Speaker 1: Welcome to Invention, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey,
Speaker 1: welcome to Invention. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm
Speaker 1: Joe McCormick, and we're bringing you some listener mail today.
Speaker 1: We've got our bronze automaton here with us. Our mail
Speaker 1: bought Melo say hello Melos Now. Melos has a new function.
Speaker 1: In addition to delivering our listener mail, Melos now also
Speaker 1: eats and poops. That's right, you know. Inspired by recent
Speaker 1: episode we did about the idea of creating machines that
Speaker 1: can consume and then defecate, it made sense to update
Speaker 1: Melos so that he can do this as well. And
Speaker 1: now he does. It's not perfect, if you you know,
Speaker 1: if you analyze the various bits of robots scat that
Speaker 1: he's leaving around the studio here, you know, you'll you'll
Speaker 1: notice it looks rather different from what you might find
Speaker 1: in the wild. It's a little um uh, you know,
Speaker 1: the formation is a little suspect, a little more radioactive
Speaker 1: than normal. Yeah, a little a little too cubicle in nature.
Speaker 1: Not to say that cubicle poop is not found in nature,
Speaker 1: because it is. But but still we're working on it.
Speaker 1: We feel like we're still working out some of the
Speaker 1: kinks in his mechanical intestines. Yes, mailists, do not take
Speaker 1: this critique harshly. You you have noble ichor and we
Speaker 1: believe in you, alright. So I think we should start
Speaker 1: off by reading some mail we got in response to
Speaker 1: our episode on the ancient weapon technology the oddle Addell.
Speaker 1: Now you remember this was the episode we did. I
Speaker 1: think it was right after our last listener mail episode
Speaker 1: about the the ancient hunting and weapons technology of this
Speaker 1: lever that would be used to accelerate dart throws and
Speaker 1: has been found all over world. We actually heard from
Speaker 1: one very experienced and knowledgeable listener and that this was
Speaker 1: some exciting feedback. So let's jump right into it. Uh,
Speaker 1: this is from our listener, Angelo, Angelo says, Dear Robert
Speaker 1: and Joe, my name is Angelo Robledo. I hope I'm
Speaker 1: pronouncing that right. And I am on the board of
Speaker 1: directors of the World Auto Lattle Association. I run their
Speaker 1: social media accounts and host autolatal tournaments in Southern Nevada.
Speaker 1: I'm an experimental archaeology researcher at the University of Nevada,
Speaker 1: Las Vegas and have been making and throwing auto ladles
Speaker 1: for ten years. First off, thank you for taking the
Speaker 1: time to do such a thorough podcast episode on the
Speaker 1: auto ladle. It's rare that this artifact gets any attention
Speaker 1: at all, let alone to the level of a popular podcast.
Speaker 1: Your research incitations were great. It's impossible to go wrong
Speaker 1: by researching. Dr John Whittaker and autolatdal research legend and
Speaker 1: fellow board member at the w a A. I was
Speaker 1: hoping to clarify a few things regarding banner stones. Remember
Speaker 1: those were some artifacts that are these sort of weights
Speaker 1: or stones that are associated with autolattal findings in archaeology.
Speaker 1: Uh and he continues, also flexible auto attles and flexible darts.
Speaker 1: Based on what you did and didn't discuss in your episode.
Speaker 1: Banner stones have been a point of contention in the
Speaker 1: auto lettle community for decades, but some important distinctions need
Speaker 1: to be made. There are some rocks slash weights attached
Speaker 1: to auto addles that are not banner stones and are
Speaker 1: not contested. These stones are generally flat on one side
Speaker 1: and no wider than the width of the autolattle itself,
Speaker 1: unlike banner stones, which are definitionally wider than an auto
Speaker 1: lattle protruding from the sides. These regular weights, or boat
Speaker 1: stones as I call them based on their canoe like appearance,
Speaker 1: have a well understood and largely uncontested purpose. They're very
Speaker 1: prevalent in the American Southwest and used prominently on basket
Speaker 1: maker style addleaddles, though they can be found elsewhere. These
Speaker 1: stones serve as a counterweight offsetting the length and weight
Speaker 1: of the dart. With an average six foot dart and
Speaker 1: two foot auto ladle, there's quite a bit of darts
Speaker 1: sticking out in front of the hand, causing strain on
Speaker 1: the wrist and causing the tip to dip when aiming
Speaker 1: for long periods of time. The stone balances this weight
Speaker 1: by adding mass to the rear of the auto laddle,
Speaker 1: nullifying wrist strain. This stone also helps smooth out the
Speaker 1: throw by adding more mass near the spur, in the
Speaker 1: same way that swinging a wooden baseball bat can feel
Speaker 1: smoother than a foam one. Okay, that makes sense to me.
Speaker 1: I can picture this, and also it totally makes sense
Speaker 1: about balancing it on the wrist. When we heard we're
Speaker 1: going to read messages or summarize messages from several other
Speaker 1: listeners who talked about their experience with auto laddles, and
Speaker 1: one thing several of them said was that that actually
Speaker 1: maybe the hardest part of it when they were learning
Speaker 1: to use an auto laddle was just like holding the
Speaker 1: dart in place while they were trying to aim their throw. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, it reminds them. On one hand, it reminds
Speaker 1: me of things I've read about the the use of
Speaker 1: the longbow um in medieval times and how just the
Speaker 1: sheer physical demands of that, and that's something that can
Speaker 1: is easy to overlook and discussing ancient and inventions that
Speaker 1: are more that require more physicality on the part of
Speaker 1: the user. Is that is that that they are, you know,
Speaker 1: highly physical devices in many cases. And I can't remember
Speaker 1: if I mentioned this in in the Lattle episode that
Speaker 1: we recorded, but uh, just my own experience of using
Speaker 1: sort of at Lattle esque ball throwing devices like just
Speaker 1: like the throw tennis ball dog, yeah, or in this
Speaker 1: case like throws some sort of a nerf you know,
Speaker 1: whizzing football type, uh projectile. Just playing around with that
Speaker 1: with with my son, I was I was noticing, like, wow,
Speaker 1: I'm straining new things in my arm that I was
Speaker 1: not aware of you know. Uh so, yeah, I think
Speaker 1: the physical demands of the invention are definitely worth worth mentioning.
Speaker 1: But so this comes back to the idea of the
Speaker 1: banner stones, which we mentioned. There was some archaeological controversy
Speaker 1: about because it's not entirely known what these stones were for.
Speaker 1: Were they decorative or did they actually serve a purpose?
Speaker 1: And Angelo here gets into that. He says the contention
Speaker 1: is in banner stones, which are often too large and
Speaker 1: awkward to serve the same purpose as boat stones. Some
Speaker 1: say they still function as regular weights, Others say they're
Speaker 1: simply status symbols hence the banner and we're not functional.
Speaker 1: Still other state other uses for such stones, such as
Speaker 1: arrows straighteners. Archaeologists themselves cause more troubled and intended by
Speaker 1: improperly labeling banner stones from regular addolddle weights or failing
Speaker 1: to differentiate what they're talking about. This brings us to
Speaker 1: flexible addoladdles. While some studies have shown there to be
Speaker 1: a benefit to flexible auto addles, this often requires the
Speaker 1: aid of high speed footage to properly calibrate, and the
Speaker 1: results are often negligible. Other studies show no benefit to
Speaker 1: having a flexible audol addle. The biggest argument against flexible
Speaker 1: addoltdeles being an intentional innovation is the fact that an
Speaker 1: overwhelming majority of autoladdles found or documented are not flexible.
Speaker 1: In fact, in my ten years of auto lattel ng
Speaker 1: and attendance of dozens of events, I have yet to
Speaker 1: see a flexible auto lattle in use or make one myself.
Speaker 1: I also cannot recall a flexible autolattle in the dozens
Speaker 1: of autolattle artifacts I've seen or studied. Finally, onto flexible darts,
Speaker 1: the fact that the dart flexes is arguably the single
Speaker 1: most important part of the entire auto lettle system. I
Speaker 1: was disappointed to not hear you discuss how vital this is.
Speaker 1: The flexibility of darts is what differentiates them from hand
Speaker 1: thrown spears. Autolttle darts are propelled from the rear behind
Speaker 1: the dart center of gravity, meaning the force is transferred
Speaker 1: to one percent of the dart. A spear, however, is
Speaker 1: thrown from the midpoint, a much more inefficient force transfer.
