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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 and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday.

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Speaker 1: Time to go into the Old Vault. This one is

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Speaker 1: an episode from last October. It was our first episode

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Speaker 1: on horror anthologies. Yes, uh so the basic format here

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Speaker 1: is that in we'll explain this in the actual episode,

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Speaker 1: but we each picked different episodes from horror sci fi

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Speaker 1: anthologies of the past, you know, stuff like Night Gallery

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Speaker 1: or Tales from the Crypt, Twilight Zone, etcetera. And then

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Speaker 1: we tease apart some of the science in them, you know,

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Speaker 1: more or less online with what we do with our

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Speaker 1: movie episodes when we do our regularly uh recurring uh

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Speaker 1: movie episodes here on the podcast. And uh and also

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Speaker 1: we will notice it's still marked his volume one. That

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Speaker 1: is because volume two is coming up next. I'm so excited.

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Speaker 1: All right, Well, let's dive right in. Welcome to Stuff

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Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind. My name is Dr Anton Jess,

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Speaker 1: Professor of Monster Studies, and I am Professor Griffith Wells

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Speaker 1: Warden of the Howling Pit. Robert and Joe have a

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Speaker 1: delightfully ghoulish installment of the podcast for you today. One

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Speaker 1: guaranteed to curdle your blood and expand your mind in

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Speaker 1: the most cranium popping ways imaginable. It's a science based

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Speaker 1: stroll through the world of horror anthology, television and cinema,

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Speaker 1: The Twilight Zone, the Night Gallery, Tales from the crypt Tree,

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Speaker 1: House of Horror, and more so, stake around blood suckers

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Speaker 1: and find out which episodes they picked and what sorts

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Speaker 1: of scientific subjects they were able to suck from their ters.

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how stuff

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Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.

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Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And

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Speaker 1: as you can tell from our delightful intro there, I

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Speaker 1: by a couple of colleagues of ours. We'll just assume

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Speaker 1: it was delightful. It was. They sounded delighted. They sounded

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Speaker 1: delighted there. But they always even the most, even in

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Speaker 1: the most inopportune of times. Well, it comes down to

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Speaker 1: the things they delight in, I suppose. But but what

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Speaker 1: they told you is correct. We're gonna be talking about

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Speaker 1: horror anthologies today and then we're gonna we're gonna ring

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Speaker 1: some science from their their desiccated corpses. That sounds like

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Speaker 1: great fun to me. But Robert, so, by horror anthology,

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Speaker 1: you mean like TV shows where say it's it's horror

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Speaker 1: themed and it's not the same characters every episode. We're

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Speaker 1: we're not so much talking about like Monster of the

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Speaker 1: Week episode on the episodes on the X Files are buffy, right,

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Speaker 1: and we're also not talking about them from modern version

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Speaker 1: of this you see with American horror story where each

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Speaker 1: season it's a different story. No, we're talking about the

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Speaker 1: likes of the Twilight Zone, Night Gallery, Tales from the Crypt, uh,

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Speaker 1: the Simpsons, Treehouse of Horror, personal favorite of mind. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: shows of shows of this nature where each episode is

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Speaker 1: a self contained story or sometimes a pair of stories

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Speaker 1: or a short story and like a sliver of a

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Speaker 1: little extra on there. But they're they're self contained. They're

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Speaker 1: they're essentially horror, short horror fiction that has been translated

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Speaker 1: generally for television. But then of course you also see uh,

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Speaker 1: cinematic installments of these shows as well, where you'll have

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Speaker 1: a feature league length film that consists of say three, four,

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Speaker 1: maybe five different short horror segments. Oh yeah, maybe we

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Speaker 1: can do maybe we can include movies like that in

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Speaker 1: the future. I think we just did TV shows this time. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: there are a few, a few kind of branch out

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Speaker 1: into film a little bit um and of course, of

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Speaker 1: course we'd be remiss we don't end up talking about

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Speaker 1: any of these episodes. But Black Mirror, I think is

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Speaker 1: one of the finer examples of horror at times more

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Speaker 1: sci fi. But really most of those episodes are pretty terrifying.

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Speaker 1: I think you could make an argument that Black Mirror

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Speaker 1: is a horror anthology television series. Now, Robert, I'm a

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Speaker 1: little at a disadvantage in this episode because you have

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Speaker 1: seen far more of these types of shows than I have.

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Speaker 1: I'm I'm big on Simpson's tree House of Horror, but

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Speaker 1: I've actually seen pretty I've seen no Tales from the

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Speaker 1: Dark Side, I think, no Night Gallery. I've actually not

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Speaker 1: seen all that much Twilight Zone. A few episodes you know,

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Speaker 1: here and there, and the only full Tales from the

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Speaker 1: Crypt episode I've actually seen that I remember is deeply

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Speaker 1: inappropriate one with Tim Curry, who is the most wonderful

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Speaker 1: actor ever in in all of acting history. But it's

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Speaker 1: just too grotesque to even talk about out well, as

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Speaker 1: we'll get into that description can go for just about

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Speaker 1: every Tales from the Crypto, like great actors and sometimes

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Speaker 1: great filmmakers, but kind of a deplorable story. Um. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: if if I've seen a lot of her anthology TV

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Speaker 1: SHO shows, it's because I watched a lot of Sci

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Speaker 1: Fi Channel and syndicated cable back in the nineties. I

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Speaker 1: guess you could say it was my my teacher mother

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Speaker 1: secret Lover U to reference the Triosa far Um, But yeah,

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Speaker 1: I watched like stuff like Night Gallery, Twilight Zone, Outer Limits,

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Speaker 1: both new and old. I think on the original Sci

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Speaker 1: Fi Channel watch Tales from the Dark Side in like

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Speaker 1: Syndication on Sunday afternoons. It always felt like a particularly

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Speaker 1: unholy place for it to be. Well, you know what

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Speaker 1: I do expect to find if we get into If

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Speaker 1: I go back and start watching shows like this, as

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Speaker 1: I bet I will recognize things from when I was

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Speaker 1: a kid and we would go on a trip and

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Speaker 1: like stay in a hotel or something like that, and

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Speaker 1: of course they always had all the channels we didn't

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Speaker 1: get at home, so they had the Sci Fi Channel

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Speaker 1: and I just tuned into whatever in the hotel, And

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Speaker 1: so occasionally I'll see some crazy movie now and realize

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Speaker 1: I saw a piece of it as a child on

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Speaker 1: vacation with my family in a hotel. Well, I didn't

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Speaker 1: have ready access to Tales from the Crypt. I would

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Speaker 1: what would happen? Is occasionally that on HBO was on HBO.

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Speaker 1: It was really one of the original original HBO programs.

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Speaker 1: But to watch it, since we were not HBO subscribers,

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Speaker 1: I had to either hit it and just mainline it

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Speaker 1: during HBO preview weekends, or more often watched them half scrambled,

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Speaker 1: because I think it would be like it would be

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Speaker 1: kind of like pizza colored scrambled versions of it, or

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Speaker 1: sometimes you know, it would just become black and white.

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Speaker 1: So there are some episodes for Tales in the Crypt

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Speaker 1: when I go back and watch them now and I'm like, oh,

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Speaker 1: I had no idea. For instance, I had no idea

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Speaker 1: that that was Tim Curry playing female character, because clearly

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Speaker 1: the first time I watched it, it was too scrambled

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Speaker 1: for me to tell well in that episode. That's kind

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Speaker 1: of a mercy, I think. But wow, it's amazing the

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Speaker 1: things people will will put up with in the search

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Speaker 1: for for a story that they're into, you know, like

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Speaker 1: like the idea I always think it's funny that, you know,

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Speaker 1: people watch like theater bootlegged videos that like somebody will

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Speaker 1: record a movie with the camcorder inside a theater and

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Speaker 1: people will watch that. That's kind of look terrible, but

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Speaker 1: I don't. I mean people you're they're hungry for it.

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Speaker 1: They want that movie. And I guess you were like

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Speaker 1: that too, watching through through all the static and weird

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Speaker 1: color variations. Yeah, that was how you got to watch it. Um. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: So to today's episode for any long time listeners to

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Speaker 1: stuff to prow your mind. This is essentially the same

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Speaker 1: concept as the three Creepy Pasta episodes that I did

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Speaker 1: with Christian where we would pick a creepy Pasta stories

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Speaker 1: and sort of squeeze the science out of them. And

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Speaker 1: I have to say, we we squeezed all the science

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Speaker 1: out of Creepy Pasta. I don't think there's there's much left.

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Speaker 1: So this feels like the next logical place to, uh,

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Speaker 1: to start squeezing horror anthologies. Well, I say, let's get

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Speaker 1: right into our first selection of the day. Alright, Uh,

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Speaker 1: my selection here for our first one is a Question

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Speaker 1: of Fear, and this is this is one of my

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Speaker 1: favorite episodes of Rod Serling's Night Gallery, his horror anthology

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Speaker 1: series that ran from nineteen through ninety three. Uh, and

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Speaker 1: then of course just eternally on the Sci Fi Channel

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Speaker 1: during the during the nineties. Is this a picture of

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Speaker 1: Leslie Nielsen with an eye patch and a mustache? I'm

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Speaker 1: looking at Yes. This episode starred um Leslie Nielsen as

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Speaker 1: Colonel Dennis Malloy and it also starred actor Fritz Weaver

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Speaker 1: as Dr Mazzi. Weaver is terrific in this as well.

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Speaker 1: I mean, Nielsen is great and this this is the

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Speaker 1: pre naked gun Nielsen. This is the serious actor Nielsen. Oh,

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Speaker 1: he was that way for a long time. What movie

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Speaker 1: did I just watch recently where he plays a straight character?

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Speaker 1: I can't remember right now, But of course he was

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Speaker 1: in Forbidden Planet, was he? Yeah, you don't remember. He

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Speaker 1: was like the main he was the commander astronaut and

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Speaker 1: Forbidden Planets. I mean Forbidden Planets great, it's not great

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Speaker 1: for the astronaut characters who as usual or just like

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Speaker 1: some stiff white dudes. Well, you could say that Leslie

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Speaker 1: Neilson was also one of those those stiff white dudes

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Speaker 1: for sure. Um, he's kind of like put him in

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Speaker 1: the same category as Peter Graves, you know. Uh and

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Speaker 1: and like Peter Graves, and was later used to terrific

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Speaker 1: effect in comedy as such as in the Airplane movies

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Speaker 1: and the Naked Gun movies. Uh. And in this he's

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Speaker 1: he's pretty great because he plays just a very um,

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Speaker 1: just a very hard cold character. And this colonly plays

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Speaker 1: he's a fearless mercenary. Uh that has you know, just

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Speaker 1: been in multiple wars, and even after World War Two

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Speaker 1: was over, you know, he couldn't get enough. So he

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Speaker 1: just continually works as a mercenary and kind of a

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Speaker 1: Lee Marvin type. Yeah, very much, very much a Lee

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Speaker 1: Marvin type character here also reminds me a lot of

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Speaker 1: the kind of character that, say, um, Lee van Cliff

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Speaker 1: would have played. Oh yeah, okay, So in this episode,

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Speaker 1: it starts off with a gentleman's club, and here is

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Speaker 1: Colonel Malloy, uh, you know, talking it up with the

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Speaker 1: other gentleman there. And one of the gentleman there, Dr Mazzi,

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Speaker 1: played by Fritz Weaver, starts talking about an episode at

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Speaker 1: a haunted house, some sort of an encounter with a

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Speaker 1: haunted house where it was just too terrifying for anyone

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Speaker 1: to survive, and of course the fearless colonel. Here he

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Speaker 1: starts talking about just how fearless he is and how

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Speaker 1: fear is a disease. He says, I'm careful, but I

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Speaker 1: am incapable of fear. Okay, So this leads to a bet,

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Speaker 1: as of apparently tends to happen in stuffy gentleman's clubs.

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Speaker 1: Mazy says that he bets he cannot survive one night

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Speaker 1: in this haunted mansion with being scared to death. And uh,

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Speaker 1: and he puts ten dollars on the line. Yeah, it's

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Speaker 1: a load of cash, and so of course our mercenaries

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Speaker 1: up for it to prove how fearless he is and

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Speaker 1: to and to to get a nice pay day. He says,

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Speaker 1: of course I'll do it. So uh. And this is

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Speaker 1: one of the fabulous things about this episode. It's basically

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Speaker 1: a two person show. It's just just Weaver and Nielsen.

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Speaker 1: So and you don't even see Weaver again physically. He

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Speaker 1: only appears on a television set. So what happens is

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Speaker 1: that Malloy braves the ghost effects in the house, you know,

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Speaker 1: all these smoke and mirror effects that seem intended to

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Speaker 1: scare him out of his pay day. He definitely fires

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Speaker 1: a few rounds and do some obvious special effects. Uh,

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Speaker 1: and just the audience is clear that they're special effects,

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Speaker 1: or it's obvious within the story that they're special effects.

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Speaker 1: Think a little of both, especially the modern viewers. Uh.

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Speaker 1: The effects aren't like outright terrible, but anything they're lacking,

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Speaker 1: I think actually enhances this aspect of the episode. So

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Speaker 1: it's like supposed to be visible to Malloyd that it's fake, right,

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Speaker 1: or certainly after he's through, you know, emptying his gun

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Speaker 1: into it, he's like, oh, you're just sitting real. Um.

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Speaker 1: I dealt with the problem the way I deal with

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Speaker 1: all my problems. I attempted to murder it. Uh, and

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Speaker 1: then I saw that it wasn't anything to be afraid of.

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Speaker 1: So uh. He eventually, though, he settles into bed, he

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Speaker 1: has a little coffee for some reason, and then he says,

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Speaker 1: all right, I'm just gonna go to bed, and when

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Speaker 1: I wake up, I'm gonna be ten thousand dollars richer

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Speaker 1: dreaming of mounting ghost heads on this wall. Right. But

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Speaker 1: then the second he settles in, iron bar snap into

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Speaker 1: place over him, and a pendulum starts descending from the ceiling,

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Speaker 1: and he still refuses to give into the fear. He's like, yells,

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Speaker 1: all right, Mamsy, you can do this, you can kill me,

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Speaker 1: but you're not gonna win because look at me, still

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Speaker 1: not afraid, not afraid to die and uh. And so

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Speaker 1: he ends up going to sleep and when he wakes up,

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Speaker 1: he makes himself breakfast and Mazy communicates with him via

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Speaker 1: a live TV transmission and he reveals the following first

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Speaker 1: of Malloy apparently encountered Mazzi's pianist father in Italy during

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Speaker 1: the Second World War, where he tortured him for information,

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Speaker 1: pouring gasoline over his hands and setting them on fire. WHOA. So,

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Speaker 1: as you can imagine Mazzi's for to find Malloy and

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Speaker 1: to break him. You burn my daddy's hands, I'll get

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Speaker 1: you for this, right Yeah, So now we know it's

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Speaker 1: a revenge piece. So Mazzi reveals at this point that

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Speaker 1: he is a biochemist, one of the greatest biochemists in

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Speaker 1: the field and is highly respected uh in the realm

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Speaker 1: of biochemical warfare. And he says that he and his

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Speaker 1: colleague recently discovered a way to convert a complex enzyme

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Speaker 1: in the human body into that of an earthworm, and

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Speaker 1: by injecting this, he says, quote, the bones of the

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Speaker 1: body disintegrate without affecting the nervous system or the vital organs,

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Speaker 1: until the victim is as near as can be an

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Speaker 1: earthworm able to move on its belly, but without vertebrae,

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Speaker 1: unable to stand, able to feed, able to pass waste matter,

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Speaker 1: unable to use its arms and legs except to assist

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Speaker 1: with a slithering motion in the manner of an earthworm.

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Speaker 1: I can't help but notice this sounds like a better

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Speaker 1: and more interesting version of a movie I don't like

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Speaker 1: to talk about. Yes, I have long thought about this.

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Speaker 1: We've had a couple of movies that have come out

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Speaker 1: over the past ten years in which a deranged scientist

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Speaker 1: wants to turn somebody into a creature of some sort,

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Speaker 1: generally a lesser invertebrate. And and and I find that all

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Speaker 1: of those men like the concept is initially revolting and appealing,

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Speaker 1: but then you realize it's not really dealt with in

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Speaker 1: any depth. It's only rolled out to to revolt the audience.

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Speaker 1: Whereas in this episode, I feel like it is. It

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Speaker 1: is leveled in a in a very intelligent way. Uh so,

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Speaker 1: so yeah, to continue going. Malloy initially doubts this. He's like,

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Speaker 1: you're you're full of it, but Masi tells him, oh well,

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Speaker 1: why don't you look in the cellar and see what

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Speaker 1: became of my colleague and says that he was a

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Speaker 1: large man, but now he's reduced to something like a slug.

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Speaker 1: And indeed, earlier in the episode, when when Leslie Neilson's

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Speaker 1: character is looking around the mansion, one of the things

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Speaker 1: he encounters is this unexplained trail of slime through the cellar,

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Speaker 1: and there's this it's it's it's it's a legitimately creepy

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Speaker 1: moment and certainly seems a little different from the uh

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Speaker 1: the ghost effects that are thrown at him. So then

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Speaker 1: he tells Molloy. Massy tells Mooy that the transformation is

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Speaker 1: going to take time, but that he's going to go

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Speaker 1: down in medical history and there's no stopping it. He said,

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Speaker 1: you can after you leave here, you can tell the police.

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Speaker 1: You can go to a specialist, but first of all,

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Speaker 1: the specialists probably won't believe you, and even if they do,

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Speaker 1: they're not going to be able to help you because

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Speaker 1: this cannot be reversed. Wait, so at this point he's

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Speaker 1: done something to Malloy. He's like injected him or something.

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Speaker 1: That's what he claims, yes, and Molloyd calls his bluff,

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Speaker 1: but but he's already beginning to give in the fear.

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Speaker 1: Massy tells him, Uh, look, you should just wanted to

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Speaker 1: check your inside forearm. I believe it is you'll find

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Speaker 1: an injection point. We drugged your coffee, and I snuck

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Speaker 1: in and injected you while you were asleep. And and

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Speaker 1: if you still don't believe me, then go into the seller.

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Speaker 1: Go into the seller and see what my colleague became.

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Speaker 1: And at this point, he's like really working Molloy up.

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Speaker 1: And Molloy begins to move towards the seller and he

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Speaker 1: sees the trail of slime this time, uh you know,

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Speaker 1: working through the hallways and descending into the cellar. And

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Speaker 1: then he turns around and he tells Mazzi that he

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Speaker 1: still isn't that there's no way mass is gonna win,

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Speaker 1: that that that that he Malloy is going to win,

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Speaker 1: and then he shoots himself with his own gun. And

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Speaker 1: at this point, um Mazzi uh admits, he says, actually,

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Speaker 1: I win because there's nothing in the seller that's pretty good. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean this is just my retelling of it, so

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Speaker 1: certainly the episode itself is a is a finer version

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Speaker 1: of the tail than my synopsis here. I love the Uh.

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Speaker 1: It's a common thing, apparently in horror to just talk

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Speaker 1: to people through TVs. I'm thinking about those solid movies.

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Speaker 1: Isn't there a segment in Creep Show where somebody talks

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Speaker 1: to somebody through a TV? Yes? I believe it is

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Speaker 1: actually Leslie Nielsen. I think so. In the bed where

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Speaker 1: Ted Danson and I can't remember the other actor's name,

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Speaker 1: where they're buried up to their necks in the surf

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Speaker 1: in the sand. Yeah, and Leslie Nielsen's like, ha ha,

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Speaker 1: I'll talk to you through a TV. Yeah, that's a

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Speaker 1: that's a nice connection between this episode and Creep Show

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Speaker 1: horror anthology film, which, incidentally enough, Fritz Weaver is also

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Speaker 1: in In the crate segment, he plays the professor. Uh.

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Speaker 1: That works with how Hobrook's character. Oh okay, and he's

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Speaker 1: fabulous in that as well, like he's he really should

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Speaker 1: go down as more of a horror anthology legend. Well,

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Speaker 1: I I got to see this episode this is pretty

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Speaker 1: creepy just hearing you describe it. Yeah, it creeped me

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Speaker 1: out then it still creeps me out now even though

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Speaker 1: there's no actual transformation, it's described so well. It's a

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Speaker 1: it's set up so well that you don't even care

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Speaker 1: like it it. It doesn't deflate the horror of it

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Speaker 1: when when you have this final twist at the end.

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Speaker 1: But this, uh yeah, particularly this concept of transformation into

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Speaker 1: an earthworm, I feel like there is a lot of

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Speaker 1: dread here and it and uh and I'd like to

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Speaker 1: know discuss a little bit why uh we feel that

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Speaker 1: sense of dread when we imagine being turned into what

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Speaker 1: is essentially a noble organism, uh, the earthwork. Now. I

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Speaker 1: can think of quite a few culturally common body transformation

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Speaker 1: or deterioration phobias. People have phobias about loss of teeth.

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Speaker 1: That's a common when people have from nightmares about losing

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Speaker 1: their teeth. Uh, There's like the penis retraction phobia. You know,

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Speaker 1: people have genital deterioration fears. But I've never heard of

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Speaker 1: bone disappearance phobia before. That's a new one. Uh, It's

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Speaker 1: it's a great one. Though. There's actually an episode of

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Speaker 1: The Ray Bradberry Theater from the eighties, which has a

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Speaker 1: similar plot line in which I believe Eugene Levy plays

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Speaker 1: an individual who goes to a doctor for some sort

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Speaker 1: of skeletal issue and he like removes his skeleton and

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Speaker 1: reduced him to a like essentially an invertebrate. Oh so

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Speaker 1: he like becomes a human jellyfish basically. So perhaps it's

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Speaker 1: not explored enough the bone removal or disintegration um sub

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Speaker 1: genre body horror. Well, Robert, I assume you're going to

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Speaker 1: tell me something about the science of earthworms, right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: this gave me a good excuse to look into the

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Speaker 1: science of earthworms. And I have to apologize to earthworms

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Speaker 1: and humans who have been transformed into them, because you know,

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Speaker 1: we could do a whole episode just on the importance

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Speaker 1: of earthworms and the evolution of earthworms. That's probably true

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Speaker 1: of any of the subjects we discuss in this episode,

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Speaker 1: that we could probably expand them into a whole episode

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Speaker 1: of their own. Yeah, if we were. If I was

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Speaker 1: a little more of a grown up about it and

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Speaker 1: was and didn't want to just use these things as

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Speaker 1: an excuse to talk about night Gallery. Um, the so yeah,

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Speaker 1: the uh, we're talking about the analyds here from the

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Speaker 1: analytic phylum, which includes all the segmented worms such as earthworms,

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Speaker 1: Lee choose, and a whole host of polychy marine worms

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Speaker 1: such as the bristle worm, which I recently got to

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Speaker 1: see on a vacation in Costa Rica tide pools. Yeah. Um,

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Speaker 1: what do they look like? Are they bristly? They are

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Speaker 1: bristly And if you touch them, especially with a five

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Speaker 1: year old touches them, uh, they will they will sting you.

