WEBVTT - Colossal: The Science of Human Height 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:06.160 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuffworks 0:00:06.200 --> 0:00:15.440 dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:15.480 --> 0:00:18.400 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. Today 0:00:18.440 --> 0:00:21.840 we're talking about human height. We're talking about the limits 0:00:21.840 --> 0:00:24.919 of human height. We're talking about the giant humans start humans. 0:00:25.680 --> 0:00:27.880 So it seemed like the most natural place to begin 0:00:27.960 --> 0:00:33.199 this discussion is, of course, with nineteen fifty seven's classic film. 0:00:33.240 --> 0:00:35.080 Some of you may remember it from Mystery Science Theater 0:00:35.159 --> 0:00:37.680 three thousands, some of you may have just experienced it 0:00:37.760 --> 0:00:41.479 straight up, The Amazing Colossal Man. Now, Robert, I am 0:00:41.520 --> 0:00:44.120 sitting here looking at this looping gift that you put 0:00:44.120 --> 0:00:47.680 in our outline of a gigantic dude who seems to 0:00:47.680 --> 0:00:50.400 be filmed with like rear projection to make him look 0:00:50.400 --> 0:00:54.320 bigger than he is, throwing some sort of instrument that 0:00:54.720 --> 0:00:58.200 seems hand sized for him, but he's impaling a tiny, 0:00:58.240 --> 0:01:00.680 tiny person with it. Oh yeah, this is a great 0:01:00.680 --> 0:01:04.600 scene because he's the character is is Glenn Manning, Lieutendant 0:01:04.640 --> 0:01:07.600 Colonel Glenn Manning. There's an atomic blast, he ends up 0:01:07.640 --> 0:01:10.600 growing uncontrollably. He loses all his hair and his clothes 0:01:10.800 --> 0:01:13.119 except for you know, alloying the loth that I assume 0:01:13.200 --> 0:01:15.039 is made out of sale made out of sale cloth 0:01:15.120 --> 0:01:18.479 or something. And there's a scene where they they're trying 0:01:18.520 --> 0:01:21.679 to arrest his growth by jabbing him with this giant 0:01:21.800 --> 0:01:27.880 hypodermic needle. Of course looks like a giant hypodermic needle. Um. 0:01:28.000 --> 0:01:30.360 So they come in, they jab him, and then he 0:01:30.400 --> 0:01:32.440 picks the thing up, looks at it with anger, and 0:01:32.480 --> 0:01:35.839 then just throws it down like a javelin and impales it. Dude. 0:01:35.840 --> 0:01:38.920 It's a classic scene. So this was nine seven, and 0:01:38.959 --> 0:01:41.440 this was this was part of the era of filmmaking 0:01:41.480 --> 0:01:44.880 in America where it was just giant everything all the time. 0:01:45.000 --> 0:01:50.480 Giant bugs, giant you know, leeches, giant rats, giant what else, 0:01:50.520 --> 0:01:54.560 giant giant spiders of course, any of those grasshoppers praying Mann. 0:01:54.560 --> 0:01:56.760 This is I mean, yeah, you name it. If it 0:01:56.800 --> 0:01:59.800 looked good or if it just looked passable and giant form, 0:02:00.160 --> 0:02:02.520 somebody was blowing that thing up. I think they'd figured 0:02:02.560 --> 0:02:05.480 out how to do rear projection technology that looked okay 0:02:05.480 --> 0:02:08.880 in film, uh, and so that they were like, oh god, 0:02:08.960 --> 0:02:12.360 we can make anything look you know, hugely out of proportion. 0:02:12.480 --> 0:02:15.560 Let's just exploit this to the max for fifteen years 0:02:15.600 --> 0:02:17.239 and then throw it up on a drive in the 0:02:17.320 --> 0:02:18.880 kids will come and see it. Yeah, And of course 0:02:18.919 --> 0:02:21.800 the plot was always atomic radiation, right as it was 0:02:21.880 --> 0:02:24.080 in this case. So in The Amazing Colossal Man, the 0:02:24.080 --> 0:02:27.040 guy you said he gets uh irradiated by nuclear blast. 