you would find

857
00:48:04,400 --> 00:48:07,000
Speaker 1: was in fact already part of the past in the

858
00:48:07,040 --> 00:48:09,719
Speaker 1: future that you came from that's the paradox of the

859
00:48:09,719 --> 00:48:12,160
Speaker 1: whole situation, right I mean, and that, yeah, that makes

860
00:48:12,160 --> 00:48:15,000
Speaker 1: it kind of weird because that seems to sort of

861
00:48:15,040 --> 00:48:18,560
Speaker 1: create a paradox as well. Like it's the closed time

862
00:48:18,600 --> 00:48:21,520
Speaker 1: loop like you see in the original Terminator movie. Uh,

863
00:48:21,600 --> 00:48:24,360
Speaker 1: there's a boy who exists or a person who exists

864
00:48:24,440 --> 00:48:27,080
Speaker 1: only because somebody from the future was sent back in

865
00:48:27,160 --> 00:48:31,040
Speaker 1: time by him to become his father. So like, how

866
00:48:31,120 --> 00:48:35,640
Speaker 1: how did that closed loop get initiated? So anyway, backward

867
00:48:35,680 --> 00:48:38,560
Speaker 1: time travel still generally smells rotten to me. But but

868
00:48:38,680 --> 00:48:42,200
Speaker 1: Carol saying, if it's possible, if it's possible at all,

869
00:48:42,280 --> 00:48:46,160
Speaker 1: you can't change the past. You you know, whatever's done

870
00:48:46,280 --> 00:48:48,840
Speaker 1: is done. That just is the past, even if you

871
00:48:48,880 --> 00:48:51,960
Speaker 1: can go back. Also, another point he makes is that

872
00:48:52,080 --> 00:48:55,240
Speaker 1: you can't travel back in time to before the time

873
00:48:55,280 --> 00:48:58,799
Speaker 1: machine was invented. He says, you know, maybe you can

874
00:48:58,800 --> 00:49:01,360
Speaker 1: travel back to a point you know, you've got a

875
00:49:01,360 --> 00:49:03,640
Speaker 1: time machine later and you can travel back to when

876
00:49:03,680 --> 00:49:06,319
Speaker 1: the time machine was made, but you can't travel back

877
00:49:06,360 --> 00:49:08,960
Speaker 1: to the Middle Ages or something like that, because you

878
00:49:08,960 --> 00:49:11,759
Speaker 1: get paradoxes again, which takes some of the fun out

879
00:49:11,760 --> 00:49:15,120
Speaker 1: of our time tap travel fiction. But it also would

880
00:49:15,160 --> 00:49:18,080
Speaker 1: explain why we haven't been visited by time travelers. Oh yeah,

881
00:49:18,120 --> 00:49:21,040
Speaker 1: I mean that's always a great question. Now you might

882
00:49:21,080 --> 00:49:23,120
Speaker 1: be thinking, okay, but wait about wait a minute, what

883
00:49:23,160 --> 00:49:26,480
Speaker 1: about like forking branches of time? You know, can't you

884
00:49:26,520 --> 00:49:29,200
Speaker 1: like fork off into different branches of time? You know?

885
00:49:29,280 --> 00:49:32,640
Speaker 1: Even Sean Carroll, he he adheres to the many worlds

886
00:49:32,680 --> 00:49:34,960
Speaker 1: theory of quantum mechanics, right, so he thinks that the

887
00:49:35,040 --> 00:49:38,840
Speaker 1: universe is constantly branching off into different realities based on

888
00:49:38,920 --> 00:49:43,280
Speaker 1: the wave function of quantum mechanical objects and events um.

889
00:49:43,360 --> 00:49:45,959
Speaker 1: But but even if you accept that, there's no reason

890
00:49:46,000 --> 00:49:48,520
Speaker 1: to think that traveling back into time would somehow give

891
00:49:48,560 --> 00:49:52,279
Speaker 1: you access to different quantum realities. It just seems like

892
00:49:52,719 --> 00:49:55,520
Speaker 1: you know, you're here, You're here, this is the one

893
00:49:55,600 --> 00:49:58,560
Speaker 1: you have access to. You can't interact with other quantum

894
00:49:58,600 --> 00:50:02,080
Speaker 1: realities by def mission, you can't interact with them. That's

895
00:50:02,080 --> 00:50:06,319
Speaker 1: what makes them different realities. So, unfortunately, I don't think

896
00:50:06,400 --> 00:50:08,399
Speaker 1: you you know, if you don't like the your lot

897
00:50:08,480 --> 00:50:10,960
Speaker 1: in life today and you want to change things, I

898
00:50:11,000 --> 00:50:12,719
Speaker 1: don't think you can do it by going back and

899
00:50:12,760 --> 00:50:17,880
Speaker 1: stomping on a fish or even a butterfly. Still great,

900
00:50:17,880 --> 00:50:20,160
Speaker 1: episode of tree House of Horror so good, and and

901
00:50:20,200 --> 00:50:22,880
Speaker 1: I do recommend that Ray brad Berry a theater episode

902
00:50:22,880 --> 00:50:24,839
Speaker 1: as well. I believe you can find the full thing

903
00:50:25,120 --> 00:50:28,600
Speaker 1: on one of the video streaming sides. If you love

904
00:50:28,640 --> 00:50:31,360
Speaker 1: bad movies, I also recommend the two thousand five movie.

905
00:50:31,360 --> 00:50:34,360
Speaker 1: It's it's one for the c g ages. All right, Well,

906
00:50:34,400 --> 00:50:37,680
Speaker 1: let's move on to another one, shall we. All Right, So, Joe,

907
00:50:37,760 --> 00:50:41,239
Speaker 1: you've flown with me before, Yes, so you probably have

908
00:50:41,320 --> 00:50:44,480
Speaker 1: observed that then I'm kind of a slightly nervous flyer.

909
00:50:44,719 --> 00:50:47,560
Speaker 1: I like to try to be a calm, reassuring presence,

910
00:50:48,640 --> 00:50:50,640
Speaker 1: trying not to raise my voice around you when we're

911
00:50:50,640 --> 00:50:53,759
Speaker 1: getting onto an airplane. Yeah, and I have to say,

912
00:50:53,880 --> 00:50:56,239
Speaker 1: you know, I don't have anywhere near the difficulty that

913
00:50:56,320 --> 00:50:58,640
Speaker 1: I know some people struggle with when it comes to flying.

914
00:50:58,719 --> 00:51:02,000
Speaker 1: But yeah, I've I've found myself grow more anxious when

915
00:51:02,000 --> 00:51:04,879
Speaker 1: it comes to flights in recent years. And I've I've

916
00:51:04,920 --> 00:51:08,560
Speaker 1: been able to successfully uh manage this to to a

917
00:51:08,560 --> 00:51:13,200
Speaker 1: certain degree with a little uh Zanex, a little Steve

918
00:51:13,280 --> 00:51:16,560
Speaker 1: Roach and be an electronic music, maybe a little biosphere

919
00:51:17,120 --> 00:51:19,239
Speaker 1: uh and and that seems to do the do the job.

920
00:51:19,320 --> 00:51:21,759
Speaker 1: It makes me a more pleasant flyer. It makes me

921
00:51:21,840 --> 00:51:24,880
Speaker 1: more pleasant to be around when I'm flying. But so,

922
00:51:25,200 --> 00:51:30,560
Speaker 1: given this reality, I couldn't help but discuss the classic

923
00:51:30,800 --> 00:51:35,640
Speaker 1: Twilight Zone episode from October of nineteen. Uh, Nightmare at

924
00:51:35,680 --> 00:51:39,560
Speaker 1: twenty thousand feet based, I should point out on the

925
00:51:39,640 --> 00:51:43,000
Speaker 1: Richard Mathieson short story alone by Night. Isn't it great?

926
00:51:43,040 --> 00:51:48,160
Speaker 1: How many of these shorts come from great short stories

927
00:51:48,200 --> 00:51:50,640
Speaker 1: by sci fi writers. Yeah. I mean we're gonna get

928
00:51:50,680 --> 00:51:54,400
Speaker 1: to some that are not based on terrible stories, but

929
00:51:54,400 --> 00:51:56,239
Speaker 1: but yeah, so far we've been talking about some big

930
00:51:56,320 --> 00:52:02,960
Speaker 1: names here. Uh Richard Matheson, Uh what is was a legend? Um?

931
00:52:03,040 --> 00:52:05,920
Speaker 1: This episode, of course is famous because it also started

932
00:52:05,960 --> 00:52:09,839
Speaker 1: with him Shatner. Uh so just a quicking Oh yeah,

933
00:52:10,080 --> 00:52:12,680
Speaker 1: he's he's pretty good at this. But and he was

934
00:52:12,719 --> 00:52:15,600
Speaker 1: in at least a couple of Twilight Zones, maybe more.

935
00:52:15,719 --> 00:52:17,920
Speaker 1: I remember there being at least another one he was in.

936
00:52:18,320 --> 00:52:20,359
Speaker 1: Yeah what was he? He was in one that had

937
00:52:20,400 --> 00:52:25,840
Speaker 1: like a what was it a jukebox napkin napkin dispenser? Yeah?

938
00:52:25,840 --> 00:52:27,640
Speaker 1: Why why did I think juke box it like to

939
00:52:27,840 --> 00:52:30,719
Speaker 1: spit out fortunes or somethingthing to that effect. Yeah, it's

940
00:52:30,760 --> 00:52:33,920
Speaker 1: like a fortune cookie Napkin Dispenser. I'm blanking on the

941
00:52:33,960 --> 00:52:36,960
Speaker 1: details is not nearly the famous as this episode. So

942
00:52:37,000 --> 00:52:40,120
Speaker 1: in this one, William Shatner plays a nervous flyer who

943
00:52:40,280 --> 00:52:44,600
Speaker 1: witnesses a creature on the wing of the plane during flight. Um,

944
00:52:44,719 --> 00:52:46,960
Speaker 1: and he has a in in the episode he has.

945
00:52:47,120 --> 00:52:49,720
Speaker 1: He's just bouncing back from a nervous breakdown a board

946
00:52:49,760 --> 00:52:52,840
Speaker 1: of flight, so everyone's doubting him when he starts reporting

947
00:52:52,840 --> 00:52:55,359
Speaker 1: seeing a creature on the wing of the plane. Uh,

948
00:52:55,480 --> 00:52:58,400
Speaker 1: this so what what is essentially a grimlin? Though it's

949
00:52:58,440 --> 00:53:00,960
Speaker 1: kind of a yetti suit. It's a combination of a

950
00:53:01,040 --> 00:53:03,399
Speaker 1: yetie suit and it also kind of looks like that

951
00:53:03,680 --> 00:53:07,000
Speaker 1: dog down the hall and the scene in the Shining. Yeah,

952
00:53:07,239 --> 00:53:09,880
Speaker 1: it's not a great monster suit, but the episode is

953
00:53:09,920 --> 00:53:13,239
Speaker 1: so solid it somehow works. And I guess it makes

954
00:53:13,239 --> 00:53:14,879
Speaker 1: sense that it would be furry if it's at such

955
00:53:15,040 --> 00:53:17,800
Speaker 1: a height. You know, it's cold up there. Um, I

956
00:53:17,840 --> 00:53:20,080
Speaker 1: should point out I said it's a grimlin. Well it's

957
00:53:20,239 --> 00:53:23,880
Speaker 1: a pre Magwa Grimlin of a pre Gremlins and Grimlins

958
00:53:23,880 --> 00:53:27,000
Speaker 1: to gremlin, not the Joe Dante kind. Right, Yeah, this

959
00:53:27,080 --> 00:53:31,160
Speaker 1: is you know, essentially the folkloric creature that messes with technology,

960
00:53:31,239 --> 00:53:33,920
Speaker 1: an idea that spread especially during World War Two. So

961
00:53:33,960 --> 00:53:36,600
Speaker 1: if something went wrong with your airplane engine, you'd say

962
00:53:36,600 --> 00:53:39,560
Speaker 1: they're gremlins in there, right. So in this episode, the

963
00:53:39,600 --> 00:53:41,279
Speaker 1: crew attempts to st date and I think they even

964
00:53:41,280 --> 00:53:44,239
Speaker 1: give them a pill shatter or not the gremlin, right,

965
00:53:44,320 --> 00:53:46,839
Speaker 1: they don't. Nobody sees the gremlin. They're just like, here,

966
00:53:47,200 --> 00:53:50,080
Speaker 1: take this pill. Crazy person. Um. By the way, good

967
00:53:50,160 --> 00:53:53,520
Speaker 1: luck trying to get any kind of sedatives out of

968
00:53:55,480 --> 00:53:58,880
Speaker 1: out of the crew of your flight. That's the policy.

969
00:53:58,960 --> 00:54:00,960
Speaker 1: You can't ask for them. You have to say you

970
00:54:01,000 --> 00:54:04,040
Speaker 1: see monsters and then you'll get them. Yeah. So he's

971
00:54:04,120 --> 00:54:07,080
Speaker 1: raving about the creature and finally like the plane lands,

972
00:54:07,320 --> 00:54:10,279
Speaker 1: he's rolled away in a straight jacket. But as he's

973
00:54:10,360 --> 00:54:13,200
Speaker 1: rolled away, he sees the claw marks on the outside

974
00:54:13,200 --> 00:54:15,480
Speaker 1: of the plane, the proof on the engine that the

975
00:54:15,520 --> 00:54:19,280
Speaker 1: monster was tearing apart the plane. He was right all along.

