WEBVTT - Monster Mash: Mummies and Trolls

0:00:03.080 --> 0:00:05.960
<v Speaker 1>Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff

0:00:06.000 --> 0:00:14.600
<v Speaker 1>Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your

0:00:14.600 --> 0:00:17.400
<v Speaker 1>my My My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. Julie. Uh,

0:00:17.960 --> 0:00:20.599
<v Speaker 1>it's Halloween. Uh. There are a lot of issues that

0:00:20.640 --> 0:00:22.800
<v Speaker 1>one needs to be familiar with. You know, you need

0:00:22.840 --> 0:00:25.240
<v Speaker 1>to be be careful out there as your trick or treating.

0:00:25.760 --> 0:00:27.760
<v Speaker 1>Be careful of the cars that are driving around. If

0:00:27.760 --> 0:00:30.480
<v Speaker 1>you're driving, be careful of tricker treaters, and of course

0:00:30.640 --> 0:00:34.200
<v Speaker 1>be careful of the walking dead, particularly uh, the ancient

0:00:34.200 --> 0:00:37.479
<v Speaker 1>Egyptian mummies that may stir to lie in their very

0:00:37.640 --> 0:00:41.200
<v Speaker 1>museums throughout the world and then start walking the streets

0:00:41.560 --> 0:00:43.840
<v Speaker 1>because they tend to be they tend to be understandably

0:00:43.880 --> 0:00:47.279
<v Speaker 1>piste off. Before we go to the undead roaming around us,

0:00:47.320 --> 0:00:48.760
<v Speaker 1>I do want to point out, do not eat this

0:00:48.840 --> 0:00:53.280
<v Speaker 1>popcorn balls or candied apples, alright, folks, if it's not prepackaged,

0:00:53.320 --> 0:00:55.640
<v Speaker 1>don't put in your mouth because it might have a

0:00:55.680 --> 0:00:59.080
<v Speaker 1>spider in it. Well, there have been reasonably showing up

0:00:59.080 --> 0:01:01.640
<v Speaker 1>and stuff like those people are really people real, yeah,

0:01:01.920 --> 0:01:03.440
<v Speaker 1>all right, but let's get to the real right here,

0:01:03.480 --> 0:01:06.080
<v Speaker 1>because that's just sort of a sidebar, let's talk about

0:01:06.080 --> 0:01:10.520
<v Speaker 1>the debt. Yes, so the ongoing mummy crisis. So have

0:01:10.800 --> 0:01:12.800
<v Speaker 1>most of you familiar with this, You've got you know,

0:01:12.880 --> 0:01:15.240
<v Speaker 1>word of it on NPR, what have you. Uh? So

0:01:15.360 --> 0:01:18.240
<v Speaker 1>you have these dried up bodies. They were once the

0:01:18.280 --> 0:01:21.240
<v Speaker 1>honored dead of ancient Egypt, especially prepared for a journey

0:01:21.280 --> 0:01:25.319
<v Speaker 1>into the afterlife. And uh. And you can imagine they're thinking,

0:01:25.400 --> 0:01:27.240
<v Speaker 1>you know, when they lay down for their final rest,

0:01:27.400 --> 0:01:30.520
<v Speaker 1>they think they're gonna wake up in the second Aaru,

0:01:30.600 --> 0:01:32.640
<v Speaker 1>the fields of Russias. So they're gonna be on this

0:01:32.720 --> 0:01:35.200
<v Speaker 1>we on this fabricous journey into the afterlife where they

0:01:35.240 --> 0:01:37.560
<v Speaker 1>have all these magical powers and uh. And they can

0:01:37.560 --> 0:01:40.680
<v Speaker 1>sort of warp the world to their to their desires.

0:01:40.680 --> 0:01:43.759
<v Speaker 1>But instead they're waking up in like a Baltimore museum

0:01:43.920 --> 0:01:48.760
<v Speaker 1>or in some German grandfather's attic, and they're upset. Yeah,

0:01:48.800 --> 0:01:52.280
<v Speaker 1>they're they're in plexiglass. People are taking pictures of them. Yeah,

0:01:52.720 --> 0:01:56.200
<v Speaker 1>So what's happening here? Why are the ancient ancient Egyptian

0:01:56.240 --> 0:02:00.160
<v Speaker 1>mummies coming back to life? Well to understand and this,

0:02:00.320 --> 0:02:03.200
<v Speaker 1>we have to talk about something that exists, uh, not

0:02:03.280 --> 0:02:05.680
<v Speaker 1>only in the unnatural world of walking dead, but in

0:02:05.720 --> 0:02:09.200
<v Speaker 1>the natural world of actual organisms, and that of course

0:02:09.520 --> 0:02:14.200
<v Speaker 1>is an hydrobiosis. That's right. Before we get to anhydro biosis.

