Speaker 1: Guess what, Mango? What's that? Will? So you know my
Speaker 1: son who who's just eight years old now, he used
Speaker 1: to be completely obsessed with a c DC. You remember this, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's hard to forget. Well, apparently there's a big advantage
Speaker 1: to having as many A C d C songs saved
Speaker 1: in our on our hard drive as we do. And
Speaker 1: it's the calm Sharks down. Have you heard this? It
Speaker 1: was back in two thousand eleven there was an Australian
Speaker 1: tour operator, his name was Matt Wall already started playing
Speaker 1: music from underwater speakers and what he realized was that
Speaker 1: when he played back in Black or You Shook Me
Speaker 1: All Night Long, that the sharks started to become much
Speaker 1: less aggressive. How strange. So instead they actually became calm
Speaker 1: and inquisitive, and they started nuzzling up to the speaker
Speaker 1: and rubbing up against it as they moved past. And
Speaker 1: I can't say this is my reaction to hearing a CDC,
Speaker 1: but this is what they did. I love that like
Speaker 1: sharks dig a C d C and not other bands,
Speaker 1: you know, But do you have any idea why they
Speaker 1: like it so much? No? And honestly, this guy was
Speaker 1: baffled as well. So, as Waller told Time Magazine, quote,
Speaker 1: sharks don't of ears, they don't have long hair, and
Speaker 1: they don't headbang past the cage doing air guitar. But
Speaker 1: they do seem to like the particular vibrations that a
Speaker 1: C d C casts off. In fact, it works so
Speaker 1: well he stopped using bait to draw the sharks near
Speaker 1: his diving cages, and instead he just calms them down
Speaker 1: and lures them close with a C d C. It's
Speaker 1: like they go into this hard rock trance. So today
Speaker 1: show is all about sharks, like why are we so
Speaker 1: afraid of shark attacks? Why do they need so many teeth?
Speaker 1: And why is punching a shark in the nose a
Speaker 1: terrible strategy if you want to avoid being eaten? So
Speaker 1: let's dig in. Hey, their podcast listeners, Welcome to Part
Speaker 1: Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as always I'm joined
Speaker 1: by my good friend Manges Ticketer and on the other
Speaker 1: side of the soundproof glass wearing yet another one of
Speaker 1: his classic shirts. Every week I think there's no way
Speaker 1: he can top the last one, and then he somehow does.
Speaker 1: And so today's it just says live every week like
Speaker 1: it's shark week, and I have to bet I don't
Speaker 1: know exactly what that means, but I feel like it's
Speaker 1: so deep and it's something that we really need to
Speaker 1: learn to live by. These words. I'd actually put it
Speaker 1: right up there with the Golden Rule, even though I'm
Speaker 1: not acent sure what it means. That's our friend and
Speaker 1: producer Tristan McNeil. So after about a year of working here,
Speaker 1: I tend to get all my moral advice straight off
Speaker 1: of Tristan shirts. I feel like he's basically a walking
Speaker 1: Confucius well, and from what we hear from our listeners,
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people are doing this too.
Speaker 1: I really don't think he knows the impact he has
Speaker 1: in this world. But you know, in this case, we're
Speaker 1: taking his advice to heart. Because today's show is all
Speaker 1: about sharks. That means we'll be taking a deep dive
Speaker 1: into the surprising science behind some of their unique characteristics,
Speaker 1: as well as a few reasons why it's in our
Speaker 1: own best interest to eat the ocean shark friendly. And
Speaker 1: I know for a lot of people, the idea of
Speaker 1: protecting sharks is going to sound like a terrible idea.
Speaker 1: That's part of the reason we wanted to do this episode,
Speaker 1: so with summer just around the corner, it felt like
Speaker 1: the right time to take a close look at the
Speaker 1: animals responsible for so much of the world's beach side dread.
Speaker 1: But rather than just perpetuating that old idea that sharks
Speaker 1: are ravenous and man eating monsters, even we're actually going
Speaker 1: to try to make a case for why sharks should
Speaker 1: be feared a little bit less and and actually admired
Speaker 1: a whole lot more So, we have these animal plates
Speaker 1: at my house, and they've got foxes and owls and
Speaker 1: all these other cute creatures and bow ties. They're all
Speaker 1: kind of dressed up, and I always end up eating
Speaker 1: off the shark plate, Like the kids always go for
Speaker 1: the cute animals, and I am tired of eating off
Speaker 1: the shark plates. For me. That's what's fueling this episode.
Speaker 1: But that's great. But I do think a good place
Speaker 1: to start is noting that while they're nearly five unique
Speaker 1: species of sharks in the world, only thirty or so
Speaker 1: have been definitively linked to unprovoked attacks on humans. So
Speaker 1: while this idea of sharks immediately conjures up, I don't know,
Speaker 1: like scary ideas of tiger sharks or great whites. In
Speaker 1: people's minds, those kind of human hungry peak predators. They're
Speaker 1: really the exception for sharks species and not the rule, right,
Speaker 1: And you know you've actually said human hungry. But but
Speaker 1: even that is not really the case when we talk
Speaker 1: about these species as well, because you know, I remember
Speaker 1: hearing that even these highly predatory sharks, they don't really
Speaker 1: care for the taste of human Yeah, I mean, I
Speaker 1: guess we can't really compete with the taste of free
Speaker 1: range blue fin tuna. Um Sharks obviously don't typically hunt
Speaker 1: humans for food at all. In fact, the majority of
Speaker 1: shark bites are considered exploratory bites, which is basically the
Speaker 1: sharks just kind of taking a little taste to see
Speaker 1: if what it's caught is food or not. And after
Speaker 1: that first bite, most sharks decide, you know, they aren't
Speaker 1: in the mood for humans and don't go back for seconds.
