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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff mom never told you?

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Speaker 1: From how Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to

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Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Kristin and I'm Caroline, and we're talking

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Speaker 1: about something we've talked about before on the podcast, which

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Speaker 1: is body odor. Yeah, we didn't like us a long

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Speaker 1: long time ago, touching on gender differences in how our

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Speaker 1: bodies smell. And we've talked before about how scent can

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Speaker 1: be linked to physical and sexual attraction, and we are

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Speaker 1: going to touch on those things again. But there's some

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Speaker 1: new research that's come out and we had body odor

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Speaker 1: on the brain to begin with because of this minor

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Speaker 1: Internet sensation that happened a couple weeks ago with the

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Speaker 1: news that you could send people things called deodoro grams. Deodograms,

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Speaker 1: it's a nice way to tell somebody that they smell. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's a It's this natural care company called GB Proud

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Speaker 1: Foot that announced that they you could personalize a message

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Speaker 1: to someone in your life who stinks, and they would

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Speaker 1: send them this diodogram with a friendly message and a

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Speaker 1: yeah it came with a stick of something. Yeah, you

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Speaker 1: had a couple of smells to choose from, and also

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Speaker 1: different messages such as, for pitts sake, throughout your current

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Speaker 1: deodor and give this one a try. You deserve a

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Speaker 1: natural deodorant that works, you know, and message A which

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Speaker 1: is you've always been such a cute little stinker dot

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Speaker 1: dot dot. Well okay, yeah, whatever helps. I mean, you

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Speaker 1: don't want to embarrass your friend or person in your life.

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Speaker 1: I guess, Well, it's a touchy stuff jected to say, hey, hey, person,

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Speaker 1: you got some stinking going on. Yeah, well, you know,

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Speaker 1: sometimes people can't help it. They can't help what they

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Speaker 1: smell like. And maybe it's your problem, maybe you're too sensitive. Well.

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Speaker 1: And also what we're going to talk about more in

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Speaker 1: the podcast is the science that has developed around our

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Speaker 1: personal sense, like you and I each have and everyone listening.

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Speaker 1: It's like our our odors are actually more like fingerprints. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and it depends on how old you are, what your

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Speaker 1: diet is, like, how much you exercise, how much water

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Speaker 1: you drank, all that stuff, where you are on your

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Speaker 1: menstrual cycle. It's true. Yeah, So before we get into that,

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Speaker 1: let's let's have a quick primer of where these scents

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Speaker 1: come from. Specifically two types of sweat glands that are

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Speaker 1: found on our bodies. The ekron which are the most

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Speaker 1: plentiful they are these are all over our body. They're

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Speaker 1: three million of them, roughly covering our skin. And the

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Speaker 1: apocrine sweat glands, which are not as plentiful, they're only

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Speaker 1: about two thousand of them. Yeah, So as your body

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Speaker 1: temperature rises, your autonomic nervous system stimulates the ekrone glands

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Speaker 1: to secrete fluid onto the surface of the skin. This

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Speaker 1: is mostly water and salt. It's too to kind of

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Speaker 1: cool you down. It's your air conditioning system. Now. Your

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Speaker 1: apricrine glands, on the other hand, secrete a fatty sweat

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Speaker 1: and directly into the tubule of the gland, and during

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Speaker 1: emotional stress or physical stress like you're you're running or

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Speaker 1: you're running around or you're stressed out, the tubule walls

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Speaker 1: contract and the sweat is pushed to the surface of

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Speaker 1: the skin where bacteria. You break it down. The bacteria

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Speaker 1: are all hanging out and they're like, man, when's our

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Speaker 1: snat getting here? I can can really go for a

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Speaker 1: sandwich or something. And then the sweat comes and they're like, yeah,

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Speaker 1: eating time, fatty sweat sandwich. Yeah, it's not it's not

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Speaker 1: the actual sweat that makes us smell. It's the fact

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Speaker 1: that our bodies are just covered with back area. This

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Speaker 1: is from the National Human Genome Research Institute. The ratio