0:02:14.320 --> 0:02:17.000
<v Speaker 1>Let me just mention though, that that the way that

0:02:17.240 --> 0:02:20.239
<v Speaker 1>mummies were prepared really has a lot to do with this,

0:02:20.480 --> 0:02:22.840
<v Speaker 1>with the way that they were sort of reconstituted, and

0:02:22.880 --> 0:02:25.600
<v Speaker 1>as we know it um when we look at the

0:02:25.639 --> 0:02:29.320
<v Speaker 1>Egyptian mummification process, it's a pretty amazing thing that they did,

0:02:29.400 --> 0:02:31.320
<v Speaker 1>given that none of this was written down as far

0:02:31.360 --> 0:02:34.000
<v Speaker 1>as we know, but we do know that after the

0:02:34.160 --> 0:02:36.320
<v Speaker 1>lights were sort of shut out in the brain, that

0:02:36.760 --> 0:02:39.720
<v Speaker 1>the Egyptians would actually remove all internal organs from the body,

0:02:39.760 --> 0:02:42.360
<v Speaker 1>sometimes keeping the heart intact, and then the body was

0:02:42.400 --> 0:02:45.799
<v Speaker 1>salted for thirty days in order to remove the moisture

0:02:45.840 --> 0:02:48.800
<v Speaker 1>from the body. And then they had all sorts of

0:02:48.840 --> 0:02:52.240
<v Speaker 1>perfumed oils and resins put on their skin, and they

0:02:52.240 --> 0:02:54.840
<v Speaker 1>were wrapped several several several times. If they were super

0:02:54.840 --> 0:02:57.720
<v Speaker 1>fancy royal people, then they got the sarcophagus or they

0:02:57.720 --> 0:03:00.679
<v Speaker 1>got you some sort of painted face. So just keep

0:03:00.720 --> 0:03:03.880
<v Speaker 1>that in mind when we talk about this idea of

0:03:03.960 --> 0:03:06.600
<v Speaker 1>an hydrobiosis and some of the mummies that we see

0:03:06.600 --> 0:03:10.239
<v Speaker 1>out there on the street. Yes. Uh, an hydrobiosis means

0:03:10.360 --> 0:03:14.320
<v Speaker 1>life without water, and it is a state of actual

0:03:14.440 --> 0:03:19.320
<v Speaker 1>suspended animation in a dry meadow biologic condition. In other words,

0:03:19.480 --> 0:03:22.799
<v Speaker 1>the specimen survives without water and without undergoing metamorphosis for

0:03:22.840 --> 0:03:26.560
<v Speaker 1>an extended period of time. Now we can look at

0:03:26.960 --> 0:03:30.359
<v Speaker 1>the year seventeen o two, the father of microbiology, Anthony

0:03:30.600 --> 0:03:35.280
<v Speaker 1>van Lewin Hook, who discovered that when dry and lifeless

0:03:35.400 --> 0:03:37.600
<v Speaker 1>dust or what looked to be lifeless dust from a

0:03:37.600 --> 0:03:40.920
<v Speaker 1>gutter roof which we rehydrated with clean water, small as

0:03:40.920 --> 0:03:44.960
<v Speaker 1>he calls it, amcules became active within an hour, variously

0:03:45.000 --> 0:03:48.080
<v Speaker 1>adhering to the glass, sometimes creeping along it, and sometimes

0:03:48.080 --> 0:03:50.760
<v Speaker 1>swimming about. So those were some of our first cues

0:03:50.800 --> 0:03:53.960
<v Speaker 1>about this process. Yeah, and we we see various examples

0:03:53.960 --> 0:03:56.240
<v Speaker 1>of this in the natural world. For instance, if you've

0:03:56.240 --> 0:03:59.400
<v Speaker 1>ever ordered a pack of sea monkeys, you've you've seen

0:03:59.520 --> 0:04:01.520
<v Speaker 1>I've seen this. Now sea monkeys will not last in

0:04:01.560 --> 0:04:04.440
<v Speaker 1>a package for ten thousand years. But uh, there are

0:04:04.440 --> 0:04:07.360
<v Speaker 1>there are other animals and organisms and plants out there

0:04:07.560 --> 0:04:11.200
<v Speaker 1>that do stretch the limit a little a little further.

0:04:11.240 --> 0:04:14.560
<v Speaker 1>For instance, there's there the so called resurrection plants. Uh.

0:04:14.600 --> 0:04:16.760
<v Speaker 1>Sometimes they go by the name resurrection plant rose of

0:04:16.839 --> 0:04:22.320
<v Speaker 1>Jericho uh simpera viva, meaning everlasting, and they are especially

0:04:22.640 --> 0:04:26.200
<v Speaker 1>good at anhydrobiosis, so they enter a dry, dormant state

0:04:26.240 --> 0:04:29.520
<v Speaker 1>between the rain, between rain seasons that may last years.

0:04:30.160 --> 0:04:33.080
<v Speaker 1>And elsewhere in the plant Kingdom, we've seen lotus seeds

0:04:33.120 --> 0:04:37.440
<v Speaker 1>that have germinated successfully after a millennium in the dust. Yeah,

0:04:37.480 --> 0:04:40.400
<v Speaker 1>that's what's so amazing about these resurrection plants is that

0:04:40.440 --> 0:04:42.960
<v Speaker 1>they could go for you know, years and years and years,

0:04:43.600 --> 0:04:47.000
<v Speaker 1>and when it finally rains, then they sort of flower

0:04:47.080 --> 0:04:50.159
<v Speaker 1>out and they absorb all of that rain. So it

0:04:50.240 --> 0:04:53.560
<v Speaker 1>is this rehydration process that's amazing to me. And then

0:04:53.640 --> 0:04:58.400
<v Speaker 1>we have nematode worms. Yeah, nematode worms are are also

