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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name

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Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb. Again, we are on vacation this week,

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Speaker 1: so you've got femail, Part three of three airing right now.

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Speaker 1: Originally published five two, twenty twenty five. What more could

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Speaker 1: you possibly want new episodes? Well, we'll have this for

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Speaker 1: you next week. Hope you enjoy.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My

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Speaker 1: name is Robert.

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Speaker 3: Lamb and I am Joe McCormick, and we're back with

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Speaker 3: part three in our series on urine based communication in

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Speaker 3: the animal Kingdom. Humans, of course have the gift of language,

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Speaker 3: which is a wonderful multimodal information sharing tool of infinite versatility,

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Speaker 3: and the fact that we possess the capacity for complex lange,

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Speaker 3: which is maybe the most unique and amazing thing about

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Speaker 3: us as a species. But one mode of communication that

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Speaker 3: we don't really use, but which is quite popular throughout

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Speaker 3: the animal kingdom is communication through urine. So in the

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Speaker 3: last couple of episodes we discussed a whole bunch of examples.

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Speaker 3: We started off in part one talking about male Amazon

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Speaker 3: river dolphins which have been observed doing this amazing thing

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Speaker 3: where they pee on each other's faces using aerial streams

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Speaker 3: that project over the top of the water. Still an

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Speaker 3: open question as to why they do this, but the

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Speaker 3: leading explanation seems to be that it's some kind of

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Speaker 3: information sharing about fitness and competitive ability. We also talked

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Speaker 3: about why animals with urinary bladders usually have voluntary control

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Speaker 3: over urination, as opposed to it just kind of leaking

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Speaker 3: out whenever wherever, and we also got into a bit

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Speaker 3: about urination as a socially negotiated activity in human culture.

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Speaker 3: In the last episode, we talked about the vast, mysterious

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Speaker 3: world of scent marking in dogs, including all the different

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Speaker 3: kinds of information that we know dogs do share with

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Speaker 3: each other through urine, but also about how much there

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Speaker 3: is to this olfactory literary scene that we still don't understand.

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Speaker 3: One interesting question that came up in the context of

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Speaker 3: dogs was whether dogs can actually attempt to lie or

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Speaker 3: at least exaggerate with their urine marks, one study finding

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Speaker 3: evidence that smaller dogs may try to deceive other dogs

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Speaker 3: about their size by way of increasingly obtuse leg angles

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Speaker 3: when marking an elevated object. Then we also talked about

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Speaker 3: the fascinating example of lobster urine. The simplified version is

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Speaker 3: that lobsters pee out of their faces into other lobster's faces,

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Speaker 3: and these urine exchanges help lobsters navigate highly variable scenarios,

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Speaker 3: including courtship and mating, as well as competition and intimidation.

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Speaker 3: And we're back today to talk about more.

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Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, Returning first, I believe, to the waters and

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Speaker 1: discussing something we teased out a little bit in our

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Speaker 1: discussion of lobster.

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Speaker 3: That's right, so yes. In the previous episode we talked

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Speaker 3: about urine based communication in crustaceans. I wanted to return

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Speaker 3: to the aquatic domain to mention pmail in fish. So here,

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Speaker 3: I wanted to get into a couple of things from

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Speaker 3: a paper called Aggressive Communication in Aquatic Environments. This was

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Speaker 3: published in the journal Functional Ecology in twenty twenty. The

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Speaker 3: author is Johim Frohman, and Frohman is a behavioral ecologist

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Speaker 3: at Manchester Metropolitan University in England. I got interested in

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Speaker 3: this guy's work because I saw him quoted in an

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Speaker 3: article in Scientific American which was covering the Amazon River dolphins,

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Speaker 3: talking about how other aquatic species can use urine for communication.

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Speaker 3: One example cited in that article had to do with

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Speaker 3: mating among stickleback fish. Apparently, female stickleback fish can get

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Speaker 3: information about male stickleback fish from their urine, but in

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Speaker 3: this case not just the kind of health, dominance, and

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Speaker 3: fitness information we've been mostly talking about so far. Instead,

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Speaker 3: the stickleback female is looking for information about the male's

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Speaker 3: immune system to see if the male's immune system and

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Speaker 3: tissue is compatible with her own. So anyway, I looked

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Speaker 3: up this paper in functional ecology. It is focused primarily

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Speaker 3: on aggressive communication, communication used to negotiate competition and fighting

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Speaker 3: among rivals that live in the water. Now, obviously, using

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Speaker 3: urine for information sharing works a little bit differently in

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Speaker 3: aquatic environments than it does on land. Now why would

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Speaker 3: that be? Well, for one thing in the water, Froeman

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Speaker 3: points out that you cannot place long lasting territorial scent marks.

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Speaker 3: So a daw will tag its physical environment with territorial

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Speaker 3: marks it peas on the world, and in doing so,

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Speaker 3: it fills the world with information about itself. And also

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Speaker 3: it smells the marks left by others in the same places.

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Speaker 3: So for the dog, you can consider space itself kind

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Speaker 3: of marked up with socially relevant metadata. It is a

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Speaker 3: urine based social augmented reality.

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Speaker 1: That's a good way of putting it. Yeah, with all

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Speaker 1: of our augmented reality VR innovations that we're working on

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Speaker 1: Google Class and all of that, we're essentially trying to

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Speaker 1: create a world of dog p and the reading of

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Speaker 1: dog p for the human experience.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it would be like if we could walk through

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Speaker 3: space and just find objects throughout the physical environment tagged

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Speaker 3: with the profiles of people who have touched them more

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Speaker 3: pen on them, I guess. So lots of other land

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Speaker 3: based mammals that we've talked about do this. You know,

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Speaker 3: last time we talked about the dwarf mongooses who leave

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Speaker 3: the anogen scent marks by doing handstands. But you can't

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Speaker 3: really do this kind of thing in the water because

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Speaker 3: you're in the water. Froman mentions a couple of reasons

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Speaker 3: for this. First of all, chemical cues tend to be

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Speaker 3: soluble in water, so the water will actually just wash

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Speaker 3: them away, diffuse them, and get rid of any local

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Speaker 3: marks that you leave pretty quickly. Beyond that, there is

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Speaker 3: a different microbial environment in the water. Fromen writes, quote

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Speaker 3: the ubiquitous bacteria in aquatic environments might rapidly degrade any

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Speaker 3: scent mark, So for aquatic species, it's just a lot

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Speaker 3: harder to associate a chemical mark with a physical location

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Speaker 3: across time. Chemical cues in the water tend to be

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Speaker 3: more temporary used for what Froman calls short term interactions,

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Speaker 3: and they will also more often be associated spatially with

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Speaker 3: your own physical body from which they emerge, rather than

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Speaker 3: than a fixed, separate place in the environment. So I

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Speaker 3: get the feeling that in the water there's gonna be

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Speaker 3: less of what you were talking about rob with this

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Speaker 3: sort of the werewolf character that can go into a

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Speaker 3: room and see the past in the room. Because of

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Speaker 3: all these sense associated with physical locations. In the water,

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Speaker 3: everything just kind of gets washed around. So I wonder

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Speaker 3: if in the water there may be a more Oh,

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Speaker 3: I don't know. Maybe you can get little tiny whiffs

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Speaker 3: of things that may have once been nearby, but they're

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Speaker 3: gonna be a lot less associated with physical places.

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Speaker 1: That's a good point.

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Speaker 3: So anyway, what are these short term interactions? They include

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Speaker 3: things like mate choice what Froeman calls social decisions, detecting

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Speaker 3: predatory threats and sharing information about those threats, with other conspecifics.

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Speaker 3: The best research on chemical communication underwater has been focused

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Speaker 3: on crustaceans, hence all the lobster research we talked about

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Speaker 3: last time. There's a bunch of similar work on crayfish

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Speaker 3: as well, and Frohman discusses a lot of the same

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Speaker 3: stuff we got into, for example, the finding that the

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Speaker 3: presence of aggressor urine during competition between lobsters and crayfish

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Speaker 3: can actually reduce fighting. Essentially, the information in the urine

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Speaker 3: better allows at least one of these crustaceans to figure

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Speaker 3: out that the fight is not in their interest. So,

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Speaker 3: in a way, you could think of actual physical fighting

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Speaker 3: in nature often being the result of confusion or ambiguity.

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Speaker 3: You know, it happens when the competitors don't have enough

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Speaker 3: information to figure out in advance who would probably win.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, this is something that you can certainly relate to

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Speaker 1: human gambling scenarios. In some cases, you could be talking

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Speaker 1: about actual gambling for money, or various games and little

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Speaker 1: card games and apps in which there is like the

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Speaker 1: gambling of some sort of unit but not actual that

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Speaker 1: doesn't have an actual monetary value, or at least verb

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Speaker 1: monetary value. There is often often comes down to a

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Speaker 1: question of should I fold or not, or should I

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Speaker 1: you know, up the ante, should I keep playing and

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Speaker 1: trying to evaluate do I have a shot at winning?

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Speaker 1: And you know, that's very much the same math that's

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Speaker 1: going on for these various organisms using the data that

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Speaker 1: is available to them, which might be available to them

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Speaker 1: in the form of urine.

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Speaker 3: That's a good analogy. Yeah, So the sharing of the

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Speaker 3: urine could essentially be like the poker players just showing

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Speaker 3: each other their cards. You're like not keeping them hidden anymore,

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Speaker 3: so one player immediately knows I'm.

