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Speaker 1: They're from his quiver full of shafts, two arrows? Did

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Speaker 1: he take of sundry works? To one causes love? The

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Speaker 1: other doth H's slake. That causes love is all of

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Speaker 1: gold with point, full, sharp and bright. That chase is

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Speaker 1: love is blunt who steal with leaden head? Is Dight.

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

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Speaker 1: Works dot Com. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow

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Speaker 1: your mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick.

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Speaker 1: And so obviously we're talking about Cupid today. That's right,

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Speaker 1: it's Valentine's Day? Is it? Yes? Is it actually Valentine's Yes,

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Speaker 1: actual Valentine's Day. Okay, Yeah, so we figured what we

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Speaker 1: gotta we gotta do some sort of Valentine's episode. We

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Speaker 1: had the the episode where we talked to Tomorrow Heart previously,

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Speaker 1: but this is the day itself Towers of Ale sex. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so it seemed proper to get a little mythological here

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Speaker 1: as we kick off this episode, and to turn to

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Speaker 1: that mythological figure that got of romantic love, Cupid, the

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Speaker 1: creepy smooth baby who shoots arrows with heart tips. Yes,

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Speaker 1: now that the reading at the top of the episode

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Speaker 1: was was ovid that was from the Metamorphosis the Golden Translation,

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Speaker 1: So that was how you get words like dit Yeah,

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Speaker 1: which means clothed or equipped. I had to look that

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Speaker 1: one up. Yeah, it might be not be completely clear,

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Speaker 1: but what Ovid is basically saying is, hey, Cupid has

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Speaker 1: two different arrows that he may pull from his quiver.

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Speaker 1: You often forget this, or maybe he never even learned

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Speaker 1: it in the first place. Well, right, if you're just

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Speaker 1: going off of cheesy Valentine staate cards, you just think

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Speaker 1: of that cartoon baby, and like you said, the arrows

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Speaker 1: have just kind of a goofy cartoon heart at the end,

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Speaker 1: and cupids launch and those at people and making them

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Speaker 1: falling cartoon love with people. Yeah, well, you tend to

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Speaker 1: not think cupids arrows literally being an arrow that strikes

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Speaker 1: with force and penetrates the flesh. I guess we're to

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Speaker 1: understand it that way, at least the ancients did. Like

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Speaker 1: there's this poem by Anna Creon that Robert and I

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Speaker 1: were talking about before the episode, where it's not actually

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Speaker 1: that great of a poem. I don't know if it's

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Speaker 1: worth reading, but it makes this joke about cupid gets

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Speaker 1: stung by a bee and he starts crying, and his mother,

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Speaker 1: I guess this would be Aphrodite or Venus maybe comes

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Speaker 1: to him and is trying to console him and says, uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, you're crying about being stung by a bee,

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Speaker 1: but you shoot people with arrows all the time. That

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Speaker 1: must hurt more shot through the heart. Um. Yeah, And

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Speaker 1: so he so he has two different arrows that he

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Speaker 1: he chooses from when he decides to nail somebody. One

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Speaker 1: of these arrows, as the as Ovid says, is tipped

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Speaker 1: in gold with a sharp point and bright right, and

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Speaker 1: so that's the that's the love arrow, that is the

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Speaker 1: the romantic love arrow. But then he has this leaden

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Speaker 1: arrow which it sounds like it's it's probably not an

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Speaker 1: arrowhead composed entirely of lad for reasons will explain, but

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Speaker 1: it is at least coded or tipped in lead somehow well.

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Speaker 1: And it also says that as blunt, meaning I assume

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Speaker 1: it is not meant to penetrate, but maybe strikes more

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Speaker 1: like a like a beanbag gun. Yeah, like just to

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Speaker 1: brain you with this dense leaden arrowhead. Yeah, just to

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Speaker 1: just smack you hard. And then it Also it imparts aversion,

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Speaker 1: so like it hits you and now you you want

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Speaker 1: to you want to not be around somebody. I guess right.

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Speaker 1: This seems that this seems to be the most popular

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Speaker 1: interpretation of the leaden arrows power though I was looking around, uh,

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Speaker 1: and I did see at least one description saying that

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Speaker 1: the leaden arrow had to do with set with sensual passion.

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Speaker 1: But I don't think that's the predominant interpretation. It's certainly

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Speaker 1: not the one that we're going to spend much time

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Speaker 1: with here today. Consensual passion. There are other gods for that. Uh.

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Speaker 1: You know, Cupid's domain is more about that that that

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Speaker 1: that romantic passion, the arrows or the philos or I

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Speaker 1: lose track of what love is what in Greek philodo? Um. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we'll be we'll be getting into the Greek and Roman

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Speaker 1: stuff shortly, but yes, we're gonna be talking about Cupid.

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Speaker 1: And I do I do encourage everyone to maybe put

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Speaker 1: aside the more cherubic interpretations of of Cupid as we

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Speaker 1: discuss this figure, because we have to remember he is

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Speaker 1: a god. Um. He is capable of of of wrecking

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Speaker 1: people's lives with his mischief and he's not always depicted

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Speaker 1: as a as a baby. He's he's often he's usually

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Speaker 1: depicted as youthful, certainly, and that may be a male

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Speaker 1: youth or a boy. He's very often and you know,

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Speaker 1: depicted naked or nearly so. And sometimes he's blindfolded as well.

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Speaker 1: I think it's blind right, Oh yeah, I didn't think

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Speaker 1: of that. Well, I I think he's often depicted as

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Speaker 1: a baby just because if he were an adult, he

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Speaker 1: would be a horrifying, gross creep. Right. Well, they're still

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Speaker 1: there's still always room to find Cupid creepy for sure.

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Speaker 1: All right, Well who is Cupid? Where do you come from?

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Speaker 1: In the pantheon and the mythology? Okay, so Cupid is

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Speaker 1: the Roman variant of the Greek god Arrows, the prime

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Speaker 1: evil god of love, a son of chaos, though in

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Speaker 1: later traditions he has depicted as a son of Aphrodite,

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Speaker 1: who is the Roman Venus, whose goddess of sexual love

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Speaker 1: and beauty. And as far as the father goes, it's

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Speaker 1: all across the board. They're very different tellings. Sometimes it's Zeus,

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Speaker 1: sometimes it's it's Aries. There's at least one version where

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Speaker 1: it's It's It seems like it's Vulcan, the god of

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Speaker 1: the forage. But in but then a lot of stories

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Speaker 1: have it have hermes as the father, who of course

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Speaker 1: is the Roman Mercury. So it's a real Mari show. Yes, yeah,

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Speaker 1: you can very much imagine that there being a lot

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Speaker 1: of drama around this. But he's a god of passion

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Speaker 1: and love but also a fertility to a certain extent.

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Speaker 1: As now, in Roman traditions, Cupid is largely described as

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Speaker 1: a son of Venus and Mercury, combining their roles into

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Speaker 1: that of a divine messenger of love. Okay, so Mercury

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Speaker 1: is the messenger, Aphrodite is love. So he brings you

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Speaker 1: the love signals, the he's he's the radar love god. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: don't you So you can't really hate the messenger, right,

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Speaker 1: I guess that's part of the story here as well.

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Speaker 1: Now he's often depicted as this kind of cherubic creature

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Speaker 1: like we describe, but also sometimes is more of a

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Speaker 1: you know, in an androgynous, youthful figure, sometimes clad in

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Speaker 1: armor because I guess love is also a battlefield and

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Speaker 1: he's sometimes a mischief maker other times a generous patron

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Speaker 1: of love. His targets include both mortals and other gods.

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Speaker 1: And uh as always, the versions of the myth very

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Speaker 1: with the teller and the time. But we certainly want

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Speaker 1: to to tell the major Cupid story. Well, tell me

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Speaker 1: the story, Robert, all right. So his mother again is Venus,

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Speaker 1: and Venus has is subject to bouts of jealousy pretty

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Speaker 1: much like all of them, the major gods and the pantheon, right,

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Speaker 1: and so she one day she has had enough of

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Speaker 1: this beautiful mortal by the name of Psyche. She's just

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Speaker 1: too too lovely. She's so lovely that other mortals are

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Speaker 1: afraid to approach her. And in Venus isn't having it.

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Speaker 1: She tasks her son Cupid, and says, go to this woman,

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Speaker 1: shoot her with a golden arrow of love, and then

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Speaker 1: make her fall in love with the first thing she sees,

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Speaker 1: because that's the power of the arrow in this in

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Speaker 1: this interpretation of it. And she adds, make sure that

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Speaker 1: the next thing she sees is the most hideous creature imaginable.

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Speaker 1: I don't care what it is, usual imagination. She falls

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Speaker 1: in love with the font Papyrus. That would have been good, um,

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Speaker 1: so Cupid. Cupid goes down to Earth to do this,

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Speaker 1: but he can't quite bring himself to finish the task,

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Speaker 1: though he was certainly okay with the plan enough to

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Speaker 1: trick her parents into a band, dinning her on a

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Speaker 1: desolate hilltop so that she could wed a monster, but

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Speaker 1: as far as actually yeah, because she's taken. The Psyche

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Speaker 1: has taken to this hill and here you go. Sorry,

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Speaker 1: the gods wants you to marry a monster. It's gonna happen.

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Speaker 1: See you later, because you know you do what do

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Speaker 1: what the gods say, or suffer. But then he can't

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Speaker 1: actually shoot her with the arrow, so instead he pricks

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Speaker 1: himself with the golden arrow and then gazes upon Psyche,

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Speaker 1: falls in love with her, and so he takes her away,

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Speaker 1: sets her up in a protected place like a palace,

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Speaker 1: somewhere where he can visit her safely, but only in darkness.

