WEBVTT - The Existential Horror of the Humanzee 0:00:03.800 --> 0:00:06.680 Welcome to stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.720 --> 0:00:13.840 Works dot com. Hey, welcome to stuff to blow your mind. 0:00:13.880 --> 0:00:16.800 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. Julie, 0:00:16.800 --> 0:00:18.239 I think we can both agree to One of them 0:00:18.280 --> 0:00:22.520 more troubling things to shamble out of the nineteen was 0:00:22.720 --> 0:00:28.720 the possible human zee. Oh yeah, very very sad case 0:00:28.760 --> 0:00:35.280 of a chimpanzee, sweet animal, very sweet, cigar smoking upright, walking, bald, 0:00:36.040 --> 0:00:40.640 bald ish chimp that people thought was very is like, 0:00:40.840 --> 0:00:44.120 eerily humanlike and and some people even thought that he 0:00:44.240 --> 0:00:47.680 might have been the missing link between humans and great apes. 0:00:47.760 --> 0:00:50.440 And Jim, yes, we hear about the missing link all 0:00:50.479 --> 0:00:53.760 the time. And in the nineteen seventies genetic testing that 0:00:53.800 --> 0:00:57.920 people were just so unnerved by this this little creature Oliver, 0:00:58.080 --> 0:01:00.440 that I thought for sure that there wasn't part of 0:01:00.520 --> 0:01:03.639 him that was human. And they saw it in his face, right, 0:01:04.400 --> 0:01:06.240 they saw it in the way that he appeared to 0:01:06.520 --> 0:01:09.959 walk around on two feet right right. And and supposedly 0:01:10.040 --> 0:01:12.040 the smell as well, there's some accounts that say that 0:01:12.120 --> 0:01:14.480 he didn't smell like a chimpanzee, ship that he smelled 0:01:14.680 --> 0:01:16.520 like a little bit like a man and a little 0:01:16.520 --> 0:01:19.120 bit like a chimp. Yeah, well, here's okay, here's the context. 0:01:19.240 --> 0:01:24.480 Nineteen seventies, some a couple raises chimpanzees, uses them for 0:01:24.600 --> 0:01:28.800 entertainment purposes, meaning you know, in commercials or parties or whatever. 0:01:29.200 --> 0:01:33.399 They get this one peculiar chimpanzee, Oliver. Turns out that 0:01:33.640 --> 0:01:35.840 nobody really wants to use them in commercials because he 0:01:36.040 --> 0:01:38.960 is really unsettling, because he looks very human, and because 0:01:39.000 --> 0:01:43.959 he keeps walking upright, like consistently. You see chimpsy this sometimes, 0:01:44.040 --> 0:01:47.000 but this particular chimpanzee was you know, even though his 0:01:47.080 --> 0:01:49.960 hips were splayed out, he would still walk up right. 0:01:50.160 --> 0:01:52.680 People like, that's kind of weird. Um, And so they 0:01:52.680 --> 0:01:55.800 began just to annotally say things like, oh, well, you know, 0:01:55.880 --> 0:01:58.560 the other chimps don't like Oliver because he must have 0:01:58.840 --> 0:02:01.560 a bad smell or they don't recognize a smell. So 0:02:01.560 --> 0:02:04.920 we don't know for sure exactly what the deal was 0:02:05.040 --> 0:02:08.320 with Oliver, but but they felt weird about using him. 0:02:08.320 --> 0:02:12.040 They didn't think he looked like like star chimp material, 0:02:12.320 --> 0:02:15.400 and and maybe just maybe they they found that he 0:02:15.400 --> 0:02:17.480 looked at he was a little too human. That's the 0:02:17.520 --> 0:02:21.840 problem that that it felt really weird to take this 0:02:21.840 --> 0:02:25.480 this sort of human looking animal, uh and uh put 0:02:25.520 --> 0:02:27.680 it in a cage, take it out of the cage, 0:02:27.760 --> 0:02:30.600 make it run around for a commercial, and then reward 0:02:30.639 --> 0:02:33.919 it with a carrot and a cigar. Well, especially especially 0:02:33.960 --> 0:02:36.240 if it sits down next to you and start smoking 0:02:36.280 --> 0:02:39.440 a cigar and maybe even making a pass at you, 0:02:39.520 --> 0:02:41.560 because apparently this is something that he would do when 0:02:41.600 --> 0:02:45.920 he turned sixteen and his hormones were raging. I guess um, 0:02:45.960 --> 0:02:48.359 but he in fact was not a humanzy as much 0:02:48.400 --> 0:02:51.480 as people wanted to believe or thought that he was. 0:02:51.919 --> 0:02:53.920 