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

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Speaker 1: My Heart Radio. Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow

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Speaker 1: your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick.

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Speaker 1: And today I wanted to start off with a short

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Speaker 1: reading of a few lines from the Odyssey that will

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Speaker 1: introduce the subject we're getting into for the next few episodes.

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Speaker 1: So this is from the Odyssey book eleven. I'm gonna

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Speaker 1: be reading from the Emily Wilson translation, But this is

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Speaker 1: a section of the story where Odysseus is describing the

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Speaker 1: horrors that he witnessed in Hades, and there are different

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Speaker 1: kinds of horrors, Like some of the horror of Hades

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Speaker 1: is just a kind of profound, depressing disappointment with when

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Speaker 1: he's confronted with the reality of how crappy it is

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Speaker 1: to be dead, you know that, Like he he tries

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Speaker 1: to talk to a Jax, and Ajax can't even really

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Speaker 1: say anything. But then there's this other section where he

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Speaker 1: starts seeing more Dante in Inferno, kind of horrors of

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Speaker 1: actual tortures, and so he sees King Minos, he sees

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Speaker 1: a Ryan, he sees Sisyphus famously, you know, in the

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Speaker 1: futile labor of pushing the boulder up a hill long

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Speaker 1: you see it rolled down again. But eventually he comes

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Speaker 1: to a figure called Tantalus. And then here's what Odysseus

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Speaker 1: says about Tantalus. I saw the pain of Tantalus in

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Speaker 1: water to his chin so parched, no way to drink.

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Speaker 1: When that old man bent down towards the water, it

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Speaker 1: was gone. Some god had dried it up. And at

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Speaker 1: his feet dark earth appeared. Tall leafy trees hung fruit

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Speaker 1: above his head, sweet figs and pomegranates and brightly shining

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Speaker 1: apples and ripe olives. But when he grasped them with

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Speaker 1: his hands, the wind hurled them away towards the shadowy clouds. Now.

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Speaker 1: When I look at the contraposition of the two tortures

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Speaker 1: of Tantalus, you got the And you know he always

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Speaker 1: wants to reach up to get the delicious fruit from

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Speaker 1: the tree, but the wind kicks up, it pulls it

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Speaker 1: out from his hands, and he can't ever get the food.

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Speaker 1: That's a that's a a torture in Tartarus by starvation,

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Speaker 1: which is not good. Obviously, starvation is very bad, and

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Speaker 1: it's probably more expressively phrase the second half of this, uh,

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Speaker 1: the situation, But it's actually the first half that fills

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Speaker 1: me with more horror when it talks about how he's

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Speaker 1: he's standing in water, so it's like, you know, he

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Speaker 1: feels it lapping around on his skin, but every time

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Speaker 1: he tries to kneel down to put his face to

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Speaker 1: it to get a drink, the water just is pulled away,

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Speaker 1: as if by a tide. The gods dry it up

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Speaker 1: away from his mouth, and he can't ever have a drink.

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Speaker 1: To me, that's the more terrifying half of this situation. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I love the image of Tantalus. Is this um this

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Speaker 1: being that is uh, It's he's like he's suspended between

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Speaker 1: his desires, between his needs needs or desires, depending on

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Speaker 1: how you want to frame it here. Right, Well, I

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Speaker 1: guess this raises questions about the the biology of your

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Speaker 1: shade in Hades or Tartarus, Like does it actually need

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Speaker 1: to eat and drink and he can't get it or

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Speaker 1: is this just some kind of I don't know, psychological

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Speaker 1: need his soul has. It's not really biological. I guess yeah,

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Speaker 1: given what we we we believe about the underworld via

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Speaker 1: other myth cycles, I guess it's the idea that he

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Speaker 1: doesn't actually need the fruit or the water to live.

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Speaker 1: If you call this living, he's forever suspended in the

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Speaker 1: state of of on death and on life. Um, but

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Speaker 1: but wants to have the water, wants to have the fruit.

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Speaker 1: Maybe that's the kind of question you're not actually supposed

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Speaker 1: to bother thinking about this, like the annoying pedantic question

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Speaker 1: that Plato would bring up. Yeah, I mean well, speaking

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Speaker 1: of of philosophy, there is the concept of Burden's ass

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Speaker 1: named for fourteenth century French philosopher gen Burden. This one.

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Speaker 1: This is a basic idea that also pops up in

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Speaker 1: the works of Aristotle and al Gazali various other writers.

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Speaker 1: The more common thirst related version is if you have

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Speaker 1: a donkey that is both hungry and thirsty, and placed

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Speaker 1: the equal distance from both food and water, it will

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Speaker 1: remain immobile and die. Now, this may be apart from

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Speaker 1: the lesson that the the thought experiment is trying to produce,

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Speaker 1: But I think that's not necessarily true. I think there

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Speaker 1: might very well be biological priorities that would place access

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Speaker 1: to water above access to food. Yeah, it's it's one

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Speaker 1: of these paradoxes that maybe doesn't. You can't exactly recreate

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Speaker 1: it in reality and expect it to be quite as

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Speaker 1: a captivating but uh, abstractly it's it's kind of fascinating.

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Speaker 1: So as Aristotle put it, quote, a man being just

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Speaker 1: as hungry as thirsty, and placed in between food and

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Speaker 1: drink must necessarily remain where he is and starve to death.

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Speaker 1: So obviously that's not going to be the case. If

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Speaker 1: you're hungry and thirsty and the waiter brings you your

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Speaker 1: sandwich and your your cola at the same time, you're

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Speaker 1: not gonna die. You don't have to give the waiter

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Speaker 1: special instructions. You will. You work in restaurant industry, Joe.

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Speaker 1: This is not like they don't tell you this, right.

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Speaker 1: They don't say, look, don't put the drink in the

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Speaker 1: food in front of the customer at the same time,

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Speaker 1: or they will. They will just remain immobile and die.

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Speaker 1: It is actually broadly considered very important in restaurants to

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Speaker 1: get people their drinks before you get them their food.

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Speaker 1: If you bring them food before they get their drinks,

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Speaker 1: people will get very confused and upset. Well, and uh,

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Speaker 1: I know, I often hear you know when you're a

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Speaker 1: lot of times when you're hungry, you're actually thirsty, and therefore,

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Speaker 1: to avoid and prevent overeating, you want to make sure

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Speaker 1: you have plenty of liquids as well. So yeah, like,

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Speaker 1: if I'm going into a restaurant situation, I definitely want

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Speaker 1: my water first because I feel like I'm gonna I'm

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Speaker 1: gonna have a more balanced experience eating lunch or dinner there,

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Speaker 1: you'll certainly have a more pleasant experience. Though actually sorry,

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Speaker 1: I'm just introducing exceptions to every single thing we say

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Speaker 1: so far, but does come up in a paper that

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Speaker 1: I want to look at later. There is a concept

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Speaker 1: that's been documented widely in animal biology known as dehydration

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Speaker 1: and do standardrexia, which is essentially the idea that many

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Speaker 1: animals species, certainly humans and rodents, will naturally restrict their

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Speaker 1: own food intake in response to dehydration. Again, there are

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Speaker 1: some exceptions some animals like get their water entirely from

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Speaker 1: food and so forth. But but but typically, like if

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Speaker 1: you get rodents and and they're thirsty, they will eat

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Speaker 1: less at each meal you give them, not saying that's

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Speaker 1: a way to live your life, though, I mean better

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Speaker 1: to be hydrated. Well, you know, coming back to mythology

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Speaker 1: a bit. I thought we might mention just a few

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Speaker 1: other you know, bits of myth and folklore and legend

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Speaker 1: and so forth concerning thirst uh, because I feel like,

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Speaker 1: you know, we we have the sort of mythological echoes

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Speaker 1: of the basic biological reality, and maybe these can help

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Speaker 1: and inform and shape our conversation as we move forward. Uh.

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Speaker 1: So there's one, uh particular story I was taken with

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Speaker 1: from from from ancient China. It's an ancient story dating

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Speaker 1: back at least as far as the shan Haijing. This

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Speaker 1: is the the Fabulous Book of Monsters that we we

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Speaker 1: did an episode, did a couple of episodes on I

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Speaker 1: think last year, and have recently or will be rerunning

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Speaker 1: those episodes very soon. The title is sometimes translated as

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Speaker 1: the Classic of the Mountains and Seas. Yeah. So there's

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Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of mythological beings and places

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Speaker 1: mentioned in the book. Um and Uh, and there's there

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Speaker 1: is this account of Kuafu. It's a it's a it's

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Speaker 1: a story that continues to be told today in modern China,

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Speaker 1: and there have been many versions of it um. According

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Speaker 1: to U Yang and and Turner in Chinese mythology, basically

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Speaker 1: what you have in Kuafu is this primordial giant with

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Speaker 1: two yellow snakes circling his ears and two more yellow

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Speaker 1: snakes in his hands ends and he's powerful, very powerful, certainly,

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Speaker 1: but he overestimates his own power, and depending on the

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Speaker 1: story and the exact telling, he either challenges the Sun

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Speaker 1: to a race, or he just wants to chase the

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Speaker 1: Sun's shadow and catch the Sun. I've also read a

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Speaker 1: version where he wants to prolong the day by catching

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Speaker 1: the sun, Like if I can just get my hands

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Speaker 1: on the Sun and then it can't move away, it

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Speaker 1: can't set, the day will never end. Oh that's a

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Speaker 1: good plan. Yeah, well, either way it works out. This

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Speaker 1: giant runs after the Sun, intending to catch it um,

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Speaker 1: but the Sun stays just ever out of his grasp.

