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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to blow your mind. My name

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Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday.

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Speaker 1: Time to go into the old vault, this time for

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Speaker 1: an episode that originally aired on Valentine's Day of nineteen.

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Speaker 1: That's right, Cupid's a laden arrow. This one is about.

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Speaker 1: It's about a number of things. You get get a

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Speaker 1: little bit of cupid mythology in this episode, and also

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Speaker 1: a lot of discussions of lead, like what is lead?

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Speaker 1: And then how have we used and arguably misused lad

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Speaker 1: over the years? You get to learn all about the

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Speaker 1: culinary virtues of lead. Don't cook with lead, but you'll

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Speaker 1: find out why in the episode. So let's jump right

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Speaker 1: in there. From his quiver full of shafts, two arrows?

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Speaker 1: Did he take of sundry works to one causes love?

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Speaker 1: The other doth hits slake? That causes love is all

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Speaker 1: of gold with point, full, sharp and bright. That chase

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Speaker 1: is love is blunt? Who steal with leadin? Head is dight?

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Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff to blow your mind from how stuff

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Speaker 1: weren't dot Com? Hey, you welcome to stuff to blow

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

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Speaker 1: and so obviously we're talking about Cupid today. That's right,

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Speaker 1: it's Valentine's Day, is it? Yes? Is it actually Valentine's Yes,

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Speaker 1: actual Valentine's Day. Okay, yeah, so we figured what we

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Speaker 1: gotta we gotta do some sort of Valentine's episode. We

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Speaker 1: had the the episode where we talked to Tomorrow Heart previously,

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Speaker 1: but this is the day itself Towers of Snail Sex. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so it seemed proper to get a little mythological here

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Speaker 1: as we kick off this episode and to turn to

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Speaker 1: that mythological figure that got of romantic love, Cupid, the creepy,

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Speaker 1: smooth baby who shoots arrows with heart tips. Yes, now

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Speaker 1: that the reading at the top of the episode was

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Speaker 1: was Ovid. That was from the Metamorphosis, the Golden Translation,

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Speaker 1: So that was how you get words like dita, which

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Speaker 1: means clothed or equipped. I had to look that one up. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it might not be completely clear, but what Ovid is

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Speaker 1: basically saying is, hey, Cupid has two different arrows that

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Speaker 1: he may pull from his quiver. You often forget this,

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Speaker 1: or maybe he never even learned it in the first place. Well, right,

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Speaker 1: if you're just going off of cheesy Valentine state cards.

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Speaker 1: You just think of that cartoon baby, and like you said,

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Speaker 1: the arrows have just kind of a goofy cartoon heart

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Speaker 1: at the end, and cupids launch and those at people

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Speaker 1: and making them falling cartoon love with people. Yeah, well,

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Speaker 1: you tend to not think of Cupid's arrow as literally

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Speaker 1: being an arrow that strikes with force and penetrates the flesh.

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Speaker 1: I guess we are to understand it that way, at

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Speaker 1: least the ancients did. Like there's this poem by Anna

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Speaker 1: Creon that Robert and I were talking about before the

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Speaker 1: episode where it's not actually that great of a poem.

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Speaker 1: I don't know if it's reading, but it makes this

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Speaker 1: joke about Cupid gets stung by a bee and he

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Speaker 1: starts crying and his mother I guess this would be

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Speaker 1: Aphrodite or Venus maybe comes to him and is trying

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Speaker 1: to console him and says, uh, you know, you're crying

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Speaker 1: about being stung by a bee, but you shoot people

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Speaker 1: with arrows all the time. That must hurt more shot

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Speaker 1: through the heart. Um. Yeah, so he so he has

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Speaker 1: two different arrows that he he chooses from when he

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Speaker 1: decides to nail somebody one of these arrows, as the

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Speaker 1: as Ovid says, is tipped in gold with a sharp

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Speaker 1: point and bright right, and so that's the that's the

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Speaker 1: love arrow, that is the romantic love arrow. But then

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Speaker 1: he has this leaden arrow, which it sounds like it's

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Speaker 1: it's probably not an arrow head composed entirely of lad

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Speaker 1: for reasons will explain, but it is at least coded

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Speaker 1: or tipped in lead somehow well. And it also says

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Speaker 1: that it's blunt, meaning I assume it is not meant

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Speaker 1: to penetrate, but maybe strikes more like a like a

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Speaker 1: bean bag gun. Yeah, like just to brain you with

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Speaker 1: this dense leaden arrowhead. Yeah, just to just smack you hard.

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Speaker 1: And then it also it imparts aversion, so like it

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Speaker 1: hits you, and now you you want to you want

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Speaker 1: to not be around somebody. I guess, right. This seems

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Speaker 1: that this seems to be the most popular interpretation of

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Speaker 1: the leaden arrows power though I was looking around, uh,

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Speaker 1: and I did see at least one description saying that

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Speaker 1: the leaden arrow had to do with set with sensual passion.

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Speaker 1: But I don't think that's the predominant interpretation. It's certainly

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Speaker 1: not the one that we're going to spend much time

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Speaker 1: with here today because sensual passion. There are other gods

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Speaker 1: for that. Uh, you know, Cupid's domain is more about

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Speaker 1: that that that that romantic passion, the arrows or or

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Speaker 1: the philos or I lose track of what love is.

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Speaker 1: What in Greek philodough your love. Um, yeah, we'll be

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Speaker 1: we'll be getting into the Greek and Roman stuff shortly, okay,

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Speaker 1: but yes we're gonna be talking about Cupid. And I

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Speaker 1: do I do encourage everyone to maybe he put aside

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Speaker 1: the more cherubic interpretations of of Cupid as we discuss

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Speaker 1: this figure, because we have to remember he is a god. Um.

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Speaker 1: He is capable of of of wrecking people's lives with

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Speaker 1: his mischief. And he's not always depicted as a as

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Speaker 1: a baby. He's he's often he's usually depicted as youthful, certainly,

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Speaker 1: and that may be a male youth or a boy.

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Speaker 1: He's very often and you know, depicted naked or nearly so.

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Speaker 1: And sometimes he's blindfolded as well. I think it's blind right,

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I didn't think of that. Well. I think

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Speaker 1: he's often depicted as a baby just because if he

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Speaker 1: were an adult, he would be a horrifying, gross creep right, Well,

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Speaker 1: they're still there's STI always room to find Cupid creepy

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Speaker 1: for sure. All right, Well who is Cupid? Where did

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Speaker 1: he come from? In the pantheon and the mythology? Okay,

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Speaker 1: so Cupid is the Roman variant of the Greek god Arrows,

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Speaker 1: the prime evil god of love, a son of chao Us,

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Speaker 1: though in later traditions he has depicted as a son

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Speaker 1: of Aphrodite, who is the Roman Venus, whose goddess of

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Speaker 1: sexual love and beauty. And as far as the father goes,

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Speaker 1: it's all across the board. They're very different tellings. Sometimes

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Speaker 1: it's Zeus, sometimes it's it's Aries. There's at least one

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Speaker 1: version where it's it's it seems like it's Vulcan, the

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Speaker 1: god of the forge. But in but then a lot

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Speaker 1: of stories have it have Hermes as the father, who

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Speaker 1: of course is the Roman Mercury. So it's a real

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Speaker 1: Mari show. Yes, yeah, you can very much imagine that

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Speaker 1: there being a lot of drama around this. But he's

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Speaker 1: a god of passion and love but also a fertility

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Speaker 1: to a certain extent as well. Now, in Roman traditions,

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Speaker 1: Cupid is largely described as a son of Venus and Mercury,

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Speaker 1: combining their roles into that of a divine messenger of love. Okay,

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Speaker 1: so Mercury is the messenger, Aphrodite is love. So he

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Speaker 1: brings you the love signals, the he's he's the radar

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Speaker 1: of God. Yeah, don't you? So you can't really hate

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Speaker 1: the messenger, right, I guess that's part of the story

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Speaker 1: here as well. Now he's often depicted as this kind

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Speaker 1: of trubic creature like we describe, but also sometimes is

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Speaker 1: more of a you know, in an androgeneous, youthful figure,

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Speaker 1: sometimes clad in armor, because I guess love is also

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Speaker 1: a battlefield, and he's sometimes a mischief maker other times

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Speaker 1: generous patron of love. His targets include both mortals and

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Speaker 1: other gods and uh. As always, the versions of the

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Speaker 1: myth very with the teller and the time. But we

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Speaker 1: certainly want to to tell the major Cupid story. We'll

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Speaker 1: tell me the story Robert. Alright. So his mother again

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Speaker 1: is Venus, and Venus has is subject to bouts of

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Speaker 1: jealousy pretty much like all of them, the major gods

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Speaker 1: in the pantheon, right, and so she one day she

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Speaker 1: has had enough of this beautiful mortal by the name

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Speaker 1: of Psyche. She's just too too lovely. She's so lovely

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Speaker 1: that other mortals are afraid to approach her. And in

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Speaker 1: Venus isn't having it. She tasks her son Cupid and says,

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Speaker 1: go to this woman, shoot her with a golden arrow

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Speaker 1: of love, and then make her fall in love with

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Speaker 1: the first thing she sees, because that's the power of

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Speaker 1: the arrow in this, in this interpretation of it. And

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Speaker 1: she adds, make sure that the next thing she sees

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Speaker 1: is the most hideous creature imaginable. I don't care what

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Speaker 1: it is, usual imagination. She falls in love with the

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Speaker 1: font papyrus. That would have been good. Um, so keep it.

