Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know from How Stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
Speaker 1: There's Charles W Chuck Bryant, and there's no al over there.
Speaker 1: So this is stuff you should know. Sure, everyone is
Speaker 1: wondering if Jerry has been kidnapped. She has been, and
Speaker 1: we are refusing to pay the ran. It's only like
Speaker 1: twenty bucks, but I don't know. They sent her finger
Speaker 1: and we said we need more proof. You know why
Speaker 1: we won't send the twenty bucks because we don't negotiate
Speaker 1: with kidnappers. No, it's just good policy. Jerry probably understands.
Speaker 1: Who'd you think? I don't know that finger they sent
Speaker 1: was pointed in our direction. I know that well, Jerry,
Speaker 1: from all of us here at How Stuff Works, we
Speaker 1: miss you and we wish you'd the best of luck.
Speaker 1: That breeding too holds up so Chuck, yes, you were
Speaker 1: correcting me. I think we should get this out on
Speaker 1: the air as well. Vestigial organs. You have to say
Speaker 1: it like you're all like you're eating a meat ball. Vestigial. Yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: well you so you're saying it's vestigial. It's not vestigile. No, vestigialstial.
Speaker 1: I'm a vestigial fan, alrighty, and you're the correct fan.
Speaker 1: I'm not a fan of either. I just for once
Speaker 1: looked up the pronunciation of something. So how are you
Speaker 1: feeling about vestigial organs? Are you liking it? Uh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I thought it was good. Organs is a
Speaker 1: little misleading. It should be just be like body parts,
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, vestigial parts. It can also be traits behaviors. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, like what about what's like the go to
Speaker 1: vestigial trait? Oh, the palmer grass brief X. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a great one. Yeah, that's one of the first things
Speaker 1: they test on a baby. Yeah, it says a lot
Speaker 1: about the baby. It's like, can you hold onto my
Speaker 1: fingers and lift your little body? Yeah, So we just
Speaker 1: go ahead and say human babies are born with the
Speaker 1: ability where if there if the palm of their hand
Speaker 1: is um stimulated, you know, you like, tell it a
Speaker 1: joke or give it some candy or something like that. Um,
Speaker 1: the baby will grasp onto the finger just reflexively, and
Speaker 1: the baby grasps so hard, and we're talking like newboards.
Speaker 1: The baby grasps with enough strength that it can you
Speaker 1: you could pick the baby up with your finger and
Speaker 1: it'll dangle from your hand and look very cute. Of babies,
Speaker 1: I think they said. So that doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 1: Why would a baby be able to do that? So
Speaker 1: they can hang on to your furry coat as you
Speaker 1: run through the jungle. That's the uh, that is the
Speaker 1: predominant answer amongst science. Yeah, and uh, Ruby grabs my
Speaker 1: beard like it's rope. Yeah, I remember you saying that,
Speaker 1: and pulls herself up my chest, so it's like it's
Speaker 1: like a little animal. Yeah. Apparently have you ever tickled
Speaker 1: her feet? Because they grasped with those two had leg
Speaker 1: hair pinched by little feet. Man already, boy, having a
Speaker 1: kid sounds like a lot of fun. That's right. Your beard,
Speaker 1: your leg hair getting climbed on. It's all worth it those,
Speaker 1: isn't it. I don't know. We'll see good for you, chucker.
Speaker 1: I'll let you know in eighteen years. So uh so,
Speaker 1: um uh what is that called again? The palmer grass
Speaker 1: reflects and the one that's also from the feet. That's
Speaker 1: a vestigial trait. It's something that used to serve a
Speaker 1: purpose further back on our ancestral line. It still serves
Speaker 1: a purpose in things like um primates, higher apes, UM,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't in humans anymore. The thing about it, though,
Speaker 1: is that the whole idea of vestigial organs, vestigial body parts,
Speaker 1: of vestigial traits is gives a tremendous amount of credence.
Speaker 1: In fact, it's one of like the the main points
Speaker 1: of the theory of evolution that we have these traits
Speaker 1: left over because if you trace our ancestry back far enough, um,
Speaker 1: chimps and we had a common ancestor. Yeah, And if
Speaker 1: you trace it back even further, snakes and we had
Speaker 1: a common ancestor and so on and so on. These
Speaker 1: are just remnants from that distant past when we needed things,
Speaker 1: uh like uh, a tailbone to support a tail sure,
Speaker 1: or you know, to be able to grasp your mom's
Speaker 1: for the moment you're you're born basically so you can
Speaker 1: hang on. And there's a couple of different definitions to UM.
Speaker 1: If you asked Darwin, he will say that it doesn't
Speaker 1: necessarily mean that it has no function now. It just
Speaker 1: means that it doesn't have served the original purpose that
Speaker 1: it once did. And that's a huge point because UM
Speaker 1: vestigial organs is a flashpoint between creationists and scientists. Yeah, huge, man,
Speaker 1: I had no idea, but it's like a it's like
Speaker 1: a battlefield, but in that in that battle between creationism
Speaker 1: and science. Yeah, I looked that up about the conflict
Speaker 1: of religion in the vestigial organs and uh, at least
Speaker 1: some of the sites I went to said that we're
Speaker 1: fine with vestigial organs and we think that after God
Speaker 1: created Adam and Eve that they may have changed over
Speaker 1: the years. So I didn't run into that at all. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I saw a bunch of sites that said that that
Speaker 1: they can co exist basically and said that we agree
Speaker 1: there could be a loss of genetic information over the years,
Speaker 1: or that Adam and Eve uh were created and changed
Speaker 1: as well, but it was just all God's work hand. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which I mean the scientists would be like, no, still disagree,
Speaker 1: but I like the way you're thinking. Generally, the sites
Speaker 1: I ran into were just like, no, evolution is flat
Speaker 1: out wrong. I think one of them said that, um,
Speaker 1: and there is no such thing as a vestigial vestigial organ.