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Speaker 1: And what happens, well, he grows ever thirstier, So eventually

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Speaker 1: he just has to stop for a second and he

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Speaker 1: drinks the yellow river Um. Then he stops and he

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Speaker 1: drinks drinks another river. But he's still so thirsty that

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Speaker 1: he heads for the Great Marsh to the north, but

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Speaker 1: on the way there he collapses. He dies of thirst.

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Speaker 1: And this is one of those stories that is often

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Speaker 1: used to explain geography, so they are different. All these

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Speaker 1: details about what happens to his body once he falls,

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Speaker 1: what happens to his walking stick or his club once

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Speaker 1: it falls, what happens to the dirt from his sandals,

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Speaker 1: you know, they become foothills, that kind of thing. But

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Speaker 1: it's also a tale about just overreaching. And so the

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Speaker 1: idea of of this giant chasing the sun is the

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Speaker 1: idea that yeah, he's powerful, but he thinks he's more

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Speaker 1: powerful than he is, and it's going to get him

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Speaker 1: into trouble. Oh that's interesting because to bring it back

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Speaker 1: to Tantalus, I mean, it's somewhat different, but both stories

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Speaker 1: have the problem with the character is that they're in

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Speaker 1: some way brazen or overaudacious in their challenging of celestial

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Speaker 1: figures or gods. Because the While there are multiple stories

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Speaker 1: of what Tantalus did in order to deserve this punishment

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Speaker 1: in tartarus Um, but one of the most commonly received

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Speaker 1: stories is that Tantalus well, so it's often said that Tantalus,

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Speaker 1: like uh, shared a table with the god, so he

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Speaker 1: was a king, but he'd be invited up to Olympus

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Speaker 1: to to dine with Zeus and Apparently at some point

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Speaker 1: Tantalus was serving a banquet to the gods, and as

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Speaker 1: the main course, for some reason, he decided to kill

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Speaker 1: and serve his own son. So he liked, yeah, that's

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Speaker 1: that's that's a bad choice. So he yeah, he boils

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Speaker 1: his own son, serves his meat to the gods. Uh.

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Speaker 1: It's like this horrible samelier competition, like can you tell

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Speaker 1: this is my son you're eating? And the gods can

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Speaker 1: tell they are good semeliers, so they figure it out

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Speaker 1: and uh. And apparently cannibalism and the killing of ken

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Speaker 1: were considered among the worst taboos in ancient Greece. So

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Speaker 1: it's like a story of the guy doing like the worst,

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Speaker 1: most awful thing you can imagine in order to embarrass

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Speaker 1: or humiliate the gods, and the gods catch him doing it,

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Speaker 1: so they send him to this horrible punishment in the afterlife.

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Speaker 1: And so I do think it's kind of telling that

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Speaker 1: this is a guy who does like the worst thing

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Speaker 1: you could possibly imagine doing in in ancient Greek ideas,

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Speaker 1: like that he commits the worst violence taboos, killing his

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Speaker 1: own son and trying to get the gods to commit

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Speaker 1: cannibalism and what what is the punishment for that. It's

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Speaker 1: eternal unsatiable hunger and thirst. Yeah, yeah, there's this there's

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Speaker 1: something about thirst, especially that it's just so it's so

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Speaker 1: primal and it's uh and it's this thing that can

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Speaker 1: just crescendo towards madness and of course death. Um so

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Speaker 1: we we we find numerous accounts where the gods become

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Speaker 1: involved with human thirst. Um. There's an interesting story in

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Speaker 1: Hindu traditions. This one appears in the Mahaparata. It's about

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Speaker 1: a desert dwelling sage by the name of Utanka Uh.

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Speaker 1: And Utanka uh is uh. There are various accounts of

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Speaker 1: you know, of what he got up to, but uh,

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Speaker 1: there's basically one of the key ideas here is that

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Speaker 1: he was witnessed to Krishna's universal form. So this is

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Speaker 1: the same universal form that shown to Argina during the

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Speaker 1: famous uh you know, now I am behme death encounter.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, okay. But with Utanka, he's given a special

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Speaker 1: divine boone. Uh. So he's told whenever he feels thirst,

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Speaker 1: his thirst will be quenched. Um. So. You also there's

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Speaker 1: this idea that he's followed by by rain clouds even

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Speaker 1: in the desert, and so sometimes uh, you'll see these

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Speaker 1: clouds in real life referred to as Utanka's clouds. Um,

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Speaker 1: so the clouds sent by the gods to follow him around.

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Speaker 1: And there's another story too that involves him him thirsting

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Speaker 1: and the thirst being quenched uh and but water being

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Speaker 1: sent to him via a member of a lesser cast,

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Speaker 1: a lower cast, and uh, and then he refuses. As

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Speaker 1: it turns out the water in question was going to

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Speaker 1: be uh, the potion of immortality, but he was not

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Speaker 1: ready to receive it spiritually because he was not willing

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Speaker 1: to accept it from this individual. Mm hmm. Coming back

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Speaker 1: to the earlier detail in this where Utanka has given

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Speaker 1: the boone that whenever he is thirsty, his thirst will

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Speaker 1: be quenched. I wonder what is the what is the

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Speaker 1: more specific imagination of that scenario, like that that water

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Speaker 1: will appear somehow for him to drink, or that there's

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Speaker 1: a kind of quinching without water, in which case it

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Speaker 1: kind of makes you think what is quinching because that

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Speaker 1: when I think of the feeling of quenching thirst, it

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Speaker 1: is specifically the feeling of like water filling your mouth

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Speaker 1: and going down your throat. Yeah, yeah, them, It's not

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Speaker 1: just the idea that we're going to suddenly feel magically.

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Speaker 1: I'll give across how would that happen? Right? You can't

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Speaker 1: just turn it off with a switch. Our our one

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Speaker 1: our primary means of alleviating thirst is to drink water.

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Speaker 1: And therefore, you know, it's hard to disconnect the too well. Actually,

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Speaker 1: one of the some of the studies I want to

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Speaker 1: talk about as we go on in the series have

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Speaker 1: to do with the what is the relationship between the

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Speaker 1: feeling of thirst quenching and the hydration of the body.

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Speaker 1: Not as direct as you might think. Now, another example

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Speaker 1: of supernatural thirst, and in this case also hunger. Um.

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Speaker 1: Of course, you have in various Eastern traditions you have

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Speaker 1: hungry ghosts, and the the ghaki are a type of

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Speaker 1: hungry ghost in the tradition of Japan, also described as

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Speaker 1: as always hungry and always thirsty, just monsters of torments.

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Speaker 1: So they have huge bellies, be steel heads, talons and

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Speaker 1: so forth, and their home is the barren wasteland realm

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Speaker 1: of Gakito, and they sometimes drag the dyeing to hell,

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Speaker 1: but they can be driven out through ceremonies. I think

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Speaker 1: that they also are often illustrated as having very narrow necks.

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Speaker 1: So it's like their hunger there is great, their belly

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Speaker 1: is great, their neck is narrow, like their their throat

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Speaker 1: is narrow. Their ability to quench uh, their their bodily

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Speaker 1: hunger and thirst is entirely insufficient. Of course, hungry ghosts

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Speaker 1: are are you know, widespread again in Eastern traditions. But

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Speaker 1: but I ran across an interesting tradition from pre Islamic

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Speaker 1: Arab culture that I had never heard of before that

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Speaker 1: I thought was really interesting, and it concerns owls. I

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Speaker 1: was reading Echoes of a Thirsty Owl by T. M. L.

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Speaker 1: Hammer and published in the Journal of Near Eastern Studies

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Speaker 1: from so the author here writes that there was an idea,

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Speaker 1: you know again in the pre Islamic Arab cultures, that

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Speaker 1: the soul of a bird was quote unquote spread out

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Speaker 1: through the body of a human being, and when the

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Speaker 1: human died, um the resulting bird circled the body and

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Speaker 1: cried out over the grave of the deceased. So the

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Speaker 1: and then in time this bird grows and it becomes

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Speaker 1: a savage and shrieking owl, and the owl, of course

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Speaker 1: haunts the places of death. Well, that almost makes me wonder.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I think about the spooky movie trope of

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Speaker 1: having an owl hooting in the darkness in the graveyard.

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Speaker 1: But I don't know. The more I think about that,

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Speaker 1: that's probably a coincidence. Well, I mean, owls are are

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Speaker 1: are are associated with with death and the supernatural throughout

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Speaker 1: various cultures. You know, because they're they're creatures of the night.

