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Speaker 1: Welcome to sbot to Blow Your Mind production of My

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.

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Speaker 1: My name is Robert lamp and I'm Joe McCormick. Hey,

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Speaker 1: it's our yearly Ignobles episode. That's right, This is a

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Speaker 1: tradition for us. These awards go out generally what mid

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Speaker 1: to late September. We always come back and hit them

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Speaker 1: in early November, after we're done with all of our

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Speaker 1: Halloween content. And it's just, you know, a great way

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Speaker 1: to dive back in to, uh, to serious scientific study.

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Speaker 1: And I'm not joking because granted, these are awards that

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Speaker 1: that's that celebrate and highlight studies that may seem a

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Speaker 1: bit absurd and a bit a bit comical, but generally speaking,

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Speaker 1: we're dealing with with with with actual research that doesn't

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Speaker 1: at least in some way expand our scientific knowledge of

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Speaker 1: the world. Right, even if it's funny, you can usually

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Speaker 1: learn something interesting from it, right. So the basics on

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Speaker 1: the Igno Belt obviously it's a play on the Nobel Prize. Uh.

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Speaker 1: These have been awarded each year since nineteen by the

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Speaker 1: Annimals of Improbable Research, which is a publication that uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, prides itself on seeking out the absurd and

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Speaker 1: the humorous and the whimsical within the realms of legitimate

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Speaker 1: scientific research. The purpose of the award, according to the

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Speaker 1: editors UH is to quote to honor achievements that first

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Speaker 1: make people laugh and then make them think. Furthermore, they

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Speaker 1: stressed that the ten prizes aren't necessarily meant to pass

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Speaker 1: judgment on the winners. Instead, the official website emphasizes that

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Speaker 1: the prizes quote celebrate the unusual, honor the imaginative, and

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Speaker 1: spur people's interests in science, medicine, and technology. And the

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Speaker 1: key individual in all this is editor Mark Abrams, who

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Speaker 1: again has been heading this up since now. In some

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Speaker 1: previous years we've covered all of the prizes awarded. We're

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Speaker 1: not going to be doing that this year. We just

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Speaker 1: wanted to pick out a selection and focus on a

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Speaker 1: few of them that seemed fun or interesting for one

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Speaker 1: episode this year. We might come back with multiple parts

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Speaker 1: in future years, but this year we're just sticking with

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Speaker 1: the one right and if you want the full list

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Speaker 1: of winners then you should go to www dot Improbable

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Speaker 1: dot com. Now, this year's ceremonies happened entirely online on Thursday,

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Speaker 1: septe um and uh yeah, let's let's dive right in.

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Speaker 1: Let's see what which one are we going to discuss first?

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Speaker 1: What we've We've got to start with a knife made

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Speaker 1: of feces, because that seems like the perfect metaphor for

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Speaker 1: the year is just being menaced with a blade of

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Speaker 1: of excrement, blade of excrement, it shall be. This was

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Speaker 1: the Materials Science Prize and it does concern a frozen

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Speaker 1: feces knife. Um. Now to to put this in the

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Speaker 1: correct um, you know, frame of reverence, so to really

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Speaker 1: prepare you for what we're specifically talking about here, I'm

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Speaker 1: going to read a segment here from Shadows in the

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Speaker 1: Sun Travels to Landscapes of Spirit and Desire. Uh is

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Speaker 1: a book came out by Wade Davis, a Canadian US

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Speaker 1: Colombian cultural anthropologist, ethnobotanist, author and photographer. Quote. There is

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Speaker 1: a well known account of an old Inuit man who

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Speaker 1: refused to move into a settlement over the objections of

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Speaker 1: his family. He made plans to stay on the ice.

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Speaker 1: To stop him, they took away all his tools, so

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Speaker 1: in the midst of a winter gale, he stepped out

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Speaker 1: of their iglue defecated and honed the feces into a

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Speaker 1: frozen blade, which he sharpened with a spray of saliva.

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Speaker 1: With the knife, he killed a dog using its ribbed

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Speaker 1: cage as a sled, and it's high to harness another dog.

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Speaker 1: He disappeared into the darkness. WHOA, Now that's that's that's

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Speaker 1: a pretty awesome little tail there. That's beyond Rambo levels

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Speaker 1: of of improvised tools. I mean, that's that's good stuff,

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Speaker 1: beyond the Giver, beyond Rambo. Yeah, so this is this

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Speaker 1: is the account or one of two accounts that the

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Speaker 1: study we're gonna get to is going to deal with.

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Speaker 1: I do think that I thought I would point out

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Speaker 1: though for long time listeners of the show, you might

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Speaker 1: recognize the name Wade Davis. Davis has written no numerous

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Speaker 1: books over the years, but he was perhaps most famously

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Speaker 1: the author of The Serpent and the Rainbow um, which,

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Speaker 1: as we discussed on the show before, put forward the

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Speaker 1: hypothesis that tetrato toxin is linked to the zombie legend

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Speaker 1: and Haiti hypo and a hypothesis that proved somewhat controversial. Uh.

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Speaker 1: This is a nonfiction book, but it served as the

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Speaker 1: inspiration for the West Craven film, which was just an

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Speaker 1: infamously troubled production filmed on location in Haiti, starring Bill Pullman,

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Speaker 1: uh Paul Winfield and I can't remember if there was

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Speaker 1: anybody else really have note in that. But um Shadows

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Speaker 1: of the Sun, on the other hand, collects various essays

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Speaker 1: by Davis concerning various parts of the world, including the

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Speaker 1: innuits of the Arctic Circle. But let's get back to

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Speaker 1: this poop blade, so material sciences aside. We'll get into

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Speaker 1: the material sciences here. This seems like a perfectly great

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Speaker 1: legend of a man so rugged and committed to life

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Speaker 1: on the ice that robbed of his tools, he will

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Speaker 1: forge a blade from his own excrement and use it

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Speaker 1: to cut a sled and harness from one dog, and

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Speaker 1: then lash that sled to another dog and then just

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Speaker 1: escape into the wilds. Right. It's sort of the ultimate

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Speaker 1: story of of self reliance and resourcefulness. But it does

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Speaker 1: raise the question is this possible? Could you actually do

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Speaker 1: this right? Because what works in legend doesn't necessarily work

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Speaker 1: in the real world. But that's where this study enters

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Speaker 1: the picture to shed light on the legend and see

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Speaker 1: if it melts or see if it holds its form um.

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Speaker 1: So I'm not going to read the entire title of

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Speaker 1: the paper just yet because it gives away the answer.

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Speaker 1: But essentially this was looking to it was. It had

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Speaker 1: to do with experimental replicate replication of a knife made

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Speaker 1: from frozen human feces, and it was by Aaron at All,

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Speaker 1: published in the Journal of Archaeological Science in October of

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Speaker 1: twenty nineteen. Uh. That is meeting I Aaron, Associate Professor

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Speaker 1: of Anthropology and Director of Archaeology at Kent State University. UH.

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Speaker 1: He's the key investigator in this. He's also the one

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Speaker 1: who's poop they will use. Now, this is interesting because

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Speaker 1: it ties into some stuff we've talked about on the

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Speaker 1: show recently. For example, in the Pike Create episode PI

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Speaker 1: Crete is. If you didn't check that one out yet,

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Speaker 1: that was a lot of fun. But it's a story

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Speaker 1: about an attempt during World War Two to manufacture a

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Speaker 1: sort of floating armored aircraft carrier out of what would

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Speaker 1: have been a mixture of wood, pulp and ice. And

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Speaker 1: it kind of gets you considering the different possibilities of

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Speaker 1: what kinds of tools and even structures or vehicles you

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Speaker 1: can make out of various types of frozen material, because

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Speaker 1: the material properties of water with saturated wood pulp in

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Speaker 1: it are are very different when frozen than just plain water. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and and really that the work we did researching PI

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Speaker 1: cret I mean it makes you think, well, maybe this

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Speaker 1: could work, right, because what is fecal matter, But you know,

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Speaker 1: it has water and it obviously, but it also has

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Speaker 1: these these different depending on the diet. Yeah, there's gonna

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Speaker 1: be some other stuff in there that could potentially add

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Speaker 1: to the structure and keep it from shattering. H um. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean it's one of these things that sounds potentially plausible.

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Speaker 1: And and again that's where the experiment comes into play.

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Speaker 1: I mean it does make you wonder what should you

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Speaker 1: eat if you want your fecal matter to be the

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Speaker 1: most knife ready. Yeah. Of course. It's also we mentioned

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Speaker 1: I think Mortal Kombat Sub Zero, the the character the

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Speaker 1: warrior in the video games and the movies that that

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Speaker 1: the in addition to freezing people solid and shattering them,

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Speaker 1: also crafts magical weapons out of out of magical ice.

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Speaker 1: Uh So really this is this is essentially fodder for

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Speaker 1: a new Mortal Kombat character, like the poopier version of

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Speaker 1: sub zero. Okay, I gotta know the answer, all right, Well,

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Speaker 1: let's work our way up to the answers. So, as

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Speaker 1: the author's point out, Davis's account in the book was

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Speaker 1: attributed to one Olayuk nar Quitarvek, who who said this

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Speaker 1: about his own grandfather in the nineteen fifties. Um, I

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Speaker 1: mean the grandfather would have lived in the nineteen fifties.

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Speaker 1: That's the idea here now. Davis himself admitted that he

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Speaker 1: initially took the story as a humorous one and admits

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Speaker 1: that it might well be more legend than reality. But

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Speaker 1: it was subsequently repeated in various texts and uh and David.

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Speaker 1: But Davis did say that, well, okay, there is an

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Speaker 1: account we can look to that could potentially back this up.

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Speaker 1: And it's an account by Danish explorer Peter Frutchen, who

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Speaker 1: lived eighteen eighty six through nineteen fifty seven, and uh

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Speaker 1: Fruction claimed to have used a similar tactic. His account

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Speaker 1: was that he dug a pit to sleep in this

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Speaker 1: is in the Arctic, and awoke to find himself snowed in. So,

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Speaker 1: remembering seeing frozen dog extreument that looked pretty solid, he

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Speaker 1: he got an idea. He decided to defecate in one hand,

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Speaker 1: shape it into a chisel and then wait for the

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Speaker 1: fecal matter to freeze hard enough then to use that

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Speaker 1: chisel to dig his way out. I don't I mean,

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Speaker 1: I don't know, but for some reason, my my skeptical

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Speaker 1: antennae or sort of perking up that something about this

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Speaker 1: story seems wrong, I too, am doubtful. I was doubtful

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Speaker 1: as well. So basically this is where the this is

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Speaker 1: where the experiment comes in. Because again, just because you

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Speaker 1: have these two cases, one is is more presented as

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Speaker 1: a legend and one also might be an exaggerated or

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Speaker 1: simply made up account. Uh, there's just no way of knowing.

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Speaker 1: It's not like in either case someone kept the poop

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Speaker 1: dagger and it was you know, presented, So that means

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Speaker 1: you've got to make your own poop a dagger. And

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Speaker 1: that's exactly what they did in this um uh, this

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Speaker 1: kid State University study. So first of all, I just

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Speaker 1: want to want to just let everybody know, no dogs

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Speaker 1: are cut up in this experiment. They use pig hide

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Speaker 1: muscles and tendons to stand in for dog fl but

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Speaker 1: the poop, well that's a little too essential to the experiment.