Speaker 1: There is a trade off, however, the weight of the
Speaker 1: dart tip wishes to stay in place according to Newton's
Speaker 1: laws and the throwing motion generates a great deal of
Speaker 1: force in the split second before the dart disin gages
Speaker 1: from the autolatzle that force and needs to go somewhere.
Speaker 1: If the dart is stiff, then that force immediately causes
Speaker 1: the tip to raise as the audi latti flicks the
Speaker 1: rear end of the dart underneath it. The stiffer the dart,
Speaker 1: the greater the effect. The effect would be so great
Speaker 1: on a perfectly stiff dart that the dart would fish
Speaker 1: tail in the air and fail to be accurate or
Speaker 1: even reach the target. A flexible dart, however, allows the
Speaker 1: excess force to be stored in the dart as it flexes.
Speaker 1: The tip remains frozen in space as the dart flexes,
Speaker 1: and at the last moment, the stored energy releases, allowing
Speaker 1: the dart to disengage from the odd laddle. The dart
Speaker 1: flexes in a specific way during flight, however, the front
Speaker 1: third of the dart is stiffer than the rear two thirds,
Speaker 1: meaning the rear of the dart continues to flex around
Speaker 1: the tip, which remains on target during the entire flight.
Speaker 1: In essence, a flexible dart is one percent necessary for
Speaker 1: an accurate throw. The engineering of the dart is much
Speaker 1: more important than the add lattle. At two by four
Speaker 1: with an ale in it confunction as a a a laddle,
Speaker 1: but without a perfectly formed flexible dart, the entire system
Speaker 1: won't work. Arrows shot from a bow are flexible in
Speaker 1: the same way for the exact same reason. It just
Speaker 1: happens on a smaller and faster scale. Arrows are also
Speaker 1: propelled from the rear, just like a ladle darts. In fact,
Speaker 1: many modern projectile weapons used the same principles found in
Speaker 1: a ladles. The final thing I wanted to mention was
Speaker 1: a clarification on the range and accuracy of auto ladles
Speaker 1: when compared to bows or spears. You alluded to but
Speaker 1: did not explicitly mentioned the short effective range of a
Speaker 1: hand thrown spear. Most credible studies of prehistoric, historic, and
Speaker 1: modern hand thrown spears put their maximum effective range, or
Speaker 1: the range where thrower could reliably meaning seventy five greater
Speaker 1: chance hit a target with a flat trajectory and enough
Speaker 1: force for a fatal injury to be five to seven meters.
Speaker 1: That's fifteen to twenty two ft, so that's obviously not
Speaker 1: very far. The minimum distance that standard at Lattle tournaments
Speaker 1: is fifteen meters or about forty eight feet, with a
Speaker 1: maximum effective range of twenty five meters or about eighty
Speaker 1: feet from the top throwers in the world, around thirty
Speaker 1: meters or a hundred feet hit percentage starts dropping drastically.
Speaker 1: More often than not, spears were for thrusting, and auto
Speaker 1: ladles were used for throwing, despite what Hollywood would lead
Speaker 1: you to believe. As I previously mentioned, overall, YouTube provided
Speaker 1: more in depth analysis on the auto ladle than any
Speaker 1: other non autolodolists I've ever seen, and Angelo wraps up here.
Speaker 1: Thanks us again for the episode. Uh says uh. I
Speaker 1: just wanted to clarify a few things. Mentions that their
Speaker 1: Instagram pages at World Auto Lottal Association if you want
Speaker 1: to check that out and see some high speed footage
Speaker 1: and uh and dart flex Uh So, Yeah, that was
Speaker 1: really informative. Thank you very much, Angelo for getting in
Speaker 1: touch and for sharing your expertise with us. As soon
Speaker 1: as I was reading this, yeah, I was picturing the
Speaker 1: importance of the flexing of the dart the way like
Speaker 1: when you release it, sort of the tape ill. Especially
Speaker 1: when you see this high speed footage. The Tale of
Speaker 1: the Dark kind of wobbles around while the front of
Speaker 1: the Dark just stays dead on target. Yeah, it's definitely
Speaker 1: noticeable in the in the a lot of the footage
Speaker 1: that you see online. All right, here's another one. This
Speaker 1: one comes to us from David. David says, I love
Speaker 1: your show and and I can't say enough good things
Speaker 1: about it. Keep doing more shows. I'm catching up on
Speaker 1: stuff to blow your mind and listen to End of
Speaker 1: the World and Two Shifts at work. But I really
Speaker 1: love it when it's time for a new episode of Invention.
Speaker 1: I work at a mindless warehouse facility, and listening to
Speaker 1: your podcast keeps my brain from atrophy. Although I think
Speaker 1: my wife is tired of me knowing everything, as I
Speaker 1: have been catching myself interrupting a lot with actually, did
Speaker 1: you know? Oh no, it's a nasty habit I picked
Speaker 1: up from fact Overlord. Overload from fact Overlord. Yeah, now
Speaker 1: he's fact Overlord, David, fact Overlord. Don't get that Overlord David. Anyway.
Speaker 1: At Alttle, I worked as a wilderness guy for two
Speaker 1: years and became very interested in primitive tools and weapons.
Speaker 1: I never used any to actually hunt, but mostly target practice.
Speaker 1: I just wanted to elaborate on a point you briefly
Speaker 1: made comparing the outlawdle to the two of the bow.
Speaker 1: I've used bows all made from high tech material and
Speaker 1: a factory quite easily and without much practice, and pretty good.
Speaker 1: I've also made attempts to design and make my own
Speaker 1: bow from collected wood, not professionally commercial grade. That would
Speaker 1: be cheating. The result is always very poor. Again coming
Speaker 1: back to our our our commentary on Arnold Schwarzenegger in
Speaker 1: Predator or or what was what was the MST three
Speaker 1: K movie that uh we referenced where the individual makes
Speaker 1: a bow and that the riff is yeah, it barely works.
Speaker 1: I don't remember, but at anyway, you see that a
Speaker 1: lot or a fair amount in in in films where
Speaker 1: someone makes their own bow and suddenly it's deadly efficient.
Speaker 1: Predator being the key um suspect here. Anyway, David continues,
Speaker 1: even after reading some instructions and using modern tools, the
Speaker 1: bows don't come out much better. Uh, they're even harder
Speaker 1: to use. In my experience, the quality of shot is
Speaker 1: only as good as the bow, which is very difficult
Speaker 1: to make without a lot of practice. But I made
Speaker 1: three or four bad models and one hell of an
Speaker 1: aladdle in one afternoon, and I feel confident I could
Speaker 1: make a great a autoladdle and under an hour with
Speaker 1: only a knife. With only a few hours of practice,
Speaker 1: I could hit a one ft diameter tree from thirty
Speaker 1: ft away with tremendous force, many times getting really poorly
Speaker 1: made spears to stick in a tree. Without a lot
Speaker 1: of time and a large learning curve, I don't think
Speaker 1: I could make a quality enough bow from scratch to
Speaker 1: do that. Further, I believe at distances under fifty feet
Speaker 1: the aladdle gives you much more force but equal accuracy
Speaker 1: of a bow. If I wanted to bring an animal
Speaker 1: down in one shot quickly, I truly feel the aladdle
Speaker 1: is going to cause much more damage than the bow.
Speaker 1: This also depends on the size of your spear. Any times,
Speaker 1: while living in the wilderness, I would come across animals
Speaker 1: less than fifty feet away, and at least twice a
Speaker 1: week I would find myself accidentally less than twenty ft away.
Speaker 1: It was very common for me to open my eyes
Speaker 1: from a morning meditation and be in the presence of
Speaker 1: potential food and don't forget at Alato can be used
Speaker 1: for fish too in a hurry, if you have a
Speaker 1: clear stream. In conclusion, if someone made an excellent bow,
Speaker 1: I'd prefer the bow. If I had to figure out
Speaker 1: my own weapon, I choose the addoladdle. All the love,
Speaker 1: David from Greenville. All right, well, this sort of ends
Speaker 1: up with what we were saying, right, Uh, the idea
Speaker 1: that one of the great advantages of the auto ladle
Speaker 1: is its simplicity and the fact that, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: as we were talking about with some of the survivalists,
Speaker 1: we were reading that you can pretty easily make one
Speaker 1: in the field that works not not bad at all. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and again coming back to the fact that Dutch should
Speaker 1: have made an Aunt Lattle in Predator instead of that
Speaker 1: ridiculous bow. You really hung up on this. I am no,
Speaker 1: I just think it would have been a better It
Speaker 1: would have made the movie better. It would have made
Speaker 1: that Sea Winn's better, and it would be it would
Speaker 1: have been cooler and what's what's it would have been
Speaker 1: perfect more unfamiliar to modern audiences too. Yeah. Well, we
Speaker 1: actually had one listener to get in touch with us. Well,
Speaker 1: we don't have time to read the email in full,
Speaker 1: but mentioned an episode of Star Trek the original series
Speaker 1: where in the in the TV episode that they had
Speaker 1: to make primitive weapons on a planet because they were
Speaker 1: stranded didn't have their phasers and all that sort made bows.