Speaker 1: The very fact that you're saying that there are vestigial
Speaker 1: organs because of evolution begs the question and you like,
Speaker 1: the whole idea is that we don't understand what these
Speaker 1: organs are for, not that they're useless. God wouldn't put
Speaker 1: anything useless in the human body, right and science? Um
Speaker 1: does face palm. Yeah, well so it I mean, it
Speaker 1: goes on and on. It's not they're not neither sides
Speaker 1: winning this. But I was very um, I was. I
Speaker 1: was surprised to find that this was a like, you know,
Speaker 1: you just kind of stumble onto a social war or
Speaker 1: a battle of the or I knew that that war
Speaker 1: was being waged, but I didn't realize that this is
Speaker 1: one of the I don't field. It was just really
Speaker 1: interesting to me. But you mentioned Darwin Man, Yeah, he
Speaker 1: was not the first person to point out vestigial organs. No,
Speaker 1: and we should point people to our Charles Darwin episode
Speaker 1: that in the Natural Selection is what we did and
Speaker 1: those I am very proud of those two because he
Speaker 1: was a fascinating guy. Whether or not you agree with
Speaker 1: us all that science science junk. You may also want
Speaker 1: to go listen to our Enlightenment episode. It kind of
Speaker 1: ties in. Yeah, agreed, So, like you said, he was
Speaker 1: not in the first dude, Um, there was another guy
Speaker 1: in name Robert Vida Scheim, who said he had a
Speaker 1: big list, running list going that had up to ninety
Speaker 1: parts that he claimed were vestigil and a lot of
Speaker 1: those were proved not to be, and even some of
Speaker 1: the ones. You might as well go ahead and talk
Speaker 1: about the appendix a little bit, because everyone for a
Speaker 1: long time said, we don't need the appendix. It does
Speaker 1: nothing in our bodies. We can just take it out
Speaker 1: and suffer no ill consequences. Yeah. So the idea is, well,
Speaker 1: if you can take it out and not die, then
Speaker 1: what's the point. Yeah, then it's vestigial. And I write
Speaker 1: an article and you're like, you kind of have to
Speaker 1: be careful saying stuff like that, because I can cut
Speaker 1: my leg off and not die. But I still could
Speaker 1: have used it, sure, you know, and with the appendix.
Speaker 1: For for many years, like you said, after successful appendectomy,
Speaker 1: after successful appendectomy, um, there were there was this predominant
Speaker 1: idea that it was just this useless organ. One of
Speaker 1: the reasons why um it was officially labeled vestigial right
Speaker 1: out of the gate is because you can find it
Speaker 1: elsewhere in the animal kingdom, which is another big part
Speaker 1: of the definition of a vestigial organ. Is functioning organ
Speaker 1: in the animal kingdom. Correct, Yeah, so you you can
Speaker 1: find the same thing elsewhere in the animal kingdom, and
Speaker 1: it it's it performs a more robust function. So with
Speaker 1: the appendix, in particular for animals that have of a
Speaker 1: m diet high in fiber, this serves as an extra
Speaker 1: like digestive tract or an extra part of the digestive
Speaker 1: tract um in humans that has no role in digestion whatsoever.
Speaker 1: So scientifically speaking, it's lost its original purpose. Yeah, which
Speaker 1: people long thought when we used to be plant eating. Uh,
Speaker 1: for the most part, plant eating people's that that's what
Speaker 1: the appendix aided in digestion and cellulose when you ate
Speaker 1: a lot of plants. But now we don't eat plants,
Speaker 1: so we don't need it. So it's just a little
Speaker 1: a little sad sack. It is pretty sad looking compared
Speaker 1: to compared to a chimp's mighty appendix. This is uh,
Speaker 1: this is sad. But chuck, they have found and this
Speaker 1: is pretty much the story for almost all of us.
Speaker 1: To Jill Organs, there's really only two that remain where
Speaker 1: we're just like, we have no idea what these do. Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: but but with the appendix. We've come to find that
Speaker 1: either it performed this role simultaneously to um chewing cud
Speaker 1: for us, or it evolved to perform this role, so
Speaker 1: it's not totally useless. It's like, don't cut me out,
Speaker 1: and I'm I'm doing something. But it's a store for
Speaker 1: um beneficial bacteria. Yeah, it's basically a reserve in case
Speaker 1: you get really sick with diarrhea or some other gut
Speaker 1: infection and and it vacates all that good bacteria. Then
Speaker 1: you have this appendix waiting in the wings to say, hey,
Speaker 1: I've got this, I'll reboot your system. Stand by, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna spit them up right, and it's spits bacteria into
Speaker 1: your gut. But they say, because we have medicines that
Speaker 1: take care of all that stuff, that we never need
Speaker 1: the appendix, right, because we have medicine now to do
Speaker 1: that perform that same function essentially. Yeah, and I mean
Speaker 1: that that makes a that's a pretty pro Western medicine
Speaker 1: concept though, Like if you um, if you take a
Speaker 1: bunch of antibiotics, you're probably going to be able to
Speaker 1: use your appendix to repopulate the floora in your gut,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Because antibiotics go through and
Speaker 1: they just like laid a waste all bacteria beneficial or otherwise.
Speaker 1: And you know, so after a round of antibiotics, if
Speaker 1: your appendix is functioning, and you should probably be able
Speaker 1: theoretically to recover better than if you've had your appendix removed.