976
00:54:19,480 --> 00:54:22,040
Speaker 1: He's not the insane person. In fact, he's the only

977
00:54:22,160 --> 00:54:25,239
Speaker 1: sane person of course, this Uh. This this episode was

978
00:54:25,280 --> 00:54:28,640
Speaker 1: also recreated in the three film Twilight Zone, the movie

979
00:54:29,080 --> 00:54:32,400
Speaker 1: in which John Lithgow played the lead played the nervous

980
00:54:32,520 --> 00:54:35,960
Speaker 1: flyer UH, and he's absolutely wonderful in that. Uh. And

981
00:54:36,000 --> 00:54:38,359
Speaker 1: oh and by the way, George Miller of Mad Maxi

982
00:54:38,800 --> 00:54:42,080
Speaker 1: directed that that segment in the film. I like the

983
00:54:42,120 --> 00:54:45,520
Speaker 1: gremlin in the in the movie version. Yeah, there's the

984
00:54:45,520 --> 00:54:48,080
Speaker 1: movie version. Grim one is a lot more frightening. And

985
00:54:48,080 --> 00:54:50,600
Speaker 1: then also there's a Treehouse of Horror that did this

986
00:54:50,640 --> 00:54:52,440
Speaker 1: as well. When they do it with the school bus,

987
00:54:52,520 --> 00:54:55,000
Speaker 1: right tear at five and a half feet Uh yeah,

988
00:54:55,080 --> 00:54:57,400
Speaker 1: it's it's pretty wonderful as well, and then does a

989
00:54:57,400 --> 00:55:01,360
Speaker 1: great job of delivering exactly the same story essentially, except

990
00:55:01,400 --> 00:55:03,400
Speaker 1: with it's on the outside of the school bus right.

991
00:55:03,440 --> 00:55:06,400
Speaker 1: Uh yeah. And then when they put barton the ambulance

992
00:55:06,440 --> 00:55:09,439
Speaker 1: at the end, it follows him under the ambulance. Yes, yes,

993
00:55:09,920 --> 00:55:11,920
Speaker 1: that's a nice twist, like they added it sometimes the

994
00:55:11,960 --> 00:55:14,680
Speaker 1: Treehouse of Horrors, like they add a little extra element

995
00:55:14,719 --> 00:55:19,160
Speaker 1: to the existing story and it really works. So the

996
00:55:19,160 --> 00:55:21,920
Speaker 1: science of this, well, uh, you know, we could probably

997
00:55:22,120 --> 00:55:25,440
Speaker 1: have a really rich discussion about flying anxieties in general.

998
00:55:26,080 --> 00:55:29,000
Speaker 1: We've touched on it before in our Escape Pod episode.

999
00:55:29,320 --> 00:55:31,120
Speaker 1: You know, we we we trust ourselves over to the

1000
00:55:31,160 --> 00:55:34,240
Speaker 1: machine and the people, companies and regulations that ensure everything

1001
00:55:34,280 --> 00:55:37,560
Speaker 1: is working. There's a loss of agency and flying, and

1002
00:55:37,640 --> 00:55:41,000
Speaker 1: I feel like it's you're just you're constantly reminded or

1003
00:55:41,040 --> 00:55:46,359
Speaker 1: are reminding yourself about the potential undesirable possibilities. I mean,

1004
00:55:46,520 --> 00:55:50,080
Speaker 1: it's it's like standing atop of mountain when you look

1005
00:55:50,080 --> 00:55:52,960
Speaker 1: out and you see the height that you have achieved,

1006
00:55:52,960 --> 00:55:55,359
Speaker 1: not through any skill of your own, but just through

1007
00:55:55,440 --> 00:55:58,880
Speaker 1: the technology and people surrounding it. It's like being deposited

1008
00:55:58,920 --> 00:56:02,640
Speaker 1: on the top of the mountains a little bit less empowering. Yeah,

1009
00:56:02,880 --> 00:56:05,880
Speaker 1: airplanes are are sort of great to look at it

1010
00:56:06,320 --> 00:56:09,799
Speaker 1: when you're thinking about fear, because they combine so many

1011
00:56:09,840 --> 00:56:13,800
Speaker 1: different kinds of phobia triggers for people. Um, of course,

1012
00:56:13,840 --> 00:56:15,960
Speaker 1: there's just fear of like heights and stuff, you know,

1013
00:56:16,040 --> 00:56:18,320
Speaker 1: looking out the window and looking down that that can

1014
00:56:18,440 --> 00:56:21,920
Speaker 1: upset people. There is fear of an accident of the

1015
00:56:21,960 --> 00:56:24,640
Speaker 1: plane crashing, But there's also just a fear that has

1016
00:56:24,640 --> 00:56:27,960
Speaker 1: always been more salient for me whenever I've had airplane

1017
00:56:27,960 --> 00:56:31,160
Speaker 1: fear is mainly what it is is, Um, what do

1018
00:56:31,200 --> 00:56:32,920
Speaker 1: you call it? Fear? It's a sort of a type

1019
00:56:32,960 --> 00:56:36,600
Speaker 1: of a variety of claustrophobia, I guess where um, not

1020
00:56:36,719 --> 00:56:39,319
Speaker 1: being able to leave a place when you want to.

1021
00:56:40,160 --> 00:56:43,120
Speaker 1: You know, the idea that like, Okay, for so many hours,

1022
00:56:43,160 --> 00:56:45,399
Speaker 1: I'm stuck here and I could not get off if

1023
00:56:45,440 --> 00:56:48,040
Speaker 1: I wanted to. Yeah, the most I can do is

1024
00:56:48,800 --> 00:56:51,359
Speaker 1: go through a lot of rigamar role to walk down

1025
00:56:51,360 --> 00:56:54,800
Speaker 1: the hallway and you can use a very difficult bathroom,

1026
00:56:54,920 --> 00:56:57,400
Speaker 1: uh and potentially have to wait in line. Yeah, I

1027
00:56:57,400 --> 00:56:59,600
Speaker 1: guess that's the type of fear. There's also just like

1028
00:57:00,520 --> 00:57:03,920
Speaker 1: I know, airplanes are or a particular type of agoraphobia

1029
00:57:03,960 --> 00:57:06,479
Speaker 1: trigger for some people, where you know, like the fear

1030
00:57:06,560 --> 00:57:09,280
Speaker 1: of losing control or having a panic attack or something

1031
00:57:09,360 --> 00:57:11,880
Speaker 1: like that in a public place, and that itself can

1032
00:57:11,880 --> 00:57:14,680
Speaker 1: trigger anxieties. And then on top of that, you've got

1033
00:57:14,680 --> 00:57:17,760
Speaker 1: the travel anxieties leading into it, you know, because inevitably

1034
00:57:17,760 --> 00:57:19,720
Speaker 1: you had to get to that airport, you had to

1035
00:57:19,760 --> 00:57:23,600
Speaker 1: get through security, security, and you know, maybe customs if

1036
00:57:23,600 --> 00:57:25,160
Speaker 1: you're on the other line, like they're they're all these

1037
00:57:25,160 --> 00:57:27,880
Speaker 1: other stresses added on top of it makes for you know,

1038
00:57:28,280 --> 00:57:30,720
Speaker 1: a very stressful day of travel. Really, in my experience,

1039
00:57:30,800 --> 00:57:33,200
Speaker 1: there would be a lot of problems solved if airports

1040
00:57:33,240 --> 00:57:36,280
Speaker 1: would actually just play you knows music for airports yeah,

1041
00:57:36,320 --> 00:57:42,560
Speaker 1: instead yeah, on the TV, instead of instead of eno

1042
00:57:42,640 --> 00:57:45,480
Speaker 1: I don't get it. Yeah, play me something calming, just

1043
00:57:45,560 --> 00:57:49,720
Speaker 1: like enos music and just scenes the scenes from Legend

1044
00:57:49,960 --> 00:57:53,960
Speaker 1: of Unicorns drinking water. That's all I need. No goblins.

1045
00:57:54,480 --> 00:57:56,000
Speaker 1: So I guess the thing we should talk about is

1046
00:57:56,360 --> 00:57:59,040
Speaker 1: the idea that this is a nightmare at twenty feet

1047
00:57:59,040 --> 00:58:02,320
Speaker 1: What what is and feet about? Right? Uh? To put

1048
00:58:02,320 --> 00:58:05,840
Speaker 1: this in perspective, the top of Mount Everest is twenty

1049
00:58:05,920 --> 00:58:08,720
Speaker 1: nine thousand and twenty eight feet above sea level. But

1050
00:58:08,760 --> 00:58:11,920
Speaker 1: that's also quite a bit below the Carmen line at

1051
00:58:11,960 --> 00:58:15,800
Speaker 1: three thirty thousand feet, which is generally considered the rough

1052
00:58:15,920 --> 00:58:18,520
Speaker 1: boundary between the atmosphere in space. And I say rough

1053
00:58:18,600 --> 00:58:21,160
Speaker 1: because it's not like the atmosphere just stops. There's more

1054
00:58:21,160 --> 00:58:26,320
Speaker 1: of a tapering off. Now for modern flyers such as ourselves,

1055
00:58:26,720 --> 00:58:30,200
Speaker 1: we're generally working with a cruising altitude. And cruising altitude,

1056
00:58:30,200 --> 00:58:32,800
Speaker 1: you know, that's that's when you've achieved, you know, the

1057
00:58:32,840 --> 00:58:35,880
Speaker 1: altitude that you're gonna have for the main portion of

1058
00:58:35,920 --> 00:58:39,240
Speaker 1: your flight. You're not ascending or descending. You're just achieving

1059
00:58:39,320 --> 00:58:44,120
Speaker 1: an optimal altitude, optimal speed, et cetera. But it's generally

1060
00:58:44,200 --> 00:58:46,760
Speaker 1: going to be somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty three

1061
00:58:46,840 --> 00:58:50,160
Speaker 1: thousand feet to forty two thousand feet. So, according to

1062
00:58:50,200 --> 00:58:52,720
Speaker 1: the USA Today article of what is the altitude of

1063
00:58:52,720 --> 00:58:55,040
Speaker 1: a plane in flight, the upper limit is generally the

1064
00:58:55,080 --> 00:58:59,240
Speaker 1: domain of private jets because that's gonna be more about, Yeah,

1065
00:58:59,240 --> 00:59:01,040
Speaker 1: we want to get where we're going. Uh, you know,

1066
00:59:01,160 --> 00:59:03,920
Speaker 1: price isn't much of an option. But with commercial flights,

1067
00:59:03,960 --> 00:59:07,320
Speaker 1: everything is kind of a careful algorithm, like, how can

1068
00:59:07,360 --> 00:59:09,920
Speaker 1: we do this in the most cost effective way possible

1069
00:59:10,200 --> 00:59:12,919
Speaker 1: and the safest way possible. But for the rest of us, Yeah,

1070
00:59:12,960 --> 00:59:15,160
Speaker 1: we're gonna be, you know, somewhere closer to that thirty

1071
00:59:15,160 --> 00:59:19,360
Speaker 1: three thousand uh foot altitude. It's gonna be this sweet

1072
00:59:19,360 --> 00:59:21,560
Speaker 1: spot where the air is thin enough to reduce drag

1073
00:59:21,600 --> 00:59:24,400
Speaker 1: but there's still enough oxygen for the engines. Plus it

1074
00:59:24,440 --> 00:59:28,360
Speaker 1: allows them to fly overmost weather, which is located further

1075
00:59:28,400 --> 00:59:32,400
Speaker 1: down in the troposphere. So we're talking about minimal turbulence,

1076
00:59:32,560 --> 00:59:37,120
Speaker 1: which is exactly how I like to consume the word turbulence. Now,

1077
00:59:37,120 --> 00:59:40,880
Speaker 1: I would guess at normal cruising altitude because cabins have

1078
00:59:40,960 --> 00:59:43,480
Speaker 1: to be pressurized, Like you couldn't just like breathe the

1079
00:59:43,560 --> 00:59:46,720
Speaker 1: air at that height, right, Yeah, since we're flying above

1080
00:59:46,760 --> 00:59:50,160
Speaker 1: ten thousand feet. Airliners are are pressurized, hence those little

1081
00:59:50,240 --> 00:59:55,040
Speaker 1: drop down mass for oxygen in the event of cabin depressurization. Now,

1082
00:59:55,120 --> 00:59:57,520
Speaker 1: of course, the Twilight Zone episode, the original one takes

1083
00:59:57,560 --> 01:00:00,760
Speaker 1: place in the early nineteen sixties, so it made me think,

1084
01:00:00,800 --> 01:00:03,400
Speaker 1: what sort of altitudes were we talking about here? Well,

1085
01:00:03,440 --> 01:00:06,640
Speaker 1: I was reading Longing for the Golden Age of air

1086
01:00:06,680 --> 01:00:09,640
Speaker 1: Travel Be Careful what you Wish For by history professor

1087
01:00:10,120 --> 01:00:14,280
Speaker 1: Janet bed Narnick on the conversation, and she points out

1088
01:00:14,320 --> 01:00:17,400
Speaker 1: some key factors in flying during this time period, and

1089
01:00:17,480 --> 01:00:20,320
Speaker 1: as the title implies, why you'd be better, far better

1090
01:00:20,400 --> 01:00:23,440
Speaker 1: off flying now as opposed to that Golden Age, no

1091
01:00:23,480 --> 01:00:25,920
Speaker 1: matter how cool it looks on you know, stuff like

1092
01:00:26,000 --> 01:00:28,240
Speaker 1: mad Men. Yeah, but can you smoke a pipe on

1093
01:00:28,280 --> 01:00:31,760
Speaker 1: a plane today? Well, yeah, these are the things people

1094
01:00:31,760 --> 01:00:34,960
Speaker 1: get nostalgic about. I guess if they're smokers. So she

1095
01:00:35,000 --> 01:00:37,200
Speaker 1: points out that prior to the introduction of jets in

1096
01:00:37,400 --> 01:00:43,240
Speaker 1: night a transatlantic commercial flight might last something like fifteen hours,

1097
01:00:43,680 --> 01:00:47,200
Speaker 1: and they had a maximum cruising altitude altitude of ten

1098
01:00:47,400 --> 01:00:50,600
Speaker 1: to twelve thousand feet, meaning that they couldn't fly over

1099
01:00:50,680 --> 01:00:55,080
Speaker 1: bad weather. So you thought modern delays were bad, No way,

1100
01:00:55,120 --> 01:00:57,920
Speaker 1: basically like if the weather was bad, you just too

1101
01:00:57,920 --> 01:01:00,000
Speaker 1: bad to fly through it, and then it wasn't gonna happen.

1102
01:01:01,240 --> 01:01:05,160
Speaker 1: The then you had the propeller driven Boeing Strato Cruiser

1103
01:01:05,520 --> 01:01:08,560
Speaker 1: come along, for example, that could seat fifty first class

1104
01:01:08,560 --> 01:01:11,920
Speaker 1: passengers or one coach passengers and it could cruise at

1105
01:01:11,960 --> 01:01:16,000
Speaker 1: thirty two feet above most of the weather. But during

1106
01:01:16,040 --> 01:01:19,480
Speaker 1: its heyday, only fifty six were active in the entire world.

