Speaker 1: Hey, every body, Welcome to Creature Feature, the show where
Speaker 1: we crack open the heads of animals and humans and
Speaker 1: get on that brain train with one way ticket to
Speaker 1: explore the wildest behaviors and the human and animal kingdom. Dude, dude,
Speaker 1: I'm your host of many parasites, Katie Golden. I studied
Speaker 1: psychology and evolutionary biology, and I ate ants as a
Speaker 1: kid because I thought aunt eaters were cool. Don't do
Speaker 1: aunts kids. Today, we're going to bust some sorry almoston
Speaker 1: finished on some copyright there. We're going to um, you know,
Speaker 1: let me get out my thesaurus. We're gonna wallop some legend,
Speaker 1: explode some old wives tales. We're gonna disable some fables
Speaker 1: and contusion some illusions. So throughout history there have been
Speaker 1: some pretty ridiculous animal myths. In eighteenth century Sweden, folklore
Speaker 1: had it that which has turned themselves into wild hairs
Speaker 1: who would suck the milk drive from cows. In medieval Europe,
Speaker 1: authors of b series thought weasels conceived through their mouths
Speaker 1: and gave birth through their ears, and Europeans used to
Speaker 1: think that maggots were spontaneously generated by meat or food
Speaker 1: that had been left out until in sixteen sixty eight,
Speaker 1: when Francesco Ready had the brilliant idea of testing rotting
Speaker 1: meat in jars, covering some and leaving some open, and
Speaker 1: found that, interestingly, the jars left open where flies landed
Speaker 1: would start to generate maggots. He then observed the maggots
Speaker 1: developing into flies and put two and two together. These
Speaker 1: old myths may seem silly, but evolutionary biology is a
Speaker 1: continually evolving field, and science has always been open to
Speaker 1: new and contrasting information. So we're going to look at
Speaker 1: some popular myths today, burst them wide open, and talk
Speaker 1: about the truths that are even more fascinating than the
Speaker 1: myths and the myths. Joining me today is co host
Speaker 1: of Netificent, comedian, TV writer, and Goku apologist if he Wadaway, Hey,
Speaker 1: how's it going great? Like my mizies, I think it's
Speaker 1: great that they used to think weasels conceived through their
Speaker 1: mouths and birth through their ears, because that's like, that's
Speaker 1: like something like a five year old me would have
Speaker 1: probably thought, like, you'd get pregnant by kissing and then
Speaker 1: like the baby comes out of your ears. I'm sure
Speaker 1: there's some like you know, Japanese like, uh, anime art
Speaker 1: of birth being given through Yeah, I'm sure if you
Speaker 1: google that, turn that safe search on, although that's going
Speaker 1: to help you. Yeah. No, uh yeah, I totally remember
Speaker 1: the maggot thing because I remember that diagram. It stood
Speaker 1: out to me in my biology book in elementary school
Speaker 1: of like why is there a meet in the jard
Speaker 1: Oh there's maggots there? And then I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is a cool experiment. Yeah, I mean it's it's
Speaker 1: funny to me because it's like, uh, you know, you
Speaker 1: you kind of you see the logic of you see
Speaker 1: meat and then you see maggots, Like, well, wait, just
Speaker 1: the right out of the meat, because flies they're real
Speaker 1: sneaky they get in there. Yeah, they don't look like maggots,
Speaker 1: so why would you think they're the same thing? All right,
Speaker 1: So first I want to talk about Komodo dragons. Uh,
Speaker 1: Andrea interested and there's a there's a big myth about
Speaker 1: them that I think is but when you look at
Speaker 1: like the actual truth, it's a lot cooler. Um. So,
Speaker 1: just to catch everyone up, Komodo dragons are big, giant, enormous,
Speaker 1: scary lizards. Their native to the Indonesian islands. Uh. They
Speaker 1: grew up to be a maximum of ten ft long
Speaker 1: and a hundred and fifty pounds, which is like the
Speaker 1: size of like a you know, huge person. Um they're machines, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: I do like that unit that really gives because if
Speaker 1: you've ever tried to lift a fax machine. They're carnivorous
Speaker 1: predators who hunt and kill their prey, and their main
Speaker 1: diet is well, they'll pretty much eat anything they can
Speaker 1: get their teeth on, but it's deer and carrion. Uh
Speaker 1: so dead things and deer, and sometimes they'll eat their
Speaker 1: own young, you know, you know, as they do as
Speaker 1: you do in nature sometimes. I mean a lot of
Speaker 1: animals do that, so they're not they're not weird for
Speaker 1: doing that. You remember the video that went viral of
Speaker 1: the crab mother eating all the baby. I didn't expect
Speaker 1: to be as unnerved by it by well, you know,
Speaker 1: and the Christmas Island crabs are so numerous that the
Speaker 1: adults will just like eat a bunch of the kids
Speaker 1: and it's fine because there's like millions of them, so
Speaker 1: you know, um so uh. They also Commodo dragons are
Speaker 1: pretty aggressive, so they do attack humans, and I think
Speaker 1: they've actually killed some people. Uh you know that. I
Speaker 1: wouldn't call them dangerous because it's not like you'll encounter one.
Speaker 1: But if you do encounter one, it could remember the
Speaker 1: did you see uh what was it? Skyfall? The the
Speaker 1: craggy one. Uh. They had like a scene where I
Speaker 1: think they tried to assassinate him with a Komodo dragon.
Speaker 1: I love when movies employ animals to assassinate people because
Speaker 1: it's like, you're not Aquaman, right, Like I'm gonna put
Speaker 1: a snake in his room and then it'll bite him.
Speaker 1: It's like, get him, get him, Francis who It's like, uh,
Speaker 1: just hanging out, snake in one corner, like just chilling
Speaker 1: out there. Um. Yeah. So the myth about komodo dragons
Speaker 1: that you may have heard of is that there they
Speaker 1: kill because their saliva is so full of bacteria that
Speaker 1: it like puts their prey into septic chocks. So like
Speaker 1: they bite their prey. Their slive is so nasty and
Speaker 1: full of dangerous bacteria that it literally like infects the
Speaker 1: wound and then they uh slowly stalk their prey and
Speaker 1: then wait for it to die. And they wait. They
Speaker 1: can wait for many days for their prey to finally
Speaker 1: succumb to their wound. Um, and that that's certainly the
Speaker 1: story that I've heard and I used to believe. Um,
Speaker 1: this is not true at all. So here's here's the fact. Uh,
Speaker 1: commodo dragons are venomous because of all the venom and
Speaker 1: their venom gun, not because their spit is gross. That's
Speaker 1: so funny, because that was gonna that was gonna be
Speaker 1: my guess of what the myth was that there. Uh,
Speaker 1: they're venomous. I was gonna say poisonous, but that's wrong. Well,
Speaker 1: poisonous is ingested. Venom is contact or injected. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: have these serrated razor sharp teeth that are just like
Speaker 1: a bunch of knives with you know, the kind of
Speaker 1: that serrated barbs are really great at shredding things up. Um,
Speaker 1: and those rip open wound. Uh. And then the venom
Speaker 1: found in glance and their lower jaw will cause shock
Speaker 1: and the animal, by decreasing their blood pressure, works as
Speaker 1: an anticoagulant, which makes them bleed faster, and so they
Speaker 1: will typically die within thirty minutes. So they don't even
Speaker 1: need to stalk. No, I mean they stalk before the
Speaker 1: praise dead. So you know, to like you know, you
Speaker 1: can imagine a lioness kind of stalking prey and then
Speaker 1: killing it. It's it's a similar thing, except it's a
Speaker 1: horrible lizard. Um. And they actually have one of the
Speaker 1: most complex venom duct systems and reptiles. Um. It's not
Speaker 1: that doesn't make it better, it's very inefficient, but they
Speaker 1: have these venom ducts between their teeth, uh, and so
Speaker 1: when they bite down, it kind of ear gates into
Speaker 1: the wound, and so they kind of as they pull
Speaker 1: and shred that um like goose, is the venom into
Speaker 1: the wound like kind of like a syringe. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like its mouth is full of syringes. And they actually,
Speaker 1: in terms of their saliva being nasty, that bacteria is
Speaker 1: similar to other carnivores. So even though they do have
Speaker 1: in bacteria cultures in their saliva, when they measure other carnivores,
Speaker 1: it's basically the same, so it's not unique to them. Uh.