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Speaker 1: Keep it. Goes down to Earth to do this, but

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Speaker 1: he can't quite bring himself to finish the task, though

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Speaker 1: he was certainly okay with the plan enough to trick

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Speaker 1: her parents into abandoning her on a desolate hilltop so

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Speaker 1: that she could wed a monster, but as far as

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Speaker 1: actually yeah, because she's taken. The Psyche is taken to

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Speaker 1: this hill and here you go. Sorry, the gods want

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Speaker 1: you to marry a monster. It's gonna happen. See you later,

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Speaker 1: because you know you do what do what the gods

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Speaker 1: say or her? But then he can't actually shoot her

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Speaker 1: with arrows, so instead he pricks himself with the golden

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Speaker 1: arrow and then gazes upon Psyche, falls in love with her,

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Speaker 1: and so he takes her away, sets her up in

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Speaker 1: a protected place like a palace, somewhere where he can

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Speaker 1: visit her safely, but only in darkness. And then but

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Speaker 1: then one night she cast light upon him and she

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Speaker 1: learns his identity, spilling wax on him in the process,

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Speaker 1: and he flees. So Psyche is distraught. She's she's in

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Speaker 1: love with this this god, this beautiful young god boy.

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Speaker 1: So she searches for him, and finally Venus agrees to

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Speaker 1: hand him over, but only if she completes a series

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Speaker 1: of trials. Oh yeah, never a good sign in a myth.

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Speaker 1: Right now, you get the feeling that a lot of

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Speaker 1: these trials might be tricks. Yes, and indeed they are. Uh,

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Speaker 1: the the exact trials can vary with the telling, but

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Speaker 1: this is the basic roll out here. First of all,

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Speaker 1: she has to sort a massive pile of seeds in

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Speaker 1: a sing gold night, and uh, fortunately some ants help her.

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Speaker 1: Oh that's a great variation on all the tweety birds

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Speaker 1: and scugs and the snow white story. Yeah, they'll come

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Speaker 1: in and help with the chores. Now it's ants and

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Speaker 1: who knows, maybe Spider's pitch in a bit. Well. The

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Speaker 1: next task is that she has to fetch the golden

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Speaker 1: wool from a like a monstrous sheep, like a kind

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Speaker 1: of sheep that disembowels anyone who gets near it, and

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Speaker 1: a swarm of cockroaches. A sister, no actually a river

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Speaker 1: god helps her out um and helps her acquire the

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Speaker 1: woolf So she turns that in. But then she has

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Speaker 1: to venture into the underworld and acquire a drop of

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Speaker 1: the Queen of the Underworld's beauty. Oh yeah, so uh Cupid,

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Speaker 1: it scenes ends up sort of cluing her in, sends

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Speaker 1: her some signals and was going to the underworld isn't easy, right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's it's a dangerous proposition. So Cupid clues her in,

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Speaker 1: you know, secret messages, letting her know, make sure you

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Speaker 1: bring coins for torone and treats for a service, important

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Speaker 1: things that bring along. Right, So she does this, She

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Speaker 1: wins that drop, brings it back in a golden box,

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Speaker 1: and brings it to the surface. She's on her way

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Speaker 1: to deliver it to Venus, but then she decides, well,

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Speaker 1: I'm going to steal a little bit of that beauty

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Speaker 1: from the box for myself. And then she discovers the

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Speaker 1: boxes full of sleep. Sleep comes over her, Cupid comes

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Speaker 1: to her way and wakes her up, gives her the

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Speaker 1: nectar of the gods and makes her a god as

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Speaker 1: well the embodiment of the soul, and she later gives

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Speaker 1: birth to pleasure. That's a heck of a story. Oh yeah,

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Speaker 1: there are various treatments of the story. The various you know,

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Speaker 1: additional stories such as Beauty and the Beast take this

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Speaker 1: basic structure and then uh, you know, employ it in

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Speaker 1: a slightly different manner. But yeah, that's the major Cupid narrative.

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Speaker 1: But there's also a fun one that employs his arrows

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Speaker 1: in an interesting way in which both of them, this

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Speaker 1: time both of them as he messes with the god Apollo.

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Speaker 1: So Apollo is a powerful god and he's he's he's

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Speaker 1: lusting after the nymph Daphne. And while he's in the

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Speaker 1: midst of this, he taunts Cupid's archery ability. He says,

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Speaker 1: You're not much of an archer, are you? And so

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Speaker 1: it's always good to taunt people holding ranged weapons. Well, again,

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Speaker 1: the gods are vain and you know, kind of and

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Speaker 1: it's in vengeful and but also kind of stupid at times.

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Speaker 1: So what Cupid does is he shoots Apollo with a

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Speaker 1: golden arrow that makes him of course, you know, lust

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Speaker 1: like crazy after Daphney. But then he shoots Daphne with

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Speaker 1: a leaden arrow, ensuring that she wants nothing to do

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Speaker 1: with exactly. In fact, she runs away to her father,

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Speaker 1: who also happens to be a river god, and has

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Speaker 1: him turned her into a tree so that Apollo will

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Speaker 1: leave her alone. And then Cupid, you know, goes off

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Speaker 1: and laughs about the whole affair. Now, wait, after this,

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Speaker 1: is Apollo still in love with the tree or not?

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Speaker 1: It really depends on the user agreement with the golden arrow.

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Speaker 1: How does the golden earrow magic work? Can you transform

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Speaker 1: the essence of the target of the affection? And does

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Speaker 1: that cancel the spell? Or do you have to roll

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Speaker 1: a D twenty to find out? Don't know? And then

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Speaker 1: we are the effects on god's Is that a little

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Speaker 1: different than an effect on immortal? Who can say? Now

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Speaker 1: you might think, okay, Cupid sounds like he makes some

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Speaker 1: enemies here and there. Who's his greatest rival? Is there

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Speaker 1: like a safety god who's always trying to take his

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Speaker 1: arrows away? No? No, no, it's none other than the

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Speaker 1: great god Pan. What one of our favorites. Yeah, in

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Speaker 1: one corner we have the flighty arrow shooting cherubic son

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Speaker 1: of of this of Venus U, the lord of love.

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Speaker 1: And in the other corner we have the wild rutting

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Speaker 1: he goat king of fornication, uh, surrounded by nymphs prancing

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Speaker 1: through the forest. And so it's divine love versus earthly love,

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Speaker 1: and uh spoiler alert, Cupid often comes out on top.

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Speaker 1: In fact, there's some there are paintings that depict Cupid

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Speaker 1: kind of wrestling Pan to the ground. Could you also

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Speaker 1: say that this is like city love versus country love?

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Speaker 1: I guess you could. Yeah, like Pan was sort of envisioned.

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Speaker 1: Is the representative of the I don't know, the the

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Speaker 1: amorous affairs of like shepherds and country people. Yeah, it

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Speaker 1: is kind of country love versus you know, the divine

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Speaker 1: love of Mount Olympus. Here. On the other hand, when

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Speaker 1: you look up artistic interpretations of Pan, he is often

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Speaker 1: wrestling or doing something like wrestling. So it's it's hard

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Speaker 1: to say. He's definitely on the losing end of the

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Speaker 1: scenario here. The pan's a rascal. Yeah. Now, in terms

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Speaker 1: of other treatments of of Cupid, you know, we're not

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Speaker 1: going to go through, you know, all the the echoes

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Speaker 1: in popular culture. I did notice just the most dignified one. Yes,

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Speaker 1: I did notice that there is a There is a

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Speaker 1: Cupid in what DC comics that's kind of a feisty redhead,

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Speaker 1: and it's a it's a female. It's like a cohort

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Speaker 1: of the green arrow. Is she a got us or

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Speaker 1: just a human named Cupid? I think she's just a

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Speaker 1: human who shoots arrows at people. Yeah, it's not a

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Speaker 1: thor situation. I don't think so. If any comic book

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Speaker 1: fans out there that want to, um, you know, clue

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Speaker 1: us in on this, we'd love to hear more. But

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Speaker 1: I think she just shoots arrows at people and tries

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Speaker 1: to kill them, you know. Independent of you coming up

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Speaker 1: with this lead, Robert, I immediately was googling, like Cupid

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Speaker 1: horror movie? Is there one? And I I came across

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Speaker 1: something only to discover that you'd already given it a

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Speaker 1: little right up here. Yes, two thousand and one slasher

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Speaker 1: film titled Valentine. Now have you seen this before? No?

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Speaker 1: I looked up a couple of scenes on YouTube. One

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Speaker 1: actually had kind of a cool set with like somebody's

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Speaker 1: like walking through a maze made out of TV screens

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Speaker 1: or something that. Yeah, I kind of like that, but

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Speaker 1: otherwise it looks so stupid, and it has the ultimate

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Speaker 1: like two thousand one smart Face cast where it's got

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Speaker 1: David Boreanaz and Denise Richards. It's like the cast of

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Speaker 1: Starship Troopers. It also has a has a two thousand

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Speaker 1: and one alternative rock album, like the most too thousand

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Speaker 1: and one alternative rock album, Imaginable. Yeah, that the soundtrack is,

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Speaker 1: does it have what down with the sickness? It doesn't

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Speaker 1: have that particular track, but Disturbed is present and and yeah,

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Speaker 1: you can pretty much extrapolate from there what else is

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Speaker 1: on the soundtrack. But it does have this killer stalking around,

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Speaker 1: the slasher character with a cupid mask, and there is

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Speaker 1: one scene at least where he kills somebody with arrows,

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Speaker 1: and that's the sequence you're you're talking about with all

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Speaker 1: the TVs. So yeah, as far as slasher films we're seeing,

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Speaker 1: it's been too long since I've seen it to really

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Speaker 1: give it a firm recommendation, but as far as slasher

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Speaker 1: films worth looking up the kills on YouTube, I give

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Speaker 1: it give it a thumbs up. But in this movie,

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Speaker 1: unless I'm mistaken, no gold arrows and lead blunt arrows

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Speaker 1: right right. I think he just has normal killing arrows

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Speaker 1: because he's ultimately not an actual god. That would have

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Speaker 1: been a fun twist. Though they don't get deep into

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Speaker 1: the resonances of the mythology, no, because if there's a

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Speaker 1: lot there you could really go go nuts with. For instance,

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Speaker 1: the fact that Cupid is often depicted riding around on

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Speaker 1: dolphins or even sometimes just on sea monsters. That's odd. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and uh, you know, you know we mentioned beating the

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Speaker 1: Beast already, but I should throw out there even though

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Speaker 1: I haven't read it, and I don't know why I

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Speaker 1: haven't read it, because I read a whole lot of C. S.

