Brain-eating amoebas are creeping into warmer waters, economists get less relatable the more they agree with each other, and Leonardo da Vinci once built a robot lion because apparently being a genius in one field was never enough. This week is a tidy mix of microbial horror, academic weirdness, and Renaissance showmanship, which is exactly the sort of combination science does best.
Brain-Eating Amoebas and the Warm Water Problem
Let’s start with the nightmare fuel. Brain-eating amoebas are real; they live in warm freshwater, and climate change is helping make more places feel a bit more welcoming for them. These little organisms move around using pseudopodia, which is a lovely scientific word for false feet and a terrible thing to picture heading anywhere near your face.
The key detail here is that they are not lurking in every glass of water waiting to ruin your day. The real risk comes when contaminated water goes up your nose, which is why the practical advice is less panic and more common sense. Swim if you want. Just maybe do not start free styling through a warm pond and then blast unfiltered water into your sinuses like you are auditioning for a medical case report.
Economists and the Problem With Agreement
Then we move to economists, a group that somehow manages to be both highly influential and deeply confusing. A 2013 study found something oddly revealing. The more economists agreed with each other, the more their views tended to drift away from those of the general public. Which is not ideal for a profession that keeps trying to explain why everyone else is wrong about money.
It suggests that expert consensus can sometimes become its own little ecosystem, shaped by internal logic, professional incentives, and the joy of impressing other economists at conferences. The result is a kind of intellectual group chat where everyone is nodding along while the rest of the world is outside asking why rent is still impossible.
Da Vinci and the Robot Lion
And then there is Leonardo da Vinci, who looked at the world and apparently decided painting, anatomy, engineering, and invention were still not enough to keep him busy. So he built a robot lion. A mechanical lion that could walk and then open its chest to reveal flowers. Which is either an act of genius, theatre, or the most impressive flex in Renaissance history.
It was reportedly made for the French court, because if you are going to show off, you may as well do it internationally. And honestly, it is hard not to love the sheer ambition of it. Imagine if modern billionaires spent more time funding elaborate mechanical animals and less time trying to live forever through beige wellness routines. Give us more robot lions. Give us fewer biohacking podcasts.
So that is the week. Amoebas thriving in warmer water, economists disappearing into their own consensus bubble, and da Vinci reminding everyone that invention should also be a bit theatrical. Stay curious, avoid sending pond water up your nose, and if you ever get rich, please spend at least some of it on something gloriously unnecessary.
CHAPTERS:
00:00 Introduction
01:10 Brain-Eating Amoeba Basics
02:43 How It Infects You
03:57 Warming Spreads the Risk
04:39 Economists vs Everyone
10:10 Assumptions and Governance
11:03 Medici Exile Storytime
12:23 Bologna Power Play
13:07 Medici Politics Banter
14:32 Da Vinci Gift Idea
16:46 Robot Knight Blueprint
18:48 Building the Lion
19:44 Courtroom Lion Reveal
23:22 Modern Art Machines
24:43 Ratings and Farewell
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[00:00:00]
[00:00:03] WILL: It is time for a little bit of science. I'm will grant an associate professor in science communication at the Australian National University.
[00:00:13] ROD: and I'm Rod Lambert. I'm a 30 year science communication veteran with a mind of a teenage boy.
[00:00:18] WILL: and today. Well, we've been at the Beach Large Hadron Collider.
[00:00:23] ROD: Yeah. Drinking in swimming cocktails. In fact, I'm still there. I dunno where you
[00:00:27] WILL: are of, uh, isotopes and science and stuff like that. So rather than giving you our regular pile of science, we've
[00:00:34] ROD: saved you something delicious. We've been scrolling away little snippets throughout the millennium and you're gonna get a bunch of those right now.
[00:00:41] It's gonna be fab.
[00:00:42] WILL: Enjoy.
[00:00:47] I wanna say thank you yet again to climate change. Um,
[00:00:49] ROD: we all do.
[00:00:50] WILL: I mean, because, you know, climate change isn't great. Fucking the world in many ways, you know?
[00:00:55] ROD: Yeah.
