WEBVTT - Devourer of Memories, Part 1 0:00:03.000 --> 0:00:04.840 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of 0:00:04.880 --> 0:00:13.800 I Heart Radios has Stuff Works. Hey, welcome to Stuff 0:00:13.840 --> 0:00:16.080 to Blow Your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and 0:00:16.280 --> 0:00:19.079 I'm Joe McCormick. And today we're going to be embarking 0:00:19.079 --> 0:00:22.400 on a two part episode about the nature and physical 0:00:22.480 --> 0:00:26.360 basis of memory. So in the past we've explored the 0:00:26.480 --> 0:00:29.600 question where is my mind? We did an episode about this, 0:00:29.760 --> 0:00:31.880 I think a couple of years ago. Like, it seems 0:00:31.920 --> 0:00:35.400 obvious enough that cognition takes place in the brain, but 0:00:35.560 --> 0:00:38.400 this hasn't always been taken for granted. And today we're 0:00:38.400 --> 0:00:42.360 gonna look at a very strange narrative of twenty and 0:00:42.440 --> 0:00:46.120 some twenty one century research that asks a similar question 0:00:46.280 --> 0:00:50.319 about memories. What are memories made of? Like, if you 0:00:50.720 --> 0:00:53.279 have a memory of I don't know, You're going down 0:00:53.280 --> 0:00:55.560 the street and seeing Hulk Hogan stomping on an ice 0:00:55.600 --> 0:01:00.200 cream sandwich, is that stored exclusively within the brand sane? 0:01:00.360 --> 0:01:03.319 If so, how is it stored in the brain? And 0:01:03.440 --> 0:01:06.679 more importantly, for today's episode, can I eat your body 0:01:06.720 --> 0:01:10.720 and gain that memory for myself? Yeah? This is you know, 0:01:11.040 --> 0:01:13.720 this is actually a really tremendous question though of course 0:01:13.720 --> 0:01:16.039 it does touch on a number of mythical and fictional 0:01:16.080 --> 0:01:18.600 notions that we've touched on before over the years, such 0:01:18.640 --> 0:01:21.720 as can a google eat your brains and become you 0:01:21.840 --> 0:01:25.320 for a limited amount of time? Or cannon immortal swordsman 0:01:25.360 --> 0:01:29.840 cut off another immortal's head and gain their vital power. Uh, 0:01:29.959 --> 0:01:33.399 do you know the living dead really eat brains because 0:01:33.400 --> 0:01:36.679 it makes the pain of being dead go away? Is 0:01:36.720 --> 0:01:40.240 there anything to indo cannibalistic funeral rites you know, practiced 0:01:40.280 --> 0:01:44.720 by various cultures throughout history since ancient times? Or how 0:01:44.720 --> 0:01:48.480 about this, If Michael Caine loses a hand and receives 0:01:48.480 --> 0:01:51.800 a hand transplant from a murderer, does he become more 0:01:51.920 --> 0:01:55.440 likely to he himself murder? I assume that must be 0:01:55.480 --> 0:01:59.360 based on a real movie. But what Oliver Oliver Stone 0:01:59.360 --> 0:02:01.480 directed it? As a matter of fact, what's it called. 0:02:01.560 --> 0:02:05.320 I think it's called The Hand. But Michael Caine's ended up. 0:02:05.360 --> 0:02:08.040 He plays like a comic book artist. I think so that, 0:02:08.080 --> 0:02:12.320 you know, that's the other side of it is used. Um, 0:02:12.360 --> 0:02:14.840 you know, it's it's early Stone. It's not political. It's 0:02:14.840 --> 0:02:17.560 all about you know, people's hands coming off and being 0:02:17.560 --> 0:02:19.880 replaced by hand that then has the will of a 0:02:19.960 --> 0:02:22.680 killer within it, which I think has been explored in 0:02:22.760 --> 0:02:25.919 other horror properties as well. Um, it sounds like solid 0:02:25.919 --> 0:02:28.519 Michael Caine. Yeah. And it also gets into an idea 0:02:28.560 --> 0:02:30.200 that came up in our recent episode on yoga, the 0:02:30.240 --> 0:02:34.320 idea of of of memories being stored in one's body, 0:02:34.639 --> 0:02:36.960 which of course is a little more complicated. All this 0:02:37.040 --> 0:02:40.320 is all is more complicated when you consider the human situation. 