Speaker 1: But but the listener writing and mentioned that in the
Speaker 1: novel adaptation of the episode, they make out ladles instead.
Speaker 1: I love that. I love it when when someone doing
Speaker 1: the novelization decides to fix something. Yeah, who's that movie
Speaker 1: novelization writer that you really like? Who did that? Was
Speaker 1: the Halloween three adaptation? Oh? I don't. I don't remember
Speaker 1: his name off hand, but you know, they're they're There
Speaker 1: are various tales of of movie novelization victories. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think one of the greatest, of course, is Isaac
Speaker 1: Asimov for Fantastic Voyage. I'm not even aware of this. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: agreed to uh, you know, to work on the book
Speaker 1: version that came out with the film. But part of
Speaker 1: the consideration was that he got to fix some of
Speaker 1: the science in the book. And it's a fabulous book,
Speaker 1: you know. I don't even movie's fun too. But I
Speaker 1: finally remember reading Isaac Asimov's fan a Fantastic Voyage. I've
Speaker 1: never even heard of that before I got to check
Speaker 1: that out now. Well. So we got a lot of
Speaker 1: great listener mail about the add a laddle, way too
Speaker 1: much to read in full, but since we asked for
Speaker 1: people's experiences, I did want to just summarize a few
Speaker 1: more of the messages we received, but don't have time
Speaker 1: to read. We got a message from an Ethan who
Speaker 1: says that when he was in college he got to
Speaker 1: try out and ad a ladle in one of his
Speaker 1: classes and he found he could aim pretty well after
Speaker 1: just a few throws, and this was a commonly reported
Speaker 1: thing from listeners. They said that it was surprisingly easy
Speaker 1: to get the hang of aiming with it. Another David
Speaker 1: wrote in and said a similar thing. I says he
Speaker 1: does historical re enactments and has attended an ad a
Speaker 1: ladle siminar. In his opinion, it was much easier than
Speaker 1: he would have expected to throw, and he became fairly
Speaker 1: accurate after just a few practice throws. Um Our listener
Speaker 1: Bradley says that when he was a kid, he learned
Speaker 1: about the addleladdle in a class at school, and then
Speaker 1: he and a friend made an addle laddle in a
Speaker 1: dart later that summer, when after a day of practicing
Speaker 1: they could sometimes hit a milk jug full of water,
Speaker 1: though he doesn't say what distance, and he also says
Speaker 1: it was surprisingly easy to make an audle ladle in
Speaker 1: a dart just out of branches that they found. You know,
Speaker 1: I hope it goes without saying, but I do want
Speaker 1: to just advise everyone here that if you are inspired
Speaker 1: by this and decided to make your own add a ladle,
Speaker 1: that you will exercise common sense. Oh yeah, and and
Speaker 1: and follow follow directions and advice from some of these
Speaker 1: organizations that we've mentioned, because that's that's one of the
Speaker 1: potential pitfalls of being able to make a fairly efficient
Speaker 1: deadly weapon from just sticks that you obtain in your
Speaker 1: natural habitat right, look up safety precautions. Obviously, don't do
Speaker 1: anything with a living thing down range unless you're actually hunting.
Speaker 1: And then I guess you got to wait till a
Speaker 1: little season. Right, what's the what's the hunting season for
Speaker 1: using not not a lottle? Oh? I think we talked
Speaker 1: about this, but I've forgotten about. I mean, generally the
Speaker 1: trend is the more sort of old fashioned the weapon,
Speaker 1: the earlier you get in, right, I think that might
Speaker 1: be true. I do remember reading something about in in
Speaker 1: some places the regulations are different for the bare handed
Speaker 1: deer hunting that like that starts super early. Uh So.
Speaker 1: Speaking of hunting, we also heard from our listener Matt
Speaker 1: regarding how close you can get to deer without noticing.
Speaker 1: Matt says that he's an avid hunter in Ontario and
Speaker 1: had a few observations about approaching wildlife, because that was
Speaker 1: one of the things we talked about in the episode,
Speaker 1: was like the distance that you can get from pray
Speaker 1: if you're hunting, Like, how close can you normally get
Speaker 1: to a deer? Normally you know they'll bolt before you
Speaker 1: get pretty close. But I talked about one experience I
Speaker 1: had just this year where I kind of walked up
Speaker 1: on one without it apparently noticing me, and I did
Speaker 1: notice it, And how did that make you feel like
Speaker 1: a regular Jason Vorhees uh So, Matt says outside the
Speaker 1: realm of hunting, he says that on the farm, it's
Speaker 1: easiest to get close to deer during the harvest. Quote.
Speaker 1: They like to eat and take cover within the corn
Speaker 1: rows and won't run if they're unsure what direction you're
Speaker 1: coming from. With a couple of pieces of machinery running
Speaker 1: in different areas. I imagine this can be somewhat disorienting
Speaker 1: to them, thus making it possible to get pretty close
Speaker 1: if you know where they are once. He's a lot
Speaker 1: of wildlife during the harvest season eagles, owls, rabbits, coyotes, etcetera.
Speaker 1: And a nice close up of an area's deer is
Speaker 1: always a pleasant treat. And then with regards to hunting,
Speaker 1: Matt says quote when it comes to hunting, I'm continually
Speaker 1: amazed how well deer can blend into their environment, as
Speaker 1: well as how patient they are. Many times I have
Speaker 1: not literally, but approximately so nearly walked on top of
Speaker 1: one or a group of deer. They have an intuition
Speaker 1: for knowing they've been spot whether they've been spotted or not,
Speaker 1: and whether the same forbet is to run or stay put.
Speaker 1: Then they make their escape once the hunter me is
Speaker 1: a safe distance past. This is the thing I think,
Speaker 1: if we haven't talked about it on our other podcast
Speaker 1: to stuff to blow your mind, I would like to
Speaker 1: come back and visit sometime. The sense for having been seen,
Speaker 1: Like there's debate about to what extent you know animals
Speaker 1: and stuff have a kind of sense for that, Like
Speaker 1: how do they detect whether or not they are detectable
Speaker 1: or have been detected. I think about this with my catalot,
Speaker 1: when when she's like stalking me in the house, and
Speaker 1: it doesn't seem to make a difference to her if
Speaker 1: I've seen her or not, Like she's still going to
Speaker 1: continue stalking me and hunting me for prey. That's recreational stalking. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's true, and she I guess she's she's acting in
Speaker 1: full predator mode when she's doing that. But of course,
Speaker 1: the thing about the common house cat is that it is.
Speaker 1: And one of the reasons that they are ultimately so
Speaker 1: insane is that besides the fact that we've we've we've
Speaker 1: sort of domesticated them and we're keeping them inside of
Speaker 1: our how in many cases, uh, they are also in
Speaker 1: this area that they're you know, they're clearly both both
Speaker 1: mega predator, but also they are prey. H They're small
Speaker 1: enough to be a prey animal to a number of
Speaker 1: creatures of the wild. It's a strange niche to occupy.
Speaker 1: All right, should we take a break before we move
Speaker 1: on to our next messages. Let's do it. We'll be
Speaker 1: right back, all right, We're back, all right, So we
Speaker 1: also heard from someone about our museum's episode. Where does
Speaker 1: the invention of the museum come from? What does the
Speaker 1: what does it mean? And how are we continuing to
Speaker 1: wrestle with the idea in modern times? So Diane writes
Speaker 1: in and says, first, Robert and Joe, your podcasts are
Speaker 1: the very bust out there. I love listening and learning
Speaker 1: while I work. Especially timely was the museum podcast. I'm
Speaker 1: a fiber artist, and just last week learned that a
Speaker 1: Peace of Mind is going to be in an exhibit
Speaker 1: at the Ladelphia Museum of Art Off the Wall American
Speaker 1: Art to Wear, which opens November nine, and that the
Speaker 1: piece has been presented to them for their permanent collection.
