This week’s line-up is a reminder that humans can turn literally anything into a warning sign. A flight tracker becomes an apocalypse detector, a medieval siege weapon becomes a forensic crime scene, and wartime sugar rationing turns into an accidental public health intervention. All of these stories are weirdly useful.
The DIY Apocalypse Forecast
Most of us use flight tracker websites for checking whether our delayed flight is still delayed, but there’s a new genre of internet brain that looks at the same map and thinks, “This is how we’ll know the end is coming.”
The idea, floated by Kyle MacDonald, is that unusual patterns in private jets and military flights could act like a kind of early-warning system. If the rich start moving in a hurry, maybe it’s because they know something the rest of us don’t.
It’s half conspiracy, half pattern recognition, and fully a sign of the times. We’ve reached the point where people trust a cluster of aircraft icons more than official statements, because at least the planes are real.
Medieval Workplace Safety Was Not A Thing
Then we go back in time to a period where the phrase “occupational health and safety” would get you laughed out of the medieval village. Siege warfare wasn’t just dangerous because of the enemy. It was dangerous because the machinery itself could ruin your entire skeleton in one bad moment.
A discovered skeleton with more than 160 fractures is being linked to a trebuchet accident. If you’ve ever seen a trebuchet in action, this makes grim sense.
These machines were built to launch huge projectiles with terrifying force. So yes, if you ever find a time machine, here’s the safety advice: do not stand near the trebuchet.
The WW2 Health Boost
Finally, we jump to WW2, where sugar rationing wasn’t designed as a wellness program. It was scarcity management. But it turns out limiting sugar during early life may have had long-term health benefits for the kids who grew up under those rules.
The research suggests that lower sugar intake during the first 1,000 days of life is linked to reduced risk of certain chronic diseases later on. We’re talking things like lower rates of serious health conditions, including some cancers.
Early nutrition matters more than we like to admit, and it also makes you wonder what future researchers will say about today’s food environment. We’re not rationing sugar now. We’re swimming in it.
So that’s the week: flight trackers as doomsday tea leaves, a medieval death that reads like a physics demonstration, and a reminder that sometimes the healthiest thing that happens to a population is an inconvenience they didn’t choose.
CHAPTERS:
00:00 Intro
00:36 Disasters Seen From Above
02:06 Where To Survive Apocalypse
03:54 Resilience Factors Explained
07:29 Best Countries Ranked
11:24 Siege Trauma Mystery
18:29 Trebuchet War Wolf
20:35 Connectome Explained
22:30 Worm Brain Fly Body
25:56 Sugar Rationing Natural Experiment
-
Will: [00:00:00] So I love those, um, flight tracker websites. you, you can look at the world and see all of the planes. And, and look, okay, I am not a full-on plane nerd. I know many who are, who will be like, you know, they, they look up in the sky, they see a plane, and they're like, "Oh, I can identify that. That's going to...
You know, it's the flight from Melbourne to Sydney. It's the QRG..." That, that's not me, but I, I, I, I do actually use them. Like, you know, when a family member is traveling, I'm like, I don't mind knowing how far they are. a- and you can see when they're gonna land, if it's delayed or something like that, but they also actually show some really interesting things when big shit happens on the planet. So I don't know if you've seen this before, but, like, if you look at, uh, the flight tracker website for America, right now, any, any one time, the number of planes covering the continental US is just, it's, it's like it's chock-a-block.
After September 11, it's just like you see them just go, they all landed super quick, and they all just didn't come back. Or another effect that you can see is, like, beginning stages of COVID.
[00:01:00] Like, during the pandemic,
Rod: Mm
Will: suddenly see the number of flights, particularly international flights, just, just went way, way down, just disappeared. but I saw something today, from Kyle MacDonald, and he reckons, well, actually, there's another very interesting use for a flight tracking website that you had never thought of
Rod: I'm very excited
Will: Oh
It's time for a little bit of science. I'm Will Grant, an associate professor in science communication at the Australian National University.
Rod: And I'm Ron Lambert, a 30-year science communication veteran with a mind of a teenage boy. And no, I don't look at
Will: flight
Rod: trackers- Oh ...
Will: but I like the idea. And today, as well as, uh, interesting ways you can use your flight tracker website.
Rod: I'm gonna talk about being under siege.
Will: uh, I might give you, I had not thought [00:02:00] that, to ask that.
ask
Rod: that.
I'm
I'm gonna give you a reason to believe that wars help make us healthier.
Will: Oh, that's good.
Yeah. That's good.
Rod: Yeah.
Will: So I turned to the journal Global Challenges, I don't know how many other journals deal with the global challenges. This one is like,
"Oh,
we're doing them all. But, uh,
uh,
this paper, had a very simple question: Where do you want to be if all shit goes down?
Uh, they didn't- New
Rod: Zealand
Will: Hmm, no-
Rod: It's always New
Will: Zealand ... not a bad guess. No, in, in more academic terms- Oh ... what places on
are
are most resilient to what they call the big catastrophic risks- Oh
all of the shit that can happen. You've got, you know, nuclear war and- Yeah ... and things. Well, actually, they've got these three broad categories. So there's abrupt sunlight reduction, so you've, that's, that- That comes a lot Yeah, that comes from your nuclear wars and your, your mega volcanoes- Yeah
and your, and possibly your asteroids, depending on, on that kind of size So
Rod: too much shit in air
Will: Too much shit in air, and so basically, you know- Oh ... you're not gonna be able to grow stuff, and you-
Rod: eat
Will: Then you've got to eat people Then you've got to eat people, of [00:03:00] course. Yeah
Rod: Until they run out
Will: Yeah We've
Rod: We've
seen The Road.
