Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind listener mail.
Speaker 2: My name is Robert.
Speaker 3: Lamb and I am Joe McCormick, and it's Monday, the
Speaker 3: day of each week that we read back messages from
Speaker 3: the Stuff to Blow Your Mind email address. If you
Speaker 3: have never gotten in touch with the show before, why
Speaker 3: not give it a try. You can email us at
Speaker 3: contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. We
Speaker 3: accept messages of all types, especially if you have feedback
Speaker 3: to a recent episode, maybe something interesting to add on
Speaker 3: a topic we've talked about, or especially this week, if
Speaker 3: you got something about Dune. Hit us up.
Speaker 2: Yeah all right, well let's jump into it. This first
Speaker 2: one comes to us from Matt and this one is
Speaker 2: titled Cave Biology. Hey, Rob, Joe and JJ. I was
Speaker 2: just a listening to your first episode about cave dwelling
Speaker 2: life and was very pleased when you started talking about
Speaker 2: subjects related to genetics. I thought i'd share some of
Speaker 2: my thoughts on the subject. First, you asked for comment
Speaker 2: about the sonic the hedgehog pathway. One of you I
Speaker 2: can't remember who wondered aloud, which was discovered first hedgehog
Speaker 2: or sonic hedgehog. It was hedgehog, and it was so
Speaker 2: name because fruitflies without this gene would develop many spiky
Speaker 2: protrusions all over their body, giving them a very hedgehog
Speaker 2: like appearance. Sonic Hedgehog was simply named after the game character,
Speaker 2: as it is in the hedgehog family of genes, and
Speaker 2: after seeing the character on the cover of a magazine. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I read some of the background about this as well.
Speaker 2: This is a hedgehog first, and then I think some
Speaker 2: other varieties, including sonic ketchhog. Anyways, another thing you brought
Speaker 2: up is the idea of a single genetic trait that
Speaker 2: affects multiple characteristics of an organism. I think you used
Speaker 2: eyes and long arms as an example, but the one
Speaker 2: my mind immediately went to is a gene that results
Speaker 2: in both red hair and freckles. MC one R just
Speaker 2: thought i'd share that this example exists. The last thing
Speaker 2: is related to the fish that develop eyes but lose
Speaker 2: them when in the dark environment of a cave. I
Speaker 2: seem to remember from a developmental biology course that neural
Speaker 2: cells often have this use it or lose its system
Speaker 2: already in place during development, even in humans. Many more
Speaker 2: neurons are formed early in development than are needed, but
Speaker 2: only those able to create strong, useful connections will remain
Speaker 2: while the others are destroyed or broken down. The difference
Speaker 2: comes down to their ability to communicate across the connections
Speaker 2: they make. It doesn't seem like a stretch for this
Speaker 2: to extend to the eyes, as they are formed from
Speaker 2: specialized neural tissue, and when the eyes aren't sending signals
Speaker 2: to indicate they are useful, they get the acts with
Speaker 2: the excessive neurons. Anyway, love the show. You guys are
Speaker 2: masters of science communication.
Speaker 3: Matt ah, thank you, Matt Yeah, thank you, especially for
Speaker 3: bringing so the idea of a single genetic trait that
Speaker 3: affects multiple characteristics and the phenotype in the body or
Speaker 3: behavior of the organism. I did use the idea of
Speaker 3: like smaller eyes but longer arms, just as hypothetical, but
Speaker 3: I appreciate you adding a real life known example the
Speaker 3: idea that a single genetic trait could affect having both
Speaker 3: red hair and freckles. I think the real one we
Speaker 3: talked about in those cavefish was the idea of a
Speaker 3: pliotropy that would cause at the same time both regressed eyes,
Speaker 3: but also more taste buds around the mouth.
Speaker 2: Yes, all right.
