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We've had a hell of a good time spending the past 6 years scrounging up weird science and history junk for you to listen to! It's been a privilege knowing there a lots of fact junkies out there like us, digging through our podcast like raccoons in a trashcan. Our legacy is 328 fantastic episodes and we hope you never stop coming back when you need a little weird and wacky in your life.

We'll still be on Instagram, full of shenanigans and making reels. Never stop being curious.

Love ya forever, Trace and Amy

Show Notes:

The Poozeum: https://poozeum.com/

Life Cycle of the Mosquito: https://www.vdci.net/mosquito-biology-101-life-cycle/

University of Melbourne: Male Mosquitos don't want your blood: https://findanexpert.unimelb.edu.au/news/31460-male-mosquitoes-don%27t-want-your-blood--but-they-still-find-you-very-attractive

WPRI.com Blue Whale leaking: https://www.wpri.com/news/street-stories/blue-whale-skeleton-at-new-bedford-museum-still-leaking-oil/

Atlas Obscura, Oozing Whale Skeleton: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/the-oozing-whale-skeleton-of-new-bedford-new-bedford-massachusetts

Popular Science: https://www.popsci.com/science/blue-whale-leaking-oil/

MSN Lyudmila Trut: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/lyudmila-trut-soviet-scientist-who-sped-up-evolution-with-tame-foxes-that-began-to-look-like-dogs/ar-AA1sMlb1

BMC, The silver fox domestication experiment: https://evolution-outreach.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12052-018-0090-x

Episode 240 Extreme Lookalikes (where we mention the silver foxes)https://brainjunkpodcast.com/podcast/240-extreme-lookalikes/

Popular Science, Why 60 degrees feels different: https://www.popsci.com/environment/why-fall-feels-colder-than-spring/

Evolutionary ecology of ethanol: https://www.cell.com/trends/ecology-evolution/fulltext/S0169-5347(24)00240-4?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS0169534724002404%3Fshowall%3Dtrue

New Scientist, Can all animals get drunk? https://www.newscientist.com/lastword/mg25934543-000-can-all-animals-get-drunk-what-enables-this-in-those-that-can/

Science Daily: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/10/241030150809.htm

Penn Engineering Today, The secrets of baseball's magic mud: https://blog.seas.upenn.edu/the-secrets-of-baseballs-magic-mud/

Lena Blackburne Rubbing Mud:

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit brainjunkpodcast.substack.com

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Amy lives for a good shenanigan so of course she adores MIT's tradition of playing hacks (aka pranks) on Harvard and Yale. The biggest one you've ever heard of turned out to be a fake but don't worry, there's still some great ones from the past 75 years that were real!

Show Notes:

Atlas Obscura: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/a-harvard-stadium-pigeon-prank-that-pavlov-would-be-proud-of

MITbloggers YouTube 1982 pranktacular: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iq4rzxw_wYU

Boston.com: https://www.boston.com/sports/college-sports/2018/11/16/mit-hacks-harvard-yale-balloon-prank-1982/

1948 newspaper article (behind a paywall)https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/105095033/

MIT, Interesting Hacks to Facinate People: https://hacks.mit.edu/Hacks/by_topic/harvard.html

Harvard "Huge Ego" hack: https://hacks.mit.edu/Hacks/by_year/2006/H_Y_huge_ego/

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In a weird turn of events, it's ants performing surgery when one of them has a leg injury instead of scientists whacking the legs off. Okay,we lied, the scientists are doing it too...

Show Notes:

Episode 71: Ants on Stilts (it's just as horrible as it sounds) https://brainjunkpodcast.com/podcast/71-ants-on-stilts/

Current Biology article: https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(24)00805-4

Live Science, Ants perform life saving surgery: https://www.livescience.com/animals/insects/ants-perform-life-saving-operations-the-only-animal-other-than-humans-known-to-do-so

TW: Facebook video showing actual leg amputation https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=846736237392641

Pub Med Animals that self medicate: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4267359/

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Imagine rolling up to excavate an ancient ruin only to spend the day carrying out buckets full of crabs! Today we get to know the Potamon fluviatile crab.

Show Notes:

National Geographic article: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/river-crab-ancient-rome

Musei In Commune Roma, The sculpture of Constantine: https://www.mercatiditraiano.it/en/percorsi/percorsi_per_temi/la_statuaria/testa_rilavorata_come_costantino

Wikipedia, Giant Crabs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potamon_fluviatile

Freshwater crabs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freshwater_crab

When a ladybug lands on you: https://www.wellandgood.com/symbolic-meaning-of-ladybugs/

YouTube, Rome's giant crabs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=QNbVPkRDaGI

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Have you ever wondered if a hit of helium would change the sound of an alligator's bellows? Lucky for us, there are scientists out there who wanted to know.

Show Notes:

BBC: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-54197198

Kyoto University Ig Nobel announcement: https://www.kyoto-u.ac.jp/en/news/2020-09-29

YouTube resonance to vocalize: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gz-plqEyxik

Science: https://www.science.org/content/article/ig-nobel-prizes-reward-research-helium-huffing-alligators-and-knives-made-feces

CNN US: https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/18/us/ig-nobel-awards-alligator-helium-scli-scn-intl/index.html

Journal of Experimental Biology: https://journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/218/15/2442/14244/A-Chinese-alligator-in-heliox-formant-frequencies

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Amy looks into how companies change over time. Start making glass jars, segue into making aerospace technology, and end up only doing metal fabrication. We look at a few other companies too!

Show Notes:

Ball historical timeline: https://www.ball.com/our-company/our-story/history-timeline

Wikipedia on Ball Corp: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_Corporation

CPR News 2024, Ball Corp sells aerospace division: https://www.cpr.org/2024/02/16/ball-corp-sells-aerospace-division/

HiRISE camera: https://www.ball.com/newswire/article/123308/ball-aerospace-hirise-camera-returns-stunning-images-from-mars

Deep Impact: https://deepimpact.astro.umd.edu/tech/instruments.html

Ball Aerospace and Hubble: https://www.ball.com/newswire/article/123389/ball-aerospace-hubble-space-telescope-science-instruments-shine-a-light-on-the-universes

Dating a Ball jar: https://www.frenchcreekfarmhouse.com/2018/03/how-to-date-ball-mason-jar.html

Mason Jars a history: https://masonjars.com/history-of-ball-jars-html/comment-page-1/

Journey Indiana Youtube, Ball Family Legacy : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HG1z0D_JJzk

Tiktok youthpastorryan talking companies behaving badly: https://www.tiktok.com/@youthpastorryan/video/7305919108434971947?lang=en

Wikipedia r-Gator: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-Gator

Honeywell flight control autopilot: https://aerospace.honeywell.com/us/en/products-and-services/product/hardware-and-systems/cockpit-systems-and-displays/flight-controls-and-autopilots

GE hydro power: https://www.gevernova.com/hydropower/

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Scientists wanted to know if plants scream and tortured tomatoes to find out the answer. Beckett (Trace's youngest spawn) wanted to know, if plants do scream, can our pets hear it and is this why cats knock plants off shelves?

Show Notes:

YouTube sound of Plants "screaming": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-_AGgoJ3VA

Sci News, Plants Emit Ultrasonic Sounds When Stressed, Groundbreaking Study Shows: https://www.sci.news/biology/plant-ultrasonic-sounds-11794.html

How Well do Animals Hear: https://www.lsu.edu/deafness/HearingRange.html

Hidden Hearing, Human hearing ranges: https://www.hiddenhearing.co.uk/hearing-blog/hearing-loss/what-animals-have-better-hearing-than-humans

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Amy laid the perfect trap; she lured Trace into an episode about shapeshifting women and then sprang the trap...this episode is about the Joro spider. We talk about the convergence of giant invasive spiders and Japanese mythology.

Show Notes:

Joro Spider (warning, there are spider photos): https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/millions-of-joro-spiders-are-moving-up-the-east-coast-heres-what-to-expect/

Wikipedia Joro spider: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trichonephila_clavata

Wikipedia Jorogumo: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jor%C5%8Dgumo

Described and Captioned Media Program: PBS Digital Studios & Monstrum: https://dcmp.org/media/14555-monstrum-jorogumo-the-deadly-spider-woman-from-yokai-lore

(Amy was Right!!!!) Blackarachnia: https://tfwiki.net/wiki/Blackarachnia_(BW)

Selkies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selkie

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How do we define and study the little voice in your head? Is it something you HEAR, hear or is it something you think? For some of us, there's no inner monologue, for others, it's so loud in there, it's hard to participate in the outside world. Trace fell down the research stairs on this one! It's a double header of things we hear and see in our heads. Get ready for anendophasia and aphantasia!

Show Notes:

Inner voice: https://neurosciencenews.com/anendophasia-inner-voice-memory-26107/

Prevention: inner voice: https://www.prevention.com/health/mental-health/a43128717/inner-monologue/

Not everyone has an inner voice: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38728320/

Sister “issue” aphantasia: https://aphantasia.com/what-is-aphantasia/

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Who knew that a simple combination of oats, water and salt could make for a yearly competition that's lasted for 30 years? We dive into the history of oats in Scotland and the famous Golden Spurtle competition!

Show Notes:

Golden Spurtle World Porridge Making Championship: https://www.goldenspurtle.com/

BBC: World Porridge winner crowned October 2023: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-67053001

Wikipedia World Porridge Making Championship: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Porridge_Making_Championship

2023 Golden Spurtle newsletter: https://heyzine.com/flip-book/d871ced870.html#page/1

Bob's Red Mill, Porridge vs Oatmeal: https://www.bobsredmill.com/blog/healthy-living/porridge-vs-oatmeal/

BBC How humble oats have fueled a nation: https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20231004-oats-the-humble-grain-that-fuelled-scotland

YouTube Golden Spurtle prep: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJhlAaW5uIA

The Guardian No milk, no rolled oats and always add salt: how to make porridge like a champion

Gravy restaurant: https://gravyrestaurant.com/menu/

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We're heading into the end of summer break so it's time for a mash up of wacky facts. Fake navels, cheetahs in heat, the weenus and MORE. Oh yes, we adore a good internet fact deep dive. Also, Trace does drop the 'shit' word once.

Show Notes:

Amazon fake navels: https://www.amazon.com/Belly-Button-Stickers-Fashion-Longer/dp/B0CC5TZ23P?th=1

SCMP Fake belly button article: https://www.scmp.com/news/people-culture/gender-diversity/article/3230438/fake-belly-buttons-all-rage-china-women-seek-freedom-dress-and-boost-confidence-some-raise-body

Cleveland Clinic limb lengthening: https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/treatments/24316-limb-lengthening-surgery

Bears and skunk cabbage: https://www.nwf.org/Educational-Resources/Wildlife-Guide/Plants-and-Fungi/Skunk-Cabbage

USDA Forest Service yellow skunk cabbage: https://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/ipnf/learning/?cid=fsm9_019161

Maryland Biodiversity project & skunk cabbage: https://www.marylandbiodiversity.com/view/1660

Nude Cruise: https://cruisebare.com/

Ovulation: https://productions-animales.org/article/download/2583/13696?inline=1

Cheetah vocalization FB: https://www.facebook.com/runningwildconservation/videos/listen-to-jordan-making-stutter-bark-sounds-to-shadow-in-the-camp-adjacent-to-hi/484675892467812/

CNN Travel "Bare-adise" https://www.cnn.com/travel/bare-adise-adventure-nude-cruise-miami-2025/index.html

Pee Pants: https://www.jordanluca.com/collections/denim

Complex designer jeans: https://www.complex.com/style/a/alex-ocho/pee-stained-designer-jeans-sell-out

Wenis. Thanks Merriam-Webster (LOL) https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/weenus-weenis-slang-definition-origin

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It's tiny, inscrutable, made with spider silk, and we really don't know much about the mysteries of it's intricate construction.

Show Notes:

Nat Geo https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/silkhenge-spiders-ecuador-mystery

Wiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silkhenge

Internet archive https://web.archive.org/web/20201108125631/https://blog.nationalgeographic.org/2014/01/09/mystery-picket-fence-in-amazon-explained-2/

Earthtouch news network https://www.earthtouchnews.com/discoveries/discoveries/remember-those-mystery-silkhenge-spiders-now-you-can-watch-them-hatch/

Youtube spiders hatching https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Unc-g9AHl2Y&t=106s

Linkedin post https://www.linkedin.com/posts/dante-fenolio-ms-ph-d-76833a52_silkhenge-spider-amazon-activity-7147602639663316992-gZY4

Live science https://www.livescience.com/silkhenge-returns-video.html

Live science2 https://www.livescience.com/57401-silkhenge-spiders-hatch-on-video.html

Youttube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Unc-g9AHl2Y

iNaturalist https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=any&q=silkhenge&subview=map

Medicinal leeches: https://media.vwr.com/emdocs/docs/scied/Medicinal_Leeches.pdf

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In the spring, fish like perch travel through the rivers in the Netherlands to find places to spawn. They used to get stuck behind Weerdsluis lock: waiting for it to open. But not anymore! A virtual doorbell was created to help let the lock keeper know they're there. Hot tip, starting March 3, 2025, you can go to their website to hit the doorbell!!!!

Show Notes:

Visdeurbel!

Youtube: Dutch Wall Fish

Scientific American article: Ring the Dam Doorbell

Ballard Locks fish ladder

Wolfenoot

McGill Office of Science and Safety: Do Fish Drink

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It's a super long length summertime episode with the sex lives of penguins, periods in space, Humpback whale sex, swearing parrots, terminal velocity poop, & penis size vs. nose size. Buckle up!

Show Notes:

Dr. George Murray Levick (1876–1956): unpublished notes on the sexual habits of the Adélie penguin

The Guardian: 'Sexual depravity' of penguins that Antarctic scientist dared not reveal

Live Science: Are penguins really monogamous?

Penguin divorce rates

Penguinsinternational.org: Divorcing Penguins

Edinburgh Zoo pebbles for penguins

Popular Science: Menstruation in Space

NPR: TED Radio Hour

Nautilus: Humpback Whales, getting humpy

Happy Whale

Lincolnshire Wildlife Park's swear parrots: FB page with videos

Smithsonian: Parrots, What the Flock?!

The complete sillyness of reindeer poop "science" Instagram: Toiley T Paper

Penis size and Nose size, it's a real scientific paper, we promise: Penile length and circumference: are they related to nose size?

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Smarter than the mafia, more cunning than a pickpocket in Paris, long-tailed macaques in Bali are all about snatching valuables from tourists and bargaining for tasty snacks.

Show Notes:

Long tailed macaques info from the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center

Sir Attenborough and monkeys

YouTube BBC Video of things getting stolen!!

Scientific Reports paper: Cohort dominance rank and “robbing and bartering” among subadult male long-tailed macaques at Uluwatu, Bali

Poor kiddo bitten by a monkey while touring

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Amy's bringing the BATS. We've got more cool facts about bat communication and how some of them compete for food (it's sonic warfare for sure).

Show Notes:

Episode 214 Sky Puppies Mama fruit bats and their kiddos

Episode 242 Bat Chat 1 A smorgasbord of bat shenanigans

University of Bristol: Bats avoiding collisions in the air

YouTube Lens of Time Roll to minute 5:20 for bat smacks

Science: Bats jam each other's signals just like humans jam cell phones

National Geographic: Bats jam each other's sonar

The Sensory & Movement Ecology Lab @ UCCS

Science: Tiger moths jam bat echolocation!!!

Southwest Research Station

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Did Trace complain about clickbait titles in this episode? Yes. Did she ALSO use a clickbait title for this very episode? Absolutely. Sea scallops like light and it turns out that works in the favor of fisheries and the environment.

Show Notes:

Oceanconservancy.org: Scallops

Fishtek Marine YouTube on the tech and study. Also their website

Science Daily: University of Exeter paper

University of York: Scientists accidentally discover “scallop discos” as an environmentally friendly fishing method

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While doing the show notes for this episode, Trace looked into tips and tricks for when you take a vacation and have to drive on the opposite side of the road. The advice? Don't panic and purchase travel insurance LOL. There are so many different historical reasons for how countries chose what side of the road to drive on.

Show Notes:

Lancaster-Philadelphia Turnpike

Somerset Historical Center: The Conestoga Wagon

Windwagon Smith a Disney animated picture from 1961

Wikipedia left and right side

The Economist" Robespierre and driving on the moral side of the road

US Dept. of Transportation Federal Highway Administration: On the Right Side of the Road

UK car glass and their opinion on right side/left side

BBC: A 'thrilling' mission to get the Swedish to change overnight

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Nothing like rubbing yourself down with snakeskin jerky to keep yourself from getting eaten. Today we check out the parallel evolution of the California ground squirrel and rattlesnakes. It's an olfactory camouflage arms race that on a bad day, ends with someone getting eaten.

Show Notes:

UC Davis: Squirrels Use Snake Scent

Royal Society B: Donning your enemy's cloak: ground squirrels exploit rattlesnake scent to reduce predation risk

Nature: Squirrel Masks Scent with Rattlesnake Skin (Cool video of squirrels in action)

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Nighttime waking and scattered thoughts are problem solving's evil twin. If you find yourself awake at 3 am obsessing over your problems, remember that stress and hormonal imbalances can really damage the quality of your sleep.

Show Notes:

IFL Science: Why Do We Wake Around 3am And Dwell On Our Fears And Shortcomings?

VeryWellmind.com: Military Sleep method

Science Direct: Molecular Clock

US Southwestern University: Understanding the circadian clocks of individual cells

Wikipedia: Suprachiasmatic nucleus

NIH: Visual impairment and circadian rhythm disorders

The New Yorker: The Woman who Spent Five Hundred Days in a Cave

Benadryl and Alzheimer's possible link

Transcript:

[00:00:03] Speaker A: Welcome to Brain Junk, I'm Trace Kerr

[00:00:05] Speaker B: And I'm Amy Barton. And today I'm gonna continue changing your lives because we've talked about how to up your personal hygiene game. And today I'm gonna tell you about why you wake up at 03:00 a.m. And give you some tips and tricks.

[00:00:19] Speaker A: To stop that from happening.

[00:00:21] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:00:24] Speaker A: I am not a 03:00 a.m. Wake up person, so this will be interesting.

[00:00:27] Speaker B: You're not what it.

[00:00:29] Speaker A: No.

[00:00:29] Speaker B: Do you wake up in the night?

[00:00:30] Speaker A: No, I'm not a wake upper.

[00:00:32] Speaker B: Oh, that's interesting. Well, Chris and I both are, and I tend to. On a good night, I just wake up once. But oftentimes I will wake up in this somewhere between two and 04:00 a.m.. Time. And so we're both like, why is that happening to us? And some of it is Shelby the cat.

She seems to get the zoomies. So let's back up, too. Greg Murray, professor and director, center for Mental Health in Sweden, Swinburne University of Technology. Swin. Yeah, Swinburne University of Technology.

He's a psychology researcher, and his expertise is in mood and sleep and circadian systems. Oh, and so he talks about this in an article for IFL science. For those of you who don't wake up like trace, it's bad because in the middle of the night, all of the thoughts seem to be. It's never like, I was so good in that meeting today, and I just love these blankets, and it's not that stuff. It's distressing and punitive thoughts, and they're irrational and unproductive. If you are alert enough that you have awoken, usually some people, it might not be that way, but it's definitely the way my brain works. It will worry about everything and anything. Like, I don't know, if we fill the ice cube trays up enough, they're gonna be so hard to get out.

[00:01:49] Speaker A: Laying there at 03:00 a.m. Did I lock the front door?

[00:01:52] Speaker B: Yeah, that's not my job, so I don't worry about that one. I assume Chris does it. It's not an official division of labor. It's just an observed division of labor.

So we could die in our sleep because I don't check.

Someone could break in and get us, but I'm pretty sure he does. So, yeah.

Back to our bodies at 03:00 a.m. What's going on there? The easiest way for me to think about it is when you get into a boat and you're getting up to speed for a skier, full throttle. Then you sort of even out. And then at 03:00 a.m. You're getting ready to come into the dock. And so you're throttling back. That throttling back is your core body temperature starts to rise. Your sleep drive is reducing because you've had a big chunk of sleep. Your body's like, well, we should dial it back here. Your secretion of melatonin is subsiding. It's peaked. It's done. And your levels of cortisol are so melatonin down, cortisol up, because you're facing the day and your body's gearing up. So it's a very transitional time for your body, which makes a lot of sense. Why some of us like somebody that's not good at a manual transmission car. Maybe that's what's happening with my body.

You have a smooth automatic and I have a 16 year old driving a manual transmission.

Yeah, it's exactly like, oh, I killed it. I'm sorry.

[00:03:14] Speaker A: Oh, no. Now here's the question, though. If, because it's probably, like you said, it's a physiological cycle, right? So if you go to bed at 10:00 p.m. Is it, is it like two? If you went to bed at midnight, would it be like three? Does it?

[00:03:30] Speaker B: That's a good question. So here. Here's to answer. I didn't look that up, actually.

[00:03:34] Speaker A: Well, I just meant for you, like, do you notice?

[00:03:37] Speaker B: No, I can if I get less sleep. I'm probably sleeping a little longer into the night and I get through till about 05:00 a.m.. Yes. So for me, it does shift a little. If I go to bed real late, I can move it. It still doesn't pay because if I go to bed real late, it's like Friday night and I wanted to sleep till 730 and I'm not going to still.

So that's sad. How is your body doing this? Why? And all of you are like, it's circadian rhythms. And you're right. Ten points. But I thought it's been. I just know the word circadian rhythms and I really don't think a lot about what's happening and how your body has this cycle of preparing you for what's going to happen. It's going to prepare you for activity and for sleep and for eating.

[00:04:23] Speaker A: Huh.

[00:04:24] Speaker B: Are you having a thought?

[00:04:25] Speaker A: I am having a thought, but I didn't want to interrupt.

[00:04:26] Speaker B: Okay. Do you want to have it now or do you want me to go on?

[00:04:29] Speaker A: Yeah. Let me have my thought.

[00:04:30] Speaker B: Okay.

[00:04:32] Speaker A: So Chaz and all of the men in his family, as they get older, wake up earlier and earlier.

[00:04:39] Speaker B: Mm hmm.

[00:04:40] Speaker A: He used to be, like, a five. Now he's a four. If he's really stressed out, 330. And here's the thing. If I do wake up, I go, well, I'm awake, but I'm not getting up. And I stubborn myself back to sleep.

[00:04:52] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:04:52] Speaker A: He wakes up and gets up. It's almost freaky. He's awake and he's out of bed, and he's gone, and he starts the day.

[00:04:59] Speaker B: So he's got 16 year old with an automatic transmission with maybe some cognitive things happening there.

[00:05:05] Speaker A: Yeah. And he can't get back to sleep. It's almost like an insomnia sort of issue, except it's that early morning. So that thing where you would wake up at three and go, well, we're committed until five. He goes, I'm just gonna get up.

[00:05:17] Speaker B: Yeah, I will get up, go to the bathroom, try to fall back to sleep, and usually succeed. We're gonna talk about circadian rhythms a little bit, and then I'll talk about what might be happening there.

[00:05:26] Speaker A: Ooh.

[00:05:26] Speaker B: Fake doctor Amy will address that.

[00:05:28] Speaker A: Thank you, fake doctor Amy. You're so smart.

[00:05:33] Speaker B: Without any primary sources, it's amazing. Okay. Almost all living organisms do have biological clocks like us, which isn't surprising. But I didn't think of, back then, bacteria and fungi among that and plants. And in humans, our biological clocks coordinate, like I said earlier, our behaviors, like sleeping and mood and eating and cognition, our physiology, like our metabolism and our hormones and our blood pressure and our body temperature. The body clock even coordinates individual cell function, which is wild, like DNA repair and cell cycle. And that allows our body to function all together and work properly as a team. Yeah. So what I didn't realize was that this is at that cellular level, and each cell has its own molecular clock. And the region of the brain that's responsible for all this is the suprachiasmatic nucleus. So we're going to call that the master clock. So I don't have to say that again, because.

And immediately, all the sources I looked at reverted to master clock as well.

But that's what makes all of these parts in our bodies, these all of everything, sync up and connect all of the circadian rhythm like we talked about. You could go in a cave. And, yes, scientists have done this with no environmental cues. Your body will still follow a roughly 24 hours cycle. A little more a little less. Depending on you, it will become desynchronized from the environment. So a blind person could potentially over months and years become very desynchronized if they don't have the visual cues. So they, I believe they have to create cues in other ways for themselves to stay synced.

[00:07:14] Speaker A: Right. Cause I was thinking of the gal who was in the cave for 500 days.

[00:07:20] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh. Yeah.

[00:07:21] Speaker A: And she did get all like she thought it was less time. Like she didn't think she'd been there that long and it changed her. So she got on her own kind of cycle and everything. But.

[00:07:36] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.

[00:07:37] Speaker A: Cause you're creating this different because if.

[00:07:39] Speaker B: You'Re 24 hours and 15 minutes, it does. She would be like a day off before too. Awfully long, I feel like.

[00:07:46] Speaker A: Right?

[00:07:47] Speaker B: Yes. Yeah. And so can you imagine coming out of that and trying to sync back up with the natural world? I wonder how long it took for her to feel like she could fit in the world again. That would be weird.

[00:07:58] Speaker A: Yeah, that would be interesting.

[00:08:00] Speaker B: So she probably did feel physically better. So that master clock in our bodies will integrate both what's happening in your body and what's happening around you. And so it integrates that light and dark and temperature changes for us to pull all of that together so that we aren't all slightly wonky from the clock.

[00:08:21] Speaker A: Well, yeah. And then we're putting this artificial schedule on there so that we all go to work at the same time or we all make it to the party at the same time and.

[00:08:30] Speaker B: Yeah. And that's an interesting thing. I have found that I feel like I should go to bed at 930 but I'm really probably my better sleep. Nights are when I'm falling asleep around 1030 as long as I get enough sleep. So that's been an interesting, since I've read this, I've been kind of looking at my own habits and I'm finding maybe I should shift a little.

[00:08:49] Speaker A: You're like, oh, no, I'm doing this all wrong.

[00:08:51] Speaker B: Maybe. Yes, I was doing some things right, but. And for some of us, we actually have restless and wakeful periods throughout the night for many of us, because y'all know about REM cycles and those are happening. And so you have that where you're closer to the surface, then you go back down and we're just not aware of that potentially. So then you throw a little bit of stress and it's easy for you to have that a thought flit through that brings you to alertness and that is the enemy here. And unsurprisingly, this increased during the pandemic. So for those of you who do have that moment of that stressful thought that snaps you out of it, it probably got worse in the pandemic because stress impacts so much, and insomnia will create some hypervigilance, and so you'll jolt awake and PSA here. Public service announcement. I am told that insomnia does respond well to psychological treatments, if you can afford it.

[00:09:50] Speaker A: Ah, well, I will say, like, Beckett has some issues with insomnia. And the big thing from, you know, the people who were like, okay, here's how you can try to fix this. Was not laying in bed awake.

[00:10:02] Speaker B: Yes.

[00:10:02] Speaker A: So, you know, we had this high school kid at the time who was up just wandering around the house.

[00:10:09] Speaker B: Only for 20 minutes, though, because they're restarting the bedtime clock.

[00:10:13] Speaker A: Yep. In the middle of the night, wandering around doing stuff. Cause they're like, I'm not tired. I'm not supposed to lay there. And I'm like, okay, I'm gonna trust.

[00:10:19] Speaker B: The process, but could you please not cook onions and garlic? Thanks.

[00:10:25] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.

[00:10:29] Speaker B: Yes. Yeah. So the author says your mind is partly right when it concludes, the problem is unsolvable at 03:00 a.m. Because you really don't have the skills to deal with it when you're in that situation. So. And our brain isn't looking for a solution at 03:00 a.m.. Too. They cite, he says, science calls it problem solving. Evil twin is worry that nighttime. So it's the flip side. This is like in those documentaries where they flip the picture and it's a black and white reversed image. That's what we need here.

So what can you do about this? Because you're so. If you're prone to this, it just happens to you. But you do have a little bit of control. And there are. There's a ton of stuff on the Internet, and some of it, most of them. The biggest thing that I read that I hadn't really heard a lot of is that these things can all work, but you need to practice something for a while before your brain learns it, and it becomes quicker and more natural. There is a military trick that I read that pilots and soldiers do because they have to get the sleep where they can. And so they need to be able to fall asleep in weird places quickly. And they do one of those. Have you ever done one of those body inventories where you sit in a comfortable place and you think about major muscle groups and you tense them, and then you loosen them. And so you have that experience of holding it tightly and then completely relaxing it. And so they start from the top of their head, and they imagine it really tight, and then they loosen it up, and they make it feel warm and pleasant, and they just move through their body.

[00:12:09] Speaker A: Somebody's gonna crash their car. Stop it. Stop it.

[00:12:11] Speaker B: Yeah.

So if you get to do some sort of guided meditation like that, they're delightful. And so soldiers will teach themselves to do that. But the article said it's a practice that takes some learning. But once your brain has that pattern, it will be like, oh, we're doing this. Okay. And it shuts you down again.

So that's good. And finding a way to get rid of that worry. Buddhist informed mindfulness is another one that popped up quite a bit. The self is a fiction, and the fiction is the source of all distress.

[00:12:43] Speaker A: Wow, we got deep fast.

[00:12:45] Speaker B: So much. And they were careful to point out, sometimes meditation doesn't work. Sometimes it does. You might, it might not hit for you.

[00:12:55] Speaker A: That's true. When I'm anxious, meditation does not help. I just stew in my own. It's like you put me in a pot of boiling water, and I'm just in there bubbling away, going, oh, wow, now I'm really thinking about everything. This is great.

[00:13:07] Speaker B: Yes. Yeah. So please don't torture yourself with meditation if that's not working for you. It might be a practice you could develop during overtime hours or. Yeah. When the stakes are high, though, it reverses it for me. So for my personal practice is to get my book out and try to restart the bedtime routine in my brain. It's like a hard reboot.

[00:13:28] Speaker A: Oh, there you go.

[00:13:29] Speaker B: And that actually works pretty well for me. Once I got a kindle with the nice screen that doesn't hurt your brain.

[00:13:36] Speaker A: Of course, then I can remember. Okay, so if you wake up and you're reading and then you start to fall asleep and you drop it and it hits the floor, and then, like, boom. Okay, now I'm awake again. That was great.

[00:13:48] Speaker B: Yes, yes. That startle response, that is the worst part of this. If you can find some way to work through that startle and short circuit it. One of the tips that I also had never read but I hadn't heard of, they say it's important to convince yourself during daylight hours that you want to avoid catastrophic thinking. So kind of prepping yourself in the daytime that I'm going to be thinking about calm things and reminding yourself what your plan is and how long you plan to lay there versus getting up or doing your next thing. I like that thought, but I haven't.

[00:14:24] Speaker A: Heard you now talk about. Because a lot of this is chemistry. Is people snacking on melatonin?

[00:14:30] Speaker B: Some of those things. They're great. They do indeed do what they say they do, but then your body is like, oh, we have an external source. High five, buddy. I'm gonna let that process go. So then it will take a while for your body to realize, oh, this is me again. All right, I have to do what? So, Chris and I have that talk, and I have heard that antihistamines at bedtime, we call it riding the pink dragon, because it becomes so very needed and it's hard to let go of.

[00:15:07] Speaker A: It's like, ooh, let's brush our teeth and do Benadryl shots.

