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Probably Science

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Hello

0:11

and welcome to Probably Science, this

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is the voice of Andy Wood This is the voice

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of Jesse Case and I'm Matt Kirshen.

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Look we got Andy back everyone Made

0:20

it out of the Burning Man. We are a

0:22

no guest episode today because we are reveling

0:24

in the fact that Andy survived

0:27

the Unsurvivable

0:29

mudpocalypse. He overcame

0:31

insurmountable odds the worst thing

0:33

I've ever been through in my life Yeah,

0:38

it was very not a big deal

0:41

and actually I talked comedian

0:43

friend of mine who also lives up in the desert into going

0:45

and He also had a blast

0:47

and so and we also should have him on as a guest. So

0:50

I'll

0:51

Wait for the full Debrief

0:53

to have him on but yeah suffice to say

0:55

it was very not a big deal Well,

0:58

there was yeah, there was quite a bit of Burning

1:00

Man misinformation happening on the outside

1:02

I

1:03

mean, it's I guess it depends on whether you're an

1:05

idiot who needs to like leave

1:07

as soon as you know, you can't leave Probably

1:10

not even when you were planning on leaving because when the gates

1:12

opened it was the day that Burning Man was scheduled

1:14

to end it was just that you

1:16

couldn't or weren't supposed to leave for the two days

1:18

prior to that when it was muddy, but Because

1:21

they were also like people like I

1:23

saw people posting things like yeah My car could

1:25

get through that like firstly, I don't

1:27

know if that's actually true because you just see it as

1:29

mud But it's not mud. It's like clay.

1:31

Yeah. Yeah, it's clay. Yeah, it's sort

1:33

of wet clay And also

1:36

it's not just about your dumb car It's

1:38

about that plus another ten thousand

1:40

of them Three of them get stuck in hit

1:42

rooms if everyone also just like

1:45

eats up the track Right,

1:47

and several of them are art cars, which you

1:49

can't those do worse in mud. We all

1:51

know right? I don't think any of those guts I mean, I

1:53

think those kind of people would just know just like wait like

1:55

the forecast it's gonna be sunny in

1:57

a day and Friends

2:00

of mine who were there, I saw some people posting things

2:03

on their social media just like, are you okay? Let

2:05

us know you're okay. And I stayed out of it because

2:07

everyone I know who was there are people

2:09

who bring enough stuff to last themselves

2:11

through the week and some. And

2:14

they're not idiots who show up and just go like, I'll

2:17

be able to buy something there or they're people

2:19

who've been from any year. They planned it. They

2:21

know what they're doing. And

2:24

so I wasn't worried for them. I

2:26

figured you were going to be okay. You were with a big group

2:29

of people who've

2:29

been there for many years. My

2:32

tent was waterproof. Just the basic

2:34

stuff you should have had anyway. So it's like, it's

2:36

fine. And every year I bring too much food

2:38

and I bring home fucking

2:41

Campbell's Soup cans and ramen packages

2:43

that I'm like, why did I buy? So every year I try to buy

2:45

less and less, but I still come home with stuff.

2:47

So even with this year, I still came

2:49

home with more food than I went with. So I

2:52

haven't figured out that part of it. But yeah, it was all good as

2:54

long as you weren't... We listened.

2:57

I had Kevin Rusan from the Hard Fork

2:59

podcast and they did a Burning Man

3:01

update with a tech guy who

3:03

used to work directly under Larry Page who was there.

3:07

And he said the same thing, but also said that he did pay $500

3:09

after hiking out to the road

3:11

for someone to give him a ride to Reno. $500 ahead. So

3:14

I'm like, ah, your tech bro privilege

3:17

is showing a little bit. Maybe don't tell people

3:19

that part of it. If you have a life

3:21

or death meeting the day after Burning Man, maybe

3:24

don't go to Burning Man because you just also never

3:26

know what's going to happen. That's part of what's kind

3:28

of fun about it. Yeah. Yeah.

3:32

So aside from the mudpocalypse,

3:34

what was the cool stuff you saw? What

3:38

was the highlight? It was just a beautiful year.

3:40

It was just the best weather year. I

3:43

mean, I was there 13 days. Three of

3:45

those were raining. So the rest were gorgeous.

3:47

So they could just actually bike around town

3:50

and just stop in at all the places that

3:52

are offering you pork bao

3:55

buns. And that kind

3:58

of stuff is my favorite

4:00

much there was one particular thing

4:03

as far as like art installations there was a giant

4:06

cube of cubes a cube

4:08

of those water tank cubes that are like four

4:10

feet by four feet that are sort

4:12

of translucent water

4:14

tanks yeah we made one that's eight

4:16

by eight by eight of that so it's like 32

4:19

feet high or so and it was inside

4:21

of each of those there were programmable lights and

4:24

those things because they're translucent they like

4:27

act as the perfect like each of

4:29

those becomes a pixel essentially oh it

4:32

was a giant climbable wall

4:34

that was like a very low-res

4:36

version of the Las Vegas sphere sort of

4:39

okay that was cool I

4:41

mean the camp I go with does a live music performance

4:44

which I mean just three of them three three-hour shows

4:46

which are always great the third one got rained out but the

4:48

rest it was it was definitely our best

4:50

year as far as getting all the lighting and sound to work

4:53

out and I don't know it's just

4:55

yeah it's a fun time and yeah

4:58

you can talk more about the band or are you just

5:00

a cheerleading from the sidelines yeah I'm

5:02

not good enough now they're like pro musicians from

5:04

LA and San Francisco I'm just I guess

5:06

I am see the shows but I'm

5:08

going I'm going to call midlife crisis

5:11

with music stuff right now like fall

5:13

and it's so see we did no

5:16

no it's not that so I went

5:20

well I don't know a couple weeks ago I went

5:22

to the the ghost concert because ghost

5:25

is great you know and

5:27

I

5:27

only heard him for the first time recently and

5:29

I I think I want to go and see one of their shows what

5:32

you got to do it they're like satanic Boston like

5:34

it's sweet it's amazing I mean their

5:36

whole thing is that they're a satanic cult like

5:39

I like I like when

5:42

things are taken to their logical conclusion

5:44

so instead of like the heavy

5:47

metal like Ozzy Osbourne

5:50

like oh it's a little nebulous like what does he mean

5:52

when he says that they they literally like the guy

5:54

just dresses like a satanic Pope and they're

5:56

like we are a satanic cult and

5:58

I'm like that's great And, but

6:01

then they're very like, almost

6:03

like

6:04

blue oyster cult.

6:06

Like it's not what you think it's

6:08

going to sound like. Yeah, yeah. Um,

6:12

they're great. So I went and saw them, right? And the

6:14

opener was this band called Amanamarth,

6:16

which is a Swedish metal band that only

6:18

sings about Vikings. That's all they sing about.

6:21

All their songs are about Viking shit, right? Um,

6:25

like the drummer is suspended in a giant,

6:27

like inflatable Viking helmet. Uh,

6:30

it's ridiculous. And there, it

6:32

was great. I mean, they're great. It was technically great.

6:36

So I'm cocky and I go home

6:38

and I'm like, I'll look up some, uh, you know, look up some

6:40

of these tabs, you know, um, noodle

6:43

around. And I, I literally couldn't play

6:45

any of it. Like, uh,

6:48

but if not speed metal, it's like, it's

6:50

poppy, but you still can't play it. Like, no, not

6:52

a, a modern Martha is straight up metal. It's

6:55

not poppy stuff. And, and ghost

6:57

is very metal. Like they're still, their solos are

6:59

all like sweep picking and stuff. Uh,

7:03

so I just learned a totally different thing. It was like Beatles,

7:05

Hendrix, the pentatonic bindi

7:08

guy. So I was like, I

7:10

never, uh, I'm like, how do, how does one

7:12

shred? I've never been able

7:14

to. I'm taking,

7:16

I'm taking lessons from a Swedish guy.

7:20

Like I'm practicing my modes all

7:22

day. Like dude, full midlife

7:25

crisis. Uh, like I've been holding. Can you

7:27

sweep? No, not yet. I'm,

7:29

I'm getting, uh, I'm still working on like alternate

7:31

picking because I've always played legato. So

7:34

I'm still working on just the like, I'm

7:37

at like 130 BPM, but like 180 BPM,

7:40

16th notes, that's the shred zone. You're not

7:42

in the, you're not in the shred zone until 180

7:45

and 16th. And

7:47

so I'm still at 130 and I'm, I'm

7:50

getting there, but like, dude, I've, I

7:52

like was just holding the pick wrong my whole life

7:55

and like holding my hand wrong, like

7:58

my left hand, I've been holding it wrong my whole. whole life.

