Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, Welcome to Creature feature, the show where we
Speaker 1: look at the world through animal eyes, all aid of them.
Speaker 1: I'm Katie Golden. I studied psychology and evolutionary biology, and
Speaker 1: there's a rumor I'm a puppet being controlled by a
Speaker 1: flock of birds. Untrue. Today on the show, we're talking superheroes.
Speaker 1: Did you know there are animals out there with real
Speaker 1: comic books, superpowers and people with superhuman abilities? Today we'll
Speaker 1: be looking at the real life animal and human counterparts
Speaker 1: to famous superheroes and maybe some super villains to discover
Speaker 1: this and more as we answer the age old question
Speaker 1: what's the best radioactive animal to be bitten by? So?
Speaker 1: Are there superheroes or supervillains secretly living among us? In November,
Speaker 1: American diplomats in Cuba felt they were under attack by
Speaker 1: some sort of supersonic weapon. They were plagued by a constant,
Speaker 1: high pitched sound, followed by some sort of mysterious illness.
Speaker 1: They were racked with headaches and nausea. Some of them
Speaker 1: were even found to have symptoms of having had a concussion.
Speaker 1: So what was this? Some covert attacked by Cuba? Maybe
Speaker 1: it was a rogue superhero with supersonic yells like Banshee,
Speaker 1: the X Men, or Black Canary, or well, crickets really
Speaker 1: freaking loud crickets. A recording of the mystery sound was
Speaker 1: analyzed by a couple of biologists, and they found that
Speaker 1: it matched with the Indies short tailed cricket. These crickets
Speaker 1: produced loud, droning patterns to court females, So there's a
Speaker 1: strong possibility these diplomats have been tormented by the cries
Speaker 1: of crickets yelling comebook this thanks a lot horny crickets.
Speaker 1: You almost started a war with Cuba. But is there
Speaker 1: such a thing as a supersonic weapon? As we'll find out,
Speaker 1: not only is there a real life version of Banshee,
Speaker 1: but there are plenty of superhero animal analogs. With me
Speaker 1: today is Sore and Booie, American dad writer, co host
Speaker 1: of Quick Question with Soren and Daniel, and he used
Speaker 1: to be my supervisor. Yeah that was your boss, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I remember that. Yeah, those good old boy. Was I
Speaker 1: a handful. You're always getting into scrapes being a real pro,
Speaker 1: real stinker. Um, So if you could be bitten by
Speaker 1: a radioactive animal of your choice and gain their powers,
Speaker 1: what would it be I mean beaver, Okay, interesting, I
Speaker 1: think beaver at any other point in my life, I
Speaker 1: would have gone with something else, like snow lepperd is
Speaker 1: a really enticing choice. Those are cute, They're so cool,
Speaker 1: and everything about them is cool. It's like they live
Speaker 1: in a different dimension, Like they're like they live on
Speaker 1: a different plane than us. They're going completely on a
Speaker 1: diagonal and or like vertical face. We don't ever see them.
Speaker 1: I also do think they warp in and out of
Speaker 1: the fourth dimension because it's so hard to find them.
Speaker 1: Impossible to find. We didn't even have footage of them
Speaker 1: till the two thousand's right, Um, so that would be
Speaker 1: a really cool choice. But as I've gotten older, I've realized, like,
Speaker 1: if they have to be a better steward of this planet,
Speaker 1: and beavers are cool lynchpin species, and I think that
Speaker 1: I could. They can basically create entire habitats single handedly.
Speaker 1: They Yeah, they're like responsible for terraforming the environment exactly.
Speaker 1: They also have iron enforced teeth. That's why their teeth
Speaker 1: are yellow. I mean, that's gonna be a bonus that
Speaker 1: I didn't realize what I was getting a bit I
Speaker 1: get I guess it depends on where I'm bit too,
Speaker 1: because I could do some serious damage, right right, well,
Speaker 1: I mean yeah, but then then you would have the
Speaker 1: teeth the beaver even so you know, and you could uh,
Speaker 1: I don't know, because that's how they chopped down wood
Speaker 1: with their teeth. Um, you could be like that James
Speaker 1: Bond the metal bites McGoo. Yeah, I mean we're circling.
Speaker 1: I will find it. Mr Bites sounds closer warmer, um,
Speaker 1: but yeah, they if I had that power, I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess that the teeth would be a cool uh
Speaker 1: icing on the cake. But I think that being able
Speaker 1: to tear form environments would be a super helpful fun
Speaker 1: thing to do and I don't have to fight bad
Speaker 1: guys that way, which I think you get into a
Speaker 1: situation where with a lot of other ones where you're
Speaker 1: forcing that situation, and as a beaver's um, that's a
Speaker 1: very responsible choice. Um. I kind of would want to
Speaker 1: be bitten by what's called a desert rain frog and
Speaker 1: it's and don't worry, it's it's not too bad. But
Speaker 1: they're like the super super cute animal version of like
Speaker 1: Banshi or the black Canary. For the non nerds out there, Uh.
Speaker 1: Those are like superheroes who use their super voice to
Speaker 1: like blast enemies away. Um, And we have a couple
Speaker 1: of animals like that, but this one is the cutest one.
Speaker 1: They're super super adorable. They're like, uh, I'm gonna show
Speaker 1: you a picture, or they're like just a little they
Speaker 1: look like a little pokemon. Yeah, they're like the frog
Speaker 1: version of a pork. That's true. I didn't notice that before,
Speaker 1: but you're totally right. So, um they live on the
Speaker 1: coast of South Africa and Namibia. Jesus. Uh. They are
Speaker 1: only a couple of inches big. They're basically like a
Speaker 1: little balloon with legs. Uh. And um, they absorbed water
Speaker 1: through their tummies. That's how they drink. Yeah, because they
Speaker 1: like um yeah, a little Tommy straws. And they don't hop.
Speaker 1: They waddle because they're and well, they have a battle
Speaker 1: squeak and you're about to hear it. This is the
Speaker 1: this is the squeak they make when they're very angry.
Speaker 1: So he's super piste off. It looks like c G I. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it doesn't move like a normal animal. It's got
Speaker 1: it looks like somebody's like all right, well, let's think
Speaker 1: of something really cool for an alien, but like something
Speaker 1: kids would also buy. Yeah, it looks like a Jim
Speaker 1: Henson puppet from like The Dark Crystal where it's just like,
Speaker 1: you know, you know, a little furry one where it's
Speaker 1: just like a furry ball. But this one's like a frog.
Speaker 1: So it's like, I'm confused about its eyes. It's got
Speaker 1: like sideways eyes or its eyes are always shut. Um No,
Speaker 1: that's just uh, it's it's um did not like that question.
Speaker 1: It's just that it's pupils are are sideways. Um. I
Speaker 1: don't know how that's helpful. I mean, you know, just
Speaker 1: letterbox vision. But are they always cover? Is that sand?
Speaker 1: That because they like to kind of bury themselves into
Speaker 1: sand to absorb moisture through their skin. Um, So they
Speaker 1: kind of like dig down in there and then they
Speaker 1: soak up moisture through their tummies and then waddle around
Speaker 1: and squeak real mad at things like that's their whole life.
Speaker 1: Have you ever heard of pika? Yes, so pike is.
Speaker 1: They're very territorial and they have a sound that's very
Speaker 1: similar to that. Um. If you get like above timberline,
Speaker 1: you'll run into a bunch of them, and they're they're
Speaker 1: in their rabbit family, I think, and they just adorable
Speaker 1: little squeak. It's like it sounds I know that they're
Speaker 1: doing it to be like hey, funk off, funk off,
Speaker 1: but it sounds like they're It's like if something was
Speaker 1: going to eat them and it heard that, it would
Speaker 1: be like I gotta find something less adorable to eat,
Speaker 1: and they just move on, which is also a great defense. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're I think they're also related to the hidracks, which
Speaker 1: they also do. The super squeaky thing. It's really there.
Speaker 1: It's so cute. So now onto something a little more horrifying,
Speaker 1: just a little dose of cute before we get into
Speaker 1: the nasty things. So that squeak is it's very cute.
Speaker 1: It's I think it's the power of cuteness that would
Speaker 1: compel predators not to eat it. I don't see that
Speaker 1: being intimidating. It's like it's like, I can't eat you.
Speaker 1: It's a baby cat that hasn't even a kitten, it
Speaker 1: hasn't This battle squeak of there's is nothing compared to
Speaker 1: the call of the water boatman, which is a small insect. Uh.
Speaker 1: It's the loudest animal relative to its body size. Uh,
Speaker 1: and it has a singing penis. So what so the
Speaker 1: water boatman, it's an insect. It's about the size of
Speaker 1: a thumb tack. Um. They have limbs shaped like oars.
Speaker 1: You may have seen one if you've ever been near
Speaker 1: pond or like a fresh body of water. They're the
Speaker 1: ones that have like those little oars and they kind
Speaker 1: of like, um, row along the water. I'm pretty sure. Yeah, yes,
Speaker 1: I think you're right. I forgot that. Um. And it's like,
Speaker 1: but it in that movie, they would be singing with
Speaker 1: their penises it, I know, like just like have um
Speaker 1: Will Smith play a water boatman with a singing penis
Speaker 1: and he's blue. So uh. They feed on algae and
Speaker 1: they're mostly peaceful. Um. So you know they're they're not
Speaker 1: really too threatening, except that the male uh lesser water
Speaker 1: boatman can sing mating calls that are at nine decibels,
Speaker 1: which is about as loud as a jackhammer. Um. So
Speaker 1: like they fortunately they sing underwater, so that's what spares
Speaker 1: us from just like constant jackhammers coming from ponds. Um.
Speaker 1: But even still like water can absorb like of the sound,
Speaker 1: but even submerged, you can still hear them from outside.
Speaker 1: Uh so, the way that they make these noises is
Speaker 1: not too different from a jackhammer. They rubbed their penises
Speaker 1: against their ribbed abdomen, kind of like you know those
Speaker 1: like bossa Nova instruments where you take a wooden run.
Speaker 1: You're like, they're they're rubbing their penises on their six path. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's so cool. Yes, uh well, it's like it's like
Speaker 1: those you know what are the it's like the weirdos,
Speaker 1: the thing where it's like I remember in school when
Speaker 1: interesting instruments would get handed out, Yeah, and you nobody
Speaker 1: wanted the weirro a weird percussion one that was like
Speaker 1: all I can do is make the zipper noise, right right,
Speaker 1: but you do do the heck out of it. Um So,
Speaker 1: I have an audio clip of it singing, uh in
Speaker 1: here we go. It sounds like a cricket. But I
Speaker 1: just want you to keep in mind that's its penis
Speaker 1: rubbing against it's washboard abs. Gives it a whole new dimension.
