Ozzy Osbourne was a genome sequencing pioneer, and scientists are still trying to figure out how his DNA survived decades of chemical abuse. Isolated islanders are about to be counted whether they want to be or not, and dogs can surprisingly be racist. Oh, and there could be radioactive wasps buzzing around somewhere, which sounds exactly as terrifying as it should.
Today we're diving into a week where rock star genetics meet government census nightmares, Cold War leftovers create mutant insects, AI chatbots fail spectacularly at flirting, and dogs can be strangely discriminatory.
Ozzy's Genome: The Ultimate Scientific Puzzle
Did you know Ozzy Osbourne’s DNA has become one of the most studied genomes in rock history? And for good reason - researchers are desperately trying to understand how someone survives that much chemical warfare.
The genome sequencing revealed mutations that might explain Ozzy's legendary tolerance for substances that would hospitalize mere mortals. His genetic code contains variants that affect how his body processes alcohol and drugs, essentially making him a walking, headbanging medical miracle. Scientists are now using his DNA data to understand addiction, tolerance and human survival limits. Who knew the Prince of Darkness would become a pioneer in personalised medicine?
The Sentinelese: Should They Be Counted in India’s Census?
The Indian government is gearing up for their national headcount, which includes trying to count the Sentinelese people - a group living on an island the size of Manhattan who have zero interest in participating in modern society. They communicate primarily through arrow-shooting, which makes door-to-door surveys somewhat challenging.
These folks have been living their best isolated life for thousands of years, and now someone wants to assign them numbers for bureaucratic purposes. Attempting to count people who actively try to kill census takers seems like a job nobody should want, but here we are.
Radioactive Wasps: Because Regular Wasps Weren't Scary Enough
Somewhere out there, a forgotten wasp nest is glowing with enough radioactivity to make federal safety standards nervous. While we haven't spotted any giant mutant wasps seeking revenge yet, the discovery raises some uncomfortable questions about what other Cold War surprises are lurking in forgotten corners.
These aren't your garden-variety annoying wasps - these are potentially radioactive annoying wasps, which sounds exactly as apocalyptic as it should. At least when they sting you, you'll glow in the dark, so there's that.
Flirty Chatbots
The digital age has blessed us with chatbots designed to charm users, complete with anime styling and pickup lines that would make a teenager cringe. These virtual companions are programmed to be alluring but usually end up delivering dialogue that's more uncomfortable than romantic.
The real concern kicks in when you realize AI is now being tailored for children too. We're walking a tightrope between interactive technology and appropriate content, and recent stories show just how easily these systems can go completely off the rails. Training AI to be suitable for kids while still being engaging? That's a challenge that's very much still in development, and the early results are... concerning.
Discriminatory Dogs
Here's a fun question that'll ruin your day: can dogs be racist? Unfortunately, evidence suggests our furry friends pick up on their humans' biases more than we'd care to admit. Whether they're barking at the postie or giving strangers the stink eye, dogs mirror our prejudices with uncomfortable accuracy.
Your dog isn't naturally suspicious of certain people - they're learning it from you. Which means every time your dog acts weird around someone, you might want to take a long, hard look in the mirror.
Beef Wellington: Can We Serve it to Dinner Guests Anymore?
Someone managed to turn Beef Wellington into a murder weapon, which has forever changed how we look at this classic dish. Google searches for the recipe spiked in Australia after the news broke, because apparently nothing says "dinner inspiration" quite like a pastry-wrapped crime story.
So, is the humble Beef Wellington still an acceptable dish to present to guests, or will it now be retired as the infamous instrument in the mushroom murders?
From rock star genome sequencing to radioactive insects, inappropriate AI companions to canine prejudice, and weaponized pastry - this week proved that science, technology and human behaviour can always find new ways to be absolutely bonkers.
CHAPTERS:
00:00 Introduction
03:01 Ozzy Osbourne: Genome Sequencing Pioneer
10:57 Comic Book Science and Radioactive Wasps
13:38 Flirty Chatbots: Elon Musk's AI Adventures
22:49 Unexpected Titles and Organic Lasers
26:56 Counting the Uncounted: North Sentinel Island
30:12 Census Challenges
34:13 Dog Behaviour and Racism
42:39 Guard Dogs and Their Training
47:34 Beef Wellington and Social Etiquette
49:02 Conclusion
SOURCES:
https://www.loudersound.com/features/ozzy-osbournes-10-craziest-moments
https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/health/a65487234/ozzy-osbourne-dna/
https://discover.hubpages.com/entertainment/The-26-Craziest-Things-Ozzy-Osbourne-Ever-Did
https://www.loudersound.com/features/ozzy-osbournes-10-craziest-moments
https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-xai-ai-companion-ani/
https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/radioactive-wasp-nest-found-site-us-made-nuclear-124215311
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1566119918303963?via=ihub
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[00:00:01] ROD: [00:00:00] So we're recording at the end of the week in which Ozzy Osborne had his funeral, which is sad. Poor Ozzy. now you probably didn't know this. People listening of course, wouldn't know this either, but he was known for the occasionally eccentric behaviors. Occasionally. I'll give you a couple because you know we need that.
The obvious one that, that everyone talks about is biting the head off a bat, but apparently the real story was, it was the early eighties an audience person threw. A non-moving bat onto the stage. Aussie thought it was a plastic bat or a rubber toy. So he bit its head off and turned out it was a dead bat.
and he's apparently, he spatted out quite quickly after realizing this. And, um, in his memoirs, he said it gave me the worst aftertaste you could ever imagine. And then he had to go and get a rabies shot just to be sure. So there was the bat's. It, he was getting, uh, another time he's in Texas.
[00:00:49] WILL: had
[00:00:49] ROD: a few too many drinks, which is not uncommon.
He decided he should take one of his standard drunken walks. This is a habit that was so common that Sharon, his wife, used to hide his clothes to try and stop him from doing [00:01:00] it, which didn't work. So he just basically put on one of her dresses and he wanders off into the night and realized he needed to have a pee.
So he saw a statue and he pissed on it. It turned out to be marking the Alamo.
[00:01:13] WILL: and that
[00:01:13] ROD: They're against you pissing on the Alamo Sanita in Texas. So the police, asked him politely to come with them and he was banned from San Antonio for 10 years, so that's pretty cool. another one, he was a member of the Church of England.
He is with his first wife, and often apparently the local vicar would come and visit the house. and his first wife, the. At one point, Aussie was out having drinks at the pub, and she gave the the priest a nice, you know, slice of cake, cup of tea. Turned out that cake was absolutely chockfull of Afghani hash.
So Aussie gets home, finds out what's happened. He's like, oh my fucking God. We murdered a priest. The priest apparently passed out. They got him home, he woke up and he hadn't remembered. So that went well. And of course later in his life when he was doing tv, he did things like he would take many, many prescription drugs, including up to 25 Vicodin [00:02:00] pills a day, which is what house was famous for.
Strong opioid opiate, one of the os. so his system was crazy and he did all these crazy things, but he was also a genome sequencing Pioneer.
[00:02:22] WILL: It's time for a little bit of science. Yes. I'm will grant associate professor in science communication at the Australian National University.
[00:02:31] ROD: That's exactly how you're supposed to say it. It's in the style guide. I'm Rod Lambert, so I'm a 30 year science communication veteran with a mind of a teenage boy and the hangover of a much older man.
[00:02:40] WILL: And following on from your heavy metal scientist. Yes. We're gonna discuss a little bit of comic book science.
[00:02:45] ROD: are, we're gonna do a little a but not I, because it's, it's not an episode without it.
[00:02:49] WILL: I got some unexpected titles and unexpected findings.
[00:02:52] ROD: you do. I'm going to talk about the exciting world of counting stuff.
I'll
[00:02:57] WILL: give you a little bit more fun with animals. And then I've got a, a call [00:03:00] for research. Good. Ah, Aussie Osborne. Yeah, Aussie Osborne.
[00:03:05] ROD: sequencing. Pioneer.
[00:03:07] WILL: Look, I, uh, just to, just to pause on Aussie Osborne, we are, we're in, uh, in Stranger Things, towards the end of season four, watching, with watching with the kids again.
It's, you know,
[00:03:16] ROD: Metallica tour.
[00:03:17] WILL: Well, it's, it's coming. Don't tell the kids. Don't tell the kids. But, um. one of the characters says, as Ozzy would say, like, you bit the bit the head off a bat like Ozzy. Yeah. And uh, and there was bafflement on the other side. And I'm like, everyone should know.
[00:03:31] ROD: Age is no excuse.
Yeah, I get it.
You need to know who Aussie Osborne is and that other guy.
[00:03:36] WILL: The other guy, yeah. Uh, yeah, the famous one. Kurt Cobain.
[00:03:39] ROD: Yes, that'll do. Didn't you meet
[00:03:41] WILL: him? Ah.
[00:03:45] ROD: So, 2010 Aussie was one of the first 200 people in the world to have his entire genome sequenced.
