Speaker 1: Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My
Speaker 1: name is Robert Lamb.
Speaker 2: And I'm Joe McCormick, and we're bringing you an episode
Speaker 2: from the vault today. This is part two in our
Speaker 2: series on throwing behavior in non human animals. This originally
Speaker 2: published January fourth, twenty twenty three. Hope you enjoy.
Speaker 3: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My
Speaker 1: name is Robert.
Speaker 2: Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and we're back with part
Speaker 2: two of our series on throwing behavior in animals. Now.
Speaker 2: In the previous episode, we focused almost exclusively on allegations
Speaker 2: from a paper published toward the end of last year
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty two about octopuses throwing stuff, or at
Speaker 2: least appearing to throw stuff deliberately at one another, often
Speaker 2: not just stuff, as in like hard singular objects, but
Speaker 2: like fistfuls of sand, just trying to throw the silt
Speaker 2: right in each other's eyes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that was a lot of fun. Ocopus is
Speaker 1: playing dirty.
Speaker 2: But I had been looking around to try to find
Speaker 2: a good ancient myth or story that's centered on the
Speaker 2: act of throwing because it just seemed like there would
Speaker 2: be such a thing, right, like a throwing contest between
Speaker 2: the gods or something like that. And I think this
Speaker 2: must have been a common set piece since time immemorial.
Speaker 2: I'm sure there are examples like that, but I couldn't
Speaker 2: find a good one for today. However, I did want
Speaker 2: to talk about a myth that draws an interesting connection
Speaker 2: between an act of throwing and the origin of humankind,
Speaker 2: or at least the present lineage of humankind, and that
Speaker 2: is the Greek myth of Deucalion and Pyrah.
Speaker 1: Now, this one's not ringing a bell for me. I
Speaker 1: have my son where around I could perhaps he knows
Speaker 1: this one, But yeah, this is not one that that
Speaker 1: that instantly springs into my head.
Speaker 2: Well settle in. It's a good story. So the version
Speaker 2: of the story I'm going to reference is the one
Speaker 2: told in Avid's Metamorphoses. So this is going to include
Speaker 2: some some Roman flare on the on the Greek myth. Avid,
Speaker 2: of course, was a first century BCE Roman poet, and
Speaker 2: this is from his Metamorphoses book one, translated by Brooks Moore. Now,
Speaker 2: the context of the of the story is that it's
Speaker 2: sort of the Greek or Roman version of the Great
Speaker 2: Flood story that we know from from other ancient texts
Speaker 2: that we know from the Hebrew Bible, that we know
Speaker 2: from the from the Epic of Gilgamesh and so forth.
Speaker 2: So in this version, after the primordial ages and the
Speaker 2: origin of the gods and the giants and humankind, the
Speaker 2: gods look down on Earth and they're like, it stinks
Speaker 2: human humans are awful discussing evil. There's a particular incident
Speaker 2: that really makes the gods upset where this vile king
Speaker 2: like Chaon, tries to make Zeus in the gods do
Speaker 2: cannibalism to test their omnission. So he kills his own son,
Speaker 2: cooks him and tries to serve him to Zeus to see, like,
Speaker 2: is Zeus gonna know that this is my son? Hilarious?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I definitely remember, like Chaon, we talked about him before.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, he has come up. So Zeus or Jupiter
Speaker 2: decides he's going to destroy the world with a great flood,
Speaker 2: and he does. It's brutal. Apparently only two humans are
Speaker 2: saved from the flood, and they are from the region
Speaker 2: of Focis. They are a pious married couple named Deucalion
Speaker 2: who is the son of Prometheus, and Pira, who is
Speaker 2: the daughter of Epimetheus. Now they survive the deluge, I think,
Speaker 2: on a little boat, and they end up beached on
Speaker 2: a mountaintop. It might be the top of Mount Parnassis,
Speaker 2: but anyway, they end up stranded up on a mountain.
Speaker 2: The floodwaters recede, so they survive. But the rest of
Speaker 2: humanity's been destroyed. So what are they going to do now?
Speaker 2: Now they're all alone, And because they are a pious couple,
Speaker 2: they decide they should ask the gods for help. So
Speaker 2: here I'm going to start reading from the Brooksmore translation
Speaker 2: of Avid. And after he had spoken, they resolved to
Speaker 2: ask the aid of sacred oracles. And so they hastened
Speaker 2: to Keffesian waves, which rolled a turbid flood in channels
Speaker 2: known thence. When their robes and brows were sprinkled well,
Speaker 2: they turned their footsteps to the Goddess Fane. Its gables
Speaker 2: were befouled with reeking moss, and on its altars every
Speaker 2: fire was cold. But when the twain had reached the
Speaker 2: temple steps, they fell upon the earth, inspired with awe,
Speaker 2: and kissed the cold stone with their trembling lips and said,
Speaker 2: if righteous prayers appease the gods, and if the wrath
Speaker 2: of high celestial powers may thus be turned, declare Othamus,
Speaker 2: whence what the art may raise humanity? Oh, gentle Goddess,
Speaker 2: help the dying world. Okay, So they turned to the
Speaker 2: gods for help. They go to the temple of Thamus.
Speaker 2: Of course, all the fires have gone out because it's
Speaker 2: been flooding, and it's covered with reeking moss, so the
Speaker 2: temples even nasty now. But still they're going to kneel
Speaker 2: down and kiss the stones of the temple to show
Speaker 2: how holy they are. And they ask Thamus for help,
Speaker 2: and Thamus replies, So the poem goes on. Moved by
Speaker 2: their supplications, she replied, depart from me and veil your brows,
Speaker 2: ungourge your robes, and cast behind you as you go
Speaker 2: the bones of your great mother. Long they stood in
Speaker 2: dumb amazement. Pira. First a voice refused the mandate, and
Speaker 2: with trembling lips implored the goddess to forgive. She feared
Speaker 2: to violate her mother's bones and vex her sacred spirit,
Speaker 2: often pondered they the words involved in such obscurity, repeating
Speaker 2: oft and thus Eucalian two Epimetheus's daughter uttered speech of
Speaker 2: soothing import oracles are just and urge not evil deeds
Speaker 2: or not avails the skill of thought. Our mother is
Speaker 2: the earth, and I may judge the stones of earth
Speaker 2: are bones that we should cast behind us as we go.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, so some textual interpretation coming in here.
