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Speaker 1: learn more and buy your tickets today at New York

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Speaker 1: Comic Con dot com slash NYCC hyphen presents Welcome to

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Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind from How Stuff Works dot com.

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Speaker 1: Hey you, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My

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Speaker 1: name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. Now I

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Speaker 1: want you to imagine yourself for a second, to do

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Speaker 1: a little mental time travel here, a little uh, a

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Speaker 1: little fantasizing. Okay, wait, no, am I going to the

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Speaker 1: future where the crab monsters rule. No, no, no no, You're

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Speaker 1: gonna go to the past, but not so far back

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Speaker 1: in time that you encounter the crab monsters again from

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Speaker 1: their first visit. Right, No, No, I want you to

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Speaker 1: imagine yourself as a king or a queen ruling over

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Speaker 1: a troubled kingdom. Okay, not hard to do. Yeah, especially

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Speaker 1: after a recent episode on Greek Fire we talked about

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Speaker 1: the Byzantine Empire. Right exactly, You're constantly warring against rival

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Speaker 1: powers on all borders. Your enemies are Legion, every stranger

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Speaker 1: is a potential assassin, and every cup of wine is

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Speaker 1: a potential poison plot. I have often gotten the feeling

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Speaker 1: that it is a natural part of the sort of

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Speaker 1: unique decadence of hereditary monarchs to be terrified of poison

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Speaker 1: above all other things. I know. It was after a

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Speaker 1: guy named Richard Russ tried to poison the Bishop of

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Speaker 1: Rochester to death in fifteen thirty one that Henry the

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Speaker 1: eighth in Parliament decided in England, people found guilty of

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Speaker 1: poisoning would be punished by being boiled alive. I mean

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Speaker 1: you could tell it bothered him, Yeah, like he didn't

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Speaker 1: like the idea. Well, you can get in Henry's head

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Speaker 1: a little bit like he's there feasting, having some lamprey

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Speaker 1: pie or something, and he's like, somebody must have it

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Speaker 1: in for me. And what if they came at me

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Speaker 1: straight through the food? It would be the worst possible thing.

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Speaker 1: What's such a subtle weapon? Yeah, and maybe it has

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Speaker 1: something to do with like kings and queens feasting while

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Speaker 1: their people starve. So you know, the poisoning of their

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Speaker 1: food seems like this unbearably ironic reward and thus the

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Speaker 1: thing they fear above all else. Oh yes, and of

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Speaker 1: course we have so many different fictional, mythological and historic

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Speaker 1: examples of this type of thing happening. Right, How many

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Speaker 1: different rulers or or at least characters get poisoned in Shakespeare? Okay,

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Speaker 1: so if you're Henry the Eighth, they're really you're any king, queen,

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Speaker 1: somebody who fears being attacked right in the food. What

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Speaker 1: are your options? Well, you know you could you could

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Speaker 1: have a food taster, a wine taster and sort of

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Speaker 1: try everything out on an individual before it comes to

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Speaker 1: your lips. What if nobody wants that job, Well, in

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Speaker 1: that case, you need to turn to your trusted advisory

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Speaker 1: King Joe. You're because you're trusted Advisor has has traveled far,

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Speaker 1: and he's he spent a lot of time with with

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Speaker 1: with crumbling tons of arcane knowledge and secrets. And one day,

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Speaker 1: this wizard presents you with an ornate drinking vessel carved

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Speaker 1: from a mysterious substance. It's unlike any wood or stone

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Speaker 1: you've ever seen. And he tells you that this cup

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Speaker 1: will alert you to the presence of any poison poured

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Speaker 1: within it, for it is crafted from the sacred horn

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Speaker 1: of the unicorn. Wow, So the unicorn goblet is like

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Speaker 1: a tattle tale cup. It's a chemical tattle tale and

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Speaker 1: it will somehow let you know if you are entering

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Speaker 1: the danger zone. Yeah, that's well, that's the idea that

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Speaker 1: it's a it's I mean, you can ask the wizard.

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Speaker 1: You might say, well, does it does it light up?

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Speaker 1: Does it is it gonna flash it? You know, what's

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Speaker 1: going to be the effect? How am I going to know? Now? Unfortunately,

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Speaker 1: I think I would have a hard time coming across

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Speaker 1: this cup because the unicorns don't exist. That that is

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Speaker 1: certainly a design flaw here. Yeah, they're the natural world

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Speaker 1: has never known a true unicorn, but it has long

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Speaker 1: known the thundering footsteps of the rhinoceros. Oh okay, and

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Speaker 1: humans have long sought it's horn for alleged medicinal and

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Speaker 1: magical purposes, a fact that is both intriguing and kind

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Speaker 1: of sad because you have to imagine how they get

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Speaker 1: the horn. That's right. So pretty much our entire episode

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Speaker 1: is going to be intriguing and sad. It's going to

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Speaker 1: be uh magical, But we're also going to dive into

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Speaker 1: the possible scientific basis for some of these alleged properties

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Speaker 1: of rhino horn. Most of them do not pan out.

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Speaker 1: We'll go ahead and let you know that right up

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Speaker 1: front in case you are considering buying rhino horn for

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Speaker 1: some purpose or another. But the science is still interesting. Right. So,

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Speaker 1: when you see a rhinoceros, I think it's pretty clear

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Speaker 1: the first thing you're gonna notice about it is the horn.

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Speaker 1: In fact, the word rhinoceros comes from the observation of

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Speaker 1: the horn. Literally it means nose horn. Well, if not

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Speaker 1: the nose horn, they're just the sheer size of these creatures. Um,

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Speaker 1: if you happen to see one at a zoo, I

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Speaker 1: mean they're a megaphon that they are enormous. I was

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Speaker 1: in the past year. I was at the zoo down

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Speaker 1: in New Orleans, and if they're right their rhino habitat,

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Speaker 1: they have it laid out in such a way that

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Speaker 1: you can there's certainly a divider between you and the rhinos.

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Speaker 1: But but you're you're sort of at level, or perhaps

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Speaker 1: a little lower than the rhinos because they're kind of

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Speaker 1: they're kind of on a hill, a slight incline anyway,

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Speaker 1: So you're you're you're kind of instead of looking down

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Speaker 1: on them as if they're in a pit, like you

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Speaker 1: encountered a lot of zoos, uh, You're you're kind of

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Speaker 1: viewing them on their level, on your level, and it

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Speaker 1: just it just makes you realize even more just how

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Speaker 1: enormous these creatures are. Also makes it harder for a

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Speaker 1: suicidal person to jump down into the rhino pit, right, yeah,

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Speaker 1: because it's going to be a little more effort to

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Speaker 1: to meet your death in the hands of the rhino. Now.

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Speaker 1: A funny kind of linguistic connection, of course, is that

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Speaker 1: when when I look at a rhinoceros, one of the

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Speaker 1: things I often think is I see a dinosaur, and

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Speaker 1: I see that in in plenty of mammals. Actually, this

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Speaker 1: is this might be a weird peek into my messed

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Speaker 1: up brain. But when I see horses, I think of dinosaurs.

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Speaker 1: I'm not quite sure why. It's something about the elongation

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Speaker 1: of the face paired with the size of the animal.

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Speaker 1: But with the rhinoceros, it's it's definitely that horn. I mean,

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Speaker 1: it makes me think of the try sarratops. But the

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Speaker 1: linguistic connection is, you know, they've got the same thing

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Speaker 1: in the name the try sarah tops three horned face

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Speaker 1: and the rhinos seras the sarah there both comes from

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Speaker 1: the Greek keros for horn, nose, horn basically. Okay, Now,

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Speaker 1: currently there are five species and eleven subspecies of rhino.

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Speaker 1: Some have two horns while others have one. And uh,

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Speaker 1: we should really drive home a few facts about that horn.

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Speaker 1: Uh you can you can argue that it's not even

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Speaker 1: a true horn because it doesn't have a bone core.

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Speaker 1: So and if you see a skeleton of a rhino

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Speaker 1: in a museum, uh, sometimes you'll notice that there's no

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Speaker 1: that they won't have any kind of a horn fixture attached. Um.

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Speaker 1: I know this was the case at the Field Museum

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Speaker 1: in Chicago. They had some rhino skeletons. I can't recall

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Speaker 1: if they were um extent rhinos or some sort of

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Speaker 1: prehistoric rhino beast, but there was no horn present on

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Speaker 1: the skeleton. Interesting. The rhino horn actually has more in

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Speaker 1: common with horse hoofs or the beak of a of

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Speaker 1: a bird or turtle. It's made of keraton. This is

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Speaker 1: the stuff you find in hair and fingernails, and the

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Speaker 1: core of the horn contains dense mental deposits of calcium

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Speaker 1: and melanin. But it's not like a true bony core,

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Speaker 1: so it's more like a big, densely packed protein horn

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Speaker 1: rather than a bone horn. Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of

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Speaker 1: like just a big enormous fingernail in many respects. Now,

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Speaker 1: don't let that be deceiving, because it's still probably hurts

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Speaker 1: if it comes at you at high speed. Yes, yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's still a formidable weapon. That that the horns can

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Speaker 1: be cracked. The horns can be removed. I know that

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Speaker 1: the male rhino they previously had at Zoo Atlanta, Uh,

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Speaker 1: the horn became cracked and then they had to remove

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Speaker 1: it entirely. Yeah. Because so the horns can be removed,

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Speaker 1: the material of the horn can be ground down into

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Speaker 1: a powder, or it can be made in shavings. Uh,

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Speaker 1: And it can be carved, and it can be polished,

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Speaker 1: and when it's polished it it often takes on a

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Speaker 1: translucent quality and the luster allegedly increases with age. Now,

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Speaker 1: on one hand, it's hard to deny that many of

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Speaker 1: the artifacts that people make out of rhinoceros horns are

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Speaker 1: truly very beautiful. They're astonishing to look at. But we

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Speaker 1: shouldn't lose sight of the fact that you know, these

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Speaker 1: are acquired through the coaching of rhinoceroses, and in many

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Speaker 1: cases rhinoceroses are endangered or critically endangered species. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: we'll get into some of those those numbers here in

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Speaker 1: a bit, but if you want to see examples of

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Speaker 1: these these rhino horn drinking vessels, we will include two

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Speaker 1: images of them as well as some images of rhinos

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Speaker 1: on the landing page for this episode. It's stuff to

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Speaker 1: blow your mind dot Com. Now, I know throughout history

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Speaker 1: that the rhinoceros horn has had not just decorative purposes,

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Speaker 1: but believe it's believed to have had magical purposes as well.

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Speaker 1: That's right. Yeah, a lot of the magical uses for

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Speaker 1: rhino horns are rooted in ancient Asian practices, and these

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Speaker 1: entered into European culture as early as the Middle Ages

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Speaker 1: and intensified in the sixteenth and seventeen centuries within along

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Speaker 1: with increased European trade with the East and West Indies.

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Speaker 1: I found an excellent source on all of this from

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Speaker 1: an author by the name of Marnie P. Stark. Came

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Speaker 1: out in two thousand three, and it it's uh titled

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Speaker 1: mounted bees or stones, say, shells, nuts, and rhinoceros horns

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Speaker 1: decorative objects as antidotes in early modern Europe. So the

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Speaker 1: idea here is if if maybe you are that king

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Speaker 1: and you already had some poison, that in some sense

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Speaker 1: it was believed that some of these things might cure you,

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Speaker 1: or might save you, Yeah, or just serve as magical

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Speaker 1: protective elements. Uh. So the author here points out that,

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Speaker 1: you know, the thirteenth century in particular saw the European

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Speaker 1: introduction of quote, poison detectors or proofs of mounted griffin claws, serpents, tongues, toadstones,

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Speaker 1: and a host of other materials as quote part of

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Speaker 1: the rituals of dining, as well as rich collections. Oh

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Speaker 1: I like that, So like maybe one thing that you

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Speaker 1: truly think is functional. In one century at detecting poison

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Speaker 1: just becomes a sort of enjoyable and traditional part of

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Speaker 1: how you have dinner. Yeah, I mean, and and I

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Speaker 1: imagine you know, you may have somebody trying your food

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Speaker 1: for you to keep poison, uh from entering your system.

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Speaker 1: You may have spies everywhere and guards on hand, and

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Speaker 1: you're threatening everyone with with boiling if they try to

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Speaker 1: to get some sort of deadly poison into your body.

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Speaker 1: But it also helps to have a few magical trinkets

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Speaker 1: on hand just in case, just ahead your bat now, uh.

