WEBVTT - Biology of the Hobbit 0:00:01.160 --> 0:00:04.960 You asked me to find the fourteenth man for your expedition, 0:00:05.040 --> 0:00:09.000 and I chose mister Baggins. Just let anyone say I 0:00:09.080 --> 0:00:11.960 chose the wrong man or the wrong house, and you 0:00:12.000 --> 0:00:14.720 can stop at thirteen and have all the bad luck 0:00:14.760 --> 0:00:18.360 you like, or go back to digging coal. He scowled 0:00:18.480 --> 0:00:21.360 so angrily and glowing that the dwarf huddled back in 0:00:21.480 --> 0:00:24.040 his chair. And when Bilbo tried to open his mouth 0:00:24.079 --> 0:00:26.680 to ask a question, he turned and frowned at him 0:00:26.680 --> 0:00:29.480 and stuck out his bushy eyebrows till Bilbo shut his 0:00:29.560 --> 0:00:33.839 mouth tight and snap, that's right. Let's have no more argument. 0:00:34.159 --> 0:00:36.280 I have chosen mister Baggins, and that ought to be 0:00:36.360 --> 0:00:38.519 enough for all of you. If I say he is 0:00:38.560 --> 0:00:41.440 a burglar, a burglar he is, or will be when 0:00:41.440 --> 0:00:43.959 the time comes. There's a lot more to him than 0:00:44.000 --> 0:00:46.400 you guess, and a deal more than he has any 0:00:46.440 --> 0:00:50.360 idea of himself. You may possibly all live to thank me. Yet, 0:00:55.520 --> 0:00:57.800 welcome to stuff to blow your mind? The production of 0:00:57.880 --> 0:01:06.480 My Heart Radio. Hey, are you welcome to stuff to 0:01:06.520 --> 0:01:08.720 blow your mind? My name is Robert Lamb, and I'm 0:01:08.800 --> 0:01:10.840 Joe McCormick, and I guess it's obvious that we're back 0:01:10.880 --> 0:01:13.720 in Hobbit territory today. That's right. You know, we did 0:01:14.040 --> 0:01:16.959 an episode, I guess a few months back or several 0:01:17.000 --> 0:01:19.800 months back, I'm not sure which, where we talked about 0:01:19.840 --> 0:01:23.199 the One Ring, we contemplated the metallurgy of the Rings 0:01:23.240 --> 0:01:25.800 of Power and the Lord of the Rings. And in 0:01:25.800 --> 0:01:28.920 this episode, we're going to be returning to Middle Earth. 0:01:29.040 --> 0:01:32.039 We're going to look at everyone's favorite hole dwelling pipe 0:01:32.080 --> 0:01:36.479 smoking six meal a day, eating humanoids, the Hobbit. So 0:01:36.520 --> 0:01:38.560 this year I was going back and reading Lord of 0:01:38.560 --> 0:01:41.760 the Rings, and I was about halfway through Fellowship of 0:01:41.800 --> 0:01:44.200 the Ring, and the question entered my mind. And that 0:01:44.319 --> 0:01:48.280 question is are the Hobbits too cute? Are their lives 0:01:48.400 --> 0:01:52.120 just too quaint and too sweet for this story? And 0:01:52.440 --> 0:01:53.840 I thought about it for a minute. I was like, 0:01:54.080 --> 0:01:56.600 you know, I get a little bit board maybe in 0:01:56.640 --> 0:01:59.160 some of the early chapters of Fellowship where it's going 0:01:59.200 --> 0:02:02.760 on and on about the the quaintness of the Hobbit existence. 0:02:03.080 --> 0:02:06.800 But then I realized, no, I think it really does work. It. Uh. 0:02:06.840 --> 0:02:10.320 It's important for the story because it makes you feel 0:02:10.400 --> 0:02:13.280 the adventure and the pain of the adventure all the more. 0:02:13.720 --> 0:02:16.160 When you get a full feeling for how cozy and 0:02:16.320 --> 0:02:21.000 unadventurous their their prequest lives were. Yeah, it's in a 0:02:21.000 --> 0:02:24.200 fantastic world that just gets more and more fantastic and 0:02:24.320 --> 0:02:28.320 dark and magical the further out you go from the Shire, 0:02:28.440 --> 0:02:31.440 the realm of the Middle Earth that is home to 0:02:31.520 --> 0:02:34.320 the Hobbits, you know, And it makes sense to start 0:02:34.360 --> 0:02:37.400 with something that is quaint, that is normal, that is 0:02:37.440 --> 0:02:42.960 almost you know, painfully British and cozy and uh uh, 0:02:43.360 --> 0:02:45.960 not so much cute, I guess, at least not in 0:02:45.960 --> 0:02:48.560 the original intent. I know, I know, I've read that 0:02:48.639 --> 0:02:52.280 Tolkien did not like the idea of illustrations that made 0:02:52.280 --> 0:02:55.440 the