Speaker 1: All right, So basically the world is ended. They've come
Speaker 1: to the oracle the and they say, Oracle, what should
Speaker 1: we do? Oracle says, you need a take your robe
Speaker 1: off and throw your mother's bones around as you go
Speaker 1: behind you.
Speaker 2: Right, But Pira doesn't like this, So yeah, I think
Speaker 2: if I'm interpreting this right, when they're saying oracle here,
Speaker 2: they're talking about the goddess Themous speaking to them, because
Speaker 2: I think this would not be a human oracle at
Speaker 2: this point, right right, But yes, theamous, I think, or
Speaker 2: whoever is speaking the oracle here, I guess it's famous
Speaker 2: directly says yeah, take your mother's bones, throw you wear
Speaker 2: your clothes loosely on gurge your robes, so kind of
Speaker 2: just like you know, Saga robes around and throw your
Speaker 2: mother's bones behind you. Pira is like, I'm not I
Speaker 2: can't do that my mother's But that would be really impious,
Speaker 2: and I'm especially pious. But Deucalian has the solution. No, no, no,
Speaker 2: this doesn't mean your mother's bones. It's a metaphor. Our
Speaker 2: mother is the earth, and the bones of the earth
Speaker 2: are stones.
Speaker 1: Makes sense, Okay, the oracle could have been a little
Speaker 1: more clear from the get go on that, but fair
Speaker 1: enough agree.
Speaker 2: So the poem goes on. And although Pira, by his words,
Speaker 2: was moved, she hesitated to comply, and both amazed doubted
Speaker 2: the purpose of the oracle, but deemed no harm to
Speaker 2: come of trial. They descended from the temple, veiled their heads,
Speaker 2: and loosened their robes, and threw some stones behind them.
Speaker 2: It is much beyond belief. We're not receding ages. Witness
Speaker 2: hard and rigid stones assumed a softer form, enlarging is
Speaker 2: their brittle nature, chain to milder substance, till the shape
Speaker 2: of man appeared, imperfect, faintly outlined first as marble statue,
Speaker 2: chiseled in the rough. The soft, moist parts were changed
Speaker 2: to softer flesh, the hard and brittle substance into bones.
Speaker 2: The veins retained their ancient name, and now the god
Speaker 2: Supreme ordained that every stone Deucalian through should take the
Speaker 2: form of man, and those by puricast should woman's form assume.
Speaker 2: So are we hardy to endure and prove by toil
Speaker 2: and deeds from what we sprung? So they do it,
Speaker 2: they throw the stones, and what do you know? It works.
Speaker 2: All the stones puri throes become women, all the stones
Speaker 2: Deucalian throws become men. And I like the moral here,
Speaker 2: The fact that the new generation of humans, I guess
Speaker 2: the present one surviving emerged from stones in this telling,
Speaker 2: is why humans are so rough and ready. Like, humans
Speaker 2: can get things done, they can do hard work, they
Speaker 2: can really take a beating and keep on going.
Speaker 1: Interesting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think there might be some kind of
Speaker 2: interesting evolutionary prescients in this story about the present generation
Speaker 2: of humans arising from an act of throwing stones, because
Speaker 2: I think you could make the argument that throwing stones
Speaker 2: or throwing items fashioned out of stone is an early
Speaker 2: human technological advancement that is pivotal in the arising regime
Speaker 2: of technologies and behaviors associated with those technologies that create
Speaker 2: human culture.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, I hate to keep going back to the
Speaker 1: introduction to two thousand and one a Space Odyssey, but
Speaker 1: we have discussed it a lot, and we've actually had
Speaker 1: an expert on the show to discuss it with us before.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean, even in that presentation, we see
Speaker 1: the idea that yes, the use of tools as a
Speaker 1: melee application, but also arranged application, and our ability to
Speaker 1: throw things at threats, perceived threats other individuals, either as
Speaker 1: a direct weapon or as a communication of intent, is
Speaker 1: an important part of human technology and the advent of
Speaker 1: human technology.
Speaker 2: But while some of the most notable examples of non
Speaker 2: human animals throwing are found in primates, Rob, I think
Speaker 2: you wanted to get us started today by talking about elephants, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, Elephants were one that jumped out at me
Speaker 1: because I you know, I'm fascinated by elephants, but I
Speaker 1: hadn't really read much about their ability to throw things,
Speaker 1: so I dove into this a good bit. Now I
Speaker 1: want to advise everyone that I am going to get
Speaker 1: a little bit into the history of war elephants in this.
Speaker 1: I'm going to try not to dwell on any of
Speaker 1: you know, the gory details, but war is inherently cruel
Speaker 1: and monstrous, and warfare involving animals is also cruel and
Speaker 1: monstrous and at the same time fascinating. So yeah, I
Speaker 1: realized I'm something of a hypocrite on this myself, and
Speaker 1: that I spend a certain part of every day horrified
Speaker 1: and fearful of warfare. And yet, you know, ancient warfare
Speaker 1: is a fascinating topic that I keep coming back to
Speaker 1: and actually find peace in studying and reading about and
Speaker 1: then covering on the podcast.
Speaker 2: So there you go, Well, please tell me more.
Speaker 1: So, Elephants have long been reported to throw things. They've
Speaker 1: been seen to throw rocks at other animals. There's even
Speaker 1: at least one case and when an elephant was able
Speaker 1: to fatally hit a human in a zoo environment. This
Speaker 1: was in Morocco back in twenty sixteen. You can look
Speaker 1: up news reports on this if you want to see more.
Speaker 1: But even in the wild, there are some there's some
Speaker 1: impressive footage that you'll find online of say, I think
Speaker 1: there's one of a of an elephant in Africa throwing
Speaker 1: a rock in the direction of a rhinoceros near a
Speaker 1: waterhole environment, you know, where there's a lot of interspecies
Speaker 1: interaction and standoffs. There's also footage I was looking at
Speaker 1: of an elephant. Again, this was an African elephant throwing
Speaker 1: a branch at a at a at a tourist who
Speaker 1: is out in a jeep to observe the elephants, and
Speaker 1: the elephant is essentially, i guess, saying I don't really
Speaker 1: want to be observed right now. Here have the branch
Speaker 1: of a small tree. So they definitely can throw things
Speaker 1: when they want to throw things, and you can certainly
Speaker 1: break down a lot of why they're throwing things. You know,
Speaker 1: there are as a communications as an actual actual attack,
Speaker 1: you know, some sort of expression of aggression. A lot
Speaker 1: of what we talked about guarding the octopus is very
Speaker 1: much in play here now.