[00:15:10] Speaker B: No, exactly. Yes. Because they're sowing links to Alzheimer's with that. So if you can find an alternative that would be healthier for you.

I hate to throw out healthy out there at people, but that one is literally, potentially problematic.

[00:15:27] Speaker A: Yes.

[00:15:28] Speaker B: There we go. So, sleep cycles. That's why you wake up. The boat's throttling back.

[00:15:32] Speaker A: I have too much cortisol.

[00:15:34] Speaker B: I can't sleep. I'm just gonna run around upstairs for a minute. I'll be right back.

[00:15:40] Speaker A: I'm feeling stressed out. This is how I cope with my insomnia.

I guess Becca could have been running around the house, and they were in high school. That would have been a real pain. Yeah.

[00:15:53] Speaker B: Yeah.

And now I wonder, for people that work night shifts or just naturally, like, I. This is not my sleep wake cycle. I would like to sleep at other times. I wonder if their body is integrating environmental cues less.

[00:16:10] Speaker A: Yeah. Either that, or, as I think I was doing some reading about this, because both of my kids do a night shift, and they're just more inclined to be awake then and asleep at a different time.

They weren't. They also, neither of them were nappers, so I think maybe they've just been weird since. It's my fault. It's my fault.

[00:16:32] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:16:33] Speaker A: So there you go.

[00:16:33] Speaker B: It's a genetic thing there. Their internal cues don't tell them they need naps.

[00:16:39] Speaker A: I don't know. They're a mess. The master clock broken.

[00:16:44] Speaker B: All it takes is one part.

[00:16:48] Speaker A: Oh, man.

[00:16:51] Speaker B: So, hopefully, it has been interesting knowing some of these things like that, that startle aspect. And so if I feel myself drifting awake now at that time of night, I will be very intentional about what I think about to try not to have that. When are you going to do your taxes, thought, because it's all over once that hits.

[00:17:14] Speaker A: Yeah. No doom spiraling.

[00:17:16] Speaker B: It's 03:00 in the morning.

[00:17:17] Speaker A: Yeah.

[00:17:18] Speaker B: Yeah. So I'll report back in six months.

[00:17:20] Speaker A: That sounds good. So if you were listening to this and it's the middle of the night and you want to relax and just drift off, learning about ants being kneecapped or how to wipe your butt properly, ask your smart speaker. But whisper, because whoever you're sleeping nearby, they don't want to wake up. Ask your smart speaker to play brain junk podcast. Or you can listen anywhere. You listen to podcasts like subscribe, review, catch us on YouTube, buy some merch. You know. You know what to do. We've been here. We've done this. You're tired.

[00:17:56] Speaker B: Don't hit the merch store until it's daylight hours. Please.

[00:17:59] Speaker A: Yeah.

[00:17:59] Speaker B: Okay.

[00:18:00] Speaker A: Yeah. You don't want that bright blue screen?

[00:18:02] Speaker B: No.

[00:18:03] Speaker A: Amy and I will catch you next time when we share more of everything you never knew you wanted to know, and I guarantee you will not be bored. Now roll over. Use the cold side of the pillow. Go back to sleep.

View Details

2024 is the 100th anniversary of Band-aids. But before they were the little strips in cool tins, they came in a roll you could cut to size.

Show Notes:

Johnson & Johnson history of Band-aids

Wikipedia: Band-aid history

Disposable America

The Atlantic: The Story of the Black Band-aid

TruColour Bandages

Transcript:

[00:00:03] Speaker A: Welcome to brain junk. I'm Amy Barton.

[00:00:05] Speaker B: And I'm Trace Kerr. And I do have a cold.

[00:00:08] Speaker A: Yes.

[00:00:08] Speaker B: But today is everything you never knew you wanted to know about band aids.

[00:00:13] Speaker A: I want to know many things. Did you buy picturey ones for your children, or were you kind of scroogey?

[00:00:20] Speaker B: Here's the thing. I kind of felt like the picturey ones didn't have enough of the nick.

I'm a fan of the fabricy ones because I feel like they stay on better.

[00:00:32] Speaker A: Yeah, but.

[00:00:33] Speaker B: Okay, so, 2024, I just figured this out when I was doing research, is the 100th anniversary of the eponymous bandaid.

[00:00:40] Speaker A: Oh, so they've had them since the 20s?

[00:00:44] Speaker B: Yes.

I went to the Johnson and Johnson website for the history of the bandaid, and I stayed for a bandaid quiz.

[00:00:51] Speaker A: You can do a band. That's fun. I'll do any quiz.

[00:00:55] Speaker B: Same. I got 90%. But I may have done some research and also cheated.

I had already been looking into it, and then I took the quiz, and I was like, I'm so smart. No, it was all but way back in the late 19 hundreds when you.

[00:01:17] Speaker A: And I were young.

[00:01:18] Speaker B: Yeah, way back then, a million years ago, back with the mammoth. You could buy bandaids in a tin.

[00:01:25] Speaker A: Yes, you can again. Now they're, like $5 more than regular bandaids.

[00:01:30] Speaker B: I haven't seen that with the flip top lid.

[00:01:33] Speaker A: I walk down that row, I'm not even there for bandaids. I'm there for whatever else is in that row, and I'm like, I probably need four tins of these fancy bandaids.

[00:01:42] Speaker B: I don't know. But, I mean, that tin, it was just the right size to fit in, like, a shirt pocket. When I was a kid, you had, like, fishing supplies in there. It's almost like the cookie tin. That's actually a sewing kit.

[00:01:55] Speaker A: Yes, exactly.

[00:01:56] Speaker B: The number of times you could open that bandaid tin and it would not be bandaids was about 50 50.

[00:02:02] Speaker A: Yes. Gum. If it's nicely in there. Yeah.

[00:02:05] Speaker B: Okay, so the story of the bandaid. Let me take you back.

[00:02:09] Speaker A: Take me back.

[00:02:10] Speaker B: Back in 1920, Josephine Knight Dixon. Now, Johnson and Johnson says she was accident prone around the kitchen. I feel like she was a woman in the kitchen getting burns and cuts. That just happens.

[00:02:22] Speaker A: Yeah. Because the kitchen was a lot more dangerous in the. Yeah.

[00:02:26] Speaker B: Keep her away from the knives. But back then, we didn't have bandaids, so she would just wrap her fingers in a bit of spare fabric that she had lying know, and it would come untied and it would get dirty. So she told her husband about this issue, and he was a cotton buyer for Johnson Johnson. And the cotton that they were buying, they were using that to make gauze.

[00:02:49] Speaker A: Okay.

[00:02:49] Speaker B: And they had been making that for a while. Well, so he was. Okay, let's. Let's make a solution to this problem. So he brought a bunch of samples home. I like to think that he just kind of went into a supply closet and was like, let's take a little bit of this. A little bit.

[00:03:04] Speaker A: Some sticky notes, a few paperclips, a red stapler.

[00:03:08] Speaker B: Don't look in my handy dandy leather briefcase. There's nothing in there. But Earl. That was his name. Earl brought a bunch of samples home. Three inch wide surgical tape and cotton gauze.

[00:03:20] Speaker A: So surgical tape already existed, then? Yes, it did. Okay.

[00:03:23] Speaker B: Although it was three inches wide, so it was almost like an ace bandage kind of size.

And he cut a piece about 18 inches long, and he laid the gauze, a strip of it, down the middle. So if you imagine this long rectangle with the gauze down the middle of it, and then he put a fabric layer on top of that and rolled the whole thing up because the fabric layer would keep the sticky bits from sticking to themselves.

[00:03:49] Speaker A: Okay.

[00:03:50] Speaker B: And then, voila. She could unroll this roll a little bit and cut off a strip the size that she needed to put on a cut.

[00:04:01] Speaker A: So his big roll was like a racing stripe all the way down. But then she cut off. It would look like our traditional band aids.

[00:04:08] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.

[00:04:10] Speaker A: Crafty, right?

[00:04:13] Speaker B: And it worked great. She loved it. And so Earl was like, I got to tell my boss about this.

[00:04:19] Speaker A: Yeah.

[00:04:19] Speaker B: And so he took it to his boss, showed him, and he was like, you're right. This should be a thing. And so then they took it to pharmacists, and it was not popular.

[00:04:29] Speaker A: Oh, really? What?

[00:04:31] Speaker B: They only sold $3,000 worth of these rolled bandaids, these bandages, the first year they were out. And Johnson and Johnson was like, people didn't understand what it was that they could be buying.

[00:04:44] Speaker A: Yes. This is the story of Fabrize, where people didn't know they needed it until Fabrize explained they needed it.

[00:04:50] Speaker B: Wait, I smell.

So they put out ads that detailed how to use this rolled up bandage. They educated pharmacists and the traveling salesmen who were out telling people, this is what it is. This is how it works. See, for your accident prone wife in the kitchen, this would be great. So they went from $3,000 in sales in 1921 to 1924. And the precut bandage, we all know, today. So between 1921 and 1924, it was just the big chunk. And then somebody was like, hey, how about we just cut these into bite sized pieces?

[00:05:29] Speaker A: I'm thinking, like, wax paper would work really well for a backing.

[00:05:33] Speaker B: And I think it's one of these things where we had World War I and people were doing a lot of medical stuff, and then they figured out, oh, there were ways to keep these things clean and sterile and in that fancy little tin.

[00:05:44] Speaker A: Yeah. Because the tin would stay dry. Yeah.

[00:05:48] Speaker B: So you could whack your thumb with an axe while chopping wood. And bandaid.

But then bandaids went on, like, in 1968, they went to the moon on Apollo eight. Oh, that's fun, right? In 1975, there was a bandaid commercial, and I'm wondering if you can complete the jingle. I'm stuck on bandaid brand because bandaid stuck on me.

[00:06:12] Speaker A: Yes.

I knew it before. I'm like, I know that jingle. That is the jingle of my childhood. And I can see the commercial right now. Happy children with a finger in the air.

[00:06:24] Speaker B: Yes. In the bathtub. Bandaids still sticking. There was even a commercial where they would stick bandaids to a dry egg and then lower it into boiling water. I couldn't remember that. I could remember the kids with bandaids on, but not the boiling water egg.

[00:06:42] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't remember the boiling water. One adult, me, would be like, yeah, that's awesome, kid. Me, would be like, why are we boiling the bandaids?

[00:06:52] Speaker B: Yes. And then they just kind of cruised along. In 2017, they had an innovation for touch screen friendly bandaids.

[00:07:01] Speaker A: Oh, yes. I have had a pointer finger.

Someone cut it with a knife a couple of times.

[00:07:09] Speaker B: Ouch.

[00:07:11] Speaker A: And it becomes very difficult to do life now without a pointer. Yeah.

[00:07:20] Speaker B: Or the thumb. Like, if my right thumb has a bandaid on it, it's like, you can just send me out to pasture, push me into traffic. I can't use my thumb on my phone.

[00:07:29] Speaker A: No, you're out with your middle finger and then doing everything. Speech to text.

[00:07:33] Speaker B: Oh, no, I don't do that. Speech to text. I'm not capable. You do it. You do speech to text, like a boss.

[00:07:39] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. I do it everywhere too, and my children are mortified by it.

[00:07:45] Speaker B: Especially bandaids are cool, period.

[00:07:49] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. It can be awkward. Back to bandaids.

[00:07:55] Speaker B: Okay, so we're going a little out of order because my timeline is out of order. 1994 was the end, although clearly not now. But it was the end of the tin bandaid container.

[00:08:04] Speaker A: Sad.

[00:08:05] Speaker B: I know. But now they're retro, so we'll bring them back. 2000, the billionth bandaid was produced.

[00:08:12] Speaker A: Oh, wow. I can see that. I use a lot of them.

[00:08:16] Speaker B: Yeah.

Okay, so I'm going to take a slightly different turn here. It wasn't until 2021 that bandaid, Johnson and Johnson Bandaid brand made bandaids that were not just for white skin.

[00:08:29] Speaker A: Yes. And not even white skinned. It's like weird, putty colored people. None of us are. There's nobody in the world that's actually bandaid colored.

[00:08:37] Speaker B: No, not really. But, I mean, you're closer.

[00:08:40] Speaker A: You're closer.

[00:08:41] Speaker B: If you're on the.

[00:08:42] Speaker A: For sure. It's in the shade range. It's not scale. Yeah.

[00:08:46] Speaker B: When asked about it over the years, they'd say, well, there's too many shades. What can we do? So in 1995, they did come up with a clear bandaid. And I remember those. They don't stick very well.

[00:08:58] Speaker A: They're sweaty and weird. Yeah.

[00:09:00] Speaker B: Because they're kind of plasticky.

[00:09:02] Speaker A: Yeah. I like the idea. It was a good thought.

[00:09:04] Speaker B: It was a good thought. I read an atlantic article. They quote a 66 year old black woman named Orndu Johnson. She said of ads at the time, she told her kids, the bandages said flesh color. And I'd explain, that's not your flesh. The band Aids were even a point of contention with the Black Panthers. There's this cartoon of a man in, like, a leather jacket, and he's got this white band aid on his head, and it was like, look at this. They can't even make us bandaids.

[00:09:31] Speaker A: Wow. That goes back ways then.

[00:09:33] Speaker B: It goes back a long ways now. They make them in a variety of tones. And there are a lot of other companies that make bandaids since, like, the mid 80s that have stickable bandages in a variety of shades. But often bandaids like the Johnson and Johnson brand are cheaper just because of market share. There are so many of them. Yes, but they turned it around. 2021. Good job.

[00:09:57] Speaker A: Good.

[00:09:58] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:09:59] Speaker A: Because we had neon bandaids way before anyone with brown skin could have a bandaid that matched them.

[00:10:05] Speaker B: Oh, the neon Band aid. That's right.

[00:10:07] Speaker A: I'm glad that that is more accessible and less expensive now.

[00:10:10] Speaker B: Me too. Yeah, me too. So that is the story of I'm stuck on band Aid brand because band Aids are stuck on me.

[00:10:18] Speaker A: I love that. That's a little piece of childhood. I sling band aids like I'm daddy Warbucks. Everybody can have band Aids. I'm not Scroogey at all. And fancy ones go for it. If that says I love you or you're going to be okay. You have it.

It's a charming story, right? Oh.

[00:10:38] Speaker B: He was thinking of his wife, who kept chopping off her fingers. But we made band aids.

[00:10:45] Speaker A: My aunt has one of the really old tins out at the lake, and it still contains band Aids. And there are several in there that are very vintage that we all ignore because we know those aren't going to stick. So it's a little time capsule.

Yeah.

[00:11:00] Speaker B: When I told Chaz they haven't made them since 1995, he stood there for a little bit, and he was like, how old are all the tins I have in my fishing gear? And I was like, old buddy.

[00:11:09] Speaker A: Probably antique old, because they're our childhood tins. Oh, my goodness. Do you know what else I wanted as a child with tins? Is the lip gloss in a tin. And I did conquer that. I got those. And then you realize that's not that great. It's a little bit difficult. What do you do with the residue on your finger? Do you find a dry spot and rub it on? I don't know.

[00:11:30] Speaker B: Yeah. But those lip smacker, little tiny tins, they would click open.

[00:11:37] Speaker A: Oh, yes.

[00:11:38] Speaker B: And you want to talk about the original fidget toy.

[00:11:41] Speaker A: Yeah.

[00:11:41] Speaker B: Oh, those were so good.

[00:11:43] Speaker A: We've just given a small gift, a small sensory gift to every gen xer right now. So there you go. The other thing. And this is another one for me. I so longed for secrets. Those tins were the coolest. And they had commercials. And I'm like, those are so tidy. Look at the little things. And they're so great. And so I think my dad had a cold, and it was a real cold, not like us kids. And he actually needed a cough drop. And at some point, mom bought them. And I remember trying them, and they were not good. So gross. Oh, yeah. Never mind. I would like some Smiths or Ludens again, please.

Things and tins. Thank you for giving us the lowdown on bandaids. You're welcome. You can drop a line.

Brainjunkpodcast@gmail.com always find us on Facebook and Instagram. Message us there. Pop up a fun thing. We're there. We're watching.

[00:12:36] Speaker B: That sounds ominous.

[00:12:37] Speaker A: Yeah, like big brother. And we're expecting you to, like and subscribe.

Smash that button, please.

But please do wherever you, you know, the smart speaker thing.

[00:12:51] Speaker B: And YouTube.

[00:12:52] Speaker A: Yes, YouTube. Find us on YouTube. You can just start up at work and listen if your boss is cool with that. All right, trace and I will catch you next time when we share more of everything. You never knew you wanted to know and I guarantee you will not be bored.

View Details

From poker to games played to pass the time, those 52 cards are so ubiquitous it's hard to figure just when we started using them. We go all the way back to ancient China for a possible origin of cards.

images: Cloisters Deck from the Metropolitan Museum of Art and and example of cards from today from pixabay

Show Notes:

The strange coincidence of the Instagram guy & 52 card decks

Metropolitan Museum of Art: The Cloisters Playing Cards

Atlas Obscura: Playing cards around the world and through the ages

JSTOR: an excerpt from The Game of Leaves: An Inquiry into the Origin of Chinese Playing Cards

Wikipedia: Chinese Playing Cards

Transcript:

[00:00:03] Speaker A: Hey there. Trace here. So Amy and I have a couple projects coming up over the next couple months. She's taking some classes. She's got to do homework. I've got some projects, a fiction podcast that I'm working on writing, and a novel that I'm working on editing. And we need a little more space, a little more time. So we're not stopping brain junk. Absolutely not. We love it too much to quit. But we are going to move to every two weeks instead of every week. So that means this week is an episode, and then we won't have another episode until April 2. Now, that doesn't mean that you can't get your brain junk fixed. We got lots of old episodes. You can head over to YouTube for the really old episodes. I'm slowly uploading more. We're not going anywhere. We're just going to dial it back a little bit for a little while. So enjoy this episode. Yeah, we'll see you in two weeks.

Welcome to Brain junk. I'm Trace Kerr.

[00:00:59] Speaker B: And I'm Amy Barton. And today we're going to talk about everything you never knew you wanted to know about playing cards.

Are you a card family? Like old school? Not like games, but the traditional four suit deck.

[00:01:16] Speaker A: Yeah, we are. Well, you know, it's funny because I grew up as a card family. Chaz did not grow up as a card family. They were a scrabble family. And I have converted him to the crazy eights and the Kings in the know, the old people card games.

[00:01:32] Speaker B: Yeah. Yes. Now, I have never played kings in the corner. My family is a rummy family. I think there's some cribbage in there, too, with the little pegs. Children were not allowed to touch that. I think it was an adult escape game because they played it out at the lake and they're like, shouldn't you guys be swimming? Grandpa's out watching go swim, so I need to learn to play that one.

[00:01:55] Speaker A: Well, I can teach you how to play cribbage. Chaz and I play cribbage all the time. Neither of my children like to play cards, which is funny. It began and ended with us. That's it. We're done.

[00:02:05] Speaker B: Now.

It's a generational thing in my family because my grandpa was a military fella for a long time, and so it was an officer's. It's a clubby thing. They would have card night. And so that filtered down into my parents play, and we play. Chris didn't play as much, but the kids liked it when they could start playing with the grandparents, and Allie especially, can win.

[00:02:27] Speaker A: See, now, what you have to do is you get your children, because, like Beckett's person, cam likes to play cards, and so you just have to make sure. You have to be like, are you nice to my child? Do you like to play, know, whatever the family thing is?

[00:02:40] Speaker B: Yeah. When it's boring and rainy, what will we be doing?

So Chris saw a video on Instagram and immediately sent it to me, knowing it was all about cards. He's like, knew I would enjoy it. The content creator. What do we call Instagram, people? The guy on Instagram, he was really good with cards and was smoothly shuffling the deck and laying them out and talking about the origin of cards, the standard modern deck that we use. So he said the 52 cards represent 52 weeks in a year. I was with him there. The black and red are the darkness of night, and the lightness of day are the two colors. 13 cards pursuit ace through king. For those who don't get into a deck very often, they say that's the 13 weeks of each season, and all of that adds up to 364, which is one day shy of a year. So you throw in a joker, and you get two jokers for leap year. This is the symbolism and the meaning of the cards.

[00:03:48] Speaker A: Now, is he the only one saying this?

[00:03:50] Speaker B: Or that is when he got to the joker thing. I'm like, I have never in my life seen a deck with only one joker.

[00:03:59] Speaker A: Right?

[00:03:59] Speaker B: I'm like, so I'm like, I believed you until that moment because it lines up so nicely.

[00:04:05] Speaker A: It does.

[00:04:06] Speaker B: Yeah. However, there is a great big butt here.

Those of you who have ever seen or touched a card deck or watched a movie with cards will note that they are paper. The troublesome nature of paper products historically is that they disintegrate very easily and the ink fades. And so there are card historians and scholars who say, this is a terrific story. It totally might be true, but we have no primary sources, and you really can't put any stock in that. Don't bet on any of that, because they just can't prove it. That is a bit of a disappointment, but we can't know because of all these things. So I'm going to tell you some of those things cards originate. I was curious. I thought they might be older than they are, and they certainly could be, but historians start seeing evidence of them between the 9th and 13th centuries, depending on who you consult and how loosely they define that. What is cards?

[00:05:08] Speaker A: That classic, that classic card kind of thing, the suits and everything.

[00:05:13] Speaker B: Would recognize as. And there are lots of permutations, as you might guess, that culturally and locationally, they're just all different. One scholar said the amount of things, basic things that nobody knows about playing cards is astounding.

He says the playing cards are impressively undocumented. Like, nice. But I think that speaks to the nature of they are a thing of the people in many ways, because you can sit and spend ten minutes and make a deck of cards that's usable. So historically, bored people probably did that. So origins, this is an asian origin. It did make its way over to Europe, but the first sightings are in Asia. And again, it's one of those things that's like, yeah, probably this is what happened. But the documentation is scarce. They generally assume China, Persia, India is where they came from, and that they probably came over during the Crusades, where people were mingling, different cultures were mingling. This is the episode, by the way, that I told you was my favorite because I was going to be extremely broad and very, like, I don't know, that's just the whole episode, so I'm super excited about it.

All I'm going to tell you guys for the next five minutes is maybe it's hard to say, oh, do you want to go? I have a little side road in my notes right here. There's chinese game called Yezigay, which translate to Game of leaves. And I didn't look up a pronunciation, so that's probably wrong. But it's the first game to use playing cards that they can kind of say, yeah, this is truly a card game. And their references to it being played as early as the study found that there is no indication that the leaves actually referred to playing cards. And so this is this documented thing. It's the first card game. And then in 2009, somebody went poking around. They're like, are you guys sure this is cards? Because the leaves, they might actually have been the pages from the game's instruction books. Oh, no. So the game may have used dice, as chinese games of the time often did. So nobody even seems to have even suggested that the game may have been a card game until the 15th century, which is right around the time that playing cards started to take off. So there was a lot of. I think this is a card game, right? Yes. It's like a game of telephone.

So the earliest unambiguous record of playing cards was a police record from 1294. A couple of gamblers in Shendong, China, were arrested, and their cards and the printing blocks for those cards were confiscated. So that's fun.

[00:08:04] Speaker A: You know, I feel like about as soon as people developed language, they figured out games of too. You know, rocks, stones, dice, cards. I'm sure that all came along very quickly.

[00:08:19] Speaker B: And I can see dice games prevailing. Yes. Because you could create them from a lot of materials, and they could rumble around in your pocket and get wet.

[00:08:29] Speaker A: And then you could just break them out and play.

I know. So here's the question. The invention of a table is that when you have cards, you set it on a rock.

[00:08:42] Speaker B: Table and card, same time period.

[00:08:44] Speaker A: Exactly.

[00:08:46] Speaker B: It's OG and grog. And they made it. Yeah. There are card size parchment deck that dates around the 13th century in a couple of museums, including the cure collection of islamic art in Dallas. But it's not known for sure that they're actual playing cards. They might have been like some guy's grocery list or some other kind of notes on card sized things. So they totally could be cards. And as we've just talked about, I really do think they probably had cards much earlier than that. And then there comes the sandwich. Problem is a taco. A sandwich is a hot dog. A sandwich is a title game, a card game. Those are card shaped things. How thick does it have to become before it's not a card game? So this is also a disputed thing among historians, which I did not go very far down that road.

[00:09:34] Speaker A: They're like mahjong.

[00:09:35] Speaker B: Yes, that's exactly the one.

[00:09:37] Speaker A: Not a card game. That's a domino's game. Right?

[00:09:41] Speaker B: Yeah. But is it like a rectangle and a square?

[00:09:45] Speaker A: Yeah.

[00:09:47] Speaker B: So there's great disputes hotly contended at the playing card conventions.

[00:09:52] Speaker A: I was just thinking in some sort of historical, archaeological thing, and two guys with glasses and lanyards throw down over dominoes versus cards.

[00:10:02] Speaker B: Yes, exactly.

So you start seeing formalized decks of playing cards. There is the cloister deck from the late 15th century, and it is in the Metropolitan Museum of Arts. And they were able to identify that and date it. And it has 52 cards, four suits, numbers and face cards. So a true, what we modern people would say. I could play cards with that. Yes.

[00:10:26] Speaker A: Oh, but you know what? They're ovals.

[00:10:28] Speaker B: Yeah. The shapes, over time, a little changey. I think squares and rectangles are easiest, but decorative cards.

[00:10:36] Speaker A: Wow.

[00:10:37] Speaker B: But there's a few other decks that are of a similar vintage, and we'd recognize them as cards. So that oval shape. At first, cards were primarily for the rich. What we would formally say are cards. I suspect, again, other people had cards, but a beautiful hand painted deck with continuity and recognizable rules and traditions of this is what this king will look like were around before Gutenberg, but they were hand painted and might be really elaborate and used exotic dies and beautiful designs, but they require a lot less variation than a book. So you could whip a deck out quicker than you could do a book.

[00:11:17] Speaker A: Well, looking at the cloisters deck that you mentioned, yes, 52 cards, and they're oval shaped. But the suits aren't like, what we would think of as suits.

[00:11:27] Speaker B: No. It could be hunting dogs. It could be acorns, stags like fishing lures.

[00:11:33] Speaker A: Oh, is that what those are? Because one kind of looks like a whisk, one looks like a girl in a bonnet. I'm like, what am I even looking at?

[00:11:41] Speaker B: Yeah. The cloister duck in particular. They say hunty dog stags, lures, or that that might be of that era, were fairly common in other parts of Europe. You would see representations of the ruling families like a fleurtely in France. So at first, it was just four distinct suits, but they could be whatever you wanted. You could have squirrels and acorns and chipmunks and sunflower seeds, whatever your jam is and that you're willing to illustrate.

But, of course, as we talked about something else, where pedestrianism, as people begin to communicate and cultures flow together more frequently, standardization occurs, and that happened earlier for cards. By the end of the 15th century, printing presses are starting to be a thing, and so cards were more available, and then you want some continuity so that you all can play the same game. So that's kind of when the standard design and layout began to occur. And there were four prominent schools of card decks, the german, the Swiss, the French, and the Latin. But we've landed on the french deck, which has largely edged out the german deck. So those were the two longest contenders. It sounded like.

[00:12:51] Speaker A: Oh, different designs, different regional. Oh. And so then there was a battle. Okay. And the French won. Of course they did.

[00:12:57] Speaker B: Yeah.

So that's what I know about playing cards now a lot more than I used to. My grandma used to have little, small decks that were, like, one by two inches, and I've got one that's shaped like a surfboard.

One of the little decks had Mickey Mouse, and they're probably pretty old because they're older than me.

[00:13:16] Speaker A: We got a new set. Actually, Chaz got a new set of two packs of cards from a company called fan effinf and birds. They are wildly inappropriate. They have bird drawings and then lots of swear words. I'll have a link in the show notes, they're delightful. Although my mom was over and he was like, let's play crazy eights. And I was like, not with that deck. Not with that deck.

[00:13:38] Speaker B: Grab a comfortable deck that we've broken in.

[00:13:41] Speaker A: Let's get the ones that we've picked up for free from the casino that have been decommissioned. Those are good.

[00:13:48] Speaker B: My parents. Our favorite deck growing up was plastic, but one of the corners had broken it off and my mom attached it back with rubber cement or something, which was amazing that it stuck. So you always just sort of politely ignored that. So and so had the eight of spades or whatever it was. I was even going to say eight of spades. That's so funny. I don't know if I'm making that up or if that's really what it was.

So that's a fast, broad flyover of broad card ideas.

[00:14:16] Speaker A: I'm disappointed that the fellow's Instagram explanation, those things where it's like, why does this fit together so well?

[00:14:25] Speaker B: Yeah. And he could be right. He can just never win because he cannot until we find a primary source. That's like, yes, he's right.

[00:14:32] Speaker A: Yeah, it's conjecture. And conjecture is fun. We love it.

[00:14:37] Speaker B: He's winning Instagram on that one. We all believed him.

[00:14:40] Speaker A: That's true. It's like 2 million people can't be wrong. Yes, you can. Check your sources.

[00:14:44] Speaker B: Exactly.

[00:14:48] Speaker A: Well, thank you for your reviews and comments. If you'd like to hear more episodes, ask your smart speaker to play brain junk. Also, we've put ourselves on YouTube, so if you like to watch an anime and listen to a podcast and do homework all at the same time on multiple monitors, you can do that now.

[00:15:07] Speaker B: Yes.

[00:15:09] Speaker A: Amy and I will catch you next time when we share more of everything you never knew you wanted to know, and I guarantee you will not be bored.

View Details

Call them slippahs, flip flops, chanclas, slops, plakkies, slaps, pantofles, or thongs...whatever word you choose says a lot about your age and what part of the world you grew up in. We came up with this episode topic as kind of a joke. Turns out there's way more about to know about these summer shoes than we thought.

Show Notes:

Wikipedia on the history of flip flops

The Paduka

Kanye West being weird as usual with diamond studded flips

Satra: History of the flip flop

Forbes: This Brand Reinvented Flip-Flops (And Made Them A Sustainable Product)

Business Wire: Global Flip Flops Market to Reach $28.5 Billion by 2030, Fueled by Work-from-Home Trend and Growing Demand in Developing Countries - ResearchAndMarkets.com

Obama first US President photoed in slippahs

Guinness account on X: Andre Ortolf running in flip flops

Longest flip flop throw

Flip Flops History and Production Process

Harper's Bazaar

YouTube: Mexican Moms play chancla or no chancla

Washington Post Flip Flop vs Thongs

recycled rubber flops

Transcript:

[00:00:03] Speaker A: Welcome to brain junk. I'm Trace Kerr.

[00:00:05] Speaker B: And I'm Amy Barton. And today we're going to be discussing everything you never knew you wanted to know about flip flops.

Flip flop.

[00:00:15] Speaker A: Or is it thongs? And then all the gen Z's cringed.

[00:00:19] Speaker B: I know. And it is the very first thing I think of every time you say flip flops. For the longest time, I remember the first time somebody corrected my wrong term use. They're like, oh. And I'm like, oh, all right. So the flip flop, for me, the quintessential flip flop, is the black sole, the rainbow striped straps. Oh, I love those things. My aunts had them out at the lake, and they were the coolest.

[00:00:45] Speaker A: I was just trying to think. I once had flip flops that I wore to camp on an overnight. And I can remember that the middle bit tore out of the bottom of the shoe.

[00:00:56] Speaker B: You suffered for 36 hours was limping.

[00:01:00] Speaker A: Along with one flip flop. Oh, it was traumatic.

