Today, we're diving into everything from prehistoric pooches to space-faring salaries, with a cheeky vampire bat thrown in for good measure.
Dire Wolves: Game of Thrones Meets Jurassic Park
Hold onto your dragonglass, folks, because scientists in Texas are cooking up something that would make the Stark family proud - they're trying to bring back dire wolves. Yes, you read that right. Some mad scientists (the good kind) are working on resurrecting these ancient puppers. But before you start planning your dire wolf petting zoo, let's consider the slight possibility that mixing extinct mega-predators with modern life might be... interesting. I mean, what could possibly go wrong with giant wolves roaming around?
Space Paychecks: Not Quite Out of This World
Ever wondered what astronauts get paid for literally risking their lives in the most hostile environment known to humanity? Turns out, it's about as astronomical as a potato. No hazard pay for dodging space debris, no overtime for those 24/7 spacewalks. It's like being a glorified government employee, except your office is in orbit and your coffee floats. Still, you get to tell people you're an astronaut at parties, which is probably worth more than money anyway.
Vampire Bats: Nature's Tiny Blood Sommeliers
Forget everything Dracula taught you about vampires - these furry flying bat friends are more sophisticated than your average blood-sucker. They've got this fascinating habit of... well... weeing while they feed to avoid exploding. It's like that mate who always needs a bathroom break halfway through dinner, except this dinner is blood, and the bathroom break is literally life or death.
The Internet Has Weight (And It's Not Just From All Those Cat Videos)
Scientists have been trying to weigh the internet. Yes, the actual internet. Turns out it might weigh anywhere between a couple of strawberries and a Tesla Cybertruck. Next time someone tells you to lay off the cat videos, just tell them you're contributing to important scientific research about internet mass. You're welcome.
The Sidewalk Shuffle: Humans and Robots Unite in Awkwardness
Ever done that awkward dance with someone when you're both trying to pass each other on the footpath? Left, right, left again, apologetic smile, nervous laugh? Scientists call it the "reciprocal dance problem," and guess what? We've managed to program robots to be just as socially awkward as we are. Achievement unlocked: making artificial intelligence authentically uncomfortable!
There you have it, folks - another deep dive into the gloriously bizarre world of science. From potentially terrible ideas (looking at you, dire wolf revival) to the surprisingly modest paychecks of our space-faring heroes, science never fails to amaze and amuse.
Until next time, keep your curiosity burning and your vampire bats well-hydrated! And remember, if you see a dire wolf in Texas... maybe don't try to pet it.
CHAPTERS:
00:00 Introduction: Remus, Romulus, and Kahleesi
01:23 Fun with Animals: Dire Wolves and More
02:04 The Science of Dire Wolves
06:16 De-Extinction: Bringing Back the Dire Wolf
12:49 Astronaut Salaries: What Do They Earn?
18:59 The Truth About Porn Addiction
23:50 The Psychology of Addiction
24:13 The Impact of Pornography
26:14 The Weight of the Internet
35:02 Vampire Bats: Nature's Peculiar Creatures
43:09 The Reciprocal Dance Problem
SOURCES:
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Will: [00:00:00] So they named them, uh, Remus and Romulus famous, uh, little kids raised by Wolves. , and uh, the third one, the girl was called Kahleesi. No. Yeah, I, I, I, look, I, I don't know if you've ever read the Game of Thrones books or know anything about Roman history, but Romulus and Remus weren't the wolves.
They were raised by the wolf and Kahleesi had nothing to do with dire wolves. I got, I got a list of names that they could have chosen outta Game of Thrones. They could, they could have gone with, uh, gray wind or lady, or Ria, shaggy dog, summer or ghost. No, no. They just picked somewhere in Game of Thrones.
Shits me to tears.[00:01:00]
Rod: It's time.
Will: It's time. For a little bit of science, I'm will grant associate professor in science communication at the Australian National University.
Rod: Are you? I'm Rod Lambert. Uh, a 30 year science communication veteran with a brain of a teenage boy.
Will: You are that person. I'm, and today in our little bit of science, what are we talking about?
Fun with animals. We've got dire wolves. Yes.
Rod: Yes.
Will: And
Rod: astronaut pay.
Will: as astronaut pay. Uh, I, I, I wanna tell you a little bit, uh, thing about porn addiction.
Rod: I, that's all I want to talk about now. I'll talk a little bit. Uh, have you ever wondered the internet weighs?
Will: I haven't until now.
Rod: And, and man, the answer is gonna make you the biggest dickhead at trivia.
Will: You are also gonna tell me, I think something about vampire bats.
Rod: I'm gonna tell you. They're weirder than you thought. And, and you know, it's even better grosser than you
Will: thoughts. Uh, I also, I also [00:02:00] learned a new word. I'll tell you that later.
Rod: oh, I'm looking forward to that. I, I hope I already know
Will: so did you hear the story about dire wolves coming out this week?
Rod: I've seen the snippets. I've seen the
Will: So step one, did you know dire wolves were real animals that existed in the world previously?
Rod: Uh, yes. Just like wooks,
Will: Uh, you get all your animal advice from the science fiction and fantasy novels. 'cause I know
Rod: I dunno what you're talking about.
Like
Will: I know Di Wolves are in Game of Thrones, and I'm like, uh, maybe they were real, maybe they weren't.
But, uh, like an all
Rod: like an A Rocks
Will: Oh, and
Rod: an A Rocks is apparently real too. It's basically a giant cow I think.
Will: Anyway, this has been huge news this week and uh, and I just want to show you the cover of Time Magazine. 'cause this is, this is where it was sort of announced. One of the biggest stories here. , it's a picture of a cute ass.
Rod: It's a puppy. Uh, yeah. A big
Will: It's a, it's a big puppy. A cute ass wolf dog, dire wolf thing. And tell me what is, what do you feel about the word extinct? Crossed out on the [00:03:00] top?
Rod: I mean, look, it's good drama. It's got color and movement. It's good drama. Someone's gone. No, fuck extinction. It's over. But, um,
Will: is it true?
Is it bullshit?
Rod: I, I have my opinions, but I'd rather hear your facts. Right. Okay.
Will: Okay. So Dire Wolff was an existing animal. Yes. It lived in the world, in the human world, in the Americas. , about 10,000, well, from 250,000 to 10,000 years ago when extinct, about 10,000 years ago. Were they?
Rod: huge?
Will: up to six feet in length, which I don't know.
Are we doing, are we doing nose to tip, girth to shaft, shank to
Rod: date to schnoz. Surely you don't include the tail. I dunno, I don't measure my dog and go, my dog's nine feet long. I gonna wait three. Feets the tail.
Will: buildings. It's gotta be, you know, a substantial part of the architecture. Like it
Rod: the aerial on the
Will: top.