Speaker 1: Is it doing that to attract me? Yes? Yes it,
Speaker 1: um you know, it's it's comfunct us like like it's
Speaker 1: always it's usually that like the singing of crickets. Yeah wow,
Speaker 1: So okay, what a great like simplistic. The world is
Speaker 1: so simple at that level, it's like, well, I need
Speaker 1: to remind potential mates out there that I have a dick, Right,
Speaker 1: why don't I have my dick? Make noise? It's like
Speaker 1: if if guys would just like like guys who are
Speaker 1: um you know DTF just like went around helicoptering their doing,
Speaker 1: just slapping it from thigh that noise has a very
Speaker 1: particular sound, that would be amazing. Animals are a lot
Speaker 1: more forward than people. Um, did you watch Iron Fist?
Speaker 1: The I didn't. I didn't either. Um, I don't understand
Speaker 1: the superhero I it seems like he's got a real fist.
Speaker 1: I don't either, So let's be let's guess. Let's guess
Speaker 1: with this. Well, I think it's that he has magic
Speaker 1: inside his fist that makes it real good at punching. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think the heat will Iron Fist suggesting that you're
Speaker 1: probably right. I think that he it's not even like
Speaker 1: a real superpower that he he learned it from a
Speaker 1: Tai chee master or something like that, and it's it
Speaker 1: makes his fist glow. And everyone knows that when something glows,
Speaker 1: it's stronger. Yes, that's true. I think that that is true. Like,
Speaker 1: is it both fists or one doesn't think he'd be
Speaker 1: called Iron Fists if it was both. That's true. That
Speaker 1: is absolutely true. So it's got to just be the
Speaker 1: one fist. So like like if he's like, he's like,
Speaker 1: come on, arm wrestle me. No, No, not that one,
Speaker 1: not that one, the other one. Sure, man, I don't know,
Speaker 1: but I'm a lefty. Oh you don't want to do
Speaker 1: it anymore? Okay, well, so I think we can both
Speaker 1: agree that Superhero kind of sucks, but the animal kingdom
Speaker 1: is much better at this. Uh, there's a little guy
Speaker 1: called the Boxer Crab way cooler than Iron Fist. They're
Speaker 1: teeny tiny crabs um. They're about the size of a
Speaker 1: large coin. They live in the Indo Pacific Ocean, and
Speaker 1: they have a symbiotic relationship with enemies, um, which means
Speaker 1: that they wear the enemies on their fists to use
Speaker 1: for punching. Oh my god. They're also called pom Pom
Speaker 1: crass because they look like cheerleaders. That's better. Oh man,
Speaker 1: I thought you're gonna show me like a crowd that
Speaker 1: had that giant, massive claw. But this is way cooler.
Speaker 1: Than that. So this is one of it fighting off
Speaker 1: a puffer fish with its little so see those are
Speaker 1: its little uh attached to its fists. It really does
Speaker 1: look like it's just wearing a little boxing gloves, little
Speaker 1: boxing gloves. Um. And then it, uh, you know, here
Speaker 1: comes a puffer fish and it's like these are teeny
Speaker 1: tiny crabs. They're like the size of little like coin
Speaker 1: coin side. Yeah, I'm getting down from the puffer fish. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then the puffer fish is just this giant thing
Speaker 1: looming above it. Um. And then uh so, normally a
Speaker 1: crab this size would not stand a good chance. Puffer
Speaker 1: Fish actually have really strong beaks, so they can crack
Speaker 1: right through that shell. But wait for it, Boof just
Speaker 1: like punches him right in the sneers and he keeps
Speaker 1: them up like a boxer. They wave them around like
Speaker 1: like loves and guy like a boxer. Yeah, he like
Speaker 1: raises one fist in the air like like it's just
Speaker 1: so funny. It's so cute. That's adorable. And so those
Speaker 1: things are those an enemies deadly poisonous or what's the deal?
Speaker 1: They're well, they're not necessarily deadly. Um, they can be
Speaker 1: too fish small enough, but so they have a stinging
Speaker 1: toxin in them. Um, the enemies have stinging cells. If
Speaker 1: you've ever touched one, you can like because like I
Speaker 1: do that all the time when I'm on the when
Speaker 1: the tide pools are out, you touch them like they
Speaker 1: kind of close around, because like that would be how
Speaker 1: they would capture prey. But you can kind of It's
Speaker 1: it's also to like protect them, but like you can
Speaker 1: feel just a little you touch them, you feel just
Speaker 1: a little like like, oh, it's like a little numbing
Speaker 1: thing for the little tiny enemies. Uh yeah, the ones
Speaker 1: that when you touch them they coil in. Yeah. Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: but like for a fish, Um, that's gonna suck real bad.
Speaker 1: And also I think I feel like if you touched
Speaker 1: a big enemy, that would be a bad time for you. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I've always been curious about them because when you see
Speaker 1: them all the time, you see in the title pools
Speaker 1: or or if you ever been snorkeling or anything, they're everywhere.
Speaker 1: I've I never know if they're good or bad for me.
Speaker 1: I don't think they're don't trust me add percent on this.
Speaker 1: I don't think they would really hurt you, but they
Speaker 1: might not be pleasant, like to touch a real big one. Um.
Speaker 1: But also don't go around and touching them because like
Speaker 1: it's good, it's not good for what do They just
Speaker 1: squirt some sunscreen on them, Yeah, just like some like
Speaker 1: feed them some doritos, just like here you go, you
Speaker 1: look hungry. Um. So they attach the boxer crabs attach
Speaker 1: the nenemies to little hooks found on their close because
Speaker 1: their claws are they're not like big meaty crab close.
Speaker 1: They're like little They look like little tweezers. They just
Speaker 1: like little dell get things. And they put on these
Speaker 1: big boxing gloves. Uh. And then um, they can wave
Speaker 1: them around and that's sort of like their coloration and
Speaker 1: like the motion of them waving it and like can
Speaker 1: kind of intimidate predators. And if that doesn't do it,
Speaker 1: they whoop them, give them a little punch and then
Speaker 1: that those stinging cells can ward them off bhoop on
Speaker 1: the nose. Well. So, but don't the crabs need those
Speaker 1: pinchers to eat. No, they actually use the an enemies
Speaker 1: to collect food particles. Uh. So they're they're two and ones.
Speaker 1: And then what happens is they'll eat the food and
Speaker 1: then like allow the n enemies to eat the remaining scraps,
Speaker 1: and there's some studies that suggest they actually control the
Speaker 1: amount of food that gets to the an enemies, so
Speaker 1: they can keep them bon siye sized to fit on
Speaker 1: their claws. They're also um one of the only known
Speaker 1: animals to encourage asexual reproduction in another animal. Um So, like,
Speaker 1: if the crab only has one an enemy, like a
Speaker 1: shitty um iron fist character, he'll split it into and
Speaker 1: then put the other half on the other fist and
Speaker 1: then they eventually both grow back to full size. Um
Speaker 1: So that's that's because an enemies can like reproduce by splitting,
Speaker 1: but it's actually being like it's it's helping it reproduce
Speaker 1: for its own gain. But still that that's good for
Speaker 1: the an enemy in some sense. That's so cool. Does
Speaker 1: the crab can't It's not like on a conscious level
Speaker 1: doing this. Is this is instinct instinct? Yeah, that's still
Speaker 1: pretty cool. That is really cool. So one more animal
Speaker 1: superhero before we move on. It's called the hairy frog
Speaker 1: uh and it's the wolverine of the Animal Kingdom. Uh.
Speaker 1: Frogs don't have hair, Katie. The amphibians damn it got me, um,
Speaker 1: So they're called hairy frogs because they develop what looks
Speaker 1: like hair, but it's really just dermal papilla, which is
Speaker 1: bumps in the skin. Well, you'll, uh, let me show
Speaker 1: you a Let me show you a picture of one
Speaker 1: of these these guys. You can see the hair is
Speaker 1: like weird. Um. They look like super weird kind of
Speaker 1: wiry growth. Um, but it's it's not gross. These frogs
Speaker 1: have what looks like really coarse side burns. Down there's
Speaker 1: the size of their body, which is funny because they're
Speaker 1: also known as wolverine frogs. We'll get into that, but
Speaker 1: first of all, why they have that hair is it's
Speaker 1: actually um. So it's skin that has arteries in it,
Speaker 1: and it's thought that it helps increase the surface area
Speaker 1: of the arteries to help store oxygen for when they're underwater.
Speaker 1: Um so like almost like external gills, but not really.
Speaker 1: It's like to keep because I'll like get a big
Speaker 1: gulp of oxygen and then there their red blood cells
Speaker 1: and arteries store the oxygen in it so they can
Speaker 1: stay underwater for longer. They're like the opposite of a camel. Yeah,
Speaker 1: came store water in those they think it's mostly fat um.
Speaker 1: So they're also known as wolverine frogs because they'll break
Speaker 1: their own bones and push the bone shards through their
Speaker 1: skin to use his claws in defensive combat. Yes, it's
Speaker 1: like they have special like bone node that they can
Speaker 1: like break off and then they just like use muscles
Speaker 1: to push the shards through their their their hands and
Speaker 1: feet and then like just like just like wolverine, like
Speaker 1: Hugh Jackman does, they give themselves a little compound fractures
Speaker 1: and then fight with those. Yes, it's so cool, very
Speaker 1: metal um. And it's also been specular. These are not
Speaker 1: they haven't been researched too thoroughly, but it's been speculated
Speaker 1: that the damaged tissue can heal and regenerate because like
Speaker 1: a lot of frogs can heal up and regenerate their
Speaker 1: tissue um. But live specimens have not been studied in
Speaker 1: a lab. They're in Central Africa. Okay, so I won't
Speaker 1: I don't get to go find one anytimes. I mean
Speaker 1: you can go to you could go to Central Africa
Speaker 1: and be like, bring me your frogs. Frog. I want
Speaker 1: to fight it. I want to replace its skeleton with metal.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean like originally because like Wolverine, like yeah,
Speaker 1: he gets the metal skeleton. But first, like in the
Speaker 1: first iteration, he just shoves bones out of his skin. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he has what are I mean, even more rudimentary cat claw.
Speaker 1: It's like it's actual bone that comes out of his
Speaker 1: bones somehow. Finger. It's always confused me because it appears
Speaker 1: that the bones come from between his knuckles. Oh, so
Speaker 1: it's in his wrist. They live inside his wrist and
Speaker 1: then they shoot up through his wrist out between his knuckles.