Speaker 1: The Philadelphia area is my home base. I went to
Speaker 1: more College in Philadelphia. I am so excited, to say
Speaker 1: the least, congratulations. Yeah, you're becoming a part of history. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Your podcast made me think about what it means to
Speaker 1: actually have my work in a museum, which I never
Speaker 1: thought would happen, and how future generations would view it
Speaker 1: and the time, materials, et cetera involved in making it
Speaker 1: it was. It will be surreal to stand there and
Speaker 1: say to someone, hey, I made that anyway, thanks again
Speaker 1: for the hours of interesting and thoughtful podcasts Diane. Well,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for getting in touch, Diane, and congratulations
Speaker 1: on having your piece included. So hey, if you are
Speaker 1: out there in the Philadelphia area and you're around uh
Speaker 1: after November nine, you should go check out this exhibit. Yeah,
Speaker 1: see Diane's work. All right, here we've got a short one,
Speaker 1: but but one with a very good reference. So this
Speaker 1: is in regards to our gastro Automaton episode about the
Speaker 1: like the Canard de Gira Tour, the duck that the
Speaker 1: mechanical duck that eats and poops. This is from Dan,
Speaker 1: Dan rights, Hi, Robert, and Joe. I was listening to
Speaker 1: your dreams of a gastro Automaton episode when you mentioned
Speaker 1: machines playing musical instruments. Now, this is a thing that
Speaker 1: the same guy who created the pooping duck, you know,
Speaker 1: the Canard Deira Tour, also made these automata that we're
Speaker 1: human like figures that would actually play musical instruments like
Speaker 1: a flute by blowing into them and doing the fingerings right.
Speaker 1: Was the key one, uh and so uh here Dan
Speaker 1: picks up and says, I immediately thought of compressor head
Speaker 1: who compressor Head. Compressor Head are an all robot heavy
Speaker 1: metal band. No pun intended that looked like something out
Speaker 1: of the out of the nineteen nineties sci fi horror
Speaker 1: film Hardware. At first, I've never seen it. I don't think. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if I'm remembering the correct film um Hardware, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: remember them pretty good. They could also be a cross
Speaker 1: between like Short Circuit and Chopping Mall, I think, but
Speaker 1: Dan goes on. I first discovered them late last year
Speaker 1: after falling through a YouTube rabbit hole, and it is
Speaker 1: one of the most amazing things I've ever seen on
Speaker 1: the web. I've provided a link down below to a
Speaker 1: live video of them playing the Eternal Motorhead classic Ace
Speaker 1: of Spades. They're far more entertaining and better than most
Speaker 1: flesh based cover bands I've seen. I have seen the
Speaker 1: future of rock and roll and its robots. Love everything
Speaker 1: you do. Keep up the good work, Dan. I went
Speaker 1: and watched this. It's great. It's fantastic, like it is
Speaker 1: if rocks. Well, it's interesting that you mentioned motor Had
Speaker 1: because Limmy is actually in uh the film Hardware these
Speaker 1: referencing no way, Yeah, Yeah, Lemmy is in it. Iggy
Speaker 1: Pop is in it. Uh, it was a Richard Stanley film. Uh.
Speaker 1: And yeah, it's quite interesting, worth worth picking out if
Speaker 1: you want out, like a nice slice of like of
Speaker 1: year nineteen nineties horror, sci fi, rampaging robot, that sort
Speaker 1: of thing. What does let me do in it? I
Speaker 1: think he's a taxi driver, if I remember correctly. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's what I remember. Yeah. I think he's driving
Speaker 1: like a weird like semi post apocalyptic taxi, which which
Speaker 1: was appropriate. I think. Oh man, if you like motor
Speaker 1: Head or you like metal, yeah, look up compressor Head
Speaker 1: asub Spades. It is brutal. It is so good. All right,
Speaker 1: here's another one. This one comes to us from James.
Speaker 1: James says, hello, Robert and Joe, longtime listeners since the
Speaker 1: stuff from the Science Lab days. Okay that that was
Speaker 1: the original title of our other show, Stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your Mind, back when I hosted it with Alison louder Milk. Anyway,
Speaker 1: it continues, and this is my first time writing in
Speaker 1: We took you long enough. It's been almost ten years. Uh.
Speaker 1: In the Motion Picture Part three episode, you guys mentioned
Speaker 1: how you wanted to hear more musicians synchronized music to
Speaker 1: a trip to the Moon. Well, my there. Trevor plays
Speaker 1: guitar in a contemporary chamber group for which the composer
Speaker 1: writes modern pieces to a company Silent Films. They have
Speaker 1: performed a number of shows in and around the Detroit area,
Speaker 1: chief among them being at the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. They're
Speaker 1: called the Andrew Alden Ensemble and by the way, you
Speaker 1: want to look that up, andrew Alden Ensemble dot band
Speaker 1: camp dot com is the place to find them. Uh.
Speaker 1: And they've not only done a modern take on a
Speaker 1: Trip to the Moon, but also Nonsferatu, which they've performed
Speaker 1: on Halloween for the last few years, as well as
Speaker 1: a few other movies. I'll include a link to their
Speaker 1: band camp page which I just shared, so you can
Speaker 1: check out the music if you find yourself in the
Speaker 1: Detroit area or her happened to catch them on tour.
Speaker 1: They're a great treat anyway. Sorry for rambling, but I
Speaker 1: love both of your shows. Keep doing what you're doing well, Thanks, James.
Speaker 1: I feel like everybody's getting in touch with great art now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is really art heavy episode. Museum worthy fiber arts
Speaker 1: come presser head. Uh. Because soundtracks to Silent films. This
Speaker 1: is this is my jam. All right. Well, let's go
Speaker 1: to the next bit of listener mail, because this is
Speaker 1: going to bring us back more into the science realm
Speaker 1: of things. All right, This one comes to us from Morrigan.
Speaker 1: Morgan says, Hi, guys love the podcast. I'm an avid
Speaker 1: listener of all things Joe and Robert. I'm a research
Speaker 1: assistant in the end Tunes Lab at the University of
Speaker 1: North Texas bio Discovery Department, and we work within the
Speaker 1: realm of synthetic biology concerning plant genes. Our aim is
Speaker 1: to create plants with genes that will move us toward
Speaker 1: a sustainable future like crop production, oil up regulation for livestock, feed,
Speaker 1: cloth fibers, and more. When we create specific genes we
Speaker 1: want to insert into plants, we have to first insert
Speaker 1: the genes into bacteria, and then the bacteria can in
Speaker 1: turn transfect the plants. The DNA transfer that comes from
Speaker 1: the bacteria to the plant is what alters the plants geno.
Speaker 1: When we insert genes into bacteria and grow them on
Speaker 1: an agar plate, we want to select for just those bacteria.
Speaker 1: We eliminate the possibility of growing other bacteria by also
Speaker 1: adding antibiotic resistance to the bacterial genome in addition to
Speaker 1: our genes of interest or g o I. We can
Speaker 1: then grow up bacteria carrying our g o I on
Speaker 1: an agar plate that contains antibiotics in it, and the
Speaker 1: bacteria will grow due to the resistance gene we've placed
Speaker 1: in it, while all other bacterial strains will die. Therefore,
Speaker 1: we only grow the exact bacterial strain we want. I've
Speaker 1: personally inserted genes into a grow bacterium that have as
Speaker 1: many as four different antibiotic resistances, and I know scientists
Speaker 1: who have gotten up to five. I thought this might
Speaker 1: be an interesting addition to the podcast. As I said,
Speaker 1: love your podcast, so keep them coming, best regards, Morgan.
