Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb. My name is scream Queen.
Speaker 1: Julie Douglas. Are you Are you really a scream queen?
Speaker 1: I'm not much of a screamer. I have to say,
Speaker 1: when when was the last time you scream? Um? I
Speaker 1: think it was out of frustration. And I know I
Speaker 1: was alone, because I'm not like, hey, let's let's emote publicly.
Speaker 1: That's not my thing. Yeah, the last it was just
Speaker 1: a few days ago. I was I went outside, like
Speaker 1: first thing in the morning, I shut off the alarm
Speaker 1: system and I walked outside too. I don't know. I
Speaker 1: was checking the temperature or doing some with the carbage cans.
Speaker 1: I don't know. But I go outside and there's a
Speaker 1: cicada that right outside and I stepped through the door.
Speaker 1: In this the case, it's just takes off and it
Speaker 1: just scares the crap out of me, and I go,
Speaker 1: I'm just like scream full volume, okay, all right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't even think that. When I'm scared, I so
Speaker 1: much that you know, like if if someone comes around
Speaker 1: the corner, I might jump a bit. As you all
Speaker 1: can tell, we're going to talk about screams today. The
Speaker 1: sign is of screaming all about because like in both
Speaker 1: of these cases, Okay, I screamed when there was cicada? Like,
Speaker 1: what was I doing? Was I scaring the cicado away?
Speaker 1: Was I warning people that hey, there's cicada's around and
Speaker 1: they might be startling? Were you, um, you know, trying
Speaker 1: to intimidate some paperwork or or you know, or some
Speaker 1: some house cleaning, Like what was what was that about?
Speaker 1: Why do we do these things that we do? And uh,
Speaker 1: fortunately we live in a world of science and u
Speaker 1: and these questions are being addressed. Yeah, and and and
Speaker 1: we were thinking about this um sort of like from
Speaker 1: nuts to soup. Like when you take this first breath
Speaker 1: in the world, the first thing that you do is
Speaker 1: you scream, right, And that's really the great place to
Speaker 1: add to start off, because you, as a human gets older,
Speaker 1: you end up you know, you know, you get languid,
Speaker 1: you get reason, you get culture, you get all these
Speaker 1: various things that just just mark up the waters of
Speaker 1: of why we do the things we do. But you
Speaker 1: start off with the baby and it's the first thing
Speaker 1: it's doing. It passes through the vaginal canal, get some
Speaker 1: nice bacteria on it, and then just screaming its head off,
Speaker 1: all right, because it's transitioning from a respiratory system that
Speaker 1: had fluid to air. Right, that's the first thing that
Speaker 1: you do is you scream like mad. But then, as
Speaker 1: you say, it gets a little bit more complex. We
Speaker 1: scream because we're frightened, we're frustrated, we're angry, we're aroused,
Speaker 1: or we're in pain or we you know, it's it's
Speaker 1: a purely cathartic thing. People screamed because they're aroused apparently. Okay, yes,
Speaker 1: that's what the literature says. Um. But back to babies before,
Speaker 1: before we get into infant screaming anymore, let's actually listen
Speaker 1: to a little clip because I mean, you might be
Speaker 1: listening to a baby scream right now, and it's so
Speaker 1: great because you're already immersed in the subject matter. But
Speaker 1: if not, we just need to remind everyone because there's
Speaker 1: nothing else like it. Oh, so that the sound of
Speaker 1: a baby crying, it's the if you're not at all
Speaker 1: connected to a situation, you're like in an airplane or something,
Speaker 1: then it's just really annoying. But if you're all connected
Speaker 1: to the situation, whether you're it's your friends baby, your baby,
Speaker 1: your babysitting or whatever, then it just like you. You're
Speaker 1: just like, I must help this creature it is it
Speaker 1: wants something really bad or it does not want something
Speaker 1: really bad. What can I do to try and make
Speaker 1: things better? Because it's just the the infant. Infant screens
Speaker 1: in a way that like that humans rarely do, Like
Speaker 1: they're just putting everything into it, like it's like a
Speaker 1: full body exercise in disapproval or one. And it is
Speaker 1: interesting because, uh, the babies screams cries have been analyzed
Speaker 1: over and over again, and what they find is that
Speaker 1: there are particular screams or screams for for food, for
Speaker 1: for boredom, for wanting to be held um And in fact,
Speaker 1: lactating women who hear the screams of infant that are
Speaker 1: particular to a scream for I'm hungry will begin loctating
Speaker 1: whether or not it's your baby. Um. Now, as a mom,
Speaker 1: were you able to determine like what once scream niche? Yeah,
Speaker 1: eventually I could. I mean obviously the I don't know
Speaker 1: how long it took, but the first you know, a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks out of the gate. I had no
Speaker 1: idea what my daughter wanted. I was plus, I was
Speaker 1: just like tired, Um, what do you want? Um? But
Speaker 1: what what has been discovered lately, which I think is
Speaker 1: really interesting, is that thetises, although we know they can
Speaker 1: recognize music and voices and within the womb, that they
Speaker 1: can actually mimic speech patterns and they do this through
Speaker 1: their screams. Dr Kathleen Bremckey of the University of horser Wurzburg,
Speaker 1: Germany and colleagues studied the patterns of baby cries in
Speaker 1: the first five days of life that recorded the screams.