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Speaker 1: You you might be wondering. You know, we're not gonna

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Speaker 1: spend a lot of time on this, but you might think,

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Speaker 1: what are bees or stones? Well, these were allegedly un

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Speaker 1: obtained indigestible stone from the gas gastrow intestinal tract of

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Speaker 1: an animal such as a goat, and you would wear

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Speaker 1: it as an ambulant. And this is probably had an

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Speaker 1: Arabic origin. And sometimes these were mounted with bands of

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Speaker 1: metal or gold around them, so it would be kind

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Speaker 1: of like a paperweight that you know, I guess sets

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Speaker 1: on the table with you while you eat. I think

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Speaker 1: I recall them having something to do with the plot

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Speaker 1: of one of the Harry Potter books. Don't somebody swallow

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Speaker 1: a bees or to cure some kind of poison? Oh?

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Speaker 1: Maybe they do? Okay, that does that does ring about

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Speaker 1: our Potter fans will have to clue us in there.

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Speaker 1: She was always throwing an all sort of wonderful little

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Speaker 1: occult tidbits. Uh. And as far as Saychelle nuts go,

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Speaker 1: these are sa coconuts. It's so I said. You know,

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Speaker 1: it's just a it's just a coconut essentially, but it

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Speaker 1: is it has an exotic quality to it. Hey, if

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Speaker 1: you're in the fifteenth century Europe, you know, coconut looks

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Speaker 1: pretty magical. Now. The idea that that that horn, particularly

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Speaker 1: uh rhino horn, could have some sort of healing properties

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Speaker 1: or or poison detecting property properties, you see, that go

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Speaker 1: back at least as far as uh well, in one

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Speaker 1: case fifth century see Persia, where they believed that the

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Speaker 1: horn vessel could detect poisons and would cause a bubbling

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Speaker 1: in the liquid that was in the horn. Right. So,

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Speaker 1: if you're a lord who fears poisoning and somebody brings

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Speaker 1: you your rhino horn goblet of wine, you sit it

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Speaker 1: down for a while, and you observe it, and if

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Speaker 1: it starts to froth up, you know that your servant

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Speaker 1: is well you probably don't actually know, but you might

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Speaker 1: as well accuse your servant of trying to kill you. Well,

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Speaker 1: you have to boil somebody at that point, otherwise who's

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Speaker 1: gonna fear you? Right, there's a wonderful quote here that

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Speaker 1: Stark included uh in in the paper, and this is

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Speaker 1: from Swedish traveler Carl Peter Thunberg seventeen seventy three. Around

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Speaker 1: the Cape of Good Hope, the horn of the rhinoceros

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Speaker 1: were kept by some people not only as rarities, but

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Speaker 1: also as useful in disease and for the purpose of

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Speaker 1: detecting poisons. As to the former of these intentions, the

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Speaker 1: fine shavings of the horn taken internally were supposed to

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Speaker 1: cure convulsions and spasms and children. With regard to the later,

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Speaker 1: it was generally believed that goblets made of these horns

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Speaker 1: in a turner's lathe could would discover a poisonous draft

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Speaker 1: that was put into them by making the liquor ferment

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Speaker 1: until it ran quite out of the goblet. Such horns

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Speaker 1: as were taken from a young rhinoceros calf were said

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Speaker 1: to be the best and the most to be depended on.

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Speaker 1: Of these goblets are may which are set in gold

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Speaker 1: and silver and made presents to kings, people of distinction,

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Speaker 1: and particular friends or else sold at high high price,

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Speaker 1: sometimes at the rate of fixed fifty six dollars a goblin.

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Speaker 1: Now those are seventeen seventy three dollars. Yes, fifty six

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Speaker 1: dollars went a lot further back then. Yeah, you know,

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Speaker 1: I got to imagine that if you're thinking the rhino

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Speaker 1: horn cup has these powers, it may tie in via

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Speaker 1: the type of magical thinking that was common then to

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Speaker 1: the powers of the rhinoceros itself. Surely, right, I mean,

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Speaker 1: I think that was a common mode of thought. Like

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Speaker 1: a powerful beast that you know in life has some

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Speaker 1: has a strong body and can do great harm or

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Speaker 1: something if it's enraged, can also be powerful in a

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Speaker 1: magical sense if you take objects from its body or

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Speaker 1: some kind of sympathetic magic things that have touched it

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Speaker 1: or come from it. Yeah, and so many of these

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Speaker 1: these vessels also had rhinos carved on them, so they

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Speaker 1: really didn't want you to forget where this came from.

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Speaker 1: That was part of the branding, right. The rhin know

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Speaker 1: long had a reputation in the West as a ferocious

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Speaker 1: beast chat capable of conquering all others, and this was

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Speaker 1: thanks in no small part to observations by Pompey the

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Speaker 1: Great and the writings of Plenty of the Elder frequent

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Speaker 1: a frequent topic here on the show, one of our

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Speaker 1: favorite sources of ancient misinformation. Yes, uh so, one of

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Speaker 1: these rhinos is said to have fought an elephant in

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Speaker 1: the Games of POMPEII, and another one came to Europe

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Speaker 1: in fifteen fifteen as a gift to King Manuel of Lisbon,

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Speaker 1: and he he also you know, since he had a

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Speaker 1: rhino and apparently had an elephant as well, he planned

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Speaker 1: to just recreate the battle. What was wrong with these people,

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Speaker 1: I know, to fight animals to get this amazing creature,

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Speaker 1: you know, imported, and then the first thing you want

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Speaker 1: to do do is fight them. I mean even Pablo Escobar. Uh,

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Speaker 1: I don't think he did that. I think he just

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Speaker 1: kept the exotic animals around. Whatever. Yeah, so, in this case,

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Speaker 1: in case you're wondering, the rhino allegedly won the barbaric sport. Uh.

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Speaker 1: But but before it died, an artist sketched the animal

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Speaker 1: and he sent it to a certain artist of note,

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Speaker 1: right albreat Dearer in in Nuremberg. And so this is

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Speaker 1: where we get this classic image. If you have not

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Speaker 1: seen it, you should look up Dearer's Rhinoceros. D u

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Speaker 1: r e er So Juror did many of these drawings

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Speaker 1: and woodcuts of the sixteenth century, and this image is

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Speaker 1: just out of this world. It looks like an hr

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Speaker 1: Geeger creation. And I'm not making that up, am I Robert.

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Speaker 1: It's this bio mechanical robot alien or Also, I can

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Speaker 1: imagine that you could look at it as a melancholy

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Speaker 1: animal with these sad, downcast eyes covered in finally machined

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Speaker 1: metal armor with psychedelic designs. Yeah, I mean that that

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00:16:49,080 --> 00:16:51,040
Speaker 1: describes it to a t. It seems like something that

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Speaker 1: you would see tromping around in a like a weird

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Speaker 1: psychedelic fringe animated film, like something Mobius would have created. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: It's it's like some thing out of the Codex Saraphoninus,

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Speaker 1: except it's it's a real animal. Yeah, And you know

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Speaker 1: he was, of course, he was going off of this

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Speaker 1: this illustration. He's going off, you know, you know, secondhand

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Speaker 1: information here and uh and he but he did get

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Speaker 1: the idea of the rhino down, especially if this was

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Speaker 1: indeed an Indian rhino, which has more sort of skin

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Speaker 1: flaps going on, it does have more of an armor

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Speaker 1: plating appearance. And he just in his interpretation of the rhino,

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Speaker 1: he really takes us and runs with it. He just

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00:17:31,440 --> 00:17:34,320
Speaker 1: exaggerates it to fantastic effect. Yeah, that does appear to

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Speaker 1: be what's going on, because here we see the rhino

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Speaker 1: in the image has one horn, and it's got these

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Speaker 1: long ridges going across its armor plates, and it also

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Speaker 1: has an extra little no if you noticed this on

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Speaker 1: the illustration near the word rhinos, there's a horn above

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Speaker 1: the shoulder blade. Yeah, which is interesting. And it looks

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Speaker 1: a lot like a small unicorn horn, which I think

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Speaker 1: is interesting and it ties into our topic here because

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Speaker 1: in Stark's paper, she nights that the antidotal powers of

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Speaker 1: the horn, the idea that you could, you know, take

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Speaker 1: the powder of the horn and it would cure some

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Speaker 1: ailment or cure a poison inside you. Uh, that these

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Speaker 1: were barred from tales of the mythical unicorn. She writes

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Speaker 1: that since at least the fourteenth century, the horn of

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Speaker 1: the unicorn, which was in turn usually a narwhal or

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Speaker 1: walrus tusk um to begin with, oh, those walls, those

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Speaker 1: narwhal horns are great. By the way, that narwhal horn,

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Speaker 1: it's a tooth. Did you know that? Yeah? I I

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Speaker 1: And there was some recent news about the narwhale. There's

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00:18:33,600 --> 00:18:35,440
Speaker 1: some new footage I want to say. I mean, can

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Speaker 1: you imagine if like a human was like this, like

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Speaker 1: if you had like one six foot tooth just shooting

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Speaker 1: straight out the front of your mouth, we could probably

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Speaker 1: do a whole episode on all the teeth were thankful

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Speaker 1: we don't have, I mean you count narwhale teeth and

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Speaker 1: uh or the barbar russo where the you know, the

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Speaker 1: tusk will grow up, grows up through the like the

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Speaker 1: basically the roof of its snout and curve back around

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Speaker 1: and die eve into their brain if if they're, if

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00:19:03,000 --> 00:19:07,399
Speaker 1: they're they're left to grow that long yeah uh yeah,

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00:19:07,440 --> 00:19:09,840
Speaker 1: but we'll let me believe that for another another episode.

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Speaker 1: The long front tooth. It certainly makes kissing hard. Yes, uh,

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00:19:14,600 --> 00:19:16,400
Speaker 1: well with the barbarousa. Not to get too off topic,

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Speaker 1: the other I mean, the weird thing is they when

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Speaker 1: they fight, these things are brittle, so they just they

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Speaker 1: break off. So it's like I said, be thankful. It's

356
00:19:24,080 --> 00:19:27,280
Speaker 1: weird as human teeth are as awful as they can be. Um,

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00:19:27,359 --> 00:19:30,000
Speaker 1: they're worst way to have teeth. Well anyway, So we

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00:19:30,040 --> 00:19:33,080
Speaker 1: have all these ancient teeth, tusks, horns, things that people

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00:19:33,240 --> 00:19:36,520
Speaker 1: think are from unicorns, and they're believed to have these

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00:19:36,520 --> 00:19:39,399
Speaker 1: magical powers. Oh yeah, yeah, with the unicorn horn or

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00:19:39,400 --> 00:19:41,639
Speaker 1: the alleged unicorn horn. They believe that you could use

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Speaker 1: as a remedy for poison, you could use it to

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Speaker 1: to cure diseases, even the plague. And then when Europeans

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00:19:47,920 --> 00:19:51,080
Speaker 1: began encountering the rhinoceros and it's and uh and it's

365
00:19:51,119 --> 00:19:54,080
Speaker 1: horn uh, you know, out when they were traveling and abroad,

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Speaker 1: then the reality in the myth became intertwined. So they

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Speaker 1: took what what they observed about the rhino, and then

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00:19:59,600 --> 00:20:02,720
Speaker 1: in turn, they took what others and farm lands told

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00:20:02,760 --> 00:20:05,000
Speaker 1: them about the rhino and their magical beliefs, and then

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00:20:05,040 --> 00:20:07,320
Speaker 1: they took their own ideas about the unicorn, and it

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00:20:07,359 --> 00:20:11,280
Speaker 1: all just came kind of became meshed together. Um, they

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00:20:11,320 --> 00:20:14,919
Speaker 1: you know, they encountered all these uh, additional traditions of

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Speaker 1: magico medicinal powers that were associated with the rhino horn,

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Speaker 1: and they incorporated them into their own beliefs. And weirdly enough,

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Speaker 1: some accounts indicate that even when rhino horn and unicorn

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00:20:26,320 --> 00:20:30,960
Speaker 1: were considered distinct, uh you know, so people believed in

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00:20:31,040 --> 00:20:33,840
Speaker 1: both unicorn horns and rhino horns and thought they were

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00:20:33,840 --> 00:20:36,520
Speaker 1: separate things. Yeah, you know, and that even in these

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00:20:36,560 --> 00:20:40,160
Speaker 1: cases there are instances where where they talk about, well,

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Speaker 1: if you can't get unicorn horn, rhino horn will do,