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Speaker 1: Lewis at one point in my life. But C. S.

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Speaker 1: Lewis retells the story of of Cupid and Psyche in

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Speaker 1: the nine novel Till We Have Faces. I've never read

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Speaker 1: that either, but that sounds maybe worth check now. So again,

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Speaker 1: we could keep going on Cupid. We could keep talking

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Speaker 1: about various mythological treatments, different versions of the stories. Um,

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Speaker 1: But basically, what we want to drive home here is that,

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Speaker 1: first of all, he has these two arrows. He has

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Speaker 1: the leaden arrow and the golden arrow, and these are

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Speaker 1: the powers associated. And we also just want to drive

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Speaker 1: home that he's he is more than just this ridiculous

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Speaker 1: cartoon baby. Now he's an epic creep cartoon baby who

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Speaker 1: wrestles goat man and rides on sea monsters. Indeed, he

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Speaker 1: is so On that note, we're going to take a

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Speaker 1: quick break, and when we come back, we are going

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Speaker 1: to discuss the leaden arrow of Cupid. We're going to

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Speaker 1: get into what ancient people knew of lead, how they

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Speaker 1: used lead, what they thought about its properties. And then

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Speaker 1: of course we'll well we'll we'll dive a little bit

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Speaker 1: into the periodic table and discuss exactly what lad is.

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Speaker 1: Thank alright, we're back. So, Robert, we have already told

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Speaker 1: the story of Cupid, as especially as described in Ovid's metamorphoses. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And in the story of these two different arrows, he's

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Speaker 1: got the gold arrow, which imparts love makes people fancy

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Speaker 1: one another, and the lead arrow, which is blunt and

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Speaker 1: maybe seems to cause a version, at least in some

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Speaker 1: tellings of the story. Right Like if if you were

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Speaker 1: hit with the lead arrow and somebody passed you a

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Speaker 1: note in in in high school and said will you

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Speaker 1: go out with me? Yes and no, you would add

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Speaker 1: a third box that said I would rather my father

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Speaker 1: turned me into a tree. Yeah, your head would just explode,

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Speaker 1: would like in scanners? Yes. Well, other than the general

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Speaker 1: association of gold being thought of as good, is there

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Speaker 1: anything any reason we can think of why these particular

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Speaker 1: metals are picked to have the magical significance they do

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Speaker 1: in the arrows in the myth? Well, yeah, exactly what

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Speaker 1: we with gold? Obviously, gold is beautiful, and humans have

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Speaker 1: thought it's beautiful for ages, and we've been perfectly happy

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Speaker 1: to squabble over it and kill each other over it.

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Speaker 1: So it seems the perfect substance to sum up the

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Speaker 1: appeal and then sometimes the dangers of love. Plus knowing

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Speaker 1: what we know now, this was an element that was

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Speaker 1: likely produced in the collisions of of neutron stars long

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Speaker 1: before the formation of the Earth, which is amazing to consider.

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Speaker 1: By the way, I mean, just to contemplate this for

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Speaker 1: a moment. Uh. You know, it was once thought that

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Speaker 1: most of the universe is heavy elements, like elements heavier

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Speaker 1: than iron, were created in supernovas, which is when a

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Speaker 1: massive star at the end of its life cycle collapses

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Speaker 1: on itself and then explodes, and supernovas can create ate

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Speaker 1: some heavy elements. But some scientists have argued for a

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Speaker 1: while that there are too many heavy elements. The proportion

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Speaker 1: of them that we find in the universe is too

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Speaker 1: high to be accounted for by what's possible from supernovas alone.

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Speaker 1: So in recent years there have been some cool experiments

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Speaker 1: that have shown that the collision of neutron stars, like

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Speaker 1: you say, could be the alternative. For example, I was

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Speaker 1: looking at there was a study published in in the

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Speaker 1: Astrophysical Journal by Code at All that looked at data

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Speaker 1: from a neutron star merger, and I love that's the

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Speaker 1: technology they use, like two companies like mergers and acquisitions.

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Speaker 1: But they should have used the language of love, because

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Speaker 1: we are creating a substance that will one day be

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Speaker 1: used by the God of love. Right it is it

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Speaker 1: should be neutron star copulation, yes, neutron starter course, but anyway,

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Speaker 1: that this collision was between eighty five and a hundred

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Speaker 1: and sixty million light years away, and the researchers calculated

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Speaker 1: that this one event, these two neutron stars colliding, produced

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Speaker 1: between one and five earth masses of an element called

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Speaker 1: europium and between three and thirteen earth masses of gold

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Speaker 1: earth masses of gold. So just think about a solid

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Speaker 1: gold Earth and then between three and thirteen of them,

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Speaker 1: and then it just like spits a bunch of this

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Speaker 1: out into the universe to get bound up with other

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Speaker 1: gases and stuff like that and eventually end up in

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Speaker 1: maybe say a planetary accretion disk, where it becomes part

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Speaker 1: of the crust of an Earth. So if you're wearing

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Speaker 1: like a gold ring or any other piece of gold

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Speaker 1: right now, or if you're maybe maybe say using an

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Speaker 1: electronic device that has a bit of gold in it,

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Speaker 1: just think about how that element was forged either in

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Speaker 1: the guts of a dying star as it exploded, or

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Speaker 1: was probably more likely created in the chaos of rapid

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Speaker 1: neutron capture when two of the densest objects in the

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Speaker 1: universe to neutron stars smashed together billions of years ago.

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Speaker 1: And of course I guess the even crazier thing is

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Speaker 1: that that doesn't stop at gold, right, like our amazement

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Speaker 1: that the elements shouldn't stop there, because all the heavy

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Speaker 1: elements had to be formed at some point. In fact,

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Speaker 1: all the elements of any kind had to be formed

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Speaker 1: at some point. A few of the lightest ones are primordial,

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Speaker 1: you know, you find hydrogen and helium and lithium out

404
00:22:18,800 --> 00:22:21,480
Speaker 1: in the original universe. Uh, and then a few more

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Speaker 1: I think are formed by like a cosmic rays and stuff.

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Speaker 1: But beyond that, pretty much everything that you could see

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Speaker 1: and touch and that your body is made of was

408
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Speaker 1: in some way forged inside a dying star. Uh. You know,

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Speaker 1: you got this dying star forge that has slow neutron

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Speaker 1: capture going on inside it, or it was a supernova

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Speaker 1: explosion or the collision of neutron stars or something like that. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: these are the very kind of forges one can imagine

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Speaker 1: a god like Vulcan would employ, right exactly. Yeah, that's

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Speaker 1: what's happening when he pumps the bellows, he's just pumping

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Speaker 1: it to smash neutron stars together. And of course, you

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Speaker 1: know you mentioned that, you know, anything heavier than iron

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Speaker 1: likely had this this kind cosmic origin and that includes lead.

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Speaker 1: So even though it's easy to say, oh, the golden

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Speaker 1: arrow forged in in cosmic turmoil in in ages past, well,

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Speaker 1: the same story applies to lead, even though it's not

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Speaker 1: as shiny, Even though you probably don't have any leaden

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Speaker 1: jewelry on your body right now. Uh, though, I mean,

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Speaker 1: lead is an amazing element, and to consider the same way,

424
00:23:22,640 --> 00:23:25,879
Speaker 1: I think. I think there are two main explanations for lead,

425
00:23:25,920 --> 00:23:29,360
Speaker 1: as I believe. One is that there's slow neutron capture

426
00:23:29,480 --> 00:23:32,800
Speaker 1: like the s process that takes place within dying stars,

427
00:23:32,840 --> 00:23:36,040
Speaker 1: and the other is the the hot dense starter course,

428
00:23:36,160 --> 00:23:40,760
Speaker 1: the neutron star collision Sunday, Sunday Sunday. Now, to come

429
00:23:40,760 --> 00:23:43,720
Speaker 1: back to Cupid's arrow, I imagine basically the idea of

430
00:23:43,760 --> 00:23:46,920
Speaker 1: the leaden arrow is that lead is not attractive. Lead

431
00:23:47,000 --> 00:23:51,560
Speaker 1: is not beautiful. Lead is something that even in ancient times,

432
00:23:51,960 --> 00:23:55,480
Speaker 1: it was rarely used in jewelry, or at least as

433
00:23:55,480 --> 00:23:58,760
Speaker 1: the primary aspect of the jewelry. Well, no, and and

434
00:23:58,840 --> 00:24:01,800
Speaker 1: even more, Uh, I don't know if you can be

435
00:24:01,880 --> 00:24:04,520
Speaker 1: mean to lead, but if you, if lead has feelings,

436
00:24:04,560 --> 00:24:07,240
Speaker 1: you could hurt its feelings even more by pointing out

437
00:24:07,320 --> 00:24:11,040
Speaker 1: that lead. You know, lead doesn't occur generally free in nature.

