Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, Welcome to Creature feature the podcast where we
Speaker 1: mix some animal brains some human brains in Vermouth and
Speaker 1: make a delicious cocktail called Life. I'm Katie Golden. I
Speaker 1: studied psychology and evolutionary biology at Harvard, and I fight
Speaker 1: for birds rights on Twitter. Today we're peeking beyond the
Speaker 1: veil at some extrasensory perception that kid who sees dead
Speaker 1: people from the sixth sense is a lame nerd compared
Speaker 1: to our animal contenders, who can smell, taste, and feel
Speaker 1: far beyond the sixth sense. We'll also take a look
Speaker 1: at some human supersensors, including the future of cyborgs and
Speaker 1: a real life daredevil superhero. Are you a supertaster? Do
Speaker 1: you find broccoli, grapefruit, coffee, cabbage, or spinach completely inedible
Speaker 1: because of how better they are? It's so you may
Speaker 1: have more taste buds on average than others, allowing you
Speaker 1: to taste with greater intensity. Specifically, super tasters have greater
Speaker 1: numbers of what are called bungeiform papilla. There these little
Speaker 1: tiny bumps on the surface of the tip of your tongue.
Speaker 1: They're called bungeform because they're shaped like little mushrooms. Inside
Speaker 1: each of the papilla are a cluster of taste buds,
Speaker 1: and each taste bud contains around fifty two a hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty taste receptor cells. So here's how it works.
Speaker 1: These cells specialize in different flavors. Different receptors bind two
Speaker 1: different chemicals that are generally separated into the categories that sweet, salty, sour, bitter,
Speaker 1: and new mommy. You may have been taught about a
Speaker 1: taste map in elementary school that different parts of the
Speaker 1: tongue are responsible for tasting different things like sweet, sour
Speaker 1: or salty. But they lied to you. They lied to
Speaker 1: your sweet innocent child self. The different types of taste
Speaker 1: receptors are found all over the entire tongue and are
Speaker 1: even diverse with in the same taste. But you can
Speaker 1: actually do a fun little experiment to see if you're
Speaker 1: a super taster, which I'm going to inflict on my
Speaker 1: guests in just a minute. Here, coat your tongue in
Speaker 1: blue food, die and admire the fact that you just
Speaker 1: blue yourself. Then get one of those little binder rings
Speaker 1: or use a standard hole punch to make a hole
Speaker 1: in a piece of white paper, hold it up to
Speaker 1: the tip of your blue tongue and now count the
Speaker 1: number of bumps. These are the little fungeiformed papilli that
Speaker 1: we just talked about. Most people will have about fifteen
Speaker 1: to thirty five papillae within that six millimeter diameter circle,
Speaker 1: but supertasters will have thirty five to sixty. And for
Speaker 1: those of you who find you seek out ghost peppers
Speaker 1: and blue cheese, if you counted less than fifteen papilli
Speaker 1: might be what's called a non taster, so you can
Speaker 1: tell your friends you actually have a medical reason why
Speaker 1: you use way too much salt. Joining me today is
Speaker 1: Jamie LOFTUS activist, coder, co host of the Becktail Cast,
Speaker 1: and zamboni expert. I great to have you. Thanks for
Speaker 1: having me, of course. Okay, so I'm just gonna like,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna put my tongue in the blue and then
Speaker 1: I hope it I don't know, I'm panding. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: how you put you put a circle on your tongue, Yeah,
Speaker 1: well on the try to do it like near the tip,
Speaker 1: not on the very tip, but yeah, like near the
Speaker 1: tip because that's where the blue is. Yeah, there you go.
Speaker 1: Um and so uh so, now we've got unfair blue,
Speaker 1: and we have little um circle so that we can
Speaker 1: count the number of papilla within the circle. Jamie is
Speaker 1: really struggling, so I'm going to do her first. All right?
Speaker 1: Is that enough? Yeah? So I've counted the bumps on
Speaker 1: Jamie's tongue. I didn't realize I had such a horrible
Speaker 1: throbbing tongue until you had to keep it out of
Speaker 1: your mouth for drying out of your mouth. So most
Speaker 1: people have fifteen to thirty five pilly within six millimeters
Speaker 1: and you have fourteen, which I mean, I bet if
Speaker 1: we did it a bunch of times, which we're not
Speaker 1: gonna do, you get an average of fifteen at least
Speaker 1: and then maybe more. So you're normal. So I've got
Speaker 1: but like on the lower side. Um well, I mean again,
Speaker 1: we'd have to take an average of your entire tongue. True,
Speaker 1: So I bet you're just completely normal. Okay, my turn,
Speaker 1: your turn, But I gotta re blue. I would go
Speaker 1: for another day. I gotta blew myself again. You got
Speaker 1: to yourself again? There's this uh so wait wait, less
Speaker 1: just means you can so if there's more pilla, can
Speaker 1: you taste? Bet there was? Yeah, more papilla means you
Speaker 1: can taste better. If you count less than fifteen, you're
Speaker 1: non taster. Hell yeah, So that means you can't taste
Speaker 1: as good. Do you like season your food a lot? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Maybe you are on the lower end of tasters. I
Speaker 1: put like, yeah, I put all sorts of fun up
Speaker 1: stood way more salt than most people. Maybe you are.
Speaker 1: It could be that you're like actually sort of on
Speaker 1: the lower end of the taste spectrum. I think that
Speaker 1: that is a superpower because I can eat really shitty
Speaker 1: food all the time. Nice, big, big financial boon. Nice. Yeah. Alright,
Speaker 1: So is my tongue still blue? Yes, Okay, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: put it's on now. Okay, I'm going to get a
Speaker 1: little too close. And I count eighteen, So that wasn't
Speaker 1: the bluest area of your tongue. I would hazard to
Speaker 1: guess there were probably two or three more I didn't see. Okay, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that seems about normal. Okay. Um, it's like fifteen to
Speaker 1: thirty five. Uh and then if you count like, if
Speaker 1: you get thirty five to sixty, you're actually a super taster. So, um,
Speaker 1: is that good? What is that? So? It means that
Speaker 1: you're being helpful. No, No, No, it's it's that you
Speaker 1: have way more papillae than normal, so you're gonna be
Speaker 1: very sensitive to, uh, to taste, so like really bitter flavors.
