0:03

Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production

0:05

of iHeartRadio.

0:12

Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My

0:14

name is Robert Lamb.

0:15

And I'm Joe McCormick, and we're back with part

0:17

two in our series on Dust

0:20

Now. In the last episode, we talked about

0:22

how to define dust.

0:25

We talked about the definition

0:27

that came from a book that I've been reading

0:29

by an author named Jay Owens, defining

0:32

dust as tiny flying particles.

0:35

We talked about our wonderful, beautiful,

0:38

swarming invisible domestic companions,

0:40

the dust mites, and we talked

0:43

about atmospheric dust and its

0:45

complex relationship to weather and

0:47

climate. And hey,

0:49

if you hear a little weirdness, little

0:52

creak, little croak in my throat today

0:54

that may very well be caused by dust.

0:57

There you go. Yeah, So into

1:00

day's episode, we're gonna

1:02

we're gonna be talking about dust bunnies

1:04

a bit here, but but not just dust

1:06

bunnies. Just summoning the specter

1:08

of the dust bunny is enough to

1:11

diverge into topics concerning

1:14

cosmic horror and

1:17

and cosmic mysteries. So

1:20

even though the dust bunny is pretty mundane

1:23

and every day and you could probably find

1:25

one in your home within

1:28

five minutes if we requested it. Stick

1:32

around because it's gonna go interesting places.

1:34

I know, based on seeing some reactions to part

1:36

one of this series, that there are

1:38

some real dust haters in

1:41

our audience, and so we may in

1:43

fact here from listeners who say no, no,

1:45

no dust bunnies in my house. They are there

1:47

forbidden, and I do not allow

1:49

a single one to form.

1:51

All right, Well, that's it's a very Victorian mindset,

1:53

as we'll discuss here, so I don't

1:55

think I have to tell many of

1:57

you what a dust bunny is, though, as we'll

1:59

discuss the terminology, there seems

2:01

to be more dominant terminology in different parts

2:03

of the world, and I

2:06

wasn't able to find like a really exhaustive

2:09

list, so certainly I'm hoping

2:11

to hear from listeners in other

2:13

countries, in other language

2:16

traditions that have different terms

2:18

for what we're talking about here.

2:20

These are vaguely animal shaped

2:23

accumulations of dust that one

2:25

tends to find in hard to dust places

2:27

and corners of a home or

2:30

other interior space. A frequent

2:32

place you may find these is, of course, like under

2:34

the bed, under and

2:37

behind the dresser, places where

2:39

dust can accumulate for extended periods

2:41

of time without being noticed until you go

2:43

in there looking for something,

2:46

or going in for a more detailed

2:48

dusting of the room, and you

2:50

find something that has accumulated

2:53

to the degree that it is kind of vaguely animal

2:55

shaped.

2:56

I must say that I find these accumulate

2:59

with much greater frequency if you have a

3:01

dog.

3:03

Yeah, wow, yeah, I mean we have a

3:05

cat. And that certainly helps too, you know, because,

3:07

as we'll be discussing here, like, they are

3:09

made out of the various

3:12

things that make up dust in your

3:14

home, and pet dand or pet hair

3:17

is a large part of that if pets are present

3:19

or even have been present in pat So

3:21

I found that dust bunnies

3:23

can be a deceptively difficult topic to research,

3:26

as they often garner nothing more than just passing

3:29

mention, even in books devoted

3:31

to the topic of dust. I didn't look

3:33

in all of them, but I didn't look in a

3:35

couple of them. And yeah, even in

3:37

books devoted entirely to topics of topic

3:39

of dust, you might not find much about them. So

3:42

I suspect that I'm not alone in

3:44

turning up a few leads. But

3:48

there is some information out there. These

3:50

accumulations have been known by different names.

3:53

Again, this is not an exhaustive list, so let

3:55

us know what you have come

3:57

to know them as. But in German tradition

3:59

there are often referred to as wool

4:01

mouse or as it means wool

4:04

mouse, which I think is pretty good. You know, looks

4:07

it actually looks more like a mouse than a rabbit,

4:09

at least the ones I encounter.

4:11

Yeah, it's you know, you're more likely to find

4:13

a mouse than a rabbit inside your home.

4:16

Yeah, and you know, rabbits get rather big. Like

4:18

when I look into the backyard to check in the

4:20

garden and I see the prince with a thousand enemies

4:22

back there, he's

4:25

kind of a chonker. I would be

4:27

rather concerned if I found a true

4:30

rabbit sized dust bunny inside the house.

4:32

Maybe you're supposed to think of baby bunnies

4:34

or like just maybe just the bunny's

4:36

tail, a little cottontail.

4:38

Yeah. The other thing I was thinking is maybe it has to do

4:40

with like multiple clumps, and you can be like, oh, it

4:42

looks kind of like two ears and a body or

4:44

something.

4:45

That's right. So I think bunny kind of makes

4:47

sense because dust bunnies can be floppy.

4:50

They can be almost hinged in a way,

4:52

if you know what I mean, Like one part of them will fold

4:54

over and they'll flop around

4:56

much like a rabbit's ears.