0:02:27.080 --> 0:02:30.400 I think he actually he's like he's they're observing the 0:02:30.440 --> 0:02:33.040 blast from the safety of a trench, but he gets 0:02:33.120 --> 0:02:36.080 up out of the trench to rescue somebody or something 0:02:36.120 --> 0:02:39.119 that it's just you know, it's an heroic act. But bam, 0:02:39.240 --> 0:02:41.240 he gets blasted and it's a great scene of just 0:02:41.280 --> 0:02:44.839 standing there at the with the radiation washing over him 0:02:45.120 --> 0:02:49.680 and yeah, and he's reborn as this colossal being uh 0:02:49.919 --> 0:02:52.520 and it begins messing with his mind too. Yeah. So 0:02:52.600 --> 0:02:54.959 it's sort of similar to Beast of Yucca Flats. Same 0:02:55.000 --> 0:02:57.400 thing happens to Tour Johnson, and that he gets hit 0:02:57.440 --> 0:03:00.120 with an atomic blast and instead of vapor I sing 0:03:00.200 --> 0:03:02.519 him burning him up. It just kind of makes him 0:03:02.560 --> 0:03:04.679 look crazy, makes him look a little bit bigger, and 0:03:04.720 --> 0:03:06.360 he has some oat meal on his face. Yeah. But 0:03:06.400 --> 0:03:08.160 then but the thing is, I mean, I don't want 0:03:08.160 --> 0:03:12.200 to undersell Tour as an actor, but Glenn Langan, who 0:03:12.200 --> 0:03:15.640 plays Lieutenant Colonel Glenn Manning in the in the film 0:03:15.720 --> 0:03:18.000 here like he brings. He brings a certain amount of 0:03:18.680 --> 0:03:21.959 at times hammy but still legitimate humanity to this character 0:03:22.040 --> 0:03:24.000 where you end up feeling for him like he's meeting 0:03:24.040 --> 0:03:27.639 his his wife. Uh you know, he's he still has 0:03:27.760 --> 0:03:31.800 his humanity about him. He's even as the condition begins 0:03:31.800 --> 0:03:33.880 to go through his head. So you think this is 0:03:33.919 --> 0:03:36.600 actually a pretty good B movie, right, Yeah, I mean, 0:03:37.120 --> 0:03:39.200 going into it knowing what to expect out of a 0:03:39.240 --> 0:03:41.640 B movie. I think this is a great movement B movie. 0:03:41.680 --> 0:03:44.720 I think this is just a fabulous example of a 0:03:44.760 --> 0:03:50.160 particularly of a bomb B movies directed by Oh yes, 0:03:50.240 --> 0:03:53.520 the great Burt Eye Gordon bert I Gordon. So he's 0:03:53.560 --> 0:03:56.960 actually still alive and yeah, I was looking him up 0:03:57.080 --> 0:03:59.840 and yeah he was born in two. He's still kicking 0:04:00.160 --> 0:04:03.920 at ninety two as of this recording, and IMDb claims 0:04:03.920 --> 0:04:09.080 that he directed a film in Okay. So Burt Iye Gordon. 0:04:09.160 --> 0:04:11.960 You you might have noticed his initials are b I 0:04:12.160 --> 0:04:15.080 G This Uh this. He didn't, as far as I know, 0:04:15.160 --> 0:04:16.840 he didn't change his name to be like this. It's 0:04:16.880 --> 0:04:20.560 just a happy coincidence that Bert Eye Gordon was known 0:04:20.600 --> 0:04:24.279 as Mr Big, Mr b I g because he loved 0:04:24.279 --> 0:04:27.600 to make movies about things that grow bigger than they 0:04:27.680 --> 0:04:31.479 usually can. Uh. So. Other movies of Burt Eye Gordon's 0:04:31.520 --> 0:04:34.360 include War of the Colossal Beast that's the follow up, 0:04:35.200 --> 0:04:38.239 and then there's The Spider or Earth Versus the Spider, 0:04:38.279 --> 0:04:41.320 that has a larger than normal spider and it's not 0:04:41.400 --> 0:04:44.560 just like a suitcase size spider, it's like a giant spider. Like, 0:04:44.800 --> 0:04:47.080 I mean, you gotta go go big with your giant spider. 0:04:47.200 --> 0:04:50.560 Like she lops size pretty much. And then there is 0:04:50.680 --> 0:04:53.479 Village of the Giants. There's King Dinosaur, which has a 0:04:53.480 --> 0:04:57.800 fun Mystery Science Theater episode in which astronauts travel to 0:04:57.839 --> 0:05:00.320 a planet full of giant reptiles and then they sort 0:05:00.320 --> 0:05:02.880 of flirt and romance each other. And then there's a 0:05:02.920 --> 0:05:05.360 lizard that is supposed to be a t rex I think, 0:05:05.520 --> 0:05:08.320 and then the astronauts nuke the planet to wipe out 0:05:08.360 --> 0:05:11.840 indigenous life and make it safe for human colonization. Uh. 0:05:11.880 --> 0:05:14.040 And then of course there's also the Beginning of the End, 0:05:14.160 --> 0:05:17.600 another Mystery Science Theater episode, but that movie has a 0:05:17.640 --> 0:05:22.039 Midwestern town threatened by giant grasshoppers again, atomic radiation. Yeah, 0:05:22.520 --> 0:05:25.720 but since we're talking about human height primarily