Speaker 1: You're listening to Part Time Genius, a production of Kaleidoscope
Speaker 1: and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Guess what, Mango?
Speaker 1: What's that Mary?
Speaker 2: The oldest known sentence written in an alphabet is about lice.
Speaker 1: One. I don't know how that is possible, and to
Speaker 1: just saying the words lice is already making the itch.
Speaker 2: This is completely true. The sentence in question was written
Speaker 2: in Canaanite, which was the world's first letter based writing system.
Speaker 2: It began around five thousand years ago, and roughly translated,
Speaker 2: the sentence says, quote, may this tusk root out the
Speaker 2: lice of the hair and the beard. Archaeologists discovered these
Speaker 2: historic words inscribed on an ivory lyce comb that was
Speaker 2: estimated to be about three thousand, seven hundred years old.
Speaker 2: And if this com wasn't, you know, like a priceless artifact,
Speaker 2: you could still use it to delouse yourself. One side
Speaker 2: has wide teeth to detangle knots in your hair, and
Speaker 2: the other side has fine teeth designed to catch lice
Speaker 2: and knits, which of course are laus eggs.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm just imagining some parent almost four thousand
Speaker 1: years ago, grabbing this comb in a panic because their
Speaker 1: kid came home from school with lice, which honestly feels
Speaker 1: too relatable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, it really does well, and that's because like
Speaker 2: it or not, lice have always been with us, and
Speaker 2: today head lice are incredibly common. It is estimated that
Speaker 2: as many as one in four school children have them
Speaker 2: right now.
Speaker 1: And since it's back to school time right now in
Speaker 1: the Northeast, I've bet some of our listeners are dealing
Speaker 1: with this problem. So the good news is today on
Speaker 1: this show, we'll meet some scientists and some experts who've
Speaker 1: dedicated their lives to understanding these creepy crawleys and also
Speaker 1: finding ways to get them out of our hair. And
Speaker 1: of course we'll also discover some truly surprising facts about lice,
Speaker 1: including how they helped solve a long standing mystery about
Speaker 1: human evolution, and also why you can't ground them. And
Speaker 1: if you are someone in your household currently has lice,
Speaker 1: do not worry. We'll get into the science of what
Speaker 1: you should do and what you should do to deal
Speaker 1: with them. So let's dive in. Hey their podcast listeners,
Speaker 1: welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Monga's Shatiicular and today
Speaker 1: I'm joined by my producer, Mary Super producer Mary, I
Speaker 1: should say, and over there on the other side of
Speaker 1: the soundproof glass drinking a big glass of whey and vinegar.
Speaker 1: It is our pal and producer, Dylan Fagan.
Speaker 2: I don't mean to yuck Dylan's yell.
Speaker 1: Oh you should, but yuck, that's so gross.
Speaker 3: I know.
Speaker 1: The concoction does not sound appealing at all, but according
Speaker 1: to a book of medical remedies written around sixteen hundred,
Speaker 1: it is a sure fire away to kill lice, and
Speaker 1: it's a lot simpler than another remedy that the same
Speaker 1: book suggests, taking powdered scrapings from the horn of a
Speaker 1: red deer, drinking some of it and sprinkling the rest
Speaker 1: on your head. I don't know.
Speaker 2: I feel like these things would just give you a
Speaker 2: stomach ache, although maybe that would distract you from being
Speaker 2: itchy at least, was that the idea.
Speaker 1: Maybe. What is interesting, though, is that even now in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five, there are still a lot of weird,
Speaker 1: unproven home remedies floating around on the Internet. I found
Speaker 1: posts telling people to wrap their heads in duct tape
Speaker 1: or rub hot sauce on their hair, which I do
Speaker 1: not think is a good idea. There's also an old
Speaker 1: myth that kerosene kills lice, and that one's not just weird,
Speaker 1: it's also dangerous. There have been multiple cases of people
Speaker 1: suffering severe burns after applying kerosene and then getting too
Speaker 1: close to a pilot light or a cigarette. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's awful.
Speaker 2: Oh God, that is awful. Look, I understand the impulse
Speaker 2: because if you or your kids have lice, you will
Speaker 2: try anything to get rid of them. And I should
Speaker 2: know because I have had lice three times as an adult.
Speaker 2: I'll say it here for everyone listening. I managed to
Speaker 2: avoid it my entire childhood, but I have a school
Speaker 2: age child of my own now, and I guess we
Speaker 2: could say my luck ran out. Our first experience with
Speaker 2: lice was two years ago and it was completely miserable.
Speaker 1: Well, I can commiserate it, because you're definitely not alone.
Speaker 1: I also have school age children, and my families had
Speaker 1: lice so many times now. It is the worst and
Speaker 1: also something I just don't understand, because, like you, it's
Speaker 1: something I never got as a kid.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, as it happens. I know all about
Speaker 2: that because on the show, we do research. We talked
Speaker 2: to experts, that's what we do. So I took the
Speaker 2: already of calling up the real expert on your family's
Speaker 2: lice situation. I am referring to our friend of the show,
Speaker 2: occasional writer for the show, your wife, Lizzie.
Speaker 1: I don't like this at all.
Speaker 2: Tell me about the first time you guys had lace.
Speaker 4: What happened the first time is what has happened every
Speaker 4: single time since then, which is that all three of
Speaker 4: us get at ruby, Henry and me and Monkish does
Speaker 4: every single time.