Speaker 1: But okay, because but you have no support behind something
Speaker 1: like that, like you if you had a retractable thing
Speaker 1: like that. Once it's out, there's no bone structure behind it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't understand. I don't really understand because like we don't.
Speaker 1: There aren't a bunch of bones in your wrist. It's
Speaker 1: just the two ones. And they're actually kind of cool
Speaker 1: because you have these, uh, these two arm bones that
Speaker 1: kind of like wrap around each other and like when
Speaker 1: you're moving your arm, they kind of rotate and it's
Speaker 1: it's neat. But you can't I don't m Maybe he's
Speaker 1: got he's got like chimp wrists, like those wrists that
Speaker 1: can't bend shoots out. It sits at the end of
Speaker 1: the bone on the so like structually at the very end,
Speaker 1: it would be very strong. But sitting on top of it,
Speaker 1: it's useless, right because like if you if you were
Speaker 1: wolver and you like rotated your risk, when don't you
Speaker 1: just like slice off all your fingers? Yeah, I mean yeah,
Speaker 1: if they're coming from because like if they were, I
Speaker 1: would buy it if it was like your knucklebones could
Speaker 1: like grow really long, because then that makes sense. Then
Speaker 1: you've just got like, you know, iron knuckles, but by
Speaker 1: super bony knuckles. Oh man, Yeah, And I did never
Speaker 1: really consider that that he I mean, I know he
Speaker 1: makes fists when he's got those claws out, but that's
Speaker 1: got to be from a life of getting it wrong.
Speaker 1: He's not doing that and his hands are open, Like
Speaker 1: imagine running with those claws and then tripping and falling.
Speaker 1: You your instinct, would you just bet your put your
Speaker 1: hands out and you just cut off your fingers. I mean,
Speaker 1: he can grow them though, that's because he's probably I
Speaker 1: mean you imagine he's probably done a lot of things,
Speaker 1: like he's flossing and he's startled, and you just like
Speaker 1: slices his like nose off or something. Uh man, what
Speaker 1: if when he has to be startled and he startled. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what if when he's wiping I think that I would.
Speaker 1: I mean, if I'm going to be Wolverine and in
Speaker 1: that fight, I as soon as i get my claws out,
Speaker 1: the first thing I'm doing is cutting off my fingers
Speaker 1: because I'm like, get this out of the way. I
Speaker 1: don't even have to think about it from his fight.
Speaker 1: These are gone for the fight, these claws, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: And then you have and then you can be real
Speaker 1: intimidating because it's like it's like, you know, let me
Speaker 1: give you a pointer, and you start throwing fingers at
Speaker 1: you the guy, and they're like, oh, that's disgusting. I'd
Speaker 1: like to I'd like to get in the ring with you.
Speaker 1: Is that is that his ring? Fingers? Let me file
Speaker 1: this index under you're defeated finger joke. It would just
Speaker 1: delicately place the thumb on his head. You're under my thumb,
Speaker 1: philandic olad, you're not fighting me. Have you ever wondered
Speaker 1: how Wonder Woman was well born? The Amazonians are an
Speaker 1: island of only women, so do they reproduce? Does life?
Speaker 1: Uh find a way? Well? In the comic books, it's
Speaker 1: unclear how Wonder woman's race of warrior women were created.
Speaker 1: They may have been created by gods, or in a
Speaker 1: more contentious storyline, they found some sailors, got pregnant and
Speaker 1: then killed all the sailors. But there's a real life
Speaker 1: instance of Amazonians, although they're a lot more scaly than
Speaker 1: gal gadot. The desert grassland whiptailed lizard is an all
Speaker 1: female species of lizard. They're about five inches long and
Speaker 1: have a yellow racing streak down their sides. They're not
Speaker 1: really Amazonians, they're Arizonans. Their habitat is in southern and
Speaker 1: central Arizona and near the Rio Grand in New Mexico.
Speaker 1: And yes, they're all female. They reproduced video parthenogenesis, a
Speaker 1: sexual reproduction where an emperor creo grows without fertilization. Surprisingly,
Speaker 1: whiptails offspring are not clones, and they're capable of more
Speaker 1: genetic diversity than you normally get with a sexual reproduction.
Speaker 1: The original whippedtail lizard was a hybrid of two species
Speaker 1: of lizard and somehow got three sets of DNA rather
Speaker 1: than the usual set of two and most sexual species. Then,
Speaker 1: in the process of parthenogenesis, the lizards recombine these sets
Speaker 1: of DNA into new genetically distinct offspring. Also, have you
Speaker 1: ever wondered if Amazonians get it on with each other,
Speaker 1: well whiptails do, They'll still engage in courtship behaviors and
Speaker 1: pseudocopulation that actually helps stimulate their ovulation. Jeezus, better not
Speaker 1: give any ideas to horny comic book nerds will be
Speaker 1: right back with more superheroes after a few brief messages.
Speaker 1: In the comic books, mutant powers always seem pretty cool.
Speaker 1: In real life, the issue is much more complex. There
Speaker 1: are in fact human genetic mutants who have incredibly cool powers,
Speaker 1: but that can also come at a price. Consider the
Speaker 1: condition known as sclerostiosis, a rare genetic condition that causes
Speaker 1: bone overgrowth. The result is an extra strong skeleton, one
Speaker 1: that could fare far better and say a car accident
Speaker 1: or fall. However, the condition also causes impacts on quality life,
Speaker 1: such as facial paralysis and fingers being pieceed together. But
Speaker 1: most importantly, it can be fatal when skull overgrowth causes
Speaker 1: intracranial pressure, which in some cases can cause sudden death
Speaker 1: and patience. But a silver lining, there's a heroic patient
Speaker 1: who has this condition who is using his powers for
Speaker 1: good doctor Tim Dryer is a researcher working to find
Speaker 1: a treatment for his rare condition. It turns out the
Speaker 1: real superpower was the human mind all along. But also,
Speaker 1: as we'll discuss, there are also powers like the ability
Speaker 1: to eat sharp objects or not having to sleep in
Speaker 1: a lot of other stuff. Uh so sore, and what's
Speaker 1: your superpowered? Like your real one? I can cut onions
Speaker 1: without crying. Really, that's a good one. I don't know
Speaker 1: that it's super useful in like a bank robbery situation,
Speaker 1: but at home, well, if you disable everyone else with onions,
Speaker 1: but you're fine. I mean like like you you go
Speaker 1: to a bank and you pull out a knife. Everyone
Speaker 1: screams and you start cutting onions and like I can't see,
Speaker 1: I'm blinded by tears. It's like, can you describe the suspect? No,
Speaker 1: my eyes were full of onion tears. Yeah, maybe be
Speaker 1: more suited to be a villain that way. That's a
Speaker 1: good one though, I mean, like, oh, yeah, I just
Speaker 1: assumed you're like, help out a bank robbery. I just
Speaker 1: assumed you meant help rob That's where my mind is
Speaker 1: that um garlic gets me too, actually, yeah, like onion garlic,
Speaker 1: anything like it's Yeah, it's something that's I've just never died.
Speaker 1: I mean, so I didn't erupt you go. Um, that's
Speaker 1: a good one. That's a good one. I I really
Speaker 1: thought about this. I tried to think of what my
Speaker 1: superpower is, Um, if I want to be um sort
Speaker 1: of h I guess like empowerment about it. It would
Speaker 1: be O c D because of like like, well, I'm
Speaker 1: very observant, but not really, it's not it's it's kind
Speaker 1: of it's more of an albatross. I think we did
Speaker 1: an article back in the day and Uncracked about like
Speaker 1: how why it was beneficial evolutionarily to have autism occasionally
Speaker 1: in some situations like why it's people. I mean, it
Speaker 1: gets so it gets demonized as like this, uh, like
Speaker 1: there's something wrong with somebody, but it's actually there's all
Speaker 1: kinds of benefits to it in some ways, like they
Speaker 1: see the world in ways that other people don't know.
Speaker 1: We're going to talk about that. There's a really cool
Speaker 1: example that I think everyone should know. Um and yeah,
Speaker 1: so I'm really excited to talk about that. Um. So, Uh,
Speaker 1: there's a bunch of people who have really surprising superpowers. Uh,
Speaker 1: here's one of them. His name is Aero Mantieranta probably
Speaker 1: didn't spell that right, and he's Swedish or something. I'm sorry, Sweden.
Speaker 1: I don't know how. I don't know how to do it.
Speaker 1: He probably won't even be Swedish. It's probably like another
Speaker 1: country in the Netherlands that are like, oh, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: he's not Swedish. I'll say I have my name is
Speaker 1: Scandinavian and you nailed it. But you've been my I've
Speaker 1: not used. He was finished. I'm sorry, I'm apologized to
Speaker 1: everyone in Sweden. And no, I mean you're giving the
Speaker 1: credit to the swedishog the finish sorry finish UM. I
Speaker 1: guess they finished last. So he was a four time
Speaker 1: Olympian and multiple medalist in cross country skiing UM and
Speaker 1: he was accused of blood doping. However, uh well, because
Speaker 1: like his performance was really incredible and they also found
Speaker 1: like they tested his blood and found like high red
Speaker 1: blood cell counts there like your blood doping, which is UM,
Speaker 1: that's when you pump in extra blood, like I think
Speaker 1: you save your own blood and then pump it in
Speaker 1: later so you have a higher red blood cell count
Speaker 1: which like we discussed with the Hairy frog, like the
Speaker 1: more red blood cells you have and the more stuff
Speaker 1: like you can, you know, keep oxygenated, and it improves
Speaker 1: your performance. I think you can also take the blood
Speaker 1: of when they're like toward France and stuff, when they're
Speaker 1: doing high altitude biking. You take it the blood of
Speaker 1: somebody who's lived at that altitude their their life, and
Speaker 1: it just oxygen blood of a virgin who has lived
Speaker 1: at that altitude. Yes, um, and you drink it right,
Speaker 1: that's what you have to lap it up. It's important,
Speaker 1: like a kitty um uh so. Uh So they're like, hey,
Speaker 1: you're doping. He was like, no, I'm not, and he wasn't.
Speaker 1: He actually had what's called primary familial and congenital police simia. Anyways,
Speaker 1: it's a it's a genetic condition that causes an increase
Speaker 1: in red blood cell counts and hemoglobin um. So he
Speaker 1: was just genetically better at cross country skiing um and there,
Speaker 1: and he was like, no, I'm not doping. Um So
Speaker 1: he was vindicated until nineteen seventy two when it turned
Speaker 1: out he was also doping the horbone. So the first
Speaker 1: time he wasn't lying like he was not blood doping.
