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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name

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Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And today we're

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Speaker 1: going to contemplate the age old question what is a

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Speaker 1: fart that's right? And to answer this question, we are

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Speaker 1: going to open up the fartonomicon. This is a vault.

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Speaker 1: This is old episode. We did this one April seventeen.

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Speaker 1: It's a pretty fun one. We're just talking about the

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Speaker 1: science of afflatus, where it comes from, what it is,

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Speaker 1: why doth it smell? Et cetera, and uh and as

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Speaker 1: I recall, there's a really fun sort of stinger at

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Speaker 1: the end of this episode. Let's wander on into the stink.

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff

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Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.

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Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And Robert,

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Speaker 1: let's not dally up a bit. We've got to get

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Speaker 1: right into it today because I know you are ripping

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Speaker 1: to talk about the connection between demonology and flatulence. That's right,

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's it's hidden in the title itself, right,

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Speaker 1: the fartonomicon. We're going to be discussing, not only the

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Speaker 1: actual science of farts. But this, this fascinating connection between

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Speaker 1: demonology and flatulence. And I want to note by the

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Speaker 1: way that the word fart predates flatulence and goes back

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Speaker 1: at least to the fourteenth century. And of course the

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Speaker 1: reality of human flatulence is is far older than humanity,

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Speaker 1: of course it is, and it goes deep, deep into time,

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Speaker 1: just as demons seem to do. Uh So, Yeah, demonology

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Speaker 1: does seem to have a whole lot of farting in it.

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Speaker 1: And this is one of the funny things. You know.

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Speaker 1: When I was growing up, I was taught at church

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Speaker 1: not to say cuss words, and cuss words included a

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Speaker 1: lot of potty language and words for defecation and things

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Speaker 1: like that. But if you go back into say the

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Speaker 1: Renaissance or the medieval period before that, you will actually

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Speaker 1: find a lot of pious holy men writing about theological

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Speaker 1: topics who are also quite potty mouthed. Yes that they

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Speaker 1: have their head, They have their head both in the

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Speaker 1: heavens and in the toilet at the same time. Yes, well,

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Speaker 1: that connection between heaven and the toilet is something we'll

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Speaker 1: discuss here. You know. One of my my favorite accounts

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Speaker 1: certain this of course, is a medieval account from one

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Speaker 1: of the great works of medieval literature, and particularly Italian

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Speaker 1: medieval literature, UH, Dante's Inferno, of course, uh to refresh everyone,

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Speaker 1: of course. In in Dante's Inferno, Dante himself is guided

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Speaker 1: by the deceased poet Virgil through Hell, through the underworld

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Speaker 1: in a journey that will eventually take him back up

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Speaker 1: to Paradise. Now, I love the Inferno, but I honestly

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Speaker 1: did not remember the farting segments. Oh man, the Inferno.

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Speaker 1: So Robert, you're gonna you're gonna have to illuminate me,

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Speaker 1: educate me on the farting. All right, well, I'm gonna

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Speaker 1: set the stage here. Here we have our duo venturing

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Speaker 1: in to the Malaboga, the as a region of the

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Speaker 1: Hell with all of these uh, these these pits, these

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Speaker 1: boulders in which various tortures are taking place and roaming

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Speaker 1: about are the Malibranchia, the the evil clause. There is

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Speaker 1: a group of demons that are patrolling about and you know,

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Speaker 1: torturing uh as part of their job. And they all

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Speaker 1: have fabulous names like Scarmiglion, which means troublemaker, and Malacotah,

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Speaker 1: which means evil tale, and he's apparently the leader of

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Speaker 1: the group. So I'm going to read just a bit

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Speaker 1: here from this encounter. Oh me, what is it, master,

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Speaker 1: that I see pray? Let us go? I said, without

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Speaker 1: an escort, If thou knowest how since for myself I

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Speaker 1: asked none. If thou art as observant as thy want is,

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Speaker 1: dost thou not see that they do nash their teeth

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Speaker 1: and with their brows are threatening woe to us. And

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Speaker 1: he to me quote, I will not have the fear

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Speaker 1: Let them nash on according to their fancy, because they

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Speaker 1: do it for those boiling wretches along the left hand dike,

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Speaker 1: they wheeled about, but first had each one thrust his

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Speaker 1: tongue between his teeth toward their leader for a signal,

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Speaker 1: and he had made a trumpet of his rump, trumpet

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Speaker 1: of his rump. That is like the ultimate hell signal.

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Speaker 1: Now we see that kind of blasphemous behavior also in

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Speaker 1: the Monty Python animations. You know, in Monty Python and

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Speaker 1: the Holy Grail, there's a scene depicting like cartoon versions

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Speaker 1: of the heavens, and it definitely includes people playing musical

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Speaker 1: instruments with their butts and then of course, I can't

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Speaker 1: help but think of the French insult, uh I fart

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Speaker 1: in your general direction. Oh yeah, there's that too. The

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Speaker 1: funny thing about about this trumpet of his rump business

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Speaker 1: is that scholars have actually argued for more than a century.

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Speaker 1: It seems like the last century has really been the

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Speaker 1: period in which this has been a matter of scholarly

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Speaker 1: debate over whether this is supposed to funny or not.

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Speaker 1: Why would it not be funny? I know, I mean

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Speaker 1: I vaguely remember my college Dante professor thinking it was

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Speaker 1: funny and generally enjoying the humor that is to be

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Speaker 1: found throughout Inferno. Especially things get less funny as you

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Speaker 1: get up to towards a paradise. But there there are

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Speaker 1: plenty of moments that I think we can legitimately say

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Speaker 1: are funny within Inferno. Yeah. Well, I mean it's it's

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Speaker 1: definitely there. In the same time that Dante is uh

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Speaker 1: depicting and sometimes very lavish and scruciating detail the terrors

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Speaker 1: and tortures of Hell, he sometimes also seems to be

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Speaker 1: sort of satirizing the foibles of humanity. Yeah, and skewering

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Speaker 1: his personal enemies. Yes. Yes, So for instance, those demon

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Speaker 1: names that I mentioned earlier, like Scarmiglian. Apparently these these

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Speaker 1: names are plays upon various family names that that Dante

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Speaker 1: took issue with as well. Right now, in general, we

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Speaker 1: should add there there's a lot of butt action when

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Speaker 1: it comes to Christian demonology. Lots of demons speak from

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Speaker 1: their butts, they seal packs with their butts, and of

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Speaker 1: course they're all about doing things too human butts in

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Speaker 1: hell depending on the depictions. Uh. And you can have

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Speaker 1: a field day teasing apart all of the various elements

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Speaker 1: wound up in this sort of butt centric myth making. Folks,

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Speaker 1: if you haven't already figured it out, this episode is

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Speaker 1: gonna be heavy with a lot of like butts and flatulence.

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Speaker 1: So if you're not interested, uh, you may be warned

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Speaker 1: to tune out now because it will continue, Yes it will.

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Speaker 1: It will not stop until we reach the end. Uh.

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Speaker 1: So another thing I should point out this idea that

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Speaker 1: you know, this link between demons and flatuents. There is

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Speaker 1: this idea that you see where demons use flatuents against

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Speaker 1: the faithful. I did run across this account of fourth

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Speaker 1: century Christian monk Evagoras of Pontus warning that demons may

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Speaker 1: bloat the faithful with flatulence to distract them from religious observation.

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Speaker 1: That is an insidious tactic. Did that go in the

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Speaker 1: screwtape letters? That's that's smart, it should have. Incidentally, I

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Speaker 1: did run across a contemporary right up where I think

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Speaker 1: the the that was arguing for the demonic powers of

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Speaker 1: yoga and how it was. It was one of these

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Speaker 1: wonderful accounts where the like, yes, I too have been

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Speaker 1: to a yoga class, and I thought it's connections to

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Speaker 1: to a non Christian religion was was harmless. And then

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Speaker 1: they talk about some of the the signs that you

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Speaker 1: may have demon e spirit any and one of them

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Speaker 1: is flat mns. Really yes, really, yes. It is kind

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Speaker 1: of odd to see in the modern day people associating

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Speaker 1: an evil spirit or kind of Uh. I don't know.

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Speaker 1: I feel like generally the idea of an evil spirit

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Speaker 1: has been more abstracted these days, but it is very

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Speaker 1: true if you go back into history, there's a very

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Speaker 1: physical kind of quality to it that it that it

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Speaker 1: is embodied by bad smells and bad physical forces and

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Speaker 1: excrement and things like that. Yeah, and yet still you

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Speaker 1: have to realize that all of these individuals, uh, they

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Speaker 1: experienced flatulence as just a regular aspect of their lives

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Speaker 1: and every day reality city of their biology. Yeah, if

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Speaker 1: this guy gets flatulence in church, is that also a

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Speaker 1: demon possessing him? Yeah? I mean, let's let's not be

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Speaker 1: silly about it like that. Those those guys are gonna

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Speaker 1: fart in church. It's just going to happen, no matter

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Speaker 1: how holy the monk uh, there is going to be

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Speaker 1: a bit of a flat us in play. Now. It's

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Speaker 1: obvious that many people in the Middle Ages, and lots

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Speaker 1: of people involved in creating Christian theology and mythology have

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Speaker 1: been interested in the idea of flatulence and the role

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Speaker 1: that plays in demonology. But sometimes it goes beyond the demonology.

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Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier that that some of these theologians really

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Speaker 1: do seem to have their head in the toilet. And

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Speaker 1: who I mainly had in mind was Martin Luther, because

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Speaker 1: I know Martin Luther loved some potty humor jokes, and

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Speaker 1: he he was he had a he had a wicked,

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Speaker 1: witty pin and he would fling just powerful volleys of scatological,

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Speaker 1: excoriating invective against his enemies. Yeah, they're a number of

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Speaker 1: different Martin Luther quotes that use scatological reference, says, probably

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Speaker 1: with the most famous one is quote but I resist

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Speaker 1: the devil, and often it is with a fart that

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Speaker 1: I chase him away. That's great because so it's not

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Speaker 1: just a rebuke, but it's also like uh and and

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Speaker 1: implied diminishment of the power of the devil. Right, It's like,

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Speaker 1: I don't need powerful spiritual forces or strong weapons or

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Speaker 1: anything like that to chase the devil away. I just

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Speaker 1: missed the devil. Yeah, it's not just merely a get

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Speaker 1: behind me satan um, it's get behind me satan. Now

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Speaker 1: here comes a twot. And of course there are other

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Speaker 1: examples of this as well. I was looking at a

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Speaker 1: book titled luther Man Between God and the Devil by

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Speaker 1: j Iko A Oberman, who points out that Luther often

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Speaker 1: used poopy language against the devil and his work. So

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Speaker 1: here are just a few examples. Uh and and Joe,

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Speaker 1: maybe you can you can read these with me. Uh

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Speaker 1: here's one. But if that is not enough for you,

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Speaker 1: you devil, I also have and wipe your mouth on

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Speaker 1: that and take a hearty by oh ruh Okay, we

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Speaker 1: got another one here. A slanderer does nothing but ruminate

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Speaker 1: the filth of others with his own teeth and wallow

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Speaker 1: like a pig with his nose in the dirt. That

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Speaker 1: is also why his dropping stink most surpassed only by

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Speaker 1: the devil's. And though man drops his excrements in private,

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Speaker 1: the slanderer does not respect this privacy. He gluts on

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Speaker 1: the pleasure of wallowing in it, and he does not

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Speaker 1: deserve better. According to God's righteous judgment. When the slanderer whispers,

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Speaker 1: look how he is on himself, the best answer is

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Speaker 1: you go eat it. He's he's almost there's almost like

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Speaker 1: a childish glee that is that is that is present

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Speaker 1: in these quotes. Yes, and of course Luther, being the

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Speaker 1: author of the Christian Reformation, you know, the birth of Protestantism,

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Speaker 1: Luther of course had a lot of farty invective for