Hobbits look too much like children, because they should 0:02:55.480 --> 0:02:58.840 all look like like small little like middle aged or 0:02:58.880 --> 0:03:03.239 old men imagine. But yeah, you need you need somebody 0:03:03.360 --> 0:03:06.120 ordinary to go on these adventures, to be challenged by 0:03:06.160 --> 0:03:10.560 these adventures. Right, you feel the rain and the hardness 0:03:10.600 --> 0:03:13.080 of the stones under their feet and the threat of 0:03:13.120 --> 0:03:16.560 the Goblin's blade so much more when you've when you've 0:03:16.600 --> 0:03:18.959 seen the world of Tea by the Fire. Yeah, and 0:03:18.960 --> 0:03:22.480 then and there's certainly the the species of Middle Earth 0:03:22.520 --> 0:03:25.119 that we can relate to the most. They are, they're 0:03:25.160 --> 0:03:27.600 really they're even more human than the humans or the 0:03:27.639 --> 0:03:30.800 men as Token calls them, uh, that we encounter in 0:03:30.800 --> 0:03:34.600 the story. Essentially the main storytelling reason that the Hobbits 0:03:34.600 --> 0:03:37.200 are central to the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit. 0:03:37.440 --> 0:03:39.320 But of course there's more to this as well, more 0:03:39.320 --> 0:03:41.800 to unwrap. And and that's why we chose that particular 0:03:41.880 --> 0:03:44.200 passage from the Hobbit to read at the beginning, because 0:03:44.240 --> 0:03:49.560 in this particular section, basically Gandalf, the gray globetrotting wizard 0:03:49.600 --> 0:03:53.520 that he is, is injecting himself into dwarf and politics 0:03:54.240 --> 0:03:58.920 essentially to rid the world of the last evil dragon 0:03:59.240 --> 0:04:02.760 so that it can't aid the coming war with Saaron. Uh. 0:04:02.800 --> 0:04:05.560 You know, it's uh, you know, it's it's in a way, 0:04:05.560 --> 0:04:07.640 it's kind of like shady politics, I guess, but it's 0:04:07.800 --> 0:04:11.360 it's certainly yeah, but it's it's it serves a greater good. 0:04:11.760 --> 0:04:14.280 And and but Gandalf is getting a bit frustrated because 0:04:14.280 --> 0:04:16.760 he's he's helping the dwarves out, he's enabling this mission, 0:04:17.279 --> 0:04:20.480 uh to to retake their mountain from smog. And they 0:04:20.480 --> 0:04:23.160 don't want to have thirteen dwarves go on a trip 0:04:23.200 --> 0:04:26.640 that's unlucky. They need another person, and Gandalf says, here 0:04:26.680 --> 0:04:29.560 you go, Here is a Hobbit, here's Bilbo. He's the 0:04:29.600 --> 0:04:32.159 fellow you need. He's a burglar. You're gonna need a burglar. 0:04:32.200 --> 0:04:34.800 And of course the whole time Bilbo is like, I 0:04:34.839 --> 0:04:37.560 can't go on adventure. I can't do that. I don't 0:04:37.560 --> 0:04:40.200 have any of these skills. And the dwarves are agreeing 0:04:40.200 --> 0:04:42.480 with him, and they're saying, oh, he's useless, let's not 0:04:42.560 --> 0:04:45.320 take him. Don't you have something else. Let's just eat 0:04:45.320 --> 0:04:48.719 all his food and move on, right, So you know 0:04:48.839 --> 0:04:53.160 it's you. It's it's easy to to understand the criticism 0:04:53.240 --> 0:04:58.840 because Bilbo does seem rather useless, and he remains rather 0:04:58.960 --> 0:05:02.680 useless feeling for a large portion of the book. Uh 0:05:02.800 --> 0:05:06.400 So it raises the question is there something about the Hobbit? 0:05:06.520 --> 0:05:10.240 Is there something about this species that that that is 0:05:10.279 --> 0:05:14.560 really special? Is there Hobbit exceptionalism that might be exploited? 