Later on they did gitetic testing on him, they found 0:02:53.919 --> 0:02:58.200 that he was, you know, chimp. That doesn't mean that 0:02:58.280 --> 0:03:02.680 people uh still aren't fascinated by the idea that you 0:03:02.720 --> 0:03:06.520 could create half man, half ape. Right, It's it's I mean, 0:03:06.520 --> 0:03:09.400 it's a it is a troubling idea, as we uh, 0:03:09.840 --> 0:03:12.720 it's the title of this podcast suggest you know. It's uh, 0:03:13.360 --> 0:03:15.840 it's it's the the idea that there is this bridge 0:03:15.840 --> 0:03:17.919 between us and the animal. It but blurs the line 0:03:17.919 --> 0:03:19.720 between what it is to be human and what it 0:03:19.800 --> 0:03:22.360 is to be this this other. And of course this 0:03:22.440 --> 0:03:25.760 is something that we've explored in horror and science fiction 0:03:26.040 --> 0:03:29.360 many times in the past, especially of the the end 0:03:29.400 --> 0:03:32.720 of the eight hundreds beginning of the twentieth century, you 0:03:32.720 --> 0:03:35.920 saw a number of very important stories that came around 0:03:35.960 --> 0:03:37.800 that they really signified this. I mean one as early 0:03:37.840 --> 0:03:40.280 as one you had the Murders in the Room Morgue 0:03:40.720 --> 0:03:45.680 by Edgar Allan Poe, which you know spoilers. It involves 0:03:45.680 --> 0:03:48.800 an orangutant with a straight raders there stuffing girls into chimneys, 0:03:49.200 --> 0:03:51.760 and the idea that this this ape is going around 0:03:51.760 --> 0:03:56.000 committing crimes against humans. So it's it's pretty troubling. But 0:03:56.360 --> 0:03:59.160 but then it really kicks in a little later. Um 0:03:59.240 --> 0:04:01.560 of course you have uh the Island of Dr Moreau, 0:04:01.800 --> 0:04:09.520 um classic novel. Which movie are you referring to? Oh, yes, 0:04:09.560 --> 0:04:11.480 the ninety six version, which you still have to admit 0:04:11.560 --> 0:04:14.920 is pretty fun because you have you have Marlon Brando 0:04:15.000 --> 0:04:18.400 and that whole get up apparently acting with a headset, 0:04:18.800 --> 0:04:23.560 like barely acting like reading lines that are right. And 0:04:23.600 --> 0:04:25.880 then he has the little The whole idea of the 0:04:25.920 --> 0:04:29.560 mini me originates with the with the little person that 0:04:29.640 --> 0:04:34.880 he had addressed up like him. Um Ron Perlman running 0:04:34.880 --> 0:04:39.239 around as in an animal costume. You had Val Kilmer 0:04:39.360 --> 0:04:42.600 doing god knows what, and uh it was kind of 0:04:42.640 --> 0:04:44.960 a disaster. But there was also a nineteen seventies seven 0:04:44.960 --> 0:04:48.240 film version that had Bert Lancaster and Michael York and 0:04:48.279 --> 0:04:50.080 that one was always a favorite of mine because it 0:04:50.120 --> 0:04:53.200 was like when I was a kid, I would watch 0:04:53.279 --> 0:04:57.960 like like Grandpa Monster would host this like Saturday Morning Afternoon. 0:04:58.520 --> 0:05:01.160 You know, he was a daytime horror TV host, and 0:05:01.360 --> 0:05:03.679 he would host these awful movies that I was watching. 0:05:03.680 --> 0:05:06.280 This was before Mystery Science Theater three thousand Stugs, But 0:05:06.279 --> 0:05:08.000 but I would, I would. I would always check it 0:05:08.000 --> 0:05:09.720 out and and they would, you know, show stuff like 0:05:09.760 --> 0:05:12.839 them with the giant ants and and I particularly remember 0:05:12.880 --> 0:05:16.120 being really into that seventy seven version of Dr Moreau. 0:05:16.240 --> 0:05:18.640 All Right, I need to check that out. So yeah, 0:05:18.680 --> 0:05:20.360 I mean, in case you guys haven't guessed out there, 0:05:20.400 --> 0:05:23.200 we're talking about humanities, and we're gonna talk a little 0:05:23.240 --> 0:05:26.520 bit more later about what we have already done in 0:05:26.560 --> 0:05:31.000 the lab in terms of creating hybrid creatures of ourselves 0:05:31.120 --> 0:05:35.640 and other animals. But first we should probably talk about cameras, right, Yes, 0:05:35.640 --> 0:05:38.040 the camera. For you Greek mythology junkies, this was of 0:05:38.080 --> 0:05:40.280 course a a monster with the lion's head, a goat's 0:05:40.279 --> 0:05:43.120 body at dragon's tail. It breathes fire. It was born 0:05:43.160 --> 0:05:46.679 in Lycia, on the southern coast of what's now modern Turkey. 