4:58

Now for this next one from English tradition, I

5:01

do want to warn everyone I am about to use a word

5:03

that has

5:05

since this antiquated usage of the

5:07

term become more offensive.

5:10

So you know, I don't skip a few seconds

5:12

of you. They're young listeners present,

5:14

you don't want to hear this word. And I also want to throw

5:16

a warning out there to any automated

5:19

like spider bots that are transcribing the

5:21

podcast and then reporting back to Apple

5:23

Podcasts with inside about

5:25

what we're talking about. Please be advised

5:27

antiquated use of the term here. So

5:30

with all that set up. In English tradition, they are

5:32

some They were sometimes known as sluts

5:35

wool. This was an antiquated

5:37

use of that term that meant an unclean

5:40

or slovenly person.

5:42

So it was an unclean or slovenly

5:44

person's wool, meaning it

5:47

it came from them like it was their

5:49

wool and descended to the floor, or it

5:51

was like meant for them

5:53

like this is the wool they will use to dress

5:56

in and heat their bodies.

5:58

Uncertain, I guess it kind of. It also kind

6:00

of seems like, Okay, if you were busy, you would

6:02

have cleaned your home and you

6:04

would have maybe produced actual wool.

6:06

I don't know, it's just kind of I guess wool thought

6:09

of as something that accumulates naturally

6:11

in the context of sheep, I'm not sure. I've

6:15

also read it referred to as Beggar's velvet,

6:17

not to be confused with Beggar's velvet

6:20

that was also a blend of cotton and linen.

6:23

So you might find references

6:25

to someone wearing a garment made of Beggar's

6:27

velvet, but they're not using a garment

6:30

made of dust bunnies.

6:31

Wouldn't it be funny though, if dust bunny based

6:33

fabrics became like the new hot item,

6:36

Like, you know, you have silk, you've

6:38

got I don't know, angora or

6:40

something, and then you get the dust

6:42

bunny.

6:43

I'm gonna pass on that one, but I

6:46

don't know if you use the next term for it, maybe

6:48

because the next term is house moss, and

6:51

this one I feel finally sounds

6:53

a little less disparaging, you know, it

6:56

sounds like just something that accumulates naturally and

6:58

is therefore rather mundane. I mean, who has a

7:00

vendetta against moss? And

7:03

then finally you'll find other uses such as

7:05

dust kitten. I couldn't find any information

7:07

about this being anything. This might be a more

7:10

recent development where we want to

7:12

apply all things cat to things

7:14

in our house, and therefore think of it as a dust

7:16

kitten, which certainly does sound

7:19

cuter.

7:19

Well, a dust bunny is prey, a dust kitten

7:22

is a predator.

7:24

Dust bunny, however, does seem to be the main

7:26

US English term for these accumulations

7:29

of dust. As this is household

7:31

dust. It's generally composed of the same household

7:34

components that we discussed in the last episode,

7:36

so things like dead skin, hair,

7:39

pet dander, lint, pollen, and

7:41

so forth. Dust mites

7:43

may also reside within them, so

7:46

I don't think it's anything you necessarily

7:49

want to form into a garment. Not

7:51

that I ever have any problem like touching

7:54

the dust bunnies of only scooping up something

7:57

behind a dresser that hasn't been moved in a while,

8:00

but I also find that I regard it rather differently

8:02

than when compared to dryer

8:05

lint. Dryer lint always, to me, feels

8:07

like a like a sacred and holy substance

8:10

that must be removed from the machine. There's something kind of satisfying

8:13

about removing dryer lint that, especially

8:15

when it comes off in kind of like a clump

8:18

or a patch, you know.

8:20

Yeah, when it comes out warm, Oh

8:23

yeah, that really emphasizes the holiness

8:25

of it.

8:25

Yeah, it still goes straight in the trash.

8:27

But you know, I

8:29

gotta say, dust bunnies came

8:31

to seem much more offensive to me. I mean that

8:33

we used to just have them around the house

8:35

all the time. I don't know if that's gross, but like, you

8:38

know, you'd see them and be like, oh, yeah, there's

8:40

one over there. Maybe I'll do something

8:42

about it. Maybe not. When you've got

8:45

a young child who's like mobile,

8:47

crawling around on the floor and kind of putting

8:49

whatever in their mouth, then there's a sudden

8:52

urgency to actually do something

8:54

about all these little critters piling

8:56

up in the corners.

8:57

Yes, and pile up they do. Now, when

9:00

you look around for a detailed description on

9:03

how dust bunnies form, I

9:05

found that some of the best explanations are not

9:07

really about explaining dust

9:09

bunnies at all, but rather about using

9:12

them as a means to better understand accumulations

9:14

of cosmic dust and ultimately

9:16

the formation of much larger bodies

9:18

in space. Sources on this include

9:20

Richard Cowen's book History of

9:23

Life. I believe that's kind of like a long

9:25

standing like science textbook, kind of

9:27

a situation. Also Formation

9:30

of Cosmic dust Bunnies, an article published in two

9:32

thousand and seven in the IEEE

9:34

Transactions on Plasma Science by Matthews

9:37

at All. John Hermann

9:39

brought together some of these sources for a twenty

9:41

ten Gizmoto explainer, and there's also

9:43

a two thousand and nine Esquire explainer.