Speaker 3: This next message is in response to our series on
Speaker 3: the illusion of control. It comes from Christopher. Christopher says, hello,
Speaker 3: Joe and Robert. On the subject of the illusion of control,
Speaker 3: and further to other listener's comments, a student of Stoicism
Speaker 3: would say that we truly have no control over anything
Speaker 3: besides our minds. We can only control our perception and
Speaker 3: reactions to events and influences. Perhaps an episode on stoicism
Speaker 3: Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Epictetus, question mark kind regards Christopher. Oh, yeah, Christopher,
Speaker 3: that's an interesting idea. I guess I did think a
Speaker 3: bit about Stoic philosophers. I don't know a ton about Stoicism,
Speaker 3: but I did think a bit about that when we
Speaker 3: were recording the episodes, but it never came up in conversation.
Speaker 3: So I know I've read before that some of the Stoics,
Speaker 3: I think especially it was Epictetus placed a kind of
Speaker 3: fundamental importance on discerning between that which is within our
Speaker 3: power to change and that which is not within our
Speaker 3: power to change, on being able to tell the difference
Speaker 3: there in fact as well articulated in a famous prayer
Speaker 3: I think used by people who are in recovery programs often,
Speaker 3: but they're you know, and obviously like once the idea
Speaker 3: is once you tell the difference between things you can
Speaker 3: influence and things you can't. There are a number of
Speaker 3: other spools that followed from that initial judgment.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah. As to the possibility doing an episode on
Speaker 2: say stoicism or something, yeah, yeah, I don't think we've
Speaker 2: done a real philosophical episode of late in terms of
Speaker 2: like getting into particular philosophers and schools of philosophy. We
Speaker 2: have more in the past, but maybe we're due for another.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think we could definitely come back and talk
Speaker 3: about stoicism at some point. I think more recently, we
Speaker 3: actually ended up talking about cynicism because we were talking
Speaker 3: about Diogenes the cynic because we were talking about beans
Speaker 3: and he I think, was famous for eating beans that
Speaker 3: were you know, not that we're kind of looked down
Speaker 3: upon as food by the elite of Athens.
Speaker 2: All right, well, let's go ahead and transition into a
Speaker 2: little weird house cinema. We have some weird house cinema
Speaker 2: left over from last week. Some new stuff has come in.
Speaker 2: This one comes to it from Louisa. Lisa says, Hi,
Speaker 2: Robin Joe Dune. What can one say that hasn't been
Speaker 2: said about it before? It was my first experience with
Speaker 2: sci fi, although thirty years later I don't really know
Speaker 2: if it fits in that particular genre. This new adaptation
Speaker 2: is wonderful and it inspired me to make a quirky
Speaker 2: mug I wanted to show you. And then we get
Speaker 2: some images of this mug. They will, I guess describe
Speaker 2: in a second. We'll give the author here a second
Speaker 2: to continue the Litany against fear, a sandworm on the
Speaker 2: side and the mouth of a chah alude on the inside.
Speaker 2: I'm tempted to watch the Lynch version now. Thanks to you,
Speaker 2: Thank you for your wonderful podcast. You're my weekly portal
Speaker 2: into scientific considerations. Best wishes, Louisa from Guatemala.
Speaker 3: Luisa, this mug is great. So yeah, it has the
Speaker 3: Litany against fear on the opposed sides of the mug
Speaker 3: on you know, one half on one side, the other
Speaker 3: half on the other. As she says, the inside is
Speaker 3: just a big, old, bristly spiky worm mouth. I prefer
Speaker 3: this mug to the popcorn buckets.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, the popcorn buckets have their own charm,
Speaker 2: but this, this is something I would be more inclined
Speaker 2: to put on my shelf. Yeah, I love the handle.
Speaker 2: The handle of the mug is in fact a sandworm.
Speaker 2: Beautiful job.