Speaker 1: So we mayn't even know that our appendix is functioning. No,
Speaker 1: but Molly Edmonds comes up with an evil genius idea,
Speaker 1: and she doesn't know vertly say that we should try it,
Speaker 1: but she suggests that at the end, the only way
Speaker 1: to really tell if we need an appendix is to
Speaker 1: start taking them out of people in um, the undeveloped world,
Speaker 1: who have less access to the same health care that
Speaker 1: we have. I think what she meant was study people
Speaker 1: who have had appendectomies, not necessarily like just bring people in,
Speaker 1: like what happens, and if they have an appendicitis. I'm
Speaker 1: hopefully that's a pretty routine procedure and that it can
Speaker 1: be removed. But that's another thing that people argue, like, no,
Speaker 1: this thing is useless. Not only not only does it
Speaker 1: not chew cud for us any longer, um, it can
Speaker 1: become really infected and kill you and so we should
Speaker 1: just take appendixes out. That was the predominant thought. And
Speaker 1: I think that you're kind of slowing it down lately. Yeah, like, uh, well,
Speaker 1: we should talk about wisdom teeth. I was just about
Speaker 1: to bring those up. You want to take a break first,
Speaker 1: or you want to keep coming with wisdom teeth? Break?
Speaker 1: Stop you stop? Stop you alright? So I teased everyone
Speaker 1: with wisdom teeth. Ah, there was have heard Duck Dennis say,
Speaker 1: you know, you should just always take out your wisdom teeth,
Speaker 1: and others say, well know if your mouth has enough room,
Speaker 1: like not everyone needs their wisdom teeth outright. But this
Speaker 1: goes back to the evolution as well, Like we needed
Speaker 1: back when we ate roots and tuberds and plants and
Speaker 1: we had bigger jaws, we had room for those teeth
Speaker 1: and we needed them. See that. To me, wisdom teeth
Speaker 1: are the definitive evidence of vestigial organs as as support
Speaker 1: for the theory of evolution, because our jaws don't they're
Speaker 1: not shaped like they were before because our diet has changed,
Speaker 1: our skulls have changed shape, and so there's not room
Speaker 1: for that third moler that there used to be room for,
Speaker 1: which is why it grows in all messed up a
Speaker 1: k A impacted. Yeah, we needed uh once we started
Speaker 1: cooking food and vegetables and making them soft, unless you're
Speaker 1: on the Paleo diet and you eat raw edgies. Yes,
Speaker 1: but if you're rich and you're on the paleod diet,
Speaker 1: you probably pay for somebody to chew them up first,
Speaker 1: since at them in your mouth. That's what rich people
Speaker 1: on paleot so. Uh. Yeah, so now we don't need
Speaker 1: those those teeth, and so clearly that's an example of
Speaker 1: a vestigial body parts. Correct. But yes, but not only
Speaker 1: do we not need them, there's no room for them
Speaker 1: in most people's jaws. I just think, like, there you go,
Speaker 1: that's it. Drop drop the mic right there. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: talked about this before, but I had might not know. Sixteen.
Speaker 1: I think they're seventeen. How old are you? Like, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I feel like it's usually in that range. Whenever I
Speaker 1: hear about someone that's older that has their wisdom teeth,
Speaker 1: then it just I don't know, it seems like an outlier. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's about the normal age, like in your
Speaker 1: teen's late teens. Mentally, yeah, kind of like tonsils. I
Speaker 1: don't know many adults who have their tonsils removed. No,
Speaker 1: I'm sure it happens. But then I mean, now that
Speaker 1: you've brought up tonsils, this is a rabbit hole. So
Speaker 1: that's another thing that that um, a lot of people say,
Speaker 1: just go ahead and get room moved. The thing is is,
Speaker 1: if history is taught as anything, just getting vestigial organs
Speaker 1: removed electively is not a good move. Just in case
Speaker 1: if they are getting infected a lot and they threaten
Speaker 1: your health, yeah, you probably should get your tonsils removed.
Speaker 1: But just as wisdom teeth to me are definitive evidence that, um,
Speaker 1: we've evolved and have vestigial organs, so to our tonsils,
Speaker 1: because no one has any real idea why we have tonsils,
Speaker 1: and as a matter of fact, they can harm our health. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this one article you since says they are supposedly the
Speaker 1: first line of defense against inhaled pathogens. That's the best
Speaker 1: they can come up with. I like it, Yeah, I guess,
Speaker 1: but that's a pretty weak system. I mean, like there's
Speaker 1: this kind of it rings the edges. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: not even like a net. No, we should be able,
Speaker 1: we should evolve a net, you know, a throat net,
Speaker 1: a throat net that falls to the side when we
Speaker 1: need like food to go through, but when we're just breathing, Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: if you're dieting, you can have the throat net shut
Speaker 1: and everything will just bounce back up. Yeah, that'd be great.
Speaker 1: It's a great idea. They're uh, you know, chewing up
Speaker 1: food and spitting it out as a weight loss method
Speaker 1: is dangerous, but some people think that, Hey it makes sense. Man,
Speaker 1: I just want to taste it. Uh what else? Oh,
Speaker 1: I like the goose bumps. That's a good one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's one of my favores too, because when you get
Speaker 1: scared or chili, you'll get you'll see the goose bumps.
Speaker 1: What are they called the erector peli. Goose bumps is
Speaker 1: so much more fun. Well, the erector peli are the
Speaker 1: muscles that give you goose bumps. It's kind of like
Speaker 1: the Marines Awajima raising the flag. These muscles do that
Speaker 1: to your hair follicles, right, and you get goosebumps. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that is left over from when we wanted to uh,
Speaker 1: we're animals and we wanted to appear larger. We could
Speaker 1: puff up our fur in defense or to hold in
Speaker 1: to keep yourself warm. You know, the air gets trapped
Speaker 1: in between the hair when it stands up. And if
Speaker 1: you think about it, when you have a adrenaline running
Speaker 1: through your veins and you're scared or you're you've got
Speaker 1: the fight or flight thing going on, you can get goosebumps.
