1 00:00:03,040 --> 00:00:05,840 Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff 2 00:00:05,840 --> 00:00:14,200 Speaker 1: Works dot Com. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow 3 00:00:14,240 --> 00:00:17,360 Speaker 1: your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, 4 00:00:17,440 --> 00:00:21,160 Speaker 1: and our yearly tradition returns. We always end up covering 5 00:00:21,239 --> 00:00:23,880 Speaker 1: the ig Nobel Prizes, and that's what we're gonna do 6 00:00:23,960 --> 00:00:27,720 Speaker 1: today in part one of our ig No Bells series. 7 00:00:28,040 --> 00:00:30,760 Speaker 1: That's right. We we generally pick up with the ig 8 00:00:30,760 --> 00:00:34,080 Speaker 1: Noo Bells after October is finished because the Ignoble Prizes, 9 00:00:34,320 --> 00:00:37,200 Speaker 1: it tends to happen, uh right at the end of September. 10 00:00:37,400 --> 00:00:40,199 Speaker 1: Terrible timing for us, like we're just getting going for 11 00:00:40,320 --> 00:00:42,840 Speaker 1: Monster season and then they throw these in our past. 12 00:00:43,000 --> 00:00:45,080 Speaker 1: But I think it works out too because then for us, 13 00:00:45,159 --> 00:00:48,199 Speaker 1: because everybody can sort of read the initial press releases 14 00:00:48,280 --> 00:00:50,720 Speaker 1: if you know, if you're if you're paying attention to them, 15 00:00:50,760 --> 00:00:53,279 Speaker 1: to the science to science media, you'll probably pick up 16 00:00:53,280 --> 00:00:56,560 Speaker 1: on on what one and then you can eventually check 17 00:00:56,600 --> 00:00:58,840 Speaker 1: back in with us and hear us chat about it 18 00:00:58,840 --> 00:01:01,680 Speaker 1: as well. Now, these spirit of the Ignoble Prizes, if 19 00:01:01,720 --> 00:01:05,320 Speaker 1: you're not familiar is they would say they follow the 20 00:01:05,319 --> 00:01:08,800 Speaker 1: ethos of Professor Frank Right, Professor Frank, Professor Frank. He'll 21 00:01:08,800 --> 00:01:12,080 Speaker 1: make you laugh, He'll make you think, Yeah, yeah, the Simpsons, Yeah, 22 00:01:12,200 --> 00:01:15,120 Speaker 1: very very much. So, Uh, I have to we have 23 00:01:15,200 --> 00:01:17,640 Speaker 1: to point out, as I think we usually do ignobles. 24 00:01:18,200 --> 00:01:21,399 Speaker 1: In some cases, they rub some people the wrong way. 25 00:01:21,760 --> 00:01:23,520 Speaker 1: Some people don't see the humor in it. They maybe 26 00:01:23,520 --> 00:01:27,320 Speaker 1: think that science should, uh should be a humorist affair 27 00:01:27,440 --> 00:01:29,640 Speaker 1: and that we and or they think that that in 28 00:01:29,680 --> 00:01:32,960 Speaker 1: some cases, uh, the honorees are being made fun of. 29 00:01:33,040 --> 00:01:36,360 Speaker 1: But I think for the vast majority of individuals honored 30 00:01:36,400 --> 00:01:39,440 Speaker 1: by the ignobles, uh, they get it, They get the joke, 31 00:01:39,520 --> 00:01:42,200 Speaker 1: they see the value of it, and they realize that, yes, 32 00:01:42,240 --> 00:01:46,399 Speaker 1: it's about having fun, but it's also about honoring legitimate 33 00:01:46,440 --> 00:01:49,280 Speaker 1: research as well. Yeah. I mean, so these are real studies, 34 00:01:49,320 --> 00:01:53,160 Speaker 1: and it tends to focus on studies that are funny 35 00:01:53,280 --> 00:01:55,920 Speaker 1: when you first look at them, but they usually do 36 00:01:56,040 --> 00:01:59,320 Speaker 1: reveal something at least pretty interesting. I mean not always. 37 00:01:59,400 --> 00:02:02,160 Speaker 1: Sometimes I kindaman, well, that's just pretty silly, But most 38 00:02:02,160 --> 00:02:03,920 Speaker 1: of the time there's at least some kind of really 39 00:02:03,960 --> 00:02:07,280 Speaker 1: interesting tidbit in there. It either moves the field forward 40 00:02:07,360 --> 00:02:09,639 Speaker 1: in some unexpected way, or it gives you something to 41 00:02:09,680 --> 00:02:13,200 Speaker 1: think about. Uh, they do that, they Professor Frank. Professor Frank. 42 00:02:13,960 --> 00:02:16,760 Speaker 1: So these have been awarded every year since by the 43 00:02:16,720 --> 00:02:22,000 Speaker 1: Annals of Improbable Research, a humorous science publication that looks 44 00:02:22,040 --> 00:02:25,360 Speaker 1: at various studies and whatnot. The purpose of this award, 45 00:02:25,360 --> 00:02:28,120 Speaker 1: according to the editors of Improbable Research, is to quote 46 00:02:28,360 --> 00:02:30,840 Speaker 1: honor achievements that first make people laugh and then make 47 00:02:30,919 --> 00:02:33,680 Speaker 1: then make them think. Furthermore, they stressed that the ten 48 00:02:33,760 --> 00:02:36,919 Speaker 1: prizes aren't necessarily meant to pass judgment on the winners. Instead, 49 00:02:37,600 --> 00:02:40,440 Speaker 1: as they they tend to emphasize that the prizes quote 50 00:02:40,680 --> 00:02:44,799 Speaker 1: celebrate the unusual, honor the imaginative, and spur people's interests 51 00:02:44,800 --> 00:02:47,720 Speaker 1: in science, medicine, and technology. And by the way, the 52 00:02:47,720 --> 00:02:51,880 Speaker 1: principal individual here is editor Mark Abram's, editor of the 53 00:02:51,919 --> 00:02:56,440 Speaker 1: Animals of Improbable Research. Um, and I think that's important 54 00:02:56,480 --> 00:02:58,880 Speaker 1: to the idea about spurring people's interests, because a lot 55 00:02:58,880 --> 00:03:02,880 Speaker 1: of times do manage to highlight studies and papers and 56 00:03:02,919 --> 00:03:06,960 Speaker 1: achievements in science then otherwise don't really rise, uh, you know, 57 00:03:07,360 --> 00:03:11,000 Speaker 1: up in the headlines, or if they do, they only 58 00:03:11,160 --> 00:03:13,960 Speaker 1: rise in the headlines because they're funny. And so one 59 00:03:14,000 --> 00:03:15,680 Speaker 1: thing that we like to do when we look at 60 00:03:15,680 --> 00:03:18,880 Speaker 1: the ignobles is find Okay, are are there some of 61 00:03:18,880 --> 00:03:21,040 Speaker 1: these that are actually kind of interesting when you start 62 00:03:21,080 --> 00:03:24,120 Speaker 1: thinking about them? Do they give you something to ponder? Yeah? 63 00:03:24,200 --> 00:03:27,320 Speaker 1: And in always we ask the question why is it important? 64 00:03:27,480 --> 00:03:30,280 Speaker 1: And why is it funny? The second question is generally 65 00:03:30,720 --> 00:03:33,800 Speaker 1: just very obvious and the kid go except for the 66 00:03:33,800 --> 00:03:37,160 Speaker 1: ones that aren't actually all that funny, which occasionally happens. Yeah, 67 00:03:37,600 --> 00:03:40,760 Speaker 1: sometimes sometimes, but generally you're like, oh, yeah, I see 68 00:03:40,800 --> 00:03:43,160 Speaker 1: why they honored that one. And in some cases I 69 00:03:43,160 --> 00:03:45,360 Speaker 1: think we've mentioned on the show, a new study will 70 00:03:45,360 --> 00:03:48,000 Speaker 1: come along and we'll realize, oh, that one that's going 71 00:03:48,080 --> 00:03:50,400 Speaker 1: to get an ignoble at some point. Yeah, any study 72 00:03:50,440 --> 00:03:54,000 Speaker 1: about like butts or bending over or something that's just 73 00:03:54,240 --> 00:03:58,000 Speaker 1: it's just a shoe, and then it just naturally Nobell bait. Yes, exactly. 74 00:03:58,760 --> 00:04:01,800 Speaker 1: All right. So, now that we've established the ig Nobel 75 00:04:01,880 --> 00:04:04,040 Speaker 1: Prizes and what they are for anyone it wasn't familiar, 76 00:04:04,640 --> 00:04:07,200 Speaker 1: let's let's start jumping into some of the winners for 77 00:04:07,240 --> 00:04:10,200 Speaker 1: two thousand and eighteen. Okay, Now, obviously we're not going 78 00:04:10,240 --> 00:04:12,640 Speaker 1: to cover all of the winners in the same depth. 79 00:04:12,680 --> 00:04:14,920 Speaker 1: Some we're going to engage with pretty deeply. Some we'll 80 00:04:14,960 --> 00:04:17,720 Speaker 1: just sort of talk about pretty quickly. But I think 81 00:04:17,760 --> 00:04:21,760 Speaker 1: the first thing we should look at is maybe medicine prize. Yes, 82 00:04:21,839 --> 00:04:26,720 Speaker 1: so this one honors Mark Mitchell and David Wartener for 83 00:04:26,720 --> 00:04:29,919 Speaker 1: for using roller coaster rides to try to hasten the 84 00:04:29,960 --> 00:04:34,560 Speaker 1: passage of kidney stones. Does this have practical utility? Well yeah, 85 00:04:34,640 --> 00:04:38,800 Speaker 1: just just you wait. This was an October publication and uh, 86 00:04:39,000 --> 00:04:42,800 Speaker 1: Dave Wardinger was the individual who accepted the honors at 87 00:04:42,800 --> 00:04:46,320 Speaker 1: the ceremony. So this one obviously links into an episode 88 00:04:46,320 --> 00:04:48,720 Speaker 1: that you and I recorded years back, The Stone of Madness, 89 00:04:49,400 --> 00:04:53,720 Speaker 1: which my name is Lubert nas because the episode dealt 90 00:04:53,760 --> 00:04:56,480 Speaker 1: in part with the passing of kidney stones and bladder 91 00:04:56,520 --> 00:04:59,359 Speaker 1: stones and what wait is it the Bosch painting? Is 92 00:04:59,360 --> 00:05:02,279 Speaker 1: it Bosch? Yes, the removing of the Stone of Madness 93 00:05:02,320 --> 00:05:06,280 Speaker 1: not from the bowels but from the cranium. Right, But 94 00:05:06,400 --> 00:05:09,560 Speaker 1: the the idea is that there was like a removal 95 00:05:09,600 --> 00:05:13,400 Speaker 1: of stone surgeries in the early modern period. Was was 96 00:05:13,839 --> 00:05:17,640 Speaker 1: kind of dicey, right, literally, like people were diced and 97 00:05:17,680 --> 00:05:20,359 Speaker 1: sliced and then died horrible deaths on the operating table. 