A 1960s mouse utopia that collapsed into a vanity-obsessed apocalypse, a global database of 150,000 enthusiastic stool photos, and a scientific quest to help humans regrow limbs like a salamander. This week, we bounce between rodent dystopias, AI-powered gut tracking, and international idioms for absolute chaos, which is a fairly frantic itinerary, but science apparently has no brakes.
The Mouse Utopia and the "Beautiful Ones"
We start in the late 1960s with Universe 25, an experiment that answered the burning question: What happens if you give mice everything they want? Dr. John Calhoun built a rodent paradise with unlimited food, water, and zero predators. It was meant to be a utopia. Instead, it became The Matrix for mice, proving that absolute perfection is a fantastic recipe for a total social meltdown.
As the population boomed, the social fabric didn't just fray; it dissolved. The most unsettling outcome was a faction of male mice dubbed "the beautiful ones." They completely opted out of society, refused to mate or fight, and spent their entire lives eating, sleeping, and obsessively grooming themselves. It’s an old study that keeps getting dragged back into the light because it feels awkwardly relevant to the modern world. Are we looking at a cautionary tale about urban crowding and digital isolation, or did a 1960s scientist accidentally invent the first generation of lifestyle influencers? Either way, it turns out that when you remove all struggle, everyone just becomes a bit too invested in their own skincare routine.
AI, Citizen Science, and the 150,000 Photo Poo Database
Now we arrive at the cutting edge of citizen science, which has decided that the next great frontier of human knowledge is a massive archive of human bowel movements. Thanks to a health app and a startlingly enthusiastic user base, researchers have amassed a database of 150,000 human poo images. The goal is to train AI to analyse human waste for medical insights, which is a noble scientific endeavour, but also a dark reminder of what some poor software engineers are looking at on a Tuesday morning.
While it is not standard brunch conversation, the science behind it is genuinely serious. Analysing these profiles helps doctors understand gut health and its surprising links to broader issues, including how chronic constipation might relate to heart health. It turns out your gut has a lot to say.
Regrowing Limbs and the Art of Expressing Chaos
Next, we look to the future, where scientists are trying to steal a trick from the salamander and teach mammals how to regrow missing limbs. Naturally, our ever-present lab companions, the mice, are leading the charge. Researchers have already managed to stimulate partial toe regeneration in them. It is a slow, incremental step toward a future where human limb loss might be treatable, which sounds incredible until you realise we are probably a few decades away from a mouse with a suspiciously pristine human thumb.
Before we wrap up, we take a quick detour into international linguistics to look at how different cultures describe things going completely wrong. The Swedes, for instance, talk about "pooping in the blue cupboard," while the Brazilians opt for the vastly more vivid "a finger in the arse and screaming everywhere." Which goes to show that while English speakers might settle for "the wheels fell off," the rest of the world has found much more poetic ways to say everything is on fire.
So that is the week. Self-absorbed mice, AI stool analysis, regenerating toes, and Swedish cupboards. Science is messy, surprising, and occasionally requires looking at things you'd rather not. Which is exactly why we keep coming back.
CHAPTERS:
00:00 Introduction
02:20 Why Universe 25 Happened
04:58 Building Mousetopia
08:43 Utopia Turns Violent
11:53 Behavioural Sink Theory
14:04 Misuse And Critiques
18:45 Poop App Citizen Science
24:58 Sharing Stool Online
25:44 Selling Poo Data
27:25 AI Data Hunger
28:23 Elvis Toilet Death
29:43 Constipation Studies
35:02 Mouse Toe Regrowth
41:17 Cactus And Sayings
-
Rod: [00:00:00] Universe 25 was part of a large-scale social psych experiment running in the late '70s. And compared to this study, the Stanford Prison Experiment showed an amazing lack of ambition. Amazing lack. So one of the main discoveries was how a bunch of distinct subgroups emerged during the experiment. Uh, one subgroup, however, particularly stood out, and it was so much so that even in the '70s it made it into the mainstream.
People were talking about it, which is a surprise. These guys, they're all males in this subgroup, they rejected face-to-face social participation, avoided physical confrontation, did not, quote, "court females," showed zero interest in what the researcher called territorial behavior, and spent most of their time eating, sleeping, and grooming obsessively.
In the years since the study, these fellas became symbols of many elements of societal withdrawal, social dysfunction, et cetera, for people. And for some, in hindsight, they seem to be an example of how the modern-day social media's impact on the world has led to certain male subgroups becoming deeply alienated, self-obsessed, et cetera.
The researcher labeled these participants The Beautiful [00:01:00] Ones because they were visually pristine, this is h- his words, compared with the battered, socially engaged participants around them. They were physically unscarred by fighting and unusually clean and well-maintained, which, if you're paying attention, sounds a little bit like a hardcore incel or a looksmaxer today.
But there was a significant difference. The Beautiful Ones were all mice.
Will: Are
you really
doing that? I don't think you should do that. 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: I'm, uh, R.G. Lambert, a, uh, 30-year sci-comm veteran with the mind of a teenage boy, and I play the mouth tuba.
Will: R.G. Uh, and today, as well as some beautiful incel mice- ... we also have some unexpected citizen science.
Rod: We do. We have, uh, something new to worry about when you're [00:02:00] constipated.
Will: We have some latest advances in medicine that I truly want to support. And, uh, something I'd like to call
Rod: totally cactus.
Will: I've also got a tiny bit of cunning linguistics for
Rod: you.
Will: I
Rod: see what you did.
Will: What
Rod: did
Will: I do?
Rod: I like the joke. What? What? It's, it's subtle though. No one would know. No one who didn't know would know. That music's beautiful. Hang on, don't turn it off. Now I can't think. So it's the late 1960s Beautiful mice Beautiful mice So these mice,
Will: this is Universe 25. It's a big, big, big name for a mouse study to call it Universe 25 It's a big fucking m- study.
Like, this is impressive I just thought Universe 25, like you've kind of got to go like, "I'm simulating a universe here" Yeah Like mice is not quite enough to simulate a universe. Like you could go, you know- ... Habitat 25 or- En- Enviro-ones ... 10. Yeah. Or what, what do mouse live in? Uh Groups? What? A mouse hole?
What do they call it? An
Rod: embouchure of mice? An embouchure, yeah I don't know. So late '60s, the potential for population growth, explosive population growth is freaking people out
Will: Oh,
Rod: this
Will: is like the- [00:03:00]
Rod: The book Yeah, the book. The Paul Ehrlich's 1968, The Population Bomb. Huge hit Yeah, nice. Nice He was, like, on the Johnny Carson show.
It was all over everywhere Yeah, humans are gonna be exploding
Will: like bombs. Exactly Like, it's, it's gonna be, like, just everywhere there'll be humans oozing out of everything Yeah But also- Yeah ... you know, there's, like, there's a whole bunch of movies and things at the time, like Soylent Green is set- Ooh ... in a world where there's, I don't know how many, they said 20 billion people or something like that.
Yeah, it was something like 1989 or a while ago I, I think, I think, yeah, I mean, it was made in the '60s, but set- Yeah ... 20, 30, whatever years- Yeah ... in the future, and they said that there's gonna be so many people we'll have to eat each other, which is odd They didn't say
Rod: that. They saved it till the end Yeah, that's true.