Speaker 1: Oh that's interesting, Morgan. So this sort of seems in
Speaker 1: line with when you go way back to Alexander Fleming,
Speaker 1: who first discovered these effects of penicillin. Fleming did say
Speaker 1: originally the penicillin might be useful in uh for medical purposes,
Speaker 1: but remember they had trouble initially producing enough penicillin to
Speaker 1: be medically useful. Um, so some of the original uses
Speaker 1: he was talking about for it, we're not in medicine,
Speaker 1: but we're just in research, right and I imagine he
Speaker 1: probably would have had some kind of obviously not genetic
Speaker 1: engineering because they didn't know about genetic engineering at that point,
Speaker 1: but would have had some kinds of research of this
Speaker 1: type in mind, right, that you could separate out penicillin
Speaker 1: vulnerable bacteria from penicillin. Uh, you know, non vulnerable bacteria. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is an interesting bit of insight from someone with
Speaker 1: with lab experience and uh. And it's not the only
Speaker 1: bit of of of such a research oriented penicillin feedback
Speaker 1: that we received. No. Also, in response to our penicillin episode,
Speaker 1: we got an epic monster email from our listener Daniel,
Speaker 1: which is really good. It's long, so we might split
Speaker 1: it up and sort of take turns reading here. So Daniel, right,
Speaker 1: it's hi, Robert and Joe. I enjoy both of your
Speaker 1: guys podcasts very much. But I'm writing today in reference
Speaker 1: to the Invention episode on penicillin. I'm a research associate
Speaker 1: in a lab that studies tuberculosis and I've never felt
Speaker 1: the need to write to a podcast before, but two
Speaker 1: ideas came to mind following this episode, the one about penicillin. First,
Speaker 1: when you were talking about what the world might look
Speaker 1: like if penicillin, and antibiotics weren't discovered, or at least
Speaker 1: not for a few decades. I thought about one ramification
Speaker 1: that pretty much no one outside the molecular biology world
Speaker 1: would think of, and that's the idea of DNA transformation.
Speaker 1: It's sort of the basis for all genetic studies, and
Speaker 1: the entire thing revolves around antibiotics, both the fact that
Speaker 1: they effectively kill bacteria and that there exists specific proteins
Speaker 1: or versions of proteins that confer resistance to the antibiotics.
Speaker 1: As an example, imagine you wanted to add a gene
Speaker 1: into E. Coli to see what it does. Usually this
Speaker 1: is done on a circular piece of DNA called a plasmid.
Speaker 1: So you add billions of copies of this DNA plasmid
Speaker 1: into a tube containing billions of E. Coli bacteria, and
Speaker 1: you force them to uptake the plasmid, either through electricity
Speaker 1: or their natural heat stress response. But even this is
Speaker 1: rather inefficient. So how do you make sure that the E.
Speaker 1: Coal I have taken up the plasmid. You don't want
Speaker 1: to study a population of bacteria where only ten percent
Speaker 1: got the plasmid you're interested in studying. You need a
Speaker 1: pure population, and the way we do this is by
Speaker 1: including an antibiotic resistance gene on that plasmid. So after
Speaker 1: you induce the E. Coli to take up the plasmid,
Speaker 1: you can select for the plasmid positive bacteria by culturing
Speaker 1: them in the presence of that antibiotic. All the bugs
Speaker 1: that did not get the plasmid will die, while those
Speaker 1: that did will express the resistance protein and survive and
Speaker 1: eventually divide, and the daughter cells will also have that
Speaker 1: plasmid as well. This is the basis for practically all
Speaker 1: genetic experiments where you need to select for a population
Speaker 1: that received your specific DNA of interest, and it's hard
Speaker 1: to imagine what would take the place of an antibiotic
Speaker 1: in that selection process. Hopefully I've described this well enough.
Speaker 1: I think you did, Robert. Do you want to take
Speaker 1: over for a minute here, Yeah, I'll jump in here.
Speaker 1: Number two. The other thing I wanted to tell you
Speaker 1: about is related to a novel class of antibiotics. Our
Speaker 1: lab doesn't really work on antibiotic resistance that much, but
Speaker 1: of course TB is an important global pathogen and is
Speaker 1: naturally hard to treat. I think Joe mentioned how long
Speaker 1: a treatment it is usually six months of a cocktail
Speaker 1: of multiple drugs, and it's also rapidly. It's also rapidly
Speaker 1: developing resistance. But we did have a side project in
Speaker 1: the lab studying a class of antibiotics cultur agenns. One
Speaker 1: thing you guys probably didn't have time to get into
Speaker 1: is how bacteria develop resistance to antibiotics. I guess there
Speaker 1: are three main ways. The two that are very simple
Speaker 1: are increasing the amount of a flux pumps and a
Speaker 1: limb in the amount of import pumps. If a chemical
Speaker 1: is causing damage to the cell, just get it out
Speaker 1: or don't bring it in. Bacteria have some promiscuous pump
Speaker 1: system and these work pretty well, but these are more
Speaker 1: like increasing tolerance and might just mean more drug is
Speaker 1: needed to kill them, as opposed to developing real resistance,
Speaker 1: which comes from the third way, muta genesis. If you're antibiotic,
Speaker 1: chemical works by inhibiting a certain specific protein. The bacteria
Speaker 1: can just change the protein in such a way that
Speaker 1: it still performs its cellular function, but the antibiotic no
Speaker 1: longer recognizes it. It's quite amazing that bacteria are able
Speaker 1: to do this at all. As far as we know,
Speaker 1: there seems to be no chemical that works against bacteria. Uh,
Speaker 1: that that they haven't found a way to develop a
Speaker 1: resistance to through mutagenesis. Some types of resistance are so
Speaker 1: well characterized that we know the exact base pay change
Speaker 1: that needs to occur for that specific drug to no
Speaker 1: longer be effective. However, this is an incredibly inefficient process
Speaker 1: because mutagenesis happens randomly throughout the genome. But that's where
Speaker 1: bacteria is power to replicate comes into play. If a
Speaker 1: base paira mutations happens once every thousand generations, and there
Speaker 1: are one billion base pairs, it seems like thin odds,
Speaker 1: but it's really only a matter of time before the
Speaker 1: bacteria get lucky, and just like the transformation of plasmid,
Speaker 1: these resistant mutants will be able to survive and replicate, and,
Speaker 1: since the resistance is heritable, eventually overtake the population. This
Speaker 1: is often mitigated by using multiple drugs with different targets,
Speaker 1: because two mutations occurring in different genes at the same
Speaker 1: time is even more unlikely. Alright, I'm gonna tag out Joe. Okay, Okay,
Speaker 1: So Daniel continues, UH, referring back to this class of
Speaker 1: new antibiotics. You mentioned anyway, the new class I mentioned
Speaker 1: seragenans are based around being a structural mimic to a
Speaker 1: human microbial peptide called L L thirty seven. As you discussed,
Speaker 1: most antibiotics like penicillin, tetracycline, et cetera, come from microbes.
Speaker 1: But L L thirty seven is a peptide a string
Speaker 1: of meaning a string of amino acids that human cells
Speaker 1: produce themselves, which has been shown to have broad anti
Speaker 1: microbial activity. Hah. So this is a weird into what
Speaker 1: would be the god of the humans to compete with
Speaker 1: jubiles and zugdimoy. Oh I don't know that the humans
Speaker 1: have a lot of gods, induges and dragons. I mean
Speaker 1: sometimes they'll upen worship zugdimoy if they had, you know,
Speaker 1: if they have good reason to. Oh, okay, I guess
Speaker 1: we can come back to this one. But Daniel continues,
Speaker 1: as you can imagine, there would be quite a lot
Speaker 1: of issues getting pharmacological amounts of substance that is produced
Speaker 1: by human cells. Also, interestingly, synthesizing strings of amino acids
Speaker 1: is not an easy process. Cells make it look so easy.
Speaker 1: So even x vivo production of L thirty seven wouldn't
Speaker 1: really be feasible, So people have created these seragenans as
Speaker 1: chemical mimics to the L L thirty seven peptide. So
Speaker 1: what is their mechanism? The way people think they were
Speaker 1: work is by disrupting the plasma membranes of bacterial cells.
Speaker 1: All bacteria have plasma membranes, and while most antibiotics work
Speaker 1: on a bacterial protein like tetracycline, inhibiting the ribosome and
Speaker 1: ampicill and inhibiting proteins that helped synthesize the cell wall,
Speaker 1: the seragen ins seem to attack the membrane by disrupting
Speaker 1: the lipids themselves and forming holes between them, causing the
Speaker 1: cells to LCE and that's L Y S E I mean.
Speaker 1: I think that means basically break down or break apart.
