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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 you Should Know

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Speaker 1: from how Stuff Works dot Com. Join Josh and Chuck,

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Speaker 1: the guys who bring you Stuff you Should Know, as

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Speaker 1: they take a trip around the world to help you

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Speaker 1: get smarter in a topsy turv economy. Check out the

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Speaker 1: all new super Stuffed Guide to the Economy from house

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Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot Com, available now exclusively on iTunes. Hello,

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Speaker 1: and welcome to our podcast. We call it Stuff you

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Speaker 1: Should Know with your host Josh Clark and Charles W. Bryant.

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Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark. We were told to call it stuff

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Speaker 1: you should Know. Yeah, what did you think about that opening?

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Speaker 1: That was good? I still have to keep China, Okay, well,

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Speaker 1: we'll try it next time. A hundred plus episodes in,

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Speaker 1: we're still working out the first twenty seves, still working

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Speaker 1: out the kinks. And it's just not not just the

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Speaker 1: first twenty seconds, Chuck, You're right, I mean from beginning

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Speaker 1: to end, it's her key and Jerky, the whole she bang.

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Speaker 1: It's a it's evolving, Josh, So Chuck, I'll tell you

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Speaker 1: who wasn't evolving for about seventeen hours. Back in May

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Speaker 1: of two thousand and eight, you want to hear about

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Speaker 1: a woman named Val Thomas, and that was awesome by

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Speaker 1: the way that set up, Thank you. Val was a

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Speaker 1: fifty nine year old uh West Virginia woman, and in

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Speaker 1: May of two thousand and eight, she died. Died, okay,

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Speaker 1: seventeen hours, no brain activity, her heart was stopped. Um.

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Speaker 1: They had her own ventilator. Even during this time she

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Speaker 1: was dead. Um. And worst of all, rigor mortis set

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Speaker 1: in right right, which is a surefire sign I would

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Speaker 1: think that you're dead. Yeah, because it's not even like

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Speaker 1: part of the process of death. It's you've been dead

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Speaker 1: for several hours now, and here's this new process that

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Speaker 1: happens to a corpse. The weird thing is, I mean,

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Speaker 1: this is not wouldn't necessarily be significant under any other circumstances,

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Speaker 1: but this because we all go through rigor mortists. Um.

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Speaker 1: But Val Thomas woke up, she came back. You're it

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Speaker 1: and I am not kidding. After after rigor mortis set

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Speaker 1: in and everything, she's dead for seventeen hours, she woke up,

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Speaker 1: started talking and she popped the breath mant and cracked

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Speaker 1: your knuckles. I suppose, yeah, And I was wondering what

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Speaker 1: would it feel like, you know, what would your muscles

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Speaker 1: feel like after after rigor mortis set in. I can't

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Speaker 1: imagine it feel very good. You probably feel really sore, right,

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Speaker 1: I would imagine so, because I mean, what is rigor

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Speaker 1: mortis except for like a contraction of the muscles? Right? Well?

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Speaker 1: Is it? It is? Chuck, let's talk about rigor mortis today?

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Speaker 1: You want to? And that's the rigor mortis set up.

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Speaker 1: You have it very nice. Chuck and I have had

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Speaker 1: fun all afternoon sending each other gross pictures of corpses

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Speaker 1: in rigor mortis. Stiff's exactly, and that's where the term

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Speaker 1: comes from. Have you ever heard of that book Stiff

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Speaker 1: by Mary Roach? I think so? Is that the pictures

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Speaker 1: of dead people? No? No, no, no, no. Um. It's

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Speaker 1: a it's a book about what happens to the body

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Speaker 1: afterwards and basically what it's like to be a cadaver,

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Speaker 1: all the uses for cadavers. I was, I haven't read it.