Speaker 1: Same thing with when you're cold, get goosebumps left over
Speaker 1: from when we have for I never get goosebumps, really well,
Speaker 1: I'm never cold. The only time I get him is
Speaker 1: when I like a I get the creepy sugar you know. Um,
Speaker 1: and that doesn't happen much either. That's because the horror
Speaker 1: movie industry is just really stinks. Man. No more goose bumps.
Speaker 1: I'm working my way through that list that the Grabster
Speaker 1: prepared for us. So nice of him. You've been on
Speaker 1: a horror kick? Yeah, have you seen pre October horror kick?
Speaker 1: Even Yeah, right when it started to get a little
Speaker 1: even slightly cool, you got a blankie out and you
Speaker 1: and you may snuggle up and watch horror movies. That's great. Um,
Speaker 1: Emily won't watch him at all, which is very disappointing. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean you it will be in the room. But
Speaker 1: like she's like not paying that much attention, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: why are you watching? But um, I saw a Pontypool
Speaker 1: on the grabster's recommendation has a very good creative movie.
Speaker 1: Have you seen it? No, so I haven't seen that one.
Speaker 1: It's on Netflix, and I don't think it's ever been
Speaker 1: off Netflix in the history of Netflix. I think it's
Speaker 1: always been there. See. The problem is because Emily doesn't
Speaker 1: watch him in then I'm saying, well, I'd like to
Speaker 1: spend a couple of hours alone tonight with Ponty Pool,
Speaker 1: which happens enough with sports, so horror in there, and
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, what's the point of being married?
Speaker 1: You know? I think that's that's that's good if you chuck,
Speaker 1: that's upstanding choosing your wife over horror movies. Yeah, I'll
Speaker 1: watch Nashville. Actually that's not true. You won't watch Nashville. No,
Speaker 1: I'll be in the room when it's on. But again,
Speaker 1: I'm not watching. I've never seen it. Am I missing it? No?
Speaker 1: Even she's like it's so terrible, but still watches it.
Speaker 1: It's one of those why do people do the things
Speaker 1: they do? You know? Speaking of tangents like the one
Speaker 1: we're on now I listened to our pez episode. It
Speaker 1: is tangent city. Yeah, I mean even as far as
Speaker 1: our normal stuff goes, it is tangential. We could call
Speaker 1: our tangents vestigial material. Yeah, serves a purpose kind of
Speaker 1: some some people like it, some people hate it, hate it. Uh.
Speaker 1: So we brought up the tailbone earlier. Um, the cock
Speaker 1: is it coxas I thought it was cossacks. Cossacks, I'll
Speaker 1: go with that. Um, that is not the same thing
Speaker 1: as when you were born with a tiny little tail
Speaker 1: bump that can happen, but that's an atavism. Yeah, Um,
Speaker 1: not the same thing as the cocksack. Cossacks. Well, it's
Speaker 1: attached to the cossacks. So the cossacks is itself a
Speaker 1: vestigial thing, right, Yeah, Like we don't need that bone,
Speaker 1: and those bones are found in other animals that have tails,
Speaker 1: and it's where the muscles connect to to control the
Speaker 1: tail and everything. Right, Yeah, so we don't need that.
Speaker 1: But then some people are even born with with an
Speaker 1: actual tail. And then, like you said, that's an ad
Speaker 1: of his, which is a relic that appears once in
Speaker 1: a while rather than in most people. But that's the
Speaker 1: only difference isn't it. I think so, And I was
Speaker 1: gonna say we should do an episode on that, but
Speaker 1: I looked at our article and I don't know, there's
Speaker 1: not a lot to it. So there you go. We
Speaker 1: just did atavism, I guess so. But with the cossacks, um,
Speaker 1: some folks think that there is in fact a reason
Speaker 1: that it. Kind of the best I could see is
Speaker 1: that it acts like as the holder of things in
Speaker 1: that area, kind of cinches everything up, like the anus
Speaker 1: and other organs in that area. Is that right? Um? Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's the best they could come up with. But
Speaker 1: they've removed cossacks from people before, and you know, the
Speaker 1: anus didn't pro lapse or anything like that from what
Speaker 1: I understand. Yet, they're just taking time. That's a horror
Speaker 1: movie waiting to happen. I have never seen, or at
Speaker 1: least I've never noticed Darwin's point on someone's ear. It's
Speaker 1: a no. I know what they are, but I've never
Speaker 1: noticed that anyone had one. Yeah, but that's not the
Speaker 1: ones I've seen online. Is is a literal extra bump
Speaker 1: that looks like an elf mine's going downward. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: ones I've seen on the outside online I've never seen
Speaker 1: in real life, is what I'm saying. So it's called
Speaker 1: the Darwin's point, right, And they're just saying like it's
Speaker 1: left over from when our ears used to be bigger
Speaker 1: and weird. Yeah, like when we had to listen out
Speaker 1: for stuff. Yeah, ears a weird period. If you really
Speaker 1: look at them, I think supposedly people who can wiggle
Speaker 1: their ears that's a sign of less evolution. That's your forehead,
Speaker 1: my ears. My ears are wriggling too, No, just your
Speaker 1: four Well, your forehead's wiggling too. I really can't wiggle
Speaker 1: my ears really well. I must be tired because I
Speaker 1: can do them like one at a time and do
Speaker 1: the Star Spangled banner to it. Can you raise both
Speaker 1: eyebrows individually? Oh that's pretty good. I can also rule
Speaker 1: my tongue. Can you do this? Yeah? I can do
Speaker 1: the clover too, but I can't. I can't do I
Speaker 1: can't raise my left eyebrow by itself, which is weird.
Speaker 1: You can do your right now. You just look very
Speaker 1: suspicious of me, right, I don't believe you, but your eyebrow.