1107
01:01:20,120 --> 01:01:22,320
Speaker 1: So that's the other thing we have to realize now,

1108
01:01:22,360 --> 01:01:25,800
Speaker 1: it's like the commercial flight world is just so much

1109
01:01:25,880 --> 01:01:30,280
Speaker 1: vaster than it was in the in previous times. Later

1110
01:01:30,360 --> 01:01:32,760
Speaker 1: we got the d C six and the d C seven,

1111
01:01:32,840 --> 01:01:35,720
Speaker 1: both pressure pressurized planes, but they had to fly at

1112
01:01:35,720 --> 01:01:40,680
Speaker 1: lower altitudes guess what we're talking twenty feet. So that's

1113
01:01:40,680 --> 01:01:42,880
Speaker 1: where we I think come back around to uh to

1114
01:01:43,000 --> 01:01:45,880
Speaker 1: the to the Twilight Zone episode. Uh. Here For the

1115
01:01:45,960 --> 01:01:49,400
Speaker 1: for these flights, turbulence was common, the engines were difficult

1116
01:01:49,400 --> 01:01:53,400
Speaker 1: to maintain, and this resulted in frequent delays. Uh. So

1117
01:01:53,480 --> 01:01:55,959
Speaker 1: this just matches up perfectly with the Sigrid Jim idea,

1118
01:01:56,000 --> 01:01:58,160
Speaker 1: the Twilight Zone concern about the you know what the

1119
01:01:58,200 --> 01:02:03,320
Speaker 1: engines are doing, engine malfunction and turbulence, uh all happening

1120
01:02:03,360 --> 01:02:06,440
Speaker 1: at around twenty thousand feet. Now, I must notice in

1121
01:02:06,440 --> 01:02:10,000
Speaker 1: in Nightmare twenty feet that the windows on the airplane

1122
01:02:10,040 --> 01:02:13,680
Speaker 1: look very large compared to the windows on a plane today.

1123
01:02:13,720 --> 01:02:15,960
Speaker 1: You know, I didn't. I didn't look into this as much.

1124
01:02:15,960 --> 01:02:17,440
Speaker 1: I wonder if that's just so you can see the

1125
01:02:17,440 --> 01:02:22,040
Speaker 1: monster through it, or that he used an actual fuselage. Yeah.

1126
01:02:22,040 --> 01:02:25,240
Speaker 1: I didn't research that particular aspect of it. So but

1127
01:02:25,400 --> 01:02:28,760
Speaker 1: Nerik also makes some other important notes about safety at

1128
01:02:28,760 --> 01:02:31,640
Speaker 1: the time, because ultimately this is a film about airline

1129
01:02:31,720 --> 01:02:36,439
Speaker 1: safety and fear of of of bad things happening during

1130
01:02:36,440 --> 01:02:39,320
Speaker 1: a flight. She points out in the nineteen fifties and

1131
01:02:39,360 --> 01:02:42,520
Speaker 1: the nineteen sixties, US airlines experience at least a half

1132
01:02:42,600 --> 01:02:45,440
Speaker 1: dozen crashes per year, most leading to fate to the

1133
01:02:45,440 --> 01:02:49,840
Speaker 1: fatalities of everyone on board. Compare that to seventeen, the

1134
01:02:49,920 --> 01:02:53,680
Speaker 1: safest year on record in commercial air history, zero accidental

1135
01:02:53,720 --> 01:02:57,800
Speaker 1: deaths in commercial passenger jets, and that's with many more flights,

1136
01:02:58,600 --> 01:03:03,440
Speaker 1: tremendously more flights. UH Dutch aviation consulting firm UH to

1137
01:03:03,760 --> 01:03:08,080
Speaker 1: seventy estimated that the fatal accident rate for large commercial

1138
01:03:08,120 --> 01:03:12,680
Speaker 1: passenger of flights is point zero six per million flights,

1139
01:03:12,760 --> 01:03:16,800
Speaker 1: or one fatal accident for every sixteen million flights. I

1140
01:03:16,800 --> 01:03:20,680
Speaker 1: would suggest by that calculation that it appears gremlins are

1141
01:03:20,760 --> 01:03:23,480
Speaker 1: either extinct or endangered. Yeah, that would seem to be

1142
01:03:23,520 --> 01:03:25,400
Speaker 1: the case. Like this is ultimately a story that speaks

1143
01:03:25,400 --> 01:03:29,880
Speaker 1: more to an earlier age of of commercial air travel,

1144
01:03:30,280 --> 01:03:33,480
Speaker 1: despite the fact that every time I fly. Legitimately, every

1145
01:03:33,520 --> 01:03:35,200
Speaker 1: time I fly, if I look out the window and

1146
01:03:35,200 --> 01:03:39,560
Speaker 1: I see the wing, I think of this Twilight Zone episode. Yeah,

1147
01:03:39,600 --> 01:03:41,560
Speaker 1: not that I like freak out about the possibility of

1148
01:03:41,600 --> 01:03:44,000
Speaker 1: an actual gremlin, but I still I can't help but

1149
01:03:44,040 --> 01:03:46,400
Speaker 1: think think about it. It's just always been there. But

1150
01:03:46,440 --> 01:03:49,200
Speaker 1: I'd like to turn to the biological element of Nightmare

1151
01:03:49,280 --> 01:03:53,680
Speaker 1: twenty feet. What sort of organism can actually become a

1152
01:03:53,720 --> 01:03:58,000
Speaker 1: factor at that altitude? Well, I mean, I know there

1153
01:03:58,040 --> 01:04:01,400
Speaker 1: there are bacteria that live in outs, but are there

1154
01:04:01,440 --> 01:04:05,200
Speaker 1: are there large animals that fly up that high? That's

1155
01:04:05,200 --> 01:04:10,240
Speaker 1: a great question because we're talking about some extreme heights here, right, Um,

1156
01:04:10,280 --> 01:04:14,000
Speaker 1: And again, well, you know we require pressurized cabins and

1157
01:04:14,240 --> 01:04:17,280
Speaker 1: or masks to to survive up there. Everything has to

1158
01:04:17,280 --> 01:04:19,640
Speaker 1: be uh, you know, temperature, The temperature has to be

1159
01:04:19,680 --> 01:04:24,400
Speaker 1: carefully maintained. But evolution delivers certain bird species to these

1160
01:04:24,440 --> 01:04:27,720
Speaker 1: lofty heights as well, and yes, some of them can

1161
01:04:27,760 --> 01:04:31,400
Speaker 1: pose grave danger to flights. These are of course referred

1162
01:04:31,400 --> 01:04:35,520
Speaker 1: to as bird strikes um, which which are when they occur,

1163
01:04:35,840 --> 01:04:38,959
Speaker 1: can be pretty pretty terrible. I've read that most bird

1164
01:04:39,000 --> 01:04:42,439
Speaker 1: strikes are encountered at below ten thousand feet. I've also

1165
01:04:42,480 --> 01:04:45,320
Speaker 1: read that most are actually occurring below three thousand feet,

1166
01:04:45,760 --> 01:04:47,760
Speaker 1: so I think that should give you an idea. Like

1167
01:04:47,800 --> 01:04:51,040
Speaker 1: most of the birds are are are operating at at

1168
01:04:51,080 --> 01:04:54,480
Speaker 1: lower altitudes. When you fly above the weather, you're probably

1169
01:04:54,480 --> 01:04:58,080
Speaker 1: flying above the birds. So as with most things in

1170
01:04:58,280 --> 01:05:00,720
Speaker 1: air travel, the majority of the dangers are going to

1171
01:05:00,760 --> 01:05:03,760
Speaker 1: be closer to take off and landing, not at cruising altitude.

1172
01:05:04,040 --> 01:05:06,720
Speaker 1: Right and and again they can be pretty dangerous, especially

1173
01:05:06,720 --> 01:05:08,880
Speaker 1: in the event of a double bird strike, where like

1174
01:05:08,920 --> 01:05:13,400
Speaker 1: both engines are hit by the birds. Still, major accidents

1175
01:05:13,440 --> 01:05:15,680
Speaker 1: are few, but we have to consider some of the

1176
01:05:15,720 --> 01:05:18,600
Speaker 1: birds that do get up to some crazy heights. So

1177
01:05:18,640 --> 01:05:20,040
Speaker 1: I just want to run through a few of them

1178
01:05:20,080 --> 01:05:24,240
Speaker 1: here before we get to the like the King of altitude. Uh,

1179
01:05:24,280 --> 01:05:28,840
Speaker 1: there are migrating white storks which can reach sixteen thousand

1180
01:05:28,840 --> 01:05:33,040
Speaker 1: feet or forty eight hundred meters. They're migrating bar tailed

1181
01:05:33,120 --> 01:05:36,560
Speaker 1: godwits that can that can actually reach twenty thousand feet

1182
01:05:37,080 --> 01:05:40,760
Speaker 1: or six thousand meters. There's the bar headed goose which

1183
01:05:40,760 --> 01:05:44,480
Speaker 1: can get up to twenty nine thousand feet or eight thousand,

1184
01:05:44,480 --> 01:05:47,240
Speaker 1: eight hundred meters. And these guys fly over the tallest

1185
01:05:47,280 --> 01:05:49,880
Speaker 1: mountain ranges on Earth. Why do they go up so high?

1186
01:05:49,880 --> 01:05:53,000
Speaker 1: Do you know? Well, with the earlier species we're talking about,

1187
01:05:53,040 --> 01:05:56,720
Speaker 1: like this ends up being a part of their migration. Um.

1188
01:05:56,760 --> 01:05:59,800
Speaker 1: But the king of all this, the king of altitude,

1189
01:05:59,840 --> 01:06:05,120
Speaker 1: is definitely Ruple's vulture also known as Ruple's Griffin. We're

1190
01:06:05,160 --> 01:06:09,840
Speaker 1: talking a maximum altitude of eleven thousand, three hundred meters

1191
01:06:09,960 --> 01:06:13,640
Speaker 1: or thirty seven thousand, one hundred feet. So these are

1192
01:06:13,680 --> 01:06:16,480
Speaker 1: these are vultures. They're extremely keen of I you know

1193
01:06:16,520 --> 01:06:20,160
Speaker 1: there they have evolved to fly above it all and

1194
01:06:20,280 --> 01:06:22,400
Speaker 1: uh and taking everything beneath. But they can get up

1195
01:06:22,440 --> 01:06:26,120
Speaker 1: to just crazy altitudes. Uh, They're just unchallenged in their

1196
01:06:26,120 --> 01:06:29,120
Speaker 1: ability to do so. Now. Fortunately they're found only in

1197
01:06:29,200 --> 01:06:32,600
Speaker 1: the South region of Central Africa. This is a belt

1198
01:06:32,720 --> 01:06:38,240
Speaker 1: stretching across the continent just below the Sahara. But Indeed,

1199
01:06:38,280 --> 01:06:42,120
Speaker 1: a bird strike entailing Ruple's vulture actually occurred over the

1200
01:06:42,160 --> 01:06:46,080
Speaker 1: Ivory Coast at an altitude of thirty seven thousand, one

1201
01:06:46,160 --> 01:06:51,400
Speaker 1: hundred feet or eleven thousand, three hundred meters on November three.

1202
01:06:51,800 --> 01:06:55,280
Speaker 1: According to Serious Vulture Hits to Aircraft over the World,

1203
01:06:55,320 --> 01:06:58,120
Speaker 1: a two thousand report by the International Bird Strike Committee,

1204
01:06:58,760 --> 01:07:01,880
Speaker 1: outside temperatures were frigid, there was almost no oxygen, and

1205
01:07:01,960 --> 01:07:05,360
Speaker 1: yet here comes this, uh, this vulture and it hits

1206
01:07:05,360 --> 01:07:08,120
Speaker 1: the plane. So that I think is one of the

1207
01:07:08,320 --> 01:07:10,280
Speaker 1: you know, these are some of the few examples of

1208
01:07:10,440 --> 01:07:13,440
Speaker 1: organisms that are actually going to be going about their

1209
01:07:13,480 --> 01:07:16,800
Speaker 1: normal business, like large organisms, organisms large enough to pose

1210
01:07:16,880 --> 01:07:21,080
Speaker 1: a potential and slim uh, you know, threat to commercial flights.