Speaker 1: How exciting is this going through their data right? Uh?
Speaker 1: That that's got to be headache inducing. They recorded the
Speaker 1: screams of thirty Germans and thirty French babies, and they
Speaker 1: found that the screams of the five day old French
Speaker 1: babies had a distinct gallic twang and the Germans babies
Speaker 1: had a teutonic quality to their yells. The teutonic screams
Speaker 1: of the infant German and I just I keep thinking
Speaker 1: of like Arnold Schwarzenegger somehow sometimes exactly yeah, I can't
Speaker 1: even replicate it. But I think that that's a good attempt. There. No, wait, actually,
Speaker 1: let's let let's let me find a clip of that
Speaker 1: real quick. See there you go, all right, Okay, not bad.
Speaker 1: That was either Arnold or a German infant. I'll let
Speaker 1: you decide. Um. And then in addition to the screaming babies,
Speaker 1: it turns out that children in their screams are also
Speaker 1: telling a story. Um. Children who were given One's Ease
Speaker 1: with built in microphones were recorded during their tantrums, and
Speaker 1: so researchers had hours and hours of data which bore
Speaker 1: out this pattern during a tantrum. And it turns out
Speaker 1: that kids make this whimpering, sad noise the entire time
Speaker 1: that they're going through a tantrum, but then they have
Speaker 1: these spikes of screaming and yelling. It used to be that, oh,
Speaker 1: it's just anger at the beginning of sadness at the end.
Speaker 1: That's what what psychologists thought, um, But it turns out
Speaker 1: that these two motions are really intermingled the whole time.
Speaker 1: And this is an interesting thing. During these peaks of anger,
Speaker 1: these this yelling, when you want to reach out to
Speaker 1: the child and say, what's wrong, how can I help you?
Speaker 1: That additional sort of stimuli or stimulus would actually incite
Speaker 1: the child to scream even more so they're they're too
Speaker 1: angry to deal with at that point. Yeah, Which I
Speaker 1: think is telling the story of of what is at
Speaker 1: the at the bottom of at least one type of scream,
Speaker 1: the frustration, scream sadness and anger, is that maybe it
Speaker 1: has tied into this idea that we're over stimulated in
Speaker 1: life and you reach this breaking point where you just
Speaker 1: have to scream. Yeah. Yeah, I think I think everyone's
Speaker 1: felt that way at one point or another, even if
Speaker 1: you you're not like completely aware of it, Like what
Speaker 1: you really need is a really good scream. I have certainly, Like,
Speaker 1: have you ever been faced with a choice or a
Speaker 1: situation that is so frustrating for so frustrating or so
Speaker 1: anger filled and you're just sitting there and you're trying
Speaker 1: to communicate with another person about it, Yeah, and it
Speaker 1: seems like you have to make a choice at that
Speaker 1: moment and you just want to go and you're trying
Speaker 1: not to write because as we get older, we try
Speaker 1: to to keep this under wraps. All Right, we're gonna
Speaker 1: move on from infant screens now, and we're gonna discuss
Speaker 1: more grown up screens. So for this I'm gonna actual
Speaker 1: let's throw out another couple of sound pites here. Uh.