0:04:59.160 --> 0:05:02.120
<v Speaker 1>capable of this and actually a number of multicellular animals

0:05:02.120 --> 0:05:06.520
<v Speaker 1>are known to uh to bounce back after this extended

0:05:06.520 --> 0:05:11.760
<v Speaker 1>period of dryness. Also, our friends the water bears. Yes,

0:05:12.000 --> 0:05:15.720
<v Speaker 1>I love these guys. They're about a millimeter long, their arthropods,

0:05:15.760 --> 0:05:19.440
<v Speaker 1>and they're found usually in moist places like moss and lychen,

0:05:19.560 --> 0:05:22.240
<v Speaker 1>but they can survive anywhere. Yeah, and we will, we

0:05:22.240 --> 0:05:24.040
<v Speaker 1>will definitely come back and do a full episode on

0:05:24.120 --> 0:05:26.320
<v Speaker 1>water bears at some point. In the future because they're

0:05:26.320 --> 0:05:28.920
<v Speaker 1>just too cool. Yeah. They can withstand temperatures ranging from

0:05:29.000 --> 0:05:32.359
<v Speaker 1>nearly absolute zero to above the boiling point of water.

0:05:32.560 --> 0:05:36.040
<v Speaker 1>They can hold up to massive doses of radiation as

0:05:36.120 --> 0:05:39.480
<v Speaker 1>as NASA has found out um over a century, over

0:05:39.520 --> 0:05:41.960
<v Speaker 1>a century without food or water, and they can even

0:05:41.960 --> 0:05:44.200
<v Speaker 1>exist in the vacuum of space. And to top it

0:05:44.240 --> 0:05:46.360
<v Speaker 1>all off, they're kind of cute. They they are kind

0:05:46.360 --> 0:05:48.400
<v Speaker 1>of cuddly looking, and they don't really quite look like

0:05:48.440 --> 0:05:50.479
<v Speaker 1>a bear. I guess they look as as much like

0:05:50.520 --> 0:05:52.800
<v Speaker 1>a bear as anything on that scale is going to

0:05:52.880 --> 0:05:55.800
<v Speaker 1>look like a bear. They just chubby, little cute things.

0:05:55.920 --> 0:05:59.760
<v Speaker 1>And they also have the awesomeness of an hydrobiosis. All right,

0:05:59.760 --> 0:06:01.760
<v Speaker 1>so what you're saying, Well, those are plants. Those are

0:06:01.800 --> 0:06:05.640
<v Speaker 1>some tiny animals. But but what about the the human body?

0:06:06.640 --> 0:06:09.720
<v Speaker 1>Is there any science, any natural world science that can

0:06:09.760 --> 0:06:13.480
<v Speaker 1>explain the unnatural resurrection of a dried out mummy. Well

0:06:13.520 --> 0:06:15.240
<v Speaker 1>we're gonna take a quick break and when we come

0:06:15.279 --> 0:06:26.440
<v Speaker 1>back we will discuss just that. Okay, we're back, and

0:06:26.480 --> 0:06:28.560
<v Speaker 1>we're talking about whether or not those mummies that we're

0:06:28.600 --> 0:06:32.120
<v Speaker 1>seeing in news footage, if if they are just walk

0:06:32.200 --> 0:06:35.480
<v Speaker 1>around because of anihydrobiosis or if it's some sort of

0:06:35.560 --> 0:06:39.640
<v Speaker 1>DARPA experiment gone wrong. Yeah, it's the thing about humans

0:06:39.760 --> 0:06:44.200
<v Speaker 1>and an anhydrobiosis. The the reason that our examples involved

0:06:45.160 --> 0:06:49.080
<v Speaker 1>very small animals and plant tissue is because there's a

0:06:49.080 --> 0:06:52.320
<v Speaker 1>great deal of desiccation damage that it can occur to

0:06:52.320 --> 0:06:54.520
<v Speaker 1>a tissue when it's dried out, even if it's you know,

0:06:54.600 --> 0:06:57.960
<v Speaker 1>expertly dried out, so that even it's not just a

0:06:58.000 --> 0:07:01.320
<v Speaker 1>simple matter of takeaway water and then add water back. Uh,

0:07:01.360 --> 0:07:02.719
<v Speaker 1>there are a number of other things that have to

0:07:02.760 --> 0:07:06.360
<v Speaker 1>be in play for that to be possible. That's right.

0:07:06.440 --> 0:07:09.479
<v Speaker 1>There is a paper called ana hydro Biotic Potential in

0:07:09.720 --> 0:07:14.840
<v Speaker 1>Man Implications in Medicine which was published in Medical Hypotheses

0:07:14.880 --> 0:07:20.320
<v Speaker 1>by Pereira and Locus sent Us. Yes, Brazilian researchers who

0:07:20.360 --> 0:07:25.800
<v Speaker 1>believe that that that the anhydrobiosis is potentially an area

0:07:25.800 --> 0:07:29.560
<v Speaker 1>that we that we might exploit in order to preserve tissues.

0:07:30.160 --> 0:07:31.520
<v Speaker 1>Not so. I mean, we can you can get really

0:07:31.520 --> 0:07:33.880
<v Speaker 1>sci fi about it and imagine mummies being sent to

0:07:33.920 --> 0:07:37.640
<v Speaker 1>other planets, uh to colonize it and build space pyramids.