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Speaker 1: They had to use actual human fecal matter, but they

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Speaker 1: also needed to make sure it was fecal matter in

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Speaker 1: keeping with the diet of an Inuit living on the

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Speaker 1: ice in the nineteen fifties. Oh okay, So what would

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Speaker 1: this diet most likely consist of. Well, this is what

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Speaker 1: they say in the study quote, in order to procure

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Speaker 1: the necessary raw materials for knife production, one of us,

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Speaker 1: and then they include the in parenthesise m I E

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Speaker 1: for meat and I Aaron the again the Associate professor

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Speaker 1: of Anthropology and director of Archaeology, I can't state, went

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Speaker 1: on a diet with high protein and fatty acids, which

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Speaker 1: is consistent with an Arctic diet for eight days. The

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Speaker 1: Innuit do not only eat meat from maritime and terrestrial animals,

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Speaker 1: and there were three instances during the eight day diet

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Speaker 1: that M I E ate fruit, vegetables, or carbohydrates. Okay,

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Speaker 1: so this is a diet that is not exclusively meat based,

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Speaker 1: but is largely meat based, right, Yeah, more and more

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Speaker 1: beat based than and um than Aaron would usually UM

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Speaker 1: engage with. So on the fourth day he begins the

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Speaker 1: collection process and this continues for five days. The fecal

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Speaker 1: samples were formed into knives via ceramic molds, but they

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Speaker 1: were also molded by hand into quote hand shaped knives,

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Speaker 1: and all of these were stored in a freezer, hopefully

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Speaker 1: clearly marked who molded them by hand. I don't know

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Speaker 1: that the study was specific on that matter. I I'm

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Speaker 1: a I'm assuming that it's m I. E. Him self

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Speaker 1: that is doing most of the molding and the handling

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Speaker 1: of his own poop blades. Um maybe this is unreasonable

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Speaker 1: taboo enforcement. It seems like weird to make somebody else

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Speaker 1: handle your frozen feces. Yeah, yeah, I would agree, But

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Speaker 1: I don't know in the name of science, you know,

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Speaker 1: with with you know, appropriate scientific restraints in place, you know,

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Speaker 1: it might be okay. So when it came time to

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Speaker 1: put the knives to the test, they were taken out

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Speaker 1: of the freezer, they were sharpened once more, and then

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Speaker 1: they were turned to even older temperatures via dry ice

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Speaker 1: to ready them for the task. And and part of

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Speaker 1: this is really as um as the investigators went onto

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Speaker 1: to state like this was trying to create the best

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Speaker 1: possible conditions for this uh test to potentially work, Like

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Speaker 1: really to give just make sure everything was just as

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Speaker 1: frozen as possible. Um and uh. And so that they decided.

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Speaker 1: Then they put them to the test. They started with

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Speaker 1: the toughest challenge, however, and that's the hide, because they figured, well,

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Speaker 1: if the knives failed to cut through the hide, you

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Speaker 1: can basically go ahead and call it a day because

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Speaker 1: it doesn't matter. They can cut through fat, etcetera. Here's

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Speaker 1: what happened. Both varieties of fecal blade. That means, the

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Speaker 1: ones that were just put in the mold, the ones

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Speaker 1: that were formed by hand. Both of them failed to

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Speaker 1: cut the hide. Oh, your knife sucks. Now, I know

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Speaker 1: what you're thinking. Maybe they got the poop consistency wrong. Well,

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Speaker 1: they thought of that they had forged a blade from

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Speaker 1: Western diet poop, but that failed as well. They also

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Speaker 1: went ahead and tried the blades out on a layer

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Speaker 1: of fat underneath the hide, and quote, only the shallowest

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Speaker 1: of slices could be produced and the knife edge still

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Speaker 1: quickly melted and deteriorated. Yeah. I would imagine that this

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Speaker 1: would be a problem that uh, that it just melts

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Speaker 1: too fast to be effective at cutting. I mean, I

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Speaker 1: bet you probably could get a somewhat sharp edge on it,

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Speaker 1: but how would you hold the edge for very long,

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Speaker 1: because as soon as you start sewing into something, it's

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Speaker 1: probably just gonna get heated up by friction and then

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Speaker 1: melt away and be blunt. Yeah, because I mean, because

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Speaker 1: that's that's the one of the keys here is that

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Speaker 1: the legend is not a story of someone who stabbed

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Speaker 1: somebody in the eye with an icicle, you know. It's

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Speaker 1: the story of someone who butchers a dog and processes

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Speaker 1: its body to make raw materials. Now, the researcher stress

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Speaker 1: that by depending again on very cold materials instead of

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Speaker 1: fresh kills, uh, they gave the experiment the best chance

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Speaker 1: of success, but the blades still failed to match up

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Speaker 1: to the legend. Now that, they also drive home that

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Speaker 1: perhaps additional test with additional fecal matter samples would be

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Speaker 1: ideal if anyone else wants to continue this this great work.

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Speaker 1: But you know, I don't know, like what would be

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Speaker 1: the additional um, you know, dietary um uh formula for

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Speaker 1: fecal matter that would make a better poop knife. I

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Speaker 1: don't know. I mean, honestly, now that I'm thinking about it,

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Speaker 1: I don't even know if like you could make a

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Speaker 1: very good knife out of pike crete, right, because a

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Speaker 1: knife depends so much on having a very sharp blade

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Speaker 1: to work very effectively. And while pike crete is really

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Speaker 1: good at preventing cracks from propagating across the length of it,

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Speaker 1: and it's pretty good at melting more slowly than regular ice,

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Speaker 1: I still think the sharp edge of a pike crete

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Speaker 1: knife would probably melt pretty quickly, too quickly to be useful.

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Speaker 1: So it seems like you'd be better off if you

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Speaker 1: made a pike create or a frozen poop warhammer, right right, yeah, okay, Um. Now,

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Speaker 1: the in addition to you know, contemplations of regarding different diets, uh,

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Speaker 1: they also contemplate, you know, the idea that, okay, you

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Speaker 1: have this saliva aspect of the original legend, right, that

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Speaker 1: he sprays saliva onto the poop knife and then forges it.

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Speaker 1: But they're doubtful that that would really make a difference either.

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Speaker 1: They point to the work of McCall and Telton from

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Speaker 1: two thousand ten, who looked into the idea of whether

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Speaker 1: humans and cold regions used flaked and chipped ice for

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Speaker 1: butchery tools, and they too found that melting occurred with

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Speaker 1: these when these objects came into contact with warm bodies,

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Speaker 1: and that they also melted during use. So um, you

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Speaker 1: know again you're coming down to I think in a

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Speaker 1: case where if you're talking about creating something out of

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Speaker 1: out of ice or frozen poop and you're attempting to

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Speaker 1: use it as a butchery tool, um, you're just asking

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Speaker 1: too much of the material For frozen material. The effectiveness

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Speaker 1: of a knife blade depends on it being very thin. Basically,

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Speaker 1: the extent to which it's effective is based on its thinness,

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Speaker 1: and being thin would make any frozen material likely to

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Speaker 1: melt because you know, it's harder to maintain the cold temperatures.

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Speaker 1: It's just gonna acquire heat from the environment from friction

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Speaker 1: too fast. Now you might ask yourself, okay, but seriously,

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Speaker 1: why was this necessary research? I think they have a

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Speaker 1: nice uh summary of this in the paper itself. I

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Speaker 1: just want to read this quote. Societal narratives and policies

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Speaker 1: are often constructed from anthropological and scientific claims. While the

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Speaker 1: narrative that indigenous and prehistoric people are technologically resourceful and

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Speaker 1: innovative is widely supported, these narratives suffer when an untested

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Speaker 1: claim is used to support it. If one untested claim

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Speaker 1: is used to support a stance, even if that stance

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Speaker 1: is otherwise supported, ethical, or just, then there is no

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Speaker 1: logical reason why a second untested claim cannot be invoked.

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Speaker 1: The use of untested claims then becomes the norm and

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Speaker 1: can be used to support stances that are beneficial to

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Speaker 1: society as well as those that are harmful. Anthropologists must

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Speaker 1: actively seek out unsupported claims, assumptions, rumors, and urban legends,

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Speaker 1: and by testing them, ensure any narratives that follow are

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Speaker 1: as sturdy as possible. Right, So, there are enough true

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Speaker 1: stories about resourcefulness and ingenuity among the Inuit people's that

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Speaker 1: you don't need like physically impossible stories gunking up the works, right,

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Speaker 1: And by investigating a story like this, you can you

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Speaker 1: can make that that decision. Okay, looks like we file

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Speaker 1: this more under legend and mythology as opposed to a

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Speaker 1: true tale of survival. Right, So that's the poop knife.

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Speaker 1: I thought that one was really entertaining, and again it

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Speaker 1: does feel kind of fitting for but also it's just

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Speaker 1: a really cool story. Uh. And and I do encourage

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Speaker 1: anyone out there who has a dungeon master or or

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Speaker 1: a Dungeons and Dragons player keep this story in mind.

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Speaker 1: I think this one will prove useful, especially if you're

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Speaker 1: adventuring and somewhere like ice wind Dale or something. Um

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Speaker 1: you know, usually try and use the poop knife. Maybe

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Speaker 1: your dungeon master has heard this episode or has read

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Speaker 1: this study follows the Ignoble Prizes, and they'll shoot you down.

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Speaker 1: But you know, dungeons and dragons is a legendary environment,

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Speaker 1: so maybe you'll get away with it. You have acquired

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Speaker 1: the blade of Latrinius. Alright, on that note, we're gonna

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Speaker 1: take a quick break, but when we come back, we'll

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Speaker 1: discuss another selection from the Ignoble Prizes. Thank alright, we're back.

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Speaker 1: What have you got for us, Joe? Okay, it's time

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Speaker 1: to talk about professional entomologists who are afraid of spiders.

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Speaker 1: So this winning article, this was from the Entomology Prize.

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Speaker 1: It's by Richard S. Vetter, called arachnophobic entomologists when two

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Speaker 1: more legs makes a Big difference, published an American Entomologist

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Speaker 1: in Now. The author of the study, Richard Vetter, is

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Speaker 1: now retired, but during his career he was an entomology

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Speaker 1: research associate at UC Riverside and a quick look around

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Speaker 1: the internet at photos of this guy and interviews with

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Speaker 1: him suggests that he has some kind of arachnophiliac. He

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Speaker 1: clearly loves spider as I found a picture of him

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Speaker 1: with a spider crawling on his eye and he's got

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Speaker 1: this big smile on his face. I generally thought this

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Speaker 1: was a picture of Dennis Hopper when I first saw it.

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Speaker 1: I thought it's like a younger Dennis Hopper. Yeah, he's

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Speaker 1: a warrior poet in the classic sense. So this paper

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Speaker 1: is about arachnophobia, the fear, sometimes irrational fear of spiders,

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Speaker 1: which is very common phobia. And I've read a couple

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Speaker 1: of articles featuring interviews with the vetter and he sort

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Speaker 1: of tells some personal stories that got him thinking about

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Speaker 1: the subject of arachnophobia among entomologists. So a few of

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Speaker 1: these stories. For one thing, he tells a story of

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Speaker 1: one time sitting down at a lunch table with colleagues

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Speaker 1: and producing a brown recluse spider that was sealed in

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Speaker 1: a plastic bag, and he says one of his colleagues,

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Speaker 1: an aquatic entomologist, absolutely quote vaporized, just gone from the

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Speaker 1: room all the way down the hall in five seconds.

