Speaker 1: Welcomed Aaron Manky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of iHeartRadio
Speaker 1: and Grim and Mild. Our world is full of the unexplainable,
Speaker 1: and if history is an open book, all of these
Speaker 1: amazing tales are right there on display, just waiting for
Speaker 1: us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. The
Speaker 1: human body is amazing. Our bodies contain over two hundred
Speaker 1: bones and six hundred and fifty muscles that allow us
Speaker 1: to stand upright, dance, and compete in various sports. Our
Speaker 1: brains have sixteen billion neurons that enable us to perform
Speaker 1: quick calculations, invent new ideas, create tools, relate to others,
Speaker 1: and create strategies among so much else. Our brains also
Speaker 1: regulate our bodies, controlling our muscles, regulating our temperatures and emotions,
Speaker 1: and processing the information we take in. Our brains, and
Speaker 1: some argue are opposable thumbs, have allowed us to create
Speaker 1: inventions that extend or significantly augment what our bodies and
Speaker 1: brains were designed to do. Cars, bicycles, and other modes
Speaker 1: of transportation allow us to travel greater distances and faster
Speaker 1: than we can on foot. Computers, often solve problems more
Speaker 1: quickly than our brains. We're pretty impressive as a species,
Speaker 1: or at least we'd like to think so. Yet other
Speaker 1: species have inspired us to achieve even more. Since humankind's
Speaker 1: earliest years, we've longed to fly like birds. Early versions
Speaker 1: of aircraft tried to mimic the way birds flew. In
Speaker 1: the end, we settled for airplanes, and of course inventions
Speaker 1: like hang gliders. We've invented away to see at nights
Speaker 1: like owls and other nocturnal predators like cats. Whales have
Speaker 1: inspired submarines. Bats and dolphins became the inspiration for sonar.
Speaker 1: A duck's webbed feet where the model for flippers. Drones fly, dive,
Speaker 1: and hover like hummingbirds or peregrine falcons. Companies have created
Speaker 1: dog like robots that can carry objects, trek over outdoor terrain,
Speaker 1: and detect various information from locations that are unsafe for
Speaker 1: us humans. But of course robots can be a bit
Speaker 1: creepy for sure. Science fiction buffs do wonder how far
Speaker 1: we are from the humanoid robots in the Terminator movies,
Speaker 1: and while we're still working on creating upright robots capable
Speaker 1: of moving around like US, it's another animal that has
Speaker 1: the US Army's attention. Researchers have set a lofty goal
Speaker 1: create a four legged robots capable of maneuvering over the
Speaker 1: most challenging terrain. The robot should be able to make
Speaker 1: near instantaneous decisions with an array of adjustments, and it
Speaker 1: should be able to right itself just as it's about
Speaker 1: to roll over. Now in nature, the animal that's inspired
Speaker 1: this is practically unrivaled in its ability to jump and
Speaker 1: assess obstacles practically on the fly. The animals have a
Speaker 1: keen ability to make bold leaps, often of death, defy nature.
Speaker 1: In their natural habitat, the animals learn at an early
Speaker 1: age how to judge distances and make appropriate calculations when
Speaker 1: jumping from object to object. They can flip and twist
Speaker 1: seemingly in mid air thanks to their mastery of spatial orientation.
Speaker 1: They're also keen observers and can spot threats easily. Although
Speaker 1: we don't give these animals much thought, they're almost as
Speaker 1: intelligent as they are agile. They can find items that
Speaker 1: they haven't seen for months and assess their food quality
Speaker 1: by weight. Psychologists who study the mammal created a wall
Speaker 1: equipped with a springboard and flexible landing platform. After coaxing
Speaker 1: the wild animals that willingly worked for their favorite food,
Speaker 1: researchers learned essential facts. For example, the animal values sturdier
Speaker 1: takeoff platforms more than flexible ones. The takeoff and landing
Speaker 1: objects were more important to the animal than the gap
Speaker 1: in between them. Of course, the biologists and biomechanics team
Speaker 1: at the University of California's Berkeley campus know that such
Speaker 1: a robot isn't like anything we have today. Though we've
Speaker 1: seen some impressive moves, today's robots simply aren't built to
Speaker 1: be as flexible as our furry friend here. But what
Speaker 1: makes this animal's movements so important? The Army believes such
Speaker 1: a robot would go anywhere a soldier could. The robots
Speaker 1: would be able to weigh their agility against the terrain.
Speaker 1: Search and rescue missions would also benefit. The robots could
Speaker 1: enter buildings in danger of collapse to search for survivors.