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Speaker 1: Just going to fold, yeah, Or there's always going to

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Speaker 1: be a certain amount of data on the table, right, yeah,

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Speaker 1: and that that is often going to be the main

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Speaker 1: data you're going to go on in a card game.

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Speaker 1: Now there's the added wrinkle, of course in a card game,

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Speaker 1: and that your opponent may want you to venture into

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Speaker 1: combat that you couldn't win in order to increase the

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Speaker 1: spoils of the game. Generally, it's not quite what you're

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Speaker 1: looking at when you're dealing with me competition in the wild.

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Speaker 3: Oh yeah, that'd be interesting to see if there are

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Speaker 3: examples of that in nature, where like the opponent would

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Speaker 3: want to keep, you know, getting you to up the

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Speaker 3: ante and bluff you along. But yeah, usually I think

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Speaker 3: even the stronger party would prefer to avoid a fight.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Anyway, So Froman here mentions a variable called resource holding

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Speaker 3: potential or RHP. You might see this referred to in

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Speaker 3: some papers like this. Basically, it's a variable that means

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Speaker 3: an individual animal's ability to win a fight. So urine

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Speaker 3: helps communicate your RHP, making the actual fight unnecessary. So

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Speaker 3: after talking about urine and RHP in crustaceans, Froman goes

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Speaker 3: on to talk about fish, saying similar uses of chemical

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Speaker 3: signals have been observed in several African cichlid species and

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Speaker 3: in some tilapia to establish RHP dominance without needing a fight.

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Speaker 3: But here we get to something interesting that came up

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Speaker 3: in the last episode. In part two, we talked about

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Speaker 3: some good reasons for thinking that dogs use urine based

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Speaker 3: signals to encode not only the kind of fixed feeling

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Speaker 3: information about individual identity, health and fitness, sex, and mating status,

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Speaker 3: but much more fleeting momentary things like psychological information. I

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Speaker 3: remember the example we talked about last time was that

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Speaker 3: domestic dogs have been found to detect biomarkers of stress

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Speaker 3: in human urine, and they seem to use that information.

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Speaker 3: They use it in cognition and learning. Still to be

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Speaker 3: determined to what extent, if any, dogs use that information

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Speaker 3: from scent markings urine markings about each other, but it

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Speaker 3: seems quite plausible that they do that. They're saying, oh,

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Speaker 3: not just this, this is Jeff the dog down the street,

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Speaker 3: and not just health status. Does it have parasites and

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Speaker 3: all that, but also like Jeff is stressed out or

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Speaker 3: Jeff is happy, and that might affect how the dog

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Speaker 3: that smells the pea behaves. We don't know for sure,

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Speaker 3: but it seems plausible that it does so to some extent.

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Speaker 3: This kind of I would say, makes sense to us

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Speaker 3: with dogs. It's fascinating, but it's not crazy, because we

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Speaker 3: already think of dogs as emotional animals with emotional inner lives.

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Speaker 3: Their feelings and motivation states are familiar and meaningful to us.

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Speaker 3: But it seems there are some likely equivalents to this

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Speaker 3: pea based emotion or at least motivation state sharing, even

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Speaker 3: among the colder and less snugly inhabitants of the water.

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Speaker 3: I think you could say that lobsters, as we talked

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Speaker 3: about last time, and even fish to some extent, pee

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Speaker 3: their feelings. Froeman mentions that quote in juvenile nile Telapia

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Speaker 3: or Oreochromis nylocticus, the exchange of chemical cues informs about

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Speaker 3: the sender's motivation and about individual identity, and then also

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Speaker 3: speaking about neolam prologus pulture from and writes quote in

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Speaker 3: this species, members of both sexes changed their urination patterns

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Speaker 3: during agonistic encounters agonistic meaning aggressive encounters. Competition quote blocking

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Speaker 3: olfactory contact between contestants led to an increase in fight

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Speaker 3: intensity and to a higher rate of overt aggressive attacks,

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Speaker 3: in line with what we've talked about before, but going

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Speaker 3: on quote, As larger individuals excreted larger amounts of urine,

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Speaker 3: chemical cues might be a reliable proxy of the opponent's

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Speaker 3: body size, which might be beneficial, especially under turbid conditions. Furthermore,

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Speaker 3: an aggression mediated increase in urination frequency was accompanied by

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Speaker 3: an increased amount of conjugated eleven keto testosterone in the water. Thus,

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Speaker 3: urine might not only transfer information about the contestants resource

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Speaker 3: holding potential, but also about the opponent's motivational state. So again,

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Speaker 3: something about what this the urine might communicate, something about

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Speaker 3: what is going on essentially in the brain, in the

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Speaker 3: nervous system of the other fish, what they want, what

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Speaker 3: they intend to do, which I guess it's debatable whether

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Speaker 3: you would call that motivational state an emotion, but I

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Speaker 3: think the case could be made. Emotions and motivational states

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Speaker 3: have significant overlap, at least in humans and in other animals.

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Speaker 3: We can think of.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean, from the human standpoint, if there

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Speaker 1: is a standoff between two human beings, the broadcasting of

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Speaker 1: emotional state, be it an honest broadcast or an attempted deception,

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Speaker 1: is going to be an important part of that standoff.

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Speaker 1: You know, how mean they looking, how cool are they looking,

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Speaker 1: and so forth.

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Speaker 3: And of course this squares with what you were talking

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Speaker 3: about last time, Rob with the lobster urine. In competition

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Speaker 3: between aggressive lobsters, the urine shares state information about, for example,

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Speaker 3: prior victory or defeat in these agonistic encounters. Sounds a

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Speaker 3: lot like Again, people might people might quibble with the

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Speaker 3: use of the word emotion, but that feels something like

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Speaker 3: emotion to me, like feeling victorious or feeling defeated.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, like like I believe one of the papers was

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Speaker 1: I was talking about there being a lot of serotonin

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Speaker 1: in the urine of a victorious lobster. You know, it's

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Speaker 1: it's that an emotional stay. Maybe not, but it's saying

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Speaker 1: something about like where that that creature's physiology is following

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Speaker 1: a specific victory.

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Speaker 3: So I don't know when we started doing this series

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Speaker 3: about about urine based communication, I don't think I realized

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Speaker 3: we would come up with so many examples where it

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Speaker 3: looked like the urine was not only sharing just the

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Speaker 3: more relatively fix I mean, I guess nothing biological is

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Speaker 3: really fixed, but the more stable sort of biological health

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Speaker 3: information not just that, but sharing something like psychological information,

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Speaker 3: sharing something the urine says something about what's going on

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Speaker 3: in your nervous system and in your brain, which we

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Speaker 3: may call emotions or we may call intentions or motivations.

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Speaker 3: That's being communicated through urine as well. And to me,

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Speaker 3: that makes it a lot more like what we think

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Speaker 3: of with language. I mean, we've made these distinctions before

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Speaker 3: about the differences between what you can say with urine

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Speaker 3: versus what you can say with language. Obviously, language is

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Speaker 3: going to be much much more versatile because you can intentionally,

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Speaker 3: voluntarily craft an infinite number of different kinds of messages,

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Speaker 3: truthful or deceptive, and urine may not have that level

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Speaker 3: of versatility, but it can communicate not just these sort

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Speaker 3: of stable facts about the body, but can communicate this

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Speaker 3: fleeting information about the mind and if you want to

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Speaker 3: get touchy feely the soul. I guess that just causes

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Speaker 3: me to think about P based communication as something with

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Speaker 3: more potential for kind of meaning and complexity. You know

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Speaker 3: that it carries potentially emotional information, that it lends itself

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Speaker 3: more to the idea that there could be P based literature.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I think yeah. By and large, all this

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Speaker 1: information we're looking at does drive home the fact that

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Speaker 1: humans just don't We don't speak urine for the most part.

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Speaker 1: We have a very blunt understanding of what urine is

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Speaker 1: and what it can convey, and it's just a much

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Speaker 1: richer experience for other animals, to the point that it's

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Speaker 1: not really urine for them anymore, not in the human sense,

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Speaker 1: Like our language for urine is kind of inadequate to

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Speaker 1: truly describe what it is for various other species. Now

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Speaker 1: I want to bring things back to the mammal world

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Speaker 1: here to the surface world, in particular, to talk about

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Speaker 1: the flemen response. This may have been on some of

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Speaker 1: your minds as we were talking about this topic in

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Speaker 1: earlier episodes, because in evaluating the urine communication of another,

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Speaker 1: it may prove necessary to assume the fleming response, as

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Speaker 1: it was dubbed by German zoologist Karl max Schneider in

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Speaker 1: the nineteen thirties, but the expression itself had been known

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Speaker 1: to naturalists since at least the eighteenth century. The term

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Speaker 1: flemen apparently comes from upper saxon German, where it means

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Speaker 1: to curl the upper lip and or to look spiteful.

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Speaker 1: It's not just for smelling urine, but that's certainly one

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Speaker 1: of the odorous bouquets that it picks upon.