98 00:05:20,560 --> 00:05:23,160 Speaker 1: But there's this painting by Herono Spash that makes fun 99 00:05:23,320 --> 00:05:25,479 Speaker 1: of this guy who's going to try to get a 100 00:05:25,520 --> 00:05:28,440 Speaker 1: stone and alleged stone cut out of his head, and 101 00:05:28,480 --> 00:05:31,320 Speaker 1: he's like, please cut the stone. Master. My name is 102 00:05:31,440 --> 00:05:33,960 Speaker 1: Lubert Doss, So I often think about that when I 103 00:05:33,960 --> 00:05:36,920 Speaker 1: see somebody behaving foolishly in public. I'm just like, my 104 00:05:37,000 --> 00:05:41,160 Speaker 1: name is Lupert Doss. All right, Well I've I I 105 00:05:41,200 --> 00:05:42,960 Speaker 1: don't know about you, Joe, but I've been fortunate enough 106 00:05:43,080 --> 00:05:45,080 Speaker 1: to avoid kidney stones thus far in my life. If 107 00:05:45,080 --> 00:05:49,000 Speaker 1: you've ever had a kidney stone, now I have not. Okay, Well, basically, 108 00:05:49,080 --> 00:05:51,520 Speaker 1: what we're we're talking about here are hard deposits made 109 00:05:51,520 --> 00:05:54,760 Speaker 1: of minerals and salts. They form, They can form inside 110 00:05:54,760 --> 00:05:58,599 Speaker 1: your kidneys, and they often form when the urine becomes concentrated, 111 00:05:59,000 --> 00:06:02,160 Speaker 1: allowing the minerals to crystallized and stick together. Uh if 112 00:06:02,200 --> 00:06:05,000 Speaker 1: they If they form, then your body tries to pass them, 113 00:06:05,120 --> 00:06:08,000 Speaker 1: which can be painful. In some cases, doctors can simply 114 00:06:08,000 --> 00:06:09,720 Speaker 1: give you a pain killer and instruct you to drink 115 00:06:09,720 --> 00:06:12,800 Speaker 1: a lot of water to help pass it. But in 116 00:06:12,839 --> 00:06:16,040 Speaker 1: other cases, especially if it becomes lodged in your urinary tract, 117 00:06:16,560 --> 00:06:21,440 Speaker 1: surgery may be required to it. That's just I'm shivering 118 00:06:21,520 --> 00:06:24,479 Speaker 1: over here. So there's no dud, you know, definite single 119 00:06:24,600 --> 00:06:28,560 Speaker 1: cause for kidney stones, but dehydration can certainly lead to 120 00:06:28,600 --> 00:06:32,200 Speaker 1: their formation. Again the concentration of urine. Remember now, as 121 00:06:32,240 --> 00:06:35,040 Speaker 1: the authors of this paper point out, some three hundred 122 00:06:35,080 --> 00:06:39,320 Speaker 1: thousand US patients seek emergency care for kidney stones each year. 123 00:06:39,839 --> 00:06:42,640 Speaker 1: And in addition to hydration saying you know, drink a 124 00:06:42,640 --> 00:06:46,600 Speaker 1: lot of water or the administration fluids to other things 125 00:06:46,600 --> 00:06:52,800 Speaker 1: that are sometimes used are positional inversion and external application 126 00:06:52,839 --> 00:06:57,000 Speaker 1: of force. WHOA, so what does that mean getting upside 127 00:06:57,040 --> 00:07:00,120 Speaker 1: down or something getting upside down getting thrown around a 128 00:07:00,120 --> 00:07:02,560 Speaker 1: little bit, And so I think everyone can can can 129 00:07:02,600 --> 00:07:05,160 Speaker 1: realize here while why we're getting into the domain of 130 00:07:05,279 --> 00:07:08,480 Speaker 1: roller coasters, uh, They point out that there have been 131 00:07:09,160 --> 00:07:14,280 Speaker 1: reports of spontaneous kidney stone passage associated with both the 132 00:07:14,640 --> 00:07:18,880 Speaker 1: roller coaster riding and bungee cord jumping. So somebody had 133 00:07:18,960 --> 00:07:22,680 Speaker 1: kidney stones and then they're like time to go bungee jumping. Well, 134 00:07:22,720 --> 00:07:24,440 Speaker 1: and that was a little unclear the weather. It was 135 00:07:24,440 --> 00:07:27,400 Speaker 1: a situation where if the individual knew they had the stones, 136 00:07:27,400 --> 00:07:31,320 Speaker 1: I assume they knew, um, given the discomfort that is 137 00:07:31,360 --> 00:07:34,440 Speaker 1: generally reported, but attached the bungee cords. My name is 138 00:07:34,520 --> 00:07:39,040 Speaker 1: Lubert Dass. The problem though, is, they said, these these 139 00:07:39,200 --> 00:07:42,080 Speaker 1: accounts they tend to be reported in like non peer 140 00:07:42,080 --> 00:07:46,440 Speaker 1: reviewed publications or it's just kind of like word of mouth. 141 00:07:46,920 --> 00:07:50,640 Speaker 1: And uh. In particular, uh, they noted that they had 142 00:07:50,840 --> 00:07:54,880 Speaker 1: heard numerous stories about people passing kidney stones after riding 143 00:07:55,240 --> 00:07:58,320 Speaker 1: Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, a roller coaster at Walt disney 144 00:07:58,320 --> 00:08:02,360 Speaker 1: World's Magic Kingdom thing part in Orlando, Florida. Uh. Yeah, 145 00:08:02,360 --> 00:08:05,480 Speaker 1: they they had turned apparently heard various accounts of folks 146 00:08:05,600 --> 00:08:09,120 Speaker 1: spontaneously passing the stones after writing it, Have you ridden 147 00:08:09,120 --> 00:08:11,640 Speaker 1: this roller coaster? Joe? No, I'm not really a roller 148 00:08:11,640 --> 00:08:14,960 Speaker 1: coaster person, and I haven't wait. Which one is that 149 00:08:15,040 --> 00:08:17,160 Speaker 1: Magic Kingdom? Oh? Yeah, I've been to that one, but 150 00:08:17,200 --> 00:08:18,720 Speaker 1: not since I was a kid. I was probably too 151 00:08:18,800 --> 00:08:20,520 Speaker 1: short to ride to it. Anyway, when I was there, 152 00:08:20,640 --> 00:08:23,520 Speaker 1: it's like it has like a mining theme. I wrote 153 00:08:23,520 --> 00:08:26,120 Speaker 1: it just like what last year the year before. I 154 00:08:26,440 --> 00:08:30,080 Speaker 1: wrote it with my son and my niece, and it's 155 00:08:30,080 --> 00:08:32,480 Speaker 1: a fun roller coaster. I'm not really a roller coaster 156 00:08:33,040 --> 00:08:36,400 Speaker 1: person myself, but I enjoyed some of the roller coasters 157 00:08:36,400 --> 00:08:39,520 Speaker 1: at Disney because they're just like really phenomenal productions, especially 158 00:08:39,559 --> 00:08:41,000 Speaker 1: the one that has a YETI in it. Did you 159 00:08:41,040 --> 00:08:43,719 Speaker 1: get the black lung? The black light? The black long 160 00:08:43,840 --> 00:08:47,360 Speaker 1: was not a featured add on when I was at Disney. 161 00:08:47,440 --> 00:08:49,600 Speaker 1: But but this, this is a roller coaster that does 162 00:08:49,679 --> 00:08:52,080 Speaker 1: move you around. It's it's not like one of those 163 00:08:52,080 --> 00:08:55,719 Speaker 1: just crazy, um you know, one of those just insane 164 00:08:55,840 --> 00:08:58,520 Speaker 1: rides that does that some people go for. It doesn't 165 00:08:58,559 --> 00:09:01,120 Speaker 1: look like it's a design and to get a confession 166 00:09:01,160 --> 00:09:04,240 Speaker 1: out of you, but it's still it takes you for 167 00:09:04,320 --> 00:09:08,000 Speaker 1: a ride. So they wanted to test it out. They said, well, 168 00:09:08,120 --> 00:09:10,800 Speaker 1: let's go there and let's see what happens to some 169 00:09:10,880 --> 00:09:16,280 Speaker 1: kidney stones. Brilliant, I'm in now. They didn't take individuals 170 00:09:16,280 --> 00:09:19,040 Speaker 1: with kidney stones on board, so there were no human 171 00:09:19,080 --> 00:09:21,079 Speaker 1: test subjects here. What they did is they took three 172 00:09:21,160 --> 00:09:24,040 Speaker 1: kidney stones of different sizes, suspended them in urine, and 173 00:09:24,080 --> 00:09:29,160 Speaker 1: then placed them in adult uteroscopy and reino scopy simulators, 174 00:09:29,400 --> 00:09:31,560 Speaker 1: and then they took them for twenty rides, so sixty 175 00:09:31,679 --> 00:09:34,640 Speaker 1: rides in total. Okay, so they what basically got them 176 00:09:34,679 --> 00:09:38,800 Speaker 1: in some kind of fake kidney kind of contraption. Yeah, 177 00:09:38,920 --> 00:09:40,920 Speaker 1: there were some pictures of these in the paper and 178 00:09:40,960 --> 00:09:43,040 Speaker 1: they one of them looks kind of like a prop 179 00:09:43,080 --> 00:09:46,000 Speaker 1: from a David Cronenberg film, and the other looks like 180 00:09:46,120 --> 00:09:50,680 Speaker 1: a it's like a crystal tree looking, you know device. 181 00:09:50,760 --> 00:09:52,240 Speaker 1: It looks like it kind of looks like an award 182 00:09:52,320 --> 00:09:55,760 Speaker 1: you might win for, you know, achievements in Kidney Stone, 183 00:09:55,800 --> 00:09:57,679 Speaker 1: Remove Horse something. So do you know if they had 184 00:09:57,720 --> 00:10:01,320 Speaker 1: to have any kind of arrangements to negotiate these organs 185 00:10:01,320 --> 00:10:04,280 Speaker 1: onto the roller coaster, like are they arguing with the 186 00:10:04,320 --> 00:10:08,240 Speaker 1: ticket guy or what? They pointed out specifically that that 187 00:10:08,440 --> 00:10:14,480 Speaker 1: care was taken to preserve guests, employ entertainment, joinment. Um. So, 188 00:10:14,480 --> 00:10:16,679 Speaker 1: so I believe they had them inside of something hidden 189 00:10:16,679 --> 00:10:19,839 Speaker 1: out of the way because they also mentioned specifically, uh, 190 00:10:19,880 --> 00:10:22,920 Speaker 1: and this is this is an exact quote. Uh. Bovine 191 00:10:22,960 --> 00:10:26,760 Speaker 1: and poor sign renal models were deemed impractical as patients 192 00:10:26,800 --> 00:10:30,800 Speaker 1: surrogates for study, owing to ambient temperature and the inappropriate 193 00:10:30,840 --> 00:10:34,400 Speaker 1: display of such material in a family friendly amusement park. Okay, 194 00:10:34,440 --> 00:10:38,319 Speaker 1: so you couldn't bring like pig kidneys onto the roller 195 00:10:38,320 --> 00:10:42,040 Speaker 1: coaster because that might upset some people. Yeah, and Disney 196 00:10:42,080 --> 00:10:44,960 Speaker 1: was apparently they were gracious hosts for this study, but 197 00:10:45,360 --> 00:10:47,080 Speaker 1: they knew there were limits it's kind of a delicate 198 00:10:47,120 --> 00:10:50,480 Speaker 1: situation when you're carrying out your kidney stone research on 199 00:10:50,559 --> 00:10:53,760 Speaker 1: an active amusement park ride. But then again, you might 200 00:10:53,800 --> 00:10:56,120 Speaker 1: have some science loving kids there. They get their you know, 201 00:10:56,240 --> 00:10:58,520 Speaker 1: their picture hugging Mickey, and then they get their picture 202 00:10:58,600 --> 00:11:04,080 Speaker 1: hugging some pig kidneyst opportunity. That's maybe, so maybe maybe 203 00:11:04,120 --> 00:11:06,280 Speaker 1: for the next study. So what did they find out, Well, 204 00:11:06,320 --> 00:11:08,720 Speaker 1: they found that it did seem to prove helpful, but 205 00:11:08,800 --> 00:11:12,200 Speaker 1: mostly only if you're seated towards the back of the coaster. 