Speaker 1: This is important because there is no real way to
Speaker 1: mutate the plasma membrane to develop resistance since lipids are
Speaker 1: not encoded genetically. They're metabolized by genetically encoded enzymes, but
Speaker 1: the species of lipid themselves are not. Possibly there could
Speaker 1: be a way for them to alter the composition which
Speaker 1: flavor of lipid makes meaning which flavor of lipid makes
Speaker 1: up the majority of the membrane, but as much less
Speaker 1: likely as it would probably require large changes to the
Speaker 1: genome as opposed to single based mutations. One question you
Speaker 1: may ask is why don't these compounds attack the mammalian
Speaker 1: membranes we have plasma membranes, And the answer, unfortunately, is
Speaker 1: that they probably do. He continues. What makes antibiotics special
Speaker 1: is not just that they kill microbes, but that they
Speaker 1: don't kill us. Right. Most of the classic compounds act
Speaker 1: on cellular machinery that humans don't have, like cell walls
Speaker 1: and bacterial ribosomes. Sulfuric acid is a great antibiotic. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: it's also a great anti human. Right. The same would
Speaker 1: be true of heat. So when you put these sagenans,
Speaker 1: as well as l L thirty seven on mammalion cells
Speaker 1: at high concentrations, they kill the cells. What might be
Speaker 1: happening to make l L thirty seven not kill the
Speaker 1: mammalian cells is in our bodies that produce it. Is
Speaker 1: that they are packaged in a careful way and local
Speaker 1: concentration is controlled such that the bacteria encounter a high
Speaker 1: enough molarity to kill them, but not the mammalian cells.
Speaker 1: Maybe even so highly specialized as to take advantage of
Speaker 1: different surface area of volume ratios. So maybe synthesizing a
Speaker 1: mimic of l L thirty seven that is much more
Speaker 1: potent might not even be what is desired if it
Speaker 1: will kill too many mammalian cells. Adding to this complication
Speaker 1: is that it seems l L thirty seven has some
Speaker 1: immuno modulating effects on mammalion cells, being implicated in inflammation signaling,
Speaker 1: which may play a big role in how it's used
Speaker 1: in the body to fight infection. So long story short,
Speaker 1: too late. The new class of seranogens might not be
Speaker 1: as groundbreaking as the initial wave of antibiotics, but perhaps
Speaker 1: if we get a better understanding of l L thirty
Speaker 1: seven's exact mechanism, we can try to improve on it
Speaker 1: in the lab. But it is hard to imagine scientists
Speaker 1: beating natural selection if l L thirty seven is in
Speaker 1: some sort of Goldilocks region of cell ldic activity. Although
Speaker 1: the suragenans are currently used as topical antibiotics because it
Speaker 1: does it matter so much if you kill skin cells,
Speaker 1: and they appear to work really well against biofilms, which
Speaker 1: are notoriously hard to treat. Apologies for the long emails
Speaker 1: you your guys, podcasts are always so well researched and
Speaker 1: broken down perfectly. It's really difficult to describe things in
Speaker 1: a simple enough way that it is understandable for those
Speaker 1: who know nothing about the subject, while also detailed enough
Speaker 1: that people who are familiar don't consider it incorrect. Keep
Speaker 1: up the good work, best, Daniel. Well, thank you so much, Daniel,
Speaker 1: and thank you for illuminating with your expertise on this subject.
Speaker 1: I didn't know anything about this, uh the suragyan in class.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, and which I have to say every time
Speaker 1: we we we said it. I was imagining like a
Speaker 1: Monty Python esque night Surender Sagnans writing into battle. That's
Speaker 1: the pathogens the knights who license Yeah there you uh no,
Speaker 1: but that is really interesting thinking about the methods that
Speaker 1: these different uh antibiotics work, Like the anti microbials have
Speaker 1: some kind of mechanism that they work by, and generally
Speaker 1: the mechanism is something that the bacterial cells can overcome
Speaker 1: if it's some kind of chemical poison or whatever. So
Speaker 1: the trick is finding something that hurts their cells in
Speaker 1: a way that they can't just get a mutation to overcome,
Speaker 1: but that doesn't hurt our selves also, uh, and this
Speaker 1: and this apparently does hurt ourselves also, but you know
Speaker 1: it's got these modulating effects. All right, on that note,
Speaker 1: we're gonna take a quick break, but don't worry. When
Speaker 1: we come back, we will we will listen to some
Speaker 1: listener males concerning needles. All right, we're back. So it
Speaker 1: looks like we've got a couple of listeners writing in
Speaker 1: about hypodermic needles. We just recently had an episode on
Speaker 1: the hypodermic syringe. So we do this one from Nicola first. Okay.
Speaker 1: Nicola writes in says, hey, guys, I love your show.
Speaker 1: Just wanted to throw in my two cents about needles.
Speaker 1: I'm a twenty two year old university student studying mechanical engineering.
Speaker 1: Ever since I was diagnosed with Crohn's disease about seven
Speaker 1: years ago, I've had many more encounters with needles. Over
Speaker 1: the years, I became used to injections and blood draws
Speaker 1: to the point where now is actually comforting and pleasant. Oh, Robert,
Speaker 1: you were asking about this in the episode. I was
Speaker 1: interesting to know like regular needle users, Uh you know what,
Speaker 1: how how you how that changes your relationship with the technology. Right,
Speaker 1: So Nicholas says, I know that sounds awfully strange and foreign,
Speaker 1: but I enjoy the feeling of cold liquid entering my
Speaker 1: veins and warm blood rushing out. Now you might be
Speaker 1: thinking that sounds reasonable, but there's no way you like
Speaker 1: the actual injection itself. But you would be wrong. It
Speaker 1: brings me to a state of relaxation. Forces me to relax.
Speaker 1: The sharp pension the needle has actually become a feeling
Speaker 1: that brings fondness to my life. Knowing that I'm going
Speaker 1: to get the medication I need to be healthy allows
Speaker 1: me to look past the pain and discomfort to see
Speaker 1: the big picture. My appreciation for modern medicine and medical
Speaker 1: uh and engineering accomplishments allows me to appreciate the process
Speaker 1: and take it as it is a modern miracle. I'd
Speaker 1: like to thank you guys for the amazing content you provide.
Speaker 1: I love how you're able to integrate many fields of
Speaker 1: study and history into a comprehensive piece of culture and science.
Speaker 1: There's so much I've learned from your show, and I
Speaker 1: wait patiently each week for the next episode. Oh And
Speaker 1: Nicola also suggests in the future that we cover some
Speaker 1: technology behind behind factories and mass produced items. Oh, yes,
Speaker 1: I very much want to. Yeah, I've been doing a
Speaker 1: little reading on this, just looking at you the way
Speaker 1: factories have evolved over the decades, and like where we
Speaker 1: are now with with the manual with manufacturing and also
Speaker 1: just beyond just simply manufacturing things within a within a factory,
Speaker 1: but also moving those products around, like dealing with the
Speaker 1: the overall supply chain and logistics. It's it's it's it's
Speaker 1: far more fascinating than I expected. I mean, it causes
Speaker 1: you to rethink what your idea of technology is. Is
Speaker 1: the technology just one p physical infrastructure that's all touching
Speaker 1: itself or I mean, can you think about supply chains
Speaker 1: and stuff being technologies on their own, even if consists
Speaker 1: of like multiple different uh things at all different points
Speaker 1: that are not necessarily touching or even interactive. Well, it
Speaker 1: brings me back to our discussions of the toilet. You know,
Speaker 1: it's one thing to invent the toilet, but if you
Speaker 1: do not have and they certainly did not have this
Speaker 1: when upon its initial invention of the flush toilet in
Speaker 1: in in England, if you do not have a sewer
Speaker 1: system that can facilitate that toilet, then you really don't
Speaker 1: have a modern toilet, you have you have an incomplete
Speaker 1: link in an overall chain. Uh. And and that can
Speaker 1: be said for a lot of things concerning the supply
Speaker 1: chain and manufacturing is that, you know, it's great, you
Speaker 1: have this one robot that's fabulous, but it's it's not
Speaker 1: going to do everything itself. It needs it needs that,
Speaker 1: it needs to have a place in this overall system.
Speaker 1: And then other aspects of the system need to be
Speaker 1: brought online, uh, you know, to where it can keep
Speaker 1: up with it. Uh. You know, the same can be
Speaker 1: said of other things like additive technology, additive manufacturing, and
Speaker 1: so forth. So yeah, I think that would be a
Speaker 1: wonderful thing to discuss. We could probably be a multi
Speaker 1: uh episode series, you know, because essentially you're dealing with
Speaker 1: some of the major movements in the industrial revolution. Totally.