today, back 0:05:25.760 --> 0:05:30.719 to the Amazing Colossal Man. Yeah, so nobody's gonna gonna 0:05:30.720 --> 0:05:32.880 bring up The Amazing Colossal Man is like a perfect 0:05:33.040 --> 0:05:37.400 example of science, but it does at least flirt with 0:05:37.440 --> 0:05:39.440 some of these ideas because you have this this guy. 0:05:39.480 --> 0:05:43.080 He's gigantic, he's powerful, and yet he seems to be 0:05:43.120 --> 0:05:46.560 in a fair amount of just constant misery. Um, it's 0:05:46.600 --> 0:05:48.880 been a little while since to actually have seen it, 0:05:48.920 --> 0:05:51.520 but I I seem to recall that not only there 0:05:51.520 --> 0:05:54.680 there's there's elements of it affecting his mind, but but 0:05:54.800 --> 0:05:56.720 perhaps just being that big is at least a little 0:05:56.720 --> 0:06:00.880 bit painful as well. Um, and the mind thing is interesting. 0:06:01.120 --> 0:06:03.440 I have a feeling in the in the in the film, 0:06:03.480 --> 0:06:06.960 it's more about like radiation or something affecting his mind, 0:06:06.960 --> 0:06:10.080 making him a little crazy, a little hostile. But I 0:06:10.120 --> 0:06:11.920 can't help but wonder it has something to do with 0:06:12.160 --> 0:06:15.120 the blood flow to his head. Oh yeah, like you're 0:06:15.160 --> 0:06:17.560 just trying to scale up the human body that things 0:06:17.600 --> 0:06:20.480 aren't necessarily gonna work right. Yeah, Because as we'll discussed, 0:06:20.480 --> 0:06:23.520 that's a major issue when you start thinking about gigantic 0:06:23.920 --> 0:06:27.599 human bodies or gigantic bodies of any kind. Um. For 0:06:27.680 --> 0:06:30.839 after after all, look at the draff right tallest vertebrate 0:06:30.839 --> 0:06:34.400 on Earth. Uh And and it has to uh, you know, 0:06:34.480 --> 0:06:36.360 sort of quite a bit of energy to pump blood 0:06:36.440 --> 0:06:39.160 up to its brain. It has like an amazing amount 0:06:39.279 --> 0:06:41.880 of hypertension. I mean, the same kind of hypertension that 0:06:41.920 --> 0:06:45.120 would cause vascular damage to a human being and eventually 0:06:45.480 --> 0:06:48.880 perhaps lead to uh, internal injury and death. Is just 0:06:49.000 --> 0:06:50.760 normal for a draft because it's got to get all 0:06:50.760 --> 0:06:52.800 the blood up the neck to the brain and then 0:06:52.800 --> 0:06:56.880 when it lowers its head to drink gravity. You can't 0:06:56.880 --> 0:06:59.440 have gravity then like sending all this blood to the 0:06:59.440 --> 0:07:01.839 head and what may in the draft's head explode. Nobody 0:07:01.880 --> 0:07:04.919 wants that, And that's why the giraffes have this system 0:07:05.160 --> 0:07:08.320 known as the rete mirabel and that's Latin for wonderful 0:07:08.400 --> 0:07:11.160 net uh. And it's just this net of arteries and 0:07:11.280 --> 0:07:14.240 veins that diverts some of the blood flow, equalizing the 0:07:14.280 --> 0:07:17.840 giraffe blood pressure when the animal lowers its head. That's beautiful. Yeah, 0:07:17.880 --> 0:07:20.800 it's like a natural release valve to keep you from 0:07:20.880 --> 0:07:23.160 living in a world full of exploding giraffes. But it's 0:07:23.160 --> 0:07:26.320 an example how to have a creature that big, you 0:07:26.440 --> 0:07:31.200 have to have additional engineering constraints thrown in there to 0:07:31.400 --> 0:07:35.280 allow that creature to live on that scale. Yes, and 0:07:35.320 --> 0:07:38.680 though The Amazing Colossal Men didn't get into a lot 0:07:38.720 --> 0:07:40.560 of the details of the science of what it would 0:07:40.560 --> 0:07:43.000 take to scale up a human body, other other writers 0:07:43.000 --> 0:07:45.840 have sort of dealt with this, right, Um, yeah, you know, 0:07:45.920 --> 0:07:49.080 I have not read a lot of the you know, 0:07:49.120 --> 0:07:51.240 they guess as far as a literary trope, that the 0:07:51.360 --> 0:07:55.000 giant humanoid is not really explored all that much. But 0:07:55.560 --> 0:07:58.240 the late Heart writer Michael Shay, he explored this a 0:07:58.280 --> 0:08:01.040 little bit in his novel uh Niff. One of his 0:08:01.160 --> 0:08:04.640 niff the Lean Novel's Minds of the Bahina, which is 0:08:04.680 --> 0:08:07.240 a fine, fine work of dark fantasy that I highly 0:08:07.280 --> 0:08:09.120 recommend anyone out there looking for that sort of thing. 