206 00:11:12,800 --> 00:11:15,240 Speaker 1: So for front coaster passage, right, we're talking four of 207 00:11:15,320 --> 00:11:19,440 Speaker 1: twenty four. Rear coaster passage rate twenty three or thirty six. Hey, 208 00:11:19,520 --> 00:11:22,600 Speaker 1: that's not bad. Yeah, I mean it's like, like everybody knows, 209 00:11:22,600 --> 00:11:24,160 Speaker 1: you said at the back of the coaster, you're gonna 210 00:11:24,160 --> 00:11:27,360 Speaker 1: get a bump, your more hillacious ride, and if you 211 00:11:27,360 --> 00:11:30,400 Speaker 1: have a lacious kidney stone, well it's going this is 212 00:11:30,440 --> 00:11:32,920 Speaker 1: going to help knock it out of you just a 213 00:11:32,960 --> 00:11:36,240 Speaker 1: little bit easier. So the author is actually like suggesting 214 00:11:36,360 --> 00:11:39,640 Speaker 1: people do this somehow, I would suspect not. No, no, 215 00:11:39,760 --> 00:11:43,559 Speaker 1: I don't think anybody is saying go to to Disney 216 00:11:43,600 --> 00:11:47,280 Speaker 1: World instead of a doctor kidney stone. Like, for one thing, 217 00:11:47,600 --> 00:11:51,640 Speaker 1: the lines for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad are pretty long, 218 00:11:51,679 --> 00:11:54,840 Speaker 1: and I cannot imagine standing in them with any kind 219 00:11:54,920 --> 00:11:59,120 Speaker 1: of like an abdominal discomfort going on, or you know, 220 00:11:59,160 --> 00:12:04,640 Speaker 1: and enhanced necessity to urinate or anything. But how long 221 00:12:04,679 --> 00:12:07,360 Speaker 1: they had the stand in lines total in order to 222 00:12:07,480 --> 00:12:10,240 Speaker 1: run the ride the thirty six times or whatever that 223 00:12:10,280 --> 00:12:12,200 Speaker 1: they were trying to pass the stone? Maybe there's some 224 00:12:12,240 --> 00:12:15,000 Speaker 1: sort of a research based fast pass you can get. 225 00:12:15,760 --> 00:12:17,400 Speaker 1: I'm not sure. I don't know that they mentioned that 226 00:12:17,480 --> 00:12:20,439 Speaker 1: specifically in the study. And then they also point out 227 00:12:20,440 --> 00:12:22,760 Speaker 1: that their other you know, their limitations on the study. 228 00:12:22,800 --> 00:12:26,160 Speaker 1: Obviously they didn't get to use human patients. They use 229 00:12:26,240 --> 00:12:29,560 Speaker 1: these models, But the study is important because kidney stones 230 00:12:30,240 --> 00:12:34,240 Speaker 1: are a legitimate health concern, and I don't think, Yeah, 231 00:12:34,240 --> 00:12:38,640 Speaker 1: even though we're not talking about installing roller coasters in hospitals, 232 00:12:39,440 --> 00:12:41,760 Speaker 1: it does make one think what kind of what kind 233 00:12:41,760 --> 00:12:44,520 Speaker 1: of an apparatus might be appropriate, right, Yeah, I mean 234 00:12:44,559 --> 00:12:47,400 Speaker 1: you could probably just figure out what part of the 235 00:12:47,480 --> 00:12:50,400 Speaker 1: roller coaster rides specifically is the most useful, like what 236 00:12:50,640 --> 00:12:52,920 Speaker 1: you know, kinds of g forces on the body and 237 00:12:53,000 --> 00:12:55,280 Speaker 1: how that's applied, and maybe just like make a chair 238 00:12:55,360 --> 00:12:57,280 Speaker 1: that does it to you or something. Yeah, that's I 239 00:12:57,280 --> 00:13:01,959 Speaker 1: think that's the most logical application that I can imagine, 240 00:13:02,160 --> 00:13:05,560 Speaker 1: short of just actually having a roller coaster at the hospital. 241 00:13:05,720 --> 00:13:09,319 Speaker 1: That's also sounds kind of fun um. But anyway, that's 242 00:13:09,320 --> 00:13:12,560 Speaker 1: why it's important, why it's funny. Obviously, it's science plus 243 00:13:12,679 --> 00:13:16,720 Speaker 1: roller coasters. Anytime that combo was coming at you, it's 244 00:13:16,760 --> 00:13:19,839 Speaker 1: going to elect a few giggles. I think that's a 245 00:13:19,840 --> 00:13:22,160 Speaker 1: pretty good one. Okay, well let's take a quick break, 246 00:13:22,200 --> 00:13:25,319 Speaker 1: and when we come back, we will have more ignobles. 247 00:13:26,280 --> 00:13:30,120 Speaker 1: Thank thank Alright, we're back now. The next one I 248 00:13:30,120 --> 00:13:35,240 Speaker 1: think we should go to is Nutrition Prize. And I 249 00:13:35,320 --> 00:13:38,960 Speaker 1: know what you have all been thinking lately. You've been wondering, 250 00:13:39,440 --> 00:13:42,600 Speaker 1: can I lose weight by converting to a diet consisting 251 00:13:42,679 --> 00:13:46,720 Speaker 1: only of human flesh? The Hannibal diets, the new fad. 252 00:13:46,920 --> 00:13:49,160 Speaker 1: Oh no, Hannibal eats all kinds of other stuff. He 253 00:13:49,160 --> 00:13:51,520 Speaker 1: would have to go like super paleo Hannibal. Well, he 254 00:13:51,600 --> 00:13:54,880 Speaker 1: supplements his diet with human flesh. That's how he stays 255 00:13:54,880 --> 00:13:58,720 Speaker 1: so trim putting like a blueberry reduction balsamic glaze on 256 00:13:58,760 --> 00:14:01,080 Speaker 1: this humane You know how unhealthy all that would be 257 00:14:01,160 --> 00:14:04,440 Speaker 1: if he wasn't throwing in some some lean human flesh 258 00:14:04,480 --> 00:14:07,000 Speaker 1: to just really balance everything out, all right. So this 259 00:14:07,080 --> 00:14:11,120 Speaker 1: prize went to a researcher named James Cole for a 260 00:14:11,200 --> 00:14:16,200 Speaker 1: paper published in Scientific Reports in called Assessing the Caloric 261 00:14:16,280 --> 00:14:20,400 Speaker 1: Significance of Episodes of Human Cannibalism in the Paleolithic. Who 262 00:14:20,440 --> 00:14:23,360 Speaker 1: attended the ceremony is James Cole, the author of this paper. 263 00:14:23,440 --> 00:14:27,680 Speaker 1: So let's say you come across some evidence of humans 264 00:14:27,680 --> 00:14:31,600 Speaker 1: eating other humans, it's reasonable to ask why are they 265 00:14:31,640 --> 00:14:34,120 Speaker 1: doing this? Right? In fact, this is often a question 266 00:14:34,160 --> 00:14:37,160 Speaker 1: we have to ask about the remains of Stone Age 267 00:14:37,240 --> 00:14:41,400 Speaker 1: humans because they're Paleolithic sites, Stone Age sites that show 268 00:14:41,480 --> 00:14:44,920 Speaker 1: clear evidence of human cannibalism at least as far back 269 00:14:44,960 --> 00:14:47,600 Speaker 1: as our hominin relatives in the early place to see 270 00:14:47,600 --> 00:14:50,240 Speaker 1: in roughly two point five million years ago. So I 271 00:14:50,240 --> 00:14:52,160 Speaker 1: guess before we get to the y. Actually, a totally 272 00:14:52,160 --> 00:14:54,880 Speaker 1: reasonable question you might have is, if we're talking about 273 00:14:55,000 --> 00:14:59,600 Speaker 1: hominin remains that are thousands or even millions of years old, 274 00:14:59,760 --> 00:15:03,880 Speaker 1: how can we tell cannibalism took place. It's just bones, right, Like, 275 00:15:03,920 --> 00:15:05,960 Speaker 1: what would the evidence be? Well, there are a couple 276 00:15:05,960 --> 00:15:10,520 Speaker 1: of lines of evidence for cannibalism in the Pleistocene. One 277 00:15:10,800 --> 00:15:15,080 Speaker 1: is anthropogenic modification of human remains. That's the like polite 278 00:15:15,080 --> 00:15:19,680 Speaker 1: sciencey way to talk about signs of butchering on human bones. 279 00:15:20,280 --> 00:15:23,720 Speaker 1: So clear human made changes to the bones of other humans, 280 00:15:23,720 --> 00:15:25,920 Speaker 1: and these would be the same kinds of physical marks 281 00:15:25,960 --> 00:15:28,520 Speaker 1: that we would find left on the bones of what 282 00:15:28,600 --> 00:15:32,520 Speaker 1: are considered prey animals. Signs of butchering, cooking, and eating. 283 00:15:32,560 --> 00:15:35,880 Speaker 1: And examples would include cuts and chop marks in the 284 00:15:35,920 --> 00:15:38,200 Speaker 1: bone from the butchering process, like they might have been 285 00:15:38,240 --> 00:15:42,320 Speaker 1: made with sharp stone tools, breaks in the long bones, 286 00:15:42,360 --> 00:15:45,400 Speaker 1: which would be presumably to access the marrow, because that's 287 00:15:45,440 --> 00:15:49,440 Speaker 1: the good part. Evidence of cooking, such as burned ends 288 00:15:49,520 --> 00:15:53,240 Speaker 1: of a bone, human tooth marks on a bone, quote, 289 00:15:53,640 --> 00:15:56,520 Speaker 1: lack of a cranial base to get at the brain 290 00:15:57,040 --> 00:16:00,840 Speaker 1: on otherwise complete or near complete skeleton. Well you gotta 291 00:16:00,880 --> 00:16:05,680 Speaker 1: suck the head. I mean, anybody who's like crayfish or 292 00:16:05,920 --> 00:16:08,600 Speaker 1: swamp bugs if you want to call them. So, I'm sorry, 293 00:16:08,640 --> 00:16:12,280 Speaker 1: I said crayfish crawdads is the correct terms that I'm 294 00:16:12,320 --> 00:16:14,120 Speaker 1: gonna go with. Crawdads. I have to admit I'm a 295 00:16:14,160 --> 00:16:18,200 Speaker 1: little hazy. I do like swamp bugs as a as 296 00:16:18,240 --> 00:16:21,200 Speaker 1: a kind of Cajun description though right, well, they're they 297 00:16:21,200 --> 00:16:23,600 Speaker 1: are quite bug like, but they have delicious heads, and 298 00:16:23,640 --> 00:16:25,560 Speaker 1: so a lot of people just eat the tails, but 299 00:16:25,640 --> 00:16:27,640 Speaker 1: people who know what's up also take the what would 300 00:16:27,640 --> 00:16:29,680 Speaker 1: you call it this guess this is the thoracic cavity 301 00:16:29,760 --> 00:16:31,800 Speaker 1: with the head there, and they just suck all the 302 00:16:31,880 --> 00:16:34,840 Speaker 1: fat and juices and guts out of it, get those 303 00:16:34,880 --> 00:16:39,680 Speaker 1: good tasty brains and uh so, yeah, there apparently there's 304 00:16:39,680 --> 00:16:42,720 Speaker 1: some nutritional value in the brains that some people might 305 00:16:42,760 --> 00:16:45,080 Speaker 1: want to get. But there's also the idea and that 306 