438
00:24:11,480 --> 00:24:14,920
Speaker 1: Lead occur is bound up in ores. Uh. And so

439
00:24:15,000 --> 00:24:18,080
Speaker 1: primarily the way lead was created in the ancient world

440
00:24:18,160 --> 00:24:21,560
Speaker 1: was as a byproduct of the creation of silver. And

441
00:24:21,680 --> 00:24:24,399
Speaker 1: so people are trying to extract silver for something from something,

442
00:24:24,400 --> 00:24:26,760
Speaker 1: and you melt out some lead as a sort of

443
00:24:26,760 --> 00:24:29,040
Speaker 1: waste product of that. And and it did have uses

444
00:24:29,080 --> 00:24:31,680
Speaker 1: because it's got a high specific weight, so you could

445
00:24:31,760 --> 00:24:34,240
Speaker 1: use it as like a weight for you know, if

446
00:24:34,240 --> 00:24:37,119
Speaker 1: you have like fishing line, fishing nets or something you

447
00:24:37,119 --> 00:24:39,760
Speaker 1: want to hold down that it's useful for that. It's

448
00:24:39,800 --> 00:24:43,720
Speaker 1: not very good for making like solid like weapons or anything, right,

449
00:24:43,800 --> 00:24:47,080
Speaker 1: because it's very soft. Yeah, it's it's not gonna be

450
00:24:47,200 --> 00:24:49,400
Speaker 1: it's not gonna be a good metal if you want

451
00:24:49,440 --> 00:24:53,640
Speaker 1: to actually forage arrows for combat or forge any kind

452
00:24:53,640 --> 00:24:56,840
Speaker 1: of say armor. Um. But but there are a lot

453
00:24:56,840 --> 00:24:58,800
Speaker 1: of uses for it if you want to create say,

454
00:24:58,840 --> 00:25:02,120
Speaker 1: drinking vessels or so certainly if you want to create pipes.

455
00:25:02,520 --> 00:25:05,000
Speaker 1: We're not advocating that, by the way, no, no, but

456
00:25:05,040 --> 00:25:07,720
Speaker 1: certainly from a very early point humans were figuring this out.

457
00:25:07,800 --> 00:25:11,520
Speaker 1: Lead is one of the seven Medals of antiquity. Humans

458
00:25:11,520 --> 00:25:15,720
Speaker 1: were handling lead a long time ago. Cast. Lead beads

459
00:25:15,800 --> 00:25:21,040
Speaker 1: found in modern day Turkey date from roughly BC. The

460
00:25:21,040 --> 00:25:24,000
Speaker 1: ancient Egyptians used lead as early as five thousand BC

461
00:25:24,160 --> 00:25:27,840
Speaker 1: for pottery glazes, solder, and casting. Yeah, and so I

462
00:25:27,880 --> 00:25:31,800
Speaker 1: was looking at early examples of lead artifacts. One example

463
00:25:31,800 --> 00:25:36,200
Speaker 1: I found was a sort of maybe aesthetic artifact or

464
00:25:36,240 --> 00:25:39,280
Speaker 1: maybe something that was used in like a whirld for

465
00:25:39,280 --> 00:25:43,240
Speaker 1: for you know, working with textiles. Um. But this was

466
00:25:43,320 --> 00:25:46,760
Speaker 1: in a cave in the Negev Desert in Israel, and

467
00:25:46,840 --> 00:25:51,000
Speaker 1: it's supposedly dates to the late fifth millennium BC, and

468
00:25:51,119 --> 00:25:55,440
Speaker 1: it's just basically this wooden wand that's got leaden beads

469
00:25:55,520 --> 00:25:57,439
Speaker 1: at the end of it. And they don't know what

470
00:25:57,480 --> 00:26:00,240
Speaker 1: it's for, though I wonder if maybe it's for some

471
00:26:00,320 --> 00:26:03,560
Speaker 1: kind of heavy metal lead magic. Yeah, an anti love

472
00:26:03,600 --> 00:26:10,160
Speaker 1: repulsion ray. Uh, so we can hope. So the Babylonians

473
00:26:10,200 --> 00:26:14,000
Speaker 1: made inscriptions on lead plates soft you can inscribe things

474
00:26:14,080 --> 00:26:16,320
Speaker 1: on it. And just to refer everyone back to our

475
00:26:16,440 --> 00:26:19,960
Speaker 1: October episode on Curses, we spend a fair amount of

476
00:26:19,960 --> 00:26:23,840
Speaker 1: time discussing Roman curse tablets. Oh yeah, we did. And

477
00:26:23,840 --> 00:26:26,480
Speaker 1: what were those made out of? Well, like the ones

478
00:26:26,520 --> 00:26:29,720
Speaker 1: found in Um in like second or third century Roman

479
00:26:29,760 --> 00:26:32,280
Speaker 1: Britain were often they're made in lead. So there are

480
00:26:32,280 --> 00:26:34,680
Speaker 1: these places where you can go around like modern day

481
00:26:34,760 --> 00:26:37,560
Speaker 1: Lester and dig up these ancient sites where there would

482
00:26:37,600 --> 00:26:41,280
Speaker 1: be maybe a shrine or a temple to an ancient god,

483
00:26:41,359 --> 00:26:44,360
Speaker 1: maybe in the syncretic religions of Roman Britain, where you'd

484
00:26:44,359 --> 00:26:48,479
Speaker 1: sort of combined maybe Roman gods with with native Celtic

485
00:26:48,560 --> 00:26:51,440
Speaker 1: gods or or or the gods of Britain there, and

486
00:26:51,760 --> 00:26:54,560
Speaker 1: people would be going there to say, curse somebody who

487
00:26:54,600 --> 00:26:58,320
Speaker 1: stole something from them, like you know, Servandas shows up

488
00:26:58,320 --> 00:27:01,520
Speaker 1: and says, somebody stole my oake. Whoever stole my cloak,

489
00:27:01,560 --> 00:27:03,520
Speaker 1: I want him to not be able to pee for

490
00:27:03,600 --> 00:27:06,560
Speaker 1: three months unless he gives me my cloak back. And

491
00:27:06,600 --> 00:27:09,160
Speaker 1: this would be inscribed on a lead tablet and hung

492
00:27:09,240 --> 00:27:11,960
Speaker 1: up somewhere. And part of the idea there is that

493
00:27:12,280 --> 00:27:15,240
Speaker 1: it was partially to invoke this power, but also maybe

494
00:27:15,280 --> 00:27:17,160
Speaker 1: just to have it hung up in a public place

495
00:27:17,240 --> 00:27:19,920
Speaker 1: so people could like know what was going on. Now.

496
00:27:19,920 --> 00:27:22,760
Speaker 1: One other important aspect of lead that that I wonder,

497
00:27:23,080 --> 00:27:24,720
Speaker 1: and I wonder if it played into the use of

498
00:27:25,040 --> 00:27:27,840
Speaker 1: into the creation of these cursed tablets, is that. Uh,

499
00:27:28,119 --> 00:27:32,040
Speaker 1: lead does not corrode like other metals. So if you,

500
00:27:32,240 --> 00:27:34,800
Speaker 1: if you, if you inscribe your curse and a piece

501
00:27:34,840 --> 00:27:37,040
Speaker 1: of lead, like, that's a curse that could speak across

502
00:27:37,040 --> 00:27:40,480
Speaker 1: the ages. Right, lead doesn't rust, I mean, well lead

503
00:27:40,480 --> 00:27:43,680
Speaker 1: the lead oxides do form, but they're not they're they're

504
00:27:43,720 --> 00:27:46,919
Speaker 1: not like like iron rust, you know, the red rusty stuff.

505
00:27:47,400 --> 00:27:50,399
Speaker 1: Lead oxide tends to be great, but generally exposed lead

506
00:27:50,440 --> 00:27:54,400
Speaker 1: doesn't corrode. And uh and yeah, this does make it attractive,

507
00:27:54,520 --> 00:27:57,280
Speaker 1: especially for some purposes, say like if you want to

508
00:27:57,320 --> 00:28:00,800
Speaker 1: make something that holds liquids in it, something that is

509
00:28:00,840 --> 00:28:03,720
Speaker 1: not gonna receive a lot of punishment, you don't have

510
00:28:03,720 --> 00:28:06,560
Speaker 1: to worry about that. Uh, that the weakness of it.

511
00:28:07,080 --> 00:28:09,919
Speaker 1: But yeah, you can use it for drinking vessels or

512
00:28:10,000 --> 00:28:14,040
Speaker 1: certainly for plumbing pipes. Here's a gross piece of trivia.

513
00:28:14,400 --> 00:28:16,719
Speaker 1: Next time you have to call a plumber because who

514
00:28:16,760 --> 00:28:18,440
Speaker 1: knows what you tried to flush a whole roll of

515
00:28:18,480 --> 00:28:22,520
Speaker 1: paper towels down the toilet. Consider that the English words

516
00:28:22,680 --> 00:28:27,560
Speaker 1: plumber and plumbing are derived from the Latin word plumb them,

517
00:28:27,800 --> 00:28:31,080
Speaker 1: which means lead. And it's right there in the chemical

518
00:28:31,200 --> 00:28:33,760
Speaker 1: elements symbol for lead on the periodic table. You ever

519
00:28:33,800 --> 00:28:36,000
Speaker 1: noticed that it's one of those weird ones, like iron

520
00:28:36,119 --> 00:28:38,480
Speaker 1: is f E. Why is that? Well, you know it

521
00:28:38,520 --> 00:28:42,440
Speaker 1: comes from an archaic word of like the ferrest metal. Uh,

522
00:28:42,600 --> 00:28:45,720
Speaker 1: lead on the periodic table is PB. Why is it pb?

523
00:28:45,960 --> 00:28:49,640
Speaker 1: That comes from plumb them because ancient Romans loved some

524
00:28:49,760 --> 00:28:55,280
Speaker 1: lead pipes and lead aqueducts, and lead reservoirs, and lead cisterns,

525
00:28:55,360 --> 00:28:59,600
Speaker 1: lead cooking vessels, and lead based even lead based food additives.

526
00:28:59,680 --> 00:29:03,160
Speaker 1: And we'll come back to the food additives point now.