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Speaker 1: the pope quote, I will give a fart for a

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Speaker 1: staff you Satan, Antichrist or Pope can lean on it

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Speaker 1: a stinking thing. Man. This is making me think I

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Speaker 1: would not want to make enemies with Martin Luther. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean he's going to really let you have it,

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Speaker 1: maybe physically. Now, all of this makes me think that

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Speaker 1: you could actually write a whole book on the cultural

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Speaker 1: significance of farting in Middle Age Europe, you could, And

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Speaker 1: in fact, Valerie Allen did just that, really yeah, in

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Speaker 1: her book on Farting, Language and Laughter in the Middle Ages,

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Speaker 1: published in two thousand seven. And uh, this is just

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Speaker 1: this is a rich tone. This is truly a phart anomicon, uh,

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Speaker 1: in its own right. So I just wanted to pull

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Speaker 1: a few choice tidbits from the text. So she She,

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Speaker 1: for instance, mentions, uh, the fourteenth century Icelandic tale of

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Speaker 1: of poor Stein's powdern Skulks, in which a demon arises

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Speaker 1: from the depths of a twenty two seat toilet to

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Speaker 1: confront our hero whoa So is it like the number

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Speaker 1: of seats is proportional to the depths of degradation that

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Speaker 1: the toilet embodies. I guess, So, you know, because I'm

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Speaker 1: guessing that those twenty two seats share a common pit

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Speaker 1: of foulness, and it's it takes. It's that sort of

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Speaker 1: foulness from which the demon must arise. She also notes

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Speaker 1: that late medieval art often depicts demons is covered in

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Speaker 1: fecal matter, as well as the mystery plays of the time,

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Speaker 1: So an example of this from Alan. She says that

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Speaker 1: in the drama The Fall of Lucifer, as Lucifer quote

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Speaker 1: thuds to his stinking sty, he wales for fear of fire,

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Speaker 1: I crack a fart. And then in the Fall of

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Speaker 1: Man you have this character Diabolos, and he cries out.

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Speaker 1: And this is of course the translation on account of

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Speaker 1: this fall, I am starting to quake with a fart.

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Speaker 1: My breeches, I break, which again is just kind of

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Speaker 1: another of us like grade school poopy insult or parody

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Speaker 1: leveled at at the devil. It has some of the

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Speaker 1: wit of the couplets you see in like Dryden and

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Speaker 1: Alexander Pope. Yeah, more like Alexander poop though. I'm a right.

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Speaker 1: So I want to share one more quote from Valerie

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Speaker 1: Allen because she she sums up a lot of this

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Speaker 1: very nicely, and and she says the following quote. If

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Speaker 1: in the popular theatrical imagination, Satan's descent to bottomless perdition

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Speaker 1: is punctuated by flatulence, it is a natural consequence to

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Speaker 1: picture him as the load that Heaven discharges into Hell.

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Speaker 1: The show of the Cosmos. I just love that because

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Speaker 1: it does it just sums up so much of this

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Speaker 1: this energy and inter interconnectedness between bodily movements and flatulence

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Speaker 1: and these demonic entities and just the overall like theological

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Speaker 1: structure of the universe. Christian cosmology reduced to just your

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Speaker 1: everyday bowel movement on the potty. And of course the

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Speaker 1: Christian tradition is not the only tradition to to play

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Speaker 1: with flat lens, not at all. So yeah, we will

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Speaker 1: leave the Christian tradition for a moment and look at

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Speaker 1: the fact that fart humor goes way back and covers

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Speaker 1: pretty much the entire world. There are fart jokes everywhere

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Speaker 1: and they go deep into history. There's actually a writer

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Speaker 1: and academic named Paul McDonald who he teaches at the

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Speaker 1: University of Wolverhampton, and he was involved in this list

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Speaker 1: that came out a few years back. That was where

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Speaker 1: they were trying to find the oldest jokes known in history.

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Speaker 1: And it turned out that, according to this University of

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Speaker 1: Wolverhampton list, the oldest known joke at the time was

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Speaker 1: a fart joke. It is a fart joke from ancient Mesopotamia.

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Speaker 1: It's a Sumerian joke that traces back to about nineteen

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Speaker 1: b C. E, making it almost four thousand years old,

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Speaker 1: and it reads in translation as the following quote, something

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Speaker 1: which has never occurred since time immemorial, A young woman

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Speaker 1: did not fart in her husband's lap. Okay. I think

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Speaker 1: may maybe like the the particulars of the joke don't

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Speaker 1: don't carry well across you know, more than four millennia.

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Speaker 1: But it does seem to Yeah, it's lost something in

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Speaker 1: in translation, maybe language wise and definitely culturally. I don't

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Speaker 1: know if this is topical humor for the time. Is

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Speaker 1: it like there was a big problem with I don't know,

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Speaker 1: dudes getting married and then their wife farting in their lap.

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Speaker 1: I don't know, but that's what it seems to suggest.

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Speaker 1: It's like everybody will be like, oh, yeah, that always happens. Uh.

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Speaker 1: It's sort of a mandatory contemplation here. Do you think

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Speaker 1: that the presence of an ancient fart joke like this

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Speaker 1: supports uh the idea of of the bicameral mind Julian

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Speaker 1: James's theory? Or is it? Or? Is it? Or is

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Speaker 1: this uh? Or is this some some ammunition one could

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Speaker 1: use against it? I don't know. I guess i'd say

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Speaker 1: it's neutral. Yeah, I certainly wouldn't say supports okay, But

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Speaker 1: but I do wonder what would one, given the particulars

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Speaker 1: of of the bicameral theory, would would one have to

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Speaker 1: be conscious as a modern human is conscious in order

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Speaker 1: to make a fart joke like this. That's a good question.

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Speaker 1: I don't know how humor would play into the presence

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Speaker 1: of consciousness. Yeah. I will say though that I love

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Speaker 1: Julian James theory, and I would I would hate it

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Speaker 1: if it were an ancient fart joke that truly brought

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Speaker 1: it down, like this was the this was the arrow

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Speaker 1: that managed to to kill the piece. That's the nail

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Speaker 1: in the coffin. Is the fart joke? Yeah? Sorry, James

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Speaker 1: could be well, I say we look elsewhere for more

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Speaker 1: fart jokes in history. One of the best that I

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Speaker 1: have come across is actually not a verbal joke, but

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Speaker 1: it is a series of amazing illustrations from medieval Japanese art. So, Robert,

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Speaker 1: have you seen these medieval Japanese fart scrolls? I had

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Speaker 1: not until you showed them to me this morning. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I've seen so many different bits of Japanese art that

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Speaker 1: depict basically just all sorts of body horror, be they

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Speaker 1: in the form of yokai or other monster stories, or

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Speaker 1: or even just like the magical testicle based ability of

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Speaker 1: the raccoon dogs. So in Edo period Japan, which is

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Speaker 1: the early seventeenth to mid nineteenth century, some artists or

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Speaker 1: group of artists created a collection of artworks that have

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Speaker 1: now been digitized and you can find them at the

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Speaker 1: website of Waseda University Library. And these artworks are contained

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Speaker 1: on a scroll known as hay Gassin or fart Battle,

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Speaker 1: and the name says it all. You've got dudes blasting

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Speaker 1: each other with farts in every way you can imagine,

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Speaker 1: but not just any farts. These are kind of a supernatural,

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Speaker 1: high powered fart that appears to have the power to

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Speaker 1: knock people over and do all kinds of damage. It's

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Speaker 1: represented in the artwork as a kind of spreading beam

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Speaker 1: of darkness that comes out of the butt. And so

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Speaker 1: it's you've got dudes farting and enemies while riding on horseback.

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Speaker 1: You've got dudes farting through holes in the walls. You've

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Speaker 1: got farting on cats. I don't know why, sometimes farting

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Speaker 1: at cats and the cats are like and then you've

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Speaker 1: got people farting into bags and then releasing the bags

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Speaker 1: on rivals, and then repelling farts with handheld fans. That's

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Speaker 1: pretty smart, like Mortal Kombat. Yeah, Neighbor's right there, all

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Speaker 1: kinds of havoc and destruction. And this particular scroll actually

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Speaker 1: appears to be part of a larger tradition of fart

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Speaker 1: battle art works. I found one academic article discussing medieval

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Speaker 1: Japanese fart battles in art, and it was by Akiko Yano.

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Speaker 1: The article was called Historiography of the Phallic Contest hand

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Speaker 1: Scroll in Japanese Art in the Japan Review in and

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Speaker 1: Yano describes one art scroll housed at the Mitsui Memorial

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Speaker 1: Museum in Tokyo, which is known as catchier a Maki,

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Speaker 1: and it's a hand scroll that contains both the phallic

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Speaker 1: contest component that was in the title of the paper,

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Speaker 1: which is a competition quote among men with surrealistically huge

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Speaker 1: male members, and then it's also got a fart battle component.

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Speaker 1: And in the fart attle section, the only text is

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Speaker 1: a few brief descriptions of what is happening in some

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Speaker 1: of the artworks. Examples of the explanatory text include quote.

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Speaker 1: They prepare to fart like arrows by drinking cold water

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Speaker 1: to chill their bellies, picking sweet acorns and eating them

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Speaker 1: with raw chestnuts. Their stomachs are chilled. Now they line

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Speaker 1: up to fart like arrows by eating hot rice porridge. Okay,

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Speaker 1: now this lines up with some of the science will

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Speaker 1: be discussing later. Yes, And finally they collect the farts

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Speaker 1: in a bag and prepare to volley fart arrows. Fart arrows,

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Speaker 1: fart arrows. All right. I really like the way that's written,

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Speaker 1: as if it's like you should already know what a

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Speaker 1: fart arrow is. But yeah. Another interesting thing Yano points

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Speaker 1: out in the article is that many of the figures

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Speaker 1: depicted in these artworks releasing these huge sort of fart

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Speaker 1: hadukans are supposed to be priests. They're dressed as priests,

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Speaker 1: So you have to wonder, it's like, is there a

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Speaker 1: satirical aspect to this? Yeah, I mean we see this

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Speaker 1: in East and West, right, this idea perhaps that you know,

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Speaker 1: no matter how holy this particular holy man or woman

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Speaker 1: may seem, we all know that they fart, and we

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Speaker 1: can imagine it, and sometimes, if we're lucky, we can

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Speaker 1: hear it, and and it's it serves to sort of

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Speaker 1: knock them down a peg, at least in our minds. Okay,

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Speaker 1: I got one more good one, Robert, did you did

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Speaker 1: you know previously about Roland the Farter? I had not

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Speaker 1: heard of Roland the Farter. No, do tell of Roland

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Speaker 1: the Farter. Well, there's a really great Warren Zevon song

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Speaker 1: about him. I'm getting confused for something else on the

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Speaker 1: head of Thompson Gunner. Yeah. So there is a section

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Speaker 1: on good old Roland in the book A Social History

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Speaker 1: of England nine twelve hundred, edited by Julia Crick and

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Speaker 1: Elizabeth van Houts. And this is discussing what went on

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Speaker 1: in the court of the English King Henry the Second,

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Speaker 1: who ruled in the middle of the twelfth century. So

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Speaker 1: I'm going to read this quote quote. At the royal court,

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Speaker 1: Christmas was evidently a time for special entertainments, as suggested

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Speaker 1: by the records of one Roland le Patur also called

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Speaker 1: rue landas Lefarterre, who was granted a sergeanty, apparently of

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Speaker 1: the late twelfth century. And aside note, a sergeanty was

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Speaker 1: part of the feudal system, where a person would be

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Speaker 1: awarded control of a feudal estate in exchange for some

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Speaker 1: non standard service rendered. So basically it was kind of

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Speaker 1: like a feudal knighthood. You'd be given a grant of land,

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Speaker 1: except instead of being a knight in service of the

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Speaker 1: King of the queen, you would do some kind of

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Speaker 1: other service. But going back to the quote, his grant

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Speaker 1: is typical of that given to favored entertainers as well

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Speaker 1: as to others of service to the king. In his case,

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Speaker 1: it included the requirement of performing saltum siffletum petum, or

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Speaker 1: a jump, a whistle a fart before the king on

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Speaker 1: Christmas Day. The phrase was a stock expression and seems

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Speaker 1: to represent standard buffoonery, the kind of thing that constitute

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Speaker 1: a jester's performance, and so it is likely that Roland

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Speaker 1: the Farter was a royal jester and the fart was

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Speaker 1: his stock in trade. I wonder if these were legitimate

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Speaker 1: farts or were these like sort of clown based farts.