8:01

It's like relearning everything. I

8:04

guess I briefly took lessons from

8:06

a metal guy and I think I hold it right but like do you,

8:09

god damn it, I can't describe this. You literally

8:12

have to do, I've always done open hand picking

8:14

where like my three remaining fingers

8:17

are there in case I need to pluck something. But

8:21

like just the drag of those three

8:23

fingers will slow

8:25

you down. Like that's how fast these

8:27

people are so it's all like closed fist. It's

8:32

insane. It's completely insane

8:34

and like once your brain starts clicking it

8:36

it's fun to make progress like sit there with the metronome

8:40

but it's like a bunch of scales and stuff I never knew

8:42

like the Phrygian minor sixth.

8:45

It's insane. Anyway,

8:47

full of my friends. Yeah,

8:50

no that's great. I want to go look up like a YouTube

8:53

of 180 bpm to hear what the 16th is

8:55

it like? Yeah,

8:57

at that point you're just a human arpeggiator.

9:00

Yeah. And I'm not

9:02

looking to like do anything with that. I was just

9:04

like very frustrated I couldn't play

9:06

this stuff. Normally like when I'm into a band I can

9:09

kind of get by when I look up their stuff

9:11

and this I was just like I can't even physically

9:14

do that. Like I don't

9:16

know. That's insane.

9:19

That's insane.

9:20

Yeah, it's so insane that it doesn't

9:22

even like inspire me to want to learn. Like I've never really had

9:25

aspirations of metal because it's

9:28

impossible. If it's musical I love

9:30

it. Have you guys heard the song

9:32

Michael row your boat to shore? No.

9:37

Too hard. That's like the expert level on

9:39

Guitar Hero. Yeah, yeah. But like that

9:42

side people I've been trying to master that one. I've been trying to get that

9:44

down. Yeah, no I saw a Viking

9:46

metal band and now I'm taking lessons from a Swedish

9:48

guy. I'm like that counts as midlife

9:51

crisis. Like that's like yeah, that's like how

9:53

impressionable you are. No,

9:55

for sure. Like I that's the

9:57

thing that I've realized like you don't. know

10:00

what the midlife crisis is gonna be and it makes

10:02

me afraid I am impressionable

10:05

so like I'm like afraid to go bowling

10:07

like if people invite me to go bowling because I I

10:10

know I'd like be a guy that like has his own bowling

10:12

ball like pretty quick yeah you

10:14

know what I mean that's not as bad as like if you

10:18

got into mountain biking and now you're spending like 10 grand

10:20

on shit like a good ball what is a good ball

10:22

gonna run like that's okay well

10:24

sure and like learning like death metal stuff

10:26

is cheap because I already have the guitar stuff

10:30

like it's not expensive

10:32

you know it's not kind of void the yeah

10:34

as long as you don't start yeah getting into like

10:38

you know something car related or

10:41

yeah that's the stuff that'll break you I think

10:43

absolutely absolutely yeah

10:46

getting into that stuff will ruin you but it's been

10:49

my hands hurt all the time it's been stupid man Wow

10:51

stupid but you got to like give well

10:54

not that you've told us and the listeners like they're

10:56

gonna ask I'm gonna ask for like some

10:58

kind of progress videos can we see any

11:02

yes sure when I get back from this trip I'm down I'm

11:05

the reason we don't have a guest everybody I'm sorry I have

11:07

to go on a trip starting tomorrow

11:11

so we had to cram one no no

11:14

I know it's way better with us it's way

11:16

better it's obviously way better all the emails we get

11:19

saying stop having guests it's unreal

11:21

spam folder at this point but yeah

11:23

no I'll update you I'll update

11:26

you I'm gonna go like yeah

11:29

I'm making progress but it's

11:33

I don't know what I'm doing it's not even stuff I listen

11:35

to it's like not musical at a certain point of speed

11:38

you know

11:40

it's not it's not like pleasing to

11:42

me right it's just like a trick like

11:44

juggling yeah yeah it's a trick

11:47

it's like oh you're doing a trick but I saw I was like I

11:49

think I was going nine balls like yeah you did it well

11:51

done very few people can do that yeah

11:54

it was something about like the fireworks and the inflatable

11:56

like the inflatable like

11:59

dragon and stuff that the singer

12:01

like the singer at one point took a Thor

12:03

hammer and like defeated an inflatable

12:06

dragon During one of their Viking songs,

12:08

but the way the dragon died. They just had to slowly

12:10

deflate it This

12:14

kind of slowly deflating and I was just

12:16

like whatever they're doing I want to learn all that So

12:20

now I'm now I'm sitting here with

12:22

my jazz picks Stupid

12:24

man, we have we have we're both on

12:27

a path to midlife crazies that mine has verged

12:29

There was a fork in the road and mine

12:31

went towards trying to figure out What

12:34

I want to do for my cover of Brian Jordan

12:36

Alvarez's song sitting. Okay,

12:38

have you guys been following this? No

12:41

No, I don't know follow Brian Jordan Alvarez.

12:44

No, I don't know who that is. He's like medium

12:46

big

12:47

Instagram guy like 300,000 followers

12:50

Very funny characters like he has

12:52

this roster of like Probably

12:55

a half dozen or more characters that all

12:57

have their own

12:58

very distinct voices both literally and

13:05

And

13:07

different filters for each right he does like

13:09

a bunch of weird face filter, okay, yeah, I've seen it Yeah,

13:12

but I mean it's you know, I don't go for

13:14

a lot of influencers shit But this is like a guy

13:16

who's obviously like a very good Actor

13:19

I'm sure improvisers sketch cop whatever he

13:21

was in Megan the horror movie Megan

13:24

Anyway, I still haven't seen that but yeah, I

13:27

saw that I saw that what was he that was

13:29

the one Megan is the doll.

13:31

Yeah, the E is a three. It was

13:34

sort of like child's play with an AI. Yeah What

13:36

who was he in Megan?

13:38

He was one of the people who worked at the company

13:41

Okay So yeah, he just went

13:43

viral because one of the characters Just

13:46

made up a stupid song and

13:48

then it just kind of grabbed

13:51

his listeners viewership's imagination

13:54

and I'm talking as

13:56

I'm searching him and like

13:58

dozens of covers one's covering. Here's

14:01

the original. So this is this character who

14:04

is very like, he's

14:07

a sort of simpleton with, he's

14:09

always talking about his unseen wife and

14:12

his dreams. Anyway, here's his song about sitting.

14:16

And

14:30

that, you know, that became...

14:40

That

14:42

has a hundred thousand plays on Spotify. It's

14:45

the opposite of running around. Yeah, that's good. And

14:49

then people's covers have just gone so... There

15:12

are so many great...

15:15

My personal favorite is a band I hadn't

15:17

heard of, but I am now a fan

15:19

of called The Denim Emperor.

15:34

Anyway, I spent most of the last

15:36

week just in a sitting wormhole. Beautiful.

15:39

I... A rabbit hole, I guess.

15:42

Normally the internet is so awful. And

15:44

when it all comes together for everyone to be the

15:46

same type of jackass, it's

15:49

like very fun to me. You

15:51

know? I love that. That's great. This

15:53

is the most positive thing I've seen social media do in

15:55

years. There was the

15:57

little girl... that

16:00

did the song about what's inside your butthole

16:02

and everyone did a cover of that. That was like early

16:05

COVID lockdown. I don't remember that

16:07

one. Yeah, I do remember that one. It was very in. Yeah.

16:10

Yeah. It was like a little girl had a song about what's,

16:12

what's inside your butthole. She was, she was

16:15

made up a dumb, you know, toddler

16:18

song about what's in your butt. And it just went super

16:20

viral. And even though I, I despise

16:23

when people use their children for content, makes

16:26

me very uneasy. But no. Everyone

16:29

covered it. And that

16:31

was fun. It was a similar thing. This sounds

16:34

more, I'm in more into this. Yeah.

16:37

I just put the link in there if you want to check out his account. Also

16:39

all of his characters, I mean, he's, he's

16:41

gotten famous in Australia. So when this went early

16:44

viral,

16:45

it was like Australian radio stations were playing it

16:47

because people in Australia can't believe

16:49

an American could do this good of an Australian

16:52

accent. He has this weightlifter character

16:54

named Rick, who's always talking

16:56

about lifting heaps of kilos.

16:59

Uh, hold on a second. People have been asking if I've

17:02

been lifting heaps lately. I,

17:05

I know how to tell you guys this.

17:07

I've never stopped. I would

17:09

never stop lifting heaps. Heaps

17:12

are my life. They are

17:14

the reason that I wake up.

17:16

Anyway. Yeah. It's a pretty

17:19

great. Love it. I love it.