0:05:14.600 --> 0:05:17.400 And that is ultimately what Gandalf is leaning on, that 0:05:17.440 --> 0:05:20.560 there's something special about the Hobbits that will help enable, 0:05:20.839 --> 0:05:22.599 you know, first of all, victory and this mission to 0:05:22.640 --> 0:05:26.640 retake the Lonely Mountain, and then ultimately in the quest 0:05:26.680 --> 0:05:29.000 of the Ring that we encounter in the Lord of 0:05:29.040 --> 0:05:31.200 the Rings. You know, despite how over the course of 0:05:31.240 --> 0:05:33.760 The Lord of the Rings we see several different Hobbits 0:05:34.120 --> 0:05:36.680 in different ways, at different times, being seduced by the 0:05:36.720 --> 0:05:39.840 power of the Ring, it does seem like Hobbits, more 0:05:39.920 --> 0:05:42.920 than other creatures, are somewhat resistant to it. Like they 0:05:43.440 --> 0:05:45.479 are somehow able to put up more of a fight, 0:05:45.839 --> 0:05:48.520 to be less enticed by the promises of power and 0:05:48.560 --> 0:05:52.400 glory that the Ring entails. Yeah, perhaps leaning into their 0:05:52.400 --> 0:05:55.640 inherent quaintness, right, I mean, ultimately, all any hobbit wants 0:05:55.680 --> 0:05:57.480 is a nice hobbit hole to live in and a 0:05:57.960 --> 0:06:00.320 mug of ale and you know, some some mush rooms 0:06:00.320 --> 0:06:03.039 and eggs and bacon for for one of their many meals. 0:06:03.160 --> 0:06:06.440 I mean, almost any time a man, a human gets 0:06:06.440 --> 0:06:09.039 his hands on the ring, he's like, oh great, yes, 0:06:10.800 --> 0:06:13.480 so we'll slow down for a second here, because there 0:06:13.520 --> 0:06:15.960 may be some people out there. I find it hard 0:06:15.960 --> 0:06:17.479 to believe, but there may be some people who don't 0:06:17.520 --> 0:06:19.960 know what a hobbit is. Well, just to drive it 0:06:20.000 --> 0:06:22.880 home here, the Lord of the Rings the Hobbit. These 0:06:22.920 --> 0:06:28.560 books are our fantasy novels full of elves, and goblins, dragons, 0:06:29.160 --> 0:06:34.000 uh you know, demonic ball rogs, uh, half living ring races, 0:06:34.000 --> 0:06:37.479 and various demigods and wizards. But then we also have 0:06:37.680 --> 0:06:40.640 the quaint hobbits, and typically they fit the following profile. 0:06:40.920 --> 0:06:43.400 They are quote a little people about half our height. 0:06:44.279 --> 0:06:47.240 They walk around barefooted and boast a generous helping of 0:06:47.360 --> 0:06:50.360 hair atop each foot. I was to understand they had 0:06:50.360 --> 0:06:53.160 hair underneath their feet. Is that not right? I think 0:06:53.160 --> 0:06:55.839 you're right as well. We just that the illustrations rarely 0:06:55.839 --> 0:06:58.600 show that that the bottom of the foot hair. I 0:06:58.640 --> 0:07:01.440 think that was my understanding is that they're they're very um. 0:07:01.480 --> 0:07:04.000 They're actually good as burglars because they're very light of 0:07:04.120 --> 0:07:07.120 step and their footfalls are quiet cushioned by this hair. 0:07:07.400 --> 0:07:10.000 They're also known for their hobbit holes. These are fashionable 0:07:10.080 --> 0:07:13.320 underground homes, but they don't always reside in these, despite 0:07:13.600 --> 0:07:17.240 their their overall subterranean tendencies and a likely history of 0:07:17.280 --> 0:07:20.600 borrow habitation and uh oh. A big one, of course, 0:07:20.680 --> 0:07:24.600 is their hunger. They're their appetite. They require some six 0:07:24.640 --> 0:07:29.000 meals a day or what about second breakfast, and then 0:07:29.040 --> 0:07:32.440 they're also at least very good at hiding, which can 0:07:32.440 --> 0:07:35.680 be extrapolated into a skill of burglary. And I guess 0:07:35.720 --> 0:07:37.840 that's that's one argument for what Gandolf is saying, Like, 0:07:37.920 --> 0:07:40.440 here is a species it's naturally good at hiding. So 0:07:41.120 --> 0:07:43.600 given time, by the time you get to the Lonely Mountain, 0:07:43.840 --> 0:07:47.240 Bilbo will either be dead or very good at adventuring 0:07:47.240 --> 0:07:49.000 and the like in a stealthy way, he will have 0:07:49.160 --> 0:07:52.240 leveled up appropriately. But another another way to look at 0:07:52.240 --> 0:07:57.080 it is to look at the specific biological adaptations of 0:07:57.640 --> 0:08:02.040 a hypothetical hobbit species. And so that's what we're gonna 0:08:02.240 --> 0:08:05.880 largely focus on in this episode. And the beautiful thing 0:08:05.960 --> 0:08:07.560 is that we don't have to just make all of 0:08:07.600 --> 0:08:10.160 this up on our own. They're a handful of papers 0:08:10.160 --> 0:08:12.840 that we've been able to refer to, generally of the 0:08:12.920 --> 0:08:15.840 tongue in cheek variety. So we're not talking like hard, 0:08:16.040 --> 0:08:20.480 serious scientific or medical contemplation, but still do get quantitative 0:08:20.480 --> 0:08:22.200 about it. And then you get quantitative and they get 0:08:22.240 --> 0:08:24.360 into the science of like, all right, let's talk about hobbits. 