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Speaker 1: Did he have some sort of cushioned devices at a

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Speaker 1: poem in the armpit kind of thing. Yeah, it would

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Speaker 1: tend to suggest they wouldn't settle for anything less than

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Speaker 1: the real thing. Isn't that interesting? Because you can in

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Speaker 1: the same way that you know, we have these these

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Speaker 1: festivals in which the fool has made king for for

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Speaker 1: a day. You know, everything's the reverse for the For

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Speaker 1: the jester, what in the in the actual king's court

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Speaker 1: to fart in the king's presence? Uh, could be a

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Speaker 1: extreme embarrassment. It could it could diminish your standing in

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Speaker 1: the royal court. And yet the opposite is true for

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Speaker 1: the jester. What it would if he has called upon

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Speaker 1: to to do his performance and he has no flatus

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Speaker 1: upon which to call it could that could be disaster,

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00:22:59,119 --> 00:23:01,960
Speaker 1: That could could cause his head to be separated from

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Speaker 1: his body. Yeah, I can't remember the details, but you've

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Speaker 1: just called to mind a story I think I recall

401
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Speaker 1: about some lord or some some noble dignitary whoever, who

402
00:23:11,640 --> 00:23:15,040
Speaker 1: was appearing before Queen Elizabeth the First and who I've

403
00:23:15,080 --> 00:23:17,280
Speaker 1: heard this one farted in her presence and it was

404
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Speaker 1: so embarrassing that he essentially had to leave the country,

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Speaker 1: or at least disappeared to somewhere somewhere far away for

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Speaker 1: a while, but then came back. Is the version of

407
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Speaker 1: the story that he came back years later, and it

408
00:23:31,080 --> 00:23:35,320
Speaker 1: presented himself before the queen and she said, I remember you,

409
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Speaker 1: you're the boy who farted again again if it once

410
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Speaker 1: and it's your whole identity. Yeah, that's like I think

411
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Speaker 1: that's a human fear like that if if if you

412
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Speaker 1: let one rip in the wrong context, that fart will

413
00:23:49,440 --> 00:23:54,200
Speaker 1: haunt you forever for no good reason, because again everyone

414
00:23:54,280 --> 00:23:59,600
Speaker 1: does this, This is a basic aspect of of human behavior. Well, unfortunately,

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Speaker 1: that is a exactly the route that the role in

416
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Speaker 1: the Farter story goes down, So it has a kind

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Speaker 1: of sad ending. According to stories collected. Actually, oh you

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Speaker 1: know what, I just realized in a book that's the

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Speaker 1: same Valerie Allen book you mentioned earlier. Yeah, so in

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Speaker 1: that same Valerie Allen book, apparently she she talks about

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Speaker 1: how a later king, probably Henry the third, took the crown,

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Speaker 1: and the story goes that the laughs dried up and

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Speaker 1: this king did not find Roland's act very funny, and

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Speaker 1: he revoked Roland's grant of land, citing the fact that

425
00:24:31,200 --> 00:24:35,000
Speaker 1: his buffoonery was indecent. But Alan also notes that some

426
00:24:35,040 --> 00:24:38,280
Speaker 1: things about the timeline don't really add up. These chronicles

427
00:24:38,280 --> 00:24:40,480
Speaker 1: would have role in the Farter having a career that

428
00:24:40,560 --> 00:24:42,840
Speaker 1: was like a hundred and twenty years long or more so.

429
00:24:42,960 --> 00:24:46,119
Speaker 1: Something about the story is probably garbled or wrong, but

430
00:24:46,200 --> 00:24:48,880
Speaker 1: there does appear to be some kind of historical core

431
00:24:48,960 --> 00:24:50,480
Speaker 1: to it. We do think there was a role in

432
00:24:50,520 --> 00:24:53,520
Speaker 1: the Farter who farted for his bread and butter. Huh. Well,

433
00:24:53,560 --> 00:24:56,320
Speaker 1: I wonder if this is near speculation on my part,

434
00:24:56,359 --> 00:24:57,800
Speaker 1: but I wonder if it could have been more of

435
00:24:57,840 --> 00:25:00,960
Speaker 1: a role. It's kind of like bos the clown or

436
00:25:01,080 --> 00:25:04,720
Speaker 1: you know, you could have different actors playing Roland the Farter,

437
00:25:04,880 --> 00:25:08,680
Speaker 1: and therefore he could live for the doctor. Yeah, yeah,

438
00:25:08,840 --> 00:25:11,119
Speaker 1: you know, every time the doctor disappears, you have a

439
00:25:11,160 --> 00:25:13,960
Speaker 1: new role in the farther time Lord shows up. Yeah,

440
00:25:14,119 --> 00:25:18,320
Speaker 1: the basic that basic transformation scene, except with farting sounds

441
00:25:18,359 --> 00:25:20,280
Speaker 1: at it. Get on at Hollywood. I want to see

442
00:25:20,280 --> 00:25:23,119
Speaker 1: the Roland Roland of the Farter chronicles. All right, I

443
00:25:23,119 --> 00:25:24,560
Speaker 1: think we should take a quick break, and when we

444
00:25:24,600 --> 00:25:27,080
Speaker 1: come back we will look at the science of flatulence.

445
00:25:27,880 --> 00:25:33,680
Speaker 1: Thank thank Alright, we're back. So what exactly is flatulence?

446
00:25:33,800 --> 00:25:36,200
Speaker 1: Tell me, Robert, Well, when you you boil it down

447
00:25:36,200 --> 00:25:39,879
Speaker 1: to just the basics, it's gas produced during digestion, and

448
00:25:39,960 --> 00:25:43,880
Speaker 1: flat us only applies to gas expelled through the anus.

449
00:25:43,960 --> 00:25:47,560
Speaker 1: So not the cloaco or a specialized glander duck. We're

450
00:25:47,600 --> 00:25:51,040
Speaker 1: talking about gas from your anus or the anus of

451
00:25:51,119 --> 00:25:53,879
Speaker 1: any anally empowered animal. Because, of course, as we we

452
00:25:53,960 --> 00:25:57,280
Speaker 1: discussed on our our Anus episode, which I'll link to

453
00:25:57,400 --> 00:25:59,200
Speaker 1: on the landing page for this episode stuff to Blow

454
00:25:59,240 --> 00:26:02,240
Speaker 1: your mind dot com, there's always more, Yeah, there's there's

455
00:26:02,240 --> 00:26:04,840
Speaker 1: always more content out there. But as we mentioned in that, uh,

456
00:26:04,920 --> 00:26:08,760
Speaker 1: not every creature has an anus. Now that being said,

457
00:26:08,920 --> 00:26:11,520
Speaker 1: it should also be noted that not every animal farts,

458
00:26:12,000 --> 00:26:14,919
Speaker 1: and we will get back to that truth as well.

459
00:26:15,080 --> 00:26:18,240
Speaker 1: But let's talk about the composition of the average two. Yeah,

460
00:26:18,440 --> 00:26:20,919
Speaker 1: so how much does the average person fart? All right?

461
00:26:21,000 --> 00:26:23,040
Speaker 1: So I'm sure people out there are wondering, like I

462
00:26:23,080 --> 00:26:25,840
Speaker 1: am I farting too much? Not enough? I've got to know,

463
00:26:26,840 --> 00:26:28,880
Speaker 1: uh yeah, And you know, it is one of those

464
00:26:28,880 --> 00:26:32,400
Speaker 1: things that's probably difficult for most people to gauge because

465
00:26:32,600 --> 00:26:35,960
Speaker 1: it's depending on, like I guess your what kind of

466
00:26:36,000 --> 00:26:38,000
Speaker 1: household you grew up in, and what sort of culture

467
00:26:38,000 --> 00:26:40,879
Speaker 1: you're a part of. Uh. Sometimes farting is something that

468
00:26:40,960 --> 00:26:44,679
Speaker 1: must be done in secret, uh and blamed upon children

469
00:26:44,720 --> 00:26:49,600
Speaker 1: and animals. But apparently the average person, Uh, let's ripped

470
00:26:49,600 --> 00:26:52,879
Speaker 1: between five hundred and two thousand mill leaders of gas

471
00:26:52,920 --> 00:26:55,560
Speaker 1: per day, and each bout is likely to be thirty

472
00:26:55,560 --> 00:26:59,040
Speaker 1: five to nine million leaders. Okay, just did some extremely

473
00:26:59,119 --> 00:27:01,520
Speaker 1: rough math on that, and it looks like that would

474
00:27:01,560 --> 00:27:04,719
Speaker 1: average out to about twenty farts a day on average

475
00:27:04,720 --> 00:27:07,239
Speaker 1: if you go for the middle of those ranges. Alright, Well,

476
00:27:07,240 --> 00:27:10,400
Speaker 1: I would be curious to hear from listeners who want

477
00:27:10,480 --> 00:27:14,240
Speaker 1: to uh speak truth to that number. Does that line

478
00:27:14,320 --> 00:27:17,320
Speaker 1: up with your experience? What do you think? Uh? Incidentally,

479
00:27:17,359 --> 00:27:21,760
Speaker 1: I also have run across um uh some material in

480
00:27:21,800 --> 00:27:25,040
Speaker 1: the past that spoke to at least in uh in

481
00:27:25,359 --> 00:27:27,920
Speaker 1: some cultures and maybe all cultures. I don't know, but

482
00:27:27,960 --> 00:27:31,639
Speaker 1: the you're gonna have different volumes with with men and

483
00:27:31,680 --> 00:27:35,040
Speaker 1: women depending on is it is it seemed more proper

484
00:27:35,119 --> 00:27:38,520
Speaker 1: for men to regularly pass gas versus women, and therefore

485
00:27:38,560 --> 00:27:42,880
Speaker 1: women might um contain themselves more than the men. I'm

486
00:27:42,880 --> 00:27:45,719
Speaker 1: not sure how that research actually lines up with our

487
00:27:45,760 --> 00:27:49,280
Speaker 1: figures here, though. Is there far injustice being done? Yeah?

488
00:27:49,640 --> 00:27:51,520
Speaker 1: I mean again, we come back to the basic reality

489
00:27:51,560 --> 00:27:54,920
Speaker 1: that this is something that everybody's body does. So, according

490
00:27:54,920 --> 00:27:58,639
Speaker 1: to Jeffrey Klueger, writing for Discover magazine in nineteen and

491
00:27:58,840 --> 00:28:03,760
Speaker 1: fabulous eye article in which is primary source is gastro

492
00:28:03,840 --> 00:28:08,440
Speaker 1: inturologist and two thousand thirteen Nobel Prize winner Dr Michael Levitt,

493
00:28:08,760 --> 00:28:11,639
Speaker 1: who will keep coming back to because Levitt is a

494
00:28:11,720 --> 00:28:16,400
Speaker 1: big name in the fart science community. Yes, but according

495
00:28:16,440 --> 00:28:22,200
Speaker 1: to this article of flatus is carbon dioxide, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen,

496
00:28:22,320 --> 00:28:26,400
Speaker 1: and methane. I read somewhere that among some people tested,

497
00:28:26,560 --> 00:28:30,960
Speaker 1: the nitrogen seemed to be the greatest component by volume. Okay,

498
00:28:31,240 --> 00:28:34,199
Speaker 1: And these are all either swallowed in or with the

499
00:28:34,240 --> 00:28:38,719
Speaker 1: food or released during digestion. Now this is all odorless,

500
00:28:38,880 --> 00:28:42,200
Speaker 1: is the interesting part to consider here. Even the methane,

501
00:28:42,200 --> 00:28:46,040
Speaker 1: the remaining one percent of the composition is to blame

502
00:28:46,080 --> 00:28:50,200
Speaker 1: for the smell, and it's the byproduct of the microbe

503
00:28:50,320 --> 00:28:53,520
Speaker 1: legions that live in your gut aiding in your digestion.