Speaker 2: Do you resent Mangush for not getting lace one hundred percent?
Speaker 5: And he has like he'll do these theories about, oh,
Speaker 5: it's the kind of hair I have, And I'm like, no,
Speaker 5: because our children share, you know, some of your hair qualities.
Speaker 4: It's just that they they rub up all over me
Speaker 4: and they just do that to Mungash in the same way.
Speaker 4: So it's like, that's kind of all it is.
Speaker 1: Oh man, I just remember one of those times, I
Speaker 1: was like, Henry, were you close to anyone's head or
Speaker 1: do you know anyone who was itching? And he didn't
Speaker 1: think of anyone when I asked him, you know, he
Speaker 1: was like four or five at the time. And then
Speaker 1: later he was telling me about this game he knew
Speaker 1: friends played where and part of the game involved pressing
Speaker 1: your forehead against another kid's forehead to share thoughts and
Speaker 1: then run away. And it was so horrified. It was like,
Speaker 1: I asked you both these things specifically, and you were
Speaker 1: playing a game that.
Speaker 2: Basically you said ahead. You didn't say fourhead.
Speaker 1: That's true, but I mean he basically could have built
Speaker 1: a bridge from his head to his friend's head. It's
Speaker 1: just to like encourage the lights to walk over. But
Speaker 1: I remember a nurse examining our hair in our classrooms
Speaker 1: as a kid and telling us that certain hair was
Speaker 1: more resistant to lice. And I'm sure that's what I
Speaker 1: said to Lizzie at some point when she was just
Speaker 1: exasperated with me.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, that would be nice, But scientifically speaking,
Speaker 2: there's not a lot of evidence for that. What we
Speaker 2: know is that anyone with hair can get lce, and
Speaker 2: direct physical contact head to head or forehead to forehead
Speaker 2: in your kid's case, is what makes it happen. Data
Speaker 2: from schools have found really or social patterns of life's transmission.
Speaker 2: So for example, a kid with lice might not spread
Speaker 2: it to the kid who sits right next to them
Speaker 2: in class, but they do spread it to their best
Speaker 2: friend who sits on the other side of the room,
Speaker 2: because at recess those kids are closer. Maybe they're hugging
Speaker 2: or leaning their heads together to talk or transmit ideas telepathically.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, that makes sense. But are you saying everyone's
Speaker 1: risk of getting lice is the same if head to
Speaker 1: head contact is equal.
Speaker 2: Not necessarily. It's possible lice may have a harder time
Speaker 2: gripping hair shafts that are naturally kinky or curly, and
Speaker 2: there have been some studies that have found lower rates
Speaker 2: of infestation among Black Americans compared to Americans of other ethnicities,
Speaker 2: but that could also be related to different grooming practices,
Speaker 2: different hair care products. On the flip side, there's some
Speaker 2: data and anecdotal report suggesting that there are people who
Speaker 2: are super spreaders of lice, that is, they have lice more.
Speaker 2: But whether that means they're more likely to get them
Speaker 2: or to have a harder time getting rid of them,
Speaker 2: we just don't know either way. The bottom line is,
Speaker 2: if you learn nothing else from this show, it is
Speaker 2: that no one is totally immune to lie. If you
Speaker 2: have hair, you can have lice.
Speaker 1: Got it, So no more bragging about my miraculous lice immunity.
Speaker 1: That's a mosquitoes love me so like, it's not all bugs,
Speaker 1: it's just lice that seemed to have woin me. But
Speaker 1: it's interesting that there are all these unanswered questions about
Speaker 1: who might be at greater risk for lice, Like, is
Speaker 1: that a big area of research right now?
Speaker 2: Well, there certainly are scientists who are really interested in
Speaker 2: this stuff, But the fact is, head lice are not
Speaker 2: a big priority for research funding. They're considered an annoyance,
Speaker 2: not a real medical problem, which I totally understand. But
Speaker 2: the first time you find a lous in your kid's hair,
Speaker 2: it sure feels like a real problem.
Speaker 3: Oh my god.
Speaker 1: I know. Before we go any further, I think we
Speaker 1: should clarify that for most of this episode we are
Speaker 1: talking about human head lice. There are actually three types
Speaker 1: of human lice, pubic lice or crab lice. Those are
Speaker 1: distantly related to head lice and body lice. They're kind
Speaker 1: of their own thing. And then body lice are very
Speaker 1: closely related to head lice, but they took a fascinating
Speaker 1: evolutionary detour that's made them different in a few critical ways.
Speaker 1: Body lice feed on our blood, just like head lice do.
Speaker 1: But they figured out how to live and lay their
Speaker 1: eggs in our clothing instead of our skin or our hair,
Speaker 1: and that actually helped solve a long standing mystery about
Speaker 1: human evolution, the question of when people began wearing clothes.
Speaker 2: I never thought about that question before, but now I
Speaker 2: want to know the answer.
Speaker 1: Well, for a long time, the best estimate we had
Speaker 1: was that it happened sometime between forty thousand and three
Speaker 1: million years ago, so there's a huge gap in there.
Speaker 2: That's not really a satisfying answer.
Speaker 1: It doesn't really answer the question. But the problem is
Speaker 1: early clothing was handmade from animal hide stuff that decayed easily,
Speaker 1: so there's really no record for modern scientists to study. Then,
Speaker 1: in twenty ten, came up with a much more specific
Speaker 1: time frame for the advent of clothing, and they did
Speaker 1: this by analyzing DNA sequences of body lice and head lice.