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Speaker 1: of bacterial microbes versus skin cells on our bodies ten

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Speaker 1: to one. We're teaming teeming with bacteria. So really, if

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Speaker 1: you want to lose weight, you should just use antibacterial. So, yeah,

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Speaker 1: just get get rid of all of those, all those bacteria,

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Speaker 1: although you know, I mean, I'm sure they served the purpose,

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Speaker 1: but these all these microbes love to feast upon the

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Speaker 1: fatty sweat excreted by the apicron gland because they contain

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Speaker 1: something called a glycoprotein, which is a protein covered in sugar. Donut. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so bacteria like nom nom nominal when we sweat sweat

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Speaker 1: donuts and sandwiches. That's that's really awesome. Um. Now, there

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Speaker 1: there's regular albio, which you know, and if you've ever

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Speaker 1: been to the gym or run or been outside on

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Speaker 1: a hot day, you've you've probably smelled yourself at some point.

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Speaker 1: You're like penny chick shower. But that's that's not really

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Speaker 1: a problem. Everybody's got bio everybody has a smell from

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Speaker 1: time to time, especially if you're not doing your laundry

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Speaker 1: or whatever. When it actually gets bad, it's called brom

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Speaker 1: hydrosis though, and that's the chronic condition in which excessive

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Speaker 1: odor emanates from the skin. And there's a bunch of

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Speaker 1: different health conditions that can cause you to smell anything

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Speaker 1: from just like excessive BO to actually having a fish smell.

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Speaker 1: It just kind of depends on health issues. Yeah. For instance,

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Speaker 1: um diabetes in particular is linked to BO. If you're

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Speaker 1: not monitoring your blood sugar and you have diabetes, you

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Speaker 1: can develop something called k o acidosis, which causes fruity

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Speaker 1: smelling breath and a pungent BO. Then also with thyroid problems,

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Speaker 1: if you have an overactive thyroid, the body might excrete

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Speaker 1: an excessive amount of sweat. It's interesting how how the

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Speaker 1: BO will will signal these internal issues going on. But

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Speaker 1: when it gets really bad, it's with this condition called trimethylaminuria,

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Speaker 1: which it's much easier to call it by its handy

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Speaker 1: acronym t M a U. It's when the body doesn't

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Speaker 1: break down this specific kind of amino acid properly, and

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Speaker 1: it causes a distressing fishy odor. Yeah. And the thing

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Speaker 1: is they tell you to avoid certain foods, but as

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Speaker 1: I was reading the list, I don't know what you

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Speaker 1: can eat because it says you have to avoid foods

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Speaker 1: like eggs, liver, seafood, beans, peanuts, broccoli, etcetera, etcetera. Like

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Speaker 1: there's a lot, there's a lot you cannot eat well.

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Speaker 1: And I'm sure for you, Caroline, eliminating the liver from yes,

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Speaker 1: I don't know liver sandwiches day in and day out

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Speaker 1: because you subsist off of cat food. Yeah, it's anything

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Speaker 1: that contains coline actually, And and again it's it reminds

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Speaker 1: me of our steliac disease episode where you have two

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Speaker 1: people with steliac haves to eliminate gluten, which is in

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Speaker 1: so much of of what we eat as well. Um,

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Speaker 1: And there was a two thousand eleven study speaking of

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Speaker 1: T M a U out of the monell Chemical Sensus

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Speaker 1: Center that found that a third of patients with an

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Speaker 1: unexplained odor who had that fishy odor that's you know,

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Speaker 1: that actually starts to affect like different areas of their life,

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Speaker 1: socialization and psychology because they have the smell, they don't

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Speaker 1: know what's going on. And they found that you know what,

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Speaker 1: the unexplained odor, it's the t m au. So if

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Speaker 1: you got a fishy smell going on out there could

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Speaker 1: be could be that the body doesn't processes amino acids. Yeah. Well,

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Speaker 1: there's also an effect that your diet has. We mentioned