Speaker 1: This first one, uh is a scream queen's scream scream
Speaker 1: queens for anyone who's not familiar with the term. Uh, where,
Speaker 1: of course, uh in our women in horror movies whose
Speaker 1: primary acting role is to scream and react and terror
Speaker 1: to um monsters or mass men coming after them to
Speaker 1: kill them. Uh, it's a and there's a there's a
Speaker 1: whole lot of of of of cultural psychological matter to
Speaker 1: discuss there. But but at the heart of it, you
Speaker 1: have women whose like whole thing was like, all right,
Speaker 1: we can get you on screen and we just need
Speaker 1: to scream your head off and and and not. And
Speaker 1: it's not only just making the sound, but the face
Speaker 1: and just it's like a there's a purity to it though,
Speaker 1: because in many cases, you, I mean, you'll find movies
Speaker 1: where like the woman is screaming no, no, or or
Speaker 1: they'll be screaming about something. But in many cases it
Speaker 1: is just a primal scream of just just full on terror.
Speaker 1: So think of Janet Lee and in the Psycho exactly yeah,
Speaker 1: or um Jamie Lee Curtis was started off her career
Speaker 1: as a scream queen. Yeah yeah, and and a number
Speaker 1: of other little films after that. But but this is
Speaker 1: one of my favorites. This is Marylyn Burns as Sally
Speaker 1: Hertessy in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre of the original. So
Speaker 1: in the in that clip, they're they're also doing some
Speaker 1: stuff with the sound effects. They're they're throwing in some
Speaker 1: mechanical kind of chainsaw noise and really messing with you
Speaker 1: on a on a sonic level as well. But but
Speaker 1: she's also just doing a fabulous scream and if you've
Speaker 1: ever seen the movie, she has the facials to to
Speaker 1: match it. It's just you get this really authentic sense.
Speaker 1: So here's somebody that is just screaming at the there
Speaker 1: at the edge of sanity with terror, and they should be,
Speaker 1: because I mean, she's sitting that table when she's about
Speaker 1: to get well what seems like she's about to get
Speaker 1: killed right there, and there's awful visual things going on.
Speaker 1: And the method aspect of that scene, as I as
Speaker 1: I understand it, is that that was also a really long,
Speaker 1: really hot shoot and so at the end of it,
Speaker 1: everybody was just worn out, so there's a certain amount
Speaker 1: of her screaming and that scene that is probably just
Speaker 1: her just being completely done with this, uh this horror
Speaker 1: movie shoot for the day. Well, and I like the
Speaker 1: clips that you've sent me because it's got sweetish subtitles,
Speaker 1: which is very odd to look out when you're hearing
Speaker 1: these The Texas heavy accents are girl, We're gonna kill you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but there are no there are no subtitles for the
Speaker 1: scream because that's the universal and that's what we're really
Speaker 1: discussing next is you know, we discussed like the in
Speaker 1: the past, like the discussed face that people make, that
Speaker 1: that's universal, that that speaks to anyone, no matter if
Speaker 1: you know, you could be in New York City or
Speaker 1: just outstanding in the middle of nowhere in Mongolia, and
Speaker 1: if someone makes a disgust face, you're going to think, oh,
Speaker 1: my goodness, do I smell weird? Am? I is there's
Speaker 1: something in my face? You understand what they're emoting. And likewise,
Speaker 1: the scream is pretty universal. If someone is screaming about something,
Speaker 1: you were going to look around, like, WHOA, what's happening?
Speaker 1: Is this person crazy? Are they being assaulted? Should I help?
Speaker 1: Should I pretend should I be awful and pretend that
Speaker 1: I'm not noticing them screaming? But either way, it's something
Speaker 1: that you you have to deal with on on some level.
Speaker 1: So yes, to your point, absolutely, it's very universal, um,
Speaker 1: no matter where you are. But it does seem to
Speaker 1: point that that that fear and screaming is particular. Yes,
Speaker 1: there there, Yes it's universal, but it turns out that
Speaker 1: not everybody has all of the muscles in the faces
Speaker 1: nineteen muscles. There's a lot going on your face when
Speaker 1: you scream. It's it's like we're talking about with with
Speaker 1: any good scream queen, It's not just an exercise and audio.