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Speaker 1: And then he says another time he was with an

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Speaker 1: entomologist colleague, and he opened the lid on a specimen

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Speaker 1: jar that had a black widow in it, and he

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Speaker 1: said that this guy in the room literally jumped backwards quote,

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Speaker 1: like the spider was going to decapitate him. Now, this

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Speaker 1: is kind of surprising to me because you would sort

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Speaker 1: of expect that entomologists would be pretty much immune to

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Speaker 1: irrational spider fear. Uh. Now, quick note on the terminology.

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Speaker 1: Entomologists are a specialized branch of zoologists. They study insects.

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Speaker 1: The researchers who specialize in arachnids like spider's ticks and

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Speaker 1: mites are called arachnologists. But I think there's clearly some crossover,

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Speaker 1: Like it looks like Vetter was technically an entomologist by

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Speaker 1: title at his institution, but his passion seemed to be

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Speaker 1: with spiders. And uh, I think you just kind of

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Speaker 1: assumed that attitudes about insects and attitudes about spiders, since

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Speaker 1: they're both small arthropods, would be pretty correlated, right. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, I guess I have two minds on this because,

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Speaker 1: on one hand, yeah, it just seems like if you're

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Speaker 1: cool with devoting your life to to one variety of

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Speaker 1: creepy crawley. Then you're good with all creepy crawleys. But

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Speaker 1: then I think to my on my own self, and

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Speaker 1: I'm like, well, you know, I'll get down and look

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Speaker 1: at something like, you know, a centipede or even a spider,

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Speaker 1: but I'm a little wigged out by something like a

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Speaker 1: palmetta bug or a roach, you know. So, yeah, this

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Speaker 1: is interesting. There's somebody who I think is the inverted

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Speaker 1: version of you in this study. Oh really yeah, so

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Speaker 1: we'll get to that in just a minute. But anyway,

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Speaker 1: I can think of at least a couple of reasons,

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Speaker 1: at least for me, why why I wouldn't really expect

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Speaker 1: entomologists who have powerful, irrational fears of spiders. One is

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Speaker 1: self selection in the profession, right, Like, how many people

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Speaker 1: with an existing overwhelming fear of tiny arthropods would go

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Speaker 1: into a research field where you handle tiny arthropods all

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Speaker 1: the time. And then the other thing I would just

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Speaker 1: think of would be conditioning. Even if you start off

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Speaker 1: kind of afraid of spiders, wouldn't constantly working with insects

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Speaker 1: and various types of small arthur pods just sort of

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Speaker 1: blunt that fear over time. Yeah, it's kind of hard

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Speaker 1: to imagine like a Dickensian tale where uh this, uh this,

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Speaker 1: this kid enters entomology, but he's just following in the

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Speaker 1: in his father's footsteps. It's just the family business of

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Speaker 1: studying insects, right in a weird way. That almost does

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Speaker 1: seem like a Dickensian kind of comic character, like entomologists

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Speaker 1: who's terrified of of insects or something. But anyway, there

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Speaker 1: is a different Spiders are not exactly insects, So uh so,

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Speaker 1: let's let's pursue this a little farther. So Vetter, based

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Speaker 1: on these anecdotes from his colleagues, he decided to conduct

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Speaker 1: a survey that was open to professional entomologists, and he

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Speaker 1: solicited responses from self declared a rack no adverse researchers

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Speaker 1: from the readership of the journal American Entomologists. So it's

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Speaker 1: very worth noting that this is not like a huge

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Speaker 1: random sample of the field. This is self selected. This

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Speaker 1: is a self selected sample of researchers who were like, yes,

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Speaker 1: you know, I raised my hand, I'm afraid of spiders.

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Speaker 1: So important to keep that in mind. This is not

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Speaker 1: going to be like indicative of the field as a whole,

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Speaker 1: but at least, it's showing you what some people in

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Speaker 1: the field are thinking. And this survey included a standardized

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Speaker 1: psychology test known as the Fear of Spider's Questionnaire or

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Speaker 1: f s Q, as well as qualitative reports where people

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Speaker 1: could explain their experiences in plain language, and the top

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Speaker 1: line result of the survey was like, Yeah, there are

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Speaker 1: some professional entomologists who are terrified of spiders. Uh So, first,

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Speaker 1: I just want to talk about a few general findings

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Speaker 1: from the existing literature on irachnophobia, and this is something

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Speaker 1: that Vetter summarizes later in his paper. So one of

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Speaker 1: the things is that arachnophobia, usually in in the general public,

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Speaker 1: starts in childhood, though it's at sometimes different stages depending

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Speaker 1: on who you ask. If you ask parents about their children,

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Speaker 1: it seems to start in girls at an average age

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Speaker 1: of four point seven. And this research was specifically in girls.

426
00:24:10,640 --> 00:24:12,119
Speaker 1: I don't know if it would be different or the

427
00:24:12,160 --> 00:24:16,880
Speaker 1: same with boys, but if but however, if so, parents

428
00:24:16,880 --> 00:24:19,200
Speaker 1: say it starts at four point seven. If you ask

429
00:24:19,320 --> 00:24:23,879
Speaker 1: adult women about their own arachnophobia when that started, they

430
00:24:23,920 --> 00:24:27,040
Speaker 1: tend to give an average age of nine point four years,

431
00:24:27,119 --> 00:24:29,639
Speaker 1: but with a pretty big margin of error. So if

432
00:24:29,680 --> 00:24:31,960
Speaker 1: those numbers are at least somewhat accurate, that's kind of

433
00:24:31,960 --> 00:24:34,919
Speaker 1: interesting because it might mean that people display fear of

434
00:24:35,000 --> 00:24:38,439
Speaker 1: spiders that like can be observed by others, that parents

435
00:24:38,520 --> 00:24:43,440
Speaker 1: can observe before they themselves recall being aware of the phobia.

436
00:24:44,400 --> 00:24:48,400
Speaker 1: Though qualitatively, many arachnophobes cannot recall an age when their

437
00:24:48,440 --> 00:24:50,879
Speaker 1: fear began. A lot of them just say I've always

438
00:24:50,880 --> 00:24:53,280
Speaker 1: been afraid of spiders as long as I can remember.

439
00:24:53,359 --> 00:24:56,199
Speaker 1: You know, there wasn't an inciting incident, though for a

440
00:24:56,200 --> 00:24:58,320
Speaker 1: few For a few cases in this survey, there was

441
00:24:58,359 --> 00:25:03,000
Speaker 1: a reported conditioning of end. On average, women are more

442
00:25:03,040 --> 00:25:06,760
Speaker 1: likely than men to report aracnophobia, and the intensity of

443
00:25:06,800 --> 00:25:10,679
Speaker 1: arachnophobia tends to be higher in younger people than in

444
00:25:10,760 --> 00:25:14,000
Speaker 1: older people. I thought that was kind of interesting. Spider

445
00:25:14,080 --> 00:25:17,880
Speaker 1: fear is higher in people whose parents also had spider fear,

446
00:25:18,040 --> 00:25:22,720
Speaker 1: and it's especially correlated between mothers and daughters. And many

447
00:25:22,760 --> 00:25:27,560
Speaker 1: arachnophobes rate high on measures of disgust sensitivity, which is

448
00:25:27,600 --> 00:25:31,679
Speaker 1: an interesting psychometric category. It's basically like how easily you

449
00:25:31,760 --> 00:25:35,280
Speaker 1: get grossed out by various kinds of things, and that

450
00:25:35,280 --> 00:25:38,840
Speaker 1: that trait is seems to be interestingly correlated to all

451
00:25:38,920 --> 00:25:42,000
Speaker 1: kinds of other stuff, you know, even like political psychology

452
00:25:42,040 --> 00:25:44,920
Speaker 1: and stuff. Now, there's a lot of interesting speculation as

453
00:25:44,920 --> 00:25:48,200
Speaker 1: to why spiders trigger fear reactions and so many people,

454
00:25:48,280 --> 00:25:51,760
Speaker 1: when in reality spiders don't usually represent much of a

455
00:25:51,800 --> 00:25:55,200
Speaker 1: threat to survival. There are relatively minor threat as far

456
00:25:55,240 --> 00:25:58,440
Speaker 1: as animals in the environment go. UM. We've talked about

457
00:25:58,440 --> 00:26:02,920
Speaker 1: some of these speculations about causes for acnophobia before UM.

458
00:26:02,960 --> 00:26:06,600
Speaker 1: But interestingly, some research has tried to understand not just

459
00:26:06,680 --> 00:26:12,240
Speaker 1: a ragnophobia itself, but which particular features of spiders trigger

460
00:26:12,320 --> 00:26:16,040
Speaker 1: it the most, because they're different spiders with different characteristics

461
00:26:16,080 --> 00:26:20,000
Speaker 1: physical and behavioral, So like what kinds of spiders are

462
00:26:20,040 --> 00:26:24,440
Speaker 1: the worst and which features of spiders bother people the most. Uh,

463
00:26:24,440 --> 00:26:27,560
Speaker 1: And studies have found that the things people really don't

464
00:26:27,560 --> 00:26:31,680
Speaker 1: like about spiders when they don't like them is unpredictability,

465
00:26:31,720 --> 00:26:35,520
Speaker 1: So there's this perceived lack of control over spiders. H.

466
00:26:35,600 --> 00:26:39,880
Speaker 1: People really don't like the fast, jerky movements and their

467
00:26:39,880 --> 00:26:44,560
Speaker 1: ability to suddenly appear in places where they weren't seen before. UH.

468
00:26:44,600 --> 00:26:48,240
Speaker 1: There was one entomologist actually in this study that Vetter did,

469
00:26:48,720 --> 00:26:51,119
Speaker 1: who said that they would rather quote scoop up a

470
00:26:51,200 --> 00:26:55,639
Speaker 1: handful of maggots with an ungloved hand than get close

471
00:26:55,760 --> 00:26:58,639
Speaker 1: enough to a spider to kill it. And now you

472
00:26:58,720 --> 00:27:02,040
Speaker 1: might wonder why they're, Well, they give a rationale. Actually,

473
00:27:02,080 --> 00:27:05,359
Speaker 1: this respondent said, maggots don't sneak up on you and

474
00:27:05,440 --> 00:27:08,440
Speaker 1: jump in your hair. Now, I would say probably spiders

475
00:27:08,480 --> 00:27:12,000
Speaker 1: don't usually do that either. But I guess the thing

476
00:27:12,080 --> 00:27:14,320
Speaker 1: that causes the fear here is that they, at least

477
00:27:14,320 --> 00:27:17,560
Speaker 1: in theory, could Yeah. I mean, you're you're generally going

478
00:27:17,640 --> 00:27:20,760
Speaker 1: to encounter maggots in in exactly one type of place.

479
00:27:21,400 --> 00:27:24,639
Speaker 1: Um where Yeah, if you're more you're more likely to

480
00:27:24,760 --> 00:27:28,160
Speaker 1: encounter spiders at various parts points in your house. Uh,

481
00:27:28,200 --> 00:27:31,440
Speaker 1: they're they're they're more likely to be on the move. Maggots,

482
00:27:31,440 --> 00:27:33,480
Speaker 1: they're not going to be on the move, that's right.

483
00:27:33,640 --> 00:27:37,200
Speaker 1: And and the last things about spiders that people disliked

484
00:27:37,240 --> 00:27:40,520
Speaker 1: the most were physical features, including the number of legs.

485
00:27:40,680 --> 00:27:42,760
Speaker 1: For some reason, people don't like the number of legs.

486
00:27:43,080 --> 00:27:45,800
Speaker 1: They don't like they don't like hair nous, and they

487
00:27:45,800 --> 00:27:49,640
Speaker 1: don't like having fangs or being able to bite. Uh.