00:16:45,240 --> 00:16:49,760 Speaker 1: sometimes modification of the skull is done for some kind 307 00:16:49,800 --> 00:16:53,360 Speaker 1: of other purpose, not just purely accessing nutrition, but like 308 00:16:53,400 --> 00:16:58,400 Speaker 1: the creation of skull cups, making skulls into like eating 309 00:16:58,480 --> 00:17:01,240 Speaker 1: or drinking vessels. Yeah. I mean, we've we've seen more 310 00:17:01,280 --> 00:17:04,600 Speaker 1: recent examples of this in Tibetan customs, for instance. Yeah. 311 00:17:05,119 --> 00:17:07,879 Speaker 1: Uh So, another thing that Cole mentions is like a 312 00:17:07,880 --> 00:17:11,639 Speaker 1: physical sign of cannibalism in ancient human rains or ancient 313 00:17:11,680 --> 00:17:15,280 Speaker 1: hominin remains, not necessarily just holmo sapiens uh is quote, 314 00:17:15,280 --> 00:17:19,040 Speaker 1: the virtual absence of vertebrae due to crushing or boiling 315 00:17:19,119 --> 00:17:21,560 Speaker 1: to get it bone marrow and grease, so like maybe 316 00:17:21,560 --> 00:17:23,480 Speaker 1: you want to get that good spinal cord, you're gonna 317 00:17:23,520 --> 00:17:25,920 Speaker 1: have the vertebrae kind of coming apart. It's like eating 318 00:17:25,960 --> 00:17:30,760 Speaker 1: crab legs. Yeah, and then tool scrapes on the bones, 319 00:17:30,880 --> 00:17:33,239 Speaker 1: which there could be scrapes on the bones related to 320 00:17:33,520 --> 00:17:35,720 Speaker 1: butchering and accessing of meat, but there could also be 321 00:17:35,760 --> 00:17:40,199 Speaker 1: scrapes on the bones for ritualistic or symbolic purposes. On 322 00:17:40,280 --> 00:17:44,080 Speaker 1: top of that, there's some interesting genetic evidence of cannibalism 323 00:17:44,240 --> 00:17:47,760 Speaker 1: in the in the world. In the prehistoric world, for example, 324 00:17:47,800 --> 00:17:52,240 Speaker 1: there are diseases known as transmissible sponge iform and cephalopath 325 00:17:52,240 --> 00:17:54,880 Speaker 1: ease or t s S, and examples of this would 326 00:17:54,920 --> 00:17:58,480 Speaker 1: include CURU or kreuz feld Yakob disease. And these are 327 00:17:58,800 --> 00:18:03,040 Speaker 1: prion diseases or pre on diseases that cause degeneration of 328 00:18:03,160 --> 00:18:06,920 Speaker 1: brain tissue and can be acquired often through cannibalism. When 329 00:18:06,920 --> 00:18:09,080 Speaker 1: you might have heard of is kuru. The members of 330 00:18:09,119 --> 00:18:11,960 Speaker 1: the for A linguistic group in Papua New Guinea have 331 00:18:12,080 --> 00:18:14,840 Speaker 1: often been exposed to the t SC known as kuru 332 00:18:15,000 --> 00:18:18,560 Speaker 1: because of their practice of ritual Indo cannibalism. For religious 333 00:18:18,560 --> 00:18:21,760 Speaker 1: and cultural reasons. Yeah, and a lot of these ideas, um, 334 00:18:21,800 --> 00:18:24,800 Speaker 1: you know, they have to do with the passing on 335 00:18:25,320 --> 00:18:29,199 Speaker 1: of a departed individual, parted family member, like and you 336 00:18:29,280 --> 00:18:32,320 Speaker 1: consume some of their flesh and it's like their spirit 337 00:18:32,359 --> 00:18:35,240 Speaker 1: lives on through you, that sort of thing, exactly. H 338 00:18:35,320 --> 00:18:38,600 Speaker 1: And So an interesting thing is that there are worldwide 339 00:18:38,640 --> 00:18:42,920 Speaker 1: patterns of genes we find that seem to indicate our 340 00:18:43,040 --> 00:18:48,639 Speaker 1: species genetic history sometimes favored in the past adaptation for 341 00:18:48,840 --> 00:18:52,560 Speaker 1: resistance to T S S, for example meat at all. 342 00:18:52,680 --> 00:18:55,840 Speaker 1: In a two thousand three paper, and Science wrote, quote 343 00:18:55,840 --> 00:19:00,640 Speaker 1: heterozygosity for common polymorphism in the human pre on protein 344 00:19:00,720 --> 00:19:05,719 Speaker 1: gene p r n P confers relative resistance to prion diseases, 345 00:19:05,800 --> 00:19:09,120 Speaker 1: and then later they're write worldwide p r np haplotype 346 00:19:09,160 --> 00:19:13,840 Speaker 1: diversity encoding alleal frequencies suggest the strong balancing selection at 347 00:19:13,840 --> 00:19:17,119 Speaker 1: this locust occurred during the evolution of modern humans. So 348 00:19:17,200 --> 00:19:20,680 Speaker 1: the authors argued that the patterns of genetic resistance to 349 00:19:20,800 --> 00:19:23,320 Speaker 1: T S c S that we see in human populations 350 00:19:23,600 --> 00:19:27,680 Speaker 1: indicate that something in our evolutionary history favored people who 351 00:19:27,680 --> 00:19:31,400 Speaker 1: could cannibalize, who could eat human flesh without contracting fatal 352 00:19:31,520 --> 00:19:34,639 Speaker 1: encephalopath ez, this is a fun paper thus far. This 353 00:19:34,760 --> 00:19:37,680 Speaker 1: really it's kind of a nice follow up to our 354 00:19:37,720 --> 00:19:41,879 Speaker 1: ghoul episode, the delta impart with you know, with the 355 00:19:42,000 --> 00:19:45,440 Speaker 1: question you know what about the consumption of human corpses 356 00:19:45,480 --> 00:19:49,159 Speaker 1: in in in our in our past, and in our biology. 357 00:19:49,240 --> 00:19:51,240 Speaker 1: It is an interesting subject. In fact, I'm not even 358 00:19:51,320 --> 00:19:53,280 Speaker 1: really getting deep into the paper yet. I'm just I'm 359 00:19:53,320 --> 00:19:54,960 Speaker 1: just setting it up, so it's going to really get 360 00:19:54,960 --> 00:19:57,440 Speaker 1: going in a second, okay. Like, first of all, their 361 00:19:57,480 --> 00:20:01,080 Speaker 1: disputes about whether individual sites actually do show evidence of 362 00:20:01,080 --> 00:20:04,879 Speaker 1: cannibalism rather than some other form of manipulation of the dead, 363 00:20:04,960 --> 00:20:08,399 Speaker 1: like you could have had maybe ritualistic de fleshing of 364 00:20:08,440 --> 00:20:10,840 Speaker 1: the dead without eating. Maybe for some reason they wanted 365 00:20:10,920 --> 00:20:13,080 Speaker 1: to get the meat off the bones of a dead person, 366 00:20:13,160 --> 00:20:15,560 Speaker 1: but not not eat it. Well, like one example that 367 00:20:15,600 --> 00:20:17,760 Speaker 1: comes to mind, to come back to Tibet, the practice 368 00:20:17,800 --> 00:20:20,320 Speaker 1: of sky burial, the breaking down of a corpse so 369 00:20:20,400 --> 00:20:25,240 Speaker 1: that they flesh may be consumed by sacred animals. Uh Like, 370 00:20:25,320 --> 00:20:27,760 Speaker 1: if you were just looking at the forensic evidence of that, 371 00:20:27,840 --> 00:20:30,479 Speaker 1: you might say, oh, well, clearly this person was butchered 372 00:20:30,480 --> 00:20:33,040 Speaker 1: and eating, because essentially it is butchery, but it is 373 00:20:33,080 --> 00:20:36,920 Speaker 1: not for cannibalism, but whether or not it happened in 374 00:20:36,920 --> 00:20:39,840 Speaker 1: individual cases, it at least does appear to be something 375 00:20:39,880 --> 00:20:42,000 Speaker 1: that happened enough for us to have records of it. 376 00:20:42,160 --> 00:20:46,840 Speaker 1: Sometimes prehistoric humans and other related hominins were eating each 377 00:20:46,840 --> 00:20:49,040 Speaker 1: other at least often enough for us to have some 378 00:20:49,160 --> 00:20:52,200 Speaker 1: archaeological record of it. So back to the original question, 379 00:20:52,240 --> 00:20:55,480 Speaker 1: the question of why why were these ancient humans and 380 00:20:55,520 --> 00:20:58,800 Speaker 1: other hominin relatives eating each other? Coal notes that there 381 00:20:58,840 --> 00:21:02,800 Speaker 1: are multiple document and motivations for human cannibalism. So several 382 00:21:02,840 --> 00:21:05,560 Speaker 1: of these would be like survival cannibalism. That's when you're 383 00:21:05,560 --> 00:21:07,920 Speaker 1: not normally a cannibal, but you're about to starve to death, 384 00:21:07,960 --> 00:21:10,399 Speaker 1: so you eat somebody. Right. This is essentially with the 385 00:21:10,440 --> 00:21:14,680 Speaker 1: touch of the wind to go in in the folklore 386 00:21:14,680 --> 00:21:17,320 Speaker 1: of native people's in the America's gets that the idea 387 00:21:17,400 --> 00:21:20,240 Speaker 1: that is forced to uh, you may have to enact 388 00:21:20,240 --> 00:21:23,560 Speaker 1: cannibal cannibalism, right. And then there is of course psychotic 389 00:21:23,640 --> 00:21:26,920 Speaker 1: or criminal cannibalism, and aggressive cannibalism. These would be various 390 00:21:26,960 --> 00:21:31,520 Speaker 1: types of cannibalism that is some sort of like aggressive symbology, 391 00:21:31,720 --> 00:21:35,399 Speaker 1: like warfare cannibalism. You you know, not only defeat your enemies, 392 00:21:35,400 --> 00:21:37,760 Speaker 1: but you defeat them so totally that you feel you 393 00:21:37,760 --> 00:21:40,480 Speaker 1: should eat them. There is, of course, as we've pointed out, 394 00:21:40,680 --> 00:21:45,040 Speaker 1: spiritual a ritual cannibalism, and then there is gastronomic or 395 00:21:45,119 --> 00:21:49,480 Speaker 1: dietary cannibalism, nutritional cannibalism. Basically like this is part of 396 00:21:49,480 --> 00:21:51,920 Speaker 1: your diet and you're eating it because it's meat. Yeah, 397 00:21:51,960 --> 00:21:54,200 Speaker 1: it's kind of like that list the old school cannibalism. 398 00:21:54,240 --> 00:21:56,920 Speaker 1: This is more in line with the biological cannibalism that 399 00:21:56,960 --> 00:21:59,800 Speaker 1: we've discussed in the show before, right, of other organisms. 400 00:22:00,040 --> 00:22:02,480 Speaker 1: Uh uh, yeah, there's that. And then also he points 401 00:22:02,480 --> 00:22:04,720 Speaker 1: out a good a good category that often gets left 402 00:22:04,720 --> 00:22:08,040 Speaker 1: out medicinal cannibalism. Right, sometimes you might want to eat 403 00:22:08,040 --> 00:22:12,479 Speaker 1: another human because you think it does something kind of 404 00:22:12,480 --> 00:22:16,399 Speaker 1: a vampiric cannibalism. Could the flesh of the young and 405 00:22:16,440 --> 00:22:19,520 Speaker 1: you shall feel better wise one, Yeah, something like that. 406 00:22:19,760 --> 00:22:22,600 Speaker 1: So a couple of other relevant categories. Just to mention 407 00:22:22,720 --> 00:22:26,320 Speaker 1: is that there's the idea of exo cannibalism versus indo cannibalism. 