Speaker 1: They were able to determine that body lice emerged as
Speaker 1: a distinct ecotype of head lice at least eighty three
Speaker 1: thousand years ago, and possibly as early as one hundred
Speaker 1: and seventy thousand years ago, which means that's the period
Speaker 1: when humans began wearing clothing, because otherwise there would have
Speaker 1: been no evolutionary incentive for lice to change. And it
Speaker 1: turns out we have a lot more to learn from
Speaker 1: ancient lice. I can sum it up in a single word, archaeoparasitology.
Speaker 2: That feels like it should be multiple words. That's one word.
Speaker 1: I know it's too long to be three scrapple bingos,
Speaker 1: but it is exactly what it sounds like. It's the
Speaker 1: study of parasites in the context of archaeology, So that
Speaker 1: means looking at how parasites affected ancient people and even
Speaker 1: studying evidence of parasites in mummies. Now, thanks to this discipline,
Speaker 1: we know that lice were widespread in prehistoric times. The
Speaker 1: oldest direct record of lice infestation is a ten thousand
Speaker 1: year old intact louse egg that was found in a
Speaker 1: Brazilian mummy's hair.
Speaker 2: Wow, so that's thousands of years before the inscribed louse
Speaker 2: comb I told you about at the top, and even
Speaker 2: more thousands of years before Dylan's vinegar and waite concoction.
Speaker 2: So what did people do back then to get rid
Speaker 2: of lice? Do we know?
Speaker 1: Yeah? In prehistoric times, one of the most common ways
Speaker 1: of dealing with lice was to simply pick them out
Speaker 1: of people's hair and eat them. And we know that
Speaker 1: happened because adult lice have been found in copper lights,
Speaker 1: which is of course fossilized extrement, which is gross. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but it's also kind of wonderful, right, Like, the historic
Speaker 1: record is written in places where a lot of us
Speaker 1: would never really think to look. So I'm grateful for
Speaker 1: the people who dig through it, literally, and I'm also
Speaker 1: grateful that I don't have to eat my kid's lice.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we've come a long way. We've come a long way. Well,
Speaker 2: speaking of which, I want to fast forward from prehistoric
Speaker 2: to medieval times because during the Middle Ages, people developed
Speaker 2: some pretty wacky theories about where lice and other parasites
Speaker 2: come from. They didn't understand how transmission happened, so they
Speaker 2: concluded that lice were the result of spontaneous generation. In
Speaker 2: other words, they believed lice originated in so called corrupt
Speaker 2: matter like dirt and bodily fluids, which is how he
Speaker 2: got the idea that having lice is a sign of
Speaker 2: bad hygiene, an idea that's kind of still around today,
Speaker 2: even though we know it's really not true. But there
Speaker 2: was another way of looking at lice. Back then, some
Speaker 2: people viewed lice infestation as proof of humility and moral goodness, so.
Speaker 1: They actually thought that lice were a good thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because holy men and women often gave up grooming
Speaker 2: along with other worldly concerns, so if they got lice,
Speaker 2: instead of removing them, they would just ignore them, which
Speaker 2: of course meant they spread. There was actually this bishop
Speaker 2: named Thomas Decantelope, that was his name, who was canonized
Speaker 2: in thirteen twenty, and during that process some of his
Speaker 2: servants testify on his behalf that he was always covered
Speaker 2: in lice, and this was meant to prove that he
Speaker 2: was a true man of God who didn't allow himself
Speaker 2: to be distracted by frivolous things like combing his hair.
Speaker 1: That sounds absolutely miserable.
Speaker 2: That was the point. But just how miserable Bishop to
Speaker 2: Cantelope was would depend on his immune system, because the
Speaker 2: itching we experience when we have lice is an allergic
Speaker 2: reaction to the lous bites, and some people have milder
Speaker 2: reactions than others. In fact, some people don't really itch
Speaker 2: at all, which of course makes it easier for them
Speaker 2: to spread lice because they are not immediately aware that
Speaker 2: they have them.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think my son ished his head a lot,
Speaker 1: but Ruby didn't really, And I mean I remember thinking like,
Speaker 1: how can there be so many lice? Heer in not
Speaker 1: scratching harder.
Speaker 2: My kid was the same way. I was so itchy.
Speaker 2: I couldn't sleep when I had lice because I was
Speaker 2: itching so badly. Meanwhile, my kid is just walking around
Speaker 2: and he actually did have more lice than I did
Speaker 2: in the final tally. But I just must be more
Speaker 2: sensitive to the bites, you know, like some people get
Speaker 2: itchier with a mosquito bite than other people. It's just
Speaker 2: your immune system.
Speaker 1: Well, I was definitely scratching a lot, just knowing that
Speaker 1: my kids had lice and I didn't have any. But
Speaker 1: the good news is there are ways to deal with
Speaker 1: lice that don't involve vinegar, kerosene or becoming a saint.
Speaker 1: And after this quick break, we're going to hear from
Speaker 1: a scientist. He invented something called the lausbuster, and we'll
Speaker 1: learn how a common skincare product makes lice explode. So
Speaker 1: don't go anywhere. Welcome back to a very itchy episode
Speaker 1: of Part Time genius. I know this is a weird
Speaker 1: thing to say when we're talking about lice, but if
Speaker 1: you enjoy what you're hearing, please leave us a nice
Speaker 1: rating and review and share this episode with a friend.