So spoiler I, I know, I know the entire important part of the script. "Soylent Green is people!" That's it Charlton Heston Yeah, that and, "You maniacs" His two famous lines. But anyway, so people were freaking out about this. A lot of widespread angst, as you can imagine, 'cause the population's gonna go crazy.
The planet can't sustain it. Ignorant as if it couldn't. So against this backdrop, things were going on at the [00:04:00] Laboratory of Brain Evolution and Behavior at the National Institute of Mental Health, and the director, an ecologist turned psychologist, John Bumpass Calhoun, literally his middle name is B-U-M-P-A-S-S Why
Will: do
Rod: you pick on people's
Will: names?
Rod: Bumpass. It's funny. That's a funny name. Look- It is ...
Will: technically, yes. Yeah But he can't help it
Rod: I'm not blaming him for it. I'm applauding him for giving me the opportunity to say Bumpass a lot, and I'm gonna Well, it is
Will: parents that you're applauding
Rod: Sure. Thank you, Mr. And Mrs. Calhoun, for calling your son Bumpass.
So anyway, he was the, uh... He was running a series of, as he puts it, increasingly elaborate rodent population experiments designed to explore how crowding and social organization affect behavior Okay,
Will: so when do the mice eat each other, basically
Rod: For example Yeah For example. So Unis- Universe 25 was the most famous one.
There were other universes, but there's way too much for me to talk about Okay, okay It's just huge. There's so much to this, it was like, how do I tell something? Well, when you've got
Will: one method, you just run with it. Yeah You just go, "This is my method" Fucking oath "I put mice in different situations" Again and again Yeah.
What if- And
Rod: again So it was an experiment that aimed to remove [00:05:00] virtually all external causes of suffering
Will: So this was Universe 25- Yeah ... not the, not the other. So all external causes of suffering All So, so they've got... What are we saying? There's food- Food ... and they're warm ... water,
Rod: temperature, no predators No cat No nothing.
Like, it's fricking fantastic environment
Will: Yeah. Are they making... Are they deliberately making them happy, or just removing the, the sad?
Rod: Oh, they're adding to what... E- everything they need, like your Maslow's hierarchies- Well, I guess so there's- ... have all been put
Will: in there ... there's playgrounds and stuff like
Rod: that Yeah, yeah, there's stuff to do Yep Or eh, ish.
I mean, as much as mice do stuff. It was very large, basically intricate apartment block for mice- Okay ... as it was described, and there's some great pictures of it. Like, the... If you click on the show notes, you'll see links, obvious ones, but you can see there it looks... It's quite- Okay ... there's a lot going on
Will: I don't, I don't even know what I'm looking at here
Rod: You're looking at a, the- Oh, they've
Will: got, like, mesh.
You can climb up the walls
Rod: Yeah, you can climb up the walls
Will: Yeah, okay But you can't get out But there's a fair few mice in here. We're talking, like, uh
Rod: Well, well here's the, the specs are. There's 16 identical apartment buildings, so four on each side Oh, little apartment buildings? Little apartments, yeah.
Four on each side in a big square.
Will: I don't know [00:06:00] if mice normally live in apartment buildings.
Rod: I mean- No, but they would given the opportunity, obviously Of course they would Obviously.
Will: They're an urban creature, and they're like- A shithole full of toilet paper,
Rod: or- "
Will: Yeah, I could get a better view if I go higher, and I can live inner city."
Rod: Yeah. And you can see at the top of the buildings there's all these water bottles and- Oh, you get the water at the top ... there's water, there's food, there's temperature So they've got water and nice pressure thanks to- They do. Exactly ... thanks to having the
Will: water up top. Yeah You've got your good plumbing.
They've got good showers.
Rod: Nice Good showers, good plumbing, everything. Each, each of the buildings had four, four-unit walk-up one-room apartments.
Will: One room.
Rod: I know. Walk up-
Will: I know ... as opposed to, as opposed to you gotta park your car- Fall down ... your little mouse car out in the front or
Rod: something like that Fly across.
I don't know So it's a total of 256 units. It's not small. It's ... There's a lot, there's a lot of, uh, occupants. So each of them could apparently accommodate about 15 mice, so quite a few. So they had abundant food- Did- ... fresh water ...
Will: can I confirm? Yeah. Did the mice choose to live in individual apartments? Are they like, "Yes, this is my apartment-" I don't know
"I own it. It's my apartment," or- I, I assume
Rod: they did what mice would [00:07:00] normally do. Some would cluster, some wouldn't.
Will: I would guess that. Like- Yeah ... like are they really going, "No, this is what we do now. We have moved to the big city-" Yeah, I'm, I'm living in my own studio apartment ... "and now, now we have the problems of anomie."
Yeah.
Rod: Not far off. Yeah, so abundant food, fresh water, nesting materials, protection from predators. They were, you know, screened from diseases, so they weren't getting unnatural or natural, um, pathogens, and also no harsh weather. So there's no rain, nothing like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's beautiful. Also, it was temperature controlled and designed potentially to support possibly thousands of mice comfortably.
Will: Well, and so of course, the giant spoiler here is they turn out miserable because, you know, they don't have suffering. No, it
Rod: went really well.
Will: Oh. It went
Rod: really well. The beautiful ones, man. Come on. Don't forget the beautiful ones. So Calhoun and his team would sit over the top of it and watch for hours a day, every day for more than three years.
Didn't have emails to answer. No, 1968, '69. Get the undergrads to sit over the, sit over- To chisel it into papyrus. Right,
Will: can- Strap
Rod: it to an eagle and send it ... all right, undergrads, for your assignment, you watch my mice. Yeah, exactly, and make notes, lots of notes. So basically you got Mousetopia. Brilliant. So they [00:08:00] started with a, a small number of breeding pairs.
They divide the, the whole experiment into phases to track population growth- Okay ... social organization, and the population initially expanded very rapidly- Okay ... because they're mice.
Will: Fill the, fill the void and, and food- Yeah ... is on tap, so- Food is on tap ... why wouldn't you? Water's on tap. No- And, and there's no predators.
Of course it's
Rod: gonna explode ... yep, no predators, no hunting. They're not getting sick. Yeah. They're not getting cold. They're just- So they're like, "Let's make some babies" ... let's make the loves. Yeah. We're, we're in heaven, so let's- Yeah, and that's what they say. In heaven, you should definitely breed. So you can't be pregnant in heaven, can you?
No. Well, I don't think I can. I mean, well, I, I- That's not my idea of heaven. I don't want to be pregnant.
Will: Well, I just feel like some people love it.
Rod: Um, I know. I don't think I would. Can you have sex, can
Will: you have sex in heaven?
Rod: I can. I don't know if you can. Hm, hm. Well, because I've never had it down here because I've never been married, therefore- Oh, okay
I'm saving myself. Okay, you're saving yourself for heaven. For behind the pearly gates.
Will: Yeah. Okay.