408 00:22:26,320 --> 00:22:29,479 Speaker 1: Exo cannibalism would be humans eating humans who were not 409 00:22:29,640 --> 00:22:32,640 Speaker 1: part of the in group, for example, eating rivals killed 410 00:22:32,640 --> 00:22:35,720 Speaker 1: in war. And then there's indo cannibalism, which is eating 411 00:22:35,800 --> 00:22:38,480 Speaker 1: humans who were part of your in group, for example, 412 00:22:38,560 --> 00:22:42,399 Speaker 1: ritualistically eating one's own family members for religious reasons. Right, 413 00:22:42,480 --> 00:22:43,959 Speaker 1: and you can sort of divide these up two has 414 00:22:44,000 --> 00:22:48,919 Speaker 1: been into categories of nice cannibalism and mean cannibalism. Right, So, 415 00:22:49,040 --> 00:22:52,280 Speaker 1: the majorities of studies of paleolithic cannibal sites have tended 416 00:22:52,320 --> 00:22:57,000 Speaker 1: to deposit, Cole says, a nutritional motivation for the cannibalism, 417 00:22:57,400 --> 00:23:00,399 Speaker 1: while a smaller number have positive religious rich rules or 418 00:23:00,440 --> 00:23:04,320 Speaker 1: aggressive cannibalism associated with warfare. And Cole points out that 419 00:23:04,359 --> 00:23:08,840 Speaker 1: there's some confusing things about the ways these motivational labels 420 00:23:08,840 --> 00:23:12,679 Speaker 1: are applied to instances of cannibalism from prehistoric times. And 421 00:23:12,720 --> 00:23:15,000 Speaker 1: so to help refine the discussion about the types of 422 00:23:15,040 --> 00:23:18,480 Speaker 1: cannibalism and the role of raw nutrition in motivating prehistoric 423 00:23:18,560 --> 00:23:22,679 Speaker 1: cannibalistic episodes, Cole said, basically, hey, wouldn't it help to 424 00:23:22,720 --> 00:23:27,160 Speaker 1: know exactly how nutritious a paleolithic human was? That could 425 00:23:27,240 --> 00:23:30,360 Speaker 1: sort of help us better understand whether these are purely 426 00:23:30,680 --> 00:23:33,840 Speaker 1: nutrition seeking events or whether there's some other kind of 427 00:23:33,880 --> 00:23:36,439 Speaker 1: significance to them. Right. So, ultimately the goal of this 428 00:23:36,480 --> 00:23:39,719 Speaker 1: paper was to construct an informed estimate on the nutritional 429 00:23:39,800 --> 00:23:44,120 Speaker 1: value of a human. First question, has anybody ever done 430 00:23:44,160 --> 00:23:46,800 Speaker 1: that before? Cole says, yes, it has been done that 431 00:23:46,880 --> 00:23:49,119 Speaker 1: it was just sort of in a short letter to 432 00:23:49,240 --> 00:23:52,840 Speaker 1: American Anthropologist in the year nineteen seventy, and their methodology 433 00:23:52,880 --> 00:23:55,200 Speaker 1: for how they came up with their number was not clear, 434 00:23:55,359 --> 00:23:59,040 Speaker 1: But in nineteen seventy Stanley M. Garn and Walter D. 435 00:23:59,200 --> 00:24:03,239 Speaker 1: Block wrote quote the limited nutritional Value of Cannibalism. In 436 00:24:03,280 --> 00:24:06,679 Speaker 1: this short letter to American Anthropologist, garn and Block claimed 437 00:24:06,720 --> 00:24:09,639 Speaker 1: that an adult male weighing fifty kilograms or about a 438 00:24:09,680 --> 00:24:12,680 Speaker 1: hundred and ten pounds, which is a reasonable estimate of 439 00:24:12,720 --> 00:24:15,280 Speaker 1: the body mass of a stone age human, would yield 440 00:24:15,320 --> 00:24:19,280 Speaker 1: about thirty kilograms or sixty six pounds of edible skeletal 441 00:24:19,359 --> 00:24:22,560 Speaker 1: muscle mass, and nutritionally, that breaks dound about four point 442 00:24:22,560 --> 00:24:26,800 Speaker 1: five kilograms of protein and about eighteen thousand calories. So 443 00:24:26,840 --> 00:24:29,320 Speaker 1: based on this, garn and Block said that if human 444 00:24:29,520 --> 00:24:31,800 Speaker 1: is your only source of protein, that's the only meat 445 00:24:31,800 --> 00:24:34,879 Speaker 1: you're eating and the only real protein you're getting. A 446 00:24:34,920 --> 00:24:38,000 Speaker 1: group of sixty people would need to eat a person 447 00:24:38,160 --> 00:24:41,000 Speaker 1: every day in order to get enough protein to have 448 00:24:41,040 --> 00:24:43,920 Speaker 1: a healthy diet. Uh. And if it were rationed out, 449 00:24:43,960 --> 00:24:45,919 Speaker 1: so you've got less out to a diet of like 450 00:24:46,119 --> 00:24:49,560 Speaker 1: one human per week shared between sixty people, the group 451 00:24:49,600 --> 00:24:52,320 Speaker 1: would not be getting nearly enough protein. So, based on 452 00:24:52,359 --> 00:24:55,600 Speaker 1: this garn and Block conclude quote, the nutritional value of 453 00:24:55,640 --> 00:24:59,160 Speaker 1: cannibalism may therefore be viewed as questionable unless a group 454 00:24:59,200 --> 00:25:02,160 Speaker 1: is in a position consume its own number in a year. 455 00:25:02,520 --> 00:25:04,960 Speaker 1: So basically you'd have to be eating a lot of humans. 456 00:25:05,359 --> 00:25:07,640 Speaker 1: All right, Well, you know, I really want to see 457 00:25:07,680 --> 00:25:12,280 Speaker 1: these numbers broken down and compared to the Chainsaw family 458 00:25:12,320 --> 00:25:16,359 Speaker 1: and the Texas Chainsaw massacre, Right, is that nutritional cannibalism? Well, 459 00:25:16,400 --> 00:25:18,680 Speaker 1: I don't. I feel like it's a mix of nutritional 460 00:25:18,800 --> 00:25:22,200 Speaker 1: and commercial because there are four individuals in the family 461 00:25:22,560 --> 00:25:25,919 Speaker 1: and obviously they need the protein. Uh, it's commercial. This 462 00:25:26,000 --> 00:25:28,120 Speaker 1: is not taken into account at all. I know, because 463 00:25:28,119 --> 00:25:30,760 Speaker 1: they're running the barbecue restaurant on the side, and as 464 00:25:30,800 --> 00:25:33,080 Speaker 1: we find out in Texas Chainsaw Masacre to they're they're 465 00:25:33,080 --> 00:25:38,400 Speaker 1: winning awards at regional barbecue competitions. This is prestige cannibalism. Yes. 466 00:25:40,119 --> 00:25:43,960 Speaker 1: Uh So to follow up on Garden Block coal asks, Okay, 467 00:25:44,000 --> 00:25:46,520 Speaker 1: is their estimate correct. They don't say how they got 468 00:25:46,560 --> 00:25:48,600 Speaker 1: to these numbers. And to figure that out, Coal did 469 00:25:48,600 --> 00:25:51,840 Speaker 1: a review of the existing literature on the chemical composition 470 00:25:51,880 --> 00:25:54,600 Speaker 1: of the human body, relying on three studies from the 471 00:25:54,680 --> 00:25:57,600 Speaker 1: Journal of Biological Chemistry in the middle of the twentieth century, 472 00:25:57,760 --> 00:26:01,399 Speaker 1: which were drawn from analysis of four alt human males. 473 00:26:01,440 --> 00:26:05,480 Speaker 1: So how much nutrition is there per kilogram of muscle 474 00:26:05,560 --> 00:26:09,159 Speaker 1: mass on a human? Well, this data yielded an average 475 00:26:09,240 --> 00:26:13,119 Speaker 1: of nineteen thousand, nine hundred and fifty one calory calories 476 00:26:13,200 --> 00:26:17,280 Speaker 1: per twenty four point nine kilograms of muscle mass. So 477 00:26:17,560 --> 00:26:20,640 Speaker 1: garden Block weren't all that far off by estimating eighteen 478 00:26:20,640 --> 00:26:24,560 Speaker 1: thousand calories in thirty ms of muscle. And so there's 479 00:26:24,680 --> 00:26:27,000 Speaker 1: and then Coal comes up with some estimates of the 480 00:26:27,080 --> 00:26:30,520 Speaker 1: nutritional value of the protein and fat on a human. 481 00:26:30,600 --> 00:26:32,960 Speaker 1: I think this is supposed to be for a roughly 482 00:26:32,960 --> 00:26:36,320 Speaker 1: a hundred and forty five pound human male, So total 483 00:26:36,359 --> 00:26:39,920 Speaker 1: body there would be about a hundred and forty three thousand, 484 00:26:40,000 --> 00:26:42,960 Speaker 1: seven hundred and seventy one calories. And it's got a 485 00:26:43,000 --> 00:26:45,960 Speaker 1: breakdown by body parts, right, so like the body parts 486 00:26:46,080 --> 00:26:50,680 Speaker 1: reasonably expected to be consumed based on ethnographic studies of cannibalism, 487 00:26:50,760 --> 00:26:53,879 Speaker 1: so not eating stuff like teeth and nerve tissue. That 488 00:26:53,880 --> 00:26:56,520 Speaker 1: would leave you with about a hundred and twenty five thousand, 489 00:26:56,680 --> 00:26:59,480 Speaker 1: eight hundred and twenty two calories. And there is this 490 00:26:59,560 --> 00:27:02,919 Speaker 1: wonder full table in the paper where the body is 491 00:27:02,960 --> 00:27:06,000 Speaker 1: broken down into parts based on their nutritional value. So 492 00:27:06,080 --> 00:27:09,480 Speaker 1: the heart it's about six hundred and fifty calories, the brain, 493 00:27:09,680 --> 00:27:13,760 Speaker 1: spinal cord, and nerve trunks about undred calories, the four 494 00:27:13,920 --> 00:27:16,679 Speaker 1: arms one thousand, six hundred and sixty four calories. I'm 495 00:27:16,680 --> 00:27:18,679 Speaker 1: assuming this is not for a popeye, but just like 496 00:27:18,720 --> 00:27:21,480 Speaker 1: regular forearms. Now that hard, that's that's some that's some 497 00:27:21,520 --> 00:27:23,600 Speaker 1: good calories there. But that's some tough eating. That's some 498 00:27:23,680 --> 00:27:26,040 Speaker 1: tough tissue. Oh yeah, I think you've got to You've 499 00:27:26,040 --> 00:27:28,160 Speaker 1: gotta make a stew with that. Well. Yeah, So part 500 00:27:28,200 --> 00:27:30,080 Speaker 1: of the one of the caveats, and I'll get into 501 00:27:30,080 --> 00:27:31,600 Speaker 1: the caveats in a minute here, but one of the 502 00:27:31,600 --> 00:27:33,720 Speaker 1: caveats is that this is just for raw meat. It 503 00:27:33,880 --> 00:27:37,439 Speaker 1: it can't take into account how the nutritional value of 504 00:27:37,440 --> 00:27:40,160 Speaker 1: these things change when cooked. But we have discussed before 505 00:27:40,200 --> 00:27:44,800 Speaker 1: how cooking is thought to significantly increase the caloric value 506 00:27:44,880 --> 00:27:47,200 Speaker 1: or nutritional value of a lot of foods. Things that 507 00:27:47,240 --> 00:27:51,360 Speaker 1: cannot otherwise be digested can be digested after being cooked exactly. 