Speaker 1: They also practice pretty good oral hygiene. Uh. They've brush
Speaker 1: their teeth with leaves, so like like after they've you know,
Speaker 1: maybe made a snack of some dead deer, they will
Speaker 1: like mush their face into leaves and brush their teeth
Speaker 1: and then they lick their lips for like ten to
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes cleaning themselves. And so there's no rotting chunks
Speaker 1: of flesh hanging from their mouths. They're they're actually pretty fastidious.
Speaker 1: Like fifteen minutes. That's better than me. Yeah, that's a
Speaker 1: very long time. Yeah, um and yeah, so they don't
Speaker 1: slowly stalk their prey over days. It usually takes about
Speaker 1: thirty minutes. There's probably outliers, and maybe that's why what
Speaker 1: people have observed, um, where maybe some prey got away
Speaker 1: and survived a lot longer than it typically does. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then the assumption being, oh, it must do this intentionally.
Speaker 1: But when all things go to planets in and out,
Speaker 1: in and out Komoto Burger. So if I were to
Speaker 1: fight a Komodo dragon, I should stay away from the teeth,
Speaker 1: is what you're saying. Yeah, I think that's generally the
Speaker 1: good strategies. So yeah, I mean, first of all, I
Speaker 1: want to say you probably shouldn't fight a Komoto dragon.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't necessarily recommend it. I mean, how speedy are they?
Speaker 1: They're pretty, they can be pretty fast. Feel like you know,
Speaker 1: I'm pushing toy if I just get on top and
Speaker 1: hold the you know, you know they got that lizard motion,
Speaker 1: just get down on them. Yeah, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: I think if you, if you really wanted to fight one,
Speaker 1: which again, don't do it. Not not advocating for that.
Speaker 1: Lawyers get off our backs. We're not saying you should
Speaker 1: fight specific I'm the only one quied exactly exactly, so
Speaker 1: nobody else try this at one, but you, if you
Speaker 1: were fighting it, I would definitely like try to grab
Speaker 1: its tail, sort of the crocodile hunter esque thing where
Speaker 1: you grab its tail so that you can always be
Speaker 1: behind it, um, because you don't want it and it's
Speaker 1: going to try to whip around to buy you. Um.
Speaker 1: It's basically it's super bound, right exactly. So if you
Speaker 1: if you can get that tail and then just kind
Speaker 1: of like keep twirling it around like you're dancing like
Speaker 1: a dance partner, then maybe you know you can it's
Speaker 1: tired until it's tired or it falls in love with you.
Speaker 1: It's like, wow, you can really dance, all right. So
Speaker 1: the next animal myth I want to cover, and this
Speaker 1: is a really popular one, is that wolves have an
Speaker 1: alpha and beta pack structure. Um So The idea is
Speaker 1: that you have a group of adult wolves and they
Speaker 1: get together and the alpha males will fight for dominance.
Speaker 1: So you have this wolf as just wolfier than all
Speaker 1: the other wolves. Uh. It fights and bites its way
Speaker 1: to the top, and then it's elected leader of the
Speaker 1: wolves just by merit of being the most aggressive. And
Speaker 1: maybe there's also an awful female that does the same thing.
Speaker 1: She like, you know, bullies all the other females. Uh.
Speaker 1: Comes to work with a bunch of flowers and it's like, hey, yeah,
Speaker 1: my my husband got me these. Oh you didn't get
Speaker 1: any flowers. I'm sorry. Uh. So you know alpha uh
Speaker 1: and so, but this is not true. The way this
Speaker 1: came about was in the nineteen forties, this researcher, Rudolph
Speaker 1: Schenck uh documented wolf behavior and he observed wolves fighting
Speaker 1: for dominance. Um. But the problem was he was studying
Speaker 1: captive wolves. So wolves in a zoo uh and captive
Speaker 1: animals often behave differently than wild animals due to their
Speaker 1: different environment. Uh. And they will be in conflict more
Speaker 1: often because don't have as much space. So in the wild,
Speaker 1: when you have fights between animals, uh, the one of
Speaker 1: the animals will often have an area to retreat and
Speaker 1: cool off and kind of give the the aggressor some
Speaker 1: space and then they kind of work it out that way.
Speaker 1: So it's like, you know, if you're in an argument
Speaker 1: with someone, they they storm off. But if you're if
Speaker 1: you're in a tiny room with someone and you argue,
Speaker 1: there's nowhere for you to go, so the argument is
Speaker 1: just going to keep going and going. Um and so,
Speaker 1: uh that doesn't necessarily happen in the wild. And in fact,
Speaker 1: um now what's thought is that wolf packs are just
Speaker 1: basically family units. Uh So a mom and a dad
Speaker 1: and children. Um and uh So they may the parents
Speaker 1: may use intimidation at times, and it's not as if
Speaker 1: they don't do dominance displays. But these are more within
Speaker 1: the family structure. So they didn't become the alpha male
Speaker 1: and female because they fought their way to the top.
Speaker 1: There the alpha male and female because they're the mom
Speaker 1: and the dad and so there is a wild biologist L.
Speaker 1: David Mick. He used to write about the alpha wolf structure,
Speaker 1: and like he used to subscribe to that um belief,
Speaker 1: but uh as he continued to observe wolves in the wild,
Speaker 1: he realized he was wrong and he was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: actually these look like these are just families. Um and yeah,
Speaker 1: they like fight it out and there's dominance and submissive behaviors,
Speaker 1: but that's within the family structure. Uh. And one source
Speaker 1: I read said that like the older the individual, the
Speaker 1: more likely they are to be dominant, which makes sense,
Speaker 1: you know, older, older brothers. That's when I started fighting
Speaker 1: with my dad. Hey Dan, I don't like these rules,
Speaker 1: you get your own pack. He's like, if if you
Speaker 1: do not like these, didn't go and start your own
Speaker 1: back if you do not want to be in my back. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this one hits pretty hard for me because there was
Speaker 1: this game when I was in high school called for Kadia.
Speaker 1: It was a was a furry game, but there were
Speaker 1: different worlds in it. He would go and I was,
Speaker 1: I was real in the wolves. I liked ever since
Speaker 1: American werewolf in pairs. Was like, I was a wolf guy, right,
Speaker 1: and so we would So we went to the wolf
Speaker 1: world and then me and the girl I had a
Speaker 1: crush on the time, we had a pack and so
Speaker 1: I was the alpha wolf. Were spreading misinformation among the
Speaker 1: among many crimes committed by the Furcadia community, one of
Speaker 1: them being spreading wolf information and apologized to wolves. Well,
Speaker 1: apology accepted on behalf of holds. I speak for the wolves. Um.
Speaker 1: I think, uh. The one of the effects that this
Speaker 1: has had has been on dog training. Because dogs descended
Speaker 1: from wolves, that's true, uh, and their behavior is similar
Speaker 1: to wolves in a lot of ways. Obviously they're very
Speaker 1: different because of the you know, thousands of years of domestication.
Speaker 1: But that idea of the alpha pack structure I think
Speaker 1: has informed dog training. And because it's not necessarily true
Speaker 1: and wolf populations, that means that a lot of the
Speaker 1: information we have about dog training might not be correct.
Speaker 1: So dog training is going under a constant evolution of
Speaker 1: trying to figure out you know, hey, maybe there's different
Speaker 1: ways to uh communicate with your dog and UH sort
Speaker 1: of potentially like dominating your dog might not be the answer.
Speaker 1: I'm certainly not a qualified dog trainer, so I don't
Speaker 1: want to say like, oh, no, there's only a certain
Speaker 1: way to train your dog, because I don't know. But
Speaker 1: I think it is something that we have to continually
Speaker 1: examine as we get in new information. My dog and
Speaker 1: I I've found that there's no way to really dominate
Speaker 1: my dog. She's tiny, she's like thirteen pounds, but she's
Speaker 1: she's um. Her personality is not she cannot be dominated.
Speaker 1: There's no you know, there's no way I'm going to
Speaker 1: do that. It's always a negotiation with her, a sort
Speaker 1: of tepid negotiation. We'll see. That's why you got to
Speaker 1: try the family structure. And let's right, hey, buddy, listen, yeah, listen, buddy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I feel like we don't talk anymore. Yeah, she's looking across. Yea.
Speaker 1: When I was your age, you know, I felt the
Speaker 1: same way, right right. I mean, granted, when I was
Speaker 1: your age, I was, you know, not licking my own crutch.
