WEBVTT - Inside the Fact Vault: Bird Drama and a Tormented Statue 0:00:14.480 --> 0:00:17.920 You're listening to Part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope 0:00:18.040 --> 0:00:20.680 and iHeartRadio. 0:00:23.360 --> 0:00:24.640 Guess What, Mango? What's that? 0:00:24.760 --> 0:00:25.000 Will? 0:00:25.360 --> 0:00:29.840 On average, an episode of Part Time Genius contains nineteen. 0:00:29.440 --> 0:00:30.520 Point four facts. 0:00:30.560 --> 0:00:31.720 I bet you actually didn't know that. 0:00:32.360 --> 0:00:33.559 I did not know that. 0:00:33.640 --> 0:00:35.680 Is that true? I'll be honest, I just made it 0:00:35.720 --> 0:00:36.040 up now. 0:00:36.040 --> 0:00:38.080 That is unlike the facts and stories we share on 0:00:38.120 --> 0:00:41.920 this show, which are carefully, some might say, obsessively researched. 0:00:42.159 --> 0:00:44.159 Yeah, obviously, I mean that's part of the fun we 0:00:44.320 --> 0:00:47.080 have doing what we do, right, researching all this stuff. 0:00:47.280 --> 0:00:48.400 No, that's exactly right. 0:00:48.400 --> 0:00:50.400 But what a lot of people might not realize is 0:00:50.440 --> 0:00:54.000 that research often takes us down some very deep, twisty 0:00:54.120 --> 0:00:57.240 rabbit holes, and in the interest of not making, you know, 0:00:57.320 --> 0:01:00.600 a podcast episode that's three hours long, sometimes we have 0:01:00.640 --> 0:01:03.160 to cut stuff where sometimes there's a topic that's just 0:01:03.240 --> 0:01:06.399 so interesting we keep thinking about it even after the 0:01:06.440 --> 0:01:07.480 episode comes out. 0:01:07.840 --> 0:01:08.160 Yeah. 0:01:08.240 --> 0:01:10.640 I mean there's also a thing that happens where we 0:01:10.720 --> 0:01:12.640 have an idea for an episode and we get super 0:01:12.680 --> 0:01:14.640 excited about it, but then it turns out there's like 0:01:15.040 --> 0:01:17.400 not quite enough to make it work, but it's still 0:01:17.440 --> 0:01:19.440 really fascinating and we have nowhere to share that stuff. 0:01:19.640 --> 0:01:22.479 Yep, that also happens. And so what all this means 0:01:22.560 --> 0:01:24.840 is that at any given moment, we've got a pile 0:01:24.880 --> 0:01:27.959 of stories that our listeners haven't heard. And I like 0:01:28.000 --> 0:01:31.039 to think of this as a strategic fact reserve. And 0:01:31.080 --> 0:01:33.080 so today we're going to give you a peek inside 0:01:33.080 --> 0:01:35.920 that vault. So for this episode, Mango and I are 0:01:35.959 --> 0:01:38.200 kicking up our heels and we're turning things over to 0:01:38.319 --> 0:01:41.000 Gabe and Mary, our producers who help us out with 0:01:41.160 --> 0:01:44.120 all of that research. They've got some bonus facts from 0:01:44.160 --> 0:01:47.120 earlier episodes, a few updates on some new things that 0:01:47.160 --> 0:01:49.840 we've learned, and if they're feeling generous, they might even 0:01:49.840 --> 0:01:52.200 give you a little preview of some topics we're working 0:01:52.200 --> 0:01:55.720 on for later this year. So sit back, relax, Grab 0:01:55.720 --> 0:01:58.000 a drink with a tiny umbrella in it. That's what 0:01:58.080 --> 0:02:00.559 Mango and I are doing right now, actually, and let's 0:02:00.600 --> 0:02:01.000 dive in. 0:02:21.880 --> 0:02:25.520 Hey there, podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I 0:02:25.560 --> 0:02:30.120 am not Will Pearson, and I'm not here with Mangusha Ticketter. Instead, 0:02:30.320 --> 0:02:33.000 i'm producer Gabe and I'm here with producer Mary. 0:02:33.360 --> 0:02:35.560 That's right, and over there in the booth wearing a 0:02:35.600 --> 0:02:39.040 mask of his own face. It's our friend and fellow producer, 0:02:39.240 --> 0:02:40.000 Dylan Fagan. 