1211
01:07:21,520 --> 01:07:26,000
Speaker 1: By the way, I also ran across a story from

1212
01:07:26,040 --> 01:07:29,520
Speaker 1: in which a Ruple's vulture escaped from a bird show

1213
01:07:30,000 --> 01:07:33,560
Speaker 1: in north the lack Sheer, Scotland, and her name was

1214
01:07:33,640 --> 01:07:37,440
Speaker 1: Gandalf and uh and after she escaped, airports in the

1215
01:07:37,480 --> 01:07:40,440
Speaker 1: area were put on notice and there was no evidence

1216
01:07:40,480 --> 01:07:43,360
Speaker 1: that she was, you know, ever recovered or anything. Fly

1217
01:07:43,560 --> 01:07:46,680
Speaker 1: you fools. But but it's it's like it's kind of

1218
01:07:46,680 --> 01:07:49,400
Speaker 1: an alarming story because it's like, oh, this bird has escaped,

1219
01:07:49,600 --> 01:07:52,080
Speaker 1: and it could there's a very slim chance it could

1220
01:07:52,120 --> 01:07:56,240
Speaker 1: pose a danger to commercial flights in the area. But

1221
01:07:56,520 --> 01:07:59,040
Speaker 1: we should remind you that even with the Ruple's vulture

1222
01:07:59,080 --> 01:08:02,160
Speaker 1: flying around, some are out there. Flying is generally pretty

1223
01:08:02,200 --> 01:08:05,280
Speaker 1: safe these days. Yeah, it's far safer than driving when

1224
01:08:05,280 --> 01:08:09,720
Speaker 1: you break down the statistics again, commercial flying not necessarily

1225
01:08:09,800 --> 01:08:14,160
Speaker 1: getting in the airplane that your dentist buddy owns. Right,

1226
01:08:14,160 --> 01:08:19,960
Speaker 1: we're talking about commercial flights again, seventeen safest year on record. Um,

1227
01:08:20,000 --> 01:08:22,080
Speaker 1: you really don't have to worry about green ones on

1228
01:08:22,080 --> 01:08:25,599
Speaker 1: the wing of the plane, only about the Langaliers land

1229
01:08:25,640 --> 01:08:30,559
Speaker 1: the plan. Speaking of late nineties c G. I right, yes,

1230
01:08:30,720 --> 01:08:33,240
Speaker 1: for real, man, that's a good one. I love that

1231
01:08:33,280 --> 01:08:35,759
Speaker 1: short story though. That was that was definitely a Stephen

1232
01:08:35,840 --> 01:08:37,879
Speaker 1: king Well. I think it was more of a novella,

1233
01:08:38,280 --> 01:08:40,960
Speaker 1: but it it definitely harkened back to some of those

1234
01:08:41,000 --> 01:08:44,760
Speaker 1: Twilight Zone type scenarios. I've never read the story, but

1235
01:08:45,040 --> 01:08:48,479
Speaker 1: I remember seeing that on TV sometime around back when

1236
01:08:48,479 --> 01:08:52,320
Speaker 1: it came out, and oh man, that was one where

1237
01:08:52,560 --> 01:08:56,320
Speaker 1: maybe even maybe even the critics of the time, we're

1238
01:08:56,360 --> 01:08:59,080
Speaker 1: not wowed by the c G. I. Yeah, they were

1239
01:08:59,120 --> 01:09:02,000
Speaker 1: essentially like the critters, the crits from the critters movies,

1240
01:09:02,240 --> 01:09:04,479
Speaker 1: there were just these big c g I mouths like

1241
01:09:04,560 --> 01:09:07,559
Speaker 1: eating the Sky. It's a shame because the original story

1242
01:09:07,600 --> 01:09:09,360
Speaker 1: it is a lot of fun. I do recommend it.

1243
01:09:09,479 --> 01:09:11,320
Speaker 1: I mean, don't read it on a plane, for God's sake,

1244
01:09:11,439 --> 01:09:13,800
Speaker 1: but uh, you know, do read it when you're on

1245
01:09:13,840 --> 01:09:15,920
Speaker 1: the ground. Okay, we need to take a quick break,

1246
01:09:15,960 --> 01:09:19,479
Speaker 1: but we will be right back with more horror, anthology science.

1247
01:09:20,320 --> 01:09:23,760
Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you. Alright, we're back. So what do

1248
01:09:23,800 --> 01:09:25,920
Speaker 1: you have for us, Joe, Well, you just did a

1249
01:09:25,920 --> 01:09:27,880
Speaker 1: Twilight Zone episode. I feel like I gotta do a

1250
01:09:27,880 --> 01:09:30,759
Speaker 1: Twilight Zone episode they had. There's so many thoughtful episodes

1251
01:09:30,800 --> 01:09:32,720
Speaker 1: of the Twilight Zone, and perhaps because you know, it

1252
01:09:32,760 --> 01:09:34,600
Speaker 1: wasn't just pure hard it also had a lot of

1253
01:09:34,600 --> 01:09:36,639
Speaker 1: science fiction in it and just sort of weird fiction

1254
01:09:36,680 --> 01:09:40,360
Speaker 1: in general. So here is a sci fi horror episode

1255
01:09:40,360 --> 01:09:42,680
Speaker 1: of the Twilight Zone. This is one of the classics.

1256
01:09:42,720 --> 01:09:45,519
Speaker 1: You probably, I bet the majority of you out there

1257
01:09:45,560 --> 01:09:48,040
Speaker 1: listening already know the story here, but for those of

1258
01:09:48,080 --> 01:09:50,200
Speaker 1: you who don't, I've got to tell it. It is

1259
01:09:50,280 --> 01:09:54,160
Speaker 1: to serve man. Uh. This is one that was written

1260
01:09:54,160 --> 01:09:56,960
Speaker 1: by Rod Serling based on a story by a writer

1261
01:09:57,120 --> 01:10:00,719
Speaker 1: named Damon Knight. It was originally aired on March second,

1262
01:10:00,800 --> 01:10:03,559
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty two, and it's just got a twist to

1263
01:10:03,720 --> 01:10:07,040
Speaker 1: put him Night Shamalan to shame. It is the best.

1264
01:10:07,080 --> 01:10:11,719
Speaker 1: So here's Rod Serling's teaser for the episode, respectfully submitted

1265
01:10:11,760 --> 01:10:15,759
Speaker 1: for your perusal. A cannement height a little over nine feet,

1266
01:10:16,200 --> 01:10:19,080
Speaker 1: weight in the neighborhood of three hundred and fifty pounds,

1267
01:10:19,400 --> 01:10:24,920
Speaker 1: origin unknown motives. Therein hangs the tale for in just

1268
01:10:25,000 --> 01:10:27,320
Speaker 1: a moment, we're going to ask you to shake hands

1269
01:10:27,439 --> 01:10:31,519
Speaker 1: figuratively with a Christopher Columbus from another galaxy and another

1270
01:10:31,600 --> 01:10:36,120
Speaker 1: time this is the Twilight Zone. Oh well, that's already

1271
01:10:36,120 --> 01:10:40,040
Speaker 1: a terrifying possibility here. So it's got a guy named

1272
01:10:40,120 --> 01:10:44,360
Speaker 1: Lloyd Bachner in it as he's a Canadian actor as

1273
01:10:44,400 --> 01:10:49,400
Speaker 1: this government cryptographer who who is tasked with decoding and

1274
01:10:49,520 --> 01:10:52,080
Speaker 1: alien books. So I actually I should say first aliens

1275
01:10:52,080 --> 01:10:55,840
Speaker 1: show up. They're called the Cannimates. They're played by Richard Kiel,

1276
01:10:55,960 --> 01:10:58,240
Speaker 1: who ended up playing Kyle or Kiel Do you know

1277
01:10:58,240 --> 01:11:00,240
Speaker 1: how you pronounce it? I was heard Ko, but could

1278
01:11:00,240 --> 01:11:02,639
Speaker 1: be drastically wrong on that. He's the guy who played

1279
01:11:02,720 --> 01:11:06,840
Speaker 1: Jaws in the James Bond movies. He was, he was,

1280
01:11:06,880 --> 01:11:09,559
Speaker 1: he got yeah. Uh. And so he plays all of

1281
01:11:09,600 --> 01:11:12,960
Speaker 1: these aliens. They all look the same, uh and uh.

1282
01:11:13,120 --> 01:11:16,519
Speaker 1: Richard keel In In like some weird head makeup, shows

1283
01:11:16,600 --> 01:11:19,879
Speaker 1: up on Earth and he speaks to the United Nations

1284
01:11:19,880 --> 01:11:22,599
Speaker 1: telepathically and he's like, Hey, we're here to help you.

1285
01:11:22,640 --> 01:11:26,120
Speaker 1: We're gonna solve world hunger. We're going to make we're

1286
01:11:26,120 --> 01:11:29,120
Speaker 1: gonna make war disappear. We're gonna solve all your problems

1287
01:11:29,120 --> 01:11:31,240
Speaker 1: and make life on Earth great. Don't you want that?

1288
01:11:31,280 --> 01:11:34,880
Speaker 1: Don't you want this free new energy source that you can,

1289
01:11:35,000 --> 01:11:37,639
Speaker 1: you know, power a whole country for a few dollars

1290
01:11:37,680 --> 01:11:39,960
Speaker 1: a day. Don't you want all this great stuff? And

1291
01:11:40,000 --> 01:11:43,400
Speaker 1: people are, they're hesitant at first, but they're like, well, okay.

1292
01:11:43,760 --> 01:11:48,360
Speaker 1: And so Jaws brings a book with him that has

1293
01:11:48,400 --> 01:11:50,840
Speaker 1: like a title in these alien glyphs on the cover.

1294
01:11:51,520 --> 01:11:54,480
Speaker 1: He's like reading things from this book as he's promising

1295
01:11:54,520 --> 01:11:57,559
Speaker 1: stuff to humanity, and they get a copy. The humans

1296
01:11:57,560 --> 01:11:59,360
Speaker 1: grab a copy of the book and they bring it

1297
01:11:59,400 --> 01:12:02,519
Speaker 1: to this government cryptographer and they're like, can you decode this?

1298
01:12:02,640 --> 01:12:06,360
Speaker 1: Tell us what it means? And so he works on it.

1299
01:12:06,439 --> 01:12:09,679
Speaker 1: He's got a colleague named Patty who works on it. Uh.

1300
01:12:09,880 --> 01:12:13,320
Speaker 1: It proves too difficult to decode, except that Patty decodes

1301
01:12:13,360 --> 01:12:16,320
Speaker 1: the title and figures out that the title is to

1302
01:12:16,520 --> 01:12:19,280
Speaker 1: serve Man. Well, that sounds noble and wonderful and and

1303
01:12:19,479 --> 01:12:22,639
Speaker 1: really works out well for us exactly, So they can't

1304
01:12:22,680 --> 01:12:24,960
Speaker 1: decode the rest of the book, but to serve Man

1305
01:12:25,080 --> 01:12:28,160
Speaker 1: and that sort of puts people at ease. They're like, Okay, well,

1306
01:12:28,200 --> 01:12:30,920
Speaker 1: the book there is about how to serve humankind. That

1307
01:12:31,040 --> 01:12:33,880
Speaker 1: that sounds like a good thing. So people start getting

1308
01:12:33,880 --> 01:12:37,960
Speaker 1: on spaceships to go with Jaws to his home planet

1309
01:12:38,560 --> 01:12:40,840
Speaker 1: where they will be given I think that at one

1310
01:12:40,840 --> 01:12:43,120
Speaker 1: point they're talking about how they've even got baseball on

1311
01:12:43,160 --> 01:12:46,120
Speaker 1: the Cannibate's planet, uh, to go to the Basically it's

1312
01:12:46,120 --> 01:12:48,800
Speaker 1: like a forever vacation where everything is just going to

1313
01:12:48,880 --> 01:12:51,600
Speaker 1: be awesome, so that people are getting on the spaceships

1314
01:12:51,640 --> 01:12:54,320
Speaker 1: to go there. And then the big twist that comes

1315
01:12:54,360 --> 01:12:57,320
Speaker 1: at the end is right as the main guy is

1316
01:12:57,360 --> 01:12:59,240
Speaker 1: about to get on the spaceship to go to the

1317
01:12:59,240 --> 01:13:01,679
Speaker 1: cannon it's plan in it and uh and and live

1318
01:13:01,680 --> 01:13:04,639
Speaker 1: out his days at the the baseball resort or whatever,

1319
01:13:05,120 --> 01:13:08,000
Speaker 1: Patty comes yelling at him don't get on the ship.

1320
01:13:08,760 --> 01:13:16,040
Speaker 1: It's a cookbook. It's so good to serve Nann. I

1321
01:13:16,080 --> 01:13:18,960
Speaker 1: believe the Simpsons of period this as well to a

1322
01:13:19,000 --> 01:13:21,639
Speaker 1: limited extent, right, how to serve mill House for dinner?

1323
01:13:22,040 --> 01:13:27,840
Speaker 1: Oh oh, I'm vaguely I don't remember when that which one?

1324
01:13:28,240 --> 01:13:30,559
Speaker 1: I don't I can't remember which episode it was, okay,

1325
01:13:30,800 --> 01:13:34,080
Speaker 1: but they definitely touched on it at one point. Now,

1326
01:13:34,600 --> 01:13:37,200
Speaker 1: I don't want to be too literal about interpreting the

1327
01:13:37,200 --> 01:13:39,320
Speaker 1: science of the story, because if you really wanted to

1328
01:13:39,360 --> 01:13:42,800
Speaker 1: be nitpicky, you could point out a million really funny details.

1329
01:13:42,840 --> 01:13:45,439
Speaker 1: And its like, there's one point where to try to

1330
01:13:45,439 --> 01:13:48,439
Speaker 1: make sure that the aliens intentions are actually good, they

1331
01:13:48,479 --> 01:13:52,519
Speaker 1: hook jaws up to a to a polygraph. It's just

1332
01:13:52,600 --> 01:13:56,040
Speaker 1: like they give him a human polygraph to to see

1333
01:13:56,080 --> 01:13:59,599
Speaker 1: if he's lying about wanting to help them. And another

1334
01:13:59,640 --> 01:14:01,920
Speaker 1: thing that's funny is they bring in this cryptographer to

1335
01:14:02,080 --> 01:14:05,439
Speaker 1: decode this alien book, but to decode it to what

1336
01:14:06,280 --> 01:14:11,640
Speaker 1: like cryptography usually consists of trying to decode encoded messages

1337
01:14:11,720 --> 01:14:14,519
Speaker 1: to ann language where you're like, you know where it

1338
01:14:14,560 --> 01:14:17,160
Speaker 1: will code out to some kind of script that you

1339
01:14:17,240 --> 01:14:21,479
Speaker 1: already understand. How would you decode an alien language when

1340
01:14:21,479 --> 01:14:24,040
Speaker 1: you have nothing to start with. Yeah, and I like

1341
01:14:24,120 --> 01:14:26,479
Speaker 1: the idea that they could they could figure out nothing

1342
01:14:26,600 --> 01:14:29,439
Speaker 1: from the inside, like no content but just the title.

1343
01:14:29,760 --> 01:14:33,160
Speaker 1: Yeah it's great. But anyway, Okay, the main thing I

1344
01:14:33,200 --> 01:14:36,400
Speaker 1: wanted to talk about, ignoring all that other stuff, is

1345
01:14:36,479 --> 01:14:39,479
Speaker 1: the idea of aliens invading in order to eat us,

1346
01:14:40,240 --> 01:14:43,639
Speaker 1: or perhaps more realistically another option, just to eat earth

1347
01:14:43,720 --> 01:14:46,360
Speaker 1: life in general. Maybe not focused on us, but just

1348
01:14:46,400 --> 01:14:49,000
Speaker 1: here to eat things. Okay, so not just to say,

1349
01:14:49,400 --> 01:14:52,920
Speaker 1: harvest the resources of our planet or to do something

1350
01:14:52,960 --> 01:14:56,160
Speaker 1: to our star, which we've discussed and you're talking about,

1351
01:14:56,200 --> 01:15:00,519
Speaker 1: like just just just tear into the biomass of Earth.