0:07:37.720 --> 0:07:40.800
<v Speaker 1>But for the most part they're interested in terms of uh,

0:07:41.040 --> 0:07:43.400
<v Speaker 1>we have donor organs wouldn't be to dry those out,

0:07:43.880 --> 0:07:47.480
<v Speaker 1>store those in in this in this this dry setting,

0:07:47.640 --> 0:07:51.440
<v Speaker 1>and then add water and implant them as needed. Now, yeah,

0:07:51.440 --> 0:07:54.600
<v Speaker 1>that this is their idea behind all this, that mammals

0:07:54.640 --> 0:07:57.760
<v Speaker 1>and humans have a cryptic ani hydrobiotic ability, which they

0:07:57.760 --> 0:08:00.000
<v Speaker 1>say has not been discovered yet because of an unknown

0:08:00.120 --> 0:08:03.920
<v Speaker 1>specific preconditioning stage that is necessary. They're saying it's there,

0:08:03.960 --> 0:08:05.960
<v Speaker 1>we sh haven't discovered it, and if we can, then

0:08:06.000 --> 0:08:08.440
<v Speaker 1>it could be a huge boon to the way that

0:08:08.480 --> 0:08:12.040
<v Speaker 1>we um operate on a medical level. Now, research blogger

0:08:12.120 --> 0:08:15.200
<v Speaker 1>aiden or Sten has called out a few problems with

0:08:15.240 --> 0:08:18.040
<v Speaker 1>this hypothesis. So that might make you feel a little

0:08:18.080 --> 0:08:20.000
<v Speaker 1>bit better about the mummies you see in the street.

0:08:20.040 --> 0:08:23.200
<v Speaker 1>I don't know, he says. First, and a hydrobiotic survival

0:08:23.360 --> 0:08:26.280
<v Speaker 1>is advantageous only if a species lives in a habitat

0:08:26.320 --> 0:08:30.360
<v Speaker 1>that is periodically desiccated, meaning dehydrated, and if the species

0:08:30.400 --> 0:08:34.040
<v Speaker 1>has no means of surviving the dry period, So he says,

0:08:34.080 --> 0:08:37.080
<v Speaker 1>with a few exceptions, and a hydrobiosis is normally seen

0:08:37.080 --> 0:08:41.040
<v Speaker 1>in microscopic animals and he's just larger animals, especially most humans,

0:08:41.600 --> 0:08:44.360
<v Speaker 1>UM can deal with the drying of our habitats by

0:08:44.480 --> 0:08:48.600
<v Speaker 1>migrating to a wetter habitat, or preventing body loss from

0:08:49.200 --> 0:08:52.160
<v Speaker 1>or or preventing water loss from their bodies. The second problem,

0:08:52.200 --> 0:08:55.760
<v Speaker 1>he says, is that it's really unlikely that the ability

0:08:55.800 --> 0:08:59.200
<v Speaker 1>to survive and anihydro biosis will be retained if there's

0:08:59.240 --> 0:09:01.840
<v Speaker 1>no need for it. Yeah, like, why keep that special

0:09:01.880 --> 0:09:06.280
<v Speaker 1>feature around in an organism if there's no benefit to it, Right,

0:09:06.360 --> 0:09:08.920
<v Speaker 1>That's exactly the saying. If a trait becomes unnecessary, it

0:09:09.000 --> 0:09:12.520
<v Speaker 1>may persist, be lost, or become a vestige. But really

0:09:12.559 --> 0:09:18.120
<v Speaker 1>there's probably not this ability to reconstitute our organs unless

0:09:18.120 --> 0:09:20.959
<v Speaker 1>there's magic involved, which is probably the case with these

0:09:21.200 --> 0:09:24.080
<v Speaker 1>these these mummies. They're there, So what's happening here? You know,

0:09:24.120 --> 0:09:27.240
<v Speaker 1>they're they're roaming the street. They're forcibly removing our brains

0:09:27.240 --> 0:09:29.080
<v Speaker 1>with coat hangers in some cases. And we can only

0:09:29.080 --> 0:09:33.240
<v Speaker 1>assume that what's happening is atmospheric moisture raises them from

0:09:33.280 --> 0:09:36.600
<v Speaker 1>their slumber in search of life giving water and you know,

0:09:36.640 --> 0:09:39.800
<v Speaker 1>a little little BC style vengeance, So you think it's

0:09:39.880 --> 0:09:43.439
<v Speaker 1>some equal parts reconstitution with the mummy's curse. They're trying

0:09:43.480 --> 0:09:46.560
<v Speaker 1>to avenge the people who have put men plexiglass and

0:09:46.640 --> 0:09:48.920
<v Speaker 1>stared at them. Yeah, because they're they're They're not supposed

0:09:48.960 --> 0:09:51.560
<v Speaker 1>to be waking up in a Baltimore mar museum or

0:09:51.559 --> 0:09:53.240
<v Speaker 1>a German attic. They're supposed to be waking up in

0:09:53.320 --> 0:09:55.760
<v Speaker 1>the afterlife, or at least wake up in their tombs

0:09:55.760 --> 0:09:57.480
<v Speaker 1>with all their stuff still there. But they're on the

0:09:57.520 --> 0:10:00.280
<v Speaker 1>other side of the globe. You're right, No, it's it's