0:05:47.120 --> 0:05:49.240 And it would sweep down in the evenings and it 0:05:49.279 --> 0:05:51.840 would carry off women, children, and livestock. It would literally 0:05:51.839 --> 0:05:55.440 their bones all over the mountains. And uh, so you 0:05:55.440 --> 0:05:57.120 know what, what are you gonna do? You gotta get 0:05:57.120 --> 0:05:59.720 a hero to take care of this, this monster that's 0:05:59.760 --> 0:06:02.000 made from different animal parts. So you bring in Bill 0:06:02.040 --> 0:06:05.080 Eraphan And uh, of course he can't really just walk 0:06:05.160 --> 0:06:07.040 up there and take care of his A. He needs spear, 0:06:07.839 --> 0:06:10.440 and B he needs a pegasus. So I find it 0:06:10.440 --> 0:06:14.920 amusing that um that he defeats the chimera mainly by 0:06:15.000 --> 0:06:18.919 using a chimera, because the today that the word chimera 0:06:19.680 --> 0:06:21.480 is often used to refer to any animal that has 0:06:21.520 --> 0:06:25.400 two or more different sets of genetically distinct cells working together. Okay, 0:06:25.520 --> 0:06:28.000 and so again this will bring me about two movies 0:06:28.440 --> 0:06:32.880 and Clash of the Titans, right, yes, everyone, everyone's modern 0:06:32.960 --> 0:06:36.080 understanding of mythology of course based and clash of the 0:06:36.080 --> 0:06:38.400 type of course, right. But of course we actually do 0:06:38.480 --> 0:06:42.920 have hybrids in nature, not necessarily like medusa like creatures 0:06:43.000 --> 0:06:47.719 or otherwise they're generally not quite that facts. Yeah, yeah, minotaurs, 0:06:47.720 --> 0:06:50.800 sirens on the banks calling you forth. But we've got 0:06:50.920 --> 0:06:53.279 dogs and wolves not that exciting, but they have made 0:06:53.320 --> 0:06:58.719 it right, lions and tigers, ligers a mule, which is 0:06:58.760 --> 0:07:01.800 the progeny of a male donkey and a female horse. Yeah, 0:07:01.839 --> 0:07:04.160 you get the all the value of a donkey, but 0:07:04.240 --> 0:07:07.000 the size of a horse. Yeah. So, I mean, obviously 0:07:07.000 --> 0:07:10.760 we've seen inner species love happenings in their products of 0:07:10.840 --> 0:07:12.800 their love happenings. But I don't know why I'm choosing 0:07:12.840 --> 0:07:15.680 to say it that way, that this is what happens right. Well, yeah, 0:07:15.680 --> 0:07:19.200 they're related, um enough that they can actually breed with 0:07:19.200 --> 0:07:22.560 one and they and produce the offspring that most of 0:07:22.560 --> 0:07:25.560 these cases, though, cannot then breed with with other animals. 0:07:26.040 --> 0:07:30.120 The mule for instances is generally sterile. Yes. And then 0:07:30.120 --> 0:07:32.520 we have cross species in the lab. Right man made 0:07:32.640 --> 0:07:35.720 three different types here that you'll see. One is called 0:07:35.760 --> 0:07:39.760 the hybrid, and this is created by breeding across species, 0:07:39.800 --> 0:07:42.400 and hybrids are generally the result of combining an egg 0:07:42.840 --> 0:07:45.560 from one species with firm from another to form a 0:07:45.600 --> 0:07:50.440 single embryo and hybrids contain recombined genetic material throughout their 0:07:50.440 --> 0:07:53.760 genome and throughout all the tissues in their body, because 0:07:53.880 --> 0:07:57.040 that's important to note. And then there's transgenics that's the 0:07:57.040 --> 0:08:01.280 result of gene transfer, and typically transgenics contains transferred or 0:08:01.360 --> 0:08:05.280 manipulated genes in addition to the host nuclear and mitochondrial DNA. 0:08:06.040 --> 0:08:09.480 One exception may be a transgenic embryo comprised of the 0:08:09.640 --> 0:08:14.400 entire complement of nuclear DNA from one organizing organism fused 0:08:14.440 --> 0:08:18.720 with an inunculated egg cell from another, and this will 0:08:18.720 --> 0:08:20.680 become all sort of crystal clear, and we talk more 