[00:00:55] WILL: You know, whatever. It's
[00:00:56] just
[00:00:56] ROD: old, you
[00:00:57] WILL: know, Siberia's getting warmer though. They can have more, uh, summer [00:01:00] holidays,
[00:01:00] ROD: they can deal with that.
[00:01:00] It'll make the gags more inviting.
[00:01:02] WILL: Indeed, indeed. I just wanted to, um, update you, um, on one of the other ways that we should thank climate change.
[00:01:10] ROD: Okay. I'm ready.
[00:01:10] WILL: So, brain eating amoebas.
[00:01:12] ROD: Wow. I feel grateful already. I, I've always complained my brain, there's too much of it and it's too heavy if someone could eat some of it away for me.
[00:01:21] WILL: So the most notorious free living amoeba, amoeba being a very small single celled organism. Mm-hmm. But, you know, it's, it's a bit of an agile one. They might have pseudo feet, little false feet on them so they can
[00:01:33] ROD: false feet.
[00:01:34] WILL: They, they're single cell, but they can sort of walk around and do stuff.
[00:01:37] ROD: But they, they're false feet, but they work.
[00:01:39] WILL: Yeah, they're called pseudopodia. Um, but
[00:01:42] ROD: pseudopodia,
[00:01:42] WILL: yeah. I, I dunno, I dunno why that's
[00:01:44] ROD: very an average name for a band.
[00:01:46] WILL: Pseudopodia. We're
[00:01:47] ROD: pseudopodia. Are you sure?
[00:01:49] WILL: Yeah. Yeah. Like warm up to the warm up.
[00:01:51] ROD: Have you thought of having a different name?
[00:01:55] WILL: But anyway, they're single celled organisms, but you know. Mm. Uh, they can [00:02:00] do a little bit of wandering around.
[00:02:01] ROD: Mm.
[00:02:02] WILL: And one of them is called na fowl. Mm. Commonly known that,
[00:02:07] ROD: literally only one of them. I didn't know they had individual names.
[00:02:10] WILL: It takes a long time, but there are scientists out there working on naming each one individual.
[00:02:14] ROD: This is Janelle, this is Keith, and this
[00:02:16] WILL: is, and this is Natalie area.
[00:02:18] ROD: Special name.
[00:02:19] WILL: Well, this one has a common name as well, which is, which is brain eating.
[00:02:21] ROD: Ooh, great.
[00:02:24] WILL: It lives naturally in warm, fresh water, uh, between 30 degrees and 40 degrees, like
[00:02:29] ROD: the pool in your backyard.
[00:02:30] WILL: Lakes. Rivers. And maybe indeed.
[00:02:32] Maybe indeed. But it is rarely found in cooler places. Ah, uh, because, you know, it needs a bit of warmth in the water. Now, okay. Just to say how
[00:02:42] ROD: thanks. Climate change,
[00:02:43] WILL: brain eating bacteria gets into, you can't get it by drinking that water. So don't worry, don't worry if you're drinking the river in a, in a warmer place,
[00:02:51] ROD: okay,
[00:02:51] WILL: you're fine.
[00:02:52] Um,
[00:02:53] ROD: really
[00:02:53] WILL: because your stomach, you know, kill that little bacteria
[00:02:55] ROD: and everything else is well,
[00:02:57] WILL: but if you might be doing some stuff where, [00:03:00] you know, might be cleaning out your nose with some water or anything sort of in the nosal area, what, um. You know, like you're doing one of those ones, the, you know, a sinus cleaning
[00:03:08] ROD: Oh, your teapot in the schnauzer, because apparently that cures aids,
[00:03:12] WILL: or you might be doing it for Indeed, stop smoking aids.
[00:03:19] So, you know, there, there are places where you might put a bit of water through your nose and, and, and you, you clean out your sinus maybe for religious reasons or for hygiene reasons. So, so
[00:03:27] ROD: excuse me for religious reasons.
[00:03:29] WILL: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:03:30] ROD: Before you come into them,
[00:03:32] WILL: I don't look, I don't know.
[00:03:33] Yes.
[00:03:35] ROD: Okay, now you can come in.
[00:03:35] WILL: Yeah, you should. Probably not. Like, you know, it could be, could be something.
[00:03:39] ROD: Which religion?
