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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how stup

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Speaker 1: works dot com. Hey, wasn't it stuff to blow your mind?

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Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Christian Seger. Hey Robert,

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Speaker 1: If I were to ask you how you felt about

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Speaker 1: ape human hybrids on a scale of one to ten,

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Speaker 1: one being really uncomfortable and ten being you know, pretty comfortable,

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Speaker 1: like you'd hang out with them? Where where where did

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Speaker 1: you fall? Uh? My gut is a three? Three? So yeah,

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Speaker 1: that that seems I think about on par with most people.

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Speaker 1: Most people's reaction to the idea of a species, a

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Speaker 1: new species, I guess being generated from humans and apes

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Speaker 1: coming together is discussed, right. Yeah, Yeah, that would probably

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Speaker 1: be like the one in the two on the three.

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Speaker 1: I would probably just stand there awkwardly while the hybrids

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Speaker 1: did their thing and would contemplate a lot of reservations

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Speaker 1: about how this came to pass? Uh? Who who allowed

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Speaker 1: this to happen? Who made this happen? And uh? And

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Speaker 1: how am I supposed to feel about myself as a human,

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Speaker 1: as a person, How am I supposed to feel about them?

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Speaker 1: It brings up a lot of questions and and not

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Speaker 1: just for us. Uh. And this is an old stuff

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Speaker 1: to blow your mind topic. In fact, there's a there's

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Speaker 1: an episode from four years ago where you and Julie

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Speaker 1: tackled the same topic. We're talking about human z s,

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Speaker 1: which is the possibility of hybridization between chimpanzees and humans. Uh.

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Speaker 1: It's something that's been studied and experimented on for as

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Speaker 1: far as we know, at least a hundred years, if

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Speaker 1: not more longer. Uh. And is you know, I think

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Speaker 1: it's stuff to blow your mind right, Like it's it's

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Speaker 1: definitely something that most people didn't expect. I came across

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Speaker 1: it when we were researching for the X Files. Episodes

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Speaker 1: about the possibilities of alien human hybrids and human zies

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Speaker 1: came up in the research there. So we're revisiting it. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and luckily we have we have some better sources at

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Speaker 1: our disposal this time around, for a you know, a

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Speaker 1: deeper dive into a one particular case that we're going

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Speaker 1: to spend a lot of time with here and uh

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Speaker 1: and yeah, you mentioned the X Files, and I think

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Speaker 1: that's that's great. We're gonna mention a little bit of

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Speaker 1: horror fiction, a little bit of a comic book material

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Speaker 1: here at the top, because it's a it's such a

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Speaker 1: mind blowing topic. It's a topic that it forces us

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Speaker 1: to to rethink what we are and what it is

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Speaker 1: to be human, what it is to be a person.

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Speaker 1: It certainly worked for a turn to the century sort

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Speaker 1: of chilling thrillers. Right. Oh yeah, but before we get

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Speaker 1: into that, let's just remind the audience. So, hey, we

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Speaker 1: do way more than just the podcast. If you've been

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Speaker 1: listening to the podcast as many, We've been getting a

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Speaker 1: lot of nice letters from people who have just started

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Speaker 1: listening to the show. Uh, we do more than that.

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Speaker 1: We've got videos. Robert is on How Stuff Works Now

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Speaker 1: once a week, both of us, right for How Stuff

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Speaker 1: Works Now at least once we seek Joe is also

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Speaker 1: on another podcast and show called Forward Thinking. The best

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Speaker 1: way to find out about all that stuff that we

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Speaker 1: do writing videos, et cetera, is to visit us at

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Speaker 1: stuff to Blow your Mind dot com and then follow

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Speaker 1: us on social media whatever your you know, your social

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Speaker 1: media of choices, Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler, We're on all of them.

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Speaker 1: Yeah indeed, so, so check us out there if you

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Speaker 1: haven't already. And hey, if you listen to us on

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Speaker 1: iTunes or you know, however, you listen to us, uh,

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Speaker 1: give us a little feedback, bump us up in the

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Speaker 1: algorithm for your preferred podcast service, and that'll help us out.

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Speaker 1: It's a great way to support the show. Yeah, I'm

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Speaker 1: really excited. We're about to hit some new I guess

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Speaker 1: they call them markets in terms of podcasting, but Google

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Speaker 1: Play is coming up for us, and um and Spotify

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Speaker 1: as well. So hey, whatever you listen to out there,

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Speaker 1: we're on all of them soon. All right. So to

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Speaker 1: start off, I want to talk with you just a

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Speaker 1: little bit about an area of fiction that that always

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Speaker 1: fascinated me, particular because you see, uh, several different individuals

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Speaker 1: hitting the same topic around the same time in the

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Speaker 1: same time frame. Um, the earliest being that of that

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Speaker 1: explored by H. G. Wells in his novel The Island

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Speaker 1: of Dr Moreau. Yeah. Yeah, mostly known for the movie

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Speaker 1: adaptations nowadays, although I imagine at the time that it

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Speaker 1: came out there is a little bit of shock to

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Speaker 1: the subject matter as well. Oh yeah, and apparently Wells

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Speaker 1: wrote this, uh in large part as a as a

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Speaker 1: protest against vivisection, the live dissection of of animals for

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Speaker 1: research purposes, and um, you know, I think it's definitely

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Speaker 1: something that's lost in the film generations. But but I

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Speaker 1: definitely remember watching the old Burt Lancaster version of this

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Speaker 1: on like on a daytime horror show that was hosted

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Speaker 1: by alum, what was your name, Grandpa Muster? Okay, yeah, okay,

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Speaker 1: I hosted by Grandpa on TBS back in the day,

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Speaker 1: and it was you know, it's kind of grimy and

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Speaker 1: creepy and Harry and then of course we got that

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Speaker 1: that wonderful Marlin one. Yeah, I saw that in the

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Speaker 1: theater in the nineties. Um, it's it's not good, but

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Speaker 1: it's still I don't know, it has holds a warm

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Speaker 1: place in my heart. There's some there's some stuff about it.

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Speaker 1: I like director, but Richard Stanley, I believe, and I

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Speaker 1: think there's a there's a documentary. I haven't seen it yet,

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Speaker 1: but there's a documentary about the making of it. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: for more more than just the fear of vivisection or

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Speaker 1: human interspecies crossover, there's a lot of people who stay

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Speaker 1: away from that movie. Yeah. Yeah, you know what I'm

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Speaker 1: thinking of two is that even before that, this isn't

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Speaker 1: necessarily like a crossover. But murders in the room or

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Speaker 1: post story spoilers for like a two year old story,

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Speaker 1: but ends up being the murderer, ends up being an

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Speaker 1: orangutang that you skipped from a zoo or a circus

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Speaker 1: or something that was nearby and and comes in and

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Speaker 1: it's a it's a locked door mystery and kills these

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Speaker 1: people with like a razor blade or something. Yeah, that's

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Speaker 1: a that's a great one. Uh, And certainly I think

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Speaker 1: is a part of this this sort of scene of

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Speaker 1: weird ape short stories, like because another one that comes

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Speaker 1: to mind, and this was a bit later, ine, but

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Speaker 1: you had the Adventure of the Creeping Man by Sir

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Speaker 1: Arthur Conan Doyle. Yeah, I haven't read that one. Well,

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Speaker 1: the there's an interesting twist here because it seems like

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Speaker 1: it's going to be a marauding, murderous ape, but it

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Speaker 1: turns out that it's um that it's a human who

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Speaker 1: has been taking um simion derived enhancement products and uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, and it's actually either biologically or psychologically changing

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Speaker 1: him into this uh this ape like guy that's a

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Speaker 1: Dr Jackal mr Hyde kind of scenario. Kind of Yeah, huh.

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Speaker 1: I wonder if they're going to incorporate this into the

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Speaker 1: next season of the BBC Sherlock, where Benedict Comberpatch will

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Speaker 1: be uh dueling with this half apaf man. They should, man,

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Speaker 1: I'm a big fan of the weirder Conan Doyle stories

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Speaker 1: like that one and the Devil's Foot, which has a

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Speaker 1: deadly psychede like poison that drives people mad. Yeah, that

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Speaker 1: stuff's great. Well, so, okay, you've also told me that

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Speaker 1: there's a Lovecraft story, and this is outside of my

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Speaker 1: knowledge of the Lovecraft readings I've done, so so what's

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Speaker 1: it about. The title of the story is Facts concerning

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Speaker 1: the Late Arthur German and his Family by BIOHP Lovecraft,

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Speaker 1: and its pretty early Lovecraft. Yeah, and it's uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: I definitely wouldn't classified as being one of one of

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Speaker 1: the great stories, but it's definitely worth exploring if you're

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Speaker 1: interested in weird ape fiction, and if you're interested in

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Speaker 1: the whole like racial context of of love Craft and

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Speaker 1: his racial attitudes, because I can definitely see that kind

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Speaker 1: of racial anxiety, to put it kindly, in this work.

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Speaker 1: I'm going to read a quick quote from it. It It

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Speaker 1: it concerns, uh, you know, Europeans coming back from African expeditions,

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Speaker 1: having encountered apes. Quote, science, already oppressive with its shocking revelations,

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Speaker 1: will perhaps be the ultimate exterminator of our human species.

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Speaker 1: If separate species we be, for its reserve of unguessed

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Speaker 1: horrors could never be borne by mortal brains. If loosed

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Speaker 1: upon the world. If we knew what we are, we

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Speaker 1: should do as Sir Arthur German did, And Sir Arthur

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Speaker 1: German soaked himself in oil and set fire to his clothing.

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Speaker 1: One So, as it turns out, classic Howard Phillips, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: just you you immolate yourself and that's that's how you

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Speaker 1: in the story. But basically what happened is this German

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Speaker 1: character goes out on the more and burns and stuff

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Speaker 1: after seeing the boxed object which had come back from Africa.

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Speaker 1: So basically the whole twist here is he finds out

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Speaker 1: that that his his mother I believe, was a white

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Speaker 1: apeak and his father was like an explorer or something like, yeah,

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Speaker 1: who fell in love with the creature, and that he's

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Speaker 1: the offspring. And yeah, so it's you know, maybe it's

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Speaker 1: so horrified by his lineage that he commits suicide exactly,

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Speaker 1: and you know, it's maybe it's a little Um. It's

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Speaker 1: as close to the old admit, it's a twist on

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Speaker 1: the old Lovecraft shadow over in Smith, it's very similar

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Speaker 1: kind of ending, except that guy that doesn't kill himself. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and also similar a little bit too in Smith in

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Speaker 1: that regard getting into you know, the racial horror, racial anxiety,

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Speaker 1: and and but it it does tie in nicely into

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Speaker 1: what we're gonna talk about today, into the real abhorrence,

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Speaker 1: and into the some of the actual science that was

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Speaker 1: going on around this period. Yeah. In fact, so I've

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Speaker 1: talked about this on the show before, but you know,

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Speaker 1: the Silver Age of comic books, right around the end

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Speaker 1: of the fifties beginning of the sixties, there was a

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Speaker 1: fascination with this very topic of these of eight men

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Speaker 1: basically uh, and they shut up all over the place

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Speaker 1: in comics, and some of the big ones are still

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Speaker 1: around today. I mean the Flash TV show that's airing

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Speaker 1: right now just had Guerrilla Grod, which is one of

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Speaker 1: my favorite characters from all of comics history on it.

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Speaker 1: He's a super intelligent eight Yeah. So these aren't necessarily

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Speaker 1: eight human hybrids, but they're they're oh, they're either that

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Speaker 1: or they're men that been turned into apes or they're

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Speaker 1: super intelligent apes. So like in the case of Guerrilla Grod,

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Speaker 1: he comes from a city called Guerrilla City that's hidden

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Speaker 1: in the wilderness somewhere where there's just all these super

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Speaker 1: intelligent apes, and they're so smart that they've like built

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Speaker 1: science that allows them to hide themselves from society. Uh.

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Speaker 1: Cong Guerrilla is another one which I believe. I don't

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Speaker 1: know the specific details, but I think Cong Guerrilla is

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Speaker 1: like a guy who's been cursed or something like that

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Speaker 1: in the Congo to be a guerrilla. Same with Guerrilla Man. Uh,

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Speaker 1: almost the exact same origin. There's a there's a villain

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Speaker 1: called the Ultra Humanite that is like a scientist who's

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Speaker 1: placed his brain inside a guerrilla's body. I believe it's

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Speaker 1: like a big white gorilla um and that that will

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Speaker 1: come into play when we talk later about the Chinese

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Speaker 1: experiments that we're being done around hybridization. There's Monster and Mala,

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Speaker 1: and then the one uh that I that I immediately

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Speaker 1: thought of when we were doing the research for this

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Speaker 1: was the Red Ghost, which is an old Fantastic four villain,

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Speaker 1: and he is like a Russian scientist who gets exposed.