Speaker 1: But you know, sorry, sorry, we all we all grow
Speaker 1: around pace sucking on a pacifier, looking your own crutch, exactly, exactly, alright.
Speaker 1: So one one last animal myth here. So bulls are
Speaker 1: those fearsome male cows, and of course I'm gonna stay
Speaker 1: off top. Like bullfighting, not not a big fan of it.
Speaker 1: It's got a trash yeah, I mean, like I I
Speaker 1: understand the cultural history of it and I respect that,
Speaker 1: but you know, I like the more modern bullfighting where
Speaker 1: you don't actually hurt the bull. Yeah we could, I mean,
Speaker 1: we can make a w w I mean, like I'm
Speaker 1: still kind of like I don't necessarily think it's good
Speaker 1: to even just harassable like that. To me, it's also
Speaker 1: dangerous and yeah, I just don't know. But I like,
Speaker 1: if we could have like an updated bull fight where
Speaker 1: it's like a robot bowl, I'd be super into that
Speaker 1: Mecca bowl. Could you imagine that, I mean in the challenge,
Speaker 1: because this would be a bowl with like a computer's intelligence,
Speaker 1: and so you still keep the macheese right right right,
Speaker 1: I mean you need a gun obviously, but um, like
Speaker 1: a laser sword. Yeah, I think a laser sword. Is
Speaker 1: that that's that's showy. Um. So I'm sure a lot
Speaker 1: of people think that bulls are angered by the color
Speaker 1: red because that's you know, part of I mean, that's
Speaker 1: that's a that's a fact that we're taught from a
Speaker 1: very young age. But Looney Tunes cartoons, And the thing
Speaker 1: is that's not true, as you might have guests from
Speaker 1: the structure of this podcast, But bowls can't even differentiate
Speaker 1: between the red, red, and green, like their red green
Speaker 1: color blind, so like they can't see in that within
Speaker 1: that color spectrum. That doesn't mean they ancy colors. It's
Speaker 1: just like red and greens are gonna sort of be
Speaker 1: the same, yes, because I was like, yeah, because they're
Speaker 1: color blind, but I didn't know they're only red green. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's but you know, the basic principles the same,
Speaker 1: where they can't really distinguish red um and they're not
Speaker 1: there's no evidence that they're angered by that color ring, yes, exactly.
Speaker 1: So it's the antagonizing motions of the bullfighter that uh
Speaker 1: you know, it's maybe frustrating for them. Uh you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's kind of a funny thing to me where
Speaker 1: it's like you have the sky waving things around and
Speaker 1: like it's poking them with sharp sticks, and it's like
Speaker 1: he's mad at the color. I think doesn't care for red.
Speaker 1: I guess he's more of a winter it's really in
Speaker 1: the pastel um. But here's a cool fact. Bees actually
Speaker 1: are the ones who are angered by the color red.
Speaker 1: Bees are of one that seems like something that's people
Speaker 1: should not. Yes, So if you don't want to anchor bees,
Speaker 1: don't weigh red at them. Is there a reason? Yes?
Speaker 1: So two bees, red actually appears black like a dark
Speaker 1: color um, and black and dark colors are the colors
Speaker 1: of predators that they are on high alert for, like
Speaker 1: bears and honey badgers, these pesky like Pooh bear type animals.
Speaker 1: Wait a second, Pooh bear wears red. It goes all
Speaker 1: the way to the top. Um uh. And so they're
Speaker 1: often under attack by these hungry bears going like I
Speaker 1: want some money. Um. So when they see those dark colors,
Speaker 1: are like, oh, this is a this is a bear
Speaker 1: trying to get our precious him me, and then they
Speaker 1: go out on the attacks. So if you don't want
Speaker 1: to get attacked by bees, you shouldn't wear red, but
Speaker 1: you should carry red paint if you know you're ever
Speaker 1: going to encounter a bear, distract distracting, distracted by covering
Speaker 1: and paint, the bees will get You're safe, right right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll imagine how cute that would be. You just like
Speaker 1: painting a little red shirts, like like you're waiting to
Speaker 1: pooh and then it just rips you apart. But your
Speaker 1: last few moments will be key. Yeah. Well, you gotta
Speaker 1: get the speed, you gotta get the low. You see.
Speaker 1: The thing the scary thing about bears, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: is that there's conflicting rules for different bears, Like like
Speaker 1: I think it's the grizzly is the grizzly the one
Speaker 1: that you're supposed to be make yourself bigger, like one
Speaker 1: you're supposed to make yourself bigger and one you're supposed
Speaker 1: to play debt. And that's yeah, I think I'm pretty sure. Okay,
Speaker 1: don't take my word for it. I definitely want you
Speaker 1: guys to double check this before you go out and
Speaker 1: antagonize any bears, which you shouldn't do. Yeah, okay, So
Speaker 1: if he's the only person who can fight bears and
Speaker 1: komodo dragons and gorillas and all right, yeah, that's look,
Speaker 1: see we can have this conversation right now. I've just
Speaker 1: you know, made strength of strength. If a gorilla's arms
Speaker 1: were weighed down so that they had the strength of
Speaker 1: a human, well, couldn't they just use those weights though?
Speaker 1: Is that's what everyone's saying. But it's not heavy enough
Speaker 1: if they're using them weights and it's making them hit
Speaker 1: me right, the weights aren't heavy enough. They need the
Speaker 1: strength of a Here if you put like really like
Speaker 1: if you put like really slippery shoes or like roller
Speaker 1: skates on a gorilla, so it's center of mass is
Speaker 1: like out of balance, like you put roller skates on.
Speaker 1: All Okay, you put roller skates on its hands and
Speaker 1: its feet, then I think maybe you could be beata.
Speaker 1: Otherwise I'm not sure the origin of this dumb bit
Speaker 1: of me fighting a gorilla from when I was writing
Speaker 1: on at midnight that video of the two gorillas fighting
Speaker 1: that went viral went and I've never, like all the
Speaker 1: gorilla videos I've seen have been very docile, very and
Speaker 1: I realized that that, and for some reason, my only
Speaker 1: reaction in seeing that gorilla charge across the like the
Speaker 1: enclosure an attack that gorilla was well, I guess I
Speaker 1: can't fight a gorilla. And everyone stopped and goes, wait, Iffy,
Speaker 1: up until this point, did you think you could fight
Speaker 1: a gorilla? That was And then I, you know, I
Speaker 1: doubled down and I was like, you know, I feel
Speaker 1: like under the right circumstances, I mean, and I can
Speaker 1: understand that, because I mean, you're seeing me, you can
Speaker 1: tell I'm not necessarily a fighter. Um. But when I
Speaker 1: think about, like say a mountain lion, attack him, like
Speaker 1: I could kick a mountain lion away, I think I
Speaker 1: could do it. But you know, you don't really grasp
Speaker 1: that the pure muscle like a mountain lion. It's not
Speaker 1: like partially like you know, sort of fatty tissue where
Speaker 1: it's just like, oh, you know, like a like a
Speaker 1: like a pudgy little kiddy where you know you can
Speaker 1: fight a cat. But mountain lion is just coiled muscles
Speaker 1: just oh, just ready to like they're built to pounce.
Speaker 1: It's it's so funny because it's that conversation and always
Speaker 1: comes up on why men uh live shorter lives than women,
Speaker 1: And I feel like there's this inherent idiocy and men
Speaker 1: were like, yeah, I think I can. I think I can.
Speaker 1: Look at a Kimodo dragon. You hear about its like
Speaker 1: mini venom glands and its sharp teeth, and then you think,
Speaker 1: but couldn't I. I'm sure it has something that goes
Speaker 1: deep down into our evolution of the peacocking of to
Speaker 1: look like the like all the strongest hunter in the tribe,
Speaker 1: where it's like I can do that, I could do it,
Speaker 1: bro like like blowing clothes off broke. Yeah, it's it's funny,
Speaker 1: but yeah, no, these animals are terrifying at all times. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's true. I think that's that's the message I want
Speaker 1: to get out. We should love animals, but be scared
Speaker 1: of them, love and fear them. Sometimes animal myths aren't
Speaker 1: just silly, but can actually be dangerous. Take for instance,
Speaker 1: peeing on a jellyfish sting. This myth holds that urine
Speaker 1: somehow deactivates jellyfish venom. In fact, the opposite may be true.