Speaker 1: So while we envisioned huge, scary looking robots like those
Speaker 1: we see in the movies, researchers and the US Army
Speaker 1: are looking at designing furturistic robots that may not work
Speaker 1: for peanuts, but are modeled after those that do our
Speaker 1: friendly neighborhood squirrel. Everybody has that favorite book they loved
Speaker 1: as a child. It might have been about a dragon,
Speaker 1: or a fairy princess, or a misunderstood ogre living in
Speaker 1: a swamp. Whatever it was, we read it until the
Speaker 1: spine wore away and the pages fell out. We can
Speaker 1: probably still remember the mom or dad or grandparents who
Speaker 1: tucked us in and sat with us as they read
Speaker 1: it aloud to us, until we were carried off to
Speaker 1: that dreamland on their whispered words. As we got older, though,
Speaker 1: we lose touch with that part of our childhood. But
Speaker 1: even though we may not read those books anymore, they
Speaker 1: stay with us, and if we're lucky, we might get
Speaker 1: to share them with our own children and grandchildren. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: one children's book in particular did not leave a love
Speaker 1: of reading in one nation's children. Instead, it led to
Speaker 1: the takeover of an invasive species, and the country is
Speaker 1: still dealing with it. It started in nineteen sixty three
Speaker 1: with the publication of the book Rascal, A Memoir of
Speaker 1: a Better Era, by Sterling North. North hailed from Wisconsin
Speaker 1: and had turned a pivotal year of his life into
Speaker 1: a best selling children's book You See When he was younger,
Speaker 1: He'd taken care of a baby raccoon, which led to
Speaker 1: some hilarious hijinks within the family. In the book, the
Speaker 1: animal rode in a basket on North's bicycle and even
Speaker 1: helped him win a pie eating contest. The book ends
Speaker 1: with young Sterling releasing the raccoon named Rascal back out
Speaker 1: into the wild to live where it belonged. It was
Speaker 1: a cute story, one that Disney eventually took notice of
Speaker 1: and turned into a live action film in nineteen sixty nine,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't until a Japanese animation studio got a
Speaker 1: hold of it that things took a strange and ecologically
Speaker 1: damaging turn. In nineteen seventy seven, Nipon Animation Company adapted
Speaker 1: North's book into a fifty two episode anime series called
Speaker 1: a Reguma Rasukaru, which in English means raccoon Rascal. Like
Speaker 1: its source material, the anime told the story about a
Speaker 1: little boy who took care of a small raccoon. He
Speaker 1: tried to make it a pet, but the wild animal
Speaker 1: refused to be domesticated that had to eventually be returned
Speaker 1: to the wild. The show aired from January second of
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy seven until December twenty fifth of the same year. However,
Speaker 1: despite the anime's serious lessons about caring for and releasing
Speaker 1: wild animals, they seem to have no impact on the
Speaker 1: people who watched it, or maybe they just never finished
Speaker 1: the series because the message of the show was clear
Speaker 1: raccoons make terrible pets. Still, that didn't stop Japanese families
Speaker 1: from importing them into the country in the years following
Speaker 1: its release and eventual conclusion, and usually one of two
Speaker 1: things would happen after a family brought in a raccoon.
Speaker 1: Either the animal escaped, as wild animals are known to do,
Speaker 1: or it was released by well meaning owners who wanted
Speaker 1: to emulate what they had learned from the show, although
Speaker 1: truth be told, the animals themselves were only too happy
Speaker 1: to remind their human helpers that they were not meant
Speaker 1: to be kept indoors. Many raccoons got belligerent as they
Speaker 1: got older, biting and snapping at the boys and girls
Speaker 1: who had tried to care for them. But raccoons are
Speaker 1: not native to Japan and they have few predators. As
Speaker 1: a result, they proliferated in their new country by two
Speaker 1: thousand and eight, descendants of the original animals had moved
Speaker 1: into all forty seven Japanese prefectures where they had wreaked havoc.
Speaker 1: Ever since, it's believed that eighty percent of Japanese temples,
Speaker 1: as well as acres of crops, have been damaged or
Speaker 1: destroyed by invasive raccoons, costing the country thirty million yen
Speaker 1: or almost two hundred and twenty five thousand dollars every year.
Speaker 1: To combat the scourge of these ringtailed rascals, Japan actually
Speaker 1: banned the import of pet raccoons, but still contends with
Speaker 1: their progeny to this day. When art inspires us, it
Speaker 1: can lead to wonderful things. We may go on to
Speaker 1: create our own art or take up a meaningful cause,
Speaker 1: But in Rascal's case, the only thing it led to
Speaker 1: was finding new and unique ways to secure your garbage
Speaker 1: canlids every single night. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided
Speaker 1: tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by visiting
Speaker 1: curiositiescast dot com. The show was created by me Aaron
Speaker 1: Manke in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another
Speaker 1: award winning show called Lore which is a podcast, book series,
Speaker 1: and television show and you can learn all about it
Speaker 1: over at the world of Lore dot com. And until
Speaker 1: next time, stay curious.