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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. This is

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Speaker 1: Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday. Time

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Speaker 1: to go into the vault for an older episode of

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Speaker 1: the show. This time we are airing the first part

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Speaker 1: of our series on finger nails. This originally came out

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Speaker 1: September one. Yeah, let's dive right in. Welcome to stot

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Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind production of My Heart Radio. Hey,

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Speaker 1: you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name

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Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and today we're

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Speaker 1: going to be embarking on part one of an exploration

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Speaker 1: of nails, not nails like you hit with the hammer,

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Speaker 1: though I guess you could hit him with the hammer,

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Speaker 1: though that would be really bad. Talking about the kind

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Speaker 1: of nails on the human body. And I was thinking

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Speaker 1: just the other day about how nails are sort of

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Speaker 1: the mascot for or idleness, for human idleness, because when

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Speaker 1: humans are idle, what part of the body is going

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Speaker 1: to get the most attention. I think it's almost always

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Speaker 1: going to be the nail. Right, You're either some people

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Speaker 1: bite their nails. If you're not biting your nails, you're

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Speaker 1: often like looking at your nails, kind of observing like oh,

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Speaker 1: they're too long, or like, oh, there's some kind of

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Speaker 1: weird thing here. Perhaps this is idiosyncratic psychology of mind,

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Speaker 1: but but I think this is pretty common, right, Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I mean even if you're not even looking at them,

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Speaker 1: sometimes you just sort of feel them, like you're just

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Speaker 1: sort of feeling the edges of your nails and you know, see,

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Speaker 1: making sure everything's lined up there. For my own part,

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Speaker 1: I tend to find that I noticed them the most

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Speaker 1: when I am more in the more in the past. Really,

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Speaker 1: but if I was driving into work and I'd be

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Speaker 1: stuck in a light or something, and then I would

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Speaker 1: notice my nails and I would be and that's when

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Speaker 1: I would notice that I need to trim my nails,

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Speaker 1: and I would of course be in a position where

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Speaker 1: I really shouldn't be trimming my nails. Um, And then

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Speaker 1: you know, the rest of the time, I'm not really

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Speaker 1: noticing them. That's why the Good Lord made teeth. Well, yeah,

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Speaker 1: we'll get into that. Uh, that's not particularly my style,

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Speaker 1: but I know a lot of people do it. My

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Speaker 1: cat is a big, big fan herself. I'm also not

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Speaker 1: a nail biter, but I there are people very close

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Speaker 1: to me who are and I have observed the behavior

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Speaker 1: for many years up close and with a lot of

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Speaker 1: thoughts about it. Yeah, so so much like our two

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Speaker 1: episodes on Tomatoes last week, this is gonna be a

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Speaker 1: pair of episodes that that are going to get into

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Speaker 1: some real weirdness. It's and and so I urge you

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Speaker 1: to stick with us, even if you think, oh, fingernails,

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Speaker 1: I have those, I don't want to hear two episodes

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Speaker 1: about it, But really, I think I think you do.

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Speaker 1: And I think a great place to start would be

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Speaker 1: just to just touch on sort of the the obvious

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Speaker 1: weird aspects of our fingernails. I was thinking about this

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Speaker 1: today because they're they're obviously living. They are, you know,

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Speaker 1: they're part of our body, and yet they're not living

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Speaker 1: in a way right there, like these things these like

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Speaker 1: little uh you know, almost like like stones that come

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Speaker 1: out of our our fingers, right Yeah, Well, I mean

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Speaker 1: we think of ourselves as non clawed animals. I think

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Speaker 1: this is a pretty common intuitive grouping of animals that

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Speaker 1: people make. Is like the kind with teeth and claws

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Speaker 1: and the kind without, and a lot of them have

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Speaker 1: teeth and claws because you got to it's a hard

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Speaker 1: world out there. But humans, you know, we've got tools,

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Speaker 1: and we've got social relationships, and we've got language and

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Speaker 1: all that, so we don't really need claws, but we

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Speaker 1: kind of do because we kind of do have claws,

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Speaker 1: and nails are not super formidable in a claw sense,

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Speaker 1: but they're kind of claw like. Yeah, yeah, I was

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Speaker 1: thinking about how they're Our nails are definitely functional, and

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Speaker 1: we'll get into a lot of those functions as we

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Speaker 1: progress here. They do play a very real role in

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Speaker 1: our lives and yet on the same time, at the

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Speaker 1: same time, they're very ornamental, so that their condition and

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Speaker 1: their upkeep inevitably communicate something about ourselves to the world.

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Speaker 1: You know, Um, we we can't help but think about

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Speaker 1: our own nails at times when we're encountering other people,

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Speaker 1: and like it or not, you're gonna notice other people's nails.

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Speaker 1: Are they Are they all done up? Are they bright

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Speaker 1: and colorful? Are they are they really making a statement?

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Speaker 1: Are they Are they kind of grimy? Are they you know?

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Speaker 1: They're they spotted with paint? Did they show where? And tear? Like?

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Speaker 1: These are these are some of the things that are

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Speaker 1: nails communicate and and it's it's it's like if you're

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Speaker 1: having a bad hair day or your hair is weird

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Speaker 1: for whatever reason, you know, you can put on a

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Speaker 1: cap and that's in many circumstances, and you know you

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Speaker 1: kind of get by. But a bad nail day or

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Speaker 1: bad bad nail days or months or what have you,

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Speaker 1: that's often kind of difficult to ignore. But on both sides, right,

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Speaker 1: I mean, you can wear gloves everywhere, but that's gonna

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Speaker 1: communicate something else entirely. You're gonna look like you're ready

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Speaker 1: to do some strangling or your bond villain or something, right,

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Speaker 1: or you know, there actually is another type of nail

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Speaker 1: that you didn't get to that has always stood out

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Speaker 1: in my mind ever since I saw this movie when

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Speaker 1: I was a little kid, Which are the cyborg nails

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Speaker 1: in Paul vere Joven's Total Recall. Remember the lady who

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Speaker 1: has nails that she's like touching with the stylus from

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Speaker 1: her computer and the changing Yeah, very cool. When will

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Speaker 1: they invent that? Yeah? And for the time being, we're

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Speaker 1: just left with with paints, right, um, And we'll get

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Speaker 1: into the use of paints and other ornamental techniques on

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Speaker 1: our nails as well. In these episodes because ultimately, yeah,

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Speaker 1: these these nails that we have um are kind of

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Speaker 1: at this intersection of so many different aspects of the

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Speaker 1: human condition. And if you look close enough, especially if

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Speaker 1: you go far back into prehistory or or look around

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Speaker 1: the world at different cultural treatments of nails, Uh, there's

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Speaker 1: far more strangeness and magic and religious significance than than

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Speaker 1: people might expect, especially if you're just an American who

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Speaker 1: just kind of clips them into the trash can. But

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Speaker 1: maybe we should start with a quick look at the

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Speaker 1: anatomy of a nail. And now we're not going to

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Speaker 1: go super deep on this, but the simple version is

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Speaker 1: that you've got the hard part of the nail. This

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Speaker 1: plays to fingernails. In tone nails, the hard part of

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Speaker 1: the nail is known as the nail plate, and the

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Speaker 1: nail plate is made out of these compressed layers of

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Speaker 1: former epidermal skin cells that have been caratonized. Caratonized as

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Speaker 1: kind of it's your body doing two skin cells. What

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Speaker 1: Medusa does to people who invade her garden of rocks. Uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, it's it's filling the cells with keratin, which

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Speaker 1: is this tough, fibrous protective protein that makes up not

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Speaker 1: only the nails but also the hair and UH and

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Speaker 1: keratin is found in living skin cells as well, and

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Speaker 1: then the caratonized cells in the nail plate make it

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Speaker 1: not only tough, but relatively flexible and translucent. And the

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Speaker 1: translucent quality of the nails is I think it's one

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Speaker 1: of the most interesting things about them. If you look close,

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Speaker 1: you can kind of see through it to the flesh underneath,

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Speaker 1: and then to the capillary blood flow under that. If

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Speaker 1: you look at it long enough, it might start to

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Speaker 1: get a little creepy, yeah, because because there's a sense

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Speaker 1: that the nail is strong. We know the nail is

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Speaker 1: is strong, and yet the flesh that we see through

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Speaker 1: that nail window looks very you know, soft and delicate

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Speaker 1: and and and we all often know from experience that

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Speaker 1: it is very sensitive under there. Absolutely, it's sort of

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Speaker 1: like a window through your skin, but like a frosted

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Speaker 1: glass window, you know, not exactly transparent, but translucent. But so,

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Speaker 1: where does the nail plate come from. Well, it comes

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Speaker 1: from the nail matrix, which is found at the base

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Speaker 1: of the nail, and this is sort of the cellular factory.

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Speaker 1: It turns out new nail plate through cell division over time,

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Speaker 1: and as new cells form at the base of the nail,

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Speaker 1: it pushes the old nail out from the root, which

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Speaker 1: is why nails grow. Now, it's interesting to note that

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Speaker 1: there are nails are actually composed of three layers of

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Speaker 1: that fibrous composite keratin. And and this is of course

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Speaker 1: a fibrous protein. Like we said, it's found in hair

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Speaker 1: and feathers and hoofs, claws and horns. Uh. But I

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Speaker 1: was looking a little deeper into just the the structural

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Speaker 1: integrity of the nail. I read an article from back

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Speaker 1: in two thousand four that was published an Experimental biology

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Speaker 1: by Firing at All, in which the researchers quote examine

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Speaker 1: the structure and fracture properties of human fingernails to determine

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Speaker 1: how they resist bending forces while preventing fractors running longitudinally

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Speaker 1: in the nail bed. So we we've all cracked a

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Speaker 1: nail before. I imagine it's not a fingernail than a

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Speaker 1: toe nail. That's a quick thing for me. Yeah, um,

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Speaker 1: And it's a you know, but you know, it's it's

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Speaker 1: a wonderful thing that we tend to see far more

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Speaker 1: latitudinal cracks than the opposite in other words, cracks tend

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Speaker 1: to be more or less parallel to the edge of

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Speaker 1: the nail, as opposed to straight up the middle, which

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Speaker 1: would obviously be far more traumatic. Not to say it

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Speaker 1: doesn't occur, but um, but generally you're gonna have one

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Speaker 1: that's going across the nail. So that means that our

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Speaker 1: nails are an isotropic, meaning the material has a different

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Speaker 1: value when measured in different directions. And this is much

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Speaker 1: like wood, you know, which is stronger along the grain,

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Speaker 1: or like meat, you know, the direction in which you

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Speaker 1: slice a piece of meat makes a difference in how

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Speaker 1: tender it is. Uh. The same thing would probably be

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Speaker 1: true of your nails, right, Uh. And that's exactly what

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Speaker 1: they ended up doing in this experiment, like tested like

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Speaker 1: cutting on nails, uh, not living nails, I believe they were.

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Speaker 1: They were trimming so that they used in the experiment.

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Speaker 1: But basically, there are long, narrow cells in the thick

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Speaker 1: intermediate layer, while tile like cells in the thinner dorsal

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Speaker 1: and ventral layers increase bending strength and prevents cracking from forming.

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Speaker 1: Well that's very nice, and really all this lines up

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Speaker 1: with just the way that we tend to use our nails, uh, scraping, prying, tweezing.