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Speaker 1: They fly so silently that it's almost like they're not

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Speaker 1: even there. Um, you know, they have those large eyes,

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Speaker 1: their their their head appears to have various kind of

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Speaker 1: humanoid qualities. Uh So, you know, I think there is

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Speaker 1: some connection there, maybe not not a direct connection, but

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Speaker 1: a connection via the the the widespread associations and various

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Speaker 1: cultures between the owl and the and the dead. Okay,

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Speaker 1: and also the various omens. You know, sometimes in different

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Speaker 1: cultures the owl is a is a dire omen to behold. Well,

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Speaker 1: I guess this would depend on the owl species. But

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Speaker 1: also their vocalizations have to play a role in in

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Speaker 1: spooky associations. Yeah, yeah, and I think and and also

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Speaker 1: I mean sometimes owls don't make a sound at all. Again,

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Speaker 1: either they're flying silently or they're just sitting there silently

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Speaker 1: just kind of watching and so uh maybe connected to

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Speaker 1: that that that that it's also said that these owls

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Speaker 1: may also just sort of check in on sons and

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Speaker 1: grandsons to see what happens after they have died. Other

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Speaker 1: traditions say that the owl will return to the grave

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Speaker 1: once every century. And then there's this idea that in

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Speaker 1: the event that the deceased might seek vengeance for something

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Speaker 1: or another, the grave of the dead should be watered

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Speaker 1: to quote slake the thirst of the dead. Oh wow, yeah, now,

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Speaker 1: of course, and this we're probably getting into that. Uh

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Speaker 1: you know something we we hinted out already, the idea

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Speaker 1: that that thirst takes on so many different forms, and

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Speaker 1: the water that quenches the thirst, or the liquid the

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Speaker 1: quenches that thirst takes on so many different forms in

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Speaker 1: our traditions, like his thirst. Uh, thirst is of course

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Speaker 1: something we all feel. It's a you know, we all

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Speaker 1: need water. But depending on how it's written up, you

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Speaker 1: could you can describe thirst as a as a as

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Speaker 1: a need, or as a desire, as something that your

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Speaker 1: will has the ability to overcome or not overcome. Uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, thirst can be uh portrayed as something positive,

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Speaker 1: like the third, for knowledge, the thirst for for for

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Speaker 1: for God. But also thirst can be seen as like

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Speaker 1: the thirst for for wine, or for blood, or for vengeance. Well, yeah, exactly.

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Speaker 1: So I was also thinking about the abstract metaphors of

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Speaker 1: thirst that we use um and what it means to

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Speaker 1: to choose that word in particular, to to say that

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Speaker 1: you want something by saying that you thirst for it. So,

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Speaker 1: in the example of someone who has a thirst for vengeance,

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Speaker 1: how is that different from just wanting vengeance? To me?

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Speaker 1: At least in that case, thirst as a metaphor, as

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Speaker 1: a metaphor for want, implies a kind of irrational desperation

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Speaker 1: in the in the acquisition behavior is something that will

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Speaker 1: be sought without hindrance and without reason. Now, obviously that

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Speaker 1: wouldn't exactly apply to other metaphorical uses of thirst, like

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Speaker 1: you said, the thirst for knowledge. But again that that

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Speaker 1: word choice seems to me to imply something different than

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Speaker 1: somebody just saying somebody likes knowledge or seeks knowledge. It

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Speaker 1: suggests a kind of primal need. I guess, yeah, And

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Speaker 1: I guess you also have to factor in that, you know,

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Speaker 1: for a lot of us we live in in very

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Speaker 1: water rich environments, and water rich cultures and uh socioeconomic places.

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Speaker 1: So you know, we we we don't feel true thirst

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Speaker 1: for the most part, you know, we don't we don't

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Speaker 1: feel the thirst that is approaching madness and death, um

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Speaker 1: and the and and then again it comes down to,

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Speaker 1: like what is the person thirsting for? If you're talking

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Speaker 1: about somebody feeling a mighty thirst, but you're alluding to

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Speaker 1: their desire to have an alcoholic beverage, like that's that's

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Speaker 1: a slightly different thing that just talking about Oh well,

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Speaker 1: this is this is thirsty work that they're doing, and

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Speaker 1: you know, implying that they're just they're just building up

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Speaker 1: a natural uh need for a big draft of water

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Speaker 1: to satisfy their thirst. It seems when people use thirst

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Speaker 1: to talk about alcohol, I always detect an air of

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Speaker 1: of irony and that, yeah, just like it's supposed to

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Speaker 1: be a little bit funny that you're using it that way, right,

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Speaker 1: because if you're truly thirsty, alcohol is not what you

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Speaker 1: should right now. Just to come back to the the

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Speaker 1: idea of these owls briefly, Apparently, some writings say that

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Speaker 1: the blood and the brain in the in the deceased

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Speaker 1: fused together after death to form the owl. Others would

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Speaker 1: say that it was born of one's bones and that

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Speaker 1: the owl would then erupt from the head, which I

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Speaker 1: think is a wonderful and horrifying supernatural uh picture. But

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Speaker 1: it was a reference in a number of different poems

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Speaker 1: um by a lot of pre Islamic Arab poets. The

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Speaker 1: Arabic poet Alan Bari wrote quote, and it is said

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Speaker 1: that man, when he has killed and his revenge is

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Speaker 1: not taken, an owl comes out of his grave and

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Speaker 1: then continues screeching, quench me, quench me, continuing so until

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Speaker 1: his killer is killed. Whoa anyway that that article is

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Speaker 1: titled Echoes of a Thirsty Owl UM. If anyone's interested,

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Speaker 1: I recommend reading that. He also compared, you know, compares

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Speaker 1: it to various other traditions concerning the owl as some

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Speaker 1: sort of a supernatural being. He talks a little bit

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Speaker 1: about about the role of the owl and Greek mythology

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Speaker 1: and so forth. Than now, we we can't very well

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Speaker 1: cover a complete cultural history of human thirst here, but

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Speaker 1: it is worth driving him. The thirst is an important

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Speaker 1: aspect of history and civilization, UM, in in obvious ways

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Speaker 1: and maybe sometimes in less obvious ways. I was reading

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Speaker 1: a article in the Journal of European Archaeology by uh

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Speaker 1: Slavamil Venhical titled the Archaeology of Thirst, and in it

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Speaker 1: the author points out that naturally, the human satisfaction of

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Speaker 1: thirst is an essential part of the human experience, and

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Speaker 1: it's a but it's of course of great interest in archaeology.

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Speaker 1: But a number of obstacles have to be overcome. So

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Speaker 1: first of all, you just have the volatile nature of liquids.

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Speaker 1: You also have the scant chemical signatures to be found

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Speaker 1: inside ancient drinking vessels um, also scarce paleo botanical analysis

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Speaker 1: of those residues. UM. They also mentioned quote the functionally

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Speaker 1: unspecific nature of most vessels, which I thought was interesting,

390
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Speaker 1: reminding me of our our holiday discussion of leg shaped vessels. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's a hard A lot of times people are like,

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Speaker 1: I don't know what people would put in this leg. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: Like we can assume they would put oil in it,

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Speaker 1: you know, but it depending on what the vessel is

395
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Speaker 1: and what the culture is, and how much additional information

396
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Speaker 1: we have. We might just have to guess and be like, Okay,

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Speaker 1: it seems like you might drink out of this, or

398
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Speaker 1: you might just or maybe this is just restoring some

399
00:22:51,240 --> 00:22:53,520
Speaker 1: sort of oil. On top of that, we often have

400
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Speaker 1: scant iconographical information. Also, this is a big one, and

401
00:22:58,920 --> 00:23:02,119
Speaker 1: this is this apply too far more than just drinking vessels.

402
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Speaker 1: But if the vessel is organic in nature, we may

403
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Speaker 1: not have any uh surviving examples of what it was.

404
00:23:11,920 --> 00:23:13,600
Speaker 1: And on top of that, by and large we tend

405
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Speaker 1: to focus on exceptional examples of drinking and storage vessels,

406
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Speaker 1: which of course limits study to a very slim part

407
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Speaker 1: of a given culture. You know, so it's like a

408
00:23:21,760 --> 00:23:26,719
Speaker 1: highly ornate decorative peace that you know, maybe is of

409
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Speaker 1: the same shape and basic function is what people would

410
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Speaker 1: have in general been using to drink water or store water, etcetera.

411
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Speaker 1: But maybe not like maybe it is us. It's more

412
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Speaker 1: about looking interesting as opposed to anything else. But the

413
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Speaker 1: archaeology of thirst ends up encompassing some very ancient examples um,

414
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Speaker 1: including things like neolithic wells. Um Water is the most

415
00:23:50,640 --> 00:23:53,679
Speaker 1: basic means of meeting human thirst, and it's taken on

416
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Speaker 1: mundane and fantastic connotations at times. But on top of this,

417
00:23:57,200 --> 00:24:00,359
Speaker 1: of course humans have come to drink SAPs, but ud

418
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Speaker 1: of course various concoctions such as meat and wine and

419
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Speaker 1: beer and more. But but I guess water, You know,

420
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Speaker 1: water remains the big one obviously. And another idea worth

421
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Speaker 1: mentioning in all of this that I was reading about,

422
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Speaker 1: um is the idea that, okay, so human thirst is

423
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Speaker 1: of course ubiquitous. Everybody is going to thirst. Everyone needs water. Um.

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Speaker 1: And so if you look back um to to Jewish

425
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Speaker 1: and Islamic traditions, you you find in both legal traditions

426
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Speaker 1: this idea of the right of thirst um. The the

427
00:24:34,320 --> 00:24:38,640
Speaker 1: idea being that like every every every human government by

428
00:24:38,640 --> 00:24:41,840
Speaker 1: this law, has this right of thirst uh, to this

429
00:24:42,040 --> 00:24:45,560
Speaker 1: right to water via their own thirst. And in Islamic law,

430
00:24:45,800 --> 00:24:49,240
Speaker 1: apparently this extended to animals as well. Animals had the

431
00:24:49,359 --> 00:24:52,680
Speaker 1: right of thirst, which gave them meant that they had

432
00:24:52,720 --> 00:24:56,000
Speaker 1: a right to access water based on their thirst. But

433
00:24:56,000 --> 00:24:57,720
Speaker 1: but it's also it's interesting how you know this sort

434
00:24:57,720 --> 00:25:02,119
Speaker 1: of this this foreshadows a lot of our modern relationship

435
00:25:02,160 --> 00:25:04,879
Speaker 1: with water. The idea that that the right to water

436
00:25:04,960 --> 00:25:08,919
Speaker 1: is classified as a basic human right by the United Nations. UM.