Speaker 1: Of course, none of that means that a single shark
Speaker 1: bite can't be devastating on its own. Usually a nibble
Speaker 1: is all it takes to lose a limb. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, setting aside the unlikely hood of an attack
Speaker 1: and the intention of the sharks themselves, it is easy
Speaker 1: to understand why so many people are scared of these creatures.
Speaker 1: And even a bite that leaves a person's organs and
Speaker 1: tacks still puts them at risk of, you know, significantly
Speaker 1: bleeding from that. And at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: some sharks definitely do attack humans, and when it happens,
Speaker 1: the results tend to be pretty horrifying. So you know,
Speaker 1: you figure that has to color the way the average
Speaker 1: person looks at sharks, even if the friendlier species do
Speaker 1: far outnumber the killer ones, right, I mean, as good
Speaker 1: a drummer as jabber Jaws was on that cartoon, it
Speaker 1: didn't change our impressionive sharks. Yeah, and he was a
Speaker 1: very very good drummer, to be honest. But I mean
Speaker 1: it's partially because, like, the only reports we hear about
Speaker 1: sharks are terrifying, and that makes it tough for people
Speaker 1: to think about them as anything but a threat. But
Speaker 1: the weird thing is that those feelings have persisted even
Speaker 1: as a lot of media outlets are improving how they
Speaker 1: handle shark attacks. In the news like now, reporters will
Speaker 1: often give a little perspective on the attacks by mentioning
Speaker 1: how rare shark attacks are overall, Yeah, and that true.
Speaker 1: I feel like the line always here is how you
Speaker 1: have a greater chance of being struck dead by lightning
Speaker 1: than killed by a shark. I think the odds of
Speaker 1: dying from a shark attack or something like, you know,
Speaker 1: one in three point seven million, whereas the odds of
Speaker 1: dying from lightning are I think one in a hundred
Speaker 1: and sixty two thousand, So it is a pretty significant difference. Also,
Speaker 1: I think Martha Stewart has claimed to have been struck
Speaker 1: by lightning three times, and she's also never been eaten
Speaker 1: by a shark, which supports that data. That definitely supports
Speaker 1: that if that's true. Does she actually claim to have
Speaker 1: been struck by lightning three times? Yeah? I think once
Speaker 1: was in her bed once wash dishes. Yeah, she has
Speaker 1: a little frame bed apparently. Oh that is some bad luck. Well,
Speaker 1: there are plenty of other examples too. I think I think,
Speaker 1: you know, you have higher odds of being killed by
Speaker 1: beastings or squashed by unstable vending machines, which weirdly is
Speaker 1: kind of a fear of mine, or at least it
Speaker 1: was when I was a kid, or or even crushed
Speaker 1: by falling coconuts. Those are all things that are more
Speaker 1: likely to happen to you than being eaten or bitten
Speaker 1: by a shark. Well, I mean, no matter how you
Speaker 1: want to measure it, the point is that sharks aren't
Speaker 1: nearly as big a threat to humans as we give
Speaker 1: them credit for. But that's still a tough prospect for
Speaker 1: most of us to believe. All right, So I'm curious, like,
Speaker 1: why do you think that is? Like, if we know
Speaker 1: grizzly shark attacks are really, really rare, then then why
Speaker 1: are we so unnerved by them? I Mean, I think
Speaker 1: part of it is just the sense of otherness that
Speaker 1: people get from sharks, because I mean, if you think
Speaker 1: about other animals that prey on humans, you're thinking about
Speaker 1: like lions or tigers or wolves, there's still some sense
Speaker 1: of familiarity there. Like the characteristics and mannerisms we see
Speaker 1: in those predators kind of remind us of cuddly cats
Speaker 1: or the dogs we keep his house pets. And it's
Speaker 1: similar with other occasional human killers like grizzly bears and gorillas,
Speaker 1: Like sometimes their behavior makes it seem like they're almost human,
Speaker 1: which causes people to underestimate the threat that they pose
Speaker 1: until it's too late, right, And you know, if you
Speaker 1: think about those animals, they're also pretty cute and playful
Speaker 1: when they're just baby. So I would think that kind
Speaker 1: of furthers the the empathy that you're talking about, definitely,
Speaker 1: And like, none of this happens with sharks, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: baby sharks are called pops, but we don't see them
Speaker 1: as cute like puppies. So when when most people look
Speaker 1: at sharks, they see something completely unfamiliar to them, and
Speaker 1: and humans tend to have a tough time grappling with
Speaker 1: the unfamiliar, all right, So it sounds like most of
Speaker 1: us probably won't ever really empathize with sharks. But but
Speaker 1: I feel like we can at least admire or even
Speaker 1: respect them a little bit more than we currently do.
Speaker 1: So keeping that in mind, I know, we both found
Speaker 1: a ton of surprising, you know, non threatening reasons to
Speaker 1: be pro sharks. So I feel like maybe the best
Speaker 1: way to do this is just kind of have a
Speaker 1: back and forth and and and maybe we can help
Speaker 1: these guys out on the pr front. I don't know
Speaker 1: why we're doing this, but but let's give it a shot.
Speaker 1: Yeah for it? So I'm gonna start us off with
Speaker 1: the fact that sharks are way more social than we'd
Speaker 1: always thought. And this news actually comes from a group
Speaker 1: of Delaware based researchers who spent nearly a decade tracking
Speaker 1: the movements of more than three d San tiger sharks.