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Speaker 1: But the child was fine. It was a friend of

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Speaker 1: my son's. Yeah, he was fine. He got that. But

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Speaker 1: he did get to have a very up close and

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Speaker 1: personal experience with with the bristleworm. Um. So, the this

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Speaker 1: particular phylum contains more than nine thousand species and six

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Speaker 1: thousand species of earthworm. They live everywhere except Antarctica. And

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Speaker 1: there are even bioluminescent earthworms. Oh I don't think I

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Speaker 1: knew that. Uh yeah, I found a couple of great

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Speaker 1: sources on them, in particular Dr Frank Anderson and Dr

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Speaker 1: Samuel James. They did a blog post at Biomedical Central

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Speaker 1: titled the Evolution of Earthworms. So earthworms are fabulous. There

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Speaker 1: their eco system engineers working draining, aerating the soil. I

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Speaker 1: feel like nowadays most people realize that, hey, if you've

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Speaker 1: got worms living in your garden, earthworms, they're they're doing

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Speaker 1: the Lord's work. That's good. But what did we not

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Speaker 1: always realize that worms were good for the soil? Well,

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Speaker 1: it seems like we didn't. I mean, you can look

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Speaker 1: back to the writings of say Aristotle, who referred to

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Speaker 1: them as the intestines of the earth, which is in

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Speaker 1: many ways true. It seems like a good thing, right,

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Speaker 1: You don't want to not have intestines, right. But but

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Speaker 1: apparently before Charles Darwin came along with his interest in earthworms,

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Speaker 1: there was this idea, at least in the Western world,

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Speaker 1: at least in in Europe, in Britain specifically, that earthworms

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Speaker 1: were kind of a pest in your garden, that they

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Speaker 1: weren't really doing anything. Get there. By the way, Dr

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Speaker 1: Anderson and James, one of the things they discussed in

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Speaker 1: their their article is that roughly one third of the

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Speaker 1: earthworms species in North America were introduced from Europe or Asia,

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Speaker 1: and some were introduced into northern forests which had been

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Speaker 1: free of earthworms since the end of the Last Ice Age.

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Speaker 1: Roughly eleven thousand years ago. Oh wow, I've never thought

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Speaker 1: about that the way um like the soil fauna has

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Speaker 1: to recover after areas have been covered by glaciers. I

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Speaker 1: guess yeah. I believe we've touched on this in the

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Speaker 1: past on the show. Maybe it was a very old

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Speaker 1: episode about the idea of of earthworms being brought in

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Speaker 1: by by colonial forces from the from the Old World

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Speaker 1: into the New World. Anyway, but earthworms, there are a

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Speaker 1: lot of them out there. The largest is the giant

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Speaker 1: African earthworm. Uh. It's typically typically reaches fifty four inches

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Speaker 1: or one point thirty six ms in length, but its

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Speaker 1: record length is twenty two ft or six point seven ms. What. Yeah, Now,

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Speaker 1: even this species before anyone pictures like a full Leslie

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Speaker 1: Nielsen transformed earthworm, uh, this species was still the giant

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Speaker 1: here was still less than an inch in diameter. Uh.

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Speaker 1: So nothing that could scare a man to death. A seller.

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Speaker 1: That makes me wonder what are the upper limits of

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Speaker 1: Like how how filament like an organism can be? Like

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Speaker 1: at some point you would think that the strains of

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Speaker 1: moving something that long and that thin would want to

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Speaker 1: rip it apart or something. I guess that's one because

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Speaker 1: you see them remaining so thin, you don't see them

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Speaker 1: reaching sandworm or gravoid size. So Anderson and James that

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Speaker 1: they believe that the ancestor of all living earthworms probably

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Speaker 1: lived over two D nine million years ago, making earthworms

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Speaker 1: about as old as mammals and dinosaurs. They based this

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Speaker 1: estimate on DNA sequencing as well as the fossil record,

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Speaker 1: which they said, you know, ultimately doesn't tell us a

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Speaker 1: lot regarding earthworms, but it does give us leech cocoon

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Speaker 1: fossils from the late Triassic two one million years ago, so,

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Speaker 1: which presents a minimum age for leeches and earthworms. But

424
00:23:54,160 --> 00:23:57,800
Speaker 1: the idea of a human becoming an earthworm, the loss

425
00:23:57,800 --> 00:24:01,280
Speaker 1: of our vertebrate status, I think it terrifies us because

426
00:24:01,280 --> 00:24:04,120
Speaker 1: it also, you know, it reduces us to the activities

427
00:24:04,160 --> 00:24:08,679
Speaker 1: mentioned by Dr MASI right, moving, eating, producing waste, and

428
00:24:08,720 --> 00:24:11,359
Speaker 1: these are all things we do naturally. But but we

429
00:24:11,400 --> 00:24:13,119
Speaker 1: tend to focus on all the other aspects of our

430
00:24:13,200 --> 00:24:15,320
Speaker 1: human existence. I mean, sometimes to the point where we

431
00:24:15,359 --> 00:24:18,680
Speaker 1: want to reject our inner worm. You'd say, I think

432
00:24:18,720 --> 00:24:24,520
Speaker 1: generally bones are pretty important to our lives. Yeah, I

433
00:24:24,560 --> 00:24:28,960
Speaker 1: agree with that. We we need our bones. But but

434
00:24:28,960 --> 00:24:32,040
Speaker 1: but also just the idea that the worm doesn't do

435
00:24:32,080 --> 00:24:35,000
Speaker 1: anything else. I mean does a lot. Again, but to

436
00:24:35,160 --> 00:24:38,399
Speaker 1: the sort of the human perspective, digging around in a

437
00:24:38,480 --> 00:24:40,520
Speaker 1: garden and not knowing what the earthworms are doing, all

438
00:24:40,520 --> 00:24:43,199
Speaker 1: it seems to do is just food goes in one end,

439
00:24:43,240 --> 00:24:45,919
Speaker 1: poop comes out the other. It crawls around. It is

440
00:24:45,960 --> 00:24:50,760
Speaker 1: like just the you've stripped everything more interesting away from

441
00:24:50,800 --> 00:24:55,040
Speaker 1: the certainly the human experience and the mammalian experience as well. Well. Yeah,

442
00:24:55,080 --> 00:24:58,520
Speaker 1: I mean a common feature of body horror. You know,

443
00:24:58,600 --> 00:25:00,640
Speaker 1: long before we had David Crone and Berg, we had

444
00:25:00,680 --> 00:25:03,000
Speaker 1: older strains of body horror, the kind of horror that's

445
00:25:03,040 --> 00:25:05,639
Speaker 1: based not saying a monster chasing you, but in the

446
00:25:05,640 --> 00:25:09,320
Speaker 1: transformation of yourself into something you don't like or recognize.

447
00:25:10,160 --> 00:25:14,200
Speaker 1: I mean that the most common version of that is say,

448
00:25:14,240 --> 00:25:18,159
Speaker 1: reduction to what people would consider a lower strata of

449
00:25:18,200 --> 00:25:22,480
Speaker 1: animal existence, you know, being made into a beast that's

450
00:25:22,560 --> 00:25:25,200
Speaker 1: less than human. Oh yeah, I mean I can't help

451
00:25:25,200 --> 00:25:28,880
Speaker 1: but think, of course, of of Kafka's the metamorphosis. Yeah uh,

452
00:25:28,960 --> 00:25:32,160
Speaker 1: though of course that that beast like he was turned into.

453
00:25:32,200 --> 00:25:36,600
Speaker 1: I think the term directly translated into translates into something

454
00:25:36,640 --> 00:25:40,000
Speaker 1: like vermin. But it's often interpreted as like a you know,

455
00:25:40,000 --> 00:25:43,840
Speaker 1: a cockroach or something like that. But yeah, he The

456
00:25:43,840 --> 00:25:46,960
Speaker 1: weird thing there is he retains all of his mental faculties.

457
00:25:47,000 --> 00:25:49,879
Speaker 1: You know, he has full sentience. He's just said his

458
00:25:49,960 --> 00:25:53,040
Speaker 1: body transformed. I absolutely love that story. That is. I

459
00:25:53,040 --> 00:25:55,240
Speaker 1: think that is the only horror story that I've actually

460
00:25:55,240 --> 00:25:57,080
Speaker 1: read in a foreign language. I read it in a

461
00:25:57,080 --> 00:26:00,520
Speaker 1: German class. Really yeah, yeah, what was it like in German?

462
00:26:00,600 --> 00:26:03,520
Speaker 1: It was. It was a cool experience. I've since forgotten

463
00:26:03,560 --> 00:26:05,760
Speaker 1: any you know, smidge of German that it was. That

464
00:26:05,840 --> 00:26:08,480
Speaker 1: was that Reading that story in German was the absolute

465
00:26:09,040 --> 00:26:13,760
Speaker 1: peak of my, my, my, my German language reading ability. Well,

466
00:26:13,760 --> 00:26:15,800
Speaker 1: it sounds like a good peak to climb before committing

467
00:26:15,800 --> 00:26:19,439
Speaker 1: to the valley forever. So I mentioned Charles Darwin earlier.

468
00:26:19,640 --> 00:26:23,479
Speaker 1: Charles Darwin, of course, the famous naturalist who gave us

469
00:26:24,480 --> 00:26:27,240
Speaker 1: the theory, the theory of natural selection. He was quite

470
00:26:27,240 --> 00:26:29,679
Speaker 1: interested in earthworms, and in fact they were the subject

471
00:26:29,760 --> 00:26:34,320
Speaker 1: of his last book, Ones, The Formation of Vegetable Mold

472
00:26:34,359 --> 00:26:38,280
Speaker 1: through the Action of Worms. And despite this, you know

473
00:26:38,359 --> 00:26:41,960
Speaker 1: what makes him dry subject matter? Perhaps, uh, it was

474
00:26:42,000 --> 00:26:46,160
Speaker 1: still the most successful book published during his lifetime and

475
00:26:46,280 --> 00:26:49,600
Speaker 1: uh and uh yeah, And according to Anderson and James,

476
00:26:49,840 --> 00:26:53,639
Speaker 1: it was pretty key in changing Western views on earthworms. Uh,

477
00:26:53,680 --> 00:26:56,879
Speaker 1: they were no longer soil pests. People realized they had importance.

478
00:26:57,359 --> 00:27:00,600
Speaker 1: And the tying in with our directly with our Night

479
00:27:00,640 --> 00:27:05,040
Speaker 1: Gallery episode it's it's success inspired an eighteen eighty two Punch,

480
00:27:05,640 --> 00:27:08,280
Speaker 1: which is a publication punch magazine. I guess you would

481
00:27:08,280 --> 00:27:12,160
Speaker 1: call it. Um. They had a cartoon that depicted worms

482
00:27:12,200 --> 00:27:16,960
Speaker 1: evolving into monkeys and monkeys evolving into men in you know,

483
00:27:17,040 --> 00:27:22,040
Speaker 1: kind of a spiral around a cartoon version of Charles Darwin. Well,

484
00:27:22,560 --> 00:27:24,880
Speaker 1: I feel like I should know the answer to this question,

485
00:27:24,920 --> 00:27:29,680
Speaker 1: but I honestly don't. Are is a worm like organism

486
00:27:29,720 --> 00:27:34,440
Speaker 1: at some point believed to be part of our phylogenetic history?

487
00:27:35,000 --> 00:27:38,880
Speaker 1: Or is or have worms always been separate from whatever

488
00:27:39,040 --> 00:27:42,800
Speaker 1: became vertebrates and eventually became us? Well there They've been

489
00:27:42,840 --> 00:27:45,880
Speaker 1: a lot of studies over the years looking at nematodes

490
00:27:45,920 --> 00:27:48,680
Speaker 1: in particular. Um, Like, if you just do some searches

491
00:27:48,760 --> 00:27:53,040
Speaker 1: for uh, human genetics and worms, you'll find these, uh,

492
00:27:53,160 --> 00:27:55,160
Speaker 1: these articles. And I was tempted to go into those

493
00:27:55,200 --> 00:27:58,399
Speaker 1: deeper here, but then realized that's it's really deserving of

494
00:27:58,600 --> 00:28:02,760
Speaker 1: a whole episode. But but either way, I mean whether

495
00:28:02,840 --> 00:28:05,520
Speaker 1: or not some type of worm is a direct ancestor.

496
00:28:05,560 --> 00:28:08,680
Speaker 1: Obviously we share common ancestry, so the question is how

497
00:28:08,760 --> 00:28:11,440
Speaker 1: much do we have in common? Well, I was looking

498
00:28:11,440 --> 00:28:13,720
Speaker 1: at a paper that goes into this, a bit titled

499
00:28:13,720 --> 00:28:19,240
Speaker 1: Earthworm Genomes, Genes and Proteins The Rediscovery of Darwin's Worms,

500
00:28:19,320 --> 00:28:23,680
Speaker 1: and this was by strussan Baum, Andre Kylie and Morgan

501
00:28:23,960 --> 00:28:26,240
Speaker 1: was publishing two thousand nine and in the Proceedings of

502
00:28:26,280 --> 00:28:29,280
Speaker 1: the Royal Society b SO. I I'd like to read

503
00:28:29,960 --> 00:28:33,200
Speaker 1: just a section where they referenced Darwin here, and in

504
00:28:33,640 --> 00:28:36,280
Speaker 1: particularly they're referencing that illustration I talked about with the

505
00:28:36,280 --> 00:28:42,960
Speaker 1: worms transforming into monkeys. Quote. The illustration is a humorous construct,

506
00:28:43,240 --> 00:28:47,440
Speaker 1: but an examination of the earthworm structure and function reveals

507
00:28:47,600 --> 00:28:52,600
Speaker 1: cells and tissues and cell types with vertebrate counterparts. Earthworms

508
00:28:52,800 --> 00:28:59,120
Speaker 1: are ce limit protostomes, possessing an anatomically and functionally differentiated

509
00:28:59,600 --> 00:29:05,600
Speaker 1: alum terry canal with brush bordered absorptive epithelia, a closed

510
00:29:05,600 --> 00:29:10,440
Speaker 1: blood circulation with hemoglobin in free suspension, an organized nervous

511
00:29:10,480 --> 00:29:15,600
Speaker 1: system with cepholic ganglia, and neuro secretary activities, a multi

512
00:29:15,600 --> 00:29:21,160
Speaker 1: functional tissue for which carbohydrate metabolism and storage properties are

513
00:29:21,160 --> 00:29:26,680
Speaker 1: reminiscent of mammalian heptocytes, a series of paired tubules in

514
00:29:26,720 --> 00:29:30,520
Speaker 1: each segment with renal urine forming functions, and a systemic

515
00:29:30,680 --> 00:29:35,520
Speaker 1: immune system comprising leukocite like cells. So I realized there's

516
00:29:35,520 --> 00:29:38,680
Speaker 1: a lot of though very technical information there that I

517
00:29:38,720 --> 00:29:41,920
Speaker 1: had to stumble through. Uh. But you know, what it's

518
00:29:41,920 --> 00:29:44,920
Speaker 1: basically getting down to is that, yes, we're very different

519
00:29:44,920 --> 00:29:47,920
Speaker 1: from earthworms. I'm not saying that earth worms and humans

520
00:29:47,920 --> 00:29:50,800
Speaker 1: are basically the same thing, but when you start looking

521
00:29:50,880 --> 00:29:54,840
Speaker 1: at genetics and just sort of life itself, we're not

522
00:29:55,120 --> 00:29:57,920
Speaker 1: that different. Ye know. They've got a lot of similar

523
00:29:58,040 --> 00:30:02,120
Speaker 1: anatomical counterparts, some of the same stuff you'd see in mammals,

524
00:30:02,240 --> 00:30:04,200
Speaker 1: and in a way, you can see them as a

525
00:30:04,680 --> 00:30:08,320
Speaker 1: reduced version of what we are right Um, and in fact,

526
00:30:08,320 --> 00:30:10,800
Speaker 1: when you look at our genes. Uh, one thing that

527
00:30:10,800 --> 00:30:13,360
Speaker 1: the author's pointed out here is the earthworms share something

528
00:30:13,360 --> 00:30:16,760
Speaker 1: like two d and twenty genes um of their of

529
00:30:16,800 --> 00:30:19,800
Speaker 1: their then catalog that eight thousand, one hundred twenty nine

530
00:30:19,840 --> 00:30:23,080
Speaker 1: gene objects with humans, and that's more than with fruit

531
00:30:23,120 --> 00:30:27,240
Speaker 1: flies sixty eight genes or nematode worms forty nine genes.

532
00:30:27,480 --> 00:30:31,160
Speaker 1: Despite the importance of fruit fly and nematode genes in

533
00:30:31,280 --> 00:30:33,800
Speaker 1: human research, there's so you know, so there are a

534
00:30:33,800 --> 00:30:37,960
Speaker 1: whole lot of vertebrate homologies in there. They wrote in

535
00:30:37,960 --> 00:30:42,440
Speaker 1: summary that more earthworm genes are conserved between earthworms and humans.

536
00:30:42,560 --> 00:30:47,959
Speaker 1: Provides anecdotal support of the original Punch Cartoons strapline quote,

537
00:30:48,160 --> 00:30:51,600
Speaker 1: man is but a worm. That's wonderful. And I like

538
00:30:51,680 --> 00:30:56,240
Speaker 1: how they have fundamentally conclusively proved that you can inject

539
00:30:56,240 --> 00:30:58,280
Speaker 1: somebody with an enzyme and turn them into an earth

540
00:30:58,400 --> 00:31:01,840
Speaker 1: No no, no no, no no, that's still pure science fiction.

541
00:31:02,240 --> 00:31:04,240
Speaker 1: But but I think maybe it does lean into the

542
00:31:04,280 --> 00:31:08,080
Speaker 1: idea that it is science fiction and not just pure sorcery.

543
00:31:08,920 --> 00:31:11,360
Speaker 1: Like there there there is a connection, there are There

544
00:31:11,400 --> 00:31:16,600
Speaker 1: is a wormy, slimy trail descending through the haunted House

545
00:31:16,640 --> 00:31:19,840
Speaker 1: of human evolution if we dare follow it. Well, I

546
00:31:19,840 --> 00:31:22,720
Speaker 1: have greatly enjoyed following the slimy trail. Robert, Yeah, I

547
00:31:22,720 --> 00:31:24,800
Speaker 1: think that's part of the fun of going after these

548
00:31:24,800 --> 00:31:28,000
Speaker 1: is like sort of picking an episode from an anthology

549
00:31:28,040 --> 00:31:31,160
Speaker 1: series and then just seeing what kind of science you

550
00:31:31,200 --> 00:31:34,160
Speaker 1: can probably squeeze out of it. Um. On that note,

551
00:31:34,240 --> 00:31:36,120
Speaker 1: let's take a quick break, and when we come back,

552
00:31:36,520 --> 00:31:41,640
Speaker 1: I believe you have a selection for us. Thank alright,

553
00:31:41,680 --> 00:31:44,840
Speaker 1: we're back, okay, Robert. Treehouse of Horror. Do you have

554
00:31:44,880 --> 00:31:47,760
Speaker 1: a favorite Treehouse of Horror of all time? Oh? Well,

555
00:31:47,960 --> 00:31:50,840
Speaker 1: I have a I definitely have a favorite episode, yes,

556
00:31:50,840 --> 00:31:53,800
Speaker 1: that I watched last night, because it has some of

557
00:31:53,840 --> 00:31:57,280
Speaker 1: the best segments. It has. It has the Shinning, which

558
00:31:57,320 --> 00:32:00,600
Speaker 1: I I referenced already in the episode. It also has

559
00:32:00,720 --> 00:32:04,600
Speaker 1: Nightmare Cafeteria, the one where you know, all the teachers

560
00:32:04,640 --> 00:32:07,680
Speaker 1: in the lunch room returning to cannibalism and eating the children.

561
00:32:08,400 --> 00:32:12,640
Speaker 1: But it also has has one more just really stellar segment. Yes,

562
00:32:12,800 --> 00:32:15,960
Speaker 1: and this is, of course the Simpsons Treehouse of Horror segment,

563
00:32:16,360 --> 00:32:20,120
Speaker 1: Time and Punishment, one of the great Simpsons Treeouse of

564
00:32:20,120 --> 00:32:23,160
Speaker 1: Horror shorts of all time, maybe maybe the best one ever.

565
00:32:23,760 --> 00:32:26,960
Speaker 1: So I'll give you the quick rundown. Homer Simpson breaks

566
00:32:27,000 --> 00:32:30,480
Speaker 1: the toaster by getting his hand jammed in it twice. Uh,

567
00:32:31,160 --> 00:32:34,160
Speaker 1: one of the best gags ever on the show. It

568
00:32:34,280 --> 00:32:36,600
Speaker 1: still makes me laugh every time the second time he

569
00:32:36,640 --> 00:32:39,520
Speaker 1: gets his hand jammed in there. So I think Lisa's like, Dad,

570
00:32:39,600 --> 00:32:41,920
Speaker 1: your hands still in there, and He's like, there's just

571
00:32:42,000 --> 00:32:48,560
Speaker 1: so much fabulous screaming and sprawling about. Anyway, So toasters broken,

572
00:32:48,560 --> 00:32:50,600
Speaker 1: he has to do some repairs. So in doing so,

573
00:32:50,840 --> 00:32:54,920
Speaker 1: Homer accidentally turns the toaster into a time machine that

574
00:32:55,000 --> 00:32:58,320
Speaker 1: takes him back to the Cretaceous period, and upon arriving,

575
00:32:58,560 --> 00:33:01,560
Speaker 1: he recalls the advice his father gave him on his

576
00:33:01,600 --> 00:33:04,120
Speaker 1: wedding night, which is, if you ever happened to travel

577
00:33:04,120 --> 00:33:07,360
Speaker 1: back into the past, don't change anything, because the ripple

578
00:33:07,440 --> 00:33:12,640
Speaker 1: effects through time could be disastrous. Unfortunately, of course, Homer

579
00:33:12,720 --> 00:33:16,360
Speaker 1: ends up killing bugs and you know, generally messing stuff

580
00:33:16,400 --> 00:33:18,840
Speaker 1: up in the past. And so Homer comes back to

581
00:33:18,840 --> 00:33:20,960
Speaker 1: the present the first time to find a kind of

582
00:33:21,080 --> 00:33:24,800
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty four scenario where ned Flanders rules the earth,

583
00:33:25,720 --> 00:33:29,200
Speaker 1: a kind of nineteen eight didle for if you will,

584
00:33:30,000 --> 00:33:33,280
Speaker 1: and uh, it's just too good. So eventually Homer he

585
00:33:33,680 --> 00:33:36,160
Speaker 1: goes back through time again to try to fix things,

586
00:33:36,840 --> 00:33:38,800
Speaker 1: and every time he changes something in the past, the

587
00:33:38,840 --> 00:33:42,320
Speaker 1: future changes in horrible ways. Finally, in the end, he

588
00:33:42,400 --> 00:33:45,280
Speaker 1: settles for a present in which things are basically normal,

589
00:33:45,320 --> 00:33:48,240
Speaker 1: but everybody has forked lizard tongues yeah, he says, like, yeah,

590
00:33:48,280 --> 00:33:51,160
Speaker 1: good enough. Uh. And of course this seems to be

591
00:33:51,200 --> 00:33:54,160
Speaker 1: based on Ray Bradbury's short story A Sound of Thunder,

592
00:33:54,200 --> 00:33:58,000
Speaker 1: which was originally published in Collier's magazine in nineteen fifty two.

593
00:33:58,280 --> 00:34:00,920
Speaker 1: And by the way, Robert, I think I'm to understand

594
00:34:00,960 --> 00:34:04,640
Speaker 1: you have not seen the two thousand five movie version

595
00:34:04,720 --> 00:34:07,080
Speaker 1: of A Sound of Thunder with Ben Kingsley and that

596
00:34:07,200 --> 00:34:10,080
Speaker 1: dude with an attitude from Saving Private Ryan. No, I

597
00:34:10,440 --> 00:34:13,640
Speaker 1: haven't you sent me a trailer for it? And somehow

598
00:34:13,960 --> 00:34:17,879
Speaker 1: I totally missed this movie ever even existed. It has

599
00:34:17,960 --> 00:34:21,759
Speaker 1: some of the most deliciously awful c g I monsters

600
00:34:21,840 --> 00:34:24,720
Speaker 1: of all time. It's, you know, that kind of early

601
00:34:24,880 --> 00:34:27,960
Speaker 1: two thousands c g I that at the time people

602
00:34:28,040 --> 00:34:31,439
Speaker 1: just thought was amazing, and now you can't look at

603
00:34:31,480 --> 00:34:34,640
Speaker 1: it without laughing. Yeah, it's it's a it's a shame,

604
00:34:34,840 --> 00:34:36,600
Speaker 1: you know. It's like, it's not like some of the

605
00:34:36,600 --> 00:34:39,480
Speaker 1: stop motion animation you find in older some older horror

606
00:34:39,480 --> 00:34:42,440
Speaker 1: films like this is the Puppets. Yeah, yeah, puppets like this.