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Speaker 1: I was reading the introduction today and it was all

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Speaker 1: listening to the thrash metal band rigor Mortis. Yeah, were

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Speaker 1: you listening to him? I wasn't but I was surprised

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Speaker 1: they were able to get the domain name. It seems,

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Speaker 1: I don't know, like some sort of mortuary where they've

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Speaker 1: been around for a while. They released their debut album

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Speaker 1: in yeah, so I mean they were probably on top

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Speaker 1: of it back in the nineties. But I was listening

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Speaker 1: to him on last FM and I was like, Rigor

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Speaker 1: Mortis isn't as good as I remembered. So I went

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Speaker 1: over to the Children of Bodom channel and they were

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Speaker 1: all right, you ever heard of them? They're pretty serious.

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Speaker 1: You check them out. Um. But anyway, so, yeah, I

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Speaker 1: was prepping for this podcast reading Stiff and um miss

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Speaker 1: roach mentions that she was talking about all the ways

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Speaker 1: could ever have been used to help you know, further humanity,

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Speaker 1: and one of them was um. There was this French

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Speaker 1: scientist back in the late nineteenth century who was trying

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Speaker 1: to find out whether or not the Shroud of Turin

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Speaker 1: was real or not, and he actually got his hands

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Speaker 1: on cadavers and he was the first one to estay

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Speaker 1: ablished that Christ could not have been crucified through his

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Speaker 1: palms because this guy determined that that would only hold

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Speaker 1: about a ninety pound man or body to a crucifix,

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Speaker 1: and you know how we found out by nailing cadaverage

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Speaker 1: to a crucifix, so it was through the wrist is

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Speaker 1: the rist Apparently there's like some joint. I can't remember

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Speaker 1: what it's called, but um, what I think the place

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Speaker 1: where you're to be a fibula. Oh, I hope that's right.

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Speaker 1: I don't want viewer or listener mail. Is it tivy

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Speaker 1: and fibula? I doubt it? Well? Humorous, humorous and um,

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Speaker 1: well anyway, we can't put it in there. Well anyway,

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Speaker 1: I am. I assume going to get some listener mail

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Speaker 1: for that one. But the two bones where they come

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Speaker 1: together at your wrist um to connect to your meditarsal

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Speaker 1: or metacarpal metacarpal because it's carpal tunnel syndrome anyway, Um,

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Speaker 1: there is a hole there that you could drive a

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Speaker 1: stake through and it will hold up a substantial adult

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Speaker 1: sized male. Interesting, But this guy, this French physician, figured

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Speaker 1: it out by nailing cadavers to across. And I guess

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Speaker 1: the other option was that Jesus was a ninety pound weakling,

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Speaker 1: which doesn't seem likely to me. I don't know, I

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Speaker 1: can't imagine they were all that well nourished back then. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but ninety pounds, come on, yeah, it is kind of

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Speaker 1: tiny slight, so could avers Yes, rigor mortis, yes, rigor

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Speaker 1: mortis josh. Uh what does it mean Latin? Well, Josh

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Speaker 1: is not so important what it stands for in Latin,

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Speaker 1: because we know Latin is a dead language. Latin is

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Speaker 1: suffering from rigor mortis. What is important is how it works,

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Speaker 1: because that's what we're here to educate folks on. Do

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Speaker 1: you want to talk about that or you want me to? Uh, well,

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Speaker 1: we'll we'll both get into it. One thing that was

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Speaker 1: interesting is that, uh, three hours or so after a

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Speaker 1: human or animal dies, it starts to happen, and then

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Speaker 1: it happens from head to toe, Yeah, which I thought

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Speaker 1: was pretty interesting. Whose law is that? That would be

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Speaker 1: Euston and he discovered the Frenchman way back in Eve.

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Speaker 1: But the reason why it's it starts from head to toe, basically,

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Speaker 1: they think, is because, um, you have smaller um or

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Speaker 1: delicate muscle tissue around the face. So usually it's the

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Speaker 1: eyes and the mouth um that require very delicate, precise

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Speaker 1: movements that rigger up first, which is why every movie

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Speaker 1: in history, every death scene with the guy's eyes wide open.