Spoiler alert,
Will: Yeah, exactly. So that's, that's one of their big categories Yeah then there's the global catastrophic infrastructure loss. That's like from your electromagnetic pulse or something like
Rod: that Oh, yeah, Escape From New York 2, I think
it
it was, where they EMP'd the world-
Will: Yeah, there you go
with the drones Yeah, exactly. Well, you could have that from a geomagnetic storm. Like you could imagine a, a- Yeah ... a solar storm or possibly I think like a, if it hit us just right, a quasar pulse or one of those, you know, like a- Ah
Rod: Ugh
Will: when a supernova happens and one beam of light just, just j- Goes
Rod: that way
Will: The other one of course is the, your global catastrophic biological risk.
Rod: Someone sneezes then everyone else does too.
Will: Yeah. What's your movie for this?
Rod: " Outbreak."
Will: Yeah. you know, the pandemics. You know, the, these are clearly big categories.
So they're, they're like, okay, where you wanna be if, uh, if all of the shit goes down. You, you said New Zealand
Rod: I do
Will: So A lot of it is actually pretty logical- Yeah ... but they've spelled out what sorts of things do you wanna [00:04:00] have, to be resilient against these sort of things
Rod: Streaming services
Will: Streaming services
Rod: home
Will: Access to home brew Surely you could say a large DVD collection.
that's personal. Uh, they, they were more interested in societies
Rod: Oh, you
What do you... Oh, you
Will: meant yous Like, Societies. What do you reckon the, the indicators there are? 'Cause, okay, why did you guess New Zealand?
Rod: Because it seems to be
indicators there are? 'Cause, okay, why did you guess New Zealand? Well, because it geologically
geologically
stable-ish, except when
has earthquakes
Will: No, it definitely has earthquakes.
It is-
Rod: But it's a long way from many other things
Will: Yes
Rod: And I saw that movie where it took the radiation the longest to reach there, so that's good
Will: So that is, that is definitely one of their indicators of what will make you safe in a global cat-
It's
catastrophic risk
Rod: It's fairly isolatable, or bits of it are, so you can sort of
of prepare
borders
Will: So both of those factors are sort of the same in their, in their thing.
So one of their factors, if a society is located in a remote island,
Rod: Mm
Will: Mm ... a large island, is a definite improvement. So y- Fiji, probably too small. but larger islands that are f- that are further away- Yeah ... are gonna be a big factor here
Rod: Yeah, Fiji's surrounded.
[00:05:00] really.
Will: so in fact,
Of the top four,
four
the top five are all islands Right So,
that's a
Rod: Four of the top five. Uh-huh And,
Will: and, and
interesting. So other things, what else do you reckon would be in their indicator list? Well, I
Rod: mean, uh, depending on how we list them,
uh, depending on how we're listing it,
needs for access to clean water-
Will: Yep, yep
Rod: matters. I suppose arable soil.
Will: Yeah.
Rod: So
food production-
Will: Food production. Food production is a big part. Yeah.
Rod: Yeah. Also the ability to not stew in your own waste.
Will: Hey, actually that does come in.
Rod: Cause it's amazing how quickly you end up surrounded by your own poo
you ne- don't leave the house for two
if you ne- don't live in a house- Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm ... for two years and don't have plumbing.
I've
Will: I know. So their list comes down and it's actually when you go, "Oh, okay, that's... These are all plausible things."
Rod: Or ammunition.
Will: Ammunition didn't come into it, but... Well, okay, no, it does come into their list a little bit here, but not-
Rod: Something to throw at we-
Will: Not explicitly.
Not explicitly. Yeah.
Rod: Okay
Will: So
the s- the things that they say in this make societies more resilient against these global catastrophic risks. And, and they wanna stress [00:06:00] here, this is not permanent protection. No,
Rod: no, resilient in the
no. That
Will: in the moment ... it, it, and, and it depends where shit happens. Like- Yeah ... like if the asteroid lands right on your society, doesn't matter how, how good you are in other ways.
Rod: not,
Is that not, is that not gonna work?
Will: It's not gonna work. Oh. So Interestingly, they've listed are more democratic. Democratic societies are likely to-" Really? Yeah, yeah. They're likely to make better decisions, and they're likely to be able to cope with some of these challenges much more.
Rod: so
Will: Interesting ... so, and I think there is evidence before that, autocratic societies, corrupt societies can fall apart more in the face of these big risks.
Next thing, if they're wealthier,
Rod: Well, you're gonna need cash.
Will: You need cash. You need cash. not the cash, actually.
No. It's the location. It's, it's, it's having infrastructure already there. you're more likely-- Like poorer societies with less infrastructure- Mm
like
it's gonna be harder to do, to Less inequality is helpful as well. Uh, societies are more likely to pull together in these sorts of scenarios-
Rod: And when they
Will: When they already do
than, than they might.
Rod: So a lot of it is habit.
If we're
If we're habitually people who work together and have-
Will: [00:07:00] That's part of it ... stuff. You need a large industrial base, Right ... with high government influence. I d-
yeah,
know, I'm not quite sure why that- Needing some
Rod: central nation ...
Will: you can steer-- You've got industry and you can steer it, I think.
So that's where you can make the bullets and the guns, but you can also you're able to make shit if you suddenly can't
Rod: Like urinal cakes.
Will: Yeah.
Rod: Yeah, I understand.
Will: this is the one that takes New Zealand out, I think.
Rod: Uh.
Will: Higher decentralization and diversity.