Speaker 1: He was like clean and he's like, no, no no, I
Speaker 1: just have a genetic condition. And then in nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: two he's like, I'm doing hormones. I lost the stuff.
Speaker 1: I had to find some way to get it back. Uh.
Speaker 1: That's I mean, it makes sense if there's going to
Speaker 1: be people who have You're you're constantly dealing with deformations
Speaker 1: in the in like the genome er like, and so
Speaker 1: some of them are going to be bad. A lot
Speaker 1: of them are going to bad and not advantageous. Most
Speaker 1: likely they're going to be bad, but sometimes they're probably good,
Speaker 1: but not necessarily good enough that they're going to continue
Speaker 1: on with the species after that point, but like pretty good,
Speaker 1: probably good. Yeah, I mean being able to cross country ski.
Speaker 1: Several people enjoy that teens. Um. So here's another superhuman.
Speaker 1: His name is Michelle lo Tito. He's a French entertainer
Speaker 1: who would eat anything, and I mean anything, bicycle parts,
Speaker 1: shopping carts, televisions, chandeliers, computer and skis, which must have
Speaker 1: really piste off our pious um. And he it was
Speaker 1: like partially like you know, there's like some strategy to it,
Speaker 1: like he would he wouldn't just shove a whole bicycle
Speaker 1: in his face but he would like take it apart
Speaker 1: and like like choose smaller parts of it. Um, but
Speaker 1: very methodically such that he could have like two pounds
Speaker 1: of metal and glass and whatever a day. Uh and
Speaker 1: uh So doctors are like, that doesn't sound correct. So
Speaker 1: they checked him out, and they found that he had
Speaker 1: abnormally thick lining in his stomach and his intestines that
Speaker 1: allowed him to eat sharp metal without injuring his insights. Uh.
Speaker 1: And he reportedly had no problem passing the stuff, which
Speaker 1: he's telling us he doesn't have bloody poop. What about
Speaker 1: his esophagus? That was okay, I mean the us yes, yes, um,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I mean I think he was fine with
Speaker 1: that too. I think he had a method of also
Speaker 1: of like and he used some mineral oil to help
Speaker 1: loupe things up. Um. He also had a he had
Speaker 1: more powerful digestive juices than average, which meant he could
Speaker 1: break down unusual materials. And it also meant if he
Speaker 1: tried eating something soft like a banana, he would get
Speaker 1: a heartburn because it's like he's like got like some
Speaker 1: real powerful acids in there. It's like a banana that's
Speaker 1: not enough. I need a car tire man that it's
Speaker 1: the stomach turns into the perfect storm because it's so
Speaker 1: upset by not having something, not having bolts and screws
Speaker 1: in there. I wish someone told him he could just
Speaker 1: eat kale, though, because like, you don't need to eat
Speaker 1: a bicycle. Put some KALs basically the bark of a tree. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know. Have you ever tried and chewing on it? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's the only food where you actually have to break
Speaker 1: it down before you eat, Like you need to put
Speaker 1: some juice in it to break down. I mean, like
Speaker 1: with just rock Hill, like I would wear that as
Speaker 1: a parachute. I trust that material very good as a parachute.
Speaker 1: Not in my mouth though, That's that's so, I mean,
Speaker 1: was there surely there was someone in his life who
Speaker 1: was like, listen, you have a lot going on. You
Speaker 1: don't have to do this. You have to do this
Speaker 1: for everybody. He actually, I think he reportedly also had pika,
Speaker 1: the condition where you eat stuff that is not normal
Speaker 1: eaches and things like yeah yeah, or like nail polished
Speaker 1: once I saw, which is kind of crazy because I'm like,
Speaker 1: because there's that horrible show, very exploitative, but I still
Speaker 1: sometimes look at it the the like my strange addiction
Speaker 1: thing where it's like it's like I eat diapers, and
Speaker 1: it's just I feel very bad about that show because
Speaker 1: that seems like exploiting people. Um, but it's also just like, wow,
Speaker 1: you can survive eating diapers, Like you can live through that.
Speaker 1: That's kind of you know, wow, Yeah, it's it is
Speaker 1: a shock. We're so used to only consuming things that
Speaker 1: are intentionally supposed to be consumed that it is really
Speaker 1: surprising when you find out somebody ate like no, right,
Speaker 1: Like I get worried when I accidentally eat like a
Speaker 1: sunflower hole, like a sunflower seed shell. I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's not going to be good down there. But I mean, like,
Speaker 1: it would be really nice to see this guy who
Speaker 1: had decide he's going to be a superhero, has already
Speaker 1: got the costume and everything, and then just him in
Speaker 1: the costume, sitting on the edge of his bed being like, Okay,
Speaker 1: how am I going to fight crime with this? I'll
Speaker 1: eat their getaway vehicle, and like they're coming back to
Speaker 1: the currents, like hold on, I'm still working through the room.
Speaker 1: So let's let's move from the more visceral superpowers and
Speaker 1: into the realm of the mind. Nerd um. So. There's
Speaker 1: a condition called hyperthymesia, where people have an almost supernatural
Speaker 1: autobiographical memory. They can remember in excruciating detail and abnormal
Speaker 1: amount about their lives. So like if I ask you,
Speaker 1: what did you do five weeks ago at five o'clock
Speaker 1: on Monday, I know it would take me a very
Speaker 1: long time. I'd have to track. I have to like
Speaker 1: work out from a mic macro sense right and get
Speaker 1: down to like, okay, well it probably was this right, right.
Speaker 1: But people with this uh, this like super autobiographical memory
Speaker 1: can can do that like, oh yeah, I was, I
Speaker 1: was wearing like my yellow card again and I was
Speaker 1: like chilling at you know, uh, Hansen's board Shop or
Speaker 1: whatever people do. I don't know what activities people enjoy.
Speaker 1: Very popular among them this condition. They go to Hanson's
Speaker 1: board Shop. Yeah, that's a that's a that's a surfboarding
Speaker 1: shop here in uh in California. I don't know why
Speaker 1: I brought it up, because I don't I certainly don't serve.
Speaker 1: And so one such person with this condition, Rebecca Sherrik,
Speaker 1: explains that it's not always beneficial. Here's a quote from her.
Speaker 1: She says, if I'm remembering an incident that happened when
Speaker 1: I was three. My emotional response to the situation is
Speaker 1: like a three year old, even though my mind and
Speaker 1: conscience are like an adult. So that's crazy to me.
Speaker 1: Where like because you remember stuff sometimes and you're kind
Speaker 1: of like, oh, yeah, I was like three and I
Speaker 1: was really upset because I didn't want to eat banana.
Speaker 1: But then I ate it and I hated it or something,
Speaker 1: and then you feel kind of like you understand what
Speaker 1: you felt at the time, but then to like refeel
Speaker 1: that three year old feeling because like emotions were so
Speaker 1: raw you're a little kid. That would be really tough
Speaker 1: also for like childbirth and things like, oh god, your
Speaker 1: brain is so good at tricking you into forgetting that
Speaker 1: type of stuff in general, right, yes, yes, emotional and
Speaker 1: physical pain like we kind of we lit the sounds
Speaker 1: of time kind of erode that a little bit, take
Speaker 1: the edge off. But yeah, She said that it can
Speaker 1: be really distressing, like to remember things she remembers moments
Speaker 1: of embarrassment or um social situations that didn't go well,
Speaker 1: and she like re feels those emotions and that you
Speaker 1: ascribed a childhood trauma of your own. To her, the
Speaker 1: bananas thing I forgot. I had probably already told you
Speaker 1: that story because like, uh, when when we worked, when
Speaker 1: you were my supervisor, I was being bullied with bananas,
Speaker 1: remember that. Yeah, it was really a problem, honestly, banana
Speaker 1: bully And so I was being harassed with bananas. People
Speaker 1: would leave them on my desk and I didn't appreciate
Speaker 1: that because I don't like bananas to almost a phobic point.
Speaker 1: Um not quite not, not like I think once you're
Speaker 1: like are you are you actually upset about them? Like
Speaker 1: it's fine, but um but yeah, when I was a kid, well,
Speaker 1: like I said, I was traumatized because I ate a banana. Really,
Speaker 1: all I remember is I ate it and I started
Speaker 1: crying and banana got like up my nose and like
Speaker 1: snot and tears and banana and that just all it
Speaker 1: became associated with sadness, you know. No, I mean I
Speaker 1: completely get it. People do with sicknesses all the time.
Speaker 1: I got food poisoning once when I was a child,
Speaker 1: and it was not related to skittles, but I had
Speaker 1: happened to be eating skills last and off the table
Speaker 1: for me, and that's that goes the same for me,
Speaker 1: except seaweed salad, like I got, I got food poisoning,
Speaker 1: and now I can't anymore. Um, But yeah, that's well,
Speaker 1: that's really interesting because that makes sense. So like we
Speaker 1: when we have something like food poisoning or something bad happen,
Speaker 1: we have this very crystal clear memory of it. We
Speaker 1: create this very strong association to the point where it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: I got sick eating skittles. Now if you smell or
Speaker 1: look at or taste a skittle, that feeling of sickness
Speaker 1: comes back to you. Um. But then imagine that. But
Speaker 1: just like for everything, like mundane things, so like their
Speaker 1: memories are the people with the hyperthymesia they can just
Speaker 1: like that. It doesn't have to be a important event
Speaker 1: for them to remember to remember the sort of visceral thing.
Speaker 1: So it's like something so researchers have looked at it.
Speaker 1: They found that the temporal lobe is larger in people
Speaker 1: with the condition um, as is the CAD a nucleus,
Speaker 1: which also happens to be associated with O c D,
Speaker 1: which is interesting to me. Um, I don't know. I mean, well,
Speaker 1: I have O c D, but I don't have the
Speaker 1: hyper because like I can't remember five seconds ago let alone. Like, uh, now,
Speaker 1: my my memory is very averag ridge. Um, but I
Speaker 1: would imagine how awful you'd be if you didn't have it.
Speaker 1: Maybe this just even due out, I know, I know,
Speaker 1: but like that is true because I'm sort of apsent
Speaker 1: minded sometimes. But I think the O c D kind
Speaker 1: of like kind of even because like one of the
Speaker 1: things I'm like, I'm like, oh, I'm always checking the
Speaker 1: stove to make sure it's turned off, and like and
Speaker 1: one time I was checking it, it was like, you know,
Speaker 1: a uh evenment was slowly burning. It was like thanks
Speaker 1: so c D. That oh that kind of positive reinforcement
Speaker 1: is super dangerous. So I had a roommate who left
Speaker 1: the gas on and so that was just confirmation to
Speaker 1: me that I need to uh check everything at all times. Up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but but I'm not dead yet, so that's good. Um
Speaker 1: uh So there's a this is kind of a related thing.