0:08:24.440 --> 0:08:27.120 Let's talk about how much they eat? Would they be healthy? 0:08:27.200 --> 0:08:30.800 Would they be actually capable of walking across the continent 0:08:30.840 --> 0:08:34.679 with a bunch of adventurers. Uh, you know what, are 0:08:34.720 --> 0:08:38.960 they truly this this solid investment that Gandalf the Gray seas. 0:08:39.360 --> 0:08:41.600 That's a mighty good question. I mean, not to cast 0:08:41.600 --> 0:08:45.200 any doubt on Gandalf the Gray's um in a mindset here. 0:08:45.800 --> 0:08:49.079 You know, clearly great wizard. We'd love to have him 0:08:49.080 --> 0:08:51.760 on the show sometime for an interview. But uh, to 0:08:51.920 --> 0:08:56.400 tune into our new podcast series, Gandalf Mindset. It's where 0:08:56.400 --> 0:09:00.520 you learn wizard mindset. Mindset. There's probably way a book 0:09:00.520 --> 0:09:04.640 about that. Don't let them steal your staff. Six easy 0:09:04.679 --> 0:09:08.760 steps to Wizard dominance. I would not be surprised if 0:09:08.800 --> 0:09:10.760 if to find out that a book like that existed. 0:09:11.679 --> 0:09:13.720 All right, well, let's start with the with the obvious, 0:09:14.000 --> 0:09:16.600 the dietary constraints of the Hobbit. Now, this is going 0:09:16.640 --> 0:09:19.800 to be one of the main differences you would notice 0:09:19.800 --> 0:09:22.720 in like a physical energy kind of situation with the Hobbits, 0:09:22.760 --> 0:09:25.320 because they never stop eating. That's one of the things 0:09:25.360 --> 0:09:27.560 that has driven home again and again in the books. 0:09:27.679 --> 0:09:30.640 It's always time for a meal. Yeah yeah, and they 0:09:30.720 --> 0:09:33.240 Plus they tend to be a little bit portly, leading 0:09:33.320 --> 0:09:36.640 many a non halfling to question their sedendary lifestyle and 0:09:36.440 --> 0:09:38.480 and and and, as well as their insistence on those 0:09:38.480 --> 0:09:42.520 six daily meals because they go with breakfast, second breakfast, 0:09:42.559 --> 0:09:47.400 eleven seas, luncheon, afternoon tea, dinner, and supper. How is 0:09:47.480 --> 0:09:50.520 dinner different from supper? Yeah? That that one was the 0:09:50.559 --> 0:09:52.199 hardest for me to figure out, because I was like, 0:09:52.240 --> 0:09:54.200 all right, let me look at my own, you know, 0:09:54.280 --> 0:09:58.680 dietary requirements in my schedule, and and I realized, Okay, 0:09:58.840 --> 0:10:01.840 I usually like breakfast for me is like smoothie and coffee, 0:10:02.160 --> 0:10:04.520 and then second breakfast is like more coffee and like 0:10:04.559 --> 0:10:07.400 an apple or something later on, and then eleven z s. 0:10:07.440 --> 0:10:09.080 I'm I have been known to have like a half 0:10:09.080 --> 0:10:11.840 a peanut butter sandwich, perhaps with more coffee, and then 0:10:11.880 --> 0:10:14.640 I have actual lunch, and then I don't have afternoon tea, 0:10:14.720 --> 0:10:17.360 but I generally have more coffee and perhaps another apple, 0:10:17.880 --> 0:10:20.960 and then dinner I have an evening meal, But supper 0:10:21.120 --> 0:10:23.400 I can't. I can't really come up with a uh, 0:10:23.880 --> 0:10:25.880 you know, a possibility for that in my life, like 0:10:25.960 --> 0:10:28.920 unless you count an after dinner drink or a you know, 0:10:29.120 --> 0:10:32.360 a late night snack as a meal. And I don't 0:10:32.360 --> 0:10:34.880 think we were talking about that with Hobbits. I think 0:10:34.880 --> 0:10:37.199 for each of these, with the possible exception of the 0:10:37.200 --> 0:10:39.599 afternoon tea, we're talking about a full blown meal or 0:10:39.640 --> 0:10:41.800 you're closer to Hobbit scheduling than a lot of people. 