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Speaker 3: So the word am I understanding in the human context

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Speaker 3: originally refers to an expression like a sneer the curled lip.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, a sneer that you know, honestly, I don't know

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Speaker 1: that you see, or I don't know, I feel like

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Speaker 1: you don't see. People make this face a lot, and

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Speaker 1: we'll come back to one of the reasons why. But

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Speaker 1: in general, like how often do you see someone do

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Speaker 1: like a spiteful sneer in which they expose their upper teeth.

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Speaker 1: Like the main example I was finding. I found a

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Speaker 1: couple of articles that had a picture of Harrison Ford

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Speaker 1: doing the face, you know, maybe accidentally in the midst

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Speaker 1: of talking or something. But for the most part, the

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Speaker 1: main thing I was reminded of is the snarl that

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Speaker 1: Bela Lugosi gives in some of the in some one

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Speaker 1: particular scene, but also some production stills for the nineteen

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Speaker 1: thirties Dracula.

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Speaker 3: Oh okay, you attached a picture in the outline, and

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Speaker 3: I can see that he he almost looks not quite

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Speaker 3: human here. It looks a bit like a like a

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Speaker 3: big cat.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, exactly. And that's key because we do see

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Speaker 1: this in cats. We see it in big cats, and

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Speaker 1: we see it in house cats, and in the world

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Speaker 1: of house cats it is sometimes informally referred to as

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Speaker 1: the stinky kitty face.

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Speaker 3: I didn't know about that.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's one of these things where you know, as

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Speaker 1: a cat owner it's going to obviously things are going

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Speaker 1: to vary depending on the exact nature and personality of

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Speaker 1: your cat, but it's something you'll pick up on them

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Speaker 1: doing from time to time, they might be checking out

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Speaker 1: something that you would associate with a smell, like, I

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Speaker 1: don't know, a spot on the couch or a pair

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Speaker 1: of shoes, that sort of thing. It might also just

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Speaker 1: be a little less clear what they are responding to,

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Speaker 1: but generally the idea is that they are assuming this

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Speaker 1: kind of a sneer that also looks a little bit goofy,

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Speaker 1: and what they are doing is they are heightening their

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Speaker 1: exposure to the odor so as to better analyze it. Interesting, So,

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Speaker 1: in general, across various animals, you're going to see this

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Speaker 1: generally entailing a curling back of the upper lip, exposure

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Speaker 1: of the top teeth, and breathing. And then they're going

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Speaker 1: to breathe in slowly through the mouth alone. And this

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Speaker 1: is all about allowing better access of smells and pheromones

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Speaker 1: to the specialized vomber nasal organ, the vn O or

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Speaker 1: the Jacobsen's organ. This is a chemoreception organ in the

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Speaker 1: roof of the mouth. This occurs in ungulates as well,

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Speaker 1: horses and giraftes, which both smell and in the latter

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Speaker 1: example of the diraffe's they also taste the urine of

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Speaker 1: mares that are in estrus.

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Speaker 3: Huh okay, well wait a minute. That makes me wonder

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Speaker 3: if all these other mammals have a vombar nasal organ

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Speaker 3: do we have one? Can we? Can we smell with

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Speaker 3: the roof of our mouth like this?

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Speaker 1: Humans do not, so far as anyone can apparently tell,

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Speaker 1: have one of these, at least not a functional one.

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Speaker 1: Is a According to twenty fourteen's Encyclopedia of the Neurological Sciences,

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Speaker 1: second edition by Moon, at all vomor on nasal organs

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Speaker 1: are prominent in the fetus and show up vestigially in adults.

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Speaker 1: Though there has apparently been a lot of back and

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Speaker 1: forth debate over this, it seems like the majority of view, though,

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Speaker 1: is that while some primates have functional vomiting and nasal organs,

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Speaker 1: mainly like New World monkeys, chimps, and humans do not.

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Speaker 3: Interesting.

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Speaker 1: I'd also point out something that I saw referenced in

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Speaker 1: an article is that the obviousness of the fleming response

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Speaker 1: to humans in another organism, like how pronounced the fleming

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Speaker 1: response is, doesn't necessarily correlate to how strong their ability

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Speaker 1: to sense things happens to be, which I guess is

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Speaker 1: kind of a no brainer. When you're driving home like that.

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Speaker 1: But you know, some fleming responses are really wild, like

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Speaker 1: included a photo here of a horse's women response where

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Speaker 1: they just look like matt demons, whereas certainly a housecat's

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Speaker 1: flimen response just looks a little bit funny. You know.

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Speaker 1: But our interpretation of it doesn't actually necessarily give us

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Speaker 1: any clues into how strong their ability to sense things

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Speaker 1: happens to be. But we again, we certainly see it

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Speaker 1: again in ungulates and dogs and cats and other mammals.

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Speaker 1: I've even seen articles looking at the fleming response in

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Speaker 1: things like sea otters and elephants. So it's all over

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Speaker 1: the place.

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Speaker 3: That's interesting. I'm going to be on the lookout for

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Speaker 3: it now.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, if you spend any time with cats, you will

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Speaker 1: see the stinky kitty face from time to time. And yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's just a sign that there's some sort of smell

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Speaker 1: going on. Don't take it personally. It doesn't mean it's

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Speaker 1: you or something in your environment. They might just but

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Speaker 1: something has occurred or they've noticed something that requires just

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Speaker 1: a little more in depth analysis.

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Speaker 3: Well, I would like to transition to something else, but

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Speaker 3: we're gonna stick with mammals at least for the moment,

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Speaker 3: so I want to mention an interesting paper I came

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Speaker 3: across about social urination in mammals, which may or may

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Speaker 3: not turn out to be communicative in nature. This paper

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Speaker 3: was by ana Onishi, James Brooks, Sota Inoe, and Shinya Yamamoto,

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Speaker 3: published in Current Biology in twenty twenty five this year,

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Speaker 3: and it's called socially contagious urination in Chimpanzees, So I

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Speaker 3: hope that title's got your interest piqued. The authors here

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Speaker 3: are affiliated with a few different institutions in Japan, such

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Speaker 3: as Kyoto University. I was also reading an article about

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Speaker 3: this paper in Scientific American that I wanted to flag.

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Speaker 3: This was by Megan Bartel's from January twenty twenty five,

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Speaker 3: so apparently the lead author on this paper, ana Onishi,

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Speaker 3: was inspired in part by the fact that humans often

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Speaker 3: seemed to treat urination as a social behavior. This kind

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Speaker 3: of came up in our first episode of the series.

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Speaker 3: Despite the fact that we often think of urination as

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Speaker 3: a solitary activity, an activity where we seek at least

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Speaker 3: a visual isolation for the sake of modesty, in reality,

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Speaker 3: people often do treat urination or trips to the bathroom

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Speaker 3: as social occasions. So think about it like this. You

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Speaker 3: are out somewhere and a restaurant or a concert, public event,

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Speaker 3: and somebody from the group you're with says they're going

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Speaker 3: to go to the bathroom, and then somebody else says, oh,

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Speaker 3: wait up, I'll go with you, and then somebody else

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Speaker 3: says me too. Hey, it is actually a socially organized

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Speaker 3: social trip to the bathroom. People are urinating as a group.

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Speaker 1: You know, I hadn't thought about this as much until

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Speaker 1: you mentioned it. But you could also factor our social

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Speaker 1: technology into this equation and say, well, what even if

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Speaker 1: you go to the bathroom by yourself during one of

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Speaker 1: these situations, there's a very strong possibility you are going

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Speaker 1: to check your phone, and in doing so, you are

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Speaker 1: going to engage in some alternate online socialization whilst going

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Speaker 1: to the bathroom. I don't know to what extent we

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Speaker 1: should factor that into all of this, but maybe you

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Speaker 1: could make a case or even solitary urination is social

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Speaker 1: given the right technology.

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Speaker 3: Socially coordinated, synchronized trips to urinate are actually very common.

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Speaker 3: And this is not just part of American culture where

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Speaker 3: I'm familiar with it. The author of this scientific American

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Speaker 3: article actually mentions there is a word in Japanese. It

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Speaker 3: is sura sean t s u r E s h

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Speaker 3: o n, which refers to the phenomenon where people get

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Speaker 3: up and go to the bathroom as a group.

434
00:26:42,240 --> 00:26:44,000
Speaker 1: That would be interesting to get into. It makes me

435
00:26:44,000 --> 00:26:49,080
Speaker 1: think of the various kai traditions that involve the potential threats,

436
00:26:49,520 --> 00:26:52,359
Speaker 1: or at least that the very scary things that it

437
00:26:52,359 --> 00:26:55,280
Speaker 1: can occur when you go to a dark bathroom at

438
00:26:55,359 --> 00:26:58,520
Speaker 1: night by yourself. Yeah. I can't help but wonder to

439
00:26:58,560 --> 00:27:01,280
Speaker 1: what extent these two things might be connected culturally.

440
00:27:01,359 --> 00:27:05,200
Speaker 3: Yeah, the bathroom stall ghosts. Yeah. And there are other

441
00:27:05,480 --> 00:27:11,359
Speaker 3: examples of biological activities that seem to be socially contagious.

442
00:27:11,800 --> 00:27:15,280
Speaker 3: One example is yawning, and I think we've all experienced this.