Speaker 1: Have you heard of human calculators. These are the people
Speaker 1: that go on like David Letterman. David Letterman will be like,
Speaker 1: hey do this multiplication. They're like okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, David.
Speaker 1: It was just like interesting, yeah that stuff. We have
Speaker 1: a guy who can catch popcorn as throwing at thirty
Speaker 1: ft in the air. Do you remember like sort of
Speaker 1: the last days of David Letterman where he just like
Speaker 1: seemed kind of checked out. It was a yeah, he's
Speaker 1: like he's already. You could tell he was like wanting
Speaker 1: to work on that beard already. It was just like
Speaker 1: it's like, what are you your ski and squirrel? Great?
Speaker 1: That's awesome, Cool, it's so done. Um. So there's this
Speaker 1: guy Scott Flansburgh who can do huge calculations in his
Speaker 1: head in record breaking speeds at calculator accuracy. Uh. In fact,
Speaker 1: he can sometimes work faster than someone with a calculator.
Speaker 1: And he's just like, oh, so they it takes the
Speaker 1: amount of time it takes for them to punch in
Speaker 1: the numbers is slower than slower than he can do
Speaker 1: in his head. Yeah, nerd, that's like magic to me.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm terrible at math and even like basic subtraction.
Speaker 1: I'm playing darts or something like that. It's embarrassing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that's pretty incredible. Well I was. I mean I
Speaker 1: was always a pretty good mouth student. That didn't mean
Speaker 1: I could do simple addition or subtraction. Like it's they're
Speaker 1: kind of separate skills, um, like being able to understand
Speaker 1: the concept of proofs and math and stuff is kind
Speaker 1: of it's it's different. Well, it's just learning a different language,
Speaker 1: knowing how the language works, like what's what goes next
Speaker 1: to each other and operations and things like that. But
Speaker 1: like if you're like, what's five minus three, I'm like
Speaker 1: why to Um here's another cool one. Researchers found a
Speaker 1: genetic mutation that allows people to survive on very little sleep. Um.
Speaker 1: So they have a few case studies where people will
Speaker 1: go to bed at like ten thirty and wake up
Speaker 1: at four am and feel super well arrested. H And
Speaker 1: they found that there's like a specific genetic mutation they
Speaker 1: believe is responsible for this. I honestly think that my
Speaker 1: wife's dad has this really interesting He can't get up.
Speaker 1: He gets up at four thirty every single morning when
Speaker 1: he can't sleep past that, he has to get up.
Speaker 1: There what time does he get to bed, Like you
Speaker 1: can go to bed, he goes like when we do,
Speaker 1: so it's like ten, ten or thirty. Yeah, and he's
Speaker 1: like totally well rested every single day. Yeah, it doesn't
Speaker 1: snap in the middle of the day, just as somebody
Speaker 1: who needs less sleep and is um has no concept
Speaker 1: of the fact that other people do. It's making making
Speaker 1: smoothies at four o'clock in the morning. Yeah, well, he's
Speaker 1: a whistler, but like intentional whistling or like a whistler.
Speaker 1: Oh no, no, he's he's an intentional whistler. But I
Speaker 1: don't think he's conscious of it. In fact, he whistles
Speaker 1: the same song a lot, and it frequently sounds like
Speaker 1: the first few notes of Legend of Zelda. He goes,
Speaker 1: he goes, just like and I always want to go.
Speaker 1: But he's he gets up so early, and I think
Speaker 1: that it took him a long time to be convinced
Speaker 1: that other people weren't just lazy like it was him. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but he's got this. I think. I think I have
Speaker 1: the opposite, because I could if you allowed me to
Speaker 1: just sleep, I would sleep like indefinitely, Like I could
Speaker 1: sleep quite a long time, and I get to bed early.
Speaker 1: Uh you know, not, I'm not like you know, And
Speaker 1: I could be in the best of moods and like
Speaker 1: be like I'm really excited for tomorrow and then like
Speaker 1: like you try to get me up at a normal
Speaker 1: time like eight o'clock and I'm just like I could
Speaker 1: sleep just for five more hours, yes, um, And I
Speaker 1: could nap pretty much at any time, and it doesn't
Speaker 1: it seems independent of when I get to bed. So
Speaker 1: I'll get to bed really early to try to be
Speaker 1: able to wake up earlier. And it's still just like
Speaker 1: I would love I would love five more hours of sleep.
Speaker 1: I am exactly the same way. Yeah, I can. I
Speaker 1: need a lot of sleep. My ideal amount of sleep
Speaker 1: each night is ten hours. I can't get that obviously
Speaker 1: with a child job. But it's it's like it's almost
Speaker 1: painful when I have to get up before then it's
Speaker 1: it can't eat anything because like my stomach doesn't feel
Speaker 1: good that earlier. And someone who can just snap anywhere
Speaker 1: as long as I'm allowed to lie down, I can
Speaker 1: nap anywhere. When we used to shoot sketches and stuff
Speaker 1: like that, I would just find somewhere quiet on the
Speaker 1: floor and lie down with my arms crossed over me
Speaker 1: like a fucking vampire sleep there and his eyes were
Speaker 1: still open. I know. I used to be on those
Speaker 1: those shoots, like the overnight ones. Just like your eyes
Speaker 1: are open and then when you wake up, you just
Speaker 1: kind of lift your upper corso, um, so one more
Speaker 1: super human. His name is his name is Whim, but
Speaker 1: I think it's William untrustworthy. Former Katie was Katie of
Speaker 1: the past, was not me. I don't know that Wim
Speaker 1: is if now I'll feel really bad if that's his
Speaker 1: real name, and I'm just like so incredulous William potentially
Speaker 1: the iceman off can withstand cold to world breaking to
Speaker 1: grees get it degrees. Anyways. He attributes it to his
Speaker 1: breathing techniques and meditation. But he has a twin brother.
Speaker 1: So scientists were like, hey, let's test you guys, because
Speaker 1: like the Iceman was like, oh, because I live in
Speaker 1: high altitudes and I do all this stuff. And they
Speaker 1: actually found that they can both do it pretty well. Um,
Speaker 1: when they do the breathing techniques. Like the breathing techniques
Speaker 1: definitely help. It's like some kind of like sort of
Speaker 1: fast breathing followed by it's like some weird, weird thing. Um.
Speaker 1: But like they found that they both have a lot
Speaker 1: of the brown fat, which is a type of adipose
Speaker 1: tissue that is like full blood vessels and stuff, and
Speaker 1: it helps you regulate heat. Um. And so they had
Speaker 1: more of this than the norms, so that it's like
Speaker 1: almost like an extra layer of like protective. I don't
Speaker 1: want to say blubber, because that's not that's a different thing,
Speaker 1: but human blubbers. The purpose what what are they? What
Speaker 1: are this he doing with this? Well, he's like sitting
Speaker 1: in a bunch of ice and being like, hey, guys,
Speaker 1: look at this. He's not like trapes in to the
Speaker 1: Arctic and no, I think he's doing that too, But
Speaker 1: I think it's like he's done. It's like definitely there's
Speaker 1: an entertainment aspect, like he's done some Guinness Book of
Speaker 1: World Records things where he like sits in a vadadvice
Speaker 1: and he's like check this out. Okay. I think he
Speaker 1: teaches a class of how to be better at cold.
Speaker 1: That's not fair, but he but like it's also because
Speaker 1: like he's genetically better. That's like Harry Potter teaching close
Speaker 1: up magic right right right, right right right, like here
Speaker 1: here be good at first of all, have this genetic
Speaker 1: mutation and then also breathe real weird now sitting nice,
Speaker 1: and then like there's his students are just like I'm
Speaker 1: still really cold. That's a I mean, that's certainly feels
Speaker 1: like a tangible superpower that you could use that could
Speaker 1: be beneficial, but with global warming. Man, this I love
Speaker 1: this podcast, your narrative like this, The little the right
Speaker 1: write ups that you do are full of puns. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: that's I wrote that ahead of time for sure. Can
Speaker 1: human superpowers ever be used for the good of animals? Well,
Speaker 1: just ask Temple Grandon. Temple Grandon is a professor of
Speaker 1: animal science at Colorado State University. Brandon has a brilliant
Speaker 1: mind and one that's non neurotypical. She's on the autism spectrum,
Speaker 1: and her writings on the subject have proven vital in
Speaker 1: destigmatizing autism. In her book Thinking in Pictures, she describes
Speaker 1: how she speculates that her thought process is different from
Speaker 1: those not on the autism spectrum. She's able to think
Speaker 1: in complex visuals such as building construction designs in her mind,
Speaker 1: but in order to mesh with her neurotypical counterparts, she's
Speaker 1: been able to learn and understand not only her own mind,
Speaker 1: but the minds of others. She almost works as a translator,
Speaker 1: being able to relate her experience being on the spectrum
Speaker 1: to those who don't know what it's like to have
Speaker 1: a non neurotypical brain. Her incredible powers of observation and
Speaker 1: analytical empathy allow her not only to get inside her
Speaker 1: own mind and the mind of other people, but into
Speaker 1: the mind of animals. She discovered this while working as
Speaker 1: a ranch hand, where she was able to consider life
Speaker 1: from the perspective of the livestock, identifying stressors that were
Speaker 1: frightening the animals that our coworkers couldn't see, such as
Speaker 1: reflections from bodies of water or hanging chains that made noise.
Speaker 1: Her ability to empathize with animals has helped create more
Speaker 1: humane innovations in the livestock industry. Well that was a
Speaker 1: non inspiring story, but hey, when I get a little evil, Well,
Speaker 1: after a few quick messages kind of joining on the
Speaker 1: dark side of the pod. Well, we've talked about goody
Speaker 1: goody superheroes. What about an anti hero? Not not an
Speaker 1: ant here Oh sorry, Paul Rudd. I'm talking about the
Speaker 1: naughty ones like Deadpool, the trash talking mutant with an
Speaker 1: advanced healing power that allows him to regrow his tissue
Speaker 1: and he'll from what should be mortal wounds. Are there
Speaker 1: any real life Deadpools? Well, sure, there are reptiles that
Speaker 1: can regenerate their tails. But what about mammals, Well, there's
Speaker 1: this freaky little rodent called the African spiny mouse. Spiny
Speaker 1: mice are one of the only mammals that can completely
Speaker 1: regenerate damaged tissue. They're also prone to looking extremely disfigured,
Speaker 1: like deadpool. Their skin is actually extremely brittle and easily
Speaker 1: torn off their bodies. This is actually a survival technique,
Speaker 1: better to escape the jaws of a predator, even if
Speaker 1: it means leaving up to six of your skin behind.