0:08:09.440 --> 0:08:11.560 But he also wove a lot of science into his work. 0:08:11.560 --> 0:08:13.520 And at one point in this book we encounter a 0:08:13.600 --> 0:08:15.680 human who has grown to colossal size. But he's so 0:08:15.760 --> 0:08:19.239 colossal that like he basically is just in constant pain. 0:08:19.560 --> 0:08:22.120 He can't even sit up. He has to just crawl 0:08:22.200 --> 0:08:27.080 into the ocean and float away just because the body, 0:08:27.200 --> 0:08:30.200 the proportions of his body are not made to support 0:08:30.240 --> 0:08:32.760 that kind of mass. Now, wasn't there an old theory? 0:08:32.880 --> 0:08:35.160 I can't remember where I read this, but I remember 0:08:35.200 --> 0:08:37.880 hearing there was some old theory that these the largest 0:08:37.920 --> 0:08:40.840 of the dinosaurs, say like a brachiosaur or something like that, 0:08:40.920 --> 0:08:44.240 could only exist by by standing around in water all 0:08:44.280 --> 0:08:47.120 the time to partially support its weight with buoyancy. Yeah. 0:08:47.160 --> 0:08:48.640 I've read some of those as well. In fact, we 0:08:48.720 --> 0:08:51.160 have an article on how stuff Works dot Com that 0:08:51.200 --> 0:08:53.520 I put together, like what's the largest land animal that 0:08:53.600 --> 0:08:56.720 ever lived? And he's a part some of these issues 0:08:56.760 --> 0:08:59.920 with the sauropods. But for to whatever extent that was 0:09:00.080 --> 0:09:02.120 ever proposed as a theory, I don't think that is 0:09:02.120 --> 0:09:04.720 believed today, right. And the other co course important thing. 0:09:04.760 --> 0:09:07.000 You look at these most massive creatures, the most massive 0:09:07.120 --> 0:09:11.320 land creatures living today, uh, are definitely walking around on 0:09:11.360 --> 0:09:14.880 four legs. The Saara pods walked around on four legs. 0:09:14.880 --> 0:09:19.160 So um, it's it's very difficult to imagine a bipedal 0:09:19.240 --> 0:09:22.359 creature of that size. But then again, we have examples 0:09:22.360 --> 0:09:26.360 like the Tarrannosaurus rex, a bipedal creature that is extremely large, 0:09:26.360 --> 0:09:29.880 and they're actually there are larger bipedal dinosaurs than the 0:09:29.880 --> 0:09:32.520 sarannosaurs rex. Yeah, not quite as big as the sauropods, 0:09:32.600 --> 0:09:35.960 but certainly yeah. Okay, well, so we should look at 0:09:36.000 --> 0:09:40.199 the issue of height and size in humans because obviously 0:09:40.280 --> 0:09:42.280 you don't have to look any further than the science 0:09:42.320 --> 0:09:45.080 fiction films of the fifties to see this general obsession 0:09:45.120 --> 0:09:48.640 with the idea of things being bigger than normal humans 0:09:48.679 --> 0:09:51.680 and other animals. But while we're captivated with height and 0:09:51.760 --> 0:09:54.760 size in that kind of simple brutal part of our brains, 0:09:55.000 --> 0:09:57.760 we also have this counter narrative running right where in 0:09:57.800 --> 0:10:01.440 our literature and folklore there's always this story of the 0:10:01.520 --> 0:10:05.599 smaller person defeating the larger person David and Goliath to 0:10:05.840 --> 0:10:08.160 Jack and the bean Stalk, which you know, the folklora 0:10:08.280 --> 0:10:11.320 says a variation on this very ancient story they called 0:10:11.360 --> 0:10:13.559 the Boy who Stole the Ogre's Treasure. There are a 0:10:13.600 --> 0:10:16.160 lot of variations of the story. And then in the 0:10:16.200 --> 0:10:20.080 modern day we have, for example, Bruce Lee always beating 0:10:20.080 --> 0:10:24.319 the bigger guy. Right, have seen a film where Bruce 0:10:24.400 --> 0:10:26.800 Lee does not just beat everyone up. It's true to 0:10:26.880 --> 0:10:29.079 the point of boredom, where it's like, really, these villains 0:10:29.120 --> 0:10:31.280 don't have shot. They seem to know that the thing 0:10:31.360 --> 0:10:33.560 you want to see most is this little guy, this 0:10:33.720 --> 0:10:37.800 little Bruce Lee, just killing somebody who's much bigger than 0:10:37.880 --> 0:10:40.240 him by punching him to death. And how would we 0:10:40.240 --> 0:10:44.400 fit Master Blaster into the scenario? Ad Max taking a 0:10:44.520 --> 0:10:47.679 Master Blaster who himself is a giant with a little 0:10:47.720 --> 0:10:50.040 person on his shoulder. That seems to subvert the trope, 0:10:50.120 --> 0:10:53.920 doesn't it. So anyway, we we've obviously got this obsession. 