0:02:40.280 --> 0:02:42.720 Are you sure that's really Dylan under the mask? How 0:02:42.720 --> 0:02:43.760 can we tell? 0:02:43.800 --> 0:02:46.040 Well, he's also wearing a T shirt that says this 0:02:46.240 --> 0:02:49.520 really is Dylan, So yeah, a T shirt wouldn't lie. 0:02:49.919 --> 0:02:52.560 Right right? Of course I always forget that. But anyway, 0:02:52.680 --> 0:02:55.840 I'm pretty excited about today's episode. We have a bunch 0:02:55.880 --> 0:02:58.240 of great bonus facts that just didn't fit into an 0:02:58.240 --> 0:03:01.240 episode for one reason or another. But before we get 0:03:01.240 --> 0:03:03.200 into that, I thought it might be fun to talk 0:03:03.240 --> 0:03:06.560 a little bit about some failed episode ideas. You know, 0:03:06.639 --> 0:03:09.360 we've made episodes about a lot of really niche and 0:03:09.400 --> 0:03:12.680 obscure topics, but sometimes we come up with an idea 0:03:12.760 --> 0:03:15.520 that just doesn't work. You know what I'm talking about? Oh? 0:03:15.560 --> 0:03:19.120 I sure do, because a lot of them are mine. 0:03:19.600 --> 0:03:21.200 Okay, I can kick this one off. 0:03:21.320 --> 0:03:23.480 So last winter I thought it would be fun to 0:03:23.520 --> 0:03:27.079 do a festive Christmas episode, something you know, for the holidays, 0:03:27.120 --> 0:03:30.360 something heartwarming. And I found this amazing story about a 0:03:30.400 --> 0:03:33.639 guy in England who found a packet of eighty year 0:03:33.639 --> 0:03:36.320 old love letters in his chimney that they had been 0:03:36.360 --> 0:03:38.280 burnt a little bit, but he could still read them 0:03:38.480 --> 0:03:41.440 and it was like he could unfold this old love 0:03:41.560 --> 0:03:44.720 story from decades ago. These people were long gone and 0:03:44.760 --> 0:03:46.960 it was just really heartwarming and touching. And that made 0:03:46.960 --> 0:03:51.040 me think, what about an episode of the most unexpected 0:03:51.080 --> 0:03:54.520 Things people have found in chimneys? Right, because you know, 0:03:54.560 --> 0:03:56.800 Santa Claus comes down the chimney. I started to look 0:03:56.840 --> 0:03:59.360 into it, and it turns out that the vast majority 0:03:59.360 --> 0:04:02.400 of unexpected did things people find in their chimneys are corpses. 0:04:04.280 --> 0:04:07.560 I mean, you know, sometimes animals, but also sometimes people. 0:04:07.760 --> 0:04:10.440 Okay, animal corpses, human corpses, but always corpses. 0:04:10.600 --> 0:04:12.720 It was just so many corpses it started to not 0:04:12.760 --> 0:04:13.680 feel very festive. 0:04:14.240 --> 0:04:17.560 Yeah, that's that's not very Christmas y. Let's see, Yeah, 0:04:17.640 --> 0:04:20.800 I had a couple Nine things are usually where things 0:04:20.880 --> 0:04:23.640 kind of fall apart. Those nine things pitches. We come 0:04:23.720 --> 0:04:25.560 up with a lot of them, and they sound good 0:04:25.560 --> 0:04:28.360 at first, but then you dig into it and it's like, no, no, no. 0:04:28.720 --> 0:04:31.160 I had nine things to do inside on a beautiful 0:04:31.160 --> 0:04:33.680 summer day. So the idea was just kind of like, 0:04:34.160 --> 0:04:36.200 let's stick it to the sun and you know, have 0:04:36.360 --> 0:04:37.200 fun indoors. 0:04:37.720 --> 0:04:40.200 What is it just like playing video games, watching. 0:04:40.320 --> 0:04:42.400 That's really what it ended up being, was like just 0:04:42.520 --> 0:04:45.560 all the normal things you do inside, whether it's nice 0:04:45.560 --> 0:04:49.240 out or not. So that fell apart pretty fast. I 0:04:49.240 --> 0:04:53.520 also had one that was like nine single species islands, 0:04:53.800 --> 0:04:57.800 small islands that are inhabited by cats or only rabbits 0:04:57.880 --> 0:05:00.640 or whatever, and you know, looking into it was just 0:05:00.720 --> 0:05:02.919 kind of the same story over and over again. Somebody 0:05:03.000 --> 0:05:05.440 put a lot of cats on this little uninhabited island 0:05:05.560 --> 0:05:08.479 turned it into a tourist