Rod: I thought you were gonna say the ability to know what vowels are.
Will: You- No? You asshole. That's very mean. not as highly reliant on trade or have geographically close trading partners. so-
Rod: Self-sufficient ...
Will: number one, by quite a solid margin-
Rod: Yeah ...
Will: Straya
in
Rod: this-
Will: We come out, we come out in this like-
Rod: So that counts as an island in this situation?
Will: Yes, we're an i- well, an island continent.
So I think, I think what we are- Okay ... we're big enough that, that we get the advantages of having, diverse ecosystems- Yep ... and diverse food growing regions. Yeah. it all goes down on the 40th parallel, we can move north or south of that and still cope.
We
Rod: can grow both mangoes and snowberries.
Will: Yeah, indeed. Whereas the next countries, New Zealand is [00:08:00] number two, Japan number three.
Rod: Oh.
Will: Uh,
weirdly... Okay, the, I, I was wrong. It's, um, it's two landlocked, or one landlocked country Switzerland is next, just because Switzerland.
Rod: they are.
Yeah,
Will: Because well, I think what they've got is the democratic, wealthy, pretty low in inequality, have the industrial base and have the- Yeah ... they've got that sort of stuff.
Rod: And being surrounded by mountains probably helps.
Will: Yeah. Argentina has got,
Rod: Ah
Will: an island, but has the,
Rod: Big fat river though
Will: and it's, well, it's got the advantage of having quite a lot of ecosystems. Like it's got- Yeah, yeah, right. Yeah, it does ... you know, you know, you, you spread out quite a lot there.
Rod: Yeah,
Will: yeah. So no one is purely immune.
Rod: It's also fucking south.
Yeah
Will: Yeah. Well, actually, there is some in this that, I mean-
Rod: As is Australia, as is New Zealand-
Will: Not being-
unlike Japan ... not being on the mega continent, the mega continent is a risk. Like if you are on Eurasia, Africa- Yeah ... you, the ability of diseases to move around is, is quite a risk.
Rod: Because of the trains.
Will: Um, and how close you are to them. And I think there is something that Northern Hemisphere is more of a risk, too.
Um-
Rod: It's more populated [00:09:00] too, isn't
Will: it? Well, and the winds, like, like- Ah ... this is the theory of "The Beach," the movie, that you could have
Rod: traumatized
There's a TV version of that where Brian Brown kills himself
in a car at the end 'cause he knows he's
in a car- ... because he knows he's gonna die. Terribly acted.
Will: In a car, that was the important bit?
Rod: Yeah, 'cause he got, he, he finally went, "Oh, we're all screwed." He didn't take suicide pills. He got in a Ferrari- Yeah ... drove like a
a
maniac, somehow got airborne. I just remember a close-up
on his face, Brian Brown's version of true terror- Yeah ... not, not very good, through a billboard.
on
I just remember all these people quietly, you know, taking their suicide
his face, Brian Brown's version of true terror. Yeah. Not very good. Through a billboard. No. But I just remember all these people quietly, you know, taking their suicide pills and going... And I was traumatized for life.
life
Will: But back to Kyle McDonald
Rod: Whoever
Whoever that is ...
Will: and our flight tracking website
Rod: Who is he?
he, he's a famous flight tracker?
Will: He's the person who came up with this, is who he-
Rod: Kyle always been a fan?
Will: So Kyle, reckons flight tracking websites can make what he is calling an apocalypse early warning system. So what he's doing is- Wow ... uh, can get the data on all flights.
You've got commercial, cargo, military, private
But if you see, certain [00:10:00] patterns in private jets and military jets, like if they're all suddenly bugging out to New Zealand and Australia
Rod: There's a very
Will: certain pattern
Rod: of, um, disappearance
Will: So he's literally he's literally, like this is not just an argument.
He's got the data he's got a daily, a daily index, level one to five of how close- That is good ... uh, five being, we're in the apocalypse
Rod: make peace.
Will: That might piss you off And one being, you know, we're in day-to-day traffic. And so there are, there are daily peaks just because there are more flights, you know, at certain times of the day Yeah, yeah, yeah So, don't stress about that.
But what he's said is if you suddenly see all the private jets are bugging out or all the military jets are bugging out, then that's an indicator that the apocalypse is going down. 'Cause he reckons they've got better information. They, the military probably do Sure. Sure So
So
you can go and check that out.
Rod: Well, the military
those two probably do. The private may have some better information They
Will: might. They might
Rod: They also could have the, the contagious hysteria that very wealthy people
Will: have So there you go. you can have this on your phone at any one time Ooh ... an apocalypse indicator [00:11:00] based on flight tracker information, which I think is probably an interesting data set to say, "Well, maybe something's going on."
I don't know what you'd do with it. If suddenly you see all of the private jets bugging out to New Zealand or Australia-
Rod: You move to
Will: Move to Australia I mean Move to Australia ... be in Australia already. Uh, there's that
Rod: There's your solution
We welcome you
We welcome you with open arms,
except
all the migration policies
Will: Yeah, and you're allowed to bring your dog,
Rod: Or actually
your dog.
Will: just your dog Just your dog
Rod: So I was pretty bummed. I had to miss the recent biannual European meeting of the Paleopathology
you
Association in Berlin earlier this year
Will: Why?
Rod: I know. I was bummed. I was bummed. Then I saw-
Will: Hang on, say it again. Palo- The,
Rod: the European meeting of the Paleopathology Association. Paleo- Pathology. Patho-
Will: I, I know pathology, you go to get your blood tested.
Rod: Yeah.
Will: Oh.