443
00:27:15,400 --> 00:27:17,719
Speaker 3: Somebody else yawns, you see them yawn and then you

444
00:27:17,800 --> 00:27:22,400
Speaker 3: yawn yourself, or maybe even inter species contagious yawning. You

445
00:27:22,520 --> 00:27:26,000
Speaker 3: yawn and then your dog yawns, or vice versa. A

446
00:27:26,119 --> 00:27:30,120
Speaker 3: very interesting question about why seeing somebody else yawn makes

447
00:27:30,160 --> 00:27:32,480
Speaker 3: you more likely to yawn. Maybe we could come back

448
00:27:32,520 --> 00:27:34,240
Speaker 3: to that in the future, if we haven't done a

449
00:27:34,480 --> 00:27:35,760
Speaker 3: whole episode on that before.

450
00:27:37,080 --> 00:27:37,240
Speaker 1: Have.

451
00:27:37,280 --> 00:27:38,480
Speaker 3: We actually don't remember.

452
00:27:38,480 --> 00:27:41,440
Speaker 1: I don't think we have. Yawning. Yeah, that would be

453
00:27:41,520 --> 00:27:44,320
Speaker 1: a good one, you know, if only to generate the

454
00:27:44,359 --> 00:27:46,960
Speaker 1: responses that. I can't believe they did an episode on yawning.

455
00:27:47,880 --> 00:27:50,640
Speaker 1: So boring. No, it's probably pretty exciting.

456
00:27:51,080 --> 00:27:54,800
Speaker 3: Also, scratching, Hey, that's exciting. What's more exciting than the scratching?

457
00:27:55,480 --> 00:27:58,800
Speaker 3: Scratching is contagious as well, socially contagious. Scratching. You see

458
00:27:58,800 --> 00:28:00,760
Speaker 3: somebody scratch, you're more likely to scratch.

459
00:28:00,960 --> 00:28:03,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, scratching could be Yeah, it could easily be its

460
00:28:03,000 --> 00:28:06,080
Speaker 1: own episode as well. That one gets pretty intense anyway.

461
00:28:06,520 --> 00:28:11,199
Speaker 3: So, while observing chimpanzees as a doctoral researcher at the

462
00:28:11,400 --> 00:28:15,879
Speaker 3: Kyoto University Wildlife Research Center, the lead author of this paper,

463
00:28:16,240 --> 00:28:22,120
Speaker 3: Onishi thought she observed a similar pattern of socially contagious

464
00:28:22,240 --> 00:28:27,200
Speaker 3: urination among the chimpanzees, so she staged a quantitative experiment

465
00:28:27,240 --> 00:28:30,640
Speaker 3: to measure whether this was really the case. The way

466
00:28:30,680 --> 00:28:34,560
Speaker 3: it worked is researchers studied a group of twenty chimpanzees

467
00:28:34,640 --> 00:28:38,320
Speaker 3: living in captivity at a place called Kumamoto Sanctuary in Japan,

468
00:28:39,280 --> 00:28:43,440
Speaker 3: and they filmed them and reviewed more than six hundred

469
00:28:43,480 --> 00:28:48,560
Speaker 3: hours of footage to meticulously track exactly when each ape urinated,

470
00:28:49,120 --> 00:28:51,360
Speaker 3: where it was at the time, and who was nearby.

471
00:28:52,240 --> 00:28:57,720
Speaker 3: Then they created a computer simulation of randomized chimpanzee urination

472
00:28:57,920 --> 00:29:01,480
Speaker 3: to compare the actual results to and the analysis revealed

473
00:29:01,520 --> 00:29:06,040
Speaker 3: that chimpanzees were not just peeing randomly, there actually was

474
00:29:06,440 --> 00:29:11,800
Speaker 3: social correlation. On average, an ape was significantly more likely

475
00:29:11,880 --> 00:29:14,880
Speaker 3: to pee if another ape had just peed within the

476
00:29:14,920 --> 00:29:18,920
Speaker 3: past sixty seconds, and especially if that ape was very

477
00:29:18,920 --> 00:29:23,720
Speaker 3: close by within ten feet so up ip. Another interesting

478
00:29:23,760 --> 00:29:30,520
Speaker 3: factor beyond time and proximity was social rank. The researchers

479
00:29:30,640 --> 00:29:34,120
Speaker 3: looked into whether the identity and social rank of each

480
00:29:34,400 --> 00:29:38,880
Speaker 3: urinate or mattered in how much how much influence there

481
00:29:39,000 --> 00:29:43,400
Speaker 3: was from one ap peeing to another ap peeing, and

482
00:29:43,720 --> 00:29:47,640
Speaker 3: the identities did matter. So they initially looked to see

483
00:29:47,680 --> 00:29:51,200
Speaker 3: whether the ape equivalent of social friendship was an influence,

484
00:29:51,240 --> 00:29:54,160
Speaker 3: and it seems the answer there was no, but social

485
00:29:54,600 --> 00:29:59,920
Speaker 3: rank was an influence. As quoted in Scientific American Onniche

486
00:30:00,080 --> 00:30:04,240
Speaker 3: said quote, I initially expected that if social influences existed,

487
00:30:04,280 --> 00:30:08,000
Speaker 3: they might resemble those seen in yawning, such as stronger

488
00:30:08,040 --> 00:30:12,680
Speaker 3: contagion between socially close pairs that in itself is an

489
00:30:12,680 --> 00:30:16,720
Speaker 3: interesting thing about yawning that, like social social closeness makes

490
00:30:16,760 --> 00:30:20,080
Speaker 3: the yawn more contagious. But that is not what they found,

491
00:30:20,440 --> 00:30:24,520
Speaker 3: continuing the quote from oneishi. Instead, we observed a clear

492
00:30:24,640 --> 00:30:29,120
Speaker 3: influence of social rank, with lower ranking individuals being more

493
00:30:29,240 --> 00:30:33,680
Speaker 3: likely to follow the urination of others. So if you

494
00:30:33,760 --> 00:30:37,360
Speaker 3: are a lower ranking chimpanzee in the group, it might

495
00:30:37,400 --> 00:30:40,600
Speaker 3: be more like the boss PE's ip, or maybe you

496
00:30:40,600 --> 00:30:45,760
Speaker 3: know the cooler person ps ip. Now some caveats here.

497
00:30:46,040 --> 00:30:49,760
Speaker 3: Obviously this was done in captive chimpanzees, and when a

498
00:30:49,840 --> 00:30:53,520
Speaker 3: behavior is observed in captive animals, it's always worth asking

499
00:30:54,040 --> 00:30:56,800
Speaker 3: whether the same behavior is seen in the wild. Some

500
00:30:57,440 --> 00:31:00,760
Speaker 3: strange traits emerge in zoos or labs or sanctuaries that

501
00:31:00,800 --> 00:31:04,680
Speaker 3: are not seen in wild conspecifics. The researchers here believe

502
00:31:04,760 --> 00:31:07,080
Speaker 3: for a number of reasons that this probably is also

503
00:31:07,120 --> 00:31:09,640
Speaker 3: true in the wild, but that's worth investigating on its

504
00:31:09,640 --> 00:31:13,440
Speaker 3: own and follow up research. But finally we come to

505
00:31:13,480 --> 00:31:18,160
Speaker 3: the question of would this contagious urination count as communication.

506
00:31:19,200 --> 00:31:22,200
Speaker 3: If one ape is getting a signal from another ape

507
00:31:22,240 --> 00:31:26,120
Speaker 3: to do something, I think that is communication. Though It's

508
00:31:26,160 --> 00:31:28,479
Speaker 3: funny because here it's not, as far as we know,

509
00:31:28,680 --> 00:31:31,800
Speaker 3: anything like the smell of my urine will now give

510
00:31:31,840 --> 00:31:35,040
Speaker 3: you updated information about my health that you can use

511
00:31:35,080 --> 00:31:38,240
Speaker 3: in determining how to act. Instead, it's more like the

512
00:31:38,360 --> 00:31:41,080
Speaker 3: fact that I am peeing informs you that it is

513
00:31:41,160 --> 00:31:44,640
Speaker 3: also time for you to pee. Now, what is the

514
00:31:44,760 --> 00:31:48,040
Speaker 3: value of that? Why would it be biologically useful for

515
00:31:48,200 --> 00:31:51,600
Speaker 3: one ape to signal to another that it's time to pee.

516
00:31:52,440 --> 00:31:55,560
Speaker 3: It's possible that it could have some role in maintaining

517
00:31:55,720 --> 00:31:58,800
Speaker 3: general social cohesion in a way that's hard for us

518
00:31:58,840 --> 00:32:02,080
Speaker 3: to understand. So like, when you think about it, a

519
00:32:02,160 --> 00:32:07,360
Speaker 3: lot of synchronized group bonding behaviors among humans would be

520
00:32:07,400 --> 00:32:12,240
Speaker 3: really hard to explain the exact biological utility of except

521
00:32:12,240 --> 00:32:15,240
Speaker 3: to say that we just know because we are humans

522
00:32:15,280 --> 00:32:17,760
Speaker 3: and we know how we feel when we do them.

523
00:32:18,120 --> 00:32:20,600
Speaker 3: We can say that doing these things together at the

524
00:32:20,640 --> 00:32:24,280
Speaker 3: same time makes us feel more bonded and helps motivate

525
00:32:24,400 --> 00:32:27,600
Speaker 3: us to cooperate with each other in other domains. So

526
00:32:27,640 --> 00:32:32,200
Speaker 3: there is clearly some synchronized activities just contribute to social

527
00:32:32,240 --> 00:32:36,160
Speaker 3: cohesion and bonding. Not always easy to say why, but

528
00:32:36,440 --> 00:32:36,800
Speaker 3: they do.