0:10:00.320 --> 0:10:03.280
<v Speaker 1>it's that's upsetting, and the violence is understanding, particularly the

0:10:03.320 --> 0:10:06.440
<v Speaker 1>Egyptian mummies, right, because they really bought into this idea

0:10:06.640 --> 0:10:09.760
<v Speaker 1>of the afterlife is a beautiful thing, not necessarily a

0:10:09.880 --> 0:10:12.760
<v Speaker 1>scary thing like we do more in our modern day

0:10:12.800 --> 0:10:17.079
<v Speaker 1>accounts of the afterlife. All right, Well, let's move on

0:10:17.200 --> 0:10:22.040
<v Speaker 1>to another organism, uh that you may encounter this Halloween,

0:10:22.080 --> 0:10:25.760
<v Speaker 1>another creature of the unnatural world that we can discuss

0:10:26.080 --> 0:10:28.800
<v Speaker 1>with examples from the natural world, and that of course,

0:10:28.920 --> 0:10:33.199
<v Speaker 1>is the troll. Now you you you originate from Michigan,

0:10:33.240 --> 0:10:37.600
<v Speaker 1>from the Northern United States? Do you have trolls in Michigan? Well,

0:10:37.800 --> 0:10:40.360
<v Speaker 1>not that I know of, But I have to rethink

0:10:40.440 --> 0:10:43.040
<v Speaker 1>some of the terrain because I was looking at Oslo

0:10:43.120 --> 0:10:48.760
<v Speaker 1>born Folkloi's lie Luna Larsen, who lives in Minnesota, and

0:10:48.880 --> 0:10:50.800
<v Speaker 1>she's the author of The Troll with No Heart in

0:10:50.840 --> 0:10:53.280
<v Speaker 1>His Body, And she says that troll remains are found

0:10:53.400 --> 0:10:55.400
<v Speaker 1>all over the place in Minnesota, which makes you really

0:10:55.400 --> 0:10:57.200
<v Speaker 1>want to go back to Michigan and check this out.

0:10:57.559 --> 0:10:59.559
<v Speaker 1>She says that if you look at piles of rocks

0:10:59.600 --> 0:11:02.360
<v Speaker 1>that could be burst trolls, and we'll talk more about that,

0:11:02.679 --> 0:11:07.480
<v Speaker 1>gnarled tree roots are especially prevalent, and those are ancient trolls,

0:11:07.880 --> 0:11:11.520
<v Speaker 1>and then strange land formations that could be actually the

0:11:11.600 --> 0:11:14.960
<v Speaker 1>supine troll bodies, so you could actually see perhaps some

0:11:15.000 --> 0:11:18.920
<v Speaker 1>of the vertebra of that troll worked into the landscapes.

0:11:19.040 --> 0:11:22.679
<v Speaker 1>Is there everywhere, We're just not looking for him. Well yeah,

0:11:22.679 --> 0:11:24.120
<v Speaker 1>and it makes me want to go on like the

0:11:24.160 --> 0:11:29.640
<v Speaker 1>troll Tour of Minnesota. They if anybody is listening in

0:11:30.040 --> 0:11:32.880
<v Speaker 1>Minnesota and you guys need a boost there in your tourism,

0:11:32.920 --> 0:11:34.880
<v Speaker 1>you got to do that. Yeah, get on it. Yeah,

0:11:35.080 --> 0:11:37.760
<v Speaker 1>all right. So trolls are are interesting organisms. We start

0:11:37.800 --> 0:11:43.000
<v Speaker 1>looking at the different tales that that inform us about them. Um,

0:11:43.080 --> 0:11:45.040
<v Speaker 1>for instance, um, you know, we're all for mebe was

0:11:45.120 --> 0:11:47.880
<v Speaker 1>sort of the idea of a grotesque culking troll. Uh,

0:11:47.920 --> 0:11:51.560
<v Speaker 1>this monstrous ogre like beasts. But did you know that,

0:11:51.720 --> 0:11:55.319
<v Speaker 1>according to some accounts, Uh, the troll wives are sometimes

0:11:55.360 --> 0:11:58.000
<v Speaker 1>beautiful redheads. I've heard about this. In fact, I think

0:11:58.040 --> 0:12:00.600
<v Speaker 1>that you did a blog post about this, warning people

0:12:00.600 --> 0:12:04.040
<v Speaker 1>of this, and you are actually had a reference picture

0:12:04.160 --> 0:12:07.600
<v Speaker 1>of Christina Hendrix. Yes, she might be a troll wife. Uh.

0:12:07.640 --> 0:12:10.160
<v Speaker 1>You know, she looks beautiful, she looks human, she's got

0:12:10.240 --> 0:12:13.520
<v Speaker 1>red hair, right, But if you approach her then a

0:12:13.600 --> 0:12:15.720
<v Speaker 1>large male troll might attack you. You know what I

0:12:15.760 --> 0:12:19.080
<v Speaker 1>love about this trope is that it perfectly plays into

0:12:19.120 --> 0:12:22.560
<v Speaker 1>the old trope of the hooker with the john and

0:12:22.600 --> 0:12:25.200
<v Speaker 1>the pimp. Yah. Yeah, you know, you learn a customer

0:12:25.640 --> 0:12:27.760
<v Speaker 1>and then in the customer's wall it gets stolen. It's