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Speaker 1: And then but then one night she cast light upon

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Speaker 1: him and she learns his identity, spilling wax on him

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Speaker 1: in the process, and he flees. So Psyche is distraught.

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Speaker 1: She's she's in love with this this god, this beautiful

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Speaker 1: young god boy, so she searches for him, and finally

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Speaker 1: Venus agrees to hand him over, but only if she

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Speaker 1: completes a series of trials. Oh yeah, never a good

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Speaker 1: sign in a myth, right, you get the feeling that

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Speaker 1: a lot of these trials might be tricks. Yes, and

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Speaker 1: indeed they are. Uh. The the exact trials can vary

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Speaker 1: with the telling, but uh, this is the basic roll

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Speaker 1: out here. First of all, she has to sort a

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Speaker 1: massive pile of seeds in a single night, and uh,

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Speaker 1: fortunately some ants help her. Oh that's a great variation

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Speaker 1: on all the tweety birds and scugs in the snow

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Speaker 1: White story. You know they'll come in and help with

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Speaker 1: the chores. Now it's ants, and who knows, maybe Spider's

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Speaker 1: pitch in a bit. Well. The next task is that

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Speaker 1: she has to fetch the golden wool from a like

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Speaker 1: a monstrous sheep, like a kind of sheep that disembowels

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Speaker 1: anyone who gets near it, and a swarm of cockroaches

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Speaker 1: assist her. No, actually, a river god helps her out

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Speaker 1: um and helps her acquire the wolf. So she turns

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Speaker 1: that in. But then she has to venture into the

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Speaker 1: underworld and acquire a drop of the Queen of the

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Speaker 1: Underworld's beauty. Oh yeah, so uh cupid, it seems ends

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Speaker 1: up sort of cluing her in sends her some signals

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Speaker 1: because going to the underworld isn't easy, right, yeah, it's

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Speaker 1: it's a dangerous proposition. So Cupid clues her in you know,

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Speaker 1: secret messages, letting her know, make sure you bring coins

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Speaker 1: for torone and treats for service, important things to bring along.

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Speaker 1: So she does this. She wins that drop, brings it

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Speaker 1: back in a golden box, and brings it to the surface.

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Speaker 1: She's on her way to deliver it to Venus, but

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Speaker 1: then she decides, well, I'm gonna steal a little bit

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Speaker 1: of that beauty from the box for myself, and then

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Speaker 1: she discovers the boxes full of sleep. Sleep comes over her,

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Speaker 1: Cupid comes to her way and wakes her up, gives

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Speaker 1: her the nectar of the gods and makes her a

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Speaker 1: god as well the embodiment of the soul, and she

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Speaker 1: later gives birth to Pleasure. That's a heck of a story.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, there are various treatments of the story. The

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Speaker 1: various you know, additional stories such as Beauty and the

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Speaker 1: Beast take this basic structure and then uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: employ it in a slightly different manner. But yeah, that's

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Speaker 1: the major Cupid narrative. But there's also a fun one

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Speaker 1: that employs his arrows in an interesting way in which

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Speaker 1: both of them this time, both of them as he

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Speaker 1: messes with the god Apollo. So Apollo is a powerful

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Speaker 1: god and he's he's he's lusting after the nymph Daphne.

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Speaker 1: And while he's in the midst of this, he taunts

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Speaker 1: Cupid's archery ability. He says, you're not much of an archer,

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Speaker 1: are you, And so it's always good to taunt people

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Speaker 1: holding ranged weapons. Well, again, the gods are vain and

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Speaker 1: you know, kind of and it's in vengeful and but

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Speaker 1: also kind of stupid at times. So what Cupid does

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Speaker 1: is he shoots Apollo with a golden arrow that makes him,

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Speaker 1: of course, you know, lust like crazy after Daphney. But

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Speaker 1: then he shoots Daphne with a leaden arrow, ensuring that

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Speaker 1: she wants nothing to do with exactly. In fact, she

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Speaker 1: runs away to her father, who also happens to be

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Speaker 1: a river god, and has him turned her into a

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Speaker 1: tree so that Apollo will leave her alone. And then

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Speaker 1: Cupid you know, goes off and laughs about the whole affair. Now, wait,

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Speaker 1: after the us, is Apollo still in love with the

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Speaker 1: tree or not? It really depends on the user agreement

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Speaker 1: with you on the golden arrow? How does the gold

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Speaker 1: narrow magic work? Can you transform the essence of the

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Speaker 1: target of the affection? And does that? Can'tcel the spell?

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Speaker 1: Or do you have to roll a D twenty to

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Speaker 1: find out? I don't know. And then we are the

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Speaker 1: effects on God's Is that a little different than an

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Speaker 1: effect on immortal Who can say? Now you might think, okay,

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Speaker 1: Cupid sounds like he makes some enemies here and there.

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Speaker 1: Who's his greatest rival? Is there like a safety god

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Speaker 1: who's always trying to take his arrows away? No? No, no,

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Speaker 1: it's none other than the great God Pan. What one

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Speaker 1: of our favorites. Yeah, In one corner we have the

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Speaker 1: flighty arrow shooting Cherubic, son of of of Venus, U,

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Speaker 1: the Lord of Love. And in the other corner we

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Speaker 1: have the wild rutting he goat, king of fornication, Uh,

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Speaker 1: surrounded by nymphs prancing through the forest. And so it's

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Speaker 1: divine love versus earthly love, and spoiler alert, Cupid often

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Speaker 1: comes out on top. In fact, there are some there

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Speaker 1: are paintings that depict Cupid kind of wrestling Pan to

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Speaker 1: the ground. Could you also say that this is like

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Speaker 1: city love versus country love. I guess you could. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: like Pan was sort of envisioned as the representative of

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Speaker 1: the I don't know, the the amorous affairs of like

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Speaker 1: shepherds and country people. Yeah, it is kind of country

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Speaker 1: love versus you know, the divine love of Mount Olympus. Here.

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Speaker 1: On the other hand, when you look up artistic interpretations

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Speaker 1: of Pan, he is often wrestling or doing something like wrestling,

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Speaker 1: so it's it's hard to say he's definitely on the

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Speaker 1: losing end of the scenario here. The Pan's a rascal. Yea. Now,

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Speaker 1: in terms of other treatments of of Cupid, you know,

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Speaker 1: we're not going to go through, you know, all the

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Speaker 1: the echoes in popular culture. I did notice just the

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Speaker 1: most dignified one. Yes, I did notice that there is

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Speaker 1: a There is a Cupid in at DC comics that's

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Speaker 1: kind of a feisty redhead and it's a it's a female.

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Speaker 1: It's like a cohort of the green arrow. Is she

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Speaker 1: a got us or just a human named Cupid? I

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Speaker 1: think she's just a human who shoots arrows at people.

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Speaker 1: It's not a thor situation. I don't think so. If

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Speaker 1: any comic book fans out there that want to, um,

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Speaker 1: you know, clue us in on this. We'd love to

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Speaker 1: hear more. But I think she just shoots arrows at

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Speaker 1: people and tries to kill them, you know. Independent of

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Speaker 1: you coming up with this lead, Robert, I immediately was googling, like,

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Speaker 1: cupid horror movie? Is there one? I came across something,

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Speaker 1: only to discover that you'd already given it a little

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Speaker 1: right up here. Yes, two thousand and one slasher film

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Speaker 1: titled Valentine. Now have you seen this before? No? I

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Speaker 1: looked up a couple of scenes on YouTube. One actually

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Speaker 1: had kind of a cool set with like somebody's like

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Speaker 1: walking through a maze made out of TV screens or

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Speaker 1: something that. Yeah, I kind of like that, but otherwise

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Speaker 1: it looks so stupid. And it has the ultimate like

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Speaker 1: two thousand one smart Face cast where it's got David

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Speaker 1: Boreanaz and Denise Richards. It's like the cast of Starship Troopers.

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Speaker 1: It also has a has a two thousand and one

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Speaker 1: alternative rock album, like the most two thousand and one

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Speaker 1: alternative rock album, Imaginable. Yeah that the soundtrack is, um,

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Speaker 1: does it have what down with the sickness? It doesn't

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Speaker 1: have that particular track, but Disturbed is present and h

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Speaker 1: and yeah, you can pretty much extrapolate from there what

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Speaker 1: else is on the soundtrack. But it does have this

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Speaker 1: killer stalking around, this slasher character with a Cupid mask,

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Speaker 1: and there is one scene at least where he kills

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Speaker 1: somebody with arrows, and that's the sequence you're you're talking

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Speaker 1: about with all the TVs. So yeah, as far as

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Speaker 1: slasher films we're seeing, it's been too long since I've

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Speaker 1: seen it to really give it a firm recommendation. But

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Speaker 1: as far as slasher films worth looking up the kills

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Speaker 1: on YouTube, I give it a give it a thumbs up.

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Speaker 1: But in this movie, if unless I'm mistaken, no gold

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Speaker 1: arrows and lead blunt arrows right right, I think he

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Speaker 1: just has normal killing arrows because he's ultimately not an

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Speaker 1: actual god. That would have been a fun twist. Though.