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Speaker 1: diet meat meat. If you're a meat eater as I am,

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Speaker 1: apparently you don't smell as good as vegetarians. Yeah. This

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Speaker 1: was from a study called the Effect of Meat Consumption

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Speaker 1: on Body Odor Attractiveness that was published in the journal

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Speaker 1: Chemical Sense in two thousand six. Now, this was specifically

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Speaker 1: male meat eaters, and they had thirty women who were

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Speaker 1: not on any kind of hormonal contraception, which is important because,

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Speaker 1: as we've talked about before, birth control might tinker with

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Speaker 1: women's sense of smell. But they found that at least

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Speaker 1: among these thirty women, these smells of men who were

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Speaker 1: not or on a non meat diet were more pleasant, yeah,

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Speaker 1: less intense, significantly more attractive. So if you're looking for

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Speaker 1: a reason to go vegetarian, I guess these thirty women

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Speaker 1: would really appreciate it. Um. There's also if you want

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Speaker 1: to avoid just your run of the milby. Oh, you know,

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Speaker 1: they talk about strong smelling food like curry, spices, and

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Speaker 1: spicy food, because those actually do. Spicy foods increase your

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Speaker 1: body temperature. I mean, if you've ever eaten something super spicy,

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Speaker 1: you know you start to sweat. I'm a wolf and

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Speaker 1: I can't eat spicy food, so that's not a problem

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Speaker 1: for me. The problem for me happens to be garlic.

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Speaker 1: Not that I eat it all the time. I'm you

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Speaker 1: know whatever. I'm not trying to ward off any vampires

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Speaker 1: or anything, but onions and garlic are a volatile sulfur,

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Speaker 1: a substance, so look out for that. You can you

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Speaker 1: can smell back. Yes, we will excrete those smells through

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Speaker 1: all of those those pores on our body. Um. But

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Speaker 1: the thing is, you know, we we all have this

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Speaker 1: distinct bio whether or not it's amplified by something, you know,

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Speaker 1: condition like T M A U. Or for me, my

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Speaker 1: love of garlic and onions, I do cook with them

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Speaker 1: excessively lips uh. But you know, the thing is we

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Speaker 1: do so much to mask our own body odor. For instance,

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Speaker 1: there's a study which found that sevent of women and

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Speaker 1: sixty pc of men use a deodorant every day, while

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Speaker 1: forty percent of women also use it perfume every day.

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Speaker 1: We're just coding ourselves in sense. I wonder if that's

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Speaker 1: like a really American thing though, Like I feel like

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Speaker 1: that's very American to try to wash everything off of

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Speaker 1: you and not smell like your natural self. Because my friend,

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Speaker 1: her husband is from England and he doesn't use any

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Speaker 1: theater and he doesn't smell. Yes, there are differences among

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Speaker 1: like the body oder preferences by culture. So and I

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Speaker 1: have a feeling this was published in the Review of

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Speaker 1: General Psychology and it probably was from a Western study sample.

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Speaker 1: But let's get more into these unique smells that we have,

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Speaker 1: because you know what I'm all about, embracing our own

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Speaker 1: I mean, keep it, keep it under control, but embrace

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Speaker 1: your your your scent, your unique scent. Sure well, you

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Speaker 1: could call it your your fingerprint smell, or your odor

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Speaker 1: print or your scent print, if you will. The Journal

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Speaker 1: of the Royal Society interface in April two thousand seven,

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Speaker 1: researchers tested armpit, sweat, urine, and saliva from about two

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Speaker 1: hundred adults and found that the most volatile compounds were

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Speaker 1: actually in sweat, meaning that that had the strongest smell,

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Speaker 1: and they found and they were looking at it. They

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Speaker 1: found individually distinct fingerprints and a re producible difference between

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Speaker 1: the sexes. Yeah, they're referred to as genetically determined odor types. Um.

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Speaker 1: And there's another study which has found that you can

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Speaker 1: actually sniff out relatives in a way because of those

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Speaker 1: genetic links with your odor. Your relatives do kind of

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Speaker 1: all all smell similarly, which I can find fascinating. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I don't go around. Maybe I should smell my mom more.