[00:03:41] WILL: I dunno.
[00:03:41] ROD: Again, if you're listening and you know, please tell me. 'cause I'm one,
[00:03:43] WILL: it's probably like a big religion. It's probably all of the religion a big one. It's probably all of the religions except atheism.
[00:03:48] Like, I don't know.
[00:03:49] ROD: Is that a anyway,
[00:03:50] WILL: atheism? Well, you know, it's classified in that genre, but
[00:03:54] ROD: it does have theism in it. You're right, you're right.
[00:03:57] WILL: So happily as things get [00:04:00] warmer, our pseudopod brain eating amoeba. Is able to walk into now becoming warmer and warmer places.
[00:04:07] ROD: So does it get your ride on your Ross River Fever?
[00:04:09] Um, mosquitoes
[00:04:10] WILL: and
[00:04:10] ROD: stuff. I
[00:04:11] WILL: just, all of them. All of them. Great. It's like great, you know, you know, climate change, it's lovely how there are so many effects from the warmer world that will come to towards those of us who live in the cooler world and brain eating amo.
[00:04:23] ROD: All the benefits of your tropicals,
[00:04:26] WILL: you know,
[00:04:27] ROD: and by benefits.
[00:04:29] WILL: So not much. Not much more there. Great. Except great. If you want, you can worry about brain eating amoebas, so
[00:04:37] ROD: you guarantee I will.
[00:04:39] WILL: Alright, I've got a puzzle for you. Gimme a puzzle. So this comes from a 2013 study where a group of economists said there's something interesting going on. When we look at, you know, regular folk views on things and economists views on things. Are you saying economists think slightly differently to all other people?
[00:04:56] Yes. Are they saying, I don't wanna throw you in it? Yes. Are they [00:05:00] suggesting, but Yes. But the way they think different is the interesting thing. Oh, the different. Different. Yeah, the different, different. So they got two data sources. You know, they got the expert economists. Your expert economists. Yeah. They got a bunch of these and they're asking them questions every couple of weeks.
[00:05:14] So this is expert economists, and then another survey which asked regular Americans, you know? Mm-hmm. So a thousand. So kid present, kid rock, kid rock, kid rock, Ivanka Trump. Can you imagine getting kid rock in a survey? So he probably had him, so they're asking questions that, that you'd very much expect, you know, to ask both economists and people about the economy.
[00:05:37] ROD: Sure. You know, there's all sorts of stuff. Like, um, is he good? Is the economy good? No. Do you like economy? No. No opinions on the economy, but more about how the economy works. Oh, so, so it might be stuff like, how does the economy work? If you tax the wealthy more, will it increase tax revenues? You know? No, no, no.
[00:05:53] The tricks to tax 'em less than then it trickles down. It's a question, not a, oh, yeah. Oh, that's my answer. No, you're not [00:06:00] allowed to give answers. Oh, okay. You know, other stuff like our CEOs overpaid, bailing out automakers, good or bad, good in nafta, good or bad, you know these definitely the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement.
[00:06:12] My favorite one of all the free trade agreements really. I've studied extensively. Yeah, NAFTA's my, that's my go-to, you know? You know what? It's not called that anymore. No, I didn't know that Trump abolished that, but he changed it. Course he the same, when you call it Trump agreement. No surprise. No surprise on.
[00:06:27] WILL: On all of these issues. Economists opinions differ greatly from ordinary Americans. This is some awesome research. Yeah, no, this is very predictable to the point, but there's something weird. Yeah. The more that economists agreed on something uhhuh. So the more that all of the economists agree one thing, yeah.
[00:06:47] The further they are from the rest of the population. That is awesome. So if the economists don't agree, then they're pretty much like the rest of the population. Like our schmos. Yeah. Whatever. But the more convinced they are of something, oh, it's a conclave of [00:07:00] weirdos, it, it becomes further and further away from the rest of the population.
[00:07:03] So Uhhuh, so there's a whole bunch of these questions and there's this, that's cool. There's this strong. Strong point in the trajectory that the, the, the clearer they get to each other, that they completely agree, the less like the rest of the world they are. The more you are like you, the less you're like us.
