Deepfake scammers are now running full Zoom meetings, birds are lining their nests with cigarette butts like it’s a homewares trend, and Europe’s climate could be one ocean current wobble away from doing something dramatic. This week, we bounce between AI crime, urban wildlife hacks, climate tipping points, and a fruit fly brain getting uploaded like it’s just another file transfer, which is a fairly unhinged itinerary, but here we are.
Deepfakes, Zoom Calls, and the New Age of Getting Scammed
We start in Hong Kong, where a bank heist went from “suspicious email” to “Hollywood plot” in about five minutes. Scammers used AI deepfakes to impersonate colleagues on a Zoom call and convinced the CFO to transfer a large amount of money. Not by hacking the system, but by hacking trust. Which is arguably worse, because it means the weak point is not your password. It is your face.
It is also a neat little warning that the era of “I will know it is fake because it looks fake” is over. These scams are getting slicker, more personal, and harder to spot in real time. The safest assumption now is that any unexpected request for money, even from a familiar face, deserves a second channel check. Ring them. Message them. Ask a question only they would answer. Because apparently, we have reached the stage where your coworkers can be convincingly replaced by pixels.
Birds, Cigarette Butts, and the Nicotine Nest Aesthetic
Then we head outdoors, where birds are doing something that feels both disgusting and annoyingly clever. Some species have been collecting cigarette butts and weaving them into their nests. At first glance it looks like pure chaos, or a very bleak commentary on urban litter. But there may be a reason. The chemicals in the filters can help repel parasites, meaning the nest becomes a kind of DIY pest control system.
So yes, the birds might be using our filthy habits as a survival tool. It is resourceful. It is grim. It is also the sort of adaptation that makes you realise nature does not care about aesthetics. If it works, it works. Still, if you needed another reason to stop flicking cigarette butts into the street, here it is. The local wildlife is literally redecorating with them.
Europe’s Climate and the Current That Could Ruin Everyone’s Mood
After that, we get serious, because the ocean currents that help keep Europe relatively mild are showing signs of instability. If that system collapses or shifts significantly, Europe’s weather could change fast, and not in a fun “pack a jumper” way. More like a “this rewrites agriculture, infrastructure, and daily life” way. It is one of those climate stories that feels abstract until you remember how many people rely on stable seasons to grow food and not freeze.
The point is not that Europe is guaranteed to plunge into an instant ice age tomorrow. The point is that the planet’s systems are connected, and when one big piece starts wobbling, the consequences can spread. Climate change is not just “a bit warmer”. It is the risk of pushing complex systems into new modes that humans are not prepared for.
A Fruit Fly Brain, Uploaded Like a Software Update
Then we swing back into the future, where scientists have mapped a fruit fly brain neuron by neuron and uploaded it into a virtual simulation. The result is a digital fly brain that can interact with its environment in ways that resemble real behaviour. Which sounds like a joke until you realise it is a serious step toward understanding how brains work and how biological intelligence might one day operate inside artificial bodies.
It is also the kind of research that quietly changes what feels possible. Today it is a fly. Tomorrow it is something larger. And somewhere in the middle, we all have to decide how we feel about “brains” that exist as code. Fun times.
Hats and Status
Before we wrap up, we take a quick detour into history, where hats in early modern England were not just fashion. They were status, identity, and sometimes even part of punishment and social control. Which is a nice reminder that humans have always been weird about what you put on your head. We just have better lighting now.
So that is the week. Deepfake crime, cigarette butt nests, climate systems on the edge, digital insect brains and historical hat drama. Science is messy, surprising, and occasionally absurd. Which is exactly why we keep coming back.
CHAPTERS:
00:00 AI Zoom Scam
01:31 Show Intro and Lineup
03:02 Pipe Smoking Animal Tales
06:28 Birds Using Cigarette Butts
08:32 Nicotine as Parasite Control
11:20 School Smoking and Odd Uses
15:29 AMOC Climate Tipping Point
19:33 Uploading Brains Fruit Fly Model
23:50 Connectome Driven Fly
24:47 Virtual Embodiment Claims
25:20 Scaling Up To Mouse
26:48 Hybrid Bio Machine Futures
28:13 Hat History Detour
30:27 Hats As Social Signals
SOURCES:
https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-found-a-big-problem-with-how-we-measure-microplastics
https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2026/ay/d5ay01801c
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0003347226000011
https://nsojournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jav.01324
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2024BiInv..26.1705P/abstract
https://futurism.com/science-energy/research-fly-brain-matrix
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[00:00:01] Will: So we start today with an update from Scam News. I just wanted to alert you because you, listener, you, rod, are worried about scams. Of course. Scams are the, you know, we can all be losing our money in dodgy ways. Well, this one.
[00:00:15] Rod: one,
[00:00:15] Will: Comes from Hong Kong. so workers in a bank in Hong Kong and the bank has been kept secret, have been scammed out of quite a lot of money by some scammers that used a really interesting new technology that we all hate.
[00:00:30] And I think we could all hate it in a new way. So, In this story, the chief financial officer of, of the bank was asked to transfer, something like $200 million Hong Kong dollars. So that's, that's roughly 25 million American or who could convert to Australian, into a bank account. And the financial officer said, nah, man, that sounds a little bit, nah, that's dodgy.
[00:00:53] And obviously that's the Australian version of saying it. But, our friends, the scammers said, well, I know how we can convince [00:01:00] him. we should just get on a zoom call and we should use some AI deep fakes of the other people in the bank pretending to be the other people in the bank. So they set up a zoom call. And the rest of the, financial officer, he is seeing, he's seeing his colleagues faked via ai, deep fake technology in a Zoom call saying, yeah, transfer the money. Transfer the money. So 200 million Hong Kong dollars later, we can all hate Zoom just that little bit more.
[00:01:30] It's time for a little bit of science. I'm will grant an associate Professor of science communication at the Australian National University.
[00:01:54] Rod: did not know that about you.
[00:01:55] Will: Well, there you go.
[00:01:56] Rod: go. I'm Rod Lambert, a 30 year science communication veteran [00:02:00] with the mind of a teenage. Boy
[00:02:02] Will: And today as well as scam news you have,
[00:02:04] Rod: I'm gonna talk a little bit about the upside for cigarettes.
[00:02:07] If you're a bird.
[00:02:08] Will: I've got some. Yay. Climate change
[00:02:11] Rod: always. Yay. a little update on, uh, uploading your brain to the computers.
[00:02:16] Will: Oh, nice. speaking of brains and heads, I've got some hat news for you. Ooh.
[00:02:20] Rod: Ooh.
[00:02:21] Will: Listen, we're gonna make you happy yet again,
[00:02:23] you're gonna be,
[00:02:23] that's our mission, our mission to wallow in the,
[00:02:27] the end times.