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Speaker 1: A friend will come by and gently shut them, maybe

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Speaker 1: put a couple of half dollars over him. Oh yeah,

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Speaker 1: if it was a Western So um okay, So rigor

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Speaker 1: mortis chuck is nothing but the stiffening of the muscles, right,

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Speaker 1: Um okay, let's talk physiology here for a second, buddy.

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Speaker 1: So we have two different kinds of muscle fibers. Right,

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Speaker 1: We've got skeletal muscle, skeletal muscles, and we have um,

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Speaker 1: smooth muscle tissue. Smooth muscles. Issue is like your heart.

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Speaker 1: It's what your heart's made out this microscopic dude, Sure

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Speaker 1: it is. And then when you bundle them together, you

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Speaker 1: have you know, a muscle. What we see is a muscle, right,

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Speaker 1: But yeah, they're all made up of individual fibers, um.

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Speaker 1: And all of these are connected or or commanded by neurons. Right.

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Speaker 1: So you have motor neurons that commands skeletal muscles, and

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Speaker 1: you have fast twitch muscles, which are the ones that

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Speaker 1: that require precise movements, So you're fast twitch neurons are

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Speaker 1: the ones controlling like your eye movement, your tongue, that

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Speaker 1: kind of thing. And then you have kind of the

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Speaker 1: big o fish neurons of of the physiology world. Those

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Speaker 1: are slow twitch neurons. That was a good oath imitation,

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Speaker 1: by the way, Thank you very much. Video chuck. Yeah, okay, Um,

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Speaker 1: So anyway, when when the brain says, hey, man, raise

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Speaker 1: your left arm, it transmits an electrical impulse to the

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Speaker 1: neuron which says, okay, we gotta get this going. Why

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Speaker 1: happens is when when this transmission takes place, Um, there's

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Speaker 1: a biochemical process that happens. You've got these calcium ions, right,

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Speaker 1: and they exist outside of the cell, but they like

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Speaker 1: to go into the cell whenever they get a chance, right,

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Speaker 1: So they'll go into the cells that make up our

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Speaker 1: muscle tissue and they kind of throw everything off balance.

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Speaker 1: What what they allow to happen that these two proteins

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Speaker 1: to connect. And we have two different kinds of skeletal

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Speaker 1: muscle fibers. I know what they're called. Let's hear it.

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Speaker 1: Myosin and actin. Okay, and myosin makes up thick filament fibers, right,

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Speaker 1: and then actin makes up thin filament fibers. And when

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Speaker 1: you connect the two, When myosin and actin connect to

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Speaker 1: one another, their molecules right, Um, then you have a contraction.

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Speaker 1: So calcium ions allow myosin and actin to connect, which

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Speaker 1: makes your muscle contract. So to get a muscle to relax,

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Speaker 1: you have to uncouple myosin and actin and through um

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Speaker 1: through oxygen through aerobic an aerobic process. We when we

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Speaker 1: breathe in oxygen, some of it goes to produce the

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Speaker 1: stuff called a dinoscene triphosphate, and that stuff actually decouples

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Speaker 1: myos and in acting causing the muscles to relax. When

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Speaker 1: we're dead, though, we have no two problems. Well, yeah,

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Speaker 1: number one, we're not breathing anymore, so there's no oxygen,

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Speaker 1: which means we're not producing a t P any longer.

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Speaker 1: But secondly, the apparently those calcium ions their natural state

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Speaker 1: is trying to get into the cell, so there's a

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Speaker 1: build of calcium ions, which means your muscles all start

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Speaker 1: to contract. Hence rigor mortis. There you have it. That's it,

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Speaker 1: Dr Clark, thank you, That is not it, though, Josh, oh,

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Speaker 1: it's not okay, I stand corrected. Well, what's important about

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Speaker 1: rigor mortis is what we should talk about next. And

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Speaker 1: we know how it happens, and you can become stiff,

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Speaker 1: and it's it's you know, funny to play with a

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Speaker 1: stiff dead body, put them in like still physicians. It's

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Speaker 1: a good time. But it can actually be used at

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Speaker 1: things like crime scenes. Oh it can, yes, oh yes, yes,

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Speaker 1: do we need to talk about that? Well? Yeah, Well

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Speaker 1: how about this. You said that it sets in after

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Speaker 1: three hours? Yes, well not always? How well, okay, about

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Speaker 1: how long does it last? Uh? Well, at last up

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Speaker 1: to eighteen hours? Twelve eighteen hours and then it fades

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Speaker 1: away again. I've heard up the thirty six seventy two.