[00:07:19] So here's the conundrum. Now the researchers gave a a few explanations for what's going on here. Yeah. But this is my question to you. What explains So a group of experts? Yeah. And here the economy of course is something that applies to a lot of people and people have opinions on. Sure. But a group of experts, the more they agree.
[00:07:37] The less they're like the rest of the world. I think there are many ways to explain that quite quickly. One of them is try to impress each other with how very fucking clever they are. That that was one of the ones that they suggested for sure. It's like, oh no, I think you're fine. This subtle nuance, which I thought of in the bath when I was lucid dreaming, and then they'll say, and other ones will go like.
[00:07:55] ROD: I don't understand a word he said, I better agree in case I look like an idiot, maybe. Yeah. Oh, and the other one is whether they [00:08:00] do it deliberately or not, to try and keep it as obscure as possible conceptually and in their language so that if others can't understand it, because I've talked with some economists and they get really mad when you simplify what they talk about.
[00:08:10] When you kind of go, oh, you mean X equals Y? And they're like, oh no, it's way more complicated. Let me explain. I'm bringing 10 of my friends to help me. And you're like. What the fuck are you talking about? I just spent three minutes telling you what you took an hour to make confusing for me. So it could be part of protecting their patch, which a lot of experts do.
[00:08:27] WILL: Yes, yes. It could just be hardcore economists who hang together. Have issues. Yeah. And they might literally just not be like the rest of us, look man, you did that really well. They were actually pretty good versions of their articulation. So weirdly, I think about shit like this. No. So it's probably not driven by a knowledge gap, even though the economists definitely did know more.
[00:08:49] Sure, yeah. There was some stuff in there that they showed. Probably not that. Now, one thing they did try to correct for originally is that while they had a diversity of, you know, economists who were Democrat and [00:09:00] Republican and independent in this, yeah, yeah. They were generally like they're professors, so they're generally more well off than the average American.
[00:09:06] Sure. And they're generally more liberal. At least a little bit, at least central. If not, yeah. So there was a bit of correction for that. Okay. But they said the same sorts of things. The subjects may perceive the questions as exam questions rather than policy or political. Like they, they're like, yeah, yeah.
[00:09:21] And so what they're doing is, what do you give is the economics answer. Yeah. To this thing. Yeah. Not what is the actual, the right answer. And they want to get it right as in terms of an exam. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So the more that the questions were framed a little bit like, you know, what would be an exam? What does the literature say?
[00:09:38] Yeah. So that's what you said. Yeah. Let me prove what I've read. Okay. Well done. Yep. Um, and again, economists trained to be precise and feel more scrutinous by their peers. Yep. Interpret, interpret the questions more literally than other American ordinary Americans do. So the ordinary Americans might be interpreting sort of the general vibe of something.
[00:09:57] Yeah. But these people are looking at, okay, now I'm just looking at [00:10:00] the exact policy instrument that you raised in the question. And so, to be fair, that's what experts in whatever room do. Yep. Yep. We know that. We know that I don't like being fair, but I'm giving it a go. So the general point that they get to in the end is that it's assumptions about the questions and about the ways of looking at the world that the economists have.
[00:10:19] WILL: Yeah. That they're like, oh no, we ruled all those out. You know, we're not thinking about those right now. And ordinary Americans. Are like, no. Maybe we should pay attention to them. Yeah. Maybe we should include them. Maybe we think. Yeah. And so the study ended with this point. I would rather be governed by the first 2000 people in the Boston Telephone book.
[00:10:36] Yeah. Than the 2000 people in the faculty of Harvard. And, and I think, I actually, I actually agree with random people governing is not a terrible thing at all. Old school democracy. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But there, there is something really interesting here. That maybe the economists marginalizing themselves and it's not actually the right answer for society.
[00:10:55] ROD: Oh, my experience, which is of course, deepen rich when it comes to economists is [00:11:00] not maybe, yes.
[00:11:02]
[00:11:03] ROD: The Mechi family. Oh, oh, the Mechi family. We're gonna go historical, so they're a little bit exiled from Florence in the early 1490s. Whoa. You don't wanna tell me that. They were lords of Florence for a long time. First, they were lords of Florence for a long time. First. Yeah. You know, they were rich ass fuckers that kind of owned the world.