[00:01:03] Speaker B: Yes. Everybody's like, we could fix that with tape.

No, you can't. It's just gone. It's over. What adult let you do?

[00:01:13] Speaker A: You know, I bet you they had told me to wear something else, but I was like, blah, blah, blah, whatever. I'm eight.

[00:01:21] Speaker B: Yeah, we have that discussion in our house now, and I'm like, you just have to bring it with you because I said so. There you go.

[00:01:29] Speaker A: I like that.

[00:01:30] Speaker B: Exactly. So do you want to tell us about that term switch, or do you want me to tell you about what we call them now around the world? Oh, let's do the term switch.

[00:01:40] Speaker A: Yeah, let's start with that term switch. So Japan. Japan started it all with the zori zori.

And we had Usgis coming back from World War II calling it a thong over the strap because that's the strap that went between the toes. That is technically a thong. And I mean, flip flops have been around forever. Egypt, way back, people. It's a flat thing. You put a strap, you keep it on your foot.

[00:02:05] Speaker B: Yeah, like 4000 bc old.

[00:02:07] Speaker A: Yeah, forever, but. Okay, so the thong, it's coming back with the gis. As a kiddo in the seattle, we called them thongs.

[00:02:18] Speaker B: Yes. Me too. Here in spokaloo.

[00:02:20] Speaker A: Yeah. And then there was a ton of speculation when and why we switched to using flip flop. But according to Heddles, which was a magazine, an article that I was reading starting in the late 60s, depending on where you lived, they were called flip flops or thongs. But once we had the strappy underwear called a thong with the strap that goes between your butt cheeks. Super cozy, super comfy. Once we had that, they were like, okay, we can't call these sandals that anymore.

[00:02:49] Speaker B: It ruined it for everyone.

[00:02:51] Speaker A: They really did. But there's this hilarious story that I read in the Washington Post of a nurse in 2008 who was muttering about where her thongs were, and all the 20 something nurses were just laughing hysterically because they thought she'd lost her underwear.

No, they didn't.

[00:03:15] Speaker B: Awesome. I read something that they still call them thongs in Australia, but also sometimes pluggers.

[00:03:22] Speaker A: I also saw pluggers, and that just makes me laugh so hard, and I don't know why it's a funny.

[00:03:29] Speaker B: Wear my pluggers down to the market. Okay.

They also call them slops or plaqueies. Plakies is what they call it in Zimbabwe.

[00:03:40] Speaker A: Ooh. I liked in Hawaii, they wrote it out that they call them slippers.

[00:03:44] Speaker B: Yes, I did too. And they also call them slippers in the Bahamas, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago. They're cinelas in the Philippines, chapal in India. And that's traditionally a leather one. So that's the good ones in India.

[00:04:03] Speaker A: Got it. And then you can't talk about flip flops and not mention the chunkla.

[00:04:09] Speaker B: Yes. That's next on my list. I'm like, that's a good one.

[00:04:12] Speaker A: Right?

[00:04:13] Speaker B: Because as soon as you search that term, because I started looking up the terms just to be sure, it was a flip flop. And you know what the first image was, right?

[00:04:21] Speaker A: A woman throwing her chocolate at one of her children.

[00:04:24] Speaker B: Yeah. The woman with the flip flop in her hand by her head and a threatening look on her face, and they're all over.

[00:04:32] Speaker A: One of my favorite TikToks is it's a guy that says, I trust my wife. And then he's sitting around with things on his head, and she is hurling her chunkla at this thing. Like, she knocks an apple off his head. She knocks a trash can off his head, and he's never looking. It's death defying feats of. They fly very accurately.

[00:04:53] Speaker B: It's kind of got the physics of the flip flop and the form down. Yes, I like that.

[00:05:02] Speaker A: I do too.

[00:05:02] Speaker B: It's one of those weird hobbies. An unexpected skill.

[00:05:06] Speaker A: Yeah. There was even a YouTube video. And I'll have this in the notes of mexican moms. They were playing this game. It was three of them called chocolate or no chocolate. And they were asking them questions like, if your kid forgets to turn off the beans, chunkla or no chunkla.

[00:05:21] Speaker B: Chunkla. Wasting food.

[00:05:24] Speaker A: And I got to tell you, one of those moms, I pity her children because she held that. She had it in her hand. She was waving it aggressively the whole time.

[00:05:32] Speaker B: And did she have a nice beefy one? Because there are the $1 ones that are almost as skinny as the pedicure flip flops. And then there's, like, choco makes some. And those choco soles are hefty.

That's what I have.

[00:05:50] Speaker A: Yeah, the really thick ones. Chaz stole my flip flops.

[00:05:53] Speaker B: That's an egregious sin.

[00:05:55] Speaker A: Well, I mean. Okay, so they tell you with flip flops. Plantar fasciitis.

[00:06:00] Speaker B: Oh, they're not great.

[00:06:02] Speaker A: No. And it was killing my feet. And these were so are. These were a little fancy. I'd gotten them as a gift, and they had on the strap on the thong.

Running chocolate labs.

[00:06:13] Speaker B: Oh, I love that. So cute.

[00:06:16] Speaker A: And so I would occasionally wear them. Well, then Chaz was, like, sliding into them to go out into the backyard, sliding into them to go get the mail. Suddenly they don't belong to me anymore.

[00:06:27] Speaker B: Yeah. Once they do something that's a little dusty and sweaty and you're looking in there and you're like, that's not my foot dust.

[00:06:33] Speaker A: No. Yeah. I think he's on his fourth iteration of the Labrador flip flop.

[00:06:42] Speaker B: That's happy.

I like that. Can we talk about where the strap is?

[00:06:48] Speaker A: Yes.

[00:06:49] Speaker B: Modern day. I suspect we've all kind of rolled toward between the first and second toes.

[00:06:53] Speaker A: Yeah, right there. Smack in the. Okay. Yeah.

[00:06:56] Speaker B: Roman sandals, second and third toes. No, thank you. But here's the real crime against people. The Mesopotamians were doing it between the third and fourth toe. So not the pinky. The one right before that. Gross. I'm trying to feel it right now, and it's terrible.

So touch your pinky and then the two next to it.

[00:07:20] Speaker A: Yeah, no, I kind of feel the same way about that. And, yes, I know a lot of the world does. Like, a fancy sock with a flip flop. And I'm happy for you, but, like, Chaz will just have regular socks and.

[00:07:34] Speaker B: Then just cram his foot into the o.

[00:07:37] Speaker A: And I'm like, I have too much autism for.

[00:07:43] Speaker B: No, no, thank you.

[00:07:44] Speaker A: It gives me trouble every time I see him do it.

[00:07:48] Speaker B: Yes. You can't not feel what that's like and feel worried about his feet.

Here's another sensory thing that would be very troubling to me in India. And again, I'm sorry I didn't look up dates. This might be a thing. Still, they have a style with a toe knob, instead of the thong between the toes, it comes up from the footbed of the sandal in what we now would consider the traditional between the big toe and the first toe, the first littler toe. But it's a knob, so you just have to hang on with your toes.

Yeah.

[00:08:26] Speaker A: Those are called paducas, toe peg sandals.

[00:08:30] Speaker B: Oh.

[00:08:30] Speaker A: It's like a wooden knob between your.

[00:08:32] Speaker B: Kind of cool. They look neat, but I feel worried about how it would feel.

[00:08:38] Speaker A: Well, okay, but here's the thing, though.

You were saying a knob, and I was thinking, like, there was a cup that went over your big toe, and I was like, well, that sounds terrible.

[00:08:47] Speaker B: That sounds even worse.

[00:08:48] Speaker A: But though, the wooden knob, if you were wearing them, it would get nice and smooth.

[00:08:54] Speaker B: Maybe that's true. Yes.

And if they were crafted well, that's true.

[00:09:00] Speaker A: I'm thinking of. I mean, it's so funny how the flip flop has been traditionally considered, like, a lower class shoe. It's the working man's shoe. Right.

But then I came across in 2022, Harper's Bazaar. Everyone at fashion week was wearing flip flops.

[00:09:18] Speaker B: Oh, yes. But they were probably. Were they fancy leather?

[00:09:22] Speaker A: No. Here's the thing. No, it's spring 2023 show. So this is in the fall for spring, right?

[00:09:28] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:09:28] Speaker A: All these fancy people, designer clothes, the velvets, the this, the that, and then plain black flip flops.

[00:09:36] Speaker B: Like the dollar store kind.

[00:09:38] Speaker A: Yeah. They looked like ankles down, basic flip flop.

[00:09:42] Speaker B: Like they're headed to the pool.

[00:09:44] Speaker A: Yeah. And apparently it caused quite a stir. People were going, is this casual? Are we descending into chaos? What is happening? Yeah.

[00:09:52] Speaker B: Can you imagine the very high fashion always suited up people?

[00:09:57] Speaker A: Yeah.

Although then there were people saying, but know, we want to be cozy. We want to be comfy now. And there were, like, people in the audience. There was a bunch of kerfuffle because I think Kanye had himself some diamond studded flip flops. I mean, there were people that were taking know really far the other direction, but most of the models on the Runway, it did look like somebody just ran down to JCPenney and was like.

[00:10:23] Speaker B: Okay, I need this in sizes seven and eight. I need 30 pairs, please.

[00:10:29] Speaker A: Thank you.

[00:10:30] Speaker B: Put them in the back.

That's interesting that they made such a splash. I'm quite certain that there's a croc flip flop, and that's probably selling very well right now.

[00:10:41] Speaker A: Croc, flip flop.

[00:10:43] Speaker B: Like crocs. The croc. The croc.

[00:10:46] Speaker A: Yeah.

[00:10:47] Speaker B: I'm quite sure that there's a flip flop.

[00:10:51] Speaker A: It's so plasticky looking.

[00:10:53] Speaker B: Yeah.

You all probably know this, but leather and rawhide were traditional materials. You do see wood in places like India. They use rice straw, or did traditionally in China and Japan, which that makes a lot of sense because that's a secondary use for a product that they have. Sisal plant, which makes twine in South America, also made flip flops and yucca plant in Mexico. So it's one of those nice, very versatile. If you've got any kind of reasonably robust plant fiber and some weaving skills, you can have a great pair of flip flops.

[00:11:30] Speaker A: Well, and I'm feeling like as you're talking about that recycled tire.

[00:11:35] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, those are cool looking.

[00:11:38] Speaker A: Weren't there some recycled tire flip flops?

[00:11:41] Speaker B: Wasn't that, like, a big deal too expensive for me? And I like a good expensive shoe.

Maybe not. Maybe I'm remembering that wrong. If I looked at it in high school, everything was too expensive then.

[00:11:57] Speaker A: That's true. I just think it's funny because I know you walking around your crocs going, I love an expensive shoe. And I'm like, do you, though?

[00:12:05] Speaker B: But I wore those a lot in the pandemic early on. And I also have plantar fasciitis, but have taken good care of my feet over the years, so it doesn't trouble me very much. And I flared it up like crazy in the pandemic. Chris did, too. So I don't currently own any.

[00:12:22] Speaker A: Oh, that's sad.

[00:12:23] Speaker B: It's a little sad.

[00:12:24] Speaker A: How can you not love a shoe that you can stick things in, a shoe that you can put into, what do you call it, sport mode when you put the strap over your heel?

All right, so what else do we know about flip flops?

[00:12:37] Speaker B: Well, we covered.

They had that logical migration to the US in World War II, which we talked about.

[00:12:44] Speaker A: I can remember it was a huge scandal in middle school if somebody wore them to school.

[00:12:50] Speaker B: Yeah. How could you evacuate in a fire drill in flip flops? No.

Grade school office lady, me would totally shut that down.

I wouldn't make you call your mom, but I would definitely tell you not to do it the next day in an emergency.

[00:13:04] Speaker A: You need shoes with a real soul.

[00:13:08] Speaker B: That's right. You need to be able to walk quickly and not lose your shoe and stub your toe.

[00:13:13] Speaker A: Do you have anything else about them that we need to know before we slap our way? By the way, they say New Jersey, they call them slaps. My mom grew up in New Jersey. I have never heard her call a pair of flip flops slaps.

[00:13:24] Speaker B: So that must be a very regional yeah. Very small area. They call kitten heeled flip flops. Kit flops. It's terrible. Kitten heel.

[00:13:36] Speaker A: Okay, sorry. Kitten heeled flip flops.

[00:13:41] Speaker B: Apparently it's a late 2010s thing. Kit flops.

[00:13:45] Speaker A: I'm not seeing no kit flops for you. Oh, no.

[00:13:52] Speaker B: Yeah. It's a terrible idea all around. It defeats the entire purpose of the wonderful flip flop. But it is a very two thousand and ten s. Look.

[00:14:01] Speaker A: It is. It's just this little tiny. It looks like an AI image.

[00:14:06] Speaker B: Yes. Like AI is trying to draw foot.

[00:14:09] Speaker A: Yeah, you said casual spring sandal and it was like. I don't know. These two things seem to go together.

[00:14:18] Speaker B: It has three big toes and. Yeah. So Kit Flops. That's terrible. I do have other fun things.

We have to talk about famous people and flip flops, of course. First president to wear flip flops in public.

[00:14:34] Speaker A: Kennedy.

[00:14:35] Speaker B: Barack Obama. Of course.

[00:14:37] Speaker A: Obama.

[00:14:39] Speaker B: Now, I wouldn't be surprised to hear Kennedy because they're a beachy kind of family.

[00:14:43] Speaker A: You know, he's got a cold glass of something and meeting a woman he's not supposed to be and he's wearing flip flops on his way to the boat.

[00:14:51] Speaker B: Yes.

Global sales. Flip flops are big money. There is an Atlanta based company, flip flop shops, and they claim that the shoes were responsible for a $20 billion industry. $20 billion for flip flops.

[00:15:07] Speaker A: It's like the economy of a small country.

[00:15:10] Speaker B: Yes. And that was one of the articles I read. Business wire had a thing saying it's a little bit difficult to quantify because so many people make them and they're like a part of that company's business. But in 2006 was the first time flip flop sales exceeded sneaker sales.

Crazy.

[00:15:34] Speaker A: Wow. I wonder then. Well, we probably don't have data yet, but over the pandemic.

[00:15:40] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. That has to have gone exploded again.

Yes. Do you want to do some world records?

[00:15:48] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.

[00:15:49] Speaker B: Philip Conroy. Longest flip flop throw, 111ft, 22 inches. So that he threw at the length of two and a half semi trailers or like two Hollywood signs.

[00:16:02] Speaker A: Okay, I'm sorry, but somebody's abuela somewhere in Mexico, you know, she can throw it farther than that.

[00:16:09] Speaker B: No one's watching that. Shaking her head and going.

[00:16:11] Speaker A: No one's ever asked her how far she can throw that thing.

[00:16:16] Speaker B: No, he was in Spain in 2012 for this. Okay. Yeah. Fastest 100 meters flip flop run. And I just want to give you a moment to feel your feet right now and tell them it's okay. We're not doing that to you. You can uncrinkle Andre Ortolf did it in 13.88 seconds. So that's actually really fast.

So that wouldn't be terrible for very long. But I don't know. That's still terrible.

[00:16:42] Speaker A: I would have a blowout and end up in the hospital.

[00:16:44] Speaker B: I was thinking about them like, what brand was he wearing? We know that's a sturdy flip flop because my chocos. Those things will be with me till the apocalypse. They are great. But I don't think you could run in those without injuring yourself because they are a beefy flip flop. I don't know. You'd have to have some serious strength in your foot and toes to hold that still. And someone did it at a half marathon. And by the way, if you'd like to make this attempt, you must be 16 years or older, according to the Guinness World Book of Records. Don't try this 15 year olds.

[00:17:20] Speaker A: Somebody ran 13 miles in flip flops.

[00:17:23] Speaker B: Kenneth Chiopka did in 2023 in Canada. In Canada?

Yeah.

He did it in 1 hour 21 minutes and 8 seconds.

[00:17:36] Speaker A: Why would you do that?

[00:17:38] Speaker B: And now you're wondering, did somebody try a marathon? Yes, they did. Alastair Kelty did it in 337 32. So his mileage would be like an 8.29 minutes mile, which is still absolutely nuts in flip flops. 26 is it .2 miles? 8.2 minutes mile?

[00:17:57] Speaker A: Yeah.

[00:17:58] Speaker B: For three and a half hours.

[00:18:00] Speaker A: I'm just thinking of. Because there are people that do it barefoot. Right. They're all about me in contact with the ground.

I'm just thinking of. I hold pencils too tight. Okay. And I'm thinking of. I know I hold flip flops when I do wear them far too tight. I'm not just letting them.

[00:18:18] Speaker B: They're not flopping around.

[00:18:19] Speaker A: No, I'm squeezing my toes.

I'm thinking of the blisters across the top of your foot.

[00:18:26] Speaker B: That would be wild. And between your toes. Oh my gosh.

[00:18:30] Speaker A: Oh yeah.

[00:18:31] Speaker B: You just have a raw mess on top. And blisters.

There's even a record for rope skips wearing a flip flops. That also seems wildly perilous.

It's 230 if you want to know, and attempt that one.

[00:18:47] Speaker A: Wow. It's like double dutch flip flop ambulance ride. Perfect.

[00:18:53] Speaker B: But it's only 1 minute of agony. So it's over after the 1 minute mark. It's probably over sooner because you've broken your patella because you fell down.

[00:19:02] Speaker A: Oh God.

[00:19:03] Speaker B: The record person did not.

[00:19:06] Speaker A: Well, yeah, no, clearly. I do remember as a child getting blisters in between my toes from flip flops.

[00:19:15] Speaker B: Yeah. There's always a period in April or may where you have that break in period and they hurt a little.

[00:19:23] Speaker A: Not anymore because I wear Sneakers. And that's it. Because I have elderly feet and I don't want to talk about it.

[00:19:29] Speaker B: They need a little hug from your insole all the time. They do.

[00:19:37] Speaker A: Wow. Have we flipped all the flop? Is there more to be flipped?

[00:19:42] Speaker B: I have never run that distance. And so I don't know experientially, but chafing is a noted concern for distance runners. Yeah, that alone has to be miserable.

[00:19:54] Speaker A: I like how you're like, I have never gone that far because I'm not crazy.

[00:19:58] Speaker B: That's right. I am a sensible person. Yes. So that's it. That's my last one.

[00:20:03] Speaker A: Wow. Well, I mean, this came up as a joke because I was like, hey, let's do another random thing. I don't know, flip flops. Da da. This thing, that thing. And you were like, that sounds great.

[00:20:16] Speaker B: Although started looking at political reversals and like, this is a little thin on the ground. These aren't funny.

[00:20:24] Speaker A: So you messaged me, and you're like, do you have any topics? And I was like, the history of the flip flop. Why we wear flip flops?

[00:20:33] Speaker B: You were like, oh, flooded with relief. I'm like, oh, good.

[00:20:40] Speaker A: Well, yeah, that one would have been a little dry. And it would have been funny if.

[00:20:45] Speaker B: You'Re like, and they used to be called thongs, and I'm like, in 1978 when so and so said they were going to vote one way, and then they voted another, a whole industry collapsed.

[00:20:56] Speaker A: Wait a second. What are we talking about?

[00:21:01] Speaker B: Wow.

[00:21:02] Speaker A: We planned these so good.

[00:21:03] Speaker B: Yeah, we got it together before that happened.

[00:21:07] Speaker A: No, I think that would have been good.

[00:21:09] Speaker B: It could have been quite funny.

[00:21:12] Speaker A: The shortest episode we've ever made.

[00:21:14] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:21:15] Speaker A: Well, thank you for your reviews and comments. We're all over the place. We're on Instagram, we're on Facebook. You can watch.

Well, kind of watch. You can watch a little screen with a little moving waveform on it if you want to go to YouTube.

[00:21:29] Speaker B: That is pleasant.

[00:21:30] Speaker A: It is pleasant. And the color that I picked, actually, the color that Beckett picked told me look good. That I went, I don't know, and then I did it. And I do like, it looks like a fire.

[00:21:39] Speaker B: Yeah, it's pleasant.

[00:21:41] Speaker A: So it's very nice. Go check it out. Have a listen.

[00:21:44] Speaker B: Yeah. Are you still releasing the episodes? This is classics.

[00:21:47] Speaker A: It's all the classics. I have a few that I've skipped because either I couldn't stand the test of time.

[00:21:53] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:21:54] Speaker A: Or I couldn't find a copy. I have a couple that I don't know. I went new computer.

Midway through, some things got lost. I know. Yeah.

[00:22:04] Speaker B: It's like the Halloween decorations in the box with Christmas stuff. You're going to find it in 20 years and be like, that's where you guys went.

[00:22:11] Speaker A: These are great flooriography. I had no idea you were here at the bottom of this hard drive.

But when you're not doing that, you can ask your smart speaker to play brain junk. You can go to our website, brainjunkpodcast.com and check out some merch. Get a cool cup. I'm currently drinking tea out of the non newtonian fluid cup because I'm getting over.

[00:22:36] Speaker B: Are you drinking hot tea in that?

[00:22:37] Speaker A: Yeah, it's glass.

[00:22:38] Speaker B: I guess there's no reason not to. But that's not what that's for.

[00:22:43] Speaker A: You don't get to tell me how to use my cup.

[00:22:46] Speaker B: Please go put it down and get a mug. A proper tea vessel.

[00:22:50] Speaker A: I refuse.

[00:22:51] Speaker B: Oh, you rogue. I love it.

[00:22:53] Speaker A: Next I'm going to tell you I microwaved it. I didn't. But like.

Amy and I will catch you next time when we share more of everything you never knew you wanted to know and I guarantee you will not be bored.

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It's easy to believe that a snake might be a deadly mimic. But butterflies that start life as carnivorous caterpillars? Oh heck yeah!

Show Notes:

YouTube BBC: Ants Adopt a Caterpillar

YouTube Entomological Society of America: Ants and Blues

The Pattern of Social Parasitism in Maculinea teleius Butterfly Is Driven by the Size and Spatial Distribution of the Host Ant Nests

Entomology Today: Carnivorous Caterpillars Fool Ants by Sounding like Queens

PLOS One: Variation in Butterfly Larval Acoustics as a Strategy to Infiltrate and Exploit Host Ant Colony Resources

Scientific American: Actual audio of the caterpillar mimicking an ant

Avian deception using an elaborate caudal lure in Pseudocerastes urarachnoides (Serpentes: Viperidae)

Herpetological.org Pseudocerastes urarachnoides: the ambush specialist (great pictures of the viper!)

Discover: Meet the Snake

Transcript:

00:00:03] Speaker A: Welcome to brain junk. I'm Amy Barton.

[00:00:05] Speaker B: And I'm Trace Kerr. And today is everything you never knew you wanted to know about deadly animal mimics.

[00:00:13] Speaker A: I want to know a lot about that.

[00:00:15] Speaker B: Well, I have two. It's double header. I can't make up my mind about subjects lately and I'm just going to mash it together.

[00:00:21] Speaker C: Bonus.

[00:00:24] Speaker B: So the first one, I'm going to give you a little scenario. You have a child pretending to be a queen, infiltrating a city, deceiving soldiers into taking care of her, all the while eating the real queen's children.

[00:00:37] Speaker C: Oh, my word.

[00:00:38] Speaker A: That sounds like a marvel plot.

[00:00:40] Speaker C: It does, right?

[00:00:40] Speaker B: Horror movie, Sci-Fi it's not. It's the real life of the large blue butterfly caterpillar.

[00:00:47] Speaker A: I was sure we were going down an ant road.

[00:00:50] Speaker C: Well, wow.

[00:00:52] Speaker B: Kind of.

So, according to the plus one 2014 paper, this is the title. Variation in butterfly larval acoustics as a strategy to infiltrate and exploit host ant colony resources.

[00:01:10] Speaker C: Ooh, that's quite the title.

[00:01:12] Speaker B: It's so much title. There are about 10,000 different buggy critters out there faking their way into ant hills to snack on ants.

[00:01:19] Speaker C: That's a lot.

[00:01:20] Speaker A: Poor ants. I know there's a lot of them.

[00:01:23] Speaker C: But that's not an excuse. There's so many.

[00:01:27] Speaker B: We could eat a couple.

[00:01:28] Speaker C: It'll be fine.

[00:01:33] Speaker A: Okay, you're right. That's true.

[00:01:34] Speaker D: Yeah.

[00:01:35] Speaker B: Of all of these butterflies in the matulina family, they're super cute. They're little blue butterflies. The one I'm going to talk about today in particular, mimics the calls of ant queens or lost grubs to trick their way into an ant dinner.

[00:01:52] Speaker C: Wow.

[00:01:52] Speaker B: Or would it be a caterpillar dinner? Caterpillars eating the ants.

[00:01:55] Speaker D: Caterpillar dinner.

[00:01:56] Speaker C: Probably a caterpillar dinner. Yeah.

[00:01:58] Speaker B: It's not girl dinner, that's for sure. It's ants. It's not a charcuterie board of fun. Little.

Yeah, I know. Just. Oh, it gets so much better. Just stay with me. So your large blue butterflies, they're native all over eastern western Europe. They lay their eggs on host plants. It goes through four sheds called in stars. So when a caterpillar hatches its teeny tiny and then it eats until its skin doesn't fit anymore, it sheds the skin like it's taking off its sleeping bag of body. And then new one. Okay, so it does that four times, getting bigger. After that fourth shed, it gets a craving for something different.

[00:02:39] Speaker C: Ants protein.

[00:02:41] Speaker A: It's big now it's so good.

[00:02:43] Speaker B: It builds muscle. I'm on a cut. I'm getting bigger.

So the caterpillars, they start falling on the ground and calling out. They're vocalizing a little song that sounds like a queen ant in distress.

[00:02:56] Speaker C: Oh, wild. Really? Yeah, those fakers.

[00:03:01] Speaker B: So you got these fleshy pink caterpillars with scraggly little hairs. They look gross.

[00:03:07] Speaker C: Okay.

[00:03:09] Speaker B: And they're on the ground, and they're making this vocalization, and frantic ant workers are running out. They pick up the caterpillar, and they take it back to the nest.

[00:03:18] Speaker A: Okay, so they've tricked it that far.

[00:03:21] Speaker B: Yes.

[00:03:21] Speaker C: The ants aren't like, hey, you don't look like we expected you. Well, I know.

[00:03:26] Speaker B: It's like, it doesn't look a thing like an ant.

[00:03:28] Speaker C: Not at all.

[00:03:29] Speaker B: But then, remember, ants will also, if they smell like a dead ant, they will pick a live ant up and throw it on the trash heap.

[00:03:35] Speaker C: That's true.

[00:03:37] Speaker B: Maybe they're not paying the best attention, but. So they take this caterpillar, which kind of looks like a grub, back to the ant hill, and some get tucked in with the grubs, and then they just get fed by the ants. And then also, they're eating ants.

[00:03:50] Speaker C: Wow.

[00:03:52] Speaker B: Some they treat like a queen ant and feed the caterpillar, and then she's also just, like, snacking on the other grubs around her while no one's looking.

[00:04:02] Speaker C: Look over there. Oh, no.

[00:04:05] Speaker B: Munch, munch, munch.

[00:04:06] Speaker D: Yeah.

[00:04:09] Speaker B: And then over fall and winter, they eat enough ants that they get bigger, and then they make a cocoon. The cocoon is not bothered. It just lays there.

[00:04:19] Speaker C: Wow.

[00:04:19] Speaker A: Stays warm.

[00:04:20] Speaker D: Yes.

[00:04:20] Speaker B: And then in the spring, they hatch out and crawl out of the ant colony and go off to start the whole system again.

[00:04:26] Speaker C: Wow.

I can't imagine when it starts to build its cocoon and the other ants.

[00:04:33] Speaker A: Are like, you know, guys, this might not actually be our queen.

[00:04:36] Speaker B: Well, and see, I actually went and found a video because I thought, okay, so it's making noises and they're feeding it, but a cocoon is not. It doesn't seem to be alive. Why wouldn't they pick that up and take it out? And it just lays there in the dirt off to the side.

[00:04:50] Speaker A: They've been desensitized to the smell or something. I don't know. Somebody has to write a grant to.

[00:04:58] Speaker B: Find that out, why it doesn't get taken away. And interestingly, we do have a blue butterfly in North America, the Miami blue. It's native to Florida, and that caterpillar instead of getting taken back to the ant hill, it has this little. It almost looks like a butt antenna that sticks up, and it makes a sweet drink for the ants.

[00:05:21] Speaker C: Oh.

[00:05:22] Speaker B: And so you'll see it pop up and the ants like, oh, yes, thank you. And kind of combs the stuff off and eats it. And so it's so delicious. Carpenter ants will protect their walking snack machine caterpillars from other creatures.

[00:05:36] Speaker C: Wow, this is like the white van.

[00:05:39] Speaker A: With, would you like some candy? And they're like, yes, we would.

[00:05:43] Speaker C: And we will defend you.

[00:05:44] Speaker B: Keep all the other children away from it.

[00:05:46] Speaker C: Yeah. Wow.

[00:05:48] Speaker A: Questionable judgment. Natural things. Come on, right?

[00:05:52] Speaker D: Yeah.

[00:05:53] Speaker B: So in that video, you see carpenter ants just running up on other bugs and just beating them up and ripping them off the plant. And the caterpillar is like, would you like a snack?

[00:06:01] Speaker D: How about now?

[00:06:02] Speaker C: Thank you. Yeah.

[00:06:04] Speaker B: So that's our butterfly caterpillar. Mimic animal.

[00:06:09] Speaker C: I like that. That makes me feel better about the.

[00:06:11] Speaker A: Questionable decisions that we humans make from time to time. Like, the natural community is not immune to it.

[00:06:18] Speaker B: Well, this would be like a five year old in a playground sounding like you and your children, bringing the child home and treating it like you.

[00:06:27] Speaker C: Yeah, that'd be weird.

[00:06:29] Speaker B: Wallet ate.

[00:06:29] Speaker C: Chris, why did you bring that man in a bathrobe home?

No, that's mom.

Oh, man.

[00:06:40] Speaker B: Well, okay, so going in a different direction, we're going to talk about the iranian spider tailed viper.

[00:06:46] Speaker A: That sounds interesting.

[00:06:48] Speaker D: Yeah.

[00:06:48] Speaker B: So I sent you a YouTube video.

[00:06:51] Speaker C: Okay.

[00:06:51] Speaker B: Now you can watch it.

[00:06:53] Speaker C: Okay.

[00:06:53] Speaker A: It's going to happen.

[00:06:54] Speaker B: And I want you to tell people what you see, because it is horrific. This will also be in the show notes. Don't worry, you can play along with the show.

[00:07:02] Speaker A: Okay. I'm seeing a little spider cruising around.

[00:07:05] Speaker C: Oh.

[00:07:06] Speaker A: On a spiky tailed thing. And suddenly it's turned.

[00:07:09] Speaker C: No.

[00:07:10] Speaker A: So tail wagging makes it resemble a moving spider.

[00:07:13] Speaker C: Yikes.

That's unexpected.

[00:07:18] Speaker A: Suddenly there's a bird, and I wasn't seeing at all what I thought I was.

[00:07:24] Speaker D: Yeah.

[00:07:24] Speaker B: You don't see that snake at all.

[00:07:25] Speaker C: Oh, my gosh. No.