527
00:29:03,200 --> 00:29:05,760
Speaker 1: I was looking at at one text from Cassis and

528
00:29:06,160 --> 00:29:11,120
Speaker 1: and sort of titled Lead Chemistry Analytical Aspects, Environmental Impact

529
00:29:11,160 --> 00:29:14,200
Speaker 1: and Health Effects, and they pointed out that ancient text

530
00:29:14,560 --> 00:29:17,960
Speaker 1: showed a bit of confusion over lead and other elements,

531
00:29:18,040 --> 00:29:22,040
Speaker 1: using plum bum to describe quote any silvery white, low

532
00:29:22,120 --> 00:29:26,640
Speaker 1: melting and easily oxidized metal, including lead, tin, zinc, et cetera.

533
00:29:27,720 --> 00:29:30,320
Speaker 1: They pointed out though that yeah, lead pipes have been

534
00:29:30,400 --> 00:29:32,640
Speaker 1: used for a very long time. I see them in

535
00:29:33,320 --> 00:29:37,920
Speaker 1: ancient Mesopotamia, Cypress, Persia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, of course, and

536
00:29:38,040 --> 00:29:41,560
Speaker 1: various Roman provinces. So you know the technology and the

537
00:29:41,600 --> 00:29:44,200
Speaker 1: materials would have spread with the Romans as well, and

538
00:29:44,240 --> 00:29:47,400
Speaker 1: the Romans likely learned it from the Greeks. And it

539
00:29:47,440 --> 00:29:50,800
Speaker 1: wasn't just the pipes. It was used in cases where

540
00:29:50,840 --> 00:29:54,240
Speaker 1: iron wire or wooden hoops are currently used today you

541
00:29:54,240 --> 00:29:59,960
Speaker 1: know as reinforcing brands for bands, for tanks, vats, um, amphora, etcetera.

542
00:30:00,480 --> 00:30:04,800
Speaker 1: So you see it also used in masonry, cesspool coverings, roofing,

543
00:30:05,280 --> 00:30:10,680
Speaker 1: damp proofing, foundations, uh, parapet walls, etcetera. Lead vessels were

544
00:30:10,720 --> 00:30:14,000
Speaker 1: widely used and uh, this is interesting. Lead was also

545
00:30:14,120 --> 00:30:17,800
Speaker 1: long associated with funeral rites, so Roman era caskets and

546
00:30:17,920 --> 00:30:21,360
Speaker 1: urns are often made at least in part from lead,

547
00:30:21,800 --> 00:30:25,080
Speaker 1: especially apparently in England. Lead was also used in ancient

548
00:30:25,160 --> 00:30:29,520
Speaker 1: China in a variety of uses, from glassmaking to cosmetics.

549
00:30:30,240 --> 00:30:31,959
Speaker 1: Of course, and now in the modern world we know

550
00:30:32,120 --> 00:30:36,280
Speaker 1: that lead can have extremely serious health consequences can and

551
00:30:36,560 --> 00:30:39,640
Speaker 1: very often does. Like there there are tons of ways

552
00:30:39,680 --> 00:30:41,920
Speaker 1: to get lead in your body, and lead exposure can

553
00:30:41,960 --> 00:30:45,240
Speaker 1: happen through through ingestion when when you eat, it can

554
00:30:45,240 --> 00:30:49,040
Speaker 1: happen through breathing in lead particles can happen through absorption

555
00:30:49,120 --> 00:30:52,360
Speaker 1: through the skin, and lead gets incorporated into the body

556
00:30:52,400 --> 00:30:55,680
Speaker 1: and leads to both short term and long term negative consequences.

557
00:30:55,720 --> 00:30:59,280
Speaker 1: The short term negative consequences are there are a lot

558
00:30:59,320 --> 00:31:01,440
Speaker 1: of different one and so it can be sometimes it's

559
00:31:01,480 --> 00:31:04,080
Speaker 1: hard to identify lead exposure in people, but it might

560
00:31:04,120 --> 00:31:07,440
Speaker 1: be like you've got stomach distress, like your stomach hurts

561
00:31:07,480 --> 00:31:11,000
Speaker 1: and you're constipated. But it also can lead to weakness

562
00:31:11,120 --> 00:31:13,920
Speaker 1: and fatigue, and like your arms and legs are weak,

563
00:31:14,400 --> 00:31:18,000
Speaker 1: and it can lead to psychological and neurological consequences. People

564
00:31:18,080 --> 00:31:22,280
Speaker 1: can be like like tired and depressed and irritable, have

565
00:31:22,360 --> 00:31:26,600
Speaker 1: loss of appetite, have trouble remembering things. Yeah, I mean,

566
00:31:26,600 --> 00:31:28,920
Speaker 1: it's enough to make you think it's my smartphone made

567
00:31:28,920 --> 00:31:33,320
Speaker 1: out of lead, but uh, it is. It's We were

568
00:31:33,320 --> 00:31:36,080
Speaker 1: actually talking about this before we recorded the episode, like

569
00:31:36,120 --> 00:31:39,560
Speaker 1: there's so much to the story of of of our

570
00:31:39,880 --> 00:31:43,160
Speaker 1: realization regarding the harmful effects of lead, that we really

571
00:31:43,160 --> 00:31:47,640
Speaker 1: need to come back to it and devote an entire episode. Absolutely, yes, yes, absolutely,

572
00:31:47,680 --> 00:31:50,040
Speaker 1: We're gonna do a whole episode on leads someday soon,

573
00:31:50,080 --> 00:31:52,200
Speaker 1: I think, maybe with a special focus on the Lord

574
00:31:52,240 --> 00:31:55,560
Speaker 1: of Lead, Clacy Patterson. But yeah, we we now know

575
00:31:55,680 --> 00:31:57,600
Speaker 1: lead to have all these problems and they're also the

576
00:31:57,640 --> 00:32:00,200
Speaker 1: long term consequences, right, those are just like short term

577
00:32:00,320 --> 00:32:02,840
Speaker 1: consequences I was mentioning, you know, it can there could

578
00:32:02,880 --> 00:32:05,920
Speaker 1: be neurological damage from long term exposure to lead. Enough

579
00:32:06,040 --> 00:32:09,040
Speaker 1: lead in a concentrated dose can kill you. They're definitely

580
00:32:09,840 --> 00:32:13,440
Speaker 1: like developmental problems that children who have lead exposure experience.

581
00:32:13,480 --> 00:32:16,320
Speaker 1: So it's uh, yeah, it's no joke. And the fact

582
00:32:16,320 --> 00:32:19,200
Speaker 1: that humans have constantly surrounded ourselves for centuries or even

583
00:32:19,240 --> 00:32:23,960
Speaker 1: millennia with just constant routes of exposure to environmental lead

584
00:32:24,240 --> 00:32:27,920
Speaker 1: is something that is really horrifying and ridiculous. But I

585
00:32:27,960 --> 00:32:30,000
Speaker 1: guess that's just what we do. All Right, We're gonna

586
00:32:30,040 --> 00:32:32,160
Speaker 1: take a quick break, and when we come back, we're

587
00:32:32,160 --> 00:32:35,080
Speaker 1: going to get back to this idea of lead as

588
00:32:35,120 --> 00:32:39,480
Speaker 1: a food headed song hanging there. Soon it'll be time

589
00:32:39,640 --> 00:32:45,280
Speaker 1: to eat some lead than Alright, we're back. Okay, it's

590
00:32:45,400 --> 00:32:48,720
Speaker 1: Valentine's Day. What do you get your sweetheart on Valentine's Day?

591
00:32:48,760 --> 00:32:52,040
Speaker 1: Sometimes they're flowers, but oh, I guess it's already there

592
00:32:52,040 --> 00:32:56,040
Speaker 1: in the name, right, you get your sweethearts some sweets. Now,

593
00:32:56,080 --> 00:32:58,320
Speaker 1: here's the question I've wondered about before, but I've never

594
00:32:58,320 --> 00:33:00,320
Speaker 1: found a good answer to why is it that we

595
00:33:00,400 --> 00:33:04,760
Speaker 1: associate sweet foods with like eroticism but not so much

596
00:33:04,800 --> 00:33:08,440
Speaker 1: like other flavors, Like why isn't it that you get

597
00:33:08,480 --> 00:33:12,080
Speaker 1: your sweethearts some salty foods on Valentine's Day or you

598
00:33:12,120 --> 00:33:15,479
Speaker 1: get them some bitter foods or sour foods? Why sweet?

599
00:33:16,280 --> 00:33:19,240
Speaker 1: I mean sweets are a decadent treat, right, I mean,

600
00:33:19,480 --> 00:33:22,320
Speaker 1: I guess that's part of it. Um, A sweet is

601
00:33:22,360 --> 00:33:26,160
Speaker 1: something sweets or something we've always were always craving and uh,

602
00:33:26,240 --> 00:33:29,040
Speaker 1: and we're just hardwired to want as much of it

603
00:33:29,080 --> 00:33:31,040
Speaker 1: as possible, given that it would be a rarity in

604
00:33:31,080 --> 00:33:33,600
Speaker 1: the natural world. But we also crave fat and salt.

605
00:33:33,720 --> 00:33:36,240
Speaker 1: Why not, like for Valentine's Day, instead of a box

606
00:33:36,240 --> 00:33:38,440
Speaker 1: of chocolates, it's like a bag of poor crimes and

607
00:33:38,440 --> 00:33:43,120
Speaker 1: the stick of butter. Well, Um, I guess it would

608
00:33:43,360 --> 00:33:46,040
Speaker 1: be harder to keep that secreted away in the back

609
00:33:46,080 --> 00:33:48,640
Speaker 1: of the closet for a week or so. Um. But

610
00:33:48,720 --> 00:33:52,760
Speaker 1: I don't know. I feel like they're people. Cel rate

611
00:33:52,840 --> 00:33:56,160
Speaker 1: cheese is on Valentine's you know, certainly there are other

612
00:33:56,240 --> 00:34:00,320
Speaker 1: foods that have a like a romantic or afrodisiac you know,

613
00:34:00,480 --> 00:34:02,880
Speaker 1: vibe to them. Yeah, I guess so. Uh, you know,

614
00:34:03,000 --> 00:34:05,160
Speaker 1: I guess part of what I'm wondering is is that

615
00:34:05,320 --> 00:34:08,880
Speaker 1: link between like love and eroticism and sweet foods? Is

616
00:34:08,920 --> 00:34:13,480
Speaker 1: that cultural or is there some biological element to it? Oh? Man,

617
00:34:13,520 --> 00:34:15,239
Speaker 1: We'll have to come back and explore that. That would

618
00:34:15,239 --> 00:34:17,279
Speaker 1: be that would be interesting to look at, like when

619
00:34:17,320 --> 00:34:19,400
Speaker 1: you look at other cultures. Is there something else that

620
00:34:19,520 --> 00:34:24,440
Speaker 1: is considered the romantic flavor profile? Um? I don't know.

