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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.

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Speaker 3: My name is Robert Man and I am Joe McCormick.

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Speaker 3: And today on Stuff to Blow Your Mind, we're going

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Speaker 3: to begin a series of episodes on the theme of

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Speaker 3: being upside down and if you are wondering, yes, this

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Speaker 3: is another baby looked at Me episode idea. I started

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Speaker 3: thinking about this because of my three year old's fondness

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Speaker 3: for dangling upside down. She really likes to ask us

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Speaker 3: to hang her upside down and then to be brought

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Speaker 3: face to face with other family members while she's hanging

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Speaker 3: upside down. So like when she sees them, I guess,

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Speaker 3: I don't know exactly what's so funny about it, but

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Speaker 3: she descends into like cackling madness, and it's kind of like,

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Speaker 3: can you believe this? This is absurd?

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Speaker 2: No, No, this is totally understandable. And you know, even

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Speaker 2: as an adult, there'll be times where I don't know,

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Speaker 2: I'll be in the right position. Maybe I'll be, you know,

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Speaker 2: reclined on the floor for a yoga class or something,

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Speaker 2: or just in my living room and you'll imagine the

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Speaker 2: ceiling as the floor and what it would be like

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Speaker 2: to be up there. Or an even more terrifying one

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Speaker 2: is if you find yourself out either on like a

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Speaker 2: clear starry night or even a really clear blue day,

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Speaker 2: and imagine yourself detached from the gravity of the planet

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Speaker 2: and ascending upward, falling upward, that sort of thing. You know,

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Speaker 2: it can the wildness of the concept, once you sort

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Speaker 2: of like break through your everyday mundane blocks to it

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Speaker 2: can still be almost overwhelming.

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Speaker 3: I feel like you've mentioned the falling upward into the

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Speaker 3: sky daydream before. This is a common thing for you.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's not. I wouldn't say it's like

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Speaker 2: a central anxiety point or or even like a recurring

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Speaker 2: dream so much. But I don't know. There is something

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Speaker 2: about like a really clear day, especially a really clear

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Speaker 2: like blue sky day, and sometimes a very clear, star

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Speaker 2: filled night that kind of taps into this notion. It's

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Speaker 2: kind of like if you stop and try to remind

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Speaker 2: yourself to breathe, which, to be clear, can also be

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Speaker 2: a very grounding and beneficial practice, but you know, sometimes

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Speaker 2: you're like, oh, I'm breathing now, and then you can

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Speaker 2: kind of like sort of freak out about about making

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Speaker 2: sure that you're breathing, you know, taking something that is

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Speaker 2: just a basic background process of your life and turning

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Speaker 2: it down his head.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, or if you like, think about your heartbeat too much,

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Speaker 3: it can make you start feeling like you wonder is

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Speaker 3: something wrong with it?

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Speaker 2: Or yeah, yeah, that's sort of.

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Speaker 3: So before we get into the pulp of today's episode,

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Speaker 3: I wanted to start us off with a bit of

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Speaker 3: poetry to establish the upside down mood. And I was

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Speaker 3: looking around for some literary examples to kick things off here,

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Speaker 3: and I actually found what I thought is a great one,

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Speaker 3: and it's going to take us straight to Hell. So

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Speaker 3: I want to talk about a very weird, actually scientifically

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Speaker 3: loaded and also I think very funny scene from the

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Speaker 3: Divine Comedy. So this is going to be from Dante's Inferno,

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Speaker 3: Canto thirty four. And the scene we're going to be

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Speaker 3: talking about is right before the end of the first

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Speaker 3: book of the Divine Comedy, right before the end of

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Speaker 3: the Inferno, So it's going to come at the tail

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Speaker 3: end of Dante's journey through Hell, before he emerges again

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Speaker 3: to face the mountain of Purgatory.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and reminder for listeners who are maybe not that

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Speaker 2: familiar with this work or haven't heard us talk about it?

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Speaker 2: In a bit. Inferno is book one of three in

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Speaker 2: the Divine Comedy of Dante Aligary, who lived twelve sixty

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Speaker 2: five through thirteen twenty one, poet scholar, really almost the

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Speaker 2: sort of polymath exile of Florence. It's a narrative poem,

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Speaker 2: and theor stands as one of the greatest and most

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Speaker 2: important works of not only late medieval Italian literature, but Western,

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Speaker 2: if not global literature as a whole. It's notable for

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Speaker 2: a number of reasons. It was written in Italian rather

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Speaker 2: than Latin, it popularized and shaped the concept of Christian purgatory,

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Speaker 2: and in general, I would argue that the text still

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Speaker 2: stands as a highly readable if you have a good translation,

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Speaker 2: good notes, and you know and interest in reading it.

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Speaker 3: Notes are very important because there are a lot of

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Speaker 3: things in it that don't make any sense at all

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Speaker 3: unless you get like historical context explaining them.

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Speaker 2: Yes, you are, in some respects not the intended reader

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Speaker 2: by the stretch, but once you get into the notes

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Speaker 2: and into that world is very enjoyable because it's essentially

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Speaker 2: a crash course in Dante's entire world. His faith, his feuds,

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Speaker 2: his loves, his trials and tribulations, his fascination with just

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Speaker 2: a host of philosophical, historical, mythological, and even scientific topics.

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Speaker 3: Yes, and you've really you get to find out who

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Speaker 3: Dante's mad at. Sometimes they pop up in hell.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I was thinking about this. I was

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Speaker 2: like listing all this out, these things that the text is,

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Speaker 2: and I was thinking about lyrics to a DMX track,

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Speaker 2: and I was like, Dante was kind of like a

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Speaker 2: rap star of his age, you know, oh yeah, you know,

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Speaker 2: you know, almost kind of getting into distract territory at

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Speaker 2: times in.

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Speaker 3: Absolutely work, Yeah, putting his enemies and like showing their

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Speaker 3: wickedness and their punishments. But also, yeah, there is a

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Speaker 3: lot of genuine wonder in there as well. And so well,

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Speaker 3: let's get right into the scene and then we can

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Speaker 3: talk about the implications after I do a reading. So

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Speaker 3: in this scene, Dante he begins as a lost traveler.

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Speaker 3: He's wandering in the Selvoskura. He's wandering into dark wood,

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Speaker 3: and he meets the soul of the Roman poet Virgil,

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Speaker 3: who can't go to heaven himself because he was not

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Speaker 3: a Christian. He lived before Christ, but he lives in

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Speaker 3: limbo alongside other figures, many of whom are known as

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Speaker 3: the Virtuous Pagans. So he's in limbo with these people

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Speaker 3: who don't really belong in either Heaven or Hell, people

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Speaker 3: like Homer, Socrates, Ptolemy, and saladein and so Virgil meets

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Speaker 3: Dante and he leads him on a tour of the

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Speaker 3: nine circles of Hell, going down and down all the time,

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Speaker 3: deeper and deeper further into the bowels of the earth.

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Speaker 3: And so together eventually Virgil and Dante reach the very

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Speaker 3: bottom of Hell, where Satan himself lives. Depicted as a

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Speaker 3: giant shaggy beast, almost a winged bigfoot, but I think

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Speaker 3: like a thousand feet tall, So a gigantic shaggy beast,

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Speaker 3: encrusted with ice, with three heads, leathery wings like those

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Speaker 3: of a bat, and forever. Satan is described as forever

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Speaker 3: weeping tears that freeze into ice and are then frozen

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Speaker 3: further by the flapping of his wings. So the flapping

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Speaker 3: of his wings generates a wind that freezes the center

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Speaker 3: of Hell. It's almost like in trying to escape his

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Speaker 3: own suffering by flapping his wings and in the expression

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Speaker 3: of his anguish, he further creates the freezing conditions and

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Speaker 3: the misery of the very core of hell. So he's

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Speaker 3: down there flapping the bat wings, crying these frozen tears,

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Speaker 3: drooling blood from his three mouths, and then in his

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Speaker 3: three mouths he's described as eternally gnawing on the damned

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Speaker 3: souls of Judas Iscariot, the betrayer of Christ and the Gospels,

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Speaker 3: and Brutus and Cassius, the betrayers of Julius Caesar. These

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Speaker 3: are the three figures that Dante the poet sort of

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Speaker 3: considered the worst traders against God and country in human history.

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Speaker 3: A lot of modern readers really don't understand very well

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Speaker 3: why Brutus and Cassius are there. That seems like man,

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Speaker 3: that's really giving them an important place. But it makes

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Speaker 3: more sense if you understand the Dante medieval or late

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Speaker 3: medieval Italian mindset of like really valorizing the Roman Empire.

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Speaker 3: It's just like the Roman Empire was like the best

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Speaker 3: there ever was.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, again, you have to keep in mind that is

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Speaker 2: it is a very personal work in so many respects

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Speaker 2: as well, and like this is Dante's take on it.

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Speaker 2: It's like if someone elsewhere to where to say reserve

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Speaker 2: the third spot in Satan's mouth for say Yoko Ono

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Speaker 2: saying like, how dare she? How dare she allegedly break

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Speaker 2: up the Beatles? You know, that is one of the

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Speaker 2: greatest strggies of all time. And then in your mind, yes,

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Speaker 2: she belongs to this, this place of infamy. So there's

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Speaker 2: maybe a little bit about that going on. But also yes,

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Speaker 2: I think it's also essential to realize how much weight

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Speaker 2: these traitors had in the public mind and in the

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Speaker 2: culture at that time.

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Speaker 3: I've got some love for Yoko.

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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I don't speak to any personal animosity there.

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Speaker 3: Right, but I understand what you're talking about.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's been a common cultural reference point.

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Speaker 3: For death rides. But so anyway, in the story, after

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Speaker 3: reaching the lower depth of the pit, Virgil and Dante

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Speaker 3: they have to continue going. But they what are they

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Speaker 3: going to do? Like, they've reached the bottom here, Satan,

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Speaker 3: so they have to continue their journey by crawling directly

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Speaker 3: down the devil's huge, nasty body. So here I'm going

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Speaker 3: to begin reading from Kanto thirty four. This is the

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Speaker 3: Longfellow translation, and in this selection, Dante starts off talking

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Speaker 3: about a hymn. That's talking about Virgil his guide. So

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Speaker 3: the poem goes as seemed him good. I clasped him

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Speaker 3: round the neck, and he the vantage seed of time

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Speaker 3: and place. And when the wings were opened wide apart,

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Speaker 3: he laid fast hold upon the shaggy sides. From fell

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Speaker 3: to fell, descended downward, then between the thick hair and

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Speaker 3: the frozen crust. When we were come to where the

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Speaker 3: thigh revolves exactly on the thickness of the haunch, the guide,

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Speaker 3: with labor and with hard drawn breath, turned round his

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Speaker 3: head where he had had his legs, and grappled to

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Speaker 3: the hair, as one who mounts, so that to hell.

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Speaker 3: I thought we were returning. Keep fast thy hold, for

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Speaker 3: by such stairs as these, the master said, penting as

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Speaker 3: one fatigued, we must perforce depart from so much evil.

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Speaker 3: Then through the opening of a rock he issued, and

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Speaker 3: down upon the margin seated me. Then towards me he

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Speaker 3: outstretched his wary step. I lifted up mine eyes and

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Speaker 3: thought to see Lucifer in the same way I had

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Speaker 3: left him, and I beheld him upward hold his legs. WHOA.