0:10:53.920 --> 0:10:56.960 We're we're very into the idea of size as a 0:10:57.040 --> 0:11:01.560 basic indicator about how we should judge other people. Uh, 0:11:01.600 --> 0:11:03.480 and that sort of makes sense. I mean, it doesn't 0:11:03.520 --> 0:11:06.320 make sense morally judging other people by their sides, but 0:11:06.360 --> 0:11:09.240 it sort of makes a biological sense why we would 0:11:09.280 --> 0:11:12.440 have these instincts. And and height is a sort of 0:11:12.559 --> 0:11:17.000 basic biometric indicator. For example, it's useful for scientists to 0:11:17.080 --> 0:11:20.400 track because it can be objectively measured, though not always 0:11:20.400 --> 0:11:23.280 with perfect act accuracy, because you know your height varies 0:11:23.320 --> 0:11:26.040 a little bit from different parts of the day, and 0:11:26.400 --> 0:11:28.240 you know it's not going to be exactly the same 0:11:28.280 --> 0:11:30.880 every time you measure it. But it's correlated with other 0:11:30.920 --> 0:11:35.160 important facts like nutrition and health. Uh, and in humans, 0:11:35.200 --> 0:11:38.200 height is, of course, on average, sexually dimorphic. We know this. 0:11:38.280 --> 0:11:40.880 Average male height is usually a few inches taller than 0:11:40.920 --> 0:11:43.680 average female height. One thing that I was really interested 0:11:43.720 --> 0:11:46.240 in was I was wondering if there's any population of 0:11:46.320 --> 0:11:48.480 humans on Earth where that's not the case, And I 0:11:48.480 --> 0:11:51.600 couldn't find evidence of it, but I wonder if there 0:11:51.679 --> 0:11:53.360 is one out there that would be kind of cool 0:11:53.400 --> 0:11:56.280 to know. Would Yeah, it's just so so so far 0:11:56.440 --> 0:11:58.920 just talking about human height, as we've discussed, you have 0:11:59.600 --> 0:12:03.800 you have of the the the the inherent sexism in 0:12:03.800 --> 0:12:07.040 the in the situation right, men on average or taller 0:12:07.160 --> 0:12:10.960 and there and therefore we're putting this focus on on 0:12:11.120 --> 0:12:16.000 height being an indicator of power. Um. Certainly, increased height 0:12:17.240 --> 0:12:21.400 can conceivably be an advantage in various combat scenarios. Of course, 0:12:21.440 --> 0:12:24.480 a lot of that depends. Most of that depends on 0:12:24.520 --> 0:12:27.839 the skill of the fighters involved, and of course just linguistically, right, 0:12:28.080 --> 0:12:30.360 even if you're in a profession where really the height 0:12:30.440 --> 0:12:33.440 of an individual has no role at all, you'll still 0:12:33.480 --> 0:12:36.360 hear people say like, oh, well he's a giant in 0:12:36.400 --> 0:12:39.400 the industry, or oh she's a she's a looming figure 0:12:39.679 --> 0:12:42.720 in her profession, or or you might hear someone put 0:12:42.760 --> 0:12:44.720 down to say, oh, well that that was very small 0:12:44.760 --> 0:12:46.600 of them to do that. Like what, what do all 0:12:46.600 --> 0:12:49.840 those words even mean? You know, we're we're still populating 0:12:49.880 --> 0:12:52.280 as if it's Game of Thrones and we're surrounded by 0:12:52.320 --> 0:12:56.200 giants and dwarves and giant blooded people. Yeah, but even 0:12:56.240 --> 0:12:58.800 if you are not, say, applying to be a pro 0:12:58.920 --> 0:13:01.400 wrestler or something like that, there are jobs, such as, 0:13:01.520 --> 0:13:05.000 for example, being a salesperson where somebody might hire you 0:13:05.040 --> 0:13:08.560 based on height because they know that the the inherent 0:13:08.640 --> 0:13:13.120 biases of the customers might