Speaker 1: All right, here comes another one. This one is from Carissa. Hey, guys,
Speaker 1: I really like the podcast. As someone who works in
Speaker 1: a clinic that has a whole room dedicated to shots.
Speaker 1: Hooray for allergies allergy shots, it was quite interesting. I
Speaker 1: think the secret to not being afraid of needles is
Speaker 1: just exposure therapy. Most people don't get many needles in
Speaker 1: their lives, and the ones they do get are far
Speaker 1: and few between. But in the clinic I work in,
Speaker 1: we see adults and pediatric patients for allergy shots. In
Speaker 1: the room where those are administered is probably the quietest
Speaker 1: room in the whole clinic. You don't even hear children
Speaker 1: crying in that room when they get their shots, probably
Speaker 1: because they start out coming in multiple times week and
Speaker 1: then gradually get fewer as time goes on, until there
Speaker 1: at once a month maintenance dose. I used to be
Speaker 1: freaked out by needles, but now they fascinate me. I
Speaker 1: had a couple of days in the hospital a few
Speaker 1: years ago for some gallbladder related issues. Had to have
Speaker 1: a couple of surgeries while I was there. Plus they
Speaker 1: had to stick me at least twenty times, not even
Speaker 1: exaggerating there to get an i V in me because
Speaker 1: I was so dehydrated because I literally couldn't eat for
Speaker 1: a week. After that, I was no longer phased by needles.
Speaker 1: It's a good thing too, because now I'm on an
Speaker 1: injectable medication and give myself a shot once every other week.
Speaker 1: When I tell people this, they get squeamish and ask
Speaker 1: how I can make myself give myself a shot, but
Speaker 1: it really doesn't even bother me. So long story short,
Speaker 1: if you want to get over your fear and discomfort
Speaker 1: around needles without a major health crisis, just donate blood
Speaker 1: as often as you can. Thanks for an interesting listen, Carissa,
Speaker 1: And uh, yeah, she's definitely right on that, because one
Speaker 1: of the things about giving blood, of course, is that
Speaker 1: it's not just a quick jab. It's you know, the
Speaker 1: insertain needle, and then the needle stays in there, so
Speaker 1: you have you have a little time to think about it,
Speaker 1: and in front not to think about it, you know, like,
Speaker 1: if you're like me, you're not really wanting to look
Speaker 1: at it. Generally, they you know, they do cover it
Speaker 1: up a little piece of gauze, so you're not actually
Speaker 1: looking at the injection. But but yeah, every time I go,
Speaker 1: I do feel a certain amount of like that exposure
Speaker 1: therapy taking place where at first I'm like, yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't really want to look at this needle and then
Speaker 1: this growing bag of blood this underneath my chair. But
Speaker 1: after you've been there a little bit and you've had
Speaker 1: time to sort of get bored with the whole thing,
Speaker 1: you're you know, you're kind of over the fear when
Speaker 1: do I get my twinkie. Yeah, it's kind of a
Speaker 1: similar experience I've had on really like irritating plane flights
Speaker 1: in the past, where if I'm initially dealing with some
Speaker 1: level of flying anxiety, if the people around me are
Speaker 1: annoying enough, then I can I can push through that
Speaker 1: fear of death and um, you know, and almost crave
Speaker 1: it because I'm so tired of other humans. Well, I'd
Speaker 1: say actually, the same thing that has being described here
Speaker 1: with needles has happened to me with flying. I used
Speaker 1: to be much more afraid of flying until I just
Speaker 1: had to do it more for work and just having
Speaker 1: to get on a plane several times a year without
Speaker 1: it really being up to me or not. You know,
Speaker 1: I just got to go there, you know. Uh that
Speaker 1: that just basically I'm over it now. It's kind of
Speaker 1: like the more like the more primitive layers of your
Speaker 1: your brain architecture begin to get the message that Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think this is gonna be okay. Granted that's not
Speaker 1: every brain, but but still, I think there's an interesting
Speaker 1: insight on just regular exposure to needles versus the reality
Speaker 1: that yeah, most of us when we're getting a shot,
Speaker 1: it's what one shot a year, maybe two shots a year,
Speaker 1: that sort of thing, as opposed to regular, like weekly shots.
Speaker 1: But I would say in both of these cases, these
Speaker 1: messages from Nicola and Carissa both sound like a sort
Speaker 1: of cognitive victories over the instinct. Right, we've got this
Speaker 1: weird instinctual fears of needles. But it seems like in
Speaker 1: both cases they were able to think their way through it.
Speaker 1: All Right, here's one about vending machines. Yeah, this one
Speaker 1: comes from Stefan hi 'all. I was driving to a
Speaker 1: coffee shop to do some late night at coding when
Speaker 1: I accidentally ran across two people talking about vending machines
Speaker 1: on AM nine ten in the San Francisco Bay area
Speaker 1: this evening. Were are we on San Francisco radio? I
Speaker 1: didn't know that. Yeah you knew this, Joe, Yeah, We're
Speaker 1: the podcast is showing up in all sorts of places. Well,
Speaker 1: I didn't know that we were specific radio stations. Hopefully
Speaker 1: guess pumps soon. I'm hoping for that. Oh, we're going
Speaker 1: to be the thing that yells at you while you're
Speaker 1: bumping your gas. Wouldn't wouldn't it be great? Though? If, if,
Speaker 1: if we were playing an episode of Invention about about
Speaker 1: gas pump history, I would actually love to do a
Speaker 1: gas pump episode because you look at some of the
Speaker 1: older models of gas pumps and they, you know, they
Speaker 1: look like they're from a science fiction movie. It's it's
Speaker 1: it's pretty fascinating. Oh, we've actually got on the upcoming Ledger.
Speaker 1: We're definitely going to do one on leaded Gassle for
Speaker 1: for an exploration of inventions gone wrong. Excellent. All right, Well, anyway,
Speaker 1: Stefan continues, I ended up trapped in my car because
Speaker 1: I found the conversation really interesting and intelligent. I also
Speaker 1: did not want to get out of my car because
Speaker 1: I wanted to know what program this was, so I
Speaker 1: needed to wait and I did. This is one of
Speaker 1: the issues I guess of doing a podcast versus that
Speaker 1: has been transformed into an AM radio podcast, is that,
Speaker 1: of course it's standard in radio to continually remind the
Speaker 1: listener what you're listening to, station identification and stuff. Speaking
Speaker 1: of if you're just joining us on AM radio, you're
Speaker 1: listening to the podcast Invention with Robert and Joe. Anyway,
Speaker 1: Stefan continues, So I needed to wait, and I did.
Speaker 1: Eventually it ended and I it was announced that it
Speaker 1: was related to invention pod dot com. All I can
Speaker 1: say is this was a great program and I look
Speaker 1: forward to hearing the first half hour when the episode
Speaker 1: is put on the website. It's already on there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you just sometimes you have to, I think, dig for
Speaker 1: some of the older episodes, but yeah, they all should
Speaker 1: be available at invention pot dot com. All I can
Speaker 1: say is that it was a great material, thought provoking
Speaker 1: and discussed in a really intelligent way. A really nice
Speaker 1: change from the a M band that tends to shout
Speaker 1: about polarized issues these days. This was a really nice
Speaker 1: change from that. By the way, automats automats, of course,
Speaker 1: are the establishment you would go into that we discussed.
Speaker 1: We have all the little glass windows, little dowars that
Speaker 1: you open up, put money in, and you open it
Speaker 1: up and you remove a plate of food. As we mentioned,
Speaker 1: these are prominently featured in various bits of media and fiction,
Speaker 1: including the film Dark City. Um but Stefan says automatsa
Speaker 1: we're automats were still very much in evidence in Amsterdam
Speaker 1: in the nineties seventies, and I recall enjoying quite a
Speaker 1: few meals from the automat there. Quite possibly this automat
Speaker 1: has gone today, but it was very much in use
Speaker 1: then and quite popular in Holland back then. Regards Stefan, Well,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure this is our very first uh listener
Speaker 1: from radio that we've heard from though it Yeah, it
Speaker 1: is happening if you're not aware out there. So the
Speaker 1: company that now owns our podcast network is I Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: and they've got radio stations. So somewhere out there are
Speaker 1: podcasts are playing on the radio. Maybe you're listening on
Speaker 1: the radio right now. Yeah, I have to say so.
