WEBVTT - The 2020 Ig Nobel Prizes 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.400 Welcome to sbot to Blow Your Mind production of My 0:00:05.480 --> 0:00:14.560 Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:14.640 --> 0:00:17.599 My name is Robert lamp and I'm Joe McCormick. Hey, 0:00:17.840 --> 0:00:21.239 it's our yearly Ignobles episode. That's right, This is a 0:00:21.320 --> 0:00:24.840 tradition for us. These awards go out generally what mid 0:00:24.920 --> 0:00:28.560 to late September. We always come back and hit them 0:00:28.560 --> 0:00:31.160 in early November, after we're done with all of our 0:00:31.320 --> 0:00:33.760 Halloween content. And it's just, you know, a great way 0:00:33.800 --> 0:00:37.440 to dive back in to, uh, to serious scientific study. 0:00:38.320 --> 0:00:42.720 And I'm not joking because granted, these are awards that 0:00:42.720 --> 0:00:46.720 that's that celebrate and highlight studies that may seem a 0:00:46.720 --> 0:00:49.960 bit absurd and a bit a bit comical, but generally speaking, 0:00:50.000 --> 0:00:53.159 we're dealing with with with with actual research that doesn't 0:00:53.200 --> 0:00:56.480 at least in some way expand our scientific knowledge of 0:00:56.520 --> 0:00:58.800 the world. Right, even if it's funny, you can usually 0:00:58.840 --> 0:01:02.720 learn something interesting from it, right. So the basics on 0:01:02.800 --> 0:01:06.360 the Igno Belt obviously it's a play on the Nobel Prize. Uh. 0:01:06.480 --> 0:01:09.600 These have been awarded each year since nineteen by the 0:01:09.640 --> 0:01:13.800 Annimals of Improbable Research, which is a publication that uh, 0:01:14.040 --> 0:01:17.160 you know, prides itself on seeking out the absurd and 0:01:17.160 --> 0:01:20.399 the humorous and the whimsical within the realms of legitimate 0:01:20.440 --> 0:01:23.600 scientific research. The purpose of the award, according to the 0:01:23.680 --> 0:01:27.440 editors UH is to quote to honor achievements that first 0:01:27.440 --> 0:01:30.480 make people laugh and then make them think. Furthermore, they 0:01:30.480 --> 0:01:33.319 stressed that the ten prizes aren't necessarily meant to pass 0:01:33.400 --> 0:01:37.200 judgment on the winners. Instead, the official website emphasizes that 0:01:37.240 --> 0:01:41.039 the prizes quote celebrate the unusual, honor the imaginative, and 0:01:41.080 --> 0:01:45.240 spur people's interests in science, medicine, and technology. And the 0:01:45.319 --> 0:01:48.760 key individual in all this is editor Mark Abrams, who 0:01:48.800 --> 0:01:52.080 again has been heading this up since now. In some 0:01:52.200 --> 0:01:56.120 previous years we've covered all of the prizes awarded. We're 0:01:56.120 --> 0:01:57.560 not going to be doing that this year. We just 0:01:57.600 --> 0:02:00.400 wanted to pick out a selection and focus on a 0:02:00.400 --> 0:02:03.000 few of them that seemed fun or interesting for one 0:02:03.040 --> 0:02:05.600 episode this year. We might come back with multiple parts 0:02:05.680 --> 0:02:08.320 in future years, but this year we're just sticking with 0:02:08.360 --> 0:02:10.800 the one right and if you want the full list 0:02:10.800 --> 0:02:14.799 of winners then you should go to www dot Improbable 0:02:15.040 --> 0:02:19.800 dot com. Now, this year's ceremonies happened entirely online on Thursday, 0:02:19.800 --> 0:02:24.720 septe um and uh yeah, let's let's dive right in. 0:02:24.840 --> 0:02:27.639 Let's see what which one are we going to discuss first? 0:02:28.080 --> 0:02:30.440 What we've We've got to start with a knife made 0:02:30.440 --> 0:02:33.160 of feces, because that seems like the perfect metaphor for 0:02:33.200 --> 0:02:37.200 the year is just being menaced with a blade of 0:02:37.200 --> 0:02:40.560 of excrement, blade of excrement, it shall be. This was 0:02:40.680 --> 0:02:44.919 the Materials Science Prize and it does concern a frozen 0:02:45.000 --> 0:02:48.000 feces knife. Um. Now to to put this in the 0:02:48.000 --> 0:02:50.320 correct um, you know, frame of reverence, so to really 0:02:50.320 --> 0:02:53.400 prepare you for what we're specifically talking about here, I'm 0:02:53.400 --> 0:02:56.240 going to read a segment here from Shadows in the 0:02:56.280 --> 0:03:00.160 Sun Travels to Landscapes of Spirit and Desire. Uh is 0:03:00.160 --> 0:03:04.160 a book came out by Wade Davis, a Canadian US 0:03:04.240 --> 0:03:10.200 Colombian cultural anthropologist, ethnobotanist, author and photographer. Quote. There is 0:03:10.240 --> 0:03:12.600 a well known account of an old Inuit man who 0:03:12.639 --> 0:03:15.960 refused to move into a settlement over the objections of 0:03:16.040 --> 0:03:19.040 his family. He made plans to stay on the ice. 0:03:19.800 --> 0:03:22.720 To stop him, they took away all his tools, so 0:03:22.760 --> 0:03:25.440 in the midst of a winter gale, he stepped out 0:03:25.440 --> 0:03:29.080 of their iglue defecated and honed the feces into a 0:03:29.080 --> 0:03:32.760 frozen blade, which he sharpened with a spray of saliva. 0:03:33.040 --> 0:03:35.840 With the knife, he killed a dog using its ribbed 0:03:35.880 --> 0:03:39.080 cage as a sled, and it's high to harness another dog. 0:03:39.440 --> 0:03:44.480 He disappeared into the darkness. WHOA, Now that's that's that's 0:03:44.600 --> 0:03:48.160 a pretty awesome little tail there. That's beyond Rambo levels 0:03:48.200 --> 0:03:51.520 of of improvised tools. I mean, that's that's good stuff, 0:03:51.800 --> 0:03:55.840 beyond the Giver, beyond Rambo. Yeah, so this is this 0:03:55.920 --> 0:03:58.360 is the account or one of two accounts that the 0:03:58.400 --> 0:04:00.400 study we're gonna get to is going to deal with. 0:04:00.920 --> 0:04:02.920 I do think that I thought I would point out 0:04:02.920 --> 0:04:05.720 though for long time listeners of the show, you might 0:04:05.800 --> 0:04:10.720 recognize the name Wade Davis. Davis has written no numerous 0:04:10.720 --> 0:04:13.200 books over the years, but he was perhaps most famously 0:04:13.280 --> 0:04:17.880 the author of The Serpent and the Rainbow um, which, 0:04:17.880 --> 0:04:19.760 as we discussed on the show before, put forward the 0:04:19.839 --> 0:04:24.480 hypothesis that tetrato toxin is linked to the zombie legend 0:04:24.520 --> 0:04:29.520 and Haiti hypo and a hypothesis that proved somewhat controversial. Uh. 0:04:29.560 --> 0:04:31.719 This is a nonfiction book, but it served as the 0:04:31.760 --> 0:04:35.720 inspiration for the West Craven film, which was just an 0:04:35.760 --> 0:04:40.800 infamously troubled production filmed on location in Haiti, starring Bill Pullman, 0:04:41.320 --> 0:04:43.920 uh Paul Winfield and I can't remember if there was 0:04:43.920 --> 0:04:47.279 anybody else really have note in that. But um Shadows 0:04:47.279 --> 0:04:49.679 of the Sun, on the other hand, collects various essays 0:04:49.680 --> 0:04:53.040 by Davis concerning various parts of the world, including the 0:04:53.040 --> 0:04:55.320 innuits of the Arctic Circle. But let's get back to 0:04:55.360 --> 0:04:59.640 this poop blade, so material sciences aside. We'll get into 0:04:59.640 --> 0:05:02.599 the material sciences here. This seems like a perfectly great 0:05:02.680 --> 0:05:05.720 legend of a man so rugged and committed to life 0:05:05.720 --> 0:05:08.160 on the ice that robbed of his tools, he will 0:05:08.240 --> 0:05:11.200 forge a blade from his own excrement and use it 0:05:11.240 --> 0:05:13.640 to cut a sled and harness from one dog, and 0:05:13.640 --> 0:05:16.480 then lash that sled to another dog and then just 0:05:16.640 --> 0:05:19.360 escape into the wilds. Right. It's sort of the ultimate 0:05:19.440 --> 0:05:23.200 story of of self reliance and resourcefulness. But it does 0:05:23.320 --> 0:05:26.960 raise the question is this possible? Could you actually do 0:05:27.080 --> 0:05:30.320 this right? Because what works in legend doesn't necessarily work 0:05:30.360 --> 0:05:32.800 in the real world. But that's where this study enters 0:05:32.839 --> 0:05:35.400 the picture to shed light on the legend and see 0:05:35.400 --> 0:05:39.599 if it melts or see if it holds its form um. 0:05:39.640 --> 0:05:41.760 So I'm not going to read the entire title of 0:05:41.760 --> 0:05:44.520 the paper just yet because it gives away the answer. 