Speaker 2: In trying to picture this act of throwing, I'm assuming
Speaker 2: that it is done with the trunk generally.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, definitely the trunk and all of this really
Speaker 1: anytime we're in talking about elephants throwing things. This is
Speaker 1: all just a subset of a larger study of elephant
Speaker 1: tool use that's been going on for quite some time,
Speaker 1: in multiple studies, multiple observations. There's a lot of interesting
Speaker 1: data out there concerning not only aggressive use of branches
Speaker 1: and rocks wielded or thrown, but also the use of
Speaker 1: sticks or branches in grooming, thermal regulation, and fly swatting,
Speaker 1: something that Charles Darwin apparently commented upon as well.
Speaker 2: Fly swatting interesting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, so there are other things too, like the
Speaker 1: manipulation of branches to weigh down fences so as to
Speaker 1: cross over them. And sometimes there may be examples two
Speaker 1: of them retaining certain sticks for use as a tool,
Speaker 1: so you know, not sticking in their pocket or anything,
Speaker 1: but the behavior that seems to indicate that once a
Speaker 1: stick is useful, they may hang on to it for
Speaker 1: at least a little bit in order to keep using it.
Speaker 1: So it's not just it's not like this kind of
Speaker 1: random interaction like, oh, there happens to be a stick
Speaker 1: in my truck.
Speaker 2: Well, I can sympathize with that, because when I find
Speaker 2: a good stick, you know, not all sticks are equal,
Speaker 2: that some sticks are way better than others, and when
Speaker 2: you find a good stick, you kind of don't want
Speaker 2: to let it go. Oh yes.
Speaker 1: One especially sees this in children on walks. Once they
Speaker 1: find a good stick, they absolutely don't want to put
Speaker 1: it away, even if they keep almost hitting people in
Speaker 1: the face with it. So anyway, as far as elephants go, though.
Speaker 1: One of the more interesting ideas out there, however, is
Speaker 1: that tool use in elephants emerges primarily to contend with
Speaker 1: thermoregulation and parasites, basically parasite control. Both of these are
Speaker 1: important because the elephant, of course, basically has no hair,
Speaker 1: so it's a furless creature, and we tend to think
Speaker 1: of elephant's skin as as thick and hard and sufficient
Speaker 1: protection against flies, but this isn't quite the case. Pain
Speaker 1: and blood loss from flies seems to be sufficient to
Speaker 1: provide for the natural selection of swatter usage. So being
Speaker 1: able to pick up a stick, small branch, et cetera,
Speaker 1: and using that with the trunk to swat away these
Speaker 1: troublesome insects that again are messing with the expansive skin
Speaker 1: of the elephant that is far more sensitive than you
Speaker 1: might give it credit. And the elephant has limited abilities
Speaker 1: to show those flies it has the tail. It has
Speaker 1: no expansive ears, of course, but mainly it's depending on
Speaker 1: that trunk, and you can extend that trunk via tool use,
Speaker 1: via a small branch or stick, and use that to
Speaker 1: swat away the flies. Now, this is swatting, not throwing
Speaker 1: the stick at flies. That I don't think really would
Speaker 1: necessarily make sense to see anything about throwing as being
Speaker 1: a direct part of either activity thermal regulation of their
Speaker 1: expansive skin, or regulation of parasites. So I think it's
Speaker 1: one of those things we might see as sort of
Speaker 1: a side skill of all that, an add on skill
Speaker 1: that comes via the evolution of this amazing trunk and
Speaker 1: all the abilities of this trunk, as well as just
Speaker 1: their ability to use tools.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, you can imagine throwing as at least possibly
Speaker 2: on a continuum with the extended reach you get from
Speaker 2: a tool. So you know, by picking up a stick
Speaker 2: you in effect make your arm longer, you can hit
Speaker 2: or reach it something farther away than you can with
Speaker 2: your biological arm, and then if you could release that
Speaker 2: stick at just the right time, could in fact go
Speaker 2: even farther.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so the basic ability here is not at all surprising.
Speaker 1: The elephant trunk is a highly tactile proboscis composed of
Speaker 1: some forty thousand muscles. That this is a frequently cided
Speaker 1: number anyway, though I see some different figures out there.
Speaker 1: But any way, you shake it, whatever the number happens
Speaker 1: to be, it dwarfs the some six hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: muscles in the human body.
Speaker 2: Well, maybe just because I have them on the brain,
Speaker 2: But I almost want to compare the elephant's trunk to
Speaker 2: an octopus's arm.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean I think there's a lot to
Speaker 1: compare there, just in terms of how much ability there
Speaker 1: is for the trunk to move around.
Speaker 2: Well, I think I'm also thinking about that because there
Speaker 2: are no bones within the trunk, so like our arms
Speaker 2: and fingers have bones in them that make them rigid
Speaker 2: along such certain axes of motion, whereas the elephant's trunk
Speaker 2: has no bones at all. It's a mass of like
Speaker 2: muscles and fat, so it has a kind of almost
Speaker 2: octopus like. I mean, not truly, not truly octopus like,
Speaker 2: but more in the octopusy direction, in a range of
Speaker 2: motion and kind of floppiness.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely. One of the papers I was looking at
Speaker 1: for this section is from Scott L. Hooper in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one edition of Current Biology of Papers titled Motor
Speaker 1: Control Elephant trunks Ignore the many and choose the few.
Speaker 1: In this Hooper rights quote, the elephant trunk is a
Speaker 1: muscular hydrostat with essentially infinite freedom of movement. Now, the
Speaker 1: paper itself here, as the title suggests, explores how the
Speaker 1: elephant focuses on certain ways of moving the trunk to
Speaker 1: achieve various objectives. Again, this is interesting because, unlike with
Speaker 1: something like the human arm, the possible movements are far
Speaker 1: less restricted. Like you say, it's not like an arm
Speaker 1: where you have. Yes, the human arm is amazing in
Speaker 1: what it can do and the range of motion that
Speaker 1: it has, but still there are limitations in place, just
Speaker 1: based on how it is constructed the bones, the ligaments, etc.