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Speaker 1: They don't get deep into the resonances of the mythology, no,

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Speaker 1: because if there's a lot there you could really go

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Speaker 1: go nuts with. For instance, the fact that Cupid is

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Speaker 1: often depicted riding around on dolphins or even sometimes just

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Speaker 1: on sea monsters. That's odd. Yeah, and uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: you know we mentioned Beauty and the Beast already, but

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Speaker 1: I should throw out there even though I haven't read it,

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Speaker 1: and I don't know why I haven't read it, because

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Speaker 1: I read a whole lot of C. S. Lewis at

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Speaker 1: one point in my life. But C. S. Lewis retells

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Speaker 1: the story of of Cupid and Psyche in the nine

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Speaker 1: novel Till We Have Faces. I've never read that either,

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Speaker 1: but that sounds maybe worth check now. So again, we

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Speaker 1: could keep going on Cupid, we could keep talking about

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Speaker 1: various mythological treatments, different versions of the stories. Um. But basically,

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Speaker 1: what we want to drive home here is that, first

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Speaker 1: of all, he has these two arrows. He has the

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Speaker 1: leaden arrow and the golden arrow, and these are the

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Speaker 1: powers associated. And we also just want to drive home

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Speaker 1: that he's he is more than just this ridiculous cartoon baby.

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Speaker 1: Now he's an epic creep cartoon baby who wrestles goat

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Speaker 1: men and rides on seam monsters. Indeed, he is so

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Speaker 1: On that note, we're going to take a quick break

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Speaker 1: and when we come back, we are going to discuss

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Speaker 1: the leaden Arrow of Cupid. We're going to get into

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Speaker 1: what ancient people knew of lead, how they used lead,

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Speaker 1: what they thought about its properties, And then of course

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Speaker 1: we'll well, we'll we'll dive a little bit into the

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Speaker 1: periodic table and discuss exactly what lad is. Thank thank you,

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Speaker 1: all right, we're back. So, Robert, we have already told

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Speaker 1: the story of Cupid as especially as described in Ovid's Metamorphoses. Uh,

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Speaker 1: And in the story of these two different arrows, he's

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Speaker 1: got the gold arrow, which imparts love, makes people fancy

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Speaker 1: one another, and the lead arrow, which is blunt and

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Speaker 1: maybe seems to cause a version, at least in some

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Speaker 1: tellings of the story. Right, Like if if you were

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Speaker 1: hit with the lead arrow and somebody passed you a

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Speaker 1: note in in in high school and said will you

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Speaker 1: go out with me? Yes and no, you would add

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Speaker 1: a third box that said I would rather my father

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Speaker 1: turned me into a tree. Yeah, your head would just explode,

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Speaker 1: like in Scanners. Yes, Well, other than the general association

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Speaker 1: of gold being thought of as good, is there anything

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Speaker 1: any reason we can think of why these particular metals

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Speaker 1: are picked to have the magical significance they do in

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Speaker 1: the arrows in the myth? Well, yeah, exactly what we

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Speaker 1: with gold? Obviously, gold is beautiful and humans have thought

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Speaker 1: it's beautiful for ages, and we've been perfectly happy to

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Speaker 1: squabble over it and kill each other over it. So

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Speaker 1: it seems the perfect substance to sum up the appeal

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Speaker 1: and then sometimes the dangers of love. Plus knowing what

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Speaker 1: we know now, this was an element that was likely

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Speaker 1: produced in the collisions of of neutron stars long before

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Speaker 1: the formation of the Earth, which is amazing to consider.

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Speaker 1: By the way, I mean us to contemplate this for

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Speaker 1: a moment. Uh, you know, it was once thought that

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Speaker 1: most of the universe's heavy elements, like elements heavier than iron,

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Speaker 1: were created in supernovas, which is when a massive star

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Speaker 1: at the end of its life cycle collapses on itself

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Speaker 1: and then explodes, and supernovas can create some heavy elements.

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Speaker 1: But some scientists have argued for a while that there

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Speaker 1: are too many heavy elements that the proportion of them

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Speaker 1: that we find in the universe is too high to

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Speaker 1: be accounted for by what's possible from supernovas alone. So

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Speaker 1: in recent years there have been some cool experiments that

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Speaker 1: have shown that the collision of neutron stars, like you say,

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Speaker 1: could be the alternative. For example, I was looking at

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Speaker 1: there was a study published in and the Astrophysical Journal

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Speaker 1: by Coat at All that looked at data from a

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Speaker 1: neutron star merger and I love that's the technology they use,

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Speaker 1: like two companies like mergers and acquisitions. What they should

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Speaker 1: have used the language of love, because we are creating

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Speaker 1: a substance that will one day be used by the

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Speaker 1: out of love, right it is it should be neutron

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Speaker 1: star copulation, yes, neutron starter course, but anyway, that this

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Speaker 1: collision was between eighty five and a hundred and sixty

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Speaker 1: million light years away, and the researchers calculated that this

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Speaker 1: one event, these two neutron stars colliding, produced between one

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Speaker 1: and five earth masses of an element called europium and

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Speaker 1: between three and thirteen earth masses of gold earth masses

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Speaker 1: of gold. So just think about a solid gold Earth

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Speaker 1: and then between three and thirteen of them, and then

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Speaker 1: it just like spits a bunch of this out into

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Speaker 1: the universe to get bound up with other gases and

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Speaker 1: stuff like that and eventually end up in maybe say

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Speaker 1: a planetary accretion disk, where it becomes part of the

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Speaker 1: crust of an Earth. So if you're wearing like a

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Speaker 1: gold ring or any other piece of gold right now,

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Speaker 1: or if you're maybe maybe say using an electronic device

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Speaker 1: that has a bit of gold in it, just think

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Speaker 1: about how that element was forged either in the guts

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Speaker 1: of a dying star as it exploded, or was probably

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Speaker 1: more likely created in the chaos of rapid neutron capture

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Speaker 1: when two of the densest objects in the universe, two

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Speaker 1: neutron stars, smashed together billions of years ago. And of course,

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Speaker 1: I guess the even crazier thing is that that doesn't

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Speaker 1: stop at gold, right, Like our amazement at the elements

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Speaker 1: shouldn't stop there, because all the heavy elements had to

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Speaker 1: be formed at some point. In fact, all the elements

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Speaker 1: of any kind had to be formed at some point.

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Speaker 1: A few of the lightest ones are primordial, you know,

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Speaker 1: you find hydrogen and helium and lithium out in the

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Speaker 1: original universe. Uh, And then a few more I think

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Speaker 1: are formed by like a cosmic rays and stuff. But

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Speaker 1: beyond that, pretty much everything that you could see and

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Speaker 1: touch and that your body is made of was in

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Speaker 1: some way forged inside a dying star. Uh. You know,

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Speaker 1: you've got this dying star forge that has slow neutron

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Speaker 1: capture going on inside it. Or it was a supernova

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Speaker 1: explosion or the collision of neutron stars or or something

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Speaker 1: like that. Yeah, these are the very kind of forges

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Speaker 1: one can imagine a god like Vulcan would employ, right exactly. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's what's happening when he pumps the bellows, he's just

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Speaker 1: pumping it to smash neutron stars together. And of course,

404
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Speaker 1: you know you mentioned that in anything heavier than iron

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Speaker 1: likely had this this kind of cosmic origin, and that

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Speaker 1: includes lead. So even though it's easy to to say, oh,

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Speaker 1: the golden arrow forged in in cosmic turmoil in in

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Speaker 1: ages past, well, the same story applies to lead, even

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Speaker 1: though it's not as shiny, even though you probably don't

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Speaker 1: have any lead in jewelry on your body right now,

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Speaker 1: uh though, I mean, lead is an amazing element, and

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Speaker 1: to consider the same way, I think. I think there

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Speaker 1: are two main explanations for lead, as I believe. One

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Speaker 1: is that there's slow neutron capture like the s process

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Speaker 1: that takes place within dying stars, and the other is

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Speaker 1: the the hot dense starter course, the neutron star collision Sunday, Sunday, Sunday. Now,

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Speaker 1: to come back to Cupid's arrow, I imagine basically the

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Speaker 1: idea of the lead in arrow is that lead is

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Speaker 1: not attractive. Lead is not beautiful. Lead is something that

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Speaker 1: even in ancient times, it was rarely used in jewelry,

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Speaker 1: or at least as the primary aspect of the jewelry. Well. No,

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Speaker 1: and and even more, Uh, I don't know if you

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Speaker 1: can be mean to lead, but if you if lead

424
00:23:20,440 --> 00:23:23,240
Speaker 1: has feelings, you could hurt its feelings even more by

425
00:23:23,280 --> 00:23:26,640
Speaker 1: pointing out that lead. You know, lead doesn't occur generally

426
00:23:26,680 --> 00:23:30,880
Speaker 1: free in nature. Lead occur is bound up in ores. Uh.

427
00:23:30,920 --> 00:23:34,040
Speaker 1: And so primarily the way lead was created in the

428
00:23:34,040 --> 00:23:37,520
Speaker 1: ancient world was as a byproduct of the creation of silver.

429
00:23:38,080 --> 00:23:40,480
Speaker 1: And so people are trying to extract silver for something

430
00:23:40,520 --> 00:23:43,000
Speaker 1: from something and you melt out some lead as a

431
00:23:43,080 --> 00:23:45,120
Speaker 1: sort of waste product of that. And and it did

432
00:23:45,160 --> 00:23:47,959
Speaker 1: have uses because it's got a high specific weight, So

433
00:23:48,040 --> 00:23:50,639
Speaker 1: you could use it as like a weight for you know,

434
00:23:50,680 --> 00:23:53,600
Speaker 1: if you have like fishing line, fishing nets or something

435
00:23:53,640 --> 00:23:55,880
Speaker 1: you want to hold down that it's useful for that.