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Speaker 1: I don't know. Yeah, it's gonna make for some awkward

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Speaker 1: family or union moments, but you should do it. Thanksgiving,

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Speaker 1: you're going around just sticking your nose and people's necks

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Speaker 1: once they're taking their turkey naps. You just sneak up.

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Speaker 1: Yeah that Yeah, that makes for awkward hugs like, oh,

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Speaker 1: it's so good to see you uncle. Any Like, wait

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Speaker 1: a minute, you don't smell like me. Well, that whole like,

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Speaker 1: that whole constant that either genetic factor or that that

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Speaker 1: family factor that that seems to run. Um, it doesn't

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Speaker 1: change even if you change your diet. You know, we

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Speaker 1: talked about uh, spicy foods or garlic and onions. But

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Speaker 1: the Monell Center in October two thousand eight found that

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Speaker 1: an individual's underlying odor signature that that sounds nice is

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Speaker 1: still detectable even when they're major dietary changes. And they

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Speaker 1: also they use the term odor print. They say that

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Speaker 1: we have a consistent odor print, just like a fingerprint.

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Speaker 1: And it's not so surprising that we have the specific

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Speaker 1: odor prints because, as we've mentioned before, UM, scent is

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Speaker 1: one of the ways that we in humans instinctively UH

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Speaker 1: can determine someone's major histo compatibility complex in other words, UH,

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Speaker 1: their genetic difference to us, because if we a lot

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Speaker 1: of times, the people that smell the most attractive to

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Speaker 1: us have the most diverse major historic compatibility complexes, which

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Speaker 1: would mean that our offspring would have a better chance

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Speaker 1: of survival because you know, we want to avoid avoid inbreedings.

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Speaker 1: We're totally hurting the future of the human race, and

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Speaker 1: we put on deodora. That's what I'm hearing. Possibly it's true.

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Speaker 1: But let's get more into gender and sexual orientation, because

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Speaker 1: there have been a ton of studies UM around scent preferences,

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Speaker 1: and UH it's really interesting. For instance, UM, in one study,

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Speaker 1: straight women prefer the scent of dominant men, especially when fertile.

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Speaker 1: That's one. That's one of those studies where I wanted,

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Speaker 1: you know, like shake my fistic science a little bit fertile.

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Speaker 1: Do they use the word fertile fertile? Oh? Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: we uh. Straight women also tend to prefer the scent

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Speaker 1: of men with more symmetrical bodies. I can, I can

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Speaker 1: smell the shape of you. But at the same time, though,

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Speaker 1: there was another study out of the Archives of Sexual

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Speaker 1: Behavior from two thousand seven which found that I believe

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Speaker 1: this is also straight women again preferred the smell of

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Speaker 1: gay men's T shirts over straight men's T shirts. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: they had T shirts from gay men's, straight men and

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Speaker 1: just out of the package, like just off the rack,

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Speaker 1: and it was rated as like gay means were up

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Speaker 1: at the top, followed closely by out of the package

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Speaker 1: t shirts as far as like pleasant pleasantness goes, and

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Speaker 1: then straight men's T shirts came way behind. So you

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Speaker 1: hear that guy, straight duds out there, you kind of stinky. Well,

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Speaker 1: there was a there was an earlier study from the

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Speaker 1: Monell Center that they do a lot of smell research

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Speaker 1: over there. Good for you guys. Um, they had a

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Speaker 1: gay and straight men and women make preference judgments on

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Speaker 1: T shirts again. You know, you'd wear your T shirt

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Speaker 1: around and kind of get it all stinky and people

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Speaker 1: would judge it. Uh. They actually found a gay men

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Speaker 1: preferred odors from gayman and heterosexual women. So there you go.