[00:07:27] Speaker A: Because it's in rocks. And so you just see rocks and this little spider crawling around an outcropping that's a little spiky. And it totally looks like a spider. And the motion it does is weird. And so then this bird is like, ooh, spider. I'm having that. And it is not having that. The snake is having the bird. So heads up. That's what happens at the end of this.

[00:07:50] Speaker C: Oh, my gosh.

[00:07:52] Speaker D: Yeah.

[00:07:53] Speaker B: So that spider looking thing is called a caudal C-A-U-D-A-L lure. That's fancy science talk for when a tale evolves into a horror show.

[00:08:02] Speaker C: Yes. Wow.

[00:08:04] Speaker B: This viper, this snake, his butt looks like a spider. And not just a tiny bit, not a little.

[00:08:10] Speaker A: I was quite sure that the snake was going to pop out and eat the spider, and that is not what went down at all.

[00:08:17] Speaker C: Even though you told me the name.

[00:08:19] Speaker A: Of this snake, my eyes told me another thing.

[00:08:22] Speaker D: Yeah.

[00:08:22] Speaker B: Because it's kind of gray granite looking rock. This snake is kind of short and fat with one of those big diamondy heads, and you cannot see it at all. And then the spider on the, well, the tail, the spider is kind of a brown color.

[00:08:40] Speaker A: It's enough different.

[00:08:41] Speaker C: That's wild.

[00:08:44] Speaker A: And the motion, the motion very much fooled my brain.

[00:08:47] Speaker D: Yeah.

[00:08:47] Speaker B: What I don't like about spiders is the movement. I have trouble. I've watched so many videos of this snake tail squinting my eyes. It's like if I squint, it's not going to be as scary. I don't know. It's dumb, but it works for me. So there is an actual desert spider, and it has a really long, distended body. It's almost scorpion like. And this snake tail.

[00:09:07] Speaker D: Okay.

[00:09:07] Speaker B: There's slight variations from snake to snake in the bits that look like legs and the swollen abdomen of a spider. But it's remarkable, even down to the color, how similar this lure is on its tail. And the tail wiggle thing to attract the prey isn't unusual. There are a lot of different animals, snakes and other critters that will wiggle their tail, but it's usually a wiggle like a worm. This is a swirling, trailing motion.

[00:09:34] Speaker C: Yeah.

[00:09:34] Speaker B: It actually looks like a spider on the rock. It's terrible.

[00:09:38] Speaker C: It's horrible.

[00:09:39] Speaker B: Hate it. And this snake is a fairly recent find, at least by.

[00:09:45] Speaker C: Because they blended in so well. I know, right?

[00:09:48] Speaker B: The first one was found, quote unquote, in the 1970s.

[00:09:51] Speaker A: Oh, wow.

[00:09:52] Speaker B: And, yeah, in 2006, it was dubbed its own species, pseudosorastes uraknoids, fake horned with spider like tail.

[00:10:05] Speaker C: It's a very direct name.

[00:10:07] Speaker D: Sums it up.

[00:10:07] Speaker C: Yeah.

[00:10:08] Speaker B: In 2008, scientists. Okay, so this was the great. So one they had found several years back. When they opened it up, it had a bird in its stomach, and they thought, well, okay, yeah, we see the spider tail. But was that a one off? Yeah.

[00:10:23] Speaker C: Was that bird limping?

[00:10:24] Speaker B: Yeah. Was it a coincidence they captured a few snakes because they wanted to know if that had been a fluke? They put the captured snakes in enclosures.

[00:10:34] Speaker C: With birds, and they watched their population drop.

[00:10:38] Speaker B: Right, exactly. Spider tail goes into action. Several birds became instant meals trying to attack the spider.

[00:10:45] Speaker A: And then the snake is like, thank you. I viewed this as aversive initially, but this is amazing. Thank you.

[00:10:51] Speaker B: I didn't like the bag that you shoved me into, but this is delicious.

[00:10:55] Speaker C: Yeah, I like the yellow ones. Can we get more yellow ones?

[00:10:59] Speaker D: Yeah.

[00:11:00] Speaker B: So there's not much more to say about the spider butt snake. It's creepy. Definitely. Go take a look at the video. It's remarkable how they do not show up at all. Yeah, it's weird nature. Get it off me.

[00:11:14] Speaker C: Yes.

[00:11:15] Speaker A: That's our next t shirt.

[00:11:19] Speaker C: Speaking of t shirts, at the merch.

[00:11:21] Speaker A: Store, you can get a brain junk t shirt, and you can get a non newtonian fluid glass. It can hold other types of fluids.

[00:11:30] Speaker B: But I was like, wait, it's a glass? That's a liquid?

[00:11:33] Speaker D: That's a glass.

[00:11:34] Speaker B: Well, that's a mindbender.

[00:11:36] Speaker A: You could fill it with non newtonian fluids, but they don't flow well, so at least not like, Oreo filling doesn't flow in that form. All right, we're, of course, on social media. Brain Junk podcast. Hey, we're on YouTube. What's our handle on YouTube, Trace?

[00:11:52] Speaker B: It's Brain junk podcast.

[00:11:53] Speaker C: I'm shocked. I know, right?

[00:11:57] Speaker A: But YouTube.com. Go find brain junk. Brain Junk podcast. We're there.

All right, Trace and I will catch you next time when we share more of everything you never knew you wanted to know, and I guarantee you will not be bored.

View Details

If you haven't figured it out by now, Amy is not afraid to ask tough questions! Today she talks butt health, bidets, and the dangers of wet wipes. It's funnier than you'd think, we promise.

Show Notes:

Business Insider: interview with Dr. Goldstein

Am I Doing it Wrong? Jan 2024

The Spruce: 7 Best Bidet Attachments

Splinter free toilet paper

History Channel: All the Ways We've Wiped

CBS news article about Johnny Carson creating a toilet paper shortage

And just in case you're not a dinosaur like Trace and Amy, this is Walter Cronkite

Transcript:

[00:00:03] Speaker A: Welcome to Brain Junk. I'm Trace Kerr.

[00:00:05] Speaker B: And I'm Amy Barton. And today we're going to be discussing personal care, which is, I know, one of the things you come to brain junk for, because we care about you, and we want you to know you might not be wiping correctly.

[00:00:21] Speaker A: Oh, no.

[00:00:22] Speaker B: This is a hard truth that we need to share with you.

And this comes from Chris Barton.

[00:00:29] Speaker A: Oh, no.

[00:00:29] Speaker B: Who, like, we're sitting watching whatever we're watching on Saturday or Sunday morning, and he's, uh, is this a brain junk? And he sends me this article that's entitled bad news. You're probably wiping all wrong. And I'm like, yes, it is.

Okay, are you ready?

[00:00:50] Speaker A: No.

[00:00:55] Speaker B: Parents is going to be some low key anatomical terms. Shall we talk about Dr. Evan Goldstein? Absolutely. And he is a nationally renowned anal surgeon.

[00:01:05] Speaker A: Oh, wow.

[00:01:05] Speaker B: That is a very specific specialty. But if you need an anal surgeon, you want them to be nationally renowned.

[00:01:15] Speaker A: That's true.

[00:01:16] Speaker B: Proper functionality there is valuable.

So Dr. Evan Goldstein says that the preferred method of wiping is actually not wiping. He describes when you're looking at someone's anus, which isn't a common occurrence unless you've had a child or a lifestyle different than mine, maybe. There's going to be a lot of editing for this episode that's staying in.

So let's think in terms of babies, if that helps you be comfortable with this subject, because we're going to talk about what an anus looks like right now. Okay.

[00:01:57] Speaker A: Button knot.

[00:01:58] Speaker B: It's like an accordion. It's got wrinkles, and it opens and closes. So there's the wrinkly part. That is specifically the anus where the waste products come out of. It opens, it closes. It's useful. However, in front of that and in back of that, the skin is not wrinkly, and it is very thin, and so the potential for damage is much higher. So he says, please, just don't wipe. Stop. It gets very irritated. Don't tear the skin. He says, it gets angry at us.

So instead of wiping, he says he's a huge bidet fan. Do it without toilet paper. It can thoroughly wash the anus without harming it. And you could also, if you don't have a bidet, you could take a quick shower.

Like, what? Who has that life?

Some people do. And I did see, I saw a video, I don't know where, a couple of guys in a deserty place talking about that. They're like, well, you could just take a quick shower. It would be great. And the one guy is like, you are such a weirdo. And then he tried it, and he's like, I'm never going, yeah, yeah. So Dr. Goldstein is a huge fan of the bidet because of that gets you clean, prevents damage. But he cautions you, moisture is not ideal in that area. It can cause irritation. So you do need to make sure that you are drying yourself properly. Do you want to know how he feels about wet wipes? I think you probably know.

[00:03:28] Speaker A: Sure. No. I have so many questions.

[00:03:34] Speaker B: Because the.

[00:03:35] Speaker A: Thing that's always troubled me with a bidet is they're like, don't wipe, rinse. And I'm like, cool.

[00:03:39] Speaker B: Yeah. Then how long do you have to sit there?

[00:03:41] Speaker A: But I'm not going to sit there for a half an hour and dry. So am I.

[00:03:45] Speaker B: Like, what am I doing? Are we patting dry?

[00:03:48] Speaker A: Are we padding? Yeah.

[00:03:51] Speaker B: I was double checking a few things at work today, and I thought, I'm not looking that up on a work computer.

I've already gone down a road that if they are checking keystrokes and things, jail and looking at my articles, they're going to be like, we would like to have a discussion with you, Amy.

Yeah. Wet wipes for two reasons, the first of which is they're just not great for the environment. I have three reasons, actually. When we had root growth in our external pipes to the house, we rented a rotor rooter, and dad stood outside and fed me pipe. And I'm inside, and as we're pulling it back out, guess what was coming out with the roots? Wet wipes.

[00:04:33] Speaker A: Oh, no. Oh, hold on. I have a room open and I have a cat yelling at me. 1 second.

[00:04:39] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. I heard a door open earlier, and it was a cat coming in. Why isn't your cat being so polite like, mine? Mine is sleeping on the bed.

[00:04:47] Speaker A: I forgot to close the door. And he was like, ooh, blanket for it. Anyway. Okay, so roots coming out. Okay.

[00:04:55] Speaker B: Wipes and roots came out. And I'm like, oh. So that was the end of that for us, because for little kids, it's great, but it is not great for the environment. You get stuck. And he says, Dr. Goldstein says for your whole, it is also not great.

He thinks they should be banned because they leave it wet and they're bad for the environment.

He says he sees about 90 people a week in his surgical office, and he estimates one third of all those people come through are from wet wiped induced issues. A whole third. So 30 people a week are having issues because of wet wipes. And one of the reasons is because we have a microbiome in that area of the body. So there's good bacteria doing the good things and bad bacteria. And those ones are in homeostasis. They're just hanging out. There's an equilibrium. There is a balance, which he says the wet wipes f that up in a really bad way. And I don't think we're going to mark this episode as explicit. So I'm just going to abbreviate.

[00:06:01] Speaker A: No.

[00:06:02] Speaker B: So you could be creating dermatitis when you think that you are doing good things because you're upsetting that natural order. So he suggests blot if you must, don't wipe, and there are additional instructions.

Your first blot or two to get the first part done can be while seated, but then you should be doing a standing squat. And this is because of blood flow to that part of the body. What? And so you could be causing pressure related problems if you're sitting and fully wiping while you're sitting. What? So the longer you sit in the bowl, the more blood is down there, the more wiping, the more irritation the body knows. So you don't have to stand straight up. Should do a little standing squat.

[00:06:55] Speaker A: This is making daily trip.

[00:06:58] Speaker B: There's instructions now.

[00:07:00] Speaker A: Yeah, I know that's complicated.

[00:07:03] Speaker B: I know. I'm like, I'm not experiencing any dermatitis right now, so I'm going to continue my current practice, but I'm just going to keep this tucked away.

Yeah.

[00:07:16] Speaker A: Wow.

Well, and then did you by any chance look at. Because American toilets don't have bidets, so if you need something, you'd have to make an attachment and hook it to your water, because we've looked into it.

[00:07:29] Speaker B: I have one gun right now here in my basement that I received for Christmas from my dad in 2018 or 2019. Guys, my dad's a little bit French. He's a lot French, his dad. Yeah.

And so he was a big fan of the bidet. And he specifically would go out and buy us girls each a present. It was always the same, but he would specifically buy us a present every year. And one year it was bidets. It was also, like, jewelry or car wash cards. So he tried to be either practical or lovely. And I have an amazing down bathrobe, and I have a bidet. So this is just plug and play. They don't always fit great, but if you get a good fit for the style of toilet you have, I'm told they're life changing.

[00:08:14] Speaker A: Well, yep. Americans, just get over yourselves. There are other ways.

[00:08:19] Speaker B: Yeah. Dr. Goldstein would like to just let you, your american self, know. He doesn't say it like that, but I do think this is a very american thing. He says, we don't need to go up all up in. There was an amazing fact that I picked up when I was poking around, too. Splinter free toilet paper was not widespread until 1935, so my grandpa rip would have known a life.

[00:08:51] Speaker A: Hold on.

[00:08:55] Speaker B: Grandpa Rip? We've not talked about him, have we?

[00:08:58] Speaker A: Yeah, but it's like we're talking about bathroom stuff, and it's Grandpa rip I adore so much about that.

[00:09:05] Speaker B: There were flatulence jokes that were earned.

[00:09:10] Speaker A: Okay, I'm sorry. So he would have had toilet paper with sticks and twigs in it.

[00:09:14] Speaker B: 1916, he would have remembered a time. Yeah. So he would have been nine by the time. No, wait. 1935, he would have been really old by the time.

It would have been, like, 19 by the time he got good toilet paper.

[00:09:28] Speaker A: Oh, man, that's wild to me.

[00:09:30] Speaker B: 1935, before they started advertising that it was indeed splinter, before they could claim that splinter free. Oh, that's nice.

[00:09:38] Speaker A: Thanks, guys.

Did you ever have in elementary school toilet paper that was dispensed like tissues?

[00:09:47] Speaker B: No.

[00:09:47] Speaker A: So the dispenser, you'd pull down and it would, like, fold back on itself, but it was the most thinnest, see through kind of. It was almost like the same paper that they put on doctors.

[00:10:01] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh.

[00:10:03] Speaker A: That stuff is water repellent. So you'd get one square, and so then you'd just get like, oh, it was the worst. It was like cupcake liners. That's the kind of paper it was.

[00:10:13] Speaker B: Oh, my word.

If you want to go down another side road on this subject, look up toilet paper alternatives throughout history. Seashells. What the hell? Are you kidding? Seashells?

[00:10:25] Speaker A: No, warm rock. Yes, I have had to resort to a warm rock while camping. It wasn't the worst.

[00:10:31] Speaker B: Yeah, there's a lot of things that were like any port in a storm. That's true.

[00:10:37] Speaker A: Also, how many times with children while hiking did I lose a sock? More than I care to admit.

[00:10:43] Speaker B: Oh, you were an adventurous soul. Yeah, but hiking with a stinky child, when you know you're on, like, day one of three days, it's like, well.

[00:10:54] Speaker A: Sock is going to go.

[00:10:56] Speaker B: Yeah. Or we're going to have to dunk you in this mountain stream. And I'm pretty sure that water is 35 degrees.

[00:11:02] Speaker A: Hey, but it's water. It's not a wipe. Dr. Goldstein would appreciate.

[00:11:06] Speaker B: He would have been pleased. Yeah. It's running water. Gently soothing.

[00:11:09] Speaker A: Yeah.

[00:11:11] Speaker B: Do you want one more funny story?

[00:11:12] Speaker A: Heck, yeah.

[00:11:13] Speaker B: You're going to get it whether you want it or not. It's 1973. There's a fuel shortage. There's a meat shortage. Things were a little tight, and Johnny Carson, on December 19 of 1973, made the comment, there is an acute shortage of toilet paper in the good old United States. We got to quit writing on it. So. Ha. Quit writing on the toilet paper was his thing. What he didn't say that he should have said was, there's a potential shortage. So when he just said, there's an acute shortage of toilet paper, people are like, well, I could not get meat last week, and things have been rough. I can't fuel up my car. He created an actual run on toilet paper, which is just wild.

So he had an audience of almost 20 million people at that time, and it became a national issue. People all over the country were blazing through Supermarkets, grabbing toilet paper, hoarding it. It was a very preview of 2020.

[00:12:18] Speaker A: Wow. Did he have to go back on and say, like, guys, actually, that was just a joke.

[00:12:23] Speaker B: Walter Cronkite had to.

[00:12:25] Speaker A: He's probably more credible.

[00:12:29] Speaker B: Yeah. Good old Walt set the record straight. He said, the Scott paper company, citing panic buying on the retail level, said today it is implementing an allocation system for the national distribution of toilet tissue. And he says that the shortage was caused by an excessive Johnny Carson causing cancer.

[00:12:53] Speaker A: Back when you had four channels and that's all you were. Everybody was watching. Holy cow.

[00:12:58] Speaker B: Huh?

[00:12:59] Speaker A: Wow.

[00:13:00] Speaker B: Yep.

[00:13:01] Speaker A: Well, yeah, it is kind of shades of like going to Costco during the pandemic and know you could only get one thing of toilet paper. They wouldn't let you buy more than one.

[00:13:12] Speaker B: Yeah. I was of the, like, let's not be selfish. I'll just wait patiently. I will not hoard toilet paper. And then I got to the point where it's like, well, I can't even find any toilet paper. And Chris was ready to get rid of that. We were cleaning out because suddenly you have time. And the bidet was on the donation pile, and I said, don't even think about it. We might be using that in a week.

[00:13:35] Speaker A: That might be it. That might be all we had.

[00:13:37] Speaker B: Yeah. Those were dark times.

[00:13:39] Speaker A: I know, right? Who knows? 2024? Who knows what could happen? What's in our future? Get a bidet, people. It's the only way your butt's going to be safe.

[00:13:47] Speaker B: Yes.

So my parting words for today, it's not butt health. It's gut health.

Take care, brain junkies.

[00:13:57] Speaker A: Oh, man. We'l.

No. What we're supposed to be doing is all getting our bidets or dragging a garden hose into the house. I don't know what we're going to be doing, but whatever you're doing.

[00:14:12] Speaker A: If you'd like to hear more episodes while you're sitting on the throne, ask your smart speaker to play more brain junk for you. To keep you company wherever you listen, like, and subscribe. I'm so sorry. I can't stop Amy. She's unstoppable.

We will catch you next time when we share more of everything you never knew you wanted to know. This is definitely in that category for me. And I guarantee you will not be bored.

View Details

Trace found some delightful random facts about birds! Today we're talking "anting", talons locked to the death, and musical cockatoos.

Show Notes:

Journal of Ornithology: Anting behavior in birds

Video of crow anting: aka the spicy spa

Bird Note: anting

Facebook video of bald eagles cartwheeling

Bird Note: Eagles cartwheeling

Palm Cockatoos playing their instruments

Research paper on Palm Cockatoos

Funny vid with Conan O'Brien and a palm cockatoo guest

Transcript:

[00:00:03] Speaker A: Welcome to Brain Junk. I'm Amy Barton.

[00:00:05] Speaker B: And I'm Trace Kerr. And I just saw a spider and I'm terrified. But we're going to do this episode because I'm an adult.

Today we're going to, today we're going to talk about everything you never knew you wanted to know about birds.

[00:00:20] Speaker A: Just everything about birds.

[00:00:21] Speaker B: Everything.

[00:00:22] Speaker A: People grab a hot beverage.

[00:00:24] Speaker C: Yep.

[00:00:24] Speaker B: This episode, it's going to be like 12 hours. It's an eight part episode. No, it's like three things that I really thought were cool. And that's everything. So there you go.

[00:00:33] Speaker A: Excellent.

[00:00:34] Speaker C: Yeah.

[00:00:34] Speaker B: We're winning at information, but I saw the spider. You mentioned ants, and the first thing we're going to talk about is this thing called anting. A-N-T-I-N-G. So it's perfect. It's just synergy. We're just coming together.

[00:00:48] Speaker A: Love it.

[00:00:51] Speaker B: If you don't like ants, just, you have to skip through this beginning little part.

[00:00:56] Speaker A: If you see a whole nest of them, do your feet tingle? If I see a whole pile of them, my feet are like having accidentally.

[00:01:04] Speaker B: Stood with my foot in a red ant nest in Georgia.

They're so spicy.

[00:01:11] Speaker C: Yeah.

[00:01:12] Speaker A: I feel like the warmer it gets, the spicier the ants get.

That far south. Those are some very exciting ants.

[00:01:21] Speaker B: Well, and here's the thing.

[00:01:22] Speaker C: Okay.

[00:01:22] Speaker B: So there's at least 250 species of birds like crows and robins and jays that love that acidic spa treatment.

That is what anting is.

Yeah. Okay, so the very thing that we think birds want, the formic acid.

[00:01:44] Speaker A: Whoa.

Excuse me. I'm so sorry. Did that just blow out your ears? That wasn't an ant effect.

[00:01:50] Speaker B: No, it wasn't. Also, it wasn't a. Dad. Know where you're.

[00:01:54] Speaker C: Yeah.

[00:01:56] Speaker A: Here comes one more. I'm sorry.

[00:01:58] Speaker B: Maybe look at the light.

[00:01:59] Speaker C: There we go.

[00:01:59] Speaker A: Excuse me. Goodness. Okay, Georgia. Spicy ants.

[00:02:05] Speaker C: Yeah.

[00:02:05] Speaker B: So spicy ants. The thing that makes them spicy is formic acid. Although red ants also bite you.

[00:02:11] Speaker A: But they literally are acidic.

[00:02:13] Speaker C: Yeah.

[00:02:14] Speaker B: They are causing, like on humans, a formic acid. It can cause burns. If it gets in your mouth, it can hurt your eyes, it can make you vomit, headache, confusion. If you went face first into an ant mound and then didn't get up, horrible things would happen to you. Because each of these little ants has the ability to squirt this tiny little amount of acid from their. Well, it's not their butt, but we're just going to call it their butt because that's easier.

[00:02:44] Speaker C: Yeah.

[00:02:45] Speaker B: But here's the thing, though. Formic acid might help birds get rid of things like mites.

[00:02:51] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.

[00:02:52] Speaker B: So imagine you've got that big ant hill, thousands of ants walking across it. They're all minding their own business, and a crow lands smack in the middle and starts stomping her feet, laying her feathers out. She gets swarmed by ants.

[00:03:05] Speaker A: Is this like Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic park trying to draw the dinosaur away?

[00:03:09] Speaker B: Well, here, you know what I'm going to do is I'm going to email you a thing to watch.

[00:03:17] Speaker A: Okay. And while you're emailing, did you say these are red ants, black ants, any little ants? Oh, super.

[00:03:25] Speaker B: Well, not all ants.

Many ants send.

[00:03:30] Speaker C: Okay.

[00:03:30] Speaker B: It does not like me having this open as well. So we're just going to close that.

Let's see. We're jumping around like crazy people because this is the first episode of the.

[00:03:38] Speaker A: Day and the questions sometimes lead us around. I'll go over. So I'm going to watch this while.

[00:03:45] Speaker B: You review your notes, while I circle back.

[00:03:49] Speaker A: Okay.

[00:03:50] Speaker B: So the crow lands in the middle, right. And is swarmed by these ants. She might even grab an ant and rub it, like deodorant, in between her feathers.

[00:04:00] Speaker A: Yeah, she's doing a little. It's not itching.

She's getting those wings in there, but.

[00:04:07] Speaker B: Also there's flinching, because in addition to getting the acid that they want, they're also getting bitten.

[00:04:13] Speaker A: I was just wondering.

[00:04:15] Speaker B: Yeah, it doesn't look like a super fun time. Sometimes they almost look drunk with how they act.

[00:04:23] Speaker A: Yes. She settles in, and then immediately there's this moment of. Okay, here we go. And then it's very unsettled. Flinch.

[00:04:31] Speaker B: And then kind of like, flick them off because they're crawling under the feathers, in between the feathers, because they want that formic acid underneath the feathers. But here's the thing. So the funny thing is, while there have been papers documenting the fact that birds do this, no one's really nailed down why for every time. So I read this one paper published in the Journal of Ornithology in 2022 by Dr. Okawara and company. It's called anting behavior in birds, the behavioral patterns and interactions with ants. And there's lots of studies done, but like this one study that they did between 2019 and 2022, there were only 102 cases recorded.

[00:05:13] Speaker A: Oh, really?

[00:05:14] Speaker B: Right. So we see it happen, but we don't see it happen very often.

[00:05:19] Speaker A: And remind me again, the benefit of the formic acid for them is what some people think.

[00:05:25] Speaker B: In a paper written for the Georgia Department of Resources, they think that perhaps the birds are using the ant, the formic acid, like a lotion, to relieve itching associated with growing feathers.

[00:05:36] Speaker A: So maybe they're not seeing it very frequently because it's a response to a problem.

[00:05:41] Speaker B: It could be that.

[00:05:42] Speaker C: Yeah.

[00:05:43] Speaker B: Could be because of getting rid of mites. It could be because some people have noticed it happens a lot more often during rainy seasons. And during rainy seasons is when they're doing a lot of feather stuff. And so they're like, well, maybe it has to do with the feathers.

[00:05:55] Speaker A: They've got mold under there.

Could you just wash it out with vinegar? Have you tried vinegar? This is the bird version of that.

[00:06:04] Speaker B: It's funny that you say that, because they have seen birds using lots of things, like naturally occurring, like highly acidic dirt. They even had this one crow that had figured out in captivity to light a match, and then they would rub the match that hot, the spent match.

[00:06:22] Speaker A: Oh, wow.

That's the bad boy of the bird world. Right?

[00:06:27] Speaker B: I know. He's like, light that match, wait for it to burn down, rub it on body. He always smells a little smoky.

[00:06:33] Speaker C: Yeah.

[00:06:35] Speaker B: Because clearly, if you watch that crow, this will be in the show notes. It's not like this is a party.

[00:06:41] Speaker A: No. And it's long.

What they showed was over a minute, probably a minute and a half of this bird bathing and hanging as long as it can, and then it pops out and then it settles back in. So it's not fun.

[00:06:57] Speaker C: No.

[00:06:57] Speaker B: And then this has been going on so long. Birds have different techniques. So the crow that you watched, it lands on the mound, and then it stamps. It's clearly trying to make them mad, so they all rush it. There's also another technique called lunging, where the bird will land, grab an ant, and then shove the ant into the ant hill. Like, head into ant hill. Oh, I know ants aren't screaming, but I'm imagining that there's this, and then everyone comes running.

[00:07:30] Speaker A: That is really brilliant, because what we've learned, you and I have talked before about the defense of bees and ants.

[00:07:39] Speaker C: Yes.

[00:07:39] Speaker A: That have those similar behaviors when there is an injured or sick member of their group. So that's a brilliant way. It's like throwing a grenade in.

[00:07:50] Speaker C: Yeah.

[00:07:51] Speaker B: Huge chemical response. And what's interesting, too, is when you watch videos, if they're really close up and kind of slow mo, you can see the ant, her mandibles are open, she's ready to bite, and she curls her abdomen up and kind of points it in the same direction her face is pointing. And then there's a little squirt and if it's thousands of them, that would add up.

[00:08:12] Speaker A: Yes.

Wow. This is like a bird spa treatment or like a delosing.

That's really interesting.

[00:08:24] Speaker B: Like me using that salicylic acid noxema pad. A little stingy.

[00:08:30] Speaker A: Yes, exactly.

[00:08:32] Speaker C: Yeah.

[00:08:32] Speaker B: So now we're going to go from acid baths to daredevil cartwheels.

[00:08:38] Speaker A: Are we still on birds?

[00:08:40] Speaker B: We are still on birds.

[00:08:42] Speaker C: Yeah. Okay.

Yeah.

[00:08:45] Speaker B: You thought online dating was hard. You should try getting to know a potential boyfriend eagle style. Which sounds like kamasutra, but it's not two eagles or hawks, usually it's raptors. They fly at each other, talons out, grab claws and then have you ever seen them spin? Like they're hooked together and they do this death spiral down towards the.

[00:09:07] Speaker A: Yes. It's very circusy.

[00:09:10] Speaker C: Yes.

[00:09:10] Speaker B: And sometimes they don't let go in time. They do hit the ground.

[00:09:14] Speaker C: Yee.

[00:09:15] Speaker A: Really?

[00:09:15] Speaker C: Yeah.

[00:09:16] Speaker B: Sometimes they get tangled up. Get like deer. They get their antlers tangled up. These are feet tangled up.

[00:09:22] Speaker C: Yeah.

[00:09:22] Speaker B: Well, okay. So I have always seen with these videos, if you go looking for videos of, they call it Talon grappling or cartwheeling, most will be titled courtship flights. It's a guy, it's a girl. They're testing each other. But what's really funny is you look in the comments and there's almost always a very tired ornithologist. It's territorial.

This is not dating. It's not what you think.

[00:09:49] Speaker A: Please, people, please stop clicking the first link.

[00:09:54] Speaker C: Yeah.

[00:09:55] Speaker B: Because they did say sometimes. Yes. But most of the time this is either territory rivals two guys because let's be honest, they have some testosterone issues or it's parents and children.

[00:10:10] Speaker A: Oh, really?

[00:10:11] Speaker B: It's a teenager. They're getting uppity. Instead of ripping off their bedroom door like some parents used to do, they grab claws. Death spiraling to the ground. Who's going to be the chicken first? Yes.

[00:10:25] Speaker C: Wow.

[00:10:26] Speaker A: That's very extreme. But as your kids get older, that does make sense.

[00:10:32] Speaker C: Yeah, it does.

[00:10:34] Speaker B: But it's just so funny that there's not a huge amount of information because it's one of these things where they're like, yes, we can see it happening.

[00:10:42] Speaker A: You can't make it happen, though. Well.

[00:10:45] Speaker B: And often these courtship ones, people are like, oh, my gosh. Well, they're like, you can't tell the sex of these birds, some of them, because they look exactly the same. Like bald eagle.

[00:10:54] Speaker A: Yeah.

[00:10:55] Speaker B: It's two black birds with white heads spin to the knows, you know? And so we know it happens it's very aggressive. It's very dangerous. Don't do it, kids.

[00:11:04] Speaker C: Yeah.

[00:11:08] Speaker A: The James Dean of eagles.

[00:11:10] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a lot.

[00:11:11] Speaker C: Wow.

[00:11:11] Speaker B: That was extra. Okay.

[00:11:14] Speaker C: Yeah.

[00:11:15] Speaker A: So it sounds like it's more like when two male rams face off or deers.

[00:11:22] Speaker C: Wow.

[00:11:24] Speaker A: Do they do it over water too? Like, would we potentially see this over in coeur d'alene or is this not.

[00:11:29] Speaker B: No, they do do it over water. In fact, the only reason why I thought of this bird, bird, bird smorgasbord bird was because I saw a TikTok and it was over the sailor sea people are on the beach, and these two eagles, I mean, they almost hit the water and the wings fly out. This will also be in the show notes. You can go look at this. The wings fly out, and it's almost like when you're on that merrygor round and you lean out and that centrifugal, there's force. It's pulling you apart, but you're holding each other together. And it's quite breathtaking to see them.

[00:12:07] Speaker A: And you hope you're in the right part of the spiral so that you don't wing toward the ground. I can see one making it out and one not.

[00:12:14] Speaker C: Yeah.

[00:12:15] Speaker B: And I have seen two birds doing it, like, over forests, and they did not let go in time, and they did crash into the trees. Yikes.