381
00:20:43,280 --> 00:20:46,159
Speaker 1: you're giving away the game go on. So what's the

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00:20:46,240 --> 00:20:50,280
Speaker 1: point of the unicorn horn? Now? In terms of of

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00:20:50,320 --> 00:20:55,239
Speaker 1: other uh nationalities and other cultural beliefs regarding the rhino horn, um,

384
00:20:55,440 --> 00:20:58,600
Speaker 1: there are various tidbits about this. For starters, a fourth

385
00:20:58,640 --> 00:21:02,880
Speaker 1: century Chinese writer Old Kung believed that horns were antidotal

386
00:21:03,280 --> 00:21:07,479
Speaker 1: because the rhino eight poisonous plants and trees, enabling it

387
00:21:07,520 --> 00:21:10,480
Speaker 1: to conquer the poison. Oh okay, so there's a slightly

388
00:21:10,520 --> 00:21:14,119
Speaker 1: more you know, proto scientific way of thinking about it,

389
00:21:14,280 --> 00:21:17,119
Speaker 1: not you know, not quite fully rigorous, but you can

390
00:21:17,200 --> 00:21:21,320
Speaker 1: you can see the chain of cause and effect going on. Yeah,

391
00:21:21,359 --> 00:21:25,080
Speaker 1: it's not just Hey, it's magic. There's an attempt to

392
00:21:25,160 --> 00:21:30,480
Speaker 1: understand what could be underlying this presumed effect. Now, in

393
00:21:30,600 --> 00:21:34,520
Speaker 1: terms of all the various medicinal qualities alleged medicinal qualities

394
00:21:34,600 --> 00:21:37,639
Speaker 1: of of the rhino horn, this is pretty common in

395
00:21:37,680 --> 00:21:43,000
Speaker 1: the traditional medicine systems of Malaysia, South Korea, India, and

396
00:21:43,040 --> 00:21:45,760
Speaker 1: of course China. So so you've got it in Chinese

397
00:21:45,840 --> 00:21:48,600
Speaker 1: traditional medicine. What did they think it did well? The

398
00:21:48,640 --> 00:21:51,000
Speaker 1: idea was that you could take shaved or powdered horn

399
00:21:51,240 --> 00:21:55,439
Speaker 1: and it could be boiled in water to treat fever, rheumatism, gout,

400
00:21:55,800 --> 00:21:59,919
Speaker 1: and various other conditions. Sixteenth century. That's a mean dynas

401
00:22:00,280 --> 00:22:03,600
Speaker 1: Chinese pharmacist and just general polly math. This guy was

402
00:22:03,760 --> 00:22:07,960
Speaker 1: really amazing. Lee shi Jin wrote that it could even

403
00:22:08,000 --> 00:22:14,000
Speaker 1: cure snake bites, hallucinations, typhoid headaches, carbuncles, vomiting, food poisoning,

404
00:22:14,040 --> 00:22:18,840
Speaker 1: and devil possession. Now, the interesting thing is that you'll

405
00:22:18,880 --> 00:22:21,560
Speaker 1: find various sources out there there that say, you know,

406
00:22:21,600 --> 00:22:24,199
Speaker 1: I'm rather scandalously Oh well, you know, we have all

407
00:22:24,200 --> 00:22:27,159
Speaker 1: these problem with rhino poaching because people in Asia use

408
00:22:27,240 --> 00:22:31,960
Speaker 1: it as an aphrodisiac, which the thing is where I

409
00:22:31,960 --> 00:22:36,120
Speaker 1: could run across of no verifiable information about that being

410
00:22:36,160 --> 00:22:40,080
Speaker 1: the case, no actual cases of of of brno horn

411
00:22:40,200 --> 00:22:45,000
Speaker 1: being prescribed as an aphrodisiac, for instance, in traditional Chinese medicine. Now,

412
00:22:45,040 --> 00:22:47,040
Speaker 1: on the other hand, I will say that it seems

413
00:22:47,080 --> 00:22:52,040
Speaker 1: like almost anything is sometimes prescribed as an aphrodisiac. Yeah,

414
00:22:52,080 --> 00:22:54,639
Speaker 1: and you know that's not I mean you can see where,

415
00:22:54,640 --> 00:22:57,800
Speaker 1: even if it's not part of traditional medical medical systems,

416
00:22:58,000 --> 00:23:01,800
Speaker 1: it would not take mutt for something to for a

417
00:23:01,800 --> 00:23:04,600
Speaker 1: belief to become tweaked in that direction, you know. I

418
00:23:04,600 --> 00:23:07,000
Speaker 1: mean I could start a rumor today that canned crab

419
00:23:07,119 --> 00:23:10,159
Speaker 1: is an aphrodisiac. It wasn't this, This was on something

420
00:23:10,200 --> 00:23:13,560
Speaker 1: what was there was something about canned crab as you

421
00:23:13,640 --> 00:23:17,080
Speaker 1: know this is on Game of Thrones, right, no spoilers, Yeah, okay,

422
00:23:17,160 --> 00:23:18,520
Speaker 1: I knew it was. It was like is it Rick

423
00:23:18,560 --> 00:23:20,760
Speaker 1: and Morty or is it Game of Thrones? Could go

424
00:23:20,800 --> 00:23:23,560
Speaker 1: either way. Um, but yeah, as far as as far

425
00:23:23,560 --> 00:23:25,760
Speaker 1: as I could tell, and if anyone out there has

426
00:23:25,840 --> 00:23:30,880
Speaker 1: more information on illicit any legal aphrodisiacs, let me know.

427
00:23:31,000 --> 00:23:35,400
Speaker 1: But I found like multiple like spokespeople on behalf of

428
00:23:35,480 --> 00:23:38,360
Speaker 1: Chinese traditional medicine who were saying, no, this is not

429
00:23:38,560 --> 00:23:41,520
Speaker 1: that's that's not something we use it for. Uh though,

430
00:23:42,200 --> 00:23:43,960
Speaker 1: of course they're having to they've been they've had to

431
00:23:44,000 --> 00:23:48,720
Speaker 1: address the other uses and come up with botanical alternatives

432
00:23:48,960 --> 00:23:52,639
Speaker 1: to rhino horn. Now the hm you mean because of

433
00:23:52,680 --> 00:23:57,320
Speaker 1: ecological considerations, yes, yes, Now the ancient Greeks they also

434
00:23:57,600 --> 00:23:59,760
Speaker 1: used the horn as well, and they said that he

435
00:23:59,800 --> 00:24:03,919
Speaker 1: could purify water. So we see sort of similar overlap there. Now,

436
00:24:04,000 --> 00:24:07,320
Speaker 1: on top of all these magical medicinal uses, it's worth

437
00:24:07,359 --> 00:24:10,240
Speaker 1: noting that with it you can just have a purely

438
00:24:10,359 --> 00:24:13,640
Speaker 1: ornamental use of the horn as well. I mean as

439
00:24:13,640 --> 00:24:16,480
Speaker 1: far as you can you know, have any purely ornamental

440
00:24:16,640 --> 00:24:20,879
Speaker 1: use of of a man made material, right, but just

441
00:24:21,160 --> 00:24:23,960
Speaker 1: using it for various ornamental purposes that dates back at

442
00:24:24,040 --> 00:24:27,120
Speaker 1: least two seventh centuries see each China, and it's long

443
00:24:27,160 --> 00:24:31,400
Speaker 1: been a Yeminy practice where you have these a special daggers,

444
00:24:31,440 --> 00:24:35,720
Speaker 1: these jambilla daggers, and you would have the hilt of

445
00:24:35,720 --> 00:24:38,840
Speaker 1: the thing carved out of rhino horn. I mean, I

446
00:24:38,840 --> 00:24:41,159
Speaker 1: think I already mentioned this earlier, but it is something

447
00:24:41,200 --> 00:24:44,600
Speaker 1: that struck me multiple times when I was looking through

448
00:24:44,640 --> 00:24:48,000
Speaker 1: the images of these artifacts, which is that it's I

449
00:24:48,320 --> 00:24:51,520
Speaker 1: want to acknowledge the artistry and the beauty that goes

450
00:24:51,560 --> 00:24:54,240
Speaker 1: into crafting these well, at the same time not approving

451
00:24:54,359 --> 00:24:57,080
Speaker 1: of things that are made out of the bodies of

452
00:24:57,200 --> 00:25:01,880
Speaker 1: endangered animals. Yeah, because you you want to admire them

453
00:25:01,920 --> 00:25:03,600
Speaker 1: for their beauty, but you don't want to admire them

454
00:25:03,600 --> 00:25:07,520
Speaker 1: so much that you're sort of contributing to a cultural

455
00:25:07,560 --> 00:25:12,040
Speaker 1: desire for these items. So if you're if you're even

456
00:25:12,119 --> 00:25:16,480
Speaker 1: thinking about acquiring a rhino horn artifact, Uh, then make

457
00:25:16,520 --> 00:25:18,240
Speaker 1: sure you listen to the rest of the episode because

458
00:25:18,240 --> 00:25:21,080
Speaker 1: we'll get into some of the the ramifications of all

459
00:25:21,119 --> 00:25:23,400
Speaker 1: of this. All Right, we're gonna take a quick break,

460
00:25:23,440 --> 00:25:26,159
Speaker 1: and when we come back, we will talk more about

461
00:25:26,320 --> 00:25:28,399
Speaker 1: what science has to say about the chemistry of the

462
00:25:28,440 --> 00:25:36,360
Speaker 1: rhino horn. All right, we're back. So, Robert, is their

463
00:25:36,440 --> 00:25:40,520
Speaker 1: solid scientific evidence that we should use the rhinoceros horn

464
00:25:40,640 --> 00:25:45,840
Speaker 1: for its magical and scientific medicinal properties? Uh No, there's not.

465
00:25:45,960 --> 00:25:50,159
Speaker 1: I mean, science can certainly but in and say, well,

466
00:25:50,160 --> 00:25:52,640
Speaker 1: first of all, there's no such thing as magic. Uh

467
00:25:52,680 --> 00:25:55,240
Speaker 1: there's there's such thing as medicine, and to a certain extent,

468
00:25:55,280 --> 00:25:57,440
Speaker 1: there's such things you know, there there is the placebo

469
00:25:57,480 --> 00:26:00,400
Speaker 1: effect that has to be taken to account in all adders.

470
00:26:00,440 --> 00:26:03,159
Speaker 1: But you can have you know, wood chips, and that

471
00:26:03,240 --> 00:26:06,719
Speaker 1: can have a placebo effect if you have you know,

472
00:26:06,920 --> 00:26:10,600
Speaker 1: a belief in the wood chip as a curative element. Okay,

473
00:26:10,640 --> 00:26:13,439
Speaker 1: But so while there is not broad agreement in the

474
00:26:13,480 --> 00:26:17,120
Speaker 1: scientific community that rhino horn even I mean even ecological

475
00:26:17,160 --> 00:26:20,879
Speaker 1: consideration consideration society, even if you could get synthetic stuff,

476
00:26:21,960 --> 00:26:24,199
Speaker 1: like if the horns fell off and we're just you know,

477
00:26:24,280 --> 00:26:27,880
Speaker 1: laying over the ground, right, even then there's not good

478
00:26:27,920 --> 00:26:30,760
Speaker 1: evidence that we should use it for whatever. All these

479
00:26:30,760 --> 00:26:35,959
Speaker 1: purposes are, curing fever, curing devil possession, or food poisoning. Um.

480
00:26:36,400 --> 00:26:40,600
Speaker 1: There might be some tidbits, right, some little areas where

481
00:26:40,640 --> 00:26:45,080
Speaker 1: there's some crossover there in just talking about the idea

482
00:26:45,240 --> 00:26:48,679
Speaker 1: of consuming the horn for as as a medicinal element.

483
00:26:50,119 --> 00:26:52,520
Speaker 1: There's there's almost no evidence to support it. And what

484
00:26:52,680 --> 00:26:55,679
Speaker 1: little evidence there is, it's just so miniscule that it

485
00:26:55,760 --> 00:26:59,000
Speaker 1: does not it doesn't make it worth anybody's while it

486
00:26:59,000 --> 00:27:02,520
Speaker 1: doesn't make it worth you know, breaking the law risking

487
00:27:02,760 --> 00:27:07,640
Speaker 1: um um, you know, arrest or death trying to cut

488
00:27:07,680 --> 00:27:10,600
Speaker 1: off a rhino's horn, and and it's not worth the

489
00:27:10,920 --> 00:27:13,320
Speaker 1: money or the or the you know, the risk of

490
00:27:13,359 --> 00:27:16,399
Speaker 1: engaging in the legal activity to consume it. Um, let

491
00:27:16,480 --> 00:27:19,080
Speaker 1: me get into the examples here. So in uh In

492
00:27:19,200 --> 00:27:22,720
Speaker 1: Ninete researchers at Chinese University in Hong Kong, they found

493
00:27:22,760 --> 00:27:27,520
Speaker 1: that large doses of horn could slightly lower fever in rats.