0:02:41.200 --> 0:02:43.320 But a lot of what we're gonna be talking about 0:02:43.320 --> 0:02:46.840 in this episode is not dealing directly with with with 0:02:46.919 --> 0:02:50.200 human cognition and human memories, but what we can observe 0:02:50.520 --> 0:02:54.720 in simpler but also very important and informative organisms. Yes. Uh, 0:02:54.800 --> 0:02:57.840 though that doesn't mean that people haven't tried to extrapolate 0:02:57.880 --> 0:03:01.880 all kinds of things about about human memory from this research, 0:03:01.960 --> 0:03:03.960 and that will be part of the story too. This 0:03:04.040 --> 0:03:06.760 is going to be a mostly historical pair of episodes 0:03:06.800 --> 0:03:10.520 looking at controversial past research and linking it to more 0:03:10.560 --> 0:03:13.200 recent studies. And it's also going to be in two parts. 0:03:13.200 --> 0:03:15.400 As I said, so, I'd say it's it's important not 0:03:15.520 --> 0:03:18.679 to draw your conclusions until you've heard the whole thing. 0:03:19.160 --> 0:03:21.799 A significant part of what we're talking about today is 0:03:21.840 --> 0:03:24.520 going to be research that looked promising at one time 0:03:24.560 --> 0:03:27.519 but as widely regarded as as being on the wrong 0:03:27.600 --> 0:03:30.520 track today. Exactly, but still certainly there's a lot to 0:03:30.720 --> 0:03:34.280 learn by looking at these past cases. Absolutely. Uh So, 0:03:34.440 --> 0:03:37.120 the main human figure we're going to be looking at 0:03:37.160 --> 0:03:41.400 in the story today was an American psychologist named Dr 0:03:41.520 --> 0:03:45.640 James V. McConnell, who lived nineteen twenty five to nineteen 0:03:45.720 --> 0:03:48.480 ninety And I wanted to start off by mentioning several 0:03:48.520 --> 0:03:51.720 sources about McConnell's life and career that will be referring 0:03:51.760 --> 0:03:55.160 to in these episodes. One was an article about McConnell 0:03:55.280 --> 0:03:58.880 by the Michigan State University psychologist Mark Rilling that appeared 0:03:58.880 --> 0:04:02.720 in American Psychology Ist in nineteen called the Mystery of 0:04:02.760 --> 0:04:06.400 the Vanished Citations, uh And that title refers to a 0:04:06.480 --> 0:04:09.640 period where McConnell was doing a lot of very influential research, 0:04:09.720 --> 0:04:13.120 but today you don't see the citations of this research 0:04:13.200 --> 0:04:15.960 mentioned very much, and he's sort of exploring why that is. 0:04:16.800 --> 0:04:19.200 Another article, it was a great article called Memory in 0:04:19.240 --> 0:04:21.960 the Flesh in the Verge by R. L. Do Haim Ross, 0:04:22.440 --> 0:04:25.120 And also a couple of pieces in like two thousand 0:04:25.200 --> 0:04:28.040 ten and two thousand thirteen for the Journal of the 0:04:28.040 --> 0:04:31.880 American Psychological Association by a sociology professor named Larry Stern. 0:04:32.200 --> 0:04:35.279 That Verge article, by the way from and it's quite 0:04:35.279 --> 0:04:38.080 a good read. Yes it is so. James McConnell was 0:04:38.120 --> 0:04:41.680 born in Okamalgy, Oklahoma. I hope I'm saying that right, 0:04:41.760 --> 0:04:46.000 Okmalgy or Okmalgi. Yeah, and that sounds Oklahoma enough, I 0:04:46.040 --> 0:04:50.360 think okay uh in nineteen. He spent almost all of 0:04:50.440 --> 0:04:53.920 his professional career on faculty at the University of Michigan, 0:04:54.279 --> 0:04:57.280 beginning in nineteen fifty six after he got his PhD 0:04:57.360 --> 0:05:00.280 from the University of Texas and lasting in Hill his 0:05:00.360 --> 0:05:04.280 retirement in nineteen eight and from the sixties through the 0:05:04.279 --> 0:05:07.279 eighties he also served as a research psychologist at the 0:05:07.320 --> 0:05:12.279 Mental Health Research Institute of the University. So McConnell overall 0:05:12.480 --> 0:05:16.039 was a very controversial figure in American psychology for multiple 0:05:16.080 --> 0:05:19.279 reasons that we will explore throughout these episodes. Widely known 0:05:19.320 --> 0:05:24.719 as innovative, enthusiastic, humorous, but also perhaps his reckless, sometimes 0:05:24.920 --> 0:05:28.960 un serious, and undisciplined. One interesting fact about him that will, 0:05:29.120 --> 0:05:31.719 I think become more relevant as we go on is 0:05:31.800 --> 0:05:34.200 that early on before his academic career, he did some 0:05:34.240 --> 0:05:37.240 work in radio and television as a DJ and a 0:05:37.320 --> 0:05:40.960 scriptwriter before going into psychology, and of course this would 0:05:41.000 --> 0:05:44.680 prove valuable in a career as a public