Speaker 1: Guess what Mango's Well. All right, So we're in New
Speaker 1: York City this week, and one of the things I
Speaker 1: love seeing here is how many people read on the subway.
Speaker 1: I mean, you look around and it feels like every
Speaker 1: New Yorker feels like it's the perfect time to get
Speaker 1: their reading in. And actually sometimes I'm kind of jealous
Speaker 1: about this because they have this automatic reading time each day.
Speaker 1: But you look around the world and there are other
Speaker 1: places that do this too, And Brazil is actually a
Speaker 1: big supporter of this. In fact, the country has started
Speaker 1: something called ticket books to promote literacy. Have you heard
Speaker 1: about this? You know what's a ticket book? So it's
Speaker 1: a free book that you can pick up just at
Speaker 1: a subway station. And apparently there's this Brazilian publisher that
Speaker 1: gave out ten thousand books. But the cool part is
Speaker 1: that the books actually double as subway tickets, so each
Speaker 1: book has ten rides and then a reader can either
Speaker 1: refill the book for free or pass it along to
Speaker 1: somebody else. Oh that's pretty cool and and did it
Speaker 1: get people reading? Yeah? I think some. In fact, this
Speaker 1: was in an intentional effort on the part there, because
Speaker 1: I believe Brazilians were only reading maybe like two books
Speaker 1: a year on average at the time, but the books
Speaker 1: handed out included everything from The Great Gatsby to Hamlet,
Speaker 1: to Naruta love Sonnets to of course Garfield. Garfield was
Speaker 1: a ticket. Fuck. Yeah, it's like a gateway drug to
Speaker 1: like reading. Absolutely wow. This is just the first of
Speaker 1: a ton of stories that we have today about Brazil,
Speaker 1: from you know, how a soap opera convinced the country
Speaker 1: to have less kids, to how a bunch of termites
Speaker 1: can help you make a better pizza. So let's dig in,
Speaker 1: y Hey their podcast listeners, Welcome to Parts on Genius.
Speaker 1: I'm Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my
Speaker 1: good friend Maues Ticketer and on the other side of
Speaker 1: the soundproof glass helping himself to what he claims is
Speaker 1: a Brazilian delicacy. That's our friend and producer Tristan McNeil. Now,
Speaker 1: if I sounded a little bit skeptical, it's because I'm
Speaker 1: basically watching a grown man drink liquid butter from a bottle,
Speaker 1: and actually he's only trying to frame it as some
Speaker 1: kind of cultural experience he's taking part in. And I
Speaker 1: gotta be honest, personally, I'm not really buying it. What's
Speaker 1: your take on this, mega, Well, I think it's definitely
Speaker 1: gross that that part of the take is true, But
Speaker 1: you know, as weird as it sounds, I I think
Speaker 1: we should actually give him like some partial credit on
Speaker 1: this one, because this is actually a thing in Brazil.
Speaker 1: Apparently in the northeast part of the country, bottled butter
Speaker 1: is popular and it's even a common souvenir for people
Speaker 1: who go there on vacation. So the key to remember
Speaker 1: is that residents actually use this butter as a condiment,
Speaker 1: not as a beverage. So if you dine in the region,
Speaker 1: you'd probably find like a bottle of liquid butter on
Speaker 1: the table next to the salt and pepper, and you
Speaker 1: can just splash a little on your meat or rice
Speaker 1: or whatever, just for an extra kick of flavor. I
Speaker 1: feel like that makes more sense than whatever Tristan is
Speaker 1: doing right now. But so, so, what's so special about
Speaker 1: this butter anyway? And maybe more importantly, why do they
Speaker 1: sell this in bottles? So it's actually pretty funny. When
Speaker 1: I first heard about this, the first thing I thought
Speaker 1: about was ge which is this clarified liquid butter that
Speaker 1: you have in India? People started making gee because it
Speaker 1: was sort of this easy way to preserve butter in
Speaker 1: the days before refrigeration and in areas that are hot
Speaker 1: or unforgiving. If you clarify the butter and you remove
Speaker 1: that milky solid that's in there, and and you just
Speaker 1: keep the liquid dairy fat that's left behind, it doesn't spoil.
Speaker 1: And it turns out it's actually the same story here.
Speaker 1: Northeast Brazil is dry, it's arid, so the cattle ranchers
Speaker 1: in the region stumbled into this same technique. It's uh,
Speaker 1: it actually ends up being super regional. You can't find
Speaker 1: in other parts of Brazil, only in the northeast. And
Speaker 1: and it's also an acquired taste. Unlike it actually has
Speaker 1: a few more notes to it. It's a little more cheesy.
Speaker 1: It supposedly has a strong barnyard of roma as well,
Speaker 1: which I guess is very acquired barnyard or yeah, I
Speaker 1: would say that that's true. How you'd ever acquire that taste?