9:46

But everyone is pretty much circling around the

9:48

same bundle of sources I find, but

9:50

still an insightful bundle

9:53

of sources. So, whether we're dealing with the

9:55

formation of stars or the formation of

9:58

that epic dust bunny under your bed, it

10:00

comes down to the process of accretion. Now

10:02

we've talked about this in the show before, at least in the cosmic

10:05

sense. In the household sense, however,

10:08

we'd be talking about a very weak

10:10

static electrical charge bringing

10:12

together only the very fine particles

10:15

of dust, because

10:17

you're not dealing with like a you know, a cosmic void

10:19

scenario. This is happening under

10:21

your bed. The rest of what's

10:24

binding the dust bunny together,

10:26

it comes seems to come down to entangled

10:28

and matted fibers of the various

10:30

components that make up the bunnies.

10:33

Just based on my own observations, dust bunnies

10:36

really do seem to me to have a large

10:38

hair component compared to just

10:41

the dust you'd find anywhere else in your house.

10:43

Yeah, and I think the hair is key. The hair gets tangled,

10:46

hair gets matted in these contexts.

10:48

It's why I also, if you're a cat owner and

10:50

you're you know, on the lookout for things like hair balls,

10:53

dust bunnies can also be instantly

10:55

a little bit more alarming because you're like, Okay, what

10:57

what's the classification of this thing I have

10:59

found? They're like, Oh, it's just dust bunny. Nobody

11:02

is to blame except maybe me. Now,

11:05

that giz Moto explainer that I referenced earlier

11:07

from Herman runs through basically

11:09

all this, But I thought that he has had a really

11:11

nice capper for the article, so I want to read a quote

11:13

from it. There are other minor

11:15

culprits like the cooking of fatty foods,

11:18

which produces triglycerides that

11:20

can attach to dust particles, making them stickier.

11:23

All the causes, though, share one characteristic.

11:26

They're subtle. It's either electrostatic

11:28

forces that are nearly impossible to measure,

11:31

or air flows that are impossible to

11:33

feel, or fat deposits

11:35

that are unavoidable and unnoticeable

11:38

byproducts of preparing. Basically any

11:40

delicious food actually make that

11:42

two characteristics. Without dust,

11:44

they can't exist, So get cleaning.

11:48

This is a very I thought, very

11:50

essential to note the airflow aspect of this, because

11:52

I think that's another thing you can observe in your home.

11:55

It's not only the places where dust

11:57

isn't easily observed, but also sort

11:59

of the corners where like sweeping doors

12:02

and human traffic or pet

12:04

traffic will sort of subtly push

12:07

everything together as well.

12:09

Yeah, the kind of tide pools of airflow

12:11

in the home, places where things just get deposited

12:14

and left there after the movement all

12:16

around. Well,

12:27

Rob, I want to go from the cozy and

12:29

domestic context of dust bunnies

12:31

back to something you mentioned a minute ago, which is the

12:33

cosmic context because

12:36

I came across a very intriguing

12:38

and very cute hypothesis

12:40

about the nature of a space object

12:43

that we have talked about several times on the show before,

12:46

and that is Omuamua.

12:48

Ah Yes, our old friend of Muhamoa.

12:50

So to briefly refresh, Omuamua

12:53

is the name of a fast moving

12:55

object in space that was discovered

12:58

in October twenty seventeen through

13:01

a ground based telescope and camera system

13:03

called pan stars one at

13:05

the Haleaka Law Observatory

13:08

in Hawaii, and Omumua

13:11

was big scientific news because

13:13

it was the first example

13:15

ever confirmed of a physical

13:18

object from another star

13:20

visiting our solar system, and scientists

13:23

were able to say with high confidence that it

13:25

came from outside our Solar system because

13:28

of its speed and trajectory.

13:30

So, your standard asteroid or comet

13:32

will will orbit our Sun in

13:35

a loop, and it might be a very elongated

13:37

loop, or it might be at a kind of tilted

13:39

angle, and its

13:41

speed will tend to change as it goes around

13:44

this irregular orbit. Maybe it'll

13:46

get faster as it swings around the Sun and then

13:48

slow down as it gets farther away from the Sun

13:50

in that loop. But instead

13:53

of orbiting our Sun in a loop, this object

13:56

entered the Solar System going extremely

13:59

fast angle nearly perpendicular

14:01

to the orbital plane of the planets. So

14:04

if you picture the planet circling the Sun

14:07

on a basically flat disc, could this object

14:09

hit the disc from the top and

14:11

then had its path sharply bent around

14:14

by the gravity of the Sun, and then continued

14:16

on a course taking it straight back out

14:19

of the Solar System forever. And

14:21

the decisive factor showing that it was not

14:23

from here and would not be returning

14:25

was speed. It had what might

14:27

be called a hyperbolic velocity,

14:30

enough speed that its path around the

14:32

Sun if you zoom out, was clearly

14:35

not the tight end of an oval

14:37

shape, but was closer to a V

14:39

shaped corner in a linear path,

14:42

in.

