0:00

Hi.

0:00

I'm Rose Rimmler filling in for Wendy's Sugar Men.

0:03

She fell into some quicksand. I'm

0:05

just kidding. She'll be back soon.

0:07

And you're listening to science versus from Gillette.

0:10

This

0:12

is the show that pits facts against

0:14

miss Fortune.

0:20

And

0:20

I'm here in the studio with our producer,

0:23

Merrell Horn. Hi, Merrell. Hi, Rose. So

0:25

what are we doing here today? We

0:28

are here because it's

0:31

the thirteenth season of Science Versus.

0:33

Oh, wow. Yeah. I've come a long way, baby.

0:36

Yeah. So we've decided

0:38

to look at the number thirteen. and

0:41

whether there is actually anything that's

0:43

unlucky about it. So why

0:45

do people think thirteen is unlucky in the first

0:47

place? Most people seem to think

0:49

it comes from the bible because according

0:52

to the bible at the last supper,

0:54

there were thirteen people there. And,

0:57

you know, that that's a bad stopper

0:59

because that's the one that happened right before. Jesus

1:02

was crucified. He was the last one. Yeah.

1:04

Okay. Yeah. So let's see why that's bad. And

1:06

according to a gallop poll,

1:09

about nine percent of Americans are

1:11

so afraid of the number thirteen that

1:13

if they were assigned the thirteenth room

1:15

number or floor at a hotel

1:18

did, like, demand a room change.

1:20

Wow. Nine percent. That's more than

1:22

I would have thought. That's that's a lot of people

1:24

actually. I know. Right? So

1:26

at a lot of hotels actually just don't have

1:28

the thirteenth floor, so they can avoid this altogether.

1:32

That's wise. So

1:34

is there anything to actually worry about?

1:36

These bad things happen on the thirteenth

1:38

floor? Like, two little girls appear at the end of

1:40

the hallway? Or We don't have

1:42

any science on on that, but

1:44

there surprisingly is some science on

1:46

whether the number thirteen is generally

1:49

unlucky. So,

1:51

like, there's this one paper I found

1:54

from the nineties that was done in

1:56

the UK. And actually

1:58

found that more people

1:59

were sent to the hospital from traffic

2:02

accidents on Friday the thirteenth.

2:04

Oh. they compared it to

2:07

what happened on Friday the sixth.

2:09

So they concluded that, quote,

2:11

Friday the thirteenth is unlucky

2:14

for some unquote. Wow.

2:18

But I'm not sure what to make of that. Like, it's

2:20

it's kinda old. It's a little weird. So

2:23

I went looking for something a little better. Okay.

2:25

And I did find one that was super

2:27

interesting. So this study doesn't

2:29

look at thirteen. It actually looks at

2:32

the number four. That number

2:34

is considered unlucky by many East

2:36

Asian people, and that's because the

2:38

number four sounds really similar

2:40

to death. in several languages, like

2:43

Cantonese, and Japanese. The

2:45

word for the number four sounds

2:47

like the word for Yeah.

2:50

Yeah, exactly. And so what

2:52

the study said is they looked at

2:54

over two hundred thousand deaths

2:56

of Chinese and Japanese

2:58

Americans in the US to

3:00

see if more died on

3:02

the fourth of the month compared to other days of

3:04

the month. So let me send you a

3:07

graph of what they found.

3:09

Wow. There is a spike.

3:12

This is like a bar chart. of the

3:14

number of people who died on certain days

3:16

in the month, there's a spike

3:18

on the fourth day of the month. Yeah. Like

3:20

a clear spike. Yeah. More

3:22

people did die on the fourth of the month.

3:25

Whoa. Yeah. That's

3:27

wild. I know. Right? And

3:29

so the authors aren't sure if this is

3:31

just from like the stress of the number four

3:33

itself or maybe it's like the stress

3:35

of The number four leads

3:37

more people to do other unhealthy stuff,

3:39

like maybe drink more alcohol in that day.

3:42

And then they compared this with just white

3:45

Americans. and it didn't see that

3:47

spike. Like it was specific to Japanese

3:49

and Chinese Americans who are,

3:51

you know, more likely to be afraid of the number

3:53

four. I mean, this

3:55

is just one study and the difference

3:57

wasn't that big, but it does seem

3:59

like one of these cases where even

4:01

though there's nothing inherently

4:04

bad about the number four, the

4:06

fact that people believe that there is something

4:09

unlucky could lead to real effects.

4:12

something about the belief of the thing makes

4:14

the thing real. Yeah. Exactly. Okay.