attraction. Brinson repeat, It's. 0:05:08.279 --> 0:05:10.239 Just people putting animals where they don't. 0:05:10.040 --> 0:05:12.000 Belong, Yeah, and then making money off of it. 0:05:12.000 --> 0:05:14.679 It's not quite as depressing as finding corpses in your chimney, 0:05:14.680 --> 0:05:16.559 but it's still not a feel good show. 0:05:16.880 --> 0:05:20.440 Yeah. Yeah, it was a little thin. But also one idea, 0:05:20.600 --> 0:05:23.640 this is going way back to part time Genius one 0:05:23.680 --> 0:05:26.920 point zero. We had this brainstorm dock running list of 0:05:27.000 --> 0:05:30.800 everybody suggesting topics, and they were never attributed to who 0:05:30.839 --> 0:05:33.520 came up with them, whether as Will or Mangesh or 0:05:33.600 --> 0:05:36.440 me or somebody else. There was this one that always 0:05:36.440 --> 0:05:39.280 stuck out to me. It was just should I take 0:05:39.440 --> 0:05:42.920 a daily vitamin? Are you sure? 0:05:42.960 --> 0:05:45.000 This was on the Brainstorm and not someone trying to 0:05:45.040 --> 0:05:46.000 message their doctor. 0:05:46.040 --> 0:05:49.159 Oh exactly. I was like, okay, this is one hundred 0:05:49.160 --> 0:05:51.200 percent Will and yeah. It was just sort of like, 0:05:51.240 --> 0:05:53.159 all right, this is something he meant to ask Siri, 0:05:53.400 --> 0:05:56.000 and it just like got added to the Brainstorm doc. 0:05:56.080 --> 0:05:57.560 But we never did it. Maybe one day. 0:05:57.800 --> 0:05:59.960 Well, speaking of things we've never done but might do one, 0:06:00.360 --> 0:06:02.120 I have brought this up a few times and I'll 0:06:02.160 --> 0:06:04.760 keep bringing it up probably until someone tells me to stop. 0:06:04.800 --> 0:06:08.800 And that is a part time genius musical episode. 0:06:08.240 --> 0:06:10.320 So we're singing, or it's about musicals. 0:06:10.560 --> 0:06:12.440 I mean, it could be about musicals. That actually would 0:06:12.480 --> 0:06:15.120 be really fun. It could be a musical episode about musicals. See, 0:06:15.120 --> 0:06:17.200 this is how our brainstorms work, right, one of us 0:06:17.240 --> 0:06:19.719 says a dumb thing and then someone makes it smart. No, 0:06:19.880 --> 0:06:20.960 I just think it would be fun. 0:06:21.279 --> 0:06:21.479 You know. 0:06:21.520 --> 0:06:24.679 When we did the twenty five Greatest Science Ideas series, 0:06:25.240 --> 0:06:27.560 we had our great friend David Nagler write a song 0:06:27.839 --> 0:06:30.840 about the Ottaron particle that was discovered at the Large 0:06:30.880 --> 0:06:33.200 Hadron Particle Collider, and it was just so fun to 0:06:33.279 --> 0:06:38.120 hear this incredibly complicated physics thing explained through song. And 0:06:38.160 --> 0:06:39.760 I thought, what if we did more of that. What 0:06:39.800 --> 0:06:43.560 if we had Will and Mangesh singing the information instead 0:06:43.560 --> 0:06:45.760 of just talking. Mongsh is not a fan of this, 0:06:45.880 --> 0:06:48.000 but I have heard, I have heard from a reliable 0:06:48.080 --> 0:06:50.880 source that Will has a very good singing voice. 0:06:51.120 --> 0:06:52.800 Really, I did not know that. 0:06:52.800 --> 0:06:54.479 That is what my sources tell me. 0:06:54.680 --> 0:06:57.360 So the dream of the part time Genius musical episode 0:06:57.400 --> 0:06:58.360 may not be dead. 0:06:58.640 --> 0:07:02.479 Yeah, fingers crossed all right? Well, speaking of music, not 0:07:02.560 --> 0:07:05.760 too long ago, we did an episode about novelty songs, 0:07:06.120 --> 0:07:08.479 but there is one story that was left on the 0:07:08.480 --> 0:07:13.280 cutting room floor. It was mostly about NASA's Skylab and 0:07:13.320 --> 0:07:15.800 how it crashed to the ground. Believe it or not, 0:07:15.840 --> 0:07:20.280 in Australian rock group made a novelty song about Skylab 0:07:20.320 --> 0:07:23.480 crashing and that's because it landed in Australia. Back in 0:07:23.560 --> 0:07:27.640 nineteen seventy three, NASA had just launched the Skylab missions, 0:07:27.680 --> 0:07:30.480 which were kind of bridging the gap between the Apollo 0:07:30.640 --> 0:07:34.440 and Space Shuttle programs. They sent up this big space station. 