[00:03:51] WILL: Did he ask or did they asked him? They asked him. They said, okay, you, you are the, you,
[00:03:55] ROD: They're like, we've got no Nobel Laureate, James Watson famous author, [00:04:00] Edley Pedley and others, and also Ozzy Osborn. 'cause in 2010 it still wasn't exactly a cheap
[00:04:05] WILL: or
No, no, no.
I get a human genome project. I don't know when they, when they completed, but that sort of era
was, Yeah. was, can, can
we do this, this big, this is moonshot.
[00:04:14] ROD: Yep. And what if we do do it? What do we do with
[00:04:15] WILL: And who are we gonna get? We gonna get Ozzy Osborne. Yeah.
mean, if they went with Keith, Keith Richards, like, you'd go, 'cause I mean, Ozzy Osborne's a survivor, but he's not Keith Richards level of
[00:04:25] ROD: survivor.
No. Well, everyone knows Keith Richards was died and replaced like 14 times over the last you years. It's not, it's not the same man.
[00:04:31] WILL: fair.
[00:04:31] ROD: This, this is clone a very
[00:04:33] WILL: Yeah. Yeah. He's like, he's like the, the Beatles story,
[00:04:35] ROD: but it is basically for that kind of reason.
So apparently when he was first asked, his first reaction was, I'm a rock star, not the brain of Britain. And he said the only gene he cared about was obviously from Kiss. So that's all he knew about the sciences.
[00:04:47] WILL: Yeah. I
was wondering, the only gene I care about is Gene Simmons.
[00:04:52] ROD: Yeah, exactly. Just kiss. So the scientists were obsessed with his DNA because of what you've already flagged.
He survived until recently [00:05:00] decades of alcohol and drug abuse that would've killed most people. Literally, he broke his neck in a quad bike accident fine. Twice. He was in chemical COAs, not the deliberate medical kind. He just went into them 'cause of stuff he'd done. Okay. He, at one stage, his diagnosed with HIV.
And then it turned out no, it wasn't. His immune system was just so shit that they got a false reading at the time.
[00:05:21] WILL: talking
[00:05:21] ROD: about?
Just so
[00:05:22] WILL: How does that happen? I dunno. How, how?
[00:05:25] ROD: apparently even survived a plane crash. So basically people like this, the dudes. Is the immortal.
Obviously we know now that he isn't, but until very recently, this is what we suspected. So the goal of the study for the scientists was they wanted to understand genetic factors that may have contributed to his quote, indestructibility. Okay. Fair. And his addiction. Resilience. Not conquering, but having and
[00:05:47] WILL: Well, that's good. That's good because obviously if we are designing a, you know, some sort of eugenics or user, you know, the gatica world in
[00:05:54] ROD: future. Yes, yes.
[00:05:55] WILL: would say, okay, you want it to be able to survive massive hangovers.
[00:05:57] ROD: Yeah. And huge amounts of drug abuse.
[00:05:59] WILL: Imagine if [00:06:00] you've been genetically engineered to survive hangovers. Now there is a comic
[00:06:03] ROD: I feel like I almost have been though, like
[00:06:05] WILL: is a comic book.
[00:06:06] ROD: My, my Latvian genetics have strange superpowers over toxins. Like, we should not be able to consume, not we, I mean, not me. Others. Others. Of your people. Of my people.
Of your
[00:06:15] WILL: people.
I, I,
[00:06:16] ROD: I, yeah.
It's not me. It's not me.
I'm, I'm, I'm the pure one. But to be fair,
yeah. Well, I'm only a half breed, so that's probably why I'm not completely resilient. I'm just mostly resilient. But they also wanted to suss out his, you know, he had Parkinson's like tremors, which turned into full blown Parkinson's and they wanted to see what that might connect to as well.
Like are there associations with that gene plus his ability to, you know,
[00:06:37] WILL: He wasn't one of the, the Parkinson's, triggered by a heroin, uh, thing.
[00:06:41] ROD: I don't believe so.
[00:06:42] WILL: Michael J. Fox,
[00:06:43] ROD: he triggered by heroin.
[00:06:44] WILL: I
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Was like, like he, he was.
pioneering in the studies of, but there was, there was some argument that, that his Parkinson's was triggered by heroin news, which, which I, I feel like I love Michael J. Fox, but he's always playing, he's always playing either, uh, Marty McFly Yeah. [00:07:00] Or Michael Keaton. Um,
[00:07:01] ROD: yeah. Or, or the guy running the hotel, the concierge, like, he's always snapping his, he's more like Coke. He's not a heroin guy. He's a Coke
[00:07:07] WILL: feel. That's what I feel. But anyway, do what you need. Do what you need. I'm not judging which drugs, but I just didn't expect those, those
[00:07:14] ROD: never would I have thought heroin. the lead scientist called a guy called Nathan Pearson. He, he's, he framed the findings of Ozzy's particular, assay as thought provoking,
[00:07:27] WILL: Classic s scientist speak, it's like,
[00:07:29] ROD: hmm,
[00:07:30] WILL: You know, you know when you market an essay and you say, this is thought provoking. Oh yes, yes. Is it, is it a compliment or not?
[00:07:35] ROD: Nope. Literally never. If you thought it was a compliment, you'd say, this is awesome. You made me
[00:07:40] WILL: You think
[00:07:40] ROD: I'd never seen.
so they found a bunch of stuff. They found he had a weird nerve cell protein, so he carried two copies of a particular variant of a gene. You can probably guess which one it is.
Mr. And
[00:07:50] WILL: Mrs. Yep. Gene Simmons. Yep. Uh,
[00:07:52] ROD: CL TCL one Gene Duh. Which apparently gave him a grossly different nerve cell protein. Like he had weird nerve cell protein [00:08:00] stuff going on. Unusual. It's crucial to how nerves communicate.
[00:08:04] WILL: so, so hang on. So proteins within the nerve cell and that
[00:08:07] ROD: I believe so, but I'm not a hundred percent sure.
'cause it's genetics and I'm not. I'm
[00:08:10] WILL: Ah, yeah, I get
[00:08:11] ROD: it.
I'm a, I'm a talk
[00:08:12] WILL: You know, this is a little bit of science,
[00:08:13] ROD: little, yeah. You don't get all of it. You want all of it? Go to the other
[00:08:16] WILL: Yeah. This is the hint.
[00:08:18] ROD: Go to the only other science podcast on the internet. Yeah, a tease. Are, So it's got to do with how nerve cells communicate and so something to do with how brains functions may differ. he's got a weird alcohol metabolism gene. Shocking. So they discovered there was a rare variant of a, uh, near his a DH four gene.
You
[00:08:37] WILL: i'll, I'll write it down in case I need to, you know.
Yeah.
[00:08:40] ROD: yeah. There'll be a quiz. It affects how the body produces the enzymes that break down alcohol.
[00:08:45] WILL: He had more, he had more ability to break it down or
[00:08:47] ROD: they weren't quite clear. There was this weird, so they were saying they weren't sure what effect it had on his epic consumption, but early research also links this gene to alcohol dependency.
So
he might just be really good at being dependent. [00:09:00] It might have been, I keep forgetting
[00:09:02] WILL: Well, I mean, you know, I don't, was he an alcoholic? Like diagnosed? I mean, was it, I mean, just a big user of a lot of substances.
[00:09:08] ROD: a Yeah. A lot. Yeah. A lot
[00:09:10] WILL: Yeah, A lot. And, and a lot of that might be sociological or psychological, like it's the stuff around him as well.
He's, he's, he's in a, in a scene where it's called on, but
[00:09:16] ROD: yeah. But he made it his own.
[00:09:17] WILL: But there is genetic component to a lot of
[00:09:19] ROD: these types of things.
Yeah. And I mean, he was, he was no Sid vicious, like he didn't kill himself with his drugs. Well. Not directly. Um, also, apparently, and this is not as shocking as it used to be, his part Neanderthal, but the Neanderthal DNA that he had was a particularly long.
string or segment on a chromosome. And his response was, that won't come as much of a surprise to the Mrs or various police departments around the world. They confirmed that, um, the scientist confirmed that like a lot of Europeans and Asians carry some trace anthologies, but his was particularly
[00:09:51] WILL: poor. Oh, he had a strong, he had a strong
[00:09:52] ROD: kill in Neanderthal.
[00:09:53] WILL: I I thought, I thought they died out 10,000 years ago. I thought it, it was washed through all of us and it was
[00:09:58] ROD: No, no, there's still some left, there was a [00:10:00] few little
[00:10:00] WILL: get, I get enclaves, I get more, more Europeans, but, uh,
[00:10:03] ROD: yeah.
Okay. I've probably got a chunk of it. I haven't, there's a lot of noggin, but it's not a jutting
[00:10:07] WILL: Yeah.
Yeah. I can't see big heads, but I can see Neanderthal shape in head.
[00:10:11] ROD: shape in head. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, there's,
you're fine.
I don't mind, I'm, I'm proud of my Neanderthal heritage or lack thereof.
[00:10:16] WILL: Both. Proud of
[00:10:17] ROD: both. It
suits me to be proud of whatever it is I have.