Speaker 1: It's also a facial event right in their nineteen muscles
Speaker 1: in your face there these major muscles that are controlling
Speaker 1: and contorting these muscles. Two thirds of the population actually
Speaker 1: have these muscles. So it and what this is driving
Speaker 1: at is that some people are much better at expressing
Speaker 1: things like fear, but particularly with the rstorious muscle, because
Speaker 1: that is what controls um. This look of extreme fear
Speaker 1: on your face. Wow, So you hear about people having
Speaker 1: a really expressive face, but you often tend to think
Speaker 1: of that in terms of just behavior in mindset and
Speaker 1: not so much as actual anatomy. But but it sounds
Speaker 1: like there could conceivably be a little girl out there
Speaker 1: is like when I grew up, I'm gonna be a
Speaker 1: screen queen, and that she does not have all the
Speaker 1: muscles to really pull it off. I mean, maybe she
Speaker 1: could go she could go gatica on it and just
Speaker 1: like really try extra hard, but she's still gonna have
Speaker 1: to go up against the screen queens that have just
Speaker 1: naturally occurring extra muscles. And who knows what if people
Speaker 1: started evolving to uh, I mean that it's an evolutionary
Speaker 1: advantage to be a better screen queen. Well, actually, there
Speaker 1: is an evolutionary advantage because when you are making those expressions,
Speaker 1: it's actually um, it's pumping more blood to your brain,
Speaker 1: particularly if it's something like fear and screaming. What's happening
Speaker 1: is that your field of vision actually widens. You smell
Speaker 1: your Yeah, you're taking in more data. You're so much
Speaker 1: more alert. Blood is flowing to your face, your your
Speaker 1: mouth is opening, your nose is taking in more smells,
Speaker 1: are more acutely taking them in, which is the opposite
Speaker 1: of disgust. Because think about disgust. Disgust is like something
Speaker 1: smells weird. Let's cut this off because it might kill
Speaker 1: me if I breathe it in. Look, you feel the
Speaker 1: vision narrows a little bit because you're you're honing in
Speaker 1: on side. My eyes definitely mind blind me exactly, and
Speaker 1: and your nose is sort of shutting off the smell.
Speaker 1: So yeah, definitely when you're you're actually having this fear
Speaker 1: face and you're screaming though you're it's like, I need
Speaker 1: to see what's happening. I need to smell what's happening,
Speaker 1: and I need to be pumped and ready because I'm
Speaker 1: about to have to duke it out with with Jason
Speaker 1: Vorhees or something. Yeah, so it's not just this alarm
Speaker 1: to to a fellow man, like hey, there's something wrong.
Speaker 1: It is an expression to your body to say, let's
Speaker 1: get things, let's go in here, let's let's start to
Speaker 1: really assess this situation. Become as alert as possible. And
Speaker 1: you get a taste of this if you just like
Speaker 1: a if you've ever like just screamed for the sake
Speaker 1: of it, but also like in yoga class, will do
Speaker 1: this lion face thing, you know, uh, you know, where
Speaker 1: you you you scrunch up your face face and you
Speaker 1: like stick out your tongue, your tongue, roll your eyes
Speaker 1: back in your head and it's like this scary, ridiculous face. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it does. It pumps you up, It works um
Speaker 1: in the same way that you know they talk about,
Speaker 1: you know, smiling can actually make you feel happy or
Speaker 1: just the physical act of smiling, because our expressions are
Speaker 1: not just they're not just a result of the way
Speaker 1: we feel. It's well, you know, it's the mind body
Speaker 1: connection and all these things are are connected to one another.
Speaker 1: So if you you turn one, you're going to turn
Speaker 1: the other, you know. And it was Darwin who actually
Speaker 1: sussed this out long ago because he thought, what is
Speaker 1: the evolutionary manage of smiling or frowning or fear? And
Speaker 1: I don't know if you remember these studies that he
Speaker 1: helped to conduct, but they actually manipulated people's muscles and
Speaker 1: their faces, which looked very painful, and then they did
Speaker 1: some studies to see whether or not it was corresponding
Speaker 1: with how they felt. So people used muscles that were
Speaker 1: being manipulated by machines to to rise in a smiling formation.