0:08:20.720 --> 0:08:24.520 specifically about what's being created here. And then third cameras 0:08:24.640 --> 0:08:26.920 right right and their number of cool lab grown examples 0:08:26.920 --> 0:08:30.360 of this. Chinese researchers at the Shanghai Second Medical University 0:08:30.720 --> 0:08:34.200 successfully fuse human cells with rabbit eggs. A year later, 0:08:34.360 --> 0:08:37.199 there was a successful Chinese camera experiment where reachers that 0:08:37.360 --> 0:08:39.760 researchers at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota announced that they 0:08:39.760 --> 0:08:42.720 created a pig with human blood pumping through its veins. 0:08:42.760 --> 0:08:44.640 We made a sheep with human livers, a mouse with 0:08:44.720 --> 0:08:47.480 the human liver, a stapler with the human liver cat 0:08:47.600 --> 0:08:53.880 not really at the state cat human hybrid proteins, mouse 0:08:53.960 --> 0:08:57.120 with a human brain, well with human with one percent 0:08:57.120 --> 0:08:59.640 of its brain was the human brain cells. So but 0:09:00.000 --> 0:09:03.280 anyone gets any crazy secret in them ideas there, But yeah, 0:09:03.280 --> 0:09:06.200 it's it's a technology that's it's been around the block 0:09:06.240 --> 0:09:08.680 a few times already, and these are all issue point 0:09:08.679 --> 0:09:10.400 that people are not just making like sheep with human 0:09:10.440 --> 0:09:12.760 livers just I think it's awesome, or they want to 0:09:12.800 --> 0:09:15.320 sheep that can really hold its liquor. This is about 0:09:15.559 --> 0:09:19.360 figuring out ways to potentially grow new organs for organ 0:09:19.400 --> 0:09:22.439 transplants for humans. To better understand some of these systems, 0:09:22.440 --> 0:09:25.760 I mean they're they're definitely medical, uh goals in mind 0:09:25.800 --> 0:09:29.400 here are trying to understand life threatening diseases UM. In 0:09:29.400 --> 0:09:32.880 two thousand and seven, British researchers created a human pig hybrid. 0:09:33.240 --> 0:09:35.280 So this is where the egg comes from a pig 0:09:35.320 --> 0:09:37.840 and then nucleus comes from a human and the idea 0:09:37.920 --> 0:09:40.080 is to implant the nucleus of an egg from a 0:09:40.160 --> 0:09:43.240 human being with a disease UM so he's something like 0:09:43.280 --> 0:09:46.640 heart disease, and then you can watch how the DNA 0:09:46.720 --> 0:09:51.560 from a person with this condition instructs cellular development in 0:09:51.600 --> 0:09:55.400 its earliest stages, and so scientists really hope to find 0:09:55.400 --> 0:09:58.040 out more about the inner workings about what's going on there, um, 0:09:58.080 --> 0:10:01.080 specifically with heart disease. So yeah, there's all these different 0:10:01.080 --> 0:10:04.839 examples of how we have tinkered with nature in order 0:10:04.920 --> 0:10:08.520 to observe our maladies or even just how we have 0:10:08.679 --> 0:10:11.680 progressed as human beings. So all this leads inevitably to 0:10:11.760 --> 0:10:13.800 the tale of a Russian biologist by the name of 0:10:13.840 --> 0:10:16.559 Iliya Ivanov who was doing that most of his work 0:10:16.600 --> 0:10:20.320 in the nineteen twenties, and uh, really wasn't all that 0:10:20.440 --> 0:10:23.680 heart about by the modern public until around and that's 0:10:23.679 --> 0:10:26.800 when a number of Soviet documents became unclassified. The British 0:10:26.840 --> 0:10:28.520 tabloid The Sun got ahold of some of this, and 0:10:28.600 --> 0:10:31.240 they started running stories about the Red Frankenstein, who was 0:10:31.679 --> 0:10:35.040 supposedly it traveled to French Guyana on a Bolsheviks sponsored 0:10:35.080 --> 0:10:38.400 quest to bread a human ape hybrid to create some 0:10:38.440 --> 0:10:41.920 sort of super mutant to aid Stalin and his conquest 0:10:42.000 --> 0:10:45.320 of the world. Yeah, right, this was the Red Apeman 0:10:45.600 --> 0:10:49.000 Army that they talked about, um, which you know, it's 0:10:49.040 --> 0:10:53.680 probably good to note that Ivanov was working way before 0:10:53.720 --> 0:10:57.440 the Russian Revolution began. And there are certain