0:10:41.840 --> 0:10:44.959 Though it sounds like it sounds like you kind of graze. Yeah, 0:10:45.000 --> 0:10:46.880 I mean, especially if I'm working from home and it's 0:10:46.920 --> 0:10:49.439 cold out, then it's just you know, wandering around trying 0:10:49.480 --> 0:10:52.760 to figure out what I can smear peanut butter on um. 0:10:52.840 --> 0:10:54.240 That's why it's good to get out of the house. 0:10:55.760 --> 0:10:57.760 But yeah, it's it's hard to figure out how that 0:10:58.400 --> 0:11:02.800 what the difference between uh supper and dinner would be 0:11:02.840 --> 0:11:05.679 for the for the Hobbit, And clearly it points towards 0:11:05.760 --> 0:11:08.760 just the fact that they need more to eat. They 0:11:08.760 --> 0:11:12.559 have just higher dietary requirements than a mere human or 0:11:12.640 --> 0:11:15.640 some other species. So here's the question, based on real 0:11:15.720 --> 0:11:18.920 world biology, is this sort of diet reasonable for a 0:11:19.040 --> 0:11:23.480 creature of the hobbit stature? And unfortunately we have a 0:11:23.520 --> 0:11:27.880 paper to refer to in Christio Meno, Horan and sky 0:11:28.000 --> 0:11:32.120 Rosetti of the University of Leicester Center for Interdisciplinary Science 0:11:32.240 --> 0:11:34.760 weighed in on the issue in their paper Modeling the 0:11:34.840 --> 0:11:39.480 BMR of Species in Middle Earth. So the BMR in question, 0:11:39.559 --> 0:11:42.600 this is the base metabolic rate. This is the number 0:11:42.600 --> 0:11:45.600 of calories that our bodies are very cells need in 0:11:45.679 --> 0:11:48.760 order to function well. And the base part of it 0:11:48.760 --> 0:11:51.800 would be this is not including whatever extra stuff you're doing. 0:11:51.880 --> 0:11:54.640 This is just like to stay alive. Yeah, this is 0:11:54.640 --> 0:11:57.560 not just like extra curricular eating, the wandering around the 0:11:57.559 --> 0:12:00.000 house looking for peanut butter sort of thing. So ather 0:12:00.000 --> 0:12:02.920 of words, the researchers set out to gauge the amount 0:12:02.960 --> 0:12:05.800 of energy that a Hobbit's body needs to function at rest, 0:12:05.920 --> 0:12:07.959 and they did this not only for the Hobbits of 0:12:08.000 --> 0:12:11.680 Middle Earth, but also for the fair elves. They did 0:12:11.679 --> 0:12:15.400 this by modeling each fictional race as an actual Mammalian 0:12:15.480 --> 0:12:19.040 Earth species. The European road deer stood in for forest 0:12:19.120 --> 0:12:23.280 dwelling elves, and the Hobbit, being a burrowing hole dwelling people, 0:12:23.559 --> 0:12:27.520 was stuck with the Southwestern pygmy possum. And this is 0:12:27.559 --> 0:12:32.000 what they figured out. They decided that for a hobbit BMR, 0:12:32.040 --> 0:12:35.520 we're looking at one thousand, eight hundred and eighteen point 0:12:35.600 --> 0:12:39.800 seven kilo calories every day. This compared to seventeen h 0:12:39.840 --> 0:12:43.439 two point to killer calories every six days for humans 0:12:43.559 --> 0:12:46.600 or or men in Middle Earth as they're called, and 0:12:46.640 --> 0:12:50.000 then for elves, we're looking at one thousand, four hundred, 0:12:50.080 --> 0:12:53.480 sixteen point five kilo calories. As such, they figured the 0:12:53.520 --> 0:12:57.719 average hobbit would require some six point seven meals per day, 0:12:57.840 --> 0:13:00.199 and uh, indeed that's in keeping with the high hiher 0:13:00.360 --> 0:13:04.440 energy demands for smaller birds and mammals. Now, you might think, 0:13:04.920 --> 0:13:10.720 why would smaller animals on average have greater relative food requirements, right, Like, 0:13:11.320 --> 0:13:14.079 wouldn't it be bigger animals that would have greater relative 0:13:14.080 --> 0:13:18.000 food requirements. Well, on average, smaller animals do tend to 0:13:18.040 --> 0:13:22.319 have faster metabolisms. There's you know, individual variation, but on average, 0:13:22.360 --> 0:13:25.760 the smaller you are, probably the more energy you burn 0:13:25.880 --> 0:13:29.800 proportional to your body mass. Why would this be? One 0:13:29.840 --> 0:13:34.280 major reason is thermoregulation. So a major part of what 0:13:34.440 --> 0:13:38.600 chemical energy from food does in metabolism is