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Speaker 3: So this part catches a lot of readers off guard,

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Speaker 3: like what is going on here. Dante and Virgil, they

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Speaker 3: are climbing physically down the hairy, beastly body of Satan,

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Speaker 3: who's like a giant against a giant, three headed, bat

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Speaker 3: winged bigfoot. They're crawling down him and at the moment

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Speaker 3: they get to like his hip or upper thigh area,

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Speaker 3: sort of around the side of his butt. With some exertion, Virgil,

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Speaker 3: who Dante is clinging to, rotates his body around, so

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Speaker 3: Dante so like his head is pointing down now, and

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Speaker 3: he grabs hold of the devil's shaggy fur, and Dante's confused.

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Speaker 3: He's asking, wait, what's going on? Are we going backwards now?

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Speaker 3: Are we going back into hell? But Virgil bids him

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Speaker 3: to continue, so they crawl on into a tunnel in

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Speaker 3: the rock. And when Dante looks back at the devil now,

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Speaker 3: he's amazed because it seems like the devil flipped upside down.

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Speaker 3: Something has changed. Now he's looking at Satan and Satan

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Speaker 3: has got his giant gamey legs sticking up with his

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Speaker 3: head pointed down? So why is the devil flipping upside down?

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Speaker 3: But we will actually get a scientific explanation, at least

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Speaker 3: as far as the as far as things were understood

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Speaker 3: by the natural philosophy of Dante's time, writes quote. And

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Speaker 3: if I then became disquieted, let stolid people think, who

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Speaker 3: do not see what the point is beyond which I

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Speaker 3: had passed, Rise up, The Master said, upon thy feet.

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Speaker 3: The way is long and difficult, the road, and now

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Speaker 3: the sun to middle tierce returns. It was not any

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Speaker 3: palace corridor where there where we were, but dungeon natural,

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Speaker 3: with floor uneven and unease of light air from the abyss.

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Speaker 3: I tear myself away, my master said I, when I

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Speaker 3: had arisen to draw me from an error, speak a little.

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Speaker 3: Where is the ice? And how is this one fixed

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Speaker 3: thus upside down? And how in such short time from

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Speaker 3: eve to morn has the sun made his transit? And

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Speaker 3: he to me, thou still imaginest thou art beyond the

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Speaker 3: center where I grasped the hair of the fell worm

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Speaker 3: who mines the world. That side thou wast so long

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Speaker 3: as I descended. When I turned to me, thou didst

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Speaker 3: past the point to which things heavy draw from every side.

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Speaker 3: So there is an explanation given here. Satan did not move.

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Speaker 3: Satan did not flip upside down, while crawling down Satan's body,

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Speaker 3: Dante and Virgil passed through the very center of the Earth, which,

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Speaker 3: in the Aristotelian cosmology that Dante believed in, is also

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Speaker 3: the center of the universe. So the point to which

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Speaker 3: all objects with weight what Aristotle called the heavy objects

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Speaker 3: like solids and liquids, the point to which all heavy

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Speaker 3: objects are pulled. So nothing in their surroundings had actually

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Speaker 3: changed position. All the stuff was in the same place

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Speaker 3: it had been, but for Dante and his guide, down

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Speaker 3: suddenly became up and up became down.

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Speaker 4: Uh.

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Speaker 3: And I think this is such an interesting almost science

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Speaker 3: fiction plot element to include in a tail from the

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Speaker 3: early fourteenth century. It feels like something you know, it's not.

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Speaker 3: It's not science fiction in the sense of speculating about

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Speaker 3: the future or about technology, but it is incorporating a

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Speaker 3: leading scientific understanding of the world at the time to

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Speaker 3: explain the mechanics of a fantastical scenario.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's you know, it's like if we're trying

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Speaker 2: to imagine what it would be like to crawl through

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Speaker 2: the center of a Torus space station, you know, one

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Speaker 2: that's spinning like a big wheel. You know, a very

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Speaker 2: similar situation with perceptions of gravity, artificial gravity caused by

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Speaker 2: the spinning might be observed. And since we don't have

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Speaker 2: a space station like this, and we also do not

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Speaker 2: have a world like this with Satan at the center

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Speaker 2: of it, we can crawl up and down. You know,

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Speaker 2: we're just using our understanding of the natural world to

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Speaker 2: put ourselves in that place. What would it be like

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Speaker 2: to do that?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, using inference from our best understanding of physics to

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Speaker 3: describe this fantastical scenario.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: I should point out that this is not the only

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Speaker 3: place in the Divine Comedy where Dante has this kind

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Speaker 3: of science fiction style attention to weird physical realities. On

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Speaker 3: several occasions he engages seriously with scientific theories of his day,

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Speaker 3: with like astronomical theories and stuff about how light works

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Speaker 3: and all this, and he applies these these understandings to

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Speaker 3: his fantastical settings. Dante was a bit of a of

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Speaker 3: a science nerd, though they wouldn't have called it science

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Speaker 3: at the time.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, There's so many different places, like the one

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Speaker 2: in particular that I always come back, and this is

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Speaker 2: a small one, but just about how what happens when

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Speaker 2: or freezes it expands? Uh, you know, there's a place

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Speaker 2: where they're talking about the damned or frozen. There that

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Speaker 2: the lake at the in the lake at the center

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Speaker 2: of the world, and their their eyes are looking upward,

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Speaker 2: their their sockets pool with tears, the tears freeze and

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Speaker 2: then expand painfully in their eye socket. You know, So

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Speaker 2: little things like that, you know, it's you know, it's

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Speaker 2: he's not, you know, positioning in some sort of impossible realm,

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Speaker 2: but he is certainly applying his understanding of the natural

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Speaker 2: world to these little details.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. So I think there are a number of things

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Speaker 3: about this little passage in the Inferno that are very interesting,

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Speaker 3: but they have different implications for Dante than they have

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Speaker 3: for us. So again, Dante believed the Earth was the

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Speaker 3: center of the created material universe, with the domains of

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Speaker 3: the planets and the stars existing in these concentric spheres

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Speaker 3: extending out from our planet, and thus the center of

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Speaker 3: the Earth was sort of the center of the center

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Speaker 3: of everything that was material and created, and that's where

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Speaker 3: Satan is. So that kind of seems weird, doesn't it

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Speaker 3: that a fourteenth century Catholic like Dante would situate Satan,

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Speaker 3: the Prince of darkness, father of lies, at the center

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Speaker 3: of everything, the heart of all physical reality, seems like

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Speaker 3: a kind of privileged place to put the worst possible being, right.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, when you start thinking about like the

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Speaker 2: pure cosmology of the thing, like this is the center

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Speaker 2: of everything, and this is where the great enemy is.

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Speaker 3: But if you understand Dante's cosmology, if you understand his

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Speaker 3: model of the universe, it actually makes a lot of sense.

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Speaker 3: Because Dante believed that God himself dwells in or I

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Speaker 3: guess maybe even beyond what's known as the empirehean it's

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Speaker 3: this area that's the highest heaven, or he might say

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Speaker 3: beyond the highest heaven, actually above and somewhat outside the

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Speaker 3: concentric spheres of the created universe. So to be at

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Speaker 3: the center of the earth and the center of the

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Speaker 3: universe is actually to be as far as one can

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Speaker 3: possibly reside from God's light. So throughout the Divine Comedy,

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Speaker 3: Dante repeatedly compares sin to weight and grace to lightness.

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Speaker 3: So sin and evil and wretchedness all sink, They physically

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Speaker 3: sink towards that central point to which all heavy things

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Speaker 3: are pulled, and redemption and holiness cause things to rise,

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Speaker 3: to rise up through the heavens. So given that, it

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Speaker 3: actually makes a lot of sense that for Dante, Satan

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Speaker 3: is the center of the universe. That's the worst place

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Speaker 3: you can be.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, And it makes sense given the trajectory of the

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Speaker 2: entire Divine comedy, which again is starting in the mundane world,

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Speaker 2: and then you descend into Inferno, go to the very

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Speaker 2: bottom of it, then crawl your way up to the

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Speaker 2: center of the Earth. You go up to the mount

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Speaker 2: of Purgatory on the other side of the world, ascend

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Speaker 2: to the top of that, which takes you to the

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Speaker 2: terrestrial Eden, and then from there you venture into the paradise,

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Speaker 2: into the realm of heaven and God and so forth right.

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Speaker 3: But the other cool implication of this passage is that,

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Speaker 3: given Dante's cosmology, once the character Dante and Virgil crawl

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Speaker 3: down the devil's disgusting bigfoot thigh, they have not only

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Speaker 3: crossed through the center of the planet Earth because of

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Speaker 3: the cosmology, they have crossed to the other side of everything.

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Speaker 3: So that's kind of fascinating too. It's like the midpoint

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Speaker 3: of the universe and they've gone to the other side.

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Speaker 3: But there's another interesting implication of this passage. If you

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Speaker 3: apply our modern, more Copernican influenced view of the cosmos,

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Speaker 3: in which we know that there is no good reason

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Speaker 3: to think that the center of the Earth, or in

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Speaker 3: fact any point in space, is the center of the universe.

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Speaker 3: Astronomers and physicists now generally believe that there actually is

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Speaker 3: no such thing as a center of the universe. And

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Speaker 3: it's not just that we don't have a way to

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Speaker 3: find the center. It's that when you zoom out far enough,

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Speaker 3: the universe appears to be the common expression is homogeneous

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Speaker 3: and isotropic, meaning it looks basically the same from all

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Speaker 3: locations and in all directions, and it's expanding equally in

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Speaker 3: all directions. So that's kind of hard for us to

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Speaker 3: understand intuitively, because if you like, you can't really picture

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Speaker 3: a three dimensional space without a center point. Like if

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Speaker 3: you imagine the volume of a cube or a sphere,

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Speaker 3: there is a middle point in there, somewhere inside the

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Speaker 3: middle there is a point that's furthest from all the boundaries.

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Speaker 3: But our best evidence indicates that the real universe, the

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Speaker 3: universe at large, is not like that. No direction you

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Speaker 3: move in can bring you closer to or further from

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Speaker 3: the spatial boundaries, and in fact, there probably are no

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Speaker 3: spatial boundaries. So that sounds kind of counterintuitive because how

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Speaker 3: can a space not have any boundaries? But this point

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Speaker 3: is pretty interesting. There are several different, still possibly viable

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Speaker 3: models for the large scale geometry of the universe, but

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Speaker 3: none of the standard ones have spatial boundaries. So, based

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Speaker 3: on our best evidence from things like the cosmic microwave background,

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Speaker 3: the universe is either infinite in spatial dimension, meaning there

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Speaker 3: are no boundaries and you can just go forever in

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Speaker 3: any direction, or the spatial volume of the universe is finite,

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Speaker 3: so it's not infinite, but it's closed meaning A common

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Speaker 3: analogy used to explain this is if you think about

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Speaker 3: the two dimensional surface of a three dimensional sphere, so

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Speaker 3: like the skin of a balloon or a ball. If

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Speaker 3: you imagine an ant crawling on the surface of a ball,

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Speaker 3: it's not infinite, like there's only there's a limited area

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Speaker 3: that it can crawl around, but it can never reach

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Speaker 3: a boundary. You can just keep going forever in any

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Speaker 3: direction there is no boundary. So this analogy isn't perfect,

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Speaker 3: but it does capture the idea that, like the surface

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Speaker 3: of a sphere, where the area is finite, but there's

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Speaker 3: no outer boundary. The universe itself is possibly finite, but

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Speaker 3: without a boundary, and is kind of like the surface

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Speaker 3: of a higher dimensional space.