Rod: So this
So this is a blood test of... not just blood
Will: Yeah
Rod: Medical stuff and-
Will: Yeah ...
Rod: broken bits of... Um, anyway, so I was pretty bummed by that. And then I saw Jo Buckberry,
Buckberry,
from the University of- You
Will: don't know
Rod: She's a bioarchaeologist.
Will: Okay
Rod: Another one I hadn't heard [00:12:00] of. She's presenting a question that haunted me for years, for, for many, many years, and probably you too.
And so
I became super bummed 'cause the question she wanted to answer, and I paraphrase here, is, "Where the fuck is the confirmed evidence of siege weapon trauma injuries in the archaeological record?"
Will: Well,
Rod: where is it?
Will: it? So, so hang on. The question is, did anyone ever actually get hit by a siege weapon?
Rod: Kinda, yeah.
And
so, where's the evidence? Like show,
if so, where's the evidence? Like,
Will: show, show us. Look, wow. You know- Wow ...
Rod: that old chestnut.
Will: Wow. I mean, that's so cool. I mean, obviously everyone who has seen a siege weapon, you've got your, your catapults and your- Your ballista ... your, your ballista and the, a trebuchet. Oh, yeah. And, and I feel like if, army one is launching a boulder with a trebuchet, maybe the reason we don't see it is if someone gets hit square with a boulder, there's not much to
Rod: see.
It catalyzes
Will: their civilization. Well, at least that person, definitely.
Rod: Interesting you say that. So a little bit of history. Around [00:13:00] 1300, England and Scotland, in, in and around thir-
the year 1300,
were fighting like mofos. They were just going at each other all the time, hammer and
tongs.
tongs. And a lot of the battles
happened
at Stirling Castle 'cause it's on a key road to Edinburgh.
Will: Oh, yeah. Yep.
Rod: It's a big famous castle, and apparently became known as the gateway to Scotland. Mm-hmm. But not in a fun way, like you-
Will: Yeah, more like, more like the, the wall.
Rod: More like, "We miss," and then you got Scotland.
Will: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Rod: so it changed hand five times between 1296 and 1304, which is quite
Will: a lot.
Wow, that's a l- that is a lot.
Rod: For a pivotal castle.
Will: d- and to capture a castle is hard work. Like I, I've- Yeah ... I've seen them TVs and-
Rod: I know. They look very difficult ...
Will: I have never captured a castle.
Rod: well, neither have I, but we haven't, we haven't joined forces, so maybe.
Will: Yeah, yeah. And, and some would say we haven't tried.
Rod: tried with our minds and our spirit. So yeah, it finally fell to the English after an extended siege, So back in
1997,
bunch of skeletons were found buried inside the chapel of the castle.
Will: Cool.
Rod: Um, and apparently that's unusual in itself 'cause usually you would bury the bodies outside the walls. So they assumed these guys [00:14:00] were buried there, it probably was mostly guys,
'cause
they died during the extended siege.
Will: Yeah, okay. Yep.
Rod: So,
Will: okay, these- Can't get out, we need to deal with the bodies
Rod: and we probably
yeah,
put them in
and we probably should
Will: put 'em in holes. Yeah. I imagine, I imagine actually dealing with bodies during a siege is actually a non-trivial, non-trivial thing. Yeah. You know? You're trapped inside.
Rod: Yeah,
Will: no.
Eat all of them. No. You know, you probably don't want to eat all of them or many of
Rod: How
them.
you?
Will: How the problem with cannibalism, like, uh, like,
the,
I was thinking- Oh,
Rod: you're finally gonna hit-
Will: No ... the problem. No, I was just, I was gonna say, like in a siege, like you all just get thinner and thinner and thinner. Yeah. And then you get to a point where it's like, what's the- You're gonna be soup
what's the point of eating that person? It's just- Bone ... you're just bone. Constantly. Like, like I don't wanna eat bone person. Like you- Don't
Rod: want a bit of marrow grilled on the-
Will: I think what you have to do is invite like the fat neighbor over, and
Rod: Oh ... "
Will: Gustav, would you like to come for dinner?"
Rod: And- "And bring your fat daughter."
children.
"We'll open the doors for you." so they,
they,
um, rummaged around and found these bodies. On these bodies, they found cut marks, penetrative injuries, blunt force trauma, [00:15:00] and a bunch of other indicators of combat.
Will: Like swords and, and, and arrows and things like that.
Rod: And maces.
Will: Well, blunt force trauma.
Yeah.
Rod: yeah. Thumping, stabbings, slashings, you know, nothing you
expect. But skeleton 150, I don't know why it was 150. I don't--
It
sounded like there weren't that many skeletons, but for some reason it was numbered 150.
Will: There was at least 150.
Rod: I'm not sure if that's true, though.
Will: Oh. There
Rod: might have been-
Will: You reckon their numbering system started at 147?
Rod: Probably.
Will: Like I, I, I- They don't have 150 proof
Rod: 153 I don't think
Will: I don't think so.
Rod: Just how
works.
it So this skeleton, about 165
the
centimeters tall,
not sure.
which is probably a towering human being for the era, I'm not sure. Their skull was smashed in 61 places. They had a deep zigzag break to a shoulder, shattered right leg, and nearly 60, as they put it, strange zigzagging breaks to the ribs.
When you added it all up, there were more than 160 separate
fractures
on this skeleton.
Will: Okay.
Rod: Which is a few.
Will: Run over by a horse.
Rod: That comes up.