436
00:23:56,160 --> 00:23:59,399
Speaker 1: It's not very good for making like solid like weapons

437
00:23:59,480 --> 00:24:03,040
Speaker 1: or anything, right, because it's very soft. Yeah, it's it's

438
00:24:03,080 --> 00:24:05,320
Speaker 1: not gonna be it's not gonna be a good metal

439
00:24:05,400 --> 00:24:09,000
Speaker 1: if you want to actually forge arrows for combat or

440
00:24:09,040 --> 00:24:13,080
Speaker 1: forge any kind of say armor. Um. But but there

441
00:24:13,119 --> 00:24:14,680
Speaker 1: are a lot of uses for it if you want

442
00:24:14,720 --> 00:24:17,760
Speaker 1: to create, say, drinking vessels, or certainly if you want

443
00:24:17,760 --> 00:24:21,520
Speaker 1: to create pipes. We're not advocating that, by the way, no, no,

444
00:24:21,560 --> 00:24:24,040
Speaker 1: but certainly from a very early point humans were figuring

445
00:24:24,040 --> 00:24:26,720
Speaker 1: This outlet is one of the seven Medals of Antiquity.

446
00:24:27,720 --> 00:24:31,920
Speaker 1: Humans were handling lead a long time ago. Cast lead

447
00:24:31,960 --> 00:24:36,840
Speaker 1: beads found in modern day Turkey date from roughly BC.

448
00:24:37,560 --> 00:24:40,200
Speaker 1: The ancient Egyptians use lead as early as five thousand

449
00:24:40,280 --> 00:24:44,000
Speaker 1: BC for pottery glazes, solder and casting. Yeah, and uh

450
00:24:44,119 --> 00:24:47,760
Speaker 1: so I was looking at early examples of lead artifacts.

451
00:24:47,840 --> 00:24:51,959
Speaker 1: One example I found was a sort of maybe aesthetic

452
00:24:52,040 --> 00:24:54,840
Speaker 1: artifact or maybe something that was used in like a

453
00:24:54,880 --> 00:24:59,439
Speaker 1: whirl for for you know, working with textiles. Um. But

454
00:24:59,560 --> 00:25:02,879
Speaker 1: this was the cave in the Negev Desert in Israel,

455
00:25:03,240 --> 00:25:06,480
Speaker 1: and it's supposedly dates to the late fifth millennium BC,

456
00:25:07,440 --> 00:25:11,399
Speaker 1: and it's just basically this wooden wand that's got leaden

457
00:25:11,560 --> 00:25:13,879
Speaker 1: beads at the end of it. And they don't know

458
00:25:13,920 --> 00:25:16,720
Speaker 1: what it's for though I wonder if maybe it's for

459
00:25:16,760 --> 00:25:19,800
Speaker 1: some kind of heavy metal lead magic. Yeah, an anti

460
00:25:19,960 --> 00:25:25,680
Speaker 1: love repulsion ray. Uh, so we can hope. So the

461
00:25:26,040 --> 00:25:30,400
Speaker 1: Babylonians made inscriptions on lead plates soft you can inscribe

462
00:25:30,440 --> 00:25:32,639
Speaker 1: things on it. And just to refer everyone back to

463
00:25:32,760 --> 00:25:36,520
Speaker 1: our October episode on curses, we spend a fair amount

464
00:25:36,520 --> 00:25:40,040
Speaker 1: of time discussing Roman curse tablets. Oh yeah we did.

465
00:25:40,320 --> 00:25:42,560
Speaker 1: And what were those made out of? Well, like the

466
00:25:42,840 --> 00:25:46,000
Speaker 1: ones found in um in like second or third century

467
00:25:46,080 --> 00:25:48,760
Speaker 1: Roman Britain were often they're made in lead. So there

468
00:25:48,760 --> 00:25:51,080
Speaker 1: are these places where you can go around like modern

469
00:25:51,160 --> 00:25:53,919
Speaker 1: day Lester and dig up these ancient sites where there

470
00:25:53,960 --> 00:25:57,160
Speaker 1: would be maybe a shrine or a temple to an

471
00:25:57,160 --> 00:26:00,560
Speaker 1: ancient god, maybe in the syncretic religions of Roman Britain,

472
00:26:00,560 --> 00:26:04,199
Speaker 1: where you'd sort of combined maybe Roman gods with with

473
00:26:04,359 --> 00:26:07,360
Speaker 1: Native Celtic gods or or or the gods of Britain there,

474
00:26:07,880 --> 00:26:10,959
Speaker 1: and people would be going there to say curse somebody

475
00:26:10,960 --> 00:26:14,680
Speaker 1: who stole something from them, like you know, Servandas shows

476
00:26:14,800 --> 00:26:18,119
Speaker 1: up and says, somebody stole my cloak. Whoever stole my cloak,

477
00:26:18,160 --> 00:26:20,119
Speaker 1: I want him to not be able to pee for

478
00:26:20,200 --> 00:26:23,159
Speaker 1: three months unless he gives me my cloak back. And

479
00:26:23,240 --> 00:26:25,760
Speaker 1: this would be inscribed on a lead tablet and hung

480
00:26:25,840 --> 00:26:28,560
Speaker 1: up somewhere. And part of the idea there is that

481
00:26:28,880 --> 00:26:31,840
Speaker 1: it was partially to invoke this power, but also maybe

482
00:26:31,880 --> 00:26:33,760
Speaker 1: just to have it hung up in a public place

483
00:26:33,840 --> 00:26:36,520
Speaker 1: so people could like know what was going on. Now,

484
00:26:36,520 --> 00:26:39,359
Speaker 1: one other important aspect of lead that that I wonder

485
00:26:39,680 --> 00:26:41,359
Speaker 1: and I wonder if it played into the use of

486
00:26:41,640 --> 00:26:44,480
Speaker 1: into the creation of these a curse tablets, is that, uh,

487
00:26:44,720 --> 00:26:48,639
Speaker 1: lead does not corrode like other medals. So if you

488
00:26:48,840 --> 00:26:51,440
Speaker 1: if you, if you inscribe your curse in a piece

489
00:26:51,440 --> 00:26:53,639
Speaker 1: of lead, like, that's a curse that could speak across

490
00:26:53,680 --> 00:26:57,080
Speaker 1: the ages. Right, lead doesn't rust. I mean, well lead

491
00:26:57,359 --> 00:27:00,320
Speaker 1: lead ox sides do form, but they're not they're they're

492
00:27:00,359 --> 00:27:03,560
Speaker 1: not like like iron rust, you know, the red rusty stuff.

493
00:27:04,000 --> 00:27:07,000
Speaker 1: Lead oxide tends to be great, but generally exposed lead

494
00:27:07,040 --> 00:27:11,000
Speaker 1: doesn't corrode. And uh, and yeah, this does make it attractive,

495
00:27:11,119 --> 00:27:13,600
Speaker 1: especially for some purposes, say like if you want to

496
00:27:13,920 --> 00:27:17,119
Speaker 1: make something that holds liquids in it, right, something that

497
00:27:17,320 --> 00:27:20,240
Speaker 1: is not gonna receive a lot of punishment, you don't

498
00:27:20,280 --> 00:27:23,159
Speaker 1: have to worry about that. Uh. That the weakness of it,

499
00:27:23,720 --> 00:27:26,520
Speaker 1: But yeah, you can use it for drinking vessels or

500
00:27:26,600 --> 00:27:30,640
Speaker 1: certainly for plumbing pipes. Here's a gross piece of trivia.

501
00:27:31,000 --> 00:27:33,360
Speaker 1: Next time you have to call a plumber because who

502
00:27:33,400 --> 00:27:35,080
Speaker 1: knows what you tried to flush a whole roll of

503
00:27:35,080 --> 00:27:39,120
Speaker 1: paper towels down the toilet. Consider that the English words

504
00:27:39,280 --> 00:27:44,200
Speaker 1: plumber and plumbing are derived from the Latin word plumb them,

505
00:27:44,440 --> 00:27:47,680
Speaker 1: which means lead. And it's right there in the chemical

506
00:27:47,800 --> 00:27:50,360
Speaker 1: elements symbol for lead on the periodic table. You ever

507
00:27:50,440 --> 00:27:52,600
Speaker 1: noticed that it's one of those weird ones like iron

508
00:27:52,760 --> 00:27:55,080
Speaker 1: is f E. Why is that? Well, you know, it

509
00:27:55,160 --> 00:27:59,040
Speaker 1: comes from an archaic word of like the ferrest metal. Uh.