science communicator 0:05:44.760 --> 0:05:48.039 and something of a celebrity scientist. Now, apart from the 0:05:48.080 --> 0:05:50.480 research that we're going to be looking at today, I 0:05:50.520 --> 0:05:54.360 think McConnell was probably best known for founding a strange 0:05:54.560 --> 0:05:59.919 magazine called The Worm Runners Digest. I think one major 0:06:00.080 --> 0:06:04.320 problem many psychologists had with James McConnell during his life, 0:06:05.080 --> 0:06:08.400 UH was typified by the spirit of this journal, which 0:06:08.520 --> 0:06:12.520 published real reports of real scientific research. In some ways, 0:06:12.520 --> 0:06:15.839 it was kind of a clearing house for reports of 0:06:15.920 --> 0:06:18.919 research that wasn't yet in the It wasn't yet ready 0:06:18.920 --> 0:06:21.919 to be submitted to peer reviewed journals. So kind of 0:06:21.920 --> 0:06:25.560 scientists would submit uh, you know, worm training reports and 0:06:25.560 --> 0:06:28.240 things like that to this as as a preliminary measure. 0:06:28.560 --> 0:06:32.040 But then it would publish that real research UH and 0:06:32.040 --> 0:06:37.240 and real manuals for replication, right alongside bizarre jokes and 0:06:37.440 --> 0:06:42.400 poems and cartoons and hoaxes and satirical articles. So, for 0:06:42.440 --> 0:06:45.120 a few article titles cited by Larry Stern, one is 0:06:45.440 --> 0:06:48.279 the effects of physical torture on the learning and retention 0:06:48.279 --> 0:06:52.839 of nonsense syllables. One is called operant conditioning in the 0:06:52.920 --> 0:06:57.440 domestic darning needle Spina Farrika. So a lot of like 0:06:58.120 --> 0:07:02.400 weird psychology in jokes, sort of jokes about the field 0:07:02.760 --> 0:07:06.800 psychologists trying to write parodies of their own research and 0:07:06.880 --> 0:07:11.160 the and the problems they encountered within their sub fields. Okay, okay, 0:07:11.240 --> 0:07:14.480 there's a very very specific audience in mind them. Yes. Uh. 0:07:14.640 --> 0:07:18.840 Larry Stern also writes that there were spoofs of Freudian theory, 0:07:18.960 --> 0:07:22.360 including quote some comments on the addition to the theory 0:07:22.400 --> 0:07:26.920 of psycho sexual development by Sigmund Fraud, which introduced the 0:07:27.120 --> 0:07:31.600 nasal stage occurring between the anal and phallic stages, in 0:07:31.640 --> 0:07:34.920 which the libido quote is localized primarily in the mucus 0:07:35.000 --> 0:07:38.000 linings of the nose, which I guess is a strange 0:07:38.040 --> 0:07:40.760 reminder that, you know, in the middle of the twentieth century, 0:07:40.800 --> 0:07:43.080 I think a lot of psychology journals would still be 0:07:43.200 --> 0:07:48.040 dealing with a pretty significant contingent of Freudian trained psychoanalysts. 0:07:48.080 --> 0:07:50.600 But and I figured this would be of special interest 0:07:50.680 --> 0:07:53.520 to you. Robert McConnell actually was also a science fiction 0:07:53.600 --> 0:07:57.280 writer and a charter member of the Science Fiction Writers 0:07:57.280 --> 0:08:00.000 of America, which again I would say probably didn't help 0:08:00.080 --> 0:08:04.200 his professional reputation. Yes, perhaps not uh so from what 0:08:04.240 --> 0:08:07.360 I could find. His sci fi stories also often seemed 0:08:07.360 --> 0:08:11.080 to be humorous and aimed at parody of the fields 0:08:11.120 --> 0:08:14.400 that he worked in. For example, Rilling writes about McConnell's 0:08:14.880 --> 0:08:18.520 one of McConnell's stories called Learning Theory, published in nineteen 0:08:18.600 --> 0:08:21.800 sixty five, and in this story quote, McConnell is the 0:08:21.800 --> 0:08:25.520 protagonist who is abducted during the preparation of a lecture 0:08:25.560 --> 0:08:29.160 on learning theory, into an interstellar lab ship to become 0:08:29.160 --> 0:08:32.840 a subject confined to a series of chambers that resembled 0:08:32.840 --> 0:08:36.920 the skinner box, tea maze, and lashly jumping stand. And 0:08:36.920 --> 0:08:38.360 I had to look up that last one. But the 0:08:38.440 --> 0:08:41.680 lastly jumping stand was an apparatus for the study of 0:08:41.720 --> 0:08:44.800 operant conditioning, and it gave a rat an option to 0:08:44.920 --> 