621
00:34:24,680 --> 00:34:28,000
Speaker 1: You know, considering how many like Scandinavian people have written

622
00:34:28,000 --> 00:34:29,960
Speaker 1: into the show to to talk about the wonders of

623
00:34:29,960 --> 00:34:33,120
Speaker 1: salty licorice, I bet that's what they use over there. Yeah.

624
00:34:33,200 --> 00:34:36,440
Speaker 1: And plus it makes me wonder about, say, Chinese traditions,

625
00:34:36,480 --> 00:34:39,839
Speaker 1: where there's so much emphasis placed on the balance of

626
00:34:40,040 --> 00:34:44,759
Speaker 1: different flavors. Uh, you know, how does that impact uh

627
00:34:44,840 --> 00:34:48,479
Speaker 1: sort of ritualized sweets? All right, well, let's talk about

628
00:34:48,480 --> 00:34:52,120
Speaker 1: the sweetest of all sweets, sweet lead. So I have

629
00:34:52,200 --> 00:34:54,839
Speaker 1: found what has got to be the best entry ever

630
00:34:55,360 --> 00:35:00,400
Speaker 1: in any Oxford companions, that is reading the Oxford Handyon

631
00:35:00,520 --> 00:35:04,560
Speaker 1: to Sugar and Sweets. Yeah. So it's Oxford University Press,

632
00:35:04,560 --> 00:35:07,440
Speaker 1: and there's an entry in it by the American chemist

633
00:35:07,560 --> 00:35:10,279
Speaker 1: Michelle M. Francil and this has just got to be

634
00:35:10,320 --> 00:35:13,520
Speaker 1: one of the best like Encyclopedia type entries I've ever read.

635
00:35:13,600 --> 00:35:18,080
Speaker 1: So Francial writes about this substance called sugar of lead,

636
00:35:18,600 --> 00:35:22,360
Speaker 1: also known as lead lead acetate or lead to acetate.

637
00:35:22,920 --> 00:35:25,640
Speaker 1: It looks kind of like large salt crystals if you

638
00:35:25,680 --> 00:35:28,960
Speaker 1: look it up, or it looks maybe like translucent rock candy,

639
00:35:29,440 --> 00:35:31,680
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff you get on a little stick, right, yeah,

640
00:35:31,760 --> 00:35:34,799
Speaker 1: but like sort of like white, translucent in color. And

641
00:35:34,840 --> 00:35:38,000
Speaker 1: Francial writes, quote, it is sweet, roughly as sweet per

642
00:35:38,040 --> 00:35:41,839
Speaker 1: teaspoon as sugar, and only slightly more lethal than strychnine.

643
00:35:43,320 --> 00:35:45,960
Speaker 1: So sugar of lead was used as like a medical

644
00:35:46,000 --> 00:35:49,760
Speaker 1: treatment in nineteenth century Europe. And even though it is sweet,

645
00:35:50,040 --> 00:35:53,360
Speaker 1: it is technically a salt, which is an electrically neutral

646
00:35:53,440 --> 00:35:56,840
Speaker 1: collection of positive ions and negative ions. And actually we

647
00:35:56,880 --> 00:36:00,680
Speaker 1: only think of salts as salty in flavor because the

648
00:36:00,680 --> 00:36:03,640
Speaker 1: most common salt that we refer to is sodium chloride

649
00:36:03,680 --> 00:36:06,560
Speaker 1: table salt. But salts don't have to be salty. Salts

650
00:36:06,600 --> 00:36:08,680
Speaker 1: can be bitter, and salts can be sweet, and in

651
00:36:08,719 --> 00:36:11,880
Speaker 1: this case it is sweet. So in lead acetate, this

652
00:36:11,960 --> 00:36:16,160
Speaker 1: collection of oppositely charged ions is made from depositive lead

653
00:36:16,200 --> 00:36:20,799
Speaker 1: ions and negatively charged acetate ions. And it turns out

654
00:36:20,840 --> 00:36:24,240
Speaker 1: sugar of lead is not the only sweet metallic salt.

655
00:36:24,520 --> 00:36:27,560
Speaker 1: French Will points out that lots of barrillium salts are

656
00:36:27,680 --> 00:36:30,440
Speaker 1: very sweet, so sweet in fact, that the Greek word

657
00:36:30,560 --> 00:36:35,520
Speaker 1: for the element beryllium is glucinium, from like glucose or glycos,

658
00:36:35,600 --> 00:36:39,360
Speaker 1: the Greek word for sweet. But as good as these

659
00:36:39,360 --> 00:36:42,239
Speaker 1: metal salts that are sweet taste, they are very bad

660
00:36:42,320 --> 00:36:45,240
Speaker 1: for you. Lead acetate can be fatal to a seventy

661
00:36:45,880 --> 00:36:47,880
Speaker 1: or a hundred and fifty pound adult at a dose

662
00:36:47,920 --> 00:36:51,680
Speaker 1: of three teaspoons. So basically what you're saying is that

663
00:36:51,719 --> 00:36:56,480
Speaker 1: if anybody has any fancy dining plants this evening and

664
00:36:56,520 --> 00:37:00,279
Speaker 1: they see any lead based sweeteners on the menu, I

665
00:37:00,280 --> 00:37:04,520
Speaker 1: would advise against it. Nevertheless, there is some evidence that

666
00:37:04,600 --> 00:37:09,120
Speaker 1: the ancient Romans used indirectly, I would say indirectly, used

667
00:37:09,120 --> 00:37:12,200
Speaker 1: this lead salt as a kind of sweetener, or at

668
00:37:12,280 --> 00:37:15,280
Speaker 1: least as a way of avoiding other types of taste

669
00:37:15,320 --> 00:37:18,920
Speaker 1: imparted into their foods. So here's how this goes. The

670
00:37:19,040 --> 00:37:23,000
Speaker 1: Romans created a syrup that they called sapa, which was

671
00:37:23,040 --> 00:37:27,120
Speaker 1: produced by boiling down a liquid called must. Must is

672
00:37:27,160 --> 00:37:31,960
Speaker 1: basically weak wine. Frontal describes it as quote mildly fermented

673
00:37:32,000 --> 00:37:34,680
Speaker 1: grape juice, so there'll be a little bit of alcohol content,

674
00:37:34,719 --> 00:37:37,720
Speaker 1: maybe kind of like grape beer. Almost. Of course, must,

675
00:37:37,880 --> 00:37:41,240
Speaker 1: like wine, has some acid in it. It has acetic acid,

676
00:37:41,320 --> 00:37:44,640
Speaker 1: and acetic acid is the acid basis of vinegar. Vinegar

677
00:37:44,719 --> 00:37:47,920
Speaker 1: is usually just acetic acid diluted with water or some

678
00:37:48,040 --> 00:37:53,040
Speaker 1: other aqueous substance. And acetic acid provides acetate ions, which

679
00:37:53,040 --> 00:37:56,320
Speaker 1: can react with metals in the pots where they are boiled,

680
00:37:56,880 --> 00:38:00,160
Speaker 1: and uh, and this can result in some salts. So

681
00:38:00,200 --> 00:38:03,360
Speaker 1: if you boil your must in a copper pot, the

682
00:38:03,440 --> 00:38:07,160
Speaker 1: resulting sappa will have some copper acetate salts in it,

683
00:38:07,440 --> 00:38:11,040
Speaker 1: and these taste really bad, like they're bitter. Even ancient

684
00:38:11,120 --> 00:38:14,480
Speaker 1: Roman writers would would comment on this. In the Natural History,

685
00:38:14,560 --> 00:38:18,040
Speaker 1: Plenty discusses the production of sappa and he writes, quote

686
00:38:18,200 --> 00:38:21,800
Speaker 1: leaden vessels should be used for this purpose, not copper ones.

687
00:38:21,960 --> 00:38:24,200
Speaker 1: So it's like, get that copper out of there, makes

688
00:38:24,200 --> 00:38:27,720
Speaker 1: the sappa taste bad? You want lead except no less?

689
00:38:28,960 --> 00:38:32,200
Speaker 1: So why use lead? Because remember lead salts are sweets.

690
00:38:32,239 --> 00:38:35,320
Speaker 1: So not only does cooking in lead pots not foul

691
00:38:35,400 --> 00:38:39,160
Speaker 1: your sappa, it might make it even a little bit sweeter. Uh.

692
00:38:39,320 --> 00:38:41,680
Speaker 1: And this is a quote from This is a quote

693
00:38:41,680 --> 00:38:45,800
Speaker 1: from Franciles century quote. Chemical analysis of sappa, produced according

694
00:38:45,840 --> 00:38:49,800
Speaker 1: to recipes dating from the classical Roman period using kettles

695
00:38:49,840 --> 00:38:53,239
Speaker 1: of similar metallic composition as those found at Pompeii and

696
00:38:53,280 --> 00:38:57,360
Speaker 1: other sites, suggests that the lead content of sappa was

697
00:38:57,440 --> 00:39:01,760
Speaker 1: eight and fifty milligrams per leader, any thousand times higher

698
00:39:01,800 --> 00:39:05,520
Speaker 1: than what is generally allowable in drinking water, even diluted

699
00:39:05,600 --> 00:39:09,000
Speaker 1: and used sparingly. Sweetening with sappa was a serious risk.