Speaker 1: If you know anyone who's a parent of school age kids,
Speaker 1: I guarantee they'll want to hear this part at least. Okay, Mary,
Speaker 1: So here's something I learned about back when my kids
Speaker 1: first Got Life, and that is the fact that a
Speaker 1: lot of the over the counter a chemical products just
Speaker 1: don't work. In fact, my friend Nick, who grew up
Speaker 1: closer to my age, he said that he used to
Speaker 1: Get Life so much that his friends used to call
Speaker 1: him Nix because there was a product called Nicks.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's still on the lind Yeah. But I
Speaker 1: looked into it and it turns out that lies have
Speaker 1: developed resistance to the insecticides that were used for years
Speaker 1: to treat people like Nick. And this is just a
Speaker 1: natural thing that happens. And we see this with other
Speaker 1: bugs too. For example, farmers often have to come up
Speaker 1: with solutions when pests develop resistance to common ag pesticides.
Speaker 1: Another analogy, and one that's really serious, is antibiotic resistance,
Speaker 1: right you hear about this all the time, But these
Speaker 1: examples all follow the same evolutionary principle. Some bo are
Speaker 1: able to survive exposure to chemicals or drugs, and they
Speaker 1: pass that hardiness onto their offspring, and over time those
Speaker 1: traits just get stronger and stronger. The resistance spreads through
Speaker 1: the population and it's awful for us.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, no, I've heard about this. In the case
Speaker 2: of antibiotic resistance, I know it can have really serious
Speaker 2: public health consequences.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So, Luckily, headlights are different in that they don't
Speaker 1: carry disease. So even if your drug store shampoo doesn't work,
Speaker 1: having headlights won't make you sick. It just really makes
Speaker 1: you itchy. Now, body lies are a different story. Remember
Speaker 1: we talked about how they evolve the ability to live
Speaker 1: in our clothes instead of our hair. Well, somewhere along
Speaker 1: the way they also managed to become disease vectors. So,
Speaker 1: during World War One, a disease called trench fever affected thousands,
Speaker 1: maybe even millions, of troops, and doctors discovered later that
Speaker 1: it was caused by a bacteria carried by the common
Speaker 1: body loss, which flourished in the crowded conditions of trench
Speaker 1: warfare now. Dale Clayton at the University of Utah is
Speaker 1: an evolutionary biologist and life expert, and he told us
Speaker 1: that this tiny but important difference is something he spends
Speaker 1: a lot of time thinking about.
Speaker 6: One of the most pressing questions about human life is
Speaker 6: why do we have life that vector nasty things, that
Speaker 6: live primarily in clothing but still take blood males from
Speaker 6: humans and life that are technically the same species that
Speaker 6: live on the heads of one out of four school
Speaker 6: kids all across the country, and one is dangerous and
Speaker 6: the other is basically harmless. And how long will it
Speaker 6: take before head life evolves the ability to vector nasty things?
Speaker 6: Will that ever happen? It could happen in ten years
Speaker 6: or a million years, We don't know.
Speaker 2: Okay, First of all, I realize it is the scientific
Speaker 2: term for what lifess do, but taking blood meals from
Speaker 2: humans sounds like the tigeline for a horror movie. I'm
Speaker 2: to have chills just thinking about this. But and second,
Speaker 2: this is actually terrifying. Is he saying that headlights could
Speaker 2: evolve the ability to make us sick?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I mean it is possible. There's no indication it's happening, right, now,
Speaker 1: but this is the kind of thing evolutionary biologists have
Speaker 1: to consider, which is why it's in our best interest
Speaker 1: to have a really effective way of treating headlince. But
Speaker 1: to back up for a second, Dale actually does most
Speaker 1: of his work with feather lice that live on birds.
Speaker 1: Unlike human headlights, they don't take blood meals. They eat feathers,
Speaker 1: which is pretty wild to think about, and he's been
Speaker 1: working with feather lice for decades. In fact, when he
Speaker 1: was a grad student, he named a new species of
Speaker 1: owl feather laughs, after the cartoonist Gary Larson, who was
Speaker 1: so excited that he drew a picture of it and
Speaker 1: published it in his nineteen eighty nine book The Prehistory
Speaker 1: of the Far Side.
Speaker 2: I wasn't sure where that was going, but that is
Speaker 2: not where I thought we would end up. I do
Speaker 2: love it, though. What a strange honor to have a
Speaker 2: laus named after you.
Speaker 1: It's kind of wonderful, it really is.
Speaker 7: So.
Speaker 1: As a veteran life expert, of course, Dale knew about
Speaker 1: human headlights developing resistance to insecticides, but he wasn't focused
Speaker 1: on finding a treatment for them until his own kids
Speaker 1: got lice and he realized he didn't know what to do.
Speaker 6: My wife was kind of angry because she says, you're
Speaker 6: all the world authorities on lice and you don't even
Speaker 6: know how to get rid of lice on our kids.
Speaker 6: What's going on? So that was a motivator.
Speaker 1: I should note here that he's referring to his first wife.
Speaker 1: This is actually relevant to this discussion because his second
Speaker 1: wife also studies lie. They've even named species of lice
Speaker 1: after their kids.
Speaker 2: The dinner table conversations at the Clayton household must be fascinating.
Speaker 1: I think they probably are. Anyway, Dale's pondering his kids
Speaker 1: head lice, and then he remembers a weird problem he
Speaker 1: had back when he first moved to Utah. And this
Speaker 1: was after teaching in the Midwest and the UK.