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Speaker 2: Okay, certainly hard for us to envision. It's not the

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Speaker 2: sort of environment that we evolve to make sense of

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Speaker 2: in our own mind totally.

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Speaker 3: But again the point is our best models of the universe,

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Speaker 3: the ones that best conform to the evidence and are

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Speaker 3: subscribed to by the most physicists and physical cosmologists, they

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Speaker 3: don't have a center point, and they don't have boundaries.

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Speaker 3: They're either infinite or you can or they're finite but closed,

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Speaker 3: and they don't boundaries either way. So, given our modern view,

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Speaker 3: the interesting physical thing about this part of the poem

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Speaker 3: is actually how it highlights that up and down are

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Speaker 3: merely a matter of perspective. In Dante's cosmology, there is

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Speaker 3: an objective, universal up and down, but in our universe

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Speaker 3: there is no universal or objective up and down. Up

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Speaker 3: and down are sensations we feel based on our relationship

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Speaker 3: to the nearest, strongest gravitational attractor. So you change your

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Speaker 3: orientation to the attractor and the directions of up and

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Speaker 3: down change as well, which is what they would have

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Speaker 3: done going through the center of the Earth. Also, there

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Speaker 3: is the change in our understanding of gravity that makes

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Speaker 3: this passage interesting. You know, in our like post Galileo

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Speaker 3: post Isaac Newton world, we know that gravity is not

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Speaker 3: the tendency of heavy objects to sync to the center

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Speaker 3: of the universe, as Aristotle thought, putting aside Einstein's refinements

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Speaker 3: of functionally, gravity is the mutual attraction of mass to mass.

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Speaker 3: So there's actually nothing gravitationally special about the Earth, or

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Speaker 3: about planets, or even about the center of a planet.

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Speaker 3: And this can really be illustrated by applying what we

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Speaker 3: know now about gravity to the idea of going through

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Speaker 3: the center of the Earth. We now know that if

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Speaker 3: you were really somehow able to crawl down to the

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Speaker 3: center of the Earth, and you can't do that because

407
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Speaker 3: of the pressure and everything, but what you would actually do,

408
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Speaker 3: what you would actually experience if you could do that,

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Speaker 3: would be decreasing gravity as you get closer and closer

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Speaker 3: to the center point, closer to the bottom of Hell.

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Speaker 3: And once you finally hit the center of the Earth,

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Speaker 3: you would experience microgravity, or effectively zero gravity, because the

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Speaker 3: mass of the Earth attracting you would no longer be

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Speaker 3: disproportionately below you. It would now be roughly equal in

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Speaker 3: every direction all around you. You'd be equally attracted to

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Speaker 3: mass in all directions, you know, all around. So if

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Speaker 3: anybody I was thinking about this, and it was like,

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Speaker 3: if anybody ever wanted to make a weirdly pseudo scientifically

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Speaker 3: accurate movie version of Dante's Inferno, they could have Dante

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Speaker 3: and Virgil becoming lighter and lighter as they approached Satan's body,

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Speaker 3: and then finally when they're going through, you know, going

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Speaker 3: by Satan's butt here they float in the air like

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Speaker 3: astronauts on the space station.

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Speaker 2: Oh, or like Charlie and Grandpa after they had the

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Speaker 2: fizzy lifting drink right exactly.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, so that would be somewhat physically accurate if it

427
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Speaker 3: were the center of the Earth. Though, if we're going

428
00:25:47,840 --> 00:25:51,040
Speaker 3: to be nitpicky, this wouldn't really work either because they'd

429
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Speaker 3: be under immense pressure and you know, so like a

430
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Speaker 3: cavern like this could not exist. But anyway, for the

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Speaker 3: rest of the series, I propose we we we spin

432
00:26:00,800 --> 00:26:04,200
Speaker 3: around on Satan's wooly haunch and and kind of crawl

433
00:26:04,240 --> 00:26:05,720
Speaker 3: into the upside down of everything.

434
00:26:06,000 --> 00:26:08,320
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, And I want to acknowledge here some of

435
00:26:08,359 --> 00:26:12,879
Speaker 2: you are also enjoying video with this episode you're watching

436
00:26:12,960 --> 00:26:16,960
Speaker 2: on Netflix. Netflix, of course, is also where Stranger Things is, So,

437
00:26:17,240 --> 00:26:19,480
Speaker 2: you know, we should acknowledge that the idea of the

438
00:26:19,560 --> 00:26:23,800
Speaker 2: upside down in our modern usage has been greatly affected

439
00:26:23,800 --> 00:26:26,080
Speaker 2: by this show, where the upside down is like a

440
00:26:26,720 --> 00:26:31,359
Speaker 2: shadow realm, an opposite world where things are creepy and dark.

441
00:26:31,400 --> 00:26:33,960
Speaker 2: And you know, it wasn't the first property to explore

442
00:26:34,000 --> 00:26:36,840
Speaker 2: this kind of concept, but it certainly is a has

443
00:26:36,840 --> 00:26:40,480
Speaker 2: been a highly popular one over the past several years.

444
00:26:40,640 --> 00:26:43,359
Speaker 3: I don't remember from I only saw the early I

445
00:26:43,400 --> 00:26:45,600
Speaker 3: think maybe the first two seasons, but I don't remember.

446
00:26:45,640 --> 00:26:48,159
Speaker 3: Is there actually anything upside down about it? Or is

447
00:26:48,160 --> 00:26:50,280
Speaker 3: it more just kind of an alternate dimension.

448
00:26:50,359 --> 00:26:53,119
Speaker 2: Alternate Well, you find out more about it. It's a

449
00:26:53,119 --> 00:26:56,560
Speaker 2: show proceed I don't want to spoil anything, but early

450
00:26:56,640 --> 00:26:59,120
Speaker 2: on it's all they also use, like, you know, talk

451
00:26:59,160 --> 00:27:02,600
Speaker 2: about like a flea on a wire and as a

452
00:27:02,640 --> 00:27:05,000
Speaker 2: way of like moving back and forth between these two

453
00:27:05,040 --> 00:27:08,439
Speaker 2: dimensions and so forth. But you know, you can, I

454
00:27:08,440 --> 00:27:11,879
Speaker 2: guess loosely think of it as just a dark, creepy world.

455
00:27:12,440 --> 00:27:15,520
Speaker 2: That is the reflection, you know, it's through the looking

456
00:27:15,520 --> 00:27:19,880
Speaker 2: glass compared to our world. But I wanted to briefly

457
00:27:19,920 --> 00:27:24,160
Speaker 2: mention the idea of a phrase that I came across,

458
00:27:24,200 --> 00:27:27,200
Speaker 2: and I think I'd encountered a few times in the past,

459
00:27:27,240 --> 00:27:31,399
Speaker 2: the idea of an upside down kingdom, which initially brings

460
00:27:31,400 --> 00:27:34,440
Speaker 2: to my mind the idea of like, you know, sinister

461
00:27:34,560 --> 00:27:38,280
Speaker 2: elves living in some sort of a strange world that's like,

462
00:27:38,720 --> 00:27:41,679
Speaker 2: you know, on the flip of our of our reality,

463
00:27:41,760 --> 00:27:43,800
Speaker 2: you know, like tails from the dark side sort of

464
00:27:43,920 --> 00:27:45,120
Speaker 2: energy going on here.

465
00:27:45,520 --> 00:27:47,720
Speaker 3: But it's been something from Gulliver's travels.

466
00:27:47,800 --> 00:27:50,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, But you know, since we're already dealing a

467
00:27:50,680 --> 00:27:53,000
Speaker 2: little bit with Christian themes, and since we're so close

468
00:27:53,040 --> 00:27:56,760
Speaker 2: to Easter, I think it's worth acknowledging the concept of

469
00:27:56,840 --> 00:27:59,760
Speaker 2: the upside down kingdom and Christianity. So this is a

470
00:27:59,840 --> 00:28:02,560
Speaker 2: kind concept with biblical roots in the teachings of Jesus,

471
00:28:02,600 --> 00:28:04,520
Speaker 2: you know, the first shall be last blessed, or the

472
00:28:04,840 --> 00:28:08,760
Speaker 2: poor and so forth, but then with specific roots to

473
00:28:08,840 --> 00:28:12,240
Speaker 2: a nineteen seventy work. By nineteen seventy eight work by

474
00:28:12,359 --> 00:28:16,840
Speaker 2: sociologists and theologian Donald Crable, who wrote a book with

475
00:28:16,880 --> 00:28:21,639
Speaker 2: this title arguing that from a sociology standpoint, Jesus argued

476
00:28:21,680 --> 00:28:25,600
Speaker 2: for an inversion of the existing social structure and upside

477
00:28:25,640 --> 00:28:30,159
Speaker 2: down kingdom, essentially turning everything topsy turvy, where people in

478
00:28:30,200 --> 00:28:33,760
Speaker 2: positions of power serve rather than rule, the lifting up

479
00:28:33,800 --> 00:28:37,560
Speaker 2: of social outcasts, the loving of one's enemies, the sharing

480
00:28:37,600 --> 00:28:40,720
Speaker 2: of wealth, and ultimately, in the case of Jesus, the

481
00:28:40,800 --> 00:28:42,680
Speaker 2: giving of one's life to save others.

482
00:28:43,280 --> 00:28:47,280
Speaker 3: Oh okay, Yeah, so the idea, the phrase upside down

483
00:28:47,360 --> 00:28:49,760
Speaker 3: kingdom is not itself used in the Bible, but that's

484
00:28:49,760 --> 00:28:53,840
Speaker 3: an interesting way of describing, Yeah, an attitude that's there

485
00:28:54,000 --> 00:28:56,360
Speaker 3: in a lot of the preaching of Jesus and the Gospels,

486
00:28:56,400 --> 00:28:59,440
Speaker 3: which is, in a way, I think you could say

487
00:28:59,800 --> 00:29:04,440
Speaker 3: can continues in a pre existing tradition of apocalyptic preaching

488
00:29:04,520 --> 00:29:08,560
Speaker 3: from Judaism, about the idea that many of the rulers

489
00:29:08,680 --> 00:29:11,959
Speaker 3: and powerful and rich people in the world have gotten

490
00:29:12,000 --> 00:29:14,680
Speaker 3: to the place they are by evil, and thus the

491
00:29:14,840 --> 00:29:18,080
Speaker 3: you know, their rich, their wealth and their power is

492
00:29:18,120 --> 00:29:21,800
Speaker 3: an expression of evil. But the powerless and the poor

493
00:29:22,160 --> 00:29:24,720
Speaker 3: will one day be brought up to overcome them. You know,

494
00:29:24,760 --> 00:29:28,680
Speaker 3: there will be an inversion, a righteous inversion, And I

495
00:29:28,720 --> 00:29:31,560
Speaker 3: think maybe you could say that the preaching of Jesus

496
00:29:31,560 --> 00:29:36,760
Speaker 3: to some extent, extends that beyond just the sociological power

497
00:29:36,760 --> 00:29:41,440
Speaker 3: structure and into common moral understandings. The idea of having

498
00:29:41,520 --> 00:29:44,440
Speaker 3: love and mercy for people who previously would have been

499
00:29:44,440 --> 00:29:45,360
Speaker 3: morally condemned.