Speaker 1: But interesting, But it doesn't seem to bother Tristan over
Speaker 1: there though. And I'm grateful that he brought this stuff
Speaker 1: to our attention because it is pretty interesting, and because
Speaker 1: you know, I love her bottle butter is definitely an
Speaker 1: unusual part of Brazilian culture that I had actually never
Speaker 1: heard about before, And that's exactly the kind of thing
Speaker 1: that today's episode is all about. You know, it feels
Speaker 1: far too often that when it comes to Brazil, we
Speaker 1: either hear only the good or the bad. You know,
Speaker 1: like we read about all the tourist friendly things in
Speaker 1: the country, like the delicious food, beautiful beaches, Samba's soccer carnival,
Speaker 1: but you know, it also feels like we read about
Speaker 1: the depressing bits like poverty and government corrupt shian rampant crime.
Speaker 1: So today's focus, like we really thought we'd moved past
Speaker 1: those familiar talking points and think about the stranger side
Speaker 1: of Brazil, like all the unusual things about the country
Speaker 1: that you probably never knew about. So let's get into this, Like,
Speaker 1: what what's something you were surprised to learn this week, Mango. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, there are a ton of things, but one
Speaker 1: thing that really stuck out to me is the fact
Speaker 1: that nearly two million Brazilian citizens are of Japanese descent.
Speaker 1: There and while that's still only a fraction of Brazil's population,
Speaker 1: which is roughly about like two million people, it's actually
Speaker 1: the largest group of people with Japanese ancestry outside of
Speaker 1: Japan itself. I actually hadn't heard that before. So why
Speaker 1: is that exactly? Well, I guess Brazil has always been
Speaker 1: this melting pot of cultures from all over Europe and Africa,
Speaker 1: and and this goes back hundreds of years. And of
Speaker 1: course there's also the native population that that's there and
Speaker 1: the various Amazonian tribes. The country really is home to
Speaker 1: a little bit of everyone. But Asia's country. Aribution didn't
Speaker 1: come until about the early twentieth century, and that's when
Speaker 1: tens of thousands of Japanese people began to look for
Speaker 1: opportunities abroad. Um the first batch came over in nine eight,
Speaker 1: and then they settled in the south and the southeast
Speaker 1: parts of the country, where they started working on the
Speaker 1: coffee plantations. And then the nineteen thirties, the local state
Speaker 1: government in Brazil's north began offering freeland to anyone who
Speaker 1: was willing to farm it, and obviously that's an attractive
Speaker 1: deal to an outsider. So a second wave of Japanese
Speaker 1: immigrants laid roots in that part of the country, and
Speaker 1: now over a century later, the country has the world's
Speaker 1: second largest population of people of Japanese ancestry, or nick
Speaker 1: as they're called. You know, it's cool because one of
Speaker 1: the reasons we wanted to do this Brazil episode is because,
Speaker 1: you know, we both learned so many fascinating things from
Speaker 1: the show we did on Japan a while back. So
Speaker 1: it's you know, it's neat that you found this kind
Speaker 1: of unexpected connection between the two countries. It's funny, you
Speaker 1: know what. We actually had this host in the office,
Speaker 1: very trendy Thurston and we were talking about aging relations
Speaker 1: and I told them how Japan was adding all that
Speaker 1: process to food for the elderly so that they could
Speaker 1: chew and swallow food easier. I feel like there's so
Speaker 1: many facts in that that we're really interesting. But what
Speaker 1: sort of funny to me is that Japan and Brazil
Speaker 1: feel pretty far apart, not only in terms of like culture,
Speaker 1: but stuff like climate. Like Japanese immigrants, you know, they
Speaker 1: wouldn't have been used to those like ninety five degree
Speaker 1: days and the average high in Tokyo, like it's only
Speaker 1: like seventy nine degrees. It's quite a difference between the climates. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's a serious adjustment. I do get a sense
Speaker 1: for how Japanese transplants, you know, deal with this kind
Speaker 1: of newness. I guess there is a coping mechanism for
Speaker 1: all of us, but it's comfort food. So Japan of
Speaker 1: course has a pretty famous culinary tradition, you know, from
Speaker 1: their dining habits to meal time rituals, and so these
Speaker 1: early in Nicicay communities in Brazil would actually hang onto
Speaker 1: those traditions is a way to feel connected to their heritage.
Speaker 1: But they didn't live or or cooking isolation either. Like
Speaker 1: over time, Brazilian fivers began to seep into these traditional
Speaker 1: Japanese recipes and ingredients from the homeland that couldn't be
Speaker 1: found where offense ups too, with things like cassava or
Speaker 1: fish from nearby rivers. But what's interesting is that like
Speaker 1: a few generations later, a whole bunch of Japanese Brazilians
Speaker 1: wind up reverse migrating back to Japan. And since they've
Speaker 1: lived their entire lives in Brazil, they naturally brought a
Speaker 1: taste for all of these Brazilian flavors and culture back
Speaker 1: with them. So in fact, there's this like thriving Brazilian
Speaker 1: restaurant scene in Japan now because so many people had
Speaker 1: migrated back there and they were nostalgic for the Brazilian
Speaker 1: food they've grown up with. And I just kind of
Speaker 1: love that there's this like unofficial cultural exchange program between
Speaker 1: the two countries. Yeah, that's really cool. You know. Actually
Speaker 1: have a different food collaboration that I want to talk
Speaker 1: about for just a minute. This is the one between
Speaker 1: the fishermen of Lagoon and Brazil and the wild dolphins
Speaker 1: who live off the coast there. So for the past
Speaker 1: a hundred and twenty years, their friendly Laguna dolphins have
Speaker 1: actually been lending their fishing talents to the coastal community there.