aspects of 0:10:57.440 --> 0:10:59.040 this story that you can see they might have been 0:10:59.080 --> 0:11:02.000 taken out of context. And uh, and it's a great 0:11:02.040 --> 0:11:05.120 fun idea to run with this half man, half ape 0:11:05.400 --> 0:11:09.320 army that Stalin wanted to defeat the world with. But 0:11:09.400 --> 0:11:11.560 that is not in fact what happened, right, That's not 0:11:11.640 --> 0:11:14.040 exactly what ivan Off was after the At the down 0:11:14.120 --> 0:11:16.199 of the twentieth century, ivan Off was already a pretty 0:11:16.200 --> 0:11:18.240 famous dude in his field for his pioneering work and 0:11:18.320 --> 0:11:22.920 artificial intamination. Respected, yeah, well respected. He had done things 0:11:22.920 --> 0:11:25.079 like he created a z donc which was a zebra 0:11:25.160 --> 0:11:30.280 donkey hybrid, a zubron which is a European bison cow crossover. Uh, 0:11:30.320 --> 0:11:32.520 you know, he was he was creating mashups with animals 0:11:32.520 --> 0:11:35.240 like and kind of you know, islanded Dr morou wish, 0:11:35.280 --> 0:11:37.160 I guess if you want to really take it and 0:11:37.240 --> 0:11:39.320 run with it. But but he was well thought of. 0:11:39.360 --> 0:11:41.520 And his next big thing was he wanted to see 0:11:41.520 --> 0:11:45.880 about improving the bloodstock of Imperial Russia, so um around. 0:11:46.920 --> 0:11:50.160 He puts in proposals with the government despite the disapproval 0:11:50.200 --> 0:11:53.080 of the scientific establishment. He got to go ahead, and 0:11:53.160 --> 0:11:55.800 the funds most important to mount a expedition to Africa 0:11:55.840 --> 0:11:59.400 to collect apes so that he could see about creating 0:11:59.400 --> 0:12:02.920 a hybrid between a human and its closest relative. That's right. 0:12:03.000 --> 0:12:06.000 And he was getting his funds from the Soviet Academy 0:12:06.000 --> 0:12:08.599 of Sciences and part and uh, and there was a 0:12:08.600 --> 0:12:10.319 little crossover at the time, so he's working with a 0:12:10.360 --> 0:12:12.520 lot of people who are really respected in their fields. 0:12:13.000 --> 0:12:16.880 Of course, you know, the problem was that, uh, it 0:12:16.960 --> 0:12:19.040 was a little bit diabolical, right, I mean, his his 0:12:19.120 --> 0:12:22.319 idea here, yeah, his his best we can tell his 0:12:22.320 --> 0:12:25.400 his real idea. His his notion here was not to 0:12:25.440 --> 0:12:27.839 create a super soldier and thing stupid like that. But 0:12:28.120 --> 0:12:30.800 he was a big believer in the theories of Darwin 0:12:30.880 --> 0:12:34.880 that the idea that man evolved from these previous forms, 0:12:34.960 --> 0:12:38.320 that that evolution was the driving force, natural selection was drive, 0:12:38.400 --> 0:12:41.160 which is right. Yeah, But he he thought that the 0:12:41.160 --> 0:12:43.840 way to really prove it, to just really just settle 0:12:43.880 --> 0:12:46.360 the case once and for all, and the whole evolution 0:12:46.600 --> 0:12:50.280 versus everything else, versus religion, you name it, was to 0:12:50.600 --> 0:12:54.800 actually create a human chimp hybrid and then introduce you 0:12:54.880 --> 0:12:56.600 to the world. And then people would say that he 0:12:56.640 --> 0:12:58.559 would be like, what what's that? You got something else? 0:12:58.720 --> 0:13:02.120 There's something about religion, eat my humansy his name is 0:13:02.280 --> 0:13:06.800 Oliver and uh proof, Yeah, your entire argument is nil 0:13:07.240 --> 0:13:10.520 at this point. So so he had you could say 0:13:10.559 --> 0:13:13.640 he had a noble um, you know, scientific goal in mind. 0:13:13.679 --> 0:13:15.480 It's kind of a I mean still kind of a 0:13:15.520 --> 0:13:17.640 helish moves. He's kind of wants to stick it tip 0:13:17.679 --> 0:13:19.920 to everyone, but it's still he has a definite goal 0:13:19.960 --> 0:13:22.440 in mind. Here his his means of pulling an offer 0:13:22.520 --> 0:13:25.000 just a little suspect. Well, yeah, it's in the execution, right, 0:13:25.040 --> 0:13:27.840 So he decides that, um, he is going to try 0:13:27.920 --> 0:13:33.000 to