500
00:29:45,760 --> 00:29:48,440
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, and of course love your enemy thing is

501
00:29:48,920 --> 00:29:52,360
Speaker 2: one that is difficult for any of us to struggle with.

502
00:29:52,440 --> 00:29:54,960
Speaker 2: But yeah, I think it is interesting to think about,

503
00:29:55,200 --> 00:29:58,280
Speaker 2: like an inverse world, an upside down world could also

504
00:29:58,440 --> 00:30:01,720
Speaker 2: be considered not a dark world at a righteous world.

505
00:30:01,760 --> 00:30:05,360
Speaker 2: Like maybe it's inverting things that have become twisted in reality.

506
00:30:05,680 --> 00:30:07,600
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I think that is that is like

507
00:30:07,640 --> 00:30:09,120
Speaker 3: the apocalyptic Jewish idea.

508
00:30:09,200 --> 00:30:19,120
Speaker 4: Yeah.

509
00:30:19,760 --> 00:30:22,920
Speaker 2: Now, at this point, though, let's move away from the

510
00:30:22,960 --> 00:30:26,560
Speaker 2: religious world and think more about the natural world again.

511
00:30:27,240 --> 00:30:30,560
Speaker 2: When we think about the upside down and the natural world,

512
00:30:31,640 --> 00:30:35,120
Speaker 2: there's one particular type of organism we tend to think about,

513
00:30:35,200 --> 00:30:37,960
Speaker 2: and it's a superstar when it comes to living upside down.

514
00:30:38,200 --> 00:30:43,040
Speaker 2: We're talking about bats. Oh yeah, we've all seen images, footage,

515
00:30:43,200 --> 00:30:47,520
Speaker 2: artistic representations of this. Bats hanging inverted from limbs, from

516
00:30:47,640 --> 00:30:52,800
Speaker 2: the roofs of caves, from other structures, and hanging by

517
00:30:52,840 --> 00:30:53,760
Speaker 2: their little toes.

518
00:30:54,000 --> 00:30:56,920
Speaker 3: We actually just did a series of episodes about Carchner

519
00:30:57,000 --> 00:31:00,360
Speaker 3: caverns in Arizona, which you recently visited, and that is

520
00:31:00,400 --> 00:31:03,000
Speaker 3: a major bat roosting cave. I assume the bats in

521
00:31:03,040 --> 00:31:05,480
Speaker 3: there primarily do hang by their toes filing.

522
00:31:05,640 --> 00:31:10,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely they do. Not. All species of bats actually

523
00:31:10,680 --> 00:31:15,360
Speaker 2: hang inverted. The vast majority do. The exceptions we're talking about,

524
00:31:15,360 --> 00:31:18,560
Speaker 2: they're like seven species exceptions out of a good like

525
00:31:18,640 --> 00:31:23,280
Speaker 2: fifteen hundred recognized bat species. Most of them do hang.

526
00:31:23,800 --> 00:31:28,120
Speaker 2: But you have examples like Madagascar sucker footed bat. This

527
00:31:28,200 --> 00:31:33,560
Speaker 2: particular variety of bat clings head up to smooth surfaces,

528
00:31:34,320 --> 00:31:37,640
Speaker 2: the smooth surfaces on leaves, using specialized pads on its

529
00:31:37,640 --> 00:31:42,480
Speaker 2: wrists and ankles. So some sucker bats are the main outliers,

530
00:31:42,840 --> 00:31:46,160
Speaker 2: but the vast majority of other bats definitely hang by

531
00:31:46,200 --> 00:31:48,080
Speaker 2: their toes. And of course this is just one of

532
00:31:48,080 --> 00:31:52,200
Speaker 2: the ways that bats are a wonderful inverse to our

533
00:31:52,240 --> 00:31:54,560
Speaker 2: way of living. You know, we think of bats as

534
00:31:54,640 --> 00:31:57,080
Speaker 2: creatures of the night, while we are creatures of the day.

535
00:31:57,200 --> 00:31:59,480
Speaker 2: For the most part, we think of them roosting in

536
00:31:59,560 --> 00:32:02,600
Speaker 2: caves within the earth while we live above the ground.

537
00:32:03,320 --> 00:32:07,240
Speaker 2: We stand upright on the ground, while they hang inverted.

538
00:32:07,600 --> 00:32:10,880
Speaker 2: We walk, they fly, And while we famously can never

539
00:32:10,960 --> 00:32:13,200
Speaker 2: quite put ourselves in the mindset of a bat or

540
00:32:13,240 --> 00:32:15,880
Speaker 2: know what it is to be a bat, we do

541
00:32:15,960 --> 00:32:18,959
Speaker 2: this anyway. You know, when contemplating any other species, we

542
00:32:19,000 --> 00:32:21,600
Speaker 2: imagine what would it be like to do that, and

543
00:32:21,760 --> 00:32:25,200
Speaker 2: especially when it comes to considering their inverted lifestyle, this

544
00:32:25,280 --> 00:32:27,400
Speaker 2: sort of thing results in a basic error in our

545
00:32:27,480 --> 00:32:29,840
Speaker 2: understanding because we think about what it would be like

546
00:32:30,120 --> 00:32:31,840
Speaker 2: for us to hang like that.

547
00:32:33,080 --> 00:32:36,400
Speaker 3: You know, I think I would suspect even the strongest

548
00:32:36,400 --> 00:32:39,880
Speaker 3: ballerina in the world cannot hang for very long by

549
00:32:39,880 --> 00:32:40,440
Speaker 3: their toes.

550
00:32:40,880 --> 00:32:45,000
Speaker 2: No, no, I would be very surprised, shocked even if

551
00:32:45,000 --> 00:32:47,720
Speaker 2: I saw even a single example of someone hanging successfully

552
00:32:47,720 --> 00:32:50,040
Speaker 2: by their toes. We can, of course hang by our

553
00:32:50,080 --> 00:32:54,200
Speaker 2: fingers in our hands, and most of us have done

554
00:32:54,240 --> 00:32:56,640
Speaker 2: this before, either at a push up bar or maybe

555
00:32:56,680 --> 00:32:59,640
Speaker 2: you know, playing on the monkey bars or some other

556
00:32:59,720 --> 00:33:02,360
Speaker 2: kind of gymnastics equipment, maybe you know as a as

557
00:33:02,400 --> 00:33:06,160
Speaker 2: a serious gymnast, even but it's very much an ability

558
00:33:06,200 --> 00:33:09,160
Speaker 2: we have to activate that we have to train and

559
00:33:09,200 --> 00:33:12,080
Speaker 2: focus on. And your fingers are going to get tired.

560
00:33:12,320 --> 00:33:13,880
Speaker 2: Your fingers and hands are going to get tired from

561
00:33:13,920 --> 00:33:15,240
Speaker 2: all of that gripping.

562
00:33:15,440 --> 00:33:17,640
Speaker 3: And it's weird that it takes us so much effort

563
00:33:17,640 --> 00:33:20,120
Speaker 3: because in a way, we're at least our ancestors are

564
00:33:20,160 --> 00:33:24,200
Speaker 3: somewhat evolved for this. I mean, there is a dedicated

565
00:33:24,320 --> 00:33:28,720
Speaker 3: term in zoology for the type of locomotion that you

566
00:33:28,840 --> 00:33:32,080
Speaker 3: see certain primates using to swing from tree branches. They

567
00:33:32,080 --> 00:33:34,520
Speaker 3: hang from the tree branches. The swing is called braciation.

568
00:33:35,040 --> 00:33:39,280
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, so you know, yeah said, certainly there

569
00:33:39,280 --> 00:33:42,280
Speaker 2: are some some some other superstar hangers out there when

570
00:33:42,280 --> 00:33:45,040
Speaker 2: it comes to hanging by by hands and feet. But

571
00:33:47,160 --> 00:33:49,880
Speaker 2: when we approach the idea of the bat, we can

572
00:33:49,960 --> 00:33:53,200
Speaker 2: easily imagine bats having to exert the same force that

573
00:33:53,240 --> 00:33:56,720
Speaker 2: we do. But it's actually quite the opposite with them.

574
00:33:56,960 --> 00:33:59,560
Speaker 2: They can hang with minimal effort and can do so

575
00:33:59,640 --> 00:34:02,520
Speaker 2: for extended periods of time. Young bats can do it

576
00:34:02,600 --> 00:34:05,560
Speaker 2: at birth. So what's going on here is they have

577
00:34:05,640 --> 00:34:08,799
Speaker 2: what's called a tendon locking mechanism or TLM, which can

578
00:34:08,880 --> 00:34:14,040
Speaker 2: also be found among birds. Simons and Quinn, writing in

579
00:34:14,160 --> 00:34:17,799
Speaker 2: the journal Mammalian Evolution back in ninety four, describe it

580
00:34:18,160 --> 00:34:22,480
Speaker 2: as follows. In bats, this mechanism typically consists of a

581
00:34:22,520 --> 00:34:28,160
Speaker 2: patch of tuberculated fibrocartilage cells on the planter surface of

582
00:34:28,200 --> 00:34:34,000
Speaker 2: the proximal flexor tendons and a corresponding ply caated portion

583
00:34:34,360 --> 00:34:36,720
Speaker 2: of the adjacent flexer tendon sheath.

584
00:34:36,960 --> 00:34:39,880
Speaker 3: Okay, now I do not talk about that anatomy to

585
00:34:39,880 --> 00:34:40,520
Speaker 3: make sense of that.

586
00:34:40,600 --> 00:34:43,239
Speaker 2: Yeah, don't worry if that did not compute, because we're

587
00:34:43,280 --> 00:34:46,480
Speaker 2: about to get to the important part. They continue. The

588
00:34:46,560 --> 00:34:50,480
Speaker 2: two components mesh together like parts of a ratchet, locking

589
00:34:50,520 --> 00:34:55,600
Speaker 2: the digit in a flexed position until the mechanism is disengaged.

590
00:34:56,200 --> 00:34:59,560
Speaker 3: Oh okay, so I see. So it has a essentially

591
00:34:59,600 --> 00:35:04,520
Speaker 3: a lo blocking mechanism that does not require continuous muscular

592
00:35:04,640 --> 00:35:06,680
Speaker 3: effort to keep the grip closed.

593
00:35:07,200 --> 00:35:11,640
Speaker 2: That's right. In fact, it has to be unlocked in

594
00:35:11,760 --> 00:35:14,120
Speaker 2: order to let go. So it's the It is the

595
00:35:14,160 --> 00:35:16,600
Speaker 2: complete inversion of the way we think about hanging on

596
00:35:16,680 --> 00:35:19,640
Speaker 2: to something. You know, Like anytime you're watching an action film,

597
00:35:19,640 --> 00:35:21,239
Speaker 2: you know, and somebody's hanging from the edge of a

598
00:35:21,320 --> 00:35:23,919
Speaker 2: cliff or a skyscraper, it's like, keep hanging on, keep

599
00:35:23,960 --> 00:35:27,880
Speaker 2: exerting pressure. For the bat it's like, just don't actively

600
00:35:28,320 --> 00:35:33,000
Speaker 2: disengage from your hang. And so this allows them to

601
00:35:33,200 --> 00:35:36,840
Speaker 2: just give into gravity and hang to sleep. For extended

602
00:35:36,960 --> 00:35:40,080
Speaker 2: periods of time in this position to hibernate in this position,

603
00:35:40,840 --> 00:35:43,360
Speaker 2: and the lock will even stay in place after death.