488
00:27:49,680 --> 00:27:52,880
Speaker 1: And then furthermore, Robbi just included for you to look

489
00:27:52,920 --> 00:27:58,719
Speaker 1: at here a chart of within Vetters survey. He charted

490
00:27:58,760 --> 00:28:02,960
Speaker 1: respondents scores of likability for a variety of different animals.

491
00:28:03,000 --> 00:28:06,440
Speaker 1: It looks like just a few dozen random animals, including

492
00:28:06,480 --> 00:28:12,800
Speaker 1: like butterfly, horse, snake, mouse, earwig, mosquito, spider, and you

493
00:28:12,840 --> 00:28:16,119
Speaker 1: can you can really see that the worst thing, even

494
00:28:16,160 --> 00:28:18,320
Speaker 1: worse than a spider, and I think I would agree,

495
00:28:18,640 --> 00:28:21,600
Speaker 1: is a tick. Oh yeah, I were very much on

496
00:28:21,920 --> 00:28:24,440
Speaker 1: the same page there as far as ticks go. Um,

497
00:28:24,520 --> 00:28:27,119
Speaker 1: far worse than a spider. Uh, Like the tick is

498
00:28:27,160 --> 00:28:32,159
Speaker 1: actively seeking you out, trying to to attach to your body,

499
00:28:32,760 --> 00:28:36,600
Speaker 1: drink your blood, and potentially share some pathogens with you

500
00:28:36,640 --> 00:28:39,320
Speaker 1: at the same time. Um, you know, moments like the

501
00:28:39,320 --> 00:28:44,440
Speaker 1: mosquito that that ranks beneath the spider. But yeah, it's

502
00:28:44,440 --> 00:28:46,480
Speaker 1: an interesting chart to look at because you think see

503
00:28:46,520 --> 00:28:49,080
Speaker 1: things in there that I, you know, certainly would expect

504
00:28:49,160 --> 00:28:53,520
Speaker 1: to see, like the cockroach for example, Um, the slug.

505
00:28:53,640 --> 00:28:56,720
Speaker 1: I guess you know. I I've made my piece with slugs,

506
00:28:56,720 --> 00:28:59,600
Speaker 1: but I used to find them more repellent. Um. But

507
00:28:59,640 --> 00:29:02,240
Speaker 1: then eels, like people really grossed out by eels. I

508
00:29:02,280 --> 00:29:04,120
Speaker 1: guess they're kind of weird looking. Well, I mean, this

509
00:29:04,200 --> 00:29:07,000
Speaker 1: is a small survey of people who self selected as

510
00:29:07,040 --> 00:29:10,560
Speaker 1: saying they were afraid of spiders or disliked spiders. So

511
00:29:10,760 --> 00:29:13,959
Speaker 1: why is the squirrel so high on the list? Like,

512
00:29:14,000 --> 00:29:18,520
Speaker 1: the squirrel is rated um worse than a bear, worse

513
00:29:18,520 --> 00:29:21,240
Speaker 1: than a or let's say, or is that worse than

514
00:29:21,280 --> 00:29:24,760
Speaker 1: a um, worse worse than an earthworm? I mean, more

515
00:29:25,800 --> 00:29:28,480
Speaker 1: disliked than a bear. But once you get into all

516
00:29:28,520 --> 00:29:31,200
Speaker 1: of the like mammals down here, except for the rat,

517
00:29:31,640 --> 00:29:34,520
Speaker 1: they're all on the positive side of the scale. So

518
00:29:34,680 --> 00:29:36,880
Speaker 1: like the halfway point of the scale, the only things

519
00:29:36,880 --> 00:29:43,560
Speaker 1: that on average were hated more than half were maggots, scorpions, rats, mosquitoes, spiders,

520
00:29:43,560 --> 00:29:46,960
Speaker 1: and ticks. But one thing you all say about hating

521
00:29:47,000 --> 00:29:50,520
Speaker 1: ticks is that I think that's an important case where

522
00:29:50,560 --> 00:29:54,160
Speaker 1: like your gut level discussed also lines up with your

523
00:29:54,240 --> 00:29:57,400
Speaker 1: rational knowledge, because I bet a lot of these entomologists

524
00:29:57,960 --> 00:30:01,240
Speaker 1: hate spiders, but they know it wrong to hate spiders.

525
00:30:01,280 --> 00:30:03,720
Speaker 1: They're like, you know, I can't argue with my gut feelings,

526
00:30:03,760 --> 00:30:06,040
Speaker 1: but I just know that I shouldn't hate spiders. They're

527
00:30:06,040 --> 00:30:08,840
Speaker 1: not actually bad with ticks. I mean, the heart in

528
00:30:08,880 --> 00:30:10,800
Speaker 1: the head are in the same place, right, There are

529
00:30:10,880 --> 00:30:14,920
Speaker 1: just a lot of legitimate, um scientifically proven reasons to

530
00:30:14,920 --> 00:30:17,480
Speaker 1: to not be crazy about ticks. But anyway, so to

531
00:30:17,520 --> 00:30:20,920
Speaker 1: get into the results of vetter study, how do these

532
00:30:20,960 --> 00:30:26,120
Speaker 1: self reported araq no adverse entomologists UH differ from the

533
00:30:26,200 --> 00:30:29,280
Speaker 1: general public in terms of spider fear? Well, actually, there

534
00:30:29,280 --> 00:30:31,680
Speaker 1: are a lot of similarities. So he found that for

535
00:30:31,840 --> 00:30:35,360
Speaker 1: the general public and for these arachno adverse entomologists, the

536
00:30:35,360 --> 00:30:40,320
Speaker 1: arachnophobia begins in childhood, generally before respondents have even considered

537
00:30:40,440 --> 00:30:43,320
Speaker 1: entomology as a career path, So these people are not

538
00:30:43,360 --> 00:30:47,719
Speaker 1: like acquiring spider fear in adulthood. UH. Vetter says that

539
00:30:47,760 --> 00:30:51,280
Speaker 1: the fear of spider's questionnaire scores between the genders were

540
00:30:51,320 --> 00:30:55,160
Speaker 1: not statistically significantly different. UH didn't seem to be a

541
00:30:55,200 --> 00:31:00,000
Speaker 1: major gender difference among the entomologists. Araq noo adverse entomologists

542
00:31:00,040 --> 00:31:04,000
Speaker 1: seem to dislike spiders for most of the same reasons

543
00:31:04,040 --> 00:31:07,360
Speaker 1: as general arachnophobes do. That don't like the hair, nous,

544
00:31:07,480 --> 00:31:10,200
Speaker 1: the fangs, the number of legs still on the number

545
00:31:10,240 --> 00:31:16,440
Speaker 1: of legs eight is bad, unpredictability, and fast sudden movements,

546
00:31:16,480 --> 00:31:20,200
Speaker 1: but also interestingly better believed that there is a lower

547
00:31:20,240 --> 00:31:25,920
Speaker 1: prevalence of disgust reactions to spiders among entomologists. Uh, the

548
00:31:26,040 --> 00:31:28,959
Speaker 1: entomologists who don't like spiders are afraid, but they're not

549
00:31:29,120 --> 00:31:32,560
Speaker 1: as gross stout as the general public. And then to

550
00:31:32,600 --> 00:31:35,680
Speaker 1: read a couple of his final observations quote. One difference

551
00:31:35,680 --> 00:31:38,880
Speaker 1: from general arachnophobes that may have been present but not

552
00:31:38,960 --> 00:31:43,200
Speaker 1: specifically documented in the classic literature is that several entomologists

553
00:31:43,240 --> 00:31:47,560
Speaker 1: mentioned being tormented by family members who capitalized on the

554
00:31:47,600 --> 00:31:51,320
Speaker 1: respondents fear of spiders. That's that's not nice. Don't don't

555
00:31:51,360 --> 00:31:55,960
Speaker 1: torment your family members with spiders. Um. Another is uh quote.

556
00:31:55,960 --> 00:31:59,640
Speaker 1: Another difference is that arachnophobes in the general public assign

557
00:32:00,080 --> 00:32:07,080
Speaker 1: thropomorphic cognitive behaviors to spiders, such as vengefulness or purposeful surveillance,

558
00:32:07,480 --> 00:32:10,560
Speaker 1: Whereas the general impression I received from the iraqno adverse

559
00:32:10,680 --> 00:32:15,400
Speaker 1: entomologists was that they realized their fears or dislikes were paradoxical,

560
00:32:15,760 --> 00:32:18,960
Speaker 1: even though they could not explain the reasoning behind them.

561
00:32:19,000 --> 00:32:20,720
Speaker 1: And this gets this gets to the you know, the

562
00:32:21,040 --> 00:32:24,400
Speaker 1: the non rational aspect of phobia. I imagine here, you

563
00:32:24,440 --> 00:32:26,880
Speaker 1: know that the idea that it's on one hand, you

564
00:32:26,920 --> 00:32:30,280
Speaker 1: can you can rationally discuss why you shouldn't feel this

565
00:32:30,320 --> 00:32:33,520
Speaker 1: way and yet still have these feelings. Yeah, totally. And

566
00:32:33,560 --> 00:32:35,520
Speaker 1: now there was one last thing that I noticed, or

567
00:32:35,600 --> 00:32:37,960
Speaker 1: I at least thought was interesting. Vetter did not draw

568
00:32:38,000 --> 00:32:40,200
Speaker 1: attention to this himself, but it stuck out to me.

569
00:32:41,200 --> 00:32:45,360
Speaker 1: Some of these iraq noo adverse entomologists seemed to display

570
00:32:45,400 --> 00:32:49,200
Speaker 1: what I would guess is an unusually high level of

571
00:32:49,240 --> 00:32:53,800
Speaker 1: affinity for certain insects. For example, one reported having owned

572
00:32:53,840 --> 00:32:56,960
Speaker 1: a Madagascar hissing cockroach as a pet when they were

573
00:32:56,960 --> 00:33:00,320
Speaker 1: a child, which is probably not normal for many kids,

574
00:33:00,360 --> 00:33:02,760
Speaker 1: but you can kind of see how a kid who

575
00:33:02,840 --> 00:33:04,680
Speaker 1: has a cockroach as a pet might want to grow

576
00:33:04,760 --> 00:33:08,920
Speaker 1: up to become an entomologist. And other ones rated animals

577
00:33:08,920 --> 00:33:13,360
Speaker 1: like cockroaches and maggots among their most liked animals in

578
00:33:13,400 --> 00:33:16,400
Speaker 1: that big list of animals we were just talking about, uh,

579
00:33:16,400 --> 00:33:19,680
Speaker 1: And in the averages from all the respondents, the top

580
00:33:19,840 --> 00:33:23,840
Speaker 1: three most liked animals of the entire list, even out

581
00:33:23,840 --> 00:33:29,800
Speaker 1: performing dogs, horses, porpoises, and other commonly charismatic animals. Uh.

582
00:33:29,880 --> 00:33:34,880
Speaker 1: The top three were all insects, butterflies, dragonflies, and ladybugs.

583
00:33:34,920 --> 00:33:38,720
Speaker 1: The entomologists in this survey hated spiders but love those

584
00:33:38,760 --> 00:33:41,640
Speaker 1: three insects. So could it be that some of these

585
00:33:41,720 --> 00:33:46,560
Speaker 1: entomologists are also influenced to dislike or be afraid of

586
00:33:46,600 --> 00:33:50,120
Speaker 1: spiders because they're so fond of the spider's prey animals.