favor somebody who's taller. So 0:13:13.240 --> 0:13:16.360 one of the big scientific questions about human height would 0:13:16.400 --> 0:13:21.400 obviously be what controls human height? It's a clear fact 0:13:21.440 --> 0:13:24.400 of nature that we see obvious, you know, metric differences 0:13:24.440 --> 0:13:27.719 in the height of different adult individuals. So where does 0:13:27.760 --> 0:13:30.280 this difference come from? And I found according to a 0:13:30.559 --> 0:13:33.400 two thousand six explainer I found in Scientific American by 0:13:33.400 --> 0:13:37.760 molecular biologists Chow Kwing Lae and Gene Mayor of the U. 0:13:37.840 --> 0:13:41.160 S Department of Agriculture Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging 0:13:41.200 --> 0:13:46.120 at Tufts, twenty two percent of differences in human height 0:13:46.160 --> 0:13:50.600 are controlled by environmental factors, and sixty to eighty percent 0:13:50.760 --> 0:13:54.640 are controlled by genetics. So scientists have arrived at these 0:13:54.720 --> 0:13:57.760 numbers through a number of different means, including things like 0:13:57.800 --> 0:14:00.600 twin studies, you know, studying people who Okay, so we 0:14:00.679 --> 0:14:03.920 have monozygotic twins here, they should have pretty much the 0:14:04.040 --> 0:14:08.080 same genes, but can we see any variations in height 0:14:08.160 --> 0:14:12.200 between them or between them and other siblings and sibling studies, Uh, 0:14:12.360 --> 0:14:16.920 depending on what what environmental factors they're getting, such as nutrition, 0:14:17.040 --> 0:14:22.960 especially nutrition and early childhood, early childhood health, access to healthcare, 0:14:23.040 --> 0:14:25.840 and things like that. And from this that they've discovered 0:14:25.880 --> 0:14:29.760 that the rate of influence of genes and environmental factors 0:14:29.880 --> 0:14:33.920 is variable, but it's variable around these basic ranges. But 0:14:34.040 --> 0:14:37.640 one thing that is true is that on average, humans 0:14:37.680 --> 0:14:42.200 today are significantly taller than they were a few hundred 0:14:42.240 --> 0:14:44.520 years ago. Have you ever noticed this, like if you, 0:14:44.640 --> 0:14:48.520 I mean, it's clear if you just look at environments 0:14:48.600 --> 0:14:53.440 and appliances designed for people a long time ago. There 0:14:53.520 --> 0:14:58.560 are lower ceilings, lower doorways, smaller beds, smaller pieces of 0:14:58.680 --> 0:15:03.160 clothing such of armor was one I believe you mentioned earlier. Yeah, 0:15:03.200 --> 0:15:05.840 and so I though, that's an interesting one because I 0:15:05.880 --> 0:15:07.880 was looking into that and then I couldn't. I have 0:15:08.000 --> 0:15:11.440 this impression that I've seen suits of armor that appear 0:15:11.680 --> 0:15:14.160 kind of small compared to what I would think of 0:15:14.240 --> 0:15:17.560 as a you know, a large warrior today. But I 0:15:17.600 --> 0:15:19.960 was looking for evidence of this online and I couldn't 0:15:20.000 --> 0:15:23.040 really find anything as saying that suits of armor are 0:15:23.120 --> 0:15:25.240 smaller than we would expect them to be. So it 0:15:25.240 --> 0:15:28.040 made me wonder if suits of armor being made for 0:15:28.160 --> 0:15:32.440 the nobility and military classes of previous eras may actually 0:15:32.520 --> 0:15:36.400 have been larger than would have been required for the 0:15:36.480 --> 0:15:40.360 regular people, because, as we've discussed in previous episodes, we 0:15:40.400 --> 0:15:44.920 have these examples of noble individuals, ruling class individuals from 0:15:45.000 --> 0:15:48.360 hundreds and hundreds of years ago who still were tremendously 0:15:48.400 --> 0:15:51.040 hot at tall even by today's standards. Oh yeah, I 0:15:51.120 --> 0:15:54.320 remember Old krogan Man, Old krogan Man, the bog body. 0:15:54.320 --> 0:15:56.960 What was he like six four or six six? He 0:15:57.040 --> 0:16:01.200 was incredibly tall, um, And of course history is full 0:16:01.200 --> 0:16:04.920 of these stories. Sometimes, I mean a lot of times 0:16:04.920 --> 0:16:06.480 