Speaker 3: I love it totally. Five out of five kulwahds. Okay,
Speaker 3: this next message is from Jeff. Jeff says, greeting science humans,
Speaker 3: really enjoying the recent nostalgic weird house picks. Your episode
Speaker 3: on Flash Gordon reminded me of being a kid and
Speaker 3: encountering movies on cable television with no preconceived notions. I
Speaker 3: distinctly remember the ex of seeing Flash Gordon on the
Speaker 3: on screen channel guide. I'd never heard of the character
Speaker 3: and thought it was going to be a movie about
Speaker 3: the DC superhero, the Flash. I don't know my DC heroes.
Speaker 3: Is that the one that runs really fast?
Speaker 2: He runs really fast, really really fast? Yeah?
Speaker 3: All right, so Jeff says. Instead, I got something much
Speaker 3: more fun and imaginative. Although I was pretty far into
Speaker 3: the movie before I finally stopped wondering when he was
Speaker 3: going to get super speed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, if he wasn't going to get it
Speaker 2: during the football scene, Yes, it probably wasn't gonna happen, Jeff.
Speaker 3: Was it before or after the football combat that you
Speaker 3: realized what you were actually watching? So, Jeff says, Obviously,
Speaker 3: I loved the movie and the soundtrack, and would later
Speaker 3: watch it, or at least parts of it, many times
Speaker 3: as I encountered it channel surfing. The first time I
Speaker 3: saw it, I immediately recognized the Hawkman Assault theme as
Speaker 3: the song that played when you pick up the temporary
Speaker 3: invincibility power up in the arcade game Vanguard.
Speaker 2: Oh, Vanguard, I don't think I knew this one. I'm
Speaker 2: looking it up now and seeing the like, I guess
Speaker 2: what the cabinet art or poster art for it? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Interesting, Yeah, I looked up some gameplay. Vanguard is a
Speaker 3: horizontal scrolling shoot him up. So the shoot him up
Speaker 3: games are the ones where you're like some kind of
Speaker 3: little spaceship and you're blasting a bunch of other space
Speaker 3: ships that are scrolling either down the screen. They're like
Speaker 3: vertical shoot them ups and horizontal ones. This is one
Speaker 3: where you go from left to right across the screen
Speaker 3: instead of bottom to top. And I don't think I've
Speaker 3: ever played this one, but others in this genre. If
Speaker 3: you want to picture it were games like R Type
Speaker 3: or Defender. I was thinking maybe the Super Nintendo game
Speaker 3: that had the guy with the banjo on the cover,
Speaker 3: but I think that was actually a vertical scroller.
Speaker 2: Vanguard Centuri's first talking game. I guess I had a voice.
Speaker 3: Wait, I just remembered, yes, I did check this out.
Speaker 3: At the start screen when you like press start to play,
Speaker 3: it has a robotic computer voice that says bon voyage.
Speaker 2: Ah oh man. Now I have to say I looked
Speaker 2: it up on Moby Games that has a lot of
Speaker 2: information on these old ones, and I was immediately captivated
Speaker 2: by the art for the Atari twenty six hundred cartridge.
Speaker 2: Really cool image that is, of course almost damning because
Speaker 2: you look at that new No, no, there's no way
Speaker 2: that this game backs up this awesome image in any way,
Speaker 2: shape or form. And then I scrolled down who did
Speaker 2: the cover art, Matt. It's Ralph McQuary, famous for his
Speaker 2: concepts and sketches and his conceptual design for Star Wars
Speaker 2: so and also I believe he did Boggy Creek too,
Speaker 2: Am I remembering that correctly? Yeah, there's some sort of
Speaker 2: weird connection between his concepts that would have become the Wookies,
Speaker 2: and his concepts for the Bigfoot creature in the Body
Speaker 2: Creek movie. So I think he did the poster art
Speaker 2: for those as well. Okay, legendary Man.