14:42

Other words, just passing through.

14:43

Yeah. So, Omuamua got

14:46

people excited for a number of reasons.

14:48

First of all, it was the very

14:50

first of its kind. Nobody had ever

14:52

confirmed an interstellar object in

14:54

our vicinity before, though soon

14:57

after its discovery we learned that

14:59

it might not actually be all that rare,

15:01

because another interstellar object

15:03

called Borisov, a rogue comet

15:06

this time, was spotted in August

15:08

twenty nineteen, and there are other indications

15:11

since then that this kind of thing might happen

15:14

a lot. It's just that Omumua was

15:16

the first one we happened to see

15:18

it happened to catch now. Of

15:20

course, one corner of the Internet got

15:22

very excited because, of course some people thought

15:24

it was aliens, right, this is an alien

15:27

probe or a techno signature of

15:29

some kind. We looked into these claims

15:31

back in the day when people were first

15:33

publicizing them, and our

15:35

judgment was that, you know, there's nothing

15:38

about Omumo that requires that conclusion,

15:40

though it did have some very odd and interesting

15:43

features that require some explanation.

15:46

One of these features was its apparent

15:48

shape. Omuamua seems

15:51

to be shaped like almost nothing else

15:53

we know of in our solar system, and

15:55

to be clear, this shape

15:57

is something we have to infer not

16:00

able to resolve an image

16:02

of Omumua's shape directly. It's not

16:04

like we could zoom in close enough with a telescope

16:07

to see it like these pictures of asteroids

16:10

we get from like a probe

16:12

that approaches really close, like the

16:15

image we got of the asteroid Binu from

16:17

the Osiris REX mission. You know that

16:19

is a direct camera image that we could

16:21

get because we were close. Omuamua

16:24

is a point like source of light. It

16:27

was far away and very small. But

16:30

by analyzing what's called a light

16:32

curve, which is the pattern of

16:34

time based variations in the intensity

16:37

of light reflected off of the object, scientists

16:40

can put together a likely model

16:42

or multiple likely models of its shape,

16:45

and according to what I've read, the best

16:47

models of its shape include either a sort

16:49

of tumbling elongated cigar shape

16:52

or a tumbling flat disc. NASA's

16:55

overview of the object still leans

16:57

toward the cigar shape, saying that it is

16:59

probably about four hundred meters

17:01

long and about ten times as long

17:04

as it is wide, and there's

17:06

still some variation in those estimates. Like other

17:08

sources I've looked at the put

17:10

the guess at it being more like two hundred

17:13

meters long and having a slightly different

17:16

length to with ratio. So

17:18

there was a lot of speculation about what this

17:20

object is. Is it we

17:23

know it comes from outside the Solar System, but

17:25

is it an interstellar asteroid?

17:28

Is it a rogue comet from another

17:30

star? Is it a shard of

17:32

a planet that got smashed to pieces?

17:34

What is it another strange

17:36

feature of Muamua that seems to contribute

17:39

to these the search for

17:41

an explanation as to its nature is

17:43

its seemingly anomalous acceleration.

17:47

The object was caught going slightly

17:49

faster and faster as it moved away

17:51

from the Sun, which is characteristic of comets

17:54

rather than asteroids. Comets, which

17:57

have some rock and dust content but

17:59

are also largely made of ice, can

18:01

accelerate beyond the speed

18:04

that would be predicted by gravity alone

18:07

by outgassing. When

18:09

they get close to the Sun. Comets

18:11

heat up and the ice starts to melt.

18:13

The ice and the volatiles melt and they

18:15

shoot out into space, and this

18:18

throwing of water and other volatiles

18:20

into space gives the comet

18:22

an equal and opposite propulsive nudge,

18:25

increasing its speed. Omuama

18:27

behaved basically as if it

18:30

were receiving this kind of cometary

18:32

speed boost as it was flying away

18:35

from its closest brush with the Sun. But

18:37

there's a problem. When comets

18:40

melt and outgas like this, we can

18:42

see it. They show a cometary

18:44

tail, and Omuamua

18:46

did not show a cometary tail, and

18:49

so this, by the way, was one of the arguments

18:51

of the people claiming that it was aliens,

18:54

that this strange combination of observations

18:57

showed that the object was an alien techno

18:59

signature, basically a vehicle based

19:02

on the principle of a solar sale. And

19:05

we again, we looked at that claim in more depth

19:07

years ago. Look up that episode

19:10

to learn more if you want. But we

19:13

sort of agreed with the skeptics that there's no reason

19:15

to jump to the conclusion of aliens yet.

19:17

Maybe it's just a natural object with

19:19

some unusual features.

19:21

Yeah, I mean, it was an exciting question, to be sure,

19:23

and it got the public interested. But is

19:26

it the first question you should ask. Probably

19:29

not, And again it seems

19:32

like they are far better explanations for what this was.

19:35

Right, So I'm about to get to one of those, actually a couple,

19:37

but in any case, it's weird

19:39

and intriguing. So it's an object that was from

19:42

outside our solar system, speeding up like

19:44

a comet, but showing none of the visible

19:47

tale of gas and dust we would expect

19:49

from a comet. And that brings us back

19:51

to the topic at hand, the dust bunnies.