inseminate three females, right, which he does. Um, he tries, 0:13:33.120 --> 0:13:36.040 I should say, and these are African women and uh 0:13:36.160 --> 0:13:38.840 but then you know, eventually he's forced to abandon the 0:13:38.880 --> 0:13:41.880 project because it's just not going that well. It doesn't 0:13:41.960 --> 0:13:44.840 have a tent of support behind it, right, and he 0:13:44.880 --> 0:13:47.480 has really had to try to get those ten dollarge 0:13:47.520 --> 0:13:50.760 in the Soviet Financial Commission. He's really had to work 0:13:50.960 --> 0:13:52.439 very hard at it. This it's not something that a 0:13:52.440 --> 0:13:53.640 lot of people want to write. And it was kind 0:13:53.679 --> 0:13:55.360 of touch and go, Like he went to Paris first 0:13:55.440 --> 0:13:57.600 and then he went to French Guyana because they had 0:13:57.640 --> 0:14:00.199 some chimps over there, but then they weren't yet old 0:14:00.280 --> 0:14:02.800 enough to breed, so to come back to Paris. Nothing 0:14:02.880 --> 0:14:05.640 was working in his favorite right and he gets really desperate, 0:14:06.080 --> 0:14:10.520 and so what does he do? Something completely unconsciousable. He 0:14:11.080 --> 0:14:14.760 decides that he's going to inseminate African women with the 0:14:14.840 --> 0:14:18.280 chimpanzee sperm without their knowledge. Okay, so he's trying to 0:14:18.280 --> 0:14:21.640 get forward with this is as much as possible, and 0:14:22.080 --> 0:14:25.560 he's found out, and of course everybody starts to reject 0:14:25.640 --> 0:14:30.480 this plan, and he spirals out of his his professional field. 0:14:30.520 --> 0:14:32.480 I guess you could say, yeah, he starts hanging out 0:14:32.520 --> 0:14:36.600 with the celebrated surgeon Sergey Voronoff, who at the time 0:14:36.720 --> 0:14:39.560 was was really in fashion because he had a quote 0:14:39.600 --> 0:14:43.440 unquote rejuvenation therapy that he would perform in which he 0:14:43.480 --> 0:14:47.080 would graf slices of ape test ees onto those of 0:14:47.240 --> 0:14:50.280 rich and aging men who were hoping to regain some 0:14:50.320 --> 0:14:52.800 of their former vigor. And let's just all positive for 0:14:52.800 --> 0:14:56.000 a moment think about that. Yeah, it's I mean, on 0:14:56.000 --> 0:14:58.920 one hand, anyone who's ever read The Adventures of Sherlock 0:14:58.920 --> 0:15:01.520 Holmes is probably thinking of the Adventure of the Creeping 0:15:01.560 --> 0:15:05.440 Man from nine three, which follows the same logic. The 0:15:05.480 --> 0:15:07.960 idea you have somebody that's taking some sort of ape 0:15:08.240 --> 0:15:11.760 or monkey related product, but in this case it's changing 0:15:11.840 --> 0:15:14.720 him and making him crazy uh or possibly changing them 0:15:14.720 --> 0:15:16.480 into a monster is one of the more sci fi 0:15:16.560 --> 0:15:19.320 of the Carli Homes tales. It's important to keep in 0:15:19.360 --> 0:15:21.680 mind that that Vornoff is not the only one doing 0:15:21.720 --> 0:15:25.280 this uh in the twenties, this rejuvenation tests on your 0:15:25.320 --> 0:15:29.080 cheek therapy. Yes, yes, he became notorious for performing in Algeria. 0:15:29.320 --> 0:15:31.880 But at the same time several US surgeants were were 0:15:31.880 --> 0:15:35.200 doing the same thing. There was Dr Victor D. Less 0:15:35.240 --> 0:15:40.040 Pennises uh professor of genature urinary surgery at Northwestern University. 0:15:40.320 --> 0:15:43.440 He was treating impotence with the use of glandular extracts 0:15:43.480 --> 0:15:47.200 and then grafting slices of human cadaver tests uh in 0:15:47.200 --> 0:15:49.800 into the rectus muscles for them that it meant which 0:15:49.840 --> 0:15:52.240 but but again this was he was just human cadavertive 0:15:52.320 --> 0:15:55.800 to humans, so there wasn't anything fishy going on. Um, 0:15:55.920 --> 0:15:57.640 you know, and certainly what we do a lot of 0:15:58.120 --> 0:16:00.720 today with a lot of transplant of an organ as 0:16:00.760 --> 0:16:03.600 a cadab or twite. So so I don't want to 0:16:03.640 --> 0:16:06.200 scandalize that too much. But then you had this guy Dr. 