[00:02:28] Rod: is a possibility that the microplastic story might leave you slightly less unhappy.
[00:02:33] Will: Well,
[00:02:35] Rod: it might not.
[00:02:36] Will: Is this where you say there's microplastics in my sperm, but it,
[00:02:39] Rod: but in a good way
[00:02:41] Will: In a good way.
[00:02:42] Rod: they're wearing them like clothes, but,
[00:02:44] Will: but now that means your sperm will last for a thousand years. I,
[00:02:47] Rod: Oh God. The other one with a. Teenager Anyway. That's terrible. I I don't
[00:02:52] that. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna tell you, this comes from a 2011 post from possibly my favourite smoking website.[00:03:00]
[00:03:00] Will: What is this like a smoking
[00:03:02] Rod: website?
[00:03:02] Oh yeah. And I know, you know the one Pipes magazine.com.
[00:03:04] Will: Pipes magazine.com classic. Smoking. Uh, yeah.
[00:03:08] Rod: Not like, you know,
[00:03:09] Will: like you
[00:03:09] I've, I've gotta say
[00:03:10] Rod: like
[00:03:10] you sawed dust 900 to a packet.
[00:03:13] Will: Okay. What have we got? Okay. Vaping. We're ruling out vaping for a second. Now, this of smoking, you've got your traditional durry cigarette.
[00:03:19] Yeah. Then you've got your cigarette on
[00:03:21] Rod: a,
[00:03:22] but there are variations, like the roll is cooler than you, than you're tailored.
[00:03:26] Will: Yeah. Okay. And thin or thick. I feel like if you're gonna smoke, you should go Winfield red, like you or Marlborough,
[00:03:32] Rod: extra tar. Was it Packet of Laramie High Tars
[00:03:35] Will: Camel, you know, the,
[00:03:36] Rod: ca? Yeah. Unfiltered untipped.
[00:03:38] Will: Yeah. But then,
[00:03:39] but then you've got your cigarette on the, on the
[00:03:40] cigarette
[00:03:41] Rod: Yeah. Yeah. Then your shiru
[00:03:42] Will: shiru. What's a shiru like?
[00:03:44] Rod: Like a long thin cigar that Oh, yeah. Classy Buccaneers would smoke.
[00:03:48] Will: Apologies. I've only ever read that word and I, I didn't know it was pronounced Shiru.
[00:03:52] Rod: it might be chair root,
[00:03:53] root it it might.
[00:03:55] Will: And then you've got your cigar, but then you've got your pipe and
[00:03:58] you've got your, your
[00:03:59] corn [00:04:00] cob pipe or your,
[00:04:01] Rod: your large bold carved out of a human thighbone pipe and.
[00:04:06] Your chillums. Yeah. Anyway, this talks about all of those, but what caught my attention was Member kf, uh, five EQV. He, I assume, I'm pretty sure it was heap. It was amusing. When I smoke, I've noticed some critters seem drawn to the smoke. Some cigars seem to attract wasps. Even though wasps, they'd smoke. This is odd, I think, but a very real phenomenon.
[00:04:26] Maybe it has something to do with smoke smelling. Sweet. Okay. Pipes and cigars seem to draw squirrels, rabbits, bobcats, and other small animals out of hiding. And animals that are usually skittish around. People seem much bolder when the person is smoking. Maybe over the centuries he speculates some animals, developed an instinctual knowledge that a smoking human is one, relaxing and not as threatening.
[00:04:46] Okay.
[00:04:47] Will: okay.
[00:04:47] Rod: My dog will usually run around the yard or lay under a tree unless I'm smoking my pipe. Then he will come and lay down very closely where I'm sitting and wag his tail and be generally very happy seeming the whole time. As long as this whole time the bowl is lit, could this [00:05:00] be my dog's personal preference?
[00:05:01] Songbirds will often land slash perch much closer while I'm smoking my pipe. Honestly, I don't know what to think of these things. Has anyone else noticed anything like this or do they have any thoughts about what could be behind some of these experiences?
[00:05:14] Will: Indeed? I have never thought this either. Well, I'm not a pipe smoker, but, um,
[00:05:18] not yet.
[00:05:19] but it does sound very chill.
[00:05:20] Like if you are smoking a pipe and some songbirds come and sit on your shoulder and
[00:05:24] Rod: well, like Disney, snow White style, and they take your washing off the line. You
[00:05:28] Will: like that's very close to attaining nirvana. Like that's
[00:05:31] a
[00:05:31] Rod: that's true. Enlightenment. And I agree, like, you know, the, the smoking has a certain calm coolness to it if you do it right.
[00:05:38] Will: We're not advocates of smoking, but we're recognising
[00:05:41] Rod: that except for it being cool.
[00:05:43] Will: I'm just
[00:05:43] recognising
[00:05:44] Rod: a lot of harmful things are cool though. Manufactured
[00:05:45] Will: cool though, man.
[00:05:46] Rod: what isn't, what cool is not manufactured.
[00:05:49] Ours obviously. Got it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he poses a lot of questions here and there are so many animals to consider, but we can't do all these in one e.
[00:05:57] Will: near every
[00:05:57] Rod: animal?
[00:05:57] Every animal, he goes to the zoo. [00:06:00] Exactly. A baths with a little hole, a one way valve.
[00:06:04] Will: like as, as a life project to go, I'm gonna smoke a charu and a cigar and a
[00:06:09] pipe
[00:06:09] Rod: every vertebrate. And if I get through them all, I'm gonna go to invertebrates and then maybe slime malts. And I'm gonna rate them on this calm index. I'm just gonna do birds because there are so many. And also 'cause there's a story in futurism that caught my eye. The headline is Birds are getting hooked on cigarettes.
[00:06:27] It kicks off saying, but not for the reasons you might think.
[00:06:30] Will: Okay.
[00:06:31] Rod: What reasons might you
[00:06:32] Will: No. Okay. If there's like, my instant guess was like, this is cigarette butts thrown
[00:06:37] away in, in, you know, nbb bins and stuff like that.
[00:06:39] And some birds are, they've got the nicotine, enough nicotine in there that it's giving them a
[00:06:44] Rod: high,
[00:06:44] just take the edge off.
[00:06:45] Will: Yeah.
[00:06:46] Some
[00:06:47] bird edges.
[00:06:48] Rod: never, I never bash my spouse, my chicken spouse when I've had a few butts.
[00:06:52] Will: did you go there?
[00:06:53] Rod: Taking the edge
[00:06:54] Will: off.
[00:06:54] Why did you, you could've just, I've had a hard day at bird
[00:06:56] work.