Speaker 1: When a jellyfish stings you, it rubs stinging cells onto
Speaker 1: your skin. These cells contain neematosites, evil microscopic balloons filled
Speaker 1: with venomous barbs that inject venom. Rubbing the sting will
Speaker 1: make it worse, as that causes more neematicists to activate.
Speaker 1: But urinating on the sting or even running fresh water
Speaker 1: over it will cause a sodium differential between the inside
Speaker 1: and outside of the neematasyst again causing them to sting.
Speaker 1: The solution pour salt water over the sting, which will
Speaker 1: help wash it away without necessarily provoking the neematosists. Unless
Speaker 1: your pa is really really salty, Urinating on your sting
Speaker 1: will just make it hurt more and cover you and
Speaker 1: p Good job, pee pee leg. When we return, will
Speaker 1: explore some more human medical myths and find out that
Speaker 1: there are some incredible animals that are more amazing than
Speaker 1: the myths of themselves. Throughout human history, we have attempted
Speaker 1: to quantify medicine, and well, we've often failed. We used
Speaker 1: to think that our eyes worked by shooting beams out
Speaker 1: of them until ten eleven, when Arab mathematician Hassan al
Speaker 1: Hasan conducted experiments on the human eye and concluded that
Speaker 1: instead of emitting rays, the eyes received light that bounced
Speaker 1: off of objects, thus forming an image. Though you may
Speaker 1: not have heard of him, he's one of the first
Speaker 1: ever implementers of the scientific method, pipe centuries before Renaissance
Speaker 1: scientists figured it out. There are still, to this day
Speaker 1: plenty of misconceptions about the human mind and body. But
Speaker 1: the thing is, sometimes the truth is even weirder than fiction,
Speaker 1: as me and my guests are about to discover. Don't
Speaker 1: you think it's crazy that like we don't know about
Speaker 1: Hassan al Hazan, like, like I feel like, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's probably part of the reason is our education is
Speaker 1: pretty eurosick, like pretty western centric, like you know, Europeans,
Speaker 1: we've discovered science that's not true. But yeah, it's like
Speaker 1: he was one of the like ten eleven, ten eleven,
Speaker 1: Like we hadn't even gotten into the teams yet, and
Speaker 1: he discovered how the I functions and he used the
Speaker 1: scientific method. It's pretty incredible. And this kind of ties
Speaker 1: into the first thing I want to cover, which is
Speaker 1: this fact that is often spread around that we only
Speaker 1: use ten percent of our brains. Um, So have you
Speaker 1: ever heard that? Yeah, there's so many premises as a nerd,
Speaker 1: there's so many premises that are basic. That scar Jo movie. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well you took the Limitless right, right, right? Right, scar Joe?
Speaker 1: She only uses ten percent of her brain? Am I right? Roasted? Um? Yeah,
Speaker 1: but like in that movie, I think it's like she
Speaker 1: gets a drug that let's her use a hundred percent
Speaker 1: of her brain and then she becomes psychic? Is that right?
Speaker 1: That's always what it is for some reason? Right, It's
Speaker 1: like as if somehow, if we used all of our
Speaker 1: brain and we could somehow receive brain signals from other people?
Speaker 1: Was it? Lucy, Lucy? That's right? That's right? Yeah? I
Speaker 1: remember that. That drove me a little crazy. Like those
Speaker 1: ads and what is the like because like you, you
Speaker 1: know more about biology than the typical person. What what
Speaker 1: are some like ads or premises that have made you
Speaker 1: roll your eyes? I mean, that's that's a big one.
Speaker 1: The ten percent of the brain being repeated ad nauseum um.
Speaker 1: I think uh. I mean there's a lot of also
Speaker 1: just pop psychology, where it's like, oh, women like this
Speaker 1: because of this reason, or men like this because of
Speaker 1: that reason. It's like, well, I mean, you know, like oh,
Speaker 1: men like trucks because of some something way back in
Speaker 1: our revolutions. Like I don't think they that tracks because
Speaker 1: like there weren't trucks back so you can't necessarily strack
Speaker 1: that to that level. Or like, uh, you know, the
Speaker 1: like oh it's in our DNA is used pretty commonly.
Speaker 1: It's like is it really I don't know if it is,
Speaker 1: you have to prove it, um. But with the ten
Speaker 1: percent of our brains thing is uh? I mean, what
Speaker 1: is true is that at a given moment, maybe we
Speaker 1: are only using like ten percent of our brain in
Speaker 1: terms of it might only be firing. But that's not
Speaker 1: like throughout the whole day, we'll be using all of
Speaker 1: our brain to varying degrees depending on the task that
Speaker 1: we're doing. Because imagine the alternative if like a hundred
Speaker 1: percent of our brain was firing all at once, that
Speaker 1: would basically be like some kind of crazy psychotic experience
Speaker 1: where you just your brain explodes. Yeah, if I, if
Speaker 1: I nerd it up a bit. Uh, the CPU was
Speaker 1: your brain, the computer, and you put that under a
Speaker 1: hundred percent load, you're going to fry that bad boy,
Speaker 1: and you'll need to spend another large sum of them.
Speaker 1: Every experience of motion and thought you could ever possibly have,
Speaker 1: Like firing at once, That doesn't even make sense because
Speaker 1: your brain doesn't really work just by I think. It's
Speaker 1: not like you have certain information stored in your brain
Speaker 1: that you just like turn on and turn off. It's
Speaker 1: patterns of activation. So your neurons forming a pattern, um
Speaker 1: where it's kind of a domino effect when you're on
Speaker 1: fires and then like this domino effect of all these
Speaker 1: neurons firing in a pattern, and that it's that actual
Speaker 1: pattern of activation that is the thought or the memory
Speaker 1: or whatever. Um. So, uh, everything firing at once. I
Speaker 1: don't even know if that would be a conscious experience.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure what that would be. Um. But so,
Speaker 1: but we use all of our brain. It's not like
Speaker 1: there's a part of our brain that just you know, crickets,
Speaker 1: cobwebs doesn't get used. Um, According to Scientific American, this
Speaker 1: fact may have come from historical psychologist William James, who wrote, quote,
Speaker 1: we are making use of only a small part of
Speaker 1: our possible mental and physical resources, which I don't think
Speaker 1: that's uh. I'm not sure that's true, buddy. I mean
Speaker 1: maybe for some of us, like uh, in general, like
Speaker 1: when you think of a person's potential, but the human
Speaker 1: it's not like the human body has hugely untapped brain
Speaker 1: power that if only you took the right supplement, you
Speaker 1: could get to um the muscles. It's it is true
Speaker 1: that we there is more we can exert, Like we
Speaker 1: hear about times where people's adrenaline goes and like you
Speaker 1: can be triggered into your body working much more than
Speaker 1: it usually does, like being able to lift something heavier
Speaker 1: than you usually can't. That's true to some extent, But
Speaker 1: it's not like, oh, if we could only tap into
Speaker 1: of our body, would we would become like the Hulk,
Speaker 1: except when he's smart. I guess, um, and uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: so not true that we used in percent of our brain.
Speaker 1: But here's the fact that to me is crazier and
Speaker 1: it's completely true. It's called uni hemispheric slow wave sleep,
Speaker 1: and that means you can turn off half of your brain.
Speaker 1: One half of your brain is asleep and the other
Speaker 1: half is awake. When I say you, I don't mean you,
Speaker 1: because this is only something animals can do. Um so. Uh.
Speaker 1: Certain species of dolphins, whales, seals, sea lions, manatees, and
Speaker 1: birds exhibit uni hemispheric slow wave sleep. So it's literally
Speaker 1: one eye closed, one eye open, one half of the
Speaker 1: brain off, and the other half of the brain on. Essentially,
Speaker 1: I mean one half is asleep. It's not off off,
Speaker 1: it's like a sleep. Um so. Uh. And with our
Speaker 1: eyes and our brain, the hemispheres are actually kind of
Speaker 1: mixed up, so like your right eye or your right
Speaker 1: field of vision is connected to your left side of
Speaker 1: your brain and vice versa. So when the right eye
Speaker 1: is closed, the left side of the brain is asleep. Um.