604
00:35:43,840 --> 00:35:46,000
Speaker 3: Oh so the bat can die, but it just stays.

605
00:35:46,160 --> 00:35:50,120
Speaker 3: Do people ever find bat skeletons still hang like defleshed

606
00:35:50,160 --> 00:35:50,920
Speaker 3: but still hanging.

607
00:35:51,280 --> 00:35:53,440
Speaker 2: That's a good question. Maybe I have to look back

608
00:35:53,440 --> 00:35:55,319
Speaker 2: into that for the next episode. I know you, I mean,

609
00:35:55,400 --> 00:35:58,160
Speaker 2: certainly you. It's not like all bats die and then

610
00:35:58,200 --> 00:36:01,799
Speaker 2: hang like bats die and fall or they you know,

611
00:36:02,239 --> 00:36:04,160
Speaker 2: you'll find dead bats on the floor of caves, and

612
00:36:04,360 --> 00:36:08,160
Speaker 2: there are in some cavern environments there are scavengers who

613
00:36:08,680 --> 00:36:10,640
Speaker 2: take ready advantage of that.

614
00:36:11,600 --> 00:36:14,520
Speaker 3: But wait a minute, So I've got a question, why

615
00:36:14,560 --> 00:36:17,879
Speaker 3: do bats hang in the first place? What advantage does

616
00:36:17,920 --> 00:36:21,160
Speaker 3: it provide them to dangle upside down as opposed to

617
00:36:21,480 --> 00:36:24,040
Speaker 3: I don't know, just crawling into a hole or doing

618
00:36:24,040 --> 00:36:26,480
Speaker 3: what you know, sitting right side up like most mammals.

619
00:36:26,680 --> 00:36:28,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is a great question and one that we

620
00:36:28,640 --> 00:36:30,480
Speaker 2: often don't even think about because this is just what

621
00:36:30,520 --> 00:36:33,000
Speaker 2: bats do, right, We don't necessarily think about why they

622
00:36:33,080 --> 00:36:36,400
Speaker 2: do it. I guess one of the real obvious answers,

623
00:36:36,440 --> 00:36:38,560
Speaker 2: and probably the first one to come to mind, is

624
00:36:38,560 --> 00:36:40,680
Speaker 2: is one that just makes sense to us floor dwellers

625
00:36:40,680 --> 00:36:42,799
Speaker 2: when we look up at the ceiling. The ceiling is

626
00:36:42,840 --> 00:36:45,480
Speaker 2: safer if you can get up there. Well, there are

627
00:36:45,480 --> 00:36:47,800
Speaker 2: a lot of predators that cannot follow you or cannot

628
00:36:47,840 --> 00:36:51,600
Speaker 2: easily follow you up there. So it seems like, you know,

629
00:36:51,719 --> 00:36:54,279
Speaker 2: bats can access it seems like a good place for

630
00:36:54,320 --> 00:36:57,200
Speaker 2: them to hang out. Again, they can fly. But there's

631
00:36:57,200 --> 00:37:00,600
Speaker 2: more to it than that. Bats are for the most part,

632
00:37:00,880 --> 00:37:05,080
Speaker 2: all in unflying. Even bats that have adapted to ground

633
00:37:05,120 --> 00:37:08,640
Speaker 2: predation and are pretty good about crawling around, they still

634
00:37:08,680 --> 00:37:11,920
Speaker 2: have what you might think of as a morphologically pure

635
00:37:12,040 --> 00:37:16,560
Speaker 2: flyers build. You know, everything about their body has evolved

636
00:37:17,040 --> 00:37:21,000
Speaker 2: for flight. They evolved from our boreal mammals, you know,

637
00:37:21,040 --> 00:37:23,400
Speaker 2: more than fifty million years ago, and a lot of

638
00:37:23,480 --> 00:37:26,759
Speaker 2: trade offs had to be made for these creatures to

639
00:37:26,800 --> 00:37:29,880
Speaker 2: take to the sky like this, not just to glide

640
00:37:29,880 --> 00:37:32,719
Speaker 2: through the air, but to fly through the air with

641
00:37:32,840 --> 00:37:34,000
Speaker 2: true powered flight.

642
00:37:34,520 --> 00:37:36,680
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, one thing I would imagine is that

643
00:37:36,719 --> 00:37:40,640
Speaker 3: by turning their fore limbs into wings, they have sacrificed

644
00:37:40,680 --> 00:37:43,839
Speaker 3: a lot of alternate utility that can be made of

645
00:37:43,880 --> 00:37:44,680
Speaker 3: four limbs.

646
00:37:45,080 --> 00:37:47,759
Speaker 2: That's right. You know, we've touched on this before. But

647
00:37:47,840 --> 00:37:49,600
Speaker 2: when you look at the wing of a bat. The

648
00:37:49,600 --> 00:37:53,400
Speaker 2: wing is basically a hand. It's like a hand that

649
00:37:53,560 --> 00:37:57,640
Speaker 2: has evolved into this wing. And so you know, this

650
00:37:57,760 --> 00:37:59,560
Speaker 2: is one of one of the reasons they're going to

651
00:37:59,600 --> 00:38:00,800
Speaker 2: have trouble moving around.

652
00:38:01,440 --> 00:38:01,560
Speaker 3: Uh.

653
00:38:01,680 --> 00:38:05,080
Speaker 2: If they try, if it even in intern de bat's

654
00:38:05,120 --> 00:38:08,000
Speaker 2: mind somehow to like walk like a human and to

655
00:38:08,040 --> 00:38:10,080
Speaker 2: interact with the world like a human, they would encounter

656
00:38:10,120 --> 00:38:14,920
Speaker 2: problems here. Uh yeah, yeah, and some of them some

657
00:38:15,080 --> 00:38:17,520
Speaker 2: do you know, we'll get through here. But I was

658
00:38:17,560 --> 00:38:20,280
Speaker 2: looking at an article on the website of the Bat

659
00:38:20,360 --> 00:38:24,960
Speaker 2: Conservation International Group, and this articles by one Kristen Pope,

660
00:38:25,480 --> 00:38:29,200
Speaker 2: and they point out that birds, for example, one of

661
00:38:29,200 --> 00:38:32,640
Speaker 2: the things that birds have adapted, one way that they've

662
00:38:32,680 --> 00:38:34,480
Speaker 2: evolved for flight is that they have the you know,

663
00:38:34,520 --> 00:38:38,719
Speaker 2: famously hollow bones. Bats do not have hollow bones, but

664
00:38:38,760 --> 00:38:41,960
Speaker 2: they have light, long bones and this includes their femurs.

665
00:38:42,320 --> 00:38:45,360
Speaker 2: And this means that their legs can't withstand compression stress

666
00:38:46,080 --> 00:38:48,920
Speaker 2: which would come with standing up again, if it, if

667
00:38:48,920 --> 00:38:51,480
Speaker 2: it all were even an option for a bat to

668
00:38:51,560 --> 00:38:55,239
Speaker 2: stand up. Also, the again, the nature of the bat

669
00:38:55,239 --> 00:38:57,560
Speaker 2: wing makes it difficult, makes it difficult for them to

670
00:38:58,000 --> 00:39:01,480
Speaker 2: do something other than crawling about on the ground. And

671
00:39:02,120 --> 00:39:04,239
Speaker 2: you know, again, this isn't to say that bats can't

672
00:39:04,280 --> 00:39:07,040
Speaker 2: awkwardly move on the ground or even hunt there as

673
00:39:07,080 --> 00:39:09,799
Speaker 2: in some species, but it's not their strong suit. A

674
00:39:09,840 --> 00:39:12,560
Speaker 2: bat on the ground in any situation is going to

675
00:39:12,600 --> 00:39:14,840
Speaker 2: be at its most vulnerable.

676
00:39:14,640 --> 00:39:17,880
Speaker 3: Right So a bat can crawl, but it's not crawling

677
00:39:18,040 --> 00:39:21,400
Speaker 3: specialized in the way like a scurrying rodent is.

678
00:39:21,440 --> 00:39:24,520
Speaker 2: Right right now. The other great thing about hanging from something,

679
00:39:25,120 --> 00:39:27,080
Speaker 2: be it a tree branch or the roof of a cave,

680
00:39:27,520 --> 00:39:29,759
Speaker 2: is that this is just a great position from which

681
00:39:29,800 --> 00:39:34,080
Speaker 2: to take to the air. Oh yeah, so again it

682
00:39:34,120 --> 00:39:38,560
Speaker 2: comes back to flying again. But most bat species can

683
00:39:38,680 --> 00:39:42,399
Speaker 2: take off from the ground. Being on the ground again

684
00:39:42,440 --> 00:39:45,560
Speaker 2: puts them at a great disadvantage, and they absolutely have

685
00:39:45,640 --> 00:39:48,000
Speaker 2: to possess many of them have to possess some sort

686
00:39:48,000 --> 00:39:51,839
Speaker 2: of ability to take off. Some like vampire bats, are

687
00:39:51,880 --> 00:39:55,040
Speaker 2: apparently especially good at it, like hurling their little bodies

688
00:39:55,040 --> 00:39:58,160
Speaker 2: into the air, you know, maybe a little awkwardly at first,

689
00:39:58,280 --> 00:40:00,080
Speaker 2: but they get up there, then they start flatt and

690
00:40:00,239 --> 00:40:01,160
Speaker 2: then they're able to move.

691
00:40:01,200 --> 00:40:01,279
Speaker 1: On.

692
00:40:02,719 --> 00:40:05,919
Speaker 2: Vampire bats as well generally good ground movers as well,

693
00:40:05,960 --> 00:40:08,600
Speaker 2: because they need to be able to discovery over the

694
00:40:08,640 --> 00:40:11,360
Speaker 2: ground a little bit and also even over the bodies

695
00:40:11,360 --> 00:40:16,000
Speaker 2: of their prey. Only your larger mega bat like fruit

696
00:40:16,040 --> 00:40:20,200
Speaker 2: bats can't pull off taking to the air from the ground,

697
00:40:20,200 --> 00:40:24,760
Speaker 2: and this is due to their size. They have to crawl, climb, drop,

698
00:40:24,920 --> 00:40:28,400
Speaker 2: and fly. But of course generally they're living in areas

699
00:40:28,400 --> 00:40:30,120
Speaker 2: that have a lot of trees, and you know, this

700
00:40:30,280 --> 00:40:33,280
Speaker 2: is achievable for them if they find themselves in this situation.

701
00:40:34,360 --> 00:40:36,800
Speaker 2: And these again are only going to be your mega

702
00:40:36,800 --> 00:40:40,920
Speaker 2: bat fruit bats, not all fruit bats, and with all

703
00:40:40,920 --> 00:40:43,560
Speaker 2: the but with all bats, the drop is still the

704
00:40:43,600 --> 00:40:46,560
Speaker 2: most energetically effective way to transition to fly.

705
00:40:47,120 --> 00:40:50,640
Speaker 3: So basically all bats would prefer to drop from above

706
00:40:50,719 --> 00:40:53,800
Speaker 3: to flip into flight, but some, like I would imagine

707
00:40:54,080 --> 00:40:57,200
Speaker 3: the megafruit bats. Would this include like the flying fox.