Speaker 1: I know that may sound a little bit weird. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so how does this work exactly? It's pretty amazing actually.
Speaker 1: So around two hundred fishermen take their nets and and
Speaker 1: they wade out into the water and you know, they're
Speaker 1: kind of waist deep at this point, and they form
Speaker 1: a line. But because the water in the area is
Speaker 1: so murky, they actually can't see where the fish are.
Speaker 1: So instead the fishermen wait for a friendly dolphin to
Speaker 1: give them somewhat of a signal, and so once they
Speaker 1: see one, make a sudden dive or slap its tail
Speaker 1: against the water. The humans actually cast their nets and
Speaker 1: reap the rewards from there, and there's a ton to
Speaker 1: reap too. I actually research shows that they can catch
Speaker 1: more fish and larger fish when they do, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of cooperate with the dolphins compared to when they
Speaker 1: work solo. In fact, some of the fishermen say that
Speaker 1: on days when dolphins aren't around, it's not even worth
Speaker 1: fishing at all. So this sounds like a pretty sweet
Speaker 1: deal for the fisherman, But what is in it for
Speaker 1: the dolphins. You know, It's funny because then the articles,
Speaker 1: the dolphins are almost always talked about like these eat
Speaker 1: dogs of the sea, like they corral the fish for
Speaker 1: the fisherman, But it's clearly benefiting them too. And I
Speaker 1: guess the theory is that panicked fish become really disoriented
Speaker 1: when the fisherman cast their nets, and that chaos makes
Speaker 1: it easier for the dolphins to gobble up the fish
Speaker 1: as well. And it isn't like every dolphin participates in
Speaker 1: this activity, like the helpful ones you know, kind of
Speaker 1: work alone or in smaller groups with the humans, But
Speaker 1: the rest of the dolphins steer clear all together. And
Speaker 1: as you know, as far as we know, nobody ever
Speaker 1: taught the dolphins to do this, So how exactly this
Speaker 1: practice got started, it's still somewhat of the mystery. I
Speaker 1: like that you're aware that some of the dolphins opt
Speaker 1: out of this experience. I don't want any part of it,
Speaker 1: which is pretty amazing. But you know, while we're on
Speaker 1: the subject of bizarrely helpful animals, did you know that
Speaker 1: Brazilian termites are actually great at making pizza ovens? That
Speaker 1: is not something I do, but but I definitely need
Speaker 1: to know more now. So I I don't know how
Speaker 1: much you know about termites, but they really are these
Speaker 1: incredible engineers and construction workers. They carve out these super long,
Speaker 1: intricate tunnel systems for their colonies to nest in. But
Speaker 1: you've probably also seen those giant termite mounds is that
Speaker 1: they make? And uh, I don't know, have you actually
Speaker 1: seen those? Oh? Yeah, no, it's pretty amazing to see
Speaker 1: the pictures of these. Yeah, And and they look like
Speaker 1: I guess like giant dirt cones, are almost like big
Speaker 1: rocks smoke stacks. But the interesting thing is that, like,
Speaker 1: because most of the termite tunnels are underground. If you
Speaker 1: cut into the side of one of these mounds, you
Speaker 1: probably won't find many termites in it at all. I mean, so,
Speaker 1: so what's with the giant cones, Like it seems like
Speaker 1: a huge amount of work for for not a lot. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, it depends on which termite mounds we're talking about.
Speaker 1: Like in the northeast Brazil, where it's extremely dry and arid,
Speaker 1: the termite mounds really don't serve a purpose. They're they're
Speaker 1: basically just like enormous junk piles, and it's essentially all
Speaker 1: the excess bits of soil that the termites produced while
Speaker 1: tunneling on the ground, and all of that just eventually
Speaker 1: gets like collected into a mount. You know. While a
Speaker 1: termite worker is hardly half an inch long, like like,
Speaker 1: some of the mounds they build are actually like thirty
Speaker 1: feet wide at the base and they could be as
Speaker 1: tall as thirteen feet high. So not only are they big,
Speaker 1: but there are tons of them. Actually this is a
Speaker 1: little off topic, but based on satellite images in the region,
Speaker 1: researchers actually estimate their roughly two hundred million termite mounts,
Speaker 1: and they're spread across an area as large as four
Speaker 1: thousand great Pyramids of Giza, which is kind of a
Speaker 1: weird way to measure things. I don't know why. The
Speaker 1: fact I read said like, I don't normally measure things
Speaker 1: in Pyramids of Giza, but it's, uh, it's pretty fascinating.