17:21

Um, while we are talking about, we should get into some

17:23

science stories in a second, but also talking about bands

17:25

from different countries. Uh, the who

17:27

that's HU my favorite

17:30

Mongolian metal band are touring

17:32

again. Right. They're playing, they're

17:34

playing the Wilton in a couple of weeks time. Where

17:36

are you going to go? I think I am. Except they,

17:38

they look like they are, they appear to be supporting

17:41

a band called asking Alexandria that I've never

17:43

heard of. So I'm going to look them up

17:45

and decide whether I'm going to, you

17:47

know, it looks like there's some cheap tickets floating

17:49

around, so maybe I'll are

17:52

Jaronne bands coming back? What's

17:55

that? What's a Jaron? A Jaron

17:57

as in like, you know, we had the nineties as like

17:59

smash.

17:59

Pumpkin Soul-Coffing, Tripping

18:03

Daisy, all the rest of

18:06

the Ingh Bands that I can't remember. There

18:08

are a bunch of 90s ones. Aren't there? What's

18:11

the fucking Screaming Trees? That's

18:14

what a gerund is, isn't it? Am I fucking, is

18:16

my English grammar off?

18:18

Uh,

18:20

is that, yeah, I think. Yeah, ending

18:22

in ING, yeah, yeah, yeah.

18:23

Or I guess it's when it's used as a,

18:26

when it functions as a noun, so I guess it's

18:29

not. It's just a present

18:31

tense, herb. Anyway, ING

18:33

bands.

18:35

Okay. ING bands. We're

18:37

very 90s, and I'm just wondering if that's like a, you

18:39

know, we have this trend, like the animal bands, we're like 2010.

18:42

Yeah, yeah, and then, you know, the early

18:45

aughts, the bands, but

18:47

then it's like, I feel like we're

18:49

getting into a thing now where solo artists

18:51

are having band names, like,

18:55

or maybe we've been there a while, but you know, like The Weeknd

18:57

or whatever, it's just, you're just some guy.

19:00

Right, right. And I wonder if bands,

19:03

it'd be cool if bands started doing solo

19:05

artists names, you

19:08

know, like Doug Gibbons,

19:11

you know, it's like the five guys that kick

19:13

ass, you know? Sort of like

19:15

Pink Floyd kind of. Right, right, littered,

19:18

skinnered, you know. Yeah.

19:21

Yeah, Jeff Rotol. It's called Jam's original name, I think that

19:24

was one of those as well, wasn't it?

19:26

I mean, they claim it isn't a jizz joke, it's obviously

19:28

a jizz joke, but.

19:30

Well, they're originally, oh, Mookie,

19:32

Mookie Blylak, I'm sorry, yeah, yeah, yeah. That way, guys.

19:35

Yeah. Wait, I thought, oh, I thought we were

19:37

talking about like a mother love bone and like, what

19:40

was the, what,

19:42

Green River, was that it? Green River

19:44

split up into Pearl Jam and, hmm. Which

19:49

one, I mean, Andy Wood was mother love bone and he died

19:51

and two of those guys formed Pearl Jam

19:53

with Eddie Vedder, but I forgot who

19:55

Green River, oh, I forgot who was in Green River. I think

19:58

Pearl Jam originally was like a very. localized

20:01

supergroup and then you

20:04

know when they got bigger it was no longer a supergroup

20:06

because no one else had heard of that scene. Right.

20:10

And trivia the reason

20:12

that the first album was called 10 is because that's Mookie

20:15

Blalock's Jersey number. Okay.

20:19

Hey you know what doesn't branch

20:21

off from other things the way you might think

20:23

they do? What's that?

20:26

Trees.

20:27

Oh, what? No,

20:29

loads of branches. Leonardo

20:32

da Vinci's famous rule of trees

20:34

has been debunked by a new study. This

20:37

is uh... Yeah,

20:39

no, there's no... his rule is that trees were

20:41

real. And yeah, you gotta check out those

20:43

trees and actually... I thought the rule of trees was

20:46

like a joke writing thing.

20:47

Yeah, he just... The

20:49

rule of trees. I thought it was just an Irish

20:52

comedy rule.

20:53

Yeah. Alright,

20:58

so da Vinci, what is that? It's the rule of trees.

21:01

So, according

21:03

to the Science Alert story, for centuries, inventor,

21:07

scholar and artist Leonardo da Vinci has been lauded

21:10

for his precise well-proportioned drawings and imaginative

21:12

designs. He grasped gravity's

21:14

similarity to acceleration a century before

21:17

Newton and his artworks were sheer genius in

21:19

their perspective in geometry. Alright. Do

21:21

you guys think it was one guy?

21:24

Mmm.

21:25

I think Leonardo da Vinci was. Well,

21:27

I mean, what if it was a Jethro Tull situation?

21:30

That's what I mean. We just

21:32

assumed they couldn't have thought of that with their middle-aged

21:35

brains. But...

21:39

I don't know. Um... So,

21:42

uh... His rule

21:44

of trees. Oh,

21:47

interesting. I

21:49

didn't... I didn't... See,

21:51

I would not call his rule of trees... famous.

22:01

Because I didn't know. But then I

22:03

don't spend much time drawing trees. Maybe

22:06

if you're a frequent tree drawerer then you're

22:08

very aware of this. But it sucks in

22:10

the same moment you find out about a fact

22:13

that would have been fun to recount at parties

22:16

you find out that it's not true. Yeah, but it's equally

22:18

fun to immediately debunk it. Like, I

22:21

love it. You know who's a dumb fuck?

22:24

Leonardo da Vinci. No, it's just, you know,

22:26

you'll hear one of those things. This

22:28

is a good way to well actually someone who thinks

22:30

they're smart. I like that. You know?

22:33

Yeah, so he... Did you know that

22:35

every branch is equal to any... you go, nah,

22:37

nah. Nah, it's true. No. If

22:41

your hand is bigger than your face, you have cancer. Did

22:43

you guys know that? Stop

22:45

fitting yourselves. So

22:47

scientists have since

22:50

shown how the relationship da Vinci described

22:52

might explain how trees resist splintering in the

22:55

wind, so apparently this has been used for that, but

22:57

it doesn't hold up on a microscopic level

23:00

according to a new study from two plant scientists.

23:03

So he was looking at the outside

23:05

of trees, Leonardo da Vinci, like some amateur,

23:08

like some rube, not the inside

23:10

of towering timbers where water gets sucked up in internal

23:13

tubes called xylem as water evaporates from canopy

23:15

leaves. But the sizing of these conduits

23:17

relative to the surrounding tree is what Stuart

23:19

Sopp and Ruben Valbrena, the

23:22

co-authors of the new paper, were interested in the

23:24

xylem. They wanted to make

23:26

sure models of tree growth were

23:46

proportioned correctly to better understand tree

23:48

susceptibility to drought and contribution

23:50

to carbon stores. And they say, And

23:52

they say, Writing a paper about trees is a

23:54

bit of a fuck you. And they say, You

23:56

know? And they say, We've

23:58

written this new letter cows. Many

24:04

many biological models of trees they

24:06

said have since taken inspiration from Leonardo's

24:08

rule to model both plant exterior branching

24:10

networks and their vascular systems despite

24:13

there being little evidence of the rule occurring consistently.

24:16

It's not the first time it's been called into question

24:18

or revised on the basis of modern-day measurements. Just

24:21

last year researchers pointed out that the width and

24:23

length of branches better reflected the branching structure

24:25

of trees both slender and stout rather

24:28

than thickness alone. As

24:31

for tree architecture these

24:33

two guys reasoned that a tree's water

24:35

transport channels can't follow the same ratio set

24:38

out narrowing

24:40

a size the further up the tree because of fluid mechanics.

24:42

There's some

24:44

diagrams that we'll link to here so you can

24:46

look at the pictures.

24:49

They suggest from the modeling of internal

24:51

tree hydraulics that vascular channels widen

24:53

as branches thin towards the tops of trees to

24:55

maintain enough force to draw water up the trunk.

25:00

Yeah this also economizes the

25:02

amount of carbon used to build an energy-efficient vascular

25:05

system that moves water and nutrients through the trees from

25:07

root to leaf tip. I'm looking

25:09

at these graphs and I can't

25:13

even tell you how long how many thousands

25:15

of years it would take me to guess that that's

25:17

what these graphs are. What this is yeah

25:19

yeah yeah

25:22

I'm trying wait so T going

25:24

from zero to one sixth

25:29

and then one sixth to one what yeah

25:33

these charts are inscrutable to me are these diagrams.

25:37

Fluid mechanics is

25:40

crazy. Yeah

25:42

crazy. But also why would it take this as opposed

25:45

to just someone with a chainsaw

25:47

to either bunk or debunk this

25:49

because all you have to do is make a

25:51

bunch of measurements right you just cut

25:53

down a tree. Wait is bunking

25:56

the opposite of debunking? I don't know.

25:58

Sounds like it. Okay. I

26:01

don't know. Did you pause that? I don't know. You said

26:03

that prettychalant. Uh,

26:06

right.

26:07

Um,

26:08

uh, yeah, I, I had a lot of, um, mitigated

26:11

gall

26:12

to say that. Uh-huh.