Speaker 1: Became happier, even though it probably hurt that they had
Speaker 1: the little metal prongs sticking in them. We'll see they
Speaker 1: should that should be a treatment method. You know. They
Speaker 1: strapped this happiness device on you, and yeah, and invaders
Speaker 1: them the car. The Nickelodeon cartoon really twisted, awesome cartoon
Speaker 1: they would have. This thing was like this big screw
Speaker 1: with a smiley face on it and like screws in
Speaker 1: at the side of your skull and just makes you
Speaker 1: happy all the time. Similar principle. I'm thinking that with
Speaker 1: all this happiness out there in the in the marketplace,
Speaker 1: that this could be some thing. Yeah, yeah, this this
Speaker 1: might fly on QBC. Alright, Um, should we listen to
Speaker 1: one more iconic scream before we go to break? Yes? Uh,
Speaker 1: this is a little something called the Wilhelm scream. You
Speaker 1: if you watch movies, you have heard this before. It's
Speaker 1: a stock sound effect that was first used in nineteen
Speaker 1: one for the film Distant Drums, and it has since
Speaker 1: been used in hundreds of films like Star Wars, Indiana Jones.
Speaker 1: Mainstream stuff, you know, very professional blockbuster stuff. Also, lots
Speaker 1: of people like film Bucks just like to throw it
Speaker 1: into their own like little indie pictures as well, or
Speaker 1: just you know, um, amateur pictures. Let's have a listen.
Speaker 1: So that reminds me of Vertigo. Yeah yeah, the movie Vertigo,
Speaker 1: which I haven't seen in a very long time. Made
Speaker 1: me a shorter version of it. Huh yeah. It's just
Speaker 1: a very guttural you know. It's just the falling screen
Speaker 1: and it's a mail scream, and so I'm glad that
Speaker 1: we got to feature two mail screams on here. I
Speaker 1: don't know what the baby is. The baby might be
Speaker 1: male or female, who knows, but um, but everyone screams
Speaker 1: at one point another. Let's take a quick break and
Speaker 1: when we come back, we'll discuss a little more why
Speaker 1: we scream and what we're where it's coming from and
Speaker 1: primary scream therapy. All right, we're back. And when we
Speaker 1: were researching this, you sent me a study called Screaming
Speaker 1: and Wailing and Dimentia Patients by Bernard gro Lukes. It's
Speaker 1: got an accident at the end. I unless that's a typo,
Speaker 1: I know, I think there's actually that, but but it was.
Speaker 1: It was. It's a very interesting, perhaps a little specialized study,
Speaker 1: but it did have a really interesting chart that was
Speaker 1: part of his theoretical framework for why dementia patients or
Speaker 1: screaming and like, where is it coming from? And UH,
Speaker 1: at the center of this chart, he has the circle
Speaker 1: that is that represents unsatisfied needs and UH bubbles come
Speaker 1: out of this from every direction. Screaming satisfies that the
Speaker 1: screaming that satisfy satisfies the need. They're screaming that communicates
Speaker 1: the need. Just screaming that is due to frustration and
Speaker 1: negative effects. There's screaming that's due to environmental physical psychological conditions, uh,
Speaker 1: due to the current condition, and due to habits and personality.
Speaker 1: And then all those things that rise out of unsatisfied
Speaker 1: needs can conceivably feedback into these other causes. So you
Speaker 1: end up with this kind of feedback loop of of
Speaker 1: screaming and screaming stimuli, which I found really interesting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and what I liked about that study is well, as
Speaker 1: it talks about dementia, and in this idea that the
Speaker 1: person's world has become so small that um that there
Speaker 1: is this level of frustration and this this level um
Speaker 1: to need to communicate and try to get your bearings,
Speaker 1: that that results in a ton of screaming. Really and
Speaker 1: I thought well, that's not necessarily a case for everyone
Speaker 1: that the general public doesn't have dementia, but certainly everybody
Speaker 1: has been in that situation before where they felt isolated
Speaker 1: or they they've lost their way a bit, yeah, or
Speaker 1: just or just crushed in by all these forces, you know,
Speaker 1: general often imaginary forces or or social job related forces.