0:07:34.600 --> 0:07:37.600 It weighed more than eighty tons and it was built 0:07:37.600 --> 0:07:40.760 to sustain a three person crew for an extended period 0:07:40.800 --> 0:07:43.600 of time, and NASA wanted to use this for three 0:07:43.680 --> 0:07:48.080 Skylab missions with three different crews of three astronauts each time. 0:07:48.200 --> 0:07:50.960 So they did these three missions, and the station still 0:07:51.000 --> 0:07:54.160 had plenty of supplies left on board, and NASA had 0:07:54.200 --> 0:07:57.360 already begun planning for a fourth mission. But that's not 0:07:57.520 --> 0:08:00.960 really how things shook out. The space station orbit began 0:08:01.000 --> 0:08:05.560 to decay much earlier than anticipated, and the increased amount 0:08:05.600 --> 0:08:08.720 of drag on Skylab caused it to lose altitude and 0:08:09.080 --> 0:08:12.160 it re entered or its atmosphere a full four years 0:08:12.200 --> 0:08:14.960 ahead of schedule. It ended up crashing into the Indian Ocean, 0:08:15.000 --> 0:08:18.240 and all this debris kind of rained down on this 0:08:18.400 --> 0:08:20.720 rural part of Western Australia. 0:08:21.040 --> 0:08:22.920 How did that become a novelty song? 0:08:23.360 --> 0:08:27.160 There was a hotel in this tiny town called Balladonia. 0:08:27.600 --> 0:08:31.680 It was pelted with debris, and actually President Jimmy Carter 0:08:31.840 --> 0:08:34.960 called up and apologized to the hotel owners. He's like, 0:08:35.000 --> 0:08:36.600 I'm so sorry this happened. 0:08:36.920 --> 0:08:38.800 Can you imagine getting that phone call? 0:08:39.240 --> 0:08:41.559 I know, right, mister President, you need to come over 0:08:41.600 --> 0:08:43.720 here and clean up your space debris right now. 0:08:44.120 --> 0:08:47.440 Yeah. Well, well that's another funny thing is there was 0:08:47.480 --> 0:08:50.920 another small town called Esperance, and they were so like 0:08:50.960 --> 0:08:53.600 put off by all this wreckage, like raining down in 0:08:53.640 --> 0:08:56.640 their jurisdiction. That they actually hit the US State Department 0:08:56.679 --> 0:09:03.240 with a four hundred dollars fine for literary awesome. The government, 0:09:03.400 --> 0:09:05.640 to its shane did not fit the bill. 0:09:05.800 --> 0:09:08.840 Wait, so we still owe Australia four hundred dollars for littering. 0:09:09.080 --> 0:09:12.720 Well, actually, in two thousand and nine, a California DJ 0:09:12.920 --> 0:09:16.800 named Scott Barley he finally like righted this wrong by 0:09:16.840 --> 0:09:19.560 collecting donations from his listeners and then he cut the 0:09:19.559 --> 0:09:20.200 town a check. 0:09:20.800 --> 0:09:22.920 Well, so it's all a musical. It was a DJ. 0:09:23.080 --> 0:09:25.720 This is all a musical story, okay, all right, So 0:09:25.800 --> 0:09:27.720 I got to know, how did this turn into a 0:09:27.760 --> 0:09:28.600 novelty song? 0:09:29.080 --> 0:09:32.520 So after all this debris rains down on this hotel 0:09:32.559 --> 0:09:36.839 in Balladonia and President Carter calls to apologize. Balladonia was 0:09:36.880 --> 0:09:38.920 kind of, you know, on the world stage after that, 0:09:39.320 --> 0:09:42.360 and it became a popular tourist destination. Of course, they 0:09:42.360 --> 0:09:44.800 had collected the debris that fell there and kind of 0:09:44.800 --> 0:09:48.000 put it on display. This Australian rock group called Family 0:09:48.160 --> 0:09:51.280 capitalized on it wrote a song titled the Ballad of 0:09:51.320 --> 0:09:55.680 a Balladonia Night aka the Skylab Song, and it became 0:09:55.960 --> 0:09:58.160 the year's summer anthem in Australia. 