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Speaker 1: If you've ever tried to use your fingernails as a screwdriver,

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Speaker 1: you've hit up on some of the design limitations, but

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Speaker 1: also some of the flexibility of the nail. You'll find that, uh, yeah,

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Speaker 1: if you're just pressing on something, if you're trying to

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Speaker 1: like dig something out of your own skin, and you

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Speaker 1: probably shouldn't do that, but if you are, you'll find

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Speaker 1: that you have a fair amount of you know, of

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Speaker 1: pressure you can exert on that nail. Right, But if

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Speaker 1: you start trying to go side to side with a

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Speaker 1: with with the head of a screw, you're gonna find, oh,

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Speaker 1: it's not really rigid enough to turn the screw. But fortunately,

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Speaker 1: at the same time, um, it's not so brittle that

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Speaker 1: I just ripped my nail to pieces when I'm trying

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Speaker 1: and failing to do that. Oh. I've never thought to

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Speaker 1: put it into words like that, but you're absolutely right,

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Speaker 1: Like twisting pressure on the nail does not feel as

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Speaker 1: as comfortable and easy as regular like tweezing or pressing

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Speaker 1: pressure is. Yeah, I mean not to say you can't

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Speaker 1: turn a nail, I mean turn a screw a little

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Speaker 1: bit with your nail. But I think you'll find that

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Speaker 1: if when it gets to the nitty gritty of trying

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Speaker 1: to actually put some force into the rotation of the screw,

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Speaker 1: you're going to realize that you should probably stop what

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Speaker 1: you're doing and get an actual screwdriver. Now, there's a

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Speaker 1: very interesting contradiction, a sort of psychological contradiction that comes

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Speaker 1: with the nails which is that they're the parts of

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Speaker 1: our body that would be the toughest, you know, the

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Speaker 1: ones we would put out front as as defensive parts,

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Speaker 1: the teeth, the nails. There there are defense mechanism. But

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Speaker 1: one thing you've noticed if you if you ever tried

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Speaker 1: to trim a dog's toenails, is that they generally do

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Speaker 1: not like this at all. They do not want their

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Speaker 1: toenails to be messed with, even though it's the hardest

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Speaker 1: part of their body, and you can mess around with

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Speaker 1: the soft parts of their body. They're usually fine with it.

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Speaker 1: But you start going in for the nails and they

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Speaker 1: get all squirmy and say, I want to clatter around

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Speaker 1: on the floor forever. Uh, And you will not get

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Speaker 1: a chance to do this. And there's actually a similar

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Speaker 1: kind of contradiction. I think that goes on in human

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Speaker 1: psychology because think about all of the horrifying images that

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Speaker 1: people you know, they occur in movies, of course, unfortunately

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Speaker 1: sometimes they're practiced in reality, and they all probably just

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Speaker 1: occur to us naturally when you imagine something bad happening

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Speaker 1: to your nails or your teeth, it's like a particular

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Speaker 1: kind of vulnerability obsession. Yeah, and and I should add,

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Speaker 1: if you don't want to hear about any of this,

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Speaker 1: you know, feel free to skip, like maybe you know,

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Speaker 1: ten fifty seconds. But we're not gonna dwell on this

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Speaker 1: long or in great detail. But but yeah, it should

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Speaker 1: be noted that fingernail based torture goes back quite a

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Speaker 1: ways given the delicacy. And certainly there are a lot

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Speaker 1: of nerves in our fingers, and the nail actually makes

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Speaker 1: our finger more sensitive, which is something that that I

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Speaker 1: hadn't really thought about before. But this was pointed out

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Speaker 1: by Evan Writer, assistant professor in the Ronald O. Pearlman

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Speaker 1: Department of Dermatology, n y U langon health, quoted in

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Speaker 1: a Mental Floss article by Jordan Rosenfeld from two thousand eighteen. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: the way I've read it put is that by providing

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Speaker 1: a counter pressure to your fingertip. It gives you special

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Speaker 1: sensitivity in the skin cells in your fingertip that wouldn't

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Speaker 1: be there otherwise. Yeah, which is something to keep in

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Speaker 1: mind the next time you have some sort of issue

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Speaker 1: with your nails where you find yourself asking that question,

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Speaker 1: why do I have these What is what good are

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Speaker 1: these nails doing me when they're causing me so much

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Speaker 1: discomfort right now? UM? I know, for for my own part,

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Speaker 1: I in the past had ingrown tonenails on both of

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Speaker 1: my my big toes and uh, and had to have

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Speaker 1: the thing where the the podiatrist goes in and like

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Speaker 1: removes a section of the toenail and kills the nail

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Speaker 1: bed underneath it. Um to to prevent that kind of

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Speaker 1: thing from happening. And I kind of get the impression

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Speaker 1: that this is not all that uncommon because I have

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Speaker 1: other friends who we've compared toes and we're like, oh, yeah,

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Speaker 1: you had the same thing done. Well, I'm sorry you

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Speaker 1: had to endure that, Robert. But I also do find

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Speaker 1: it quite amusing that you have you have toe parties

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Speaker 1: with your friends. Well, you know, I have to say

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Speaker 1: that the procedure is far preferable to an ingrown toenail.

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Speaker 1: Uh So if if you uh, you know, if you're

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Speaker 1: having issues like that, and you should definitely try and

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Speaker 1: get some some help with it. That is not yourself

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Speaker 1: toying around and trying to perform some sort of amateur

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Speaker 1: surgery on yourself in the bathroom, because that's only going

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Speaker 1: to result in more pain. Um. Speaking of which, I

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Speaker 1: have to admit that I did not have the stomach

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Speaker 1: to really dive into this topic of of nail torture

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Speaker 1: in depth. I know there's a book, famous book by

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Speaker 1: George Riley Scott, The History of Torture throughout the Ages,

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Speaker 1: and I skimmed that a little bit and quickly realized

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Speaker 1: that my eyes were a little bigger than my stomach

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Speaker 1: on that one. Um. But basically you have a lot

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Speaker 1: of accounts of de nailing in there, either by just

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Speaker 1: pulling the nails out or by first using the insertion

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Speaker 1: of a red hot nail beneath the fingernail as a

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Speaker 1: precursor to de nailing. George Riley Scott, by the way,

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Speaker 1: also wrote a history of prostitution in the early twentieth

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Speaker 1: century that I understand was one of one of, if

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Speaker 1: not the first histories of prostitution. That was not like, uh,

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Speaker 1: it was not coming from a super judgmental standpoint, like

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Speaker 1: a moralizing standpoint. H Well, that's interesting. So we're done

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Speaker 1: with the nail torture that others inflict on us, I

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Speaker 1: think at this point. But let's come back to that

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Speaker 1: other form of sort of nail punishment that we sometimes

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Speaker 1: do it ourselves, nail biting. Oh yeah, So, as I

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Speaker 1: said before, I am not a habitual nail biter, but

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Speaker 1: I have observed a bunch of it up close over

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Speaker 1: the years, and so I don't know, I've I've sort

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Speaker 1: of like mused on it for a long time. So

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Speaker 1: habitual nail biting is known clinically as on ecophagia, and

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Speaker 1: studies have found somewhere between maybe twenty to thirty percent

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Speaker 1: of people in total do it, though it varies a

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Speaker 1: lot by age um. So the twenty to thirty percent

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Speaker 1: figure comes from a study published in twenty seventeen and

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Speaker 1: the Journal of Dermatological Treatment by Pierre Halte at All.

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Speaker 1: But according to some sources, nail biting peaks in early years,

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Speaker 1: especially in teenage years, with some estimates as high as

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Speaker 1: forty five percent. Of teenagers doing it regularly, which sounds

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Speaker 1: very high. But then again, I guess I don't know

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Speaker 1: what teenagers do. I do have to come back to

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Speaker 1: um the name of the habitual nail bite though, because

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Speaker 1: the uh, the actual meaning of that is is the

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Speaker 1: eating of of fingernails, right, I mean it, which is

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Speaker 1: not actually what's going on, right at least not in

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Speaker 1: most cases. I don't know. Maybe who knows what some

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Speaker 1: people swallow, But yeah, phagia, that's you know, that's used

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Speaker 1: in the terms for the eating of all kinds of things.

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Speaker 1: Into my phegia is the eating of insects and so forth, copperphagia.

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Speaker 1: We don't need to get into hogegias, the eating of hogs,

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Speaker 1: of great sandwiches. But even if you're not swallowing the nails,

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Speaker 1: nicophagia can have a lot of negative consequences. For one thing,

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Speaker 1: that your nails are very dirty. They are sort of

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Speaker 1: a hot spot for bacteria on your body and uh,

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Speaker 1: and so I was reading several articles about this. One

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Speaker 1: thing I was reading was an article in The Verge

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Speaker 1: by Alessandra Potenza, and the author here pointed out that

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Speaker 1: nail biding can also have dental consequences, So she pointed

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Speaker 1: to some dental health blogs that I was looking at.

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Speaker 1: Several of these had dentist citing an estimate from the

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Speaker 1: Academy of General Dentistry that quote, nail biting can result

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Speaker 1: in up to four thousand dollars in additional dental bills

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Speaker 1: over one lifetime. Because there are a number of reasons.

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Speaker 1: But apparently it's not good for your teeth to be

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Speaker 1: chewing too much in any case, and it's especially not

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Speaker 1: good to be always putting chewing pressure down with your

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Speaker 1: front teeth. I mean, you think about it, that's not

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Speaker 1: normally how you chew. Normally, you chew kind of like

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Speaker 1: with the pressing of your back teeth, But when you're

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Speaker 1: biting with your nails, you're kind of aligning your jaw

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Speaker 1: in a strange way to bring your front teeth together

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Speaker 1: and turn them into clippers. But beyond that, there's also

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Speaker 1: just the the exchange of bacteria from one place to

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Speaker 1: the other and it and it actually does go both ways.

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Speaker 1: So you're getting bacteria from under your fingernails and your

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Speaker 1: fingertips into your mouth, but you're also getting bacteria from

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Speaker 1: your mouth under your fingernails, which can cause infections there

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Speaker 1: and apparently it can be bad both ways. Yeah, so

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Speaker 1: there's really no upside to doing it. Um, obviously just

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Speaker 1: stopping is easier said than done. But but but yeah,

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Speaker 1: from from a purely health standpoint, um, it's best to

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Speaker 1: stay away from it. But that leads to the interesting

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Speaker 1: question of why we bite our nails in the first place,

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Speaker 1: and why some people, especially in engage in o nicophagia

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Speaker 1: like the habitual, repetitive biting of the nails. I was

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Speaker 1: reading an interesting article about this in Fox by the

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Speaker 1: science writer Joseph Stromberg, and so he cites that there

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Speaker 1: were several early theories on nail biting, of course, before

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Speaker 1: we had modern psychology. One of course, was Freud, and

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Speaker 1: Freud grouped nail biting as one of the obsessions that

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Speaker 1: fell under the oral receptive personality. And in Freudian theory,

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Speaker 1: the idea was that if a if a child nursed

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Speaker 1: too much during infancy, they would grow up to have

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Speaker 1: this oral fixation, the oral receptive fixation, and which caused

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Speaker 1: them to always like chew on their nails and like

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Speaker 1: put objects in their mouth. You know the kind of

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Speaker 1: people who are always like putting a stick in their

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Speaker 1: mouth or something. But again, you know, this is Freudian

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Speaker 1: is um. There's no real evidence for this, and as

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Speaker 1: far as I could tell, there's never been any evidence

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Speaker 1: that's turned up that there's any connection whatsoever between nursing

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Speaker 1: in early childhood and and so called oral fixations. It

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Speaker 1: just seems to be another one of those things that

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Speaker 1: you know, Freud kind of said it, but there's no

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Speaker 1: reason to believe it's true unless you're one of those

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Speaker 1: people that has one of those bumper stickers that says

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Speaker 1: Freud said it, I believe it. That settled it. Now.