[00:06:57] Rod: can be very aggressive and,
[00:06:58] Will: and I need to,[00:07:00]
[00:07:00] Rod: they're not like people, man, don't anthropomorphize. No,
[00:07:02] Will: No, I get it. I get it. But still,
[00:07:04] Rod: I dunno why I went there. Probably 'cause someone, a friend, not me. Not really a friend, an acquaintance was wondering. Anyway, uh, the story was inspired by a recent article in what is probably my, I dunno, top three. Animal research journals, animal behaviour, probably top three. the article's called Urban Blue Tit Nests and Cigarette Butts, accidental Litter or Adaptive Behaviour, and obviously any article that has tits and butts in it.
[00:07:27] Nobel prize material
[00:07:28] Will: it did have tits and tits and
[00:07:30] Rod: butts. Tits
[00:07:30] Will: in the headline.
[00:07:32] You, you've got a Google search on that. Like you, you're like Tits and Butts
[00:07:35] Rod: Oh shoot. But must be a Google Scholar. Only
[00:07:38] Will: Yeah, Google Scholar.
[00:07:40] Rod: Fuck, that's a good idea. Actually. I'm gonna do that when I get home. Oh, the stuff it will turn up.
[00:07:46] Every episode writes itself from now on. so researchers are from the uni, the University of Lads in Poland. And you knew that, but others didn't. So they're investigating why your standard euro, blue tits were really into bringing cigarette bits and butts into [00:08:00] their nests because apparently they're, they like to bring 'em in.
[00:08:02] They speculated it might be helping them mitigate the effects of parasites.
[00:08:07] Will: Mm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
[00:08:08] Rod: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. It's more medicinal, more you medicinals and, and, and your, your.
[00:08:12] Will: Prophylactic. Well,
[00:08:13] Rod: Well, yeah, well, your your defence device, what do those buggers do when they come and spray your home for cockroaches and stuff?
[00:08:21] Oh, yeah. Your fumigations and so forth. Yeah. So these lud researchers did a bunch of experiments. So they tested whether the inclusion of cigarette butts in nests or replacing a natural nest with a sterilised artificial moss and cotton wool nest on day five and day 10. So these were the alternatives.
[00:08:38] So sterilised cotton, wool day five
[00:08:40] Will: a new nest. Yeah.
[00:08:42] I, I don't think you can do that. Well,
[00:08:43] Rod: they can, there are university researchers from
[00:08:45] Will: Lloyds. No, I get, I, I, no, I just feel like, saying to an animal, okay, you've built your home. Now we're just gonna secretly replace it in the
[00:08:51] night.
[00:08:52] Rod: They didn't say that to them.
[00:08:53] Will: well, okay. Well, like in animal ethics would say, do you want to
[00:08:57] Rod: replace
[00:08:57] it? You need to explain it to them first. They need to [00:09:00] be on board.
[00:09:00] Will: Yeah. I, I feel like,
[00:09:01] Rod: no, not European, bts, they're very progressive and, and they're very laid back. They're
[00:09:05] Will: happy to move into a new
[00:09:06] Rod: They don't really care about a lot. They don't really care about a lot.
[00:09:09] So they did this either they, had these, uh, cigarette enhanced or the fake, and sterilised ones, and they compared them to a control group, which is basically your everyday homemade nest. Fair enough, both the cigarette button nests and the sterilised nests led to the birds having. Elevated levels of haemoglobin apparently, which is an indication of better physiological health.
[00:09:29] apparently, compared to the control group who did not have these elevated levels. I mean, it's the first thing you do. Then once you've given them these fake nest or not, you throw 'em on their back and suck their
[00:09:37] Will: blood.
[00:09:37] Rod: blood's. What you do, it's what you do.
[00:09:39] Will: do. It's what you do.
[00:09:39] Rod: So the natural nest, um, in the control group had way more ticks, mites, and fleas than the ones that
[00:09:45] Will: Yeah. But did they check over like the longer time, you know, as we get rid of all the microbes in our
[00:09:50] Rod: environment,
[00:09:51] Yeah. This is a 400 year study
[00:09:52] Will: then we're no longer, yeah.
[00:09:53] They evolved to be crappier over time.
[00:09:55] Rod: time. the original Calvinist, Mr. Calvin, he started it [00:10:00] So maybe it's just that the, it's the non-natural fibres that do it and the fact they replace them that.
[00:10:04] Made it better. Not just cigarette butts, but the article goes on to talk about other studies. So they went, it's not just about our work. So it's a Mexican study, an experiment demonstrating that house finches add cigarette butts in response to ecto parasites, house fins, Mexico ecto parasites.
[00:10:19] Will: an ecto parasite? Do I need to know, it's different to an endo parasite.
[00:10:22] Okay. Okay. It's, it's, it's something they don't want.
[00:10:24] Rod: Well, what we could go with is the word parasite. Yeah. It's a parasite. So the quote is, house Finch females responded to researchers placing more live ticks in their nest. Mm-hmm. By placing even more cigarette butts in there,
[00:10:38] Will: I'm gonna need some cigarettes. This, this is so gross. Now I need some
[00:10:41] Rod: it ticks everywhere. I kind of, I gotta relax. That's better. So they put more cigarette butts into their nest, which indicates an established reaction to a heightened risk of parasitic infection among some birds. But what I thought about when I read that was like, can you imagine being the researchers?
[00:10:55] Like, how is your day honey? Eight hours putting ticks in birds nests Science seemed much [00:11:00] sexier in grad school.
[00:11:01] Will: No.
[00:11:01] Rod: That I, no.
[00:11:02] Will: people
[00:11:03] might like that. Some people might
[00:11:04] Rod: like,
[00:11:04] that. But how many
[00:11:05] Will: I'm vaguely tormenting these tits for
[00:11:08] Rod: I want names. T to mentor what with ticks. I also wasn't surprised about any of this because when I was in high school, teachers tried to convince us that cigarettes were bad.
[00:11:16] Mm-hmm. My high school had two rules. One was you could only smoke outside except in the student common room.
[00:11:21] Will: Did
[00:11:22] Rod: Literally, that was a school rule.
[00:11:23] Will: high school
[00:11:24] Rod: Yeah. It was in the eighties and that was the school rule. So one, yes.
[00:11:27] Will: You only smoke Except in the student common room, which was like a bar at three o'clock in the morning.
[00:11:31] Rod: In the olden days, it was horrifying. You'd needed a knife to cut your way through the air. And the other rule was no bare feet in carpeted areas. And so they would say to us, oh, no, no. Did you know? Did you know? They would say, nicotine's only, you know, bonafide industrial real purpose is as a pesticide.
[00:11:48] And I thought, gross. But also I didn't really smoke a lot of tobacco. You
[00:11:51] Will: there was, I mean, there's two versions of this story. but when they first banned smoking in planes, there's one group of people who protect.