Speaker 1: I wish you guys could all see this. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: it's scintillating. Also, with the ear. There are there there
Speaker 1: are muscles in the ear that uh, we say we
Speaker 1: don't need anymore because we don't need to move them
Speaker 1: to locate things like, uh, like a satellite dish. That's why.
Speaker 1: That's why if you like not everybody can wiggle their ears,
Speaker 1: and people who can have an atavistic trait, which is
Speaker 1: that muscle group is still left over. Yeah, And there's
Speaker 1: a lot of different muscle groups that pop up um
Speaker 1: as far as vestigial organs go. Um, there's one called
Speaker 1: the subclavius muscle, which is up here in your chest
Speaker 1: around your upper arms and chest um. And that's supposedly
Speaker 1: left over from when we could walk on all fours
Speaker 1: or mostly walked on all fours. Now some people have
Speaker 1: it and some don't. Is it something you can see
Speaker 1: or is it give you the ability to, like, you know,
Speaker 1: how muscle dudes bounce their pecks. I'm sure the ones
Speaker 1: with subclavio muscles are aces that that's so gross. There's um,
Speaker 1: there's a pal mayris and a plant harris um muscle
Speaker 1: that we don't need anymore. So much so that if
Speaker 1: you are having some sort of muscle or tendon surgery,
Speaker 1: the doctor will go in and harvest those for use
Speaker 1: elsewhere in your body. So you can like move your
Speaker 1: forehead like Reuben Kincaid and in the Partridge family, remember him,
Speaker 1: he could like separate his forehead from his hair. What
Speaker 1: was it? Just a trick he did? Yeah, I don't
Speaker 1: remember that. It was his thing. The guy couldn't act,
Speaker 1: He wasn't an actor. He could just basically move his
Speaker 1: hair from where where it was normally too, like halfway
Speaker 1: back his head, um on his head with his own
Speaker 1: just muscle, or with his hands with his muscles. See.
Speaker 1: I worked at the job, a commercial job with with
Speaker 1: punch from chips once and um, yeah, he did a
Speaker 1: trick where he did it with his hands, but it
Speaker 1: was so like it looked like it was a two pay. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The way he could move it with his hands, it
Speaker 1: was really like imagine if you could do that without
Speaker 1: his hands. Yeah, that's what Ruben Kincaid could do. I
Speaker 1: got a great picture of him acting like he was
Speaker 1: arresting me. He had like put me up against the
Speaker 1: police car and had a hand behind my back. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's a nice guy. He sounds like he's still loved
Speaker 1: being punched too. Man. I gotta tell you, well, I
Speaker 1: mean like that was it for him. Yeah, But like
Speaker 1: the other guy, John was in his trailer the whole
Speaker 1: time for the most part. What were you doing? It
Speaker 1: was Chips had that um that reboot TV movie, like
Speaker 1: I don't know, probably fifteen or sixteen years ago, and
Speaker 1: they did a promo for the movie that I were
Speaker 1: on in the art department. Um, and John stayed in
Speaker 1: his trailer and punch was all about like the ladies
Speaker 1: in the neighborhood. He was like hanging out, let's go.
Speaker 1: Let's Yeah. He still got a lot out of it,
Speaker 1: you could tell, which is good for him, you know. Alright,
Speaker 1: let's take a break. Okay, we'll talk about some more
Speaker 1: vestigil organs. All Right, we're back. What else you got, Oh,
Speaker 1: we can keep going. So, Um, I've found a couple
Speaker 1: of articles. One was from I O nine that was
Speaker 1: pretty helpful. Yeah, it's a great website. I found another
Speaker 1: one on Discover magazine. They had even more. Um, there's
Speaker 1: some people have neck ribs. Have you heard of this?
Speaker 1: What neck rib? Talk about a throat net? This is
Speaker 1: like a neck rib. Basically, you've got your highest ribs
Speaker 1: up here. You're clavical not the mick rib, which I
Speaker 1: think we can all agree because they're less delicious than
Speaker 1: the mic rib. Okay, so if you right here, that's
Speaker 1: your clavical yah, yeah, that's your top rib. People have
Speaker 1: higher ribs. They go into the neck. Yeah, they go
Speaker 1: from your your neckbone and an angle above that, and
Speaker 1: those are called neck ribs. And they think that that's
Speaker 1: left over from reptilian ancestors. Are those the people that
Speaker 1: have really long necks or does that not matter? I didn't,
Speaker 1: I didn't notice that sinuses. Yeah, that's another one. It's
Speaker 1: like there's no reason for us. Yeah, well they think
Speaker 1: there are reasons. Uh. They enhance our voices. Uh, they
Speaker 1: make our skull not so heavy, and they think that
Speaker 1: One theory is that they help with the mucus help
Speaker 1: humidify the air we breathe in so it's not so dry. However,
Speaker 1: a lot of other people say, I don't know about
Speaker 1: that stuff. We may not need this is at all
Speaker 1: know And they think that if if you look around
Speaker 1: the animal kingdom, sinus has found in other animals, um
Speaker 1: are most useful, and ones that have something called the
Speaker 1: um the merrow nasal organ, which is like a pheromone
Speaker 1: sending organ. We have them, which is another vestigial thing.
Speaker 1: It's in our septums. It's on either side of our
Speaker 1: septum um, but it's not connected to our brain. So
Speaker 1: we can sense pheromones, but we can't actually sense them
Speaker 1: because the vero valmarrow nasal organ that's a tough one
Speaker 1: to say. Um, it's just not it's not connected anymore,
Speaker 1: So how do we sense it? We don't remember that
Speaker 1: one thing we talked about this before, There was like
Speaker 1: that one um that one TV show had people like
Speaker 1: smell shirts of other people and ended up like choosing
Speaker 1: mates based on it, and it turned out those people
Speaker 1: had the most varied immune systems from our own, So
Speaker 1: we would make more us children, right Exactly. The thing
Speaker 1: is is there's we don't have any way as far
Speaker 1: as science knows to actually sense pheromones. We have the
Speaker 1: means to do it, but we can't actually like pull
Speaker 1: the trigger on it, because that that organ isn't connected
Speaker 1: to our brains anymore, but it's located around the scientuses
Speaker 1: and then in other animals, the scinuses um contain muscles
Speaker 1: for moving whiskers and a lot of olfactory receptors for
Speaker 1: sensing smells interesting, but in humans they just get infected up.