Speaker 2: Like you can't bend your forearm in the middle of
Speaker 2: your forearm, or you can't build bend your elbow backwards. Right.
Speaker 1: It would be interesting to see a list like all
Speaker 1: the possible ways you might move your arm in all
Speaker 1: of the the small differences, all the different ways you
Speaker 1: might scratch your nose. However, many methods you come up with,
Speaker 1: however many movements you're able to decipher the elephant and
Speaker 1: that it is just is going to have you beat
Speaker 1: every day, like there are just so many more ways
Speaker 1: for it to potentially move its trunk. Right, And this
Speaker 1: is really interesting and the paper the author points out
Speaker 1: that when control for body and brain size, elephant cerebellums
Speaker 1: are physically much larger than expected, and that ninety seven
Speaker 1: point five percent of elephant brain neurons are in the
Speaker 1: cell cerebellum. This is a part of the brain that is,
Speaker 1: among other things, associated with fine motor control and movement
Speaker 1: error correction. So they point out that quote. It is
Speaker 1: tempting to hypothesize that this extreme hypertrophy is due to
Speaker 1: the greatly increased motor control challenges a muscular hydrostatic trunk poses.
Speaker 1: So anyway, in general, though, there's a great deal that
Speaker 1: an elephant can do with its trunk, and many things
Speaker 1: that it does far more often with said trunk. But
Speaker 1: throwing behavior again has been observed. They're perfectly capable of
Speaker 1: throwing branches, rocks, and in cases of hostile interaction, yes,
Speaker 1: other organisms including people.
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 1: One question that ended up coming up for me though,
Speaker 1: is can they throw arrows? And I hadn't thought about
Speaker 1: this there's but I ran across this interesting passage in
Speaker 1: Plenty of the Elders the Natural History. So if you
Speaker 1: have your stuff to blow your mind, Plenty of the
Speaker 1: Elder punch card, please go ahead and put another star
Speaker 1: punch through there. And you're one star closer to your
Speaker 1: gigantic HOGI. So I'm going to read from Plenty here
Speaker 1: quote and just as a reminder, plenty of course first
Speaker 1: century see Roman author that we've discussed many times on
Speaker 1: the show. So, the first harnessed elephants that were seen
Speaker 1: at Rome were in the triumph of Pompeius Magnus over Africa,
Speaker 1: when they drew his chariot, a thing that is said
Speaker 1: to have been done long before at the triumph of
Speaker 1: Father liber on the conquest of India. Procilius says that
Speaker 1: those which were used at the triumph of Pompeius were
Speaker 1: unable to go in harness through the gate of the city.
Speaker 1: In the exhibition of gladiators, which was given by Germanicus,
Speaker 1: the elephants performed a sort of dance. With their uncouth
Speaker 1: and irregular movements. It was a common thing to see
Speaker 1: them throw arrows with such strength that the wind was
Speaker 1: unable to turn them from their course, to imitate among
Speaker 1: themselves the combats of the gladiators, and to frolic through
Speaker 1: the steps of pyrrhic dance. After this, too, they walked
Speaker 1: upon the tight rope, and four of them would carry
Speaker 1: a litter in which lay a fifth, meaning a fifth elephant,
Speaker 1: which represented a woman lying in They afterwards took place,
Speaker 1: and so nicely did they manage their steps that they
Speaker 1: did not so much as touch any of those who
Speaker 1: were drinking there.
Speaker 2: Huh. So I have a kind of mixed reaction to that.
Speaker 2: On one hand, I think it's quite clear from you know,
Speaker 2: modern examples that elephants can be trained to do all
Speaker 2: kinds of interesting things. They are intelligent animals, and they
Speaker 2: have a very adroit manipulation ability through their trunk. And
Speaker 2: yet I feel kind of doubtful when it says this
Speaker 2: thing about the arrows, that they are able to throw
Speaker 2: the arrows with such strength that the wind was unable
Speaker 2: to turn them from their course. I guess I'm imagining
Speaker 2: from that statement, though it doesn't directly say this, that
Speaker 2: it's like throwing arrows as if into a target, so
Speaker 2: actually aimed so that they go tip first and hit
Speaker 2: something even when the wind is blowing. I don't know
Speaker 2: Plenty doesn't actually say that, but that I would assume
Speaker 2: that's what he means. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I wasn't sure how to take the wind thing either,
Speaker 1: if that's if that's something that we should focus on
Speaker 1: or if perhaps you know something lost in translation here
Speaker 1: and through the ages, that this is just kind of
Speaker 1: a standard way of describing an arrow being fired with precision.
Speaker 2: You know, yeah, well, I guess it's the precision. I
Speaker 2: wonder about, like, if he's just saying that that like
Speaker 2: they can throw arrows, sure, I guess that doesn't seem controversial,
Speaker 2: like they could throw sticks. If he's saying they could
Speaker 2: throw the arrow with the kind of like point forward
Speaker 2: precision that an archer can shoot an arrow, then I'm like, oh, whoa,
Speaker 2: I don't know about that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he makes them sound like they're natural sharpshooters. And granted,
Speaker 1: most of this description is clearly describing elephants that have
Speaker 1: been trained to perform for the amusement of humans, but
Speaker 1: it's referencing combat. It's referencing war elephants as well. So
Speaker 1: you know, part of me was wondering, it's like, did
Speaker 1: did they actually train elephants to throw arrows? Did they
Speaker 1: have any kind of combat initiative in mind? Here? Surely not?
Speaker 1: And also wondering, just is this at all accurate? Can
Speaker 1: elephants do this? And on that side of the issue here, indeed,
Speaker 1: Asian elephants are still trained to throw darts at balloons
Speaker 1: as a spectacle. This is again something that you can
Speaker 1: look up multiple videos of online. I don't think there's
Speaker 1: any trickery involved in these. It's just they have trained
Speaker 1: the elephant, and the elephant we'll take a dart, fling
Speaker 1: it with its trunk and hit a balloon that's affixed
Speaker 1: to like a wooden board or something.