Speaker 1: So this group tagged the sharks with these mobile transmitters,
Speaker 1: and then they logged how often members of the group
Speaker 1: cross paths with fellow sharks in the wild, And in
Speaker 1: the end, they found that sharks hang out in groups
Speaker 1: that shrink and grow in size depending on the time
Speaker 1: of year and the location, which is actually something we
Speaker 1: see mostly in mammals like elephants or chimps and dolphins. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's not something I'd heard before, so just trying to
Speaker 1: understand this. So, like in the spring, the sharks might
Speaker 1: go off on their own to mate, but then they
Speaker 1: like group up again later in the year to hunt together.
Speaker 1: Is that is that how it works exactly? But even
Speaker 1: when they travel alone like these San tiger sharks still
Speaker 1: seem to socialize with passers by. Like the researchers who
Speaker 1: tagged all these sharks recaptured two of them at one point,
Speaker 1: and when they downloaded the data from their trackers, they
Speaker 1: found that just these two sharks had interacted with more
Speaker 1: than three fifty fish. Oh wow. And were they mostly
Speaker 1: bumping into other sand tiger sharks or what? Yeah for
Speaker 1: for the most part, but they also ran into seven
Speaker 1: other different species, including a few other kinds of sharks
Speaker 1: and some plain old fish. But here's the really wild part.
Speaker 1: These encounters weren't just chance meetings with strangers like the tag.
Speaker 1: Sharks actually interacted with the same individuals over and over again.
Speaker 1: And this would go on throughout the year. And in fact,
Speaker 1: some sharks bumped into the same fish more than twenty times.
Speaker 1: That's so bizarre. So do the researchers know what's going
Speaker 1: on with that? Like, are they really forming these little
Speaker 1: friend circles or family groups out in the out in
Speaker 1: the ocean. I mean, it certainly seems that way, but
Speaker 1: the truth is we aren't actually sure yet. Like we'll
Speaker 1: still have to keep following sharks around until we figure
Speaker 1: it out, But so far, there's actually reason to think
Speaker 1: that sharks are much friendlier and also better at staying
Speaker 1: in touch than we ever thought before. Well, I want
Speaker 1: to congratulate you on on finding both a way to
Speaker 1: boost the public perception of sharks and your home state.
Speaker 1: Don't think I've noticed the mention of Delaware in there.
Speaker 1: That was well done. But you know, while the social
Speaker 1: lives of sharks might bear some similarity to our own,
Speaker 1: I am sad to say they put us the shame
Speaker 1: in one category and I'm going to go in a
Speaker 1: very different direction here. But I did find this interesting,
Speaker 1: and that's dental hygiene. I bet you didn't see me
Speaker 1: going there now, But if you look at it, sharks
Speaker 1: actually can't get cavities, And to be fair, that's actually
Speaker 1: true of most animals, since their diets don't contain anywhere
Speaker 1: near as much sugar as that of humans. But sharks
Speaker 1: actually have a really unique ability here are really unique
Speaker 1: feature rather, and that's that their teeth are completely coded
Speaker 1: and fluoride. And that's not an exaggeration. There was this
Speaker 1: research I was looking at. It was published in the
Speaker 1: Journal of Structural Biology that both makos and tiger sharks
Speaker 1: have teeth with outer coatings made from a hundred percent fluoride.
Speaker 1: So there's reason to think the same is true for
Speaker 1: other shark species as well. That's really incredible, but it
Speaker 1: also reminds me, do you remember when we were coming
Speaker 1: up with bad ideas for T shirts at Mentalphlass, and
Speaker 1: one of our friends was desperately trying to get us
Speaker 1: to make a shark shirt, like a T shirt of
Speaker 1: a shark smiling, and it said too many teeth, too
Speaker 1: little time. I do remember that. I still have no
Speaker 1: idea what that means. It made no sense. I know,
Speaker 1: I'm kind of surprised we didn't make it. But you
Speaker 1: were saying, basically, cavities are an issue for sharks because
Speaker 1: of their diet, but it also sounds like they don't
Speaker 1: have much of a problem with tooth togay, like if
Speaker 1: their teeth are basically encased in this toothpaste. Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 1: And and not only that, but because the mineral that
Speaker 1: coat shark teeth is less water soluble than the stuff
Speaker 1: that coats mammal teeth, they're they're actually perfectly suited for
Speaker 1: that underwater life. So then one thing I'm actually curious
Speaker 1: about is why are there so many loose shark teeth
Speaker 1: floating around? I mean, if their teeth are so protected,
Speaker 1: why are they always falling out? Well? See, that's the thing,
Speaker 1: and this is actually another point of overlap between us
Speaker 1: and sharks because you know, it turns out that shark
Speaker 1: teeth are just as weak as human teeth. And so
Speaker 1: this was discovered by that same German team of researchers
Speaker 1: who were studying the fluoride coating on their teeth, and
Speaker 1: what they found was that despite the added strength from
Speaker 1: the fluoride, shark teeth aren't any better than ours when
Speaker 1: it comes to resisting cracking or breaking. So shark teeth
Speaker 1: actually fall out all the time, you know, whenever they
Speaker 1: break or get too worn down. And this is made
Speaker 1: especially easy because shark teeth are actually only attached at
Speaker 1: their jaws by this soft tissue, So unlike ours, they're
Speaker 1: they're they're not nestled in these like tight fitting sockets
Speaker 1: that we see in you know, in human teeth. But
Speaker 1: do they have uh, never ending supply of shark teeth
Speaker 1: as well. I mean, I feel like any time you
Speaker 1: see a picture of a shark's mouth, it just looks
Speaker 1: like endless rows of teeth. Oh yeah, I mean, these
Speaker 1: guys are like tooth making machines. And in fact, it
Speaker 1: it only takes them. And this was one of the
Speaker 1: craziest stats that I saw. It takes most sharks about
Speaker 1: twenty four hours to produce a replacement tooth, and over
Speaker 1: the course of an average, say like twenty or thirty
Speaker 1: year lifespan, a single shark can go through literally thousands
Speaker 1: of teeth, So anytime you have a tooth falling out,
Speaker 1: there's always another one just to row behind, and it's
Speaker 1: just ready to move up and take its place. So
Speaker 1: it's pretty remarkable. Yeah, I love that shark dentist isn't
Speaker 1: a profession any sharks should go into. I feel like
Speaker 1: there's no money in that, So this is also dumb.