504
00:28:54,040 --> 00:28:57,520
Speaker 1: That one percent is their waste gas. So yeah, what

505
00:28:57,720 --> 00:29:01,720
Speaker 1: exactly are these odor carrying compounds? And by god, there's

506
00:29:01,760 --> 00:29:06,600
Speaker 1: a study on that. So this is a study by Suarez,

507
00:29:06,840 --> 00:29:09,960
Speaker 1: Springfield and Levett, the same levet we mentioned earlier called

508
00:29:10,000 --> 00:29:13,760
Speaker 1: Identification of Gases responsible for the Odor of humanflate us

509
00:29:13,760 --> 00:29:17,360
Speaker 1: and Evaluation of a Device purported to reduce this odor

510
00:29:17,560 --> 00:29:21,080
Speaker 1: published in Gut and so I've not heard of the

511
00:29:21,120 --> 00:29:24,600
Speaker 1: journal Gut before. That's great, Yeah, all your gut needs

512
00:29:24,640 --> 00:29:28,560
Speaker 1: met in one place. So they took sixteen healthy subjects

513
00:29:28,600 --> 00:29:31,680
Speaker 1: and fed them pinto beans and stool softener and hooked

514
00:29:31,720 --> 00:29:34,600
Speaker 1: them up to quote rectal tubes. Getting off to a

515
00:29:34,600 --> 00:29:39,280
Speaker 1: good start. So results results were that most but not

516
00:29:39,400 --> 00:29:43,280
Speaker 1: quite all, of the malodorous compounds and humanflate us were

517
00:29:43,360 --> 00:29:47,120
Speaker 1: sulfur based compounds, and the following were the major sulfur

518
00:29:47,160 --> 00:29:52,040
Speaker 1: compounds detected yet hydrogen sulfide, which has a rotten eggs smell,

519
00:29:52,160 --> 00:29:55,560
Speaker 1: and it's associated with the microbial breakdown of organic matter

520
00:29:55,840 --> 00:29:58,640
Speaker 1: in an oxygen free environment. So if you've ever had

521
00:29:58,640 --> 00:30:03,080
Speaker 1: that really bad microbial decomposition smell, it's often coming from

522
00:30:03,120 --> 00:30:06,640
Speaker 1: some kind of anaerobic source. It's breakdown occurring where there's

523
00:30:06,680 --> 00:30:09,960
Speaker 1: no oxygen in the breakdown area, and it's it's producing

524
00:30:10,000 --> 00:30:13,959
Speaker 1: these horrible sulfurous by products. And this was followed by

525
00:30:14,160 --> 00:30:16,920
Speaker 1: methane thiol, which is sometimes described as the smell of

526
00:30:17,000 --> 00:30:20,040
Speaker 1: rotten cabbage and it's a major component of bad breath,

527
00:30:20,760 --> 00:30:24,120
Speaker 1: and then also by dimethyl sulfide, which has a strong

528
00:30:24,240 --> 00:30:27,880
Speaker 1: bad smell, also sometimes described as cabbage like. In fact,

529
00:30:28,040 --> 00:30:30,480
Speaker 1: I've read that it's produced when you boil cabbage. So

530
00:30:30,560 --> 00:30:32,720
Speaker 1: part of the bad smell of boiled cabbage is going

531
00:30:32,760 --> 00:30:36,440
Speaker 1: to be this stuff dimethyl sulfide, but it's also in

532
00:30:36,520 --> 00:30:39,520
Speaker 1: lower concentration when paired with other smells. One of the

533
00:30:39,600 --> 00:30:43,080
Speaker 1: major components of the smell we identify as the smell

534
00:30:43,200 --> 00:30:46,479
Speaker 1: of the ocean, which is funny because when you think

535
00:30:46,480 --> 00:30:48,920
Speaker 1: about the smell of the sea, it's one of those

536
00:30:48,960 --> 00:30:51,160
Speaker 1: that that's kind of sitting on the fence between a

537
00:30:51,200 --> 00:30:54,120
Speaker 1: good smell and a bad smell, right, Like, it's kind

538
00:30:54,160 --> 00:30:57,400
Speaker 1: of by context really exactly, it's kind of nice, but

539
00:30:57,440 --> 00:31:01,320
Speaker 1: it can also get kind of kind of foul. Yeah,

540
00:31:01,520 --> 00:31:03,720
Speaker 1: I guess it's when you're actually at the ocean. You

541
00:31:03,720 --> 00:31:05,960
Speaker 1: know that you have you have all the other sensory

542
00:31:06,000 --> 00:31:09,640
Speaker 1: information to to skew it into a more positive place

543
00:31:09,680 --> 00:31:13,240
Speaker 1: and in a definite uh oceanic vibe. It's kind of

544
00:31:13,240 --> 00:31:17,320
Speaker 1: like the whole like like cheese versus smelly shoes or

545
00:31:17,320 --> 00:31:21,920
Speaker 1: smelly socks situation, where oftentimes you're essentially talking about a

546
00:31:22,000 --> 00:31:26,320
Speaker 1: very similar odor, but when associated with the shoes it

547
00:31:26,440 --> 00:31:29,400
Speaker 1: is gross but when associated with a particular cheese. If

548
00:31:29,400 --> 00:31:32,160
Speaker 1: you are a cheese eater, then it will excite you.

549
00:31:32,640 --> 00:31:34,800
Speaker 1: I think that's a good point of comparison. Now, so

550
00:31:34,960 --> 00:31:39,760
Speaker 1: the human judges in judging the malodorous nous of different farts,

551
00:31:40,120 --> 00:31:44,040
Speaker 1: they apparently were able to significantly correlate the worst smelling

552
00:31:44,120 --> 00:31:47,760
Speaker 1: farts with hydrogen sulfide concentration. So it seems like the

553
00:31:47,840 --> 00:31:51,400
Speaker 1: more hydrogen sulfide is in the flate us, the worse

554
00:31:51,480 --> 00:31:54,200
Speaker 1: it smells. Now. As a side note, the study also

555
00:31:54,280 --> 00:31:57,240
Speaker 1: looked at a couple of methods for eliminating the odor

556
00:31:57,240 --> 00:32:00,680
Speaker 1: of flate us quote. Odor intensity was all so determined

557
00:32:00,720 --> 00:32:04,520
Speaker 1: after treatment of flatus samples with zinc acetate which binds

558
00:32:04,520 --> 00:32:10,360
Speaker 1: sulfidril compounds hydrogen sulfide and methane thiol, or activated charcoal

559
00:32:10,720 --> 00:32:17,720
Speaker 1: utilizing gas type milar pantaloons, yes, gas type milar pantaloons.

560
00:32:17,760 --> 00:32:21,880
Speaker 1: The ability of a charcoal lined cushion to adsorb sulfur

561
00:32:21,920 --> 00:32:26,680
Speaker 1: containing gases instilled at the anus of eight subjects was assessed,

562
00:32:26,880 --> 00:32:30,360
Speaker 1: and what they found was the activated charcoal anus cushion

563
00:32:30,520 --> 00:32:34,360
Speaker 1: worked best and it adsorbed more than of the sulfur

564
00:32:34,400 --> 00:32:37,960
Speaker 1: based gases. So if you want your farts to not stink,

565
00:32:38,200 --> 00:32:41,640
Speaker 1: you can use an activated charcoal anus cushion and it

566
00:32:41,680 --> 00:32:44,480
Speaker 1: will apparently work pretty darn well. How come that's not

567
00:32:44,560 --> 00:32:48,680
Speaker 1: a standard feature in these, uh, these various underwears that

568
00:32:48,720 --> 00:32:51,520
Speaker 1: one can order online these days. I think maybe there

569
00:32:51,560 --> 00:32:53,760
Speaker 1: actually is underwear you can get like that. I don't

570
00:32:53,760 --> 00:32:56,560
Speaker 1: know if it uses activated charcoal, but there are I've

571
00:32:56,640 --> 00:33:00,080
Speaker 1: seen advertisements for underwear that is supposed to get it

572
00:33:00,120 --> 00:33:02,320
Speaker 1: of the bad smell of farts, and I don't know

573
00:33:02,880 --> 00:33:05,040
Speaker 1: how effective it is or what it's made out of,

574
00:33:05,080 --> 00:33:08,080
Speaker 1: but I know I've seen that before. Interesting, Now, Robert,

575
00:33:08,120 --> 00:33:11,240
Speaker 1: here's a question I've got. I know people are very

576
00:33:11,280 --> 00:33:15,360
Speaker 1: often prone to link the prevalence of farts and the

577
00:33:15,400 --> 00:33:19,640
Speaker 1: bad smell of farts to certain elements in the diet.

578
00:33:19,800 --> 00:33:22,520
Speaker 1: But when people talk about this, it sounds completely random

579
00:33:22,560 --> 00:33:24,960
Speaker 1: to me. It sounds like they're just making up one

580
00:33:25,040 --> 00:33:28,920
Speaker 1: thing or another because there's no consistency whatsoever, and what

581
00:33:29,000 --> 00:33:32,600
Speaker 1: people say leads to lots of farts or bad smelling farts,

582
00:33:32,600 --> 00:33:35,640
Speaker 1: except maybe beans. Well, even here's the thing to write

583
00:33:35,680 --> 00:33:40,640
Speaker 1: anything that you any particular food you associate with a

584
00:33:40,720 --> 00:33:44,600
Speaker 1: fart to speak of it? Uh, thus lee is humorous,

585
00:33:44,600 --> 00:33:46,640
Speaker 1: so that if you were to say, oh, man, someone's

586
00:33:46,680 --> 00:33:50,280
Speaker 1: got the tutsie rold toots today, or I have a

587
00:33:50,320 --> 00:33:53,680
Speaker 1: bad case of the beef farts, huh uh, yeah, it's

588
00:33:53,720 --> 00:33:56,200
Speaker 1: it actually gets funnier. I think the more mundane the

589
00:33:56,240 --> 00:33:58,840
Speaker 1: food you say, is like, oh, you know, Terry's got

590
00:33:58,840 --> 00:34:03,160
Speaker 1: bread farts over here. Yeah, there's there's nothing that isn't funny.