4:18

So for today, we're gonna talk

4:20

about good old unlucky thirteen. We're

4:22

gonna tell you science stories about both

4:24

the number thirteen and about

4:26

luck more general. You're gonna

4:29

hear about one of the weirdest creatures

4:31

on the planet and we'll talk

4:33

about a hot new telescope that's

4:35

trying to look thirteen billion

4:37

years ago to uncover the

4:39

secrets of the universe. And

4:41

we'll talk about a squeaky that

4:44

involves a rat as the tooth

4:46

fairy.

4:48

So get ready. All those stories are

4:50

coming up right

4:51

after the break.

5:04

Welcome back. This is

5:06

our thirteenth season of Science for So

5:08

to celebrate, we're looking at stories about

5:10

the number thirteen or about luck.

5:12

And our first story is the tale

5:14

of a thirteen legged animal.

5:17

A

5:18

few years ago, Diaper and Bali

5:20

uploaded a video of a strange creature

5:23

creeping along the sea

5:23

floor.

5:25

The body of the creature looks kind of like someone

5:27

cut up an old nubbly towel

5:29

into thirteen strips. Well,

5:32

the head looks like a small balloon.

5:35

a sphere that inflates two,

5:37

three times its size and then

5:39

shrinks back and then expands and

5:41

then shrinks back again. There's

5:43

a crease in the middle of this balloon head,

5:45

which gives it a vibe that is distinctly

5:48

butt

5:48

like.

5:49

You can see it on our Instagram or on

5:52

our show page on Spotify. This

5:54

creature was so weird looking that

5:55

it caused a bit of a media The

5:59

video went viral

5:59

and made headlines. With the daily

6:02

mail screaming out, the mysterious creature

6:04

with thirteen legs and a jelly head.

6:07

the mirror calling it a mysterious

6:09

alien creature. And the

6:11

sun said this bizarre

6:13

creature left viewers

6:16

baffled. I

6:21

have

6:21

a soft spot for spineless gelatinous ocean

6:23

creatures. And I didn't know what this was

6:25

any more than the Daily Mail did.

6:27

So I wanted to know what exactly is

6:29

this thirteen legged c monster?

6:32

How could any creature have thirteen legs?

6:34

If you have an odd number of legs, wouldn't

6:37

you just sort of go round and round and

6:39

circles? Luckily, I found

6:41

someone who has seen this mysterious creature

6:43

in the flesh.

6:44

I

6:45

arranged to meet him at a tavern on

6:47

a storm toss bay. He

6:52

spun me a tail

6:53

of the sea. Hi.

6:55

Fine, Europe.

6:57

Actually, I called him on Zoom. Nice

6:59

to see you.

6:59

At least to meet you. His

7:01

name is Julian Evans, and he's a marine

7:03

biologist at the University of Malta.

7:05

Malta is a small island

7:08

country in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea.

7:11

He told me the story of his encounter with

7:13

this freaky beast. It was an early

7:15

fall day a few years back. He

7:17

was scuba diving with a colleague doing

7:19

a survey of the C4.

7:20

They

7:21

were about sixty feet below the

7:23

surface, and the water was nice

7:25

and clear. Off in the

7:27

distance, they saw something very

7:29

weird. There

7:30

were these the lops of

7:33

jelly like creatures

7:38

standing there sitting there on the bottom.

7:41

moving about really slowly.

7:44

A group

7:45

of strange creatures on the sandy

7:47

bottom he and his dive buddy

7:49

swim closer. And

7:52

obviously, when you see something on the seabed

7:54

that looks unfamiliar, your

7:57

first guess is that I'm too far. I just need

7:59

to get closer and then I'll recognize

8:01

what this thing is. but

8:03

the clothes that we got, the

8:05

wager that it became.

8:07

if

8:09

Julian was baffled. and baffled

8:12

by being baffled. He's literally

8:14

a marine biologist who grew up in

8:16

Malta. Why had he never seen this

8:18

creature before And it didn't seem like

8:20

his dive buddy who had logged thousands of

8:22

dives herself had either.

8:23

And and we both

8:25

looked at each other sort of mean,

8:27

I could see her facial expression from

8:30

behind the mask trying to communicate

8:32

that I've never seen this before. Well,

8:34

what is it? Julian watched

8:36

its strange and inflatable head expanding

8:38

and contracting. Initially,

8:40

I mean, I I have no idea what

8:43

they wear the ring, but then looking

8:45

closely and became clearer

8:47

that they have like a big

8:49

mouth which they were extending over

8:51

the seabed?

8:56

Julian

8:56

realized that they were actually hunting.

8:59

He saw that when the head expanded, it

9:01

made a sort of dome over the sea

9:03

floor, capturing

9:04

little creatures that happen to be there,

9:06

like crabs and snails.

9:08

If

9:08

you imagine yourself as being the crab.