1352
01:15:00,840 --> 01:15:03,080
Speaker 1: It's a very common theme in sci fi horror, and

1353
01:15:03,200 --> 01:15:05,960
Speaker 1: at a glance it sort of makes sense because you

1354
01:15:05,960 --> 01:15:09,559
Speaker 1: think about, like, okay, so what do human invaders do

1355
01:15:09,600 --> 01:15:11,599
Speaker 1: when they invade a country. Well, a lot of times

1356
01:15:11,640 --> 01:15:15,000
Speaker 1: what they'll do is they'll just like raige your village

1357
01:15:15,040 --> 01:15:18,160
Speaker 1: and take all your food. They want food, they need

1358
01:15:18,240 --> 01:15:21,120
Speaker 1: all your steal all your grain and stuff, and then

1359
01:15:21,160 --> 01:15:23,680
Speaker 1: they'll move on, or they'll land on an island, and

1360
01:15:23,720 --> 01:15:27,479
Speaker 1: if there's a particular flightless bird or or some sort

1361
01:15:27,520 --> 01:15:30,920
Speaker 1: of a turtle or tortoise that is, uh, you know,

1362
01:15:31,000 --> 01:15:35,799
Speaker 1: notoriously unable to defend itself and and perhaps even trusting

1363
01:15:35,880 --> 01:15:38,320
Speaker 1: to a fault of humans. They might just eat them

1364
01:15:38,320 --> 01:15:41,400
Speaker 1: all or just every time they come back, harvest as

1365
01:15:41,400 --> 01:15:43,120
Speaker 1: many as they can and eat them on the ship,

1366
01:15:43,360 --> 01:15:45,439
Speaker 1: or just kill them and not eat them human as

1367
01:15:45,479 --> 01:15:48,880
Speaker 1: did the did that too. Yeah, uh yeah, that that's

1368
01:15:48,880 --> 01:15:50,479
Speaker 1: a little maybe maybe we don't want to think about

1369
01:15:50,520 --> 01:15:54,200
Speaker 1: that comparison. Uh but okay, so would they want to

1370
01:15:54,240 --> 01:15:57,240
Speaker 1: eat us or eat our food? I came across an

1371
01:15:57,280 --> 01:16:01,599
Speaker 1: interesting opinion about this. This was in a chapter from

1372
01:16:01,640 --> 01:16:04,640
Speaker 1: a book called Aliens, The World's Leading Scientists on the

1373
01:16:04,640 --> 01:16:09,320
Speaker 1: Search for Extraterrestrial Life, published in seventeen by Piccador. And

1374
01:16:09,400 --> 01:16:12,400
Speaker 1: this book was edited by the Iraqi British physicist Jim

1375
01:16:12,400 --> 01:16:16,479
Speaker 1: al Khalili. And there's a chapter in this book that

1376
01:16:16,680 --> 01:16:20,880
Speaker 1: was written by the British astrobiologist Louis Dartnell where he's

1377
01:16:20,920 --> 01:16:24,880
Speaker 1: talking about what would aliens actually want with Earth? Why

1378
01:16:24,920 --> 01:16:27,679
Speaker 1: would they be interested in coming here? And he's making

1379
01:16:27,720 --> 01:16:29,799
Speaker 1: the case that a lot of the stuff that people

1380
01:16:29,880 --> 01:16:33,519
Speaker 1: usually imagine aliens would want to come here for doesn't

1381
01:16:33,520 --> 01:16:37,679
Speaker 1: make any sense that they want water, or they want

1382
01:16:37,960 --> 01:16:41,880
Speaker 1: raw minerals or something like that. He just you, oh,

1383
01:16:41,960 --> 01:16:44,519
Speaker 1: that's one too, with all those things. He points out,

1384
01:16:44,560 --> 01:16:47,479
Speaker 1: how you know that's either and that's not actually a

1385
01:16:47,479 --> 01:16:50,080
Speaker 1: concern for anything they would want, or they could get

1386
01:16:50,120 --> 01:16:54,160
Speaker 1: this more abundantly elsewhere. And so here's Dartnell's case about

1387
01:16:54,439 --> 01:16:57,240
Speaker 1: whether aliens would want to eat us. So, the cells

1388
01:16:57,240 --> 01:16:59,960
Speaker 1: in our bodies are made of large collections of specific

1389
01:17:00,160 --> 01:17:03,880
Speaker 1: organic molecules. You've got proteins, which are chains of amino acids.

1390
01:17:04,360 --> 01:17:07,639
Speaker 1: You've got the nucleic acids like DNA and RNA, which

1391
01:17:07,680 --> 01:17:10,519
Speaker 1: are chains of bases and sugars, and then of course

1392
01:17:10,600 --> 01:17:14,599
Speaker 1: you've got the best part, the membranes and the phospholipids uh.

1393
01:17:14,640 --> 01:17:17,040
Speaker 1: And so in order to keep our bodies alive and

1394
01:17:17,080 --> 01:17:20,599
Speaker 1: working properly, we need to have steady incoming streams of

1395
01:17:20,640 --> 01:17:25,360
Speaker 1: those molecular building blocks. So we eat other life forms

1396
01:17:25,400 --> 01:17:28,080
Speaker 1: like plants and animals in order to get them. You

1397
01:17:28,120 --> 01:17:31,400
Speaker 1: can't survive obviously just by like eating sand or tree

1398
01:17:31,439 --> 01:17:34,360
Speaker 1: bark or salt and ammonia. You need to get specific

1399
01:17:34,520 --> 01:17:39,200
Speaker 1: organic molecules like sugars, amino acids, and fatty acids in

1400
01:17:39,320 --> 01:17:43,040
Speaker 1: order to survive. It's also true that your digestive system

1401
01:17:43,160 --> 01:17:47,200
Speaker 1: is specifically evolved to break down certain kinds of stuff

1402
01:17:47,280 --> 01:17:50,640
Speaker 1: like Earth plant matter and Earth animal flesh, and it

1403
01:17:50,800 --> 01:17:54,280
Speaker 1: is it has specially tailored enzymes for breaking down those

1404
01:17:54,280 --> 01:17:57,880
Speaker 1: molecules likely to be found in the stuff your ancestors

1405
01:17:57,880 --> 01:18:00,880
Speaker 1: were eating. Yeah, it's also worth our ending. You know,

1406
01:18:00,920 --> 01:18:03,920
Speaker 1: we eat a lot of creatures and plant life on

1407
01:18:03,960 --> 01:18:06,840
Speaker 1: this planet. It's easy to forget that there's a whole

1408
01:18:06,880 --> 01:18:09,160
Speaker 1: lot of stuff we cannot eat. There a lot of

1409
01:18:09,560 --> 01:18:12,000
Speaker 1: a lot of species that are just not on the

1410
01:18:12,080 --> 01:18:15,160
Speaker 1: menu for us. Most of the mass of planet Earth

1411
01:18:15,240 --> 01:18:17,760
Speaker 1: you can't eat. I mean that. Yeah, there's a lot

1412
01:18:17,760 --> 01:18:20,880
Speaker 1: of stuff you just can't get nutrition from. Even if

1413
01:18:20,920 --> 01:18:24,439
Speaker 1: it contains raw atoms that you might want, you know

1414
01:18:24,520 --> 01:18:26,559
Speaker 1: that would be useful, your body doesn't have a way

1415
01:18:26,560 --> 01:18:29,639
Speaker 1: to break them down properly, doesn't have the right chemical

1416
01:18:29,800 --> 01:18:33,240
Speaker 1: enzymes and stuff to separate out the parts that you

1417
01:18:33,240 --> 01:18:35,920
Speaker 1: would need or put together the parts that you would need.

1418
01:18:36,320 --> 01:18:39,519
Speaker 1: Your digestive system is shaped by what was available to

1419
01:18:40,000 --> 01:18:43,599
Speaker 1: the creatures that you evolved from. Now, Unfortunately, most other

1420
01:18:43,640 --> 01:18:46,840
Speaker 1: life forms on Earth have these useful molecules. In some

1421
01:18:47,000 --> 01:18:51,120
Speaker 1: nutritionally available way other animals on Earth are nourishing to

1422
01:18:51,240 --> 01:18:54,640
Speaker 1: us because we came from a common ancestor and we

1423
01:18:54,680 --> 01:18:58,760
Speaker 1: share common biochemistry. So in order to get nutrition from

1424
01:18:58,840 --> 01:19:03,080
Speaker 1: eating us and alien would need to share our biochemistry.

1425
01:19:03,160 --> 01:19:06,000
Speaker 1: And in order to do that, we would either need

1426
01:19:06,040 --> 01:19:09,120
Speaker 1: to share a common ancestor, and unless they're coming from

1427
01:19:09,160 --> 01:19:12,040
Speaker 1: somewhere else within our solar system, which seems unlikely at

1428
01:19:12,040 --> 01:19:15,240
Speaker 1: this point, it's not likely we would share a common ancestor,

1429
01:19:15,840 --> 01:19:19,120
Speaker 1: or we need to have the same biochemistry by coincidence.

1430
01:19:19,280 --> 01:19:22,640
Speaker 1: So what are the odds of sharing biochemistry by coincidence?

1431
01:19:23,360 --> 01:19:26,880
Speaker 1: Dartneil rights, well, that's certainly possible for all we know.

1432
01:19:27,000 --> 01:19:30,360
Speaker 1: Perhaps our DNA based life is the only way you

1433
01:19:30,439 --> 01:19:34,120
Speaker 1: can make self reproducing life forms out of the chemistry

1434
01:19:34,160 --> 01:19:38,000
Speaker 1: available in the universe. Darkneil points out that quote, a

1435
01:19:38,040 --> 01:19:41,720
Speaker 1: whole variety of amino acids, sugars, and fatty molecules are

1436
01:19:41,760 --> 01:19:45,960
Speaker 1: actually found in certain meteor rights, having been produced by

1437
01:19:46,000 --> 01:19:50,559
Speaker 1: astro chemistry and outer space, and so maybe extraterrestrial life

1438
01:19:50,720 --> 01:19:54,600
Speaker 1: would be based on the same basic building blocks as us.

1439
01:19:54,640 --> 01:19:57,000
Speaker 1: So the point there is that we haven't found life

1440
01:19:57,000 --> 01:19:59,200
Speaker 1: beyond Earth, but we found a lot of the chemical

1441
01:19:59,320 --> 01:20:03,160
Speaker 1: building blocks of life beyond Earth. Uh, and maybe our

1442
01:20:03,200 --> 01:20:05,800
Speaker 1: way is a common way or even the only way

1443
01:20:05,840 --> 01:20:08,759
Speaker 1: for the universe to put evolution in motion and create

1444
01:20:08,840 --> 01:20:12,400
Speaker 1: the possibility of intelligent life. But then Dartnell points out

1445
01:20:12,439 --> 01:20:17,599
Speaker 1: a big complication. Quote. Simple organic molecules like amino acids

1446
01:20:17,600 --> 01:20:22,040
Speaker 1: and sugars can exist in two different forms, mirror images

1447
01:20:22,080 --> 01:20:25,000
Speaker 1: of each other, in the same way your two hands

1448
01:20:25,040 --> 01:20:28,280
Speaker 1: are similar shapes but can't be placed exactly on top

1449
01:20:28,360 --> 01:20:31,200
Speaker 1: of the other. These two versions are known as a

1450
01:20:31,360 --> 01:20:34,800
Speaker 1: nantiomers and it turns out that all life on Earth

1451
01:20:35,000 --> 01:20:40,560
Speaker 1: uses only left handed amino acids and right handed sugars,

1452
01:20:40,880 --> 01:20:45,560
Speaker 1: whereas non living chemistry produces even mixtures of both kinds.

1453
01:20:46,520 --> 01:20:49,040
Speaker 1: So yeah, picture that what he's saying about holding your

1454
01:20:49,080 --> 01:20:51,599
Speaker 1: hands on top of each other. They're they're the same shape,

1455
01:20:52,080 --> 01:20:54,720
Speaker 1: but you can't put one on top of the other one.

1456
01:20:54,720 --> 01:20:56,840
Speaker 1: You have to invert one of them in order for

1457
01:20:56,880 --> 01:20:59,559
Speaker 1: them to match up. And with three dimensional things, that

1458
01:20:59,600 --> 01:21:02,679
Speaker 1: means that they're not chemically the same. Actually you can't

1459
01:21:02,880 --> 01:21:06,080
Speaker 1: use one for the other. And in science, this this

1460
01:21:06,280 --> 01:21:11,120
Speaker 1: handedness of sugars and amino acids is known as chirality. Uh,

1461
01:21:11,160 --> 01:21:13,960
Speaker 1: the fact that all life on Earth uses only left

1462
01:21:13,960 --> 01:21:17,639
Speaker 1: handed amino acids and right handed sugars. That's known as

1463
01:21:17,680 --> 01:21:20,840
Speaker 1: homo chirality, and it's a fascinating mystery to people who

1464
01:21:20,880 --> 01:21:23,920
Speaker 1: study the chemistry of life. Why why not the other

1465
01:21:23,960 --> 01:21:27,920
Speaker 1: way around? Or why not both both chiralities are and

1466
01:21:28,040 --> 01:21:31,479
Speaker 1: presumably always have been available out there in the universe.

1467
01:21:31,720 --> 01:21:34,719
Speaker 1: So why did life on Earth end up using only

1468
01:21:34,880 --> 01:21:38,400
Speaker 1: these kinds? Why only left handed amino acids and only

1469
01:21:38,520 --> 01:21:41,960
Speaker 1: right handed sugars? And in fact, Dartnell points out that

1470
01:21:42,080 --> 01:21:44,880
Speaker 1: chirality is a good way to know that traces of

1471
01:21:44,920 --> 01:21:48,360
Speaker 1: life we find, say on Mars, are actually authentic. So

1472
01:21:48,479 --> 01:21:51,160
Speaker 1: imagine you've got a rover on Mars and it picks

1473
01:21:51,240 --> 01:21:54,720
Speaker 1: up amino acids somewhere on the surface of Mars and

1474
01:21:54,840 --> 01:21:59,120
Speaker 1: they employ the opposite biochemical orientation, so you've got right

1475
01:21:59,160 --> 01:22:02,320
Speaker 1: handed amino acids. Then we could know that they were

1476
01:22:02,400 --> 01:22:06,439
Speaker 1: genuinely alien and not simply contamination from Earth life that

1477
01:22:06,520 --> 01:22:09,000
Speaker 1: we took along with us on the rover by accident.