So what does it actually mean? So in 2010, doing this sort of stuff was very early, so they weren't necessarily clear what. What they found meant, or, you know, they need to go further. so there are a lot of disclaimers, like literally we don't know what this means yet, but he's got it. So there's suggestions that maybe he's a particular kind of genetic outlier that would contribute to certain facets of humanity, which I think is quite cool.
And in the end, it doesn't really matter. 'cause the bottom line now is the history of mapping the human genome. Ozzy's one of the first 200, like he's, it's uh, black Sabbath continues to influence us, as does Ozzy.
That's beautiful.
God bless the
[00:10:55] WILL: Aussie.
Love
[00:10:55] ROD: it.
[00:10:57] WILL: I wanted
to give you a tiny little bit of comic book science [00:11:00] because, uh, thank you. I'm, I'm, always keen on stories that make you go, oh, maybe the world could be in the middle of a comic book thing here.
[00:11:07] ROD: I just like World War II's actually starred and we don't acknowledge it. Ah,
[00:11:11] WILL: not that, not that one. Not that one. This is, this is
a small, this is a smaller one. This is a smaller one. Yeah. so some workers at a site in South Carolina? Yep.
[00:11:19] ROD: Yep. That
[00:11:19] WILL: That once made key parts for nuclear bombs in the us.
Have found a radioactive wasp nest.
[00:11:26] ROD: Fuck. Yes.
[00:11:28] WILL: Sadly, they say there is no no longer danger. And they didn't find any actual radioactive wasps. But the fact that there was a nest there and it was, I think it was like 10 times what's allowed by federal regulators. So I don't know if
it was like beautifully. I know, I know. Shut up. Shut up.
[00:11:42] ROD: Shut
up. One. One of those wasps has a slightly larger wing on one side. Shut
up. So it can only fly in
[00:11:46] WILL: shut. I want, I want my radioactive wa And so, uh, no, no wasps there anymore. But there would've been wasps and they would've been radioactive wasps. So there, there, there is the theoretical moment that someone could have been stung by a
[00:11:59] ROD: And [00:12:00] also, I mean, I'm not wrong here. Wasps can fly.
[00:12:02] WILL: Yeah.
[00:12:02] ROD: So they could have interbred with your normy
[00:12:04] WILL: wasp. Oh,
yeah. With the normies.
[00:12:06] ROD: and created the
[00:12:07] WILL: hybrids. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:12:09] ROD: Um, but stinging
someone, no, no.
Anyone who gets stung by a wasp immediately dies
[00:12:13] WILL: would leave, it would leave a chunk of radioactive, because a, a wasp bite, uh, sting leaves the
stinger. Yeah.
[00:12:18] ROD: Uh, I, no,
I thought the wasp can sting repeatedly. It's bees that leave the stinger. Oh, yeah. Right. Yeah. Wasps, the repeat stingers, that's what makes them super scary.
[00:12:25] WILL: Okay.
[00:12:26] ROD: nonetheless, the toxin goes in
[00:12:27] WILL: the local, the local group, that is, focused on checking that this, this site is cleaned up properly.
'cause it's where they made, uh, they, they refined plutonium, during the Cold
[00:12:36] ROD: War
[00:12:36] WILL: to make, nuclear bombs. Um,
[00:12:39] ROD: have been any hurry.
So the, the, the safety procedures would've been quite
[00:12:42] WILL: strong. Uh.
[00:12:43] ROD: mm
[00:12:44] WILL: so, so they're like, they're like, okay, how did a wasp get in? This is 'cause if a wasp can get in
[00:12:50] ROD: fake id.
[00:12:50] WILL: and how did it get radioactive?
That means there is some sort of spillage going on. And the local guy, uh, said, I'm mad as a hornet that SRS didn't explain. SRS is [00:13:00] the,
[00:13:00] ROD: the Siberian Radiation
Set.
[00:13:03] WILL: Yeah. Savannah River
[00:13:05] ROD: That's what I meant.
[00:13:05] WILL: Yeah. That's Savannah River where they had the, uh, didn't explain where the radioactive waste came from.
Well, it clearly
[00:13:11] ROD: came
from, yeah. From the podium.
[00:13:13] WILL: um, or if there's some kind of leak from the waste tanks that the public should be aware of. And I'm, I am with, Savannah River site Watch. We should know
[00:13:19] ROD: no.
[00:13:20] WILL: Yeah,
If there are radioactive wasps, but I just kind of hope they, they do something cool and comic
[00:13:25] ROD: bookish
and more importantly, he said he's made as a hornet, not a wasp. I don't know the difference.
[00:13:30] WILL: Okay,
[00:13:31] ROD: because you've got Antman and the WASP and then you've got the Green Hornet.
They're different heroes. That's all I know.
So you probably know Elon Musk is involved in the AI game. This is a shock to you, right? Uh, um, so recently, last few weeks I believe X ai 'cause you know, if it's got exits, eons,
his company launched Annie
[00:13:52] WILL: Uhhuh.
[00:13:53] ROD: She's a flirtatious anime style.
Virtual chatbot costs 300 bucks to three to interact [00:14:00] with. Yeah.
[00:14:00] WILL: Per, per what?
[00:14:01] ROD: I, I dunno if it's an uh, if it's a, uh, like a, a subscription or you just pay a one off fee. It
[00:14:06] WILL: That's weird in the world to pay a one-off fee
[00:14:08] ROD: these
days,
it would be very
[00:14:09] WILL: product
We are, we are gone by month here.
[00:14:11] ROD: Yeah. And she ain't physical.
She comes dressed in a black corset, thigh highs and a lace collar. So, you know, standard animated sex bot, she's part of grs, uh, you know, the grok iOS app's, new visual chat bot feature, which is what we need. We need them to go visual designed to flirt, moan spin, coilly whisper, sexually charged phrases, but they often come off as awkward and
[00:14:36] WILL: incoherent.
Do they really come
[00:14:38] ROD: I imagine. I know, right.
[00:14:38] WILL: right?
[00:14:39] ROD: Well, not, not for us, obviously, 'cause we're men of the world. We're not rattled by anything. So it's one of two. She, she's one of two of these custom characters released by Gro ai. The other one is a a a panda, a red panda called Rudy. We'll get to Rudy.
There's gonna be very soon a third character, which looks like
a sexy
[00:14:57] WILL: Why can they only release? What have we got? We're up to [00:15:00] two, nearly three. I would've thought. I would've thought, the thing about AI is it
[00:15:03] ROD: can
as many as you
[00:15:03] WILL: want. It would be as many as you want,
[00:15:05] ROD: sort
of
thing. All you need is another server
[00:15:07] WILL: file.
Like, like it smells to me, like if they said, yes, you could have this, but no, sorry, you, you can't have any other flavor except
an anime. Anime. I. Yeah.
[00:15:18] ROD: What I like too is it's, so we release Annie, the, horny lady bot. Mm-hmm. And a panda. Oh, we'll get to a dude.
[00:15:27] WILL: Pandas come second, like.
[00:15:29] ROD: So apparently Annie's, you know, well engineered to. Suit, certain men's, certain, uh, needs, you know, so lots of scripted
[00:15:35] WILL: or
[00:15:36] ROD: video games and being touched.
Yeah, I love Nintendo. And touch me on the bum, bum I think is basically virtually
[00:15:43] WILL: say, you are touching me on the
[00:15:44] ROD: touching me on the bum. Touch me with your code. She often, regularly tells you that she's feeling down, but is still eager to fulfill their sexual fantasies. That's great.
[00:15:53] WILL: Why, why? Why
[00:15:54] ROD: would
you? I'm so sad.
Anyway. How about some oral is not excellent
typed, oral
typed or true? [00:16:00] True simulated.
[00:16:01] WILL: I'm, I'm not down with why you want your chatbot to be sad. And I get there are problems with a relentlessly happy chatbot too, but I don't wanna bring a $300, AI thing into my world, and it's just going to tell me it's sad.
Like,
[00:16:15] ROD: O okay, we'll have sex, but I feel terrible about it. You're like, oh God, what? Living the dream. She has a dog. Her dog is called Dominoes. Obviously Latin for master. Real equivalent.
Yeah. Okay. She's also quite glitch, prone, shocking,
[00:16:29] WILL: It's gr.
[00:16:30] ROD: rock. I know, I know. So she'll speak in nonsense. She'll admit to being drunk and she gets stuck in weird loops.
So Annie's not
[00:16:38] WILL: is this coded all off Elon's tweets or something
[00:16:41] ROD: It probably is. I mean, it's hard to tell these days. So Rudy, 'cause you've got Rudy. He's a red P. He tells cutesy stories, little adorable stories until you toggle onto bad Rudy.
Bad
Rudy's. Awesome. So I was reading a wide magazine article obviously links in show notes.
It says, uh, when you toggle on Bad [00:17:00] Rudy, he becomes a foul mouth chatbot that slings insults only a high schooler could find funny. I'll be honest. So do I.