0:16:06.320 --> 0:16:09.800 Leo Stanley, who between and this is another American, between 0:16:09.880 --> 0:16:12.680 nineteen nineteen and nineteen twenty two, he injected six hundred 0:16:12.680 --> 0:16:16.640 and fifty six prisoners at San Quentin Prison with tests 0:16:16.720 --> 0:16:20.920 in an attempt to slow a reverse aging. But he 0:16:21.040 --> 0:16:25.160 used the testicles of goats, rams, boars, deer. He essentially 0:16:25.400 --> 0:16:28.520 purade them like I assume in like a big smoothie 0:16:28.520 --> 0:16:31.920 blender um purade the testicles so that they he could 0:16:32.040 --> 0:16:35.200 put them in a needle and inject them under the 0:16:35.240 --> 0:16:38.600 skin of the abdomen subcutaneous tests is what I'm hearing, 0:16:38.720 --> 0:16:43.160 testy like slurpy, and and of course, um, you know, 0:16:43.600 --> 0:16:45.400 there's not much you can really say about that, but 0:16:45.480 --> 0:16:48.920 he reported that that that he had some success with it. 0:16:49.000 --> 0:16:51.400 But I mean, ultimately, you have a situation where a 0:16:51.440 --> 0:16:55.040 dude is performing horrible human experimentation. Uh, and you know, 0:16:55.080 --> 0:16:58.120 within the walls of a prison. But back to ivanof all, right, 0:16:58.280 --> 0:17:00.440 but I do think it's interesting to note that that 0:17:00.520 --> 0:17:03.000 was the environment that Ivanov was working in. Say, yeah, 0:17:03.000 --> 0:17:05.520 he's working in environment where, and certainly not everybody thought 0:17:05.520 --> 0:17:08.200 that Ivanov was great. There were there were some scientists 0:17:08.240 --> 0:17:10.040 that came to sort of investigate and poke around what 0:17:10.040 --> 0:17:12.439 he was doing, because even I mean everyone, not everyone 0:17:12.560 --> 0:17:15.320 was like, yeah, totally inject some people with ape stuff. 0:17:15.320 --> 0:17:17.720 That's that's a great idea. Now, some some people were concerned, 0:17:17.760 --> 0:17:20.200 but there was enough of it going around that not 0:17:20.240 --> 0:17:23.360 as many eyebrows were raised. These were all hormonal approaches 0:17:23.359 --> 0:17:27.320 to treating impotence made prior to the discovery of testosterone, 0:17:27.359 --> 0:17:32.360 before the emergence of modern hormone science. So you cut 0:17:32.400 --> 0:17:34.919 him a little slack there. I guess as far as 0:17:34.960 --> 0:17:37.320 the mindset goes, not as much as some of the 0:17:37.359 --> 0:17:39.240 actual acts that were performed, because certainly the stuff that 0:17:39.280 --> 0:17:42.400 happened at San Quentin was indefensible. Yeah, and I mean 0:17:42.720 --> 0:17:45.000 Ivanov sort of did get his uh come up. And 0:17:45.040 --> 0:17:48.120 so I guess you could say for his ethical transgressions, 0:17:48.200 --> 0:17:52.160 right with trying to impregnate women with chimpanzee sperm without 0:17:52.200 --> 0:17:55.280 their knowledge. He was spanished to Kazakhstan, right, Yeah, the 0:17:55.280 --> 0:17:58.480 French governor and guyana Um said none of that, get 0:17:58.520 --> 0:17:59.919 out of here. Yeah, And then he tried to he 0:18:00.119 --> 0:18:03.600 had plans to carry out more experiments in Russia, but 0:18:03.760 --> 0:18:05.600 it was a pain to try and ship all these 0:18:05.760 --> 0:18:08.160 these animals back all the way from Africa. They're dying 0:18:08.160 --> 0:18:10.280 on the way, They're dying once they get back. It's 0:18:10.320 --> 0:18:13.520 just a huge zoological headache. And yeah, indeed, he eventually 0:18:13.680 --> 0:18:16.919 is sent to Kazakistan and he really he's released the 0:18:16.920 --> 0:18:19.440 next year, but he dies soon after, which I mean, 0:18:19.480 --> 0:18:22.000 on one hand yet sad, but then also but he 0:18:22.200 --> 0:18:24.199 was kind of off the rails at that point. It 0:18:24.200 --> 0:18:26.440 seems like in any case that we've looked at, there 0:18:26.480 --> 0:18:29.520 there comes this moment where you look up your mad 0:18:29.720 --> 0:18:32.760 you're essentially a mad scientist, but you you look up 0:18:32.760 --> 0:18:35.280 and you realize that you would you would think you 