Yeah. You can't put an aerial up on top. It's gotta be, you know,
Rod: there's a clothes line.
Will: listener. Do you know where you'd measure a dog from? Are you measuring it from [00:04:00] the date
Rod: Date to schnoz.
Will: date to, well, that's what dogs would choose. Like I think if they were choosing measurement, they'd be like, this is the holy to the goalie.
Exactly.
Rod: Exactly. You, you can't, you, you can't measure from the tip of the tail.
That's, I mean, look, it's attached to the dog. But anyway, it's like saying the Empire State Building just grew 900 meters. 'cause it put a bigger aerial on it.
Will: it.
Rod: building did not grow.
Will: Okay, so in, in olden times when dire wolves existed, they were six feet in length.
So solidly bigger than, than, uh,
Rod: interests me more is height at
Will: Height at shoulder. Let's say they were bigger.
Rod: Do I have to
Will: they were bigger and they were fluffier.
Rod: they're mostly air, like a, like a flake.
Will: It's like an Afghan. You bring back the dire
Rod: he means the dog. Do you Um,
Will: yeah, that's true. Yeah.
Rod: Yeah. My question is always, when they say a dog's really big, it's like, do I have to bend it all to pat it when I'm standing?
Can I just put my hand down and it's
Will: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Or if I have to reach up to Pat it.
Rod: damn.
Will: Oh, damn. That's, that's, that's a
Rod: and that's what I want in the dire wolf.
Will: So another measure of how big they [00:05:00] were is that they preyed on Mastodon, which is of of course, of course, the most metal of all of the animals. Like, like, yeah. Mastodon. Sorry. Mastodon. They're a little bit smaller than woolly mammoths. Still, I, I don't imagine they're easy to prey on, so you've gotta be pretty
Rod: to call them elephantine.
Will: tone.
Rod: And, and I'm guessing a, a single dire wolf did not upon a mastodon prey.
Will: no. I think it's not one Mastodon, one di wolf. It's, it's, it's a multi
Rod: Yeah. That'd be a quick cage fight.
Will: And it might've been they were gun for the babies. I dunno. I dunno. I dunno. But anyway, . We don't know if this was a climate change sort of thing or if this was humans causing this extinction, and, and that's actually a point that might be worth thinking
Rod: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Will: uh, we do know that humans, um, were living in America by that time. Uh, humans could have been up to 30,000 years, um, in the
Rod: these were white English people, right?
Will: No, not those. Oh, uh, no. Uh, humans. There
Rod: were people before them. There
Will: were people before that. There were people [00:06:00] before that in the America. Yeah. I, yeah. Fuck.
Rod: I learned things on this show. I really do.
Will: You do. Uh, so, so there was a period where there were probably humans and there were probably diols. Humans may have changed the ecosystem enough. Um, that diols collapsed, but there were climate changes as well. Anyway,
Rod: okay.
Will: here we go. Texas Company, colossal Biosciences. they're a biotech company and, and one of the things that they're doing is. What they're calling de extincting animals.
I don't think they use that term. De extincting bringing back, they, they probably don't use those words.
Rod: don't they Just write extinct and then cross it out.
Will: They've got a, I've got a, a, a, a little checklist on their front door. It's
Rod: Extinct? No. Uh,
Will: So, so the four, okay. I shouldn't have said the four because I'm not gonna remember the fourth one.
But, uh, you know, they were focused on dire wolves. Wooly mammoths. And I think that's where Colossal came from. They're like, you know, that's what we, we wanna bring back the mammoth. Yeah. Tasmanian Tigers, um, and then mis uh, being the other animal, the other creature, the other one,
Rod: The only other one that's been extinct. Dodos. Save
Will: tooth tiger.
It could have been [00:07:00] dodos,
Rod: Apparently they're not that tasty.
Will: well, I told you about it years ago., and this is their first announced, , de-extinction. They've done a step before.
So the thing that they've done in their project, their wooly mammoth project, is they made a wooly mouse.
Rod: That's the one I was thinking of.
Will: which do you know that's, it's a step and do you inflate it afterwards and make bigger, feed it a lot? I don't, I don't
Rod: put it in a, what is it, an ox, a hyperbaric chamber and watch it
Will: Yeah. But anyway, they, they did get d they did get DNA from, from dead diols. So they got it out of a, um, a skull and a tooth, um, that were in la tar pits or something like that. So, so they, they, they have the, the genome of a dire wolf then. They didn't push that into like a modern wolf. They looked at the, the genome from a modern gray wolf.
Yeah. And then looked at the bits where they can say, okay, here's some things that we can say, uh, this probably leads to die wolf traits. And so they edited the, the genome of the modern wolf in 20 places.
Rod: [00:08:00] So they guessed,
Will: uh, no, no. They're not guessing. They're comparing, they're comparing with actual di wolf.
But no actual di wolf went into this. They, they're using CRISPR to edit the genome of a modern wolf to look like the old DNAA bit. And, and, and, and so these Romulus, Remus and Kaisei, I'm sorry, but I'm just, could you, could you like Ria or, or ghost, I mean, they look like ghost. That's
Rod: do Look, that one looks like
Will: They look like ghosts. They should have gone with that. , they've been alive for six months now, which I assume was part of their like, okay, we don't want something to die, you know? Dead guy.
Rod: dead dire.
Will: Yeah. And, and you wanna show it? So they've just announced it. The, the dogs are living in a secure facility, , with Dick Cheney, I think.
Rod: absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Will: And, uh, uh, yeah, but it's a hidden facility somewhere in America. , probably living quite a nice life now the company doesn't have plans to breed them, but does have a plan to build up a pack. Which is cool.
Rod: my God, is this the beginning of a B grade disaster movie? What could possibly go wrong? You talk about your lab escape,
Will: Jurassic Dire Wolf [00:09:00] Or Dire Wolf Park Die. Wolf Park
Rod: Die park, castle, di
Will: So, so this is the question now. De-Extinction is it?
Rod: Nope. They built a dire wolf. They did not de extinct anything.
They built one they built, which is not a mean feat. Like well done you.
Will: And I think that's the, that's the first thing that everyone talking about.
This is stressing is, is wow. Like, like, like you have genetically engineered a wolf into a bigger wolf, a fluffier wolf that's, uh, not all air, but you know, could take down a mammoth, uh, mastodon if the mastodons came back and if some other things came back. Yeah. The culture of how to do it. But anyway. , so huge achievement,
Rod: But they built one, they didn't bring one back. Yeah.
Will: So, so there's definitely a bunch of experts that are like, this is a designer dog. This is, this is a genetically modified gray wolf. Yeah. It is not de-extinction. and, and you've got people that are saying, you know, um, it doesn't have any of the traits. Of an actual di wolf that would [00:10:00] allow us to know, okay.