[00:11:21] Yeah. From Florence. From Florence. And. Then they got a, a tad exile. Okay. Okay. You're just jumping to the end point here. I know. It's like, it's a good story. Did you know there was this like rose from the cave? That's, it's not really science either in terms of A little bit. The only part of science in there was dates, so Yeah, depending on which you read.
[00:11:39] Uh, 1492. 1494. Anyway. Off your pop fellas and ERs, the whole family, apparently. Oh God. I would love to exile the whole family. You're all gone. Would you? You're all outta here. No, I think exile, it'd be hard, is an awesome old school punishment. Like, get outta here, you're gone. You are exile a you, you, you, you must no longer be in this.
[00:11:55] Do you reckon? I reckon that'd be a lot of work. 'cause you'd have to flush out all members of the family. You'd have to ensure [00:12:00] they left. Oh, we exile like, like ambassadors and stuff like that. Occasionally that's easy. 'cause they have papers anyway, they wanted to get back in there. I'm gonna get back in charge.
[00:12:07] WILL: Mm-hmm. And they realized at the time, if you get the enthusiastic support of the French King Oh wow. It's probably a way in. Oh, obviously. What are we like Louis fourth? Frankie the first. Frankie the first. Francis. King Francis. That is not a French accent. Yeah. But it is a Medici accent of the, I don't know what it might have been Yanton.
[00:12:23] ROD: So December, 1515, there was a scheduled meeting between King Francis I and Pope Leo the x or 10th in Bologna, which is a great town for drinking spritzes really cheaply in the middle of town on the weekend. Thank you. They cut off all the streets. That's, and they pour you these buckets of upper oil spritzes.
[00:12:37] Fantastic. So they say it basically, this meant the senior dei Deis could get access to, you know, your, your grand mage at the event. Okay. So they sneak, sneak into bologna. Yeah, because Lan or Demi Demii, he, the, the dude who was the, uh, king of the Medici at the time was also Pope Leo the 10th brother. So that's kind of handy.
[00:12:58] WILL: Sure. Keep it in the family. So [00:13:00] yeah, that's it. He's the brother of the Pope Leo Pope Leo's gonna meet the French King. Could you hook us up with God just gonna sneak on in and have a bit of a chatty poo Okay. With the other hangers on. So who kicked him out of Florence? Like was it the king or the, or? The, it was me.
[00:13:10] ROD: It was me. I don't know. I don't know the, the, the geopolitics of it at the time. You've gotta listen to that other podcast. A little bit of history. A little bit of history. We should do a little bit of history. We should, I can, I can guarantee only you a little bit. Just did like human, human ladies and the, that's a little bit of history.
[00:13:25] Human ladies, and, well, I also told you about the 1490s and the, the de, the, the medicis. So anyway, um, a lot of folks would want a little bit of your old French king attention at this event. So they needed to get his attention somehow, but in a really good way. Oh, and throw in a little bit of flattery as well.
[00:13:40] WILL: Now, okay, now I'm with you. This is like, it's not the, the results that we're talking about here. It's how to get the attention of the French King. Yeah. Ah, in, in a world where your kings were getting plenty of attention and a lot of, I get it, I get it. A lot of your teabagging and your flashers, so you need to, you run a public awareness campaign on you do TV [00:14:00] beforehand.
[00:14:00] ROD: Have you seen Florence and how Crap it is without us there. Yeah. French Kings. They're my favorite kings. Exactly. It's been 20 odd years. Yeah. That's now that place hates France. Wanna get yourself a king. Yeah. Great kings. Yeah. Do you want Florence to like France again? Oh, you imagine running a, running a advertising came firm for the monarchy.
[00:14:16] WILL: Like, like bring back the monarchy in a country that doesn't have it. I To bring it. I was gonna say if it's advertising for the monarchy, you just say, uh, a bay. Well, we will kill you. I was just thinking now like, oh, now. I think America's an example of that. Anyway, that's moving on. That's a different podcast as well.