Speaker 1: And these animals, uh so why would they First of all,
Speaker 1: I mean it is kind of intuitive why you'd want
Speaker 1: to do that. And when I heard about it in
Speaker 1: uh school, I was like, this is in college and
Speaker 1: I was like, huh And so I would like close
Speaker 1: one eye during lectures because I was so sleep Yeah,
Speaker 1: I wonder if you can like close one eye uh,
Speaker 1: like your left eye to sleep with your right eye
Speaker 1: and then be really smart with your left braining. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it didn't. It didn't work for me. Um. So for
Speaker 1: sea mammals, the reason for this is pretty important. It
Speaker 1: allows them to continue sleeping while still surfacing for air
Speaker 1: because they have to breathe. They may look like fish,
Speaker 1: but they're not fish, so they gotta still breathe, and
Speaker 1: so sleeping can present a problem for them when they
Speaker 1: need to continually breathe, and so that half sleeping allows
Speaker 1: them to surface and also to continue uh um swim
Speaker 1: patterns and migration patterns while still kind of half sleeping.
Speaker 1: Same thing for birds, so they can half sleep during
Speaker 1: long migrations and still detect predators. Uh So, actually birds
Speaker 1: can completely fall asleep while migrating, which blows my mind.
Speaker 1: So they can go into slow wave sleep while uh
Speaker 1: migrating over long distances and still navigate somehow. Um tesla's
Speaker 1: that are driving us, you know, well grating and we'll
Speaker 1: go to sleep. You know, they say not to do it, right,
Speaker 1: don't do it. You don't do it. I mean, I
Speaker 1: don't think the cars are there yet, right, They're not
Speaker 1: like fully automated, so you have to you have to
Speaker 1: be at the wheel. I think there was a story
Speaker 1: about some guy who was like drunk in a Tesla
Speaker 1: and like the Tesla just like parked him on the
Speaker 1: Golden Gate Bridge or something, and like the cops came
Speaker 1: up and he was like dead asleep and it's like
Speaker 1: self driving. It's like and I think the car that
Speaker 1: he had didn't even have the full self driving feature. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's you know, it's still a work in progress. Do
Speaker 1: over their updates, but yeah, there's there's been some like
Speaker 1: sometimes it'll male function, right, but I'm waiting for those
Speaker 1: like Honda mech legs that just like walk you places, um,
Speaker 1: and then you could be asleep. Did you ever watch
Speaker 1: Wallace and growmant very little? There was one where it's
Speaker 1: like he's got these mechanized trousers because it's British, and
Speaker 1: then he's asleep and he's his upper torses just flopping
Speaker 1: around while his like Mecca pants are walking him around.
Speaker 1: Um right um. And so what's really cool about the
Speaker 1: birds who do the do the half asleep thing is
Speaker 1: that it's the birds, typically the birds on the edges
Speaker 1: of the flock, who are sort of have to be
Speaker 1: aware and birds will like switch positions and stuff, and
Speaker 1: it's this kind of interesting communal situation. And so if
Speaker 1: they're on the outer edge, half of their brain will
Speaker 1: go asleep and one of their eyes will close, but
Speaker 1: the eye that's facing outward will be open and alert
Speaker 1: to predators. So say they're on like the right side,
Speaker 1: their right eye will be open, left him sphere which
Speaker 1: connects to the right eye will be asleep, so they
Speaker 1: can stay alert to predators UM while they're flying in
Speaker 1: there on that outside And so that's that's really cool. Uh.
Speaker 1: And the way that they their brains can do this
Speaker 1: is um acetal colline, which is a neurotransmitter that can
Speaker 1: regularly brain activity and wakefulness. UM is withheld from their
Speaker 1: sleep portion of the brain while still being present in
Speaker 1: the away half. So it's like this neurotransmitter being selectively
Speaker 1: released in different hemispheres of the brain. That's awesome. It's
Speaker 1: really cool. I wish of the many superpowers you could
Speaker 1: get if you were an animal, this is the one
Speaker 1: I wish the most. Just half sleep. I tried so hard.
Speaker 1: I really wanted it to be true. Like I would
Speaker 1: close one eye and then it's like, am I resting?
Speaker 1: I can't tell my my teeth hurt? Is that normal?
Speaker 1: I was so sleep deprived in college. Um. Alright, so
Speaker 1: here's another UM biology interesting thing, which also reminds me
Speaker 1: of college. Is the thing of like, oh, women synchronize
Speaker 1: their periods when their roommates or their friends and they
Speaker 1: lived together. Have you heard this one? Yeah, I've heard
Speaker 1: it too. It's uh, it's an off repeated thing being
Speaker 1: a fact, and it's not um so UM. This is
Speaker 1: based on I think a nine study UM where researchers
Speaker 1: looked at a group of female college students and uh,
Speaker 1: they the sample size was pretty small and it was
Speaker 1: only over like eight weeks, and they're like, these chicks
Speaker 1: synchronize their periods. Don't you get a load of these games?
Speaker 1: Actually the seventies, So what would they be These mamas
Speaker 1: periods all sync up. Oh man, let me write this
Speaker 1: down in the medical journal. Baby, they're somehow making their
Speaker 1: who has work together. Yeah, so that's not No study
Speaker 1: has been able to replicate that UM, and researchers today
Speaker 1: point out the many methodological problems and small sample size
Speaker 1: of the original studies. Uh so it's really probably not true.
Speaker 1: So it's technically unconfirmed. Obviously it hasn't been proven to
Speaker 1: be negative necessarily, but there's no evidence that it's necessarily true.
Speaker 1: Um and I think most likely if you I feel
Speaker 1: like it's true anecdotally, it could be that, like, you know,
Speaker 1: periods aren't it's not like every twenty eight days on
Speaker 1: the dot like it kind of like shift around. So
Speaker 1: you're going to have that occasional you know, synchronizations like
Speaker 1: oh my god, our periods are like the same, We're
Speaker 1: like twins. We're blood sisters. Blood sisters. Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean which is that would be metal. I'd love to
Speaker 1: just be able to become blood sisters, but unfortunately it
Speaker 1: has to be the old fashioned way where you do
Speaker 1: human sacrifice anyways. Um, but uh, there is an animal
Speaker 1: who does do this. Uh yeah, um, lionesses do synchronize
Speaker 1: their periods. They are blood sisters, and more than this
Speaker 1: is on one they are uh yeah, they like to
Speaker 1: eat things. See that's you know, that's a deleted scene
Speaker 1: from the Lion and surround are like like, are you
Speaker 1: in a stress? Me too? We are coincidental. Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: a lot we've talked about on the podcast. How inaccurate
Speaker 1: the Lion King is man there would be so much
Speaker 1: more killing, a lot of killing. Um, I mean, there
Speaker 1: would be no way. So when Scar takes over the pride,
Speaker 1: like he would kill all the cubs. So there's you know,
Speaker 1: it's just And also it doesn't make sense that no, no,
Speaker 1: it just doesn't make sense. So you're saying they wouldn't
Speaker 1: be enemies with hyenas that, well, I mean they would be.
Speaker 1: Actually that part is true because hyenas and lions are
Speaker 1: natural enemies because they are in the same sort of
Speaker 1: niche in terms of their prey. So hyenas will hunt,
Speaker 1: they're not just sick gavengers and and lions and hyenas
Speaker 1: will both try to steal each other's prey, so it's
Speaker 1: not just like a parasitic relationship between hyenas and lines.
Speaker 1: And lions will eat hyena cubs and hyena's we eat
Speaker 1: lion cubs. Typically lions are the bigger jerks because they're
Speaker 1: just literally bigger. But you know, you get enough hyenas,
Speaker 1: you can overpower a lion. That's what I'm saying. You know,
Speaker 1: that's that's exactly exactly that part true. Um. And actually, uh, hyena's,
Speaker 1: like we've talked about before, they were a matriarchy, and
Speaker 1: they have pseudo penises. They're really cool animals. Um. But
Speaker 1: lionesses will synchronize their estrus. So um. Most animals other
Speaker 1: than humans and some primates don't really have periods in
Speaker 1: the way that um human women do. I sounded, so
Speaker 1: we're like such a weird human women. Show me your women,
Speaker 1: the hemin female. Um, Yes, I love human women. What
Speaker 1: why would you think that I'm from outer spice That
Speaker 1: tender profile, It's like you don't It's like a trench
Speaker 1: coat all the way up to their eyeballs hands Like, like,
Speaker 1: I enjoy human women and their human body, and I
Speaker 1: like their chest meats. Um. So by going into astros
Speaker 1: at the same time, this allows them safety and numbers
Speaker 1: for their cups, so their cubs all happen at the
Speaker 1: same time. So statistically speaking, uh, some of them should survive.