Speaker 1: I sometimes do this too if I'm if I'm out driving.
Speaker 1: I used to do it more when I was having
Speaker 1: to drive at night more. But listening to like various
Speaker 1: AM radio stations, just seeing like what is out there
Speaker 1: and encountering like weird parts of conversations, sometimes sometimes very
Speaker 1: extreme conversations, but sometimes you know, refreshingly mundane and then
Speaker 1: but then not necessarily knowing who's talking or uh, it's
Speaker 1: it's it's fun, it's it's it's an it's an exploration.
Speaker 1: So it is kind of neat to think that we
Speaker 1: might be uh the gym that someone ins is they're
Speaker 1: driving around in the middle of the night. You find
Speaker 1: us when you're tuning between different people screaming from bunkers.
Speaker 1: All right, here we got an international one from our listener.
Speaker 1: To Mossmas says, hello from Sweden. I have now listened
Speaker 1: to you for about a year. I have no idea
Speaker 1: how I found you, but enjoy listening to you. Your
Speaker 1: mix of science, myths and popular culture is what makes
Speaker 1: the shows enjoyable. I guess you can't put every movie
Speaker 1: reference in your episodes. We'll we'll give it a shot.
Speaker 1: To Moss, we try, but he says, there are two
Speaker 1: that I feel you should have picked up on. The
Speaker 1: first one is from your series on the motion Picture.
Speaker 1: You talked about Edward my Bridge and his multiple image
Speaker 1: camera that captured the movement of a horse. I immediately
Speaker 1: thought of the groundbreaking visual effects of the matrix that
Speaker 1: used a similar set up, taking movie making full circle.
Speaker 1: I think he means the multi camera set up, yeah,
Speaker 1: that was used. The bullet time effect, as it's called,
Speaker 1: allows the audience to view an actor suspended in space
Speaker 1: and time while the camera moves around the actor. It's
Speaker 1: made possible by synchronizing fifty DSLR cameras around the actor.
Speaker 1: It was developed by the film's visual effects supervisor John Gaeta. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I kind of you don't one of the sames. I
Speaker 1: kind of forget about this despite having seen some behind
Speaker 1: the scene. I think everybody saw some behind the scenes
Speaker 1: stuff about how they shot that sequence back in the day.
Speaker 1: But it's also was just so well done. I almost
Speaker 1: don't think about it as a special effect. You know,
Speaker 1: but tons. There were tons of copycats, like cheap copycats
Speaker 1: in the movies that came afterwards. Well, and also just
Speaker 1: obvious parodies is exactly well. The parodies are one thing,
Speaker 1: but I love the early two thousands movies. There was
Speaker 1: there was an Uva Bowl movie that did the House
Speaker 1: of the Dead. I've not seen any of his filmography.
Speaker 1: I have to say House of the Dead is extremely bad,
Speaker 1: but it's full of like I'd say, half the run
Speaker 1: time of the movie is bullet time shots. Hey watch it.
Speaker 1: Are you gonna wind up in a boxing match? Uh?
Speaker 1: Thomas continues the next references regarding the episode Gastro Automaton.
Speaker 1: When talking about making androids human by letting them eat,
Speaker 1: you failed to mention one of your favorite movies Robocopsy, Thomaston,
Speaker 1: that was us. That's in the movie. They show a
Speaker 1: machine that produces something similar to baby food that RoboCop
Speaker 1: eats disapplay nutrients to his organic body parts. One of
Speaker 1: the technicians finds it really tasty. Looking forward to hearing
Speaker 1: more of your interesting podcast kind regards Thomas. You know,
Speaker 1: this does drive home that we need to do a
Speaker 1: stuff to blow your mind episode that focuses on RoboCop,
Speaker 1: because certainly RoboCop comes up a lot. Have we not
Speaker 1: already basically done the whole movie. Well, I thought about that,
Speaker 1: but then I'm reminded of the baby food, and I'm
Speaker 1: reminding of some other scenes too that like, for instance,
Speaker 1: there's the toxic waste sequence, which traumatized me at an
Speaker 1: early age. But I kind of wanna, like, you know,
Speaker 1: face the trauma and take that scene apart and discuss
Speaker 1: like what's actually happening in the scene and how that
Speaker 1: matches up with reality. And I'm sure there's other I
Speaker 1: haven't actually sat down and watched it, uh beginning to
Speaker 1: end in quite a long time, so I'm sure there's
Speaker 1: other stuff in there that we could, you know, squeeze
Speaker 1: out a proper movie episode we try and do one
Speaker 1: episode of stuff to blow your mind a month roughly,
Speaker 1: in which we we use them. We just focus around
Speaker 1: a particular movie. We talk a little bit about the
Speaker 1: movies history and you know, some of them curious facts
Speaker 1: about it, but mostly we use bits of the film
Speaker 1: as a springboard to discuss topics that either wouldn't come
Speaker 1: up otherwise on the show, wouldn't you know, necessitate an
Speaker 1: entire episode, or you know, something where it puts a
Speaker 1: new spin on an old topic. I like how this
Speaker 1: one listener can tell that RoboCop is one of our
Speaker 1: favorite movies just from listening to the show. And I
Speaker 1: don't even know when we ever said that, but it's true.
Speaker 1: It's true. It comes up a lot. I think at
Speaker 1: one point you also told listeners that have they wanted
Speaker 1: their listener mail read that they should put RoboCop in
Speaker 1: the in the title, which is which is not required.
Speaker 1: We we we did. We pretty much read everything. We
Speaker 1: don't have time to share it all. We don't have
Speaker 1: time to read it all on on listener mail episodes
Speaker 1: of either show, but we will read your listener mail
Speaker 1: even if it does not say RoboCop uh in the header?
Speaker 1: All right, we're gonna have to call it there because
Speaker 1: we're out of time. We had some more little listener
Speaker 1: mail bits we wanted to read, but you know, we
Speaker 1: had some some wonderful suggestions people asking for say, more
Speaker 1: health related topics in the future, that sort of thing. Uh,
Speaker 1: and yeah, I think in in the future we do
Speaker 1: want to continue to just try and and hit all
Speaker 1: the sweet spots, you know, more medical technology, more ancient inventions,
Speaker 1: more recent inventions, more RoboCop, more more more RoboCop for
Speaker 1: stuff to blow your mind. But for Invention. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: we're gonna you know, we're gonna try and just keep
Speaker 1: cast the net wide as we have thus far. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much to all these people who got in touch.
Speaker 1: And again, if we didn't have a chance to read
Speaker 1: your email on the episode today, please don't take that
Speaker 1: as an insult. We really really love and appreciate all
Speaker 1: the email we get, so thank you so much. In
Speaker 1: the meantime, if you want to check out more episodes
Speaker 1: of this podcast, Invention, head on over to invention pod
Speaker 1: dot com. That's where you'll find all the episodes that
Speaker 1: have come out. Uh, there are no secret episodes of Invention,
Speaker 1: They're all right there, and if you want to support
Speaker 1: our show, one of the best things you can do
Speaker 1: is if you're listening to this in podcast form wherever
Speaker 1: you got that podcast, make sure you have subscribed to us,
Speaker 1: and make sure that you rate and review wherever you
Speaker 1: have the power to do so. Oh and also if
Speaker 1: you are a reverse order listener. We imagine most of
Speaker 1: the people who listen to Invention listen to Stuff to
Speaker 1: Blow your Mind, our other podcast first. But if you're
Speaker 1: the other way around, if you came to Invention first,
Speaker 1: you should go subscribe to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: If you haven't already, Yeah, go check it out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we've been doing it for almost ten years. And uh,
Speaker 1: you know, as always, I say start with the more
Speaker 1: recent episodes because the science is just going to be
Speaker 1: fresher and hopefully you know, our you know, will be
Speaker 1: a little better in the more recent episodes. But but
Speaker 1: check those out. Yeah, you'll find those at stuff to
Speaker 1: Bow your Mind dot com. Huge things to our excellent
Speaker 1: audio producer, Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to
Speaker 1: get in touch with us with feedback on this episode,
Speaker 1: or to just a topic for the future, or just
Speaker 1: to say hello, any of that You can email us
Speaker 1: at contact at invention pod dot com. Invention is production
Speaker 1: of I heart Radio. For more podcasts for my heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.