0:05:44.839 --> 0:05:47.920 But essentially this was looking to it was. It had 0:05:47.920 --> 0:05:51.360 to do with experimental replicate replication of a knife made 0:05:51.360 --> 0:05:55.400 from frozen human feces, and it was by Aaron at All, 0:05:55.400 --> 0:05:58.719 published in the Journal of Archaeological Science in October of 0:05:58.760 --> 0:06:03.400 twenty nineteen. Uh. That is meeting I Aaron, Associate Professor 0:06:03.400 --> 0:06:07.480 of Anthropology and Director of Archaeology at Kent State University. UH. 0:06:07.680 --> 0:06:11.120 He's the key investigator in this. He's also the one 0:06:11.160 --> 0:06:14.000 who's poop they will use. Now, this is interesting because 0:06:14.000 --> 0:06:16.240 it ties into some stuff we've talked about on the 0:06:16.240 --> 0:06:18.840 show recently. For example, in the Pike Create episode PI 0:06:18.960 --> 0:06:21.640 Crete is. If you didn't check that one out yet, 0:06:21.680 --> 0:06:23.120 that was a lot of fun. But it's a story 0:06:23.160 --> 0:06:28.039 about an attempt during World War Two to manufacture a 0:06:28.120 --> 0:06:32.000 sort of floating armored aircraft carrier out of what would 0:06:32.040 --> 0:06:35.279 have been a mixture of wood, pulp and ice. And 0:06:35.320 --> 0:06:38.279 it kind of gets you considering the different possibilities of 0:06:38.560 --> 0:06:43.040 what kinds of tools and even structures or vehicles you 0:06:43.120 --> 0:06:46.480 can make out of various types of frozen material, because 0:06:46.600 --> 0:06:51.279 the material properties of water with saturated wood pulp in 0:06:51.320 --> 0:06:55.160 it are are very different when frozen than just plain water. Yeah, 0:06:55.279 --> 0:06:58.400 and and really that the work we did researching PI 0:06:58.480 --> 0:07:00.760 cret I mean it makes you think, well, maybe this 0:07:00.839 --> 0:07:04.680 could work, right, because what is fecal matter, But you know, 0:07:04.800 --> 0:07:07.520 it has water and it obviously, but it also has 0:07:07.560 --> 0:07:11.640 these these different depending on the diet. Yeah, there's gonna 0:07:11.640 --> 0:07:14.360 be some other stuff in there that could potentially add 0:07:14.360 --> 0:07:18.040 to the structure and keep it from shattering. H um. Yeah, 0:07:18.080 --> 0:07:21.800 I mean it's one of these things that sounds potentially plausible. 0:07:21.840 --> 0:07:24.360 And and again that's where the experiment comes into play. 0:07:24.440 --> 0:07:26.640 I mean it does make you wonder what should you 0:07:26.720 --> 0:07:29.240 eat if you want your fecal matter to be the 0:07:29.280 --> 0:07:34.160 most knife ready. Yeah. Of course. It's also we mentioned 0:07:34.160 --> 0:07:37.360 I think Mortal Kombat Sub Zero, the the character the 0:07:37.640 --> 0:07:40.640 warrior in the video games and the movies that that 0:07:40.760 --> 0:07:43.360 the in addition to freezing people solid and shattering them, 0:07:43.520 --> 0:07:47.119 also crafts magical weapons out of out of magical ice. 0:07:47.800 --> 0:07:51.360 Uh So really this is this is essentially fodder for 0:07:51.440 --> 0:07:54.640 a new Mortal Kombat character, like the poopier version of 0:07:54.680 --> 0:07:57.640 sub zero. Okay, I gotta know the answer, all right, Well, 0:07:57.680 --> 0:08:00.000 let's work our way up to the answers. So, as 0:08:00.040 --> 0:08:03.440 the author's point out, Davis's account in the book was 0:08:03.480 --> 0:08:09.080 attributed to one Olayuk nar Quitarvek, who who said this 0:08:09.160 --> 0:08:12.800 about his own grandfather in the nineteen fifties. Um, I 0:08:12.800 --> 0:08:14.840 mean the grandfather would have lived in the nineteen fifties. 0:08:14.880 --> 0:08:18.320 That's the idea here now. Davis himself admitted that he 0:08:18.360 --> 0:08:21.720 initially took the story as a humorous one and admits 0:08:21.760 --> 0:08:24.600 that it might well be more legend than reality. But 0:08:24.640 --> 0:08:28.160 it was subsequently repeated in various texts and uh and David. 