Speaker 2: Hold on a second, I am I am taking a
Speaker 2: moment to watch this video. Okay, I took a moment
Speaker 2: to watch a video. I am simultaneously very impressed. And
Speaker 2: it makes more sense now because at least in the
Speaker 2: video you shared Rob the elephant dart throwing, it is
Speaker 2: throwing a dart and hitting balloons and popping them. But
Speaker 2: it is not a straight on line drive, you know,
Speaker 2: like an archer would shoot an arrow. It's more of
Speaker 2: a toss of a dart that happens to land point
Speaker 2: first on the balloon and hit it right.
Speaker 1: You know. Ethical concerns over training elephants for amusement aside. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's pretty impressive and I think it certainly speaks to
Speaker 1: the throwing ability of the elephants. Again, like you said,
Speaker 1: the dart throwing here is very much in line with
Speaker 1: other kind of throwing feats one sees from elephants, including
Speaker 1: some of these these these incidents that have occurred in
Speaker 1: the wild or sort of more or less in the wild.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Now, again, given the historical use of Asian elephants and warfare,
Speaker 1: you might well wonder if this ability was ever exploited
Speaker 1: for war, because, yes, war elephants were a part of
Speaker 1: warfare and parts of the world they were typically used
Speaker 1: though as powerful bulldozing steeds and shock weapons. They could
Speaker 1: also serves as a sort of a weapons platform of sorts.
Speaker 1: You know, you could have a place on top where
Speaker 1: not only is the elephant rider present, but perhaps someone
Speaker 1: brandishing a spear or a bow of some of some sort.
Speaker 1: And in some cases, not only did you have additional
Speaker 1: arms added to the elephant. And I should probably shouldn't
Speaker 1: even say additional armor, just armor, because again you think
Speaker 1: of the skin of the elephant as being this kind
Speaker 1: of like natural armor, and you know, I think for
Speaker 1: the most part, we're we're dealing with part of the
Speaker 1: animal that's far more sensitive than we think. So yeah,
Speaker 1: there are numerous examples that survive today of the sort
Speaker 1: of armor that we placed on the elephants. Sometimes that
Speaker 1: armor would be augmented with spikes or blades, and there
Speaker 1: were also special elephant's swords that could be affixed to
Speaker 1: the tusks.
Speaker 2: I apologize I can't remember where I read this, but
Speaker 2: I know I've read at least one historian's opinion before
Speaker 2: that elephants in ancient warfare would have been more useful
Speaker 2: for psychological impact than they were for direct like, you know,
Speaker 2: mechanical advantage on the battlefield, and that most of what
Speaker 2: you could do with an elephant you could probably actually
Speaker 2: do better with just cavalrymounted on horses.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that lines up with a lot of what I've
Speaker 1: been reading here. We should not think of the war
Speaker 1: elephant as some sort of super weapon. It was a
Speaker 1: specialized weapon, a specialized use of the elephant and rider
Speaker 1: and various other weapons that needed support, needed just the
Speaker 1: right situation to be useful. And yeah, so there are
Speaker 1: a lot of ins and outs. You can't think of
Speaker 1: it again as this thing that. Oh, once you introduce
Speaker 1: war elephants to the game, you've got it. Won. One
Speaker 1: of the books I was looking at here is a
Speaker 1: book by John M. Kistler titled War elephants from two
Speaker 1: thousand and six, and in this he mentions that some
Speaker 1: sources mentioned blades affixed to trunk armor as well, though
Speaker 1: I don't take that to mean I personally didn't take
Speaker 1: that to mean that you would actually have some sort
Speaker 1: of scenario where you would put a sword on the
Speaker 1: trunk into an elephant's trunk. I think that would be
Speaker 1: more like blades higher up on the armor that's kind
Speaker 1: of protecting the front of the elephant's face. This is
Speaker 1: a book that goes into depth on elephant warfare, probably
Speaker 1: more than a lot of you really want to read.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a very readable, very good book. But again,
Speaker 1: war is cruelty, and elephant warfare is also just loaded
Speaker 1: with cruelty. There are a lot of elephant deaths that
Speaker 1: are described in this you know, it gets into not
Speaker 1: only the gory particulars of waging war with elephants, but
Speaker 1: also waging war against elephants. But there are certainly accounts
Speaker 1: that are mentioned in this book of enemy soldiers being
Speaker 1: crushed and thrown by the trunk of the elephant, and
Speaker 1: in some cases throwing the horse as well. If it's
Speaker 1: encountering like a man mounted on a horse. Now I
Speaker 1: look through this book, I did not find any examples
Speaker 1: of war elephants actually throwing projectiles as an offensive weapon tactic,
Speaker 1: though it is mentioned that Scipio forced his elephants into
Speaker 1: battle against Caesar's forces with rock slingers, So these would
Speaker 1: have been human rock slingers marching behind the elf evhants,
Speaker 1: pelting them with stones to get them to continue forward.
Speaker 1: So this would have been I think forty six PCE.
Speaker 1: So a lot of what you encounter with projectiles and
Speaker 1: elephants are dealing with in this case, making the elephants
Speaker 1: move forward into battle and all the grizzly realities that
Speaker 1: wake them ahead. And then also you find plenty of
Speaker 1: discussions of projectiles being used against elephants, such as specialized
Speaker 1: like all metal arrows and so forth, darts, caltrops, and
Speaker 1: other things that would be useful fire added to projectiles
Speaker 1: as well that would be useful in combating elephants that
Speaker 1: are used by your enemy. Kissler also brings up an
Speaker 1: account from Plutarch's Life of Alexander fourth century BCE, in
Speaker 1: which the Indian king Porus was said to ride a
Speaker 1: war elephant that was so loyal that at one point,
Speaker 1: it softly kneels down and begins to draw the enemy
Speaker 1: darts out of the King's body so that he can
Speaker 1: continue fighting. And Kissler in on this and says, quote,
Speaker 1: such stories are not preposterous. Elephants do form intimate bonds
Speaker 1: with their human riders and have been known to protect
Speaker 1: their human friends and may even die of grief when
Speaker 1: their partner is lost. Megas Thinny is a contemporary of
Speaker 1: Alexander attest to both.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: However, this of course is not dark throwing, natural or otherwise,
Speaker 1: And Kissler makes no mention of elephants being trained to
Speaker 1: throw weapons. I think my take on this is, generally speaking,
Speaker 1: human armies capable of using war elephants are going to
Speaker 1: also have access to much better throwing projectile technology, such
Speaker 1: as a bow used by a human, even a sling
Speaker 1: used by a human, catapults and so forth. Using a
Speaker 1: war elephant to throw a rock would just be a
Speaker 1: misuse of the resource that you have there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is not what the elephants are best at.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And Kissler gets into this a little bit as well.