[00:12:25] Speaker C: Yeah.

[00:12:26] Speaker B: Accidents can happen.

[00:12:27] Speaker C: Wow. Yeah.

[00:12:28] Speaker A: I can't see that being a mating behavior because that's the direct opposite of the goal. Yeah, it's very endangering.

[00:12:37] Speaker C: Yes.

[00:12:38] Speaker B: There was some speculation. If you have a pair that's mated and say they don't have chicks yet and one of them got food and the other one is like, I want some of these. This is how we're resolving an argument.

[00:12:51] Speaker A: Oh. That also seems like we just yell at each other for a couple of minutes and then it's over.

[00:12:57] Speaker C: Yeah.

[00:12:57] Speaker B: Maybe therapy.

[00:12:58] Speaker C: Maybe therapy.

[00:13:02] Speaker A: Wow.

[00:13:03] Speaker C: Yeah.

[00:13:04] Speaker A: Okay. And you have a third. I do have a third trifecta today.

[00:13:08] Speaker B: The last but not least, anting, death defying. And now we're going to move into the smooth jazz portion.

[00:13:16] Speaker A: Excellent.

[00:13:18] Speaker C: Yes.

[00:13:18] Speaker B: So the proceedings of the Royal Society B, which, by the way, I've seen these papers before, and it's Royal Society and then capital b.

And this is the first time that I went, what does the b stand for?

[00:13:32] Speaker A: Yes, that's a. Oh, I have looked this up because I had that very same question. I'm like, what the heck is this? Because if you poke around in scientific nature stuff for a short while, they pop up.

[00:13:43] Speaker C: Yeah.

[00:13:43] Speaker B: It's either royal society B or Royal Society A. Well, it turns out the b stands for papers and life sciences.

[00:13:51] Speaker A: Okay.

[00:13:51] Speaker B: And a is for physical sciences and mathematics. So I will probably never do a royal society a because it's mathematics.

[00:14:00] Speaker A: Yes, I hear that.

[00:14:03] Speaker C: Yeah.

[00:14:03] Speaker B: So, anywho, let's talk about individual preferences for sound tool design in a parrot.

[00:14:09] Speaker A: Individual preferences for sound tool design. Okay.

[00:14:14] Speaker B: In a parrot.

[00:14:15] Speaker A: Okay.

[00:14:16] Speaker C: Yeah.

[00:14:16] Speaker B: So new research, hot off the presses. 2023 palm cockatoos. Now, these birds are found in New guinea, in Australia. About 3ft tall, all black.

[00:14:27] Speaker A: That is a lot of bird.

[00:14:28] Speaker B: A lot of bird. That distinctive cockatoo mohawk that they can make stand up with a bright reddish orange cheek.

I have here that I have a link for.

[00:14:41] Speaker A: Ooh. So this is an all black bird with bright orange and red, like it looks like it's going to war, probably, yes. Palm cockatoo. Yes. This is an action video, okay. Preceded by a weight loss ad.

[00:14:55] Speaker B: Oh, well, you know, skip.

[00:15:00] Speaker A: The palm cockatoo project.

[00:15:05] Speaker C: Yeah.

[00:15:05] Speaker B: So if you've got laser shows and sweating drummers in your head, you're going to be a little disappointed.

[00:15:10] Speaker A: Everything is popping up over my video. Come on, man.

[00:15:12] Speaker B: Well, yeah. So you think more of like a toddler banging on a table with a stick.

[00:15:17] Speaker A: Yeah. But like, very purposeful bird behavior, because right now it's still making his tool. There we go. He's got his tool.

[00:15:28] Speaker B: So in the wild, only the palm cockatoo has been seen using and making instruments on the regular. So what Amy's watching is the males find a stick, they break it off. It's like six inches long. Or they get a seed pod and they tap it on like a hollow log.

[00:15:43] Speaker A: And it seems to be kind of a specific kind of stick. Like, it looks like a little. The one that the first bird picks has a little nodule at the end of the wood. So it's a little drumsticky looking.

[00:15:54] Speaker C: Yeah.

[00:15:55] Speaker B: This isn't like I'm just going to pick this up and bang it. They are selecting often they're peeling the bark if they use a seed pod. These are big seed pods. Think almost like the pit of an avocado kind of size seed pod.

[00:16:08] Speaker A: Oh, really?

[00:16:09] Speaker C: Yeah.

[00:16:09] Speaker B: And they are modifying it. There's one bird, you see him land on a hollow, like a tree that's broken off and it's hollow on the inside. And he's got this seed pit in his little claw and he's bonking very rhythmically. 1234. And he stops and does some adjustment. Breaks the seed pod open a little wider. It does change the tone just a little bit.

Knocking again. So it turns out that playing a guitar on the beach trick. Except it's like sticks and it works with ladybirds, really.

[00:16:43] Speaker A: All right. So the ladies like a drummer in the Palm cockatoo world.

[00:16:47] Speaker C: Yeah.

[00:16:47] Speaker B: And I did find one where the little guys often they're just banging and they're making no sound. I did find one where he's banging. And then it was singing, but it was more of, like, singing by yourself in the shower kind of way.

[00:17:02] Speaker A: Like he's honing his craft.

[00:17:04] Speaker B: He's just screaming. He's like, yeah. And then more bonking and then more screaming.

I never saw a female approaching. Also rocking out.

[00:17:15] Speaker C: Yeah.

[00:17:16] Speaker B: And part of the 2023 paper was to raise awareness about the palm cockatoo. Because they're endangered.

Well, yeah. It turns out it takes a female about ten years to raise a young bird because of predation. It's not that they're with their mother for ten years, but it's like they only lay one and then they have to raise it. Right. And so that replacing the population is difficult. And so the people who wrote the paper thought that by charming all of us with some sick beats that they might get some more funding to help preserve habitat.

[00:17:49] Speaker A: I feel like that's a fair thing, especially the yoyo one that's just yelling. Like he's trying to figure it out.

[00:17:57] Speaker B: He needs some help. I mean, he needs a lot of help.

[00:18:00] Speaker C: Yeah.

[00:18:02] Speaker A: When there's different rhythms, too. I'm still kind of watching the video, and there's one here that he's doing the seed pod thing and he's chomping it a little. And then he does thump, thump, thump, thump. Others just do. Thump thump is a beat.

[00:18:17] Speaker B: It's not random. Like a kid with a hammer, just kind of.

[00:18:20] Speaker A: No, it's very rhythmic.

[00:18:22] Speaker C: Yeah.

[00:18:22] Speaker B: There is a definite rhythm, I think, compared to the bellbird. That's just screaming at 100 decibels to get a lady.

[00:18:30] Speaker A: This is a lot.

[00:18:31] Speaker B: Like I said, this is a smooth jazz version of bird percussion. I prefer that. Yeah.

He doesn't need to be flashy. All right.

He's just trying to let you know he's there, that's all.

[00:18:46] Speaker A: And honestly, he looks flashy already. He's got the look on lock. That's good.

[00:18:52] Speaker C: Yes.

[00:18:52] Speaker B: The solid black, the little red highlight, a little pop of color.

[00:18:57] Speaker C: Yeah.

[00:18:57] Speaker A: They're going to look at female palm cockatoo.

[00:19:00] Speaker B: I think they look exactly the same. But now I don't know, I just.

[00:19:04] Speaker A: Was thinking I was going to ask you that, and I'm like, you'd have.

[00:19:06] Speaker B: To look it up.

[00:19:07] Speaker A: I may as well. I don't know.

[00:19:08] Speaker B: I can't research everything. This is everything about birds. I don't know, everything.

They still are showing kind of the same.

[00:19:18] Speaker A: Yeah. Some of these. I'm not clicking through links. And so the bright ones with the bright orangey red cheeks seem to be males. They're showing some with a peachy sort of insert and some that are all gray and black. So there does seem to be a range.

[00:19:36] Speaker B: Although it says that they are monomorphic and cannot be sexed by eye color.

[00:19:41] Speaker A: You can't just look.

[00:19:43] Speaker B: Yeah, they're maybe a little bigger.

[00:19:45] Speaker C: Yeah.

[00:19:45] Speaker A: Okay.

[00:19:46] Speaker B: The big guy with the stick. Clearly a guy.

[00:19:49] Speaker A: That's cool. Well, that is everything. We never knew we wanted to know about birds, right? I am not bored.

[00:19:56] Speaker B: There's ants, there's death defying feats. There's musical instruments. And then I was like, I can't find anything else.

[00:20:04] Speaker A: No. Do you wonder how many of those ants, when the bird can no longer stand it, do not make it out? They're like, shake a shake a shaker and squish. That's the end of it. Because some of the shake a shaker, they go, they probably. And at the end of the video, the big bird takes off. So ants falling from the sky as it goes.

[00:20:26] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:20:27] Speaker A: Just a snack.

[00:20:27] Speaker B: Just a snack.

[00:20:29] Speaker A: Excellent.

[00:20:31] Speaker B: And that's birds awesome.

[00:20:34] Speaker A: Trace is good about putting links in for the things she talks about. So go visit us@brainjunkpodcast.com. And oftentimes there's a fun little nugget in our social media. How about you go to Brain junk podcast on Facebook or Instagram? That is where you will find fun little nuggets.

You can also ask your smart speaker to play episodes if you don't know what to do next. That's always a good move. What else? We have a merch store. If you want to drink your beverage out of a brain junk, tumbler or mug, hit the merch store at brainjunkpodcast.com. And find a little treasure. And I will you next time when we share more of everything you never knew you wanted to know, and we definitely guarantee you will not be bored.

View Details

We recorded IN PERSON!

Trace brought back a whole bunch of fun flavored chips from Uwajimaya, a fantastic Asian grocery store in Seattle! Check out the show notes for our 5 other taste test episodes!

Show Notes:

P.S. If you like the Non Newtonian fluid cup, it's in our Merch store!

P.S.S. in defense of the Pizza flavored chips, when Trace tried them the next day, she could taste the peperoni.

Other Taste Test episodes:

9: Crazy food (we eat cherry pickles)

138: Turkey Candy Corn

142: Socially Distanced Taste Test

229: Taco Truck Jelly Bean Taste Test!

235: Tailgate Candy Corn

Transcript:

[00:00:03] Speaker A: Welcome to Brain Junk. I'm Amy Barton.

[00:00:05] Speaker B: And I'm Trace Kerr. And we're in the same room together.

[00:00:09] Speaker A: I was just debating. Can I interrupt and say we're here together, right by each other.

[00:00:14] Speaker B: It's kind of weird. And we only have one microphone because equipment. And so we're very close. We're standing very not. We're not huggers. We're very close to each other. But we're here because we're going. I know. We're going to talk about. We're going to do a taste test.

[00:00:28] Speaker A: Yes. And we're having a whole sensory experience right now already. Actually, there are some smells happening here.

[00:00:35] Speaker B: Yeah. Because I wanted to do the fun, different potato chips that we don't get here in the United States. But every time I go on, like Amazon or something, the teeny tiny bags were an insane amount of money.

[00:00:49] Speaker A: Yes. Like 39 99 for two bags or something. Absurd.

[00:00:52] Speaker B: And then shipping.

[00:00:53] Speaker A: Yeah.

[00:00:54] Speaker B: And I was at Wajamaya, which is an asian grocery store over in Seattle this weekend, and they had like a wall of a variety of chips.

[00:01:06] Speaker A: Do you remember when lay's did? They had a whole series, so it was like biscuits and gravy and there was like a korean barbecue or something. That was delightful. But that's as close as we've gotten here in the US to anything unique. Yeah.

[00:01:18] Speaker B: So all different. I immediately texted Amy and I was like, how do you feel about this? And you were like, no seafood. But what we're doing is I put tags on the little chip bags of numbers one through seven.

[00:01:33] Speaker A: Nice.

[00:01:33] Speaker B: And then I made plates with one through seven and then gave it to Chaz. And he was like, we should have double blind randomized. And I was like, no, do not take the numbers off of the bags so we don't know. So we can try to figure out what the flavor is just by tasting it, and then we can check the bags.

[00:01:52] Speaker A: Excellent.

[00:01:53] Speaker B: See how close we were, because I love that idea.

Science. Although it's only two people, I predict.

[00:02:01] Speaker A: That I am going to be very suggestible because my sense of smell is not always particularly reliable. I thought we had an electrical burning smell and they're like, oh, no, that's peach tea or something.

All right. Yeah, that could also be that it wasn't peach tea, but it was something entirely different. And so I'm wondering if my sense of taste will be similar. Like, I'm not going to. We're going to find out.

[00:02:25] Speaker B: Yeah. And we have all seven out at the same time in the tiny blanket fort. And there's some seaweed. There's some vegetable smells. It's interesting.

Should we get started with number one?

Number one looks like your traditional lay's potato chip.

[00:02:41] Speaker A: It looks like sour cream and onion.

[00:02:43] Speaker B: It does. It's got like, little green flecks on it.

[00:02:46] Speaker A: Smells like lawn that's been in the bag for a day. Okay, I licked mine first. I'm going to go in cautious here.

[00:02:55] Speaker B: Now, this is like the candy corn experience.

[00:02:58] Speaker A: I'm not opposed to this. I'm not either.

[00:03:01] Speaker B: Now I'm not so sure I know what it is. I'm going to let you guess first.

[00:03:04] Speaker A: Because it's ringing bells and I cannot nail it down. I should tell you that I have a potential allergic responses to mango and pistachio.

[00:03:13] Speaker B: I don't think any of that is here. Great. Okay. I will tell you. It's vegetable. Yes, it's kind of vegetable.

[00:03:20] Speaker A: It's a friendly place in my brain, but I cannot decide what it is. And I don't know if I'd want to eat a giant pile of these.

[00:03:26] Speaker B: What if I said, like, not radish? Typical midwestern farm table dinner vegetable.

[00:03:33] Speaker A: Oh.

[00:03:33] Speaker B: Sliced up, usually it would be tomatoes and on a plate, pickles is what goes on plates.

[00:03:38] Speaker A: Tomatoes and pickles and onions. In my family, I am from the northwest. I do come from farm people. But if there's tomatoes on the table.

[00:03:46] Speaker B: I don't know because there's a little bit of seaweed.

[00:03:49] Speaker A: Yeah. Yes. I would agree with that.

[00:03:51] Speaker B: It's a cooling vegetable. Some people.

[00:03:53] Speaker A: Cucumbers.

[00:03:54] Speaker B: Cucumber. I think it's cucumber.

[00:03:56] Speaker A: I would agree with that potentially.

[00:03:57] Speaker B: It's got that cool.

[00:03:59] Speaker A: Almost a little bit of sweetness.

[00:04:01] Speaker B: Yeah. Supposedly women really love the cucumber smell over others.

[00:04:07] Speaker A: Am I pissed off by that? Women love cucumbers.

[00:04:11] Speaker B: So green.

[00:04:12] Speaker A: Or is it like women love cucumbers because of our excessive intelligence or the genetic marker, blah, blah, blah.

Give me the right answer here. Also, while you're looking that up, we definitely like, if there's something spicy in here, we have to create that. Yummy cucumbers with, like, rice wine vinegar and chilies and a little sugar. We can create that with chips. I'm going to try.

[00:04:37] Speaker B: Okay. So according to Chicago Tribune for Women, the smell of baby powder is a real turn on. I don't know if I agree with this.

[00:04:45] Speaker A: What are they saying about good and plenty's?

[00:04:46] Speaker B: I like also the licorice candy and cucumber. Really?

Well, I got to tell you that sniffing these chips, I do not feel like I need to go on a date or anything.

[00:04:56] Speaker A: No, we haven't consulted a primary source on that. Everyone.

[00:05:01] Speaker B: It's one of those things where all of the immediate things on Google are agreeing, which tells me. And none of them are science based.

[00:05:09] Speaker A: They all read a Huffington Post article.

[00:05:11] Speaker B: They did. They're all like, Buzzfeed says cucumbers are arousing. So that's probably where I got it. Well, let's hit number two.

[00:05:17] Speaker A: Okay.

[00:05:18] Speaker B: Again. Also looks like kind of a boring lay's potato chip. Just that thin chip looking guy.

[00:05:23] Speaker A: Oh, this has maybe a spicy sweet smell.

[00:05:27] Speaker B: Kind of. Kind of some bullion action.

[00:05:29] Speaker A: I just licked it and I'm definitely getting like the puff from the ramen packet that you get when you put it in.

[00:05:34] Speaker B: You're not going to like this. No.

[00:05:36] Speaker A: Oh, no, I'm not.

[00:05:38] Speaker B: It's like seaweed ramen and maybe like fishy.

[00:05:43] Speaker A: There are some crackers that you can get. They're a rice cracker and they're like a little bigger than a Ritz. And they start out kind of like this, but they're a little on the sweet side. And you're like, this is great. And then it's like, oh, but it finishes with fishy seaweed. But it's not hugely strong.

[00:05:58] Speaker B: No.

[00:05:59] Speaker A: These chips are called by the seashore.

[00:06:02] Speaker B: This is ocean experience.

[00:06:06] Speaker A: They're inspired by seaweed, but they don't put a lot in for budgetary purposes.

[00:06:10] Speaker B: See, it's one of these things where, because I was looking at when you watch YouTube videos of people trying different things around the world, different grocery stores, potato chips are one of those ones where the UK, it's got salt and Vinegar and Australia has chicken salt, which I have so many questions about.

[00:06:26] Speaker A: Canadians are very into the ketchup.

[00:06:29] Speaker B: Well, why can't we get some of that stuff then? You know, you have something like this one, which is good, but it's definitely not a flavor profile that most Americans eat.

[00:06:38] Speaker A: I think my son would like this. He's very into all sorts of ramen and he makes.

[00:06:42] Speaker B: Yes, but if you're not used to this kind of flavor, if your idea of a Monday night meal is like meatloaf and potatoes, this soy sauce, fishy, maybe squiddy sort of thing that's going.

[00:06:56] Speaker A: On, it could be more in that zone.

[00:06:58] Speaker B: Might not be quite up your alley.

[00:07:00] Speaker A: To their credit, they're not punching you in the face with it. So I do think of my more oceany flavored snacks. This one is okay. It's just not my favorite, but it does lead with that sort of, like, beef ramen flavor, almost. Yeah, but it's brief.

[00:07:16] Speaker B: Like you've just eaten the packet. Yeah, a little bit.

[00:07:19] Speaker A: Licked a little on your fingers.

[00:07:21] Speaker B: I like the cucumbery. One more so far.

[00:07:24] Speaker A: So ladies do like cucumber. Oh, my God.

Okay, number three. Looks like bougie ruffles has ridges.

[00:07:32] Speaker B: It is huge ridges. Yeah, on those ruffles, it's more like.

[00:07:35] Speaker A: You got your crimping iron out for this.

Ooh, I am already on top of this one, baby.

[00:07:40] Speaker B: It's like 80s hair.

[00:07:42] Speaker A: It's going to taste like it too. No, this one smells like chicken bouillon out the gate for me. I'm excited about it. No, this is giving me happy ramen vibes.

[00:07:51] Speaker B: Ooh, this is delicious.

Oh, okay. So when I was in middle school, high school, we would get the ramen, and then I would take it dry, bust it up, put the powder on it, and eat it like that as a snack. That's what these taste like.

[00:08:09] Speaker A: It's got a fairly significant celery flavor in there.

[00:08:14] Speaker B: Yes.

[00:08:15] Speaker A: So if you told me they were trying to imitate some sort of turkey stuffing situation, I'd be like, oh, I like that. Good job. High five.

[00:08:21] Speaker B: I do agree. It is very celery heavy.

[00:08:24] Speaker A: This is what Americans would like.

[00:08:26] Speaker B: A little spicy on the back.

[00:08:28] Speaker A: Yes, just a little.

[00:08:29] Speaker B: Of course. I also think black pepper is spicy because I'm that white. But, like, we both have a hefty.

[00:08:34] Speaker A: Amount of irish in it, don't we?

[00:08:37] Speaker B: I like my house cold and my food not quite so spicy. Please.

[00:08:41] Speaker A: I know. Tell us what you do with your potatoes, and we'll tell you where in the world you're from. We just boil ours. It's nice. Sometimes we mash them. It's definitely also got that turkey vibe.

[00:08:51] Speaker B: Like a ramen. Maybe it's just a ramen.

[00:08:53] Speaker A: Yeah.

I would buy, like, a turkey or chicken ramen. Excuse me. Okay, so my rating is so far. I would go with three. One, two. So our ramen, cucumbers, and by the sea.

[00:09:10] Speaker B: Okay.

[00:09:10] Speaker A: I'm excited for the next one, though, because it's like a small pringle. It's not much smaller, but it's small enough that it makes it cute.

[00:09:16] Speaker B: It is. Oh, you know what? You're right. It is smaller. Petite pringle.

[00:09:19] Speaker A: Yeah.

[00:09:20] Speaker B: That was a lot of sniff. If you were in here, you'd be able to hear Amy going, it was a lot of sniff.

[00:09:25] Speaker A: This has a tomato vibe right away.

[00:09:27] Speaker B: For me, all I can taste is that other chip. I need another drink of water.

[00:09:30] Speaker A: Pringles have such a distinct. Or not just pringles, these pressed chips, where it's like potato has been mashed to death and then extruded, has a very potato.

[00:09:41] Speaker B: They're not allowed to call themselves potato chips. They have to call themselves, like, a potato. Potato inspired something. It'll be on the can because this is a pringle. I'm not getting, like.

[00:09:51] Speaker A: It's not salsa. E. My first thought was tomato, but it's not as strong.

[00:09:56] Speaker B: You're right.

[00:09:56] Speaker A: No.

[00:09:56] Speaker B: Now that I'm eating the second one, I am getting that tomato.

[00:10:00] Speaker A: Maybe this is ketchup. Americans would like this one, too. We could put these away, but would.

[00:10:04] Speaker B: You take them to the football game?

[00:10:06] Speaker A: They're not very grabbable because principles are hard down in the can, and you get stuck. Yeah.

So, no.

[00:10:15] Speaker B: So one of the things I was looking up when I was looking at potato chips that crunchy foods help you make serotonin.

[00:10:21] Speaker A: Really? They literally make you. Literally, yes.

[00:10:24] Speaker B: So, serotonin, it's the chemical acts like a hormone, carries messages between nerve cells in the brain. But 90% of serotonin is made in your gut, in your intestines. So you're chewing this crunchy thing, and the crunchy, crunchy crunchies kind of gets everything stimulated, and then it makes you do some happy stuff. So they found that people with adhd and autism and depression, you might be angling if you find yourself going, you.

[00:10:48] Speaker A: Know what I really need is some crunch.

[00:10:50] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:10:51] Speaker A: Probably doesn't matter. Like, you could crunch a carrot, and the crunch is happy. Or is it happier when it's salty crunchy.

[00:10:57] Speaker B: It's probably the fatty stuff, but, yeah. Just the crunch alone is helpful.

[00:11:02] Speaker A: I have heard it tells your brain, like, soup is warm and wonderful and filling. But eat something with crunch. So your brain knows you ate food.

You're not just having a beverage.

[00:11:11] Speaker B: It's like you're just drinking. That's not a meal.

[00:11:13] Speaker A: Yeah. Even though you start to feel sloshy.

Yeah. So we're a little over halfway, and we're getting to the one. This next one looks like a traditional cheeto. The skinny, knobby ones, yellow, like a potato chip, but they have, like, you sprinkled them in Boolean.

[00:11:30] Speaker B: Yeah. They're not cheeto orange. They're brown.

[00:11:33] Speaker A: Yeah. This one, initially, I'm licking everything first.

She's very cautious, very trusting. Okay.

[00:11:40] Speaker B: I expected a cheeto texture, and they look like cheetos, but you know how, like, the cheesy cheetos are super crunch. Yeah, this almost is kind of, like, hollow on the inside.

[00:11:49] Speaker A: Oh, it tastes like something too. It's more like a puffed rice snack or almost more in the zone of a rice cake or a. Yeah, I don't think it's quite in the land of teriyaki, but if you told me it was in that zone, I would be like, yes. Okay.

[00:12:10] Speaker B: The suggestivity. It tastes like hot cocoa. You're right.

[00:12:14] Speaker A: Good.

[00:12:14] Speaker B: No, it doesn't. And it's kind of buttery.

[00:12:17] Speaker A: Right, but is that the flavor of the chip?

[00:12:19] Speaker B: No. Yeah, it might be the chip. Who needs wine tasting when you can talk about the buttery soy sauce notes of the strange snack on a paper plate?

[00:12:27] Speaker A: I am enjoying that one. And now we haven't had anything spicy yet, but we talked about, what's my spice level?

[00:12:34] Speaker B: Well, I don't think I got any hot because high five. There was hot, hot, hot pot, and I thought if I ate that, I wouldn't be able to taste anything after that. And then there was a.

[00:12:44] Speaker A: And some of those are like, oh, what are the rolled up ones?

[00:12:47] Speaker B: Oh, like a taki.

[00:12:48] Speaker A: Yes. They look. You can just tell.

Yes.

[00:12:51] Speaker B: And then there was a spicy pepper crab, and I was like, well, spicy. No. And it looked very crabby. And I know you were like, mine, no seafood. And so I was like, okay, no, maybe. No on this spicy hot crab. All right, I'm ready for number six.

[00:13:07] Speaker A: Okay.

[00:13:08] Speaker B: Also, again, we're back into the lays looking kind of thing.

[00:13:11] Speaker A: Traditional, like a kettle chip. It looks like it used to be a potato.

[00:13:15] Speaker B: Kind of a. Oh, bacony question mark.

[00:13:17] Speaker A: Tuna bacon casserole.

[00:13:21] Speaker B: My mom used to put potato chips on the tuna casserole. Did any all have casserole with potato chips on it? That was the only thing that got me through.

[00:13:28] Speaker A: Very few things that I could not eat. And I remember sitting at the table and gagging on tuna casserole. It was rotini pasta. It was tuna. It was probably a can of cream soup.

[00:13:39] Speaker B: Cream of mushroom, probably. Yeah. Celery, maybe. Yeah. Honestly, the potato chips were the only thing that got me through it as a child.

[00:13:46] Speaker A: There were no chips on top of barbecue.

[00:13:48] Speaker B: This tastes like barbecue. Like barbecued beef.

[00:13:50] Speaker A: Yes, maybe. And I'm not enjoying it. I wouldn't eat more of those.

[00:13:53] Speaker B: Also, often with barbecue flavor, things has a little heat at the end too. Yes. The smoky. You can't see my air quotes, people, but the smoky flavor kind of tastes like I licked a barbecue.

[00:14:07] Speaker A: Exactly. I was just trying to quantify.

It's a little greasy.

It's definitely a fake smoke. You know when you watch a baking show and the person goes in with, like, strawberry extract and you're like, no. And you know they're going to taste it. The judges always can tell they're, like, used an extract. Didn't you? This is that feeling.

[00:14:31] Speaker B: Yeah. I don't need to eat another one. And it's kind of hot.

[00:14:35] Speaker A: I like the thought, but there was something in it that definitely had that same.

[00:14:41] Speaker B: I'm going to cleanse my palate with the cucumber because I need some help. Yeah, that number six is some sort of barbecue. And I'm sorry. When we figure out what these are, if you adore that flavor, there's more for you.

[00:14:53] Speaker A: Because we're not snatching those up.

[00:14:54] Speaker B: No.

[00:14:54] Speaker A: And now I'm definitely reading that's definitely barbecue. And that's definitely cucumber.

[00:14:59] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:15:00] Speaker A: Final one. Number seven has little skinny lines and looks more like the lays or the ruffles with ridges, but they're skinny and close together.

[00:15:07] Speaker B: Yes.

[00:15:08] Speaker A: We need more water to wash it out with cucumber.

[00:15:11] Speaker B: But see, the nice thing about the magic of recording is we can be all slurpee and sippy and then cut it out.

[00:15:19] Speaker A: Got about an inch and a half of water left. What's this next one going to be like? It's got some green flecks, and it initially smells maybe like cheese.

[00:15:27] Speaker B: Okay, I'm getting, like, what am I getting? I'm so confused right now. Cheese question.

[00:15:31] Speaker A: I definitely have a cheese vibe, but.

[00:15:34] Speaker B: Not like a ruffle, sour cream and cheddar sort of cheese vibe. This is much more subtle. Yeah, it's sweeter. Like, it has a sweet. Almost like a sweet corn profile. Question mark.

[00:15:47] Speaker A: Maybe I like it. I went in for another one. Maybe it's elote because that would have a corny, cheesy. Whatever this little green spice on here is.

[00:15:56] Speaker B: Whatever this stuff is that's in there.

I don't know. Shall I get the bag? Shall we come to some big reveal?

[00:16:04] Speaker A: It's not got any spice like an elote might.

[00:16:07] Speaker B: No, it's not like a chili powder kind of thing.

[00:16:10] Speaker A: It is just a teeny bit sweet.

[00:16:12] Speaker B: I don't have my. Let's see.

[00:16:14] Speaker A: Do you want me to move plates?

[00:16:15] Speaker B: No. Okay, I'm just going to grab. So I stuck random numbers on bags. Right.

So I'm just going to grab bags out, and we'll look at them.

[00:16:26] Speaker A: We'll tell you what may not be order.

[00:16:28] Speaker B: So seven is.

[00:16:30] Speaker A: Oh, pizza.

[00:16:31] Speaker B: Pizza.

[00:16:32] Speaker A: I don't think I agree.

[00:16:33] Speaker B: Wow. So I got melty cheese.

[00:16:35] Speaker A: Yep.

[00:16:36] Speaker B: Okay. If you sniff the bag, it kind of smells like cafeteria garlic bread.

[00:16:41] Speaker A: They show pepperoni on this cheese. Pizza slice. On the pizza slice.

[00:16:45] Speaker B: And.

[00:16:45] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm not getting that.

[00:16:47] Speaker B: This is by Calbi.

[00:16:49] Speaker A: I would eat those. Probably a lot of them.

[00:16:51] Speaker B: It is a zesty pizza kick. Bon appetito. Bon appetito.

[00:17:00] Speaker A: Number seven is tasty, but maybe not quite as pizza forward as build.

[00:17:07] Speaker B: All right, then we've got. What is this? Three? So three was the one that we both like. The big ridges kind of thought like, it was like ramen.

[00:17:14] Speaker A: Okay, what do they think?

[00:17:15] Speaker B: Oh, and this is chicken wing.

[00:17:17] Speaker A: Oh, chicken wing.

[00:17:18] Speaker B: It says here artificial chicken wing flavor.

[00:17:23] Speaker A: That explains the celery.

[00:17:25] Speaker B: Yeah. Because they've got, like, chicken kind of bouilloni sort of action.

[00:17:30] Speaker A: I agree with that much more.

[00:17:31] Speaker B: I do too. These are lays, and I'm not expecting international lays. Product of China.

[00:17:36] Speaker A: Oh, okay. Nice.

[00:17:38] Speaker B: 100% like me. The ridgy chicken ones. Okay, so the one that you said was a pringle. Okay. It is tomato.

[00:17:45] Speaker A: Oh. It's a bright pink container, you guys, we'll take pictures.

[00:17:50] Speaker B: It is a very bright pink container.

[00:17:53] Speaker A: Barbie wanted some tomato pringles.