700
00:39:09,960 --> 00:39:13,000
Speaker 1: Now I have seen some people phrase this is like

701
00:39:13,200 --> 00:39:17,560
Speaker 1: that the lead pots were used specifically to make the

702
00:39:17,640 --> 00:39:20,840
Speaker 1: sappa sweeter, and Francill sort of disagrees with that, because

703
00:39:20,840 --> 00:39:24,560
Speaker 1: she says the lead was probably not really intended to

704
00:39:24,600 --> 00:39:28,040
Speaker 1: add much sweetness to the wine because it wouldn't put

705
00:39:28,400 --> 00:39:30,520
Speaker 1: It wouldn't add that much. Really, you you'd already have

706
00:39:30,680 --> 00:39:33,400
Speaker 1: a pretty sweet substance and would be the equivalent of

707
00:39:33,440 --> 00:39:35,440
Speaker 1: adding like a pinch of sugar to it, So it

708
00:39:35,440 --> 00:39:37,799
Speaker 1: wouldn't make a huge difference. It was more that the

709
00:39:37,920 --> 00:39:40,839
Speaker 1: lead vessels, if they when they did add flavor, would

710
00:39:40,920 --> 00:39:45,000
Speaker 1: sort of complement the existing sweetness rather than adding a foul,

711
00:39:45,080 --> 00:39:48,560
Speaker 1: bitter flavor like copper vessels would. Okay, so in a

712
00:39:48,600 --> 00:39:52,759
Speaker 1: blind taste test of the in which both vessels have

713
00:39:53,000 --> 00:39:57,400
Speaker 1: the same already sweet or semi sweet wine, you're going

714
00:39:57,480 --> 00:40:00,239
Speaker 1: to find that the leaden vessel is going going to

715
00:40:00,360 --> 00:40:03,920
Speaker 1: impart a like a slightly sweeter, less foul experience, will

716
00:40:03,960 --> 00:40:07,560
Speaker 1: probably significantly less foul. But yeah, I don't know if

717
00:40:07,560 --> 00:40:10,600
Speaker 1: there's evidence that they thought of it. As the lead

718
00:40:10,680 --> 00:40:13,319
Speaker 1: comes out and makes it a lot sweeter, they just thought, oh,

719
00:40:13,360 --> 00:40:16,320
Speaker 1: you use lead pots it tastes way better. In the end. However,

720
00:40:16,440 --> 00:40:18,680
Speaker 1: this is one of those cases where we also can't

721
00:40:18,840 --> 00:40:22,160
Speaker 1: just make fun of the ancients, because this this kind

722
00:40:22,200 --> 00:40:25,319
Speaker 1: of thing carried on into a ridiculously recent time. She

723
00:40:25,400 --> 00:40:27,840
Speaker 1: points out that the use of lead as a food

724
00:40:27,840 --> 00:40:31,080
Speaker 1: additive and treatment did not stop in ancient Rome, and

725
00:40:31,120 --> 00:40:34,279
Speaker 1: that lead equipment and additives were used to prevent spoilage

726
00:40:34,280 --> 00:40:36,960
Speaker 1: in wine in some cases up until the nineteenth century.

727
00:40:37,280 --> 00:40:39,719
Speaker 1: Oh wow, now we do have to just drive home

728
00:40:39,800 --> 00:40:41,920
Speaker 1: for everybody, even though again we're not getting deep into

729
00:40:42,000 --> 00:40:46,960
Speaker 1: the the the the the dangers of lead in this episode. Please,

730
00:40:47,360 --> 00:40:49,839
Speaker 1: if you were if you were tempted, all tempted it all.

731
00:40:50,000 --> 00:40:53,040
Speaker 1: Do not go out and drink a bunch of wine

732
00:40:53,040 --> 00:40:57,360
Speaker 1: out of lead vessels just to to to test the

733
00:40:57,640 --> 00:41:00,560
Speaker 1: sweetening ability of the of the vessel. The amount of

734
00:41:00,640 --> 00:41:04,319
Speaker 1: lead you should be absorbing on purposes zero, whatever you're

735
00:41:04,360 --> 00:41:07,359
Speaker 1: accidentally getting from the environment is still probably more than

736
00:41:07,400 --> 00:41:09,960
Speaker 1: you want. And there's actually a lot more stuff that

737
00:41:10,160 --> 00:41:13,920
Speaker 1: There's been an ongoing argument over the years about the

738
00:41:14,080 --> 00:41:17,719
Speaker 1: role of lead ingestion and lead exposure in ancient Rome,

739
00:41:17,760 --> 00:41:21,480
Speaker 1: because before Ancient Rome there was lead. People did use

740
00:41:21,560 --> 00:41:23,920
Speaker 1: lead to make some objects, but it wasn't used in

741
00:41:23,960 --> 00:41:27,960
Speaker 1: wide like widespread construction and infrastructure and all that. The

742
00:41:28,080 --> 00:41:30,560
Speaker 1: Romans were the ones that really started using lead for

743
00:41:30,600 --> 00:41:33,799
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff. And in nineteen three, a Canadian

744
00:41:33,840 --> 00:41:39,080
Speaker 1: researcher named Jerome Riyagu argued that lead poisoning actually lead

745
00:41:39,160 --> 00:41:41,520
Speaker 1: to the downfall of the Roman Empire. You've probably heard

746
00:41:41,600 --> 00:41:44,000
Speaker 1: this before, Yeah, the idea that they just they built

747
00:41:44,040 --> 00:41:47,719
Speaker 1: up all this lead essentially lead infrastructure and then poisoned

748
00:41:47,719 --> 00:41:50,920
Speaker 1: themselves with yeah, and cooked with this, especially the cooking

749
00:41:50,960 --> 00:41:54,440
Speaker 1: with lead vessels, I think um. And so this has

750
00:41:54,520 --> 00:41:56,960
Speaker 1: later been called into doubt by others who said, you know,

751
00:41:57,320 --> 00:42:00,200
Speaker 1: it doesn't necessarily seem like we can claim that, but

752
00:42:00,239 --> 00:42:04,080
Speaker 1: there's no doubt that many robins were exposed to unsafe

753
00:42:04,200 --> 00:42:06,440
Speaker 1: levels of lead. I was just looking at a study

754
00:42:06,440 --> 00:42:09,920
Speaker 1: from P. And A. S. By the by Delisle at

755
00:42:09,920 --> 00:42:13,319
Speaker 1: All called lead in Ancient Rome city waters, and they

756
00:42:13,400 --> 00:42:16,880
Speaker 1: found that the tap water, you know, basically the aqueduct

757
00:42:16,880 --> 00:42:21,000
Speaker 1: delivered water or delivered through some kind of lead infrastructure,

758
00:42:21,040 --> 00:42:23,600
Speaker 1: that water in ancient Rome would have roughly a hundred

759
00:42:23,640 --> 00:42:28,040
Speaker 1: times the lead content of local spring water. It's a

760
00:42:28,040 --> 00:42:30,799
Speaker 1: lot of lead, all right, was we we wind down here,

761
00:42:31,000 --> 00:42:33,120
Speaker 1: Let's just let's just talk once more about just the

762
00:42:33,160 --> 00:42:35,840
Speaker 1: properties of lead, right, And I wonder if in looking

763
00:42:35,840 --> 00:42:38,680
Speaker 1: at these properties we can figure out what makes it

764
00:42:38,719 --> 00:42:41,920
Speaker 1: so special as as the opposite of the love inducing

765
00:42:41,960 --> 00:42:45,399
Speaker 1: golden arrow. Yeah. Yeah, And and indeed, why Cupid would

766
00:42:45,400 --> 00:42:49,959
Speaker 1: have walked up to his possible father Vulcan and said, hey,

767
00:42:50,840 --> 00:42:53,160
Speaker 1: what medal should you use to make my repulsion arrows?

768
00:42:53,400 --> 00:42:55,759
Speaker 1: What would make Vulcans say, oh, yeah, lead, lead is

769
00:42:55,760 --> 00:42:58,040
Speaker 1: what you want? Okay, Well, one thing we know about

770
00:42:58,120 --> 00:42:59,759
Speaker 1: lead is that, for a metal has a pretty low

771
00:42:59,800 --> 00:43:02,480
Speaker 1: mel thing point right right, And this means it's a

772
00:43:02,480 --> 00:43:05,160
Speaker 1: lot easier to cast with, requires less equipment, and it

773
00:43:05,239 --> 00:43:08,200
Speaker 1: made an ideal solder component. Yeah, so if you want

774
00:43:08,200 --> 00:43:11,640
Speaker 1: to melt something easily to like seal things together, I

775
00:43:11,680 --> 00:43:13,680
Speaker 1: think yeah, and I've read this also makes it like

776
00:43:13,840 --> 00:43:18,359
Speaker 1: an attractive additive if you're like casting something in a mold, right.

777
00:43:18,400 --> 00:43:20,520
Speaker 1: And then to your point earlier, like it was there

778
00:43:20,560 --> 00:43:24,160
Speaker 1: as a byproduct of going after other metals, so it

779
00:43:24,280 --> 00:43:28,120
Speaker 1: was available um onto onto. An addition, we've talked about

780
00:43:28,120 --> 00:43:31,040
Speaker 1: this a little bit. Lead is DNSE. It is. It's

781
00:43:31,080 --> 00:43:33,319
Speaker 1: a heavy metal, and leads density is due to its

782
00:43:33,360 --> 00:43:38,319
Speaker 1: high atomic mass, short bond lengths, and a small atomic radius.