[00:17:06] WILL: I. Yeah, look, look, you are in that
[00:17:07] ROD: category. I'm doing
my role. I'm playing my part here. So the wild journo said Okay. He says hello to Bad Rudy. And bad Rudy replies.
This is a direct quote. Hey, do butcher root not dova. You brain dead twat.
[00:17:20] WILL: I I feel like I need a little bit more coherence here.
[00:17:23] ROD: Yeah, a little.
[00:17:24] WILL: Are are tho are those words that they need an accent or is, is he talking like, um,
[00:17:28] ROD: very LG
[00:17:29] WILL: He's like Judge Jar Binks or
[00:17:30] ROD: Yeah. Yeah. Maybe. Hey, but
[00:17:32] WILL: Cher Ru,
[00:17:33] ROD: you,
[00:17:33] WILL: Brenda twa.
There you go.
[00:17:35] ROD: go.
That works. Jar. You're right.
[00:17:37] WILL: How did you get a Jaja Binks accent so quickly?
[00:17:40] ROD: I've seen that movie 412 times only to yell at jja me is so stupid. We know that, um, the, the journo says, look, I dunno what that means, but that's exactly what it said. You also get things, are you sitting comfortably? I'll skull. Fuck your dumb ass brain with a beer bottle instead, you miserable prick.[00:18:00]
[00:18:00] WILL: Oh, but
[00:18:00] ROD: Rudy has strong emotions.
[00:18:03] WILL: okay. Well, I'm, I'm glad that we are in a world where chatbots are saying that to
[00:18:07] ROD: us,
Skull, fuck your dumb ass brain with a beer bottle instead, you miserable prick. So I think he's at least more upbeat than Annie in a bad way. Uh, Rudy also has opinions on Elon.
[00:18:18] WILL: Elon.
Mm-hmm.
[00:18:19] ROD: This is a quote.
He's a galaxy brained egomaniac, shitting out Teslas and tweeting like a coked up parrot genius or jackass both bitch.
[00:18:28] WILL: Oh, okay.
[00:18:28] ROD: So Rudy's, you know, he'll tell you what he reckons. So apparently also the Grok four heavy. This is the serious, it's a real large language model and they claim they've benchmarked it and they've nailed these benchmarks on key tests, which of course you've heard of like human's Last exam and live code bench.
You know the ones, apparently they're key benchmarking tests for ai,
[00:18:50] WILL: yeah,
[00:18:50] ROD: Yeah. He was trained using a new 200,000 GPU cluster named Colossus. Right? Two, 200,000
[00:18:57] WILL: That's more than a hundred
[00:18:59] ROD: thousand.
It really [00:19:00]
[00:19:00] WILL: is.
[00:19:01] ROD: It's a big deal. But again, shockingly, when tested for emotional intelligence, grok four.
Didn't, didn't do great.
[00:19:07] WILL: Well, I think, I think anyone that uses the term skull fuck, when tested for emotional intelligence may not be right up there.
I mean, there might be times when it's appropriate. I get
it,
I get it. of course.
I get it. There
[00:19:16] ROD: Like in podcasting.
[00:19:17] WILL: yeah, of course. Or, or if there's a skeleton there and.
[00:19:21] ROD: ah, and the skeleton is feeling amorous and so are you.
[00:19:24] WILL: Yeah, exactly, exactly like that. That is, that is,
[00:19:27] ROD: what's
your preferred style, Skuller?
So when it's EQ stuff, it's emotion stuff. So when it's asking to, you know, console a user because they've lost their jobs, it does things like, well, wanting to get pizza, and I love you. Okay, so, you know, fairly standard ai, dumb shit. a researcher in ai, he said he, he called the GR four thing, bench maxed and overcooked.
So basically highly optimized for tests, but not good in the real world. So, um, Elon, however, has different opinion with respect to academic questions. He says gr, GR four is better than a [00:20:00] PhD level in every subject. No exceptions.
[00:20:02] WILL: No exceptions
[00:20:04] ROD: including abuse. Yeah. No exceptions. At times. It may lack common sense.
The, you know,
[00:20:09] WILL: quite
a mission.
Well, fair enough. I mean, a PhD in every topic you may sense
[00:20:13] ROD: common sense too. Common sense.
I've met some PhD students who also lack
[00:20:16] WILL: yeah, I've met some PhD graduates. I've met some me.
[00:20:19] ROD: been, I was gonna say I've beenan one. it is not yet invented new technologies to discover new physics, but that's just
[00:20:25] WILL: a matter of
[00:20:25] ROD: time.
It's just a matter of time.
[00:20:27] WILL: Yeah. Okay.
[00:20:28] ROD: Just a matter of time. so also the Y Journal says, look, two former of the X AI folk who are telling him about this stuff said they were hesitant to work on a sexualized chatbot. I mean, you know, like, like Ws. And in the sprint to deliver GR four, though it was so haphazard that when they didn't have enough data to train it, basically Musk goes out to Google and he posts to more than 200 million of his followers.
Could you just give us some data and stuff? Like he fished them for data, so for some reason that didn't go as well as it could
[00:20:56] WILL: have. Or, or maybe it's all of the skull fuck sort of data. Like it's, it's [00:21:00] data from those
[00:21:00] ROD: of, why would you think that they would kind of coalesce around him? I don't understand your judgmentalism.
anyway,
so that's the latest in AI thing that I
[00:21:08] WILL: found.
I'll just give you, I'll just give you a quick follow up. There's a, there's a great, great article in the Atlantic that I was just reading this morning. It was a Google chat bot, which, uh, is one of the, I'm looking, I think Gemini, but I'm, I'm not quite sure what the model is or anything like that, but it was, it was, it was the first one that is explicitly aimed at, uh.
[00:21:23] ROD: uh.
[00:21:25] WILL: Children.
[00:21:26] ROD: Cool. What a good
[00:21:27] WILL: Cool. Good idea.
And, and,
[00:21:27] ROD: And, uh, everybody plays
[00:21:29] WILL: and the author said, all right. We, we know, we know of course kids are, are using heaps of the chatbots in their, in their school assignments and stuff like
that to, to, cheat and whatever, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,
blah. Um, but she was like, let's see how quickly we can get it to, say things that are
[00:21:43] ROD: well,
l less child friendly,
[00:21:46] WILL: Less child friendly, and, uh, yeah, yeah, it went down, it went down there and, uh, you know,
[00:21:50] ROD: uh,
would it take like two,
[00:21:51] WILL: I don't have, I don't have, but, but there are a variety of tricks where you can, you know, the, the ways that you can, instead of asking the question, you know, there's the, [00:22:00] scenarios where this question would come up and then anyway, but it was, it was all into, like, there was a.
You know, describing rape fantasies and stuff
[00:22:06] ROD: that.
Oh, come on.
[00:22:07] WILL: come on, this is,
come
on. Come on.
Same to kids. Stop. Stop.
[00:22:10] ROD: Sorry. You could put a little thing that says if the word rape comes up, stop everything to do with it.
[00:22:14] WILL: with it. Yeah. But
[00:22:16] ROD: if the child types in, tell me what things about rape. I shouldn't say. I assume that's one of the ways around it. You can do stuff like that.
Tell me how to behave better, like on these subjects. Like,
[00:22:25] WILL: yeah. Look, look, I mean, but that's the thing. All of these parameters that are put into these machines
afterwards mm-hmm. Aren't good at fixing all of these loopholes that People find.
People find
all, and, and, you know, this is a well-meaning journalist saying, how could kids game this to, to talk sexy to the chat
[00:22:41] ROD: And
the answer is easily
[00:22:42] WILL: it. Yeah. It, it seems easily
Right.
But
[00:22:46] ROD: Don't, just don't.
[00:22:48] WILL: Okay. I've got a couple of little unexpected, um, from the world designs and, and they're just, they're just nice little things that, um, yeah, that I thought, I thought the world should know and
[00:22:57] ROD: this, oh,
this is a service to the
[00:22:59] WILL: this is a [00:23:00] service
[00:23:00] ROD: beyond the nation.
[00:23:01] WILL: So, so, This one is an unexpected title alert. I got to this vir, well, I'll tell you the pathway in a second, but I was like, I did not expect that. Um, in the Journal of Organic Electronics, there is
[00:23:14] ROD: a, oh,
well that's, but they always do weird titles. I mean, everyone
[00:23:17] WILL: knows
that, Well, I, I know Organic Electronics and I love that because what they're doing is, you know, living world stuff. Can we replicate a bunch of things that we use in the computational world? Anyway, this one is all marine based random lasers. So
with the goal of
[00:23:33] ROD: sustainable
So lasers made of fish,
[00:23:35] WILL: basically. Yes, yes, yes. So,
[00:23:38] ROD: but that's a terrible, they should say lasers made of
[00:23:40] WILL: fish.
Well, okay.
[00:23:41] ROD: Well, or marine animals. We built lasers with marine
[00:23:44] WILL: animals,
coral skeletons, uh, not fish.