607
00:34:42,640 --> 00:34:46,879
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe you know, our taste will change, Maybe we'll

608
00:34:46,880 --> 00:34:49,920
Speaker 1: look back on them in ten years and we'll love them.

609
00:34:50,040 --> 00:34:51,960
Speaker 1: Right now, it's very difficult. Well, I mean, I do

610
00:34:52,120 --> 00:34:54,880
Speaker 1: love them, but not for the reason they were expecting

611
00:34:54,920 --> 00:34:58,200
Speaker 1: people to love them. It's it's hilarious like reading movie

612
00:34:58,280 --> 00:35:01,640
Speaker 1: reviews from the late nineties in early two thousand's where

613
00:35:02,000 --> 00:35:04,839
Speaker 1: critics will say like, well, this movie wasn't very good,

614
00:35:04,880 --> 00:35:08,080
Speaker 1: but at least it has dazzling special effects. Some people

615
00:35:08,080 --> 00:35:11,600
Speaker 1: were just they're out of their minds in the late

616
00:35:11,680 --> 00:35:14,200
Speaker 1: nineties and early two thousands for these c g I

617
00:35:14,360 --> 00:35:17,960
Speaker 1: movies that looks so bad you cannot keep your eyes

618
00:35:18,040 --> 00:35:20,640
Speaker 1: focused on them. You have to look away. I remember

619
00:35:20,800 --> 00:35:23,719
Speaker 1: seeing the Spawn movie when it came out and thinking, oh,

620
00:35:23,719 --> 00:35:26,279
Speaker 1: well that that had some pretty cool looking action in it. Yeah,

621
00:35:26,320 --> 00:35:29,320
Speaker 1: and I recently like glanced back like Glant. Granted I

622
00:35:29,320 --> 00:35:31,920
Speaker 1: didn't watching him full. I just watched a few scenes

623
00:35:31,960 --> 00:35:34,520
Speaker 1: on YouTube and I was just really astounded at how

624
00:35:34,600 --> 00:35:37,600
Speaker 1: bad the c g I was. It's it's amazing. But anyway,

625
00:35:37,680 --> 00:35:40,640
Speaker 1: this movie, it takes this story. At one point, there's

626
00:35:40,680 --> 00:35:44,280
Speaker 1: this monster, this kind of like a baboon velociraptor hybrid.

627
00:35:44,480 --> 00:35:47,920
Speaker 1: It's just amazing. But anyway, so, what what is the

628
00:35:48,000 --> 00:35:51,160
Speaker 1: plot of A Sound of thunder Ray Bradberry's original story, Well,

629
00:35:51,320 --> 00:35:54,560
Speaker 1: it involves hunters traveling back through time to go on

630
00:35:54,680 --> 00:35:58,240
Speaker 1: the safari through time and kill a turano source Rex.

631
00:35:58,680 --> 00:36:01,239
Speaker 1: And so this time travel afari in the story is

632
00:36:01,280 --> 00:36:04,239
Speaker 1: believed to be safe because scouts have gone ahead and

633
00:36:04,320 --> 00:36:07,520
Speaker 1: selected an animal that was about to die anyway, so

634
00:36:07,640 --> 00:36:10,480
Speaker 1: killing it shouldn't change too much about the past. But

635
00:36:10,600 --> 00:36:13,000
Speaker 1: then in the story, won one of these safari guys.

636
00:36:13,040 --> 00:36:14,520
Speaker 1: I think this rich guy pay in to go on

637
00:36:14,560 --> 00:36:17,080
Speaker 1: this trip. He sort of goes off script. He falls

638
00:36:17,080 --> 00:36:20,520
Speaker 1: off this levitating path that they've constructed. Uh, and he

639
00:36:20,680 --> 00:36:23,480
Speaker 1: changes too much about the past, especially in the end

640
00:36:23,480 --> 00:36:26,520
Speaker 1: by discovering that he crushed a butterfly under his boot.

641
00:36:27,080 --> 00:36:30,560
Speaker 1: And so then when they return to the future, everything's weird.

642
00:36:30,800 --> 00:36:34,719
Speaker 1: English words are spelled different, and a fascist politician has

643
00:36:34,760 --> 00:36:37,640
Speaker 1: come to power. It's a fabulous story. I should also

644
00:36:37,680 --> 00:36:40,120
Speaker 1: point out that I think it's the third season of

645
00:36:40,160 --> 00:36:43,040
Speaker 1: the Ray Bradberry Theater had an adaptation of this that

646
00:36:43,080 --> 00:36:45,520
Speaker 1: I think was actually scripted by Ray brad Berry and

647
00:36:45,560 --> 00:36:49,279
Speaker 1: I remember as being pretty good. Yeah, so do not

648
00:36:49,400 --> 00:36:52,560
Speaker 1: feel like you only have that that awful c g

649
00:36:52,719 --> 00:36:55,040
Speaker 1: I film to fall back on. But but isn't it

650
00:36:55,080 --> 00:36:58,920
Speaker 1: interesting that probably more people have been exposed to this

651
00:36:59,040 --> 00:37:03,759
Speaker 1: concept through The Simpsons, then through the Ray Bradberry Theater,

652
00:37:03,960 --> 00:37:06,360
Speaker 1: or certainly that the writings of Ray Bradberry. Oh. I

653
00:37:06,400 --> 00:37:08,680
Speaker 1: think that's how it often is. I mean, lots of

654
00:37:08,920 --> 00:37:12,440
Speaker 1: classic sci fi stories ended up as Simpsons episodes, and

655
00:37:12,480 --> 00:37:15,200
Speaker 1: that's what people primarily know them from. Just like I

656
00:37:15,200 --> 00:37:18,800
Speaker 1: bet more people of roughly our generation know the Tale

657
00:37:18,800 --> 00:37:22,319
Speaker 1: of the Monkeys Paw as the Twisted Claw episode of

658
00:37:22,360 --> 00:37:25,759
Speaker 1: Are You Afraid of the Dark? I mean it makes sense.

659
00:37:25,760 --> 00:37:29,279
Speaker 1: We're essentially talking about folk tales and myths, and these

660
00:37:29,280 --> 00:37:32,600
Speaker 1: things evolved, These things change with the teller historically, and

661
00:37:32,640 --> 00:37:34,600
Speaker 1: so it makes sense that they should change with the

662
00:37:34,640 --> 00:37:38,239
Speaker 1: teller even today. Yeah. But so this is sort of

663
00:37:38,239 --> 00:37:41,520
Speaker 1: a timeless story in a way, because it's illustrating a

664
00:37:41,600 --> 00:37:45,080
Speaker 1: concept that if you've ever really thought about time travel

665
00:37:45,160 --> 00:37:47,200
Speaker 1: and what it would mean if time travel into the

666
00:37:47,200 --> 00:37:50,120
Speaker 1: past could exist, if you think about it hard enough,

667
00:37:50,160 --> 00:37:53,759
Speaker 1: you're likely to stumble across some version of what's come

668
00:37:53,800 --> 00:37:57,799
Speaker 1: to be known in chaos theory and meteorology and mathematics

669
00:37:57,840 --> 00:38:01,240
Speaker 1: as the butterfly effect. Now, there are plenty of popular

670
00:38:01,320 --> 00:38:04,000
Speaker 1: misconceptions about the butterfly effect. You heard about it in

671
00:38:04,200 --> 00:38:08,040
Speaker 1: Jurassic Park and stuff. One of the common misconceptions is

672
00:38:08,080 --> 00:38:11,600
Speaker 1: that the term actually comes from Ray Bradberry's story A

673
00:38:11,680 --> 00:38:14,160
Speaker 1: Sound of Thunder, because what do we find out at

674
00:38:14,160 --> 00:38:16,480
Speaker 1: the end that this guy stepped on a butterfly and

675
00:38:16,520 --> 00:38:19,319
Speaker 1: he sees it on his boot and realizes, oh no,

676
00:38:19,600 --> 00:38:23,960
Speaker 1: that caused these cascading effects through time and changed everything. Uh,

677
00:38:23,960 --> 00:38:25,880
Speaker 1: this is not the case that the term does not

678
00:38:26,040 --> 00:38:28,959
Speaker 1: come from that story. In reality, credit can be given

679
00:38:28,960 --> 00:38:32,319
Speaker 1: to the m I. T. Meteorologist Edward Norton Lorenz, who

680
00:38:32,400 --> 00:38:36,960
Speaker 1: was discussing the accuracy of weather prediction models. And Lorenz

681
00:38:37,000 --> 00:38:42,480
Speaker 1: found while working on meteorological computer programs that extremely tiny

682
00:38:42,719 --> 00:38:47,400
Speaker 1: changes in initial inputs would lead to huge differences in

683
00:38:47,480 --> 00:38:52,080
Speaker 1: predicted weather patterns over time, such that unavoidable errors in

684
00:38:52,120 --> 00:38:57,240
Speaker 1: our inputs will probably always make weather fundamentally unpredictable beyond

685
00:38:57,320 --> 00:38:59,880
Speaker 1: a certain distance into the future. And you actually know

686
00:39:00,080 --> 00:39:02,680
Speaker 1: this from your own experience. Right, you look at today's

687
00:39:02,760 --> 00:39:07,480
Speaker 1: weather forecast, it's probably pretty accurate. Tomorrow's is probably pretty accurate.

688
00:39:07,760 --> 00:39:11,040
Speaker 1: You try to go seven days into the future, it's

689
00:39:11,080 --> 00:39:14,560
Speaker 1: it's kind of a crapshoot. Then, in predicting, say whether

690
00:39:14,600 --> 00:39:17,920
Speaker 1: a month into the future is almost useless. And this

691
00:39:18,000 --> 00:39:21,240
Speaker 1: is because even though we have very good weather prediction

692
00:39:21,320 --> 00:39:25,600
Speaker 1: models at this point, their accuracy just deteriorates over time

693
00:39:25,640 --> 00:39:30,640
Speaker 1: because of the amplification of tiny initial differences that you

694
00:39:30,719 --> 00:39:34,960
Speaker 1: can't ever totally eliminate. So you know, uh, you you

695
00:39:35,000 --> 00:39:39,120
Speaker 1: make a tiny, tiny, you know, many many decimal places

696
00:39:39,160 --> 00:39:43,000
Speaker 1: behind the zero change to some initial input in a

697
00:39:43,080 --> 00:39:46,680
Speaker 1: weather prediction model, and then you run that, run that

698
00:39:46,760 --> 00:39:50,560
Speaker 1: alongside something with the original input, and one day into

699
00:39:50,600 --> 00:39:53,719
Speaker 1: the future they will be pretty similar, but five days

700
00:39:53,760 --> 00:39:57,520
Speaker 1: into the future they will be dramatically different. So whatever

701
00:39:57,560 --> 00:40:00,680
Speaker 1: you've got slightly wrong today, however tiny that error is,

702
00:40:00,760 --> 00:40:03,400
Speaker 1: will mean you just can't predict the future in a month.

703
00:40:03,800 --> 00:40:07,640
Speaker 1: And illustrate this concept, Lawns used the image of a bird,

704
00:40:08,040 --> 00:40:11,040
Speaker 1: I think a seagull or a butterfly flapping its wings

705
00:40:11,440 --> 00:40:14,120
Speaker 1: leading to changes in the weather that would create a

706
00:40:14,160 --> 00:40:17,359
Speaker 1: tornado that you wouldn't have had otherwise. Now, one thing

707
00:40:17,400 --> 00:40:19,279
Speaker 1: I also want to make clear is that this is

708
00:40:19,320 --> 00:40:23,400
Speaker 1: talking about the predicted movements of like specific weather patterns

709
00:40:23,440 --> 00:40:26,520
Speaker 1: and events. Right when they're trying to say where rain

710
00:40:26,640 --> 00:40:29,640
Speaker 1: will be at a certain time and how the front

711
00:40:29,719 --> 00:40:31,960
Speaker 1: the you know, the the air fronts will move and everything.

712
00:40:32,480 --> 00:40:35,080
Speaker 1: We can, on the other hand, make some solid predictions

713
00:40:35,120 --> 00:40:38,720
Speaker 1: about whether just based on climate and statistics. For example,

714
00:40:39,040 --> 00:40:41,120
Speaker 1: you can predict it is much more likely to be

715
00:40:41,200 --> 00:40:43,879
Speaker 1: raining in Seattle tomorrow than it is to be raining

716
00:40:43,880 --> 00:40:47,360
Speaker 1: in Death Valley tomorrow, and you you are likely to

717
00:40:47,440 --> 00:40:50,160
Speaker 1: be correct based on those predictions made on on the

718
00:40:50,200 --> 00:40:54,080
Speaker 1: basis of knowledge about climate and statistics. But still, if

719
00:40:54,080 --> 00:40:56,319
Speaker 1: you're trying to predict far in the future with specific

720
00:40:56,440 --> 00:40:58,959
Speaker 1: movements of weather patterns, you're you're gonna have a really

721
00:40:59,000 --> 00:41:02,680
Speaker 1: hard time doing it. Another misconception about the butterfly effect.

722
00:41:03,000 --> 00:41:06,480
Speaker 1: I think a lot of times people interpreted exactly the

723
00:41:06,560 --> 00:41:09,080
Speaker 1: wrong way. It's like the opposite of what it means.

724
00:41:09,120 --> 00:41:13,160
Speaker 1: They think that it means you can identify small changes

725
00:41:13,680 --> 00:41:16,920
Speaker 1: that lead to big effects in complex systems. This is

726
00:41:16,960 --> 00:41:19,320
Speaker 1: the opposite of the point about the butterfly effect. The

727
00:41:19,360 --> 00:41:24,160
Speaker 1: butterfly effect is specifically about the lack of deterministic predictability

728
00:41:24,280 --> 00:41:28,719
Speaker 1: in complex systems with sensitivity to initial conditions, and the

729
00:41:29,120 --> 00:41:33,120
Speaker 1: technical term for this would be deterministic non linear systems.

730
00:41:33,160 --> 00:41:37,320
Speaker 1: Nonlinear systems are systems where the outputs are not directly

731
00:41:37,360 --> 00:41:40,319
Speaker 1: proportional to the inputs. You know, you can slightly vary

732
00:41:40,360 --> 00:41:42,719
Speaker 1: an input and get big changes in the difference of

733
00:41:42,760 --> 00:41:46,080
Speaker 1: the output. So the point is not that you can

734
00:41:46,120 --> 00:41:48,440
Speaker 1: see a tornado and actually trace it back to a

735
00:41:48,480 --> 00:41:51,720
Speaker 1: butterfly flapping its wings. Rather, the point is that weather

736
00:41:51,760 --> 00:41:56,480
Speaker 1: systems emerged from complex interactions over time with extreme sensitivity

737
00:41:56,520 --> 00:41:59,160
Speaker 1: to initial conditions, meaning that if you move far enough

738
00:41:59,200 --> 00:42:01,759
Speaker 1: back in time, you could not have predicted that a

739
00:42:01,840 --> 00:42:05,000
Speaker 1: tornado would emerge. It's not about predicting the future of

740
00:42:05,040 --> 00:42:08,520
Speaker 1: a complex system based on tiny initial changes. It's about

741
00:42:08,600 --> 00:42:12,040
Speaker 1: how complex systems are more and more unpredictable the farther

742
00:42:12,120 --> 00:42:14,719
Speaker 1: into the future you try to predict. This, of course,

743
00:42:14,800 --> 00:42:17,759
Speaker 1: is one of the fundamental concepts of chaos theory, and

744
00:42:17,800 --> 00:42:19,759
Speaker 1: maybe maybe we should come back and devote a full

745
00:42:19,760 --> 00:42:22,360
Speaker 1: episode to this one day with special GUESTI and Malcolm.

746
00:42:23,000 --> 00:42:26,759
Speaker 1: I've never really thought to look critically at whether the

747
00:42:26,840 --> 00:42:30,160
Speaker 1: way Ian Malcolm tries to apply chaos theory and Jurassic

748
00:42:30,239 --> 00:42:33,320
Speaker 1: Park is a legitimate application of that theory. Maybe maybe

749
00:42:33,320 --> 00:42:35,520
Speaker 1: the maybe it is, I don't know. That would would

750
00:42:35,520 --> 00:42:37,200
Speaker 1: actually be fun to just to do a breakdown of

751
00:42:37,280 --> 00:42:40,080
Speaker 1: the original Jurassic Park film, Uh, and it would give

752
00:42:40,120 --> 00:42:44,400
Speaker 1: us more opportunity to rail against what Jurassic Park, especially

753
00:42:44,440 --> 00:42:47,520
Speaker 1: the recent films, are doing the understanding of dinosaurs. I'm

754
00:42:47,560 --> 00:42:52,560
Speaker 1: really into kids now whose favorite dinosaurs are fictional dinosaurs

755
00:42:52,560 --> 00:42:54,920
Speaker 1: from this most recent movie, and I feel like it's

756
00:42:54,920 --> 00:42:57,879
Speaker 1: a shame. Real dinosaurs are good enough. Come on, Yeah,

757
00:42:57,880 --> 00:43:00,759
Speaker 1: It's like everybody they're like, oh, it's this blue velociraptor

758
00:43:00,880 --> 00:43:02,719
Speaker 1: or something. I don't know, I haven't seen it yet.

759
00:43:02,760 --> 00:43:05,120
Speaker 1: Maybe it's wonderful. I suppose I should just be played

760
00:43:05,120 --> 00:43:07,480
Speaker 1: that they're interested in dinosaurs at all. But they're just

761
00:43:07,520 --> 00:43:12,200
Speaker 1: so many wonderful actual species, and our current scientific understanding

762
00:43:12,239 --> 00:43:14,239
Speaker 1: of them I feel like should be reflected to some

763
00:43:14,320 --> 00:43:17,400
Speaker 1: extent in our fiction. Totally. Uh So, it's pretty widely

764
00:43:17,440 --> 00:43:20,440
Speaker 1: accepted that something like the butterfly effect applies to whether

765
00:43:20,600 --> 00:43:23,160
Speaker 1: I think there are actually are some who dissent and say, no,

766
00:43:23,400 --> 00:43:25,920
Speaker 1: it's just, you know, problems with our models or something.

767
00:43:26,520 --> 00:43:29,480
Speaker 1: But the question is would it apply to the biological

768
00:43:29,560 --> 00:43:33,040
Speaker 1: history of Earth? Would stepping on a fish seventy million

769
00:43:33,120 --> 00:43:37,520
Speaker 1: years ago change the present substantially? And how would it

770
00:43:37,640 --> 00:43:41,080
Speaker 1: change the present? Unfortunately, this is not a question that

771
00:43:41,160 --> 00:43:43,279
Speaker 1: I think has a firm scientific answer. I think this

772
00:43:43,360 --> 00:43:45,400
Speaker 1: is just something people we don't know what the answer

773
00:43:45,480 --> 00:43:48,879
Speaker 1: to this question is. Uh. One thing I think, though

774
00:43:48,880 --> 00:43:51,480
Speaker 1: I could be wrong, is that I think stories like

775
00:43:51,520 --> 00:43:56,359
Speaker 1: this often get the scale of the changes wrong, like

776
00:43:56,440 --> 00:43:58,919
Speaker 1: that It's interesting that these stories tend to assume kind

777
00:43:58,920 --> 00:44:04,200
Speaker 1: of nonsensical esthetic changes around the margins of reality, but

778
00:44:04,280 --> 00:44:07,279
Speaker 1: where the broad strokes are the same, uh. You know,

779
00:44:07,360 --> 00:44:10,560
Speaker 1: example would be Ned Flanders still exists the Simpsons, The

780
00:44:10,560 --> 00:44:14,839
Speaker 1: Simpsons still exist there apparently the same people. Uh. Ned

781
00:44:14,840 --> 00:44:17,680
Speaker 1: Flanders is still the Simpsons Simpsons next door neighbor, but

782
00:44:17,920 --> 00:44:20,840
Speaker 1: is also the dictator of Earth, you know. And I

783
00:44:20,880 --> 00:44:22,719
Speaker 1: know that's a parody. I'm not trying to like rag

784
00:44:22,760 --> 00:44:24,799
Speaker 1: on the Simpsons for that, but it's a It's a

785
00:44:24,800 --> 00:44:28,440
Speaker 1: good parody because it highlights the kind of absurdity that

786
00:44:28,520 --> 00:44:30,879
Speaker 1: you see in stories like this, like in a Sound

787
00:44:30,960 --> 00:44:34,560
Speaker 1: of Thunder, the idea that you'd still basically have the

788
00:44:34,640 --> 00:44:38,800
Speaker 1: same uh people existing in the same like candidates running

789
00:44:38,840 --> 00:44:41,279
Speaker 1: for offer It's office, but a different one of the

790
00:44:41,320 --> 00:44:44,440
Speaker 1: candidates one yeah, and the bactor the Simpsons, Like why

791
00:44:44,480 --> 00:44:47,640
Speaker 1: would everything be the same except for the tongue? Right? So,

792
00:44:47,719 --> 00:44:49,400
Speaker 1: I you know, I could be wrong, But I would

793
00:44:49,400 --> 00:44:52,719
Speaker 1: tend to say, just intuitively and based on you know,

794
00:44:52,920 --> 00:44:57,359
Speaker 1: using the weather analogy, that butterfly effect type changes from

795
00:44:57,560 --> 00:45:01,320
Speaker 1: deep into the past would result in let's say, larger

796
00:45:01,360 --> 00:45:05,960
Speaker 1: amplitude changes tens of millions of years down the road, bigger,

797
00:45:06,080 --> 00:45:09,960
Speaker 1: bigger amplitude changes than which candidate wins an election. Would

798
00:45:10,000 --> 00:45:13,640
Speaker 1: people even exist if they did with the same individual

799
00:45:13,800 --> 00:45:17,480
Speaker 1: people even exist? I don't know. It seems kind of doubtful.

800
00:45:17,719 --> 00:45:20,680
Speaker 1: There's that great scene in that episode where Homer sits

801
00:45:20,760 --> 00:45:24,239
Speaker 1: on a creature emerging from the water. Yes um, which

802
00:45:24,280 --> 00:45:26,000
Speaker 1: I love that because I feel like it it kind

803
00:45:26,000 --> 00:45:30,560
Speaker 1: of calls back to um paleo art in our science

804
00:45:30,600 --> 00:45:33,279
Speaker 1: textbooks where you're told about the evolution of life and

805
00:45:33,280 --> 00:45:36,080
Speaker 1: you see this picture of some sort of creature waddling

806
00:45:36,160 --> 00:45:39,600
Speaker 1: out of the water, talking about like life coming from

807
00:45:39,640 --> 00:45:42,839
Speaker 1: the sea and then becoming terrestrial. But it it can

808
00:45:42,920 --> 00:45:45,479
Speaker 1: it's kind of accidentally put this idea in your mind

809
00:45:45,719 --> 00:45:49,759
Speaker 1: that there was one fish. There's one creature like that,

810
00:45:50,480 --> 00:45:52,120
Speaker 1: just like this is the one and if you sat

811
00:45:52,200 --> 00:45:55,080
Speaker 1: on it, it would change everything. Yeah, that that kind

812
00:45:55,080 --> 00:45:59,680
Speaker 1: of misconception, like one fish got brave and it climbed

813
00:45:59,680 --> 00:46:02,160
Speaker 1: out of the water, and if it hadn't done that,

814
00:46:02,239 --> 00:46:05,520
Speaker 1: there never would have been uh any kind of like

815
00:46:05,640 --> 00:46:09,479
Speaker 1: water to land dwelling vertebrate transition. Yeah, I mean maybe

816
00:46:09,480 --> 00:46:12,480
Speaker 1: that's part of like an American exceptionalism, right, kind of

817
00:46:13,360 --> 00:46:16,480
Speaker 1: kind of you know, accidentally drained into our science. God,

818
00:46:16,560 --> 00:46:20,360
Speaker 1: that fish, really it was a freethinker. It really changed everything.