Speaker 1: They're just pressing you in and you until you scream. Right.
Speaker 1: And if you were that dementia patient and you had
Speaker 1: all those different conditions, uh, then you would enter into
Speaker 1: that feedback loop. Thankfully, most of us aren't in that
Speaker 1: feedback loop, and we can get ourselves out of the screaming. Um.
Speaker 1: But I was it made me think about something called
Speaker 1: primal scream therapy. Okay, and this is where you would
Speaker 1: it's like a nineties right, Uh. Yeah. It has its
Speaker 1: beginnings in the nineteen seventies, Dr Jane. It is probably
Speaker 1: better known as UM sort of a subplot of John
Speaker 1: Lennon's life because he underwent primal scream therapy, which and
Speaker 1: it became very popular. Actually, Steve Jobs underwent it and
Speaker 1: then he thought it was just whoey and he quit
Speaker 1: doing it. Um. But it's appealing to people for a
Speaker 1: number of reasons. One is because it's a license to scream,
Speaker 1: license to screen with abandoned on the floor in in
Speaker 1: a fetal position. Who lets you do that these days?
Speaker 1: No one. Um, but this this idea that you can
Speaker 1: go into your past and all these painful memories and
Speaker 1: and um embody this scream, this frustration, this anger that
Speaker 1: you feel about your past, and then you can correct
Speaker 1: that with a new what they call enactment. So um
Speaker 1: it is a lot about release and catharsis saying something
Speaker 1: that's been pressed in and putting it out. Yees. So
Speaker 1: it's this neurotic tension that you're releasing through this re experiencing,
Speaker 1: and then the idea is to create a new scene
Speaker 1: to replace the neurotic one. And it's a very creative
Speaker 1: process as well, which is probably why it appealed to
Speaker 1: John Lennon and into a number of other people. Now,
Speaker 1: is it uh a straight up therapy that has been
Speaker 1: studied and has come out with glowing reviews? No, not
Speaker 1: necessarily that the data on it is a little bit sketchy,
Speaker 1: But at the end of it there there's very interesting premises.
Speaker 1: There are people who claim that it helps them. There
Speaker 1: are people who claim the help, but other people will
Speaker 1: say they're they've been primed, which you could also say
Speaker 1: there are other types of um therapy in which priming
Speaker 1: is used. Yeah, And I mean, I'm kind of of
Speaker 1: the mindset hey have. If you had to prime me
Speaker 1: to to sort of fix me, then let's let's do it.
Speaker 1: I was thinking about it in terms of the placebo. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm kind of like, I'm willing to take a placebo
Speaker 1: if it if I can fool myself into feeling better
Speaker 1: than That's kind of what life is about, right. Yeah. Indeed,
Speaker 1: the only problem though I have with it is that
Speaker 1: apparently Harry Nelson, a good friend of John Lynn's at
Speaker 1: that time, musician beautiful Voice, ruined his voice by I
Speaker 1: think a weekend of he and John Lennon like kind
Speaker 1: of doing some primal scream therapy. I can't remember who
Speaker 1: it is. There was one. There was some actor and
Speaker 1: maybe our listeners can fill me in on this, but
Speaker 1: there was an actor who was like early in his career.
Speaker 1: He was trying to some parts, and you know, he
Speaker 1: had a very normal voice, and then you just went
Speaker 1: out one weekend on the advice of like his agent,
Speaker 1: and just screamed him self force, uh, prior to an audition,
Speaker 1: and then he got the part. But it kind of
Speaker 1: with his voice became that permanently, permanently scarred kind of
Speaker 1: gravelly voice. But that's end up being his moneymaker. So
Speaker 1: I don't remember who it was. I don't think it's
Speaker 1: one of the more famous gravelly voice actors, but it
Speaker 1: could be wrong. Well, here's the thing. If you don't
Speaker 1: feel like going to a primal scream therapist and you
Speaker 1: want to do this uh in private or even in public,
Speaker 1: there is something. There is a device for you. Yes,
Speaker 1: we've mentioned it before, but I thought that it was
Speaker 1: probably worth it to mention again. Fab Labs. This came
Speaker 1: out from the h this idea that there's open software
Speaker 1: that you can create anything. You could design it and
Speaker 1: feed into a computer and lo and behold here here
Speaker 1: it is um. It is called the Green Buddy, and
Speaker 1: it came out of this idea of this fab Labs.