Speaker 1: So like, if a predator tries to pick off some
Speaker 1: of the cubs and you have this big group of cubs,
Speaker 1: like the likelihood that your cub is going to get
Speaker 1: eaten not as much, which is a really touching thing.
Speaker 1: They The nicer thing is they do it also so
Speaker 1: they can communally raise the cubs, so they can babysit
Speaker 1: and like they're all sort of in the same maternal
Speaker 1: mood um and taking care of each other's cubs and
Speaker 1: and that's nice. Um, what's not so nice is that um,
Speaker 1: one way that female lions go into estrus is when
Speaker 1: their cubs are killed. So if a new male takes
Speaker 1: over the pride. And as we've talked about on the
Speaker 1: podcast before, prides aren't really a patriarchy, although they're kind
Speaker 1: of seen that way in in popular culture. It's like
Speaker 1: the the core group of lions is typically females that
Speaker 1: have passed on from generation to generation. So uh, you
Speaker 1: could look at it as a matriarchy in that way.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's true that the males do assert their
Speaker 1: dominance and by killing all the cubs when they take
Speaker 1: over a pride, but it's like it's kind of like,
Speaker 1: you know, they get this new lion leader, like not
Speaker 1: a leader though, because like the female lions kind of
Speaker 1: control the pride throughout the many many years the males
Speaker 1: come and go, it's females that form the core of
Speaker 1: the pride um and so uh uh, it's just like
Speaker 1: it's they're so cool, these these super metal lioness's blood
Speaker 1: sisters synchronizing their periods. Uh, like interesting deeper story like
Speaker 1: what if the Lion King was less about this, you know,
Speaker 1: exchange of power between the men, but these men who
Speaker 1: come and go. But one lioness loved one cup so
Speaker 1: much that she hid it from the new lion. Now
Speaker 1: he's growing up with these cups that are not his brothers.
Speaker 1: I really like that idea. That's awesome. I mean that
Speaker 1: see that would be a much better movie. Um. I
Speaker 1: mean if they remade Lion King, why not do you
Speaker 1: just remake it, do a new plot, don't show us
Speaker 1: uncanny valley lions? Yeah? Um, but yeah, I would love
Speaker 1: to see some biologically accurate animal movies because the reality
Speaker 1: is so much cooler. And like you said it, it
Speaker 1: would you could have a much more interesting plot. Like
Speaker 1: that's almost like what is it? Um, that's almost like
Speaker 1: the Moses plot of like you know, putting it's like
Speaker 1: a Moses lion. So instead of cribbing from Hamlet, like
Speaker 1: crib from Moses. Um. Yeah, that'd be really cool. Um.
Speaker 1: And so one one method that they used to synchronize
Speaker 1: their estrus is potentially pheromone signals. They like smell each other.
Speaker 1: It's like you want to have babies, I'll join you
Speaker 1: just want to go to brunch and have some babies.
Speaker 1: So here's another um claim that, UM, I don't know,
Speaker 1: I've kind of not heard it before. I actually found
Speaker 1: this on Snopes. Um, but I think I've heard things
Speaker 1: similar to it, which is that the human body replaces
Speaker 1: itself entirely every seven years. Have you heard this one before, right? Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: Like I've heard similar stuff like, oh, you know your body,
Speaker 1: like every cell in your body is replaced, and so
Speaker 1: you're like a like the ship of theseus thing where
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, are you really used since we were
Speaker 1: place all of our cells and such. But um, it's
Speaker 1: it's kind of a mixture of myth. In fact, so
Speaker 1: um uh cells do that. It makes a lot of
Speaker 1: sense though, Why why people would think that the entire
Speaker 1: body is replaced Because cells do die, It's a process
Speaker 1: called apoptosis, and then they regenerate through cell division. Um
Speaker 1: and uh. Some cells can um kind of renew very rapidly,
Speaker 1: like skin cells. Um. And the seven years figure may
Speaker 1: have come from a study that found that the average
Speaker 1: age of a cell in the human body is around
Speaker 1: seventy ten years old. Um, which is kind of like
Speaker 1: crazy to think about. Like, wait, I'm only seven years old.
Speaker 1: I knew it was okay to like Power Rangers A
Speaker 1: bunch of brownies feel very vindictive. Um, but that's just
Speaker 1: an average and uh, you know average is is not
Speaker 1: It's not like most cells are like this. It's like
Speaker 1: you have um cells, some cells regenerating extremely quickly, like
Speaker 1: from days to weeks. UM. Like epithelial cells, which is
Speaker 1: like skin cells lining of the stomach especially that regenerates
Speaker 1: very quickly because of the acidity of the stomach. UM. Organs,
Speaker 1: blood vessels uh also have epithelial cells that regenerate more
Speaker 1: quickly than other cells in the body. Uh. And then
Speaker 1: other cells like connective muscle and nervous cells last much longer.
Speaker 1: And and bone also lasts quite long um so um
Speaker 1: often like I think bone has replaced every seventeen years
Speaker 1: ish um and Uh the average age for non epithelial
Speaker 1: cells around fifteen years old. UM. But some cells last
Speaker 1: way longer, I mean, like your entire life. So certain
Speaker 1: cells were born with and we'll die with Like these
Speaker 1: cells inside the center of our islands were actually born
Speaker 1: with that, and we'll die with that. And then our
Speaker 1: brain matter is a little younger than that lens cells
Speaker 1: because we are developing our brains really rapidly when we're
Speaker 1: a little like until two years old, it's like you
Speaker 1: have this massive and I mean, obviously the brain continues
Speaker 1: to develop after that, but we generated a bunch of
Speaker 1: this new tissue, uh and then um, so that but
Speaker 1: the brain tissue on average, and I think it's like
Speaker 1: they measured tissue inside the cerebellum and they found it
Speaker 1: was about as old as the individual. Um. And but
Speaker 1: there are certain parts of the gray matter that uh
Speaker 1: does regenerate more quickly. Um. But you know, so basically
Speaker 1: some of our body does regenerate really quickly, some of
Speaker 1: it regenerates more slowly, and then certain cells are going
Speaker 1: to be there basically for our entire lives. Um. Which
Speaker 1: and it makes sense to me that the brain, I
Speaker 1: think is one of the more constant ones. Um. It
Speaker 1: is still crazy that it isn't necessarily like you're not
Speaker 1: born with your entire brain and then you die with
Speaker 1: your same brain, which is a little bit key. But
Speaker 1: it isn't like like your brain is completely new from
Speaker 1: like seven years ago. It's uh, you know, parts of
Speaker 1: it are going to be basically the same once your
Speaker 1: brain stops growing until you die. Um. Yeah, and you
Speaker 1: stop developing brain cells at a certain age, right right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like you're not going to grow a bunch of new
Speaker 1: brain cells. Um. The main changes is the neural plasticity,
Speaker 1: where it's not so much that you grow new cells
Speaker 1: but your brain. Um that the cell the neural pathways
Speaker 1: that form in your brain can change throughout your life.
Speaker 1: Obviously they have to, otherwise you would never be able
Speaker 1: to form new memories or learn anything new. Um. So
Speaker 1: you can. Your brain can change throughout your entire life. Obviously,
Speaker 1: the greatest changes are from age zero to like twenty
Speaker 1: five ish. But you know, your brain continues to change
Speaker 1: throughout your life. But the cells themselves mostly um, stay
Speaker 1: the same once you've reached a certain age, and some
Speaker 1: parts of the brain, some parts of the brain or
Speaker 1: generating more quickly. Um. But here's uh, there is an
Speaker 1: animal that is basically like a Benjamin Buttons where it
Speaker 1: can completely regenerate. Um. And it is the immortal jellyfish. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So these are teeny tiny cute jellyfish found in the
Speaker 1: Mediterranean and Sea of Japan. They're about like the size
Speaker 1: of a fingernail um and uh they along with a
Speaker 1: couple of other jellyfish species who are dumb and I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna kidding. I think there's like the moon jelly.
Speaker 1: There's a moon jelly species that also does this, but
Speaker 1: they can revert back into a polyp, which is like
Speaker 1: the baby form of the jellyfish, and then become reborn um.