0:12:27.760 --> 0:12:29.920
<v Speaker 1>sort of the same thing with these trolls. Yeah. And

0:12:29.960 --> 0:12:32.920
<v Speaker 1>if if we're to try and understand this scenario, because

0:12:33.000 --> 0:12:37.440
<v Speaker 1>ultimately we're talking about another species in which one gender

0:12:37.480 --> 0:12:39.679
<v Speaker 1>of the species looks like a gender of our species,

0:12:39.840 --> 0:12:42.840
<v Speaker 1>that it seems kind of crazy, But we see similar

0:12:43.000 --> 0:12:46.600
<v Speaker 1>situations in the natural world, and we call it aggressive mimicry. Uh,

0:12:46.679 --> 0:12:51.040
<v Speaker 1>not unlike that practiced by a female of Photinus fireflies.

0:12:51.120 --> 0:12:56.480
<v Speaker 1>They mimic the mating dances of Photinas ignitius fireflies, and

0:12:56.480 --> 0:12:59.240
<v Speaker 1>they lure them end and then devour them. So the

0:12:59.280 --> 0:13:02.079
<v Speaker 1>fam female role may appear as a beautiful woman as

0:13:02.080 --> 0:13:06.080
<v Speaker 1>a means of attracting male humans which they're mini folk

0:13:06.160 --> 0:13:08.880
<v Speaker 1>than you know, brutalize and or eat. Yeah, and now

0:13:09.320 --> 0:13:12.079
<v Speaker 1>a less aggressive act. Of course, you can look at

0:13:12.080 --> 0:13:16.920
<v Speaker 1>the viceroy butterflies, which actually mimic the same color and

0:13:17.000 --> 0:13:20.920
<v Speaker 1>pattering of the monarch butterflies, which are toxic. Um. Of

0:13:20.960 --> 0:13:22.560
<v Speaker 1>course we don't have any luring in here, but you

0:13:22.600 --> 0:13:26.280
<v Speaker 1>see all these examples in nature where uh, creatures can

0:13:26.280 --> 0:13:28.800
<v Speaker 1>sort of morph a little bit, or they can mimic

0:13:28.920 --> 0:13:31.960
<v Speaker 1>in order to either survive or attack. Yeah, the African

0:13:32.000 --> 0:13:36.160
<v Speaker 1>swallowtail butterfly actually has like several different female morphs that

0:13:36.240 --> 0:13:40.280
<v Speaker 1>exist within the specie. There's some that that that look

0:13:40.360 --> 0:13:42.679
<v Speaker 1>like another butterfly species. There are some that look more

0:13:42.760 --> 0:13:46.280
<v Speaker 1>like there are more masculine in appearance. Um, it's I

0:13:46.320 --> 0:13:49.720
<v Speaker 1>think an all told, they're fourteen different varieties of morphs

0:13:50.120 --> 0:13:52.920
<v Speaker 1>in that particular species is pretty amazing, it really is.

0:13:53.080 --> 0:13:55.440
<v Speaker 1>I mean, can you imagine being able to morph into

0:13:55.480 --> 0:13:59.840
<v Speaker 1>something like fourteen different looks for yourself, fourteen different variety

0:14:00.320 --> 0:14:04.200
<v Speaker 1>of of of female like morpho, morphologically distinct. It's it's

0:14:04.200 --> 0:14:06.560
<v Speaker 1>it's pretty crazy. But in the insect world, you quickly

0:14:06.600 --> 0:14:09.440
<v Speaker 1>find that what seems crazy in the human world, what

0:14:09.880 --> 0:14:11.880
<v Speaker 1>something that is the stuff of folk tales in the

0:14:11.920 --> 0:14:15.040
<v Speaker 1>human world, is just everyday life in the insect world, right,

0:14:15.080 --> 0:14:18.079
<v Speaker 1>And it makes that troll, the female troll masquerading as

0:14:18.160 --> 0:14:22.280
<v Speaker 1>Christina Hendrix, seems really sort of like pretty you know,

0:14:22.360 --> 0:14:25.320
<v Speaker 1>one oh one comparison. All Right, we're gonna take a

0:14:25.400 --> 0:14:26.880
<v Speaker 1>quick break and when we get back, we're going to

0:14:26.960 --> 0:14:38.440
<v Speaker 1>talk about the troll Hunter documentary. Hey, we're back. So

0:14:38.440 --> 0:14:41.240
<v Speaker 1>we're talking about trolls. We're talking about the ways that

0:14:41.280 --> 0:14:43.720
<v Speaker 1>we can look to the natural world to understand the

0:14:43.840 --> 0:14:47.280
<v Speaker 1>denizens of the unnatural world. And so with trolls, who

0:14:47.280 --> 0:14:49.120
<v Speaker 1>probably you know, most people are not that familiar with

0:14:49.160 --> 0:14:52.640
<v Speaker 1>the whole troll life situation. But but far more likely

0:14:52.760 --> 0:14:55.800
<v Speaker 1>you know, that sunlight will turn them to stone. Yeah,

0:14:55.840 --> 0:14:59.920
<v Speaker 1>these are subterranean creatures. They cannot be out in daylight.