Speaker 3: Well, so I'm just comparing now the Atari twenty six
Speaker 3: hundred graphics versus the Arcade graphics look markedly different. The
Speaker 3: Arcade one looks a lot better. H Maybe I'm looking
Speaker 3: at two different things. I can't tell anyway, And thus
Speaker 3: concludes the extended sidebar on Vanguard. So going back to
Speaker 3: Jeff's message about the oh, remember it was about the
Speaker 3: power up music that was the exact same as the
Speaker 3: Hawkman theme from Flash Gordon, Jeff says, I assumed it
Speaker 3: was some old classical piece or other historical melody that
Speaker 3: seemed to be hanging around in the culture forever, like
Speaker 3: the music in Looney Tunes. It was much later that
Speaker 3: I realized it was all the brilliance of queen and
Speaker 3: video game designers simply didn't know enough to be afraid
Speaker 3: of music licensing lawyers in those early days of the industry.
Speaker 3: Of course, I knew of some blockbusters through pervasive advertising,
Speaker 3: but a friend of mine experienced movies with an even
Speaker 3: purer lack of expectation. He grew up in the Middle
Speaker 3: East and would receive stacks of pirated VHS tapes, sometimes
Speaker 3: with multiple movies on each, with nothing but the titles
Speaker 3: scribbled on them. No Rotten Tomatoes, no Siskel or Ebert,
Speaker 3: just the pure joy of discovery. It could be a
Speaker 3: masterpiece like Ghostbusters or some Chuck Norris kickfest. There was
Speaker 3: no indication of genre or quality. Wow, that does sound fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean those old VHS types. If you didn't
Speaker 2: care about quality, you could fit three movies on there.
Speaker 2: And I distinctly remember having the VHS tapes with the
Speaker 2: three different movie titles scribbled on there. You know, often
Speaker 2: like taped off of HBO by my aunt, and it
Speaker 2: would be a weird mix. It would be like a
Speaker 2: kid's movie and then poulter Geist and it would like
Speaker 2: just cut abruptly to poulter Geist in a way that
Speaker 2: may do a raid as you reach the end of
Speaker 2: the kids movie. That sort of thing.
Speaker 3: I would tape things off of TV, especially when I
Speaker 3: saw like a commercial or promo for some TV movie
Speaker 3: coming up soon that looked like it was really going
Speaker 3: to be good and an example of what would be upcoming.
Speaker 3: That I thought was really going to be good was
Speaker 3: Forest Warriors starring Chuck Norris.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean it's it's a winning concept. It's him
Speaker 2: in the forest fighting I don't know, big feet or something,
Speaker 2: you know, the sasquatch battles, I don't.
Speaker 3: Know, fighting poachers or something.
Speaker 2: Well that sounds more likely.
Speaker 3: Actually, No, I think it's like mean laggers. It's like
Speaker 3: bad laggers who want to cut down the forest, and
Speaker 3: he's like a martial arts ghost that must defend the forest.
Speaker 3: All right, So that's your kickfest. Coming back to Jeff's message,
Speaker 3: Jeff says, finally, I have a viewing recommendation called Delicious
Speaker 3: in Dungeon on Netflix. Rob have you seen this?
Speaker 2: I have not.
Speaker 3: Okay, Jeff's gonna describe it, he says. It seems like
Speaker 3: a perfect combination of subject matter for the two of you.
Speaker 3: The premise is that a party of Dungeon adventurers have
Speaker 3: no rations and must consume the monsters they kill to survive.
Speaker 3: It works as a combination classic fantasy adventure plus cooking show.
Speaker 3: They have such respect for both tabletop and video game
Speaker 3: D and D themes that it feels as though you're
Speaker 3: playing a game where someone invited two friends from culinary
Speaker 3: school who are only slightly interested in the module, but
Speaker 3: fascinated with the Monster Manual and what recipes they could
Speaker 3: imagine on every page. It's light and funny, and so
Speaker 3: far seems appropriate for viewing with kids. It's currently the
Speaker 3: show I look most forward to every week. Thanks for
Speaker 3: keeping the Heart of the Eighties Alive, Jeff.
Speaker 2: All right, Yeah, I mean I'm especially interested if I
Speaker 2: can watch it with my son. Yeah, I'll have to
Speaker 2: check it out. It was not on my radar.