you have to take him with a grain of salt, right, 0:16:06.480 --> 0:16:09.280 because there's a ruler and he was really tall. Do 0:16:09.360 --> 0:16:11.560 I believe you, was he really really taller? He was 0:16:11.560 --> 0:16:13.680 he just he's just always standing on something or is 0:16:13.680 --> 0:16:16.000 this just you know, the myth and the legend of 0:16:16.000 --> 0:16:18.520 the man like one that always comes to my mind. 0:16:18.600 --> 0:16:21.080 And this is I think in large part because my 0:16:21.080 --> 0:16:23.600 my dad would tell me stories like this is a 0:16:23.680 --> 0:16:28.160 kid but um uh in ten sixty six, the events 0:16:28.160 --> 0:16:31.320 of ten sixty six Battle Hastings and all that. You've 0:16:31.360 --> 0:16:33.840 got stories of ten sixty six when you were a kid. Yeah, 0:16:33.880 --> 0:16:36.520 my dad would tell me about all that. That's pretty cool. 0:16:36.640 --> 0:16:39.240 Of course, you had, you know, three different forces vying 0:16:39.280 --> 0:16:43.840 for control. There. You had Harold Godwinson, uh, king of England, 0:16:43.840 --> 0:16:48.040 who had William the Conqueror coming up from from the continent. 0:16:48.200 --> 0:16:50.760 And then of course you had Harold Hadrada, the King 0:16:50.800 --> 0:16:55.280 of Norway, and he was according to many accounts here, 0:16:55.320 --> 0:16:59.160 he was taller than most men. And Harold Godwinson makes 0:16:59.280 --> 0:17:01.680 equip that he is going to uh, he's going to 0:17:01.800 --> 0:17:04.000 offer him something, and he's gonna offer him six feet 0:17:04.040 --> 0:17:07.040 of English soil or perhaps more. Sometimes it is say 0:17:07.080 --> 0:17:09.360 perhaps seven feet of English soil, since he's taller than 0:17:09.400 --> 0:17:12.639 most men. Um. The idea that he's going to you know, 0:17:12.680 --> 0:17:15.840 gift him the grave here but but yeah, here, here's 0:17:15.840 --> 0:17:19.359 a giant. Uh in history to what extend was an 0:17:19.400 --> 0:17:23.280 actual giant? I'm not sure, but but certainly we have 0:17:23.400 --> 0:17:26.680 tales like this of of and in some cases skeletal 0:17:26.720 --> 0:17:31.120 evidence of tall noble individuals. And yet we have evidence 0:17:31.240 --> 0:17:34.639 that the average person of of a hundred and fifty 0:17:34.720 --> 0:17:37.520 years ago or earlier maybe you know, even going back 0:17:37.640 --> 0:17:40.240 longer than that, was just not as tall as the 0:17:40.280 --> 0:17:43.760 average person from the same ethnic groups and societies are today. 0:17:44.480 --> 0:17:47.440 And so why are people taller today? You know? One 0:17:47.440 --> 0:17:51.680 of the obvious questions is has height been selected for 0:17:52.000 --> 0:17:56.600 as a gene? Has there been evolution? Are we evolving taller? 0:17:56.680 --> 0:17:59.320 And I would postulate we can get into why in 0:17:59.320 --> 0:18:01.960 a moment. I don't think that seems to be the cause. 0:18:02.040 --> 0:18:04.119 It doesn't look like it. I think scientists think that 0:18:04.160 --> 0:18:07.600 the change in human height is more due to environmental 0:18:07.640 --> 0:18:12.119 factors that I was talking about earlier, rather than major 0:18:12.240 --> 0:18:15.920 changes in the genetic factors controlling height. And this would 0:18:15.960 --> 0:18:18.399 make sense given what we know about improved access to 0:18:18.440 --> 0:18:21.720 healthcare and nutrition around the world. Right, Yeah, A lot 0:18:21.800 --> 0:18:23.480 of the a lot of material that I was looking 0:18:23.480 --> 0:18:27.359 at for this was definitely focusing in on England and 0:18:27.400 --> 0:18:31.960 looking at industrial heights, you know, the industrial age heights 0:18:32.000 --> 0:18:36.040 and how they differed between the classes. So over the 0:18:36.080 --> 0:18:39.000 last a hundred and fifty years, um, we have seen 0:18:39.080 --> 0:18:42.920 the average height of people and in an industrialized nations 0:18:43.200 --> 0:18:47.680 increase approximately ten centimeters or about four inches. Okay, that's 0:18:47.720 --> 0:18:50.120 nothing to sniff at, no, no, Now, it's a lot 0:18:50.119 --> 0:18:53.560 of people would would pay dearly for an extra ten centimeters. 