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Speaker 1: I think like cosmic rays or something like that, with

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Speaker 1: three apes that he has with him. He has a gorilla,

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Speaker 1: a baboon, and orangutank and they all developed superpowers and

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Speaker 1: hang out together. And his name, his real name is

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Speaker 1: Ivan Cragoff. And the guy we're going to talk about

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Speaker 1: the day, his name is Ivan ivan Off. So I

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Speaker 1: wonder if, uh, that was the inspiration Ivan Ivanof was

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Speaker 1: the inspiration for the red Ghost character. It might have been,

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Speaker 1: you know, I'm also reminded of the hell Boy villain

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Speaker 1: Herman from The Conqueror Worm, which is my favorite hell

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Speaker 1: Boy adventure. Well, all right, real quick, before we get

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Speaker 1: into the crazy science behind this, I'll give you a

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Speaker 1: little factoid. So it is a known thing within comics

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Speaker 1: industry that if you put this is back in the day,

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Speaker 1: if you put the color purple or an or and

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Speaker 1: an ape on the cover of your comic, it would

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Speaker 1: sell more copies. And so that was one of the

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Speaker 1: reasons why there were so many of these characters that

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Speaker 1: popped up at the time, is that they just they

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Speaker 1: don't know, you know, somehow the things correlated together to

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Speaker 1: higher sales. So they were constantly producing more gorilla grods

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Speaker 1: or cong guerrillas or whatever. So maybe there's somehow those

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Speaker 1: covers were just cutting in almost subconsciously to this u

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Speaker 1: to the post Darwinian um existential problem exact Man versus eight,

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Speaker 1: not not only in physical combat where we're going to lose,

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Speaker 1: but just in terms of identity. It's like, yeah, it was.

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Speaker 1: It's like the tabloid cover of its time that immediately

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Speaker 1: kind of put click something in your head and makes

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Speaker 1: you go, oh, I'm not quite right with that, but

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Speaker 1: I need to figure out what what danger it poses

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Speaker 1: to me. Yeah. Plus, I've also heard that in the

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Speaker 1: post Darwinian world, the idea of our be steal nature,

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Speaker 1: instead of being represented in the form of werewolves and um,

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Speaker 1: you know, another type of beast man like the gorilla

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Speaker 1: and the ape man, becomes the prime mold that makes

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Speaker 1: the steel human. Yeah, the fear of regressing back to

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Speaker 1: your primal nature beyond your rational one. So what better

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Speaker 1: for Superman. Superman has a valin. I believe his name

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Speaker 1: is Titano, the super Ape. Is he made of metal? No,

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Speaker 1: he's just a big ape with superpowers, I think? Or

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Speaker 1: so well again, by that point, all the names are

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Speaker 1: being used up. Yeah, exactly something So all right, let's

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Speaker 1: dive into this. Let's dive into the Darwinism, the the

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Speaker 1: eugenics behind it, the fear too. There's just a palpable

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Speaker 1: fear about this, so much so that scientists have actually

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Speaker 1: filed patents to try to keep this from happening. So

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Speaker 1: the filing of a of a patent just to make

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Speaker 1: sure nobody else actually engages in hybridization. Yeah, So in

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Speaker 1: developmental biologists, Stuart Newman, who at the time was working

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Speaker 1: at the New York Medical College in Valhalla, which sounds

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Speaker 1: like a pretty cool place to work, together with a

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Speaker 1: guy named Jeremy Rifkin, who is the president of the

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Speaker 1: Foundation of Economic Trends, which is based out of Washington,

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Speaker 1: d C. They submitted a patent for the chimera of

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Speaker 1: a human zy. So we'll explain what a chimera is,

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Speaker 1: shortly made from embryonic cells of humans and chimpanzees. And

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Speaker 1: the reason why they did this wasn't because they wanted

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Speaker 1: to create a human zy. It was because they wanted

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Speaker 1: to secure the patent because they wanted to prevent other

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Speaker 1: people from ever making a human Z and exploiting it.

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Speaker 1: In particular, they were worried about corporations, uh, somehow building

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Speaker 1: these human zies and like using them either for artificial organs,

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Speaker 1: as we'll talk about later, or or even for like

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Speaker 1: labor purposes. What happened was the patent was denied in

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Speaker 1: two thousand four by the Patent and Trademark Office. But

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Speaker 1: the rejection basically came because the government looked at it

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Speaker 1: and they said, well, this includes within its scope a

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Speaker 1: human being, which we can't legally patent a human being.

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Speaker 1: So in and of itself, they sort of defined by

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Speaker 1: law that trying to patent any kind end of species

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Speaker 1: creation that it involves human cross breeding is unpatentable. So

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Speaker 1: we'll see. I mean, if it ever comes to comes

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Speaker 1: to light that, you know, corporations do start designing human zase,

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Speaker 1: we'll see how that plays out in courts. But that's

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Speaker 1: an interesting point. Yeah, yeah, what can you say to

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Speaker 1: the resulting hybrid, I'm sorry, you're in violation of patent? Yeah, exactly.

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Speaker 1: And so Newman and uh and Riffkin, you know, they

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Speaker 1: basically their whole goal was just to start a debate,

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Speaker 1: right like, however it played out, I don't think they

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Speaker 1: particularly cared. They wanted the debate about what it means

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Speaker 1: to be human, uh, to actually get in there in

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Speaker 1: the legal you know jargon, especially when it came to

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Speaker 1: patenting organisms with human genes. And I don't know if

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Speaker 1: you remember this. It's funny because as we're recording this

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Speaker 1: last night with Barack Obama's last State of the Union speech,

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Speaker 1: but in two thousand six, President George W. Bush during

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Speaker 1: his State of the Union speech called for a ban

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Speaker 1: on human animal hyber I was I remember watching it,

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Speaker 1: and I mean this is ten years ago now, and

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Speaker 1: I remember watching it and thinking where did this come from?

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Speaker 1: It just it came out of nowhere, and I was like,

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Speaker 1: why is he worried about werewolves? And now I can

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Speaker 1: kind of see where the you know where, where the

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Speaker 1: origin of that came from. Clearly, Uh, the argument got

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Speaker 1: started by Newman. It's interesting to think of this in

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Speaker 1: terms of breaking the species barrier, which is a phrase

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Speaker 1: that I picked up in James Randerson's article in The

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Speaker 1: Guardian where he's talking about um Richard Dawkins proposing a

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Speaker 1: two thousand nine that the successful hybridization between a human

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Speaker 1: and a champanzee would would be something that would change everything,

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Speaker 1: a real a real game changer for for human civilization

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Speaker 1: if that makes sense along Dawkins line of research and

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Speaker 1: thought too. Yeah, attack that. So I definitely challenger you

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Speaker 1: want to keep thinking of this species barrier as we

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Speaker 1: as we move forward, because in a sense it is

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Speaker 1: a an artificial barrier, and since it is a but

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Speaker 1: it's but still a barrier that is carefully maintained, and

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Speaker 1: it has a lot to do with with not only

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Speaker 1: the biological reality of of who and what we are,

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Speaker 1: but also just are our existential understanding of Yeah. Absolutely, uh,

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Speaker 1: And I think that we're going to keep coming back

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Speaker 1: to that with these research. The research that we're exploring too,

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Speaker 1: is that that fear, that uh, confrontation of understanding of

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Speaker 1: what being human means kept coming back throughout these and

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Speaker 1: for good reason. Before we get into the like the

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Speaker 1: meat of it, though, I just wanted to add a

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Speaker 1: note here because I always have trouble with this and

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Speaker 1: I wanted to make sure that the audience was with us.

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Speaker 1: So chimpanzees, which would be you know, how we would

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Speaker 1: produce a human z They're not monkeys. Monkeys and great

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Speaker 1: apes are separate from one another. Right this It feels

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Speaker 1: like the Carl Pilkington, Uh, like I'm I'm, I'm Gervais

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Speaker 1: trying to explain to my inner Carl Pilkington. A great

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Speaker 1: eight is a chimpanzee, a gorilla, and orangutang, a bnobo

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Speaker 1: and potentially humans, right, And here's the distinction. They don't

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Speaker 1: have tails. They have larger bodies and bigger brains than monkeys.

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Speaker 1: They're built for different kinds of locomotion and this includes

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Speaker 1: walking by pedally on their legs like we do, but

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Speaker 1: also that swinging from branches that we think of. Right,

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Speaker 1: So the anatomy of great apes is their shoulder blades

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Speaker 1: are designed in such a way that allows that monkeys

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Speaker 1: can't necessarily do all those same things. So that's what

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Speaker 1: we're talking about here. And the distinction is important because

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Speaker 1: of you know, the definition of species and how close

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Speaker 1: we as human beings are too chimpanzees as a speeches

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Speaker 1: as a species. Yeah, As a regular zoo visitor with

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Speaker 1: my my son, this comes up a lot as I

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Speaker 1: hear other parents talk about the monkeys. At the monkey,

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Speaker 1: look at him, go look at And because that's the

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Speaker 1: other thing, like the gender of the the creature of

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Speaker 1: being viewed as always male, and I always want to

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Speaker 1: point out, do you see an elephant penis, because I

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Speaker 1: do not see an elephant penis. Yeah. Yeah, but that's

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Speaker 1: a that's a side tension. So let's do this. Let's

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Speaker 1: line up what a hybrid is and what a chimera

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Speaker 1: is so we can kind of define those before we

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Speaker 1: get into it. This is uh, you know, fertile stuff

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Speaker 1: to blow your mind ground. We've covered this on multiple

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Speaker 1: episodes before, but it's always good to have a primer. So,

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Speaker 1: hybrid animals are created when the genetic material from different

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Speaker 1: animals joined to form a single embryo. So a mule,

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Speaker 1: for example, is the offspring of female horse and a

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Speaker 1: male donkey. Every cell in the body of a mule

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Speaker 1: contains genetic material from both parents. Yeah, and as we'll

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Speaker 1: get into later, they're almost always infertile. Yeah, and if not,

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Speaker 1: other problems present. So chimeras are a little different in

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Speaker 1: that they are two different sets of DNA that originate

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Speaker 1: from the fusion of different zygoats or eggs. Right, So

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Speaker 1: the first one of these was created actually in nineteen

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Speaker 1: sixty one. That's uh quite a bit after a lot

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Speaker 1: of the research that we're gonna be talking about today.

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Speaker 1: At least the Russian research. Uh, and chimeras aren't always

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Speaker 1: a fifty fifty blend. The example I gave this in

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Speaker 1: the X Files episode I'll give it again here is

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Speaker 1: if you make a chimera of a sheep and a goat, Uh,

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Speaker 1: it's not gonna be like half sheep half goat, like

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Speaker 1: right down the middle. It's gonna look like a sheep maybe,

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Speaker 1: but the hair will feel like a goat, right, Like

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Speaker 1: it would be a little bit more briskly or chorus

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Speaker 1: than a sheep would be. Yeah, I mean, I've also

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Speaker 1: read that you could make an argument that an individual

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Speaker 1: who has animal tissue in their body, some sort of

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Speaker 1: a transplant, that they are technically a chimera, but obviously

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Speaker 1: not in a way that's really all that mythological and

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Speaker 1: monster right, yeah, well right in the term chimera comes

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Speaker 1: from the monstrous myth of what is it part dragon,

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Speaker 1: part lion, part eagle? Is that right? There's a goat

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Speaker 1: on the tail coat in there too, So it's a

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Speaker 1: mix of every everybody knows that monster from their D

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Speaker 1: and d adventures. Um. The monster frequently seen in the

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Speaker 1: Monster Manual, but I think rarely rolled out because it's

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Speaker 1: hard to get excited about something with a goat for

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Speaker 1: a tail. Yeah, it's just kind of a mishmash of

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Speaker 1: animals and a little bit of dragon in there. So

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Speaker 1: what do we mean when we say species too? That's important, right,

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Speaker 1: So most of us think, oh, a species is different

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Speaker 1: kinds of animals, right, that look alike, act alike, and

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Speaker 1: have babies together that follow the same paths that they do.

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Speaker 1: But to biologists, there's a difference. They have a phrase

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Speaker 1: biological species concept and by this they mean two animals

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Speaker 1: are only the same species if they can interbreed and

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Speaker 1: produce offspring that are fertile. So that's crucial, especially when

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Speaker 1: we're using the mule as the benchmark here, and it

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Speaker 1: leaves out a lot of the plant kingdom and even

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Speaker 1: some of the animal kingdom too. As we know from

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Speaker 1: talking about lots of parasites and things on the show,

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Speaker 1: there's plenty of beings species that can reproduced a sexually.