Will: Probably not in a siege, though. There
Rod: So [00:16:00] biological anthropologist, another related
profession,
a guy called Patrick Randolph-Quinney, he says it's very clear the energy is going through the chest, and the individual is pinned to the ground quite quickly afterwards.
Will: Oh, okay.
Rod: So you've written, getting images of
like, ooh.
uh, another professional, "The breaks indicate a very large area of impact and devastation. It's likely the individual was killed by a siege engine."
Will: There you go.
Rod: They're not
clear whether they threw the siege engine out the window- Yeah, yeah ... but he was killed by a siege engine.
So
they thought, "We better, we better have all our other options first," because, you know, let's not live in-
Will: Was it poison? Did poison do it? Did poison breaks 160 of his bo- bones?
Rod: Use the candlestick under the altar,
with
you major nobsy whatever. I, I don't think I've ever played Cluedo.
Cluedo
Will: What the hell?
Rod: What's wrong with me?
Will: For American listeners, uh, Clue- Cluedo ... Cluedo is the, um, I think the British Empire version of Clue.
Rod: So
other options they ruled out. They say the nature of some of the injuries and the sheer number of them ruled out death by technical term,
headfirst
plummet off castle walls.
That's my
my paraphrase. [00:17:00] So didn't
throw
or jump off- Yeah, yeah
walls.
the castle wall. The shape and texture of the breaks rules out trampling by horses.
Will: Okay. No hoof prints.
Rod: No hoof prints and shape and textures of
the
the breaks. and there was no damage to the skeleton after burial, again, due to the texture and shape of the
shape
breaks.
So it's not like they buried it and then, I don't know, jumped on it.
Will: Trampled it. Yeah. Moved the
Rod: piano there and it just slid and he's run
Will: over
Rod: they then went rummaging through modern medical resources to see what looked similar, and they said it looks like he was hit from behind by something traveling at great velocity.
The most similar cases they found in modern pathology stuff were car crashes and people hit by trains.
Will: Yeah. Oh. So it's like,
Rod: fa-whump.
Will: Wow. Oh. Yeah,
Rod: not nothing. So then a,
a,
uh, forensic osteologist-
Yeah
Will: Yeah, we're looking at, we're looking at bones forensically ...
Rod: here we are. From Vilnius University, a guy called Valtonberger.
Vilnius,
of
course, being in-
Will: Your people's country.
Rod: Yep.
Baltics.
Will: Latavia.
[00:18:00] The other
Rod: one.
Will: The other one. Train- Lithuania. There you go ... Lithuania. Love, love you all. You're all great.
Rod: All of you. All Balts.
So he researches blunt force trauma,
obviously,
and he says, "It seems like a high velocity, high force, high speed impact in a short amount of time."
Will: Well, high, high speed implies short amount of time.
Rod: It's a huge amount of energy delivered in milliseconds.
In skeletons from the past, you rarely see this. It's very convincing that,
probably
hit by a siege engine, but what specifically could have done this in medieval Scotland
So
records suggest the English were using the recently invented trebuchet during the siege
Will: There you go
Rod: I, I mean, trebuchets
are
are fascinating
Will: Oh, it's a wonderful bit of physics.
Wonderful- Flipping wonderful ... wonderful bit of physics
Rod: they're magnificent engines
Will: I made a trebuchet out of Lego once. It's great fun
Rod: it
work?
Will: Yeah, it did
It's
Rod: a fling
Will: For a Lego, little Lego thing, you know, it flings quite a
Rod: way. Killed three of the
way Fling
children before they stopped
Will: three of the neighbor's children before- No, through the walls.
Like it
Rod: it is- I
was- I think they're great. They're just, there's something so cool about them. So apparently this is probably the biggest trebuchet [00:19:00] ever built
Will: Oh, wow
Rod: They call him the War Wolf. He could hurtle boulders of 100 kilos more than, like, hundreds of meters
Will: Yeah. Wow
Rod: This is a fairly big one. So also apparently eyewitness accounts say there were siege engines like this used during the 1304 battle,
tearing
through two stone walls, quote, "As an arrow would fly through a
of
piece of paper"
Will: See, actually, and here's the thing.
I mean, of course, you know, no sieging army is gonna be, "Oh, sad, we hit a human." No But the, I think a, a weapon like that is not actually aiming at humans at all At all You are aiming at walls. you're, you're-
Rod: Aiming at walls, or if there's a whole bunch of people clustering in a spot, maybe you're trying to just whump
Will: at
Rod: whomp it there.
Sure. But
Will: But-
Rod: No, it's infrastructure
Will: But-- And, and usually you're throwing at a speed, it's obvious when you're about to hit something. Like, you're aiming for that thing. Humans should not actually be hit by a trebuchet- No ... nearly so much. Walls are gonna get destroyed
Rod: So it sounds like this poor son of a bitch just happened to be standing-
Will: Looking the wrong way "
Rod: What's that?"
Will: "What's that sound?"
sound?
the lodge
Rod: I'm
Will: "I'm hearing a sort of dull whistling"
Rod: whistling.
"Hang on, is that a..." "
Will: Is that a [00:20:00] flare
Rod: gun 700 years
So to be fair, accounts of the battle don't mention specific trebuchet casualties, which doesn't
but that doesn't
surprise me when how detailed and how many accounts there are- No, no, of course not ... we know. But apparently there are no,
currently
no other plausible explanations
Will: Yeah I have two: aliens or
Rod: I have two: or
time travel. But other than that-
Will: But that don't-- no, both of those don't actually explain.
They, just add more complexity They could've used a trainer or a car I'm just gonna Occam's razor the shit out of that and say, "Look, that-"
Rod: Oh, no, you're right ...