819
00:46:21,640 --> 00:46:24,919
Speaker 1: It's the great Man theory of history exactly. Of course

820
00:46:24,920 --> 00:46:28,320
Speaker 1: we got no time for that, but hey, this story

821
00:46:28,440 --> 00:46:31,520
Speaker 1: also deals to the practical effects of time travel, something

822
00:46:31,600 --> 00:46:35,719
Speaker 1: that unfortunately again is in in the speculative realm. But

823
00:46:35,760 --> 00:46:39,120
Speaker 1: at least we can offer some informed criticism even if

824
00:46:39,160 --> 00:46:41,960
Speaker 1: we can't have a like, you know, a proven scientific

825
00:46:42,000 --> 00:46:44,600
Speaker 1: theory about time travel. So one of the things we

826
00:46:44,640 --> 00:46:46,960
Speaker 1: often point out on the show is that, of course

827
00:46:47,000 --> 00:46:49,600
Speaker 1: time travel into the future is easy. In fact, you're

828
00:46:49,640 --> 00:46:52,799
Speaker 1: doing it right now in more ways than in more

829
00:46:52,840 --> 00:46:54,799
Speaker 1: than one, more than one way, more way than one,

830
00:46:54,880 --> 00:46:58,280
Speaker 1: more ways than one anyway. You are traveling into the future,

831
00:46:58,360 --> 00:47:00,640
Speaker 1: of course, at a rate of one set can per second.

832
00:47:00,719 --> 00:47:04,640
Speaker 1: But beyond that, you are in fact time traveling into

833
00:47:04,640 --> 00:47:07,719
Speaker 1: the future in the way that many stories imagine, meaning

834
00:47:07,760 --> 00:47:11,200
Speaker 1: you're going into the future faster than other things are.

835
00:47:11,400 --> 00:47:14,880
Speaker 1: Because of time dilation effects, you're closer to the center

836
00:47:14,920 --> 00:47:17,719
Speaker 1: of gravity of Earth, so you are actually going into

837
00:47:17,719 --> 00:47:21,239
Speaker 1: the future faster than objects farther away from the center

838
00:47:21,280 --> 00:47:23,000
Speaker 1: of gravity of Earth that are moving at the same

839
00:47:23,080 --> 00:47:27,520
Speaker 1: velocity as you. Also, because you're moving faster, that's dilating

840
00:47:27,560 --> 00:47:30,400
Speaker 1: time in a way, speeding up your travel into the future.

841
00:47:30,880 --> 00:47:33,440
Speaker 1: If you get in a spaceship and travel even even

842
00:47:33,520 --> 00:47:36,960
Speaker 1: faster than you will even more greatly speed up your

843
00:47:37,000 --> 00:47:40,760
Speaker 1: relative travel into the future. You will get old slower

844
00:47:40,800 --> 00:47:42,960
Speaker 1: than things that are not traveling with you in that

845
00:47:43,000 --> 00:47:46,160
Speaker 1: fast moving spaceship. So yeah, time travel into the future

846
00:47:46,280 --> 00:47:49,880
Speaker 1: is totally real, proven feature of relativity, and it's just

847
00:47:50,640 --> 00:47:54,040
Speaker 1: it's actually almost kind of easy. Um. On the other hand,

848
00:47:54,120 --> 00:47:56,280
Speaker 1: we often talk about how time travel into the past

849
00:47:56,400 --> 00:48:00,359
Speaker 1: is perhaps impossible, and if not impossible, at least very

850
00:48:00,480 --> 00:48:03,600
Speaker 1: very hard. Uh, the ways in which it has done.

851
00:48:03,760 --> 00:48:06,319
Speaker 1: I was I was reading a post about this, UH

852
00:48:06,440 --> 00:48:10,840
Speaker 1: on Sean Carroll's blog, The physicist Sean Carroll, Caltech physicist.

853
00:48:10,920 --> 00:48:13,080
Speaker 1: He writes a lot of great, you know, popular science

854
00:48:13,080 --> 00:48:15,600
Speaker 1: writing these days, and he's got a great blog. One

855
00:48:15,640 --> 00:48:17,760
Speaker 1: of his posts from two thousand nine is called rules

856
00:48:17,760 --> 00:48:20,839
Speaker 1: for time travelers, where he just says, Okay, if we

857
00:48:20,840 --> 00:48:24,080
Speaker 1: were to try to make scientifically accurate time travel movies,

858
00:48:24,160 --> 00:48:27,799
Speaker 1: what would happen in them? He argues that traveling into

859
00:48:27,800 --> 00:48:31,359
Speaker 1: the past is difficult, it might not be impossible. If

860
00:48:31,400 --> 00:48:34,120
Speaker 1: you can do it, it would be based on what's

861
00:48:34,200 --> 00:48:37,359
Speaker 1: you know, basically like bridges through space time known as

862
00:48:37,440 --> 00:48:40,840
Speaker 1: closed time like curves. And if it is possible to

863
00:48:40,880 --> 00:48:43,560
Speaker 1: travel into the past. One of the things about this

864
00:48:43,680 --> 00:48:47,040
Speaker 1: is that it is not possible to change the past.

865
00:48:47,560 --> 00:48:50,040
Speaker 1: So you might be able to travel back in time,

866
00:48:50,360 --> 00:48:52,919
Speaker 1: but you couldn't create a paradox by say, going back

867
00:48:52,960 --> 00:48:56,280
Speaker 1: and killing your grandfather or whatever, so that you never existed.

868
00:48:56,640 --> 00:48:59,560
Speaker 1: In fact, anything you went back into the past and

869
00:48:59,680 --> 00:49:03,120
Speaker 1: did you would find was in fact already part of

870
00:49:03,160 --> 00:49:05,920
Speaker 1: the past in the future that you came from. That's

871
00:49:05,960 --> 00:49:08,799
Speaker 1: the paradox of the whole situation, right, I mean, And that, yeah,

872
00:49:08,840 --> 00:49:11,520
Speaker 1: that makes it kind of weird because that seems to

873
00:49:11,719 --> 00:49:14,440
Speaker 1: sort of create a paradox as well, like it's the

874
00:49:14,760 --> 00:49:18,520
Speaker 1: closed time loop like you see in the original Terminator movie. Uh,

875
00:49:18,600 --> 00:49:21,360
Speaker 1: there's a boy who exists or a person who exists

876
00:49:21,440 --> 00:49:24,080
Speaker 1: only because somebody from the future was sent back in

877
00:49:24,160 --> 00:49:28,040
Speaker 1: time by him to become his father. So like, how

878
00:49:28,120 --> 00:49:32,640
Speaker 1: how did that closed loop get initiated? So anyway, backward

879
00:49:32,680 --> 00:49:35,560
Speaker 1: time travel still generally smells rotten to me. But but

880
00:49:35,680 --> 00:49:39,200
Speaker 1: Carol saying, if it's possible, if it's possible at all,

881
00:49:39,280 --> 00:49:43,160
Speaker 1: you can't change the past. You you know, whatever's done

882
00:49:43,280 --> 00:49:45,840
Speaker 1: is done. That just is the past, even if you

883
00:49:45,880 --> 00:49:48,960
Speaker 1: can go back. Also, another point he makes is that

884
00:49:49,080 --> 00:49:52,240
Speaker 1: you can't travel back in time to before the time

885
00:49:52,280 --> 00:49:55,799
Speaker 1: machine was invented. He says, you know, maybe you can

886
00:49:55,800 --> 00:49:58,319
Speaker 1: travel back to a point you know, you've got a

887
00:49:58,360 --> 00:50:00,600
Speaker 1: time machine later and you can travel act to when

888
00:50:00,680 --> 00:50:03,319
Speaker 1: the time machine was made, But you can't travel back

889
00:50:03,360 --> 00:50:05,960
Speaker 1: to the Middle Ages or something like that, because you

890
00:50:05,960 --> 00:50:08,759
Speaker 1: get paradoxes again, which takes some of the fun out

891
00:50:08,760 --> 00:50:12,520
Speaker 1: of our timetab travel fiction. But it also would explain

892
00:50:12,560 --> 00:50:15,040
Speaker 1: why we haven't been visited by time travelers. Oh yeah,

893
00:50:15,120 --> 00:50:18,040
Speaker 1: I mean that's always a great question. Now you might

894
00:50:18,080 --> 00:50:20,120
Speaker 1: be thinking, okay, but wait about wait a minute, what

895
00:50:20,160 --> 00:50:23,480
Speaker 1: about like forking branches of time? You know, can't you

896
00:50:23,520 --> 00:50:26,200
Speaker 1: like fork off into different branches of time? You know?

897
00:50:26,280 --> 00:50:29,640
Speaker 1: Even Sean Carroll, he he adheres to the many worlds

898
00:50:29,680 --> 00:50:31,960
Speaker 1: theory of quantum mechanics, right, so he thinks that the

899
00:50:32,040 --> 00:50:35,840
Speaker 1: universe is constantly branching off into different realities based on

900
00:50:35,920 --> 00:50:40,280
Speaker 1: the wave function of quantum mechanical objects and events. Um.

901
00:50:40,360 --> 00:50:42,959
Speaker 1: But but even if you accept that, there's no reason

902
00:50:43,000 --> 00:50:45,520
Speaker 1: to think that traveling back into time would somehow give

903
00:50:45,560 --> 00:50:49,279
Speaker 1: you access to different quantum realities. It just seems like

904
00:50:49,719 --> 00:50:52,520
Speaker 1: you know you're here, You're here, this is the one

905
00:50:52,600 --> 00:50:56,160
Speaker 1: you have access to. You can't interact with other quantum realities.

906
00:50:56,360 --> 00:50:59,520
Speaker 1: By definition, you can't interact with them. That's what makes

907
00:50:59,520 --> 00:51:03,799
Speaker 1: them differ realities. So unfortunately, I don't think you you know,

908
00:51:03,840 --> 00:51:06,120
Speaker 1: if you don't like the your lot in life today

909
00:51:06,160 --> 00:51:08,560
Speaker 1: and you want to change things, I don't think you

910
00:51:08,560 --> 00:51:10,360
Speaker 1: can do it by going back and stomping on a

911
00:51:10,400 --> 00:51:15,560
Speaker 1: fish or even a butterfly. Still, great episode of tree

912
00:51:15,600 --> 00:51:17,920
Speaker 1: House of Horror, so good, and and I do recommend

913
00:51:17,920 --> 00:51:20,319
Speaker 1: that Ray brad Berry a theater episode as well. I

914
00:51:20,360 --> 00:51:23,440
Speaker 1: believe you can find the full thing on one of

915
00:51:23,440 --> 00:51:26,400
Speaker 1: the video streaming sites if you love bad movies. I

916
00:51:26,440 --> 00:51:29,000
Speaker 1: also recommend the two thousand five movie. It's It's one

917
00:51:29,040 --> 00:51:31,759
Speaker 1: for the c g ages. All right, Well, let's move

918
00:51:31,760 --> 00:51:34,640
Speaker 1: on to another one, shall we all right? So, Joe,

919
00:51:34,760 --> 00:51:38,239
Speaker 1: you've flown with me before, Yes, so you probably have

920
00:51:38,320 --> 00:51:41,480
Speaker 1: observed that then I'm kind of a slightly nervous flyer.

921
00:51:41,719 --> 00:51:44,560
Speaker 1: I like to try to be a calm, reassuring presence,

922
00:51:45,640 --> 00:51:47,640
Speaker 1: trying not to raise my voice around you when we're

923
00:51:47,640 --> 00:51:50,759
Speaker 1: getting onto an airplane. Yeah, and I have to say,

924
00:51:50,880 --> 00:51:53,239
Speaker 1: you know, I don't have anywhere near the difficulty that

925
00:51:53,320 --> 00:51:55,640
Speaker 1: I know some people struggle with when it comes to flying.

926
00:51:55,719 --> 00:51:59,000
Speaker 1: But yeah, I've I found myself grow more anxious when

927
00:51:59,000 --> 00:52:01,879
Speaker 1: it comes to flights in recent years, and I've I've

928
00:52:01,920 --> 00:52:05,560
Speaker 1: been able to successfully uh manage this to to a

929
00:52:05,560 --> 00:52:09,680
Speaker 1: certain degree, uh with a little uh Zanex, a little

930
00:52:09,880 --> 00:52:14,319
Speaker 1: Steve Roach and being electronic music, maybe a little biosphere uh.

931
00:52:14,320 --> 00:52:16,239
Speaker 1: And then that seems to do the do the job.

932
00:52:16,320 --> 00:52:18,759
Speaker 1: It makes me a more pleasant flyer, it makes me

933
00:52:18,840 --> 00:52:21,880
Speaker 1: more pleasant to be around when I'm flying. But so,

934
00:52:22,200 --> 00:52:27,560
Speaker 1: given this reality, I couldn't help but discuss the classic

935
00:52:27,800 --> 00:52:32,400
Speaker 1: Twilight Zone episode from October of nineteen sixte uh Nightmare

936
00:52:32,480 --> 00:52:36,400
Speaker 1: at twenty thousand feet based I should point out on

937
00:52:36,480 --> 00:52:40,000
Speaker 1: the Richard mathieson short story Alone by Night, Isn't it great?

938
00:52:40,040 --> 00:52:45,160
Speaker 1: How many of these shorts come from great short stories

939
00:52:45,200 --> 00:52:47,640
Speaker 1: by sci fi writers. Yeah. I mean we're gonna get

940
00:52:47,680 --> 00:52:51,000
Speaker 1: to some that are not based on terrible stories, true,

941
00:52:51,040 --> 00:52:53,000
Speaker 1: but but yeah, so far we've been talking about some

942
00:52:53,040 --> 00:52:58,160
Speaker 1: big names here. Uh Richard Matheson, Uh what is was

943
00:52:58,239 --> 00:53:02,040
Speaker 1: a legend? Um. This episode, of course, is famous because

944
00:53:02,040 --> 00:53:05,200
Speaker 1: it also started with him Shatner. Uh so just a

945
00:53:05,280 --> 00:53:08,200
Speaker 1: quick thing. Oh yeah, he's he's pretty good at this.

946
00:53:09,120 --> 00:53:11,400
Speaker 1: But and he was in at least a couple of

947
00:53:11,440 --> 00:53:14,120
Speaker 1: Twilight Zones, maybe more. I remember there being at least

948
00:53:14,160 --> 00:53:16,279
Speaker 1: another one he was in. Yeah, what was he He

949
00:53:16,320 --> 00:53:18,319
Speaker 1: was in one that had like a what was it

950
00:53:18,360 --> 00:53:23,480
Speaker 1: a jukebox napkin napkin dispenser? Yeah? Why why did I

951
00:53:23,520 --> 00:53:26,120
Speaker 1: think juke box it like to spit out fortunes or

952
00:53:26,160 --> 00:53:28,640
Speaker 1: somethingthing to that effect. Yeah, it's like a fortune cookie

953
00:53:28,719 --> 00:53:32,160
Speaker 1: napkin dispenser. I'm blanking on the details. He's not nearly

954
00:53:32,200 --> 00:53:34,880
Speaker 1: the same as this episode. So in this one, William

955
00:53:34,880 --> 00:53:38,480
Speaker 1: Shatner plays a nervous flyer who witnesses a creature on

956
00:53:38,520 --> 00:53:42,239
Speaker 1: the wing of the plane during flight. Um, and he

957
00:53:42,280 --> 00:53:45,000
Speaker 1: has in the episode he has he's just bouncing back

958
00:53:45,040 --> 00:53:48,360
Speaker 1: from a nervous breakdown a board of flight, So everyone's

959
00:53:48,400 --> 00:53:50,600
Speaker 1: doubting him when he starts reporting seeing a creature on

960
00:53:50,640 --> 00:53:53,200
Speaker 1: the wing of the plane. Uh this, so what what

961
00:53:53,320 --> 00:53:56,479
Speaker 1: is essentially a grimlin? Though it's kind of a YETI suit.

962
00:53:56,719 --> 00:53:58,960
Speaker 1: It's like a combination of a YETI suit and it

963
00:53:59,040 --> 00:54:01,920
Speaker 1: also kind of looks like that dog down the hall

964
00:54:01,960 --> 00:54:04,759
Speaker 1: and the scene in the Shining. Yeah, it's not a

965
00:54:04,800 --> 00:54:08,080
Speaker 1: great monster suit, but the episode is so solid it

966
00:54:08,440 --> 00:54:10,560
Speaker 1: somehow works. And I guess it makes sense that it

967
00:54:10,560 --> 00:54:12,640
Speaker 1: would be furry if it's at such a height. You know,

968
00:54:12,680 --> 00:54:15,600
Speaker 1: it's cold up there. Um I should point out I

969
00:54:15,600 --> 00:54:18,880
Speaker 1: said it's a grimlin. Well it's a pre Magua Grimlin

970
00:54:18,920 --> 00:54:21,800
Speaker 1: of a pre gremlins, and grimlins to gremlin, not the

971
00:54:21,880 --> 00:54:25,160
Speaker 1: Joe Dante kind, right, Yeah, this is, you know, essentially

972
00:54:25,320 --> 00:54:28,840
Speaker 1: the folkloric creature that messes with technology, an idea that

973
00:54:28,920 --> 00:54:31,680
Speaker 1: spread especially during World War Two. So if something went

974
00:54:31,719 --> 00:54:35,120
Speaker 1: wrong with your airplane engine, you'd say they're gremlins in there, right.

975
00:54:35,680 --> 00:54:37,759
Speaker 1: So in this episode, the crew attempts to state and

976
00:54:37,800 --> 00:54:40,120
Speaker 1: I think they even give them a pill shatter or

977
00:54:40,160 --> 00:54:42,800
Speaker 1: not the gremlin, right, they don't. Nobody sees the gremlin.

978
00:54:42,840 --> 00:54:46,000
Speaker 1: They're just like here take this pill crazy person. Um.

979
00:54:46,400 --> 00:54:49,440
Speaker 1: By the way, good luck trying to get any kind

980
00:54:49,440 --> 00:54:54,920
Speaker 1: of sedatives out of out of the crew of your flight. Semifly,

981
00:54:55,160 --> 00:54:57,359
Speaker 1: that's the policy. You can't ask for them. You have

982
00:54:57,480 --> 00:55:00,680
Speaker 1: to say you see monsters, and then you'll get them. Yeah.

983
00:55:00,680 --> 00:55:03,239
Speaker 1: So he's raving about the creature and finally like the

984
00:55:03,239 --> 00:55:06,480
Speaker 1: plane lands, he's rolled away in a straight jacket. But

985
00:55:06,640 --> 00:55:09,680
Speaker 1: as he's rolled away, he sees the claw marks on

986
00:55:09,719 --> 00:55:12,160
Speaker 1: the outside of the plane, the proof on the engine

987
00:55:12,200 --> 00:55:15,520
Speaker 1: that the monster was tearing apart the plane. He was

988
00:55:15,600 --> 00:55:18,439
Speaker 1: right all along. He's not the insane person. In fact,

989
00:55:18,480 --> 00:55:21,239
Speaker 1: he's the only same person of course. This uh. This,

990
00:55:21,400 --> 00:55:25,160
Speaker 1: this episode was also recreated in the three film Twilight Zone,

991
00:55:25,200 --> 00:55:28,800
Speaker 1: the movie in which John Liftgau played the lead played

992
00:55:28,800 --> 00:55:32,839
Speaker 1: the nervous flyer. Uh. And he's absolutely wonderful in that uh.

993
00:55:32,880 --> 00:55:35,080
Speaker 1: And oh and by the way, George Miller of Mad

994
00:55:35,120 --> 00:55:38,920
Speaker 1: Max directed that that segment in the film. I like

995
00:55:39,040 --> 00:55:42,120
Speaker 1: the gremlin in the in the movie version. Yeah, there's

996
00:55:42,440 --> 00:55:44,640
Speaker 1: the movie version. Grim one is a lot more frightening.

997
00:55:45,000 --> 00:55:47,520
Speaker 1: And then also there's a Treehouse of Horror that did

998
00:55:47,520 --> 00:55:49,040
Speaker 1: this as well. When they do it with the school

999
00:55:49,040 --> 00:55:52,000
Speaker 1: bus right tere at five and a half feet. Uh yeah,

1000
00:55:52,080 --> 00:55:54,400
Speaker 1: it's it's pretty wonderful as well, and then does a

1001
00:55:54,400 --> 00:55:58,320
Speaker 1: great job of delivering exactly the same story essentially, except

1002
00:55:58,400 --> 00:56:00,360
Speaker 1: with it's on the outside of the school us right.

1003
00:56:00,440 --> 00:56:03,400
Speaker 1: Uh yeah. And then when they put barton the ambulance

1004
00:56:03,440 --> 00:56:06,439
Speaker 1: at the end, it follows him under the ambulance. Yes, yes,

1005
00:56:06,920 --> 00:56:09,360
Speaker 1: that's a nice twist, like they added sometimes the Treehouse

1006
00:56:09,360 --> 00:56:11,799
Speaker 1: of Horrors, Like they add a little extra element to

1007
00:56:11,840 --> 00:56:16,600
Speaker 1: the existing story and it really works. So the science

1008
00:56:16,640 --> 00:56:19,120
Speaker 1: of this, well, uh, you know, we could probably have

1009
00:56:19,200 --> 00:56:23,279
Speaker 1: a really rich discussion about flying anxieties in general. We've

1010
00:56:23,320 --> 00:56:26,480
Speaker 1: touched on it before in our Escape Pod episode. You know,

1011
00:56:26,520 --> 00:56:28,759
Speaker 1: we we we trust ourselves over to the machine and

1012
00:56:28,800 --> 00:56:31,760
Speaker 1: the people, companies and regulations that ensure everything is working.

1013
00:56:32,200 --> 00:56:34,959
Speaker 1: There's a loss of agency and flying and I feel

1014
00:56:34,960 --> 00:56:38,600
Speaker 1: like it's you're just you're constantly reminded or are reminding

1015
00:56:38,680 --> 00:56:43,879
Speaker 1: yourself about the potential undesirable possibilities. I mean, it's it's

1016
00:56:43,880 --> 00:56:47,560
Speaker 1: like standing atop of mountain when you look out and

1017
00:56:47,600 --> 00:56:50,359
Speaker 1: you see the height that you have achieved, not through

1018
00:56:50,400 --> 00:56:53,600
Speaker 1: any skill of your own, but just through the technology

1019
00:56:53,640 --> 00:56:56,120
Speaker 1: and people surrounding it. It's like being deposited on the

1020
00:56:56,120 --> 00:56:59,600
Speaker 1: top of the mountain. Yes, it's a little bit less empowering. Yeah,

1021
00:57:00,000 --> 00:57:02,880
Speaker 1: airplanes are are sort of great to look at it

1022
00:57:03,320 --> 00:57:06,799
Speaker 1: when you're thinking about fear, because they combine so many

1023
00:57:06,840 --> 00:57:10,800
Speaker 1: different kinds of phobia triggers for people. Um. Of course,

1024
00:57:10,840 --> 00:57:12,960
Speaker 1: there's just fear of like heights and stuff, you know,

1025
00:57:13,040 --> 00:57:15,320
Speaker 1: looking out the window and looking down that that can

1026
00:57:15,440 --> 00:57:18,920
Speaker 1: upset people. There is fear of an accident of the

1027
00:57:18,960 --> 00:57:21,600
Speaker 1: plane crashing, but there's also just a fear that has

1028
00:57:21,640 --> 00:57:24,960
Speaker 1: always been more salient for me whenever I've had airplane

1029
00:57:24,960 --> 00:57:28,160
Speaker 1: fear is mainly what it is is, um, what do

1030
00:57:28,200 --> 00:57:29,920
Speaker 1: you call it? Here? It's a sort of a type

1031
00:57:29,960 --> 00:57:33,600
Speaker 1: of a variety of claustrophobia, I guess where um, not

1032
00:57:33,720 --> 00:57:36,320
Speaker 1: being able to leave a place when you want to.