591
00:34:04,000 --> 00:34:06,400
Speaker 1: But as it turns out, there there is a science

592
00:34:06,440 --> 00:34:09,439
Speaker 1: to what's going on here, and we can classify our

593
00:34:09,480 --> 00:34:14,439
Speaker 1: foods into different twot categories. The more complex the carbohydrates

594
00:34:14,440 --> 00:34:17,040
Speaker 1: in your diet, the more pungent the odor is likely

595
00:34:17,080 --> 00:34:20,560
Speaker 1: to be. Yeah, so meat, fish, nuts, and berries not

596
00:34:20,680 --> 00:34:24,600
Speaker 1: too much to worry about. Citrus, bread and potatoes. Those

597
00:34:24,640 --> 00:34:27,440
Speaker 1: are full of complex sugars. Uh, So you get a

598
00:34:27,520 --> 00:34:31,640
Speaker 1: two tier consistency. And then the beans, bananas and milk

599
00:34:32,000 --> 00:34:34,080
Speaker 1: food such as this. That's where you really in your

600
00:34:34,080 --> 00:34:37,000
Speaker 1: fart city. And this is because the more complex carbohydrates

601
00:34:37,040 --> 00:34:39,640
Speaker 1: are more difficult to break down, requiring more work in

602
00:34:39,680 --> 00:34:43,879
Speaker 1: the lower regions of the bowels. In general, however, it's

603
00:34:43,920 --> 00:34:46,880
Speaker 1: not only the creatures diet that's gonna be a major factor,

604
00:34:46,960 --> 00:34:50,080
Speaker 1: but also the specific gut floor that they have the

605
00:34:50,160 --> 00:34:54,160
Speaker 1: specific you know, microbes that are residing within them to

606
00:34:54,320 --> 00:34:58,040
Speaker 1: aid in their digestion. But then then also overall health

607
00:34:58,080 --> 00:35:01,000
Speaker 1: of the individual. So these gonna care after. These are

608
00:35:01,000 --> 00:35:03,480
Speaker 1: gonna influence not only the character but the volume of

609
00:35:03,520 --> 00:35:06,640
Speaker 1: the toots and high fiber diets. They have a lot

610
00:35:06,640 --> 00:35:08,920
Speaker 1: of veggies in them. For instance, these have been linked

611
00:35:08,960 --> 00:35:12,640
Speaker 1: to increased of flashlens as well as have dairy starch

612
00:35:12,719 --> 00:35:16,200
Speaker 1: and fructose. That's interesting. I mean, not knowing anything going in,

613
00:35:16,280 --> 00:35:18,800
Speaker 1: I might have assumed, Hey, who's going to fart the most?

614
00:35:18,840 --> 00:35:21,080
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe people who eat a lot of meat. No,

615
00:35:21,440 --> 00:35:25,360
Speaker 1: it's the it's the curse of the vegetarian. But but

616
00:35:25,480 --> 00:35:28,960
Speaker 1: also Brussels sprouts and meat are also examples of foods

617
00:35:28,960 --> 00:35:31,960
Speaker 1: with high concentrations of sulfur leading to the production of

618
00:35:31,960 --> 00:35:35,400
Speaker 1: that hydrogen sulfide that we've mentioned already, the smell of

619
00:35:35,680 --> 00:35:39,440
Speaker 1: rotten eggs. But also hey, the smell of fire and brimstone. Oh,

620
00:35:39,640 --> 00:35:42,720
Speaker 1: that brings us right back to the demonic associations. I wonder,

621
00:35:42,800 --> 00:35:46,560
Speaker 1: I wonder now speaking of fire and brimstone, Mary Wroach

622
00:35:46,600 --> 00:35:50,680
Speaker 1: actually breaks down the flammable components of platist in her

623
00:35:50,719 --> 00:35:55,640
Speaker 1: excellent book Gulp Adventures in the Alimentary Canal. Uh this

624
00:35:55,680 --> 00:35:57,440
Speaker 1: is this is a fabulous book. I've mentioned on the

625
00:35:57,480 --> 00:36:00,319
Speaker 1: show before. H and and Mary does have a close

626
00:36:00,440 --> 00:36:03,800
Speaker 1: job exploring fart science and at least two different books

627
00:36:03,800 --> 00:36:08,440
Speaker 1: that she's written. So here's some of the facts. Methane

628
00:36:08,440 --> 00:36:13,080
Speaker 1: and hydrogen are explosive in concentrations higher than four to

629
00:36:13,280 --> 00:36:19,560
Speaker 1: five percent, and then up to plates is hydrogen. That's interesting.

630
00:36:19,640 --> 00:36:21,759
Speaker 1: I wonder how that compares to what I read that

631
00:36:21,800 --> 00:36:25,640
Speaker 1: a major component is nitrogen. I guess maybe it's got

632
00:36:25,640 --> 00:36:29,239
Speaker 1: to be highly variable, right, I imagine. So now we've

633
00:36:29,280 --> 00:36:32,120
Speaker 1: all heard tales of lighted farts, and if you're like me,

634
00:36:32,200 --> 00:36:34,080
Speaker 1: you might have seen it done on stage that at

635
00:36:34,120 --> 00:36:37,279
Speaker 1: an Atlanta improv show. Do not take that as an

636
00:36:37,360 --> 00:36:41,600
Speaker 1: endorsement of this behavior. This podcast is not recommending lighting farts,

637
00:36:41,600 --> 00:36:44,920
Speaker 1: which is actually seriously dangerous behavior, right and you and

638
00:36:44,920 --> 00:36:46,680
Speaker 1: you will see why it's dangerous as we roll out

639
00:36:46,719 --> 00:36:51,280
Speaker 1: some of the details. Um but but Roachhe does describe

640
00:36:51,280 --> 00:36:54,720
Speaker 1: a few of the more harrowing cases of flate is fire,

641
00:36:55,200 --> 00:36:59,759
Speaker 1: such as the fatal ninety seven mishap during a colonic

642
00:37:00,080 --> 00:37:04,360
Speaker 1: polypectomy that is the surgical removal of polyps from the colon. Wow,

643
00:37:04,360 --> 00:37:07,239
Speaker 1: how did this happen? So the gastro intrologist here was

644
00:37:07,320 --> 00:37:12,520
Speaker 1: using electrocoagulation to cut to cut down on bleeding, and

645
00:37:12,800 --> 00:37:16,200
Speaker 1: about eight seconds into the procedure there was an explosion.

646
00:37:16,920 --> 00:37:19,920
Speaker 1: The patient's body jerked on the table. Uh. And then

647
00:37:19,960 --> 00:37:24,279
Speaker 1: the the colonoscope was quote completely ejected from the body,

648
00:37:24,360 --> 00:37:27,520
Speaker 1: which Mary interprets is essentially it was launched out of

649
00:37:27,600 --> 00:37:31,560
Speaker 1: the anus by the explosion. It is horrifying, yeah, But

650
00:37:31,600 --> 00:37:34,680
Speaker 1: basically what happened is that there is there the gas

651
00:37:34,680 --> 00:37:39,040
Speaker 1: in the colon was flammable, and the the the electro

652
00:37:39,440 --> 00:37:44,000
Speaker 1: cauterization device touched it off and bammo. This is why

653
00:37:44,160 --> 00:37:48,960
Speaker 1: Roach says there's so much overkill in pre colonoscopy bowel cleansing.

654
00:37:49,280 --> 00:37:52,440
Speaker 1: The patient in this case had followed the pre surgical instructions.

655
00:37:52,719 --> 00:37:56,959
Speaker 1: He'd taken the laxative manitol to clear everything out. But

656
00:37:56,960 --> 00:38:00,000
Speaker 1: but while there was no fecal matter inside of him,

657
00:38:00,040 --> 00:38:04,319
Speaker 1: there was gas. Now important note here manitol is not

658
00:38:04,480 --> 00:38:08,360
Speaker 1: used anymore. So Mary Road churches everyone not to worry

659
00:38:08,360 --> 00:38:12,440
Speaker 1: about exploding during a colonoscopy. Uh. And she she also

660
00:38:12,480 --> 00:38:16,040
Speaker 1: points out that doctors will blow air or carbon dioxide,

661
00:38:16,080 --> 00:38:19,000
Speaker 1: which is non flammable, into the colon as they work.

662
00:38:19,600 --> 00:38:23,040
Speaker 1: Quote Inflating the colon also helps them see what they're doing.

663
00:38:23,440 --> 00:38:27,520
Speaker 1: Air creates the magnificent billowing flatulence that rings through the

664
00:38:27,560 --> 00:38:32,440
Speaker 1: colonoscopy recovery room. I've never considered that. Apparently it's a thing.

665
00:38:32,560 --> 00:38:35,200
Speaker 1: If only the Fart Battle illustrators had known, I know,

666
00:38:35,520 --> 00:38:38,920
Speaker 1: it would be a much more fiery affair right unexplored

667
00:38:39,000 --> 00:38:42,680
Speaker 1: territory here. So some of you might be wondering, well, heck,

668
00:38:42,680 --> 00:38:45,400
Speaker 1: if there is a lethal amount of gas in my

669
00:38:45,480 --> 00:38:48,560
Speaker 1: colon right now, should I be afraid? Should I? Should

670
00:38:48,560 --> 00:38:53,520
Speaker 1: I step away from campfires? Etcetera? And uh Roach says,

671
00:38:53,719 --> 00:38:58,200
Speaker 1: don't worry. Basically, so the hydrogen and methane dilutes as

672
00:38:58,239 --> 00:39:00,799
Speaker 1: you pass gas, so basically as it comes out into

673
00:39:00,880 --> 00:39:05,359
Speaker 1: the atmosphere, very quickly disperses and enters the concentration. That's

674
00:39:05,400 --> 00:39:09,120
Speaker 1: not dangerous. That's right to light of fart. And again

675
00:39:09,160 --> 00:39:12,000
Speaker 1: we do not encourage you to do so. You'd have

676
00:39:12,080 --> 00:39:15,200
Speaker 1: to hold the match. So the flame made contact with

677
00:39:15,280 --> 00:39:19,000
Speaker 1: the gas the second it left the body too close

678
00:39:19,040 --> 00:39:21,520
Speaker 1: for comfort. In other words, I feel like the commercial

679
00:39:21,640 --> 00:39:26,239
Speaker 1: like showing people skateboarding. Do not attempt, do not attempt. Yeah,

680
00:39:26,239 --> 00:39:28,520
Speaker 1: we can't drive that home enough here. Oh and I

681
00:39:28,520 --> 00:39:32,040
Speaker 1: have to mention this this section from from from the

682
00:39:32,040 --> 00:39:35,680
Speaker 1: book Gulp as well, because roach chats with University of

683
00:39:35,719 --> 00:39:39,960
Speaker 1: Alabama's Stephen Secor. Uh. If you look him up, he's

684
00:39:39,960 --> 00:39:43,520
Speaker 1: almost always draped in a serpent, which is which is

685
00:39:43,800 --> 00:39:47,440
Speaker 1: an encouraging sign of a biologist. And Secor has this

686
00:39:47,520 --> 00:39:51,680
Speaker 1: interesting theory regarding the myth of the of the fire

687
00:39:51,719 --> 00:39:56,839
Speaker 1: breathing dragon. So imagine this. Imagine us the sort of

688
00:39:56,920 --> 00:40:01,959
Speaker 1: gas a large snake would generate snakes too far? Yeah, Like, yeah,

689
00:40:02,000 --> 00:40:04,360
Speaker 1: that they do. And so this would be like a

690
00:40:04,400 --> 00:40:07,800
Speaker 1: python or a constrictor. Right now, imagine in that inside

691
00:40:07,880 --> 00:40:14,480
Speaker 1: that snake of a vegetation gorged mammal that is also decomposing. Okay,

692
00:40:14,480 --> 00:40:18,480
Speaker 1: So like snake eats a ruminant herbivore, right, that's that

693
00:40:18,960 --> 00:40:22,520
Speaker 1: that itself had just previously eaten a whole bunch of grass.

694
00:40:23,480 --> 00:40:27,799
Speaker 1: Now bear in mind that many plant eaters lacking rumans

695
00:40:27,800 --> 00:40:30,880
Speaker 1: have a seesome. There's a pouch between the small intestines

696
00:40:30,920 --> 00:40:34,160
Speaker 1: and the colon, and animals like rabbits have extra large ones.

697
00:40:34,480 --> 00:40:36,799
Speaker 1: And the interesting thing is that pythons and boas do

698
00:40:36,920 --> 00:40:40,200
Speaker 1: as well, not for the plants they're not eating, but

699
00:40:40,320 --> 00:40:43,600
Speaker 1: for the plant eaters that they're gobbled and gobbling down whole.

700
00:40:44,239 --> 00:40:46,759
Speaker 1: So that's quite a lot of methane building up in there.