510
00:27:59,240 --> 00:28:01,920
Speaker 1: Lead on the pure reotic table is PB. Why is

511
00:28:01,960 --> 00:28:05,640
Speaker 1: it pb that comes from plumb them? Because ancient Romans

512
00:28:05,720 --> 00:28:10,320
Speaker 1: loved some lead pipes and lead aqueducts, and lead reservoirs

513
00:28:10,359 --> 00:28:14,720
Speaker 1: and lead cisterns, lead cooking vessels, and lead based even

514
00:28:14,800 --> 00:28:17,200
Speaker 1: lead based food additives. And we'll come back to the

515
00:28:17,480 --> 00:28:21,520
Speaker 1: food additives point now. I was looking at one text

516
00:28:21,600 --> 00:28:25,879
Speaker 1: from Cassis and and sort of titled Lead Chemistry Analytical Aspects,

517
00:28:26,280 --> 00:28:30,000
Speaker 1: Environmental Impact and Health Effects, and they pointed out that

518
00:28:30,080 --> 00:28:33,679
Speaker 1: ancient text showed a bit of confusion over lead and

519
00:28:33,800 --> 00:28:38,280
Speaker 1: other elements, using plumb bum to describe quote any silvery white,

520
00:28:38,400 --> 00:28:42,600
Speaker 1: low melting and easily oxidized metal, including lead, tin, zinc,

521
00:28:42,720 --> 00:28:46,200
Speaker 1: et cetera. They pointed out though, that yeah, lead pipes

522
00:28:46,600 --> 00:28:48,920
Speaker 1: have been used for a very long time. I see

523
00:28:48,960 --> 00:28:54,360
Speaker 1: them in ancient Mesopotamia, Cypress, Persia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, of course,

524
00:28:54,440 --> 00:28:58,040
Speaker 1: and various Roman provinces. So you know, the technology and

525
00:28:58,080 --> 00:29:00,400
Speaker 1: the materials would have spread with the Romans as well,

526
00:29:00,720 --> 00:29:03,640
Speaker 1: and the Romans likely learned it from the Greeks. And

527
00:29:03,880 --> 00:29:07,160
Speaker 1: it wasn't just the pipes. It was used in cases

528
00:29:07,160 --> 00:29:10,760
Speaker 1: where iron wire or wooden hoops are currently used today,

529
00:29:10,800 --> 00:29:16,640
Speaker 1: you know, as reinforcing brands for bands, for tanks, vats, um, amphora, etcetera.

530
00:29:17,080 --> 00:29:21,400
Speaker 1: So you see it also used in masonry, cesspool coverings, roofing,

531
00:29:21,880 --> 00:29:27,320
Speaker 1: damp proofing, foundations, uh, parapet walls, etcetera. Lead vessels were

532
00:29:27,320 --> 00:29:30,640
Speaker 1: widely used and uh this is interesting. Lead was also

533
00:29:30,760 --> 00:29:34,400
Speaker 1: long associated with funeral rites, so Roman era caskets and

534
00:29:34,560 --> 00:29:37,960
Speaker 1: urns are often made at least in part from lead,

535
00:29:38,440 --> 00:29:41,680
Speaker 1: especially apparently in England. Lead was also used in ancient

536
00:29:41,760 --> 00:29:46,200
Speaker 1: China in a variety of uses from glassmaking to cosmetics.

537
00:29:46,840 --> 00:29:48,560
Speaker 1: Of course, and now in the modern world, we know

538
00:29:48,720 --> 00:29:52,920
Speaker 1: that lead can have extremely serious health consequences, can and

539
00:29:53,200 --> 00:29:56,240
Speaker 1: very often does. Like there there are tons of ways

540
00:29:56,320 --> 00:29:58,520
Speaker 1: to get lead in your body, and lead exposure can

541
00:29:58,560 --> 00:30:01,280
Speaker 1: happen through through in jel question when when you eat,

542
00:30:01,320 --> 00:30:04,680
Speaker 1: It can happen through breathing in lead particles can happen

543
00:30:04,880 --> 00:30:08,600
Speaker 1: through absorption through the skin, and lead gets incorporated into

544
00:30:08,640 --> 00:30:10,840
Speaker 1: the body and leads to both short term and long

545
00:30:10,960 --> 00:30:15,560
Speaker 1: term negative consequences. The short term negative consequences are there

546
00:30:15,560 --> 00:30:17,520
Speaker 1: are a lot of different ones, so it can be

547
00:30:17,560 --> 00:30:20,320
Speaker 1: sometimes it's hard to identify lead exposure in people. But

548
00:30:20,400 --> 00:30:23,240
Speaker 1: it might be like you've got stomach distress, like your

549
00:30:23,240 --> 00:30:26,960
Speaker 1: stomach hurts and you're constipated. But it also can lead

550
00:30:26,960 --> 00:30:30,080
Speaker 1: to weakness and fatigue, and like your arms and legs

551
00:30:30,120 --> 00:30:34,320
Speaker 1: are weak, and it can lead to psychological and neurological consequences.

552
00:30:34,360 --> 00:30:38,640
Speaker 1: People can be like like tired and depressed and irritable,

553
00:30:38,800 --> 00:30:43,080
Speaker 1: have loss of appetite, have trouble remembering things. Yeah, I

554
00:30:43,120 --> 00:30:45,320
Speaker 1: mean it's enough to make you think it's my smartphone

555
00:30:45,360 --> 00:30:49,840
Speaker 1: made out of lead, but uh, it is, it's we

556
00:30:49,840 --> 00:30:52,640
Speaker 1: were actually talking about this before we recorded the episode,

557
00:30:52,640 --> 00:30:55,960
Speaker 1: like there's so much to the story of of of

558
00:30:56,000 --> 00:30:59,480
Speaker 1: our realization regarding the harmful effects of lead, that we

559
00:30:59,520 --> 00:31:01,240
Speaker 1: really need to come back to it and devote an

560
00:31:01,360 --> 00:31:04,840
Speaker 1: entire episode. Absolutely, yes, yes, absolutely, We're gonna do a

561
00:31:04,880 --> 00:31:07,360
Speaker 1: whole episode on lead someday soon, I think, maybe with

562
00:31:07,480 --> 00:31:10,160
Speaker 1: a special focus on the Lord of Lead, clar Cy Patterson.

563
00:31:11,200 --> 00:31:12,840
Speaker 1: But yeah, we we now know lead to have all

564
00:31:12,880 --> 00:31:15,560
Speaker 1: these problems, and they're also the long term consequences, right,

565
00:31:15,600 --> 00:31:18,240
Speaker 1: those are just like short term consequences. I was mentioning,

566
00:31:18,280 --> 00:31:20,920
Speaker 1: you know, it can there can be neurological damage from

567
00:31:20,960 --> 00:31:23,800
Speaker 1: long term exposure to lead. Enough lead in a concentrated

568
00:31:23,800 --> 00:31:27,920
Speaker 1: dose can kill you. They're definitely, uh like developmental problems

569
00:31:27,960 --> 00:31:31,520
Speaker 1: that children who have lead exposure experience. So it's uh yeah,

570
00:31:31,720 --> 00:31:33,920
Speaker 1: it's no joke. And the fact that humans have constantly

571
00:31:33,960 --> 00:31:37,720
Speaker 1: surrounded ourselves for centuries or even millennia with just constant

572
00:31:37,800 --> 00:31:41,720
Speaker 1: routes of exposure to to environmental lead is something that

573
00:31:41,920 --> 00:31:45,120
Speaker 1: is really horrifying and ridiculous. But I guess that's just

574
00:31:45,160 --> 00:31:47,120
Speaker 1: what we do. All right. We're gonna take a quick

575
00:31:47,120 --> 00:31:49,200
Speaker 1: break and when we come back We're going to get

576
00:31:49,200 --> 00:31:52,760
Speaker 1: back to this idea of lead as a food headed

577
00:31:53,400 --> 00:31:56,720
Speaker 1: song hanging there. Soon it'll be time to eat some

578
00:31:56,880 --> 00:32:03,080
Speaker 1: lead than Alright, we're back. Okay, it's Valentine's Day. What

579
00:32:03,160 --> 00:32:06,920
Speaker 1: do you get your sweetheart on Valentine's Day? Sometimes they're flowers?

580
00:32:06,960 --> 00:32:09,360
Speaker 1: But oh, I guess it's already there in the name, right,

581
00:32:09,400 --> 00:32:13,360
Speaker 1: you get your sweethearts some sweets. Now here's the question

582
00:32:13,400 --> 00:32:15,440
Speaker 1: I've wondered about before, but I've never found a good

583
00:32:15,480 --> 00:32:19,200
Speaker 1: answer to. Why is it that we associate sweet foods

584
00:32:19,320 --> 00:32:22,520
Speaker 1: with like eroticism but not so much like other flavors?

585
00:32:22,520 --> 00:32:26,280
Speaker 1: Like why isn't it that you get your sweethearts some

586
00:32:26,360 --> 00:32:29,240
Speaker 1: salty foods on Valentine's Day? Or you get them some

587
00:32:29,360 --> 00:32:33,720
Speaker 1: bitter foods or sour foods? Why sweet? I mean sweets

588
00:32:33,720 --> 00:32:36,600
Speaker 1: are a decadent treat, right, I mean I guess that's

589
00:32:36,680 --> 00:32:39,800
Speaker 1: part of it. Um, A sweet is something sweets or

590
00:32:39,840 --> 00:32:43,440
Speaker 1: something we've always were always craving and uh, and we're

591
00:32:43,520 --> 00:32:46,200
Speaker 1: just hardwired to want as much of it as possible,

592
00:32:46,240 --> 00:32:48,520
Speaker 1: given that it would be a rarity in the natural world.

593
00:32:48,560 --> 00:32:51,000
Speaker 1: But we also crave fat and salt. Why not like

594
00:32:51,200 --> 00:32:53,680
Speaker 1: for Valentine's Day, instead of a box of chocolates, it's

595
00:32:53,680 --> 00:32:58,800
Speaker 1: like a bag of pork crimes and a stick of butter. Well. Um,

596
00:32:59,120 --> 00:33:02,000
Speaker 1: I guess it would be harder to keep that secreted

597
00:33:02,000 --> 00:33:03,760
Speaker 1: away in the back of the closet for a week

598
00:33:03,880 --> 00:33:06,200
Speaker 1: or so. Um. But I don't know. I feel like

599
00:33:06,600 --> 00:33:12,440
Speaker 1: they're people celebrate cheeses on Valentine's You know, certainly there

600
00:33:12,440 --> 00:33:14,720
Speaker 1: are other foods that have a like a romantic or

601
00:33:14,760 --> 00:33:18,760
Speaker 1: afrodisiac uh, you know, vibe to them. Yeah, I guess so.