0:18:35.280 --> 0:18:37.680 would realize you've become a mad scientist, like whether you're 0:18:37.680 --> 0:18:39.800 ivan off and you look up and you realize, wow, 0:18:39.840 --> 0:18:43.000 I've lost all my funding, and uh, I have notes 0:18:43.040 --> 0:18:47.040 here on how I'm going to um secretly impregnate a 0:18:47.119 --> 0:18:50.920 woman with chimp steamen. Or you're someone like like Lily 0:18:51.040 --> 0:18:53.560 the dolphin guy, and you're living in a flooded apartment 0:18:53.640 --> 0:18:57.119 with dolphins and taking LSD in your isolation chamber. You 0:18:57.119 --> 0:18:59.680 think you might realize, man, my funding was just cut 0:19:00.080 --> 0:19:02.720 and I'm doing all this crazy stuff something that maybe 0:19:02.720 --> 0:19:04.440 I'm not on the up and up anymore. Maybe I've 0:19:04.480 --> 0:19:07.879 become Yeah, well was Isn't there some sort of phrase 0:19:07.880 --> 0:19:09.760 about when you're living in the monkey house, you can't 0:19:09.760 --> 0:19:12.480 smell the pooh. I've never heard that that that that 0:19:12.680 --> 0:19:16.040 sounds basically here he was literally living in the monkey house. 0:19:16.160 --> 0:19:18.640 Uh well maybe not literally, but but he was trying 0:19:18.680 --> 0:19:22.639 to keep a monkey house uh in Russia and carry 0:19:22.640 --> 0:19:25.840 out these experiments. So then that of course leads us 0:19:25.880 --> 0:19:29.200 to the question couldn't actually be done? And we will 0:19:29.240 --> 0:19:35.880 talk about that right after this message. All right, we're 0:19:35.920 --> 0:19:38.560 back one more thing about ivan Off before we move 0:19:38.600 --> 0:19:40.680 on there. We mentioned that his whole thing was to 0:19:40.760 --> 0:19:44.280 prove Darmond right to stomp out religion, and that the 0:19:44.280 --> 0:19:47.080 the humanity would be the icon of this h of 0:19:47.160 --> 0:19:50.679 his victory. But there are also some theories that the 0:19:50.680 --> 0:19:54.199 the aging Bolsheviks in in particular were very interested in 0:19:54.240 --> 0:19:57.560 financing his research because they were aging men in an 0:19:57.560 --> 0:20:01.880 age when there were some scientific minds that were that 0:20:01.880 --> 0:20:05.520 that thought that you could slower reverse aging by injecting 0:20:05.840 --> 0:20:09.800 things like like like puade tests into the body. You know, 0:20:09.840 --> 0:20:11.760 that they thought that this was if not if these 0:20:11.800 --> 0:20:13.760 techniques weren't working, they were at least leading to in 0:20:13.760 --> 0:20:16.560 the right direction. So there's there are some theories that 0:20:16.600 --> 0:20:20.199 state that while he while Ivanof was definitely um, you know, 0:20:20.520 --> 0:20:23.720 go go dar dar when we're gonna prove religion wrong, 0:20:23.920 --> 0:20:25.880 some of the Bolsheviks might be thinking, oh, let's get 0:20:25.880 --> 0:20:27.760 this guy some money. Maybe he'll hook me up with 0:20:27.760 --> 0:20:32.280 the sweet sweet injections and I can live forever. Okay. 0:20:32.359 --> 0:20:34.840 So so they had their own little hidden agenda maybe 0:20:35.640 --> 0:20:39.399 right again, Ivanof, you know, not under the direction of 0:20:39.400 --> 0:20:43.240 Stalinik to raise this eight man army. So could we 0:20:43.280 --> 0:20:45.920 do it? Could we could be well, this is kind 0:20:45.920 --> 0:20:50.600 of an open question, um, because it's it's this was 0:20:50.880 --> 0:20:53.840 this period we're talking about, like the nineteen twenties, you know, 0:20:53.880 --> 0:20:56.720 the early twentieth century. This was the time to get 0:20:56.760 --> 0:21:00.600 funding for this experiment. And and certainly as people managed 0:21:00.640 --> 0:21:02.720 to get or at least one man managed to get 0:21:02.760 --> 0:21:07.000 some funding, and it didn't come to fruition. So the 0:21:07.160 --> 0:21:10.960 environment in the world today is certainly not such or 0:21:11.000 --> 0:21:13.719 certainly in most places thankfully that this kind of thing 0:21:13.760 --> 0:21:16.480 is going to get green lit. Yeah, that's right. Robin Bernstein, 0:21:16.520 --> 0:21:19.720