Speaker 1: He's speaking directly about the sieges of Hannibal here, but
Speaker 1: he says, you're talking about the limitations of the war
Speaker 1: elephant quote. Elephants do not make good siege weapons, but
Speaker 1: they do make excellent siege laborers. So again a situation
Speaker 1: where at any given moment, an army that has elephants
Speaker 1: is going to have to use them where they are
Speaker 1: where they are most useful, be it as a shock
Speaker 1: weapon or as just labor to help operate the other
Speaker 1: weapons of war. So when it comes to lobbing projectiles
Speaker 1: at your enemies, better I would imagine to have human
Speaker 1: archers atop or near elephants to handle the ranged weaponry
Speaker 1: and allow the elephants to do their thing, hopefully in
Speaker 1: a matter in a manner that advances the front line
Speaker 1: rather than recedes it. Because that's another thing you run into.
Speaker 1: Like the use of the elephant on the battlefield, it
Speaker 1: is there's kind of a contained chaos to it. You definitely,
Speaker 1: if you are the one using the elephants, you want
Speaker 1: them to keep going towards the enemy and not to
Speaker 1: panic and turn back on your own forces. Still, there
Speaker 1: are certainly many accounts of war elephants grabbing, crush throwing
Speaker 1: human adversaries, sometimes off their mount and in some cases
Speaker 1: inflicting such damage to the mount as well. Well.
Speaker 2: This is interesting because it raises sort of a third
Speaker 2: category of animal throwing behaviors that we didn't really get
Speaker 2: to in the last episode. When we were talking about
Speaker 2: that study on octopuses, we made the distinction between throwing
Speaker 2: at and throwing away. So sometimes an octopus would quote
Speaker 2: throw again to remind you, what the octopuses did was
Speaker 2: not purely by like grasping something in the arm and
Speaker 2: then rapidly extending the arm and releasing the object. They
Speaker 2: would hold the object with their arms and then blast
Speaker 2: the object with their funnel or siphon with a jet
Speaker 2: of water to propel it through the water toward a target,
Speaker 2: or at least allegedly toward a target. But the two
Speaker 2: categories of throwing they talked about in this paper were
Speaker 2: throwing at and throwing away. So throwing away is just
Speaker 2: like you're trying to get something out of a certain place,
Speaker 2: like cleaning out your den would be a throwing away behavior.
Speaker 2: You're trying to get all of the scallop shells out
Speaker 2: of there and make a clean place for you to
Speaker 2: settle down. Or throwing at would be trying to hit
Speaker 2: a target. Here, you could have I don't know what
Speaker 2: this would be. If you're like grabbing an adversary and
Speaker 2: throwing it, that's not really throwing at or throwing away.
Speaker 2: The object of the throwing is the object you're throwing,
Speaker 2: not an object you're trying to hit. But you're also
Speaker 2: not just trying to get it out of your way,
Speaker 2: you're trying to harm it by throwing it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think there's at least one account that the
Speaker 1: kissler shares again from ancient riders, where someone is thrown
Speaker 1: and then they hit a rock and it.
Speaker 2: Like breaks their back.
Speaker 1: But that's it's hard to really weigh in on that,
Speaker 1: Like was the elephant in this case throwing the human
Speaker 1: at the rock or did the elephant just throw this
Speaker 1: human aside and they happened to land on a rock.
Speaker 2: Right, I wasn't alleging, Yeah, I wasn't alleging that the
Speaker 2: elephants knew what they were doing and that type of throwing. Yeah,
Speaker 2: But I think we have one more example of an
Speaker 2: animal where that third category you might say, throwing into
Speaker 2: where the main object of the throwing is what happens
Speaker 2: to the object thrown, not the object it's thrown at,
Speaker 2: and it's not just trying to get the object out
Speaker 2: of your space. You're you're trying to act upon the
Speaker 2: object by throwing it. And this comes up with the mongoose.
Speaker 1: I was surprised by this. I don't really know much
Speaker 1: about the mongoose, so I wasn't expecting it to be
Speaker 1: a projectile tool user or a projectile. Maybe maybe tool
Speaker 1: user is going a little too far. But a creature
Speaker 1: capable of throwing.
Speaker 2: Objects, Yeah, yeah, I wonder would this kind of tool
Speaker 2: user or not. I don't know. We can talk about
Speaker 2: the details and then see what every think.
Speaker 1: There are different families of mongooses, about thirty four species
Speaker 1: in total. They have strong rodent vibes. There's definitely a
Speaker 1: rodent energy to them. If you're unfamiliar with them, you
Speaker 1: having to see them. If you're happening to be in
Speaker 1: a region where you have mongooses around, you might think, oh,
Speaker 1: they're behaving much like rodents. They seem to be filling
Speaker 1: that niche at the very least, But they're actually more
Speaker 1: closely related to hyenas and fosses. They are carnivores and
Speaker 1: they're pretty opportunistics, so they feed on vertebrates. Invertebrates live
Speaker 1: prey carry on. They're all about figuring out how to
Speaker 1: go about getting their daily allotment of meat. What kind
Speaker 1: of puzzles do I need to solve to get my meat?
Speaker 1: What do I need to crawl into to get my meat?
Speaker 1: And this is the kind of area where often we
Speaker 1: times we see this more with the omnivores, Like we
Speaker 1: talked about the raccoon before, this creature that is savvy
Speaker 1: and its ability to find these different forms of food,
Speaker 1: And here we see it with the carnivorous mongoose now
Speaker 1: as they're trying to get at the meat. Sometimes the
Speaker 1: thing about your meat, Sometimes the meat is smeared on
Speaker 1: the side of the road, or it's or it's nice
Speaker 1: and soft and easy to tear into. But other times
Speaker 1: you'll find that the meat that you desire as a
Speaker 1: mongoose is encased. This would be the case with something
Speaker 1: like a millipede. There's gooey stuff on the inside that
Speaker 1: you want to eat, but there's hard stuff on the outside.