Speaker 1: And it looks like an infant carrier and you can
Speaker 1: scream directly into it and nobody can hear you. That's
Speaker 1: the brilliant thing about right, So you can be in
Speaker 1: the middle of a busy street and just scream into
Speaker 1: your scream, buddy, nobody knows, but you can record it.
Speaker 1: And if later you felt like just releasing your scream
Speaker 1: on everybody, you could, Yeah, put it up on soundclouds.
Speaker 1: Here it with the world. There you go. You can.
Speaker 1: You can voice your frustration without any social repercussions. An
Speaker 1: animals do animal scream, Yeah, they do, of course, and
Speaker 1: when we can hear their little barbarica yachts all over
Speaker 1: the place. Um. But there is one ultrasonic primate in
Speaker 1: existence that we know of, so we can't hear it screams, right,
Speaker 1: who screams? We cannot hear it's the five inch high
Speaker 1: primate called the tartars. I believe it's indigenous to the Philippines. Yes. Yes,
Speaker 1: Actually the eyes are itself like make up most of
Speaker 1: the body. Because it's just so small. Um, it has
Speaker 1: the ability to produce high pitched screams unheard by human ears.
Speaker 1: And before researchers stuck thirty five of these guys in
Speaker 1: front of a ultrasound detector and um, they realize that
Speaker 1: they are actually emitting these ultra sonic secret yells. Before that,
Speaker 1: they assumed that they were just yawning. Um. But it's
Speaker 1: really cool because This allows their predators like snakes and birds,
Speaker 1: just to go along their business without realizing that these
Speaker 1: these little primates are giving each other heads up warning calls. Um,
Speaker 1: presumably like giving them the birds uh coordinates. I don't know,
Speaker 1: but so far, again, this is the only primate that
Speaker 1: we know that has this ability. It's kind of like
Speaker 1: a superpower. Yeah. And of course it should come as
Speaker 1: no surprise to anybody that animal screams of distress have
Speaker 1: an effect on us. If you if you have a pet,
Speaker 1: you know this. Uh, cats in particular sounds really good
Speaker 1: at you know, they're they're they're rather mimicking human distress.
Speaker 1: They're no, they're manipulating you with the sounds of babies crying. Yes,
Speaker 1: you're right. Those recalizations are maddening simes. So they're just yeah,
Speaker 1: they're maddening. It's just like, oh, you just made the
Speaker 1: worst noise in the world. I'll feed you. It's because
Speaker 1: you're hungry. Yeah, um and uh. And they found that
Speaker 1: the various other distress calls from animals, when used in
Speaker 1: film soundtracks, they're able to manipulate responses out of us
Speaker 1: on a very primal level. So, which is why you'll
Speaker 1: you know, people throw in like weird tiger noises into
Speaker 1: into scenes and uh, and there's a I mean, there's
Speaker 1: a whole Like anytime someone's doing sound design for like
Speaker 1: a monster or something, you know, they're inevitably taking all
Speaker 1: sorts of natural sounds and then warping them and and
Speaker 1: weaving them together into a new manipulated noise. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: very dissentering. Uh. Yeah, And apparently as a result, snakes, lines, hippo's, birds,
Speaker 1: you name it are being used for film soundtracks, So
Speaker 1: keep an ear out. Yeah cool, Well, well that's screaming
Speaker 1: for you. The next time you're you just have to
Speaker 1: belt out a scream, or you're watching a horror movie
Speaker 1: with a lot of dreaming in it, or you're dealing
Speaker 1: with a child who is just screaming um his or
Speaker 1: her head off. Take some of this knowledge with you,
Speaker 1: and maybe you'll be able to to understand a little
Speaker 1: more what's what's happening in them and what's happening in
Speaker 1: you as a listener. Alright, let's call over the robot.