508 00:27:51,680 --> 00:27:54,240 Speaker 1: So I wanted to come up with some comparisons, not 509 00:27:54,320 --> 00:27:57,640 Speaker 1: analyzing protein ratios or anything, but just purely in terms 510 00:27:57,680 --> 00:28:01,439 Speaker 1: of raw calories. I worked out that on this number 511 00:28:01,520 --> 00:28:04,879 Speaker 1: with the with the edible part being about a hundred 512 00:28:04,920 --> 00:28:07,800 Speaker 1: eight hundred and twenty two calories, human body is worth 513 00:28:07,840 --> 00:28:11,520 Speaker 1: about a hundred and thirty two Windy's bacon eaders. Now, 514 00:28:11,520 --> 00:28:13,679 Speaker 1: what's a bacon eater. A bacon eader is a Windy 515 00:28:13,800 --> 00:28:16,879 Speaker 1: sandwich that has a bunch of bacon and cheese on it. Okay, 516 00:28:16,880 --> 00:28:19,880 Speaker 1: so it's like a bacon cheese barker. Yes, basically, it's 517 00:28:19,960 --> 00:28:21,919 Speaker 1: like that there. I think they make a big deal 518 00:28:21,960 --> 00:28:23,840 Speaker 1: about how like we don't put any lettuce on this. 519 00:28:24,400 --> 00:28:26,520 Speaker 1: You know, this is just bacon and cheese. It's one 520 00:28:26,560 --> 00:28:30,920 Speaker 1: of those sandwiches that uses kind of crass masculinity marketing. 521 00:28:31,240 --> 00:28:34,440 Speaker 1: It's kind of sandwich for men, like the double down 522 00:28:34,520 --> 00:28:37,000 Speaker 1: sort of that kind of thing. Yeah, so it's like 523 00:28:37,600 --> 00:28:39,720 Speaker 1: that human body is worth about a hundred and thirty 524 00:28:39,720 --> 00:28:42,560 Speaker 1: two Windy's bacon eaters. Or I've got another one here 525 00:28:42,680 --> 00:28:45,400 Speaker 1: about two hundred and ninety three slices of pizza Hut 526 00:28:45,440 --> 00:28:48,760 Speaker 1: Meat Lover's large original stuffed crust pizza. All right, well, 527 00:28:48,800 --> 00:28:50,720 Speaker 1: that's that's quite a lot of pizza. Well, I mean, 528 00:28:50,760 --> 00:28:53,840 Speaker 1: a human body is somewhat nutritious, though I did I 529 00:28:53,840 --> 00:28:56,280 Speaker 1: want to say I arrived at those numbers using those 530 00:28:56,320 --> 00:29:00,440 Speaker 1: restaurants online nutrition calculators. Those numbers could be they could 531 00:29:00,480 --> 00:29:04,840 Speaker 1: be massively under shooting the glories in an average baconator. Now, 532 00:29:04,920 --> 00:29:07,240 Speaker 1: obviously there are gonna be some caveats in this type 533 00:29:07,280 --> 00:29:09,040 Speaker 1: of because this is just coming up with some very 534 00:29:09,080 --> 00:29:12,880 Speaker 1: broad est so some major caveats coal mentions. He says 535 00:29:13,200 --> 00:29:15,480 Speaker 1: the data he used to arrive at his estimates were 536 00:29:15,520 --> 00:29:18,880 Speaker 1: only based on adult males in the twentieth century, and 537 00:29:18,920 --> 00:29:21,000 Speaker 1: he's got a great sense of humor when he writes this, 538 00:29:21,080 --> 00:29:24,960 Speaker 1: so quote. Ideally, nutritional templates for females and a range 539 00:29:24,960 --> 00:29:27,920 Speaker 1: of ages would be constructed to represent the full nutritional 540 00:29:27,960 --> 00:29:31,960 Speaker 1: potential of hominin social groups. However, data for females and 541 00:29:32,000 --> 00:29:34,920 Speaker 1: subadults are not available within the published literature, and the 542 00:29:34,920 --> 00:29:38,720 Speaker 1: collection of primary data of this nature was outside the 543 00:29:38,760 --> 00:29:42,440 Speaker 1: ethical and legal scope of this study. Uh. He also 544 00:29:42,480 --> 00:29:47,360 Speaker 1: says that the data only pertains to basically anatomically modern humans. 545 00:29:47,360 --> 00:29:50,000 Speaker 1: It's not known how different the nutritional value of other 546 00:29:50,040 --> 00:29:53,920 Speaker 1: species like Neanderthals or Homo erectus might be. Also, the 547 00:29:53,960 --> 00:29:56,640 Speaker 1: average values here are drawn from a small sample size. 548 00:29:56,680 --> 00:29:59,120 Speaker 1: Better estimates could be drawn if you had more humans 549 00:29:59,160 --> 00:30:02,920 Speaker 1: to measure the neutra rational value of Also, these values 550 00:30:03,040 --> 00:30:05,720 Speaker 1: are of the nutritional value of raw me. Like we said, 551 00:30:05,760 --> 00:30:08,960 Speaker 1: cooking might change things. So after that coal also does 552 00:30:09,040 --> 00:30:11,960 Speaker 1: some estimates of the nutritional yield for body mass at 553 00:30:12,160 --> 00:30:16,520 Speaker 1: different Paleolithic cannibalism sites found by archaeologists. So you've got 554 00:30:16,560 --> 00:30:18,960 Speaker 1: a Stone Age cannibalism site and you look at okay, 555 00:30:19,000 --> 00:30:21,840 Speaker 1: what were the different people here that apparently got eaten? 556 00:30:22,160 --> 00:30:24,440 Speaker 1: And so he like tries to add up how much 557 00:30:24,600 --> 00:30:29,600 Speaker 1: body mass calorie value was was being served at this site. Uh, 558 00:30:29,640 --> 00:30:32,120 Speaker 1: and so how so the question he asks is how 559 00:30:32,160 --> 00:30:34,920 Speaker 1: do you humans stack up against other meat sources of 560 00:30:34,920 --> 00:30:39,040 Speaker 1: the Paleolithic quote when compared to most other fauna, human 561 00:30:39,080 --> 00:30:42,800 Speaker 1: skeletal muscle has a nutritional value broadly in line with 562 00:30:42,880 --> 00:30:46,680 Speaker 1: those that match our size and weight, but produced significantly 563 00:30:46,720 --> 00:30:50,960 Speaker 1: fewer calories than most of the larger fauna such as mammoth, 564 00:30:51,040 --> 00:30:54,480 Speaker 1: wooly rhino, or deer species known to have been regularly 565 00:30:54,520 --> 00:30:59,200 Speaker 1: consumed by past hominins, So they're better meals around. Yeah, exactly. So, 566 00:30:59,240 --> 00:31:02,040 Speaker 1: while you could get decent nutrition from a human body, 567 00:31:02,360 --> 00:31:04,800 Speaker 1: Cole argues that it would be much more worthwhile to 568 00:31:04,880 --> 00:31:07,640 Speaker 1: simply hunt the same large fauna of the time that 569 00:31:07,720 --> 00:31:13,240 Speaker 1: you would normally be hunting mammoth, Rhinoceros RX, bison, cow, bear, horse, 570 00:31:13,320 --> 00:31:16,320 Speaker 1: giant deer, all this stuff. So hunting and killing a 571 00:31:16,400 --> 00:31:18,920 Speaker 1: human for meat has a kind of wonky risk to 572 00:31:19,040 --> 00:31:21,880 Speaker 1: reward ratio because, you know, he points out that humans 573 00:31:21,880 --> 00:31:24,400 Speaker 1: are crafty and sometimes they can fight back in clever 574 00:31:24,480 --> 00:31:28,760 Speaker 1: and dangerous ways. Is it really worth hunting humans provided 575 00:31:28,800 --> 00:31:31,720 Speaker 1: that they're going to give you relatively low amounts of 576 00:31:31,800 --> 00:31:35,719 Speaker 1: nutrition compared to these big, fat, bulky animals that are 577 00:31:35,760 --> 00:31:40,280 Speaker 1: also probably easier to hunt. So Cole asks were hominins 578 00:31:40,360 --> 00:31:44,360 Speaker 1: actively hunted by members of their own species in prehistoric times? Uh? 579 00:31:44,400 --> 00:31:47,719 Speaker 1: He says quote active hunting raises the interesting question of 580 00:31:47,720 --> 00:31:52,520 Speaker 1: whether the relatively low calorific return for hominins would justify 581 00:31:52,640 --> 00:31:56,320 Speaker 1: the energy expenditure in hunting an individual or group. If 582 00:31:56,360 --> 00:32:01,000 Speaker 1: the motivation was driven was driven purely by balancing energy quotions. 583 00:32:01,320 --> 00:32:03,600 Speaker 1: It is suggested here that this would not be the 584 00:32:03,640 --> 00:32:07,560 Speaker 1: case when a single large fauna individual returns many more 585 00:32:07,600 --> 00:32:11,360 Speaker 1: calories without the difficulties of hunting groups of hominins that 586 00:32:11,440 --> 00:32:14,680 Speaker 1: were as intelligent and resourceful as the hunters in their 587 00:32:14,720 --> 00:32:18,840 Speaker 1: ability to fight back and evade pursuit. So now he said, 588 00:32:18,920 --> 00:32:21,840 Speaker 1: you know, we have these instances of what looks like 589 00:32:22,000 --> 00:32:26,800 Speaker 1: prehistoric cannibalism among hominins, but it just doesn't seem like 590 00:32:26,880 --> 00:32:30,360 Speaker 1: that is a very smart strategy for getting meat generally. 