602
00:33:19,120 --> 00:33:20,880
Speaker 1: Uh you know, I guess part of what I'm wondering

603
00:33:21,040 --> 00:33:24,520
Speaker 1: is is that link between like love and eroticism and

604
00:33:24,560 --> 00:33:28,520
Speaker 1: sweet foods. Is that cultural or is there some biological

605
00:33:28,640 --> 00:33:30,840
Speaker 1: element to it? Oh? Man, We'll have to come back

606
00:33:30,840 --> 00:33:32,760
Speaker 1: and explore that. That would be that would be interesting

607
00:33:32,800 --> 00:33:35,080
Speaker 1: to look at, Like when you look at other cultures,

608
00:33:35,160 --> 00:33:40,520
Speaker 1: is there something else that is considered the romantic flavor profile? Um?

609
00:33:40,560 --> 00:33:43,800
Speaker 1: I don't know. You know, considering how many like Scandinavian

610
00:33:43,840 --> 00:33:46,000
Speaker 1: people have written into the show to to talk about

611
00:33:46,040 --> 00:33:48,440
Speaker 1: the wonders of salty licorice, I bet that's what they

612
00:33:48,520 --> 00:33:52,160
Speaker 1: use over there. Yeah. And plus it makes me wonder about, say,

613
00:33:52,240 --> 00:33:55,320
Speaker 1: Chinese traditions where there's so much emphasis placed on the

614
00:33:55,360 --> 00:34:00,800
Speaker 1: balance of different flavors. Uh, you know, how does impact

615
00:34:01,440 --> 00:34:05,080
Speaker 1: sort of ritualized sweets. All right, well, let's talk about

616
00:34:05,080 --> 00:34:09,120
Speaker 1: the sweetest of all sweets, sweet lead. So I found

617
00:34:09,160 --> 00:34:12,120
Speaker 1: what has got to be the best entry ever in

618
00:34:12,160 --> 00:34:17,160
Speaker 1: any Oxford Companions that was reading the Oxford Companion to

619
00:34:17,360 --> 00:34:21,239
Speaker 1: Sugar and Sweets. Yeah. So it's Oxford University Press, and

620
00:34:21,280 --> 00:34:25,480
Speaker 1: there's an entry in it by the American chemist Michelle M. Francil,

621
00:34:25,880 --> 00:34:27,279
Speaker 1: And this has just got to be one of the

622
00:34:27,280 --> 00:34:30,800
Speaker 1: best like Encyclopedia type entries I've ever read. So francial

623
00:34:30,880 --> 00:34:35,799
Speaker 1: writes about this substance called sugar of lead, also known

624
00:34:35,880 --> 00:34:39,879
Speaker 1: as lead lead acetate or lead to acetate. It looks

625
00:34:39,960 --> 00:34:42,839
Speaker 1: kind of like large salt crystals if you look it up,

626
00:34:42,960 --> 00:34:46,279
Speaker 1: or it looks maybe like translucent rock candy, the kind

627
00:34:46,280 --> 00:34:48,319
Speaker 1: of stuff you get on a little stick, right, Yeah,

628
00:34:48,360 --> 00:34:51,400
Speaker 1: but like sort of like white, translucent in color. And

629
00:34:51,440 --> 00:34:54,600
Speaker 1: Francile writes, quote, it is sweet roughly as sweet per

630
00:34:54,640 --> 00:34:58,240
Speaker 1: teaspoon as sugar, and only slightly more lethal than stricken.

631
00:35:00,000 --> 00:35:02,560
Speaker 1: So sugar of lead was used as like a medical

632
00:35:02,600 --> 00:35:06,360
Speaker 1: treatment in nineteenth century Europe, And even though it is sweet,

633
00:35:06,640 --> 00:35:09,960
Speaker 1: it is technically a salt, which is an electrically neutral

634
00:35:10,080 --> 00:35:13,440
Speaker 1: collection of positive ions and negative ions. And actually we

635
00:35:13,520 --> 00:35:17,279
Speaker 1: only think of salts as salty in flavor because the

636
00:35:17,320 --> 00:35:20,280
Speaker 1: most common salt that we refer to is sodium chloride

637
00:35:20,280 --> 00:35:23,160
Speaker 1: table salt. But salts don't have to be salty. Salts

638
00:35:23,200 --> 00:35:25,279
Speaker 1: can be bitter, and salts can be sweet, and in

639
00:35:25,320 --> 00:35:28,520
Speaker 1: this case it is sweet. So in lead acetate, this

640
00:35:28,560 --> 00:35:32,320
Speaker 1: collection of oppositely charged ions is made from di positive

641
00:35:32,480 --> 00:35:37,239
Speaker 1: lead ions and negatively charged acetate ions. And it turns

642
00:35:37,239 --> 00:35:40,840
Speaker 1: out sugar of lead is not the only sweet metallic salt.

643
00:35:41,120 --> 00:35:44,160
Speaker 1: Frens Will points out that lots of beryllium salts are

644
00:35:44,320 --> 00:35:47,080
Speaker 1: very sweet, so sweet in fact, that the Greek word

645
00:35:47,160 --> 00:35:52,120
Speaker 1: for the element beryllium is glucinium, from like glucose or glycos,

646
00:35:52,239 --> 00:35:55,959
Speaker 1: the Greek word for sweet. But as good as these

647
00:35:56,000 --> 00:35:58,880
Speaker 1: metal salts that are sweet taste, they are very bad

648
00:35:58,920 --> 00:36:01,440
Speaker 1: for you. Lead a state can be fatal to a

649
00:36:01,480 --> 00:36:04,200
Speaker 1: seventy or a hundred and fifty pound adult at a

650
00:36:04,239 --> 00:36:08,200
Speaker 1: dose of three teaspoons. So basically what you're saying is

651
00:36:08,239 --> 00:36:12,360
Speaker 1: that if anybody has any fancy dining plants this evening

652
00:36:12,960 --> 00:36:16,880
Speaker 1: and they see lead based sweeteners on the menu, I

653
00:36:16,880 --> 00:36:21,160
Speaker 1: would advise against it. Nevertheless, there is some evidence that

654
00:36:21,200 --> 00:36:25,719
Speaker 1: the ancient Romans used indirectly, I would say indirectly used

655
00:36:25,719 --> 00:36:28,839
Speaker 1: this lead salt as a kind of sweetener, or at

656
00:36:28,880 --> 00:36:31,880
Speaker 1: least as a way of avoiding other types of taste

657
00:36:31,960 --> 00:36:35,520
Speaker 1: imparted into their foods. So here's how this goes. The

658
00:36:35,640 --> 00:36:39,600
Speaker 1: Romans created a syrup that they called sapa, which was

659
00:36:39,680 --> 00:36:43,759
Speaker 1: produced by boiling down a liquid called must. Must is

660
00:36:43,760 --> 00:36:48,560
Speaker 1: basically weak wine. Frontal describes it as quote mildly fermented

661
00:36:48,600 --> 00:36:51,280
Speaker 1: grape juice, so there'll be a little bit of alcohol content,

662
00:36:51,320 --> 00:36:54,320
Speaker 1: maybe kind of like grape beer. Almost. Of course, must,

663
00:36:54,480 --> 00:36:57,880
Speaker 1: like wine, has some acid in it. It has acetic acid,

664
00:36:57,920 --> 00:37:00,760
Speaker 1: and acetic acid is the acid base is of vinegar.

665
00:37:00,880 --> 00:37:04,440
Speaker 1: Vinegar is usually just acetic acid diluted with water or

666
00:37:04,480 --> 00:37:09,320
Speaker 1: some other aqueous substance, and acetic acid provides acetate ions

667
00:37:09,440 --> 00:37:12,279
Speaker 1: which can react with metals in the pots where they

668
00:37:12,280 --> 00:37:16,600
Speaker 1: are boiled and uh and this can result in some salts.

669
00:37:16,640 --> 00:37:19,560
Speaker 1: So if you boil your must in a copper pot,

670
00:37:19,920 --> 00:37:23,719
Speaker 1: the resulting sappa will have some copper acetate salts in it,

671
00:37:24,040 --> 00:37:27,640
Speaker 1: and these taste really bad, like they're bitter. Even ancient

672
00:37:27,760 --> 00:37:31,080
Speaker 1: Roman writers would would comment on this. In the Natural History,

673
00:37:31,160 --> 00:37:34,680
Speaker 1: Plenty discusses the production of sappa and he writes, quote,

674
00:37:34,800 --> 00:37:38,400
Speaker 1: leaden vessels should be used for this purpose, not copper ones.

675
00:37:38,520 --> 00:37:40,799
Speaker 1: So it's like, get that copper out of there, makes

676
00:37:40,840 --> 00:37:44,320
Speaker 1: the sappa taste bad? You want lead? Except no less?

677
00:37:45,600 --> 00:37:48,800
Speaker 1: So why use lead? Because remember lead salts are sweets.

678
00:37:48,840 --> 00:37:51,960
Speaker 1: So not only does cooking in lead pots not foul

679
00:37:52,000 --> 00:37:55,799
Speaker 1: your sappa, it might make it even a little bit sweeter. Uh.