Speaker 1: And I've wondered if I'm a super taster because I'm
Speaker 1: very sensitive to taste, but I've suspected that it's not
Speaker 1: so much going on with my tongue, but it's that
Speaker 1: I'm I'm like smell more than normal, and smell has
Speaker 1: a lot to do with taste, So like, uh, you're
Speaker 1: as you're eating food, it's you're also smelling it, and
Speaker 1: then that's sort of like combines in your in your
Speaker 1: brain to form like, oh, this tastes pleasant or it
Speaker 1: tastes like donkey ass. Also, I'm actually sensitive to this
Speaker 1: ingredient in food coloring, not not in the blue stuff,
Speaker 1: but in the red. You know that there's that like
Speaker 1: diets and stuff, so cut pink cupcakes or red velvet
Speaker 1: cake that uses that that red dye number forty UM
Speaker 1: taste really bitter and disgusting. It tastes like a bunch
Speaker 1: of asks to me. Um. And it's actually not made
Speaker 1: out of uh, it's not made out of ground up
Speaker 1: beetle but but like I mean, some dyes some die
Speaker 1: was but this is just artificial yeah, old school um,
Speaker 1: but it it still tastes like, still tastes like beetle ass,
Speaker 1: even if it's not made out of beetle ass. And
Speaker 1: that's probably because I have more uh taste receptors that
Speaker 1: can pick up on the bitter flavor. So like I
Speaker 1: was at a Christmas party and there was all this
Speaker 1: like red um cupcakes and they looked yeah because of Christmas,
Speaker 1: And like I ate when I'm like, tastes like this
Speaker 1: tastes like bugass. And I don't know why I love
Speaker 1: the taste of chemicals in my food, which is why
Speaker 1: I will die before sixty love it, I mean probably
Speaker 1: because like that's that's the only way you can get
Speaker 1: get that flavor is by like putting a bunch of
Speaker 1: like burn me filming, I don't care, just like pure
Speaker 1: citric acid in your mouth, just fizzing and bubbling away,
Speaker 1: like I can finally taste and taste. Childhood, we had this.
Speaker 1: Do you remember that that period of time? You probably
Speaker 1: didn't care for this period of time where they were
Speaker 1: just dying foods and condiments. Random hated that I loved it.
Speaker 1: So I don't even like ketchup, but the green and
Speaker 1: purple ketchup just that was offensive. But I loved it.
Speaker 1: And there was also like they had I don't know,
Speaker 1: they had blue SpongeBob macaroni and cheese. Why loved it
Speaker 1: because under hear the sea, of course, and they had
Speaker 1: blue margarine that came in a bottle and stop it.
Speaker 1: And I used to sneak downstairs and just have a
Speaker 1: pile of blue margins. Oh my god, for myself, who
Speaker 1: are you? You're a monster? It was good. I mean,
Speaker 1: that is interesting because maybe maybe you are like I mean,
Speaker 1: I didn't do a survey of your entire tongue, but
Speaker 1: the you could be a non taster, like you could
Speaker 1: have slightly you were taste buds than average, and then
Speaker 1: and then that would allow you to and maybe the
Speaker 1: bright colors of the food would make it more appealing,
Speaker 1: because it's like, you know, some kind of visual stimulation
Speaker 1: to like make you get through that pile of blue margarine.
Speaker 1: Come on another, goodpa, I guess you couldn't taste How
Speaker 1: terrible that should be. No, I think I was more
Speaker 1: connected to the idea of how fun it was more
Speaker 1: the man taste gross. I also used to eat SpongeBob macaroni,
Speaker 1: but in the normal color of like neon orange. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: we all know and love there was a blue option.
Speaker 1: I remember it was like twenty five cents more. I
Speaker 1: had to argue with my mom it should be it
Speaker 1: should be free. They should they should pay you to
Speaker 1: eat blue macaroni. It enhanced my experience. I'm like, we're
Speaker 1: going to have to pay them. Yeah, I bet you'd
Speaker 1: love those, Like, um, do you like those rainbow bagels
Speaker 1: and like, have you seen that? I've seen them. I've
Speaker 1: never had one myself, but I wouldn't be able to
Speaker 1: taste the difference, right yeah, so yeah, I mean I
Speaker 1: don't think the food die actually can influences the taste.
Speaker 1: It's just that like unless it's that asked but die
Speaker 1: the red dye. But like I do think it's like
Speaker 1: you expect a certain flavor to come with certain colors,
Speaker 1: so like like red and green should be like vegetables
Speaker 1: or fruit and like um, and then like the yellows
Speaker 1: and browns and stuff, you could have more savory stuff.
Speaker 1: And like purple is an I guess grapes purple flower.
Speaker 1: I'm okay with purple food, Like I like purple potatoes
Speaker 1: and stuff. Yeah, I like. I mean I'll eat not purple,
Speaker 1: not purple ketchup? What a purple margarine? Which is chemical
Speaker 1: base to begin? I guess if it's in Like, if
Speaker 1: you're making mashed purple potatoes and you use purple margine,
Speaker 1: it's just gonna get lost in the purple. So that
Speaker 1: I love it. So I want to go on an
Speaker 1: imagination journey with you. Will you join me? Of course?
Speaker 1: Thank you for asking. So imagine if you could taste
Speaker 1: with every part of your body. That sounds horrible, Okay,
Speaker 1: it's like, it's a fair point. It's a fair point
Speaker 1: that it's horrible, because yes, we could taste our own underwear,
Speaker 1: in our own sweat and the ground and dog faces. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I feel like the majority of stuff in the world
Speaker 1: is not stuff I want to taste, right, But are
Speaker 1: there any positives to this? Like, because I was thinking
Speaker 1: you could go to a grocery store and just feel everything. Oh,
Speaker 1: if you're in the right space, that would be great, right,
Speaker 1: What would be like the best? Like would it be
Speaker 1: a grocery store, because like the grounds kind of nasty.
Speaker 1: I know, Well, I guess there's no place unless you
Speaker 1: have someone covered in a delicious sauce carrying you everywhere.
Speaker 1: That sounds that sounds lovely, regardless of whether you can
Speaker 1: taste everywhere. I was covered. If I had some sauce
Speaker 1: boys to carry me arous boy in delicious areas, then
Speaker 1: I think it would be great. Or maybe you would
Speaker 1: find out that things that look disgusting. I don't know,
Speaker 1: everyone's licking in the ground, all right, Well, you get
Speaker 1: a couple of sauce boys to carry around the grocery store,
Speaker 1: and you touch all the milon to touch, well, I
Speaker 1: guess melons. If you just touch it, you're tasting the rind, right,
Speaker 1: so you have to get into you kind of have
Speaker 1: to smush you gotta get you gonna also higher someone
Speaker 1: to you know, get to the good part because you're
Speaker 1: tasting a lot of wrappers right right right complicated also
Speaker 1: sounds like something that would be easily I don't know. Well,
Speaker 1: if you're tasting, is that does that mean I'm very wet? Well?
Speaker 1: Why would you? I mean, I guess you would sort
Speaker 1: of be wet, right, or because you're a tongue you're
Speaker 1: just dry, dry tongue everything. Yeah, you're just dry humping
Speaker 1: fruits all the time. Chicken. Oh, you could be a
Speaker 1: vegetarian because you could just feel up a live chicken.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, that's that's a great hack. You could
Speaker 1: just you just touch an animal. But that's scary because
Speaker 1: then if you were like hanging out with your parents,
Speaker 1: would you just if they were delicious, what would you
Speaker 1: you'd hug them a lot would be And also, okay,
Speaker 1: other questions, would you be full? No, you know you're
Speaker 1: just like like, are you full after licking a chicken? No?
Speaker 1: It sounds that sounds scary. What if your closest like friend,
Speaker 1: you develop a taste for a friend and you're just
Speaker 1: like this trusted, confident Yeah, I could see that being
Speaker 1: a problem. But then you could like you just carry
Speaker 1: along some snacks and eat those, so you don't eat
Speaker 1: your friend vampire right right, like a flavor vampire vampire
Speaker 1: trying to Yeah, so I bring this up because catfish
Speaker 1: are actually a giant tongue you yeah, okay, So yellow
Speaker 1: bullhead catfish has over a hundred and seventy five thousand
Speaker 1: taste buds all over its body. It's wet, slippery body.