591 00:32:30,680 --> 00:32:33,000 Speaker 1: So what what's going on here? Why do we see 592 00:32:33,000 --> 00:32:36,440 Speaker 1: this cannibalism? And he hypothesizes, well, maybe there are cases 593 00:32:36,480 --> 00:32:41,360 Speaker 1: of occasional opportunistic nutritional cannibalism. For example, we're pretty hungry 594 00:32:41,400 --> 00:32:44,000 Speaker 1: and a member of our group just died of natural causes, 595 00:32:44,720 --> 00:32:47,000 Speaker 1: right or or certainly to go back to the warfare, 596 00:32:47,080 --> 00:32:48,760 Speaker 1: and now ities like you get into some sort of 597 00:32:49,640 --> 00:32:55,320 Speaker 1: uh an altercation with a rival group, perhaps over access 598 00:32:55,400 --> 00:32:58,640 Speaker 1: to fauna to fauna, and then well, I need meat. 599 00:32:58,680 --> 00:33:01,480 Speaker 1: I was hunting this thing, but I just bashed the 600 00:33:01,520 --> 00:33:04,280 Speaker 1: skull in of this guy, who, granted looks a lot 601 00:33:04,360 --> 00:33:07,320 Speaker 1: like me. But is made of meat, right, So yeah, 602 00:33:07,320 --> 00:33:11,680 Speaker 1: it could be sort of occasional opportunistic cannibalism. But then 603 00:33:11,760 --> 00:33:15,360 Speaker 1: Cole also says that quote the motivations for cannibalistic episodes 604 00:33:15,920 --> 00:33:20,760 Speaker 1: lay within complex cultural systems involving both intra and intergroup 605 00:33:20,880 --> 00:33:24,200 Speaker 1: dynamics and competition. Essentially, he's saying he thinks a very 606 00:33:24,280 --> 00:33:27,560 Speaker 1: likely explanation for a lot of these cannibalistic episodes has 607 00:33:27,640 --> 00:33:30,719 Speaker 1: something to do with prehistoric culture, which we don't know 608 00:33:30,760 --> 00:33:34,320 Speaker 1: a lot about. But it could involve uh, religious uses, 609 00:33:34,440 --> 00:33:38,680 Speaker 1: ritual uses, medicinal uses, things people believed there to be 610 00:33:39,400 --> 00:33:42,240 Speaker 1: reasons to eat other humans that went beyond just the 611 00:33:42,320 --> 00:33:45,120 Speaker 1: nutritional value. I mean, it is very difficult to put 612 00:33:45,120 --> 00:33:49,160 Speaker 1: ourselves to attempt to put ourselves in the mindset of 613 00:33:49,160 --> 00:33:51,840 Speaker 1: of such cultures. Yeah, and we don't know what they were. 614 00:33:51,880 --> 00:33:54,560 Speaker 1: I mean, that's one of the fascinating things. They're interesting 615 00:33:54,600 --> 00:33:57,760 Speaker 1: little tidbits, but they didn't leave written records, so we 616 00:33:57,800 --> 00:34:01,400 Speaker 1: don't really have descriptions of what they believed and what 617 00:34:01,560 --> 00:34:04,400 Speaker 1: their relationships were like, and you know, just all the 618 00:34:04,440 --> 00:34:07,920 Speaker 1: things that the kind of everyday texture of society that 619 00:34:07,960 --> 00:34:10,600 Speaker 1: we know so well in our own world. It's it's 620 00:34:10,680 --> 00:34:13,080 Speaker 1: mostly opaque to us what it was like this far 621 00:34:13,120 --> 00:34:15,440 Speaker 1: back in the past. Well, you know, even the Chainsaw 622 00:34:15,520 --> 00:34:18,640 Speaker 1: family from Texas, Chainsaw Masker, they they have their own 623 00:34:18,680 --> 00:34:21,360 Speaker 1: sort of culture and system of beliefs that seems to 624 00:34:21,400 --> 00:34:25,600 Speaker 1: have risen up out of this, uh, this Texan um 625 00:34:26,120 --> 00:34:31,400 Speaker 1: avatoir culture and their family history with the business there. 626 00:34:31,400 --> 00:34:35,839 Speaker 1: You know, there's some intentionally or or perhaps accidentally uh, 627 00:34:36,000 --> 00:34:40,120 Speaker 1: kind of ingenious ideas about like the spiritual nature of cannibalism, 628 00:34:40,200 --> 00:34:44,719 Speaker 1: kind of indebted in that original motion picture. Yeah, do 629 00:34:44,760 --> 00:34:46,640 Speaker 1: you have an example, Well, there's a sense of there's 630 00:34:46,640 --> 00:34:49,160 Speaker 1: a sense of ritual to the cannibalism it's going on 631 00:34:49,200 --> 00:34:51,520 Speaker 1: at least within the own their within the family, and 632 00:34:51,600 --> 00:34:54,799 Speaker 1: maybe you could apply that to the barbecue restaurant as well. 633 00:34:54,840 --> 00:34:57,480 Speaker 1: But like there's that whole scene with the uh, you know, 634 00:34:57,560 --> 00:34:59,759 Speaker 1: seated at the table and granted, you know they're they're 635 00:34:59,760 --> 00:35:03,799 Speaker 1: proba really drawing a little bit from Judeo Christian traditions there, 636 00:35:03,840 --> 00:35:06,440 Speaker 1: but you know, there's there's some something sacred going on 637 00:35:06,960 --> 00:35:12,520 Speaker 1: with the family dinner and allowing Grandpa, the greatest killer 638 00:35:12,560 --> 00:35:15,200 Speaker 1: that had ever ever lived, to attempt to to kill 639 00:35:15,280 --> 00:35:18,640 Speaker 1: the victim. So that he can, uh, you know, drink 640 00:35:18,680 --> 00:35:21,800 Speaker 1: of her blood, eat of her flesh, and grow stronger. Uh. 641 00:35:22,000 --> 00:35:24,080 Speaker 1: And then all these other sort of elements of like that, 642 00:35:24,120 --> 00:35:27,440 Speaker 1: the little bone wind chimes and constructions that have been created. 643 00:35:27,480 --> 00:35:30,440 Speaker 1: It seemed it's almost like there are people that are 644 00:35:30,480 --> 00:35:33,560 Speaker 1: so cut off from the rest of of a modern 645 00:35:33,600 --> 00:35:39,760 Speaker 1: society that they're kind of reinventing primordial religious concepts. That 646 00:35:40,000 --> 00:35:42,520 Speaker 1: is fascinating. I had never thought of it that way, 647 00:35:42,719 --> 00:35:45,200 Speaker 1: Like all they do, like if if if everything that 648 00:35:45,239 --> 00:35:47,719 Speaker 1: they do is concerned with meat and the importance of 649 00:35:47,760 --> 00:35:50,880 Speaker 1: meat and the preparation of meat, um, and then what 650 00:35:50,960 --> 00:35:54,120 Speaker 1: kind of ideas come out of that? It's it's it's 651 00:35:54,160 --> 00:35:58,480 Speaker 1: not unlike what we might try and imagine for prehistoric people. 652 00:35:58,560 --> 00:36:00,960 Speaker 1: So you know, if your whole life is, of course 653 00:36:00,960 --> 00:36:04,279 Speaker 1: about the hunt, then various ideas spring out of that. 654 00:36:04,600 --> 00:36:07,680 Speaker 1: If your whole life is about about the importance of 655 00:36:07,719 --> 00:36:11,640 Speaker 1: meat and blood, Uh, then you know it, who knows 656 00:36:11,680 --> 00:36:14,759 Speaker 1: exactly how they view the importance of our own flesh 657 00:36:14,840 --> 00:36:18,600 Speaker 1: and what kind of powers or or or or I mean, 658 00:36:18,600 --> 00:36:21,440 Speaker 1: we tend to put a horror show interpretation on it. 659 00:36:21,440 --> 00:36:24,000 Speaker 1: And obviously I'm drawing in Texas chainsaw maskt right. But 660 00:36:24,040 --> 00:36:26,400 Speaker 1: I mean perhaps in a way it's beautiful. Perhaps it 661 00:36:26,480 --> 00:36:29,399 Speaker 1: was like I have killed this individual in battle, and 662 00:36:29,480 --> 00:36:31,600 Speaker 1: I must eat them like that is the the only 663 00:36:32,360 --> 00:36:34,880 Speaker 1: like that is how you show respect for a worthy adversary. 664 00:36:35,239 --> 00:36:37,200 Speaker 1: I mean we're tempted to want to construct some sort 665 00:36:37,200 --> 00:36:39,480 Speaker 1: of brutal like I have killed my enemy and now 666 00:36:39,520 --> 00:36:41,839 Speaker 1: I must feast on their brains kind of thing. But 667 00:36:41,920 --> 00:36:44,600 Speaker 1: it maybe in its own way it was sacred. Well. 668 00:36:44,600 --> 00:36:48,120 Speaker 1: I think it's also possible that we frequently underestimate the 669 00:36:48,160 --> 00:36:51,520 Speaker 1: degree to which a lot of the strange features of 670 00:36:51,520 --> 00:36:53,680 Speaker 1: our culture that don't seem strange to us, because there 671 00:36:53,680 --> 00:36:58,880 Speaker 1: are culture um are just are in traceable ways downstream 672 00:36:59,280 --> 00:37:03,600 Speaker 1: of economics which are ultimately reducible to chemical energy economics, 673 00:37:03,640 --> 00:37:07,280 Speaker 1: you know, acquiring food to eat. Uh, you can trace 674 00:37:07,440 --> 00:37:12,799 Speaker 1: a lot of culture back to getting food and surviving. Absolutely, 675 00:37:13,080 --> 00:37:14,880 Speaker 1: So to bring it back to the study, another thing 676 00:37:14,920 --> 00:37:19,560 Speaker 1: you can imagine is how perhaps certain practices that were 677 00:37:19,640 --> 00:37:24,879 Speaker 1: originally just opportunistic nutritional practices, maybe opportunistic cannibalism, when someone 678 00:37:24,960 --> 00:37:26,799 Speaker 1: died and you didn't want to waste the meat, so 679 00:37:26,920 --> 00:37:30,320 Speaker 1: you ate them. Uh, It's possible that could have turned 680 00:37:30,400 --> 00:37:33,959 Speaker 1: into religious beliefs and rituals exactly. And that's not even 681 00:37:34,120 --> 00:37:37,480 Speaker 1: taking into effect like any you know, sort of abnormal 682 00:37:38,600 --> 00:37:42,080 Speaker 1: psychological effects that might have taken place and in certain 683 00:37:42,120 --> 00:37:45,400 Speaker 1: individuals and therefore influenced the overall shape of the culture. 684 00:37:45,520 --> 00:37:49,279 Speaker 1: You know, like if one individual claimed and or even 685 00:37:49,320 --> 00:37:53,600 Speaker 1: believed that, say they consume the flesh of their departed 686 00:37:53,640 --> 00:37:57,120 Speaker 1: father and then heard their father's voice, then that could 687 00:37:57,160 --> 00:37:59,400 Speaker 1: have enormous effects, you know. I mean, we're talking about 688 00:37:59,400 --> 00:38:03,400 Speaker 1: the spread of religion. Yeah, this is always interesting territory. 689 00:38:03,840 --> 00:38:06,319 Speaker 1: Uh so, yeah, well, not the last time we will 690 00:38:06,440 --> 00:38:10,640 Speaker 1: visit the potential religious beliefs and rituals of prehistoric common ends. 691 00:38:11,360 --> 00:38:13,600 Speaker 1: But we're gonna go and take a break now. We're 692 00:38:13,600 --> 00:38:15,960 Speaker 1: gonna leave cannibalism for now. But when we come back, 693 00:38:15,960 --> 00:38:18,600 Speaker 1: we're gonna look at just a couple of more Ignoble 694 00:38:18,719 --> 00:38:23,120 Speaker 1: Prize winners briefly before closing out part one of our 695 00:38:23,200 --> 00:38:27,640 Speaker 1: Ignoble Prize series for this year. All right, thank thank 696 00:38:28,680 --> 00:38:31,399 Speaker 1: and we're back. Robert. Do you have a shorter look 697 00:38:31,440 --> 00:38:33,520 Speaker 1: you wanted to take it something? Oh? Sure, why don't 698 00:38:33,560 --> 00:38:38,520 Speaker 1: we talk about the Chemistry prize? Okay, let's do some chemistry. 