708
00:40:57,360 --> 00:40:59,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, the biggest of the flying foxes for example.

709
00:40:59,800 --> 00:41:00,000
Speaker 3: Yeah.

710
00:41:00,080 --> 00:41:00,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so.

711
00:41:00,640 --> 00:41:03,919
Speaker 3: They they would have to climb up a tree and

712
00:41:04,080 --> 00:41:06,160
Speaker 3: get on a branch in order to go into flight.

713
00:41:06,200 --> 00:41:09,640
Speaker 3: That's amazing, Yeah, they almost like I'm thinking of how

714
00:41:09,760 --> 00:41:12,600
Speaker 3: you know rockets need like some infrastructure in order to

715
00:41:12,640 --> 00:41:13,960
Speaker 3: get going. Yeah.

716
00:41:14,040 --> 00:41:16,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like where you know, you can think of

717
00:41:16,680 --> 00:41:18,160
Speaker 2: examples too of like how are you going to take

718
00:41:18,160 --> 00:41:19,600
Speaker 2: off on a glide, or you take off from the

719
00:41:19,640 --> 00:41:22,080
Speaker 2: top of a sand dune, or the or the or

720
00:41:22,400 --> 00:41:24,680
Speaker 2: the indention between the sand dunes. Obviously you want to

721
00:41:24,719 --> 00:41:26,960
Speaker 2: go to the top, right, It makes the most sense energetically.

722
00:41:36,920 --> 00:41:39,480
Speaker 3: So are you okay if I do a tangent on

723
00:41:39,840 --> 00:41:42,680
Speaker 3: another mammal that dangles upside down?

724
00:41:42,840 --> 00:41:44,040
Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah, this is a great one.

725
00:41:44,440 --> 00:41:48,160
Speaker 3: So bats are not the only mammal adapted to living

726
00:41:48,239 --> 00:41:50,640
Speaker 3: upside down, or at least spending a significant amount of

727
00:41:50,640 --> 00:41:55,360
Speaker 3: time upside down. Another example is the tree sloth. So quickly,

728
00:41:55,400 --> 00:41:57,560
Speaker 3: I'm going to mention a couple of sources on what

729
00:41:57,640 --> 00:42:00,200
Speaker 3: I'm talking about here. One is a paper for I'm

730
00:42:00,200 --> 00:42:04,600
Speaker 3: the journal Biology Letters twenty fourteen by Rebecca Cliff, Judy

731
00:42:04,680 --> 00:42:09,440
Speaker 3: Avy Arroyo, Francisco Arroyo, Mark Holton, and Rory Wilson, called

732
00:42:09,600 --> 00:42:15,600
Speaker 3: Mitigating the squash Effect. Sloths breathe easily upside down. And

733
00:42:15,680 --> 00:42:18,640
Speaker 3: I was also reading about this in a twenty fourteen

734
00:42:18,719 --> 00:42:22,920
Speaker 3: blog post published on the website of the Sloth Conservation

735
00:42:23,040 --> 00:42:28,719
Speaker 3: Foundation summarizing and contextualizing this paper. This blog post was unsigned,

736
00:42:28,760 --> 00:42:30,719
Speaker 3: so I don't know exactly who the authors are, but

737
00:42:30,800 --> 00:42:33,400
Speaker 3: it talks about the paper I just mentioned in the

738
00:42:33,440 --> 00:42:36,359
Speaker 3: first person, so I'm assuming it was one or more

739
00:42:36,480 --> 00:42:39,640
Speaker 3: of the authors of that paper. So there are two

740
00:42:40,000 --> 00:42:44,480
Speaker 3: still living genera of tree sloths you have. Oh and

741
00:42:44,520 --> 00:42:46,680
Speaker 3: I actually did not look up how to pronounce these genera.

742
00:42:47,080 --> 00:42:49,359
Speaker 3: Rob If you know anything I'm saying here is wrong,

743
00:42:49,400 --> 00:42:52,359
Speaker 3: correct me. You've got the three fingered sloths, which are

744
00:42:52,400 --> 00:42:56,719
Speaker 3: called bradypus or bradypus, and then you've got the two

745
00:42:56,880 --> 00:43:02,600
Speaker 3: fingered sloths, which are called a coloe or cho loopus. Yeah.

746
00:43:02,600 --> 00:43:04,880
Speaker 2: I can't really chime in on either pronunciation, but I

747
00:43:04,920 --> 00:43:07,520
Speaker 2: will mention briefly that I do. I've always loved that

748
00:43:07,600 --> 00:43:11,360
Speaker 2: you can say sloth or you can say sloth sloth.

749
00:43:11,600 --> 00:43:14,040
Speaker 2: In my household, we kind of have taken to saying

750
00:43:14,120 --> 00:43:17,920
Speaker 2: sloth merely out of amusement and probably from watching, you know,

751
00:43:17,960 --> 00:43:19,000
Speaker 2: certain documentaries.

752
00:43:19,440 --> 00:43:22,480
Speaker 3: Is sloth not the uh? I don't know. To bring

753
00:43:22,480 --> 00:43:24,560
Speaker 3: it back to Dante, the way you would pronounce the sin,

754
00:43:24,840 --> 00:43:27,200
Speaker 3: the older sin and the medieval sins, Yeah, yeah, I

755
00:43:27,239 --> 00:43:32,440
Speaker 3: guess so. So true to their name, sloths are famous

756
00:43:32,440 --> 00:43:36,600
Speaker 3: for being incredibly slow moving, and the slowness is not

757
00:43:36,719 --> 00:43:39,840
Speaker 3: just in their locomotion. It goes all the way down

758
00:43:40,160 --> 00:43:44,239
Speaker 3: to their metabolism and digestion. In some cases, it can

759
00:43:44,280 --> 00:43:47,239
Speaker 3: take a sloth or a sloth about a month to

760
00:43:47,480 --> 00:43:51,040
Speaker 3: fully digest a meal, and they mainly leave. So you know,

761
00:43:51,200 --> 00:43:54,239
Speaker 3: leaf goes in, it might take a two weeks or

762
00:43:54,320 --> 00:43:57,040
Speaker 3: up to a month before the same leaf passes out,

763
00:43:57,080 --> 00:44:00,600
Speaker 3: finally passes all the way out, uh, and they will go.

764
00:44:01,239 --> 00:44:04,440
Speaker 3: They will go often a week in between trips to

765
00:44:04,600 --> 00:44:08,520
Speaker 3: the forest floor to urinate and defecate, so you know,

766
00:44:08,680 --> 00:44:13,400
Speaker 3: seven days in between bathroom breaks. Very slow moving, slow digesting,

767
00:44:13,480 --> 00:44:16,160
Speaker 3: usually carrying a lot of poop and pee on deck.

768
00:44:16,840 --> 00:44:20,000
Speaker 3: If you look up photos of a sloth in the trees,

769
00:44:20,200 --> 00:44:24,560
Speaker 3: you will often see them hanging upside down in one sense,

770
00:44:24,920 --> 00:44:29,279
Speaker 3: upside down in the quadrupedal mammal posture, so they'll have

771
00:44:29,320 --> 00:44:33,400
Speaker 3: the body horizontal beneath a tree branch, hanging by the

772
00:44:33,480 --> 00:44:36,279
Speaker 3: legs and kind of similar to what you were talking

773
00:44:36,280 --> 00:44:39,440
Speaker 3: about with the bats, Sloths I was reading are able

774
00:44:39,440 --> 00:44:44,480
Speaker 3: to grip branches easily and without exertion because their feet

775
00:44:44,640 --> 00:44:50,040
Speaker 3: are relaxed in the closed position with the toes gripping something.

776
00:44:50,480 --> 00:44:52,080
Speaker 3: So this is kind of different than what you think

777
00:44:52,120 --> 00:44:54,600
Speaker 3: about with your hands, where you sort of have to

778
00:44:54,680 --> 00:44:57,920
Speaker 3: flex in a way to close your fist. Sloths have

779
00:44:58,000 --> 00:45:01,920
Speaker 3: to flex to have to flex their muscles to open

780
00:45:02,000 --> 00:45:04,840
Speaker 3: their grip and not close it. So gripping is easy,

781
00:45:04,920 --> 00:45:06,280
Speaker 3: that's the relaxed position.

782
00:45:06,560 --> 00:45:10,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, with both sloths and bats. It is just so

783
00:45:10,320 --> 00:45:14,120
Speaker 2: hard for us to imagine to put ourselves in their bodies,

784
00:45:14,200 --> 00:45:19,319
Speaker 2: because this nature of our grasp is just it's just

785
00:45:19,360 --> 00:45:23,320
Speaker 2: such a part of our everyday, continual existence that it's

786
00:45:23,400 --> 00:45:26,080
Speaker 2: just hard to imagine it another way, even though we're

787
00:45:26,080 --> 00:45:29,120
Speaker 2: just talking about a rather seemingly simple inversion of the

788
00:45:29,120 --> 00:45:31,640
Speaker 2: way things work. You know, it's easier for us to

789
00:45:31,680 --> 00:45:34,759
Speaker 2: imagine living on the ceiling than it is to have

790
00:45:35,640 --> 00:45:37,080
Speaker 2: a grip functionality like this.

791
00:45:37,560 --> 00:45:41,120
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, because at least you yourself have probably at

792
00:45:41,120 --> 00:45:44,239
Speaker 3: some point, at least in childhood played around hanging upside down,

793
00:45:44,680 --> 00:45:48,440
Speaker 3: so you can imagine that. But you can't. But it's harder.

794
00:45:48,560 --> 00:45:51,920
Speaker 3: You have never had the experience of having different anatomy

795
00:45:51,960 --> 00:45:54,799
Speaker 3: and different neuro anatomy than you do. Yeah, you know,

796
00:45:54,920 --> 00:45:58,600
Speaker 3: so it's just like, you know, you can't really imagine

797
00:45:58,600 --> 00:46:00,280
Speaker 3: it as clearly, at least not from exiod.

798
00:46:00,560 --> 00:46:02,319
Speaker 2: It's like trying to imagine what if you could sense

799
00:46:02,360 --> 00:46:03,520
Speaker 2: the electromagnetic field.

800
00:46:03,560 --> 00:46:07,520
Speaker 3: That's sort of yeah. But the authors here mentioned that

801
00:46:07,719 --> 00:46:10,839
Speaker 3: if you observe sloth behavior, you will not only see

802
00:46:10,840 --> 00:46:13,439
Speaker 3: them upside down in this sense of hanging upside down

803
00:46:13,440 --> 00:46:17,879
Speaker 3: with the body horizontal. They say tree sloths actually spend

804
00:46:18,000 --> 00:46:22,040
Speaker 3: a lot of time hanging upside down in the vertical sense,

805
00:46:22,280 --> 00:46:27,200
Speaker 3: so hanging from their toes with the head pointed down. Now,

806
00:46:27,280 --> 00:46:30,320
Speaker 3: why would they do this, Well, it's not just for fun.

807
00:46:30,520 --> 00:46:35,840
Speaker 3: This is metabolically important behavior. I was reading an interview

808
00:46:36,000 --> 00:46:40,239
Speaker 3: with Rebecca Cliff, the lead author on this study, and

809
00:46:40,440 --> 00:46:46,360
Speaker 3: she talks about how sloths really want specific kinds of leaves.