19:54

One hypothesis that was put forward

19:56

to explain the observed behavior

19:58

of Umuamua was this, What

20:01

if it's not really an asteroid or

20:03

a comet in the way we know? What

20:05

if it is a dust bunny from another

20:07

star?

20:08

Dust bunnies from outer space?

20:10

Can your heart stand the shocking facts

20:12

about dust bunnies from outer space? So

20:15

I want to mention a paper called Omuamua

20:18

as a cometary fractal

20:20

aggregate the dust bunny

20:22

model. This was published in the Astrophysical

20:25

Journal Letters in twenty twenty

20:28

by Jane x lu Irich Fleckoy

20:31

and Renaud Tousson. In their abstract,

20:34

the author's right, the first known intertellar

20:36

object, Omuamua displayed

20:38

such unusual properties that its

20:40

origin remains a subject of much

20:42

debate. We propose that Omuamua's

20:45

properties could be explained as those of a

20:47

fractal dust aggregate.

20:49

Parentheses, a dust bunny formed

20:52

in the inner coma of a fragmenting

20:55

exo ort cloud comet.

20:58

So this would be a comet coming

21:00

from the sort of sphere

21:02

of objects surrounding another star,

21:06

like the Sun's ort cloud. The

21:08

authors go on, such fragments could

21:10

serve as accretion sites by

21:13

accumulating dust particles,

21:16

resulting in the formation of a fractal

21:18

aggregate. The fractal aggregate

21:21

eventually breaks off from the fragment

21:23

due to hydrodynamic stress. With

21:26

their low density and tenuously

21:28

bound orbits. Most of these cometary

21:31

fractal aggregates are then ejected

21:33

into interstellar space by radiation

21:35

pressure. So for some more explanation

21:38

on this that would make better sense to a non specialist,

21:41

I came across an article in Popular Science

21:43

which included illuminating quotes

21:45

from some of the authors of this paper.

21:48

So this article is called Omuamua isn't

21:50

aliens, but it may not be an asteroid

21:52

either. This was by Charlie Wood So

21:55

according to this article. In February

21:57

twenty nineteen, a Space Telescope

22:00

Science Institute astronomer named

22:02

Amaya Moro Martin suggested

22:05

that the explanation for Omuamua's

22:08

weird acceleration was perhaps

22:10

that it was unusually light

22:13

weight, so less like an asteroid,

22:15

less like a space rock, and more like a

22:17

space feather, and this

22:19

would make it possible for a natural

22:21

object to function more like a light

22:24

sale to be significantly sped

22:26

up by radiation pressure

22:29

from the sun. The sunlight giving

22:31

it a push. Scientists investigating

22:33

this idea referred to the model as

22:36

a fractal aggregate. So aggregate,

22:39

of course means you know, a collection of smaller

22:41

things. In the words

22:43

of the article, quote a fluffy conglomeration

22:46

of dust and ice grains, And

22:48

the fractal part of that name refers

22:51

to a porous structure

22:53

that repeats at different levels of resolution.

22:56

So if you zoom in or zoom out, you would

22:58

see similar patterns of holes and

23:00

gaps in this structure. Irich

23:03

Fleckoy, a physicist at the University

23:05

of Oslo who was one of the authors of the

23:07

dust Bunny paper, said

23:10

to Popular Science for this article

23:12

quote, I think if you hit this

23:14

thing, it would be a little bit like hitting

23:16

a spider web.

23:18

Oh wow.

23:19

So the paper had to answer several questions.

23:21

First of all, would the fractal aggregate

23:24

explain this object's movement

23:26

and acceleration? The authors

23:28

say yes. In fact, there

23:30

was another weird fact about Omuamua

23:33

that didn't come up earlier. Apparently

23:35

there was a slowing of its

23:37

rotation as it traveled, and

23:39

the authors said that this fit well

23:42

with the fact that solar radiation pressure

23:45

can exert an uneven

23:47

push on a rotating object

23:49

with like some parts of an object getting

23:51

more of a push from the solar radiation than

23:53

others, so, for example, it pushes

23:55

more on parts that are highly reflective.

23:58

So it's possible that radiation pressure

24:01

could help explain the change into

24:03

Inomumua's tumbling or rotation

24:05

pattern. If so, radiation

24:07

pressure from the Sun could also be responsible

24:10

for its acceleration. Another

24:12

question is could a

24:14

very very low density, porous

24:17

fractal object like a dust bunny

24:20

survive tumbling through space

24:22

without being ripped apart. The

24:24

authors model this and they

24:26

conclude yes, it can, but

24:29

the model does have challenges, and the Popular

24:32

Science article quotes an astrophysicist

24:34

at Cambridge named Roman Rafikov

24:37

who points out that in order for the

24:39

dust bunny model to work to have

24:41

the right amount of acceleration due to radiation

24:44

pressure, it would have to be amazingly

24:47

low density, about one hundred

24:49

times less dense than air at

24:51

sea level on Earth, and Rafikov

24:54

points out that this is even less

24:56

dense than human engineered aerogels,

24:59

which are pecifically created to

25:01

be as low density as possible. So,

25:03

Rafikov says in the article quote

25:05

how do you reconstruct this in interstellar

25:08

space? Like, how does something

25:10

like that form? How does it stay intact?