699 00:38:38,560 --> 00:38:43,520 Speaker 1: This is from Romeo at all and they were honored 700 00:38:43,520 --> 00:38:46,600 Speaker 1: for measuring the degree to which human saliva is a 701 00:38:46,640 --> 00:38:50,759 Speaker 1: good cleaning agent for dirty surfaces. The paper was a 702 00:38:50,800 --> 00:38:53,680 Speaker 1: titled human Saliva as a Cleaning Agent for Dirty Surfaces 703 00:38:54,000 --> 00:38:57,799 Speaker 1: and it was published in Studies in Conservation back in 704 00:38:57,920 --> 00:39:02,600 Speaker 1: nine and and the winners delivered their acceptance speech via 705 00:39:02,680 --> 00:39:06,720 Speaker 1: recorded video. So with the original title should I spit 706 00:39:06,760 --> 00:39:09,000 Speaker 1: on it? And that got rejected that it may can't 707 00:39:09,040 --> 00:39:11,600 Speaker 1: sound a little bit a little basically yeah, but we 708 00:39:11,600 --> 00:39:13,200 Speaker 1: can all relate to this, right, I mean, have you 709 00:39:13,320 --> 00:39:16,160 Speaker 1: ever used your own saliva to clean off, say a 710 00:39:16,200 --> 00:39:20,200 Speaker 1: smart smartphone screen or I know, in my case, I've 711 00:39:20,239 --> 00:39:22,279 Speaker 1: used it on a kid's face. Plenty of times. I 712 00:39:22,400 --> 00:39:25,080 Speaker 1: used my saliva as dishwashing detergent. So I don't know 713 00:39:25,200 --> 00:39:27,600 Speaker 1: why people buy those pods. You just spit in the 714 00:39:27,640 --> 00:39:29,839 Speaker 1: dishwasher a lot and then get it going. It does 715 00:39:29,880 --> 00:39:34,440 Speaker 1: a great job. Well I I nobody's pushing it that 716 00:39:34,200 --> 00:39:36,920 Speaker 1: that far. But there does seem to be something to 717 00:39:37,440 --> 00:39:40,680 Speaker 1: the cleansing power of spit, at least to you know, 718 00:39:40,719 --> 00:39:43,680 Speaker 1: a limited degree. And this is exactly what the paper 719 00:39:43,719 --> 00:39:48,640 Speaker 1: and question looked into. They used quantitative test and chromatographic 720 00:39:48,760 --> 00:39:54,000 Speaker 1: techniques to isolate alpha Emily's as the key cleaning property 721 00:39:54,360 --> 00:39:58,080 Speaker 1: in human saliva. Now you're probably wondering, well, what is 722 00:39:58,120 --> 00:40:02,680 Speaker 1: an Emily's Is it some sort of microbe? What is it? Well, 723 00:40:02,760 --> 00:40:05,280 Speaker 1: an Emilyes is a member of a class of enzymes 724 00:40:05,280 --> 00:40:09,360 Speaker 1: that splits a starch compound via the addition of water molecule. 725 00:40:10,440 --> 00:40:13,080 Speaker 1: Now we we divide them into alpha's and betas because 726 00:40:13,080 --> 00:40:15,200 Speaker 1: they differ in the exact way that they attack the 727 00:40:15,200 --> 00:40:18,360 Speaker 1: bonds of a starch molecule. But Alpha Emilyes is found 728 00:40:18,360 --> 00:40:21,759 Speaker 1: throughout the biological world, specifically in the digestive systems of 729 00:40:21,840 --> 00:40:24,760 Speaker 1: humans and other animals. The one in the salivary glands 730 00:40:25,040 --> 00:40:28,400 Speaker 1: is called Thailand that begins with the P P T 731 00:40:28,680 --> 00:40:31,680 Speaker 1: y A l I in. So why is it important, Well, 732 00:40:31,719 --> 00:40:35,320 Speaker 1: it concerns human biology. Obviously we're humans. We're always interested 733 00:40:35,360 --> 00:40:37,919 Speaker 1: in that. It also concerns hygiene. And it's funny because 734 00:40:37,960 --> 00:40:40,560 Speaker 1: it involves spit, and it involves the idea of cleaning 735 00:40:40,560 --> 00:40:43,960 Speaker 1: something with spit, something that on on a basic level, 736 00:40:44,600 --> 00:40:46,680 Speaker 1: I feel like we all do this. We all have 737 00:40:46,960 --> 00:40:49,200 Speaker 1: probably had a situation where we use spit to quote 738 00:40:49,280 --> 00:40:52,440 Speaker 1: unquote clean something, and yet at the same time spit 739 00:40:52,640 --> 00:40:56,760 Speaker 1: is considered dirty. Uh, Like someone spitting at you is gross, 740 00:40:56,800 --> 00:40:59,879 Speaker 1: seeing someone spit in the street is disgusting. Well, yeah, 741 00:40:59,880 --> 00:41:01,960 Speaker 1: I mean you can see some of the things, Like, 742 00:41:02,000 --> 00:41:04,239 Speaker 1: I can see why this would be because the role 743 00:41:04,280 --> 00:41:06,799 Speaker 1: of saliva in the mouth is somewhat the same as 744 00:41:06,840 --> 00:41:10,840 Speaker 1: the role of average cleaning liquids or detergents. Right, So 745 00:41:10,920 --> 00:41:13,680 Speaker 1: it is a detergent mean that it's like a wedding 746 00:41:13,719 --> 00:41:17,040 Speaker 1: and lubrication agent that helps things move around and wash off. 747 00:41:17,680 --> 00:41:20,640 Speaker 1: And then it's also a somewhat a digesting agent, like 748 00:41:20,680 --> 00:41:23,719 Speaker 1: it breaks some things down and tenderizes some things. Yeah, 749 00:41:23,760 --> 00:41:25,279 Speaker 1: it is that. Our mouth, we have to remember, is 750 00:41:25,320 --> 00:41:28,640 Speaker 1: the first stage of the digestion. You know. We masticate 751 00:41:28,719 --> 00:41:31,000 Speaker 1: the food, we get it all cut up, we get 752 00:41:31,040 --> 00:41:33,600 Speaker 1: it nice and wet and soaked, and then our tongue 753 00:41:34,480 --> 00:41:36,400 Speaker 1: helps to form it at the back of our throat 754 00:41:36,400 --> 00:41:39,160 Speaker 1: into a bolus that is going to pass down our throats, 755 00:41:39,200 --> 00:41:42,680 Speaker 1: preparing a package for shipment to the rest of the 756 00:41:42,719 --> 00:41:46,200 Speaker 1: digestive system. There's nothing more appetizing than thinking about the 757 00:41:46,280 --> 00:41:50,000 Speaker 1: lubrication of a bolus going down your throat, right, And 758 00:41:50,040 --> 00:41:52,960 Speaker 1: then you know, ultimately that's what a French kisses. A 759 00:41:53,040 --> 00:41:57,160 Speaker 1: french kiss are two individuals deciding to link uh the 760 00:41:57,200 --> 00:42:01,520 Speaker 1: initial stages of their digestive system and to manipulate each 761 00:42:01,520 --> 00:42:06,480 Speaker 1: other's um uh, you know, a oral manipulation. Limb. It's 762 00:42:06,480 --> 00:42:08,880 Speaker 1: a beautiful moment. I just got a brilliant idea for 763 00:42:08,920 --> 00:42:11,520 Speaker 1: an episode in the future. It should just be called 764 00:42:11,880 --> 00:42:14,840 Speaker 1: Robert and Joe ruined Kissing, and we just like we 765 00:42:15,000 --> 00:42:18,120 Speaker 1: just destroyed. We just take it to the point where 766 00:42:18,160 --> 00:42:20,879 Speaker 1: nobody who listens will ever do it again. All right, Well, 767 00:42:21,000 --> 00:42:23,400 Speaker 1: coming this Valentine's Day to a stuff to blow your 768 00:42:23,400 --> 00:42:25,680 Speaker 1: mind episode near you? Well, I have another one here. 769 00:42:25,800 --> 00:42:27,600 Speaker 1: This is another short one and we're not going to 770 00:42:27,680 --> 00:42:29,720 Speaker 1: spend much time on to kind of close out the episode. 771 00:42:29,880 --> 00:42:35,200 Speaker 1: But their medical education prize uh, this one went to A. 772 00:42:35,360 --> 00:42:39,640 Speaker 1: Kira hora Uchi for the medical report colin Oscopy in 773 00:42:39,640 --> 00:42:45,000 Speaker 1: the sitting position Lessons learned from self colinoscopy self colonoscopy. Yes, 774 00:42:46,880 --> 00:42:49,600 Speaker 1: I'm just gonna read the abstract on this one. Okay, Okay, 775 00:42:49,680 --> 00:42:52,799 Speaker 1: just read it. Colin Oscopy is typically done in the 776 00:42:52,840 --> 00:42:56,799 Speaker 1: supine position, with the patient's position varied as needed to 777 00:42:56,840 --> 00:43:00,640 Speaker 1: assist instrument insertion. We found that a newly developed small 778 00:43:00,719 --> 00:43:06,360 Speaker 1: caliber variable stiffness colonoscope design for colonoscopy and pediatric patients 779 00:43:06,440 --> 00:43:10,719 Speaker 1: was especially useful in patients with difficult colonoscopy. The outside 780 00:43:10,719 --> 00:43:13,920 Speaker 1: diameter is ten point three millimeters, and the working length, 781 00:43:14,080 --> 00:43:16,279 Speaker 1: the field of view, and the range of the tip 782 00:43:16,320 --> 00:43:20,720 Speaker 1: flection are similar to those of standard uh kolonoscopes. So, 783 00:43:21,040 --> 00:43:22,920 Speaker 1: I mean, I don't have much to say about this one. 784 00:43:23,120 --> 00:43:25,080 Speaker 1: It kind of calls back to our and we did 785 00:43:25,080 --> 00:43:27,600 Speaker 1: an entire episode on on the evolution of the anus, 786 00:43:27,960 --> 00:43:31,960 Speaker 1: so it's not like we're shy about discussing this part 787 00:43:32,000 --> 00:43:34,480 Speaker 1: of the human anatomy. But I think this is one 788 00:43:34,480 --> 00:43:37,120 Speaker 1: of those studies that basically they honored it because of 789 00:43:37,160 --> 00:43:41,520 Speaker 1: the whole uh self colonoscopy aspect of the title. I 790 00:43:41,600 --> 00:43:44,080 Speaker 1: suspect that is what set them off. Yeah, it was 791 00:43:44,120 --> 00:43:47,840 Speaker 1: the self colonoscopy. Though at the same time it's important 792 00:43:47,880 --> 00:43:52,480 Speaker 1: because this is an invalid and important diagnostic method for 793 00:43:52,480 --> 00:43:56,319 Speaker 1: for for human health. Oh yeah, colonoscopies are important. All right. Well, 794 00:43:56,360 --> 00:43:58,480 Speaker 1: on that note, we're gonna go ahead and pinch off 795 00:43:58,520 --> 00:44:01,040 Speaker 1: this particular episode of to to Blow Your Mind, but 796 00:44:01,080 --> 00:44:04,120 Speaker 1: we're coming back in uh in the next episode, and 797 00:44:04,120 --> 00:44:07,799 Speaker 1: we're going to discuss the remaining Ignobel Prize winners, UH, 798 00:44:07,960 --> 00:44:10,680 Speaker 1: some of them in more detail, certainly than we than 799 00:44:10,760 --> 00:44:13,600 Speaker 1: we spent with the colonoscopy study. There's some really good 800 00:44:13,600 --> 00:44:17,560 Speaker 1: ones in the next episode, indeed, acording more, including morning Wood. 801 00:44:17,640 --> 00:44:19,880 Speaker 1: So come back for that. Uh. In the meantime, if 802 00:44:19,920 --> 00:44:21,320 Speaker 1: you want to check out more episodes of Stuff to 803 00:44:21,320 --> 00:44:23,040 Speaker 1: Blow Your Mind, head on over to stuff to Blow 804 00:44:23,120 --> 00:44:25,160 Speaker 1: your Mind dot com. That is the mothership. That's where 805 00:44:25,160 --> 00:44:28,239 Speaker 1: we'll find all the episodes of the podcast. You'll find 806 00:44:28,280 --> 00:44:30,440 Speaker 1: links out to our various social media accounts. You'll find 807 00:44:30,440 --> 00:44:32,960 Speaker 1: a link to our t public store. 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