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Speaker 1: It's also worth noting that, as you know, as any

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Speaker 1: given lineage within the within the animal kingdom makes its

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Speaker 1: way across time, worms its way through the centuries, there's

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Speaker 1: um there's a divergence. So you have you have what

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Speaker 1: was once one species gradually become two species or more species,

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Speaker 1: and some of those of those branches die off, others thrived,

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Speaker 1: but there can still remain the ability for those branches

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Speaker 1: to reconverge ive only temporarily in the form of a hybrid. Well,

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Speaker 1: it's funny that you mentioned that, because actually one of

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Speaker 1: the studies that I read for this was from two

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Speaker 1: thousand six h Scientists at the Broad Institute in Cambridge,

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Speaker 1: mass Massachusetts released a study where they were comparing human

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Speaker 1: and primate genomes down to the letters of each base pair,

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Speaker 1: and they came to the following conclusion, which is right

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Speaker 1: in line with what you just said, Robert, Chimps and

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Speaker 1: humans likely diverged from the same ev oucetionary tree six

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Speaker 1: point three million years ago. Now that's actually a lot

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Speaker 1: more recent than was previously thought. Also, early humans and

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Speaker 1: chimps probably interbred with each other for four million years

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Speaker 1: before they split as species for good. So all of

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Speaker 1: you out there that are really uncomfortable with that idea,

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Speaker 1: our species are, or I guess like our proto human

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Speaker 1: ancestors were breeding with chimpanzees for four million years. That's

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Speaker 1: a that's a likely possibility based on this study, So

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Speaker 1: that implies not only are we descended from human zis,

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Speaker 1: but like you said, it's possible we will become human

425
00:23:38,800 --> 00:23:42,119
Speaker 1: zies again. Yeah. And you know, and also when you

426
00:23:42,200 --> 00:23:45,760
Speaker 1: go back into and look at archaic forms of humanity,

427
00:23:46,040 --> 00:23:49,240
Speaker 1: uh that you know, strip away the human taboos and

428
00:23:49,240 --> 00:23:51,159
Speaker 1: and we have to remember that that humans have have

429
00:23:51,240 --> 00:23:55,720
Speaker 1: reread with other species as well. Um. Neanderthal genome mapping

430
00:23:55,760 --> 00:23:59,080
Speaker 1: provides strong evidence to humans and Neanderthals in her bread

431
00:23:59,520 --> 00:24:02,520
Speaker 1: between one and four percent of DNA of many humans

432
00:24:02,560 --> 00:24:05,879
Speaker 1: living today likely came from Neandertala's. People of European and

433
00:24:05,920 --> 00:24:09,800
Speaker 1: Asian heritage, especially, I'm more likely to carry those genes. Um.

434
00:24:09,920 --> 00:24:13,000
Speaker 1: And there's some studies that that support the idea that

435
00:24:13,119 --> 00:24:15,560
Speaker 1: such interbreeding may have made is stronger. We pick up

436
00:24:16,600 --> 00:24:19,960
Speaker 1: some of the strengths of this slightly alien species that

437
00:24:20,040 --> 00:24:22,560
Speaker 1: we're breeding with. You know, it's not it's not all

438
00:24:22,640 --> 00:24:24,960
Speaker 1: completely cut and dry. Experts go back and forth on

439
00:24:25,000 --> 00:24:26,959
Speaker 1: the matter, but but there does seem to be compelling

440
00:24:27,000 --> 00:24:30,640
Speaker 1: evidence to suggest that a certain amount of it occurred. Um.

441
00:24:31,080 --> 00:24:35,200
Speaker 1: So in our in an archaic sense, interbreeding definitely occurred,

442
00:24:35,280 --> 00:24:39,080
Speaker 1: and a lot of us are the hybrid results of that. Yeah,

443
00:24:39,080 --> 00:24:40,880
Speaker 1: and so I guess there's just some kind of like

444
00:24:41,040 --> 00:24:46,480
Speaker 1: uh uh like inner guilt that we're all carrying around. Maybe, Yeah,

445
00:24:46,720 --> 00:24:48,359
Speaker 1: you could you can make an argument there. I guess

446
00:24:48,359 --> 00:24:52,320
Speaker 1: that it's some sort of uh, you know, a species

447
00:24:52,960 --> 00:24:56,520
Speaker 1: a guilt that remains because of some uh slightly weird

448
00:24:56,640 --> 00:24:59,520
Speaker 1: romantic trips back in the back of the day. Yeah,

449
00:25:00,040 --> 00:25:02,719
Speaker 1: this brings us back around to the idea of the humanzie,

450
00:25:02,760 --> 00:25:07,960
Speaker 1: the idea of humans and chimpanzees or some other um

451
00:25:08,240 --> 00:25:15,960
Speaker 1: notable um um great ape species. Yeah, I think implied

452
00:25:16,080 --> 00:25:19,600
Speaker 1: just based on any great ape slash human pairing, right,

453
00:25:19,600 --> 00:25:23,000
Speaker 1: it's not necessarily chimpanzees. Yeah, And a lot of experts

454
00:25:23,000 --> 00:25:25,040
Speaker 1: have have commented on this and continued to comment on

455
00:25:25,080 --> 00:25:28,840
Speaker 1: this um uh. Jeffrey Borne, director of the the Yurkeys

456
00:25:28,880 --> 00:25:32,200
Speaker 1: Primate Center here in Atlanta, one of the founding fathers

457
00:25:32,240 --> 00:25:35,479
Speaker 1: of the Federal Program of Primate Research, wrote the following

458
00:25:35,480 --> 00:25:39,280
Speaker 1: in nine quote, there seems to be very little physiological

459
00:25:39,320 --> 00:25:42,520
Speaker 1: reason why artificial instamination could not be used between man

460
00:25:42,560 --> 00:25:45,080
Speaker 1: and the apes with the possibility that a viable child

461
00:25:45,160 --> 00:25:48,080
Speaker 1: might be reproduced, and it is surprising that this type

462
00:25:48,080 --> 00:25:52,160
Speaker 1: of hybridization has not in fact already taken place. Yeah,

463
00:25:52,200 --> 00:25:54,879
Speaker 1: So now I'm fascinated because I've lived here for almost

464
00:25:54,880 --> 00:25:56,800
Speaker 1: ten years, You've lived here for longer than that. I've

465
00:25:56,880 --> 00:25:59,840
Speaker 1: never heard of or been to this place. So in

466
00:26:00,119 --> 00:26:02,959
Speaker 1: find and then the news occasionally, and I feel like

467
00:26:03,400 --> 00:26:06,120
Speaker 1: there's a friend of a friend who worked there. But

468
00:26:06,119 --> 00:26:08,800
Speaker 1: but yeah, I don't know a tremendous amount about the facility.

469
00:26:08,840 --> 00:26:10,520
Speaker 1: Seems like it would be a great resource for us

470
00:26:10,560 --> 00:26:13,199
Speaker 1: for future episodes. Maybe we'll look into it. If anybody

471
00:26:13,200 --> 00:26:15,400
Speaker 1: out there works there, let us know. Now we could

472
00:26:15,480 --> 00:26:19,200
Speaker 1: rattle off other individuals who have commented about the possibility

473
00:26:19,560 --> 00:26:24,480
Speaker 1: and varying degrees of fear or wonder. But really the

474
00:26:24,800 --> 00:26:27,199
Speaker 1: best place to go from here is to the study

475
00:26:27,280 --> 00:26:32,480
Speaker 1: of a man who tried dearly and it nearly succeeded.

476
00:26:32,760 --> 00:26:36,040
Speaker 1: It feels like in carrying out such an experiment, we're

477
00:26:36,080 --> 00:26:43,120
Speaker 1: talking about Russian biologist Ilia Ivanov Ivanovitch ivan Off. Yeah,

478
00:26:43,240 --> 00:26:47,800
Speaker 1: also known as the Red Frankenstein. Well, if I don't

479
00:26:47,800 --> 00:26:50,480
Speaker 1: think at the time of his life he has known

480
00:26:50,520 --> 00:26:55,000
Speaker 1: that way. But when these stories broke Originally, my understanding

481
00:26:55,040 --> 00:26:57,439
Speaker 1: is that there were some Russian documents that were found,

482
00:26:57,520 --> 00:27:02,680
Speaker 1: technical documents about his work they are found and translated

483
00:27:02,760 --> 00:27:04,919
Speaker 1: and kind of made a flurry like maybe in the

484
00:27:04,920 --> 00:27:08,719
Speaker 1: eighties or nineties, and the meaning this the Red Frankenstein

485
00:27:08,760 --> 00:27:11,960
Speaker 1: thing is important to to to discuss here and sort

486
00:27:11,960 --> 00:27:14,160
Speaker 1: of keeps separate from the real ivan Off, because there's

487
00:27:14,160 --> 00:27:16,240
Speaker 1: the real ivan Off who were going to discuss in detail,

488
00:27:16,760 --> 00:27:19,840
Speaker 1: and then there's the Red Frankenstein ivanof which very much

489
00:27:20,240 --> 00:27:25,840
Speaker 1: stems from um from particularly in early nineteen nineties, when

490
00:27:26,240 --> 00:27:31,119
Speaker 1: certain individuals picked up on these existing documents. So sometimes

491
00:27:31,400 --> 00:27:35,000
Speaker 1: they're misconstrued as having been um uh, you know, top

492
00:27:35,040 --> 00:27:38,680
Speaker 1: secret KGB documents, But in reality, it sounds like these

493
00:27:38,720 --> 00:27:42,280
Speaker 1: were all documents that were readily available in Russian either

494
00:27:42,400 --> 00:27:48,880
Speaker 1: at the Suitcomb Russian Primate Center or in um Ivanoff's

495
00:27:48,920 --> 00:27:53,119
Speaker 1: own you know, personal correspondences and records, his own archive,

496
00:27:53,359 --> 00:27:55,879
Speaker 1: so that the material wasn't new, but suddenly new eyes

497
00:27:55,880 --> 00:28:00,240
Speaker 1: were on them and it started spinning off varying holes

498
00:28:00,280 --> 00:28:04,679
Speaker 1: of unbelievable uh uh you know, modern urban myth about

499
00:28:04,720 --> 00:28:07,240
Speaker 1: what he was up to. Yeah, And so as we

500
00:28:07,280 --> 00:28:10,160
Speaker 1: approached the research for this to bring it to you,

501
00:28:10,680 --> 00:28:14,520
Speaker 1: we tried to be very careful about distinguishing the real

502
00:28:14,680 --> 00:28:17,879
Speaker 1: from the myth. With this guy uh. And you know,

503
00:28:18,320 --> 00:28:20,840
Speaker 1: our best resource for this is actually an academic paper

504
00:28:20,880 --> 00:28:25,520
Speaker 1: that came out in two thousand two by historian Careel Rosianoff,

505
00:28:26,000 --> 00:28:28,160
Speaker 1: and it was published in Science and Context. It's called

506
00:28:28,160 --> 00:28:31,800
Speaker 1: Beyond Species Ilia Ivanof and his Experiments on cross breeding

507
00:28:31,880 --> 00:28:34,960
Speaker 1: humans with anthropoid apes. And I think the crucial bit

508
00:28:35,000 --> 00:28:40,360
Speaker 1: there is that Rosianoff spoke Russian and thus was able

509
00:28:40,400 --> 00:28:43,440
Speaker 1: to actually read the documents firsthand and translate them and

510
00:28:43,480 --> 00:28:46,080
Speaker 1: give us something a little bit as close to a

511
00:28:46,120 --> 00:28:50,040
Speaker 1: primary source as possible for US English speakers. And whereas

512
00:28:50,120 --> 00:28:52,240
Speaker 1: like the articles that were showing up in the Chicago

513
00:28:52,280 --> 00:28:55,480
Speaker 1: Tribune and and and other like fairly reputable sources were

514
00:28:55,480 --> 00:28:58,719
Speaker 1: a little out there and extrapolated in their terms of

515
00:28:58,760 --> 00:29:03,640
Speaker 1: like him making super soldier super soldier apes for stallar

516
00:29:03,720 --> 00:29:07,520
Speaker 1: sort of thing. Another source that I really liked was

517
00:29:07,760 --> 00:29:11,200
Speaker 1: the paper the Russian Primate Research Center A Survivor, and

518
00:29:11,240 --> 00:29:14,760
Speaker 1: this was by Dr m M. P. Fridman, and this

519
00:29:14,800 --> 00:29:17,080
Speaker 1: is that he was the former chief of the Laboratory

520
00:29:17,120 --> 00:29:21,680
Speaker 1: of Informational Analysis in Medical Primatology of the Russian Primate

521
00:29:21,840 --> 00:29:24,520
Speaker 1: Center at Sukhum, which is which is gonna be a