Speaker 1: And yes, that's a real percentage. They can shed that
Speaker 1: much skin, and they don't just scar over and heal.
Speaker 1: They regrow hair, follicle, skin, sweat glands, fur, and cartilage.
Speaker 1: In fact, they appear much better at healing their skin
Speaker 1: than dead fool so sor in curse of I want
Speaker 1: to add to the spiny mice thing. But they're in
Speaker 1: the pet trade a lot, which is weird because one
Speaker 1: of the problems with owning a spiny mouse, aside from like,
Speaker 1: you probably shouldn't own exotic animals it's bad, but like,
Speaker 1: their skin is designed to tear off, so like, if
Speaker 1: you handle them incorrectly, you risk a quote degloving injury. Yes,
Speaker 1: accidents before h um, yeah, don't don't wear rings when
Speaker 1: you're not climbing people, Oh my god. But like, yeah,
Speaker 1: but the mice, their skills just they're very fragile in
Speaker 1: a way because if you, like with normal mice, you
Speaker 1: can pick them up by the scrap of their necks
Speaker 1: and like, you know, pet them, pet the mousey. But
Speaker 1: like if you try to, like Lenny ask pet one
Speaker 1: of these mice, the skin will just slough off if
Speaker 1: it tries to dart from your hands and your your
Speaker 1: instinct is to hold tighter. Yes, squirts right out of
Speaker 1: its own skin, just like a banana out of a feel.
Speaker 1: Are they cute, Yes, they're cute. Not when they're sleeved
Speaker 1: sleeve de sleeved. Yes, they look what you would expect
Speaker 1: them to look when they're missing their skin. They look
Speaker 1: like a mouse that doesn't have skin. And and is
Speaker 1: there do we know? Do we know? Is that really
Speaker 1: super painful for them? You know, that's a good question.
Speaker 1: I here's my take on it. My guess doesn't feel good.
Speaker 1: I don't know if they've actually studied whether they have
Speaker 1: pain receptors. I would guess it doesn't feel great. I
Speaker 1: don't think it does feel good. People don't don't just
Speaker 1: get another mouse. Yeah, there's so many mince why would
Speaker 1: you want the ones that skin falls off. It's kind
Speaker 1: of like how we have these crazy dog breeds now
Speaker 1: where if they like, if they like breathe wrong, their
Speaker 1: eyeballs fall out every single pug. So, uh, do these
Speaker 1: they also have to then shed their skin regularly? Okay,
Speaker 1: they can just keep the skin as long as they
Speaker 1: need it. And yeah, it's like it's like a lizard tail,
Speaker 1: where like the lizard tail will remain attached to the
Speaker 1: body unless unless you know, need it needs to rip
Speaker 1: and tear it. Yeah. Yeah, man, that's a pretty cool defense.
Speaker 1: It's it's also I mean it is probably related to lizards.
Speaker 1: Like they speculate that it's not they that they developed
Speaker 1: this as a new adaptation, but rather that there was
Speaker 1: sort of an atavistic throwback to like their reptile genes
Speaker 1: that like got reactivated somehow. Interesting, which is kind of
Speaker 1: cool because it means that because we have reptile d day. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we basically go through the huge, the whole gamut of
Speaker 1: evolution when we're embryos. It's all those close. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: get we get tails. And gill slets which becomes like
Speaker 1: the ear it's really creepy. So sare if you were
Speaker 1: a super villain, what would your power be? Um, I
Speaker 1: mean obviously control time. Okay, that feels like the most
Speaker 1: useful in any any situation. It does. It does feel good. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean like, well, so how would you use it
Speaker 1: controlling time? Uh? Well, if I'm a villain then uh,
Speaker 1: first of all, acquiring money is no problem if you
Speaker 1: can control time because you you can basically study you
Speaker 1: that Zach More's time out type of thing where no
Speaker 1: one's a cognizant of the fact that time has been
Speaker 1: paused and you can take whatever you want. Um. But
Speaker 1: then also getting away is very easy. Um. And if
Speaker 1: you're controlling time, you can also if things go wrong
Speaker 1: for you, you just rewind it and you do it again,
Speaker 1: and you do again and again again until you get
Speaker 1: it right. And um it's like those those Aliens and
Speaker 1: Edge of Tomorrow that's a movie I've seen. Um yeah,
Speaker 1: or like the Groundhog Day thing where you can like
Speaker 1: go on a date with some and be creepily like
Speaker 1: no everything they like, but like you could I mean imagine,
Speaker 1: because you could you could go beyond. You could like
Speaker 1: dominate the world in just a few days with that
Speaker 1: power because you could go through the chain of command
Speaker 1: and talk to every person, redo that social interaction again
Speaker 1: and again until you know exactly what to say to
Speaker 1: get them on your side, until you reach the president.
Speaker 1: There's it's like the possibilities are absolutely limitless, and you
Speaker 1: can control time. But I'm I'm being I mean, no,
Speaker 1: there's no superhero who just has the power of the
Speaker 1: control chime. And that's just sort of like what they do.
Speaker 1: It's always like one specific way that they can control it.
Speaker 1: They can slow down or they can pause it. They
Speaker 1: can't go back and forth in it. But I'm saying
Speaker 1: I want all of it. Well why not? I mean,
Speaker 1: if you get to pick I didn't say what reasonable
Speaker 1: power would you have? Reasonable? And I guess I want
Speaker 1: to have that blubber and I can sit in tubs
Speaker 1: for a while. Yeah, what is yours? That's a good question.
Speaker 1: I didn't. I didn't really think about it, actually, so uh,
Speaker 1: I feel like it would be fun to turn people
Speaker 1: into humiliating objects just because like like you're like talk
Speaker 1: you suddenly like anyone who pisces you off. You could
Speaker 1: just like turn into a cucumber, and people would just
Speaker 1: be so shocked. I think by that where it's like
Speaker 1: you can turn them back and forth into like a
Speaker 1: cucumber or something. It's like then you turn them back
Speaker 1: to a human, They're like, I've been humbled. Yeah I
Speaker 1: was a cucumber for a few seconds. You destroy it,
Speaker 1: and you destroy the morale of any of it. I
Speaker 1: imagine you can turn like there's an army of like
Speaker 1: you know, people trying to fight you, all of them
Speaker 1: cucumbers just like fall to the ground, and then you're like,
Speaker 1: see what I can have wrots all of your cucumbers. Now.
Speaker 1: I think that you could also do, I mean, turn
Speaker 1: them into dogs for a second, and then the existential
Speaker 1: crisis of coming back to being a human right for
Speaker 1: experiencing what it was to be a dog. It's like,
Speaker 1: how do you fight after that? To think about? Right? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: like uh, but they have they have dog mines at
Speaker 1: that time, so they're easily manipulated with like bacon strips. Um.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna there's some animal supervillains that I really love. Um. So,
Speaker 1: you know, you know those Marvel movies like Endless Wars
Speaker 1: and you know, I don't think that's it. Um, the big,
Speaker 1: the big, the big, great war that doesn't have an end.
Speaker 1: That it's a bit I do on the show, on
Speaker 1: the show where I printed not to know the name
Speaker 1: of Infinity War. It's a real good it's a real
Speaker 1: popular one among the fans. We've got a whole shirt
Speaker 1: line that goes that goes big, big, big War. Um.
Speaker 1: So there's a real life the snap get it? Ultron
Speaker 1: Age of Ultron the Snap. Remember I didn't watch Age
Speaker 1: of Ultron. Wait, which is the on with a snap?
Speaker 1: I don't even know what that is. Oh no, that's yeah,
Speaker 1: that's he wears the Magic Glove and he does a
Speaker 1: snap and then Spiderman, I'm gonna you know what I'll
Speaker 1: just do. Let's just translate it's the Gauntlet of the
Speaker 1: Infinity Stones. Spider Man. Uh and he gets turned into
Speaker 1: dust in the wind. Uh and that sounds right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then uh because he used his powerful, powerful snap
Speaker 1: to to do do a harm to people. You think,
Speaker 1: do you think that the big Purple Man Grimace, you
Speaker 1: mean Muscle Grimmace. Muscle Grimace snapped and only Spider Man disappeared,
Speaker 1: and he was like, ah, job done. I mean, that's
Speaker 1: what I figured from all the tumbler meme. Um. So,
Speaker 1: pistol shrimp are little guys about four centimeters big. They're
Speaker 1: found worldwide and tropical and subtropical waters, which I don't
Speaker 1: know what the difference between those two things are tropical
Speaker 1: and subtropical. I just I guess we are in a
Speaker 1: subtropical climate. I see, Okay, I'll take your word for it. Um.
Speaker 1: So they have one tiny claw and one huge giant
Speaker 1: claw and infinity claw if you will. Infinity claw, yes, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm here for you. Uh. And it has
Speaker 1: a deadly snap. The snapping claw can grow up to
Speaker 1: half the shrimp's body size. Uh. It's a really interesting mechanism.
Speaker 1: So only the top part of the claw moves, and
Speaker 1: it has like a hidden plunger that fits into the
Speaker 1: bottom socket of the claw. Um and that compressive force
Speaker 1: it what is what causes the snap? Um sort of
Speaker 1: like when you snap your fingers. The snapping sound isn't
Speaker 1: the fingers rubbing each other, it's the the middle finger
Speaker 1: landing on your palm. That was mind blowing to me
Speaker 1: when I discovered that the little pad your thumb is.
Speaker 1: That's how I taught. I taught someone to stamp their fingers,
Speaker 1: and that's how I taught them. Like it's like, it's
Speaker 1: not that rubbing. It's like, if you care too much
Speaker 1: about the you're not a cricket, You're not or a
Speaker 1: water boat. They were he was trying to snap with
Speaker 1: his penis. But how do you learn the potential? It's
Speaker 1: not the penis, it's the sound of the penis hitting
Speaker 1: the fig um so uh, pistol shrimp. Uh. They so
Speaker 1: they can um. They have a really powerful muscle that
Speaker 1: can like have this really powerful compressive energy. Um. And
Speaker 1: then it closes, uh that that mechanism, that little plunger
Speaker 1: in the claw that goes in the socket closes over
Speaker 1: the water with so much force it creates a jet
Speaker 1: stream that travels at a hundred feet a second um.