9:11

Right? And suddenly you're enveloped

9:13

by this gelatinous thing,

9:15

which then set of closes upon you, and

9:17

there's no room for escape. So

9:20

that that's the beginning of the end.

9:23

The crab has been swallowed whole and

9:25

pulverized by the animal's gizzard

9:27

like stomach. In

9:29

genius, but that still leaves some

9:31

questions unanswered. Why

9:33

does

9:34

his head look like a butt? Like

9:37

a butt. So in

9:40

some in some pictures, you you

9:42

you get that impression. Right? Don't

9:44

you? It's like two cheeks. Yeah.

9:47

The crease it turns out is the

9:50

opening of the mouth. When Julian

9:52

got back on land, he figured out that

9:54

this was a sea slug called

9:56

Malibae Verdes.

9:57

So not an alien. And,

9:59

you know,

10:00

slugs famously don't

10:03

have legs, but all those

10:05

articles were flipping their lids about the

10:07

thirteen legs on this

10:09

creature. So I

10:10

asked Julian, what's

10:11

that about? They're

10:12

not actually like this. They're

10:15

not used to move.

10:17

These

10:17

paddle like things protruding off its

10:19

body are actually structures

10:21

called cerata. They

10:22

basically help the animal breathe.

10:25

and they also have a special superpower. The

10:28

slug can drop them at will and regenerate

10:30

them later. And that comes

10:32

in handy if the slug is being attacked

10:34

by a predator. Like if a

10:36

fish nibbles at one, the slug can

10:38

just separate.

10:38

So if

10:39

it gets bitten and it actually loses

10:42

one of them, And

10:44

that gives us a chance

10:46

to try to escape. And

10:48

in that way, the idea is

10:50

to give the predator a

10:52

bit something they can work or they

10:54

can show on. And in the meantime,

10:57

the main analysts, so to

10:59

speak, missing a body part, can

11:02

try to run away to escape

11:04

before the predator realizes

11:06

that it's gone.

11:07

Body part dropped as a decoy. The slug

11:10

can run away. will not run

11:12

exactly. I mean remember it doesn't actually have

11:14

legs. It'll sort of

11:15

squirm away. The other big

11:17

thing that headlines got wrong is that

11:20

there aren't necessarily thirteen of

11:22

these cerata. As far as we can

11:24

tell, they can have anywhere from five

11:26

to twenty. The one

11:27

Julian photographed had nine.

11:29

Maybe that variation is because

11:31

they shed them so casually. So

11:34

on lucky thirteen, it's not

11:36

a characteristic of the species.

11:39

This brings me back to the question

11:41

of luck. do you

11:42

think that you were

11:45

lucky to have stumbled on this creature?

11:46

Well,

11:47

in a

11:48

way, yes. I I guess I'm one

11:51

of only very few people in my

11:53

country have seen these. So

11:55

in that sense, I seem

11:57

to have been in the right place at

11:59

the right time. So

12:00

and I guess you can say that that is lucky.

12:05

Malefra Verdes usually lives

12:07

in tropical places, like the Indian

12:09

Ocean. But in recent years, it's been seen

12:11

more often in new places or it hadn't

12:13

been seen before. Julian and

12:15

his dive buddy were the first scientist to report

12:18

seeing it in Malta. and

12:20

that suggests it might be starting to set

12:22

up shops in the Mediterranean, like a

12:24

lot of invasive species

12:25

do. The fact

12:27

that we saw it means

12:30

that we have another species

12:32

that doesn't belong here,

12:34

which has arrived.

12:36

Invasive species are a big problem in

12:38

the Mediterranean.

12:39

Yes. I think

12:42

the Mediterranean has been called

12:44

the most faded

12:46

seeing the word? Oh. It's

12:49

it's just it's really

12:51

bad. And

12:51

why? Why is the Mediterranean such a

12:53

hot spot?

12:54

Well, First of all,

12:57

there's the Suez Canal. The

13:00

Suez Canal. It's an artificial

13:02

trench that connects the Mediterranean and

13:04

the Red Sea. That's where that big ship

13:06

got stuck a couple years ago. Remember

13:08

that?

13:09

the

13:10

Well, that now was opened in eighteen

13:12

sixty nine, creating a passage

13:14

between Europe and Asia, so ships don't

13:16

have to go all the way around Africa.

13:20

And

13:21

ever since then, new species have

13:23

been swimming, floating, or

13:25

hitching a ride through the canal and into

13:27

the Mediterranean. And so

13:29

as lucky for your experience

13:31

as a scientist and for this conversation

13:33

-- Yeah. -- that you stumble

13:34

across this group because it's rare

13:37

but it's unlucky that they're there

13:38

at all really. Exactly.