529
00:32:37,200 --> 00:32:39,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean this way, you're not splitting the

530
00:32:39,440 --> 00:32:43,480
Speaker 1: party every time, every time this random individual wants to

531
00:32:43,480 --> 00:32:44,480
Speaker 1: pay or needs to pay.

532
00:32:44,720 --> 00:32:48,320
Speaker 3: Beyond establishing and maintaining social cohesion, there are a few

533
00:32:48,320 --> 00:32:52,240
Speaker 3: other ideas the authors mention. One idea is that coordinated

534
00:32:52,360 --> 00:32:56,400
Speaker 3: urination may play, to quote the paper quote, potential roles

535
00:32:56,440 --> 00:33:01,320
Speaker 3: in preparation for collective departure, i e. Avoiding before long

536
00:33:01,360 --> 00:33:06,160
Speaker 3: distance travel. So you know, parents may be familiar with this, Like,

537
00:33:06,200 --> 00:33:07,800
Speaker 3: you know, we're about to go on a car trip.

538
00:33:07,840 --> 00:33:09,840
Speaker 3: You need to go to the bathroom before we leave.

539
00:33:10,440 --> 00:33:12,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, this is a This is a big one.

540
00:33:12,520 --> 00:33:15,960
Speaker 1: This is a This is a frequent point of discussion

541
00:33:16,000 --> 00:33:17,360
Speaker 1: in my household.

542
00:33:17,160 --> 00:33:21,760
Speaker 3: And even apart from long distance travel. One researcher quoted

543
00:33:21,800 --> 00:33:24,760
Speaker 3: in the Scientific American article just pointed out the idea

544
00:33:24,800 --> 00:33:28,440
Speaker 3: of a daily routine among chimpanzees. So at different times

545
00:33:28,480 --> 00:33:32,240
Speaker 3: throughout the day, chimpanzees will often get up and relocate

546
00:33:32,320 --> 00:33:36,160
Speaker 3: to a different place. These relocations as a group are

547
00:33:36,200 --> 00:33:40,240
Speaker 3: generally controlled by higher ranking chimpanzees in the group, the

548
00:33:40,240 --> 00:33:43,760
Speaker 3: group leaders. So it could be that the group leader pees,

549
00:33:43,880 --> 00:33:48,600
Speaker 3: signaling I am about to initiate a relocation. It is

550
00:33:48,680 --> 00:33:51,120
Speaker 3: time for the bathroom break before we move, and then

551
00:33:51,160 --> 00:33:53,880
Speaker 3: the others notice that the leader is peeing, and they

552
00:33:53,920 --> 00:33:58,480
Speaker 3: follow suit because they know they're about to relocate. Another

553
00:33:58,520 --> 00:34:01,840
Speaker 3: possible explanation that means the authors mentioned could be quote

554
00:34:02,080 --> 00:34:07,640
Speaker 3: territorial scent marking i e. Coordination of chemosensory signals. So

555
00:34:08,040 --> 00:34:12,200
Speaker 3: what's better than you individually doing a territorial scent mark

556
00:34:12,239 --> 00:34:14,560
Speaker 3: with your pe getting all your buds to mark at

557
00:34:14,560 --> 00:34:17,560
Speaker 3: the same time. One can imagine that this does a

558
00:34:17,640 --> 00:34:21,440
Speaker 3: number of things. It increases detectability allah where we were

559
00:34:21,440 --> 00:34:24,440
Speaker 3: talking about elevated scent marking and dogs, It's important to

560
00:34:24,440 --> 00:34:28,520
Speaker 3: make your scent markings in the environment more detectable. But

561
00:34:28,640 --> 00:34:32,200
Speaker 3: also you can think about the amount of information presented

562
00:34:32,320 --> 00:34:35,400
Speaker 3: with a whole group peeing together instead of just one,

563
00:34:35,480 --> 00:34:40,120
Speaker 3: you know, peeing individually, and maybe also more individuals peeing

564
00:34:40,120 --> 00:34:44,080
Speaker 3: would communicate more of a threat level within the collective mark.

565
00:34:44,480 --> 00:34:49,239
Speaker 1: Yeah. Depending on sensitivity to these markers, you might think, Okay, well,

566
00:34:49,280 --> 00:34:51,200
Speaker 1: this is either a whole bunch of chimps and not

567
00:34:51,320 --> 00:34:54,160
Speaker 1: just one individual, or if it is one individual, it's

568
00:34:54,160 --> 00:34:57,879
Speaker 1: one huge chimp. I gets there's no messing with this guy.

569
00:34:57,920 --> 00:35:01,600
Speaker 1: This is not potential prey or some chimp that I

570
00:35:01,640 --> 00:35:05,320
Speaker 1: can possibly best and about just best to keep my distance.

571
00:35:05,520 --> 00:35:10,160
Speaker 3: So anyway, chimpanzee p based communication. They pee to communicate

572
00:35:10,280 --> 00:35:15,360
Speaker 3: about peeing for the purpose of peeing. That's fascinating and

573
00:35:15,440 --> 00:35:18,480
Speaker 3: maybe for other purposes as well. But yeah, I thought

574
00:35:18,520 --> 00:35:18,920
Speaker 3: that was good.

575
00:35:29,360 --> 00:35:32,440
Speaker 1: All right. As we round out this episode, I want

576
00:35:32,480 --> 00:35:34,880
Speaker 1: to come back to a topic that I've teased out

577
00:35:34,880 --> 00:35:37,440
Speaker 1: a couple of times in the previous episodes, and that

578
00:35:37,600 --> 00:35:43,040
Speaker 1: is the idea that even if humans cannot speak urine

579
00:35:43,200 --> 00:35:46,640
Speaker 1: as well as other creatures, and certainly can't read urine

580
00:35:46,680 --> 00:35:50,319
Speaker 1: as well as other creatures, we do have the advantage

581
00:35:50,360 --> 00:35:53,879
Speaker 1: of having technology. And this is where we get into

582
00:35:53,880 --> 00:35:58,240
Speaker 1: the field of your analysis. Your analysis, via lab work,

583
00:35:58,600 --> 00:36:03,080
Speaker 1: automated systems, and now even artificial intelligence, can reveal quite

584
00:36:03,120 --> 00:36:05,920
Speaker 1: a lot about a person. Your analysis is used to

585
00:36:06,000 --> 00:36:09,600
Speaker 1: detect and manage a wide range of disorders, to check

586
00:36:09,600 --> 00:36:13,600
Speaker 1: overall health, to look for particular conditions, and or to

587
00:36:13,640 --> 00:36:19,240
Speaker 1: manage known conditions. Some very general prognosis can be made

588
00:36:19,360 --> 00:36:22,000
Speaker 1: visually with a human urine sample if you know what

589
00:36:22,040 --> 00:36:25,359
Speaker 1: you're doing. But much in your analysis is revealed via

590
00:36:25,440 --> 00:36:30,440
Speaker 1: lab work and via machines and technology. Yeah, uh, that's

591
00:36:30,480 --> 00:36:32,719
Speaker 1: not going to become as a shocker to many of you.

592
00:36:32,800 --> 00:36:36,000
Speaker 1: We've all had to give urine samples that the doctor

593
00:36:36,080 --> 00:36:38,839
Speaker 1: before uh, and they've given us the lab read out

594
00:36:38,880 --> 00:36:40,920
Speaker 1: and or we've you know, we've paid for that that

595
00:36:41,120 --> 00:36:44,600
Speaker 1: uh that that lab v on top of our visit.

596
00:36:45,840 --> 00:36:49,200
Speaker 1: It's worth pointing out, by the way, technically urine does

597
00:36:49,239 --> 00:36:54,160
Speaker 1: contain DNA, but DNA deteriorates quickly in human urine and

598
00:36:54,280 --> 00:36:57,360
Speaker 1: is not the best source of DNA for say, forensic

599
00:36:57,400 --> 00:36:58,640
Speaker 1: analysis and so forth.

600
00:36:59,640 --> 00:37:01,319
Speaker 3: I don't know this is the reason, but I would

601
00:37:01,320 --> 00:37:04,400
Speaker 3: imagine there are other chemicals in the urine that probably

602
00:37:04,440 --> 00:37:07,000
Speaker 3: attack the DNA and break it down.

603
00:37:07,080 --> 00:37:09,759
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's my understanding. Yeah, so you know, things like

604
00:37:09,800 --> 00:37:15,520
Speaker 1: certainly blood saliva, these are far better sources for DNA. So, like,

605
00:37:15,560 --> 00:37:17,919
Speaker 1: if you were dealing with like a hardcore like TV

606
00:37:18,040 --> 00:37:21,600
Speaker 1: forensics example, I guess there might be a scenario, and

607
00:37:21,640 --> 00:37:25,240
Speaker 1: there may be scenarios where some sort of a like

608
00:37:25,239 --> 00:37:30,400
Speaker 1: like usable DNA information is obtainable via urine sample, but

609
00:37:30,520 --> 00:37:32,319
Speaker 1: for the most part, like it's considered like not a

610
00:37:32,360 --> 00:37:35,560
Speaker 1: great source of DNA. Now, in the last episode, we

611
00:37:35,680 --> 00:37:40,400
Speaker 1: did mention in passing the idea of using someone else's

612
00:37:40,560 --> 00:37:44,080
Speaker 1: urine as a way to dupe a drug test, a

613
00:37:44,239 --> 00:37:47,640
Speaker 1: urinary drug test. This is indeed a well known aspect

614
00:37:47,680 --> 00:37:51,839
Speaker 1: of human urine evaluation. Everyone's familiar with this an eve.