Speaker 1: It's so fast that it creates a pressure differential cavitation
Speaker 1: bubble that collapses. Uh. And for a fraction of a second,
Speaker 1: it reaches eight thousand degrees fahrenheit, which is almost as
Speaker 1: hot as the surface of the sun, and the snap
Speaker 1: rings in at about two decibels, and the shock wave
Speaker 1: that is a result of this snap can stunt or
Speaker 1: kill whatever is in its path like small prey. So
Speaker 1: it like once it stuns the prey and then it
Speaker 1: drags it into its burrow and eats it. Um. There's
Speaker 1: a I know about this, the pistol shrimp, because there
Speaker 1: was a great radio lab about it where somebody It
Speaker 1: started with somebody sitting on the dock and hearing what
Speaker 1: sounded like soda in the water, like popping the carbonation pops.
Speaker 1: What is that? And like did a deep dive into
Speaker 1: it and found out that it was these pistol shrimp.
Speaker 1: They're very cool. But what I'm trying to look up
Speaker 1: the guy who does a Marvel character who just claps?
Speaker 1: Really there is let's see if you google like Clappy Marvel.
Speaker 1: You know I'm going to do it. Clappy Marvel, Marvel hero,
Speaker 1: what does a good clap? Who does a good clap?
Speaker 1: Shock wave? Okay? His name that that makes that makes
Speaker 1: sense since that's the that is the name. They're usually
Speaker 1: quite literally named like matter eater Lad. There's a character
Speaker 1: named I think arms fall off Man, and he's exactly
Speaker 1: what he sounds like. Is this a bit I Marvel character?
Speaker 1: And a lot of times you'll see that you can
Speaker 1: find frames of him just taking his arm off and
Speaker 1: then beating somebody with uh. Well, so the it can
Speaker 1: also use the snap to burrow into rock and it
Speaker 1: can like break glass too, So if you have one
Speaker 1: in a not great fish tank, you can probably break
Speaker 1: through that. Don't keep these, don't keep these as pets.
Speaker 1: Don't keep the mice with the skin that fall off
Speaker 1: or the shrimp that snaps real good. Those aren't good pets.
Speaker 1: So what it's creating is not actually it's a bubble
Speaker 1: that collapses in on it all. Yeah, So it's kind
Speaker 1: of like um. So like when you crack your knuckle,
Speaker 1: that snapping sound, isn't it like popping out of the
Speaker 1: joint or anything like that. You've opened up the space
Speaker 1: in your knuckle that creates sort of this um chemical
Speaker 1: reaction of like allowing more um space for it for
Speaker 1: this bubble to form. Now, snapping sound is the bubble collapsing.
Speaker 1: So it's like the bubble forms and then collapses almost instantly. Oh,
Speaker 1: it's the tooth. The sounds of the tooth sides or
Speaker 1: whatever collapsing are hitting each other. Yeah, it's it's like
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's the Yeah, the sound of the
Speaker 1: force of like the um uh, like, you know, like
Speaker 1: when a if you pop a I don't know if
Speaker 1: popping a balloon is a good example. Actually I'm not
Speaker 1: sure if that's correct. But that's a good question. I'm
Speaker 1: a little out of my depth because I'm not, you know,
Speaker 1: physics person, But yeah, it's a good question. I have
Speaker 1: no idea. I guess I mean, if I was to
Speaker 1: guess it is that it's I think it's I think
Speaker 1: it's the force of the air. Um, like like how
Speaker 1: you know there's a sonic boom with a plane and
Speaker 1: that's like the air collapsing on it's all. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's what that is. Okay, so these crowds
Speaker 1: are creating a little sonic boom, yes, and it's it
Speaker 1: reaches temperatures almost as hot as the surface of the
Speaker 1: sun a fraction of a second. Yeah, um and a
Speaker 1: fraction of a second. But does that does that mean
Speaker 1: they can burn? We don't know. I don't know. That's
Speaker 1: a good question. I don't know if it would be.
Speaker 1: I don't think it lasts long enough to like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm sure that water puts it out pretty quickly. Uh
Speaker 1: so have you heard of the DC super villain Mr Bones?
Speaker 1: He has a cyanide touch. Um, he's a skeleton. He's
Speaker 1: a skeleton who wears a suit. And he's also known
Speaker 1: as Director Bones. The way you're telling me, I think
Speaker 1: you're lying. I'm not lying. This is true. This is
Speaker 1: this is like arms fall off man. This is an
Speaker 1: an actual character. Um. I just like he's like either
Speaker 1: Mr Bones or Director Bones. And like he's like says
Speaker 1: to his friends like, no, no, my father was Mr Bones.
Speaker 1: Call me Director Bones. Well, so let's get let's take
Speaker 1: a trip down imagination station, which is where we like
Speaker 1: to go on this podcast. Uh So, imagine close your
Speaker 1: eyes not people who are driving um or operating having machinery,
Speaker 1: and keep those eyes open. Um. But imagine you're hiking
Speaker 1: through the caverns of the Uthai Thani province in Thailand.
Speaker 1: It's dark and dank, and you hear the drippings of
Speaker 1: stalag tights and stalagmites. No, not that one. Gravity doesn't
Speaker 1: go that way, and you're just admiring the cavern. Maybe
Speaker 1: you have a headlamp or something, um and and you
Speaker 1: smell almonds, the unmistakable scent of almonds. Bill's your knows
Speaker 1: in the middle of this cavern. Well, you gotta stop
Speaker 1: what you're doing and get the funk out of there
Speaker 1: because you have just entered the layer of the dragon
Speaker 1: millipede and you don't want to startle them. All right,
Speaker 1: you're on board with this. Um, So dragon millipedes can
Speaker 1: actually shoot hydrogen cyanide at potential threats from special glands.
Speaker 1: Uh uh, there's it's got a pleasant almond smell too,
Speaker 1: because cyanide smells like yeah, that's how you hide cyanide
Speaker 1: in somebody's food. Yeah, with almonds, Like like, would you
Speaker 1: like this almond croissant? Like, oh no, it's fine, Please
Speaker 1: have this almond croissan What about that that other one? No? No,
Speaker 1: no the almonds? Where's it? Shoot it out of lands? Yeah?
Speaker 1: But like it's just like gland okay, face not like
Speaker 1: they're not they're not one of the caterpillars that whip
Speaker 1: off their back and squirrel. No. I think it's front
Speaker 1: glance pretty sure, but to be to be frank, these
Speaker 1: look pretty similar from the front or the back, so
Speaker 1: I could beake um and uh it is actually kind
Speaker 1: of pretty Uh, let me get it to what end
Speaker 1: and what was it due to? You? If you get
Speaker 1: hit by this burn you it's sulfur science. It's a
Speaker 1: hydrogen si. Okay, so it's like an acid yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's toxic. Yes, well it's an acid, so it
Speaker 1: burns you. Um. So that's what it looks like. That's
Speaker 1: not pretty, that's terrifying. I don't know. I think it
Speaker 1: kind of looks like a twizzler. It looks like a
Speaker 1: dragon with no head, yes, um And they're bright magenta
Speaker 1: and that that's actually aposomatic coloration. Uh So it's like
Speaker 1: warning them, like, hey, I got gland full of acid.
Speaker 1: Remember remember me, I've got I'm the one with with
Speaker 1: the acid. Well, what are the what kind of possible
Speaker 1: predators because they have in those dank caves bats and stuff? Yeah,
Speaker 1: probably cave birds. That's what that's are called. Um So,
Speaker 1: but let's let's let's go back to imagination station. I'm
Speaker 1: sorry I didn't leave. Was that I supposed to get
Speaker 1: on a train link come back? I mean it's a
Speaker 1: round trip. Okay. So have you seen a new show
Speaker 1: Charon Noble? Um, I haven't watched it. I do know
Speaker 1: about that whole incident though, Like I've read stuff about it,
Speaker 1: and it's the whole I don't know how deep in
Speaker 1: the show, do they go through the scenes of like
Speaker 1: people's skin falling off, and there's about there's one episode
Speaker 1: where it delves pretty deeply and darkly into that. The
Speaker 1: first responders in particular, Yeah, those are the guys who
Speaker 1: touched the graphite core. Uh. The other everybody else is
Speaker 1: sort of like exposed to the radiation and some bad
Speaker 1: things happen them. But they Yeah, they go through the
Speaker 1: first responders and the first sponders, you know, they get
Speaker 1: very sick. Then they have to their clothes are I radiated,
Speaker 1: So it's just making them worse. And then slowly they
Speaker 1: their skin starts turning black and then translucent and then
Speaker 1: starts peeling off and nickrotic tissue turns black. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: then they it's everybody looks like if two Face had
Speaker 1: that horrible two Face on his entire body. That's not
Speaker 1: that that's not a good one. I don't like that one. Um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's also the thing with radiation poisoning. God,
Speaker 1: I don't know, Like when I try to imagine having
Speaker 1: radiation poisoning, it's almost like I would I wouldn't. I
Speaker 1: would want to like just nope out of that situation,
Speaker 1: because like the because like, also your organs are melting inside.
Speaker 1: They do address that a little bit too. There where
Speaker 1: there's one man who knows what actually happens to you,
Speaker 1: and he knows what it means to be there, and
Speaker 1: he's he's like trying to tell other people, like don't
Speaker 1: fly over the core. Don't do this, because you'll be
Speaker 1: dead in a week and you will want to put
Speaker 1: a bullet in your own head before that. Right, It's
Speaker 1: one of the the most painful, awful potential death you could have.
Speaker 1: So like when I think of like, because I don't know,
Speaker 1: there aren't that many super villains that scare me too much,
Speaker 1: like their powers like I'm the Riddler, I will kill
Speaker 1: you with riddles um or like you know, like what's
Speaker 1: the one of them, Like I'll ice you to death.
Speaker 1: Like that doesn't seem like, yeah, that doesn't seem Mr
Speaker 1: Ice is actually pretty nice. I've heard, Yeah, Like I
Speaker 1: feel like that would be a not bad way to go.
Speaker 1: But when I think of like the scariest super villain,
Speaker 1: it would be like like radiation man, you could like
Speaker 1: make you get radiation poisoning and then you just know
Speaker 1: like once you get it, you're like, well, I'm going
Speaker 1: to die and it's gonna be like you know, like
Speaker 1: so like just imagine if you will. The supervillain has
Speaker 1: like fist shaped like hypodermic needles, and if you get
Speaker 1: within his clutches, he'll stab you with his radioactivity toxin um.
Speaker 1: But it also comes with like a paralytic toxin and
Speaker 1: you can't move, so you're just totally helpless. And then
Speaker 1: you kind of you're like, oh, man, I want to
Speaker 1: scratch my nose because my nose is running. You can't move,
Speaker 1: and then you realize that's not your nose running, it's
Speaker 1: your brains lialifying out your nose. Yes, that super villain's
Speaker 1: name is sybel Bannis tomal neensis, a name that strikes fear.