Will: it's, it's, it doesn't help
Rod: So trebuchet sounds like direct hit-
Will: Yeah ...
Rod: freaking smashed. So that's a conference worth going to
Will: Love it.
That's great So I've got a, um, I had not thought to ask that,
Rod: I love
these ...
Will: from our friends, in computational biology. So-
Rod: I
I think they're more than friends ...
Will: uh, yeah, well, indeed, indeed, have you heard of the connectome?
Rod: Yes.
Will: Uh, so the connectome, is a way of taking what we can see in the, the neurological system, so brain and nerves- Mm-hmm ... of a [00:21:00] simple animal and replicating it in a computer. So you can, you can make, you can make what's called a,
a
a virtual chimera of something. So you might get a nematode worm, or a fly or something like-
Rod: You didn't make a Bamby, "I made a worm."
"What?"
Will: Yeah.
Rod: What? Yeah,
a
y- But in a computer.
Will: But in a com- in a computer. Well, like, uh, look, still, still a wild achievement to be able to replicate-
Rod: No, it is, but it just doesn't sound it. It doesn't sound it. I
it. It I agree
that it
Will: is. But these, these are actually, you know, they're fascinating. They can show the, the flow of, you know, they can simulate how, information, or movement would flow through these animals.
Um- Okay ... so, what they're using them to do- That's cool ... is to investigate how embodied intelligence works. So they're receiving a signal from here, how does the brain react to it? Now, they're, they're a long way from, from perfectly replicating things, but it does allow them to learn quite a lot.
Rod: Okay.
Will: and what that... You know, there's a bunch of
y-
y- some people would call it AI, but deep reinforcement learning that can, that-
Rod: you wouldn't call it
Will: AI?
know, it's, [00:22:00] it's, it, it doesn't have the, the stigma of that. where they're, they're able to go, "Okay, so signals from here, appear to imitate,
you know,
indicate this sort of behavior, this sort of movement, this sort of, you know, walking or flying or something like that."
You can say that. But, uh, these researchers, and this is, uh, it's a preprint up on BioRxiv, so, so not peer-reviewed yet. but I, I don't see what the challenge in peer review of this w-w- because they say, "Here we provide a cautionary tale about the interpretation of some of these models." But-
Rod: That I think is probably an extremely good idea and there should be more of that.
Will: Well, because what they did is they say, "We constructed a virtual chimera of, two phylogenetically distant species." Uh-huh. "We got the connectome
worm-
of a C. elegans worm, nemat- nematode worm-" Yeah "... and the biomechanical body, of a fly, and we saw if we could connect them up and make what ..." Yes.
Rod: Fuck yes.
Will: make what's called a digital sphinx."
They're like, "What if we put the brain of a worm in the body of a fly?"
Rod: hoping they were gonna
Well,
like,
I thought they were gonna say like, "Let, let, let's take, you know, the, the passion of a, of a small angry [00:23:00] dog and put it in the body of a such and such."
or something."
Will: Those are big animals, and they are hard to replicate.
Rod: to
replicate.
Will: Fantastic. Oh, but, uh, look, look-
Rod: The worm-- Put the brain of a worm in a, in a body of a fly.
Will: The brain of a worm in a body of fly. And watch it- And then chuck some machine learning
in
Rod: there I think it'd be crueler
in there
do it the
or- I think it'd be crueler to do it the other way around ...
Will: reinforcement learning to see if we can stitch it all up and
Rod: make it-
give
But you give a, you give a, you give a worm, you say to a worm, you say, you put, you put it in and then go, "You can fly now."
And the worm goes, "This is sweet."
You
put a fly in a worm's body and it goes, "Jesus Christ, kill me now."
me
Will: Yeah, "I'm stuck in a hole. I'm, I'm, I'm in a hole."
Rod: out, and that's the only way I can
"Let me out, let me out, let me out. I can move."
Will: It would be very unfair to be put in, in a lesser body and I'm, yeah, I'm, I'm here being judgemental. Yes,
Rod: I feel like flying would be cooler than-
Will: Totally
Rod: eating your way
Will: through the ground Totally, totally. And there's a bit of me that's like, I know all scientists are like, "Huh, what if we did that?" But there is a bit of, what are we learning here from putting a worm brain in a fly body in a computer? I don't know, but I want to find out.
Well, their argument is not as much as you think we are So the worm connectome,
connectome,
um, receives sensory information from the fly body, so [00:24:00] it's, it's got- So weird ... it's got the wings and it's getting information And artificial neural network is trained with DRL, so the worm brain, produces highly realistic fly walking.
So- Huh ... the worm can do this, but they're like, that's not actually true because, because none of this is... It, it teaches us nothing about either animal and it exposes us- ... exposes us to a core peril of connectome body models. Behavioral fidelity is achievable without biological fidelity.
So what they're saying is, "We can fake this stuff, and we can do it in a computer," and the computer will work it out, and we might be able to, train it to do some of these behavioral fidelity, but it means nothing So what the point of this research is to say is, be very careful of using any of the connectome research to then say, this neural circuit means this kind of thing here.
Rod: yeah,
Will: So-
Rod: Yeah, use a computer but calm down about actually stuffing a worm into a fly
a fly head.
Will: Exactly.
E- exactly. Exactly. it's, it's just a, a really interesting thought experiment- Mm ... that pulls apart the idea of [00:25:00] can we map in a computer the n- nervous system and then impute all of this behavior?
Because they were able to do it- Yeah
Rod: Yeah ...
Will: on
something that really doesn't have those circuits at all. Yeah.
Rod: Yeah.