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Speaker 1: Everybody has a preference, and it seems that women in

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Speaker 1: particular are maybe more a tune to this scent thing

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Speaker 1: than men might be. Uh. There was a survey published

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Speaker 1: in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior in two thousand

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Speaker 1: two which found that college women ranked body odor is

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Speaker 1: more important for attraction than looks or any other factor

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Speaker 1: except pleasantness. And what are the guys right as the

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Speaker 1: number one thing? Yeah, they looks as most desirable. Um,

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Speaker 1: and even in childhood there seems to be that gender difference. Uh.

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Speaker 1: This is from developmental psychology from two thousand three. They

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Speaker 1: had children and adolescents smell various odors and raithed them

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Speaker 1: for how much they liked it, and only the girls

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Speaker 1: disliked male sweat and could identify it. Yeah, And they

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Speaker 1: did a follow up experiment where they cued everybody into

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Speaker 1: the identity of the odors and then, regardless of gender,

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Speaker 1: adolescents over children disliked male sweat. More so they think

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Speaker 1: that maybe there's some sort of like social thing that

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Speaker 1: once you get older, you're like, oh men, men, sweat

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Speaker 1: that's dirty unless you're fertile and he's dominant apparently in

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Speaker 1: your a heterosexual fifty shades of uh oh. But speaking

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Speaker 1: of UM, I thought this was pretty fascinating. There was

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Speaker 1: an article published in May two thousand twelve in The

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Speaker 1: New Scientists by Mary McLoud all about scent and um

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Speaker 1: all of the most contemporary research about it, and she

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Speaker 1: cited a study out of Poland which found that participants

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Speaker 1: could by simply smelling people's sweat predict their personality type,

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Speaker 1: for instance, whether or not they were a little more

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Speaker 1: neurotic or extroverted. Um. Yeah, I mean the little more

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Speaker 1: pungent people were a little more erotic, but not erotic

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Speaker 1: neurotic or you know, maybe that was tested too, very

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Speaker 1: erotic sweat, um, But I thought it was It was

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Speaker 1: interesting that even even with personality, win for so much

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Speaker 1: from someone's scent, including their age. This is some of

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Speaker 1: the most recent research to come out, and this is

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Speaker 1: again coming from the Manel Chemical Senses Center, and they

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Speaker 1: were looking into this. The old stereotype about old people

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Speaker 1: smell for lack of better phrasing. Yeah, people tend to

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Speaker 1: find old people smell to be gross and off putting

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Speaker 1: and negative, and they don't have anything nice to say

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Speaker 1: about it. But that they think because the study that

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Speaker 1: might have more to do with the context, because they

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Speaker 1: didn't tell people necessarily that it was an elderly person

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Speaker 1: who had donated the smell. They just had all these

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Speaker 1: smells that they were testing, and the subjects managed, though,

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Speaker 1: to separate out the smells that belonged to the elderly.

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Speaker 1: They didn't, however, think they smelled bad or nasty or

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Speaker 1: off putting. They said that they smelled more pleasant than

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Speaker 1: the rest of them. Yeah. They had the participants divided

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Speaker 1: up into age groups and um by sex, and the

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Speaker 1: group that consistently smelled the worst. Guys, I'm really sorry

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Speaker 1: to keep keep on calling you out here, just stating

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Speaker 1: the facts. Middle aged men, you were the stinkiest lot.

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Speaker 1: But elderly men in particular, even more so than the

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Speaker 1: elderly women, had the most pleasant and almost non existent smell. Yeah. Well,

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Speaker 1: they point out that that might be because elderly men

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Speaker 1: have lost testosterone, so things are evening out in the

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Speaker 1: hormone area. But I thought, you know, like we have

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Speaker 1: we have this association I think with you know, it

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Speaker 1: goes along with nursing homes and retirement homes and those

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Speaker 1: very particular smells that are there, and once you remove

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Speaker 1: the older person from that context, and we kind of

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Speaker 1: this is so C eight the old people smell is

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Speaker 1: actually kind of figment of our imagining, at least in

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Speaker 1: a negative sense. Well, and the participants who donated donated

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Speaker 1: their scent. Uh, we're healthy, so there wasn't an issue

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Speaker 1: of any like health issues that might have been contributing

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Speaker 1: to a bad smell for instance. And this does that

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Speaker 1: that study from the Monnel Center does support a previous

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Speaker 1: study published in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology from two

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Speaker 1: thousand one, which found a specific component that's characteristic of

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Speaker 1: the body owner of the middle aged and senior citizens.