0:18:53.960 --> 0:18:56.760 It's true. Uh, certainly, you know, glued on the bottom 0:18:56.800 --> 0:19:00.720 of their shoes. But anyway, it's inner of saying that 0:19:00.760 --> 0:19:04.240 this should occur, right because you think that evolution would 0:19:04.280 --> 0:19:08.320 be selecting for shorter heights, because based on previous studies, 0:19:08.320 --> 0:19:12.320 we know that you find taller heights and fewer offspring 0:19:12.480 --> 0:19:16.800 among wealthy industrial British families of the time. Um, but 0:19:16.920 --> 0:19:20.000 also you find shorter offspring among the poor, and the 0:19:20.040 --> 0:19:23.840 poor are having more offspring. So wouldn't it mean that 0:19:23.920 --> 0:19:26.400 the short poor are going to inherit the earth because 0:19:26.400 --> 0:19:30.960 they're just gonna outnumber and outbreed the tall rich people. Huh. 0:19:31.480 --> 0:19:34.560 But it doesn't seem to play out that way. And 0:19:34.600 --> 0:19:37.320 most geneticists you have, believe that it's uh that what 0:19:37.600 --> 0:19:39.440 we've seen here, what's been the driving voice and force 0:19:39.480 --> 0:19:43.000 and increased heights has been the improvement in shildhood nutrition. Uh, 0:19:43.080 --> 0:19:45.160 And that then that has been the most important factor 0:19:45.200 --> 0:19:48.840 in allowing humans to increase so dramatically in size. So 0:19:49.800 --> 0:19:52.439 there are a few different facts that kind of support this. 0:19:52.720 --> 0:19:55.960 So height increases only begin to manifest somewhere around the 0:19:56.000 --> 0:19:59.280 middle of the nineteenth century, and we do see dips 0:19:59.359 --> 0:20:02.800 in times in places of World war related famine, so 0:20:02.840 --> 0:20:04.680 we can see that. Put it out. So here's here's 0:20:04.680 --> 0:20:08.520 an area that we saw a significant decrease in nutritional 0:20:08.960 --> 0:20:11.960 um quality, and therefore heights went down as well. The 0:20:12.000 --> 0:20:15.399 next generation you mean this order, and then the trend 0:20:15.440 --> 0:20:18.800 toward increasing height is actually largely leveled off, suggesting that 0:20:18.840 --> 0:20:21.840 there is an upper limit to height beyond which our 0:20:21.920 --> 0:20:24.280 genes are just not equipped to take us, regardless of 0:20:24.320 --> 0:20:27.320 the environmental improvement. Okay, So you're saying like, if we 0:20:27.400 --> 0:20:31.640 get improved improved diet and access to healthcare as children, 0:20:32.119 --> 0:20:35.679 we're sort of trending further toward the upper range of 0:20:35.800 --> 0:20:39.760 natural human height. We're not extending what the range is. Yeah, 0:20:39.800 --> 0:20:43.840 there's no there's no quantity of carrots or no quantities 0:20:43.840 --> 0:20:46.800 of multi vitamins, they're gonna get you beyond what is 0:20:46.880 --> 0:20:50.520 essentially like the normal threshold for what we are as 0:20:50.560 --> 0:20:53.400 a species. Right. Um, you know, in the same way 0:20:53.400 --> 0:20:55.239 there's not there's not a multi vitamin you can take 0:20:55.320 --> 0:20:58.560 that's gonna make you grow an extra arm um. And 0:20:58.640 --> 0:21:01.480 also we house it's one of those atomic radiation multi 0:21:01.560 --> 0:21:04.399 vitamins from the fifties and uh, and this kind of 0:21:04.400 --> 0:21:06.439 goes back to some of the data that has to 0:21:06.480 --> 0:21:09.880 do with famine. But conditions of poor nutrition are well 0:21:09.960 --> 0:21:13.320 correlated to smaller stature. So we've seen that born out 0:21:13.320 --> 0:21:16.200 time and time again. So that's not like a tenuous 0:21:16.920 --> 0:21:19.679 hypothesis of modern science. We pretty much know now that 0:21:19.720 --> 0:21:21.440 if you're a kid and you don't get good nutrition, 0:21:21.480 --> 0:21:25.320 you won't be as tall exactly. So you know, the 0:21:25.160 --> 0:21:28.320 the answer there, why why are people taller today? It's 0:21:28.920 --> 0:21:32.880 it's as exciting and unexciting as all of that. So yeah, 0:21:32.920 --> 0:21:35.080