Speaker 1: But I wonder if anybody's ever knocked out a bunch
Speaker 1: of sharks teeth, Like you know, how if you're ever
Speaker 1: faced with an attacking shark, they say your best bet
Speaker 1: is to punch in the nose. You know, it's weird
Speaker 1: because I've heard that too, and so I decided to
Speaker 1: actually look into it, and it turns out that punching
Speaker 1: a shark in the face is just about the worst
Speaker 1: advice you could give a shark attack victim, which honestly,
Speaker 1: I feel like should have been pretty obvious from the start.
Speaker 1: And I really don't know how this rumor caught on,
Speaker 1: but I found this interview with a wildlife filmmaker, and
Speaker 1: I wanted to include this quote because he has the
Speaker 1: best name of just about anyone we've ever talked about.
Speaker 1: His name is Andy Brandy Cassa Grande the fourth. Is
Speaker 1: that not such an amazing name? It's pretty amazing. I
Speaker 1: feel like he deserves his own episode. Anyway, he explains
Speaker 1: why socking a shark is such a dumb idea. So
Speaker 1: here's what he says. The reality is that sharks are
Speaker 1: pretty durable. Plus water magnifies images, so shark's nose might
Speaker 1: look like it's six inches in front of your face,
Speaker 1: but in reality it's nout as further away. So when
Speaker 1: you punch and miss its nose, your punch trajectory will
Speaker 1: go slightly downward, right into the shark's mouth. And here's
Speaker 1: his advice, don't put your arm in a shark's mouth,
Speaker 1: which just seems like pretty sound advice. Yeah, it is.
Speaker 1: And it seems like even if someone did knock a
Speaker 1: sharks teeth that they probably weren't around to talk about
Speaker 1: it afterwards. Yeah, I mean, I think you'd better go
Speaker 1: ahead and just take that socking a shark thing off
Speaker 1: of your bucket list, Mango. But you know, since we're
Speaker 1: back on talking shark attacks, there's a side of them
Speaker 1: I do want to talk about that actually might be
Speaker 1: another reason to be pro shark strange as that may sound,
Speaker 1: So let's take a quick break and then I'll tell
Speaker 1: you what I mean. You're listening to part Time Genius
Speaker 1: and we're talking about the signs of sharks. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: so I'm super curious where you're going with this one.
Speaker 1: Tell me what's the upside shark attacks? All right? So
Speaker 1: it's tragic as shark attacks undoubtedly are, it's it's possible
Speaker 1: they also provide a kind of paradoxical benefit to humans.
Speaker 1: So this comes from a well known theoretical physicist and mathematician.
Speaker 1: His name is Freeman Dyson, and according to Dyson, for
Speaker 1: every swimmer killed in a shark attack off the coast
Speaker 1: of San Diego, there are a ten drowning desk prevented
Speaker 1: due to fear of going in the water. So here's
Speaker 1: how he writes about it. He says, every time a
Speaker 1: swimmer is killed, the number of deaths by drowning goes
Speaker 1: down for a few years and then returns to the
Speaker 1: normal level. The effect occurs because reports of death by
Speaker 1: shark attack are remembered more vividly than reports of drownings.
Speaker 1: So you know, the ideas here that after a shark attack,
Speaker 1: people are either more cautious in the water or they
Speaker 1: just avoid it altogether, and in the process of that
Speaker 1: that's effectively saves people from drowning. Now, to be clear,
Speaker 1: Dison's yet to show enough solid evidence to back up
Speaker 1: this claim, but but it kind of makes sense if
Speaker 1: you think about it, and you know, it's a nice
Speaker 1: reminder that protecting sharks could wind up benefiting in all
Speaker 1: sorts of kind of weird ways. Well, one thing we
Speaker 1: can definitely thank sharks for is the summer blockbuster, though
Speaker 1: I guess Steven Spielberg gets some credit for this too. Well,
Speaker 1: this is something of a tangent. I I do want
Speaker 1: to take a little time to talk about not only
Speaker 1: how Jaws has impacted the public image of sharks, but
Speaker 1: also how it revolutionized the movie industry as a whole.
Speaker 1: You know, I've read before how monumental this move you
Speaker 1: was in terms of building this excited audience, like it
Speaker 1: caught so many people's attention when it was released. I
Speaker 1: guess it was what came out and it actually became
Speaker 1: the first movie to ever pass the hundred million dollar
Speaker 1: mark at the box office, which, if you think about it,
Speaker 1: not too shabby. This was this was really just a
Speaker 1: B movie about these three scruffy guys waging war with
Speaker 1: this largely unseen sharks. So it's pretty incredible. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: you know, the sellar box office wasn't the only way
Speaker 1: that Jaws was a game changer. I mean the way
Speaker 1: the movie was advertised and also merchandized also fed into
Speaker 1: its success, and it established this new formula for Hollywood blockbusters.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's what Hollywood blockbusters still do today. And
Speaker 1: it's weird to think about, but prior to Jaws, there
Speaker 1: were actually no wide release summer event films, like the
Speaker 1: tradition of luring movie goers into theaters with these big
Speaker 1: budget thrillers, especially during the hottest months of the year.