0:08:28.200 --> 0:08:30.480 But Davis did say that, well, okay, there is an 0:08:30.480 --> 0:08:33.160 account we can look to that could potentially back this up. 0:08:33.480 --> 0:08:37.920 And it's an account by Danish explorer Peter Frutchen, who 0:08:37.920 --> 0:08:42.400 lived eighteen eighty six through nineteen fifty seven, and uh 0:08:42.440 --> 0:08:46.120 Fruction claimed to have used a similar tactic. His account 0:08:46.160 --> 0:08:48.920 was that he dug a pit to sleep in this 0:08:48.960 --> 0:08:53.080 is in the Arctic, and awoke to find himself snowed in. So, 0:08:53.280 --> 0:08:57.880 remembering seeing frozen dog extreument that looked pretty solid, he 0:08:57.880 --> 0:09:00.679 he got an idea. He decided to defecate in one hand, 0:09:01.480 --> 0:09:04.080 shape it into a chisel and then wait for the 0:09:04.080 --> 0:09:07.000 fecal matter to freeze hard enough then to use that 0:09:07.080 --> 0:09:10.800 chisel to dig his way out. I don't I mean, 0:09:11.080 --> 0:09:14.160 I don't know, but for some reason, my my skeptical 0:09:14.240 --> 0:09:17.520 antennae or sort of perking up that something about this 0:09:17.559 --> 0:09:21.600 story seems wrong, I too, am doubtful. I was doubtful 0:09:21.640 --> 0:09:26.760 as well. So basically this is where the this is 0:09:26.760 --> 0:09:28.559 where the experiment comes in. Because again, just because you 0:09:28.600 --> 0:09:31.480 have these two cases, one is is more presented as 0:09:31.480 --> 0:09:34.440 a legend and one also might be an exaggerated or 0:09:34.440 --> 0:09:37.120 simply made up account. Uh, there's just no way of knowing. 0:09:37.160 --> 0:09:40.720 It's not like in either case someone kept the poop 0:09:40.760 --> 0:09:43.800 dagger and it was you know, presented, So that means 0:09:43.800 --> 0:09:46.040 you've got to make your own poop a dagger. And 0:09:46.120 --> 0:09:49.400 that's exactly what they did in this um uh, this 0:09:49.520 --> 0:09:52.400 kid State University study. So first of all, I just 0:09:52.440 --> 0:09:55.080 want to want to just let everybody know, no dogs 0:09:55.080 --> 0:09:57.679 are cut up in this experiment. They use pig hide 0:09:57.760 --> 0:10:00.600 muscles and tendons to stand in for dog fl but 0:10:00.720 --> 0:10:04.040 the poop, well that's a little too essential to the experiment. 0:10:04.400 --> 0:10:07.560 They had to use actual human fecal matter, but they 0:10:07.640 --> 0:10:10.080 also needed to make sure it was fecal matter in 0:10:10.200 --> 0:10:12.400 keeping with the diet of an Inuit living on the 0:10:12.440 --> 0:10:15.280 ice in the nineteen fifties. Oh okay, So what would 0:10:15.320 --> 0:10:18.280 this diet most likely consist of. Well, this is what 0:10:18.280 --> 0:10:20.120 they say in the study quote, in order to procure 0:10:20.160 --> 0:10:23.760 the necessary raw materials for knife production, one of us, 0:10:23.920 --> 0:10:26.319 and then they include the in parenthesise m I E 0:10:26.920 --> 0:10:30.600 for meat and I Aaron the again the Associate professor 0:10:30.640 --> 0:10:34.520 of Anthropology and director of Archaeology, I can't state, went 0:10:34.600 --> 0:10:37.920 on a diet with high protein and fatty acids, which 0:10:37.960 --> 0:10:40.920 is consistent with an Arctic diet for eight days. The 0:10:40.960 --> 0:10:44.440 Innuit do not only eat meat from maritime and terrestrial animals, 0:10:44.720 --> 0:10:47.400 and there were three instances during the eight day diet 0:10:47.880 --> 0:10:51.960 that M I E ate fruit, vegetables, or carbohydrates. Okay, 0:10:51.960 --> 0:10:55.360 so this is a diet that is not exclusively meat based, 0:10:55.440 --> 0:10:59.160 but is largely meat based, right, Yeah, more and more 0:10:59.200 --> 0:11:02.199 beat based than and um than Aaron would usually UM 0:11:02.880 --> 0:11:05.840 engage with. So on the fourth day he begins the 0:11:05.880 --> 0:11:10.800 collection process and this continues for five days. The fecal 0:11:10.840 --> 0:11:14.320 samples were formed into knives via ceramic molds, but they 0:11:14.320 --> 0:11:18.080 were also molded by hand into quote hand shaped knives, 0:11:18.120 --> 0:11:21.320 and all of these were stored in a freezer, hopefully 0:11:21.320 --> 0:11:25.400 clearly marked who molded them by hand. I don't know 0:11:25.440 --> 0:11:28.160 that the study was specific on that