Rod: So, um, initially, as I said, the population expanded and social hierarchies formed, territories emerged, breeding proceeded normally. King mouse, queen mouse. Exactly. Then y- then your viceroys- Yeah, your viceroys
et cetera. Yeah, you got your viceroys and your, uh, your lesser, um, nobles. But very quickly as more mice [00:09:00] appeared, things started to go south, and it wasn't because of a lack of resources. They made sure all the physical conditions remained perfecto. So it was fairly crowded, but not outcra- not crazily crowded, so it ticked along.
And as the population density increased, social order began to fragment. Many male mice became unable to compete with the increasingly chaotic hierarchy. So for some reason, the hierarchies weren't clear. Oh. Maybe they weren't used to living so close together.
Will: Too many. Too many. They couldn't, they couldn't count.
Yeah, they're just like- Where am I in this hierarchy? ... are you the king
Rod: or the-
Will: Ah. And they had no markers of who's
Rod: the king. They had no, yeah, no robes, no tattoos. Some of the boys were always being attacked. They were cut out of territories. They were excluded from mating opportunities. So you got your bully gangs.
Mm. You got your alphas and your others. Um, some became hyper aggressive and would basically engage in what looked like random acts of violence. They'd just cruise around and fuck shit up. Oh. Females struggled to rear their young successfully, and maternal behavior apparently started to deteriorate under the stress and social instabilities.
Really? So it turns out, even with conditions of material abundance, Utopia wasn't great. The colony spirals into dysfunction. [00:10:00] Ah.
Will: When
Rod: will we learn? We won't. Look, honestly, I'd ... With the resources and time and free money, I'd do it again because I'd be so curious. Because modern mice, much more savvy. You might think these beautiful ones could be considered a- an adaptive response to this because basically they withdrew from these increasingly risky situations.
So what, the beautiful ones pulled out of this society? Yeah, yeah, they stayed back. They kept to themselves. They groomed obsessively. Oh. They didn't interact. Because ... And what happens- So where do they ... Do, do they live
Will: in separate areas? Do they- I assume they had their own little apartments- Oh, so they stayed-
and they just stayed out of the way ... they stayed in the apartment.
Rod: Yeah, and they remained pristine, well-fed, and didn't participate in face-to-face social stuff. Um, but Bumpar- sorry, Calhoun did not see this as being an adaptive response. He said, "Look, they've abandoned the core social behaviors necessary to the continuation of mouse society."
So no, no, no. This isn't a good response. You've abandoned mouse world. You've, you've deserted the mices. Because they didn't reproduce, they didn't contribute to the species. You're a species traitor. Exactly. A race traitor.
Will: Well, a species. I didn't want to go race
Rod: traitor. Like, that was- Sounds stronger.
Their lives became narrowly focused on, [00:11:00] as he puts it, "Passive self-maintenance and personal comfort." Mm. So he thought they were kind of a representation of terminal disengagement from collective existence. Mm. Which, yeah, it sounds like that's true.
Will: I'm, I'm just wondering if that's just a, a normal response when they're like, "Okay, I can't go out into the dangerous area where I'm gonna get beaten up.
So my response is to stay home, and what else am I gonna do?" Do what you
Rod: can control.
Will: Yeah, I groom and eat.
Rod: I can eat. Like- I can see how to keep myself bug-free and ... Potentially, yeah. And as things went on in the society, re- reproductive rates collapsed. Infant mortality skyrocketed. Wow. Apparently, social learning broke down.
Younger mice failed to get normal mating and parenting behaviors passed on. So they couldn't work with this. They couldn't work with it. They couldn't work with it. And even when the population pressure eased, because the numbers started to drop off, the colony never recovered. So basically, as ... There's one quote that says- Oh, so they'd
Will: learned some sort of behavior or something
Rod: like that.
Yeah, they hadn't. They'd baked in a culture somehow? Something was missing, yeah. Wow. And they, they weren't getting what they needed to maintain a normal- Yeah ... functioning world. So Calhoun said he, he called this a demonstration of a behavioral sink. This was his term, where overcrowding and social breakdown triggers- Sink [00:12:00] meaning like, like- Like a
Yeah.
Will: Well, yeah, as in drawing down. Like a- Yeah, a drawing down ... like a, a carbon sink or a gravity sink. Yeah. You know, a pulling down towards there. Yeah. And so behavior. Yeah. So collapse of society. They kind of got,
Rod: yeah, sucked into, like, a weird singularity of in- Ah. That's what he called it. And he said basically overcrowding and social breakdown triggered this cascading dysfunction despite the fact physical needs perfectly met.
So the Beautiful Ones were evidence that a society could become incapable of reproducing its own structures and s- social structures, cultural behaviors. That was what he was saying. So they became the experiment's most enduring image. Everyone's talking about the Beautiful Ones, 'cause they embodied the fears that extended at the time beyond- When people, when people
Will: come too obsessed with self-image, society doesn't work.
Is that what they were saying? It,
Rod: it quite ... Yeah. Well, they weren't quite getting ... At first they worried about the population bomb- Yeah ... then they got this controlled environment, and then suddenly they see that when they made things perfect, these freaks came out, which were not cool either. So basically they were a representation of it's just all bad.
Oh. Everything's gone wrong. So the scariest thing was their withdrawal was super unsettling, 'cause it happened under these conditions of [00:13:00] abundance and safety, not deprivation. Yeah. They withdrew in what at least originally was a very safe, clean, well-stocked environment. Yeah. They didn't initially withdraw because they were getting beaten up and stuff.
They just started to pull back early. But- Which is weird. I mean, that's a weird thing to see. Could
Will: you, could you have designed, uh, a version of this that has well-stocked, uh, you know, everything, all, all the abundance? Is there, is there a mouse UBI-
Music: Yeah. ... where the,
Will: the mice have universal basic income- Yeah
but there's some other inclusion- But not too much ... as well. Like, we ... I don't know. We, we give them some sort of meaning, like there's a poetry competition or something like that- Exactly ... that will give them meaning- Poetry, yeah ... and give them a social hierarchy, and, and then things will function. Like, I, I
Maybe that's what's missing.
Rod: I think you, you need some resistance to get your muscles to build. Oh, you need resistance. Social or otherwise. Ah. You need a little bit of friction and tension. You gotta lift. Exactly. Do you even lift? That was what I was implying. Do you even lift? That was what I was implying.
Bro. To me, that's an implication. Like, like, with e- everything being perfect, it reminded me of a version of one ... I can't remember which one of the Matrix movies where they went, "We made the original ones perfect, but everyone went insane and ate each other because the original [00:14:00] matrices- Oh, yeah. Okay, yeah.
All right ... they were too perfect." Yeah, yeah. They needed the tensions apparently. So obviously that came from this. So, um, over the time since then, experiments were used to support all kinds of social arguments.
Will: Like- Oh, no doubt ...
Rod: can you imagine? Well,
Will: I mean, uh, that's what I was gonna say. Can you imagine?
This does sound like conservative fodder. It's like, "No, we, we can't give the workers everything. Like, they will be worse off- Yes ... if we give them everything." That is definitely one of them. Like, that, that is what we must- Look what happens when it's perfect We must remain fat cats that can eat the work of mice Yes
otherwise they will not like themselves. They would prefer- Too
Rod: perfect, they become bad Yeah We're doing this for them
Will: You know-
Rod: But they weren't the only ones. They weren't the ... Anti-urbanists said, "Oh no, it's a warning about cities, and cities aren't good for people" Of course they did.