13:40

So we

13:41

don't know what this slug could do to the

13:44

Mediterranean.

13:44

Maybe nothing. but it might be

13:47

something very weird. We'll

13:49

just have to cross our fingers and

13:51

knock on wood

13:52

maybe. When

13:53

we come back, we're gonna leave this world altogether

13:55

and explore the entire

13:58

universe. That's after

14:00

the break.

14:06

It's a rainy

14:06

night and a source text me.

14:09

He's infiltrated a neo Nazi terror group,

14:11

and he's inviting me to listen in on a

14:13

recruitment call. Would

14:14

you feel comfortable in

14:16

training and firearms?

14:18

What is your ideology. I'm

14:20

Ben Macku, and I cover extremism and

14:23

National Security for Vice News.

14:25

And for

14:25

years, the story of this terror

14:27

group has consumed my life. How

14:29

did you hear about the base? Starting

14:31

October eighteenth, listened to American

14:33

terror free, only on Spotify.

14:35

I

14:37

need to know why we

14:40

baby talk. On

14:41

every little thing, we answer the

14:44

giddy biddy little questions that keep you

14:46

sleep deprived. I hated

14:48

hearing people baby talking

14:50

even to their kids, to

14:52

their dogs. How do you feel when you hear

14:54

yourself doing it? For Paul, Like, I'm

14:56

so annoyed. Why do we get all

14:58

Goohoo Gaga Gaga when talking to our cute little

15:00

poop monsters? Find out on every

15:02

little thing. listen

15:04

to ELT for free on Spotify.

15:07

One

15:07

night in nineteen fifty one,

15:09

jazz star Josephine Baker

15:11

walked into Manhattan's famous stork

15:13

club, she senses

15:16

that she is not welcome.

15:18

Baker faced this type of racism throughout

15:20

her career. She wasn't going to take it

15:22

anymore. Listen in as Josephine

15:24

Baker calls the press stirring up a

15:26

PR storm, making allies and

15:28

enemies along the way.

15:30

That story is out now only on

15:32

not past it. Follow and listen for

15:34

free only on Spotify. Hi.

15:37

I'm Jorge Just, host of dysfunctional

15:39

family story time. each

15:41

week offers at the classic story about

15:43

families, flawed families, and odds

15:45

families, small families.

15:47

And of course, I

15:48

remember calling the attorney general

15:51

and telling him when are you

15:52

gonna arrest my brother? At

15:54

large families. for all the

15:56

families that don't quite fit together,

15:58

there's this functional family

15:59

story time. Good news for

16:02

you. dysfunctional family story time is

16:04

out now. Follow and listen for free. Only

16:06

on Spotify.

16:12

Welcome

16:13

back. It's time

16:15

to make some space for space.

16:17

Here's producer

16:18

Desha Baghut.

16:19

When I

16:20

started thinking about what story

16:22

to tell about luckiness or

16:25

unluckiness, I thought

16:27

of the James Webb Space Telescope.

16:29

I had been falling it along as it

16:31

was coming together, and it

16:33

kept hitting roadblocks. Like,

16:35

maybe it wasn't written in the stars

16:38

at all.

16:40

Okay. So here's what happened. Scientists

16:43

proposed the idea for this new

16:45

telescope way back in nineteen ninety

16:47

six. and they got to work

16:49

pretty soon after that, but

16:51

it didn't all go according to

16:53

plan. This thing is kind of

16:55

complicated, so the road was a

16:57

bit rocky.

16:58

And back

16:59

in twenty eleven, they almost

17:01

killed the whole project.

17:03

but

17:04

it continued along and the telescope was

17:06

supposed to launch in twenty eighteen.

17:09

Then

17:09

it got delayed. Technical

17:12

challenges Then, delayed again, COVID-nineteen,

17:14

and delayed again, bad

17:16

weather. Altogether, it got

17:18

delayed eight times.

17:21

We finally

17:21

got lucky. And

17:23

with the championships.

17:24

From

17:28

a tropical rain forest to the edge of

17:30

time itself, James Webb

17:32

begins

17:32

a voyage back to the birth of

17:35

the universe.

17:39

The James Webb

17:40

Space Telescope launched on December

17:42

twenty fifth twenty twenty one,

17:44

twenty five years after the whole thing

17:47

started. It

17:47

definitely feels lucky, but I think

17:49

it's really the result of a lot of

17:52

hard work by a lot of

17:54

people.

17:54

This is Jehan Kirtalope.

17:56

She's an astrophysicist and an associate

17:58

professor at the Rochester

17:59

Institute of Technology. I mean, it

18:02

was something that was really planned and

18:04

developed for for for decades,

18:06

really, people all over the world

18:08

working together for many, many years.