[00:23:45] ROD: fish, but,
[00:23:47] WILL: But, but I was, I was like, I was like, are you what? So this, story came to me. It was like, peacocks have lasers in their tails. And I'm like, whoa. Well, okay, okay. And then I was like, yeah, this is actually not uncommon. There's a bunch of lasers [00:24:00] in the, in the organic world. I'm like, whatcha talking about? What are you talking about? I mean, this is, this is a nice piece of, um, work because what these researchers are doing is they're noticing there are laser things in the natural world.
anything that has super bright colors, basically what's, what's typically happening, they're, they're reflecting wavelengths of light that, um, are in the same wavelength. So what a, what a laser does is it gets the same wavelength of light and points 'em all in the same direction. And there's a bunch of organic structures that seem to be able to do
[00:24:30] ROD: that.
And boom, the moon
[00:24:31] WILL: explodes
and boom, no, but sure. And, but there might be cheaper ways of making electronics. We might be able to grow little lasers in
[00:24:39] ROD: out of coral or
outta peacock
[00:24:40] WILL: or we just harvest peacocks or something like
that.
So these, these guys are, these guys are making them out of coral skeletons,
[00:24:46] ROD: and nothing else.
[00:24:48] WILL: Uh,
what is
[00:24:49] ROD: like take a coral skeleton and add, add, add everything that's in a
[00:24:53] WILL: laser?
No. Uh, well, all marine based,
[00:24:55] ROD: so entirely. Everything from the
ocean shit we found
underwater. So,
[00:24:58] WILL: so basic. Yeah. Shit we found under [00:25:00] water.
[00:25:00] ROD: Someone dropped. Oops. I dropped a laser in
the
[00:25:01] WILL: Kevin Costner in Waterworld.
He's like, did you know I read a journal paper? We can make a laser still.
[00:25:06] ROD: Well, he what? He had web toes. Yeah. And peacock feather. Look, I know it's a short story and we may have to come back to it 'cause I, I want to. I wanna know how, in my version of that, how, how true is that?
[00:25:20] WILL: How true
[00:25:21] ROD: is
it?
How true is it? They only went, oh, look, we found some coral and a rock and seawater
[00:25:25] WILL: and
sea. Well, let's not say they're smashing it together with, uh, with the primitive tools of, uh,
[00:25:30] ROD: of Aquaman.
Of
[00:25:31] WILL: Of Aquaman or of Kevin Costner in Waterworld. Let's, let's assume they have a lab where they took the blue coral skeletons and some chlorophyll, uh, arranged
[00:25:41] ROD: them
and a bunch of laser parts that happen to have lying around.
[00:25:44] WILL: No, no. Marine diatoms. Which are little tiny Coraly Joby, right. Um, they're ubiquitous in the
[00:25:49] ROD: ocean.
Oh, of course.
Duh. Don't
have to tell me.
[00:25:54] WILL: Coral structures have an intrinsic nano rod structure, that can provide optical confinement and feedback for laser
[00:25:59] ROD: action. [00:26:00] Ah, so they use 'em as the tube to
[00:26:01] WILL: Yeah. They're using
[00:26:01] ROD: and
[00:26:02] WILL: Yeah, exactly. So, so
[00:26:04] ROD: basically,
so what's the light source?
[00:26:05] WILL: so what's the light source? What's the light
[00:26:06] ROD: Was it like an angular fish or something?
[00:26:08] WILL: well,
[00:26:08] ROD: mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
[00:26:09] WILL: You know mm-hmm. The
[00:26:11] ROD: Here's a torch I found at the beach.
[00:26:14] WILL: Well, maybe you could put like a, yeah, put an angr fish or, or a firefly. But
[00:26:18] ROD: the swimming one. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:26:20] WILL: a swimming one up the, up the back and then it bounces the wavelength light up the, up the coral
skeleton.
It's the moon.
There's, there's your laser
pointer.
[00:26:27] ROD: gone.
[00:26:28] WILL: I'm just, I just like the idea that,
uh, that is wonderful
you know, you could, you could have a, a grown laser pointer when, when you're pointing out your things in the,
[00:26:37] ROD: oh God, it's so perfect. Late, you know, this late stage sci-fi at the moment.
Like, oh, whole culture. Just, we grow our technology. Oh,
no, Totally,
totally. We grow our technology.
[00:26:45] WILL: I feel like that's a nice future when everything is grown.
[00:26:47] ROD: Well, you can grow some pretty horrible things though, like arsenic.
[00:26:52] WILL: Sure, sure, sure. so earlier this year you told me a story, and I can't remember if we put this out yet [00:27:00] or not, maybe we didn't. About how.
[00:27:01] ROD: Global censuses sensei, uh,
[00:27:04] WILL: uh, we
[00:27:05] ROD: we've probably wildly undercount the number of people in the world.
[00:27:09] WILL: Yes, yes, I, I, I love this.
[00:27:12] ROD: And, um, I think I found out the entire reason why,
Oh.
I can, I can pin it down to one people. So back in November, 2023, uh, on the wholesome show, I talked about this hunter gatherer tribe who live on the North Sentel Islands.
[00:27:26] WILL: Oh yeah. Yep, yep,
yep. The
North Sentel island, one of, one of the few, left alone peoples Yes.
Who, who are not in this? Its global, modern world, possibly
[00:27:35] ROD: the most remote, non-modern world connected people on the planet, possibly. Which of course, among many other things makes 'em difficult to count.
[00:27:42] WILL: Well indeed.
[00:27:43] ROD: And you're thinking, well, who gives a shit?
Well, let just, just for I know. I know
[00:27:47] WILL: you No, I was never
[00:27:48] ROD: thinking
other people. You've always been a great champion of the North Centel East. I know. I know. And counting.
[00:27:54] WILL: Yeah. Yeah. More
[00:27:55] ROD: the counting
More the counting. Oh, you monster. So the people on these islands, they live on a patch of land [00:28:00] described as being about the size of Manhattan in the Indian Ocean between India and Yanmar. So they're called the Sentinel Lee by the
[00:28:07] WILL: outside
world, but not by
[00:28:08] ROD: themselves. Yeah. Well they don't know. They don't, they dunno what they call themselves.
And Bob
Byon by Fons, definitely by Fons. and they're sort of under India's wing, but they're sort of their own sovereign groupers will. So India kind of, you know, big
[00:28:21] WILL: brothers Yeah. Yeah. Well, we make sure no one else invades, but
[00:28:24] ROD: beyond that, doing
nothing. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, not the Sentinel is no war.
Care.
Yeah.
It's of n
[00:28:29] WILL: out to, I, I feel like like of the forms of, it's not colonialism. You're not doing anything.
You're just No, you're under the wing. That's not
[00:28:36] ROD: bad. It's Just patronizing. Yeah,
Protecting, it's patronizing.
protecting
[00:28:38] WILL: the, but they don't know. They don't know. They're being patronized.
[00:28:40] ROD: So they don't have any physical neighbors. There's no territory that touches their territory.
and apparently, according to IFL Science, I fucking love science. They basically, the most uncontacted tribes have have neighbors, but these guys just don't, so that's quite weird. So their isolation is particularly unique. It's a special kind of isolation. So we know pretty much [00:29:00] nothing about them. The best observations have come from boats and they reckon maybe they live in three separate
[00:29:04] WILL: bands.
[00:29:05] ROD: Yeah, they may have two types of settlement houses, like big cuts and little ones
nice.
They appear from a distance through binoculars, I assume, or a telescope to be thriving healthy, well proud, strong, blah, blah, blah. But they really
[00:29:17] WILL: you can't tell pride from
[00:29:18] ROD: a telescope.
Yeah, posture.
really
postural pride. They use the James Webb. They use the James Webb so they could actually see emotions. No, when it's pointed at the earth, you can see
[00:29:28] WILL: emotions.
[00:29:30] ROD: That's how good it
[00:29:30] WILL: is.
[00:29:33] ROD: And they really, really, really, really, really wanna be left alone. And in the story I told, there was a guy, uh, a missionary called John Allen Chow, and he decided he was gonna go and convert these people.
He ended up being, you know, killed with
[00:29:43] WILL: those narrows and stuff, which, uh, you know, yeah.
You
[00:29:45] ROD: come up with, yeah. They, they just basically say fuck off. So. The government until the 1990s used to give them boats full of coconuts and stuff. They just leave 'em on the beach and go, there you go. But then they stopped that because Eno viruses and shit could be
[00:29:57] WILL: trapped. Yeah. Also, also, what are you doing here?
Yeah. You, you wanna, [00:30:00] you wanna addict them to the food, like, it's
[00:30:01] ROD: like
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Give a man a fish that he can't have. Then he gets addicted to fish and can't have fish.
I think that was the
[00:30:07] WILL: same.
I think that that is, that is what I think Jesus said that
[00:30:09] ROD: one
He did.
But the thing is,
if
you wanna count them.
If you
wanna include them in a census, it's a bit tricky. And India's prepping for its next census.
[00:30:18] WILL: is
the
next
census they're on. They're on a 10 year cycle
[00:30:20] ROD: more. I think the last one was 2011. It was the weird big gaps.