keep the 0:13:38.600 --> 0:13:42.480 body warm. Heat loss from an organism is a function 0:13:42.679 --> 0:13:46.079 of its surface area. So in the past we've talked about, 0:13:46.080 --> 0:13:49.120 you know, one reason for the biological implausibility of like 0:13:49.200 --> 0:13:52.880 Kaiju sized animals like King Kong is that they would 0:13:52.880 --> 0:13:56.200 probably have trouble cooling their bodies they're they're too big. 0:13:56.400 --> 0:13:59.240 They've got too much volume and not enough surface area 0:13:59.320 --> 0:14:02.920 for heat to escape through. Even worse, if you happen 0:14:02.920 --> 0:14:06.600 to be a giant fire breathing dragon like small exactly uh, 0:14:06.760 --> 0:14:09.960 smaller animals that would have exactly the opposite problem. Right. 0:14:10.040 --> 0:14:14.000 Smaller animals have a greater surface area to volume ratio, 0:14:14.400 --> 0:14:17.920 meaning they lose heat faster than larger animals. Think of 0:14:17.960 --> 0:14:21.440 the way that a smaller ice cube melts faster than 0:14:21.480 --> 0:14:24.320 a bigger one. Uh. So they often have to eat 0:14:24.360 --> 0:14:27.760 a lot more relative to their body weight to maintain 0:14:27.840 --> 0:14:31.320 a stable body temperature. Uh. Some very small animals have 0:14:31.480 --> 0:14:35.400 just unbelievable metabolic requirements and can eat huge amounts of 0:14:35.400 --> 0:14:38.040 food relative to their bodies. I was reading a Good 0:14:38.120 --> 0:14:41.360 nat Geo article about this by Liz Langley, and uh, 0:14:41.400 --> 0:14:44.000 it made an interesting point in comparison, so it brings 0:14:44.080 --> 0:14:46.440 up the biggest animal on the earth, the blue whale. 0:14:47.360 --> 0:14:50.480 The blue whale on average eats about four tons of 0:14:50.600 --> 0:14:53.560 krill every day, and that is definitely a lot of food, 0:14:54.280 --> 0:14:56.800 or it sounds like a lot, But the blue whale 0:14:56.840 --> 0:15:00.760 has a body mass of around two hundred tons, so 0:15:00.800 --> 0:15:04.160 on average the whale is only eating about two percent 0:15:04.240 --> 0:15:08.080 worth of its body weight every twenty four hours. Meanwhile, 0:15:08.240 --> 0:15:12.000 the pigmy shrew of Britain, which only weighs about an ounce, 0:15:12.320 --> 0:15:14.840 can eat about a hundred and twenty five percent of 0:15:14.880 --> 0:15:18.080 its body weight per day. So think about this, It's 0:15:18.120 --> 0:15:21.200 like a one hundred and sixty pound human eight a 0:15:21.320 --> 0:15:24.800 hundred and twenty five percent of their body weight every day. 0:15:24.840 --> 0:15:27.600 This would be about two hundred pounds worth of food. 0:15:27.880 --> 0:15:30.040 I did some math and if it was all Big Max, 0:15:30.120 --> 0:15:33.320 that's about three hundred and seventy six Big Max a day. Wow, 0:15:33.520 --> 0:15:38.160 just spread out before you. That's that's something they divided 0:15:38.200 --> 0:15:43.400 into six meals. The shrew factoid reminds me of I 0:15:43.400 --> 0:15:45.360 imagine you've seen this because it was on MSTY three 0:15:45.440 --> 0:15:47.400 K back in the day. They did Attack of the 0:15:47.440 --> 0:15:50.440 Killer Shrews. Terrible black and white movie. But I think 0:15:50.480 --> 0:15:53.760 it was like dogs with carpet draped over them. Yeah, 0:15:53.800 --> 0:15:56.440 but fun in a way because I think they tried so. Basically, 0:15:56.400 --> 0:16:00.280 the situation was, hey, shrews are these ravenous creek tres, 0:16:00.280 --> 0:16:03.040 but thankfully they're small. If they ever got big, they 0:16:03.040 --> 0:16:05.720 would be the most dangerous predator on the planet. And 0:16:05.760 --> 0:16:08.640 then love and behold that's what happens in this movie. Oh, 0:16:08.760 --> 0:16:11.720 that's a great premise, except it it didn't work. It 0:16:11.760 --> 0:16:14.080 doesn't work because if they got bigger, they wouldn't have 0:16:14.120 --> 0:16:17.720 the same surface to volume problem. Yeah but but yeah, 0:16:17.720 --> 0:16:19.560 that that reminded me of of that. I think they 0:16:19.640 --> 0:16:23.360 end up like building a tank out of like stuff 