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Speaker 1: Just do inside research on this. It seems like nobody

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Speaker 1: can say definitively how long it lasts. Well, it depends

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Speaker 1: on a lot of things. Okay, well what do they

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Speaker 1: depend on? Uh well, temperature is one obvious thing. Temperature,

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Speaker 1: Josh is one thing, right, It's pretty obvious. Uh. If

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Speaker 1: it's warmer, it'll speed up Riga mortis, and it will

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Speaker 1: also go uh at a at a slower pace or

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Speaker 1: I'm sorry, faster pace. Right, So it sets in faster,

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Speaker 1: but it lasts a shorter amount of time, right, right,

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Speaker 1: Because basically it creates a good environment for bacteria for

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Speaker 1: the decay process, which starts after rigor mortis, right, and

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Speaker 1: ultimately that's what gets rid of rigor mortis right. This

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Speaker 1: process called autolysis, and that is basically where the cells

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Speaker 1: kill themselves. The cells basically break down the cellular structure,

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Speaker 1: and this is the case for the cells that make

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Speaker 1: up muscle tissue. Right. So then as these cells decomposed,

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Speaker 1: the muscles can no longer hold an erection and you're

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Speaker 1: no longer um in a state of rigor mortis. Very nice, John,

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Speaker 1: thank you, I'm proud of you. Uh, when it's cold,

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Speaker 1: on the other flip side of the coin, it'll slow

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Speaker 1: the process down. So if you die outside in the

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Speaker 1: freezing cold, like Jack Nicholson in the Shining Love that

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Speaker 1: he was the stuff, he probably wasn't just frozen in

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Speaker 1: that scene. He probably riga mortis probably and it was

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Speaker 1: frozen at the same and it would have lasted a

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Speaker 1: long time. I've I've heard that it can last up

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Speaker 1: to like twenty eight days under the right conditions if

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Speaker 1: you're freezing out there for sure. Uh So physical exertion

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Speaker 1: just prior to death, that's another thing that can affect

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Speaker 1: because your muscles are already cant acted, or if you're

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Speaker 1: drowning or something. You're already um, you're you're already starved

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Speaker 1: of oxygen, so you're not producing a t P anyway,

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Speaker 1: so it consider immediately right, which is called the cadaveric spasm. Right,

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Speaker 1: I actually saw a beaver undergo a cadaveric spasm. Woods. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: when I was in Tennessee, I saw a beaver get

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Speaker 1: hit by a car and it went and um just

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Speaker 1: immediately died because like the next day I was driving

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Speaker 1: down the same stretch abroad and the beaver is in

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Speaker 1: the same position making the same face that it was

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Speaker 1: the moment it died. It was crazy. I saw something

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Speaker 1: you undergo a cadaveric spasm. Wow. So uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: police are investigating a crime scene and someone is still

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Speaker 1: you know, like got their finch clifs clinched on their

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Speaker 1: purse or something that then that means they might have

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Speaker 1: died while in a struggle against an attacker. So that

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Speaker 1: can that can help out the cops. Uh. And then

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Speaker 1: fat distribution is another one. Uh. Fat as an insulator,

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Speaker 1: as we both know, because we're very warm guys. So

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Speaker 1: what would that mean? Would I would I? Would you?

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Speaker 1: And I undergo rigor mortis more quickly or less quickly,

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Speaker 1: more slowly, more fat. And then age is another thing.

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Speaker 1: If you have low muscle mass, like if you're a

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Speaker 1: little kid, if you're really old, um, I guess I

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Speaker 1: should say elderly rigorist, that will happen a lot faster too.