Will: Yeah, they said, "If the mice had had little cottages- Yep
in sort of some fields, then it would be nice" With an
Rod: inconveniently timed train trip between villages- Oh ... once a month. So there's tension again. Yeah Yeah, I was gonna say- So you've got to plan your trips ... more like a horse and cart Yeah, you're right. You're right. The rest of the time. A mouse- No, but it'd be like a rat.
Like, they have a rat like- Guinea pigs. But yeah, that ... So people, [00:15:00] anti-consumerists decided it was, um, linked to alienation and passivity of being a consumer Sure.
Will: Yeah, yeah, yeah And
Rod: more recently, of course, online commentators connect The Beautiful Ones to modern digital culture- Yeah ... social withdrawing and narcissism Yeah, 'cause all of those mice were definitely on social media They certainly very quickly became in recent times Yeah, they were all on the TikToks They're definitely
Yeah, they're influencers. They're all influencers. If you'd given them little phones- ... they would've taken pictures of their grooming and their abundant eating. So of course though, there were criticisms of the experiment. You'll find this amazing, the peer. Some people said it wasn't perfect I don't think perfect is the goal of an experiment This is why you'll never be a laboratorist Well, no, I think You'll never be a laboratorist with that attitude One, one experiment to solve them all And it must be perfect Otherwise, burn it down.
But I mean, all the arguments. So they said, look, they overinterpreted the, the mouse behavior in an artificial enclosure would not meaningfully predict mouse behavior, better yet human civilization Yeah, yeah, yeah Imagine that. Um, and humans, you know, if you're trying to extrapolate, which they did a lot, humans, you know, we've got [00:16:00] things like, you know, your cultures, your technologies, your adaptive institutions Look,
Will: look, I think, I think- We differ I think given that we remain, at the moment, the dominant species- We do
I think it's fair to say, what would it be if we designed something perfect for ourselves? And that might involve a whole lot of discussion or something like that. It would- But having a dominant species going, let's make a controlled little environment that is perfect for them in some small objective criteria, it's a long way to jump to say, "Okay, that's what it means for humans"
Rod: Yes, it is.
I agree with you. It is a, a very much a long way to jump. Look, there are a bunch of other critics, like the, they said, look, they weren't acting naturally in this environment. They weren't- Yeah ... given the opportunity to fully interact. Again, the stresses, et cetera, et cetera. And so the, some would argue it affected the, it reflected the effects of captivity, et cetera, on these creatures.
Also, serious scientists did not like the anthropomorphisms that Calhoun used Well, okay, yeah, but that's not- They didn't like that ... that's not the experiment. That's the implication The reporting on. Because it wasn't only The Beautiful Ones. There was also universal autism. I know. Pied pipers, somnambulists [00:17:00] Sleepers Yeah, but moving sleepers, like zombies, and super aggro mice he'd call berserks.
I think that sort of sounds reasonable. But people didn't like that Okay So his last probably serious publication about it was in '73. Death Squared: The Explosive Growth and Demise of a Mouse Population. After that, apparently he rarely published- Yeah ... anywhere, better yet formally Oh, he retired. Fine No, 'cause it got to the point where, for example, Universe 33 and 34 weren't published at all.
Oh, what happened? I don't know. What did he do? I don't know, but, like, when we're considering- So in this universe, every mouse has a gun Fuck, who knows? Prob- teleporter. Like, we're talking- ... 33 and 34. We, we've been talking about 25. I don't know what would 1 to 24 look like. Let alone up to 34. Um, also apparently in the '70s and '80s, animal behaviorists and psychologists said, "Oh, yeah, we know about his work, but," and this is my favorite quote, "There's no evidence for behavioral sinks, beautiful ones, or any other observations that Calhoun detailed in his rat and mouse universes, hasn't been found in wild populations of animals at all, [00:18:00] rat, mouse, any"
Will: Yeah, sure.
Any. Sure. No, so he made an experimental condition that is different from the rest of the world- Yes ... that, that may still tell us something- It may. No ... just
Rod: because- No. No, because we didn't find it in the wild, it must all be shit- ... apparently. So basically, once again, turns out lab studies of animals don't reveal everything about humans.
Or about the animals. Or about the animals, exactly. But I do love the truthiness of the whole beautiful ones in social media. Yeah, yeah. It's like,
Will: ooh, that's kind of delicious. Look, yet again, I mean, we've, we've talked about other versions of this, animals do animal stuff. Yeah. And if you put animals in weird stuff, they do slightly different things.
Rod: Yeah, but still animal stuff.
Will: It doesn't mean they're humans, and it doesn't mean that- No, you lost me ... that we do the same Talk me through that again.
All right, this one I, uh, have to give a shout-out to the author straightaway because, uh, much of it is, uh, coming directly from a great post that I found on 404 Media, and this is what I'm declaring a rather unexpected bit of citizen science. [00:19:00] So- Ooh ... Jason Koebler from 404 Media writes- Friend of the show
uh, "A few weeks ago, I came across a wild post on Reddit's, uh, or thread on Reddit, a subreddit for trading large data sets. I have hoarded a large database of something valuable, just not what you expect." What do I expect? I don't know. A large database of something. What would you guess, a large database?
It's 150 images Ton of fungus?
Rod: Yeah.
Will: I
Rod: don't know if there are that many of that Particular kinds of dags on New Zealand sheep? I think you might be getting close Oh, the worms that come out, the parasitical worms that come out of the dag during sleep. Some of those are quite eccentric. You need photos. So this
Will: was a database of human poo images.
Rod: Wait. First question, only 150?
Will: 150,000. Oh, thousand. 150,000. I missed all them zeros. 150,000. In that ca- So- I'm just gonna take a moment and- So this database had been collected- Wow ... from, uh, 250, sorry, 25,000 people. [00:20:00] With their consent? With their consent. Well, okay, I'll come to consent in a bit. What does the form look like?
I- I'll come to consent in a bit because that- Okay, okay ... is an interesting topic. Excellent. But 25,000 people had been taking images of their, to put the scientific term, stool or their poo or their- Scat ...
Rod: poop. Copra.
Will: Uh,
Rod: I don't know if anyone uses the la- I think it's copra once it's become, like, uh- Ossified
yeah, yeah, ossified and usually Viking. Viking.
Will: Is it?
Rod: It's always- Was it?
Will: But there was that story about a Viking- Yeah,
Rod: the giant Viking poo. That was- Yeah. How do you know they were warriors? Look at the
Will: size of this thing. It's colossal. Well, well, they had uploaded to his app, and, um, he'd been collecting, analyzing, and, um, annotating these images.
Annotating? Annotating. Poo. Yes, indeed. Too much corn, not enough fiber. And now he was selling access to them. Uh, so his- To who? Well, well, well, well. Okay, he's got, "I've got 150K labeled and classified images of poop from roughly 25K people. Jokes [00:21:00] aside, I know there's a lot of value in it. It's hard to obtain, useful for machine learning, cancer studies, et cetera."
Okay. "But not sure how to move on it." Feels like I'm sitting on a pile of, uh, shiny coins, but, uh, can't find who needs them The images are extremely rare.