Anything about their OQ system, how they lived or anything like that. Everything that we've got here is that their behaviors are trained and raised in captivity. Uh, so there's not like we could look at wild dire wolf behaviors
Rod: to be fair, if they actually did literally get dire Wolf DNA and put it into a frog and it like they did in Jurassic Park and, and it grew a wolf itself.
Will: Ah, yeah.
Rod: It also would not be brought up by other dire wolves.
Will: That's true. That's true. And so if
Rod: think nurture plays some role.
Will: Yeah. Well, I guess, I guess this is, this is asking about the purpose of, um, doing de-extinction projects
Rod: because we can
Will: Well, well, no, I mean, say, say this one we're never gonna, we're never gonna release tens of thousands of these into the wild and see what they do to ecologies.
I don't think
Rod: I'm disappointed to hear
Will: Uh, I, I,
Rod: I wanna know,
Will: you know, we know. I mean, so, so there is certainly a reason to bring back apex predators or something like that. Sure. So, so on the [00:11:00] Australian mainland, you might say, all right, let's bring back Tasmanian tigers onto the mainland. Uh, sorry, Tasmanian devils onto the mainland.
Or maybe Tasmanian Tigers might play a role. Oh, what?
Rod: and them giant wombats the size of Teslas.
Just 'cause I'm curious.
Will: I think, I think that would be actually really important to bring back, .
Rod: well, what's,
Will: what's, uh, what are they, Diprotodon,
Rod: What has ever gone wrong when we've just introduced a random animal into an ecosystem that didn't develop their
Will: well?
I mean, thi See, see, this is, this is the question about de-extinction that, um,
Rod: yeah,
Will: I, I guess you've got three categories of animals here that have different merits about bringing them back. One is something that was died long before US dinosaurs. So, so the ecosystems are completely different. They have no connection.
Yeah. So. I mean, obviously releasing dinosaurs into the wild would be foolhardy, but it's like, but none of their ecosystems are around, so we are not doing any ecosystem work here. Then you've got animals like the di wolf that were extinct in human prehistory, but not, not within the industrial world.
And so it's like, [00:12:00] oh, that's an interesting
Rod: And they're also not that far removed from creatures we have right now. It's not like you
Will: like you Totally,
Rod: It's not like a freaking
Will: could imagine it, you can imagine it living in, in an
Rod: Yeah. Yeah. Whereas a T-Rex, you go, yeah, we, we don't have anything like that right now.
No. And don't tell me a magpie is a T-Rex. I get it, but it's not.
Will: it's not. But then the third one is, is like things that were made extinct, literally by modern industrial humans, like the Tasmanian tiger.
Rod: the recency,
Will: uh, the, you know, it's, it was extinct 90 years ago or something
Rod: is recent
Will: recent. And it's like, it's, it's totally ecologically recent.
So bringing that back, you can assume the ecosystems are roughly the same. And so is, is that the, the thing that we should, we should lean on here,
Rod: but when in doubt just give it a crack.
Will: and scientists. Um, could you work on your names and just, just read the source material? Just that little bit more.
Rod: harsh.
Will: So you're gonna tell me about, uh, how much astronauts get paid.
Rod: do you reckon? I mean, we're gonna go with Americans because you know, they're the most astronautical of the peoples.
Will: there other astronauts? Yeah. Cosmonauts. Yeah. [00:13:00] What are they like Psycho?
Rod: Tyco. Nauts. Who are
Will: are they? Who are the Tycho?
Rod: Chinese? I think a Tyco. Naut
Will: and they and Euro naughts. I hope they're auts,
Rod: And that, but that you can tell the urine not 'cause they've got a a, a slash across them.
Will: slight, see, I'm, I'm kind of imagining like that they're eurovision, they're sort of weirdly eighties
Rod: Tackier shit, but very enthusiastic. So what do you reckon a gets paid per year? Us astronaut. I, I,
Will: do they get danger? Pay for space?
Rod: We're gonna get to that. Okay.
Will: Alright. So, so this is base, base salary.
Rod: I want no base salary.
Will: Oh, let's give him 200 grand.
Rod: Lower.
Will: No lower. Lower.
Rod: Lower.
Will: Um, all right. 150. Are we talking American dollars?
Rod: American dollars. They're in America.
Will: a hundred,
Rod: 152,000 a year. Okay. And for comparison, this article, I was reading US Congress folks get 175. So, okay. Alright. More to be in Congress than in space or training for space. So apparently that's a standard astronaut salary according to nasa.
[00:14:00] Now you're asking about overtime or danger
Will: danger pay. Danger,
Rod: or allowances or whatever. So, you know, there were those two astronauts, uh, Sonny Williams, Butch Wilmore. They were
Will: They were stuck. They were stuck up in space. Is this why you were thinking about this?
Rod: it was because it, it was like,
Will: racking up? The dollars?
Rod: how fucking wealthy are they getting, you know, they're there for, they were there for hundreds
Will: you were really thinking about the money. I was, I was thinking.
So, so, you know, just as a say, I was on, I was on a, um, a boat. It was a ship. Uh,
Rod: was on a
Will: boat, but I feel like it was a boat. Uh, it was a big one recently. And, um, I was getting on whistle. You were on a whistle. I was getting helicoptered off and my helicopter got delayed by one day and I out road. I don't like.
Uh, so I can imagine going up into space and going, I am factored in exactly 15 days worth of space time.
Rod: I think, I think that'd be supposed to be there about a week.
Will: And, uh, if I was there for three months longer, 278
Rod: days longer, 278 days. then they finally got rescued by a SpaceX rocket penis that brought them [00:15:00] back. 'cause the Boeing thing that was supposed to bring them back didn't work as well.
Will: Nothing Boeing works. Sorry, Boeing. You can sue
Rod: You used to, you used to work very well though, to
Will: don't. Please don't please. But
Rod: No, don't please.
Will: but you know,
Rod: But in the past, their stuff worked very well. Now it doesn't work as well. a, they were not eligible for any overtime. Which I found
Will: no overtime. Overtime, because you are, you're certainly, I mean, I know they're probably not getting paid by the hour, but you're sort of working the whole time. I mean, how much break do, yeah,
Rod: do you, you okay?
Will: you okay? I, I can understand no overtime, but surely there should be some sort of,
Rod: oh, don't worry. Alright. There's something.
Will: but
Rod: But it turns out astronauts, they don't ever receive overtime. They don't get extra pay on holidays or weekends.
Like it's stiff shit. You just, you're, you're at work
Will: Yeah.
Rod: about hazard pay. Yeah. Well,
Will: Yeah. Well, it's hazardous.