25:13

However, despite Rafikov's skepticism

25:15

of what this model would require, he

25:17

also said at the time of the article, at least

25:20

in twenty nineteen, that he couldn't come up

25:22

with a better explanation. But that doesn't

25:24

mean there isn't one. So the dust bunny

25:26

model I love it. It is a few years

25:28

old now, and it's not the only proposal

25:31

to reconcile umumu as weird

25:34

acceleration with its lack of the normal

25:36

features associated with commentary

25:38

outgassing. For example, there

25:40

was a paper I came across that was published in

25:42

Nature last year in twenty twenty three

25:45

by astronomers Jennifer

25:47

Bergner and Darryl Seligman called

25:50

acceleration of Umumua from

25:53

radiolytically produced H two

25:55

in H two O ice. And

25:57

these authors put together a model that

26:00

could explain the acceleration of omuumua

26:02

without the normally visible cometary

26:04

tale by saying that it

26:06

is due to its unique life

26:09

history, and because

26:11

of this life history, it was simply

26:14

venting a different kind of volatile

26:16

than what you'd see in a normal local

26:18

comet from our Solar System. So

26:21

the authors say, quote here, we report

26:24

that the acceleration of Omuumua is

26:26

due to the release of entrapped

26:28

molecular hydrogen that

26:30

formed through energetic processing

26:32

of an H two zero rich icy body.

26:35

In this model, Omumoua began

26:37

as an icy planetesimal that

26:40

was irradiated at low temperatures

26:42

by cosmic rays during its interstellar

26:45

journey and experienced warming

26:47

during its passage through the Solar System.

26:50

So the idea is, this icy

26:52

object is out in the interstellar medium

26:54

between star systems for ages

26:56

and ages, and the whole time it is

26:58

just getting cooked. It is getting bombarded

27:01

by cosmic radiation. This

27:03

radiation splits apart the

27:06

H two O molecules in the ice

27:08

of this object and creates

27:11

H two hydrogen gas trapped

27:13

within the ice. Then when it gets

27:15

close to the Sun, the ice melts a

27:17

bit and releases this hydrogen

27:19

gas, which provides the acceleration,

27:22

but not the same kind of tail you would

27:24

see from the regular venting of

27:26

pure intact H two O and dust

27:28

and in a regular comet. So just

27:31

wanted to throw that out there, because there are multiple

27:33

possible non aliens explanations.

27:36

Maybe one day we will have a more

27:38

conclusive model, but I think for now we still

27:40

don't know for sure what this object was.

27:43

I do kind of hope it was a dust bunny.

27:45

But yeah, all interesting

27:48

ideas.

27:48

Yeah, because ultimately, you

27:50

know, is it a life elsewhere in the

27:53

galaxy in the universe. We

27:56

don't know for sure. We can't say one way or another.

27:58

Is there dust? Yeah?

28:00

Hell, yes, I.

28:01

Think we can all agree there's dust.

28:13

Now here's an interesting tie

28:15

into the dust bunny that brings us back to terrestrial

28:19

affairs but also into the world

28:21

of invention and the

28:24

history of science as science

28:26

has been accepted by the general

28:28

public. And this is where we're also eventually going

28:30

to get into some cosmic horror as well, because

28:34

one approach to dealing with the accumulation

28:36

of dust in the home and the accumulation

28:39

of dust bunnies would

28:41

at least seem to be the elimination

28:44

of the empty and wasted space in

28:46

a room where they typically accumulate.

28:49

So, in other words, think of it this way. Most

28:51

of us tend to approach this by all right,

28:53

we know where the dust accumulates. Let's go dust

28:55

there let's go sweet there. But you

28:58

might also think, well, what is this space in my

29:00

house for the

29:02

only thing it's good for is accumulating dust

29:04

and dust bunnies. I should just seal

29:06

that off.

29:07

But wait, it isn't the point of having an

29:09

interior space in your home that you can

29:11

use that space. If you just seal space off,

29:13

it's like you can't get to it.

29:15

Well, these would be spaces that would be

29:17

very difficult to utilize, such

29:20

as not an

29:22

entire corner of your house, but just that minute

29:25

corner. This specifically one example,

29:27

this would be the little corners

29:30

at the edge of each stair in

29:32

a stairwell. And this is particularly

29:35

a place where we see.

29:36

The that's the devil's playground

29:39

exactly.

29:39

This is where we see the application of

29:41

the decorative dust corner. These

29:44

were popular during the Victorian era, especially

29:46

you know, during like the eighteen eighties, it seemed

29:49

to be an era of popularity for

29:51

these. These were little

29:53

metal features sometimes

29:55

described as an exploded triangle.

29:58

I included some images here for you and anyone

30:00

out there. If you want to see this, look up dust corner.