Speaker 1: I thought that was pretty standard now, But I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm guessing if it's that many and you can see
Speaker 1: the mounds from space, that the bugs have been doing
Speaker 1: this for a little while. Yeah, there was actually this
Speaker 1: really neat study where researchers took soil samples from eleven
Speaker 1: different mounds and then they analyze the sand grains from
Speaker 1: the centers to see I guess when these mounds had
Speaker 1: last been exposed to sunlight or at least the dirt inside.
Speaker 1: And the youngest mound they found was I guess it
Speaker 1: was started seven years ago, and the oldest was almost
Speaker 1: four thousand years old. That is incredible. But actually, I
Speaker 1: think the question we all want to know now is
Speaker 1: what does any of this have to do with pizza?
Speaker 1: So this is a real thing, I promise, and it's
Speaker 1: not just the shaggy dog story. If you head to
Speaker 1: southern and central Brazil where it's wet and grassy, you
Speaker 1: actually find a different kind of termite mound there, and
Speaker 1: these ones do serve a purpose both for the termites
Speaker 1: and and for pizza loving humans. So on the termite
Speaker 1: side of things, that the hall amounts function as lungs
Speaker 1: for the colonies that that live in the tunnels below them,
Speaker 1: and it's all this like porous soiled, and it helps them,
Speaker 1: I guess, keep their chambers ventilated, like the carbon dioxide
Speaker 1: is sent out and fresh oxygen comes in. But for
Speaker 1: humans that the good news is that once the colony
Speaker 1: dies out or follows the trail of food to a
Speaker 1: different location, all these deserted mounds make perfect outdoor ovens.
Speaker 1: So in the past people used to cook all kinds
Speaker 1: of meat in these makeshift ovens, but today they're actually
Speaker 1: a really popular way to cook bread and pizza, especially
Speaker 1: when you're on camping trips or some other outing. And
Speaker 1: and all you have to do is like cut a
Speaker 1: hole at the base of the mound, confirm it's empty,
Speaker 1: which is a pretty important part, and and then light
Speaker 1: it up and and um, it's ready to to make
Speaker 1: food with. You know. I think I have a hard time, though, ever,
Speaker 1: eating something that was baked in a termite oven to
Speaker 1: be honest with you, and I mean, I know you
Speaker 1: said the mounds are a bandon and everything, but I
Speaker 1: might still struggle with that. But thankfully that I know,
Speaker 1: Brazil has me covered because the country has actually been
Speaker 1: obsessed with pizza ever since Italian immigrants brought it over
Speaker 1: at the end of the nineteenth century. In fact, in
Speaker 1: Brazil's largest city, sal Paalo, you know, they're so into
Speaker 1: pizza there that's said to be home to eight thousand
Speaker 1: pizza parlors, eight thousand, which is collectively that's enough to
Speaker 1: produce a new a million pizzas each and every day.
Speaker 1: And if some foodies claimed Brazil makes the best pizza
Speaker 1: in the world, which is hard for someone like me
Speaker 1: to believe. Yeah, well, I mean there is a downside
Speaker 1: to all that superior pizza because, according to a two
Speaker 1: thousand sixteen paper and Atmospheric Environment, the restaurants used an
Speaker 1: estimated three hundred thousand tons of wood each year to
Speaker 1: keep their old school ovens nice and hot, and unfortunately,
Speaker 1: all that smoke results in some pretty major air pollution,
Speaker 1: and so the researchers say that even though most residents
Speaker 1: have switched over to biofuel for their vehicles. You know,
Speaker 1: the emissions from all those wood burning ovens might undo
Speaker 1: all those positive effects. I do find it problematic, right,
Speaker 1: like choosing between clean air or the world's most delicious pizza.
Speaker 1: It feels like such a Sophie's choice. But you know,
Speaker 1: now that we've talked a little bit about Brazilian cuisine
Speaker 1: and some animals that help put food on the table,
Speaker 1: why don't we switch gears and talk about the opposite
Speaker 1: kind of wildlife, the Brazilian animals that are more life
Speaker 1: threatening than life affirming. Yeah, let's definitely do that. Before
Speaker 1: we get to that, let's take a quick break. You're
Speaker 1: listening to Part Time Genius and we're talking about the
Speaker 1: strangest things you never knew about Brazilian wildlife. Now you
Speaker 1: may have heard this before, but Brazil is believed to
Speaker 1: have the greatest biodiversity of any country in the world,
Speaker 1: and it's largely thanks to it's also having the largest
Speaker 1: tract of untouched rainforest on the planet. And while some
Speaker 1: of the animals there are dangerous, and you know, some
Speaker 1: are even deadly, there's one famous jungle resident that is
Speaker 1: far less dangerous than we like to pretend, and that's
Speaker 1: the poor misunderstood piranha. I love it, the humble man
Speaker 1: eating paranta, but have you ever seen those teeth? I
Speaker 1: I feel like those are some vicious fishes, you know.