0:08:48.240 jump over a gap to two different visual stimuli. One 0:08:48.240 --> 0:08:50.520 would offer a reward and one would cause the rat 0:08:50.600 --> 0:08:53.240 to fall into a net below. Okay, so not just 0:08:53.320 --> 0:08:56.839 another tool that was used in behavioral studies, right, So 0:08:56.880 --> 0:09:00.120 he's in this story he's writing about himself being it 0:09:00.280 --> 0:09:03.080 into the studies that people were doing on rats in 0:09:03.120 --> 0:09:06.120 the fifties, and I guess the sixties too. But picking 0:09:06.200 --> 0:09:08.880 up with Rillings description of the story quote, after first 0:09:08.960 --> 0:09:13.400 behaving according to the predictions of learning theory, McConnell realizes 0:09:13.480 --> 0:09:15.560 that he will be returned to ann Arbor if he 0:09:15.640 --> 0:09:19.920 misbehaves by violating the predictions of his captor's theory of learning. 0:09:20.400 --> 0:09:22.960 McConnell was an iconic last and his story is a 0:09:23.000 --> 0:09:26.240 spoof fun learning theory in nineteen sixty. So I think 0:09:26.240 --> 0:09:30.040 the idea is, uh, he's poking fun at the sort 0:09:30.080 --> 0:09:35.240 of the rain of conventional wisdom by saying that if 0:09:35.280 --> 0:09:39.040 he were a subject in alien psychological research, if he 0:09:39.080 --> 0:09:42.839 didn't confirm their pre existing theories, they basically throw him 0:09:42.840 --> 0:09:46.199 out and say he wasn't a valid research subject. Interesting. 0:09:46.440 --> 0:09:49.120 According to an obituary I found by some University of 0:09:49.160 --> 0:09:53.559 Michigan colleagues, McConnell was also a cultivator of orchids, as 0:09:53.600 --> 0:09:56.840 well as a lover of computers and poker, and known 0:09:56.880 --> 0:10:00.520 by many students for quote personal zest to joy in teaching, 0:10:00.640 --> 0:10:05.680 intellectual animation, infectious enthusiasm, and individualized attention that he brought 0:10:05.720 --> 0:10:09.440 to his classes. Uh and Rilling points out that while 0:10:09.520 --> 0:10:12.880 much of his cannibalistic memory transfer work that we're gonna 0:10:12.880 --> 0:10:17.240 be focusing on was later considered wrong and misguided, McConnell 0:10:17.440 --> 0:10:21.240 was actually a really important pioneer in research into invertebrate 0:10:21.320 --> 0:10:24.640 learning and memory, and that scientists today should be able 0:10:24.640 --> 0:10:28.120 to learn from both his successes and his failures. Now, 0:10:28.160 --> 0:10:30.120 I want to make an admission that I'm afraid I'm 0:10:30.120 --> 0:10:32.120 going to say something wrong in one of these episodes 0:10:32.160 --> 0:10:37.080 because I keep accidentally calling James McConnell Jerry O'Connell, who 0:10:37.120 --> 0:10:39.679 was not a psychologist. He was the guy in Scream Too, 0:10:39.920 --> 0:10:43.280 and he played the football player and Jerry McGuire No, no, 0:10:43.679 --> 0:10:47.520 I actually haven't seen Jerry McGuire um, But you've got 0:10:47.520 --> 0:10:50.079 some VHS t do I have some VHS tapes because 0:10:50.120 --> 0:10:52.080 I'm I'm saving them. I have to contribute them to 0:10:52.120 --> 0:10:54.840 the pyramid that is being built in the desert, because 0:10:54.840 --> 0:10:58.080 we do have to return all the Jerry's home. But yes, 0:10:58.080 --> 0:11:00.240 I have actually have not watched it. Well know, he 0:11:00.559 --> 0:11:04.000 was like a hunky dude in the nice but no 0:11:04.240 --> 0:11:07.320 different guy, not the actor Jerry O'Connell, James McConnell. So 0:11:07.360 --> 0:11:09.520 if I say, Jerry O'Connell, you've got to reach across 0:11:09.559 --> 0:11:11.520 the table and slap me, will will you? Will you 0:11:11.600 --> 0:11:14.200 keep this pledge? Um? I don't know if I feel 0:11:14.240 --> 0:11:16.079 like getting up to slap you, but I will try 0:11:16.120 --> 0:11:20.080 and jump in. Um. So. Dr McConnell explores some pretty 0:11:20.200 --> 0:11:23.360 radical ideas during his career. You know, one of them 0:11:23.360 --> 0:11:26.600 will be the primary focus for these episodes. But he 0:11:26.640 --> 0:11:30.640 also later wrote about the potential of using behavioral modification 0:11:30.720 --> 0:11:35.199 on criminals to enable their re entry into society. Yeah. Um, 