[00:14:32] ROD: Um, so fortunately Gi Giuliano, sorry, Giuliano the head Medici was also the patron of a fell. You've heard of Leonardo da Vinci? Oh, he's, he did the painting. He did, he painted a picture on, and he invented helicopters. He did. He never built one, but he invented them. That's why all helicopters are called. No, he was like that.
[00:14:52] WILL: No, they exactly like the kids that invented the MP three player or what did you invent? Invented the laser backpack. Yeah. The, the handheld laser gun. Yeah, exactly. [00:15:00] Exactly. Leonardo da Vinci invented the helicopter. He did in drawing form insane. Like my handheld laser gun would've worked. Listen to last week's episode.
[00:15:07] ROD: It was a last wing God, that was a long time ago. So what better way to flatter the monarch than a gift specially created by Leonardo. For the Monarch. Oh, I'm, I'm with you. Oh, it's cool. I'm with you. And he needs something better than some. Little sketch of a woman who may or may not be smiling. So there's a bit of parallel here.
[00:15:26] WILL: You need something better, you know, you know, like many countries around the world are trying to capture the attention of the, of the Monarch Yes. Of Donald Trump. Yep. And they're giving him gold crowns. Australia gave a little, little gold submarine. It's not even gold. It had a little bit of crappy gold on it.
[00:15:39] ROD: It was your, your Revel modeling kit. Yeah, it was a modeling kit that elbow did himself and, and put some gold on it. Uh, I worked really hard on it, but I, I feel I. So, so we have long been doing, you know, a little bit of flattery for the king. Yeah. Your upward suck. So, da Vinci, what can he do for the French King?
[00:15:56] Well, like I said, the, a little picture of a lady who may or may not be [00:16:00] smiling, that you can't see really very easily these days. You mean the Mona Lisa? I do. He did, he did that for the French King. No, it's the, I won't do, what's that? What? It's not spectacular. Like, look, I painted you this small picture of a woman sitting still.
[00:16:11] The king goes, it's a picture. I have one of these. You're not, I have many. I have many. So Medici wanted to create something that represented, quote, a powerful gesture of diplomacy and innovation at a time when art, science and politics were closely intertwined. Geez, Louise was running a grant application here, pretty much, and I should add, but he didn't say this, but this is what, you know, maybe have some flowers as well.
[00:16:33] Some flowers. You, you flu, Lee? Was it flours? Delise. Oh, flowers on it. Or, or, or like some bouquet of flowers. Just include some flowers. Gotta, everyone likes flowers. The French love flower. I love a flower. They're all good. You gotta, so at this stage of his career, Leonardo's notebooks would chalk a block with ideas about mechanical creations, robots, and shit.
[00:16:55] Literally robots. Yeah. Yeah. Like a mechanical. Creatures. [00:17:00] It's true, apparently. Um, the most ambitious one he had designed but not built an automated Germanic night. Nice. Not any night. A Germanic night. I like, I like we've specified what race is like. Yeah. Yeah. Otherwise. It wouldn't make sense. You wouldn't know where to put the gears.
[00:17:18] WILL: It's not gonna be like an English or a French night. No, it'd be ridiculous. Too complicated. The giants are straightforward. You can't automate a French person. No. Barely move on their own. And the English Knight. Too much volition. So the night apparently was gonna be powered or should be powered by an external mechanical crank.
[00:17:38] ROD: It would use cables and pulleys. Please, please tell me. Someone's gotta wind him up all the time. I don't. Running along behind it. Fight good, sir. Accepting German, it would need pullies to sit, stand, turn its head, cross its arms, and even lift up its metal visor. I love crossing its arms. Well, no. What I need to do is cross it.
[00:17:57] WILL: Arms. No, if you haven't, if you have like 50 of these [00:18:00] standing in front of your castle and you go cross your arms, you pull on a pulley and they all cross their arms like they harrumph, I would, I would not fight a war with them. If they can cross their arms like that, these robots harrumphed at me in German and they have visors, the people going.
[00:18:14] ROD: So of course, uh, no night or even complete drawings of it exists today, but there's lots of hints. And also apparently in 2002, a roboticist at nasa. Actually pulled together a bunch of sketches and built a version of the night and it kind of worked. Oh, oh, good on them. Yeah. Not bad. Did did they make it dramatic?