Speaker 1: Birds eggs are another example, hard on the outside, delicious
Speaker 1: and liquidity in the middle. Beetles balls of dung are
Speaker 1: also brought up in some of the sources I was
Speaker 1: looking at because the ball of dung might have, for instance,
Speaker 1: a beetle inside of it, and you want to get
Speaker 1: at it. But on the outside you have perhaps this
Speaker 1: hardened dung. So how are you going to get the
Speaker 1: meat that is such so encased?
Speaker 2: Well? A reference that comes up on this question is
Speaker 2: a paper from nineteen sixty seven by Thomas Eisner and
Speaker 2: Joseph A. Davis, a couple of biologists. I think one
Speaker 2: was affiliated with Cornell University, and I think maybe another
Speaker 2: with the Bronx Zoo. But the paper is called Mongoose
Speaker 2: Throwing and Smashing Millipedes, published in the journal Science. I
Speaker 2: actually had trouble finding the full text on this one,
Speaker 2: but fortunately I was able to sort of piece it
Speaker 2: together with some sections quoted in books and a blog
Speaker 2: post I found summarizing it by an archaeologist and named
Speaker 2: Michael Haslam. But the study looked at a relationship between
Speaker 2: the mongoose and a genus of African millipedes called Spherrotherium spheerrotherorum.
Speaker 2: You want to do the etymology on that? What does
Speaker 2: that mean? Ball beast now compared to the tiny roly
Speaker 2: pulleys or pillbugs that we're used to here in the
Speaker 2: southern United States. Rob These things, the Spheerrotherorium, are indeed beasts.
Speaker 2: Some species are very large comparatively. I found a picture
Speaker 2: of somebody holding one in their hand for scale, and
Speaker 2: this one looks to be about the size of an
Speaker 2: uncracked walnut. It's pretty big. They also have thick, tough
Speaker 2: plates of armor compared to roly pullies or pillars. And
Speaker 2: as a side note, I just wanted to mention that
Speaker 2: our familiar roly pollie here are actually not millipedes at all.
Speaker 2: They are isopod crustaceans, terrestrial crustaceans that moved out of
Speaker 2: the sea to colonize land millions of years ago.
Speaker 1: Huh. I don't think I quite realized that way to go,
Speaker 1: roly pollies.
Speaker 2: But so Okay to this study, the authors were doing
Speaker 2: some testing to see which predatory animals were able to
Speaker 2: get the meat like you're talking about too, As Mick
Speaker 2: Jagger would say, get the meat to uncase the Spherrotherorium's
Speaker 2: tough outer defenses and get at what's inside if it
Speaker 2: balls up. Is this millipede basically invincible or can anybody
Speaker 2: crack the nut? Now? In other parts of this study,
Speaker 2: the Spherrotherorium in ball mode survived attacks by a colony
Speaker 2: of harvester ants. They survived attacks by blue jays and
Speaker 2: certain species of mice. But then, to read from the
Speaker 2: author's observations quote, the expected occurred in tests with a
Speaker 2: banded mongoose or mungos mungo. The predator responded instantly to
Speaker 2: the glomerid, and that's referring to the millipede. Here the
Speaker 2: glomerid sniffing it and rolling it about with the paws.
Speaker 2: It seized it in the jaws, biting upon it with
Speaker 2: sharp teeth, but the millipede was neither punctured nor crushed. Suddenly,
Speaker 2: the millipede was dropped from the jaws and grasped with
Speaker 2: the front paws. The mongoose, backed against a rocky ledge
Speaker 2: in the cage, assumed a partially erect stance, and, with
Speaker 2: emotion so quick as to be barely perceptible, hurled the
Speaker 2: millipede backward between its legs, smashing it against the rocks.
Speaker 2: Fatally injured, with its shell broken and its body torn apart,
Speaker 2: the millipede was promptly eaten.
Speaker 1: This is a great image. So, first of all, I
Speaker 1: don't have an answer. For this question, but I do
Speaker 1: wonder about how strong the bite of the the mongoose is,
Speaker 1: like maybe they're there their bite strength isn't isn't as
Speaker 1: powerful as as would be required to say, if you
Speaker 1: were going to actually bite down on this millipede and
Speaker 1: crunch it in your mouth. Or maybe it has to
Speaker 1: do with the size of the millipede. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I found some great images of a mongoose gnawing on
Speaker 1: an egg trying to sort of get it's it's its
Speaker 1: horrible little mouth around the egg, and I don't know.
Speaker 1: It may in this case, perhaps the mongoose is able
Speaker 1: to actually bite through that egg and crack it. Certainly
Speaker 1: an egg is different than than a hardened large millipede,
Speaker 1: But like I say, they have been observed to take
Speaker 1: eggs and strike them or throw them as well. So
Speaker 1: I don't know. My second question that came out because
Speaker 1: I was looking some different sources, but I came across
Speaker 1: similar descriptions and I was trying to picture it, and
Speaker 1: I was like, am I picturing this right? Is this
Speaker 1: a granny shot? Is this is this like the granny
Speaker 1: shot with the with the bat Well, I guess it's wait, no,
Speaker 1: The granny shot is when you are use your arms
Speaker 1: as a pendulum between your legs and throw the ball.
Speaker 1: What is it called when you project the ball back
Speaker 1: between your legs.
Speaker 2: It's a reverse grandy shot. Okay shot, okay, But yes,
Speaker 2: that's what's going on here. If you want to picture it.
Speaker 2: The mongoose, the banded mongoose here is it's like sort
Speaker 2: of standing with its legs apart and then picking up
Speaker 2: the millipede with its four paws and then leaning over
Speaker 2: and throwing the millipede backwards between its legs to smash
Speaker 2: it against a rock behind it.
Speaker 1: And you included for me a couple of wonderful illustrations
Speaker 1: to drive home how this works.
Speaker 2: I think these illustrations are actually from the original paper,
Speaker 2: but they were included in that blog post I referenced
Speaker 2: by Haslam.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're quite amusing. We were talking before the recording
Speaker 1: about the In the first shot, we see this mongoose
Speaker 1: clearly thoughtful about its task, concentrating on what it's doing.