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Speaker 1: More recently, nail biting has been listed in the d

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Speaker 1: s M is a form of o c D of

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Speaker 1: obsessive compulsive disorder, but not all experts agreed that this

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Speaker 1: is the best categorization for it, as not all forms

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Speaker 1: of nail biting or universally considered really obsessive UM. And

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Speaker 1: so another theory has emerged that nail biting is sort

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Speaker 1: of a form of emotion regulation. Just one example of

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Speaker 1: this is a study from published in the Journal of

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Speaker 1: Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry by Sarah Roberts at All

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Speaker 1: called the Impact of Emotions on Body Focused repetitive behaviors

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Speaker 1: evidence from a non treatment seeking sample. And this is

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Speaker 1: a whole class of of behaviors, body focused repetitive behaviors

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Speaker 1: that can involve nail biting, hair pulling, you know, various

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00:20:22,920 --> 00:20:26,360
Speaker 1: things that were sort of often grooming related, skin picking,

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Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. And so in this study they

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Speaker 1: tested people in several different kinds of scenarios that were

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Speaker 1: trying to elicit certain emotional reactions. One was a frustration situation,

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00:20:37,840 --> 00:20:40,800
Speaker 1: in which subjects would be given a difficult job to

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Speaker 1: do that that could not possibly be done in the

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Speaker 1: time they were given to do it. Um. Another one

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Speaker 1: was a boredom scenario where people were left in a

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Speaker 1: room with nothing to do. Another one was an anxiety

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00:20:53,960 --> 00:20:57,440
Speaker 1: scenario where they were asked to watch an extremely terrifying

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Speaker 1: movie scene. I think it was a plane crash scene

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00:21:00,359 --> 00:21:03,840
Speaker 1: from the movie Alive. I've never seen it. Is that

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00:21:03,880 --> 00:21:08,200
Speaker 1: the one where the soccer players resort to cannibalism? Yeah,

399
00:21:08,280 --> 00:21:11,840
Speaker 1: that's the one based on true occurrences, But but certainly

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Speaker 1: is notable for having just a very terrifying and at

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Speaker 1: least at the time, very convincing airplane crash scene. I'm

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00:21:18,960 --> 00:21:21,479
Speaker 1: not sure how it holds up today, but I imagine

403
00:21:21,480 --> 00:21:23,680
Speaker 1: it holds up pretty well. And then finally there was

404
00:21:23,720 --> 00:21:27,920
Speaker 1: a relaxation condition where they're watching a video. They're sitting

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00:21:27,960 --> 00:21:30,080
Speaker 1: in a nice comfy chair and they're watching video of

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00:21:30,359 --> 00:21:34,000
Speaker 1: a pleasant beach scene. That's nice too, I like that

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00:21:34,040 --> 00:21:37,320
Speaker 1: movie a lot. What makes you wonder I kind of

408
00:21:37,320 --> 00:21:39,720
Speaker 1: want to see the video, Like how exactly relaxing is

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00:21:39,760 --> 00:21:41,560
Speaker 1: the speech? What if you're looking at the speech and

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00:21:41,640 --> 00:21:45,840
Speaker 1: thinking like, ooh, I don't know, sharks, Yeah, I guess

411
00:21:45,880 --> 00:21:49,200
Speaker 1: you could, um it certainly remind there are these wonderful

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00:21:49,960 --> 00:21:53,080
Speaker 1: videos called moving Art that you can find on I

413
00:21:53,080 --> 00:21:56,960
Speaker 1: think they're a Netflix, and they're basically that kind of vibe,

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00:21:56,960 --> 00:22:01,159
Speaker 1: like really soothing ambient music. Um, and then these just

415
00:22:01,240 --> 00:22:04,080
Speaker 1: beautiful scenes of things like beaches or mountains and sometimes

416
00:22:04,119 --> 00:22:06,679
Speaker 1: wildlife depending on what the theme of the episode is.

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Speaker 1: But it's some great nap time fair Oh nice. Uh

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Speaker 1: well so anyway, so the results of the study were

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00:22:12,640 --> 00:22:16,480
Speaker 1: basically that observed behaviors in reported desire to bite the

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00:22:16,560 --> 00:22:21,399
Speaker 1: nails and engage in these repetitive body focused behaviors. It

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00:22:21,520 --> 00:22:26,040
Speaker 1: singled out two situations especially, which were stress and boredom

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Speaker 1: and uh In Stromberg's article, he quotes Fred Penzel, who's

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00:22:29,840 --> 00:22:33,320
Speaker 1: a psychologist who helps patients who who deal with nail biting,

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00:22:33,880 --> 00:22:37,520
Speaker 1: and Penzel says of people in these conditions, quote, when

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00:22:37,560 --> 00:22:42,400
Speaker 1: they're under stimulated, the behavior provides stimulation, and when they're

426
00:22:42,480 --> 00:22:46,199
Speaker 1: over stimulated, it actually helps them calm down. And he

427
00:22:46,240 --> 00:22:49,080
Speaker 1: compares it to nicotine actually with the idea that the

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00:22:49,160 --> 00:22:52,160
Speaker 1: nicotine and cigarettes can sort of be a stimulant when

429
00:22:52,200 --> 00:22:55,160
Speaker 1: you are under stimulated, and it can be a relaxant

430
00:22:55,200 --> 00:22:59,439
Speaker 1: when you are over stimulated. Uh So, another question is

431
00:22:59,560 --> 00:23:01,720
Speaker 1: how do you quit if you if you're a nail

432
00:23:01,720 --> 00:23:04,520
Speaker 1: biter and you want to stop. I've read several ideas.

433
00:23:05,240 --> 00:23:07,919
Speaker 1: One of course, is just trying to replace nail biting

434
00:23:07,960 --> 00:23:11,840
Speaker 1: with an incompatible alternative activity. So in situations where you

435
00:23:11,920 --> 00:23:15,120
Speaker 1: might find yourself biting your nails, have something that you're

436
00:23:15,200 --> 00:23:17,560
Speaker 1: doing with your hands that you know you can't bite

437
00:23:17,560 --> 00:23:20,960
Speaker 1: your nails at the same time, or alternately, I've read

438
00:23:21,160 --> 00:23:23,920
Speaker 1: people say, hey, just wear gloves or put tape over

439
00:23:23,920 --> 00:23:26,640
Speaker 1: the ends of your fingers. There's even there are even

440
00:23:26,680 --> 00:23:32,120
Speaker 1: companies that make especially tailored, nasty tasting clear nail polished

441
00:23:32,160 --> 00:23:34,040
Speaker 1: so that if you put your fingers in your mouth.

442
00:23:34,080 --> 00:23:36,560
Speaker 1: That is disgusting. All Right, on that note, we're going

443
00:23:36,600 --> 00:23:38,200
Speaker 1: to take a quick break, but we'll be right back.

444
00:23:39,800 --> 00:23:44,840
Speaker 1: Thank Alright, we're back. So we're talking about nails. And

445
00:23:45,160 --> 00:23:48,720
Speaker 1: one question that I find myself thinking about when when

446
00:23:48,920 --> 00:23:51,840
Speaker 1: sometimes I'm bored or idle and I start staring at

447
00:23:51,840 --> 00:23:56,760
Speaker 1: my own nails, is how fast exactly to these suckers grow? Well,

448
00:23:56,800 --> 00:23:58,800
Speaker 1: there is an answer to this, and it varies from

449
00:23:59,200 --> 00:24:01,800
Speaker 1: not not only from person to person but throughout a

450
00:24:01,840 --> 00:24:05,760
Speaker 1: person's lifetime. But an average figure that's often cited is

451
00:24:05,800 --> 00:24:10,000
Speaker 1: that fingernails tend to grow about zero point one millimeters

452
00:24:10,040 --> 00:24:12,879
Speaker 1: per day one tenth of a millimeter per day. So

453
00:24:12,920 --> 00:24:15,120
Speaker 1: at this rate, if you wanted to grow nails as

454
00:24:15,160 --> 00:24:18,520
Speaker 1: long as a six meter saltwater crocodile, it would take

455
00:24:18,560 --> 00:24:21,800
Speaker 1: about sixty thousand days or about a hundred and sixty

456
00:24:21,840 --> 00:24:25,680
Speaker 1: four years. But unfortunately, even if you could live that long,

457
00:24:25,720 --> 00:24:29,280
Speaker 1: your nails would probably not keep growing at such a

458
00:24:29,359 --> 00:24:33,520
Speaker 1: dependable rate indefinitely. And one of the great studies in

459
00:24:33,560 --> 00:24:37,840
Speaker 1: the history of fingernail research is actually uh something that

460
00:24:37,880 --> 00:24:41,000
Speaker 1: contributes to our understanding of this fact, and it's something

461
00:24:41,040 --> 00:24:44,159
Speaker 1: that's also in the spirit of Albert Hofman with lsd

462
00:24:44,600 --> 00:24:47,800
Speaker 1: or Barry Marshall, the guy who put a Helicobacter pylori

463
00:24:47,920 --> 00:24:50,159
Speaker 1: in his in his stomach to prove that it was

464
00:24:50,240 --> 00:24:53,000
Speaker 1: the cause of ulcers rather than say stress or acidic

465
00:24:53,040 --> 00:24:57,960
Speaker 1: foods uh it. It is a bold act of self experimentation,

466
00:24:58,480 --> 00:25:01,320
Speaker 1: and I will say an astoni wishing feat of commitment

467
00:25:01,440 --> 00:25:04,439
Speaker 1: over time. And this is the story of a doctor

468
00:25:04,520 --> 00:25:09,440
Speaker 1: named William Bean. All right, So, Dr William B. Bean

469
00:25:09,640 --> 00:25:12,360
Speaker 1: was a physician in a medical historian who lived from

470
00:25:12,440 --> 00:25:15,720
Speaker 1: nineteen o nine to nineteen eighty nine, and he taught

471
00:25:15,760 --> 00:25:18,879
Speaker 1: medicine at the University of Iowa College of Medicine and

472
00:25:19,000 --> 00:25:22,960
Speaker 1: the University of Texas in Galveston. In addition to his

473
00:25:23,040 --> 00:25:26,840
Speaker 1: medical practice and his teaching and his research, William Bean

474
00:25:27,040 --> 00:25:29,920
Speaker 1: was a prolific writer. And I think it's worth saying

475
00:25:29,960 --> 00:25:33,800
Speaker 1: that he was also an unusually good writer. An example

476
00:25:33,840 --> 00:25:36,000
Speaker 1: that I saw pointed out in a paper on Bean's

477
00:25:36,080 --> 00:25:38,680
Speaker 1: life was a passage that I'm about to read, which

478
00:25:38,720 --> 00:25:42,000
Speaker 1: which he wrote simply praising the virtues of books for

479
00:25:42,080 --> 00:25:44,879
Speaker 1: the dedication of a library. And I just thought this

480
00:25:44,920 --> 00:25:46,920
Speaker 1: was so lovely. So, Robert, do you mind if I

481
00:25:47,000 --> 00:25:51,960
Speaker 1: read this here, Bean wrote. Books remind us of friendship.

482
00:25:52,480 --> 00:25:55,920
Speaker 1: They lead us to equanimity and peace, at least peace

483
00:25:55,920 --> 00:25:59,679
Speaker 1: of mind. They help us maintain our individuality without the

484
00:26:00,040 --> 00:26:04,240
Speaker 1: dear and crushing loneliness of those who love only themselves.

485
00:26:04,960 --> 00:26:07,560
Speaker 1: The wisdom we gain from books leads us to act

486
00:26:07,680 --> 00:26:11,359
Speaker 1: as though we were building our ideas for eternity, mindful

487
00:26:11,440 --> 00:26:14,199
Speaker 1: that the nature of life and death are so ordered

488
00:26:14,240 --> 00:26:17,440
Speaker 1: that we and our works are fleeting and falling grains

489
00:26:17,440 --> 00:26:20,879
Speaker 1: of sand in the hour glass of time. If we

490
00:26:20,920 --> 00:26:23,399
Speaker 1: can avoid the apathy of those who claim to know

491
00:26:23,560 --> 00:26:26,679
Speaker 1: that nothing matters, and the sheer folly of those who

492
00:26:26,800 --> 00:26:30,640
Speaker 1: know that they personally matter immensely, we shall have been

493
00:26:30,640 --> 00:26:35,639
Speaker 1: worthy successors to that silent company of physicians, our medical forebears,

494
00:26:35,680 --> 00:26:39,240
Speaker 1: whose spirits watch over us here. Through the careful and

495
00:26:39,320 --> 00:26:43,080
Speaker 1: scholarly making and the wise use of books and libraries,

496
00:26:43,160 --> 00:26:46,720
Speaker 1: they build our great tradition. By following them, we must

497
00:26:46,760 --> 00:26:50,000
Speaker 1: add to it, as physicians, wise and humble in the care,

498
00:26:50,280 --> 00:26:53,760
Speaker 1: the comfort, and sometimes in the cure of our fellows

499
00:26:53,800 --> 00:26:57,560
Speaker 1: in their sickness and in their sorrow. Oh, that is beautiful.