[00:11:57] Perhaps we're worried that the planes would fall [00:12:00] apart, that the, was it. House fins,
[00:12:02] now your planes will be full of ticks. Like, Whatcha doing?
[00:12:07] Whatcha doing? I learned to fly on my own Then.
[00:12:09] No. that, uh, the tar wrapped around all the planes was helping to hold them, together.
[00:12:14] Rod: Yeah. See that says a lot less about cigarettes and a lot more about everything else to do with aviation at the time.
[00:12:19] Literally everything. Fuck. That's horrifying.
[00:12:23] Will: But they did use, smokers, to show where the holes in planes were,
[00:12:27] because
[00:12:28] Rod: yeah, of
[00:12:28] Will: if
[00:12:28] there's a hole in the plane, then
[00:12:30] Rod: you need to know
[00:12:31] Will: bit of the, you, you need to
[00:12:33] know about that. It's gonna build up a little bit of, a circle of tar ishness around.
[00:12:36] So
[00:12:37] um.
[00:12:37] Rod: That's how you would test your, your house to be your, you know, your zero airtight. Sure. Ultra passive aggressive. Yeah. Heat. Heat, cold
[00:12:44] Will: let's let's go in here and smoke a bunch of
[00:12:46] cigars.
[00:12:46] Rod: Get in there. Smoke a few balls
[00:12:49] Will: other ways. But
[00:12:50] Rod: Nope. That's the only way. So anyway, there's another study.
[00:12:52] Harvard study, so it's obviously true. Cigarette tobacco reduces the survival of an invasive parasite that affects Darwin's finches. It's a [00:13:00] type of finch.
[00:13:00] Will: He named one, particularly after himself. Well,
[00:13:02] I don't think he, this one's He did. He was not an arrogant man. He was a sickly man and he banged his cousin, but he was not an arrogant man.
[00:13:08] But it was a time when banging your cousin was much more normal.
[00:13:10] Rod: Oh, I think it was desirable.
[00:13:12] Well, indeed Probably forced upon you.
[00:13:13] Keeps the genes pure.
[00:13:14] Will: He
[00:13:14] Rod: So anyway, Darwin finches, vampire flies, which is the particular parasite, and their babies did not like tobacco enhanced lab environments.
[00:13:22] They larval pupil adults. They,
[00:13:25] they were
[00:13:25] Will: sorry. Vampire flies. But, you're off the invite list for Christmas.
[00:13:29] Rod: No, exactly. 'cause if you're gonna come around our house, lots of cigars.
[00:13:32] So they said, we collected Finch nests, quantified the prevalence and massive cigarette butts and the abundance of flies in the nest. Again, this is science that I'm glad someone does it, but I don't want to, I've got other things to do. Although most urban Finch contains cigarette butts, 73% of them.
[00:13:46] Will: of them,
[00:13:46] Rod: The mass of cigarette butts was very low and did not correlate with fly abundance.
[00:13:50] Will: Oh.
[00:13:50] Rod: So not necessarily a correlation between the amount of cigarette butts and the amount of flies,
[00:13:54] Will: but still most urban finch nests
[00:13:57] Rod: three quarters had cigarette
[00:13:58] Will: No, that's saying something [00:14:00] like the finches themselves are saying, you
[00:14:01] know, we'd like 'em something about it. Uh,
[00:14:02] maybe it's a, a sort of, homoeopathic sort of finches are into the homoeopathy.
[00:14:07] They're like, just have a bit of
[00:14:08] cigarette and, uh, sorry.
[00:14:10] Rod: also, I imagine if you've got a tiny little bird head, a cigarette butt could be quite a nice pillow. I
[00:14:14] Will: I would, I like, if I was a wildlife photographer, my dream shot would be, you know, a beautiful shot of a finch flying with a RY button in its mouth.
[00:14:23] Rod: going oh shit of a day.
[00:14:28] Will: I would be, that would be off the charts.
[00:14:30] Rod: So they're going to say, compared to past studies, Finch Nest require 10 times as many cigarette butts to affect fly survival as the amount they actually have. So not enough. So although tobacco can affect vampire flies negatively, Finch is likely do not incorporate enough of them to effect, as they put it.
[00:14:46] So
[00:14:47] fly fitness,
[00:14:48] Will: the fins have got half the new, the science news here, they're like tobacco can help, but they didn't get the quantity right.
[00:14:54] Rod: Kind of. Yeah. It's like, yeah,
[00:14:56] Will: in the fins here? Like, what's going
[00:14:57] Rod: not picking on the finches, they're just saying, [00:15:00] you know, it's, things aren't as clear as the headline.
[00:15:02] Birds addicted to cigarettes. But one thing, here's my takeaway, here's my takeaway. Keep dropping cigarette butts. 'cause the birds need them. That's the takeaway. Stop. That is the
[00:15:11] Will: a good takeaway,
[00:15:11] Rod: I'm sorry. It's a good takeaway, but sometimes science tells us ugly things. It's no's fault. It's just the reality.
[00:15:16] Will: You want some ugly
[00:15:17] Rod: things.
[00:15:17] Yes, please.
[00:15:20] Will: Have you heard of the am o, the A MOC or the Atlantic? Meridian,
[00:15:26] Rod: I have heard of it. I have heard of it.
[00:15:28] Will: Overturning circulation.
[00:15:30] Rod: I have heard of it. If you said to me, tell me what amoc means, I would come up with something terrible that had included swear words and dirty words, but yes, it, it does ring a bell.
[00:15:39] Will: Yeah. So the Atlantic Meridian overturning circulation is
[00:15:42] Rod: medi doodle. I think it
[00:15:44] Will: Yeah. Yeah. It's the flow of water, you know, the oceans are flowing all the time and ocean currents are pretty important to the world.
[00:15:51] Rod: This one. Yes. Yes. They damn well are,
[00:15:53] Will: well. This one in particular is pretty important.
[00:15:55] Rod: and hang on, lemme just preempt and it's doing fine. In fact, it's probably better than ever. [00:16:00] Maybe it's just too strong and regular.
[00:16:02] Will: health.
[00:16:02] Rude health. Well, ruddy complexity. I'll,
[00:16:05] pause on that and say, let's see. Anyway, so this one, basically it heads from the Southern Ocean up through the Atlantic.
[00:16:12] Bringing at first, you know, it's cold there, but it warms up when it hits the equator and
[00:16:16] Rod: then what we all do, it
[00:16:17] Will: it brings your warm waters up to Europe and North America, and they love it.
[00:16:21] they didn't, know they loved it, but basically the Amoc has made Europe inhabitable for the last thousands
[00:16:27] Rod: of
[00:16:27] years, and it is very inhabitable.
[00:16:29] Will: Yeah, no, totally.