26:15

Um, actually, no, but bunk is,

26:17

bunk is bullshit, right?

26:20

So de-bunking is

26:22

removing, okay. It's not, so

26:26

is it one of those things where like flammable and inflammable

26:28

mean the same thing? Like bunking

26:30

and de-bunking would both mean sort of, uh,

26:34

or bunking would be adding bullshit to something.

26:36

It's gotta be a bed, a mattress

26:38

based thing, right? How it started

26:41

de-bunking. And

26:44

so, so originally it had

26:46

to be like someone was lying. They're

26:48

like, I promise this bed, there's

26:50

two people in here. I promise. And

26:53

then someone de-bunked, de-bunked

26:55

him. Um, yeah,

26:58

the fluid dynamics stuff's crazy. Um, do you

27:00

guys, I'm linking to this right now in

27:02

the thing. Um, the

27:05

funniest first paragraph of a textbook ever

27:07

written. If you want to give that a click. All

27:10

right. Just give it a click. Okay.

27:13

Thermodynamics textbook. Who

27:19

wants to read this? Uh, I'll

27:22

give it a read. Uh, so this is from the

27:24

book, uh, thermodynamics and statistical

27:26

mechanics. Pretty. Sorry. No, so, but the book is

27:28

called States of Math. And this is chapter one. Oh, chapter

27:30

one is on thermodynamics. Yes. Yes. Goodstein, uh,

27:33

Goodstein's book States of Math. Um,

27:36

chapter one, here we go. Ludwig

27:38

Boltzmann who spent much of his life studying statistical

27:41

mechanics died in 1906 by his own hand. Paul

27:44

Ehrenfest carrying on the work died similarly

27:47

in 1933. Now

27:48

it is our turn to study statistical

27:50

mechanics.

27:55

It's like the

27:57

ring. By reading this. Oh

28:00

god, yeah. Who the fuck

28:02

wrote that? I said... Hahahaha

28:06

Ahh... Anyway, I think about that like

28:08

once a week. I think about this textbook. Um... Well,

28:12

now you've got verdict. You also have to... Yeah.

28:15

Yeah. Sometimes I'll even

28:17

say like, now it is our turn to study statistical

28:19

mechanics. Like if I'm having like a shitty time at the

28:21

grocery store and no one ever knows what I'm talking

28:23

about. Ahh... That's amazing.

28:26

Oh my god. Now it

28:28

is our turn to... Anyway, just

28:31

made me think of that. Sorry guys.

28:33

This can't be real. It's real.

28:35

It's very real. It's been, uh... It's

28:38

been bunked. Okay. That's where the... Okay. And

28:40

by the way, to debunk the origin of the word bunk,

28:42

um... According to edamonline.com,

28:45

I don't know if you can trust that, but, um... Nonsense,

28:48

circa 1900, short for bunkum.

28:51

Phonetic spelling of bunkum, B-U-N-C-O-M-B-E,

28:55

a county in North Carolina. The usual

28:57

story of its origin is this, at the close of the protracted

29:00

Missouri statehood debates in the U.S. Congress. Uh...

29:03

Representative began what promised to be a

29:05

long, dull, irrelevant speech. And

29:07

he resisted calls to cut it short by saying he was

29:09

bound to say something that could appear in the newspapers

29:12

in the home district and prove he was on the job. I

29:15

shall not be speaking to the house, he confessed, but

29:17

to bunkum.

29:19

Wow. That bunkum has been American English

29:21

slang for nonsense since 1841. Wait.

29:25

Why does it say 1900 then? It is attested from 1838

29:27

as genetic for a U.S. representative's

29:30

home district. So

29:32

in that case, it almost seems more like it's a...

29:35

A real out-of-pocket situation. Filibustery

29:38

than false.

29:40

Um... Anyway. So if you debunk

29:43

something, you would take out the

29:45

part that is nonsense.

29:47

Yeah. Anyway.

29:51

So... Okay. Da Vinci. Apologies

29:54

for the extreme...

29:55

Yeah. So... So I guess according to this,

29:58

his tree rule still holds up for the...

29:59

outside,

30:01

which is amazing to me. That's insane.

30:04

For the outside? Yeah,

30:06

when viewing a tree, that rule holds up.

30:08

It doesn't work for the

30:10

internal system of the tree, the

30:13

vascular systems. What's the difference?

30:16

That's measured in size as well.

30:18

Did I miss how they differentiate between those two

30:20

as far as measurement?

30:22

What's the difference? The outside

30:25

of a tree, like when

30:27

you view a tree, I guess

30:30

his formula holds true. When

30:33

you cut a tree in half and

30:35

view its internal anatomy,

30:39

it's no longer true for

30:41

those individual tree

30:44

organs.

30:46

The vascular system

30:48

of a tree doesn't follow this as they...

30:50

Therefore, the vascular system is never

30:53

in direct proportion to just the cross-sectional

30:55

area of a given part of the tree, you could also say.

30:57

Because the actual cross-sectional

31:00

areas do add up to the same thing. If you

31:02

cross-section the trunk and then at five

31:05

feet out from the trunk, cross-section every branch,

31:07

those areas would sum to be the same.

31:09

Different proportions of those are

31:11

made up of vascular systems in different parts of

31:14

the tree. Because otherwise it wouldn't

31:16

work. It couldn't

31:17

work. And trying to figure this out, these

31:19

two guys took their own lives. It

31:23

is now coming upon us to study the

31:25

tree.

31:28

It is our lot in life.

31:31

It is our lot in life. I

31:33

can't imagine quitting a class faster

31:35

than that. First

31:38

day.

31:38

Oh,

31:41

he's got a cloak on that he pulls

31:44

back after saying that. That's

31:47

very interesting.

31:49

Wow.

31:51

So this is the metabolic

31:53

scaling theory.

32:00

So one of their aims of this in this paper

32:02

was to produce a ratio which could

32:04

be used to estimate tree biomass and carbon

32:07

in forests. So

32:09

they're still working on that. This

32:11

new ratio will assist in calculating global

32:13

carbon capture by trees. Which

32:16

I suppose is different than just adding

32:19

up the size of the tree itself.

32:22

Externally.

32:24

Our recalculations may also explain

32:26

why large trees are more susceptible to drought. It

32:29

may also be a greater vulnerability to climate

32:31

change. Speaking

32:35

of drought or its inverse. Well,

32:39

first of all, I'd be very interested to have Jay

32:43

Famlietti back on from nine

32:46

years ago now probably in the midst

32:48

of that Drought

32:50

period we were in to talk about where things

32:52

stand now, because I think we are in a better place

32:55

at least in California I don't know if it's like all counties

32:57

are out but Upside

33:00

of the fucking insane whether we've had is I think

33:02

the drought situation is better, but I think I also haven't

33:04

talked to you guys

33:06

We were recording as Hurricane

33:08

Hillary was happening. That's the last time I talked to you, right?

33:11

Yeah, yeah, yeah,

33:13

yeah. Yeah. Yeah, nothing

33:15

happened up here either. I mean now Palm Springs got fucked

33:17

but like This high in the desert and

33:19

Joshua tree there was one I couldn't go

33:22

to town for one day because the road I have to take

33:24

had like three feet of water on it, but My

33:27

yard was fine. And yeah, I

33:29

think it was basically like almost exactly like

33:31

that hurricane in 76 in that

33:34

it was Coachella Valley and various

33:36

towns at the foothills of mountains that

33:38

were getting tons of rain that were The

33:41

most fucked but because yeah Palm Springs

33:43

you couldn't get in or out for a day or two, right? I

33:46

think that's what the news said

33:48

Was a yeah, I think there was something like that Yeah,

33:51

but everyone know it was like nothing happened. Like well nothing

33:53

happened right where you live but like some people got

33:55

fucked definitely Yeah,

33:58

it's never It's

34:00

never great. I wish I knew more about I was I was

34:02

reading a thing about I

34:04

guess this winter like the El Nino

34:06

having an El Nino winter and I

34:10

Don't know if it's one of those it

34:13

so is that real or is that like a super moon

34:15

situation? No, no, I think that's

34:17

a real thing like just about like I

34:20

just feel like we're having a bit more emotion and stuff

34:23

Are we having more of them? I just thought like

34:25

when I was a kid It was like we had one El Nino,

34:28

you know, and it was everyone was talking

34:30

about it. Ninety-seven. Maybe Something

34:32

it seems like every year now there's somehow there's

34:35

an El Nino Yeah, it does

34:37

seem more or a la Nina are those I

34:39

forgot those are like those are different yin and yang

34:41

of the same year Or no,

34:44

it's not like an El Nino summer begets

34:46

an El La Nino winter. It's not that

34:48

right Right,

34:50

but I got that I guess it's also not

34:52

a regular thing Like I thought it was a regular

34:54

thing like every four years there is

34:56

an El Nino But it's not so

34:59

are I just don't know if we're gonna if

35:01

every year because of climate change is an

35:03

El Nino year Now we can stop saying I think

35:06

it's like Game of Thrones winter

35:09

Is what it is?