0:16:23.440 --> 0:16:27.000 in their cabin too, then survive the trees. It's it's 0:16:27.000 --> 0:16:29.200 a terrible movie, but way better than it should be. 0:16:29.440 --> 0:16:31.160 One of the things I remember about it is the 0:16:31.160 --> 0:16:33.800 way that like the dogs that they've got dressed up 0:16:33.840 --> 0:16:36.680 to be the shrews really act like dogs, and you 0:16:36.800 --> 0:16:39.000 just see them kind of like trotting around at people 0:16:39.080 --> 0:16:41.560 like dogs do, and it's cute. They're supposed to be 0:16:41.640 --> 0:16:44.800 these menacing monsters, but like they're clearly happy to see 0:16:44.840 --> 0:16:48.040 the people on set. And it's not just that like 0:16:48.080 --> 0:16:52.440 this one species, the pygmy shure of Britain, is is like, 0:16:52.680 --> 0:16:55.240 you know, freakish, Like even the common trew needs to 0:16:55.280 --> 0:16:57.640 eat every two to three hours and has to consume 0:16:57.640 --> 0:17:00.400 an average of like of its body weight ere days. 0:17:01.040 --> 0:17:04.560 This is fairly common among very small organisms. They need 0:17:04.600 --> 0:17:07.119 to eat a lot of food relative to their body size, 0:17:07.400 --> 0:17:10.199 and again that's just the base metabolic rate. That's not 0:17:10.240 --> 0:17:14.600 to mention other necessary expenditures for say, creatures that engage 0:17:14.600 --> 0:17:18.760 in very energy intensive activities. One great example here is hummingbirds. 0:17:19.359 --> 0:17:23.040 So they're very small, they have big thermoregulation requirements, but 0:17:23.119 --> 0:17:28.160 they also have huge caloric requirements from physical activity. They've 0:17:28.200 --> 0:17:30.080 got to stay in the air. I mean, think about 0:17:30.080 --> 0:17:32.800 how much energy it takes to keep vehicles in the air. 0:17:33.320 --> 0:17:36.080 Uh So, they use these rapid wing beats that require 0:17:36.119 --> 0:17:38.679 their heart to beat about twelve hundred times a minute, 0:17:38.960 --> 0:17:43.200 maybe like twenty beats per second. Sometimes that's that's a lot. Yeah, yeah, 0:17:43.240 --> 0:17:45.720 so they do. They are just constantly having to feed, 0:17:46.200 --> 0:17:47.879 and then if they can't, if you have it's like 0:17:48.400 --> 0:17:52.119 I imagine most if you have seen the various documentaries 0:17:52.119 --> 0:17:53.679 that show how the like. In some cases they'll just 0:17:53.720 --> 0:17:55.520 have to shut their bodies down. They have to go 0:17:55.560 --> 0:17:59.240 in a kind of suspended animation at times. But on 0:17:59.280 --> 0:18:01.960 an average day, a hummingbird will often have to eat 0:18:02.040 --> 0:18:05.480 roughly twice its body weight and nectar. Uh So, I 0:18:05.520 --> 0:18:08.560 was trying to think would hobbits have any such requirements 0:18:08.600 --> 0:18:11.880 based on activity? You can see why having smaller bodies 0:18:11.960 --> 0:18:15.640 that have a higher surface area of volume ratio. Okay, 0:18:15.680 --> 0:18:18.199 but I can't really think of any activities that are 0:18:18.240 --> 0:18:20.600 along the lines of the hummingbirds. I'm not sure how 0:18:20.680 --> 0:18:23.199 much energy it takes to smoke pipeweed or to like 0:18:23.240 --> 0:18:27.080 eat tea cakes and gossip about other families. But maybe 0:18:27.080 --> 0:18:29.480 there's something going on there. I wonder if blowing rings 0:18:29.520 --> 0:18:32.280 of pipe weed smoke might actually be a highly energy 0:18:32.320 --> 0:18:35.000 intensive activity. Well, some of them are farmers, you do 0:18:35.040 --> 0:18:37.320 remember farmer maggot. Okay, so that's a lot of work. 0:18:37.840 --> 0:18:39.400 A lot of work goes into that. And then there 0:18:39.440 --> 0:18:42.399 there are at least tales of of warring Hobbits in 0:18:42.440 --> 0:18:45.280 the past. Which one it was that is said to 0:18:45.320 --> 0:18:48.399 have actually ridden a horse and battle to Goblin and 0:18:48.680 --> 0:18:52.480 in a pass skirmish. So there are exceptions, but for 0:18:52.520 --> 0:18:56.040 the most part, the typical hobbit life that when visions 0:18:56.240 --> 0:18:58.840 does entail a lot of sitting around and reflecting. I 0:18:58.840 --> 0:19:01.040 guess another option is, what if there's something going on 0:19:01.119 --> 0:19:04.000 in the hobbit brain that makes their their nervous system 0:19:04.119 --> 0:19:09.080 very energy intensive. Yeah, so maybe they're like secret ment 0:19:09.119 --> 0:19:12.000 ats like the hobbit. The fact that they can you know, 0:19:12.119 --> 0:19:15.439 remember so much gossip about the other families in the shire. 