[00:16:30] Rod: That is a very inhabitable lump of
[00:16:32] Will: but bringing warm water up in that direction, it's not so that they can go swimming, but it changes the climate of Europe and North America enormously.
[00:16:39] If it wasn't for this climate, if for example, the water flowed, you know, south from the, the Arctic or something like
[00:16:45] Rod: that,
[00:16:45] that'd be
[00:16:45] Will: uh, then, then Europe would be a vastly colder
[00:16:48] place.
[00:16:49] Rod: So you're telling me that no more of my midyear beach holidays in the Italy's, for
[00:16:54] Will: example. Well, I mean, things are not moving that
[00:16:56] Rod: quick. I mean, if they broke, if it broke, 'cause you are gonna tell me [00:17:00] that it's getting better ish.
[00:17:04] Will: Better
[00:17:04] Rod: with a minus sign in front of it. Cool. Go on then. Make me
[00:17:07] Will: Well, I'll, here we go. The critical Atlantic current system appears significantly more likely to collapse than previously
[00:17:14] Rod: thought
[00:17:14] Collapse is a big word.
[00:17:15] Will: Yeah. Collapse. So,
[00:17:17] um,
[00:17:18] Rod: get a little sluggish. Yeah, maybe chill a bit.
[00:17:20] Will: so this research it's modelling research, but it's brought in new parameters that seem.
[00:17:26] to, bring in all of the upwelling
[00:17:28] Rod: and
[00:17:28] Will: different flows of the ocean. And a lot of the ocean overturning scientists, sort of groups of people are like, no, this is all pretty plausible. But what it's saying is, an estimated slow down of up to 58% in the next 80 years, a level, almost certain to end in collapse.
[00:17:45] Rod: collapse 50, 50 or 80
[00:17:47] Will: Yeah. I, look, look, it's not your lifetime.
[00:17:49] Rod: You don't, you don't know that I'm bizarrely resilient, you know,
[00:17:52] Will: but this is one of those things where I just wanted to flag this
[00:17:54] because mm-hmm.
[00:17:55] You know, we think about climate change, you know, sort of either gradually warmer temperatures that we [00:18:00] might then say, ah, okay, that might make it harder to grow
[00:18:03] oranges here,
[00:18:04] or it might melt some ice and raise sea level, which is a problem
[00:18:08] Rod: And a few more of your dengue infested mosquitoes may wander down to southern climbs.
[00:18:13] Yeah. Um,
[00:18:14] Will: but,
[00:18:14] this kind of stuff is one of those tipping points where suddenly you get to a, you get to a place where we've changed the, the direction of flow of an ocean circuit, and then suddenly we are in a different world. Where
[00:18:27] Rod: can I go on record saying I I don't, I I don't want that. I, I'm gonna register my no vote. I'm anti,
[00:18:32] Will: so I don't have anything more to tell you about that. It's dismal. It's dismal. this is a, potential climate tipping point that yes, you listener might be here in Australia and say, I don't care about no Atlantic current. Uh, but.
[00:18:43] Rod: but
[00:18:44] Will: Ocean currents go around the whole ocean.
[00:18:46] Rod: Yeah. Yeah. They might have different names, but in the end, all the water touches
[00:18:49] Will: itself,
[00:18:49] all the water touches itself. So there is a climate instability that might come here. So this is why we don't actually know quite what climate change might do. It could throw Northern Europe and Northern America [00:19:00] into much colder, colder climbs while you get much hotter climbs in other sort of
[00:19:05] places.
[00:19:06] So
[00:19:07] Rod: cool. It's great.
[00:19:08] Will: Uh,
[00:19:09] Rod: so invest in
[00:19:10] Will: properties
[00:19:11] Rod: that. Will improve.
[00:19:13] Will: Yeah. Like, beachfront in Gaza or something like that. That's the, that's
[00:19:16] the future you want.
[00:19:17] Rod: Controversial. Well, I dunno whether you heard the last story, last listener, but if you did, it didn't make me happy. So, Alex Weisner Gross, he's a co-founder of Aeon Systems.
[00:19:28] We've all heard of that and him, he posting, he was posting a video, on X and he wrote. What you're seeing is not an animation, it is not a reinforcement learning policy mimicking biology. It is a copy of a biological brain wired neuron to neuron from electron microscopy data running in simulation, making a body move.
[00:19:46] Will: Well,
[00:19:47] Rod: It's enticing. Right.
[00:19:48] Will: that, well, I, I think you have to slow down and say it to me again because it sounded very technical.
[00:19:51] Rod: Ready to go. Yeah. what we are seeing or what you are seeing. Not in animation. It's not a reinforcement learning policy or you know, programme, whatever. Mimicking biology. [00:20:00] It is a copy of a biological brain wired neuron to neuron.
[00:20:03] Yeah, from electron microscopy data.
[00:20:06] Will: Wow.
[00:20:07] Rod: Running in simulation,
[00:20:08] making a body move,
[00:20:10] Will: a human sized brain. We're talking a a
[00:20:12] Rod: a Why would you say that?
[00:20:13] Will: Well, I think that might be tricky.
[00:20:14] So cynical. I, it's, you know,
[00:20:16] Rod: you don't know this story. You probably do, but I'm gonna tell you anyway. So let's unpack it. 2024.
[00:20:21] One
[00:20:21] of the scientists at Aeon, the company of which, uh, Weisner Gross is a co-founder, senior scientist Phillip Chu and his collaborators.
[00:20:29] They've got a paper in nature. It's a computational model of the entire adult fruit fry, brain dross, Ophelia Malano
[00:20:36] Will: Yeah, that's scientist's favourite, favourite, uh, insect.
[00:20:39] Rod: Small, tiny brain lives and dies really quickly. What, 8,000 generations a second. So you can, you know, something close. So basically this, um, this, computational model, more than 125,000 neurons,
[00:20:52] 50 million TIC connections, which is a few,
[00:20:55] Will: that's like a, a really complicated blanket, I think.
[00:20:57] Like if you like, it's like knitting. It's
[00:20:59] Rod: like
[00:20:59] a [00:21:00] mega tapestry.
[00:21:00] Will: Yeah, mega tapestry.
[00:21:01] Rod: And it was built from this thing called Flywire, which was done in Princeton. And it's basically, it offers what they call the complete wiring diagram of a fruit fly brain.
[00:21:10] Will: that is frigging cool. I, I, now I'm thinking about it.
[00:21:13] That is so is this computationally done or No, they said they, made it,
[00:21:17] Rod: they mapped it into your computers?
[00:21:19] Will: Yeah. Okay.
[00:21:19] So they haven't actually like,
[00:21:20] Rod: well, we'll wait.
[00:21:22] Will: Oh.
[00:21:22] Rod: So they created this model to study circuit properties of feeding and grooming behaviours within the fly.