35:10

Okay, I didn't

35:12

watch Game of Thrones Isn't that isn't winter a thing that

35:14

just comes at random every

35:17

few decades and then it stays for many years?

35:19

Oh, I don't know. None of us watch Game of Thrones

35:22

Something like that, so I watched it, but now I can't remember

35:25

but yeah, it was it was

35:27

Yeah,

35:28

or like the actual version. Yes,

35:30

or have any of you guys read or do you plan to read

35:32

the three-body problem?

35:35

After you were talking about

35:37

it the other day just for the listeners We

35:39

have a very very aggressive group chat

35:42

and after you were talking about it I looked it up and it sounds right

35:44

up my alley like it sounds like something

35:46

I should totally read But I haven't

35:48

read it. No,

35:49

I just Decided to get

35:51

into audible again, and I'm into

35:54

the third book of the trilogy It also it's coming out of Netflix

35:56

in January. I sound like I want to like get

35:59

the full version before and it's being

36:01

produced by the Game of Thrones people. But

36:04

yeah, pretty high concept,

36:06

and

36:07

I might be using that word incorrectly, but

36:10

yeah, very interesting. I'm debating

36:12

whether you give anything away. You find

36:15

out pretty early on that it has to do with another

36:17

civilization that's based around Alpha

36:19

Centauri and

36:21

the fact that this planet

36:23

has three stars

36:25

that have an irregular orbit as

36:28

the three-body problem is that's what that is in physics.

36:30

It's just the fact that we've never found a way to model the

36:32

orbital behavior of three bodies.

36:36

It's not that you've never found a way to model

36:38

it. It's that it's chaotic. Once

36:42

you have three bodies moving around each other,

36:44

the tiniest change causes a massive

36:46

difference very quickly. Which I think

36:49

also means you couldn't model it and have that model

36:51

represented. It means

36:53

it's almost impossible to make long-term...

36:56

yeah, you can't make long-term predictions because you...

36:58

that is correct.

37:01

Yeah, because you can't measure it accurately enough.

37:04

Yeah, but I

37:05

guess... The tiniest inaccuracy leads

37:08

to very big changes very shortly down

37:10

the line. So yeah, sorry, I guess I retract

37:13

my previous point. It

37:15

is effectively... Two different ways of phrasing

37:17

the same thing, but yeah, so that raises problems

37:20

for that civilization.

37:22

And I guess saying anything more is giving stuff away,

37:24

but it's good. It's also like...

37:26

Is that the three-body problem?

37:29

The three-body problem is an actual real-world thing in

37:31

physics. The book is called that because

37:33

this planet that we contact is

37:37

sort of dealing with that on a daily basis. So

37:39

there are some periods where like one of the stars is super close

37:41

and everything's super hot and there's like years where like

37:43

all the stars are far away and like... Which

37:46

I don't think is any way you would have

37:48

a stable... like a plan...

37:50

it doesn't matter. Whatever. That's the sort of

37:52

foundational thing of this other civilization.

37:55

And I won't give anything else away because... Like

37:58

some of the stuff doesn't even come out to us... second book that

38:00

I would have to say but it's great.

38:03

What are you all talking?

38:03

Oh sorry. No sorry you're saying it's great? I

38:06

haven't read sci-fi in so long that like

38:09

you forget how sometimes the

38:11

dialogue suffers because this is

38:13

a very like scientific person

38:15

so it's also translated from Chinese

38:17

so like just so many stretches of dialogue you're just

38:19

like good lord but the

38:22

science point of it's interesting so. Cool.

38:25

Yeah I'll check it out.

38:28

Well we are talking about orbits of things.

38:31

Correction from Justin Paden. I hope

38:33

I got your name pronounced correctly you did tell us years

38:35

ago how to pronounce it correctly. JP? Pointing

38:39

out that I got myself very mixed up when we're

38:41

talking about dark side and wrong side of the moon. Oh

38:43

I was just listening to Jesse Joyce's episode and yelling

38:45

at my car radio. Yeah. It's

38:50

not dark in the sense that the sun doesn't hit it,

38:52

it's just dark to us because it's locked.

38:57

It's tight. Why do you think it's dark to us as much

38:59

as we just don't see it? No but I mean

39:01

dark to us in the sense that we don't

39:03

see something you know. Right. In

39:07

that there is always the same size it's

39:09

tidally locked to the earth so there's always one side of

39:11

the earth facing us. Which is

39:13

frankly annoying. But

39:15

yeah.

39:16

Like how did yeah how did that become a thing

39:19

that people like

39:21

do you think people historically thought that

39:23

that side was always. I

39:26

feel like people got pretty quickly that the

39:28

moon was always half lit don't you think? Maybe

39:32

or they think that the other side of it

39:34

was just identical.

39:37

Identical in what way?

39:38

It just looked identical. I mean it's like.

39:41

I mean I'm pretty sure a dragon eats it and then

39:43

regurgitates it is the. Right.

39:46

Let me see if I can figure out how

39:48

long ago we knew that the moon was not

39:51

actually like. Because obviously

39:53

people can see that you can't see stars

39:55

in the dark part or even when it's like

39:57

a little sliver on

39:59

a like.

39:59

Really low light pollution night, which

40:02

would be most of human history. You could

40:04

still make out the rest of the moon for

40:06

sure but but then it's also like how

40:10

How long ago I mean

40:12

you have to define people Believing

40:14

in things like if today we

40:16

still have flat earthers then like exactly

40:19

so I'm sure like

40:21

super ancient is when they figured that out,

40:23

but

40:24

who knows when

40:27

Most people gave a shit. I don't

40:29

know right with the smartest person was killed

40:31

for saying a smart thing Does that count as us

40:33

all knowing it now? No, no, I mean it's yeah

40:36

exactly Exactly.

40:39

Oh It's 500 500 BC. I'm seeing

40:42

a Greek philosopher Anaxagoras

40:45

one of the early figures known to propose that the moon reflects

40:47

light of the Sun and client understanding of its lit half

40:50

Okay, get twenty five hundred years

40:52

Aristotle also discussed it a hundred years later

40:55

Yeah, not bad. Not bad.

40:56

Oh, this is it The

41:01

the house speaker in Canada fucking resigned from

41:05

You know just for making just

41:07

for getting everyone to cheer and not see but yeah

41:09

just forgiving to standing ovations to a SS

41:12

guy. Yeah, that's all

41:14

wait. I don't know any of this story. I'm

41:16

not good at current events

41:19

And so so Zolinski,

41:21

you know sure Vlodomir Zolinski

41:24

was visiting Ottawa

41:26

hanging out there and Canada meeting up meeting up with

41:28

Trudeau and such and He's

41:31

a you know, addressing Parliament. So they thought

41:33

hey, we got we got Zolinski over here.

41:35

We should honor Someone

41:38

who has fought Russians in Ukraine

41:40

before let's let's get a guy

41:42

real quick so they found this 98 year old guy

41:45

right and Gave him this gave

41:47

him a medal and a big speech and he got off and

41:49

then of course the next day once Anyone

41:51

Google's the guy it's like he yeah, it was a Nazi

41:54

fought with the Nazis and Anyway,

41:58

so real egg on their face in Ottawa Yeah, because

42:00

I don't know if you're familiar with history, but during

42:03

the Second World War, the Russian was on our

42:05

side. For part

42:07

of it. If you say, like, someone during the Second

42:09

World War fought against the Russians, it's

42:12

worth delving into exactly

42:14

who they were hanging out with. Right.

42:16

Right. There was –

42:19

I mean, there were people that stayed on our side

42:21

that fought the Russian – well, the

42:23

early – you know,

42:26

they were allies at first. The

42:28

old Joseph and

42:30

Adolf over there, you know? Sure. And

42:34

then Adolf turned out he was not a good

42:36

guy. What did that? Did

42:39

a real heel turn. What

42:41

was the old – Like a painting that wasn't

42:43

very good, like plagiarized or something? No, no.

42:49

What he did was he – then he's like open

42:51

up a new front, old Operation

42:53

Barbarossa there, you know? Oh, very good.

42:56

And invaded Russia. So,

43:00

yes, people that fought against

43:02

the Russians, against the Soviets in Ukraine

43:05

in World War II were most

43:07

likely Nazis. And this guy – it was

43:10

an accident, like he didn't – he

43:14

wasn't like, hey, let's bring in this Nazi, but it's just

43:16

real dumb. Really. You've

43:18

got to do your research if you're going to – Yeah,

43:21

but now – anyway, now Poland wants him to

43:23

extradite him. What? He's 98,

43:26

so to face war crimes.