1478
01:22:09,640 --> 01:22:13,040
Speaker 1: And so Dartnell writes, quote, so here's a fascinating thought.

1479
01:22:13,600 --> 01:22:17,360
Speaker 1: Alien invaders could be based on exactly the same organic

1480
01:22:17,439 --> 01:22:21,960
Speaker 1: molecules amino acids, sugars, etcetera. But they still wouldn't gain

1481
01:22:22,000 --> 01:22:25,360
Speaker 1: any nutrition from eating us, as the origins of life

1482
01:22:25,360 --> 01:22:28,799
Speaker 1: on their own planets settled on the opposite in anti amours,

1483
01:22:29,240 --> 01:22:32,599
Speaker 1: we'd be mirror images of each other on a molecular level.

1484
01:22:33,160 --> 01:22:35,280
Speaker 1: And of course, if this applied to us, meaning we

1485
01:22:35,320 --> 01:22:37,720
Speaker 1: couldn't be nutritious to them, it would also apply to

1486
01:22:37,760 --> 01:22:40,320
Speaker 1: our food sources. It would apply to all life on Earth,

1487
01:22:40,880 --> 01:22:42,800
Speaker 1: so they'd be like, oh that Earth food, I can't

1488
01:22:42,840 --> 01:22:45,040
Speaker 1: handle any of it. In fact, it might even be

1489
01:22:45,680 --> 01:22:48,920
Speaker 1: toxic to them. I was looking at a paper from

1490
01:22:49,840 --> 01:22:53,599
Speaker 1: in pl os one by jiang in son Um about

1491
01:22:53,720 --> 01:22:57,719
Speaker 1: how how bacteria are able to sort of break down

1492
01:22:59,000 --> 01:23:02,040
Speaker 1: right handed to mino acids, and one of the things

1493
01:23:02,160 --> 01:23:05,080
Speaker 1: that they talk about is how right handed amino acids

1494
01:23:05,080 --> 01:23:08,120
Speaker 1: are toxic for life on Earth. And it's actually important

1495
01:23:08,160 --> 01:23:11,080
Speaker 1: that back to bacteria do some breaking down of these

1496
01:23:11,160 --> 01:23:14,400
Speaker 1: right handed amino acids, or else they would accumulate to

1497
01:23:14,400 --> 01:23:17,840
Speaker 1: toxic levels in the environments. Oh, man, I there has

1498
01:23:17,880 --> 01:23:21,400
Speaker 1: to be some hard sci fi that explores this possibility.

1499
01:23:21,760 --> 01:23:23,760
Speaker 1: What did aliens come here to eat us but then

1500
01:23:23,800 --> 01:23:25,880
Speaker 1: we poison them? Well, I mean just the idea that

1501
01:23:25,920 --> 01:23:30,280
Speaker 1: their reflections on a molecular level and therefore incompatible with

1502
01:23:30,439 --> 01:23:32,719
Speaker 1: us or our food. Yeah well, I like that idea

1503
01:23:32,760 --> 01:23:35,599
Speaker 1: that like they could they could, in theory even look

1504
01:23:35,680 --> 01:23:38,800
Speaker 1: exactly like us. They could have bodies that are very

1505
01:23:38,840 --> 01:23:42,280
Speaker 1: so they were just toxic to each other, Like contact

1506
01:23:42,400 --> 01:23:46,320
Speaker 1: and sharing organic molecules from each other would be poisonous,

1507
01:23:46,640 --> 01:23:49,240
Speaker 1: Like if it was the movie Alien Nation and you

1508
01:23:49,280 --> 01:23:51,680
Speaker 1: had to have like left handed food restaurants and right

1509
01:23:51,720 --> 01:23:53,840
Speaker 1: handed food restaurants, and there was you know, it was

1510
01:23:53,960 --> 01:23:56,439
Speaker 1: you know, there's certainly discrimination there, but also the fact

1511
01:23:56,600 --> 01:24:00,679
Speaker 1: that the each species can only eat a certain type

1512
01:24:00,720 --> 01:24:04,360
Speaker 1: of matter of organic matter. Yeah well, I mean, but

1513
01:24:04,439 --> 01:24:07,320
Speaker 1: the thing there is that if you assume their ecosystem

1514
01:24:07,439 --> 01:24:10,400
Speaker 1: is their planet is also from a single common ancestor

1515
01:24:10,880 --> 01:24:13,160
Speaker 1: maybe it would be that all of their planet uses

1516
01:24:13,200 --> 01:24:16,519
Speaker 1: the opposite chirality of us, meaning that it's not just

1517
01:24:16,560 --> 01:24:19,160
Speaker 1: like we need different food, but every bit of life

1518
01:24:19,560 --> 01:24:22,360
Speaker 1: in their whole world would be toxic to us, and

1519
01:24:22,439 --> 01:24:25,000
Speaker 1: all the life in our world would be toxic to them.

1520
01:24:25,400 --> 01:24:27,920
Speaker 1: So like in order to interact, we almost need to

1521
01:24:27,960 --> 01:24:31,040
Speaker 1: like you know, be be sort of sealed off in

1522
01:24:31,080 --> 01:24:33,200
Speaker 1: a way. Oh wow, Well see that's a wonderful sci

1523
01:24:33,240 --> 01:24:35,880
Speaker 1: fi concept there. So anyway, I thought that was an

1524
01:24:35,880 --> 01:24:39,680
Speaker 1: interesting possibility. Even if they wanted to serve man, it

1525
01:24:39,760 --> 01:24:42,240
Speaker 1: might the dinner might not go so well. I like

1526
01:24:42,360 --> 01:24:45,080
Speaker 1: that we were taking some of the anxiety out of

1527
01:24:45,080 --> 01:24:47,120
Speaker 1: our Twilight Zone episodes here. Don't have to be as

1528
01:24:47,200 --> 01:24:49,800
Speaker 1: afraid of creatures on the wing of the plane. Don't

1529
01:24:49,800 --> 01:24:53,760
Speaker 1: have to be as afraid of alien civilizations coming to

1530
01:24:53,760 --> 01:24:56,599
Speaker 1: our planet to cook us and eat us well. I mean,

1531
01:24:56,800 --> 01:24:59,880
Speaker 1: the downside of that, thinking about the incompatibility of to

1532
01:25:00,040 --> 01:25:04,000
Speaker 1: for biochemistries, is that you could have aliens that meant

1533
01:25:04,080 --> 01:25:07,439
Speaker 1: well and that didn't want to eat us, but you know,

1534
01:25:07,560 --> 01:25:10,559
Speaker 1: just wanted to make contact and actually be helpful, wanted

1535
01:25:10,600 --> 01:25:13,640
Speaker 1: to serve man in the original naive sense of the understanding,

1536
01:25:14,000 --> 01:25:16,800
Speaker 1: but just brought with them a bunch of molecules that

1537
01:25:16,840 --> 01:25:19,760
Speaker 1: are deadly to us, which brings us kind of back

1538
01:25:19,760 --> 01:25:22,479
Speaker 1: to the Christopher Columbus idea, doesn't it. Well. I wouldn't

1539
01:25:22,520 --> 01:25:24,559
Speaker 1: say that Christopher Columbus meant well. I know that's not

1540
01:25:24,600 --> 01:25:26,080
Speaker 1: what you were saying. No, no, no, but just the

1541
01:25:26,160 --> 01:25:29,479
Speaker 1: idea that on a biological level ends up bringing death

1542
01:25:29,520 --> 01:25:32,240
Speaker 1: and also on a cultural level as well. Yes, like

1543
01:25:32,320 --> 01:25:37,400
Speaker 1: that even if Columbus had actually meant well, he wouldn't

1544
01:25:37,400 --> 01:25:40,800
Speaker 1: have been able to help, bringing death along with him.

1545
01:25:40,840 --> 01:25:43,200
Speaker 1: All Right, I feel like we're going pretty long here,

1546
01:25:43,240 --> 01:25:46,200
Speaker 1: but I think we have time for just one more story, okay,

1547
01:25:46,520 --> 01:25:49,960
Speaker 1: And this one comes to us from Tales from the Crypt.

1548
01:25:50,680 --> 01:25:54,960
Speaker 1: It aired in the fifth season, episode five. This was October.

1549
01:25:56,120 --> 01:25:58,920
Speaker 1: I love how most of these episodes actually aired during

1550
01:25:58,960 --> 01:26:02,360
Speaker 1: October something it and it was titled people who Live

1551
01:26:02,400 --> 01:26:07,760
Speaker 1: in Brass Hearstar's alright, So this one, this is a

1552
01:26:07,800 --> 01:26:11,120
Speaker 1: delight because this is one of four episodes directed by

1553
01:26:11,240 --> 01:26:16,280
Speaker 1: Russell McKay, the visionary director who gave us Highlander one,

1554
01:26:17,240 --> 01:26:22,160
Speaker 1: Highlander one and Highlander two, Highlander two, Yes, and most

1555
01:26:22,200 --> 01:26:24,360
Speaker 1: of the great music videos of the nineteen eighties, Total

1556
01:26:24,400 --> 01:26:26,680
Speaker 1: Eclipse of the Heart. That was him, Wild Boys, that

1557
01:26:26,760 --> 01:26:29,880
Speaker 1: was him. How do you say his name? Malkakey It's

1558
01:26:30,080 --> 01:26:32,320
Speaker 1: it's I believe it's more kay. It's m u l

1559
01:26:32,520 --> 01:26:35,400
Speaker 1: k h y. I've never been able to pronounce that,

1560
01:26:36,200 --> 01:26:41,639
Speaker 1: but yeah, the the visionary behind Uh Highlander various other films.

1561
01:26:42,120 --> 01:26:45,040
Speaker 1: And I do mean that authentically, like there is a

1562
01:26:45,160 --> 01:26:49,680
Speaker 1: visual style to his work. There's an intensity that you

1563
01:26:49,760 --> 01:26:51,920
Speaker 1: just you know what when you see it. A thing

1564
01:26:52,040 --> 01:26:55,639
Speaker 1: that I think I rediscovered this year upon going back

1565
01:26:55,680 --> 01:26:59,720
Speaker 1: to the first Highlander movie, and it's your insistence, is

1566
01:26:59,800 --> 01:27:03,519
Speaker 1: the actually the first Hilander movie is almost as bad

1567
01:27:03,600 --> 01:27:06,600
Speaker 1: as the second one. It's pretty bonkers. Yeah, but what

1568
01:27:06,720 --> 01:27:09,479
Speaker 1: we'll say that for for an upcoming episode. Oh yeah,

1569
01:27:09,520 --> 01:27:11,800
Speaker 1: we've still got Science of Highlander two coming out. Yes,

1570
01:27:11,840 --> 01:27:15,559
Speaker 1: before the year's up, that episode will finally come to fruition.

1571
01:27:15,640 --> 01:27:18,920
Speaker 1: We're not joking. Yes, it's real. So this episode of

1572
01:27:18,920 --> 01:27:21,839
Speaker 1: Tales from the Crypt, Uh, it's like a lot of episodes.

1573
01:27:21,880 --> 01:27:26,439
Speaker 1: It's a wealth of just wonderful acting, talent, spectacular gore effects,

1574
01:27:26,439 --> 01:27:30,240
Speaker 1: a notable director, and the script that well depends on

1575
01:27:30,280 --> 01:27:32,320
Speaker 1: how you look at it, right, it's I mean, it's

1576
01:27:32,320 --> 01:27:35,040
Speaker 1: easy to take these scripts out of context and dream

1577
01:27:35,120 --> 01:27:38,240
Speaker 1: about what a stronger, uh you know, rewrite could have

1578
01:27:38,280 --> 01:27:40,400
Speaker 1: done for it. But on the other hand, the material

1579
01:27:40,520 --> 01:27:42,599
Speaker 1: is the material, and the whole premise of the show

1580
01:27:42,880 --> 01:27:46,600
Speaker 1: is that these are retold classic horror comic shorts, you know,

1581
01:27:46,640 --> 01:27:49,559
Speaker 1: from the the you know, the golden age of horror comics,

1582
01:27:49,920 --> 01:27:51,760
Speaker 1: and they you know, tend to throw some sort of

1583
01:27:51,760 --> 01:27:55,200
Speaker 1: a heel character through the Ringer with the murderous or

1584
01:27:55,280 --> 01:28:01,200
Speaker 1: supernatural circumstances taking place. Yeah, it's generally uh, there there's

1585
01:28:01,320 --> 01:28:03,920
Speaker 1: some kind of nasty dude and he gets his come

1586
01:28:04,000 --> 01:28:07,680
Speaker 1: up and through some kind of supernatural karma. Yeah, nasty

1587
01:28:07,920 --> 01:28:11,040
Speaker 1: meets nasty, and then there's a joke about it. There's

1588
01:28:11,080 --> 01:28:14,439
Speaker 1: not a lot of nuance. It's uh, these were horror

1589
01:28:14,439 --> 01:28:18,200
Speaker 1: stories essentially for for for for kids and uh, but

1590
01:28:18,280 --> 01:28:21,200
Speaker 1: with completely inappropriate content. Oh yeah, it was. That's the

1591
01:28:21,200 --> 01:28:24,439
Speaker 1: other thing. All of these stories are so inappropriate you

1592
01:28:24,479 --> 01:28:27,200
Speaker 1: go even going back now and watching these these episodes,

1593
01:28:27,240 --> 01:28:29,760
Speaker 1: like some of them are just like so cringe worthy. Uh.