0:15:00.040 --> 0:15:02.640
<v Speaker 1>There are a couple of different theories that were put forward,

0:15:03.040 --> 0:15:05.520
<v Speaker 1>and we have seen some of the effects of them

0:15:05.560 --> 0:15:08.840
<v Speaker 1>actually exposed to light. And I say that documentary Troll

0:15:08.920 --> 0:15:13.160
<v Speaker 1>Hunter from and this was dealing with the Norwegian trolls,

0:15:13.240 --> 0:15:17.440
<v Speaker 1>the jott Ners, the wringlefinches, and the Tussa lad as

0:15:17.440 --> 0:15:19.680
<v Speaker 1>well as the mountain Kings. Yeah. According to the film,

0:15:19.760 --> 0:15:23.960
<v Speaker 1>the noncturnal troll cannot convert vitamin D, which you know

0:15:24.000 --> 0:15:26.480
<v Speaker 1>most of us in the daylit world received from sunlight.

0:15:26.520 --> 0:15:29.560
<v Speaker 1>They can't convert that into calcium. So when the troll

0:15:29.680 --> 0:15:33.200
<v Speaker 1>absorbs vitamin D from direct sunlight or UV rays, their

0:15:33.240 --> 0:15:37.480
<v Speaker 1>bodies rapidly suffer from acute vitamin D toxicity or we

0:15:37.520 --> 0:15:40.880
<v Speaker 1>also call this hyper vitamin osis D. And we see

0:15:40.880 --> 0:15:43.560
<v Speaker 1>this in humans, right, Yeah, this is in the natural world.

0:15:43.600 --> 0:15:47.080
<v Speaker 1>This is an actual real thing. Um. The causes are

0:15:47.120 --> 0:15:50.000
<v Speaker 1>typically you're looking at an excess of vitamin D that

0:15:50.120 --> 0:15:52.600
<v Speaker 1>abnormally boost levels of calcium in the blood. It can

0:15:52.600 --> 0:15:55.840
<v Speaker 1>severy severely damaged bone, soft tissues and kidneys over time,

0:15:56.240 --> 0:15:59.800
<v Speaker 1>and it's almost always caused by forms of vitamin D

0:16:00.120 --> 0:16:02.360
<v Speaker 1>need a doctor's prescription. So generally what's happening is you're

0:16:02.400 --> 0:16:05.280
<v Speaker 1>taking too much vitamin D is a supplement and you're

0:16:05.320 --> 0:16:09.200
<v Speaker 1>experiencing uh stuff like you know, these symptoms, but also constipation,

0:16:09.280 --> 0:16:13.080
<v Speaker 1>decrease appetite, et cetera. And generally the way you fix

0:16:13.160 --> 0:16:15.880
<v Speaker 1>it is you stop taking all that extra vitamin D. Now,

0:16:15.920 --> 0:16:17.800
<v Speaker 1>we don't know about the constipation and trolls, but we

0:16:17.840 --> 0:16:20.720
<v Speaker 1>do know that in younger trolls, the excess vitamin D

0:16:20.800 --> 0:16:24.240
<v Speaker 1>causes an intense and painful build up for gas in

0:16:24.280 --> 0:16:27.440
<v Speaker 1>its stomach and veins, and this results in a full

0:16:27.840 --> 0:16:32.000
<v Speaker 1>body fragmentation. In other words, they explode, floating troll all

0:16:32.040 --> 0:16:35.400
<v Speaker 1>over the place. Now, in the older trolls, though, according

0:16:35.400 --> 0:16:38.600
<v Speaker 1>to the troll Hunter, the veins are too constricted. They

0:16:38.640 --> 0:16:41.920
<v Speaker 1>cause the expansion to occur in the creatures bones, and

0:16:42.000 --> 0:16:45.320
<v Speaker 1>this reaction causes the creatures entire body to calcify, to

0:16:45.480 --> 0:16:49.080
<v Speaker 1>turn into stone, to use the language of folklore. Yes,

0:16:49.560 --> 0:16:52.440
<v Speaker 1>now this is all all good and well, um, but

0:16:52.600 --> 0:16:55.000
<v Speaker 1>they are roaming among us, so it's something to look

0:16:55.040 --> 0:16:58.440
<v Speaker 1>out for, especially the Christina Hendrix of them. Yeah, watch

0:16:58.440 --> 0:17:01.120
<v Speaker 1>out for the for the for the troll wives. Um.

0:17:01.160 --> 0:17:03.200
<v Speaker 1>And you know you mentioned a wife slop, when I

0:17:03.240 --> 0:17:05.479
<v Speaker 1>wonder if we're gonna know they have wife slop. Sure

0:17:05.480 --> 0:17:08.440
<v Speaker 1>they have celebrity wife slop. Have they considered troll wife

0:17:08.480 --> 0:17:11.280
<v Speaker 1>swop as a television show. I'm sure you've seen some

0:17:11.280 --> 0:17:13.520
<v Speaker 1>of the buzz on the Internet that there's been some

0:17:14.160 --> 0:17:16.520
<v Speaker 1>theories put forth that there have been troll wives on

0:17:16.520 --> 0:17:18.760
<v Speaker 1>their already and we just didn't know it because again

0:17:19.080 --> 0:17:22.480
<v Speaker 1>they're aggressive mimicry. Well, that's gonna make my rewatching of

0:17:22.480 --> 0:17:26.160
<v Speaker 1>those series all all the more interesting now. Yeah, so

0:17:26.320 --> 0:17:28.720
<v Speaker 1>you know you've got your mummy friends out there. We

0:17:28.720 --> 0:17:31.480
<v Speaker 1>should treat them kindly because again, they didn't want to

0:17:31.560 --> 0:17:34.600
<v Speaker 1>be something that we just glcked at in museums or

0:17:34.640 --> 0:17:37.800
<v Speaker 1>as you say, in German attics. And uh, we have

0:17:37.920 --> 0:17:39.879
<v Speaker 1>learned a lot from from mummies. I mean we've been

0:17:39.920 --> 0:17:42.080
<v Speaker 1>able to look at their DNA and look at disease.