522
00:29:24,520 --> 00:29:27,560
Speaker 1: place We're gonna discuss linked there and it was also

523
00:29:27,560 --> 00:29:29,840
Speaker 1: and it was co authored by Dr Douglas M. Bowden,

524
00:29:30,120 --> 00:29:33,880
Speaker 1: m D. Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences UH and

525
00:29:34,040 --> 00:29:37,400
Speaker 1: core staff scientist at the National Primate Research Center at

526
00:29:37,400 --> 00:29:41,040
Speaker 1: the University of Washington and Seattle so UM and and

527
00:29:41,080 --> 00:29:44,760
Speaker 1: their paper was what was he was even more skeptical

528
00:29:44,800 --> 00:29:46,720
Speaker 1: than most of the material that have looked at. And

529
00:29:46,720 --> 00:29:51,000
Speaker 1: I thought, thoughts supplied a wonderful breath of fresh air

530
00:29:51,640 --> 00:29:54,840
Speaker 1: amid so many papers that that tended to to get

531
00:29:54,880 --> 00:29:58,920
Speaker 1: into that red Frankenstein territory. Yeah, So I guess we

532
00:29:58,920 --> 00:30:02,400
Speaker 1: should start with just a general kind of abstract overview

533
00:30:02,600 --> 00:30:07,040
Speaker 1: of the Ivanoff story, which is that Ivanof was funded

534
00:30:07,080 --> 00:30:09,600
Speaker 1: by the Russian government. They gave him about two hundred

535
00:30:09,680 --> 00:30:12,400
Speaker 1: thousand dollars to find out if it was possible to

536
00:30:12,480 --> 00:30:16,920
Speaker 1: create a human z uh. And so he went to

537
00:30:17,080 --> 00:30:20,120
Speaker 1: the past Tour Institute in France, where I believe that

538
00:30:20,160 --> 00:30:24,080
Speaker 1: he had had some training previously, and used their primary

539
00:30:24,320 --> 00:30:30,120
Speaker 1: primate facility in Kannakery, Guinea to conduct his experiments. And

540
00:30:30,160 --> 00:30:36,200
Speaker 1: in ninety six he had artificially impregnated three chimpanzees, but

541
00:30:36,320 --> 00:30:39,520
Speaker 1: the experiment failed and by sorry, I should clarify he

542
00:30:39,640 --> 00:30:45,200
Speaker 1: artificially impregnated three chimpanzees, female chimpanzees with human sperm. Well

543
00:30:45,240 --> 00:30:48,680
Speaker 1: he had, he attempted, attempted to, didn't. There's no evidence

544
00:30:48,720 --> 00:30:53,240
Speaker 1: that any of those pregnancies actually that anything actually right there.

545
00:30:53,400 --> 00:30:55,400
Speaker 1: Um and in fact, one of them died on the

546
00:30:55,400 --> 00:31:00,280
Speaker 1: way back to uh to Russia and to the than

547
00:31:00,440 --> 00:31:05,040
Speaker 1: necropsy performed on the specimen that showed no sign of pregnancy.

548
00:31:05,160 --> 00:31:08,080
Speaker 1: See so so and this is this is out of

549
00:31:08,280 --> 00:31:11,240
Speaker 1: the Scotsman in two thousand five, that they were the

550
00:31:11,240 --> 00:31:14,120
Speaker 1: ones reporting on this. Uh and so again like we're

551
00:31:14,120 --> 00:31:17,400
Speaker 1: gonna try to parse out the truth from the fiction here.

552
00:31:17,960 --> 00:31:20,040
Speaker 1: Um well, I guess one of the important things to

553
00:31:20,080 --> 00:31:22,720
Speaker 1: sort of start at the beginning of where guy came from,

554
00:31:22,880 --> 00:31:27,000
Speaker 1: um so to his background, where he really initially made

555
00:31:27,000 --> 00:31:31,640
Speaker 1: his name was in artificial instamination, particularly in the veterinary sciences,

556
00:31:32,160 --> 00:31:35,160
Speaker 1: experimenting with with cows and horses in the like very

557
00:31:35,240 --> 00:31:40,640
Speaker 1: real world practical applications. Uh. But and this was like

558
00:31:40,720 --> 00:31:43,760
Speaker 1: this is you know, in the nineteen twenties, Okay, right

559
00:31:43,800 --> 00:31:47,760
Speaker 1: around the same time Lovecraft's writing yeah story, and he

560
00:31:47,840 --> 00:31:50,960
Speaker 1: was a big fan of artificial instamination and he figured

561
00:31:51,000 --> 00:31:54,160
Speaker 1: it would allow hybridization among a wide variety of species.

562
00:31:54,680 --> 00:31:57,640
Speaker 1: But in and we see the first inkling of this,

563
00:31:58,040 --> 00:32:01,560
Speaker 1: this idea to create a chimp hybrid at the International

564
00:32:01,640 --> 00:32:06,560
Speaker 1: Zoology Congress uh in Graz and nineteen ten, and this

565
00:32:06,600 --> 00:32:08,840
Speaker 1: is where he mentions it as a possibility. But there's

566
00:32:08,880 --> 00:32:12,400
Speaker 1: no there's no inkling that he was actually planning anything.

567
00:32:12,440 --> 00:32:15,200
Speaker 1: It's just kind of like, hey, you could artificial intimination

568
00:32:15,320 --> 00:32:17,200
Speaker 1: is great, you could even use it on a jump

569
00:32:17,200 --> 00:32:18,680
Speaker 1: in a human. Yeah, I mean he didn't even have

570
00:32:18,720 --> 00:32:22,240
Speaker 1: access to the resources to begin conducting experiments like this then,

571
00:32:22,720 --> 00:32:24,800
Speaker 1: I mean, really what he was focusing on then was

572
00:32:25,400 --> 00:32:32,120
Speaker 1: creating superior horses exactly. Yeah. But then around this is

573
00:32:32,160 --> 00:32:35,880
Speaker 1: during the revolution, many Russian scientists are losing their patrons

574
00:32:35,920 --> 00:32:39,120
Speaker 1: and their support systems. They're forced to abandon old research,

575
00:32:39,440 --> 00:32:42,880
Speaker 1: find new avenues, find new spins on their particular area

576
00:32:42,880 --> 00:32:47,520
Speaker 1: of expertise, and so in a in several letters written

577
00:32:47,560 --> 00:32:52,360
Speaker 1: to the American biologist Raymond Pearl, ivan Off indicates that

578
00:32:52,440 --> 00:32:54,760
Speaker 1: he's thinking more and more about experiments on apes, and

579
00:32:54,800 --> 00:33:00,760
Speaker 1: in particular about hybridization between between man and chimpanzee. And

580
00:33:00,800 --> 00:33:05,280
Speaker 1: then we see him discussing the possibility with the scientists

581
00:33:05,280 --> 00:33:09,080
Speaker 1: at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, and it kind of

582
00:33:09,120 --> 00:33:11,080
Speaker 1: builds up from there. Right, he begins talking to folks,

583
00:33:11,120 --> 00:33:14,560
Speaker 1: he begins talking up this idea, he begins winning some

584
00:33:14,640 --> 00:33:19,440
Speaker 1: support here and there among particularly among individuals at the

585
00:33:19,480 --> 00:33:22,800
Speaker 1: Russian Science Academy. Yeah, and so we'll get into this.

586
00:33:22,880 --> 00:33:25,120
Speaker 1: I think it's best to maybe approach it after we

587
00:33:25,200 --> 00:33:28,480
Speaker 1: go through the history of Ivanov. There are multiple reasons

588
00:33:28,560 --> 00:33:31,720
Speaker 1: why he may have approached this research, right. It may

589
00:33:31,720 --> 00:33:33,760
Speaker 1: not just have been oh, let's just make a half

590
00:33:33,800 --> 00:33:39,320
Speaker 1: man half chimpanzee, right, right, So their political possibilities, uh,

591
00:33:39,960 --> 00:33:44,800
Speaker 1: really weird devious possibilities for old men and their sexual rejuvenation.

592
00:33:45,480 --> 00:33:47,640
Speaker 1: But we'll get into that after we finished the history

593
00:33:47,680 --> 00:33:50,600
Speaker 1: on him. Yeah, and even there's also it's worth noting that,

594
00:33:50,760 --> 00:33:53,000
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's there's the work you do as

595
00:33:53,000 --> 00:33:55,240
Speaker 1: a scientist, and there's how you sell it, how you

596
00:33:55,280 --> 00:33:58,480
Speaker 1: get funded, and then just how your approach to a

597
00:33:58,520 --> 00:34:02,080
Speaker 1: particular area of research. Really, something is as powerful as

598
00:34:02,120 --> 00:34:05,640
Speaker 1: this may change over time the closer you get to it,

599
00:34:05,840 --> 00:34:10,760
Speaker 1: and as you're exposed to different cultural attitudes concerning your uh,

600
00:34:10,880 --> 00:34:15,319
Speaker 1: the individuals and the creatures that you're going to experiment upon. Yeah,

601
00:34:15,360 --> 00:34:19,200
Speaker 1: it's especially interesting to see as Ivanov goes from Russia

602
00:34:19,280 --> 00:34:21,920
Speaker 1: to France to Africa, and then at one point you

603
00:34:21,960 --> 00:34:26,880
Speaker 1: even approached supposedly an American uh woman who just was

604
00:34:27,040 --> 00:34:29,200
Speaker 1: extremely wealthy, to see if she would back him up

605
00:34:29,239 --> 00:34:34,279
Speaker 1: with resources, and the different cultural resonance and response to

606
00:34:34,680 --> 00:34:37,960
Speaker 1: his his research from all of those areas is is

607
00:34:38,160 --> 00:34:44,799
Speaker 1: very very fascinating. Yeah, that uh rosaninof article again Beyond Species.

608
00:34:45,719 --> 00:34:48,240
Speaker 1: It's the it's out there. It's available behind a paywall

609
00:34:48,280 --> 00:34:49,880
Speaker 1: if you want to pay forty bucks for it. It

610
00:34:50,040 --> 00:34:52,239
Speaker 1: is uh it's a great paper that goes into a

611
00:34:52,320 --> 00:34:56,080
Speaker 1: lot of depth about the particularly about the cultural attitudes

612
00:34:56,120 --> 00:34:58,800
Speaker 1: that are surrounding all these different pieces. Like, for instance,

613
00:34:58,840 --> 00:35:01,960
Speaker 1: he goes into how on one hand, he ends up

614
00:35:01,960 --> 00:35:04,960
Speaker 1: going to Africa and he's engaging in you know, very

615
00:35:05,200 --> 00:35:12,680
Speaker 1: very racist imperial ideologies concerning the local population and ultimately

616
00:35:12,719 --> 00:35:17,000
Speaker 1: concerning apes as well. But at the same time he's

617
00:35:17,160 --> 00:35:19,719
Speaker 1: he's received letters from the Kluflux Klan telling him not

618
00:35:19,800 --> 00:35:25,040
Speaker 1: to come to America. It's so he's I'm surprised that

619
00:35:25,080 --> 00:35:27,680
Speaker 1: he was on their radar. Yeah, because I mean, he's

620
00:35:27,719 --> 00:35:30,160
Speaker 1: writing around about it. The stuff his work is making

621
00:35:30,200 --> 00:35:32,919
Speaker 1: headlines and and pissing people off even at the time.

622
00:35:34,480 --> 00:35:37,319
Speaker 1: But but yeah, back to this sort of the talking days.

623
00:35:37,680 --> 00:35:40,240
Speaker 1: So he ends up making a number of friends, uh,

624
00:35:40,640 --> 00:35:43,040
Speaker 1: in the in the government at the time, people who

625
00:35:43,440 --> 00:35:45,960
Speaker 1: who think that if nothing else, they may not be

626
00:35:46,080 --> 00:35:49,120
Speaker 1: that into the particulars of his research. Go. But that

627
00:35:49,480 --> 00:35:53,520
Speaker 1: but the idea of Russian scientists going to Africa carrying

628
00:35:53,520 --> 00:35:57,040
Speaker 1: out some sort of big scientific expedition, that sounds good.

629
00:35:57,080 --> 00:36:00,640
Speaker 1: That sounds like good pr for the Soviet Union. We'll

630
00:36:00,680 --> 00:36:03,480
Speaker 1: see this in other episodes where we've we've talked about,

631
00:36:03,719 --> 00:36:08,520
Speaker 1: you know, early twenty century Russian science too. There seemed

632
00:36:08,520 --> 00:36:11,120
Speaker 1: to be just a motivation to get out there and

633
00:36:11,200 --> 00:36:15,319
Speaker 1: do it right, to try to break boundaries and make headlines. Yeah,

634
00:36:15,360 --> 00:36:18,280
Speaker 1: and it does seem that he also factored religion into

635
00:36:18,280 --> 00:36:21,279
Speaker 1: his early pitches for it, to say that, hey, we

636
00:36:21,320 --> 00:36:24,160
Speaker 1: want to you know, religion, is this this this horrible

637
00:36:24,280 --> 00:36:28,400
Speaker 1: force in the modern world. We want to completely remove

638
00:36:28,480 --> 00:36:30,920
Speaker 1: it from from the you know, the higher levels of

639
00:36:31,200 --> 00:36:36,560
Speaker 1: modern civilization. This is a great project to help convince everyone.