Will: either it was the machine learning circuits that just fuzzed it up and went, "Oh, yeah, your body can do this," or, you know, it's, it's so flexible inside the computer that it can learn these things, but it's not actually meaningful because
that
worm brain does not have the ability to fly.
So there you go. I,
Rod: think the only solution is more.
Like,
Like one of them more.
Will: You, you want cassowary body, like-
Rod: Yeah, or anything really. Put a whale inside a,
I don't
I don't know, a hamster and just see what happens.
Will: Oh, there you go.
Rod: So wars can help make us healthier.
Obviously. Uh, uh, uh, is this 'cause of rationing? Are you gonna and, and- And,
can
making your bed. Lot, lot of making your bed.
healthier, obviously
Will: Bounce a guinea or two.
Rationing? Are you gonna say-
Rod: Rationing does come into it, yes
Will: Okay, good. And, uh, is it all the marching?
Rod: Yes, and, and- And, uh- And making your bed-
Anyway, UK
UK Biobank study, so it bills itself as the world's [00:26:00] most comprehensive biomedical data set. And we've--
I
I think both of us have done stories
based
on this UK Biobank study
Biobank
Will: yeah, yeah
Rod: Amazing, amazing data set. It's behind so many biomedical and
epidemiological research
project, like it's-
Will: It's great.
another hats off just generally to these- Yeah ... these giant long-term studies that- Mm ... that countries have invested in, and- Mm ... they are so valuable because it tells you, tells you so much
Rod: the s- they are the, the research equivalent of when's the best time to plant a tree 20 years ago-
Will: Yeah, yeah, yeah
Rod: versus now. Today, these guys for decades
have
been collecting
this data.
this data. So, um
um,
Let's hear another story about that. Bunch of research done on data from babies that were born during and either side of the World War II sugar rationing
Will: situation. Oh.
Rod: Oh.
Will: oh, so this wasn't marching and bouncing guineas.
Rod: No.
Will: This was, during the World, World War second two, the, we needed to use the sugar to, put in the bullets, so the babies couldn't eat any sugar.
Rod: No one could.
No one
Will: No one, including babies.
Rod: Sugar rationing was large, and they said, look, it-- this is important, this is an important fact.
[00:27:00] It ended abruptly in September 1953, so it lasted a while.
while.
Yeah. Then it had a tail end. And very soon after that happened, the average sugar consumption levels doubled, apparently very quickly. So what you've got is a delicious sample here long-term associations of the amount of sugar consumption during the first few years of life-
Will: Oh, okay.
So- ... in
Rod: babies ...
Will: what was the earliest date? So up to 1953, and-
Rod: They, they focused on babies, data from babies born from 1951 to 1956, so you're straddling the 1953 cut-off.
Will: Okay.
Rod: Because it was really abrupt. It kind of went September '53-
Will: So you can suddenly see- ... sugar's
Rod: not rationed anymore.
Will: Yeah, so throw some sugar into your babies.
Rod: oh, everyone. People went ape shit-
Will: Yeah ...
Rod: comparatively speaking. So if you focus on these babies, you get this beautiful straddle. they
can compare adult
health
situations now from people who were between conception and a, and two years old, 1,000 days they ran with, who
ran with,
were either
born
and developed entirely under rationing for their first 1,000 days.
Will: Well, not, yeah, okay, for their first 1,000 days. Yeah, yeah,
Rod: yeah. First 1,000
days, that's
days, that's what's critical.
Will: Yeah.
Rod: They might have been born immediately after the rationing finished.
Will: Yeah.[00:28:00]
Rod: Or
those who were born a little bit in the restrictions- A
Will: little bit before, a little bit after. Yeah,
Rod: straddles. Which is pretty wild. I mean, the
idea
of that data set I think is-
Will: No, it's, it- ...
Rod: kind of cool ...
Will: wild and-
Rod: Kind of cool ...
Will: yeah, a natural experiment.
Rod: So before the story I'm gonna tell you about, they found sugar rationed babies had lower chronic disease risk as adults, lower chances of developing Alzheimer's.
Wow
Will: Oh, wow.
Rod: I know. And seemed to have better cardiovascular health as well. Wow. Seemed is underlying for some reason. There's probably more studies to look up.
The
latest one looks at cancer, and I'm amazed, for me, because cancer I think is terrifying and evil and wrong, I'd be looking at that first, but that's just me.
So
cancer, first 1,000-day rationed people, so the people who were in their first 1,000 days on sugar rations as adults, 69% less likely to develop liver cancer.
Will: Wow.
Wow. Wow.
Rod: Which is not small.
Will: Wow. So, so these people, it's only in this first developmental period. Yep. So let's assume from, from 1,000 day on afterwards, you know, once they're, you know, four or [00:29:00] five and they can, they can chomp away on the sugar afterwards, just for that- In principle, yeah
just for that micro developmental period. Yeah. Um- From conception to 1,000
Rod: From conception to
1,000
Will: Wow. And they've got 69% less chance of developing... That, that's-
Rod: Yeah.
Pros-
Prostate cancer, obviously not so much in the ladies,
52% less.
52% less.
Wow.
Will: Huh.
Rod: More than half.
Lung
cancer, 41% less.
Will: Wow.
Rod: It's
It's fucking crazy. Rectal
40% less.
Will: Wow.
Rod: And breast cancer,
36%.