18:10

And they tested and tested and

18:13

tested. because you don't want anything to go

18:15

wrong. And

18:15

now that this telescope is out in

18:18

space, it'll hang out about a

18:20

million miles from Earth, also orbiting

18:22

the sun. The idea is that this telescope can look

18:24

further than any other

18:26

telescope in history and

18:28

take way better pictures of what's

18:30

out there. Now that

18:32

it's

18:32

all set up, the fun

18:33

starts.

18:35

They get to

18:36

play around with this shiny new toy and

18:38

learn how to use

18:40

For these first

18:40

projects, teams from all over

18:42

the world submitted proposals for how

18:44

they wanted to test the telescope, explore

18:48

stuff, and share what they'll find with the other

18:50

scientists. And weirdly,

18:52

from all the team submitting

18:54

proposals to test out the telescope,

18:57

there were thirteen projects that got accepted.

19:00

Thirteen. And one was Jay

19:02

Hunt's. Yeah. It was a big deal. It was

19:04

very exciting. Did you feel lucky

19:06

that, like, what? We're like one of the

19:08

thirteen. We definitely felt

19:11

lucky and kinda honored, right, to have the

19:13

opportunity to be among the first users of

19:15

the telescope.

19:15

Cheahas

19:18

project is basically to use

19:20

the telescope to look at some of the earliest

19:22

galaxies in the universe. And this

19:24

means her team is looking back in

19:26

time. That's because when things

19:28

are far away, it takes a long

19:30

time for their light to reach us.

19:33

For the nearest stars, it can take years, galaxies

19:36

millions to billions of years.

19:38

We're really observing the most distant

19:40

galaxies as they

19:42

were billions of years ago because that's

19:44

how long it took their light to reach us.

19:46

Scientists like JAIHAN hope that by looking

19:48

at all this, it'll help them

19:51

understand how the

19:52

universe came to be. You're basically

19:53

trying to get as close to like the big

19:55

bang that that we know and

19:57

then seeing what happened

19:59

exactly. The

20:00

universe was a very different place than

20:03

it is today. Right? It was a

20:05

lot denser. At first, it was

20:07

very hot. Once elements could

20:09

form, all we really had was hydrogen

20:11

and helium.

20:12

Hydrogen

20:14

and helium. Those

20:16

are most basic elements we have. And somehow,

20:19

out of that super simple stuff,

20:21

we got stars, and

20:24

we still don't understand how

20:26

that happened. Like, what

20:27

ignited that spark? We

20:30

call it first light. So how

20:32

did the first galaxies and

20:33

first stars form in the

20:36

universe. Before they could

20:37

start looking back through the

20:40

universe's history, they had to

20:42

wait. because once telescope launched, it took several months

20:44

for it to get fully set up.

20:46

Then came the moment. In

20:48

July, when JAIHAN's team

20:51

was finally able to see what the

20:53

web saw. We

20:55

were all in

20:57

a

20:57

room together working on things

20:59

and we kind one person's computer screen to

21:01

look at images as they came up. And and then,

21:03

oh, look at that one. I'll look at that one.

21:05

And, yeah, that was that was a lot of fun.

21:07

It felt like like, being

21:09

an explorer. You know, I'm just trying to

21:12

find unknown thing and

21:14

treasure hunt just finding, like, the

21:16

cool things. Maybe you've

21:17

seen some of the early images from

21:19

Webb. There's this one showing red space

21:22

dust. It almost looks like an outstretched

21:24

hand in the night sky. They

21:26

call it the pillars of

21:28

creation. It's where new stars are

21:30

being born from clouds of gas

21:32

and dust. images like these

21:34

are some of the clearest that we've

21:36

ever captured. And as

21:38

Jahan's team hunts for galaxies,

21:40

they've already had some surprises. I

21:42

would say

21:43

the biggest surprise that

21:45

we've seen so far is that detecting

21:48

these galaxies has actually been really easy. We've found

21:50

more of them than we thought we did.

21:52

So on one way, that's really exciting.

21:55

So that kind of changes our picture

21:58

of that very early time period

21:59

and how the first stars were able to

22:02

form. And that when they started

22:04

forming, is even earlier than we initially

22:07

thought. Okay. So what you're seeing is, like, you

22:09

thought that, like, oh, we're getting, like,

22:11

close to the beginning, but it's, like,

22:13

No. This the beginning is even, like, earlier.

22:16

Yeah. Does this show that the universe is older

22:18

than we thought then? So, no, that that

22:20

doesn't do that because we have a very

22:22

good good handle on how old the universe

22:24

is?