Speaker 6: I discovered, to my dismay, I couldn't keep lice alive
Speaker 6: on pigeons here, and it took about a year to
Speaker 6: figure out that the reason is it's too arid.
Speaker 1: So what's interesting is that lice can't live in tanks
Speaker 1: or petri dishes. They can only survive on a living host.
Speaker 1: So when Dale was setting up his lab at the
Speaker 1: University of Utah, he got a bunch of pigeons so
Speaker 1: you could study their feather lice. And the pigeons were fine.
Speaker 1: The feather lice were not. Since they aren't blood sucking lice.
Speaker 1: They rely on moisture from the air for hydration, and
Speaker 1: the air in Utah is really dry, so the only
Speaker 1: way to keep his lab lice alive was to modify
Speaker 1: the ambient humidity. So when drug store shampoos failed his
Speaker 1: own kids, it occurred to him that maybe dry air
Speaker 1: could be the key to killing headlights that are resistant
Speaker 1: to all the chemical treatment.
Speaker 6: And so we started tankeering with different approaches. The University
Speaker 6: of Utah is one of the best universities in the
Speaker 6: country for entrepreneurial work. There's money for researchers to try
Speaker 6: weird things, get like pre med students involved in those projects,
Speaker 6: and so we started pursuing this possibility of using heated air,
Speaker 6: and after a while we figured out how to make
Speaker 6: it work, and then we got bigger dings to develop
Speaker 6: an actual medical device.
Speaker 1: Dale and his team called their invention the Lousebuster. The
Speaker 1: name has since been changed to air Alay because of
Speaker 1: a trademark issue, but the way it works is it
Speaker 1: blows heated air through a hose that's attached to an
Speaker 1: applicator that you comb slowly through your hair.
Speaker 2: So like a very precise hair dryer.
Speaker 1: Kind of, but instead of blowing air over the hair,
Speaker 1: it's actually getting down to the surface of your head
Speaker 1: where the lice are. And more importantly, it's getting to
Speaker 1: the eggs, which lice glue to hair shafts right next
Speaker 1: to the scalp. And the temperature is carefully calibrated to
Speaker 1: dry out the lice without burning your skin. In the
Speaker 1: test he did with local kids living in Salt Lake City,
Speaker 1: Dale found that his device killed live lice and it
Speaker 1: prevented the eggs from hatching. It took over a year
Speaker 1: to dial in the right temperatures and tree in juration,
Speaker 1: but it finally became this viable medical device.
Speaker 2: So wait, is this something I can just go buy
Speaker 2: and keep at home in case we ever get lice again?
Speaker 1: You know, I had the same thought, But it would
Speaker 1: actually be pretty expensive as a consumer device, and you
Speaker 1: do need to be trained to use it correctly. But
Speaker 1: Dale licensed the Airla device to this network called Lyfe's
Speaker 1: Clinics of America. This is not an AD, but they
Speaker 1: have locations around the country and people with lice can
Speaker 1: make an appointment to go in for treatment.
Speaker 2: Wow, I wish I had known about that when we
Speaker 2: had lice, well like you and Lizzie and Dale Clayton
Speaker 2: and millions of other people who have dealt with head lice.
Speaker 2: The first thing I tried was a drug store shampoo
Speaker 2: and a little plastic comb that came with it. Both
Speaker 2: of these things were completely useless. Luckily, I do nitpicky
Speaker 2: research for a living, so I dove into the literature
Speaker 2: on lice and emerged with an idea one hundred percent
Speaker 2: food grade dimethicone.
Speaker 1: Wait, so what it is is?
Speaker 2: So it's a type of silicone that's often used in
Speaker 2: cosmetics as a skin protectant. Does is It forms a
Speaker 2: protective barrier that locks in moisture, and it really doesn't
Speaker 2: have a lot of downsides. It's not toxic, it's not flammable,
Speaker 2: it's totally inert. It can even be an ingredient in
Speaker 2: cooking oils. You can actually consume it. So the way
Speaker 2: I got rid of our life was by coating my
Speaker 2: head and my kid's head in a generous, sticky pore
Speaker 2: of dimethicone, let it sit for a while, did a
Speaker 2: thorough combing and then washed it out. That was actually
Speaker 2: the hardest part because it is so thick, so slippery
Speaker 2: and water resistant. It took like four rounds of washing
Speaker 2: to get out.
Speaker 1: It sounds like an oil slickers. Yeah, how does this
Speaker 1: stuff kill lice? Like, if it's non toxic, does it
Speaker 1: suffocate them? Or what's happening?
Speaker 2: Well, that's what I assumed was happening, that they were
Speaker 2: drowning or suffocating. But I wasn't sure, so I called
Speaker 2: up Ian Burgess, a world renowned scientist and the director
Speaker 2: of a company called Insect Research and Development that investigates
Speaker 2: ways of controlling insects that impact public health, like lice.
Speaker 2: But before we get to the science, you should know
Speaker 2: that Ian has an interesting perspective on lace.
Speaker 3: When I was a master's student, I opted to work
Speaker 3: on crab or cubic lice because I felt sorry for
Speaker 3: them because nobody had actually done any work on them
Speaker 3: really for about forty five fifty years before that.
Speaker 2: You felt sorry for the pubic lace?