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Speaker 1: So those are some things that can affect that, the

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Speaker 1: speed of the onset and the pace. But because of

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Speaker 1: that all those different um uh circumstances surrounding rigor mortis

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Speaker 1: and prolonging it or you know, shortening it, it's not

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Speaker 1: quite that precise, right, So there's a bunch of other

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Speaker 1: stuff that that forensic crime scene investigators use or prefer

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Speaker 1: to use over rigor mortis to establish time with death, correct. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And it's not just time of death too. You can

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Speaker 1: also tell if a body has been moved postmortem, which

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Speaker 1: is usually a big clue towards finding out kind of

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Speaker 1: there was foul play probably or if there were teenagers

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Speaker 1: around afterward. Yeah, I guess, so playing with the body.

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Speaker 1: Are you talking about liver mortists? That's one thing. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's a good one. I like that one. Yeah. Liver

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Speaker 1: mortis is when um all the blood cells basically and

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Speaker 1: all the blood go to the place where it's lowest.

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Speaker 1: So like, if you're lying on your back, the blood's

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Speaker 1: gonna pull in your back, or if you're if you're

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Speaker 1: on your side and your face is faced down on

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Speaker 1: the concrete, your face is going to be flesh with

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Speaker 1: blood exactly. It was pretty gross, also known as lividity, exactly.

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Speaker 1: And there's another one too, right, Uh, there is you're

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Speaker 1: talk about algor al gore mortis. Algor mortis. Yeah, it

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Speaker 1: has to do with power point presentations, right. Um. Actually,

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Speaker 1: that's just the cooling off of the body until it

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Speaker 1: matches the room temperature, right, And that happens at a

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Speaker 1: predictable rate too, right, it's like one and a half

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Speaker 1: to two degrees ferret hype per hour. So that's a

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Speaker 1: pretty good way of calculating time of death usually unless

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Speaker 1: the person had a fever. True, Yeah, because you're generally

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Speaker 1: assuming that the that the the person is starting out

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Speaker 1: at point six and I mean if they were sick

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Speaker 1: and they had a fever, that's going to set it

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Speaker 1: off by a couple of hours, right. I think the

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Speaker 1: official body temperature changed though, didn't it, did it? I'm

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Speaker 1: pretty sure I read that a few years ago. It

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Speaker 1: changed by a point oh one degree or something to

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Speaker 1: look at it and we will determine this and follow

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Speaker 1: up on that. Son. Another thing the cops can do

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Speaker 1: is look at the contents of your stomach, just like

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Speaker 1: they did in Jaws when they cut the shark open

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Speaker 1: or in Um seven. How do they do that in seven?

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Speaker 1: The gluttony guy, right, Gary, Uh? And that can obviously

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Speaker 1: you can see how much your food is digested the

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Speaker 1: last thing you ate, and that can gauge you know,

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Speaker 1: how long you've been dead. And then my favorite insect insects. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I think as we all know, uh, dead things uh

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Speaker 1: tend to attract flies and other insects, and that is

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Speaker 1: because they are feeding on your fluids. They're not just

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Speaker 1: there because of the smell. And boy, this is interesting.

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Speaker 1: They're feeding on your fluids. Josh. Well, what's fascinating is

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Speaker 1: is somebody who's lover enough to figure out, Hey, we

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Speaker 1: know so much about like in in the US, the

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Speaker 1: blue bottle fly and every stage of its development and

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Speaker 1: it develops so quickly and it's it's lifespan happens over

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Speaker 1: such a short period of time. We can walk up

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Speaker 1: and say, oh, there's maggots and they're blue bottlefly maggots,

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Speaker 1: So we know that this body is only X number

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Speaker 1: of hours dead um or if they've hitting the hit

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Speaker 1: the pupa stage or the adult stage, you know. Um,

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Speaker 1: we can use these stages of these flies and maggots

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Speaker 1: burrowing around in somebody's dead corpse to determine how long

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Speaker 1: ago they died. That fascinates me. Pretty cool stuff. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I think we should talk about body farms sometime soon.