615
00:37:51,880 --> 00:37:55,040
Speaker 1: If you haven't been had your urine tested for work

616
00:37:55,280 --> 00:37:58,919
Speaker 1: or some sort of legal process in the past, you've

617
00:37:58,960 --> 00:38:01,880
Speaker 1: probably seen it on I believe there's a famous episode

618
00:38:01,920 --> 00:38:04,960
Speaker 1: of The Office that I only vaguely remember, but I

619
00:38:04,960 --> 00:38:07,200
Speaker 1: know I've seen it that involves like drug testing of

620
00:38:07,239 --> 00:38:09,680
Speaker 1: the Office because what Dwight found half a joint in

621
00:38:09,719 --> 00:38:10,399
Speaker 1: the parking lot.

622
00:38:10,680 --> 00:38:12,520
Speaker 3: Oh do they have to pee for that? I don't remember.

623
00:38:12,719 --> 00:38:14,479
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was trying to refresh on this. I think

624
00:38:14,719 --> 00:38:17,759
Speaker 1: like Michael Scott, the boss on The Office, ends up

625
00:38:17,800 --> 00:38:22,000
Speaker 1: getting paranoid because he once quote got high accidentally at

626
00:38:22,000 --> 00:38:26,319
Speaker 1: an Alicia Keys concert, and so he's he's like trying

627
00:38:26,360 --> 00:38:29,120
Speaker 1: to pressure Dwight into giving him some clean urine that

628
00:38:29,200 --> 00:38:29,719
Speaker 1: he use.

629
00:38:30,200 --> 00:38:32,839
Speaker 3: Yeah, but though it has played for jokes here, I mean,

630
00:38:32,880 --> 00:38:35,080
Speaker 3: I guess, I guess p fraud is a real thing

631
00:38:35,120 --> 00:38:37,520
Speaker 3: in the world because some people are going to want

632
00:38:37,520 --> 00:38:40,520
Speaker 3: to avoid avoid the implications of a drug test.

633
00:38:40,800 --> 00:38:42,960
Speaker 1: That's right. And while we did mention the idea of

634
00:38:43,040 --> 00:38:45,680
Speaker 1: using someone else's urine, as occurs in this episode of

635
00:38:45,719 --> 00:38:47,880
Speaker 1: the Office or there there's the attempt to do this,

636
00:38:48,280 --> 00:38:50,440
Speaker 1: and I've seen this particular plot point come up in

637
00:38:50,440 --> 00:38:53,520
Speaker 1: other shows as well. We didn't mention another option that

638
00:38:54,400 --> 00:38:57,399
Speaker 1: has certainly entered the market over the past many years,

639
00:38:57,400 --> 00:39:00,880
Speaker 1: and that is the use of synthetic human urine. This

640
00:39:01,000 --> 00:39:04,200
Speaker 1: is indeed apparently a product you can get that at

641
00:39:04,280 --> 00:39:06,440
Speaker 1: least claims. You know, I'm not going to get into

642
00:39:07,040 --> 00:39:10,800
Speaker 1: certainly into individual brands or claims made by these brands,

643
00:39:11,120 --> 00:39:13,440
Speaker 1: but you can go to places and you can buy

644
00:39:13,480 --> 00:39:17,160
Speaker 1: something that claims to be synthetic human urine for the

645
00:39:17,239 --> 00:39:20,520
Speaker 1: express purpose of duping a urinary drug test.

646
00:39:20,800 --> 00:39:21,200
Speaker 3: Wow.

647
00:39:21,400 --> 00:39:23,200
Speaker 1: Now this may be new to many of you, but

648
00:39:23,800 --> 00:39:27,399
Speaker 1: to be clear, we've actually had synthetic human urine for

649
00:39:27,440 --> 00:39:30,919
Speaker 1: a very long time. I was reading about this at

650
00:39:31,520 --> 00:39:35,280
Speaker 1: on the website Maoclinic Proceedings dot org and they point

651
00:39:35,280 --> 00:39:38,680
Speaker 1: out that German chemist Frederick Wohler, who lived eighteen hundred

652
00:39:38,719 --> 00:39:41,760
Speaker 1: to eighteen eighty two, was the first to produce synthetic urine,

653
00:39:41,800 --> 00:39:44,680
Speaker 1: synthetic human urine back in eighteen twenty eight.

654
00:39:45,040 --> 00:39:47,839
Speaker 3: Well, the date on that discovery makes me think that

655
00:39:47,840 --> 00:39:50,440
Speaker 3: that was not intended to fool a drug test, so

656
00:39:50,480 --> 00:39:53,800
Speaker 3: there must be uses for it beyond beyond just the

657
00:39:54,040 --> 00:39:54,640
Speaker 3: p fraud.

658
00:39:54,840 --> 00:39:57,880
Speaker 1: Absolutely, Yeah, this was not for a drug test welder.

659
00:39:57,920 --> 00:40:01,239
Speaker 1: It was a was a prolific and highly influential chemist.

660
00:40:01,800 --> 00:40:03,600
Speaker 1: We may have brought him up on the show before.

661
00:40:03,640 --> 00:40:06,959
Speaker 1: I feel like there's a strong possibility and the main

662
00:40:07,120 --> 00:40:10,840
Speaker 1: tangible benefit of the at the time for the creation

663
00:40:10,880 --> 00:40:14,520
Speaker 1: of synthetic human urine was for testing of medical equipment,

664
00:40:14,520 --> 00:40:17,680
Speaker 1: and this is something it's still used for today. In fact,

665
00:40:17,800 --> 00:40:20,160
Speaker 1: you can easily you can go online. You can find

666
00:40:20,840 --> 00:40:24,600
Speaker 1: like medical grade companies that sell synthetic human urine and

667
00:40:24,680 --> 00:40:28,560
Speaker 1: it will often be calibrated for very specific testing purposes,

668
00:40:29,120 --> 00:40:31,400
Speaker 1: like you want to test this kind of medical equipment

669
00:40:31,400 --> 00:40:34,280
Speaker 1: and you need synthetic urine to do so, Well, here's

670
00:40:34,400 --> 00:40:37,759
Speaker 1: the right kind of urine for that test, okay. And

671
00:40:37,840 --> 00:40:40,960
Speaker 1: so that was kind of like the broad call for

672
00:40:41,000 --> 00:40:44,600
Speaker 1: synthetic urine at the time, but there was this There's

673
00:40:44,640 --> 00:40:49,080
Speaker 1: an entire additional layer to Frederick go Oulder's contribution here

674
00:40:49,120 --> 00:40:54,239
Speaker 1: as well. So his synthesis of human urea without the

675
00:40:54,280 --> 00:40:58,919
Speaker 1: aid of a human kidney proved that organic compounds could

676
00:40:58,960 --> 00:41:02,680
Speaker 1: be synthesized without the aid of the quote unquote vital

677
00:41:02,719 --> 00:41:05,719
Speaker 1: force found in a living organism, getting here into the

678
00:41:06,200 --> 00:41:09,800
Speaker 1: vital force theory or vitalism, which on the whole argue

679
00:41:09,960 --> 00:41:13,880
Speaker 1: that you could not reduce life to a mechanistic or

680
00:41:13,920 --> 00:41:18,720
Speaker 1: certainly a chemical explanation, like you couldn't just create something

681
00:41:18,880 --> 00:41:22,319
Speaker 1: that a human or animal body made, because there is

682
00:41:22,360 --> 00:41:25,840
Speaker 1: something beyond our science in that body that is making

683
00:41:26,040 --> 00:41:27,440
Speaker 1: the substance in question.

684
00:41:28,400 --> 00:41:31,239
Speaker 3: Oh okay, So while I think you could still argue

685
00:41:31,280 --> 00:41:33,880
Speaker 3: today that there might be something in the more ambiguous

686
00:41:33,960 --> 00:41:39,200
Speaker 3: term life that is not quite captured in reproducible chemical experiments,

687
00:41:39,480 --> 00:41:42,600
Speaker 3: basically all of the processes within the body could be

688
00:41:42,719 --> 00:41:44,040
Speaker 3: recreated in the lab.