Speaker 1: I feel like you just wanted to say vicious fishes,
Speaker 1: but I did. I mean the ferastia. Pranhas has been
Speaker 1: greatly exaggerated for a long time now, like we think
Speaker 1: of them as these rapid flesh eating monsters. I'll just
Speaker 1: kind of tear you apart the second to hit the water.
Speaker 1: But the truth is that most piranhas would never try
Speaker 1: to eat a human or any other mammal unless it
Speaker 1: was dead or or even dying. And for the most
Speaker 1: part they eat insects or other fish, and some species
Speaker 1: of piranha or even vegetarians actually, so I don't feel
Speaker 1: like I've heard that they're vegetarian piranta out there, and
Speaker 1: I feel like knowing that maybe like Anis or some
Speaker 1: healthy brand should use them as their mascot. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's it's pretty weird, but there is a species in Para,
Speaker 1: Brazil that only eats river weeds. Don't get me wrong,
Speaker 1: but pranhas can still pose a threat to humans and
Speaker 1: some swimmers in South America. Have lost fingers and toes
Speaker 1: in recent years, but I couldn't find any record of
Speaker 1: anyone ever being killed by piranhas. And it's really not
Speaker 1: that surprising when you consider that piranhas usually travel in
Speaker 1: schools of about twenty fish, which is way fewer than
Speaker 1: the numbers they, you know, need to take down a human.
Speaker 1: So as morbid as it is, I am curious, like
Speaker 1: how many fish it does take to take down a human,
Speaker 1: like like Gave once told me that, I think it's
Speaker 1: like a gallon and a half of water. It could
Speaker 1: kill me. So that's like a number I have in
Speaker 1: my head. And and I kind of want to know
Speaker 1: how many piranha I need to avoid. Well, fear not,
Speaker 1: because I did indeed hold the numbers. And according to curator, yeah,
Speaker 1: I I didn't do this just myself, but there was
Speaker 1: a curator at the National Aquarium in Baltimore, and so
Speaker 1: the the estimate that they came up is that to
Speaker 1: strip the flesh from a one d and eighty pound
Speaker 1: person in five minutes would require somewhere between three hundred
Speaker 1: and five hundred hungry piranhas, which is way more than
Speaker 1: you would ever come across, even in highly concentrated regions,
Speaker 1: like you think the Amazon River as an example. So
Speaker 1: it sounds like it's highly unlikely, but I guess still
Speaker 1: technically possible, Like like if you were like a Bond villain,
Speaker 1: you could head to Brazil, scoop up a few hundred pranhacts,
Speaker 1: stick him in your pooling, and then you've got this
Speaker 1: instant death trap. I don't really think we should be
Speaker 1: giving anybody ideas, but but that in theory, I suppose
Speaker 1: would work. And in fact, it was a similar kind
Speaker 1: of stunt that gave the fish such a bad name
Speaker 1: and the first place, and all because you know, a
Speaker 1: few Brazilians wanted to show off for Teddy Roosevelt himself.
Speaker 1: And this happened back in nineteen thirteen. It was a
Speaker 1: few years after he had left office. So the Forward
Speaker 1: President decided to go on this expedition. He wanted to
Speaker 1: go into the heart of the Brazilian rainforest. Of course,
Speaker 1: the locals knew that he was coming, and they also
Speaker 1: knew his reputation as this thrill seeker, and so to
Speaker 1: make sure he had an experience that he would never forget,
Speaker 1: the Brazilians arranged a demonstration for him. And this was
Speaker 1: on the banks of the Amazon River, and the guys
Speaker 1: warned Roosevelt, you know, and his roof really about the
Speaker 1: fact that they shouldn't wade into the water there, or
Speaker 1: else they'd be immediately eaten by this small, ravenous fish.
Speaker 1: And of course, as the Brazilians expected, Roosevelt scoffed at
Speaker 1: the idea that any fish could be, you know, that dangerous,
Speaker 1: especially if they're that tiny. So the guides gave him proof.
Speaker 1: They brought an old, sick cow and drove it into
Speaker 1: the water. Then, to the horror of everyone watching, the
Speaker 1: piranhas attacked the cow and stripped it to the bone
Speaker 1: within just a few minutes. I feel like as a Hindu,
Speaker 1: that's particularly disturbing, But it's it's obviously the stunt. Why
Speaker 1: were there so many of them just waiting around in
Speaker 1: one place, Well, because it was a total setup. Like
Speaker 1: weeks before Roosevelt arrived, local fishermen had caught hundreds of
Speaker 1: piranha and then they tossed them into this area of
Speaker 1: the river that they had isolated with giant nuts. So
Speaker 1: weeks go by, and then the guides that you know,
Speaker 1: gave their warning at that part of the river and
Speaker 1: they knew that there were hundreds of traps, starving fish,
Speaker 1: just waiting to put on a show. But of course Roosevelt,
Speaker 1: you know, and all these reporters they were with them,
Speaker 1: they didn't know any of this, and they thought they
Speaker 1: had witnessed the most shocking natural display of aggression in
Speaker 1: the animal kingdom. And you can bet they wanted to
Speaker 1: tell the same story when they returned to the US.