Speaker 1: It's a practice that really began with Jaws and was
Speaker 1: cemented two years later with the release of Star Wars.
Speaker 1: So obviously, I know you looked into this a bit
Speaker 1: more than I and I'm curious what made Jaws such
Speaker 1: an outlier. Like if you look back and movie history,
Speaker 1: there were so many movies released in the summer months
Speaker 1: before Jaw. So why didn't any of these others catch
Speaker 1: on as the world's first blockbuster? Well, largely because at
Speaker 1: the time, the summer months were this unspoken dumping ground
Speaker 1: for all the studios worst movies. So while today movies
Speaker 1: that studios have no faith in typically come out in
Speaker 1: like January or September, back then, the thining was that
Speaker 1: most people were too busy going on vacations or enjoying
Speaker 1: the outdoors, you know, to bother with going to the
Speaker 1: theater in the summertime. Wait. So, so, looking back at this,
Speaker 1: so universal had assumed Jaws would flop. Kind of yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, the original plan was to release it in
Speaker 1: Christmas in n but when this production schedule just was
Speaker 1: so troubled and it dragged on for more than a
Speaker 1: hundred days over schedule, the studio had no choice but
Speaker 1: to push it back for a summer release the following year.
Speaker 1: By the way, I don't know if you realize this,
Speaker 1: but Spielberg wasn't actually the movie's first director. It actually
Speaker 1: got offered to a number of people, including this guy
Speaker 1: Dick Richards, who got fired because he kept referring to
Speaker 1: Jaws as a whale. If you're directing the movie, it
Speaker 1: feels like you should learn the animal your ship. That
Speaker 1: seems like a pretty critical mistake there, but after you know,
Speaker 1: so many of these setbacks along the way, Universal probably
Speaker 1: didn't have that much faith in Jaws finding an audience.
Speaker 1: But for whatever reason, a movie about people being torn
Speaker 1: apart by a shark is exactly what people wanted to
Speaker 1: see that summer. The Universal really just looked into the success.
Speaker 1: It sounds like, and you know, since this is a
Speaker 1: Shark episode, we should probably take a couple of minutes
Speaker 1: to talk about the star of Jaws, which, of course
Speaker 1: is this mechanical shark puppet that the crew referred to
Speaker 1: as Bruce. And as a real quick aside here, the
Speaker 1: shark's namesake is actually Spielberg's long time and still current lawyer.
Speaker 1: His name is Bruce Raymer. That there was a funny
Speaker 1: quote from him when he was asked about this by
Speaker 1: the Harvard Law bulletin. He just says, they never paid
Speaker 1: me a royalty and that's all I know, which is
Speaker 1: spoken like a true lawyer. But speaking of Bruce, I
Speaker 1: I know that three mechanical sharks used during production, where
Speaker 1: this constant headache for the crew, and in fact that
Speaker 1: that was a big part of the movie's delays, not
Speaker 1: to mention it's ballooning budget, which wound up a full
Speaker 1: five million dollars over budget. But apparently it was one
Speaker 1: nightmare after another with a shark like it was constantly
Speaker 1: slipping off its platform or I guess it's foam skin
Speaker 1: would actually blow from all the water and then would
Speaker 1: just sink to the bottom of the ocean before filming
Speaker 1: could begin, and then like these scuba teams would have
Speaker 1: to go down to haul it back up. And of
Speaker 1: course the other problem was that even when the shark worked,
Speaker 1: which was rarely, it didn't look very convincing, much less frightening. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, I have to think that this was a
Speaker 1: real challenge for Spielberg, and this was actually only, like,
Speaker 1: I think, his third theatrical film. But you know, I've
Speaker 1: actually heard that this malfunctioning shark turned out to be
Speaker 1: more of a blessing and disguise than anything, because what
Speaker 1: it did was it for Spielberg and his crew to
Speaker 1: focus on building this suspense rather than just kind of
Speaker 1: looking at the carnage created by the shark. So you know,
Speaker 1: for instance, early versions of the script gave the shark
Speaker 1: prop a lot more screen time in the movies third act,
Speaker 1: but since Bruce was rarely working as needed, the production
Speaker 1: team really had to improvise, and instead they used these
Speaker 1: barrels to show where the shark was in the water,
Speaker 1: and a Spielberg once put it, he said, I had
Speaker 1: no choice but to figure out how to tell the
Speaker 1: story without the shark, which is such a tough spot
Speaker 1: to be in when you're making a movie about a shark.
Speaker 1: Obviously he pulled it off. And it's just like hitchcockis today, right,
Speaker 1: Like it's what we don't see, which is truly frightening,
Speaker 1: which makes a lot of sense. But it does matter
Speaker 1: what we hear, as this movie proved, you know, in
Speaker 1: the case of Jaws, of course that's John Williams iconic
Speaker 1: two note theme. And I know we talked a little
Speaker 1: bit about this back in our Weird Government Investments episode,
Speaker 1: and we were talking specifically about how the use of
Speaker 1: suspenseful music and shark films has really contributed to the
Speaker 1: public's negative view of sharks. But I still can't help
Speaker 1: but marvel at how much dread they managed to squeeze
Speaker 1: out of just repeating that done. Uh, you know, and
Speaker 1: this was all done on a two. But I mean,
Speaker 1: it really takes some talent to make the tubas seem
Speaker 1: that threatening, don't you think? I think so. But Williams
Speaker 1: was spot on when he later said that the theme
Speaker 1: worked because it gave the quote effect of grinding away
Speaker 1: at you, just as a shark would do. Instinctual, relentless, unstoppable. Yeah,
Speaker 1: obviously the music played a pig part in making this
Speaker 1: as suspenseful as it was. But you know what's strange
Speaker 1: while the film plays like fiction, that there was definitely
Speaker 1: a real life series of shark attacks that sound like
Speaker 1: they might have inspired Jaws. Really, I've actually never heard
Speaker 1: this before, and I do want you to share this story.