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Speaker 1: And they think it has to do something with changes

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Speaker 1: in our bodies in mono unsaturated fatty acid compositions of

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Speaker 1: our skin surface lipids. Yeah, quote unquote the deterioration of

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Speaker 1: the body owners for the middle aged and the elderly.

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Speaker 1: That's a nice way to put it. So like, so

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Speaker 1: are diminishing body grease? Yeah, basically, well, let's go to

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Speaker 1: somebody who's not greasy. That's babies. That's maybe the best

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Speaker 1: podcast transition ever been made. Well, Um, this this is

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Speaker 1: an interesting study. Uh, this is hormones and behaviors. New

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Speaker 1: moms are more attracted to the body odor of newborn

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Speaker 1: infants than are non mothers, even when they didn't know

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Speaker 1: the source. It's like they just like smell freshly baked

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Speaker 1: cookies and just go for it. It's like, I smell

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Speaker 1: something that needs nurturing in this room, a baby in

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Speaker 1: this room. Um. And they did find that mothers with

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Speaker 1: higher cortisol levels are better able to recognize their own

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Speaker 1: infants smells. Yeah, and it's a it's a two way

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Speaker 1: street too, because by two weeks, infants can distinguish between

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Speaker 1: their mother's breast milk and that of another mother and

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Speaker 1: they that's one of the quickest bonds to happen between

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Speaker 1: a mother and a child. Is that intense the baby

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Speaker 1: bonding to the mother smell and vice versa. Yeah, it's

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Speaker 1: really surprising how quickly infants developed that strong sense of smell.

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Speaker 1: I mean, they can't see very well and they certainly

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Speaker 1: can't tell you what's wrong. If they're crying, but they

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Speaker 1: can smell you, all right. Yeah, so yeah, familiar smells

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Speaker 1: they can soothe infants. You think about that, I mean,

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Speaker 1: if you think about it, like the the that intense

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Speaker 1: link between our old faction and memory and how that

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Speaker 1: you know, there's that tight um association in the brand.

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Speaker 1: I'm sure our sister or Brother podcasts Stuff to Blow

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Speaker 1: your Mind has done lots on the science of smell.

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Speaker 1: But just to finish things off with this smorgess board

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Speaker 1: of smells podcasts, let's talk about something called old factory

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Speaker 1: reference syndrome, which I had not heard of before you

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Speaker 1: sent me some info about it, Caroline. Yeah, I had

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Speaker 1: never heard of this, but you know, there's there's you

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Speaker 1: can be self conscious about the way you smell, Like

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Speaker 1: if you've been outside running around, you might be like, oh, gosh,

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Speaker 1: I hope I don't smell too bad, especially you know,

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Speaker 1: if you have to go back in to work or whatever.

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Speaker 1: But it's usually not debilitating. But there are people with

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Speaker 1: olfactory reference syndrome who feel that they smell so bad

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Speaker 1: that nobody would actually want to even spend any time

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Speaker 1: with them, be in the same room with them at all.