494
00:27:28,040 --> 00:27:30,879
Speaker 1: But the concentration here was so it was, it was

495
00:27:30,920 --> 00:27:33,280
Speaker 1: so great that it was it far exceeded what was

496
00:27:33,440 --> 00:27:36,439
Speaker 1: used in traditional Chinese medicine. Anyway, I wonder what the

497
00:27:36,480 --> 00:27:38,640
Speaker 1: long term side effects are of just eating a bunch

498
00:27:38,680 --> 00:27:41,280
Speaker 1: of ground up keratin. Well, I mean it's it would

499
00:27:41,280 --> 00:27:43,679
Speaker 1: be it would I guess, be like if you just

500
00:27:43,760 --> 00:27:45,960
Speaker 1: chewed your fingernails your whole life and like not counting

501
00:27:45,960 --> 00:27:48,639
Speaker 1: any you know, damage to your your nail beds or whatever.

502
00:27:48,680 --> 00:27:50,880
Speaker 1: But just if you eight fingernail clippings all the time,

503
00:27:51,000 --> 00:27:53,600
Speaker 1: or ground up fingernail clippings into a fine powder and

504
00:27:53,600 --> 00:27:56,560
Speaker 1: put it in your smoothie every morning, and in fact,

505
00:27:57,320 --> 00:28:00,919
Speaker 1: in an interview with PBS Nature, ecologist raj Amen of

506
00:28:00,920 --> 00:28:03,560
Speaker 1: the Zoological Society of London says you'd be better off

507
00:28:03,640 --> 00:28:07,639
Speaker 1: doing just that than engaging in the consumption of rhino horn.

508
00:28:08,080 --> 00:28:10,959
Speaker 1: So like, if you want to lower your fever a

509
00:28:11,000 --> 00:28:13,800
Speaker 1: little bit, and you don't have access to aspirin or

510
00:28:13,840 --> 00:28:15,840
Speaker 1: any of the normal stuff you'd used to do that,

511
00:28:16,720 --> 00:28:21,200
Speaker 1: you might just eat all your fingernails and hair. I guess, yeah,

512
00:28:21,240 --> 00:28:23,560
Speaker 1: But you know you probably have access to these other

513
00:28:23,680 --> 00:28:27,120
Speaker 1: things that would work much better and are far more verified. Uh.

514
00:28:27,160 --> 00:28:32,240
Speaker 1: In his seven Jama Dermatology article skin Potions, which is

515
00:28:32,280 --> 00:28:36,679
Speaker 1: just a lovely title for a paper, Leonard M. Millstone

516
00:28:36,760 --> 00:28:40,240
Speaker 1: m D wrote that powders of rhino horn amount to

517
00:28:40,360 --> 00:28:45,720
Speaker 1: quote no more than compacted stratum corneum. That's the outermost

518
00:28:45,800 --> 00:28:49,160
Speaker 1: layer of the epidermist, consisting of dead skin. Right, so

519
00:28:49,200 --> 00:28:52,160
Speaker 1: we're back to the keratin. Yeah. And according to a

520
00:28:52,160 --> 00:28:55,520
Speaker 1: two thousand fourteen New Scientists article, like Curtis Abraham, a

521
00:28:55,600 --> 00:29:00,520
Speaker 1: Taiwanese human study found that rhino horn could temporarily reduce

522
00:29:00,640 --> 00:29:03,520
Speaker 1: fever in children, but was no more effective than aspirint,

523
00:29:03,760 --> 00:29:06,520
Speaker 1: and animal studies in the UK and South Africa discovered

524
00:29:06,600 --> 00:29:12,680
Speaker 1: no pharmacological effects of this or any animal horn at all. Well,

525
00:29:12,720 --> 00:29:16,200
Speaker 1: I think that's about what what we would expect right now,

526
00:29:17,200 --> 00:29:20,440
Speaker 1: to just go back to traditional Chinese medicine for a second.

527
00:29:21,080 --> 00:29:23,920
Speaker 1: I do want to mention as well, then in in

528
00:29:24,000 --> 00:29:26,120
Speaker 1: most of those models, you wouldn't you wouldn't have someone

529
00:29:26,200 --> 00:29:28,440
Speaker 1: just consuming the horn. The horn would would have be

530
00:29:28,600 --> 00:29:32,160
Speaker 1: the ground up horn would be utilized with other ingredients,

531
00:29:32,360 --> 00:29:35,440
Speaker 1: herbs or what have you. So you know, you could

532
00:29:35,480 --> 00:29:40,280
Speaker 1: make the argue, well, some concoction that contained the horn

533
00:29:40,400 --> 00:29:44,080
Speaker 1: might work, but if it did work, it's not the

534
00:29:44,120 --> 00:29:46,920
Speaker 1: horn that's probably causing it. It's something else in the

535
00:29:47,560 --> 00:29:49,640
Speaker 1: in the potion, if you will. I mean, this is

536
00:29:49,840 --> 00:29:53,120
Speaker 1: the classic potion trick, right, if you just throw a

537
00:29:53,160 --> 00:29:56,200
Speaker 1: whole bunch of stuff into a cauldron and get somebody

538
00:29:56,240 --> 00:29:59,520
Speaker 1: to take it. On one hand, you've got placebo effect working.

539
00:29:59,520 --> 00:30:01,440
Speaker 1: On the other hand, you threw a bunch of stuff

540
00:30:01,480 --> 00:30:05,000
Speaker 1: in there and something might do something. And then third,

541
00:30:05,160 --> 00:30:08,400
Speaker 1: there's this thing that that I think we've talked about before,

542
00:30:08,440 --> 00:30:12,000
Speaker 1: like the idea that essentially any detectable effect can sort

543
00:30:12,000 --> 00:30:16,840
Speaker 1: of be interpreted as the desired effect. Yeah, and now

544
00:30:17,000 --> 00:30:19,000
Speaker 1: you can also say some cost probably plays a role

545
00:30:19,040 --> 00:30:21,240
Speaker 1: as well, because at this point you've gone to the

546
00:30:21,240 --> 00:30:25,480
Speaker 1: apothecary store, You've you've paid for this stuff, and you've

547
00:30:25,520 --> 00:30:27,480
Speaker 1: probably had to sort of choke it back. You've so

548
00:30:27,520 --> 00:30:30,240
Speaker 1: you've gone through sort of three trials to get there,

549
00:30:30,360 --> 00:30:32,760
Speaker 1: so it better do something. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna.

550
00:30:32,880 --> 00:30:35,520
Speaker 1: I'm gonna believe it did something. Otherwise I wasted all

551
00:30:35,520 --> 00:30:38,200
Speaker 1: this time and energy. You're riding my favorite horse. The

552
00:30:38,280 --> 00:30:43,320
Speaker 1: some cost fallacy explains a lot. Now, Luckily, in China, Taiwan,

553
00:30:43,400 --> 00:30:46,760
Speaker 1: and South Korea, rhino horn has been completely banned from

554
00:30:46,920 --> 00:30:50,680
Speaker 1: use in medicine since about and in China it can

555
00:30:50,720 --> 00:30:54,240
Speaker 1: only be used in research. So, as we'll discuss, there's

556
00:30:54,240 --> 00:30:57,800
Speaker 1: been a lot of efforts to curb the poaching of

557
00:30:57,880 --> 00:31:00,680
Speaker 1: rhinos in the illicit trade of rhino horn. Now, what

558
00:31:00,920 --> 00:31:05,240
Speaker 1: about this old belief that we started off with that

559
00:31:05,400 --> 00:31:06,840
Speaker 1: you know, if you're a king or a queen and

560
00:31:06,880 --> 00:31:09,760
Speaker 1: you fear poisoning, you could have a rhino horn cup

561
00:31:10,520 --> 00:31:13,880
Speaker 1: that would detect any poisons placed within it. Is there

562
00:31:13,920 --> 00:31:17,200
Speaker 1: any scientific evidence that that could be true? Well, as

563
00:31:17,240 --> 00:31:20,440
Speaker 1: it turns out, there is, and it comes down to

564
00:31:20,480 --> 00:31:23,560
Speaker 1: the fact that, you know, as we've mentioned, there's this

565
00:31:23,640 --> 00:31:26,800
Speaker 1: idea that the poison would bubble or froth or froth

566
00:31:26,840 --> 00:31:29,680
Speaker 1: and bubble out over the the edge of the cup

567
00:31:30,280 --> 00:31:32,600
Speaker 1: if there was a poison in it. And so therefore

568
00:31:32,640 --> 00:31:35,840
Speaker 1: we have what appears to be an account of a

569
00:31:35,880 --> 00:31:39,760
Speaker 1: chemical reaction. And where there's chemical, where there's chemistry, there's

570
00:31:39,840 --> 00:31:41,760
Speaker 1: there's science. Right, there's a potential for there to be

571
00:31:42,120 --> 00:31:46,040
Speaker 1: some actual chemical reaction taking place. So I'm I've had

572
00:31:46,080 --> 00:31:49,880
Speaker 1: trouble finding a primary source on this, but it's it's

573
00:31:49,880 --> 00:31:54,080
Speaker 1: been widely reported by PPS Nature, rhino conservation groups, in

574
00:31:54,160 --> 00:31:58,720
Speaker 1: various academic patriot papers that there may be scientific grounds

575
00:31:58,960 --> 00:32:02,000
Speaker 1: for this in some cases. So as you'll remember, the

576
00:32:02,080 --> 00:32:05,440
Speaker 1: rhino horn is keratin, right, stuff in your hair and fingernails,

577
00:32:06,200 --> 00:32:11,280
Speaker 1: and what do many poisons contain alkaline? This is a

578
00:32:11,440 --> 00:32:14,080
Speaker 1: like like a base as opposed to an acid, uh,

579
00:32:14,200 --> 00:32:18,560
Speaker 1: and this may react chemically with the kerotene, and this

580
00:32:18,600 --> 00:32:23,080
Speaker 1: can produce fropping, foaming, or bubbles. So in in the

581
00:32:23,120 --> 00:32:26,760
Speaker 1: instance that someone is trying to poison you with a

582
00:32:26,920 --> 00:32:30,360
Speaker 1: with a with an alkaline poison, there is the possibility

583
00:32:30,400 --> 00:32:32,800
Speaker 1: that the cup could detect it. Now, Joe, I know

584
00:32:32,840 --> 00:32:34,920
Speaker 1: you looked into this as well. Were you able to

585
00:32:34,960 --> 00:32:40,040
Speaker 1: find any additional information on this, uh, this possible chemical reaction? Well,

586
00:32:40,080 --> 00:32:42,400
Speaker 1: I I yeah, I mean I I thought about this,

587
00:32:42,480 --> 00:32:46,920
Speaker 1: and I want to start with one claim about because

588
00:32:46,920 --> 00:32:48,880
Speaker 1: as you said, you know, this is claimed all over

589
00:32:48,920 --> 00:32:51,760
Speaker 1: the place, but nobody has exactly explained how it would work.