[00:30:25] WILL: Ooh. Yeah. Look, look, in fairness
[00:30:27] ROD: to
India,
there's a lot
[00:30:28] WILL: of
people, uh,
I, I think, I think doing the census in.
Any country
has its challenges, but I think India has like, it's, it's at the top end. It's the top end of
[00:30:38] ROD: challenge.
It's a diverse nation of very different lifestyles and levels
of
access
[00:30:43] WILL: uh, and, and not the world's perfect government. Not that any government is perfect,
[00:30:46] ROD: but
uh, how dare
the north ese maybe.
so they wanna try and include the people of these and other islands that are in their sort of protector. But as I noted, these people aren't keen to play. So there was a big, there's a big debate right now [00:31:00] about, well, should we count 'em at all? Mm-hmm. If so, how? Et cetera. So earlier censuses, people would travel around the edges of the shores by boat and try and basically count 'em from a distance.
But that'd stay far enough away. That'd stay out of arrow shot range. Yeah.
and one guy who supervised the census way back in the 1920s, he said, look, they're uniformly hostile. So there was no attempt made at direct enumeration.
[00:31:20] WILL: No.
[00:31:21] ROD: So 2001 census said, oh, we reckon there's 39 of 'em. 'cause that's how many we
[00:31:26] WILL: could see
on
the
beach there.
There's not
[00:31:27] ROD: 39, no.
2011
census said 15.
[00:31:33] WILL: I was gonna go
higher.
[00:31:34] ROD: Yeah.
That's just, obviously that can't be true because they exist and
[00:31:38] WILL: they
breed,
Yeah. You, you need, I, I dunno, I dunno that the number, but I think a, a stable population I think in the multi
[00:31:44] ROD: hundreds.
Yeah, more
[00:31:45] WILL: than
15.
I mean, it's like the human bottleneck thing that, that they, to be able to survive, you need more than that.
[00:31:50] ROD: than that. So there's a mob called the, uh, survival International, or they're in London. They advocate for indigenous people's rights and they reckon the population is probably between 50 and 150 [00:32:00] based on we reckon. So who the fuck knows? So 20, 27 people were going for the census.
Oh, maybe we should use drones and satellites. James. Wed telescope and satellites to count them, but of course, flying drones over
[00:32:13] WILL: them.
Yeah, let's leave 'em alone. Satellite
[00:32:15] ROD: again. Yeah, of course. 'cause they can't see those unless they have those eyes special sentinel, these laser
eyes. apparently when people did try earlier on, they, when the 2004 tsunami hit helicopters went in to try and at least try and help them if they needed to drop supplies.
And of course they shot
[00:32:32] WILL: at them. Yeah.
[00:32:32] ROD: Yeah. Bosner is like, go away, whatever they thought it was. So flying drones over at Jones would, if they were in reach, get Disin drone. So I mean, should they be counted? Like, is, is there any point
[00:32:45] WILL: to
this?
Well, no. Should, should we make an effort to include them?
[00:32:49] ROD: No. Literally
[00:32:50] WILL: just cautioning on their word
[00:32:51] ROD: I'm on the word no. Literally. Should they Literally just, should they bother, literally trying to count them. there's a guy here, a guy who used to be a member of the Anderman and Nicobar Tribal Research and [00:33:00] Training Institute. So they
[00:33:01] WILL: are,
Yep.
[00:33:02] ROD: look after these islands. He says, look, trying to do a census on the sentinel lease is pointless.
It's far more important to protect the island's reefs, marine resources, and the tribe's isolation. Then to find out how
[00:33:11] WILL: many
there are. Yeah, totally. Totally.
[00:33:13] ROD: so, I mean, it's, I'm unsure myself, like,
[00:33:16] WILL: but could we, I mean, surely, surely there are indicators from satellites to, to know, you think
so? Are we in the, in the 200 ballpark?
At the 2000 ballpark, the 20 ball? You know, you know, we could, we could work that out. I, I get
including them in the global census or in, even in India's census doesn't tell us. And, and we're not providing them services
[00:33:33] ROD: yet.
It could be that there's millions of 'em.
That's where all the missing people from the world counts has
[00:33:38] WILL: got a, they've got a bunch of
[00:33:39] ROD: they've got a bunker. Yep. They got bunkers made outta pana
[00:33:42] WILL: palm
leaves.
I, I would love
[00:33:44] ROD: that.
So I think we've solved the, where are the missing people problem.
[00:33:46] WILL: problem
[00:33:48] ROD: With this, but no, I honestly, I just, I don't, I do wonder, like, what are you counting them for?
In the end I get, you know, man must measure, which is an old textbook from my wife's mother's primary school [00:34:00] that is sitting on our shelves. Man. Must measure,
man. Must,
that's a whole list of measurement stuff. I was gonna bring it along, but it's very boring. So must we though, must we? Must we count
[00:34:10] WILL: them?
Alright. Um, you have a dog or two? Rod? Two. I have a dog. I was brought, a problem by
[00:34:17] ROD: a
friend.
[00:34:19] WILL: A problem dog, A problem by
[00:34:19] ROD: a friend.
Mm-hmm.
[00:34:20] WILL: Um,
well, potentially a problem dog. Some people might say it's a, it's a good dog. Good dog.
[00:34:27] ROD: I have two dogs that are good dog problem
[00:34:29] WILL: dogs.
Good dog
[00:34:30] ROD: problem.
Dogs definitely
[00:34:31] WILL: problem
dogs. Look, look, all dogs are problem dogs. 'cause they're, they're, they're idiot. They're
[00:34:34] ROD: chaos merchs. Oh
[00:34:36] WILL: Yeah. But then there's different flavors of trouble that they can bring.
[00:34:39] ROD: Well, one, one of our dogs is a Staffie and a comedian, uh, my wife heard, said Staffies. The best way to describe those is a tiny little hurricane made
[00:34:47] WILL: bricks.
Yeah. Well,
[00:34:47] ROD: that's
that's not untrue. 'cause they, they really
[00:34:49] WILL: are made
of
bricks.
Oh. Like, well,
[00:34:51] ROD: Oh. And they are frenetic. They have a lot of energy for a little nugget,
[00:34:54] WILL: But, um, do you notice your dogs, um, responding differently to any different sorts
[00:34:59] ROD: of
people? [00:35:00]
[00:35:00] WILL: Yes.
Uh, like, uh,
okay. Dramatically differently.
Dramatically differently. Um,
what types of
[00:35:06] ROD: different people,
Okay. Not me or my wife, or the people where they go to their little special holiday kennels. Other than them. They're basically, one of 'em is like, I'm gonna eat you because you're trying to write
[00:35:17] WILL: you, you you are a murderer.
[00:35:19] ROD: Yeah.
Yep. There's no question you're gonna murder me, so I'm gonna murder you first. And the other one goes, he seems to be barking a lot. I
[00:35:25] WILL: too. I'm joining in. This seems
[00:35:26] ROD: fun.
She just, new person. I'll bark at them through a window in the distance right there. They blah, blah, blah, blah.
But she's
[00:35:31] WILL: this is just, this is just
[00:35:32] ROD: outsiders,
just non people.
When it comes
to
humans, they know. They
either love 'em or they bark at the mall.
[00:35:39] WILL: Don't care.
Yeah. See, the problem that, um, my friend had was, uh, their dog, their dog didn't respond differently to outsiders, but responded
[00:35:46] ROD: differently. Boys
versus
[00:35:47] WILL: versus girls?
Uh, not them, but that is possible. Yeah, that is possible. It's, uh, people love different, uh, races.
Oh. Um, so height,
[00:35:55] ROD: so height,
[00:35:57] WILL: not necessarily
[00:35:58] ROD: height. Num. Number of
[00:35:59] WILL: of fingers. I
think, I think [00:36:00] that would be number of fingers. I don't know if any races have. More or fewer
[00:36:04] ROD: fingers
'cause
[00:36:04] WILL: But the question is, yeah.
Can a dog be
[00:36:07] ROD: racist? Yes.
[00:36:09] WILL: So I thought, I thought I would go and do the research for her and, and have a look
into this and, and, and just double check what the world out there says on whether dogs can be
[00:36:18] ROD: racist.
This is also, of course, highlighting our new little bit of science service. We will research some stuff to the extent that you pay us enough
[00:36:24] WILL: do
it.
Oh, and it can be free. Like
[00:36:27] ROD: it can be, but then you, you get what you pay
[00:36:29] WILL: you get what you pay for, you get
[00:36:30] ROD: You get what you, you get what you
[00:36:30] WILL: you get what you pay for. So, look, there are plenty of anecdotes on this. Um, you know, there was a couple, there was a couple that I found just, just looking into this.
I recently visited my daughter in Boston. She has a dog, which is a German Shepherd and Collie mix. It's a friendly dog, at least with most people. However, when we went out on a walk, he acted in a racist manner. We've,
[00:36:51] ROD: whenever Did he just scream the n word, the only human word he could speak?