437
00:25:08,960 --> 00:25:11,240
Speaker 1: But of course, at the same time, uh, not everyone

438
00:25:11,320 --> 00:25:15,040
Speaker 1: has equal access to to water and uh. And this

439
00:25:15,080 --> 00:25:17,080
Speaker 1: is going to continue to be a problem moving forward,

440
00:25:17,320 --> 00:25:19,400
Speaker 1: and of course you can't help, but then take all

441
00:25:19,440 --> 00:25:22,840
Speaker 1: of that and relate it back to our metaphorical treatment

442
00:25:22,920 --> 00:25:26,320
Speaker 1: of thirst. You know, how does the how does that change?

443
00:25:26,400 --> 00:25:28,920
Speaker 1: You know, if you're if you're if you're talking about

444
00:25:28,960 --> 00:25:33,639
Speaker 1: thirst in reference to you know, spiritual needs and um

445
00:25:34,119 --> 00:25:36,520
Speaker 1: and you know thirst for knowledge, Like, how is that

446
00:25:36,560 --> 00:25:40,879
Speaker 1: different if you're if you're expressing that, uh within a

447
00:25:40,960 --> 00:25:43,120
Speaker 1: you know, in a place where there where water is plentiful,

448
00:25:43,440 --> 00:25:45,879
Speaker 1: where a drinking water is plentiful, or a place where

449
00:25:46,840 --> 00:25:49,119
Speaker 1: access is more limited. But I guess before we can

450
00:25:49,160 --> 00:25:51,520
Speaker 1: answer any of these questions, we need to back up

451
00:25:51,600 --> 00:25:54,320
Speaker 1: quite a bit and just talk about thirst as a

452
00:25:54,440 --> 00:25:58,040
Speaker 1: biological reality. What is it and how does it work? Yeah?

453
00:25:58,119 --> 00:26:00,920
Speaker 1: And so this was actually rather interesting to me because

454
00:26:01,520 --> 00:26:04,320
Speaker 1: it turns out I I knew less about thirst than

455
00:26:04,560 --> 00:26:09,040
Speaker 1: I realized. And uh and what we do know about

456
00:26:09,040 --> 00:26:11,560
Speaker 1: thurst and what we don't know about thirst are both

457
00:26:11,720 --> 00:26:16,600
Speaker 1: pretty interesting. Uh. So I was reading an article called

458
00:26:16,720 --> 00:26:20,159
Speaker 1: just called Thirst that was published in Current Biology in

459
00:26:20,720 --> 00:26:25,920
Speaker 1: sen by David E. Leeb, Christopher A. Zimmerman, and Zachary A. Night.

460
00:26:26,440 --> 00:26:29,199
Speaker 1: And this article is essentially a summary of all the

461
00:26:29,280 --> 00:26:32,879
Speaker 1: existing research on thirst. It was, as of the year sixteen,

462
00:26:33,800 --> 00:26:36,320
Speaker 1: a sort of perfect primmer catching everybody up on what

463
00:26:36,359 --> 00:26:39,080
Speaker 1: do we know about Thurst and what do we not know? Now,

464
00:26:39,119 --> 00:26:41,400
Speaker 1: before we get into the meat of that discussion, I guess,

465
00:26:41,560 --> 00:26:45,320
Speaker 1: uh to to just cover the very basics, uh, the

466
00:26:45,359 --> 00:26:47,719
Speaker 1: first fact before we get into anything else. You are

467
00:26:47,760 --> 00:26:50,159
Speaker 1: a water bag. That that is what we are. That

468
00:26:50,280 --> 00:26:51,959
Speaker 1: is what all of us are. We we are not

469
00:26:52,040 --> 00:26:55,760
Speaker 1: just simple water bags, but our bodies are essentially water

470
00:26:55,840 --> 00:27:00,000
Speaker 1: bags over any other material description. All the animal life

471
00:27:00,080 --> 00:27:02,800
Speaker 1: that currently lives on land evolved from creatures that used

472
00:27:02,840 --> 00:27:04,960
Speaker 1: to live in the ocean, where you're surrounded by water

473
00:27:05,040 --> 00:27:07,840
Speaker 1: all the time. And when we evolved to live on land,

474
00:27:07,880 --> 00:27:11,919
Speaker 1: we had to create essentially bags that would contain water

475
00:27:12,040 --> 00:27:15,879
Speaker 1: to take with us because all of the of the

476
00:27:15,960 --> 00:27:20,440
Speaker 1: biological chemistry, the biochemistry of life takes place in water,

477
00:27:20,600 --> 00:27:24,159
Speaker 1: in solutions of water, and so as water bags. Uh,

478
00:27:24,560 --> 00:27:27,320
Speaker 1: you know, we we are complex autonomous water bags. But

479
00:27:27,440 --> 00:27:32,520
Speaker 1: most of those complex autonomous activities actually require that there

480
00:27:32,560 --> 00:27:36,240
Speaker 1: be a fairly precise amount of water in the bag

481
00:27:36,760 --> 00:27:42,879
Speaker 1: and a fairly precise concentration of various substances things like sodium,

482
00:27:42,920 --> 00:27:47,400
Speaker 1: for instance, that pretty precise amounts be dissolved in the

483
00:27:47,400 --> 00:27:51,280
Speaker 1: water in the bag, and so various processes of life

484
00:27:51,400 --> 00:27:55,040
Speaker 1: are constantly leading to water coming in and out of

485
00:27:55,080 --> 00:27:58,600
Speaker 1: the bag. Uh. So there there are several common routes

486
00:27:58,640 --> 00:28:02,600
Speaker 1: of water to be added to the bag. Were familiar

487
00:28:02,640 --> 00:28:04,959
Speaker 1: with the most common of those, which is drinking fluid,

488
00:28:05,040 --> 00:28:08,560
Speaker 1: drinking water or or fluids that are mainly water, or

489
00:28:08,600 --> 00:28:12,600
Speaker 1: eating food with water content. And that the second one

490
00:28:12,640 --> 00:28:16,639
Speaker 1: they're eating food with water content is less prominent for

491
00:28:16,720 --> 00:28:19,080
Speaker 1: humans because you know, we typically drink a glass of

492
00:28:19,080 --> 00:28:22,359
Speaker 1: water with food or between meals or whatever. But there

493
00:28:22,359 --> 00:28:25,720
Speaker 1: are some animals that basically get almost all of their

494
00:28:25,760 --> 00:28:30,159
Speaker 1: water from their food. Yeah. This includes certain desert species

495
00:28:30,200 --> 00:28:33,800
Speaker 1: such as the kangaroo rat and the kangaroo mouse, which,

496
00:28:33,800 --> 00:28:38,040
Speaker 1: of course, on the planet Iracus becomes the the the

497
00:28:38,040 --> 00:28:41,600
Speaker 1: the mouse. Deep. Um, we also have things like the

498
00:28:41,640 --> 00:28:45,520
Speaker 1: sand cat, the sand gazelle. Um, and uh, I know,

499
00:28:45,640 --> 00:28:48,720
Speaker 1: just in my household, it also seems to include my cat,

500
00:28:49,360 --> 00:28:54,000
Speaker 1: who does not seem to drink water at all anymore. Um.

501
00:28:54,160 --> 00:28:57,280
Speaker 1: We we have to lean heavily on moist foods to

502
00:28:57,400 --> 00:29:01,120
Speaker 1: get to get her her liquids, So feeding her wet food,

503
00:29:01,280 --> 00:29:03,760
Speaker 1: adding a little bit of water like sneaking it into

504
00:29:03,760 --> 00:29:05,560
Speaker 1: the wet food, and yet if we make the wet

505
00:29:05,640 --> 00:29:08,400
Speaker 1: food too wet, she will say, no, it's too much

506
00:29:08,440 --> 00:29:11,040
Speaker 1: like water, I will not have it, And then we

507
00:29:11,080 --> 00:29:13,600
Speaker 1: put out water for We've tried the fountains, we've tried everything.

508
00:29:13,600 --> 00:29:16,280
Speaker 1: The only thing she ever actually drank out of was

509
00:29:16,320 --> 00:29:17,960
Speaker 1: a fish tank when we had a fish tank, and

510
00:29:17,960 --> 00:29:20,320
Speaker 1: then she would not stop drinking out of the fish tank.

511
00:29:20,360 --> 00:29:22,880
Speaker 1: But any other thing we've tried, she hasn't gone for.