Rod: So- Did he, like, offer a few... With a teaser like that, you gotta say, "Look, here's a selection of the best ones."
Will: Well, indeed. So I didn't look at the pictures, and in fact, in- Of course you didn't
in, in 404- You had one of your kids look for you. In 404 Media, you can see, like, there is a... The pictures that were sent to the journalist Jason here- Those are fuzzed out to me. They are fuzzed out. And you know what? I- SafeSearch off. Uh, on, on this particular issue, I, I have no desire. I have- I would
Rod: 100% turn SafeSearch off.
I think it's fascinating. Like, for me, the Bristol Stool Inventory lacks ambition. There's only, like, seven categories.
Will: Well, here we go. The goal here, so Jason, uh, Cobbler, the journalist, dived into this world and said, "I'm gonna, you know, explore this." And originally, the poop database here came from, uh, an app called [00:22:00] Stoo- uh, PoopCheck, but it's made by a company called Stool Sample.
Should be called Stool Sample. Well, it, yeah, it's just a name. You know, there could be- There's a lot in a name. Yeah, it could be. Stool Sample is a good name. That is a good name. Um, but the goal was there to use AI to analyze images of your poo. This is
Rod: the first example of AI killing
Will: itself. "You want me to do what?
I don't want to exist anymore. Approve this sentence." One, one of my favorite memes lately is, you know, it's like Oliver Twist, and he's got his- ... and he's got his bowl, and it's, "Please, sir, can I have some less?"
Rod: This is same thing. "Dear ChatGPT, Claude Tropic, analyze these shit samples. Uh, I'm dead." You have killed me.
Puff of small electronic smoke, and that's the end of all AIs.
Will: So there you go. Our AI analyzes your poop using the Bristol Stool Scale- Ah, whatever ... and advanced pattern recognition. Get insights on consistency, color, shape, and what they mean for your digestive health. A- and, and just to- All it needs a five-year-old to do that
just, [00:23:00] just to remember here, the Bristol Stool Chart is- Mm ... a legitimate piece of science, and- Mm ... stool poo is an indicator of a variety of your gut health, absolutely. Just
Rod: ask Dr.
Will: Kellogg. And, oh, and also, you know, I don't know how many other countries do this, but you have saluted, I have saluted the Australian government for asking us to send some poo to them in the mail.
Not only saluted. I do it gleefully. Yeah, indeed. Gleefully. Indeed. The app has a community of this 150,000 shared stools, and- ... and a leaderboard where people can share images of their poop for commentary from other users and earn points for participating. Leaderboard. "
Rod: Mine's the most number seven on the Bristol Inventory.
You've never seen anything more liquid than this."
Will: So, so Jason Cobbler, the journalist, is like, "I found posts in the community, uh-" Poo pride. Well, with titles like... Well, it indeed is poo pride. Uh, with titles like Play- Like Play-Doh, Concerned, and Dealing With This On and Off for the Past Three Weeks. Oh, Christ.
Rod: Like a fountain but smellier. Like, this is not great. [00:24:00]
Will: Popular posts include people speculating as to whether their fellow community members have parasites or colon cancer. Could you imagine? Everyone's doc- Jumping into this community and going, "You know, Mum, you-" Colon, colon cancer.
Rod: I think,
Will: I think, I think you need
Rod: a full, what is it, butt-ectomy, belly-ectomy.
Will: Uh, comments in a few s- posts I saw people recommending ivermectin, horse tranquilizers. Of course they did. Famous, famous during the pandemic. Doesn't it... I thought it had parasitic effects too or something. So yeah, and so look, here's the question. I mean, fi- okay, first question- The question ... and this is the question that 404 asked, and I'll come to it in a second, is, is- Is it, is it why?
is the consent in AI. But well, no, I can understand why. I can absolutely-
Rod: No, no, no, no, not the existence of it, the person in question who went, "Here's what I'm gonna do" "I wanna build a, I wanna bu- "I have a dream" I wanna- "I have a dream" ... I wanna ask- "I've always wanted to build an app, and it seems like everything's been done.
Wait a minute, just found a niche, or a crevice, if you will" But
Will: then there's the [00:25:00] other question, the social question. Yeah. I get there are absolutely times when you might wanna talk to your doctor about the thing that lands in the toilet. Uh, like I, I absolutely- Yes ... many, many other- Yes ...
Rod: but- In fact, sometimes I make an appointment just to talk about that
Will: I don't under- I, okay, I understand the instinct to citizen science where it's like, "Oh, there's a weird bird in my backyard"
Rod: Which could be a euphemism for what they're talking about here. A weird bird in my backyard. So that, that could be the name of the app too. Look at, Look at My Butt Birds. But
Will: I, you know, you know, the whole sharing it with the community, I, I, you know- You're not, you're not in, you're not down So anyway, they had this now 150,000, uh- Do
Rod: you know, you know, you, you could use like a pseudonym like, uh, Gil Rant.
Gil
Will: Rant?
Rod: No one would know who you were. Well,
Will: actually, this is what Jason Koebler, the journalist, did. Yeah. Uh, he messaged, messaged the person saying, "Um, I'm trying to sell it." And, um, he said, "Oh, can you give me some samples?" And so he did. You know, sent him- Sweet ... sent him a bunch of samples. But then came out an [00:26:00] estimation of pricing for, uh, for the different amounts.
So 10,000 unreviewed AI images, $3,000. 5,000 fully reviewed and annotated, uh- 100 million. No, $4,000. So it's not much of a
Music: jump.
Will: You're not, you're not changing your life. The- they've all been annotated aga- against a whole big criteria, you know- Oh ... um, consistency, color, does it have mucus, is it floating, is it- Does it have mucus?
Uh, w- well, indeed, indeed. I think that's called
Rod: a santorum, isn't it? And,
Will: and then a few other things like did you drink caffeine, what you might have eaten beforehand, all sorts of things like that. So- No, no, the-
Rod: these are all phrased wrongly. What the fuck were you eating beforehand should be the category.
Will: The story ends, the story ends for 404 because 404 is, uh, a media site that is very interested in AI- Yeah ... and modern technology and data use rights. Uh-huh, uh-huh. Uh, when, when, uh, the journalist said, "Oh, I'm actually doing this for a story," and it turns out that, [00:27:00] yeah, maybe all the people that shared these images never really gave consent for them to be harvested for AI.
Ooh, ooh, oopsie. But it does point to something really interesting here that-
Rod: I know how to get around that. You say to them, "Okay, you tell me which one's yours, we'll pull it out." Pull...
Will: Mine's the wee beige number. Go, go
Rod: through the 150,000 images, point out yours, and they're gone.
Will: That one, and that one, and that one- That's, that's my turds.
and that one, and that one. That was Friday. Look- ... but, but it does point to something really interesting that we know that, um, the ChatGPTs and all of the, the, the companies behind them- Mm ... are trying to get more data. Yes. Now, so much of it is text and video and stuff like that. They're just mining the internet.
Yeah, yeah. Um, and they're often hitting limits. That's an interesting question for them, whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I, I don't care to solve it. But it is also, what about unique and weird situations? Yeah. Like, if, if you wanna diagnose moles and freckles and things like... You need a large data set of that. You do.