matter. I I'm 0:11:27.840 --> 0:11:30.840 a I'm assuming that it's m I. E. Him self 0:11:30.840 --> 0:11:33.040 that is doing most of the molding and the handling 0:11:33.200 --> 0:11:37.240 of his own poop blades. Um maybe this is unreasonable 0:11:37.679 --> 0:11:40.640 taboo enforcement. It seems like weird to make somebody else 0:11:40.720 --> 0:11:44.840 handle your frozen feces. Yeah, yeah, I would agree, But 0:11:44.880 --> 0:11:46.160 I don't know in the name of science, you know, 0:11:46.160 --> 0:11:51.040 with with you know, appropriate scientific restraints in place, you know, 0:11:51.440 --> 0:11:54.160 it might be okay. So when it came time to 0:11:54.200 --> 0:11:56.280 put the knives to the test, they were taken out 0:11:56.280 --> 0:11:58.720 of the freezer, they were sharpened once more, and then 0:11:58.760 --> 0:12:01.880 they were turned to even older temperatures via dry ice 0:12:02.160 --> 0:12:04.880 to ready them for the task. And and part of 0:12:04.880 --> 0:12:08.000 this is really as um as the investigators went onto 0:12:08.120 --> 0:12:10.920 to state like this was trying to create the best 0:12:11.000 --> 0:12:15.320 possible conditions for this uh test to potentially work, Like 0:12:15.360 --> 0:12:17.160 really to give just make sure everything was just as 0:12:17.160 --> 0:12:22.120 frozen as possible. Um and uh. And so that they decided. 0:12:22.160 --> 0:12:24.560 Then they put them to the test. They started with 0:12:24.600 --> 0:12:28.800 the toughest challenge, however, and that's the hide, because they figured, well, 0:12:28.800 --> 0:12:31.160 if the knives failed to cut through the hide, you 0:12:31.200 --> 0:12:33.240 can basically go ahead and call it a day because 0:12:33.280 --> 0:12:37.040 it doesn't matter. They can cut through fat, etcetera. Here's 0:12:37.040 --> 0:12:40.240 what happened. Both varieties of fecal blade. That means, the 0:12:40.520 --> 0:12:42.320 ones that were just put in the mold, the ones 0:12:42.360 --> 0:12:45.080 that were formed by hand. Both of them failed to 0:12:45.120 --> 0:12:50.880 cut the hide. Oh, your knife sucks. Now, I know 0:12:50.880 --> 0:12:53.920 what you're thinking. Maybe they got the poop consistency wrong. Well, 0:12:54.200 --> 0:12:56.920 they thought of that they had forged a blade from 0:12:57.000 --> 0:13:00.840 Western diet poop, but that failed as well. They also 0:13:00.840 --> 0:13:03.120 went ahead and tried the blades out on a layer 0:13:03.120 --> 0:13:06.760 of fat underneath the hide, and quote, only the shallowest 0:13:06.800 --> 0:13:10.000 of slices could be produced and the knife edge still 0:13:10.080 --> 0:13:14.080 quickly melted and deteriorated. Yeah. I would imagine that this 0:13:14.120 --> 0:13:17.120 would be a problem that uh, that it just melts 0:13:17.160 --> 0:13:19.440 too fast to be effective at cutting. I mean, I 0:13:19.440 --> 0:13:22.000 bet you probably could get a somewhat sharp edge on it, 0:13:22.040 --> 0:13:24.280 but how would you hold the edge for very long, 0:13:24.320 --> 0:13:26.520 because as soon as you start sewing into something, it's 0:13:26.520 --> 0:13:29.280 probably just gonna get heated up by friction and then 0:13:29.280 --> 0:13:32.520 melt away and be blunt. Yeah, because I mean, because 0:13:32.720 --> 0:13:34.840 that's that's the one of the keys here is that 0:13:34.920 --> 0:13:37.480 the legend is not a story of someone who stabbed 0:13:37.520 --> 0:13:40.240 somebody in the eye with an icicle, you know. It's 0:13:40.280 --> 0:13:43.719 the story of someone who butchers a dog and processes 0:13:43.760 --> 0:13:47.440 its body to make raw materials. Now, the researcher stress 0:13:47.520 --> 0:13:50.760 that by depending again on very cold materials instead of 0:13:50.880 --> 0:13:54.520 fresh kills, uh, they gave the experiment the best chance 0:13:54.520 --> 0:13:57.520 of success, but the blades still failed to match up 0:13:57.520 --> 0:14:00.520 to the legend. Now that, they also drive home that 0:14:00.640 --> 0:14:04.400 perhaps additional test with additional fecal matter samples would be 0:14:04.480 --> 0:14:07.520 ideal if anyone else wants to continue this this great work. 