Speaker 1: So this is called reverse metamorphosis ums bingebin buttons, where
Speaker 1: they uh, turned back into a polyp and then that
Speaker 1: polyp turns back into an adult um. So biologists liking
Speaker 1: it to a chicken that turn into an egg and
Speaker 1: then that egg hatches a new chicken UM. And to
Speaker 1: accomplish this, it goes through cellular trans differentiation UM, which
Speaker 1: sounds like, you know, full metal Alchemists. You know that right? Wait,
Speaker 1: what's the anime? Is it? Full is full Metal Alchemist
Speaker 1: a anime? Yeah? Okay, I'm getting it confused with full
Speaker 1: metal Jacket? Yeah yeah, which is a Stanley Kubrick. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: full metal Alchemists. Like maybe they try and transmute different things.
Speaker 1: How he gets his little brother trapped in that suit
Speaker 1: of armor. Yeah that's right, and like he gets a
Speaker 1: new hand, but it's a man out of his dead mom.
Speaker 1: Is that right? Okay? Yea too deep into it, but
Speaker 1: I think it's very dark and bleak, right, um, But
Speaker 1: it sounds like something from from that anime. But it's
Speaker 1: uh where one cell type is converted into another cell type,
Speaker 1: like a skin cell becoming a neural cell um and
Speaker 1: humans like basically only stem cells do this, um and
Speaker 1: we don't. It seems like they're so cool, the fact
Speaker 1: that they can turn into babies and then regrow into
Speaker 1: adults and do this potentially indefinitely until they're a snack
Speaker 1: for something else. We don't actually know that much about them,
Speaker 1: Like we haven't studied them that thoroughly because they're really
Speaker 1: hard to cultivate in a lab. In fact, from one
Speaker 1: article I read, there's only one scientist who has been
Speaker 1: able to reliably grow them in a lab. His name's
Speaker 1: Shin Kubata of Japan, and he's like in this tiny
Speaker 1: office and growing these miraculous jellyfish and he's got very
Speaker 1: little funding and he just does it because he thinks
Speaker 1: it's really important. That's so there's something like really mysterious
Speaker 1: about this, this one man who knows how to grow
Speaker 1: these and is trying to study them and basically is
Speaker 1: one of the few people who can nurture these. And
Speaker 1: he is funny when he talks about them, like he
Speaker 1: kind of he's like he's really proud of them, Like,
Speaker 1: there my little babies, little guys, a little immortal guy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you would think that an elon musk would be injecting them.
Speaker 1: It was a bloodstream to try to be yeah, what
Speaker 1: if we Yeah, what what if that? We have that ability?
Speaker 1: But with those parameters like you can you can regenerate
Speaker 1: your body, but you you don't have to go back
Speaker 1: to a baby. It's almost to me, at what point
Speaker 1: is right? At what point is that just like when
Speaker 1: we have kids, you know, because wouldn't you be I
Speaker 1: guess it depends on how much like of a you know,
Speaker 1: biological essentialist here you are. But I feel like we
Speaker 1: are not. We're not just what we're born with. We're
Speaker 1: all the experience we've had, you know. It's nature and
Speaker 1: nurture kind of working together to create you as a human.
Speaker 1: So I feel like at that point it wouldn't even
Speaker 1: though maybe your body would be immortal, your mind wouldn't
Speaker 1: like you once you revert back to a child, or
Speaker 1: an embryo, that would be you dying essentially, even if
Speaker 1: you're reborn again, that would be a new person sen
Speaker 1: in my opinion, um, just based on I think because
Speaker 1: we're we're a pretty special animal in terms of how
Speaker 1: much we can learn and how flexible our brains are.
Speaker 1: But I think that also means that we're kind of
Speaker 1: some of our experiences in our environment, and then that
Speaker 1: is who we are. And that's why you know, when
Speaker 1: you have a brother or sister who's very close to
Speaker 1: you genetically, they can be super different. Um. And like
Speaker 1: or you know a child who's you know, maybe similar
Speaker 1: to you biologically, but they're you know, going to be
Speaker 1: really different because they have different experiences. Mm hmm. That's
Speaker 1: very interesting. Yeah. Like I said before, sometimes the truth
Speaker 1: is actually wilder than myth, and what you might think
Speaker 1: of as myth collides with science. In the monasteries of
Speaker 1: eastern Tibet, Buddhist monks practice g tunnel meditation, a technique
Speaker 1: that is legendary for increasing the body heat even drying
Speaker 1: wet sheets wrapped around the monks bodies as they meditate
Speaker 1: in the freezing Himalayas. But is there any truth to
Speaker 1: this researchers and monks well practiced in forceful breath g
Speaker 1: tumma meditation put it to the test, the scientific test,
Speaker 1: and found that by meditating in this way, they were
Speaker 1: able to increase their body temperature even up to mild
Speaker 1: fever levels. And more interestingly, it wasn't just the breathing
Speaker 1: that was important. The mental visualization of the g tumma
Speaker 1: meditation technique was important in enabling the meditators to continue
Speaker 1: breathing properly and to keep their body temperature up. So
Speaker 1: I want you to visualize this podcast returning after a
Speaker 1: short break. Breathe in and breathe out. We'll be right back.
Speaker 1: Welcome to who wants to be a Millionaire? That is
Speaker 1: the owner of a million spiders. I'm your host Meal
Speaker 1: extra Bark. So if I want to play play a
Speaker 1: little game title I want to lose, I don't want,
Speaker 1: so I'm gonna ask you some questions about animals and
Speaker 1: reel some unexpected truths. Perhaps um all right, and it's
Speaker 1: going to be about like what you think the characteristics
Speaker 1: of these animals are. So question number one is who
Speaker 1: do you think has more eyes? Spiders, scallops or scorpions?
Speaker 1: Do do do do? Do? Do do? Is that helping do?
Speaker 1: Because I think spiders. But based on the premise of
Speaker 1: this game, I'm gonna say scallops, you are correct. So
Speaker 1: spiders have zero to twelve eyes. There are some spiders
Speaker 1: who are eyelis, like the blind huntsman spider of Louse
Speaker 1: and the blind cave wolf spider of Hawaii. Uh. Scorpions
Speaker 1: similarly have about zero to twelve eyes. Same thing. Some
Speaker 1: of them don't have eyes, some of them have twelve eyes.
Speaker 1: But scallops have up to a hundred eyes. So here
Speaker 1: I want to show you this picture. It's pretty beautiful.
Speaker 1: Oh that is extremely terrified. I think it's kind of neat.
Speaker 1: So you see all those little blue dots, Those are
Speaker 1: all a bits eyeballs. So they have from tint to
Speaker 1: a hundred eyes. The scalp is found all over the
Speaker 1: world in our oceans, on our plates, if you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. Um, but imagine this next time you're
Speaker 1: eating a scalop. They just have hundreds of eyeballs. Um.
Speaker 1: They can actually swim around by opening and closing their
Speaker 1: valves there by valves, meaning they got two valves. Uh.
Speaker 1: And um, they have these eyes which tend to be
Speaker 1: brilliant blue. They look like little blueberries, but hundreds of them,
Speaker 1: and they're all staring at you. Um. So their eyes
Speaker 1: are actually really interesting because they don't have lenses like
Speaker 1: most animals. Um. Instead, they have a concave mirror made
Speaker 1: out of guanting. And if guanting sounds familiar, that's the
Speaker 1: same protein found in DNA. But guanting crystals can form
Speaker 1: this like shiny um substance that uh, it's actually found
Speaker 1: in like on the skin of like chameleons and another things.
Speaker 1: But it can actually turn their eyes into these tiny telescopes.
Speaker 1: So these guanting crystals form a mirror, uh, and that
Speaker 1: mirror focuses light inside of the eye, like you know,
Speaker 1: you've seen the giant mirror for the herbal telescope, and
Speaker 1: you know how that helps redirect and focus the light.
Speaker 1: Works the same way for the scallop. And although their
Speaker 1: eyes can't make out distinct shapes, they can accurately since
Speaker 1: changes in the environment, like changes in light and dark
Speaker 1: in a shadow passing over them, and even like different
Speaker 1: water conditions, So they know like how to evade predators,
Speaker 1: or where to swim to find food, or or whether
Speaker 1: they need to avoid some poor water conditions. Um, and
Speaker 1: we don't know much about the scalop brain, but uh,
Speaker 1: like like what's happening from the eyes to the brain.