[00:17:55] Speaker B: It's also lays. I saw this one. This is the one that I saw, like, across a room, and I tried to grab them without looking at what they were. If it had seafood on it, I was like, nope. And I just put the rest of them. It was kind of funny because Chaz had the basket, and I was just like, grab, throw, grab, throw. And you. Don't you want to look? No, I don't want to know. I don't want to. One. Number one.

[00:18:20] Speaker A: Okay.

[00:18:20] Speaker B: It is cucumber flavor.

[00:18:22] Speaker A: Okay. See? And lay's is a winner. Today. We have a third lay's choice.

[00:18:25] Speaker B: Yeah. That was what a lot of them were.

[00:18:28] Speaker A: Lays trying weird stuff.

[00:18:29] Speaker B: Well, I mean, I guess.

[00:18:30] Speaker A: And that's just straight cucumber flavor. They're not nothing else.

[00:18:34] Speaker B: Yeah, that's what they. I mean, you can look at the little ingredients.

[00:18:37] Speaker A: Well, I do not read Chinese, sadly.

[00:18:40] Speaker B: They have labels on them that does.

[00:18:42] Speaker A: Smell kind of right there.

[00:18:43] Speaker B: They have labels where you can cheat.

[00:18:45] Speaker A: Oh, yes. When you go to world market and you buy the chocolate. And they've had to stick because apparently, Europeans do not care what's in their chocolate.

[00:18:52] Speaker B: No, but we want to know.

[00:18:53] Speaker A: They don't care the same thing. They probably don't care something.

[00:18:55] Speaker B: Okay, so the cheeto. It is a cheeto.

[00:18:59] Speaker A: It is a cheeto brand.

[00:19:00] Speaker B: And there is meat with, like, an herb on it.

[00:19:04] Speaker A: It's like a patty of meat.

[00:19:05] Speaker B: Steak flavor.

[00:19:06] Speaker A: Yeah.

[00:19:07] Speaker B: Like a little steak.

Korean barbecue. Sort of like the meat where it looks like more fat than meat. That would explain kind of why this has that butter.

[00:19:14] Speaker A: Yes.

[00:19:15] Speaker B: The butter vibe.

[00:19:16] Speaker A: Yeah. I liked those, but I hate them. This would be like if you buy Cadbury here versus Cadbury in the UK. It tastes different.

[00:19:25] Speaker B: Is it different?

[00:19:27] Speaker A: And these cheetos, I would also say the same thing. Like, they're manufactured a little differently.

[00:19:32] Speaker B: That texture.

[00:19:33] Speaker A: Or maybe it's just that cheese powder.

[00:19:36] Speaker B: Duh.

[00:19:37] Speaker A: Something.

[00:19:37] Speaker B: I don't know. I do think the texture is different. They're not as crispy.

[00:19:41] Speaker A: No.

[00:19:41] Speaker B: It might be that. Where these are sold, this looks like. Oh, that's interesting. Product of china, but imported through.

Have a. What is this one?

[00:19:56] Speaker A: Which number?

[00:19:56] Speaker B: Number six.

I'm going to lean into this again. Yeah.

[00:20:00] Speaker A: What was.

[00:20:00] Speaker B: Hmm. Now that I know it's lamb.

[00:20:03] Speaker A: Oh, yes.

[00:20:04] Speaker B: Yes, it is. Roasted cumin, lamb. Skewer flavor. Once I saw that it said lamb, I could taste the lamb a little spicy.

[00:20:12] Speaker A: I forgot they're trying to get that grilled flavor in, and it's just a little bit like.

[00:20:17] Speaker B: Yeah. Say this is more like a mutton.

[00:20:19] Speaker A: Yes. Got sweaty sheepy. Yes. I would rate that one as not entirely pleasant. Okay.

[00:20:26] Speaker B: But it does nail the flavor.

[00:20:28] Speaker A: It does, right.

[00:20:29] Speaker B: Okay. I'm not in love with it.

[00:20:31] Speaker A: No.

[00:20:31] Speaker B: But it does hit.

[00:20:33] Speaker A: But if you like a good mutton kebab, you go find.

[00:20:36] Speaker B: That's it. Okay, so the last one.

Let's see number two. What did we think number two was? Fishy. Question mark.

[00:20:47] Speaker A: Yeah.

[00:20:47] Speaker B: Oh, no, it is crab. I'm so sorry.

[00:20:50] Speaker A: It wasn't, like, horrible crab, though. It was all right. Just plain old crab.

[00:20:54] Speaker B: Fried crab.

[00:20:54] Speaker A: Fried crab. Oh, really? Fried. Why did I do that? There's definitely. That would explain maybe why it wasn't quite so punchy in the face. They've got that kind of fried yummy.

[00:21:05] Speaker B: I like the fried crab. I know you don't like it. I'm sorry.

[00:21:10] Speaker A: Well, now that I think the idea that I know what it is, I firmly know what it is, my brain.

[00:21:14] Speaker B: Is feeling different because they had one that had korean barbecued squid on it. So I avoided that.

[00:21:19] Speaker A: Thank you.

[00:21:20] Speaker B: And there was another one that had, like, a fish on it, and I avoided that. Honestly, I didn't even notice the crab.

[00:21:27] Speaker A: He's pretty cute down there at the bottom of the bag.

[00:21:29] Speaker B: He is. Right. And these bags, bright blue, bright purple. Yeah.

[00:21:33] Speaker A: The packaging is winning food bags that.

[00:21:36] Speaker B: I mean, we don't do purple.

[00:21:37] Speaker A: No, that's not a food color. Aqua is not a food color. Maybe sometimes, but yeah.

[00:21:43] Speaker B: Okay. So I'm so glad we did this.

[00:21:46] Speaker A: Yeah.

[00:21:47] Speaker B: Which ones are you taking home?

[00:21:49] Speaker A: The ones that I would sit and snack on without thinking about it would definitely be. I want to love the cheeto one because I am kind of happy about the texture isn't crunchy like our cheetos, but it is crisp. And I like that corny flavor, but I am just off put by that.

[00:22:05] Speaker B: The smoke.

[00:22:06] Speaker A: I would definitely eat the pizza ones that didn't taste like pizza entirely.

[00:22:09] Speaker B: They don't.

[00:22:10] Speaker A: The wings, cucumbers. Nice. But I've had enough of those.

I will not be eating more mutton or more crab.

[00:22:19] Speaker B: That mutton, man.

[00:22:20] Speaker A: The tomato ones were nice.

[00:22:21] Speaker B: Yeah. Okay, so what's the takeaway?

[00:22:24] Speaker A: The takeaway is taste very widely.

[00:22:26] Speaker B: Try some different stuff. Right? Yeah. And I got to say, too, 100%. This is way better than the turkey gravy or even the. What was the. There was, like, taco truck.

[00:22:38] Speaker A: Oh, the salsa cilantro should not be a part of candy. How could I forget this? And I was trying to think how long ago we did this with the taco truck.

[00:22:49] Speaker B: And it's been a while. It's been a hot minute.

And also, we just had the 300th episode come out, so this is kind of like a yay celebrate. Let's be silly for that. But if you want to watch those other ones, I will have in the, listen to those other ones I'll have in the show notes, our other tasty things. If you have ideas for stuff that we could do, like this, something you enjoy. Brainjuckpodcast@gmail.com. And also, we're on YouTube now.

[00:23:17] Speaker A: Yes.

[00:23:18] Speaker B: But we're going to be doing reverse. We're going to start at the beginning. And it was, I got to tell you, catalog. So I put one, two, three. I'm going to do one a day for a month.

[00:23:28] Speaker A: Okay. They're so, it's wild to me that that's only 10%.

[00:23:32] Speaker B: We sound so like, not that we know what we're doing.

[00:23:39] Speaker A: Surprise.

[00:23:40] Speaker B: It's welcome to Brain junk. I'm Trace Kerr. And I'm Amy Barton. And it's very clear that we're reading a script that we. Oh, but it's kind of fun to go back. And then, you know, if you like listening on YouTube, like when you're doing something else, you could work your way forward or skip around.

[00:23:59] Speaker A: Yeah, I like the idea of doing a retro food episode again because we did some weird american foods.

There's so much out there that, especially in that post World War II era, what people did with food just exploded.

[00:24:15] Speaker B: Maybe some fun, odd drinks, some jello molds.

[00:24:19] Speaker A: I'm thinking an aspic. I've never tried an aspic. Oh, yeah. It's going to be bad.

[00:24:24] Speaker B: I don't. Part of the fun lime jello tuna fish. Right.

[00:24:30] Speaker A: And we're going to chase it with buttermilk. Oh, God.

Yes.

[00:24:36] Speaker B: Well, high five. High five.

[00:24:38] Speaker A: Thank you, listeners, for joining us on this adventure. Do this with your family. There's a few markets around town. World market here in Spokane does have some international foods that might expose you to some tastes you don't ordinarily get.

[00:24:51] Speaker B: Yep. And you can, like I said, you can order this stuff if you feel ambitious and your wallet's feeling very full and great.

[00:24:58] Speaker A: Tax refund.

[00:24:59] Speaker B: No. There were so many cool places, like in the UK and stuff like that where you could order stuff. I did a lot of looking over the pandemic because I was like, I need to do, but I'm cheap. So this is perfect. If you're in Seattle, hit and bring.

[00:25:13] Speaker A: An extra suitcase when you travel internationally. It'll weigh, like, two pounds when you come back because it's all potato chips, and you will definitely be searched.

[00:25:20] Speaker B: But look, I like snacking. Don't bother me.

[00:25:23] Speaker A: Would you like this bag? It tastes like lamb kebabs.

[00:25:26] Speaker B: This one tastes like chicken.

[00:25:29] Speaker A: I don't hate that.

[00:25:31] Speaker B: All right.

[00:25:31] Speaker A: Me either. If you'd like to hear more episodes, ask your smart speaker to play brain junk podcast. Your hands can be dirty with chip dust on them, and you can still move to the next podcast.

[00:25:41] Speaker B: Oh, and Amy and I will catch you next time. When we managed to wash our hands off so I could turn off the record button.

And we will share more of thing you never knew you wanted to know, and I guarantee you will not be bored.

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We've plucked a bunch of random facts from the junk drawer! Tree rings, platypusary, and death by salt are just a few of the super cool facts curated for your ears!

Care to share a little Brain junk with your friends? Check out our new merch! https://brain-junk-merch.printify.me/products

Show Notes:

Funny thing, Trace used articles from C&EN news but some of those articles aren't available to the "general public". We've got links to other sources covering the information!

Platypusary: Blend of platypus +‎ nursery, coined by Australian naturalist Henry Burrell (1873–1945), the first person who succeeded in constructing a functioning platypusary.

Blue Honey

Chrysippus may have died from laughing at his own joke: Wikipedia

Assassins' teapot: YouTube

Old old water and one crazy scientist

Like how old? over a million years YIKES

Toxic foods

Medical News Today and just how much salt is too much

Stradivarius in C&EN news

Osmoregulation and bull sharks: You might've swum in a lake with one!

More bull sharks!

Flipping over penguins, NOT

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A huge reason you have a touch screen on your smart phone is because of a pigeon and a bomb? Let's talk about WWII pigeon pilots!

Show Notes:

TikTok pigeon pilot footage

NIST history report on pigeons and invention

Wikipedia: Project Pigeon

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Napkins! While recording this episode, we discovered that economic class influences what you use to wipe your face way more than we thought. You might use paper or cloth or maybe no napkin at all, but whatever you use, the history behind the napkin is fascinating.

image: pixabay

Show Notes:

Atlas Obscura: A Brief History of Napkins, From Soft Dough to Paper

Wikipedia on napkins

Culinaria: The Origin of the Fork

Chih pha: The Chinese napkin

We talk about which is better environmentally, paper napkins or cloth. It seems like cloth might be better. Sorry paper napkin stans.

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An oak gall might look like an apple growing on the bottom of a leaf, but it's really a snug home for baby oak gall wasps. Turns out, a gall is more than just a baby-bug playpen. Oak galls have been used for thousands of years to make ink. And, these teeny wasps are part of the reason why Alfred Kinsey had the chops to create his Kinsey scale of human sexuality.

image by: manfredrichter on pixabay

image below: The Ellesmere Chaucer, a beautifully decorated manuscript of Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, was created between approximately 1400 and 1410, using iron gall ink for the text lettering. The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens.

Show Notes:

Instagram example of a gall

Davey Insect and Disease Research Center on oak galls

Making Ink from Oak Galls from The Huntington museum in California

Wikipedia on making oak gall ink (support Wikipedia if you can, they are a valuable resource)

UK's Royal Horticultural Society on oak galls and wasps

American Museum of Natural History: Kinsey's wasps

Natural History Museum, Los Angeles County (Trace adores this museum!) Oak Wasp Galls article

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If you thought a person always has only one male parent and one female parent, well...you'd be wrong. Most of the time the two parent thing is the rule, but occasionally it is possible, mostly in a lab, to have a child with three genetic contributors.

Show Notes: (It's a good thing this isn't on paper 'cause there are tons of notes this time)

228: Why Don't We Lay Eggs? We talk about how viruses change who we are.

LiveScience: What is the maximum number of biological parents an organism can have?

Genome Biology and Evolution from Oxford Academic: Genome Expression Balance in a Triploid Trihybrid Vertebrate

Nature: First UK children born using three-person IVF: what scientists want to know

Famous internet cat might not be a chimera but rather an example of mosaicism. Gotta love a chromosomal triploid

NIH National Library of Medicine and the possibility of having "multiple parents": Mitochondrial Replacement Techniques: Ethical, Social, and Policy Considerations.

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The Sandbox tree, Water Hemlock, and Giant Hogweed are the mean girls of the plant world. They don't care about your feelings. If you get too close you might experience rashes, blindness, third degree burns, and/or death. These plants say, touch me, I DARE YOU.

Show Notes:

Sandbox Tree info on Britannica

Animalogic YouTube with exploding Sandbox tree seedpods

Water Hemlock is terrible

New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Giant Hogweed WARNINGS

Trigger warning for this last link. Photos of a leg burned with Giant Hogweed sap

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Turns out, in less than 20 years of pumping underground water sources for agriculture and drinking water, we've changed the tilt of the Earth. Yikes! Need some cheering up? Listen to the Quahog Wild episode!

Show Notes:

258: Quahog Wild

Advanced Earth and Space Sciences paper (Geophysical Research Letters): Drift of Earth's Pole Confirms Groundwater Depletion as a Significant Contributor to Global Sea Level Rise 1993–2010 https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2023GL103509

The Smartless podcast

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Known locally as a valtoare, this bowl built into a river has been used to wash clothes for hundreds of years. Click the links, it's something to see! This week we start in a river washing clothes and dive into the history of washing machines. It's so much clean fun. (Get it? CLEAN 'cause its about washing clothes? Hehehe we'll see ourselves out).

Show Notes:

TikTok video of a Romanian Whirlpool in action

YouTube of ladies washing with a valtoare

WorldRecordAcademy.org article

Peasantartcraft.com about Romanian lifestyle

From Trace's weird word origin deep dive:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mangle_(machine)

https://www.etymonline.com/word/mangle

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In Northern Europe, up to 30% of men over the age of 60 can be affected by Dupuytren's Disease. Hand and finger tendons thicken and contract causing permanent loss of mobility. Turns out this disease is a leftover from Neanderthal genes.

Show notes:

Molecular Biology and Evolution article: Major Genetic Risk Factors for Dupuytren's Disease Are Inherited From Neandertals June 2023

Dupuytren Contracture: what exactly is it and how does it affect a person's hands

Nature Ecology and Evolution article: Encounters with archaic hominins Nov 2018

The sailor's handshake and syphilis

Amy mentioned the book The Swifts: A Dictionary of Scoundrels and how it led her on a deep dive into handshakes

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Okay this title is a reach, but it was too good to not use. Turns out coastal critters are hitching rides around the world on our floating trash. From dramatic events like Japan's 2011 tsunami, to the stuff we toss into the garbage, we are changing the world and it's ecology in unexpected ways.

Show Notes:

Science.org: Tsunami-driven rafting: Transoceanic species dispersal and implications for marine biogeography

Nature Article on Trash

Marine Debris Program: article and video

Science Alert

Coastal Debris

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Welcome to the wonderful "ology" created when bored and curious scientists were trapped in their apartments by the pandemic. It's Oreology! Is the creamy filling a liquid or a solid? Grab a bag of Oreos and help us answer burning questions surrounding this tasty snack.

image Mooss from Pixabay

Show Notes:

Youtube of How It's Made: Oreo (go to 3:30 for cream being placed on the cookies!)

Physics of Fluid: On Oreology, the fracture and flow of “milk's favorite cookie®”

Crystal Owens GitHub Oreometer

Quicksand IS a non-Newtonian fluid!

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We're circling back to the African Giant Pouched Rat! Turns out, in addition to being super great at detecting land mines, these rats also have very interesting vaginas.

Show Notes:

Step into the way back machine and give our 100th episode a listen(we talk about bomb sniffing rats)!

Cornell Ed article on vaginal plasticity

Phys Org article by Laura Gallup: Bomb-sniffing rodents undergo 'weird' vaginal transformations

Just incase you NEED to know more about thr African Giant Pouched Rat and their stretchy cheeks. Journal of Mammology: Evolution of Cheek Pouches in African Pouched Rats (Rodentia: Cricetomyinae)

YES the FB movie of the snacking rat

P.S. We aren't really looking for someone to organize our episode contents. Not because we don't need it. It's mostly because we run this show on the shoe-stringiest of shoe string budgets 😂

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Amy protecting all those precious brain wrinkles (special appearance by her husband, Chris). Turns out more isn't always better-- for optimal brain function, at least for people, we need just the right amount of brain folds. Kind of like Goldilocks. To avoid things like epilepsy we need not too many, and not too little, just right.

image of brain coral just for comparison to the human brain (credit samkerridge on pixabay268

Show Notes:

PNAS: TMEM161B modulates radial glial scaffolding in neocortical development

UC San Diego Today article: Study Identifies Cause for Excessive Folding of Gyri in Human Cerebral Cortex

Alzheimer's and Nun study from Wikipedia

Photo of the Difference in brain folds rats vs humans

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Amy asked for zombies. Next to Cordyceps (and the Last of Us), Toxoplasma gondii comes pretty close to taking over mammal brains. A 2022 study in Yellowstone showed wolves are affected by toxoplasmosis in unexpected ways.

Show Notes:

Communication Biology: Parasitic infection increases risk-taking in a social, intermediate host carnivore

Scientific American: Are Cats responsible for "Cat Ladies"?

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While there are lots of other animals that feel wetness; buckle up, friends, humans can't. When you spill a glass of water on yourself, you are feeling something, but it's not the water. We don't like it either, but it seems to be true.

Show Notes:

257: Pruney Fingers

2014 NIH reprint of Journal of Neurophysiology Why wet feels wet? A neurophysiological model of human cutaneous wetness sensitivity

IFL Science version

Science Daily: Understanding the Illusion of Wetness

YouTube of The rubber fake hand experiment!

Scientists having to pay to publish

Want to get really mad? Try A Little Wordy

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Some Anoles have the most awesome "in case of emergency" trick! Anoles living near bodies of water can jump in, sink to the bottom, and rebreathe their breath long enough to stay under for over 10 minutes. The science is remarkable (and we learn some cool vocab words).

Show Notes:

What is an Anole? Britannica

Harvard University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Blog Aug 19, 202: Air bubbles allow some lizards to breathe underwater

Current Biology vol. 31 issue 13, Repeated evolution of underwater rebreathing in diving Anolis lizards

Need your Tuesday to feel more like freshman English? Here's those vocab words that will NOT be on the quiz:

Hydrophobic: tending to repel or not mix with water

Rugose: wrinkled, corrugated

Plastron: large pad worn by fencers

And in case you were curious, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang from 1968 with Dick Van Dyke

Snake robot legs video!

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We LOVE the delightful and sometimes confounding process of scientific discovery. What makes science even better is when kids get to ask big questions and have access to ways to find answers.

Show Notes:

We mention The Muppet Show: if you don't know, here's a clip of Statler & Waldorf

Kids discover how EpiPens work in space from The Smithsonian

Cubes in Space: The Only Global STEM Program for Students 11-18 years of AgeProviding Two Suborbital Flight Opportunities on NASA Missions.

Hopkins students invent a battle ready wound bandage

Joseph-Armand Bombardier teenage inventor of the snowmobile!

The Baby Hot Seat

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Who knew that attempts to discover ways for humans to regrow organs or limbs might send a group of scientists in the direction of trying to grow sitka deer antlers on naked mice? Not us that's for sure. Buckle up, today science gets weird.

image: Jackalopes at Wall Drug

Show Notes:

Trace on Instagram

Amy on Instagram

Brain Junk Instagram

Nature March 2023 Mice grow ‘mini-antlers’ thanks to deers’ speedy stem cells

2020 antler cells study with mice: WARNING the pictures are a bit much

Also the actual 2020 Maples Scientific Publishers paper

Mice regrow TOES? Science 1982

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Turns out the old school calculation for dogs aging seven years to every one of our human years isn't quite accurate. There are better ways to calculate aging with epigenetics (FYI epigenetics is the study of how your behaviors and environment can cause changes that affect the way your genes work).

image of young puppy and adult dog from Pixabay

Show Notes:

Correction Corner! We got things wrong listing Trey Idecker as the main author of the Cell Systems paper. While Idecker was the Senior author, it was Tina Wang who was First Author.

• UC San Diego article about Tina Wang and Trey Idecker with a charming age graph comparison of Tom Hanks to a Golden Lab.
• Aug 2020 Cell Systems article: Quantitative Translation of Dog-to-Human Aging by Conserved Remodeling of the DNA Methylome by Tina Wang et al.

We mention a Jan 2023 study in Science talking about age reversal in mice!

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From the 1960s to the early 2000s, if you needed to make sensitive equipment like a Geiger counter or even sensing equipment for hospital tests, you needed low-background steel. BUT WHAT IS IT? Listen and find out!

Show Notes:

Need some low background lead? Let us know if they tell you a price.

The Wiki for more...as if you'd need more after our episode (wink).

We talked about the RAADS-R test for autism. If you're curious you can take it HERE.

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Maybe you know Monty Python from their 1975 movie Holy Grail. They didn't just make movies! From 1969 to 1974 they also did a comedy tv show. A classic sketch was Ministry of Silly Walks. Turns out, it might've been good for more than just a few laughs. Try that Silly Walk workout.

Show Notes:

British Medical Journal article You must check out diagrams in the paper!!!!

Ars Technica link to video of people being studied while they try the Silly Walking!!!

Quantifying the benefits of inefficient walking: Monty Python inspired laboratory based experimental study

The classic, the OG, John Cleese as Mr. Teabag, and Monty Python complete with canned laughter

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Creepy trigger warning! We talk a bit about spiders. I don't like them either (TK) but it's worth it. We swear! If you google cranberry harvesting you'll quickly run into posts about spiders in the bogs. Turns out, they aren't as much of a creepy problem as Tumblr would have you believe!

image: b. minnick from pixabay

Show Notes:

DownieLive visit to a cranberry bog. Let us know if YOU see any spiders!

Amy's Instagram for the biscuits

Spider research from the University of Massachusetts: Predation behavior of spiders (Arachnida: Araneae) in Massachusetts cranberry bog ecosystems.

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Aber-clam Lincoln is a 214 year old quahog clam (look, we don't make the dad jokes, we just share them).

Did you know you can count shell ridges like tree rings to determine age? Clams pictured are not quahogs, but you get the idea of how the ridges look.

Show Notes:

Aber-clam Lincoln article

Ming the Clam--the oldest we've found so far.

Dr. Bruce Liberman commenting on survival of the sluggish

Just incase you are also somewhere on the timeline for a colonoscopy... you have our sympathies. Check this out: What is a colonoscopy?

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Are you Team Amy, who adores getting wrinkled fingers or are you on Team Trace, who can't STAND having pruney fingers because they're gross (there's no right answer here, except Trace is right).

We were surprised to learn the science of wrinkled-in-water fingers. It's not from absorbing water like we were told as kids.

Show Notes:

A blast from the past Episode 194: Iris Sphincters

The TikTok that got me interested in all things wrinkled fingers Dex (@dexter.mp4)

Nature: Science gets a grip on wrinkly fingers by Becky Summers

PLOS ONE: Water-immersion finger-wrinkling improves grip efficiency in handling wet objects

Newcastle University: Dr. Tom Smulders paper in wet grip vs dry grip in Biology Letters

Learn more with the BBC

Japanese Snow Monkeys

Does cake have anything to do with pruney fingers? Absolutely not. But this is a fun watch. Tomato soup cake with B. Dylan Hollis

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A fear of clowns is called coulrophobia. If you're like us, maybe you don't find clowns bone-chillingly scary but they still give you a case of the ick. This week we're looking into clowns and fears. Stick around to the end, Amy takes a left turn with weird body horror involving an octopus.

Show Notes:

Amy references this study HARD Fear of clowns: An investigation into the prevalence of coulrophobia in an international sample

Top ten fears in America 2022: Chapman University

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Art isn't just in museums! Sometimes it's hidden behind walls, inside a piece of furniture, or sadly, in a dumpster. Today we explore the remarkable circumstances that come together to find lost or forgotten art.

Show Notes:

Francis Mattson Hines and his art in the dumpster and the wrapped Washington Square Arch

Recycled art in an airport

Art in a couch

Art hidden from an ex-wife

Stewart Little surprise painting on the set!

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We've talked wombats and binturongs before but we've learned MORE and had to share!

Past episodes: 244: Stinky Critters for binturong and 34: Wombat Poop

Wombat mama and baby! image by budgme on pixabay

Binturongs hanging out in the sun. image by Kevinsphotos on pixabay

Show Notes:

Australian Geographic Nov. 2020 interview with Alyce Swinbourne about Wombat Bums

⬇⬇⬇⬇⬇Content warning below: wombat butt and the head of a dead fox⬇⬇⬇⬇⬇

Smithsonian National Zoo article Binturong females delaying pregnancy (Fun fact, Trace did an internship at the Smithsonian National Zoo Waaaaaaaaaaay back in the day with Golden Lion Tamarin monkeys)

The mutual reltaionship between strangler figs and binturong: NCMNS Education Blog

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We're both married to redheads and have kids with that redhead gene! From ginger beards to coppery locks, is there any truth to the belief that redheads handle pain meds and anesthesia differently?

Show Notes:

NIH report on Redheads and pain thresholds

2004 Study by Daniel Sessler and (Edwin B Liem 1, Chun-Ming Lin, Mohammad-Irfan Suleman, Anthony G Doufas, Ronald G Gregg, Jacqueline M Veauthier, Gary Loyd, ) on Anesthetic requirement in redheads

Redheads might need less analgesics

Want to learn more about skin and melanin? Listen to the Ologies episode on Melaninology!

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Uguisubari aka nightingale floors were a Japanese innovation. This super squeaky floor was an early version of an alarm. The specially constructed floors were in only a select number of castles, but they would alert guards and residents to a shinobi attempting to be sneaky.

Show Notes:

Check out this Wiki entry on nightingale floors Trace talked about.

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When your city is used to having smoke and coal dust and fog all mix together into a "pea soup" yellow fog that chokes the city for days each year, life goes on through the murk. But the Great Smog from Dec 5 - 9th, 1952 was so bad, an estimated 12,000 people died. It was the kind of weather and pollution combination that spurred people to change air quality regulations.

(Amy mentions 4,000 people dying in the years after the fog from long lasting effects. We completely forgot to share the huge number of people who died during the actual days of the event.)

Show Notes:

Getty images of the Great Smog

Want to learn more? Check out this article from The Verge

Memories from people who lived through the great smog: The Guardian

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It's our TWO-HUNDRED and FIFTIETH episode!!!!! AND we've made it this far because of your love and support for the show. Thank you so so much! To celebrate we've got a long Valentine deep dive into the history and weird facts around the holiday.

SHOW NOTES:

Amy mentions the Valentines Day Massacre but we didn't want to bring down the mood. Read up here if you want to know

Galentine's Day is Feb 13th! a day for celebrating female friendships! Originating from the TV show ‘Parks and Recreation, the holiday is all about declaring love and affection to the girls who make up our support system

Vinegar Valentines!

Lovebugs

Spanish Fly & toxicity

https://www.kqed.org/pop/20463/the-dark-and-twisted-history-of-valentines-day

https://time.com/4662675/valentines-day-heart-shape-origins/

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Found for the first time in Upper Michigan by rock hound, Erik Rintamaki in 2017, this accidental finding is SO COOL. Under UV light they look like fiery dragon eggs.

We mentioned the yooperlite store in our episode too.

There aren't any free Google pictures (sad face) So here's a LINK to pictures of the glowing rocks!!!

Also we talked about strange waves called seiches. Check them out HERE

Episode 238: Uranium Glass if you need more glowing stuff!

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Paul Bunyan: hero of North American oral tradition, origins of our stories about a burly logger and his big blue ox came from multiple versions. Paul Bunyan might've been based on a man, but whatever his beginning, his stories came from the imaginations of bored loggers.

Show Notes:

Wikipedia on Paul Bunyan

Want to road trip to all the statues? Check out this road map

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Most headstones have a person's name, some significant dates and maybe a quote. But imagine if your family made it possible for you to share your very best recipe with delighted strangers. Our research adventure into headstone recipes began with stumbling onto a post by Rosie Grant, aka @ghostly.archive on Instagram. Check out her posts for great pictures!

Show Notes!

Washington Post recipes in obituaries https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2021/12/14/obituary-casseroles-funerals/?tag=tastingtablecom-20

Rosa Parks Banana Pancakes on an envelope

4,000 year old recipe for Babylonian Lamb Stew also there's a YouTube version!

Recipes in Obituaries

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We know continents shift around like furniture in a room. But can you believe that Australia is on the planet's fastest moving tectonic plate and it's moving on the scale of inches per year? Far enough and fast enough that GPS tracking had to be updated.

Nation Geographic article with more deets: Nat Geo

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Often when we talk about historical corset wearing, the first thing we think of is the patriarchy. Because corsets are objects of waist cinching oppression known for mutilating a woman’s internal organs. Right? Turns out, not always. Many women wore them for comfort, designed them to keep their breasts supported, and oh yeah, that patriarchy bit? Well sometimes, men wore them too.

image collated from https://corset-story.com/

Rosie Harte Youtube historian talking about men in corsets--there are some great historical pictures!

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Happy 2023!!! We're starting the year with an episode to satisfy your inner 12 year old! Pop some popcorn and join us in exploring the weirdly unexpected scents of Bear Cats (aka Binturong), lemon ants, copperhead snakes, and so many more smelly animals.

The facts and data behind the smell of the Binturong https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/cen-09417-scicon004

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Just like sea horse dads, some poison dart frog dads take a hand in helping to raise their children. We talk about a Stanford University study designed to figure out how and if these little tropical frogs have a mental map of their environment.

image from: Andrius Pašukonis Stanford University (Dad frog wearing his kids and a radio tracker speedo)

Evolutionarily Ecology article: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10682-019-09994-z

And just in case you were wondering like we were, it is possible to handle some poison dart frog species bare handed BUT it can damage the very delicate skin of the frog and if you have cuts on your hands they could make you sick. Brain Junk does not condone the holding of poisonous frogs without gloves on. Stay safe out there kids.