0:09:58.520 --> 0:10:00.520 Do you happen to have a c of this that 0:10:00.559 --> 0:10:01.240 we can listen to? 0:10:01.600 --> 0:10:04.200 You know, Mary, I'm glad you brought that up because 0:10:04.520 --> 0:10:05.079 I do. 0:10:09.000 --> 0:10:29.960 Nice Jamie Bam Oh the sky Wow. 0:10:30.160 --> 0:10:33.280 That was incredible. That may be my song of the 0:10:33.280 --> 0:10:35.760 summer here in twenty twenty five. I am so glad 0:10:35.840 --> 0:10:39.000 I know about this. Now let's bring it back all right, Well, 0:10:39.200 --> 0:10:41.720 this is not music related, but it is art related. 0:10:42.080 --> 0:10:44.680 A few weeks ago we had the author Cy Montgomery 0:10:44.720 --> 0:10:46.679 on the show to talk about her book What the 0:10:46.760 --> 0:10:48.760 Chicken Knows, really really great book. 0:10:49.280 --> 0:10:50.040 I had a lot of fun. 0:10:50.080 --> 0:10:53.160 I read it, did some research about chickens, and then 0:10:53.200 --> 0:10:55.640 I kind of kept doing research about chickens even after 0:10:55.920 --> 0:10:58.880 we had finished preparing for the interview. I started wondering 0:10:58.960 --> 0:11:02.600 about chickens in art. And by that, Gabe, I do 0:11:02.679 --> 0:11:05.600 not mean chickens who make art, although I'm sure that 0:11:05.920 --> 0:11:06.800 is a thing, and. 0:11:06.679 --> 0:11:08.120 That's another episode, yep. 0:11:08.760 --> 0:11:11.800 I was more interested in the idea of chickens represented 0:11:11.840 --> 0:11:14.839 in art. Surely people have represented chickens in visual arts, 0:11:14.880 --> 0:11:18.720 and guess what they have. There's a mural in Poland 0:11:19.120 --> 0:11:21.240 that is a picture of a woman holding a chicken, 0:11:21.280 --> 0:11:24.200 and it's apparently based on a famous Polish children's story 0:11:24.240 --> 0:11:26.880 about a hen that tries to run away from home 0:11:27.240 --> 0:11:29.280 and its owner who goes after it. I believe it's 0:11:29.320 --> 0:11:31.560 called Madame Chicken is the name of the mural. But 0:11:31.760 --> 0:11:35.960 my favorite was a painting by the Filipino artist Anita 0:11:36.040 --> 0:11:39.640 Megsi Si Ho, and it's called Catching Chickens and this 0:11:40.000 --> 0:11:44.480 is beautiful. It is a picture of women with chickens 0:11:44.559 --> 0:11:47.280 all around their feet and they're dancing, they're holding baskets, 0:11:47.280 --> 0:11:49.800 they're scooping up the chickens. It's just so joyous, and 0:11:49.840 --> 0:11:52.640 there's so much movement and light in the painting you 0:11:52.720 --> 0:11:54.800 just kind of want to climb into it. And so 0:11:54.920 --> 0:11:56.839 I'd never heard of this artist before, so I started 0:11:56.840 --> 0:11:59.720 looking into her, and Anita MgSi Si Hoe was this 0:12:00.080 --> 0:12:03.319 credible pioneer of modern art in the Philippines. She was 0:12:03.360 --> 0:12:05.959 a twentieth century painter at a time when there were 0:12:05.960 --> 0:12:08.959 not a lot of prominent women painters working in the Philippines. 0:12:09.080 --> 0:12:11.920 My favorite detail about her is that she had five children. 0:12:12.120 --> 0:12:15.280 Her family moved around constantly because of her husband's job. 0:12:15.920 --> 0:12:18.360 In spite of that, wherever she went, she was sure 0:12:18.400 --> 0:12:20.400 to set up a little work area where she could 0:12:20.520 --> 0:12:24.200 keep painting, and so she was incredibly prolific, and today 0:12:24.240 --> 0:12:26.600 she's regarded as one of the giants of modern art 0:12:26.640 --> 0:12:29.240 in the Philippines. But here it gets even better. She 0:12:29.400 --> 0:12:33.360 was known for working in egg tempera. 