Speaker 7: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Why not?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 3: And if you've been ignored scientifically, surely they werenant some sympathy.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I quite share his perspective, but
Speaker 1: I guess I do understand whying to study the things
Speaker 1: that everyone else overlooks.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, And when it comes to lice, a lot
Speaker 2: of people overlook them. Not Ian, though, So I asked
Speaker 2: him when I poured dimethicone on my head, did I
Speaker 2: suffocate the lice?
Speaker 3: It's almost impossible to suffocate a loss. You can put
Speaker 3: them in an environment without breath of oxygen for quite
Speaker 3: a long time. I've had lices that have been immersed
Speaker 3: in water for twelve hours, so clearly they can't breathe.
Speaker 3: You can take them out and dry them off, warm
Speaker 3: them up, and pack their backside so they will walk away.
Speaker 1: Wait, that is unbelievable. Underwater for twelve hours and they
Speaker 1: are totally fine. How do lies do that?
Speaker 2: Well, to drastically oversimplify it, they enter something like a
Speaker 2: power saving mode. But it just goes to show you
Speaker 2: that head lies are really not easy to kill. And
Speaker 2: to explain why damethicone does kill them, I have to
Speaker 2: tell you a little bit about laus anatomy. So human
Speaker 2: headlights feed on blood, which is mostly water. For most creatures,
Speaker 2: consuming liquid eventually leads to urination, but head lice only
Speaker 2: produce dry feces. And Ian told me that's because peeing
Speaker 2: on our heads would alert us to their presence a
Speaker 2: lot faster.
Speaker 1: Right, That is not a sense I was expecting you
Speaker 1: to say this episode.
Speaker 2: We're full of surprise today. Okay, So they can't pee, right,
Speaker 2: The lyuse can't pee, but they still need to get
Speaker 2: rid of liquid waste, so they do it through a
Speaker 2: process called spiracular transpiration. Now, spiracles are tiny respiratory openings
Speaker 2: on the louse's exoskeleton that lead to the trachea or
Speaker 2: the airway, and they help maintain this very precise equilibrium
Speaker 2: where excess water in the louse's body goes into the
Speaker 2: trachea and then out through the spiracles. What the dmethicone
Speaker 2: does is it coats and plugs these little openings so
Speaker 2: nothing can get in and crucially, nothing can get out.
Speaker 2: The louse doesn't know this. Its body is trying to
Speaker 2: pump extra water into the trachea, but it has nowhere
Speaker 2: to go, so it flows back into the gut. And
Speaker 2: after a little while this throws off the equilibrium completely
Speaker 2: and all that extra pressure just builds up inside.
Speaker 3: And if the louse had fed just before it was coated.
Speaker 3: In fact, you can see the louse gut explode.
Speaker 1: I mean, it is stunning that you didn't suffocate your
Speaker 1: lives but you blew them up instead. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Technically, yeah, there is one caveat here, and that is
Speaker 2: Dimethicone can kill live lice, but it cannot kill knits.
Speaker 2: It can't kill the eggs. So if you just do
Speaker 2: one treatment, any eggs left in your hair.
Speaker 1: Will hatch and then you'll be overwhelm with lice again.
Speaker 2: Well not right away, so it takes eggs up to
Speaker 2: ten days to hatch, and lice can't reproduce until they
Speaker 2: are about eleven to fourteen days old. Obviously, you have
Speaker 2: no way of knowing the age of all the knits
Speaker 2: in your hair. You don't have like a little louse
Speaker 2: sensus that you can refer to. But you can kill
Speaker 2: the newly hatched lice before they reach maturity with a
Speaker 2: little careful planning. So here's what you do. After your
Speaker 2: first dimethicone treatment, wait five days and do it again.
Speaker 2: You'll kill anything that hatched in those days directly following
Speaker 2: that initial application. Then you wait five more days and repeat.
Speaker 2: That should ensure that all the eggs have hatched, but
Speaker 2: none of the living lice are old enough to lay
Speaker 2: eggs on their own, and of course you can use
Speaker 2: a good comb to remove nits and lice in between
Speaker 2: these applications for extra peace of mind.
Speaker 1: I mean, I have to say, you sound like a
Speaker 1: full time life's genius.
Speaker 2: I wish I could take credit for all of this,
Speaker 2: but the truth is, everything I know about this dimethicone
Speaker 2: treatment schedule I learned from a woman in Wisconsin who
Speaker 2: is basically the Martha Stewart of lice, and will get
Speaker 2: to meet her after this quick break. Welcome back to
Speaker 2: a lousy episode of Part Time Genius. So mangush. We've
Speaker 2: touched on this a little bit, but I want to
Speaker 2: get into it some more. And that is the emotional
Speaker 2: impact of having lice. When I spoke to Lizzy, I
Speaker 2: told her how I had an existential crisis the first
Speaker 2: time we got lis. I just I didn't know what
Speaker 2: to do. There was all this conflict information online. I
Speaker 2: read one thing that said I needed to bag up
Speaker 2: all my kid's toys and bedding and seal it away
Speaker 2: for ten days. My kid was upset and embarrassed. It
Speaker 2: just felt so overwhelming, and at some point I remember
Speaker 2: sitting on the bathroom floor, like why, why us, Why
Speaker 2: me why now right? I felt crazy and Lizzie was like, no, no,
Speaker 2: you're not crazy. I get it.
Speaker 5: There are dangerous places my mind can definitely go to,
Speaker 5: like how is this tiny, tiny thing alaos is tiny
Speaker 5: and it is tinier.