Rod: No,
Will: no. Oh,
Rod: So the quote from, from one of these sources while in space, NASA astronauts are on official travel orders as federal employees. So it's kinda like I had to go to Melbourne for work and they're like, I have to orbit the Earth
Will: fill out the, fill out the [00:16:00] travel.
Rod: Exactly. Where are you gonna stay? Space station. How long for? I don't know. Uh, but they do get incidental allowances. They get incidentals.
Will: this for buying stuff outta the candy
Rod: Yeah. Yeah. It's for the, from the commissary. From the Ian Commissary. I want Boors and Sam, they get the same, uh, incidentals that is set up by the Internal Revenue Service for any travel for a federal employee, regardless of where.
Wow. And, uh, it's five bucks a day.
Will: What the fuck you talking about?
Rod: I mean, to be fair, there's nothing to spend it on.
Will: mean, I mean, it's, it's better than a kick in the seat of the pants, but
Rod: dunno, I haven't had one for a long time.
Will: A kick in the seat of the pants.
Rod: it's worth five bucks. I,
Will: I, I think the science needs to be done on that one
Rod: Is it a good kick? So, yeah. And apparently, uh, almost every state in the US pays people on jury duty more than that. It's What about Sunny and Butch? What happened to them? Do they get anything? So they apparently they, they, they expect to be there for about a week, and it was longer than that. [00:17:00] Now it turns out because of the extra incidentals, et cetera, et cetera, after the 278 extra days, it's okay.
'cause they're gonna get I about close to $1,500. I assume that's
Will: pretty No, but the, the $1,500 Yeah. For 278 days. So
Rod: no, they pay, this
Will: Oh. So they were being then their normal pay plus an extra fee to
Rod: you know, for your troubles.
Will: and buy something nice in the gift shop
Rod: Get yourself something pretty. Buy some packet of dries.
Will: Oh, wow.
Rod: But then in the same story they were talking about, there was a dude who was on the, uh, in, uh, on a space station in nine, uh, 2007, 152 days.
He got a dollar 20 a day for incidentals. How
Will: did old mate Ru who was up there, , when the Soviet Union collapsed and he was up there for like 400 days?
Rod: , he got to thank them for the experience. Come back
Will: his one little rule bull. Tell us how
Rod: Good. We are good. We love you. Now [00:18:00] to be fair, to be fair, while they're up there, they get all their lodgings, et cetera, et cetera, paid for.
Right. You know, they get, they get, you know, they get room and board.
Will: Yeah. Fair enough.
Rod: don't have to worry about
Will: get all of the tubes. They can eat
Rod: tube. They of course have to recycle their own urine and sweat to drink. So there's
Will: get to get to
Rod: Exactly. Opportunity. Opportunity.
Actually, you're right.
Will: Many of us have to pay for that one.
Rod: Who do you pay for that?
Will: I don't know,
Rod: I, I really wanna recycle my piddle. Can I give you some money to help me? But ultimately they say, look, different commentators, look, it's a government job. It's got government paying, which is fine because it's actually a fricking sweet job.
Will: Look, I think, I think no one is going into astronauting for the money.
Rod: wanna get rich. Like, I,
Will: I, like,
Rod: I'm thinking I wanna buy a mansion. I'm gonna be an astronaut.
Will: You gotta pay your bills, but uh, you know you're doing it 'cause you get to see Space man.
Rod: that's what I think it was. Butch said, he said, look, I just love it up there.
It's fricking awesome. And it's like, fair enough. Totally get it. Yeah, fair enough. Totally get it.
Will: nice [00:19:00] study came out, and it wiped away a fear that I know you don't have and I don't have, but some people
Rod: I don't feel fear.
Will: . There's a bunch of people out there.
Rod: Mm.
Will: A little bit worried that might be addicted to porn.
Rod: how do you know? I don't have that.
Will: Oh, well, okay.
do you have an addiction to porn?
Rod: Is it an addiction? If you just really like it?
Will: Uh, no, no
Rod: then no. Oh, wait, what kind of
Will: So, standard, standard, standard. Um,
Rod: you go into detail?
Will: Uh, you, you, it's not necessary for this story, not necessary for this story, but, uh, uh, look, certainly the standard definition of, of an addiction is use of something in a way that causes problems in the rest of your life.
Now, there's a more technical version of
Rod: Yeah. But you could say like, I used a sword and, and I killed someone, and that caused problems in the rest of my life. It's not an addiction. So, so
Will: if, if your thing was, I have to carry a sword with me all the time and it, it accidentally stabs people in
Rod: in it, it went off in my hand, went
Will: off in my head.
It went off [00:20:00] in my head. I look. I, I struggle to see a world where sword addiction is gonna get No, but the standard one, okay, let's go with alcohol. You know, so happy to, there are people, there are people that drink, there are people that don't drink. There are people that drink at different levels. But typically, typically, we don't define alcohol addiction simply by the volume, but how it affects the rest of your life.
So for example, if,
Rod: you wake up thinking about it? Do you have to go Exactly. Do you avoid going places if you can't drink and all that sort
Will: of stuff? E exactly. So,
Rod: is what I do with porn. If I can't look at porn, I, I won't go anywhere. I can't look at porn 'cause it's just weird. I should be allowed, God dammit.
Will: no, no, no, no.
Look, are there people that the porn is coming out so I can't, I can't go out tonight. The
Rod: Newport, I can't go out tonight.
Will: the comes
Rod: the porn's about to drop.
Will: I
Rod: think there's gonna be more pornography. Where do I look for that? I don't know anywhere,
Will: but there are a bunch of people that are worried. There are a bunch of [00:21:00] people that are worried that they are addicted to porn.
Yeah,
Rod: Yeah, for sure.
Will: And in fact, there's a bit of an industry out there that's grown up around, , treating people that, um,
Rod: saying it's an industry growing up around getting people off? Getting people the porn?
Will: Yes. There you go. All right. Um,
Rod: could be the name of the company, getting you off the porn.
Will: So there's a bunch of people that are, that are making money out of this. Sure. Um,
Rod: prob probably the pornographers actually,
Will: but there's a new study out that shows, , maybe you don't gotta worry about it so much.
Rod: Oh, few. I mean, some people I know
Will: be don't worry man. Don't worry. Okay. So this is a study, , and interestingly the authors of this study, um, were all. What you would call neutral about the idea of porn addiction or perhaps even believing it somewhat. Right. So you can imagine the camps in the porn addiction literature. Some people say, no, it's garbage. Some people say, yeah,
Rod: [00:22:00] gimme a moment to imagine the camps in the porn addiction literature.
Will: Yeah. but these people are like, okay, let's do it.