71 Ants with Stilts episode if you're curious about how cringe science can be.

Amy's University bee research: https://www.gonzaga.edu/news-events/stories/2017/5/1/gonzaga-becomes-a-certified-bee-campus-usa

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It sounds like impossibly futuristic sci-fi but, a machine learning algorithm and videos of bat behavior were used to partially decode the language of Egyptian Fruit Bats. I KNOW! You have to give this a listen.

image by David Mark on Pixabay

For adorable pictures of the Egyptian fruit bats https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/researchers-translate-bat-talk-and-they-argue-lot-180961564/

Get into the scholarly research nitty-gritty: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2016.21215

Want to learn more about Wild dog communication? Listen to this oldie but a goodie, http://brainjunkpodcast.com/podcast/bf-12-sneeze-voting/

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Also known as devil squid because of the bright red color they sometimes display: Humboldt squid have on occasion attacked divers. But mostly they hunt in packs for fish. Mostly. (What's up Aliens reference?! 😉 )

If you want a more detailed account of Scott Cassell's squid attack-- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Fkl312lldQ

Monterey Bay Aquarium footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2aa6aHEyUI

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Let's talk about people who look remarkably similar. For example: Bryan Cranston and Mr. Kerr (Don't tell Chas we're matching him up with Breaking Bad's Walter White again. 😂)

Turns out people who look similar look the same for a variety of reasons.

François Brunelle and his Lookalike Project

If you really feel like getting into the weeds of a genetics research paper: Look-alike humans identified by facial recognition algorithms show genetic similarities

We talked a bit about the fox domestication experiment. Want to know more? Got to Foxes!!!

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In 1964 researchers discovered the sharp beaked ground finch aka the vampire finch. FOR REAL!!! These finches have adapted to long hot dry seasons by drinking blood.

Take a look at these blood thirsty birbs on Galapagosislands.com

National Geographic vid of the Vampires in action! Not for the faint of heart!

In case you wanted to give it a listen: Ologies Vampire episode with Dr. Jeff Holdeman

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Trace here: I've got one arm trapped under a grumpy old-man-cat named Jack. Jack does not care about science or glowing glass or the fact that my back is starting to cramp. Enjoy this trip down the fancy serving ware aisle and drop us a picture on Facebook if you own any of this really cool glass!

image from pixabay.

More resources to check out!

https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/basic-ref/students/for-educators/08.pdf

https://www.orau.org/health-physics-museum/collection/consumer/glass/vaseline-uranium-glass.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_glass

https://www.iflscience.com/uranium-glass-the-radioactive-glassware-that-could-be-hiding-in-plain-sight-64052

If you're still here, this is Jack perched on his support person, Beckett.

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Look grammar police, it's octopuses and we don't have to like it, BUT you are going to love learning that just like humans, octopuses do seem to have a preferred hand. Arm? Tentacle? OMG here we go again. Just listen to the episode, it's a hoot.

The actual paper! Hold your phone in whatever hand you prefer while reading https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(22)01402-6

Just incase you need MORE of on octopus fix...Amy's husband Chris says it's amazing!

Additional research:

University of Minnesota Research Brief

Check out the California two-spot octopus on

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Grab a snack and listen to how sneaky research was done on hungry people. It's devious and a great example of how being hungry influences mood.

Also Amy mentions Larks and Owls do a fun quiz on yourself to find out what kind of a person you are: Chronobiology Quiz

Some extra research⬇⬇⬇

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0269629

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/325694374_Feeling_Hangry_When_Hunger_Is_Conceptualized_as_Emotion

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Itchy fish scratching wherever they can! Even on the nubby sides of SHARKS!!

Need to know more about those other episodes we mentioned? Episode 93: Farting Herring & 206:The Smartest Fish?

Measuring Cough Rates in Fish : from the EPA

PBS Fish have Feelings Too

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That's right! We're back with a little more NSFW (Not Safe For Work)! We had so much fun doing Episode #222 After Dark that we just had to do a part two. It's longer and weirder and we definitely need you to tell us if you crave more. Here's a little breakdown of the mayhem we cover in this super extra long episode.

Historical Euphemisms for sexy time

fetishes & feet

https://www.audacy.com/kluv/latest/biologist-explains-why-some-people-have-foot-fetishes

https://www.livescience.com/33525-foot-fetishes-toe-suck-fairy.html

https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.1057.2762&rep=rep1&type=pdf

Achaemenian Empire and Scaphism

Butterflies drinking blood

Shrike

People pig snacks

Human blood sword

Female Hyena "junk" Check out some more research: https://www.holekamplab.org/

Wounds (ew, ick, gross) and foreskin

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We're digging deep into right brain / left brain communication! But metaphorically, not like...with a spoon.

Want to get really into the weeds on this Brain Storm? Check out the PubMed.gov abstract: Running speed and REM sleep control two distinct modes of rapid interhemispheric communication

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Brach's has done it again with the flavors you'd savor at a tailgate party. There's hot dog and hamburger candy corn that is...well, if not good, at least fun to talk about. The fruit punch was a particular favorite of Trace's and Amy double dipped on the popcorn. There's some fun Brach's history facts tossed into the pick-a-mix too!

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If you follow XKCD you know the author, Randall Monroe, applies science to absurd questions. One of those questions had to do with the possibility of soccer ball size hail. Cover up with your steel umbrella and listen to find out if it's actually possible!

XKCD you should take a look!

images from Pixabay

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Okay, they're really falling with style. But it's still cool that the Wandering salamander in the redwood forests of north western California can glide.

Check out the Current Biology paper if you want to read more!

And OF COURSE there's video!

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Amy shares the solved mystery and history of Ponyhenge in Lincoln, MA.

Atlas Obscura article by Jessica Hester ! Click the link🐎🐎🐎

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Wouldn't it be cool if we could just put our eggs in a warmer instead of being pregnant for months and months?!?! We dive into some big science and BIG science words. Get ready for syncytin and viruses.

Check out the brain behind this topic, Dr. Noc on TikTok

Also Mammals Made By Viruses by Carl Zimmer

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Why won't your teenager listen to you? Their brain. For real. Insert teenage eye roll here.

Want to know the deets? Mom's Voice study from Stanford

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In the mood for a LONG episode?!?! Wish granted! We're snacking on packages of Taco flavored jellybeans from Brach's as we snack our way through fun facts about food trucks, the history of the pique-nique, and just what's in horchata.

And if you need more of us taste testing, check out Episode 138: Turkey Candy Corn

image: Instagram @thejunkfoodaisle

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Fresh off the research presses in early 2022, a new study on how honey bees navigate the world while they fly. Turns out still water and mirrors are equally vexing for bees.

Check out the paper: Honeybees Flying Over a Mirror Irremediably Crash

And video!

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We don't know about you, but 2022 has been a MOOD so we're starting Halloween a little early this year. Be prepared! Starting Aug 17th, we have a season of witches and cat nights. Amy also tosses a few fun extra facts into this almanac Brain Storm!

Need more Almanac facts try out Farmer's Almanac!

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It's 1576 and you don't have a young boy to spare to turn your meat while it cooks. So what could you use? A dog.

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We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming to bring you a naughty summer break episode. If you’re of an age that hasn’t covered human growth and development yet, this warning is for you and your parents: we are talking about everything in the no-no squares. Don’t know what that is? Maybe don’t Google it. Just ask […]

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Harriet lived from around 1835 to 2006! She is believed to be one of the Earth’s longest lived creatures ever recorded. image from Australia Zoo via the AP file of Steve Irwin, Terri Irwin, and Harriet

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If you grew up on the east coast of the US, you might’ve had Hellmann’s mayo and on the west coast you’d have Best Foods. But here’s the thing, it’s the same product. The reasons why we have similar foods with different labels from coast to coast are as varied as the products we buy. […]

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In the 16 and 1700s, wife selling was a type of marital separation that people did when they couldn’t afford divorce. It was shaming, mysoginistic, and patriarchal (basically it was a terrible time to be female). BUT wife selling was an attempt to work within a crushingly unfair system and sometimes even worked to the […]

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Seldom written about, female gladiators fought for glory and Rome from around 509 BCE to 200 AD. What little information we have about them was in a few historical writings and one remaining frieze. image: Amazonia and Achillea

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2012 published research detailed how you could influence someone’s honesty on say, a test. It all depended on if they signed an agreement to be truthful at the beginning or the end of the test. A lot of what is discussed in the paper feels like common sense. And was also hard to reproduce. How […]

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In 1948, Idaho Fish and Game got the bright idea to transport beavers into the back country with PARACHUTES. It was a wild and wacky compromise to save dwindling beaver populations, promote healthy forests, and keep beavers out of post WWII housing developments.

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It’s 1789 and the beginning of bureaucracy in the United States. James Madison is writing letters to smooth the path of George Washington’s disorganized congress. The way it all went down is hilarious. Not one of the 4 letters BUT this one was written by James Madison to George Washington on Dec. of 1789. He […]

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While baby Egyptian fruit bats start life getting carried around, once they get too heavy, their mothers leave them in a cave while they forage. It’s tough love that gets them out of the cave and learning how to find home and food. image by Yuval Barkai from New York Times Science Current Biology article […]

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The first roller skates were patented by John Joseph Merlin in 1760. He showed off his new fangled wheeled shoes with an epic entrance to a party that ended not quite how he thought it would.

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With enough pressure and heat, just about anything with enough carbon in it could become a diamond. And thankfully for us, when a scientist was asked, could he turn peanut butter into a diamond, he decided to find out. How NOT to make a diamond at home: 😂😂😂

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How do whales open their mouths to grab a mouthful of food without drowning?! Because it’s not just krill that goes in, but hundreds of gallons of water. Amy digs into why. The adaptation is remarkable. Check out Science News magazine for a cool diagram! And here’s my other (Amy’s) sources:  EurekAlert Baleen Whales use […]

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In 2007, a woman’s 5,000 year old skeleton was found in Burnt City, Iran. She was at least six feet tall and had what researchers think may be the first example of a prosthetic eye. image: Check out the original paper!

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In cases of emergency, lizards pop off their tails to get away. Evolution made it possible for that tail to stay on when tugged but not twisted. It all comes down to physiology and a cool adaptation called nanopores. Close up of the nanopores and detached tail: image from NAVAJIT S. BABAN/NEW YORK UNIVERSITY ABU […]

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It wasn’t just fame and glory that inspired Lewis and Clark’s expedition across this great land. It took a “medication” so powerful that people would pray before they took it. Researchers figured out how to locate campsites from that 1804-1805 trip by analyzing dirt for Mercury. Because of course they were using medicine that was […]

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Anything that scatters when you turn on the light…does it have a personality? Is the cockroach urge to run an indicator of a bold or timid world view? So many questions. Of course Amy found us some answers. Cockroaches with their little monitors. image from Reuters and Science Alert

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Set aside your mammal bias because this week we’re celebrating the unexpected smarts of archerfish and goldfish! Turns out, goldfish might be able to drive a car and archerfish might just be able to count. Sit back and get ready for your mind to be blown. Goldfish research with cars. Watch out Tesla, they’re coming […]

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Amy pulled out all the stops for this shenanigan filled episode. Don’t be an April’s Fool like Trace. image from Snopes Amy’s Sources (aside from her shenanigan-filled heart):  Snopes.com  Blandx.com 1936 Olympics Article

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In 1978, Dr. Alexander Schauss and a research assistant mixed 1 gallon of white latex paint with a pint of shiny red and created P-618 aka Baker Miller Pink. They thought it would relax people, especially people in stressful situations, like prison. Take a look at that powerful pink and you be the judge.

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We always hear about research “wins”. Rarely do we discuss “failures”–and we should. Today we dive into a few examples of how not getting the “right” answer isn’t wrong. Loma Pendergraft: Fussing Over Food Amy’s Sources: Clever Hans:Wikipedia: Observer Expectancy EffectWikipedia Clever HansCrow Vocalizations:Corvid Research Blog Part ICorvid Research Blog Part II

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Imagine you’re an ant living in an arid climate. There’s no grocery stores! How do you keep enough food on hand for when things are scarce? You won’t believe it. Watch the below IF YOU DARE Amy’s Sources: Nat Geo: Honeypot Ants Alexanderwild.com Ants Myrmecocystus

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What happens when you are the Emperor of France and your hunting party plans go completely wrong? You get attacked by rabbits. This isn’t a Monty Python skit, its history! Napoleon meets his Bunnyloo image from CuriousRambler

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To celebrate our 200th episode, we’re going back to 1822 to share cool facts from two-hundred years ago! Listen in to a cornucopia of historical cooking, human experimentation, the discovery of stork migration, general Amy and Trace wackiness, one of the earliest versions of a computer, and MORE. We appreciate you Brain Junkies so much! […]

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Gifts. Just because that decorative paper is slapped on with yards of tape doesn’t mean what’s inside isn’t something you’d want. Amy dives into a study about how we feel about gifts based on shabby wrapping paper.

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Mary McLeod Bethune was the daughter of former slaves and a founder of Bethune-Cookman University. She was often the only woman of color with a seat at the table in the early political history of the 1900s. Mary McLeod Bethune with girls from the Literary and Industrial Training School for Negro Girls in Daytona, c. […]

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Give a captive gorilla tasty food, they often vocalize in ways that sound a lot like singing. It’s so charming! But scientists thought this “singing” was a response to living close to humans. Turns out, wild gorillas sing too. Check out this YouTube for an example! Gorillas Sing!!

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One of the highest achievements in martial arts is the black belt. And Amy, OUR Amy Barton has reached that pinnacle in Taekwondo. How cool is that?!? To celebrate we’re talking about the history of the belt system. Raise your glass to congratulate Amy!! https://traditional-dojo.com/blog/88092/The-true-and-not-so-true-history-of-the-Martial-Arts-belt-system- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_belt_(martial_arts)

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We’re diving into a long episode chock-a-block full of weird facts. Get ready for German phrases, the history of bullion, hot dogs, neurons, and more (and OF COURSE a little Chuck Norris!) image: journal with the literal bug in the system. National Geographic Amy’s Miscellany: German Words https://www.fluentu.com/blog/german/weird-german-words-vocabulary/ Morgenmuffle-not a good morning person Fernweh (Distance […]

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You might think you’re special because you can flex your nostrils or flap your ears–but it turns out that there is a person out there who can voluntarily move their pupillary sphincters. What the heck are those? Listen to this one, it’s worth it. Want to know more? Check out the scientific paper! Amy’s Links:  […]

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The US military uses more than boats to protect our Naval bases. This episode brings a whole new meaning to “Navy seals”. Check out this AP archive video — it’s remarkable! More cool resources! Marine Mammal Program

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Welcome to 2022!! Over the next few episodes we’re changing things up a bit. Let us know what you think! Email us at Brainjunkpodcast@gmail.com or drop us a message on our Instagram This week we dive into the origin of the word pothole. It’s funnier than you might think. P.S. Trace does mention the word […]

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We don’t know about y’all, but 2020 and 2021 have been a whole thing. Right?! So Trace and Amy are taking the month of December to recharge their love of facts and weirdness. We’ll be back on Jan 4, 2022 with new episodes! Until then, this episode has some fun facts about winter. Also, here’s […]

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Those of you with a thick beard, that hair does more than make you look suave or rugged. Turns out, a beard might be protecting your face. There’s even an Ig Nobel winning study to prove it. Feeling super scientific? Read the study: Impact Protection Potential of Mammalian Hair: Testing the Pugilism Hypothesis for the […]

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It’s an underwater Brain Storm today with Disco Clams! It’s a 4 inch long clam with fancy red mantle and a line of rippling “disco ball”. It has a sneaky defense against predators, you’ll be surprised. We promise. Disco calm image from Big Blue Pacific/Youtube. See them in the wild! Disco Clams

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Forget raccoons digging into your trash cans, Australia has giant parrots snacking out of trash bins. Some family groups of Sulfur-crested cockatoos are teaching each other how to hack people’s trash. See one of these wily birds in action!

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In an unexpected turn of events, two predators with very different hunting styles work cooperatively. During the summer months, badgers and coyotes will sometimes team up during the summer months to find and catch more food than they could by themselves. image: US Fish and Wildlife Service

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Imagine waking up from a nap to discover that you can compose music in your head. What a shock that would be! There are people who are born with savant type art or mathematics abilities, but there is also the amazing possibility that someone’s brain might suddenly unlock an out-of-the-blue talent. Scientist have theories as […]

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In September of 1896, the town of Crush was created for the sole purpose of crashing two steam trains together. Things did not go according to plan. Image: Baylor Collections

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It’s fall now, but we recorded this episode during the dog days of August. The sky wore a blanket of wildfire smoke and daytime lows were in the mid 90s. All that heat got Amy thinking about the reason why we call these hot days, dog days. We love a good phrase origin story. Sirius, […]

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The last episode with wonky sound. We got all the bugs out. (get it…bugs. cause its an episode about bees. nudges in dad joke Many cultures have long believed the humble honeybee was more than just a honey-making factory. It was thought those little bees might also be messengers to the Gods. The bee’s important […]

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We had four episodes where the sound quality was…odd (and this was one of them). Pretend you’re listening to a NASA broadcast and that we’re coming to you live from the International Space Station. On June 3, 2021 an intrepid group of baby bobtail squid hopped a ride on SpaceX and became tiny squid-stronauts! These […]

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Apologies–we had sound quality issues. We did not record from the bottom of a metal trash can while hiding from mystery blobs falling from the sky; we promise. In a place that gets rain up to 275 days a year, Oakville, WA. knows their precipitation. But on this day in 1994, Instead of the other […]

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On September 12, 1992, Dr. Mae Carol Jemison became the first Black female astronaut. She’s an engineer, a scientist, a physician, and an educator. We figure she can do anything she sets her mind to. Check out her Instagram! @therealmaejemison Her book: Find Where the Wind Goes Dr. Jemison on Star Trek!

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This episode is marked explicit because we go into details that might lead to a person catching on fire. It’s interesting science and we don’t get graphic, but it might be too much for a younger listener. If you are interested in the science of all things pyrophoric and don’t want the spontaneous human combustion […]

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You know what happens when Amy and Trace are finally back in the same recording studio? We talk about farts. Our inner twelve-year-old selves love all things gross and we had the best time laughing about animals that pass gas and those that don’t. The very beginning of this podcast started out three years ago […]

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Stop snickering Americans, it’s not what you think. Starting with the industrial revolution in the UK, people were employed as human alarm clocks, waking people up for their shifts at work. It was a job that was particularly popular with women and elderly men as a way to make extra pocket money and help to […]

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If you’re like Trace, the thought of math makes you want to run and hide; that anxiety, that tightness in your chest, the weird shooting pains (wait, is that just Trace?!). You’ll be relieved to know that those pains aren’t a figment of your freaked out imagination! We’ve got the science to prove it. Show […]

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It’s the Civil War and you’re in the medical tent. In the darkness the man next to you has wounds glowing an eerie blue. Turns out, the men who had the glow were more likely to survive. The curious reason for Angel’s Glow won two high school students an international science award in 2001. It’s […]

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Tues August 30th, 1904: Why NOT start an Olympic marathon in the middle of a hot summer afternoon? Because people aren’t going to finish. It was a complete disaster. Some of the marathon contestants before the 1904 race. Show Notes:  Wikipedia: 1904 Summer Olympics Marathon-The Facts Buzzfeed.com: Weird Historical Events Smithsonian.com: 1904 Olympic Marathon May […]

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There’s a long tradition of Japanese folklore around the possible relationship between large mushroom harvests and lightning. Researchers decided to put stories to the test. What they discovered was shocking. 😉 image: Shitake mushrooms growing on logs. By Saravut Biacharas on Shutterstock For more information check out this National Geographic article

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During the 1300-1500s there were several accounts of people being afflicted with spontaneous dancing. One group of 400 people were struck with the strange affliction, spent an entire month dancing, and some even died. Amy dives into the hows and whys of the disease. Show Notes: HistoryExtra.com: Medieval Dancing HistoryExtra.com: The Medieval Dance of Death […]

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Talk about teamwork! Bacteria and a tiny snail work together to make an iron sulfide infused shell and scaly foot. These intrepid snails live super deep in the ocean the volcanic vents. Nature is so weird and excellent!

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Middle Island off the south-western shore Victoria, Australia had a fox problem. A man by the name of Swampy Marsh had the bright idea to protect endangered penguins with Maremma sheepdogs. Penguin meets dog. image by: Global Screen Learn more and if you the area, you can meet the dogs!

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This episode is probably not safe for work. Could your middle schooler listen and giggle like only a 12-year-old could? Certainly. But we’re marking it explicit so you don’t accidentally have your littles listening to something you aren’t ready for. Amy got to wondering: what’s out there in the plant world that looks like something […]

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Once again we dive into a piece of history that should be explored in schools. Thousands of American born Japanese defied prejudice and hate to fight for the US in segregated units during WWII. Want to learn more? Go For Broke

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This amazing image by Tiffanie Fisher says everything you need to know about today’s episode. And no, this isn’t an X-file or the Magnus Archives. This is nature at her weirdest. Show Notes:  Ethology: A Case of Consensual Decision: Collective Movement in Earthworms LiveScience.com: Squirming Worm Tornado  

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It’s that time again for all those bits and pieces that aren’t quite long enough for their own episodes! We’ve mashed together etymology, space toilets, polar bears, an unusual festival where people attack each other with flour and eggs, and so much more into this almost 29 minute monstrosity of facts! Show Notes (in no […]

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In a pitched battle against the voracious tomato fruit worm, (aka. corn earworms or cotton bollworm) tomato plants have one sneaky defense…a wasp. It’s a slow plan, but it’s a plan that works.

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Researcher Sridhar Ravi of UNSW Canberra looks to the humble bumblebee to answer questions about how to program a more nimble drone. The way he and his researchers studied bumbles is totally charming. Check out these Bumblebees in action! Here’s the scientific paper is you want to know more: Proceedings of the national Academy of […]

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Way back in August of 2018, Phobia was our 16th episode. We were in person (thanks COVID 19) and still working out how to actually do this podcast thing. We thought it would be fun to dust off one of our oldies and give it a listen. Your extreme and irrational fear of spiders or […]

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There’s a strange connection between King penguins, one of their favorite islands, and Nitrous Oxide gas.

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Our best topics come from late night dinner table conversations with our kids. Amy attempts to answer the question: Are there herds of hamsters roaming the wilds? The answer might surprise you.

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Imagine if you could block out loud noises at a party by taking a really deep breath. That’s how the female American Green Tree Frog manages to filter out interesting male love songs from among all other competing singers.

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Can a cuttlefish master a test that very young children often struggle to pass? Instead of using marshmallows like we do with people, scientists used tasty shrimp to test if cuttlefish know how to delay gratification. Image: Cuttlefish by Naveen Manohar (pixabay) Terribly Lazy Show Notes -by Amy BartonScience Alert Cuttlefish Cognitive TestRoyal Society Publishing […]

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Arachnophobes BEWARE! Imagine a spider that uses special silk to lift something that’s 50 times bigger than itself. There is a video! You must watch after you listen to the episode. Come on–don’t be a chicken–Trace watched & it’s too cool to miss so you should too. Want to know more? Here’s the paper.

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Our longest Brainstorm YET! Who knew there was so much to know about pinball?! Amy dives into the origins, history, and shady past of this quintessential arcade game.

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What is that weird smell? It’s called trimethylamine (TMA) and for most of us it stinks like rotten fish. For a small percentage of people it smells very different. The reason is in your genes. Rosa Gisladottir and Kari Stefansson at deCODE Genetics in Reykjavik and their colleagues scoured the DNA of more than 11,000 […]

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What if we burned calories the same way cars use gas for fuel? Amy fell down the comparison hole trying to figure out the “car calories” for humans in motion. Get your bicycles tuned up, make a gallon of bananas, and get ready to RIDE! Show notes: How Stuff Works-Questions-Gallon of Gas in Calories. Riding […]

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It’s Spring Break over at Brain Junk! We’re taking the week off and bringing you one of our oldie but goodies: #21 Grab Bag. This super long episode (29 minutes!!!) originally aired in September of 2018 and has all sorts of strange and cool stuff. Really, all you need to know is “death farts” 😉

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Here we all thought the drive-thru window was something new and innovative. And it was…in Pompeii in 79AD. Back in the day the Romans and Greeks and probably other large civilizations had walk up restaurants that catered to busy citizens. We dive into the cool history of thermapolia and early fast food. (FYI thermapolia is […]

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Warning: Content of a slightly more adult kind. We use a few swear words, talk about illuminated manuscript penis trees, and yes, we may have talked about undescended testicles. Friends, no lie, 2020 was A YEAR. We went from working in person to recording remotely. It was a huge learning curve changing how we work, […]

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Traffic lights, a hair relaxant, gas masks, the zig-zag stitch on sewing machines…all of these important inventions have one thing in common, Garrett A. Morgan. Give this episode about a prominent Black innovator and inventor a listen!

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Who knew a tiny animal could contain such a multitude of cool facts? For our 150th episode we dive into the life of the shrew. It’s a phenomenal creature with a 1500 heart beat per minute metabolism who is always up for a fight to the death. BUT WAIT…there’s so much more! Show Notes: Shrew […]

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Originating in India, the western version of the red bandana began in 1800s England with the use of snuff. Over the years the pattern has changed slightly, but that red bandana has become ubiquitous.    

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We catch you up with an update on fluorescing animals and then jump right into new research on Longfin Damsel fish that use Mysid shrimp to farm algae. Check out more about this mutualistic relationship here: https://theconversation.com/we-found-algae-farming-fish-that-domesticate-tiny-shrimp-to-help-run-their-farms-151615

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In WWI and WWII women were super sneaky and ingenious using their yarn and knitting needles to covertly transport coded messages. That’s right, today we’re talking about steganography.

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There are over 70 examples of knights fighting snails in illuminated manuscripts from the 1300s. But why? First meme? A silly inside joke? A weird allegory? Listen to the episode and check out our link in the show notes. Or better yet, just Google Snail Knights! Show Notes: More Snail Knights from the British Library

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When music comes on, can you clap along or do you struggle to find the beat? If you have a hard time keeping up with the rhythm, there’s a reason and it’s happening in your auditory cortex.   Show Notes:  PopSci: Why Some People are Bad at Dancing Science Alert: Are You Beat Deaf? Primary […]

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Col. William H Jackson had a favorite tree. So, somewhere around 1832, Colonel Jackson gave the white oak tree to itself (and the city of Athens, GA played along). As of this broadcast, that tree’s offspring still grows on the same spot. We have so many questions.

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Help us lean into the New Year with the many Scottish traditions surrounding Hogmanay! There are wee drams of whiskey and balls of fire and cleaning out the house to get ready for the coming year. Raise a glass with us in the hopes of a better 2021. Show Notes: Hogmanay Wiki Visit Scotland: Hogmanay […]

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Happy almost New Year! Amy and Trace got together to socially distance snack. We try some dried mushrooms, chips, a surprise snack, and some candy. We had a fantastic time getting back together in person!

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Tired of cold feet and longs nights huddled under not quite warm enough blankets? Maybe you need a box bed. Originating in medieval times, making a bed walled in on all sides made for a cozy night’s sleep. And sorry again for Zoom remote sound quality. Thanks for being so understanding! Show Notes: The double-decker-box-bed […]

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There are only approximately 400,000 elephants left in the world. Frustrated and saddened by this stark statistic, Dr. Lucy King set out to find a way to make elephants less of a threat to people and crops. Her ingenious solution does just that AND saves elephant’s lives too. Show Notes: Dr. Lucy King Ted Talk

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Ramesses II (Also known as Ramses or Rameses) became Pharaoh at the age of 14, had more children than any other Egyptian ruler, and reigned during the golden age of Egypt. But of course his history isn’t exactly what we’re talking about on this episode. Show Notes: NatGeo Mummy Passport NatGeo Weird Passports Ripleys: Mummy […]

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When we tried to start recording, the neighbors revved up their engines and insisted on mowing their lawns–so we had all the wacky background noise! For Thanksgiving we got together to taste test Brach’s Turkey Dinner flavored candy corn. It was an outdoor, socially distanced adventure that we just had to share with you. It’s […]

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On July 6th, 1930 Fred Newton dipped a toe into the Mississippi river and explained to reporters that he planned to swim from Minneapolis to New Orleans. Along the way he encountered floating rafts of manure and other hazards. It wasn’t an adventure for the faint of heart. Show Notes: Smithsonian Magazine – Fred Newton […]

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In 1532 the Spanish found out what everyone in South America already knew–potatoes are amazing. But when they brought them back to Europe the reception wasn’t so great. No one was impressed by a food harvested out of the dirt. When famine hit Prussia in 1774, King Frederick the Great had a plan to get […]

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A word on sound quality: We’re still recording remotely. Just pretend Amy is on the moon, reporting from her own personal lunar module. Besides the lander modules left by each mission, there’s a lot of unexpected junk and treasures left behind by America’s six trips to the moon. Show Notes: Check out a hammer vs […]

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An accidental discovery by scientist Jonathan G. Martin lead to a surprise at his bird feeder. Turns out Flying Squirrels in the United States have a special trait. Under ultraviolet light they glow. If you want to know more about the particulars of ultraviolet light here’s a link to a LiveScience.com article.

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Letting you know straight out the gate that the sound quality of this episode is…eh. We had some remote recording issues again–thanks Covid–but (get it? Butt Music and but? HA! Dad joke for the win). But, Amy had too much cool stuff to share not to air this episode on Hieronymus Bosch, his painting of […]

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The tomato traveled a long strange road of misunderstanding and admiration all the way from the New World to the old and back again. Why did it become the iconic pin cushion shape we all remember and how in the heck did it sprout a little strawberry off the side? P.S. We had some recording […]

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During WWII, special super secret decks of playing cards were used to help American prisoners of war escape from Nazi camps. Show Notes: Check out the articles for some great pictures!  No one knows for sure how many decks were produced, but the only two known surviving decks are in the International Spy Museum in […]

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Amy and Trace dug deep into their “this is too gross for a podcast” files and decided there was just too much quality disgustingness not to do it anyway!!! WARNING! We aren’t kidding. This stuff is all about glowing mouse brains, stomach burrowing eels, maggots, and SO MUCH MORE. Listen if you dare. Show Notes: […]

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This hard to stop insect can shoot a caustic mix 212 degree chemicals out of it’s abdomen at 500 times a second. Seriously! Trace shares some super cool facts about this little bug. Great video of a variety of beetles using chemical warfare from BBC Earth! Science Magazine: Japanese toad vs. Bombardier Beetle Here’s a […]

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How did we go from no green spaces in city neighborhoods to the perfectly manicured lawn that defines American suburbia? It all comes down to Frederick Law Olmsted and properties in a housing development in 1860’s Illinois. Show Notes: The Duncan Gardens at Manito Park in our own beautiful Spokane-Designed by Frederick Law Olmsted New […]

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No joke, the best and last line of defense to protect the drinking water for an entire city in Poland is eight clams. Let’s chat about bivalve science!

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During the 13th century, in the part of the world that would become Germany, husbands and wives could settle marital disagreements with an elaborate battle that used clubs and rocks. It was a drastic argument resolution of last resort. Amy explains all. Show Notes: In 1476 Hans Talhoffer wrote a manual on various kinds of […]

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Trace dug deep for this animal symbiosis extravaganza. Frogs and tarantulas, blind snakes and owls; it’s so so good. Show Notes: Bonus content: an article with a sound recording of screech owls. Some info on blind snakes from the Smithsonian Skip in to :28 for the frog CLIMBING UNDER the tarantula.

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In 1836, the Belville family began their business of selling time. It started with Ruth Belville’s father and passed down to his daughter, Ruth. She sold time until 1939. Give it a listen, you know you want to learn more. Show Notes: Visit the museum that has Ruth Belville’s watch.