590
00:32:52,480 --> 00:32:54,920
Speaker 1: Uh So, one of one of the claims I found

591
00:32:54,960 --> 00:32:58,280
Speaker 1: on this was from a paper, or actually it was

592
00:32:58,320 --> 00:33:00,640
Speaker 1: a It was a sort of a book length work

593
00:33:01,440 --> 00:33:05,000
Speaker 1: published in or X the International Journal of Conservation called

594
00:33:05,000 --> 00:33:07,880
Speaker 1: a Look at Threatened Species by Lee Miriam Talbot in

595
00:33:08,000 --> 00:33:11,720
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty. And the author here is talking about how

596
00:33:11,800 --> 00:33:15,040
Speaker 1: rhino horns are used with regard to poisons. And this

597
00:33:15,160 --> 00:33:18,640
Speaker 1: is what the author claims. Quote in Sumatra, it should

598
00:33:18,640 --> 00:33:21,440
Speaker 1: be drunk as a purgative if one feels the first

599
00:33:21,560 --> 00:33:25,080
Speaker 1: signs of poisoning. In Burma, a belief exists that when

600
00:33:25,120 --> 00:33:28,520
Speaker 1: one puts rhino horn shavings into a cup containing poison,

601
00:33:28,840 --> 00:33:32,600
Speaker 1: they will bubble and smoke. In Nepal. In parts of India,

602
00:33:32,640 --> 00:33:34,960
Speaker 1: the belief is that if poison is placed into a

603
00:33:35,080 --> 00:33:39,320
Speaker 1: rhino horn cup, the poison will bubble, discolor or become harmless,

604
00:33:39,720 --> 00:33:44,040
Speaker 1: or else the coup will slowly disintegrate or shatter. Interestingly enough,

605
00:33:44,080 --> 00:33:47,520
Speaker 1: there may be some basis for this latter belief. Many

606
00:33:47,560 --> 00:33:50,720
Speaker 1: of the old poisons were strong alkaloids, and the horn

607
00:33:50,920 --> 00:33:54,160
Speaker 1: is what amounts to an agglutination of hair closer in

608
00:33:54,240 --> 00:33:58,160
Speaker 1: structure to toenails than to cattle horns or deer antlers.

609
00:33:58,160 --> 00:34:00,560
Speaker 1: Such a structure would indeed be a afected by a

610
00:34:00,640 --> 00:34:04,520
Speaker 1: strong alkaloid. Although the shattering and other dramatic behavior is

611
00:34:04,560 --> 00:34:08,680
Speaker 1: probably an embellishment. It's a wonderful embellishment though, because it

612
00:34:08,800 --> 00:34:11,560
Speaker 1: just sounds fantastic that the king is at his table,

613
00:34:12,200 --> 00:34:14,759
Speaker 1: the wine is poured into this vessel and it is

614
00:34:14,800 --> 00:34:18,480
Speaker 1: so poisonous that it just shatters the magical vessel. Yeah,

615
00:34:18,600 --> 00:34:21,040
Speaker 1: and so like he says, that might be an embellishment,

616
00:34:21,160 --> 00:34:23,600
Speaker 1: But I think there's a chance that there's something to

617
00:34:23,760 --> 00:34:25,959
Speaker 1: this for certain kinds of poisons. Like we said, most

618
00:34:26,000 --> 00:34:28,279
Speaker 1: of the sources we found that claim this don't really

619
00:34:28,280 --> 00:34:30,279
Speaker 1: explain how it would work. But I think I've got

620
00:34:30,320 --> 00:34:33,960
Speaker 1: an idea. Um it might work for any poisons that

621
00:34:34,000 --> 00:34:38,120
Speaker 1: are relatively strong bases. As we mentioned. And here's my example.

622
00:34:39,280 --> 00:34:41,600
Speaker 1: When your shower drain gets clogged and the water gets

623
00:34:41,680 --> 00:34:44,560
Speaker 1: backed up and starts to collect around your ankles, what's

624
00:34:44,560 --> 00:34:48,040
Speaker 1: going on, Well, unless you're doing something really weird in

625
00:34:48,080 --> 00:34:51,239
Speaker 1: the shower, the substance most likely clogging your shower or

626
00:34:51,280 --> 00:34:55,279
Speaker 1: bathtub drain pipe is what well, it's hair, right, yeah,

627
00:34:55,480 --> 00:34:57,760
Speaker 1: I mean unless you're like eating olives in the shower

628
00:34:57,840 --> 00:35:01,279
Speaker 1: and spitting the pits down the during it. Anyway, Yeah,

629
00:35:01,280 --> 00:35:03,640
Speaker 1: it's hair. It's gonna be mostly hair made of keratin.

630
00:35:03,719 --> 00:35:05,759
Speaker 1: So what do you do? Well? You can't just run

631
00:35:05,880 --> 00:35:09,720
Speaker 1: water over the hair until it dissolves. That's never gonna happen. Keratin,

632
00:35:09,840 --> 00:35:12,400
Speaker 1: which is what hair is made of, is highly stable

633
00:35:12,440 --> 00:35:15,960
Speaker 1: in water and resists dissolution. So you will have to

634
00:35:16,000 --> 00:35:19,439
Speaker 1: avail yourself of some different weapons. Now, if you've got

635
00:35:19,719 --> 00:35:22,120
Speaker 1: special equipment like a drain snake and a d i

636
00:35:22,280 --> 00:35:24,759
Speaker 1: y attitude, you might be able to do that, but

637
00:35:24,840 --> 00:35:27,799
Speaker 1: most people probably I know what you do? What do

638
00:35:27,840 --> 00:35:30,520
Speaker 1: you do? You go out, you snag a bottle of

639
00:35:30,560 --> 00:35:33,160
Speaker 1: what you get some of that drain o, right, Because,

640
00:35:33,440 --> 00:35:36,600
Speaker 1: like you said, the snake option is uh is good

641
00:35:36,640 --> 00:35:38,120
Speaker 1: if you really want to get in there and if

642
00:35:38,160 --> 00:35:41,360
Speaker 1: you want to behold what is down there, pull that

643
00:35:41,400 --> 00:35:45,200
Speaker 1: wolf tail out, yeah, which I don't recommend, but I

644
00:35:45,239 --> 00:35:47,400
Speaker 1: mean sometimes that's what you gotta do. Well, But the

645
00:35:47,640 --> 00:35:49,680
Speaker 1: draino is is great because you just pour it down

646
00:35:49,760 --> 00:35:51,520
Speaker 1: there and you just let it sit for a little

647
00:35:51,520 --> 00:35:54,480
Speaker 1: bit and you're done. Right now, I'm not necessarily advocating

648
00:35:54,480 --> 00:35:56,960
Speaker 1: the use of chemical drain cleaners, especially because they can

649
00:35:57,000 --> 00:35:59,560
Speaker 1: be dangerous if they splash back on you or something

650
00:35:59,640 --> 00:36:02,600
Speaker 1: like that. So, uh, you know, it is what it is.

651
00:36:02,640 --> 00:36:06,120
Speaker 1: People use this stuff. Now, what's the main active ingredient

652
00:36:06,280 --> 00:36:09,480
Speaker 1: in most chemical drain cleaners, for example, drain O It's

653
00:36:09,480 --> 00:36:13,439
Speaker 1: gonna be sodium hydroxide, which is in a O H

654
00:36:13,480 --> 00:36:18,160
Speaker 1: also known as LIE. Sodium hydroxide is this highly alkaline

655
00:36:18,239 --> 00:36:24,040
Speaker 1: inorganic substance that has a caustic reaction with proteins, proteins

656
00:36:24,080 --> 00:36:27,600
Speaker 1: like the carrot like in hair. So essentially it fizzes

657
00:36:27,640 --> 00:36:31,080
Speaker 1: and eats right through organic matter, including the protein keratin,

658
00:36:31,760 --> 00:36:35,960
Speaker 1: which is the main ingredient in hair and in rhinoceros horns.

659
00:36:36,000 --> 00:36:39,880
Speaker 1: So now it's more complicated than this because medieval poisoners,

660
00:36:39,920 --> 00:36:44,480
Speaker 1: probably we're not putting drain cleaner into the lord's wine goblet. Uh.

661
00:36:44,520 --> 00:36:48,040
Speaker 1: And the source I mentioned a minute ago called out alkaloids,

662
00:36:48,080 --> 00:36:51,600
Speaker 1: and there is a difference between an alkaline and an alkaloid,

663
00:36:51,680 --> 00:36:56,680
Speaker 1: though most but not all, alkaloids are alkaline. But anyway,

664
00:36:56,719 --> 00:37:00,359
Speaker 1: if the poisoning question is a reasonably strong bait, if

665
00:37:00,360 --> 00:37:02,600
Speaker 1: it's if it's strongly alkaline. I think there is a

666
00:37:02,640 --> 00:37:05,760
Speaker 1: good chance it would react with a keratin based cup.

667
00:37:06,280 --> 00:37:09,200
Speaker 1: Dissolving and reacting with the walls of the vessel would

668
00:37:09,200 --> 00:37:12,600
Speaker 1: be kind of like storing drain cleaner in a chalice

669
00:37:12,640 --> 00:37:18,920
Speaker 1: of tightly woven hair. Disgusting, well, the chalice of tightly

670
00:37:18,920 --> 00:37:21,759
Speaker 1: woven hair. This makes me think of of of a

671
00:37:21,760 --> 00:37:25,480
Speaker 1: piece of art titled Breakfast and Fur. Have you ever

672
00:37:25,480 --> 00:37:28,480
Speaker 1: seen this? No? I don't think it's like like dinnerware

673
00:37:28,719 --> 00:37:32,359
Speaker 1: made out of hair or fur? You know? So who

674
00:37:32,440 --> 00:37:35,440
Speaker 1: did that? I can't remember the name. I have a

675
00:37:35,480 --> 00:37:38,440
Speaker 1: friend of mine from from high school studied like a

676
00:37:39,200 --> 00:37:43,440
Speaker 1: fabric art material art and this was a piece that

677
00:37:43,560 --> 00:37:47,920
Speaker 1: she uh that inspired her her email address. So it's

678
00:37:48,000 --> 00:37:50,600
Speaker 1: always stuck in my head. All right, Well, on that note,

679
00:37:50,800 --> 00:37:52,680
Speaker 1: let's take one more break, and when we come back,

680
00:37:52,800 --> 00:37:55,799
Speaker 1: we're going to discuss the rhinoceros a little bit more,

681
00:37:56,400 --> 00:38:01,280
Speaker 1: the various extinct and extant species out there, as well

682
00:38:01,320 --> 00:38:06,160
Speaker 1: as the whole conundrum of of of anti poaching efforts

683
00:38:06,239 --> 00:38:14,319
Speaker 1: and rhino conservation. Alright, we're back, So Joe, let's let's

684
00:38:14,360 --> 00:38:18,000
Speaker 1: talk about extinct rhinos. First, do you have any any favorites. Well,

685
00:38:18,120 --> 00:38:21,200
Speaker 1: I know you're going to mention Elasmothereum. Oh yeah, that's

686
00:38:21,200 --> 00:38:24,600
Speaker 1: the big one. That the ugly unicorn. The ugly unicorn.

687
00:38:24,640 --> 00:38:27,120
Speaker 1: Why do people think it's ugly? I mean, I think

688
00:38:27,120 --> 00:38:30,000
Speaker 1: it's beautiful. It's I think the problem is that sometimes

689
00:38:31,120 --> 00:38:35,480
Speaker 1: well there's some actual unicorn mythology to consider here, but

690
00:38:35,880 --> 00:38:38,440
Speaker 1: you'll have these in these situations where the science papers,

691
00:38:38,440 --> 00:38:42,080
Speaker 1: the science journalism will pick up elasmotherium news and they'll

692
00:38:42,120 --> 00:38:44,239
Speaker 1: talk about it as if it's a unicorn. And then

693
00:38:44,239 --> 00:38:47,680
Speaker 1: people will look at this big, uh, ferocious beast and

694
00:38:47,719 --> 00:38:51,160
Speaker 1: they'll compare it to those beautiful unicorns from say the

695
00:38:51,239 --> 00:38:56,239
Speaker 1: Last Unicorn or Legend, and they don't quite they don't

696
00:38:56,239 --> 00:38:58,920
Speaker 1: think the comparison doesn't stack up. Was there a unicorn

697
00:38:58,920 --> 00:39:02,520
Speaker 1: in legend? There were two unicorns? What did they do? Oh?