Speaker 1: What's going on in its mouth the same thing. Well,
Speaker 1: it's got the highest density and its whiskers, you know,
Speaker 1: the little like the little flanges that come out of
Speaker 1: its mouth, I know, adorable. So it actually has a
Speaker 1: good reason for this because it's around in the dirty,
Speaker 1: muddy parts of the water, scraunge around all that fish dookie.
Speaker 1: It can't see very well because it's very silty. So
Speaker 1: in order to hunt its prey, which are like little fish,
Speaker 1: snails and so on, they need to be able to
Speaker 1: like taste taste everything around them so that they can like,
Speaker 1: you know, if they rub against something that's like they're like, oh,
Speaker 1: and then the flavor and then they eat it. The
Speaker 1: catfish is a dirt freak. That's yeah, intense. Yeah, they're
Speaker 1: pretty freaky. They just like roll around until they find something.
Speaker 1: You just gotta goatee just rubbing up consuming it. Also,
Speaker 1: do you fish? Are you a fisher? Fisherwoman? My mom
Speaker 1: used to hook up with them. I turned on a boat.
Speaker 1: She had sex with them. I was a boat assistant,
Speaker 1: but only for a well because I was thinking, like,
Speaker 1: if you caught a catfish one of these catfish that
Speaker 1: bodies are tongues when when you hold it up like
Speaker 1: look at my big fish, and how cool I'm You know,
Speaker 1: it's tasting you before you even get to taste it,
Speaker 1: which is a delicious irony. I think that I mean,
Speaker 1: good for them, good for you, catfish. So I'm going
Speaker 1: to move on to another super sensor that this time
Speaker 1: it's more about smelling odors. So the jewel beetle can
Speaker 1: detect fire up to fifty miles away. And why something
Speaker 1: you might not expect or really want. It is very
Speaker 1: horny for dead trees. It wants to, yeah, it wants.
Speaker 1: It wants to burrow into the dead tree because it's
Speaker 1: gonna lay its eggs in there. They are a type
Speaker 1: of borer beetle. The beetles have sex with each other,
Speaker 1: am I saying? Okay? So they do, but then they're like,
Speaker 1: but I want to be near a tree, right. The
Speaker 1: tree is more like the unwilling the trees like a surrogate. Right.
Speaker 1: But it kind of kills the tree too, which is,
Speaker 1: you know, not great. So it prefers these dead or
Speaker 1: dying trees because it wants to get in, like deep
Speaker 1: in there so that the little larva can eat what's
Speaker 1: called the canbum in the flim freaky okay, so that's
Speaker 1: that's like the guts of the trees. Uh. And then
Speaker 1: but a healthy tree is going to have insect fighting capabilities,
Speaker 1: so it's going to produce pitch and tar and resin
Speaker 1: and trap them. Like that's how we get Jurassic Park
Speaker 1: because it in cases the flyer mosquito. And then Jeff
Speaker 1: Goldbloom has sex with a dinosaur and my favorite part
Speaker 1: of the right, we all love that part. And then
Speaker 1: they have a bunch of like Jeff goldbluem a sores
Speaker 1: that go around and rereak havoc and find a way
Speaker 1: so they're okay. So yeah, they're just like the beetles,
Speaker 1: get too horny and it kills them. Well, right, So
Speaker 1: the beetles are competing to get to the tree first
Speaker 1: so they can burrow in there lay their eggs before
Speaker 1: anyone else. It's like a bunch of soccer moms swarming
Speaker 1: the parking lot to a private school. And then do
Speaker 1: they stay with the eggs or do they bail? I
Speaker 1: think they bail. But firefighters will get swarmed by these beetles. No,
Speaker 1: And it's must be a real treat to be a firefighter,
Speaker 1: risking your life, getting smoke all over, and then like
Speaker 1: beetles insult to injury, rost, beetles pooping out eggs like
Speaker 1: just lot know, but can you agin just beetles everywhere?
Speaker 1: So apocalyptic. I killed a very pregnant fly once on accident.
Speaker 1: It was, oh my god. I still have dreams about it. Something. No,
Speaker 1: I don't like smushing bugs, not because I'm a humanitarian,
Speaker 1: but because their guts really discussed me and so, and
Speaker 1: there's always way more than you think. Yeah, it's gonna
Speaker 1: it's like a really tiny, little, teeny tiny bugg and
Speaker 1: you squish and it's like like piles of white goo.
Speaker 1: Just like where is this coming from? What was this
Speaker 1: used for? I don't know? Are you just a big googball? Well,
Speaker 1: we're gonna look inside of this beetle by smushing it
Speaker 1: around in our brains. Yeah. So how do they detect
Speaker 1: fire from so far away? They actually have this really
Speaker 1: complex system of smoke detection and infrared heat radiation sensors
Speaker 1: that work together to pinpoint precisely where smoking fire is
Speaker 1: coming from. So they smell from their antenna because life
Speaker 1: is weird. Uh, They have olfactory receptors on their antenna
Speaker 1: and they're able to detect chemicals found in smoke, and
Speaker 1: they're so sensitive they can actually differentiate the different chemical
Speaker 1: profiles of species of trees like oak or pine smoke
Speaker 1: like a redwoods burning better. Can they travel fifty miles
Speaker 1: to get to that tree? Yeah? Yeah, they can fly
Speaker 1: their airborne and coming towards trees. But they also have
Speaker 1: infrared radiation sensors in their abdomen. So there are these
Speaker 1: very sensitive fluid filled bulbs and then when the temperature
Speaker 1: heats up around the bulbs, the pressure inside this goofy
Speaker 1: water balloon builds up and then that's measured by a
Speaker 1: neuron and then it sends a signal to the little
Speaker 1: beetle brain that goes like, hey, it's hot, man. But
Speaker 1: it's like very very sensitive, more sensitive than like when
Speaker 1: you feel, you know, like heat on your skin, and
Speaker 1: so they detect very small changes. And so so how
Speaker 1: are these two things connected of like you feel the
Speaker 1: heat and then you look for smoke or these separate systems.
Speaker 1: Now they kind of get all intermingled in the brains.