Speaker 1: We have two bits of listener mail here today. The
Speaker 1: first one is from Ken in Saint Catherine's, Ontario, Canada.
Speaker 1: Ken writes In it, says, Hi, Julian Robert, I enjoyed
Speaker 1: your podcast on camouflage. My wife and I have come
Speaker 1: to the realization that are two boys are color blind.
Speaker 1: We were recently told that my wife's uncle, who would
Speaker 1: have been the same gene, who would have had the
Speaker 1: same gene for color blindness of my boys, have put
Speaker 1: his disability to good use. Apparently when he was serving
Speaker 1: in World War Two, they used him to spot camouflaged equipment.
Speaker 1: The story is that people with color blindness can see
Speaker 1: through camouflage better than people with regular vision. I am
Speaker 1: not sure if this is true or not, but I
Speaker 1: think it is an interesting story. Keep up the great work, Kim.
Speaker 1: That would make sense, right because for the general public,
Speaker 1: it's designed to see particular colors. Yeah, you're not going
Speaker 1: to be manipulated by color if you are blind to color,
Speaker 1: and therefore you can conceivably see through some of the illusions.
Speaker 1: Um the camouflage perpetrates. So that's interesting. Uh. Then we
Speaker 1: also heard from Amy. Amy writes, then and this was
Speaker 1: a very interesting one. Um. Uh, the subject being plane
Speaker 1: crash survival. We recently did the podcast on surviving a
Speaker 1: plane crash. She says, Hey, y'all, I just started listening
Speaker 1: to your podcast, Love It, and I was especially driven
Speaker 1: to the topic of surviving plane crashes. When I was seventeen,
Speaker 1: I survived the crash of the United Airlines d C
Speaker 1: eight December of seventy eight in Portland, Oregon. Two things
Speaker 1: that occurred to me right off the bat are one
Speaker 1: the plane crashes that get the most publicity are the
Speaker 1: most spectacular, and the ones with many survivors aren't still
Speaker 1: till lating. Which is true. I mean something, you know
Speaker 1: it's a small crash or more of a runway related incident.
Speaker 1: The media is not gonna more common, right, She says,
Speaker 1: this exploits an tensifies the fear of flying so many
Speaker 1: people have already had. Although I have a better reason
Speaker 1: than most fear flying, some phobias aren't going to go
Speaker 1: away with simple rationalization. I know that driving is insanely
Speaker 1: more dangerous than flying, but I haven't flown since nine
Speaker 1: and at this stage I think it would take an
Speaker 1: act of God to give me on a plane. I
Speaker 1: never scoff at anyone who's afraid to fly, and I
Speaker 1: usually don't mention my experience to them either, just my
Speaker 1: musings any Wow. Okay, so I mean that's yeah, from
Speaker 1: someone who's actually been in it. Yeah, So that was
Speaker 1: that was awesome. That just some you know, some really fascinating,
Speaker 1: honest commentary on the reality of surviving a plane crash
Speaker 1: and also just what how does how does that affect
Speaker 1: your your perception and your and your your fear of
Speaker 1: going forward? So yeah, yeah, and we did. We talked
Speaker 1: really about how it is in irrational fear, but when
Speaker 1: the rubber hits the road and you know you've been
Speaker 1: in it, it's it's a much different, um idea. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well cool. If you want to interact with us, If
Speaker 1: you want to talk to USHO, wanna ask us questions
Speaker 1: or share something, do reach out to us. You can
Speaker 1: find us on the Facebook, where we are stuff to
Speaker 1: Blow your Mind, and if you venture onto Twitter, our
Speaker 1: handle is blow the Mind. Um. So, let let us
Speaker 1: know if you have any particular thoughts on screaming, your
Speaker 1: own experience with screaming, your experience with screaming toddlers, uh screaming,
Speaker 1: and movies of whatever, let us know. We'd love to
Speaker 1: hear from you how to solve screaming in space? Right?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, because no one can hear you there. What
Speaker 1: are we going to do about that? All right? You
Speaker 1: can also drop us a line at blow the Mind
Speaker 1: at discovery dot com for more on this and thousands
Speaker 1: of other topics. Is It How Stuff Works dot com