512
00:29:23,480 --> 00:29:25,960
Speaker 1: And so when she's had some issues before, it's like,

513
00:29:26,360 --> 00:29:30,640
Speaker 1: you know, she's clearly dehydrated. In the past, we even

514
00:29:30,680 --> 00:29:33,440
Speaker 1: had to had to use an i V to give

515
00:29:33,440 --> 00:29:35,400
Speaker 1: her the water. So we we still have a whole

516
00:29:35,440 --> 00:29:37,400
Speaker 1: bunch of bags of fluid around in case she has

517
00:29:37,440 --> 00:29:40,120
Speaker 1: any any flare ups of her issues. But in terms

518
00:29:40,160 --> 00:29:44,000
Speaker 1: of just like drinking straight water, she's not interested at all. Wow. Well,

519
00:29:44,040 --> 00:29:47,760
Speaker 1: simultaneously that is kind of fascinating, but also I feel

520
00:29:47,800 --> 00:29:49,640
Speaker 1: for her and I feel for you guys that that's

521
00:29:49,720 --> 00:29:52,640
Speaker 1: very frustrating. Now we're weird. I mean, everybody seems to

522
00:29:52,640 --> 00:29:54,920
Speaker 1: be at a comfortable level right now. She's she seems

523
00:29:54,920 --> 00:29:56,880
Speaker 1: to be getting all the liquid she needs through her

524
00:29:57,360 --> 00:30:01,600
Speaker 1: her meat paste. But but it's it's weird with cats,

525
00:30:01,600 --> 00:30:04,160
Speaker 1: because yeah, I think some people have this experience with

526
00:30:04,160 --> 00:30:07,360
Speaker 1: with cats where they really have to be tricked into

527
00:30:07,400 --> 00:30:10,160
Speaker 1: drinking water, but others will just drink it on the

528
00:30:10,160 --> 00:30:13,520
Speaker 1: fly out of toilets or dripping faucets and so forth. Right,

529
00:30:13,560 --> 00:30:16,360
Speaker 1: So all of that is direct water acquisitions. Of course,

530
00:30:16,400 --> 00:30:19,000
Speaker 1: you get water from drinking water. You get some smaller

531
00:30:19,040 --> 00:30:22,200
Speaker 1: amount of water from eating food that contains water. But

532
00:30:22,280 --> 00:30:26,280
Speaker 1: then apparently there's there's a secondary route for water acquisition

533
00:30:26,320 --> 00:30:30,840
Speaker 1: by eating food through what's known as metabolic water, which

534
00:30:30,920 --> 00:30:37,600
Speaker 1: is when your metabolism oxidizes various energy containing substances that

535
00:30:37,640 --> 00:30:41,320
Speaker 1: you eat and produces water in the process. So some

536
00:30:41,400 --> 00:30:46,360
Speaker 1: water is created at the molecular level by your metabolism,

537
00:30:46,400 --> 00:30:49,080
Speaker 1: and there are some organisms that get a large amount

538
00:30:49,080 --> 00:30:52,680
Speaker 1: of their their water content from metabolic water. Humans only

539
00:30:52,680 --> 00:30:55,960
Speaker 1: get a very small amount from it. But yeah, I mean,

540
00:30:56,040 --> 00:30:59,200
Speaker 1: I think like some desert dwelling organisms and some birds

541
00:30:59,240 --> 00:31:03,120
Speaker 1: and stuff it get all or almost all of their

542
00:31:03,120 --> 00:31:07,840
Speaker 1: water by by chemical reactions that happen inside their body

543
00:31:07,920 --> 00:31:10,440
Speaker 1: after they eat food and turn parts of that food

544
00:31:10,480 --> 00:31:13,240
Speaker 1: into water molecules. Now, one of the interesting things I

545
00:31:13,240 --> 00:31:16,080
Speaker 1: was reading about some of these desert species um and

546
00:31:16,600 --> 00:31:19,240
Speaker 1: at least with some of them. You know, if they're

547
00:31:19,240 --> 00:31:23,360
Speaker 1: in a captivity and they are offered water, well, then

548
00:31:23,400 --> 00:31:26,040
Speaker 1: when they they their thirst builds up, they will drink

549
00:31:26,080 --> 00:31:28,720
Speaker 1: the water. So it's not it's not like everything. I

550
00:31:28,760 --> 00:31:31,720
Speaker 1: don't want to imply that anything out there that gets

551
00:31:31,760 --> 00:31:33,440
Speaker 1: most of its water through its meat is going to

552
00:31:33,520 --> 00:31:35,640
Speaker 1: be like my cat and just refused to drink water.

553
00:31:35,720 --> 00:31:38,400
Speaker 1: You know, she has her own issues going on. Yeah,

554
00:31:38,440 --> 00:31:40,840
Speaker 1: I'm sure that varies by organism. Okay, but those are

555
00:31:40,840 --> 00:31:44,040
Speaker 1: the routes in you've got directly through drinking and eating

556
00:31:44,080 --> 00:31:46,600
Speaker 1: and then secondarily through metabolism. But then you've got a

557
00:31:46,680 --> 00:31:49,480
Speaker 1: number of routes for water to be to be eliminated.

558
00:31:49,560 --> 00:31:52,400
Speaker 1: So you've got urination of course, and then you've got

559
00:31:52,440 --> 00:31:57,160
Speaker 1: lost through defecation. You've got evaporation through the lungs of people.

560
00:31:57,240 --> 00:32:00,160
Speaker 1: Sometimes don't think about this, but you lose water when

561
00:32:00,160 --> 00:32:03,480
Speaker 1: you exhale water. Vapor comes out of your mouth or

562
00:32:03,520 --> 00:32:06,360
Speaker 1: out of your nose, and then there is also evaporative

563
00:32:06,400 --> 00:32:10,320
Speaker 1: loss of water through the skins just through sweating, so uh,

564
00:32:10,360 --> 00:32:13,560
Speaker 1: and then other other more minor things. I mean, obviously,

565
00:32:13,600 --> 00:32:16,720
Speaker 1: some extremely tiny amount of water evaporates off of the

566
00:32:16,760 --> 00:32:19,280
Speaker 1: liquid on the surface of your eyes and so forth.

567
00:32:19,360 --> 00:32:22,760
Speaker 1: But but those are the big ones. The defication is

568
00:32:22,760 --> 00:32:26,720
Speaker 1: worth mentioning, probably stressing again because I think most people

569
00:32:26,760 --> 00:32:28,840
Speaker 1: are probably familiar with this. But obviously, if one is

570
00:32:28,840 --> 00:32:31,400
Speaker 1: in a UH, is suffering from a condition that the

571
00:32:31,480 --> 00:32:35,480
Speaker 1: results in you know, um um diarrhea or um, you knows,

572
00:32:35,640 --> 00:32:38,680
Speaker 1: some sort of dysenterious situation, you end up losing more

573
00:32:38,920 --> 00:32:42,200
Speaker 1: and more water through defecation, and therefore you have to

574
00:32:42,200 --> 00:32:44,720
Speaker 1: make sure you're drinking more and more water to make

575
00:32:44,800 --> 00:32:48,200
Speaker 1: up for that water loss. Also, just a reminder out

576
00:32:48,480 --> 00:32:51,320
Speaker 1: anyone out there, a well fitted and well manufactured still

577
00:32:51,320 --> 00:32:55,080
Speaker 1: suit will collect all of this as it leaves your body. UH.

578
00:32:55,400 --> 00:32:57,640
Speaker 1: All the routes out will be covered, and you'll lose

579
00:32:57,720 --> 00:32:59,800
Speaker 1: no more than a thimble's worth of water per day.

580
00:33:00,000 --> 00:33:02,760
Speaker 1: We gotta stress well fitted though. You get the wrong

581
00:33:02,920 --> 00:33:04,760
Speaker 1: still suit on there, you're gonna have all kinds of

582
00:33:04,800 --> 00:33:07,240
Speaker 1: gaps and things not working right. That's right. You don't

583
00:33:07,240 --> 00:33:08,800
Speaker 1: know how to work the straps, and you're not you

584
00:33:08,840 --> 00:33:11,800
Speaker 1: don't have that forehead piece on correctly. It's just not

585
00:33:11,840 --> 00:33:21,720
Speaker 1: gonna work um at at an optimal level than all right. Well, anyway,

586
00:33:21,760 --> 00:33:24,000
Speaker 1: I want to come back to some of the findings

587
00:33:24,040 --> 00:33:27,440
Speaker 1: that are summarized in that current biology paper by leave

588
00:33:27,520 --> 00:33:29,840
Speaker 1: at all that I mentioned earlier. And again this is

589
00:33:29,840 --> 00:33:33,680
Speaker 1: from so there will be more research that we get

590
00:33:33,720 --> 00:33:37,040
Speaker 1: into from after that adds to some of these findings.