500
00:26:57,800 --> 00:26:59,960
Speaker 1: And he actually brings some of this uh, some of

501
00:27:00,040 --> 00:27:04,399
Speaker 1: this thoughtful writing spirit to his scientific papers. So this

502
00:27:04,520 --> 00:27:09,000
Speaker 1: really remarkable self experiment that William being carried out is

503
00:27:09,200 --> 00:27:11,560
Speaker 1: revealed by the title of a paper that he published

504
00:27:11,560 --> 00:27:15,159
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty and the Archives of Internal Medicine called

505
00:27:15,600 --> 00:27:21,320
Speaker 1: Nail Growth thirty five years of observation. That is dedication.

506
00:27:21,520 --> 00:27:24,320
Speaker 1: And yeah, so so that is correct. You are understanding

507
00:27:24,359 --> 00:27:28,880
Speaker 1: the title correctly. There William being meticulously tracked the rate

508
00:27:28,960 --> 00:27:33,359
Speaker 1: of his own nail growth for thirty five years, beginning

509
00:27:33,440 --> 00:27:36,600
Speaker 1: sometime in the early nineteen forties, I think even as

510
00:27:36,600 --> 00:27:39,840
Speaker 1: the earliest nineteen forty one, and he published his findings

511
00:27:39,920 --> 00:27:42,440
Speaker 1: in a series of scientific articles, the first of which

512
00:27:42,440 --> 00:27:44,760
Speaker 1: appeared in nineteen fifty three and all the way up

513
00:27:44,840 --> 00:27:47,520
Speaker 1: until nineteen eighty. I think the one in nineteen eighty

514
00:27:47,600 --> 00:27:50,239
Speaker 1: was the last one. So thinking about this problem, I

515
00:27:50,240 --> 00:27:53,159
Speaker 1: immediately would have a question, which is how exactly do

516
00:27:53,240 --> 00:27:56,560
Speaker 1: you track how much your nails grow? Right? Like, you

517
00:27:56,600 --> 00:27:58,879
Speaker 1: can look at your nail and I don't know it

518
00:27:58,920 --> 00:28:02,239
Speaker 1: looks this long to a but uh, like, if if

519
00:28:02,280 --> 00:28:05,160
Speaker 1: you clip them eventually or if something comes off of them,

520
00:28:05,160 --> 00:28:07,560
Speaker 1: how do you know how much it has grown? Yeah?

521
00:28:07,560 --> 00:28:09,879
Speaker 1: I know when? When? When you brought up this study. Like.

522
00:28:09,920 --> 00:28:11,879
Speaker 1: The first thing that comes to mind is some is

523
00:28:11,880 --> 00:28:15,800
Speaker 1: like a bearded uh professor type who has one hand

524
00:28:15,920 --> 00:28:20,000
Speaker 1: that has those big, long spiral fingernails up. No, he

525
00:28:20,040 --> 00:28:22,960
Speaker 1: didn't do that, uh No, but he did find an

526
00:28:22,960 --> 00:28:26,439
Speaker 1: interesting way. Being actually explains in this paper that there

527
00:28:26,440 --> 00:28:28,080
Speaker 1: are a number of ways to track the growth of

528
00:28:28,119 --> 00:28:32,480
Speaker 1: your nails. Uh And this is his method. Quote. I

529
00:28:32,560 --> 00:28:36,680
Speaker 1: make an indentation with the little file commonly employed to

530
00:28:36,800 --> 00:28:40,640
Speaker 1: open small glass vials. On the first day of each month,

531
00:28:40,760 --> 00:28:43,840
Speaker 1: I file a transverse groove just at the edge of

532
00:28:43,880 --> 00:28:46,840
Speaker 1: the free margin of the cuticle, being careful not to

533
00:28:46,880 --> 00:28:49,280
Speaker 1: push it back or interfere with it. Within a week

534
00:28:49,400 --> 00:28:52,720
Speaker 1: or two after marking the nail, the end is recorded

535
00:28:52,800 --> 00:28:55,440
Speaker 1: when the mark has just reached the free margin of

536
00:28:55,440 --> 00:28:58,880
Speaker 1: the nail exactly one point four or five centimeters from

537
00:28:58,920 --> 00:29:03,480
Speaker 1: the start. Early in my observations, I measured nail clippings

538
00:29:03,520 --> 00:29:07,280
Speaker 1: by linear growth than by weight. With careful calculations, I

539
00:29:07,320 --> 00:29:10,760
Speaker 1: found that anywhere from to more than fifty percent of

540
00:29:10,760 --> 00:29:15,040
Speaker 1: the nail had been used up by unnoticed attrition. Not

541
00:29:15,120 --> 00:29:17,640
Speaker 1: only does the length of the nail wear away, but

542
00:29:17,720 --> 00:29:21,800
Speaker 1: the dorsal surface also wears down. If a fingernail is

543
00:29:21,840 --> 00:29:25,560
Speaker 1: trimmed with scissors and not filed, sharp angles can be

544
00:29:25,600 --> 00:29:30,360
Speaker 1: felt since scissors simply takes away bites without filing, These

545
00:29:30,400 --> 00:29:33,760
Speaker 1: sharp points disappear in a day or two from unnoticed

546
00:29:33,800 --> 00:29:37,400
Speaker 1: wear and tear. Uh. And I found this very interesting. So,

547
00:29:37,440 --> 00:29:41,520
Speaker 1: even apart from clipping, being observes that somewhere between a

548
00:29:41,680 --> 00:29:44,600
Speaker 1: quarter and a half of the mass of the nail

549
00:29:45,080 --> 00:29:49,800
Speaker 1: just vanishes over time through regular wear and tear. Yeah,

550
00:29:49,840 --> 00:29:53,120
Speaker 1: it's it's we we easily take these these tools that

551
00:29:53,160 --> 00:29:56,160
Speaker 1: are our fingernails for granted, because we use them all

552
00:29:56,200 --> 00:29:59,440
Speaker 1: the time to varying degrees to interact with the world

553
00:29:59,440 --> 00:30:03,760
Speaker 1: around us. But they are self replenishing, you know, unlike

554
00:30:04,400 --> 00:30:07,680
Speaker 1: the various real tools we use on the on the

555
00:30:08,080 --> 00:30:11,960
Speaker 1: on natural materials. Uh, those we inevitably have to replace

556
00:30:12,000 --> 00:30:15,320
Speaker 1: as they wear out. Yeah, it absolutely makes logical sense,

557
00:30:15,360 --> 00:30:17,280
Speaker 1: but it's it's just hard to square that with my

558
00:30:17,360 --> 00:30:20,560
Speaker 1: experience because I feel like I never notice my my

559
00:30:20,680 --> 00:30:25,320
Speaker 1: fingernails just being worn away. But obviously it happens a lot. Yeah,

560
00:30:25,360 --> 00:30:27,240
Speaker 1: I mean, like, like you say, if nothing else, you'll

561
00:30:27,240 --> 00:30:30,320
Speaker 1: notice that that the sharp edge will go away, um,

562
00:30:30,360 --> 00:30:32,400
Speaker 1: you know, pretty quickly on its own. Even if you

563
00:30:32,400 --> 00:30:35,640
Speaker 1: don't file them. Isn't that interesting? Yeah? Uh? And I

564
00:30:35,920 --> 00:30:39,400
Speaker 1: also want to note Bean's dedication to accuracy and control,

565
00:30:40,040 --> 00:30:42,240
Speaker 1: since he notes that at one point, to make sure

566
00:30:42,320 --> 00:30:46,200
Speaker 1: that the cuticle itself was not advancing or receding unnoticed

567
00:30:46,240 --> 00:30:48,360
Speaker 1: of course, because you know, if the cuticle was moving,

568
00:30:48,760 --> 00:30:51,200
Speaker 1: that would change how his measurements were happening with the

569
00:30:51,280 --> 00:30:54,680
Speaker 1: with the file in the nail plate. Uh, just to

570
00:30:54,760 --> 00:30:57,840
Speaker 1: make sure the cuticle wasn't moving, Being made a tattoo

571
00:30:58,120 --> 00:31:00,920
Speaker 1: in his thumbnail to use as a bench mark. What

572
00:31:01,600 --> 00:31:04,040
Speaker 1: a little more on his on his method. This is

573
00:31:04,040 --> 00:31:06,680
Speaker 1: a quote from an earlier paper by Being, which was

574
00:31:06,720 --> 00:31:09,840
Speaker 1: reproduced in a Discover magazine article on him. I was reading,

575
00:31:10,400 --> 00:31:13,600
Speaker 1: uh so being wrights quote. When I first began to

576
00:31:13,680 --> 00:31:16,960
Speaker 1: measure the rate of nail growth, I scored marks on

577
00:31:17,000 --> 00:31:19,760
Speaker 1: all my nails. Within a few months, I found that

578
00:31:19,880 --> 00:31:25,320
Speaker 1: each nail had its own pace. This was clearly distinguishable,

579
00:31:25,400 --> 00:31:28,640
Speaker 1: even by the rather crude method that I used. Some

580
00:31:28,880 --> 00:31:33,320
Speaker 1: nails grew rapidly, some in an intermediate phase, less rapidly,

581
00:31:33,680 --> 00:31:38,240
Speaker 1: and some slowly. The differences were small, but regular. There

582
00:31:38,280 --> 00:31:41,400
Speaker 1: was consistency in the variation. So if I applied a

583
00:31:41,560 --> 00:31:44,520
Speaker 1: ratio I could tell by measuring one nail what the

584
00:31:44,560 --> 00:31:47,840
Speaker 1: others were doing. And this I did on several occasions.

585
00:31:48,160 --> 00:31:52,040
Speaker 1: In simple terms, toenails grew more slowly than nails of

586
00:31:52,080 --> 00:31:55,640
Speaker 1: the hand, and the nail of the middle finger grows

587
00:31:55,680 --> 00:31:58,720
Speaker 1: more rapidly than the nails of either the thumb or

588
00:31:58,840 --> 00:32:03,479
Speaker 1: the little finger or the other two middle fingers interact.

589
00:32:03,560 --> 00:32:05,600
Speaker 1: So the middle finger is the one that he found

590
00:32:05,760 --> 00:32:08,520
Speaker 1: to uh to grow the fastest. Yes, and this is

591
00:32:08,560 --> 00:32:10,960
Speaker 1: a finding that has been reproduced in other studies that

592
00:32:11,000 --> 00:32:14,280
Speaker 1: I'll mention in a minute. Just surprisingly interesting. Yeah, I

593
00:32:14,280 --> 00:32:17,200
Speaker 1: would have guessed the index finger just thinking about like

594
00:32:17,240 --> 00:32:19,520
Speaker 1: the way that I interact with things with my finger. Now,

595
00:32:19,560 --> 00:32:21,520
Speaker 1: I would think, well, that's the one you're most likely,

596
00:32:21,880 --> 00:32:23,760
Speaker 1: you know, you see some sort of strange film on

597
00:32:23,800 --> 00:32:25,840
Speaker 1: a window or something, you need to scratch at it,

598
00:32:25,840 --> 00:32:28,200
Speaker 1: and you're going to use your index surely. Uh So

599
00:32:28,360 --> 00:32:31,520
Speaker 1: that's that's that's interesting. Yeah, yeah, it is um And

600
00:32:31,520 --> 00:32:34,520
Speaker 1: we'll get to possible explanations for this difference in in

601
00:32:34,600 --> 00:32:37,000
Speaker 1: just a bit here, But I want to read being

602
00:32:37,160 --> 00:32:40,480
Speaker 1: summary of his paper from from nineteen eighty. He says,

603
00:32:40,560 --> 00:32:43,800
Speaker 1: quote a thirty five year observation of the growth of

604
00:32:43,840 --> 00:32:48,320
Speaker 1: my nails indicates the slowing of growth with increasing age.