Speaker 1: So like you have these two detectors, the radiation in
Speaker 1: the smoke, and then using both of those sets of data,
Speaker 1: their little tiny beetle brains triangulate exactly where the smoke is,
Speaker 1: and that's how they can find it from so so
Speaker 1: far away. That's such a long way for eggs, you're
Speaker 1: going to bail on anyways, a real journey, high effort
Speaker 1: for a very low effort. Parents, bad parenting. What if
Speaker 1: you were bitten by a radioactive jewel beetle? Would you
Speaker 1: gain the ability of super smell? Well, some already have
Speaker 1: this skill, but it may be more of a curse
Speaker 1: than a blessing. Hyper Osmia is a rare condition in
Speaker 1: which you have a heightened sense of smell. Causes can
Speaker 1: be genetic or due to hormone levels, environmental factors such
Speaker 1: as medications, or even lime disease. Having a highly sensitive
Speaker 1: sense of smell can cause great discomfort, nausea, and be
Speaker 1: really distracting. I have a fairly sensitive sense of smell,
Speaker 1: and when someone cracks open a cannatuna, it feels like
Speaker 1: the ocean just parted in my face, and I hate it,
Speaker 1: So I can really sympathize. Just imagine how disgusting it
Speaker 1: would be to be able to smell someone's gym socks
Speaker 1: from across the room. But if you're curious what it's
Speaker 1: like to have super smell. Good news, we're all endowed
Speaker 1: with night smell vision, smell a vision, whatever. Researchers found
Speaker 1: that smell sensitivity is linked to the circadian rhythm being
Speaker 1: strongest right before bedtime. How did they study this Well,
Speaker 1: they threw some adolescence as Super Awesome in lab slumber
Speaker 1: party with a really strict bed time to establish a
Speaker 1: stable circadian rhythm. To test their odor threshold, they had
Speaker 1: the kid smell what the study calls and the this
Speaker 1: is a direct quote and I'm not kidding about this
Speaker 1: sniffing sticks. These are a brand of lab created sticks
Speaker 1: with odors at known quantities, so you can test how
Speaker 1: sensitive someone's sensive smell is. The researchers found that the
Speaker 1: kids in the lame slumber party were better at huffing
Speaker 1: these sniff and sticks right before they went to bed.
Speaker 1: So that means we're all taking off our shoes and
Speaker 1: smelling those juicy SoC odors right at peak smell an hour.
Speaker 1: The human body is a magnificent machine. Smell you later.
Speaker 1: We're gonna take a quick break and we'll be back
Speaker 1: with more stinking podcast. So have you ever wondered why
Speaker 1: we're ticklish. To get to the bottom of this, scientists
Speaker 1: tested tickling on rats. When the rats received a tickle,
Speaker 1: they laughed really, they emitted high pitched squeaks that are
Speaker 1: associated with a heavy rat. They also wiggled around and jumped,
Speaker 1: just like a little kid when you're tickling them. The
Speaker 1: researchers found a specific pattern of activity in the somatosensory cortex,
Speaker 1: which is a fancy word for saying you're feely part
Speaker 1: of your brain when the rats were tickled. It's more
Speaker 1: complex than just stimulating the nerves. However, there are rats
Speaker 1: had the same pattern of activity in the brain when
Speaker 1: the researchers playfully chased them with their hands, making little
Speaker 1: tickly fingers, you know, like when you're like, ah, the
Speaker 1: tickle monster is gonna get you. The study suggests that
Speaker 1: there might be a complex social reason for tickling, which
Speaker 1: might also explain why you can't tickle yourself. Tickling is
Speaker 1: all about the unexpected, which is why when you get
Speaker 1: a soda and the fizziness touches your nose, you might
Speaker 1: feel it tickle. But what if you're like our next
Speaker 1: featured creature, where he sees the entire world through vibrations
Speaker 1: and tickles in his nose. So star nosed moles use
Speaker 1: their noses in a really different way than you might expect,
Speaker 1: which generally you think of noses as being used for
Speaker 1: like smelling or to hold a mu stash, but they
Speaker 1: actually use it to see the world in a way
Speaker 1: that's like really weird. What do they use their eyes?
Speaker 1: They don't, they're blind, so their noses are really messed
Speaker 1: up looking. They look like two hands kind of like
Speaker 1: and I was like, oh, maybe that was symbolism in
Speaker 1: that movie because the hands have like eyes in it,
Speaker 1: and like star nose moles use their like weird hands
Speaker 1: nose to put it past um, But maybe I'm just
Speaker 1: a big mole nerd, so um. So yeah, their nose
Speaker 1: looks like this pink, fleshy starfish and we'll we'll put
Speaker 1: a gross picture for you guys up on her Twitter.
Speaker 1: And it can smell, But the main reason it has
Speaker 1: those like little nose fingers is so that it can
Speaker 1: feel the earth around it and feel vibrations coming off
Speaker 1: of its little tiny prey items. And then it's like
Speaker 1: it's like literally feeling this like vibration and zooming towards it.
Speaker 1: So it can eat a little insect. Woa, okay, this
Speaker 1: is okay, again a dumb question. But there's no dumb questions,
Speaker 1: only dumb people. There's maybe one of them. So we're
Speaker 1: using the noses eyes, Are we also using the nose
Speaker 1: as a nose. Yes. Actually, it's one of the only
Speaker 1: noses that can smell underwater. So they they snort out
Speaker 1: air bubbles and then suck them back in and they're like, yeah,
Speaker 1: this smells like like p or whatever. That well, because
Speaker 1: you're not a fancy mole in your nose is very
Speaker 1: normal looking and doesn't have fingers coming out of it.
Speaker 1: It has a hundred thousand nerve fibers in its nose,
Speaker 1: which is a lot. That's a lot, a lot. And
Speaker 1: it's the world's fastest eater, so it can decide whether
Speaker 1: to eat something within a quarter of a second and
Speaker 1: then just go for it, just go for it. Which
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm the world's fastest snacker because like
Speaker 1: I just I like pouring things into my mouth, like
Speaker 1: not even liquids, but just like discreet snacking. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: but you know, scientifically speaking, they got me beat. That's
Speaker 1: so weird. I don't think of like moles as like
Speaker 1: very effective predators. They're about like him possible. Yeah, like
Speaker 1: to the little insects and worms, they're just this terrifying
Speaker 1: hell bees that can find them even if they're not
Speaker 1: making any sounds and just their hearts are beating and
Speaker 1: their moving a little bit. I've got a newfound respect
Speaker 1: for terrifying holes. I'd like there to be like a
Speaker 1: B movie of just giant moles that snoreful around and tunnels,
Speaker 1: sort of like let's normalize hideous animals and children's movies. Yeah,
Speaker 1: look like have have some Pixar movie about a star
Speaker 1: nosed mole who wants to be a painter even though
Speaker 1: he's blind and and but the world only season for
Speaker 1: his freaky nose. But he finds a way. But he yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean how could he not. He can breathe underwy
Speaker 1: you can attack within a quarter of a second. And
Speaker 1: I don't want any of like that classic like we're
Speaker 1: going to give them all a makeover Princess Diary style.
Speaker 1: It remains disgusting the entire time. In the movies called
Speaker 1: Star a mold story, it's a part of the extended
Speaker 1: A Star is Born you. So I'm going to talk
Speaker 1: about another freaky nose with you. So, vampire bats, I
Speaker 1: believe they are adorable. I accept that they're a little
Speaker 1: freaky looking. But they're these little tiny bats, and indeed
Speaker 1: they do drink blood. They don't kill people or animals.
Speaker 1: They just kind of take a little nibble and drink
Speaker 1: some blood. Is that all they eat? That's all they
Speaker 1: So how do they know, like what the best spot
Speaker 1: is for maximum blood using. They actually have this really
Speaker 1: sensitive nose that has these little dimples and it's full
Speaker 1: of this protein called t r p V one. That's
Speaker 1: my science robot voice, cute. So these proteins have been
Speaker 1: modified in these bats to be able to sense heat
Speaker 1: at this very very minute level. So their nose can
Speaker 1: actually detect very faint differences and heat, so they can
Speaker 1: like see like, oh, this part of the cow has
Speaker 1: a really active vein that I can explort right into.