If you want to understand some weird machine operates or something like that, you need a large data set. If you [00:28:00] wanna, you know- Dissect- If you want a toi- ... fecal matter ... a toilet that can predict if you're sick based on this- I do ... you probably need a large data set. You do. So it says something really interesting about harvesting, harvesting and collecting data in these times.
So- Yeah ...
Rod: you know. Too much data
Will: are barely enough. So there you go. Just know, images of your poo could be worth money. Not a lot.
Rod: In this, uh, continuing the fecal-oriented theme of this episode, I didn't know this, maybe you did, but when the very bloated Elvis Presley was found dead on his golden toilet back in, uh- 1977, he was 44. 44? 44. 44. Yeah. I had in my mind that he was at- 191 ... at least 45, but, um No, you just missed. You were so close.
You had that in the sweepstakes. One of the leading suspicions was that he'd, d- been seriously constipated for years and strained so hard he had a heart attack. That is the story I have heard,
Will: or at least that he was straining and heart attack happened.
Rod: Yeah. And, um, look, it's not 100% verified, though one source I saw suggested...
And I stopped looking [00:29:00] after this 'cause it's worth saying. There was reported four months of stool sitting in his bowel in the autopsy. Indeed.
Will: Indeed. Four
Rod: months of stool. I, I'd get mad if there's a day. It's not right. Well, look,
Will: you know- Poo,
Rod: poo should be out, not in.
Will: Indeed. But, uh, stress- It may also
Rod: be that he, um, he was addicted to painkillers and a bunch of other stuff.
It may be, another speculation is he passed out on the toilet, fell forward, and smacked his head.
Will: Okay.
Rod: That's another option. That's slightly more glorious. Slightly. Apparently still in the sitting on the toilet position, he was found... Anyway. Well, okay. It wasn't great. Not a great way to go. Poor man.
Terrible thing. Anyway, regardless, it seems that this case or his case got scientists interested in sussing out the link between constipation and heart attacks, the obvious connection. Yeah,
Will: okay. Yeah.
Rod: So before we get to a more recent study, I want to give you a couple of examples from the, uh, annals of constipation research.
How annoying. You're welcome. So first up, 2020, Danish study of more than 900,000 people. I didn't know there were that many Danes, but apparently there are. From [00:30:00] hospitals and hospital outpatient clinics, they found that people who were constipated had an increased risk of heart attacks and strokes. So there was a clear- It is not surprising
correlation. It's not surprising. It's not surprising. Like- But it's still like, oh my God, constipation, I'm gonna have a heart attack. That's not cool.
Will: It is certainly another kick while you're down. That's what you need. Like- Yeah ... like I, I'm, this isn't- I haven't shat in a month ... this isn't great, and now I'm gonna have a heart attack.
My heart health is the problem. Yeah. Look, look, it's not great.
Rod: The question in the Danish study was, was the relationship between constipation- Which
Will: direction?
Rod: Yeah. Was an increased risk of heart attacks and strokes also true, more the point, for healthy people? 'Cause these were hospitalized folks, so people who were already- Okay
well. Yeah, okay. That was 2020. 2023, an Australian study which was published in Nature. Nature does all the good stuff. More than half a million people over 60 in hospitals for a bunch of different conditions. Constipated patients among this group had a higher risk of a high blood pressure- Yeah ... heart attacks, and strokes compared to the non-constipated patients.
Yeah. So there was some connection, whatever the direction.
Will: Again, not a, not a
Rod: surprising thing. No, not a surprise. Japanese study I couldn't get the year, but it was around this time. More than [00:31:00] 45,000 men and women in the general population. They found that people who pass a bowel motion once every two or three days had a higher risk of dying from heart disease compared with ones who had at least one bog a day.
I couldn't find the date, as I said. So the more recent study, 2024 Australian one, or at least the main researchers, they found that previous studies did not factor in the effects of drugs used to treat high blood pressure- Yeah, okay. Yeah ... which can make you constipated. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So there's a confound.
Probably worth a look. Probably worth a look. Reverse causation sometimes. Sometimes. Or who knows? Yeah. I mean, Christ. So they took data from a UK biobank, health-related information from over half a million people in the UK, and they identified more than 23,000 cases of constipation. I mean, it's not a great thing.
They also took into account, using their statistics, the effects of drugs that were being used to treat high blood pressure. So that was kind of factored in. They found people with constipation were twice as likely to have a heart attack, stroke, or heart failure than those without. Twice as likely.
Will: Even when you factored out the medication.
Rod: Yep. Even when you factor it out. Um, people with [00:32:00] hypertension were also... who were also constipated, so the people who have both, a third more likely to have a major heart event compared to people- Hmm ... who just had hypertension.
Will: So when are you gonna make me feel good
Rod: in this story? Oh, at the end. Okay, good.
That's all right. So I'll give you the advice. I'll tell you what to do. All right. I'll tell you how to get over this. One thing you're already doing, you're under 60. Great. So that helps. Great. Success. So what are the connections? One, if you're blocked up, you're probably straining too hard, obviously.
Will: Yeah.
Rod: I mean, you shouldn't, but that's what happens. I mean, I know you've never been constipated because you have a Buddhist diet, and the poo just kind of teleports itself out of you. But for others, if you're feeling a bit blocked up, you squeeze hard. Of course you do. This can raise your blood pressure, but I didn't realize by how much.
Any guesses how much? Like- Oh, two blood pressure units. More. Wow. I know. Wow. So, you know, you've got your blood pressures, your systolic over your diastolic, and your 120 over 80 is your gold standard, whatever. Yeah. So the top one, the systolic, apparently taking a straining dump can raise it by 70 millimeters of mercury.
So your [00:33:00] 120 over 80 turns into 190. 190. That's a fuck ton. Like, that's a high, high blood pressure.
Music: Oof.
Rod: So that's not great. So are people, uh... Are we putting a blood pressure monitor on while you're sitting on the toilet? "I've got to go to the toilet. I just need my blood pressure monitor." I assume there were controlled situations.
Kind of made me interested Well, you can get one in your dunny
Music: Sure You
Rod: have room. Yours is a spacious commode. But apparently- Commode is commode Commode. Commode's commode? Are you allowed to call them that? Older folks, of course, have stiffer arteries and a higher baseline blood pressure. So for them, not only does the, the, um, blood pressure go up, but it remains high sometimes for up to an hour afterwards Are you
Music: serious?
Rod: Young folks, it drops quite quickly. So you do your strain, you get your blood pressure high like you're working out on your ellipticals- Surely ... it drops down Surely. I would've
Will: expected a nice relaxation afterwards,
Rod: but- You would. But no, for older folk it could be way up high for more than an hour. So that's an issue.
Also, another, as they put it, intriguing avenue of research examines the imbalance in gut bacteria in people with constipation, [00:34:00] dysbiosis. So basically, if you've got that, microbes and other things can leak through the gut. It can trigger an immune response that leads to low-grade inflammation, arteries become stiffer Increase your heart attack risk.
So the microbiome, once again, everything's about basically, I'm thinking stool transplants Mm-hmm That's the bottom line. And of course, they also explore genetic links between constipation and heart disease, and apparently there are some. Why? I don't know. Why the fuck is there a genetic link between constipation and heart disease?