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There might be longer names, but Hubert Blaine Wolfeschlegelsteinhausenbergerdorff Sr. probably comes the closest. Amy reads it all. Because there’s more. SO MUCH MORE to his very long name.   Show notes: Wikipedia Record for Longest Personal Name      *Visit Wikipedia for a great picture of Hubert holding his birth certificate.  Mental Floss Record […]

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In the movie Good Will Hunting, Will is a janitor at MIT–he solves some impossible math problems and shocks the professors. That origin story is taken straight from real life (sort of). George Dantzig was a brilliant mathematician who got his start when he was late to class one fateful day and solved some math […]

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In this time of COVID19 and staying at home (if you happen to be at home with more than just yourself) you might be finding family harmony is getting a little rough around the edges. Amy has the perfect solution for you, the Scottish tradition of the Isle of Discussion.   The Isle of Discussion, […]

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In 1930, the Kutol company came up with a putty to clean coal dust off of walls. Impending bankruptcy forced them to shift gears to find news ways of making a profit. A new company was formed and Play-Doh was born. Show Notes: Trace’s Mom’s Most Excellent Play dough recipe: 2 cups flour 1 cup […]

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Margaret and Matilda Roumania Peters were sisters and tennis champions in the 1930s, long before Serena and Venus Williams. While still in high school, they were recruited by Tuskegee University’s tennis coach, Cleve Abbott. The Peters sisters were accepted into the Tuskegee Hall of fame in 1977.

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It’s one of those episodes where you think you know where your research is leading and then it takes a sharp right turn. Trace follows a trail from shoving boulders downhill to the 18th century sport of hoop rolling. P.S. Trace mentions in the beginning of the episode a video she’d seen on Instagram of […]

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The science of how bubbles work changes a bit when they go into space. Amy explains why. Show Notes:  These show notes are super cool. Click all the links and watch all the videos. You’ll go down a space bubbles worm hole into fluid dynamics and it’s great!   Wired.com Bubbles in space video Watch […]

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Welcome to a socially distanced Brain Junk Episode. Hopefully by the time this comes out, Amy and I are back to recording face to face. This was tapped at the end of April and we were each in our own houses recording remotely. Sorry about the less than super sound quality–I hope the content more […]

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If you’re stuck in the house social distancing–never fear–we’ve got the distraction you need. Ask yourself this question: Can snakes breathe while they swallow their food? Close up YouTube vid of a snake’s glottis Feeling daring? Here’s a Gaboon Adder eating a rat. The rat is dead. It’s also dinner. See that glottis at work.

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This episode was a struggle-and-a-half to get into the world. It was one of the first we recorded remotely because of COVID19 and I (Trace. Me, I did it!) lost the first TWO versions we did due to technical glitches. I’m so happy to bring you Amy’s episode about the wonders of the Upside Down […]

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Trace is a self styled CCL and when she combined that with a microphone and her noisy cats, Brain Junk took a deep dive into the weird world of cat vocalizations. Show Notes: In 1944 Mildred Moelk published Vocalizing in the House Cat. As a woman doing science in the 1940s she was ridiculed by […]

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In the interest of science and to protect the health of children who are always sticking things into their mouths; six intrepid doctors swallowed Lego heads and recorded just how long it takes them to pass. Oh yeah. Science is messy folks. From the Journal of Pediatric and Child Health: Everything is Awesome: Don’t forget […]

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Might it be possible to teach a pigeon how to “read” a label for a person who can’t read? Is there the possibility of a future where pigeon service animals look out for which bottle of medication you need to pick up? There just might. Here’s the actual research paper by Dr. Damian Scarf, Karoline Boy, Anelisie […]

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Bees like sugary nectar. Turns out, it’s their own buzzing that makes flowers sweeter.

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Epaulette sharks–making quick strides in evolution. Get it?!? Strides! Because they can walk. Insert bad sitcom dad-laugh here.   Show Notes: National Geographic Land Sharks Science Alert Land Sharks

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Say hello to the White Bellbird and his 125 decibels of love. Show Notes:

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You’ve probably seen a dog sleeping soundly with their legs pedaling. Is Fido really dreaming of chasing a tennis ball? Let’s find out.

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Necco Wafers and Jelly Beans were candies that citizens were urged to “send to the troops” during the Civil War. Easy to transport and not likely to melt or spoil, they were a sweet treat that reminded the Union soldiers of home. Check out Claire Saffitiz from Bon Appetite as she attempts gourmet jelly beans […]

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From 1920 to 1933, the United States had a ban against the sale and import of alcohol. Almost immediately the whole nation began to find innovative ways to smuggle booze past the law. Image Courtest Wikimedia Commons: Creative Commons SHOW NOTES: https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/65110/footwear-helped-moonshiners-evade-police A 1922 article from a Florida newspaper called The Evening Independent ran a […]

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Amy’s dug to the bottom of her pockets to find us a linty handful of random coin fact gems. Did you know there was a white cent or that coins are pickled before they get printed? Let’s see if I have any change in my wallet. Wait! Is that an orange Tic-Tac in the bottom […]

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If you grew up in the 80s and early 90s, you were certain that someday you’d fall into a pit of quicksand. It was everywhere. In cartoons, in tv shows, in our favorite movies. Turns out, quicksand isn’t quite as ubiquitous as we thought.   Show Notes: Nature.com-Quicksand BBC-Dry Quicksand         Creative […]

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It’s freezing but that flock of ducks is standing barefoot on an icy pond. Why don’t they have frostbite? Turns out, ducks (any many other birds) have something in their legs humans don’t, rete mirabile.

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I’ve heard so many of these from my Dad around the kitchen table, we should call these “dad-isms” instead of aphorisms. Those pithy phrases that are so true, they’re almost a cliche. Trace and Amy explore a few of their favorites. Show Notes: The largest list of eponymous laws Trace has ever seen! Thank you […]

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The term Jimmy Legs describes both a syndrome and the restless leg bumping up and down that some of us do when nervous or full of energy. Let’s find out where the name comes from! SHOW NOTES:

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Welcome to our gigantic, fact filled 100th episode!!!! Thank you, Brain Junkies, we couldn’t have done it without you! We’ve gathered together ther weirdest & wackiest bunch of 100 facts from pop culture, history, animals and science to pack your brain. Show Notes: Ikea’s Game of Thrones Cape Acrobatic Pizza Toss https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftQZl9e8PbI Squirrel Tracker! Find […]

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What happens when you cross a intestinal invading fungus or bacteria with carbohydrates? You get very very drunk. Trace explores the weird world of Auto-brewery syndrome.

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If you’re thinking, wait, I thought it was tenderhooks, you’re not alone. Amy explains this early 18th century idiom that describes having a sense of anxious anticipation. Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenterhook   Tenterhooks or tenter hooks are hooked nails in a device called a tenter.    Tenters were wooden frames which were […]

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On Feb 3rd, 1945, The all women of color, Six-Triple-Eight, was sent overseas to clear a two year backlog of mail. They were told it would take six months to a year to get every letter and package sorted and delivered. The Six-Triple-Eight did the entire job in three months. We salute you, women of […]

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Call them, donuts, or doughnuts, or olykoeks, or pete de souer, they are deep fried doughy goodness and we’re taking an entire episode to sing their praises and sling some facts about donuts. Probably not the best choice for the month of January, but you’ve tossed all your resolutions to the side by now, so […]

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Can living in a more enriching environment increase your ability to learn and make you more relaxed? Dr. Kelly Lambert set out to answer this question with rats, tiny cars, and a handful of Froot Loops. SHOW NOTES:

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During the 1960s when we were racing to the moon, computing tech made a huge leap. Computers had to be small to fit in the Apollo capsules and it was seamstresses who sewed the super precise hardware together with copper wire. SHOW NOTES:

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Happy New Year! Welcome to our funniest episode yet. Scientists avert international tension between Sweden and Russia, learn something we didn’t know about herring, and win an Ig Nobel. GO SCIENCE!   Show Notes: The Guardian-Farting Herring Huff Post Fish Fart to Communicate School of Herring Image courtesy Public Domain Pictures  Creative Commons License

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It’s the LAST episode of 2019! Brain Junk has grown so much over the past twelve months & we are so grateful to have you all along for the ride. We’re winding up the year with a huge outtakes special with all the stuff that usually hits the cutting room floor. This style of episode […]

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Whether you celebrate your winter solstice on Dec 21st in the northern hemisphere or June 21st in the southern, cultures around the world love to gather together to celebrate the return of the sun in wacky and unusual ways. In today’s episode, we’ve got tons to talk about. In Japan, people eat fancy KFC on […]

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Barn owls come in three colors, a tawny brown, a mix of brown a white, and all white. It didn’t make sense to researchers how a white owl could be a successful nighttime hunter…but they are. If you need to learn more! https://phys.org/news/2019-09-barn-owls-moonlight-stun-prey.html

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That’s right. Way back in the early 1900s, when women were protesting for the right to vote, there was a four-foot eleven-inch woman teaching the Suffragettes how to defend themselves. Make way for Edith Margaret Garrud.   Image Courtesy Mary Evans Picture Library via the BBC   Image Courtesy Islington Local History Center via BBC.  […]

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Who is the brightest, the most likely to crush the SAT, the one pet who has the brains to out think them all? Is it your cat or your dog? SHOW NOTES:  

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Either way you spell it, you either love that black candy or can’t get away fast enough. Amy dives into why. Image Credit: Pixaby -gate74 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/legalcode NCCIH Licorice HuffPost Licorice   Episode Transcript: Welcome to Brain Junk. I’m Trace Kerr, and I’m Amy Barton, and this is a Brain Storm. Actually this is a Brain […]

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Bad dad mushroom jokes, a “bleeding” mushroom, the world’s largest organism, and so many fungus facts! That little brown mushroom on your pizza has fungal cousins that are more unexpectedly interesting than you would have thought. Image: Hydnellum peckii – Young specimen – Bellamonte (TN), Italy – 17/08/2005 – personal photo – B.Baldassari Creative Commons […]

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In the late 19th century, London had the beginnings of homeless shelters. They weren’t always comfortable (try sleeping in a four-penny coffin), but it was better than being left drunk and alone out in the cold.

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Trend setting science from 1975. We can’t tell you anything else, it would spoil the surprise!

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Trace and Amy try to stump each other with the wildest, weirdest, most outrageous animal facts they could find. There’s chemical warfare snails, bird arsonists, toads with babies bursting out of their backs and MORE. Listen in and play along. Show Notes: SPOILERS!!!!     The Surinam Toad:    The mother gestates her babies on her […]

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Before they even hatch, Yellow Legged Gull chicks seem to be communication to their nest mates. Amy dives into the how and why.   Show Notes: https://www.sciencealert.com/baby-birds-can-communicate-with-each-other-from-inside-their-unhatched-eggs Science Alert – Michelle Starr Unhatched bird embryos can not only hear the warning calls of adult birds – they can communicate that information to their unhatched brothers […]

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Would you pay eight-thousand dollars to impress your friends with a pineapple? No? Well, the Victorians did. Show Notes:

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What do those rain percentages they give you on the news really mean? Why does the snow in Europe sometimes turn orange? Have you ever heard of a firenado? So many things you never knew you wanted to know about weather. Watch out for falling fish. Show Notes: You’ve got to see to believe

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When the US and Canadian governments decided the border between our two countries, a few places got left on the “wrong” side of the line. Those places are called exclaves. On the west coast, Point Roberts became one of those places.   Show Notes: Point Roberts Wikipedia CityLab Point Roberts Atlas Obscura Point Roberts Image […]

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Turn up the Skrillex to ward off some pesky bloodsucking insects. And possibly your neighbors.   Show Notes: Smithsonian Mag Skrillex Mosquitos Photo Credit: Michael Nusbaum, www.mikenusbaum.com Corrections:  Skrillex is not EDM according to my husband. I argue that he is credited as an EDM artist by The Internet, but acknowledge it may not be his […]

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Born in Kansas in 1877, Maud grew up to be the first white female tattoo artist in the United States. Show Notes: image: https://allthatsinteresting.com/maud-wagner Maud Stevens Wagner http://www.theheroinecollective.com/maud-wagner/ List   Episode Transcript:  Welcome to brain junk. I’m Amy Barton and I’m Trace Kerr and it’s time for a Brain Storm. TK: So I found this […]

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A half-marathon running dog, Japan’s pet cafes, cats maybe recognizing their names (because cats am I right?), and expensive pet pampering. We’ve got it all in this end of summer, back to school episode. Show Notes: Ikefukurou Cafe: Owls! You can carry them around and pet them They are on instagram! Https://instagram.com/ikefukurou_cafe?igshid=n8thw413ky46

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This episode will have you outside with a sharpened stake, a hammer, a slab of metal and an empty coffee can. That’s right, we’re going to be talking about charming worms right out of the ground and explaining the science behind how it works. ‘Cause it DOES work and you’re going to want to try. […]

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Absorbing oxygen through their “skin” and pumping blood with their guts, the Giant Sea Spider isn’t a true spider, but it’s close. Too close for Trace.   Show Notes:  Live Science Sea Spider Study Image Courtesy Live Science.   Episode Transcript Welcome to brain junk. I’m trace Kerr and I’m Amy Barton. And this is […]

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Just in time for vacation season here in the US, Brain Junk goes on the road (metaphorically) to bring you cool places we’ve been or want to go. Carlsbad Caverns, the Seattle gum wall, a visit to the Weeki Watchee Mermaids, or a B&B shaped like a beagle. Don’t forget to bring licorice for Amy […]

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Ants hunt for food, but how do they know how to get back? Content warning: Science is messy. Some ants were harmed and we talk about it. Not in great detail, but we thought you should know.   Episode Transcript: AB: Welcome to bring to them Amy Barton. And I’m trace Kerr and it’s time […]

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Like a scaly cheetah, galloping crocs were a terror both on land and in the water. Good thing they lived 100 million years ago.

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Where Trace shows how much she can’t math OR spell and Amy reveals she multitasks better with a high cognitive load. We also look into the science of how infants acquire language while asleep and how to build muscle without exercise.

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Sending a little love to our listeners in the Southern Hemisphere. It might be summer here, but it’s the middle of winter down south. Turn on some lights, friends, and get to feeling better.

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When Henry the Eighth died, he left behind an estate totalling millions. And not entirely what you’d expect. Is it possible for a king to be bougie? Maybe yes.   Episode Transcript:  Welcome to Brain Junk. I’m Trace Kerr, and I’m Amy Barton, and this is a Brain Storm about King Henry VIII. AB: First […]

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Big word for a genetic mutation where an animal is split with one side being entirely female and the other male. This can happen in some species of birds, crustaceans, snakes, and insects.   Episode Transcript: Welcome to Brain Junk, I’m Amy Barton and I’m Trace Kerr, and I want to share with you a […]

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Medical science on the fly. Turns out you only need to pull a few G’s to loosen that stubborn kidney stone.   Episode Transcript:  Welcome to Brain Junk. I’m Trace Kerr, and I’m Amy Barton, and this is a brainstorm.    AB: Are you a roller coaster fan Trace?  TK: Nope.  AB: Oh, me either. […]

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In this longer, old school Brain Junk episode, we go around the world from Thailand to Germany and a few countries in between. We explore a huge variety of cool traditions used to celebrate a couple’s love.

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Dug out of the Siberian permafrost completely by chance, two female round worms appear to revive after 41,000 years.   Episode Transcript:  Welcome to Brain Junk! I’m Trace Kerr, and I’m Amy Barton, and this is a Brain Storm about round worms. AB: Because we talked about flat worms recently, now we’re going to talk […]

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In 1804 Dr. Troxler discovered he could make pastel dots disappear if he stared at them. Blink, and they would reappear. Trace puts Amy to the test…will she experience the Troxler Effect?   Episode Transcript: Welcome to Brain Junk, I’m Amy Barton, and I’m Trace Kerr, and it’s time for a Brain Storm.  TK: Alright, […]

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Need to string some wire through your house or clean a particle accelerator? You might need a science ferret.   Episode Transcript:  Welcome to Brain Junk! I’m Trace Kerr, and I’m Amy Barton, and this is a Brain Storm. AB:Today I would like to talk about the very special subject of Science Ferrets. In 1999, […]

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It’s our one year podcast-aversary! We thank you for your love with an episode on accidental swallowings and some…not so accidental. Trace also remembers the time when she had an ice cube stuck in her throat.   You Swallowed What? Transcript: Welcome to Brain Junk, I’m Amy Barton, and I’m Trace Kerr, and it’s time […]

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Can Flatworms remember how to find food after re-growing their heads? Science rolled up its sleeves and found out.   Flatworms Transcript: Welcome to Brain Junk, I’m Trace Kerr, and I’m Amy Barton, and this is a Brain Storm.   AB: This is a Brain Storm about the beheading of flatworms. I’m just going to […]

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Why do we want to crush-hug cute things like babies and young animals? It may have something to do with adorableness overload and how our brains compensate to get things done.   Cuteness Aggression Transcript: Welcome to Brain Junk, I’m Amy Barton, and I’m Trace Kerr, and this is a Brain Storm.   TK: Amy, […]

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Born in 1832, Mary Fields was the first African-American female Star Route mail carrier in the United States. Wearing two guns that she sometimes belted over men’s clothing, Stagecoach Mary had no time for mail thieves in 1890s Montana.   Welcome to Brain Junk, I’m Trace Kerr, and I’m Amy Barton, and this is a […]

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Amaryllis and her bleeding heart, the origin of the Milky Way, Maori style, Thor and Loki crash a wedding and hippo poop. They didn’t teach these myths in school.

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Two percent of the population has the almost uncanny ability to recognize and remember faces from chance meetings even years before. We talk about how and why AND tell you about a test you can take to see where you fit on the spectrum. Here’s the link for the test!!!! Super Recognizers Transcript: Welcome to […]

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Meet C. explodens; where worker ants rupture their own abdomens–filled with toxic goo–to protect the colony from predators.   Exploding Ants Transcript: Welcome to Brain Junk, I’m Trace Kerr, and I’m Amy Barton and this is a Brain Storm. And this Brain Storm was actually inspired by the delightful Lani Caraway, who sent us a […]

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One more example of how farmers MacGyver everything. No phone lines? Use the fence.   Barbed Wire Phones: Welcome to Brain Junk, I’m Amy Barton. And I’m Trace Kerr, and it’s time for a Brain Storm. This was a subject that in the middle of the night practically, my daughter says “You’ve got to check […]

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The internet claims lobsters are immortal. Amy pulls a Dana Scully and debunks the heck out of that idea.   Long Lives of Lobsters Transcript: Welcome to Brain Junk, I’m Trace Kerr. And I’m Amy Barton, and this is a Brain Storm! I have good news, and bad news: Lobsters are not immortal. TK: Oh. […]

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We explore a study that explains how sometimes, if you look at the data in just the right way, backpacks are as safe as parachutes.   Jump out of an airplane transcript: Welcome to Brain Junk, I’m Amy Barton. And I’m Trace Kerr, and it’s time for a Brain Storm. TK: Amy, what if I […]

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Not the big yawn that you’d think. These 100,000 or so codes are used to determine your bill. Some of those codes are hilarious. Bit by cow and struck by orca, just to name a few.   Medical Insurance Codes Transcript: Welcome to Brain Junk! I’m Trace Kerr, and I’m Amy Barton, and this is […]

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The rings of icy dust around Saturn are so much younger than the planet. Where did they come from and why are they going away?   Saturn’s Rings Transcript: Welcome to Brain Junk, I’m Amy Barton, and I’m Trace Kerr and it’s time for a Brain Storm. TK: So Amy, Saturn’s got lots of rings […]

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Ostriches, honey badgers, spiders pretending to be ants and even tiny honey bees, there’s no telling who will come out on top in this animals vs. episode.

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This chemical is no joke. Amy talks about how 1930’s scientists discovered the explosive and insanely dangerous compound while trying to find a more stable version of fluorine. Mistakes were made.   Chlroine Trifluoride Transcript: Welcome to Brain Junk, I’m Trace Kerr, and I’m Amy Barton, and this is a Brain Storm. AB: I would […]

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We went on an epic field trip around our home town of Spokane and found all sorts of canned gems, like a whole chicken, silkworms and cheese in cans. Amy also discovers that Trace is a mountain woman who doesn’t use a hand crank can opener.

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African Wild Dogs appear to vote on pack activities by sneezing.     Sneeze Voting Transcript: Welcome to Brain Junk! I’m Amy Barton.   And I’m Trace Kerr and it’s time for a Brain Storm.   AB: I’m just going to tell you right now the whole big thing that’s most exciting about this. African […]

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Brain Storms about an MRI study of dog brains and Zebra Finches singing in their sleep. SO GOOD!   Animal Brains Transcript: Welcome to Brian Junk, I’m Amy Barton, TK: And I’m Trace Kerr, and it’s time for a Brain Storm. AB: I found a headline, and it said dog brains show that they see […]

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Trace and Amy talk about the history of puppets in Britain and explore the giant (not kidding, they’re over twenty feet tall) marionettes of Royal de Luxe.

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Learn a bit about the women and men of the IIP who monitor icebergs in the northern reaches of our Atlantic ocean.   International Ice Patrol Transcript: AB: Welcome to Brain Junk. I’m Amy Barton. TK with enthusiasm: And I’m Trace Kerr, and it’s time for a Brain Storm. TK: Well I want to tell […]

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Smash cuts of Brain Storms #8 Devil Frogs and #9 Skinks in honor of Trace’s dad’s birthday. Frank (Trace’s dad) is a freak for amphibians and reptiles…we hope you enjoy these as much as he did.   Devil Frogs and Skinks Transcript: 41: Devil Frogs and Skinks!   Wecome to Brain Junk! I’m Amy Barton, […]

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Happy New Year! Trace and Amy talk about those royals on the other side of the pond.

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Social network plasticity. Ohhh. Big words.    Sick Ants Transcript: AB:Welcome to Brain Junk, I’m Amy Barton, TK: And I’m Trace Kerr. And it’s time for a Brain Storm. And this Brain Storm is special for two reasons. One, because we’re going to talk about penguins, and two because I want to make a quick […]

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A bonded pair of male penguins make for unexpectedly great foster parents!   Holiday Penguins Transcript: AB:Welcome to Brain Junk, I’m Amy Barton, TK: And I’m Trace Kerr. And it’s time for a Brain Storm. And this Brain Storm is special for two reasons. One, because we’re going to talk about penguins, and two because […]

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The unsinkable Violet. 3 ships, one girl who survived them all.   37_ Violet Jessup Transcript   TK: Welcome to Brain Junk! I’m Trace Kerr, AB: and I’m Amy Barton, and this is a Brain Storm! Today I am talking about Violet Jessup, who is known as Miss Unsinkable. She was a stewardess on many […]

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Cougars are beautiful stealthy hunters. Until they want to mate. Then they sound like a person being run through a garbage compactor. Have a listen.   36_ Cougar Screams  Transcript Welcome to Brain Junk, I’m Amy Barton, TK: And I’m Trace Kerr, and it’s time for a Brain Storm. Let’s take a little listen. Audio […]

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When she isn’t talking about dentists, Amy has an eye for those dangerous doctors. FYI This episode has some up close discussion of amputation and the history behind why they had to do it fast so if you aren’t into that, it’s okay, listen to the wombat episode again.

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It’s there and it’s square. And now we know why.

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Welcome to the wonderful world of Brain Storms. Short, funny and TO THE POINT. Today is brought to you by those people who make you crazy and why your brain thinks they are moving soooo slooooow.

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We’re going back to the 70s, 80s, & 90s. Don’t worry kids, It’ll totally explain why your parents are the way they are.

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We fell down a Pinterest hole and found a whole bunch of women who we’d NEVER heard about in history classes. Ching Shih, an infamous Chinese pirate, a Viking fighter historians have dubbed, the Birka Warrior, Dame Susan Jocelyn Bell Burnell who discovered pulsars & Julie d’Aubigny, a swashbuckling, bisexual, opera singing extraordinaire.

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Why wait to do those things on your “bucket list”? Amy got us both thinking about things we haven’t done, but would love to do. Juggling, riding a unicycle, travel, rally driving, who knows what trouble we could get up to next year if we ACTUALLY do the stuff on our lists? Hey! What’s on […]

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Why do we do the things we do while in public? Simple actions like using the restroom or riding the bus get a lot more complicated when thinking about what other people might expect. Throw in the possibility of cross-cultural miscommunication and the probability that you’ll “put your foot in it” goes up a thousand […]

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Round two of bloopers. This time there is one swear…way at the end and after the outro. If you want to miss it (and you shouldn’t, it’s super funny) hit stop after we sign off. It’s part of the “Easter egg” at the very end.

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The episode is FUN SIZE this week! Hand me that tiny Snickers bar and let’s have a listen to a fright night science experiment you can do at home. Amy dishes on spooky cats, we cover the history of the Jack-o-lantern & more!

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It’s almost Halloween! Get in the mood with superstitions from around the world.

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There are so many laws that are still on the books, but never enforced. Some of the MANY we touched on are: Blue Laws, Washington State concealed weapons over six feet are a no-no, windows in bathrooms, all computers banned in Florida, no dancing to the Star Spangled Banner, California lifeguard Frisbee approval. How about […]

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All those things that you simply MUST have! We might start out with the Pumpkin Spice Latte (PSL), but then it’s a hard right down memory lane. Tape clubs, cinnamon toothpicks, Han Solo season, Pinterest, cupcakes, Cabbage Patch Kids…so many things that we can remember wanting. And if you’re like Amy, you stopped by Starbucks […]

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Pavlov’s dogs, Enclothed Cognition, and that phantom buzzing phone in your pocket feeling are just a taste of what we cover in this episode on your brain. Take the Stroop Test and learn all about selective attention. Did you see that gorilla run through the basketball game?!?! Neither did we. Amy will tell you why.

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We’re going back to the slightly shorter episode format, but don’t think we haven’t packed it with all the fun facts. Let’s adventure into Extreme Ironing, Fire Hula Hooping, and super daring hobbies for the retired set that are far too cool for us to try. Also Competitive Dog Grooming and Rube Goldberging…you know you […]

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We’re not gonna tell you what’s in this episode. It’s SO much better if it’s a surprise.

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Celebrate Trace’s birthday with a little slang and a lot of snark. We’ll be talking about Cockney rhyming slang and elbowing our way into the science of sarcasm.

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From ancient China to Turkey, Anatolia and Victorian England, the language of flowers has added meaning and created controversy practically the world round. We dive into some history, make a few flower sentences of our own and explore the strange and wonderful world of blooms.

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Nurture your inner Olympian, stand upon the podium and feel that gold medal slide around your neck for sculpture or cannon shooting. How about try your hand at skiing behind a running horse. Perhaps YOU are an undiscovered solo synchronized swimmer. Whatever your game, join team Brain Junk and line up! It’s time for our […]

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Ever wondered how they make Jelly Belly jelly beans? How ’bout where baby Volkswagens are made? Today we’re all about fun and interesting factory tours. Most we’ve been on and a few we haven’t. Hurry up and get your free sample!

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Your extreme and irrational fear of spiders or public speaking or of heights is called a phobia. It doesn’t make sense, often can’t be rationalized and woe betide the fool who tells you to just take a deep breath and relax. Your amygdala believes there’s a danger and you’re fight-or-flighting before you even know it.

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Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE the county fair, but sometimes, you need a more adventurous kind of festival where you defy death to chase a wheel of cheese or have a man jump over your baby to protect her from harm. Summer’s almost over. Let’s take our festival game up a notch.

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Yeah, Yeah, so your kid got a trophy. Mine won an Ig Nobel, got recognized for writing the world’s worst book title, and was awarded the Lanterne Rouge for coming in last place in the Tour de France. There are all kinds of awards out there waiting to be won and we are going to […]

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To celebrate making it to the 13th episode, we bring you some bloopers and a few short stories too funny to leave on the cutting room floor. Word to the moms out there, no swears — we promise (although Trace does say mother trucker and who hasn’t done that?)

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Don’t be shy, ladies and gentlemen! I stand before you with the 8th wonder of the world, Brain Junk Elixir. Sure to cure your boredom and quiet your children…who wouldn’t want to sample this fine product? Welcome to the shady history of snake oil medicines. Check out BrainJunkPodcast.com for show notes.

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We welcome you to Camp Brain Junk! We’re mighty glad you’re here! We’ll set the air reverberating with a mighty cheer! That’s right campers, it’s summer and it’s time to pack your backpack with bug spray and sun screen and go to CAMP. Amy and Trace explore the history of camp in America and share […]

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Breaking all the rules on this one. Talking about spiders AGAIN. Doing a part two instead of coming up with a new theme. We even make a slightly tasteless joke about headless cockroaches. It’s sad really. And you should totally listen. You know you want to. Where else are you going to learn about the […]

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No need to hide in your kitchen eating over the sink. Bring that crazy food into the light and be proud of your strange cravings. We’ve cooked up a buffet of the weird and wonderful for you to try. Koolickles, a Jell-O mold, even a Spam creation that would have done Julia Child proud. Grab […]

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Enter a world where spiders purr love songs and rats giggle. Where stomachs grumble and planets sing. And if that’s not enough for your tired and jaded ears, we’ve also written an “old timey” radio show complete with sound effects to astound and amaze!

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Forget Friday night football and the company softball league! We’ve found the fast and furious of recreational activities. Find yourself wishing field hockey could be more dangerous…never fear, there’s Mayan fire hockey. Or perhaps you long to toss your significant other over a shoulder and run through an obstacle course. Look no further than Wife […]

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Books. Remember them? Paper and that great smell, wrapping up all those wonderful words. Amy and I dumpster dived and picked through dusty shelves for a few way-back gems. Old fairy tales, a children’s encyclopedia from 1963 (when Pluto was still a planet and we hadn’t gone to the moon), even an old cosmetology textbook. […]

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CONTEST! Rate and Review us on iTunes (and leave a social media contact) for a chance to win an Amy’s mom, mom-made scrunchy! 5 random winners will be announced on next Tuesday’s podcast! Also, when you listen to this episode, you might hear us calling it something completely different. Our original title was, Everything About […]

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Looking for a more creative way to insult that guy who cut in front of you in the coffee line? Try some 15th century flyting to use your poetry skills and mince him into tiny pieces. Or, maybe you’d rather try a few choice Yo Mama jokes? If you’re feeling particularly daring, you could moon […]

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A very merry un-birthday to all of us! Brain Junk is lighting the candles so make a wish and give this episode a listen. Slurp a longevity noodle, take an extra large slice of cake and come with us around the world to explore how we all celebrate getting older.

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We’ve all fallen down an internet rabbit hole, landed on a fact and thought…this can’t possibly be true! But, every once in a while, those strange facts actually are. If you’ve ever wondered about hippo’s having pink sweat or if you’re more evolved than your friends, we have the answers. Amyalso explores the amount of […]

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Welcome to our first episode! Have you ever thought about how dinosaurs managed to sit on their eggs without squishing them? Or maybe wondered at what an ant sees when it looks in the mirror? Today we are going to answer those questions and more as Amy and Trace explore the strange and cool world […]

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Welcome to the weird, wacky and sometimes gross world of Brain Junk. Amy and Trace will be coming at ya with episodes on Tuesdays about everything you never knew you wanted to know. We’ll be talking about the strange lives of unusual animals, explore the history of mooning and insults, and even catch up with […]