So- These big numbers
Will: Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Rod: yeah, yeah These are big numbers. Also,
this
this
my
blew my mind,
longer telomeres.
telomeres.
the caps at the end of your chromosomes that protect the genetic material, and they're linked to longevity. Decay of telomeres is linked to getting older and dying.
apparently, the longer telomeres in these, particular adults equated to, and this is
obviously an
obviously an two to two and a half years of less biological aging compared to their age-matched-
age mates
shit ... siblings in this position, which is fucking insane. Like, it's just like, what the [00:30:00] hell?
they
also appeared to develop and maintain more moderate eating habits. So less sugar, smaller portions, more diverse diets, 50
50 years
later. Now that, to be fair, I reckon could have had something to do with also
the
environment in which they were born and stuff.
Will: I don't know.
Rod: born
Will: know. No, no, no. You could assume, you could assume same family.
Rod: Mm ...
Will: ki- kid born before, kid born after. Like I, I don't think there'd be family effects. This is literally a rationing. Mm. Like yeah, uh, uh, like generally across the population, of course, there's gonna be families that are leaning towards a higher sugar intake or leaning towards a lower sugar intake.
Yeah.
Rod: Yeah.
Will: But you've suppressed everyone in this period- Yep ... and then everyone is either reverting to their norm or, or whatever it is. I think this actually is showing something. It's not, Yeah ... family dynamics or, or some sort of different approach to food.
Rod: Well, no, I was thinking more like generically if, if you were brought up in a time of, of less for long enough, you may continue that pattern through- Oh, but,
Will: but this is 1,000 days
less than 1,000. This, this, this, this 1,000 days
Rod: you're
Will: is, is you're not learning culture that much. you're really [00:31:00] still biologically reacting here.
Rod: It's wild. Like it's just blows my mind. The researchers, they reckon two things are going on. One, early nutrition shaping how the metabolism, organs, and immune system develop.
Will: Yeah.
Rod: Yeah.
And the other one is that maybe your sweet tooth or your lack thereof forms very early in life-
Will: Yeah, okay ...
Rod: and it endures
Will: then. An, an actual sweet tooth that you-
Rod: Yeah.
Will: Well, I, that's actually- I
Rod: wouldn't say sweet tooth
Will: necessarily ... so that's actually a, a testable thing though that, you know, you know- Yeah
behaviorally are these people different, not just the cancer risk, so.
Rod: Yeah.
It's what? I mean, look, yes, we have to acknowledge, it's observational, it's correlational. Yes, it's true. Whatever. the claim from the researchers, and I agree with this actually, there's a very clear cutoff point which means you get really quite clearly discrete groups compared.
Will: This is--
Rod: But
Will: the, the, the thing that really blows my mind is that so many studies have said how good sugar is for us all the time, and finally, this is the one thing, the one- First
Rod: time I've heard it. It just- Which feels like, wait, what? So I shouldn't get more sugar
in
in my diet? But this, this, I mean, look, we know this.
If people already don't want to believe it, they're not going to give a
they're not gonna give a shit about [00:32:00] this evidence. But it's pretty strong.
Look,
there are possibilities for confounds and things- Yeah ... that we don't see. There, there definitely are. And maybe some of the rationed babies ate more than others because their parents
handed
over their sugar rations to them.
I don't know if there was something like that going on. Maybe some of the kids who were born during rationing might have had more sugar than others because-
Will: Oh ...
Rod: we just don't know.
Will: Oh,
Rod: okay. We don't know. This is, this is my speculation. I'm, I was just looking for confounds, right?
I'm just hunting for anything- Yeah, okay ... I
think
of.
It
may be a stretch, 'cause if there's none or fuck all, there's nothing to show- Yeah,
Will: okay.
Rod: Yeah ... for the kids to sacrifice. You know, I look, I think it's- But- ... super interesting ... I- Super interesting.
Will: No, no, and, and I think stepping away from sugar- Mm
to show that developmental moments of diet or potentially, as we know, a bunch of other things- Mm ... affect babies throughout their whole life. I mean, that's- Yeah ... that, that's a really interesting thing to show.
Rod: Yeah. Look, I mean, it made me sad because I'm pretty sure in my first 1,000 days it was the reverse.
I, I get the impression it was like, "Oh, look at him, he hasn't had enough sugar yet."
yet.
"This poor [00:33:00] boy.
not, he's not
He's not, he's not very big. We're worried about him."
Will: Oh, you poor boy.
Rod: Well, my parents loved me, but they also didn't really-
Will: Feed him up. Feed him up. Feed him up ...
Rod: they, they didn't limit me a
lot, you'd be surprised to hear.
What? I
lot,
Will: you'd be surprised to hear.
Rod: What? I know. What? Uh, nothing about me now would give you that impression.
Will: Ah. But- Uh, so I think the lesson was feed everyone sugar all the time and nothing else?
Rod: From before conception.
Will: Yeah. Uh, or not. What I,
Rod: I think it was- If you want to make a baby, eat, eat a liter of ice cream. Or in America, what's that?
Nine quarts.
Will: I don't think it's before you want to make a baby. I think you, I think you can still go and make a baby.
Rod: Start as-
Will: You reckon the sperm and the egg, like, like-
Rod: Should be sugar encrusted ...
Will: or sugar-free. Like you gotta have pr- you know.
Rod: Or have one of each. Have two children and experiment.
Like
you did.
Will: Uh, send us an email because,
And
I don't... I, I love emails and I don't get enough. Cheers@alittlebitofscience.com.au.
Rod: Slash
sugar.
Oh,
Will: We've
Rod: got a 25-star rating on every app and platform. Oh,
Will: and you can watch us on Twitch, um, and, and et cetera.
Rod: You can. You can. Are we missing-
Will: Do, do, do, [00:34:00] do. And we love you