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Speaker 1: And these people usually fall into depression and shut out

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Speaker 1: the world. And this is from Catherine Phillips, who's a

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Speaker 1: psychiatrist at Red Island Hospital. They found that sixty of

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Speaker 1: these people have thoughts of suicide and thirty two percent

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Speaker 1: actually attempted. And they spend these people can spend somewhere

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Speaker 1: between three and eight hours a day obsessively thinking about

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Speaker 1: their various odors that nobody else can smell. So you're

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Speaker 1: sitting there constantly just in a state of high alert

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Speaker 1: like panic, thinking like, oh my god, you can smell

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Speaker 1: my feet. Can you smell my feet? You can totally

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Speaker 1: smell my feet. Well, a majority thought seventy thought that

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Speaker 1: the smell was from their breath, and then sixty percent

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Speaker 1: it was armpit smell, and thirty five percent thought the

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Speaker 1: odors were coming from their genitals and um. The doctors

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Speaker 1: think that at first they thought it was something to

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Speaker 1: do with ski staphrenia, but now they are seeing more

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Speaker 1: of as a link to O c D behavior. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and so they usually try to treat it with cognitive

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Speaker 1: behavior therapy but also exposure therapy. So, no, you're going

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Speaker 1: to eat those onions and garlic and then you're gonna

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Speaker 1: go out and you're gonna socialize with people, darn it,

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Speaker 1: and so hope with the hope that that can actually

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Speaker 1: help them get over it. But even in the general population,

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Speaker 1: there is a link between heightened anxiety and a more

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Speaker 1: acute sense of smell, which is kind of fascinating and

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Speaker 1: and reminds me of our you know what animals we

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Speaker 1: are sometimes. Yeah. This was a University Wisconsin study in March.

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Speaker 1: They put a bunch of people in m r I

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Speaker 1: machines and and tested basically what happened in their brain

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Speaker 1: with the smell region of their brain and when they

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Speaker 1: were anxious. And they found that as anxiety arises, so

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Speaker 1: did the subject's ability to discriminate negative odors. And they

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Speaker 1: think that it is goes back to our evolutionary roots

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Speaker 1: of you know, threat detection and all of our since

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Speaker 1: that's going on high alert to keep ourselves safe. Oh

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Speaker 1: my god, the prairie tiger is going to kill me.

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Speaker 1: Somebody farted runway. Uh So I think that's all the

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Speaker 1: smell research that we have. Um My takeaway is, you know,

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Speaker 1: if a straightman smells very good, uh, maybe he might

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Speaker 1: be gay or very dominant, or a vegetarian or a

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Speaker 1: vegetarian all of these who doesn't eat spicy food or garlic? Indeed? Uh,

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Speaker 1: lots lots of fascinating takeaways. Oh, I've got one more

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Speaker 1: I forgot to mention. This was also from two thousand

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Speaker 1: and twelve in the Journal of Forensic Science. They found

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Speaker 1: that like police dogs trained dogs, Caroline, they are better

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Speaker 1: at sniffing out women than men. Well that's just not fair,

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Speaker 1: So lady criminals also be aware watch out. So that's

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Speaker 1: all we got, uh, Since b O any any BO

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Speaker 1: related stories we would like to hear from you listeners now,

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Speaker 1: Mom Stuff at Discovery dot com is where you can

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00:25:19,000 --> 00:25:22,200
Speaker 1: send us your letters, and we got a couple here

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00:25:22,680 --> 00:25:30,080
Speaker 1: to share with you. This one is from James. The

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Speaker 1: subject line is exciting fiction. Exciting isn't quote? So who

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Speaker 1: knows what he has in store for us? He says,

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Speaker 1: I'm a classicist and I thought i'd share some fun

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Speaker 1: facts about a it and the ancients when it comes

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Speaker 1: to exciting literature. The ours Amatoria comes in three books.

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Speaker 1: The first is for guys and teaches you how to

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Speaker 1: get a girlfriend. There's some really cute scenes, like how

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Speaker 1: to help your lady friend have a good time at

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Speaker 1: the horse races. That's my main concern, thank you. The

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Speaker 1: second is for ladies, teaching them how to get a boyfriend.

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Speaker 1: The third teaches you how to break up. We don't

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Speaker 1: know why Ovid was exiled. It's even possible that he

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Speaker 1: never was, and his poetry on the subject might be

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Speaker 1: some weird performance piece like what Joaquin Phoenix tried to

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Speaker 1: pull a few years ago. That's weird, and Netflix keeps

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00:26:11,119 --> 00:26:12,719
Speaker 1: recommending that I watched that movie and I don't want

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Speaker 1: to um Appleus is Metamorphosis is a very funny, erotic novel.