Let's do the biggest study we can and we'll do a meta analysis, gather all of the studies. And now it wasn't a million studies, but it was like 15 different studies with 7,000 different people. And what they found there is no such thing as porn addiction. They're like, it, it just does not exist, but. But, but the interesting thing they found is all of the harms, and remember going back to that definition of harms Yeah.
Are not related to how much porn people are consuming.
Rod: so quantity and addiction are critical
Will: Well, well, it's quantity can be one, one measure here, but, but the harms are nothing to do with, with people's actual consumption use, looking at porn, but instead how religious they are. So, no, I know. I know, right?
I know. It's like,
Rod: wait, wait, wait, wait. Lemme lemme get my head around this So deeply religious people, I'm just guessing.
it more [00:23:00] complicated.
Will: They do. It's weird. It's weird. Like, like shocking. So here's what, here's what's happened. It seems like there's a whole. Quasi, uh, well industry wrapped around groups of religious people who are looking at the porn and feeling really, really guilty about it all the time.
Now, they're not the only people feeling guilty about looking at porn. , there
Rod: are others. Well,
Will: okay, let's, let's imagine a, who feels guilty, an anti porn feminist looking at porn? I imagine they feel guilty.
Rod: I'm just imagining it. I can see that.
Will: Yeah. So the, but these are, these are the great bulk of it. So, so the point of this research is that it's not an addiction.
It's not, it's not an addiction in the sense that people are addicted to looking at this. They can't do other things. All of the problems are from people who have, uh, a moral inc incongruity between their va, their morals, and uh, looking at porn.
Rod: so is any, is any of
Will: their own problem. And
Rod: So is part of that driven by the idea? At least some of them where they go, it's not, they feel terrible.
Will: Mm-hmm.
Rod: So they [00:24:00] can, if, if they call it an addiction, then they can absolve themselves responsibility.
Will: Yes. Yep. And you can get treatment, you can, you can organize treatment around it, you know?
Rod: Yep. It's not my fault, Pastor. I, I'm sick. But, but the other part of that is the idea that the addiction stuff that I've heard that convinces me more is, is, is like, it's, it's dude, it's always dudes, you know, becausecause we're terrible.
They're like, uh, I can't get off anymore because what I've seen on porn is, you know,
wild and crazy shit. And then I'm with my partner. They're like, I, I don't wanna do nine tenths of that. And so they don't get off. And so they've been so acclimatized to the
Will: Yeah, look, look, I, I didn't, I didn't see anything about the, the types or anything
Rod: I mean, quite seriously.
That's, that's something that you see a lot. And they, they've, they've, there's stories about other young people are learning dumb
Will: No other, I've seen other studies that have said very little, uh, harms fr well, part of this study, very, very few harms from porn consumption. Yeah. Except for if you, you know, so one study, uh, said.
Well, [00:25:00] one study said pornography used predicted depression over a period of over a time period, but only in men who disapproved of porn. So it's like they go, they go into it dis it's decent, they go into it dis disapproving, and then they're like, no, I'm depressed. 'cause I looked at the porn. But the people who, who didn't disapprove of it, uh, don't have any problems with
Rod: See what they're saying is cry winking is bad.
Will: I did see another study that said, higher rates of, successfully predicting, , lovers' desires through porn use. So people that look at porn more are more likely to be better lovers. Was, was an argument from one study.
Rod: I can't refute
Will: Well, no, no,
Rod: because I'm not that
Will: But it, but it was, it's interesting they ended in this, in this argument, websites and advocacy groups that promote and encourage identification as porn addicts are doing harm to their followers.
So this is the interesting thing, like it's, it's an industry that is preying on people and whipping up this fear and become like hucksters promoting naturopathic treatment, , despite, uh, medical groups identifying such treatments as ineffective and potentially harmful. So,
Rod: is why I suspect the, the really smart business model is the pornographers are also [00:26:00] behind the get yourself off porn. It's like, you know, we run 19 tattoo parlors and 14 tattoo removalists.
Will: I, I get it. I get it. Be on both sides of the dial.
Rod: Why wouldn't you?
Will: Yeah. Genius.
Rod: I know. I am. Okay. Time to become really good at trivia. You, you're already good at it. I mean, you, you're great. You're great. the question that caught my eye was what does the internet weigh?
Will: What does the internet weigh? Uh, am I allowed to have a guess? Sure. Alright. Alright, so we got, we got code and, and, and stuff. Floating around like the, like the, the, the virtual is zero.
So, so in some ways you can say, oh, it's nothing, but it's not obviously the internet. The internet doesn't happen without a big pile of cables and data centers. Yeah. And I mean, are we counting our own computers on this? Or is it like, like the bit beyond your computer to the rest of the world? N
Rod: None of that. And that's, that's the thing that's interesting. So yeah, the first thing I thought was, what [00:27:00] do you mean? So getting away all the computers, all the cables, and they're like, no, no, no. Like the, the stuff, the. Data, the bits, the essence, the information.
Will: But, but they don't like, okay. How much, how much does line of code on a hard drive weigh?
It doesn't weigh anything because the hard drive itself is, is the static weight. And you are rearranging atoms on the hard drive. They're still there.
Rod: Mm-hmm.
Will: Like there's no change in the atoms in the code. Like there's no.
Rod: I can't believe you did. You haven't prepared for this. And you can say stuff like that. You are a smart dude. there are some arguments for how you weigh the, um, the internet.
Will: this is, uh, obviously, front page article of the New York Times
Rod: god. Like people were talking about it for decades. I'm just gonna arrange my
Will: I do love, I do love that, uh, arguments about how much the internet.
Where, where are these arguments, Ben?
Rod: I'm gonna show, I'm gonna talk to you about three.
Will: Okay.
Rod: Where are they? They're in places like where physicists work. Yeah. This [00:28:00] article that I'm referring to came from Wired Magazine because they, they kind of look back historically, which is
Will: not the far,
Rod: 'cause the internet, they said, okay, look, here's the argument.
Storing and moving stuff in cyberspace requires energy.
Will: Okay? Yep.
Rod: if you go with the Einstein thing, energy has some mass. Yeah,
Will: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.
Rod: So it should in theory, be possible to calculate the weight.
Will: So, so the internet as a, as an energy thing, and the energy has, has
Rod: Has some mass at some sense. So 2006 a, a Harvard guy, guy called sites. He had a crack, let's weigh it, let's see what it was. He's, he's okay.
Will: okay. So, so he's just going on How much energy is sort of running the internet at any one moment?
Rod: kind of, and it's not like, yeah, the, the stuff you plug him, it's like the movement of the bits or the pieces that make the web. He said, okay, if you consider the mass of the energy powering the servers, the internet comes out to be roughly.
50 grams.
Will: 50 grams
Rod: in 2006.