680
00:37:55,920 --> 00:37:58,280
Speaker 1: And this is a quote from This is a quote

681
00:37:58,280 --> 00:38:02,400
Speaker 1: from Francile's injury quote. Chemical analysis of sappa produced according

682
00:38:02,440 --> 00:38:06,440
Speaker 1: to recipes dating from the classical Roman period using kettles

683
00:38:06,440 --> 00:38:09,840
Speaker 1: of similar metallic composition as those found at POMPEII and

684
00:38:09,880 --> 00:38:13,960
Speaker 1: other sites, suggests that the lead content of sappa was

685
00:38:14,040 --> 00:38:18,000
Speaker 1: eight hundred and fifty milligrams per leader, many thousand times

686
00:38:18,080 --> 00:38:21,560
Speaker 1: higher than what is generally allowable in drinking water, even

687
00:38:21,640 --> 00:38:25,600
Speaker 1: diluted and used sparingly. Sweetening with sappa was a serious risk.

688
00:38:26,600 --> 00:38:29,600
Speaker 1: Now I have seen some people phrase this is like

689
00:38:29,800 --> 00:38:34,200
Speaker 1: that the lead pots were used specifically to make the

690
00:38:34,239 --> 00:38:37,440
Speaker 1: sappa sweeter, and Francis sort of disagrees with that because

691
00:38:37,480 --> 00:38:41,160
Speaker 1: she says the lead was probably not really intended to

692
00:38:41,200 --> 00:38:44,719
Speaker 1: add much sweetness to the wine because it wouldn't put

693
00:38:45,000 --> 00:38:47,120
Speaker 1: it wouldn't add that much. Really, you You'd already have

694
00:38:47,320 --> 00:38:50,000
Speaker 1: a pretty sweet substance and would be the equivalent of

695
00:38:50,040 --> 00:38:52,040
Speaker 1: adding like a pinch of sugar to it, So it

696
00:38:52,040 --> 00:38:54,440
Speaker 1: wouldn't make a huge difference. It was more that the

697
00:38:54,520 --> 00:38:57,520
Speaker 1: lead vessels, if they when they did add flavor, would

698
00:38:57,520 --> 00:39:00,960
Speaker 1: sort of complement the existing sweetness ra other than adding

699
00:39:01,000 --> 00:39:04,920
Speaker 1: a foul, bitter flavor like copper vessels would. Okay, so

700
00:39:05,000 --> 00:39:08,319
Speaker 1: in a blind taste test of the in which both

701
00:39:08,440 --> 00:39:13,000
Speaker 1: vessels have the same already sweet or semi sweet wine,

702
00:39:13,760 --> 00:39:16,719
Speaker 1: you're going to find that the leaden vessel is going

703
00:39:16,760 --> 00:39:20,520
Speaker 1: to impart a like a slightly sweeter, less foul experience. Well,

704
00:39:20,560 --> 00:39:24,160
Speaker 1: probably significantly less foul. But yeah, I don't know if

705
00:39:24,200 --> 00:39:27,200
Speaker 1: there's evidence that they thought of it, as the lead

706
00:39:27,280 --> 00:39:29,920
Speaker 1: comes out and makes it a lot sweeter. They just thought, oh,

707
00:39:30,000 --> 00:39:32,960
Speaker 1: you use lead pots it tastes way better. In the end. However,

708
00:39:33,040 --> 00:39:35,320
Speaker 1: this is one of those cases where we also can't

709
00:39:35,440 --> 00:39:38,760
Speaker 1: just make fun of the ancients. Because this this kind

710
00:39:38,800 --> 00:39:41,920
Speaker 1: of thing carried on into a ridiculously recent time. She

711
00:39:42,000 --> 00:39:44,440
Speaker 1: points out that the use of lead as a food

712
00:39:44,480 --> 00:39:47,680
Speaker 1: additive and treatment did not stop in Ancient Rome, and

713
00:39:47,760 --> 00:39:50,840
Speaker 1: that lead equipment and additives were used to prevent spoilage

714
00:39:50,880 --> 00:39:53,600
Speaker 1: in wine in some cases up until the nineteenth century.

715
00:39:53,880 --> 00:39:56,359
Speaker 1: Oh wow, now we do have to just drive home

716
00:39:56,400 --> 00:39:58,600
Speaker 1: for everybody, even though again we're not getting deep into

717
00:39:58,600 --> 00:40:03,560
Speaker 1: the the the the the dangers of lead in this episode. Please,

718
00:40:04,000 --> 00:40:06,440
Speaker 1: if you were, if you were tempted, all tempted it all,

719
00:40:06,640 --> 00:40:09,640
Speaker 1: do not go out and drink a bunch of wine

720
00:40:09,640 --> 00:40:14,000
Speaker 1: out of lead vessels just to to to test the

721
00:40:14,239 --> 00:40:17,200
Speaker 1: sweetening ability of the of the vessel. The amount of

722
00:40:17,239 --> 00:40:20,920
Speaker 1: lead you should be absorbing on purposes zero, whatever you're

723
00:40:20,960 --> 00:40:23,960
Speaker 1: accidentally getting from the environment is still probably more than

724
00:40:24,000 --> 00:40:26,560
Speaker 1: you want. And there's actually a lot more stuff that

725
00:40:26,760 --> 00:40:30,560
Speaker 1: There's been an ongoing argument over the years about the

726
00:40:30,680 --> 00:40:34,319
Speaker 1: role of lead ingestion and lead exposure in ancient Rome,

727
00:40:34,360 --> 00:40:38,080
Speaker 1: because before Ancient Rome there was lead. People did use

728
00:40:38,200 --> 00:40:40,520
Speaker 1: lead to make some objects, but it wasn't used in

729
00:40:40,600 --> 00:40:44,560
Speaker 1: wide like widespread construction and infrastructure and all that. The

730
00:40:44,680 --> 00:40:47,160
Speaker 1: Romans were the ones that really started using lead for

731
00:40:47,200 --> 00:40:50,400
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff, and in nine three, a Canadian

732
00:40:50,440 --> 00:40:55,719
Speaker 1: researcher named Jerome Riyagu argued that lead poisoning actually lead

733
00:40:55,800 --> 00:40:58,160
Speaker 1: to the downfall of the Roman Empire. You've probably heard

734
00:40:58,200 --> 00:41:00,600
Speaker 1: this before, Yeah, the idea that they just they built

735
00:41:00,680 --> 00:41:03,439
Speaker 1: up all of this lead essentially lead infrastructure and then

736
00:41:03,840 --> 00:41:07,160
Speaker 1: poisoned themselves with yeah, and cooked with this, especially the

737
00:41:07,200 --> 00:41:10,880
Speaker 1: cooking with lead vessels, I think. Um. And so this

738
00:41:10,920 --> 00:41:13,359
Speaker 1: has later been called into doubt by others who said,

739
00:41:13,400 --> 00:41:16,080
Speaker 1: you know, it doesn't necessarily seem like we can claim that,

740
00:41:16,680 --> 00:41:19,920
Speaker 1: but there's no doubt that many robins were exposed to

741
00:41:20,160 --> 00:41:22,759
Speaker 1: unsafe levels of lead. I was just looking at a

742
00:41:22,760 --> 00:41:26,360
Speaker 1: study from P and A. S by the by Delisle

743
00:41:26,400 --> 00:41:29,520
Speaker 1: at All called lead in Ancient Rome city waters, and

744
00:41:29,800 --> 00:41:32,960
Speaker 1: they found that the tap water, you know, basically the

745
00:41:32,960 --> 00:41:37,600
Speaker 1: aqueduct delivered water or delivered through some kind of lead infrastructure,

746
00:41:37,640 --> 00:41:40,160
Speaker 1: that water in ancient Rome would have roughly a hundred

747
00:41:40,239 --> 00:41:44,640
Speaker 1: times the lead content of local spring water. It's a

748
00:41:44,680 --> 00:41:47,439
Speaker 1: lot of lead, all right, was we we wind down here,

749
00:41:47,600 --> 00:41:49,719
Speaker 1: Let's just let's just talk once more about just the

750
00:41:49,760 --> 00:41:52,399
Speaker 1: properties of lead, right, And I wonder if in looking

751
00:41:52,480 --> 00:41:55,279
Speaker 1: at these properties, we can figure out what makes it

752
00:41:55,320 --> 00:41:58,520
Speaker 1: so special as as the opposite of the love inducing

753
00:41:58,560 --> 00:42:02,080
Speaker 1: golden arrow. Yeah, and and indeed, why Cupid would have

754
00:42:02,960 --> 00:42:06,560
Speaker 1: walked up to his possible father Vulcan and said, Hey,

755
00:42:07,440 --> 00:42:09,760
Speaker 1: what metal should you use to make my repulsion arrows?

756
00:42:10,040 --> 00:42:12,360
Speaker 1: What would make Vulcans say, oh, yeah, lead, Lead is

757
00:42:12,400 --> 00:42:14,680
Speaker 1: what you want? Okay? Well, one thing we know about

758
00:42:14,719 --> 00:42:16,439
Speaker 1: lead is that, for a metal, has a pretty low

759
00:42:16,440 --> 00:42:19,279
Speaker 1: melting point right right, And this means it's a lot

760
00:42:19,320 --> 00:42:22,080
Speaker 1: easier to cast with requires less equipment, and it made

761
00:42:22,080 --> 00:42:24,920
Speaker 1: an ideal solder component. Ye, So if you want to

762
00:42:24,920 --> 00:42:28,799
Speaker 1: melt something easily to like seal things together, I think yeah,

763
00:42:28,880 --> 00:42:31,200
Speaker 1: and I've read this also makes it like an attractive

764
00:42:31,239 --> 00:42:34,960
Speaker 1: additive if you're like casting something in a mold. Right.