1594
01:28:29,800 --> 01:28:32,280
Speaker 1: And I'm not sure that it's a flaw. It's like

1595
01:28:32,320 --> 01:28:34,639
Speaker 1: it's kind of what you get. It's that stales from

1596
01:28:34,640 --> 01:28:39,000
Speaker 1: the crypt. It's it's gross, it's inappropriate. Yeah, and yet

1597
01:28:39,120 --> 01:28:43,559
Speaker 1: there's something wonderful about it. So this particular episode definitely

1598
01:28:43,560 --> 01:28:46,040
Speaker 1: brings it with the cast because this one started Bill

1599
01:28:46,120 --> 01:28:50,360
Speaker 1: Paxton and Brad Dorrif. That's of course Bill Paxton from

1600
01:28:50,880 --> 01:28:55,559
Speaker 1: Aliens the Terminator, um and uh and Brad Dorrif played

1601
01:28:55,560 --> 01:28:57,760
Speaker 1: Worm Tongue in the Lord of the Rings movie, was

1602
01:28:57,840 --> 01:29:01,639
Speaker 1: the voice of Chucky. Then it's so many fabulous films

1603
01:29:01,680 --> 01:29:03,760
Speaker 1: over the years. One fell Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Yeah,

1604
01:29:03,760 --> 01:29:06,280
Speaker 1: that was another one of his big accomplishments. He was

1605
01:29:06,320 --> 01:29:10,960
Speaker 1: also in What Wise Blood I think? Oh yeah, he

1606
01:29:11,080 --> 01:29:14,880
Speaker 1: was in Exorcist three. Yes. Yeah, he's a fabulous character actor.

1607
01:29:14,960 --> 01:29:20,120
Speaker 1: So already you have some wonderful talent to work with here. Uh.

1608
01:29:20,160 --> 01:29:23,360
Speaker 1: They play brothers, Billy and Virgil. Billy is a mean

1609
01:29:23,439 --> 01:29:27,200
Speaker 1: spirited slime bag fresh out of prison, a performance by

1610
01:29:27,200 --> 01:29:29,880
Speaker 1: Paxton that reminds me a lot of his vampire character

1611
01:29:30,280 --> 01:29:34,559
Speaker 1: in Uh Near Dark, you know, just just a bad person,

1612
01:29:35,000 --> 01:29:38,280
Speaker 1: and his brother is essentially Lenny from Steinbeck's of Mice

1613
01:29:38,320 --> 01:29:41,400
Speaker 1: and Men, so they have that kind of relationship. Billy

1614
01:29:41,479 --> 01:29:44,280
Speaker 1: talks Virgil into an ice cream factory high school, which

1615
01:29:44,320 --> 01:29:46,840
Speaker 1: goes all wrong. They're gonna steal a bunch of ice cream,

1616
01:29:46,880 --> 01:29:48,720
Speaker 1: They're gonna steal some money from a safe, but they

1617
01:29:48,760 --> 01:29:51,800
Speaker 1: end up just murdering some people instead, and as a

1618
01:29:51,840 --> 01:29:54,759
Speaker 1: fallback plan, they go after the ice cream truck driver

1619
01:29:55,040 --> 01:29:58,639
Speaker 1: who originally turned Billy in for stealing from the company,

1620
01:29:59,000 --> 01:30:01,800
Speaker 1: a man by the name of Mr Bird, and Mr

1621
01:30:01,840 --> 01:30:05,839
Speaker 1: Bird is played by veteran character actor Michael Lerner, Oh,

1622
01:30:05,880 --> 01:30:08,720
Speaker 1: the producer from Barton Fink. Yeah, he was nominated for

1623
01:30:08,920 --> 01:30:11,760
Speaker 1: an actor for that role. He's tremendous and he's he's

1624
01:30:11,760 --> 01:30:14,559
Speaker 1: great in this too, like everybody's great in this. But

1625
01:30:14,760 --> 01:30:17,839
Speaker 1: here's the twist, here's the grotesque tales from the crypt twist.

1626
01:30:18,240 --> 01:30:22,240
Speaker 1: Mr Bird turns out to be two men conjoined twins,

1627
01:30:22,800 --> 01:30:25,679
Speaker 1: and the episodes grizzly payoff is that while the brothers

1628
01:30:25,680 --> 01:30:29,400
Speaker 1: succeed in killing one of the twins, they shoot him.

1629
01:30:29,840 --> 01:30:31,519
Speaker 1: He's shot in the head with a shotgun. When he

1630
01:30:31,520 --> 01:30:34,080
Speaker 1: emerges through a beated curtain, it turns out there the

1631
01:30:34,160 --> 01:30:37,599
Speaker 1: other one lives and he gets his vengeance. The final

1632
01:30:37,680 --> 01:30:41,080
Speaker 1: shot of the episode, after he's killed the brothers shows

1633
01:30:41,840 --> 01:30:45,920
Speaker 1: the surviving Mr Bird twins sitting in his ice cream

1634
01:30:45,960 --> 01:30:49,639
Speaker 1: truck making his rounds with his decaying twin hunched over

1635
01:30:49,680 --> 01:30:52,920
Speaker 1: in the back seat. And this is I didn't even

1636
01:30:53,000 --> 01:30:55,720
Speaker 1: touch on some of the just truly bizarre elements of

1637
01:30:55,720 --> 01:31:01,040
Speaker 1: this episode. For instance, Billy Bill Paxon's character totally does

1638
01:31:01,080 --> 01:31:04,640
Speaker 1: not need to have a butter eating addiction butter, and

1639
01:31:04,760 --> 01:31:07,200
Speaker 1: he's like eating sticks of butter throughout the whole film

1640
01:31:07,240 --> 01:31:11,120
Speaker 1: for no reason. With no payoff, like he already had

1641
01:31:11,160 --> 01:31:15,000
Speaker 1: a pretty good, you know trope character. Here Bill, you know,

1642
01:31:15,040 --> 01:31:17,800
Speaker 1: Bill Paxton is playing a slime ball. It's wonderful he

1643
01:31:17,920 --> 01:31:20,120
Speaker 1: was born for this role, and you're throw in the

1644
01:31:20,120 --> 01:31:23,920
Speaker 1: butter for some reason. There's also a part where Virgil

1645
01:31:24,040 --> 01:31:26,439
Speaker 1: is reading a comic book and it is Predator versus

1646
01:31:26,520 --> 01:31:30,479
Speaker 1: Jesse James, which doesn't I have no problem with. I

1647
01:31:30,520 --> 01:31:32,720
Speaker 1: love it, but it's just such a random element to

1648
01:31:32,760 --> 01:31:36,599
Speaker 1: throw in us the original Cowboys versus Aliens. It really was. Yeah,

1649
01:31:36,680 --> 01:31:39,040
Speaker 1: I would love to see it. Uh it's give me

1650
01:31:39,320 --> 01:31:43,280
Speaker 1: Jesse James versus Predator. Uh So The science question here, though,

1651
01:31:43,280 --> 01:31:46,280
Speaker 1: of course, is could this happen? If one conjoined twin

1652
01:31:46,360 --> 01:31:48,880
Speaker 1: were to die, would the other one be able to

1653
01:31:48,880 --> 01:31:53,320
Speaker 1: live on in this grotesque? Grotesque manner? So to begin with,

1654
01:31:53,439 --> 01:31:55,240
Speaker 1: I do have to point out again that Tales from

1655
01:31:55,280 --> 01:31:57,840
Speaker 1: the Crypt is pretty far from any sort of fair

1656
01:31:58,040 --> 01:32:02,679
Speaker 1: or reasonable portrayal of joined twins or just humanity in general.

1657
01:32:03,400 --> 01:32:05,840
Speaker 1: The show and the comics they're based on, they tended

1658
01:32:05,840 --> 01:32:08,439
Speaker 1: to have a real freak show vibe concerning any sort

1659
01:32:08,479 --> 01:32:13,599
Speaker 1: of deformation, birth defect, mutilation, or even just something is routine.

1660
01:32:13,680 --> 01:32:17,479
Speaker 1: Is identical twins. You know, everything was played for weird,

1661
01:32:17,600 --> 01:32:20,920
Speaker 1: everything was played for grotesque, and the stereotypes are pretty

1662
01:32:20,920 --> 01:32:24,519
Speaker 1: broad and grotesque too. So you don't go to Tales

1663
01:32:24,560 --> 01:32:27,400
Speaker 1: from the Crypt to think about how to model thinking

1664
01:32:27,479 --> 01:32:31,120
Speaker 1: about medical conditions. No, not not at all, and yet

1665
01:32:31,280 --> 01:32:33,080
Speaker 1: that's kind of what we're doing in this this segment.

1666
01:32:33,160 --> 01:32:38,080
Speaker 1: So here we go. So scientifically, conjoined twins are monozygotic

1667
01:32:38,120 --> 01:32:41,559
Speaker 1: twins who were joined at some region of their bodies,

1668
01:32:42,040 --> 01:32:45,440
Speaker 1: and the details depend on exactly where the conjunction is situated.

1669
01:32:45,680 --> 01:32:49,000
Speaker 1: So the exact cause of conjoined twins isn't fully understood,

1670
01:32:49,240 --> 01:32:52,719
Speaker 1: but a major theory here is that the fertilized egg

1671
01:32:52,760 --> 01:32:56,799
Speaker 1: is going to split into a monozygotic set of twins,

1672
01:32:56,840 --> 01:33:01,160
Speaker 1: but it doesn't fully separate and they remain connected. So

1673
01:33:01,200 --> 01:33:06,200
Speaker 1: the bird twins here are represented as terada catadidama conjoined twins.

1674
01:33:06,240 --> 01:33:10,800
Speaker 1: These are lower body conjunctions and more specifically, they are

1675
01:33:11,200 --> 01:33:14,599
Speaker 1: pyg pagus twins, meaning they're back to back joined at

1676
01:33:14,600 --> 01:33:18,639
Speaker 1: the rump. So this accounts for roughly nine I've also

1677
01:33:18,680 --> 01:33:22,040
Speaker 1: read seventeen percent of conjoined twins, but don't let that

1678
01:33:22,120 --> 01:33:26,640
Speaker 1: number foe you. That still means that they're extremely rare occurrences. UM.

1679
01:33:27,000 --> 01:33:31,840
Speaker 1: These individuals. They commonly share the gluteal region, terminal spine,

1680
01:33:31,840 --> 01:33:37,200
Speaker 1: and lower gastro intestinal, urological and reproductive tracks. So surgical

1681
01:33:37,280 --> 01:33:40,839
Speaker 1: separation of conjoined twins in general, it ranges from simple

1682
01:33:40,920 --> 01:33:44,639
Speaker 1: to near impossible, depending on the conjunction. In many cases,

1683
01:33:44,880 --> 01:33:48,559
Speaker 1: it's a highly risky surgery with potentially fatal outcomes for

1684
01:33:48,640 --> 01:33:52,679
Speaker 1: both patients. However, successful separations of phygo pagus conjoined twins

1685
01:33:52,840 --> 01:33:56,040
Speaker 1: have occurred, and uh, you know, with various cases presented

1686
01:33:56,040 --> 01:33:59,439
Speaker 1: in medical literature. Uh. And the cases of separation do

1687
01:33:59,560 --> 01:34:01,800
Speaker 1: tend to be presented in medical literature like these are

1688
01:34:02,200 --> 01:34:05,520
Speaker 1: these are generally, you know, the more certainly, the more complicated.

1689
01:34:05,920 --> 01:34:08,599
Speaker 1: UM separations are exactly the kind of thing you're gonna

1690
01:34:08,640 --> 01:34:12,280
Speaker 1: find written up in a journal. But a separation is

1691
01:34:12,360 --> 01:34:14,080
Speaker 1: not what we see in this episode of Tales from

1692
01:34:14,120 --> 01:34:16,840
Speaker 1: the Crypt one twin is killed via shotgun blast of

1693
01:34:16,880 --> 01:34:19,960
Speaker 1: the head, and the other continues to live, dragging him

1694
01:34:20,000 --> 01:34:22,599
Speaker 1: around while he kills off the two brothers and then

1695
01:34:22,640 --> 01:34:27,360
Speaker 1: continues his ice cream rounds. Could this happen? Uh? Well,

1696
01:34:27,360 --> 01:34:30,280
Speaker 1: broadly speaking, no, yah, And I don't think that should

1697
01:34:30,280 --> 01:34:33,160
Speaker 1: come to anybody's surprise given it again, this is tales

1698
01:34:33,200 --> 01:34:36,640
Speaker 1: from the crypt. Dr Eric Stratch a pediatric surgeon at

1699
01:34:36,640 --> 01:34:39,400
Speaker 1: the University of Maryland Hospital for Children. He actually covered

1700
01:34:39,439 --> 01:34:42,400
Speaker 1: the matter in the Esquire article how to separate a

1701
01:34:42,439 --> 01:34:45,680
Speaker 1: conjoint twin on his deathbed. Yeah, he was interviewed or

1702
01:34:46,080 --> 01:34:48,040
Speaker 1: interview segment was used in that article. He did not

1703
01:34:48,120 --> 01:34:52,519
Speaker 1: write it, but he pointed out that once one twins

1704
01:34:52,600 --> 01:34:56,400
Speaker 1: heart stops beating, the blood stops pumping, and the vessels dilate,

1705
01:34:57,040 --> 01:35:00,960
Speaker 1: then the living twin will essentially bleed into the dead twin.

1706
01:35:01,560 --> 01:35:04,760
Speaker 1: And this will happen quickly if the physical connection between

1707
01:35:04,800 --> 01:35:07,320
Speaker 1: the two is large enough, but with smaller cases there

1708
01:35:07,320 --> 01:35:09,800
Speaker 1: will be an infection in a matter of hours. And

1709
01:35:09,800 --> 01:35:14,400
Speaker 1: in these cases it's technically possible that surgical separate separation

1710
01:35:14,479 --> 01:35:17,400
Speaker 1: could save the living twin, but he didn't think it

1711
01:35:17,439 --> 01:35:20,760
Speaker 1: had ever been attempted. Again, in many cases, separation might

1712
01:35:20,800 --> 01:35:24,479
Speaker 1: not even be possible under ideal conditions, much less like

1713
01:35:24,520 --> 01:35:29,280
Speaker 1: an emergency UH intervention scenario. So while we may be

1714
01:35:29,360 --> 01:35:33,320
Speaker 1: able to accept the idea that they're surviving, bird twin

1715
01:35:33,479 --> 01:35:36,880
Speaker 1: murders his brother's killers, the idea that he goes on

1716
01:35:37,000 --> 01:35:39,559
Speaker 1: to drive the ice cream truck around. Seems a bit

1717
01:35:39,600 --> 01:35:42,240
Speaker 1: of a stretch, now, Robert, I see you've attached a

1718
01:35:42,320 --> 01:35:44,799
Speaker 1: panel from a comic, so that this one was based

1719
01:35:44,840 --> 01:35:47,639
Speaker 1: on I guess something that was told in the comics

1720
01:35:47,640 --> 01:35:49,240
Speaker 1: before it was on the show. Yeah, this one was

1721
01:35:49,240 --> 01:35:51,960
Speaker 1: definitely based on a comic. Those comics managed to come

1722
01:35:52,040 --> 01:35:55,040
Speaker 1: up with some really gross stuff that that became only

1723
01:35:55,080 --> 01:35:58,800
Speaker 1: grosser when it was translated to HBO. Yeah, that the

1724
01:35:58,840 --> 01:36:02,200
Speaker 1: comics were big about, like the just the visual visceral horror,

1725
01:36:02,240 --> 01:36:05,760
Speaker 1: and the show did a great job of of portraying that. Yeah.