22:25

And

22:26

speaking of the age of the

22:29

universe, guess how old it is. Thirteen

22:32

billion years. Well, there

22:34

there's some rounding. Right? Our universe

22:36

is probably closer to fourteen because it's your

22:38

thirteen point something. Okay. Okay.

22:41

Thirteen point eight billion

22:44

years. Anyway,

22:46

just imagine, as we go

22:48

about our days, the web telescope

22:50

will be chugging along, looking

22:52

at stuff like black holes, stars,

22:56

exoplanets, So we're going to be

22:58

hearing a lot more about the past

23:00

thirteen billion years.

23:01

Lucky us.

23:06

Alright.

23:13

We're bringing you back down to Earth for

23:15

this last story. Like we spoke about at

23:17

the top of the episode, there are more

23:20

unlucky numbers lurking around the world

23:22

than just the

23:22

number thirteen. Here's

23:24

producer Michelle Dang on an unlucky

23:26

number and Superstitions haunts

23:29

her personally.

23:31

Yeah. So in Vietnam, where my family

23:33

is from, a big fat unlucky

23:36

number is the number three.

23:39

Like, I've always heard that you

23:41

should never take a photo with three

23:43

people in it.

23:44

Some say, it curses the person in

23:46

the middle for an early death.

23:48

So

23:49

when I'm with certain family

23:51

members, there's always this mad reshuffle

23:53

of people before the shutter

23:56

goes off. Like, it can

23:56

be two or

23:59

four more than that,

24:01

but not three.

24:03

That's

24:05

Michelle's mom. Yeah. That's

24:07

my mom. All this talk

24:09

of superstitions got me thinking of

24:11

another one she

24:12

has told me.

24:13

one that she's believed in while

24:16

growing up in Vietnam.

24:18

Instead of the tooth fairy,

24:20

She

24:20

had a squeak ear version that

24:24

did not involve putting your

24:26

tooth under a pillow. When I

24:28

was young, it's time

24:30

I lost my tooth.

24:32

My mom would say bring your tooth and

24:34

throw it onto the roof. Yeah.

24:36

you throw it up onto the

24:39

roof for a really specific reason

24:42

because you want a rat to

24:44

find it and pick it up.

24:45

Yes. a

24:46

wrap. Basically, you throw your

24:48

baby tooth up there for them

24:50

to snatch up and hope

24:52

that in exchange they give

24:54

you some luck on your

24:55

incoming one.

25:01

The

25:01

rat they

25:02

always have, like, too

25:04

strong, front teeth. You throw

25:06

up on the root, and then you make a prayer.

25:08

Which would sound something like

25:11

this. the rod with

25:12

a me called, so

25:15

I will say, hey,

25:18

I

25:18

give you my o two, please

25:21

give me

25:23

your

25:23

new tooth. Like

25:25

a tooth

25:27

just like yours. Yeah. Yeah.

25:30

Yeah. strong, well, healthy, tooth just

25:32

like yours. Pretty

25:34

simple. Right? Basically,

25:35

instead

25:36

of the tooth fairy, it's

25:38

the rat fairy. Not very

25:40

cash money, just to wish a

25:43

blessing for a big, healthy,

25:45

strong tooth to come in. What

25:47

do you think the rat fairy looks like?

25:52

Oh, the rat. Like

25:57

a normal rat. Just I was

25:59

hoping it's a

26:00

white rat. Like

26:02

a lab rat. Because

26:07

the tooth is white.

26:09

No.

26:09

Yeah. when

26:11

she told me about it was very

26:13

silly to me. I mean, I

26:15

just had the tooth fairy growing up

26:17

who graciously gave me a

26:20

twenty dollar bill once.

26:21

So hearing about this rat

26:24

fairy stuck with me like

26:26

Charter. Like, is it

26:28

based on something real? Do

26:30

rats really have teeth to

26:32

strive for? And are they

26:35

that strong? So

26:37

step one, I Googled

26:39

and all these pest control sites came

26:41

up with these mind blowing

26:43

claims about just how strong

26:45

rat teeth are. And they

26:47

make them sound

26:49

totally outlandish. Take

26:52

this list, for example, can

26:54

ratchew through what? Yes. Can

26:57

ratche chewing through brick? Yes.

26:59

Can ratche chewing through concrete?

27:02

Yes. Okay. But

27:04

the most shocking was this figure

27:06

that kept popping up.

27:08

Apparently, their

27:11

jaws can exert up to

27:13

twelve tons per square

27:15

inch, six times the

27:17

strength of a great white

27:19

shark. What?

27:20

Six fold the bite

27:22

of a great white shark.

27:25

Is that true?

27:26

true It

27:28

was time to find myself an expert.