1033
00:57:37,160 --> 00:57:40,120
Speaker 1: You know the idea that like, okay, for so many hours,

1034
00:57:40,160 --> 00:57:42,400
Speaker 1: I'm stuck here and I could not get off if

1035
00:57:42,440 --> 00:57:45,040
Speaker 1: I wanted to. Yeah, the most I can do is

1036
00:57:45,800 --> 00:57:48,360
Speaker 1: go through a lot of rigamar role to walk down

1037
00:57:48,360 --> 00:57:51,800
Speaker 1: the hallway and you can use a very difficult bathroom,

1038
00:57:51,920 --> 00:57:54,360
Speaker 1: uh and potentially have to wait in line. Yeah, I

1039
00:57:54,400 --> 00:57:56,880
Speaker 1: guess that's the type of fear. There's also just like, uh,

1040
00:57:57,520 --> 00:58:00,920
Speaker 1: I know, airplanes are are a particular type of agoraphobia

1041
00:58:00,960 --> 00:58:03,479
Speaker 1: trigger for some people, where you know, like the fear

1042
00:58:03,560 --> 00:58:06,280
Speaker 1: of losing control or having a panic attack or something

1043
00:58:06,320 --> 00:58:08,880
Speaker 1: like that in a public place, and that itself can

1044
00:58:08,880 --> 00:58:11,680
Speaker 1: trigger anxieties. And then on top of that, you've got

1045
00:58:11,680 --> 00:58:14,760
Speaker 1: the travel anxieties leading into it, you know, because inevitably

1046
00:58:14,760 --> 00:58:16,720
Speaker 1: you had to get to that airport, you had to

1047
00:58:16,760 --> 00:58:20,600
Speaker 1: get through security, purity, and you know, maybe customs if

1048
00:58:20,600 --> 00:58:22,160
Speaker 1: you're on the other line, like there, They're all these

1049
00:58:22,160 --> 00:58:24,880
Speaker 1: other stresses added on top of it makes for you know,

1050
00:58:25,280 --> 00:58:27,720
Speaker 1: a very stressful day of travel. Really, in my experience,

1051
00:58:27,800 --> 00:58:30,160
Speaker 1: there would be a lot of problems solved if airports

1052
00:58:30,240 --> 00:58:33,320
Speaker 1: would actually just play you knows music for airports, yeah,

1053
00:58:33,320 --> 00:58:39,200
Speaker 1: instead of CNN yeah on the TV, instead of instead

1054
00:58:39,200 --> 00:58:41,720
Speaker 1: of Eno, I don't get it, Yeah, play me something calming,

1055
00:58:42,320 --> 00:58:46,240
Speaker 1: just like ENOS music, and just scenes the scenes from

1056
00:58:46,400 --> 00:58:50,960
Speaker 1: Legend of Unicorns drinking water. That's all I need. No goblins.

1057
00:58:51,480 --> 00:58:52,800
Speaker 1: So I guess the thing we should talk about is

1058
00:58:53,360 --> 00:58:56,040
Speaker 1: the idea that this is a nightmare at twenty thou feet?

1059
00:58:56,040 --> 00:58:59,320
Speaker 1: What what is the feet about? Right? Uh? To put

1060
00:58:59,320 --> 00:59:01,960
Speaker 1: this in perspect to the top of Mount Everest is

1061
00:59:02,440 --> 00:59:05,080
Speaker 1: twenty nine thousand and twenty eight feet above sea level.

1062
00:59:05,640 --> 00:59:08,640
Speaker 1: But that's also quite a bit below the Carmen line

1063
00:59:08,800 --> 00:59:12,080
Speaker 1: at three thirty thousand feet, which is generally considered the

1064
00:59:12,520 --> 00:59:15,200
Speaker 1: rough boundary between the atmosphere in space. And I say

1065
00:59:15,280 --> 00:59:18,040
Speaker 1: rough because it's not like the atmosphere just stops. There's

1066
00:59:18,040 --> 00:59:22,520
Speaker 1: more of a tapering off. Now for modern flyers such

1067
00:59:22,600 --> 00:59:26,360
Speaker 1: as ourselves, we're generally working with a cruising altitude. And

1068
00:59:26,360 --> 00:59:29,720
Speaker 1: cruising altitude, you know, that's that's when you've achieved, you know,

1069
00:59:29,760 --> 00:59:32,760
Speaker 1: the altitude that you're gonna have for the main portion

1070
00:59:32,800 --> 00:59:35,360
Speaker 1: of your flight. You're not ascending or descending. You're just

1071
00:59:35,720 --> 00:59:40,760
Speaker 1: achieving an optimal altitude, optimal speed, et cetera. But it's

1072
00:59:40,800 --> 00:59:43,440
Speaker 1: generally going to be somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty

1073
00:59:43,520 --> 00:59:47,120
Speaker 1: three thousand feet to forty two thousand feet. So according

1074
00:59:47,120 --> 00:59:49,640
Speaker 1: to the USA Today article of what is the altitude

1075
00:59:49,640 --> 00:59:51,840
Speaker 1: of a plane in flight, the upper limit is generally

1076
00:59:51,920 --> 00:59:56,240
Speaker 1: the domain of private jets because that's gonna be more about, Yeah,

1077
00:59:56,240 --> 00:59:58,040
Speaker 1: we want to get where we're going. Uh, you know,

1078
00:59:58,160 --> 01:00:00,520
Speaker 1: price isn't much of an option, But with commercial flights,

1079
01:00:00,960 --> 01:00:04,320
Speaker 1: everything is kind of a careful algorithm, like, how can

1080
01:00:04,360 --> 01:00:06,920
Speaker 1: we do this in the most cost effective way possible

1081
01:00:07,200 --> 01:00:09,919
Speaker 1: and the safest way possible. But for the rest of us, Yeah,

1082
01:00:09,960 --> 01:00:12,160
Speaker 1: we're gonna be, you know, somewhere closer to that thirty

1083
01:00:12,160 --> 01:00:16,360
Speaker 1: three thousand uh foot altitude. It's gonna be this sweet

1084
01:00:16,360 --> 01:00:18,560
Speaker 1: spot where the ear is thin enough to reduce drag,

1085
01:00:18,600 --> 01:00:21,400
Speaker 1: but there's still enough oxygen for the engines. Plus it

1086
01:00:21,440 --> 01:00:25,360
Speaker 1: allows them to fly overmost weather, which is located further

1087
01:00:25,400 --> 01:00:29,400
Speaker 1: down in the troposphere. So we're talking about minimal turbulence,

1088
01:00:29,560 --> 01:00:34,080
Speaker 1: which is exactly how I like to consume the word turbulence. Now,

1089
01:00:34,120 --> 01:00:37,840
Speaker 1: I would guess at normal cruising altitude because cabins have

1090
01:00:37,960 --> 01:00:40,480
Speaker 1: to be pressurized, Like you couldn't just like breathe the

1091
01:00:40,560 --> 01:00:43,720
Speaker 1: air at that height, right, Yeah, since we're flying above

1092
01:00:43,760 --> 01:00:47,160
Speaker 1: ten thousand feet, airliners are are pressurized, hence those little

1093
01:00:47,240 --> 01:00:52,040
Speaker 1: drop down mass for oxygen in the event of cabin depressurization. Now,

1094
01:00:52,120 --> 01:00:54,520
Speaker 1: of course, the Twilight Zone episode, the original one, takes

1095
01:00:54,560 --> 01:00:57,560
Speaker 1: place in the early nineteen sixties, so it made me

1096
01:00:57,600 --> 01:01:00,400
Speaker 1: think what sort of altitudes were we talking about here? Well,

1097
01:01:00,440 --> 01:01:03,360
Speaker 1: I was reading a longing for the Golden Age of

1098
01:01:03,400 --> 01:01:06,160
Speaker 1: air travel. Be Careful what you wish for by history

1099
01:01:06,160 --> 01:01:11,080
Speaker 1: professor Janet bed Narnick on the conversation, and she points

1100
01:01:11,080 --> 01:01:14,200
Speaker 1: out some key factors in flying during this time period,

1101
01:01:14,280 --> 01:01:17,000
Speaker 1: and as the title implies, why you'd be better, far

1102
01:01:17,040 --> 01:01:20,320
Speaker 1: better off flying now as opposed to that Golden age,

1103
01:01:20,360 --> 01:01:22,760
Speaker 1: no matter how cool it looks on you know, stuff

1104
01:01:22,800 --> 01:01:25,160
Speaker 1: like mad Men. Yeah, but can you smoke a pipe

1105
01:01:25,160 --> 01:01:28,440
Speaker 1: on a plane today? Well? Yeah, these are the things

1106
01:01:28,480 --> 01:01:31,560
Speaker 1: people get nostalgic about. I guess if they're smokers. So

1107
01:01:31,880 --> 01:01:34,120
Speaker 1: she points out that prior to the introduction of jets

1108
01:01:34,120 --> 01:01:39,200
Speaker 1: in night, the transatlantic commercial flight might last something like

1109
01:01:39,280 --> 01:01:43,760
Speaker 1: fifteen hours and they had a maximum cruising altitude altitude

1110
01:01:43,800 --> 01:01:47,000
Speaker 1: of ten to twelve thousand feet, meaning that they couldn't

1111
01:01:47,040 --> 01:01:50,640
Speaker 1: fly over bad weather. So you thought modern delays were bad,

1112
01:01:51,000 --> 01:01:53,600
Speaker 1: No way. Basically like, if the weather was bad, you

1113
01:01:53,720 --> 01:01:56,280
Speaker 1: just too bad to fly through it, and then it

1114
01:01:56,320 --> 01:02:00,200
Speaker 1: wasn't gonna happen. The then you had the propelled were

1115
01:02:00,320 --> 01:02:04,120
Speaker 1: driven Boeing Strato cruiser come along, for example, that could

1116
01:02:04,320 --> 01:02:07,840
Speaker 1: see fifty first class passengers or one coach passengers and

1117
01:02:08,000 --> 01:02:11,240
Speaker 1: it could cruise at thirty two feet above most of

1118
01:02:11,240 --> 01:02:15,000
Speaker 1: the weather. But during its heyday, only fifty six were

1119
01:02:15,000 --> 01:02:18,440
Speaker 1: active in the entire world. So that's the other thing

1120
01:02:18,440 --> 01:02:21,320
Speaker 1: we have to realize. Now, It's like the commercial flight

1121
01:02:21,520 --> 01:02:24,560
Speaker 1: world is just so much vaster than it was uh

1122
01:02:24,680 --> 01:02:27,880
Speaker 1: in the in previous times. Later we got the d

1123
01:02:27,960 --> 01:02:31,560
Speaker 1: C six and the d C seven, both pressure pressurized planes,

1124
01:02:31,840 --> 01:02:34,440
Speaker 1: but they had to fly at lower altitudes. Guess what

1125
01:02:34,560 --> 01:02:38,120
Speaker 1: we're talking twenty thou feet. So that's where we I

1126
01:02:38,120 --> 01:02:40,720
Speaker 1: think come back around to uh, to the to the

1127
01:02:40,720 --> 01:02:43,680
Speaker 1: Twilight Zone episode. Uh. Here for the for these flights,

1128
01:02:43,680 --> 01:02:47,600
Speaker 1: turbulence was common. The engines were difficult to maintain, and

1129
01:02:47,600 --> 01:02:51,320
Speaker 1: this resulted in frequent delays. Uh. So this just matches

1130
01:02:51,400 --> 01:02:54,240
Speaker 1: up perfectly with the ZIGRIDGM idea the Twilight Zone concerned

1131
01:02:54,240 --> 01:02:59,040
Speaker 1: about the you know what the engines are doing, engine malfunctions, turbulence, uh,

1132
01:02:59,360 --> 01:03:02,760
Speaker 1: all happening at around twenty thou feet. Now, I must

1133
01:03:02,800 --> 01:03:06,480
Speaker 1: notice in in Nightmare twenty feet that the windows on

1134
01:03:06,520 --> 01:03:09,400
Speaker 1: the airplane look very large compared to the windows on

1135
01:03:09,440 --> 01:03:11,960
Speaker 1: a plane today. You know, I didn't I didn't look

1136
01:03:11,960 --> 01:03:13,960
Speaker 1: into this as much. I wonder if that's just so

1137
01:03:13,960 --> 01:03:16,080
Speaker 1: you can see the monster through it, or they used

1138
01:03:16,920 --> 01:03:20,680
Speaker 1: an actual fuselage. Yeah, I didn't research that particular aspect

1139
01:03:20,720 --> 01:03:23,720
Speaker 1: of it, huh so. But Nerik also makes some other

1140
01:03:23,760 --> 01:03:27,240
Speaker 1: important notes about safety at the time, because ultimately this

1141
01:03:27,280 --> 01:03:31,840
Speaker 1: is a film about airline safety and fear of of

1142
01:03:31,840 --> 01:03:35,240
Speaker 1: of bad things happening during a flight. She points out

1143
01:03:35,280 --> 01:03:38,160
Speaker 1: in the nineteen fifties and the nineteen sixties, US airlines

1144
01:03:38,200 --> 01:03:41,480
Speaker 1: experienced at least a half dozen crashes per year, most

1145
01:03:41,600 --> 01:03:44,120
Speaker 1: leading to fate to the fatalities of everyone on board.

1146
01:03:44,560 --> 01:03:48,160
Speaker 1: Compare that to seventeen, the safest year on record in

1147
01:03:48,160 --> 01:03:52,840
Speaker 1: commercial air history, zero accidental deaths in commercial passenger jets,

1148
01:03:53,000 --> 01:03:57,800
Speaker 1: and that's with many more flights, tremendously more flights. Uh

1149
01:03:57,920 --> 01:04:02,840
Speaker 1: Dutch aviation consulting firm uh to seventy estimated that the

1150
01:04:02,880 --> 01:04:06,960
Speaker 1: fatal accident rate for large commercial passenger of flights is

1151
01:04:07,320 --> 01:04:11,040
Speaker 1: point zero six per million flights, or one fatal accident

1152
01:04:11,080 --> 01:04:14,720
Speaker 1: for every sixteen million flights. I would suggest by that

1153
01:04:14,800 --> 01:04:19,840
Speaker 1: calculation that it appears gremlins are either extinct or endangered. Yeah,

1154
01:04:19,920 --> 01:04:21,160
Speaker 1: that would seem to be the case. Like this is

1155
01:04:21,240 --> 01:04:24,320
Speaker 1: ultimately a story that speaks more to an earlier age

1156
01:04:24,520 --> 01:04:28,560
Speaker 1: of of commercial air travel, despite the fact that every

1157
01:04:28,560 --> 01:04:31,320
Speaker 1: time I fly, legitimately, every time I fly, if I

1158
01:04:31,360 --> 01:04:33,440
Speaker 1: look out the window and I see the wing, I

1159
01:04:33,480 --> 01:04:37,040
Speaker 1: think of this Twilight Zone episode. Yeah, not that I

1160
01:04:37,120 --> 01:04:39,440
Speaker 1: like freak out about the possibility of an actual gremlin,

1161
01:04:39,760 --> 01:04:42,040
Speaker 1: but I still I can't help but think think about it.

1162
01:04:42,040 --> 01:04:44,120
Speaker 1: It's just always been there. But I'd like to turn

1163
01:04:44,160 --> 01:04:48,360
Speaker 1: to the biological element of nightmare twenty feet. What sort

1164
01:04:48,400 --> 01:04:53,560
Speaker 1: of organism can actually become a factor at that altitude? Well,

1165
01:04:54,160 --> 01:04:56,560
Speaker 1: I mean, I know there there are bacteria that live

1166
01:04:56,600 --> 01:05:00,240
Speaker 1: in clouds, but are there are there large animal that

1167
01:05:00,400 --> 01:05:03,600
Speaker 1: fly up that high? That's a great question because we're

1168
01:05:03,600 --> 01:05:07,880
Speaker 1: talking about some extreme heights here, right, Um. And again, well,

1169
01:05:07,880 --> 01:05:12,360
Speaker 1: you know, we require pressurized cabins and or masks to

1170
01:05:12,360 --> 01:05:15,800
Speaker 1: to survive up there. Everything has to be uh, you know, temperature,

1171
01:05:15,880 --> 01:05:19,800
Speaker 1: The temperature has to be carefully maintained. But evolution delivers

1172
01:05:19,920 --> 01:05:23,080
Speaker 1: certain bird species to these lofty heights as well, and yes,

1173
01:05:23,360 --> 01:05:27,520
Speaker 1: some of them can pose grave danger to flights. These

1174
01:05:27,560 --> 01:05:30,720
Speaker 1: are of course referred to as bird strikes, um, which

1175
01:05:30,720 --> 01:05:34,680
Speaker 1: which are when they occur, can be pretty pretty terrible.

1176
01:05:34,840 --> 01:05:38,040
Speaker 1: I've read that most bird strikes are encountered at below

1177
01:05:38,080 --> 01:05:40,520
Speaker 1: ten thousand feet. I've also read that most are actually

1178
01:05:40,520 --> 01:05:43,720
Speaker 1: occurring below three thousand feet, so I mean, I think

1179
01:05:43,720 --> 01:05:45,160
Speaker 1: that should give you an idea, like most of the

1180
01:05:45,160 --> 01:05:49,400
Speaker 1: birds are are are operating at at lower altitudes. When

1181
01:05:49,400 --> 01:05:52,840
Speaker 1: you fly above the weather, you're probably flying above the birds.

1182
01:05:52,880 --> 01:05:56,720
Speaker 1: So as with most things in air travel, the majority

1183
01:05:56,760 --> 01:05:58,560
Speaker 1: of the dangers are going to be closer to take

1184
01:05:58,560 --> 01:06:02,320
Speaker 1: off and landing, not at crewing altitude. Right and and again,

1185
01:06:02,360 --> 01:06:04,120
Speaker 1: they can be pretty dangerous, especially in the event of

1186
01:06:04,120 --> 01:06:06,960
Speaker 1: a double bird strike, where like both engines are hit

1187
01:06:07,560 --> 01:06:11,720
Speaker 1: by the birds. Still, major accidents are few, but we

1188
01:06:11,760 --> 01:06:13,720
Speaker 1: have to consider some of the birds that do get

1189
01:06:13,800 --> 01:06:16,080
Speaker 1: up to some crazy heights. So I just want to

1190
01:06:16,160 --> 01:06:18,080
Speaker 1: run through a few of them here before we get

1191
01:06:18,080 --> 01:06:21,680
Speaker 1: to the like the King of Altitude. Uh, there are

1192
01:06:21,800 --> 01:06:26,400
Speaker 1: migrating white storks which can reach sixteen thousand feet or

1193
01:06:26,520 --> 01:06:31,160
Speaker 1: forty eight hundred meters. They're migrating bar tailed godwits that

1194
01:06:31,240 --> 01:06:34,439
Speaker 1: can that can actually reach twenty thousand feet or six

1195
01:06:34,440 --> 01:06:38,120
Speaker 1: thousand meters. There's the bar headed goose which can get

1196
01:06:38,200 --> 01:06:41,640
Speaker 1: up to twenty nine thousand feet or eight thousand, eight

1197
01:06:41,680 --> 01:06:44,640
Speaker 1: hundred meters. And these guys fly over the tallest mountain

1198
01:06:44,760 --> 01:06:46,880
Speaker 1: ranges on Earth. Why do they go up so high?

1199
01:06:46,880 --> 01:06:50,000
Speaker 1: Do you know? Well, with the earlier species we're talking about,

1200
01:06:50,040 --> 01:06:53,720
Speaker 1: like this ends up being a part of their migration. Um.

1201
01:06:53,760 --> 01:06:56,800
Speaker 1: But the king of all this, the king of altitude,

1202
01:06:56,840 --> 01:07:01,520
Speaker 1: is definitely Ruple's vulture, also known as Ruple's Griffin. Whoa,

1203
01:07:01,920 --> 01:07:06,080
Speaker 1: we're talking a maximum altitude of eleven thousand, three hundred

1204
01:07:06,080 --> 01:07:10,320
Speaker 1: meters or thirty seven thousand, one hundred feet. So these

1205
01:07:10,360 --> 01:07:13,360
Speaker 1: are these are vultures. They're extremely keen of I you

1206
01:07:13,400 --> 01:07:16,560
Speaker 1: know there they have evolved to fly above it all

1207
01:07:16,960 --> 01:07:19,240
Speaker 1: and uh and taking everything beneath. But they can get

1208
01:07:19,320 --> 01:07:22,960
Speaker 1: up to just crazy altitudes. Uh, they're just unchallenged in

1209
01:07:23,000 --> 01:07:25,920
Speaker 1: their ability to do so. Now. Fortunately they're found only

1210
01:07:26,000 --> 01:07:29,280
Speaker 1: in the Sole region of Central Africa. This is a

1211
01:07:29,320 --> 01:07:35,200
Speaker 1: belt stretching across the continent just below the Sahara. But indeed,

1212
01:07:35,280 --> 01:07:39,120
Speaker 1: a bird strike entailing Ruple's vulture actually occurred over the

1213
01:07:39,160 --> 01:07:43,080
Speaker 1: Ivory Coast at an altitude of thirty seven thousand, one

1214
01:07:43,160 --> 01:07:48,400
Speaker 1: hundred feet or eleven thousand, three hundred meters on November three.

1215
01:07:48,760 --> 01:07:52,280
Speaker 1: According to serious vulture hits to aircraft over the world,

1216
01:07:52,320 --> 01:07:55,120
Speaker 1: a two thousand report by the International Bird Strike Committee.

1217
01:07:55,760 --> 01:07:58,880
Speaker 1: Outside temperatures were frigid, there was almost no oxygen, and

1218
01:07:58,960 --> 01:08:02,360
Speaker 1: yet here comes this, uh, this vulture and it hits

1219
01:08:02,360 --> 01:08:05,120
Speaker 1: the plane. So that I think is one of the

1220
01:08:05,320 --> 01:08:07,280
Speaker 1: you know, these are some of the few examples of

1221
01:08:07,440 --> 01:08:10,440
Speaker 1: organisms that are actually going to be going about their

1222
01:08:10,440 --> 01:08:13,800
Speaker 1: normal business, like large organisms, organisms large enough to pose

1223
01:08:13,880 --> 01:08:18,080
Speaker 1: a potential and slim, uh, you know, threat to commercial flights.