43:29

Oh, my God.

43:30

Yeah, so it's like the guy went from like

43:32

getting a medal and two standing ovations to

43:34

like – Maybe spending these last

43:37

six months in jail. Yep. That's how it works. I

43:41

mean, what – the

43:44

whole like, you

43:45

know, propaganda

43:47

campaign that

43:48

Putin's been trying to wage about

43:51

how this war was about freeing

43:53

Ukraine from – the grip

43:56

of Nazis. Like what is the even like kernel

43:58

of that? Is there any kernel of that? I

44:01

think a lot of it is about

44:03

the Azov Battalion. Ukraine

44:07

has definitely had a neo-nazi problem.

44:10

No bigger than Russia, mind you. Let's put

44:13

that out there. Sure. And

44:15

no bigger than Poland. Eastern

44:18

Europe has had a neo-nazi problem. But

44:20

it might not have gotten into the ranks of government.

44:23

It's just like a rising movement. Yeah,

44:29

there's neo-nazis. But

44:31

there were a group of neo-nazi

44:34

militants that got folded into

44:36

the Ukrainian army. It was

44:38

a battalion. And

44:42

I don't know a ton about it, so pretty

44:44

soon it's going to sound like I'm just talking out of my ass. But

44:47

as I understand it, that's what

44:49

happened. And it was no

44:51

longer a nazi-ish thing or whatever. It's also

44:53

there's so much weird disinformation, horrible

44:55

photoshopped images or… You

45:01

know what I mean? It'll be like some

45:03

Ukrainian army guys holding up a

45:05

swastika flag or whatever, but it's obviously like

45:07

someone photoshopped in the… It's

45:10

the whole thing. That's the whole propaganda

45:13

thing, is you're not even supposed to know what's real, so you quit caring? Right.

45:15

Just… That's the whole point? What's Karl

45:18

Rove's term for it? Just spread…

45:22

fill the zone with shit? Is that Karl Rove saying? Something,

45:25

yeah. Fill the zone with shit. So, I

45:29

mean, obviously that's not the reason they invade. What they want to warm water

45:31

for… No, I know. I know. I'll

45:34

say what he was telling his people to

45:36

get them on board, because if they actually believed

45:38

that, then it would be like, oh, we're fighting the

45:40

good fight. Like, this is, you know…

45:44

Yeah, yeah. I was just wondering how it even…

45:46

like, if there was no… you know,

45:48

whenever there's something like that, you assume

45:51

there's like this tiny kernel that was

45:53

blown out of proportion so that he has this

45:56

justification. I wouldn't be all saying… No,

45:58

no, no. What is the reason why this war is… No, no, I

46:00

think I think there was but I think no more

46:02

of a colonel than if someone wanted to invade America

46:05

for the same reason right, right You

46:07

you could you could point to a country

46:10

and say we have to de-notsify it because

46:12

they've had a questionable punk show Right

46:15

in the last there's one dude on Twitter or

46:17

something, right? I don't know, you know, but I don't

46:19

know I could be way off Maybe it's a huge fucking

46:21

problem there. We're all looking the other way. I don't know

46:24

I don't know not an area

46:26

that I know anything about No,

46:30

and I'm getting fucking ripped. I guess only one person

46:33

but somebody

46:34

Somebody on Twitter Like

46:37

when I admitted I didn't know some Canadian

46:39

town we mentioned in a previous Select

46:42

Tim Robinson in that car sketch. No,

46:45

I don't know how to drive not everyone knows how

46:47

to do everything What

46:50

we're talking about what yellow knife? Yes,

46:52

they're like, oh my god I thought you were smart you

46:54

just

46:55

fucked in Yeah,

46:57

sorry. I don't know what yellow knife It's like

47:00

I didn't know you got I didn't know you got lit up for not knowing

47:02

Yeah, is what I'm giving this person and now

47:04

they're he shouldn't respond to one

47:06

tweet by talking about the podcast Doesn't

47:09

yeah. I don't know. I hadn't heard of a town. Sorry

47:11

for not having heard of a town Sure.

47:14

I mean you've heard of it now. You're not you're not wishing ill

47:16

on the fine people yellow knife Starting

47:19

a propaganda campaign. Yeah. Oh

47:21

and speaking that so Matt Why do you always get quiet?

47:23

We talked about Nazi stuff, right? Just

47:27

recording and taking notes By

47:30

the way, someone also noticed what is we're going through Canadian

47:32

geography in that episode that I I balked It's

47:34

pronouncing the name of a lake and that

47:37

lake is the Great Slav Lake as

47:39

in like Slovakia

47:41

Or not. I guess that would or you like you would

47:43

love I don't know. It's geography geographical

47:45

It's spelled SLA V but unrelated to Human

47:49

bondage Okay,

47:52

you guys don't remember that a month ago

47:54

no,

47:55

okay. No the podcasts recording

47:58

these is fairly traumatic for me

47:59

brainwash them out pretty quickly. Go

48:02

to a huge state. Yeah.

48:05

I don't remember recording any of them. So

48:08

that's, yeah, that's interesting. So what

48:11

are you guys, what

48:13

are you guys having for dinner tonight?

48:15

Just thinking about maybe like

48:17

a chip,

48:18

a chip maybe, like a chip.

48:20

Yeah. What, like nachos? I

48:22

was going to do like one of those like spice challenges. Well,

48:25

guys, you might not want to. I

48:28

was going to do the same. Did you guys know that a

48:30

teen's death after eating a single

48:33

chip has highlighted the risk of ultra spicy

48:35

foods?

48:36

Wait.

48:38

I

48:40

already,

48:41

fuck. I just

48:43

didn't. Well, go get halfway through it. So

48:47

I didn't know what this was about. I had just recently seen

48:49

this at a gas station. And

48:53

first of all, this is

48:55

someone died. This is horrible. But I

48:57

didn't even, I didn't know. So,

49:00

of course, thoughts with them and loved ones. I

49:03

didn't know this was a thing, this spicy

49:06

chip challenge. I saw, I was

49:09

at a gas station recently and they had them for sale

49:12

maybe like two months ago

49:15

or something. Did you send him, by the

49:17

way, by Ted Theologian? Okay,

49:20

thank you, Ted. And yeah, but they, and

49:24

then my dad was telling me about it, how he

49:26

wanted to try it. I

49:29

mean, I've seen, I haven't seen the chips one specifically,

49:31

but I've seen a bunch of them and they tend to be, I think they end

49:33

up being sort of YouTube and TikTok challenges

49:35

and stuff where, yeah,

49:40

people get challenged to

49:42

eat progressively hotter things. Right.

49:46

So this is, this is one chip.

49:49

It is one single,

49:51

a single chip. And

49:55

the hot pepper linked to this teen's

49:58

death can cause arteries in the brain. to

50:00

spasm. I haven't

50:03

read this article but I'll assume it's off the shelves,

50:05

let's hope. So Harris

50:09

Wollaba,

50:10

perhaps a healthy 14 year

50:12

old from Worcester, Mass. Worcester.

50:15

Tragically died last Friday, hours after eating a

50:18

single ultra spicy

50:20

tortilla chip seasoned with two of the hottest peppers

50:22

in the world. The

50:24

teen's mother reportedly picked up her son from school

50:27

that day after getting a call from the nurse that he was

50:29

sick. She arrived to see him clutching

50:31

his stomach and took him home. About two hours

50:33

later he lost consciousness and was rushed

50:35

to the hospital where

50:37

he died.

50:39

Brutal dude. The

50:41

teen had told his mother that he had eaten a

50:43

Pocky chip.

50:46

The 2023 Pocky one chip challenge chip to

50:49

be exact. Each ship is sold

50:51

individually wrapped in a foil pouch

50:53

and packaged in a coffin shaped box adorned

50:56

with a skull, snakes, and the grim reaper.

50:59

That's something these warnings never work. It's

51:01

like cigarettes, you know. Yeah.

51:04

Yeah. The box contains

51:06

the challenge rules which dare

51:09

consumers to eat the whole chip and wait

51:11

as long as possible before drinking or eating

51:13

anything and of course post reactions

51:16

on social media. Lois

51:18

Wollaba, this is the mother, believes that the chip

51:20

played a role in the death of her son who had no known

51:23

underlying medical conditions. I

51:25

just want there to be an awareness for parents

51:27

to know that it's not safe, she told the New York Times.

51:29

It needs to be out of the market completely. On

51:31

Thursday, the maker of the Pocky chip,

51:34

Amplify Snack Brands, a subsidiary of Hershey,

51:37

announced it was taking the chips off the shelves.

51:40

The chip was intended only for adults and carried clear

51:42

warnings, the company said. It was not intended

51:44

for children or anyone sensitive to spicy foods

51:46

or as food allergies, is pregnant or as

51:48

underlying health conditions. Isn't

51:51

it pussies? It says it's not. Wow, why would

51:53

they even know that company? Why would they

51:55

say no pussies? That seems... Yeah,

51:57

the cause of the operation to do that? That's ridiculous.