30:03

You know, there's like a simb There's a Wikipedia page about

30:05

them. The various images that there

30:07

are historic examples, but then also some people

30:10

are still producing these for you

30:13

know, homes that want that kind of like older touch,

30:15

that kind of Victorian touch. And so in

30:18

this picture, Joe, you can see in the corner

30:21

of the stairs, the

30:24

little corner there is just capped off, so the dust

30:26

cannot accumulate there.

30:27

Right, So instead of the corner of the inside

30:29

of a cube type shape, there is a smooth

30:32

ascent, the little curved triangle

30:34

goes right in there and just makes it a gentle

30:37

slope.

30:37

Yeah. And these were generally made out of metal, they

30:40

were generally highly decorative. They

30:42

would have been uniform, so whatever design

30:44

you had, they would have been. This design would be

30:46

on all of the little dust

30:48

corners that you installed in your house.

30:51

And you know, the interesting thing about them

30:53

is, I feel like I've almost certainly toured

30:56

places that still have these either

30:58

original pieces or part of some sort of retro

31:00

design aesthetic. But I don't remember ever

31:02

having seen one before. Maybe

31:05

they're just easy to miss. I'm not sure they're look

31:07

familiar to me. Yeah, so

31:09

I'm now I'm on the lookout for them. But I've

31:12

at least thus far in my life. I feel like I've

31:14

not been paying enough attention.

31:16

They do look like something you would see in a historic

31:18

home.

31:19

Yes, and there does

31:21

seem to be a science connection

31:24

here, or at least a science history connection, according

31:26

to Gail Caskie Winkler,

31:29

author of Victorian interior decoration,

31:31

cited in a May June two thousand and

31:34

sixth edition of Old House Journal.

31:36

The article here says quote

31:39

even science affected stare hardware,

31:42

with dust corners emerging in

31:44

the eighteen eighties, probably in response

31:46

to the growing acceptance of germ theory.

31:49

Summarizes Gail Caskie Winkler.

31:52

What dust corners and germ theory?

31:54

That's I wouldn't have made that connection.

31:56

Because of the dust. Yeah, so interesting.

31:59

I was also reading about dust corners

32:01

in an article by Will Wiles titled

32:03

The Corner of Lovecraft and Ballard,

32:06

about architectural details and the fiction

32:09

of various authors. But as the title

32:11

suggests, HP. Lovecraft, they lived eighteen ninety

32:13

through nineteen thirty seven, and JG.

32:15

Ballard, who live nineteen thirty through two thousand

32:17

and nine. The Lovecraft connection,

32:20

of course, would seem to line up with the timeline

32:22

of dust corners in particular, but

32:26

Wiles is in general describing the kind of

32:28

architectural war on filth

32:31

that rises with acceptance

32:33

of germ theory, impacting various

32:35

aspects of design, and then also

32:38

like modernist thought and also

32:40

weird fiction of the era.

32:42

Okay, so that maybe

32:45

there are certain architectural features

32:48

that signal an evolving idea

32:50

of what it means to because a lot

32:52

of architecture in history has

32:55

communicated an idea of being able to

32:57

tame the natural world, to sort of like

32:59

sub do nature and bring

33:01

it under our control. And this

33:03

is a space that we control. This is order,

33:06

and this is human civilization inside this building

33:08

with these right angles. But as

33:10

the understanding of nature changes

33:13

to include like smaller and smaller

33:15

organisms, maybe that also

33:17

signals a concurrent change in how

33:20

architecture expresses that desire

33:22

to dominate.

33:23

Nature right right, especially

33:25

on the home front, in the home. So

33:27

it's not a situation where victorians

33:29

were saying we have to install

33:32

dust corners everywhere if we are to defeat

33:34

plague or anything like that. No, no, but

33:37

it was more like, okay, once this mindset

33:39

has is becoming more and

33:42

more popular and accepted, you

33:44

know, your eyes turned to the house, and

33:46

and oh, here is the dust, and where's

33:48

the dust accumulating? What can be done architecturally

33:52

stylistically to combat

33:54

this enemy, So Wiles

33:57

writes the following quote. Once the home

33:59

was rid of moldings, fabrics, and chotsika's,

34:02

the sanitary maniac suspicion fell

34:04

on the dust harboring corner itself.

34:07

In the eighteen eighties, the dust corner was

34:10

introduced, a brass triangle

34:12

that could be tacked at the meeting point

34:15

of two walls and the floor, or

34:17

the corners of a flight of stairs, so dirt

34:19

couldn't gather and sweeping would

34:21

be easier. But he of course points out that

34:24

dust corners were a clumsy and

34:26

imperfect solution in a modernist

34:29

yearning for the true cornerless

34:32

room, a term the cornerless

34:34

room that became associated with breaks

34:36

from reality, So the padded room

34:40

of a sanitarium was sometimes referred to

34:42

as a cornerless room,

34:45

he writes, quote, in the literature of

34:47

the first half of the twentieth century, there

34:49

are references to the cornerless room

34:51

as an ultimate convenience in

34:53

a modern home. So it's

34:55

suddenly it's like boat. We're kind of having it both

34:57

ways. It's like this thing we're yearning for,

35:00

but also this thing that is that

35:02

it might be unnatural but

35:05

also might be just the desired form

35:07

of everything. And then the corner sometimes

35:10

in some uses, becomes a gateway to

35:12

cosmic horror and madness. One

35:16

literary example that he draws on is a

35:18

short story not by HP Lovecraft,

35:20

but by one of his protegees, another

35:23

author of the same time period that he

35:25

was in communication with, a gentleman

35:28

by the name of Frank A. Belknup Long,

35:32

and the work in question is The Houlms

35:34

of Tendalos.