0:12:33.400 --> 0:12:34.640 What what is that? 0:12:35.120 --> 0:12:38.120 It's basically a pigment that is mixed with egg yolk 0:12:38.240 --> 0:12:41.360 as a binder. It's very very difficult to work with 0:12:41.520 --> 0:12:44.040 because it dries really quickly. You have to work in 0:12:44.160 --> 0:12:46.880 very small sections, and it's much harder to control the 0:12:46.920 --> 0:12:50.160 consistency compared to something like oil paint. But the big 0:12:50.480 --> 0:12:53.440 benefit of egg tempera is that it has this luminous, 0:12:53.600 --> 0:12:56.520 lifelike quality. A lot of Renaissance art actually was painted 0:12:56.840 --> 0:12:59.880 in egg tempera, especially things on panels, like wooden things. 0:13:00.160 --> 0:13:02.520 It sticks to the wood very well, kind of like glue, 0:13:02.559 --> 0:13:05.440 and it gives this inner glow, this life to the image. 0:13:05.559 --> 0:13:08.800 And unlike oil, egg tempera colors don't change over time. 0:13:08.840 --> 0:13:09.920 They're very color fast. 0:13:10.120 --> 0:13:12.520 That's amazing. Why don't all artists use that? 0:13:12.800 --> 0:13:14.960 Like I said, it's very tricky to work with, but 0:13:15.040 --> 0:13:18.200 I just I love that. This book about chickens sent 0:13:18.240 --> 0:13:20.880 me on this journey through chicken art, all the way 0:13:20.920 --> 0:13:23.440 through this incredible artist who I'd never heard of and 0:13:23.520 --> 0:13:26.199 is now probably one of my favorite artists. And now 0:13:26.320 --> 0:13:28.880 this paint Egg tempera that I had never heard of. 0:13:29.080 --> 0:13:30.880 Yeah, and I'm glad you got to share that. I'm 0:13:30.880 --> 0:13:32.800 glad we found an outlet for it because I'm going 0:13:32.880 --> 0:13:34.679 to look her up too, and I bet a lot 0:13:34.720 --> 0:13:35.640 of listeners will as well. 0:13:35.760 --> 0:13:37.040 Yeah, we'll put a link in the show notes. 0:13:37.080 --> 0:13:39.360 Okay, have you got another fact for us that didn't 0:13:39.360 --> 0:13:40.479 make it into an episode? 0:13:40.559 --> 0:13:44.959 I do. Yeah. So we recently did an Inside Baseball episode. 0:13:45.200 --> 0:13:47.440 I am not a baseball fan, but I am a 0:13:47.520 --> 0:13:50.840 huge fan of all the baseball traditions, the lore, the 0:13:50.960 --> 0:13:53.640 organ music, the snacks, all of that kind of stuff. 0:13:54.080 --> 0:13:57.640 I'm also just a big fan of very strange baseball stories. 0:13:57.920 --> 0:13:59.920 And there was one that we just didn't have room for, 0:14:00.200 --> 0:14:01.960 so it ended up on the cutting room floor. It 0:14:02.040 --> 0:14:04.560 happened back in nineteen eighty three, and it was when 0:14:04.679 --> 0:14:10.720 Yankees outfielder Dave Winfield was arrested for accidentally killing a seagull. 0:14:10.960 --> 0:14:14.400 So this happened during a game against the Toronto Blue Jays, 0:14:14.600 --> 0:14:17.199 and this was at the team's exhibition stadium in Canada. 0:14:17.800 --> 0:14:21.480 And a little background here. Toronto's population of ring build 0:14:21.640 --> 0:14:25.400 seagulls had risen dramatically that year and had gone from 0:14:25.440 --> 0:14:29.560 ten thousand gulls to nearly two hundred thousand. Why and 0:14:30.600 --> 0:14:32.680 I don't know why I couldn't find that out. 0:14:32.920 --> 0:14:36.320 If anyone in Toronto knows about this seagull population issue, 0:14:36.360 --> 0:14:37.760 please please let us. 0:14:37.760 --> 0:14:40.320 Know, please, what was going on that year. So anyway, 0:14:40.360 --> 0:14:44.440 because the ballpark was located like just offshore of Lake Ontario, 0:14:44.720 --> 0:14:48.560 the birds would often flock there in droves, and occasionally 0:14:48.600 --> 0:14:50.920 one of the gulls would land like right on the field, 0:14:51.120 --> 0:14:53.760 and fans would cheer and laugh, and the players would 0:14:53.760 --> 0:14:56.080 get a little annoyed. But you know, whatever, it happened. 