Speaker 4: How can they like wreak so much havoc and like
Speaker 4: take me down?
Speaker 5: You know, a bear is more likely to like kill me,
Speaker 5: I guess, but this lous is still really out my life.
Speaker 1: I mean that is so true. Oh my god. Every
Speaker 1: time we got lies, it was such an ordeal and
Speaker 1: it felt like, why is this happening? He was you
Speaker 1: feel dirty, you get stripped the beds. We took all
Speaker 1: the stuffed animals away and then spent hours in the
Speaker 1: bathroom with little kids who did not want it's still
Speaker 1: putting thick shampoo into their hair and trying to comb
Speaker 1: out the eggs and it was just so miserable and
Speaker 1: you think you're done and then it happens again. But
Speaker 1: you know, eventually we got rid of them by going
Speaker 1: to a professional lice combing service here in Brooklyn. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just one more thing you have to deal with
Speaker 1: and figure out, and for busy parents, it's just the worst.
Speaker 1: And even though you know lice are harmless. There's such
Speaker 1: a stigma that you don't want your kids to give
Speaker 1: it to others. You feel like you haven't taken care
Speaker 1: of your kids. It really can take a toll.
Speaker 2: It can, and that is where Laurie Moyer comes in.
Speaker 2: Laurie runs a life's treatment center in Wisconsin, but she
Speaker 2: reaches hundreds of thousands of people all around the world
Speaker 2: through social media. She has over one hundred and twenty
Speaker 2: seven thousand followers on TikTok, where she posts videos demystifying
Speaker 2: lice and teaching proper combing techniques, and she's basically the
Speaker 2: all powerful voice of reason on the Our Life's subreddit,
Speaker 2: where every day anxious people post questions about how to
Speaker 2: tell if this thing they found is allows and what
Speaker 2: to do if it is actually Now Laurie's read it
Speaker 2: posts about dimethicone. When I was panicking the first time
Speaker 2: we had lice, she was just so patient and calm
Speaker 2: and detailed in her responses. It made me feel for
Speaker 2: the first time like maybe I could handle this. And
Speaker 2: when I talked to her on the phone for this episode,
Speaker 2: she told me that keeping people calm is a big
Speaker 2: part of her job.
Speaker 7: What I see happening quite often is someone will get
Speaker 7: a notice from their child's daycare or their child's school
Speaker 7: that there is a case of lice, a confirmed case
Speaker 7: of lice, and then they become panicked. It just spirals
Speaker 7: into complete chaos, and I try to talk people, you know,
Speaker 7: back down.
Speaker 2: Part of that panic, Laurie says, comes from misunderstanding lice
Speaker 2: and how they live. A lot of people think, like
Speaker 2: you did, that having life means they have to deep
Speaker 2: clean their whole house and throw out the clothes, vacuum
Speaker 2: the furniture, bag up the toys. Of course, that's going
Speaker 2: to feel daunting.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: Some lives can survive for a few hours on surfaces
Speaker 2: that aren't human heads. But here's the thing, they're not bad.
Speaker 2: They really can't live very long without us.
Speaker 7: And I liken it to being a human being an
Speaker 7: outer space. Right, if you were up in a rocket ship,
Speaker 7: a capsule, whatever, But if you were up beyond the
Speaker 7: Earth's atmosphere, could you potentially open that hatch and go
Speaker 7: out into outer space? You could, sure, But why wouldn't
Speaker 7: you because you couldn't survive there. There's no oxygen there,
Speaker 7: you couldn't survive. So the same is true for headlights.
Speaker 7: They need your head to survive, and if they were
Speaker 7: to come off the head, it's either because they're dying
Speaker 7: or dyed, or maybe you disturbed your hair in some
Speaker 7: way that knocked them off the head. But they're going
Speaker 7: to just crawl back in the hair if they can.
Speaker 7: They certainly aren't readily walking off of a human head
Speaker 7: to go on a squish mellow.
Speaker 1: I mean, I would be lying right now if I
Speaker 1: said I wasn't picturing a tiny louse in an astronaut suit.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think we all are. I think we all are.
Speaker 1: You know this might sound weird, but this episode has
Speaker 1: kind of made me, I don't want to say fond
Speaker 1: of lies, but I certainly respect them more than I
Speaker 1: did before we started learning all this stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, same, Ian Burgess actually had a really wonderful way
Speaker 2: of putting this.
Speaker 3: These animals have lived on humans since humans began, and
Speaker 3: their forebears before that, and throughout that time, to varying degrees,
Speaker 3: we have tried to get rid of them, and they've
Speaker 3: survived every one of those challenges and they're still doing
Speaker 3: it and there are still so many things we need
Speaker 3: to learn about them. If you ever looked down a
Speaker 3: microscope at a little louse going about its business. It's
Speaker 3: a fascinating, really actually quite beautiful thing.
Speaker 1: Oh I love that. I mean, if my kids get
Speaker 1: lies again, I'll want to get rid of them, for sure.
Speaker 1: But now I'm kind of wondering, like, does that mean
Speaker 1: I want to get rid of all this? I'm not
Speaker 1: totally sure.
Speaker 2: I'm so glad you brought that up, because I asked
Speaker 2: Ian that exact question. What would happen or what would
Speaker 2: change in the world if we woke up tomorrow and
Speaker 2: all human had lives were gone?