Speaker 1: Do they care? I don't know why I want to
Speaker 1: give them the benefit of the doubt. Are they like, well,
Speaker 1: I don't want to pick a vein that would kill someone?
Speaker 1: Now they absolutely don't care at all. Um, So they're
Speaker 1: saliva contains an anti coagulants, so the blood doesn't like
Speaker 1: clot yeah, and so it's like, I just got to
Speaker 1: keep that blood of flowing. And these are very small
Speaker 1: bouts and their tongues have this little tiny groove in it,
Speaker 1: and the way they drink the blood is actually through
Speaker 1: capillary action. So capillary action is like how you can
Speaker 1: use paper towels to mop up fluids and how plants drink.
Speaker 1: So they've got like little brawniest brawny tongues. Um, they
Speaker 1: have this very narrow tube in their tongue that like
Speaker 1: the way capillary action works is water is super sticky.
Speaker 1: It's like why when water gets on you, you're wet,
Speaker 1: because it doesn't just fall off. It's it's sticky and
Speaker 1: it likes to stick to itself, but it also likes
Speaker 1: to stick to the surfaces. So if the stickiness to
Speaker 1: a surface is greater than its stickiness to itself, it
Speaker 1: will travel up that surface. So if you have a
Speaker 1: very narrow tube, that surface tension is not that great
Speaker 1: because there aren't that many molecules on that surface sticking together.
Speaker 1: So it's more sticky to the sides of the wall
Speaker 1: of this capillary and it just kind of like scoots
Speaker 1: right up into the bat's mouth. Wow, that's very efficient. Yes,
Speaker 1: they are very efficient, precise bloodsuckers. That's terrifying. Do you
Speaker 1: know what like region are they native to. I don't
Speaker 1: know if they've actually seen one in person. So they're
Speaker 1: like in Central and South America and in Mexico. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they love the cattle there. We had a bad issue
Speaker 1: in my hometown. But they were big and dumb, so
Speaker 1: like fruit bats. I don't know, they were big, and
Speaker 1: my dad would leave the door open and so they
Speaker 1: were just flying to our house and like, where are
Speaker 1: you from? From Massachusetts? Okay? Yeah, yeah, So there's a
Speaker 1: lot of big, stupid bats there and you just catch
Speaker 1: them in a blanket and then go outside and release them.
Speaker 1: That's scary because like their vectors for rabies and I'm
Speaker 1: always like freaked out about finding a bat because it's like, right,
Speaker 1: imagine just leaving your home open. And there's like video
Speaker 1: footage of me when I was a baby, just with fun,
Speaker 1: fun memories or the bad baby here. So that's one
Speaker 1: way of like detecting something is through your nose, through
Speaker 1: the vibrations and heat differences in your nose. But elephants
Speaker 1: use their feet. Uh you would think that of the
Speaker 1: animals like their trunks would be heavy, would be yeah,
Speaker 1: but I mean their trunks are extremely sensitive, to be sure.
Speaker 1: But their feet are able to detect seismic information from
Speaker 1: up to twenty miles away. WHOA, Okay, so they can
Speaker 1: like detect earthquakes before they even happen down. Yeah, that's crazy.
Speaker 1: Well I'm not sure if it's straight down because like
Speaker 1: the further down you get it, think it's like it's denser. Um,
Speaker 1: but like in the soft soil that's gonna be conductive
Speaker 1: to the vibration twenty miles so they can hear warning
Speaker 1: calls from other herds of elephants through their feet and
Speaker 1: they get really so these mean researchers played these warning
Speaker 1: calls through the grounds like twenty miles away, and then
Speaker 1: the elephants over there, we're like getting really agitated because
Speaker 1: they're like, oh man, someone's like, yeah, I feel it
Speaker 1: in my feet. Uh. So the biologists think they're capable
Speaker 1: of this because they have conduction of seismic waves up
Speaker 1: through the foot, through the bones and then through like
Speaker 1: the school and the ears. Yeah, it's why. So like
Speaker 1: we actually our bones are very conductive to like sound.
Speaker 1: That's why when you talk, you like hear yourself a
Speaker 1: certain way, and then when you hear yourself recorded, you're
Speaker 1: like you I absolutely listen, Yeah, you sound disgusting because
Speaker 1: that's how you actually sound, and you're just not us.
Speaker 1: That's so upset and because sometimes do you ever, you're
Speaker 1: just like, oh, this is I could deal with this point. Yeah,
Speaker 1: my voice sounds wonderful, And I think I finally, like,
Speaker 1: after having to hear my voice a lot, like I've
Speaker 1: gotten used to how like squeaky it sounds, because like
Speaker 1: through my bones, it's just so much lovelier. It's always
Speaker 1: pitched up. Yeah, listening, listen to this podcast through my bones,
Speaker 1: and you're gonna be like, oh my god. This. Moles, elephants,
Speaker 1: and bats may have us beat with their supersensory noses
Speaker 1: and feet, but we're starting to develop impressive technology around touch.
Speaker 1: Artificial limbs are becoming more and more advanced, not just
Speaker 1: in their mechanical ability to hold things, but the really
Speaker 1: important function of touch. There's a new prosthetic being tested
Speaker 1: at the Cleveland Better and Affairs Medical Center that connects
Speaker 1: force sensors in the prosthetic fingers to electrodes that attached
Speaker 1: to the residual nerves in the flesh above the amputation.
Speaker 1: The electrodes stimulate the nerves when they detect activity in
Speaker 1: the artificial sensors. The trick is developing complex stimulation patterns
Speaker 1: that can mimic the many different types of sensation, the
Speaker 1: cool condensation on a glass, the squishy feeling of an
Speaker 1: overripe banana, or the slippery, wet feeling of an angry
Speaker 1: catfish tasting you with his tongue. Body. Hey, don't go anywhere,
Speaker 1: We'll be right back with more touchy feely stuff after
Speaker 1: the break. Have you ever visited a psychic who brags
Speaker 1: about a sixth sense? Well, big freaking what most of
Speaker 1: us have a sixth sense, maybe even more. Sure. There's touch, taste, smell, site,
Speaker 1: and hearing, but there's also appropriate exception. I know that
Speaker 1: sounds like a terrible sequel to inception or some kind
Speaker 1: of Harry Potter spell, but trust me, you probably have
Speaker 1: appropriate exception. And here's a way to test. If you
Speaker 1: do close your eyes, now, touch your nose. Congratulations. If
Speaker 1: you succeeded, you have appropriate exception. Appropriate exception is the
Speaker 1: ability to sense where your body parts are even if
Speaker 1: you can't see them. Being able to touch your nose
Speaker 1: was actually big accomplishment. Think about it. Could you just
Speaker 1: walk to somewhere on the ground marked with an X
Speaker 1: with your eyes closed. Well, that's essentially what your hand
Speaker 1: just did. So how do you accomplish this. It's a
Speaker 1: lot more complicated than you might think. We have special
Speaker 1: appropriate sceptor cells in our muscles and tendons. These cells
Speaker 1: are kind of like little gps is. They send signals
Speaker 1: to the brain with information about the muscle and tendons
Speaker 1: movement and location. They do this with the help of
Speaker 1: this little protein called Piazzo two. When a muscle stretches out,
Speaker 1: that Piazzo two protein opens its mouth and allows particles
Speaker 1: to flow into the appropriate sceptor cell. Then that cell
Speaker 1: fires and sends a signal to the brain saying, hey,
Speaker 1: your muscles stretched out. That allows your brain to understand
Speaker 1: where your arm is based on how your muscles are moving.