1224
01:08:18,520 --> 01:08:23,000
Speaker 1: By the way, I also ran across a story from

1225
01:08:23,040 --> 01:08:26,519
Speaker 1: in which a Ruple's vulture escaped from a bird show

1226
01:08:27,000 --> 01:08:31,200
Speaker 1: in North lack Shear, Scotland, and her name was Gandalf

1227
01:08:32,280 --> 01:08:34,839
Speaker 1: and uh and after she escaped, airports in the area

1228
01:08:34,960 --> 01:08:37,559
Speaker 1: were put on notice, and there was no evidence that

1229
01:08:37,600 --> 01:08:40,559
Speaker 1: she was, you know, ever recovered or anything. Fly are

1230
01:08:40,600 --> 01:08:43,640
Speaker 1: you fools? But but it's it's like, it's kind of

1231
01:08:43,680 --> 01:08:46,400
Speaker 1: an alarming story because it's like, oh, this bird has escaped,

1232
01:08:46,600 --> 01:08:49,120
Speaker 1: and it could there's a very slim chance it could

1233
01:08:49,120 --> 01:08:53,240
Speaker 1: pose a danger to commercial flights in the area. But

1234
01:08:53,520 --> 01:08:56,040
Speaker 1: we should remind you that even with the Ruple's vulture

1235
01:08:56,080 --> 01:08:59,479
Speaker 1: flying around somewhere out there, flying is generally pretty safe

1236
01:08:59,479 --> 01:09:02,360
Speaker 1: these days. Yeah, it's far safer than driving when you

1237
01:09:02,360 --> 01:09:07,200
Speaker 1: break down the statistics again, commercial flying, not necessarily getting

1238
01:09:07,320 --> 01:09:11,320
Speaker 1: in the airplane that your dentist buddy owns. Right, we're

1239
01:09:11,320 --> 01:09:16,960
Speaker 1: talking about commercial flights again, seventeen safest year on record. Um,

1240
01:09:17,000 --> 01:09:19,080
Speaker 1: you really don't have to worry about green ones on

1241
01:09:19,080 --> 01:09:21,679
Speaker 1: the wing of the plane, only about the langue years

1242
01:09:22,360 --> 01:09:27,559
Speaker 1: land the plan. Speaking of late nineties c g I right, yes,

1243
01:09:27,720 --> 01:09:30,240
Speaker 1: for real, man, that's a good one. I love that

1244
01:09:30,280 --> 01:09:32,759
Speaker 1: short story though. That was that was definitely a Stephen

1245
01:09:32,840 --> 01:09:35,559
Speaker 1: King wellmank It was more of a novella, but it

1246
01:09:35,880 --> 01:09:38,920
Speaker 1: it definitely harkened back to some of those Twilight Zone

1247
01:09:39,280 --> 01:09:42,519
Speaker 1: type scenarios. I've never read the story, but I remember

1248
01:09:42,560 --> 01:09:46,040
Speaker 1: seeing that on TV sometime around back when it came out,

1249
01:09:46,120 --> 01:09:51,599
Speaker 1: and oh man, that was one where maybe even maybe

1250
01:09:51,640 --> 01:09:54,120
Speaker 1: even the critics of the time, we're not wowed by

1251
01:09:54,120 --> 01:09:57,439
Speaker 1: the c G I. Yeah, they were essentially like the critters,

1252
01:09:57,479 --> 01:09:59,760
Speaker 1: the crits from the Critters movies. There were just these

1253
01:09:59,800 --> 01:10:02,320
Speaker 1: big c g I mouth is like eating the sky.

1254
01:10:03,200 --> 01:10:04,920
Speaker 1: It's a shame because the original story it is a

1255
01:10:04,920 --> 01:10:06,880
Speaker 1: lot of fun. I do recommend it. I mean, don't

1256
01:10:06,880 --> 01:10:09,599
Speaker 1: read it on a plane, for God's sake. Um, you know,

1257
01:10:09,960 --> 01:10:11,840
Speaker 1: do read it when you're on the ground. Okay, we

1258
01:10:11,880 --> 01:10:13,519
Speaker 1: need to take a quick break, but we will be

1259
01:10:13,640 --> 01:10:19,479
Speaker 1: right back with more horror, anthology, science. Thank thank Alright,

1260
01:10:19,520 --> 01:10:22,200
Speaker 1: we're back. So what do you have for us, Joe, Well,

1261
01:10:22,360 --> 01:10:24,320
Speaker 1: you just did a Twilight Zone episode. I feel like

1262
01:10:24,320 --> 01:10:26,559
Speaker 1: I gotta do a Twilight Zone episode they had. There's

1263
01:10:26,560 --> 01:10:29,120
Speaker 1: so many thoughtful episodes of the Twilight Zone. And perhaps

1264
01:10:29,120 --> 01:10:31,200
Speaker 1: because you know, it wasn't just pure hard it also

1265
01:10:31,200 --> 01:10:32,680
Speaker 1: had a lot of science fiction in it and just

1266
01:10:32,680 --> 01:10:35,760
Speaker 1: sort of weird fiction in general. So here is a

1267
01:10:35,800 --> 01:10:38,680
Speaker 1: sci fi horror episode of the Twilight Zone. This is

1268
01:10:38,720 --> 01:10:41,679
Speaker 1: one of the classics. You probably, I bet the majority

1269
01:10:41,720 --> 01:10:44,080
Speaker 1: about you out there listening already know the story here,

1270
01:10:44,120 --> 01:10:46,200
Speaker 1: but for those of you who don't, I've got to

1271
01:10:46,240 --> 01:10:50,200
Speaker 1: tell it. It is to serve man. Uh. This is

1272
01:10:50,280 --> 01:10:52,960
Speaker 1: one that was written by Rod Serling, based on a

1273
01:10:53,080 --> 01:10:55,800
Speaker 1: story by a writer named Damon Knight. It was originally

1274
01:10:56,240 --> 01:10:59,479
Speaker 1: aired on March two, nineteen sixty two, and it's just

1275
01:10:59,520 --> 01:11:02,360
Speaker 1: got a whist to put him Night Shamalan to shame.

1276
01:11:02,640 --> 01:11:06,080
Speaker 1: It is the best. So here's Rod Serling's teaser for

1277
01:11:06,120 --> 01:11:11,240
Speaker 1: the episode, respectfully submitted for your perusal. A cannement height

1278
01:11:11,479 --> 01:11:14,600
Speaker 1: a little over nine feet, weight in the neighborhood of

1279
01:11:14,600 --> 01:11:20,639
Speaker 1: three hundred and fifty pounds. Origin unknown motives. Therein hangs

1280
01:11:20,680 --> 01:11:22,880
Speaker 1: the tale for in just a moment, we're going to

1281
01:11:22,960 --> 01:11:26,679
Speaker 1: ask you to shake hands figuratively with a Christopher Columbus

1282
01:11:26,720 --> 01:11:32,080
Speaker 1: from another galaxy and another time this is the Twilight Zone. Well,

1283
01:11:32,120 --> 01:11:36,479
Speaker 1: that's already a terrifying possibility here. So it's got a

1284
01:11:36,560 --> 01:11:40,400
Speaker 1: guy named Lloyd Bachner in it as he's a Canadian

1285
01:11:40,439 --> 01:11:45,120
Speaker 1: actor as this government cryptographer who who is tasked with

1286
01:11:45,640 --> 01:11:48,400
Speaker 1: decoding and alien books. So I actually I should say

1287
01:11:48,400 --> 01:11:51,800
Speaker 1: first aliens show up. They're called the Cannimates. They're played

1288
01:11:51,840 --> 01:11:54,920
Speaker 1: by Richard Kiel who ended up playing Kyle or Kiel.

1289
01:11:54,960 --> 01:11:56,760
Speaker 1: Do you know how you pronounce it? Always heard Kio,

1290
01:11:56,840 --> 01:11:59,080
Speaker 1: but it could be drastically wrong on that. He's the

1291
01:11:59,080 --> 01:12:01,639
Speaker 1: guy who played jaw Us in the James Bond movies.

1292
01:12:01,920 --> 01:12:05,559
Speaker 1: He was he was, he got yeah. Uh, And so

1293
01:12:05,640 --> 01:12:08,240
Speaker 1: he plays all of these aliens. They all look the same,

1294
01:12:08,880 --> 01:12:12,360
Speaker 1: uh and uh. Richard Keel in in like some weird

1295
01:12:12,400 --> 01:12:15,800
Speaker 1: head makeup, shows up on Earth and he speaks to

1296
01:12:15,840 --> 01:12:19,120
Speaker 1: the United Nations telepathically and he's like, hey, we're here

1297
01:12:19,160 --> 01:12:21,760
Speaker 1: to help you. We're gonna solve world hunger. We're going

1298
01:12:21,880 --> 01:12:25,240
Speaker 1: to make we're gonna make war disappear. We're gonna solve

1299
01:12:25,280 --> 01:12:27,760
Speaker 1: all your problems and make life on earth great. Don't

1300
01:12:27,800 --> 01:12:30,679
Speaker 1: you want that? Don't you want this free new energy

1301
01:12:30,760 --> 01:12:33,759
Speaker 1: source that you can, you know, power a whole country

1302
01:12:33,800 --> 01:12:36,000
Speaker 1: for a few dollars a day? Don't you want all

1303
01:12:36,000 --> 01:12:38,960
Speaker 1: this great stuff? And people are. They're hesitant at first,

1304
01:12:39,000 --> 01:12:42,519
Speaker 1: but they're like, well, okay, And so Jaws brings a

1305
01:12:42,560 --> 01:12:46,400
Speaker 1: book with him that has like a title in these

1306
01:12:46,400 --> 01:12:49,760
Speaker 1: alien glyphs on the cover. He's like reading things from

1307
01:12:49,760 --> 01:12:53,400
Speaker 1: this book as he's promising stuff to humanity, and they

1308
01:12:53,400 --> 01:12:55,479
Speaker 1: get a copy. The humans grab a copy of the

1309
01:12:55,479 --> 01:12:58,040
Speaker 1: book and they bring it to this government cryptographer and

1310
01:12:58,040 --> 01:13:00,799
Speaker 1: they're like, can you decode this? Tell us what it means?

1311
01:13:01,439 --> 01:13:04,280
Speaker 1: And so he works on it. He's got a colleague

1312
01:13:04,360 --> 01:13:07,599
Speaker 1: named Patty who works on it. Uh. It proves too

1313
01:13:07,600 --> 01:13:11,400
Speaker 1: difficult to decode, except that Patty decodes the title and

1314
01:13:11,439 --> 01:13:14,639
Speaker 1: figures out that the title is to serve man. Well,

1315
01:13:14,680 --> 01:13:17,240
Speaker 1: that sounds noble and wonderful and and really works out

1316
01:13:17,240 --> 01:13:20,479
Speaker 1: well for us exactly, So they can't decode the rest

1317
01:13:20,479 --> 01:13:22,880
Speaker 1: of the book, but to serve Man, and that sort

1318
01:13:22,880 --> 01:13:25,280
Speaker 1: of puts people at ease. They're like, Okay, well, the

1319
01:13:25,280 --> 01:13:28,120
Speaker 1: book there is about how to serve humankind. That that

1320
01:13:28,160 --> 01:13:31,000
Speaker 1: sounds like a good thing. So people start getting on

1321
01:13:31,080 --> 01:13:35,840
Speaker 1: spaceships to go with Jaws to his home planet where

1322
01:13:35,880 --> 01:13:38,040
Speaker 1: they will be given. I think that at one point

1323
01:13:38,080 --> 01:13:40,200
Speaker 1: they're talking about how they've even got baseball on the

1324
01:13:40,240 --> 01:13:43,240
Speaker 1: Cannibate's planet. Uh, to go to the Basically it's like

1325
01:13:43,439 --> 01:13:46,439
Speaker 1: a forever vacation where everything is just going to be awesome,

1326
01:13:46,600 --> 01:13:49,120
Speaker 1: so that people are getting on the spaceships to go there.

1327
01:13:49,600 --> 01:13:51,880
Speaker 1: And then the big twist that comes at the end

1328
01:13:52,479 --> 01:13:54,960
Speaker 1: is right as the main guy is about to get

1329
01:13:55,000 --> 01:13:57,200
Speaker 1: on the spaceship to go to the cannon It's planet

1330
01:13:57,320 --> 01:14:00,040
Speaker 1: and uh and and live out his days at the

1331
01:14:00,160 --> 01:14:04,040
Speaker 1: baseball resort or whatever, Patty comes yelling at him, don't

1332
01:14:04,120 --> 01:14:09,719
Speaker 1: get on the ship. It's a cookbook. It's so good

1333
01:14:10,560 --> 01:14:14,040
Speaker 1: to serve man for dinner. I believe the sentence of

1334
01:14:14,479 --> 01:14:17,200
Speaker 1: period this as well to a limited extent, right, how

1335
01:14:17,200 --> 01:14:22,559
Speaker 1: to serve mill House for dinner? Oh oh, I'm vaguely

1336
01:14:22,560 --> 01:14:25,680
Speaker 1: I don't remember when that which one? I don't I

1337
01:14:25,680 --> 01:14:28,760
Speaker 1: can't remember which episode it was, okay, but they definitely

1338
01:14:29,080 --> 01:14:32,080
Speaker 1: touched on it at one point. Now, I don't want

1339
01:14:32,080 --> 01:14:35,160
Speaker 1: to be too literal about interpreting the science of the story,

1340
01:14:35,200 --> 01:14:37,280
Speaker 1: because if you really wanted to be nitpicky, you could

1341
01:14:37,320 --> 01:14:40,320
Speaker 1: point out a million really funny details. And its like,

1342
01:14:40,360 --> 01:14:43,000
Speaker 1: there's one point where to try to make sure that

1343
01:14:43,080 --> 01:14:46,439
Speaker 1: the aliens intentions are actually good. They hook Jaws up

1344
01:14:46,479 --> 01:14:49,960
Speaker 1: to a to a polygraph test. It's just like they

1345
01:14:50,000 --> 01:14:53,360
Speaker 1: give him a human polygraph to to see if he's

1346
01:14:53,439 --> 01:14:56,960
Speaker 1: lying about wanting to help them. And another thing that's

1347
01:14:56,960 --> 01:14:59,720
Speaker 1: funny is they bring in this cryptographer to decode this

1348
01:15:00,000 --> 01:15:04,400
Speaker 1: alien book, but to decode it to what like cryptography

1349
01:15:04,520 --> 01:15:09,160
Speaker 1: usually consists of trying to decode encoded messages to ann

1350
01:15:09,520 --> 01:15:12,120
Speaker 1: language where you're like, you know where it will code

1351
01:15:12,160 --> 01:15:15,360
Speaker 1: out to some kind of script that you already understand.

1352
01:15:16,000 --> 01:15:18,680
Speaker 1: How would you decode an alien language when you have

1353
01:15:18,800 --> 01:15:21,439
Speaker 1: nothing to start with? Yeah, and I like the idea

1354
01:15:21,479 --> 01:15:24,400
Speaker 1: that they could they could figure out nothing from the inside,

1355
01:15:24,439 --> 01:15:28,040
Speaker 1: like no content but just the title. Yeah, it's great.

1356
01:15:28,080 --> 01:15:31,160
Speaker 1: But anyway, Okay, the main thing I wanted to talk about,

1357
01:15:31,560 --> 01:15:34,600
Speaker 1: ignoring all that other stuff is the idea of aliens

1358
01:15:34,640 --> 01:15:38,640
Speaker 1: invading in order to eat us, or perhaps more realistically

1359
01:15:38,640 --> 01:15:42,200
Speaker 1: another option, just to eat earth life in general, maybe

1360
01:15:42,240 --> 01:15:45,080
Speaker 1: not focused on us, but just here to eat things. Okay,

1361
01:15:45,080 --> 01:15:47,760
Speaker 1: so not just to say, harvest the resources of our

1362
01:15:47,800 --> 01:15:51,799
Speaker 1: planet or to do something to our star, which we've discussed,

1363
01:15:51,800 --> 01:15:55,479
Speaker 1: and but you're talking about like just just just tear

1364
01:15:55,600 --> 01:15:58,679
Speaker 1: into the bio mass of Earth. It's a very common

1365
01:15:58,720 --> 01:16:01,439
Speaker 1: theme in sci fi horror. At a glance, it sort

1366
01:16:01,439 --> 01:16:04,400
Speaker 1: of makes sense because you think about, like, okay, so

1367
01:16:04,520 --> 01:16:07,880
Speaker 1: what do human invaders do when they invade a country. Well,

1368
01:16:07,920 --> 01:16:10,599
Speaker 1: a lot of times what they'll do is they'll just

1369
01:16:10,760 --> 01:16:14,040
Speaker 1: like raige your village and take all your food. They

1370
01:16:14,040 --> 01:16:17,160
Speaker 1: want food, they need all your steal all your grain

1371
01:16:17,280 --> 01:16:19,960
Speaker 1: and stuff. And then they'll move on, or they'll land

1372
01:16:19,960 --> 01:16:23,000
Speaker 1: on an island. And if there's a particular flightless bird

1373
01:16:23,200 --> 01:16:26,600
Speaker 1: or or some sort of a turtle or tortoise that

1374
01:16:26,760 --> 01:16:30,720
Speaker 1: is uh, you know, notoriously unable to defend itself and

1375
01:16:30,720 --> 01:16:34,479
Speaker 1: and perhaps even trusting to a fault of humans, they

1376
01:16:34,520 --> 01:16:36,599
Speaker 1: might just eat them all or just every time they

1377
01:16:36,640 --> 01:16:39,559
Speaker 1: come back, harvest as many as they can and eat

1378
01:16:39,600 --> 01:16:41,240
Speaker 1: them on the ship, or just kill them and not

1379
01:16:41,360 --> 01:16:45,400
Speaker 1: eat them human as did the did that too? Yeah, yeah,

1380
01:16:45,439 --> 01:16:47,120
Speaker 1: that that's a little maybe maybe we don't want to

1381
01:16:47,120 --> 01:16:50,760
Speaker 1: think about that comparison. Uh but okay, so would they

1382
01:16:50,800 --> 01:16:53,559
Speaker 1: want to eat us or eat our food? I came

1383
01:16:53,600 --> 01:16:57,720
Speaker 1: across an interesting opinion about this. This was in a

1384
01:16:57,840 --> 01:17:01,400
Speaker 1: chapter from a book called Aliens, The World's Leading Scientists

1385
01:17:01,439 --> 01:17:04,919
Speaker 1: on the Search for Extraterrestrial Life, published in twenty seventeen

1386
01:17:04,960 --> 01:17:08,160
Speaker 1: by Piccador. And this book was edited by the Iraqi

1387
01:17:08,200 --> 01:17:12,240
Speaker 1: British physicist Jim al Khalili. And there's a chapter in

1388
01:17:12,320 --> 01:17:16,280
Speaker 1: this book that was written by the British astrobiologist Louis

1389
01:17:16,400 --> 01:17:20,799
Speaker 1: Dartnell where he's talking about what would aliens actually want

1390
01:17:20,920 --> 01:17:23,800
Speaker 1: with Earth? Why would they be interested in coming here?

1391
01:17:24,040 --> 01:17:25,960
Speaker 1: And he's making the case that a lot of the

1392
01:17:26,000 --> 01:17:29,200
Speaker 1: stuff that people usually imagine aliens would want to come

1393
01:17:29,240 --> 01:17:33,439
Speaker 1: here for doesn't make any sense. That they want water,

1394
01:17:33,800 --> 01:17:37,200
Speaker 1: or they want raw minerals or something like that. He

1395
01:17:37,640 --> 01:17:40,800
Speaker 1: just you, oh, that's one too with all those things.

1396
01:17:40,840 --> 01:17:43,599
Speaker 1: He points out, how you know that's either and that's

1397
01:17:43,640 --> 01:17:46,439
Speaker 1: not actually a concern for anything they would want, or

1398
01:17:46,560 --> 01:17:49,960
Speaker 1: they could get this more abundantly elsewhere. And so here's

1399
01:17:50,000 --> 01:17:53,720
Speaker 1: Dartnell's case about whether aliens would want to eat us. So,

1400
01:17:53,800 --> 01:17:56,280
Speaker 1: the cells in our bodies are made of large collections

1401
01:17:56,320 --> 01:17:59,760
Speaker 1: of specific organic molecules. You've got proteins, which are chains

1402
01:17:59,800 --> 01:18:03,719
Speaker 1: of amino acids. You've got the nucleic acids like DNA

1403
01:18:03,800 --> 01:18:07,000
Speaker 1: and RNA, which are chains of bases and sugars. And

1404
01:18:07,040 --> 01:18:09,280
Speaker 1: then of course you've got the best part, the membranes

1405
01:18:09,320 --> 01:18:13,040
Speaker 1: and the phospholipids UH, and so in order to keep

1406
01:18:13,040 --> 01:18:15,519
Speaker 1: our bodies alive and working properly, we need to have

1407
01:18:15,600 --> 01:18:20,840
Speaker 1: steady incoming streams of those molecular building blocks, so we

1408
01:18:20,920 --> 01:18:23,920
Speaker 1: eat other life forms like plants and animals in order

1409
01:18:23,960 --> 01:18:26,920
Speaker 1: to get them. You can't survive obviously, just by like

1410
01:18:27,000 --> 01:18:30,280
Speaker 1: eating sand or tree bark or salt and ammonia. You

1411
01:18:30,280 --> 01:18:34,879
Speaker 1: need to get specific organic molecules like sugars, amino acids,

1412
01:18:34,920 --> 01:18:38,639
Speaker 1: and fatty acids in order to survive. It's also true

1413
01:18:38,680 --> 01:18:42,240
Speaker 1: that your digestive system is specifically evolved to break down

1414
01:18:42,400 --> 01:18:46,200
Speaker 1: certain kinds of stuff like earth plant matter and earth

1415
01:18:46,280 --> 01:18:50,240
Speaker 1: animal flesh, and it is it has specially tailored enzymes

1416
01:18:50,280 --> 01:18:53,360
Speaker 1: for breaking down those molecules likely to be found in

1417
01:18:53,400 --> 01:18:57,280
Speaker 1: the stuff Your ancestors were eating. Yeah, it's also worth reminding,

1418
01:18:57,720 --> 01:19:00,040
Speaker 1: you know, we eat a lot of creatures and a

1419
01:19:00,360 --> 01:19:03,599
Speaker 1: life on this planet. It's easy to forget that there's

1420
01:19:03,600 --> 01:19:05,640
Speaker 1: a whole lot of stuff we cannot eat. There a

1421
01:19:05,840 --> 01:19:08,680
Speaker 1: lot of a lot of species that are just not

1422
01:19:08,800 --> 01:19:11,360
Speaker 1: on the menu for us. Most of the mass of

1423
01:19:11,439 --> 01:19:14,519
Speaker 1: planet Earth you can't eat. I mean that. Yeah, there's

1424
01:19:14,520 --> 01:19:17,440
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff you just can't get nutrition from.