698
00:39:02,640 --> 00:39:05,640
Speaker 1: That that was the whole deal, right that the goblins

699
00:39:05,680 --> 00:39:09,040
Speaker 1: like took the unicorns horn and oh yeah, and the

700
00:39:09,200 --> 00:39:11,840
Speaker 1: big Tim Curry devil creature had the horn and it

701
00:39:11,960 --> 00:39:14,880
Speaker 1: was in I don't know, I only remember Tim Curry

702
00:39:14,920 --> 00:39:17,920
Speaker 1: from that movie. And the soundtrack, oh yeah, the soundtrack

703
00:39:18,040 --> 00:39:21,200
Speaker 1: is wonderful. Tangerine Dream soundtrack on that one Um, yeah,

704
00:39:21,239 --> 00:39:23,880
Speaker 1: I don't. It's a film where the visuals in the

705
00:39:24,360 --> 00:39:26,759
Speaker 1: sound stick with me, but I'm not really sure I

706
00:39:26,760 --> 00:39:30,120
Speaker 1: remember the plot at all. But yeah, at any rate,

707
00:39:30,239 --> 00:39:36,640
Speaker 1: Elasmothereum the and in particular Elasmotherium sibericum is an interesting

708
00:39:36,719 --> 00:39:38,520
Speaker 1: case that ties in with all the stuff we've been

709
00:39:38,560 --> 00:39:40,560
Speaker 1: talking about because there was a recent study in the

710
00:39:40,600 --> 00:39:43,719
Speaker 1: American Journal of Applied Sciences that placed the beast in

711
00:39:43,840 --> 00:39:47,719
Speaker 1: modern day Kazakhstan a mere twenty nine thousand years ago,

712
00:39:47,800 --> 00:39:51,480
Speaker 1: while previous estimates placed it outside the two hundred thousand

713
00:39:51,560 --> 00:39:54,239
Speaker 1: year run of human history. Okay, so that means we

714
00:39:54,239 --> 00:39:57,600
Speaker 1: could have been interacting, right, And this supports an argument

715
00:39:57,680 --> 00:40:01,000
Speaker 1: that myths of the Western unicorn and even the various

716
00:40:01,080 --> 00:40:06,840
Speaker 1: Eastern beasts such as the Chinese quillon or the Japanese kiran,

717
00:40:07,120 --> 00:40:11,040
Speaker 1: are based on accounts of human interactions with the actual

718
00:40:11,440 --> 00:40:16,480
Speaker 1: unihorned beasts now in China. There's also the counter argument

719
00:40:16,560 --> 00:40:20,000
Speaker 1: that the Asian rhino populations once existed in grade in

720
00:40:20,120 --> 00:40:23,440
Speaker 1: number throughout ancient China, and that's what these myths are

721
00:40:23,480 --> 00:40:27,759
Speaker 1: referring to. And indeed this is based on historical writings,

722
00:40:28,200 --> 00:40:32,040
Speaker 1: art and even uh, you know, fossil evidence UH, and

723
00:40:32,120 --> 00:40:35,040
Speaker 1: this would have this would have been the northern Sumatra

724
00:40:35,080 --> 00:40:40,560
Speaker 1: and rhino in particular. Now, in terms of other extinct

725
00:40:40,880 --> 00:40:44,520
Speaker 1: rhino species, we have some some recent, fairly recent additions

726
00:40:44,520 --> 00:40:48,319
Speaker 1: to that list. The Western black rhinoceros, the sub This

727
00:40:48,440 --> 00:40:52,120
Speaker 1: is a sub Saharan Africa UH species. Primarily it was

728
00:40:52,200 --> 00:40:55,800
Speaker 1: found in Cameroon. This was just declared extinct in twleven

729
00:40:56,200 --> 00:40:58,040
Speaker 1: and it may have been extinct for some five or

730
00:40:58,080 --> 00:41:00,200
Speaker 1: six years at that point. Now, but there is till

731
00:41:00,200 --> 00:41:03,680
Speaker 1: a black rhinoceros that exists right, yes, but these are

732
00:41:03,680 --> 00:41:08,160
Speaker 1: just variations of the black rhino that have blinked out.

733
00:41:08,239 --> 00:41:12,120
Speaker 1: For instance, the Southern black rhinoceros disappeared around eighteen fifty

734
00:41:12,200 --> 00:41:16,719
Speaker 1: and the Northeastern black rhino also went extinct sometime in

735
00:41:16,760 --> 00:41:19,960
Speaker 1: the twentieth century. And of course there are all these

736
00:41:20,000 --> 00:41:24,960
Speaker 1: additional cool prehistoric rhinos and rhino like beasts that we

737
00:41:24,960 --> 00:41:26,319
Speaker 1: don't really have time to get into. But you have

738
00:41:26,400 --> 00:41:31,239
Speaker 1: like the Wooly rhino, the Titanic hornless rhinos known as

739
00:41:31,320 --> 00:41:36,640
Speaker 1: the parasceratherium, and the wonderful sort of sling shot horned

740
00:41:37,360 --> 00:41:41,280
Speaker 1: mega serops. These were and these were not technically rhinos.

741
00:41:41,320 --> 00:41:44,240
Speaker 1: They were just rhino like that. I was always intrigued

742
00:41:44,280 --> 00:41:47,480
Speaker 1: by the images of them in my childhood, like prehistoric

743
00:41:47,520 --> 00:41:50,759
Speaker 1: animal books, because it looks like the formation for a slingshot,

744
00:41:51,120 --> 00:41:54,279
Speaker 1: you know, it's like a a y shaped horn. Oh,

745
00:41:54,360 --> 00:41:56,719
Speaker 1: I know what you're talking about. Yeah, you can just

746
00:41:56,760 --> 00:42:00,319
Speaker 1: imagine them, you know, somehow acquiring large rubber bands and

747
00:42:00,360 --> 00:42:04,040
Speaker 1: outfitting them and I don't know, finding smaller mammals to

748
00:42:04,239 --> 00:42:07,759
Speaker 1: ride atop their their neck can fire projectiles out of it.

749
00:42:07,840 --> 00:42:10,359
Speaker 1: I mean they also kind of just look like they're

750
00:42:10,400 --> 00:42:13,879
Speaker 1: perfectly designed to like skewer your buttocks if the thing

751
00:42:14,000 --> 00:42:17,680
Speaker 1: tosses you into the air. Yeah, true, Yeah, and that

752
00:42:17,800 --> 00:42:20,840
Speaker 1: was probably more in keeping with the actual purpose of

753
00:42:20,960 --> 00:42:25,320
Speaker 1: the of the horn. Now, in terms of the rhinos

754
00:42:25,440 --> 00:42:28,160
Speaker 1: that we have today that are still left in the world,

755
00:42:28,480 --> 00:42:32,840
Speaker 1: we have, as we mentioned earlier, five different varieties. There's

756
00:42:32,840 --> 00:42:36,480
Speaker 1: the white rhino and this is found in northern, northern,

757
00:42:36,480 --> 00:42:40,640
Speaker 1: and southern varieties in Africa. Um, the northern is extinct

758
00:42:40,640 --> 00:42:44,400
Speaker 1: in the wild, but the southern rhino, they're in estimated

759
00:42:44,560 --> 00:42:48,799
Speaker 1: roughly twenty thousand, four hundred and five individuals left in

760
00:42:48,800 --> 00:42:51,640
Speaker 1: the world, and that's the most abundant one right right,

761
00:42:51,719 --> 00:42:53,720
Speaker 1: that's the if you want to call a success story,

762
00:42:53,719 --> 00:42:56,880
Speaker 1: that's the success story. Um, some of these other the

763
00:42:56,960 --> 00:42:59,959
Speaker 1: numbers are gonna gonna dip as we proceed, though. There's

764
00:43:00,000 --> 00:43:03,520
Speaker 1: a black rhino that's still found in eastern and Southern Africa.

765
00:43:03,600 --> 00:43:06,600
Speaker 1: This one has has two horns, by the way, much

766
00:43:06,640 --> 00:43:09,560
Speaker 1: like the white, and this one is you're looking at

767
00:43:09,560 --> 00:43:13,280
Speaker 1: around five thousand or five thousand and fifty five individuals left.

768
00:43:13,840 --> 00:43:16,120
Speaker 1: Then we have the Indian rhino, and this is found

769
00:43:16,160 --> 00:43:19,920
Speaker 1: in India, Nepal, part of Pakistan. It has one horn.

770
00:43:20,000 --> 00:43:22,000
Speaker 1: This is the one with the fabulous skin folds. It

771
00:43:22,040 --> 00:43:26,680
Speaker 1: looks really cool, and you'll find somewhere around three thousand,

772
00:43:26,719 --> 00:43:29,000
Speaker 1: five hundred and fifty five of these left in the wild.

773
00:43:30,280 --> 00:43:33,200
Speaker 1: Then you have the Java and rhino, and this is

774
00:43:33,239 --> 00:43:36,520
Speaker 1: only found in Java, Indonesia. The male has one horn,

775
00:43:36,600 --> 00:43:39,680
Speaker 1: the females are hornless, and as of two thousand sixteen,

776
00:43:40,040 --> 00:43:43,200
Speaker 1: only sixty three individuals remained in the wild and in

777
00:43:43,320 --> 00:43:48,520
Speaker 1: captivity combined. So are they thinking that could come back

778
00:43:48,600 --> 00:43:51,040
Speaker 1: or is that passed the point in no return? I don't,

779
00:43:51,520 --> 00:43:53,520
Speaker 1: I don't know. You know, that's you're getting down to

780
00:43:53,560 --> 00:43:57,240
Speaker 1: such slim numbers. There that you, Well, we've seen cases

781
00:43:57,280 --> 00:44:01,160
Speaker 1: with other species where the numbers become so reduced that

782
00:44:01,239 --> 00:44:03,640
Speaker 1: even if you are able to bounce the species back,

783
00:44:04,080 --> 00:44:06,839
Speaker 1: then there's not gonna be a lot of genetic diversity there.

784
00:44:07,280 --> 00:44:10,439
Speaker 1: So it's gonna be a continuing uphill battle and you're

785
00:44:10,520 --> 00:44:13,440
Speaker 1: certainly not going to have what you once had. Uh.

786
00:44:13,440 --> 00:44:16,040
Speaker 1: And then finally we have the Sumatran rhino, which is

787
00:44:16,160 --> 00:44:18,080
Speaker 1: one of the ones that I really like. You only

788
00:44:18,120 --> 00:44:21,680
Speaker 1: find this in the very high altitudes of Borneo and Sumatra.

789
00:44:22,360 --> 00:44:24,520
Speaker 1: It has two horns, and then it's it's hairy. It

790
00:44:24,560 --> 00:44:27,560
Speaker 1: has this kind of reddish looking hair. They're really they're

791
00:44:27,560 --> 00:44:30,040
Speaker 1: really cool if you if you look up videos or

792
00:44:30,040 --> 00:44:32,960
Speaker 1: photos of these guys. They're also relatively small, aren't they. Yeah,

793
00:44:33,000 --> 00:44:35,960
Speaker 1: they're the smallest of the of the extent rhinos, and

794
00:44:36,000 --> 00:44:39,120
Speaker 1: they're only around two hundred seventy five left in the world.

795
00:44:40,200 --> 00:44:43,440
Speaker 1: All told, there were around five hundred thousand rhinos left

796
00:44:43,520 --> 00:44:46,120
Speaker 1: in African Asia at the beginning of the twentieth century,

797
00:44:46,360 --> 00:44:49,319
Speaker 1: and today it's more like twenty nine thousand in the

798
00:44:49,360 --> 00:44:53,520
Speaker 1: wild due to poaching and loss of habitat. Now, if

799
00:44:53,520 --> 00:44:55,960
Speaker 1: we're looking to act on this immediately, to try to

800
00:44:56,000 --> 00:44:58,880
Speaker 1: turn that around and help populations bounce back. It seems

801
00:44:58,920 --> 00:45:05,640
Speaker 1: like it'll it'll take longer to restore damaged or lost habitats. Right,

802
00:45:05,680 --> 00:45:08,240
Speaker 1: But is there anything that can be done about poaching

803
00:45:08,280 --> 00:45:11,160
Speaker 1: immediately or is this just one of those wicked problems

804
00:45:11,200 --> 00:45:14,040
Speaker 1: that you know, it's uh, it's like the gopher game,

805
00:45:14,160 --> 00:45:17,560
Speaker 1: like you can't stop it. Well, there's some there have

806
00:45:17,600 --> 00:45:20,040
Speaker 1: been some wonderful proposals on how to deal with it.

807
00:45:20,120 --> 00:45:22,800
Speaker 1: We'll we'll touch on some of these, but it it

808
00:45:23,120 --> 00:45:24,960
Speaker 1: does seem more and more like a wicked problem, like

809
00:45:24,960 --> 00:45:28,000
Speaker 1: they're just they're a number of converging elements here. And

810
00:45:28,280 --> 00:45:31,160
Speaker 1: there's some very well being initiatives that have come out

811
00:45:31,440 --> 00:45:34,919
Speaker 1: to try and curb the poaching of of rhino horn

812
00:45:35,000 --> 00:45:38,080
Speaker 1: and the illicit trade of rhino horn, but you know,

813
00:45:38,560 --> 00:45:42,319
Speaker 1: nothing is really stuck. Nothing has really managed to cut

814
00:45:42,360 --> 00:45:45,000
Speaker 1: into that trade too much. And then, you know, to

815
00:45:45,080 --> 00:45:49,040
Speaker 1: your point, when you couple this with tremendous habitat loss,

816
00:45:49,280 --> 00:45:52,160
Speaker 1: which has challenged a number of of animals and certainly

817
00:45:52,160 --> 00:45:54,640
Speaker 1: the megafauna that used to you know, roam free in

818
00:45:54,680 --> 00:46:00,160
Speaker 1: these areas, uh, you have quite a problem. Now poaching

819
00:46:00,239 --> 00:46:03,840
Speaker 1: again has been a major factor in rhino endangerment and extinction.