640
00:36:36,680 --> 00:36:39,400
Speaker 1: What better way to get two thousand dollars from the Bolsheviks,

641
00:36:39,920 --> 00:36:42,120
Speaker 1: and then of course once he once he actually gets funding,

642
00:36:42,160 --> 00:36:45,600
Speaker 1: he stops talking about the religion angle because ultimately that

643
00:36:45,600 --> 00:36:47,719
Speaker 1: that seems to be less on his radar. He's more

644
00:36:47,760 --> 00:36:51,680
Speaker 1: focused on on the scientific frontier here and his explored

645
00:36:51,719 --> 00:36:55,480
Speaker 1: in Beyond Species that there doesn't seem to be a

646
00:36:55,480 --> 00:36:58,399
Speaker 1: lot of discussion of ethics at the time. Um, he's

647
00:36:58,520 --> 00:37:00,640
Speaker 1: he's already he's talking about basically, we're gonna I want

648
00:37:00,640 --> 00:37:03,680
Speaker 1: to go to Africa, I want to engage, to engage

649
00:37:03,680 --> 00:37:07,680
Speaker 1: with these apes and are officially inseminate a female primate

650
00:37:08,000 --> 00:37:10,960
Speaker 1: with with human sperm. He didn't have an i RB

651
00:37:11,160 --> 00:37:14,200
Speaker 1: that he had to answer to and fill out ethical

652
00:37:14,880 --> 00:37:17,799
Speaker 1: forms before he conducted his experiments. Yeah, there seems to

653
00:37:17,840 --> 00:37:21,239
Speaker 1: be some some notion that there were some critical rumblings

654
00:37:21,280 --> 00:37:24,319
Speaker 1: and sort of rumors already, like not everyone who heard

655
00:37:24,320 --> 00:37:26,680
Speaker 1: about this thought it sounded great, but it wasn't enough

656
00:37:26,719 --> 00:37:30,680
Speaker 1: to actually derail the efforts. So, as you previously mentioned,

657
00:37:30,719 --> 00:37:34,120
Speaker 1: he had already made friends with the Pasteur Institute. So

658
00:37:34,360 --> 00:37:36,200
Speaker 1: that's what he does. He sets out to the to

659
00:37:36,280 --> 00:37:39,359
Speaker 1: the primate center there in French Guiana and sets about

660
00:37:39,360 --> 00:37:41,919
Speaker 1: trying to carry out this work right and so one

661
00:37:41,920 --> 00:37:44,480
Speaker 1: of his major goals is to get ahold of as

662
00:37:44,520 --> 00:37:46,879
Speaker 1: many chimpanzees as possible so he can bring them back

663
00:37:46,880 --> 00:37:50,560
Speaker 1: to Russia. Right, Yeah, and well ultimately, but during this

664
00:37:50,640 --> 00:37:52,719
Speaker 1: initial phase, it's all about we're going to carry this

665
00:37:52,760 --> 00:37:57,080
Speaker 1: out here. We're gonna we're gonna inseminate female. Question where

666
00:37:57,120 --> 00:38:00,600
Speaker 1: the human sperm came from. Yes, according to zian Off,

667
00:38:00,600 --> 00:38:02,320
Speaker 1: they seem to have been very clear on that matter,

668
00:38:02,400 --> 00:38:04,879
Speaker 1: that that it was not diving Off nor his son,

669
00:38:04,960 --> 00:38:07,840
Speaker 1: both of whom were traveling from UM. But there are

670
00:38:07,840 --> 00:38:10,959
Speaker 1: a number of problems that that immediately pop up. First

671
00:38:11,000 --> 00:38:13,880
Speaker 1: of all, at this primate research center. This is you know,

672
00:38:13,960 --> 00:38:17,400
Speaker 1: don't don't go into this expecting a modern primate research center.

673
00:38:17,600 --> 00:38:21,799
Speaker 1: In order to obtain specimens, it involved local hunters going

674
00:38:21,840 --> 00:38:27,600
Speaker 1: out killing adult chimpanzees and bringing back the babies. So,

675
00:38:28,000 --> 00:38:30,839
Speaker 1: on one hand, the primates that he was working with,

676
00:38:31,280 --> 00:38:35,160
Speaker 1: we're almost all prepubescent, so that was going to prevent

677
00:38:35,200 --> 00:38:38,600
Speaker 1: this from from happening. Also, the conditions were not great

678
00:38:38,719 --> 00:38:42,440
Speaker 1: and and and you know, surprise, surprise. In order for primates,

679
00:38:42,840 --> 00:38:46,480
Speaker 1: particularly chimpanzees, to successfully breed, they need to be in

680
00:38:46,560 --> 00:38:49,600
Speaker 1: at least semi comfortable surroundings, I know, like you hear

681
00:38:49,640 --> 00:38:52,080
Speaker 1: about like today, like when they're trying to get pandas

682
00:38:52,120 --> 00:38:55,759
Speaker 1: to breed, it's like you know, pulling teeth because they

683
00:38:55,800 --> 00:38:58,160
Speaker 1: have to be like very comfortable and at ease with

684
00:38:58,200 --> 00:39:01,359
Speaker 1: their surroundings. And can you imagine the situation that these

685
00:39:01,440 --> 00:39:04,480
Speaker 1: chimpanzees have had their family murder, They've been kidnapped and

686
00:39:04,520 --> 00:39:07,880
Speaker 1: dragged over to this weird facility that can't imagine had

687
00:39:08,040 --> 00:39:12,760
Speaker 1: very modern equipment or facilities. Yeah, and and it sounds

688
00:39:12,760 --> 00:39:15,040
Speaker 1: like the handling of the animals was also really rough

689
00:39:15,200 --> 00:39:18,600
Speaker 1: and it was dangerous work dealing with them. Ivanov's son

690
00:39:18,800 --> 00:39:21,320
Speaker 1: was apparently severely bitten on the hand and had to

691
00:39:21,360 --> 00:39:24,719
Speaker 1: go to the UH seek medical tension over it, and

692
00:39:24,840 --> 00:39:29,000
Speaker 1: UH in the whole time, Rosianov argues, they seem to

693
00:39:29,040 --> 00:39:33,719
Speaker 1: be treating the chimps a little extra harsh, perhaps in

694
00:39:33,880 --> 00:39:38,560
Speaker 1: order to establish more psychic distance between human and chimpanzee,

695
00:39:38,560 --> 00:39:41,759
Speaker 1: because of what they're trying to do about this offspring

696
00:39:41,840 --> 00:39:44,239
Speaker 1: that they have. I mean, really, he's he had such

697
00:39:44,280 --> 00:39:47,520
Speaker 1: a supporter of this idea and the powers of artificial exsemination.

698
00:39:47,680 --> 00:39:49,680
Speaker 1: I mean, he considers it to be a done deal.

699
00:39:49,719 --> 00:39:51,880
Speaker 1: They're going to create this offspring and bring it back.

700
00:39:52,080 --> 00:39:54,160
Speaker 1: And but how's he going to feel about that? What's

701
00:39:54,200 --> 00:39:57,000
Speaker 1: fascinating about that is like even ivanof who was like

702
00:39:57,080 --> 00:40:00,400
Speaker 1: a dent behind this, this was his baby, no pun tented.

703
00:40:01,000 --> 00:40:05,280
Speaker 1: Uh he he even seems to have carried that inner

704
00:40:05,760 --> 00:40:09,720
Speaker 1: fear of the species coming too close together. Right, Yeah,

705
00:40:10,120 --> 00:40:13,479
Speaker 1: so he kept emotional distance, but the pregnancies don't seem

706
00:40:13,520 --> 00:40:15,640
Speaker 1: to take hold. He's growing more and more frustrated with

707
00:40:15,719 --> 00:40:18,440
Speaker 1: just how difficult this is, and so he begins to

708
00:40:18,480 --> 00:40:21,279
Speaker 1: think about flipping, uh, the scenario. Right, so we're going

709
00:40:21,360 --> 00:40:22,960
Speaker 1: to go the other way around. Now, we're going to

710
00:40:23,040 --> 00:40:27,040
Speaker 1: impregnate a human woman with chimpanzee sperm. Right. And he

711
00:40:27,080 --> 00:40:30,920
Speaker 1: seems to approach this in a very cold and calculating way,

712
00:40:30,960 --> 00:40:32,959
Speaker 1: and like very very much, I don't want to maybe

713
00:40:32,960 --> 00:40:35,799
Speaker 1: not cold and calculating, but his mind seems to be

714
00:40:35,840 --> 00:40:39,680
Speaker 1: firmly placed on the scientific goal here. And uh, and

715
00:40:39,760 --> 00:40:42,200
Speaker 1: so if it's if it's extremely difficult and dangerous to

716
00:40:42,200 --> 00:40:45,440
Speaker 1: deal with the chimp, better to deal with the human, right,

717
00:40:45,640 --> 00:40:48,360
Speaker 1: because he's also experimented, you can just shoot the chump,

718
00:40:48,400 --> 00:40:51,360
Speaker 1: a male chump. You can then get sperm from the

719
00:40:51,960 --> 00:40:57,560
Speaker 1: corpse and use that viable sperm in artificial insemination. So wait,

720
00:40:57,960 --> 00:41:01,560
Speaker 1: was he planning on telling the human woman what he

721
00:41:01,680 --> 00:41:04,799
Speaker 1: was going to be putting insider? That's that's where this

722
00:41:04,840 --> 00:41:09,640
Speaker 1: gets really ethically shady, is that he apparently figured, all right,

723
00:41:09,719 --> 00:41:12,279
Speaker 1: the best way to do this is to also not

724
00:41:12,520 --> 00:41:16,120
Speaker 1: have the local woman, because that's the other thing. That's

725
00:41:16,120 --> 00:41:19,200
Speaker 1: where you get into into a lot of the racist

726
00:41:19,440 --> 00:41:24,759
Speaker 1: imperial attitudes toward toward local Africans. Um he begins to think, well,

727
00:41:24,800 --> 00:41:26,200
Speaker 1: the best way to do this is just to not

728
00:41:26,280 --> 00:41:29,279
Speaker 1: tell her what you've done, because that's going to just

729
00:41:29,480 --> 00:41:33,040
Speaker 1: endanger the whole process even more. And this is where

730
00:41:33,040 --> 00:41:36,600
Speaker 1: we come to conakry, okay, because this is where he

731
00:41:36,640 --> 00:41:39,320
Speaker 1: tries to set this up. He had on the way

732
00:41:39,560 --> 00:41:43,920
Speaker 1: to Guienna in November, he started talking to a feller

733
00:41:43,960 --> 00:41:47,360
Speaker 1: to traveler, a doctor Dupey, who was head of the

734
00:41:47,360 --> 00:41:51,120
Speaker 1: Colonial Health Service UH in the area, and he ended

735
00:41:51,200 --> 00:41:54,560
Speaker 1: up inquiring with this guy for permission to inseminate native

736
00:41:54,600 --> 00:41:58,120
Speaker 1: women with chimpanzee sperm in a hospital in the Congo

737
00:41:58,480 --> 00:42:02,040
Speaker 1: without their knowledge or scent, as a means to streamline

738
00:42:02,080 --> 00:42:06,840
Speaker 1: the process and um and apparently permission was initially granted,

739
00:42:07,680 --> 00:42:09,920
Speaker 1: uh and he and he was all. They were going

740
00:42:09,960 --> 00:42:12,279
Speaker 1: to supply a patient. Everything was gonna be good to go.

741
00:42:12,400 --> 00:42:15,839
Speaker 1: But then sainor has prevailed. They changed their mind, and

742
00:42:15,920 --> 00:42:18,680
Speaker 1: the ivan Offics were apparently just really offended by by

743
00:42:18,719 --> 00:42:23,279
Speaker 1: the whole host whole situation, so they turned around and

744
00:42:23,320 --> 00:42:26,680
Speaker 1: went right back. Yeah, they basically the expedition. They ran

745
00:42:26,719 --> 00:42:28,480
Speaker 1: out of time and funding. They had to go back

746
00:42:28,520 --> 00:42:31,360
Speaker 1: to Russia. He hadn't packing it all up and heading

747
00:42:31,400 --> 00:42:33,840
Speaker 1: to suit him. This is in the southern Soviet Republic

748
00:42:33,880 --> 00:42:36,600
Speaker 1: of Georgia where the Soviet This is where the Soviet

749
00:42:36,640 --> 00:42:39,880
Speaker 1: government established a special primate station, mainly because this was

750
00:42:39,920 --> 00:42:43,480
Speaker 1: a this is a subtropical area for the Soviet Union.