765
00:42:35,000 --> 00:42:37,120
Speaker 1: And then to your point earlier, like it was there

766
00:42:37,160 --> 00:42:40,759
Speaker 1: as a byproduct of going after other metals, so it

767
00:42:40,880 --> 00:42:44,719
Speaker 1: was available, um onto onto. An addition, we've talked about

768
00:42:44,719 --> 00:42:47,640
Speaker 1: this a little bit. Lead is dnse. It is. It's

769
00:42:47,680 --> 00:42:49,920
Speaker 1: a heavy metal, and leads density is due to its

770
00:42:50,000 --> 00:42:54,720
Speaker 1: high atomic mass, short bond lengths, and a small atomic radius.

771
00:42:54,960 --> 00:42:57,759
Speaker 1: And this along with its high number of electrons needed

772
00:42:57,800 --> 00:43:00,960
Speaker 1: to maintain a neutral charge, makes it a useful radiation

773
00:43:01,040 --> 00:43:04,680
Speaker 1: shield in our modern world, a scattering X rays and

774
00:43:04,760 --> 00:43:07,160
Speaker 1: gamma rays. Yeah, and so you'll actually see it in

775
00:43:07,320 --> 00:43:10,160
Speaker 1: use in places where there's a radiation risk. There are

776
00:43:10,200 --> 00:43:13,480
Speaker 1: sometimes lead blocks deployed as a as basically a like

777
00:43:13,520 --> 00:43:17,200
Speaker 1: the sand bags of the radiation world. Yeah. I mean,

778
00:43:17,640 --> 00:43:20,879
Speaker 1: my my father was a dentist and and so I

779
00:43:20,920 --> 00:43:23,880
Speaker 1: was often hanging out in dental offices, and part of

780
00:43:23,920 --> 00:43:26,640
Speaker 1: that is being being near an X ray machine and

781
00:43:26,719 --> 00:43:32,759
Speaker 1: of course that big, big heavy lead line smock that lead. Yeah.

782
00:43:33,320 --> 00:43:35,440
Speaker 1: So so yeah, you see, you see this kind of

783
00:43:35,880 --> 00:43:38,200
Speaker 1: radiation shielding all over. It kind of makes me think

784
00:43:38,239 --> 00:43:40,480
Speaker 1: back to our our our episode on the X ray

785
00:43:40,520 --> 00:43:43,120
Speaker 1: machine that we did for Invention. So certainly if you

786
00:43:43,160 --> 00:43:46,319
Speaker 1: want more on on the use of X rays and

787
00:43:46,400 --> 00:43:48,960
Speaker 1: the dangers of radiation associated with that with X rays,

788
00:43:49,000 --> 00:43:52,520
Speaker 1: I highly recommend that episode of our other show Invention.

789
00:43:52,719 --> 00:43:55,719
Speaker 1: And then the third major attribute of lead is that

790
00:43:55,800 --> 00:43:59,680
Speaker 1: it is soft and it's malleable. Uh, it's limited usage somewhat.

791
00:44:00,200 --> 00:44:02,040
Speaker 1: You know, while God might be able to craft an

792
00:44:02,120 --> 00:44:04,520
Speaker 1: arrow out of it or coat an arrow with lead anyway,

793
00:44:04,680 --> 00:44:06,839
Speaker 1: you're not gonna be able to fashion anything with it

794
00:44:06,880 --> 00:44:10,480
Speaker 1: that can sustain any real stress. But when you're talking

795
00:44:10,520 --> 00:44:13,480
Speaker 1: about something like water and sewage pipes or cooking vessels,

796
00:44:13,960 --> 00:44:16,520
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, that that is an area where lead can

797
00:44:17,239 --> 00:44:20,200
Speaker 1: can excel as long as you're not getting into questions

798
00:44:20,239 --> 00:44:22,279
Speaker 1: of whether it will poison you or not. Just from

799
00:44:22,320 --> 00:44:24,560
Speaker 1: a physical and a physical basis, it can get the

800
00:44:24,640 --> 00:44:27,319
Speaker 1: job done. You wouldn't want like a lead hammer, though,

801
00:44:27,360 --> 00:44:29,759
Speaker 1: I think you can have like lead alloy hammers and

802
00:44:29,800 --> 00:44:32,400
Speaker 1: stuff like. You can use alloys to strengthen metals that

803
00:44:32,440 --> 00:44:35,799
Speaker 1: are inherently soft. So coming back to Cupid, I mean

804
00:44:35,880 --> 00:44:39,760
Speaker 1: maybe the idea is that the leaden arrows or somehow

805
00:44:40,040 --> 00:44:45,880
Speaker 1: combating the radiation of intense passionate love. The power of

806
00:44:46,000 --> 00:44:48,879
Speaker 1: love is actually a it's a it's a type of ray.

807
00:44:49,000 --> 00:44:51,480
Speaker 1: It's what's beyond gamma rays. Yeah, and you've got to

808
00:44:51,520 --> 00:44:53,560
Speaker 1: scatter those love rays. And the only way to do

809
00:44:53,600 --> 00:44:58,200
Speaker 1: it is with with some high end um God forged

810
00:44:58,400 --> 00:45:02,680
Speaker 1: a leaden ammunition. I'm seeing another residence here because one

811
00:45:02,719 --> 00:45:04,960
Speaker 1: of the sources we didn't mention. So we talked about

812
00:45:05,000 --> 00:45:08,480
Speaker 1: how lead can be created in like events in space

813
00:45:08,560 --> 00:45:11,680
Speaker 1: inside like a dying star and the collision of neutron stars.

814
00:45:11,880 --> 00:45:14,200
Speaker 1: We also didn't talk about another. I think it probably

815
00:45:14,200 --> 00:45:16,840
Speaker 1: accounts for a much much smaller percentage of it. But

816
00:45:17,080 --> 00:45:21,560
Speaker 1: lead can be created as the byproduct of radioactive decay sometimes,

817
00:45:21,600 --> 00:45:25,359
Speaker 1: like uranium can decay into some isotopes of lead. So

818
00:45:25,400 --> 00:45:28,640
Speaker 1: maybe if we're considering that love is a type of

819
00:45:28,920 --> 00:45:33,880
Speaker 1: radioactivity or type of ray, they're actually lead represents what

820
00:45:34,040 --> 00:45:37,440
Speaker 1: happens when love dies in decays, you know, like so

821
00:45:37,719 --> 00:45:41,360
Speaker 1: like love fades and eventually it becomes lead. What starts

822
00:45:41,400 --> 00:45:46,400
Speaker 1: as this golden, splendid, sharp arrow becomes this blunt, dull,

823
00:45:46,560 --> 00:45:51,040
Speaker 1: lusterless instrument. We have crucified this myth and taken out

824
00:45:51,080 --> 00:45:55,200
Speaker 1: all of the beauty and turned it into a chemical Frankenstein.

825
00:45:55,239 --> 00:45:57,880
Speaker 1: I'm so proud of us. Yeah, I I feel like

826
00:45:57,960 --> 00:46:00,640
Speaker 1: we have. We've done a good job here today, taking

827
00:46:00,800 --> 00:46:05,879
Speaker 1: the candy coated and kind of lame holiday of Valentine's Day,

828
00:46:06,000 --> 00:46:08,400
Speaker 1: and I think we've injected some fresh life into it.

829
00:46:08,440 --> 00:46:12,359
Speaker 1: We've fed it a lot of lead and uh and

830
00:46:12,360 --> 00:46:14,680
Speaker 1: and there and uh and in doing so, we've we've

831
00:46:14,760 --> 00:46:18,960
Speaker 1: killed off a lot of the the more irritable aspects

832
00:46:19,120 --> 00:46:23,560
Speaker 1: of the holiday. Sweet sweet lead. Yes, so big takeaways

833
00:46:23,640 --> 00:46:27,680
Speaker 1: from from today. Don't eat lead sugar, right, don't do

834
00:46:27,760 --> 00:46:30,680
Speaker 1: not do it. Don't cook in lead pots, right, don't

835
00:46:30,760 --> 00:46:33,360
Speaker 1: drink from lead leading vessels if you have a choice

836
00:46:33,360 --> 00:46:38,200
Speaker 1: in the matter. Be wary of gods with bows and arrows,

837
00:46:39,160 --> 00:46:42,400
Speaker 1: and and keep in mind that, yeah, Cupid has two arrows,

838
00:46:42,440 --> 00:46:44,759
Speaker 1: so if he's aiming at you, uh, it's kind of

839
00:46:44,760 --> 00:46:47,040
Speaker 1: a toss up which one he's trying to hit you with.

840
00:46:47,280 --> 00:46:50,680
Speaker 1: And sometimes even the great God Pan gets out wrestled exactly.

841
00:46:51,440 --> 00:46:54,239
Speaker 1: All right, So we're gonna close out the special Valentine's

842
00:46:54,280 --> 00:46:56,480
Speaker 1: Day episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind. But as always,

843
00:46:56,480 --> 00:46:58,960
Speaker 1: if you want to check out more episodes of the show,

844
00:46:59,280 --> 00:47:00,839
Speaker 1: you can always head it over to stuff to Blow

845
00:47:00,880 --> 00:47:03,439
Speaker 1: your Mind dot com. That's the mother ship. That's where

846
00:47:03,480 --> 00:47:05,839
Speaker 1: you will find all the episodes of the show. You'll

847
00:47:05,880 --> 00:47:08,680
Speaker 1: find links out to various social media accounts. You can

848
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