Speaker 1: In fact, Roosevelt released the book the next year called
Speaker 1: Through the Brazilian Wilderness. And in this book he describes
Speaker 1: Piranhas as quote, the most ferocious fish in the world.
Speaker 1: You know, in Hollywood actually kind of took it from there.
Speaker 1: And and for the last century, the Piranhas status, says,
Speaker 1: this freshwater killer has gone mostly undisputed until now. I guess, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: and I'm trying to do my part contributing. Well, here's
Speaker 1: something that sounds like it should be a myth, but
Speaker 1: and I even kind of like hope it's a myth,
Speaker 1: but it's actually true. Sometimes it rains spiders in Brazil,
Speaker 1: and so on a case in certain parts of Brazil,
Speaker 1: de sky will actually open up and hundreds or even
Speaker 1: thousands of spiders will rain down on the residents below.
Speaker 1: And before you tell me I'm making this up, you
Speaker 1: should actually look it up online because there are a
Speaker 1: bunch of different videos. For full disclosure, it's not like
Speaker 1: the spiders are tumbling out of the rain clouds. It's
Speaker 1: more that the wind is carrying them on their webs.
Speaker 1: But for onlookers, the effect is is sort of like
Speaker 1: a storm of spiders. So how does this work that
Speaker 1: there could be thousands of spiders in one of these showers?
Speaker 1: I mean not not only does that sound like obviously
Speaker 1: a ton of spiders, but how does that work? Because
Speaker 1: I thought spiders lived on their own, not in these
Speaker 1: giant colonies. You're right, so so most spiders do keep
Speaker 1: to themselves. In fact, out of the forty thousand or
Speaker 1: so known species of spiders out there, only twenty three
Speaker 1: of them are social. And so one of these species
Speaker 1: lives in San Paolo and the surrounding towns, and there's
Speaker 1: pretty common to see spiders just sailing through the sky
Speaker 1: on mass And the problem for humans at least is
Speaker 1: that these colons build these huge sheets of webs in
Speaker 1: these tree tops, right, and in order to trap enough
Speaker 1: insects to keep everyone fed in this social group. They're
Speaker 1: just massive. So the webs can stretch from the ground
Speaker 1: to as high as sixty five ft and they seriously
Speaker 1: contain thousands of spiders, each of which is I guess
Speaker 1: roughly the size of a pencil eraser, so not that big,
Speaker 1: but a lot of them. So when a strong enough
Speaker 1: wind comes along, the webs are knocked loose, and then
Speaker 1: a mob of these deeply confused spiders are just sent
Speaker 1: hurtling through the air, and uh, you know, it's not
Speaker 1: a great day for anyone when it's raining spiders. But
Speaker 1: speaking of not so great days, Brazil has I actually
Speaker 1: had a stretch of those recently in terms of politics
Speaker 1: and cultures. So even though we're trying to keep things
Speaker 1: light today, I do think we should spend just a
Speaker 1: few minutes to kind of spotlight what's been going on there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I feel like we probably should. But before we get
Speaker 1: to that, let's take one more quick break. Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: so if you keep tabs on international news, there's a
Speaker 1: good chance you've heard the recent concerns about Brazil's newly
Speaker 1: elected president Bolsonara. Many of his views tend to be extreme,
Speaker 1: to put it mildly, and and the measures he's enacted
Speaker 1: since taking office don't really bode well for the country's
Speaker 1: cultural institutions. For example, one of his first actions as
Speaker 1: president was to dissolve three of Brazil's ministries, the Ministry
Speaker 1: of Culture, Sports and Social Development and to merge them
Speaker 1: into a single department. And while we don't actually know
Speaker 1: how that will affect government funding for cultural institutions, artistic
Speaker 1: communities in Brazil are are really bracing for the worst. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's you know, it's especially upsetting when you think about
Speaker 1: how much they've already suffered. You know, I'm sure you
Speaker 1: remember this, but it was just last fall. There was
Speaker 1: that fire that destroyed Brazil's National Museum, and this was
Speaker 1: a collection there that contained more than twenty million artifacts.
Speaker 1: You know, they amassed this over the course of the
Speaker 1: institution's two hundred year histories. So it's just devastating and
Speaker 1: and tragically, as much as of the collection is thought
Speaker 1: to have been lost in this fire, it's really awful
Speaker 1: to think about like everything that was lost that night.
Speaker 1: Like I actually remember reading about that museum and and
Speaker 1: how they lost this massive collection of art from different
Speaker 1: indigenous peoples that were spread across Brazil. So it was
Speaker 1: like costumes and personal belongings, but also audio recordings of
Speaker 1: of languages that I believe had died out. So you know,
Speaker 1: it's super tragic and all of that has gone now
Speaker 1: along with many of the other relics of South American culture. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's true, but you're actually looking on the bright side
Speaker 1: of this. I was happy to see that multiple campaigns
Speaker 1: have since launched these efforts to digitally recreate the museum collection.