[00:21:27] Will: cool.
[00:21:28] But you, you could've just studied the brain. Like I, I think, that's nice that you had feeding, grooming in there. But
[00:21:33] Rod: I
[00:21:33] think keep, keep 'em fed, keep 'em clean.
[00:21:35] Will: I'm just, sometimes people bury the lead. It's like, okay, we recreated the, the fruit flies entire brain to then look at how
[00:21:41] Rod: wash them, wash
[00:21:42] Will: themselves, like it's like
[00:21:43] Rod: and have a snack afterwards. We
[00:21:45] Will: forgot to notice that recreating the entire brain was actually a pretty big achievement in
[00:21:49] Rod: BT Dubs. So they say, again, this gets a little technical. We show the activation of sugar sensing or water sensing gustatory neurons, so water or sugar sensing neurons in the brain. In the [00:22:00] computational model, they accurately predict neurons that respond to tastes and are required for feeding initiation.
[00:22:06] So what's that mean? Theoretically, these neurons that sense sugar and water link to the firing of motor neurons in this model. To kind of make it do what those neurons should
[00:22:15] Will: so okay. To, to critique what I said before, you can have a brain, but then you needed to do something so to, to actually see
[00:22:21] Rod: Yeah,
[00:22:21] yeah, yeah. And apparently the model predicted motor behaviours, so the inputs predicted motor behaviours that you would expect, 95% accuracy. So fucking huge, huge.
[00:22:29] Will: But up.
[00:22:29] Rod: this is a disembodied brain. Um, so it had basically they said activation without physics, the motor outputs hadn't. Existed, but had nowhere to
[00:22:36] Will: Nowhere to go.
[00:22:37] Rod: So they fixed that.
[00:22:37] Will: What did they put it on?
[00:22:39] Rod: They used an embodied simulation framework for a bunch of neuro engineers in Switzerland, the Swiss Federal Technology Institute of Lassan, if you're wondering, called neuro me Fly version two, which of course, and with this they integrated aeons. Connectome. So the brain-based emulation thing with a physics simulated fly body.
[00:22:57] That means they built a virtual environment for the brain to [00:23:00] interact with. They gave it a virtual body and they let it loose in the environment. It's freaking wild. It's absolutely wild. Absolutely, absolutely
[00:23:06] Will: wild.
[00:23:06] And then it, and then it flew around Stupidly like a little fly.
[00:23:09] Rod: Oh, it went and fly like it did.
[00:23:10] Fly things.
[00:23:11] Will: It flew
[00:23:11] Rod: Flight being a fly, like not as it flew, but being fly like so it fly.
[00:23:17] Will: Hmm.
[00:23:17] Rod: Everyone
[00:23:17] Will: says,
[00:23:18] Hmm,
[00:23:18] Rod: I did a year of linguistics in first year. How dare you. And,
[00:23:22] And you did
[00:23:22] Latin. And I did Latin. That was before uni. So it doesn't count. Doesn't count.
[00:23:25] so they said the simulated environment allows, I'm gonna call it the sci fly to undertake multiple distinct behaviours driven by the emulated brains own circuit dynamics.
[00:23:34] So the point of this why this is exciting,
[00:23:36] Will: It's
[00:23:36] Rod: like earlier work that uses this sort of your basic reinforcement where you've got a model that does heaps of things over and over again. And sort of basically sees what sticks. It just doesn't, doesn't does it. It learns what good results are and bad results are and then sort of reinforces with the iterations.
[00:23:48] This, however, the system in place already knows what a fly should do because it's got the brain structure. So,
[00:23:54] Will: or at least.
[00:23:54] yeah,
[00:23:55] Rod: entire brain structure, the version
[00:23:57] Will: of knows what a fly should do. Let's,
[00:23:59] Rod: [00:24:00] yeah.
[00:24:00] So to speak. So to speak. So the virtual fly gets a sensory input from its stimulated environment.
[00:24:04] Stimulated, so to,
[00:24:05] Will: that's the way a fly would process
[00:24:06] Rod: Yeah. So it goes to like a little bowl of liquid that's got sugar in it and it goes, fuck, that's food. Yeah. Starts eating it with, its, what do you call it, face long.
[00:24:14] Will: Yeah. Falon.
[00:24:14] Rod: Fa s So the input flows through the connectome as neural activity, so it gets thing flows through the fly, acts accordingly to what it's brain would tell it to do in the real world, but inside the sim.
[00:24:25] So it's not like a zillion lines of if then coding that you just keep writing more and more if this, then that, if this and that. It's sort of database with just a whole bunch of trial and error iterations. It knew what to do, so to speak. It knew how
[00:24:35] Will: to in neuron sort of networked ways
[00:24:37] Rod: away. Yeah, or straight away.
[00:24:39] So the company's saying that we reckon this is the world's first embodiment of a whole brain emulation that produces multiple behaviours.
[00:24:45] Will: But if it was still in a sim,
[00:24:46] Rod: It's in a sim.
[00:24:47] Will: So embodiment, they mean
[00:24:49] Rod: Virtual
[00:24:49] Will: embodiment,
[00:24:50] like, like it's one virtual within another virtual
[00:24:52] Rod: Well, it
[00:24:52] Will: that what they're doing is, is sort of
[00:24:54] Rod: there's a video.
[00:24:56] There's a video. You can watch the video of
[00:24:58] this
[00:24:58] fly
[00:24:58] acting,
[00:24:59] Will: Chuck it in a [00:25:00] drone dickhead like.
[00:25:01] Rod: well, you go and join Aeon and tell 'em what to do. It's so harsh. It's so harsh. I
[00:25:04] Will: I don't wanna go to Switzerland. I mean, I do,
[00:25:06] Rod: No, they're not in Switzerland. That, that, that was just the people who gave them some of the tech behind it.
[00:25:10] So to the fun stuff. Now obviously one day they wanna do the human scale one, obviously. I mean that's the
[00:25:15] Will: of obviously.
[00:25:16] Rod: obvious, obviously. But before that, maybe
[00:25:18] Will: So why not go bigger? Like if you are gonna go,
[00:25:20] Rod: why?
[00:25:21] Will: There's fruit fly. Um, no,
[00:25:22] Rod: the universe.
[00:25:23] Will: the human brain has 3 trillion neurons, whatever. I don't know.
[00:25:26] Rod: Something
[00:25:26] It's gazillion,
[00:25:27] bajillion
[00:25:28] Will: Why don't, why don't you go through it? Yeah. Gazillion, bazillion trillion. Like, just, just make
[00:25:32] Rod: which is a one with a GLE and zeros.
[00:25:35] Will: Yeah.