0:11:35.240 --> 0:11:37.400 And he thought that this might be used to eliminate 0:11:37.440 --> 0:11:40.880 crime and mental illness altogether. There was a lot of 0:11:41.040 --> 0:11:44.240 enthusiasm in the mid century among the behaviorist school of 0:11:44.280 --> 0:11:48.360 psychology for this kind of like society revolutionizing potential of 0:11:48.400 --> 0:11:50.680 behavior modification. Right, And we have to go back to 0:11:50.720 --> 0:11:53.640 some of these character attributes we've touched on already, that 0:11:53.679 --> 0:11:56.280 he was when he was excited about an idea, he 0:11:56.440 --> 0:11:59.880 was very excited about it and infectious with his excitement. 0:12:00.320 --> 0:12:04.360 And he was something of a public figure and would 0:12:04.360 --> 0:12:08.559 engage is kind of a celebrity scientist. He could engage 0:12:08.600 --> 0:12:11.839 with science on a show biz level, not just on 0:12:11.880 --> 0:12:15.959 a research level, and in fact often maybe did so 0:12:16.080 --> 0:12:21.719 to the detriment of public expectations. He was accused by 0:12:21.720 --> 0:12:25.320 some colleagues of over hyping and over interpreting and over 0:12:25.400 --> 0:12:30.280 speculating from what research existed. So it's thought that this 0:12:30.360 --> 0:12:32.720 is the reason that and it's particularly some of these 0:12:33.400 --> 0:12:36.600 ideas that he was pushing in enthusiasm, he was pushing 0:12:36.640 --> 0:12:40.240 regarding a behavioralism, that this is what attracted the attention 0:12:40.800 --> 0:12:43.640 of a man by the name of Ted Kazinski. Yeah, 0:12:43.840 --> 0:12:46.760 which most people probably recognize that name. If not, you 0:12:46.840 --> 0:12:49.280 might know him by his moniker, the UNI Bomber. We 0:12:49.280 --> 0:12:51.360 were talking about this before we came in that, Like, 0:12:51.480 --> 0:12:54.120 I bet a lot of younger listeners out there don't 0:12:54.160 --> 0:12:56.520 even remember the UNI Bomber. I remember from when I 0:12:56.559 --> 0:12:59.560 was very young. I mean, it's also easy to only remember, 0:13:00.320 --> 0:13:02.200 you know, a few pictures here and there, remember that 0:13:02.280 --> 0:13:05.760 police sketch, and remember like a courtroom picture where you know, 0:13:05.880 --> 0:13:08.559 Kazinski looks, you know, completely unhinged, that sort of thing. 0:13:08.600 --> 0:13:12.160 But yeah, McConnell was one of his targets. Kazinski mailed 0:13:12.240 --> 0:13:15.600 his tenth bomb to Dr McConnell in an assassination attempt, 0:13:15.640 --> 0:13:19.679 and this was in nineteen five. UM he had at 0:13:19.679 --> 0:13:22.800 that time he was working with a graduate student assistant 0:13:23.360 --> 0:13:27.160 uh named I believe what is Nicholas Sueno, and so 0:13:27.200 --> 0:13:31.800 they're working together. They opened the package and triggered the explosion. Now, 0:13:31.840 --> 0:13:35.920 thankfully both individuals survived with only only minor injuries and 0:13:36.040 --> 0:13:39.120 mild hearing loss, as well as what sounds like some 0:13:39.320 --> 0:13:41.880 level of PTSD based on the experience, which I think 0:13:41.920 --> 0:13:45.920 is quite understandable. But but yeah, just a refresher on 0:13:45.960 --> 0:13:49.560 the UNI bomber for anyone who doesn't know or as 0:13:49.600 --> 0:13:54.920 a little foggy uh Ted Kazinski born ninety two was 0:13:54.960 --> 0:13:59.200 a was a former mathematics professor and mathematician who took 0:13:59.240 --> 0:14:03.160 two acts of murder and domestic terrorism to advance his manifesto, 0:14:03.280 --> 0:14:07.440 which was titled Industrial Society and Its Future, in which 0:14:07.480 --> 0:14:12.400 he heavily criticized his post Industrial Revolution society and he 0:14:12.400 --> 0:14:15.920 also criticized what he referred to as leftist psychology. Yeah, 0:14:15.960 --> 0:14:18.560 he's sometimes he can be kind of hard to pin 0:14:18.640 --> 0:14:21.160 down in terms of his ideology because he doesn't fit 0:14:21.240 --> 0:14:24.760 with a lot of the standard ideological kind of groupings 0:14:24.760 --> 0:14:27.800 you see with mass murderers and terrorists that are motivated 0:14:27.800 --> 0:14:30.800 by ideology. He was more of a kind of idiosyncratic 0:14:30.920 --> 0:14:35.040 lone wolf terrorist. But but he's sometimes referred to as 0:14:35.040 --> 0:14:39.440 like an anarchist primitivist. He wanted people to return to 0:14:39.600 --> 0:14:44.160 nature and reject modern technology and science, right, which I 0:14:44.160 --> 0:14:46.440 mean they're they're versions of that that of course, that 0:14:46.520 --> 0:14:50.360 are that many people listening to the show might agree with, uh, 0:14:50.720 --> 0:14:53.320 and they wouldn't resort to murder exactly. And I mean 0:14:53.320 --> 0:14:55.880 that's that's the big thing, just to drive home here, 0:14:56.120 --> 0:15:00.200 you know. He Yeah, he argued for this nature centric anarchism, 0:15:00.240 --> 0:15:04.200 and in his bombings he targeted individuals involved in modern 0:15:04.280 --> 0:15:10.040 type mostly individuals involved in modern technological advances. And that's 0:15:10.040 --> 0:15:13.160 why McConnell's work is sometimes hard to figure out, like 0:15:13.280 --> 0:15:17.520 why this attracted the attention of Kazinski because it doesn't 0:15:17.640 --> 0:15:20.360 quite seem to fit the profile at first glance. Yeah. 0:15:20.360 --> 0:15:24.440 The article I was reading by Mark Rilling identifies McConnell's 0:15:24.600 --> 0:15:29.120 public communication on TV and another media about behavior modification 0:15:29.320 --> 0:15:32.720 at use, uh, you know, in use in criminal justice 0:15:32.840 --> 0:15:37.160 and human behavior reform at the large scale, as the 0:15:37.240 --> 0:15:41.160 likely culprit in attracting Kazinski's hire. Yeah, because Kazinski did 0:15:41.160 --> 0:15:46.000 criticize modification of the human condition, especially behavioral modification, which 0:15:46.080 --> 0:15:49.520 McConnell had become an outspoken proponent of in the media, 0:15:50.000 --> 0:15:54.320 and Kazinski saw him as an advocate of society's attempts 0:15:54.320 --> 0:15:58.360 to change humans to fit the system rather than the reverse. Yeah. 0:15:58.520 --> 0:16:02.320 Between ninety nine teen, Ted Kaznski killed three people and 0:16:02.360 --> 0:16:06.240 injured twenty three. Uh. He was the target of an 0:16:06.240 --> 0:16:10.120 intense um search for his identity, but finally he was 0:16:10.200 --> 0:16:13.720 arrested in nineteen and remains in prison serving a life 0:16:13.800 --> 0:16:17.880 term as of this recording. Yeah. And fortunately both McConnell 0:16:18.000 --> 0:16:21.200 and and the student Sweeno survived the Attechnic and so 0:16:21.560 --> 0:16:25.040 McConnell lived several years after that. He passed away in nineteen. 0:16:25.760 --> 0:16:28.280 So this is just something about just a bizarre um 0:16:28.680 --> 0:16:30.960 you know, aspect of the overall story and just uh, 0:16:31.280 --> 0:16:36.160 certainly a historically noteworthy part of McConnell's biography. Uh, that 0:16:36.280 --> 0:16:40.080 he just ends up, you know, wandering into the path 0:16:40.400 --> 0:16:43.840 of of this individual and becomes part of the Kazynski 0:16:43.960 --> 0:16:46.880 story as well. Yeah, but that's not the main part 0:16:46.880 --> 0:16:49.080 of his life. We're going to be focusing on in 0:16:49.120 --> 0:16:52.240 these episodes. We're gonna be looking more at his research 0:16:52.320 --> 0:16:56.280 on memory, and specifically memory research with a group of 0:16:56.280 --> 0:16:58.880 flat worms known as plenaria. So should we take a 0:16:58.960 --> 0:17:01.840 quick break and then come back to talk about planarians. Yes, 0:17:02.120 --> 0:17:08.320 let's go ahead and cut the episode right here. All right, 0:17:08.359 --> 0:17:11.000 we're back. So before we look at the experiments of 0:17:11.080 --> 0:17:14.040 James McConnell and colleagues, we should meet a major character 0:17:14.600 --> 0:17:17.639 in this scientific narrative, which is a type of flat 0:17:17.680 --> 0:17:23.000 worm called planaria. Right now, for starters, Planaria, there is 0:17:23.240 --> 0:17:27.360 a genus planar area. But but but it's not what 0:17:27.400 --> 0:17:31.360 we're talking about here, is not just organisms within that genus. Yeah, 0:17:31.359 --> 0:17:33.520 it can be a little confusing because there are multiple 0:17:33.560 --> 0:17:36.960 things called planaria. Planaria is also used to refer to 