587
00:33:50,200 --> 00:33:55,160
Speaker 1: I wonder that is interesting, um, because when you watch

588
00:33:55,440 --> 00:33:58,280
Speaker 1: a spider do its thing that is, how do you

589
00:33:58,280 --> 00:34:02,040
Speaker 1: emotionally respond to that? Because I think I may have

590
00:34:02,040 --> 00:34:04,320
Speaker 1: showed this something the show already, But a few weeks back,

591
00:34:04,360 --> 00:34:06,680
Speaker 1: maybe like a month back, Uh, there was this enormous

592
00:34:06,680 --> 00:34:09,200
Speaker 1: spider web on my front porch and I was enjoying

593
00:34:09,200 --> 00:34:12,080
Speaker 1: watching and watching the spider set up shop there and

594
00:34:12,160 --> 00:34:14,319
Speaker 1: repair it. And then I happened to go out there

595
00:34:14,560 --> 00:34:17,319
Speaker 1: and find some manner of a little stink bug on

596
00:34:17,560 --> 00:34:21,440
Speaker 1: the pillar right next to the to the web, and

597
00:34:21,560 --> 00:34:24,440
Speaker 1: so on a on a whim, I flicked it into

598
00:34:24,520 --> 00:34:27,839
Speaker 1: the web, and then instantly the vibration strength of the web,

599
00:34:27,840 --> 00:34:31,880
Speaker 1: the spider rushed out and immediately wrapped up the struggling

600
00:34:32,120 --> 00:34:35,800
Speaker 1: bug inside the you know, the binds of the of

601
00:34:35,840 --> 00:34:38,920
Speaker 1: the spider web. It was fabulous to watch, uh, And

602
00:34:38,920 --> 00:34:41,239
Speaker 1: and that was my emotional reaction to it. It was like, oh,

603
00:34:41,400 --> 00:34:44,320
Speaker 1: this this was great. I got to sort of engineer

604
00:34:44,360 --> 00:34:48,000
Speaker 1: this situation that may well have occurred anyway, and get

605
00:34:48,040 --> 00:34:51,359
Speaker 1: to watch this in real time. But on the other hand,

606
00:34:51,400 --> 00:34:53,719
Speaker 1: other people have a different emotional response to seeing something

607
00:34:53,800 --> 00:34:57,560
Speaker 1: like that. You end up empathizing and humanizing the victim

608
00:34:57,600 --> 00:34:59,279
Speaker 1: of the spider, right, and you think, oh, what a

609
00:34:59,320 --> 00:35:01,799
Speaker 1: horrible thing happen, What a horrible experience to have to

610
00:35:01,840 --> 00:35:05,279
Speaker 1: go through. Yes, totally, so, I have no proof of

611
00:35:05,320 --> 00:35:07,719
Speaker 1: that of a correlation there, but I do wonder about that.

612
00:35:07,760 --> 00:35:10,279
Speaker 1: I feel like that could possibly be playing some role.

613
00:35:11,440 --> 00:35:15,319
Speaker 1: Um we end up siding with the prey animals as

614
00:35:15,320 --> 00:35:17,680
Speaker 1: opposed to the the predators, because that's the other way

615
00:35:17,719 --> 00:35:20,759
Speaker 1: I always think about spiders in my home, or even

616
00:35:20,800 --> 00:35:23,839
Speaker 1: like a centipede in the home. I think, good, you're

617
00:35:23,840 --> 00:35:27,640
Speaker 1: doing the lord's work, sir or madam, keep at it.

618
00:35:27,760 --> 00:35:32,000
Speaker 1: Probably the spider, right, yeah, yeah, But anyway, so Vetter

619
00:35:32,080 --> 00:35:35,880
Speaker 1: concludes by saying, despite the assumption that entomologists would extend

620
00:35:35,920 --> 00:35:39,960
Speaker 1: warm feelings towards spiders because of their habituation to arthropods

621
00:35:39,960 --> 00:35:43,800
Speaker 1: in general, arachnophobia does occur in some members of our profession.

622
00:35:44,120 --> 00:35:47,320
Speaker 1: For these people, two more legs makes a big difference.

623
00:35:48,960 --> 00:35:51,080
Speaker 1: Why is it the number of legs. That's the thing

624
00:35:51,120 --> 00:35:54,920
Speaker 1: that people consistently call out as disliking about spiders, like

625
00:35:55,320 --> 00:35:57,960
Speaker 1: too many legs, but they like a ladybug has only

626
00:35:58,000 --> 00:36:01,240
Speaker 1: got two less. You know, I was thinking about this

627
00:36:01,239 --> 00:36:04,840
Speaker 1: this This may have no connection, but um, we're putting

628
00:36:04,840 --> 00:36:08,239
Speaker 1: together some notes for an upcoming edition of our our

629
00:36:08,280 --> 00:36:11,040
Speaker 1: Friday night show Weird House Cinema, where we talk about

630
00:36:11,040 --> 00:36:14,320
Speaker 1: weird films, and I started thinking about a genre of

631
00:36:14,440 --> 00:36:21,000
Speaker 1: film subgenre uh that entails crawling disembodied hands and how

632
00:36:21,120 --> 00:36:24,360
Speaker 1: spiderlike they are. Uh. And I but I began to wonder,

633
00:36:24,440 --> 00:36:27,600
Speaker 1: like which, like, which is the predominant fear or maybe

634
00:36:27,680 --> 00:36:30,080
Speaker 1: it's more on an individual level. Is it that the

635
00:36:30,160 --> 00:36:33,560
Speaker 1: disembodied hand is like a spider or is it that

636
00:36:33,600 --> 00:36:36,440
Speaker 1: the spider is in some way kind of like a

637
00:36:36,560 --> 00:36:40,040
Speaker 1: human hand, you know, something, the way that it's often

638
00:36:40,080 --> 00:36:42,360
Speaker 1: bunched together, you know, in a way that you you

639
00:36:42,360 --> 00:36:46,200
Speaker 1: you typically won't see with with insect legs. Yes, well,

640
00:36:46,320 --> 00:36:50,320
Speaker 1: well you see you see spiders kind of working things

641
00:36:50,440 --> 00:36:52,760
Speaker 1: with their legs in a way that you don't usually

642
00:36:52,760 --> 00:36:54,960
Speaker 1: see insects doing. I mean, I guess sometimes you kind

643
00:36:54,960 --> 00:36:57,840
Speaker 1: of do. But I feel like insects are more likely

644
00:36:57,880 --> 00:37:00,440
Speaker 1: to manipulate things with their pincers. You can really see

645
00:37:00,480 --> 00:37:03,680
Speaker 1: a spider using the tips of its legs like fingers

646
00:37:03,719 --> 00:37:10,799
Speaker 1: to like roll something up. Yeah, creepy. Yeah, alright, live,

647
00:37:10,800 --> 00:37:13,040
Speaker 1: Why don't we take another break and when we come back,

648
00:37:13,080 --> 00:37:20,680
Speaker 1: we'll discuss another award winner. Thank thank alright, we're back, Robert.

649
00:37:20,719 --> 00:37:23,200
Speaker 1: I gotta admit this next study. I wonder if they

650
00:37:23,200 --> 00:37:28,440
Speaker 1: are drawing a spurious correlation. Yeah, I I had a

651
00:37:28,480 --> 00:37:33,279
Speaker 1: hard time with this one, but it was their psychology prize. Uh,

652
00:37:33,360 --> 00:37:37,120
Speaker 1: so we're we're gonna discuss it. It is eyebrows Q

653
00:37:37,400 --> 00:37:42,760
Speaker 1: Grandiose Narcissism by Miranda Gia Coleman and Nicholas o' rule,

654
00:37:42,840 --> 00:37:47,239
Speaker 1: published in the Journal of Personality back in May. All right,

655
00:37:47,320 --> 00:37:50,040
Speaker 1: let's hear it. So the basic idea is this, Okay,

656
00:37:50,160 --> 00:37:53,839
Speaker 1: narcissists can be charming, but narcissists are often, uh you know,

657
00:37:53,960 --> 00:37:57,160
Speaker 1: in many cases, horrible people best avoided. As such, it

658
00:37:57,239 --> 00:38:00,680
Speaker 1: pays to be able to identify them. Pastas have linked

659
00:38:00,719 --> 00:38:04,360
Speaker 1: viewing a person's personal appearance as a means of determining

660
00:38:04,440 --> 00:38:08,680
Speaker 1: narcissistic qualities, and this study look to isolate the exact

661
00:38:08,719 --> 00:38:12,840
Speaker 1: facial features, and eyebrows became the focal point in this

662
00:38:12,880 --> 00:38:17,640
Speaker 1: particular study. It's interesting. I mean, obviously people do. You

663
00:38:17,680 --> 00:38:20,759
Speaker 1: could say fairly or unfairly, but I mean certainly, at

664
00:38:20,840 --> 00:38:24,040
Speaker 1: least most of the time unfairly judge other people's character

665
00:38:24,200 --> 00:38:27,440
Speaker 1: by the way they look. I wouldn't have expected eyebrows

666
00:38:27,560 --> 00:38:31,600
Speaker 1: to be the most salient thing here. Yeah, I I

667
00:38:32,280 --> 00:38:35,440
Speaker 1: didn't either. I mean they make they make an interesting case. Uh.

668
00:38:35,560 --> 00:38:38,920
Speaker 1: Here's the basic summary. In study one, we explored the

669
00:38:38,960 --> 00:38:42,480
Speaker 1: faces features using a variety of manipulations, ultimately finding that

670
00:38:42,520 --> 00:38:47,440
Speaker 1: accurate judgments of grandiose narcissism particularly depend on a person's eyebrows,

671
00:38:47,840 --> 00:38:51,040
Speaker 1: and studies to A through to C, we identified eyebrow

672
00:38:51,160 --> 00:38:57,920
Speaker 1: distinctiveness thickness density as the primary characteristic supporting these judgments. Finally,

673
00:38:57,960 --> 00:39:01,120
Speaker 1: we confirmed the eyebrows importance and Studies three A and

674
00:39:01,200 --> 00:39:05,320
Speaker 1: three B by measuring how much perceptions of narcissism changed

675
00:39:05,440 --> 00:39:11,080
Speaker 1: when swapping narcissists and non narcissist eyebrows between faces. So,

676
00:39:11,120 --> 00:39:15,520
Speaker 1: at least, according to their conclusion, eyebrows are not just

677
00:39:15,680 --> 00:39:19,960
Speaker 1: something that people use to conclude that someone else is narcissistic,

678
00:39:20,360 --> 00:39:25,400
Speaker 1: but to some extent are accurate identifiers. Yeah, which again

679
00:39:25,480 --> 00:39:27,960
Speaker 1: I I just found I've read this, and I was thinking,

680
00:39:28,000 --> 00:39:30,799
Speaker 1: could this, Could this possibly be right? Because when I

681
00:39:30,840 --> 00:39:34,120
Speaker 1: think of big bushy eyebrows, I think of uh natural,

682
00:39:34,160 --> 00:39:36,800
Speaker 1: big bushy eyebrows. I think of say, actor Peter Gallagher

683
00:39:36,840 --> 00:39:39,399
Speaker 1: for some reason, like he instantly comes to mind as

684
00:39:39,440 --> 00:39:44,360
Speaker 1: having like big, full, beautiful eyebrows. But at the same time,

685
00:39:44,600 --> 00:39:46,480
Speaker 1: I don't. I mean, I don't know enough about Peter

686
00:39:46,520 --> 00:39:48,359
Speaker 1: Gallagher to really chutch him one way or the other.