[00:18:30] Yes, they did. It had an accent. I, I pleased accent. I really hope they put an accent and there were three genders in its language, masculine, feminine, and it was very, very tricky. But of course tro, sorry. Yeah, NIE is a gender. Gender on nie. What are you male or female? I'm Nitche. So, um, obviously he thought Da Vinci said, I, I'll build a robot lion.
[00:18:53] WILL: Fuck. Yeah. Yeah. Like King. King of the animals. Yeah. Yeah. Also, I mean, to be fair, the Pope, who's the [00:19:00] brother of the Medici name's Leo. Nice. It's Leon nine. Oh, coincidence, I think not. I dunno. Might be so, okay, cool, cool. He's gonna build a robot line. So apparently Leonardo had rep had done heaps of observations of animals.
[00:19:14] ROD: He dissected them. He sketched a lot of lines in motion. Yeah. And he would explore how different joints would bear weight. So all he has to do next just build one. Just make one. Just fucking make one. So he's almost there, basically a hundred percent. Well, 99%. 'cause I got the sketches. Yeah. Look, here's the pictures I've looked at.
[00:19:30] WILL: Lions. I know. And now next I've drawn them. Here's a robot line. This you'll notice this diagram is very detailed. It's pretty much like I've finished. So he did build it. It was made of wooden metal. It existed. He made it a robot line. He made a robot line. When it appeared before the French court, a lot of people were like.
[00:19:47] Fuck off. Whoa, fuck off. Whoa, Leonardo, what are you doing now? Man, that's ridiculous. Is that a real one? You made a horrible life, or is that a robot? Um, and apparently the machine, uh, had uncanny realism. [00:20:00] Well, sure. I in and in those days, you know what they would fucking do? No. First take a lion and, and, and gut it.
[00:20:06] Pull out all of its ins, like stuff two slaves in and go move around. He's the robot. You roar. No, you know, you know old school people, they were happy doing that kind of stuff. It's like a robot only, it's people in the skin and it speaks German. To the French King. I'm sure they would've loved that. Oh, good.
[00:20:28] ROD: A German, I want to give you Florence. You've heard it a thousand times. So apparently the lion could walk on its own, lift its head, and it would open its chest to reveal a bouquet. Of flowers of, oh my God, my God, that is so cool. Like all lion.
[00:20:47] That's how it is. But of course, no original blueprints of this lion survived and there is no actual lion either. Ah, this is the sadness of history. Yeah. You know, we goes, we list the cool shit. We list the cool shit [00:21:00] we do like we do. Who cares about the painting? I mean, nice. Nice Leo, but we'll invent photography.
[00:21:05] WILL: We'll do it better. Don't worry. Yeah, exactly. Give us, give us your robot line plans. Give, give us your line. So, um, most of what's known about this line comes from. Later descriptions after the facts, which is a lot like, you know, the Bible. Oh, and also all after the fact. Yeah. But those people, those people back in those days, they're after the fact tellings are pretty wild photographic memories.
[00:21:25] ROD: No, they, they did not have photos and they never embellished. They, they made shit up like crazy in those days. Never, always accurate. So. To what you're saying, some of the descriptions apparently got a little, a bullion. Yeah. It ate me five times. I'm, I am so dead. Well, they, some would say I could roar. It couldn't, um, it could move autonomously for very long distances, which it couldn't hunt.
[00:21:45] Gelles. Nice. No, I'm making that up, but I might as well. From the claims, they were basically, they, they gave you the impression this thing was running around roaring and doing whatever. So who are the, these impressions of people that were at the court sort of thing? Like they're writing their diaries or something?
[00:21:58] Or knew a fellow who knew a woman who [00:22:00] knew. A guy who knew a lady who was there thing. Yeah, like the Bible. I know a person who knew a person who was related to a person. No, no. People 300 years later were definitely at the Bible. They're in touch. So fragments of what the lion's design looked like could be traced through a bunch of Da Vinci's notebooks.
[00:22:14] Mm-hmm. And there's a, a biographer of the Renaissance artists. Guy called Sardi, who apparently described it in really decent detail. So it was probably powered by coiled springs and weighted gears. Like Clockworks. Yeah. Yeah. Which is unusual because at the time most machines, when they bothered, they relying on brute force.