751
00:42:43,560 --> 00:42:46,960
Speaker 1: This was a really warm tropical environment. It would be

752
00:42:47,000 --> 00:42:50,799
Speaker 1: ideal for the gas. As it turns out, they still

753
00:42:50,800 --> 00:42:53,960
Speaker 1: had to acclimatize the any chumps and were rang of

754
00:42:54,040 --> 00:42:56,440
Speaker 1: thanks that they brought there because it's it's actually kind

755
00:42:56,480 --> 00:43:00,839
Speaker 1: of uh, kind of chilly, kind of northern for tropical chure.

756
00:43:01,920 --> 00:43:04,440
Speaker 1: But but they ended up setting this this place up

757
00:43:05,040 --> 00:43:08,920
Speaker 1: and succumb becomes a very important research facility in the

758
00:43:09,000 --> 00:43:12,920
Speaker 1: decades ahead. It plays into the Russian space program, various

759
00:43:12,960 --> 00:43:16,719
Speaker 1: other scientific endeavors. It actually ends up enduring all the

760
00:43:16,719 --> 00:43:19,400
Speaker 1: way up to the early nineties, when it ends up

761
00:43:19,440 --> 00:43:24,200
Speaker 1: being destroyed during severe fighting between the Georgian and uh

762
00:43:24,320 --> 00:43:29,680
Speaker 1: Bakizan param paramilitary groups. But this actually, like in terms

763
00:43:29,800 --> 00:43:33,120
Speaker 1: of Ivanof's legacy, Yeah, I mean, this is really the

764
00:43:33,480 --> 00:43:35,680
Speaker 1: thing that I guess he could have been proud of.

765
00:43:35,840 --> 00:43:38,359
Speaker 1: So let's okay, let's try to um split the hairs

766
00:43:38,400 --> 00:43:40,480
Speaker 1: here and find the truth out on this part. So

767
00:43:40,600 --> 00:43:43,239
Speaker 1: what I read in an article from the New Scientists

768
00:43:43,840 --> 00:43:48,880
Speaker 1: was that uh supermb sorry not sucum Ivanoff brought twenty

769
00:43:49,080 --> 00:43:53,160
Speaker 1: chimps with him from Africa to this nursery, but only

770
00:43:53,280 --> 00:43:58,040
Speaker 1: four made it there. And I think there's some discrepancy there, right,

771
00:43:58,600 --> 00:43:59,960
Speaker 1: The count I was looking at, I think was a

772
00:44:00,040 --> 00:44:02,680
Speaker 1: little less than that, more in the lines of like

773
00:44:02,719 --> 00:44:05,959
Speaker 1: ten different chimps, and then some died on the way,

774
00:44:06,040 --> 00:44:08,000
Speaker 1: So I don't I don't know, maybe you split the difference.

775
00:44:08,040 --> 00:44:10,200
Speaker 1: But he still made it back with a number of

776
00:44:10,280 --> 00:44:15,080
Speaker 1: chimps enough to establish this place and ultimately ends up

777
00:44:15,120 --> 00:44:19,759
Speaker 1: with only one, an orangutan that was named Tarzan. Correct. Yeah,

778
00:44:19,920 --> 00:44:22,839
Speaker 1: And this is worth stressing to This comes from the Uh,

779
00:44:22,880 --> 00:44:27,040
Speaker 1: the Russian Primate Center, a survivor paper mentioned earlier. There

780
00:44:27,080 --> 00:44:30,640
Speaker 1: they were really um. They really stressed the fact that

781
00:44:30,719 --> 00:44:33,600
Speaker 1: ivanof helps set this place up, but he was never

782
00:44:33,920 --> 00:44:37,280
Speaker 1: like a staff researcher there. Her only visited the place once,

783
00:44:37,600 --> 00:44:41,600
Speaker 1: so his involvement there was very limited. He's not a

784
00:44:41,600 --> 00:44:46,359
Speaker 1: primate specialist. His his field of studies an artificial insemination exactly. Yeah.

785
00:44:46,400 --> 00:44:49,160
Speaker 1: And and at this point the timeline becomes it begins

786
00:44:49,160 --> 00:44:53,040
Speaker 1: to get really crunched to in terms of him still

787
00:44:53,080 --> 00:44:57,680
Speaker 1: wanting to carry out this, uh, this strange, strange and

788
00:44:57,960 --> 00:45:02,279
Speaker 1: ethically um question a Bowle experiment, because he still wants

789
00:45:02,320 --> 00:45:07,440
Speaker 1: to impregnate a human being with with with chimpanzee sperm

790
00:45:07,560 --> 00:45:11,359
Speaker 1: or vice versa. So another like a dubious account. I'm

791
00:45:11,400 --> 00:45:13,080
Speaker 1: not sure if this is true or not. That I

792
00:45:13,160 --> 00:45:16,719
Speaker 1: read about this was that the human woman in Russia

793
00:45:16,760 --> 00:45:19,480
Speaker 1: that they convinced to go about doing this, So it

794
00:45:19,560 --> 00:45:22,600
Speaker 1: sounded like she was willing and knew what was going on.

795
00:45:23,120 --> 00:45:26,839
Speaker 1: She went by the code name Woman G. Yes. Yeah,

796
00:45:26,920 --> 00:45:30,160
Speaker 1: she was apparently from from Leningrad. Uh. And she wrote

797
00:45:30,160 --> 00:45:32,759
Speaker 1: a letter saying like please accept me into this program, which,

798
00:45:33,120 --> 00:45:36,160
Speaker 1: of course right, I mean get given the time in

799
00:45:36,160 --> 00:45:38,880
Speaker 1: the setting. I mean, you can you can imagine easily

800
00:45:38,880 --> 00:45:43,160
Speaker 1: imagine an individual that's so hard up. Yeah, they would say, yes,

801
00:45:43,560 --> 00:45:46,600
Speaker 1: take me. I need a place to go, so you know,

802
00:45:46,600 --> 00:45:49,040
Speaker 1: I don't. And that's also this is a case that

803
00:45:49,200 --> 00:45:53,680
Speaker 1: is mentioned uh by Razaniof in his paper Beyond Species.

804
00:45:53,760 --> 00:45:56,359
Speaker 1: So I I I believe it. It It seems like that's

805
00:45:56,360 --> 00:45:59,359
Speaker 1: probably true. Then yeah, and so he he thinks, all right,

806
00:45:59,360 --> 00:46:02,600
Speaker 1: I have a lined up. We have Tarzan there. Uh.

807
00:46:02,680 --> 00:46:07,800
Speaker 1: The sperm apparently seemed good. But then June nine, Tarzan

808
00:46:07,960 --> 00:46:11,680
Speaker 1: dies of an unexpected brain hemorrhage and they have to

809
00:46:11,840 --> 00:46:15,160
Speaker 1: order some chimps. But it ends up being summer nineteen

810
00:46:15,239 --> 00:46:19,520
Speaker 1: thirty before they arrive, and in the meantime, there's even

811
00:46:19,560 --> 00:46:24,239
Speaker 1: more political uh revolution going on within Russia. Yeah, I

812
00:46:24,239 --> 00:46:26,760
Speaker 1: have an office during this whole point. He's not in

813
00:46:26,760 --> 00:46:30,120
Speaker 1: in uh. He's not at the Russian Primate Center. He

814
00:46:30,320 --> 00:46:35,399
Speaker 1: is at the Experimental Veterinary Institute UH engaging in sort

815
00:46:35,440 --> 00:46:38,719
Speaker 1: of his original research and just original artificial insemination with

816
00:46:38,760 --> 00:46:42,960
Speaker 1: a veterinary uh UM target. In mind that he's trying

817
00:46:43,000 --> 00:46:44,800
Speaker 1: to set all this up, and there seems to be

818
00:46:44,840 --> 00:46:49,440
Speaker 1: an upheaval there um, he's attacked by younger researchers, his

819
00:46:49,560 --> 00:46:52,680
Speaker 1: key supporters that the at the scientific Academy, they lose

820
00:46:52,719 --> 00:46:56,719
Speaker 1: their positions, and then to to just top it all off,

821
00:46:57,480 --> 00:47:01,560
Speaker 1: December nineteen thirty, he's arrested by a secret police. And

822
00:47:01,719 --> 00:47:04,520
Speaker 1: it has nothing to do with these these experiments. It

823
00:47:04,560 --> 00:47:07,720
Speaker 1: doesn't it doesn't have anything to do with the hybridization

824
00:47:07,880 --> 00:47:10,680
Speaker 1: of apes and humans. Now he's charged with creating a

825
00:47:10,800 --> 00:47:17,520
Speaker 1: counter revolutionary organization among agricultural specialists. Yeah, and this is

826
00:47:17,560 --> 00:47:20,480
Speaker 1: interesting though, to get into the Red Frankenstein thing, you

827
00:47:20,560 --> 00:47:24,040
Speaker 1: see varying levels of either authors not caring about the

828
00:47:24,360 --> 00:47:28,720
Speaker 1: the the details here, ghosting over it, or maybe even

829
00:47:29,520 --> 00:47:31,879
Speaker 1: making it seem as if it was connected, as if

830
00:47:32,320 --> 00:47:34,080
Speaker 1: as if his superiors were like, this is too much,

831
00:47:34,080 --> 00:47:35,799
Speaker 1: we're shutting you down. Yeah, at least two of the

832
00:47:35,800 --> 00:47:37,920
Speaker 1: accounts I read painted it that way. It made it

833
00:47:37,960 --> 00:47:40,560
Speaker 1: sound like it was because of this research. Yeah. Now

834
00:47:40,600 --> 00:47:43,319
Speaker 1: that being said, he was shut down after this. There

835
00:47:43,360 --> 00:47:47,880
Speaker 1: were the individuals who in the Soviet system who found

836
00:47:47,920 --> 00:47:50,279
Speaker 1: out the details about what he wanted to do, because

837
00:47:50,320 --> 00:47:51,880
Speaker 1: he wanted to go back to Africa and do it

838
00:47:51,920 --> 00:47:55,399
Speaker 1: again and attempt it. But they began to say say, well,

839
00:47:55,440 --> 00:47:59,200
Speaker 1: this actually sounds like rather bad pr This could potentially

840
00:47:59,239 --> 00:48:02,920
Speaker 1: screw up our operations in Africa. This could make it

841
00:48:02,960 --> 00:48:06,000
Speaker 1: difficult for other Russian scientists to go to Africa and

842
00:48:06,040 --> 00:48:09,720
Speaker 1: conduct their work. We want no part of it. So anyway,

843
00:48:09,719 --> 00:48:12,759
Speaker 1: he gets arrested, he he's exiled for five years to

844
00:48:12,920 --> 00:48:17,840
Speaker 1: alma Aka, the capital of the Kazak Republic, and uh

845
00:48:18,160 --> 00:48:20,839
Speaker 1: and oh and his one of his main accusers ends

846
00:48:20,960 --> 00:48:24,239
Speaker 1: up succeeding him as head of the laboratory at the

847
00:48:24,320 --> 00:48:27,880
Speaker 1: Veterinary Institute, which is apparently was pretty common at the time. Yeah,

848
00:48:28,080 --> 00:48:30,120
Speaker 1: so the story I read was that when he's in

849
00:48:30,200 --> 00:48:33,919
Speaker 1: kazakh Stan he ends up with poor health. I don't

850
00:48:33,920 --> 00:48:36,520
Speaker 1: know if that's because of like difference in the weather,

851
00:48:36,719 --> 00:48:38,640
Speaker 1: maybe his age at that point in time. But I

852
00:48:38,640 --> 00:48:40,839
Speaker 1: think it said something along the lines of like he

853
00:48:40,920 --> 00:48:44,800
Speaker 1: died on a cold train platform. I mean maybe, because

854
00:48:45,040 --> 00:48:48,120
Speaker 1: the account I read here is that he his health

855
00:48:48,120 --> 00:48:52,360
Speaker 1: deteriorated in prison because the conditions there, and uh, he

856
00:48:52,360 --> 00:48:55,360
Speaker 1: he has he scheduled for release finally, and his release,

857
00:48:55,400 --> 00:48:57,440
Speaker 1: it's worth noting he would not have come back and

858
00:48:57,480 --> 00:49:00,000
Speaker 1: been able to work with Jimps and uh and human

