Episodes
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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.
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Missing episodes?
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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.
[email protected] 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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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 [email protected]. 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.
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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. [email protected]. 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.