701
00:40:46,840 --> 00:40:51,600
Speaker 1: So imagine some prehistoric hunters dragging a gorge snake homb

702
00:40:51,760 --> 00:40:54,640
Speaker 1: to the campfire. You know, something that's just thick with

703
00:40:54,719 --> 00:40:58,920
Speaker 1: its recent meal, some sort of whole large herbivore just

704
00:40:59,120 --> 00:41:03,320
Speaker 1: lodged in its being broken down. So the hunters dragged

705
00:41:03,320 --> 00:41:05,760
Speaker 1: this back to the campfire and they PLoP it down

706
00:41:06,000 --> 00:41:08,040
Speaker 1: in front of the fire hard enough to blast the

707
00:41:08,080 --> 00:41:13,680
Speaker 1: creature's mouth open and then hush this brilliant burst of flame.

708
00:41:14,440 --> 00:41:17,319
Speaker 1: I will say that as a highly contrived scenario, but

709
00:41:17,360 --> 00:41:20,600
Speaker 1: I like it nonetheless. Yeah, it's it's it's beautiful in

710
00:41:20,600 --> 00:41:23,080
Speaker 1: its own way. Now I mentioned that Mary Roach has

711
00:41:23,120 --> 00:41:26,600
Speaker 1: more than one book that explores the science of flatus.

712
00:41:27,080 --> 00:41:30,759
Speaker 1: The other is Packing for Mars, which is because this

713
00:41:30,880 --> 00:41:33,279
Speaker 1: actually matters in space. Yeah, yeah, I mean it's a

714
00:41:33,320 --> 00:41:36,920
Speaker 1: big it's a big deal. Um. She She explores the

715
00:41:37,000 --> 00:41:39,960
Speaker 1: threat of of NASA fart studies in a couple of

716
00:41:39,960 --> 00:41:41,480
Speaker 1: her books, and these are just a couple of the

717
00:41:41,960 --> 00:41:47,360
Speaker 1: choice nuggets. Here she mentions that Edwin Murphy researched unquote

718
00:41:47,400 --> 00:41:51,320
Speaker 1: experimental bean meal fed to volunteers who had been rigged

719
00:41:51,480 --> 00:41:55,759
Speaker 1: via erectal catheter to out gas into a measurement device. Yeah,

720
00:41:55,800 --> 00:41:58,719
Speaker 1: he was interested in individual differences, not just in the

721
00:41:58,760 --> 00:42:02,839
Speaker 1: overall volume of latest, but in the differing percentages of

722
00:42:02,880 --> 00:42:06,719
Speaker 1: the gases and owing to differences in intestinal bacteria. Half

723
00:42:06,719 --> 00:42:11,040
Speaker 1: the population produced no methane. No methane. Yeah, no methane

724
00:42:11,040 --> 00:42:13,680
Speaker 1: and this so this would make them attractive as astronauts.

725
00:42:13,840 --> 00:42:15,520
Speaker 1: But I can also see this can make them a

726
00:42:15,520 --> 00:42:20,360
Speaker 1: target of chauvinistic attitudes about how real farts contain methane. True,

727
00:42:20,800 --> 00:42:24,279
Speaker 1: but Murphy even reported that he had found an individual

728
00:42:24,360 --> 00:42:28,040
Speaker 1: who was flate is free. So here's a quote. I

729
00:42:28,040 --> 00:42:31,400
Speaker 1: don't believe that. Yoh, well, I don't know. It's it's

730
00:42:31,440 --> 00:42:34,680
Speaker 1: it's a tough pill to swallow. But here's the quote

731
00:42:34,840 --> 00:42:38,239
Speaker 1: of special of special interest for further research was the

732
00:42:38,280 --> 00:42:42,640
Speaker 1: subject who produced essentially no flateust on one grams dry

733
00:42:42,680 --> 00:42:45,920
Speaker 1: weight of beans. So he suggested that the astronauts be

734
00:42:46,000 --> 00:42:49,720
Speaker 1: selected from quote that part of our population producing little

735
00:42:49,840 --> 00:42:53,399
Speaker 1: or no methane or hydrogen now. Also, it's it's worth

736
00:42:53,400 --> 00:42:57,520
Speaker 1: noting that NASA used to keep our flatest expert and

737
00:42:57,640 --> 00:43:02,160
Speaker 1: again future Nobel Prize winner biophysicist Michael Levitt on retainer

738
00:43:02,239 --> 00:43:06,839
Speaker 1: as a consultant, and he ruled that the capsules uh

739
00:43:06,840 --> 00:43:08,879
Speaker 1: that they were using at the time were large enough

740
00:43:09,160 --> 00:43:13,120
Speaker 1: and and well circulated enough to prevent the dangerous concentrations

741
00:43:13,160 --> 00:43:16,400
Speaker 1: of gas from building up. God, can you imagine that

742
00:43:16,600 --> 00:43:20,040
Speaker 1: being the requirement though? That shut you down to become

743
00:43:20,080 --> 00:43:22,480
Speaker 1: an astronaut. So it's like you've ever since you're a

744
00:43:22,480 --> 00:43:26,279
Speaker 1: little kid, you've trained, you've worked hard in school, you've

745
00:43:26,320 --> 00:43:28,560
Speaker 1: worked hard to stay fit. You you're ready to go

746
00:43:28,640 --> 00:43:31,960
Speaker 1: to space. You're in perfect shape, you know all the astrophysics,

747
00:43:32,000 --> 00:43:34,919
Speaker 1: you've been a test pilot, god knows what else, and

748
00:43:35,000 --> 00:43:37,080
Speaker 1: you're ready to be an astronaut. And they put a

749
00:43:37,160 --> 00:43:40,440
Speaker 1: rectal tube in you and they say, I'm sorry, you

750
00:43:40,520 --> 00:43:44,000
Speaker 1: produced too much flat us. You can't go to Mars. Yeah.

751
00:43:44,040 --> 00:43:46,680
Speaker 1: It's like you're super qualified, but your fart so weird.

752
00:43:46,719 --> 00:43:48,919
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. Now, you know, in the past, we've we've

753
00:43:48,960 --> 00:43:53,279
Speaker 1: talked about the prospect of genetically engineering astronauts, and of

754
00:43:53,320 --> 00:43:56,160
Speaker 1: course the main objectives here would be, uh, you know,

755
00:43:56,200 --> 00:44:00,640
Speaker 1: to make them more resistant to UH solar and cosmic radiation,

756
00:44:00,880 --> 00:44:06,000
Speaker 1: or or make them resistant to microgravity bone loss. But

757
00:44:06,120 --> 00:44:09,040
Speaker 1: perhaps we also want to ensure a fart free, space

758
00:44:09,080 --> 00:44:14,080
Speaker 1: faring human uh, either via genetic changed in the individual

759
00:44:14,280 --> 00:44:18,399
Speaker 1: or manipulation or genetic engineering of gut flora itself. Oh, yeah,

760
00:44:18,400 --> 00:44:20,040
Speaker 1: that that could be a thing. I mean, I wonder

761
00:44:20,120 --> 00:44:22,759
Speaker 1: if one way to do that would be not so

762
00:44:22,840 --> 00:44:26,520
Speaker 1: much through genetic engineering from birth, but through say, like

763
00:44:26,600 --> 00:44:31,000
Speaker 1: fecal transplants. Yeah, to change the gut flora profile. Yeah,

764
00:44:31,080 --> 00:44:34,560
Speaker 1: I mean really, there's there's so much left to learn

765
00:44:34,719 --> 00:44:39,919
Speaker 1: about the the connection between our gut flora uh and

766
00:44:40,239 --> 00:44:42,600
Speaker 1: other aspects of our health, not only physical health, but

767
00:44:42,640 --> 00:44:45,520
Speaker 1: even mental health. I believe we've talked about this on

768
00:44:45,560 --> 00:44:48,279
Speaker 1: the show before, the idea that in the future, one

769
00:44:48,320 --> 00:44:53,640
Speaker 1: of the treatments for certain cases of say, depression, might

770
00:44:53,680 --> 00:44:58,160
Speaker 1: be treatable via something like a fecal transplant. Yes. Some

771
00:44:58,239 --> 00:45:02,440
Speaker 1: of the amazing implication of gut flora for all kinds

772
00:45:02,480 --> 00:45:05,520
Speaker 1: of body health up and down the line are discussed

773
00:45:05,600 --> 00:45:08,120
Speaker 1: in that great book I recommended a couple of years ago,

774
00:45:08,280 --> 00:45:11,600
Speaker 1: Ed Young's I contain multitudes, which is all about the

775
00:45:12,560 --> 00:45:16,000
Speaker 1: It's about microbes and the microbiome, and it's just fascinating.

776
00:45:16,040 --> 00:45:20,960
Speaker 1: I mean, the dimensions of ramifications posed by gut flora

777
00:45:21,040 --> 00:45:24,879
Speaker 1: within humans specifically, but microbes all around us generally are

778
00:45:24,920 --> 00:45:28,040
Speaker 1: are just unbelievable. Alright, Well, on that note, we're going

779
00:45:28,080 --> 00:45:30,920
Speaker 1: to take another break, and when we come back, we're

780
00:45:30,920 --> 00:45:34,319
Speaker 1: going to discuss some of the notable toots of the

781
00:45:34,360 --> 00:45:40,080
Speaker 1: animal Kingdom. Thank alright, we're back now, Robert. There is

782
00:45:40,120 --> 00:45:42,840
Speaker 1: a book that I know you have been super psyched

783
00:45:42,840 --> 00:45:45,839
Speaker 1: about ever since we got a copy. Yes, uh, and

784
00:45:45,880 --> 00:45:47,800
Speaker 1: I've actually just in the past couple of days we

785
00:45:47,920 --> 00:45:51,520
Speaker 1: decided to do this episode first, But since then I've

786
00:45:51,520 --> 00:45:53,360
Speaker 1: noticed in the past couple of days on the Internet

787
00:45:53,400 --> 00:45:56,880
Speaker 1: other people are catching onto this book. It's making a buzz,

788
00:45:57,360 --> 00:46:00,279
Speaker 1: that's right. The name of the book is Does It Art?

789
00:46:01,440 --> 00:46:05,800
Speaker 1: The Definitive Field Guide to Animal Flatulence by Nick Caruso

790
00:46:06,200 --> 00:46:11,359
Speaker 1: and Danny Rabbiotti, illustrated by Ethan co Chak. It's uh,

791
00:46:11,520 --> 00:46:13,800
Speaker 1: it's been a bit of a hit in my household

792
00:46:13,840 --> 00:46:15,920
Speaker 1: thus far as you can. This is one of those

793
00:46:15,920 --> 00:46:18,160
Speaker 1: books that you can just flip through it land on

794
00:46:18,239 --> 00:46:21,520
Speaker 1: any particular page and there'll be a profile of a

795
00:46:21,760 --> 00:46:27,160
Speaker 1: specific animal. It's it's very easily digestible, Yes, very easily digestible.

796
00:46:27,200 --> 00:46:31,400
Speaker 1: It has some just delightful illustrations. Uh. And I've been

797
00:46:31,719 --> 00:46:34,680
Speaker 1: reading sections of it to my wife, to my five

798
00:46:34,719 --> 00:46:38,520
Speaker 1: year old son, to myself, and it's it's tremendous fun.

799
00:46:38,600 --> 00:46:41,319
Speaker 1: So I highly recommend getting a copy of this. I'll

800
00:46:41,360 --> 00:46:42,719
Speaker 1: make sure there's a link to it on the landing

801
00:46:42,760 --> 00:46:44,440
Speaker 1: page for this episode is Stuff to Blow your Mind

802
00:46:44,480 --> 00:46:47,279
Speaker 1: dot Com. Well, let's talk about a few examples, all right.