27:31

So, meet Philip Cox. He's

27:33

an associate

27:33

professor in anatomy at

27:36

University College London.

27:38

His specialty is the mammalian

27:41

skull, but he's very

27:43

keen on rodents. And,

27:46

well, he quickly

27:48

debunked the shark thing for me.

27:50

Imagine, I mean, I've been bitten by a

27:52

rat in a lap Oh, yeah. It would have yeah. would have taken

27:54

my entire finger off if that would have

27:56

changed, you know. Yeah. But it was a little

27:58

the little knit through

28:00

the skin. six fold, the gray white.

28:03

Yes. Philips

28:05

spent a

28:06

lot of time modeling and

28:09

analyzing rat jaws in the

28:11

lab. And what he

28:13

knows is that the average brown

28:15

rat, can bite with the

28:17

force of about thirty new

28:19

ins.

28:19

Knewtons are

28:20

the standard unit of force

28:22

used in science. And

28:25

the bite of a great white shark

28:27

can go into the

28:30

thousands of new ins.

28:32

So let's not have a rat square

28:34

up against the great white anytime

28:37

soon. But let

28:39

me tell you. these

28:41

little guys still have a pretty wicked set

28:44

of chompers.

28:46

Okay. Let's

28:46

zoom out a moment.

28:48

If we look at all

28:51

rodents, big and small, from

28:53

the capybara beavers

28:55

flying squirrels to

28:57

rats and mice, They're a

28:58

really, really fascinating group. They are

29:00

the largest group of

29:03

mammals. There's about two

29:05

and half thousand species

29:07

alive today. That's forty

29:09

to forty five percent of all living mammals.

29:11

So they they

29:12

are doing something

29:14

Amazing and successful.

29:17

Yeah.

29:18

Nearly half of all the

29:20

types of mammals on our planet

29:22

are rodents. Like,

29:24

what the and

29:26

brace yourself.

29:28

I'm very excited

29:30

to tell you that rodents

29:32

that's big motley crew,

29:34

all

29:34

have one huge thing in

29:37

common.

29:37

It's the teeth. So

29:40

all rodents have a

29:43

single

29:43

pair of ever

29:45

growing in sizes in the upper

29:47

and lower jaws.

29:50

They all

29:50

have them, those four

29:53

weirdly isolated large

29:55

curvy teeth that

29:57

basically keep growing and growing

29:59

throughout

29:59

their entire life.

30:03

These are the teeth that my mom wished

30:05

for that all

30:07

the

30:07

rats of the world have. Which

30:09

is obviously an amazing thing

30:11

to have because then you can

30:13

start eating things and not worrying about if

30:15

you're gonna break your teeth because there's always more

30:18

tooth to come behind.

30:21

Seriously,

30:22

a pretty nifty tool.

30:24

Dilt

30:24

says they have clever construction

30:28

too.

30:28

They have this really hard layer

30:30

of enamel in front that's better

30:33

than ours. because it has more iron compounds

30:35

in it. It's what makes their

30:37

teeth more yellowy, but

30:39

they also have this

30:41

softer layer of tooth in the back,

30:43

which wears down way quicker

30:45

than the front. When you end up with

30:47

a really nice sharp chisel white blade,

30:49

and it allows them

30:51

to access all kinds of

30:53

different food stuffs.

30:56

Okay.

30:57

So ever growing teeth that

31:00

are super sharp and

31:02

quite hard. It kinda

31:04

sounds like, yes, these teeth are

31:06

something to be desired because

31:08

they're just really darn good for

31:10

eating and getting through things.

31:13

And it's actually true that

31:15

rats can chew through things that we

31:17

would want nowhere near our teeth.

31:19

Things like old brick and

31:22

concrete Those claims are

31:24

true. They've even gotten through

31:26

things like rusted

31:28

metal.

31:30

you

31:30

know, it must be also a sort of

31:32

a real

31:33

continuous period of time that they're sat there

31:35

just wet wearing away. And, you know, I

31:37

don't think it's that their teeth are harder than

31:40

the things that they are ignoring. It's just

31:42

that over time they

31:44

are able to

31:46

keep going because the tooth

31:48

keeps coming. So they can keep nori at the same place

31:50

and eventually sort of wear this material

31:53

down.

31:55

Yeah.

31:55

So they're super persistent.

31:57

And these critters are also

31:59

just

31:59

about everywhere. Take

32:02

the brown wrap for example.

32:04

Philip

32:05

says if you look up a

32:07

map of their global distribution,

32:09

The only

32:10

places they're thought to be totally

32:13

absent are Antarctica,

32:16

the Arctic Circle, and

32:19

Apparently, the province of Alberta

32:21

and Canada. They

32:23

wiped out all their rats in the fifties

32:25

and have claimed to be rat

32:27

free ever since.