0:17:37.000 --> 0:17:40.240 a larger family of related flat worms, and most of 0:17:40.280 --> 0:17:43.200 the worms that are called planarians are outside the genus 0:17:43.200 --> 0:17:46.960 of Planaria, in classes in the class to Bellaria or 0:17:47.000 --> 0:17:50.480 the family Planaria. Day, So we're gonna be talking about 0:17:50.480 --> 0:17:53.320 this broader class of planarians. Yeah, the old you'll find 0:17:53.359 --> 0:17:56.480 them living in both fresh and salt water, in the water, 0:17:56.520 --> 0:18:00.119 but also on land. A terrestrial Planaria are found the 0:18:00.200 --> 0:18:04.399 soil or or damp areas or humid places. Some are 0:18:04.400 --> 0:18:08.320 even parasitic, but most feed on protozoans, tiny snails and worms, 0:18:08.560 --> 0:18:13.600 and they mostly feed at night. Mostly they're they're soft. 0:18:13.880 --> 0:18:16.560 They tend to be soft leaf leaf shaped creatures that 0:18:16.680 --> 0:18:20.120 range from three to fifteen millimeters, but they can reach 0:18:20.240 --> 0:18:23.840 longer lengths. They have two eyes, and those two eyes 0:18:24.280 --> 0:18:28.440 are often quite notable because they look like googly eyes. Yeah, 0:18:28.760 --> 0:18:31.920 you've probably seen these before in actual photos of these 0:18:31.920 --> 0:18:35.760 worms zoomed in their cross side. Uh. Some some of 0:18:35.800 --> 0:18:39.280 them have tentacles, They have of ventral mouth opening and 0:18:39.400 --> 0:18:43.280 no body cavity. They may swim via undulations or crawl 0:18:43.320 --> 0:18:47.520 like a slug. They are also simultaneous hymaphrodites, having both 0:18:47.560 --> 0:18:52.080 sexes within a single individual. Yet some utilize sexual reproductions 0:18:52.080 --> 0:18:55.080 and and some utilize a sexual reproduction and of course 0:18:55.240 --> 0:18:58.879 their legendary for their regenerative powers. Yes, and it's these 0:18:58.960 --> 0:19:01.880 regenerative powers that are going to play a central role 0:19:01.920 --> 0:19:05.000 in a lot of this research. Uh. And it may 0:19:05.040 --> 0:19:08.080 have played a role in your individual research and even 0:19:08.080 --> 0:19:11.800 science education growing up. Oh sure, yeah, maybe, I mean so, 0:19:12.240 --> 0:19:16.120 I mean you could not have a planarian highlander situation, 0:19:16.520 --> 0:19:18.920 you would have a real problem with trying to keep 0:19:19.000 --> 0:19:23.240 a planary in decapitated. That's right. Uh. And and to 0:19:23.280 --> 0:19:26.800 really drive this home, let's talk about just how amazing 0:19:26.800 --> 0:19:29.560 their regenerative powers are. Basically, they can be cut in 0:19:29.640 --> 0:19:33.880 half in each half will form into a fully formed individual. 0:19:34.359 --> 0:19:37.240 In fact, it's been estimated that a mere one two 0:19:37.359 --> 0:19:41.040 hundred and seventy nine of the organism can, once removed, 0:19:41.359 --> 0:19:45.199 regenerate into a fully formed individual. So we're talking total 0:19:45.600 --> 0:19:50.280 sourcer as apprentice territory here, and that's really not an overstatement. Yeah, 0:19:50.400 --> 0:19:51.960 it would be like, you know, if you could chop 0:19:52.040 --> 0:19:55.520 my finger off and it would grow a whole new me. Yeah. Really, 0:19:55.520 --> 0:19:57.840 And that's I mean, that's amazing because we've we've talked 0:19:57.880 --> 0:20:00.439 on the show before about the regenerative p hours of 0:20:01.040 --> 0:20:04.280 of various vertebrate organisms. For example, you know, and it's 0:20:04.280 --> 0:20:06.520 impressive that a lizard co jettis in its tail and 0:20:06.600 --> 0:20:10.120 re mostly regrow that tail. Things of that nature. Many 0:20:10.160 --> 0:20:12.520 of the healing abilities of even the human body are 0:20:12.560 --> 0:20:16.760 pretty substantial when you really set back and and consider them. 0:20:17.119 --> 0:20:20.800 But this is this is something far beyond most of 0:20:20.840 --> 0:20:23.240 those examples. Yeah, I would say this goes even beyond 0:20:23.280 --> 0:20:27.199 the impressive examples we see in like amphibians, like salamanders. 