783
00:43:38,360 --> 00:43:41,160
Speaker 1: And this, along with its high number of electrons needed

784
00:43:41,200 --> 00:43:44,360
Speaker 1: to maintain a neutral charge, makes it a useful radiation

785
00:43:44,400 --> 00:43:48,080
Speaker 1: shield in our modern world, a scattering X rays and

786
00:43:48,160 --> 00:43:50,520
Speaker 1: gamma rays. Yeah, and so you'll actually see it in

787
00:43:50,719 --> 00:43:53,560
Speaker 1: use in places where there's a radiation risk. There are

788
00:43:53,600 --> 00:43:56,880
Speaker 1: sometimes lead blocks deployed as a as basically a like

789
00:43:56,920 --> 00:44:00,600
Speaker 1: the sand bags of the radiation world. Yeah. I mean,

790
00:44:01,040 --> 00:44:04,279
Speaker 1: my my father was a dentist, and and so I

791
00:44:04,280 --> 00:44:07,279
Speaker 1: was often hanging out in dental offices, and part of

792
00:44:07,320 --> 00:44:10,040
Speaker 1: that is being being near an X ray machine. And

793
00:44:10,080 --> 00:44:14,920
Speaker 1: of course that big, big heavy lead line smock that

794
00:44:15,000 --> 00:44:18,120
Speaker 1: lead one where yeah so so yeah, you see you

795
00:44:18,160 --> 00:44:21,120
Speaker 1: see this kind of radiation shielding all over kind of

796
00:44:21,120 --> 00:44:23,360
Speaker 1: makes me think back to our our our episode on

797
00:44:23,400 --> 00:44:25,880
Speaker 1: the X ray machine that we did for Invention. So

798
00:44:25,960 --> 00:44:28,960
Speaker 1: certainly if you want more on on the use of

799
00:44:29,120 --> 00:44:31,759
Speaker 1: X rays and the dangers of radiation associated with that

800
00:44:31,800 --> 00:44:34,600
Speaker 1: with X rays, I highly recommend that episode of our

801
00:44:34,640 --> 00:44:38,520
Speaker 1: other show, Invention. And then the third major attribute of

802
00:44:38,600 --> 00:44:41,359
Speaker 1: lead is that it is soft and it's malleable. Uh,

803
00:44:41,440 --> 00:44:44,640
Speaker 1: it's limited usage somewhat. You know, while a god might

804
00:44:44,640 --> 00:44:46,279
Speaker 1: be able to craft an arrow out of it or

805
00:44:46,320 --> 00:44:48,640
Speaker 1: coat an arrow with lead anyway, you're not gonna be

806
00:44:48,680 --> 00:44:51,479
Speaker 1: able to fashion anything with it that can sustain any

807
00:44:51,560 --> 00:44:54,960
Speaker 1: real stress. But when you're talking about something like water

808
00:44:55,000 --> 00:44:58,480
Speaker 1: and sewage pipes or cooking vessels, uh yeah, that that

809
00:44:58,640 --> 00:45:01,960
Speaker 1: is an area where lead can can excel as long

810
00:45:02,000 --> 00:45:04,160
Speaker 1: as you're not getting into questions of whether it will

811
00:45:04,200 --> 00:45:06,480
Speaker 1: poison you or not. Just from a physical and a

812
00:45:06,480 --> 00:45:09,240
Speaker 1: physical basis, it can get the job done. You wouldn't

813
00:45:09,239 --> 00:45:11,480
Speaker 1: want like a lead hammer, though, I think you can

814
00:45:11,480 --> 00:45:13,880
Speaker 1: have like lead alloy hammers and stuff like you can

815
00:45:13,960 --> 00:45:17,560
Speaker 1: use alloys to strengthen metals that are inherently soft. So

816
00:45:17,640 --> 00:45:20,600
Speaker 1: coming back to Cupid, I mean, maybe the idea is

817
00:45:20,719 --> 00:45:25,920
Speaker 1: that the lead in arrows or somehow combating the radiation

818
00:45:26,160 --> 00:45:30,360
Speaker 1: of intense, passionate love. The power of love is actually

819
00:45:30,600 --> 00:45:32,799
Speaker 1: a it's a it's a type of ray. It's what's

820
00:45:32,800 --> 00:45:35,520
Speaker 1: beyond gamma rays. Yeah, and you've got to scatter those

821
00:45:35,560 --> 00:45:37,360
Speaker 1: love rays. And the only way to do it is

822
00:45:37,400 --> 00:45:43,520
Speaker 1: with with some high end um god forged lead in ammunition.

823
00:45:44,040 --> 00:45:46,760
Speaker 1: I'm seeing another residence here because one of the sources

824
00:45:46,840 --> 00:45:48,920
Speaker 1: we didn't mention, So we talked about how lead can

825
00:45:48,960 --> 00:45:52,560
Speaker 1: be created in like events in space inside like a

826
00:45:52,640 --> 00:45:55,600
Speaker 1: dying star and the collision of neutron stars. We also

827
00:45:55,600 --> 00:45:58,040
Speaker 1: didn't talk about another. I think it probably accounts for

828
00:45:58,080 --> 00:46:00,920
Speaker 1: a much much smaller percentage of it. But lead can

829
00:46:00,960 --> 00:46:05,080
Speaker 1: be created as the byproduct of radioactive decay sometimes, like

830
00:46:05,239 --> 00:46:09,080
Speaker 1: uranium can decay into some isotopes of lead. So maybe

831
00:46:09,120 --> 00:46:13,120
Speaker 1: if we're considering that love is a type of radioactivity

832
00:46:13,200 --> 00:46:17,880
Speaker 1: or type of ray, they're actually lead represents what happens

833
00:46:17,920 --> 00:46:21,200
Speaker 1: when love dies and decays, you know, like so like

834
00:46:21,320 --> 00:46:24,920
Speaker 1: love fades and eventually it becomes lead. What starts as

835
00:46:25,000 --> 00:46:31,080
Speaker 1: this golden, splendid, sharp arrow becomes this blunt, dull, lusterless instrument.

836
00:46:32,040 --> 00:46:34,759
Speaker 1: We have crucified this myth and taken out all of

837
00:46:34,800 --> 00:46:38,799
Speaker 1: the beauty and turned it into a chemical Frankenstein. I'm

838
00:46:38,840 --> 00:46:41,640
Speaker 1: so proud of us. Yeah, I I feel like we have.

839
00:46:42,000 --> 00:46:45,640
Speaker 1: We've done a good job here today, taking the candy

840
00:46:45,680 --> 00:46:49,480
Speaker 1: coated and kind of lame holiday of Valentine's Day, and

841
00:46:49,520 --> 00:46:51,960
Speaker 1: I think we've injected some fresh life into it. We've

842
00:46:52,000 --> 00:46:56,200
Speaker 1: fed it a lot of lead and uh and and

843
00:46:56,200 --> 00:46:58,719
Speaker 1: and uh and in doing so, we've we've killed off

844
00:46:58,760 --> 00:47:02,600
Speaker 1: a lot of the uh, the more irritable aspects of

845
00:47:02,640 --> 00:47:07,440
Speaker 1: the holiday. Sweet sweet lead. Yes, So big takeaways from

846
00:47:07,440 --> 00:47:11,279
Speaker 1: from today. Don't eat lead sugar, right, don't do not

847
00:47:11,360 --> 00:47:14,399
Speaker 1: do it. Don't cook in lead pots right, don't drink

848
00:47:14,400 --> 00:47:16,799
Speaker 1: from lead leading vessels if you have a choice in

849
00:47:16,800 --> 00:47:21,960
Speaker 1: the matter. Be wary of gods with bows and arrows, right,

850
00:47:22,560 --> 00:47:25,400
Speaker 1: And and keep in mind that, yeah, cupid has two arrows,

851
00:47:25,800 --> 00:47:28,200
Speaker 1: so if he's aiming at you, it's kind of a

852
00:47:28,239 --> 00:47:30,399
Speaker 1: toss up which one he's trying to hit you with.

853
00:47:30,640 --> 00:47:33,200
Speaker 1: And sometimes even the great god Pan gets out wrestled

854
00:47:33,520 --> 00:47:37,000
Speaker 1: exactly all right, so we're gonna close out the special

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00:47:37,080 --> 00:47:39,239
Speaker 1: Valentine's Day episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind. But

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00:47:39,320 --> 00:47:41,880
Speaker 1: as always, if you want to check out more episodes

857
00:47:41,880 --> 00:47:43,680
Speaker 1: of the show, you can always head on over to

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00:47:43,680 --> 00:47:46,399
Speaker 1: stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. That's the mother ship.

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Speaker 1: That's where you will find all the episodes of the show.

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00:47:49,080 --> 00:47:51,880
Speaker 1: You'll find links out to various social media accounts. You

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Speaker 1: can of course find us anywhere you get podcasts. That's

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Speaker 1: that's true across the board, so just search for us there.

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Speaker 1: So wherever you find subscribe and if you have the

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Speaker 1: power to do so on these platforms, give us a rating,

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Speaker 1: throw as many stars as possible at us the golden

866
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Speaker 1: kind not the lead ones, uh, and then leave a

867
00:48:10,520 --> 00:48:13,160
Speaker 1: nice message about how how awesome the show is, because

868
00:48:13,320 --> 00:48:15,600
Speaker 1: you know, these these may seem like small things, but

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00:48:15,640 --> 00:48:18,120
Speaker 1: they really help us out in the long run. Huge

870
00:48:18,120 --> 00:48:21,800
Speaker 1: thanks as always to our excellent audio producers Alex Williams

871
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Speaker 1: and Tory Harrison. If you would like to get in

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Speaker 1: touch with us directly with feedback about this episode or

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Speaker 1: any other to suggest topic for the future, we're just

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Speaker 1: to say hi. You can email us at blow the

875
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Speaker 1: Mind at how stuff works dot com. For more on

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Speaker 1: this and thousands of other topics. Does it, How stuff

877
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Speaker 1: works dot Com. They're able to set onto join the

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Speaker 1: part