820
00:46:04,280 --> 00:46:06,680
Speaker 1: And while you you can eat rhino meat and they

821
00:46:06,680 --> 00:46:08,600
Speaker 1: have been killed in the past for their meat and

822
00:46:08,640 --> 00:46:11,719
Speaker 1: their skin, uh, the horn seems to be the main

823
00:46:11,840 --> 00:46:14,719
Speaker 1: thing that's that's causing the poaching. And that's because the

824
00:46:14,760 --> 00:46:16,480
Speaker 1: corn is the part of the rhino that fetches the

825
00:46:16,560 --> 00:46:20,120
Speaker 1: highest price. That's that's what they're being poached for. Uh.

826
00:46:20,120 --> 00:46:22,600
Speaker 1: And sometimes the poachers drugged the animal and saw the

827
00:46:22,600 --> 00:46:26,200
Speaker 1: horn off, but other times they are taking more than

828
00:46:26,239 --> 00:46:28,480
Speaker 1: the horn after drugging the animal, or they're just straight

829
00:46:28,560 --> 00:46:31,680
Speaker 1: up killing the animal. So what what kind of efforts

830
00:46:31,760 --> 00:46:36,759
Speaker 1: can be established to prevent poaching or at least discourage it. Well,

831
00:46:36,800 --> 00:46:38,879
Speaker 1: we've touched on some of the legal efforts. So it's

832
00:46:38,880 --> 00:46:42,080
Speaker 1: it's currently illegal for rhino horn sales to take place

833
00:46:42,080 --> 00:46:46,520
Speaker 1: between countries, but interestingly enough, it's not illegal in South Africa,

834
00:46:46,800 --> 00:46:50,200
Speaker 1: not anymore so. In April of this year, South African

835
00:46:50,320 --> 00:46:53,840
Speaker 1: courts ruled that sales of rhino horns could take place

836
00:46:53,920 --> 00:46:56,920
Speaker 1: provided the seller had a permit. And with these permitted

837
00:46:56,960 --> 00:47:01,719
Speaker 1: cases were generally talking breeding farm um. The horns in

838
00:47:01,719 --> 00:47:06,080
Speaker 1: these cases are removed painlessly and humanely, The leading a

839
00:47:06,160 --> 00:47:09,920
Speaker 1: rhino farmer a John Hume, according to BBC News, he

840
00:47:09,960 --> 00:47:13,400
Speaker 1: believes that it's such a legal and open trade is

841
00:47:13,400 --> 00:47:16,280
Speaker 1: is going to be beneficial because as the trade, because

842
00:47:16,320 --> 00:47:18,160
Speaker 1: the trade first of all can raise money that can

843
00:47:18,200 --> 00:47:20,960
Speaker 1: help but conserve the species. And he also thinks that

844
00:47:21,000 --> 00:47:24,480
Speaker 1: these open, legal sales will drive down the price of

845
00:47:24,560 --> 00:47:28,680
Speaker 1: illicit horn and reduce poaching. Now, critics say that this

846
00:47:28,719 --> 00:47:31,560
Speaker 1: practice will only increase the demand for for the horn.

847
00:47:31,640 --> 00:47:34,359
Speaker 1: It will you know, perhaps even normalize it. Plus, if

848
00:47:34,360 --> 00:47:37,879
Speaker 1: you have a legitimate trade taking place, then that can

849
00:47:37,960 --> 00:47:41,960
Speaker 1: provide cover for illegitimate trade to take place, you know. Right,

850
00:47:42,000 --> 00:47:44,160
Speaker 1: So if you're if you're trying to create a stigma

851
00:47:44,280 --> 00:47:47,000
Speaker 1: around the sale of rhino horns, even if you've been failing,

852
00:47:47,360 --> 00:47:49,960
Speaker 1: it's going to be even harder to establish that stigma

853
00:47:50,080 --> 00:47:53,520
Speaker 1: if you're also selling legit horns next door. Well yeah,

854
00:47:53,560 --> 00:47:56,799
Speaker 1: And also like let's say that you're you're traveling out

855
00:47:56,800 --> 00:47:59,400
Speaker 1: of South Africa and some you know, an official opens

856
00:47:59,400 --> 00:48:01,840
Speaker 1: your bag and it has rhino horns in it and

857
00:48:01,880 --> 00:48:04,960
Speaker 1: they say what's this and you go, oh, these are

858
00:48:05,040 --> 00:48:08,439
Speaker 1: legal rhino horns. I have a permit um and maybe

859
00:48:08,480 --> 00:48:10,680
Speaker 1: you have a fake permit like if permits exist, you

860
00:48:10,719 --> 00:48:13,040
Speaker 1: have a leg up on deceiving the system. But if

861
00:48:13,040 --> 00:48:16,040
Speaker 1: there's no such thing as a legal uh um, you know,

862
00:48:16,320 --> 00:48:19,439
Speaker 1: a legal sale of rhino horns, then there's no way

863
00:48:19,440 --> 00:48:21,080
Speaker 1: you could pass that off. Just to put it in

864
00:48:21,160 --> 00:48:24,239
Speaker 1: very simple terms, now, I guess one big question would

865
00:48:24,239 --> 00:48:28,680
Speaker 1: be or the farmed humane horns cheaper than the poached horns?

866
00:48:29,520 --> 00:48:31,680
Speaker 1: I think that would be the idea right there. You

867
00:48:31,680 --> 00:48:34,920
Speaker 1: would do this to drive down the price, like why

868
00:48:34,920 --> 00:48:37,600
Speaker 1: why pay all this, uh this additional money for an

869
00:48:37,600 --> 00:48:40,120
Speaker 1: illegitimate horn when you can get the real thing for

870
00:48:40,239 --> 00:48:43,759
Speaker 1: cheaper uh and it's official and it's verifiable. Now, there

871
00:48:43,760 --> 00:48:46,239
Speaker 1: have there have been efforts to curb poaching by practicing

872
00:48:46,239 --> 00:48:49,200
Speaker 1: horn removal, uh you know in the wild as well

873
00:48:49,239 --> 00:48:51,680
Speaker 1: as as well as a tactic that actually brings this

874
00:48:51,800 --> 00:48:56,960
Speaker 1: full circle poisoning the rhino horn to prevent its eventual consumption.

875
00:48:57,960 --> 00:49:00,840
Speaker 1: What Yeah, So the ideas you would drew two holes

876
00:49:00,880 --> 00:49:03,799
Speaker 1: into it and then you would you would pump in

877
00:49:04,320 --> 00:49:08,560
Speaker 1: a poison in particular would be a highly toxic ectoparasiticide

878
00:49:09,239 --> 00:49:10,879
Speaker 1: and it would have a die with it as well.

879
00:49:11,000 --> 00:49:17,720
Speaker 1: So you would have this drilled, discolored horn that would ideally, uh,

880
00:49:18,320 --> 00:49:21,799
Speaker 1: announced to any poachers, don't steal this horn. This horn

881
00:49:21,920 --> 00:49:24,839
Speaker 1: is poisoned and if you if you claim this horn

882
00:49:24,880 --> 00:49:28,160
Speaker 1: and sell it, it could kill somebody or make them sick. Now,

883
00:49:28,200 --> 00:49:32,200
Speaker 1: obviously the goal would not be too just poison people

884
00:49:32,320 --> 00:49:34,800
Speaker 1: for consuming rhino horn. The goal would be to prevent

885
00:49:34,840 --> 00:49:37,239
Speaker 1: the poaching in the first place. Well, I saw I

886
00:49:37,280 --> 00:49:40,480
Speaker 1: saw some quotes that seemed to imply the former as well.

887
00:49:40,480 --> 00:49:42,960
Speaker 1: They're saying like this, this will punish somebody who take

888
00:49:43,120 --> 00:49:45,960
Speaker 1: who consumes it, which is, you know, a weird moral

889
00:49:46,400 --> 00:49:48,640
Speaker 1: leg to try and stand on. I think, well, I

890
00:49:49,000 --> 00:49:50,960
Speaker 1: don't know that's great. I mean, I believe very much

891
00:49:50,960 --> 00:49:53,480
Speaker 1: in rhino conservation, but I don't think the answer is

892
00:49:53,520 --> 00:49:59,000
Speaker 1: poisoning humans. I think that the larger idea here would be, well,

893
00:49:59,080 --> 00:50:02,360
Speaker 1: first of all, create the idea that there are poisoned

894
00:50:02,400 --> 00:50:05,719
Speaker 1: rhino horns, and then this would discourage the poaching. But though,

895
00:50:05,760 --> 00:50:08,440
Speaker 1: one of the problems here is that the individuals doing

896
00:50:08,480 --> 00:50:12,040
Speaker 1: the poaching they really don't care about the consumer. They're

897
00:50:12,120 --> 00:50:16,359
Speaker 1: they're selling to a middleman anyway, so well, what does

898
00:50:16,400 --> 00:50:18,399
Speaker 1: it matter to them? And then they're and they're you're

899
00:50:18,400 --> 00:50:21,920
Speaker 1: probably not thinking really long term about the illicit rhinal

900
00:50:21,960 --> 00:50:24,160
Speaker 1: horn industry. Well, I guess the question is does it

901
00:50:24,280 --> 00:50:26,640
Speaker 1: work well? Based on what I've been reading, it has not,

902
00:50:27,280 --> 00:50:31,360
Speaker 1: so savvy sands. This is a private game reserve adjacent

903
00:50:31,400 --> 00:50:34,840
Speaker 1: to the Kruger National Park. Uh, they tried the poison

904
00:50:34,920 --> 00:50:38,120
Speaker 1: method and it didn't work. Poachers still came middle of

905
00:50:38,120 --> 00:50:43,640
Speaker 1: then still presumably bought the horn. Didn't make any difference. Plus,

906
00:50:43,680 --> 00:50:46,799
Speaker 1: as pointed out by Save the Rhino Dot Org, as

907
00:50:46,880 --> 00:50:49,920
Speaker 1: Asian traditional medicines reduced the need for rhino horn as

908
00:50:49,960 --> 00:50:51,920
Speaker 1: they sort of try and spread the message that you

909
00:50:51,920 --> 00:50:54,319
Speaker 1: don't need rhino horn, that there are other, uh, you know,

910
00:50:54,400 --> 00:50:58,160
Speaker 1: various ingredients that will supposedly do the same job. And

911
00:50:58,200 --> 00:51:01,080
Speaker 1: the poison horn could just be used for ornamental purposes

912
00:51:01,160 --> 00:51:04,480
Speaker 1: and you know, would would still would still drive up

913
00:51:04,600 --> 00:51:08,520
Speaker 1: the demand for rhino horn. And then there are some

914
00:51:08,560 --> 00:51:11,240
Speaker 1: additional criticisms as well. There's the idea that the poison

915
00:51:11,280 --> 00:51:14,040
Speaker 1: could wind up driving up the cost of unpoisoned horn.