Speaker 1: So scientists wanted to test to see if this Piazzo
Speaker 1: protein really was so important, so they removed it from
Speaker 1: mice vintoms. Mice showed no body awareness. They weren't able
Speaker 1: to walk. They kind of dog paddled on the ground.
Speaker 1: They reached limbs upward randomly they really looked like drunk
Speaker 1: people on an ice skating rink. So you should think
Speaker 1: those little piazzo two proteins for allowing you to find
Speaker 1: your nose or mindlessly guy derrito's into your mouth. So
Speaker 1: you want to take a trip down to imagination station
Speaker 1: with me again? Yes? Here, you are here for it
Speaker 1: all right. So if you are a superhero with special
Speaker 1: sensory abilities, what would it be? What would I? Oh? God,
Speaker 1: I oh, I never have the right answer. There's question,
Speaker 1: there's loaded, there's no wrong answers, only wrong people. I
Speaker 1: just don't want to be seen. Okay, so that's invisibility
Speaker 1: sensory and that was just a statement effect. Let me
Speaker 1: see sensory. Um, I don't want super vision. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: would suck. I don't any kid see people's ding dongs
Speaker 1: for miles way. Yeah, I don't know. That's a kind
Speaker 1: of perverted we want to see people's ding dongs. I
Speaker 1: don't want to perverted, wish. I wouldn't want to hear
Speaker 1: people's thoughts because I'm very petty. You'd hear about ding
Speaker 1: dongs all the time. Yeah, yeah, and to not that
Speaker 1: that's out super touch, that might be good. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think if you could turn it on and off like
Speaker 1: when you pet a cat. Can you imagine that would
Speaker 1: be amazing? Yeah, But then if you felt that all
Speaker 1: the time, then like when you stubbed your toe, you
Speaker 1: would die. That's true, if you would feel pain like
Speaker 1: times harder. Right, small sounds annoying. I have a pretty
Speaker 1: sensitive nose and it's bad. That's not good. Like I
Speaker 1: smelled burning all of us once, like and it just
Speaker 1: made me want to puke. And I don't even know.
Speaker 1: Why do people always think that you're having like a
Speaker 1: stroke because the smell thing is really strong. Anytime someone
Speaker 1: smells something very specific, I'm like, we have to go
Speaker 1: to the Remember. I remember when I was a kid,
Speaker 1: I was like, there's something smells just awful, like like
Speaker 1: rotting something, and like my parents thought it was crazy.
Speaker 1: And then I was like smelling around the house like
Speaker 1: a dog. And then I finally found like this plant
Speaker 1: that had started to rot and yeah, yeah, so that's curse. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it is a curse. Tuna. Like I mentioned earlier, it's
Speaker 1: just like Poseidon's butt crack and I can't I can't
Speaker 1: do it. Well, I used to eat it and then
Speaker 1: I think somehow, like your taste buds change or and
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think I just I think it
Speaker 1: started when I my mom gave our dog some tuna
Speaker 1: and then like there was hot tuna dog breath, and
Speaker 1: I was just like, no, this is bad. I think
Speaker 1: I would go with touch if I had to pick.
Speaker 1: That sounds the least. Yeah, that sounds pretty good, and
Speaker 1: then like you could get some benefits from that super touch.
Speaker 1: I feel like I would Maybe this is cheating a
Speaker 1: little bit, but I'd want to be able to understand
Speaker 1: completely what an animal's expression means. So like like if
Speaker 1: my dog is making a face, I want to know
Speaker 1: if that's like pooh face where she has to go poop,
Speaker 1: or if that's just I want attention, so I'm going
Speaker 1: to pretend I have to pooh. So we don't even
Speaker 1: have that for people, No, we don't. The reason I
Speaker 1: specify animals as I was thinking, well, maybe I would
Speaker 1: want to be able to detect lies or what someone's
Speaker 1: expression means exactly, but maybe not because I like to
Speaker 1: be lied to sometimes. I feel like if you wanted
Speaker 1: to do that sort of suit, you would just have
Speaker 1: to be a very particular kind of person that would
Speaker 1: be like, well, then I'm going to just manipulate people
Speaker 1: because I know what everyone's thinking at all times. I'm
Speaker 1: too weak for that. And you can't ever ask something
Speaker 1: like do these like bright red jeans look good on me?
Speaker 1: Because then they'd be like, yes, Sweeney, they look great. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I need those lies. I need those lies make the
Speaker 1: world go around. So the reason I ask is platypie. Uh.
Speaker 1: They have a special sensory ability beyond the normal five
Speaker 1: called electro reception, which it sounds like an X men,
Speaker 1: doesn't it for animal? Yeah, So it's the ability to
Speaker 1: detect electrical fields. So first we got to understand what
Speaker 1: the heck is a platypus. It's a it's a monetreum.
Speaker 1: So that's a very primitive form of mammal where they
Speaker 1: lay eggs and they don't even have nipples. They just
Speaker 1: can't use milk. Wait what Yeah, they just just leak
Speaker 1: men just like in a puddle of their own lactation. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean like it gets all in their fur and
Speaker 1: then the little baby is just kind of look at
Speaker 1: like they fur. I think I'm thinking of a pokemon.
Speaker 1: I don't know what plato pie. They have the bills,
Speaker 1: the beaver tails in the fur. Oh, I'm thinking of
Speaker 1: the right pokem okay, yeah, that's yeah, it is. It's
Speaker 1: also a pokemon. What is that one called. It's like
Speaker 1: but it's like a big blobby yeah yeah, platypus thing, yeah, platyplex.
Speaker 1: So actually people used to think it was a hoax
Speaker 1: because they're like a bill and then a beaver tail
Speaker 1: and no nipples. But it's a mammal, Like it sounds
Speaker 1: like a yeah, it sounds like an idea you would
Speaker 1: have on mushrooms. Yeah, but actually that bill serves a
Speaker 1: really interesting purpose because it has tens of thousands of
Speaker 1: electro receptors, which are these little cells that can detect
Speaker 1: electrical fields. Why well again kind of remember like with
Speaker 1: the catfish and the mole, they can't see very well
Speaker 1: in their environment. Platypie can see, but they're often in
Speaker 1: like murky, silty water. So if they want to detect
Speaker 1: their little prey, like those little shrimp and worms and insects,
Speaker 1: they need a little boost so they can detect these
Speaker 1: very very faint electrical signals that are coming off of
Speaker 1: the prey. Because like we're actually we have electricity going on,
Speaker 1: like when your heart beats there's an electrical pulse there.
Speaker 1: Your brain activity are when your synapse fires, there's a
Speaker 1: little electrical yeah, just very very faint in your muscles too. Um,
Speaker 1: so you you do have this electricity, but it's very minute,
Speaker 1: and so they are able to sense that. And they
Speaker 1: also have mechano receptors, which are like movement receptors, which
Speaker 1: detect physical motion, and then using both of those sort
Speaker 1: of like how the jewel beetle uses both of its
Speaker 1: sensors to triangulate. The platypie uses both of these two
Speaker 1: pinpoint prey in this very precise manner, and so hammerhead
Speaker 1: sharks also have this ability. They have electra receptor pores
Speaker 1: in that weird hand or face of theirs. That makes
Speaker 1: more sense to me. I feel like I underestimated the platypus.