859
00:49:00,000 --> 00:49:01,600
Speaker 1: and he was gonna, if anything, he was going to

860
00:49:01,680 --> 00:49:07,120
Speaker 1: go back into veterinary sciences of some something. Yeah. But

861
00:49:07,200 --> 00:49:09,520
Speaker 1: then he dies and perhaps it happened on a on

862
00:49:09,560 --> 00:49:13,480
Speaker 1: a train platform, yeah, who knows. Uh. So there's some interesting,

863
00:49:13,800 --> 00:49:18,120
Speaker 1: uh I guess, like discrepancies of between what his actual

864
00:49:18,160 --> 00:49:22,120
Speaker 1: motivations were for doing this, right. So there's the mythical one,

865
00:49:22,160 --> 00:49:25,000
Speaker 1: which is Stalin saying, let's let's make these super apes

866
00:49:25,040 --> 00:49:26,719
Speaker 1: soldiers so we can use them as part of our

867
00:49:26,760 --> 00:49:30,319
Speaker 1: great revolution. Right, But then that doesn't really seem to

868
00:49:30,320 --> 00:49:32,200
Speaker 1: be true. In fact, like from what I saw, it

869
00:49:32,200 --> 00:49:36,759
Speaker 1: doesn't seem like Stalin had any direct involvement with this whatsoever. Yeah,

870
00:49:36,800 --> 00:49:41,319
Speaker 1: I mean, Stalin had plenty to go. So then there's

871
00:49:41,360 --> 00:49:45,840
Speaker 1: the argument, which is that ivanofs motivation was to prove

872
00:49:45,920 --> 00:49:48,640
Speaker 1: that man evolved from apes so that he could prove

873
00:49:48,760 --> 00:49:51,600
Speaker 1: that Darwin was right and that religion was wrong. And

874
00:49:51,600 --> 00:49:54,560
Speaker 1: this is the Bolshevik rhetoric version, right, And based on

875
00:49:54,640 --> 00:49:57,000
Speaker 1: what I've read, it sounds it sounds as if that

876
00:49:57,080 --> 00:50:00,920
Speaker 1: played into his attempts to gain fund for the program,

877
00:50:01,320 --> 00:50:04,040
Speaker 1: But it doesn't seem as if that actually played into

878
00:50:04,160 --> 00:50:07,160
Speaker 1: his motivations. It didn't show up in his diary entries,

879
00:50:07,200 --> 00:50:10,000
Speaker 1: et cetera, and another one that I read UH. And

880
00:50:10,040 --> 00:50:16,640
Speaker 1: this ties back into another controversial Russian scientists named Serge Voronoff,

881
00:50:17,680 --> 00:50:21,920
Speaker 1: was that the aging Bolshevik leaders wanted him to discover

882
00:50:22,080 --> 00:50:26,120
Speaker 1: ways UH to basically breed glands that they could use

883
00:50:26,200 --> 00:50:31,800
Speaker 1: for rejuvenation. So while he's doing the research in France,

884
00:50:32,120 --> 00:50:35,560
Speaker 1: he gets together with Serge Voronoff, who's known for grafting

885
00:50:35,680 --> 00:50:39,839
Speaker 1: slices of ape tests into rich old men so they

886
00:50:39,880 --> 00:50:43,440
Speaker 1: can regain their quote vigor uh, and together the two

887
00:50:43,480 --> 00:50:48,280
Speaker 1: of them purportedly transplanted a woman's ovary into a chimpanzee

888
00:50:48,320 --> 00:50:52,600
Speaker 1: and then inseminated her with human sperm. But you know,

889
00:50:52,680 --> 00:50:56,479
Speaker 1: again the myth fact and fiction not so sure about

890
00:50:56,520 --> 00:51:00,480
Speaker 1: all this stuff. Other than Voronov's reputation. My under standing

891
00:51:00,760 --> 00:51:04,440
Speaker 1: of this particular incident is that it is more or

892
00:51:04,520 --> 00:51:09,240
Speaker 1: less construction of a of a particular Russian sci fi

893
00:51:09,280 --> 00:51:12,520
Speaker 1: writer who in the early nineties was one of the individuals,

894
00:51:12,520 --> 00:51:14,399
Speaker 1: one of the primary individuals to unearth some of these

895
00:51:14,440 --> 00:51:18,800
Speaker 1: documents against doing stuff with them, and it UH. The

896
00:51:19,080 --> 00:51:23,360
Speaker 1: criticism that is lodged in that UH that Russian Primate

897
00:51:23,440 --> 00:51:27,719
Speaker 1: Center Survivor paper is that this guy basically, uh, did

898
00:51:27,719 --> 00:51:31,880
Speaker 1: a little league of extraordinary gentlemen think the best of

899
00:51:31,920 --> 00:51:35,000
Speaker 1: both worlds and made a narrative. Yeah, Like they argue

900
00:51:35,000 --> 00:51:38,680
Speaker 1: that there was no connection between these very real um

901
00:51:39,200 --> 00:51:43,240
Speaker 1: tissue grafting experiments, and certainly that is a whole ornof

902
00:51:43,280 --> 00:51:45,600
Speaker 1: did du Yeah, that was a real guy. This was

903
00:51:45,680 --> 00:51:48,600
Speaker 1: real research, and that in that research is in and

904
00:51:48,640 --> 00:51:52,279
Speaker 1: of itself very interesting. But it sounds as if basically

905
00:51:52,320 --> 00:51:54,439
Speaker 1: the guy said, Hey, this character is cool and weird

906
00:51:54,480 --> 00:51:56,839
Speaker 1: and interesting and kind of scary. So is this one.

907
00:51:57,560 --> 00:52:01,399
Speaker 1: Let's make a meet up there with buddies. So yeah,

908
00:52:01,440 --> 00:52:04,360
Speaker 1: I would definitely take that bit of the story with

909
00:52:04,400 --> 00:52:06,400
Speaker 1: a grain of salt. And then this last one that

910
00:52:06,480 --> 00:52:09,200
Speaker 1: I read, and this this again seems like it fits

911
00:52:09,239 --> 00:52:12,560
Speaker 1: too conveniently into the rhetoric of the political situation in

912
00:52:12,640 --> 00:52:15,240
Speaker 1: Russia at the time, was that the whole idea behind

913
00:52:15,280 --> 00:52:19,680
Speaker 1: this was to help transform society by transforming people using

914
00:52:19,840 --> 00:52:23,279
Speaker 1: quote positive eugenics. Uh, And that the idea is they

915
00:52:23,360 --> 00:52:26,279
Speaker 1: breed in desirable traits, which would be the willingness to

916
00:52:26,280 --> 00:52:29,680
Speaker 1: work and communal living, and they would breed out primitive

917
00:52:29,680 --> 00:52:34,480
Speaker 1: needs such as competition, greed, and the idea of property ownership. Well,

918
00:52:34,800 --> 00:52:37,320
Speaker 1: you know, given the time frame, I mean, you really

919
00:52:37,880 --> 00:52:41,120
Speaker 1: can't look at this story without the shadow of eugenics

920
00:52:41,160 --> 00:52:44,560
Speaker 1: falling on it here in degree. So yeah, I don't

921
00:52:44,560 --> 00:52:46,800
Speaker 1: think you can write eugenics out. But on the other hand,

922
00:52:47,200 --> 00:52:50,160
Speaker 1: it it doesn't seem like he seems to have been

923
00:52:50,239 --> 00:52:55,759
Speaker 1: laser focused on on just the idea of breaking that

924
00:52:55,800 --> 00:52:59,160
Speaker 1: species barrier. Yeah, I think he was just primarily interested

925
00:52:59,200 --> 00:53:01,640
Speaker 1: in the wonder of science and whether or not it

926
00:53:01,680 --> 00:53:04,279
Speaker 1: could happen. But it also is it shows that if

927
00:53:04,320 --> 00:53:08,120
Speaker 1: you were laser focused on something like that, uh, to

928
00:53:08,239 --> 00:53:10,840
Speaker 1: the point to where you know your your ethics a

929
00:53:11,000 --> 00:53:14,120
Speaker 1: road around that focus, uh, you can end up in

930
00:53:14,120 --> 00:53:18,320
Speaker 1: a very scary place. So Ivanof isn't the only person

931
00:53:18,360 --> 00:53:22,160
Speaker 1: to have attempted this. There's actually another story, and again

932
00:53:22,560 --> 00:53:25,839
Speaker 1: there's a lot of Uh. This hasn't been, as far

933
00:53:25,880 --> 00:53:29,040
Speaker 1: as I could find, uh, studied as much as the

934
00:53:29,040 --> 00:53:31,759
Speaker 1: Ivanof incident, and the fact hasn't been separated from the

935
00:53:31,800 --> 00:53:35,320
Speaker 1: fiction just yet. But there's an article from the St.

936
00:53:35,080 --> 00:53:41,040
Speaker 1: Petersburg Independent in one called the Chinese aim to implant

937
00:53:41,160 --> 00:53:45,880
Speaker 1: human sperm in chimps, and it claimed by interviewing a

938
00:53:45,920 --> 00:53:50,120
Speaker 1: guy named Dr g Young Shang that he was experimenting

939
00:53:50,120 --> 00:53:54,680
Speaker 1: with fertilizing chimpanzees with human sperm in the nineteen sixties,

940
00:53:54,719 --> 00:53:56,879
Speaker 1: so this is well after Ivan off. He must have

941
00:53:56,920 --> 00:53:59,239
Speaker 1: been familiar with that research. I would think, oh, I

942
00:53:59,239 --> 00:54:02,960
Speaker 1: would imagine UM. And he said that they did actually

943
00:54:03,040 --> 00:54:06,560
Speaker 1: impregnate a chimp and it was pregnant for three months

944
00:54:06,600 --> 00:54:10,280
Speaker 1: before his experiment was halted. But again, there's no evidence

945
00:54:10,320 --> 00:54:12,360
Speaker 1: of any of this. This is just this guy's word.

946
00:54:13,000 --> 00:54:16,080
Speaker 1: And apparently he was a surgeon who directed the Sun

947
00:54:16,200 --> 00:54:21,480
Speaker 1: Giao Tien Hospital in Shenyang, and during China's Cultural Revolution

948
00:54:21,520 --> 00:54:24,960
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty seven, very similar to the ivanof situation,

949
00:54:25,040 --> 00:54:28,759
Speaker 1: he was branded a counter revolutionary, his lab was smashed up,

950
00:54:28,800 --> 00:54:33,160
Speaker 1: and that subsequently the chimp who was supposedly three months pregnant,

951
00:54:33,880 --> 00:54:37,279
Speaker 1: died from neglect and the researchers were hounded away from

952
00:54:37,280 --> 00:54:39,480
Speaker 1: their studies, so they were never able to complete these

953
00:54:40,080 --> 00:54:42,600
Speaker 1: uh and he says this is where it borders on

954
00:54:42,600 --> 00:54:46,279
Speaker 1: the sci fi. He says, the research if it resumes,

955
00:54:46,280 --> 00:54:48,040
Speaker 1: so this was in the eighties, Clearly it did not

956
00:54:48,120 --> 00:54:51,440
Speaker 1: resume unless there's a secret history here that we're unfamiliar with.