0:14:56.440 --> 0:14:59.480 But on this one night in August of nineteen eighty three, 0:14:59.600 --> 0:15:02.320 there was this particular seagull who landed on the field 0:15:02.360 --> 0:15:05.800 early in the game and he just stayed there. Some 0:15:05.840 --> 0:15:08.120 people thought he might be sick. They said, he didn't 0:15:08.160 --> 0:15:11.600 really look very well, he looked a little shaky, and 0:15:11.680 --> 0:15:14.240 he just like didn't move an inch. So at the 0:15:14.240 --> 0:15:16.520 top of the fifth inning he's sitting there right on 0:15:16.560 --> 0:15:19.520 the field. The Yankees took the field. They started doing 0:15:19.560 --> 0:15:22.880 their practice throws and that kind of stuff, and after 0:15:22.960 --> 0:15:26.440 warming up in the outfield, Winfield threw the ball that 0:15:26.480 --> 0:15:29.920 he had been using back towards the dugout and accidentally 0:15:29.960 --> 0:15:33.080 struck the seagull in the neck and it died instantly. 0:15:33.240 --> 0:15:36.360 Fans began booing Windfield, you know, assuming that he had 0:15:36.400 --> 0:15:38.280 done this on purpose. They were, I guess it was 0:15:38.280 --> 0:15:40.640 like rubber ball night at the stadium or something. They 0:15:40.680 --> 0:15:43.360 were throwing rubber balls at him, and so, you know, 0:15:43.400 --> 0:15:45.440 a moment later, I think it was, the bat boy 0:15:45.800 --> 0:15:48.920 runs onto the field, covers the dead gull with a 0:15:48.960 --> 0:15:51.800 towel and like carries it off, you know, and every 0:15:52.560 --> 0:15:54.800 just really heartbreaking. Right in the middle of the game. 0:15:55.360 --> 0:15:58.040 They continued to play, you know, as normal, and the 0:15:58.120 --> 0:16:00.680 Yankees actually went on to win three to one. But 0:16:00.760 --> 0:16:03.880 once it was over, Winfield went back to the clubhouse 0:16:04.080 --> 0:16:07.760 and was approached by Canadian police. They put him under 0:16:07.840 --> 0:16:10.440 arrest for killing a ring builled seagull, which, as it 0:16:10.480 --> 0:16:13.760 turned out, was a protected bird under Canadian law. 0:16:13.920 --> 0:16:15.840 It wasn't just any seagull, it. 0:16:15.800 --> 0:16:19.840 Was nationally protected species. They took him down to Toronto's 0:16:19.960 --> 0:16:24.160 police station. He was charged with causing the unnecessary suffering 0:16:24.320 --> 0:16:27.400 of an animal that carried a five hundred dollars fine 0:16:27.480 --> 0:16:30.520 and up to six months in prison. In a nice 0:16:30.560 --> 0:16:34.120 show of goodwill, the Blue Jays general manager paid the 0:16:34.120 --> 0:16:37.480 five hundred dollars bond to get Winfield released. So he 0:16:37.560 --> 0:16:39.200 got out and was supposed to come back like a 0:16:39.240 --> 0:16:43.280 week later to stand trial. But in the meantime a 0:16:43.400 --> 0:16:45.400 bird autopsy was conducted. 0:16:46.000 --> 0:16:48.800 They actually they kept the bird. They kept the body. 0:16:49.120 --> 0:16:52.760 Yes, the police collected it from the Toronto Humane Society 0:16:53.000 --> 0:16:56.800 and sent it to the University of Golf in Ontario 0:16:56.880 --> 0:16:59.560 for a full autopsy. While they're looking the bird over, 0:16:59.640 --> 0:17:03.360 the charge were eventually dropped. Winfield had talked to the reporters. 0:17:03.360 --> 0:17:05.480 He made it clear this was an accident. I did 0:17:05.480 --> 0:17:09.080 not mean to kill the seagull. So they dropped the 0:17:09.160 --> 0:17:12.520 charges and that ended up being the right decision because 0:17:12.560 --> 0:17:15.520 once the autopsy report came back, it turned out that 0:17:15.640 --> 0:17:19.520 everyone had been correct. The bird was quite unwell. The 0:17:19.560 --> 0:17:22.800 report concluded that although the bird did die from blunt 0:17:22.840 --> 0:17:26.080 force trauma, it almost certainly would have died anyway within 0:17:26.160 --> 0:17:28.680 like a week, so to show there were no hard feelings, 0:17:28.720 --> 0:17:31.520 Winfield