I'm starting to think ge- there's no point in doing genetics anymore because everything's somehow linked to everything else. Sure. It makes me annoyed. But in the end, we know what to do. What? We know how to fix this. This is the good news. You ready to guess? Uh, eat more fiber? Uh, fluids Oh, fluids. Okay Exercise Exercise.
Will: Oh. You know I like- Work it out with some motion
Rod: Yeah, exactly. Work your motion with your emotion. So what I... That's what I love. All these stories end like that. "Oh, look, we're not really sure, but in the end, you know what you ought to do? Eat well-
Will: And exercise ... drink,
Rod: exercise, and, and maybe sleep and, you know, don't smoke" Spend time with your friends Spend time with your friends.
Read a good [00:35:00] novel.
Will: Well, I got some, I got some nice updates in medicine for you. Excellent. Um, this is not human medicine, but, you know, it's obviously gonna come in the very near future.
Rod: Um- What, they've done it on the axolotls, now it's gonna transfer to human populations? Hey, not far off. Not far off. Oh, okay.
Not actually
Will: on the axolotls, but, uh, well, axolotls do it al- already. One of the things about axolotls, I think, but I know salamanders who are close to axolotls- Same thing ... one of the things they can do is you lose your toes- You grow a new arm Indeed. Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it Something
Rod: will grow back
Will: Yeah, something will grow back.
Yeah. Well known that amphibians are, are great at regrowing limbs, which would be- All
Rod: amphibians?
Will: I think so. I don't know
Rod: So your frogs Yeah, sure You chop off a frog's head- Seems like it ... it grows a new body- Seems like it ... and a new head
Will: Or you go like a sea star, and you chop off one, a- and, and it, the- It grows a whole population
yeah, it grows, it, it's, it's, like, that's how they do it. They're, they're basically like the, in the Mickey Mouse, The Sorcerer's Apprentice, you know? You- Oh, the brooms Yeah, you cut the brooms in half and they grow some more brooms Smash a broom, get more brooms. Yep But actually [00:36:00] this is, this is a really interesting study, and a really, like...
It kind of feels a little bit landmark to me. Like, it's like, whoa Ooh, big call Whoa. Mammals- Wait, is this a, a little bit of science breakthrough call? No, not really. Other people have broken the news. Mm Like, like, like listen, are you coming to- Not like we do Like, like, like it'd be nice if we broke news.
I think, you know, that'd be cool. But, you know, generally the scientists did the work. We just- It's enough that we break bread ... we just here, here to have a chat. Okay. Okay But mammals, pretty shit at regrowing limbs. We're, we're not good at it. And, and i- it's always been like, no, that would be impossible, 'cause obviously mammals just can't do that.
Like that's- Yeah. They s- they said that
Rod: about nerves don't grow back- Ooh ... and then they found out or maybe they- Like that's-
Will: Yeah ... well, indeed Maybe Um, so some researchers at Texas and A&M University- Oh, yeah Have actually kind of done it in mice Hmm? In mice. They have coaxed a regenerative tissue response once cutting off a toe.
Okay. The regrowth wasn't a perfect toe- ... but, but it says, it says something's happening that's not just scar tissue, and it's not just some sort of- And not
Music: cancer And,
Will: and, and well, mm, yeah.
Music: No. [00:37:00]
Will: But it is- Bit cancer-esque ... it, it's, it's heading in the direction of regrowing a limb. Uh, in fact- Mm-hmm ... and the key thing here is growing the different, different tissues that are needed in a limb.
Okay. 'Cause inside a limb obviously you've got the bone tissues, and you've got the muscles, and you've got it connected to... And you got the, all the different bits. Your blood
Rod: juices, your lards. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly.
Will: Y- y- y- Yep ... your hair and whatnot. Oh, yeah. So the key to the process was sending out two different proteins- Mm
you know, sequentially. You gotta, you gotta do this than that. Ah. You gotta, y- you know, as the researchers say- You don't just chuck them out there willy-nilly, you've got to do them in order ... it really is a two-step process. Interesting. You first shift the cells away from scarring. So you gotta... Y- y- you send in one protein, and this protein was called FGF2, if you're looking for it in the shops.
I thought it might be. I- i- if you're in shops, you're looking for some FGF2. So what you,
Rod: that's d- detracts from scarring. It, uh- Yeah ... it makes the, it stops scar- Stops the
Will: scarring process. Okay. Um, and which is the default reaction when, when you get injured. Um, which is- Hmm ... sensible. You know, your body needs to [00:38:00] cover things off.
But the- Okay ... FGF2 will stop that- Hmm ... um, to allow, allow, the bleeding will stop, but it, it'll allow other things to happen. Hmm. Then another protein- Yeah ... your BMP2, again, again- Didn't even guess ... pick them up at the shop. Oh, what were you gonna guess?
Rod: BMP3.
Will: Oh, well, you were so close, but not even any- But, no-
not even that close ... th- th- that one little number makes a big difference. And then that seems to extend the digit. Like, it seems to, like, things start happening. And-
Rod: But, but in a munted way.
Will: Yeah, well, munted. It, it forms a blas- blastema- But which is- ... that starts to head- ... which is not quite a cancer ... start, yeah, yeah.
So a wart. So but what the two proteins working together are reprogramming the cells- Yeah ... as this is described in the paper.
Music: Yeah.
Will: And it's transforming towards something else that is not scar tissue, that may be programmable in a way- Finger-ish ... li- well, it might be finger-ish. So the, uh, bone morphogenic protein 2, which is BMP2- [00:39:00] Right
was applied, and that starters, starts building these things that start to have bone-ish-ness, and skin-ish-ness, and muscle-ish-ness. So it's enough to bring... Here we go. The double protein treatment was enough to bring back bones, tendons, ligaments, and joint structures. Not bad. So the skeletal and connective tissue elements of the missing toe.
Music: Not bad. Um,
Will: and they say here, across dozens of attempts in tests on mice. Like, dozens is not a large number when you get mice studies. Like- It's a lot of toes Yeah. Oh, sure. You know, so all I'm saying, not ready for humans yet So we're not
Rod: quite at the billionaire longevity people scoffing at-
Will: And here is their conclusion: While the replacement digits were sometimes misshapen or too small- Mm
all the essential parts were there. Which is just- Small, but- Yeah, I, I mean- ... normal s- And I, you know, this is, this is- All right ... this is mouse toes, which I... They're pretty small
Rod: But look, that's a bit like saying, "Look, it, it's a bag of bits. If you put them together in the right order, it's a car"
Will: No. But it's not a car No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
It's like, well, it's like let's celebrate the bag of bits [00:40:00] that is, that is quite close to car shape. Like it's,
Rod: it's- Yeah. It's, it's finger parts Where previously- Connected to each other in a way Where previously
Will: all we've grown is a lump of car tire. Like- Or nothing Or, or nothing, you know?
Rod: Uh, y- okay.
Will: Look, there is a, there is a long way to go- Depend, are you, are you buying this
Rod: or are you selling it?