803
00:46:47,320 --> 00:46:50,680
Speaker 1: Well first, uh, yeah, a few examples of just exceptional

804
00:46:51,280 --> 00:46:54,160
Speaker 1: tutors in the animal kingdom. Uh. The first one I

805
00:46:54,160 --> 00:46:58,239
Speaker 1: want to profile here is the West Indian manateee. I

806
00:46:58,280 --> 00:47:00,360
Speaker 1: was really impressed with this one because we've just gust

807
00:47:00,640 --> 00:47:03,319
Speaker 1: manatees a couple of times on the podcast this year,

808
00:47:03,680 --> 00:47:06,480
Speaker 1: and I've I've recently got to see some both in

809
00:47:06,520 --> 00:47:10,480
Speaker 1: the wild and in an aquarium setting. But I had

810
00:47:10,560 --> 00:47:13,400
Speaker 1: not heard this particular tidbit the authors point out. They

811
00:47:13,520 --> 00:47:17,680
Speaker 1: quote the manatees and testines have small pouches throughout that

812
00:47:17,719 --> 00:47:22,080
Speaker 1: allow for gas storage. This unusual anatomy allows the West

813
00:47:22,160 --> 00:47:26,759
Speaker 1: Indian manatee to manipulate its farts as a mechanism for buoyancy.

814
00:47:26,800 --> 00:47:31,200
Speaker 1: By storing gas within specific areas of their intestines, manatees

815
00:47:31,239 --> 00:47:35,240
Speaker 1: can make their bodies more buoyant and float towards the surface,

816
00:47:35,440 --> 00:47:39,120
Speaker 1: while the compression and release of flatulence makes these animals

817
00:47:39,120 --> 00:47:43,000
Speaker 1: sink amazing. Yeah, so they're there. It's it's almost like

818
00:47:43,040 --> 00:47:47,080
Speaker 1: they're these these fart powered blimps flying, you know, through

819
00:47:47,160 --> 00:47:49,920
Speaker 1: the ocean. Uh. And they point out that, in fact,

820
00:47:50,000 --> 00:47:53,440
Speaker 1: if if a manatee is constipated, it screws everything up

821
00:47:53,480 --> 00:47:56,520
Speaker 1: and they'll often float with their tail too high because

822
00:47:56,560 --> 00:47:59,360
Speaker 1: there's too much gas built up there. Throws off the buoyancy.

823
00:47:59,480 --> 00:48:01,160
Speaker 1: You know. I was flip them through this morning and

824
00:48:01,200 --> 00:48:04,000
Speaker 1: I found a section on iguanas, and so I was

825
00:48:04,400 --> 00:48:08,359
Speaker 1: that that intrigued me Iguanas. Sometimes they've got this look

826
00:48:08,400 --> 00:48:12,440
Speaker 1: in their face like I don't fart. They don't look

827
00:48:12,480 --> 00:48:16,200
Speaker 1: a little proud. Yeah. Yeah, but they're they're lying. They're

828
00:48:16,280 --> 00:48:18,719
Speaker 1: lying to you, because iguanas do fart, like geckos and

829
00:48:18,760 --> 00:48:23,560
Speaker 1: other lizards, they fart. The Rhinoceros iguana or Cyclora cornuta,

830
00:48:24,080 --> 00:48:28,520
Speaker 1: they apparently tend to produce quote wet sounding farts. Uh,

831
00:48:28,560 --> 00:48:31,240
Speaker 1: and they fart more when they have high fiber diets

832
00:48:31,400 --> 00:48:37,000
Speaker 1: that makes sense, or lots of parasitic infestation. Green iguanas,

833
00:48:37,000 --> 00:48:40,400
Speaker 1: which are popular pets, are herbivorous, which means more farts,

834
00:48:40,719 --> 00:48:43,719
Speaker 1: and iguana owners have actually commented pretty often that their

835
00:48:43,760 --> 00:48:49,120
Speaker 1: lizards produce loud farts during defecation. One that I found

836
00:48:49,160 --> 00:48:52,359
Speaker 1: interesting was the termite. You don't You might not think

837
00:48:52,360 --> 00:48:55,840
Speaker 1: about farting termites, but here's the thing. They're kind of

838
00:48:55,880 --> 00:48:58,680
Speaker 1: super farters and according to the authors here, they produce

839
00:48:58,760 --> 00:49:02,479
Speaker 1: five to nineteen per and of global methane emissions. Yeah,

840
00:49:02,640 --> 00:49:05,719
Speaker 1: or is that possible? Or point to seven percent of

841
00:49:05,800 --> 00:49:10,160
Speaker 1: greenhouse emissions hermites, Yeah, amazing, Yeah, just in there, munch

842
00:49:10,200 --> 00:49:14,800
Speaker 1: inwood and tuting. Now they also get into dinosaurs a

843
00:49:14,880 --> 00:49:20,160
Speaker 1: little bit, specifically talking about sauropods. So as we'll discuss,

844
00:49:20,440 --> 00:49:23,600
Speaker 1: birds do not fart, so it's possible that they're dino

845
00:49:23,680 --> 00:49:27,000
Speaker 1: ancestors did not either. But sara pods, however, these are

846
00:49:27,000 --> 00:49:31,560
Speaker 1: the you know, the gigantic uh, plant eating engines of

847
00:49:31,560 --> 00:49:36,880
Speaker 1: of prehistoric times. They likely depended on hindgut fermentation to

848
00:49:36,960 --> 00:49:40,560
Speaker 1: break down those massive meals, resulting in quite a bit

849
00:49:40,560 --> 00:49:43,960
Speaker 1: of gas. The author's point to one studies estimate of

850
00:49:44,120 --> 00:49:48,680
Speaker 1: one point nine kgms of methane per sauropod per day. Now,

851
00:49:48,719 --> 00:49:51,560
Speaker 1: speaking of methane producing herbivores, I think we should look

852
00:49:51,560 --> 00:49:54,200
Speaker 1: at the cow. Yes, there's actually a section on the

853
00:49:54,200 --> 00:49:56,800
Speaker 1: cow in this book, but I also did some extra

854
00:49:56,880 --> 00:50:00,279
Speaker 1: research on the cow because obviously the cow farts. But

855
00:50:00,360 --> 00:50:03,160
Speaker 1: you might be surprised to find out how because you

856
00:50:03,239 --> 00:50:05,800
Speaker 1: might have heard that, for example, cows are a major

857
00:50:05,880 --> 00:50:09,960
Speaker 1: source of greenhouse gas emissions. And whether that's true defend

858
00:50:10,120 --> 00:50:12,799
Speaker 1: depends on how you define major. But it is true

859
00:50:12,840 --> 00:50:16,040
Speaker 1: that methane and other gas emissions do contribute to climate change.

860
00:50:16,080 --> 00:50:18,880
Speaker 1: There was a fourteen report produced by the UN Food

861
00:50:18,880 --> 00:50:23,120
Speaker 1: and Agriculture Organization and it estimated that in two thousand eleven,

862
00:50:23,280 --> 00:50:27,799
Speaker 1: methane emissions from livestock accounted for thirty nine percent of

863
00:50:27,920 --> 00:50:32,439
Speaker 1: all greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture. Now that's from agriculture,

864
00:50:32,560 --> 00:50:35,680
Speaker 1: not thirty nine percent of total emissions from all sources.

865
00:50:35,920 --> 00:50:37,920
Speaker 1: And just to put that in context, according to an

866
00:50:37,840 --> 00:50:40,760
Speaker 1: analysis by the U s d a UH, they estimated

867
00:50:40,800 --> 00:50:44,480
Speaker 1: that agriculture accounts for about ten percent of US greenhouse

868
00:50:44,520 --> 00:50:48,080
Speaker 1: gas emissions, so i'd be thirty nine percent of ten percent.

869
00:50:48,400 --> 00:50:51,600
Speaker 1: And among that thirty nine percent of agricultural emissions produced

870
00:50:51,600 --> 00:50:55,080
Speaker 1: by livestock, a full seventy four percent came from cattle.

871
00:50:55,400 --> 00:50:58,240
Speaker 1: There was fifty five percent from beef cattle, and nineteen

872
00:50:58,280 --> 00:51:00,680
Speaker 1: percent from dairy cattle, and the rest were from things

873
00:51:00,680 --> 00:51:04,080
Speaker 1: like buffalo and sheep and goats. Now, a lot of

874
00:51:04,120 --> 00:51:06,960
Speaker 1: this gas production comes down to the cows. Herbivorous diet

875
00:51:07,040 --> 00:51:11,440
Speaker 1: and digestion method, which Caruso and Rabbiati say can produce

876
00:51:11,480 --> 00:51:15,240
Speaker 1: between a hundred and two ms of methane emissions per

877
00:51:15,280 --> 00:51:19,399
Speaker 1: cow per year. And when you're measuring in kilograms, you're

878
00:51:19,440 --> 00:51:21,680
Speaker 1: you're thinking about a gas So it's like that much

879
00:51:21,840 --> 00:51:24,800
Speaker 1: gas weighing that much. It's kind of hard to fathom.

880
00:51:25,080 --> 00:51:28,799
Speaker 1: But you might have often heard this idea or this

881
00:51:28,840 --> 00:51:32,719
Speaker 1: line of thinking summarized as Wow, cow farts are really

882
00:51:32,760 --> 00:51:37,600
Speaker 1: contributing to climate change. Although cows do fart, the majority

883
00:51:37,640 --> 00:51:41,680
Speaker 1: of their emissions comes here's the kicker, not from farts,

884
00:51:41,680 --> 00:51:44,520
Speaker 1: but through the other end of the cow, straight out

885
00:51:44,560 --> 00:51:47,520
Speaker 1: the mouth. So cows expel a great deal of methane

886
00:51:47,520 --> 00:51:50,920
Speaker 1: through burps and through simple exhalation when they were when

887
00:51:50,920 --> 00:51:54,160
Speaker 1: they're breathing, and some researchers think cow emissions can be

888
00:51:54,200 --> 00:51:57,359
Speaker 1: curbed by altering their diet in targeted ways, such as

889
00:51:57,360 --> 00:52:00,480
Speaker 1: like feeding them different types of seaweed that inhibit production

890
00:52:00,520 --> 00:52:04,040
Speaker 1: of gut methane. But they've got this ruminant digestion method, right,

891
00:52:04,120 --> 00:52:06,560
Speaker 1: and so they end up just spitting out a lot

892
00:52:06,600 --> 00:52:10,760
Speaker 1: of carbon dioxide, methane and greenhouse gasses from the mouth.

893
00:52:11,160 --> 00:52:13,440
Speaker 1: H Well, you know that leads in nicely to the

894
00:52:13,760 --> 00:52:17,240
Speaker 1: first of a few notable abstainers we're going to mention

895
00:52:17,320 --> 00:52:20,360
Speaker 1: here from the book. Does it fart? You mean animals

896
00:52:20,360 --> 00:52:23,440
Speaker 1: that do not fart, Yeah, or may not fart in

897
00:52:23,480 --> 00:52:27,759
Speaker 1: some cases that the science is still out. But the

898
00:52:27,800 --> 00:52:31,440
Speaker 1: first is the sloth. So sloth, I don't believe it

899
00:52:31,600 --> 00:52:34,120
Speaker 1: slows must fart. You just look into their sort of

900
00:52:35,000 --> 00:52:37,320
Speaker 1: lazy eyes and you just assume that there's some farts

901
00:52:37,360 --> 00:52:40,920
Speaker 1: going on. My ignorant intuition trumps any science on this matter.

902
00:52:41,080 --> 00:52:43,399
Speaker 1: I know sloths fart, all right. Well, here's the thing.

903
00:52:43,600 --> 00:52:46,120
Speaker 1: According to the author's sloths, of course, are famously slow,

904
00:52:46,200 --> 00:52:49,640
Speaker 1: and they boast incredibly slow digestion. As many as five

905
00:52:49,800 --> 00:52:53,520
Speaker 1: days can pass between their poops at which time, of course,

906
00:52:53,560 --> 00:52:56,279
Speaker 1: they often climb down from the tree quint canopy to

907
00:52:56,520 --> 00:53:00,120
Speaker 1: do their defecation. And they have an incredibly lead he

908
00:53:00,200 --> 00:53:05,120
Speaker 1: diet as well, and simplified gut flora that doesn't produce flatus,

909
00:53:05,120 --> 00:53:08,319
Speaker 1: it produces methane. But the methane is absorbed in the

910
00:53:08,360 --> 00:53:13,680
Speaker 1: sloth's blood and is breathed out. Wow. So the takeaways here, Uh,

911
00:53:13,800 --> 00:53:17,600
Speaker 1: swaths maybe the only mammals that don't fart. We'll discuss

912
00:53:17,640 --> 00:53:20,600
Speaker 1: another possible mammal or variety of mammal on a second.