[00:25:36] Rod: No, they go. Maybe we'll do a mouse. Maybe do a mouse. Sure. A mouse of course has 500 times the number of neurons as the your, uh,
[00:25:42] Will: and, and just to remember here, let's do the maths 500 times the number of neurons probably means, well, orders of magnitude times the number of
[00:25:50] Rod: connections. Oh. In beyond comprehension, at least for my little meat brain.
[00:25:54] Will: Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah.
[00:25:55] your humanity's
[00:25:55] Rod: brain. My human. Yeah, exactly. I'm more about how it feels Yeah, exactly. To do that sort of thing [00:26:00] and what other people think about it.
[00:26:01] And conversing. So Vice Grace, the original dude, one of the co-founders of Aeon, he says he's very San about this. He says, look, if a fly, brainin can now close the sensory motor loop in a simulation. So fly brain's doing well. The question for the mouse becomes one of scale, not of kind. So it's just bigger, better, faster computer.
[00:26:18] No big deal.
[00:26:18] Will: Yeah,
[00:26:19] Rod: no big deal. Sure, sure. No big deal.
[00:26:21] Will: Can it find a mouse house? Can it, uh, totally. Can it get the cheese? And,
[00:26:24] Rod: Um, look, go to the show notes, folks, because we, we'll drop in the link. You can watch the fly video yourself. Now, the upside of the video is it exists. The downside is they do not make it interesting.
[00:26:34] They're very much, they've got the scientists to explain it rather than someone who
[00:26:38] Will: ah, that's great is us.
[00:26:39] Look, I think this is the fascinating thing. There is a bunch of these advances in different computational techniques and obviously all of the AI large language models, like there's, there's the boosters that are probably taking it further than it can go, but it is, is developing a lot of capacities there.
[00:26:51] and I'm not a computer scientist. Adding to that, this sort of, mapping of neuronal connections or the Australian one that we talked about a couple of weeks ago where [00:27:00] you've got literally the biological brain goo on the chip and
[00:27:03] Rod: I, Oh yeah. The integration.
[00:27:05] Mm.
[00:27:05] Will: I, I think there are a bunch of these things that we may see some sort of biological, interface or ideas moving it in, really
[00:27:13] Rod: interesting.
[00:27:13] Oh, your grandchildren will be hybrids.
[00:27:15] Will: Well, I mean, whether it's that, but I,
[00:27:16] Rod: can, and I mean, I mean yours. I'm not talking to people out there. I'm talking to you. Your grandchildren will be hybrids. Yeah.
[00:27:22] Will: hybrids anyway,
[00:27:23] Rod: Not more.
[00:27:24] Will: we are all hybrids of our
[00:27:25] Rod: parents Uh, don't mean genetically you big points. I mean, they'll be part machine, part meat, part something in between.
[00:27:31] Will: I
[00:27:31] Rod: But, but they'll, but they'll want to
[00:27:33] Will: to be, you've
[00:27:33] got part of that. No, but I can imagine versions where, say software for flying a drone, that it may well be that, goo or neuronal stuff might, might actually be, you know, we could rip it out of a bat and put a bat brain in there sort of thing.
[00:27:45] Yeah. And it, yeah,
[00:27:47] Rod: I'm on board. I'm on board. Do it, do it. All of it. Do all of it. Fuck
[00:27:50] Will: it.
[00:27:50] Zero downsides anywhere
[00:27:52] Rod: Emma. I mean, the downsides from everything. You know, car driving, using fuel, eating food you love, why not make it more interesting and have a bat [00:28:00] brain driven drone that delivers chocolates.
[00:28:04] Will: When Thomas Elwood repeatedly flouted his father's command in 1659 to stay away from the Quakers, stay away from the Quakers, my boy,
[00:28:14] Rod: the number of times my father told me that too. I can't even count.
[00:28:17] Will: His behaviour provoked, bitter family quarrels and a beating. Until his father eventually found a surprising solution, he confiscated all of his son's hats.
[00:28:30] Rod: I think can say Pornography Thomas in confiscated
[00:28:34] his
[00:28:35] Will: young Thomas,
[00:28:36] Rod: they're leading you aray young man.
[00:28:38] Look at you.
[00:28:39] Will: Young Thomas, in effect, became a prisoner in the house accepting that it would be unthinkable to go outside without one's hat. True.
[00:28:48] Rod: True. It's not wrong.
[00:28:50] Will: So in hat news today I bring you a beautiful study by the beautifully named Bernard Ka.
[00:28:56] Rod: Come on. KA double P, though
[00:28:58] Will: it is KA double P.[00:29:00]
[00:29:00] Rod: was a good guess otherwise it would've been chap
[00:29:03] Will: from the history department in the University of Warwick on the cultural, social, and ideological role of the hat in early modern England. And I just
[00:29:10] Rod: have
[00:29:10] to, no, I've read this one.
[00:29:12] Will: well, two confessions here just to make, this is the first article that I've ever seen, to ever have a cold open in the, like, like literally to start with your juiciest story straight away in the beginning.
[00:29:23] And I was just like, thank you, Bernard. That is how you write an article.
[00:29:27] Rod: That is how you communicate anything.
[00:29:29] Will: But I just, wanted to do a shout out to this article because I can do it. Not nearly as much justice as is there because what Bernard, has done is collected a whole bunch of stories about the role of the hat in early modern England.
[00:29:43] Rod: is this like, this takes me back to a family guy episode when they're, you know, basically ragging on everyone who, you know, everyone's got a podcast, particularly if you're a boy.
[00:29:51] I've heard,
[00:29:51] Will: I've heard. Look, look, it is a critique. It is a known critique.
[00:29:54] Rod: But then they were sitting around the bar as they all did the four boys, and saying to Peter was saying like, do you want to listen to my podcast? And they said, really? [00:30:00] Is the one on hats again? Yes, it is.
[00:30:01] And it flashed him going. And he's just listing hats, square hats, triangle hats, baseball cap. That's all he
[00:30:08] Will: well, no, no, no. indeed there are many names for hats that were brought, uh, that were mentioned by, Bernard Kapp in this article. and many, different.
[00:30:16] Positions on hats. And so, well, one of, one of them was that, hats and caps are radically different things.
[00:30:23] Caps, caps are typically, more for your working class, flatter. One. Well, yeah, indeed, indeed. I am wearing a cap right now. But he says that the reason typically that, uh, cap might be flatter is you might be carrying stuff on your head and you can't be carrying stuff on your head with a
[00:30:38] Rod: high
[00:30:38] with a bowler.
[00:30:40] Will: well, a high steeple hat, one could
[00:30:42] Rod: Or a wizards hat.
[00:30:43] Will: wizards, wizards hat.
[00:30:44] Rod: hat.
[00:30:45] Will: You can't carry anything on your hat with
[00:30:47] Rod: well, you could with magical power. So what I'm hearing is you are basically your working class associate professor.