689
00:41:44,520 --> 00:41:47,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think getting back into our own blunted

690
00:41:47,560 --> 00:41:51,480
Speaker 1: human understanding of urine, most people today certainly are not

691
00:41:51,520 --> 00:41:53,600
Speaker 1: going to hear this and think, well, that's blasphemous. You

692
00:41:53,640 --> 00:41:57,560
Speaker 1: can't synthesize human urine. Human urine is holy and it

693
00:41:57,600 --> 00:41:59,879
Speaker 1: is made only by a human body. Like nobody's really

694
00:42:00,160 --> 00:42:03,200
Speaker 1: probably feeling that because we don't think about urine as

695
00:42:03,239 --> 00:42:06,799
Speaker 1: having any intrinsic value. It is just waste product that

696
00:42:06,920 --> 00:42:09,120
Speaker 1: on the whole we prefer not to produce. It just

697
00:42:09,200 --> 00:42:11,160
Speaker 1: kind of gets in the way. Of course, as we've

698
00:42:11,200 --> 00:42:15,960
Speaker 1: been discussing dogs, lobsters, so many other animals if they

699
00:42:16,000 --> 00:42:20,920
Speaker 1: could express, if they could, you know, express feelings about urine,

700
00:42:20,920 --> 00:42:23,480
Speaker 1: would disagree with us and they might say no. A

701
00:42:23,560 --> 00:42:27,000
Speaker 1: dog might say no, urine is holy, Urine is information,

702
00:42:27,480 --> 00:42:30,600
Speaker 1: and it comes from a dog, or it comes from

703
00:42:31,000 --> 00:42:33,759
Speaker 1: some other animal. And that is what I'm reading. And

704
00:42:33,719 --> 00:42:36,880
Speaker 1: the idea that you could fake that is just you know,

705
00:42:37,280 --> 00:42:38,279
Speaker 1: abysmal p.

706
00:42:38,560 --> 00:42:40,600
Speaker 3: Is vitalistic poetry. Yeah.

707
00:42:40,680 --> 00:42:43,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, So at the time this was actually a big

708
00:42:43,040 --> 00:42:45,759
Speaker 1: deal though, because even though it was quote unquote just

709
00:42:46,000 --> 00:42:49,200
Speaker 1: urine that was synthesized, it paved the way for so

710
00:42:49,280 --> 00:42:54,680
Speaker 1: many world changing advancements in organic chemistry. So again coming

711
00:42:54,719 --> 00:42:57,840
Speaker 1: back to today, Yes, you can buy synthetic urine in

712
00:42:57,960 --> 00:43:04,560
Speaker 1: various places, either or legitimate medical testing purposes, educational purposes,

713
00:43:04,840 --> 00:43:08,239
Speaker 1: but also products that seem to be intended just for

714
00:43:08,280 --> 00:43:09,560
Speaker 1: the duping of drug tests.

715
00:43:09,719 --> 00:43:12,120
Speaker 3: I haven't looked these up. How are they marketed? Do

716
00:43:12,200 --> 00:43:14,560
Speaker 3: they just say like, fool a drug test on them,

717
00:43:14,680 --> 00:43:16,520
Speaker 3: or do they have euphemistic language.

718
00:43:16,719 --> 00:43:19,160
Speaker 1: I'm not going to mention any products by name, but

719
00:43:19,239 --> 00:43:22,880
Speaker 1: some of them have like expectedly kind of goofy product

720
00:43:22,920 --> 00:43:26,000
Speaker 1: names like, you can definitely, or it seems to me,

721
00:43:26,040 --> 00:43:29,040
Speaker 1: you can definitely tell the difference between a product that

722
00:43:29,239 --> 00:43:34,000
Speaker 1: is marketed for clinical usage versus things that are marketed

723
00:43:34,080 --> 00:43:38,359
Speaker 1: for the duping of drug drug tests. I think it's

724
00:43:38,400 --> 00:43:42,160
Speaker 1: pretty obvious. But these products, if I'm understanding this correctly,

725
00:43:42,160 --> 00:43:46,480
Speaker 1: and maybe the literature is a little incomplete on when

726
00:43:46,520 --> 00:43:48,759
Speaker 1: things like this start popping up, but I believe we've

727
00:43:48,760 --> 00:43:52,760
Speaker 1: had products like this on the market of some sort

728
00:43:53,040 --> 00:43:55,200
Speaker 1: since like the late nineties, so they've been around for

729
00:43:55,280 --> 00:43:56,880
Speaker 1: a while. I had not heard of them, so I

730
00:43:56,920 --> 00:44:00,759
Speaker 1: thought this was maybe like a very new thing, But yeah,

731
00:44:00,800 --> 00:44:03,160
Speaker 1: these products have been around. Some of them are banned

732
00:44:03,480 --> 00:44:07,400
Speaker 1: in certain areas, certain states, for example now because of

733
00:44:07,480 --> 00:44:12,879
Speaker 1: their usage to try and you doup at drug test. Now,

734
00:44:12,920 --> 00:44:16,959
Speaker 1: synthetic urine in general, the varieties aimed at drug tests

735
00:44:17,000 --> 00:44:20,400
Speaker 1: but also clinically, they've grown quite advanced, and of course

736
00:44:20,440 --> 00:44:24,000
Speaker 1: this has led to advancements in drug testing. So I

737
00:44:24,040 --> 00:44:27,439
Speaker 1: was reading some sources here that we're talking about how

738
00:44:28,400 --> 00:44:32,560
Speaker 1: drug tests have had to look for new markers in

739
00:44:32,640 --> 00:44:35,840
Speaker 1: synthetic urines that can then be targeted on a drug

740
00:44:35,880 --> 00:44:38,040
Speaker 1: test so that they can figure out like, Okay, well

741
00:44:38,040 --> 00:44:42,080
Speaker 1: this is obvious urine looks clean, but it's also obviously purchased,

742
00:44:42,800 --> 00:44:44,160
Speaker 1: you know, at the local smoke shop.

743
00:44:45,000 --> 00:44:48,480
Speaker 3: This is the evolutionary arms race in the synthetic urine

744
00:44:48,520 --> 00:44:50,360
Speaker 3: and the drug tests.

745
00:44:50,640 --> 00:44:52,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, and of course you can't help but imagine what

746
00:44:52,520 --> 00:44:54,719
Speaker 1: would a dog think of all this? Like they would

747
00:44:54,719 --> 00:44:58,000
Speaker 1: probably like it would be like, you know, because there's

748
00:44:58,000 --> 00:45:01,280
Speaker 1: probably a similar discussion to be made around say, AI

749
00:45:01,360 --> 00:45:04,880
Speaker 1: generated literature, you know, where you know, someone might say, well,

750
00:45:04,880 --> 00:45:07,520
Speaker 1: how could you possibly be fooled by this? Like clearly

751
00:45:07,640 --> 00:45:09,520
Speaker 1: was written by a machine and so forth, Like the

752
00:45:10,280 --> 00:45:14,000
Speaker 1: dogs probably have a very low would have a very

753
00:45:14,080 --> 00:45:18,040
Speaker 1: uh like low estimation of synthetic urines and like what

754
00:45:18,120 --> 00:45:19,839
Speaker 1: it's telling them. Though, I guess that's that's a whole

755
00:45:19,880 --> 00:45:23,040
Speaker 1: topic under unto itself that we're not really going to

756
00:45:23,120 --> 00:45:26,480
Speaker 1: get into today into today, like to what degree does

757
00:45:26,520 --> 00:45:30,520
Speaker 1: synthetic urine fool animals that have these heightened senses to

758
00:45:30,600 --> 00:45:31,160
Speaker 1: understand it?

759
00:45:31,520 --> 00:45:35,080
Speaker 3: Or I wonder would the dog really have the the

760
00:45:35,160 --> 00:45:38,759
Speaker 3: concept of authenticity when reading the urine or would it

761
00:45:38,800 --> 00:45:40,799
Speaker 3: just be like, huh, this is from a strange type

762
00:45:40,840 --> 00:45:43,280
Speaker 3: of creature I've never encountered before that's.

763
00:45:43,120 --> 00:45:45,400
Speaker 1: Right, it would might maybe be more like, this is

764
00:45:45,440 --> 00:45:49,000
Speaker 1: a this is a weird communication that I'm reading, This

765
00:45:49,080 --> 00:45:52,799
Speaker 1: is a very strange dog. More information is required. I

766
00:45:52,800 --> 00:45:55,319
Speaker 1: probably need to see this dog in person now to

767
00:45:55,320 --> 00:45:57,720
Speaker 1: be clear. Outside of the market for synthetic human urine,

768
00:45:57,719 --> 00:46:00,760
Speaker 1: there is also a market for synthetic and animal urines.

769
00:46:02,480 --> 00:46:05,800
Speaker 3: Wait a minute for could this be for scent marking

770
00:46:05,880 --> 00:46:08,120
Speaker 3: fraud essentially carried out by humans?

771
00:46:08,400 --> 00:46:12,480
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, in instances where there is some sort of

772
00:46:12,480 --> 00:46:18,720
Speaker 1: a human interest involved in some sort of communication fraud

773
00:46:18,840 --> 00:46:21,480
Speaker 1: with animal urine. One example of this that you can

774
00:46:21,480 --> 00:46:26,239
Speaker 1: find pretty readily, say online is synthetic deer urine. And

775
00:46:26,719 --> 00:46:30,640
Speaker 1: this is apparently a product that exists because you have

776
00:46:30,800 --> 00:46:34,440
Speaker 1: in the past used actual deer urine to say, you know,

777
00:46:34,560 --> 00:46:38,120
Speaker 1: bait a buck, that sort of a thing. But there

778
00:46:38,160 --> 00:46:41,200
Speaker 1: are a number of states that have banned the use

779
00:46:41,600 --> 00:46:44,560
Speaker 1: of actual deer urine to help prevent the spread of

780
00:46:44,640 --> 00:46:48,560
Speaker 1: chronic wasting disease and deer ah. Okay, yeah, Because to

781
00:46:48,719 --> 00:46:52,280
Speaker 1: come back to urine in general, like urine, healthy human urine,

782
00:46:52,280 --> 00:46:57,520
Speaker 1: for example, is generally thought to be largely sterile. But yes,

783
00:46:57,719 --> 00:47:01,480
Speaker 1: there are various things that can be various contaminants, various

784
00:47:01,560 --> 00:47:04,880
Speaker 1: illnesses that can be contracted through unhealthy urine.