Speaker 1: Platypi are nuts. They have like yeah, like it's like
Speaker 1: a kid in class that you're like, this guy's a loser. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden he can recite right whatever,
Speaker 1: he's magneto. Yeah, You're like, oh he can, Okay, he's sorry,
Speaker 1: sorry for teasing you. Please don't kill me with your
Speaker 1: spooky powers, right right, it's the nerd that comes back
Speaker 1: for you, So the hammer had to be fair. Is
Speaker 1: the jock of electroc reception because it's basically jacket, because
Speaker 1: he's much more sensitive. They have what are called ampulea
Speaker 1: of Lorenzini pasta. I know it sounds like pasta, It
Speaker 1: sounds like delicious shark pasta, but they're these ampules are
Speaker 1: like bulbs full of electro conductive jelly and nerves that
Speaker 1: are really sensitive to changes in electrical charge. And they
Speaker 1: can even detect prey under sand. Who yeah, so that's
Speaker 1: pretty important for them if they're like scraunging around and
Speaker 1: pray Adams will hide under sand to try to avoid
Speaker 1: being eaten those little jerks. Man sharks don't need to
Speaker 1: be more powerful, but you know, good for him, Yeah,
Speaker 1: good for sharks. Good for them. There, I like a
Speaker 1: sensitive jock. Yeah, and they're in their special powers. So
Speaker 1: the electro reception is a close range sensor. You can't
Speaker 1: do it for miles pretty nuts, but um so so
Speaker 1: for the sharks, they can sense prey up to three
Speaker 1: cubic feet away, which is still pretty crazy. Like if
Speaker 1: I was a shark, I could like close my eyes
Speaker 1: and know that you're there and read your thoughts, you
Speaker 1: would like know what I was doing, or you would
Speaker 1: well just like know you're there, because like I can
Speaker 1: sense the electrical impulses coming from your your all your
Speaker 1: muscles and stuff. I know I'm not saying that sharks
Speaker 1: can read your thoughts, but like could they? But I
Speaker 1: would be willing to roll the disode. I feel like
Speaker 1: if sharks were smarter, maybe they could since all of
Speaker 1: the synaptic information. Sharks are dumb? Are they dumb? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I mean sharks are fish and they're not super smart.
Speaker 1: What a waste of their power? I know, I know.
Speaker 1: So platypie can just since within several cubic centimeters because
Speaker 1: they're they're pretty small in their little nerds. Yeah, it's dumb.
Speaker 1: I was like, I have to be in I wouldn't
Speaker 1: be in a platypus face. Well, so I read this
Speaker 1: thing that this factoid about how sharks can detect the
Speaker 1: charge between two batteries a thousand miles apart, and it's
Speaker 1: a little bit misleading because while it's true they're able
Speaker 1: to detect very faint charge, which is what the fact
Speaker 1: it's sort of trying to get across. It's actually I mean,
Speaker 1: first of all, it's not a thousand miles distance, which
Speaker 1: right thought there could be a misinterpretation because like what
Speaker 1: they're saying is like you run a wire between two
Speaker 1: batteries thousand miles apart, in that very faint charge fits
Speaker 1: within three feet of a wire. Yeah, it's very confusing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's very confusing. It's so it's sort of a weird,
Speaker 1: weird fact that gets repeated and then um, also, I
Speaker 1: think that's just engineering wise, not possible. I don't think
Speaker 1: you can run a wire, But right, has anyone who
Speaker 1: has tested this? I don't think so. I think it
Speaker 1: was it's just a way to say, like they're able
Speaker 1: to detect very faint electrical fields, but it makes them
Speaker 1: seem classic like they can find you a thousand miles away.
Speaker 1: Not true. Now, just don't get in these animals. Faces
Speaker 1: don't be within three ft three cubic feet of a shark.
Speaker 1: That's just good practice, good sense. Yeah, So, Jamie, what
Speaker 1: do you think cows, butterflies, birds, bees, flies, cockroaches, and
Speaker 1: round worms have in common? Oh? Skin, nice, good one,
Speaker 1: thank you. Well almost but not quite true because bees
Speaker 1: and the other insects that I mentioned have stons. So
Speaker 1: you failed. I failed the test yet leave. So the
Speaker 1: answer to my stupid riddle is they can all detect
Speaker 1: magnetic fields. Butterflies detect the Earth's magnetic fields in order
Speaker 1: to navigate during migration, so they know the direction of
Speaker 1: the field and then they go like, oh, this is
Speaker 1: north and this is south, and then they're able to
Speaker 1: go on their great migration. So this one's really interesting
Speaker 1: because we don't actually really know how this happens. Researchers
Speaker 1: are looking into it, but there's yet to be like
Speaker 1: a solid answer on how animals are doing this. Wow,
Speaker 1: not even one species specifically, all of them. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: like some species we have a little bit of a
Speaker 1: better idea. So cryptochromes are another pokemon. Like this sounds fake,
Speaker 1: but yes, it's proteins that are found in animals um
Speaker 1: and they're associated with light detection, so they you know,
Speaker 1: like circadian rhythms and sleep cycles. The protein detects light
Speaker 1: and it's like, oh, it's bedtime now. But they're also
Speaker 1: thought to maybe be able to detect magnetic fields in butterfly,
Speaker 1: birds and flies. But when researchers looked into whether this
Speaker 1: is what is helping bees, they have disproved that. So
Speaker 1: they put bees in this dark environment where they can't
Speaker 1: see any light. So cryptic, I know, just being in
Speaker 1: the dark night, the dark. But are the bees more
Speaker 1: scared of you or the dark? Are you both scared
Speaker 1: of the monsters? I'm extremely afraid of both. So cryptochromes
Speaker 1: don't work without the presence of light. And they train
Speaker 1: these bees to detect, like they know bees can detect
Speaker 1: magnetic fields, and they train them to associate the magnetic
Speaker 1: field with a tasty snack, so they would like go
Speaker 1: towards the magnetic field and get reward. In the dark environment,
Speaker 1: they could still do this. So the cryptochromes have nothing
Speaker 1: to do with it, and they don't know exactly why
Speaker 1: or how they can use the magneto reception, but they
Speaker 1: think that maybe iron granules in their cells could be
Speaker 1: responsible for it, because irons like it's encompasses, it's magnetic,
Speaker 1: but they metals, metals magneto bees. That's terrifying. Yeah, that's terrifying.
Speaker 1: So if you have anything magnetic, the bees can find you.
Speaker 1: Well that I mean, the bees will always find you
Speaker 1: no matter what. And I know how critical they are
Speaker 1: to the world, but I need them far away from
Speaker 1: at all times. Do you think any of these researchers
Speaker 1: used their study for evil where they're like, I've trained
Speaker 1: a swarm of bees to follow these magnetic fields. I
Speaker 1: have bees you could really engineer, and you could just yeah,
Speaker 1: engine your whole plane, Like go to the President and
Speaker 1: be like like I am bees or and I have
Speaker 1: the power of bees, and they will do as I say.