[00:22:33] So I assume people no clockwork was And water. Yeah, sure. But clockwork was the true, but that's, that's, that's the one that was your quantum mechanic. I think at that time they were like, you know, you could, you could probably, if you made clockwork good enough, you could do everything. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You could make your, or, or, or, yeah.
[00:22:48] WILL: And you could make it speak German. Yes, you could. And raw and hunt gazelle's. So it's, uh, so the modern reconstructions, which they did do, was actually made it feasible. They built one, and there's a model of it in Milan [00:23:00] at the Leonardo three Museum. So there's a picture. If you're interested, if you wanna look it up online.
[00:23:06] Okay. It's made outta wood and, and no. Okay. It looks like, like a, a wooden model of a lion. It doesn't look like you wouldn't look at it and go, fuck, that's a lion. Yeah. But you, you put a lion's skin on it, you can see it represents a lion and some slaves in there somewhere. And it's, it's, yeah. But look, I think that's great.
[00:23:20] ROD: I'm glad he made it. I think it's very cool. My question is, why don't we do it now? Because if billionaires spent their time making dramatically complicated clockwork animals and stuff. Instead of trying to live forever in creepy ways. Okay, here's, here's what I'm gonna say. It'll be so much cooler. Yes, billionaires are trying to live forever in creepy ways, but I, no, I actually think there, there are funded weird projects and one of the ones that this, I'd like to see these, this just popped into my mind, um, is one of the most beautiful art projects I've ever seen.
[00:23:48] WILL: I think they're called, um, is it this podcast? Uh, something like the, the Dutch Word for Wind Beast, um, wound Animal. No, but it's definitely got the word beast in it. Um, [00:24:00] but these beautiful, beautiful sculpture type things. Oh, those, and he's got 'em on the beach and they Yeah. Yeah. They're fantastic. And they are, they're, they're phenomenal.
[00:24:06] I think they're made of wooden canvas and things like that, but they have a complicated machinery spectacular where they sort of walk along the beach in the wind and it's like, and they are huge and elaborate. Yeah. Yeah. Spectacular. They're multimeters tall sort of thing. So I, I think don't more of that.
[00:24:20] People are doing this stuff. More of that salute it and, and respect it. I love it. Like it's, but I want all the billionaires compounds to be covered in that. I'd love to see them get obsessed with that rather than, yeah. I'm, I totally building colonies on burnt out oil platforms. Yeah. Do something fun and quirky and interesting.
[00:24:36] No, beautiful art and interesting art. Fund it. Yeah, go for it. Well done Land.
[00:24:40]
[00:24:43] WILL: Well, that was your little bit of science for the week.
[00:24:46] ROD: holiday edition. You're special by the pool wearing a bikini edition.
[00:24:49] WILL: But because you're on holiday, you know that you still have the power to give us the rating that you need to give us. Yeah,
[00:24:56] ROD: seven stars on every app. Even things that don't do podcasts.
[00:24:59] [00:25:00] Yeah.
[00:25:00] WILL: Go out there and write it on like a recipe app
[00:25:02] ROD: an Uber and Yelp. Is it Yelp still a thing?
[00:25:05] WILL: I think so. I'm
[00:25:06] ROD: I don't know. I'm at a restaurant where Don't ye
[00:25:07] WILL: listener, if you've got some topics that you want us to explore,
[00:25:11] ROD: tell Will.
[00:25:12] WILL: How would you tell Will his
[00:25:13] ROD: number is? 0 4 0 5 oh. Uh, cheers. At a little bit of science Do com
[00:25:20] WILL: au.
[00:25:21] ROD: au
[00:25:21] WILL: Do that. We want your stories.
[00:25:23] ROD: we wanna hear from you.
[00:25:24] WILL: Lovely listener. Enjoy the pina colada.
[00:25:27] ROD: Oh and the
[00:25:29] WILL: col. Pin colada.
[00:25:30] ROD: Pini Kaia Pina Pia
[00:25:31] WILL: Pina Kaia of
[00:25:32] ROD: of the Clade
[00:25:33] WILL: Penai. Cate.