687
00:39:48,400 --> 00:39:50,960
Speaker 1: But I don't think narcissist. I don't look at him

688
00:39:50,960 --> 00:39:53,719
Speaker 1: and think, oh, there's a narcissist right there. I was

689
00:39:53,800 --> 00:39:56,759
Speaker 1: trying to think, what do I know him from? He

690
00:39:56,800 --> 00:39:59,480
Speaker 1: was in that spy movie with Bill Murray, and then

691
00:39:59,480 --> 00:40:02,120
Speaker 1: he's been in an like a million TV shows, always

692
00:40:02,120 --> 00:40:08,360
Speaker 1: in Mr Deed's Great Great film? Is that an eight movie? No? Okay,

693
00:40:09,000 --> 00:40:13,080
Speaker 1: what am I anything? You've done some checks? We should

694
00:40:13,120 --> 00:40:16,680
Speaker 1: keep all this. He tends to not play narcissists like

695
00:40:16,760 --> 00:40:20,920
Speaker 1: you would think if if his eyebrows were we're we're

696
00:40:21,000 --> 00:40:24,520
Speaker 1: we're queuing us into narcissism, And he was legitimately narcissist

697
00:40:24,800 --> 00:40:27,920
Speaker 1: narcissist himself like he would play a lot of narcissists

698
00:40:28,160 --> 00:40:30,040
Speaker 1: on the screen. I know what I realized. I know

699
00:40:30,239 --> 00:40:33,200
Speaker 1: him from American Beauty, in which I think he does

700
00:40:33,280 --> 00:40:38,279
Speaker 1: play a narcissist. But also I think that movie is narcissistic. Okay.

701
00:40:39,320 --> 00:40:42,440
Speaker 1: Um Now, now, speaking of of movies, the other thing

702
00:40:42,480 --> 00:40:44,920
Speaker 1: I think of when I think of big bushy eyebrows

703
00:40:44,960 --> 00:40:49,360
Speaker 1: are the extreme eyebrows that the Mintats boast in David

704
00:40:49,440 --> 00:40:53,080
Speaker 1: Lynch's Dune. Um. Now, I don't tend to think of

705
00:40:53,080 --> 00:40:55,640
Speaker 1: of the Mintats is especially narcissistic, but I guess it

706
00:40:55,680 --> 00:40:58,120
Speaker 1: doesn't really make any sense because those are like clearly

707
00:40:58,160 --> 00:41:00,439
Speaker 1: just added to the character to give the some sort

708
00:41:00,440 --> 00:41:04,600
Speaker 1: of distinctive visual flair for the viewer. Surely through Fear

709
00:41:04,640 --> 00:41:07,840
Speaker 1: how what has has appropriately gone through ego death in

710
00:41:07,960 --> 00:41:12,399
Speaker 1: order to become the human computer who's playing through Fear

711
00:41:12,440 --> 00:41:16,480
Speaker 1: how Loud and the new one. It's Stephen McKinley Henderson. Um.

712
00:41:16,560 --> 00:41:19,200
Speaker 1: He was most recently, I believe in that that Hulu

713
00:41:19,280 --> 00:41:21,880
Speaker 1: series Deaths. He's he's really good. I'm looking forward to

714
00:41:21,960 --> 00:41:28,479
Speaker 1: checking out his performance. Oh I know him. Oh he's great. Yeah, Yeah,

715
00:41:28,480 --> 00:41:30,799
Speaker 1: he's a wonderful actor. I was trying to remember what

716
00:41:30,880 --> 00:41:32,840
Speaker 1: I recently saw him, and I think he has a

717
00:41:32,840 --> 00:41:36,960
Speaker 1: small part in Ladybird. Ah. Yeah, well, I don't know

718
00:41:37,239 --> 00:41:39,120
Speaker 1: if he's gonna I don't think he's gonna have giant

719
00:41:39,120 --> 00:41:44,120
Speaker 1: eyebrows in the now delayed film adaptation of Dune. But

720
00:41:44,520 --> 00:41:47,160
Speaker 1: the thing is, now that it's delayed a year, they've

721
00:41:47,160 --> 00:41:49,920
Speaker 1: got time to go in and digitally add crazy eyebrows

722
00:41:49,920 --> 00:41:53,879
Speaker 1: to all the mentats. Anyway, back back to the study here,

723
00:41:53,920 --> 00:41:57,920
Speaker 1: So they use neutral expression portraits of thirty nine students

724
00:41:57,920 --> 00:42:01,320
Speaker 1: at the University of Toronto. Twenty six female is, thirteen males,

725
00:42:01,360 --> 00:42:05,080
Speaker 1: thirty two white, seven non white, average age twenty one,

726
00:42:05,120 --> 00:42:08,720
Speaker 1: and the thirty nine subjects took a standardized narcissistic personality test.

727
00:42:09,280 --> 00:42:12,239
Speaker 1: Then twenty eight virtual volunteers looked at the portraits and

728
00:42:12,320 --> 00:42:15,440
Speaker 1: rated in them on a scale from one not narcissistic

729
00:42:15,440 --> 00:42:19,239
Speaker 1: at all to eight extremely narcissistic. They also flip the

730
00:42:19,239 --> 00:42:21,520
Speaker 1: images upside down, as this has been shown to allow

731
00:42:21,600 --> 00:42:24,360
Speaker 1: humans to better focus on particular features of the face

732
00:42:24,719 --> 00:42:27,359
Speaker 1: rather than the face as a whole, and the eyebrows,

733
00:42:27,400 --> 00:42:30,600
Speaker 1: according to the study, were always the giveaway. Distinct eyebrows

734
00:42:30,600 --> 00:42:35,000
Speaker 1: were more likely to accurately identified narcissists. The inversion of

735
00:42:35,040 --> 00:42:37,120
Speaker 1: the head thing is making me think of one of

736
00:42:37,120 --> 00:42:39,839
Speaker 1: the most hilarious effects we've ever talked about on the show,

737
00:42:39,840 --> 00:42:42,720
Speaker 1: which is the Margaret Thatcher effect, where when you flip

738
00:42:42,719 --> 00:42:45,960
Speaker 1: a head upside down, you can invert the eyes and

739
00:42:46,000 --> 00:42:49,440
Speaker 1: the mouth so that like they are actually opposite of

740
00:42:49,520 --> 00:42:52,880
Speaker 1: the orientation of the head. But people don't notice it

741
00:42:52,920 --> 00:42:56,720
Speaker 1: when they're looking at the head upside down. You should

742
00:42:56,719 --> 00:42:58,359
Speaker 1: look this up if you've never seen it before. It's

743
00:42:58,400 --> 00:43:02,200
Speaker 1: really funny now, i'd actually the main purpose of eyebrows

744
00:43:02,360 --> 00:43:06,680
Speaker 1: is to keep sweat, water debris out of your eye sockets. Um.

745
00:43:06,719 --> 00:43:09,200
Speaker 1: But of course the human faces also, as we've discussed

746
00:43:09,200 --> 00:43:12,719
Speaker 1: many times, a communications array, so we we can't dismiss

747
00:43:12,760 --> 00:43:17,440
Speaker 1: the communicative qualities here. It may play into dog eyebrows,

748
00:43:17,520 --> 00:43:20,600
Speaker 1: even as a two thousand nineteen University of Portsmouth study

749
00:43:20,640 --> 00:43:24,440
Speaker 1: found that human preferences for expressive brows may have influenced

750
00:43:24,480 --> 00:43:28,640
Speaker 1: selection in domestic dog breeds. Does your dog have have

751
00:43:28,760 --> 00:43:34,000
Speaker 1: nice eyebrows? He has the most heavenly eyebrows. They're very

752
00:43:34,000 --> 00:43:36,640
Speaker 1: bushy and they are very expressive. See there you go.

753
00:43:37,160 --> 00:43:39,480
Speaker 1: Also has pointed out in a two thousand eighteen University

754
00:43:39,480 --> 00:43:42,920
Speaker 1: of York study published in Nature Ecology and Evolution, highly

755
00:43:42,960 --> 00:43:46,719
Speaker 1: mobile eyebrows in humans can be used to express a

756
00:43:46,719 --> 00:43:49,120
Speaker 1: wide array of emotions that may have been key to

757
00:43:49,200 --> 00:43:52,040
Speaker 1: human survival. Uh, they might even be key to our

758
00:43:52,040 --> 00:43:56,200
Speaker 1: ability to empathize and identify with the emotions of others. So,

759
00:43:56,520 --> 00:43:58,640
Speaker 1: you know, think about like all the things you can

760
00:43:58,680 --> 00:44:01,120
Speaker 1: say just with your eyebrows. It's all the even subtle

761
00:44:01,480 --> 00:44:05,319
Speaker 1: um communicative cues you can pick up on with eyebrows.

762
00:44:05,760 --> 00:44:08,480
Speaker 1: Sure so, fair enough. We we can imagine how more

763
00:44:08,480 --> 00:44:12,680
Speaker 1: distinctive eyebrows might accentuate these communications. But how would that

764
00:44:12,719 --> 00:44:15,799
Speaker 1: be linked to a personality disorder? You know again, it's

765
00:44:15,880 --> 00:44:20,480
Speaker 1: it's it's the fact that they're distinctive thickness and density um.

766
00:44:20,520 --> 00:44:24,000
Speaker 1: In another experiment, they also gave narcissistic individuals new eyebrows,

767
00:44:24,080 --> 00:44:26,279
Speaker 1: this was the eyebrow swap thing, and tested them out

768
00:44:26,280 --> 00:44:28,560
Speaker 1: on people, and they found that they did rate them

769
00:44:28,560 --> 00:44:31,399
Speaker 1: as less narcissistic, and putting more distinctive eyebrows and less

770
00:44:31,440 --> 00:44:35,080
Speaker 1: narcissistic people produced the opposite effect. So it'll leads to

771
00:44:35,120 --> 00:44:40,719
Speaker 1: the big question, do narcissists have particular morphological characteristics. I

772
00:44:40,760 --> 00:44:43,240
Speaker 1: guess this is the part I'd be more skeptical about

773
00:44:43,280 --> 00:44:46,680
Speaker 1: than the idea that people think they can identify narcissists

774
00:44:46,680 --> 00:44:49,719
Speaker 1: through certain facial characteristics. I'd be more surprised if it

775
00:44:49,760 --> 00:44:53,839
Speaker 1: were true that they could, that they actually accurately were

776
00:44:54,640 --> 00:44:58,080
Speaker 1: finding correlations there with facial characteristics. I guess it's not impossible,

777
00:44:58,120 --> 00:44:59,839
Speaker 1: but I feel like I need to see really good

778
00:45:00,000 --> 00:45:03,000
Speaker 1: evidence of that. Yeah, I mean, I guess. Another thing

779
00:45:03,040 --> 00:45:04,680
Speaker 1: to keep in mind is like this is a study

780
00:45:04,680 --> 00:45:08,120
Speaker 1: that was asking people about narcissism in images of people,

781
00:45:08,160 --> 00:45:10,640
Speaker 1: like is this a narcissist? That a narcissist? And I

782
00:45:10,640 --> 00:45:12,920
Speaker 1: feel like, for the most part, this is one of

783
00:45:13,000 --> 00:45:16,000
Speaker 1: just many questions we may ask about people that we encounter.