916
00:51:14,360 --> 00:51:16,839
Speaker 1: So you've polluted the market. But that means there's even

917
00:51:16,960 --> 00:51:21,120
Speaker 1: less rhino horn out there for individuals wanting to consume it,

918
00:51:21,840 --> 00:51:24,600
Speaker 1: and therefore it would be more expensive. And then Finally,

919
00:51:24,800 --> 00:51:26,719
Speaker 1: this is a big one, too big area too. If

920
00:51:26,719 --> 00:51:28,840
Speaker 1: you're going to go out and start, you know, doing

921
00:51:28,880 --> 00:51:32,719
Speaker 1: widespread rhino horn poisoning, well then you need people to

922
00:51:32,760 --> 00:51:36,440
Speaker 1: go out find the rhinos, uh, subdue them, you know,

923
00:51:36,480 --> 00:51:39,480
Speaker 1: assume I assume drug them, then you know, do the

924
00:51:39,560 --> 00:51:43,879
Speaker 1: performedive procedure on the horn. And uh, you're talking about

925
00:51:43,880 --> 00:51:47,080
Speaker 1: a treatment of hundreds and hundreds of rhinos in these cases. Now,

926
00:51:47,120 --> 00:51:50,320
Speaker 1: even though the poison in this scheme wouldn't get into

927
00:51:50,320 --> 00:51:52,960
Speaker 1: the rhino and harm it directly, you can imagine blood

928
00:51:52,960 --> 00:51:55,439
Speaker 1: flow to the in the horn. Yeah, you can still

929
00:51:55,440 --> 00:51:59,279
Speaker 1: imagine that just the process of like drugging the rhinos

930
00:51:59,280 --> 00:52:01,799
Speaker 1: so that this could be done, could lead to some

931
00:52:01,880 --> 00:52:04,640
Speaker 1: injuries or could harm some rhinos. Yeah, I mean it

932
00:52:04,719 --> 00:52:07,080
Speaker 1: kind of comes back to the same situation as with

933
00:52:07,239 --> 00:52:10,600
Speaker 1: widespread horn removal, like somebody has to do it, somebody

934
00:52:10,600 --> 00:52:14,239
Speaker 1: has to pay for it, and uh, and it's just

935
00:52:14,440 --> 00:52:17,280
Speaker 1: generally not going to be the manpower and the money

936
00:52:17,320 --> 00:52:21,360
Speaker 1: on hand. Now, there are some other interesting schemes that

937
00:52:21,400 --> 00:52:23,680
Speaker 1: have come into place to try and uh and raise

938
00:52:23,840 --> 00:52:27,879
Speaker 1: funds for rhino conservation efforts, perhaps such as these and

939
00:52:28,040 --> 00:52:32,120
Speaker 1: some of those, oddly enough, include hunting permits for rhinos.

940
00:52:33,000 --> 00:52:35,880
Speaker 1: Various areas have offered a very limited number of these

941
00:52:36,200 --> 00:52:39,879
Speaker 1: for you know, you know, big ticket westerners to come

942
00:52:39,920 --> 00:52:42,560
Speaker 1: in and uh and shoot a rhino, with the money

943
00:52:43,080 --> 00:52:46,960
Speaker 1: presumably going for going to rhino conservation efforts, you know,

944
00:52:47,160 --> 00:52:51,480
Speaker 1: along the same lines as warning people about poisoned horns.

945
00:52:51,560 --> 00:52:53,840
Speaker 1: I mean, I just wonder if so if the basis

946
00:52:53,880 --> 00:52:56,920
Speaker 1: of medicinal demand for rhino horn or belief in the

947
00:52:56,960 --> 00:53:02,160
Speaker 1: magical powers of the rhino horn is pernicious false rumors

948
00:53:02,200 --> 00:53:05,640
Speaker 1: about what the horns can do to help you, I mean,

949
00:53:05,680 --> 00:53:08,800
Speaker 1: I wonder if it would be possible to to combat

950
00:53:08,880 --> 00:53:13,480
Speaker 1: that just with pernicious rumors about the dangers of rhino horns.

951
00:53:13,760 --> 00:53:16,680
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess that would be That's tough because

952
00:53:16,680 --> 00:53:19,120
Speaker 1: you would also in that case be lying about it.

953
00:53:19,200 --> 00:53:22,080
Speaker 1: You'd have it to be intentionally spreading lies. But if

954
00:53:22,120 --> 00:53:24,200
Speaker 1: you tried to spread a rumor that the horns would

955
00:53:24,200 --> 00:53:28,799
Speaker 1: cause intense pain of the teeth or something or whatever, well,

956
00:53:28,840 --> 00:53:32,719
Speaker 1: I mean, you you look to our various situations with

957
00:53:32,719 --> 00:53:36,759
Speaker 1: with illicit drugs, though, where there have been public information

958
00:53:36,800 --> 00:53:39,759
Speaker 1: campaigns that have that if you know that that have

959
00:53:39,880 --> 00:53:43,120
Speaker 1: really uh push the idea that say, oh, if you

960
00:53:43,160 --> 00:53:45,120
Speaker 1: do meth all all your teeth are cana fall out,

961
00:53:45,120 --> 00:53:47,919
Speaker 1: You're gonna have this meth mouth scenario, which I've I've

962
00:53:47,960 --> 00:53:50,560
Speaker 1: read I've read criticism that you know that says that

963
00:53:50,560 --> 00:53:55,200
Speaker 1: that's not really a one to one situation. Uh. Likewise,

964
00:53:55,520 --> 00:53:59,560
Speaker 1: steroid use, there's the the warning messaging all that if

965
00:53:59,560 --> 00:54:02,279
Speaker 1: you use of steroids, are all these additional problems that

966
00:54:02,280 --> 00:54:05,200
Speaker 1: aren't occur with your body. But people still use them

967
00:54:05,280 --> 00:54:09,319
Speaker 1: still people people still use performance enhancing drugs. Uh. And

968
00:54:09,360 --> 00:54:12,840
Speaker 1: then you know, earlier you mentioned something about about the

969
00:54:13,280 --> 00:54:17,240
Speaker 1: use of various alleged medicinal properties. That something is happening

970
00:54:17,400 --> 00:54:20,440
Speaker 1: idea that actually ties into one of the criticisms of

971
00:54:20,480 --> 00:54:23,080
Speaker 1: poisoning the horn, because what have you poisoned the horn?

972
00:54:23,480 --> 00:54:25,680
Speaker 1: And it does make its way, you know, through the

973
00:54:25,760 --> 00:54:30,160
Speaker 1: various middlemen. It ends up as a powder in somebody's

974
00:54:30,200 --> 00:54:33,600
Speaker 1: smoothie if you if you will uh. And so if

975
00:54:33,600 --> 00:54:35,440
Speaker 1: there's enough poison in there to cause some sort of

976
00:54:35,440 --> 00:54:38,400
Speaker 1: reaction in the person's body, then something is happening and

977
00:54:38,440 --> 00:54:42,280
Speaker 1: they can attribute that to to the to the positive

978
00:54:42,280 --> 00:54:45,160
Speaker 1: effects of the horn. I feel something, I feel a

979
00:54:45,200 --> 00:54:47,239
Speaker 1: little sick that must be the horn getting on top

980
00:54:47,280 --> 00:54:49,920
Speaker 1: of me. And if and if you spread these ideas

981
00:54:49,960 --> 00:54:52,879
Speaker 1: then that the horn is dangerous that might feed into

982
00:54:52,920 --> 00:54:55,040
Speaker 1: it as well. Like of course, it's of course rhino

983
00:54:55,080 --> 00:54:56,840
Speaker 1: horn is going to make you feel a little weird

984
00:54:56,880 --> 00:54:59,319
Speaker 1: because it's the power of the horn, right, Like, I

985
00:54:59,320 --> 00:55:03,000
Speaker 1: can see how that backfire. Yeah, absolutely, But I agree

986
00:55:03,040 --> 00:55:07,040
Speaker 1: it is all kind of insane, right because the science

987
00:55:07,120 --> 00:55:09,759
Speaker 1: is pretty clear. Consuming rhino horn is going to do

988
00:55:09,840 --> 00:55:14,000
Speaker 1: nothing for you. This is a purely uh supernatural exercise

989
00:55:14,480 --> 00:55:18,040
Speaker 1: on an individual's part, and yet it continues. Maybe what

990
00:55:18,120 --> 00:55:21,560
Speaker 1: you could do is try to replace this with a

991
00:55:21,640 --> 00:55:25,600
Speaker 1: belief in the power of consuming hair and fingernails. Like

992
00:55:25,640 --> 00:55:28,640
Speaker 1: if you, instead of spreading a false, pernicious rumor about

993
00:55:28,640 --> 00:55:33,480
Speaker 1: the dangers of rhino horn, spread a true, infectious rumor

994
00:55:34,680 --> 00:55:38,120
Speaker 1: about the equivalence of rhino horn and fingernails and hair,

995
00:55:38,960 --> 00:55:41,960
Speaker 1: so you so, instead you would just create a demand

996
00:55:42,120 --> 00:55:45,520
Speaker 1: for the widely available substances that can be acquired without

997
00:55:45,560 --> 00:55:48,200
Speaker 1: harming people. And unless this leads leads to poaching of

998
00:55:48,280 --> 00:55:51,239
Speaker 1: humans for their hair and fingernails, oh no, no. But

999
00:55:51,320 --> 00:55:53,479
Speaker 1: the great thing about this, I see how this could work.

1000
00:55:53,760 --> 00:55:57,200
Speaker 1: We just needed an initiative where certain powerful individuals or

1001
00:55:57,200 --> 00:56:00,520
Speaker 1: individuals are at least you know, icons of physical prowess.

1002
00:56:01,560 --> 00:56:04,680
Speaker 1: They must donate all of their fingernails and maybe their

1003
00:56:04,719 --> 00:56:08,400
Speaker 1: hair clippings, uh to to be used in these traditional

1004
00:56:08,400 --> 00:56:11,359
Speaker 1: medicines instead. So like a like a John Cena or

1005
00:56:11,480 --> 00:56:16,360
Speaker 1: Arnold Schwarzenegger, people of this stature, uh, they need to

1006
00:56:16,360 --> 00:56:18,719
Speaker 1: donate those clippings and then those will be ground up

1007
00:56:18,719 --> 00:56:22,400
Speaker 1: and used in traditional medicines instead. Man, what does Arnold's

1008
00:56:22,440 --> 00:56:25,759
Speaker 1: hair tastes like? I don't know, but but you know,

1009
00:56:25,800 --> 00:56:28,240
Speaker 1: if you have enough, you've put enough fruit in the smoothie,

1010
00:56:28,280 --> 00:56:31,520
Speaker 1: you don't really taste it. I guess this is my

1011
00:56:31,640 --> 00:56:37,839
Speaker 1: Arnold hair goblet. Al right, Well, hopefully we were able

1012
00:56:37,880 --> 00:56:41,440
Speaker 1: to give you, uh, you know, an interesting insight into

1013
00:56:41,600 --> 00:56:44,560
Speaker 1: the history of rhino horn as it's been used for

1014
00:56:44,640 --> 00:56:50,200
Speaker 1: various magical and slightly scientific slightly in the case of

1015
00:56:50,239 --> 00:56:55,920
Speaker 1: poison detection, slightly scientific uh uses and and rituals, as

1016
00:56:55,960 --> 00:56:59,720
Speaker 1: well as just the dire state of the rhino species

1017
00:56:59,719 --> 00:57:01,880
Speaker 1: that we still have with us in the world. Now,

1018
00:57:01,960 --> 00:57:05,359
Speaker 1: if anyone out there wants to learn more about rhino conservation,

1019
00:57:05,640 --> 00:57:08,960
Speaker 1: there are a number of different organizations UM we already

1020
00:57:09,160 --> 00:57:11,560
Speaker 1: we already mentioned I think one of them. But there's

1021
00:57:11,600 --> 00:57:14,640
Speaker 1: also the International Rhino Foundation. You can go to rhinos

1022
00:57:14,640 --> 00:57:18,240
Speaker 1: dot org for that. There's also International Anti Poaching Foundation

1023
00:57:18,600 --> 00:57:22,320
Speaker 1: and that is i APF dot org. Alright, so hey,

1024
00:57:22,360 --> 00:57:24,240
Speaker 1: if you want to see any of the pictures that

1025
00:57:24,280 --> 00:57:26,520
Speaker 1: we were talking about earlier, check out the landing page

1026
00:57:26,520 --> 00:57:29,000
Speaker 1: for this episode. It's Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.

1027
00:57:29,040 --> 00:57:31,520
Speaker 1: That's the mothership, that's we will find all of the

1028
00:57:31,600 --> 00:57:34,840
Speaker 1: podcast episodes, will find videos, You'll find blog posts and

1029
00:57:34,920 --> 00:57:39,680
Speaker 1: links out to our various social media accounts such as Twitter, Tumbler, Instagram,

1030
00:57:39,680 --> 00:57:42,280
Speaker 1: and Facebook. And if you want to get in touch

1031
00:57:42,320 --> 00:57:44,320
Speaker 1: with us directly, you can do that as always the

1032
00:57:44,360 --> 00:57:47,680
Speaker 1: old fashioned way, by emailing us That blow the mind

1033
00:57:47,720 --> 00:58:00,680
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com for more on this

1034
00:58:00,880 --> 00:58:03,360
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics. Does it how stuff works

1035
00:58:03,360 --> 00:58:26,600
Speaker 1: dot com