52:00

Cause of death is not yet determined. It's

52:02

not certain if the chip is to blame.

52:05

An autopsy will be conducted but the results

52:07

could take up to 12 weeks. So

52:12

the reason, and we talked about this a lot, is because

52:14

of the Scoville. The Scoville

52:17

score is the heat of something,

52:21

the heat of a pepper. So

52:23

some have decried yet another social media challenge

52:25

endangering youth but the teen's death also

52:27

spotlights as sparse but concerning crop

52:30

medical reports that suggest that the pursuit

52:32

of even spicier hot peppers is

52:34

getting more dangerous. Sorry,

52:39

I interrupted you before the sentence saying potentially

52:41

nearing a lethal limit. I did

52:44

not know that there's been like an arms

52:46

race of spiciness. I wasn't aware that.

52:48

I didn't either. I've

52:51

seen a lot of these chip challenge videos. No,

52:53

I've seen them but I thought I didn't know that we were

52:55

developing new, I thought they

52:57

were just weird peppers you could find in the Amazon

53:00

that are super fucking hot. Yeah, but apparently they've been

53:02

selectively breeding them to be hotter and hotter. Yeah,

53:04

I didn't know that. So they're the Sea Hype of the Carolina Reaper, which

53:07

is the current holder of the hottest pepper in the

53:09

world status, and

53:11

the Naga Viper pepper which was

53:13

the reigning hottest pepper in 2011

53:15

but is now merely among the top ten. So,

53:20

yeah, so he's seeking chili-groas

53:22

have been breeding spicier and spicier hybrids

53:24

In 2007 the ghost pepper was the hottest.

53:26

I remember the reign of the ghost pepper. Sure. Now

53:29

I've seen like ghost pepper flavored snacks

53:31

in just

53:33

in the La Covigna stores and stuff. In 2011

53:37

it was overthrown by succession of new hybrids

53:39

including the Infinity Chili, the Naga Viper

53:42

pepper and the Trinidad Scorpion butch

53:44

tea pepper. Then in 2013

53:46

the Carolina Reaper came along and is yet

53:48

to be unseated.

53:51

Ten year run. I didn't know that it's been there

53:53

for that long. That's an impressive

53:56

streak. So the Scoville,

53:59

let's...

53:59

break this down, right?

54:03

The content of

54:05

capsaicin

54:08

is the compound that gives peppers their spicy taste, maybe

54:10

measured in scoville heat units, right?

54:13

The Carolina Reaper

54:14

boasts up to 2.2 million. So

54:17

for reference,

54:19

standard pepper spray contains around 2 to 5

54:21

million, ghost pepper 1 million,

54:23

a jalapeno pepper 3500.

54:27

So jalapeno is just 3500. The ghost pepper

54:29

is 2.2 million and this is double that.

54:34

It's 10% more than what

54:37

we call a weapon, which is pepper spray.

54:39

So how does anybody have, I

54:42

don't know, how is there any ambiguity when we

54:44

use this as a weapon and

54:47

you have something that's stronger than that and you're

54:49

selling it as a challenge, obviously

54:52

to kids, even if you say it's for adults, like clearly...

54:54

Yeah,

54:56

so it says there's

54:58

been serious health concerns. In the 2020 case study, the

55:00

Mississippi doctors reported that

55:01

a healthy 15-year-old

55:03

developed severe headaches for

55:05

days after eating a Carolina Reaper

55:07

pepper on a dare. Six days later, when

55:09

he showed up at an ER with

55:12

worsening headaches and nausea and vomiting, doctors

55:14

found his blood pressure was spiking and arteries in

55:16

his brain had spasms, limiting blood

55:18

flow and leading swelling and infarct,

55:21

which is a tissue death due to inadequate blood

55:24

supply. They diagnosed him with reversible

55:27

cerebral vasoconstriction syndrome, which is

55:29

RCVS, secondary

55:31

to pepper ingestion. After treatment, he made a full

55:33

recovery. They

55:36

may contain, says the doctor, either

55:38

a unique phasoactive substance or there

55:40

is a dose-related effect of capsaicin concentration

55:42

that can trigger RCVS. Further

55:45

research in this area is needed to determine the exact

55:47

pathophysiology of this phenomenon. The

55:49

case provides further evidence that ingestion of

55:51

hot peppers may lead to serious consequences and

55:54

further research is needed to assess their safety.

55:56

So yeah, there's

55:58

been other... Other

56:00

cases that have been noted in 2018, a guy

56:04

ate a Carolina Reaper during a pep

56:06

reading contest. In days followed, he developed

56:08

severe neck and head pain, intensely

56:11

painful thunderclap headaches, the

56:13

scans showed unexpected narrowing of arteries in the brain,

56:16

he too recovered after treatment. It's

56:18

a vasoactive substance, the cayenne,

56:21

which is the capsaicin-containing

56:24

pepper. It's also not necessarily

56:26

just the brain, apparently in 2012, in

56:28

Turkey, a healthy 25-year-old man suffered a

56:30

heart attack after taking cayenne pepper pills marketed

56:33

for weight loss. Tests indicated that

56:35

the cause of the heart attack was spasms of the coronary

56:37

arteries. The researchers noticed

56:39

similar effects had been seen in rat hearts. Man,

56:42

I did drink a shot of ghost pepper

56:44

absinthe at this absinthe bar that someone always sets up there,

56:53

and

56:57

that was one of the most painful

56:59

things I've ever experienced. So I just looked it up, ghost

57:01

pepper is only one million scoville, so

57:04

half as hot as Carolina

57:06

Reaper.

57:07

But yeah, 15 minutes in a fetal position

57:09

after that shot. Like,

57:11

it was like a big thing

57:14

that,

57:14

like, when someone does it, everyone else stops

57:17

what they're doing in the room and watches, and they make

57:19

you put on a luchador mask when you do it. This

57:22

guy talked me into it because he said, like,

57:24

I wouldn't have done it if there was any risk that

57:26

it's gonna burn. Did you feel

57:28

good afterwards, though? Once the sort of initial

57:30

pain has subsided and you were left with the endorphins,

57:33

were you...? What he was saying is, like, the after effects

57:35

are like, you can just suddenly, you know,

57:37

you're reborn, and it's like, well, it feels like

57:39

maybe hitting yourself in the head with a hammer

57:42

so it feels good when you stop, you know, that kind

57:44

of logic. But I mean, yes, it was a bit,

57:46

like, yeah, it was like definitely an endorphin

57:49

rush 20 minutes later. But I only would have taken

57:51

it, or only took it because he promised, because

57:53

it's a shot, you're not eating it, he

57:55

promised there was no second burn, because I'm like, if

57:57

it's

57:57

gonna burn tonight,

57:59

tomorrow coming out like

58:02

I don't and he's like no no no it doesn't it's just

58:04

the one time I promise it's 15 minutes

58:06

it's bad and then you're like reborn

58:10

but like as soon as I did it it was

58:13

like my insides were trying to come

58:15

out like my body wanted to like like a

58:17

Cronenbergian and then also

58:20

instantly all of my senses were

58:22

heightened and suddenly everything smelled awful

58:24

and I wanted to throw up from the smell of just my

58:26

own body like I could just smell everything

58:29

I was like super powered within 30 seconds

58:32

like I'm at the bar first everyone's watching to see what happens

58:34

and then I'm just like I got a and then I'm just like

58:36

on my side in the fetal position on the ground for

58:39

like 15 minutes and a guy had this

58:41

really nice camera like a DSLR was like taking

58:43

pictures of me but I forgot

58:45

to get it I should have got this

58:47

info because I would love to see how bad it looks

58:50

because it's

58:51

it's one of the most painful things I've ever experienced

58:53

we're still wearing the Lucidone mask yeah

58:55

yeah but you know

58:57

it's like you can get through I think anyone

59:00

can get through the worst pain in their life if they know it's

59:02

only going to be 15 minutes so it's hard

59:04

to even compare it to other pains

59:06

that you've had that you know might

59:08

not go for a long time because there's like a psychological

59:10

element to like the fear of like oh fuck

59:13

am I fucked and that's exacerbated right

59:15

here's my new reality right where

59:17

this it might have been saying as

59:19

well with these stories these

59:21

are very low numbers like when we were reading

59:23

the story it was just like what this this teen

59:26

recently and then one case in 2020 and then

59:29

one case in 2018 like I I'm

59:31

also I'm not saying like a lot of people are doing these challenges

59:34

and eating these peppers but it's

59:36

still a pretty small sample size to

59:38

say one person has

59:41

like I think probably if you were to eat a Carolina

59:43

Reaper you would not

59:46

end up in hospital well yeah I can also

59:49

say that it would probably be an incredibly unpleasant time

59:51

it's something you do it cost benefit houses and the cost of a hospital

59:53

very low but what is the benefit again

59:59

it's like saying vaccine for a non-existent

1:00:01

drug is mostly sick, non-existent disease is

1:00:03

mostly safe. Like, right, but the disease doesn't

1:00:06

exist? Okay. Yeah.