810
00:46:46,440 --> 00:46:50,560
Speaker 3: You know, the leaves they eat off of trees. It's

811
00:46:50,680 --> 00:46:53,600
Speaker 3: tough food, you know. It's they're tough, and they're fibrous,

812
00:46:53,600 --> 00:46:56,560
Speaker 3: and they have a lot of unpleasant chemicals in them.

813
00:46:56,680 --> 00:47:00,440
Speaker 3: So these leaves are what sloths are specialized eat. But

814
00:47:00,480 --> 00:47:05,040
Speaker 3: they're not you know, easy going food. It's a tough

815
00:47:05,080 --> 00:47:08,680
Speaker 3: life living on those kind of leaves. And Cliff says

816
00:47:08,800 --> 00:47:11,840
Speaker 3: that they really want specific kinds of leaves, most of

817
00:47:11,840 --> 00:47:16,319
Speaker 3: all the tender, young, freshly budded leaves that grow on

818
00:47:16,400 --> 00:47:20,360
Speaker 3: the very outer tips of tree branches. And she says

819
00:47:20,440 --> 00:47:24,719
Speaker 3: these leaves are easier for the sloth to digest, and

820
00:47:24,760 --> 00:47:29,719
Speaker 3: they tend to have a lower concentration of toxins. So obviously,

821
00:47:29,760 --> 00:47:33,000
Speaker 3: the leaves on the very tips of tree branches can

822
00:47:33,040 --> 00:47:36,400
Speaker 3: be harder to reach than leaves further back on the branch,

823
00:47:36,480 --> 00:47:39,600
Speaker 3: because if you imagine climbing on a tree to try

824
00:47:39,600 --> 00:47:42,040
Speaker 3: to reach the leaves, the outer tips of branches tend

825
00:47:42,080 --> 00:47:44,279
Speaker 3: to be delicate and not able to support a lot

826
00:47:44,320 --> 00:47:47,919
Speaker 3: of weight. So to get into position to access these

827
00:47:47,960 --> 00:47:51,520
Speaker 3: branch tip leaves throughout the tree, sloths have to spend

828
00:47:51,560 --> 00:47:55,640
Speaker 3: a lot of time hanging vertically upside down to reach them,

829
00:47:56,000 --> 00:47:57,960
Speaker 3: so that's head pointed to the ground, and they can

830
00:47:57,960 --> 00:48:01,640
Speaker 3: be like this for hours and hours. But there is

831
00:48:01,680 --> 00:48:05,080
Speaker 3: a problem if you have ever hung upside down yourself

832
00:48:05,280 --> 00:48:08,520
Speaker 3: for an extended period of time. Might be fun at first,

833
00:48:08,640 --> 00:48:12,920
Speaker 3: especially if you're a kid, but you probably know from

834
00:48:13,000 --> 00:48:17,760
Speaker 3: experience that inverting the body pretty quickly becomes uncomfortable.

835
00:48:18,520 --> 00:48:22,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, yeah, I'm reminded. I've mentioned this on the

836
00:48:22,880 --> 00:48:25,960
Speaker 2: show before, But many years ago I got to see

837
00:48:26,200 --> 00:48:29,759
Speaker 2: Bauhaus perform at Coachella and Peter Murphy was brought on

838
00:48:29,800 --> 00:48:33,600
Speaker 2: stage inverted hanging upside down to perform Bella Legosi's Dead

839
00:48:34,040 --> 00:48:37,120
Speaker 2: And at the time I didn't really know that this

840
00:48:37,280 --> 00:48:39,279
Speaker 2: was special. I thought, well, maybe he does this all

841
00:48:39,320 --> 00:48:42,600
Speaker 2: the time. Much later on listening to the show, said, oh, yeah,

842
00:48:42,600 --> 00:48:44,239
Speaker 2: this is the only time Peter Murphy ever did this,

843
00:48:45,080 --> 00:48:47,760
Speaker 2: And I'm guessing this is maybe the reason why maybe

844
00:48:49,080 --> 00:48:52,839
Speaker 2: being upside down for the entire performance of a rather

845
00:48:52,920 --> 00:48:57,200
Speaker 2: long long song and the time before you're actually brought

846
00:48:57,239 --> 00:49:00,000
Speaker 2: on stage probably not something you want to do more

847
00:49:00,120 --> 00:49:00,520
Speaker 2: at once.

848
00:49:01,080 --> 00:49:03,520
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's not very good for you to. I mean,

849
00:49:03,800 --> 00:49:06,600
Speaker 3: you know, short inversions I think are okay, but you

850
00:49:06,600 --> 00:49:08,200
Speaker 3: don't want to be like that for a long time.

851
00:49:08,239 --> 00:49:12,120
Speaker 3: It's certainly not comfortable. You know, blood tends to pool

852
00:49:12,200 --> 00:49:14,400
Speaker 3: in the head because the body is made to be

853
00:49:14,520 --> 00:49:18,120
Speaker 3: right side up and the circulatory system is specialized normally

854
00:49:18,160 --> 00:49:21,000
Speaker 3: for being right side up. And this even connects to

855
00:49:22,000 --> 00:49:24,640
Speaker 3: you know, people who are in microgravity for an extended

856
00:49:24,680 --> 00:49:27,960
Speaker 3: period of time experience discomfort due to the fact that

857
00:49:28,080 --> 00:49:31,440
Speaker 3: outside of Earth's gravity, the heart is still trying to

858
00:49:31,560 --> 00:49:34,280
Speaker 3: compensate for Earth's gravity with the way that it's pumping,

859
00:49:34,680 --> 00:49:36,319
Speaker 3: with the way that it's pumping, you know, so they

860
00:49:36,440 --> 00:49:39,040
Speaker 3: often end up with too much blood in the upper

861
00:49:39,080 --> 00:49:40,960
Speaker 3: parts of their body up in the head and with

862
00:49:41,040 --> 00:49:44,200
Speaker 3: sinus congestion and that sort of thing. And so if

863
00:49:44,239 --> 00:49:46,880
Speaker 3: you turn your body upside down, blood tends to pool

864
00:49:46,960 --> 00:49:48,759
Speaker 3: in the upper parts of your body and your head

865
00:49:48,800 --> 00:49:53,400
Speaker 3: that's not comfortable, and in the body cavity. The whole

866
00:49:53,560 --> 00:49:57,839
Speaker 3: jar of spaghetti turns upside down. So the organs in

867
00:49:57,880 --> 00:50:02,200
Speaker 3: your abdomen when you're invert will sit on top of

868
00:50:02,239 --> 00:50:06,200
Speaker 3: your lungs, pressing down, making it harder to expand the

869
00:50:06,239 --> 00:50:09,160
Speaker 3: lungs and breathe in. And actually, to be more precise,

870
00:50:09,160 --> 00:50:13,200
Speaker 3: they're not directly on the lungs. The abdominal organs would

871
00:50:13,200 --> 00:50:16,799
Speaker 3: be pressing on the diaphragm, which is the muscle that

872
00:50:17,000 --> 00:50:21,239
Speaker 3: contracts and expands down into the abdomen to expand the

873
00:50:21,360 --> 00:50:24,280
Speaker 3: chest cavity when you breathe in. So when you inhale,

874
00:50:24,880 --> 00:50:27,880
Speaker 3: you are contracting the diaphragm. It goes lower into the

875
00:50:27,880 --> 00:50:30,560
Speaker 3: space of the abdomen. And if you're upside down, the

876
00:50:30,600 --> 00:50:33,720
Speaker 3: diaphragm now has to lift the weight of the guts

877
00:50:33,840 --> 00:50:37,080
Speaker 3: while it is contracting to inhale, so it makes breathing

878
00:50:37,160 --> 00:50:41,759
Speaker 3: in harder. So The question is sloths are already on

879
00:50:41,840 --> 00:50:44,440
Speaker 3: a they're on a metabolic knife edge. You know, they

880
00:50:44,480 --> 00:50:48,440
Speaker 3: are constantly fighting to have enough energy to survive because

881
00:50:48,480 --> 00:50:51,280
Speaker 3: they know they have to live off of these leaves

882
00:50:51,320 --> 00:50:55,280
Speaker 3: which are not super energy dense. So how does sloths

883
00:50:55,360 --> 00:50:59,240
Speaker 3: manage to spend so much time hanging upside down without

884
00:50:59,320 --> 00:51:03,239
Speaker 3: suffering made consequences? And the authors of this paper from

885
00:51:03,280 --> 00:51:07,560
Speaker 3: twenty fourteen found the answer. Quote. Sloths are mammals renowned

886
00:51:07,560 --> 00:51:10,560
Speaker 3: for spending a large proportion of time hanging inverted. In

887
00:51:10,600 --> 00:51:14,280
Speaker 3: this position, the weight of the abdominal contents is expected

888
00:51:14,280 --> 00:51:17,760
Speaker 3: to act on the lungs and increase the energetic costs

889
00:51:17,800 --> 00:51:22,840
Speaker 3: of inspiration, meaning breathing in quote continues. Here we showed

890
00:51:22,880 --> 00:51:29,680
Speaker 3: that three fingered sloths Bradypus vireagatis, possess unique fibrinous adhesions

891
00:51:29,719 --> 00:51:34,120
Speaker 3: that anchor the abdominal organs, particularly the liver and the

892
00:51:34,160 --> 00:51:38,640
Speaker 3: glandular stomach, to the lower ribs. The key locations of

893
00:51:38,719 --> 00:51:42,440
Speaker 3: these adhesions, close to the diaphragm, prevent the weight of

894
00:51:42,600 --> 00:51:46,080
Speaker 3: the abdominal contents from acting on the lungs when the

895
00:51:46,120 --> 00:51:50,200
Speaker 3: sloth is inverted. So this is pretty cool. Inside the

896
00:51:50,280 --> 00:51:53,719
Speaker 3: abdomen of the sloth. There are these special pieces of

897
00:51:53,800 --> 00:51:59,200
Speaker 3: connective tissue that, in rough terms, essentially duct taped the

898
00:51:59,400 --> 00:52:02,719
Speaker 3: organ's life, the glandular, stomach, and the liver to the

899
00:52:02,840 --> 00:52:05,960
Speaker 3: rib bones, so that when the sloth hangs upside down,

900
00:52:06,560 --> 00:52:09,640
Speaker 3: the jar of spaghetti cannot just fully fall down to

901
00:52:09,719 --> 00:52:13,320
Speaker 3: the lid. The digestive organs don't sit on the diaphragm

902
00:52:13,400 --> 00:52:16,080
Speaker 3: and make it harder to breathe. Instead, they hang from

903
00:52:16,200 --> 00:52:18,880
Speaker 3: the inside of the ribs, sort of like the sloth

904
00:52:18,920 --> 00:52:23,080
Speaker 3: itself hangs from the tree branch. The authors also found

905
00:52:23,120 --> 00:52:26,400
Speaker 3: that the kidneys were lashed to the pelvic girdle in

906
00:52:26,480 --> 00:52:29,000
Speaker 3: a similar fashion. They don't really move at all when

907
00:52:29,000 --> 00:52:34,840
Speaker 3: the sloth goes upside down. So yeah, so the liver, glandular, stomach, kidneys,

908
00:52:34,840 --> 00:52:37,520
Speaker 3: all this heavy stuff in the abdomen has its own