0:14:08.040 --> 0:14:11.440 But you know, I don't know, like what would be 0:14:11.480 --> 0:14:17.040 the additional um, you know, dietary um uh formula for 0:14:17.120 --> 0:14:20.120 fecal matter that would make a better poop knife. I 0:14:20.120 --> 0:14:22.480 don't know. I mean, honestly, now that I'm thinking about it, 0:14:23.160 --> 0:14:25.000 I don't even know if like you could make a 0:14:25.120 --> 0:14:28.800 very good knife out of pike crete, right, because a 0:14:28.920 --> 0:14:33.320 knife depends so much on having a very sharp blade 0:14:34.080 --> 0:14:37.040 to work very effectively. And while pike crete is really 0:14:37.040 --> 0:14:41.600 good at preventing cracks from propagating across the length of it, 0:14:42.040 --> 0:14:45.120 and it's pretty good at melting more slowly than regular ice, 0:14:45.200 --> 0:14:48.320 I still think the sharp edge of a pike crete 0:14:48.360 --> 0:14:51.560 knife would probably melt pretty quickly, too quickly to be useful. 0:14:53.040 --> 0:14:54.560 So it seems like you'd be better off if you 0:14:54.640 --> 0:15:02.880 made a pike create or a frozen poop warhammer, right right, yeah, okay, Um. Now, 0:15:02.960 --> 0:15:08.560 the in addition to you know, contemplations of regarding different diets, uh, 0:15:08.600 --> 0:15:11.320 they also contemplate, you know, the idea that, okay, you 0:15:11.360 --> 0:15:15.040 have this saliva aspect of the original legend, right, that 0:15:15.160 --> 0:15:18.280 he sprays saliva onto the poop knife and then forges it. 0:15:18.520 --> 0:15:20.920 But they're doubtful that that would really make a difference either. 0:15:21.000 --> 0:15:23.200 They point to the work of McCall and Telton from 0:15:23.200 --> 0:15:25.720 two thousand ten, who looked into the idea of whether 0:15:26.040 --> 0:15:29.360 humans and cold regions used flaked and chipped ice for 0:15:29.440 --> 0:15:32.880 butchery tools, and they too found that melting occurred with 0:15:32.920 --> 0:15:35.560 these when these objects came into contact with warm bodies, 0:15:35.800 --> 0:15:39.600 and that they also melted during use. So um, you 0:15:39.640 --> 0:15:42.000 know again you're coming down to I think in a 0:15:42.040 --> 0:15:44.200 case where if you're talking about creating something out of 0:15:44.240 --> 0:15:47.000 out of ice or frozen poop and you're attempting to 0:15:47.160 --> 0:15:51.520 use it as a butchery tool, um, you're just asking 0:15:51.560 --> 0:15:57.400 too much of the material For frozen material. The effectiveness 0:15:57.400 --> 0:16:01.200 of a knife blade depends on it being very thin. Basically, 0:16:01.240 --> 0:16:05.160 the extent to which it's effective is based on its thinness, 0:16:05.280 --> 0:16:09.200 and being thin would make any frozen material likely to 0:16:09.240 --> 0:16:13.000 melt because you know, it's harder to maintain the cold temperatures. 0:16:13.000 --> 0:16:16.080 It's just gonna acquire heat from the environment from friction 0:16:16.120 --> 0:16:20.320 too fast. Now you might ask yourself, okay, but seriously, 0:16:20.360 --> 0:16:23.600 why was this necessary research? I think they have a 0:16:23.720 --> 0:16:27.000 nice uh summary of this in the paper itself. I 0:16:27.000 --> 0:16:30.520 just want to read this quote. Societal narratives and policies 0:16:30.560 --> 0:16:35.160 are often constructed from anthropological and scientific claims. While the 0:16:35.280 --> 0:16:39.240 narrative that indigenous and prehistoric people are technologically resourceful and 0:16:39.280 --> 0:16:43.280 innovative is widely supported, these narratives suffer when an untested 0:16:43.280 --> 0:16:46.360 claim is used to support it. If one untested claim 0:16:46.440 --> 0:16:48.640 is used to support a stance, even if that stance 0:16:48.720 --> 0:16:51.680 is otherwise supported, ethical, or just, then there is no 0:16:51.760 --> 0:16:55.040 logical reason why a second untested claim cannot be invoked. 