1425
01:19:17,479 --> 01:19:21,080
Speaker 1: Even if it contains raw atoms that you might want,

1426
01:19:21,200 --> 01:19:23,160
Speaker 1: you know that would be useful. Your body doesn't have

1427
01:19:23,160 --> 01:19:25,880
Speaker 1: a way to break them down properly, doesn't have the

1428
01:19:26,000 --> 01:19:30,000
Speaker 1: right chemical enzymes and stuff to separate out the parts

1429
01:19:30,040 --> 01:19:32,320
Speaker 1: that you would need or put together the parts that

1430
01:19:32,400 --> 01:19:35,400
Speaker 1: you would need. Your digestive system is shaped by what

1431
01:19:35,479 --> 01:19:40,080
Speaker 1: was available to the creatures that you evolved from. Now, fortunately,

1432
01:19:40,120 --> 01:19:43,280
Speaker 1: most other life forms on Earth have these useful molecules

1433
01:19:43,320 --> 01:19:47,240
Speaker 1: in some nutritionally available way. Other animals on Earth are

1434
01:19:47,560 --> 01:19:51,280
Speaker 1: nourishing to us because we came from a common ancestor

1435
01:19:51,400 --> 01:19:54,679
Speaker 1: and we share common biochemistry. So in order to get

1436
01:19:54,760 --> 01:19:58,519
Speaker 1: nutrition from eating us and the alien would need to

1437
01:19:58,640 --> 01:20:02,120
Speaker 1: share our biochemistry, And in order to do that, we

1438
01:20:02,160 --> 01:20:05,200
Speaker 1: would either need to share a common ancestor, and unless

1439
01:20:05,240 --> 01:20:08,120
Speaker 1: they're coming from somewhere else within our solar system, which

1440
01:20:08,120 --> 01:20:11,120
Speaker 1: seems unlikely at this point, It's not likely we would

1441
01:20:11,160 --> 01:20:13,960
Speaker 1: share a common ancestor or we need to have the

1442
01:20:14,000 --> 01:20:17,240
Speaker 1: same biochemistry by coincidence. So what are the odds of

1443
01:20:17,280 --> 01:20:23,160
Speaker 1: sharing biochemistry by coincidence? Dartnehill rights, well, that's certainly possible

1444
01:20:23,240 --> 01:20:26,040
Speaker 1: for all we know. Perhaps our DNA based life is

1445
01:20:26,080 --> 01:20:30,120
Speaker 1: the only way you can make self reproducing life forms

1446
01:20:30,120 --> 01:20:33,840
Speaker 1: out of the chemistry available in the universe. Dartnell points

1447
01:20:33,840 --> 01:20:37,320
Speaker 1: out that quote, a whole variety of amino acids, sugars,

1448
01:20:37,320 --> 01:20:42,040
Speaker 1: and fatty molecules are actually found in certain meteorites, having

1449
01:20:42,080 --> 01:20:45,720
Speaker 1: been produced by astro chemistry and outer space, and so

1450
01:20:45,800 --> 01:20:49,639
Speaker 1: maybe extraterrestrial life would be based on the same basic

1451
01:20:49,680 --> 01:20:52,680
Speaker 1: building blocks as us. So the point there is that

1452
01:20:52,760 --> 01:20:55,240
Speaker 1: we haven't found life beyond Earth, but we found a

1453
01:20:55,280 --> 01:20:59,360
Speaker 1: lot of the chemical building blocks of life beyond Earth. Uh,

1454
01:20:59,400 --> 01:21:01,880
Speaker 1: And maybe our way is a common way, or even

1455
01:21:01,960 --> 01:21:04,640
Speaker 1: the only way for the universe to put evolution in

1456
01:21:04,720 --> 01:21:08,400
Speaker 1: motion and create the possibility of intelligent life. But then

1457
01:21:08,479 --> 01:21:13,520
Speaker 1: Dartnell points out a big complication quote simple organic molecules

1458
01:21:13,600 --> 01:21:17,520
Speaker 1: like amino acids and sugars can exist in two different forms,

1459
01:21:18,040 --> 01:21:21,040
Speaker 1: mirror images of each other, in the same way your

1460
01:21:21,160 --> 01:21:24,760
Speaker 1: two hands are similar shapes but can't be placed exactly

1461
01:21:24,800 --> 01:21:27,920
Speaker 1: on top of the other. These two versions are known

1462
01:21:27,960 --> 01:21:31,320
Speaker 1: as a nantiomers. And it turns out that all life

1463
01:21:31,360 --> 01:21:36,240
Speaker 1: on Earth uses only left handed amino acids and right

1464
01:21:36,400 --> 01:21:41,479
Speaker 1: handed sugars, whereas non living chemistry produces even mixtures of

1465
01:21:41,560 --> 01:21:45,519
Speaker 1: both kinds. So, yeah, picture that what he's saying about

1466
01:21:45,560 --> 01:21:47,639
Speaker 1: holding your hands on top of each other. They're they're

1467
01:21:47,680 --> 01:21:51,040
Speaker 1: the same shape, but you can't put one on top

1468
01:21:51,120 --> 01:21:53,040
Speaker 1: of the other one. You have to invert one of

1469
01:21:53,080 --> 01:21:55,360
Speaker 1: them in order for them to match up. And with

1470
01:21:55,479 --> 01:21:58,320
Speaker 1: three dimensional things, that means that they're they're not chemically

1471
01:21:58,360 --> 01:22:01,200
Speaker 1: the same. Actually you can't you use one for the other.

1472
01:22:01,920 --> 01:22:05,000
Speaker 1: And in science, this this handedness of sugars and amino

1473
01:22:05,080 --> 01:22:08,920
Speaker 1: acids is known as chirality. Uh, the fact that all

1474
01:22:08,960 --> 01:22:12,400
Speaker 1: life on Earth uses only left handed amino acids and

1475
01:22:12,520 --> 01:22:16,200
Speaker 1: right handed sugars, that's known as homo chirality. And it's

1476
01:22:16,200 --> 01:22:19,240
Speaker 1: a fascinating mystery to people who study the chemistry of life.

1477
01:22:19,640 --> 01:22:22,120
Speaker 1: Why why not the other way around, or why not

1478
01:22:22,320 --> 01:22:27,240
Speaker 1: both Both chiralities are and presumably always have been available

1479
01:22:27,360 --> 01:22:30,000
Speaker 1: out there in the universe. So why did life on

1480
01:22:30,040 --> 01:22:33,800
Speaker 1: Earth end up using only these kinds? Why only left

1481
01:22:33,800 --> 01:22:37,920
Speaker 1: handed amino acids and only right handed sugars? And in fact,

1482
01:22:37,960 --> 01:22:40,479
Speaker 1: Dartnell points out that chirality is a good way to

1483
01:22:40,520 --> 01:22:43,959
Speaker 1: know that traces of life we find, say on Mars,

1484
01:22:44,000 --> 01:22:46,720
Speaker 1: are actually authentic. So imagine you've got a rover on

1485
01:22:46,760 --> 01:22:50,040
Speaker 1: Mars and it picks up amino acids somewhere on the

1486
01:22:50,080 --> 01:22:55,200
Speaker 1: surface of Mars, and they employ the opposite biochemical orientation,

1487
01:22:55,280 --> 01:22:58,599
Speaker 1: so you've got right handed amino acids. Then we could

1488
01:22:58,600 --> 01:23:01,519
Speaker 1: know that they were genuine the alien and not simply

1489
01:23:01,560 --> 01:23:04,680
Speaker 1: contamination from Earth life that we took along with us

1490
01:23:04,720 --> 01:23:08,120
Speaker 1: on the rover by accident. And so Dartnell writes, quote,

1491
01:23:08,400 --> 01:23:12,240
Speaker 1: so here's a fascinating thought. Alien invaders could be based

1492
01:23:12,240 --> 01:23:17,280
Speaker 1: on exactly the same organic molecules amino acids, sugars, etcetera.

1493
01:23:17,560 --> 01:23:20,760
Speaker 1: But they still wouldn't gain any nutrition from eating us,

1494
01:23:20,760 --> 01:23:23,719
Speaker 1: as the origins of life on their own planets settled

1495
01:23:23,760 --> 01:23:27,720
Speaker 1: on the opposite in anti amours, we'd be mirror images

1496
01:23:27,760 --> 01:23:30,719
Speaker 1: of each other on a molecular level, and of course,

1497
01:23:30,760 --> 01:23:33,400
Speaker 1: if this applied to us, meaning we couldn't be nutritious

1498
01:23:33,439 --> 01:23:35,559
Speaker 1: to them, it would also apply to our food sources.

1499
01:23:35,560 --> 01:23:38,320
Speaker 1: It would apply to all life on Earth, so they'd

1500
01:23:38,320 --> 01:23:40,320
Speaker 1: be like, ah, that Earth food, I can't handle any

1501
01:23:40,360 --> 01:23:44,479
Speaker 1: of it. In fact, it might even be toxic to them.

1502
01:23:44,520 --> 01:23:47,479
Speaker 1: I was looking at a paper from in pl Os

1503
01:23:47,560 --> 01:23:52,520
Speaker 1: one by jiang in son Um about how how bacteria

1504
01:23:52,560 --> 01:23:58,000
Speaker 1: are able to sort of break down right handed amino acids,

1505
01:23:58,040 --> 01:24:00,040
Speaker 1: and one of the things that they talk about it

1506
01:24:00,200 --> 01:24:03,280
Speaker 1: is how right handed amino acids are toxic for life

1507
01:24:03,320 --> 01:24:06,440
Speaker 1: on Earth, and it's actually important that back to bacteria

1508
01:24:06,560 --> 01:24:09,400
Speaker 1: do some breaking down of these right handed amino acids,

1509
01:24:09,479 --> 01:24:13,280
Speaker 1: or else they would accumulate to toxic levels in the environments.

1510
01:24:13,680 --> 01:24:15,559
Speaker 1: Oh man, I think it has to be some hard

1511
01:24:15,640 --> 01:24:19,760
Speaker 1: sci fi that explores this possibility. What did aliens come

1512
01:24:19,800 --> 01:24:21,920
Speaker 1: here to eat us but then we poison them? Well,

1513
01:24:21,960 --> 01:24:24,320
Speaker 1: I mean just the idea that their reflections on a

1514
01:24:24,320 --> 01:24:28,920
Speaker 1: molecular level and therefore incompatible with us or our food. Yeah, well,

1515
01:24:28,960 --> 01:24:31,360
Speaker 1: I like that idea that like they could they could

1516
01:24:31,520 --> 01:24:34,200
Speaker 1: in theory even look exactly like us. They could have

1517
01:24:34,280 --> 01:24:37,640
Speaker 1: bodies that are very so they were just toxic to

1518
01:24:37,680 --> 01:24:42,200
Speaker 1: each other, like contact and sharing organic molecules from each

1519
01:24:42,200 --> 01:24:44,240
Speaker 1: other would be poison us. Like if it was the

1520
01:24:44,280 --> 01:24:47,280
Speaker 1: movie Alien Nation and you had to have like left

1521
01:24:47,280 --> 01:24:49,880
Speaker 1: handed food restaurants and right handed food restaurants, and there

1522
01:24:49,960 --> 01:24:52,680
Speaker 1: was you know, it was you know, there's certainly discrimination there,

1523
01:24:52,720 --> 01:24:56,200
Speaker 1: but also the fact that the each species can only

1524
01:24:56,240 --> 01:25:00,920
Speaker 1: eat a certain type of matter and organic matter. Uh yeah, well,

1525
01:25:00,960 --> 01:25:02,760
Speaker 1: I mean but the thing there is that if you

1526
01:25:02,800 --> 01:25:06,240
Speaker 1: assume their ecosystem is their planet is also from a

1527
01:25:06,280 --> 01:25:09,120
Speaker 1: single common ancestor maybe it would be that all of

1528
01:25:09,200 --> 01:25:12,880
Speaker 1: their planet uses the opposite chirality of us, meaning that

1529
01:25:13,000 --> 01:25:15,360
Speaker 1: it's not just like we need different food, but every

1530
01:25:15,400 --> 01:25:18,400
Speaker 1: bit of life in their whole world would be toxic

1531
01:25:18,439 --> 01:25:21,080
Speaker 1: to us and all the life in our world would

1532
01:25:21,120 --> 01:25:23,919
Speaker 1: be toxic to them. So like, in order to interact,

1533
01:25:23,960 --> 01:25:27,040
Speaker 1: we almost need to like you know, be be sort

1534
01:25:27,040 --> 01:25:29,360
Speaker 1: of sealed off in a way. Oh wow, well see

1535
01:25:29,360 --> 01:25:32,280
Speaker 1: that's a wonderful sci fi concept there. So anyway, I

1536
01:25:32,320 --> 01:25:35,439
Speaker 1: thought that was an interesting possibility. Even if they wanted

1537
01:25:35,520 --> 01:25:37,960
Speaker 1: to serve man, it might the dinner might not go

1538
01:25:38,080 --> 01:25:40,640
Speaker 1: so well. I like that we were taking some of

1539
01:25:40,680 --> 01:25:43,760
Speaker 1: the anxiety out of our twilight zone. Episodes here. Don't

1540
01:25:43,760 --> 01:25:46,080
Speaker 1: have to be as afraid of creatures on the wing

1541
01:25:46,120 --> 01:25:47,760
Speaker 1: of the plane, don't have to be as afraid of

1542
01:25:48,320 --> 01:25:52,040
Speaker 1: alien civilizations coming to our planet to cook us and

1543
01:25:52,040 --> 01:25:55,320
Speaker 1: eat us. Well. I mean, the downside of that, thinking

1544
01:25:55,320 --> 01:25:59,479
Speaker 1: about the incompatibility of different biochemistries is that you could

1545
01:25:59,479 --> 01:26:03,240
Speaker 1: have a liens that meant well and that didn't want

1546
01:26:03,240 --> 01:26:05,320
Speaker 1: to eat us, but you know, just wanted to make

1547
01:26:05,360 --> 01:26:08,439
Speaker 1: contact and actually be helpful, wanted to serve man in

1548
01:26:08,479 --> 01:26:11,920
Speaker 1: the original naive sense of the understanding, but just brought

1549
01:26:12,000 --> 01:26:14,800
Speaker 1: with them a bunch of molecules that are deadly to us,

1550
01:26:15,560 --> 01:26:18,120
Speaker 1: which brings us kind of back to the Christopher Columbus idea,

1551
01:26:18,200 --> 01:26:20,960
Speaker 1: doesn't it. Well. I wouldn't say that Christopher Columbus meant well.

1552
01:26:21,000 --> 01:26:22,599
Speaker 1: I know that's not what you were saying. No, no, no,

1553
01:26:22,640 --> 01:26:25,800
Speaker 1: but just the idea that on a biological level ends

1554
01:26:25,880 --> 01:26:29,080
Speaker 1: up bringing death and also on a cultural level as well. Yes,

1555
01:26:29,120 --> 01:26:33,360
Speaker 1: like that even if Columbus had actually meant well, he

1556
01:26:34,040 --> 01:26:37,760
Speaker 1: wouldn't have been able to help bringing death along with him.

1557
01:26:37,840 --> 01:26:40,200
Speaker 1: All Right, I feel like we're going pretty long here,

1558
01:26:40,240 --> 01:26:43,160
Speaker 1: but I think we have time for just one more story, okay,

1559
01:26:43,520 --> 01:26:46,960
Speaker 1: and this one comes to us from Tales from the Crypt.

1560
01:26:47,680 --> 01:26:51,960
Speaker 1: It aired in the fifth season, episode five. This was October.

1561
01:26:53,120 --> 01:26:55,920
Speaker 1: I love how most of these episodes actually aired during

1562
01:26:55,960 --> 01:26:59,120
Speaker 1: October at some point, and it was titled people who

1563
01:26:59,160 --> 01:27:04,680
Speaker 1: Live in brad Hersars. Alright, So this one, this is

1564
01:27:04,680 --> 01:27:07,919
Speaker 1: a delight because this is one of four episodes directed

1565
01:27:07,920 --> 01:27:13,280
Speaker 1: by Russell McKay, the visionary director who gave us Highlander one,

1566
01:27:14,240 --> 01:27:18,599
Speaker 1: Highlander one, and Highlander two, Highlander two really yes, and

1567
01:27:18,920 --> 01:27:21,080
Speaker 1: most of the great music videos of the nineteen eighties.

1568
01:27:21,120 --> 01:27:23,519
Speaker 1: Total Eclipse of the Heart. That was him, Wild Boys,

1569
01:27:23,600 --> 01:27:26,400
Speaker 1: that was him. How do you say his name? Makakey.

1570
01:27:26,640 --> 01:27:29,080
Speaker 1: It's it's I believe it's more kay. It's m u

1571
01:27:29,280 --> 01:27:32,400
Speaker 1: l k h y. I've never been able to pronounce that.

1572
01:27:33,200 --> 01:27:38,639
Speaker 1: But yeah, the the visionary behind uh Highlander, various other films.

1573
01:27:39,120 --> 01:27:42,040
Speaker 1: And I do mean that authentically, like there is a

1574
01:27:42,120 --> 01:27:46,120
Speaker 1: visual style to his work. There is an intensity that

1575
01:27:46,600 --> 01:27:48,600
Speaker 1: you just you know what when you see it. A

1576
01:27:48,720 --> 01:27:52,400
Speaker 1: thing that I think I rediscovered this year upon going

1577
01:27:52,439 --> 01:27:56,120
Speaker 1: back to the first Highlander movie. And it's your insistence

1578
01:27:56,600 --> 01:28:00,240
Speaker 1: is that actually the first Hilander movie is almost as

1579
01:28:00,280 --> 01:28:03,439
Speaker 1: bad as the second one. It's pretty bonkers. Yeah, but

1580
01:28:03,520 --> 01:28:06,479
Speaker 1: what we'll say that for for an upcoming episode. Oh yeah,

1581
01:28:06,520 --> 01:28:08,800
Speaker 1: we've still got Science of Highlander two coming out. Yes,

1582
01:28:08,840 --> 01:28:12,559
Speaker 1: before the year's up, that episode will finally come to fruition.

1583
01:28:12,640 --> 01:28:15,880
Speaker 1: We're not joking. Yes, it's real. So this episode of

1584
01:28:15,920 --> 01:28:18,839
Speaker 1: Tales from the Crypt, Uh, it's like a lot of episodes,

1585
01:28:18,880 --> 01:28:23,439
Speaker 1: It's a wealth of just wonderful acting talent, spectacular gore effects,

1586
01:28:23,439 --> 01:28:27,240
Speaker 1: a notable director, and the script that well depends on

1587
01:28:27,280 --> 01:28:29,559
Speaker 1: how you look at it, right, I mean, it's easy

1588
01:28:29,600 --> 01:28:32,400
Speaker 1: to take these scripts out of context and dream about

1589
01:28:32,400 --> 01:28:35,519
Speaker 1: what a stronger, uh you know, rewrite could have done

1590
01:28:35,560 --> 01:28:37,559
Speaker 1: for it. But on the other hand, the material is

1591
01:28:37,560 --> 01:28:39,960
Speaker 1: the material, and the whole premise of the show is

1592
01:28:40,000 --> 01:28:43,560
Speaker 1: that these are retold classic horror comic shorts, you know,

1593
01:28:43,640 --> 01:28:46,599
Speaker 1: from the the you know, the golden age of horror comics,

1594
01:28:46,920 --> 01:28:49,200
Speaker 1: and they tend to throw some sort of a heel

1595
01:28:49,400 --> 01:28:55,000
Speaker 1: character through the ringer with the murderous or supernatural circumstances

1596
01:28:55,040 --> 01:28:58,840
Speaker 1: taking place. Yeah, it's generally there, there's some kind of

1597
01:28:58,960 --> 01:29:01,960
Speaker 1: nasty dude, he gets his come up and through some

1598
01:29:02,080 --> 01:29:06,559
Speaker 1: kind of supernatural karma, Yeah, nasty meets nasty, and then

1599
01:29:06,560 --> 01:29:08,479
Speaker 1: there is a joke about it. There's not a lot

1600
01:29:08,520 --> 01:29:13,080
Speaker 1: of nuance. It's uh, these were horror stories essentially for

1601
01:29:12,760 --> 01:29:17,200
Speaker 1: for for for kids, and uh, but with completely inappropriate contome.

1602
01:29:17,240 --> 01:29:19,280
Speaker 1: Oh yeah it was. That's the other thing. All of

1603
01:29:19,320 --> 01:29:22,400
Speaker 1: these stories are so inappropriate you go, even going back

1604
01:29:22,439 --> 01:29:24,680
Speaker 1: now and watching these these episodes, like some of them

1605
01:29:24,680 --> 01:29:27,559
Speaker 1: are just like so cringe worthy. Uh. And I'm not

1606
01:29:27,680 --> 01:29:29,880
Speaker 1: sure that it's a flaw. It's like it's kind of

1607
01:29:29,920 --> 01:29:32,240
Speaker 1: what you get. It's that stales from the crypt. It's

1608
01:29:32,479 --> 01:29:37,320
Speaker 1: it's gross, it's inappropriate. Yeah, and yet there's something wonderful

1609
01:29:37,360 --> 01:29:41,160
Speaker 1: about it. So this particular episode definitely brings it with

1610
01:29:41,200 --> 01:29:45,360
Speaker 1: the cast because this one started Bill Paxton and Brad Dorrif.

1611
01:29:45,960 --> 01:29:50,640
Speaker 1: That's of course Bill Paxton from Aliens the Terminator, um

1612
01:29:50,720 --> 01:29:53,439
Speaker 1: and uh and Brad dorrif played worm Tongue in the

1613
01:29:53,439 --> 01:29:55,880
Speaker 1: Lord of the Rings movie is a voice of Chucky.

1614
01:29:56,320 --> 01:29:59,320
Speaker 1: Then in so many fabulous films over the years, one

1615
01:29:59,360 --> 01:30:01,559
Speaker 1: Full Over the Coupo his Nest. Yeah, that was another

1616
01:30:01,560 --> 01:30:04,880
Speaker 1: one of his big accomplishments. He was also in What

1617
01:30:05,040 --> 01:30:10,360
Speaker 1: Wise Blood I think, Oh yeah, he was in Exorcist three. Yes, Yeah,

1618
01:30:10,360 --> 01:30:14,000
Speaker 1: he's a fabulous character actor. So already you have some

1619
01:30:14,080 --> 01:30:18,120
Speaker 1: wonderful talent to work with here. Uh. They play brothers,

1620
01:30:18,160 --> 01:30:21,679
Speaker 1: Billy and Virgil. Billy is a mean spirited slime bag

1621
01:30:21,800 --> 01:30:25,120
Speaker 1: fresh out of prison, but performance by Paxton that reminds

1622
01:30:25,120 --> 01:30:28,759
Speaker 1: me a lot of his vampire character in Uh Near Dark,

1623
01:30:29,240 --> 01:30:32,719
Speaker 1: you know, just just a bad person, and his brother

1624
01:30:32,840 --> 01:30:36,400
Speaker 1: is essentially Lenny from Steinbeck's of Mice and Men, so

1625
01:30:36,439 --> 01:30:39,360
Speaker 1: they have that kind of relationship. Billy talks Virgil into

1626
01:30:39,360 --> 01:30:42,599
Speaker 1: an ice cream factory heighs, which goes all wrong. They're

1627
01:30:42,600 --> 01:30:44,600
Speaker 1: gonna steal a bunch of ice cream there, steal some

1628
01:30:44,600 --> 01:30:46,799
Speaker 1: money from a safe, but they end up just murdering

1629
01:30:46,840 --> 01:30:50,000
Speaker 1: some people instead, and as a fallback plan, they go

1630
01:30:50,080 --> 01:30:53,679
Speaker 1: after the ice cream truck driver who originally turned Billy

1631
01:30:53,840 --> 01:30:56,640
Speaker 1: in for stealing from the company, a man by the

1632
01:30:56,720 --> 01:31:00,000
Speaker 1: name of Mr Bird. And Mr Bird is played by

1633
01:31:00,080 --> 01:31:04,760
Speaker 1: Trian character actor Michael Lerner. Oh, the producer from Barton Fink. Yeah,

1634
01:31:04,800 --> 01:31:07,160
Speaker 1: he was nominated for an actor for that role. He's

1635
01:31:07,200 --> 01:31:10,200
Speaker 1: tremendous and he's he's great in this too, like everybody's

1636
01:31:10,240 --> 01:31:13,600
Speaker 1: great in this. But here's the twist, here's the grotesque

1637
01:31:13,720 --> 01:31:16,400
Speaker 1: tales from the crypt twist. Mr Bird turns out to

1638
01:31:16,439 --> 01:31:21,599
Speaker 1: be two men conjoined twins, and the episodes grizzly payoff

1639
01:31:21,680 --> 01:31:24,519
Speaker 1: as that while the brothers succeed in killing one of

1640
01:31:24,560 --> 01:31:27,639
Speaker 1: the twins, they shoot him. He's shot in the head

1641
01:31:27,720 --> 01:31:29,880
Speaker 1: with a shotgun. When he emerges through a beated curtain,

1642
01:31:30,360 --> 01:31:32,559
Speaker 1: it turns out there the other one lives and he

1643
01:31:32,600 --> 01:31:35,920
Speaker 1: gets his vengeance. The final shot of the episode, after

1644
01:31:35,960 --> 01:31:41,920
Speaker 1: he's killed the brothers shows the surviving Mr. Bird Twins

1645
01:31:41,960 --> 01:31:44,680
Speaker 1: sitting in his ice cream truck making his rounds with

1646
01:31:44,760 --> 01:31:48,640
Speaker 1: his decaying twin hunched over in the back seat. And

1647
01:31:48,680 --> 01:31:50,720
Speaker 1: this is I didn't even touch on some of the

1648
01:31:50,800 --> 01:31:55,000
Speaker 1: just truly bizarre elements of this episode. For instance, Billy

1649
01:31:55,360 --> 01:31:58,800
Speaker 1: Bill Paxson's character totally does not need to have a

1650
01:31:58,880 --> 01:32:02,880
Speaker 1: butter eating a dick, but he's like eating sticks of

1651
01:32:02,920 --> 01:32:06,680
Speaker 1: butter throughout the whole film for no reason, with no payoff,

1652
01:32:07,240 --> 01:32:10,439
Speaker 1: Like he already had a pretty good, you know trope

1653
01:32:10,520 --> 01:32:13,240
Speaker 1: character here Bill, you know, Bill Paxton is playing a

1654
01:32:13,240 --> 01:32:16,040
Speaker 1: slime ball. It's wonderful he was born for this role

1655
01:32:16,439 --> 01:32:18,960
Speaker 1: and you're throw in the butter for some reason. There's

1656
01:32:18,960 --> 01:32:22,120
Speaker 1: also a part where Virgil is reading a comic book

1657
01:32:22,160 --> 01:32:26,360
Speaker 1: and it is Predator versus Jesse Jane, which doesn't I

1658
01:32:26,400 --> 01:32:28,160
Speaker 1: have no problem with I love it, but it's just

1659
01:32:28,200 --> 01:32:31,160
Speaker 1: such a random element to throw in. That's the original

1660
01:32:31,160 --> 01:32:34,479
Speaker 1: Cowboys versus Aliens. It really was. Yeah, I would love

1661
01:32:34,520 --> 01:32:37,639
Speaker 1: to see it. Uh let's give me Jesse James versus Predator.