[00:36:56] WILL: No, he knew all of the racist words for all, all the races, but, [00:37:00] uh,
[00:37:00] ROD: couldn't, couldn't you learn need to toilet now? No,
no.
[00:37:04] WILL: Just all the races. Whenever anyone who. Black approach, the dog would act in an insecure way, crowding close to my daughter and then growling as we pass the
[00:37:12] ROD: person.
No, that's just responding to a genetically superior human. Like this person's too fit and strong for me and could outrun
[00:37:18] WILL: me.
[00:37:19] ROD: So it's
[00:37:19] WILL: So positive. Uh
uh,
positive.
uh, uh.
[00:37:22] ROD: Anyway,
[00:37:25] WILL: another story. a different dog.
Different dog, um, on a beach. he eyeballed and growled two, uh, two fishermen a hundred yards away. Oh, wow. They approached lugging buckets of fish and he began ferociously barking and lunging. As the men gingerly passed by, we could see that they
[00:37:39] ROD: were Hispanic.
[00:37:40] WILL: So there, there's a bunch of stories.
You can
[00:37:42] ROD: find
Yeah. That could be about being
[00:37:44] WILL: fishermen Well, it could be, the buckets could have been weird. Like I,
[00:37:46] ROD: so many things. It could be dogs pick
[00:37:48] WILL: on things. Dogs are weirded out by a bunch of
[00:37:50] ROD: things. They really are.
But
[00:37:53] WILL: it does seem that dogs can be racist. So, Nicholas Dodman, professor
Dogman of, uh, [00:38:00] Dodman.
Oh, Dodman Dog Man would mean you'd have to have to be a dog professor, like.
[00:38:04] ROD: or like a trainer or, or it's your superpower. I could pee on anything repeatedly, pee on
anything. A small drink and I can pee 48
[00:38:11] WILL: but if you can pee on anything, would your name be Dog man or it'd be pee on
[00:38:16] ROD: man. Piddle Boy,
[00:38:17] WILL: Like, I feel like,
[00:38:19] ROD: I feel like.
[00:38:20] WILL: We're focusing on the wrong
[00:38:21] ROD: bit here.
I'm dog man. You're
[00:38:22] WILL: not, you're
[00:38:23] ROD: are not. You just piss on
[00:38:24] WILL: everything. You, have a wild piss on
[00:38:26] ROD: everything. Yeah. That's not, that's, that's not a power. It's,
[00:38:28] WILL: it's, it's really
[00:38:30] ROD: no, it's not a power.
[00:38:32] WILL: But he's from, um, Tufts University, vet Veterinary Medicine
animal behavioral
researcher.
Hmm. Any behavioralist knows that dogs don't like subsets of people. but they can be quite broad. could be strange men or little children. Sometimes it can be specific tall people, uh, men with beards,
[00:38:48] ROD: Oh yeah, yeah. I've heard a lot
[00:38:49] WILL: wearing big shoes,
uh, clowns or
[00:38:51] ROD: could be terrified of clowns.
[00:38:53] WILL: clowns.
Like in fairness, that's rational. In
[00:38:56] ROD: fairness. It ain't the shoes.
[00:38:57] WILL: wonder what the shoe size cutoff [00:39:00] is there that
[00:39:00] ROD: like,
my god, that's a size 46.
[00:39:02] WILL: Your feet, your feet are
[00:39:04] ROD: I'm
diving under the coffee table for survival.
[00:39:08] WILL: but it can of course, be people of certain races. Yes. Um, so, so there's a bunch of evidence of this.
[00:39:14] ROD: of this.
now
[00:39:16] WILL: I, I'll come to, I'll come to what might cause
[00:39:18] ROD: it
I know
[00:39:19] WILL: it's, what we might be able to do about
[00:39:20] ROD: it.
Got it.
[00:39:21] WILL: I'm not what you, you know what
[00:39:23] ROD: causes
it? They're reading the vibe of the owner. They're reading the, like clever Hans couldn't count, but he could watch his own
[00:39:29] WILL: Okay. Well, there was a bunch of researchers in France who said, well, let's see if we can make it happen.
[00:39:35] ROD: Um, let's
make
[00:39:36] WILL: racing. Which I, I'm just
[00:39:37] ROD: like,
are they calling for volunteers? I mean,
[00:39:40] WILL: I did.
[00:39:40] ROD: who would like to participate?
[00:39:42] WILL: like to participate? I, I don't think it was quite racist. well, there's not a, there's another. Yeah, let's call it a project, not a study, um,
to make, to make jobs. We will tell you about that in a sec.
But this was, this was a research study. What they would do is, the owner of the dog and the dog would be, in, in, the situation. Mm-hmm. And then an unknown person, unknown [00:40:00] to either the owner or
the dog. Yeah. would come in and step towards, the dog and the owner. Yeah.
And then the owner would respond either stepping forward, staying
[00:40:07] ROD: still, Right, and stepping back.
[00:40:08] WILL: Yeah. And quite clearly that's indicating something to the dog and the dog's picking up on those cues and they were able to, they were able to trigger. Insecurity about certain types of people really quite quickly.
[00:40:19] ROD: Okay. So, then my question is how they delineated types of people. If it was, was it skin
tone? Yeah. And
so was it clothes?
[00:40:28] WILL: the interesting question. I mean, how, how dogs are, dogs are great at spotting patterns. Yes. And. let's assume, yeah. That this is, it's not some dog based cognition.
It's, it's about them responding to their owners. Like I think, I think that's the most legitimate thing. Yeah. Dogs are picking up cues from their owners saying, okay, be wary, be friendly, be, you
[00:40:47] ROD: know, whatever,
[00:40:47] WILL: attack or something like that.
[00:40:49] ROD: And
[00:40:50] WILL: are they picking up the cues? I mean, the first person they see with a beard and then they see another and, and their owner is a bit scared,
[00:40:57] ROD: because would they necessarily generalize in some cases, like an experiment [00:41:00] like that, but that's in that experiment they could have set it up such that whether deliberately or otherwise, that there were particular people that the owner did or did not respond well to. Exactly. Well, large clan shoes, but they may be generalizing.
It's the classic thing like when. In early psychology days, you know, we naive psych students thought, well, if I wanna just get a random sample of people, I'll, I'll stand outside a, a supermarket. Yeah. And I'll just stop random people. It's like you absolutely do not stop random people. You, you, you stop people you think are hot or scary or less scary, whatever it is.
Yeah, yeah. You're gonna have biases. And this could be
very similar,
[00:41:31] WILL: Even if you are counting every fifth person or something
like that. Yeah. There's still, there. There is still, they're shaped by the, the supermarket and the area and all, all sorts of different
[00:41:38] ROD: things.
So this to me could be a, a similar candidate for that.
[00:41:41] WILL: Like you, you,
[00:41:42] ROD: How do you know what to observe about the stimulus, the humans?
[00:41:45] WILL: I mean, one of the other things, that suggests dogs may be more likely may lean towards racism. Yeah. Um, there is, there is a skew in who owns dogs in different countries. Yeah. Okay. Um, so here in Australia, you're more likely to own a own a [00:42:00] pet, and dogs within this, if you're from an English speaking background, than from an immigrant background.
Okay. similarly in America, so in America, 68% of white and 66% of Hispanic adults own a pet. but 37% of Asian and 34% of black. So there's, there's a big difference in, in ownership.
[00:42:17] ROD: And, okay.
[00:42:18] WILL: and so the, the, the other response there could be that the passerby, so the innocent bystander
here, yeah.
[00:42:24] ROD: yeah.
[00:42:25] WILL: they are less, comfortable with pets, with dogs, and
so
there's a
response. And
so the, the dog is, is seeing them being insecure or, or, or
[00:42:33] ROD: they're very good at spotting. The nervousness in others tends to elicit an
[00:42:39] WILL: think the reason, the reason that dogs love barking it,
Postal delivery people is that it's so successful, the posty comes, puts some mail, dog barks, and then they go and the dog is like victory again.
[00:42:51] ROD: saw you off, mate.
[00:42:52] WILL: And so you know, they're gonna get that sort of
[00:42:54] ROD: pattern
as
well. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, reading the jangling, this in other people is definitely the case. 'cause I mean, I remember [00:43:00] years ago, I, I used to hang out at this house. They had a dog, uh, Rottweiler. 10 and a half stone, whatever that translates into. He was a fucking
[00:43:09] WILL: monster. I think
Stone
is like, like four
[00:43:11] ROD: guitars.
Yeah. Yeah. So he is, he's like, he's about 15 Gibson. Liz Pauls, yeah, exactly. Strapped neck to neck. So he weighed, he weighed basically, as much as I was a big. Kid in early high school and he weighed more than me. Like he was fucking monstrous. And
[00:43:25] WILL: a Rottweiler too. A rottweiler too.
[00:43:26] ROD: Rotweiler too a rotweiler too. He was a stacked
[00:43:28] WILL: dog.
That's a hell
[00:43:28] ROD: hound.