Speaker 1: But I don't think they're very smart. Um, so it's
Speaker 1: it's but it is interesting that they're just lined with
Speaker 1: all of these kind of like century eye eyeballs. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it looks um, it looks very I guess like David Lyncheon,
Speaker 1: he's he's like the alien guy, right, yeah, with all
Speaker 1: the like weird mouth tentacles and eyeballs and uh yeah,
Speaker 1: just think about that. Next when you get one of
Speaker 1: those nice Gordon Ramsey scalops on a plate, yep, just
Speaker 1: like how I know, like when I eat like crayfish,
Speaker 1: it's like a little little tiny eyebow stare up at
Speaker 1: me like why it's really hard? Um? All right, Next question,
Speaker 1: which animal can grow a proper handlebar mustache? Horses, Banobo's
Speaker 1: or the bornean bearded pig? Dude, do do do do do? Horses? Yes,
Speaker 1: you're wow, you're too. I just saw a viral Twitter
Speaker 1: image of horses with mustaches and this one. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: so the Gypsy Vanner Hort draft horse of Ireland can
Speaker 1: grow luxurious mustaches and there. They really just look like
Speaker 1: a human mustache. Paste it on a horse with no exaggeration. Um.
Speaker 1: Usually that's because like the owner styles it a little bit,
Speaker 1: like if you leave it just to grow, it turns
Speaker 1: into this big mop. But the owner will like trimming,
Speaker 1: you know, like curl it. It just like looks like
Speaker 1: a little you know, one of those eighteen hundreds mustaches.
Speaker 1: All all these guy named Bartholo Mule. That's one dastardly
Speaker 1: horse pencil mustache. Um. Bobo's actually don't have mustaches, um,
Speaker 1: although they are one of our closest primate relatives. UM.
Speaker 1: The bornean bearded pig actually grow reverse mustaches. So they
Speaker 1: grow a bunch of hair above their nose. Well that's
Speaker 1: very weird. Yeah, yeah, they like grow this bristly hair.
Speaker 1: That's like imagine, you know, like the bridge of your nose.
Speaker 1: Imagine if you just grew a band of hair from
Speaker 1: the bridge of your nose all the way around your chin.
Speaker 1: That's the worst. Go that's that's a the worst than
Speaker 1: Guy Fiory, though definitely worse imagine though like with like
Speaker 1: must it all over it still worse. I mean, okay,
Speaker 1: then that's worse all right, last question and This is
Speaker 1: actually inspired by uh someone, so I asked on Twitter
Speaker 1: for some questions from people this. Madeline sent in a question. Um,
Speaker 1: but first I'm going to ask you which of these
Speaker 1: animals poop in cube shapes? Is it the naked male rat,
Speaker 1: the wombat, or bees. I'm gonna guess bees. You are incorrect,
Speaker 1: you almost got um. So it is actually the wombats
Speaker 1: uh and they are of Australia, and I'm just dangerous.
Speaker 1: They look like brownies. They do a little wombat brownies
Speaker 1: worse than accidentally eating weed brownies, even worse if the
Speaker 1: wombat ate weed and you um so. Uh. The question
Speaker 1: from Madeline is why how is wombat poop cube shaped?
Speaker 1: Are there other animals with similar scat um and so,
Speaker 1: as far as I know, this is the only animal
Speaker 1: that creates poop shaped cubes cube shaped poop either way?
Speaker 1: Um and I did a little research on this. Uh.
Speaker 1: There's actually the conception, here's another myth that they poop
Speaker 1: and cube so that the poop doesn't roll down hills,
Speaker 1: so that they can mark their territory. I don't think
Speaker 1: there's actually evidence that this is true. Again, it hasn't
Speaker 1: been like proven falls. It's just so I read one
Speaker 1: um biologist who studied wombats. He's like, they just poop
Speaker 1: wherever they poop, where they they poop. The cube shape
Speaker 1: isn't necessarily for marking their territory. And recently there's research
Speaker 1: by bodily fluids expert Patricia Yang and her colleagues at
Speaker 1: the Georgia Institute of Technology in the US. You know, UM,
Speaker 1: so they shipped in in UH wombats from Australian These
Speaker 1: were actually road kill wombats because it's you can't like
Speaker 1: it's hard to source wombats, um, and so they ship
Speaker 1: them in from Australia. They examine their intestines and they
Speaker 1: found um that the cube shape is probably due to,
Speaker 1: first of all, how dry the feces are. So um
Speaker 1: wombats are living pretty dry environments. They have to preserve
Speaker 1: a lot of moisture, so they suck a lot of
Speaker 1: the water content out of the poop as it goes
Speaker 1: through their intestines. UM, and that allows it to maybe
Speaker 1: be shaped into that more brick like UH shape. But um.
Speaker 1: One of the way the mechanism of forming it into
Speaker 1: cubes is they tested the elasticity of the intestines and
Speaker 1: most intestines have a pretty uniform elasticity, but with wombats
Speaker 1: they have these two ridges that are more elastic than
Speaker 1: the other parts of the intestines. So they almost formed
Speaker 1: these like pockets where they like I guess, kind of
Speaker 1: get like slide around and get squished in to like
Speaker 1: a cube shape. Hands man out of intestines squishing them
Speaker 1: into here you go. Um. So there they might be
Speaker 1: poop crucibles for making the square poop um, and so
Speaker 1: that there you go. That's why I want bat is
Speaker 1: poop is cube shaped? And how it happens? Um. I
Speaker 1: didn't know I needed an answer for well, and now
Speaker 1: you do, and now you can all that sleep you've
Speaker 1: been missing. It's because deep down you needed this answer exactly.
Speaker 1: It's question answer. No longer have to try and sleep
Speaker 1: with one eye exactly exactly. Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: joining me. Do you want to talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about your podcast, Nerdifice got anything to plug? Oh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so Nerdificent. Uh you know, it's with me and Danny Fernandez.
Speaker 1: We do nerdy deep dives into topics and have a
Speaker 1: guest on and talk about their experience with it. It's
Speaker 1: very casual, very fun. It's a you know, it's a
Speaker 1: nerdy podcast for everyone, whether you you know, just got
Speaker 1: interested because you saw the new Apen Marvel, or if
Speaker 1: you've been a long time person and you'd like to
Speaker 1: reminisce over you know, the good old times. And also
Speaker 1: I do a podcast called Who Shots You. It's a
Speaker 1: movie podcast with maximum fun where we you know, it's
Speaker 1: just a it's a movie podcast that isn't just white dudes. Yeah. Um.
Speaker 1: But besides that, if you Wadyway on Twitter and Instagram,
Speaker 1: if he's on Twitch, if you like to watch people
Speaker 1: play video games, and you know, just come hang with
Speaker 1: what's your favorite like animal themed superhero? Oh, black Panther? Yeah, Nancy,
Speaker 1: because you know, I had the bonus of being an
Speaker 1: African superhero, Nigerian American. I was like, yeah, weirdly, comic
Speaker 1: books are kind of white nails. Yeah, so not only
Speaker 1: you know, not only that we got Black Panther, you've
Speaker 1: got them pretty early too. He came out like a
Speaker 1: year after Spider Man, and you actually came out before
Speaker 1: the Black Panther party. Oh wow, I didn't know that
Speaker 1: the Panther the superhero existed before the party. So like
Speaker 1: the imagine that Hughey was at the comic book Stayings like,
Speaker 1: huh secretly a nerve? Yeah, well that's awesome. So did
Speaker 1: you You mentioned where people can find you on Twitter? Awesome.
Speaker 1: You can find us uh, Creature feature pod dot com
Speaker 1: on Instagram, Creature Feature Pod on Twitter, Creature feat Pod,
Speaker 1: f t Don't Don't Do t um and you can
Speaker 1: find me at Katie Golden And I'm also at pro
Speaker 1: bird Rites where I am definitely a human and not
Speaker 1: a bird. Oh I saw your account the other day. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's very it's very funny. Yeah, thank you. It's it's
Speaker 1: pretty silly. It's got a lot of misspellings which are
Speaker 1: totally on purpose. Thank you guys so much for listening.
Speaker 1: If you're liking the pod, you can help support us
Speaker 1: by leaving a comment or giving us a rating and
Speaker 1: subscribing and all that good stuff. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: I'll see you next Wednesday. Bye, and thanks to the
Speaker 1: Space Colssics for their awesome song Exo Lumina