Will: Okay. So it's 60 grams now. Okay, a bit
Rod: Yeah. This is about the weight of a [00:29:00] couple of strawberries. That's 2006. So since then, it's picked up. Right? So you've got Instagram, you've got you smartphone, you've got ai, booms, blah, blah. You've got the TikTok. Yeah, exactly. And you've got the, um, the, the workplaces that I'm learning recently.
The slacks.
Will: You got, you're on the slacks
Rod: using the slacks. I'm wearing the slacks.
Will: Yeah. Trousers. The pantaloons.
Rod: So exactly. Pantaloon in the word cap places. if you use sites as logic, the original dude by now, it probably weighs, you know, rather than a couple of strawberries, maybe as much as a spud a potato. Okay? And we all know the standard end measurement potatoes, you know, N grams, not n grams. N grams. So Discover Magazine then said, all right, we got a different method.
Will: Yeah. What? What are they counting? It
Rod: around the same time as Strawberry Man was doing his thing.
Will: strawberry Man.
Rod: And so he goes, okay, this is their argument. Information on the internet is written in bits.
Yes. So they looked at the weight of the electrons needed to encode the bits.[00:30:00]
Will: I've No. Okay. I appreciate that. But
Rod: But if they can say, you approve. Hmm. No,
Will: no, no. I'll keep going
Rod: At the time
Will: Um,
Rod: they reckoned, it was about where were we? All the internet traffic at the time, 2006 ish. I reckon about 40 petabytes, which is a lot more, less than a yacht, a byte, but more than a megabyte.
Will: I love, I I'm, I'm gonna be really good glad when we get to yacht bytes, I feel like, I feel like it. That's when you get yacht rock. You get all of the cool stuff. You get.
Rod: oh, I love yeah. The, the, the prefixes for it. It's a petabyte, it's a yip byte. It's a what? The byte. So they reckon if you do it that way, at the time. Five millions of a gram.
Will: Five. Okay. That's, that's just the electrons.
Rod: I like, okay, good for you. So, wide magazine that, as I said, I was referring to this, they went, let's, let's try it more recently. Let's, let's have another crack. So they took a, um, an article by, uh, they, they went [00:31:00] from the discovery magazines that most recent meth, and they said, okay. The magazine's calculation, the one that talked about the potato, um, sorry, the million five millions of a gram said, okay.
It's more to do with the transmission of the internet as opposed to the internet itself. Transmissions of stuff. It assumes there's a certain number of electrons needed to encode information. Certain number. Sure. But the number is incredibly varied depending on specific chips and circuits, et cetera. So that's, you know, that's not a great method.
So here's the third method instead. This, this preview method. Yeah, this is the five minutes of the gram, whatever. Third method. Imagine all the data on the internet is stored in just one place. How much energy would we need to encode the data and how much would that weigh? So according to certain estimates, they're saying that's probably about 175 zetabytes.
Will: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Rod: Mm-hmm. 1.65 times 10 to the 24. That didn't mean
Will: That didn't make it easier. Of course. A lot
Rod: multiply those bits by mathematical term, whatever it is that calculates the minimum energy used to reset a bit, obviously, blah, blah, [00:32:00] blah.
Do the mass, do the stuff, stuff. Staff, uh, room temperature comes into play here. 'cause the temperature varies. If the temperature varies, then the amount of energy need, blah blah. That's about 53 quadrillions of a gram. It's like boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, whatever. Yes, tiny amounts. And you know, lots of people being egghead.
But
Will: But
Rod: there's a better one.
Will: Okay.
Rod: In recent years, scientists have floated the idea of storing data on DNA. Right?
Will: Yeah, sure. I I do it all the time.
Rod: You do. You do.
Will: I, I,
Rod: and if you didn't, you wouldn't be.
Will: I've got my PowerPoints in my elbows
Rod: do.
Will: you do.
Rod: So they're saying, okay, what if we weighed the internet in terms of storing it on DNA?
Let's like measure the internet weight in meat. Why?
Will: Why?
Rod: Because they're curious. The internet's
Will: on meat. Like
Rod: No, but they're saying, if we're looking for a way to weigh the internet, let's try this one. Okay. This is why I'm saying it's for trivia. It's also, this also comes with the title of research. No one needed.
So they say, okay, current estimates, they reckon [00:33:00] one gram of DNA can encode 215 petabytes of information. If the internet is shitloads of those, that's about 960,000 grams of DNA.
Will: 960,000 gram. Okay. We're getting a lot now.
Rod: Yeah. Suddenly, once you
Will: this is a big pile of blood goo.
Rod: yeah, just gunk.
Will: the,
Rod: And if you wanna make that much easier to, to understand, if we go back to the original one, that's about 64,000 strawberries, 10.6 American males, or a third of a cyber truck. So if you measure the internet, the actual energy or the information on the internet, but in DNA equivalence, you get a third of a cyber truck. Boom. Physics boom. I feel, uh, trivia,
Will: feel, I feel. It's a little bit like, um, you know, so weigh yourself and you go, okay, I'll, I'll, I'll weigh my soul. Uh, that's, that's, that's the me bit.
And it's like, okay, it's, [00:34:00] it's zero grams or 20 grams, or 2021 grams. Or, or,
Rod: that, was it near 21?
Will: or, or, or like, you can't have the internet. Without the pipes that the internet goes through. No, like I, I, I totally get that. There is, sorry.
Rod: so they're weighing the concept of the internet.
Will: change. But no, that can you, can you, can you weigh, can you weigh a soul without a body?
Like I feel like,
Rod: no, man.
Will: I, I feel like it's, it's,
Rod: I want my weight converted to petabytes of information. I'm curious to go the other way around. What is, what is my, my mass equal in information?
Will: Rather
Rod: the information
Will: looking very closely at you and see if I can work it
Rod: How are you going with it?
I see you scanning me. You're going from top to bottom,
Will: 10. I, I'm counting on my fingers here.
Rod: a zillion bajillion ultra ter
Will: I, that's a very, that's a very tight, so what did, what, what is your take? Are you going with I'll just go with a potato 'cause that's memorable.
Rod: Oh no, I'm going with a third of a cyber truck 'cause it's topical. [00:35:00] I love it. There are people who care.
Will: You are gonna tell me about Vampire Bats though?
Rod: I was browsing the, uh, the scientific, uh, literature. And by that I mean magazines and shit. And here's a part of a headline that really caught my eye.
This, this is the bit that matters. The Vampire bat vomits up blood and urinates while feeding so it doesn't explode.
Will: But I, I have definitely urinated, so I don't explode. I, I have that feeling quite, you know, there are definitely times I'm like, I am going to explode. Yeah,
Rod: I don't, plus I'm gonna die.