605
00:32:48,920 --> 00:32:52,440
Speaker 1: The average daily growth of the left thumbnail, for instance,

606
00:32:52,720 --> 00:32:56,240
Speaker 1: has varied from zero point one twenty three millimeters a

607
00:32:56,320 --> 00:32:58,480
Speaker 1: day during the first part of the study when I

608
00:32:58,560 --> 00:33:01,640
Speaker 1: was thirty two years of age to zero points zero

609
00:33:01,720 --> 00:33:05,400
Speaker 1: nine five millimeters a day at the age of sixty seven.

610
00:33:07,160 --> 00:33:09,640
Speaker 1: And uh, and pursuing that line of thought a little further,

611
00:33:09,720 --> 00:33:13,320
Speaker 1: he actually does get strangely thoughtful and melancholy about it,

612
00:33:13,400 --> 00:33:15,800
Speaker 1: or maybe not melancholy, at least there there's a kind

613
00:33:15,800 --> 00:33:19,240
Speaker 1: of haunting and beautiful passage, or at least unusually so

614
00:33:19,360 --> 00:33:21,760
Speaker 1: for a medical journal paper. And so this is my

615
00:33:21,840 --> 00:33:25,040
Speaker 1: last quote from being He writes. The kind of pleasure

616
00:33:25,040 --> 00:33:28,720
Speaker 1: and understanding that I get from studying natural history has

617
00:33:28,800 --> 00:33:33,160
Speaker 1: long vanished from most contemporary teaching institutions that have become

618
00:33:33,240 --> 00:33:36,560
Speaker 1: part of intensive care units, which are supposed to save

619
00:33:36,640 --> 00:33:41,920
Speaker 1: the residual intellectual machinery of medical students. The teeming mass

620
00:33:42,000 --> 00:33:47,080
Speaker 1: of hope and pain, technical virtuosity, and de personalization called

621
00:33:47,160 --> 00:33:51,560
Speaker 1: a health center delivers packets of what is termed medical care.

622
00:33:52,280 --> 00:33:55,760
Speaker 1: The capacity to look remains, but the capacity to see

623
00:33:55,880 --> 00:33:59,280
Speaker 1: has all but vanished teachers and students forget that the

624
00:33:59,280 --> 00:34:02,560
Speaker 1: ability to palpate is not the same as the ability

625
00:34:02,640 --> 00:34:06,640
Speaker 1: to feel. As a gentle countercurrent, I set forth here

626
00:34:06,760 --> 00:34:10,160
Speaker 1: this most recent five year installment of the observations of

627
00:34:10,160 --> 00:34:13,200
Speaker 1: the growth of my left thumbnail. It is a very

628
00:34:13,239 --> 00:34:16,680
Speaker 1: long record of the growth of human deciduous tissue. It's

629
00:34:16,800 --> 00:34:21,960
Speaker 1: duration has little precedent in clinical medicine or human natural history. Still,

630
00:34:22,160 --> 00:34:26,680
Speaker 1: the nail provides a slowly moving keratin chimograph that measures

631
00:34:26,760 --> 00:34:32,120
Speaker 1: age on the inexorable absissa of time. So there's something

632
00:34:32,160 --> 00:34:36,320
Speaker 1: actually strangely profound going on here, which is by meticulously

633
00:34:36,440 --> 00:34:39,640
Speaker 1: measuring the slowing of the growth of his fingernails over time,

634
00:34:40,239 --> 00:34:47,120
Speaker 1: he's actually watching his body become less cellularly productive every

635
00:34:47,120 --> 00:34:51,759
Speaker 1: single year as the circulation slows down. As that's one probable,

636
00:34:51,800 --> 00:34:55,400
Speaker 1: at least partial explanation for it. As the body grows older,

637
00:34:55,560 --> 00:34:59,160
Speaker 1: it becomes less efficient at producing new cells. Uh, the

638
00:34:59,239 --> 00:35:02,720
Speaker 1: fingernail grows with just slows and slows, and he's measuring

639
00:35:02,760 --> 00:35:05,480
Speaker 1: it in such minute detail that he can see it

640
00:35:05,520 --> 00:35:08,680
Speaker 1: happened month by month as the body says, all right,

641
00:35:08,800 --> 00:35:11,400
Speaker 1: we are we're going to slow down on nail production,

642
00:35:11,680 --> 00:35:16,040
Speaker 1: but we're all in on ear hair. My god, I

643
00:35:16,040 --> 00:35:18,520
Speaker 1: would love to read a William Bean study on his

644
00:35:18,600 --> 00:35:22,279
Speaker 1: ear hair. I think it would be so lovely. All Right,

645
00:35:22,320 --> 00:35:24,879
Speaker 1: So that was But we're gonna take a quick break.

646
00:35:24,920 --> 00:35:27,560
Speaker 1: But when we come back, we're going to consider what

647
00:35:27,719 --> 00:35:30,560
Speaker 1: more recent researchers had to say about nails, and then

648
00:35:30,600 --> 00:35:33,640
Speaker 1: we'll get into some other nail related topics before we

649
00:35:33,680 --> 00:35:38,600
Speaker 1: close out this first episode on on on the subject. Thanks,

650
00:35:38,719 --> 00:35:41,880
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you. Alright, we're back al right. So

651
00:35:41,920 --> 00:35:44,080
Speaker 1: in the last section we talked about the research of

652
00:35:44,239 --> 00:35:48,680
Speaker 1: a doctor named William Bean who very carefully studied the

653
00:35:48,760 --> 00:35:51,360
Speaker 1: rate of his own nail growth for thirty five years,

654
00:35:52,080 --> 00:35:54,840
Speaker 1: and he published that study in nineteen eighty. But I

655
00:35:54,880 --> 00:35:57,319
Speaker 1: was looking for more recent stuff about the rate of

656
00:35:57,400 --> 00:35:59,880
Speaker 1: nail growth and there was a New York Times Q

657
00:36:00,000 --> 00:36:04,840
Speaker 1: and A from that addresses this by c Claiborne Ray

658
00:36:04,920 --> 00:36:08,760
Speaker 1: and uh. The The author here interviews Jeffrey S. Dover,

659
00:36:09,120 --> 00:36:12,480
Speaker 1: an Associate clinical professor of dermatology at the Yale School

660
00:36:12,520 --> 00:36:15,920
Speaker 1: of Medicine, who reports the following. So, first of all,

661
00:36:16,320 --> 00:36:19,800
Speaker 1: we still don't know all of the factors that influence

662
00:36:19,880 --> 00:36:23,359
Speaker 1: the rate of nail growth. But it's generally accepted that

663
00:36:23,520 --> 00:36:28,400
Speaker 1: fingernails grow about three times as fast as toe nails. Robert,

664
00:36:28,400 --> 00:36:30,719
Speaker 1: does this square with your experience? I don't know if

665
00:36:30,760 --> 00:36:34,279
Speaker 1: it squares with mine. I mean, I don't doubt their findings.

666
00:36:34,480 --> 00:36:38,080
Speaker 1: But prior to it either, But but but if you

667
00:36:38,160 --> 00:36:39,799
Speaker 1: but but but prior to this, hey, have you had

668
00:36:39,880 --> 00:36:42,360
Speaker 1: quiz me on this, I would have guessed that the

669
00:36:42,440 --> 00:36:44,560
Speaker 1: rate was more or less the same. I feel like

670
00:36:45,239 --> 00:36:47,640
Speaker 1: you know, just from when it is by observing my

671
00:36:47,719 --> 00:36:50,680
Speaker 1: nail growth. When it is time to trim my fingernails,

672
00:36:50,920 --> 00:36:54,319
Speaker 1: it's probably time to trim my toe nails. Though now

673
00:36:54,400 --> 00:36:57,879
Speaker 1: now that I think about it, maybe fingernails do seem

674
00:36:57,920 --> 00:37:00,400
Speaker 1: to require trimming a little more frequent only. But I

675
00:37:00,400 --> 00:37:02,520
Speaker 1: would don't know. I would have guessed at this particular

676
00:37:02,640 --> 00:37:05,600
Speaker 1: rate that it would be three times as fast as toneenails. Yeah.

677
00:37:05,640 --> 00:37:08,440
Speaker 1: I don't think I would have naturally come to this

678
00:37:08,520 --> 00:37:11,400
Speaker 1: conclusion either, But this seems to be a pretty consistent finding.

679
00:37:11,440 --> 00:37:14,160
Speaker 1: Fingernails grow a lot faster, and three times the rate

680
00:37:14,200 --> 00:37:16,960
Speaker 1: does seem to be the average of the findings. Um.

681
00:37:17,640 --> 00:37:21,040
Speaker 1: They also, of course, they confirm what william being discovered,

682
00:37:21,040 --> 00:37:23,560
Speaker 1: which is that nails tend to grow more slowly as

683
00:37:23,600 --> 00:37:26,839
Speaker 1: you get older, and uh, let's see uh. And then,

684
00:37:26,880 --> 00:37:30,120
Speaker 1: speaking to Bruce Robinson, a clinical instructor of dermatology at

685
00:37:30,200 --> 00:37:33,959
Speaker 1: Lennox Hill and Mount Sinai Hospitals in Manhattan, fingernail growth

686
00:37:33,960 --> 00:37:37,000
Speaker 1: apparently peaks in your teens and your twenties and then

687
00:37:37,120 --> 00:37:43,239
Speaker 1: declines afterwards. And then there's another very strange fact. Handedness,

688
00:37:43,239 --> 00:37:47,279
Speaker 1: as in left handed or right handed, appears to affect

689
00:37:47,320 --> 00:37:51,200
Speaker 1: the rate of fingernail growth. So if you're left handed,

690
00:37:51,239 --> 00:37:53,359
Speaker 1: the nails on your left hand will tend to grow

691
00:37:53,400 --> 00:37:56,760
Speaker 1: a bit faster, and vice versa. And the rate also

692
00:37:56,960 --> 00:38:01,239
Speaker 1: tends to increase in summer and decrease in winter. And

693
00:38:01,320 --> 00:38:03,319
Speaker 1: it tends to be a little bit faster in men

694
00:38:03,320 --> 00:38:05,239
Speaker 1: than in women, and tends to be a little bit

695
00:38:05,280 --> 00:38:09,920
Speaker 1: faster in women during pregnancy. Well, I mean, on the

696
00:38:09,960 --> 00:38:13,959
Speaker 1: handedness side of that, Uh, it would certainly be meeting

697
00:38:14,000 --> 00:38:16,920
Speaker 1: the demand because you'd be more likely to to use

698
00:38:17,000 --> 00:38:20,120
Speaker 1: that hand for you know, scratching at things, manipulating things

699
00:38:20,120 --> 00:38:22,840
Speaker 1: with your fingernails and therefore wearing them down. Yeah, but

700
00:38:22,920 --> 00:38:25,279
Speaker 1: I mean it makes you wonder, like, what's the mechanism

701
00:38:25,320 --> 00:38:29,160
Speaker 1: there is there some genetic kind of coding for handedness

702
00:38:29,200 --> 00:38:31,600
Speaker 1: that says, okay, I know you know. Do your genes

703
00:38:31,680 --> 00:38:34,279
Speaker 1: say okay, I know that you're left handed, So let's

704
00:38:34,320 --> 00:38:37,040
Speaker 1: make the nails on the left hand grow faster. Or

705
00:38:37,080 --> 00:38:39,399
Speaker 1: is there something else at work? Is it more kind

706
00:38:39,440 --> 00:38:43,200
Speaker 1: of an adaptation to use of the hand and so

707
00:38:43,480 --> 00:38:47,560
Speaker 1: as an illustration of the explanation of this question, uh,

708
00:38:47,600 --> 00:38:49,920
Speaker 1: there there was a study that I came across because

709
00:38:50,280 --> 00:38:52,920
Speaker 1: I saw a reference to it in the Wired article

710
00:38:52,960 --> 00:38:56,000
Speaker 1: by Nick Stockton. But the study was by this British

711
00:38:56,040 --> 00:39:00,800
Speaker 1: dermatologist named Rodney Dauber who worked at Church Chill Hospital

712
00:39:00,840 --> 00:39:03,879
Speaker 1: in Oxford, and I think he sometimes lectured in dermatology

713
00:39:03,920 --> 00:39:06,960
Speaker 1: at Oxford University as well. I couldn't actually find if

714
00:39:07,040 --> 00:39:09,200
Speaker 1: Dauber is still alive, so I'm not sure, but I

715
00:39:09,239 --> 00:39:12,160
Speaker 1: hope he is. But so around the year nineteen eighty

716
00:39:12,320 --> 00:39:16,520
Speaker 1: or eighty one, Dauber suffered what he described as quote

717
00:39:16,560 --> 00:39:20,920
Speaker 1: a mallet finger deformity of the left ring finger whilst

718
00:39:21,000 --> 00:39:25,280
Speaker 1: playing rugby and so basically this means his finger got jammed.