785
00:47:05,040 --> 00:47:08,640
Speaker 3: So this would be using animal urine fraud for the

786
00:47:08,680 --> 00:47:12,640
Speaker 3: purpose of an attractant by hunters. But I've read about

787
00:47:12,960 --> 00:47:17,040
Speaker 3: animal urine fraud being used for the opposite purpose to

788
00:47:17,160 --> 00:47:20,560
Speaker 3: deter animals by using a predator urine. So you you

789
00:47:20,719 --> 00:47:23,920
Speaker 3: synthesize there's not really a cougar in the area, but

790
00:47:23,960 --> 00:47:26,759
Speaker 3: you put cougar pee out there, and it supposedly it

791
00:47:26,760 --> 00:47:29,680
Speaker 3: will keep away the pest animals that you don't want

792
00:47:29,760 --> 00:47:30,920
Speaker 3: in your garden or whatever.

793
00:47:31,200 --> 00:47:34,640
Speaker 1: Exactly, yes, And that is the other major synthetic urine

794
00:47:34,640 --> 00:47:36,799
Speaker 1: product that you see. And this is another case though,

795
00:47:36,800 --> 00:47:40,120
Speaker 1: where there are products that at least claim to use

796
00:47:40,239 --> 00:47:45,239
Speaker 1: actual urine from say fox or a bear, or you know,

797
00:47:45,280 --> 00:47:49,560
Speaker 1: whatever the predator happens to be, and then there are

798
00:47:49,560 --> 00:47:51,920
Speaker 1: cases where they're making a point of it being synthetic

799
00:47:51,920 --> 00:47:55,719
Speaker 1: animal urine. I can't speak to the to how efficient

800
00:47:55,760 --> 00:47:59,240
Speaker 1: these are, but you know, coming back to our dog example,

801
00:47:59,320 --> 00:48:02,160
Speaker 1: if they are a fish enough to raise the specter

802
00:48:02,680 --> 00:48:06,200
Speaker 1: of a potential predator being present, then perhaps it is

803
00:48:06,360 --> 00:48:10,439
Speaker 1: useful enough. We talked about chimpanzees. I want to mention

804
00:48:10,520 --> 00:48:16,160
Speaker 1: that for medical purposes, you can also buy synthetic chimpanzee urine.

805
00:48:16,360 --> 00:48:19,040
Speaker 1: I included a link here for you, Joe. If you

806
00:48:19,080 --> 00:48:21,560
Speaker 1: look around for it, you can find it. There's one

807
00:48:21,600 --> 00:48:24,399
Speaker 1: company in particular that has a website and they have

808
00:48:24,640 --> 00:48:27,799
Speaker 1: various forms of synthetic human urine that is to be

809
00:48:27,880 --> 00:48:31,360
Speaker 1: clear intended for clinical purposes and the testing of like

810
00:48:31,480 --> 00:48:35,360
Speaker 1: medical equipment and tests, and educational purposes as well. But

811
00:48:35,440 --> 00:48:39,960
Speaker 1: you can also buy synthetic chimpanzee urine for the same purpose, because,

812
00:48:40,480 --> 00:48:45,279
Speaker 1: of course the study of chimpanzee physiology and chimpanzee biological

813
00:48:45,320 --> 00:48:49,319
Speaker 1: responses is vitally important for human medicine as well.

814
00:48:49,520 --> 00:48:52,560
Speaker 3: But is it cheaper than the synthetic human urine, And

815
00:48:52,600 --> 00:48:55,520
Speaker 3: if so, with somebody trying to pass the drug tests,

816
00:48:55,600 --> 00:48:58,560
Speaker 3: save a few bucks and get the chimpanzee urine instead.

817
00:48:59,280 --> 00:49:03,240
Speaker 1: Well, let's check real quick. I'll pull up the website. Okay,

818
00:49:03,280 --> 00:49:06,440
Speaker 1: I'm looking at the costs for simulated monkey urine. Okay,

819
00:49:06,520 --> 00:49:09,680
Speaker 1: all right, okay, and then let's see. You know, it

820
00:49:09,719 --> 00:49:11,880
Speaker 1: looks about like it's the same price for humans, so

821
00:49:11,920 --> 00:49:16,480
Speaker 1: there's no there's no need to go cheaper for chimp urine.

822
00:49:17,160 --> 00:49:19,360
Speaker 1: I have a feeling chimp urine would not work. I

823
00:49:19,440 --> 00:49:21,080
Speaker 1: feel like they would catch you if you try to

824
00:49:21,160 --> 00:49:24,560
Speaker 1: use chimp urine to synthetic chimp urine to pass a

825
00:49:24,760 --> 00:49:27,839
Speaker 1: like a work drug test. But also I should add

826
00:49:27,840 --> 00:49:31,040
Speaker 1: that you're probably I'm thinking most of the people trying

827
00:49:31,040 --> 00:49:34,239
Speaker 1: to pass a drug test using the synthetic urine, they're

828
00:49:34,280 --> 00:49:37,560
Speaker 1: probably not buying it from a biomedical company. They're buying

829
00:49:37,600 --> 00:49:40,280
Speaker 1: it a like at the local smoke shop or something

830
00:49:40,320 --> 00:49:43,880
Speaker 1: from some other supplier, which I'm assuming are you know,

831
00:49:44,000 --> 00:49:46,160
Speaker 1: ultimately not the same corporation.

832
00:49:46,840 --> 00:49:49,239
Speaker 3: Listeners, if anybody in the audience has ever tried to

833
00:49:49,280 --> 00:49:52,640
Speaker 3: spoof a drug test by using like cougar urine or something,

834
00:49:54,280 --> 00:49:56,560
Speaker 3: let us know how that went. Did it work?

835
00:49:57,280 --> 00:49:59,359
Speaker 1: Yeah? Or in general, if there are people out there

836
00:49:59,360 --> 00:50:04,520
Speaker 1: who have exp using synthetic animal urines either to attract

837
00:50:05,040 --> 00:50:09,120
Speaker 1: or drive away organisms, write in with your experiences with

838
00:50:09,160 --> 00:50:11,120
Speaker 1: these products. You know, we're not going to mention specific products,

839
00:50:11,480 --> 00:50:14,279
Speaker 1: you know, obviously, but in general, I'd love to hear

840
00:50:14,320 --> 00:50:16,839
Speaker 1: how this has worked, Like maybe get an idea of

841
00:50:16,880 --> 00:50:19,800
Speaker 1: like the where the science is in terms of making

842
00:50:20,000 --> 00:50:24,239
Speaker 1: synthetic urine that can not only be useful for biomedical

843
00:50:24,239 --> 00:50:27,799
Speaker 1: purposes and testing equipment in the human world, but potentially

844
00:50:27,960 --> 00:50:32,120
Speaker 1: in communicating with other animals, even in a very blunt manner.

845
00:50:32,480 --> 00:50:34,719
Speaker 3: Yeah. Oh, and hey, we also we know we've got

846
00:50:34,760 --> 00:50:36,799
Speaker 3: a lot of scientists in the audience. If you use

847
00:50:36,880 --> 00:50:39,520
Speaker 3: synthetic urine in your research, let us know how what

848
00:50:39,800 --> 00:50:40,400
Speaker 3: do you use it for?

849
00:50:40,840 --> 00:50:44,040
Speaker 1: Yeah? Absolutely, all right, on that note, we're going to

850
00:50:44,000 --> 00:50:46,040
Speaker 1: go and close up this episode, but yeah, right in,

851
00:50:46,080 --> 00:50:47,920
Speaker 1: we'd love to hear from everyone, Just to remind that

852
00:50:47,920 --> 00:50:49,800
Speaker 1: The Stuff to Blow Your Mind is primarily a science

853
00:50:49,840 --> 00:50:52,440
Speaker 1: and culture podcast, with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays

854
00:50:52,680 --> 00:50:55,040
Speaker 1: and on Fridays, we set aside most serious concerns to

855
00:50:55,160 --> 00:50:58,240
Speaker 1: just talk about a weird film on weird House Cinema.

856
00:50:57,920 --> 00:51:00,680
Speaker 3: Huge things, as always to our excellent to your producer

857
00:51:00,760 --> 00:51:02,879
Speaker 3: JJ Posway. If you would like to get in touch

858
00:51:02,920 --> 00:51:04,920
Speaker 3: with us with feedback on this episode or any other,

859
00:51:05,040 --> 00:51:07,279
Speaker 3: to suggest a topic for the future, or just to

860
00:51:07,320 --> 00:51:10,320
Speaker 3: say hello, you can email us at contact that Stuff

861
00:51:10,360 --> 00:51:19,560
Speaker 3: to Blow your Mind dot com.

862
00:51:19,640 --> 00:51:22,600
Speaker 2: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

863
00:51:22,680 --> 00:51:25,439
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864
00:51:25,600 --> 00:51:42,160
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