0:16:55.360 --> 0:16:58.160 The use of untested claims then becomes the norm and 0:16:58.200 --> 0:17:00.920 can be used to support stances that are beneficial to 0:17:01.040 --> 0:17:04.600 society as well as those that are harmful. Anthropologists must 0:17:04.600 --> 0:17:08.320 actively seek out unsupported claims, assumptions, rumors, and urban legends, 0:17:08.320 --> 0:17:11.520 and by testing them, ensure any narratives that follow are 0:17:11.560 --> 0:17:14.720 as sturdy as possible. Right, So, there are enough true 0:17:14.760 --> 0:17:18.639 stories about resourcefulness and ingenuity among the Inuit people's that 0:17:18.680 --> 0:17:23.400 you don't need like physically impossible stories gunking up the works, right, 0:17:23.760 --> 0:17:25.760 And by investigating a story like this, you can you 0:17:25.800 --> 0:17:28.640 can make that that decision. Okay, looks like we file 0:17:28.720 --> 0:17:31.600 this more under legend and mythology as opposed to a 0:17:31.760 --> 0:17:35.159 true tale of survival. Right, So that's the poop knife. 0:17:35.680 --> 0:17:37.960 I thought that one was really entertaining, and again it 0:17:38.200 --> 0:17:40.320 does feel kind of fitting for but also it's just 0:17:40.400 --> 0:17:43.359 a really cool story. Uh. And and I do encourage 0:17:43.359 --> 0:17:46.760 anyone out there who has a dungeon master or or 0:17:46.880 --> 0:17:50.040 a Dungeons and Dragons player keep this story in mind. 0:17:50.119 --> 0:17:52.320 I think this one will prove useful, especially if you're 0:17:52.320 --> 0:17:55.560 adventuring and somewhere like ice wind Dale or something. Um 0:17:56.119 --> 0:17:58.960 you know, usually try and use the poop knife. Maybe 0:17:58.960 --> 0:18:02.560 your dungeon master has heard this episode or has read 0:18:02.600 --> 0:18:05.359 this study follows the Ignoble Prizes, and they'll shoot you down. 0:18:05.800 --> 0:18:08.640 But you know, dungeons and dragons is a legendary environment, 0:18:08.680 --> 0:18:10.720 so maybe you'll get away with it. You have acquired 0:18:10.800 --> 0:18:15.840 the blade of Latrinius. Alright, on that note, we're gonna 0:18:15.840 --> 0:18:17.600 take a quick break, but when we come back, we'll 0:18:17.600 --> 0:18:25.280 discuss another selection from the Ignoble Prizes. Thank alright, we're back. 0:18:25.320 --> 0:18:27.920 What have you got for us, Joe? Okay, it's time 0:18:27.960 --> 0:18:31.840 to talk about professional entomologists who are afraid of spiders. 0:18:33.280 --> 0:18:37.199 So this winning article, this was from the Entomology Prize. 0:18:37.200 --> 0:18:41.840 It's by Richard S. Vetter, called arachnophobic entomologists when two 0:18:41.840 --> 0:18:45.600 more legs makes a Big difference, published an American Entomologist 0:18:45.640 --> 0:18:50.200 in Now. The author of the study, Richard Vetter, is 0:18:50.240 --> 0:18:53.359 now retired, but during his career he was an entomology 0:18:53.440 --> 0:18:57.680 research associate at UC Riverside and a quick look around 0:18:57.720 --> 0:19:00.760 the internet at photos of this guy and interviews with 0:19:00.880 --> 0:19:04.159 him suggests that he has some kind of arachnophiliac. He 0:19:04.280 --> 0:19:06.760 clearly loves spider as I found a picture of him 0:19:06.760 --> 0:19:09.480 with a spider crawling on his eye and he's got 0:19:09.480 --> 0:19:12.600 this big smile on his face. I generally thought this 0:19:12.680 --> 0:19:14.520 was a picture of Dennis Hopper when I first saw it. 0:19:14.560 --> 0:19:18.800 I thought it's like a younger Dennis Hopper. Yeah, he's 0:19:18.840 --> 0:19:23.760 a warrior poet in the classic sense. So this paper 0:19:24.080 --> 0:19:28.679 is about arachnophobia, the fear, sometimes irrational fear of spiders, 0:19:28.720 --> 0:19:32.000 which is very common phobia. And I've read a couple 0:19:32.040 --> 0:19:34.960 of articles featuring interviews with the vetter and he sort 0:19:35.000 --> 0:19:39.320 of tells some personal stories that got him thinking about 0:19:39.359 --> 0:19:42.800 the subject of arachnophobia among entomologists. So a few of 0:19:42.840 --> 0:19:45.199 these stories. For one thing, he tells a story of 0:19:45.240 --> 0:19:48.879 one time sitting down at a lunch table with colleagues 0:19:49.000 --> 0:19:52.720 and producing a brown recluse spider that was sealed in 0:19:52.760 --> 0:19:55.960 a plastic bag, and he says one of his colleagues, 0:19:56.000 --> 0:20:00.800 an aquatic entomologist, absolutely quote vaporized, just gone from the 0:20:00.880 --> 0:20:03.760 room all the way down the hall in five seconds. 