Speaker 3: Oh, I just took a peek. This is animated. You
Speaker 3: may have said that, but I didn't realize that I
Speaker 3: was picturing something live action.
Speaker 2: As for keeping the Heart of the Eighties Alive, yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean, just considering Weird House cinema. I just did
Speaker 2: a check up on this. We have, as of this
Speaker 2: recording covered fifty three films from the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 3: Wow. I would not have thought it was that much.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, fifty three. I haven't done a full breakdown
Speaker 2: on it. But for a while there it was like
Speaker 2: eighties was in the lead, and then came like nineties
Speaker 2: or seventies, I don't know, And then for a while
Speaker 2: we got super into doing Films from the fifties and
Speaker 2: the sixties are always up there, so you know, there's
Speaker 2: a little bit of a push and pull there. And
Speaker 2: this is all out of the total one hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty three films that we've covered on the show.
Speaker 3: Wow, it sounds like a solid third of them or
Speaker 3: from the eighties though, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, well we are you know, we are both
Speaker 2: to differing degrees children of the eighties, so it makes sense.
Speaker 3: Remember Highlander your Home.
Speaker 2: All right, here's another one. This one comes to is
Speaker 2: from Carrie. Carrie writes in and says, Rob and Joe,
Speaker 2: I'm writing to suggest a pretty weird movie for weird House.
Speaker 2: It's The five Thousand Fingers of Doctor t a nineteen
Speaker 2: fifty three quote musical about a young boy who hates
Speaker 2: his piano lessons and dreams of an evil piano teacher
Speaker 2: who has built a piano so large that he has
Speaker 2: imprisoned five hundred children in his dungeon to force them
Speaker 2: to play it. I first saw this on TV in
Speaker 2: the nineteen fifties and had vague recollections of it when
Speaker 2: I saw it again in the student union while I
Speaker 2: was in college in the nineteen seventies. I wouldn't say
Speaker 2: it's good, but as I said before, it's weird. If
Speaker 2: you aren't already familiar with it, check it out and
Speaker 2: see what you think. Karen.
Speaker 3: You know, somehow I think this movie has come up before.
Speaker 3: I've never seen it, but I've looked up screenshots from
Speaker 3: the film. Apparently it was written by doctor Seuss, and
Speaker 3: somehow the movie looks as if it were illustrated like
Speaker 3: a Doctor Seuss book.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I believe listeners have written in about this
Speaker 2: one before. Yeah, I've never seen it, but I probably
Speaker 2: need to lean in for a closer look. Yeah. It
Speaker 2: the stills, and you included some stills in our shared
Speaker 2: dock here. They look absurd. It does look very true too,
Speaker 2: like like the production design is by Doctor SEUs in
Speaker 2: the best way possible, not in not in like a
Speaker 2: bad way, Yeah, which which can be possible.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this looks like a noothbrush on my toothbrush that
Speaker 3: I do indeed wish.
Speaker 2: To keep from the director of the nineteen fifty three
Speaker 2: three D western, The Moonlighter.
Speaker 3: Three D Western.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, you know we've talked before about this. Different
Speaker 2: phases of the ups and downs and resurgences, of three
Speaker 2: D cinema, and yeah, occasionally they'll put out a western.
Speaker 3: I'm just picturing a lot of three D like mule
Speaker 3: kicking you in the face shots.
Speaker 2: Anyway, the five thousand Fingers of Doctor t Yeah, we'll
Speaker 2: put it. Make sure it's on the considerational list for
Speaker 2: the future. All right, Well, on that note, I guess
Speaker 2: we'll go ahead and close the mail bag for today.
Speaker 2: But let's see normal housekeeping stuff here. Stuff to Blow
Speaker 2: Your Mind is primarily a science podcast, with core episodes
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Speaker 2: mail on Mondays, and on Fridays. We set aside most
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Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hi,
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow
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