I mean, that's the question here Ah,
Will: I'm buying it. Okay. I'm buying it. Like, I just like the idea of limb gr- I've, I've just had it in my head. That's it. No. That's not possible. And I know, obviously- Of course ... there is, there is robotic solutions and, and all sorts of other things that we humans can do. But- Yeah
regrowing a limb, that just, it just blows my mind. It just- I, I actually,
Rod: A, I agree. B, I can't believe we haven't worked that out yet, because- Can't believe we haven't worked it out? ... we're so clever. Yeah, we're so clever. It feels hard to me But why? We've done it. Everybody has done it at least once.
Will: Yeah, but that's different.
Is it? That's different. Why? You're inside your mum mum. Oh, that could be complicated. It's way more different in a, in a womb. Like, I'm- We can totally grow back your limbs- So if there was a hospital ... but you're just gonna have to pop back into your mother If there was a... Or, or like there's a hospital ward that's a womb.
[00:41:00] You, you sort of slide into a womb for- nine months and you regrow adult size We need to regestate
Rod: you. Is that fi- Is that okay
Will: with you? Would you mind? But anyway, there you go. Yes. Go medical research. Um- It'll, it'll get there ... solving some problems. And of course, there could be no downsides. None. Well, you mentioned before, Rod, the Australian phrase cactus.
I did. I don't know where that comes from. I- Australia ... but it, yeah, it does mean stuff is- Do you
Rod: know, when, when I was in high school, cactus was an also term, cactipus. Of course. Yep. We had to make it longer. Well,
Will: a- coincidentally, there's a great thread on Blue Sky that I just wanted to report to you in my segment on Cunning Linguistics.
Thank you. Um, Adam Sharp on Blue Sky- Mm ... and others have joined in, favorite phrases for when things go wrong. Ooh. Now, it's not exactly science here, but you know, I just love, I just love this. I'm gonna read a bunch of these. It's- No, it's,
Rod: but it's language, and science uses language,
Will: and science- There you go.
There we go. You will have heard some of these. Yep. Um, so from the English of course, when things go wrong, it could be a shit show at the fuck factory.
Rod: Uh- At the [00:42:00] fuck factory is not the... I haven't heard that strap-on before. A shit show at the fuck factory. I like that though. Yeah, that's not bad. Um- Except the fuck factory doesn't sound all bad.
Will: No. No, but if there's a shit show there. But how do you build a fuck? Why don't you go suck a fuck?
Rod: You're at a fuck factory. We build fucks here, and then we distribute them. What do you package them in?
Will: I think, I... Surely the fuck factory is a brothel, and it's a, a shit show at the brothel. I suppose you kind of, kind of build a fuck there.
You're right, you're right. Okay. The Dutch, the Dutch have a phrase for when things go wrong. Yeah. Gisteverden. Uh, well, no, they've got a couple here- Yeah ... but I'm g- I'll give you this one. Th- and these vary in, in all sorts of things. The Dutch say, "Now the turnips are cooked." Oh, how evocative. The Persians, the Persians.
A don- My date has been trampled on by my camel. No, no, no, no. Here it is. A donkey is inside another donkey, which I like. That just sounds hot. It does. We've got, we've got a, we've got a donkey- That's- ... we've got a donkey and donkey situation here That is more a
Rod: Mexican kind of situation.
Will: The, this one's a little precise in Danish.
The devil is loose in Salmon Street. I think Salmon Street is where, where parliament is or something like that. Oh, where they- Here's, [00:43:00] here's, here's, here's one of the good ones. F- a Brazilian Portuguese saying, "A finger in the arse and screaming everywhere."
Rod: Around here we call that Friday. No,
Will: no, that's- Um-
a finger in the arse and screaming everywhere. Another, another Dutch one is teringzooi, which means a tuberculus, tuberculosis mess, which is great. Like this is a full on tuberculosis mess. Wow. Oh, it's
Rod: like when you got s- your, your chlamydia out. That's, um, that's very specific and elaborate.
Will: A French saying, c'est parti en couille, which means it went testic- testicle-esque.
Rod: What's wrong with
Will: that?
Rod: Well, I don't know. Why don't the French
Will: hate nuts? Yeah, I... Peruvian Spanish, a crazy naked man. I don't know how well that's thinking
Rod: That's, that's an intensively sayings though
Will: Yeah. I do, I do like this one, a Polish one. It's a burning brothel on wheels, which
Finnish have a- But do they say
Rod: that as a bad thing or something they're looking forward to? [00:44:00] It
Will: may be. May- Finally, a burning brothel on wheels Finally, we turn up at the burning brothel on wheels. The Finnish have a devil in the crab trap. Ooh Uh, uh, this one, this one is evocative, and I don't know what it means.
Yeah It's, it's Mexican Spanish.
Music: Yeah
Will: An unmothering What, you mean unborn? I don't know. You've been unmothered. Removed from existence My, my, my, my, my mothering ha- I unmothered. I, I don't know Unmothering Unmothering. I am-
Rod: Ooh ...
Will: I am
Rod: orphaned but beyond orphaned. I'm like- That sounds potentially quite sinister and, and ooh,
Will: I like that Um, another Polish phrase basically means, I'm not gonna try and pronounce- Go on
the original Polish. Well, Flawless It might be Mm Which means fucked up like in a Russian tank Where can you guess this one's from? All over the place from assholes to breakfast It could be anywhere local Castilian Spanish has up the ass goes the bike [00:45:00] The bike The bike
Rod: But the Castilians are a very ambitious people
Will: And this one, I, I love this one because, you know, you know our Russian friends, um- Mm
you know, they have a turn of language. They do But, but they also, i- is it a love of mathematics? I don't know. Um- Of course it is A literal translation to- Or chess ... literal translation to shat away all our polymers Polymers I don't know
Rod: My God.
Will: My
Rod: oscilloscope is damaged. This is not a good saying
Will: Another Spanish one, and now grandma delivered.
Um- Ooh, that's creepy I wanna know the origins of this one. In Swedish, we say, uh, someone's pooped in the blue cupboard. Um- The blue cupboard It's where you keep your valuables normally Well, it must be. And, and finally, another Polish one, the dick has hit the baubles. Dick has hit the baubles I'm gonna be crying now So look, look, I think, I think- What do you think?
a finger in the ass and screaming everywhere is, uh, is- Sounds familiar It's a nice... But I do like a burning [00:46:00] brothel on wheels, like- Ah, that, that, we, we're gonna have to do more
Rod: of those. There's, there's
Will: surely there's more So, uh, that's, that's your phrases for how things have gone wrong, and that has been your little bit of science
Rod: Uh, I, I think it's quite apt for science, particularly in this country.
At times, things have gone wrong Indeed, indeed Finger in the ass and everyone's screaming It's a burning brothel on wheels That's how they describe some- And now- ... of our major science agencies Oh, and now
Will: grandma has delivered We've been unborn. Unbirthed? Unmothered If you are new to this podcast and you're like, "Wow, what do I do next to make people know more about it?"
You tell your friends- Yes ... and you also give us how many stars?
Rod: You smash the star and like button as hard as you can till your fingers are bloody. You also can tell us stories or ask us questions at, what's it called? Cheers at
Will: alittlebitofscience.com.au. Is there a slash? No, there's no slash. No, there's no slash.
You sure? Not /Jesus. Not /Jesus.