Speaker 1: And then the President laughs him out of the room
Speaker 1: and he's like it's like bees come hither, and like
Speaker 1: turns on an electromagnet or something and all these bees
Speaker 1: come towards God. I'd be like another Fox Sisters hoax.
Speaker 1: You could just be science to trick the whole world
Speaker 1: to become the b lord. I like this idea. Let's
Speaker 1: let's remove this from the podcast, and then I'm going
Speaker 1: to do it and I will, yeah, and you can
Speaker 1: just pay me up to not tell anyone. So there's
Speaker 1: also the issue of cows and deer a finding themselves
Speaker 1: to the magnetic fields well grazing so from north to south,
Speaker 1: and researchers used the Google the Google Google imaging to
Speaker 1: study these pictures aerial satellite photos of cows and showed like, hey,
Speaker 1: look they're all aligning themselves from north to south, so
Speaker 1: other researchers couldn't replicate it. But then this one research
Speaker 1: group that tried to disprove it was proven wrong by
Speaker 1: other researchers. So, okay, if you're cad, what are the
Speaker 1: cows doing? So the cows are aligning themselves from north
Speaker 1: to south, so like, but south heads north or vice versa,
Speaker 1: towards Santa towards Santa. Yeah, so the cows are trying
Speaker 1: to find Santa. A group of researchers showed this. Their
Speaker 1: research was questioned by this other group of researchers who said, no,
Speaker 1: you're wrong, But then that group of cow doubters was
Speaker 1: proven wrong. Researchers are so bitchy, I know. Can't you
Speaker 1: just let the cows believe in Santa? Just let the
Speaker 1: cows look at Santa. The cow's eyes are watching God.
Speaker 1: I don't ask why is Santa God there? Yes, I
Speaker 1: do use them interchangeably. I mean, they both got beards,
Speaker 1: they're both omniscient, they both punished the wicked. Yeah, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: they're they're both are hateful omient Oh no, oh my Santa,
Speaker 1: I know they're the same. We have to ask the
Speaker 1: cows they're one and the same, and the cows knew
Speaker 1: it all along. The cows are trying to tell us,
Speaker 1: so we kept eating them. We did. They're like, guys,
Speaker 1: stop eating us so we can tell you about Santa God.
Speaker 1: And then we're like, sorry, couldn't hear you? Over eating you?
Speaker 1: Over eating you? Yeah, this is why, this is why
Speaker 1: we can't have sensory hands, because right, yeah, well that's
Speaker 1: why I want the ability to see an animal's expression,
Speaker 1: because then I could see in the cow's eyes what
Speaker 1: it's saying. And it's an urgent message. First it's saying
Speaker 1: MoU and then it's saying don't eat me. But then
Speaker 1: thirdly it's saying, Santa is God. Watch out. This is
Speaker 1: a very Eliza Thornbury school. It's exactly what I know.
Speaker 1: Why didn't Eliza like ever do anything useful with her powers.
Speaker 1: I know she's pretty selfish with it. I know, tell
Speaker 1: me a child, but it's like, come on, come on,
Speaker 1: she was supposed to be the smart one. But like,
Speaker 1: she never has animals, right, she doesn't have animals rise
Speaker 1: up against humans, kill everyone and establish a beautiful new
Speaker 1: animal world. I want to know what would happened if
Speaker 1: Debbie had the power. I feel like she would have
Speaker 1: created an evil business. Oh yeah, so you guys remember
Speaker 1: Thornberry's Debbie Liza's Thornberry is a girl who could talk
Speaker 1: to animals. Debbie was she was cutie. But Debbie was
Speaker 1: the cool older sister who listened to like smashing pumpkins
Speaker 1: or whatever. Crop top. Yeah, she was cool. She was awesome.
Speaker 1: She wore like a flannel yeah, and then she she
Speaker 1: was kind of grunge. Yeah, awesome. If Debbie could talk
Speaker 1: to animals, that show would have been a hundred percent
Speaker 1: cooler because she would have been getting drafts high, like.
Speaker 1: She would have been some Yeah, she had been doing
Speaker 1: dabs with girafts. She would have been you know, I
Speaker 1: think she would have met some evil animals and started
Speaker 1: a band, yeah, like Howler Monkey band, like really exploiting
Speaker 1: the animals to her own gain. And that is what
Speaker 1: I want to watch. That's a kind of late capitalism.
Speaker 1: I'm here for I'm here for it. So humans can't
Speaker 1: use electro or magneto reception, but there are some examples
Speaker 1: of extraordinary alternative ways people have come up with to
Speaker 1: see the world. People who are blind have invented a
Speaker 1: form of flicking to help navigate the world. This is
Speaker 1: called human echolocation. It works similarly to bat echolocation. The
Speaker 1: clicks bounce off nearby objects, and people learn to identify
Speaker 1: the different sounds of the clicks when they're bouncing off
Speaker 1: different obstacles. So you can do it in a few
Speaker 1: different ways. You can tap your foot or a cane,
Speaker 1: or tap your palette so like if you can click
Speaker 1: your tongue against your palet like and researchers have actually
Speaker 1: tried to quantify this, so they've worked with people who
Speaker 1: have become experts at echolocation, and not only have they
Speaker 1: found that they're able to identify different objects like cars
Speaker 1: and trees, but also found out that while echolocating, the
Speaker 1: visual cortex of the brain becomes active. And this is
Speaker 1: not true of someone who's not practiced at echolocation. So
Speaker 1: you can't just click and have your visual cortex light up.
Speaker 1: It's years and years of practice and associating your clicking
Speaker 1: and echolocation is seen. So masters of echolocation can function
Speaker 1: similarly to decided people. Ben Underwood had his eyes removed
Speaker 1: when he was only three years old due to retinal cancer,
Speaker 1: and he taught himself to echo locate since age five.
Speaker 1: He was able to play sports like basketball. He was
Speaker 1: able to skateboard and rollerblade and completely avoid obstacles. Tom
Speaker 1: Dewight is another expert of human echolocation. He's known as
Speaker 1: the Batman of Belgium, which I object to because Batman
Speaker 1: was lame compared to him. Tom Dewhite's skills were way cooler,
Speaker 1: So I feel like Batman should be called the Tom
Speaker 1: Dwight of Gotham. So, Jamie, thank you so much for
Speaker 1: joining me today. Thank you for having me. He got
Speaker 1: anything to plug? Uh? Yeah, you can listen to my
Speaker 1: podcast I House with Caitlin Dorante. It's called the beck
Speaker 1: Del Cast. Every Thursday, we analyze a very popular movie
Speaker 1: through a feminist lens and it's really funnily learned. That's awesome. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thank you for ru new movies for us. All. I
Speaker 1: like I do that too, Like whenever I watch a movie,
Speaker 1: I ruin it in my head, so I feel like
Speaker 1: if someone else ruins it for me, it's just ticks
Speaker 1: out of step. It allows people to hate us personally, right, right,
Speaker 1: I blame I can blame you instead of my overactive
Speaker 1: brain to be blamed. So you can follow me at
Speaker 1: Katie Golden or at co bird Writes, which I would
Speaker 1: totally suggest because birds are awesome. You can also follow
Speaker 1: us on Twitter.