1726
01:36:05,800 --> 01:36:08,360
Speaker 1: This this panel that I found from it, which which

1727
01:36:08,400 --> 01:36:09,920
Speaker 1: is easy to find if you do just a Google

1728
01:36:09,960 --> 01:36:12,800
Speaker 1: search for for the title of this episode, which was

1729
01:36:12,840 --> 01:36:15,160
Speaker 1: also the title of the comics people who Live in

1730
01:36:15,200 --> 01:36:18,599
Speaker 1: Brass Horses. Uh. Yeah, you just see the the ice

1731
01:36:18,600 --> 01:36:20,800
Speaker 1: cream truck driver climbing out of the back of the

1732
01:36:20,840 --> 01:36:24,240
Speaker 1: truck and he just has this this rotting corpse attached

1733
01:36:24,240 --> 01:36:27,439
Speaker 1: to the back of him with flies buzzing around it. Uh.

1734
01:36:27,520 --> 01:36:33,679
Speaker 1: It's it's horrifying, grotesque, insensitive, everything you would expect from

1735
01:36:33,680 --> 01:36:37,000
Speaker 1: the tales from the crypt Robert, and you're reading about

1736
01:36:37,040 --> 01:36:40,280
Speaker 1: the actual uh, like the surgeries involved here and stuff.

1737
01:36:40,320 --> 01:36:43,839
Speaker 1: Do you get the sense that, um, that medical science

1738
01:36:43,920 --> 01:36:46,200
Speaker 1: is making a lot of progress in in how to

1739
01:36:46,280 --> 01:36:49,400
Speaker 1: help conjoined twins, especially in cases where they do need

1740
01:36:49,479 --> 01:36:52,040
Speaker 1: to be separated. Yeah, I mean it seems to be

1741
01:36:52,040 --> 01:36:54,240
Speaker 1: the case. But at the same time, it's like so

1742
01:36:54,280 --> 01:36:56,439
Speaker 1: many of these cases they are they're different. Each one

1743
01:36:56,479 --> 01:37:00,200
Speaker 1: has its own individual challenges, and they's rare. It's rare. Uh,

1744
01:37:00,240 --> 01:37:02,800
Speaker 1: And you know when it, when it does pop up,

1745
01:37:02,800 --> 01:37:05,360
Speaker 1: they're also going to be a lot of arguments potentially

1746
01:37:05,400 --> 01:37:08,200
Speaker 1: about is this the thing to do? Is is this

1747
01:37:08,880 --> 01:37:13,240
Speaker 1: is this the morally correct um medical intervention if there

1748
01:37:13,280 --> 01:37:16,840
Speaker 1: is such a risk to both patients, Because there are

1749
01:37:16,880 --> 01:37:20,000
Speaker 1: some heartbreaking accounts in the literature where an attempt is

1750
01:37:20,040 --> 01:37:25,080
Speaker 1: made to separate to conjoin twins and they simply both die,

1751
01:37:25,160 --> 01:37:29,000
Speaker 1: they don't neither one actually survives the surgery. Right. Well,

1752
01:37:29,040 --> 01:37:31,240
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess I was specifically thinking of cases

1753
01:37:31,240 --> 01:37:34,960
Speaker 1: where it is medically necessary in order to save them

1754
01:37:35,000 --> 01:37:38,800
Speaker 1: or or create better health outcomes to separate them. I mean,

1755
01:37:39,040 --> 01:37:41,439
Speaker 1: I don't think we should just assume that all can

1756
01:37:41,479 --> 01:37:46,400
Speaker 1: joined twins naturally want to be separated. Yeah, Basically, it

1757
01:37:46,479 --> 01:37:49,960
Speaker 1: comes down to just the complexity of the of the connection.

1758
01:37:50,040 --> 01:37:53,519
Speaker 1: Like if if the connection is is smaller and more simple,

1759
01:37:53,720 --> 01:37:58,000
Speaker 1: and then it can actually be a pretty safe procedure

1760
01:37:58,040 --> 01:38:00,800
Speaker 1: as I understand it. Um then there are just other

1761
01:38:00,840 --> 01:38:02,680
Speaker 1: cases where it is going to be kind of like

1762
01:38:02,720 --> 01:38:08,120
Speaker 1: the malin everest of surgical intervention. And and yet sometimes

1763
01:38:08,360 --> 01:38:11,800
Speaker 1: depending on the situation, it may be something that has

1764
01:38:11,840 --> 01:38:14,040
Speaker 1: to be done. This is yet another thing that I

1765
01:38:14,040 --> 01:38:16,479
Speaker 1: think I might deserve a deeper look sometime in the future.

1766
01:38:16,560 --> 01:38:20,559
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, absolutely, we've only just we've we've only we've

1767
01:38:20,560 --> 01:38:25,519
Speaker 1: barely brushed the surface of of twins and certainly conjoined twins.

1768
01:38:25,960 --> 01:38:28,880
Speaker 1: And obviously there's a lot of a lot of fascinating

1769
01:38:28,880 --> 01:38:31,960
Speaker 1: information out there about you know, the lives that led

1770
01:38:32,000 --> 01:38:35,200
Speaker 1: by actual conjoined twins and not the you know, the

1771
01:38:35,240 --> 01:38:38,080
Speaker 1: cartoonish examples that we see in like Tales in the

1772
01:38:38,080 --> 01:38:40,720
Speaker 1: crypt which sadly it tends to be. This is the

1773
01:38:40,800 --> 01:38:43,080
Speaker 1: kind of thing that tends to be one's first introduction

1774
01:38:43,479 --> 01:38:46,479
Speaker 1: to conjoined twins. In the same way that unless you

1775
01:38:46,760 --> 01:38:51,599
Speaker 1: have identical twins in your classroom growing up, and if

1776
01:38:51,640 --> 01:38:53,639
Speaker 1: you're not encountering them in your life, your first example

1777
01:38:53,680 --> 01:38:55,960
Speaker 1: to to identical twins is likely going to be some

1778
01:38:56,000 --> 01:39:00,240
Speaker 1: sort of weird horror show. Example, when you're five and

1779
01:39:00,280 --> 01:39:03,880
Speaker 1: you watched Dead Ringers. Well, let's hope not, but certainly

1780
01:39:03,880 --> 01:39:05,800
Speaker 1: you can watch The Simpsons, right, The Simpsons had the

1781
01:39:05,800 --> 01:39:09,920
Speaker 1: Treehouse of Horror where evil Twin was separated from him

1782
01:39:09,920 --> 01:39:12,400
Speaker 1: and his living in the attic. I wonder, I mean,

1783
01:39:12,600 --> 01:39:15,839
Speaker 1: is the belief in evil twins actually a fairly common

1784
01:39:15,880 --> 01:39:19,360
Speaker 1: thing or does everybody understand that's not real? I hope

1785
01:39:19,479 --> 01:39:22,400
Speaker 1: everyone understands that. I mean, I have friends with with twins,

1786
01:39:22,640 --> 01:39:25,160
Speaker 1: and um and I I've talked to them a little

1787
01:39:25,160 --> 01:39:27,160
Speaker 1: bit about just you know, to the point where they

1788
01:39:27,200 --> 01:39:29,439
Speaker 1: just want to avoid any like creepy twin content. I

1789
01:39:29,520 --> 01:39:34,240
Speaker 1: don't don't blame them, um but I basically I think

1790
01:39:34,240 --> 01:39:39,160
Speaker 1: comes down more to the to us untwinned individuals where

1791
01:39:39,360 --> 01:39:41,960
Speaker 1: we see this, we see two identical individuals, and we

1792
01:39:42,000 --> 01:39:44,960
Speaker 1: think of there's all the potential self exploration, like what

1793
01:39:45,040 --> 01:39:47,519
Speaker 1: if I were two people? What would that mean? Would

1794
01:39:47,520 --> 01:39:50,439
Speaker 1: have one represented my best qualities and one my my

1795
01:39:51,040 --> 01:39:53,840
Speaker 1: you know, my my my my darker qualities. And of

1796
01:39:53,880 --> 01:39:56,800
Speaker 1: course meanwhile, these twins are are two separate people were

1797
01:39:56,800 --> 01:39:59,519
Speaker 1: just trying to live their lives and we're staring at them,

1798
01:39:59,560 --> 01:40:03,160
Speaker 1: trying to gaze down our own navel or write a

1799
01:40:03,320 --> 01:40:07,439
Speaker 1: grotesque horror story. Yeah. The the looker, the person who

1800
01:40:07,439 --> 01:40:09,800
Speaker 1: looks at another is the real monster, you know, because

1801
01:40:09,840 --> 01:40:12,040
Speaker 1: they always want to make monsters out of people who

1802
01:40:12,080 --> 01:40:15,400
Speaker 1: are just people. Yeah, all right, So there you have it, Uh,

1803
01:40:15,520 --> 01:40:19,800
Speaker 1: Anthology of Horror, Volume one. Because if everyone liked this,

1804
01:40:20,600 --> 01:40:22,519
Speaker 1: maybe we'll do it again next year. Maybe this will

1805
01:40:22,560 --> 01:40:25,800
Speaker 1: be our new Halloween thing. Uh. And if it is,

1806
01:40:26,680 --> 01:40:28,960
Speaker 1: what would you like us to cover? I guess this

1807
01:40:29,000 --> 01:40:30,680
Speaker 1: means before then, I'm gonna have to go back and

1808
01:40:30,720 --> 01:40:34,240
Speaker 1: watch some some horror anthology series I am. I am

1809
01:40:34,800 --> 01:40:37,960
Speaker 1: under exposed at this point. I had a hard enough

1810
01:40:38,000 --> 01:40:40,519
Speaker 1: time picking just the ones that I did today, though

1811
01:40:41,320 --> 01:40:43,719
Speaker 1: I guess I'd never run out of Treehouse of Horror

1812
01:40:43,720 --> 01:40:46,200
Speaker 1: episodes to pick tree Yeah, Treehouse tends to be a

1813
01:40:46,280 --> 01:40:50,720
Speaker 1: nice like overview of great anthology works in places. Other times,

1814
01:40:50,720 --> 01:40:54,280
Speaker 1: of course, they're parioding featurely linked films. I think Twilight

1815
01:40:54,360 --> 01:40:58,080
Speaker 1: Zone and Outer Limits, Black Mirror. These are great places

1816
01:40:58,120 --> 01:41:00,639
Speaker 1: to look to tales from the crypt little bit harder.

1817
01:41:00,640 --> 01:41:02,679
Speaker 1: I ran into a lot of dead ends and bad

1818
01:41:02,680 --> 01:41:07,599
Speaker 1: puns before I decided to uh to talk about this one. Well,

1819
01:41:07,640 --> 01:41:10,599
Speaker 1: it is a forest of dead ends and bad puns,

1820
01:41:10,640 --> 01:41:14,000
Speaker 1: as I'm to understand. All right, Well, hey, everybody out there,

1821
01:41:14,040 --> 01:41:15,800
Speaker 1: you have a year to catch up on higher anthologies

1822
01:41:15,800 --> 01:41:19,720
Speaker 1: as well, and to suggest episodes from those anthologies you'd

1823
01:41:19,760 --> 01:41:22,599
Speaker 1: like us to consider covering in the future. In the meantime,

1824
01:41:22,840 --> 01:41:25,160
Speaker 1: check out stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. That

1825
01:41:25,280 --> 01:41:28,200
Speaker 1: is our our mothership. That's where we'll find all the episodes.

1826
01:41:28,479 --> 01:41:30,400
Speaker 1: That's where you'll find links out to our social media

1827
01:41:30,439 --> 01:41:34,840
Speaker 1: accounts like Facebook and Twitter, uh Instagram. It's also where

1828
01:41:34,840 --> 01:41:36,559
Speaker 1: you'll find our store where you can pick up some

1829
01:41:36,600 --> 01:41:40,439
Speaker 1: cool merchandise uh that either has our logo or brand

1830
01:41:40,479 --> 01:41:43,799
Speaker 1: on it, or it calls back to a specific episodes

1831
01:41:43,840 --> 01:41:46,679
Speaker 1: that we've covered on the show. Big thanks as always

1832
01:41:46,760 --> 01:41:50,200
Speaker 1: to our excellent audio producers Alex Williams and Tarry Harrison.

1833
01:41:50,600 --> 01:41:52,160
Speaker 1: If you would like to get in touch with us

1834
01:41:52,200 --> 01:41:54,800
Speaker 1: directly to let us know feedback about this episode or

1835
01:41:54,800 --> 01:41:57,519
Speaker 1: any other, to suggest a topic for the future, just

1836
01:41:57,560 --> 01:41:59,840
Speaker 1: to say hi, let us know where you listen for

1837
01:42:00,080 --> 01:42:01,640
Speaker 1: how you found out about the show, all that kind

1838
01:42:01,640 --> 01:42:04,400
Speaker 1: of stuff. You can email us at blow the Mind

1839
01:42:04,600 --> 01:42:15,960
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com for more on this,

1840
01:42:16,160 --> 01:42:18,679
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics. Does it, how stuff works,

1841
01:42:18,680 --> 01:42:30,640
Speaker 1: dot Com, big