719
00:39:25,520 --> 00:39:28,880
Speaker 1: This usually happens when something strikes you hard on the

720
00:39:29,000 --> 00:39:33,040
Speaker 1: fingertip and it bends the finger by force, and in

721
00:39:33,160 --> 00:39:36,759
Speaker 1: doing so damages the tendon that you normally used to

722
00:39:36,840 --> 00:39:39,440
Speaker 1: straighten your finger. I've read that this can also be

723
00:39:39,480 --> 00:39:42,640
Speaker 1: called baseball finger, but that that I don't know that

724
00:39:42,680 --> 00:39:44,520
Speaker 1: sounds like that should mean something else, like the tip

725
00:39:44,520 --> 00:39:47,399
Speaker 1: of your finger is swelling to baseball size. But with

726
00:39:47,440 --> 00:39:50,680
Speaker 1: this injury, Dauber saw an opportunity to test a theory

727
00:39:50,719 --> 00:39:53,640
Speaker 1: about why the fingernails grow at different rates, and he's

728
00:39:53,680 --> 00:39:56,480
Speaker 1: so so in the spirit of William Bean. Also he

729
00:39:56,560 --> 00:39:59,920
Speaker 1: performed this experiment on himself and he published there was

730
00:40:00,000 --> 00:40:03,480
Speaker 1: else in Clinical and Experimental Dermatology in nineteen eighty one.

731
00:40:03,840 --> 00:40:07,480
Speaker 1: Study was called the Effect of Immobilization on Fingernail Growth.

732
00:40:08,280 --> 00:40:11,080
Speaker 1: So Dauber notes that there had been some other theories

733
00:40:11,160 --> 00:40:15,000
Speaker 1: to explain the observed difference in nail growth, and some

734
00:40:15,080 --> 00:40:18,560
Speaker 1: of these differences were, for example, the nails on our

735
00:40:18,600 --> 00:40:22,880
Speaker 1: longest fingers tend to grow the fastest. So remember we

736
00:40:22,920 --> 00:40:27,160
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier beans finding that the middle finger has the

737
00:40:27,200 --> 00:40:31,640
Speaker 1: fastest growing nail, and so maybe this is an evolutionary

738
00:40:31,680 --> 00:40:35,400
Speaker 1: adaptation since the middle finger is usually a person's longest

739
00:40:35,440 --> 00:40:37,839
Speaker 1: finger and likely to be the first one to come

740
00:40:37,840 --> 00:40:39,960
Speaker 1: into contact with an object. If you just sort of

741
00:40:39,960 --> 00:40:44,400
Speaker 1: extend your whole hand. Maybe we have a genetic predisposition

742
00:40:44,440 --> 00:40:47,480
Speaker 1: to have a fast growing middle finger nail, and so

743
00:40:47,560 --> 00:40:51,240
Speaker 1: maybe the differential growth is programmed in the genetic level.

744
00:40:52,320 --> 00:40:56,319
Speaker 1: Another explanation was possibly people whose fingers are immobilized due

745
00:40:56,360 --> 00:41:01,759
Speaker 1: to hemi parisis or neuropathy tend to show decreased fingernail

746
00:41:01,800 --> 00:41:04,400
Speaker 1: growth as well, and so perhaps the lack of nerve

747
00:41:04,640 --> 00:41:08,920
Speaker 1: supply slows the growth of the fingernail. But finally, there

748
00:41:08,960 --> 00:41:13,319
Speaker 1: was another theory which is known as terminal trauma, which

749
00:41:13,400 --> 00:41:15,759
Speaker 1: I should have checked to see if they ever made

750
00:41:15,800 --> 00:41:19,800
Speaker 1: that into like a Michael Doodakov movie or something. But

751
00:41:19,800 --> 00:41:22,720
Speaker 1: but the the terminal trauma theory is that the nails

752
00:41:22,760 --> 00:41:27,480
Speaker 1: on some fingers grow faster because those fingertips are used

753
00:41:27,560 --> 00:41:31,560
Speaker 1: more often. And under this idea, the more fingertip encounters

754
00:41:31,600 --> 00:41:35,839
Speaker 1: pressure or damage, the faster it's nail grows. And this

755
00:41:35,920 --> 00:41:39,360
Speaker 1: theory would be consistent with with observations by a Legro

756
00:41:39,520 --> 00:41:43,520
Speaker 1: Clark and Buckston in the nineteen thirties that both nail

757
00:41:43,640 --> 00:41:48,680
Speaker 1: biters and manual workers have more rapid nail growth. So yeah,

758
00:41:48,680 --> 00:41:50,440
Speaker 1: that's a finding. If you bite your nails or if

759
00:41:50,480 --> 00:41:53,720
Speaker 1: you tend to do you know, hard work with your hands,

760
00:41:54,160 --> 00:41:56,839
Speaker 1: your nails grow faster than in people who don't do

761
00:41:56,880 --> 00:42:02,319
Speaker 1: these things. Interesting, so just supply meeting demand exactly. So

762
00:42:02,440 --> 00:42:05,120
Speaker 1: Daubert decided to test this by comparing the growth of

763
00:42:05,160 --> 00:42:08,040
Speaker 1: the nails on both of his ring fingers, both while

764
00:42:08,120 --> 00:42:10,440
Speaker 1: his finger was splinted to help it heal from the

765
00:42:10,520 --> 00:42:14,279
Speaker 1: rugby jam, and while it was unsplinted and in normal use,

766
00:42:14,719 --> 00:42:18,440
Speaker 1: and his results supported the terminal trauma theory. In general,

767
00:42:18,800 --> 00:42:21,520
Speaker 1: the nails on his left hand grew slower than on

768
00:42:21,600 --> 00:42:25,520
Speaker 1: his right hand, but the left ring finger, which was

769
00:42:25,600 --> 00:42:29,280
Speaker 1: in the splint that nail grew even more slowly while

770
00:42:29,320 --> 00:42:32,600
Speaker 1: it was splinted and thus immobilized, and once he could

771
00:42:32,680 --> 00:42:35,759
Speaker 1: use his finger again, the nail grew faster. An also

772
00:42:35,840 --> 00:42:39,279
Speaker 1: interesting note in general the so if you're if you're

773
00:42:39,360 --> 00:42:42,399
Speaker 1: right handed, the left hand nails tend to grow more

774
00:42:42,440 --> 00:42:45,680
Speaker 1: slowly than than your right hand. But no matter how

775
00:42:45,719 --> 00:42:49,239
Speaker 1: your handedness breaks down, toe nails tend to grow at

776
00:42:49,239 --> 00:42:52,120
Speaker 1: the same speed on the left and right. So this

777
00:42:52,239 --> 00:42:55,439
Speaker 1: might be a result of handedness being more important for

778
00:42:55,640 --> 00:42:59,399
Speaker 1: you know, what you do with your limbs than footedness. Now,

779
00:42:59,480 --> 00:43:01,840
Speaker 1: something that comes to mind on that point and this

780
00:43:01,880 --> 00:43:04,120
Speaker 1: would this would have to be something, This would actually

781
00:43:04,160 --> 00:43:06,160
Speaker 1: be a kind of topic that I would I would

782
00:43:06,200 --> 00:43:08,800
Speaker 1: love to look at it in the future. Is what

783
00:43:08,800 --> 00:43:12,120
Speaker 1: what effect does shoes have on this? Because because of

784
00:43:12,120 --> 00:43:15,200
Speaker 1: course we so many of us wear shoes, of great

785
00:43:16,400 --> 00:43:20,360
Speaker 1: number of us, and certainly I think individuals more likely

786
00:43:20,440 --> 00:43:23,319
Speaker 1: to be heading up or participating in a study of

787
00:43:23,400 --> 00:43:27,760
Speaker 1: this sort. And we know from that the shoes change

788
00:43:28,400 --> 00:43:31,320
Speaker 1: like the shape of our foot. You know that these

789
00:43:31,360 --> 00:43:35,400
Speaker 1: are these are not natural um sheaths that we're putting

790
00:43:35,440 --> 00:43:37,839
Speaker 1: our our feet into. And I wonder if if our

791
00:43:37,920 --> 00:43:41,799
Speaker 1: shoes would be serving to apply more of a constant

792
00:43:41,800 --> 00:43:45,440
Speaker 1: and sustained pressure on the nails. Um. I don't know,

793
00:43:45,760 --> 00:43:47,600
Speaker 1: it's kind of an open question for me. Well, yeah,

794
00:43:47,600 --> 00:43:50,359
Speaker 1: I wonder I wondered about exactly that kind of thing.

795
00:43:50,440 --> 00:43:53,279
Speaker 1: So why did the toenails grow slower than the fingernails?

796
00:43:53,320 --> 00:43:56,920
Speaker 1: I wonder if that is natural among all people, no

797
00:43:56,960 --> 00:43:59,239
Speaker 1: matter what you do with your feet, or if that

798
00:43:59,400 --> 00:44:02,120
Speaker 1: is more an artifact of shoe wearing. Like I wonder

799
00:44:02,160 --> 00:44:04,880
Speaker 1: if if you run around barefoot a lot or often

800
00:44:04,920 --> 00:44:08,239
Speaker 1: like kicking at things with your toes, would your toenails

801
00:44:08,280 --> 00:44:11,160
Speaker 1: grow faster? Right? Oh? Yeah, that's another good point. Yeah,

802
00:44:11,239 --> 00:44:13,480
Speaker 1: like because like I guess, I think of like the

803
00:44:13,520 --> 00:44:16,719
Speaker 1: beach person who is going out barefoot at a lot, Like,

804
00:44:16,800 --> 00:44:19,359
Speaker 1: on one hand, you're not going to have the end

805
00:44:19,400 --> 00:44:22,399
Speaker 1: of your shoe um, pushing against your toe nails or

806
00:44:23,200 --> 00:44:26,960
Speaker 1: restraining your feet, but perhaps you're you're more likely to

807
00:44:27,080 --> 00:44:29,239
Speaker 1: you know, to scratch around it things, to use your

808
00:44:29,280 --> 00:44:33,120
Speaker 1: toenails in a way that is more in keeping with uh,

809
00:44:33,200 --> 00:44:36,480
Speaker 1: their their evolved purpose. I guess yeah. I I didn't

810
00:44:36,480 --> 00:44:39,600
Speaker 1: find any evidence of whether anybody has studied this question,

811
00:44:39,680 --> 00:44:43,560
Speaker 1: but if you are a toenail fingernail researcher out there,

812
00:44:43,760 --> 00:44:46,560
Speaker 1: maybe look into this. Does being a barefoot person make

813
00:44:46,600 --> 00:44:49,960
Speaker 1: the difference? Yeah, but anyway to summarize it, so, I

814
00:44:50,000 --> 00:44:52,439
Speaker 1: think it looks like there's pretty good evidence that when

815
00:44:52,480 --> 00:44:56,000
Speaker 1: fingertips are put to more work by touching things doing

816
00:44:56,120 --> 00:44:59,400
Speaker 1: you know, just generally manipulating objects, putting pressure on the

817
00:44:59,440 --> 00:45:03,600
Speaker 1: fingertip wear and tear, the nails grow faster. And this

818
00:45:03,640 --> 00:45:07,200
Speaker 1: could explain part of the difference in growth made by

819
00:45:07,280 --> 00:45:11,040
Speaker 1: handedness and the differences that are observed based on what

820
00:45:11,080 --> 00:45:13,040
Speaker 1: we do with our hands, such as if you're a

821
00:45:13,120 --> 00:45:16,600
Speaker 1: manual worker. But that brings us to I guess the

822
00:45:16,719 --> 00:45:18,400
Speaker 1: last thing I wanted to talk about before we have

823
00:45:18,440 --> 00:45:22,000
Speaker 1: to wrap up this first episode, um, which is coming

824
00:45:22,000 --> 00:45:25,920
Speaker 1: back to the idea of humans as a non clawed animal.