Speaker 1: And this was using decades of visitor photos. So if
Speaker 1: you've ever made it there on vacation, you can actually
Speaker 1: submit your shots online at the museum's website. And actually
Speaker 1: there's a good chunk of the collection that made it
Speaker 1: through the fire unscathed, and this includes the oldest human
Speaker 1: fossil found in Brazil. Well, that is good news. I'm
Speaker 1: curious that I sort of lost track of that news story.
Speaker 1: Do they ever figure out what started the fire? And
Speaker 1: and please don't say, Billy Joel, you beat me to it. Well,
Speaker 1: investigators never reported an exact cause for the blaze, but
Speaker 1: officials speculate it may have been just like a short
Speaker 1: circuit or something, and apparently that had been known for
Speaker 1: a while, like things like exposed wiring, and that the
Speaker 1: museum didn't have fire doors or a sprinkler system. And
Speaker 1: that might be the saddest part of this, because according
Speaker 1: to Smithsonian, the National Museum's full annual budget it was
Speaker 1: a hundred and twenty eight thousand dollars, but hasn't received
Speaker 1: that amount since two thousand and fourteen. In fact, last
Speaker 1: year the museum received only thirteen thousand dollars, and in
Speaker 1: late two thousand seventeen, the museum's finances were in such
Speaker 1: poor shape the curators turned to crowdfunding, you know, to
Speaker 1: repair an exhibit that had really been infested with termites
Speaker 1: at the time. I mean that that is frustrating and
Speaker 1: and and I just can't believe those numbers, Like like
Speaker 1: the fact that they were only getting what it was,
Speaker 1: that thirteen thousand dollars, and and that it didn't have
Speaker 1: a sprinkler system, like like that feels unimaginable for a
Speaker 1: national museum. Yeah, I mean, the federal government had actually
Speaker 1: been divesting from the museum for years, so this isn't
Speaker 1: a new thing. But I also read an interesting article
Speaker 1: in City Lab that suggested something else. Apparently part of
Speaker 1: the problem is that modern Brazil doesn't feel very rooted
Speaker 1: to its past. So I pulled this quote from the article.
Speaker 1: Here's what it says. We live in a country that
Speaker 1: has a weak connection to its history. In advance of
Speaker 1: the two thousand sixteen Summer Olympics, Rio de Janeiro and
Speaker 1: the Brazilian government has spent billions on these costly development projects,
Speaker 1: opening new landmarks like the Museum of Tomorrow and Aqua Rio,
Speaker 1: which is the largest aquarium in South America. Meanwhile, the
Speaker 1: city has allowed several other museums and historic structures to
Speaker 1: just decay. In particular, we have little concern for educational
Speaker 1: and cultural resources provided for those living in poverty. So
Speaker 1: the thing is, you know, we talked about Brazil is
Speaker 1: this melting pot of cultures. But it's interesting to think
Speaker 1: about how a place becomes a melting pot in the
Speaker 1: first place. And in Brazil's case, it was a pretty
Speaker 1: violent process and it sounds like that left the national
Speaker 1: identity pretty fractured in some very real ways. Well, I
Speaker 1: feel like we've gone a little bit negative here, but
Speaker 1: I feel like we can um turn that tone around
Speaker 1: with some Amazon surfing. Amazon surf, are you talking about
Speaker 1: online shopping or like riding on a surfboard down the Amazon.
Speaker 1: So definitely the ladder surfing the Amazon River. And and
Speaker 1: this sounds insane, but a couple of times a year
Speaker 1: a massive twelve foot highway flows in from the ocean,
Speaker 1: and for a brief period afterwards, twelve ft highways form
Speaker 1: in the Amazon, some of which go on for hours
Speaker 1: and and travel unbroken for miles on end. And there's
Speaker 1: this great local legend about them. Apparently they are caused
Speaker 1: by three mischievous kids that travel up and down the
Speaker 1: Amazon playing pranks on each other. But what's crazy is
Speaker 1: that the locals call it Porto Rocco or the Great Roar,
Speaker 1: because supposedly you can hear it coming for up to
Speaker 1: an hour before the waves arrive. Oh wow, so that
Speaker 1: this has to be an incredibly strong wave, I would imagine, definitely.
Speaker 1: And the wave is so powerful that it pulls trees
Speaker 1: and structures from the shoreline and pulls the debris along
Speaker 1: with it, which also makes for primost surfing conditions. I'm guessing.
Speaker 1: But no, I'd like, do people really serve this thing? Yeah? So,
Speaker 1: so people do serve this thing. This tidal wave thing
Speaker 1: happens regularly enough that there's even this organized event to
Speaker 1: celebrate its arrival. It's called the National Po Euroca Surfing Championship,
Speaker 1: and each year's surfers from all over the world take
Speaker 1: part in it to see who can ride the monster
Speaker 1: wave the longest. And the current record holder managed to
Speaker 1: ride along this wave for over half an hour and
Speaker 1: he traveled just under seven and a half miles total.