913
00:53:20,840 --> 00:53:24,080
Speaker 1: And it also gives me hope that the giant swath

914
00:53:24,600 --> 00:53:28,760
Speaker 1: megathereum breathed fire. Oh along the lines of the dead snake. Yeah,

915
00:53:28,840 --> 00:53:30,919
Speaker 1: like maybe it was. I'm not sure how it would

916
00:53:30,960 --> 00:53:33,040
Speaker 1: get that spark. The spark is the hard part. But

917
00:53:33,360 --> 00:53:35,640
Speaker 1: if you have a giant sloth breathing out a bunch

918
00:53:35,640 --> 00:53:38,920
Speaker 1: of methane, then there's there's hope for fire breathing. I'm

919
00:53:38,960 --> 00:53:40,880
Speaker 1: trying to imagine how it would happen. What would you have,

920
00:53:40,920 --> 00:53:44,400
Speaker 1: Like you'd have a megatherium who had a symbiotic relationship

921
00:53:44,520 --> 00:53:48,600
Speaker 1: with some kind of commencil bombardier beetle. Maybe that like

922
00:53:48,760 --> 00:53:51,960
Speaker 1: spit some kind of hot compound in front of its

923
00:53:52,000 --> 00:53:54,239
Speaker 1: mouth right as it was exhaling, and then you got

924
00:53:54,239 --> 00:53:57,279
Speaker 1: the fire coming out. Yeah, I'm trying. Yeah, or I

925
00:53:57,280 --> 00:54:00,520
Speaker 1: don't know, some sort of like uh, you know, flint

926
00:54:00,680 --> 00:54:04,520
Speaker 1: based like scraping of rocks. I get carries them around

927
00:54:04,520 --> 00:54:07,919
Speaker 1: in its mouth. But we're getting into dragon territory on this. Well,

928
00:54:08,000 --> 00:54:11,240
Speaker 1: you mentioned another mammal doesn't fart, or at least possibly

929
00:54:11,280 --> 00:54:13,879
Speaker 1: doesn't fart. I want to know what that is, all right, Well, yeah,

930
00:54:13,920 --> 00:54:17,040
Speaker 1: this would be and that this is an open question,

931
00:54:17,200 --> 00:54:22,200
Speaker 1: but possibly the bat. So they're mammals, and so they

932
00:54:22,239 --> 00:54:26,160
Speaker 1: have the right gut bacteria to produce flatus, but their

933
00:54:26,200 --> 00:54:29,640
Speaker 1: digestion is rather speedy to cut down on weight for flight.

934
00:54:30,480 --> 00:54:33,439
Speaker 1: The authors point out that even the largest species of bat,

935
00:54:33,520 --> 00:54:36,560
Speaker 1: the so called flying fox fruit bat, has a mouth

936
00:54:36,640 --> 00:54:40,040
Speaker 1: to anus digestion time of twelve to thirty four minutes.

937
00:54:41,000 --> 00:54:44,560
Speaker 1: That's crazy that that is fast. And also, if you've

938
00:54:44,560 --> 00:54:46,920
Speaker 1: never seen what a flying fox fruit bat looks like,

939
00:54:46,960 --> 00:54:49,080
Speaker 1: just look up a flying fox. These things are too

940
00:54:49,080 --> 00:54:51,880
Speaker 1: big to have wings, or at least too big to

941
00:54:51,920 --> 00:54:53,520
Speaker 1: be mammals to have wings. I guess there might be

942
00:54:53,520 --> 00:54:57,319
Speaker 1: bigger birds I don't know. They're huge. They are very

943
00:54:57,320 --> 00:55:00,400
Speaker 1: sizeable creatures. And the idea that they're digesting their food

944
00:55:00,400 --> 00:55:03,839
Speaker 1: and around thirty minutes or less is incredible. One. When

945
00:55:03,880 --> 00:55:07,040
Speaker 1: you see a flying fox hanging upside down, you're kind

946
00:55:07,080 --> 00:55:09,359
Speaker 1: of tempted to think that this could be the inspiration

947
00:55:09,480 --> 00:55:11,960
Speaker 1: for like the idea of bats as vampires, because they

948
00:55:12,000 --> 00:55:14,120
Speaker 1: don't they look kind of like people. Yeah, they have

949
00:55:14,200 --> 00:55:19,239
Speaker 1: this like humanoid like, like a lupine appearance. Now, the

950
00:55:19,280 --> 00:55:22,800
Speaker 1: other major category of note here are the birds. Birds

951
00:55:23,000 --> 00:55:26,000
Speaker 1: don't fart. They have all the right, you know, bits

952
00:55:26,000 --> 00:55:29,239
Speaker 1: of their anatomy, but they lack the gut bacteria to

953
00:55:29,360 --> 00:55:33,120
Speaker 1: produce the gas. So the authors of Does It Fart?

954
00:55:33,320 --> 00:55:36,720
Speaker 1: They mentioned a nineteen sixty three observation by a Cornell

955
00:55:36,760 --> 00:55:40,200
Speaker 1: graduate student by the name of Alan Richard vice Broad,

956
00:55:40,320 --> 00:55:44,319
Speaker 1: who described a quote small puff of whitish gas uh

957
00:55:44,440 --> 00:55:48,839
Speaker 1: during a blue jay's defecation, but experts later They they

958
00:55:48,960 --> 00:55:51,800
Speaker 1: argue that like, you were basically just observing warm water

959
00:55:51,920 --> 00:55:54,120
Speaker 1: vapor in the cool air, and this was not a fart.

960
00:55:54,239 --> 00:55:56,560
Speaker 1: It's like when you can see your breath, right, that's

961
00:55:56,560 --> 00:55:58,719
Speaker 1: not a fart. Yeah, I mean, really, when you come

962
00:55:58,760 --> 00:56:02,480
Speaker 1: down to the like the sign sientific observation of farts,

963
00:56:02,480 --> 00:56:04,000
Speaker 1: like that's how do you how do you see that?

964
00:56:04,040 --> 00:56:05,759
Speaker 1: It's kind of like trying to see a ghost. That's

965
00:56:05,760 --> 00:56:08,480
Speaker 1: why you have to have rectal tubes and whatnot? I mean,

966
00:56:08,600 --> 00:56:11,160
Speaker 1: is there really a reason to inflict rectal tubes on

967
00:56:11,200 --> 00:56:14,680
Speaker 1: blue jays? No? I mean, especially since everyone seems to

968
00:56:14,719 --> 00:56:17,200
Speaker 1: agree that birds do not fart, So let's not go

969
00:56:17,239 --> 00:56:21,080
Speaker 1: inserting any tubes that aren't strictly necessary for science. Robert,

970
00:56:21,239 --> 00:56:24,239
Speaker 1: this has been such a wonderful exploration, it has This

971
00:56:24,280 --> 00:56:26,320
Speaker 1: has been a fun one. We got from demons to

972
00:56:26,480 --> 00:56:30,600
Speaker 1: jesters to sloths. I don't know how this happened, but

973
00:56:30,719 --> 00:56:36,120
Speaker 1: it happened. And here we are closing the fabled fartonomicon,

974
00:56:36,239 --> 00:56:40,040
Speaker 1: at least for now. Uh. We would ask our listeners, Hey,

975
00:56:40,200 --> 00:56:44,200
Speaker 1: would you like to hear more about the science of farts?

976
00:56:44,320 --> 00:56:47,239
Speaker 1: Uh than let us know? Maybe maybe there's more. I'm

977
00:56:47,280 --> 00:56:50,719
Speaker 1: sure there's more, A deeper dive into a medieval fart

978
00:56:50,800 --> 00:56:54,480
Speaker 1: literature perhaps, Uh. And also I'd love to hear from

979
00:56:54,520 --> 00:56:58,400
Speaker 1: any of those near toothless individuals that we referenced earlier.

980
00:56:58,440 --> 00:57:00,960
Speaker 1: Are you one of those rare individ jewels who produces

981
00:57:01,040 --> 00:57:04,160
Speaker 1: a little or no uh um, hydrogen or methane in

982
00:57:04,160 --> 00:57:07,520
Speaker 1: your flatus? Are you in space right now? Let us

983
00:57:07,520 --> 00:57:09,200
Speaker 1: know we would love to hear from you. We're just

984
00:57:09,280 --> 00:57:12,319
Speaker 1: inviting people to lie to us. Yeah, I don't fart. Yeah,

985
00:57:12,719 --> 00:57:17,200
Speaker 1: I wonder how much lying is perpetrated around flash Lens.

986
00:57:17,240 --> 00:57:20,760
Speaker 1: It has to be one of the major contributors, surely, yeah. Yeah.

987
00:57:21,600 --> 00:57:23,560
Speaker 1: So Hey. In the meantime, go to Stuff to Blow

988
00:57:23,560 --> 00:57:25,280
Speaker 1: your Mind dot com. That's where you'll find all the

989
00:57:25,280 --> 00:57:29,080
Speaker 1: episodes of the podcast, including this one, with links to

990
00:57:29,280 --> 00:57:32,960
Speaker 1: some of these books we were referencing. Also, I'm going

991
00:57:33,000 --> 00:57:35,240
Speaker 1: to try and put together some sort of a gallery

992
00:57:35,280 --> 00:57:38,360
Speaker 1: to go along with this episode, because we've referenced some

993
00:57:38,440 --> 00:57:41,280
Speaker 1: fabulous works of art here. Maybe I can collect a

994
00:57:41,280 --> 00:57:44,040
Speaker 1: few examples for you. Uh and hey, it's Stuff to

995
00:57:44,040 --> 00:57:46,800
Speaker 1: Blow your Mind dot com. You'll also find links going

996
00:57:46,800 --> 00:57:51,320
Speaker 1: out to our various social media accounts such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram,

997
00:57:51,680 --> 00:57:54,560
Speaker 1: et CETERA. Huge thank you as always to our wonderful

998
00:57:54,600 --> 00:57:58,000
Speaker 1: audio producers Alex Williams and Tory Harrison. If you would

999
00:57:58,080 --> 00:57:59,800
Speaker 1: like to get in touch with us to let us

1000
00:57:59,800 --> 00:58:02,440
Speaker 1: know your feedback on this episode or any other, or

1001
00:58:02,520 --> 00:58:04,680
Speaker 1: do you suggest a topic for a future show, or

1002
00:58:04,720 --> 00:58:07,240
Speaker 1: just to say hi. You can always email us at

1003
00:58:07,360 --> 00:58:19,440
Speaker 1: blow the Mind at how stuff works dot com for

1004
00:58:19,600 --> 00:58:21,920
Speaker 1: more on this and thousands of other topics. Does it

1005
00:58:22,000 --> 00:58:51,320
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. Here, you, great demons of Hell,

1006
00:58:52,040 --> 00:58:56,360
Speaker 1: watch over us, your disciples. We dedicate ourselves to your

1007
00:58:56,480 --> 00:59:00,560
Speaker 1: service and accept your might and dominion. We call upon

1008
00:59:00,680 --> 00:59:08,040
Speaker 1: your infernal names Satan, Beelzebub, flid asterak Fartha, met Toots

1009
00:59:08,120 --> 00:59:13,440
Speaker 1: for real Zies, Barbara Rigmus, Crepitus, rip One, and toots Afer.

1010
00:59:14,360 --> 00:59:17,919
Speaker 1: Arise from the depths of thy cosmic privy, and give

1011
00:59:18,080 --> 00:59:20,360
Speaker 1: us a sign of thy power.