825
00:45:26,040 --> 00:45:28,640
Speaker 1: Of course, you know, so we we think about animals

826
00:45:28,680 --> 00:45:32,880
Speaker 1: like big cats that have powerful teeth and claws, hard

827
00:45:32,960 --> 00:45:35,680
Speaker 1: parts anchored in the bodies for tearing the flesh, the

828
00:45:35,719 --> 00:45:39,560
Speaker 1: flesh of other animals. And in contrast, humans don't have claws,

829
00:45:39,640 --> 00:45:42,520
Speaker 1: so we have tools. We have a claw like hard

830
00:45:42,560 --> 00:45:46,280
Speaker 1: tool power at our fingertips. But in a way, nails

831
00:45:46,320 --> 00:45:49,880
Speaker 1: are still sort of like claws, even if in diminished form.

832
00:45:50,040 --> 00:45:52,640
Speaker 1: And what seems to be definitely true is that nails

833
00:45:52,719 --> 00:45:57,520
Speaker 1: evolved from organs that were very claw like. Yeah. Yeah,

834
00:45:57,960 --> 00:46:00,600
Speaker 1: certainly when we looked at to other primates, uh, we

835
00:46:00,680 --> 00:46:04,279
Speaker 1: see uh, we we see true Claus and things more

836
00:46:04,360 --> 00:46:07,399
Speaker 1: like like true Claus versus our own fingernails, which are

837
00:46:07,400 --> 00:46:11,080
Speaker 1: still useful. Again. Uh, these are very useful to scratch,

838
00:46:11,160 --> 00:46:12,799
Speaker 1: to scrape, and and and I think a lot of

839
00:46:12,840 --> 00:46:15,160
Speaker 1: us find this to be the case. To manipulate very

840
00:46:15,239 --> 00:46:18,879
Speaker 1: small objects, uh, which you know, which of course is

841
00:46:18,880 --> 00:46:22,719
Speaker 1: is very much the domain of of of of human ingenuity.

842
00:46:22,800 --> 00:46:25,440
Speaker 1: You know, Uh. Even even those of us who will

843
00:46:25,480 --> 00:46:28,960
Speaker 1: have we're fortunate enough or or just through the luck

844
00:46:28,960 --> 00:46:30,720
Speaker 1: of our lives, are not doing a lot of like

845
00:46:30,719 --> 00:46:34,120
Speaker 1: like like intensive labor. You're still gonna have to pick

846
00:46:34,200 --> 00:46:36,400
Speaker 1: up a pin off of the floor at some point, right,

847
00:46:36,440 --> 00:46:38,839
Speaker 1: You're still gonna have to occasionally engage in that kind

848
00:46:38,840 --> 00:46:42,200
Speaker 1: of uh, you know, a fine manipulation of small things.

849
00:46:42,800 --> 00:46:46,319
Speaker 1: And for that our nails are are are perfect. Oh yeah,

850
00:46:46,400 --> 00:46:50,319
Speaker 1: I mean, I would say probably the characteristic motor activities

851
00:46:50,440 --> 00:46:53,719
Speaker 1: of human beings compared to other animals. One is what

852
00:46:53,800 --> 00:46:56,000
Speaker 1: you do with your with your like throat and your

853
00:46:56,040 --> 00:46:59,120
Speaker 1: mouth is language, of course, and the other is fine

854
00:46:59,160 --> 00:47:03,319
Speaker 1: motor movements at the fingertips. Right. But of course we

855
00:47:03,400 --> 00:47:05,399
Speaker 1: do have tools that that stand in for a lot

856
00:47:05,400 --> 00:47:07,760
Speaker 1: of these other uses. So we don't need a great

857
00:47:07,800 --> 00:47:11,600
Speaker 1: big old uh you know, velociraptor type talent or anything,

858
00:47:11,920 --> 00:47:15,440
Speaker 1: because we have other tools that can stand in for that,

859
00:47:15,440 --> 00:47:18,920
Speaker 1: that sort of claw and uh. And so this is

860
00:47:18,960 --> 00:47:21,560
Speaker 1: the thought by many data to to play a role

861
00:47:21,680 --> 00:47:27,279
Speaker 1: in the changing shape of our fingers over a human evolution. Um.

862
00:47:27,440 --> 00:47:31,279
Speaker 1: So basically, our our primate ancestors had something more like

863
00:47:31,320 --> 00:47:34,840
Speaker 1: true clause and it's and we have the stunted, flattened

864
00:47:34,960 --> 00:47:38,440
Speaker 1: versions of clause. And the reason here maybe because some

865
00:47:38,640 --> 00:47:41,439
Speaker 1: two point five million years ago, you know or or more,

866
00:47:41,800 --> 00:47:45,120
Speaker 1: we started using tools, and two things impacted the shape

867
00:47:45,120 --> 00:47:48,240
Speaker 1: of our fingers and nails. First of all, curved nails

868
00:47:48,719 --> 00:47:51,719
Speaker 1: would have increasingly gotten in the way of tool manipulation.

869
00:47:52,480 --> 00:47:56,680
Speaker 1: And then secondly, broader fingertips allowed us to better grip

870
00:47:57,160 --> 00:48:00,600
Speaker 1: uh stone tools. Oh I see, Okay, So if you

871
00:48:00,680 --> 00:48:03,200
Speaker 1: have more of a claw at your fingertip, it makes

872
00:48:03,200 --> 00:48:06,600
Speaker 1: more sense for your finger to narrow more taper towards

873
00:48:06,640 --> 00:48:08,920
Speaker 1: the end, Whereas if you don't have a claw at

874
00:48:08,920 --> 00:48:10,520
Speaker 1: the end, it makes more sense to have a flatter,

875
00:48:10,640 --> 00:48:14,839
Speaker 1: broader fingertip that can probably more easily close around an

876
00:48:14,880 --> 00:48:18,640
Speaker 1: object and keep it steady. Yeah, I mean, think of

877
00:48:18,680 --> 00:48:23,160
Speaker 1: some of our claude humanoid icons. Think of Edwards s

878
00:48:23,200 --> 00:48:26,520
Speaker 1: assor hands or Freddy Krueger or you know, various sort

879
00:48:26,520 --> 00:48:30,440
Speaker 1: of humanoid monsters that have long, tapering fingernails. You might

880
00:48:30,520 --> 00:48:33,359
Speaker 1: sometimes wonder, well, all right, well, those claws are great

881
00:48:33,400 --> 00:48:35,719
Speaker 1: if your trim and hedges there are are you know,

882
00:48:35,760 --> 00:48:39,239
Speaker 1: harassing teenagers in their dreams. But what do you do

883
00:48:39,280 --> 00:48:42,200
Speaker 1: when you need to manipulate another tool. Uh, you're gonna

884
00:48:42,400 --> 00:48:44,600
Speaker 1: kind of be um you know, um up the creek

885
00:48:44,680 --> 00:48:48,319
Speaker 1: in that regard, Pumpkinhead can't play tennis. Yeah, and then

886
00:48:48,360 --> 00:48:51,920
Speaker 1: here's another interesting thing to think about. Um, what about

887
00:48:52,040 --> 00:48:55,880
Speaker 1: what what about? Yeah? Okay, obviously, Edwards says, their hands,

888
00:48:55,920 --> 00:48:58,560
Speaker 1: Freddy Krueger. You know they have those impressive nails that

889
00:48:58,640 --> 00:49:01,480
Speaker 1: they get in the fight. But could they throw a punch?

890
00:49:01,600 --> 00:49:04,480
Speaker 1: Could Freddy Krueger throw a punch? How about these various

891
00:49:04,880 --> 00:49:07,279
Speaker 1: like a lizard man creatures that show up in all

892
00:49:07,320 --> 00:49:10,000
Speaker 1: the manner of sci fi and fantasy. Uh, they just

893
00:49:10,040 --> 00:49:11,960
Speaker 1: always have to slash and bite, right, I mean they

894
00:49:12,000 --> 00:49:16,879
Speaker 1: couldn't because when you have a clause you're not you're

895
00:49:16,880 --> 00:49:20,239
Speaker 1: gonna probably gonna have a difficulty forming a fist. So

896
00:49:20,560 --> 00:49:23,280
Speaker 1: we know that the tool use seems to have played

897
00:49:23,280 --> 00:49:25,719
Speaker 1: a role in the evolution and form of our hand.

898
00:49:25,920 --> 00:49:27,879
Speaker 1: And there have also been some interesting studies that look

899
00:49:27,880 --> 00:49:31,040
Speaker 1: at how the ability to to to form a fist

900
00:49:31,640 --> 00:49:34,600
Speaker 1: uh and essentially throw a punch may have played a

901
00:49:34,680 --> 00:49:37,359
Speaker 1: role in the form of our hand as well. Oh yeah,

902
00:49:37,360 --> 00:49:41,320
Speaker 1: that's an interesting hypothesis though, I mean I wonder um

903
00:49:41,360 --> 00:49:44,680
Speaker 1: Iven wonder about the idea of of punching as an

904
00:49:44,680 --> 00:49:48,240
Speaker 1: adaptation just because it's so often results in the injury

905
00:49:48,280 --> 00:49:51,319
Speaker 1: of one's own hand when you do it right. Well,

906
00:49:51,360 --> 00:49:53,680
Speaker 1: that is, that is something that these studies have looked into,

907
00:49:53,800 --> 00:49:56,759
Speaker 1: and we have some path They may be many years

908
00:49:56,760 --> 00:49:58,520
Speaker 1: old at this point, but I remember that was one

909
00:49:58,560 --> 00:50:02,160
Speaker 1: of the factors that wasn centered like that sweet point

910
00:50:02,560 --> 00:50:05,279
Speaker 1: um in the in the formation of the hand where

911
00:50:05,320 --> 00:50:09,000
Speaker 1: it can both potentially form a fist and land a

912
00:50:09,040 --> 00:50:13,440
Speaker 1: punch while also maintaining its integrity without damaging the thing

913
00:50:13,520 --> 00:50:17,400
Speaker 1: that you need for tool manipulation. So it's gonna kind

914
00:50:17,400 --> 00:50:19,680
Speaker 1: of a delicate balance there. But but this led to

915
00:50:19,760 --> 00:50:22,640
Speaker 1: an interesting question that I've often had, uh and and

916
00:50:22,680 --> 00:50:27,520
Speaker 1: that is, are sharpened nails useful in a in say

917
00:50:27,520 --> 00:50:31,200
Speaker 1: a stand up fight? Would they be an advantage uh

918
00:50:31,239 --> 00:50:35,040
Speaker 1: in in a fight? And um, this is one of

919
00:50:35,080 --> 00:50:37,120
Speaker 1: these things. It's kind of been like an idle speculation

920
00:50:37,160 --> 00:50:41,280
Speaker 1: before I remember. I remember seeing like a music video

921
00:50:41,440 --> 00:50:44,800
Speaker 1: or a poster or Glenn Danzig, uh, the rock musician

922
00:50:44,920 --> 00:50:49,120
Speaker 1: has um like sharpened fingernails, and and trying to figure

923
00:50:49,120 --> 00:50:52,440
Speaker 1: out like what the limitations and or advantages of that