1662
01:32:38,200 --> 01:32:40,840
Speaker 1: Uh So the science question here, though, of course, is

1663
01:32:40,840 --> 01:32:43,960
Speaker 1: could this happen? If one conjoined twin were to die?

1664
01:32:44,720 --> 01:32:46,640
Speaker 1: Would the other one be able to live on in

1665
01:32:46,680 --> 01:32:50,680
Speaker 1: this grotesque? Grotesque manner? So to begin with, I do

1666
01:32:50,800 --> 01:32:52,639
Speaker 1: have to point out again that Tales from the Crypt

1667
01:32:52,800 --> 01:32:55,760
Speaker 1: is pretty far from any sort of fair or reasonable

1668
01:32:55,800 --> 01:33:00,479
Speaker 1: portrayal of conjoined twins or just humanity in general. The

1669
01:33:00,560 --> 01:33:02,880
Speaker 1: show and the comics they're based on, they tended to

1670
01:33:02,920 --> 01:33:07,040
Speaker 1: have a real freak show vibe concerning any sort of deformation,

1671
01:33:07,200 --> 01:33:10,760
Speaker 1: birth defect, mutilation, or even just something is routine is

1672
01:33:10,840 --> 01:33:15,000
Speaker 1: identical twins. You know, everything was played for weird, Everything

1673
01:33:15,040 --> 01:33:18,160
Speaker 1: was played for grotesque, and the stereotypes are pretty broad

1674
01:33:18,160 --> 01:33:21,680
Speaker 1: and grotesque too. So you don't go to Tales from

1675
01:33:21,720 --> 01:33:24,799
Speaker 1: the Crypt to think about how to model thinking about

1676
01:33:25,000 --> 01:33:28,479
Speaker 1: medical conditions. No, not not at all. And yet that's

1677
01:33:28,520 --> 01:33:30,320
Speaker 1: kind of what we're doing in this this segment, So

1678
01:33:30,400 --> 01:33:35,479
Speaker 1: here we go. So scientifically, conjoined twins are monozygotic twins

1679
01:33:35,880 --> 01:33:39,120
Speaker 1: who were joined at some region of their bodies, and

1680
01:33:39,160 --> 01:33:42,440
Speaker 1: the details depend on exactly where the conjunction is situated.

1681
01:33:42,680 --> 01:33:46,000
Speaker 1: So the exact cause of conjoined twins isn't fully understood.

1682
01:33:46,240 --> 01:33:49,840
Speaker 1: But major theory here is that the fertilized egg is

1683
01:33:49,880 --> 01:33:53,920
Speaker 1: going to split into a monozygotic set of twins, but

1684
01:33:53,960 --> 01:33:58,280
Speaker 1: it doesn't fully separate and they remain connected. So the

1685
01:33:58,320 --> 01:34:03,200
Speaker 1: bird twins here are represented as terada catadidema conjoined twins.

1686
01:34:03,240 --> 01:34:07,800
Speaker 1: These are lower body conjunctions and more specifically, they are

1687
01:34:08,200 --> 01:34:11,599
Speaker 1: phyg pagus twins, meaning they're back to back joined at

1688
01:34:11,600 --> 01:34:15,639
Speaker 1: the rump. So this accounts for roughly nine I've also

1689
01:34:15,680 --> 01:34:19,040
Speaker 1: read seventeen percent of conjoined twins, but don't let that

1690
01:34:19,120 --> 01:34:22,360
Speaker 1: number free you. That still means that they're extremely rare occurrences.

1691
01:34:22,920 --> 01:34:28,840
Speaker 1: Um these individuals. They commonly share the gluteal region, terminal spine,

1692
01:34:28,840 --> 01:34:34,200
Speaker 1: and lower gastro intestinal, neurological and reproductive tracks. So surgical

1693
01:34:34,280 --> 01:34:37,839
Speaker 1: separation of conjoined twins in general it ranges from simple

1694
01:34:37,920 --> 01:34:41,639
Speaker 1: to near impossible depending on the conjunction. In many cases

1695
01:34:41,880 --> 01:34:45,559
Speaker 1: it's a highly risky surgery with potentially fatal outcomes for

1696
01:34:45,640 --> 01:34:49,679
Speaker 1: both patients. However, successful separations of phygo pegas conjoined twins

1697
01:34:49,840 --> 01:34:53,040
Speaker 1: have occurred, and uh, you know, with various cases presented

1698
01:34:53,040 --> 01:34:56,439
Speaker 1: in medical literature. Uh. And the cases of separation do

1699
01:34:56,600 --> 01:34:58,800
Speaker 1: tend to be presented in medical literature like these are

1700
01:34:59,200 --> 01:35:02,520
Speaker 1: these are generally know, the more certainly the more complicated.

1701
01:35:02,920 --> 01:35:05,639
Speaker 1: Um separations are exactly the kind of thing you're gonna

1702
01:35:05,640 --> 01:35:09,320
Speaker 1: find written up in a journal. But a separation is

1703
01:35:09,360 --> 01:35:11,080
Speaker 1: not what we see in this episode of Tales from

1704
01:35:11,120 --> 01:35:13,800
Speaker 1: the Crypt. One twin is killed via shotgun blast of

1705
01:35:13,880 --> 01:35:17,000
Speaker 1: the head, and the other continues to live, dragging him

1706
01:35:17,000 --> 01:35:19,599
Speaker 1: around while he kills off the two brothers and then

1707
01:35:19,640 --> 01:35:24,360
Speaker 1: continues his ice cream rounds. Could this happen? Uh? Well,

1708
01:35:24,360 --> 01:35:27,400
Speaker 1: broadly speaking, noah, And I don't think that should come

1709
01:35:27,400 --> 01:35:30,320
Speaker 1: to anybody's surprise, given it again, this is Tales from

1710
01:35:30,320 --> 01:35:33,680
Speaker 1: the Crypt. Dr Eric Stratch a pediatric surgeon at the

1711
01:35:33,760 --> 01:35:36,519
Speaker 1: University of Maryland Hospital for Children. He actually covered the

1712
01:35:36,520 --> 01:35:39,879
Speaker 1: matter in the Esquire article how to Separate a conjoint

1713
01:35:39,880 --> 01:35:43,439
Speaker 1: twin On his deathbed. Yeah, he was interviewed or interview

1714
01:35:43,479 --> 01:35:45,519
Speaker 1: segment was used in that article. He did not write it,

1715
01:35:46,280 --> 01:35:50,679
Speaker 1: but he pointed out that once one twins heart stops beating,

1716
01:35:51,040 --> 01:35:54,400
Speaker 1: the blood stops pumping, and the vessels dilate, then the

1717
01:35:54,479 --> 01:35:58,640
Speaker 1: living twin will essentially bleed into the dead twin, and

1718
01:35:58,680 --> 01:36:02,040
Speaker 1: this will happen quickly. The physical connection between the two

1719
01:36:02,080 --> 01:36:04,560
Speaker 1: is large enough, but with smaller cases, there will be

1720
01:36:04,600 --> 01:36:07,200
Speaker 1: an infection in a matter of hours. And in these

1721
01:36:07,240 --> 01:36:12,080
Speaker 1: cases it's technically possible that surgical separate separation could save

1722
01:36:12,160 --> 01:36:14,720
Speaker 1: the living twin, but he didn't think it had ever

1723
01:36:14,760 --> 01:36:18,280
Speaker 1: been attempted. Again. In many cases, separation might not even

1724
01:36:18,280 --> 01:36:22,280
Speaker 1: be possible under ideal conditions, much less like an emergency

1725
01:36:22,600 --> 01:36:26,680
Speaker 1: UH intervention scenario. So while we may be able to

1726
01:36:26,720 --> 01:36:31,120
Speaker 1: accept the idea that they're surviving bird twin murders his

1727
01:36:31,320 --> 01:36:34,400
Speaker 1: brother's killers, the idea that he goes on to drive

1728
01:36:34,439 --> 01:36:38,200
Speaker 1: the ice cream truck around seems a bit of a stretch, now, Robert,

1729
01:36:38,280 --> 01:36:40,640
Speaker 1: I see you've attached a panel from a comic, so

1730
01:36:40,720 --> 01:36:43,479
Speaker 1: that this one was based on I guess something that

1731
01:36:43,560 --> 01:36:45,800
Speaker 1: was told in the comics before it was on the show. Yeah,

1732
01:36:45,880 --> 01:36:48,320
Speaker 1: this one was definitely based on a comic. Those comics

1733
01:36:48,320 --> 01:36:51,120
Speaker 1: managed to come up with some really gross stuff that

1734
01:36:51,280 --> 01:36:55,439
Speaker 1: became only grosser when it was translated to to HBO. Yeah,

1735
01:36:55,479 --> 01:36:57,479
Speaker 1: that the comics were big about, like the just the

1736
01:36:57,600 --> 01:37:00,959
Speaker 1: visual visceral horror, and the show did agree job of

1737
01:37:00,960 --> 01:37:03,720
Speaker 1: of portraying that. Uh yeah. This this panel that I

1738
01:37:03,760 --> 01:37:06,080
Speaker 1: found from it, which which is easy to find if

1739
01:37:06,080 --> 01:37:08,799
Speaker 1: you do just a Google search for for the title

1740
01:37:08,880 --> 01:37:10,640
Speaker 1: of this episode, which was also the title of the

1741
01:37:10,680 --> 01:37:14,400
Speaker 1: comics People who Live in Brass Horses. Uh yeah. You

1742
01:37:14,479 --> 01:37:17,280
Speaker 1: just see the the ice cream truck driver climbing out

1743
01:37:17,280 --> 01:37:18,800
Speaker 1: of the back of the truck and he just has

1744
01:37:18,880 --> 01:37:22,040
Speaker 1: this this rotting corpse attached to the back of him

1745
01:37:22,080 --> 01:37:27,480
Speaker 1: with flies buzzing around it. Uh. It's it's horrifying, grotesque, insensitive,

1746
01:37:29,360 --> 01:37:32,639
Speaker 1: everything you would expect from the tales from the crypt Robert.

1747
01:37:32,800 --> 01:37:36,280
Speaker 1: And you're reading about the actual uh like the surgeries

1748
01:37:36,320 --> 01:37:39,880
Speaker 1: involved here and stuff. Do you get the sense that, um,

1749
01:37:39,920 --> 01:37:42,719
Speaker 1: that medical science is making a lot of progress in

1750
01:37:42,720 --> 01:37:45,840
Speaker 1: in how to help conjoined twins, especially in cases where

1751
01:37:45,880 --> 01:37:48,519
Speaker 1: they do need to be separated. Yeah, I mean it

1752
01:37:48,560 --> 01:37:50,559
Speaker 1: seems to be the case. But at the same time,

1753
01:37:50,600 --> 01:37:53,080
Speaker 1: it's like so many of these cases they are they're different.

1754
01:37:53,120 --> 01:37:55,679
Speaker 1: Each one has its own individual challenges, and that's rare.

1755
01:37:56,080 --> 01:37:59,120
Speaker 1: It's rare, uh, and you know when it when it

1756
01:37:59,160 --> 01:38:00,720
Speaker 1: does pop up, there also going to be a lot

1757
01:38:00,760 --> 01:38:03,960
Speaker 1: of arguments potentially about is this the thing to do?

1758
01:38:04,160 --> 01:38:08,480
Speaker 1: Is is is this is this the morally correct um

1759
01:38:08,479 --> 01:38:12,600
Speaker 1: medical intervention if there is such a risk to both patients,

1760
01:38:13,240 --> 01:38:16,120
Speaker 1: because there are some heartbreaking accounts in the literature where

1761
01:38:16,320 --> 01:38:20,519
Speaker 1: an attempt is made to separate to conjoin twins and

1762
01:38:20,600 --> 01:38:24,879
Speaker 1: they simply both die, they do neither one actually survives

1763
01:38:24,920 --> 01:38:26,760
Speaker 1: the surgery, right, Well, I mean, I guess I was

1764
01:38:26,800 --> 01:38:30,640
Speaker 1: specifically thinking of cases where it is medically necessary in

1765
01:38:30,760 --> 01:38:34,880
Speaker 1: order to save them or create better health outcomes to

1766
01:38:34,920 --> 01:38:36,960
Speaker 1: separate them. I mean, I don't think we should just

1767
01:38:37,040 --> 01:38:41,679
Speaker 1: assume that all can joined twins naturally want to be separated. Yeah,

1768
01:38:42,680 --> 01:38:45,120
Speaker 1: Basically it comes down to just the complexity of the

1769
01:38:45,360 --> 01:38:49,280
Speaker 1: of the connection. Like if if the connection is is

1770
01:38:49,320 --> 01:38:53,200
Speaker 1: smaller and more simple, and then it can actually be

1771
01:38:53,240 --> 01:38:57,120
Speaker 1: a pretty safe procedure as I understand it. But then

1772
01:38:57,160 --> 01:38:59,080
Speaker 1: there are just other cases where it is going to

1773
01:38:59,120 --> 01:39:03,320
Speaker 1: be kind of like the the malin everest of surgical intervention.

1774
01:39:03,840 --> 01:39:08,000
Speaker 1: And and yet sometimes depending on the situation, it may

1775
01:39:08,000 --> 01:39:10,240
Speaker 1: be something that has to be done. This is yet

1776
01:39:10,280 --> 01:39:12,320
Speaker 1: another thing that I think I might deserve a deeper

1777
01:39:12,360 --> 01:39:15,120
Speaker 1: look sometime in the future. Oh yeah, absolutely, we've only

1778
01:39:15,320 --> 01:39:20,240
Speaker 1: just we've we've only we've barely brushed the surface of

1779
01:39:20,400 --> 01:39:24,439
Speaker 1: twins and certainly conjoined twins. And obviously there's a lot

1780
01:39:24,479 --> 01:39:27,720
Speaker 1: of a lot of fascinating information out there about you know,

1781
01:39:27,760 --> 01:39:31,280
Speaker 1: the lives that led by actual conjoined twins, and not

1782
01:39:31,400 --> 01:39:34,360
Speaker 1: the you know, the cartoonish examples that we see in

1783
01:39:34,439 --> 01:39:37,120
Speaker 1: like Tales from the crypt which, sadly it tends to be.

1784
01:39:37,400 --> 01:39:38,720
Speaker 1: This is the kind of thing that tends to be

1785
01:39:38,760 --> 01:39:42,320
Speaker 1: one's first introduction to conjoined twins. In the same way

1786
01:39:42,320 --> 01:39:47,760
Speaker 1: that unless you have identical twins in your classroom growing up,

1787
01:39:48,479 --> 01:39:50,280
Speaker 1: if you're not encountering them in your life, your first

1788
01:39:50,320 --> 01:39:52,760
Speaker 1: example to to identical twins is likely going to be

1789
01:39:52,840 --> 01:39:57,120
Speaker 1: some sort of weird horror show. Example, when you're five

1790
01:39:57,160 --> 01:40:00,880
Speaker 1: and you watch Dead Ringers, well with hope, but sartainly,

1791
01:40:00,880 --> 01:40:02,800
Speaker 1: you can watch The Simpsons, right, The Simpsons had the

1792
01:40:02,800 --> 01:40:06,720
Speaker 1: Treehouse of Horror where twins Evil Twin was separated from

1793
01:40:06,760 --> 01:40:09,400
Speaker 1: him and his living in the attic. I wonder, I mean,

1794
01:40:09,600 --> 01:40:12,839
Speaker 1: is the belief in evil twins actually a fairly common

1795
01:40:12,880 --> 01:40:16,360
Speaker 1: thing or does everybody understand that's not real? I hope

1796
01:40:16,479 --> 01:40:18,920
Speaker 1: everyone understands that. I mean, I have friends with with

1797
01:40:18,960 --> 01:40:21,960
Speaker 1: twins and um, and I I've talked to them a

1798
01:40:21,960 --> 01:40:24,040
Speaker 1: little bit about just you know, to the point where

1799
01:40:24,080 --> 01:40:26,320
Speaker 1: they just want to avoid any like creepy twin content.

1800
01:40:26,400 --> 01:40:31,040
Speaker 1: I don't don't blame them, um, but I basically I

1801
01:40:31,080 --> 01:40:35,440
Speaker 1: think comes down more to the to us untwinned individuals

1802
01:40:35,840 --> 01:40:38,880
Speaker 1: where we see this, we see two identical individuals, and

1803
01:40:38,880 --> 01:40:41,960
Speaker 1: we think of all the potential self exploration, like what

1804
01:40:42,040 --> 01:40:44,479
Speaker 1: if I were two people, what would that mean? Would

1805
01:40:44,479 --> 01:40:47,439
Speaker 1: have one represented my best qualities and one my my

1806
01:40:48,040 --> 01:40:50,840
Speaker 1: you know, my my, my, my darker qualities. And of

1807
01:40:50,880 --> 01:40:53,800
Speaker 1: course meanwhile, these twins are are two separate people, were

1808
01:40:53,800 --> 01:40:56,519
Speaker 1: just trying to live their lives, and we're staring at them,

1809
01:40:56,560 --> 01:41:00,200
Speaker 1: trying to gaze down our own navel or write a

1810
01:41:00,320 --> 01:41:04,439
Speaker 1: grotesque horror story. Yeah. The the looker, the person who

1811
01:41:04,439 --> 01:41:06,800
Speaker 1: looks at another is the real monster, you know, because

1812
01:41:06,840 --> 01:41:09,040
Speaker 1: they always want to make monsters out of people who

1813
01:41:09,040 --> 01:41:12,400
Speaker 1: are just people. Yeah, all right, so there you have it, uh,

1814
01:41:12,520 --> 01:41:16,800
Speaker 1: Anthology of Horror, Volume one. Because if everyone liked this.

1815
01:41:17,600 --> 01:41:19,519
Speaker 1: Maybe we'll do it again next year. Maybe this will

1816
01:41:19,560 --> 01:41:22,800
Speaker 1: be our new Halloween thing. Uh. And if it is,

1817
01:41:23,680 --> 01:41:25,960
Speaker 1: what would you like us to cover? I guess this

1818
01:41:26,000 --> 01:41:27,680
Speaker 1: means before then, I'm gonna have to go back and

1819
01:41:27,720 --> 01:41:31,240
Speaker 1: watch some some horror anthology series I am. I am

1820
01:41:31,800 --> 01:41:34,960
Speaker 1: under exposed at this point. I had a hard enough

1821
01:41:35,000 --> 01:41:37,519
Speaker 1: time picking just the ones that I did today, though,

1822
01:41:38,320 --> 01:41:40,679
Speaker 1: I guess I'd never run out of Treehouse of Horror

1823
01:41:40,720 --> 01:41:43,200
Speaker 1: episodes to pick tree Yeah, Treehouse tends to be a

1824
01:41:43,280 --> 01:41:47,680
Speaker 1: nice like overview of great anthology works in places. Other times,

1825
01:41:47,720 --> 01:41:50,800
Speaker 1: of course, they're parioding of futially linked films. I think

1826
01:41:50,840 --> 01:41:54,720
Speaker 1: Twilight Zone and Outer Limits, Black Mirror. These are great

1827
01:41:54,720 --> 01:41:57,120
Speaker 1: places to look to Tales from the crypt a little

1828
01:41:57,160 --> 01:41:59,200
Speaker 1: bit harder. I ran into a lot of dead ends

1829
01:41:59,200 --> 01:42:03,559
Speaker 1: and bad pun before I decided to, uh to talk

1830
01:42:03,560 --> 01:42:06,519
Speaker 1: about this one. Well, it is a forest of dead

1831
01:42:06,600 --> 01:42:10,240
Speaker 1: ends and bad puns, as I'm to understand. All right, Well, hey,

1832
01:42:10,360 --> 01:42:11,920
Speaker 1: everybody out there, you have a year to catch up

1833
01:42:11,960 --> 01:42:15,840
Speaker 1: on higher anthologies as well, and to suggest episodes from

1834
01:42:15,840 --> 01:42:18,599
Speaker 1: those anthologies you'd like us to consider covering in the future.

1835
01:42:18,920 --> 01:42:21,200
Speaker 1: In the meantime, check out stuff to blow your Mind

1836
01:42:21,240 --> 01:42:23,960
Speaker 1: dot com. That is our our mothership. That's where we'll

1837
01:42:23,960 --> 01:42:26,599
Speaker 1: find all the episodes. That's where you find links out

1838
01:42:26,600 --> 01:42:30,840
Speaker 1: to our social media accounts like Facebook and Twitter, uh Instagram.

1839
01:42:31,280 --> 01:42:33,080
Speaker 1: It's also where you'll find our store where you can

1840
01:42:33,120 --> 01:42:36,240
Speaker 1: pick up some cool merchandise UH that either has our

1841
01:42:36,320 --> 01:42:39,439
Speaker 1: logo or brand on it, or it calls back to

1842
01:42:39,720 --> 01:42:43,120
Speaker 1: a specific episodes that we've covered on the show. Big thanks,

1843
01:42:43,160 --> 01:42:46,439
Speaker 1: as always to our excellent audio producers Alex Williams and

1844
01:42:46,439 --> 01:42:48,760
Speaker 1: Tarry Harrison. If you would like to get in touch

1845
01:42:48,840 --> 01:42:51,200
Speaker 1: with us directly to let us know feedback about this

1846
01:42:51,280 --> 01:42:54,200
Speaker 1: episode or any other, to suggest a topic for the future,

1847
01:42:54,400 --> 01:42:57,000
Speaker 1: just to say hi, let us know where you listen from,

1848
01:42:57,000 --> 01:42:58,640
Speaker 1: how you found out about the show, all that kind

1849
01:42:58,640 --> 01:43:01,400
Speaker 1: of stuff. You can email us at blow the Mind

1850
01:43:01,600 --> 01:43:12,960
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com for more on this

1851
01:43:13,160 --> 01:43:15,639
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works

1852
01:43:15,680 --> 01:43:26,880
Speaker 1: dot com. Believe