0:20:28.119 --> 0:20:31.239 You can even cut their head in half, kind of 0:20:31.280 --> 0:20:33.399 like you started to cut them in half with a 0:20:33.440 --> 0:20:36.680 sword and then you got bored like around the neck. Uh. 0:20:36.840 --> 0:20:38.840 You can, you can. You can cut their head in 0:20:38.920 --> 0:20:42.240 half and then just stop and then they'll they'll develop 0:20:42.320 --> 0:20:45.760 two heads and live that way. In some cases, Uh, 0:20:45.800 --> 0:20:48.119 they have. There have been some very interesting experiments in 0:20:48.160 --> 0:20:51.600 how they regenerate in micro gravity as well. For instance, 0:20:51.640 --> 0:20:54.840 normally a two headed planaria is a rare occurrence in nature, 0:20:55.119 --> 0:20:58.440 but in one experiment, space exposed worms were far more 0:20:58.480 --> 0:21:01.080 likely developed a second head to the tune of one 0:21:01.080 --> 0:21:05.000 in fifteen worms. Uh. In amputating this worm within result 0:21:05.080 --> 0:21:08.520 in more two headed worms. And this is this is 0:21:08.560 --> 0:21:11.399 just one area where you know their their further study 0:21:11.560 --> 0:21:15.400 can help us understand their biology and uh it also 0:21:15.440 --> 0:21:18.280 help us better understand the effects of micro gravity on 0:21:18.320 --> 0:21:21.800 an organism. But of course, their regenerative powers in general 0:21:21.920 --> 0:21:25.480 continue to garner a great deal of research attention. Yeah. 0:21:25.520 --> 0:21:31.600 I mean the medical applications of regenerative biology itself are 0:21:31.720 --> 0:21:35.840 very important. Yeah, Worth noting that Darwin actually observed these 0:21:35.880 --> 0:21:39.879 amazing creatures as well. Uh, and their amazing ability. I 0:21:39.880 --> 0:21:42.719 will read a quick quote here from Charles Darwin. Alright, 0:21:42.880 --> 0:21:45.960 this is from a journal of researches into the natural 0:21:46.040 --> 0:21:49.080 history and geology of the countries visited during the voyage 0:21:49.080 --> 0:21:53.520 of HMS Beagle around the world. Quote. Having cut one 0:21:53.560 --> 0:21:57.040 of them transversely into two nearly equal parts in the 0:21:57.080 --> 0:22:00.480 course of a fortnight, both had the shape of perfect animals. 0:22:00.840 --> 0:22:03.359 I had, however, so divided the body that one of 0:22:03.400 --> 0:22:07.080 the halves contained both the inferior or orifices, and the 0:22:07.119 --> 0:22:10.800 other in consequence none In the course of twenty five 0:22:10.880 --> 0:22:13.600 days from the operation, the more perfect half could not 0:22:13.680 --> 0:22:17.399 have been distinguished from any other specimen. And there's more 0:22:17.400 --> 0:22:19.760 that you know here, obviously, But that's just a taste 0:22:19.760 --> 0:22:23.399 of his fascination with the organism itself, sitting in the 0:22:23.400 --> 0:22:27.000 Beagle cutting up worms, and and they've continued to fascinate 0:22:27.040 --> 0:22:30.160 researches as well. Uh. You know, for a number of reasons. 0:22:30.560 --> 0:22:34.800 Um as pointed out by a doctor only are Pagan 0:22:35.760 --> 0:22:38.880 author of the first brain. Uh. He pointed this out 0:22:38.880 --> 0:22:42.159 in a two thousand fourteen interview with futurism. There are 0:22:42.160 --> 0:22:46.240 other organisms with this kind of regenerative ability, but very 0:22:46.320 --> 0:22:49.439 few are quite as excellent at it as the planarian. 0:22:49.840 --> 0:22:53.160 And they also have a relatively complex nervous system, which 0:22:53.160 --> 0:22:56.120 contributes to their appeal, especially when you get into areas 0:22:56.160 --> 0:22:58.880 where you're talking about what can we learn from the 0:22:59.000 --> 0:23:02.119 from a planarian that we can then apply potentially in 0:23:02.160 --> 0:23:07.040 the future to human physiology. Now, just a few other 0:23:07.119 --> 0:23:11.000 quick fascinating facts about them. At least one variety produces 0:23:11.000 --> 0:23:16.480 a deadly U produces the deadly tetrodotoxin um. In general, 0:23:16.560 --> 0:23:21.560 their mouths emerge from a proboscis located halfway down their body. 0:23:21.600 --> 0:23:25.520 And those googly eyes sometimes described as cross eyes. Apparently 0:23:25.760 --> 0:23:29.000 nobody's exactly sure why that is the case. I will 0:23:29.000 --> 0:23:32.399 say the google eyes often look like an illustration, and 0:23:32.440 --> 0:23:35.600