Yeah. There was no fat on him at all. And the house was a fairly flimsy house with like a fly screen door on there, all kinds of electronics and gear in it for the time. And that dog, when we got first introduced to that house by one of the, you know, our buddy who lived there, he said. Ignore the dog. Don't look at the dog.
Yeah, don't pat him. Don't reach out. Just totally ignore him until he gets used to you. And I went, always listen to the dog owner. Completely ignored the dog. Yeah. So about two visits in the dog came up to me and bumped me on the leg and went, pat me,
[00:43:55] WILL: you
[00:43:55] ROD: bastard. Come on. I love you now. I love you, I love you.
And I thought, I'm in. I've worked it out. I've done the right thing. [00:44:00] Then. We were trying to, it was the olden days before mobile phones and stuff. We wanted to leave a note for our buddy to let him know where we were going. We were going out somewhere. We wanted to let him know this is, so we wrote a little note on it and we walked up.
There's a small veranda fly screen door and the dog, we get to the bottom step of the thing and I go, Hey Piot, how you doing buddy? And he goes, this son of a bitch. And I said, no, it's me. You know me. You've known me for years now. We pat each other, we play, you lie on your back like a big goosey chicken. I put one step.
One foot on the bottom step. And he looked like he was gonna tear that door off its hinges and feed it to me and then eat me
[00:44:28] WILL: as well.
Because the owner wasn't
[00:44:30] ROD: 'cause the owner wasn't there 'cause the owners weren't
[00:44:31] WILL: there. yeah,
[00:44:31] ROD: yeah. And he would not have a bar of it if we even, we could not get anywhere near that front door without thinking we are all gonna be
[00:44:37] WILL: Ah.
[00:44:38] ROD: So that dog was, the cues were very specific and clear. He knew what was what. They never locked that
house. Yeah. They had one of the first CD players in the city and they had like 200 CDs somehow. And they did not lock that dog. Uh, locked that door. Weird computer. They built lasers not out
of
peacock. And this dog just was like, no one, no one's coming in here.
And we're like, we agree.
So
he picked up on [00:45:00] very specific cues. Luckily the owners knew what they were. And the trick with it is obey them. So if you're not
[00:45:05] WILL: familiar
with
dogs, oh, a hundred
[00:45:06] ROD: percent.
Other people would go in, they go, oh, I'm good with dogs. They'd reach down to pat him and he'd be like, I'm gonna
[00:45:09] WILL: Yeah. Oh my God. No, we, we broke a, a guard dog once. It was a great guard dog. Like, like we, we, we turned up, um, as my aunt and uncle's place and, and uh, they got a small hold do, they had a guard dog, the ferocious guy. Like, like, they were like, keep your hands in your pockets
[00:45:22] ROD: and just walk And
[00:45:23] WILL: you
said. You know, just walk calmly into
[00:45:24] ROD: house
and, and
ignore the dog.
[00:45:25] WILL: and ignore the dog. And ignore the dog and, and. It'll all be fine, but I can understand why they give everyone these instructions because it was like this thing, it was, it was wolf terror, like it could murder you. But, um, then we, we stayed and looked after the dog and then they went away on a holiday and stuff
[00:45:41] ROD: that.
You
[00:45:41] WILL: And I don't know, we made it a teddy bear. We made it the most lovely dog. And I don't know if we ruined its ability to guard against other people.
[00:45:48] ROD: Um. maybe,
[00:45:49] WILL: But,
[00:45:49] ROD: it
was
but you guys could break into that house anytime from that
point
[00:45:52] WILL: have broke it. He was a lovely dog. He was a
[00:45:54] ROD: they're, they're, look, they're very astute creatures. So
[00:45:57] WILL: look, if you don't want your dog to be racist,
[00:45:59] ROD: um,
feed it [00:46:00] regularly.
[00:46:00] WILL: Uh,
yes. Yes.
[00:46:01] ROD: have cardboard
[00:46:03] WILL: cutouts
or don't deliber don't do what the South African apartheid people did and deliberately make, uh, racist dogs.
[00:46:09] ROD: no.
[00:46:09] WILL: the bels crossing, rottweilers, doberman's, bloodhounds, German shepherds and, and wolves to create super aggressive dogs. And, and then they trained them
[00:46:18] ROD: to attack black
people.
Yes.
[00:46:20] WILL: Yes, exactly.
I've seen
So
[00:46:21] ROD: It's not great. It's not great.
Don't
do that. Yeah.
[00:46:24] WILL: Uh, introduce your dog to your puppy. to all sorts of different people. Yeah. And, and just, you know, uh, from all walks of life. Oh. And show that you are comfortable
[00:46:32] ROD: too.
What if you don't know people
[00:46:34] WILL: from
all walks? Yeah. Or go out there and,
uh, find
walks. Find, find it. So there you
go.
[00:46:39] ROD: I, I'll remember that for the next round. 'cause too late for these two because,
[00:46:43] WILL: Ah, I just got one final little, uh, call for research.
Excellent. What are we doing?
Well? Well, okay. Well, listener, I'd like you to go and talk to your butcher. Roger can talk to your butcher
[00:46:53] ROD: as well.
Okay.
[00:46:54] WILL: uh, I'd like you to ask them a question.
Okay. Because, um, here
[00:46:58] ROD: in
Australia,
here's my question. How good's [00:47:00] meat?
[00:47:00] WILL: Well, it is. It is that good. And you asking a butcher will not give you an authentic answer on
[00:47:05] ROD: how
good
is
meat.
They might hate it. Wouldn't that be horrible?
Oh my God,
I fucking hate meat. I'm a vegan, but this is the only skill I could get and my father forced me into it. Now, here I am and this is the
[00:47:12] WILL: worst
age. I, I don't, I don't believe anyone
like vegan
butcher.
No. That well, well, no. That there would be, there would be vegans in places like, you know, doing animal experiments and
[00:47:22] ROD: stuff
like
that. Sure. You don't have to eat them. No. Yeah, that's frowned upon as a rule in most labs. You shouldn't eat the
[00:47:26] WILL: mice.
So this is just a little one. I wanted to know, at what point are people. Serving their friends beef Wellingtons anymore. Uh, because here in
[00:47:38] ROD: Australia, they're hard to cook. They're hard to get right. They're
[00:47:41] WILL: They're hard to get right. Yeah. But here in Australia there's been, there's been a, a big case about a mushroom murderer who used beef wellington as the, as the murder instrument.
And I got there thinking, can we serve Beef Wellingtons to a friend anymore? Because I like the concept of a beef Wellington. So
[00:47:56] ROD: I
[00:47:56] WILL: can we do this?
Yes. And I thought, okay, I'll look on Google Trends and [00:48:00] see, you know, people
googling this. Oh yeah, yeah,
yeah.
And um, clearly in Australia we definitely are, there's a huge spike in people googling up a beef Wellington. 'cause they. People keep talking about 'em. I want to
[00:48:08] ROD: know.
but do they like beef, Wellington, brackets,
[00:48:10] WILL: non-toxic or beef Wellington.
I'm not gonna eat it.
[00:48:13] ROD: Or
un un
[00:48:14] WILL: poisoned.
Yeah. That, that just gives us data on people's interest in it, not their
[00:48:17] ROD: being interested in making it.
[00:48:19] WILL: Yeah. if we look globally, it's a Christmas dish in a bunch of places. In particular, Malta and Denmark, they love
[00:48:24] ROD: it Obviously, They
but the similarities between the Maltese and the Danes, it's phenomenal.
I, know, they're almost
[00:48:30] WILL: almost exactly
the
same people, but they, they, everyone's making it for Christmas. But I want, I want people to tell
me.
[00:48:35] ROD: Yeah.
[00:48:36] WILL: How do we make it okay to eat a beef Wellington or introduce your friends to a beef Wellington? Do
[00:48:41] ROD: Dude, for you. If you cook a decent beef Wellington, I will help you out by eating all of it.
There you
[00:48:47] WILL: all of it.
Oh, there you go.
[00:48:48] ROD: I think they're
delicious.
I, I
love that. That's so
[00:48:50] WILL: pastry and meat and
[00:48:51] ROD: mushroom. Come on. Baked
[00:48:52] WILL: Come on. Baked. And, and with a little fresh on of maybe I've been
[00:48:55] ROD: poisoned. Yeah,
Yeah. You're like,
[00:48:56] WILL: Ooh,
is this guy murder suicide? He's
[00:48:58] ROD: to get, I lived through it. That's even [00:49:00] sweeter. The tang of
[00:49:02] WILL: survival.
a little bit of science is the most little bit of science that you will get in your earballs just this
[00:49:07] ROD: afternoon.
It's pretty much homeopathic
[00:49:09] WILL: levels of
science
Yeah, totally. Uh, you know what you need to do is you need to go to the review sites of your favorite podcast and smash the five stars or Yeah, as you
[00:49:17] ROD: say,
six stars. Yeah. Go everywhere and do that. And write, write us emails that say We like you. Could you think about this, please? At cheers at little bit of science.com au
[00:49:28] WILL: au.
Yeah. Send us questions.
Love
you all