924
00:50:52,480 --> 00:50:56,200
Speaker 1: would be well, you know, I gotta say, if I

925
00:50:56,239 --> 00:50:58,960
Speaker 1: were to imagine going into a fight with with long,

926
00:50:59,160 --> 00:51:02,640
Speaker 1: sharpened finger your nails, I think I would honestly be

927
00:51:02,840 --> 00:51:07,680
Speaker 1: more worried about about trauma to my fingernails in the

928
00:51:07,680 --> 00:51:10,279
Speaker 1: fight then I would be excited about my ability to

929
00:51:10,440 --> 00:51:13,160
Speaker 1: use them as a weapon. Um And this comes back

930
00:51:13,160 --> 00:51:15,399
Speaker 1: to the duality we talked about earlier, like our hard

931
00:51:15,480 --> 00:51:18,839
Speaker 1: parts like teeth and nails. For some reason, uh, even

932
00:51:18,840 --> 00:51:20,759
Speaker 1: though they are the hard parts, we have kind of

933
00:51:20,800 --> 00:51:24,840
Speaker 1: like special fears of trauma toward them. And if you

934
00:51:24,920 --> 00:51:27,840
Speaker 1: had long nails and a real scuffle, that just seems

935
00:51:27,880 --> 00:51:31,080
Speaker 1: like a real liability. Yeah, and that that seems to

936
00:51:31,120 --> 00:51:33,160
Speaker 1: be part of the consensus. I was looking around it

937
00:51:33,239 --> 00:51:36,040
Speaker 1: is I couldn't find any real studies on this, but

938
00:51:36,080 --> 00:51:38,359
Speaker 1: I was I found a lot of discussion about this

939
00:51:38,560 --> 00:51:43,600
Speaker 1: on martial arts boards. Um. So, on one level, people

940
00:51:43,640 --> 00:51:45,759
Speaker 1: would say, Okay, in a stand up fight, if you

941
00:51:45,800 --> 00:51:48,280
Speaker 1: were someone who's after you at being able to scratch

942
00:51:48,280 --> 00:51:51,400
Speaker 1: someone with your nails is not a bad deterrent because

943
00:51:51,440 --> 00:51:54,359
Speaker 1: you can irritate tissue. You can you know, you can

944
00:51:54,400 --> 00:51:57,359
Speaker 1: go for the eyes. And then also something worth keeping

945
00:51:57,360 --> 00:52:00,480
Speaker 1: in mind is that your nails as they scrape tissue,

946
00:52:00,680 --> 00:52:04,359
Speaker 1: they collect tissue which provides a genetic sample of an

947
00:52:04,360 --> 00:52:09,160
Speaker 1: attacker potentially. But others also point out, okay, well, this

948
00:52:09,200 --> 00:52:11,920
Speaker 1: idea of sharpening your nails or having long nails for

949
00:52:12,400 --> 00:52:15,359
Speaker 1: you know, to benefit you want to fight, Ultimately, these

950
00:52:15,400 --> 00:52:18,040
Speaker 1: are the these can end up bending backwards rather than

951
00:52:18,120 --> 00:52:21,319
Speaker 1: gouge in a you know, a high pressure situation, and

952
00:52:21,360 --> 00:52:24,799
Speaker 1: that also it might make forming a fist that much

953
00:52:24,840 --> 00:52:28,960
Speaker 1: harder to do. So Ultimately, it doesn't look like there's

954
00:52:29,560 --> 00:52:31,440
Speaker 1: a lot of evidence for the idea that that our

955
00:52:31,520 --> 00:52:34,680
Speaker 1: nails are are really a um, you know, that much

956
00:52:34,760 --> 00:52:38,560
Speaker 1: of a defensive benefit. Though obviously they can be used

957
00:52:38,600 --> 00:52:41,200
Speaker 1: to scratch and claw if neat be so they're not

958
00:52:41,360 --> 00:52:45,240
Speaker 1: They're not completely useless in that regard, but it doesn't

959
00:52:45,239 --> 00:52:47,480
Speaker 1: seem like there are a lot of ways to really

960
00:52:48,840 --> 00:52:52,880
Speaker 1: encourage them back towards a more defensive claw purpose that

961
00:52:52,960 --> 00:52:56,759
Speaker 1: we would find in other animals. Interesting. Uh so, so

962
00:52:56,880 --> 00:53:00,279
Speaker 1: has Danzig never commented on why he's got long finger nails?

963
00:53:00,320 --> 00:53:03,200
Speaker 1: He doesn't say anything about it. I do not know

964
00:53:03,320 --> 00:53:06,399
Speaker 1: it's possible that he did. Uh and I'm just I'm

965
00:53:06,400 --> 00:53:08,439
Speaker 1: just not aware of it. I can't say that. I've

966
00:53:08,640 --> 00:53:13,400
Speaker 1: read a lot of interviews with the man over the years. Uh,

967
00:53:13,440 --> 00:53:16,840
Speaker 1: but I imagine that the case there was that he

968
00:53:16,880 --> 00:53:18,719
Speaker 1: did it because it looked cool and creepy, you know,

969
00:53:18,800 --> 00:53:21,839
Speaker 1: kind of like, uh, something out of a nos Ferato movie. Right.

970
00:53:21,880 --> 00:53:23,680
Speaker 1: Do you see so many and so many different types

971
00:53:23,719 --> 00:53:27,760
Speaker 1: of vampires and ghouls and creeps that have have long nails,

972
00:53:27,840 --> 00:53:31,120
Speaker 1: long tapering nails, and it, you know, it looks creepy

973
00:53:31,120 --> 00:53:34,160
Speaker 1: and cool. I would say the ultimate example of that

974
00:53:34,320 --> 00:53:36,640
Speaker 1: for me is the way klaus Kinski looks in Werner

975
00:53:36,719 --> 00:53:40,160
Speaker 1: Hurtzog's knows Ferrato, where he's got long creepy nails. Oh

976
00:53:40,200 --> 00:53:43,239
Speaker 1: it's it's it's spine tingling. Oh yeah, those are some

977
00:53:43,440 --> 00:53:47,080
Speaker 1: Those are some wonderfully nasty fingernails. I had to reacquaint

978
00:53:47,120 --> 00:53:48,719
Speaker 1: myself look up a picture that has been a while

979
00:53:48,760 --> 00:53:51,640
Speaker 1: since I've I've seen it, though, I guess the original

980
00:53:51,680 --> 00:53:54,680
Speaker 1: Nosferato also had some pretty creepy nails, and the Willem

981
00:53:54,719 --> 00:53:59,200
Speaker 1: Dafoe version also pretty gastly. Oh Shadow of a Vampire. Yeah,

982
00:53:59,239 --> 00:54:01,160
Speaker 1: that's a great movie. Be Actually, I feel like that

983
00:54:01,160 --> 00:54:05,080
Speaker 1: that is a sort of forgotten Jim. I need to

984
00:54:05,160 --> 00:54:08,000
Speaker 1: revisit it or shadow Did I say Shadow of of Vampire?

985
00:54:08,040 --> 00:54:10,560
Speaker 1: Shadow of the Vampire? I can't remember what the article is,

986
00:54:10,600 --> 00:54:12,720
Speaker 1: but it's the one with Willem Dafoe as Max Shrek

987
00:54:12,760 --> 00:54:15,719
Speaker 1: and it's it's fantastic. Yeah, I want to say it's

988
00:54:15,760 --> 00:54:18,279
Speaker 1: the same director who had done that really weird art

989
00:54:18,320 --> 00:54:21,520
Speaker 1: film Begotten prior to that, which which I don't think

990
00:54:21,560 --> 00:54:24,240
Speaker 1: there's really any comparison to be made between the short

991
00:54:24,239 --> 00:54:28,200
Speaker 1: film and in the vampire film, but I don't interesting

992
00:54:28,239 --> 00:54:31,760
Speaker 1: bit of film trivia. Nonetheless, I never saw that one. Well, Robert,

993
00:54:31,800 --> 00:54:35,080
Speaker 1: I'm sorry we're here on vampires, and I know we're

994
00:54:35,080 --> 00:54:37,080
Speaker 1: out of time, so we gotta wrap up part one.

995
00:54:37,560 --> 00:54:40,680
Speaker 1: But Vampires is the perfect lead in to next time,

996
00:54:40,680 --> 00:54:44,839
Speaker 1: where we're gonna be talking about corpses and mythology and

997
00:54:45,000 --> 00:54:50,160
Speaker 1: magic and religion, all surrounding beliefs about nails. That's right,

998
00:54:50,719 --> 00:54:54,160
Speaker 1: so be sure to uh tune back in. I guess

999
00:54:54,160 --> 00:54:57,400
Speaker 1: this will be Thursday. We will continue our discussion of

1000
00:54:57,719 --> 00:55:01,799
Speaker 1: fingernails in the mean time, if you would like to

1001
00:55:01,840 --> 00:55:03,600
Speaker 1: get in touch with us, so we'd love to hear

1002
00:55:03,640 --> 00:55:06,480
Speaker 1: from you. Obviously, you all have fingernails, or at least

1003
00:55:06,480 --> 00:55:08,640
Speaker 1: you've had them. At some point. Uh. The same goes

1004
00:55:08,640 --> 00:55:11,799
Speaker 1: for your toe nails. You have a useful information about

1005
00:55:11,840 --> 00:55:15,799
Speaker 1: this topic, you have experiences, you have you have injuries, uh,

1006
00:55:16,000 --> 00:55:19,080
Speaker 1: you have fighting experience, etcetera. All these things that you

1007
00:55:19,160 --> 00:55:20,759
Speaker 1: might wish to share whether us and we would like

1008
00:55:20,880 --> 00:55:24,840
Speaker 1: to hear from you. Uh. Likewise, just another reminder that

1009
00:55:24,920 --> 00:55:28,240
Speaker 1: if you use the Facebook, there is a Facebook group

1010
00:55:28,520 --> 00:55:30,719
Speaker 1: for our show. It is the Stuff to Bow your

1011
00:55:30,719 --> 00:55:34,239
Speaker 1: Mind discussion module, which you can uh you know, it

1012
00:55:34,239 --> 00:55:36,560
Speaker 1: has to be invited to however it works. I'm not

1013
00:55:36,600 --> 00:55:39,479
Speaker 1: sure that basically we're not active on any real social

1014
00:55:39,560 --> 00:55:42,600
Speaker 1: media account out there, but there is a fair amount

1015
00:55:42,640 --> 00:55:45,640
Speaker 1: of activity in that one little place, so I encourage

1016
00:55:45,680 --> 00:55:47,120
Speaker 1: you to check it out if you wish. In the

1017
00:55:47,120 --> 00:55:48,959
Speaker 1: meantime you want to listen to other episodes of Stuff

1018
00:55:49,000 --> 00:55:51,120
Speaker 1: to Bowl your Mind, check out some of these past

1019
00:55:51,200 --> 00:55:54,040
Speaker 1: topics of discussion. You can find us wherever you get

1020
00:55:54,080 --> 00:55:56,920
Speaker 1: your podcast and wherever that happens to be. We just

1021
00:55:57,000 --> 00:56:00,520
Speaker 1: asked that you rate, review and subscribe you thanks as

1022
00:56:00,520 --> 00:56:04,040
Speaker 1: always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If

1023
00:56:04,080 --> 00:56:05,480
Speaker 1: you would like to get in touch with us with

1024
00:56:05,560 --> 00:56:08,920
Speaker 1: feedback from this episode or any other to suggest shopic

1025
00:56:08,960 --> 00:56:11,280
Speaker 1: for the future, just to say hello. You can email

1026
00:56:11,360 --> 00:56:22,160
Speaker 1: us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.

1027
00:56:22,200 --> 00:56:24,680
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of I heart Radio.

1028
00:56:25,040 --> 00:56:27,160
Speaker 1: For more podcasts for my heart Radio with the i

1029
00:56:27,200 --> 00:56:30,000
Speaker 1: heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listening to

1030
00:56:30,080 --> 00:56:39,560
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.