Speaker 1: I was thinking if I were a mad scientist of
Speaker 1: like the human centipede ilk, that's probably what I try
Speaker 1: to do. Oh, you wouldn't just put someone's head in
Speaker 1: the person's butt in front of them over and over. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't. That seems like a waste of time. I would, Uh,
Speaker 1: I would. I would try to connect the um vomero
Speaker 1: nasal organ to the brain. Yeah, or maybe bring back
Speaker 1: all of the original purposes of our vestigial parts. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's pretty issous. So just one thing at a time,
Speaker 1: all right. Yeah, I would use anesthetic and um, I
Speaker 1: would make sure the pudding cups were top notch for recovery.
Speaker 1: What's the top notch pudding cup consist of? Just a
Speaker 1: good brand? Yeah? You just don't want an off brand,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Sure, Like if you haven't
Speaker 1: heard of it, or there's a boy wearing overalls and
Speaker 1: no shoes on the on the label, Yeah, like Uncle
Speaker 1: Dance pudding cups. You don't want that pudding cup? Uh?
Speaker 1: What else do we have in here? Oh? Yeah, here's one.
Speaker 1: What's it called the third eyelid? Yeah, of course, there's
Speaker 1: another name for it, Chuck. It is the um go
Speaker 1: ahead plaka semilunaris. Yeah, I think that's perfect. Actually, so
Speaker 1: you know a little almond. H that's something else. It's
Speaker 1: the thing next to that, right, and this, uh, I
Speaker 1: think was when in your eye we should say it's
Speaker 1: your third eyelid. Yeah, it's it's from reptiles and amphibians
Speaker 1: and birds, and I think i've seen this in lizards
Speaker 1: and things when they have like you know, it's sort
Speaker 1: of it's it's clear, like a membrane that watches over
Speaker 1: their eye and goes back, but it moves horizontally rather
Speaker 1: vertically like our eyelids. So this is a leftover trait
Speaker 1: from when we could do that, because that was probably
Speaker 1: pretty neat to do. Yes, Oh man, can you imagine
Speaker 1: how free if you could do that. So we've got
Speaker 1: the tissue, we just apparently don't have the muscles to
Speaker 1: move it any longer. Did you? Were you one of
Speaker 1: those kids that would turn their upper eyelids inside out?
Speaker 1: I never knew how they did it. I couldn't do
Speaker 1: it either. It was just freak show. Yeah. I always
Speaker 1: admired them deeply for it, but I couldn't do it there.
Speaker 1: It was always just some creepy boy trying to get
Speaker 1: a girl's attention, usually like tap tap her on the shoulder.
Speaker 1: I don't think I ever saw a girl do it,
Speaker 1: of course not. It's always a boy, yeah, because girls
Speaker 1: are smarter. Yeah, but yeah tap brothers fellers. She turned
Speaker 1: around and scream yeah uh and then everybody laugh. But
Speaker 1: then we'd go have uncle dance pudding cups. Because I
Speaker 1: went to public school, we got taken to task for
Speaker 1: for me saying dumb guys and an email that it
Speaker 1: was like, I'm just kind of kidding around, even though
Speaker 1: I do think women are generally smarter and guys do
Speaker 1: a lot of dumb stuff that women don't do. Just relax,
Speaker 1: you know, did someone really need to take up the
Speaker 1: mantle for men? I know it's kind of like men
Speaker 1: have a pretty good here on earth. Agreed. I think
Speaker 1: you can get away with saying dumb guy here there. Agreed.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, there's a couple of more body hair
Speaker 1: in general. I think we did a whole show in that,
Speaker 1: didn't we or did we? I don't remember, Uh, there's
Speaker 1: it seems like it, because didn't we talk about like
Speaker 1: the water Ape theory, I think so well recap it
Speaker 1: the water ap theory. I think there's this idea that
Speaker 1: humans actually um lost their body here because we went
Speaker 1: in the water for a little while after we as
Speaker 1: we were evolving from apes, lost our hair there because
Speaker 1: we didn't need it, and then came out of the water.
Speaker 1: If I'm just totally going from memory, so we won't
Speaker 1: hold you to that, um, but essentially aside from your eyebrows,
Speaker 1: which keep sweat out of your eyes, which is pretty
Speaker 1: good function, and I guess hair on your head which
Speaker 1: will keep your head warm. Um, and the hair and
Speaker 1: your nose you used to it like traps, gnats and yeah,
Speaker 1: juju fruits and whatever is trying to get up there.
Speaker 1: I think generally they're referring to like leg hair and
Speaker 1: back hair and arm hair. There really is no use
Speaker 1: for that any longer. Yeah, but we still have it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's no use for back hair, I can assure you.
Speaker 1: I agree, Man, Yeah, kind of stinks, but we still
Speaker 1: have it. It's evolving out. It seems like either that
Speaker 1: are a lot more dudes wax than I realized. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I need I haven't done that in a while. Have
Speaker 1: you done waxing? Before. H Yeah, Emily would get a
Speaker 1: little at home kit. She'll just clean up my neckline
Speaker 1: a little bit. But I don't have a super hairy back.
Speaker 1: It's just sort of up top there. I've never tried
Speaker 1: waxing you. You usually just like uses matches, what burns it?