591
00:33:37,080 --> 00:33:38,760
Speaker 1: But this is where we were when this when this

592
00:33:38,840 --> 00:33:41,680
Speaker 1: good summary came out. So in the human body, the

593
00:33:41,880 --> 00:33:48,000
Speaker 1: brain monitors the body's water content, and when certain thresholds

594
00:33:48,080 --> 00:33:52,600
Speaker 1: are reached in the that information monitoring system, it motivates

595
00:33:52,640 --> 00:33:56,160
Speaker 1: the body to drink fluids. Of course, it's not only

596
00:33:56,280 --> 00:33:59,720
Speaker 1: the decrease of fluid volume in the body that makes

597
00:33:59,800 --> 00:34:02,360
Speaker 1: us thirsty. One of the most important things to understand

598
00:34:02,400 --> 00:34:05,960
Speaker 1: in the maintenance of the body's water content is the

599
00:34:06,000 --> 00:34:09,920
Speaker 1: importance of something known as osmal reality. That's O s

600
00:34:10,120 --> 00:34:13,359
Speaker 1: M O L A l I T Y. This is

601
00:34:13,400 --> 00:34:18,560
Speaker 1: the concentration of various particles such as electrolytes like sodium,

602
00:34:19,040 --> 00:34:23,200
Speaker 1: that are dissolved in the body's water content. And you'll

603
00:34:23,239 --> 00:34:26,879
Speaker 1: you'll see this often described as blood osmo reality. It's

604
00:34:26,920 --> 00:34:30,960
Speaker 1: basically functionally the same thing. The liquid part of our

605
00:34:31,000 --> 00:34:35,120
Speaker 1: blood plasma is roughly water. So when people talk about

606
00:34:35,120 --> 00:34:38,080
Speaker 1: blood osmo reality. They're talking about OSM reality of the

607
00:34:38,080 --> 00:34:42,960
Speaker 1: body's water content. The brain is actually incredibly sensitive to

608
00:34:43,200 --> 00:34:47,400
Speaker 1: changes in blood OSM reality. An increase in just one

609
00:34:47,560 --> 00:34:50,920
Speaker 1: percent of of the blood OSM reality can cause an

610
00:34:50,960 --> 00:34:54,880
Speaker 1: animal to feel thirst and the author's right quote. This sensation,

611
00:34:54,960 --> 00:34:58,080
Speaker 1: in turn, is sufficient to orient and energize all of

612
00:34:58,080 --> 00:35:02,839
Speaker 1: an animal's actions towards goal of finding and consuming water. Thus,

613
00:35:02,880 --> 00:35:05,040
Speaker 1: the study of thirst is the study of how the

614
00:35:05,120 --> 00:35:10,160
Speaker 1: brain performs this remarkable transformation, such that small changes in

615
00:35:10,200 --> 00:35:14,120
Speaker 1: the composition of the blood become a potent and specific

616
00:35:14,280 --> 00:35:18,160
Speaker 1: motivational drive. Uh And and the more I thought about that,

617
00:35:18,200 --> 00:35:21,759
Speaker 1: the more interesting it became that essentially, just sort of

618
00:35:21,840 --> 00:35:26,080
Speaker 1: eating a small amount of salt, for example, is enough

619
00:35:26,160 --> 00:35:31,080
Speaker 1: to to motivate my brain to change all of my behavior.

620
00:35:31,880 --> 00:35:35,799
Speaker 1: Because my osmolality goes up, the salt dissolved in my

621
00:35:35,840 --> 00:35:39,479
Speaker 1: body's water content increases in order to balance that out,

622
00:35:39,560 --> 00:35:41,600
Speaker 1: my body wants me to go get some more water

623
00:35:41,719 --> 00:35:44,640
Speaker 1: to drink, and that I will interrupt whatever I'm doing

624
00:35:44,640 --> 00:35:46,520
Speaker 1: to go do it. And we and we dind not

625
00:35:46,680 --> 00:35:49,359
Speaker 1: even really think about this. We don't think, Oh, now

626
00:35:49,400 --> 00:35:51,400
Speaker 1: my body has need of water, I must go get it.

627
00:35:51,400 --> 00:35:53,880
Speaker 1: It's just like, it's just what you do. Yeah. Like,

628
00:35:54,000 --> 00:35:55,960
Speaker 1: I mean right here, as we're recording, and I have

629
00:35:56,160 --> 00:35:58,279
Speaker 1: a big thermis of water and I just end up

630
00:35:58,320 --> 00:36:00,839
Speaker 1: casually sipping on it the whole time. Yeah. Same here.

631
00:36:00,840 --> 00:36:02,640
Speaker 1: I always get a nice big glass of water before

632
00:36:02,640 --> 00:36:05,640
Speaker 1: we start recording. But but the question would be, why

633
00:36:05,760 --> 00:36:08,920
Speaker 1: are our bodies so sensitive to these tiny changes in

634
00:36:09,000 --> 00:36:13,120
Speaker 1: osmo reality in the amount of of osmolites dissolved in

635
00:36:13,160 --> 00:36:17,040
Speaker 1: the blood. Why would like a one percent increase in

636
00:36:17,120 --> 00:36:21,560
Speaker 1: salt concentration really caused that much of a problem. Well,

637
00:36:21,640 --> 00:36:24,920
Speaker 1: the authors offer some explanations. They say, first of all,

638
00:36:25,280 --> 00:36:27,319
Speaker 1: you've got this thing in your body known as the

639
00:36:27,360 --> 00:36:34,000
Speaker 1: electrochemical gradient. The cells in our bodies are selectively permeable

640
00:36:34,080 --> 00:36:39,240
Speaker 1: to specific ions quote, resulting in an electrochemical gradient across

641
00:36:39,320 --> 00:36:44,759
Speaker 1: the plasma membrane that is exploited for numerous cellular functions.

642
00:36:44,800 --> 00:36:48,160
Speaker 1: So this means that there's a difference in the electrical

643
00:36:48,280 --> 00:36:52,240
Speaker 1: charge and the concentration of various chemicals on opposite sides

644
00:36:52,320 --> 00:36:55,880
Speaker 1: of the membrane that surrounds each of our cells. And

645
00:36:55,960 --> 00:36:58,719
Speaker 1: the difference or the gradient here, the fact that it's

646
00:36:58,760 --> 00:37:02,040
Speaker 1: different on each side of the membrane is what permits

647
00:37:02,120 --> 00:37:06,640
Speaker 1: the transportation of ions across the membrane so that cells

648
00:37:06,719 --> 00:37:09,600
Speaker 1: can do things, so that they can send and receive things.

649
00:37:09,640 --> 00:37:13,200
Speaker 1: So if you change your blood osmolality, you say, increase

650
00:37:13,280 --> 00:37:16,719
Speaker 1: the concentration of salt in the body's water content. You

651
00:37:16,840 --> 00:37:22,200
Speaker 1: change this gradient, and you change the water contents inside cells,

652
00:37:22,360 --> 00:37:26,040
Speaker 1: and you quote degrade normal cellular function. Now, I was

653
00:37:26,080 --> 00:37:28,200
Speaker 1: trying to think of a rough analogy, and here's what

654
00:37:28,239 --> 00:37:30,360
Speaker 1: I came up with. This may be very rough, but

655
00:37:30,400 --> 00:37:33,160
Speaker 1: it's my best attempt. So when you change your blood

656
00:37:33,160 --> 00:37:37,000
Speaker 1: osmolality away from its ideal, I would say your body

657
00:37:37,120 --> 00:37:40,840
Speaker 1: sort of becomes like a city that starts having system

658
00:37:40,880 --> 00:37:46,799
Speaker 1: wide problems opening and closing doors. Now, is the problems

659
00:37:46,840 --> 00:37:49,880
Speaker 1: opening and closing doors of all kinds throughout a city

660
00:37:49,960 --> 00:37:54,640
Speaker 1: get worse? Eventually this would just cause myriad diverse problems

661
00:37:54,680 --> 00:37:58,040
Speaker 1: throughout the city, much like it would in your body. Well,

662
00:37:58,080 --> 00:38:00,160
Speaker 1: that that just sounds like chaos. That just sounds like

663
00:38:00,160 --> 00:38:03,439
Speaker 1: like all order is falling out out the window, right,

664
00:38:03,480 --> 00:38:07,319
Speaker 1: And you can actually see that the visual representation of

665
00:38:07,320 --> 00:38:09,719
Speaker 1: that chaos in a chart that the authors include in

666
00:38:09,760 --> 00:38:14,160
Speaker 1: their paper, where it shows what the typical symptoms are

667
00:38:14,239 --> 00:38:18,320
Speaker 1: as the blood osmolality goes too far above or below

668
00:38:18,480 --> 00:38:22,040
Speaker 1: what it's supposed to be uh and uh. Basically on

669
00:38:22,080 --> 00:38:24,040
Speaker 1: both sides, it's sort of a mirror image with a

670
00:38:24,040 --> 00:38:26,719
Speaker 1: few differences. So you've got the normal range, but then

671
00:38:26,760 --> 00:38:31,799
Speaker 1: you start getting away from it, you get things like irritability, lethargy, nausea,

672
00:38:32,320 --> 00:38:36,400
Speaker 1: a taxia, trembling, hypothermia, and then in both cases you

673
00:38:36,520 --> 00:38:39,960
Speaker 1: end up in the seizures and death territory. So yeah,

674
00:38:40,000 --> 00:38:42,560
Speaker 1: so basically, you know, we have this this thin little

675
00:38:43,360 --> 00:38:47,840
Speaker 1: realm of stability, and to either extreme it's just madness

676
00:38:47,840 --> 00:38:51,000
Speaker 1: and death. Right, So the body has to very carefully

677
00:38:51,080 --> 00:38:54,640
Speaker 1: keep that concentration of osmo lites in the right range,

678
00:38:54,840 --> 00:38:57,399
Speaker 1: and if it gets off there there are it will

679
00:38:57,440 --> 00:39:01,040
Speaker 1: take drastic measures to get it right again. But then

680
00:39:01,080 --> 00:39:03,680
Speaker 1: the authors identify another major reason that the body has

681
00:39:03,760 --> 00:39:08,000
Speaker 1: to keep fluid volume and osmalality at the right levels,

682
00:39:08,360 --> 00:39:10,800
Speaker 1: which is blood pressure. You know, they say, your body

683
00:39:10,920 --> 00:39:14,440
Speaker 1: uses blood to transport oxygen and other essential nutrients to

684
00:39:14,520 --> 00:39:16,560
Speaker 1: all of its tissues. Everything of the body. It needs

685
00:39:16,600 --> 00:39:19,160
Speaker 1: to get oxygen uh that you know, from the lungs

686
00:39:19,160 --> 00:39:22,479
Speaker 1: in the heart, and the blood has to get there

687
00:39:22,560 --> 00:39:25,600
Speaker 1: to do its work. If the volume of water in

688
00:39:25,640 --> 00:39:31,560
Speaker 1: the body drops below ideal levels, blood volume actually decreases.