784
00:45:16,160 --> 00:45:20,680
Speaker 1: You know, Uh, it's probably not your primary question regarding

785
00:45:20,680 --> 00:45:23,200
Speaker 1: an individual like narcissist or not a narcissist. I don't

786
00:45:23,200 --> 00:45:26,000
Speaker 1: I don't know that. Maybe that's just me, um, because

787
00:45:26,080 --> 00:45:28,239
Speaker 1: ultimately it comes down to them to like how would

788
00:45:28,280 --> 00:45:30,600
Speaker 1: this work? What would be the tie? You know, obviously

789
00:45:30,640 --> 00:45:34,120
Speaker 1: there's there's not like this, like the personality disorder would

790
00:45:34,200 --> 00:45:39,279
Speaker 1: make your eyebrows grow more bushy, right, um, And it

791
00:45:39,320 --> 00:45:42,439
Speaker 1: would have to be something more in terms of like

792
00:45:42,600 --> 00:45:45,560
Speaker 1: it it changed. It affects the way that you interact

793
00:45:45,600 --> 00:45:48,799
Speaker 1: with the world, and that and the way that you're received,

794
00:45:49,080 --> 00:45:52,719
Speaker 1: and that ends up nurturing a sense of narcissism. I

795
00:45:52,719 --> 00:45:55,200
Speaker 1: don't know, possibly, I mean you could say that from

796
00:45:55,200 --> 00:45:58,640
Speaker 1: like a developmental personality where I mean, I guess you could,

797
00:45:59,080 --> 00:46:01,120
Speaker 1: though again, this is one of those things that seems

798
00:46:01,200 --> 00:46:03,400
Speaker 1: very difficult to believe. I guess you could try to

799
00:46:03,440 --> 00:46:07,080
Speaker 1: say that there's some correlated like genetic component that's like

800
00:46:07,200 --> 00:46:10,560
Speaker 1: deeper back that happens to have both random effects like

801
00:46:10,800 --> 00:46:14,040
Speaker 1: happens to give you more distinctive eyebrows and also happens

802
00:46:14,040 --> 00:46:17,560
Speaker 1: to make you more narcissistic. But again, uh, it seems

803
00:46:17,640 --> 00:46:19,960
Speaker 1: kind of hard to believe that. Yeah, I mean, they

804
00:46:19,960 --> 00:46:22,680
Speaker 1: bring up the idea of messing with your eyebrows, grooming

805
00:46:22,719 --> 00:46:26,920
Speaker 1: your eyebrows, and how you know, you know, they basically

806
00:46:26,920 --> 00:46:29,480
Speaker 1: they said quote though narcissism did not significantly relate to

807
00:46:29,520 --> 00:46:33,760
Speaker 1: eyebrow grooming. Here, grooming mediated how grandiosity related to perceived

808
00:46:33,840 --> 00:46:38,560
Speaker 1: narcissism when controlling distinctiveness and femininity, and previous research found

809
00:46:38,560 --> 00:46:42,759
Speaker 1: that eyebrow plucking relates to women's narcissism, But I don't

810
00:46:42,800 --> 00:46:45,839
Speaker 1: know that doesn't really um, you know, provide a firm

811
00:46:45,880 --> 00:46:48,680
Speaker 1: answer for me, like what what we're seeing when we

812
00:46:48,719 --> 00:46:52,279
Speaker 1: see eyebrows that are somehow queuing us into narcissism? Like

813
00:46:52,320 --> 00:46:55,160
Speaker 1: I feel like I can. I can look at a

814
00:46:55,200 --> 00:46:59,560
Speaker 1: photograph of someone who I either know or believe to

815
00:46:59,680 --> 00:47:03,239
Speaker 1: how of narcissistic qualities, and I can often lean into

816
00:47:03,239 --> 00:47:06,160
Speaker 1: this interpretation. I can say, well, I guess those eyebrows

817
00:47:06,160 --> 00:47:09,520
Speaker 1: are pretty wild and thick, you know, Or well, those

818
00:47:09,560 --> 00:47:12,080
Speaker 1: eyebrows are really well maintained. You know that. I guess

819
00:47:12,080 --> 00:47:13,960
Speaker 1: there are there are things I can I can then

820
00:47:14,000 --> 00:47:17,839
Speaker 1: pinpoint if I'm prompted, But I I just I don't.

821
00:47:18,400 --> 00:47:19,759
Speaker 1: I just have a hard time with this one. I

822
00:47:19,760 --> 00:47:21,160
Speaker 1: have to admit I have. I have a hard time

823
00:47:21,200 --> 00:47:25,120
Speaker 1: seeing the eyebrows as a window into the narcissistic soul. Yeah.

824
00:47:25,120 --> 00:47:26,640
Speaker 1: I guess it's one of those things where it just

825
00:47:26,800 --> 00:47:30,520
Speaker 1: it just seems kind of like surface level implausible to me.

826
00:47:30,600 --> 00:47:32,120
Speaker 1: But I guess I don't know. It's one of those

827
00:47:32,120 --> 00:47:35,040
Speaker 1: word if if I saw more evidence than I guess,

828
00:47:35,040 --> 00:47:37,680
Speaker 1: I'd have to accept it. But yeah, I mean I

829
00:47:38,320 --> 00:47:40,399
Speaker 1: do have to, you know, give credit to the whole

830
00:47:40,640 --> 00:47:42,840
Speaker 1: argument of the eyebrows being key to the way we

831
00:47:42,880 --> 00:47:45,319
Speaker 1: communicate with people, you know, like like in ways that

832
00:47:45,360 --> 00:47:48,320
Speaker 1: we often don't think about. Uh, you know, unless you're

833
00:47:48,360 --> 00:47:50,680
Speaker 1: just really obsessed with eyebrows. Like you know, we are

834
00:47:50,719 --> 00:47:53,080
Speaker 1: moving our eyebrows around a lot. They are, they are

835
00:47:53,320 --> 00:47:56,480
Speaker 1: doing a lot to communicate how we feel about ourselves

836
00:47:56,520 --> 00:47:59,200
Speaker 1: and about other people to the world. So I mean,

837
00:47:59,239 --> 00:48:02,560
Speaker 1: on another hand, why not the eyebrow? Sure, we'd love

838
00:48:02,560 --> 00:48:04,719
Speaker 1: to hear from from listeners on this one. What's your

839
00:48:04,760 --> 00:48:07,960
Speaker 1: relationship with eyebrows? Do you see eyebrows as a as

840
00:48:08,040 --> 00:48:12,880
Speaker 1: a as a clue to someone's narcissistic qualities? Um, we'd

841
00:48:12,920 --> 00:48:15,120
Speaker 1: love to hear from you. Are you a grandiose narcissist?

842
00:48:15,160 --> 00:48:17,960
Speaker 1: Do you have really distinctive eyebrows? Yeah, let us know,

843
00:48:19,160 --> 00:48:21,800
Speaker 1: measure them all right? Shall we move on to the

844
00:48:22,120 --> 00:48:24,960
Speaker 1: final prize that we're going to discuss on this episode. Sure,

845
00:48:25,200 --> 00:48:26,799
Speaker 1: this one will be pretty quick, but I thought this

846
00:48:26,880 --> 00:48:29,439
Speaker 1: was kind of fun. So you remember earlier this year

847
00:48:30,040 --> 00:48:33,160
Speaker 1: when we were talking about snake pits, and in that

848
00:48:33,200 --> 00:48:38,680
Speaker 1: episode I discussed research on the vocalizations of snakes like

849
00:48:38,840 --> 00:48:42,680
Speaker 1: king cobras, how they're known, in fact, not just to hiss,

850
00:48:43,120 --> 00:48:47,080
Speaker 1: but to actually growl. Yes, And one of the tests

851
00:48:47,120 --> 00:48:51,280
Speaker 1: conducted in that study about King Cobra's and related snakes

852
00:48:51,320 --> 00:48:55,480
Speaker 1: growling actually involved getting a snake to inhale helium and

853
00:48:55,520 --> 00:48:58,560
Speaker 1: talk like Donald Duck. And I thought that was a

854
00:48:58,600 --> 00:49:00,759
Speaker 1: pretty great experiment, but it uns out this is a

855
00:49:00,760 --> 00:49:04,320
Speaker 1: broader genre of scientific weirdness, as proven by this year's

856
00:49:04,320 --> 00:49:09,680
Speaker 1: Ignoble winner in acoustics. So this prize went to Stephen A.

857
00:49:09,880 --> 00:49:15,480
Speaker 1: Rebber Takeshi Nishimura, Judith Yanish, Mark Robertson, and W two

858
00:49:15,480 --> 00:49:19,480
Speaker 1: comes to Fitch And the study was called a Chinese

859
00:49:19,560 --> 00:49:23,440
Speaker 1: Alligator in helios Format Frequencies and a Crocodilian and the

860
00:49:23,480 --> 00:49:28,400
Speaker 1: Journal of Experimental Biology in uh so they the authors

861
00:49:28,680 --> 00:49:31,279
Speaker 1: here start by saying that crocodilians are among the most

862
00:49:31,360 --> 00:49:35,240
Speaker 1: vocal non avian reptiles. Not a lot of reptiles really

863
00:49:35,400 --> 00:49:40,040
Speaker 1: make you know, voice sounds, but crocodiles do. Crocodilians do.

864
00:49:40,760 --> 00:49:45,160
Speaker 1: Both males and females tend to produce sounds called bellows,

865
00:49:45,160 --> 00:49:49,879
Speaker 1: so they'll they'll kind of and this happens all year,

866
00:49:49,960 --> 00:49:53,319
Speaker 1: but especially during mating season. And the question is what

867
00:49:53,400 --> 00:49:57,640
Speaker 1: purpose do these bellows serve. Scientists aren't exactly sure, but

868
00:49:57,680 --> 00:50:03,040
Speaker 1: they think they might be auditory ad atisements of body size. So,

869
00:50:03,080 --> 00:50:05,400
Speaker 1: if you're a crocodilian trying to make you want to

870
00:50:05,400 --> 00:50:09,440
Speaker 1: be large, the author's right quote, relative sized differences strongly

871
00:50:09,480 --> 00:50:14,960
Speaker 1: affect courtship and territorial behavior in crocodilians. Now, in mammals

872
00:50:14,960 --> 00:50:19,400
Speaker 1: and birds, it has been documented that vocalizations are sometimes

873
00:50:19,440 --> 00:50:22,239
Speaker 1: an honest signal, and that's a term in biology, and

874
00:50:22,320 --> 00:50:26,400
Speaker 1: honest signal of body size, meaning an advertisement that is

875
00:50:26,440 --> 00:50:30,440
Speaker 1: basically true. It's hard to fake because body size is

876
00:50:30,520 --> 00:50:34,319
Speaker 1: related to what kinds of frequencies you can make when

877
00:50:34,360 --> 00:50:38,520
Speaker 1: you issue a vocalization, specifically with reference to what are

878
00:50:38,520 --> 00:50:43,239
Speaker 1: known as formant frequencies or vocal tract resonances. And these

879
00:50:43,280 --> 00:50:47,120
Speaker 1: are like sort of peak frequencies that you hit, say,

880
00:50:47,120 --> 00:50:51,000
Speaker 1: when you're making certain kinds of vowel like sounds. Now,

881
00:50:51,000 --> 00:50:53,719
Speaker 1: where does this study fit into everything I've just said? Well,

882
00:50:53,760 --> 00:50:57,760
Speaker 1: the authors here say that format frequencies have never been

883
00:50:57,800 --> 00:51:01,600
Speaker 1: documented before in a reptile, in a non avian reptile,

884
00:51:02,080 --> 00:51:04,239
Speaker 1: and they say quote, formants do not seem to play

885
00:51:04,239 --> 00:51:07,920
Speaker 1: a role in the vocalizations of frogs and toads. Technically

886
00:51:08,000 --> 00:51:10,800
Speaker 1: they're called a neurons, but that means frogs and toads.