Speaker 1: Isn't that ridiculous? That is? That is impressive? Anyway, I
Speaker 1: feel like it's a fascinating fact. But we should ride
Speaker 1: it straight into the fact off, what do you say?
Speaker 1: Let's do it. M So, here's a strange thing I
Speaker 1: actually dig. Apparently Brazil has one of the largest cashew
Speaker 1: trees in the world, and it's actually a tourist attraction
Speaker 1: and big enough that they charge admission to it. This
Speaker 1: mutant tree stretches over two acres or roughly five football fields,
Speaker 1: and it's about the size of seventy normal cashew trees.
Speaker 1: Apparently the tree has two weird mutations. Not only do
Speaker 1: the branches grow sideways instead of growing upwards, but when
Speaker 1: a branch gets super heavy and it touches the ground
Speaker 1: from all the fruit on it, it ends up setting
Speaker 1: down roots and spawning another part of a tree. Hmm. Alright, well,
Speaker 1: here's one thing you can't do in Brazil, at least
Speaker 1: not legally, and that's used a tanning bit. So the
Speaker 1: country banned them for cosmetic purposes back in two thousand nine.
Speaker 1: You know, we started with the book theme and I
Speaker 1: thought i'd bring it back. Brazilian prisons are so overcrowded
Speaker 1: that they've instituted a system where they'll take four days
Speaker 1: off your sentence if you read a book and write
Speaker 1: a report on it. You do max out at twelve
Speaker 1: book reports every year, so each year you can take
Speaker 1: about a month and a half off your sentence. But
Speaker 1: what I found most interesting was that some of the
Speaker 1: titles that are popular are not things I would have expected.
Speaker 1: So in this article i was reading, it listed Gone
Speaker 1: with the Wind as one of the most popular books,
Speaker 1: and and lames as well. Alright, well, Brazilian soap operas
Speaker 1: are credited with getting people to have fewer kids, believe
Speaker 1: it or not, In two generations, apparently the country went
Speaker 1: from having seven kids per family to just two. From
Speaker 1: the way the Atlantic describes it, you know, shows don't
Speaker 1: make a whole lot of sense. They've got these needlessly
Speaker 1: complicated storylines filled with sex and scandal, but the families
Speaker 1: also have tons of possessions and very few kids. And
Speaker 1: the result is that people have been more obsessed with
Speaker 1: capitalism and money, and I've actually grown to see big
Speaker 1: families and constant childbirth is being less desirable. Well here's
Speaker 1: another fact I didn't realize. Did you know that Brazilians
Speaker 1: believed that a fellow statesman of Theirs, Alberto Santos Dumont,
Speaker 1: beat the Right Brothers to flying his plane, and I
Speaker 1: guess he flew sixty in his airplane in front of
Speaker 1: a French crowd in nineteen o six. I believe. But
Speaker 1: when it was pointed out that the Right Brothers had
Speaker 1: beat him by a few years, Brazil actually stuck by
Speaker 1: their men. They insisted that the Right Brothers flight wasn't
Speaker 1: powered and it was only possible due to really strong winds.
Speaker 1: And the BBC reports that that's actually how it's written
Speaker 1: in their history books. They don't really give the Right
Speaker 1: Brothers credit. You know, a long time ago, we did
Speaker 1: this episode where we talked about Snake Island. You remember this, Yeah?
Speaker 1: I remember. It was terrifying that this was the island
Speaker 1: that had no people and thousands of deadly snakes on it, right,
Speaker 1: that is exactly right. And you know the snakes were
Speaker 1: lance head vipers, and you're not legally allowed to go
Speaker 1: to the island without a doctor with you. And there
Speaker 1: are reasons scientists go, I mean, the venom might be
Speaker 1: used at some point and creating anti cancer drugs. But
Speaker 1: here's the most strange part about all this is that
Speaker 1: people do sneak onto the island and they bag the
Speaker 1: snakes to sell on the black market. So not only
Speaker 1: do scientists abroad want the snakes, but animal collectors want
Speaker 1: them to and they end up fetching anywhere between ten
Speaker 1: thousand and thirty thousand dollars for these things. Thirty thousand dollars,
Speaker 1: and those snakes are so terrifying, like just how venomous
Speaker 1: they are. But it does feel good to know that
Speaker 1: if someone tries to sell me one for I know
Speaker 1: they're ripping me off. So I think you can take
Speaker 1: home this week's trophy and all your steak facts. I
Speaker 1: feel like, save you a few bucks on that one. Well,
Speaker 1: I know there are other facts about Brazil. We had
Speaker 1: a lot of fun with the episode this week, but
Speaker 1: we always love hearing from you. If there are facts
Speaker 1: or stories that you'd love to share, you can reach
Speaker 1: us part time Genius at ihart media dot com or
Speaker 1: hit us up on Facebook or Twitter. But from Gabe, Tristan, Mango,
Speaker 1: and me, Thanks so much for listening. M