Will: I don't add the vomit blood, but,
Rod: this is, they vomit blood and urinate while feeding, so they literally don't explode. And I thought I need to read further. So you've got the stories about vampire bats. You know, apparently started 16th century folks came to America, they went back to Europe and said, listen, there are these blood thirsty beasts. They drain animals at night, or they would eat people, blah, blah, all the vampire stuff. So first some fact checking.
They don't suck blood. They lap it from open wounds. They don't create the wound. I
Will: I, I [00:36:00] would love to see a vampire lapping. Like just,
Rod: You appear to have cut your finger. May I lap? May I lap at your finger? These teeth are for show. They cannot pierce the skin
Will: like a little, little milk saucer, wine
Rod: Not far off. Not far off.
Will: What
Rod: no water. Blood. The lap does not have quite the same sort of
Will: impact,
Rod: so yeah, they don't suck it. They lap it, so they, they need to basically, they're opportunistic.
Will: Oh, so they're waiting for blood to get on the floor?
Rod: gotta be, or, or, or a wound.
Will: Okay.
Rod: animal or a person has a wound, and then they might have a little lapi poo. They're about the size of a mouse, so they don't need a lot. They're not gonna drain your body.
Will: Ah.
Rod: They also very rarely have a crack at people.
It's more like cattle or chickens. So for starters, let's dispel all those
Will: Just, just to pause. Does, does anyone do this? You know how we had a, you know, the world had a, a brief fascination with leeches for [00:37:00] draining blood.
Um,
Rod: that brief, but yes.
Will: anyone, anyone, uh, done like a vampire bat version, like drained with, I mean, that would be cool. Like, yeah, I do the draining, but I do it with a
Rod: I'm gonna bring in a bat. Fuck that. Where's a leach? You have a sort of penis. We put bat on penis. It's like, I
Will: Weirdly,
Rod: it doesn't hurt anymore. Well done doc. I dunno what you did, but I feel great. I'm gonna skip out of here. So when these bats, like you call it hunting, when they go looking for blood.
Will: they
Rod: they
basically stalk from the ground. They don't fly in and go moha and grab the blood. They creep a lot. They basically, they use their, their wing hands to crawl along the ground and bounce with their back feet. So they kinda sneak up on the creature by going,
Will: wing hands crawl on with their back. So, so they're a walk, they're a walking
Rod: Yeah. You know, you got kind of little hands on your back wings.
Will: Yes, I do. Yes.
Rod: they drag themselves forward and their back feet kind of bounce behind it.
Will: Yeah. Yeah. No, that's cool. That's cool. I like that. I, I, I like, I like walking on wings. I think that's [00:38:00] cool. That's, that's my favorite type of dragon.
Rod: So then they apparently they can get quite fast.
So there was a scientist who put a bat, put these bats on treadmills, which is fucking hilarious to me.
Will: I love you.
So
Rod: How, how has work today, honey? Oh, I got this bat to actually start on the treadmill for a while. It's fucking
Will: You put a little saucer of, uh, blood at
Rod: at the end. Yeah, exactly. Very small teaspoon. Um, and they reckon they got a top speed of two meters per second, which,
Will: quick. No, that's quick. That's
Rod: 120 meters a minute.
Will: Did, do you wanna do more maths?
Rod: miles per hour, about 32% speed of light.
If not, I lost interest after a while I started doing calculations and I don't, I don't fucking care anymore.
Will: one Sydney Harbor
Rod: a minute. That's pretty realizing that's 14 Olympic pools of speed.
Will: They have
Rod: infrared sensors in their noses, so they can kind of go, oh, there's blood pumping near me. So they wander over to it, which is fine. And what they really like, the places they tend to become attracted to are the places that are skin exposed. So
Will: feet. Yes, he is. Yes.
Rod: and [00:39:00] the.
Will: anus. The anus,
Rod: Apparently that's quite a feeding hole.
Will: listener. He's just, he's just being a bit bore out there. He means the anus, the, the anus
Rod: Exactly. For those of you, uh, playing in a different language. So bits where it's all skin on many creatures,
Will: See, see, I see. I had in my mind, humans, and I know you said humans don't get eaten much and I'm like you said, where skin is exposed, you're like the feet. Oh yeah, I get
Rod: so all everywhere
Will: and, and then you said somewhere else that I've forgotten then, then you said the anus.
And I'm like, that's not often exposed. Like I think if you are having a.
Rod: what a boring life you
Will: have. I
feel like if you are going beach sunbathing and you're like, today's the day I'm, I'm noding it up and a, and a vampire band.
Rod: I wish I hadn't cut.
Will: I mine a fucking lottery ticket like that. Is that, is that is the thing. Well,
Rod: it's better because you must, you need to cut there first. I've somehow got an open wound on the date.
Will: I'm
Rod: I'm [00:40:00] lying. Butt up
outside. And then this bat is stalking me, crawling on its bat
Will: in the spot. Right.
Rod: and then it begins lapping upon the, uh, the date hole.
Will: date again is a technical term used, used by Australians to
Rod: for the anus, for the, I believe it's pronounced. But apparently they're also very good at this. They'll return to the same feeding spot, be it date or otherwise, because they apparently, they listen out and memorize a preferred victim's breathing patterns. So they're like, I got a good noch there the other night.
And they recognize the timing. It's quite remarkable. But let's go to the spearing and the peeing while eating. Because that's the headline, you know, they, uh, vomit up blood and urinate while feeding so they don't explode. So in egghead speak, the vampire bats exclusively hemato fagus diet blood provides far from [00:41:00] ideal fuel since blood consists of 80% water and absolutely no fat.
Will: Well, I mean, at least they're getting their water up as well.
Rod: So vampire bats, they basically adapted our digestive system to eliminate the excess water by urinating they piss while they feed.
Will: of course. Ah, while, like,
Rod: while they're eating
Will: eating it's like
Rod: to get to 'cause there's too much water.
Will: like, did you redo playing? Where you've got the, the
Rod: Exactly. Circular breathing.
Will: breathing. This is circular feeding and peeing
Rod: Yeah. Circular. Liquid absorption. Dis absorption.
Will: Thanks. Nature.
Rod: And then it means they can actually maximally absorb the proteins without their stomachs literally exploding. And 'cause there's no fat in blood, they need to feed at least every 70 hours or they die.
Will: 70 hours is quite a while. I don't wanna wait 70 hours
Rod: No, God mate.
Will: I feel
Rod: don't die, but I wanna kill people.
Will: Yeah. I'm, I would definitely 70 hours slot,
Rod: but literally, you, you wouldn't die after 70 hours. Whereas apparently a vampire bat would literally drop
Will: Yeah. But they're tiny.
Rod: So if they don't feed for two consecutive nights, they'll prob, they're [00:42:00] probably done.