Speaker 1: But first let's take a quick break, all right, mango,
Speaker 1: So get us back on the topic of the non
Speaker 1: mechanical sharks, and and I want to hear more about
Speaker 1: this real world Jaw story that you you mentioned before
Speaker 1: the break. So this is something that started in the
Speaker 1: summer of nineteen sixteen with a shark attack at the
Speaker 1: Jersey Shore and it was a twenty year old man
Speaker 1: who died after being bidden by a great white on
Speaker 1: July one, and then just five days later, another guy
Speaker 1: was killed by the same great white about forty five
Speaker 1: miles to the north. And I mean, this was super strange, right,
Speaker 1: because shark attacks don't typically happen in quick succession like that,
Speaker 1: and it's especially rare for the same shark to go
Speaker 1: on multiple attacks like that. But the nineteen sixteen attacks
Speaker 1: didn't stop with the second victim, and this is where
Speaker 1: it gets really weird. On July twelve, eleven days after
Speaker 1: the first attack, the shark struck again another thirty miles
Speaker 1: to the north, but this time the shark didn't attack
Speaker 1: along the shore. Instead, it traveled sixteen miles inland through
Speaker 1: the Mattawan Creek to claim it's third and fourth victims.
Speaker 1: The shark's fifth and final attack happened just half an
Speaker 1: hour after the fourth, but thankfully the victims survived this
Speaker 1: by and made it out of the creek alive, which
Speaker 1: is just such a nightmare when you think about and
Speaker 1: I can definitely see how Peter Benchley might have been
Speaker 1: inspired to write his Jaws novel after hearing about all this,
Speaker 1: And it actually goes right along with that whole idea
Speaker 1: about there being so called rogue sharks that just I don't.
Speaker 1: I guess they developed this taste for human flesh and
Speaker 1: then they just go on the hunt for other people. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that rogue shark theory has actually pretty much been
Speaker 1: debunked at this point, like most shark researchers now consider
Speaker 1: attacks to be kind of a one off thing. In fact,
Speaker 1: the majority of shark attacks are isolated events, and they're
Speaker 1: either provoked, which means the shark was speared or hooked
Speaker 1: by a human who drew first blood, or else the
Speaker 1: shark attack because if you'd the human as a thread
Speaker 1: or as a competitor for food, well, what about those
Speaker 1: nineteen sixteen attacks. I mean, I get that multiple attacks
Speaker 1: from a single shark is unusual, but it feels like
Speaker 1: there still had to be some reason why this happened then, right,
Speaker 1: But even now, it's hard to say exactly what that
Speaker 1: reason was. Like, the best I came across was that
Speaker 1: the shark might have been injured or deformed in some way,
Speaker 1: which could have caused it to lash out at humans
Speaker 1: nearby whenever it's pain peaked. And though it's kind of
Speaker 1: sad to think about, it's not a bad theory. We
Speaker 1: already know that some other animals like Elephants, for example,
Speaker 1: have been known to attack humans because they have I
Speaker 1: don't know, like an injured foot or maybe a rotten tooth.
Speaker 1: So it's pretty reasonable to think that something similar might
Speaker 1: happen with sharks, which makes sense. But I'm curious though,
Speaker 1: like what happened to the shark after its fifth attack
Speaker 1: and in nineteen sixteen, Well, it was caught soon after
Speaker 1: that last attack, and the shark's body actually wound up
Speaker 1: on display in the New York shop where the owner
Speaker 1: made I guess a fortune just charging people admission to
Speaker 1: see it, which you know, in itself has a very
Speaker 1: Jaws feel to it if you think back about the characters.
Speaker 1: I could easily see the movie Stevie Mayer like getting
Speaker 1: on board with some sort of scheme like this, Yeah, totally.
Speaker 1: And if you already think this all sounds a lot
Speaker 1: like Jaws, wait till you hear this. So I was
Speaker 1: reading an interview with a scientist named George Burgess, and
Speaker 1: he's actually the curator of the International Shark Attack File.
Speaker 1: It's this amazing archive that keeps case files on over
Speaker 1: five thousand attacks that took place between sixteenth century and today.
Speaker 1: And he said that the public's response to the nineteen
Speaker 1: sixteen attacks was the same reaction observed in cases all
Speaker 1: throughout the world. It also happened to sound quite a
Speaker 1: bit like what happens in Jaws. So listen to this,
Speaker 1: and this is how Burgess told it to Smithsonian quote.
Speaker 1: I see a common pattern around the world when shark
Speaker 1: attacks occur. There's obviously shock. Then the second phase is denial,
Speaker 1: denial that it was done by a shark. It has
Speaker 1: to be done by something else. The third phase is
Speaker 1: the feeling that if we shuffle it under the rug,
Speaker 1: maybe it will disappear. The fourth phase is realizing that
Speaker 1: none of those things are working and that we probably
Speaker 1: need to go kill some sharks. Then in the fifth phase,
Speaker 1: the reality sets in finally that that's not the solution
Speaker 1: and we probably ought to bring in a scientist that
Speaker 1: knows what's going on. Wow. I mean, it feels like
Speaker 1: that's scene for seeing what the townspeople try in this movie.