Speaker 1: I mean that would work, but it's stinky. Yeah, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: and that would stink, so you're like, yeah, we have
Speaker 1: to do it outside. Uh. And then male nipples we
Speaker 1: I know, we did a show on this um and
Speaker 1: it's really pretty simple. We have nipples because women have nipples,
Speaker 1: not for the same function, but because we're made of
Speaker 1: the same uh stew essentially right, exactly, Like there's this
Speaker 1: single um plan or blueprint or whatever for humans, and
Speaker 1: nipples emerged before sex differentiation takes place. So everybody has nipples.
Speaker 1: And I found from researching this there's actually um useless
Speaker 1: tiny ovaries attached to men's um uh prostates. Oh really yes,
Speaker 1: And there's supposedly um the beginnings of little vast deference
Speaker 1: nodules on women's ovaries totally useless. So yeah, sex differentiates.
Speaker 1: So we have ovaries, we have like ovary like overrets. Yeah. Wow, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I had never knew that it's crazy, it's true or
Speaker 1: over retest. Yeah, there you go, that's more appropriate. I think,
Speaker 1: Um well, there are other animals too, I mean it's
Speaker 1: not just humans. Um well, that's another thing. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: an ostrich has wings but they don't fly, same with
Speaker 1: penguins still have the wings. That's true. It's vestigial, but
Speaker 1: this lend's further credence too. Vestigial organs as evidence for evolution. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Or we did our podcast on cave dwellers and some
Speaker 1: of those have non functioning eyes. It's like, why are
Speaker 1: they still there at all? And seriously go listen to
Speaker 1: that one. That was one of my favorites. It's a
Speaker 1: tuck deep in the archives. It's called biospeleology was the
Speaker 1: name for that one. Yeah, I think we did too.
Speaker 1: I think we did one on cave dwellers specifically, even
Speaker 1: and then we do one on caves. Maybe I'll bet
Speaker 1: we did, because you went caving after we did caves,
Speaker 1: So I think we did too. It's really getting tough
Speaker 1: now to remember all these episodes. And then there's another one.
Speaker 1: Two whales and snakes actually have pelvis bones donate them
Speaker 1: because they don't have legs, but at some point they
Speaker 1: may have before um and creationists thanks to uh uh
Speaker 1: paper that came out. It said it was a scientific paper.
Speaker 1: But the guy in in doing interviews with media's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: we're having to totally rethink this, like maybe it's not vestigial.
Speaker 1: They found that it actually enhances and aids and sex. Um.
Speaker 1: But that, I mean that could be a secondary thing. Interesting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and get this, this is one extra thing that I heard.
Speaker 1: I think it was on Fresh Air. There was a
Speaker 1: woman who wrote a book about dolphins and dolphin research,
Speaker 1: and specifically this researcher who used to take a lot
Speaker 1: of acid with dolphins that he would also give acid
Speaker 1: to and try to teach English language too. He would
Speaker 1: give dolphins LSD. That's not nice. Um, you have to
Speaker 1: hear this thing on on fresh Air. It's mind blowing.
Speaker 1: But the they believe that dolphins evolved from wolves. What Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's kind of like that water ache theory for humans
Speaker 1: that like some wolves just started hanging out in the
Speaker 1: water and eventually evolved into dolphins. Wow. I definitely need
Speaker 1: to hear that. Yeah, that's pretty amazing. Yeah, I'm pretty
Speaker 1: sure that's right. You're there. I blacked out while I
Speaker 1: was listening to it and form that false memory. But
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure that was in that interview LD somebody
Speaker 1: was on LSD. Yeah. Maybe, Well, if you want to
Speaker 1: learn more about vestigial organs, type that word those words
Speaker 1: into the search bar at how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: You don't have anything else, do you know? Uh? And
Speaker 1: since I said search barts, time for listener mail. Uh, no, sir,
Speaker 1: it is time for Facebook questions. So occasionally I will
Speaker 1: have gotten not a lot of great listener mails lately,
Speaker 1: and so we will throw out ask us some questions
Speaker 1: on Facebook. For the next couple of episodes, we're gonna
Speaker 1: read some of these an answer, So pick at your
Speaker 1: own will my friend, I'll go ahead and start with
Speaker 1: Matt Thurman says, would you ever consider live shows in
Speaker 1: the UK? Matt, not only would we consider it, we
Speaker 1: actively want to and we are hoping to at some point.
Speaker 1: So it's not the easiest thing in the world to
Speaker 1: pull off. You know, we have to book a ship
Speaker 1: to sail over there, not a night ship either. It'll
Speaker 1: take a while, but I mean, um, we have a
Speaker 1: pretty good idea that London might be a good talent
Speaker 1: to hold old show in in the UK. But if
Speaker 1: you have a recommendation of other places to do too,
Speaker 1: let us know we're actively looking. I think we could
Speaker 1: get support in London and uh in Ireland and maybe
Speaker 1: even Scotland. So we would like to hear from people
Speaker 1: on that. Okay, I got another one. This one's from
Speaker 1: Avery W. Krouse. What is a controversial topic you haven't
Speaker 1: covered yet that you're a little hesitant to do? What's yours?
Speaker 1: Remember it used to be scientology for both of us,
Speaker 1: and now we're just like it's done. Yeah. Uh for me,
Speaker 1: it's breastfeeding. I really want to do it and we
Speaker 1: will eventually, but we have to like really know what
Speaker 1: we're talking about because it is a horn's nest. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Mine would be uh vaccines, Oh man, I wouldn't want
Speaker 1: to touch that with a tempo pole. Sure, all right?