887
00:51:11,320 --> 00:51:15,640
Speaker 1: They write quote. We tested performance in crocodilian vocalizations by

888
00:51:15,719 --> 00:51:20,759
Speaker 1: using playbacks to induce a female Chinese alligator or alligator

889
00:51:20,840 --> 00:51:26,400
Speaker 1: sinensis to bellow in an air tight chamber. During vocalizations,

890
00:51:26,440 --> 00:51:31,040
Speaker 1: the animal inhaled either normal air or a helium oxygen

891
00:51:31,120 --> 00:51:34,880
Speaker 1: mixture known as helios, in which the velocity of sound

892
00:51:35,040 --> 00:51:39,920
Speaker 1: is increased. Although helios allows normal respiration, it alters the

893
00:51:39,960 --> 00:51:44,279
Speaker 1: formant distribution of the sound spectrum. An acoustic analysis of

894
00:51:44,320 --> 00:51:47,640
Speaker 1: the calls showed that the source signal components remained constant

895
00:51:47,719 --> 00:51:51,600
Speaker 1: under both conditions, but an upward shift of high energy

896
00:51:51,640 --> 00:51:55,799
Speaker 1: frequency bands was observed in helios. We conclude that these

897
00:51:55,840 --> 00:52:00,880
Speaker 1: frequency bands represent formants. So, according to their theory radical framework,

898
00:52:00,920 --> 00:52:03,919
Speaker 1: they think this is a good sign that actually what

899
00:52:04,239 --> 00:52:07,520
Speaker 1: crocodiles are doing, what crocodilians are doing with these bellowing

900
00:52:07,640 --> 00:52:13,480
Speaker 1: sounds is actually advertising body size via these format frequencies

901
00:52:13,520 --> 00:52:17,160
Speaker 1: in their vocalizations. And uh oh, and also because they

902
00:52:17,160 --> 00:52:20,040
Speaker 1: say okay, so we've observed these format frequencies playing a

903
00:52:20,120 --> 00:52:23,640
Speaker 1: role in like mating calls in birds and if it's

904
00:52:23,719 --> 00:52:27,560
Speaker 1: correct that they're doing a similar thing in crocodilians. And

905
00:52:27,680 --> 00:52:32,800
Speaker 1: because birds and crocodilians share a common ancestor with all dinosaurs,

906
00:52:33,239 --> 00:52:35,960
Speaker 1: they say quote a better understanding of their vocal production

907
00:52:36,040 --> 00:52:41,520
Speaker 1: systems may also provide insight into the communication of extinct arcosaurians.

908
00:52:41,719 --> 00:52:45,160
Speaker 1: So it's actually a really interesting study. I guess if

909
00:52:45,200 --> 00:52:47,640
Speaker 1: you ask the question why is it funny, I guess

910
00:52:47,640 --> 00:52:54,759
Speaker 1: it's the helium giving healing crocodile. Also, I found it

911
00:52:55,080 --> 00:52:57,719
Speaker 1: in the study there was a pretty funny illustration of

912
00:52:57,760 --> 00:53:00,840
Speaker 1: the experimental setup that showed the croc goodisles in the

913
00:53:01,040 --> 00:53:05,440
Speaker 1: sealed chambers either breathing air or breathing the oxygen helium mixture.

914
00:53:06,440 --> 00:53:09,360
Speaker 1: It is. It is kind of a humorous illustration. I

915
00:53:09,360 --> 00:53:11,480
Speaker 1: don't know why, but it's it's like a nice illustration

916
00:53:11,520 --> 00:53:15,480
Speaker 1: it has. It's very colorful. The crocodile looks looks realistic.

917
00:53:15,520 --> 00:53:18,000
Speaker 1: It's not a cartoon crocodile. But I don't know, it

918
00:53:18,040 --> 00:53:20,160
Speaker 1: does look a little awkward in there. It just makes

919
00:53:20,160 --> 00:53:23,480
Speaker 1: me wonder how many different studies have made other animals

920
00:53:23,480 --> 00:53:26,160
Speaker 1: in hale helium to see what their voices sound like,

921
00:53:26,200 --> 00:53:29,319
Speaker 1: so we got snakes and we got crocodiles. Now, where

922
00:53:29,360 --> 00:53:33,719
Speaker 1: where else has this happened? We're not crocodile? Sorry, this

923
00:53:33,760 --> 00:53:36,279
Speaker 1: was an alligator, I guess, say, a crocodilian. Sorry, if

924
00:53:36,280 --> 00:53:39,399
Speaker 1: I've been loose with that terminology. Well maybe, well we'll

925
00:53:39,440 --> 00:53:41,000
Speaker 1: have to come back and do an episode on Helium

926
00:53:41,000 --> 00:53:46,680
Speaker 1: and discuss it. Okay, I'll meet you there all right. Well,

927
00:53:47,120 --> 00:53:48,759
Speaker 1: like I said, we're not going to cover all the

928
00:53:48,800 --> 00:53:52,560
Speaker 1: Ignoble Prize winners for We're just covering these four. If

929
00:53:52,560 --> 00:53:55,240
Speaker 1: you want to check out the full list of winners again,

930
00:53:55,280 --> 00:53:58,520
Speaker 1: go to Improbable dot com and you get to check

931
00:53:58,520 --> 00:54:01,200
Speaker 1: out the list and see links to the studies. Um,

932
00:54:01,560 --> 00:54:03,520
Speaker 1: it's it's always worth a read, just to see what

933
00:54:03,560 --> 00:54:07,759
Speaker 1: they're they're highlighting from, you know, from from recent or

934
00:54:07,840 --> 00:54:12,200
Speaker 1: not so recent scientific studies. Yeah, give him a look there.

935
00:54:12,320 --> 00:54:15,479
Speaker 1: There was another one that definitely raised my eyebrow this year,

936
00:54:15,520 --> 00:54:19,000
Speaker 1: and it was about it was about looking into economic

937
00:54:19,200 --> 00:54:22,920
Speaker 1: data via mouth to mouth kissing. Oh okay, yeah, that

938
00:54:22,960 --> 00:54:25,440
Speaker 1: one looked good. There's also one about hitting man. Did

939
00:54:25,440 --> 00:54:28,000
Speaker 1: you see that one? Yes? Yeah, it wasn't really contact.

940
00:54:28,120 --> 00:54:30,200
Speaker 1: It was just like a news It was a funny

941
00:54:30,200 --> 00:54:34,440
Speaker 1: news report. Basically, it was a story from China where

942
00:54:34,760 --> 00:54:37,400
Speaker 1: someone had taken out a murder contract that was just

943
00:54:37,520 --> 00:54:42,279
Speaker 1: repeatedly subcontracted down to like five or six layers of

944
00:54:42,280 --> 00:54:45,840
Speaker 1: of different people who were hired for successively smaller sums,

945
00:54:46,080 --> 00:54:48,400
Speaker 1: and then the murder was never done. Yeah, it's it

946
00:54:48,600 --> 00:54:50,560
Speaker 1: sounds like it would make a great Coen Brothers film,

947
00:54:50,600 --> 00:54:53,839
Speaker 1: you know, like each one gets cold feet and they're

948
00:54:53,840 --> 00:54:58,160
Speaker 1: like okay, yeah, yeah, until like basically they're just being

949
00:54:58,239 --> 00:55:01,920
Speaker 1: offered so little money it just doesn't get done. All right. Well,

950
00:55:01,960 --> 00:55:03,880
Speaker 1: if you want to check out other episodes of Stuff

951
00:55:03,920 --> 00:55:05,759
Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind, you know where to find us.

952
00:55:05,760 --> 00:55:08,719
Speaker 1: You can find us wherever you get your podcasts and

953
00:55:08,760 --> 00:55:11,000
Speaker 1: wherever that happens to be. We just asked that you rate,

954
00:55:11,080 --> 00:55:13,560
Speaker 1: review and subscribe. You can always go to stuff to

955
00:55:13,560 --> 00:55:15,160
Speaker 1: Blow your Mind dot com and that will take you

956
00:55:15,239 --> 00:55:18,080
Speaker 1: right to our I heart listing. Uh. And you also

957
00:55:18,080 --> 00:55:20,680
Speaker 1: see a button there somewhere on the page for store.

958
00:55:20,880 --> 00:55:22,120
Speaker 1: If you click on that, you go to our t

959
00:55:22,239 --> 00:55:24,480
Speaker 1: shirt store. You can buy a T shirt or a

960
00:55:24,520 --> 00:55:26,840
Speaker 1: sticker or a bag with our logo on it or

961
00:55:26,880 --> 00:55:30,480
Speaker 1: some manner of monster. Uh. Pretty fun little place. We

962
00:55:30,640 --> 00:55:32,759
Speaker 1: hopefully you're gonna get some new designs in there soon.

963
00:55:33,320 --> 00:55:35,320
Speaker 1: Let's see what else. So yeah, our former co host

964
00:55:35,400 --> 00:55:39,800
Speaker 1: Christian has a Kickstarter going right now for Corridor magazine

965
00:55:39,840 --> 00:55:43,920
Speaker 1: issue number one. It's gonna be a whole bunch of

966
00:55:43,920 --> 00:55:49,440
Speaker 1: of cool, weird art, short fiction, UH, comics, essays, uh

967
00:55:49,640 --> 00:55:52,399
Speaker 1: all together. If you're if you want to follow back

968
00:55:52,440 --> 00:55:55,840
Speaker 1: a cool project, just go to Kickstarter and look up Corridor.

969
00:55:56,080 --> 00:55:58,480
Speaker 1: You're in there, aren't you. Yeah. I've got a little

970
00:55:58,520 --> 00:56:00,799
Speaker 1: story like a sci fi store with sharks in it,

971
00:56:01,280 --> 00:56:04,359
Speaker 1: I said, I think listeners will enjoy, so yeah, and

972
00:56:04,360 --> 00:56:07,720
Speaker 1: but then also just a whole host of other richly

973
00:56:07,719 --> 00:56:10,160
Speaker 1: talented people. And it's from the images I've seen, it's

974
00:56:10,160 --> 00:56:12,719
Speaker 1: just gonna be gorgeous cover to cover. So that that

975
00:56:12,800 --> 00:56:14,640
Speaker 1: kickstarters ending soon. So if you want to be a

976
00:56:14,640 --> 00:56:17,439
Speaker 1: part of it, go look it up now. Definitely big

977
00:56:17,480 --> 00:56:21,040
Speaker 1: thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson.

978
00:56:21,120 --> 00:56:22,719
Speaker 1: If you would like to get in touch with us

979
00:56:22,719 --> 00:56:25,240
Speaker 1: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest

980
00:56:25,239 --> 00:56:27,280
Speaker 1: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,

981
00:56:27,360 --> 00:56:30,080
Speaker 1: you can email us at contact at Stuff to Blow

982
00:56:30,120 --> 00:56:39,879
Speaker 1: Your Mind Pod cover Stuff to Blow Your Mind it's

983
00:56:39,920 --> 00:56:42,600
Speaker 1: production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts for My

984
00:56:42,640 --> 00:56:45,680
Speaker 1: heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or

985
00:56:45,719 --> 00:57:02,920
Speaker 1: wherever you're listening to your favorite shows. Proper time the

986
00:57:03,000 --> 00:57:04,080
Speaker 1: town to b