Speaker 3: Nothing, as far as I know, other than the fact
Speaker 3: that we would have had an extinction. I mean, it's
Speaker 3: a This is a marable question, isn't it?
Speaker 2: Is it?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 4: It is?
Speaker 3: I think Yeah. It's an ethical question anyway, What apart
Speaker 3: from our squeamishness, what right have we to decide that
Speaker 3: life are less valuable than something else? Okay, we consider
Speaker 3: ourselves or humans consider themselves the peak of evolution. But
Speaker 3: where do you draw the line? Okay, a louse may
Speaker 3: not be what you want, but then what about, say,
Speaker 3: something like a worm in your gut? Parasitic worms can
Speaker 3: often eliminate on certainly on a temporary basis for allergies.
Speaker 3: So they have a function, and it could be that
Speaker 3: lice have a function. We just haven't pinned it down yet.
Speaker 2: I never thought of that. But you know, we go
Speaker 2: back to school in September, and if we get lice again,
Speaker 2: I feel like I'll be much more emotionally prepared for it.
Speaker 3: Love your Lice. Well, there was a school we went to.
Speaker 3: We've done coming in schools for years, and there was
Speaker 3: one school we went to where the kids are about
Speaker 3: six years old. Some of the kids cried because they
Speaker 3: didn't have lice and their friends did, and the ones
Speaker 3: who had lice then had disagreements as to who had
Speaker 3: the best lice.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, kids are the best. That's so funny.
Speaker 2: My life could beat up your life. My life are
Speaker 2: faster than your life.
Speaker 3: Sure so, in fact, all the fear and hatred and
Speaker 3: squeamishness and things about life come from adults, not from children.
Speaker 3: Children only feel bad about life because adults thrust this
Speaker 3: upon them.
Speaker 2: Okay, can we make part time genius t shirts that
Speaker 2: say love your lice?
Speaker 1: Absolutely not. That is too far, But you know what
Speaker 1: we can do. We can head down to the rec
Speaker 1: Center to sum up everything we've learned today about what
Speaker 1: to do if you or someone in your house has lice.
Speaker 1: Step one, remain calm. Headlights are a nuisance, but they
Speaker 1: are not dangerous, and there's really nothing to be embarrassed about.
Speaker 1: At any given moment. Millions of people have lice, so
Speaker 1: you're definitely in good company.
Speaker 2: Step two. Buy a good quality metal nitcomb and check
Speaker 2: online for videos that show the right way to use it.
Speaker 2: The comb I used and the one Laurie Morier recommends,
Speaker 2: has a round handle and lots of long, thin teeth
Speaker 2: with little grooves that help snag the lice and eggs.
Speaker 2: And actually, if you have school age kids, Laurie suggests
Speaker 2: doing regular comb throughs with the nitcomb as a preventative measure,
Speaker 2: because if you catch an infestation early, it is so
Speaker 2: much easier to treat and contain.
Speaker 1: Step three, figure out your treatment plan. You can search
Speaker 1: for a professional lyce clinic in your area or DIY
Speaker 1: with dimethicone, but you don't need to throw out your
Speaker 1: clothes or spend days deep cleaning like we did. And
Speaker 1: it's probably not worth bothering with those drug store shampoos either.
Speaker 1: They just don't work that well anymore.
Speaker 2: Step four. If you're using dimethicone at home, like I did,
Speaker 2: be sure to follow the schedule exactly. Apply on day one,
Speaker 2: day five, and day ten. Oh and I asked Lauri
Speaker 2: if it's possible to do this if you have braids
Speaker 2: or locks you don't want to take out, and she
Speaker 2: said yes, you can apply the domethicone directly to the
Speaker 2: scalp without undoing them, but you will need to wash
Speaker 2: it out. Speaking of which, here is a bonus tip
Speaker 2: from me. A person with long thick care, regular shampoo
Speaker 2: did not cut through the dimethicone very well, so I
Speaker 2: handed up U sing Don dish soap. It worked, but
Speaker 2: it is very rough on your hair, so use plenty
Speaker 2: of conditioner afterwards.
Speaker 1: Well, Marry, since you've battled lized yourself and I've always
Speaker 1: escaped unscathed, I think you deserve today's trophy.
Speaker 2: You know what, I'll take it. It means the suffering
Speaker 2: was worth something.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you have that justification. Well, that does it
Speaker 1: for today. We will be back next week with another
Speaker 1: new episode. In the meantime, you can send us a
Speaker 1: message by emailing High Geniuses at gmail dot com. That's hi.
Speaker 1: Geniuses at gmail dot com or give us a call
Speaker 1: at three oh two, four oh five, five nine two five. Seriously,
Speaker 1: give us a call. We love hearing your messages. Sometimes
Speaker 1: we play them on the show. We love to get
Speaker 1: more of them. Special thanks to everyone we spoke with
Speaker 1: for this episode, and from Will, Dylan, Gabe, Mary, and myself.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for listening. Part Time Genius is
Speaker 1: a production of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. This show is hosted
Speaker 1: by Will Pearson and Me Mongish Heatikler and researched by
Speaker 1: our goodpal Mary Philip Sandy. Today's episode was engineered and
Speaker 1: produced by the wonderful Dylan Fagan with support from Tyler Klang.
Speaker 1: The show is executive produced for iHeart by Katrina Norvell
Speaker 1: and Ali Perry, with social media support from Sasha Gay,
Speaker 1: trustee Dara Potts and buy Me Shoring. For more podcasts
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