Speaker 1: Millipede grasp between it's it's its pause rock behind it,
Speaker 1: and then in the next picture, bam, it has thrown
Speaker 1: the millipee. The millipede is in flight back between the
Speaker 1: creature's legs, and he's just kind of looking at us,
Speaker 1: the viewer.
Speaker 2: This is occurring, Yeah, yeah, making sort of shameful eye
Speaker 2: contact with the illustrator.
Speaker 1: But even this, this this illustration also drives home that like,
Speaker 1: this is a creature that has like a tail, it's
Speaker 1: its legs are not nearly as long as human legs,
Speaker 1: so it seems like a very It's a precision shot.
Speaker 1: There's nothing like clumsy about this.
Speaker 2: Well, I wonder why the throwing happens behind the animal
Speaker 2: instead of in front of it. So, yeah, it has
Speaker 2: to get past the legs and the tail to do this,
Speaker 2: But since the behavior has evolved this way, there must
Speaker 2: be an advantage to the to the rear word throwing, right,
Speaker 2: Like maybe the animal can get more momentum throwing in
Speaker 2: that direction than it could throwing forward. I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: Well, what it reminds me of is digging behavior, and
Speaker 1: the mongoose is certainly a creature that I imagine is
Speaker 1: going to dig around for things. Maybe not actual burrowing behavior, perhaps,
Speaker 1: but we're talking about scratching around in the dirt, going
Speaker 1: after say millipedes, small bugs, et cetera. And you know
Speaker 1: what is the We can sort of imagine the steps
Speaker 1: between basic digging, throwing the dirt back between your rear legs,
Speaker 1: and then launching small creatures backwards as well and making
Speaker 1: them hit a rock wall or something. M Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: basic mongoose technology either way, I guess.
Speaker 2: Well. Anyway, so apparently for the banded mongoose, picking up
Speaker 2: and throwing food is part of their normal behavior. This
Speaker 2: wasn't just like a one off, weird thing that happened
Speaker 2: in this zoo environment. It is something that has been
Speaker 2: observed in the wild, and it's part of a behavioral
Speaker 2: repertoire that may in fact be passed on through a
Speaker 2: kind of teaching and observation between older mongooses and younger ones,
Speaker 2: rather than strictly through inborn instinct.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Fascinating. I was looking around at for various videos
Speaker 1: of this, and I did find a number of videos
Speaker 1: showing them with different encased foods that do look more
Speaker 1: like a striking as opposed to a throwing. But I
Speaker 1: guess one can imagine that these would be sort of related, right,
Speaker 1: especially if the striking if I'm remembering correctly from the
Speaker 1: videos I was looking at some of the strikings are
Speaker 1: kind of the same initial movement instead of launching the
Speaker 1: encased food back between the legs, though bringing it down
Speaker 1: straight onto the ground or onto some sort of rocky surface.
Speaker 2: Good job, mongoose.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it reminds me of the dropping techniques that
Speaker 1: have been linked to other organisms that are capable of flight.
Speaker 1: You know, if you have something like I think the
Speaker 1: cases where lammergeyer may drop bones to shatter on rocks
Speaker 1: far below, they're able to use a gravity assist on
Speaker 1: that act. But if you're just a mongoose, well, you
Speaker 1: don't have gravity like that. You can't very well soar
Speaker 1: up into the sky and then drop it. You've got
Speaker 1: to hurl it instead.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I also like that this In this case, the
Speaker 2: animal is throwing the object behind them, just like deucalian
Speaker 2: and pira.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think there's that's where the comparison stops. Though I
Speaker 2: don't see how the millipede really becomes the new generation
Speaker 2: of mongooses.
Speaker 1: We just don't. We don't have much insight into the
Speaker 1: religious lives of the mongoose.
Speaker 2: It's true, all right, Well, I think that does it
Speaker 2: for part two, but hey, should we continue looking at
Speaker 2: animal throwing behaviors in a part three maybe.
Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe, So I know there's there's certainly a lot
Speaker 1: in the primate world, and we kind of skipped over
Speaker 1: that because on one hand, primate's throwing things. That's it's
Speaker 1: obviously on top of the various non human primate examples.
Speaker 1: We know that, of course humans are are the greatest
Speaker 1: throwers on Earth, but there but not to take away
Speaker 1: from the primate world, they're the larger primemate world though,
Speaker 1: because there are some amazing examples of the use of
Speaker 1: project dials and the selection of project dials and even
Speaker 1: the storing of project dials for later use. So there's
Speaker 1: a lot of interesting stuff there that we get into.
Speaker 1: We could also get into how it plays into human
Speaker 1: evolution and so forth. So if listeners want more animals
Speaker 1: throwing stuff, we can certainly put together some more episodes.
Speaker 1: Oh and by the way, I wanted to mention this
Speaker 1: this earlier, and I forgot but John M. Kissler, who
Speaker 1: wrote the book on War Elephants, also wrote a historical
Speaker 1: fiction novel titled Elephant Lord, set during the Second Punic War.
Speaker 1: I looked at this. I didn't pick it up yet,
Speaker 1: but I saw that you can get it on Kindle
Speaker 1: It looks pretty interesting. I was trying to ponder, like,
Speaker 1: maybe this is a better way to get my to
Speaker 1: scratch the itch of curiosity over all the details of
Speaker 1: elephant warfare. Maybe if it's within a fictional shape, it'll
Speaker 1: be kinder somehow. I don't know, all right, all right,
Speaker 1: so we're closing it up there, but yeah, write in
Speaker 1: let us know what you think. If you want to
Speaker 1: hear more episodes about animals throwing stuff, be sure to
Speaker 1: let us know. Perhaps you have examples from the animal
Speaker 1: world that we didn't touch on that you'd like to
Speaker 1: bring up. Perhaps you just have observations of elephants or
Speaker 1: the mongoose that you would like to share. It doesn't
Speaker 1: have to be directed directly related to throwing things, but
Speaker 1: maybe you do have those experiences you would like to
Speaker 1: point out to us. If so, write in, we'd love
Speaker 1: to hear from you. Just a reminder that Stuff to
Speaker 1: Blow Your Mind as a science podcast, with core episodes
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