[00:30:51] Will: Yeah. Indeed. Indeed.
[00:30:53] You know the
[00:30:53] time well, no, no. but well, if you could continue the, politics of the hat into the future. Well into now one [00:31:00] of the things that is interesting to say is that, um, a. Hats have been explored in other papers, other sorts of things. Course they have, but because they are easy to adjust, very easy to adapt, very easy to remove, deploy the hat is the most versatile and eloquent medium of nonverbal communication. So you can, you can
[00:31:17] do
[00:31:17] Rod: about glasses?
[00:31:18] Will: like of clothing,
[00:31:19] Rod: about glasses?
[00:31:20] Will: yeah, not, not bad.
[00:31:21] Rod: about
[00:31:21] hockey mask?
[00:31:22] elbow.
[00:31:22] pads. Annoying.
[00:31:23] Will: Annoying? No. Like a hat. you can take your hat off. On or on. you can do things, but you can carry stuff in
[00:31:28] Rod: your
[00:31:28] hat.
[00:31:28] I can do that with
[00:31:28] Will: glasses.
[00:31:30] Rod: Pockets,
[00:31:33] Will: pockets are not a communication
[00:31:34] Rod: behaviour. Fanny
[00:31:35] Will: Yeah. The fanny pack only communicates certain things.
[00:31:38] And as an advocate for the Fanny Pack,
[00:31:40] Rod: communicates good
[00:31:41] Will: Americans? just so you are aware. Yes. Uh, the fanny pack.
[00:31:44] Rod: Is
[00:31:45] Will: strange name if you were to use it in Australia or the United
[00:31:48] Kingdom.
[00:31:48] Yeah.
[00:31:48] Rod: Fannie mean something
[00:31:50] Will: more
[00:31:51] specific.
[00:31:51] But at the time, you know, everyone, everyone in England wore a hat, so they're all
[00:31:55] Rod: wearing
[00:31:55] hats all around the world. Everywhere.
[00:31:57] Will: everywhere.
[00:31:57] Well, I don't know that,
[00:31:58] oh yeah,
[00:31:59] this article
[00:31:59] Rod: [00:32:00] got you Hot and tots.
[00:32:01] Will: Almost every adult in early modern England wore a hat or a cap. Children wore caps too, and sometimes hats from a very early age. Yeah. I love this. I love this. We here, for example of a five-year-old boy accidentally drowned while trying to scoop water out of a pit with his
[00:32:15] Rod: hat.
[00:32:15] What,
[00:32:16] Will: What,
[00:32:19] what?
[00:32:23] Rod: There are so many
[00:32:24] Will: questions.
[00:32:24] You buried the lead there.
[00:32:26] Rod: but again, like, well look, this pit's full of water and it shouldn't be.
[00:32:29] Will: I'll scoop it with me at
[00:32:31] Rod: I'll jump in.
[00:32:32] Will: governor. I'll scoop it with me at, oh, I'm drowning. I'm,
[00:32:40] Rod: So many suggestions for that kid, but it's too late now.
[00:32:43] Jesus
[00:32:43] Christ.
[00:32:46] Gregory
[00:32:47] Will: estimated that almost 5 million hats and caps had been sold in 1688, and one humorist could list the fundamental human attributes as to eat, sleep, or wear a night cap. I'm
[00:32:57] Rod: what year did he estimate
[00:32:58] Will: this?
[00:32:59] 16 [00:33:00] 88.
[00:33:00] Rod: Pretty accurate hat records. Um,
[00:33:01] well, although compared to the records of most other things, the, the hats are probably better than many.
[00:33:06] Will: Oh, no, I bet that No, no. So they had some grandiose hats, Well, he's, I keep looking at all these deaths by hats that he's got in.
[00:33:15] So,
[00:33:15] Rod: hazard, poisonous.
[00:33:17] Will: No, no. There's a bunch where, you know, they're, they're all.
[00:33:19] Rod: aggressive when annoyed
[00:33:21] Will: they might spend a fair bit of money on their, hat. Yeah. And, this is a period when there was sumptuary laws where rich people could have fancy clothes and, and what, no sorry. Not rich upper class people could have fancy clothes.
[00:33:32] Yeah. And rich, but not upper class people. They aren't allowed such
[00:33:36] Rod: fancy
[00:33:36] clothes,
[00:33:36] Oh, your new money scummy
[00:33:38] Will: Yeah. New money. Yeah. But you know, they're putting the, feathers and the ribbons and the gold
[00:33:41] Rod: and
[00:33:42] things
[00:33:42] Oh, they're putting fucking live owls and stuff on them. They did not stuff around,
[00:33:45] Will: you know, they would.
[00:33:46] You know, they would So look, I, I, cannot do this article full justice. It is full of some awesome stories of what hats have done to people.
[00:33:55] Rod: I think you may need to do a follow
[00:33:57] Will: up.
[00:33:57] look, maybe I will. It's just, a beautiful like [00:34:00] to go, you know what I want to know.
[00:34:01] Rod: know.
[00:34:01] Will: You.
[00:34:02] Rod: what I want to know?
[00:34:04] Will: I want to know, I wanna know how important the hat was in 1688.
[00:34:08] Rod: need to do a follow up, maybe a whole episode just on
[00:34:10] Will: hats.
[00:34:11] Just on hats. Maybe we should do that. Let's do a hat. Let's do
[00:34:13] Rod: a
[00:34:13] hat
[00:34:14] Yeah, let's give it a crack.
[00:34:15] We'll give it a
[00:34:15] Will: crack.
[00:34:17] We've
[00:34:18] just given you a a few little bits of science.
[00:34:21] Rod: a few, many,
[00:34:21] Will: some. We
[00:34:22] do this because, we love both you and science and in that overlap is a little bit of science.
[00:34:28] Rod: That's true. That's true.
[00:34:29] Will: That's true. Tell your friends. Yep.
[00:34:30] Rod: Uh, tell
[00:34:31] your enemies. Tell
[00:34:32] everyone.
[00:34:32] Will: Yeah. and, if you want some topics covered, then you know, let 'em know. where would they do that?
[00:34:37] Rod: They would go to Cheers at a little bit of science.com/jesus. also smash the star buttons on your podcast apps
[00:34:43] Will: also,
[00:34:44] Rod: and write reviews.
[00:34:45] Reviews are
[00:34:45] Will: If we were accurate in our timing of recording. Like Friday afternoon's Australian time, we're often on Twitch, but, uh,
[00:34:51] Rod: 3 34 ish.
[00:34:53] Will: depends
[00:34:53] on things.
[00:34:55] Rod: It depends. We
[00:34:55] have day jobs, stupid day jobs. [00:35:00]