0:20:04.520 --> 0:20:06.600 And then he says another time he was with an 0:20:06.680 --> 0:20:09.640 entomologist colleague, and he opened the lid on a specimen 0:20:09.720 --> 0:20:11.879 jar that had a black widow in it, and he 0:20:11.920 --> 0:20:15.879 said that this guy in the room literally jumped backwards quote, 0:20:15.920 --> 0:20:20.040 like the spider was going to decapitate him. Now, this 0:20:20.119 --> 0:20:22.040 is kind of surprising to me because you would sort 0:20:22.080 --> 0:20:25.919 of expect that entomologists would be pretty much immune to 0:20:26.200 --> 0:20:30.760 irrational spider fear. Uh. Now, quick note on the terminology. 0:20:30.920 --> 0:20:35.439 Entomologists are a specialized branch of zoologists. They study insects. 0:20:36.040 --> 0:20:39.520 The researchers who specialize in arachnids like spider's ticks and 0:20:39.600 --> 0:20:44.160 mites are called arachnologists. But I think there's clearly some crossover, 0:20:44.320 --> 0:20:47.760 Like it looks like Vetter was technically an entomologist by 0:20:47.800 --> 0:20:50.959 title at his institution, but his passion seemed to be 0:20:50.960 --> 0:20:53.560 with spiders. And uh, I think you just kind of 0:20:53.560 --> 0:20:57.600 assumed that attitudes about insects and attitudes about spiders, since 0:20:57.640 --> 0:21:02.240 they're both small arthropods, would be pretty correlated, right. Yeah, 0:21:02.320 --> 0:21:03.960 I mean, I guess I have two minds on this because, 0:21:04.000 --> 0:21:05.960 on one hand, yeah, it just seems like if you're 0:21:06.000 --> 0:21:09.800 cool with devoting your life to to one variety of 0:21:09.800 --> 0:21:12.440 creepy crawley. Then you're good with all creepy crawleys. But 0:21:12.480 --> 0:21:14.760 then I think to my on my own self, and 0:21:14.800 --> 0:21:16.800 I'm like, well, you know, I'll get down and look 0:21:16.840 --> 0:21:19.640 at something like, you know, a centipede or even a spider, 0:21:20.040 --> 0:21:22.320 but I'm a little wigged out by something like a 0:21:22.359 --> 0:21:26.440 palmetta bug or a roach, you know. So, yeah, this 0:21:26.520 --> 0:21:29.280 is interesting. There's somebody who I think is the inverted 0:21:29.400 --> 0:21:32.879 version of you in this study. Oh really yeah, so 0:21:32.920 --> 0:21:35.360 we'll get to that in just a minute. But anyway, 0:21:35.440 --> 0:21:37.360 I can think of at least a couple of reasons, 0:21:37.440 --> 0:21:40.399 at least for me, why why I wouldn't really expect 0:21:40.600 --> 0:21:44.720 entomologists who have powerful, irrational fears of spiders. One is 0:21:44.840 --> 0:21:47.879 self selection in the profession, right, Like, how many people 0:21:48.359 --> 0:21:52.479 with an existing overwhelming fear of tiny arthropods would go 0:21:52.600 --> 0:21:55.919 into a research field where you handle tiny arthropods all 0:21:55.960 --> 0:21:58.480 the time. And then the other thing I would just 0:21:58.520 --> 0:22:01.120 think of would be conditioning. Even if you start off 0:22:01.200 --> 0:22:05.440 kind of afraid of spiders, wouldn't constantly working with insects 0:22:05.480 --> 0:22:08.119 and various types of small arthur pods just sort of 0:22:08.160 --> 0:22:10.600 blunt that fear over time. Yeah, it's kind of hard 0:22:10.600 --> 0:22:14.200 to imagine like a Dickensian tale where uh this, uh this, 0:22:14.200 --> 0:22:17.240 this kid enters entomology, but he's just following in the 0:22:17.320 --> 0:22:21.480 in his father's footsteps. It's just the family business of 0:22:21.640 --> 0:22:24.560 studying insects, right in a weird way. That almost does 0:22:24.600 --> 0:22:29.200 seem like a Dickensian kind of comic character, like entomologists 0:22:29.200 --> 0:22:33.000 who's terrified of of insects or something. But anyway, there 0:22:33.080 --> 0:22:36.560 is a different Spiders are not exactly insects, So uh so, 0:22:36.680 --> 0:22:40.040 let's let's pursue this a little farther. So Vetter, based 0:22:40.040 --> 0:22:43.760