Speaker 1: I got one from Matthew Matsuto. Keep meaning to write
Speaker 1: you guys and ask whatever happened to the young man
Speaker 1: who was helping come up with ideas for stuff you
Speaker 1: should know? Can't remember his name. That was Sam and
Speaker 1: uh Sam is in college now and we haven't heard
Speaker 1: from Sam. So Sam, if you're listening or Sam's Mom,
Speaker 1: if you're listening, we would love an update. But I
Speaker 1: even wrote letters of recommendation for Sam and he's in school,
Speaker 1: so maybe he's all grows up now and doesn't need
Speaker 1: us anymore. He's fine, we'll see. Remember he was in
Speaker 1: our TV show as well. Yeah, he played at player.
Speaker 1: He's the bat Boy. That's right. That was great. So yeah,
Speaker 1: if you've ever wondered what Sam looked like, and you
Speaker 1: can figure out how to get your hands on the
Speaker 1: what was that one Make It Rain? To Believe? Make
Speaker 1: It Rain? Episode? Check out The bat Boy and you
Speaker 1: will see Sam from the famous Summer of Sam. That
Speaker 1: was the same day the unions shut us down and
Speaker 1: we had to leave for it. Man, what a day. Uh.
Speaker 1: Here's one from Dave malin Chuck. This is a question
Speaker 1: for you. When is Chuck's Beer going to get its
Speaker 1: own podcast? Now? Come on, people like your beard? Yeah
Speaker 1: you want to hear let's hear the Beard's voice at least.
Speaker 1: So okay, it's a bit regurgitating right now, we'll get
Speaker 1: used to that. Dave Mallen. Uh, this is from Mike Uh,
Speaker 1: mikel Duff Mickel Duff. He says, how much do you
Speaker 1: guys personally remember from podcasts you've done. Um, well, I
Speaker 1: think we kind of demonstrate it today, not a lot. No,
Speaker 1: it's really weird because, like they say, the brain is
Speaker 1: has a basically an infinite capacity to remember stuff, but
Speaker 1: like old stuff is getting crammed out as new stuff
Speaker 1: gets pushed in these days, and that's it hasn't always
Speaker 1: been that way. Yeah, it's been that way for like
Speaker 1: a year and a half maybe two year. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: always like to say that I think I remember about
Speaker 1: as much as the average listener might, like a few
Speaker 1: tidbits here and there from each topic. But like anytime
Speaker 1: a hardcore listener comes up to us and wants to
Speaker 1: talk to about something, or even an average listener it
Speaker 1: comes up and just heard something from like two thousand thirteen,
Speaker 1: I'm like, sorry, I have to go back and research again. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then we'll hold this conversation. But that'd be like
Speaker 1: going up to KNA and being like, remember that joke
Speaker 1: you told him that monologue three years ago. It's just
Speaker 1: not fair, you know. Yeah, he didn't have something funny
Speaker 1: and charming to say instead of, uh, go ahead, your
Speaker 1: next this is a great one. I don't have an
Speaker 1: answer for it. But we're going to get to the
Speaker 1: bottom of this. Is from Brian Geppert. Why do coupons
Speaker 1: have a cash value listed at the bottom smile emoticon?
Speaker 1: Do they? Yeah? It's they're like worth one one hundredth
Speaker 1: of a cent. The actual coupon itself is wow. So
Speaker 1: he could trade that in I guess or stores. Can
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Interesting? That's probably it, But
Speaker 1: well we'll look into that. You know what I heard
Speaker 1: recently that you know, when you go to the grocery
Speaker 1: store and they'll have a drive to like, hey, would
Speaker 1: you like to donate a dollar or whatever? Not, Supposedly
Speaker 1: they just gather that up as a big massive tax
Speaker 1: right off. Is that true? Yeah? And I mean the
Speaker 1: the charity is going to ultimately get that, but the
Speaker 1: store is getting all the right off and your one
Speaker 1: dollar gets bundled in with not even necessarily that one drive.
Speaker 1: They may bundle it in with other drives, and who
Speaker 1: knows where that dollar is actually going. You should not
Speaker 1: that's pretty sneak. You should not feel bad about saying
Speaker 1: not today when they ask you. But you should also
Speaker 1: take it as an impetus to go donate yourself or
Speaker 1: go do some volunteering or something like that as a
Speaker 1: reminder rather than actually being pressured to giving a dollar
Speaker 1: for that grocery stores tax right off, which is disgusting.
Speaker 1: You to get your name on a balloon piece of
Speaker 1: paper that they shape like a hot air balloon. All right,
Speaker 1: let's do like two more. Uh. This is from Shane
Speaker 1: Elliott when you guys gonna do a blooper real? Shurely,
Speaker 1: Jerry has stored them up in the archives. Uh, my
Speaker 1: friend Jerry about once a season. I don't like telling
Speaker 1: people this, why because they're going to hack in and
Speaker 1: find it. Yeah, Jerry does a blooper real and only
Speaker 1: we can hear it, and you will never ever hear
Speaker 1: although I think we could. We could sell them for
Speaker 1: a dollar apiece and probably get rich. I got the
Speaker 1: last one. This one's from Marco Rippola. Which one of
Speaker 1: you is the Batman and which one is Robin? And
Speaker 1: Marco you've been looking at it all wrong. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: should have asked which one is the Joker and which
Speaker 1: one is the penguin? WHOA Yeah, great answer, and we're
Speaker 1: not going to answer. I love that. I got nothing more.
Speaker 1: If you want to get in touch with us, you
Speaker 1: can post questions any day or night on our Facebook
Speaker 1: page at Facebook dot com slash stuff you Should Know.
Speaker 1: You can tweet to us at s y s K Podcasts.
Speaker 1: You can email us directly at stuff podcast at house
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com, and, as always, join us at
Speaker 1: our super awesome home on the web, Stuff you Should
Speaker 1: Know dot com. For more on this and thousands of
Speaker 1: other topics, how stuff works dot com