They, they'll cock it also, apparently they're super social. They share,
Will: oh, share the onus,
Rod: all the products thereof. Ah. Which I didn't realize. So the, the females will actually, they'll vomit up the congeal blood as you do for their hungry neighbors. They'll regurgitate it
Will: neighbors, not children.
Rod: no, it uh, and actually family members aren't necessarily a priority.
bats with whom they roost regularly. They will actually provide extra stuff for them.
Will: found families.
Rod: pretty much. And, and part of the weird thing about that is, um, they live for up to 30 years, which is fucking bizarre.
Will: Are you? Wow. For a tiny
Rod: like that. Yeah. Yeah. Like a mouse is for two. These guys live for 30.
So they've got time to develop these pro-social relationships, which includes,
they might take two years to nestle up to someone and like them and then they'll start puking blood for them like we all do. Once you get into a serious relationship.
Will: Yeah, like we all do. So
Rod: vampire bats are more interesting than you think, more social than you think.
And they, um,
Will: might explode.
Rod: Might explode. That's why they [00:43:00] need to be while they eat. I'll
Will: a new word. I'm happy 'cause 'cause it's a, it's a word that I've needed.
Rod: I love words. So,
Will: we've all had this thing, and I'm gonna tell you a story about a time when I had this. , I was, I was riding my bike, on a, on a bike lane and there was a, there was a
Rod: you, your treading, not your Harley.
Will: Yeah. Treading, not Harley. On, on the bike path. And it's a, it's two-way bike path. there was a truck parked, like a removal van or a garbage truck parked right across it. Yeah. And so I had to swerve off into the grass, um, a couple of meters to get around the truck
Rod: at high speed. I assume
Will: I only ever ride
Rod: speed. No, there's only one speed
Will: know, I, I, I, yeah, I am,
I am just on.
but I veered out and obviously I couldn't see what, who was coming on the other side. There was a guy who veered out around the truck from the other side at exactly the same time as me. Now the instant I saw him.
He was 20 or 30 meters away, and I'm like, I know exactly how this is gonna go. I, I, I know exactly how this [00:44:00] I'll swerve left and he'll swerve to his right. He'll swerve to the right, I'll swerve to the. We swerve, swerve, we swerve, swerve,
Rod: me. Mirror, mirror, mirror.
Will: swer. Mirror, mirror, bang, bang, crashed into each other. But we, we've all had this, we've, you know, you are walking along in the street and just suddenly you, you're walking towards someone and it's like, you, you, you've, you've gone that side.
Now I've gone this side, now I've got, and, and you get to a place where you're like, okay, this is silly. A
Rod: You get into a weird rhythm.
Will: it's the reciprocal dance problem. I, I have never had a word for this before, and I've thought I've, I've wanted to have a, have a name for this phenomena and I was like, dance. What?
It's a dance. Well, I mean, you know, you can call it a dance because what you have done is, you know, one way of describing dance is physical movement between dance can obviously be individual, but between two people here or two actors, , where their, their moves are influencing how, what the
Rod: Yeah. Yeah. Some kind of synchronicity or,
Will: so if we are both, you know, you're both sort of [00:45:00] orienting on the same lie. Yeah. Yeah. And then you can both make these choices that you, you have a reciprocal dance problem and it's, it's a common thing for pedestrians. It's worse obviously, if you are, say you're on a bike and you're moving faster.
Sure. the faster you're going it, it can cause problems. The reason it's being specified is that, um, robots have this, no, come on. And they get it. They get it so much worse than humans. They get it. So because, 'cause 'cause they're gonna be algorithmic and, and
Rod: man. Me, me, me.
Will: like, that is, that is literally
Rod: this is how we fuck with the robot overlords, reciprocal dance problems.
Will: them all in a and, and so, you know, you can have moments where two robots are orienting on in a factory or whatever in the line as they're going there. And they're both moving around each other and apparently they can get stuck from forever. And I just, I love, I just love, that's fabulous. Humans are shit at this.
No, we're okay at this. Robots are so much worse at this kind of stuff. Um, that's cool.
Rod: gold.[00:46:00]
Will: I just, I just love the idea you can get stuck in this deadlock for forever. So
Rod: until the batteries run out.
Will: Until the batteries run out. So there you go. That's the, that's the reciprocal dance problem. Look, robot people will probably solve it and maybe humans, I don't know.
There must be some sort of solution. You just, you just charge straight ahead or something like that. But now you all have a name for that phenomena where you and some other person are suddenly having a weird dance.
Rod: I, I find, you know, you know when you are walking down a footpath.
Will: Yep.
Rod: You are walking near someone and you very quickly realize you end up walking in sync.
whether
you mean to or not, people, not, not friends or people you're walking with, but like if you're kind of walking along, you very quickly synchronize.
Will: there was a study I read once that, um, you are more likely to synchronize your walk with someone you are horny for.
Rod: You wish to have the porn addiction with
Will: no. You wish, you wish to lap at the same anus fr with no. That, uh, the more you like someone, the more you are likely [00:47:00] to
Rod: oh, that's like mimicking body movements and everything
Will: Well, you synchronize, synchronize, uh, accents, um, as well, but synchronizing
Rod: that with anyone
Will: speed of gait.
Rod: that I can imagine. But I was thinking more coming back to the, um, reciprocal dance problem. Being a little shit. When I find myself synchronizing with anyone, I'm like, I'll deliberately throw the stride out to see what happens. I'm like, I'll, I'll take a skip and I'll change the beat. And I watch to see how quickly they resynchronize.
'cause I'm just curious. Born scientist
Will: That's been, uh, your little bit of science for this week.
Rod: Yeah. That's all. You
Will: six, little bits of science. No more science. You're not allowed to have anymore.
Rod: you don't get it from us, you can't have it from anywhere.
Will: Listener, of course. You know, you know, your job right now is to tell your mom and your dad, um, that,
um, and your
Rod: dire wolf and your astronaut buddies
Will: and your astronaut buddies that, Hey, there's a podcast that exists. that's
Rod: I've got some news
Will: he used. And you could probably give it some ratings on iTunes or,
Rod: uh,
smash the Star button. 19 stars. We're going for our first 19 star review
Will: [00:48:00] Yeah. And, um, and send us your, your topics. If you've got things that you want us to delve into, to find the real answers or the fake answers to, you know, we can do both. Cheers. A little bit of science.com au. Cheers.
Rod: Out a little bit of science. Cheers. It chis it. Chis it chis it
Will: Chis.
A little bit of science.
Rod: Ping is at Chis
Will: Um.
Rod: We, we miss you.
Will: Live long and prosper. Uh, fight the good fight. Uh,
Rod: play with a straight bat. Eyes on the
Will: front, runs to the boundary.
Rod: Leave it all on the
Will: you do. You
Rod: Leave it all on the pitch.