957
00:54:52,120 --> 00:54:55,080
Speaker 1: UM has the potential to develop creatures with a higher

958
00:54:55,120 --> 00:54:59,480
Speaker 1: animal intelligence who could speak and perform simple tasks. So

959
00:54:59,520 --> 00:55:01,560
Speaker 1: what he was thinking of here is that they would

960
00:55:01,560 --> 00:55:05,520
Speaker 1: be like laborers, that they would use him human z

961
00:55:05,719 --> 00:55:08,680
Speaker 1: s for um, they would breed into them a larger

962
00:55:08,719 --> 00:55:12,680
Speaker 1: brain and a bigger mouth, because chimpanzees have trouble imitating

963
00:55:12,760 --> 00:55:16,560
Speaker 1: human sounds with their narrow mounths, So they would be

964
00:55:16,640 --> 00:55:21,400
Speaker 1: used for hurting sheep and cows, driving carts, and exploring space,

965
00:55:21,680 --> 00:55:25,120
Speaker 1: the bottom of the sea and mines, so really dangerous

966
00:55:25,160 --> 00:55:27,960
Speaker 1: stuff that we don't want. It's interesting here because he's

967
00:55:28,000 --> 00:55:30,440
Speaker 1: he's definitely seems to be falling on the side of

968
00:55:30,680 --> 00:55:35,959
Speaker 1: viewing the hybrid offspring as a non human or sub human. Yeah,

969
00:55:36,080 --> 00:55:38,680
Speaker 1: like almost like it's a slave race. Yeah Yeah, it's

970
00:55:38,760 --> 00:55:41,640
Speaker 1: just so still letting them explore space, which also sinks

971
00:55:41,680 --> 00:55:44,640
Speaker 1: a little like that that seems like you're maybe giving

972
00:55:44,680 --> 00:55:47,640
Speaker 1: them a really well like cushy job and they don't

973
00:55:47,640 --> 00:55:50,919
Speaker 1: forget about we we did send chimpans space. So maybe

974
00:55:51,000 --> 00:55:53,719
Speaker 1: it's just like he's looking at like a more accelerated

975
00:55:53,800 --> 00:55:56,239
Speaker 1: version of yeah, yeah, more like a yeah, an accelerated

976
00:55:56,320 --> 00:56:01,160
Speaker 1: species accelerated test subject to anything else. So he he

977
00:56:01,320 --> 00:56:04,960
Speaker 1: proposed in this article that U that they would provide

978
00:56:04,960 --> 00:56:08,840
Speaker 1: solutions as well for transplanting animal organs into humans, so

979
00:56:08,840 --> 00:56:11,520
Speaker 1: they would be better than artificial organs, which were kind

980
00:56:11,560 --> 00:56:14,239
Speaker 1: of the trending at the time. Uh. And he wanted

981
00:56:14,280 --> 00:56:17,800
Speaker 1: to set up a factory that would provide these ape organs,

982
00:56:18,160 --> 00:56:20,160
Speaker 1: and even thought that they would get to the point

983
00:56:20,440 --> 00:56:23,000
Speaker 1: for head transplants, which you know we're we're talking about

984
00:56:23,080 --> 00:56:26,040
Speaker 1: right now again in TWI. But his idea was that

985
00:56:26,120 --> 00:56:29,280
Speaker 1: you would uh be able to transplant a human brain

986
00:56:29,560 --> 00:56:33,120
Speaker 1: into a human z skull in case there was some

987
00:56:33,200 --> 00:56:36,680
Speaker 1: kind of you know, problems, so full blown full body

988
00:56:36,680 --> 00:56:40,760
Speaker 1: transplant ultra humanite. It's getting back to that DC comics

989
00:56:40,800 --> 00:56:42,920
Speaker 1: character I mentioned at the beginning. He would wanted to

990
00:56:42,920 --> 00:56:46,520
Speaker 1: make an ultra humanite uh. And he claimed that there

991
00:56:46,560 --> 00:56:49,640
Speaker 1: were other researchers at the time at the Harbon Medical

992
00:56:49,719 --> 00:56:53,040
Speaker 1: University in China that we're doing the same thing, but

993
00:56:53,160 --> 00:56:55,440
Speaker 1: with dogs. They were trying to see if they could

994
00:56:55,480 --> 00:56:58,680
Speaker 1: transplant I don't think they were putting human brains into dogs.

995
00:56:58,840 --> 00:57:02,000
Speaker 1: They're trying to see if they could do head transplant dogs. Yeah,

996
00:57:02,000 --> 00:57:07,200
Speaker 1: those those uh, those experiments are reasonably well documented Yeah,

997
00:57:07,680 --> 00:57:12,759
Speaker 1: also that it's all another area of of scientific exploration

998
00:57:12,880 --> 00:57:16,440
Speaker 1: that gets into the taboo. But this seems like another

999
00:57:16,640 --> 00:57:19,560
Speaker 1: fertile area for an academic paper out there if somebody

1000
00:57:19,560 --> 00:57:22,920
Speaker 1: speaks Chinese and could get ahold of the documents from

1001
00:57:23,000 --> 00:57:25,600
Speaker 1: this period of time and really kind of pars out

1002
00:57:25,600 --> 00:57:29,400
Speaker 1: what the actual facts were. But so so, there have

1003
00:57:29,520 --> 00:57:31,800
Speaker 1: been rumors, like if you go to the wiki page

1004
00:57:31,800 --> 00:57:35,040
Speaker 1: Wikipedia page for human z there's plenty of rumors about

1005
00:57:35,360 --> 00:57:38,040
Speaker 1: Russia trying to develop human zes and China trying to

1006
00:57:38,040 --> 00:57:40,880
Speaker 1: develop human zes. But as far as we can find

1007
00:57:40,920 --> 00:57:43,960
Speaker 1: with the research that we've done, neither actually did it,

1008
00:57:44,280 --> 00:57:47,919
Speaker 1: although these attempts were purportedly made. Yeah, so the facts

1009
00:57:47,920 --> 00:57:52,760
Speaker 1: seem to be as follows. It can theoretically be done right,

1010
00:57:52,960 --> 00:57:56,280
Speaker 1: but in order to do it, you it's you have

1011
00:57:56,360 --> 00:57:58,280
Speaker 1: to have the right conditions. You have to have the

1012
00:57:58,400 --> 00:58:01,840
Speaker 1: right medical techno oology, you have to have the right funding.

1013
00:58:01,880 --> 00:58:05,160
Speaker 1: You have to be able to do it without objectionable

1014
00:58:05,240 --> 00:58:09,040
Speaker 1: parties disrupting your research. You need to be able to

1015
00:58:09,080 --> 00:58:13,160
Speaker 1: convince the politicians involved or the public if they're aware

1016
00:58:13,200 --> 00:58:16,280
Speaker 1: of it, that there's reasons for it that are beyond

1017
00:58:16,320 --> 00:58:20,200
Speaker 1: the squick factor. Just breeding two species together. Yeah, and

1018
00:58:20,280 --> 00:58:22,200
Speaker 1: I think that's the thing, Like, you can make an

1019
00:58:22,240 --> 00:58:25,840
Speaker 1: argument for these various benefits, but ultimately crossing the species

1020
00:58:25,920 --> 00:58:34,040
Speaker 1: barrier lands you in a very ethically, existentially troubling area,

1021
00:58:34,400 --> 00:58:37,040
Speaker 1: and it's just a place that most people are not

1022
00:58:37,120 --> 00:58:40,520
Speaker 1: willing to go. Occasionally you'll have a scientist pop up

1023
00:58:40,560 --> 00:58:43,840
Speaker 1: who has the drive and maybe even the resources to

1024
00:58:43,840 --> 00:58:49,080
Speaker 1: get them to a certain point, but society as a

1025
00:58:49,080 --> 00:58:53,200
Speaker 1: whole is not going to support that that momentum. Yeah,

1026
00:58:53,320 --> 00:58:56,680
Speaker 1: so far. So I would love to know actually from

1027
00:58:56,760 --> 00:59:00,080
Speaker 1: you our listeners, if you know what your thoughts are

1028
00:59:00,080 --> 00:59:03,320
Speaker 1: on this. So if you opened up you know, Facebook

1029
00:59:03,360 --> 00:59:05,840
Speaker 1: or your RSS reader first thing in the morning and

1030
00:59:05,840 --> 00:59:09,960
Speaker 1: you see a headline that says us to combine human

1031
00:59:10,040 --> 00:59:14,040
Speaker 1: and chimp DNA to make a human z Like, let's

1032
00:59:14,240 --> 00:59:17,000
Speaker 1: even leave out the breeding aspect of it. What what

1033
00:59:17,040 --> 00:59:20,120
Speaker 1: would your reaction be? You know, would you be comfortable

1034
00:59:20,160 --> 00:59:24,040
Speaker 1: with that? What? What purpose would it serve? I'm curious

1035
00:59:24,200 --> 00:59:26,880
Speaker 1: or even this, like, imagine this scenario. We'll just go

1036
00:59:26,920 --> 00:59:31,560
Speaker 1: ahead and remove the research and the the experiment itself.

1037
00:59:31,960 --> 00:59:35,160
Speaker 1: Imagine that it comes out tomorrow, Hey turns out they

1038
00:59:35,160 --> 00:59:38,880
Speaker 1: actually conducted this experiment. We shut the experiment down. It's

1039
00:59:38,920 --> 00:59:41,280
Speaker 1: not taking place anymore. But here's the offspring. Here is

1040
00:59:41,320 --> 00:59:43,880
Speaker 1: the humanity. How are we so, how do we feel

1041
00:59:43,920 --> 00:59:46,160
Speaker 1: about the human ZY? Then? Is it? And is it

1042
00:59:46,440 --> 00:59:48,800
Speaker 1: a human? Is it a sub human? Is it? Do

1043
00:59:48,800 --> 00:59:51,120
Speaker 1: do we give it personhood? I feel like we kind

1044
00:59:51,120 --> 00:59:54,480
Speaker 1: of rights? Does it have? Right? Yeah? That reminds me

1045
00:59:54,800 --> 00:59:58,640
Speaker 1: of um Oliver, which was the um I believe that

1046
00:59:58,760 --> 01:00:01,720
Speaker 1: the first like suppose was it instance, it was this

1047
01:00:01,840 --> 01:00:06,000
Speaker 1: kind of uh ape that had human like features, and

1048
01:00:06,040 --> 01:00:08,840
Speaker 1: I think that there was some distinction with its DNA.

1049
01:00:08,920 --> 01:00:10,600
Speaker 1: It's DNA was a little weird, but I don't think

1050
01:00:10,640 --> 01:00:13,600
Speaker 1: it was actually a human Z. But when but when

1051
01:00:13,600 --> 01:00:15,680
Speaker 1: it broke it was kind of like a National Enquirer

1052
01:00:15,840 --> 01:00:19,320
Speaker 1: tabloid type thing. Yeah, because then for for a moment

1053
01:00:19,360 --> 01:00:21,280
Speaker 1: it I think for a lot of readers, then it

1054
01:00:21,360 --> 01:00:24,120
Speaker 1: seemed possible because as we discussed, it is possible. This

1055
01:00:24,200 --> 01:00:26,960
Speaker 1: is the human ZY is not a creature that it

1056
01:00:27,760 --> 01:00:32,120
Speaker 1: will or could emerge completely from the realm of the fantastic,

1057
01:00:32,440 --> 01:00:36,520
Speaker 1: but but a being that can emerge from the scientific

1058
01:00:36,560 --> 01:00:38,840
Speaker 1: realm of our of our real world. Yeah, I mean,

1059
01:00:39,120 --> 01:00:43,840
Speaker 1: like of the DNA between humans and chimpanzees. Are the same,

1060
01:00:45,560 --> 01:00:47,240
Speaker 1: not much of a leap, although I wonder if a

1061
01:00:47,320 --> 01:00:49,760
Speaker 1: human ze would be fertile, because then that would be

1062
01:00:49,800 --> 01:00:52,680
Speaker 1: the real definition of of if it's a species or not. Well,

1063
01:00:52,720 --> 01:00:55,920
Speaker 1: that's why you need to factory, right exactly. You got

1064
01:00:55,960 --> 01:01:01,240
Speaker 1: to crank them out all right. Well, there you have it, UM.

1065
01:01:01,320 --> 01:01:03,200
Speaker 1: We will make sure that the landing page for this

1066
01:01:03,240 --> 01:01:06,160
Speaker 1: episode includes links out to some of the key resources

1067
01:01:06,160 --> 01:01:09,560
Speaker 1: that we've discussed here. Again if you want to, if

1068
01:01:09,560 --> 01:01:12,040
Speaker 1: you want to explore the topics further, those are great

1069
01:01:12,080 --> 01:01:15,880
Speaker 1: resources to check out. UM. In the meantime, head on

1070
01:01:15,920 --> 01:01:17,680
Speaker 1: over to stuff to Blow your Mind dot com just

1071
01:01:17,760 --> 01:01:21,080
Speaker 1: in general for all the podcast episodes, the videos, the

1072
01:01:21,120 --> 01:01:24,880
Speaker 1: blog posts, list gallery SLINKs out to social media accounts,

1073
01:01:24,920 --> 01:01:26,840
Speaker 1: you name it, And if you want to let us

1074
01:01:26,880 --> 01:01:29,480
Speaker 1: know about how you feel about human z s and

1075
01:01:29,520 --> 01:01:33,440
Speaker 1: the possibilities of them either being used for artificial organs

1076
01:01:33,600 --> 01:01:36,680
Speaker 1: or some kind of labor use or or whatever even

1077
01:01:36,760 --> 01:01:41,520
Speaker 1: just the invention of a human zu, let us know

1078
01:01:41,960 --> 01:01:46,840
Speaker 1: on social media Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler, and we're on periscope

1079
01:01:47,440 --> 01:01:52,200
Speaker 1: noon on Friday's Eastern Standard time, or you can always

1080
01:01:52,240 --> 01:01:55,400
Speaker 1: write us directly that blow the mind at how stuff

1081
01:01:55,400 --> 01:02:07,240
Speaker 1: works dot com for more on this and thousands of

1082
01:02:07,280 --> 01:02:17,440
Speaker 1: other topics. Is that how stuff works dot com. They