Speaker 1: When you think about those different stages, you know of
Speaker 1: shock and denial, cover up machismo, and then you know,
Speaker 1: lastly reason though that doesn't work out quite as planned either. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that denial phase is particularly interesting to me, Like
Speaker 1: I always thought it was ridiculous in the movie when
Speaker 1: the mayor tries to convince everyone that the woman was
Speaker 1: killed by a boat propeller and not a shark. But
Speaker 1: people in New Jersey in nineteen sixteen proposed even weirder explanations,
Speaker 1: like apparently someone pitched this idea that it was a
Speaker 1: school of sea turtles that was coming in and biting everybody,
Speaker 1: despite the fact that you know, turtles don't tend to
Speaker 1: school like fish or bite off people's limbs like sharks.
Speaker 1: You have to admit, though, I was skeptical at first
Speaker 1: with this, but I think you've sold me on this.
Speaker 1: I mean, he's nineteen sixteen attacks. I don't know. It
Speaker 1: feels like they have to have been the inspiration for Jaws,
Speaker 1: at least to some degree. I mean, that's the thing.
Speaker 1: Peter Benchley has gone on record saying they definitely weren't
Speaker 1: the inspiration for the novel or the movie. It's spunned.
Speaker 1: I mean, of course, there are plenty of people that
Speaker 1: shark researcher I mentioned included who don't buy that denial well,
Speaker 1: and I can see why. I mean, there's an awful
Speaker 1: lot of crossover between the two stories. But I can
Speaker 1: also understand why Benchley might not want the public to
Speaker 1: think his work was actually rooted in reality. And that's
Speaker 1: because years later, you know, after the massive success of
Speaker 1: Jaws as a movie, Bnchuley came to deeply regret his
Speaker 1: role in shaping public perception, at least that perception of
Speaker 1: sharks as these man eating beasts. And you know, he
Speaker 1: actually spent decades trying to convinced people that sharks weren't
Speaker 1: the villains that have been portrayed in the film. And
Speaker 1: for instance, that there was a two thousand two interview
Speaker 1: he did with nat Geo and here's what Benchley said there.
Speaker 1: He said, the theory that sharks target humans, that they
Speaker 1: are man eaters, nothing could be further from the truth.
Speaker 1: Every time you see on TV people surrounded by sharks,
Speaker 1: the chances are that the sharks have been baited, and
Speaker 1: it gives a false impression because by nature, sharks will
Speaker 1: stay away from people. Yeah. I mean, it's kind of
Speaker 1: amazing to see someone do a complete one eighty like that,
Speaker 1: but I also think it's pretty laudable in this case.
Speaker 1: And actually that reminds me. You want to hear my
Speaker 1: favorite fact about Peter Benchley. So when Discovery started hiring
Speaker 1: host for Shark Week beginning in the seventh season, the
Speaker 1: first m C they ever got was none other than
Speaker 1: the Jaws author himself. I mean it seems appropriate, you know,
Speaker 1: especially since Shark Week has also been accused of misrepresenting
Speaker 1: the ferocity of sharks. But you think about this, To
Speaker 1: be fair, the event has gotten more and more educational
Speaker 1: over time, and even functions as a fundraising drive for
Speaker 1: somebody I think pretty reputable shark conservation efforts. Now. So
Speaker 1: I didn't realize this, but two eighteen is actually the
Speaker 1: thirtieth anniversary of Shark Week, and in honor of that,
Speaker 1: they've got Shacked to host, which, of course that makes
Speaker 1: perfect sense. It makes a lot of sense. But uh,
Speaker 1: I feel like they've had enough time to find that
Speaker 1: sweet spot between entertainment and education. Well, and if nothing else,
Speaker 1: I do give the producers credit for drawing some much
Speaker 1: needed attention to shark conservation. And like we said at
Speaker 1: the top of the show, it's hard to wrap our
Speaker 1: heads around the idea that sharks are in need of saving,
Speaker 1: you know, probably because we're so used to thinking that
Speaker 1: we're the ones in danger from them. But when you
Speaker 1: look at the numbers, it really tells a very different story. So,
Speaker 1: I mean, the sharks have survived for four hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty million years on the planet, including no less than
Speaker 1: five mass extinction events. And so for the first time,
Speaker 1: I started looking like the survival of sharks could be
Speaker 1: in jeopardy. And you know, I say that because today
Speaker 1: about a quarter of all shark species are threatened with
Speaker 1: extinction and the main culprit behind their dwindling numbers is
Speaker 1: I'm sad to say us and and just looking at
Speaker 1: the numbers, it's pretty crazy. So more than a hundred
Speaker 1: million sharks are killed by humans every year based on
Speaker 1: most reports, and that number is staggering enough, but there's
Speaker 1: some sources that say the number could be as high
Speaker 1: as two hundred and seventy million. But you know, either way,
Speaker 1: when you consider that shark attacks account for only about
Speaker 1: five human deaths on average each year, it's obvious who
Speaker 1: the most dangerous predators really are. Okay, so just to
Speaker 1: sum this up, don't punch a shark in the face,
Speaker 1: don't judge a shark by its creepy eyes, and do
Speaker 1: appreciate how great a movie Jaws is. Well, let's not
Speaker 1: forget Tristan shirt Live every week like it's shark wa
Speaker 1: right that most of all? Okay, then I guess that's everything,
Speaker 1: well everything except for how we like to close the show.
Speaker 1: We gotta we gotta have the fact off. Are you ready?