689
00:39:31,640 --> 00:39:35,640
Speaker 1: There's not enough blood, which means the circulatory system has

690
00:39:35,680 --> 00:39:38,640
Speaker 1: to work harder and harder to keep blood pressure up

691
00:39:38,680 --> 00:39:40,600
Speaker 1: where it needs to be to get to all the

692
00:39:40,640 --> 00:39:43,800
Speaker 1: parts of the body and deliver those nutrients. So, in

693
00:39:43,880 --> 00:39:47,600
Speaker 1: addition to maintaining the right concentration of those dissolved things

694
00:39:47,600 --> 00:39:51,520
Speaker 1: like sodium, you also just need to have enough water

695
00:39:51,680 --> 00:39:53,719
Speaker 1: in your body to keep your blood pressure up to

696
00:39:53,760 --> 00:39:56,279
Speaker 1: allow your heart to keep getting blood to all the

697
00:39:56,320 --> 00:39:58,160
Speaker 1: parts of the body. It just it kind of comes

698
00:39:58,160 --> 00:39:59,600
Speaker 1: back to what you said earlier about it. You know

699
00:39:59,640 --> 00:40:02,439
Speaker 1: that we're there's water bags. We are creatures made out

700
00:40:02,440 --> 00:40:05,200
Speaker 1: of water, and if we don't have enough water, we

701
00:40:05,239 --> 00:40:08,840
Speaker 1: don't have enough of us. Right, Yeah, nothing nothing works

702
00:40:08,880 --> 00:40:12,040
Speaker 1: without it anyway. The authors say that the bodies of

703
00:40:12,080 --> 00:40:16,080
Speaker 1: animals have evolved to carefully preserve blood volume and blood

704
00:40:16,080 --> 00:40:18,879
Speaker 1: OSM reality, and then they describe some of the main

705
00:40:19,000 --> 00:40:22,160
Speaker 1: components of this system that we know about. So, first

706
00:40:22,160 --> 00:40:26,200
Speaker 1: of all, there are neurons that monitor blood OSM reality

707
00:40:26,400 --> 00:40:30,160
Speaker 1: and volume. You've got specially dedicated cells in the central

708
00:40:30,200 --> 00:40:33,799
Speaker 1: nervous system, that pay attention to this stuff, and when

709
00:40:33,880 --> 00:40:37,399
Speaker 1: they detect a problem, they quote trigger a coordinated set

710
00:40:37,440 --> 00:40:42,319
Speaker 1: of autonomic, neuroendocrine, and behavioral responses that defend these parameters

711
00:40:42,360 --> 00:40:45,759
Speaker 1: against change. So one of the main measures the body

712
00:40:45,800 --> 00:40:48,640
Speaker 1: can take to defend against changes in OSM reality is

713
00:40:48,800 --> 00:40:53,480
Speaker 1: modulating kidney function. So as osmolality increases, you get a

714
00:40:53,520 --> 00:40:57,640
Speaker 1: surge of anti diuretic hormone, which makes the kidneys change

715
00:40:57,719 --> 00:41:01,479
Speaker 1: tack to keep more water inside the body and make

716
00:41:01,520 --> 00:41:05,240
Speaker 1: the urine more highly concentrated, make it less deluded with water.

717
00:41:05,800 --> 00:41:08,920
Speaker 1: Of course, the kidneys can't do their job alone because

718
00:41:09,080 --> 00:41:11,840
Speaker 1: they also have to do other things. In addition to that,

719
00:41:11,880 --> 00:41:15,160
Speaker 1: they have to help purge the body of toxic substances

720
00:41:15,239 --> 00:41:18,000
Speaker 1: and other kinds of waste, and of course some some

721
00:41:18,080 --> 00:41:22,120
Speaker 1: water volume will necessarily be lost in that process. Also,

722
00:41:22,200 --> 00:41:25,040
Speaker 1: the body loses water through these other means we mentioned

723
00:41:25,040 --> 00:41:28,040
Speaker 1: a minute ago, sweating, breathing, and so forth, So eventually

724
00:41:28,080 --> 00:41:30,600
Speaker 1: the body will be forced to consume new water to

725
00:41:30,680 --> 00:41:33,480
Speaker 1: restore the balance and the volume of the blood plasma.

726
00:41:34,400 --> 00:41:37,720
Speaker 1: So so that's the chemistry and the physiology, but eventually

727
00:41:37,800 --> 00:41:39,960
Speaker 1: you have to get to behavior. At some point, the

728
00:41:39,960 --> 00:41:43,440
Speaker 1: brain has to trigger behaviors to get new water. In

729
00:41:44,120 --> 00:41:47,960
Speaker 1: so an animal thinks I need to drink water. Of course,

730
00:41:48,000 --> 00:41:50,839
Speaker 1: this behavior can be costly there, you know, there are

731
00:41:50,880 --> 00:41:54,800
Speaker 1: factors working against an animal's motivation to do it because

732
00:41:55,239 --> 00:41:58,799
Speaker 1: it might involve spending energy finding and traveling to a

733
00:41:58,840 --> 00:42:02,399
Speaker 1: water source. It might involve taking big risks. I mean,

734
00:42:02,440 --> 00:42:05,320
Speaker 1: think of all the nature documentaries you've seen when predation

735
00:42:05,440 --> 00:42:08,640
Speaker 1: happens at the water's edge, whether it's a crocodile jumping

736
00:42:08,640 --> 00:42:10,919
Speaker 1: out of the water or a predator sneaking up while

737
00:42:10,920 --> 00:42:14,480
Speaker 1: an animal is distracted by lapping up water. Yeah, and

738
00:42:14,480 --> 00:42:17,480
Speaker 1: and some of those predators have been traditionally been human beings,

739
00:42:17,719 --> 00:42:21,799
Speaker 1: oh totally. And of course drinking water just involves temporarily

740
00:42:22,120 --> 00:42:25,160
Speaker 1: de prioritizing other important things, like you know, in the

741
00:42:25,239 --> 00:42:28,840
Speaker 1: natural context, maybe forging for food or pursuing reproduction. But

742
00:42:28,920 --> 00:42:31,040
Speaker 1: even think you know, it might force you to get

743
00:42:31,080 --> 00:42:34,960
Speaker 1: up from gaming or whatever. Well, I mean, this is

744
00:42:35,040 --> 00:42:38,080
Speaker 1: one of those areas again where like with humans, so

745
00:42:38,120 --> 00:42:40,399
Speaker 1: many of us are are are fortunate that we never

746
00:42:40,440 --> 00:42:43,560
Speaker 1: have to hunt for water. You know, the drinking water

747
00:42:43,719 --> 00:42:46,919
Speaker 1: is readily available to us. We have all that we need.

748
00:42:47,480 --> 00:42:52,040
Speaker 1: And likewise, through humanum civilization, we we tend to have

749
00:42:52,160 --> 00:42:56,760
Speaker 1: the food situation knocked as well. Again, and and ideal circumstances,

750
00:42:56,920 --> 00:43:00,160
Speaker 1: you're not going to have to spend um most to

751
00:43:00,239 --> 00:43:02,640
Speaker 1: your day foraging for food, which is going to be

752
00:43:02,840 --> 00:43:06,239
Speaker 1: the case with many different species of animals, you know,

753
00:43:06,280 --> 00:43:08,680
Speaker 1: where most of the day is about just finding the food,

754
00:43:08,760 --> 00:43:10,640
Speaker 1: eating the food, and of course there's no there's no

755
00:43:10,719 --> 00:43:12,759
Speaker 1: room for anything else. And if you're having to hunt

756
00:43:12,760 --> 00:43:15,640
Speaker 1: for extra water along the way, then you're that's getting

757
00:43:15,640 --> 00:43:19,360
Speaker 1: in the way potentially of this this vital food hunt. Yeah,

758
00:43:19,640 --> 00:43:24,520
Speaker 1: just as an aside, easy access to clean, drinkable running

759
00:43:24,520 --> 00:43:27,480
Speaker 1: water is like might go to example of what's good

760
00:43:27,520 --> 00:43:29,680
Speaker 1: about modern civilization. You know, there are a lot of

761
00:43:29,680 --> 00:43:32,200
Speaker 1: people who kind of demonize modern civilization, and there are

762
00:43:32,200 --> 00:43:34,600
Speaker 1: a lot of things about it not to like. But

763
00:43:34,600 --> 00:43:37,640
Speaker 1: but easy access to clean water is like, that is

764
00:43:37,800 --> 00:43:41,319
Speaker 1: the most unambiguous good thing I can think of, right,

765
00:43:41,360 --> 00:43:43,560
Speaker 1: I mean to the to the to the extent that

766
00:43:43,600 --> 00:43:47,239
Speaker 1: it's ridiculous in some in many cases you know where

767
00:43:47,280 --> 00:43:50,520
Speaker 1: someone might ask, what what is this, what is this

768
00:43:50,600 --> 00:43:53,239
Speaker 1: water in your toilet? Well, this is drinking water, the

769
00:43:53,480 --> 00:43:55,719
Speaker 1: drinking water that comes into the house. He goes into