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Speaker 1: I think we do a podcast on body farms. Should

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Speaker 1: and then forensic pathology period. I know John Flood a

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Speaker 1: good article on that. Let's do it. We'll do a

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Speaker 1: whole suite of just just you know, corpse stuff. Sweet

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Speaker 1: sounds good. All right, so, Chuck, I think with that promise,

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Speaker 1: we've pretty much reached the end of briger Mortis. Right. Well,

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Speaker 1: let's hope not auto lie. This is it starting to

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Speaker 1: say that we're starting to decompose. I'm a little Jamie.

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Speaker 1: I can tell you that I can't agree with that.

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Speaker 1: So does that mean that it's a listener mail time?

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Speaker 1: I believe. So let's do listener mail then, And I

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Speaker 1: think all of you friends out there listening should make

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Speaker 1: note we plugged nothing today Yeah, that's right. Producer Jerry's

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Speaker 1: gave us the thumbs up. Baby. In fact, we refuse

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Speaker 1: to plug anything because we don't want you to read

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Speaker 1: our blog or to buy our spoken word eltments. Reverse

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Speaker 1: psychology to refuse to plug. Very nice, the anti plug.

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Speaker 1: So it's listener mail time. It is so Josh. This

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Speaker 1: comes to us from David in Atlanta right here. Hey,

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Speaker 1: I don't know why Atlanta and David is commenting on

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Speaker 1: our PUNC podcast. Wait wait, wait, Chuch, you can't just

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Speaker 1: say it like that. I don't know what you're talking about.

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Speaker 1: You know what I'm talking about. Okay, wait, Chuck, We're

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Speaker 1: not proceeding until you say it correctly. Let me just

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Speaker 1: let me read. Um. This is from David. I was

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Speaker 1: listening to your podcast about the punts scheme Happy, and

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Speaker 1: it reminded me of a company quote unquote that I

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Speaker 1: did some work for a few years back in Atlanta. Uh.

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Speaker 1: He names a company, but I won't name it. Uh.

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Speaker 1: They were running a real estate based ponce scheme and

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Speaker 1: they hired his company to come in and work on

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Speaker 1: their computers like an I T deal. And he said

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Speaker 1: he knew something fishy was going on. He saw a

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Speaker 1: few red flags in just a couple of days that

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Speaker 1: he was there. Uh, there was a high level of

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Speaker 1: security for a small company. The owner of the company

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Speaker 1: had a personal bodyguard and there were several security guards

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Speaker 1: in the little, tiny office. Second, the pitch that the

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Speaker 1: sales staff were giving promise typical ponce Ponts scheme, results,

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Speaker 1: high return, that kind of thing. And this is to

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Speaker 1: me the big red flag is he said that they

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Speaker 1: would not let anyone from Georgia invest in their company.

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Speaker 1: You're based out of Atlanta, and they wouldn't let anyone

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Speaker 1: in Georgia investment you count. So he suspected this is

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Speaker 1: a big cover up in a big scheme, and it

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Speaker 1: turns out that it was. It only lasted about a month.

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Speaker 1: And you heard that they had been operating before that though,

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Speaker 1: clearly because they built people out of about seventy million.

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Speaker 1: But holy cow, and his company did not even get paid.

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Speaker 1: And uh, that's see David's story. Well thanks a lot, David,

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Speaker 1: first account, hope, But things have come around again since

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Speaker 1: then for your company. Um, if you have any fascinating

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Speaker 1: stories about Ponzi schemes or pyramid schemes or any kind

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Speaker 1: of scheme whatsoever, or you just want to say, what up,

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Speaker 1: It's a chuck and I chucking me Uh. You can

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Speaker 1: send us an email to Stuff Podcast at how stuff

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Speaker 1: works dot com. For more on this and thousands of

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Speaker 1: other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com and

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Speaker 1: be sure to check out this Stuff you Should Know

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Speaker 1: blog on the how stuff works dot com home page.

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