0:17:42.119 --> 0:17:44.600
<v Speaker 1>We've been able to to even look at their diets.

0:17:45.240 --> 0:17:47.840
<v Speaker 1>You know. So they've given us a lot. We need

0:17:47.880 --> 0:17:50.640
<v Speaker 1>to give them a hand that their gifts to science

0:17:50.720 --> 0:17:54.919
<v Speaker 1>and gifts to archaeology, even as they sometimes strangle archaeologists

0:17:54.920 --> 0:17:57.840
<v Speaker 1>and scientists. Trolls, on the other hand, as we know,

0:17:58.040 --> 0:18:00.880
<v Speaker 1>just on the Internet, they're there to be avoided. They're

0:18:00.880 --> 0:18:03.080
<v Speaker 1>not given us much. Yeah, I don't know why so

0:18:03.119 --> 0:18:05.880
<v Speaker 1>many of them have Internet connections, I mean, because they're

0:18:05.920 --> 0:18:08.720
<v Speaker 1>under bridges, even like if they're using wireless, it's got

0:18:08.720 --> 0:18:11.760
<v Speaker 1>to disrupt your signal a bit. You know. These these

0:18:11.800 --> 0:18:14.720
<v Speaker 1>are things that we should probably look at certain corporations

0:18:14.760 --> 0:18:17.480
<v Speaker 1>and begin to ask them questions about why they're able

0:18:17.520 --> 0:18:21.560
<v Speaker 1>to have access. Why are you granting internet access to trolls,

0:18:21.640 --> 0:18:25.080
<v Speaker 1>to nocternal monsters, something that we could uncoverag they're probably

0:18:25.080 --> 0:18:26.920
<v Speaker 1>sending the wives into the store to get them. That's

0:18:26.960 --> 0:18:29.720
<v Speaker 1>my bet. That's the other perk of that kind of mimicry,

0:18:29.800 --> 0:18:32.600
<v Speaker 1>because you can you then use the wife that appears

0:18:32.680 --> 0:18:36.679
<v Speaker 1>human to infiltrate uh, you know, human systems. Wow, this

0:18:36.840 --> 0:18:40.879
<v Speaker 1>is yeah. I mean I I I'm telling you, I

0:18:40.920 --> 0:18:43.280
<v Speaker 1>was about to say, as a woman, I would never say,

0:18:43.400 --> 0:18:46.640
<v Speaker 1>don't trust another woman. I'm gonna look twice next time.

0:18:46.840 --> 0:18:49.200
<v Speaker 1>But I exit that office store and I look at

0:18:49.240 --> 0:18:52.080
<v Speaker 1>my my female co workers because possibly they could be

0:18:52.520 --> 0:18:58.880
<v Speaker 1>exhibiting this aggressive mimicry. Ladder milk. All right, Well there

0:18:58.920 --> 0:19:02.560
<v Speaker 1>you go, um, a couple of unnatural creatures that we

0:19:02.560 --> 0:19:06.080
<v Speaker 1>are looking at through the guise of natural science. So

0:19:06.520 --> 0:19:09.360
<v Speaker 1>let us know what you think about all that, particularly trolls,

0:19:09.880 --> 0:19:13.320
<v Speaker 1>particularly mummies, and the possible science behind them, as explored

0:19:13.680 --> 0:19:15.880
<v Speaker 1>in various bits of media. We'd love to hear from

0:19:15.920 --> 0:19:17.960
<v Speaker 1>you and uh and certainly we hope everyone out there

0:19:17.960 --> 0:19:21.000
<v Speaker 1>has a happy Halloween. If you want to check out

0:19:21.240 --> 0:19:23.320
<v Speaker 1>other Halloween related stuff that we've put out, and we

0:19:23.600 --> 0:19:25.840
<v Speaker 1>tend to put out Halloween related stuff all year long,

0:19:25.920 --> 0:19:27.560
<v Speaker 1>this is how you do it. You can go to

0:19:27.560 --> 0:19:30.119
<v Speaker 1>stuff aboule your mind dot com, that's our mothership. You

0:19:30.119 --> 0:19:33.840
<v Speaker 1>can also go to various social media outlets and moving Facebook, Twitter,

0:19:33.920 --> 0:19:37.040
<v Speaker 1>and Tumbler and you can always get in touch with

0:19:37.119 --> 0:19:39.320
<v Speaker 1>this and you can do so by sending us an

0:19:39.320 --> 0:19:46.639
<v Speaker 1>email at blow the Mind at discovery dot com. For

0:19:46.760 --> 0:19:49.080
<v Speaker 1>more on this and thousands of other topics, does it

0:19:49.160 --> 0:19:55.439
<v Speaker 1>How stuff works dot com