1:00:09

Yeah, no, that is a fair comment. That there

1:00:11

is nothing you are specifically trying to prevent

1:00:14

with all cause in this situation.

1:00:16

So yes. Yeah, it is mostly safe,

1:00:18

but also stupid and unenjoyable

1:00:21

and... Yeah. Luckily,

1:00:24

it's really painful at best and

1:00:27

probably doesn't even have some like really good

1:00:29

flavor that you're gonna enjoy.

1:00:32

Yeah, no, there will be no flavor. You

1:00:34

have little to no sense of

1:00:36

any flavor for a while after that. It's

1:00:38

just basically a sensation

1:00:41

at that point, isn't it? All right, having said all this,

1:00:43

we do have to add a Patreon tier that will force

1:00:45

us each to eat one of these. What would that tier do,

1:00:47

guys? I know. I'm

1:00:50

really bad with spicy food. Like,

1:00:54

this would really mess me up for a while. I

1:00:56

definitely don't wanna eat the one that's been killing

1:00:59

people.

1:01:00

I mean, I'll eat the one that's been killing people for $10,000.

1:01:05

Ah,

1:01:07

you really sounded like you were about to say charity.

1:01:10

And then yeah, the charity is my medical

1:01:12

bill. I'll eat one for 10

1:01:14

grand. What'd

1:01:21

you guys do for 10 grand?

1:01:23

I mean, right now I would cause you know, it's being a right

1:01:25

to strike. Yeah, I mean, yeah.

1:01:28

But I would do weirdly dangerous shit

1:01:30

for 10 grand. You

1:01:33

know what I mean? Like, it

1:01:36

says more about me than the thing,

1:01:38

you know? Is this like

1:01:40

circumstantial, like just right now, like 10

1:01:43

years ago, you wouldn't have, or is this like all- Yeah, it's

1:01:45

circumstantial. Well, you know, like when you're

1:01:47

a kid, like

1:01:50

when you're like in middle school, sitting around at lunch

1:01:52

at school, and there's

1:01:55

the whole like, you know, you

1:01:57

and your dude friends are trying to out.

1:01:59

out

1:02:00

manly each other. So a

1:02:03

question goes around very commonly I

1:02:05

find, which is like, how much money would you

1:02:07

need to blow a guy? Right.

1:02:10

You know? And when you're that age, the answer

1:02:12

is like, a million. $30 billion.

1:02:16

Because, because like you don't. Infinity dollars.

1:02:18

Yeah, because you don't need money for

1:02:21

anything and you get free food at home

1:02:24

from your parents. And it's

1:02:26

like amazing how low that's

1:02:28

gotten for me, that number. Like every

1:02:30

year it loses like a couple more zeros.

1:02:33

And it's like.

1:02:35

I, cause I still think about that basic

1:02:37

question like all the time. I was like, how much money

1:02:39

like right now, like to blow a guy, just to blow a stranger

1:02:42

right now? You're like, has he showered recently?

1:02:45

Right, like I'm down to like logistics, you

1:02:47

know? I'm getting down to like, you know, do

1:02:49

I have to make eye contact? Like, you

1:02:52

know, but it's, it's probably like way

1:02:54

too low is my point. Yeah. And

1:02:56

on that note, a little plug for the Patreon, cause we should wrap up

1:02:58

the main episode. Like

1:03:01

when I say too low, I mean like doable.

1:03:03

Like for somebody, if they were just. Yeah,

1:03:06

listen, probably science at gmo.com,

1:03:09

Twitter at probably science. That's not what I'm

1:03:11

saying. If you just want to skip

1:03:14

a few of your avocado toasts this month. No.

1:03:17

Then you should get. I'm not blowing any listeners. My

1:03:20

point is. But if

1:03:22

you've eaten pineapple recently, he can

1:03:24

negotiate. It's everything. Okay.

1:03:28

No, I say that cause you know, I'll blow all these guys for free.

1:03:30

Sure. My point was, it's

1:03:33

the same with the ghost pepper thing. It's like,

1:03:35

yeah, 10 grand for the ghost pepper thing. Like, yeah,

1:03:37

of course I would, you know, but that's cause I need 10 grand

1:03:39

more than I did.

1:03:41

Well, it's a child. Maybe

1:03:43

we can lower this to a place that Patreon

1:03:45

can hit like a thousand. Will you eat the chip?

1:03:48

No. Okay.

1:03:51

Okay. Now I'm not eating that chip

1:03:53

for a thousand. I mean, what's the harm in putting a level

1:03:55

on there that we all three eat it?

1:03:57

Because I haven't actually been faced with

1:03:59

that. I mean, that's the thing. Right now I say

1:04:02

no, but if someone is

1:04:04

holding the chip and showing me 10,

1:04:06

$100 bills, probably. It's

1:04:09

hard for me to like, hypothetical that.

1:04:11

You know what I'm saying? You know it's going to be a day-ruiner

1:04:13

at best. You know, like

1:04:15

a day-complete-ruiner.

1:04:19

Uh, yeah. Yeah.

1:04:23

Anyway, we'll give it some thought. We'll discuss it some more

1:04:25

in the bonus episode and come to a number,

1:04:27

because I think we should just... You're allowed to

1:04:29

do something like that on Patreon, right?

1:04:31

I think so. Yeah,

1:04:33

I don't think you can offer to blow people. I'm pretty sure

1:04:35

that's against the discussion conditions. I'm not blowing any

1:04:37

of them. I'm not offering... I've brought up a bad parallel,

1:04:39

all right? Let's not turn this into what Jesse wants to

1:04:41

blow, everybody thing. All right? I'm

1:04:43

not saying that.

1:04:45

I'm just saying it's... We'll circle

1:04:47

back on this when the writer's strike is well and over.

1:04:49

We're not going to circle back on it. We're not going to circle

1:04:52

back on it.

1:04:54

No, I'm saying we can look back and

1:04:56

laugh when we have jobs at some point in

1:04:58

the future. Remember

1:05:01

how close we got? Yeah. Like

1:05:03

teetering over the edge. Yeah.

1:05:06

Yeah.

1:05:07

Think about how many more shredding guitar lessons

1:05:10

I could buy if I ate one of those chips. That'd

1:05:12

probably be pretty heavy metal. To eat

1:05:14

one, I'd score some cred with my Swedish guitar

1:05:16

teacher. And on that

1:05:19

note, anything else to plug? Anything coming up that we need

1:05:21

to let people know about? Actually,

1:05:23

I'll get this up tonight. So tomorrow

1:05:26

or Wednesday, September 27th, if any of

1:05:28

you happen

1:05:32

to be in the vicinity of Yucca

1:05:34

Valley, which is up here by me and Joshua Tree area,

1:05:38

I'll be co-hosting Trivia at 7 p.m.

1:05:40

at Tiny Pony.

1:05:43

Tiny Pony Tavern, doing some game

1:05:46

show themed

1:05:48

trivia. I doubt

1:05:50

any listeners would cut. But

1:05:52

I don't know. If you live in the Coachella Valley,

1:05:54

it's only like a 40-minute drive. There's got

1:05:56

to be somebody within an hour. Tiny

1:06:00

Pony, Yucca Valley, Wednesday, September 27th,

1:06:03

7 p.m. for some trivia. No questions about

1:06:05

Yellowknife, but otherwise it'll be pretty hard.

1:06:09

I've got a round of, I guess, here's a little cheat if you

1:06:11

wanna come and dominate. I've got a round called

1:06:13

Are You Smarter Than a Celebrity? Which

1:06:16

is all questions from Celebrity

1:06:18

Jeopardy.

1:06:20

Two-parters, you gotta answer the question, and

1:06:22

then also I'll give you a great

1:06:25

wrong answer, and you have to tell me what celebrity you said

1:06:27

it based on some clues. No, it's cool.

1:06:31

So, get in there, get to that, and

1:06:34

listeners, you know where to find us. Probablyscience.gmail.com

1:06:36

is the email address for questions, comments, clarifications,

1:06:38

stories you'd like us to cover. Probablyscience.com

1:06:41

is the website where we put up all the show notes and the links

1:06:44

and everything, and you can find

1:06:46

us on Twitter at Probably Science

1:06:47

individually at Andy T. Wood, at Jesse

1:06:49

Kays, and I'm at Kersh, and we will see

1:06:51

you next time. Bye. Shh.

1:06:54

Shh. Shh. Shh. Shh.

1:06:58

Shh. Shh.