Speaker 1: I'm ready? Yea. So it is pretty amazing to think
Speaker 1: how long sharks have been around. I know you mentioned
Speaker 1: that they've been here for over four and fifty million years,
Speaker 1: but that's two hundred million years before dinosaurs. And in fact,
Speaker 1: they're even older than trees, Like how can anything be
Speaker 1: older than trees? Are? We talked earlier about how much
Speaker 1: more dangerous humans are to sharks than vice versa. But
Speaker 1: it's even more sad when you realize what a waste
Speaker 1: it is when sharks are just killed for their fins,
Speaker 1: you know, because shark carcasses are bulky and worth a
Speaker 1: lot less than their fins. Because of these luxury items
Speaker 1: things like shark fins soup, which actually can go for
Speaker 1: something like a hundred dollars a bowl. A lot of
Speaker 1: times their fins are removed and the rest of the
Speaker 1: shark is just thrown overboard, and this is known as
Speaker 1: shark finning. And in these cases only about three percent
Speaker 1: of the actual shark is being used. So I'm fascinated
Speaker 1: by a shark reproduction. Uh. The very unusual ghost sharks,
Speaker 1: which are named this because they live so deep and
Speaker 1: are rarely spotted, have these really weird retractable sex organs
Speaker 1: on their heads. Like the organs actually have these hooks
Speaker 1: and use them to grab onto female ghost sharks during mating.
Speaker 1: And on top of this, the females have a unique
Speaker 1: ability to store the sperm for years until just the
Speaker 1: right time for conception. That's so strange, you know, And
Speaker 1: you see so many cases of significant aggression on the
Speaker 1: part of males and several sharks species during mating. And
Speaker 1: because of this, it's actually not surprising that the skin
Speaker 1: on female sharks typically is found to be a good
Speaker 1: bit thicker than that of males, because the males actually
Speaker 1: often bite during mating, so that that thicker skin is needed. Well,
Speaker 1: that might explain why some sharks have figured out how
Speaker 1: to reproduce a sexually. They're basically cloning themselves now. Well.
Speaker 1: One of the first cases of scientists seeing this came
Speaker 1: in two thousand one, when a female hammer head at
Speaker 1: a zoo in Nebraska gave birth without the assistance of
Speaker 1: a male. This process is called parthenogenesis and it's where
Speaker 1: embryos are created without outside fertilization. Oh that's so cool. Well,
Speaker 1: I think we may have talked about this before, but
Speaker 1: in the book Grunt, the Terrific Science, writer Mary Roach
Speaker 1: writes about this top secret project during World War Two.
Speaker 1: And in this project, the U. S Military was trying
Speaker 1: to use sharks to deliver bombs. So the sharks were
Speaker 1: equipped with this headgear and then they would use electric
Speaker 1: shocks to keep the sharks on track before they would
Speaker 1: deliver the bombs to these very specific locations. And it
Speaker 1: was a project that ran for a couple of decades,
Speaker 1: I think from the late fifties to the early seventies,
Speaker 1: and then it was discontinued without much fanfare because it
Speaker 1: turned out this was not really an effective way to
Speaker 1: deliver bombs. And I feel like we're always trying to
Speaker 1: harness animals like pigeons or sharks or whatever, and it's
Speaker 1: always a bad idea. It never is better. But Uh,
Speaker 1: there's this other feature that I'm so fascinated by, and
Speaker 1: it's what goblin sharks can do when they're hunting. So
Speaker 1: they had this ability to do what scientists called sling
Speaker 1: shot feeding. And this is where they use these elastic
Speaker 1: ligaments that are attached to their jaws to basically catapult
Speaker 1: their mouths forward by almost ten percent of their bodies.
Speaker 1: Lent what yeah, and then they could do this with
Speaker 1: like impressive speeds. So this is basically the equivalent of
Speaker 1: a person being able to sling shot his or her
Speaker 1: mouth about seven inches in front of it to snag
Speaker 1: food in front of its nose. That is so strange,
Speaker 1: So it's called it's called sling shot feeding. You said, wow,
Speaker 1: I have to say, you mentioned ghost sharks, and now
Speaker 1: you've mentioned goblin sharks. I feel like you have to
Speaker 1: win today's fact off, so I'm going to give you
Speaker 1: the trophy today, Mango. Thank you so much, well, and
Speaker 1: thank you guys for listening. I'm sure we've forgotten some
Speaker 1: terrific facts about sharks and because of that, we would
Speaker 1: love to hear those from. You can always email us
Speaker 1: part time Genius and how Stuff Works dot com, or
Speaker 1: call us on our seven fact hotline that's eight four
Speaker 1: four pt Genius, or you can always hit us up
Speaker 1: on Facebook or Twitter. But thanks so much for listening.
Speaker 1: Thanks again for listening. Part Time. Genius is a production
Speaker 1: of how stuff works, and wouldn't be possible without several
Speaker 1: brilliant people who do the important things we couldn't even
Speaker 1: begin to understand. Tristan McNeil does the editing thing. Noel
Speaker 1: Brown made the theme song and does the MIXI MIXI
Speaker 1: sound thing. Jerry Rowland does the exact producer thing. Gabe
Speaker 1: Loues Yer is our lead researcher, with support from the
Speaker 1: research Army including Austin Thompson, Nolan Brown and Lucas Adams
Speaker 1: and Eve Jeff Cook gets the show to your ears.
Speaker 1: Good job, Eves. If you like what you heard, we
Speaker 1: hope you'll subscribe, And if you really really like what
Speaker 1: you've heard, maybe you could leave a good review for us.
Speaker 1: Do we do? We forget Jason? Jason who