returned to Toronto. He went back a few months later, 0:17:31.640 --> 0:17:34.040 he did a charity dinner and he even brought a 0:17:34.080 --> 0:17:36.760 special painting that he had commissioned to be auctioned off. 0:17:37.200 --> 0:17:40.040 It depicted a seagull standing in front of a red 0:17:40.040 --> 0:17:42.840 maple leaf, with two other goals flying over the shore 0:17:42.840 --> 0:17:44.919 of a lake, and at the bottom there was an 0:17:44.920 --> 0:17:47.960 inscription that read to the Canadian people committed to the 0:17:48.000 --> 0:17:50.000 preservation of their values and resources. 0:17:50.200 --> 0:17:53.920 That is incredible, and again it goes back to. 0:17:53.840 --> 0:17:56.800 Bird Art, Bird Art. There we go, all right, we need. 0:17:56.720 --> 0:17:58.480 To take a quick break, but when we come back, 0:17:58.560 --> 0:18:01.520 we have more bonus facts, including a statue that's been 0:18:01.520 --> 0:18:03.760 through a lot and some buildings that are getting cooler 0:18:03.800 --> 0:18:05.840 thanks to a very old technology. 0:18:05.920 --> 0:18:06.640 Don't go anywhere. 0:18:21.800 --> 0:18:24.400 Welcome back to Part Time Genius. I'm Gabe and I'm 0:18:24.400 --> 0:18:27.600 here with Mary and we're opening the fact vault today 0:18:27.680 --> 0:18:29.639 to share some of the things that didn't make it 0:18:29.640 --> 0:18:32.879 into our regular episodes. So, Mary, what's your next cutting 0:18:32.960 --> 0:18:33.760 room floor fact? 0:18:33.920 --> 0:18:36.720 Okay, so we have an episode about climate resilience, which 0:18:36.760 --> 0:18:38.960 is of course the ways in which people around the 0:18:38.960 --> 0:18:43.960 world are using technology, engineering and general ingenuity to protect 0:18:44.000 --> 0:18:46.920 themselves and their homes and their communities from climate change. 0:18:47.000 --> 0:18:49.680 And I found this fact that I think about all 0:18:49.680 --> 0:18:53.000 the time because I have a plant pot in my apartment. 0:18:53.040 --> 0:18:54.640 Do you have a plant pot in your apartment? 0:18:54.920 --> 0:18:58.600 I have pots with plants in them. Is that different? No? No? 0:18:58.600 --> 0:18:59.879 No, A pot that you put a plant in? 0:19:00.160 --> 0:19:01.520 Oh? Perfect, Yeah, I got them. 0:19:01.680 --> 0:19:02.040 Okay. 0:19:02.440 --> 0:19:04.680 They're often made of terra cotta, which is that sort 0:19:04.720 --> 0:19:07.960 of orangish beige material that is really good for plants. 0:19:07.960 --> 0:19:09.520 And one of the reasons it's good for plants is 0:19:09.520 --> 0:19:12.520 that it's absorbent. It absorbs and holds water, and that's 0:19:12.640 --> 0:19:16.240 also why it's great for cooling. Tarracotta has been used 0:19:16.240 --> 0:19:18.480 for thousands of years in India to keep water cool 0:19:18.600 --> 0:19:21.119 because when you fill up in terracotta jug with water, 0:19:21.520 --> 0:19:24.000 a certain percentage of that water gets absorbed and then 0:19:24.000 --> 0:19:27.000 it evaporates. As it evaporates, it keeps the remaining water 0:19:27.160 --> 0:19:29.479 in the jug cool. So people have been doing this 0:19:29.760 --> 0:19:32.720 in lieu of refrigeration for a long time. Recently, an 0:19:32.840 --> 0:19:35.400 architecture studio in New Delhi came up with a way 0:19:35.640 --> 0:19:39.240 to use terracotta to cool buildings. They had a client 0:19:39.320 --> 0:19:43.600 who was a manufacturer and they had these diesel generators 0:19:43.840 --> 0:19:45.719 that were creating a lot of heat in the building, 0:19:45.720 --> 0:19:48.000 and it was making things too hot for the workers. 0:19:48.240 --> 0:19:49.879 And if we were just trying to combat that with 0:19:49.960 --> 0:19:52.480 air conditioning, it would cost a ton of money and 0:19:52.560 --> 0:19:53.960 be really bad for the environment. 0:19:54.080 --> 0:19:54.199 Right. 0:19:54.720 --> 0:19:58.399