Speaker 1: You try to pronounce this name. Why is it always
Speaker 1: going to be me? You try it? Okay, uh as
Speaker 1: I zibalbanous t linin nous, No, I had too many
Speaker 1: ends to luminous this, Yes, the dreaded little balbinus. So
Speaker 1: there's a subalbanous tuminousness is a crustacean. We'll call him
Speaker 1: doctor doctor Melty, the crustacean. He spent His power is great.
Speaker 1: I want to power is great. But like he should
Speaker 1: spend a little more time on Doctor Melty. He's um
Speaker 1: described by smith Smithsonian biologist Jill Yeager as a creature
Speaker 1: with a body, elongate, slender, without eyes or pigment, cephalatic
Speaker 1: shields small. I don't know what that is. Well, it's
Speaker 1: a it's a cephal pods that makes sense, but tapering
Speaker 1: slightly at anterior end. Trunk segments number increasing with age.
Speaker 1: Maximum number examined was thirty six segments and counting. Okay, um,
Speaker 1: I gotta I gotta picture of that. You can see? Um, yeah, Okay,
Speaker 1: it's it's a horrifying uh jet white jet white or
Speaker 1: is it just jet black? Is that the only thing
Speaker 1: that can be jet I think you can. I've seen
Speaker 1: white ghost white jets. Right, it's a ghost white looks
Speaker 1: but like a water center like the dragon millipede, but
Speaker 1: it's white and it has no eyes. And well they're uh.
Speaker 1: They are found in and Keeling caves on the Yucatan
Speaker 1: Peninsula in the Caribbean Sea. They're blind, They're only about
Speaker 1: an inch long, but their process of feeding makes them
Speaker 1: super super not. I don't like them. No, it's front
Speaker 1: claws resemble hypodermic needles. They're attached to venom filled reservoirs
Speaker 1: that can be pumped into their victims with special muscles.
Speaker 1: The then um contains a paralyzing toxin and digestive enzymes,
Speaker 1: rendering the victim helpless as its body liquefies. Oh no, oh,
Speaker 1: that sounds awful. So you digests you outside of its
Speaker 1: body and then drinks you up all right with its
Speaker 1: horrible mandibles. There's there's a snail I think that does that,
Speaker 1: and it comes up to mollusks like clams and things
Speaker 1: like that, and it can drill a whole inside the
Speaker 1: whole of the clam and then just shoots some digestive
Speaker 1: fluid in there and treats the clamshell like its stomach
Speaker 1: and was like, oh, time's up, okay, and then slurps
Speaker 1: it all up. It's actually kind of a that's a
Speaker 1: pretty common tactic of like um, like starfish do, or
Speaker 1: they like throw up their digestive juices on something and
Speaker 1: just waits for it to melt and then drinks it
Speaker 1: up and um. But to me, what makes this animal
Speaker 1: the worst is that it's hands are needles. I do
Speaker 1: not like that. Yeah, well, so I have a thing
Speaker 1: with like clinic blood in a clinical setting really unnerves me. Interesting.
Speaker 1: It's a real phobia of mine. Did you know that's
Speaker 1: actually one of the more common phobias among men. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: very basic. But I mean like out in I've I've
Speaker 1: encounter people who have compound fractures and things like that
Speaker 1: out in the wild, and that's way less disturbing to me,
Speaker 1: like bones sticking out of skin. You've seen you have
Speaker 1: an ankle yet and you have what and how and what?
Speaker 1: We So the high school that I went to was
Speaker 1: very outdoor oriented, outdoor trips and and then we'd also
Speaker 1: lead a few trips and in doing so, like there
Speaker 1: was a man the French teacher who broke his ankle
Speaker 1: and had a compound fracture. Have you seen that YouTube
Speaker 1: video of like I think they're like, uh, either football
Speaker 1: or basketball students, like they're on a team, and then
Speaker 1: they're like college students or something, and then like one
Speaker 1: of them is doing some exercise in his ankle breaks
Speaker 1: through his skin and like this room full of like
Speaker 1: these burly like sports guys like just run out screaming.
Speaker 1: It's uh that that's way less disturbing to me than
Speaker 1: seeing somebody put a scalpel to skin. Really I'm not.
Speaker 1: I'm almost the exact opposite. Like for me medical stuff,
Speaker 1: I mean, part of it is I had to look
Speaker 1: like for my old job, I had to look at
Speaker 1: a lot of medical images and stuff. But like um,
Speaker 1: for me, it's the it's the out in the wild
Speaker 1: injuries that like makes me feel loozy because it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's so on sanitary where more logical sense makes way
Speaker 1: more sense. But like see, I mean it depends it also,
Speaker 1: like super depends on the context. Like I can see
Speaker 1: most surgeries, but if it's cosmetic surgery, that gets me
Speaker 1: like like I can see something like open heart surgery,
Speaker 1: brain surgery, you know, the ends meet the means maybe
Speaker 1: like yeah, well like like with it. And it's not
Speaker 1: that I disapprove of cosmetic surgery. I don't think like,
Speaker 1: oh it's a bad thing and that's why I don't
Speaker 1: like it. It's that it's like with liposuction, if I
Speaker 1: see that, that makes me so squeamish because it's like
Speaker 1: there's sucking your fat out of you, and it's like
Speaker 1: I feel like that's supposed to be in there. That's
Speaker 1: how I feel it. Just the idea of drawing blood
Speaker 1: with needles in general really freak me out, and I
Speaker 1: have to look away even for shots at my age,
Speaker 1: and when blood is drawn from me, I have to
Speaker 1: mentally prepare the entire day to go have that done
Speaker 1: because seeing that blood leave me, I'm like, this is
Speaker 1: maybe like me loving myself too much, but I'm like,
Speaker 1: you see the blood leaving, I'm like, that's mine. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know. I'm like, I'm actually okay with them pumping
Speaker 1: anything into me. That's fine, Like you give me a shot,
Speaker 1: you know, like it, or like an infusion during like
Speaker 1: say like wisdom teeth that you want that that nice
Speaker 1: sleepy like that's fine. When it's taken out of me,
Speaker 1: Like when it's like blood that you're robbing from my body,
Speaker 1: I'm like pretty sure I need that. I'm pretty sure
Speaker 1: that's important to have inside of my body, not not
Speaker 1: out there. I made it and it's mine. Yeah. There's
Speaker 1: actually it's called UM. If you ever feel faint, that's
Speaker 1: like called evasive legal response to UH, to blood being
Speaker 1: removed from you or seeing blood UM. And it's very
Speaker 1: very common. I used to have it a lot more
Speaker 1: until I started having to get my blood drawn a
Speaker 1: lot more and then it was like I guess I
Speaker 1: just got used to it. But um, but like one
Speaker 1: thing you can do is like if you clench your legs,
Speaker 1: like you clench your muscles or and like cross your
Speaker 1: legs and like clench them, that's supposed to help a
Speaker 1: little bit. Um Yeah, for some reason it like I
Speaker 1: think it helps with your heart rate and your something
Speaker 1: with your parents. And next time I have to have
Speaker 1: blood drawn, I will, yeah, or just think of how
Speaker 1: much worse it could be with like getting getting injected
Speaker 1: by doctor melting, like like at least your insights aren't
Speaker 1: liquified like that the liquid that's coming out of you
Speaker 1: is supposed to be a liquid. Yeah, So I guess
Speaker 1: maybe being bitten by something that just paralyzes you and
Speaker 1: then it consumes you while you're paralyzed. That also happens
Speaker 1: that I think we've covered that on a show before.
Speaker 1: There's a type of one of those uh parasitoid wasps
Speaker 1: that will attack spiders and they will drag it down
Speaker 1: into their dinners like pick the spider paralyzed but alive,
Speaker 1: and then it's young bulls slowly either over the course yea,
Speaker 1: and they eat the less vital tissues first, so that
Speaker 1: the spider survives longer. Actually, this might not be a
Speaker 1: parasitical loss. It might just be a predatory loss. But
Speaker 1: it's like they select the non vital organs so that
Speaker 1: it survives longs that may help the fresh Oh h nature,
Speaker 1: So were We're so lucky, lucky that we're the only
Speaker 1: species that every single one of us the day we
Speaker 1: die because to all, something's eating our inside. Like everything
Speaker 1: else in the world dies while something is consuming it. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's we. We really want that lottery in terms of
Speaker 1: which animal we are. Oh man, Well, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for joining me today, Sore, and this has been
Speaker 1: really fun. Um you got anything to plug? Yeah? Um.
Speaker 1: My first episode of American Dad airs July twenty nine,
Speaker 1: and uh Dan O'Brien and I Dan O'Brien from Cracked
Speaker 1: uh and now last week tonight and I do a
Speaker 1: podcast called put Question with Sore and Daniel. It's so great,
Speaker 1: Like I I listen listen to and like it's weird though,
Speaker 1: because I remember you guys having and this is when
Speaker 1: Damn still lived here. Like I remember you guys having conversation.
Speaker 1: It was always so fun to listen to your conversations
Speaker 1: and now I'm like, I'm listening to you and I'm
Speaker 1: like like, I'm like laughing and like looking around. It's like,
Speaker 1: but they're not They're in my ear homes. You're not
Speaker 1: here physically. And Michael Store who also was it cracked
Speaker 1: for a long time as well. I won't say his nicknames,
Speaker 1: would It's Bacon. That's great. Where can people fall you?
Speaker 1: You can follow me on Twitter It's Soren s O
Speaker 1: R E N Underscore Ltd. And that's pretty much it. Now.
Speaker 1: Oh that's good. Yeah, I like a good simple one social.
Speaker 1: You can follow us at feature feat pod on Twitter.
Speaker 1: It's feet at eighteen feet, like a hundred feet that
Speaker 1: the millipews have um and then we have a website
Speaker 1: feature feature pod dot com. Um. Instagram exists too, I
Speaker 1: think that's also creature feature pod. And you can follow
Speaker 1: me at Katie Golden on Twitter. And I'm also pretend
Speaker 1: to be a bird at Coburg Wrights or wait, no,
Speaker 1: is it the bird whom pretended? Any human? Which you
Speaker 1: want to who's the real Katie? I've had trouble this
Speaker 1: entire time figuring out which bird to address in the room,
Speaker 1: just all over the place. We are, we are many,
Speaker 1: but we are one. And thanks to the Space Classics
Speaker 1: for their awesome song ex Alumina