770
00:43:55,719 --> 00:43:57,920
Speaker 1: the toilet, we just make sure that the water in

771
00:43:57,960 --> 00:44:02,120
Speaker 1: there it's perfectly fresh and drinkable. Um, which I guess

772
00:44:02,239 --> 00:44:04,319
Speaker 1: is good for the dogs and the cats. But um,

773
00:44:05,120 --> 00:44:07,720
Speaker 1: you know certainly that I think you see these various

774
00:44:07,880 --> 00:44:10,799
Speaker 1: you know, gray water models that certainly make a lot

775
00:44:10,880 --> 00:44:12,759
Speaker 1: more sense, like why should the drinking water be the

776
00:44:12,840 --> 00:44:15,880
Speaker 1: water in the toilet. Can't the water from the washing

777
00:44:16,000 --> 00:44:17,800
Speaker 1: of my hands be the water in the toilet? Wouldn't

778
00:44:17,800 --> 00:44:21,080
Speaker 1: that make more sense? Of course it requires more work, right,

779
00:44:21,160 --> 00:44:23,880
Speaker 1: But to come back to the the the wild context,

780
00:44:23,960 --> 00:44:26,200
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously there are all these things that would

781
00:44:26,239 --> 00:44:31,239
Speaker 1: be factors pushing against your your acquisition of water when

782
00:44:31,320 --> 00:44:34,200
Speaker 1: your body needs it. So of course what an animal

783
00:44:34,320 --> 00:44:38,920
Speaker 1: needs is intrinsic motivation. Actually, they're demotivating factors that are

784
00:44:38,960 --> 00:44:43,000
Speaker 1: just natural parts of the environment. So acquiring water needs

785
00:44:43,080 --> 00:44:47,240
Speaker 1: its own intrinsic motivation, hence the motivating desire of thirst.

786
00:44:47,400 --> 00:44:51,040
Speaker 1: It is a moment to moment drive to acquire water

787
00:44:51,239 --> 00:44:55,760
Speaker 1: that's calibrated by the constantly updated feedback on blood volume

788
00:44:55,800 --> 00:44:58,680
Speaker 1: and osmality, though there may also be some other interesting

789
00:44:59,480 --> 00:45:01,719
Speaker 1: and more prizing inputs on it that will get to

790
00:45:01,840 --> 00:45:04,240
Speaker 1: in a bit Now, the authors point out that thirst

791
00:45:04,320 --> 00:45:08,680
Speaker 1: appears to have both positive and negative motivating mechanisms, and

792
00:45:08,760 --> 00:45:11,480
Speaker 1: I think you can think about food, food and hunger

793
00:45:11,560 --> 00:45:15,240
Speaker 1: as an analogy here, because there's something sort of along

794
00:45:15,280 --> 00:45:18,600
Speaker 1: the same line. So you've got positive reinforcement of fluid

795
00:45:18,640 --> 00:45:22,680
Speaker 1: drinking behavior by just making drinking water when you're thirsty

796
00:45:22,840 --> 00:45:25,279
Speaker 1: feel really good. You know, when you're very thirsty, that

797
00:45:25,400 --> 00:45:29,120
Speaker 1: glass of water, it's it's delicious, it's wonderful, it feels great.

798
00:45:29,640 --> 00:45:32,040
Speaker 1: And then you've got the negative reinforcement side, which is

799
00:45:32,120 --> 00:45:35,440
Speaker 1: that thirst is inherently unpleasant. It is experienced as a

800
00:45:35,560 --> 00:45:39,880
Speaker 1: type of discomfort or pain that has to be alleviated

801
00:45:40,040 --> 00:45:43,480
Speaker 1: by drinking fluid. So we all know from experience that

802
00:45:43,600 --> 00:45:45,840
Speaker 1: these things are true, that you have this positive and

803
00:45:45,960 --> 00:45:49,960
Speaker 1: negative reinforcement mechanism within the brain for thirst and the

804
00:45:50,040 --> 00:45:53,600
Speaker 1: drinking of water. But what's very interesting is that, at

805
00:45:53,680 --> 00:45:57,200
Speaker 1: least at the time of this paper, in how these

806
00:45:57,239 --> 00:46:00,360
Speaker 1: two mechanisms of thirst are instantiated in the brain is

807
00:46:00,440 --> 00:46:04,720
Speaker 1: still not fully understood. There are some major question marks remaining,

808
00:46:04,800 --> 00:46:06,799
Speaker 1: and I think there are at least a few other

809
00:46:06,880 --> 00:46:09,480
Speaker 1: studies that we can refer to in subsequent parts of

810
00:46:09,560 --> 00:46:13,440
Speaker 1: the series about that where where some ideas have developed

811
00:46:13,520 --> 00:46:16,200
Speaker 1: since then, but there's still a lot of questions out there,

812
00:46:16,880 --> 00:46:19,200
Speaker 1: and this is This is one of the reasons that

813
00:46:19,239 --> 00:46:22,240
Speaker 1: I thought it would be so interesting to pursue Thirst

814
00:46:22,719 --> 00:46:25,680
Speaker 1: as a series on the show, because it's surprising that

815
00:46:25,840 --> 00:46:27,600
Speaker 1: there are things we still don't know about it. It

816
00:46:27,680 --> 00:46:29,680
Speaker 1: seems like one of those things that would be absolutely

817
00:46:29,800 --> 00:46:33,239
Speaker 1: totally understood at this point. But but there's some great

818
00:46:33,280 --> 00:46:37,560
Speaker 1: outlining questions about thirst and and uh, how we experience thirst,

819
00:46:37,960 --> 00:46:41,520
Speaker 1: what are the neural pathways there, how is thirst sated?

820
00:46:41,600 --> 00:46:43,800
Speaker 1: And so forth? So maybe we'll have to call it

821
00:46:43,920 --> 00:46:45,960
Speaker 1: for this first part here. I know I'm only halfway

822
00:46:46,000 --> 00:46:48,400
Speaker 1: through discussing this uh from repaper, but if we go

823
00:46:48,520 --> 00:46:50,760
Speaker 1: on through the end of this one, this first episode

824
00:46:50,800 --> 00:46:52,800
Speaker 1: is gonna be two hours long or something, So so

825
00:46:52,960 --> 00:46:54,919
Speaker 1: maybe we should call it. What do you think, Rob?

826
00:46:55,280 --> 00:46:57,959
Speaker 1: I think so, Yeah, I'm actually almost out of water

827
00:46:58,080 --> 00:47:00,799
Speaker 1: here and I'm going to have to reef ill. But yeah,

828
00:47:00,800 --> 00:47:02,200
Speaker 1: I'm excited to keep going with this. There are a

829
00:47:02,280 --> 00:47:05,320
Speaker 1: number of little areas I'm hoping we'll get into the

830
00:47:05,400 --> 00:47:09,680
Speaker 1: manipulation of thirst by other organisms the end and life

831
00:47:09,719 --> 00:47:13,040
Speaker 1: forms the I want to get back to the taste

832
00:47:13,080 --> 00:47:16,200
Speaker 1: of water. Uh, this is something that's always fascinated me.

833
00:47:16,560 --> 00:47:20,160
Speaker 1: I mean, granted, water, the taste of of of water

834
00:47:20,239 --> 00:47:22,080
Speaker 1: will change depending on where you're getting the water. But

835
00:47:22,160 --> 00:47:24,000
Speaker 1: you'll sometimes hear people say, well, I don't like the

836
00:47:24,040 --> 00:47:26,959
Speaker 1: taste of water, or we'll think of water as having

837
00:47:27,120 --> 00:47:30,200
Speaker 1: no taste at all. Um. I actually found some some

838
00:47:30,480 --> 00:47:32,880
Speaker 1: some some papers dealing with this topic a little bit,

839
00:47:33,000 --> 00:47:35,160
Speaker 1: so I think they could be fun to discuss people

840
00:47:35,160 --> 00:47:37,239
Speaker 1: who don't like the taste of water that is a

841
00:47:37,360 --> 00:47:43,120
Speaker 1: telltale sign of vampireism. Just add some red food coloring

842
00:47:43,160 --> 00:47:45,279
Speaker 1: to it. Then then you're you're like, oh, this is great,

843
00:47:45,360 --> 00:47:48,520
Speaker 1: this is wonderful. Okay, well, all veins to drink from

844
00:47:48,640 --> 00:47:51,920
Speaker 1: when we return, all right. Uh. In the meantime, if

845
00:47:51,960 --> 00:47:53,560
Speaker 1: you want to check out other episodes of Stuff to

846
00:47:53,600 --> 00:47:55,279
Speaker 1: Blow your Mind, you'll find them in the Stuff to

847
00:47:55,280 --> 00:47:57,920
Speaker 1: Blow your Mind podcast feed wherever you get your podcast

848
00:47:58,040 --> 00:48:02,320
Speaker 1: Core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursday is artifact episodes on Wednesdays,

849
00:48:02,360 --> 00:48:04,359
Speaker 1: listener mail on Mondays, and on Fridays would do weird

850
00:48:04,400 --> 00:48:06,440
Speaker 1: how cinema. That's our time to set aside most serious

851
00:48:06,480 --> 00:48:09,960
Speaker 1: matters and just discuss a weird film Huge thanks as

852
00:48:09,960 --> 00:48:13,520
Speaker 1: always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If

853
00:48:13,560 --> 00:48:15,080
Speaker 1: you would like to get in touch with us with

854
00:48:15,239 --> 00:48:17,680
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