0:19:16.080 --> 0:19:18.439 Or maybe it takes a huge amount of mental energy 0:19:18.480 --> 0:19:23.080 to constantly resist the call to adventure. Yeah, or they 0:19:23.160 --> 0:19:25.960 they do worry a lot, like what what if they're 0:19:25.760 --> 0:19:30.040 they're high energy cognitive powers are used exclusively to worrying 0:19:30.080 --> 0:19:31.920 about where their next meal is going to come from? 0:19:32.000 --> 0:19:36.000 And and uh and and how tiresome the journey is. Alright, 0:19:36.000 --> 0:19:37.560 we're gonna take a break, but when we come back, 0:19:37.720 --> 0:19:40.000 we're going to continue this discussion and we're gonna start 0:19:40.000 --> 0:19:46.880 talking about some some elven bread. Than alright, we're back. 0:19:47.359 --> 0:19:50.679 So there's an interesting follow up to this article we 0:19:50.680 --> 0:19:54.199 were talking about with the base metabolic rate. Again, that 0:19:54.240 --> 0:19:57.200 was from the author's Chris Show amount of Horran and 0:19:57.240 --> 0:19:59.879 sky Rosetti. Well, they followed it up with another paper 0:20:00.280 --> 0:20:04.000 simply walking into more door. How much limbus would the 0:20:04.000 --> 0:20:08.000 Fellowship have needed? So Limbus, as you might remember, is 0:20:08.040 --> 0:20:11.000 the special travel bread of the elves that helps sustain 0:20:11.320 --> 0:20:14.679 our adventurers. It's wrapped in leaves. It's brown on the 0:20:14.680 --> 0:20:17.280 outside and sweet and white on the inside, and it 0:20:17.359 --> 0:20:20.159 and it never spoils. It's just always perfect. And I 0:20:20.200 --> 0:20:23.040 don't know, maybe even a little bit warm. It's Galadriel 0:20:23.119 --> 0:20:27.800 that gives them the limbus, right, I think so, And yeah, 0:20:27.840 --> 0:20:29.840 it's it's supposed to be great stuff. I aways imagine 0:20:30.080 --> 0:20:32.040 it is being like a scone, you know, like a 0:20:32.119 --> 0:20:35.520 really good scone. Like they're just living exclusively off scones 0:20:35.560 --> 0:20:38.920 on this journey. So it becomes one of the key 0:20:38.960 --> 0:20:42.080 provisions that they eat a lot on these on the 0:20:42.320 --> 0:20:44.600 journey and the Lord of the Rings, so naturally the 0:20:44.600 --> 0:20:47.440 authors wanted to know how much of this one would 0:20:47.440 --> 0:20:50.280 need to sustain all nine members of the Fellowship of 0:20:50.320 --> 0:20:53.960 the Ring on a ninety two day quest across the continent. Well, 0:20:53.960 --> 0:20:57.440 they concluded that a single Hobbit would require seventy six 0:20:57.480 --> 0:21:00.960 pieces of Elvin limbus bread to march all the way 0:21:01.000 --> 0:21:04.639 to Mount Doom. That amount, that's seventy six pieces of 0:21:04.760 --> 0:21:08.399 limbus compared with ninety nine for a dwarf, sixty for 0:21:08.480 --> 0:21:11.919 an elf in seventy one for humans. As such, the 0:21:12.040 --> 0:21:14.760 nine members of the Fellowship of the Ring, they concluded, 0:21:14.800 --> 0:21:18.040 would require six hundred and seventy five pieces of limbus, 0:21:18.080 --> 0:21:20.720 with three hundred and four pieces allotted to the four 0:21:20.800 --> 0:21:24.960 Hobbit members. Uh Gimili alone would need ninety nine pieces 0:21:25.000 --> 0:21:27.520 of limbus. Well, now I know they didn't get that 0:21:27.600 --> 0:21:30.639 much limbus. I think they would have said something. I 0:21:30.640 --> 0:21:32.640 remember they talked about how you know, you eat one 0:21:32.720 --> 0:21:35.800 bite of limbus in your full for you know a while. Yeah, 0:21:36.160 --> 0:21:38.399 that's the other thing it is. It is magic, and 0:21:38.440 --> 0:21:42.160