32:28

But

32:30

other than that, they're

32:32

pretty much everywhere across

32:36

the globe. It lives alongside

32:36

humans. It's followed us around the

32:39

world, and it's been incredibly successful.

32:41

And maybe just maybe partly

32:43

that's because wherever it goes, it

32:46

can find something to eat.

32:49

Yeah.

32:49

Phelps working hypothesis is

32:51

that the rat's wild success really

32:54

has to do with their jaws

32:57

and their teeth. So

32:59

when it comes to the rat berry,

33:01

If there is a rat fairy,

33:03

would you would you like your

33:05

teeth to be blessed by the rat fairy?

33:07

Would you like your rat's teeth?

33:09

Oh, of

33:10

course. Absolutely. At

33:12

the opportunity, I would definitely

33:14

throw my teeth on the roof. Is that what you

33:16

do for the rest? Yes. Yeah.

33:18

Yeah. So they're they're that good.

33:20

Yeah. I think it would only be fair that they

33:23

get to look at my teeth since I've spent a lot of

33:25

time looking at theirs so much.

33:27

That's science

33:29

versus.

33:31

Thanks for sticking

33:33

with us for thirteen seasons.

33:35

Or if you're new, thanks for joining

33:37

us. We'll

33:38

be back next week with final episode of season

33:40

thirteen where we'll be diving into Adderall

33:43

and

33:43

ADHD.

33:45

Hello?

33:46

Hi, Desha. Have a good.

33:48

Hey,

33:48

Rose. How many

33:49

citations are in this week's episode? There

33:52

are eighty eight Okay?

33:54

Eighty eight. And so if people wanna check out these

33:56

eighty eight citations, where should they go? They can go

33:58

to our show notes, and there will be

33:59

links to their transcript, and they're all

34:02

there.

34:02

Sounds good. Disha,

34:03

do you have any superstitions

34:06

of your own that you follow?

34:08

Not really. But I remember

34:10

there being a superstition in our culture that

34:13

You shouldn't cut your nails in the dark. Not

34:15

in the dark as in light. It's

34:17

dark outside. So

34:18

you shouldn't cut your nails at night.

34:20

Yes. And I

34:21

think there was, like, it's interesting. Like, there was a

34:23

reason behind it because it's, like, it would

34:25

be dangerous, like, before there was

34:27

light and stuff. But

34:30

now it's like, you could do

34:31

it whenever you want. Well, thanks, Desha.

34:33

Alright. Thanks, Rose. Okay. Talk to

34:35

you later. Bye.

34:37

And make sure to check out

34:39

our Instagram to see pictures of the sea

34:41

slug and pictures from the James Webb telescope

34:43

and there's lots of other good stuff there. and

34:45

you can also check some of that stuff out on

34:47

our Spotify clips.

34:53

This episode was produced by

34:55

me, Rose Brimmler, as well as Michelle

34:58

Dang, Merrill Horn, and

35:00

Deschampagut. We're edited by a

35:02

Black Terrell. Wendy Zookerman is our executive producer.

35:04

Backchecking by Eva Dasher,

35:06

mix and sound design by Boomi Hidalca.

35:10

Music written by Bumi Haraka, Emma Manger, Bobby Lord,

35:12

and Peter Leonard. And big

35:14

thanks to the

35:15

restructures we spoke to,

35:17

including Professor Eduardo Fernandez Docay,

35:20

Dr. Ron Wasserstein, Professor

35:23

Sandra Greenland, Professor Natalie

35:26

Batalia, and doctor Terry Goss liner.

35:28

Special thanks to Jen Hahn and Jonah Delso.

35:41

It's

35:42

a rainy night and a source text me. He's

35:44

infiltrated a neo Nazi terror group, and he's

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inviting me to listen in on a recruitment

35:49

call. goal in training and

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firearms. What is your

35:53

ideology? I'm Ben Mathew, and I

35:55

cover extremism and

35:58

ash security for vice news. And for years,

36:00

the story

36:00

of this terror group has consumed my life.

36:02

How did you hear about the base?

36:06

starting October eighteenth, listened to American terror free,

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only on

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Spotify. When Melanie

36:11

was a kid,

36:12

She recorded a concert on

36:14

what she thought was a blank video

36:16

tape. But

36:17

the tape was

36:20

an interview that my father

36:22

had done.

36:23

from Vietnam with Walter

36:26

Cronkite. On this on this video

36:28

tape. Yes. That had

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now been recorded over

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by Billie Race Cyrus.

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Billy

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Ray Cyrus. On episode

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forty six of heavyweight, I helped

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Melanie make things right.

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Listen for free. on Spotify.