35:37

So this was a story that I was originally just

35:39

going to reference, but then I found

35:41

like a ninety nine cent collection of this

35:43

author's work. I picked it up, I started reading. I haven't

35:45

finished it yet as of this recording, but

35:48

it's essentially one of these sort of gentleman's

35:52

study kind of setups

35:55

where you have two scholarly

35:57

individuals. It is almost impossible

35:59

for me not to picture them as being played by

36:01

Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, and

36:04

one of them. This is like a ninth late nineteen thirty

36:07

story, I believe, and the

36:09

main character is like I have decided

36:12

to take drugs and travel through time, and

36:17

his friend is like, oh, I don't think you should

36:19

do that, and he's like, no, I haven't all worked out, and he's like, okay, fine,

36:22

I will. I will be here to help you into Yeah,

36:26

that's the setup, but it eventually involves

36:29

terrifying, vaguely

36:31

hound like entities from another dimension

36:34

that enter into our world through

36:36

geometric corners. Here's

36:38

the here's a quick line from it. Quote,

36:40

The foul expresses itself through

36:42

angles, the pure through curves.

36:45

Man, the pure part of him is

36:47

descended from a curve. So

36:50

yeah, this idea that, like the angle

36:52

is so unnatural that this becomes

36:54

the nexus point through which these terrifying

36:57

creatures can appear at any moment and

37:00

hunt one down.

37:02

Now.

37:02

Wells also cites a book by Ellen Cleary, Victorian

37:05

Dust Traps, which expands

37:07

on this Victorian fear of dust,

37:09

arguing that dust traps in the home, so you know,

37:11

areas where dust accumulates became

37:14

the new focal point for potential disease

37:16

during this time. The quote primary

37:19

locus of pollution anxiety

37:21

within sanitary geographies

37:23

of the Victorian home, which is I

37:26

found a rather nice way of putting it.

37:28

Oh, that's interesting because going back to what

37:31

we talked about in the first episode, I actually don't

37:33

know the extent to

37:35

which, if any, there is a correlation

37:38

between dust and say, the spread

37:40

of infectious disease, Like it

37:43

is there really any connection there between

37:46

you know, tiny flying particles or the accumulation

37:48

of dust in the house with the

37:51

spreading of germs per se.

37:53

But of course we do know that there is some

37:55

correlation with dust and dust

37:58

mites, which, as we talked about

38:00

it in the last episode, are the

38:02

number one source of allergic

38:05

reactions in human beings worldwide.

38:08

Yeah.

38:08

Absolutely, and of course that allergic

38:11

reaction has many things in common with

38:13

some infectious diseases.

38:15

But anyway, this is all interesting in this idea of it being

38:17

like a focal point of cleanliness

38:19

based on new information that may

38:21

be feeding anxieties about the link

38:23

between cleanliness and health, which of course

38:25

is always a complex scenario in the human mind

38:28

because you also have these other ideas

38:30

of hygiene and spiritual

38:32

cleanliness that get clogged up with everything else.

38:34

But it reminds me a little bit of during

38:37

the early days of the pandemic, in particular, when

38:39

suddenly there's a lot more focus on, say, door

38:42

knobs and the cleanliness of door knobs.

38:44

That was something that not

38:46

everyone was ignorant

38:49

of prior, but it suddenly

38:51

became a much bigger thing,

38:53

and then.

38:54

Front of mind.

38:55

Yeah, front of mind. And then in the

38:58

last couple of years it's been able to we've

39:00

been able to push it further back. So I

39:02

speaking for myself, I don't think as much about

39:05

who's been touching the doorknob, certainly not

39:07

like those early days of the pandemic. All

39:10

right, well, we're going to go ahead and close it out there, but we'd

39:12

love for everyone to write in. If you have

39:15

a first and foremost more information

39:17

about what you call a dust bunny, from whatever

39:20

background you have, or whatever you've learned

39:23

in your travels or your conversations, let

39:25

us know. We'd love to hear from you. If

39:27

you have additional thoughts on cosmic dust,

39:30

cosmic horror corners, the hounds

39:32

of tendlos, whatever you have right

39:35

in, we'd love to hear it. Just

39:37

a reminder that Stuff to Blow Your Mind is primarily

39:39

a science and culture podcast, with core episodes

39:41

on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Listener mail

39:44

on Mondays a short form episode on Wednesdays

39:46

and on Fridays, we set aside most serious concerns

39:48

to just talk about a weird film on Weird House

39:50

Cinema.

39:51

Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio

39:53

producer JJ Posway. If you would like

39:55

to get in touch with us with feedback on this episode

39:57

or any other, to suggest a topic for the future,

40:00

sure, or just to say hello, you can email us

40:02

at contact Stuff to Blow your

40:04

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40:12

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