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Speaker 1: It's mostly from the main character's perspective. He gets turned

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Speaker 1: into a donkey early on and stays that way almost

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Speaker 1: to the very end. The Greek novel is a genre

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Speaker 1: that's more like your modern day romance novel, with two

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Speaker 1: young lovers, pirates, kidnappings, fake death, et cetera. On the

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Speaker 1: visual side, he says, if you ever took a mythology

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00:26:36,440 --> 00:26:39,040
Speaker 1: course or Roman sive, you probably saw some Pompeii and

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00:26:39,119 --> 00:26:42,280
Speaker 1: frescoes of pre APUs, a Roman fertility deity with a

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Speaker 1: comically large fallace uh second bullet point. Greek base painting

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Speaker 1: from the classical period sometimes depicts graphic acts with the

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Speaker 1: characters fully disrobed. I'm not sure who would want their

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Speaker 1: olive oil shipped in that, but hey, different strokes and

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Speaker 1: all that. So thank you for the the saucy fiction

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Speaker 1: pointers Erotica. It's been around for agels. Well. I have

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Speaker 1: an email from Dima in Pakistan and this is in

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00:27:09,560 --> 00:27:13,119
Speaker 1: response to our episode on donating old clothes, and she

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00:27:14,000 --> 00:27:16,159
Speaker 1: has some pretty nep few ways that she deals with that.

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00:27:16,320 --> 00:27:19,080
Speaker 1: She writes. My best friend's mom and I are usually

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Speaker 1: the people UH folks come to when they want to

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00:27:22,119 --> 00:27:25,800
Speaker 1: donate something, especially clothes. So what we do first is

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00:27:25,880 --> 00:27:29,280
Speaker 1: sift through them and separate them into two piles, horribly

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00:27:29,359 --> 00:27:33,440
Speaker 1: ugly clothes slash unusable clothes and clothes people might actually want.

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00:27:33,840 --> 00:27:36,760
Speaker 1: With the horrible clothes, I cut them and tie the

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00:27:36,840 --> 00:27:39,440
Speaker 1: strips together until it forms something like a ball of

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00:27:39,560 --> 00:27:43,320
Speaker 1: yarn for each item. With that yarn, my best friend's

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00:27:43,359 --> 00:27:45,800
Speaker 1: mom will crochet a rug in about three hours while

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00:27:45,880 --> 00:27:48,960
Speaker 1: she watches TV or something. She gives these rugs away

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00:27:49,000 --> 00:27:51,359
Speaker 1: to anyone who wants them, and we plan on selling

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Speaker 1: some next year at our city's heritage festival. With the

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Speaker 1: usable clothes, we have created a swap with our friends,

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Speaker 1: which I'm making many people come to. So that's two

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00:28:02,680 --> 00:28:06,880
Speaker 1: great ideas for clothing donations. And if you have any

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00:28:06,960 --> 00:28:09,560
Speaker 1: great ideas or stories or just a hello to share

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00:28:09,640 --> 00:28:12,359
Speaker 1: with us, you can send us an email mom Stuff

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00:28:12,720 --> 00:28:16,280
Speaker 1: at Discovery dot com. You can find us on Facebook,

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00:28:16,440 --> 00:28:20,320
Speaker 1: and you can follow us on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast,

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00:28:20,840 --> 00:28:24,760
Speaker 1: and you can check out our blog. We're on Tumbler now, folks,

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00:28:24,880 --> 00:28:28,400
Speaker 1: that is stuff Mom Never told you dot tumbler dot com.

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Speaker 1: And as always, you can make yourself smarter by heading

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00:28:31,720 --> 00:28:37,800
Speaker 1: to our website, It's how stuff Works dot com for

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00:28:37,920 --> 00:28:40,240
Speaker 1: more on this and thousands of other topics. Is it

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Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. Brought to you by the

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Speaker 1: reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you