909
00:52:37,600 --> 00:52:40,920
Speaker 3: suspension so that it doesn't squash the lungs when the

910
00:52:40,960 --> 00:52:45,279
Speaker 3: sloth goes head down to get these leaves, and by

911
00:52:45,440 --> 00:52:48,160
Speaker 3: keeping the weight of the organs off the lungs, the

912
00:52:48,200 --> 00:52:52,720
Speaker 3: authors estimate that these adhesions could reduce the metabolic energy

913
00:52:52,760 --> 00:52:56,800
Speaker 3: expenditure of a sloth by between seven and thirteen percent

914
00:52:57,280 --> 00:53:01,120
Speaker 3: when it is hanging upside down, because again it takes

915
00:53:01,200 --> 00:53:03,960
Speaker 3: more energy to expand the lungs and breathe when something

916
00:53:04,000 --> 00:53:07,600
Speaker 3: is pressing down, and they say that the energy difference

917
00:53:07,600 --> 00:53:10,560
Speaker 3: here is quite meaningful to an animal like a sloth,

918
00:53:10,880 --> 00:53:13,800
Speaker 3: which again does not usually have a lot of extra

919
00:53:13,960 --> 00:53:18,279
Speaker 3: energy to burn. Sloths are typically able to eat just

920
00:53:18,400 --> 00:53:21,520
Speaker 3: about enough to survive and do not have much more

921
00:53:21,560 --> 00:53:25,880
Speaker 3: in terms of energy reserves. Another thing that the authors

922
00:53:25,920 --> 00:53:28,560
Speaker 3: point out they were talking about this in that blog post,

923
00:53:29,040 --> 00:53:31,799
Speaker 3: is that they sloths can store up to about a

924
00:53:31,840 --> 00:53:35,359
Speaker 3: third of their body weight in gut contents before they

925
00:53:35,400 --> 00:53:37,719
Speaker 3: have to go urinate and defecate, because remember, it might

926
00:53:37,760 --> 00:53:42,560
Speaker 3: be a week in between bathroom breaks. So that Sloth

927
00:53:42,640 --> 00:53:46,200
Speaker 3: Conservation Foundation post points out that this means the waste

928
00:53:46,239 --> 00:53:50,000
Speaker 3: products and the partially digested food in the gut make

929
00:53:50,120 --> 00:53:54,880
Speaker 3: up a surprisingly huge percentage of the sloth's total body mass.

930
00:53:55,320 --> 00:53:59,480
Speaker 3: Quote with their limited energy supply, it would be energetically

931
00:53:59,640 --> 00:54:03,360
Speaker 3: very expensive, if not completely impossible, for a sloth to

932
00:54:03,480 --> 00:54:06,440
Speaker 3: lift this extra weight with each breath were it not

933
00:54:06,640 --> 00:54:09,920
Speaker 3: for the adhesions. Oh wow, So yeah, think about all that,

934
00:54:10,239 --> 00:54:13,040
Speaker 3: You know, all the partially digestive leaves and the poop

935
00:54:13,080 --> 00:54:15,279
Speaker 3: and the pea all just weighing on you, maybe a

936
00:54:15,280 --> 00:54:18,040
Speaker 3: third of your body mass pressing down on the lungs.

937
00:54:18,080 --> 00:54:21,560
Speaker 3: But no, the sloth has adaptations to survive this. To

938
00:54:21,560 --> 00:54:24,600
Speaker 3: get around it, they're taped up to the ribs. And

939
00:54:24,840 --> 00:54:27,600
Speaker 3: this is also, they point out, not the only adaptation

940
00:54:27,800 --> 00:54:31,680
Speaker 3: that helps sloths in hanging upside down. They also make

941
00:54:31,760 --> 00:54:34,799
Speaker 3: general reference to the fact that both two and three

942
00:54:34,840 --> 00:54:39,759
Speaker 3: fingered sloths they're able to hang upside down for up

943
00:54:39,840 --> 00:54:42,560
Speaker 3: to ninety percent of the day if necessary, and to

944
00:54:42,600 --> 00:54:47,279
Speaker 3: facilitate this, they have special circulatory adaptations that probably keep

945
00:54:47,320 --> 00:54:50,000
Speaker 3: blood pressure in the head under control, and they have

946
00:54:50,080 --> 00:54:53,280
Speaker 3: a specialized esophagus that helps them swallow in this position,

947
00:54:53,440 --> 00:54:54,480
Speaker 3: and things like that.

948
00:54:54,920 --> 00:54:59,959
Speaker 2: Oh wow, that's fascinating, The upside Down Lives of sloths total.

949
00:55:00,280 --> 00:55:02,120
Speaker 3: But oh, I know, you had a little bit more

950
00:55:02,120 --> 00:55:04,520
Speaker 3: about bats, didn't you, in the In the upside down

951
00:55:04,520 --> 00:55:07,239
Speaker 3: this becoming ranging into the uncanny.

952
00:55:07,719 --> 00:55:11,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, So basically I was I was looking at

953
00:55:11,719 --> 00:55:13,640
Speaker 2: a few different texts, and one of the books I

954
00:55:13,680 --> 00:55:15,719
Speaker 2: was looking at is The Secret Lives of Bats by

955
00:55:16,000 --> 00:55:20,799
Speaker 2: Merlin Tuttle, who's a great bat expert. Ali Ward had

956
00:55:20,800 --> 00:55:23,600
Speaker 2: a great interview with him on ologies at some point

957
00:55:24,200 --> 00:55:28,080
Speaker 2: in the past that I recently listened to with with

958
00:55:28,080 --> 00:55:31,120
Speaker 2: with my kiddo and one of their friends. But in

959
00:55:31,320 --> 00:55:35,520
Speaker 2: the Secret Lives of Bats, Tuttle refers he cites the

960
00:55:35,560 --> 00:55:39,360
Speaker 2: author Bill Shutt, author of Dark Banquet and also former

961
00:55:39,400 --> 00:55:43,600
Speaker 2: guest on Stuff to Blow your Mind and Merlin. Tuttle

962
00:55:43,640 --> 00:55:46,880
Speaker 2: says the following quote, Bill Shutt found that bird feeding

963
00:55:47,120 --> 00:55:52,120
Speaker 2: vampire bats stalk perched prey, taking one slow, upside down

964
00:55:52,239 --> 00:55:55,120
Speaker 2: step at a time along the underside of the branch

965
00:55:55,440 --> 00:55:59,200
Speaker 2: where a bird is sleeping. And so I just found

966
00:55:59,200 --> 00:56:01,799
Speaker 2: that wonderfully creepy, because you know, it doesn't take much

967
00:56:01,800 --> 00:56:03,760
Speaker 2: for a vampire bat to be a little creepy and cool.

968
00:56:04,160 --> 00:56:07,160
Speaker 2: It's kind of what they do. But this just sounds

969
00:56:07,160 --> 00:56:09,240
Speaker 2: like straight up Dracula behavior, right.

970
00:56:09,160 --> 00:56:13,280
Speaker 3: Yea upside down sneaking, Yeah.

971
00:56:12,719 --> 00:56:17,320
Speaker 2: And reminiscent of certain vampire films and just other uncanny

972
00:56:17,320 --> 00:56:20,480
Speaker 2: films where you have some sort of be it a

973
00:56:20,560 --> 00:56:24,120
Speaker 2: vampire or say, you know, a dark wizard crawling on

974
00:56:24,160 --> 00:56:28,560
Speaker 2: the ceiling and then perhaps dropping down or reaching down

975
00:56:28,600 --> 00:56:29,759
Speaker 2: to do something nefarious.

976
00:56:30,400 --> 00:56:31,000
Speaker 4: Right yeah.

977
00:56:31,080 --> 00:56:31,719
Speaker 3: Yeah.

978
00:56:31,800 --> 00:56:33,920
Speaker 2: So in my notes here at this point, I have

979
00:56:34,600 --> 00:56:37,359
Speaker 2: some stuff on Dracula, and then I have some other

980
00:56:37,480 --> 00:56:42,800
Speaker 2: folkloric entities, things that in various traditions that live upside

981
00:56:42,840 --> 00:56:46,799
Speaker 2: down or in some way inverted, or are creatures of

982
00:56:46,840 --> 00:56:49,719
Speaker 2: the ceiling. But I'm looking at the clock now and

983
00:56:49,800 --> 00:56:52,759
Speaker 2: realizing that we're pretty much out of time for this episode,

984
00:56:53,280 --> 00:56:56,320
Speaker 2: so I would say join us next time, where we'll

985
00:56:56,560 --> 00:56:59,800
Speaker 2: continue to explore the upside down in the topsy turvy,

986
00:57:00,560 --> 00:57:04,360
Speaker 2: and we'll definitely look at some monsters and some spirits

987
00:57:04,400 --> 00:57:07,160
Speaker 2: for sure, and who knows what other areas we'll get

988
00:57:07,200 --> 00:57:10,239
Speaker 2: into considering the upside down, because there are just so

989
00:57:10,280 --> 00:57:11,840
Speaker 2: many different ways to take it.

990
00:57:11,880 --> 00:57:14,040
Speaker 3: Totally, yes, all right.

991
00:57:14,280 --> 00:57:16,520
Speaker 2: In the meantime, certainly, we'd love to hear from anyone

992
00:57:16,520 --> 00:57:19,280
Speaker 2: out there if you have any thoughts on anything we

993
00:57:19,360 --> 00:57:22,600
Speaker 2: discussed here, or if you have recommendations for topics you'd

994
00:57:22,640 --> 00:57:25,520
Speaker 2: like to hear us tackle in the future. We'll remind

995
00:57:25,560 --> 00:57:27,760
Speaker 2: everyone that Stuff to Blow Your Mind is primarily a

996
00:57:27,800 --> 00:57:30,600
Speaker 2: science and culture podcast, with core episodes on Tuesdays and

997
00:57:30,640 --> 00:57:34,040
Speaker 2: Thursdays in the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast feed

998
00:57:34,080 --> 00:57:36,439
Speaker 2: wherever you get your audio podcasts, and you can also

999
00:57:36,440 --> 00:57:39,000
Speaker 2: find us on Netflix of course, if you would like

1000
00:57:39,080 --> 00:57:42,680
Speaker 2: the audio video experience of the thing. Let's see. On

1001
00:57:42,720 --> 00:57:45,120
Speaker 2: Wednesdays we do a short form episode and on Fridays

1002
00:57:45,120 --> 00:57:47,240
Speaker 2: we set aside most serious concerns, so just talk about

1003
00:57:47,280 --> 00:57:49,320
Speaker 2: a weird film on Weird House Cinema.

1004
00:57:49,360 --> 00:57:52,960
Speaker 3: Huge thanks to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway. If

1005
00:57:53,000 --> 00:57:54,400
Speaker 3: you would like to get in touch with us with

1006
00:57:54,480 --> 00:57:56,800
Speaker 3: feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a

1007
00:57:56,840 --> 00:57:59,240
Speaker 3: topic for the future, or just to say hello, you

1008
00:57:59,280 --> 00:58:01,920
Speaker 3: can email us at contact app Stuff to Blow your

1009
00:58:01,920 --> 00:58:09,840
Speaker 3: Mind dot com.

1010
00:58:09,920 --> 00:58:12,880
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

1011
00:58:12,960 --> 00:58:15,720
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1012
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